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From: jhpb@granjon.garage.att.com
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: grail message question
Message-ID: <Dec.4.00.47.31.1990.518@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 4 Dec 90 05:47:32 GMT
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Mark Sandrock wrote:

    Although the Second Council of Constantinople (553 A.D.) did approve
    the condemnation of the doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul
    (and there- with by implication the idea of reincarnation), there is
    some question as to the validity of these actions as far as the
    Roman Catholic Church is concerned.
    
    For instance, the Roman Catholic Archbishop Passavalli (1820-1897)
    was reported to have accepted the truth of reincarnation at the age
    of 64.  He argued that reincarnation was not condemned by the Church
    and that it was not at all in conflict with any Catholic dogma. The
    Belgian Cardinal and philosopher, Cardinal Mercier (1851-1926), is
    also reported to have acknowledged that belief in pre-existence and
    reincarnation had never been formally considered heretical by the
    Church. His views were contained in a letter to a Polish Catholic,
    Professor Wincenty Lutoslawski, who himself taught a form of
    reincarnation that he preferred to call palingenesis.
    
    Finally, Church historians point out that no papal encyclical
    against reincarnation has ever been issued--a point that should be
    of particular interest to Roman Catholics.
    
And sort of piqued my curiosity as to what this was all about.

Reincarnation itself is radically incompatible with Catholicism,
especially as regards the last things: death, judgement, Heaven, Hell.
Once you're dead, your fate is decided for all eternity.

The council referred to was in 543; it wasn't the general council
Constantinople II, which was indeed in 553.  The council was against the
errors of Origen.  One of them regarded the origin of the soul.

That's what this is all about: confusion in the cited reference between
reincarnation and various theories of the origin of the human soul.

There has been, in the past, some argument over the exact mode and
manner of the origin of the human soul.  That is undoubtedly how
Cardinal Mercier got into this; he was a famous theologian, and was
presumably involved in some discussion over pre-existence, which has
nothing to do with reincarnation.

The present state of Catholic doctrine is that souls are immediately
created by God out of nothing, then infused into the body.

In the early Church, several views were held.  St. Augustine, in
particular, wavered between that just mentioned and the idea that the
soul of a child was somehow derived from the soul of the parents.  This
made it easier to understand original sin, I suppose.  But most of the
Fathers and later teachers held the creation theory.

Joe Buehler