The Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales has asked voters to consider candidates' moral stances in the run up to elections in June.

Cherishing Life, the church's new pamphlet, urges readers to ponder seriously on the issues of religious teaching, especially about abortion and euthanasia before they go to vote.

Also, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, the church's leader in England and Wales, appeared on BBC Radio 4's Today programme and explained the pamphlet in detail to listeners.

He warns readers of a prevailing "culture of death", saying, "we are creating the culture that diminishes life and that is a terrible thing," and he mentioned that 180,000 abortions are executed a year.

"If we don't commend life, we don't protect life, we don't enhance life, if we don't try to live the good life, then in fact we diminish it."

Cardinal Murphy O'Connor asserted that all of us are responsible for creating "a culture of life".

He said the pamphlet was made to break the public's misunderstanding that the Catholic faith focused only on guilt and to show that it is also concerned with life and love.