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First Book Published by Pope Emphasizes that the Fight against Legal Abortion Must Continue. VATICAN CITY, June 22, 2005 – In his first book published since his election as Pope, Benedict XVI rejects the suggestion that the Church has given up its fight for the right to life of the unborn, instead emphasizing that “There is no such thing as ‘small murders.’” “Respect for every single life is an essential condition for anything worthy of being called social life,” he wrote, as reported by Reuters news. The book, The Europe of Benedict, in the Crisis of Cultures – only available in Italian – is a compilation of three sermons delivered between 1992 and April 2005 by the Pope while he was still Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. “Why don't we resign ourselves to the fact that we lost [the abortion] battle and dedicate our energies instead to projects where we can find greater social consensus?” Pope Benedict XVI asks rhetorically. “Recognising the sacred nature of human life and its inviolability without any exceptions is not a small problem or something that can be considered part of the pluralism of opinions in modern society,” he answers. The Holy Father also questions why modern society is repulsed by the thought of infanticide, “while becoming virtually insensitive to abortion. Maybe because in abortion you don't see the face of who will be condemned and never see the light,” he wrote. By allowing state-sanctioned execution of the unborn, “you become blind to the right of life of another, the youngest and weakest who doesn't have a voice,” he wrote. Pope Benedict also criticizes European lawmaker’s decision to exclude any mention of God from the new EU Constitution. “Europe has developed a culture that, in a manner unknown by humanity until now, excludes God from the public conscience,” he wrote. At a conference of the Diocese of Rome regarding the role of the family held at St John Lateran basilica on Monday, Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church’s stern opposition to same-sex union, abortion and embryo research.
Homosexual marriage has been overwhelmingly adopted by many countries in the world, especially in the US, Canada and Europe. In the wake of the slippery slope over family ethical values, Pope Benedict XVI has repeatedly defended marriage as a divine union between man and woman, based on biblical teachings. While gay marriage supporters use basic human rights and civil rights as a major argument for the legalisation of same-sex union, the Pope sharply described such marriage as "pseudo-matrimony" and "expression of an anarchic freedom that wrongly passes for true freedom of man". He also condemned other various forms of the dissolution of matrimony today such as free unions and trial marriages. The Pope said matrimony was not just a "casual sociological construction" that changed in certain times in history, but rather an institution that had its roots "in the most profound essence of the human being", according to the Associated Press. The Pope also spoke about abortion and embryo research, which are very sensitive issues prior to Italy voting in a referendum aimed at relaxing the country's stringent restrictions on fertility treatment. Children are the fruit of marriage and reflects God’s love for man, according to Pope Benedict. He condemned "terminating or manipulating life". Pope Benedict called for Christians to publicly reaffirm the "intangibility of human life from conception to its natural end." The phrase in defence of life "from conception to natural death" refers to the Church’s bans on abortion and euthanasia in the Vatican’s teaching. |
