What About the Child? Toward a Catholic Soteriology of Aborted Fetuses (original) (raw)

Abstract

In this essay, I utilize a historical methodology into Catholic thought on abortion, looking toward the foundational viewpoint of original sin as justification for the need to baptize infants for the sake of their salvation. Then, I highlight how abortion has developed and shifted throughout the twentieth century vis-à-vis Papal Encyclicals and Vatican II. Strikingly, there is a resounding silence on the soteriology of aborted fetuses in Canon Law. Finally, I return to the clinical context to indicate the theological tension between the Catholic Church’s foundational belief on the need to baptize and their procedural ethic on the soteriology of aborted fetuses, resulting in the uncertainty of the salvation for unbaptized aborted fetuses.

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Notes

1. Subjective construal refers to the way in which persons make sense of events that occur to them. On the subject of discerning whether an abortion ought to be classified as indirect or direct, Coleman (2013) does a wonderful job describing the 2009 Phoenix abortion case. For further reading, please see Lysaught (2011), Magill (2011), and Austriaco (2011). In short, there was great controversy regarding an abortion performed at a Catholic hospital that left ethicists and theologians divided on whether the abortion ought to be considered indirect or direct, and thus if it was ethically permissible. As a result, the Catholic hospital lost its status as Catholic and the nun who called the ethics committee and permitted the abortion was excommunicated from the Church.
2. While beyond the scope of this paper, the role of nuns in Catholic hospitals is strikingly similar to a Catholic expression of biopolitics, where nuns ensured hospital praxis conformed to Catholic theology. For further reading, please see Foucault (1978).
3. While the Canon is written for Catholic leaders, another contemporary work of literature arose with the intended audience of priests in labor and delivery rooms in the hospital. In 1922, Edward Burke published a manual which translates the Canon into tangible instructions for priests in order to baptize aborted fetuses. His work is written to ensure that terminal fetuses have the opportunity to go to heaven vis-á-vis baptism.
4. For further reading on the discourse of infant limbo and the need to reconcile the salvation of unbaptized infants, please see Ratzinger and Messori (1985), Seewald and Ratzinger (2002).

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1. Department of Chaplaincy, The Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, 410 W 10th Ave, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA
   Collin Olen-Thomas

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Olen-Thomas, C. What About the Child? Toward a Catholic Soteriology of Aborted Fetuses.J Relig Health 64, 413–431 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-024-02166-6

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• Accepted: 21 October 2024
• Published: 06 November 2024
• Version of record: 06 November 2024
• Issue date: February 2025
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-024-02166-6

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