This March 25 are 30 years old from the publication of the encyclical Life (The Gospel of Life) of Pope San Juan Paul II. We share in this note ten key data that you must know about this document that maintains all its actuality.
1. When was it published?
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Pope San Juan Paul II published the encyclical Life on March 25, 1995 in the solemnity of the ads of the Lord, in the 17th of his pontificate, after the request of many Cardinals that in 1991 They suggested a document that highlights the value of human life.
2. Life Is it only for believers?
No, it is aimed at all. In fact, Saint John Paul II directs “to bishops, priests and deacons, religious and religious, to the lay faithful and all people of good will.”
In addition, numeral 101 of the encyclical explains that “the gospel of life is not exclusively for believers: it is for everyone. The issue of life and its defense and promotion is not the unique prerogative of Christians.”
3. What do you say about the value of human life?
Among the many statements in which John Paul II highlights the importance of all human life, is the subtitle “incomparable value of the human person”, in which the pilgrim Pope underlines that “man is called to a fullness of life that goes beyond the dimensions of his earthly existence, since it consists in the participation of the life of God. temporal phase ”.
Human life, Karol Wojtyla continues in numeral 2 of the text, “it is a sacred reality, which is entrusted to us so that we guard it with a sense of responsibility and we carry it perfectly in love and in the gift of ourselves to God and the brothers and the brothers.”
4. What does the Life about the “culture of death”?
On the “culture of death”, which so many times denounced during his papacy, the Polish saint explained that it is “a true and authentic structure of sin, characterized by the dissemination of a culture contrary to solidarity” and that it is “actively promoted by strong cultural, economic and political currents, carriers of a conception of society based on efficiency.”
In this culture of death, main, but not only, abortion, euthanasia and contraceptives are included.
5. What does the Life About abortion?
On “The abominable crime of abortion”, San Juan Pablo II affirms that “abortion procured is the deliberate and direct elimination, as it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of its existence, which goes from the conception of birth.”
He also says that in the conscience of many the perception of the severity of this evil has been obscured, which is reflected in “the dissemination of an ambiguous terminology, such as ‘interruption of pregnancy’, which tends to hide its true nature and attenuate its severity in public opinion.”
6. What does the encyclical say about euthanasia?
“Euthanasia is a serious violation of God’s law, as a deliberate and morally unacceptable elimination of a human person.” “Such practice entails, according to the circumstances, the malice of suicide or homicide,” says the Pope.
In other words, euthanasia is also “taking over death, seeking it in advance and thus putting ‘sweetly’ to life itself or that of others. Actually, which might seem logical and human, when considering it in depth it is presented absurd and inhuman”.
“We are here before one of the most alarming symptoms of the ‘culture of death’, which advances especially in welfare societies, characterized by an efficient mentality that presents the growing number of elderly and weakened people as something too large and unbearable,” warns the Pope.
7. What does the Life About contraceptives?
On contraceptives or contraception, the Pope Saint explains, in numeral 13 that: “It is often affirmed that contraception, safe and affordable to all, is the most effective remedy against abortion. It also accuses the Catholic Church of in fact favoring abortion by continuously teaching the moral illegality of contraception. The objection. fallacious ”.
Indeed, “it may be that many resort to contraceptives even to then avoid the temptation of abortion. But the countervalues inherent to the ‘contraceptive mentality’ – well diverse in the responsible exercise of paternity and motherhood, respecting the full meaning of the conjugal act – are such that they make this temptation more strong, before the eventual conception of an unwanted life.”
“In fact, the abortion culture is particularly developed just in the environments that reject church teaching on contraception,” he warns.
8. What does the encyclical say about the demographic phenomenon?
On this subject, John Paul II writes that in this aspect “threats and attacks against life converge”. This phenomenon occurs in different ways: “In rich and developed countries, a worrying reduction or falling in births are recorded; poor countries, on the contrary, present in general a high rate of increase in the population, hardly bearable in a context of lower economic and social development, or even serious underdevelopment. Before the superpoption of poor countries, the world and social measures are missing, at the same time Cultural development and fair production and distribution of resources – while antinatalist policies continue to be carried out ”.
“Contraception, sterilization and abortion are certainly among the causes that contribute to creating situations of strong birth decrease. It can be easy to also resort to the same methods and attacks against life in situations of ‘demographic explosion’,” denounces the Holy Father.
9. What does John Paul II say about artificial, assisted or in vitro?
These techniques, warns the pilgrim Pope, “give rise to new attacks against life. Beyond the fact that they are morally unacceptable from the moment they separate the procreation of the integrally human context from the conjugal act, these techniques record high percentages of failure.”
In addition to being a danger to the embryo, in many cases “embryos are frequently produced in number greater than necessary for implantation” that can then be “suppressed or used for research that, under the pretext of scientific or medical progress, actually reduce human life to simple ‘biological material’ of which it can be freely available.”
10. The final prayer to the Virgin Mary
Saint John Paul II ends his encyclical with this prayer to the Virgin Mary:
Oh Maria, Aurora of the New World,
Mother of the living, we trust the cause of life:
Look, mother, the immense number of children who are prevented from being born,
of the poor who are difficult to live, of men and women victims
of inhuman violence, of elders and dead sick people
because of indifference or an alleged piety.
Make those who believe in your child know how to announce with firmness and love
To the men of our time the gospel of life.
Alcánzales the grace of welcoming him as a new gift,
The joy of celebrating it with gratitude throughout its existence
and the courage to testify it with solicitous record, to build,
Together with all men of good will, the civilization of truth and love,
for praise and glory of God creator and lover of life.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I am husband since 2008. With my wife we have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before birth. Since I joined ACI Press in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Colonia, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the family’s synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Sinodality, in 2023. I follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers the persecution of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as the ecclesial news in the region.