German Catholic abortion counsellors told to cease involvement with state system

Background briefing: this issue has been rumbling on for many years. The Vatican has repeatedly ruled providing the counselling necessary, in German law, for a woman to have an abortion, is too great a material cooperation in a grave evil, for the good it may do to justify it. It is to be hoped that the ruling will now be enforced.

From CFNews: German bishops have been instructed by the Vatican to distance themselves from a group that counsels women seeking abortions, the newspaper Die Tagespostreports. Cardinal William Levada of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith asked certain German bishops to make it clear that Catholics should not be involved with the work of Donum Vitae, Die Tagespost said. In June 2006, the German bishops officially called upon Catholics employed by church agencies to refrain from collaboration with Donum Vitae. According to the newspaper report, Cardinal Levada is now asking for a more energetic enforcement of that directive. Donum Vitae was founded by Catholics who opposed a decision by Pope John Paul II that Catholic agencies must not be involved in the country's pregnancy-counseling system. German women who seek abortions are asked to furnish proof that they obtained such counseling. Thus the Church agencies were providing documents that allowed women to procure abortions. Some German Catholics, including members of the hierarchy, had defended involvement in the counseling process, arguing that the system allowed Catholic counselors an opportunity to persuade women that they should not abort their unborn children. Pope John Paul replied that while such efforts in themselves are admirable, Catholics cannot justify participation in a system that regularly ends in the killing of an unborn child.