LAY Catholics in Germany are preparing to establish privately funded pregnancy advice centres after the Pope ordered official church agencies to stop issuing certificates that allow women to have abortions.
Women in Germany may only have an abortion if they can prove that they sought pregnancy counselling by producing a certificate issued by one of 1,600 recognised pregnancy advice centres. The Catholic Church runs 270 of these centres and Catholic counsellors claim that 25 per cent of the women they see decide to continue their pregnancy to full term.
Conservatives Catholics have long complained that, by issuing certificates which allow women to have an abortion, the church-run advice centres are complicit in the death of the unborn. When the Pope expressed concern about the issue, the German bishops amended the certificate in June by adding the words "this certificate may not be used to procure an abortion".
The state continued to recognise the document, however, and after a meeting with four German bishops at his summer residence in Castelgandolfo on Wednesday, the Pope ordered them to stop issuing the certificate altogether.
The Pope's decision, which will be conveyed to the German Bishops' Conference in a letter to their autumn assembly next week, puts him in direct conflict with the majority of German bishops. It drew a scathing response from lay Catholics yesterday, who accused conservatives within the church of intriguing in Rome to wreck the bishops' compromise.
"We are not answerable in our conscience to the Holy Father but we stand with our conscience before God," said Mr Stefan Vesper, general secretary of the Central Committee of Catholics in Germany.
Many Catholics argue that, by withdrawing from the state-approved pregnancy advice system, the church is forfeiting its opportunity to persuade women to change their minds about having an abortion. Mr Vesper suggested that lay Catholics could set up their own advice centres and issue the certificates required for state recognition. "I can well imagine that prominent Catholics, both inside and outside the Central Committee, will set up an account for donations," he said.
The government has warned bishops that all state funding for Catholic pregnancy advice centres will be withdrawn if the church refuses to issue counselling certificates. The controversy could also damage co-operation between the church and the state in other areas, such as health, education and social services. The church affairs spokeswoman of the Greens, Ms Christa Nickels, said that the Pope's decision meant that the church was no longer "a dependable partner" for the state.
