Rome hasn’t always held “Human life begins at conception”

Pope Innocent III held “abortion caused by monk was ok because fetus had not yet ‘vivified’”.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 2270) holds that “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life”. Rome boldly affirms, “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable.”

But what they don’t tell you is that, in the history of the hierarchy of the Roman Church, that hierarchy hasn’t always held that “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception”.

This factoid has been pointed out by Paul Bassett, a former Roman Catholic with deep family roots, who has also uncovered the Roman “paper trail” in contradiction of itself on this:

St. Jerome held that “the fetus [was] at no point of development a human.” The early church relied heavily on Augustine’s teaching in the area of sexual ethics and Augustine did not believe that full human life began at conception. Much later, Aquinas wrote, “We conclude therefore that the intellectual soul is created by God at the end of human generation…” not at the beginning. And this was the official view of the Roman Catholic Church accepted at the Council of Vienne (1312); said view never having been “officially repudiated.” And that brings us to the truly interesting story as it relates to [the unity of Roman Catholic doctrine]. At least a century before the Council of Vienne, Pope Innocent III supported abortion. Let’s here from the devout Roman Catholic writer (Ph.D. Catholic University of America) John T. Noonan:

“A contrary view was manifested in canon 20 of the title “Voluntary and Chance Homicide.” Canon 20, Sicut ex, was a letter of Innocent III to a Carthusian priory about a monk who had caused his mistress to abort. The Pope held that the monk was not irregular if the fetus was not “vivified.” The wider significance of the letter arose from the usual rules for imposing irregularity. Irregularity was no mere technical deficiency, but a state in which the right to perform sacerdotal functions was suspended…Irregularity was automatically incurred by a cleric guilty of homicide (Decretals 5.12.6). Hence, if the Carthusian monk was not irregular, the plain implication was that no homicide occurred in a stopping of life prior to the time a fetus received a soul. Sicut ex cast doubt on the literalness of Si aliquis, which held contraception to be homicide.”

Pope Innocent III, the Vicar of Christ on earth, did not believe in life “at the moment of conception” and his writings influenced the ethics of the church for centuries.

In fact, four centuries later the Council of Trent upheld the view held by Augustine, Aquinas and Innocent:

“The Council of Trent in the sixteenth century, for example, makes it clear that no human embryo could be informed with a human soul except after a certain period of time, as in the hylomorphic (Thomistic) commonplace.”

In further point of fact official Roman Catholic publications forbade the baptizing of fetuses until as late as 1895; [this is] a truly odd prohibition if life does begin at conception. What we have, then, is a matter “of faith” which has received Magisterial attention from at least the time of Innocent III. And we have a doctrine which is clearly contradicted by current magisterial teaching.

Paul is a long-term elder in a PCUSA church in Southern California.