San Juan, Puerto Rico, Mar 30, 2004 / 12:00 am (CNA).- During the Mass for the Day of the Unborn Child, celebrated on March 25, the Archbishop of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Roberto Gonzalez Nieves, reaffirmed Church teaching on abortion and exhorted the government to promote abstinence and the natural law as the only legitimate methods of family planning.

Surrounded by hundreds of young people from more than 70 Catholic schools participating in the Mass and later in a procession, the Archbishop underscored that any woman pregnant because of rape and who carries the child to term commits a “heroic act.”

“In the case of rape we must remember that the unborn child is not guilty of the violence of the man who raped the woman, and it takes an act of heroism by the mother to nurture and treasure this child and to carry her to term,” he said.

Archbishop Gonzalez also mentioned new public policy which would permit informing minors about abortion and possibly the distribution of contraceptives, emphasizing that the message of abstinence, which is gaining popularity in the US and Europe, is what’s most important.

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