Nobody in the Church rushed to put out a media statement proclaiming excommunication. The media asked Abp Cardoso Sobrinho for the Church’s view on the matter. What would Abp Fisichella have him say? – “No comment, the Church has no view on it”? Or should he have lied and said that the automatic excommunication for all abortionists does not apply in this case? He pointed out the fact amid no doubt a great deal of comment to the effect that he and the Church “above all defended, embraced, treated the girl with sweetness to make her feel that we were all on her side, all of us, without distinction”, which the media of course ignored, as it would have given the lie to its attempt to create a scandal and discredit the Church.

If any abortionist deserves excommunication (and they all do), a man who forcibly aborts a minor who is unable to consent is doubly deserving of excommunication. And Abp Fisichella does not have the power to revoke or annul the excommunication

Dear Webby,
Thanks. You have my life easier. Every federal election we get a ballot for the senate. If we put ‘1’ next to a party the party will allocate preferences for all candidates. I don’t like to do that so I find out about the senate candidates and look up all the parties and those who are running on the different slates.

It takes time and effort. Many of the parties and candidates have information about themselves on the net. I divide the candidates and parties into those I think would be good for Australia and the world and those who would not be good. The good ones get numbers starting from one. The bad ones get high numbers. Those I can find nothing about go in between. I try to order them in order of preference with what information I have. However, I rarely meet someone who is a member of the minor parties. In general talking to a member gives me a better picture of what the party is for than reading what the party writes about itself on the website.

Thanks to you I have a better feel for what the DLP is about and can now put it last.

Dear David,

It is allright that you put the DLP last because the DLP message of being pro life all the way and of also being pro trade union and against casino capitalism is what appeals to most ordinary families out there.
David, you and the odd few contributors to online forums have views that are in the minority and so we in the DLP do not need your vote anyway mate. You have all of the typical left/liberala nd libertine attitudes and philosophy that traditional Catholics as well as many people in the community who are in touch with what human nature and the natural law is basically all about. It is these good people who are and who will be delighted to learn of the traditional Laborite message of the DLP.

You are in the minority David.
Have a great day buddy.

Dear Webby,

The chances are that I will not have a chance to put DLP last since it will not have enough supporters to be on the ballot.

The DLP pro union, anti casino capitalism and pro life? That’s a great, big laugh! Union Catholics like Paul Keating have no part of it. Catholic leaders like Norman Cardinal Gilroy would have no part of it. Anti-union supporters of Casino capitalism such as even Malcolm Fraser, John Howard and Robert Menzies greatly admired Santamaria who founded the DLP.

Real pro lifers would be concerned with the life of a pregnant 9 year old raped by her stepfather. You are just concerned with seeing that those who helped her are punished for it because abortion is always wrong even if when it is more wrong not to perform one.

You label the great majority of Australians who want nothing to do with the DLP as left/liberal and libertine. That’s also a big laugh.

Dear David,

The DLP was on the last Senate ballot paper and was 'above the line' as the DLP is registered fro Federal elections. In NSW alone with 95% of the Senate papers counted the DLP had approx 53,000 voters. That is without any advertising at all.

David, I'm afraid the laugh right now is upon you. In hindsight Cardinal Gilroy, Bishop Carroll abd co have been proven wrong. Right now we are being told our banks are 'safe'. Guess what David, the model of post ALP Split pragmatism and it's alliance with big business and privatisations have now been proven to have comprehensively failed. The banks owe more than $400 billion compared to about $142 billion in deposits etc. Within the next nine months we will go the way of the USA and the UK. Then further down the track inflation will hit honest Aussie savers big time sadly enough because all 'safe' money in cash or cash deposits will have lost much of its value.There is nothing wrong with some of the Liberals claiming to have admired Bob Santamaria. It only proves the bankruptcy of the Liberal Party policies. Menzies stopped voting Liberal in his latter years. Howard was only trying to get in Santamaria's limelight but remains a hopeless supporter of failed neo liberal economic policies. He is anti union and hence no friend of mine.
Re; the Brazilian girl, the Catholic way is sound. Try and deliver the babies but if inteh process the young lady's life is in danger then all attempts are make to save her. If the babies come out prematurely then that is not a sin and no grounds for excommunication. It is only when deliberate attempts to abort regardless, as in this case, that sin occurs.
You live in cloud cuckoo land David if you ascribe your own label upon the majority. Not every one lives as an inner city alternate view/lifestyle greenie or simialr as you do. Get outside your fishbowl.

In some backward Muslim countries once a girl is menstrating she is considered of marriageable age. As Mohamet had a 6 year old wife whom he consumated at nine. The fact is in some countries if a girl is cabable of giving birth there is no questions asked. I suggest you lobby in those countries to change their customs. The fact that the child was not a wife would raise the death penalty to them both in those countries.

The fact it was rape raises the disgust of mature Westerners. Not the fact of her pregnancy, as it is not news that a 9 year is pregnant. It is the fact that rape is not acceptable. That she is pregnant is natural.

The fact of nine year olds falling pregnant is not a reason for abortion. The criminal act there was rape of a minor.