Pedophilia - The Next Taboo To Fall?

[seer]

It's interesting to note that the "old catholic priest" is so much more in line with some of our most notorious atheists than he is with the Christians on this board.

Kiwimac is a Catholic priest? I find that hard to believe...

[Cerebrum123]

Kiwimac is a Catholic priest? I find that hard to believe...

Not really surprising to me.

[seer]

Not really surprising to me.

I don't know, most of the Priests I have know over the years were fiercely pro-life...

[Cow Poke]

Kiwimac is a Catholic priest? I find that hard to believe...

Claims to be....

Are you actually priest?

Yes, Priest and Monsignor to be exact. My relationship with my wife is not slavishly bound to what Paul had to say.

What is your denomination, kiwi?

Old Catholic.

[tabibito]

Kiwimac is a Catholic priest? I find that hard to believe...

That's Old-Catholic ... Fairly sure they're the schismatic mob that declared the pope a heretic sometime in the 1800s ... less sure that Mel, wossisname - oh yes, Gibson, is a member.

[Zymologist]

Claims to be....

From the Wikipedia page he linked, it says the Old Catholic Church is not in full communion with the RC Church. I don't know anything about the Old Catholic Church, though; this is a first for me.

[One Bad Pig]

I don't know, most of the Priests I have know over the years were fiercely pro-life...

There is an extremely liberal wing of the Catholic Church, and it is not limited to laymen.

[TheWall]

There is an extremely liberal wing of the Catholic Church, and it is not limited to laymen.

Spong comes to mind.

[Sparko]

I thought Kiwimac was Anglican for some reason.

[tabibito]

I thought Kiwimac was Anglican for some reason.

That thar be Spong.

[One Bad Pig]

I thought Kiwimac was Anglican for some reason.

The Old Catholics are in communion with the Anglicans; he may have moved from one to the other.

[tabibito]

The Old Catholics are in communion with the Anglicans; he may have moved from one to the other.

first I've heard of it.

Say it isn't so, Ethel.


ETA

it is so

[One Bad Pig]

first I've heard of it.

Say it isn't so, Ethel.


ETA

it is so

Yep. Anglican Communion says so.

[Adrift]

The argument here is that, in Christian theology, ensoulement takes place at conception; this is a position based almost entirely on Greek philosophy and was largely formulated by St. Augustine of Hippo. It has no counterpart in Hebrew theology and certainly not in the OT, In Hebrew thought ensoulment takes place at first breath, as it did for Adam and Eve, not at conception. The Bible reflects the former POV not the latter.

This isn't accurate. See professor Michael Gorman's Abortion and the Early Church: Christian, Jewish and Pagan Attitudes in the Greco-Roman World,

Source: Abortion and the Early Church: Christian, Jewish and Pagan Attitudes in the Greco-Roman World by Michael Gorman

Despite the absence of a specific condemnation or prohibition of abortion in their Scriptures, extensive research has discovered no mention of a nontherapeutic Jewish abortion in any texts of the Hebrew Bible or of other Jewish literature through A.D. 500. Only a few prohibitions of abortion have been preserved in Jewish literature from the about 150 B.C. Furthermore, the Talmud, the multivolume collection of centuries of Jewish rabbinic opinion which was assembled about A.D. 500, contains many discussions of miscarriage and therapeutic abortion but only one definite reference to deliberate, unnecessary abortion, and that is almost certainly directed to non-Jews. It was a given of Jewish thought and life that abortion, like exposure, was unacceptable, and this was well known in the ancient world. From 300 B.C. through the era of the Talmud, both pagans (such as Hecataeus of Abdera in Egypt and the Roman historian Tacitus) and Jews testify to the Jews' love for and religious duty of begetting children. Tacitus notes that this led to their rejection of exposure; it was also one of their reasons for rejecting abortion. Though rare cases of abortion may have occurred in Judaism, the witness of antiquity is that Jews, unlike pagans, did not practice deliberate abortion.

Although the Jews did not practice abortion, they did discuss the fetus and its death in a variety of contexts. Behind each of these discussions is assumed a basic Jewish orientation to life: first, the duty and desire to populate the earth and ensure both Jewish survival and the divine presence; second, a deep sense of the sanctity of life as God's creation, a respect extending in various ways to life in all its manifestations and stages; and, finally, a profound horror of blood and bloodshed. These themes undergird the entire Jewish approach to abortion.

Despite this fundamentally unified outlook, the Jews approached the subject of the fetus and its death in several different ways. Scholars generally hold that there were two major schools of Jewish thought about abortion, the Alexandrian and the majority Palestinian, as well as a minor school, the minority Palestinian. Within each school there were legal and ethical pronouncements. We will approach the material according to the three schools.

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To summarize the Jewish Alexandrian perspective, they (as well as Palestinian Jews) saw a distinction between a partially and fully formed fetus (fully formed starting probably on the 40th day). In his reading of the Septuagint of Exodus 21:22-25 that reads "harm" as "form", Philo points out that from a legal perspective, abortion was penalized in different ways depending on whether the fetus was partially or fully formed,

If a man comes to blows with a pregnant woman and strikes her on the belly and she miscarries, then, if the result of the miscarriage is unshaped and undeveloped, he must be fined both for the outrage and for obstructing the artist Nature in her creative work of bringing into life the fairest of living creatures, man. But, if the offspring is already shaped and all the limbs have their proper qualities and places in the system, he must die, for that which answers to this description is a human being, which he has destroyed in the laboratory of Nature who judges that the hour has not yet come for bringing it out into the light, like a statue lying in a studio requiring nothing more than to be conveyed outside and released from confinement.

Source: Abortion and the Early Church: Christian, Jewish and Pagan Attitudes in the Greco-Roman World by Michael Gorman

Philo's comparison of the formed fetus to a sculpture in the studio is his parabolic way of expressing an impassioned moral conviction, one that goes beyond the evil of attacking pregnant women. He is also challenging the justification of abortion by legal, medical and philosophical authorities who, he declares, claim that "the child while still adhering to the womb below the belly is part of its future mother." His overriding concern is not with the father (is he the attacker?), as in Roman law, but with the child. He sees the problem fundamentally as a moral issue related not only to Exodus 21 but, more important, to the commandment against murder. This connection between abortion and murder was also made by early Christian writers, who further developed the idea.

While the translators of the Septuagint and the philosopher Philo distinguished the nonhuman from the human fetus (recommending appropriate penalties for the death of each), this legal concern should not be seen a the primary aim of these writers or of Alexandrian Judaism generally. Rather, their fundamental concern is the serious immorality of killing any unborn, especially when the killing is deliberately executed. This emphasis is strikingly reflected in two Alexandrian writings which have no legal concerns at all. The first, known as the Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides, is a collection of ethical maxims about conduct in daily life. It was written probably between 50 B.C. and A.D. 50 in the tradition of ancient wisdom literature. In the section on sexuality, marriage and the family, the author writes:

A woman should not destroy the unborn babe in her belly, nor after its birth throw it before the dogs and the vultures as a prey.

In this ethical context the author does not make fine legal distinctions, even if he holds them. Instead, his concern is ethical and practical; he wishes to prevent the pagan practices of abortion and exposure from infiltrating the Jewish community. Besides his obvious concern for the child, the writer is--like all Jews and like the Stoics who influenced him--extremely favorable to pro-creation.

A similar blanket condemnation of abortion is found in a contemporary work of a different sort, the Sibylline Oracles. The Oracles are an example of first- and second-century B.C. apocalyptic literature. The section of book 2 on the punishment of the wicked includes women who abort or expose their children:

Having burdens in the womb [they]
Produce abortions; and their offspring cast
Unlawfully away...

These women will suffer the wrath of God along with sorcerers (who dispense, among other things, abortifacients). Also included in his wrath are adulterers, thieves, the impure, and oppressors of the poor and of widows. Again, the writer has no interest in legal fine points but is concerned only with the fundamental immorality of abortion.

In summary, the Alexandrian Jewish position viewed abortion as immoral and punishable. In ethical contexts it stressed the immorality of abortion without concerning itself with legal and technical questions about the fetus, while in more legal contexts it discussed the nature of the act and its appropriate penalty. However, even in legal contexts the Alexandrian school, as represented by Philo, was more concerned with the immorality of deliberate abortion than with legal penalties.

© Copyright Original Source

In Palestine, most of our material on the subject comes from Mishnah, the Talmud and Josephus.

Source: Abortion and the Early Church: Christian, Jewish and Pagan Attitudes in the Greco-Roman World by Michael Gorman

Palestinian discussion of the fetus and its death revolved around four key issues; the development of the fetus, its religious and legal status, accidental or necessary feticide, and deliberate feticide. In Palestine, unlike Alexandria, Jewish concern with abortion was almost totally with the problem of the legal and cultic status of the fetus, especially in miscarriages and certain necessary (and usually late) abortions. Abortion in the early stages of pregnancy, "on demand" or as a means of birth control "is very likely not even contemplated in the Mishnaic law." This is important to realize in reading the Talmud and the Mishnah, since most English editions of these works use the word abortion as a synonym for miscarriage or miscarried fetus.

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Concerning ensoulment, it's not nearly as clear cut as you imagine,

Source: Abortion and the Early Church: Christian, Jewish and Pagan Attitudes in the Greco-Roman World by Michael Gorman

As in Alexandria and elsewhere in the ancient world, in Palestine there was debate on the time of a person's ensoulment and formation. Though the debate may have come into Judaism directly from the pagan world, it was further stimulated by Old Testament creation texts (for example Gen 1:27; 2:7; 2:19) which use words like soul and especially form.

The time of ensoulment was held to be either at birth, formation or conception. The compiler of the Mishnah, Rabbi Judah, is reported to have changed his mind on the time of ensoulment during a conversation with one Antonius:

Antonius also said to Rabbi, "When is the soul placed in a man' as soon as it is decreed [that the sperm shall be male or female], or when [the embryo] is actually formed?" He replied, "From the moment of formation." He objected: "Can a piece of meat be unsalted for three days without becoming putrid? But it must be from the moment that [God] decrees its destiny." Rabbi said; "This thing Antonius taught me, and Scripture supports him, for it is written, And thy decree hath preserved my spirit [i.e., my soul].

Similarly, there was discussion about the time at which a Jew could enter the future world. Was it necessary to have passed conception, birth, circumcision or the time of one's first words? These speculative debates about ensoulment and immortality, however, did not significantly affect the Jewish views on the death of a fetus.

© Copyright Original Source

Gorman goes on to point out that the matter of accidental miscarriage/abortion was mostly a legal and cultic matter for Palestinian Jews, and had more to do with rules on uncleanness. As an example, a child that was delivered by way of Caesarean was not considered a valid birth, and so would not make the woman's house unclean since it "did not pass through the area where birth took place."

Also in Palestine, the view that the fetus was a human life was divided between a majority, and vocal minority view. Unlike Philo's reading of Exodus 21, that read "harm" as "form", Josephus (representing the majority Palestinian rabbinical view) reads Exodus 21 as an accidental miscarriage that resulted in the death of a woman, and the "life for a life" was applied to the mother's death, not the child. So, unlike Alexandria, the majority Palestinian view was that the unborn child did not have the same legal status as a person, and was considered, to some extent, a part of the mother. From a legal point of view, if the unborn child caused the mother major health complications, the child could be aborted to save the mother.

Source: Abortion and the Early Church: Christian, Jewish and Pagan Attitudes in the Greco-Roman World by Michael Gorman

It is important to notice that the Mishnah does not deny the presence of life, in some sense, in the fetus. Rather, the general principle is to save existing, "born" persons. The mother's life takes precedence over that of the fetus.

According to the majority opinion, the fetus has no "juridical personality." This view of the fetus as an appendage of the mother must be understood solely as a legal evaluation enabling the rabbis to understand and judge the daily affairs of women involved in accidental or therapeutic abortions. In the words of a Jewish scholar:

Germane as all of the above information might seem to the question of abortion, it could hardly be sufficient for determining the morality of such action. It merely defines the legal status of the foetus.

When the issue of deliberate abortion arises, these rabbis have very little or nothing to say. This fact can be explained partially by the extreme rarity of abortion in Judaism. We cannot know, then, how these rabbis viewed deliberate abortion from a legal perspective (if they considered it all). However, we can determine their basic ethical attitude toward abortion.

Despite legal indifference to the fetus, the Talmud shows an appreciation for the work of the Creator in forming the unborn life:

Our rabbis taught: There are three partners in man, the Holy One, blessed be He, his father and his mother....
What is the purport of the Scriptural text, I will give thanks unto thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made?...If a dyer puts different ingredients into a boiler they all unite into one colour, whereas the Holy One, blessed be He, fashions the embryo in a woman's bowels in a manner [such] that each develops in its own natural way.

The Talmud also promotes a sense of duty to propagate the Jewish people and thus preserve the divine presence. The one who will not propagate is like one who "sheds blood and diminishes the Divine Image" and "causes the Divine Presence to depart from Israel." It is unlikely that such perspectives could peacefully coexist with permissive views of deliberate abortion.

In his discussion of accidental feticide, as we have seen, Josephus expresses the majority Palestinian view which does not give the fetus legal status. Nevertheless, in his later apology for Judaism, Against Apion, Josephus writes:

The Law orders all the offspring to be brought up, and forbids women either to cause abortion or to make away with the foetus; a woman convicted of this is regarded as an infanticide, because she destroys a soul and diminishes the race.

Several difficulties arise from this text. To what law does Josephus refer? Does he assume a distinction between the formed and the unformed fetus? One point, however, is clear: despite his legal opinion that the fetus is not a person, when Josephus speaks from an ethical perspective, he calls deliberate abortion murder. The "Law," then, may well be the Ten Commandments, particularly "Thou shalt not kill." Opposition to abortion in this passage stems not only from concern for the Jewish people and law but also from respect for the fetus as an individual endowed with a soul. Although it is likely that Josephus's contact with the non-Jewish world motivated his addressing the issue of deliberate abortion, it nevertheless seems safe to assume that his contemporary Palestinian rabbis shared his perspective. The example of Josephus proves that holding a permissive legal view of abortion in certain circumstances does not rule out forcefully condemning deliberate abortion as immoral and even as murder.

© Copyright Original Source

The minority Palestinian view was that the fetus had both a measure of personal and legal rights, and the dead, unborn fetus was considered a truly dead person. This view was based on a particular reading of Genesis 9:6,

Whoso sheddeth the blood of man within [another] man, shall his blood be shed.

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TL;DR? To summarize the views, Gorman writes,

Source: Abortion and the Early Church: Christian, Jewish and Pagan Attitudes in the Greco-Roman World by Michael Gorman

It is generally accepted that the two Jewish views on abortion existed, the Alexandrian and the Palestinian. According to the most scholars, the strict Alexandrian view required punishment for damage to a fetus according to its stage of development, whereas the more lenient Palestinian view, holding that the fetus was not a person, required punishment only for harm to the mother. This analysis, though prevalent, is not entirely accurate.

In the first place, both Alexandrian and Palestinian schools discussed the personhood of the fetus from a legal, not an ethical standpoint. Differing legal interpretations may or may not represent differing moral judgments. Second, both schools confined their discussion to accidental or therapeutic abortions. Neither considered the possibility of induced abortion for less than life-threatening reasons. Third, the Palestinian view was not itself unified. The minority view, which had a sizable following, joined with the Alexandrians in granting legal personhood to the fetus. Fourth, and most important. Jews of both regions united on the subject of deliberate abortion. Alexandrians and Palestinians of both the majority and minority legal opinions condemned deliberate abortion as disrespect for life and as bloodshed.

In the Jewish mind a clear distinction was continually maintained between accidental/therapeutic and deliberate abortions. The former case was an issue open to debate; the latter, a settled matter. Clearly the division in Judaism was not between a strict (Alexandrian) and a lenient (Palestinian) approach to deliberate abortion. The division of opinion was rather over the severity of the penalty to be exacted in cases of accidental or therapeutic abortion. This interpretation alone reconciles the otherwise contradictory statements of Josephus discussed above.

The Jewish abhorrence of deliberate bloodshed and its respect for life, including that of the unborn, formed a natural foundation for the Christian writings on abortion.

© Copyright Original Source

And on that matter, we have very early (as early as the 1st century) attestation from Christians that they were against abortion.

[Jedidiah]

You mean that they're not your sort of Christian. But they are the majority of people who claim to be Christian and their views carry as much weight as yours.

'Claim' is the operative word here.