ASK A FRANCISCAN
❘ BY FATHER PAT McCLOSKEY, OFM
Caring for In Vitro Newborns I am an RN in a neonatal intensive care unit, taking care of preemies and very sick infants. Many of our babies are multiples, the result of in vitro fertilization. Some people have asked me how I can take care of these babies who were not conceived in a natural way. My answer is that the babies are here now, so I
feel I should take care of them. Is it against Catholic doctrine for neonatal nurses to take care of babies not conceived in the natural way? Does such a baby still have a soul? I would think so, but there may be disagreement about that. It seems to me that even if a baby was conceived in a petri dish, the hand
Miter’s Origins What is the history and significance of the bishop’s miter?
CNS PHOTO/ALESSANDRO BIANCHI, REU TERS
The pointed hat that bishops wear during liturgical ceremonies was once thought to have some connection to a head covering mentioned in the Old Testament texts about Jewish priests. According to James-Charles Noon Jr., in The Church Visible: The Ceremonial Life and Protocol of the Catholic Church, that is not the case now. The miter can be traced to much more simple headgear for Greek athletes in pre-Christian days. The miter began to be worn by the bishop of Rome in the 10th century. At first, its use was permitted to certain other bishops; in time, it became standard for all bishops in the Western Church. Most Eastern eparchs or archeparchs (roughly equivalent to bishops and archbishops) wear a crown, although a few wear a miter. The back of the miter has two ribbons. The miter was white for centuries, but in more recent times it has been matched to the liturgical color of the feast.
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of God still played a part in that baby’s creation, or the child would not have survived and been born. Your answers are perfectly correct. It is not against Catholic doctrine for neonatal nurses to take care of babies conceived in this way. Also, each of these babies has a human soul. If they did not, you could not recognize them as human. They can be baptized and receive other sacraments. In August 1978, Mary Louise Brown was born in England, the first person publicly acknowledged as resulting from in vitro fertilization. Pope John Paul I offered prayers and good wishes for her future. He did not, however, reverse the Catholic Church’s opposition to in vitro fertilization. This practice jeopardizes the identity of the child because he or she could have up to five parents potentially in conflict: the mother and father who actually raise the child, the biological mother and father, and the woman who carried the fertilized embryo to term. Although some people argue that this procedure is a compassionate way of helping a childless couple, those same people tend not to mention that multiple zygotes are usually created from the same donation of eggs and sperm. When one or more zygotes have been successfully implanted, the remaining ones are usually discarded. Are they less human than the zygote successfully implanted? Does that part of the process determine who is human and who is not? No. The legal status of contracts intended to define rights and responsibilities of all parties to an in vitro fertilization is unclear. God is the ultimate author of life; St A n t h o n y M e s s e n g e r . o rg