Vatican ‘foreign minister’ laments violence against women, poverty, infanticide, abortion
September 23, 2025
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CWN Editor's Note: Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations, took part in a UN meeting marking the 30th anniversary of the Beijing conference on women.
Archbishop Gallagher lamented “a higher extreme poverty rate for women, obstacles to accessing or even exclusion of women from quality education, and their lower wages in the workforce ... Furthermore, the continued prevalence of violence against women and girls is deeply alarming.”
“Violence is not limited to sexual exploitation and trafficking but includes also the practices of prenatal sex selection and female infanticide,” which “continue to result in the deaths of millions of ‘missing girls’ each year,” he said, adding:
Access to prenatal care and skilled birth attendants, as well as to healthcare systems and infrastructure must increase, while false solutions such as abortion rejected. Indeed, protecting the right to life is essential, as it underpins all other fundamental rights.
The 1995 Beijing conference occasioned Pope St. John Paul II’s Letter to Women, as well as diplomatic activity by the Holy See to prevent the enshrinement of an international right to abortion.
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