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This weekend I went to the wedding of an old college roommate. (It was a good time, though of course a Catholic wedding really shouldn’t be held in Advent.) Now we’re on the way out the door again, off for our Christmas tour of relatives’ houses. But I thought I’d throw something up on the blog before I go, and despite many exciting things going on in the Catholic world, my fascinating discovery of the day has been this website concerning feral children raised by animals.
The topic of feral children came up in our philosophy reading group last week, with reference to a fascinating article about, of all things, walking. I’ll be writing more about that piece as soon as I get the chance, because it has some interesting implications for Catholics. However, one interesting question was: is it instinctive for people to begin walking upright as soon as they are physically able, or do they have to learn this behavior from others? In fact, there are documented cases of children who have grown up without any human contact, and since these cases seemed potentially relevant to the question, I googled the topic and was quite fascinated to read the stories of these feral children, particularly the ones who were raised by animals.
The name “wolf children” is colloquially used just because wolves are the animal most frequently known to raise human children (though, bears, monkeys, antelope, dogs, and certain big cats have also been known to foster human children.) In many cases female wolves have actually stolen human babies to replace pups of their own who were lost. Though the cases have cropped up in many different time periods and many parts of the world, there are nonetheless certain interesting commonalities between them. To begin with, the children generally cannot walk upright when they are first taken back into human societies. Over time this can be learned, but wolf children usually don’t fully adjust to being bipeds — for example, Kamala, one of the famous Wolf Girls of Midnapore, was trained to behave somewhat normally in human society, but whenever she got excited or hurried she was said to break into a run… on all fours. Most wolf children like their meat raw, and they are very opposed to wearing clothing. They are known to make animal noises and to prefer sleeping on floors (the wolf girls of Midnapore, having grown up together, liked sleeping curled up together on the floor.) And, although they can be taught certain human behaviors, they have very little capacity to learn or understand human language. Most spend their lives nearly or completely mute.
Further, most are very resistant to adapting to human culture at all. At least for the first few years, they seem anxious to return to their animal existence.
Anyway, I don’t have time to elaborate on this much here, but it’s sparked multiple lines of thought. Isn’t this a fascinating puzzle from the standpoint of Catholic moral philosophy? Here we have people who have been taught to regard their telos as something utterly different from a human telos. Is it possible for such people to foster human virtues? How would they be judged if they never were taken away from their wolf families, and lived out essentially lupine lives? What kind of grasp can a person have of the logos if he is raised by creatures who have no access to it at all? Anyway, perhaps I’ll develop these lines more later (pressing packing issues just now), but I just thought I’d throw it out there.
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort,
Pope St. Pius X,
St. Joseph,
St. Ambrose of Milan,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Francis (and St. Clare),
St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Alphonsus Ligouri,
St. John Chrysostom,
umm, not to sound totally ignorant, but why shouldn’t Catholic weddings be held during Advent?
Also, I asked about meetings and parishes in the Ithaca area on here a while back…and a gentleman very kindly responded about parish options, but I was on the road doing Cornell recruitment at the time so couldn’t participate.
However, I can’t seem to find his email anymore. He mentioned a Rosary on Thursdays…does anyone know what time it is and where (Anabel Taylor or Sage Chapel, and where within those)?
Pax & Thanks,
Scott
Advent is, like Lent, a penitential season, and thus not a good time to schedule what is supposed to be a joyous celebration. Same sort of reason that you really shouldn’t get married on Friday.
For the rest, Franciscus should really be the one to answer you; since I’m not around Ithaca anymore, it’s tough for me to say what’s happening, but Rosary used to be at 9pm Monday-Thursday in Anabel Taylor Hall, in the small Blessed Sacrament room next to the main chapel. What’s this about recruiting for Cornell? Is that your job?
Doesn’t this question fall under the same umbrella as the whole “natives in African who have never heard of Jesus?” I thought our end, our telos was innate? Where does Natural Law fit into this picture? Thanks, Bridget
I wonder if you’ve heard of the legend of the founders of the city of Rome - Romulus and Remus - who were supposedly raised by a wolf near the Palatine Hill, and then went on to found the city around there.
Yes, I surely do know the legend. Not sure I believe it, though… the better-documented cases of children raised by animals make it difficult to believe that such a child could grow up to found a human city. But who knows?
Bridget, you certainly put your finger on the right point when you mention natural law. And this is the real difference between feral children and pagans. Pagans don’t know Jesus, but they do know that they’re human beings, and they have sometimes done quite an impressive job of determining and fulfilling their natural telos, presumably with the aid of natural reason. These kids don’t even know that they’re people. They’re aiming to fulfill a wolf telos, because they actually think they’re wolves. It would be interesting to see, if one ever did grow up, what he’d be like in adulthood. Would they eventually shake this off and seek out human company on their own? Could they come to believe in God, etc.? It seems in all the documented cases that the children have always been found by humans who have killed their animal foster parents and taken the children into human society. And in those cases, the “rescued” kids showed strong proclivities to try to return to their animal lifestyles, and to resist socialization into human culture. And of course, they weren’t even capable of mastering many basics of human society, such as language.
Weather the story is true or not—Tobias Petrus should be able to say—Romulus and Remus were set adrift in a basket on the river (like Moses) and first rescued by a she-wolf who nursed them. It wasn’t too long before a shepherd discovered them on the riverbank and brought them back to civilization. (Their mother was a Vestal Virgin and their father was Mars.) Interestingly, when they grew up and were commencing the founding of the city, Romulus slew Remus as Cain slew Abel. I think the fact that Cain and Romulus both committed the unnatural sin of fratricide reflects not so much on their upbringing as on the wound we all received from Original Sin.
Being raised by wolves, of course makes the outcome significantly worse but there seems to be another important factor to be considered: the strong probability of possession by the Devil.
In the Traditional Rite of Baptism, possession of some sort is taken for granted, as the priest says a number of times at the exorcism, “Depart unclean spirit.” Saint Thomas says of this, “And though not all that approach Baptism are troubled by him (the Devil) in their bodies, yet all who are not baptized are subject to the power of the demons, at least on account of original sin.” (Pt III, Q. 71 Art 2, Reply ob 1) Therefore, it seems that in dealing with feral children the fact of their being under the power of the demons should be considered. These cases are very sad and tragic to be sure.
Isn’t this one of the very few examples of invincible ignorance? If so, no worries about those souls. Also, the observations strike me as consistent with the idea that God directly created Adam and Eve and infused into them their human habits, speech, etc., from the beginning; that these human habits - our humanity, loosely speaking, or the image of God - have been handed down from parents to children since (this is part of tradition with a small T); that any part of this tradition can be lost forever in one generation. On the other hand we have the revolutionaries of all stripes, who worship their false gods of Progress and Evolution, with their basic premise that new information can and does arise spontaneously from nothing (and hence the wolf children can become as gods.) Standard revolutionary theory is to first clear the ground by destroying everything (i.e. the corrupt old order), in order to then build the new utopia (the former is easy, the latter has never been done - and cannot be done, humanly speaking.) If the revolutionaries were to succeed, we would all (the survivors anyway) be wolf children. There seem to be some vocal enemies of Western Civilization out there who would regard this as a Good Thing.
Some good points, Louis, about evolution and revolution. However, I’m not too sure about the salvation of the wolf children. Clara indicates that there has been no documented case of any who remained in the wild. Those that have been brought into human society don’t seem able to adapt. If they are incapable of acting human, then I guess you could call their ignorance invincible or non culpable, which today seems to be applied not only to natives in the jungle but to your next door neighbor who “doesn’t know any better.” I would think aborted babies are certainly invincibly ignorant and yet the Vatican devoted page upon page of arguments to give us a mere “hope” of their salvation. Why didn’t they just say, “They are saved by invincible ignorance”?
So, regarding feral children, should we say that if they die after thinking and acting like wolves, “They automatically go straight to Heaven”? Why not say, “Not only did they have the salvific effects of invincible ignorance but they suffered so much in this life due to no fault of their own, that they deserve more than an ordinary place in Heaven. After perhaps being tortured by demons in this life, they deserve to be canonized.” So much is made of the merits of invincible ignorance that I think it’s about time we have a Patron Saint of the invincibly ignorant, don’t you?
Discipulus, thought-provoking comments. I infer that you hold invincible ignorance to have been applied so broadly by modernists as to have become almost meaningless. I agree - as I said, the wolf children may be one of the very few examples. Allow me to attempt to clarify my thinking and make some distinctions. The innocent baptised, like my brain-damaged niece, go straight to Heaven, no? The innocent unbaptised, like the aborted babies, according to the traditional teaching of the Church go to limbo (despite the pages and pages of that speculative Vatican document.) These two categories (to which invincible ignorance does not apply) would seem to account for all those wolf children who are incapable of attaining use of reason, or die before attaining it. I.e., they die innocent, whether baptised or not. Excluding from consideration, then, those wolf children who die innocent, we have remaining those who attain the use of reason before death. Some of those might be invincibly ignorant, but it seems on reflection that they would number very few indeed. Among them would be the ones who die undiscovered in the wild, so we can only speculate on there being any at all. Also invincibly ignorant would be those who are discovered and ‘civilized’ in a society completely isolated from the Church - if any such society exists. At any rate, I should not have painted all wolf children with the same broad brush. Thanks and Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas, Louis and to all the Staff and friends of Cornell Society for a Good Time. I wish you many blessings.
Physicists have suggested that new alternative universes are created at each moment of time (whatever that means!) Even if not true, perhaps God does have alternative universes in His mind–with a set of universes for each of us as we go through life making choices under different circumstances–some of which we make ourselves, but many of which we cannot control.
In other words, a feral child would be judged according to how he would have acted in other universes with the same gifts, situations, and grace. A feral child would be judged on a scale ranging from the best outcome to the worst outcome for his own particular circumstances. The feral child would be judged against all possible versions of his own life, not against others.
At the end, a person would have used his gifts, circumstances, and the grace God gave him to reach a certain position–perhaps at the 95th percentile in one case and the 5th percentile in another. An interesting thought, (but one certainly not substantiated or even contradicted by any official Church teaching).
So is a baby that becomes a feral child judged by God by a combination of his gifts, circumstances, and choices in light of God’s spiritual gifts, assuming the baby is baptized? Is this a more complex understanding of the meaning of the parable on persons being given different talents?
Physicists have suggested that new alternative universes are created at each moment of time (whatever that means!) Even if not true, perhaps God does have alternative universes in His mind–with a set of universes for each of us as we go through life making choices under different circumstances–some of which we make ourselves, and many of which we cannot control.
In other words, a feral child would be judged according to how he would have acted in other universes with the same gifts, situations, and grace. A feral child would be judged on a scale ranging from the best outcome to the worst outcome for his own particular circumstances. The feral child would be judged against all possible versions of his own life, and not against others.
At the end, a person would have used his gifts, situation, and the graces God gave him to reach a certain final position–perhaps at the 95th percentile in one case or the 15th percentile in another–as compared to the same person in alternative universes. An interesting thought, although judgment criteria for heaven and hell are not adequately treated.
So is a baby that becomes a feral child judged by God using a combination of the child’s gifts, circumstances, and choices in light of God’s spiritual gifts, assuming the baby is baptized? Is this a more complex understanding of the meaning of the parable on persons being given different talents?