Defending the sanctity of life also means taking care of the environment, an official of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said during the 2023 “Walk for Life” march on Saturday, Feb. 18.
Participants of the walk, the first to be held amid the Covid-19 pandemic, marched from Welcome Rotonda in Quezon City to the UST Grandstand, where the CBCP secretary general, Msgr. Bernardo Pantin, led the Eucharistic celebration.
The theme of this year’s Walk for Life was “Clergy and lay faithful called to walk together for life.”
Pantin, the former president of the UST Alumni Priests’ Association, stressed that pro-life advocates should take care of the environment, citing Pope Francis’s encyclical “Laudato si (Praised be).”
“‘Yung Santo Papa naman natin, sabi nga niya, hindi lamang ‘yung buhay natin, physical life, but ‘yung buong mundo talaga, including the environment. When we destroy the environment, we also destroy life,” Pantin said.
The Council of the Laity of the Philippines, which organizes the yearly event, urged the faithful on Jan. 24 to join the march to signify “synodality” and promote awareness of the sacredness of life.
“Our spirit of upholding life has never wavered, even during the pandemic. We have become even more deeply aware of the sacredness of life and sincerely prayed and worked tremendously together to preserve and keep it safe,” Raymond Cruz Jr., the council’s president, said in a statement.
The “Walk for Life” has been held annually since 2017 to defend the “culture of life” against the “culture of death.” A.B. Maestrado
