Austria: preventing is better than punishing”Prevention is much more effective than harsher punishment”, declared Msgr. Klaus Küng commenting the tragic case of incest in Amstetten. In an interview published May 3rd by the daily “Die Presse”, the bishop of St. Pölten underlined that in “cases of extreme wickedness such as this, the question is the culprit’s soundness of mind”. Indeed, he added, “an individual can be intelligent but deeply disturbed at the same time. This kind of person can be extremely dangerous. However, the question of individual responsibility isn’t easy to define. In my opinion greater emphasis should be given to preventive methods”. The bishop questioned the view of those who claim the crime was not discovered earlier because of a Catholic-rooted authoritarianism. “I haven’t got the impression of an authoritarian system prevailing here, nor that it may have originated in Catholicism”, he declared. “The fact is that lately, the diffusion of pornography, the fairs devoted to eroticism and the wild liberalization of sexual education have been causing moral decay”. The faithful ought to strenuously “oppose these trends”; a revitalized life of faith is “equally important”, since “without faith egoism becomes increasingly stronger and people increasingly lonely”. Lastly, the bishops affirmed, “parish communities should step up their commitment in youth pastoral care and family counseling”. Scotland: too many women detained in the Country’s prisons Father Brian Gowans, the Catholic priest in charge of Scottish prisons, said he shares the concern of the Attorney General who denounced the high number of women detained in the Country’s prisons. “We can count on the positive experience of drug-rehabilitation programs, but more needs to be done”, father Gowans affirmed. “AN excessively high number of men and women are being sentenced to prison, while there are alternative forms of crime control with milder effects on the community and on individuals”. Father Gowans claimed, “the women who are imprisoned are often the victims of criminals organizing illegal immigration into Scotland”. “European borders haven’t disappeared and human trafficking is a problem”. “This situation ought to be attentively monitored”. The number of women held in Scottish prisons has doubled in the past ten years, and although imprisonment for violent crimes is rare, the impact on children is devastating. Attorney General Elish Angiolini, during a meeting on equal opportunities with the “Holyrood” Commission, claimed that it’s time to hold an inquiry on women’s experiences in Scottish prisons. “It is our duty to understand what can be actually done to decrease the number of detained women, especially when it entails the destruction of a family and is detrimental to the new generations”. Germany: “no” to adoption for homosexual couples Homosexual couples don’t have the right to adopt a child: the stand was reiterated a few days ago by His Most Reverend Msgr. Robert Zollitsch, President of Germany’s Bishops Conference. “Family is the result of a man and a woman generating children”, he declared, adding that “children should not be raised without a mother and a father as is instead determined by natural law”. Msgr. Zollitisch expressed his perplexity over legislators’ intention to legalize a situation “which is detrimental to the child’s development”. As relates to the possible introduction of families’ right to vote, Msgr. Zollitsch claimed that this provision would “cause substantial problems concerning the traditional comprehension of democracy, according to which each citizen has the right to vote”. Even establishing which of the two parents ought to vote on behalf of the child would constitute a problem. Perplexities on family voting are “shared by the majority of bishops”, Msgr. Zollitsch pointed out. He did however describe the proposal as “an attempt to strengthen the right to expression of families with children”.
