The Roman Catholic Church in Poland observers the Day of Sanctity of Human Life today with a mass celebrated in the evening in the Warsaw Jesuit Church in the Old Town, calling for the ‘the victory of the civilization of love’.

The mass will be followed by a candle-lit procession under the motto ‘Light for Life’ to the John Paul II cross in the Pilsudski Square.

Prayers for the protection of life will be also said during a mass celebrated in another Warsaw church by the papal nuncio Archbishop Celestino Migliore.

The annual celebration of the Day of Sanctity of Human Life was launched by the Polish Episcopate in 1998 in response to the call contained in the encyclical Evangelium Vitae, in which Pope John Paul II condemned murder, genocide, abortion and euthanasia. (mk)