Religious post, cut-tagged as per SOP
Mar. 8th, 2009 07:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerThis article has been commented on by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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, askeristor 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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-08 05:08 pm (UTC)For the rest of my wibblings that you quote, they weren't all or even mostly directed at you, but at the body of comments I'd absorbed on this issue in the threads of your and the other posts to which I linked. I agree that the excommunication is intended as a deterrent to others, and indeed cited an example of another girl in a similar situation who may have been deterred: again, I understood you to be saying that the church was trying to coerce *this* girl. Sorry again.
I certainly don't think you, or any of those who've commented on this, are incapable of empathising. If I had, the anger expressed would have told me otherwise in no uncertain terms. Again, we're back to general comments I've read in which religion is equated to fairy stories and such, and the implication has seemed to me to be that people choose to embrace religion because they think it will make life nicer for them.
I would entirely understand a lack of empathy if someone complained that the fairy godmother never turned up to magic a pumpkin into a BMW so that the someone could go out clubbing, and it has seemed to me that if that is the way one perceives religion, then it must be very hard to empathise with people who are hurt by it in similarly non-tangible ways.
It is hard, from a non-believing point of view, to watch people going up to kneel on a hard floor and be given a disc of what looks like rice paper, and see that for the precious truth that it represents to them. I know, I've done it, and it took me an effort. I guess I should not be surprised that others, from an even more opposed viewpoint, find it easier: or in other words, that the problem is with me.