The Pope has called for a universal ban on surrogate motherhood after proclaiming that he considers the practice “despicable”.

Condemning what he called the “commercialisation” of pregnancy, Pope Francis said the life of an unborn child must not be “suppressed or turned into an object of trafficking”.

He added: “I consider despicable the practice of so-called surrogate motherhood, which represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based on the exploitation of situations of the ­mother’s material needs.”

In a speech yesterday in which he listed threats to global peace and human dignity, he called for the international community “to prohibit this practice universally”.

He has previously voiced opposition to what he called a “uterus for rent”, and some European countries prohibit the practice, including Spain and Italy.

At the same time, the Vatican’s doctrine office has made clear that same-sex couples who build families through surrogacy can have their children baptised.

The comments came in the pontiff’s annual State of the World address to members of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See at the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City.

In it, he lamented that 2024 has dawned in an era in which peace is “increasingly threatened, weakened and in some part lost”.

He cited Russia’s war in Ukraine, Israel-Hamas conflict, migration and the climate crisis among a long list of the ills afflicting humanity and the increasing violation of international humanitarian law that allows them.

He singled out Russia by name as he noted that “large-scale war waged by the Russian Federation against Ukraine” had ground on.

This marked an unusual break from the Pope’s usual tendency to spare Moscow direct and public blame for the invasion when expressing solidarity with the Ukrainian people.

He was more balanced in his view of Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, condemning Hamas’s October 7 assault on southern Israel “and every instance of terrorism and extremism”.