I recently shared a post regarding the massive loss of practicing Catholics in what was once the nation with the largest Catholic population in the world. The impact of that retreat from the Church becomes more evident as secularism takes a firm hold on the citizens of this great nation.
Pointing to the example of the United States and other Western countries, the Brazilian Supreme Court ruled that abortion cannot be penalized legally during the first three months of pregnancy.
The court's controversial ruling was issued last November, after reviewing the habeas corpus petition of five employees of a clandestine abortion clinic in the town of Duque de Caxias, in Rio de Janiero.
Bishop Antonio Carlos Rossi Keller of Frederico Westphalen said that the ruling amounts to a death sentence for the unborn. The Bishop stated: “a society which rightly protects the eggs of turtles, but allows abortion, is at a minimum a society in which hypocrisy prevails.”
According to the justices, criminalizing abortion during the first three months of pregnancy in Brazil's Penal Code violates the fundamental rights of women to their autonomy, physical and psychological integrity, and their sexual and reproductive rights, as well as gender equality.
They also said that “democratic and developed countries” do not criminalize abortion in early pregnancy, and cited examples including the United States, Germany and France among others.
Immediately after the Court’s ruling, the House of Representatives announced at a full session that they would set up a special commission to review the Supreme Court decision on abortion.
Representative Evandro Gussi stated that the ruling “is a flagrant affront to the Constitution which establishes the separation of powers and provides that deliberations of this order shall be made within the Legislative Branch.”
Gussi underscored: “it's the Criminal Code that determines abortion to be a crime against life. The Penal Code never talked about legal abortion,” he added, explaining that punishment is only excluded in specific case: pregnancy resulting from rape, when there is risk to the life of the mother or a fetus with microcephaly.
The culture of death widens across the face of the globe, now infecting the largest countries of the Southern Hemisphere. Unfortunately, the voice of the Church which continues to be the loudest in defense of the unborn, will not be heard in the pews abandoned by so many former practicing Catholics.
The situation seems hopeless, until we remember the power of the one resource available to us as a people of faith: the power of prayer.
Let us pray that the Lord will assist all those who defend the sanctity and dignity of every human life will not be deterred in their efforts to bring the message of the Gospel to a world so in need of its its truth and light. Let us support them with our prayers and ask Our Heavenly Father to bless them with perseverance and strength.
Our fellow citizens here in the United States need to be reminded of the example we set for other nations of the world who look to us for good or ill in establishing laws which form and fashion society and its values. May America rediscover its role as a beacon of freedom and as a guarantor of the rights of every human being to life, liberty and freedom. May the Lord bless all those who work tirelessly each day to defend every person life from the moment of conception to natural death.
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