Catholic Church sacrifices girl's welfare on the altar of Canon Law

Considering welfare for abortion

This is one case where my chain does get yanked and a clear situation of where religion has gone off on a tangent from the sombre circle of and sense of Christianity.

A girl of 9 was sexually abused [1] to the extent that it was discovered after she complained of stomach pains that she was carrying twins.

Doctors, note plural, there was more than one were concerned about the welfare of the girl and were of the professional opinion that the child was so small that her uterus cannot sustain one foetus let alone two.

In other words, this is a life threatening situation of a child who had been sexually abused by her step-father, a supposed person of trust in her family since she was six and it transpired that he had also been taking sexual favours off the girl’s handicapped older sister of 14.

A reason to act for life

Abortions in Brazil, a very Roman Catholic [2] country where the clergy hold sway in matter of social opinion has on its statute books the legality of abortion for cases of rape or where the life of the mother is at risk.

The girl’s condition ticked both boxes, so an abortion was procured to save the girl’s which no doubt is already traumatised but sexual abuse and unusual changes to her body along with the attention all that would have garnered.

It was the responsibility of well-meaning adults and professionals in society to consider and protect the welfare of the child with the hope that all would gather round her to ensure are welfare can find solace, succour and compassion in their religious communities.

Between the born and unborn

This was not to be the case, rather than finding a situation where religion deferred in service of humanity the Catholic Church in Brazil stuck to its “Absolutely No Abortion” stance.

The story reads that the Catholic Church tried to intervene to prevent the abortion, the corollary meaning they were happy to bury a child of 9 who had been sexually abused than preserve her life and counsel her to some sort of healing.

When the abortion was procured, the Catholic Church driven by religious dogma masquerading as God’s law excommunicated [3] the mother, the doctors and others that might have been involved.

On the altar of bad dogma

The Archbishop of Olinda and Recife [4], Jose Cardoso Sobrinho [5] seriously believes he is doing God’s bidding by saying the law of God was above any human law, which I would agree with but what law prefers risking the life of a child for the survival of an unborn child that cannot medically be carried to term?

I beg to differ, the Catholic Canon Law [6] that drives this decision is part of a legal system that is crudely church government; Canon Law [7] is NOT chapter and verse the Bible, it is NOT God’s law, it is human law promulgated for their purposes of association and adherence.

This is where the Catholic Church or its fundamentalist clergy have failed in their service to humanity because even if the girl has not been excommunicated she might well be driven in to the more compassionate arms of other church denomination when she fully learns that the Catholic Church did not care one iota about her life and welfare.

God does not live in the Catholic Church

Most importantly, what we should know is that the Church as a political and religious entity is simply a community gathering of people who adhere to a particular creed; it is not the conduit to God and not the exclusive arbiter in things concerning life.

God does not live in the Catholic Church and just being kicked out of the church does not mean the heavens have been brazen and impervious to prayer, supplication and thanksgiving.

These people should not be ostracised even though the Catholic hegemony lords it over 94.4% of a community of 3.5 million people, suggesting about 200,000 do not think the Catholic Church fulfils their religious requirements.

Do not hold back in condemnation

The mother has at least 2 daughters to rear and the doctors in their humanity were just doing their jobs – this kind of intemperate and atrocious action by the Catholic Church must be excoriated with the harshest words and condemned in its totality.

The causative actions that lead to this sorry episode were wrong, the Catholic Church have passed up on the opportunity for healing and ameliorative actions which is also wrong.

I am no advocate of abortion on demand, but the particular case of this girl is littered with unchristianly conduct, abominable indifference and unconscionable fundamentalism, coming so soon after one other holocaust denier’s excommunication was rescinded [8], the Catholic Church might be true to its soul but it is out of touch with its nominal societal goal.

It begs the question when the church would take the cases of child sexual abuse in their communities seriously rather than sacrifice the children on the altar of bad religion.

Source

[1] BBC NEWS | Americas | Rape row sparks excommunications

[2] Roman Catholic Church - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Excommunication

[4] Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Olinda e Recife - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] Archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho [Catholic-Hierarchy]

[6] Abortion and Excommunication - Catholic Christian Article

[7] Canon law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[8] BBC NEWS | Europe | Profile: Bishop Richard Williamson

Castell to the carnivore's rescue again

To beef me up

I got off the train after a long hour's journey from Apeldoorn at Amsterdam and wondered if I wanted to return home to the kitchen or eat out of another kitchen.

The latter appealed to me between having a decent Italian which was not easy to get to, maybe returning to Castell where I am a carnivore par excellence, so it was Castell.

A restaurant where the ambience is mellow, the lights are low, the seating is bar-cum-living room and the music is easy. Just at the door, like any decent restaurant should, my coat was taken, my hat to the stand and my cane kept but there was no seating at the bar.

I plumb for a corner where I found I could either be facing the wall or facing the crowd, sometimes, even though I love my own company, it is not a love to be cherished when you are out – I felt both alone and lonely at one time – new discovery, I am a social animal, I feed off the company of people even if I do not interact with them.

Slow down the snails

My entrée was slow food, escargots when alive were slow, awash with garlic butter and herbs with the callipers to hold the shells as you prised out the snails with a special fork – it was interesting to see another patron later on switching the roles of the callipers and the fork, amusing, I thought.

Usually, I have the Dutch fat arse steak but I was persuaded to try the Black Angus variety with the choice of sirloin or prime, went for the sirloin medium rare – my appetite was in over-drive as I sipped from a glass of the house deep red.

Soon afterwards, there was a free space at the bar and I took residence within a social setting waiting for le plat principal to appear – it did and should have arrived with a jacket potato when the waiter realised I might have been served the wrong end, I would not have noticed but before I stuck my knife in it my Black Angus was served.

Et tu Brute?

I half gulped it down, I was that famished, but I think it is a classic piece of dining to have an 8” Sabatier to stab and cut the meat as I listened to Sam Cooke, Anita Baker, Oleta Adams, Micheal Jackson, Dolly Parton – the list of mellow that segued into easy listening just made it all the more worthwhile.

Now, a knife that threatening could do much damage in the wrong hands, it should be kept low and close to the meat as some other patron had it high in a most uncouth manner, I had to deign from the character role of Julius Caesar as Brutus allowed for the first cut to be the deepest – some people are in need of kindergarten refresher courses on how to handle cutlery at the table.

The dessert was butterscotch ice cream which only confirmed to me that my dream of having a six-pack late spring in Gran Canaria might well remain a dream.

See through teas

It was close to 10 and I could not be having coffee at that time of the day, I asked for tea. Serving tea in the Netherlands is nothing like the English would like. Ideally, one should be asked if one takes milk in the tea which should be served in chinaware because one really cannot have milky tea in a clear glass as one would have with other kinds of non-lactate infusions.

In short, I had my Earl Grey tea without milk even as one person tried to persuade me that I could do whatever I liked, well, one might be given to bouts of private lasciviousness but there is still place for proper conduct – my Englishness does at times constrain me.

It was another good evening at Castells until an insatiable craving compels me to make a beeline to a place so well appointed to the eating of the cow, the bull, the sheep, the pig and sometimes the chicken – chicken? Oven on 175 degrees and clock to 45 minutes – surely, I can roast my own chicken. Bliss!

Hanging on to nothing

Hanging onto nothing

Subconsciously, one visits the gents at work and makes to put ones jacket up and the coat hook is not there. It was there last week.

Maybe the other toilet and the coat hook there is gone too – somebody tell me why anyone would remove coat hooks from toilets.

Now, I rarely walk around the office without my jacket on, in fact, it is almost always on, I wear suits with material that keeps its durable look without getting unnecessarily crumpled.

This development was certainly very uncomfortable for me I had to lodge a report with our support office presaging my complaint with the statement that it was a bizarre question but one that needed to be asked.

A valet I require

I have no respect for a restaurant that does not have the means for keeping my overcoat, hat and cane in good order.

Sometimes, I have to keep my hat on walking through buildings or shops until I have to converse with ladies or strangers just because the hat stand that used to be at the entrance of public places some 60 years ago has given place to sloppy and indecent modernity and unwholesome fashion.

I was almost apoplectic with rage when a concierge in a supposedly 5* hotel where I was attending a conference stuffed my hat down my coat sleeve. I could not believe my effects could be so damaged by an uncouth hireling, that hotel lost a good 4 stars in my estimation, I have not returned there since.

Why? O, Why?

You just cannot be in nature’s succumbed stance in your jacket; it makes you wonder about the office apparatchik who thought up the idea of ridding the toilets of the coat hook.

It would hardly save the planet or pull down the walls of safety in that private place; for that little but quite significant inconvenience, I had to empty my coat pockets and place my coat on back of my seat to visit the gents.

A simple act of vandalism

I would hope when they do realise that that act of vandalism has been noticed, somebody would make amends or going to the gents would not be as subconsciously routine as it once was.

Given that there are very few of us who wear suits to work, it does not mean we do not need coat racks, hat stands and brolly holders – a sudden discomfort close to proctalgia strikes one as it is possible they would be making off with the doors next.

Save us from rotten facilities management, please!

Mandarin unbids Christies auction

Going, going but not gone

I am sure there are few who were not wide-eyed in amazement at the returns from the sale of artefacts from Yves Saint Laurent’s [1] (YSL) estate, the financial estimates were huge some people were already saying that the art world was going to shrug off [2] the credit crunch and recession.

When it comes to the return of antiquities, nothing bring focus to that issue more than when they are about to change hands and they are not going to those who lay legitimate heritage claims to them.

There are elements to the fact that YSL and his partner who is a patron of the arts were probably a tad acquisitive and his estate has turned into a treasure trove of sorts with records tumbling [3] like Chinese acrobats in one of their amazing performances.

Ratting on a rabbit

At dispute were two Chinese bronze sculptures of a heads of a rabbit and a rat (originally 12, 5 have been returned, these 2 on sale and whereabouts of the other 5 are unknown) allegedly looted from the imperial Summer [4] Palace by French and British troops towards the end of the Second Opium War in October 1860.

The Chinese authorities had remonstrated about the sale and asked for the “rightful” return of the bronzes to China and they even tried to prevent the sale of the artefacts but when the sale went ahead they threatened [5] the business of Christies [6], the auction house.

One can say that some Western businesses are well behind the curve on doing business in China [7] and have not fully understood how business and government can be conflated in one singular purpose of patriotic fervour.

That would be nothing to pay

A Chinese bidder who happens to be an adviser to China's National Treasures Fund which works on recovering looted treasures won the bidding at $19 million for each bronze sculpture to the whooping and applause of the auction attendees no doubt.

Just as the Christies might have been rubbing their hands with glee and the resulting commission the bidder has flipped a patriotic card and said he will not pay and cannot pay [8] – he has created the symbolism that the bronze sculptures cannot be sold.

Methinks Christies has been seriously wrong-footed and caught in what might even been Confucian in its origin – What you do not own, you cannot legitimately sell.

Undue diligence

How this threatens the business of Christies is myriad and could be quite damaging in that a bidder without adequate funds was able to command and win a bidding war in a reputable auction house – even if someone else had won the bidding, the thought that one of the bidders was a phony would leave bidders concerned about auctions.

Surely, if Christies had checked and verified the credentials of the bidder they should have been conscious of the possible political and sentimental twist to the issue – the Chinese demanding the return of the looted bronze would hardly be wanting to pay for what they claim is legitimately theirs.

It all also smacks of the phony and fraudulent schemes that have become reminiscent of our financial services where mythical reputations serve as fronts for nefarious deals which unwittingly entice people into transactions they should never engage in. Due diligence, is that now so foreign to business transactions?

This enterprise despite its patriotic undertone is no less fraudulent and it shows that anyone is capable of large scale fraud especially where the gullible meets the crafty.

It would all end badly

Much as Christies and the French courts might term the sale legal, it is unlikely that any money would exchange hands, the bidder would most likely have the full support of his government such that the legal wrangle would just sap Christies of requisite enterprising energy to weather the global financial crisis.

This is a major embarrassment for Christies as they scramble to preserve their reputation as a dependable auction house despite their other successes.

There is no telling the public relations nightmare that might ensue as researchers dig out details of how less powerful lobby groups and countries have been unable to prevent sales of their relics in Western auction houses.

Any customer would well be wary of any heirloom that seems to have a suspect provenance even if the claims go back over a century.

The bigger lesson is doing business with China is probably straight forward but when a tinge of sentiment borne of heritage is added to the mix, it is a high wire act without nets – he who walks the wire might well end up splat on the ground.

Do not run the gauntlet of mandarins, you might get seriously hurt.

Sources

[1] Yves Saint Laurent (designer) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] Record-breaking YSL art auction shrugs off crisis | Reuters

[3] Records tumble at YSL sale - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

[4] Old Summer Palace - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] China Gets Tough With Christie's - Forbes.com - Magazine Article

[6] Christie's - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[7] Understanding Chinese business culture and etiquette

[8] BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | China relics buyer refuses to pay

Chinese bidder of looted sculptures refuses to pay _English_Xinhua

Nigeria: Pfizer reaches settlement

A settlement agreed

Following one’s comments on this matter, it behoves one to present an update on developing circumstances.

On the 26^th of February 2009, the newswires [1] announced that under the negotiating auspices of General Yakubu Gowon (Rtd.) [2] who was the leader of Nigeria from 1966 to 1975 and former President Jimmy Carter [3]; the Kano State government in Northern Nigeria and Pfizer - the pharmaceutical conglomerate have in principle reached an out-of-court settlement.

This settlement which would be fully negotiated in March 2009 does not at the moment confer blame, admission or culpability but pursuant to the $2.75 billion compensation claim on behalf of 11 dead children and 189 other affected children, this settlement would close the criminal and civil cases brought against Pfizer.

The courts still sit

Much as Pfizer has protested its drug trial of trovafloxacin (Trovan) [4] conducted during a major outbreak of measles, cholera and meningitis “conformed to ethical practices and was carried out with the consent of the Nigerian government”, the cases against Pfizer which have been in the courts since 2001 [5] have had resilience [6] that it must now be a public relations nightmare for the company.

However, the woes of Pfizer have not ended because this settlement is quite different from another suit brought by the Federal Government of Nigeria for the compensatory sum of $6.5 million.

My hope for the victims

Obviously, once this settlement is completed, it is my hope that this money be put in trust for the 200 victims and their guardians for the improvement of their lives and one also hopes that the involvement of the Kano State government is for ethical, altruistic and compassionate reasons.

Knowing that the victims are rural folk, there is the danger that decisions might be made for their lives and livelihood that does not reflect the full compensation won on their behalf and it would be atrocious if administrative costs are exacted from the same claim when it appears from Pfizer’s perspective the government was culpable in the drug trial by offering consent on behalf of the people who probably did not know they were being used in unconscionable experiments.

In all, if the good names of Mr Gowon and Mr Carter are involved in this deal, their job would only be complete if the sense of justice and fairness catapults these wronged people out of their circumstances onto a trajectory of life-changing experiences.

This matter would be watched closely to see where it ends.

Sources

[1] AFP: Pfizer settles multi-billion dollar Nigerian case

[2] Yakubu Gowon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] Jimmy Carter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] Trovafloxacin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] Kano trovafloxacin trial litigation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[6] Suits Saying Pfizer Experimented on Nigerian Children Are Revived - washingtonpost.com

Earlier blogs on this issue

Nigeria: Pfizer, we are NOT lab rats [Originally on akin.blog-city.com] – February 2009

The Pfizer Drug Trial [Originally on akin.blog-city.com] – May 2007

Humantarian Pfizer fed Nigerian kids poison drug - allegedly [Originally on akin.blog-city.com] – May 2007