Vatican newspaper editor: Obama not pro-abortion

May 22, 2009

L’Osservatore Romano editor Gian Maria Vian said in a May 18 interview that President Barack Obama is not pro-abortion.

“Let me be clear, L’Osservatore stands where the American bishops are: we consider abortion a disaster. We must promote, always and at every level a ‘culture of life,’” said Vian.

“What I want to stress is that yesterday [at the University of Notre Dame], on this precise and very delicate issue, the President said that the approval of the new law on abortion is not a priority of his administration. The fact that he said that is very reassuring to me. It also underlines my own clear belief: Obama is not a pro-abortion president.”

In an October 2008 article, Princeton University Professor Robert George maintained that “Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the office of President of the United States. He is the most extreme pro-abortion member of the United States Senate. Indeed, he is the most extreme pro-abortion legislator ever to serve in either house of the United States Congress.”

Responding to the Vatican newspaper's latest editorial comment on American political affairs, George Weigel observes that it would be "helpful if the newspaper published by the Holy See did not display a sorry ignorance of recent American history (including the history of the civil-rights movement) and a fideist credulity about the magic of Barack Obama." Nevertheless, while conceding that some Vatican officials do betray a sympathy for Obama, Weigel observes that it is a mistake to think that L'Osservatore Romano speaks, in this case, for the Pope and the Vatican as a whole.

 

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Further information:

• Caso Notre Dame. Vian: “Sto coi vescovi Usa ma il discorso di Obama mi è piaciuto” (Palazzo Apostolico)
• Editor of Vatican newspaper says ‘Obama is not pro-abortion’ (CNA)
• Robert P. George: Obama’s Abortion Extremism (Public Discourse)
• Parsing the Vatican Newspaper (National Review)