Alfonso Cardinal Lopez Trujillo, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, met with pro-life non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on the eve of the 27th Special Session of the General Assembly on Children held 8 through 10 May at the UN. Cardinal Lopez headed the Vatican delegation.
The meeting took place 7 May at the Mission of the Holy See in Manhattan. It was called by Archbishop Renato R. Martino, Apostolic Nuncio, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations.
Cardinal Lopez discussed the plight of children around the world and the importance of supporting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, especially as it applies to children. He noted that the Declaration on the Rights of the Child adopted by the UN World Summit for Children in 1990 gave legal protection to the child before as well as after birth.
Also addressing the group was Brother David Carroll, F.S.C., Assistant to the Secretary General of CNEWA. He discussed CNEWA’s Needy Child Program. An interesting aspect of the program, he noted, is that some of the children sponsored through the agency enter religious life, influenced by the priests, brothers and nuns with whom they come in contact at schools financed by CNEWA.
Brother David stressed that the papal agency not only supports the work of the Latin Church but Eastern Catholic churches as well. He mentioned, as examples, the Coptic and Armenian churches and the Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara churches.