Uruguay's bishops clarify: pro-abortion lawmakers not excommunicated
CWN - October 25, 2012
The Catholic bishops of Uruguay have backed away from a statement that Catholic legislators were subject to excommunication if they voted in favor of legal abortion.
Bishop Heriberto Bodeant Fernández of Melo, the secretary-general of the bishops’ conference, told a Radio Carve interviewer that the penalty of automatic excommunication applies to those who are directly involved in an abortion, “which does not include those who vote for a law that allows it.”
Earlier, in an October 19 teleivision appearance, Bishop Bodeant had said that if a legislator voted in favor of legal abortion “with the manifest intention that he thinks the Church is wrong about this, he separates himself from the communion of the Church.”
The Uruguayan bishops’ conference subsequently issued a statement saying that the bishop’s statement had been misinterpreted. “At no time during the interview did the bishop say that lawmakers were excommunicated,” the conference said. Stories claiming that the legislators had been excommunicated were based on “an erroneous influence,” the bishops’ conference said.
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=16040
