Rio de Janeiro - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva Friday said it was "regrettable" that a Roman Catholic archbishop excommunicated the mother of a nine-year-old girl who had an abortion after being raped by her stepfather.

Brazilian Archbishop Jose Gomes Sobrinho also excommunicated the doctors who performed the procedure.

"As a Christian and a Catholic, I deeply regret that a bishop has had such conservative behaviour," Lula told reporters in the city of Vitoria.

He praised the doctors in the northeastern Brazilian city of Recife for their decision to perform the abortion. "In this case, medicine is more right than the church," Lula said.

Gomes Sobrinho, archbishop of Olinda and Recife, defended his decision in an interview published Friday by Brazilian daily O Estado de Sao Paulo.

Abortion "is a silent Holocaust," he said.

When asked why he did not excommunicate the stepfather who sexually abused the girl, Gomes Sobrinho said: "He committed an extremely serious crime. But that crime, according to canon law, is not punished with automatic excommunication."

He said, "Abortion is even more serious. The church and the whole world condemn the Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews. What is happening (with abortion) is a silent Holocaust."

Abortion is illegal in predominantly Catholic Brazil, but the law admits exceptions in cases of rape or if the mother's life is at risk.

The girl was 15 weeks pregnant, with twins, and doctors said her life was in danger. She weighed just 36 kilograms and was 1.33 metres tall. The girl, whose identity was not made public, had recovered and was released from hospital Friday.

The stepfather, 23, confessed to the rape and was arrested last week in Recife, the capital of the state of Pernambuco. According to police, the girl had been sexually abused since she was 6. (dpa)