How to Drive Your Church to the Margins

I am a Roman Catholic and am disturbed by this:

The case of the pregnant 9-year-old was shocking enough. But it was the response of the Catholic Church that infuriated many Brazilians.

Archibishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho of the coastal city of Recife announced that the Vatican was excommunicating the family of a local girl who had been raped and impregnated with twins by her stepfather, because they had chosen to have the girl undergo an abortion. The Church excommunicated the doctors who performed the procedure as well. "God's laws," said the archbishop, dictate that abortion is a sin and that transgressors are no longer welcome in the Roman Catholic Church. "They took the life of an innocent," Sobrinho told TIME in a telephone interview. "Abortion is much more serious than killing an adult. An adult may or may not be an innocent, but an unborn child is most definitely innocent. Taking that life cannot be ignored."

The girl would have had her life endangered if the baby had been brought to term. Regardless of how one feels on the subject, as Steve Benen notes, "A lot of phrases come to mind when describing all of this, but "pro-life" isn't one of them."

No it isn't. The church is hemorrhaging membership and the dreaded Edir Macedo see an opening:

Evangelicals have not projected a united pro-life platform in Brazil, certainly not one as monolithic as the Catholic Church's. But at least one major sect, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, has taken a stance that showcases its differences with its Catholic rival. The Universal Church's television channel TV Record recently aired spots featuring a woman declaring, "I decided who to marry. I decided to use the pill. With my vote I decided who'd be elected President. I decided to work so that I won't be discriminated against. Why can't I decide what to do with my own body? Women should be able to decide for themselves what's important."

A church that does not respond to the needs of its membership will continue to lose members. Without members, there is no church. How I wish John XXIII could come back.

There's also this bit of nonsense.

Comments

[Akaky]

Randy, John XXIII would have done the same thing, only he would've been nicer about it. If you adhere to a pro-life position, if you hold that life is a sacred gift from God to be protected no matter what the circumstances of that life's creation, then you will find yourself faced with this kind of situation on occasion. If you depart from your principles in this case, then why not in this case or that case? And once you start making exceptions to the rule then why have the rule at all? A church that proclaims itself pro-life, except in circumstance A, B, C, or D, is being hypocritical in the same way that an American who says "...with liberty and justice for all..." except, of course, for blacks, Jews, Puerto Ricans, and Catholics is being hypocritical.

As for churches not responding to the needs of its membership, this is true, it will lose membership. Let them go. The Church is not in the business of keeping its adherents happy, it is in the business of getting them to heaven, and it does this by teaching and living the Good News. Saying one thing and practicing something else is a really good way of losing membership at an even faster rate; ask anyone in Boston after they found out the Archdiocese was covering up the pedophile scandal. And I agree: that florist thing really is stupid. It's not like they're being asked to sell something that will induce an abortion; they're selling roses. If this sort of thinking starts to get any sort of play, 7-11's out in Utah will refuse to sell Coke Classic even to non-Mormons or Wal-Mart could refuse to sell me KitKats because I could stand to lose a few pounds. Just plain dumb.

[Orlando Fernandes]

We cannot create life, we have no right to take a life...