From Biopolitics to Eugenics: The Encyclical<i> Casti Connubii</i>

Betta, Emmanuel

doi:10.16922/jrhlc.4.2.3

Cited by 2 publications

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“…With Casti Connubii, the Catholic Church firmly established a strict disciplinary doctrine to deal with issues related to reproduction and sexuality. 63 However, the encyclical did not put an end to discussions on eugenics in Catholic circles. It formulated a negative judgement about sterilisation, but implicitly accepted positive eugenic methods.…”

Section: Pastoral Medicinementioning

confidence: 99%

Aligning Faith with Medicine: Medical Ethics, Reproduction and Catholic Morality in Francophone and Anglophone Normative Literature, c. 1840–1960*

Gijbels

Lancaster

Maehle

et al. 2022

Journal of Religious History

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This paper focuses on intersections of medical ethics and religious commitments by charting conceptions of the Catholic doctor in French and English‐language normative texts from the mid‐nineteenth to the mid‐twentieth century. Behavioural norms for doctors were increasingly emphasised in writings on pastoral medicine, especially regarding obstetrics and advice on sexual hygiene, with the Ten Commandments and the Sacraments forming the initial ethical framework. From the 1890s, Catholic medical deontology emerged as a genre in its own right, reflecting a distinct identity of Catholic doctors in medical faculties and in their own professional societies. Simultaneously, the range of topics broadened. While traditional issues of reproductive ethics such as medical abortion and emergency baptism remained central concerns, eugenic sterilisation and euthanasia posed new challenges. Catholic doctors were now expected to take on a social role that went beyond the care of their individual patients, especially in questions of population politics. A popular contributor to the eugenics debate was the French medical scientist Alexis Carrel.

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Section: Pastoral Medicinementioning

confidence: 99%

Aligning Faith with Medicine: Medical Ethics, Reproduction and Catholic Morality in Francophone and Anglophone Normative Literature, c. 1840–1960*

Gijbels

Lancaster

Maehle

et al. 2022

Journal of Religious History

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“…At the same time, the encyclical did not condemn 'positive eugenics', which entailed efforts to produce healthy children, particularly among 'the fit'. 114 Catholic milieus, as stressed by Monika Loscher in her article on Austria, shared a eugenic concern about declining birth rates and about the quality of a nation plagued by alcoholism Acknowledgements. The authors would like to thank the 'Catholicizing reproduction' research grant team (Jędrzej Burszta, Agata Ignaciuk, Agnieszka Kosiorowska, Agnieszka Kościańska, and Natalia Pomian) for their comments on an earlier draft of this article.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining the Calendar: The Catholic Church and Family Planning in Poland, 1930–1957

Jarska

Kuźma-Markowska²

2023

Hist. J.

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This article explores continuities and discontinuities in Polish Catholic discourses on family planning across a time span that tends to be divided in the historiography on Poland and political history in general. The period we analyse begins in 1930, with the pivotal encyclical Casti connubii defining church doctrine on contraception, and ends with the legalization of abortion in 1956, and a state-sponsored family planning campaign the following year. In order to reconstruct Catholic teachings on marriage and family planning we examine advice publications that received official church approval, paying particular attention to their gendered dimensions, the emphasis placed on marriage, and the ‘calendar’ method. Although our research includes three politically and socially distinct periods, we argue that the content of Catholic teachings on family planning in Poland was consistent throughout. We also show that, although there were some distinct national characteristics, the Polish Catholic discourse on family planning resembled to a great extent the developments in other countries, particularly in regard to visions of marriage and sexuality. As we delineate, by engaging in the discussion on family planning, Catholic authors acted as active constructors of modernity, construed in both periods in relation to science and nationalism.

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From Biopolitics to Eugenics: The Encyclical Casti Connubii

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Aligning Faith with Medicine: Medical Ethics, Reproduction and Catholic Morality in Francophone and Anglophone Normative Literature, c. 1840–1960*

Aligning Faith with Medicine: Medical Ethics, Reproduction and Catholic Morality in Francophone and Anglophone Normative Literature, c. 1840–1960*

Explaining the Calendar: The Catholic Church and Family Planning in Poland, 1930–1957

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