The Roman Catholic Church has had an extra share of controversies this year. Rounding out the busy social calendar of first quarter 2009 are the reintegration of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), a Holocaust-denying Bishop, an attempted appointment of ultra-conservative Austrian priest Gerhard Maria Wagner, and a creationist-snubbing council on evolution. Now there’s a new controversy to tack on: the horrendously botched treatment of a nine-year-old rape victim.
This young Brazilian girl, the victim of repeated sexual assaults, was pregnant with twins. Doctors in the heavily Catholic nation of Brazil ultimately decided that an abortion was the most suitable course of action. It is worthwhile to note that Brazil has very strict laws governing the legality of abortion, much stricter than many other nations in Central and South America. An abortion is legal only if the woman was victim of a rape, if the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother, or the fetus would never be viable. Doctors determined that terminating the young girl’s pregnancy was the only viable way to assure her survival.
In a sickening twist to an already atrocious crime, the father of the twins is also the step-father of the young girl. He was arrested after attempting to flee authorities and is currently being held by police.
When Brazilian Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Father José Cardoso Sobrinho, spoke out on this issue no one really expected what came out of his mouth. He excommunicated the mother of the child, along with the doctors that carried out the abortion. He made no comment on the status of the step-father, being held on suspicion of raping not only the pregnant girl, but her 14-year-old mentally-handicapped sister as well.
While the Roman Catholic Church decried the Holocaust-denying Bishop Williamson, they had no qualms in backing Archbishop Sobrhino’s decision, at least initially. “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,”commented Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the head of the Roman Catholic Church’s Congregation for Bishops and the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.
