donum vitae (association)

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donum vitae to promote the protection of human life
legal form Registered association
founding September 24, 1999
Seat Bonn ( ⊙ coordinates: 50 ° 44 ′ 16.9 ″  N , 7 ° 5 ′ 44.2 ″  E )
purpose Pregnancy conflict counseling
Chair Olaf Tyllack
Managing directors Andrea Redding
Website www.donumvitae.org

The independent, civil-legal association donum vitae for the promotion of the protection of human life e. V. (from the Latin donum vitae 'gift of life') offers pregnancy conflict counseling in over 200 counseling centers across Germany as well as online counseling. It was founded in September 1999 from the ranks of the members of the Central Committee of German Catholics after the Catholic associations German Caritas Association and Social Service of Catholic Women (SKF) no longer participated in state pregnancy counseling. In contrast to the church counseling centers, donum vitae issues counseling certificates which, in accordance with Section 218a (1) of the Criminal Code, enable an abortion within a specified period .

The aim of the association is, according to its own statements, “to work for the protection of human life, in particular the protection of the life of unborn children”, which is done in particular through free advice and help for women in conflict situations.

donum vitae sees itself as a denominational Catholic , focused on the right to life of the unborn child and open-ended in the counseling process ; the association acts out of Christian responsibility, but not with church official recognition, i.e. not in the name or on behalf of the church , but in the church.

The seat of the association is in Bonn . He is funded by the foundation of the same name "DONUM VITAE - Foundation of German Catholics for the Protection of Human Life". The Bavarian counseling centers are 90% financed by state grants.

aims

donum vitae is founded by Catholic Christians and is supported together with Christians of other denominations and people who agree to their principles and goals. After the withdrawal of the Catholic bishops from the legal counseling system, donum vitae was founded by lay people as a registered association on September 24, 1999 in order to preserve the Catholic element in the system of state-recognized pregnancy conflict counseling . The foundation of donum vitae stems from the conviction that mandatory, open-ended, but targeted advice is the best way to reach women in conflict and to protect unborn life.

Advice offer

The association advises around 50,000 women annually in its more than 200 advice centers and online advice. In 2017 around 53,000 initial consultations took place, of which around 16,500 (approx. 1/3) conflict counseling according to § 219 In contrast to the advice centers of Caritas and the SkF, the advice centers of donum vitae issue an advice certificate. He confirms that a targeted (on the right to life of the unborn child) and at the same time open-ended counseling has taken place and is one of the three prerequisites (compulsory counseling, three-month period, medical performance) that a woman under German criminal law (§ 218a para. 1 StGB) a termination of pregnancy is granted impunity.

In Bavaria, 24,082 people were counted in the counseling centers in 2017, 3,308 of them for conflict counseling, which corresponds to a share of 14%.

In addition to pregnancy conflict counseling, donum vitae is also involved in prevention and sex education from kindergarten to vocational schools, offers grief counseling and psychosocial counseling in connection with prenatal diagnosis, advises and accompanies a confidential birth and is involved in refugee work.

Church official attitude

The German bishops declared on June 20, 2006 that donum vitae was "an association outside the Catholic Church". In this declaration, persons who are in the church service are prohibited from participating in donum vitae . Believers "who take responsibility in the church councils and participation bodies as well as in the church associations and organizations" are requested to refrain "for the purpose of the greatest clarity of the church witness from leading participation in Donum Vitae".

The background to the dispute is the 1998 letter from Pope John Paul II to the German bishops, in which he urged them to ensure that counseling cards for pregnancy conflict counseling are no longer issued in the "ecclesiastical or church-related counseling centers" . Because there is an ambiguity attached to these counseling certificates insofar as they document counseling in favor of the unborn child's right to life, but at the same time lead to the impunity of an abortion in addition to other conditions. According to the Pope, this makes the church's witness to the protection of the unborn child more credible, because it is more decisive and not obscured by any ambiguity. The German bishops have complied with this request, so that since 2000 there has been no advice center assigned to the Catholic Church that issues the said advice cards. donum vitae , on the other hand, sticks to the consultation with written confirmation, which is criticized by the official church.

On July 20, 2006, a group of well-known lay people, including Bernhard Vogel , Hans Maier , Annette Schavan , Walter Bayerlein and Hanna-Renate Laurien , spoke up against the declaration of the German bishops with an interjection to the declaration of the German bishops. It clarifies the legal form of donum vitae that it is an association that is not active with episcopal recognition. However, donum vitae is by no means an association outside the Catholic Church, since most of the members are committed members of the Catholic Church.

The episcopal declaration of 2006 has also been criticized from a scientific perspective. The Regensburg canon lawyer Sabine Demel has stated that the classification of the donum vitae association as an association “outside” the church is theologically and legally not tenable. In their opinion, this arises not only from the four basic types of church association law (cf. c.215; cc. 298-329 CIC), but even more fundamentally from the church's doctrine of the captive imprint that gives baptism. Because of this captive stamp, the Catholic Church has always had the following principle: once Catholic - always Catholic. An association founded by Catholics with reference to their baptismal mission and responsibility for baptism for the charitable purpose of protecting unborn life and “promoting the Christian vocation in the world” (c. 215 CIC ) in this area of ​​prenatal life could therefore be not be resettled outside the church. The fact that the association structures are designed as a "registered association (= eV)" according to secular law does nothing to change that.

The episcopal rejection of the association has been weakening since 2014. So the Bishop of Regensburg permitted after initial resistance Rudolf Voderholzer the participation of Donum vitae in Catholic 2014 in Regensburg . The chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, Reinhard Cardinal Marx , had confirmed the attitude of the German bishops towards the association in the run-up to the Catholic Day and saw "little leeway", but added that donum vitae employees should not be excluded from the church.

In 2018, the chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, gave the Donum Vitae a positive appreciation and recognized that it is successfully committed to protecting life. Since then, people who have worked in a pregnancy conflict counseling center run by Donum Vitae eV can again be employed in an episcopally recognized pregnancy counseling center.

Canonical position

The association Donum vitae is after the church right of association to qualify a free association "for the purposes of Caritas" and "to promote the Christian vocation" (c. 215 CIC) in the area of prenatal life of the Roman Catholic Church. It is not officially recognized by the church and is therefore a church but non-canonical association. According to secular law, donum vitae is a registered association "eV".

Federal Executive

  • Olaf Tyllack (Chairman)
  • Angelika Knoll (Deputy Chair)
  • Constanze Nattermann (Deputy Chair)

Further board members are

Adelheid Wahlen (Berlin), Margareta Meyer (Lower Saxony), Monika Stolz (Baden-Württemberg), Irmgard Klaff-Isselmann (Hesse), Constanze Nattermann (Rhineland-Palatinate), Stefan Braun (Schleswig-Holstein), Christa Kaluza (Saxony), Bernward Credo (Thuringia) and Thomas Quast (North Rhine-Westphalia). Andrea Redding is the managing director of the federal office.


Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Statute donum vitae for the promotion of the protection of human life e. V § 2 Paragraph 1. Donum Vitae, September 19, 2015, accessed on June 26, 2019 .
  2. ↑ donum vitae, the association website of donum vitae. Retrieved January 16, 2020.
  3. ↑ Who we are and what we do. donum vitae, accessed May 31, 2014 .
  4. ↑ See annual statistics 2017 for 'donum vitae' in Bayern eV
  5. ↑ "Advice and Help". In: Donum Vitae. Retrieved May 8, 2019 .
  6. ^ Declaration by the German bishops on Donum Vitae eV of June 20, 2006, in: Abl Regensburg 6 (2006), 59.
  7. ↑ The Pope's letter to the German bishops is printed in: ORdt No. 5 of January 11, 1998, p. 1 i. V. m. P. 11.
  8. ^ Declaration by the German bishops on Donum Vitae eV of June 20, 2006, in: Abl Regensburg 6 (2006), 59.
  9. ^ Voices of the time , Maier SJ, Martin, Subsidiarität und Donum Vitae: in: Voices of the time.
  10. ↑ Sabine Demel, Called to Responsibility. Nail tests of the lay apostolate, Freiburg i.Br. 2009, pp. 316-322.
  11. ↑ Bishop gives up resistance - Donum Vitae is allowed to go to Catholic Day. (No longer available online.) Bayerischer Rundfunk, September 19, 2013, archived from the original on October 14, 2013 ; accessed on January 22, 2020 .
  12. ↑ kath.net, May 29, 2014 , accessed on January 16, 2020.
  13. ↑ Tagesschau on January 26, 2018 , accessed on January 16, 2020.
  14. ↑ Sabine Demel: Called to responsibility. Nail tests of the lay apostolate . Freiburg im Breisgau 2009, p. 316 .
  15. ↑ Imprint. In: Donum Vitae. Retrieved June 26, 2019 .
  16. ↑ https://www.donumvitae.org/Bundesvorstand
  17. ↑ Generation change at the top - Accessed October 21, 2019