Brazil nut

A Brazilian archbishop says all those who helped a child rape victim secure an abortion are to be excommunicated from the Catholic Church. The girl, aged nine, became pregnant with twins after she had been sexually assaulted by her stepfather. The excommunication applies to the child's mother and the doctors involved in the procedure.

Abortion is only permitted in Brazil in cases of rape and where the mother's life is at risk and doctors say the girl's case met both these conditions. The Catholic Church tried to intervene to prevent the abortion going ahead but the procedure was carried out on Wednesday.

"I believe the position of the church is extreme, radical and inadequate," Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao said on a government radio program. "I am shocked by the radical position of this religion which, wrongly saying it is defending a life, puts another life in danger that is as important as any other."

The Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, told Brazil's TV Globo that the law of God was above any human law.

Last month a Roman Catholic priest in Brazil who defended the use of contraceptives and the rights of homosexuals was suspended by his local archbishop. The archbishop said the ambiguous views expressed over gay marriage and contraceptives were diametrically opposed to the official teaching of the Church.