Letters

Abortion (letter)

Bob Denahy

Contents - Sep 2002 - Buy a copy now Editorial: AD2000's Fighting Fund launched - Michael Gilchrist Is the self-destruction of Anglicanism to continue? - Nigel Zimmerman News: The Church Around the World - AD2000 Vocations: Corpus Christi Seminary enrolments bounce back - Michael Gilchrist Promoting Catholic vocations in the Melbourne Archdiocese - Joanne Grainger CHURCH ATTENDANCE: The family, feminism and the declining role of fatherhood - Richard Egan The 1960s 'cultural revolution': from self-sacrifice to self-fulfillment - Fr Gregory Jordan The strange case of Father Damien and Robert Louis Stevenson - Fr F.E. Burns PE Australian Rosary CD wins international recognition - Colleen McGuiness-Howard John Paul II and World Youth Day in Toronto: an Anglican perspective - David Warren Letters: Church design (letter) - Greg Briscoe-Hough Letters: Renovations (letter) Letters: Abortion (letter) - Bob Denahy Letters: Seminaries (letter) - Andrew Sholl Letters: Media complaints (letter) - Michael Daniel Letters: Feminism dead? (letter) Letters: Teaching the faith (letter) - Kevin McBride Letters: Zero tolerance (letter) - J. Dekker Letters: Priestly 'uniform' (letter) - Philip Robinson Letters: Horse and cart (letter) - Arthur Negus Letters: Shakespeare (letter) - John Doherty Letters: Vatican II (letter) - Valentine Gallagher Books: Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception - Bill Muehlenberg (reviewer) Books: The Arians of the Fourth Century, by John Henry Newman - Peter Westmore (reviewer) Books: The Lost Shrine of Liskeard, by Claire Riche - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: Christianity for Buddhists, by Frederick Farrar - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: Think Piece: Religious, Ethical and Moral Values, by Sebastian Camilleri OFM - Mark Posa (reviewer) Marilen Studios: a Christian approach to business - Joe Padero Music: CD specials from AD Books Reflection: The Christian way to spiritual maturity - Fr Dennis W. Byrnes PP

In her excellent review of Abortion and Martyrdom, Tracey Rowland quotes two contributors as stating the Church would need to define the precise point of the infusion of the spiritual soul.

In his book, Redeemer in the Womb, John Saward leaves the reader with not the slightest doubt. He writes: "The rational soul, which is not transmitted by the parents, is infused by God as soon as the body is ready to receive it. It must be suitably organised. St Thomas explains how the human body is suitably disposed by the Divine Artist for those spiritual acts of which only man among bodily creatures is capable."

Saward then quotes L. T. Mangan, SJ: "The human zygote as we understand it today with DNA and RNA would in Thomas' understanding eminently satisfy as having the organised matter required for the infusion of a human spiritual soul." Sawara continues: "Thus man is a natural and complete whole from his conception. The embryo is alive with unmistakably human life. For St Thomas, that is just another way of saying that it is ensouled with a human (rational) soul. 'It' is already 'he' or 'she'."

BOB DENAHY
Kellyville, NSW

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 15 No 8 (September 2002), p. 13