Not Censure But Calculated Silence. A Letter From Argentina on the Pope and Abortion

L'Espresso ^ | December 18, 2020 | Sandro Magister

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Not Censure But Calculated Silence. A Letter From Argentina on the Pope and Abortion

Settimo Cielo's previous post, “Pope Francis censured every time he speaks out against abortion,” has prompted a resounding critique from an authoritative Argentine reader, the philosopher José Arturo Quarracino, nephew of Cardinal Antonio Quarracino, Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s predecessor as head of the archdiocese of Buenos Aires.

In his judgment, it is true that Pope Francis speaks tough words against abortion, but he does this so as to make no waves in the mainstream media, thus not enduring a sort of censure but deliberately posturing himself in accord with this silence.

In fact, if the pope really wanted to give greater public impact to his words against abortion, why - Quarracino wonders - would he not speak them at a Sunday Angelus, or during a large public audience, on a par with his noisy invectives in defense of nature or migrants, but prefers to tuck them away in private letters that are not even covered by “L’Osservatore Romano”?

In effect, looking back on the years of John Paul II everyone remembers the formidable public impact of the battle that pope fought in defense of unborn life.

Exemplary was what happened in 1994, before and during the international conference for population and development convened in Cairo by the United Nations.

The objective of that conference was to “guarantee reproductive rights,” a formula that John Paul II translated into the “systematic death of the unborn.”

Well then, that pope, as the event approached, thundered in defense of life and the family in a sequence of several Sunday Angelus, called the whole world’s ambassadors to the Vatican to listen to him, sent UN officials a memorandum with all of his objections, received the American president Bill Clinton in an audience that witnesses called “very tense.”

The result was that in the global media the Cairo conference became a pitched battle between the pope and the powerful of the world, for or against abortion, contraceptives, and sterilization. Even the most famous war correspondents flocked to Cairo, as Christiane Amanpour did for CNN.

Today, however - Quarracino objects - Pope Francis prefers to accompany his covert condemnations of abortion with a cordial understanding with the magnates of “inclusive capitalism,” the same ones who finance abortion policies.

Here is his letter. In the photo from AFP, Pope Francis with then-president (now vice-president) of Argentina Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

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Estimado Sandro:

respecto a tu artículo sobre la censura que se le aplicaría al papa Bergoglio cuando hace referencias al aborto, me permito aportarte algunas precisiones y correcciones.... {letter is in Spanish)

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