Leo XIV’s Day for Life message: ‘The Wonder of the Child in the Womb’

A day devoted to life “at every stage and in every condition” which, this year, turns its attention to the very beginning - the maternal womb - and to one of its quietest wounds: the death of a child.
That is the focus of the message Pope Leo XIV has sent to the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland for Day for Life, to be observed on Sunday 21 June 2026 under the theme The Wonder of the Child in the Womb.
The message was conveyed by the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, in a letter addressed to Archbishop John Sherrington of Liverpool, the lead bishop for life issues. The day is celebrated jointly by the three bishops’ conferences across these islands, a point worth noting at a time when ecclesial and political positions on end-of-life questions are far from uniform.
The doctrinal source: an encyclical on artificial intelligence
In setting out the conviction that every human being possesses infinite dignity from the moment of conception - “simply by …