An appeal for the participation of Catholic electors in the forthcoming elections to the Bundestag was made in recent days by Hans Joachim Meyer and by Karin Kortmann, respectively president and spokesperson for political questions of the central committee of German Catholics (ZdK) in the course of a press conference held in Berlin. Many issues were tackled: with regard to the political debate in progress, the ZdK warns against excessive criticisms and expectations of State and politics: “What’s needed is a realistic appraisal of the possibilities and limitations of political action”. The committee hopes for the creation of “a new social consensus, in which the tasks of the State, market and civil society are clearly regulated”. Apart from the proposals to devolve 0.7% of gross domestic product to aid to development, to halve poverty in the world by 2015 and to cancel the debts of the poorest countries, the Zdk asks for stricter controls on the production and export of light weapons. At the European level, the ZdK sees in enlargement a “moral and political duty”: the European Union “is not only an economic community, but above all a community of values”. As for immigration, the committee has pronounced itself in favour of illegal immigrants being recognized rights that correspond to “minimum social criteria”, such as “access to schooling for their children, healthcare and guaranteed wages”. Underlining its own opposition to the cloning of human embryos, the ZdK “is opposed to the possibility of permitting pre-implant diagnosis in Germany” and asks for “urgent measures to prevent abortion in advanced stages of pregnancy”.
