Baltimore, Md., Nov 15, 2022 / 17:04 pm
Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the chair of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities is encouraging his fellow bishops to practice radical solidarity with pregnant women and the unborn — and to remember, in the words of St. Teresa of Calcutta, that “we belong to one another.”
“We cannot pretend to understand what women in all such circumstances are going through,” Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore said Tuesday of pregnant women who are struggling. “But this much we do know: They are our sisters. We are their brothers. They are our neighbors, and we are their neighbors. Their distress is our distress, their struggle is our struggle.”
Lori made his remarks while addressing the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ fall general assembly in Baltimore just hours after he was elected its new vice president.
His comments echoed his past statements following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to overturn Roe v. Wade in a ruling that frees individual states to decide abortion policy. Since then, Lori has expressed support for a proposed national 15-week abortion ban and has written to members of Congress, along with other bishops, about building a life-affirming society.