Shit like this is why I'm not catholic anymore. I'm so mad I could spit.

[ourbluenation]

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

Brazilian archbishop embroiled in abortion row after child's rape
In this section »

A CATHOLIC archbishop has sparked controversy in Brazil by saying the mother of a nine-year-old girl who had an abortion on Wednesday following a rape is automatically excommunicated for allowing the procedure to go ahead.

Archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho of Olinda and Recife also declared that according to canon law the doctor who performed the abortion is considered excommunicated, along with anyone else involved.

The child was raped by her stepfather, who has since admitted abusing her over the last three years. Abortion is generally illegal in Brazil but allowed in cases of rape or when the pregnancy endangers the mother’s life.

The child entered hospital in the northeastern city of Recife on Tuesday night, where she was given medication to interrupt the pregnancy, which doctors said was terminated by early Wednesday morning. She was pregnant with twins.

The archbishop’s statements have drawn condemnation from Brazilian politicians and caused disquiet among some theologians concerned by the difficulties raised by the case.

But Archbishop Cardoso Sobrinho has denied media reports that he personally ordered the excommunications. “I simply recalled what is in church canon law. Excommunication is automatic for those who participate in an abortion. I did not excommunicate anyone, just remembered the church’s law which says they are automatically excommunicated,” he said.

Before the abortion was carried out the archdiocese’s lawyers threatened to charge the mother with homicide, citing the Brazilian constitution’s guarantee to the right to life.

The doctor who carried out the procedure has defended his actions. “If the pregnancy had continued, the damage would have been worse, being a high risk pregnancy. The risk would have been of death or at the very least that she would never have been able to become pregnant again,” Dr Olímpio Moraes told O Globo newspaper.

“There are two legal justifications for abortion envisioned by the law, which are rape and risk to life. She falls within the two and, as a doctor, I could not let a girl of nine years be submitted to this suffering and even pay with her own life.”

But Archbishop Cardoso Sobrinho has dismissed the fact that the abortion was legal under Brazilian law as irrelevant to the question of excommunication. “God’s law is above whatever human law. So when a human law is contrary to God’s law, this human law has no value,” he said.

The archbishop made clear that the excommunication did not extend to the young girl at the centre of the case. Archbishop Cardoso Sobrinho is a leading member of the Brazilian Catholic Church’s conservative wing and a firm opponent of abortion which he calls a “silent holocaust”.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/0306/1224242373838.html

[krabigirl]

1. Yeah, crap like this made me leave the church at 14.

Sadly, after my parents *forced* me to be confirmed. Ugh.

[Warpy]

5. I was ten

A stuffed shirt of a priest came into the classroom full of fifth graders and smugly announced it was a woman's duty to die in childbirth to preserve the life of the fetus because it might be male.

Mother Rome has never considered women fully human with consciences and rights of their own. Oh, they reluctantly agreed we had souls so we could all be sent to hell, but we remain animated flowerpots into which the holy male plants his exalted seed.

And they wondered why I left.

[musette_sf]

18. same here

on edit: so, with modern technology, if you knew in advance the fetus was female...

so it would then be okay to have a therapeutic abortion if your life was threatened by the pregnancy, since it isn't a MALE fetus?

or

so if you die in pregnancy or childbirth, there would be nothing noble or holy about it, since you and your fetus are both female?

would your family need to buy a thousand mass cards to buy your soul out of Purgatory, since your death was due to an inferior female fetus and was therefore some kind of moderately venial sin?

the mind boggles with regressive RCC dogma.

[Critters2]

2. I am too stunned for words.

And again I ask...why is anyone still Catholic?

[Pab Sungenis]

8. I'm a Catholic, but

believe the Church's leadership is just wrong on a number of issues.

This is one of them.

[OhioChick]

13. Same here. n/t

[skepticscott]

3. This is absolutely nothing new for the Catholic Church

They've been doing this and far worse for many, many centuries. Makes me wonder why anyone would be a Catholic in the first place unless they were...*gasp* indoctrinated.

[ourbluenation]

6. my folks are very catholic and they just frigging love the holy hell out of the jesus. My sister is

gay. we've had some interesting discussions, all of us. to be sure.

[Warpy]

9. My parents were upset when I left at so young an age

although I agreed to go through enough of the motions so their friends wouldn't gossip.

The subject was pretty much dropped after that.

I'm glad to say that they both eventually died as unbelievers. It was nothing I said or did. It was what the church said and did.

[NashVegas]

4. You're Just Not Looking At This Rationally

See, that little girl is probably never going to want to be a mother, after what she's been through, anyway. So, she's pretty much a wasted case as it is.

The babies, on the other hand, they're worth saving if at all possible.

















Do I really need the sarcasm smiley?

[ourbluenation]

7. I was just wondering where "god's love" was for this little victim of abuse? HOnestly. This is

horrifyingly cruel.

[NashVegas]

10. Oh, God Will Embrace Her

When she's in the grave. Don't worry, my child. Really, it's a blessing.

[yellerpup]

11. The Church needs them

much more than they need the church.

[Eryemil]

12. Makes me wonder how anyone can call themselves Catholic

[Matariki]

14. His 'god' is a monster.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

15. How could you possibly subscribe to a religion that espouses

such ignorance? As an atheist, I just don't get it and it's why I hate organized religion.

[regnaD kciN]

16. Sorry to have to point it out, but Rome has always considered abortion...

...to be a mortal sin of murder, and has automatically excommunicated anyone who had an abortion or anyone who helped them procure it for many years. This is not a verdict that had to be passed down by a particularly benighted Archbishop. Even if he said nothing on the matter, they still would have been excommunicated.

And, if you think this is something I'm too dispassionate about, I have been excommunicated as well, for helping a college friend, a victim of date-rape, end her pregnancy.

[dalaigh lllama]

25. Funny, I've never heard of them excommunicating murderers on death row

Why does someone having an abortion get excommunication and the murderer on death row gets his confession heard?

BTW, I'm a recovering Catholic -- they didn't fire me, I quit. I had some friends in college who had been living together and when they decided to get married the local priest wouldn't marry them because they had been living together. :crazy:

[knitter4democracy]

28. Actually, that's not entirely true.

The Church before the Great Schism in 1054 was split on the issue and never entirely banned abortions. It's only been since the split that the RCC has gone this route. The Eastern Orthodox Church allows abortions and always has. For us, we are to go to our spiritual father or mother (if she's a nun) and have them go to the bishop for permission. That's instead of it going to the Church Court, and it's done that way for mercy. It's done all the time.

[sandnsea]

17. Me too

That and opposing condoms during an STD epidemic. That's like opposing helmets during a war.

And about a hundred other things the Church has done politically that I just can't reconcile anymore.

[Cass]

19. No mention of excommunicating the step-father who raped this poor kid.

:grr:

[JerseygirlCT]

20. That's what stuck out at me

But then again, how many of their own have done similar things without any punishment?

F/u morals, for sure.

[musette_sf]

21. one Our Father and three Hail Marys on Saturday night

will cleanse his soul of sin. :grr:

(slightly plagiarized from George Harrison's excellent song "P2 Vatican Blues")

[mudesi]

22. If You Believe It Was A Child, Then I Can See His Point

Maybe excommunication is a little extreme, but sorry, if you believe that there is a child in the womb, I can see why someone could be against abortion, even in the case of rape.

Though in this case, the mother's life was in danger as well, since she was so young. So I'm all for it.

[ourbluenation]

36. I believe it is a child and I still think a forced pregnancy on a child victim is SICKENING!

The mother should wear her excommunication with pride that she doesn't belong to this group of barbarians anymore.

[moriah]

23. What about the stepfather who raped his daughter? Is HE excommunicated???

After all, he was certainly "involved".

If the child's mother is going to be excommunicated, it should be for not stopping her two daughters from being raped for years, not for saving the life of her daughter by letting the procedure take place.

[Control-Z]

24. This is absolute proof, imo,

that the catholic religion cares nothing about women beyond their child bearing duties. Where is the compassion for this young girl? For that matter, where is their compassion for the young boys they molest.

Women and children are treated as resources FOR men and FOR the church. They don't even try to hide it. And many of the women fall over themselves trying to help prove it.

I'll never forget my MIL referring to breasts as "sins" when I needed to nurse my newborn (in her home). I was sent to a room to do "my duty", behind a closed door, away from the men folk and family. Giving sustenance to my new baby was a joy, even though this wretched woman and her disgusting religion tried to make it something dirty.

What kind of person can believe that a woman's body is, in itself, a sin?

[Joey Liberal]

26. I'm a former Catholic too

They got too right-wing crazy for me.

[hedgehog]

27. Technically speaking, I think this surgery would fall under the same

description as surgery to remove an eptotic pregnancy. The objective isn't to abort the twins but rather to remove them before they kill the mother. It may sound convoluted, but I guess that's where the word "Jesuitical" comes from.

[blonndee]

29. Don't Catholic hospitals refuse to treat ectopic pregnancies?

[hedgehog]

35. There is some debate about the proper treatment of ectopic pregnancy

Some maintain that removal of the section of the Fallopian tube with the fetus inside is the only moral option since the fetus is killed as a secondary effect, the primary goal being to remove the tissue before it ruptures.

This was the stand the US Bishops took in 1971. Since then, the use of methotrexate to end the pregnancy without damaging the Fallopian tube has become standard practice. For a physician to fail to use this method treads on malpractice. Apparently in the 1994 statement the bishops made only a vague statement about this, in effect leaving it up to the patient and doctor to select the best course. Since the methotrexate actually prevents the growth and development of the placenta, some consider its use to conform to the indirect action rule.

[NashVegas]

34. I'm Not Sure That Matters

We were told a story in grade school (Catholic) of a woman with a pregnancy gone wrong, who was told by her doctors that they would not be able to save both mother and child. Of course, she chose life for her child while she herself died a beatific death. This was the message sent to, I think, second-graders.

[AllentownJake]

30. I don't understand it

Of course, I can never get passed that God has an ambassador on earth who is infallible in his edicts....to me that entirely defeats the point of the Christian story :shrug:

[glinda]

31. For Pete's sake. I remember when the Church "let you have conscience" but that was

before the new Hitler Pope.

[GeorgeGist]

32. The mother should be proud ...

and Catholics should be ashamed.

[Lugnut]

33. Same here.

The hypocrisy did me in.