Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna used his Remembrance Day homily to call on politicians to take a stand in favour of life “from beginning to end”.

“Politicians’ choices need to be in favour of life from the beginning to end, because war is not the only instrument of death,” he said during his Sunday sermon.

“Isn’t it what we teach our children? Do not fall into bad habits, so that you don’t destroy your life? And then some of them are sent for the kill by the state itself,” Scicluna said.

The archbishop’s comments come as the debate on abortion – something which the Church across the globe has always been vehemently against – rages on in Malta.

The comments also come some days after PN leader Bernard Grech said that he would not tolerate representing the party to be in favour of abortion – possibly in response to controversy generated within some of the party’s more conservative voter base over one of the party’s election candidates who is pro-choice.

That candidate – Emma Portelli Bonnici – has said she would continue to contest on the PN’s ticket, and that she was not contesting to see abortion introduced in Malta.

Grech said on Sunday in comments to the Times of Malta that he was not seeking to kick pro-choice people out of the party, but that nobody on the PN’s ticket will be allowed to campaign for abortion.

Archbishop Scicluna said that in times of war both in the past and in the present day it is the young who end up “sowing the seeds of deaths” rather than promoting life.

“Because they are radicalised, because they are brain washed; instead of becoming messengers of life, a lot of young people turn into instruments of death,” he said. “What a tragedy this is.”

Scicluna also spoke about how young people are being hurt and killed due to conflicts brought about by a lack of social justice in terms of how the world’s wealth is distributing, saying that while millions remain hungry, the world has been enveloped by the “macabre exploitation” of resources for and by the few.

He said that when remembering victims of conflict and laying wreaths before monuments, people must ask a small but essential question: “what should I do?”

He said that people must listen to those who teach the road of life, not those who preach on the “dark alleyway of death.”

That is why, he said, today and tomorrow’s political choices should be in favour of life “from start to end.”