Sola-Scriptura is responsible for infanticide

[FrankLawrence]

I realize that not everyone on this forum is an American, and I apologize to those who aren’t that this post has mostly to do with America. If the facts I present about early America are erroneous, please correct me. I arrived at a conclusion, however, that I felt like sharing. Please realize, however, that my intention here is NOT to make anyone hate Protestants or the founding fathers of our great nation, but just to show the far reaching damages of the doctrine of Sola-Scriptura. This all is merely my theory and I am in no way claiming to speak infallibly or even on behalf of the Catholic Church, but here goes…
Sola-Scriptura, the heretical doctrine popularized by Martin Luther has led to thousands of different protestant denominations that bicker among each other. Among those denominations were the Puritans and the Quakers, two rival denominations whose rivalry was so extreme that it led to persecutions and murder in colonial America. To prevent one Protestant denomination from gaining power over the others, at the time the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution was written, the First Amendment included the words, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” The U.S. Constitution differs from the Bible, in that the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit and has truths that are unchanging, while left under the guidance of the Catholic Church, led by Popes who would be protected by the Holy Spirit from teaching error in matters of faith and morals, when speaking ex-cathedra(From the chair of Peter). The U.S. Constitution, on the other hand is very Sola-Scriptura in the sense that it is left open to the interpretation of uninspired fallible men(and eventually uninspired fallible women, too.) Thus, it can easily be twisted around and distorted based on political agendas, much like the Bible can when interpreted outside the divinely granted protection of the Catholic Church. As a result, activist judges have used the First Amendment to attack Christianity! Bibles were banned from school. Darwinism was placed into schools. etc. etc. If all Christians were united, however, the founding fathers of this great nation would have been able to declare America a Christian nation. Then, Roe vs. Wade would never have even made it to the Supreme Court. “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness” in our Declaration of Independence would cover the unborn, too. Instead, however, the divided torn by strife kingdom of Protestantism failed to protect Christian values in their ambiguous phraseology of the First Amendment, and their lack of carefully making rules required for Supreme Court justices to be nominated. Much like with Sola-Scriptura, interpretation of the important written text of the U.S. Constitution is left to one’s own agenda-driven comprehension skills. Thus, every time a baby is “legally” aborted in America, we can look back to Martin Luther’s doctrine of Sola-Scriptura and see the extemity of what that doctine has caused. Again, this all just my opinion and theory. I realize that we have to look at what is rather than what could have been, as we can’t change history. Still, it is difficult to honestly refute what I have said, although I’m sure people will try.

 

[colliric]

Yeah, it undid all the great work that Emperor Theodosius 1st(is that right?) did for us back in the 4th century.

No Slavery
No homosexuality
No Abortions…
Severe Restrictions on Warfare.

For a thousand years the Catholic Church managed to keep these laws enforced through all of Europe… Then along came Sola Scriptura, and the Church was unable to stop protestant and secular nations from allowing those evil practices again… and bang, suddenly they were permissible again and People like Wilberforce and Abe Lincoln had to come along and get rid of them all over again!

 

[Unitas]

I don’t think sola scriptura is responsible for infanticide as much as relativism is responsible for both.

 

[DanteAlighieri]

I don’t think sola scriptura is responsible for infanticide as much as relativism is responsible for both.

Hear, hear.

Peace,
Dante

 

[SoCalRC]

For a thousand years the Catholic Church managed to keep these laws enforced through all of Europe…

I’m sorry, that is not really true. It would be more accurate to say that it took the church 1000 years to largely erradicate infanticide (of new borns) among the faithful and another 500 years to largely erradicate abandonment.

Current Catholic teaching, that abortion is an absolute, did not really gain theologians’ attention until the 18th century. Rome then acted at the very end of the 19th century, with the changes being formalized in 1902, 1913, and 1917.

Best Regards

 

[manualman]

Current Catholic teaching, that abortion is an absolute, did not really gain theologians’ attention until the 18th century. Rome then acted at the very end of the 19th century, with the changes being formalized in 1902, 1913, and 1917.

I think some backup is called for on this one. It is my understanding that abortion was rather common all the way back to Pre-Christ Roman times and the the church has been unwaveringly opposed to the practice for the entire time. Now you may find plenty of discussion on exactly when in development, the ‘soul’ entered the developing child, but this speculation stemmed from poor scientific understanding of conception (mainly the stubborn belief that the man’s sperm was a ‘seed’ that somehow later became a human). Such speculation, however, did NOT (to my knowledge) mitigate the church’s consistant condemnation of abortion or contraception (which is decidedly not a modern phenomenon).

 

[sprout]

I think it goes back much, much further than the Reformation. It goes back to the original sin of Adam and Eve, the fallen nature of man, the desire to be our own God.

 

[SoCalRC]

I think some backup is called for on this one. It is my understanding that abortion was rather common all the way back to Pre-Christ Roman times and the the church has been unwaveringly opposed to the practice for the entire time. Now you may find plenty of discussion on exactly when in development, the ‘soul’ entered the developing child, but this speculation stemmed from poor scientific understanding of conception (mainly the stubborn belief that the man’s sperm was a ‘seed’ that somehow later became a human). Such speculation, however, did NOT (to my knowledge) mitigate the church’s consistant condemnation of abortion or contraception (which is decidedly not a modern phenomenon).

The Church has never been ‘pro choice’. However, for most of Church history an early abortion was viewed as serious birth control, not murder.

The largest change in the last 100 years is that abortion is now an absolute. You can confirm this for yourself by looking up Abortion in the Catholic Encyclopedia. As late as 1875, abortions to save the life of the mother were not prescribed by Rome. By 1902, even the theoretical exception of an ectopic pregancy (non viable fetus, almost certain death for the mother) is expressly not permitted. As of 1993, no exceptions become an infallible teaching.

As far as struggles with infanticide for the first millenia, just study history. This isn’t the Church’s fault. We (gentiles) started with no social mores against the practice. Again, a poignent quote I’ve used before from Pope Stephen V in 887:

“If he who destroys what is conceived in the womb by abortion is a murderer, how much more is he unable to excuse himself of murder who kills a child even one day old.” - Epistle to Archbishop of Mainz

Note that it declares that a born child is obviously of greater value, a teaching we now reject. However, the context was rather or not the Church should try to crack down on a local practice of burying unwanted newborns alive, still common among the faithful.

Similiarly, the Church tried direct intervention in abandonment, all the way up to the present if you look closely.

Best Regards

 

[manualman]

Look again. I suspect your post more when I hear more facts wrong. Surgery for ectopic pregnancy is NOT considered abortion by the catholic church. Rather, it is a case of ‘double effect’ where the tragic outcome of the death of the child is a forseeable, but not desired outcome of the surgery.

The fact that abortion wasn’t formally declared murder until recently is, again, a function of the immaturity of science until recently. The church has no crystal ball and is only infallible in faith and moral matters upon which she has ruled. Thus, the fact that previous teaching condemned abortion as sinful, but without reference to it being murder is not a sign that the Church has changed, but that science has. Now that we know of DNA and the formation of unique DNA at conception, things are rather easier to figure out than back when Aquinas et al had to try to figure out when the ‘seed’ transformed to a person…

 

[SoCalRC]

Look again. I suspect your post more when I hear more facts wrong. Surgery for ectopic pregnancy is NOT considered abortion by the catholic church. Rather, it is a case of ‘double effect’ where the tragic outcome of the death of the child is a forseeable, but not desired outcome of the surgery.

No, the application of double effect in ectopic pregnancy is not a specified Church teaching. Again, let’s look at the Catholic Encyclopedia’s entry on Abortion:

The teachings of the Catholic Church admit of no doubt on the subject. Such moral questions, when they are submitted, are decided by the Tribunal of the Holy Office. Now this authority decreed, 28 May, 1884, and again, 18 August, 1889, that “it cannot be safely taught in Catholic schools that it is lawful to perform . . . any surgical operation which is directly destructive of the life of the fetus or the mother.” Abortion was condemned by name, 24 July, 1895, in answer to the question whether when the mother is in immediate danger of death and there is no other means of saving her life, a physician can with a safe conscience cause abortion not by destroying the child in the womb (which was explicitly condemned in the former decree), but by giving it a chance to be born alive, though not being yet viable, it would soon expire. The answer was that he cannot. After these and other similar decisions had been given, some moralists thought they saw reasons to doubt whether an exception might not be allowed in the case of ectopic gestations. Therefore the question was submitted: “Is it ever allowed to extract from the body of the mother ectopic embryos still immature, before the sixth month after conception is completed?” The answer given, 20 March, 1902, was: “No; according to the decree of 4 May, 1898; according to which, as far as possible, earnest and opportune provision is to be made to safeguard the life of the child and of the mother. As to the time, let the questioner remember that no acceleration of birth is licit unless it be done at a time, and in ways in which, according to the usual course of things, the life of the mother and the child be provided for”. Ethics, then, and the Church agree in teaching that no action is lawful which directly destroys fetal life. It is also clear that extracting the living fetus before it is viable, is destroying its life as directly as it would be killing a grown man directly to plunge him into a medium in which he cannot live, and hold him there till he expires.

At present, this is conveyed to Health Care providers as Directive 48: “In case of extrauterine pregnancy, no intervention is morally licit which constitutes a direct abortion.” Now, it has been theologically proposed that salpingectomy, the removal of part (or all) of the felopian tube somehow meets the directive. However, unlike some countries, we generally do not wait until the tube ruptures and represents a clear and immediate threat to the mother’s health here in the US. In other words, the only reason to remove the tube is because of the future threat that the fetus represents.

And, since unnecesary operations run afoul both of secular medical ethics and insurance cost controls, look at how the concept of double effect has been expanded by CHA here in the US:

chausa.org/Pub/MainNav/News/HP/Archive/1998/07JulyAug/Articles/Features/

They note that some moralists object to MTX (a chemical abortion) and Salpingostomy, a physical removal of the fetus, but again extend the same argument of ‘Double Effect’. Now, we are not talking about cancer, or even an immediate life threatening condition. We are talking about direct destruction and extraction, as well as slightly indirect extraction of a developing fetus. Now, compare that with the statements from the Tribunal of the Holy Office above.

Personally I think, like infanticide, this is a case where it will take awhile for the laity to catch up to the Magesterium. ‘Not even to save the life of the mother’ is tougher to accept in practice than concept, so it does not surprise me that we sort of pretend that ectopic pregnancies, one of the largest remaining causes of maternal death world wide, somehow don’t count.

Best Regards

 

[SoCalRC]

An additional note, this is an often circulated article on the issue:

cuf.org/faithfacts/details_view.asp?ffID=57

There is one sentence that is often missed:

“While the Church has not spoken officially about the morality of specific treatment options…”

As we can see above, the Church has spoken forcefully on the matter of such pregnancies. What She has not done is indicated rather 3 treatments, all of which assuredly result in the premature death of the fetus, undertaken before the actual health risks to the mother are even clear, meet the criteria of “earnest and opportune provision is to be made to safeguard the life of the child and of the mother”.

If it is not clear, I am not taking a moral stance on the matter. I am simply pointing out that what the Church teaches and what it sometimes tolerates are two different things. These forms of tolerance by the Church are not a moral failing, but a long standing tradition of inclussion over exclussion. Remember pennance, and even excommunication, are supposed to be corrective, not punitive in nature.

Best Regards

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Protestant Effect on American First Nations

The key element to understanding the radical Protestantism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is… the millenium… John Calvin’s doctrine of election made it possible to rethink the millenium in terms of physical reality. Now that one had living saints walking around on the earth, that is, members of the Calvinist church, one now had candidates for the one thousand year rule of saints.

Translating the rule of saints into a physical reality meant reorganizing the church into a political authority, which is one of the fundamental aspects of Calvinism… However, being a radical Protestant in England was not a safe affair. The political and religious persecution that the radical Protestants faced led them to believe that the millenium would not take place in England. So many left for America.

It’s important to realize that they… came to America because it represented an idea: they believed that the events leading to the end of time would occur in America, not in Europe. In particular, the one thousand year rule of saints would begin in the wilds of America and spread itself across the globe as saints around the world imitated their church and their government…

The millenial vision, however, was not all roses. Two other aspects of Christian eschatology played crucial roles in the Protestant vision of the settlement of America: the Ordeal and the final conflict between good and evil … Both of these eschatological ideas spelled bad news for the people already living in America: the Native Americans.

See Native Americans in the Protestant Imagination.

The dominant witnessing genre among the Americans became the “captivity” narrative, in which being captured by Native Americans became the Ordeal which led to the realization of salvation.

Because of this, Native Americans were represented in the Protestant imagination as instruments of evil; they were ungodly, cruel, malicious, and randomly violent…

Some Protestants believed that the conflict between Natives and Europeans would be a spiritual conflict and began to actively proseletyze Native societies. This proseletyzation, done in the best intents, seriously disrupted Native American society…

Those, however, who believed that the final battle would be a physical battle began a pattern of violence against the Native Americans that became the model for… conquest and genocide…

 

[SoCalRC]

Protestant Effect on American First Nations

See Native Americans in the Protestant Imagination.

What about the atrocities of the then very-Catholic Spanish?

 

[colliric]

I’m sorry, that is not really true. It would be more accurate to say that it took the church 1000 years to largely erradicate infanticide (of new borns) among the faithful and another 500 years to largely erradicate abandonment.

Current Catholic teaching, that abortion is an absolute, did not really gain theologians’ attention until the 18th century. Rome then acted at the very end of the 19th century, with the changes being formalized in 1902, 1913, and 1917.

Best Regards

It doesn’t change the fact that Abortion itself was outlawed and considered abominable.

The church may not have officially ruled on it, but the secular Roman authorities(who were Catholic) did and throughout this entire period it was illegal to murder a child in the womb of a woman.

Infanticide while also evil murder is not always the same as abortion, even though in most cases it is. While the church may not have acted on infanticide and Abandonment, it did continue to enforce and respect the fading Roman Empire’s christian friendly anti-abortion laws during this period.

And biggest of those three laws was the anti-slavery one… that really was a tragedy that we saw that practice come back, mostly due to the Protestant Reformation and the imperial European empires. Living in poverty isn’t the same as living in slavery.

 

[SoCalRC]

It doesn’t change the fact that Abortion itself was outlawed and considered abominable.

No one has disputed Church doctrine. Look at the original post. I am disputing that the Church was particularly successful in enforcing doctrine among the laity.

This certainly should not be hard to understand. Consider masterbation. At times it has, literally, been described as “murder” by theologists. It remains a mortal sin. But I strongly suspect that Church teaching on the matter remains disregarded on a wide basis.

Consider also our Dogma regarding abortion. Since the end of the 19th century abortion to save the life of the mother has been prohibited. But, although child birth related maternal deaths remain high in the US relative to other industrialized nations (and have been climbing higher in recent years) Catholics do not appear to beproportionally over represented in actual cases. This suggests (though does not conclusively prove) that this relatively new Church teaching is not yet fully accepted or widely practiced by the laity.

Best Regards

 

[mapleoak]

No, the application of double effect in ectopic pregnancy is not a specified Church teaching. Again, let’s look at the Catholic Encyclopedia’s entry on Abortion:

At present, this is conveyed to Health Care providers as Directive 48: “In case of extrauterine pregnancy, no intervention is morally licit which constitutes a direct abortion.” Now, it has been theologically proposed that salpingectomy, the removal of part (or all) of the felopian tube somehow meets the directive. However, unlike some countries, we generally do not wait until the tube ruptures and represents a clear and immediate threat to the mother’s health here in the US. In other words, the only reason to remove the tube is because of the future threat that the fetus represents.

And, since unnecesary operations run afoul both of secular medical ethics and insurance cost controls, look at how the concept of double effect has been expanded by CHA here in the US:

chausa.org/Pub/MainNav/News/HP/Archive/1998/07JulyAug/Articles/Features/

They note that some moralists object to MTX (a chemical abortion) and Salpingostomy, a physical removal of the fetus, but again extend the same argument of ‘Double Effect’. Now, we are not talking about cancer, or even an immediate life threatening condition. We are talking about direct destruction and extraction, as well as slightly indirect extraction of a developing fetus. Now, compare that with the statements from the Tribunal of the Holy Office above.

Personally I think, like infanticide, this is a case where it will take awhile for the laity to catch up to the Magesterium. ‘Not even to save the life of the mother’ is tougher to accept in practice than concept, so it does not surprise me that we sort of pretend that ectopic pregnancies, one of the largest remaining causes of maternal death world wide, somehow don’t count.

Best Regards

Excellent post. There is unfortunately a great deal of misunderstanding about Church teaching regarding this. So called procedures done in the name of ‘preventative’ medicine or ‘preventative’ surgery which result in the death of the child are nothing short of murder.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I realize that not everyone on this forum is an American, and I apologize to those who aren’t that this post has mostly to do with America. If the facts I present about early America are erroneous, please correct me. I arrived at a conclusion, however, that I felt like sharing. Please realize, however, that my intention here is NOT to make anyone hate Protestants or the founding fathers of our great nation, but just to show the far reaching damages of the doctrine of Sola-Scriptura. This all is merely my theory and I am in no way claiming to speak infallibly or even on behalf of the Catholic Church, but here goes…
Sola-Scriptura, the heretical doctrine popularized by Martin Luther has led to thousands of different protestant denominations that bicker among each other. Among those denominations were the Puritans and the Quakers, two rival denominations whose rivalry was so extreme that it led to persecutions and murder in colonial America. To prevent one Protestant denomination from gaining power over the others, at the time the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution was written, the First Amendment included the words, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” The U.S. Constitution differs from the Bible, in that the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit and has truths that are unchanging, while left under the guidance of the Catholic Church, led by Popes who would be protected by the Holy Spirit from teaching error in matters of faith and morals, when speaking ex-cathedra(From the chair of Peter). The U.S. Constitution, on the other hand is very Sola-Scriptura in the sense that it is left open to the interpretation of uninspired fallible men(and eventually uninspired fallible women, too.) Thus, it can easily be twisted around and distorted based on political agendas, much like the Bible can when interpreted outside the divinely granted protection of the Catholic Church. As a result, activist judges have used the First Amendment to attack Christianity! Bibles were banned from school. Darwinism was placed into schools. etc. etc. If all Christians were united, however, the founding fathers of this great nation would have been able to declare America a Christian nation. Then, Roe vs. Wade would never have even made it to the Supreme Court. “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness” in our Declaration of Independence would cover the unborn, too. Instead, however, the divided torn by strife kingdom of Protestantism failed to protect Christian values in their ambiguous phraseology of the First Amendment, and their lack of carefully making rules required for Supreme Court justices to be nominated. Much like with Sola-Scriptura, interpretation of the important written text of the U.S. Constitution is left to one’s own agenda-driven comprehension skills. Thus, every time a baby is “legally” aborted in America, we can look back to Martin Luther’s doctrine of Sola-Scriptura and see the extemity of what that doctine has caused. Again, this all just my opinion and theory. I realize that we have to look at what is rather than what could have been, as we can’t change history. Still, it is difficult to honestly refute what I have said, although I’m sure people will try.

This is about as plausible as blaming St. Augustine for the Reformation on the ground that​

• he provided the inspiration for the Augustinian Order;
• Luther was an Augustinian friar;
• Therefore, what Luther did & thought was the responsibility of St. Augustine

• it’s ridiculous, & it not remotely Catholic: because it treats every Protestant, & every one else between Luther & 1973, as a mindless robot. Did their wills & intentions really play no part in the hundreds of billions of events which took place between Luther’s time & the decision in 1973, & which led to that decision ? As though there were no Catholics at the same time; & as though there were no other wills than Luther’s, or those of Protestants, to lead to it. It is a gross oversimplification to say that events at this or that date were caused by one particular person living centuries before.

The thesis in the heading is as reasonable as blaming St. Peter for paedophilia in the clergy - it proves far too much, since reasoning as slack as that in the post would also “prove” that the Apostles are responsible for the rise of Hitler. Why not ? Such absurdities are no more disgusting or incredible than the logic connecting Luther with events 430 years & 4,000 miles distant from him.

Do you understand what Sola Scriptura means as a doctrine ?

 

[Ani_Ibi]

What about the atrocities of the then very-Catholic Spanish?

Set it out and we’ll read it. Thank you.

 

[SoCalRC]

Set it out and we’ll read it. Thank you.

Start by googling “Spanish Pueblo”. On a subject this big I don’t spoon feed because I will inevitably spin by selection and omission.

In case it was not clear, I was sincerely asking. There is actually something of a Catholic tradition in some Native American cultures, but it was placed there by means of forced servitude and human rights abuses.

Best Regards

 

[Ani_Ibi]

SoCalRC:

Start by googling “Spanish Pueblo”.

No. You raised the point. It is therefore your responsibility to provide some background for it.

SoCalRC:

On a subject this big I don’t spoon feed because I will inevitably spin by selection and omission.

Spoonfeeding and backing up points are two different things. I don’t need to be spoonfed. Neither do I need to go on a rabbit chase.

SoCalRC:

In case it was not clear, I was sincerely asking. There is actually something of a Catholic tradition in some Native American cultures, but it was placed there by means of forced servitude and human rights abuses.

I cannot speak for what happened south of 49. Up here there were some destructive encounters and some less destructive encounters between Catholics and First Nations. As it stands today, apologies have been made. Can the same be said among Protestants?

The reason I linked to that material is that it is rarely discussed. The Catholics usually get the brunt of the accusations. It is an elephant in the room and I like shining my flashlight on such creatures.