Don't look now, but I think hell just froze over -- or there is a crack in the Vatican's armor.The Vatican's top bioethics official said the two Brazilian doctors who performed an abortion on a 9-year-old rape victim do not merit excommunication, because they acted to save her life.What I liked about this report is the acknowledgement that 1) abortion CAN be the best decision for women and girls; and 2) decisions about reproductive health should be left to the woman (or in this case girl) and her physician.
The statement, by Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, appeared as the lead article in last Sunday's issue of the official Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano.
"There are others who deserve excommunication and our forgiveness," Fisichella wrote, addressing the unidentified rape victim, "not those who permitted you to live and who will help you to regain hope and faith."
The case drew international attention earlier this month after the local Catholic archbishop excommunicated the doctors who aborted the girl's twin fetuses, as well as the girl's mother.
The child was 15 weeks pregnant, allegedly after being raped by her stepfather. Weighing only 80 pounds, she might have died if forced to carry the pregnancy to term, the doctors said.
Even when doing the right thing, the Vatican couldn't resist taking a swipe at women having the right to safe and legal abortion.
While reiterating Catholic teaching that abortion is an "intrinsically wicked act," Fisichella suggested that under the circumstances, it might have been the lesser evil.There are a myriad of reasons why women choose abortion. This report indicates why it's so important that women, in consultation with their physicians, be allowed to make this decision for themselves.
It's surprising to me that the Vatican would allow this pubic discussion.
Vatican officials rarely air their differences in public, let alone on the front page of the pope's newspaper.My good friend Fran at FranIAm is going to have to explain this to me. One good thing that I've learned from my day job is that there are some pretty terrific people of faith out there -- and Fran is definitely one of them.
According to respected Vatican journalist Sandro Magister, Fisichella's article was probably approved in advance by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who as secretary of state is considered the Vatican's No. 2 official, after Pope Benedict XVI.
After nearly two months of international controversy over the pope's decision to readmit a Holocaust-denying bishop to the church in late January, Magister called this case of crossed signals the latest indication of confusion at the highest levels of the Holy See.
"It is yet another sign of the disorder that reigns in the Curia," Magister said, referring to the church's international governing bureaucracy. "It shows that Benedict XVI is paying the price for refusing to reform the Curia."
7 comments:
FranIam here... Thank you for your kind words. I will always hold forth however that I am not in a minority, there are many good people of faith. The hardliners and noisemakers often get the most attention.
As for the Brazil story... this is all very complicated. Let me try to sort out what I can for - there is more than one issue going on here.
I will also say that I think that the right thing was done with this abortion and I do not think that the girl, her mother, grandmother or doctors have "sinned."
The biggest issue is that many of the teachings are not 100% clear. Now if I were to speak from a purely theological viewpoint, I would tell you that while church teachings are meant to be clear, they are also ever evolving as all of creation is fulfilled and redeemed. (pretty theological-ish sounding, no? but it is true.)
There are a multitude of examples of this in the long and complicated history of the church - I will bring up the rehabilitated name of Galileo for just one, but there are a zillion others.
And if I wanted to go on a long exegis I could riff on about Jesus' interpretation of the tension between law and love.
But I wont'.
Do not expect the RC church to ever change positions on abortion. I am not speaking of the hysterical reactions - I am speaking of the foundational teaching that it is wrong to end a life based (pay attention - I am interpreting, not opining) upon the teaching that life begins at the moment of conception.
That said this was a most complicated case.
The things that jump out at me are this...
1- Interpretation of saving one life (the young girl's) with the abortion versus the potential loss of all three, had this pregnancy come to term. The girl was only 9 and weighed 80 pounds; to carry and then somehow deliver twins would have probably killed all 3.
You will note that the RC church is very clear about no abortion, even in cases of rape or incest - so understand that this was an extreme case. (there is the problem with law, right? one size is very hard to fit all.)
2 The state of the Curia. Any church watchers of late will see how one big matter here is church communications, which you refer to in your next to last paragraph.
The Curia is a big mo-fo mess of all messes right now. Benedict is not paying the price, the entire church is. And while I am not letting B16 off the hook here, his predecessor was a major factor in how the Curia is made up to and behaves today. As well as a long and challenging history.
I feel like I have rambled on here and perhaps not clearly.
If anyone has any questions - ask away.
As a person of faith (though not a Catholic or conservative evangelical), I feel like cases such as this are a perfect example of how the church does *not* have all of the answers. Life is complicated and people live through extraordinary experiences.
It may be comforting for people to hear a rigid, dogmatic church authority say "this is bad" and "this is good" but it is neither realistic nor compassionate. Sometimes "I don't know" is the only acceptable and appropriate answer.
It bears remembering that the girl's rapist is forgiven, theologically. Nor, I don't believe, was the rapist excommunicated, though girl's her mother was. How does this make any sense?
Ecclesiastes 4:3 says it is better to never have been born than to see all of the world's evil. A 9-year-old pregnant with her stepfather's twins has certainly seen more evil than a child that age ever should. It would be very easy for the church to give this girl and her mother a pass on those grounds alone but to do so would threaten the hierarchy.
This is the flaw with organized religion -- it's a human construct and is therefore rife with all of the ego, grievances, and other flaws that make up human nature.
I love Southern Belle's comment.
And for those who use faith as a prop for defending all that is "right" I feel sad.
It is almost always about the questions not the answers. If it were otherwise, Jesus would not have spoken in parables.
What I don't understand is why the church doesn't come down hard on the stepfather rapist. He raped a child and there is nothing alleged about it--she was pregnant with twins! He should be punished, not the girl or her mother or the doctors who performed the abortion.
I've had my own struggles with faith, but one thing I do believe is that for those of us who use the Bible as our guide, I've always felt it's a book that must be read as a "whole" and not picked apart piece by piece to "win" an argument.
I love this discussion ... thanks to all.
BAC
Not picked apart - spoken with the wisdom of a scripture scholar.
Truer words were never spoken.
Busted!
BAC
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