SW News: Once again, the Holy Father has blessed and rung a Voice of the Unborn Bell in the Vatican. It was during his General Audience on Wednesday in Paul VI Hall that the bell was blessed and rung for the first time. Voice of the Unborn bells are a series of bells that are blessed for different nations where they will travel from parish to parish carrying the message of the sanctity of life from conception each time they are solemnly rung.

This bell will now travel all the way to the Cathedral of Child Jesus in Lusaka, the capital of the African nation of Zambia. Before being installed in the cathedral it will be taken to many cities and towns in the country. “As a sign of the need to protect human life from conception to natural death, the Yes to Life Foundation is donating to Zambia the Voice of the Unborn, the bell I have blessed. May its sound carry the message that every life is sacred and inviolable," the Pope said on March 22.

Pope Francis said the Voice of the Unborn Bells are a reminder of the need to protect life right from the moment of conception until death. He also added that the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25 in Poland is commemorated as the Day of the Sanctity of Life. , during the general audience. The blessing was conducted before the audience. The ceremony was attended by Archbishop Alick Banda of Lusaka and the vice president of the Yes to Life Foundation Bogdan Romaniuk. Similar bells have been cast before and taken across Poland, Ukraine and Ecuador. Each time, they were blessed by the Roman Pontiff and he was the first to ring them.

On February 12, 2022, a Voice of the Unborn Bell cast in Poland was blessed by Pope Francis in the Vatican. It was then taken all the way to the Cathedral of St Peter the Apostle in Guayaquil in Ecuador where it rang to pay homage to all the unborn children who were killed in the womb. Polish foundation Yes to Life is credited with creating the bells. The first bell was forged in 2020 after its vice-president Romaniuk came to know that more than 42 million babies are killed every year in the womb across the world.