Excommunicated for helping 9 year old rape victim.

[PostMortem]

A Brazilian archbishop says all those who helped a child rape victim secure an abortion are to be excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

The girl, aged nine, who lives in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco, became pregnant with twins.

It is alleged that she had been sexually assaulted over a number of years by her stepfather.

The excommunication applies to the child's mother and the doctors involved in the procedure.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7926694.stm

However they DON'T excommunicate the rapist?!?!:bang:

The doctors did the right thing and I hope they tell the Catholic Church to suck it!

ETA:
However, doctors at the hospital said they had to take account of the welfare of the girl, and that she was so small that her uterus did not have the ability to contain one child let alone two.

So if she was not allowed the abortion and the fetuses spontaneously abort because she's too young to carry to term who would the RCC excommunicate then. Well it would be an act of god then right? So would they excommunicate god?

Sorry I'm rambling, but it's shit like this that really burns my butt.

[His Noodly Appendage]

Fuckers.

[Mung Dynasty]

It's completely idiotic, but then it is the Catholic Church so hey.

[Garnet]

I saw this on another board. Made my head asplode.

[Anne]

Sorry I'm rambling, but it's shit like this that really burns my butt.

No problem.

I'm with you on this one.

[Alethias]

It's evil in the name of following the rules that they've made for themselves. The archbishop and his lackeys are horrible little people, and are themselves responsible for child abuse for foisting this on that little girl. they themselves should suffer whatever the penalty in that country is for child abuse.

I'm sure the prison inmates would find them soft and easy to take advantage of.

[Eudaimonist]

The archbishop needs to learn that context matters. Sheesh!


eudaimonia,

Mark

[David B]

In recent weeks, rather less seriously, the pope unexcommunicated a holocaust denier, and some big wig asked catholics to give up text messages for lent.

The upside of all this, disgusting and/or stupid though these incidents are, is that Catholicism will increasingly marginalise itself, and continue to bleed both members and revenue.

As I see it, anyway.

[Mung Dynasty]

Umm, why are text messages somehow not cool for Lent? That's a weird one.

[Oolon Colluphid]

I'd have thought that excommunication for this would be something to wear as a badge of honour.

[Eudaimonist]

Umm, why are text messages somehow not cool for Lent? That's a weird one.

According to Catholicism (I'm an ex-Catholic), Lent is a time to temporarily give up something you enjoy doing, presumably as a way of becoming less "selfish" and learning how to endure deprivation stoically.

If someone is suggesting that people give up text messaging for Lent, the implication is only that people apparently enjoy sending or receiving them.


eudaimonia,

Mark

[DMB]

This isn't the catholic church; it's toxic islam:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/01/17/saudi.child.marriage/index.html

Late last month, a Saudi judge refused to annul the marriage of an 8-year-old girl to a 47-year-old man.

The judge, Sheikh Habib Abdallah al-Habib, rejected a petition from the girl's mother, whose lawyer said the marriage was arranged by her father to settle a debt with "a close friend." The judge required the girl's husband to sign a pledge that he would not have sex with her until she reaches puberty.

"We hear a lot in the media about the marriage of underage girls," he said, according to the newspaper. "We should know that Shariah law has not brought injustice to women."

So that's all right then. As long as its marriage, it's OK. :bang:

[Uthgar the Brazen]

I don't know which I hate more: religion or men. With the latter being particularly problematic for me.

[Anne]

Humans.

They can suck.

[Uthgar the Brazen]

Humans.

They can suck.

Fair enough, but all of the religious dipshittery I've read about already today is directed by and for the greater benefit of men.

[Ray Moscow]

Well, God is a man. What did you expect?

[Anne]

IME, women are better at not getting caught. Or at looking innocent when they are compliant.

Like, above. The mom suddenly noticed? :rolleyes:

[PostMortem]

The upside of all this, disgusting and/or stupid though these incidents are, is that Catholicism will increasingly marginalise itself, and continue to bleed both members and revenue.

This is my hope as well.

[Anne]

Instead, I see it becoming more fanatical and dangerous.

[Uthgar the Brazen]

Instead, I see it becoming more fanatical and dangerous.

Pretty much.

[Anne]

I may have a different take. We have a lovely, educated, first world niece who, at 18, thinks Vatican 2 was a mistake and welcomes the return of this style Church.

That's frightening.

[Christina]

I was about 5 or 6 when they changed from the Latin Mass and nuns shortened their habits and often stopped wearing wimples after Vatican 2. Those were the only changes that were immediately evident to a child but the prevailing opinion among adults seemed to be that it was the beginning of the end of Catholicism. I liked it better in Latin when I didn't know what they were saying and it was all just pretty sounding but meaningless words. Nothing they do surprises me. Once I figured out that they really meant that non-catholic kids were going to hell because they didn't know that they had to be catholics to get to heaven and that they didn't see a problem with it, I thought they were monsters. I have no problems with catholics themselves, but I still think that the church itself is a monster that is even worse than I thought it was as a child.

[DMB]

The upside of all this, disgusting and/or stupid though these incidents are, is that Catholicism will increasingly marginalise itself, and continue to bleed both members and revenue.

As I see it, anyway.

Instead, I see it becoming more fanatical and dangerous.


I think in a way that you are both right. The present pope, Herr Ratzinger, has said that he doesn't mind if they lose members in the process of purifying the church (i.e. making it more extreme).

[Goldie]

My mother was excommunicated for divorcing a man who beat her. (She then married my father.)
So, while the OP enrages me, I am not surprised by it.

When I was just a young mother, myself...my own mother in a comatose state, I argued with my grandmother about the excommunication.

"Would Jesus deny a sinner the holy communion?" I asked my grandmother.

"No, but it's not about what Jesus would do. It's about the church and following the rules of the church and the Pope."

"Then the Catholic church can go to hell!" I said, angrily.

My grandmother booked a flight back to Florida shortly thereafter, and barely spoke to me and wouldn't have anything to do with me for 4 years.
I was the only daughter of her only daughter... who was in a coma. I was 20 yrs old.

After the 4 years, although I never asked for it, she forgave me, and she flew out to stay with me for a couple of weeks.

She died shortly after that.

Yea. Religion! It's all about family values and love!:rolleyes::bang::mad:

[Mung Dynasty]

My mother was excommunicated for divorcing a man who beat her. (She then married my father.)
So, while the OP enrages me, I am not surprised by it.

When I was just a young mother, myself...my own mother in a comatose state, I argued with my grandmother about the excommunication.

"Would Jesus deny a sinner the holy communion?" I asked my grandmother.

"No, but it's not about what Jesus would do. It's about the church and following the rules of the church and the Pope."

Sums it up pretty well. Christianity has fuck all to do with Jesus. Go figure.

[Joykins]

Why I am not a Catholic in big bold, letters. Better they had excommunicated the shmuck who raped her.

[DMB]

As far as I know, they didn't excommunicate the kiddyfiddling priests either.

[Christina]

I've never grasped what excommunication really means once you get outside of an area where everyone knows each other. It's not like they check your name in the excommunication database at the door. What's stopping someone from just going to another church? I suppose you're supposed to deny yourself and suffer terribly from the loss or it's another sin, but if you'll blow off the rules badly enough to get excommunicated you probably weren't trying to be perfect anyway. I'm not talking about atrocities like this, but normal reasons like divorce or abortion or whatever else they kick you out for.

[Pendaric]

I presume that for a Catholic it's that ex-communication means that you are in effect damned, irrespective of what you physically do.

[PostMortem]

From a new article about the excommunication (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7930380.stm) in which the Vatican throws its weight behind the decision:

"Life must always be protected, the attack on the Brazilian Church is unjustified." -
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re
Bold mine

What about the 9 year old girl's life?!?!:bang: She could have died if she'd been forced to carry the fetuses, killing her AND the fetuses. Whose life is protected then?

[Goldie]

Christina,
Well, my mother grew up in a Catholic, French-American community. Every family member, every friend... every body and everything she knew...Catholic. She went to Catholic school. My mom had two boys by this man. He treated the first child like shit because she didn't name the baby after him. The second time she did. That's the kind of creep he was. He threw her down the stairs, kicked her in the guts and broke her ear-drum.
and...they excommunicated her for divorcing him. They didn't excommunicate him!!!

She was considered the black sheep of the famiy thereafter.
My father didn't go to church but believed in Christianity, He grew up Methodist. After he died, my mom married my step dad, an Episcopalian (IOW CofE and "Catholic lite") who was very involved in the Church. We "little ones" (I was 9 yrs) were baptised Episcopalian, and my mom's family "kind of accepted her. But, she was always less than, as were we because we were not Catholic.

Believe me. A lot of Catholics get abortions and do a lot of things they aren't supposed to do... like using birth control. They just don't tell anyone. Most Catholics that I know mold the religion to fit them...but still manage to judge the rest of us.

I'm not bitter. ;)

[Stout Drinker]

Goldie,

Are you sure that she was excommunicated or denied communion for divorcing her first husband? Normally divorce did not carry that kind of sanction. Also what was more common was the denial of communion by the local church and not a formal excommunication.

The remarriage is what would have separated her from the church.

Marriage is a public act and by being publicly a bigamist (remember marriage is forever) would seperate yourself from the church.

Now if a married person has an affair and even regularly has affairs those are not considered public acts and don't incur excommunication. However the church would teach that if there wasn't repentance the person would go to hell.

Bottomline is that excommunication is reserved for public not private acts. If you publicly deny the divinity of christ you can be excommunicated but you won't be excommunicated for robbing a 7/11 and murdering the clerk.

[Joykins]

Back in the middle ages sometimes the pope would get mad at a king and excommunicate the entire country. I think that meant no religious services at all.

[Goldie]

Goldie,

Are you sure that she was excommunicated or denied communion for divorcing her first husband? Normally divorce did not carry that kind of sanction. Also what was more common was the denial of communion by the local church and not a formal excommunication.

The remarriage is what would have separated her from the church.

Marriage is a public act and by being publicly a bigamist (remember marriage is forever) would seperate yourself from the church.

Now if a married person has an affair and even regularly has affairs those are not considered public acts and don't incur excommunication. However the church would teach that if there wasn't repentance the person would go to hell.

Bottomline is that excommunication is reserved for public not private acts. If you publicly deny the divinity of christ you can be excommunicated but you won't be excommunicated for robbing a 7/11 and murdering the clerk.

Actually, she was divorced too many times. Her first husband, she married when she was just 17...and as she put it....When I was 17, I was like you at 13!
He was home from the service...married her... and left. He never consumated the marriage and she moved in with his parents. LSS, it was annulled.
Then she married and had two boys with an abusive man. All because her parents "never told me not to" as she put it.

(oh and after that...she was widowed twice, and was in a coma from a motor cycle accident at the age of 44...FOR 9 years!!! She finally died of pneumonia.)

So why exactly was she excommunicated????
I have no idea. She was a fantastic person who was dealt a really fucked-up hand.
I say... fuck them for making her feel guilty for wanting a normal life for herself and her children.
And fuck them for not only allowing, but practically encouraging, the horrid abuse of little children.:mad::mad::mad:

[Stout Drinker]

So why exactly was she excommunicated????


She was denied communion for marrying your father while still being married to her previous husband.

[LoneWolf]

I wish I had been Catholic so I could be excommunicated. It just sounds cool. Hell, I'd put it on my business cards right along with my other credentials.

[Mung Dynasty]

Well you could always join up and then do something naughty.

[Goldie]

It's awful because what little family I have left from her side...my aunt, my cousins are all VERY Catholic. They think I'm going to hell. They love me...but I'm going to hell.


Oh well...it is hard to explain to people who didn't grow up in a community built on the Catholic religion. It influenced of everything you did. You ate drank and slept it.

Stout Drinker...yes...it is about as retarded as it gets, isn't it?

[Stout Drinker]

Goldie,

My family is very Catholic as well. My father goes to Pre Vatican II catholic church that thinks Pope Benedict is an apostate and is too tolerant of Jews and Protestants. I know of exactly what you speak.

My grandfather had a sister. She married a man who was protestant and they had son together. My grandfather, along with the rest of the family, would have nothing to do with her. She became widowed after being married for three or four years with the son. My grandfather refused to have any contact with her. This was before any sort of welfare of public assistance so she really struggled.

30 something years later my grandfather saw that his sister died when he read the obituary. It was a really fucked up situation.

Oh to boot, his sister remained catholic and raised her son catholic.

[Christina]

My mother was a very devout Catholic until there were some serious family problems with her widowed sister-in-law and her 9 children. She went to the parish priest for help and advice and he told her that the whole thing was shameful and scandalous and to never speak of it again. I think that she was very hurt by it but stayed with the Church and raised us in it. She and I rarely talk about religion but I know that she was terribly confused when the molestation accusations and scandals started because it was so far beyond anything that she could accept. She doesn't go to mass anymore now and I do feel sorry for her because she lost something valuable to her that she cared about. At 83 it isn't like she's going to become a happy atheist.

[PostMortem]

Goldie,

My family is very Catholic as well. My father goes to Pre Vatican II catholic church that thinks Pope Benedict is an apostate and is too tolerant of Jews and Protestants. I know of exactly what you speak.

My grandfather had a sister. She married a man who was protestant and they had son together. My grandfather, along with the rest of the family, would have nothing to do with her. She became widowed after being married for three or four years with the son. My grandfather refused to have any contact with her. This was before any sort of welfare of public assistance so she really struggled.

30 something years later my grandfather saw that his sister died when he read the obituary. It was a really fucked up situation.

Oh to boot, his sister remained catholic and raised her son catholic.


I think I've met your grandfather. Is he this guy?
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/200/448047558_61f53c648d.jpg
Francis Griffin
Peter: Dad, now that you’re retired, you’re staying with us. No arguments, I’m putting my foot down.
Francis Griffin: I don’t want to be a bother.
Peter: It’s no bother, is it Lois?
Lois: Of course not, we’d love to have you stay.
Francis Griffin: You’re a good woman, Lois. Perhaps you won’t burn in Hell after all. Maybe you’ll just go to Purgatory with all the un-baptized babies.
Peter: You hear that Lois? You love kids.

ETA: A video of the man I believe to be Stout Drinker's grandfather:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd2womkRf-s&feature=channel_page

[Goldie]

lol :)

[Christina]

One thing that I never realized about Catholicism was that all other christians besides us were encouraged to read the bible. We weren't. All we ever got were mimeographed 'bible stories' and in 12 years of Catholic school I never saw a bible laying around, never mind used as a class text. I think that they idea was that only priests could interpret the word of god. I think I took a look at one during college but got bored at the first set of 'begats' and quit reading. They bored me enough with religion in high school to last a lifetime.

[Barbarian]

I wish I had been Catholic so I could be excommunicated. It just sounds cool. Hell, I'd put it on my business cards right along with my other credentials.I recall a discussion from alt.recovery.catholicism from, I think, 1997 or '98, whereby one of the regulars tried to get excommunicated and kept failing at it hard. "But I am an atheist!" "No problem, you should pray more and it'll go away" etc. It looks like excommunications would look bad in some internal report, or maybe they'd lose their edge if everyone who deserves it would get one. Seems like it's a measure reserved for high-profile cases only, meant to make a statement or something.

[Goldie]

I recall a discussion from alt.recovery.catholicism from, I think, 1997 or '98, whereby one of the regulars tried to get excommunicated and kept failing at it hard. "But I am an atheist!" "No problem, you should pray more and it'll go away" etc. It looks like excommunications would look bad in some internal report, or maybe they'd lose their edge if everyone who deserves it would get one. Seems like it's a measure reserved for high-profile cases only, meant to make a statement or something.

I think they'd lose all of their members! ;)

[Barbarian]

I think they'd lose all of their members! ;)They are skillful when it comes to looking away lest the sin becomes obvious. Twofold advantage: they don't lose cultural Catholics and they can make the cheap shot of claiming to know for sure that everyone has sinned, because the flock has no recourse but to nod to themselves and think of their particular sins.

For instance, I used to wonder why did they approve of the calendar method of wishful contraception, and then I came to the conclusion that it provides a cheap cop-out from the situation where the priest had to ask all young wives stuff like "My daughter, it has been five years since you last gave birth. How come you aren't pregnant again yet?" But with some lame-ass contraception method allowed, the priest can just assume that the calendar method works and can turn a blind eye to the obvious.

ETA: yes, the Catholic priests in the villages where I grew up were nosy like that.

[DMB]

One thing that I never realized about Catholicism was that all other christians besides us were encouraged to read the bible. We weren't. All we ever got were mimeographed 'bible stories' and in 12 years of Catholic school I never saw a bible laying around, never mind used as a class text. I think that they idea was that only priests could interpret the word of god. I think I took a look at one during college but got bored at the first set of 'begats' and quit reading. They bored me enough with religion in high school to last a lifetime.

Have a look at the life story of William Tyndale.

ETA I love the idea that the catholic church ordered the burning of bibles!

[Christina]

Thanks DMB. That was interesting. What I took away from the one hour discussion of the Protestant Revolution in Catholic history class was that some guy named Luther nailed a heretical paper on a church door, and then some guy named Calvin said that who was going to heaven and hell was all predetermined before we got here and nothing we do matters. Then they went back to the version where Catholics were the only ones that mattered and the rest was just a blip in history. It wasn't until college that I realized that we weren't the only real christians.

[Joykins]

For instance, I used to wonder why did they approve of the calendar method of wishful contraception, and then I came to the conclusion that it provides a cheap cop-out from the situation where the priest had to ask all young wives stuff like "My daughter, it has been five years since you last gave birth. How come you aren't pregnant again yet?" But with some lame-ass contraception method allowed, the priest can just assume that the calendar method works and can turn a blind eye to the obvious.

NFP does work if done correctly. I have done it for years. It's been five years since I last gave birth, too.

[Sticky Beak]

Well of course they won't excommunicate rapists. They let them continue on as priests, after all, giving them new plots and access to unsullied victims.

Well at least we can finally quantify the value of the life and welfare of a woman in the Catholic Church: below that of a tapeworm.

[beamishboy]

I read somewhere that the current Pope was a Nazi Youth leader. I'm not surprised he unexcommunicated a Holocaust denier.

Anyway, the greatest blessing anyone can have is an RC excommunication. Martin Luther and all the great Christian leaders of the past were excommunicated by the world's most corrupt and immoral religious institution.

[hecaterin]

NFP does work if done correctly. I have done it for years. It's been five years since I last gave birth, too.If you're lucky enough to have very regular cycles, and are very careful with sticking to it, then it can work. And if you have one of those newfangled modern type sinful feminazi marriages where you're actually allowed to say no to your husband. :D

[hecaterin]

I read somewhere that the current Pope was a Nazi Youth leader. I'm not surprised he unexcommunicated a Holocaust denier.

Anyway, the greatest blessing anyone can have is an RC excommunication. Martin Luther and all the great Christian leaders of the past were excommunicated by the world's most corrupt and immoral religious institution.I can't see the connection. Luther would clearly have been a fellow-traveller with the Nazis, where it comes to Jews.

What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and blaspheming. If we do, we become sharers in their lies, cursing and blasphemy. Thus we cannot extinguish the unquenchable fire of divine wrath, of which the prophets speak, nor can we convert the Jews. With prayer and the fear of God we must practice a sharp mercy to see whether we might save at least a few from the glowing flames. We dare not avenge ourselves. Vengeance a thousand times worse than we could wish them already has them by the throat. I shall give you my sincere advice:

First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly * and I myself was unaware of it * will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know.

Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. This will bring home to them that they are not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are living in exile and in captivity, as they incessantly wail and lament about us before God. (...and much, much more...)

[Joykins]

If you're lucky enough to have very regular cycles, and are very careful with sticking to it, then it can work. And if you have one of those newfangled modern type sinful feminazi marriages where you're actually allowed to say no to your husband. :D

The calendar method works well for those with very regular cycles, but charting and monitoring fertility signs can work for those with less regular cycles. But as you point out, ONLY if the couple is in total agreement on using it, and has sufficient self-control to use it properly and that is not always the case (let me introduce you to my beautiful 5-yo daughter...). So what we have here is a fairly effective method of birth control that is very difficult to use properly.

That said, the NFP is definitely getting old even though we have learned and obtained the self control to do it properly, and I am probably going to get a tubal.

[Joykins]

The current Pope was in the Hitler Youth but to be fair nearly every German boy of his age was.

[Mung Dynasty]

Yep, membership was compulsory for German kids in that era. There are plenty of fair criticisms of Ratzinger that can be made without dragging out the Hitler Youth bullshit.

[DMB]

More news on the Brazilian case:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/03/11/brazil.rape.abortion/index.html

The case has outraged the Brazilian public and fueled a controversy reaching the highest levels of church and state in a nation whose law bans abortion except in cases of rape...

...A new report by Brazil's IPAS, a non-governmental organization that works with the health ministry, indicates that more than 1 million women undergo illegal abortions in Brazil each year. About 250,000 are treated by doctors for traumas due to botched abortions, said Beatriz Jalli, an IPAS official.

Studies at a Brazilian hospital dedicated to treating female victims of violence, the Perola Byington in Sao Paulo, indicated that more than 40 percent of the cases involved children...

..."We live in a male chauvinistic, patriarchal society with a very high rate of sexual crimes against women and minors," she said. "Our reproductive rights are constantly criminalized."

[Christina]

I'm watching that movie "Deliver Us From Evil" about that pedophile priest O'Grady that was moved from parish to parish for decades. I'm only a little way into it but it's almost surreal. You don't get any sense that he at all grasps the emotional damage that he's inflicted, just that he did something illegal. It's like there's a complete disconnect between him and the reality of what child molestation is and every now and then he even giggles a bit. It's sickening.

[PostMortem]

It's like there's a complete disconnect between him and the reality of what child molestation is and every now and then he even giggles a bit. It's sickening.

I've encountered several pedophile apologists on various boards and everyone of them, at some point in the debate, will try to claim that the children are willing participants. Pedophiles are truly the bottom of the barrel of the human race.

[Christina]

He doesn't go that far, but he never even seems to realize the violence of raping toddlers, never mind the older kids. It's painful to watch the agony of the parents who automatically trusted him while he molested their children for years. I wish they would get sued until they didn't have a penny or asset left and have to start over from scratch.

[LoneWolf]

I've encountered several pedophile apologists on various boards and everyone of them, at some point in the debate, will try to claim that the children are willing participants. Pedophiles are truly the bottom of the barrel of the human race.

Hey, speaking of which, when is our old buddy castorama going to get an invite?

;)

[PostMortem]

Hey, speaking of which, when is our old buddy castorama going to get an invite?

;)


Why i outta..:angry:

[Christina]

One of the strangest things about O'Grady is that he kept saying "it shouldn't have happened" instead of "I shouldn't have done that", as if the kids he molested were equally guilty. Another one was that at the end he wrote these ridiculous letters to each of his victims inviting them to come see him and talk it all through and forgive him. I don't know how anyone can be aware of how the church administration behaves in these cases and still be a member of the church. That brainwashing that only catholics go to heaven must run very deep.

[Hex]

Sums it up pretty well. Christianity has fuck all to do with Jesus. Go figure.

Oooh ... Many denominations of Christians don't consider Catholicism to be really Christian. They've got all those 'pagan' saints and funny hats and special water and smoke, and an evil leader (also with a funny hat) who's likely to be the anti-Christ leading everyone astray ...

Hence, a bunch of those denominations do the 'salvation through faith not works' to show that for them it's not about the Church's rules.

But then, it's about the rules in the Bible which they cherry-pick to fit, and those are what you have to blindly follow, so ... :bang:

[DMB]

I'm not familiar with the particular case of O'Grady, but a lot of paedophiles blame children for tempting them and leading them on. It goes back to Adam, of course,

The woman tempted me and I did eat

[Christina]

His was one of the more famous cases, mostly because a cardinal was involved in the coverup because he didn't want to hurt his chances at being appointed. The church continually lied and refused requests for records and they ever invented a new kind of confidentiality and said that all communications between members of the clergy were protected in the same way that confession is.

He doesn't blame the children exactly but he appears to see it as something that happened to him, not something that he did to them. At one point he's asked if he had ever been diagnosed, but I couldn't tell if he said Dissociative identity disorder or Dissocial personality disorder. I don't know anything about either one but from a quick google it sounds more like the latter to me.

[Mediancat]

Hey, speaking of which, when is our old buddy castorama going to get an invite?

;)

I suspect shortly after we all convert to Scientology.

Rob

[Hex]

I suspect shortly after we all convert to Scientology.

Rob

I'll start collecting the money ... I've got paypal, so everyone can feel secure in sending it to me ... :evil:

[DMB]

Gosh, they're having second thoughts!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5917765.ece

The Vatican has backtracked over the excommunication of doctors in Brazil who performed an abortion on a nine-year-old daughter who became pregnant with twins after being raped by her 23 year old stepfather.

Archbishop Rino Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said the excommunication not only of the medical team but also of the girl's mother had been a mistake. "Before thinking about an excommunication it was necessary and urgent to save an innocent life", he said. The excommunication had been decided on and publicised "too hastily".

Writing in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, Archishop Fisichella noted that the excommunications had rebounded on the Church. "Unfortunately the credibility of our teaching was dented. It appeared in the eyes of many to be insensitive, incomprehensible and lacking in mercy." The girl "should have been above all defended, embraced, treated with sweetness to make her feel that we were all on her side, all of us, without distinction."

Perhaps the negative publicity had an effect.

[Mediancat]

I'm surprised. I would have expected them to tell the complainers to go to hell, so to speak.

Rob

[Ray Moscow]

Writing in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, Archishop Fisichella noted that the excommunications had rebounded on the Church. "Unfortunately the credibility of our teaching was shredded yet again. It appeared in the eyes of all sane people to be insensitive, incomprehensible and lacking in mercy." The girl "should have been above all defended, embraced, treated with sweetness to make her feel that we were all on her side, all of us, without distinction. Obviously we should just keep our fucking mouths shut from now on."

Fixed it for him

[RAFH]

I'm surprised. I would have expected them to tell the complainers to go to hell, so to speak.

Rob

Money talks. Most people these days, even in previously heavily catholic areas, the church is just a relic, out of date and obsolete. They stay with it because of the parents and grandparents, but are always looking for a reason to shine it on. This is the sort of reason they seek. They can say to their older relatives, "see, this is the silliness that you support."

Most of the money comes from big patrons, not the little folks. When the big money stops flowing, it hurts. The Vatican knows this. They know they are losing ground every day and that shit like this hurts them even more.

[DMB]

Umm. But it's OK to say this

Writing in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, Archishop Fisichella noted that the excommunications had rebounded on the Church. "Unfortunately the credibility of our teaching was dented. It appeared in the eyes of many to be insensitive, incomprehensible and lacking in mercy." The girl "should have been above all defended, embraced, treated with sweetness to make her feel that we were all on her side, all of us, without distinction."

but, of course, the one thing he wouldn't go so far as to say was

...and helped to have the abortion she needed.

Defending, embracing and treating with sweetness would not have saved her life.

[Coleslaw]

Yep, membership was compulsory for German kids in that era. There are plenty of fair criticisms of Ratzinger that can be made without dragging out the Hitler Youth bullshit.

You're missing the point. At a vulnerable time in his development, Ratzinger was exposed to fascist ideals through a format that used, among other things, group bonding and peer pressure, both powerful forms of molding ideas and behavior. Why is unfair to think that experience might have had an effect on his current thinking?