Word: sobrinho
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...March when news broke that a 9-year-old Brazilian girl underwent an abortion after she'd been raped and impregnated with twins by her stepfather. Catholics from São Paulo to Paris were outraged by the swift public declaration of the local Archbishop, José Cardoso Sobrinho, that the girl's family as well as the doctors who performed the abortion were automatically excommunicated. Monsignor Rino Fisichella, a solidly traditionalist Rome prelate considered to be close to Benedict, tried to soften the church's approach to the case by writing in the Vatican's official newspaper L'Osservatore...
Church conservatives have steadfastly defended Sobrinho, who had rejected Fisichella's criticism of insensitivity and said he was simply stating Catholic doctrine in response to reporters' questions. The L'Osservatore Romano document makes it more than likely that the Pope has felt it necessary to publicly defend the Brazilian prelate's hard line, ordering up the clarification to straighten out any confusion created by Fisichella's article. (See pictures of the Pope's visit to Brazil...
...brief document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the orthodoxy office that Benedict personally led before becoming Pope, defends Sobrinho's "pastoral delicacy" and leaves no wiggle room on the standing of the family and doctors who carried out the abortion. "Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life," reads the statement, which widely cites past Vatican documents. "The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable...
...March, is a matter of emphasis. Why, months after the difficult issue had largely faded from view, did the Pope feel compelled to return to a case that could leave the church looking coldhearted? A senior Vatican official says the Pope was forced to back up the Brazilian bishop. "[Sobrinho] was furious," says the official. "There was the impression that the local bishop had been subjected to immediate scrutiny by the Holy...
...public-relations campaigns of the Catholic Church's rivals do not impress Archbishop Cardoso Sobrinho. He told TIME that the Vatican rejects believers who pick and choose their issues. Rome "is not going to open the door to anyone just to get more members," he said after comparing abortion to the Holocaust. "We know that people have other ideas, but if they do, then they are not Catholics. We want people who adhere to God's laws...