What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

In another thread Fr. Fox asked:

I know you are busy, so I understand you may not have time to deal with this; but I’d love to hear your take on one section of the Roman Canon as it appears in the new translation:

"For them and all who are dear to them we offer you this sacrifice of praise or they offer it for themselves and all who are dear to them, for the redemption of their souls, in hope of health and well-being, and fulfilling their vows to you, the eternal God, living and true."

I’d be delighted to hear any comments you have, if you have time.

Here is how I examined and translated it a few years back when in my WDTPRS columns I worked through the Eucharistic Prayers.  I wrote this back in 2004, I think (my new emphases).  Keep in mind the usual caveats, namely, I was not trying to write something smooth and liturgically appropriate, but rather something a version which stuck closely to the text while cracking the bone of the words and looking at the marrow:

This week’s section is called the “Memento of the Living” in which the priest presents living persons in a particular way to God’s special care.  Later in the Canon there is a similar moment for the dead.  This is very ancient.  We have a letter of Pope Innocent I (402-417) in which he expresses a desire that names of those offering the gifts and sacrificial offerings be included.   What he writes is too vague for us to understand how this was done, though reasonably we can assume names were read aloud.  Perhaps while the bishop/priest was silent another cleric announced their names. 

In Frankish lands Charlemagne commanded that the names should be read publicly during the canon.  Later, the canon was recited silently and so the public reading of names dropped away.  Perhaps the names of the people were whispered into the ear of the celebrant.  Sometimes lists of names were laid on the altar.  Even today such a custom can be seen regarding prayer for the dead during November when offering envelopes are placed on or near the altar for the whole month.  

With the Missal promulgated by Pope Pius V after the Council of Trent the priest in silence could pray for a moment for those whom he might choose to remember, especially for those who offered the stipend for the Mass and their intentions. 

In the 2002MR the twofold inclusion of “N.” (abbreviation for nomen, “name”) and the more audible recitation of the Eucharistic Prayer suggests that priest may speak the names aloud if he so desires. 

“Memento, Domine” – The Memento of the Living

LATIN TEXT (2002MR):
Memento, Domine, famulorum, famularumque tuarum N. et N. et omnium circumstantium, quorum tibi fides cognita est, et nota devotio, pro quibus tibi offerimus: vel qui tibi offerunt hoc sacrificium laudis pro se suisque omnibus: pro redemptione animarum suarum, pro spe salutis, et incolumitatis suae: tibique reddunt vota sua aeterno Deo, vivo et vero.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Remember, Lord, your people, especially those for whom we now pray, N. et N.  Remember all of us gathered here before you. You know how firmly we believe in you and dedicate ourselves to you. We offer you this sacrifice of praise for ourselves and those who are dear to us. We pray to you, our living and true God, for our well-being and redemption.

In English we know the noun “memento” is “keepsake” which reminds of the past.   In Latin this is a verb form.  The comprehensive Lewis & Short Dictionary says that this form memento, an imperative form of the verb memini (an irregular verb having forms in the perfect tense), means “to remember, recollect, to think of, be mindful of a thing; not to have forgotten a person or thing, to bear in mind.”   

There is a nice Roman tradition associated with this word.  During my first experience of living in Rome, I said Mass nearly every morning at St. Peter’s Basilica.   I learned there, from many older clerics and canons of the basilica that when one encounters a priest who is about to say Mass (whether you personally are a layman or a cleric) it is customary to say to him “Memento!”, which is a request that the priest be mindful of you and remember you also as he celebrates the Sacrifice of the Mass.   The gentleman priest at that point ought to respond something like “Memor ero… I will be mindful” or “Libenter… willingly” or “Libentissime…. Most willingly”.   This is a genteel custom that could be happily reintroduced. 

Every Mass can be suitably offered for the living and the dead.   Customs like this also help to reinforce in the priest the conviction that what he does really has an effect in the world, consecrating the Eucharist and completing the Sacrifice with the consumption of the species really accomplishes something.   Far and wide fewer people are giving priests and parishes stipends for Mass intentions for the living and the dead.  Often there is often only one priest with one Mass at each parish.  Also, often the efficacious dimension of Mass, transcending distances and even the threshold of death, has been deemphasized in favor of a horizontal affirmation of the assembly gathered in that moment.  I frequently meet people who long to have Masses said for their loved ones, living and dead, and cannot find priests willing or available to do so.   The diminishing number of priests is of grave concern in yet another way, it seems.  But I digress….

Famulus, i and feminine famula appear with frequency in Mass prayers.  Etymologically famulus seems to be from Oscan (an ancient cousin of Latin) faama meaning “house”.  A famulus is someone who belongs to the house or household as a servants, slave or free.  In the ancient world, the famuli were members of the household, the larger family.   Whole households, family and servants, would convert and become Christians together. 

Circumstantium is an active participle of circumsto, which means “to stand around in a circle, to take a station round; and, with the accusative, to stand around a person or thing, to surround, encircle, encompass.”  The people who are circumstantes are those who are “standing around”, not in a sense of being idle, but of location.  In more ancient manuscripts this was circum adstantes.  Standing for the whole Canon was the practice for the first thousand years or so.   As our understanding of the Real Presence grew and deepened, the practice of kneeling developed.  This is not some historical encrustation that needed to be scraped off of the Mass in a desire to return to the “pristine” way of liturgy.   Circum means “around” but that does not mean that in the ancient Church people literally stoop in a circle about the altar.  In Roman basilicas the altar was between the presbytery, the large semicircular part of the apse where the clerics, especially priest(s) were properly situated, and the nave, the proper place of the faithful.  Often there is found a semi-circular area in front of altars which was the entrance to the crypt below and the remains of martyrs were found.  The most famous of these is the “Confession” of St. Peter’s Basilica.  If there were transepts, the people were then on three sides of the altar, but in no way standing around the altar in any close or proximate way. 

Briefly, devotio can be seen as "a devotion to duty". With true “devotion” we keep the commandments of God and the duties of our state before all else.  If we are truly devoted (in the sense of active virtue) to fulfilling the duties of our state as it truly is here and now, then God will give us every actual grace we need to fulfill our vocation.  We are, in effect, fulfilling our proper role in His great plan and thus God is sure to help us.  Incolumitas signifies, “good condition, soundness, safety” which can refer to both bodily and spiritual wellness.   Nosco, “gives us nota while cognosco, “thoroughly acquainted with; acknowledge; etc.” provides cognita est.  Votum is from voveo.   It means first of all “a solemn promise made to some deity, a vow” and then also “thing solemnly promised, that which is vowed or devoted”.  Eventually this means a “vow”, especially a marriage vow.   Vel is a complicated little particle that usually means something like “or, else” but can function as an intensifier like “or even, if you will, or indeed, or … itself, even, assuredly, certainly.”

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Be mindful, O Lord, of Your household servants and handmaids N. and N., and of all the bystanders here whose faith and recognized vocational devotion is completely known to You, for whom we are making this sacrificial offering to You: and who assuredly also are offering to You this Sacrifice of praise for themselves and for all of their own loved ones: on behalf of the redemption of their own souls, for the hope of their own salvation and well-being: they also offer back their own solemnly promised sacrificial offerings to You Eternal God, Living and True. 

I suppose I should be saying something more literal and politically acceptable like “Your male and female servants”.  Sometimes “colleagues” might do given the exaltation of the community nearly to God’s own level in some places.  Suus is a possessive pronoun which refers back to the subject of the sentence.   When used in the form of a substantive, sui , suorum, m., we have “his, their (etc.) friends, soldiers, fellow-beings, equals, adherents, followers, partisans, posterity, slaves, family, etc., of persons in any near connection with the antecedent.”  This is why I choose “all of their own loved ones” for suisque omnibus wherein again we have the language of a large household in an ancient sense. 

There you go.

I haven’t had the chance yet to examine closely what the new Ordinary says.   Maybe next year, if the WDPTRS project continues.

Here is a test of a new ap for Wordpress on my phone. Photo and post is directly from the phone.

Someone sent me a copy of the article in America by Bp. Galeone, who helped spearhead the USCCB’s rejection of a section of the new translation of the Missale Romanum.

However, the article is in the hated PDF format, nice to print… pretty much impossible to work with otherwise.

There it is.  Too much work right now.

To fend off death by starvation, a nice bowl of very authentic Dan Dan Mian will work. 



After the xiao long bao, of course (NB: two "missing").



I also had some Gui Chow Ji

PENJING REPORT

Wow!  What is going on with Penjing?



There is some serious growth here.

Hmmm… I go away for three days and look what happened.

Quite often the UPS or FEDEX truck zips up the drive to leave wonderful treasures! 

Today, however, I had to go to the post office to collect a surprise.

Having returned to the Sabine Farm, I examined my mystery missive:



hmmm… from Singapore...



With a card….

"Fr. Z, Pax et bonum.  I hope this letter finds you.  Please find in the parcel a Low Mass Set specially for you, as a gift from CharbelVestments…."

Here they are!

The vestments are silk and hand embroidered.

And… a view of the hand embroidery.



From the letter:

"My two friends, a very experienced vestment-maker and a skillful embroiderer, were appalled when I told them the prices of embroidered sets offered on certain websites.  We prayed about it and decided to make our own embroidered sets…. at affordable prices."



And you can click this one below to see a larger image.



I very much like these vestments.  

They are beautiful, with good materials, and well made.

They are certainly dignified.  They would cost far less than other embroidered vestments I have seen.  Far less.

These could be good for TLM communities getting their start as well as for parishes who want to present the Novus Ordo in continuity with our Roman Tradition.

Here is their website: charbelvestments.com  Please click over and look at the photos.

In the letter the writer, said that they are going to expand into solemn sets and perhaps also the taglio filipino, the style that Pope Benedict has used a few times (my favorite).   I very much hope they will also make solemn sets.

It strikes me that these folks have very good will, good skills, the right vision, a worthy project and, what is more, they seem truly to love the Church and her liturgy.

"Our dream is to have sacristies all over the world replenished with new embroidered pieces."

The only thing I think I regret about these vestments so far, is that I cannot change the color and use them every day.

For the first time I looked at the blog called Catholic America: A closer look at Church, Culture and Change, by Anthony Stevens-Arroyo which is a feature of Newsweek/Washington Post.

Watch how this writer ascribes to Pelosi a position she didn’t have.  She was talking about "when life begins" and he shifts this to "when conception takes place".  And he does so with vile intent, I think, and consequences.

My emphases and comments.

The Archbishop, the House Speaker and the Abortion Dance [an image which, I think, degrades the issue]

After House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke about the abortion issue in a television interview, Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington issued a clarifying statement. Rather than a put-down as some had expected, however, the Archbishop did a dance with her.

In the interview, Pelosi had said that the Democratic Party’s position reflected the religious pluralism of the country. Uncertainty about when life begins was understandable, she said, because the theological history of even the Catholic Church had produced varying opinions about when exactly the "moment of conception" takes place.  [This is the lead up to the assertion that conception is separated from fertilization.] The Archbishop admitted that there had been changes in opinion about when conception takes place, [Umm… No… he didn’t.  He admits changes in knowledge of embryology, but he doesn’t talk about changes in the view of the moment of conception.  There was a debate, of course, about when human life begins.] but insisted that the teaching of the Church has always safeguarded that moment. [No.  It safeguards human life.  What the Church has always held is that abortion is evil.  Now, that term abortion is applied to what exists after the moment of fertilization.  What the writer is going to try to do is separation fertilization from conception.] The House Speaker had talked about the scientific dimension of the issue: [Right.  Scientific.  Right.  She started out saying she was an "ardent Catholic".  No.  She was talking theology, not science.] the Archbishop emphasized the theological (or metaphysical) definition. They were moving in lock-step but in different directions – just like partners in a dance.  [For pity’s sake: look how far we are from intelligent conversation about this issue?]

Other bishops continue to repeat the theological opinion, [That word "opinion" weakens what the bishops are repeating.] which of course they should do. However, while theologians can speak authoritatively about the need to respect the moment of conception, [Again, watch out for the trap down the line.  He is trying separated conception from the moment of fertilization.] it is "above their pay grade" to put on a biologist cap and define scientifically when that moment occurs.  [HERE WE GO!  Read carefully:] Fertility doctors, who are the experts on this matter, distinguish between a "fertilized egg" and "conception." Only when the embryo is implanted in the womb does it achieve conception, they say. In fact, it would appear that in normal circumstances a significant number of fertilized eggs – perhaps as high as 30%—never reach conception. 

[Several points here.  Whatever it is that exists after fertilization, it is nothing other than a human something.  A deliberate action on our part to kill it directly, or kill it by preventing implantation is wrong.  That is the Church’s teaching.  However, if through natural reasons whatever it is fails to implant properly, there is no moral delict.  Thus a drug or device that prevents implantation of a fertilized egg, a blastocyst, is not and contraceptive.  It is an abortifacient.  But this fellow, who is pushing the line favored by Planned Parenthood, separates the moment of conception away from fertilization.  Thus, those drugs or devices are, in that view contraceptives: they prevent conception which would, in that view, occur from implantation.

This is pushed by Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion, pro-experimentation types.

The consequences of separation of conception from the moment of fertilization?  You can do anything you want to that thing there, that fertilized egg or blastocyst.  So long as it is not implanted, you can kill it, freeze it, experiement on it, clone it, harvest elements of it, morph it into something else by putting genetic matter from say, yaks into it.  There are no moral consequences.

Watch what he does now….]

Now, Catholic teaching instructs us that even if an embryo is not yet conceived, it has that potential. [No.  Conception takes place at fertilization.  The writer has plowed ahead, forcing the Church’s teaching into his own premise that conception and fertilization are separate.]  The embryo is human life, even if undifferentiated cells do not constitute a fetus or a functioning human person. Moreover, the embryo is biologically not part of the woman’s body in its cellular composition, even if it is not viable outside of the woman’s body. While these distinctions might resemble angels dancing [again that word] on the head of a pin to most of the public, they are important to theologians. [They are important to everyone.] It is heavy stuff, not easily reducible to bumper-sticker sloganeering – although there seem to be quite a lot of dummies who try to trivialize Catholic teaching that way.  [How condescending.]

Unfortunately, this avoids the real issue for bishops and politicians alike: [Okay… what does he think is the real issue?] Does Catholic teaching bind non-Catholics?  [That’s the real issue?!?] For instance, the United Church of Christ – Senator Obama’s denomination – has a different teaching about abortion than the Catholic Church: Are Catholic voters obliged by their bishops to take away the right of Protestants (or Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc.) to practice their religion (or atheists to be atheists) in the U.S.? I am sure that there are some Catholics who will cite Pope Pius IX that "Error has no rights."  In that interpretation, Catholics in America are bound in conscience to be subversive, to undermine democracy and impose a religious test on candidates, officials and legislation even if in so doing they contradict the Constitution of the United States.  [This is absurd.  Whatever the teachings of other religions or denominations, the issue of the moment of conception (fertilization) can be discussed simply on a natural basis.  Also, when Catholics practice their religion, adhere to their views, and act on them, they are not subverting the Constitution.  The Constitution upholds the rights of people, even Catholics!, to practice their religion.  If a Catholic, bound in conscience to accept the the Church’s (and common senses) teaching that human life begins at the moment of fertilization, votes for candidate X because he is pro-choice, that is not a subversion of the Constitution, just because someone disagrees with the Church’s teaching.  When Methodists pushed prohibition, did any say that the Constitution was being subverted because for German Catholics beer was a part of a normal diet?  Does anyone give a damn that when Roe v Wade or Doe v Bolton affect the laws of the land, Catholic taxpayers were affected?  Did anyone complain that the Constitution was being undermined when those SCOTUS opinions came down even though clearly Catholics think abortion is evil?  Moreover, if a person decides to impose a religious test on a candidate, he is free to do so.  What the Constitution prevents is that the State impose a religious test.   Voting, either at the ballot box or on the bench of the Supreme Court, results in victory for some, loss for others.  But the expression of religious views in the public square is not subversion of the Constitution.  My view and vote does not take away the rights of a secular humanist or indistinct Protestant.

And… btw… the real issue is the sanctity of human life.  The Constitution is just fine.  What this guy is really suggesting is that Catholics shouldn’t say anything in the public square that might contradict the side that wants to be able to kill or experiment on unimplanted embryos, whether in the womb or in a dish.]

Speaker Pelosi and Vice-Presidential candidate Joe Biden clearly do not interpret their Catholicism in ways that would be anti-American or be subversive of civil rights of non-Catholics.  [No, but that is not the point.  Is he just being obtuse?  They are a) dead wrong about their interpretation of Church teaching and b) not competent to interpret that teaching for others, much less competent to change that teaching.  Stating that has nothing to do with civil rights.] (We could add names of other Catholics and Republicans like Rudolph Giuliani to this list of pro-American Catholics.)  [I think he just suggested that expressing a religious view that abortion is wrong from the moment of fertilization onwards is… un-American.  Is that what just happened?] I have read the bishops’ statement on Faithful Citizenship and it clearly settles this issue in favor of small-d democrats everywhere. However, so as long as the bishops give theological answers to political questions, they expose our faith to confused charges of infidelity to the American way. [Which is… I think… what this guy just did.] Speaker Pelosi is no dummy: [QED] she spoke correctly from her perspective, [I love it.] just as the Archbishop did from his. [Even better.  Picture two Catholics: one is a Catholic lay woman who is a public figure, and one is successor of the apostles, the officially appointed pastor of the diocese in which the other has some sort of domicle, the Archbishop.  The Archbishop lays out what the Church teaches.  The laywoman responds: "Well, that might be true for you. I have a different view."]  It would be a service to Catholics everywhere if the bishops articulated more clearly the need to distinguish between theological teaching and political decision-making. Keep Catholic political leaders and bishops on the dance floor of the public square, I say! [Notice that dances, though interesting and even energetic, don’t go anywhere but in circles?]  The public needs to see the careful intricacy we undergo in living within our shared Catholic conviction. I think the two concerns of theology and democracy can make beautiful music together.

Posted by Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo on September 2, 2008 9:55 AM

A couple things.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi wasn’t asked questions about when "conception" begins or what the relationship is between fertilization and conception.  She was asked when human life begins.  She effectively responded that it didn’t matter, that it is okay to kill whatever is there anyway, and that right to kill is should be a matter of choice, human life or not.

The Church’s leaders are clear that human life begins at the moment of fertilization, which is not to be separated from conception.

The writer things Archbp. Wuerl was in on some kind of dance.  I don’t think so.  I was disappointed that His Excellency did not make a clear statement about Catholic pro-abortion politicians, but he was not fuzzy on the beginning of human life.

In his statement he wrote, he quotes CCC 2270 which speaks about "the moment of conception".  Fine so far.  That could go either way.  But then he writes:

"the biological evidence today that human life – a human being – begins at conception. Whatever the theories and embryology from ealier centuries may have been, today all of the sceintific reasearch clearly confirms that the coming together of a human sperm and egg begins a new human life.  The scientific position concerning the embryological origins of humans has become clearly elucidated during the past century in a manner that provides overwhelming empirical evidence of the contunity of the life of a human being.  that continuity extends from the joining of a sperm and eff through its stages as an embryo, a fetus, an infant, a child, an adolescent, and adult and a senior on to natural death.

Human life begins at fertilization.  Fertilization is the moment of conception.  What has been conceived is a human being.  And so the "continuity" Wuerl writes of must be extended to implanted or not-yet-implanted blastocysts.

The AmericanPapist, when he is not helping us keep Speaker Pelosi’s grand anti-Catholic gaf in the public eye, is exploring the olfactory:

It claims – wait for it – to be the "Private Formula of Pope Pius IX." I’m not kidding.

If anything deserved to be in Pope Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors – this is it!

Has anyone out there actually tried this stuff?

Look what I found.  

It is available through amazon.com!    $25.95

I would put it on my wish list… but… well…

Gralloching Nancy Pelosi on the ineffable WDTPRS gibbet:

An editorial: Opportunity

My recent entries about Speak Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and what she said about the Catholic Church’s stand on when human life begins:

• USCCB fact sheet about the Church’s teaching on human life
  
• NBC’s Tom Brokaw defends Speaker Pelosi’s statements
  
• “Clarifications” from Archbp. Wuerl! Priests of Washington DC preach on human life
  
• List of bishops who responded to Speaker Pelosi
  
• Reactions to Speaker Pelosi keep coming
  
• Archbp. Chaput on Fox News about Speaker Pelosi
  
• WDTPRS Pelosi parody songs
  
• List of bishops who responded to Speaker Pelosi
  
• Bp. Murphy of Rockville Centre on Nancy Pelosi’s errors about human life
  
• Archbp. Chaput on Fox News about Speaker Pelosi
  
• George Weigel about Obama, Pelosi, Biden on human life
  
• AP: Pelosi gets unwanted lesson in Catholic theology
  
• De abortu (1974) and Speaker Pelosi
  
• The Hill: GOP demands Pelosi apologize for mangling Catholic teaching
  
• What Does Augustine Really Say? (What does Pelosi not understand?) – IMPORTANT
• BLOGGERS UNITE! Keep shaping the conversation on pro-abortion Catholic politicians
  
• Exceptionally good article on the pro-abortion politician issue
  
• Newspaper of Archd. of SanFran on Speaker Pelosi
  
• Consider
  
• Pelosi’s spokesman responds with more gobbledygook, quotes Augustine again – IMPORTANT
  
• Politico: Pelosi a ‘religious heretic,’ says former GOP Rep
  
• FoxNews: reactions of bishops to Nancy Pelosi’s remarks
  
• Catholic House Republicans respond to Speaker Pelosi (D-CA)
  
• American Bishops respond to Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
  
• Washington’s Archbp. Wuerl responds to Speaker Pelosi (D-CA)
  
• NY’s Card. Egan responds to Rep. Pelosi
  
• Archbp. Chaput (RC-Denver) vs. Speaker Pelosi (D-CA)
• An ancient Roman poet vs. some Catholic politicians
• NatRev: Lopez on Pelosi’s gaffs on the beginning of life
  
• Rush vivisecting Speaker Pelosi
  
• Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on when human life begins 

PS: "to gralloch" means "to disembowel a deer".

Before her next television interview, perhaps "ardent Catholic" Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) should study this from the USCCB:

Respect for Unborn Human Life: The Church’s Constant Teaching

Fact sheet by the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities. Click here to print as a PDF.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law” (No. 2271). 

In response to those who say this teaching has changed or is of recent origin, here are the facts:

• From earliest times, Christians sharply distinguished themselves from surrounding pagan cultures by rejecting abortion and infanticide.  The earliest widely used documents of Christian teaching and practice after the New Testament in the 1st and 2nd centuries, the Didache (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) and Letter of Barnabas, condemned both practices, as did early regional and particular Church councils. 
  
  
• To be sure, knowledge of human embryology was very limited until recent times.  Many Christian thinkers accepted the biological theories of their time, based on the writings of Aristotle (4th century BC) and other philosophers.  Aristotle assumed a process was needed over time to turn the matter from a woman’s womb into a being that could receive a specifically human form or soul.  The active formative power for this process was thought to come entirely from the man – the existence of the human ovum (egg), like so much of basic biology, was unknown. 
  
  
• However, such mistaken biological theories never changed the Church’s common conviction that abortion is gravely wrong at every stage.  At the very least, early abortion was seen as attacking a being with a human destiny, being prepared by God to receive an immortal soul (cf. Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you”).
  
  
• In the 5th century AD this rejection of abortion at every stage was affirmed by the great bishop-theologian St. Augustine.  He knew of theories about the human soul not being present until some weeks into pregnancy.  Because he used the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, he also thought the ancient Israelites had imposed a more severe penalty for accidentally causing a miscarriage if the fetus was “fully formed” (Exodus 21: 22-23), language not found in any known Hebrew version of this passage.  But he also held that human knowledge of biology was very limited, and he wisely warned against misusing such theories to risk committing homicide.  He added that God has the power to make up all human deficiencies or lack of development in the Resurrection, so we cannot assume that the earliest aborted children will be excluded from enjoying eternal life with God.
  
  
• In the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas made extensive use of Aristotle’s thought, including his theory that the rational human soul is not present in the first few weeks of pregnancy.  But he also rejected abortion as gravely wrong at every stage, observing that it is a sin “against nature” to reject God’s gift of a new life.
  
  
• During these centuries, theories derived from Aristotle and others influenced the grading of penalties for abortion in Church law.  Some canonical penalties were more severe for a direct abortion after the stage when the human soul was thought to be present.  However, abortion at all stages continued to be seen as a grave moral evil. 
  
  
• From the 13th to 19th centuries, some theologians speculated about rare and difficult cases where they thought an abortion before “formation” or “ensoulment” might be morally justified.  But these theories were discussed and then always rejected, as the Church refined and reaffirmed its understanding of abortion as an intrinsically evil act that can never be morally right.
  
  
• In 1827, with the discovery of the human ovum, the mistaken biology of Aristotle was discredited. Scientists increasingly understood that the union of sperm and egg at conception produces a new living being that is distinct from both mother and father.  Modern genetics demonstrated that this individual is, at the outset, distinctively human, with the inherent and active potential to mature into a human fetus, infant, child and adult.  From 1869 onward the obsolete distinction between the “ensouled” and “unensouled” fetus was permanently removed from canon law on abortion.
  
  
• Secular laws against abortion were being reformed at the same time and in the same way, based on secular medical experts’ realization that “no other doctrine appears to be consonant with reason or physiology but that which admits the embryo to possess vitality from the very moment of conception” (American Medical Association, Report on Criminal Abortion, 1871).
  
  
• Thus modern science has not changed the Church’s constant teaching against abortion, but has underscored how important and reasonable it is, by confirming that the life of each individual of the human species begins with the earliest embryo.
  
  
• Given the scientific fact that a human life begins at conception, the only moral norm needed to understand the Church’s opposition to abortion is the principle that each and every human life has inherent dignity, and thus must be treated with the respect due to a human person.  This is the foundation for the Church’s social doctrine, including its teachings on war, the use of capital punishment, euthanasia, health care, poverty and immigration.  Conversely, to claim that some live human beings do not deserve respect or should not be treated as “persons” (based on changeable factors such as age, condition, location, or lack of mental or physical abilities) is to deny the very idea of inherent human rights.  Such a claim undermines respect for the lives of many vulnerable people before and after birth.

For more information:  Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Procured Abortion (1974), nos. 6-7; John R. Connery, S.J., Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective (1977); Germain Grisez, Abortion: The Myths, the Realities, and the Arguments (1970), Chapter IV; U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, On Embryonic Stem Cell Research (2008); Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (1995), nos. 61-2.