Andrea Bocelli clarifies that his message is pro-life, not merely anti-abortion

Rome, Italy, Jun 20, 2010 / 12:01 am MT (CNA).-

Following the popular video in which he recounts how his mother ignored the advice of doctors to have an abortion, tenor Andrea Bocelli said he does not want his testimony to be considered as merely anti-abortion, but also in support of life.

“Because of my personal convictions as a devout Catholic, I am not only fighting against something, I am fighting for something - and I am for life,” he told the Italian newspaper, Il Foglio.

Bocelli said he wants his video “to help comfort those who are in difficult situations and who sometimes just need to feel that they are not alone. Life is hard, but we need to listen, we need to open our ears” to embrace them.

Bocelli said he has been surprised by the calls he has received following the video.  “I said those things a year and a half ago in a video message for Father Richard Frechette, a missionary who works with children in Haiti and deserves to have a book written just about him. I gave a concert to help him build the Home of the Angels and he asked me to say a few words of hope for mothers in difficult circumstances and I decided to tell the story of my birth.”

“I did so recounting the private experience of my mother without asking her permission, but she didn’t admonish me. I wasn’t ready for all the uproar it has created,” Bocelli said.

 As a young boy, he continued, “I was very hyper and quite naïve.” He said he has loved music ever since he was a boy. “My mother tells me that I would cry whenever I heard a song, even through the wall from another room in the hospital.  I would turn towards the sound and listen with glee.”