By 
Vatican City, Jun 26, 2021 / 06:57 am (CNA).
Pope Francis met with the president of the European Parliament on Saturday, two days after the EU’s law-making body endorsed an “extreme” report on abortion.
The pope received David Sassoli in a private audience at the Vatican on June 26.
A European Parliament press release said: “The conversation with the Holy Father focused on the need to protect the weakest and most vulnerable: the rights of people are the measure of all things. The European recovery will only be successful if it produces a reduction in inequalities.”
Sassoli, a 65-year-old Italian politician, also met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, and Archbishop Paul Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States.
The European Parliament press release said that the three men spoke about “the situation in the Mediterranean, Africa, the Western Balkans, and the accession process, and the Eastern neighborhood.”
It added: “Particular focus was given to European efforts to make vaccines available in low-income countries, especially in Africa.”
The European Parliament voted on June 24 to adopt a report describing abortion as “essential healthcare” and seeking to redefine conscientious objection as a “denial of medical care.”
The Matić Report also asserted that abortion is a “human right” and violations of “sexual and reproductive health and rights” are “a form of violence against women and girls.”
Members of the European Parliament voted by 378 votes in favor and 255 against, with 42 abstentions, in favor of the report at a plenary session in Brussels, Belgium.
The report is not binding on the EU’s 27 member states, only two of which — Poland and Malta — do not permit abortion on demand or broad social grounds.
Before the vote, pro-life groups and Catholic leaders had urged the European Parliament to reject the report, presented by the Croatian politician Predrag Fred Matić.
The Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues (PNCI), based in Washington, D.C., described the document as “extreme” and “radical.”
The Secretariat of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE) expressed alarm at the report, saying that that it was “ethically untenable” to classify abortion as an “essential” health service.
The Nordic Bishops’ Conference said that the report’s stance on conscientious objection “jeopardizes individuals’ entitlement to follow their conviction in moral and religious matters, placing them at risk of losing their job or even barring them from access to work in healthcare.”
The Matić Report, officially known as the “Report on the situation of sexual and reproductive health and rights in the EU, in the frame of women’s health,” was adopted by the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality on May 11.
Two Members of the European Parliament, Margarita de la Pisa Carrión and Jadwiga Wiśniewska, set out a “minority position,” arguing that the report had “no legal or formal rigor.”
“It goes beyond its remit in addressing issues such as health, sexual education, and reproduction, as well as abortion and education, which are legislative powers belonging to the member states,” they wrote.
“It treats abortion as a purported human right that does not exist in international law. This is a breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the main binding treaties, as well as of the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union.”
The European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), an NGO based in Strasbourg, France, suggested that the report’s supporters were seeking “to introduce a new norm without it appearing at first sight to be imposed.”
It said: “The choice of the institution in this strategy is not to be underestimated, because although the resolutions of the European Parliament have no binding legal value, they are the expression of an opinion that the Parliament wishes to make known.”
In my conversation with @Pontifex today, we focused on the need to protect the weakest and most vulnerable.
The rights of people must be the measure of all things.
Only if it reduces inequalities, will we have a successful European recovery. https://t.co/Dwnp9uNg9Z pic.twitter.com/dEp3SvbuSp
— David Sassoli (@EP_President) June 26, 2021
“A resolution may subsequently serve to politically legitimize action by the member states or the institutions; it is intended to produce practical effects.”
“More importantly, it can express a pre-legislative intention that can later be used to justify binding acts. There is, therefore, no doubt that an act of the European Parliament represents the gateway to the heart of the normative system.”
A number of European bishops lamented the outcome of Thursday’s vote, including Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, the president of the Polish bishops’ conference, Archbishop Franz Lackner, president of the Austrian bishops’ conference, and the Irish Bishop Kevin Doran.
“I am deeply saddened by the European Parliament resolution calling for the possibility of killing unborn children,” Gądecki wrote on his Twitter account on June 24.
“The culture of life envisaged by the Founding Fathers of the EU is turning into a culture of death and exclusion, with ideology taking precedence over reason.”
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The Pope is not prolife as is demonstrated by his silence in this article. PF is supposed to be the worlds #1 defender of the unborn but he is far, far from it. He sometimes pretends to be prolife because he must in order to keep his job, that’s all. I feel so sorry for the murdered babies while PF is a friend of this evil world.
Push radical and permissive abortion on demand regime…. Get rewarded with private audience and s*** eating grin photo op with Antichrist bergolio
What’s remarkable, nonetheless not surprising is the dearth of effort by Pope Francis to address the infinitely more vital issue abortion. Rather than give priority to this moral crisis with Sassoli he instead turns to other global issues regarding migration, poverty, conflict. What effect does this lack of interest on abortion have on the moral consciousness of European Catholics, if not an increased sense of moral priority on the interests of secular humanism? It’s vacuous to compare abortion to hiring a hitman. What matters is what we do to prevent it. One action would have been strong support of the minority faction in opposition, including Margarita de la Pisa Carrión and Jadwiga Wiśniewska.
This tragic news about the collapse of fidelity to The Truth about life, seemingly so brazenly taken , ignoring all evidence about the evils of sins against life and forcing upon those who are to defend the preciousness of life and health to be agents of evil !
Would these politicians rather not have a doctor who is God fearing and in His grace , to care for themselves and their families …
True , the medical profession has gone along with the evils of our times to a good extent , yet had some reprieve , such as when in a situation of having to prescribe contraceptives , the couple given the advice not to use same , other than may be for issues such as PMS and to take the needed precautions as advocated by The Church .
https://www.catholicexorcism.org/post/exorcist-diary-143-satan-tries-to-manipulate-priests – This blog report by the exorcist priest on caution in getting involved with persons who can become possessed by such intentional choice for evil and its possible effects around – prayers and holiness the powerful tools for healing and prevention .
The foolishness of seeing the opposite of same as ‘ health care ‘ – the Holy Father has talked enough about these issues and possibly knows that those whose hearts have become so hardened and blinded are beyond being talked to directly , instead , in need of exorcism themselves .
His call for prayer for Lebanon on July 1st , month of Precious Blood and the Papal prayer intention of July , for friendship and dialogue – may same include the unborn and their families and those who are to care for them by instilling in them trust and hope in The Spirit as The Life Giver , whose Will moves the earth at 18 miles a second , that He is there to remove the dark spirits of despair and lies as a mighty wind . May same touch those who hearts seem to be afflicted worse than that of the Pharaoh – the latter would not have called such acts as ‘health care ‘.
Are there powers and money from Masonic powers and such who want to see the whole medical system under their sole power and destructive agendas …
The Holy Father has also warned us that we are in the midst of WW 111, in piecemeal – the above too seemingly a more sinister if not one of the most sinister face of same –
https://aleteia.org/2014/09/14/pope-francis-and-world-war-iii/
The legal system and Catholic medical system along with The Church , such as ministry of exorcism collaborating to inform the ignorant – if it is true ignorance and not greed for power and its hardness of hearts – may The Queen of Peace intervene in all lives involved to help bring the Light of Truth .
This is why no Catholic can in good conscience support the evil, undemocratic and rabidly anti-Christian, anti-life European Union.
The European Union is essentially the work of the devil. – B. O’Neill