News

By Meg Jalsevac

ROME, Italy, October 18, 2007, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pope Benedict has finally released his much anticipated list of appointees to receive the honor of being named a cardinal.  The list includes 23 men total but 5 of them are over the age of 80 and thus would not qualify to participate in any future papal elections.  The Pope also revealed that he had intended to also confer the honor on Bishop Ignacy Jez of Koszalin-Kolobrzeg but that the bishop had died suddenly this past week.

Several of the recently appointed men have been outspoken defendants of the sanctity of life and the integrity of the family.  LifeSitenews.com has compiled a list of some of these statements to illustrate the faithfulness of these men.

The new Cardinals will be:

1. Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, who currently serves as Prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches.

2. Archbishop John Patrick Foley, served for 23 years as president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, but presently serves as grandmaster of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre.

In 2002, Archbishop John Foley addressed the Second International Meeting of Catholic Obstetricians in Rome encouraging them to foster “an environment – especially a media environment – in which human life is respected at every stage of its development” and one “of sexual responsibility and, therefore, of sound family life.”  (Source: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/oct/02102910.html)

3. Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, currently serves as the president of the Vatican City governoratel after serving as the Secretary for Relations with States.

Archbishop Lajolo has repeatedly addressed the United Nations regarding the necessity of recognizing the sanctity of human life. In 2006, he stressed that, “the increasing recognition of the sacredness of life, witnessed also by the growing rejection of the death penalty, needs to be matched by a thorough protection of human life precisely when it is at its weakest, that is, at its very beginning and at its natural end.”  (Source: https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia…)

4.  Archbishop Paul Josef Cordes, President of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum.

After the release of Pope Benedict’s encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Archbishop Cordes called for recognition of the need for charity to support the dignity of life in all nations of the world. “In our society there exists, fortunately, a widespread feeling of philanthropy… but this can give the faithful the idea that charity is not an essential part of the ecclesial mission. Without a solid theological foundation, the great ecclesial agencies could become … disassociated from the Church.”  (Source: https://www.diocesessm.org/WorkspaceFolder… )

5.  Archbishop Angelo Comastri acts as archpriest of St. Peter’s basilica and vicar general for Vatican City.

Providing meditation during the 2006 Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, Archbishop Comastri was quoted,  “There is a move to reinvent mankind, to modify the very grammar of life as planned and willed by God.  Surely God is deeply pained by the attack on the family. Today we seem to be witnessing a kind of anti-Genesis, a counter-plan, a diabolical pride aimed at eliminating the family.”  (Source: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/apr/06041306.html)

6. Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko, President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity,

In his roll as President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, Archbishop Rylko is known for his words of encouragement to those living out the lay vocation. In such an address in Columbia in 2006, Rylko first warned his lay listeners to be wary. “The expanding process of secularization and an authentic “dictatorship of relativism” (Benedict XVI) have produced a tremendous absence of values in many of our contemporaries, which is accompanied by a joyful nihilism that ends in an alarming erosion of faith, a type of “silent apostasy” (John Paul II) and a “strange forgetfulness of God” (Benedict XVI).”  He concluded his remarks by extolling his listeners to a greater involvement in evangelization efforts to combat these evils.  (Source: https://www.cathcom.net/featured/headline.php?ID=3166)

7.  Archbishop Raffaele Farina, Vatican archivist.

8. Archbishop Agustin Garcia-Gasco Vicente of Valencia, Spain.

On the occasion of Pope Benedict’s 2006 visit to Spain, the Archbishop gave a sermon in which he condemned the control that the “gay empire” wielded over the Spanish government and referred to the traditional family as: “the construction of a civilization of love and life against the culture of death.”(Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/10/world/europe…)

9. Archbishop Sean Baptist Brady of Armagh, Ireland.

At the Milwaukee Gaelic fest earlier this year, Archbishop Brady lamented the breakdown of social order in Ireland.  He explained, “This comes from a cultural shift from emphasis on community and family to an emphasis on the happiness of the individual, particularly of the individual as a consumer.  It is also tied up with a notion of freedom of the individual without reference to our responsibility to the common good that is so prevalent in Western culture at the moment.”

Brady said the solution must include “taking steps to build community and support for marriage and the family.” (Source: https://www.catholiccommunications.ie/Pressrel/17-aug-2007.html)

10. Archbishop Lluis Martinez Sistach of Barcelona, Spain,

In a 2006 interview in which the archbishop laid out the responsibilities of parents to their children in the realm of education, he said that parents, “entrust the education of their children to the school and its teachers without renouncing their principal responsibility, which they have as a ‘logical consequence of their fatherhood and motherhood.”  (Source: https://catholicactionuk.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html)

11. Archbishop Andre Vingt-Trois of Paris, France.

Archbishop Vingt-Trois condemned a French court’s ruling that decided that Downs Syndrome children have the right to never be born and asserted, “I think with great sadness of all families who have welcomed Down’s children, who have showered them with love and received great love in return. This ruling amounts to a declaration that such love was worthless.” (Source: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/dec/01120305.html)

12. Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa, Italy;

Archbishop Bagnasco has been repeatedly in the media light in recent months as an active leader against the homosexual agenda in Italy.  He was the target of multiple death threats because of his outspoken stance.  Bagnasco challenged proposed legislation that would have legalized homosexual unions saying, “Why say ‘no’ to forms of legally recognised co-habitation which create alternatives to the family? Why say ‘no’ to incest?” (Source: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/apr/07043001.html)

13. Archbishop Theodore-Adrien Sarr of Dakar, Senegal,

14. Archbishop Oswald Gracias of Bombay, India,

As a retired canon lawyer, Archbishop Gracias has been outspoken against Amnesty International’s new policy advocating for abortion ‘rights’.

When asked to clarify the Church’s teaching on abortion in the case of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother, the Archbishop said, “The Catholic Church believes that in the case of a rape and the incest, no doubt that human rights of the victim is violated but it does not take away the right of the unborn child.’  He continued, “In the case of mother’s life being in danger, the Church’s position is that both the mother and the child have equal rights to live. Efforts should be made to save both the lives.” (Source: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/aug/06081003.html)

In 2006, Archbishop Gracias condemned the abortion industry in India that specifically targets baby girls.  He called on India to “creat[e] a culture not only of life, but also of respect for women and the vital role they play in the family, society and world.” (Source: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/aug/06081003.html)

15. Archbishop Francisco Robles Ortega of Monterrey, Mexico.

16. Archbishop Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, US.

On Archbishop DiNardo’s diocesan webpage, there is published his address in honor of Respect Life month in which he says, “It is the responsibility and joy of all who preach that day to call attention to the unsurpassable dignity of each human person from conception to natural death, a dignity given by God, not conferred by the state or any other human institution. Our preaching and teaching, our witnessing and living the faith, all these are to seek to evangelize the world for life and to trust in the providence of God to oversee and direct our efforts at continual self-conversion to the dignity of human life and at sharing that message with others.” (Source: https://www.diogh.org/BishopPastorals/bishops_dinardo_recent.asp)

17. Archbishop Odilio Pedro Scherer of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Archbishop Scherer outspokenly condemned a Brazilian court’s order to legalize abortion for deformed fetus’ emphasizing the “ethical need to respect all human life.” (Source: https://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20040717/ai_n11465973)

18. Archbishop John Njue of Nairobi, Kenya.

Archbishop Njue has been actively involved in combating corruption in Kenya and issued a 2006 statement in which he stated, “We must understand clearly that if we have no respect for the lives of other people, our community and nation will not progress. It will not even survive.” “The deliberate murder of an innocent human being is against the law of God and human dignity itself.  Human life is sacred – from the moment of conception to natural death. No person can claim the right to destroy another human being.” (Source: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/may/06050302.html)

19. Father Umberto Betti, the former rector of the Pontifical Lateran University.

20. Archbishop Giovanni Coppa, a veteran Vatican diplomat,

21. Patriarch Emmanuel III Delly of Babylon, the head of Iraq’s Chaldean Catholic Church.

22. Archbishop Estanislao Esteban Karlic, the former Archbishop of Parana, Argentina.

In addressing the 5th General Conference of Latin American Bishops’ Counsel, Archbishop Karlic explained that it is in truly encountering Christ that we realize that “the family is the sanctuary of love and of life” and that “the human community is destined for fraternity.” (Source: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/showarchive.php?date=2007-05-17)

23. Father Urbano Navarete, the former rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University.

Father Navarette has been used by the Vatican as expert counsel in the scientific areas of transsexualism and hermaphroditism.  He was said to be one of the main contributors to the Vatican’s 2003 document which declared that a “sex-change” operation did not change the gender of the individual in the eyes of the Church.  The document was crucial in explaining why a woman who underwent a sex change to become a male could not be validly ordained a Catholic priest.  (Source: https://www.tgcrossroads.org/news/archive.asp?aid=599 )