Is it morally licit to eat a dead human if it is the only way to survive?

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I could care less about the morality of it. I would not do it . I would rather die of starvation than survive with the memory of what I had done if I had engaged in cannibalism.
 
Mike_Dye said:
I could care less about the morality of it. I would not do it . I would rather die of starvation than survive with the memory of what I had done if I had engaged in cannibalism.
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That would certainly be your decision to make. Likewise, I could also allow an intruder to kill me, rather than submit to violence to stop him. It would be a terrible decision. However, the Catholic Church would NOT consider it a sin.
 
I can think of three occasions when this happened. The Donner Party in CA/NV back in the 1800s, the Andes plane crash survivors, and the famine in Ukraine in the 30s. That was widespread.
 
Rolltide said:
The church has ruled on this definitively, as it has happened on a few occasions. It IS morally licit if there is NO other alternative, and the person is already definitively deceased due to natural causes. The church actually classifies it in the same category as organ donation.
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And, like organ donation, that the person is dead must be a moral certitude. Ask some of your doc friends about the problems of actually dianosing a person as dead with moral certitude.
 
I remember reading the book on the plane crash in the Andes when I was in my late teens. They were on a frozen, snow covered mountain. There was nothing else to eat. It is unimaginable but most of us will never ever know what it is like to people in such a situation. These people were on the mountain for 72 days before being rescued. From what I remember from the book, they were as respectful as possible. If I was dead and someone eating my flesh would save their life I say more power to them.
From one of the survivors.
At high altitude, the body’s caloric needs are astronomical … we were starving in earnest, with no hope of finding food, but our hunger soon grew so voracious that we searched anyway … again and again we scoured the fuselage in search of crumbs and morsels. We tried to eat strips of leather torn from pieces of luggage, though we knew that the chemicals they’d been treated with would do us more harm than good. We ripped open seat cushions hoping to find straw, but found only inedible upholstery foam… Again and again I came to the same conclusion: unless we wanted to eat the clothes we were wearing, there was nothing here but aluminium, plastic, ice, and rock.
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Air_Force_Flight_571
 
without being a direct comment on the topic.

I can not resist…

For** Orcs** it is no problem at all! Manflesh…

**“Looks like meats back on the menu boys!” **

:rolleyes:

(Lord of the Rings movies…)

(with all due respect for the historical persons involved in the real topic discussion here…)
 
i know that we do not need to follow the OT Law as Christians, but could we not derive prinicpals to be used today from those passages? specifically in this case?

This was said by someone in the thread.

Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to Love God with all our heart, soul and mind. Matthew 22:38 . We do need to follow all that Jesus said John 14:15. and I don’t see Him saying not to follow the commandments. Matthew. 5:17-18. He did say that it did not defile the man what he aet but what came out of his mouth. Matthew 15:11.

I would rather trust every word of Jesus and may the Holy Spirit give us the wisdom to divide His word correctly.
 
DL82 said:
I just thought for a change from the usual questions, I’d pose this rather gruesome one.

If your only means of survival is to eat another human being who has already died of natural causes, is that morally licit?

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This Wednesday and for the next several Friday’s, a dispensation maybe required.
 
o_mlly said:
This Wednesday and for the next several Friday’s, a dispensation maybe required.
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😃

Nope… If it is mortally fine to do…(I have not looked into it really…whatever the Church says…)

the fact that it is in such an extreme situation where it is necessary to live …none would be required.

but of course if you your pastor or Bishop with …by all means ask for one. 🙂

and if you are an ORC …well it is actually an obligation.
 
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