Peruvian bishops call on faithful to defend the unborn

Lima, Peru, Mar 6, 2005 / 22:00 pm

The Committee on the Family of the Bishops Conference of Peru has published a message commemorating the Day of the Unborn Child, exhorting Catholics to leave behind indifference and to assume a greater commitment to the defence of the unborn. In Peru the Day of the Unborn Child is celebrated on March 25, the Solemnity of the Annunciation. 

The message underscores that this year the solemnity falls on Good Friday, the day on which “the Lord, defenceless, is humiliated and mistreated in his human dignity,” and that just like the young victims of abortion, “he is silent” as he has taken to his death.

The message recalls that on that day, the people “closed their eyes to the truth,” and today many people as well refuse to see “the truth about the unborn,” denying them the status of human being by calling them “a mass of tissue,” and mistreating them through “laboratory manipulation,” whether for experimentation or for reproductive purposes.

The child, “who did not ask to be conceived,” the message continues, is in some cases “the victim of an unjust judgment” and is put to death with an increasingly sophisticated arsenal, as if he were responsible for “the faults of others.”

Therefore the Bishops’ Committee on the Family is calling on Catholics to step up their efforts to defend the right to life of the unborn, which should be inviolate regardless of the circumstances of conception.

The Christian is called to be a promoter of life, the committee writes, to show solidarity towards “those pregnant women who for different reasons are experiencing difficulties in their maternity.”

Lastly, the bishops thank “God for the gift of life, which tenderly shines in the unborn child,” and pray for the intercession of Mary for women who carry life within them.

Publicity campaign

The Bishops’ Committee on the Family has also produced pamphlets that will be distributed across the country and that underscore that “thanks to science, we know that life begins at conception,” when sperm and egg unite and give “life to a new human being that is unique and unrepeatable.”

The pamphlets also point out that the right to life “is the most basic of all human rights,” and that to violate it “constitutes a crime against God and humanity.”