Vatican puts horse's head in amnesty's bed

Here is a complicated one. The Vatican is being seriously authoritarian. It is leaning heavily on Amnesty international where it hurts. It has suspended all financial aid to them and is ordering all Roman Catholics to stop donating to it as well.

Why? Over Amnesty’s position on abortion.

Amnesty's Deputy Secretary General, Kate Gilmore, told Reuters that Amnesty does not take any particular position over whether abortion is right, or wrong and it was not trying to push abortion as a universal right - but it did defend its position in support of allowing abortion, when a woman’s health is in danger, or her rights have been violated, particularly where rape, or incest, was involved.

"We are saying broadly that to criminalise women's management of their sexual reproductive right is the wrong answer"

Cardinal Renato Martino, said abortion was "murder", "And to justify it selectively, in the event of rape, that is to define an innocent child in the belly of its mother as an enemy, as 'something one can destroy',"

The Vatican’s cash is the Vatican’s cash. They can do with it what they will. Explaining their position to their flock and asking them to back them is ok, but they should not be using their authority to bend them to their will.

Certainly a woman owns her own body and has a right to determine what she does with it, including conceiving, no matter what the Roman Catholic Church says about contraception.

Sperm and unfertilised eggs are just that and no more. Even if every single act of sex led to a conception it would still be the case that only a tiny fraction of a percent of eggs and sperm would ever result in a human being.

Also many fertilised eggs never make it to term, through entirely natural causes they ‘self ‘abort for various reasons.

Now the position you take on abortion rather depends on, at what point you view a foetus as a human being, with the right to life and self determination.

Ayatollah O'Brian

It looks as if Scotland may have it’s very own McAyatollah.

Cardinal Keith O’Brian an ardent Scottish secessionist has now effectively threatened Catholic politicians who do not take an anti abortion stance with virtual excommunication .

He went on TV yesterday, emotively proclaiming all abortion to be murder, referring to it as the “slaughter of the innocents” and "an evil trade". Saying: "We are killing - in our country (Scotland) - the equivalent of a classroom of kids every single day. Can you imagine that? Two Dunblane massacres a day in our country going on and on - and when's it going to stop?"

He denied actually wanting to excommunicate pro-choice Catholic politicians, but did the next best thing warning: "They must consider their own consciences - and whether or not they can approach the altar to receive Holy Communion.".

One possible reason for his support for political secession may relate to the possibility of acquiring much greater power in the smaller political pond – divided they fall, so to speak.

Free speech is one thing and he is perfectly entitled to that – but this is clearly using his position to deliberately heavily pressure susceptible politicians into voting the way he wants, rather than for what they may think for the best.

He would probably be one of the first to complain if, say, the Queen, were to do something similar in relation to supporting the act of union, despite her being personally involved with it.