2009 Brazilian girl abortion case

Abortion is legal under Brazilian law in cases of pregnancies resulting from rape or in which giving birth would endanger the mother's life.[2][3][4]

The 1983 Code of Canon Law says that latae sententiae excommunication is incurred by "a person who procures a completed abortion" (Canon 1398), but not if, for instance, the act was done "by a person who was coerced by grave fear, even if only relatively grave, or due to necessity or grave inconvenience unless the act is intrinsically evil or tends to the harm of souls".[5]

The National Conference of Bishops of Brazil repudiated Sobrinho's initiative.[17] At a press conference, Bishop Dimas Lara Barbosa, Secretary General of the Conference, said that the girl's mother was not excommunicated, since she had acted under pressure to save her daughter's life, and that there were no grounds to declare the doctors excommunicated, because (automatic) excommunication depended on each one's degree of awareness and only those who were "aware and contumacious" were excommunicated.[17][18] At the press conference, journalists received a document on excommunication written by canonist Enrique Pérez Pujol, who stressed that the penalty should not be applied amid a polemic.[17]

Archbishop Geraldo Lyrio Rocha, president of the conference, avoided answering a question whether Sobrinho had acted hastily in saying that automatic excommunication had occurred. He said that "at no time did he want to hurt someone who was already hurting, but only wished to draw attention to the gravity of the deed of abortion in the face of a certain permissiveness regarding the life of the unborn". He said that Sobrinho had excommunicated no one, but had said that abortion entails the possibility of excommunication, which is a measure intended to make not only an individual but the whole Church community take note of the gravity of the deed. As for the rapist, he said that a rapist "is outside of communion" and "in grave mortal sin", even though rape is not listed among the crimes that give rise to automatic excommunication. He said: "Rape is something so repugnant that the Church does not need to call attention to it. It is punished by the state justice system, which does not punish abortion so much." He said that talk of excommunication seemed to have made people forget the crime of the rapist, who needed to be punished.[17][18]

The Holy See's unofficial newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, published a front page article on 15 March 2009 by Rino Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, that was highly critical of Sobrinho's action.[19] Fisichella said that excommunication was automatic, so that focusing on it rather than on helping and supporting the child victim showed a lack of compassion that detracted from the credibility of the Church's anti-abortion teaching.[20][21] After reiterating the church's condemnation of abortion, he wrote that the moral situation was difficult because of the girl's young age and the risk to her life and praised those who "allowed [her] to live and will help [her] to recover hope and trust".[21] He wrote: "The conscience of the physician finds itself alone when forced to decide the best thing to do. A choice like that of having to save a life, knowing that one puts a second at serious risk, never comes easily."[22]

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith responded to press coverage of Fisichella's article calling it manipulation and exploitation. It issued a clarification that the article did not signal a change of doctrine and said that "the Church's teaching on procured abortion has not changed, nor can it change".[20][23][24] The clergy of the archdiocese of Olinda and Recife took issue with Fisichella, stating that the local church had been supportive of the girl and her mother.[21] The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruled that Sobrinho had acted "with all pastoral solicitude".[20][23] The members of the Academy gave Fisichella a vote of no confidence because of his article, and he was reassigned in the next year to the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization.[25]

Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops and President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, deplored what he called an attack on the Church in Brazil: "It is a sad case, but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons, who had the right to live and could not be eliminated. Life must always be protected. The attack on the Brazilian church is unjustified." He added that excommunication of those who performed the abortion was just.[4] The National Conference of Bishops of Brazil declared the archbishop's statement mistaken.[26]

Bishop Jean-Michel di Falco of Gap, France, criticized what he saw as the un-Christlike nature of Sobrinho's statement. He said that bishops should act as pastors rather than executioners. As had the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, he denied the applicability of Canon 1398 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law to the girl's mother, because such an automatic excommunication does not apply to someone who acts out of grave fear.[27]