Remembrance Day | Archbishop calls on politicians to take pro-life stance

Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna has called on politicians to take a stand in favour of life “from beginning to end”.

“Politicians’ choices need to be in favour of life from the beginning to end, because war is not the only instrument of death,” he said during his Sunday sermon.

In a pontifical mass commemorating the fallen in the two World Wars and other conflicts for Remembrance Day, Bishop Scicluna said the decisions carried out by politicians and future generations need to favour life.

“Isn’t it what we teach our children? Do not fall into bad habits, so that you don’t destroy your life? And then some of them are sent for the kill by the state itself,” Scicluna said.

His comments come just days after the Opposition leader Bernard Grech committed himself, and the Nationalist Party, to a categorical anti-abortion stance by saying that he would not tolerate anyone representing the party to be in favour of abortion.

His statements opened up questions on self-declared pro-choice candidates like Emma Portelli Bonnici.

In comments to the media on Sunday, Grech said he did not mean to kick pro-choice people from the party, insisting he only meant that no one on the PN tickets will be allowed to campaign for abortion.

Archbishop Scicluna said that in conflicts of the past, and the present, “young people end up sowing the seeds of deaths, instead of promoting life.”

“A lot of young people because they are radicalised, they are brain washed, instead of becoming messengers of life, they turn into instruments of death,” he said. “What a tragedy this is.”

He spoke about young people who are being killed and hurt as a result of conflict brought about by a lack of social justice in how the world’s wealth is distributed.

“We end up with the macabre exploitation of land resources for the few, while millions remain hungry,” he said.