Vatican City - In a strong condemnation of abortion, Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday urged the faithful to develop a new respect for life even when it is "sick or damaged."
Marking the Italian Catholic Church's "Day for Life," Benedict stressed the need to protect all human life.
The pontiff cited the 1995 encyclical "Evangelium Vitae," in which the late Pope John Paul II delivered the Vatican's most forceful condemnation of abortion, artificial contraception, euthanasia and experimentation on human embryos.
"We know well that this truth risks being contradicted by the hedonism of the so-called well-off societies: Life is exalted as long as it's pleasant, but one tends to not respect it any more when it is sick or damaged," Benedict told pilgrims and tourists in St. Peter's Square for his Sunday blessing.
The description "sick or damaged" life in the church's teaching commonly refers to situations in which life is in particular need of being defended, including deformed fetuses, the severely disabled, terminally ill patients or people in vegetative states.
"Every human life as such deserves to be always defended and promoted," the pontiff said.
The pope said that he drew inspiration from John Paul "who dedicated constant attention to these issues."
In a similar message during a Mass at the St. Ann parish inside Vatican City, Benedict said people today wrongly think that modern man is the master of life when he is only the custodian. Life depends on God and without God, life disappears, he said.
Recently the Italian bishops' conference also stressed the priority for respecting human life. The president of the conference, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, has said Italian voters should consider issues such as abortion in determining which candidates to vote for in April 9 elections.
Abortion up to the end of the third month of pregnancy was legalized in predominantly Catholic Italy in 1978, after a long battle between the Vatican and secular forces. Recently, the abortion pill RU-486 became available in parts of Italy on an experimental basis although the health minister has placed restrictions on importing the drug.
The bishops' conference has renewed its fight against abortion and RU-486, turning abortion into a campaign issue for the first time since Italians upheld the law in a 1981 referendum.
Benedict told Italian officials last month that doctors should not give women the abortion pill because it hides the "gravity" of taking a human life.