Does the Church allow human sacrifice?

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Koolerkev

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I’d also like it if someone could give me a reference for their answer like if its in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I’ve gotten into an argument with this guy, and he insists that the Church allows human sacrifice because human sacrifices were in the old testament.
 
Koolerkev said:
^^
I’d also like it if someone could give me a reference for their answer like if its in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I’ve gotten into an argument with this guy, and he insists that the Church allows human sacrifice because human sacrifices were in the old testament.
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QUE? That’s just plain dumb.
 
Koolerkev said:
^^
I’d also like it if someone could give me a reference for their answer like if its in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I’ve gotten into an argument with this guy, and he insists that the Church allows human sacrifice because human sacrifices were in the old testament.
Click to expand...
There were not even any human sacrifices directed by God in the Old Testament. The closest there was to such an event was with Abraham when God tested him by telling him to sacrifice his son. However, God then stopped him from doing so. It is clear that God never intended for the sacrifice to actually take place.

I am not sure that there is specific condemnation of human sacrifice in the Catechism because it is addressed by the condemnation of murder. The burden of proof, I think, should be on the guy you are arguing with. There is no reason that I can imagine to think that the Church would support such a thing.
 
I think there are condemnations to human sacrifice in the Hewbrew scriptures …
In the book
Civilizing Sex: On Chastity and the Common Good
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by Patrick G. D. Riley (Paperback - May 2002)

Riley discusses the imagery used by te prophets to describe child sacrifice as practiced by the various cults from which the hebrew people extracted themselves [and also temple prostitutes, sexual oorgoes etc]…

the radical nature of the Ten Commandments and their impact on the social communities … the sacramentalization of sexual intimacy and restriction of that act to marriage [commited couples] and its impact on the family, the community and society as a whole …

The Church does not allow for human sacrifice - not now, not ever and not within the jewish roots from which we come …

This has however been a claim by anti-catholics [that we re-sacrifice Jesus on our altars at each mass or at leat we think we do] and in ancient times this was a charge against the early christians by those who misunderstood the Eucharist [the Body and Blood of Jesus] …

similar and just as ignorant charges are made against our jewish brethren …*
 
‘Thou shalt not kill’ is a pretty strong condemnation of human sacrifice right there.

Your friend may be thinking of the story of Jephtha who sacrificed his daughter after making a vow to God. This is not to be construed in any way as saying that God approved of Jephtha’s actions. Certainly lots of people’s sins are mentioned in the Bible, doesn’t mean God approved of them.

Besides which, even if the OT did allow it, there are plenty of things the OT allowed or required that Christians don’t countenance. Polygamy for one, divorce for another. Dietary laws and such.

Christ and His followers in the NT went above and beyond the OT in every respect - stressing the sanctity and indissolubility of marriage and requiring, for example, that a bishop not be divorced or even remarried if widowed. Peter, on God’s own instructions, did away with the idea of ‘unclean’ animals or foods. And so on.

Being Christians, the examples of Christ and His followers are more important to us than the OT.
 
LilyM said:
‘Thou shalt not kill’ is a pretty strong condemnation of human sacrifice right there.
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Except of course that the word in the Tanakh means murder, not kill. Even Hebrew, which is fairly vocabulary-poor, has that distinction. Actually I believe the word in the Latin translation also means something like “unjustified killing” (like the whole bellum/duellum distinction in Roman law).

May the next person I have to point that out to, anathema be.

In any event, technically, human sacrifice is the center and basis of Christianity. We just cheat by violating the laws of physics…and also of magic…by turning bread into human flesh–and not changing its traits! And we keep offering the same one Man’s flesh, over and over, which violates what’s known as sacrificial economy. Or as certain lady cartoonists from Hokkaido call it, “equivalent exchange”.

Yes, we in fact are that cool.:cool:
 
In a sense the Church is actually based on human sacrifice, since Christ is human and we re-offer His flesh as a sacrifice.

In a sense, we’re also ritual cannibals, since we eat that same human flesh.😃
 
Hastrman said:
In a sense the Church is actually based on human sacrifice, since Christ is human and we re-offer His flesh as a sacrifice.

In a sense, we’re also ritual cannibals, since we eat that same human flesh.😃
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It is a non-bloody sacrifice. Many of the Pagan Romans in the 1t and second centurys accused the early christians of being “cannibals” because of the misunderstanding of the body and blood in the bread and wine. As well as when the Jews in the synagogs walked out on the Jesus when he said he would give them “his flesh and his blood to eat” when he was talking about manna…Its a teaching many people simply cannot accept, including professing christians…

I remember I was reading St. Paul’s Apocolypse. And it had said there is a place in hell reserved for people who reject the real prescence in the eucharist. I don’t know the validity of the Apocolypse, but it did have very scary imagery…
 
Hastrman said:
In a sense the Church is actually based on human sacrifice, since Christ is human and we re-offer His flesh as a sacrifice.

In a sense, we’re also ritual cannibals, since we eat that same human flesh.😃
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You are correct that it is such in an abstract sense. To the OP, no we do not allow literal human sacrifice.
 
Koolerkev said:
^^
I’d also like it if someone could give me a reference for their answer like if its in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I’ve gotten into an argument with this guy, and he insists that the Church allows human sacrifice because human sacrifices were in the old testament.
Click to expand...
This guy also insists that he’s ignorant. Be careful should he be in the mood to offer you up…:eek:
 
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