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Monday, September 26, 2016

Will New Saint Bring New Allies to UN Abortion Debates?




By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D. and Rebecca Oas, Ph.D
Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam)


NEW YORK, September 22 (C-Fam) Mother Teresa’s canonization in Rome reverberated at an event in UN headquarters where top diplomats praised the saint as the very essence of the UN’s mission even if they had opposed her message on life and family issues in the past.

“Mother Teresa is the United Nations,” the Secretary-General, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, said when he introduced Mother Teresa to the UN General Assembly in 1985. “Mother Teresa is peace in the world.”

His remarks were part of videos shown last week, which included the saint’s condemnation of abortion as “direct killing of a child” and “the greatest destroyer of peace.” For those following the abortion debate at the UN, it was a remarkable juxtaposition of the saint’s clear condemnation of abortion and unmitigated praise from countries that promote the policy.

The UN event was co-sponsored by the Holy See, along with the missions of India, Italy, Albania and the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia where the saint’s birthplace now resides.





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