Left image – Wikimedia Commons: Pope Leo XIV 3
Last week, Pope Leo XIV affirmed the Catholic Church’s pro-life teaching to over 100 ambassadors from different nations at the Vatican.
Addressing the Vatican Diplomatic Corps last Friday, Pope Leo said that “no one is exempted from striving to ensure respect for the dignity of every person, especially the most frail and vulnerable, from the unborn to the elderly”.
He added: “It is the responsibility of government leaders to work to build harmonious and peaceful civil societies. This can be achieved above all by investing in the family, founded upon the stable union between a man and a woman.”
Pope Leo blessed babies as he was driven around Vatican City in his popemobile last Sunday ahead of his inaugural mass, marking the formal beginning of his Pontificate.
The first American pope in history, Pope Leo, was reportedly the co-founder of the United States’ oldest college pro-life society, “Villanovans for Life”. He graduated from Villanova University in 1977.
Pope Francis devoted much of his final months to defending the right to life and the dignity of the unborn. One of his last public acts was to bless babies in St. Peter’s Square just one day before his death on Easter Monday.
While he was in hospital this year, Pope Francis issued a pro-life statement calling on the world to “advance the social protection of motherhood and the acceptance of human life in all its stages…
“A just society is not built by eliminating unwanted unborn children, elderly people who are no longer self-sufficient, or terminally ill patients.”
Pope Francis consistently called out “throwaway culture”, including abortion, and likened abortionists to “hitmen”. He also condemned euthanasia and assisted suicide.
In the Vatican’s Clementine Hall, where Pope Leo addressed ambassadors last Friday, Pope Francis hosted an international summit in February where he denounced “the murderous practice of abortion…
“Abortion suppresses the life of children and cuts off the source of hope for the whole of society.”
There were 45.1 million abortions worldwide in 2024, making it the leading cause of death, according to data sourced from the World Health Organization (WHO). The death toll exceeded the total military and civilian casualties during the First World War.
Over ten million unborn babies have been killed by abortion in the UK since the 1967 Abortion Act.
An amendment to the government’s crime and policing bill is now seeking to remove women from “criminal law related to abortion”, meaning that “no offence is committed by a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy”.
If passed, Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi’s amendment will effectively decriminalise all abortions up to the point of birth and for any reason.
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