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lieco PERTH, WA: June 27, 1991
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Donating organs 'act of love' VATICAN CITY (CNS): Donating organs can be an act of great love, but human body parts must never become items of commerce, Pope John Paul ll told an audience of medical experts.
Speaking to members of the Society for Organ Sharing, he said the development of organ transplantation had saved lives and was cause
for rejoicing. But the procedure has its "dark side", and sometimes leads to "shameful abuses", he said. The pope outlined the Church's position on organ donation, which implies a "prior, explicit, free and conscious decision on the part of the donor" or someone who legitimately represents the donor. Such a dona-
tion cannot seriously endanger or harm the donor's own life, he said.
"It is obvious that vital organs can only be donated after death. But to offer in life a part of one's body, an offering which will become effective only after death, is already in many cases an act of great love," the pope said.
He compared it to Christ's sacrificial death, in which "in dying death is somehow overcome and life restored". Organ donation is a particularly eloquent act of generosity in today's world, which in many ways is utilitarian and anti-life, he added. But the pope warned that in organ sharing, the
human body must always be treated as the body of a person. Otherwise, he said, organ transplant would amount to "the dispossession or plundering of a body".
items for sale or exchange. Such a reductive materialist conception would lead to a merely instrumental use of the body, and therefore of the person," he said.
"The body cannot be treated as a merely physical or biological entity, nor can its organs or tissues ever be used as
The pope said current abuses in organ transplantation call for "determined action" by medical associations, donor
societies and lawmakers. The Society for Organ Sharing, an international group of medical experts formed in 1987, was holding its first congress in Rome. The group was established to facilitate and set up guidelines for organ transplants around the world, and to delineate ethical principles in the sharing of organs.
Priest mediator in drug
lord's surrender MEDELLIN, Colombia (CNS): An 84year-old priest, Father Rafael Garcia Herreros, mediated the surrender of the world's most wanted drug lord, Pablo Escobar, who gave himself up to Colombian authorities, saying he wanted to contribute to peace. Father Garcia Herreros, who was in the helicopter. said Escobar, one of the
world's most feared traffickers, was close to tears as he boarded the aircraft. Asked by reporters if Escobar actually wept, the priest said: "No . . . but he wanted to." "I congratulated him very cordially in the name of Colombia:' the priest said. When the helicopter landed in the prison, Escobar got off holding Father
Garica Herreros by the hand, witnesses said. The priest shocked Colombia in May when he announced Escobar was willing to turn himself in. Speculation had been rife for weeks that he would surrender. Escobar agreed to give himself up and confess in exchange for immunity from extradition and a reduced jail sentence.
God's message via eruptions MANILA, Philippines (CNS): Cardinal Jaime Sin of Manila has said God is sending a message through the eruptions of Mount Pinatubo, but the churchman also said he is unsure what the message is. "On bended knee, let us ask God what he is telling us through the calamities we have gone through,"
LOOM MOO rof FLOCS
Were raising the standard. DL 1631
he said in a statement to Catholics. Corazon President Aquino, seeking to allay the fears of her people and to counter critics who want her to quit, said that relentless natural disasters are not a punishment from God. The Philippines has endured a major earthquake, several typhoons and a prolonged drought.
"Sometimes I think about the events in our country that have come one after the other.I was told that my detractors, who never stop criticising me, say that perhaps this is also my fault," said Mrs Aquino, regarded as a near-saint by many Filipinos at the time of a 1986 popular revolt that swept her into power. "But we who believe in
God know that God does not bring about these things as punishment for our sins," said Mrs Aquino, a Catholic, in an address to an agricultural co-operative. Some Filipinos fear the unrelenting disasters carry a divine message, perhaps as retribution for widespread prostitution around two US
military bases in the country. Father Tito Paez said many evacuees fleeing the hail of rock and ash spouting from the volcano compared the eruption around Angeles and Olongapo, next to the two US bases, with the biblical destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Herman Montenegro,
vice president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, had a more pragmatic view. "The real cause of prostitution among Filipinos is poverty, not a desire to sin that God should punish," he said. Former first lady Imelda Marcos identified her own plight — sitting in exile in the United
States — with God's supposed wrath. She said God was punishing the Philippines because Mrs Aquino had banned her from bringing the body of her husband home for burial. Ferdinand Marcos, ousted from the presidency by the 1986 People Power revolution, died in exile in Hawaii in 1989.
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