Poland: Rosary for Life prayer, from tomorrow to October 21st. The bishops’ endorsement

In October, a month that is particularly focussed on praying the Rosary, the president of the Family Council of the Episcopal Conference of Poland, mgr. Wiesław Śmigiel, made an appeal, calling people to say the prayer “to ask to respect the lives of all Polish citizens”. In a special message, the prelate asked devotees to take part in the “pro-life novena through the intercession of John Paul II” which will start tomorrow, October 13th, and will end on October 21st, just the day before the liturgical commemoration of the Polish Pope, who “was a brave and stubborn promoter of the holiness of the life”. Mgr. Śmigiel also thanked the people taking part in the initiatives “aimed at protecting human life from conception to natural death”. And it has been precisely the pro-life movements, as mgr. Śmigiel pointed out, that came up with the idea of the Rosary for Life, which the Episcopal Conference of Poland “merely endorsed”. The Council’s appeal, the prelate added, “should ring as an encouragement for parishes, pastors and all communities”. At the request of the Polish pro-life movements, on October 22nd Warsaw’s Parliament will have to take a decision about the ban on abortion when practiced because of a seriously ill foetus (the so-called eugenic abortion).
Valentina Bombelli