“Wine and Oil on the Wounds”

“Wine and Oil on the Wounds” is the title of the study seminar on the experience of abortion that the Pontifical John Paul II Institute has scheduled for 15 March, in its Auditorium, in Rome.

“How often—the promoters explain—, imagining that we are saving life, do we reject opportunities to experience what reality offers us, how many times do we cast off the bud, wounding and maiming all those who seem to besiege the solitude in which we are holed up? Only to discover later that we mutilated ourselves and we feel that we are the cause of our own suffering, locked in the lair of our guilt, from which we cannot speak.”

The Institute’s president, Msgr. Pierangelo Sequeri, will open the work. Then, lectures will be given by of Juan Jose Perez-Soba, a professor of the same institute, on the theme “Why the Church?”; Monika Rodman Montanaro, coordinator of “Rachel’s Vineyard” Italy Mission, on the “The offer of post-abortion pastoral care in a team: Twenty years of international experience,” followed by a testimony about the path of post-abortion healing of the woman and the couple.

Then, Stefano Di Battista, spokesman for “Defend life with Mary”, will speak about how to “Voice the pain and lack of parenting and denial of parenthood;” the psychologist Valeria D’Antonio, from the team Faith and Therapy, will focus on the development of prenatal bereavement in men; and Gabriella Bertocchi, president of the Pro-life Center in Melzo, will describe the role of a Pro-life Center in Milan through the experience of meeting mothers called to make a choice when faced with an unwanted pregnancy. Finally, Fr. Fulvio Bertini, spiritual assistant of the Pro-Life Center in Melzo, will speak on “Meeting and listening to young people in search of help in the face of an unexpected pregnancy. Fear and the inability to take responsibility.”