Cardinal Glemp of Poland has openly criticized the country’s communist authorities for permitting easy abortions. More human beings die as a result of the operation than are killed in wars, he says.
In October 1984, a pastoral letter by the Cardinal, which was read in more than 10,000 churches, protested abortions both in Poland and throughout the world.
Referring to the 300,000 abortions officially registered in polish hospitals each year, His Eminence said, “A powerful stream that kills life is flowing across Poland.
“There have never been so many victims of violent death in war as there are every day in peacetime,” he said,
Abortion was legalized in Poland during the mid-50s. Total abortion figures in the country are thought to be higher than official estimates, as doctors who carry out the operation in private are not obliged to inform the authorities.
Cardinal Glemp called on world leaders to use the billions of dollars spent on armaments to foster life. “Life would look very different if huge sums of money spent on arms, abortion, contraception and sterilization were used instead in the service of life,” he said.
(The above is excerpted from a longer report that appeared in The Universe, October 19, 1984.)
