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MOVES BY Spain's recently re-elected socialist Government to bar priests from hospital bioethics committees have come under fire from one of the country's 10 cardinals, writes Graham Keeley. Archbishop of Madrid Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco, who is also president of the Spanish bishops' conference, this week attacked an investigation by the country's attorney general into an agreement that allows Catholic priests to sit on ethics committees in hospitals in the capital city. It was signed 11 years ago by the bishops' conference and the conservative-run Madrid regional government. Last week the national Government, which won a general election in March, ordered Attorney General Cándido Conde-Pumpido to see if the hospital accord violated patients' "right to personal intimacy, autonomy, health and religious liberty". "The public health service cannot impose on patients based on religious beliefs," said Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, adding legal action may follow if "fundamental" rights have been broken. However, Cardinal Rouco dismissed the investigation as "an avalanche against fundamental values", adding that an absence of priests on hospital ethics committees would mean there would be no one to oppose measures such as abortion or euthanasia. "Without priests there will be no one to stand against the culture of death," said the cardinal. Juan José Güemes, of the Madrid regional government, said that in 1995 the socialist government of Prime Minister Felipe González sent a circular to the health authority in Madrid proposing that priests sit on hospital committees to debate matters such as bioethics. Two years later, under the right-wing Popular Party, the agreement was finalised to include priests on ethics and disciplinary committees in Madrid hospitals. The current row comes weeks after Cardinal Rouco and Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero agreed to aim for warmer relations after a succession of rows over issues such as abortion and homosexuality during the socialists' previous administration.  |
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