December 21                         

The abortion is an homicide

During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” Lk 1,39-45

Since, in Italy, the law 194/1978 came into force, every year the Minister of Health officially reports two hundred fifty thousand abortions. This means that the actual ones should range between three hundred and three hundred and fifty thousand. Each year, a potential city like Florence disappears without leaving a trace. And the incredible thing is that this happens not by the hands of criminals, but by the enforcement of the law and with the collaboration of the health facilities. The passage of the today’s gospel says that “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb”. So that fetus, which in future would have become John the Baptist, was filled by the Holy Spirit at the greeting of Mary, even before his mother. It is a fact which would have to make us pondering: that unborn child, in mysterious but real ways , immediately felt the presence of the coming Messiah in Mary’s womb. We are faced with the mystery of the life: since his conception, a human being has a sensitivity and also a spiritual life, even if unconsciously. These are truths to be clarified to every woman who appears at the hospital to seek abortion. “The child that you bear in your lap – it would have to be said – has already realized your will to delete him. Go back home, ask forgiveness and love him as God already loves him”. It is not good to entrust the mystery of the life and of the death to the hands of doctors without faith. Our friend Franco Pianetti,  obstetrician-surgeon, one day told us: “My greatest joy, now that I am old, is the knowledge of having helped to come to the light almost fifteen thousand children and that I refused to provide voluntary abortions”. Every time we meet I can think a thought of Plutarch: “It is  nice to grow old with an honest mind, as in the company of a sincere friend”.