Protesters continue to gather outside of the U.S. Supreme Court days after it released its decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion in the country.
While American Catholics may have been a significant force in advocating for the outcome, the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life maintains Catholics should not abandon on entering into dialogue with those who oppose the decision.
ABP. VINCENZO PAGLIA
President, Pontifical Academy for Life
The fact that the ruling provoked such a strong debate indicates that this is an issue that deeply touches people's consciences, and the social fabric. So you can feel the need to return to the topic as calmly and peaceful as possible, I know it is very difficult, but constructive dialogue is essential.
I ask myself if this is not a favorable opportunity to more deeply reflect such a crucial issue.
The president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, says that an effect of the ruling is that it increases society's responsibility to support women and address the root causes of abortion.
ABP. VINCENZO PAGLIA
President, Pontifical Academy for Life
It's a matter of arousing and sustaining the responsibility of the whole of society to protect women's rights, their desire for motherhood, and then also to promote the conditions that allow for that, starting from education on affection, on how to live out one's sexuality with the awareness of all of its implications, and then overcoming the sometimes very serious inequalities and injustices which favor the choice to abort.
Above all, the head of the Vatican's pro-life body stresses that the Catholic conversation on promoting life must now expand beyond strictly abortion to ensuring each person can live with dignity.
ABP. VINCENZO PAGLIA
President, Pontifical Academy for Life
This is what we must fight for, so that every desire to abort may be transformed into a possible desire for pregnancy, but also so that access to guns is made as complicated and rare as possible. Having so many guns in hand is a grave threat to life.
That the lives of disabled persons, of immigrants, may be protected and safeguarded because every human life is precious before God and before humankind. We must fight so that the death penalty is abolished along with abortion.
The Academy's statement on decision joined the Vatican to the U.S. bishops, who called for healing in light of the decision, as well as a push for policies to give every woman “the support and resources she needs to bring her child into this world in love.”
JM
