This coming Sunday is Respect Life Sunday.

As pro-life Americans prepared this week for the annual event, Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia issued a statement marking the occasion.

Cardinal Rigali, chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), highlighted several areas of particular concern this year.

One is assisted suicide.

Cardinal Rigali drew attention to Washington state’s ballot initiative to legalize doctor-assisted suicide.

“Such policies betray the ideal of America as a compassionate society honoring the inherent worth of every human being,” he said.

Regarding abortion, Cardinal Rigali applauded the fact that today “most Americans favor banning all abortion or permitting it only in very rare cases.”

But he warned that FOCA legislation now before Congress — which if enacted would ban all restrictions on access to abortion — “would obliterate virtually all the gains of the past 35 years and cause the abortion rate to skyrocket.”

“We cannot allow this to happen,” said Cardinal Rigali about the FOCA bill, which Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama has promised to sign if elected. “We cannot tolerate an even greater loss of innocent human lives.”

— Tom McFeely