The [abortion] excommunication affects all those who commit this crime with knowledge of the penalty attached, and thus includes those accomplices without which the crime would not have been committed.

But responsibility likewise falls on the legislators who have promoted and approved abortion laws, and, to the extent that they have a say in the matter, on the administrators of the health-care centers where abortions are performed. In this sense abortion goes beyond the responsibility of individuals and beyond the harm done to them, and takes on a distinctly social dimension. It is a most serious wound inflicted on society and its culture by the very people who ought to be societys promoters and defenders.

Yes, the civilization of love is possible; it is not a utopia. But it is only possible by a constant and ready reference to the "Father from whom all fatherhood and motherhood on earth is named," from whom every human family comes.

Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.

If the aim is globalization without marginalization, we can no longer tolerate a world in which there live side by side the immensely rich and the miserably poor, the have-nots deprived even of essentials and people who thoughtlessly waste what others so desperately need. Such countries are an affront to the dignity of the human person. He further said, Ethics demand that systems be attuned to the needs of man, and not that man be sacrificed for the sake of the system.

Bless, O Lord of the centuries and the millennia, the daily work by which men and women provide bread for themselves and their loved ones. We also offer to your fatherly hands the toil and sacrifices associated with work, in union with your Son Jesus Christ, who redeemed human work from the yoke of sin and restored it to its original dignity.

None are so poor that they have nothing to give...and none are so rich that they have nothing to receive.