The issue of embryo adoption, having leftover embryos frozen in liquid nitrogen thawed and implanted in an adoptive mother’s womb, is a thorny subject in Catholic moral theology and ethics circles. I’ve wrestled with this idea for years, and I think we need to continue attending to it in a serious and substantive way. In order to keep the conversation localized, may I ask FB folks to post their comments directly here, and then copy them to FB?
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has issued Dignitas Personae (DP), which tackles the morality of IVF and addresses the issue of embryo adoption. It’s a short document and an easy read. I recommend it highly.
Disclaimer: From the outset, I do not presume to know more than the bishops who have contributed to the promulgation of the document. However, the Church collaborates with physicians and scientists when investigating these matters and pays close attention to the insights coming from science. So I offer these insights as a lay Catholic, educated deeply in the faith, as well as a molecular biologist.
DP does a great job of staking out all of the moral land mines in the field of in vitro fertilization (IVF) technology. It isn’t the last word on the subject, either. From the outset, the document lays out its two fundamental principles:
“The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life” (n. 4).
“The origin of human life has its authentic context in marriage and in the family, where it is generated through an act which expresses the reciprocal love between a man and a woman. Procreation which is truly responsible vis-à-vis the child to be born must be the fruit of marriage” (n. 6).
DP goes on to address, specifically, the dilemma of frozen embryos left over after IVF:
With regard to the large number of frozen embryos already in existence the question becomes: what to do with them? All the answers that have been proposed (use the embryos for research or for the treatment of disease; thaw them without reactivating them and use them for research, as if they were normal cadavers; put them at the disposal of infertile couples as a “treatment for infertility”; allow a form of “prenatal adoption”) present real problems of various kinds. It needs to be recognized “that the thousands of abandoned embryos represent a situation of injustice which in fact cannot be resolved. Therefore, John Paul II made an “appeal to the conscience of the world’s scientific authorities and in particular to doctors, that the production of human embryos be halted, taking into account that there seems to be no morally licit solution regarding the human destiny of the thousands and thousands of ‘frozen’ embryos which are and remain the subjects of essential rights and should therefore be protected by law as human persons” (n. 19).
It other words, we have a mess on our hands. Many respected leaders in the Catholic bioethics community such as Dr. John Haas and Father Tad Pacholczyk (who also has a Ph.D. in molecular biology) have come down against embryo adoption, as it is a participation in the broader realm of IVF. To read the case against embryo adoption by Father Tad, click here. These are great minds whose words are not to be taken lightly.
However, there seems to be another dimension that has been overlooked, and that is the issue of procreation itself and God’s role in it.
IVF is intrinsically evil. It takes procreation out of the marital embrace and relegates spouses to mere tissue donors and sideline spectators as the technicians do the actual work of bringing sperm and egg into union. However evil this technology is, there is a more delicate question that I have regarding God’s role in all of this.
The Church does not maintain that we all existed as disembodied spirits before our conception. We are created (soul) when we are conceived (body). That’s why the procreation of children in marriage is such a grace-filled moment for spouses, because God is there, freely creating the soul as the parents unite themselves. But what happens when a woman is raped, or two individuals fornicate, or IVF is employed? What are the degrees of freedom on God’s part?
Is God bound by His own paradigm for human procreation? Is He dragged kicking and screaming into the evil means by which sperm and egg find one another? Does He not create freely, though perhaps reluctantly under such circumstances?
The fact remains that God creates a human soul when sperm and egg unite.
That fact is my dilemma.
God is there in the IVF clinic, creating a new human soul (dozens at a time, actually). He is participating in a procreative act that is occurring outside of His divine plan, and which in its human dimensions is intrinsically evil; but He is there, and He is creating.
Now we return to the first of the two guiding principles in DP. The first right of the IVF baby is the right to be respected as and treated as a person. That right means facilitating the unmolested development of that individual. If implantation in the womb is to be forbidden in all circumstances, then I fail to see the point of the Congregation mentioning this first principle.
What we see a great deal of is the condemnation of the technique, which is truly abhorrent. However, I think there is a great distinction to be made between the technology leading up to the creation of a new human being, and the technology employed to sustain those new human beings. The former is always gravely and intrinsically evil. I’m not so certain about the latter.
The great distinction is that life has been made, both by man and by God. The act of procreation is done, and a child exists in its most nascent form. From here we have a battle of principles, and again, Father Pacholczyk’s points are well made. However, I see a certain chilly aloofness in standing by and saying of so many thousands of baby’s, “Gee it stinks to be you.” Catholic moral theology demands greater than that from us if we truly believe that the human embryo is a human being endowed with a soul of God’s making.
The second principle in DP is where we run into trouble:
“Procreation which is truly responsible vis-à-vis the child to be born must be the fruit of marriage”
I don’t disagree at all with the imperative in that statement. The problem is that it does not account for the child conceived outside of that principle. What then?
Jesus admonished the Pharisees when they took exception to His disciples picking grain and eating it on the Sabbath. He also admonished them about the lawfulness of saving life on the Sabbath, even if it meant breaking the law to do so. “Who among you would not pull his sheep out of a hole to save it on the Sabbath?”
We are dealing with much more than sheep here.
If God freely creates the soul in the midst of such human evil, do we not have an imperative to honor that creative act by facilitating the child’s development through implantation and adoption?
It isn’t perfect, but I think we do.
Thoughts?
I have worried about this for some time. I believe that children should be made the natural way, not in a laboratory.
I believe we do have the responsibility to adopt these embryos. They are human, thay are created by God and like a child conceived in the evil act of rape, we must support the life God has intended. I am waiting to hear what the Church decides and I wish they would hurry up!!!!!
I think your points are extremely well-considered and valid. As in rape, or children born out of wedlock, once that human being has been conceived, the process of “how” is now moot. We couldn’t prevent the evil of the “how”… but we now have a “who” that has rights and dignity that must be recognized, beginning with the right to life. That’s on the principle side.
On the pragmatic side, the more of these “snowflake” children who are born, up and walking around among us like the normal humans they are… the more they provide visible witness to the humanity of these forgotten children.
Also on the pragmatic side: Even if the Church allows it, will the “parents”? Even those who use IVF to conceive have expressed misgivings about merely tossing the embryos, or using them for research, which is why so many of them are still on ice. Because of their inner conflict, they also may be uncomfortable by an “adoption” which only proves the humanity of the child they rejected. I’ve heard of a few of these children being adopted already… I haven’t heard any statistics on how many requests have already been made, and how many rejected.
I have been thinking about this lately, and I am so glad you wrote a post about it! Thank you. I agree, we can’t ignore all of these lives… We can’t just leave them to be discarded. It’s very complicated, yes – it is a “mess”!!! – but I think we have a responsibility to take care of them any way we can, to protect their lives.
I am so sad for these “snowflake children” 😦
Gerry, your questions, from my perspective belie the greater question of why is there evil in the world and what is our role anent it, given this proposition?
The following analysis is not meant as legalistic or tautological, but I want to make myself clear.
1) G-d exists and is all powerful.
2) If G-d exists and is all powerful, he can either exist inside or outside the human experience or both at the same time.
3) Evil exists in the world as the result of our sinful nature, free will and original sin.
4) Things happen, which from our immediate perspective appear very bad without a basis in evil. (Hurricanes hitting New Orleans, Earthquakes, Floods, Tornadoes, etc.)
5) Very evil things happen to innocent people.
6) G-d is incapable of Sin.
7) If you believe that G-d is all powerful, can enter into the human experience or choose not to do so, can interact or impact our lives or choose not to do so you must then draw one of three conclusions:
a) G-d commits the sin of omission: This is impossible.
b) Since G-d is incapable of sin or neglect then one must reach the conclusion that G-d allows things to happen, that appear bad to us, so that we can bring good out of it. If those bad things happen to us Catholics personally, we have an even greater responsibility to pray it up, unite our suffering with Christ Crucified, and serve as a faithful witness so that others can observe our unquestioning faith and trust in the Lord. This is because we have the fullest understanding of G-d’s truth as propagated by the Magisterium.
c) That, as a consequence of free will, some person’s choices ultimately will translate into evil being visited upon their fellow man. As Christians, we have a duty to use the graces given us and combat evil as expressed by others; if not and to the extent we are aware and capable of such reparations, we are guilty of the sin of omission against innocence. G-d obviously will not hold us to account if we are not capable of preventing something, but we must always try if we think it is within our scope of awareness and ability.
d) If, no matter what happens in this world that appears evil or senseless, and conduct ourselves to as faith filled Christians, then whether or not we know it, G-d can bring good out of it or the Holy Spirit can work through us. We become a holy vessel or tool per se because of this grace. Even if one does not believe or is not convinced on an intellectual level that any good is being brought out of it when apparent senseless tragedy or evil is visited upon us, if we conduct ourselves as faithful Christians, G-d will make that clear to us once we enter Heaven, having been redeemed by the saving Blood of Jesus.
How does this play into IVF or rape pregnancies? Well, if Jeffrey Dahmer or Charles Manson quoted scripture, the scripture would have no less truth in it, even if these two psychopaths were using it for evil intent. Similarly, if a child is created as a product of rape, incest, IVF or any other means, the child is still contains a soul and the essence of G-d amongst us and imbued in his or her very soul is the call to holiness just as any other person. We therefore have an obligation to bring that life into the fullest fruits of grace and assist them in their holiness walk as we would any other Christian since we are all part of the community of faith. That is my answer and that is the way I deal with trouble in my life and the seemingly causeless tragedies that are visited upon innocence or humanity in general.
Life begins at conception. Whether the child is frozen or not is irrelevant. We should encourage adoption, certainly not allow destruction and protect these lives until science finds a solution.
I love the title of your blog, Coming Home. That, I believe, could be the solution for every frozen embryo: he or she needs to “come home” to the womb of his or her mother. The womb is the first “home” for all of us. Mary’s womb was Jesus’ own first “home,” too. And while Jesus was in Mary’s womb, God comforted Joseph, who was deeply troubled by Mary’s pregnancy. God told Joseph not to be afraid and Joseph did as he was commanded by God and brought Mary and Jesus “home” to his own house. By Divine Providence, Jesus was legally adopted by Joseph while in Mary’s womb. May we carefully reread and meditate on these amazing passages from the Gospels that tell us how God, from all eternity, brought the Most Holy Family together. Let us especially meditate on the words and actions of Mary and Joseph who, though initially troubled, prayerfully sought to do God’s will at all times. They, like us today, also struggled to understand the Mystery of the Incarnation. God’s amazing plan for the Holy Family included the prenatal adoption of Jesus by Joseph. Perhaps it is the solution for frozen embryos, too.
“The fact remains that God creates a human soul when sperm and egg unite.”
Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I do not believe the Catholic Church has declared a teaching on the ensoulment of early human embryos.
The Church does, of course, affirm the rational necessity of recognizing and respecting the natural rights of human beings at all developmental stages, including the embryonic
stage. However, the question of whether or not those rights include the right to be implanted by artificial means has not been definitively anwsered. Hence we face a genuine moral dilemma.
Dan,
This is from DP:
“It is appropriate to recall the fundamental ethical criterion expressed in the Instruction Donum Vitae in order to evaluate all moral questions which relate to procedures involving the human embryo: ‘Thus the fruit of human generation, from the first moment of its existence, that is to say, from the moment the zygote has formed, demands the unconditional respect that is morally due to the human being in his bodily and spiritual totality.'”
So the magisterium is telling us that we are to recognize and respect the spiritual totality of the embryo from the moment the zygote is formed.
Sir,
Sometime ago I participated in a Catholic forum precisely on this topic.
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=530622
I will copy here my comments in that forum, for whatever it is worth. It is addressed to the commenters whom I was discussing with. God bless. – WillyJ
“All things considered, it needs to be recognized that the thousands of abandoned embryos represent a situation of injustice which in fact cannot be resolved. Therefore John Paul II made an “appeal to the conscience of the world’s scientific authorities and in particular to doctors, that the production of human embryos be halted, taking into account that there seems to be no morally licit solution regarding the human destiny of the thousands and thousands of ‘frozen’ embryos which are and remain the subjects of essential rights and should therefore be protected by law as human persons”.
-DP
That being said, I think there is still the option for “embryo adoption” in the sense that one might offer to materially sponsor embryo maintenance in its current frozen state. There is no obligation for the sponsor to seek its implantation in any way. If we go by the traditional teaching, an embryo has life of its own and ensoulment. It is already a being in the eyes of God and we can “adopt” it the way it is.
Yes, embryos are human beings. They were conceived in a petri-dish, but humans nevertheless. The process of fertilization goes against natural law, because there is a natural means of fertilization with the attendant unitive moral aspect. That is why the artificial conception is an injustice by itself, humans are meant to be conceived the natural way. If artificial implantation is done further, that is another violation of natural law. So many things can go wrong with IVF, such is the case when man inordinately interferes with nature.
IVF is not a 100% sound scientific technique that guarantees the well-being of the human embryo being implanted, and there is reasonable concern that the embryo may suffer more or even die in the process. According to this, the average pregnancy success rate of IVF/artificial implantation is only at 35%. As is often the case, dead and discarded embryos are the result of this inordinate interference with nature. If you say it is not compassionate NOT to implant an embryo for it to be nurtured to healthy growth, then you are making an assumption that is not warranted by medical evidence. The Church does not intend to “perpetuate suffering” by prohibiting implantation of a frozen embryo. It just says it is an injustice (which must be avoided in the first place) that has no moral solution.
/
I do empathize with your feeling of compassion for the frozen embryos. On the other hand, with artificial implantation there are dilemmas you face upfront. Of the thousands of frozen embryos, would you choose the healthiest ones that will most likely make the pregnancy a success? Most likely. But with that decision comes a purposeful choice to reject the weak embryos or the defective ones. Isn’t that heartless too? Isn’t it more compassionate to prioritize the weaker ones? Assuming you chose an embryo in whatever way, the decision to carry on an artificial implantation carries with it a risk (about 65%) of destroying the embryo. Then you may make multiple attempts, destroying embryos in the process. If you accept that risk, you are willfully putting into a heavy gamble the life of the embryo. You might even end up with a severe deformity as a result of the artificial method. Our motives may be praiseworthy, but do we have the moral freedom to purposely gamble with the life of other humans? You see, IVF/artificial implantation is fraught with dire consequences, however noble the intention might be. Aside from the medical, there are also psychological and legal issues as well.
Besides, are the frozen embryos really “suffering” in the context that we adults understand human suffering? Tough to answer, but I would trust God to comfort them in their tiny, innocent state. I understand the Church saying there is no moral solution, but it is certainly not a heartless stand. Our moral obligation may be confined to the effort within our means to have IVF stopped altogether so that no further embryos are produced artificially; maintain (or “adopt” if you will) the existing embryos in its current state; and pray for their souls.
/
I posted parts of Dignitas Personae previously, and I have to say [the teaching] is “implicit” rather than “explicit”. There is more to this implicit take, wherein I believe the Magisterium cannot explicitly rule in the future that heterologous embryo transfer is acceptable without severely contradicting its principles in Donum Vitae and Dignitas Persona. The Church does not contradict its own teachings.
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http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/co…n-life_en.html
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/co…rsonae_en.html
The CDF released Donum Vitae in February 22, 1987. It was headed then by (then)Cardinal Ratzinger, under the approval of Pope John Paul II.
The CDF released Dignitas Personae in September 8, 2008. It was under William Cardinal Levada, under the appoval of Pope Benedict XVI.
For the issue at hand, I wish to call attention to two similar passages in both documents :
Per Donum Vitae:
“In consequence of the fact that they have been produced in vitro, those embryos which art not transferred into the body of the mother and are called “spare” are exposed to an absurd fate, with no possibility of their being offered safe means of survival which can be licitly pursued.”
Per Dignitas Personae:
“taking into account that there seems to be no morally licit solution regarding the human destiny of the thousands and thousands of ‘frozen’ embryos which are and remain the subjects of essential rights and should therefore be protected by law as human persons”.
Implicit, explicit, or otherwise, CDF has already committed itself to the explicit rejection of embyro transfer/ adoption by way of Dignitas Personae. The development of doctrine points to an inexorable conclusion.
/
Come on now. The ‘seems to be no morally licit solution’ is tame language for the Church. JPII ‘declared that direct abortion is always an intrinsic evil.’ Now THAT’S a clear statement. What DP gave us was unclear…and thus the issue is open.
I think the basic issue here is one that Nadal has totally nailed: do we, or don’t we, think that an embryo should be treated as a full person? If we do, then we will rescue her. If we don’t, then we will read DP in a particular kind of way which says we don’t have to rescue her.
The problem is pro-lifers often SAY they think fetuses and embryos are persons, but then they don’t act like it.
Yes, the issue is open in the sense that the Magisterium has not made an explicit statement on embryo transfer/adoption. Perhaps we can think of the doctrine in the way that the teachings in Humanae Vitae were never explicitly and solemnly declared either, then and now – yet we do consider the teachings on contraceptives as irreformable. My humble opinion is just that with Donum Vitae and Personas Dignitas, the Church has dug in too deeply and it is inconceivable for it to make a 360 degree turn and reverse itself by saying that embryo transfer IS morally acceptable after all. That is not the way development of doctrine works. In so many words I have tried to rationalize my understanding why it is so, and I come to understand the Church’s position: there is no morally licit solution.
I will ignore your last statement.
Willyj,
I agree that the Church has dug in her heels on this one. However, I see the issue as not being entirely a done deal. It certainly is an uphill battle, though.
But why do you misquote the teaching of DP? It does NOT say, “there is no morally licit solution.” Rather it says, “there SEEMS to be no morally licit solution.” This is not a strong statement at all. And, presumably, the CDF intended it to be this weak and thus leave the door open. You seem to wish that the statement was stronger…do I have you wrong?
Cryogenic canisters are the new orphanages. This discussion will only become more relevant as more and more couples who struggle with infertility turn to the industry for “help”.
I’ll have an essay on this very topic coming out in the summer 2011 issue of the National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly. It says much of what you said here, Dr. Nadal. I hope you’ll take a look!
Charlie, who are you addressing with your question?
Oh, sorry…it was to willyj77.
Charlie, sorry for the misquote. what I intended to do was to analyze jointly DV and PD for after all, DP was intended as a follow-up to DV, however late it came to the party. DV says “with no possibility of their being offered safe means of survival which can be licitly pursued”.
Gerald,
I understand the concern, but perhaps we should place our attention more on God’s power and mercy, and not on our own temporal efforts and limitations. Again I say I trust in God not to make them suffer, for they are all innocent. I also remember the teaching on the unbaptized. We trust that God applies His boundless generosity and infinite mercy in that these souls we trust will have a just place in the afterlife.
Thank you for being bold enough, and intellectually honest enough, to clearly state:
IVF is intrinsically evil. It takes procreation out of the marital embrace and relegates spouses to mere tissue donors and sideline spectators as the technicians do the actual work of bringing sperm and egg into union.
My son attends a Christian private school. One of his teachers is well known for having the first set of quadruplets born in our town. At the beginning of the school year this teacher actually took the time to tell his students how the quadruplets were created through IVF. My son was horrified, mostly at the way the man spoke as though this were a fine, noble action to take–that God had somehow intended for him and his wife to use IVF to create their children. We’ve had several deep discussions about it since.
Clearly, God can and does take even the most ignoble acts of ours and turn them to good for His glory. It does not change the wrongness of our deeds, however.
And then there’s the whole quandary of what happened to the unused embryos of my son’s teacher…something he did not elaborate upon with his students, but which my son astutely considered.
RT,
To consider the fate of the unused embryos, we need to consider IVF in all of its horror.
When the eggs are fertilized they are sorted and graded according to viability. The embryos deemed not viable are simply discarded. The best candidates are implanted, and the rest are submerged in liquid nitrogen and frozen at -320 degrees F. The desperation for a child that is biologically one’s own drives parents to accept this treatment of their children in the headlong pursuit of a keeper.
I applaud your son’s moral acumen.
I look forward to reading your article, Ryan.
God Bless.
in the Old Testament, a woman desperate for a child after her husband died set up shop near a road her father in law was walking on. He mistook her for a prostitute, and impregnated her. When he heard of her pregnant state, he summoned her to condemn her. She showed him his articles that he’d paid her with. He was complicit. The baby lived.
God didn’t erase the child, even though both parents violated any number of moral rules.
I don’t know the answer, but I know God is not a hostage in this. God is of sovereign and free will. We can’t guarantee a baby per embryo, so God is seen in that shadow, and our human fumbling in that limit, alone.
@ Dr. Gerard
Life at all costs is not Church teaching. There would be no sin in unfreezing them and allowing them to die naturally.
Granted, they were created via evil means, and live a tragic life in the freezer. While at first glance it may seem merciful to alleviate this tragedy, and save their lives by adopting them and transfering them, it isn’t.
Sounds horrible? Well, the ends don’t justify the means. Adopting an embryo would be gestational surrogacy, dressed up in good intentions. I recommend you read Donum Vitae. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation. Subtitle: Replies to Certain Questions of the Day. Dated February 22, 1987.
While snowflake babies absolutely have an intrinsic value, their right to life is not a right to life at all costs. Adopting them would be an extraordinary means of saving their life. Unnecessary, and since it would involve a sort of surrogacy, morally illicit.
Here’s a link: http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/donumvitae.htm#IIa3
I haven’t recently read Fr. Tad’s piece but if I’m not mistaken, he considers these embryo’s as in the process of dying.
I’ve read of a couple who had numerous implantations of frozen embryos and who bore only one child who was severely deformed and died shortly after.
Somewhat of a digression but I read a few years ago about a scientist who was doing research on young children who were conceived via IVF and who had siblings who were frozen. Some of these children without knowing that they had siblings “on ice”, repeatedly talked about a sibling who was very very cold and needed to be born.
I’ve tried to find the researcher but can’t. If I do I will post the link here.
Giuseppe,
I’m not suggesting life at all costs. I’m suggesting that there are principles in Donum Vitae, Evangelium Vitae and DP that leave the door open to rescuing these embryos. The National Catholic Bioethics Center also recognizes that DP has not closed the door.
Also, adopting them is NOT a form of surrogacy, as the mother who adopts them also becomes the birth mother. These are extremely complicated issues, and Rome has not pronounced definitively on them.
As for the ends not justifying the means, that’s true. The issue on the table is wether the means are absolutely illicit. JPII hedged by saying that there SEEMS to be no morally licit means, but The CDF has not nailed that shut, nor has B16.
Dr. Gerard,
I realize it is a complicated issue.
Fair enough about most of your points. :^)
Thinking more about it, a lot of it is open for interpretation, but one reason against surrogacy in DV, that it violates the dignity of the procreation of the human person, would still seem to apply in the issue of adopting embryos. There would be a violation of ‘conjugal fidelity.’
“While snowflake babies absolutely have an intrinsic value, their right to life is not a right to life at all costs. Adopting them would be an extraordinary means of saving their life. Unnecessary, and since it would involve a sort of surrogacy, morally illicit.”
I agree with you Giuseppe and I also believe that it opens the door to many other issues such as intergenerational births where embryos who have been frozen for 15 or 20 years will now be birthed.
How will embryos be selected? Will embryos be randomly chosen from a couples “stash” or will they be examined to determine health?
Who will get to gestate these embryos? Can the daughter of a couple when she is older gestate a snowflake embryo? Will same sex couples be given the choice to adopt snowflake children?
ach, what a can of worms….
Wow it is a mess and both sides seem valid.
This situation is also now part of my family since I have a cousin who has adopted a girl and recently had a girl through IVF. They counldn’t conceive naturally for some reason. I have many questions and I am not in a positions to ask them. I am sad and wonder what to think of those who are probably frozen.
Chantal
Dr. Gerard,
After thinking about the issue some more, and rereading the two documents, I still maintain my position that it is morally illicit. However, instead of continuing to comment back and forth about this detail or that, I have posted a response on my blog. You are right about the surrogacy, it definitely isn’t that! If you would do me the honor of swinging by to give me your thoughts on my argument, I would appreciate it very much. Thank you.
PS The blog is linked to through my name at the head of the comment.
I have to ask, for the future of these children, what rights would they have in terms of identity and what responsibility would the IVF doctors and biological parents have in providing for the identity of the child. With adoption, a child has a potential to seek records, to know where they come from as well as knowledge of medical records and siblings.
I am trying to see this from the child’s perspective as they grow into adulthood. As in the case of children born of artificial insemination, the question as to who is my father and who are my brothers and sisters comes to mind. Do I have a right to know? Can I meet them? Are my birth parents obligated to let me know how I was conceived? Without these answers am I free to marry or does marrying without these answers lead to a possibility that I may be unknowingly committing incest?
The gift of life is exceedingly precious. In order to attain to that gift, do we have the right to deny the human person the gift of identity and family history? Is it quite possible that this is the very reason that the Church cannot, aside from the possibility that this provides an incentive for IVF, side for the case of frozen embryo adoption as a licit moral solution to this situation?
How do we stop the practice of IVF and artificial insemination?
I’ve never liked assisted reproductive technology (ART) or surrogate motherhood for that matter, taking the secular view that you just don’t mess with nature that much, and understanding, years ago, what am ethical mess it would make of things. (Although my brother’s two children were likely conceived via IVF; it’s been hinted at but since our side of the family is treated as outsiders would be, we haven’t been told specifics.)
I’d support embryo adoption, but only if IVF were stopped. Otherwise, you’d have a booming business. And once something becomes a profitable business (see: abortion), it becomes all but unstoppable (to answer Cathy’s question above).
My husband and I are Catholic and have been blessed with 7 children through the miracle of adoption… our twins, adopted as embryos, are now 15 months old…
I would love to volunteer my experiences to advocate for Embryo Adoption…
If you truly believe life begins at conception, as I do, how can you ignore the 500,000 frozen lives in the US alone??? It is not their fault how they were created and why… WE need to raise awareness and get these frozen babies into waiting wombs… and there are plenty of waiting wombs out there…
Please feel free to contact me @ JensAdoptionBlessings@gmail.com or visit my website for Embryo Adoption Awareness @ http://3babes2jens1cause-embryoadoption.blogspot.com/.
Thank you for this article and I look forward to the other parts. I am very concerned about this issue. I know a Catholic couple and the wife worked for a Catholic adoption agency but had to resign when they decided to do embryo adoption. I don’t understand. I understand the issues of opposing IVF but the embryos are life and deserve to be adopted. Just like adopting a child conceived out of wedlock….
Also the book Inconceivable by Sean and Carolyn Savage tells their struggle as a Catholic couple but helped me understand the unintended consequences of IVF that a couple desiring children do not consider in their quest to parent. I remember how consumed I was with getting pregnant at one time but of course IVF was not around. How far would I have gone? How much was me wanting to take the issue out of God’s hands?
Like Jen, my husband and I also have twins whom we adopted as “snowflakes”. We literally spent months researching Church documents on the issue (Donum Vitae, Dignitas Personae, Life Giving Love in an Age of Technology to name a few…) and likewise consulted with multiple parish priests before we made the decision to move forward. Embryo adoption was not a decision we entered into lightly and we feel that we understand firsthand the Church’s hesitation to speak either for or against embryo adoption.
Feel free to email me with any questions you may have: zentay at hotmail.com
Dear Dr Nadal,
This is a difficult and complex topic that merits much faithful research. Below is a link to an article by Dr. Monica Migliorino Miller on this topic focused on Catholic theology that is well worth reflecting on.
Dr. Miller’s opinions deserve a great deal of consideration both because of her position as a professor of Catholic theology and her over 30 years of truly heroic, sacrificial pro-life work. Very few pro-lifers have met and held as many innocent victims of our “Roe v. Wade society” as Dr. Miller.
I encourage you to contact her thru http://www.prolifesociety.com to better understand her positions.
Lastly, thank you for all your work in defending our nascent pre-born brothers and sisters. We need more like you in the scientific and medical professions.
I appreciate the perspective in this opinion piece. In my case, my opinion crystallized in understanding the case of Terri Schindler Schiavo who was the victim of dehydration by omission. I came to understand that a human being cannot be denied nutrition and hydration when the incorporation of these substances act to enhance the health of the individual. In the case of embryos, they can only receive nutrition and hydration through the placenta/unbilical cord in a uterus. This would seem to be a moral imperative much as providing nutrition/hydration to a newborn baby would be.
That said, I pray that all countries will ban the creation of multiple embryos and freezing of any embryos. In the meantime, we must restore to health in the womb our frozen brothers and sisters, whose very existence outside the womb endangers their fragile lives.
Frank thank you for a most interesting article.
Hopefully, this won’t sound sexist but Dr. Miller’s position is a very feminine position that I think many male theologians might not necessarily have come to.
There is something very dis-integrating about embryo adoption. I believe Dr. Miller has touched on this unusual aspect of the problem.
I also see that she has considered that this practice will likely result in “other problems of a physical, psychological and legal nature.” I concur.
A truly well-written article, Dr. Nadal, on Embryo Adoption. The biggest issue is that the child so adopted might grow up and marry a sybling and not know it.
There are actually questions we raise as children from a living mom and dad. In any situtation, the children will have questions. The fact that they have no knowledge of their living mom or deceased mom and dad is not a unique situation
Remember when Vietnam was ‘closing down’? The Americans were leaving as quickly as possible and taking as many Vietnamese as they could. Remember seeing a plane ready to take off and Vietnamese clinging to the plane wanting to hang on until the plane landed in the USA!!!!
My Aunt was on one of those planes with other Amerians and nurses, etc. They each held in their arms at least one baby from an orphanage or a family who just wanted at least one member of the family to live! Were those babies listed on the plane manifest with name, parents’ names, date of birth, given name, etc? Most likely not…time was of the essence…..details were not important. Life WAS!
Those babies would be about 40 years old this year, perhaps, give or take some years. They each have a story unique to them. How they perceive the way they left one country and came to the USA is what determined the final outcome of their ability to live, become educated, get a job and perhaps raise a family. Not the details.
Their fears perhaps were set aside by the people on the plane who saw potential in them, who saw that life must be saved, regardless of the ‘details’ that may arise.
I am a sidewalk counselor at the Planned Parenthood in St. Louis. If someone takes my literature and sees an option that they like, they will bite, as a fish does on bait, and their baby may live….that is a miracle is the making! Details: layette, diapers, housing, food, job, counseling, legal….are worked out at the pregnancy resource center…..just a walk down the block.
What would someone do to save the lives of all those babies in one country and did not personally have all the details mapped out?
What would someone do to save the life of one baby at a killing site and not know all the details of having the baby? Donate their time, their money, their skills in homemaking?
The challenges are there. Some women cannot adopt….I know of one in Ireland who in her early 40’s has been termed ‘too old’ to adopt!!! She would love to adopt a baby! There are so many blocks to sharing a life that let’s, for the sake of the argument, agree to grant adoption to all those women who want to adopt babies and erase some of the rigid rules that prevent this from occurring.
My thoughts, exactly! Patricia in St. Louis, MO
[…] Coming Home posts the first article in a series on the issues of embryo adoption, IVF, and the teachings of the Catholic Church. […]
I wholeheartedly agree. I think we need to keep in mind here we’re not talking about procreation. An embryo by any definition is a unique, separate human being. The procreation has already happened. I agree surrogacy is wrong, because it purposefully usurps the role of parenthood. In this case however, it’s purposefully done with the intention of giving a chance at further life to the embryo. The same act has different moral implications with different circumstances. Throwing yourself on a grenade to save your fellow man is highest form of love, throwing yourself on a grenade to commit suicide is wrong.
Who amongst us would leave our sheep to die in a hole on the Sabbath to say we are holy? I have met Dr. Miller, know of Fr. Tad and I understand their concerns about the effect of embryo donation on the broader world and their devotion, but I think they are caught up in a very legalistic view on the issue and the real question they need to be focused on is with a couple that discerns and believes they are called to adopt the embryo, do so and raise him to adulthood, does that please God or anger him?
The trend in thinking here — although comments on this post are slowing — seems to be shifting. Someone mentioned rape (earlier, above). Rape. Isn’t a resulting embryo, clearly created outside of the marital embrace, essentially adpoted by the victim? In that case, is aborting / killing that embryo simply a failure to adopt it? More broadly, is adopting that embryo somehow more acceptable than adopting another? These are not necessarily rhetorical questions, by the way, I’m simply trying to piece together a few broken threads of thought. However, I realize issues of “will” and willful deeds of intervention done by human hands may define the subtleties here. Unfortunately, defining subtleties is not my strong suit, which is why I enjoy reading the good comments.
Chris,
I cannot escape the reality that for as foul a sin as IVF is in the dimensions engaged in by the couple, God still enters into the arena and creates a soul freely. Why? Just to dictate that it go the way of the chicken cutlets in the freezer and succumb to freezer burn, as Fr. Tad suggests? I think not, and believe embryo transfer to be an act which honors God’s creative action in all of this.
Paul,
I don’t see your question as rhetorical. In the case of rape, it certainly isn’t a marital embrace. To get technical without sacrificing dignity, while the sperm delivery is done brutally and illegally, the conception occurs within the order of God’s creation, that is to say within the mother. She does not adopt because the baby is hers. It is her egg, fertilized in her fallopian tube, and implanted, gestated, and brought forth from her womb. So, it isn’t the mother who adopts, but the father who loses his rights over his offspring (not that I have ever heard of one who would actually seek his rights as the father).
There are not going to be lots more of these snow flake babies, I understand. The issue here is the baby is awaiting a chance to be, just to be. When the child is older and able to understand how loved they are by the parents who enable him or her to live a life, that is the major point.
Please do not assume I have no compassion for these little ones. I do; I just think there is much ado about nothing; let the babies have life. Never permit this type of reproduction to occur again. Because moms and dads creating a baby together is really the best way to go about having a family.
Less explaining to do about who their grandparents are, etc. This whole issue is just a rare embarassment; (sp)let it remain so and let these babies have life. The real tragedy would be to hear these words: I notice the frozen babies are now dead; someone failed to check the coolant (or some other technology) and the babies died because it was too warm!
Am I looking at things too simply?
Patricia in St. Louis, MO
I too struggled with the idea of embryo adoption, until i heard (read?) a solution from a priest that set my soul at peace: baptize them, then allow them to die/thaw. They are thus treated with dignity.
Sylvia,
I too have heard that suggestion from a priest, but it has had the opposite effect on me. Baptism cannot be done on the embryos in their present circumstance. In order to baptize the embryo, one needs to pour water directly on the embryo, not on the cryogenic vial containing the embryo. The very act of doing so would thaw the embryo rapidly and kill it.
We also cannot attempt baptism on an individual unless we know them to be alive. Many of the embryos in storage are dead. We wold need to first thaw them, then separate the living from the dead, thus starting the clock on the demise of the living. In no way can we be the moral agent of these humans’ deaths, either directly or indirectly. So baptism is out of the question.
Assuming that there are those priests who would say, “Baptize them, then let them die,” it is certainly no more sinful (If it’s sinful at all) to adopt them and bring them to the fullness of human growth and development–the very ends for which God created them in the IVF laboratory. In the final analysis we are left with the realization that God created these human beings’ souls. He did so freely as a part of a procreative process that is wickedly sinful in the human participatory dimensions of the laboratory manufacture. How then do we conclude that there is no moral means for honoring that creative act?
That some clergy are willing to kill these children, rather than see them restored to their life’s journey is a brand of Catholic Phariseeism that is profoundly disturbing.
Makes sense, Dr., thanks.
PS:
When I googled “embryo adoption” this post was #11 — great work Dr., and it’s one of the best links to this issue in my opinion!
I have a sweet Christian friend who is pregnant right now with an adopted embryo. She has four children, and she has had 6 miscarriages.She and her husband had garage sales, sales on eBay, etc. to cover the cost of the procedures and adoption. She shared on our message board(for women who have suffered multiple miscarriages) the beautiful 4-D ultrasound of the baby the other day. This beautiful baby would probably have just ended up being thrown away..a life destroyed if not for this couple. I only wish my husband and I could do the same, but we will probably never have the kind of money it takes to do that, but God Bless anyone who does.
Bravo, Dr. Nadal, for shining a bright light on the plight of frozen embryonic children, the least of our brethren.
It is my opinion that Sacred Scripture is not silent on this issue. As I mentioned above in my April 15 comment, St. Joseph, who was a just man, was actually “commanded” by God to overcome his initial hesitation regarding Mary and the Child she was carrying because the child was not his biological child. In fact, Mary, too, was troubled that she was being asked to conceive and bear a Child even though she did not “know man.” She, too, was reassured by God through His angel and she freely opened her womb to the Incarnation of the Son of God. Mary and Joseph embraced God’s Will as their own, and beginning with St. Elizabeth, the entire Church now incessantly prays, “Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus!” There are words of Divine Wisdom here!
We need to ponder Divine Revelation in this discussion: Jesus was prenatally “adopted” by Joseph. Joseph is not Jesus’ biological father, but Joseph is Jesus’s legal father and Jesus takes his legal ancestry through Joseph, his father under Jewish law… and by Divine Providence.
Clearly, there could be no “sin” whatsoever involved in the Incarnation and Birth of Jesus that so intimately affected the lives of Holy Mary and St. Joseph who gave their free and informed consent to God’s Will for them. By Divine Providence, Jesus is the biological son of Mary and the legal (adoptive) son of Joseph. We need to ponder in our hearts, like Mary and Joseph did, this wondrous and profound Mystery of the Incarnation.
One of our nation’s most respected adoption lawyers once told me, that the husband and wife who adopt a frozen embryo actually become the “birth parents” of that child and will be listed as such on the child’s birth certificate.
Jesus’s own Birth Certificate (had they been issued back then) would have listed both Mary and Joseph as His legal birth parents. In fact, the Roman Census did just that: it listed Jesus, who was born in Joseph’s “hometown” of Bethlehem, as the legal son of Joseph. These amazing passages from the New Testament must be carefully and prayerfully considered in this important debate over embryo adoption because Jesus was adopted before birth by Joseph, who, together with Mary, faithfully cooperated with God’s “adoption plan” for Jesus, His Beloved Son, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.
The adoption process for any child, in general, is not well understood by most people, including priests and religious, and it is fraught with legal, psychological, and ethical concerns for all of the parties involved: the birth parents, the adoptive parents, and the children themselves.
In most cases, the biological child is removed from its biological parent(s) because the child is being severely abused and could be in danger of death. Adoption laws have been crafted and legislated precisely to protect the lives and the welfare of innocent children from the criminal abuse of their biological parent(s).
Germany’s “Embryo Protection Act,” legislated in 1990, strictly regulated the IVF industry and established a series of punishments – including fines and imprisonment – for individuals who intentionally abuse and endanger human embryos. In 2004, Italy also strictly regulated their IVF industry and banned the cryopreservation of human embryos. The US has much to learn from other nations that are legally protecting the lives and the welfare of innocent human embryos, who are embryonic children in need of legal protection from parental and scientific abuse.
In a 8/30/2003 ZENIT interview with two Bioethics Experts in Spain, the question was posed: “Would not the adoption of embryos favor those who defend the practice of their freezing, given that the objection would be removed that such embryos would be destined to die?”
The Bioethics Experts replied: “A clear distinction must be made among the three types of acts implied here: Cryopreservation is, in itself, an illicit act; abandonment by the natural parents is another act, different from the previous one, but also illicit; adoption by adoptive parents is another act that is different from the previous two and licit in itself.
“[C]ryopreservation cannot have a solid argument here to sustain itself, as it is evil not only because it “destines” embryos “to death,” but because it is evil in itself as it illicitly puts on hold the development of the personal life.
“What must be done is to define well the terms of the moral justness of prenatal adoption, since the objective end, when it is proposed as a solution, is not justification of the evil, but the absolute opposite….”
In another part of the interview, they add: “Each one of [these] three acts is independent. The criterion that governs is the primary and principal good: the life of the embryo. From two acts that are already negative in themselves, one cannot impede that a positive one follow, nor can a negative character be attributed to the latter by the fact that the others are such.”
These two experts also state: “To allow the life [of the frozen embryo] to follow its “normal” course and to die is certainly the “lesser of two evils” when compared to keeping it indefinitely in freezers or killing it directly [during scientific research]. But it is not the lesser of two evils when compared to prenatal adoption.”
Please read this entire ZENIT article that can be found at
http://zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=40119
I propose that in our debates on this critically important issue that we constantly remember the Golden Rule and the words of Jesus Himself who said, “Whatever you do to the ‘least of my brethren’ you do unto Me.”
//Many of the embryos in storage are dead//
//God created these human beings’ souls. //
If the “body/embryo” is dead, then hasn’t the soul left the “body/embryo” and returned to God’s abode? Wouldn’t the sacrament of “extreme Unction” be called for after Baptism?
It appears that man has created Limbo on Earth.
Today is Good Friday.
——————————————————————-
Descendit ad inferos
WHEN I give out my text in Latin like that, it isn’t just a fit of absent-mindedness. I quite realize that, other things being equal, it’s more useful talking to some of you, perhaps to most of you, in English than in Latin. I’m only giving you this clause of the Credo in Latin because the translation of it, to which we are all accustomed, is a misleading one. “He descended into hell,” we say, without thinking much about it. And what we ordinarily mean by hell is a place or a state in which those who have died, obstinately impenitent, are punished for all eternity. There would be no sense in imagining that our Lord descended into hell in that sense. He preached, we are told, to the spirits in prison; but there wouldn’t be much point in that if the spirits were incapable of repenting-as the souls in hell are incapable of repenting-and therefore however much they were preached to they could never get out. So I want to make it clear at the start that our Lord didn’t descend ad infernum, into the place of everlasting punishment. He descended ad inferos, to the people down below. And if you want to know what is meant by the people down below, you have to consider the usages of the Hebrew language and the doctrine of the Church about what happened to those who died before our Lord came to earth.
The Hebrew word for hell, in our sense, is Gehenna. Our Lord, for example, tells us that it is better to enter into eternal life with a hand or a foot cut off than to have both hands and both feet and be cast into Gehenna. The Jews seem to have got the name from the Valley of Hinnom, close to Jerusalem, where they kept the city rubbish-heap. Most of you, I suppose, have never seen a rubbish-heap. But in the good old days, before salvage set in, when you had finished all the sardines in the tin and poured out the remains of the oil on your bread and butter, you didn’t make up the tin into a neat parcel and send it to the salvage people; you threw it away. And wherever you got a rather steep valley, you would find that the people at the top end would throw all their old jam jars and umbrellas with broken ribs and so on down the valley, not caring much for the feelings of the people who lived at the bottom end. So it was with the valley of Hinnom; and the Jews, by an ingenious metaphor, thought of dead people who had lived very wicked lives as being thrown into a kind of super Valley of Hinnom, because dead people who had lived very wicked lives were good for nothing, like jam jars used to be before salvage was invented. That was Gehenna.
But when somebody died whose life had been more or less good, or perhaps indifferent, the Jews didn’t think of them as having been thrown away into Gehenna; they thought of them as having gone down to Sheol, to the pit. And wherever you find the word “hell” used in the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for it is Sheol; which just meant the place where dead people go to.
The Hebrews, who had very vague ideas altogether about the future life, don’t seem to have thought of Sheol as a particularly comfortable place or as a particularly uncomfortable place; it was just the world beneath. And when the Credo says that our Lord descended into hell it doesn’t mean that he descended into Gehenna, into the place where wicked people are eternally punished. It means that he descended into Sheol, into the lower world, and preached, not to the souls of the damned, but to the souls of dead people who were in a kind of intermediate state. What was that intermediate state? How are we to think of it?
About one thing the teaching of the Church is quite clear: the holy patriarchs, people like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, were not in hell at the time when our Lord came-not what we mean by hell-and they were not in heaven. They had to wait for our Lord’s coming before they could get to heaven. And the place or the state in which they waited for Christ’s coming is what we call Limbo. The reason why we call it by that odd name, which makes it sound like a patent soup, is I think because we are most familiar with it from the poet Dante, who wrote in Italian, and therefore we give it its Italian name. It’s really a Latin word, limbus, which means the edge or the border of anything; the hem of your handkerchief, for example. And in theology it means a sort of borderline state, which is the only appropriate home of the borderline cases. Babies who die unbaptized, you see, are borderline cases; not being baptized, they have no right to heaven and yet as they haven’t committed any sins they can’t be sent to hell; therefore they go to the Limbus Infantium, the Babies’ Borderline State. And the unbaptized babies, we are told, go on living there for ever, not enjoying the beatific vision of God, because they are not made to do that, but quite happy all the same because they don’t know what they’ve missed. That’s one kind of Limbo, which is permanent.
But there was another kind of Limbo, the Limbus Patrum, the Patriarchs’ Borderline State, in which holy people like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob lived up till Good Friday, A.D. 33. They, too, were borderline cases. They were ear-marked for heaven, if I may put it in that way, because they had looked forward, by faith, to Christ’s coming, and in that faith had lived holy lives and gone on worshipping the true God. What sins they had committed had already, somehow, been expiated; they were ripe for heaven. But they couldn’t get to heaven till Jesus Christ died for our sins; they had to wait, and the waiting-room assigned to them was Limbo. I told you that the idea of Gehenna was that of a rubbish-heap; in the same way, if you like, you may think of Limbo as a lumberroom, though the two words apparently are not connected. A lumber-room is a place where you keep things which you don’t need at the moment, but don’t want to throw away because you will need them later on. So it was with the patriarchs; God didn’t need them yet in his drawing-room, so to speak, that is, in heaven, but he would want them there later on, so he didn’t throw them away into Gehenna, the rubbish heap; he kept them in Limbo, which is his lumber-room.
If you were brought up in a fairly large house, which had a lumber-room in the attics, I expect before now you have experienced the great thrill of exploring the lumber-room. Rather dark it was, so that you couldn’t see very clearly what was what, and a good many of the things were covered up in dust-sheets, so that you had to poke about a good deal before you satisfied yourself that this was a roll of carpet, that this was the cage which the canary used to live in till the cat got it, that this was the rocking-horse which you remember standing in the nursery, and so on. What a pity it seemed that so many things were lying idle here, which might be made so useful downstairs: your father’s old top-hat, which would do for drawing-room charades; and the concertina which did leak a bit, it’s true, but still produced noises of a kind; and that large, ugly looking-glass, which might just as well be in your bedroom. And you went downstairs with your hands and face pretty dirty, but all worked up with this adventurous journey among the relics of the past.
Well, when our Lord Jesus Christ had died on the Cross, and left his body in the tomb to wait till Easter morning, the first thing which his spirit did was-what? To explore his Father’s lumber-room. He went to Limbo, and visited all the borderline cases of the old patriarchs who had been waiting so many centuries for him to come. How they must have crowded round him, and what a lot he must have explained to them which they hadn’t been able to understand properly hitherto! “It’s all right, Adam (he will have said), you did a very foolish thing, and a very wicked thing, when you ate the fruit of the tree although you had been told not to; but I have been hanging, from twelve to three this afternoon, on a very different kind of tree, and now the world has been redeemed from the consequences of your sin. It’s all right, Eve; you disobeyed, but my Mother, by her obedience, has brought salvation into the world, as you brought sin into the world. You see now, Noe, what was the idea of building an ark to save yourself and your family from the flood? It was a prophecy of the Church which I am just going to found, the ark which stays afloat in a sinful world, and saves men’s souls from being engulfed in it. You, Abraham, when you sacrificed your son Isaac, or rather were prepared to sacrifice him, were doing what my heavenly Father did when he sent me into the world to die. Your ladder, Jacob, set up between earth and heaven, was the image of my Incarnation; you, Joseph, were sold for twenty pieces of silver, I was sold for thirty. Do you remember, Moses, how you set up a brazen serpent on a pole in the wilderness, and all the people who had been bitten by the snakes, if only they could be persuaded to look up at it, got well? That is what my Cross is going to do now for sinners.” And so on, all down the list of the holy people whom we read about in the Old Testament. What a holiday that must have been for them all, when our Lord came and explained to them, at last, what their experiences in life had meant, and ended up, “Now you are going home with me; it is time you went home!”
All that we mean, when we say that our Lord descended to the people beneath. He didn’t descend to Gehenna; but he descended to Limbo, and preached to the holy patriarchs who were waiting for him there. But now, is that all we mean by our Lord’s descent into the lower world? I don’t think you can say that the teaching of the Church is very clear beyond that; God’s revelation doesn’t tell us very much, for certain, about a future world. But if you will look at that odd passage in the first epistle of St. Peter, where he refers to this event, you will find a hint, I think, of a further meaning in the doctrine we are considering. He tells us that our Lord, in his spirit, “went and preached to the spirits who lay in prison. Long before, they had refused belief, hoping that God would be patient with them, in the days of Noe”. And, he adds, a few verses lower down, “that is why dead men, too, had the gospel message brought to them; though their mortal natures had paid the penalty in men’s eyes, in the sight of God their spirits were to live on”. That passage raises a lot of difficulties. Why does St. Peter concentrate entirely on the people who lived at the time of the Flood, when there were so many millions of other dead people to be considered? Who were the people who had refused belief in the time of Noe, and if they refused belief, why didn’t they go to hell? And what is all this about their paying the penalty in men’s eyes, and their spirits living on in the sight of God?
I can only suggest briefly how I should explain the passage, which is a very difficult passage indeed. I think St. Peter concentrates upon the contemporaries of Noe, because in the days of Noe the world was very wicked-that was why the flood happened. And the people who refused belief were the people who wouldn’t take any notice when Noe told them there was going to be a great deluge, and they had better take cover somewhere. The book of Genesis doesn’t tell us anything about what other people thought or said when Noe began to build the Ark, or when it rained and rained and it began to look as if Noe hadn’t been wrong after all. I think what St. Peter means us to see is that there were, even in those wicked days, some people who hadn’t enough faith to go into the Ark when Noe did, and yet weren’t altogether wicked people. What became of them? They were drowned by the flood, sure enough; they paid the penalty in their mortal natures. But when they were drowned, they didn’t go to hell; their spirits lived on in the sight of God. And to these people, who were not wicked enough to go to hell, and hadn’t got enough faith to go to Limbo, our Lord, in his spirit, went and preached. When it says he preached to them, it only means, I think, that he brought them the good news of the salvation which his Cross had given to the world. Not in Gehenna, not in Limbo-where were they, then? Surely in Purgatory; in a place or state where they underwent punishment for their sins, but were destined later to go to heaven; only that couldn’t happen till our Lord had died to redeem them; and many of them no doubt weren’t yet ready for heaven, even then.
If that is the true explanation of what St. Peter means, then it follows that Purgatory, too, as well as Limbo, was visited by our Lord in that royal progress of his on Good Friday and Holy Saturday. And with his coming a new hope came to the souls in Purgatory and has remained there ever since. They were souls bound for heaven. What light, what rest was given to them when our Lord came and told them that! If you and I go to Purgatory, we may have much to suffer there, but it will not be a place of despair or of doubt. We shall be able to say, Descendit ad inferos; Jesus Christ has been here, and he has made a door in this prison house through which, not now but later on, I shall follow him to heaven.
Ronald Knox, The Creed in Slow Motion
Having not read the teachings of the church in a long time it’s really healing to be reminded of the love and the dedication the church has to the word of God. This is in response to the church does not contradict itself. I think if you read the Old Testament and the New Testament you will find the common thread that runs throughout is the law of love. And Jesus reinterates that principle when asked what he thought was the two greatest commandments and replied To love the Lord God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself. When you see an exception made in the bible it never violates certain principles but always confirms the law or the grace of agape love. So can the church say in all her splendor and dedication as is evidenced not by her perfection but in the case of the Catholic church her service to God through her service to mankind. So can she say as a church the church does not contradict itself. The law or grace of love does not contradict but rather completes itself with its own grace that speaks from the heart. So in that spirit how can we not embrace and do our best to love that which God has allowed as is the case with snowflake children, just the name is beautiful in and of itself, to do less than our Father would do for us. Science in all its glory did not create snowflake children but rather worked with what was already created by God. So what is our duty. I think if we search the scriptures our duty we see is to do no less for Gods creations than he would expect of us. And of course because it completes the cycle of love our own heart lets us know what choice is the right one.