Angry Pope Tells Poles to Stop ‘Careless’ Practice of Abortion

An angry and emotional Pope John Paul II beseeched Poles on Monday to abandon the practice of abortion, saying the world would become “a nightmare” if families treated the “conceived child” as a burden to be disposed of in hard times.

At a rain-soaked outdoor Mass in the southern city of Kielce, the Pope raised his voice and pumped his arms as he departed from prepared remarks to accuse Poles of irresponsibility on abortion.

“Understand, all you who are careless in these matters, understand that they cannot fail to concern me and cannot fail to hurt me. And it should hurt you as well,” the Pope shouted to a crowd of 150,000. “You should not carelessly destroy anymore. Each and every child is a gift from God. That gift is always priceless, even if it is sometimes difficult to accept.”

The outburst was unusual for the Pope, as he himself acknowledged. “I am speaking this way because this land is my mother, this fatherland is my mother, because here all are my brothers and sisters,” the Polish-born pontiff said.

His remarks, broadcast on state television, are sure to inflame an already stormy debate on abortion and contraception in this overwhelmingly Catholic country.

Public opinion surveys show that most Poles oppose a ban on abortion--which has been available on demand since 1956--and Parliament last month delayed church-supported legislation to outlaw abortions and jail anyone who performs one.

The Pope also delivered a stern message against anti-Semitism in Kielce, where at least 42 Jewish Holocaust survivors were killed in 1946 as they returned to their homes from Nazi imprisonment. Referring to the victims as “brother Jews killed by criminal hands,” the pontiff declared: “We commend their souls to God, and may there be love among people of all nations, races and beliefs.”

Earlier Monday, in the farming town of Lubaczow, about 15 miles from the Soviet Ukraine, the Pope appeared to lend support to efforts by the Polish Catholic Church to enshrine Christian values in the country’s new constitution.

“The idea that holiness should not enter social and state life is an idea that will make state and social life godless,” the Pope declared. He added that Poland risks creating a “Catholic ghetto” if it tries to exclude religion from public life, as the Communist regime did for 45 years.