by Karen on March 21, 2009
After some bitching about the response to the pope’s absurd remarks about how condom use can increase the spread of HIV, the Vatican edited the interview on their site to make it seem as though he was misinterpreted:
Taken aback by outrage worldwide, the Holy See altered the Pope’s remark yesterday to read that condoms merely “risked” aggravating the problem.
The Vatican website published an edited text of the Pope’s comments the day after a question-and-answer session on his flight to Cameroon. It was a question from a French reporter that elicited an unqualified response about condoms.
By introducing the word “risks” the Vatican softened the message. The website at first also altered the Italian word the Pope used for condoms, from “preservativi” to “profilattici”.
It’s now switched back to what he actually said with his spokesman stating that he’s just saying what his predecessors said as if that makes it okay.
by Karen on March 19, 2009
The Vatican has decided to backtrack on it’s approval of the behaviour of a Brazilian archbishop who really shined his ass in the case of a nine year old rape victim receiving an abortion.
Archbishop Rino Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said the excommunication not only of the medical team but also of the girl’s mother had been a mistake. “Before thinking about an excommunication it was necessary and urgent to save an innocent life”, he said. The excommunication had been decided on and publicised “too hastily”. (source)
They’ve been in spin mode for the last week with the head of the Brazilian branch of bishops stating that there was “no clear case” for excommunicating the doctors who carried out the abortion because only doctors who “systematically” conduct abortions should be excommunicated.
This is like saying “killing a fly will get your membership revoked” then backtracking and saying, after someone kills a single fly, “but only if you’re a serial killer of flies” even though killing a fly for any reason is still grounds for having your membership revoked.
by Karen on March 9, 2009
The Vatican has decided to weigh in on the excommunication of the child rape victim’s mother and doctors in Brazil:
A senior Vatican cleric has defended the excommunication of the mother and doctors of a nine-year-old girl who had an abortion in Brazil after being raped.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Catholic church’s Congregation for Bishops, told the daily La Stampa on Saturday that the twins the girl had been carrying had a right to live.
"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," he said.
And as usual, being angry at a group that is so misogynistic it would force a nine year old child to carry a pregnancy to term if the state didn’t interfere is “unjustified”:
Re, who also heads the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, added: "Life must always be protected, the attack on the Brazilian church is unjustified."
Unless the life in need of protection is indisputably female, then it is unworthy of protection.
The girl’s rapist, said to be her stepfather who’s currently in jail, will not be expelled:
He also said the accused stepfather would not be expelled from the church. Although the man allegedly committed "a heinous crime … the abortion – the elimination of an innocent life – was more serious".
It frakking boggles the mind that trying to save a child’s life due to a crime committed against the child by an adult is “more serious” than the “heinous crime” of raping a child.
