Lima, Peru, Jul 29, 2008 / 15:54 pm
During the Te Deum marking Peru’s Independence Day, the Archbishop of Lima, Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne, called on the government to resist international pressure to pass laws that would “attack life and the family.”
During the ceremony at the Cathedral of Lima attended by President Alan Garcia and numerous government officials, the cardinal pointed out that the Church “defends the person, today more than ever, because she is concerned about some tendencies to limit the inviolable value of human life itself or to disassociate it from its natural environment, which is human lived in marriage and the family.”
He warned that “there is more and more pressure from certain ideological groups to achieve the legalization of abortion in the countries of Latin America, including our own. These minority groups, which make a lot of noise in the media and receive millions from overseas, seek to intimidate the average citizen and push for the legalization of new forms of abortion, under the pretext of ‘reproductive health’ and other slogans that lead to confusion,” the cardinal said.
“We wish to recall on this solemn occasion that the right to life is a right that should be recognized by all, because it is a fundamental right with respect to all other human rights,” he stated.