Leo XIV's criticism of abortion and euthanasia in his speech to the Spanish Parliament

During his visit to Spain, Pope Leo XIV delivered a speech in the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of the Spanish Parliament.

Pope Leo XIV defends the right to life from the conception to natural death
Leo XIV claims “the dignity of every person”, including “the unborn”

The speech of Leo XIV can be read in full here and can be viewed in video format here. The Pope referred to various topics, but there is one I want to highlight: his defense of life against abortion and euthanasia, a defense that has always had a great supporter in the Catholic Church and that Robert Prevost has already taken up on several occasions, as I have been pointing out on this blog.

This morning, in the Congress of Deputies, Leo XIV warned against the threat of "the throwaway culture," an expression that is not new: Pope Francis used it to refer to these attacks against human dignity during his pontificate (criticisms systematically omitted by many media outlets). This is Leo XIV's full reflexion (the video is in Spanish but has English subtitles; you can activate them in the bottom bar of the player):

Here is the official English translation of his words:

"Every truly just society is built upon the recognition of the inviolable dignity of the human person. Such dignity precedes any concession by the State and cannot be subordinated to shifting social consensus or the whims of the majority at any given moment. It belongs to every human being by the very fact of their existence, and for this reason, it must guide every positive legal system. The Christian faith proclaims it on the basis of Revelation; human reason can recognize it as a requirement inscribed in the truth of man. When this conviction remains alive, the law becomes a safeguard for all and a guarantee against the imposition of particular interests and agendas.

On this basis, it falls to me today to speak a calm and firm word to those who bear the grave responsibility of legally ordering social coexistence. This coexistence can be threatened by the throwaway culture, as Pope Francis so often warned. In this sense, if life ceases to be recognized as a fundamental value, what future can our societies have? Can a community that casts into the shadows the unborn child, the elderly, the sick, those who suffer in silence, or those who depend entirely on the care of others be called fully just? The defense of human life is neither a partisan issue nor a confessional interest: it is a goal of civilization. Every human life must be recognized and safeguarded from conception to its natural end, in every circumstance of its existence. When this certainty is obscured, the most vulnerable are the first victims, and the law loses its deepest meaning: to serve and protect every person. For this reason, the moral greatness of a nation is manifested, above all, in its capacity to accompany, protect and love those lives that are most fragile."

Leo XIV spoke these words before a chamber packed with politicians from both the Congress and the Senate. The vast majority of these are politicians who have openly supported these attacks against the most vulnerable, but who today gave the Pope's speech a long round of applause. Here we can see the left-wing benches, made up of parties (starting with the PSOE, led by Pedro Sánchez) that have openly promoted abortion and euthanasia:

And here are the seats of the People's Party, a party that had two absolute majorities, and having the power to repeal them, left the left's pro-abortion laws intact, laws that Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the current president of the PP, boasted of not having repealed:

As I already pointed out here in January, currently only one party remains in Congress, Vox, that aims to repeal those laws. I wonder what the others were applauding.

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Photos: Congreso de los Diputados.