Child Abuse in a Different Form

In Brazil a nine year old girl is brutally raped and impregnated by her step father. The pregnancy was discovered when the nine year old child became sick and her mother took her to a clinic. This nine year old baby was carrying twins and the doctors advised that her life was in danger. The correct and only decision that this child’s mother could make was to end the pregnancy. As a result, Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho with the blessings of the Vatican by way of Cardinal Giovanni Battista, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, excommunicated the nine year old, her mother and the doctor who performed the abortion. Archbishop Sobrinho’s statement on the subject "The law of God is higher than any human laws, "When a human law — that is, a law enacted by human legislators — is against the law of God, that law has no value. The adults who approved, who carried out this abortion have incurred excommunication." Really? That may be the law in Vatican City but it’s not the law in free and diversified nations. I think the Church needs to give it up, too many people in history have died as a result of their “Human Laws” made in the name of God. I may be mistaken but I have never seen a Bishop walk on water, perhaps a little light footed, but never the water thing. I am just wondering how long people are going to allow Catholic Bishops the authority to abuse children and women. If the average Joe or Mary covered upped a crime against a child they would never see the light of day, but in the case of a Catholic Bishop he gets sent to a cushy job in Rome. I hope that that this nine year old girl’s mother, the girl herself and the doctors who served her make use of this great gift of excommunication by the Catholic Church. James Joyce once wrote that “There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being”. Indeed, the more educated the human being the less tolerant one has for religion’s hypocrisy.