http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070509/...ca/pope_brazil
Quote:
| Pope Benedict XVI denounced Mexico City politicians Wednesday for voting to legalize abortion, saying they should no longer receive Communion. Flying to Latin America, Benedict was asked about comments by Mexico City church officials that the lawmakers would be excommunicated for having voted last month for the legislation legalizing abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. "It's nothing new, it's normal, it wasn't arbitrary. It is what is foreseen by the church's doctrine," Benedict told reporters aboard a plane to Brazil in his first full-fledged news conference since becoming pontiff in 2005. Politicians who vote in favor of abortion should not receive the sacrament of Holy Communion, Lombardi said. "Legislative action in favor of abortion is incompatible with participation in the Eucharist. ... Politicians exclude themselves from Communion." Church teaching calls for automatic excommunication for anyone who has an abortion. In Mexico City, church officials have said that doctors and nurses who perform the procedure, as well as lawmakers who supported its legalization, also would be excommunicated. The Mexican politicians who supported the measure shrugged off Benedict's comments Wednesday. "I'm Catholic and I'm going to continue being Catholic even if the church excommunicates me," said leftist Mexico City lawmaker Leticia Quezada. "My conscience is clean." In the news conference, Benedict also said the exodus of Catholics for evangelical Protestant churches in Latin America was "our biggest worry." But he said the spread of Protestantism shows a "thirst for God" in the region, and that he intends to lay down a strategy to answer that call when he meets with bishops from throughout Latin America in a once-a-decade meeting in the shrine city of Aparecida near Sao Paulo. "We have to become more dynamic," he said. Evangelical churches, which the Vatican considers "sects," have attracted millions of Latin American Catholics in recent years. The Vatican also has promised that Benedict will deliver a tough message on poverty and crime during his five-day visit to Brazil — the world's most populous Roman Catholic country. Many Brazilians are torn between the church's traditional teachings and the pressures of the modern world, and abortion is at the forefront. The procedure is illegal in Brazil except in cases of rape or when the mother's life is in danger. These cases amount to just 2,000 abortions a year, and polls show Brazilians are overwhelmingly opposed to expanding it. Benedict said those who follow liberation theology were "mistakenly mixing faith and politics," but stressed that the church has not eased its commitment to social justice. |
