German expresses anger over Vatican ban of pregnancy advice center

Published: 2007-03-26

COLOGNE, Germany (CNS) -- A prominent Catholic laywoman has called on German bishops to protect Catholics at a pregnancy counseling center after the most recent Vatican denouncement of the center. Rita Waschbusch, chairwoman of Donum Vitae (The Gift of Life), which provides pregnancy counseling, expressed anger over the Vatican's most recent letter which said Catholics should refuse to support the lay organization. In mid-March Waschbusch, former president of the Central Committee of German Catholics, urged the Bavarian bishops to shield those involved in Donum Vitae from "unworthy insults" and accusations that they are involved in "the killing of the unborn and activities against the church." She said the early February Vatican letter was part of a plot by some within the German Catholic Church to force the German bishops, against their will, to toe a Vatican line. "It's up to the German bishops ... whether they are prepared to be made to look like fools by a letter which has been requested from Rome by a few extremists," Waschbusch said. U.S. Cardinal William J. Levada, head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told the Bavarian bishops in the letter that they should act "intelligently and decisively" to ensure that all the faithful "desist from any form of support" of Donum Vitae. The letter was not published; brief extracts were printed March 14 in the Catholic newspaper Tagespost.

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