In response to my column about religion, Emily Hadorn shared a couple of shocking articles with me. They are from a BBC News Web site, news.bbc.co.uk, discussing a situation in Brazil. The details are almost unbelievable: The Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho decided that excommunication of the mother and doctors of a 9-year-old girl is necessary and appropriate. The girl was repeatedly raped by her stepfather and conceived twins that were necessary to abort, both for the child’s safety and because they were incapable of being carried to full-term. The man has allegedly been molesting his stepdaughter since she was six and is also suspected of molesting her 14-year-old mentally handicapped sister.

The extreme youth of the pregnant child left her uterus too tiny to successfully carry and deliver even one child, let alone two, doctors said. Brazilian law allows abortion in the cases of rape and when the mother’s life is in danger, both of which apply here. But the Archbishop declared that “the law of God [is] above any human law.”

Another article on the same Web site says the Vatican is fully backing up the Archbishop’s decision. Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re said the fetuses had “a right to live.” He also said, “It’s a sad case but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons who had the right to live…. Life must always be protected, the attack on the Brazilian Church is unjustified.”

Now this is all very sweet, but the Archbishop and the Cardinal seem to be missing a huge piece of this story, making their statements contradictory and ridiculous. What about the innocence and protection of the poor 9-year-old child who is physically and emotionally too little to carry these fetuses? She is just as innocent as the unborn children, whom, I remind you, would never have survived the pregnancy anyway. Does justice and morality really call for letting all three of them die? For letting a little girl undergo extreme physical and mental anguish after being shoved into a situation that was not her choice or fault? Is her life and well-being less important than two fetuses incapable of survival, just because she was already born? Her mother and a few doctors had the foresight and the humanity to save a victim of child molestation, yet some feel they deserve to be excommunicated (the little girl has been excused from the excommunication “because of her age”). This is the “justice” that the Catholic church is trying to promote, under a guise of avenging the murders of unborn innocents. That’s the example they are trying to set for the world.

Hadorn and I exchanged a few comments in our mutual disbelief and disgust.

“Doctrines are silly,” Hadorn said. “The problem with this catholicism issue in particular is the necessity the bishops feel to uphold very specific rules within the church. The general idea of Christianity is grand; it’s inclusive and loving. But it’s the people who pay attention to the specifics who drive me mad. Trying to apply relevance to modern-day situations from something written two thousand years ago in an entirely different part of the world with a completely different political and social structure is foolish and short-sighted. Is abortion wrong? It’s impossible to argue that question, because it’s a moral issue, and you can’t argue morals. But is it wrong to force a 9-year-old girl to die because she was raped–repeatedly–by her stepfather? Yes. Especially when the doctors agree the fetuses would not have survived the pregnancy anyway. It makes me incredibly mad, as well.”