What date did anti-abortion become a major Christian/Catholic issue?

Factual Questions
21

You have a couple of different questions, here.

The first question is can a person be rejected as Christian for holding a pro-choice position?

The answer for the overwhelming majority of mainstrean Christain denominations is “No.” There is a fairly small subset of Christian denominations (with Jack Chick at the extreme end) who hold that anyone who does not believe exactly what they believe is not a Christian or is not “really” a Christian. The more mainstream position would be that the person who holds a position contrary to a particular Christian doctrine, but who has been Baptized, is a Christian. The person may be viewed as wrong-headed, heretical, or sinful, but that does not make them stop being Christian.

Considering the issue of one being “pro-choice,” the issue would not even have arisen prior to the 20th century. The majority of Christian denominations followed existing belief from the original positions of the Catholics and Orthodox (since abortion was not really a matter on which the Reformers differed from the RCC). It was not until fairly recently that anyone in civil society (in Christian dominant countries) ever argued a “pro-choice” position, so there was no reason for the churches to tackle the issue of a person who promoted a pro-choice perspective.

A general history of the Catholic tradition can be found in the early 20th century Catholic Encyclopedia. The current views of the RCC can be found in the Catechism, sections 2270 through 2275.

The attitudes of the RCC toward pro-choice persons would not require a specific statement. It is a general approach to any issue that a person who publicly challenges the teachings of the Church is acting against the church, that is, being a heretic. A person who believed a pro-choice position, but who never publicly declared that position would generally not come under church scrutiny, althoug if someone made an issue about such persons, the church would probably assert that they were being heretical.

22

I beat you to it as well. See my previous posts.

23

First, please understand that I’ve already accepted the Didache as having condemned abortion from at least the early 2’nd century, so the Council of Trent issue is now merely an academic one to me. But the “He adds” and the rest of your quotation doesn’t strike me as official catechism. Are you certain that your quotation is not a third-party interpretation of what the Council of Trent found? (I’m not quibbling about the language. English translation is perfectly acceptable to me, especially since I can read no other).

24

Thank you, tomndebb. Because of my high level of respect for your scholarship and intellectual honesty, I was hoping you’d have a chance to respond to this.

Can you now help me understand on what basis certain priests or bishops have denied communion to those who avow they are going to vote for a pro-choice candidate? I seem to recall this being an issue in the current election cycle. One would think it couldn’t be a matter of official Church dogma or doctrine, else I would think it would have to be followed universally. Would they justify their [in]action based on the model of heresy you expounded, or is it just a personal matter of conscience, or something else entirely?

25

See **Captain Amazing’s **post #19.

26

As noted, the attitudes of the RCC toward pro-choice persons would not require a specific statement. It is a general approach to any issue that a person who publicly challenges the teachings of the Church is acting against the church, that is, being a heretic.
(In this day and age, they would probably not make a big deal about using the word heretic. They simply note that the person has placed himself or herself outside the communion.)

As an analogy. The Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is very much a central point to Catholic teaching. If a priest stood up and proclaimed that the Eucharist was merely a symbolic gesture that had no meaning beyond the memory, would the church be justified in noting that that priest would no longer be in communion with the church? For a great many Catholics, the issue of life beginning at conception and the need to avoid inflicting harm on any person is pretty nearly as important to their belief–not because it has been some core doctrine for 1950 years, but because it is a basic doctrine that is now being challenged openly in society. (Note that most societal laws, even in predominantly Protestant nations was essentially the same as that held by the RCC up until the latter half of the 20th century. It was not important to the church to “take a stand” because there was no large opposition to the church’s tecaching.)
It should also be noted that the decisions of the bishops of Lincoln and St. Louis have not gone unchallenged within the church. The point at which a person is perceived to have removed oneself from the communion of the church is very much under discussion. At one end of the scale is the status of a doctor who performs an abortion. That is seen unequivocally as being in direct conflict with the church. At the other end of the spectrum is the person who pays taxes to a government that pays to support abortions while actively working to change the laws. Such a person is not deemed to have done anythng wrong. In the middle are a whole host of other positions. For most of the period subsequent to Roe v Wade, a legislator who voted for funding for an overall health care package that happened to have included a provision to fund existing abortion services would not have incurred the church’s condemnation while a legislator who introduced a new measure to add funding for abortions would have been deemed to have crossed the line. However, there are an infinite number of small gradations between the extremes and different bishops have drawn the lines in different places.* It should be noted that currently not all the actions of the bishop of Lincoln have received anything resembling universal support from professors of Moral Theology (or other bishops). In one area he has been supported: in1996, Bishop Bruskewitz issued a declaration that any Catholic who continued their membership in a number of different organizations effectively brought excommunication upon himself or herself. The organizations were a mixture of very liberal and very conservative groups that ranged from Call to Action, a group actively calling for the church to change its teachings on a host of issues, of which abortion is one, to the St. Pius X Society that rejects the changes in church practices following the Second Vatican Council. Ten years later, the Vatican finally got around to declaring that his judgment in that case was valid. The issue of the legitimacy of a bishop publicly declaring that various individuals should be denied Communion based on the perception of the bishop regarding their opposition–or lack of opposition–to the issue of abortion is still a matter of debate.

  • In 1983, Sister Agnes Monsour was selected to head up Michigan Social Services, the department that provided funding for abortions through Medicaid. Her local bishop, Archbishop Szoka, originally approved her acceptance of the office, asking only that she make a public statement that she opposed abortions while not asking that she try to sidestep Michigan law by cutting off funding as an administrative decision. When Sister Agnes refused to make even a public announcement of her personal convictions, Szoka ordered her to resign the position. In the ensuing hoopla, Bishop Kenneth Povish, the bishop of Lansing where she would carry out her office, stated that he was OK with her decision in a pluralistic society. Eventually, the contest between the archbishop and the sister resulted in her resigning from her order. (I do not recall whether she also left the church, later.) (The issue would be moot, now, as the subsequent changes in Canon Law prohibit all priests and religious from holding public offices.)
27

This sounds like Brain washing to me. I know I was raised to believe that one didn’t dare believe anything the RCC Church didn’t teach because it was the word of God on earth. Now I use my own mind, and if I wanted to call my self Christian I would. I do not, because after much study and observation I no longer believe any religion is better than another or worse. If a person is helped by their faith it is good for them, if they use it to try to force others or for harm then it is a wrong use of their religion. All religions and rules were handed down from human to human and none can prove a devine being started it.

Monavis

28

If you want to attack some group or argue over church decisions, open your own new thread in Great Debates or the BBQ Pit.

This thread asked a specific question regarding the history of a certain position held by the RCC and there is no point in trying to sidetrack that discussion with one’s personal polemics.
[ /Modding ]

29

This is a side issue, but it probably condemns sorcery for much the same reason that you would condemn it: it doesn’t work as advertised. The practice of magic is, in essence, either considered delusional or having truck with demons, and thus a bad thing. Incidentally I disagree with Friar Ted’s translation: pharmakaios doesn’t necessarily refer to herbs or drugs.

30

Most Christians I associate with compare abortion to slavery.

Were many conservative Christians against slavery in the 1800’s? Absolutely. It was a key issue in the United States for many Christians.

Did many Christians have slaves? Of course, and although they were wrong, it does not mean that they were not Christians. I have a hard time believing a genuine Christian could own slaves and be cruel to them, but can imagine a wrong Christian owning slaves and treating them properly. Wrong, but still “saved”.

It’s very similar here. It is wrong for your friend to assume Obama is not a Christian because he supports choice, but rather she/he should think of Obama as a Christian who is wrong. Again, possibly wrong, but still “saved”, if you would.

I hope I made this clear.

:slight_smile:

31

No, it’s from the actual catechism. The “He” refered to is the angel talking to to Tobias from the Book of Tobias in the bible…so it’s:

The full Catechism is here:

http://www.catholicapologetics.info/thechurch/catechism/trentc.htm

32

citing the Didache doesn’t resolve the issue, since there has been considerable debate over the years as to when the prohibition against abortion applies: from conception? from quickening? a certain number of days or weeks into the pregnancy? when the fetus takes a recognizably human shape?

religioustolerance.org has a useful summary of this point: Overview: Evolution of Roman Catholic positions on abortion:

Similarly, the English common law, which was inspired by canon law on this sort of issue, usually made quickening the dividing line for when abortion was prohibited: Abortion in English Law.

So, saying that Christian teaching has traditionally prohibited abortion does not lead necessarily to the current Roman Catholic position, which is based on the principle that life begins at conception.

33

The OP’s (or anyone’s) perception that the Christian opposition to abortion only crystallized in the 20th Century (in the context of an Obama candidacy) is somewhat understandable in view of the lengthy history of theological holding-forth on this issue (Pelosi did indeed put her foot in it by attempting an off-the-cuff summary of RCC doctrinal history, which the Church pretty rapidly got the media to demonstrate, in lengthy chapter-and-verse form, was just wrong).

But the other reason it’s more visible is: the Presidential election is by far the biggest single political event in the U.S. calendar (now). It is in fact the only national election in the U.S. (no referenda, no votes on judges, no votes on cabinet heads). So it becomes or has become the proxy conversation for the issues about which people deeply care (or, to be cynical, can be prodded and pandered to about).

No one would have asked Teddy Roosevelt, or Eisenhower, or Lyndon Johnson, what he thought about abortion. It just wasn’t on the radar. That’s not just because it was a “repressed” society, or because people just didn’t talk about it (though they didn’t), or because it was not considered an option (by the great number of people, I would imagine).

It’s because even if the issue had been a live one, no one would have considered it a Presidential one. No one could have possibly thought laws governing the conditions under which you could, or could not, kill persons, or non-persons (say, hunting regulations, or laws against torturing animals), or how medicine was to be practiced (and not practiced) would be passed anywhere other than where such laws had always been passed, since 1789: the States.

So, in 1958, I would wager that, yes, a large number of Christians/Catholics, if they had thought about it, would have said, of course abortion is wrong. But they wouldn’t have to think about it that often, because they (many of them at least) lived in jurisdictions where that decision/judgment had been memorialized, years ago, in the form of democratically-enacted statutes banning abortion.

Others, who lived in States less heavily-Christian, or where the Christian influence was more nominal than devout, had seen a different pattern, in which democratically-enacted provisions allowed some access to abortion.

The President never entered into any of this calculus, so the nation (as a nation) never needed to discuss it, with each other, or with him. People presumably asked their democratic representatives to enact the laws that the majority of them were comfortable with (and then, presumably, voted with their feet to go to a jurisdiction whose democratically-enacted laws were more amenable to them, if they lost at the ballot box in their home state).

This all changed precisely and only because of the [ridiculous power grab/sublime constitutionally brilliant penumbra-detecting] of the unelected (and that’s important) Solons in Roe.

Absent Roe, the same religiously-motivated viewpoints as have always existed regarding abortion would be, I imagine, being expressed and fought over. It’s just that this would be taking place in the Missouri or Connecticut or Idaho Statehouse, and national coverage of such debates is a single-digit percentage of the coverage of a Presidential race. And – no one would really have to care whether Obama opposed abortion (hey, he’s from Chicago, pretty liberal/Democratic town, but at least nothing he does can affect my ability to life in a state that bans abortion).

Because unelected Judges can now (apparently) decide whether personal opposition to abortion (which is often grounded in Christian belief) can, or cannot, be collectively enacted in laws regulating it, the appointment of those Judges looms large for those who feel strongly on either side of the issue. Hence, the Christian viewpoint is getting exposure (forcing its way onto) the national (and i nternational stage) in a way it never would have otherwise.

34

When did this change, and do you have a cite for it? I ask because Father Raymond Gravel was elected to the Canadian House of Commons in 2006 and the Church didn’t seem to have problems with it at the time. But since then there have been complaints by conservative Catholic groups against him due to his support of abortion and same-sex marriage, so he’s been forbidden to run again in October. He’ll still remain a priest, nobody seems to have a problem with that.

35

Prior to modern medicine (more or less), it was hard to oppose abortion because it wasn’t being done surgically, very openly, or even in the certainty that a given woman was pregnant. If she goes out and drinks some herbal tea, well, it’s pretty hard to stop her.

36

Abortion has always been a major issue, the thing is it was a common problem till around the turn of the 20th Century.

Around 1900, doctors started handling births, medical standards were improving. It was not uncommon for women to die in childbirth at that time. Today births are regrded as happy times, but back then a women expecting wasn’t such a happy thing. What if the mother died, how would the man support a family without her. Who’d look after her kids? Especially in immigrant communities where the birthrate was high and if the immigrant mother died all the relatives were back in the old country.

Children dying in infancy was also not uncommon.

These thing helped shaped the abortion debate.

Today the abortion debate is centered around moral questions, then it was centered around other things.

Abortions are safe today, back then a women could easily die from one.

Back then there was no pill, condoms were available but most people used them wrong so their failure rate was high.

So a woman in 1900 might say “Aboriton’s OK after all what choice does a woman have?” A woman today wouldn’t use that argument, because there are so many other ways and almost no one agrees abortion should be a birth control method.

So it wasn’t till after the pill in 60s when abortion was brought to the spotlight, when abortion and birth stopped resulting in women’s deaths and became strictly an ethical issue.

(And yes I realize women still die from abortions and giving birth, but it is uncommon)

37

This isn’t a direct answer to the OP but I think it is enough on-topic that it can go in GQ.

If Barack Obama cannot be a Christian since he is not opposed to abortion, then how can he be a muslim? I read the Islamic position on abortion
( BBC - Religions - Islam: Abortion ) and I don’t see much difference, if any, between that and what, for example, Methodists have to say ( The United Methodist Church ) Or maybe Methodists are not Christians? If not, perhaps you need to get a definition of Christian before this goes any further.

38

Code of Canon Law promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1983.

(bolding mine)

I note that the Wikipedia article cited says

I am not the board’s expert on Canon Law, so I do not know what sort of authority the bishop actually had to waive that rule or give him a dispensation.

39

In an interesting coincidence Our Sunday Visitor ( a Catholic publication) just addressed some of the issue of the OP. I know its been pretty well answered but I’ll post the link in case someone wants to look at other sources.
OSV

It is the second question down.

40

If you’re saying the president was never involved prior to Roe vs Wade, I agree. But it became a hot political topic a little earlier after a bill was signed into law by California’s governor in 1967 which allowed abortions for the mother’s mental and physical health. Ironically, that law was signed by Ronald Reagan.

I’ve always found it strange how the Roe vs Wade decision, and the entire abortion debate in general, is exactly the same thing many Christian leaders had been saying and debating for hundreds of years, as Northern Piper pointed out.

Just for the record, I have no opinion on the abortion issue, just the irony of the debate.