Church can’t make up its mind on Colombian excommunications

In Thursday’s “Morning briefs” we reported how on Tuesday the Colombian Church planned to excommunicate the medics involved in Colombia’ first legal abortion, but since then there has been some confusion among Church officials. In an interview on Wednesday, Cardinal Alfonzo Lopez Trujillo (image via this site) denied that he publicly excommunicated the doctors by saying how “I have not set, nor has the Holy See, nor have I thought it.” Yet the head of Colombia’s ecclesiastical tribunal observed that it would be up to a more senior-ranking cardinal to decide on excommunications, while a top Vatican official rejected any involvement by the Holy See on the issue. Even canonical law is unclear in cases like these.

human rights, religion, Colombia