nuncio, H.E. Archbishop Andre Dupuy, who was appointed on 11 July 2006, and accredited to the Principality to represent the Holy See in Monaco. I searched for statements in French by Archbishop Andre Dupuy on the internet, and could not find any French, Monegasque, Vatican or other newspaper or internet site reporting any statements made by His Excellency, Archbishop Dupuy with respect to the Monegasque National Council’s April vote to liberalize abortion and could find none. This search is made even more difficult since the Holy See’s Apostolic Nunciature to Monaco, nor the Embassy of the Principality of Monaco to the Holy See appear to have established websites. It would be have certainly been particularly interesting to see how the Embassy of the Principality of Monaco to the Holy See would have nuanced for public release this liberalization of Monaco’s heretofore strict law on abortion which now violates Catholic ecclesiastical human rights rules of law and social doctrine. We must however, establish a reserve for hope, for there is, of course, the possibility that a private communiqué was sent by the apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Andre Dupuy to Monaco’s National Council advising them against proceeding with their vote to liberalize Monaco’s laws on abortion which would contravene Catholic ecclesiastical human rights rules of law and social doctrine. It has been nearly four months since the Monegasque National Council’s legislative travesty of a vote liberalizing abortion in, as of 2007, one of the last two Roman Catholic states maintaining strict anti-abortion laws, with the other official Catholic state being Malta.

Since in accordance with official Catholic social, legal, diplomatic and moral human rights doctrine, abortion is a grave crime against the sanctify of human life, and a matter of derogating from the peremptory norm of ecclesiastical law of ecclesiastical human rights jus cogens in the Roman Catholic Church, it is unthinkable that an apostolic nuncio –whose mission it is to--in a matter of speaking-- uphold “ the Holy See’s human rights diplomacy of conscience” in the country to whom he is sent” would wait nearly four months, or more, to release a press statement condemning this horrific vote by the Catholic Monegasque National Council liberalizing abortion. This is especially true since the Principality is an official Catholic sovereign state. In this case of an egregious illegal and unconstitutional moral, diplomatic, and human rights legislative state of affairs promulgating a pro-abortion law in an official Catholic country, it would certainly be expected that a statement by the Apostolic Nuncio of the Holy See to Monaco, the President of the Roman Curia’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (the Roman Curia’s ecclesiastical human rights oversight and enforcement dicastery], and the Pontifical Academy for Life would have already, by now, i.e., August of 2009, been a matter of archived, publicly accessible, press reports.

According to the Vatican’s website on the Pontifical Academy of Life, with his Motu Proprio "Vitae Mysterium" of February 11, 1994, John Paul II instituted the Pontifical Academy for Life. Its objectives are the study, information and formation on the principal problems of biomedicine and of law, relative to the promotion and defense of life, above all in the direct relation that they have with Christian morality and the directives of the Church's Magisterium.” In effect, neither the Roman Curia’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, the Pontifical Academy for Life, nor the apostolic nuncio to Monaco have released official public statements, that were identified and accessible via the internet, condemning the Monegasque National Council’s unconstitutional and illegal vote liberalizing abortion in Catholic Monaco.

This is an especially tragic state of ecclesiastical human rights rule of law enforcement and diplomacy especially since, in accordance with Catholic doctrine and ecclesiastical rule of law, the members of the Monegasque National Council incurred an automatic censor of latae sententiae excommunication when they executed their unanimous vote. The Church’s canonical law on abortion and excommunication is explicit in Canons 751 and 1398, which state, respectively,

Canon 1398: “A person who procures a completed abortion incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.”

Canon 751: “Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.”

Canon 1364 §1: “an apostate from the faith, a heretic, or a schismatic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.”

The phrase “latae sententiae” means a judgment or sentence ...