Dear friends, I certainly commend you all for coming out on this wintery spring day to give witness to the Gospel of Life. For all of us who follow Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life, for all of us who follow his teachings as our guide through life, to stand up and proclaim the Gospel of Life something that is very, very important.

Pope John Paul II, who was proclaimed yesterday as a Saint, wrote: The Gospel of life is at the heart of Jesus’ message. Lovingly received day after day by the Church, it is to be preached with dauntless fidelity as “good news” to the people of every age and culture.” In this “Good News” that we proclaim, we recognize “the sacred value of human life from its very beginning until its end, and can affirm the right of every human being to have this primary good respected to the highest degree.” We are well aware that as believers in Christ must defend and promote this right. And we know that this takes some courage.

In the first Reading from the Mass today we listened in on an event which took place very early in the life of the Church. Peter and John had been arrested by the Temple soldiers and made to appear before the High Priest because they were preaching the Good News of Jesus’ Resurrection. They had been released and were now back with their community. The Community immediately prayed Psalm 2 which asks God why is it that the leaders of society, the powerful people gather together against God.

It is clear to us today that, throughout the ages of human society, things have not changed very much. Our society and its leaders have taken their stand and gathered against the belief that every human life is sacred and has incomparable value. As Christians, we believe that by taking on our humanity, Jesus, the Son of God, has united to himself in some way every human being on earth.

There is no human life that is not sacred; there is no human life that does not have incomparable value. So human life in our world remains a sacred reality entrusted to us, to be preserved with a sense of responsibility and brought to perfection in love and in the gift of ourselves to God and to our brothers and sisters.(EV 2)

For us, the child in the womb, progressing towards birth is truly human from the moment of his or her conception. Pope Benedict XVI clearly stated this belief when he said: “God’s love does not distinguish between the infant in the mother’s womb, or the child, or the youth, or the adult, or the older person.  In each one God sees His image and likeness.  Human life is a manifestation of God and His glory.”

In our country, a child in the womb is not considered a legal person. But that does not mean that the child in the womb is not human. Indeed it was not until 1929 that women were considered to be legal persons. No one would think of saying that before 1929 women were not human beings.

So today, we must continually keep before our leaders the reality that the human fetus, the child in the womb, the child growing towards birth, is fully a human being whose human genes can be scientifically linked to his or her parents, and as a human being every child in the womb has the right to life and the right to live that life until it is ended by natural death.

Pope Francis has continued the teaching of his predecessors loudly and clearly. In a recent statement he has said: The fight against abortion is “part of the battle in favor of life from the moment of conception until a dignified, natural end. This includes the care of the mother during pregnancy, the existence of laws to protect the mother postpartum, and the need to ensure that children receive enough food, as well as providing healthcare throughout the whole length of life…”

I would like to express my thanks and appreciation to all of you who take up this cause of the Right to Life and the cause of reverence for human life through all its phases.

I would like to close with a quotation from Saint John Paul II in his Encyclical “The Gospel of Life” where he says:

Evangelium Vitae (3): “Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or wilful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more harm to those who practise them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonour to the Creator”.

We pray today at this Mass for the strength and guidance of God’s Holy Spirit that we may have the courage to true witnesses to this Gospel of Life and proclaim to all around us the rights and dignity of every human person from the moment their life’s journey begins in the world to their dignified, natural end.