One Year in the Holy Father’s Defense of the Unborn
In September 2013, Pope Francis made international headlines when, in his first major interview as pope, he challenged Catholics to move beyond the culture wars in the way they spoke about abortion.
Francis told Father Antonio Spadaro, SJ, “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”1 In light of Francis’s earlier comments during an in-flight press conference when he made his famous comment about how he would respond to a gay person who “is searching for the Lord and has good will”—the pope said, “who am I to judge him”—many commentators at left-of-center outlets read his words on abortion through a political lens.2 They concluded, in the words of the headline of Will Saletan’s analysis in Slate, “Pope Francis Is a Liberal.”3 Over at The American Conservative, Rod Dreher, a former Catholic who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, offered a similar view but added a note of condescension: “I am sure the liberal pope has been very, very naive in his words here.”4
But, twelve years later, there is no escaping the conclusion that the Cassandras who predicted a softening of the Church’s stance in defense of unborn life were clearly wrong.5 To abortion-rights advocates, Pope Francis is a complete disappointment. Conversely, to pro-life Catholics who follow his statements on abortion, IVF, and other threats to human life and dignity, he is a hero. Through manifold interviews, letters, and official Church teaching documents, including those of the highest magisterial (teaching) weight, Francis has consistently built upon the solid pro-life legacy of the papacies of Benedict XVI, John Paul II, and all the others who preceded him.
Sadly, however, not every Catholic, let alone every pro-life one, is aware of the teachings of Francis’s magisterium with respect to life issues. The “liberal pope” narrative that took hold early in Francis’s papacy has held fast among many in the conservative world, even as actual liberals, such as the leaders of Catholics for Choice, complain that, under Francis, “the church continues to ignore and deny her people” who favor abortion.6
To remedy this lack of understanding of the pope’s resolute stand for life, I would like to share some examples of Francis’s teaching that may surprise those who have chosen to tune him out since the day he discouraged speaking about abortion “all the time.” For reasons of space, I am choosing only examples from March 2024 through February 2025, and of them, only ones from the Vatican website that use the word “abortion.” Even with those limitations, these examples are not comprehensive; others could have been included. Most of these examples are from Francis himself; those that are not, nonetheless, speak with his voice, as he authorized them either directly (as with Dignitas Infinita) or indirectly (as with the address of his Cardinal Secretary of State to the United Nations General Assembly).
Our survey of Francis’s recent magisterium begins with Dignitas Infinita, a document he commissioned and authorized from the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, which is the Vatican department charged with elucidating authoritative teachings on Catholic faith and morals.7 This wide-ranging document, issued on April 2, 2024, provides a holistic understanding of Catholic teaching on what is popularly called a consistent ethic of life. It mentions abortion by name eight times, addressing the issue directly in paragraph 47. After quoting extensively from John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium vitae (The Gospel of Life), the document incorporates two quotations from Pope Francis’s 2013 encyclical Evangelii gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) to reinforce John Paul’s teachings:
Unborn children are, thus, “the most defenseless and innocent among us. Nowadays, efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this.” It must, therefore, be stated with all force and clarity, even in our time, that “this defense of unborn life is closely linked to the defense of each and every other human right. It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development. Human beings are ends in themselves and never a means of resolving other problems. Once this conviction disappears, so do solid and lasting foundations for the defense of human rights, which would always be subject to the passing whims of the powers that be. Reason alone is sufficient to recognize the inviolable value of each single human life, but if we also look at the issue from the standpoint of faith, ‘every violation of the personal dignity of the human being cries out in vengeance to God and is an offense against the Creator of the individual.’” In this context, it is worth recalling St. Teresa of Calcutta’s generous and courageous commitment to the defense of every person conceived.
On September 13, 2024, Pope Francis held an in-flight press conference while returning to Rome from his Apostolic Journey to Indonesia, Papua, New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and Singapore.8 CBS News reporter Anna Matranga asked him to comment on the hot-button issue of the day: the U.S. presidential election.
Your Holiness, you have always spoken in defense of the dignity of life. In TimorLeste, which has a high birth rate, you said you felt life pulsing and exploding with so many children. In Singapore, you defended migrant workers. With the U.S. elections coming up, what advice would you give a Catholic voter who must decide between one candidate who is in favor of the interruption of pregnancy and another who wants to deport 11 million migrants?
In his reply, Francis maintained the longstanding papal tradition of refraining from endorsing political candidates, even as he proclaimed the Catholic Church’s perennial teaching on the dignity of human life.
“Both are against life,” Francis said, “the one who throws out migrants and the one who kills children. Both are against life. I cannot decide. I am not American and I will not go to vote there.”
After stating in clear terms that “sending migrants away, denying them the ability to work and refusing them hospitality is a sin, and it is grave,” and expounding upon the biblical prohibition against such mistreatment, Francis turned to condemn the other sin that the reporter named: “Science says that at one month after conception, all the organs of a human being are present, all of them. Having an abortion is killing a human being. Whether you like the word or not, it is murder. The Church is not closed-minded because it forbids abortion; the Church forbids abortion because it kills. It is murder; it is murder!”
Just over two weeks later, on September 28, 2024, Vatican Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin addressed the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly at its General Debate.9 In his address, he quoted a speech Pope Francis gave earlier that year to the Diplomatic Corps of the Holy See:
The path to peace calls for respect for human rights, in accordance with the simple yet clear formulation contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights […]. These principles are self-evident and commonly accepted. Regrettably, in recent decades attempts have been made to introduce new rights that are neither fully consistent with those originally defined nor always acceptable. They have led to instances of ideological colonization, in which gender theory plays a central role; the latter is extremely dangerous since it cancels differences in its claim to make everyone equal. These instances of ideological colonization prove injurious and create divisions between states, rather than fostering peace.
Parolin added, in his own words (but expressing the mind of Francis’s magisterium) that the pope’s critique of “ideological colonization” extended to attacks on human life: “In this regard, it is also inconceivable to associate the concept of ‘right’ with the practice of abortion, which involves the taking of an innocent life. Instead, from a human rights perspective, it is necessary to acknowledge the right of the woman to find concrete and moral support when she is in a situation of distress, loneliness and abandonment during her pregnancy and in the post-natal period.”
The day after Parolin’s speech—September 29, 2024—Pope Francis answered questions in-flight while returning to the Vatican after his Apostolic Journey to Luxembourg and Belgium. His journey had included a stop at the burial site of Belgium’s King Baudouin, whose cause for sainthood has been introduced; while there, he praised the king, who resigned rather than sign a law legalizing abortion.
During the in-flight press conference, Belgian television reporter Valérie Dupont told Francis that his remarks at the royal crypt had caused “astonishment,” leading some to accuse the pope of “political interference in Belgium’s democratic life.”10 She asked, “Is the beatification process of the king linked to his positions? How can we reconcile the right to life and the defense of life with women’s right to have a life without suffering?”
Francis responded, “They are all lives. The king was courageous because, faced with a law of death, he did not sign it and abdicated. That takes courage! It takes a ‘real’ politician to do this. It takes courage. It was a particular situation and he gave a message through his actions. He did it because he was a saint. He is holy and the beatification process will continue, because he gave me proof of this.”
The pope went on to explain that “women have the right to life: to their own lives and the lives of their children.”
“Let us not forget to say this,” Francis added: “abortion is murder. Science tells you that within a month of conception, all the organs are already there. A human being is killed. And doctors who engage in this are—permit me to say—hitmen. They are hitmen. This cannot be disputed. A human life is killed. Women have the right to protect life.”
Francis’s analogy of abortionists to hitmen is not new. He has employed it many times, aware of how shocking it sounds to abortion-rights advocates.
On January 9, 2025, in his annual address to members of the Holy See’s diplomatic corps, Pope Francis, as is usual for him in such talks, made certain to reiterate the Catholic Church’s continuing responsibility to proclaim the dignity and inviolability of human life.11 He did so within the context of criticizing the “‘cancel culture’ . . . that tolerates no differences and focuses on individual rights, to the detriment of duties towards others, especially the weakest and most vulnerable.”
“In this regard,” Francis continued, “it is unacceptable, for example, to speak of an alleged ‘right to abortion’ that contradicts human rights, particularly the right to life. All life must be protected, at every moment, from conception to natural death, because no child is a mistake or guilty of existing, just as no elderly or sick person may be deprived of hope and discarded.”
Our survey ends with Pope Francis’s address “To the World Leaders Participating in the Summit for Children’s Rights,” which he delivered on February 3, 2025, shortly before he was hospitalized with double pneumonia.12 As has long been his practice, he condemned the “throwaway mentality” that characterizes contemporary secular culture, presenting a list of examples of this harmful anti-life mindset. And, likewise according to his custom, he capped off the list by citing what is, for him, the ultimate manifestation of the throwaway mentality: “the murderous practice of abortion”:
Seeing things through the eyes of those who have lived through war is the best way to understand the inestimable value of life. Yet also listening to those children who today live in violence, exploitation or injustice serves to strengthen our “no” to war, to the throwaway culture of waste and profit, in which everything is bought and sold without respect or care for life, especially when that life is small and defenseless. In the name of this throwaway mentality, in which the human being becomes all-powerful, unborn life is sacrificed through the murderous practice of abortion. Abortion suppresses the life of children and cuts off the source of hope for the whole of society.
These examples, taken together, provide robust evidence that Pope Francis, although remaining faithful to his intention to frame Catholic teaching on abortion within the Church’s broad pastoral mission, is by no means silent about the mandate to defend unborn life. If Francis is a “liberal pope,” then “liberal,” as a political term has lost all meaning. A better way to describe him is through the self-description that he offered in the same 2013 interview with Spadaro that caused so much commotion: Francis is “a son of the Church.”12
NOTES
1. Antonio Spadaro, SJ, “An Interview with Pope Francis,” Vatican.va, September 21, 2013, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/september/documents/papafrancesco_20130921_intervista-spadaro.html.
2. “Press Conference of Pope Francis during the Return Flight,” Vatican.va, July 28, 2013, https:// www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/july/documents/papa-francesco_20130728_ gmg-conferenza-stampa.html.
3. William Saletan, “Pope Francis Is a Liberal,” Slate, September 19, 2013, https://slate.com/newsand-politics/2013/09/pope-francis-interview-forget-homosexuality-and-birth-control-hes-a-flamingliberal.html.
4. Rod Dreher, “Pope Francis: The Era Of JP2 & Benedict Is Over,” The American Conservative, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/pope-francis-the-era-of-jp2-benedict-is-over/.
5. Catholics for Choice, “Pope Francis, Listen,” December 3, 2024, https://www. catholicsforchoice.org/resource-library/pope-francis-listen/.
6. Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dignitas Infinita (On Human Dignity), Vatican.va, April 2, 2024, https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/ rc_ddf_doc_20240402_dignitas-infinita_en.html.
7. “Press Conference during the Return Flight from Singapore,” Vatican.va, September 13, 2024, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2024/september/documents/20240913singapore-voloritorno.html.
8. “Address of the Cardinal Secretary of State at the General Debate of the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly,” Vatican.va, September 28, 2024, https://press.vatican.va/content/ salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2024/09/28/240928f.html.
9. “In-Flight Press Conference,” Vatican.va, September 29, 2024, https://www.vatican.va/content/ francesco/en/speeches/2024/september/documents/20240929-belgio-voloritorno.html.
10. Pope Francis, “To Members of the Diplomatic Corps Accredited to the Holy See,” Vatican. va, January 9, 2025, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2025/january/ documents/20250109-corpo-diplomatico.html.
11. Pope Francis, “To the World Leaders Participating in the Summit for Children’s Rights,” Vatican.va, February 3, 2025, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2025/february/ documents/20250203-summit-diritti-bambini.html.
12. Antonio Spadaro, SJ, “An Interview with Pope Francis
The author meets Pope Francis in 2019 at St. Peter’s Square
Christ is risen! These words capture the whole meaning of our existence, for we were not made for death but for life. Easter is the celebration of life! God created us for life and wants the human family to rise again! In his eyes, every life is precious! The life of a child in the mother’s womb, as well as the lives of the elderly and the sick, who in more and more countries are looked upon as people to be discarded.
Pope Francis, Ubi et Orbi
Easter, 2025
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Original Bio:
Dawn Eden Goldstein, SThD, is the award-winning author of several books, most recently The Sacred Heart: A Love for All Times and the Christopher Award-winning biography Father Ed: The Story of Bill W.’s Spiritual Sponsor. ” This article was written before Pope Francis’s death.
