CtIr WA's only Catholic weekly newspaper
Price: Si
Perth: October 10, 1996
Pope beatifies Edmund ice By Lynn Weil VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Before entering the hospital on October 6 for an appendectomy, Pope John Paul II placed Edmund Ignatius Rice, the founder of the Christian Brothers, and 15 other people one step closer to sainthood. As well as beatifying Edmund Rice Pope John Paul beatified two women religious who headed Institutes for families and children. and 13 Polish Catholics, whom he declared martyrs for the faith. The Pope also used the occasion of Rice's beatification to address current problems in Northern Ireland, where an abandoned ceasefire has led to renewed violence and diminished prospects for peace. "Let us all pray that the Irish people will put tension and conflict behind them and go on to build a
brighter and more serene future for the younger generation," the pontiff said. "Nothing is lost through peace; everything can be lost through violence." Of the 6,000 pilgrims from around the globe who came to Rome for the beatification ceremony, 3.500 were from the Republic of Ireland. Blessed Edmund Rice founded the Congregation of the Christian Brothers in Waterford. Ireland. in 1803. The Christian Brothers established monasteries and schools worldwide, and now have 200 missions in 22 countries. The congregation's headquarters moved from Dublin to Rome In 1967 Born to a comparatively wealthy family in County Kilkenny in 1762, Brother Rice first worked in his uncle's importing business. - continued Page 2
Pope John Paul IIwaves to pilgrims gathered for the beatification service of Edmund Rice in St Peter's Square.
1,000 killed annually without consent: US report Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee, released a report on assisted suicide and WASHINGIUN (CNS) - The US bishops' euthanasia based on the 1991 Renunelink pro-life secretariat has joined doctors and Report on the widespread practice of invollegislators in praising a congressional untary euthanasia in the Netherlands, report on abuses of physician-assisted sui- where such practices have been tolerated since the 1970s. cide in the Netherlands. At a September 27 press conference, conThe report shows that in 1990 alone more than 1,000 people in the Netherlands were gressional lawmakers and doctors stood in killed by their doctors without their con- favour of a bill to ensure that US federal funds would not be used to pay for assistsent. "By issuing its report this week on ed suicide. "Simply put, an individual's so-called euthanasia in the Netherlands, the subconunittee persuasively demonstrates how 'right to die,' over time, can be transformed a practice advanced in the name of 'free- into a demand by society that certain indidom of choice' becomes a way to dispose viduals have a 'duty to die,— said Canady. of inconvenient people," said Richard "Particularly as the United States Doerflinger, associate director for policy Supreme Court decides whether to strike development at the US bishops' Secretari- down state statutes prohibiting physicianat for Pro-Life Activities. assisted suicide, the development of Dutch Charles Canady, chairman of the House law and the current practice of euthanasia By Jennifer E. Reed
Eagles drop in for a chat with fans Page 6
in the Netherlands should be closely examined," he said. The US Supreme Court is expected to review the laws on assisted suicide in New York and Washington states during its 1996-97 term, beginning on October 7. The Remmelink Report is the original document which revealed the 1990 figures for Nethelands patients being killed without their consent. In 1994, the Dutch government codified a procedure whereby physicians are to report to a coroner and complete questionnaires whenever "they assist in suicide, perform euthanasia on request, or terminate a patient's life without the patient's consent," said Canady. "When a society decides to codify assisted suicide. . . . it must be ready to consider what Jeopardy it places itself in if it allows physicians to be killers as well as
healers," said former US surgeon general Dr C Everett Koop at the press conference. Dr Herbert Hendin, executive director of the American Suicide Foundation, said at the conference that he met Dutch doctors who presented cases to him in which they performed euthanasia. "The more I heard, the more my hair stood on end and the moreI was persuaded that even advocates of euthanasia would be shocked" at what was occurring in the Netherlands, Hendin said. "Legal sanction made euthanasia an ordinary and routine way for dealing with terminally ill patients," he said. Consequently, "the Dutch didn't have the same incentive to develop hospice and palliative care," Hendin said, and now are behind the rest of the world in treating the pain of the terminally ill. - continued Page 2
Benedictine rare art in Perth Page 9