Tuesday January 29, 2008
Mother Teresa's Successor Adds Voice to Vatican Call for Moratorium on Abortion
By Hilary White
CALCUTTA, January 29, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Sr. Nirmala Joshi, the sister who succeeded the beatified Mother Teresa of Calcutta as head of the religious order the latter founded, has called for a moratorium on abortion to match a recently agreed UN declaration on the death penalty.
Sr. Nirmala called abortion "the greatest destroyer of peace". Speaking to AsiaNews, Sr. Nirmala said, "The culture of life loves life and protects life, promoting love, beauty, joy and peace - says Sr. Nirmala - The culture of death destroys life and sows hatred, discord and unhappiness…..The choice is ours".
The concept that abortion is directly related to war, is one often attributed to a comment made by Mother Teresa: "The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child - a direct killing of the innocent child - murder by the mother herself."
"If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?"
The Missionaries of Charity are famed around the world for their work with the "poorest of the poor", particularly with children and infants abandoned in the lowest economic strata of Indian society.
The comments by Sr. Nirmala come in conjunction with a movement to abolish the death penalty by the UN. The UN General Assembly adopted a "non-binding moratorium," urging countries that maintain the death penalty to suspend its application.
The idea of expanding on the UN's resolution to include a moratorium on abortion was first formulated by Italian journalist, Giuliano Ferrara, director of the daily newspaper "Foglio" and a non-Christian former Communist Party leader. It was quickly taken up by the Vatican, but also by Lenin Raghavarshi, an Indian atheist and winner of the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights. The Korean Catholic Bishops Conference joined the movement with a statement that the "logical conclusion" of the UN death penalty moratorium is to "extend it to a moratorium on abortion."
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Editorial: Poland, the Pope, and the Death Penalty
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2008/jan/08010802.html
Vatican-led Global Anti-Abortion Campaign Finds Unusual Supporters
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2008/jan/08012802.html
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