And Catholic hospitals in Indonesia have sent medical teams to treat hundreds of people injured in the earthquake.

Speaking to ucanews.com on 7 August, Sister Paulina, a member of the Congregation of Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit and spokeswoman St. Anthony Catholic Hospital in the provincial capital of Mataram, said "Medical workers are really needed right now to treat the victims."

She said the hospital had treated more than a dozen victims.

"We placed them in the hospital's parking area as the situation was unpredictable, aftershocks continued to happen," Sister Paulina said. "This morning we took them to the hospital's treatment rooms."

The Jakarta archdiocese has asked each parish to decide how they should go about collecting for the earthquake victims.

Father Samuel Pangestu, the archdiocese's vicar-general, said there are various things each parish could do.

"They can use the second collection of Sunday Mass or distribute empty envelopes to parishioners [to make donations]," he told ucanews.com.

He said all funds collected would be sent directly to Denpasar Diocese.

Denpasar Diocese has issued a similar appeal.

The appeal called on parish priests to encourage parishioners to provide aid for quake victims.

The diocese recommended that parishes and Catholic foundations send financial aid or basic necessities such as rice, instant noodles, cooking oil, drinking water and milk.

Speaking with ucanews.com, Father Dewantoro said distribution would be carried out in cooperation with Caritas Indonesia.

"With the bishop's approval, we will use the money to buy necessities.

"An emergency response team will deliver material aid including mattresses, blankets and food this Friday," he said.

Source

• ucanews.com
• ucanews.com
• Image: Screenshot abcnews.go.com

Father Kevin Doran told the Irish Catholic that he left the governing board because "I can't reconcile my own conscience with the statement, largely because I feel a Catholic hospital has to bear witness."

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has asked the hospital for clarification, but a hospital spokesman told the Irish Catholic that there would be "no elaboration on the statement".

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But some Catholic doctors, who say the bishops relied on inaccurate medical information, question the assertion that this pill can function solely as a contraceptive.

The bishops came to their decision during a meeting of their episcopal conference just one month after two Catholic hospitals had been criticised for refusing to treat a victim of sexual assault.

Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg, the president of the conference, said the Church would remain firmly opposed to the use of any drugs that cause abortions.

In Spain, Dr Justo Aznar said he would write to the German bishops "to give them some scientific light about this topic".

"One could use the morning-after pill if we had the certainty that it was just a contraceptive, because in the case of rape that would be a positive thing," said Dr Aznar, head of pathobiology at La Fe Hospital, Valencia.

But he said there is scientific evidence that the pill also has an anti-implantation effect and is therefore also abortifacient. "I would say that approximately in half of the cases it acts as a contraceptive and the other half it has an anti-implantation effect."

Dr Simon Castellvi, president of the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, said that "the morning-after pill works as an anti-implantation product in 70 per cent of the cases where the woman is fertile".

Dr Catherine Vierling, who studied medicine at the Universities of Paris and Strasbourg, said: "There is absolutely no such pill with a 100 per cent guarantee that it will not cause an abortion."

But Dr John Haas, a bioethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center and a permanent member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said the morning-after pill could be used ethically if it was first determined that the woman had not ovulated.

Once it was determined that ovulation had not taken place — and that pregnancy could not have occurred — the standard morning-after pill could be used for its contraceptive effects.

Sources:

Spiegel Online

Catholic News Agency

Catholic News Agency

Image: Spiegel Online

Other hospitals in the Archdiocese of Barcelona and neighbouring dioceses also continue to perform abortions and sterilisations, and dispense contraceptives, all in opposition to Catholic teaching, according to protest organiser Fr. Custodio Ballester.

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