Ireland's Catholic bishops have repeated their request to Cura, the church's crisis pregnancy agency, to discontinue "for the moment" offering a Positive Options leaflet to women with crisis pregnancies.
In a statement yesterday, following their autumn meeting in Maynooth, they said they had asked Cura's national executive committee to work with them in raising concerns with the Crisis Pregnancy Agency (CPA) about the leaflet. It contains details of agencies which supply abortion information.
Cura receives more funding annually from the CPA than any other service for women with a crisis pregnancy. As part of its "service-level agreement" with the CPA, Cura is expected to make the Positive Options leaflet available to women seeking help.
Last June the bishops asked Cura to stop supplying the Positive Options leaflet. Since then Cura has been referring women seeking information on abortion to their GPs.
The bishops' decision in June followed controversy in Cura which led the agency to dismiss four volunteers in Donegal when they raised concerns about abortion information available from agencies listed in the leaflet. Yesterday the bishops said they were continuing dialogue with the four Letterkenny volunteers.
Meanwhile, the bishops designated Sunday, November 6th, as a day when Irish people could contribute towards helping victims of Hurricane Katrina, including supporting severely damaged churches and schools, many run by Irish priests.
A subcommittee of bishops was set up to make recommendations on the future of their Stewardship Trust (set up to assist victims of clerical sex abuse) to the December meeting.
They also asked that next month the work and lives of Irish missionaries who died violently overseas be remembered. Bishop Colm O'Reilly, chair of the National Mission Council, said that "more Irish missionaries have lost their lives in this generation than . . . over the last 100 years".
As a focus for the commemoration, a group of 14 has been selected from Ireland, as a way of honouring all. It was also decided that priests would receive e-mail briefings after each of the bishops' Maynooth meetings, from March of next year.
It was also announced that Archbishop Seán Brady of Armagh and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin will attend the synod of bishops in Rome from Sunday next. The synod theme is "The Eucharist: source and summit of the life and mission of the Church". It continues until October 29th.