CHurches in brief
Germany: “clear rejection” of active euthanasiaAssistance to terminally ill patients was at the centre of a meeting held in Berlin between Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, Chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK), Jörg-Dietrich Hoppe, chairman of the Federal Order of Physicians, and Christoph Fuchs, director general of the organization. According to a press release issued by the DBK, Mgr. Zollitsch, Hoppe and Fuchs reaffirmed their “clear rejection” of active euthanasia. Killing on request “conflicts with the Christian and medical understanding of the person”, says the communiqué. The interlocutors found themselves in agreement on the need for physicians not to furnish assistance even to those who wish to commit suicide. “On the contrary, it is important – they stress – to accompany the terminally ill and alleviate their suffering with a further development of palliative medicine”.Ireland: “gratitude” for child protectionThe Irish bishops, the Conference of Religious of Ireland and the Irish Missionary Union, in a joint statement, welcome with “gratitude” the publication of the 2010 Annual Report of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI), which, they say “demonstrates significant progress in many key areas”. Wecoming the Report and the National Board’s “untiring commitment to the safety and welfare of children”, the three signatories say they are “fully committed to working with the Board to consolidate the progress made to date and to addressing those issues which have been a cause of some frustration to both the Sponsoring Bodies and the Board, particularly around data protection and the sharing of statistics and other specific information with the National Office. The role of the National Board in monitoring the implementation of international best practices in safeguarding children by dioceses, religious congregations and missionary societies is vital”. This commitment will continue, they conclude, “to be a priority in our ongoing engagement with the National Board in the year ahead”.Scotland: Christians “agents of social cohesion”Adopting a “virtue agenda” instead of a “rights agenda” and seeing the Church as a willing co-operator serving the common good: that’s the encouragement that the Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti, gave to the new Scottish Parliament, elected on 5 May and inaugurated on 11 May. Recalling the important role of the Church in society, Mgr. Conti said that “in the last census almost 70 per cent of Scots considered themselves to be Christian. Churches which have over recent decades learned the lesson of ecumenism are well placed to welcome into the community those of other faiths and cultures and, on account of the huge commonalities already shared, are natural agents of social cohesion”. The Archbishop asked the newly elected parliamentarians to recognize that “Christians have a voice in future policy discussions. In a pluralistic society Christians – he said – will want to argue for what is right, but not to impose our understanding of it. Christian freedom includes, at least implicitly, the freedom to dissent from the mandates of society if there is a conflict between being God’s slave and being a slave of the state”. The Archbishop thanked the Parliament for its support of the papal visit to Scotland in 2010 and encouraged a fresh effort to isolate those who promote sectarian violence.Italy: Christian Churches and ecumenism”Today in Europe and in Italy we are faced by new challenges that ask the Churches for greater concord and greater unity”, say the leaders of the Christian Churches present in Italy in a statement issued on 11 May, to mark the tenth anniversary of the “Charta Oecumenica”, the document that spells out the “rights and duties” of the ecumenical movement in Europe. “The new situation that has come to be created, after the events in the USA and the wars that followed them – says the statement -, has called Christians to a renewed commitment to peace and thus showed the need for reconciliation and the realization of visible unity between the Churches, because the real guarantee of peace and the most effective response to violence and war, and to what has also been interpreted as a clash of civilizations, is a real rapprochement between peoples, and hence between religious communities”. Faced by a “new pluralist scenario, riven by conflicts and at the same time full of hope”, the Churches believe that “the objectives and pledges of the Charta Oecumenica” are “decidedly relevant” and invite “the faithful of the Churches present in Italy to share them with all their heart and meditate once again on this important document”.
