Archbishop calls for defending human life in all stages and situations

ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 25, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

In the context of the Day of the Unborn Child, March 25, the feast of the Annunciation, Archbishop Enrique Benavent Vidal of Valencia, Spain, issued a call to defend human life from conception to natural death and in all situations.

The Annunciation commemorates the Virgin Mary’s consent to the conception of the Son of God in her womb.

In this context, the prelate published a pastoral letter titled “Defending Life Is Sowing Hope” in which he noted that Christians are called “to be sowers of hope, fighting for life and the dignity of all people.”

Benavent invited the faithful to take advantage of the 2025 Jubilee to “sow hope in the hearts of the sick,” the young, migrants, exiles, the elderly, the poor, and families “who are afraid to welcome new life.”

The archbishop noted that “in our world there are many people who, humanly speaking, have no reason to live with hope.”

He said “these are those whose dignity is not respected and whose rights are violated: the victims of any attack on their lives,” those who have been physically harmed; “the victims of deportations, those living in inhumane living conditions, those subjected to arbitrary detention, those subjected to prostitution.”

Others affected include “the poor who are victims of the selfishness and injustices of our economic system, those who suffer the consequences of wars, those who suffer the consequences of gender ideology, victims of sexual abuse, women who suffer violence, etc.”

The archbishop pointed out that we can only “credibly proclaim the Christian hope in eternal life if we defend the dignity of human life for all people,” at all times and in all situations.

“It‘s not Christian,” he noted, “to defend life at its beginning or end and to justify, provoke, or ignore the tragedies experienced by those whose dignity is not respected. Nor does it correspond to a Christian vision of life to consider abortion and euthanasia as a right and justify them in society.”

The archbishop of Valencia called for the creation of “social conditions and a legislative framework that promote birth and create the conditions for people to face the end of this life with dignity, so that no one is tempted to desire death.”

“A society and a culture that lead people to view the beginning and end of life as a threat sows despair. Only a world that values, promotes, and defends human life and its dignity at all times and in all situations, from conception to its natural end, can live in hope,” he emphasized.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.