The diocese…[in and around Quebec City]…reported 50 requests for apostasy — the renunciation of one’s faith — in the past month; usually it receives about 20 such requests in an entire year.
Two issues appear to have spurred the reaction.
The first was the excommunication last month of the family of a nine-year-old Brazilian girl who had an abortion after being raped by her stepfather. A high-ranking Vatican official initially supported the ex-communications — which also covered the doctors who performed the abortion, but not the stepfather. The Vatican’s top bioethics official later criticized the excommunications.
The second spur was Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Africa last month, when he said abstinence was the answer to the AIDS epidemic ravaging the continent. Condoms, he said, “can even increase the problem,” adding that traditional Catholic teachings were “the only failsafe way” to prevent the disease’s spread.
Condoms are not safe. Abstinence is. Sex is not a civil right nor an essential, it is a responsibility and instead of abortion, the responsible thing to do is to give that child recklessly or unwanted a chance at life. Millions of parents are waiting to adopt an infant.
I hope the Catholic Church stands firm.
There are many people who claim to be Catholic who really are not and who need to be honest and apply for apostasy status.
….recklessly *conceived*…that is.
So GA/FL, you believe that the raped 9 year-old should have carried to term, that she should have been excommunicated and that her stepfather should remain a Catholic in good standing? That’s pretty hardcore.
If you don’t believe in the RC stands why ask for the church to decalre you an apostate? Just go about your bisiness, don’t attend church and don’t consider yourself a RC as these people have been doing for years, no doubt. It’s grandstanding. It makes as much sense as people who are asking to the Anglican church to rescind their baptisms. If you want to protest church policy do it but don’t do the drama queen bit.
Wow; You mean there are people in Quebec who now don’t want to be considered RC even though were probably baptised 30-50 years ago and have been to church maybe twice in the last twenty-five years?!!. That’s shocking, postively shocking; I don’t think I’ll recover. ;^) I left the RCC 20 plus years ago; I didn’t have to do a big song and dance. about it and didn’t ask to be declared an apostate.
I would have thought, given the constant fulminating on this list (and rightly) about Episcopal parishes refusing to take people off the rolls, we should expect the same practice from all denominations, even if we disagree with the motives of those seeking disaffiliation.
#3, Brian from T19,
To head off misunderstanding about your statement, are you saying that a) the girl actually was excommunicated, b) that GA/FL thinks she should have been excommunicated, c) that her stepfather has remained a Catholic in good standing?
I am not familrar with the policy in the Episcopal church, but if a person was baptized 30 years ago in the church I attend and we haven’t seen hide or hair of them since , they are no longer on the membership lrolls. They are attempted to be contacted and lovingly brought back into communion. If they cannot be contacted the are removed from the lrolls after no attendance and no contributions and no word after several years, although their baptisms are part of the permanent record.
Nowhere in the corrupt, secular media did I see the statement of Edward C. Green director of Harvard U.’s AIDS Prevention Research
Project and one of the world’s leading researchers on the spread of HIV which supported the pope. He told an interviewer: it is hard for a liberal like me to admit, but yes, {the criticism of the pope} is unfair because, in fact, the best evidence we have supports his comments.”
Was this reported by the liars and the deceivers of the liberal , secular media anywhere???? I only saw it on Catholic blogs and Catholic print publications. The brainwashing of Christians by the secular media continues. It seems only the papacy is a bulwark against so much organized deception.
It seems odd that people would think that the only alternative to an abortion for the 9 year old girl was to just “MAKE her carry the baby to term”. Nobody in the Vatican or the Church would have wanted that little girl to die. The compassionate heart of Christ grieves for either death, and for the whole tragic situation. This seems to be lacking in common sense and good old fashioned medical practice. I would imagine the ideal reaction to this horrible incident to be: Surround this girl with love, and with excellent and intense medical monitoring. Nourish her, help her, shield her, love her, counsel her, and at the first sign of something going wrong, remove the baby, not with the INTENTION of aborting him, although with perhaps only a small chance of saving him, or even none!
The people involved and in charge reacted quickly, and while understandable, they brought about yet another evil. This is, I believe, how the Church views what happened. Excommunication is merciful, for it provides a way back to acknowledgment of sin and pain, back into the heart of Christ, which is the Church’s heart as well.
Surround this girl with love
Well said, CofS. Of course, she has been surrounded with fear, rage, social outrage, and so on.
One of the remarkable aspects of the abortion issue is the destruction of community, from the basic communal unit of the family (most intimately, the mother/child relationship) to the extended family to the immediate social environment around the family to the large cultural issues.
I do commend the Canadians in question for their honesty in requesting apostate status. I can at least understand their concern for the child in Brazil (since a corrupt media can’t be expected to give them full information). But if they don’t like what the pope said about contraception, they were probably de facto apostates in any case, so now it’s de jure. Good for them.
[blockquote]Ms. Drouin, however, said she no longer wishes to be counted as a Roman Catholic.[/blockquote] Has she ever really been a part of the R.C. church? This could be termed “formalized self exclusion”. Do you think she will find another church? Based on past attendance, probably not.
On a cruise last year, my wife and I met a young Quebecois couple with whom we did several days of sightseeing with. We spoke with them about church and things like that. This couple had both been born into the Roman Catholic Church and both had made apostasy declarations. They did not do so out of anger at the RC Church, but rather because they no longer considered themselves to be Catholic and so wanted to be “authentically” non-Catholic and making the “apostasy” declaration was the only way they could do so.
Quite frankly I have huge doubts that the two incidents referred to in this story would have enraged disconnected, non-practicing Quebecois to such an extent that they would have stormed over to their local parish to file apostasy declarations.
#3, Brian from T19,
To head off misunderstanding about your statement, are you saying that a) the girl actually was excommunicated,
No. The girl was not excommunicated. She was excused due to her age. Her doctor’s and mother were.
b) that GA/FL thinks she should have been excommunicated,
Not the child, but the others. GA/FL says “I hope the Catholic Church stands firm. ”
c) that her stepfather has remained a Catholic in good standing?
From above: “A high-ranking Vatican official initially supported the ex-communications — which also covered the doctors who performed the abortion, but not the stepfather.“
There is a Celtic cross on Grosse Isle an immigration point in the St. Lawrence River. My father’s family immigrated from Ireland to the area around Quebec City. At the time the British were encouraging folks from Ireland and Scotland to immigrate and provided land grants to ex soldiers. The city records in Cranbourne were initially in English There is still an Anglican church in the area near where some of my relatives are buried.
Was this reported by the liars and the deceivers of the liberal , secular media anywhere????
Deacon John-how’s the Washington Post? Liberal enough for you? That’s where he wrote his opinion. Now as to his actual opinion (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/27/AR2009032702825.html), he agrees with the Pope that condom promotion has not worked in Africa. It has worked in other countries. He never argued that correct and consistent condom use does not prevent HIV transmission.
Online colleagues …
I lived in Quebec for thirteen years and speak French well enough that European francophones assume I’m a native speaker. You have no comprehension of the role the RC church has played in the culture of that place, and — more to the point — how deeply people [i]still[/i] react against it.
The church effectively ran the government for generations. People who opposed it had their businesses seized by the government. Maurice Duplessis ran a church-sponsored dictatorship for the better part of a quarter century, ending only with his death in 1959.
It was a period designated [i]la grande noirceur[/i] — the great darkness. When I lived there many of my associates came from families of 15 or more children, and not a few from those of more than 20. Week after week the [i]corneils noirs[/i] — black crows, meaning priest — harangued parishioners on their solemn responsibility to make more babies, lest the burn in hell. The “donations” of each family were also posted, and purported laggards pointed out from the pulpit.
Canadian politics for fifty years has been shaped by the reaction of [i]quebecois[/i] to generations of control and abuse from the RC church. When people formally declare apostasy — [i]j’en ai eu mon voyage[/i]… this, finally, is too much — they’re doing it not just for themselves, but on behalf of their parents, grandparents, and 117 aunts, uncles and cousins. It is the final act of liberation.
Rapists are not “Catholic in good standing.” Rape, however, is not an automatic excommunicable offense.
Second, wide spread condom distribution DOES increase the HIV rate. The Pope is absolutely right. In Uganda, they took the HIV rate from 30% in the late 80’s to single digits in the late 90’s. This garnered world attention, whereupon the WHO and MSF and others cranked up condom imports. The result? HIV turned back upwards. The Ugandans emphasized ABC: Absitnence, Be faithful, use Condom. The later is for “mixed marriages” where one partner is positive and one negative or for prostitutes. In contrast, the liberals advocate CCC: condoms, condoms, condoms.
For a great organization, that is on the frontline, see the website for [url=http://www.uceglobal.org/ ]Universal Chastity Education[/url]. (There is a guy named Ephraim Radner on the board.) It is based in Uganda but they are moving into Burundi, too.
They might like to consider that even the Washington Post has published an article saying (shock) the Pope might be right on the condoms issue.
[blockquote]
The Pope May Be Right
When Pope Benedict XVI commented this month that condom distribution isn’t helping, and may be worsening, the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa, he set off a firestorm of protest. Most non-Catholic commentary has been highly critical of the pope. A cartoon in the Philadelphia Inquirer, reprinted in The Post, showed the pope somewhat ghoulishly praising a throng of sick and dying Africans: “Blessed are the sick, for they have not used condoms.”
Yet, in truth, current empirical evidence supports him. ….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/27/AR2009032702825.html [/blockquote]
The stepfather who raped the child would be in a state of mortal sin and as such not permitted to receive any of the sacraments.
And in all the press on the nine year old I do not recall seeing any doctor say that she would actually die if the babies were allowed to develop until they could be safely delivered by C-section and given the appropriate medical care. If life saving measures were necessary that meant surgery on her uterus and as an unintended consequence the babies did not survive the Church does not regard that as a deliberate abortion. Much like the case in tubal pregnancies.
As for renouncing the faith. Baptismal records are I believe legal documents so I think they still must remain part of the official records of the Church. But if the people want to spout off some nonsense to unCatholic themselves have at it.
[Edited at request of commenter – Elf]
Elves the last part of my post got oversnarky, please delete.
From the couple in the article who found the Pope’s statements on condoms the last straw to the posters here who emote about the injustices inflicted by the RCC it all comes down to this;
[i]”[The Church] does not respond to our aspirations at all, and what’s more it is embarrassing. Currently we are ashamed to be part of that.”[/i]
translation…”it’s all about me.”
“So GA/FL, you believe that the raped 9 year-old should have carried to term, that she should have been excommunicated and that her stepfather should remain a Catholic in good standing? That’s pretty hardcore.”
Brian, you are putting words in my mouth.
I believe the step-father should be punished by the Church and to the fullest extent of the law – jailed.
He is the one who should be punished.
The mother (and her own mother) should be protected from the step-father and the infant saved and given life.
The Church should always try to act redemptively, to save and to restore life, to witness to the holy abundant life.
Dr. Diane Langberg, a Christian psychologist went to Brazil where one priest said, ‘Can you help my people? All the men in my Village are alcoholics and all of them sexually abuse their daughters.’
Her reply: “After my stunned silence, I told him, “Your very presence in the village brings hope.” He and his family demonstrate in the flesh that a different way of life is possible. Change will grow out of his very existence because no one can now say all the men are abusers and all the women are abused.”
http://www.christianitytoday.com/tcw/2006/novdec/5.58.html
Outside of the TRUE Faith of Jesus Christ, in Non-Christian pagan countries (ours is increasingly becoming so), women and children are sacrificed to the god of lust.
Some organizations claiming to the Church and mis-using the Holy Name of Jesus Christ are fostering lust and abortion as a blessing:
http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/21516/
Unless they repent, they are accursed and will die in their sins.
I have no reason to doubt Bart’s testimony above. Wherever religion and national power go hand in hand, in the long run it is the Church that suffers. I noted yesterday a report in the paper about Richard Dawkins getting an honorary doctorate from Valencia University in Spain, where younger generations are similarly turning against the Catholic Church for its role in repressing too much in the life of the nation in the Franco era. Of course, we could say that where the Church does this it is being driven by a political agenda that is not entirely its own choice; that the failures of the church are also the broader failures of the society and nation in which it lives; but they are failures all the same. Yet over the years I have found many people who have found ways of living their faith creatively, even if at times they had to go against the grain of ecclesial culture. Dorothy Day, for example, was deeply Catholic and yet also prophetic. I hear it heard here in England that people ‘have had religion rammed down their throats’ and now want nothing of it. I think, silently, how sad that they are still stuck there in their childhood. So it seems to me that even people who want a formal declaration of apostasy are still, paradoxically, stuck in their emotional childhood, they have not moved on at all to an adult faith in Christ.
#24, Terry Tee,
“people who want a formal declaration of apostasy are still, paradoxically, stuck in their emotional childhood, they have not moved on at all to an adult faith in Christ.”
Very true, I think. I recently read James Fowler’s _Stages of Faith_. It occurred to me that both the Dawkins types and the types of Christians Dawkins focuses on are at early developmental stages of faith (whether it means rejecting that “faith” or accepting it). So one feels embarassed for them, really. I had the same feeling on reading about these Quebecois. Someday, one hopes, they’ll have outgrown their doctrinaire intolerance and will rather wish they hadn’t made such a public show of themselves.
(BTW, if Fowler is correct, most adults do not progress beyond the adolescent stages of faith.)
#24. Terry Tee,
Another possibility is that what they are rejecting is a good starting point for a legitimate faith. Maybe they are now easier to reach for Christ than when they were barely “lukewarm” folks.
You mention Valencia University and Dawkins getting an honorary doctorate. I couldn’t determine from the University’s web information that they had any religious affiliation. If that is the case, I am more concerned that Notre Dame a Roman Catholic University would have an advocate of abortion President Obama speak there and receive an honorary doctorate. I am among more that a quarter million petitioners against Obama speaking there.
From an article on child abuse in Brazil in the NY Times:
Re: a previous posters comments about the Church in Quebec, there is no doubt that the Church grossly abused its power during this period — and no doubt there will be a reckoning. Once again showing that a lack of separation of Church and State is always very damaging to the Church.
I forgot to say that the article doesn’t seem to mention that she was pregnant with twins — the doctors said that it was almost impossible for someone as tiny as her to bring a twin pregnancy to term.
Agree #26 (Dcn Dale) that what they are rejecting might be a good starting point for a legitimate faith or perhaps (referring again to Fowler) a more mature one. This is, to me, the meaning of Newman’s famous, “To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.†Change involves dying to self, to some degree or other. As Pastor Dan in this article (http://www.ctlibrary.com/le/2004/fall/17.71.html) shows, there are many people who get a glimpse of the self-sacrifice involved in moving to a legitimate or more mature faith and frankly run away. Perhaps the sin that contemporary society could appreciate itself as being prone to is the sin of spiritual cowardice, which is perhaps a form of acedia. There’s something poetic in the fact that Ms. Drouin was heading (fleeing?) to the hills when she made her decision to apostasize.
Re Quebec:
Ironically Premier Duplessis’s reputation has since been somewhat rehabilitated in Quebec.
When Duplessis died, a statue was commissioned for display on the grounds of the provincial legislature. The anti-Duplessis reaction, Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, and the election of the Quebec Liberal Party soon followed, and the statue was stored in the basement.
But despite Duplessis’s alliance with the Church, he was still regarded as an unwavering Quebec nationalist. When the separatist Parti Quebecois was first elected, the statue was hauled out of storage and erected on a prominent place on the grounds of the National Assembly. I have a picture of myself standing beside it somewhere.
The RC Church has enjoyed no such rehabilitation.
Where did the phrase “Catholic in good standing” come from, and what, exactly, does it mean? After 25 years, I still have no idea.
“The first was the excommunication last month of the family of a nine-year-old Brazilian girl who had an abortion after being raped by her stepfather.”
I’ve read this story on many so-called Christian blogs and always it seems the Catholic Church is at fault. What stands out to me is that never once did we ever read about anyone asking what God wanted for this little girl or allowing God to act. “We” want the girl to abort, so that makes it right.
It seems the proper response would have been to engage the greater Church in prayer for this girl and ask God to be merciful. Do we as Christians no longer believe God is faithful, particularly to a child? God often allows miscarriages, fetal deaths, and other events that are consistent with our Christian faith. Is God only allowed 15 weeks to act and then we get to take matters into our own human hands? Where is that in scripture?
Little wonder that form of Christianity fails to be attractive and result in apostacy. There’s no room to allow God to be God.
God bless…
[33] [i]Timothy[/i],
Thank you for your comment. It would appear that very few people commenting on this thread are even minimally informed about the teachings of the Catholic Church.* The relevant article is ¶2272, which reads as follows: [blockquote] [b]2272[/b] Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. “A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication [i]latae sententiae[/i],” “by the very commission of the offense,” and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law. The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society. [/blockquote] So, in effect the doctor and the mother excommunicated themselves, [i]i.e[/i], they did so by their own acts in contravening the law.
Pax et bonum,
Keith Toepfer
_________________________
*—If you want to comment intelligently about an organization, especially about its structure, practices, teaching, or doctrine, it is immensely helpful to do so from a position of knowledge about that organization. The most readily available source of information on Catholic teaching and doctrine of which I (a very new Catholic despite my 63 years) am aware is the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a searchable version of which can be found at the following link:
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc.htm
Good comment, Timothy. I am reminded of some family who tried to conceive for 12 years, then she got pregnant and cancer at the same time. The doctors encouraged her to abort and begin radiation, but she took a less radical course of treatment until the baby was born. Thirty years and four more kids later, this woman is alive and lively.
Not every story is so happy: we live in a fallen world, broken by human rebellion against God. But His mercy is infinite and His power is unbounded. As rebellion broke the world, so obedience, joined to the obedience of the Obedient One, can heal it.
#34 Martial Artist:
What troubles me about the stance of the RCC — as expressed in the Catechism — is that it seems inconsistent. For instance, here’s the paragraph on rape:
So the stepfather in the Brazilian case has committed an “intrinsically evil act,” and in fact a “graver still” version of this intrinsically evil act. And yet, no automatic excommunication is tied to this crime.
Doesn’t this strike you as imbalanced? Doesn’t it seem to reflect strange priorities when a mother who — whatever one thinks of abortion — was acting to protect her daughter is held to have committed a crime so grave that she must be excommunicated in order to drive home to her how badly she needs to repent, but the stepfather who raped his own nine-year-old stepdaughter doesn’t need that point made to him with equal or greater force?
Is rape as severe an act as murder, particularly the murder of an unborn child?
In any case, it’s mortal sin, not excommunication, that separates a person from the saving grace of God. To be “mortal”, a serious sin must be committed freely with knowledge that the act is, in fact, sinful. In that case, the father’s soul is in no different state than the mother’s (theoretically, of course; we don’t know the actual state of these peoples’ souls).
[36] [i]Ross[/i],
Which is the graver sin, the taking of an innocent life, or the forcible or coercive taking of the innocence of a child under one’s care? I would suggest that both are very grave, but the former is the more grave, if for no other reason than it not only violates the victim, but it is final—it prematurely deprives the victim of the life God has given that person.
However, from a human point of view, I personally believe that either crime, whether the rape of a child or willful murder, deserves the harshest punishment available, assuming conviction of the accused beyond any doubt, namely complete isolation from society with extreme prejudice. Given the inability to achieve that isolation via a modern equivalent to Devil’s Island, I believe that, when there is incontrovertible, and otherwise inexplicable, physical evidence that establishes the guilt of the accused, the penalty of death for the guilty party is not inherently inappropriate.
Of course, it goes without saying that such a moral calculus is one which should never have to be exercised. Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world, nor are we (humans) perfect, so it is a calculus with which each of us must struggle to arrive at something approaching justice. So, no, I don’t think it is inherently imbalanced.
The point I was making in my comment was that the Vatican did not impose a penalty of excommunication on either the mother or the doctor. They were simply pointing out that both individuals had, by their actions, excommunicated themselves.
And, you should also understand that they are not thereby irrevocably denied the sacraments of the Church. The inherent purpose of excommunication is to encourage the individual to repent, through the sacrament of Penance (also called Reconciliation or Confession) and be restored to communion with the Church.
Blessings and regards,
Keith Toepfer
And the point I was making is that it was the Vatican that decided that abortion “incurs excommunication latae sententiae” and that rape and murder — even infanticide — do not. Those rules didn’t drop from heaven tied up in a red ribbon.
Come to that, why the difference between the treatment of abortion and infanticide? The Catechism calls murder “a sin that cries out to heaven for vengeance” and notes that “Infanticide, fratricide, parricide, and the murder of a spouse are especially grave crimes,” and yet there is no automatic excommunication as their is for abortion. Why?
I don’t want to get into a discussion of this, but just to point out that ANY “mortal” sin incurs “automatic excommunication” in that a person, being conscious of having committed mortal sin, is not to receive communion until they confess and receive excommunication. Anyone knowing themselves to be guilty of rape or murder would be “automatically” excommunicated.
I meant “and receive absolution” not “excommunication.” This is what happens when you’re typing in between running to the kitchen to stir porridge. And the porridge is probably burned too. 🙂
Having worked for the government my whole adult life, I suspect there is an answer to Ross’s question, because rules usually exist for a reason. A good canon lawyer might even know the reason. But you are asking the wrong question, Ross, and even if you get the “right” answer, it will probably be wrong.
Here are the last words of the Code of Canon Law:
…the salvation of souls, which must always be the supreme law in the Church, is to be kept before one’s eyes.
Focusing on the juridical processes strikes me as a diversion from the real issues. Moreover, I think there underlies Ross’ comment an expression of protestant mythology about “the Vatican” or “Rome” (cue echo effect) that distorts the form of the question.
“The Vatican decided” is a simplistic reduction of how a world-wide, 2000 year old society works. The myth of wizened (really ugly, thank you Hollywood) old men sitting in rich isolation making up rules to control the masses is leftover medieval nonsense. Cardinals and others (including lay people) from around the world participate in and lead the various commissions that do the work of governing the Church. The most recent head of liturgy was Nigerian, the new English translation of the Mass is headed up by an Australian and so on.