Changes

|url=https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+1%3A16&version=AKJV

|title=Matthew 1:16

|publisher=Authorized King James Version

|date=1611

|title=Luke 2-4-5

|url=https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+2%3A4-5&version=AKJV

|publisher=Authorized King James Version

|date=1611

|accessdate=2022-08-15

}}</ref> Israel was a Jewish nation where [[Judaism]] was the prevailing religion. Jesus was [[circumcised]] on the eighth day in accordance with the [[Abrahamic covenant]].<ref>{{REFweb

|title=Luke 2:21

|url=https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+2%3A21&version=AKJV

|publisher=Authorized King James Version

|date=1611

|accessdate=2022-08-15

}}</ref>

|title=Luke 24:51

|url=https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+24%3A51&version=AKJV

|publisher=Authorized King James Version

|date=1611

|accessdate=2022-08-15

}}</ref> an issue arose among his followers as to whether it was necessary for Christians to be [[circumcised]] in accordance with the [[Abrahamic covenant]], as advocated by the [[Judaizer]] party.

|title=Acts of the Apostles 15:20-31

|url=https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+15%3A20-31&version=KJV

|accessdate=2022-08-13

}}</ref> This remains the general view of Christians to this day with the exception of the Copts, a denomination in Egypt, which requires circumcision.

The Roman Catholic Church has issued the following relevant documents.

The Roman Catholic Church convened an ecumenical council at Florence in the Fifteenth Century to establish relations with eastern churches. A papal bull was published in connection with this ecumenical council. The Bull said in part:

|Title=Bull of Union with the Copts

|Text=It [The Holy Roman Church] firmly believes, professes and teaches that the legal prescriptions of the old Testament or the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, holy sacrifices and sacraments, because they were instituted to signify something in the future, although they were adequate for the divine cult of that age, once our lord Jesus Christ who was signified by them had come, came to an end and the sacraments of the new Testament had their beginning. Whoever, after the passion, places his hope in the legal prescriptions and submits himself to them as necessary for salvation and as if faith in Christ without them could not save, sins mortally. It does not deny that from Christ's passion until the promulgation of the gospel they could have been retained, provided they were in no way believed to be necessary for salvation. But it asserts that after the promulgation of the gospel they cannot be observed without loss of eternal salvation. Therefore it denounces all who after that time observe circumcision, the sabbath and other legal prescriptions as strangers to the faith of Christ and unable to share in eternal salvation, unless they recoil at some time from these errors. Therefore it strictly orders all who glory in the name of Christian, not to practise circumcision either before or after baptism, since whether or not they place their hope in it, it cannot possibly be observed without loss of eternal salvation.

|ref=<ref>{{REFweb

|url=http://www.cirp.org/library/cultural/councilflorence/

|title=Bull of Union with the Copts

|date=1442-02-04

|accessdate=2022-08-14

|Comment=

}}

The Catechism of the Catholic Church was promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1992. It was published in Latin with translations in English and Spanish. The English version was released in 1994. It aims to summarize, in book form, the main beliefs of the Catholic Church. A revised edition was published in 1997.

|Text=Kidnapping and hostage taking bring on a reign of terror; by means of threats they subject their victims to intolerable pressures. They are morally wrong. Terrorism threatens, wounds, and kills indiscriminately; it is gravely against justice and charity.

Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity. Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.

|ref=<ref name="catechism1992">{{REFdocument

|title=Catechism of the Catholic Church

|url=https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P80.HTM

|publisher=The Roman Catholic Church

|date=1994

|accessdate=2022-08-14

}}</ref>

}}

There are several significant Catholic comments. They are listed in chronological order of publication.

{{Citation

|Text=The general rule regarding mutilation is this, that mutilation is licit only when necessary for preserving the health of the whole body. The reason that the scope of justifiable mutilations is thus limited is that man has the supreme ownership neither of the whole body nor of its various parts, and that he is therefore not permitted to treat them as though he were the supreme owner. Man is merely the custodian of his body and its parts. Directly to destroy the body or one of its parts is to exercise over that object supreme ownership. One cannot act more clearly in a manner that implies ownership over a thing than by destroying it, for by so doing he puts an end to its very existence.

|Author=Father Edwin F. Healy, S.J.

|ref=<ref>{{REFbook

|last=Healy

|first=Edwin

|year=1956

|title=Medical Ethics

|url=https://www.catholicsagainstcircumcision.org/ethics-of-mutilation/

|accessdate=2022-08-15

}}</ref>

}}

{{Citation

|Title=The morality of circumcision

|Author=Fr. John J. Dietzen, M.A.

|Source=The Question Box

|ref=<ref>{{REFweb

|url=https://www.catholicsagainstcircumcision.org/the-morality-of-circumcision/

|last=Dietzen

|first=John J.

|date=2004-10

|accessdate=2022-08-15

|Comment=

}}

{{Citation

|Title=To Circumcise or Not to Circumcise?

Barring religious obligation, there is little to recommend routine neonatal male circumcision. If promoting the dignity and respect of every human person is a priority for the United States and for Catholic health care, then it is time to better educate the public about this issue and protect those who are the most vulnerable in our society. Doing so is not only a social responsibility; it is a moral imperative as well.

|Author=Father Peter A. Clark, S.J., Ph.D.

|ref=<ref>{{REFjournal

|last=Clark

|init=PA

|url=https://www.chausa.org/publications/health-progress/article/september-october-2006/to-circumcise-or-not-to-circumcise-

|title=To Circumcise or Not to Circumcise?

There is much fine, elegant language that tells us why it is immoral and a violation of the moral law to inflict a non-therapeutic circumcision. How does it work out in practice?

The institution and implementation of the moral law against mutilation and amputation has been a general failure.

* Central and South America from Mexico south to Chile are generally Catholic nations. Non-therapeutic circumcision is not a usual practice in those nations, however it is not clear that the Catholic Church deserves the credit for his condition.

|etal=no

|title=Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among Filipino boys subjected to non-therapeutic ritual or medical surgical procedures: A retrospective cohort study

|journal=Annals of Medicine and Surgery

|date=2019

|volume=42

|pages=19-22

|url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6506608/

|pubmedID=31080593

|pubmedCID=6506608

|DOI=10.1016/j.amsu.2019.04.004

|accessdate=2022-08-16

|url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/metis-experiences-at-residential-school

|title=Métis Experiences at Residential School

|last=Logan

|first=Tricia E.

|date=2920-05-05

|accessdate=2022-08-16

|title=Forcible Circumcision Turned This Man Into an Anti-Circumcision Activist

|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/mvpmzp/forcible-circumcision-turned-this-man-into-an-anti-circumcision-activist

|last=Dean

|first=Dave

|publisher=Vice

|date=2013-08-03

|accessdate=2022-08-16

}}</ref>

* The Federal Republic of Germany has been the site of a controversy over the non-therapeutic circumcision of boys. The [[Cologne circumcision court judgment]] was a ruling in 2012 that non-therapeutic circumcision of a boy violated the [[human rights]] of the boy guaranteed by Germany's Basic Law. Thereafter a heated [[Circumcision Debate]] commenced. The Catholic Church (''Katholische Kirche'') in Germany took a position in favor of Jewish and Muslims having a right to circumcise as an exercise of a religious right.

{{Citation

|Text="Legal certainty established. The sometimes very emotional and polemical debate about the religiously motivated [[circumcision]] of boys has caused considerable irritation in the Jewish and Muslim communities." The irritation of the child during circumcision is irrelevant to the Catholic Church.

|Author=Bishop Mussinghoff

|ref=<ref>{{REFweb

|url=https://www.zwangsbeschneidung.de/evangelische-und-katholische-kirche.html

|title=Die Kirchen zur Beschneidung

|date=2012

|accessdate=2022-08-16

}}

The perceived political and economic needs of the Catholic Church have been given priority over the protection of children by the moral law.

The extraordinary horror of Adolf Hitler's pogrom against the Jews called the Holocaust has given the word ''[[antisemitism]]'' a special power. Even persons who had not even been born at the time of the Holocaust accept guilt for it. When anyone proposes action to protect boys from non-therapeutic [[circumcision]], the Jews cry antisemitism, even though the [[human rights]] and [[physical integrity]] of Jewish boys would be protected. The appellation is so offensive that people and institutions will go to exceptional lengths to avoid being so labeled.

|date=1998-10

|accessdate=2022-08-17

|url=https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/church-anti-semitism%C2%A0

|title=The church & anti-Semitism

* a visit to Auschwitz.

* a visit to Israel, including the Western Wall.

Although opposition to child circumcision is Scripture-based, protective of children, and not antisemitic in any way, it appears a decision has been taken at a very high level that institution of the Catholic Church's moral law regarding amputations and mutilations<ref name="catechism1992" /> be suppressed, at least for now, in the interest of the Church of not being labeled ''antisemitic''.

{{SEEALSO}}

* [[Catholics Against Circumcision]]

{{REF}}