Nun excommunicated for allowing abortion to save the life of a mother
 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=126985072

So I guess it's better to leave four children orphans than to allow an abortion to save the life of this mother? I applaud this nun for making the hard, real life decision to allow this mother and her doctors to make the decisions in her medical care.

This really just pissed me off. All anyone could say was "hopefully" they'd both live. And that's just... GAH.

I yelled at the pope on my facebook the other day though so I'm already in a mood.

I know, me too. I love that the argument is, that the ends don't justify the means. If the baby has no chance to live whether or not the pregnancy is terminated, why damn the mother to death by refusing to allow her to end the pregnancy. Let the mother live to take care of her other children!

According to NPR there is an exception in the Catholic Healthcare code of ethics or something that is what the hospital and this nun based her decision on, so why?

Also, people who molest children get "therapy" and are NEVER ex-communicated even if convicted and this nun gets the harshest theological punishment possible. bullshit.

For the sake of playing devil's advocate, the church's position is that it's never ok to kill someone to save another's life. So abortion is always wrong even if it saves the life of the mother.

I can wrap my brain around the concept even though I vastly disagree with the premise.

random tangent/

I wonder if there's every been an instance where someone was able to return to the church after being excommunicated. If, for instance, the bishop took another look at the situation and decided that the punishment was too harsh, could the nun be reinstated (not even sure if that's the right term)?

/tangent

To be brought back into communion with the church, generally you just have to go to confession and complete your penance. What the penance may be is a different matter.

So you have to agree that you did wrong and repent. Meanwhile you have to continue to fulfill all of your obligations, including attending Mass (otherwise you'll need to confess that too) but you cannot receive communion.

If she's kicked from her order that's another issue altogether and I have no idea if that is reversible.

Canon Law is its own complete and operative legal system. God knows... (maybe literally?)

Thanks

iChuckled.

/tangent

Oh, and technically you don't have to be declared excommunicated, that's just making it official. It just means being out of communion with the Church and therefore when she made the decision she was 'automatically' excommunicated.

It's just becomes a pronouncement because usually the people who did something "wrong" don't think it was wrong so they "need" to be told.

I get the feeling that she doesn't think she did the wrong thing which may lie at the heart of the problem.

So basically every time you sin you are excommunicated until you go to confession and do your penance? You just don't have a priest declaring it to the world that you've been excommunicated for having dirty thoughts about your boss!?

She might. Even though she made the hard decision, she might really be regretting it and not just because she got 'caught.' After the anger and everything dies down, she might indeed go to confession and make penance and truly mean it.

I really hate that this is where the Church is right now.

No it has to be something bad enough to get that label. Otherwise you're just a sinner.

Although technically, you're not supposed to receive communion without receiving confession pretty much immediately before. Used to be people only got communion once a year and same with confession. Now it's more relaxed and there's a point in the Mass where (at least so I was taught) any tiny little sins you've accrued are forgiven.

So excommunication is like the big punishment and is almost always accrued from when you do this big bad thing. There's an announcement generally when it's a public figure/action/big fuss about it. Confessing is a remedy but not just for something big like excommunication, but also for thinking dirty things about your boss (tsk tsk!).

Priests and nuns have to do a bit more, re-promise obedience, submit a statement to the head of their diocese/order etc.

According the The Wiki, there are 8 instances where latae sententiae excommunication occurs:

• an apostate from the faith, a heretic, or a schismatic;
• a person who throws away the consecrated Eucharistic species or takes and retains them for a sacrilegious purpose;
• a person who uses physical force against the Pope;
• a priest who uses confession as a pretext to solicit the confessor to break the commandment against adultery;
• a bishop who ordains someone a bishop without a pontifical mandate, and the person who receives the ordination from him;
• a confessor who directly violates the sacramental seal of confession;
• a person who procures a completed abortion; and
• accomplices who are not named in a law prescribing latae sententiae excommunication but without whose assistance the violation of the law would not have been committed.

I feel compelled to note that MURDER ISN'T FUCKING ON THERE BUT ABORTION IS.

/rage

According to a hospital document, she had "right heart failure,"


...wait, was she not human?

She was a Time Lord.

catholics kill me.

Somehow...I knew I set myself up for this...

It means the right side of her heart was failing (ie. the right atrium and ventricle couldn't control the return of blood to the heart from her body.) This leads to respiratory and liver failure because blood pools in these organs as it can't be pumped forward through the left heart.

Sounds like the code of ethics allows for procedures that might put the fetus at risk. I doubt it would cover an out and out abortion.

I see that raping children, or aiding and abetting in the raping of children, isn't on there. Awesome.

To be fair, these are just offenses where you are automatically excommunicated. I actually think a few priests were excommunicated for molestation of children. I do find it strange that rape is not on there. I don't recall, but it is possible that rape as a concept is not in the bible, or at least any differently from other forms of unmarried intercourse.

Priests have been defrocked, or left the church but have not been "officially" excommunicated.

You'll note that the list is primarily violations of church law. Abortion is the only thing that could be considered a civil crime (though legal in the US) except assaulting the pope. And then it's more that you hit "THE POPE" than that you hit this guy named Ratzinger.

It bothers me to no end that abortion was deemed worthy of being on this list and no other types of murder (as that is why it is a sin according to the church)

Rape in the bible is an offense against the man to whom the woman belongs: her father or her husband. The church doesn't consider it that today, but this list is not biblically based anyway per se.

Someone who committed murder would be refused communion and expected to confess to a priest, and usually these days penance would include turning themselves in but not excommunicated.

As an example of why I get so ragey over this:

Doctor who performs abortion excommunicated.

The girl was 9. She was raped. By her stepfather. The doctor, the medical team, the girl's mother - excommunicated. Her rapist? Nope.

She was spared as she is a minor.

:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::(

The concept of rape, as different from extramarital sex, is definitely in the Old Testament.

Yes, but it's approved of if it's the "good guys" doing it to the "bad guys"

And restitution is made, in cash, to dad/husband.

This is true. But there's definitely one story I remember (maybe in Leviticus?) where a woman was raped by several men and was cast out. I don't remember her father being reimbursed. :mad:

Carrying twins, too... man.

Found the cite in Deuteronomy 22, he is actually killed if she's pledged to be married, but if he rapes her and she's not pledged he is to give her father 50 shekels and marry her.

And basically if she's in town where she can be heard and doesn't scream for help, she dies. If she's in the country he has to marry her.

:mad:

And you're probably thinking of Tamar

She was raped by her half-brother. So King David didn't really do shit.

Nope, not thinking of Tamar, because it was before King David. I don't have a copy of the Bible at home either, so I think I'm out of luck.

The point was that rape IS discussed in the Bible as a separate entity from extramarital sex. :)

Just for clarity's sake -

Excommunication is not a punishment for a sin.

Excommunication means the person excommunicated is not in communion with the Church because of a specific action that basically screams "Hey, I'm not in communion with the church"
(see above list of actions) .
Sin and punishment, both temporal and everlasting, are a whole 'nuther issue.

Thank you :)

Aye it is.

Dinah perhaps? (Internet bibles ftw)

She was raped, her rapist asked his dad to arrange for them to get married (I think the Red Tent presents their relationship as love, not rape.) Since they raped Dinah, Jacob and sons said "oh sure, as long as your entire city converts, and gets circumcised." Which they do. Then while all the men are holding their junk in pain they kill all the men in the city.

They rescued Dinah. Rabbinical tradition also has interesting takes on Dinah but I'm not familiar enough with them to speak to them myself.

True, although addressing the sin associated with the action above is part of re-communioning. You know I'm sure there's a word for this.

Edit: Found it. Absolution from excommunication, not to be confused with absolution from sin. And you're right it's not intended for punishment but for rehabilitation to use more secular language.

Btw, anyone curious Catholic Encyclopedia online

Very interesting insights into the Catholic religion. I obviously wasn't raised Catholic so don't understand how all this works.

It's the principle of double effect. The gist would be that an action that has two effects -- one morally good and one morally bad -- is morally acceptable if there is no intent to cause the morally bad act and if morally acceptable means are used. So for example, removal of the fallopian tubes in an ectopic pregnancy would be moral as necessary to save the mother's life even though it will result in the death of the fetus. The death of the fetus would be considered an indirect (though certain) result of removing the fallopian tubes, which is necessary to save the life of the mother. But if an actual abortion were performed, that would fail the double effect test both because a morally bad effect (an abortion) is intended and because it is use of an immoral means.

The principle is also sometimes invoked in situations involving the withholding or removing of life support.