Can Catholics Have Tattoos?
A Reflection
When I was working in the Middle East, I had a conversation with a Muslim colleague about tattoos and why we wouldn’t get one. My reasons were superficial: I don’t want to get one, because I don’t understand the meaning of having one. It’s very difficult for me to understand why someone would like to have a wound filled with ink. Her reasons were much more interesting than mine: she told me that, as a Muslim, she believes that her body doesn’t belong to her, but to Allah; and that she will have to return it to Him at some point, so it’s not for her to decide whether to desecrate it with a tattoo or not. In Sunni Islam, tattoos are haram —forbidden—. They are seen as dirty, and considered a sin that destroys the ablution.² But is this the case in Catholicism?
In Judaism and Christianity, Leviticus 19:28 has been a long-standing argument against tattooing:
You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh on account of the dead or tattoo any marks upon you…
As a ceremonial law within the Mosaic Law, Catholics are not bound to follow it. As St. Irenæus says, the law of bondage is cancelled by the new covenant of liberty.³ We would be bound to follow it if it overlapped with a moral law, but it doesn’t. So Catholics are not forbidden from getting a tattoo.
We even find Catholic tattooing traditions: during the Muslim conquest of the Balkans (1463–1878), the Ottoman Empire had the custom of taking boys as blood tax (devşirme), and girls as slaves, so Catholics in Bosnia and Herzegovina developed a tradition called sicanje, which consisted in tattooing crosses and other patterns on the hands, arms and chests of children (between 12 and 16),⁴ so that they would preserve their confession as Catholics.⁵ ⁶
Another tradition is found in Egypt, among both Catholic and Orthodox Copts.⁷ The tradition started during the Islamic conquest of Roman Egypt in the 7th century, when the Muslims branded the side of the inner right wrist of Christians and Jews who didn’t convert, in order to identify them as dhimmi —non-Muslims—, and levy the jizyah —the tax for the dhimmi to live in Muslim territory—.⁸ This brand turned into an identification; a symbol of resistance and perseverance for Copts, who till this day continue tattooing their children’s inner wrists with a cross, despite the fear of being persecuted,⁹ to prevent them from apostatizing.¹⁰
I can see the beauty in such tattoos. The beauty is not in the design itself, nor in the personal meaning given to it by the tattooee, but in its traditional function, and in such a case, I could understand why someone would fill a wound with coal and honey, or even with gunpowder, as Catholics in Bosnia and Herzegovina did.⁵ ⁶
Coming back to the conversation with my Muslim colleague; though the Church doesn’t forbid tattoos, we Christians do have a similar sense of our bodies returning to God—éxitus et réditus. We are promised the resurrection of the flesh, by which we are believers, as Tertullian says,¹¹ and we believe that we will rise again with our own bodies, which we now bear about with us.¹² So the burden of deciding whether or not to get a tattoo is much greater for a Christian than for a Materialist, who believes that when we die, that’s the end of it. The Materialist has to make a permanent decision; the Christian, an eternal one. So if you are considering getting a tattoo, I hope that you can take your time and think it through.
¹ Photograph published in Sciences et voyages. No. 24. June 1937. Article by Jean-Claude Montbarrey.
² Rokib, Mohammad (2017). Muslims with Tattoos: The Punk Muslim Community in Indonesia. Al-Jam’ab: Journal of Islamic Studies. 55: 47–70. DOI: 10.14421/ajis.2017.551.47–70.
³ St. Irinæus. Advérsus hæréses. IV.16:5.
⁴ Truhelka, Ćiro (1901). Die österreichisch-ungarische Monarchie in Wort und Bild (Kronprinzenwerk). p. 342.
⁵ Lipa, Aida (2006). The Austro-Hungarian Period in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Cultural Politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Creation of the Western Type of Art. Kakanien Revisited.
⁶ Truhelka, Ćiro (1896). Wissenschaftliche Mittheilungen Aus Bosnien und der Hercegovina: Die Tätowirung bei den Katholiken Bosniens und der Hercegovina. Sarajevo, Bosnian National Museum.
⁷ Meinardus, Otto (1972). Tattoo and Name: A Study on the Marks of Identification of the Egyptian Christians. Wiener Zeitschrift Für Die Kunde Des Morgenlandes, 63/64, pp. 27–39.
⁸ Simonsohn, Uriel (2017). Conversion, Exemption, and Manipulation: Social Benefits and Conversion to Islam in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Medieval Worlds, No. 6, pp. 196–216. DOI: 10.1553/medievalworlds_no6_2017s196
⁹ Marked: Where a Tattoo Can Cost You Your Life. Open Doors Youth.
¹⁰ Belleau, Jean-Philippe (2015). An Oriental Encounter. Latin American Research Review, vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 54–75.
¹¹ Tertullian. De resurrectióne carnis.
¹² Fourth Lateran Council. cap. Fírmiter.
