Pope Francis will send ‘missionaries of mercy’ to absolve women of abortion ‘sin’ - The Washington Post
On Feb. 25, 2009, a small girl arrived at the doorstep of a clinic in the Brazilian city of Pesqueira in great pain. Her abdomen was swollen and she complained of headaches, nausea and dizziness. When a doctor examined her, however, he quickly realized that she wasn’t sick. She was four months pregnant — with twins. The girl was nine years old, raped by her own stepfather. Doctors determined that the girl’s tiny body was too small to bear a child, let alone two, so they scheduled an operation. Although abortion is generally illegal in Brazil, it is allowed in cases of rape and to save a mother’s life. The girl checked into a local hospital, only for the hospital to suddenly announce it was postponing the procedure because of pressure from the Catholic Church.
“God’s law is above any human law,” Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho of Olinda and Recife announced. “So when a human law … is contrary to God’s law, this human law has no value.” When the nine-year-old received an abortion at another hospital, Cardoso decreed that the girl, her mother and her doctors were all excommunicated. “We consider this murder,” said a lawyer for the archdiocese. The abortion scandal soon went international. Rino Fisichella, an archbishop at the Vatican and president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, publicly criticized Cardoso and said the excommunications made the church seem “insensitive, incomprehensible and lacking in mercy.”
On June 8, Pope Benedict XVI finally weighed in. Instead of supporting Fisichella, however, Benedict “ordered that a statement be published reaffirming that the church’s teaching on abortion had not changed,” according to Conscience magazine. “Archbishop Fisichella was obliged to issue a clarification, which amounted to a retraction.” Six years later, however, the Holy See is now a much different place. On Tuesday, Archbishop Fisichella was back in the news, but this time firmly in line with his boss. During a news conference at the Vatican, Fisichella announced that Pope Francis would be empowering his priests to pardon women for having abortions. Moreover, the Vatican would be sending these “missionaries of mercy” all across the world as part of the Pope’s Jubilee, or Holy Year, of Mercy, which begins in December.
Francis has spoken sharply about abortion, calling it “a sin against God.” But his year of mercy is aimed at bringing back estranged Catholics by emphasizing outreach, even for those who have committed grave sins in the eyes of the church. Last year, Francis told Catholic bishops in South Africa that “abortion compounds the grief of many women who now carry with them deep physical and spiritual wounds.” He noted, however, that reconciliation “must be rediscovered as a fundamental dimension of the life of grace.” Fisichella, now the president of the council organizing Holy Year events, said the Pope’s decision was intended “as a concrete sign that a priest must be a man of mercy and close to all.”
This is an interesting baby step. Still a baby step, in a situation where long strides are necessary, but this is an interesting way to move the church slowly away from its entrenched misogyny and maybe remain relevant in the modern world. Whether he's as much of a force for good as some would like him to be or not, you really can't deny that this pope is crafty. He seems to have a plan and is definitely going with it.
I'm sorry, but the Catholic church "updating" itself to only being 200 years behind modernity instead of 500 is just not good enough for me.
We should praise a step in the right direction and hope for more. I think the Pope's views are far more liberal than he would ever dare let on.
We should praise a step in the right direction and hope for more. I think the Pope's views are far more liberal than he would ever dare let on.
The church is barely what might be considered acceptable to exist by legal technicality.
What step are you referring to?
I believe the Pope is trying to bring more left leaning ideas into the church in hopes of keeping his religion relevant.
So you want the Church to be illegalized? That's fine, I also want opposing views (like atheistic hedonism) to be suppressed, but at least come out and say it.
If it would behave in a civilized way (it could start by not employing and covering for child rapists), I would be more than happy to simply ignore it.
Religiosity does not give you free reign to commit crimes. Or to stalk ex-members, for that matter.
For non-Catholics, no, I don't think we should.
That gives the impression that this is in any way good enough. It isn't. The church is barely what might be considered acceptable to exist by legal technicality. That is not good enough in 2015. And if he wants praise and to be welcome at the table of civilized societies, then he needs to keep working.
No deal.
I find it funny that an old man who neither seems to know nor care about the experiences of women thinks they need his mercy. What on earth for?
This is nothing but a ploy to try to bring back ex-Catholics -- he says he is targeting the "estranged." In other words, women who have shaken off the brainwashing that they need anyone's mercy for doing what's best for their own lives.
As if they haven't suffered enough at the hands of the church. Perhaps he should save some of that shame for himself. Evidently these women have had quite enough of it.
I'm sorry, but the Catholic church "updating" itself to only being 200 years behind modernity instead of 500 is just not good enough for me.
And what do you base that belief on?
He openly criticizes capitalism and says society should be taking care of the poor. Now he's trying to make the church less critical of abortion.
Capitalism is itself an antitraditional system which the Church has always been critical of. Ditto for caring for the poor. And what reason do you have to believe that he's trying to make the Church less critical of abortion?
Things like this don't change over night. It's a slow and gradual process. Do you believe we shouldn't be praising middle eastern countries for slowly making women relevant in society?
Offering forgiveness to people that have had abortions is a subtle attempt to change the tone.
That's true. And how do they change? Continued pressure. This is how we (as in the international community) have gotten many countries to improve their conditions. We don't allow them to sit at the table until they reach a level of acceptability -- and this has worked over and over again, and improved the lives of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people. It is no big accomplishment to be 5% less brutal than they were before. Whooptie-do. The accomplishment is moving away from brutality completely.
Not until they reach a level of acceptability, no. Things will never reach acceptability unless pressure remains.
You can keep the pressure on them to join the civilized world and praise steps in that direction at the same time. Being happy that the church is attempting to change is not the equivalent of saying "Okay, we're cool now."
And that is how the civilized world should be dealing with the Catholic church.
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