CATHOLIC CHURCH MUST GRASP THE DRUGS NETTLE

The Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne is to be applauded for its
purchase of the property in Fitzroy where Mary MacKillop was born. The
decision to use it for the treatment of drug-dependent patients and
their families is certainly a worthwhile one.

Not so worthy, however, is the decision to oppose safe injecting
rooms.

No one has ever proposed safe injecting rooms as an answer to the
problem of drug addiction. Their overriding purpose is to save lives.
That they can do this is now beyond reasonable doubt.

Anyone in a position to act to save lives and who fails to do so must
bear some moral responsibility for the deaths.

When a senior prelate states in the public media that safe injecting
rooms are wrong in the grounds of “material cooperation", intelligent
Catholics can only gasp in disbelief.

This is an outmoded model of moral decision-making in complex issues;
there can be no reasonable objection on moral grounds to an injecting
room that constitutes an appropriate first-stage medical treatment of
intractable and often fatal illness.

Furthermore, to keep the ethical debate of this issue "in the family"
is a euphemism for the suppression of legitimate discussion of major
issues of public interest.

There are many Catholic professionals, myself included, who are
prepared to donate their time to supervision and counselling in safe
injecting rooms - if only those in authority would grasp the nettle.

Dr PETER EVANS,
Hawthorn