Folio 647
Pius XII, 1939–
printed p. 615 · pdf p. 647
and to attribute to oneself the tacit power, as often as one's own advantage seems to demand this, of infringing on the same of one's own free will, that is, without consulting, and overlooking the other party in the pact, certainly deprives states of due and mutual trust; and so the order of nature is completely destroyed, and peoples and nations are separated from one another as by precipitous and deep chasms.
Sterilization1
[Decree of the Holy Office, February 24, 1940]
2283. To the question proposed to the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office; "Whether direct sterilization, either perpetual or temporary, is permitted on a man or a woman," the Most Eminent and Reverend Fathers, Doctors, and Cardinals, appointed to guard matters of faith and morals, on Thursday, the 21st day of February, 1940, have decided that the following answer must be given:
"In the negative, and indeed that it is prohibited by the law of nature, and that, insofar as it pertains to eugenic sterilization, it has already been disapproved by the decree of this Congregation, on the 21st day of March, 1931.
The Corporal Origin of Man2
[From an address of Pius XII November 30, 1941, at the beginning of the year of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences]
2285. God has placed man in the highest place in the scale of living creatures; endowed, as he is, with a spiritual soul, the chief and the highest of all the animal kingdom. Manifold investigations in the fields of paleontology, biology, and morphology regarding other questions concerning the origin of man have thus far produced nothing clear and certain in a positive way. Therefore, we can only leave for the future the reply to the question, whether some day, science illumined and guided by revelation will offer certain and definite solutions to so serious a question.
Members of the Church3
[From the Encyclical, "Mystici Corporis," June 29, 1943]
2286. Actually only those are to be numbered among the members of the Church who have received the laver of regeneration and profess the true