Moral squalor
The Vatican demonstrates its moral ugliness again.
A senior Vatican cleric has defended the excommunication in Brazil of the mother and doctors of a young girl who had an abortion with their help…Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re told Italian paper La Stampa that the twins “had the right to live” and attacks on Brazil’s Catholic Church were unfair…Cardinal Re, who heads the Roman Catholic Church’s Congregation for Bishops and the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, told La Stampa that the archbishop had been right to excommunicate the mother and doctors. “It is a sad case but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons, who had the right to live and could not be eliminated,” he said. “Life must always be protected, the attack on the Brazilian Church is unjustified.”
‘The twins’ did not yet exist as such; they were not yet persons, innocent or guilty; and their continued development inside a nine-year-old child would have been lethal to that child. That of course is obvious to rational observers, but to people who make a virtue of thinking that ‘the law’ of an invisible absent unaccountable god who doesn’t exist is ‘above’ that of the human beings who have to survive and function as best they can, it is so beside the point that it can be ignored. There’s a real child who has been horribly damaged, and the church in its wisdom wants to damage her further and end up by killing her – for the sake of ‘twins’ who don’t even exist yet. It’s classic theocracy, in a way – ignore the real needs of real people for the sake of purely notional needs of embryos or breathing corpses. Ignore the real world and focus on imaginary beings and imaginary scruples – and then bleat that it’s ‘unfair’ when the victims resist. Classic.
I am still trying to wrap my mind around the observation that the raped girl gets a pass on excommunication because of her age. If she survives with spirits and stability I’m rooting for her to put in her resignation letter ASAP. But her age did not raise any issues when she was abused and then conceived twins, then was looking at likely death if she carried them to term? And the abuser also gets a pass from the church it seems for his crime against the child? But it looks like he’s at least arrested so maybe he’ll suffer a worldly punishment.
It is so fucked up I can barely consider all the ways. But old men in long frocks and beanie caps are the last persons whose advice or counsel I’d look for in this case.
Claire, would you really ask for their advice in any case?
He said the excommunication would not apply because of her age. What about it not being applicable because she was raped? The church is in my summation, afraid to go down the “child abuse” thorny road, because it knows that it will be driven over badly into the ditches, by the general public.
This Brazilian case is being used by the church because Time stated that “President Luiz InÁcio Lula da Silva made a halfhearted attempt to spur a national debate last year, calling abortion a public-health issue – even as he declared himself steadfastly against it. But with the Church quick to stifle such talk and the general public not sufficiently engaged to demand action, the debate never took off. In truth, abortions and unwanted pregnancies are a sad constant in Brazil.”
The Vatican needs a country like Brazil to stand firm in its traditional beliefs because it is such a huge Catholic country and it would be scared of it becoming too independently single-minded. Things could so slowly fall apart at the seams for the Vatican if it did not put its foot dowm firmly. A sample like this abortion case, is just what it needs, to demonstrate to the laiety, of who is holding the Roman Catholic doctrine reins.
Oops, should have read laity.
Oh, I see “Canon 1323 provides that the following do not incur a sanction, those who are not yet 16, are unaware of a law, do not advert to it or are in error about its scope, were forced or had an unforeseeable accident, acted out of grave fear, or who lacked the use of reason (except culpably, as by drunkenness). Thus a woman forced by an abusive husband to have an abortion would not incur an excommunication, for instance, whereas someone culpably under the influence of drugs or alcohol would. (canon 1325)
Eric. Well, no. I wouldn’t. Better if I’d I said that old men in long frocks and beanie caps are the last persons who have any business poking their cruel, amoral, reactionary noses into the situation and making pronouncements. It’s just fucked up.
The last persons who have any business doing it and yet the first persons to jump right in. Catholic clerics think they own people.
I wonder if they even paused to find out if the mother and the doctors are in fact Catholics, or if they just assumed it.
No, no, no… The Catholic Church did NOT excommunicate these people. It was all lies perpetuated by the Brazilian Press. They excommunicated themselves, you see. The Church is in fact “benevolent with the minors and the victims of abortion.”
And please stop going on about rape. She is a VICTIM OF ABORTION.” Read this and clear up your ignorance:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=15301
Is the last post supposed to be a joke of some description?
“They excommunicated themselves,”
By this you are saying that they automatically committed a crime, from the perception of the Catholic Church’s Canon law. They incurred upon themselves excommunication because of their non adherence to the rules of the Church. So the blame is thrown back on these humane, generous, liberal, benign, philanthropic, altruistic people who went out of heir way to help a distressed, yes, “raped” child. Very clever of the church laying down the law and it not costing the Church a penny in court fees.
The Church is in fact “benevolent with the minors and the victims of abortion.”
Synonym: benevolent! Antonym: cruel! The latter is much more like it.
The Church should practice what it preaches. It should keep its Vatican dirty nose to itself – instead of spreading all its germs on humanity at large.
As OB says who is to say what their religious allegiances were at all.
“It was all lies perpetuated by the Brazilian Press”
How come you know this – have you inside knowledge or did you just go by what you read?
I was being sarcastic. I’m quoting from the Catholic website http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=15301
Sorry Marie- Therese O’ Loughlin
My golden rule is to avoid irony/satire/sarcasm/ etc on chat forums, ‘cos the print always come across as bald & literal. I broke the rule this time, and yes, out of conversational context it reads strangely.
Phew! That is a relief to hear. Trust me not to get it – I usually never do – yeah, my lack of education always shows me up at times like this indeed.
Ja well – it read stangely to me too, and they were my own words.
Nooooo it’s not lack of education, M-T. There are people who would say such things, so it’s perfectly reasonable not to know if it’s a joke or not. I didn’t know either, at first, but then I remembered a previous comment by Mags on a recent thread and realized it was irony – but I was reading that thread closely so that’s probably why I remembered.
Irony is good though. If there are misunderstandings they can always be cleared up. I think you should be flexible about that rule, Mags! That was a valuable piece of irony.
(I did suspect for quite awhile that Kees was a bit of irony – but then when his replies got longer and longer it seemed like too much effort for a game.)
Victim of abortion?
Yes, how tragic! She didn’t have to risk her health and sanity bearing her rapists’ children!
What sort of insane definition of “personhood” includes a being that is inside another’s body, inseparable from it, and incapable of thinking and feeling? What sort of moral monster prizes that creature over a thinking, feeling, suffering 9-year-old?!?
By conducting an induced abortion on a little child these doctors encroached on God’s special privilege of selecting the pregnancies to be aborted. They ate of the abortion apple. Those who confer on others God’s prerogative of choosing which foetuses are terminated may also usurp God’s right to decide who dies. This has horrifying consequences (U.S.S.R/Nazis)and robs Him of a means of occupying the eternity of time yawning before Him.
Also, I received an email telling me I have forfeited my right to choose which books to read by posting on this website. I will be sitting in darkness hugging my knees and rocking gently until the implications of this sink in.
Is that irony too, MattR?
This is just a horrific story. If they are Catholic, excommunication is a savage response. I can’t help wondering if it is more savage because (a) it got in the media and (b) its so clearly justified to intervene that it provides a leverage point for lay members to challenge the logic of the old rules.
This is not the first case by any means:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/aug/31/colombia.religion
but this case seems to have got more publicity & outcry. Signs of the times? I hope so.
I’m more amused than anything to this excommunication business. That story is fairly benign compared to, say, what the Catholic Church has done in El Salvador. It worked very hard and to great success to wreck abortion rights in El Salvador :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_El_Salvador
One question though: has the rapist been excommunicated too?
I am not amused. To a person brought up to believe that they will burn forever this is terror.
Interesting question from Fifi, which I’ve seen raised a few times.
If the stepfather has not been excommunicated, why not? Is rape a venal sin and abortion cardinal? I don’t know much about Catholicism.
“I did suspect for quite awhile that Kees was a bit of irony “
Me too, in part because the name is ‘seek’ backwards, which I thought might be a joke (although I couldn’t quite see what the point was ‘backward looking’ perhaps), but then I got the email. I obviously spend too much time doing crosswords.
” Is rape a venal sin and abortion cardinal? I don’t know much about Catholicism.”
Nope, Mags, RAPE is a very grave mortal sin, but it is even graver when it is committed by an adult on to a child. See Wiki ‘Catholic teachings on sexual morality.’
A venial sin involves a “partial loss of grace” from God. When a person dies and s/he had a venial sin on their soul s/he will automatically go to purgatory. But a person who dies with a mortal sin on their soul they will go straight to hell.
Babies who died before being baptized used to go to a place called limbo. Some elements with the church still hold out that it exists.
One is obliged by the RC church to go annually to a priest in confession, in order to receive from him – absolution for their sins.
Atheists come in the category of rapists with respect of the church as both are very grave sinners.
The thing that always sickens me–and I say this as a former Catholic, student of theology, and the child of a theology major–is that yes, the Catholic church teaches all the laws and rules–but the part that is written into the catechism and yet is *always* ignored in practice by members of the Vatican and church, is that you are supposed to apply all the teachings and then act “in according to your conscience”.
Cases like this–where a girl’s life is at stake–are NOT the sort of things that the written doctrines and creeds and catechisms say should cause excommunications. According to one’s own conscience; having abortions because of health needs is a horrible, painful, but realistic necessity. And on the parish-level, many priests realize that and counsel their parishioners to help them through a difficult experience.
In this case, some pompous man who hasn’t had to actually be a *pastor* to anyone in ages, is ignoring an important part of the teachings and using them to punish those who do not deserve it.
Pharisees. These are the ones who would refuse to help a man out of a ditch, and yet a Samaritan would.
It’s nauseating.
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