Wednesday August 11, 2010
Major Rome Pro-Life Conference Brings out Vatican Heavy Hitters
By Hilary White
ROME, August 11, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Human Life International has lined up a list of major Vatican figures for its pro-life conference in Rome this year.
From October 5th to 10th, some of the most significant figures in the global pro-life and pro-family movement are scheduled to meet in Rome for the 5th World Prayer Congress for Life with the theme “The Light Shines in the Darkness”.
Organisers say that the congress “responds concretely” to the attacks on life and family “by offering the tools needed for this battle.”
Some of the Vatican’s highest officials are scheduled to speak, including Cardinals Antonelli, of the Pontifical Council for the Family and Angelo Comastri, President of the Fabric of Saint Peter and Archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica. Archbishops Raymond Burke, an American pro-life hero and head of the Apostolic Signatura, and Zygmunt Zimowski, President of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, will also speak.
Also on the roster are Klaus Küng, Bishop of Sankt Pölten, Austria, Auxiliary Bishop Andreas Laun of Salzburg, and Msgr. Philip J. Reilly, founder of the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants and a veteran of the front lines of the pro-life movement.
Apart from the ecclesiastical realm, pro-life advocates from around Europe and across the Atlantic will speak, including John Smeaton, director of Britain’s Society for the Protection of Unborn Children; Canada’s Dr. Robert Walley, a gynecologist and founder of Mater Care International; Terrence McKeegan, Vice President and senior counsel for the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) in New York; and LifeSiteNews.com’s own Editor-in-Chief John Henry Westen.
The conference will boast significant figures from the world’s pro-life organisations, with Germany, Austria, Poland, the Philippines, Nigeria, Switzerland, Australia and Spain being represented.
Organisers say the conference will address a crucial conflict in modern society. The large questions, they say, are not being adequately answered by the abortionist culture: “Who is man? How is the world to be interpreted? Where is the God’s place in the modern vision of the world?
“Two essentially incompatible, completely contradictory viewpoints, answer these fundamental questions with which mankind has always struggled.”
The anti-Christian and pro-abortion forces of the world, they said, “can be classified as inhumane humanism. Faith and Reason enlightened by faith play no role in this framework.”
Organizers say the 5th His World Prayer Congress for Life “wants to be a clear signs of the times, in that it will clearly identify the threats of the anti-culture of death, in order to then show more decisively the path of healing and salvation. Concretely praying and sacrificing, we make our way along this path to promoting the Culture of Life.”
Click here to register to attend the Congress.