Vatican So Hard Up, It Opts for Abortion Forgiveness
If I were Catholic, I'd be up in arms about the Vatican's latest shenanigans (and I am anyway!). In what can only be seen as a desperate attempt to nab members, they are holding a big "Abortion Forgiveness" party. They're setting up 200 confession booths (!!!) during World Youth Day in Madrid, a shindig that will cost $72 million, covered only in part by the Spanish government.
If having such a lavish event in these tough times doesn't make you choke, then how about these holy guys' capacity to bend the rules of their own religion as they see fit. Within the Catholic religion, abortion is punishable by instant excommunication and only certain priests can lift one. However, for SIX DAYS ONLY (get 'em while they're hot!!!), they've decided to forgive abortions and let any priest on site reinstate the exed-off "sinners."
Gosh, if the church really needs members, maybe they should consider not being such unforgiving brutes in the first place.
I am pro-choice, but I can certainly respect a pro-life person's views. After all, none of us want women to endure unwanted pregnancies or the emotional turmoil of having an abortion. However, we are human. We make mistakes and we also make contraceptives that are fallible at times -- or, you know, our religion looks down upon using them. For this reason, it makes no sense to me that a church of all places would instantly excommunicate a member for this kind of mistake and choosing to have an abortion for any number of reasons.
On the one hand, I'm thrilled for young women who desperately want to reconnect with their religion. I know it's a big part of many women's lives, and some feel lost without their church. However, I want excommunicated Catholic women be to forgiven for longer than six days in Madrid. I want them to be forgiven every day in every city. Having an abortion is devastating for many women, but losing their connection to their God and church only makes matters worse. And being shunned in such a way certainly doesn't give them the love, support, or counsel they especially need going forward so as not to make the same mistake twice.
Maybe if the Catholic church forgave more easily in the first place, maybe if they reached out to people in tough times instead of exed them off, they'd have more HUMANS who wanted to hang out there. Then they wouldn't have to have these weird assembly-line-style membership drives that make them look not only hypocritical, but also call out to the rest of the world just what an unforgiving, unsupportive place their holy land is in the first place.
Catholic or not, what do you think about the Vatican's latest?
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