By John-Henry Westen
VATICAN CITY, September 28, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In an address to the new German ambassador to the Vatican today, Pope Benedict XVI expressed concern about his native country’s legal stance on abortion and homosexual civil unions.
The Pope spoke of the “protection of marriage and the family” noting that “legislation proposed by the government introducing new forms of marital unions that depart from the natural family unit” threaten to undermine it.
Benedict lamented the “totally unjustifiable abortions that continue to claim the lives of many innocent unborn children.” He added, they “remain a painful concern for the Holy See and of the whole church.”
He hoped that “the present debates over late-term abortion that is going on now, can impress upon responsible politicians the awareness that expected problems of disability of an unborn child cannot be a valid justifiable reason for interrupting a pregnancy.” The Pope noted “the life of a disabled child is just as valuable and wanted by God.” Moreover he said that “life on earth can never and for nobody offer a guarantee of life without bodily, mental or spiritual limitations.”
The Catholic Church, promised the Pope, will “never cease” to warn nations of the “ethical problems of embryonic stem cell research.”
See the full speech (in German):
https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060928_ambassador-germany_ge.html