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> Catholics believe that the soul enters the body at the moment of conception, They don't, though, or at least they didn't always. No less a Church authority t
by Analemma_ 6y ago
> Catholics believe that the soul enters the body at the moment of conception,
They don't, though, or at least they didn't always. No less a Church authority than Saint Thomas Aquinas said ensoulment didn't happen before quickening. The total prohibition on abortion is a relatively recent theological innovation, and this insistence that it has always been thus is one of the things above mentioned that leaves a bad taste in people's mouths can they can plainly see it isn't true.
- gwbas1c 6y agoSpend a little time researching how the Catholic church used to oppose infanticide. The anti-abortion stance makes a lot more sense when put into historical context.
- svieira 6y agoSt. Thomas also held that contraception was wrong, not merely abortion, so the fact that ensoulment didn't happen before quickening (in his learned opinion) didn't change his understanding of how moral contraception and abortion are (he believed they were both gravely sinful). St. Thomas said ensoulment happened at quickening because the science of the time said that the zygote was a simple thing. Given that understanding, St. Thomas held that the rational soul was not necessary to explain the developments that happened and in fact, that the soul which animated such simple matter must be simpler. Modern science tells us that the zygote is anything but simple and so St. Thomas' objection on the basis of a "simple" material component are incorrect. St. Thomas also said that all that he had ever written was "so much straw" after receiving a mystical experience of God's love (not _wrong_, just completely inadequate).