Pope Francis blesses bell that will ring out in defence of unborn

September 23, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 2 Print

Vatican City, Sep 23, 2020 / 10:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis blessed a large bell Wednesday that Polish Catholics hope will ring out in the defence of unborn life.

“May its ring awaken the consciences of legislators and all people of good will in Poland and the whole world,” Pope Francis said Sept. 23.

The Voice of the Unborn bell, commissioned by the Yes to Life foundation, is a symbolic bell to be used at Poland’s March for Life and other pro-life events. It is decorated with a cast an ultrasound image of an unborn child and a quotation from Blessed Jerzy Popiełuszko: “A child’s life begins under the mother’s heart.”

In addition, the bell features two tablets, symbolizing the Ten Commandments. On the first are the words of Jesus, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law” (Matthew 5:17), and on the second is the commandment, “You shall not kill” (Exodus 20:13).

Pope Francis was the first person to ring the symbolic bell after giving it his blessing in a courtyard in Vatican City after his general audience.

The pope noted that the bell would “accompany events aimed at remembering the value of human life from conception to natural death.”

The bell weighs more than 2,000 pounds and is nearly four feet in diameter. It was cast from bronze Aug. 26 at the Jan Felczyński bell foundry in the southeastern city of Przemyśl, in the presence of civil and Catholic leaders, according to Polish media.

After its return from Rome to Poland, the bell will be installed at All Saints parish in Kolbuszowa, but will soon be transported again for use in Poland’s March for Life, planned to take place in October in Warsaw. 

“This bell is meant to stir consciences. The idea of ​​casting it was born at the beginning of this year, when I read the information that 42 million children in the world are killed every year as a result of abortion,” Bogdan Romaniuk, vice president of the Polish Yes to Life foundation, told the Polish Catholic weekly Niedziela. 

In Poland, the law allows abortion only in cases of rape, incest, threat to the mother’s life, or fetal abnormality. About 700 to 1,800 legal abortions take place each year.

Dr. Bogdan Chazan, the foundation’s president, said that he hoped the sound of the bell would serve as a “call to prayer” for the protection of unborn children.

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Pope decries religious persecution in meeting with Yazidis

January 24, 2018 CNA Daily News 1

Vatican City, Jan 24, 2018 / 10:12 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Speaking to members of the Yazidi community, a religious minority which has been persecuted by the Islamic State, Pope Francis said Wednesday that everyone has a fundamental right to freedom of religion, and no person or group has the power to deny it.

“It is unacceptable that human beings be persecuted and killed because of their religious affiliation! Every person has the right to freely profess his religious beliefs without constraints,” the Pope said Jan. 24 in a room adjoining the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall to representatives of the Yazidi community who have taken refuge in Germany.

“I raise my voice in favor of Yazidi rights, above all the right to exist as a religious community: no one can bestow on themselves the power to cancel a religious group because it is not part of those called ‘tolerated.’”

Yazidis are a religious minority largely from the Nineveh Plains in Iraq. Communities can also be found in Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, Iran, and Syria, though many have fled to Europe, and particularly Germany, in response to religious persecution.

In March 2016, they were part of a group, which included Christians and Shia Muslims, declared to be victims of Islamic State genocide by the United States government. It marked the first time the U.S. had declared a genocide is taking place since 2004 in Darfur.

During the meeting, Francis voiced his support and prayers for the innocent victims of such “senseless and inhuman barbarism.”

He also expressed his concern for members of the Yazidi community who may still be in the hands of terrorists, stating his hope “that everything possible will be done to save them; as well as to trace the missing and to give identity and worthy burial to those killed.”

Even those who have been lucky enough to escape have still had to leave behind everything they had, he noted, deploring the “unspeakable violations” which have been committed against their fundamental human rights, such as abductions, slavery, torture, forced conversions, and killings.

“The international community cannot remain a silent and inert spectator in the face of your drama,” he said, adding an appeal to institutions and people of other communities to help them rebuild their homes and places of worship.

Even today, persecution against minorities, which includes Christians, continues, he pointed out, and said that the Holy See never tires “of intervening to denounce these situations, demanding recognition, protection and respect.”

“May God help us to build together a world where we can live in peace and brotherhood,” he concluded.

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