In an interview with Reuters published by the news agency on Monday, Pope Francis responded to the decision of the US Supreme Court (Scotus) that overturned the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling enshrining a woman’s right to abortion, speculated on visiting Moscow and Kyiv, and on circumstances in which he might consider resigning.
Francis said he respected the Scotus decision, but needed to study it further “from a judicial point of view”. He continued: “Leaving [that decision] aside, let’s go back to the issue of abortion … In this we have to be scientific, see what science tells us today. Science today and any book on embryology tells you that 30 days after conception there is DNA and the laying out already of all the organs.”
“It’s a human life - that’s science. The moral question is whether it is right to take a human life to solve a problem."
On the question of Catholic politicians who support abortion – US President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are the most prominent – Francis said: “When the Church loses its pastoral nature, when a bishop loses his pastoral nature, it causes a political problem. That's all I can say.”
On rumours that he might be planning to resign, Francis said: “For the moment no …. However, when the time comes that I see that I can’t do it [run the Church, because of bad health] I will do it [resign].”
“That was the great example of Pope Benedict. He told popes to stop in time.”
Pope Francis said the decision to postpone the trip to DRC and South Sudan because of health issues with his knee caused him “great suffering”.
On future travels and the war in Ukraine, Pope Francis said, “The first thing is to go to Russia to try to help in some way, but I would like to go to both capitals, that is, Kyiv and Moscow.”
On Thursday last week Francis met with a delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. “Amid a cruel and senseless war of aggression in which many, many Christians are fighting one another reconciliation among separated Christians as a means of contributing to peace between peoples in conflict is very timely,” he told the delegation.
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