Pope Stands Firm On Women’s Issues Catholics Maintain Ban On Contraceptives, Abortion

Pope John Paul II said Sunday he has prepared a message expressing the church’s esteem for women but not changing its policies on women’s issues.

The pope’s letter is scheduled to be made public today, part of the Vatican’s aggressive campaign to promote the stand it will take on issues such as contraceptives, sexual exploitation and abortion at a U.N. conference on women in Beijing in September.

“I wanted to address myself directly, and almost confidentially, to all the women in the world, to show them the esteem and the gratitude of the church, and together to repropose the essential lines of the evangelical message that pertain to them,” the pope told a crowd in St. Peter’s Square.

John Paul gave no details of his letter. But in outlining Vatican strategy for the Beijing conference, Roman Catholic Church officials have made clear they will battle to make sure their teachings, including bans on abortion, contraceptive use and premarital sex, are aired.

The pope has devoted several recent public speeches to women and their problems. His most formal message about women came in his 1988 encyclical, “On the Dignity of Women,” which attempted to define women’s nature and role in the Catholic Church and society. That document condemned sexual discrimination but upheld the ban on female priests.