Pope Francis has strongly backed a new pro-life movement in Italy
which is trying to place legal restrictions on access to abortion across
Europe.
The Pope praised some 40,000 participants from the third annual March
for Life who gathered on Sunday outside St Peter's Square where he had
just concluded the first canonisation ceremony of his pontificate.
Francis noted that signatures were being collected in many Italian
parishes to support a petition called "One of Us", which has been
organised by the European Citizen's Initiative, and aims to guarantee
juridical protection of the embryo from conception.
Signatories are calling on the European Commission to stop financing
abortion, research or any other activities that lead to the destruction
of human embryos.
At the Mass, Francis declared two women religious from Mexico and
Colombia as saints, along with 800 Martyrs of Otranto (Italy) who were
killed in the fifteenth century by invading Turks for refusing to
convert to Islam.