In Italy, Pope Francis reached out to the pro-life movement and encouraged them to be faithful to their commitment to life. His comments came on the day that Italy celebrates the Day for Life; and he called all Christians to “a renewed esteem of the human person and a more adequate care of life, from conception to natural death.”
He added, “I extend my appreciation to the associations, movements and all those who defend human life.”
The Pope said that by opening ourselves to life and serving life, “we experience the revolutionary power of love and tenderness, inaugurating a new humanism: the humanism of solidarity, a humanism of life,” he said.
The Pope’s words today followed on other recent declarations. For his annual Christmas message, Pope Francis compared the killing of unborn children to King Herod’s hunt for the baby Jesus, and said that abortion is the result of “the selfishness of a culture that does not love life.”
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A week ago, Francis called the maternal womb “the first ‘school’ of communication,” where a person begins to familiarize himself with the outside world “within a protected environment, with the reassuring sound of the mother’s heartbeat.”
In 2013, Pope Francis reiterated the Catholic Church’s pro-life stance and promised that they will never compromise on their opposition against abortion. He said, “I want to be completely honest in this regard. This is not something subject to alleged reforms or ‘modernizations’. It is not “progressive” to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life.”
However, the Church’s unchanging view of abortion doesn’t stop some from expressing their belief that a faithful Catholic can be pro-abortion. In an article on Salon.com, pro-abortion writer Mary Elizabeth Williams, explains that even though she disagrees with the majority of Catholic doctrine, she still loves the church. But the interesting thing about Williams is she’s not just pro-abortion, she’s an abortionist extremist. At one point she explained that she knows life begins at conception, but more or less doesn’t care. She said, “Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers.”
Later she added, ““I would put the life of a mother over the life of a fetus every single time — even if I still need to acknowledge my conviction that the fetus is indeed a life. A life worth sacrificing.”
Other pro-abortion Catholics include Vice President Joe Biden and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who once said late-term abortion is “sacred ground.” Pelosi said, “As a practicing and respectful Catholic, this is sacred ground to me when we talk about this. This shouldn’t have anything to do with politics.”
As LifeNews previously reported, in an open letter to Pelosi, Father Frank Pavone, the director of Priests for Life, said, “With this statement, you make a mockery of the Catholic faith and of the tens of millions of Americans who consider themselves “practicing and respectful Catholics” and who find the killing of children — whether inside or outside the womb — reprehensible. Abortion is not sacred ground; it is sacrilegious ground. To imagine God giving the slightest approval to an act that dismembers a child he created is offensive to both faith and reason,” the letter adds. “And to say that a question about the difference between a legal medical procedure and murder should not “have anything to do with politics” reveals a profound failure to understand your own political responsibilities, which start with the duty to secure the God-given right to life of every citizen.”
Pavone concludes: “Mrs. Pelosi, for decades you have gotten away with betraying and misrepresenting the Catholic faith as well as the responsibilities of public office. We have had enough of it. Either exercise your duties as a public servant and a Catholic, or have the honesty to formally renounce them.”
