BY CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
BERLIN (CNS) - The German Medi- cal Assembly, the annual meeting of the German Medical Association, has lifted the professional ban on as- sisted suicide. The German Catholic news agency KNA reported that the clause "The doctor may not provide assistance in suicide" will be deleted from the pro- fessional code of conduct in response to last year's ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court that overturned a ban on professionally assisted sui- cide. In the resolution, which was ad- opted by a large majority, the assem- bly also emphasized that the task of doctors, according to the professional code of conduct, was "to preserve life, to protect and restore health, to alleviate suffering, to assist the dying and to contribute to the preservation of the natural foundations of life in view of their importance for human health." According to the delegates, this wording makes clear that assisted suicide does not belong to the spectrum of tasks of the medi- cal profession. The Catholic bishops in Germa- ny have repeatedly reiterated their re- jection of any form of assisted suicide. We cannot ac- cept that this becomes an offer in our society," said Bishop Georg Btzing, president of the German bishops' conference. Assisted suicide was not an option that could be approved, he said. "We are convinced that this results both from the Christian faith and from generally accessible ethics." Like the medical profession in Ger- many, the bishops are in favor of expanding pain treatment and hospice care, KNA re- ported. Earlier, the delegates had called for les- sons to be learned from the handling of the coronavirus pan- demic. Crisis manage- ment and response urgently needed to be improved, the doctors said. In addition, reserves of impor- tant medical products, medicines and vaccines should be created, and the European production sites for these should be expanded.
BY CINDY WOODEN
CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
VATICAN CITY (CNS) - As countries become more culturally and ethni- cally diverse, their Catholic communities become more catholic" and their societ- ies can increasingly reflect the fact that all people are brothers and sisters, Pope Francis said. In encountering the diversity of foreigners, migrants and refugees, and in the intercultural dialogue that can emerge from this encounter, we have an opportunity to grow as church and to en- rich one another," the pope wrote in his message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, which will be marked Sept. 26 in most countries. All the baptized, wher- ever they find themselves, are by right members of both their local ecclesial community and the one church, dwellers in one home and part of one family," the pope wrote in the message, which was released May 6 at the Vati- can. The message called on all Catholics to build up the church by welcoming and getting to know Catholic migrants and refugees and reaching out with a wit- ness of charity to members of other religions, and it called on all people to en- rich the diversity of their countries by accepting newcomers and ensuring they are not left languish- ing in poverty. Cardinal Michael Czerny, undersecretary of the Vati- can's Migrants and Refu- gees Section, was asked about people who fear, for example, that continu- ing migration will bring more Muslims to Europe, contributing to a further decline of Christianity on the continent. It is a real problem if one feels insecure or threatened or vulnerable in one's faith life because of others," he said. "We need to get beyond the 'wall,' beyond the barrier," and a first step could be to ask, Have I ever spoken with or even listened to someone from that other faith? Do I know what I am talking about or am I relying on images and slogans and hearsay?" A Christian has an ob- ligation to seek the truth, the cardinal said, "and not rely on these fear- mongering cliches which are not only baseless but are, in fact, serving other motives." The theme the pope chose for the day is Toward an ever wider we,'" and it builds on the teaching in his encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship." In the encyclical, his message said, "I expressed a concern and a hope that remain uppermost in my thoughts: 'Once this health crisis passes, our worst re- sponse would be to plunge even more deeply into feverish consumerism and new forms of egotistic self- preservation." God willing," he said, after all this, we will think no longer in terms of them' and 'those,' but only us.'" God created human be- ings different from one another but as members of one family, the pope said. When, in disobedience we turned away from God, he in his mercy wished to of- fer us a path of reconcilia- tion, not as individuals but as a people, a 'we,' meant to embrace the entire hu-
U.S. may have known about massacre plot
WASHINGTON (CNS) - An expert witness testified to the "illegal" presence of a high-ranking U.S. military adviser who may have known about the plot to kill nearly 1,000 civilians who perished in El Mozote, El Salvador, nearly 40 years ago. Terry Karl, a Stanford University professor and expert witness who has re- viewed thousands of documents on the Dec. 11, 1981, massacre, said during the late-April and early May hearings in El Salvador that the presence of U.S. Sgt. Maj. Allen Bruce Hazelwood near the scene of the mas- sacre was not only illegal, but knowledge of it would have brought U.S. military aid to the Central American nation to a halt. In the 1980s, the U.S. largely funded the Salvadoran government's involvement - to the tune of almost $1 million a day - in the war against armed-leftist rebels because it feared the formation of a communist bloc close to the United States. U.S. Cath- olic leaders were vocal opponents of the aid, often lob- bying Congress or protesting in Washington. Officially, the war began in 1980 and ended with peace accords in 1992, although political strife had been brewing in El Salvador since the 1970s because of large-scale so- cioeconomic disparities.
Group looks at 'excommunication of mafias'
VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Marking the beatification of an Italian judge murdered by the Mafia, a Vatican of- fice announced the formation of a working group on the excommunication of mafias." The group, working under the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, plans to continue and expand work begun by the dicastery in 2018 when it launched an international network against organized crime and corruption. The dicastery announced the working group May 8, the day of the beatification of Blessed Rosario Livatino, an anti-Mafia judge martyred in 1990 by four members of the crime syndicate known as Cosa Nostra. During a trip to Sicily three years later, St. John Paul II met with Livatino's parents. At the end of a Mass there, he made global headlines when he decried the suffering and death the Mafia had sown, declaring: In the name of Christ, I say to those responsible: Con- vert! One day you will face the judgment of God!" Pope Benedict XVI, during a 2010 visit to Palermo, described the Mafia as "a path of death," and Pope Francis, dur- ing a 2014 visit to Calabria, said members of the Mafia are not in communion with God; they are excommu- nicated."
German doctors' code allows assisting in suicides
Welcoming migrants, refugees is opportunity for growth, pope says
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THE CATHOLIC FREE PRESS MAY 14, 2021
Belarus church: Pastoral help denied to prisoners
OXFORD, England (CNS) - A Catholic Church spokes- man confirmed that clergy are unable to minister to political prisoners in Belarus, after a Christian charity accused the country's rulers of using the coronavirus as an excuse for refusing pastoral access. "The corona- virus is providing very neat possibilities for all kinds of negative answers," said Father Yuri Sanko, spokes- man for the Belarusian bishops' conference. "Our church has no signed agreement with the Interior Min- istry, so a priest can only visit if a prisoner requests it. Even if such a request is made, however, the authorities can decide whether to let the priest in. "Since there's no legal arrangement, prison officials are deciding by themselves whether anyone can see a priest or receive sacraments," Father Sanko said. "Since we can't de- mand the right to visit anyone, this has made things much harder, even for purely individual pastoral requests." In a May 6 interview with Catholic News Ser- vice, Father Sanko said Belarus' predominant Ortho- dox Church had a formal agreement with the govern- ment on prison visits, giving its clergy easier access to Christians jailed for opposing the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko. He added that retired Arch- bishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz had visited detainees in the summer of 2020, but said no bishop had gained access to prisons this year, while the church had been unable to develop a "pastoral plan" for helping those incarcerated.
Amazon bishops say bill threatens Indigenous
SO PAULO (CNS) - More than 60 Brazilian bishops who work in the Amazon presented the Brazilian Sen- ate with a letter recommending that the country's upper house withdraw a bill because it threatens extensive damage to public forests and traditional populations. The bill in question would change the rules, allowing illegally deforested federal lands to be- come private holdings. "Land grabbing is responsible for one-third of deforestation in Brazil, in addition to promoting violence," said the bishops, adding, "the approval of such a project would benefit large land invaders and speculators." The bishops said the bill, if passed, may "further intensify conflicts in the field and increase the demand for land." The discussion in Brazil's Senate in early May came just days after Bra- zil's federal government declared its intentions to pre- serve the Amazon at the International Climate Summit convened by the U.S. "The eyes of the world are watch- ing Brazil's environmental policy; we run the risk of passing yet another law against the care and environ- mental safeguard projects," the bishops warned. man family, without excep- tion." In today's world, though, this 'we' willed by God is broken and fragmented, wounded and disfigured," he said. Our 'we,' both in the wider world and within the church, is crumbling and cracking due to myopic and aggressive forms of nationalism and radical in- dividualism," Pope Francis said. "The highest price is being paid by those who most easily become viewed as others: foreigners, mi- grants, the marginalized, those living on the existen- tial peripheries." For Catholics, he said, bucking the trend and welcoming others is part of "a commitment to be- coming ever more faithful to our being 'catholic,'" or universal. Catholics, he said, are called to work together "to make the church become ever more inclusive as she carries out the mission en- trusted to the Apostles by Jesus Christ" to proclaim the Gospel and care for those in need. In our day," the pope said, "the church is called to go out into the streets ... in order to heal wounds and to seek out the straying, without prejudice or fear,... but ready to widen her tent to embrace everyone."
CNS ILLUSTRATION JULIA STEINBRECHT, KNA
A person is pictured in an illustration displaying pills in Osnabruck, Germany. German doctors have removed the ban on assisting suicide from the code of conduct.
CNS PHOTO GO NAKAMURA, REUTERS
Ceidy, an asylum-seeking migrant mother from Guatemala, kisses her 3-month-old baby Bridget while waiting to be escorted by the U.S. Border Patrol agents after crossing the Rio Grande into Roma, Texas, April 7.
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'We cannot accept that this becomes an offer in our society.'
Bishop Btzing
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