The lecture provoked no hostile reaction from the students who heard it. But a media firestorm erupted.

All 17 passengers in the limo and its driver were killed when the car ran through a stop sign, struck two pedestrians and a parked car, and landed in a shallow ravine.

"Is it right to hire a hit man to solve a problem? No, you can't. It's not right to take out a human being, a small one, too, in order to fix a problem. It is like hiring a professional killer," the pope said.

The ruling said the ordinance violated the First Amendment rights of Catholic elementary schools and Our Lady’s Inn, by requiring them to employ or house people who are not abortion opponents.

Robert George, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University, suggested in a Sept. 20 talk that although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights doesn't mention this, its demand for respect for human dignity should even extend to the unborn.

A Catholic bishop has praised a decision by the British government not to impose exclusion zones around abortion clinics throughout the country.