I was always taught the one of the differences between Jewish and Catholic medical ethics, is that Judaism requires saving the life of the mother over the fetus when a choice must be made, whereas Catholicism requires saving the fetus even if that means endangering or killing the mother.
Did I learn this incorrectly? (The Catholic Law, that is – I know the Halacha (Jewish Law) is right)
There is a strong element in Catholic theology that favors the new, untested life over the life of a person who has already had a chance to make their own decisions. However, that is not enshrined in Catholic doctrine. The general belief that this is doctrine goes back to the novel and movie The Cardinal, in which the protagonist makes the choice to save his niece, condemning his sister. Unfortunately, that work of fiction has taken on the aura of having proclaimed a doctrine that has never been promulgated.
Each of my Franciscan priest uncles (both of whom were scholars) addressed that issue on several occasions, and each pointed out that the position of the RCC is to lay out the various arguments in a pastoral setting and leave the decision to the prospective parents. Each noted that a mother with six kids under 12 (good Catholic families and all) would be perfectly justified to take the radiation therapy to avoid leaving her already born children motherless. (That, of course, is a more clear-cut decision than most women would face in that situation.)
I always thought that catholics and Christians believed the same thing until now. It’s clear that Christians believe the Bible and catholics believe the roman catholic doctrine. **
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This reminds me of a fellow student telling me in a history class (while we were studying the Protestant Reformation, no less!) that Catholics were not Christians because we were founded by the Romans, which is why we are called ROMAN Catholics, while the Christians (e.g. Protestant) were founded by Jesus Christ.
[:sighs:]
Jersey, please remember to always read the OP before posting, and that that staments bashing ANY religion, race, sexual orientation, gender, etc. are not needed on the SDMB, or anywhere, for that matter. If you have an Honest, curious question, by all means ask, but if you do not have anything nice to say, well, don’t say anything at all. 
I’m not sure that I understand. You consider the fetus to be as much of a life as the mother – right? Yet, the parents are allowed to make an informed decision to commit murder base on utilitarian principals?! What if the parents disagree? By reductio ad absurdum - perhaps the father that isn’t happy with his marriage and would prefer to save the fetus.
I’m more just curious here than argumentative, but this is Great Debate.
The “standard” scenario for this dilemma is a woman who is diagnosed with cancer in the early stages of pregnancy. She has a good prognosis for recovery if she undergoes either chemotherapy or radiation therapy, either of which will most likely end the pregnancy. In addition, there is a fair chance that if she delays the therapy, her unborn child will die anyway, either because of the cancer or because the woman will die before she can deliver the child.
In the hypothetical case just outlined, there are no “good” solutions, but the RCC will allow her to decide whether to risk her death (depriving her living children of a mother while possibly not saving her unborn child) or to risk the life of the child she is carrying to provide for her already-born children.
From the perspective of an uninvolved spectator, her decision seems somewhat clear (although I would never want to be in any similar position). As one keeps changing the scenario, playing “what if?” games to make the decision more difficult, it is less clear what an “obvious” choice or decision would be.
Unlike the problem birth described in The Cardinal, real life problems are rarely clear-cut–and unlike the events described in The Cardinal, the RCC does not have an absolute ruling on how each person must respond. There are guidelines, but the RCC is not quite as rigid as some authors (and some priests) make it appear. The RCC does believe that each person has both a conscience and free will.
I second tomndebb’s commentary with respect to the abortion choices.
MHand, in th example you give, under Jewish law, the fetus is viewed as a rodef, which mandates the choice of saving the mother. In the Catholic view, the fetus is definitionally innocent, and the considerations are simply which life to save. The loss of the unborn baby’s life in an effort to save the mother is an unintended secondary effect.
As to the discussion about making the choices based on unworhty motives - saving the child at the expense of the mother’s life because of an unhappy marriage, for example - it’s clear that sin derives not just from actions, but from the intentions motivating those actions. A parent making such hoices would be acting wrongly; this doesn’t destroy the system of permitting parents to make choices.
OK, here’s a stupid question regarding how completely neurotic I can get when it comes to this stuff – does anyone else ever feel vaguely guilty about not being offended by stuff that the Church generally takes to be offensive – you know, like Life of Brian or “The Vatican Rag” or Jesus Christ Superstar (although the last two probably only piss off the Catholic League these days), or, I don’t know, Dogma or something (although I haven’t seen that – but I’m not about to scream for Kevin Smith’s head either)?
I mean, I thought Life of Brian was funny (albeit disturbing) but I don’t think less of my religion for it…
“guilty about not feeling upset…” Ah, yes, wonderful Catholic Guilt.
But no… even since back when I was an active member, the only times I get upset about mass media representations of ANY religion is when it descends into libel. But then again, my Catholic education was carried out by Brothers who made very clear that the capacity for critical thinking was a divine gift.
I’m more concerned about representations that are not overtly a parody or a fantasy, and may lead people into thinking some doctrines exist when they don’t (v. the aforementioned The Cardinal example).
The Catholic League had the potential to be an advocate to reduce Catholic-bashing in the media. Instead, they have chosen to be a shrill set of professinal victims who take offense at everything from the truly libelous to the totally inoffensive. On a few occasions, years ago, I was lured into seing some mediocre presentation, just to see what they were screaming about. I have found their protests to be valid so rarely, that I now ignore them except when their screams are liable to embarrass me as a Catholic.
The shame is that there is a certain amount of anti-Catholic bias in some sectors of the media, but the CL has trivialized the message to the point where they can no longer be regarded as legitimate spokespersons of Catholic thought. Rather than modeling themelves after the best traits of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League, they have chosen to emulate the worst traits of Donald Wildmon and his trivial American Family Association.
Oh, I totally agree with tomndebb about the Catholic League – from poking around their website, it looks like they get up in arms about basically anything where there’s an unsympathetic Catholic character, or a conflicted one. Occasionally there’ll also be some sort of sneer about trying to appeal to “progressive” (the quotes are theirs, not mine) Catholics – so, people like me, I guess.
(Also, they seem to think the producers of Law & Order, one of my favorite shows, have some kind of vendetta against Catholicism for making episodes like the one with the crazy ex-nun charged with beating a girl to death while trying to conduct an exorcism, although they made it perfectly clear that this sort of thing is not cool with the Church and they brought on a friendly priest type to explain how the whole exorcism process is supposed to work on those very rare occasions when it happens.)
I think “shrill” is definitely the right word. There is some real anti-Catholic bias out there, but I don’t think it lurks under every rock and in every corner of the mass media. And people like that do far more to disillusion me with Catholicism than, say, Tom Lehrer ever could.
[sub](Also, intellectually speaking I’m in complete agreement with JRDelirious as well – the nuns who ran my school were big on criticial thinking too. Well, except for my ninth-grade history teacher, but that’s another story. Emotionally, Catholic guilt is a tricky thing to shake…[/sub]
yesterday I was surfing CATV and I came across a deal explaining “the eucharist”. From what they said…the bread is the ACTUAL Body of Jesus Christ and the blood is the ACTUAL blood of Jesus Christ. You consume it orally in the ceremony “Eucharist”. Tell me how this isn’t ACTUAL cannibalism.
Thank you.
Heh…no silly…doncha know, we eat the Death Cookie™.
Geez, I didn’t get the memo guys. Help me out…are we in RC season now…as I recall it overlaps with deer and pheasant season in the midwest…?
Happens all the time, Dave. Usually not here, though.
Jersey, a bit of advice. Telling other people they’re not Christian, even by implication, when they consider that they are, is no way to win friends and influence people. Consider the following, which I considered posting seriously in anger and then thought better of, but now post merely as a way to show you how hurtful it can be:
If you were offended by that, you see my point. And I do apologize for the offense – I simply wanted to show you, by example, how one can be hurt by that sort of remark.
Do a search for some of Tom~'s posts on the origins of Catholic belief, or pop over to the Salad Bar on the Pizza Parlor and check some of Wolseley’s posts. You might be surprised by what you find.
That was an interesting cartoon. It struck me as odd though in one respect…that in order to abandon the “cookie god” the folks in the cartoon use “the book god”. I suppose listening to what scared sheep herders wrote and then has been transcribed many times and is now virtually ambiguous makes only slightly more sense than a “cookie god”.
But back to my question: Is this cannibalism or isn’t it. If someone were to say “Eat me!” and you took a bite outta their arm…what is the difference between that and saying, “Hey this wafer is someones arm! [MUNCH!] and I’ll wash it down with this fluid I call someone’s blood!” If I were at a restaurant and I said, I KNOW this [food] is [insert proper name]'s body! *I’d be asking for a mental health holdover at the Psych hospital.
Wouldn’t common sense say,“Uh, this is ridiculous I’m going to sleep in on sundays now.”
Well, it’s called the Transfiguration, I believe-when the host becomes the Body and Blood of Christ.
Physically, it’s still a wafer-but it IS Christ, according to the church beliefs. Or perhaps it is the vessel that holds Christ’s spirit.
Transubstantiation is I think what Guin meant. And, I believe, that what occurs is that the wafer/wine are still physically wafer/wine their essences are changed to body/blood. I’m sure I’ll be corrected though.
When you guys figure out what word you wanna make up for this imaginary process transfigurization transubstansiation…whatever. It IS a particular human and you are eating it and drinking it. That is cannibalism by definition. I don’t care how it happens I just wanna know what would possess anyone to STAY IN A ROOM where they are “Celebrating” the oral consumption of another human??? Even if it is “symbolic” it is still sickening.
OR…if I am somehow misled…let me know now with regular english not religious words that mean nothing to me.
Thank you.
I have a broken hand… feel blessed, deirson, that i stomach the pain of typing in order to answer your question!
Anyway, my whole outlook on the “Eat Jesus” thing is that, during the last supper, Jesus said ‘eat this, for it is my body’ and drink this, for it is my blood’ or something along those lines. While many Potestant Churches point to another part “in rememrance of me” to say it is symbolic, the point is that JEsus did not say “eat this, for it symbolizes my body,” he said it WAS his body. And as far as I know, if Jesus had meant it to be a symbol, he probably should have said so.
Another point to consider (I remember only vaguely the story. please correct) is that several hundered years ago a priest’s congregation was having doubts about the Transubstantation and the devote priest prayed for some sign from God to show his congregation the light, and lo and behold, the bread turned to flesh, the wine to blood, and it never rotted, and is still around to day somewhere in the Vatican or something. well, my hand hurts, so I might drop by later, but till then, Adios.
Um, would you kindly not refer to my religion as “cannibalistic?”
The concept of a Eucharistic meal (“eating” your god), certainly did not begin with Christianity.
Well, dierson has a point. When the first (Catholic) Portuguese began spreading word of Christianity in the regions that are now Ghana and Nigeria, the locals were horrified by the notion of the barbarians from Europe who actually ate someone at their religious services. (Rather ironic in light of all those “African cannibal” cartoons in the New Yorker over the years.)
As Guin noted, the concept of eating the flesh of a god is not limited to Christianity (leading skeptics with an anthropological bent to dismiss the concept of the Eucharist as simply a cultural curiosity unrelated to Salvation).
It should be noted that Catholics are not alone in their belief regarding the Eucharist. The Orthodox hold the same belief and the Church of England holds that same basic understanding. (I am not sure about the various daughter churches of England around the world, but I believe that the conservative wings of those denominations follow the Anglican lead on this issue.) While wrangling over the philosophical concepts of transubstantiation versus consubstantiation, the more conservative Evangelische/Lutheran congregations hold to the same basic understanding, as well.
martinez, I suspect that you will find that your sign is a religious legend, reflected in several other stories of doubters who took the Host home and broke it, only to have it bleed on their tables, and others who heard the voice of Jesus proclaim his presence from the Host. There may be a church somewhere with a relic that purports to be from the event you described, but I doubt that the Vatican puts much stock in the idea.