Pope tarts

Further to this sickening story, now the Vatican has jumped in with both feet in its mouth.

A Vatican cleric is defending a Brazilian archbishop's decision to excommunicate several doctors who performed an abortion last week on a nine-year-old girl who became pregnant with twins after alleged sexual abuse by her step-father.

"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,'' Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re told the Italian daily La Stampa.

"Life must always be protected. The attack on the Brazilian church is unjustified," Re was quoted as saying. He also heads the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

The controversy erupted when media reported that a nine-year-old girl from the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco had had an abortion to remove twin fetuses. The girl and her family learned she was 15 weeks pregnant when she went to hospital complaining of pains.

The girl, who has not been identified, told authorities her step-father had sexually abused her since age six. The 23-year-old step-father is currently in police custody.

Doctors performed the abortion Wednesday, saying they feared the pregnancy could kill her because of her slim frame.

Upon learning of the abortion, the regional archbishop excommunicated the doctors, as well as the girl's mother. He did not excommunicate the step-father, saying the crime he is alleged to have committed, although deplorable, was not as bad as ending a fetus's life.

So, let's get this straight. The life of a 9 year old child, one who was systematically abused and traumatized, is not worth anything? 

No harsh words for the girls' abuser because ... ?

Never mind that his actions could have ended the girl's life. After all, what's another dead incubator in this world?

I suppose it's unrealistic to expect the Church to condemn the sexual abuse of children.

And that little girl? That Jezebel, that harlot, that evil temptress? Well, like the ''Good Book'' and its sainted followers say, she's supposed to deliver her children in pain.

Not that the Protestants are any better. Here's Martin Luther on the subject:

A wife too should regard her duties in the same light, as she suckles the child, rocks and bathes it, and cares for it in other ways; and as she busies herself with other duties and renders help and obedience to her husband. These are truly golden and noble works. This is also how to comfort and encourage a woman in the pangs of childbirth, not by repeating St Margaret legends and other silly old wives’ tales but by speaking thus, “Dear Grete, remember that you are a woman, and that this work of God in you is pleasing to him. Trust joyfully in his will, and let him have his way with you. Work with all your might to bring forth the child. Should it mean your death, then depart happily, for you will die in a noble deed and in subservience to God. If you were not a woman you should now wish to be one for the sake of this very work alone, that you might thus gloriously suffer and even die in the performance of God’s work and will.

Oh yeah, gotta love that patriarchal religion.

I suppose we should be grateful that the kid wasn't burned at the stake.

UPPITY WOMEN DATE: Thanks to Lagatta over at Bread and Roses, here's a link to a petition for those inclined to protest this debacle.

UP YOUR HOLINESS DATE: Time magazine has more, including this:

Archibishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho of the coastal city of Recife announced that the Vatican was excommunicating the family of a local girl who had been raped and impregnated with twins by her stepfather, because they had chosen to have the girl undergo an abortion. The Church excommunicated the doctors who performed the procedure as well. "God's laws," said the archbishop, dictate that abortion is a sin and that transgressors are no longer welcome in the Roman Catholic Church. "They took the life of an innocent," Sobrinho told TIME in a telephone interview. "Abortion is much more serious than killing an adult. An adult may or may not be an innocent, but an unborn child is most definitely innocent. Taking that life cannot be ignored."

<SNIP>

He told TIME that the Vatican rejects believers who pick and choose their issues. Rome "is not going to open the door to anyone just to get more members," he said after comparing abortion to the Holocaust. "We know that people have other ideas, but if they do, then they are not Catholics. We want people who adhere to God's laws."

Yes, because God hates women.

Comments

[Mike Oldham]

A terrifically malevolent photo! And I'll add a caveat to your concluding line: god would hate women, if there was one. But since there isn't, it's just a bunch of persecuting, power hungry, twisted, superstitious and ignorant men pushing these "values".

[sooey]

Gee, where are all the moderate Catholics to call for an end to The Vatican?

[Antonia]

Sooey? COMMENT OF THE WEEK!!!

[The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs]

Sooey Sweetie,
Esteemed and Beautiful Moderator,

Do I take it that you sympathise with the beleaguered people of Ulster?

Wow!