Spanish bishops to launch new pro-life campaign

Madrid, Spain, Mar 28, 2005 / 22:00 pm

Coinciding with the tenth anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae on April 4, the Bishops Conference of Spain announced it would launch a new pro-life campaign under the theme “All of us were embryos.”

It will be the third such initiative on matters of life and the family organized by the Conference.  Previously the bishops organized campaigns on euthanasia and marriage.

“Human life, a precious gift of God, is sacred and inviolable,” the bishops recall, pointing out that “human beings must be respected and treated as persons from the moment of conception and, therefore, from that moment their rights as persons, principally the inviolable right of all innocent human beings to life, must be recognized.”

The bishops will be distributing some six million pamphlets that picture a sleeping infant and a large family and provide details on embryonic research.

The bishops will also sponsor seminars and roundtable discussions at parishes and Catholic locals.  One such event will take place at the University of Navarre April 6-8 under the title, “Contemporary society and the culture of life.  On the tenth anniversary of ‘Evangelium Vitae’.”

The Subcommittee on Family and the Defense of Life of the Bishops Conference has issued a statement noting that all attacks on human life are “attacks against justice and constitute an offense to God.”