GERMANY
Meisner thanks media for exposing abuse
Christa Pongratz-Lippitt In Vienna
CARDINAL JOACHIM MEISNER, the Archbishop of Cologne, has praised the German media for the role it played in helping to clear up cases of clerical sex abuse. At a reception he gave for the media in Cologne on 10 September, Cardinal Meisner said he was grateful that the media had con- tributed so greatly to clarifying what had happened, even if there had been times when the media had “abused the abuse”. The clerical abuse scandal had “deeply wounded” the Church, he underlined. The cardinal also called on the Church to make use of the new information technologies to tell people about the Church, as even many Catholics nowadays were no longer very knowledgeable on church matters. The internet had made reciprocal, interactive communication possible in a way hitherto unknown, he said. Those responsible in the Church should therefore begin by “quenching the basic thirst for information
about faith and the Church” via the internet. He also appealed to all Christians to take part in digital exchanges and “put their cards on the table openly without trying to influence or indoctrinate”. But while online confessions were out of the question, Cardinal Meisner said, the fact that the issue was under discus- sion showed that there was a need for “digital pastoral work”. Bishop Heinrich Mussinghoff of Aachen has meanwhile published the latest statistics on clerical sexual abuse in his diocese. In a pastoral letter read out in all diocesan churches on the second weekend of September, Bishop Mussinghoff begged forgiveness of the victims and their families for the suffering priests in the Diocese of Aachen had caused. Between 1945 and 2010, 24 priests from the Aachen Diocese had been accused of sexual abuse. Eight were still alive. Most of the cases were now statute-barred but three had occurred since 1990. These three priests had been sus- pended and sued under canon law. One of them had since been defrocked.
UNITED STATES Email evangelisation launched
ARCHBISHOP DONALD WUERL of Washington, DC, issued a new pastoral letter on the “New Evangelisation” last week and while the document itself did not break any new ground, the method of delivery did, writes Michael Sean Winters. The pastoral letter was emailed to parishioners throughout the archdiocese using a new email list-service. The email was sent to 28,000 DC-area Catholics according to Susan Gibbs, the direc- tor of communications for the archdiocese. An average of 150,000 Catholics in the region attend Mass every week. In June, the arch- diocese distributed cards in the pews at all churches, inviting people to sign up for the list-service. In addition, anyone can sign up
■FRANCE:President Nicolas Sarkozy has requested a meeting with Pope Benedict in an apparent bid to counter his falling popularity ratings among Catholic voters, put off by his sweeping anti-crime crackdown including the destruction of migrant shanty towns and expulsion of Roma Gypsies, writes Tom Heneghan.
for the emails through the archdiocesan web- site. Within 24 hours of sending the email, 43 per cent of those receiving the Spanish- language version had opened it and 36 per cent of those receiving the English version, a rate Ms Gibbs termed “phenomenal”. Archbishop Wuerl wrote: “So much of what we know about matters of concern to us as Catholics reaches us through the electronic or print media [bearing] the imprint of some- one’s interpretation. With this new link, it is my hope that news and information concern- ing our Catholic faith ... will reach you directly with what might be best described as ‘the rest of the story’. Thus we begin with this intro- duction to the New Evangelisation.”
The meeting, which would be Mr Sarkozy’s third with Pope Benedict XVI, will probably take place in the first half of October, his chief of staff, Claude Guéant, said. More than 1,000 Roma Gypsies have been deported this summer. The crime crackdown has
sparked protests across the political spectrum accusing
the Government of
stigmatising all Gypsies and travelling people as criminals. Cardinal André
Vingt-Trois, head of the bishops’ conference, has accused the government of creating a divisive “unhealthy atmosphere” and met the president and interior minister to explain the Church’s position.
CANADA
Euthanasia hearings accused of bias
BITTER DIVISIONSare opening up over the approach being taken by a Quebec legislative committee investigating euthanasia and assisted suicide, writes Peter Kavanagh. The committee, referred to in the media
as Dying with Dignity, has taken testimony detailing lingering deaths and helpless rel- atives; and heard from doctors who support a change in the law. It has also heard charges from a group of oncologists that Quebec would be “opening the door to killing com- atose and senile patients without their informed consent”. The oncologists predicted that Quebec might see up to 1,000 such deaths a year if the law was changed. Martin Murphy of the English-Speaking Catholic Council of Montreal told the com- mittee that it was “biased towards loosening current laws”. Geoff Kelley, the Liberal Member of the
National Assembly chairing the committee, denied the suggestions of bias and the alle- gation that the whole initiative was a ploy to reduce health-care costs.
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Sunday 19 September 2010 Mass Times: Vigil: Saturday 6pm
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The Arundel & Brighton Diocesan Trust is a Registered Charity No 252878 18 September 2010 | THE TABLET | 41
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