ROME (OSV News) — Pope Leo XIV strongly defended the family, marriage, and unborn life during his first-ever New Year’s address to the diplomatic corps on January 9, telling the diplomats accredited to the Holy See that abortion “cuts short a growing life and refuses to welcome the gift of life.” 

“The institution of the family faces two crucial challenges today,” the Pope said, naming “a worrying tendency in the international system to neglect and underestimate its fundamental social role, leading to its progressive institutional marginalization,” and “the growing and painful reality of fragile, broken, and suffering families, afflicted by internal difficulties and disturbing phenomena, including domestic violence.” 

Traditional marriage and unborn life 

The vocation “to love and to life,” the Pope said, “manifests itself in an important way in the exclusive and indissoluble union between a woman and a man,” he said of traditional marriage, and “implies a fundamental ethical imperative for enabling families to welcome and fully care for unborn life.” 

Calling it “increasingly a priority, especially in those countries that are experiencing a dramatic decline in birth rates,” he said life “is a priceless gift that develops within a committed relationship based on mutual self-giving and service.” 

“In light of this profound vision of life as a gift to be cherished, and of the family as its responsible guardian, we categorically reject any practice that denies or exploits the origin of life and its development,” the Pope firmly stated, calling abortion a practice that “cuts short a growing life and refuses to welcome the gift of life.” 

Delivering the address in English, he told the diplomats that the Holy See “considers it deplorable that public resources are allocated to suppress life, rather than being invested to support mothers and families. The primary objective must remain the protection of every unborn child and the effective and concrete support of every woman so that she is able to welcome life.” 

Opposing abortion funding 

Many of the diplomats are from countries that facilitate abortion in their legal systems, such as France, which has enshrined abortion in its constitution. 

Pope Leo also expressed “deep concern” about “projects aimed at financing cross-border mobility for the purpose of accessing the so-called ‘right to safe abortion.'” 

Strongly opposing surrogacy as well, he said that “by transforming gestation into a negotiable service, this violates the dignity both of the child, who is reduced to a ‘product,’ and of the mother, exploiting her body and the generative process, and distorting the original relational calling of the family.” 

“In light of these challenges, we firmly reiterate that the protection of the right to life constitutes the indispensable foundation of every other human right. A society is healthy and truly progresses only when it safeguards the sanctity of human life and works actively to promote it,” Pope Leo said. 

Rejecting euthanasia 

Protecting life means also rejecting euthanasia, the Pope emphasized, calling assisted dying methods “deceptive forms of compassion.” 

“Similar considerations can be extended to the sick and to those who are elderly or isolated, who at times struggle to find a reason to continue living,” he said. “Civil society and States also have a responsibility to respond concretely to situations of vulnerability, offering solutions to human suffering, such as palliative care, and promoting policies of authentic solidarity, rather than encouraging deceptive forms of compassion such as euthanasia.” 

The Pope met the world’s diplomats a day after he finished a day and a half consistory with cardinals, one that strengthened his relationship with the college, and set him off for his own agenda after following Pope Francis’ calendar in the Jubilee Year. 

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Paulina Guzik is international editor for OSV News. Follow her on X.