News

By Gudrun Schultz

BOGOTA, Colombia, August 30, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Cardinal Alfonso Llopez Trujillo announced Tuesday that the Colombian Catholic Church has excommunicated all persons involved in obtaining an abortion for an 11-year-old girl, who became pregnant after she was raped.

The order includes the judges, politicians and legislators involved in the decision, as well as the doctors, nurses and the girl’s parents, the Manila Bulletin Online reported today.

Under excommunication, all those involved in the abortion are banned from receiving the sacraments, except the sacrament of confession, and may not perform a ministerial role in the Liturgy or other worship ceremony.

Participating in abortion carries the automatic penalty of full excommunication, under the Catholic Code of Canon Law.

Cardinal Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, has been very clear on the application of excommunication in cases of abortion. In a June interview with Famiglia Christiana magazine, Cardinal Trujillo said the doctors, nurses and the mother involved in abortion all incur excommunication, as would the father if he supported the abortion decision.

Colombia bowed to internal and international pressure earlier this year by allowing abortion in cases of rape or incest, in a Constitutional Court decision. Bogota’s Achbishop, Cardinal Pedro Rubiano Saenz responded to the decision by stating, in an interview with El Tiempo newspaper, “All those who commit the crime, the sin of abortion, will be excommunicated immediately. This applies as well to those who foster or assist abortion.”

Archishop Luis Augusto Castro, president of the Bishops’ Conference of Colombia, spoke out against the Court’s decision to accept abortion in difficult cases involving rape or incest, saying “The child is innocent…the criminal should be punished and put in jail for a long time, but the child should not have to pay for the sins of another. He is an innocent baby.”

See Manila Bulletin Online coverage:
https://www.mb.com.ph/MAIN2006083073077.html

See previous LifeSiteNews coverage:
  Colombian Court Legalizes Abortion – Beachhead for Activists in Latin America
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/may/06051503.html

“Authorized” Abortions Underway After Colombia Court De-penalized Abortion
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jul/06072403.html

Vatican Cardinal Fears Church Will be Brought before International Court for Defense of Life and Family
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jun/06062801.html

UN Group Sues Colombia to Decriminalize Abortion
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jun/05062704.html