In his annual message of the World Day of Peace on January 1, Pope Benedict expressed concern about continued attacks on human dignity and said true peacemakers are those who work to defend human life from abortion.
LifeNews is reporting that the statement, which was issued on the same day as the tragic shooting of 28 people at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, expressed the Pope’s concern about increasing attacks on human rights and human dignity, from abortion to attempts to restrict religious freedom.
Entitled, “Blessed are the Peacemakers,” it reminds us that we all have a role to play in building peace in our communities and the world. The message focuses on human dignity, rights and responsibilities, as well as the fiftieth anniversary of Pope John XXIIIs Pacem in Terris.
True peacemakers, “are those who love, defend and promote human life in all its dimensions,” the Pope wrote.
He went on to say that governments must recognize and uphold “the right to invoke the principle of conscientious objection in the face of laws or government measures that offend against human dignity, such as abortion and euthanasia.”
Even in countries of long-standing Christian tradition, “instances of religious intolerance are becoming more numerous,” he wrote, “especially in relation to Christianity and those who simply wear identifying signs of their religion.”
He continued: “Those who insufficiently value human life, and in consequence, support among other things the liberalization of abortion perhaps do not realize that in this way they are proposing the pursuit of a false peace, since peace presupposes protecting the weakest,” he wrote.
“The path to the attainment of the common good and to peace is above all that of respect for human life in all its many aspects, beginning with its conception, through its development and up to its natural end. True peacemakers, then, are those who love, defend and promote human life in all its dimensions, personal, communitarian and transcendent. Life in its fullness is the height of peace. Anyone who loves peace cannot tolerate attacks and crimes against life.”
Click here to read the full message.
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