So... My family being Novus Ordo, and my mother being an RN I never thought to question the fact that my brothers were all circuмcised as babies for what she believed were health reasons.
Recently, with my husband and I expecting in April, some friends brought up the topic and told us that circuмcision was condemned by the Church. We had never heard of this before so we did some research. We were shocked to find out that it seems to have been condemned by the Church in the Council of Florence and that we had never heard before that the Church even had an opinion on it...
I am thinking of writing an article on it for my blog but would love to hear if anyone has any info or history on this matter besides this particular Church Council article:
“Therefore it [the Church] commands all who glory in the name of Christian, at whatever time, before or after baptism, to cease entirely from circuмcision, since, whether or not one places hope in it, it cannot be observed at all without the loss of eternal salvation.”
Full Paragraph on the Section:
SESSION 11 4 February 1442 [Bull of union with the Copts]
"It firmly believes, professes and teaches that the legal prescriptions of the old Testament or the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, holy sacrifices and sacraments, because they were instituted to signify something in the future, although they were adequate for the divine cult of that age, once our lord Jesus Christ who was signified by them had come, came to an end and the sacraments of the new Testament had their beginning. Whoever, after the passion, places his hope in the legal prescriptions and submits himself to them as necessary for salvation and as if faith in Christ without them could not save, sins mortally. It does not deny that from Christ’s passion until the promulgation of the gospel they could have been retained, provided they were in no way believed to be necessary for salvation. But it asserts that after the promulgation of the gospel they cannot be observed without loss of eternal salvation. Therefore it denounces all who after that time observe circuмcision, the sabbath and other legal prescriptions as strangers to the faith of Christ and unable to share in eternal salvation, unless they recoil at some time from these errors. Therefore it strictly orders all who glory in the name of Christian, not to practice circuмcision either before or after baptism, since whether or not they place their hope in it, it cannot possibly be observed without loss of eternal salvation."
Sincerely,
Rita