President of the Polish Episcopate: I call on all people of good will to speak unequivocally in favour of life

In the spirit of responsibility for the Church in Poland and for the good of our common homeland, I call upon all people of good will to speak unequivocally in favour of life – wrote the President of the Polish Bishops’ Conference Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki in a Statement on abortion.

Referring to St. John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium vitae, the President of the Polish Bishops’ Conference recalled that “laws which legitimize the direct killing of innocent human beings through abortion or euthanasia are in complete opposition to the inviolable right to life proper to every individual; they thus deny the equality of everyone before the law” (72).

Referring further to Evangelium vitae, the President of the Polish Episcopate pointed out that “in the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to ‘take part in a propaganda campaign in favour of such a law, or vote for it’”. (73).

The President of the Polish Episcopate stressed that the teaching of the Church’s Magisterium is unequivocal: “every person – not only a member of the Catholic Church – of right conscience is faced with the moral obligation to respect human life from its beginning until natural death”.

Archbishop Gądecki pointed out that although in a democracy the majority decides, “this does not mean that the majority is right, but only that the minority could not find sufficiently convincing arguments to become the majority. Rationality is not determined by the number of supporters of a given view. Reason – above all ethical reason – is often on the side of the minority. And sometimes – as the figure of Socrates reminds us – on the side of the individual man with a well-formed conscience”.

“In the spirit of responsibility for the Church in Poland and for the good of our common homeland, I call on all people of good will to speak unequivocally in favour of life” – the President of the Polish Episcopate stressed. He also appealed to members of both houses of parliament and the President of the Republic of Poland “to bear witness to a genuine concern for life defenceless because it is unborn”.

Press Office of the Polish Bishops’ Conference