Pope's Easter Message Assails Abortion

VATICAN CITY--In his Easter Sunday address, Pope John Paul II yesterday called on the 200,000 people jammed into St. Peter's Square and on humankind to accept "the great challenge of peace."

"To choose peace means to choose life," said the Pope.

The Pontiff chose the theme of life and death for his traditional Easter message, "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city of Rome and the world), saying Easter testifies that "God does not resign himself to man's death."

John Paul made references to abortion, terrorism, and guerrilla warfare during his speech at the conclusion of a Mass in the square on the steps outside St. Peter's Basilica.

Meanwhile, delivering a message with a similar theme in Boston, Bernard Cardinal Law '53 railed against abortion and "sexual immorality" during his Easter message at a packed cathedral.

"The stupendous combat between death and life is experienced by each human being," the archbishop said in his traditional message delivered on the biggest Christian feast day of the year.

"Its terrifying scope reaches in the wombs of mothers--so many of them victims themselves of combat--where unborn human beings struggle to survive the abortionist's instruments of death," Law told the audience of 2000.

In his prepared speech for the noon Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Law said: "The combat between death and life claims its casualties in battered or abandoned children; young people destroyed by drugs, alcohol, the dignities of their bodies violated by the sexual immorality willingly or unwillingly practiced."

Pope's Address

St. Peter's Square was jammed with spectators for the Pope's message. Among those in the crowd were U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz, an Episcopalian, and his wife, Helena, a Roman Catholic. She received communion from the Pope.

"Man unfortunately resigns himself to death and not only accepts it but also inflicts it," said the Pope, standing before the altar and reading his speech in Italian as a light wind blew his gold robe.

"Men continually inflict death upon others, people who are often unknown, innocent people, people not yet born," the Pope said.

"In this International Peace Year, I have decided to invite people of all religious convictions, all people of good will, to a special meeting of prayer for peace in the town of Assisi," the Pope said.

The previously announced gathering is expected to take place in autumn in the hometown of St. Francis, the founder of the Franciscan order, which has made peace a special goal. No date has been set.

"It will be an opportunity to reaffirm, before man terrified by the threats of death, our commitment to the victory of life," John Paul said.

Under a warm sun, the crowd applauded and waved flags from around the world at the end of the service.

Green netting and scaffolding used in a restoration project at St. Peter's covered about half of the front of the massive church.

Pink carnations and azaleas, orange-red tulips and yellow daffodils were everywhere. Yellow-orange zinnias nearly covered the altar.

Helena Shultz, her head covered with a black mantilla, stood in a front row next to Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti, who met with Shultz in Rome Saturday. The U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, William Wilson, was at Shultz's side.

The Pope received the Shultzes in a private audience at the Vatican early Saturday evening.

John Paul ended the service by saying "Happy Easter" or "Christ is risen" in 49 languages, including Maltese, Tamil, Vietnamese, Arabic and Hebrew. He concluded with a longer greeting in his native Polish and Latin.