By Jonathan Luxmoore
Warsaw, 11 June (ENI)--Poland's bishops have warned Roman Catholic Church members that they cannot receive Holy Communion if they support in vitro fertilisation, because it is a violation of church law comparable to abortion.
"The church always defends the weakest, especially the totally defenceless, who include conceived children," the Family Council of the bishops' conference had said on 19 May. "Those who kill them, and those who actively participate in this killing or make laws against conceived life, including the life of a child in embryonic state, which is largely destroyed by in vitro procedure, stand in open conflict with the Catholic Church's teaching."
The council's statement was issued amid controversy over plans by the Polish government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk for a new bioethics law that would allow IVF to be funded from the State health budget.
The Family Council said that Poland's Catholic clergy were concerned that the national parliament, or Sejm, had voted down an alternative church-backed bill in September 2009 that would have imposed up to three years' jail for, "all people whose actions lead to IVF".
However, Adam Boniecki, editor of Poland's best-known Catholic weekly newspaper, Tygodnik Powszechny, has criticised the council's statement. He said commentators would see the church as, "dividing society into those who can and cannot receive communion".
The Rzeczpospolita daily newspaper said Catholic canon law makes no reference to IVF, and does not, "recognise an analogy" between abortion and the IVF-related destruction of embryos.
In 2008, Poland's 133-member bishops' conference condemned plans by Tusk's government for State funding of IVF, which is currently unregulated in the country. The bishops also warned Catholic parliamentarians not to vote for the proposed law, which was drafted by a commission headed by Senator Jaroslaw Gowin, formerly editor of the Catholic monthly publication Znak.
Still, Sejm members heavily defeated the alternative legislation, drafted by a Catholic "Contra in vitro" group after a public petition, which would also have prescribed up to, "five years imprisonment for anyone caught experimenting with embryos".
In a sign of disunity over the issue, the Rev. Franciszek Longchamps de Berrier, a member of the Bioethics Team of the bishops' conference, told the Polish church's information agency, KAI, that the bishops' council "had no right to issue doctrinal declarations". He added that the Family Council's statement should be treated, "solely as the view of its members".
At least one Polish bishop has rejected this view. The bishop of Swidnica, Ignacy Dec, told Poland's Nasz Dziennik daily newspaper that the bishops' conference had appointed the Family Council, and it spoke, "with the voice of the church," and always took care, "to pronounce in unity with the church under the Holy Father." [Reprinted by permission, copyright Ecumenical News Internationl]
Warsaw, 11 June (ENI)--Poland's bishops have warned Roman Catholic Church members that they cannot receive Holy Communion if they support in vitro fertilisation, because it is a violation of church law comparable to abortion.
"The church always defends the weakest, especially the totally defenceless, who include conceived children," the Family Council of the bishops' conference had said on 19 May. "Those who kill them, and those who actively participate in this killing or make laws against conceived life, including the life of a child in embryonic state, which is largely destroyed by in vitro procedure, stand in open conflict with the Catholic Church's teaching."
The council's statement was issued amid controversy over plans by the Polish government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk for a new bioethics law that would allow IVF to be funded from the State health budget.
The Family Council said that Poland's Catholic clergy were concerned that the national parliament, or Sejm, had voted down an alternative church-backed bill in September 2009 that would have imposed up to three years' jail for, "all people whose actions lead to IVF".
However, Adam Boniecki, editor of Poland's best-known Catholic weekly newspaper, Tygodnik Powszechny, has criticised the council's statement. He said commentators would see the church as, "dividing society into those who can and cannot receive communion".
The Rzeczpospolita daily newspaper said Catholic canon law makes no reference to IVF, and does not, "recognise an analogy" between abortion and the IVF-related destruction of embryos.
In 2008, Poland's 133-member bishops' conference condemned plans by Tusk's government for State funding of IVF, which is currently unregulated in the country. The bishops also warned Catholic parliamentarians not to vote for the proposed law, which was drafted by a commission headed by Senator Jaroslaw Gowin, formerly editor of the Catholic monthly publication Znak.
Still, Sejm members heavily defeated the alternative legislation, drafted by a Catholic "Contra in vitro" group after a public petition, which would also have prescribed up to, "five years imprisonment for anyone caught experimenting with embryos".
In a sign of disunity over the issue, the Rev. Franciszek Longchamps de Berrier, a member of the Bioethics Team of the bishops' conference, told the Polish church's information agency, KAI, that the bishops' council "had no right to issue doctrinal declarations". He added that the Family Council's statement should be treated, "solely as the view of its members".
At least one Polish bishop has rejected this view. The bishop of Swidnica, Ignacy Dec, told Poland's Nasz Dziennik daily newspaper that the bishops' conference had appointed the Family Council, and it spoke, "with the voice of the church," and always took care, "to pronounce in unity with the church under the Holy Father." [Reprinted by permission, copyright Ecumenical News Internationl]
Good for him. Inconsistency on the issues of sexuality and life has been a big hindrance in the effort to successfully advance the traditional Christian teaching on the subject.
Posted by: GL | June 13, 2010 at 04:28 PM