Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Abortion is wrong no matter what

From the Associated Press:

A 9-year-old girl who was carrying twins, allegedly after being raped by her stepfather, underwent an abortion Wednesday despite complaints from Brazil's Roman Catholic church.

...Marcio Miranda, a lawyer for the Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife in northeastern Brazil, said the girl should have carried the twins to term and had a cesarean section.
"It's the law of God: Do not kill. We consider this murder," Miranda said.
Discuss.

12 comments:

Jocelyn said...

You know, this story was the last straw. On Sunday, fuck the Catholics (sorry, Dad), I'm going to an Anglican service. My new church has a gay man on the staff, and they're proud of it. Perhaps I'll ask the Reverend what he'd say about this girl.

Anonymous said...

Abortions for all!

Jocelyn said...

Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!

Debdog said...

Oh great. You managed to motivate me to return to church in part based on your dogged determination to hang in there and then you bail. I'm crushed.

Jocelyn said...

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but in my defense, I'm not bailing on Christianity in general. I'm just switching Churches.

There are people, like my dad, who can look at this whole thing and say "I'm Catholic. The people who called this kid a murderer aren't." I admire Catholics who have that kind of attitude. But I argue with the Catholic Church pretty much constantly on a lot of points that I really care about, and I've found a church that falls pretty much dead in line with what I believe, so why would I hang on to Catholicism?

So, if you're serious, Debdog, I think you need to "look inside" and think about why you're going to church and what you want to get from it. If it can't be found at the church where you are, I don't know why you'd hang in there when undoubtedly a better alternative can be found. And frankly, I don't think there's anything wrong with not going to church at all. Just don't let me make those decisions for you.

Debdog said...

I need to learn that I cannot write the way I talk. No sarcasm intended at all. I find your perspective incredibly enlightening and refreshing and one that the Catholic church could benefit from. Having said that, I understand completely your decision and you are right -- I should look at my reasons for returning.

Jocelyn said...

Well thanks very much for all that. I guess I just kind of assumed you were being sarcastic because I'm surprised people take me seriously. It's a new and interesting thing that's happened since I started this blog.

And I want to say that I doubt I will ever be entirely not Catholic. A simple change in leadership (which I think is likely pretty imminent, considering the age of the Pope) could easily draw me back to the Church. As it stands right now, however, these people do not, by and large, represent my morality and I just don't really feel like putting up with it anymore.

That said, one of the great things about Catholicism is the room for dissent there is within the Church. My grandma has a friend who is a nun and lives in a convent. All of the nuns in this convent (and several other Catholics I know, many of whom I am related to) refuse to refer to the Pope as anything but "Pope Ratzinger," which is, of course, their own way of civil disobedience (my Dad actually leaves out the "Pope"). I also know of a few nuns and priests who understand that abortion is sometimes the pragmatic choice, and the benefits have the possibility of outweighing the "sins." I also know Catholics who are vehemently anti-abortion but understand that it's a question of personal morality and has nothing to do with politics.

Right now (actually, probably always) there is a culture war in the Catholic Church. The liberal Catholics are becoming more and more outspoken about their beliefs. The are not allowing themselves to be silenced by the loud-mouthed leadership that draws ever nearer to Christian fundamentalism. I deeply admire the people who fight that fight. I think it's a great virtue to love your religion enough to fight with it when it's wrong instead of just abandoning it.

That said, I would rather have my own religious life be peaceful. I spend most of my time looking for and having good arguments. I would, therefore, like the time I spend with God in church to be free of inner and outer turmoil. I've been fighting with Catholicism since I was ten years old, when it occurred to me that having a congregation drone "it is right to give Him thanks and praise" in inflectionless unison was creepy and kind of fascist.

I don't really want to fight this fight anymore, but that doesn't mean it's not worth fighting. If you want to keep doing it, then good work, dude. Seriously.

Anonymous said...

I joined the Inclusive Celtic Church. Under traditional Brehon Laws of The Celtic Church of Ireland women are treated with equality, priests can marry and are not forced into a life of celibacy, and LGBT are not vilified as sinners. The Inclusive Celtic Church believes in inclusion rather than exclusion and is closet to traditional Brehon Law. The service is not some fake-ass Vesta worship dressed up as "Christianity". Nor does the Word of Christ come from Bigoted Paul.

Thanks,
S. Brigidh

Seattle Mama said...

I apologize in advance for the folowing strean of consciousness...
There is definitely a culture war and the conservatives are going to win if people like us keep leaving the church. I'm not telling you to stick it out if you don't feel it. I have that same fight with myself at least every couple of years, I'm in the midst of the worse round ever actually. My relationship with God feels really solid to me but my relationship with the church is tenuous right now. I''m trying to use Lent as a time to rediscover why I love the church. When I get down to the bottom line I realize that there are good reasons why I keep coming back. I used to have a problem with the "droning" on thing (btw, Protestants do that too, maybe not to the same extent) but then I started to really think about the words I was saying. If you stood next to me at mass you would not hear a congregant droning on with no inflection. This sounds super cheesey and I kind of can't believe I am actually going to type it - I love God and I want to celebrate it. When I learned to listen to those prayers and really think about what I was saying the Mass took on a whole new meaning for me and it felt good - I felt good everytime I left church. But I've lost that now and I blame it on Benedict (I can't call him Pope, I always refer to him as Benedict).

I don't know why I telling you all this, I guess it's because what you wrote struck a chord with me. I recently decided that I was going to start going to an Episcopal church. The more I thought about it the more I had to seriously think about what I believe. I went to an Ash Wednesday liturgy, the first time I'd been to church in a long time. I was really nervous all morning but when I sat down it felt like I had come home, not only because I was married there and my daughter was baptized in that church. I don't know what that means. I think that there is roon for people like me in the Church - ya know, people who care deeply about gay marriage (pro, who vote pro-choice and who care more about social justice than about dictating what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms. Anyhoozle, thanks for the forum. My ex-Methodist agnostic husband doesn't really get the Catholic stuff or the struggle to make sense of how it works in a real person's life.

Jocelyn said...

S. Brigidh - That sounds like my kind of church!

Hannah - I think you are right. I've been thinking about it all day, actually (not this post in particular, obviously, but the idea that leaving the Catholic Church means I no longer have a voice in the Catholic Church). I know I don't want to attend mass there, at least not for now. But I do want to have a church to go to on Sunday mornings, and the Anglican church near where I live is the closest match I've found to what I believe.

That said, I am really upset about this whole situation, particularly the fact that people have been excommunicated for it. My plan, as it stands right now, is to write letters to as many Bishops, Archbishops, and Cardinals as I can, telling them that I am Catholic and that I believe these doctors did the right thing, and that these people should not have been excommunicated. If they excommunicated these people, then why don't they excommunicate every murderer? Why didn't they excommunicate the step-father for raping a 9-year-old girl?

I hope to make my voice heard, and I hope you and others will try to do the same. What do you think?

Unknown said...

Also, isn't leaving someone in a situation where you know they're going to die and not taking action to save them killing them? Which is wrong? I'm a Catholic too, though not as practicing as you, so I know how you feel. But knowing that there are so many different Catholics out there make me stick it out. Because this child-rapist shit would not have flown with my bishop. And I have to have faith that his way will win out in the end.

Seattle Mama said...

I can't imagine that the Archbishop where I live would have had that kind of attitude either. But then again, I live in Seattle and the Church here is a whole lot different than in Brazil...or even on the East Coast. On a daily basis what matters more to me is the small "c" church - the people who make up the church. It seems pretty clear to me that 2000 years of bureaucracy has messed some shit up.

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