Conference vmszoo::catholic-theology

1430.0. "Yes, ALL humans have souls" by WRKSYS::HOLT () Mon Apr 28 1997 16:51

    
    Just throwing this in to (a) debunk a "myth" that is going around and
    (b) liven up the ol' Catholic notesfile...
    
    A theologian from the Pope somebody institute (it's here in
    Massachusetts; it's NOT the Pope Paul VI Institute out in the mid-West)
    CLEARLY stated on Mother Angelica that children who were conceived
    through in-vitro fertilization DO, in fact, have souls!
    
    Apparently there is a rumor out there - very disturbing to people, of
    course - that these children don't have souls.  This guy made it VERY
    CLEAR that they DO, just as other children conceived by less than
    morally acceptable circumstances (out-of-wedlock) or even evil
    circumstances (rape, incest) are HUMAN beings.  He went on to link the
    fact that they are HUMAN, no matter what the circumstances, to the
    difficult questions of abortion ("the Church doesn't allow abortion,
    even in the case of RAPE?!?!?"), and explained that the humanness is
    not at all diminished by the difficulty of the circumstances.
    
    He went on to say that IF mankind were to step into the scary world of
    cloning humans, that the cloned person would be HUMAN and have a SOUL. 
    
    

Most likely the Pope John Center for the Study of Ethics in Health Care,
located in Braintree.

		http://www.pjcenter.org/pjc/