Vatican backtracks, admits abortion was justified

Via UNRR, UK's Freethinker:

Vatican, stung by cruelty accusations, tries to limit the damage to its reputation

A senior Vatican official has criticised the excommunication of a Brazilian woman whose nine-year-old daughter had an abortion after being raped, as well as the medical team who performed it.

Said Rino Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life:

Unfortunately the credibility of our teaching took a blow as it appeared, in the eyes of many, to be insensitive, incomprehensible and lacking mercy.

Me: Appeared? Probably because it was. Emphasis mine below:

The Academy for Life is tasked with promoting the church’s doctrine on bioethics.

Fisichella recently hit the headlines when he attacked President Obama’s decision to allow stem-cell research to be resumed in the US, reversing the ban imposed by the imbecile George W Bush.

In a frantic backtracking exercise, Brazilian bishops said last week that the excommunication of the mother and doctors of the girl, who was pregnant with twins after having allegedly been raped by her stepfather, was wrong and would not be applied.

According to this report, The National Conference of Bishops of Brazil decided that the child’s mother acted “under pressure from the doctors” who said the girl would die if she carried the babies to term.

Dimas Lara Barbosa, the body’s secretary-general, told reporters the mother therefore could not be excommunicated:

We must take the circumstances into consideration.

Me: *rubs eyes* ... the Catholic Church has learned to take circumstances into consideration in regard to abortion?

Who can explain this strange new turn to sanity?

It seems that belatedly -- after enough public outcry -- this church has shown itself to be less vile than one Sen. John McCain, who during last year's presidential debate mocked "health of the mother" considerations with scare quotes.

As for the doctors, there was no clear case that they should be expelled from the church either, he said, contrary to the position taken by Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, who announced the excommunications.

Barbosa said only doctors who “systematically” conduct abortions are thrown out of the church.

Sobrinho’s sick decision that the abortion “was more serious” than the rape caused brought worldwide condemnation of the Catholic Church. Many commentators denounced his lack of compassion. But Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the head of the church’s Congregation for Bishops, supported Sobrinho, telling the Italian daily La Stampa the twins had had a right to live and that the attacks on Sobrinho were “unjustified.”

Abortion is illegal in Brazil except in cases of rape or if the woman’s health is in danger.

The girl was found to be four months’ pregnant after being taken to a hospital suffering stomach pains. Officials said she told them she had been abused by her stepfather since the age of six.

Her 23-year-old stepfather was arrested and is being kept in protective custody.

Update: Douthat chimes