Vatican diplomat: Advancement of women demands respect for motherhood
October 16, 2024
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CWN Editor's Note: Addressing a UN committee meeting devoted to the advancement of women, a leading Vatican diplomat said that “the advancement of women cannot be fully achieved without respecting women’s unique capacities, including motherhood.”
“This requires a renewed commitment to reducing maternal mortality, where progress has stalled for the past decade,” said Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, apostolic nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations. “Far more resources are devoted instead to preventing pregnancy and applying Malthusian theories aimed at reducing global population.”
Archbishop Caccia also spoke out against violence against women, girls’ lack of access to education, human trafficking, sexual exploitation, pornography, prostitution, and—for the third time in the past week—against surrogacy.
“Surrogacy is an unacceptable commercialization of women’s unique capacity for motherhood” and “a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based on the exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs,” the prelate said. “While a number of States already prohibit this practice, Pope Francis has repeatedly called for it to be banned on a universal level.”
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