BlindSheep:
That website contains quotes from popes about circumcision, if you care to read them. I could go find them and post them when I get a chance.
My question wasn’t about circumcision, though. Can’t anyone answer my question?
I reviewed the websites and I found quotes from only three popes.
The first is from St. Peter, Chapter 15 of Acts, with which we should all be familiar. St. Peter did not declare circumcision immoral. Rather, he revealed that the Church should not require Christians, especially Gentiles, to become Jewish, observe Mosaic Law and observe circumcision.
The second is more forceful. Pope Eugenius IV in his bull
Cantata Domino declares that the Church:
firmly believes, professes and teaches that the legal prescriptions of the Old Testament or the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, holy sacrifices and sacraments, because they were instituted to signify something in the future, although they were adequate for the divine cult of that age, once our Lord Jesus Christ who was signified by them had come, came to an end and the sacraments of the new Testament had their beginning. Whoever, after the Passion, places his hope in the legal prescriptions and submits himself to them as necessary for salvation and as if faith in Christ without them could not save, sins mortally. It does not deny that from Christ’s passion until the promulgation of the Gospel they could have been retained, provided they were in no way believed to be necessary for salvation. But it asserts that after the promulgation of the gospel they cannot be observed without loss of eternal salvation. Therefore it denounces all who after that time observe circumcision, the sabbath and other legal prescriptions as strangers to the faith of Christ and unable to share in eternal salvation, unless they recoil at some time from these errors. Therefore it strictly orders all who glory in the name of Christian, not to practise circumcision either before or after baptism, since whether or not they place their hope in it, it cannot possibly be observed without loss of eternal salvation.
quoted from ¶ 712 of Fr. Denzinger’s
The Sources of Catholic Dogma (B. Herder & Co. 1957)(italics not in the original text). The rest of that paragraph goes on to discuss the Church’s rules on baptism. I’m not a theologian, but it appears from the discussion preceding the italicized sentence, that Pope Eugenio sought to prohibit Christians from following Mosaic law. I would like to see the Church further clarify the force of Pope Eugenio’s declaration, but I think it’s safe to say that His Holiness prohibited
religious circumcision, not
medical circumcision.
Finally, there’s a quote from Pope John Paul II from
The Gospel of Life
Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or willful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more harm to those who practice them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonor to the Creator.
In the above quote, however, Pope John Paul II does not specifically address the issue of circumcision. Whether his denunciation of mutilation applies to circumcision is a matter of interpretation, he makes specific exception for medical necessity.
So, only one Pope has expressly declared circumcision immoral, and I’m not certain that his declaration would apply in every circumstance.
Moreover, the two theologians who are quoted as saying that elective circumcision is against Catholic law, Fr. Dietzen and Fr. Healy, both rely upon their lay understanding of medical science.
IMHO, Catholic parents who have their sons circumcised for religious reasons place their own salvation in jeopardy. I’m not sure that would apply if they have their sons circumcised for purely medical reasons.
God bless you all!
