Vatican City - Pope Benedict warmly praised pro-life activists on Wednesday as the Italian government was considering deploying them into abortion advice centres to try to dissuade women from terminating pregnancies.
The pope's comments came amidst a controversy in Italy over abortion that has led to accusations the powerful Catholic Church was trying to interfere in domestic politics.
Speaking at the end of his weekly general audience to tens of thousands of people in St Peter's Square, the Pope hailed the work of an organisation called Movement for Life.
He lauded the group for its "courage" in opposing abortion, which the Church considers murder. "You are writing pages of hope for the future of humanity," he told the group.
Italy has for weeks been caught up in a national debate over whether to allow the use of an abortion pill, known as RU-486, which blocks the action of the hormone progesterone, needed to sustain a pregnancy.
While he did not mention RU-486, also known as Mifepristone, the timing of the pope's words were politically significant.
Italian Church leaders fear that wider use of the abortion pill, currently in use in about 30 countries, will make abortion more appealing to women than traditional, invasive surgery.
Health Minister Francesco Storace, of the right-wing National Alliance party, blocked its experimental use by hospitals which purchased the drug from suppliers abroad.
The pill, prescribed in the first two months of pregnancy, has not yet been approved for general use in Italy.
Storace also said he was planning a review of so-called "counselling centres" set up in 1978 when abortion became legal.
APRIL ELECTION
In a move the centre-left opposition says was aimed at wooing the conservative Catholic vote, he wants the centres to include representatives from the Movement for Life.
Italy goes to the polls in April and the Church's position on a host of issues could play a significant role in the result.
The elections will pit former European Commission president Romano Prodi's centre-left grouping known as "The Union" against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's ruling centre-right.
The Italian bishops conference and the Vatican newspaper have already jumped into the fray over the pill, with the paper condemning it as "science at the service of death".
The stand by the Church against the abortion pill was the latest in a series of what appear to be muscle-flexing exercises ahead of next April's general elections, which are widely expected to be won by the opposition centre-left.
Last June the Church won a significant victory in a referendum that blocked attempts to dismantle Italy's strict law on assisted fertility and embryo research.
After that victory, some Italian politicians expressed fear that the Church would try to make capital of it and eventually try to overturn the country's abortion law.
The Church has also served notice to the centre left that it will fight any move to recognise the legal rights of unwed heterosexual couples and gay couples.