"Welcoming or rejecting a man, especially if needy and suffering, means welcoming or rejecting Christ Himself. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, to whom the European Life Award, posthumously given today to professor Jerome Lejeune, is dedicated, considered aborted children as the poorest of the poor, because they had been rejected by those who should have lovingly welcomed them". Cardinal Antonelli made this reflection in his homily, during the Mass celebrated in the Cathedral of Strasbourg in the morning. In recalling the coming Christmas, "in which people are naturally given to be kinder to children", Antonelli mentioned "appalling" figures: "It has been calculated that abused or abandoned children, not to mention aborted children or victims of genetic manipulation, range between 133 million and 275 million a year across the world". This must "drive everyone, pro-life movements, people of good will, to work harder for an intelligent and persevering commitment to promoting a culture and a policy for life and the family".
