Mainz - German bishops want to continue funding abortion counselling clinics even if the German Catholic Church stops issuing certificates allowing women to have abortions, a church leader said yesterday. The comments follow a November decision by the German Catholic Church to stop issuing the certificates, a move which also threatened church funding for more than a seventh of the country's abortion counselling centres.
But at the end of a four-day general assembly the bishops agreed they wanted to maintain that funding.
The bishops also welcomed Pope John Paul II's apology for the historical sins of the Catholic Church.
