_WORLD WATCH______________________________
________________Nicaragua_______________
Nation honors unborn children
Second Latin country to make the move
Nicaragua has become the second Catholic country in Latin America to declare March 25 as a national Day of the Unborn Child.
“In declaring this day, the President of Nicaragua gives the world tremendous hope, because he reminds us that our Catholic principles are not limited to personal morality and religion,” said Archbishop Renato R. Martino, the Holy See’s permanent observer at the United Nations. The archbishop spoke on March 25 at the national stadium in Managua, during the ceremony which culminated with a Mass attended by over 20,000 people including President Arnaldo Aleman and Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo of Managua. Nicaragua’s decision comes two years after that of Argentina, the first country to assign a day to protecting the life of the unborn child in 1999. March 25 is the Feast of the Annunciation, sometimes also called the Feast of the Incarnation since that is when Jesus took on human flesh in Mary’s womb, becoming an unborn child.
The archbishop said that in his years of representing the Church in the work of the United Nations, he had seen pro-abortion groups “attempt to impose their death-dealing agenda on the family of nations,” and “powerful groups lobbying to make abortion a human right, to destroy the family, to portray motherhood as outdated and pregnancy merely a disturbing sickness.” But he said the Holy See has not been alone in defending human life. Nicaragua, Argentina, Honduras, and Guatemala offer consistent support for the Vatican position, he reported—as do Islamic countries such as Libya, Iran, Egypt, Morocco, and Kuwait.