DUBLIN, June 6, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Archbishop Charles Brown, the Vatican’s nuncio to Ireland has urged the rejection of the government’s plans to legalize abortion, telling them they must not be afraid to let their faith influence their choices.
The New York-born Archbishop Brown, the pope's ambassador to the island, made the comments at a Corpus Christi celebration in Cork on Sunday.
“Our Eucharistic procession today helps to remind us of the public dimension of our Catholic faith,’’ he said. “Let us stand with the Lord of life and promote his gospel of life in our society.”
Archbishop Brown quoted Pope Benedict XVI: “A Christian may never think of belief as a private act. Faith is choosing to stand with the Lord so as to live with him.”
He added his own petition to the prayers of the faithful, saying, “Allow me to ask you to pray to the Lord for a special intention today, that He will keep Ireland a pro-life country where mothers and their unborn children are safe and protected.”
Meanwhile, the scientific director of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life said that Catholic politicians who support abortion are “pushing themselves out of the Church”. In an interview with The Irish Catholic newspaper, Monsignor Jacques Suaudeau said that politicians “cannot live in two houses.”
“Sometimes people forget Nuremberg. You cannot cover yourself with the cover of party discipline,” he said. “Generally, if you are well-known and your party is proposing something that goes against your conscience you need to make it known, you need to speak. Maybe they will ask you to abstain, sometimes people understand that you have an objection of conscience.”
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Prime Minister Enda Kenny, the leading promoter of his government’s abortion legislation, responded saying, “I’m a Catholic and I don’t interfere in the messages of the Church.”
He added, “I have no comment to make on what the cardinal from the Vatican says. I set out very clearly what it is we have to do in terms of our constitution and the law, and that’s to provide clarity and decisiveness.”
The Catholic monthly paper Alive has called Kenny a hypocrite who uses his Catholicism when it suits him to advance his political aims. “On several occasions in the past Mr. Kenny publicly proclaimed his Catholic faith in order to advance his political agenda.
“Has he undergone a radical religious change for the worse? Or was it hypocrisy all along? Were his pre-election, prolife promises sheer cynicism?” He has embarked on a campaign to legalize abortion, the paper said, which “is an abomination not only to Christian faith but to basic humanity.”
“He knows that he is working for nothing less than to legalise the brutal killing of unborn children… Not open to reason, and backed by morally corrupt media, he seems determined to impose an horrific evil on society,” the editorial said.