(no subject)
Feb. 26th, 2003 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaSometime soon, I'm going to post something cheerful. Not this time.
Through![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
riarambles' journal, I've been following the story of a nine-year-old Nicaraguan girl who was raped by an adult man. She became pregnant, and was also infected with two STDs which were left untreated because of potential harm to the fetus, while the government tried to decide whether she should be permitted to have an abortion. The Catholic Church in Nicaragua urged that the child - who is young enough that when she was asked whether she wanted to have a baby she talked about not wanting to share her toys with another child - be forced to continue her pregnancy.
The governmental medical board assigned to review the case ruled that the child was in as much medical danger from an abortion as she would be if she carried to term. Doctors volunteered to do the procedure even with this ambiguous level of legal support (they're now being threatened with prosecution), and she tolerated the procedure well. She's now being treated for her infections. She and her family are on the road to healing...
Except that her parents, her physicians, and all of their supporters have been promptly excommunicated by the Catholic Church. Or, as a church spokesman, guided by a God of love and mercy, prefers to say, they excommunicated themselves.
If you are Catholic, you have the opportunity to volunteer to share in the sentence of excommunication by declaring yourself to be one of the child's supporters. As for myself, I'll be praying that healing and peace be granted to the child and her family - and that a spirit of compassion be granted to the church officials standing against them.
Through
riarambles' journal, I've been following the story of a nine-year-old Nicaraguan girl who was raped by an adult man. She became pregnant, and was also infected with two STDs which were left untreated because of potential harm to the fetus, while the government tried to decide whether she should be permitted to have an abortion. The Catholic Church in Nicaragua urged that the child - who is young enough that when she was asked whether she wanted to have a baby she talked about not wanting to share her toys with another child - be forced to continue her pregnancy. The governmental medical board assigned to review the case ruled that the child was in as much medical danger from an abortion as she would be if she carried to term. Doctors volunteered to do the procedure even with this ambiguous level of legal support (they're now being threatened with prosecution), and she tolerated the procedure well. She's now being treated for her infections. She and her family are on the road to healing...
Except that her parents, her physicians, and all of their supporters have been promptly excommunicated by the Catholic Church. Or, as a church spokesman, guided by a God of love and mercy, prefers to say, they excommunicated themselves.
If you are Catholic, you have the opportunity to volunteer to share in the sentence of excommunication by declaring yourself to be one of the child's supporters. As for myself, I'll be praying that healing and peace be granted to the child and her family - and that a spirit of compassion be granted to the church officials standing against them.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-02-26 11:18 am (UTC)None of which ammounts to a hill of beans.
I do not recognize the Bishop of Rome's authority in this matter, nor do I recognize the authority of the archbishop of Managua. I'm sure they are both holy men (especially the Bishop of Rome) but they're in over their heads and struggling with issues they haven't the training or the temprament to deal with. The sad truth is that by pursuing their draconian policies they excommunicate themselves from the vast body of the Church, worldwide, as people of good conscience everywhere become ever more disillusioned with their errant teachings.