Editor’s note. This appeared today on the blog of John Smeaton, executive director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) at http://spuc-director.blogspot.com/2011/01/honduran-cardinals-boldness-for-life.html

Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodriguez Maradiaga, archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) has conducted an interview with Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodriguez Maradiaga, archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Among things Cardinal Rodriguez said:

"[The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF)] is one of the worst organizations and I have no fear in denouncing them"

"[O]nce you accept abortion, the next step will be to accept euthanasia. This is [the anti-life lobby's] global plan."
(about the right response to population questions): "What we need is not to reduce the guests at the table but to increase the seats so people can sit at the table to eat."

Cardinal Rodriguez's boldness in speaking out against the culture of death is a model for other bishops. Similarly, Cardinal Raymond Burke was asked recently: “What can the European bishops do against abortion?” Cardinal Burke replied that the bishops must “[e]ducate people about the reality of abortion” and “the intrinsic evil of destroying an innocent and defenceless human life”. Cardinal Burke added that:

“Very often bishops are silenced, or there is the attempt to silence bishops with the claim that the teaching on abortion is a peculiar belief of the Roman Catholic Church and therefore bishops are wrong to introduce this discourse into the public square, into civil discourse. But the fact of the matter is that the inviolability of innocent human life is part of the natural moral law that is written in every human heart; so that not only do bishops have the right to make this discourse in public and to insist upon the common good - which is first and foremost secured by the respect for human life itself - but they have the duty, for the sake of the world (which the Church is called to serve and to save) to announce this moral truth ... [Europe’s bishops must] insist with civil officials that if they are true servants of the common good, then they must first and foremost protect the right to life of the unborn.”

So I pray earnestly that bishops throughout Europe and the world will listen to Cardinals Rodriguez and Burke, rejecting any active or passive acquiescence with abortion...and become strong men who do their duty on behalf of the weak.