Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 31, 1995 TAG: 9503310077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VATICAN CITY LENGTH: Medium
John Paul, addressing himself to politicians, said abortion and euthanasia are ``crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize.''
``Evangelium vitae,'' or ``Gospel of Life,'' the 11th encyclical of John Paul's 16-year papacy, also refines the Church's stand on the death penalty, saying its justification is ``very rare,'' if not ``practically nonexistent.''
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican's guardian of orthodoxy, said the encyclical goes beyond the 1992 revision of the catechism in hardening the stance against capital punishment.
As for abortion and euthanasia, the encyclical is not a pronouncement of new doctrine, because the church already condemned those practices, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo noted.
In the encyclical, the pope also restates the Vatican's ban on birth control. He notes he was well aware of the assertion that ``contraception, if made safe and available to all, is the most effective remedy against abortion.''
But, he said, a ``contraceptive mentality'' could lead to the ``temptation'' for abortion.
``Indeed, the pro-abortion culture is especially strong precisely where the Church's teaching on contraception is rejected,'' the pope said, in a possible reference to liberal wings of the Catholic Church, such as in the United States.
However, he said it was permissible for lawmakers to back legislation allowing abortion under restrictions if the alternative was letting a law stand that was even more liberal.
Cardinal Adam Maida of the Archdiocese of Detroit praised the document and called on U.S. lawmakers and voters ``to work together to develop'' legislation with ``a new moral conscience.''
The pope expressed understanding for women who live through the often ``painful and even shattering'' experience of abortion. But he said no reason, ``however serious and tragic,'' justifies abortion - including a woman's ``desire to protect certain important values such as her own health or a decent standard of living'' for the rest of her family.
The pope also harshly denounced the death penalty, but refrained from a blanket condemnation of executions.
The encyclical said the death penalty was morally wrong in all but ``cases of absolute necessity ... when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society.''
by CNB