BRACKS TO REJECT VATICAN DRUG BAN

State Government plans to set up five heroin injecting rooms were
condemned yesterday by the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Dr George
Pell, as a bitter row erupted within the church over a Vatican ban on
the drug trials.

However, the Premier, Mr Steve Bracks, a Catholic, insisted the trial
would go ahead.

Conservative and progressive Catholics have split over an order from
Rome that Sydney's Sisters of Charity abandon involvement in the
country's first legal injecting room.

Dr Pell said yesterday heroin injecting rooms - designed to make
heroin use safer for addicts-was "misguided compassion" and no
Catholic agencies in Melbourne would be involved in such a program.

But after listening to Dr Pell's objections, Mr Bracks said: "I
appreciate and understand the decision of the Vatican and I accept
that. But these facilities will be in place in Victoria on trial in
the future, if councils agree with it, if their communities agree with
it as well.

"Look, they're (the Catholic Church) going through the same anguish
we're all going through. It's very difficult to know what to do, but
this is one thing which experts ... are saying should be trialled and
we want to give it a go to see if it does work."

The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, of which Dr
Pell has been a member for about nine years, decided the Sydney nuns'
plans posed an unacceptable risk that the Catholic position on drug
use could be misconstrued.

Dr Pell, just back from Rome, said he approved of the Vatican's
stance, though he would not discuss his advice to the
Congregation.

"We should not encourage governments to use this approach to avoid
their wider and more costly responsibilities to discourage the drug
culture and rehabilitate victims.

"It would be wrong of Rome to remain silent or rubber-stamp every
misguided initiative, however well-intentioned, on such a major global
crisis as drugs."

Rome's order to the Sisters of Charity was revealed late on Thursday,
just hours before NSW passed the Drug Reform Bill, clearing the way
for the Kings Cross trial.

Questioned about signals from the Uniting Church that it will canvass
taking over the experiment, Dr Pell said "we live in a free world".

The former provincial superior of the Jesuit order, Father Bill Uren,
criticised the Vatican's decision as "heavy-handed" and made with
insufficient knowledge.

And Father Peter Norden, director of Jesuit Social Services in
Melbourne, called for compassion, asking the Vatican to look "more
closely" at what is happening in parishes around Australia, where drug
addicts were using church toilets and school grounds to inject themselves.

The Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, said he supported the Vatican's
position. "I also happen to agree with the result. I don't support
injecting rooms. I never have and I never will."