Archbishop Paul Gallagher, Vatican aecretary for eelations with atates. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Vatican City, Oct 1, 2025 / 15:05 pm (CNA).
The Holy See’s secretary for relations with states, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, decried that attacks on Christians have intensified in recent years and accused the international community of “turning a blind eye.”
“The data show that Christians are the most persecuted religious group worldwide, and yet the international community seems to be turning a blind eye to their plight,” the English archbishop declared during his Sept. 29 address to the United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly.
“Christians across the world are subjected to severe persecution, including physical violence, imprisonment, forced displacement, and martyrdom,” he added.
The Vatican diplomat noted that more than 360 million Christians live in areas where they experience high levels of persecution or discrimination, “with attacks on churches, homes, and communities intensifying in recent years.”
In his address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the archbishop emphasized defending life from practices such as abortion and euthanasia.
In his speech, he insisted that the right to life, from conception to its natural end, is a “fundamental prerequisite for the exercise of all other rights” and condemned “the illegitimacy of every form of procured abortion and of euthanasia.”
‘Culture of death’
The Vatican diplomat criticized what he called a “culture of death” and called for international resources to be allocated to protecting life and supporting those in difficult situations so they can make life-affirming choices.
In particular, he emphasized the need to “enable those mothers to give birth to the child in their womb” and to “ease the burden of human suffering during illness through adequate health and palliative care.”
The archbishop also warned of the risks of a conception of freedom disconnected from objective and universal truth: “When freedom shuts out even the most obvious evidence of an objective and universal truth, which is the foundation of personal and social life, then the person ends up by his subjective and changeable opinion or interest.”
Gallagher stated that this vision of freedom leads to a “serious distortion” of life in society. “At that point, everything becomes negotiable and open to bargaining, even the first of the fundamental rights, the right to life,” he stated.
‘Deplorable practice’ of surrogacy
The representative of the Holy See also addressed the practice of surrogacy, highlighting it as another threat to human dignity: “Another issue that endangers the inviolable dignity of human beings by reducing them to mere products is the practice of so-called surrogate motherhood, which represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child. The Holy See renews its call for an international ban of this deplorable practice.”
Gallagher also denounced the fact that in a world marked by “unprecedented wealth and technological advancement,” millions of people “still lack access to basic necessities.”
“The persistence of extreme poverty, particularly in regions afflicted by conflict, climate change, and systemic inequality, demands immediate and collective action,” he stated.
Foreign debt cancellation
Similarly, Gallagher called for the cancellation of the foreign debt of the poorest countries, emphasizing that these financial burdens “trap nations in poverty and must be canceled as a matter of justice.”
In this context, he said the Holy See urges the international community to “prioritize integral human development in a spirit of solidarity, ensuring that economic policies and development programs place the human person at their core and foster not only material well-being but also spiritual and social growth.”
In the words of the Vatican diplomat, the poor must be seen “not as a problem but as people who can become the principal builders of a new and more human future for everyone.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
