Cardinal Rouco warns that 'crime of abortion casts shadow over history'

Madrid, Spain, Apr 21, 2009 / 18:18 pm

The Archbishop of Madrid and President of the Bishops’ Conference of Spain, Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, said Monday during the opening of the bishops’ 93rd Plenary Assembly that the “crime of abortion casts a shadow over the history of humanity,” in a reference to a measure the government intends to put forth this summer that would change the country’s law on abortion.

The cardinal said the new law “attempts to reduce democracy to an empirical mechanism” through which the approval of laws represents “simply a sort of common denominator of diverse opinions and interests present in society, even when what is in question is the fundamental right to life.”

“Without an objective moral foundation,” he continued, “not even democracy can ensure a stable peace, and the more peace is not founded upon the values human dignity and solidarity between all mankind, it is often an illusory peace.”

Cardinal Rouco said Spain has been immersed in recent decades “in a process of deterioration of moral awareness with respect to the sacred value of human life.”

“Since the 1983 law decriminalizing abortion, the situation has worsened both in practice and in law,” he added.

The cardinal noted that the concern over abortion “has always been at the center of the bishops’ interests during recent decades.”