ROME: Pope Francis has defended his choice of pro-abortion economics Mariana Mazzucato for the Pontifical Academy for Life in a statement on Sunday that she'll bring an element of “humanity” to the Academy.
The woman “knows how to find the right path and move forward,” the pontiff told journalists on the papal plane on its way back to Bahrein towards Rome in answer to a question regarding women's rights.
“Now I've put Mariana Mazzucato in the Pontifical Academy for Life. She is an excellent economics expert from America. I put her in the academy to add an element of humanity to it,” he added.
“Women are unique and have their own way of doing things. They shouldn't be like men. They are women and we must respect them.” The pope went on. “And any society that eliminates women from public life is a community which is poor. It's poor.”
“Equal rights, yes. But also equality of opportunities,” he said. “Equality to move forward, because otherwise we are impoverished.”
“There is this machismo,” Francis declared. “I am from a nation of male Chauvinists. Argentines have male chauvinists all the time. This is very ugly and then we turn to our mothers, those who can solve our issues.”
“But this machismo kills humanity,” he added.
In the last month, the head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, also defended Mazzucato's appointment to the Academy and said that her views could seem “pro-choice” but they are not “pro-abortion.”
Pope Francis has said that abortion is “murder” and has compared abortionists to paid killers.
