Vatican backtracks on brazilian excommunications?

There is now an attempt to explain the Church's reaction to this difficult situation (blogged before here):

A senior Vatican official has criticized the excommunication of a Brazilian woman whose nine-year-old daughter had an abortion after being raped, as well as the medical team who performed it.

... "Unfortunately the credibility of our teaching took a blow as it appeared, in the eyes of many, to be insensitive, incomprehensible and lacking mercy."

... Brazilian bishops said Thursday the excommunication of the mother and doctors of the girl, who was pregnant with twins and allegedly raped by her stepfather, was wrong and would not be applied.

The National Conference of Bishops of Brazil decided that the child's mother acted "under pressure from the doctors" who said the girl would die if she carried the babies to term.

... Dimas Lara Barbosa, the body's secretary-general, told reporters the mother therefore could not be excommunicated. "We must take the circumstances into consideration," he said.

As for the doctors, there was no clear case that they should be expelled from the church either, he said, contrary to the position taken by Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, who announced the excommunications.

Barbosa said only doctors who "systematically" conduct abortions are thrown out of the church. (Agence France-Presse)

Explaining why the Church does something is never a bad idea. In the meantime, we'll have to see what happens. It's always better for the Church to be an active voice in the debate, otherwise the enemies of the Church will be happy to create their own narrative. And you can guess what that will look like - we've all seen it before.