The row was triggered by the termination on Wednesday of twin
foetuses carried by a nine-year-old allegedly raped by her stepfather
in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco.
The regional archbishop, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, pronounced
excommunication for the mother for authorising the operation and
doctors who carried it out for fear that the slim girl would not
survive carrying the foetuses to term.
“God’s law is above any human law. So when a human law … is
contrary to God’s law, this human law has no value,” Cardoso had said.
He also said the accused stepfather would not be expelled from the
church. Although the man allegedly committed “a heinous crime … the
abortion – the elimination of an innocent life – was more serious”.
Battista Re agreed, saying: “Excommunication for those who carried
out the abortion is just” as a pregnancy termination always meant
ending an innocent life.
(Insert too-easy cheap joke about how if the Vatican went around kicking out child rapists they’d have no one left to dust the gold dinnerware and the Renaissance art collection, occupy their spacious villas, and run the Christmas pageants at their elementary schools.)
(Insert donation to local women and children’s shelter in the names of these nameless victims here.)
(Insert seven-to-eight-minute interval for screaming and throwing of things, expressions of disgust with humanity as a whole, pouring of bourbon, and eating of chocolate frosting out of can so as to calm self down.)
Okay. One ofDependable Renegade’s commenters pointed this out:
church. Although the man allegedly committed “a heinous crime … the
abortion – the elimination of an innocent life – was more serious”.
You know, I absolutely agree that this is serious. This 9-year-old girl’s life has basically been ruined. I can’t even imagine her mother’s life right now. And at a time when this family could probably use the comfort of their faith community as at no other in their lives, their church has not merely reprimanded them in public but thrown them out into the street. Suffer the little children, indeed.
A.
The regional archbishop, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho is obviously a member of the Cult of Fetus Worship. A nine year old girl? Who cares? If she died carrying twins it must have been God’s plan. The adult, her stepfather, violated his trust as a parent and as a human being. Padre doesn’t seem too worked up about that though.
Facts, logic and reason mean nothing to these people. Blech.
Damn it, I never should have clicked on the full article.
Officials said she [the 9 year old] told them she had suffered sexual abuse by her stepfather since the age of six.
Police said the 23-year-old stepfather also allegedly sexually abused the girl’s physically handicapped 14-year-old sister.
And that asshole hasn’t been excommunicated? I say the archbishop needs to be excommunicated. He doesn’t understand the most basic tenets of his religion or common sense.
The sexual exploitation of children and what should be the legal and ethical consequences are not something the Catholic Church and its fascist pope want to be very public about, as you noted, Athenae.
A nine-year old child, raped for years, until she was finally old enough she conceived. There had better be a hell.
In instances like this, I work hard to remind myself that there is a justice above and beyond anything humans can consciously engineer. People call it different things. Karma isn’t really the correct word- we tend to misuse it. But every action and intention has a reaction.
I have to believe that these people will get what’s coming to them. It will be what they deserve.
The chief reason I no longer consider myself Catholic. Their world is built upon the sanctity of their dogma, not life. To acknowledge that the abortion was acceptable would have been too large a blow to their sanctimonious self-delusion.
Right now, I wouldn’t give you spit for the entire Catholic faith. It’s what happens when you select your Pope from the ranks of the Grand Inquisition.
“God’s law is above any human law. So when a human law … is contrary to God’s law, this humanlife has no value,” Cardoso had said.”
Fixed that for him.
I’ve never understood how a faith that is supposedly based on mercy and forgiveness can even have a policy of excommunicating anyone. But there I go using that logic stuff again.
Their world is built upon the sanctity of their dogma, not life. To acknowledge that the abortion was acceptable would have been too large a blow to their sanctimonious self-delusion.
Actually, even standard Catholic dogma allows for abortion when the mother’s life is at risk. And the artcile states quite clearly that the underweight, poorly nourished girl would almost certainly not have survived the pregnancy–a single pregnancy would be dicey as hell and probably require a c-section. But twins? Please. I was raised strict “Vatican 2 was a travesty” Catholic, and I can’t imagine any of the priests or nuns at my school having this kind of reaction.
What’s worse is that the archbishop had the option–maybe even the obligation–of demanding the “conspirators” confess and repent, but I haven’t seen any indications that they refused such an offer.
The archbishop is a misogynist, controlling fuckhead. I suspect his reaction would be the same even if he couldn’t pretend to have dogma on his side.
In a perfect world, the Vatican would rescind the excommunication and reprimand the archbishop. In our world, they’ll probably promote him to cardinal.
And my parents wonder why I’m not Catholic anymore.
I’m not surprised. On Saturday, a Catholic anti-choice protester told me I was going to hell while I was helping patients at a clinic near me. She also insisted that the only reason abstinence only education doesn’t work was because students aren’t being taught “chastity,” which is a virtue (read “holy abstinence”) and that no women sought or were injured by illegal abortions before Roe.
I don’t condemn all Catholics, but people like that lady, and like that Archbishop, well, I guess my Methodist, liberal Christian ass will have some company in hell.
AndDorothy, last I heard, the Pope had not officially spoken, but a “senior” Vatican official had spoken in support of the Archbishop’s decision.
TWINS? the step-father needs to be strung up by the village. deballed.
girls are strictly for incubation. only the fetus matters.
When the Catholic Church stops treating me and everyone else like me on the planet as if the only thing about us that matters is that we might someday produce a (male) baby, I might start listening to what the Catholic Church has to say.
This case has made me realise I’ve never been so grateful to be an atheist of the completely non-spiritual sort — I don’t even have a sense of the spiritual, so my retort to these meddling priests is, “Who the hell do you think you are? Who needs you?” and “Where are the entrails of a king when you need them?”
After the Church’s harboring pedifiles for years quitely shifting them around or moving them to the Vatican, it not difficult to see why the Poobas wouldn’t take to ex’ing the rapest father, especially with the present Pope.
Personally, when I see bible thumpers approach, my flight response kicks in knowing that my actions otherwise just might lead to a criminal conviction.
Excommunication? Fuck that shit.
Beatings. Hard, brutal ones with spiked bats for both the stepfather and the archbishop.
When I lament the lack of the Church’s moral authority in the war, I think of situations like this.
This is one of those examples where it should meet the criteria of some very conservative Catholics. It’s a three way hit
1) Life of the mother in danger? Check
2) Rape? Check
3) Underage? Check?
4) Incest? Check?
So that’s it. I can’t imagine any thing else that would make it worse. Maybe the perp is Satan.
“Satan’s child is innocent! He has a name, how could you kill little Damien?”
And THAT’S why we had the Protestant Reformation!