Quote: Cardinal Martino said Amnesty International has betrayed its’ mission.
What it hasn’t betrayed is the innocent women who have been brutally raped and then told they have to bear a child who was begotten by brute force. Good for Amnesty International.

Cardinal Martino says that Amnesty International has betrayed its mission? What a ridiculous statement! Cardinal Martino has never had to and will never have to bear a child of rape!!!!!!!! (nor has Ben!)
Neither he nor the Catholic church has any business telling women in general nor women who have been raped that they HAVE to have a child. The women in Darfur are just supposed to carry and give birth to the children conceived by brute force? And if they do that, then they can watch many of them die due to the circumstances in Darfur at this time. No woman should ever have to do that.
The RCC has no grip on reality. They do insist on interfering with a woman’s reproductive rights.
Kate Gilmore said: “Ours is a movement dedicated to upholding human rights, not specific theologies. Our purpose invokes the law and the state, not God”. Key words…UPHOLDING HUMAN RIGHTS and purpose invokes the law and the state , NOT GOD.
So the RCC will call for Catholics to boycott Amnesty International. Many thinking Catholics will, IMO, ignore that “order.”

“Ours is a movement dedicated to upholding human rights, not specific theologies”
Sounds like someone needs to read Milbank’s “Theology and Social Theory.” The doctrine of human rights IS a theology!

It seems to me that Amnesty International has a right to persue whatever agenda it desires under the law and under the state. But the Roman Catholic Church has a right to persue its agenda under God as it it deems appropriate. To be cautious about taking the life of any unborn child should never be perceived as having a tolerant view of rape. This is always a horrible crime, and the guilty must be persued, caught and punished under the law. But abortion is not necessarily the best answer to this problem. It was not the baby’s fault; why should the child’s life be taken because of someone else’s crime? It is a serious dilemma with no easy answers. The woman’s rights have been violated by an evil, selfish brute; the child’s rights have also been violated. Why must we assume the child’s rights must be abridged to accommodate the woman’s rights? We need to find ways to help such women without destroying the child. After all, the only guilty one in all of this is the rapist.

Let us hope not many Catholics obey their church’s boycott. In fact let’s hope it gives some enough pause they decide to find a more congenial church. Or, best of all, no church.

Once again, nnmns, your prejudice is showing. You have a right not to have a religious faith if you so choose. But you do not need to ridicule those of us who do have faith. We are not inferior to you because we believe. You are not superior to us because you don’t. Please argue your points without belittling those of us who have faith. No church, as you suggest, is not necessarily “best of all.”

Windor’s Child, I couldn’t agree with you more (on both posts).

I am disappointed but certainly not surprised by the Cardinal’s response on behalf of The Church. This is further proof that they are more attached to impersonal dictates than they are to people whose lives have been shattered by violence.
Jesus would be (is?) very angry with them. God would simply withdraw the covenant and move on (see what happened to the Temple in 587 BCE and 70 CE?). Maybe the concern the Vatican has with children reading Harry Potter is that the emmisaries are seeming more like death eaters and “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” has a parallel as well.
Maybe someday they will again get a Pastor to head the church instead of a Guard Dog for the Hidden Chamber of Orthodoxy. There is no pastoring in this approach – it seems to be a whole lot more like the ancient Sadducees approach to theology. It must be convenient to make rules for other people that do not effect you in any way. Once more the Vatican official are seeming more like bullies than servants of a loving God.
So I guess it is up to AI and those of us who support them to champion the needs of atrocity victims. They clearly have a better sense of God’s own call to care for the powerless and vulnerable people.

I know you hate the father. You may have just cause for your hatred.
But WHY take it out on the kid? This innocent child did nothing to you.

Typical of the Vatican to ignore reality in favor of their hard-end position. It is very typical of the Vatican to be in league with perpetrators of crimes and to further victimize the victims… Does anyone recall the Vatican’s positions on : Hitler’s death camps; Musolini’s war on democracy; General Pinochet and Henry Kissinger’s war on the people of Chile; Roberto D’abuson’s murder of Archbishop Romero in El Salador; the Nicaraguan popular revolution; the theological reclamation of dignity by the aboriginal peoples of America; the struggle for justice in Latin America by priests with social conscience (no, this is NOT an oxymoron. There are such priests – I’ve even met some! Many are oxes, and more are morons, but some men in black have remained in the service of the Vatican while still believing in the liberation of peoples on this side of death! And the Pope has not caught up and expelled all of these priests of good will..). This is simply the same crap, different day.

WC: You’re right when you say that it isn’t the baby’s fault…it is the rapists. However, it isn’t a baby, it is a fetus at the time of most terminations. Also, the woman who has the rape baby, has to look at that child everyday and remember HOW it was conceived….by force. Not fair to the woman and it is possible that she would take her memories out on the child in the form of abuse. Is that OK? Of course not. A woman who has been raped should have every right to decide whether to carry a pregnancy to term or not. Just as every woman has the right to decide to carry any pregnancy to term or not.
No church or government has the right to try and control a woman’s reproductive rights….I don’t care what religion it is.

WC, you seem testy this morning. To me “no church” is best of all. I’m sure it’s not to you.
You want arguments, ok:
The RCC has demonstrated over and over it is not a moral organization so it has no right to tell us about morality and especially not to try to control others’ choices, as here. Even if the RCC had been upright it still would not have that right, just maybe a bit more convincing face.
Rape victims are just that, victims. Don’t victimize them further by making them carry probably their most hated person’s fetus to term.
And remember, if abortificants are easily available the thing aborted is just a few cells; MUCH farther from being a human than even the RCC itself used to say would be murder to abort.

No real surprise that the Roman Catholic Church, which views women as inferior, would take such an action.

WC “The Childs rights have been violated”.
There is no child, just a speck of a possibility of one or no possibility of one. A woman should be able to pick the man she wants to father their child with. A criminal who rapes is impregnating his genetics, which are twisted, into her body. What is it that pro-life people don’t understand here? They might find this idea of abortion, in this respect of this article, disgusting, but I find their reasoning equally disgusting. To the people who don’t mind carrying a rapeists unwanted seed….carry it….it should be your choice. To the rest of us that find it an impossible thing to do to a human being to be…take a pill.

Windsors CHILD,
“the Roman Catholic Church has a right to persue its agenda under God as it it deems appropriate”
THAT the RCC deems forcing a woman to have a baby by her rapist as “appropriate” is beyond the pale.
You keep talking about “the child”. Please talk about the zygote.

Yet more proof the RCC cares more about the not-yet-born than about real, live human beings. Hateful, imo.

The Church knows of what she speaks. Committing a second brutal crime
does not undo the first.

Paul:
“The Church knows of what she speaks. Committing a second brutal crime does not undo the first.” Which 2 crimes?