Pro Whose Life?

For a change, I'm not writing about antics of the Bishop of Scranton, Joseph Martino.

This time the outrageous news about the Catholic Church emanates from Brazil. The regional archbishop excommunicated the mother of a 9 year old rape victim and the doctors who performed an abortion on her. Not surprisingly, the Vatican approved the action of the archbishop, Vatican defends Brazil excommunication:

A senior Vatican cleric has defended the excommunication of the mother and doctors of a nine-year-old girl who had an abortion in Brazil after being raped.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Catholic church's Congregation for Bishops, told the daily La Stampa on Saturday that the twins the girl had been carrying had a right to live.

"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.

Re, who also heads the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, added: "Life must always be protected, the attack on the Brazilian church is unjustified."

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.

However, the abortion was performed because the doctors were concerned that the 9 year old could not survive the pregancy:

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.

The Church has apparently evolved to to a single issue religion, the religion of the anti-abortion creed. As the Church see its, it's OK if the mother and twins had died during the course of the pregnancy or delivery, so long as there was no interference by abortion.

And for the stepfather, who had been abusing the girl since she was 6? And abusing her physically handicapped older sister?

[The archbishop] 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.

Natch, the Church has always sided with the child-abusers, so why would they change now?

If only the Church could be a little more "Pro-life" after life begins.

(Via Oliver Willis)