Pope warns Catholic politicians who back abortion

Pope Benedict told Roman Catholic politicians on Wednesday that they exclude themselves from the Church if they support laws allowing abortions.

It was the first time the Pope, speaking to reporters as he began a trip to Brazil, dealt in depth with a controversial topic that has come up in many countries, including the United States, Mexico, and Italy.

The Pope was asked whether he supported Mexican Church leaders threatening to excommunicate leftist parliamentarians who last month voted to legalize abortion in Mexico City.

"Yes, this excommunication was not an arbitrary one but is allowed by Canon (church) law which says that the killing of an innocent child is incompatible with receiving communion, which is receiving the body of Christ," he said.

The Vatican's chief spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, later tried to downplay the comments, saying the Pope was not himself ordering excommunications.

"Since excommunication hasn't been declared by the Mexican bishops, the Pope has no intention himself of declaring it," Fr Lombardi said. "Legislative action in favour of abortion is incompatible with participation in the Eucharist. Politicians exclude themselves from communion."

Catholics believe that the communion wafer distributed to the faithful during church services is the body of Christ and that those who receive it should be free of sin.

Church law says that automatic excommunication is self-inflicted by anyone who "procures" an abortion.

While this has traditionally been interpreted to mean the woman and the person performing the abortion, there has been recent debate on whether this should be extended to those who help her or legalised it.

"Selfishness and fear are at the root of (pro-abortion) legislation," the Pope said. "We in the Church have a great struggle to defend life."

His comments appear to raise the stakes in the debate over whether politicians can support abortion or gay marriage and still consider themselves proper Catholics.

In recent months, the Vatican has been accused of interference in Italy for telling lawmakers to oppose a draft law that would grant some rights to unwed and gay couples.

During the 2004 presidential election, the US Catholic community was split over whether to support Democratic candidate John Kerry, himself a Catholic who backed abortion rights.

Some Catholics say they would not have an abortion but feel obliged to support a woman's right to choose.

But the Church teaches that life begins at the moment of conception and that abortion is murder.

"The Church says life is beautiful, it is not something to doubt but it is a gift even when it is lived in difficult circumstances. It is always a gift," the Pope said.

Factbox

Pope Benedict made his first visit on Wednesday as Pope to Brazil, the country with the largest Roman Catholic population.

When the late Pope John Paul II visited Brazil in 1980, 89 per cent of Brazilians identified themselves as Catholic. By 2000, when the last census was taken, the share of Catholics in the population had fallen to 74 per cent.

Here are some facts on Brazil:

• Geography: Brazil covers 8.5 million square kilometres, an area slightly larger than the continental United States. It accounts for about 45 per cent of South America's land mass, including the massive Amazon basin. As well as being home to the world's largest rain forest, it includes tropical highland savanna in the centre and lush farmland in the South. Brazil borders every country in South America except Chile and Ecuador.

• Population: 188.9 million people.

• Religion: Although Brazil still has more Catholics than any other country in the world, with about 125 million, the percentage of believers that practice the Vatican's brand of Christianity has been dropping rapidly in the last three decades.

• Ethnicity: The majority of Brazilians comes from the ethnic integration of indigenous people, African slaves and European immigrants. There are also Arab and Japanese minorities and various indigenous groups.

• Language: Portuguese. Dozens of Indian languages are also spoken by the country's indigenous population.

• Capital: Brasilia (about two million people) became Brazil's capital in 1960, after coastal Rio de Janeiro.

• Political system: Federal Republic. Head of state and government is a President elected every four years.

• Brazil's political system is enshrined in a 1988 Constitution written after the end of military rule.

• Economy: Brazil's economy was likely to have grown 2.7 per cent in 2006, according to a median estimate of economists in February 2007.

• Growth in 2005 was 2.3 per cent and for the past two decades Latin America's largest economy has struggled to average annual expansion of more than three per cent. Economists blame a budget deficit, high interest rates, a hefty tax burden and a lack of infrastructure investment for restraining growth.

• What's happened in Brazil: Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was re-elected in late 2006 by a landslide. According to a recent poll most Brazilians blame rampant crime not on Lula but primarily on poverty, drug trafficking and a weak judiciary. Supporters of abortion want Lula to confront the Church on abortion rights and birth control now that he is in his second term and cannot seek re-election.

Sources: Reuters/AlertNet, www.alertnet.org