Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Cross
Newspaper Of The Diocese Of Savannah
Vol. 70 No. 23
Thursday, June 7, 1990
$12.00 Per Year
Pope, Gorbachev Crucial Figures In European Changes
BY JOHN THAVIS of Gorbachev were “two facts that,
because of their unforeseen nature and the
influence they exercised, must surely be
considered fundamental” to the change.
The Polish pope’s defense of human and
religious rights had a profound echo in his
homeland, he said. Among the East-bloc
nations, Poland was the ripest for reform
and in fact became the first to challenge its
communist regime, he noted.
No less surprising was Gorbachev’s
emergence, Cardinal Casaroli said.
Without naming the Soviet leader, the car
dinal characterized him as “a voice of
great authority raised to denounce the
failure of the system and in recognition of
the urgent necessity to change direction.”
Gorbachev saw the need to “turn to
democratic methods in order to heal the
mortal wounds of the people, caused by a
long dictatorship of a socio-political, moral
and economic type,” Cardinal Casaroli
said.
There remain “very serious and difficult
problems,” the cardinal said, but under
the new approach they, are no longer hid
den. He said that “a clear vision and
courageous action represent the only
realistic and effective way to a solution,
which is in the interest of everyone to en
courage and support.”
(Continued on page 5)
SUMMIT LEADERS — President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail
Gorbachev stand together during welcoming ceremonies in
Washington May 31 at the start of Gorbachev’s May 31-June 3 meeting
with the U.S. president. (CNS photo from UPI)
VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Pope John
Paul 11 and Mikhail Gorbachev were the
two crucial figures in Eastern Europe’s
political revolution, said Vatican
Secretary of State Cardinal Agostino
Casaroli.
Cardinal Casaroli credited Gorbachev
with speaking out against the failures of
communism. He said the Soviet leader,
while facing serious problems, was seek
ing a real solution — “which is in the in
terest of everyone to encourage and sup
port.”
The cardinal made the comments June 2
in Krakow, Poland, where he was receiv
ing an honorary degree. An Italian transla
tion of his Polish-language speech was
released at the Vatican.
Cardinal Casaroli said that for decades,
as the Vatican’s chief negotiator in
Eastern Europe, he was convinced that
communism was a bankrupt system that
had moved far away from its utopian
goals. But, along with others, he was sur
prised last year when one East European
country after another began throwing off
communist rule.
Looking back, the cardinal said, the
election of Pope John Paul II and the rise
Kj
Ethicist Sees
Link Between Euthanasia, Abortion
BY NICK SCHINKER
OMAHA, Neb. (CNS) — A Georgetown
University ethicist said he believes there is
a link between public acceptance of abor
tion and a growing debate over legalizing
voluntary euthanasia.
Dr. Edmund D. Pellegrino, director of
the Center for the Advanced Study of
Ethics at Georgetown in Washington, was
in Omaha to accept his 29th honorary
degree, this one from Jesuit-run Creighton
University.
In an interview with The Catholic Voice,
newspaper of the Archdiocese of Omaha,
he said legalization of voluntary
euthanasia would be a disaster.
“The way you look at abortion and the
way you look at euthanasia, be it direct or
voluntary, or indirect or involuntary,
reflects the way you look upon human
life,” said the former president of The
Catholic University of America in
Washington.
“Life is a gift of God,” said the
physician-educator. “We have steward
ship over it.”
Abortion and euthanasia, he said, “have
become part of the same spectrum — of
looking at life in a way that overlooks a
creator. It doesn’t allow the Holy Spirit to
operate. It says we know better.”
Legalizing voluntary euthanasia has
been discussed in several western states,
he said, noting an attempt last year to
place a referendum on the ballot in Califor
nia.
“It was defeated,” he said, “but it will
be back.”
Such a law. Dr Pellegrino said, “would
be a disaster based on the values I hold,
that we are not absolute masters of our
lives.”
“Also, if you convert doctors into
killers,” he said, “you’re going to under
mine any remnant of trust that remains in
that (doctor-patient) relationship.”
Also, he said, such a law would “divert
us from the attention we should give to how
to relieve pain and suffering. It becomes to
easy to simply end it.”
In Washington state, a group called
Washington Citizens for Death with Digni
ty is trying to get 150,000 on an initiative to
permit physicians to “aid in dying.” That
state’s bishops oppose it.
Proposed legalization of voluntary
euthanasia, in which the patient decides to
end his or her life, usually includes the
claim that such life-ending decisions will
be regulated, said Dr. Pellegrino, who is
also Georgetown’s John Carroll professor
of medicine and medical humanities.
“We know from past experience that
such regulation isn’t likely to be suc
cessful,” he said.
“So where do you draw the line? How
about a patient who is not terminal but who
has simply grown tired of living?” he ask
ed.
At Georgetown, Dr. Pellegrino said,
“our concern is with all major ethical
issues” in the fields of medicine, law and
economics in conjunction with church
teachings in philosophy and theology.
“Any serious decision in life involves an
ethical component,” he said, and it has
become education’s responsibility to raise
public sensitivities to those issues.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNALISTS VISIT DIOCESE — Fr. William
Simmons, Vicar General tor the Diocese of Savannah, poses with five
journalists from overseas countries who visited the Catholic Pastoral
Center to interview him recently. Pictured, from left to right, are Tibor
Szendrei from Hungary, Dr. Kerstin Harzem from Germany, Paulo
Casaca from Portugal, Ursula Mogg from Germany and Zbigniew
Nosowski from Poland. The journalists, who are visiting the U.S. as
part of the Marshall Memorial Fellows program, asked Fr. Simmons
questions about the problems and joys facing the Catholic Church in
the South today. (Photo by Barbara King)