In his general audience Wednesday, Pope Francis said that abortion “suppresses innocent and helpless life in its blossoming.”

“Is it right to take a human life to solve a problem? It’s like hiring a hitman,” Pope Francis said in St. Peter’s Square Oct. 10, in a departure from his prepared remarks.

“Violence and the rejection of life are born from fear,” the Pope added.

For this reason, parents who learn that their unborn child will have a disability need “real closeness, true solidarity to face reality, overcoming understandable fears,” he explained.

Pope Francis lamented that parents receiving a difficult prenatal diagnosis often “receive hasty advice to stop the pregnancy.”

It is contradictory to suppress “human life in the womb in the name of safeguarding other rights,” the Pope insisted.

“How can an act that suppresses innocent and helpless life in its blossoming be therapeutic, civil or simply human?”

The Pope’s remarks on abortion came during a reflection on the Fifth Commandment, “Thou shall not kill.” In recent weeks, the Pope has dedicated his weekly general audiences to a series of lessons and reflections on the Ten Commandments recorded in the scriptural books of Exodus and Deuteronomy.

“One could say that all the evil done in the world is summarized in this: contempt for life,” Pope Francis told the pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square.

“What leads man to reject life? They are the idols of this world: money, power, success. These are incorrect parameters to evaluate life. The only authentic measure of life is love, the love with which God loves it!” — from his general audience on October 17, 2018 as reported by Courtney Grogan