Pope Calls Abortion ‘Repulsive Crime’ : Condemns Practice in Strongest Terms on 28th Foreign Trip

Employing some of the strongest terms he has yet used on the subject, Pope John Paul II on Sunday repeatedly spoke out against abortion during a one-day visit to this picturesque country, the last remaining principality of the defunct Holy Roman Empire.

“Abortion and taking the child’s life are repulsive crimes,” the pontiff told the princes and commoners who rule tiny Liechtenstein, the 61-square-mile monarchy on the Swiss-Austrian border. The country is unique in Europe as the only one that retains Roman Catholicism as its state religion.

Total Opposition

During a full day of speeches on his 28th papal trip outside Italy, John Paul selected for his audience perhaps the least abortion-minded European country as he hammered repeatedly on the subject of the church’s total opposition to the practice.

Yet while seemingly preaching to the already converted, the pontiff also chided the Liechtensteiners on the dangers he sees in their material prosperity, which has given them the highest per capita income in Europe.

He said the principality’s living standard could too easily lead to “indolence, to satisfying egoistic desires and to lack of consideration for one’s fellow beings.”

‘The Selfish World’

“If you really wish to awaken to life in Christ, you must break away from the selfish world,” he said.

Officials said that while the government has considered legalizing abortion when the mother’s life is in danger or when the child probably would be born deformed, the subject has not become an issue and is not likely to pass into law in the near future.

Significantly, the measure is opposed by the nation’s absolute monarch, Prince Franz Josef II, 79, and his 40-year-old son, Crown Prince Hans-Adam, a godson of Pope Pius XII, who hold power of veto over the elected Parliament.

Liechtenstein is officially Catholic--as are more than 85% of its 26,700 citizens--and the last surviving monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The population mushroomed temporarily Sunday as an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 Swiss, Austrians and West Germans crossed their borders to see and hear the Pope.

More than 30,000 crowded into the sunny, open-field sports stadium of Eschen, a small town north of Vaduz, to hear the pontiff extol traditional family values and condemn the forces that undermine them.

‘Irresponsible Behavior’

“Unfortunately, the moral order of marriage and the family, as laid down by God in his plan of creation, is today greatly disturbed, if not frequently destroyed, by the irresponsible behavior of many,” John Paul said.

“The Catholic church will not stop repeating all these fundamentals, unabbreviated and without restriction, which concern in particular the evil of concubinage, unfaithfulness in marriage, the increasing divorce rate, the misuse of marriage, and abortion,” he added.

In his Angelus address during the Mass, the pontiff exhorted his audience, expanded throughout German-speaking Europe by live television, to “say yes to human life in all its stages.”

Again, in addressing the two princes, their families and members of the two-party Parliament at Vaduz Castle, a 12th-Century fortress perched on a mountainside above the capital, the Pope stressed the theme of “the unborn human being’s right to live (as) one of the inalienable human rights.”

The Pope crisscrossed the tiny country, mostly by Swiss-loaned helicopter, during his visit of 9 hours 40 minutes, after which he returned to Rome via Zurich’s international airport. The $1.15-million cost of the brief pastoral visit aroused some controversy, according to local residents, but most appeared to be pleased that he had come after being disappointed when Liechtenstein was dropped from the papal itinerary for last year’s pastoral trip to Switzerland.

Police Bolstered

Liechtenstein’s 45-man police force was bolstered for the day by Swiss security specialists and police, as well as by uniformed teen-aged school-crossing guards. Priests from the nearby parishes of Switzerland and Austria also came to supplement the country’s 11 aging Roman Catholic clergymen, down from 17 a decade ago.

A Vatican spokesman, who returned with the Pope from a 12-day African journey less than three weeks ago, said the pontiff has no further foreign travel plans until February, when he will spend nearly two weeks in India.