Posted on 08/30/2006 3:19:02 PM PDT by Stone Mountain
Cardinal Warns About Colombia Abortion
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- A leading cardinal said the Vatican will excommunicate the doctors who performed Colombia's first legal abortion on an 11-year old girl who allegedly was raped by her stepfather.
Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family, made the announcement in an interview with RCN television Tuesday.
''Every Christian Catholic who submits to an abortion, whether it be directly or indirectly, will be excommunicated,'' Lopez said.
It was not immediately clear if he also was referring to the girl and her family.
[... cut to excerpt]
The secretary of Colombia's Episcopal Conference, Monsignor Fabian Marulanda, said he doubted that the Vatican would take the formal steps of excommunicating the doctors, but that the doctors should consider themselves excommunicated until they submit to penance.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
:-( If they had no words about a restraining order or separation or estrangement, I fear the worst.
It's Colombia, not the United States. I would hope he'd be in the hands of the legal system, but who knows.
I understand that the laws are different there. I just note that the story left out the prospect for her safety going forward.
BTW, the story ran in the NYT so you would think that some editor would follow up on the question to find out if he was still around.
And such a thing is worse than killing an innocent human? I don't think anything is worse than killing an innocent baby.
thanks a lot...I was a little confused by the priest's words and was wondering what the 'indirect' part meant. Thanks again!
Here is an interesting testimonial from Sharron Osborn about her abortion.
Excerpt from Sharon: The rock of the Osbournes unXpurgated
By JENNY JOHNSTON
The Daily Mail
Brutally Honest
You can level many charges at Sharon Osbourne, but she is brutally honest, and it is her vulnerability that makes her likeable.
"Everybody has something in the closet, and I reckon the best policy is always to be honest, then it can't come back to haunt you," she says. And she holds her hands up to her own "big mistakes". The biggest brings her to tears. "I had an abortion at 17 and it was the worst thing I ever did. It was the first time I'd had sex, and that was rotten. I'd always thought it was going to be all violins, and it was just awful.
"I was two months gone when I realised. I went to my mum and she said, without pausing for breath: 'You have to get rid of it.'
"She told me where the clinic was, then virtually pushed me off. She was so angry. She said I'd got myself in this mess, now she had to get me out.
"But she didn't come. I went alone. I was terrified. It was full of other young girls, and we were all terrified and looking at each other and nobody was saying a bloody word. I howled my way through it, and it was horrible.
"I would never recommend it to anyone because it comes back to haunt you. When I tried to have children, I lost three - I think it was because something had happened to my cervix during the abortion. After three miscarriages, they had to put a stitch in it.
"In life, whatever it is, you pay somewhere down the line. You have to be accountable."
Will we now be faced with A delicatessen vatican APPROACH TO EXCOMMUNICATION by only applying this order to Bogota, Columbia , or will this order include all of the Catholic World.
It will be interesting to see how the vatican gets out of this mess.
The post-abortion emotional trauma lasts a lifetime as well.
This is as close to a genuine lose-lose situation as anyone can find within the entire abortion debate. Eleven is way to young to become a parent. Eleven is also way to young to do murder. She's had an abortion. On top of being raped, she's going to be dealing with the aftermath of having killed her own child--my guess is that she'll be facing that sooner than later. Suppose she had been allowed to bear her child? Maybe she'd have been able to see herself not only as someone who survived an incredibly traumatic act of violence, but something even more than that: She would be able to see herself as a giver of life.
No easy choices here.
I think you're assuming too much. The article doesn't give any information regarding the state of the mother's relationship with the stepfather (were they together or estranged?), the stepfather's mental state at the time of the rape (Jekyll to Hyde transformation or was he always a creep?), or if there was anything the mother could have done to protect her daughter from the attack (did she have any warning that it might happen?).
Tough situation. But the Cardinal is upholding the Doctrine of the Church that has pretty much come to us from the Apostles. As to excommunication many of these "excommunications" can be lifted by simply going to Confession.
I suppose also the Cardinal is voicing the view that a further "evil" such as murdering a unborn child cannot be tolerated.
Whine..........
Do noi forget to launder your halo.
I googled the story and found coverage from Australia to Turkey, and none of the articles mentioned it.
"It appears that you are backing away from this position."
No, just backing away from puerile word games.
"The excuse of the crypto rapists."
FR has really declined in recent years.
You should be past intellectual garbage like that before you start posting here.
What word games? I asked you to what your position would be in a hypothetical case, and you have so far refused to answer.
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