Deaths by abortion are twice as many as COVID

By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press 

 
Much has changed since last year’s March for Life. There have been 429,000 COVID deaths in America and the count is reported daily. 

As tragic as that is, it is less than half the annual number of abortions in the United States, a number which is not tracked by the media.  

Nor is the press focusing on the witness of people from the Worcester Diocese and across the country who have set the standard for prayerful, peaceful protest for 47 years by participating in the March for Life, which speaks out against abortion. 

Father Richard F. Reidy, vicar general of the diocese, made these points in his homily at the Mass for Life, which drew an estimated 75 people, including several priests and deacons, to St. Paul Cathedral on Jan. 28. The Mass was also livestreamed so people at home could participate. The Mass and other Respect Life gatherings are available for watching at https://www.worcesterdiocese.org/january-events-links 

This year the Mass was followed by adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, with silent prayer interspersed with a Scripture reading asking God’s people to choose life in order to live (Deuteronomy 30:15-20) and A Litany for Life from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The litany, based on 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:8a, noted characteristics of love, such as being kind and unfailing, and matched prayers about supporting human life and trusting God to those characteristics.   

The adoration replaced the boarding of buses that usually follows this Mass taking local people to Washington, D.C., for the annual March for Life. In this year of the coronavirus pandemic and attacks on the capitol, the March, attended only by representatives of various groups, is virtual and is being broadcast by EWTN. 

The March commemorates the anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortions. 

That decision should quickly take its place with egregious Supreme Court decisions that have been discarded as blights on the court and U.S. history, Father Reidy said.  

He mentioned the 1857 Dred Scott v. John F.A. Sandford case, in which the court ruled that African-Americans were not constitutionally U.S. citizens and that the slave Dred Scott was not entitled to freedom, despite having lived where slavery was prohibited.  

Father Reidy also mentioned the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case, in which the court upheld racial segregation, furthering the concept of “separate but equal” public facilities. 

Political action is needed in the fight against abortion, but so is the changing of hearts and minds – of legislators, doctors, parents and citizens – Father Reidy said. He asked how to open people’s ears and eyes to the righteousness and nobility of sacrificing for the vulnerable. He noted that the government has asked citizens to sacrifice in this coronavirus era. Sacrifices are made in the areas of education, jobs and lifestyles, which he said are the same reasons cited as the basis for many abortions. 

In Massachusetts, in the midst of the COVID era, abortion providers were declared “essential,” and the legislature expanded the availability of abortion by passing the Roe Act, he said. 

When Catholic legislators vote for such things and a Catholic president expands avenues to the deliberate taking of innocent human life and public funding for it, they separate themselves from the Church and need to pray for repentance, Father Reidy said. And when they don’t, “we must.” 

So, he said, those gathered at Thursday evening’s Mass would pray for leaders’ eyes and ears to be opened to the horror of abortion and the cries of the vulnerable, for women who had abortions to know God’s healing mercy, for women considering abortion to receive God’s grace and other people’s help. He also called for prayers that, if people’s minds are closed to science then their hearts will be moved by love and the duty to love. 

Father Reidy also spoke about the Scriptures read at Mass: how God formed human beings in their mothers’ wombs (2 Maccabees 7:1, 20-23) and how the Blessed Mother, Elizabeth and the unborn John the Baptist rejoiced in Jesus’ presence, as he was developing in Mary’s womb. (Luke 1:39-56) 

Scripture, human experience and scientific evidence give witness to the sacred gift of human life, and the opening prayer “reminds us that we are stewards of creation,” he said. 

The prayer said, “God our Creator, we give thanks to you, who alone have the power to impart the breath of life as you form each of us in our mother's womb; grant, we pray, that we, whom you have made stewards of creation, may remain faithful to this sacred trust and constant in safeguarding the dignity of every human life.”