Question Five: Concerning Monsters to Be Baptized

I. A monster is a fetus in which the appearance of the human body is totally or notably deformed; a deformed fetus brought forth by a woman, which according to the various deformity is called by various names.

As to simple monsters, only three cases occur: for the monster either is acardiac, i.e., without head and breast, or has a human head, or has an animal head. "A head without a breast or a breast without a head are not found."¹

¹ Capellmann, o. c., p. III.

1. If it is acardiac, i.e., consists of belly and feet alone without head and breast, if, which rarely happens, a heart is present, it is rudimentary and atrophic, it is not to be baptized; a fortiori if it is a mole or formless fleshy mass. The reason is that certainly it is not a man, as lacking organs altogether necessary for human life.²

² The acardiac is regularly found with another well-developed fetus, and is always brought forth dead, after the well-formed fetus. But neither is it to be baptized in the uterus.

2. If it has a human head or one nearer to human, it is to be baptized absolutely, even if it is hemicephalic or acranic, because a head is present.³

³ It is called hemicephalic because in it the face is more developed and the cranium with the brain more or less diminished; acranic because the head is depressed, so that formerly they were called heads of a cat or of a turtle. Therefore simple ones, namely acrania, cyclopia, with one eye in the middle of the forehead, polydactylia, with several fingers, amelia, without arms and feet, phocomelia, with short members like seals, sympodia, with legs joined into one trunk, hydrocephalia, with an enormous head containing water, are to be baptized absolutely. Amorphous and anormous monsters, formless or round masses, much more probably are simple fleshy masses, but because they have something of the bones of the head, brain, and trunk, therefore it is not altogether certain.

3. If it has an animal head, then it is to be baptized under condition: si es homo. The Ritual says, t. II, c. I, n. 19: "A monster which does not present the human species is not to be baptized"; but this was written at a time when it was thought that monsters could arise from congress of a woman with brutes, while today it is established that this is impossible,⁴ and that monsters are formed from a morbid cause or from an accidental concurrence of causes or from vehement imagination or terror of the mother. Whence many more recent authors say that all monsters are to be baptized absolutely, because every living fetus is a man; but they say this from their preconceived opinion concerning the animation of the fetus from the beginning of conception. But it is also probable that the fetus is animated only around the end of the third month, when it acquires the external species of man; but before the third month it can perhaps be deformed, so that it never arrives at the aforesaid stage of external human species. Besides, where the fetus is deformed at a time when it is already animated by a rational soul, is it repugnant that this soul abandon an unsuitable body and that the soul of a brute succeed to it?

⁴ "Today there is no one who holds that a woman having congress with a wild animal can generate a wild animal or any fetus whatever." Thus Dr. Leroux, in Revue Eccl. de Liege, 1909-10, p. 107.

II. As to twinned monsters, double or multiple,⁵ either it is certain that one or several individuals are present, or it will be doubtful.

⁵ Tricephalic ones with three heads are very rare; likewise triplets; but parasitic triplets are more frequent.

1. In doubt whether the monster is one man or several, because it has two breasts and one head, or two heads and one breast, or two heads and breasts almost not distinct, let one head be baptized absolutely; the other head, or if this is lacking, the breast which does not seem to correspond to the head, or each breast if neither corresponds to the head, under condition: si non es baptizatus (Rit. Rom., n. 21).

2. In other cases it is clear either that there is only one man, or that there are two or more distinct ones; e.g., if there are two distinct heads and breasts, so that only the lower part of the trunk is common, they are undoubtedly judged two individuals, and therefore each is to be baptized separately, as the Roman Ritual prescribes, n. 20. On the contrary, if there is one head and one breast, and only the lower members are multiplied, let one center of life be reputed, and one individual to be washed only once.⁶

⁶ They are customarily distinguished: A. Equal doubles, or dicephalic ones, which have two more or less distinct heads: 1) thoracopagi, from haereo, have two heads and two joined breasts; 2) diprosopa, twice-face, have one breast and one head but two faces; 3) ischiopagi have two opposite heads and two bodies joined through the bones of the pelvis, but one umbilicus; 4) craniopagi, which have a double brain and body, so that they adhere through the crown of the head, or through the occiput, or through the frontal bones; 5) pygopagi, in which two adhere through the extremity of the vertebral column, buttocks, sacrum, and coccyx. B. Unequal doubles, namely: 1) syncephali, which have two breasts and one head, among which is the cephalothoracopagus, in which two are found joined from the umbilicus to the crown of the head. Very rarely are two heads present with a double face, Janiceps; ordinarily there is one complete face, and a trace of the other, but there is a double brain and also a double vertebral column, so that they are joined in the middle of the breast; 2) parasitic ones, e.g.: a) epigastria, which ordinarily have only pelvis and lower extremities; nevertheless sometimes to be baptized, if a neck or also a head is present; b) engastria, which are parasites in the belly of another; c) papyracea, in which one fetus compresses another already dead; d) epipygia, which adhere to another in the region of the sacrum and can have intestines and extremities; e) epignathia, which adhere upon the jaw as a fetal tumor. It is clear that all these parasitic ones are not to be baptized. But let it be noted that the aforesaid enumeration is not complete.

III. Observations. 1. By a general formula the Code of Law says, can. 748: "Monsters and portents are always to be baptized at least under condition; but in doubt whether they are one or several men, one is to be baptized absolutely, the others under condition." This holds of itself and regularly.

2. In the case of a multiple monster, if danger of death is imminent and time is not sufficient that each be baptized separately, the minister will be able, pouring water upon the heads of each, to baptize all at the same time, saying: ego vos baptizo, in nomine, etc. Nevertheless, outside imminent danger this is not licit, since then the form is always to be repeated for each one (Rit., n. 20).

3. The midwife must keep silence concerning monsters, lest displeasure be caused to the family. Nor should she impute it to the parents, even under light fault.

IV. Those perpetually insane who have never had the use of reason can be baptized at once like infants; those who have had the use of reason can be baptized provided that they have had this intention at least implicitly. Those who are not insane in perpetuity must be baptized in a lucid interval, unless in a case of extreme necessity (can. 754).