The Record Newspaper 16 November 1989

Page 1

PERTH, WA: November 16, 1989

Registered by Australia Post P ublication No. WAR 0202

Number 2662

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Vatican to decide on two US requests Sunday worship without priest

Cardinal O'Connor. . . "They are lies."

VATICAN-SPONSORED AIDS CONFERENCE HEAR OF LIES THAT HAVE BEEN TOLD

Catholics condemn condoms VATICAN CITY (CNS): Catholic participants at a Vatican sponsored A IDS conference strongly condemned condoms and sterile syringes as means of combating spread of the disease. "These are lies perpetuated often for political reasons on the part of public health officials, including public health authorities, whose political future depends on their controlling the spread of the disease,"

said Cardinal John J. O'Connor of New York. "They are lies told even by some health care who professionals believe they have nothing else to offer persons with AIDS or at risk," he said in the keynote speech of the 13-15 November conference. "The truth is not in condoms and clean needles", but in giving people a meaning for life that does not include homosexuality and drug abuse, he said at the

conference attended by more than 1000 church officials, theologians, scientists, doctors and health care officials and workers. The attack on use of condoms and clean syringes as solutions to acquired inunune deficiency syndrome began at a November 11 Vatican news conference to discuss the scope of the meeting. Such solutions trivialise the problem, said Archbishop Fiorenzo Angelini, head of the Pontifi-

Missing link at conference

II.

cal Council tor Pastoral A ssistance to Health Care Workers, which organised the AIDS conference.

BALTIMORE (CNS): The US bishops approved guidelines for priestless Sunday worship after lively debate. This vote was 225-18, with one abstention. The guidelines now need the approval of the Vatican before taking effect. The approved order of worship for priestless Sundays offers three options: evening prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours, morning prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours, or a Liturgy of the Word. Any of the three options could stand alone or be followed by a Communion service. The order of services would vary slightly depending on whether they were led by a deacon or layperson. A deacon could preach a homily, for example, but an explanation on the Scripture readings by a lay man or woman would not be called a homily.

Laypersons to perform marriages BALTIMORE (CNS): The US bishops voted 175-12 November 9 to ask the Vatican to view favourably any requests for bishops in vast missionary territories to allow laypersons to perform marriages when no priests or deacons are available. of some bishops who said the objections the despite came vote The action would be "premature", create problems in states where the marriages would not be civilly recognised and threaten the "sacramentality" of marriage. The request for use of Canon 1112 of church law to allow laypersons to assist at marriages originally came from Archbishop Francis T. Hurley of Anchorage, Alaska, who said last summer that he has need of it in his archdiocese. Archbishop Hurley, who was to have assisted at the marriage but could not land his plane in Valdez because of bad weather, could not delegate a nun pastoral assistant to substitute for an ordained minister because such a move is forbidden unless a national bishops' conference has approved such a procedure and received permission from the Vatican to use it. Instead the Archbishop invoked a provision in church law for mixed marriages — a member of the couple was not Catholic — under which a bishop could dispense the Catholic party from being married according to the canonical form ordinarily required by the church.

shop Angelini were a Dutch moral theologian and a US expert in medical ethics.

patients unless they asked for it.

Father Bonifacio Honings, moral theology professor at Rome's Lateran University. At the same time, for those who use condoms "pastorally, we need to show understanding", he said. "Morality does not see a solution in sterile syringes or condoms," he added. "It has confidence in a person's capacity to use interior forces to escape the degrading comportment" of homosexuality and drug use, said Father Honings.

"We ought not to do that would anything "To give condoms or to suggest their use, foster or encourage activwhether by states or ity which would lead to whoever, is a hypocriti- homosexual or heterocal, disloyal and unedu- sexual transfer of this Dr said disease," cated act which does not Pellegrino, Edmund appear to hinder the director of the Georgecontagion," the archbitown University Centre shop said. for Advanced Study of "Instead, it spreads it Ethics in Washington. beyond our imaginaPellegrino said doctors tion," he added. should not offer condom Agreeing with Archbi- information to AIDS

"My view is that we answer the question, but we do not urge people to use or to practice 'safe sex'," he added. Pallegrino said the dominant view in the United States, however, is that doctors should offer information about condoms as part of AIDS education. The only moral option for a married couple infected with the AIDS virus is to practice abstinence, said Dutch

VATICAN CITY (CNS): A Vatican-sponsored international AIDS conference should have scheduled talks by people with the disease, said several participants, including Cardinal John J. O'Connor of New York. Also supporting the view were the only two conference participants who publicly said they have AIDS and several people working in AIDS programs. Cardinal O'Connor said that if he were planning the conference, "I would have done two things: include people with 'hands-on'

activity, including persons with AIDS, andIalso would have included periods for discussion and exchanges of views". The cardinal spoke to journalists after people who tried to start floor debates were told by conference organisers that it was not allowed. People wanting to discuss issues with speakers should invite them to side conference rooms, said Archbishop Fiorenzo Angelini, president of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, on the first day of the Nov 13-15 conference.


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