Sunday, March 15, 2009

Note to self: not even all of the Vatican sucks!

Finally, someone in the Vatican has some goddamn sense (from the Associated Press):

An influential prelate said Brazilian doctors didn't deserve excommunication for aborting the twin fetuses of a 9-year-old child who was allegedly raped by her stepfather because the doctors were saving her life.

The statement by Archbishop Rino Fisichella in the Vatican newspaper Sunday was highly unusual because church law mandates automatic excommunication for abortion. Fisichella, who heads the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life, also upheld the church's ban on abortion and any implications of his criticism of excommunicating the doctors and the girl's mother weren't clear.

. . . Fisichella criticized the archbishop's public denunciation, writing that the girl "should have been above all defended, embraced, treated with sweetness to make her feel that we were all on her side, all of us, without distinction."

Fisichella stressed that abortion is always "bad." But he said the quick proclamation of excommunication "unfortunately hurts the credibility of our teaching, which appears in the eyes of many as insensitive, incomprehensible and lacking mercy."
That's very Christ-like of you, Archbishop Fisichella. Nice work.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wait... someone in the Vatican understands that abortion is a complex and intimately private issue that has its place in the world? Shocking.

Jocelyn said...

I dunno if he understands all that, Michelle. While I appreciate your optimism, I think it's more likely he understands that nine-year-olds who get pregnant by being raped by their step-fathers get to have abortions because otherwise they might die...

...Which, you know, is more than most of the Vatican seems to understand.

Seattle Mama said...

The fact that he is aware that many people consider some of the teachings of the Catholic Church to be "insensitive, incomprehensible and lacking mercy" is pretty amazing. Acknowledging the outside world would be a major step forward for the Vatican.

Anonymous said...

The bottom line here is: If the doctor's had decided the child's life was not in danger - they child could not have been obtained an abortion, both from fear of prosecution from the Brazilian government and from excommunication from the church. Talk about "insensitive, incomprehensible and lacking mercy". Brazil - the right wing christians of this country DREAM for this country.

Jocelyn said...

Hannah - totally.

Anonymous - totally.

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