Beliefnet asks some of its contributors to weigh in.
The great thing about being Catholic is we know that the answer is yes. The Incarnation happened at the Annunciation. Jesus, like all of us, was knit together in His mother's womb, known by God even then.
The Church constantly teaches throughout the ages that Christ assumed our humanity in its entirety, at all stages, even the tiniest.
This seems like a good moment to recommend John Saward's Redeemer in the Womb, a splendid meditation on the nine months Jesus spent in Mary's womb. He draws from writings of Catholic and Orthodox saints and theologians throughout the centuries to portray the humble beauty of Christ's earliest Redeeming acts as understood in the tradition of East and West. I especially recommend reading it as an Advent meditation.
http://www.stblogs.org/scgi-bin/mv/mt-tb.cgi/15458
I'm starting to think that the Albigensians are a strong force to be reckoned in the modernist movement. It seems to be a neo-Albigensian "theology" combined with post-enlightenment secularism. Because there are defanite Albigensian/Manichaeism trends in American Christianity that they even ask that question... It's small wonder that JPII (tG) held a year of the Rosary (St. Dominic's cure for Albigenism) followed by a year of the Eucharist.
