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Canadian Bishops' Life Office Calls on All Canadians to Attend March for Life May 8

Canada in Need of "A Great Cultural Renewal"

By John-Henry Westen

OTTAWA, May 1, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF), the organization founded and supported by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, has called on "all Canadian citizens who respect human life to walk in support of the first of all human rights: the right to life" in Ottawa on May 8. With respect to the right to life, the COLF message says, "our country is in need not only of legislative reform, but also of a great cultural renewal . . . the building of a new awareness of the worth and dignity of every human life from conception to natural death."

The statement, which comes in the year commemorating the 40th anniversary of the encyclical Humanae Vitae, the message for the March for Life addresses concepts fundamental to the right to life, but rarely heard.  Young people, says the message, "want to know the truth about contraception, which has resulted in so many effects that are the opposite of what was promised." 

"Why has the promise of sexual liberation in fact resulted in the dehumanization of women, who are so often treated as objects for sexual gratification? Canadian teens and young adults want to know that their masculinity and femininity are not random or interchangeable, but that that man and woman are made to complement each other - physically, psychologically and spiritually - and that they are called to a lasting and joyful union that is worth preparing for with chastity."

The message laments that many young people "have experienced a dependence on pornography and other traps of a culture that turns the human being into an object. Many of them have encountered the heartbreak that accompanies the end of premarital sexual relationships, the consequences of sexually transmitted diseases, or the unexpected 'failures' of contraception that have led them to abortion. Many live with the secret pain of post-abortion trauma."

The message concludes, "Let us promote a cultural renewal that will allow us to regain the greatness and purpose of sexuality, fertility and marriage. In this way, we will also renew the respect that is due to each human life from conception to natural death." 

See the full COLF message:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/may/080501a.html

See the COLF website: http://www.colf.ca/mamboshop/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

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