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The following is an exclusive Toronto Catholic Witness translation of the official Communique issued in the name of the Polish Bishops' Conference.
The 25th of March - The Day for Sanctity of Life
The Council for the Family, of the Polish Bishops' Conference on the Annunciation, as we celebrate the Day for Sanctity of Life, makes an urgent appeal for the intention of celebrating this day in churches and with ones families.
Today we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the St. John Paul II's encyclical Evangelium Vitae. The Holy Father writes in it: It is therefore a service of love which we are all committed to ensure to our neighbour, that his or her life may be always defended and promoted, especially when it is weak or threatened. It is not only a personal but a social concern which we must all foster: a concern to make unconditional respect for human life the foundation of a renewed society. (Evangelium Vitae R. IV, 77)
The Day for Sanctity of Life in Poland was established by the Bishops in 1998 as a response to the call of St. John Paul II and is celebrated on the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that is, nine months before Christmas.
This Feast should encourage us to reflect on the great gifts with which we have been given: life and the family that is the most important environment for every human being.
Now that the family values and conceived human life are brutally attacked, the Sanctity of Life Day is a special moment for the mobilization in defense of these core values. We can not remain indifferent to the attempts to deprive the constitutional right of parents to educate their children according to their beliefs. Our task is to take up the concerns of all generations - the youngest, and the oldest.
Our duty is also to strongly oppose anti-Christian culture, that negates the right to life from conception to natural death, and undermines the importance of marriage and family. We can not accept the recent emerging solutions, that strike at the family and life, as well as at children and youth. Amongst other things: the introduction of the free sale of abortifacients, that are also harmful to the women's health, the "morning after" pill; the proposal to adopt a law on in vitro fertilization that is not respectful of the lives of children conceived and, above all, the attempt to bring into Polish social life a program of cultural and civilizational changes based on gender ideology, being forcefully imposed by the CAHVIO Convention.
May the Day for the Sanctity of Life be above all a national day of mobilization to pray for unborn children and their families, and to make a spiritual adoption of a conceived child",
On behalf of the Council for the Family, Polish Bishops' Conference,
+ Jan Wątroba
Chairman
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