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_WORLD WATCH______________________________
______________________GERMANY_____________
Lone bishop to continue abortion counseling
Agrees “in principle” with Vatican stand
After a working session with Vatican officials, the bishop of Limburg, Germany, has issued a statement indicating that he shares the Pope’s “objective” regarding the elimination of Church agencies from a counseling process that provides women with a certificate which can be used in procuring an abortion. However, Bishop Franz Kamphaus said that his diocese will pursue that objective by different means.
For nearly a full decade, the German bishops have been embroiled in a dispute over a new law requiring women who seek abortions to produce a certificate showing that they have received counseling at government-approved agencies. Since some Church-related agencies were involved in the counseling process, the Vatican (along with some German bishops) expressed misgivings that the Church agencies were helping women fulfill the requirements for legal abortion.
After many months of discussions, the German bishops’ conference decided in November 2000 that Church-related agencies would no longer furnish the certificates required for legal abortions. This new policy took effect on January 1 of this year. But Bishop Kamphaus and the Limburg diocese did not implement the policy.
At his own initiative, Bishop Kamphaus came to Rome for meetings with Cardinals Joseph Ratzinger and Giovanni Battista Re—prefects respectively of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Congregation for Bishops—for a “clarification” of his position. Bishop Kamphaus was accompanied at these meetings by Bishop Reinhard Lettmann of Munster.
In a statement released simultaneously by the Limburg diocese and the Vatican press office on January 22, Bishop Kamphaus said that agencies in his diocese would continue to provide the controversial certificates. However, he said, those agencies should provide such “professional, spiritual, and material” help that women would be less likely to seek abortions.
The purpose of the Church counseling, the bishop said, is to ensure that the agencies will provide a pro-life outlook for women “who do not know whether or not they will bring a child into the world.” He said that he shared the “common fundamental conviction” of Church leaders that “every human life should be protected unconditionally from its inception,” that “the crime of abortion cannot be justified in any manner,” and that “the undivided witness of the Church in favor of life is undeniable.”
The bishop said that the decision to continue providing certificates to pregnant women in his diocese would be evaluated at the end of the year, and compared with the experiences of the other German bishops who have stopped issuing the certificates.