Monsignor Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, the recently appointed president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life has already made a significant impact on pro-life issues. First in an interview with Zenit identified protection of the human embryo as a socio-political and ideological problem rather than a scientific one.
In a second interview Monsignor Carrasco , criticized Spain’s Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, for pushing through the country’s new abortion legislation asserting that the new Spanish law on abortion is "an expression of the incapacity to understand what a right is. The problem is serious, not only in Spain".
When asked by the Zenit interviewer "How can the embryo be defended from the scientific point of view?" Monsignor Carrasco replied:
"The problem is not scientific. The embryo is very well defended from that point of view. The problem is essentially of a socio-political and ideological nature and here scientific arguments don't count. It is a realm in which what counts is power and if the one who has power has no desire to dialogue or, at least to reflect somewhat, then he doesn't have much to do with other guidelines."According to John Smeaton in his BLOG this is fighting talk and it's good to hear. Monsignor Carrasco goes on to challenge politicians and political lobbyists to be tougher in their defence of the unborn:
" ... in the end what remains is the political weapon and the political weapon that we citizens have today is weak. Those who know politics can do much more and that is their very grave responsibility. Speaking in soccer language, lets say it's that they have the ball."
Monsignor Carrasco ridicules the concept of the right to abortion, saying:
"I don't know when we will arrive at the right to steal but behind these laws what exists is a relativistic logic".
And the new president of the Pontifical Academy for Life boldly suggests that defenders of the unborn should change the language of the debate. In a poignant passage in the Zenit interview he says:
"One of the problems we have with regard to the embryo is that it isn't seen. Instead of embryo we should speak of a child who is in the initial phase of development. Because we cannot see him, he is in a situation of tremendous danger, at tremendous risk."
In the second interview with Il Consultente Re, an Italian Catholic see Catholic News agency report monthly Msgr. Carrasco described the legislation recently passed in Spain under the administration of President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero as "senseless, absolutely senseless" and added that "it corresponds to Zapatero's mentality.
"He has a fixed idea, the question of rights," the monsignor asserted. "Everything presented to him as a right, he promotes; but he's uncapable of understanding what a right is."
The head of the Academy for Life noted that the law has not yet been enacted, despite the Spanish government's vote to pass it into law. The law is now being examined as to its constitutionality by the Spanish Constitutional Court.
"The point," said Msgr. Carrasco, "is that the new law understands abortion as a right: if it is, a woman can decide to do what she wants, without consulting or explaining her choice to anyone.
"The new law, I repeat, is an expression of the incapacity to understand what a right is. The problem is serious, not only in Spain."
