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.
The nine-year-old had conceived twins after alleged abuse by her stepfather. 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.
It comes a day after Brazil’s president criticised the Brazilian archbishop who excommunicated the people involved. Brazil only permits abortions in cases of rape or health risks to the mother.
Brazil only permits abortions in cases of rape or health risks to the mother. Doctors said the girl’s case met both these conditions, but the Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho said “the law of God was above any human law”.
“the law of God was above any human law”
oh dear…
What god? What law?
I always snigger when the pope excommunicates someone. If I understand the concept of excommunication correctly it’s supposed to mean they don’t get into heaven. This is intended to be a punishment? If you’re an atheist, this is a foregone conclusion anyway… it’s a bit like someone telling me Batman won’t come to visit if I don’t behave. If you’re going to threaten someone, at least make the threat a convincing one, such as “you won’t get any dessert”!
I could start ranting once again about this crowd but I just don’t have the will anymore… please see previous rants and leave it at that!!
Agrees with siobhan….but, ahh,…..i do have to add that i wish that anyone telling or acusing this 9 year old and her mother of murder……should be f´ckn raped by a hippo!
period.
Apologies if my first comment seemed a bit insensitive… I only skim-read the article. I am actually shocked that they’d lay such a mean guilt-trip on an impressionable nine year old rape victim. If the old fool thinks that’s acceptable someone should give him a good hard slap.
…or raped by a hippo as Religious Marie suggested is also good! Now where do we get a hippo on heat?
Interestingly, the stepfather HASN’T been excommunicated.
F*ck them. F*ck them up the arse with a cheese grater slathered in hot sauce.
Excuse the verbosity, but these people seem to believe a woman’s place in life is only as a nice little incubator. Preferably in a coma. We have no valid emotions or thoughts at all, see, and our life’s value depends only on how many (hopefully male) offspring we produce. Males, on the other hand, apparently get away with rape.
But not with saving a little girl’s life, of course.
As a childfree agnostic sort-of-feminist person, this pushes just about all my buttons. Well, apart from the lbgt button (I’m bi), but the Catholic church has managed to push that one as well with some of their other choice remarks.
Conclusion? I don’t really do the ‘hating religions’ thing, but the Catholic church is getting me pretty close to stepping over that line. Buncha stupid wankers…
How do you explain to a 9 year old girl that Jesus doesn’t want Mommy to come to church and take Communion or Confession any more, because what the stepfather was doing to the little girl throughout those years was all part of God’s plan to make her give birth to twins, with the possibility of killing her, and her mother’s attempt to save her was a Bad Thing? That’s going to be one hell of a conversation. Where would you even start?
I’d start by telling her the Cardinal and Archbishop in question are so full of shit they’re frequently mistaken for colostomy bags and progress from there…
.. please give these priests a womb … and then treat them the same way … all the way.
Flapjack, that seems like a good opening to me. However, I don’t think the Catholic Church is really for you. There’s no shame in that, we’re all different.
I find it difficult to know what to write.
The mother has probably saved her daughters life, the church would be happy to see her die in childbirth. No rational person could possibly object to the child having an abortion.
The Vatican may have reached a new level of crazy but with this post Phillis you have sent us commentors to a new height of perfectly justified crazy.
Poor child, it is just so sad.
I agree too – i’m tired of ranting – we all know the church screwed up again.
the church should be ashamed of itself — I can’t believe it — I am ready to denounce my catholic religion as a result of this, and I bet a hell of a lot of other people feel the same way — I hope they put the step father away for a very long time (like life) and he finds out frequently what rape is all about — church is so screwed up in this case it is unbelievable
Ron – if that’s how you feel, vote with your feet! I won’t stop you!
Yeah, here in Brazil everyone is talking about that, at last a national discussion about (bad) religion.
About 80% of population are catholic.
This is above and beyond for the Catholic Church. I have long ago broken away and something like this reinforces my doctrinal differences with the Catholic Church. Back in the day, if a delivery was going badly, it was save the child, let the mother die. Today, it’s save the innocent babies when the mother is an innocent baby herself. That the child was repeatedly raped for the past three years by a stepfather seems not to be a crime is ludicrous. The child was not his “property.” Will this poor excuse for a man be prosecuted? Probably not.
@flapjack…south africa would be the place to look for heated hippo´s!
@Rick…glad everyone is talking about it and coming to that conclusion…
LAB: He has been arrested and charged. Luckily, while the Catholic church may be acting like a bunch of arseholes, the Brazilian authorities are not.
Is anyone suprised that the Catholic Church is siding with the Pedophile? Haven\’t they been doing that for years now? Luckily this child\’s mother had the sense to get her help – I hope she also had the sense to get her family away from the rapist. Oh wait – the Church frowns on divorce, too……………
I too was sickened and angered by this story. i only hope that there is a groundswell of support for the mother and daughter and that support infrastructure grows for them and for anyone who suffers in that way. Theres so many reasons to be vehemently frustrated to the point of spitting by this story.