Cannibalism etc.

[Daniel]

Is there anything wrong with us eating the bodies of already-dead humans, and/or using those bodies for scientific research and other purposes (assuming such use doesn't cause scandal while doing so)?

Does the Church have any sort of official teaching on this?

[bigbadtrad]

Yes there is something wrong with eating bodies, the meat isn't tender.

9 out of 10 cannibals prefer vegetarians

What did the cannibal clown say after his meal? "That tasted funny."


OK MORE SERIOUSLY...
Yes it's absolutely forbidden to eat other people, even dead. The Church has condemned it. Research on dead bodies I don't think they have, but cannibalism is a definite no-no.

[martin88nyc]

 

[Tales]

Welcome to the modern world, where rationality rules and the natural law written on the hearts of man is nearly inaudible.  Everything must be questioned, it seems.

But maybe this is leading up to question the Real Presence.

[Non Nobis]

Here two priests (1972) defend the cannibalism in the Chilean air crash:  https://www.nytimes.com/1972/12/28/archives/two-catholic-aides-defend-cannibalism-in-chilean-air-crash.html

Here's the (very interesting) story of the "Donner Party" (pioneers in 1847) who may also have committed cannibalism as a last gruesome way to avoid starvation, when all other conceivable means had been tried: https://www.history.com/news/did-the-donner-party-really-resort-to-cannibalism

The natural law says we may not kill innocent humans.  It also says that we should respect dead human bodies, and gives us a strong natural revulsion to the mere idea of cannibalism. But it also gives us the strong natural instinct to preserve ourselves, to the point that killing another is acceptable for self-defense. I would think that it is worse to kill a innocent man than to eat a dead body (dead by no fault of our own) under extremely unusual circumstances (e.g. to keep ourselves or our family alive, when all other means have been tried).  It is right that we are revolted by the idea. But I'm not ready to condemn  people who are starving and truly desperate in such a case.  I don't know.  (If the Church has spoken about this, of course I would take that view). For myself, now, I think "no, never".  I think that is the right impulse. But I'm reluctant to condemn.

Is there anything wrong with...using those bodies for scientific research and other purposes (assuming such use doesn't cause scandal while doing so)?

Does the Church have any sort of official teaching on this?

See this article regarding Catholics donating their body to science:

http:/www.ewtn.com/library/ISSUES/zdonbody.htm

[Sempronius]

A council in the early middle ages forbade surgery on human bodies.

Re: the situation where you have to eat human flest or starve to death - For me its very simple: starve to death

[Gardener]

Just don't eat comedians. They taste funny.

[Non Nobis]

Just don't eat comedians. They taste funny.

I'd rather watch a comedian cannibal taste his favorite meal than eat him myself. He tastes funny just like he does everything else funny.  I don't need a funny taste in MY mouth.

[Acolyte]

Exactly

My first thought when I saw the title of the thread.

Welcome to the modern world, where rationality rules and the natural law written on the hearts of man is nearly inaudible.  Everything must be questioned, it seems.

But maybe this is leading up to question the Real Presence.

Sent from my LM-X210VPP using Tapatalk

[Kreuzritter]

Welcome to the modern world, where rationality rules and the natural law written on the hearts of man is nearly inaudible.  Everything must be questioned, it seems.

But maybe this is leading up to question the Real Presence.

Also this.

But it's not just simply modern. The West had already set the trend with Scholastic philosophy in assuming everything in creation is a product of and amenable to being grasped and deconstructed by reason. It's an insanity, but I'm not laying the blame on them or any historical movement, because I see the source in an internal vital disposition that only worsens as time goes by, not an external influence.

[St.Justin]

Welcome to the modern world, where rationality rules and the natural law written on the hearts of man is nearly inaudible.  Everything must be questioned, it seems.

But maybe this is leading up to question the Real Presence.

Also this.

But it's not just simply modern. The West had already set the trend with Scholastic philosophy in assuming everything in creation is a product of and amenable to being grasped and deconstructed by reason. It's an insanity, but I'm not laying the blame on them or any historical movement, because I see the source in an internal vital disposition that only worsens as time goes by, not an external influence.

unless you are Quare then nothing matters

[christulsa]

Well, I hear you can make pemmican from your own poop, mucus, hair, and toenails.  That should extend your life a week or two.  Crushing up some pine needles into it should make it more tasty.   

[Philip G.]

Sempronius - Can you find out what council taught that?  If you cannot, what year about was the council? 

Daniel - My thinking has always been that as a result of burying the dead being a corporal work of mercy, its opposite, which is conceivably/arguably dissection/scientific use of corpses, may be a vice/sin. 

Fr. Hesse(a canon lawyer who helped the SSPX after having been assistant for Cardinal Stickler) said that he supported the Chilean airplane crash survivors eating the bodies of those who died as a result of the crash.  If I recall correctly, he even cited Pope Paul VI who according to Fr. Hesse absolved them or in some way gestured an approval of what they did.  Fr. Hesse said that he would have no scruple doing as those survivors did.  I am recalling solely from memory, and may be wrong, but I think he even said something like" just don't offer me catchup"(aka blood).

As for my opinion about the morality of eating human flesh, the early church forbade the consumption of meat sacrificed to idols.  If one can argue that this plane crash was a conspiracy(not that I am), then one can argue that those killed in the plane crash may be theoretically no different from meat sacrificed to idols(the idol being airplane(s) and the priest(s) being blood thirsty globalist elites who sometimes orchestrate flight failure).  If one can do that, then one could argue that it is sinful.  I mean, even +Sheen used to say that the mass of modern humanity are walking corpses. 

[Sempronius]

I'll look for it today hopefully. Read it in Claude Fleury's History of the Church.

[Gardener]

Philip, St. Paul was clear in 1 Cor 8 that it was not forbidden to eat meat which had been sacrificed to idols, but rather if doing such a thing would scandalized those of a weaker mind (having not knowledge of the truth), then those with that knowledge (that the meat itself was morally neutral) should not eat the meat. But of eating the meat considered of itself, it was not sinful except if it caused scandal. The sin would be scandal, not the eating considered objectively.

Human flesh being consumed is an abhorrent practice, whether from necessity or not; the survivors of the crash were driven to it out of near madness and regardless of what Paul VI said, that doesn't change the reality of what they did and they expressed as much later. There is no comparison between human flesh and animal flesh in this regard.