My husband and I got into a heated discussion regarding the ethical (and/or moral?) question of eating a dead person in order to survive (the Andes plane crash all those years ago, for example). Does anyone know what stand the Catholic Church takes on this distasteful (no pun intended!) issue?

Thank you.

-- Dee (dee@none.sorry), November 17, 2004

Answers

i believe that, in the past, the church has taught that only consumption of the divine Flesh and Blood of Christ is acceptable, and that consumption of other human flesh is immoral. I'm not sure. if it is so, then no, you would not be allowed to consume the flesh of a dead person to survive, as no evil may be committed, even with the aim of a good outcome.

-- paul h (dontSendMeMail@notAnAddress.com), November 17, 2004.

We are commanded to respect and bury dead bodies. Eating them is morbid and is not acceptable under normal circumstances, but it is not intrinsically immoral. The Church does not absolutely forbid consuming human flesh, otherwise it would logically have to forbid blood and organ donation, both of which it has in fact praised as works of Christian charity. Unlike nearly every other religion, (most of) Christianity does not divide foods into good and bad. It is not what goes into the mouth which makes a man unclean, but what comes out of his mouth and his heart.

Deliberate suicide is immoral and is a worse evil than disrespecting dead bodies. It is immoral to starve oneself to death when there is food available. If it is a choice between eating human flesh and starving to death, not only is it moral to eat it, I would say you are morally OBLIGED to eat it; though maybe some people would be psychologically unable to do so and would “gag” at the thought of it.

I understand at least one of those who survived the Andean plane crash incident has spoken of his life being saved by eating the flesh of his dead friends as something akin to receiving the Eucharist which gives life.

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), November 17, 2004.

Great post Steve!

-- - (David@excite.com), November 17, 2004.

Deliberate suicide is immoral and is a worse evil than disrespecting dead bodies

the only thing i would say to this, steve, would be that if it is immoral to dismember the bodies of the dead, including to eat from them (except in the case of the Christ) then there can be no justification to eat the dead, even to stay alive. there is, i repeat, no case in which one MUST choose a lesser of two evils... there is ALWAYS a moral option which is seperate and does not involve evil. be that trying to survive on other foods which are available in the area or whatnot granted the situation, if we are to object morally to consumption of the dead then we are to object regardless of circumstance.

-- paul h (dontSendMeMail@notAnAddress.com), November 17, 2004.

Thank you David, what a nice surprise.

Paul, not everything which is usually or generally immoral is always or intrinsically immoral. For example it is generally immoral to deprive a man of his liberty by shackling or imprisoning him. But in some cases it would be immoral NOT to do it, in order to protect others. It is USUALLY immoral, but not always or intrinsically immoral, to dismember dead bodies. There are other cases where this is justified, eg when an autopsy is required, or to remove organs for donation, or to save the life of a fetus after his/her mother dies.

Suicide, on the other hand, is always immoral by its very nature. However in this case the guilt of someone who starved himself to death would be greatly diminished by the trauma he had been through and the natural revulsion he would feel at having to eat human flesh.

The plane crash was on a snowcapped mountain far above the treeline. NO other food was available. The moral option was to eat the bodies.

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), November 17, 2004.

Both in the Andes case and the Donner party, it was extreme weather conditions--record snows, I believe in the Donner case, which made it impossible to find any type of other food. In the Andes case you have to figure in the altitude they were at--nothing growing to eat.

Finally, when one is starving, and cold/thirsty you're not thinking straight. And just to keep warm, you use thousands of calories, even when you are eating well--people were truly exhausted just from hauling wood to burn and trying to walk in snowdrifts. I doubt they had the energy to bury the dead....

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), November 17, 2004.

Next time you go to a restaurant, when they ask your name for the waiting list, just say Donner.

Donner Party of five...

-- Emerald (em@cox.nett), November 17, 2004.

Luckily, Im a vegitarian...

-- ZAROVE (ZAROFF3@JUNO.COM), November 17, 2004.

Reminds me of a certain comic strip. Kind of dark humor though.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), November 18, 2004.

That doesn’t get you off the hook Zarove. If you found yourself in a situation where you had the choice of eating meat (human or animal) or starving to death, you would have to eat it.

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), November 18, 2004.

We rented the movie Alive recently about the rugby team surviving in the Andes. I had seen it before and read the book many years ago, but seeing it again was very moving. I would recommend it and the book. Sixteen people survived 70 days in the mountains. All but a couple of them were Catholic and even one of the agnostics resorted to reciting the Rosary after initially balking. In the book, some of the mothers began to gather together to pray the Rosary for the intercession of the Virgin of Garabandal. Others began to join them. Somewhere else I read that the mother who began the prayers said that once at the fifth Joyful Mystery she heard a voice saying "If I suffered so much at the loss of my Son for three days, I fully understand your sorrow after so many days of having lost yours. Be at peace, they will return; I promise you."

The decision to eat to survive weighed heavily on most of their minds, even though they would have died if they had not done so. They were constantly conscious of how close they were to dying, feeling as if they could almost touch God. That two of them managed to walk out of there to civilization is super-human feat, a miracle.

-- Brian Crane (brian.crane@cranemills.com), December 01, 2004.