Religious post, cut-tagged as per SOP

[avevale_intelligencer]

This article has been commented on by catsittingstill and others, and the tone is much as one might expect.

The Catholic church's position on birth control and abortion is wrong. it was wrong when they first articulated it, it has if anything become even more obviously wrong over the years, and it will remain wrong. As one commenter pointed out, it is not sanctioned by the Bible, and it is surely clear to the bishops and to the current Pope that it will have to be reversed at some point if the church is going to retain any credibility at all. They're all just hoping it won't be they who have to do it. They are old, and cowardly, and fond of their power, and they have (as I commented elsewhere) lost their God. And I think, sometimes, they know that.

I wanted to say that, because I am quite sure Cat and others are expecting me to defend or at very least excuse the church here. I do not. I condemn it utterly. I actually only ever defend religious belief, not churches, but I understand that if one is unable consistently to distinguish between the two it can be hard to tell.

So, having said that, some facts:

The church excommunicated nobody till after the abortion had taken place. So there is no question of the church forcing (or "sentencing") the girl to carry the foetuses to term, even if it had the power so to do. It does not.

The girl was not excommunicated, because of her age. So there is no question of the church punishing her at all. It did not.

The stepfather rapist has been arrested and will be tried by secular authorities. So there is no question of the church "letting him off." It cannot. (The secular court can, of course, but that is a separate problem.)

Excommunication is a purely religious punishment: the excommunicated person is forbidden to receive communion (EDIT: and other sacraments such as confession or last rites). That's it. They are not barred from attending mass, and no other penalty is imposed on them. I can see why a very devout Catholic (the sort who would never consider assisting in an abortion) might consider that a cruel and heinous punishment, but to an atheist I'd have thought it would seem like being let off school. (EDIT: I may be erring on the side of secularism here, as keristor points out below. There are places where excommunication could still bite. However, see my reply to him.)

The President of Brazil, who has unequivocally condemned the bishop's action, is a Catholic himself. I have seen nothing about any move to excommunicate him.

With this decision, the Catholic church has yet again shot itself in the foot. It will alienate more churchgoers and attract nobody. It will hasten the day when believers realise that churches are an irrelevant intrusion between themselves and their God. If there were anything in the future still to interest me, it would be that day.

It's not all good, though. This article mentions another girl, eleven years old this time, who is seven months pregnant by her adoptive father and apparently does not intend to seek an abortion. If that is because of her religious upbringing, and it seems likely that it is, then the church is responsible for whatever suffering she undergoes and should be held to account, as it should for the suffering of every woman forced to undergo pregnancy against her will. I hope that more Catholics of conscience like the President of Brazil will speak out against decisions like these. The church fathers (ha) certainly won't pay any attention to a bunch of atheists, agnostics and Protestants.

And someone ought to try to bring them back to God.

Comments

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Huh. I never would've thought you'd somehow approve of it, or split hairs over it, and, no surprise, you don't. :)

On a different note, I've always been appalled at the idea of excommunication. Sure, I don't believe... but, in my view, the people who do believe have their own relationship with their god(s), and no one has the right to take that relationship away based on their interpretation. If there is a Heaven, it isn't up to that cardinal or any other human being to deny it to anyone.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

As a person who has been excommunicated (as a Mormon, not as a Catholic) for cause, and agreed with the reasons[1], I feel competant to answer this one.

Imprimus, I agree that many times excommunication is used incorrectly and often arbitrarily (example: excommunicating only one of a couple involved in adultery, where they were both complicit). It's easy to misuse, and certainly has been for 'political' purposes many times.

However, the principle of excommunication is basically none other than the right of any club to expel people who don't keep the rules of that club. If a member behaves in such a way as to show that they do not actually believe, then put them outside the rules. Some of them will then recant because their desire to be in the 'club' is greater than their desire to do what they want, others will go their own way (which is what I did) instead.

In the case of (say) the Catholic church, if a member decides to go up against the Pope or important doctrines publically then there may well be no way of dealing with that except to say publically "this person is not a member of the church". This happened recently with the Holocaust denier (a cardinal? something fairly high anyway), the church had to distance itself from his views and make clear that this person was not acceptable to them.

I see it that if a person has their own personal relationship with their deity, no one can take that away. Excommunication can't work, because it can't affect their personal practices. Only when a person delegates that relationship to another (a priest, for instance), and accepts that other person as being the only route to the deity can that relationship be taken away, and in that case the believer has already stated that they believe that what the church does is correct.

Of course, when the organisation is the only club in town (as in mediaeval times) and has all the power then you're stuck. That's a problem with the monopoly, though, not with excommunication per se.

[1] I'm not going to comment on the reasons in public (if anyone wants to know, they can ask me privately sometime). But I actually felt liberated when they made it official and bear them no malice at all for it.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I do understand everything you're saying. It just goes against my grain, philosophically, for the same reason I get honked off at preachers who say someone -- gays, pro-choice folks, whomever -- is going to Hell. They may have a copy of what they consider to be the rule book, and they may be authorized (at least in their own minds) to interpret it for the public... but, by their own definition of the club, ultimately it's not their decision.