More Catholics behaving badly

[Yahzi]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2789279.stm

A nine-year-old Nicaraguan girl, who was four months pregnant after being raped, has had an abortion in a private clinic.

...

Church representatives urged against an abortion...


Can somebody explain to me why we tolerate an instituition this outrageously evil? I seem to have forgotten.

[SimonJohnMorgan]

Hmm, I wouldn't call it an evil institution. Full of itself, self-righteous, full of (some) bad people (paedophiles being a prime example), unable to grasp that its dogma has bad effects (contracteption in poor countries) etc, but not evil.

Don't forget that there a (significant?) number of people there who believe in what they're saying, help the poor, needy and sick, etc. Take Mother Theresa, if ever there was a good person, it was she. (I don't know the full details of her life, but as I understand it she helped the sick/poor all of her life and had nothing to show for it but 2 sets of clothes.)

On that note, I still think the world would be a better place without religion (of any kind)

[bangdazap]

Originally posted by SimonJohnMorgan

Don't forget that there a (significant?) number of people there who believe in what they're saying, help the poor, needy and sick, etc. Take Mother Theresa, if ever there was a good person, it was she. (I don't know the full details of her life, but as I understand it she helped the sick/poor all of her life and had nothing to show for it but 2 sets of clothes.)

The goodness of Mother Theresa has been discussed before on this forum:
http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8373&highlight=Mother+Theresa
http://66.192.47.137/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8368

This off-site page about her deserves a look:
http://website.lineone.net/~bajuu/

But of course there are other people in religious institutions that do good work. There's always someone who takes relgions teaching about being good seriously on the 'inside'.

[Yahzi]

Simon... you are in for a bit of a let down. Mother Teresa was a viscious old hag that enjoyed watching other people suffer. I have read accounts of a nun who finally left the organization, because it had so much money in the bank but MT wouldn't spend any of it to help the poor. Her so-called hospitals wouldn't provide pain medication to dying people. And so on.

I agree that the Catholic church contains a large number of good people just trying to do good. The Nazis had their share of good people too (my favorite: a guy who spent the entire war prosecuting death camp commandments for murder. Yes, he was a Nazi prosecuting other Nazis for violating the rules of killing people at death camps. Hey- it was all he could do!). However, the instituitions in both cases were evil by design and structure.

Any instititution that opposes abortion for a nine year old rape victim is an institution that is fundamentally evil. Regardless of how many good people are in it.

It's like monarchy. Sure, you can have a good king, but the system itself will inevitably produce injustice.

[Jedi Knight]

Originally posted by Yahzi
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2789279.stm



Can somebody explain to me why we tolerate an instituition this outrageously evil? I seem to have forgotten.

What do you recommend--Zyklon B? That was tried by atheists before.

JK

[Doctor X]

Such an attempt to attach an evil opinion to others places the individual lower than I thought possible for him.

Perchance someone let him borrow muscleman's backhoe?

--J.D.

[Yahzi]

JediKnight
What do you recommend--Zyklon B? That was tried by atheists before
Now that you bring it up, I do seem to recall that the evil institution in question also tolerated that evil institution.

[Yahzi]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/child/story/0,7369,902269,00.html

The parents of a nine-year-old Nicaraguan girl who was raped are facing prosecution after she had an abortion in a private clinic in Managua last week.

...

The girl was raped in Costa Rica in November and infected with two venereal diseases. No prosecution has been initiated in Costa Rica.

...

In his Sunday mass, the Cardinal of Managua, Miguel Obando y Bravo, said those who had participated in the abortion were "ipso facto" excommunicated. He called for legal action against the doctors

So the government and the Cardinal want to punish the parents first. And the rapist second. Or maybe not at all - he's in a different country, and it would be a lot of bother.

They want to send the doctors who did this to jail for 5-10 (on the bright side, no less than 3 doctors volunteered to do it). And they want to sent the girl to jail for 1-4. Or maybe just her parents. That would be good - put a nine year old rape victim on the streets without any protection at all. That won't traumatize her any more to see her parents go to jail. No, it will send her the right message: do what the Church says or fry.

But all hope is not lost:
The girl's parents went ahead with the abortion last week, having written to the president accepting full responsibility for the decision.
Some people are capable of moral bravery. Even when it means standing up to the Church and the government.

Her plight has split the government and Nicaraguan society.
But not the Catholic church. Not even in this country. Why not?