Posted on 08/27/2008 5:52:59 AM PDT by NYer
St. Augustine wasn’t asking whether or not it was okay to kill them. It was a philosophical question about a soul.
Bottom line.... Nancy is still waaay wrong.
The theory of delayed ensoulment was rooted in the fact they didn't really know what was going on inside a woman's womb in ancient times. So was Roe vs. Wade. We now have the "just a mass of cells" and "part of a woman's body" sophistry justifying partial-birth abortion and "live birth" infanticide when clearly a fully-formed human body with the complex nerve and brain function fully developed is there.
In Pelosi's case the delayed ensoulment has taken a very long time since it appears there may be no fully-functioning rational soul present yet.
The idea that a soul was present only after "quickening" or when fetal motion was detected. Pelosi links this with the mystification about "when life begins" as if this is providing reasonable grounds for skepticism among Catholics. Don't miss the equivocation here. Life is a continuous process. All of the cells are always "alive." She is suggesting a fertilized ovum with a full set of human chromosomes may not have a soul (and is not a human "life") because of some ancient speculations of philosophers that Augustine was privy to. The Church's teaching on abortion is not contingent upon that. Whatever the reasons for the theory of delayed ensoulment in ancient times, we know better now from Ultrasound. So why didn't Ms. Pelosi and her staff mention that? The Church agrees with the scientific evidence available today.
Even if someone who adhered to the dualistic theory of delayed ensoulment wasn't sure whether the embryo had reached the stage when the soul was infused into the body, that wouldn't be safe grounds for inducing an abortion. It certainly would not be for partial-birth abortion in the later trimesters or Obama's "live birth" infanticides. What Pelosi said actually undercuts liberal abortion policies because most of these abortions are occurring when "ensoulment" would already have taken place according to these ancient theories! Ha! Take that, Ms. Pelosi, you liberal gasbag moron cretin!
According to the "ensoulment" argument, they should ALL be opposed to partial-birth abortion, "live birth" infanticide, and late abortions. Now if Obama isn't asked this question in a debate, the media isn't doing it's job. There is NO wiggle room for late abortions in Ms. Pelosi's "ensoulment" argument.
You rang?
these mental contortion regarding the philosophical question raised by St Augustine to justify their being Catholic and pro-abortion are the same the left has used successfully to embed in the US psyche the idea Jefferson raised in a letter to the Danbury Baptists of an ‘wall of separation’ as if it were part of the Constitution.
That is sooooo wicked, and so true
Dear Nancy,
Keep digging.
Dear Bishop,
Bravissimo!
Even that wicked old man P. Ovidius Naso had occasional moments of clarity:
Book II Elegy XIV: Against Abortion
Where’s the joy in a girl being free from fighting wars,
unwilling to follow the army and their shields,
if without battle she suffers wounds from her own weapons,
and arms unsure hands to her own doom?
Whoever first taught the destruction of a tender foetus,
deserved to die by her own warlike methods.
No doubt you’d chance your arm in that dismal arena
just to keep your belly free of wrinkles with your crime?
If the same practice had pleased mothers of old,
Humanity would have been destroyed by that violation.
and we’d need a creator again for each of our peoples
to throw the stones that made us onto the empty earth.
Who would have shattered the wealth of Priam, if Thetis,
the sea goddess, had refused to carry her rightful burden?
If Ilia had murdered the twins in her swollen womb,
the founder of my mistress’s City would have been lost.
If Venus had desecrated her belly, pregnant with Aeneas,
Earth would have been bereft of future Caesars.
You too, with your beauty still to be born, would have died,
if your mother had tried what you have done:
I myself would be better to die making love
than have been denied the light of day by my mother.
Why rob the loaded vine of burgeoning grapes,
or pluck the unripe apple with cruel hand?
Let things mature themselves – grow without being forced:
life is a prize that’s worth a little waiting.
Why submit your womb to probing instruments,
or give lethal poison to what is not yet born?
Medea is blamed for sprinkling the blood of her children,
and Itys, slain by his mother, is lamented with tears:
both cruel parents, yet both had bitter reason
to shed blood, revenge on a husband.
Say, what Tereus, what Jason incites you
to pierce your troubled body with your hand?
No tiger in its Armenian lair would do it,
no lioness would dare destroy her foetus.
But tender girls do it, though not un-punished:
often she who kills her child, dies herself.
She dies, and is carried to the pyre with loosened hair,
and whoever looks on cries out: ‘She deserved it!’
But let these words vanish on the ethereal breeze,
and let my imprecations have no weight!
You gods, prosper her: let her first sin go, in safety,
and be satisfied: you can punish her second crime!
The Lord was pretty clear about murder wita.
So we must have a semantic problem which maybe we should explore.
What do you call it when a human being intentionally kills another human being who is guilty of nothing?
If you tell a lie often enough, and loudly enough, people believe it's the truth.
So good on the bishops for FINALLY speaking up!
The theory was pagan (Aristotelian), which +Augustine accepted. But, this cannot be a modern argument of feminist Catholic activists such as Pelosi, or her soulmates Biden, Kerry, etc.
As Catholics they are all bound to accept the dogma of Immaculate Conception which states very clearly that the Blessed Ever-Vrigin Mary was endowed with God's grace at the moment of her conception (by her parents).
The theory of delayed ensoulment speculates (probably based on observed forms of different gestantional stages of aborted fetuses) that what was inside the womb didn't always "look" human—since fetus (especially in the first trimenster) undergoes morphological changes that include such characteristics as gills, and other animal-like features—and therefore wasn't human.
But the dogma of Immaculate Conception puts this to rest, since God would not make a plant or an animal full of grace.
Pelosi, and the company that agrees with her, are preaching and practicing heresy, plain and simple. They can always become Anglicans. Anything goes there.
She has been informed of her error by several bishops. If she is too retarded to read, a member of her staff should explain it to her orally. If she continues to persist in error, she should be formally excommunicated and denied Catholic burial.
Sounds fair! :)
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