Amy Welborn rightly points out that when it comes to the Anglo-Saxon secular media’s reporting on things Catholic, especially in non-English speaking countries, the whole picture is rarely given the first time around.  Indeed, we were lead to believe that the mother of the girl and the medical personnel had desired an abortion from day one, and that a “hasty” Archbishop Cardoso Sobrinho (as his own fellow Archbishop Fisichella labelled him) relished the opportunity to drop an  excommunication on them “like an axe.”

In such cases, I personally always appreciate details and firsthand accounts.  While the story is a difficult one, where the rubber of the Church’s moral teaching really hits the road of the world’s opinion, it is only fair to hear the words of those involved.

Amy provides a link to John Smeaton, who reports the point of view of Archbishop Cardoso Sobrinho, and, to be fair, of one of the doctors who performed the abortion.

And what about the biological father of the nine-year old girl?  Amy also links to a Catholic News Agency article that mentions his involvement, as does the website of the French diocese of Frejus-Toulon.  This latter includes a letter from Bishop Dominique Rey, who had just returned from a trip to Brazil, and a testimony from Fr. Rodrigues, the pastor of the girl and her family.  I have provided an English translation of Fr. Rodrigues’ testimony, which is certainly well worth reading.

The gist of these latter sources of information is twofold: that “Carmen’s” biological mother and father, as well as some medical personnel, were originally against the abortion, and that the sad situation of “Carmen” has been used by the pro-abortion lobbies of Brazil as an opening for manifesting the need to liberalize the abortion laws of that country.  But I would add not only: the situation itself has been exploited by the media to attack and/or ridicule the Catholic Church’s “tough stance” on abortion, as Tom Peters predicted way back when the news first came out.

What is truly sad in all this, however, is the lack of unanimity in the Church’s pastors, as the ever-informed Sandro Magister points out (kudos to Matthew Sherry for his translations of this invaluable source of information).  Archbishop Fisichella’s intervention in L’Osservatore Romano is of course the most egregious example.  In such a situation, one might wonder what the reaction of Pope Benedict has been to this whole thing.  The Italian newspaper La Stampa seemed to think that this was hinted at when the Pope spoke these words in his discourse to the political and civil leaders of Luanda:

I must also mention a further area of grave concern: the policies of those who, claiming to improve the “social edifice”, threaten its very foundations. How bitter the irony of those who promote abortion as a form of “maternal” healthcare! How disconcerting the claim that the termination of life is a matter of reproductive health (cf. Maputo Protocol, art. 14)!

While the jumping to conclusions of La Stampa may have been quite irresponsible (in that it is very likely that Pope Benedict did not have the Brazilian incident in mind at all), the same newspaper’s self-correction, so to speak, in a following article reporting the “modifications” of spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi is very confusing as well:

He was absolutely not speaking about therapeutic abortion, he did not say that it always has to be refused: the Pope is against the concept of reproductive health that broadly introduces abortion as a means of birth control.

One wonders where Fr. Lombardi learned theology.  At least the words of a former Pope should have given him pause.

I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written Word of God, is transmitted by the Church’s Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.
No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the Law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church.

According to Sandro Magister, Fr. Lombardi also referred to Archbishop Fisichella’s intervention:

In this regard, the considerations of Archbishop Rino Fisichella apply, when he lamented in ‘L’Osservatore Romano’ the hasty declaration of excommunication by the archbishop of Recife. No extreme case should obscure the true meaning of the remarks by the Holy Father, who was referring to something very different.

All in all, it would be nice if the pastors of the Church could agree on this whole matter.  Officials in Rome, far away from the situation, are saying that Archbishop Sobrinho was not acting pastorally.  Those bishops and priests who had any contact with the situation think the contrary (even excommunication is a pastoral remedy).  The former go even further and begin to blur the lines on abortion.  The latter hold firm to the principle that we may never intend direct killing of the innocent.

Proving once more that pastoral-ness should not be identified with “progressivism.”