The Vatican backed a Brazilian Bishop who excommunicated the doctor and mother of a 9 year old girl who had been sexually abused by her father for three years and was impregnated with twins. The church saw no reason why the twins weren't allowed to live, thinking nothing whatsoever of the life, physical and and mental health of that nine year old, when the mother and doctor saw that she was aborted this week.
The concept that a church can really believe that forcing a 9 year old child to bear twins to term is Godly is shocking. Preventing the child from going through childbirth (if she could even carry twins that far)would save, at least, a life that is already sentient. It also prevents the child from forever wondering what happened to the children to whom she gave birth and never being able to have anything that vaguely resembles a normal formative childhood and teen development. The hypocritical values of the church leave me mind boggled. What is most shocking to me is that the church has taken nothing from the research finding in this century, either physical or psychological, that allows them to speak medically or therapeutically in any way for this child. Excommunication means nothing when it is done by man who cannot speak for a God, even if there is one. If there is decision to be made of Paradise or eternal punishment in Hell, it will not be made by a Brazilian Bishop, I'm reasonably confident about.
However, Amnesty International defies the stance of the Catholic Church in prohibiting abortion as the product of a rape. It is my belief that the Church has backed itself into an archaic corner. Much of what it is selling is like ice cubes to residents of the Arctic in mid-Winter.
The priests may have religious training but they are not living in the 21st C. If the Church is to survive and continue to be useful to anyone, it must do what the rest of the world has had to do....move to be current in our religious as well as secular life.
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