After praying the Regina Coeli, Pope Francis thanked those who participated in a march against abortion and euthanasia in Rome.
POPE FRANCIS
I thank you for your dedication in promoting life and defending conscientious objection, which there are often attempts to limit.
He insisted that life is a gift that humanity must defend and respect.
POPE FRANCIS
Sadly, in these last years, there has been a change in the common mentality, and today we are more and more led to think that life is a good at our complete disposal, that we can choose to manipulate, to give birth or take life as we please.
Let us remember that life is a gift from God.
The Pope also asked Christians to pray for China, which on Tuesday celebrates the feast of its patronness: Mary Help of Christians.
POPE FRANCIS
I invite all of you to unite yourselves in this prayer so that the Church in China, in freedom and tranquility, might live in effective communion with the universal Church.
Before finishing, Pope Francis recalled that Pauline Jaricot would be beatified that afternoon, the French laywoman who, 200 years ago, founded the Society of the Propagation of the Faith, which eventually developed into the Pontifical Mission Societies.
JRB
TR: JM
