Friday marked the annual March for Life, a pro-life rally that coincides with the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade that unilaterally made abortion legal. My PJ Media colleague Athena Thorne wrote about the men, women, and kids who braved the cold to stand up for the unborn.
Washington, D.C.’s Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception also held the National Prayer Vigil for Life on Thursday night. While that prayer vigil was going on inside the church, a pro-abortion Catholic group projected messages of support for pro-choice Catholics on the façade of the basilica.
American Magazine reports:
Using a projector located across the street, Catholics for Choice illuminated the facade of the basilica with messages such as “Pro-choice Catholics you are not alone,” “Stop stigmatizing; Start listening,” “Mi cuerpo, mi decision” (“My body, my decision” in Spanish) and the words “Pro-choice Catholics” within a Christian cross, Religion News Service reported.
Another projection stated, “1 in 4 abortion patients is Catholic.” (In 2014, the Guttmacher Institute reported that 24 percent of women who obtain abortions identify as Catholic.)
So I’m outside the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in DC, and Catholics for Choice is here projecting messages onto the church in support of abortion rights.
The protest coincides with the basilica’s “prayer vigil for life,” happening inside. pic.twitter.com/0y1M7X9ByC
— Jack Jenkins (@jackmjenkins) January 20, 2022
We can assume that the group pulled off this stunt without permission. And we can also guess that it wasn’t a coincidence that they chose the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on the very night that groups of pro-life people of faith were inside praying.
“We wanted to name a truth that always gets lost during the March for Life: the majority of Catholics are pro-choice & many practicing Catholics have abortions,” Jamie L. Manson, president of Catholics for Choice, tweeted. “We wanted our voices to be heard and emboldened.”
We don't have to change minds–68% of Catholics want Roe to stay. We wanted to name a truth that always gets lost during the March for Life: the majority of Catholics are pro-choice & many practicing Catholics have abortions. We wanted our voices to be heard and emboldened. https://t.co/1WtqSdA7BG
— Jamie L. Manson (@jamielmanson) January 21, 2022
(It’s also telling that Manson’s Twitter bio includes a pride flag, the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, and her “pronouns.” After all, when you go woke, you have to go all in.)
Related: As We Await a Ruling on Dobbs, the Pro-Life Movement Has Plenty to Do
Condemnation of the stunt — which was tacky at best and downright disrespectful at worst — was swift and savage.
Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, of all places, tweeted, “The attempted desecration is enormous.”
The attempted desecration is enormous. Diabolical. Mother Mary, pray for them, now and at the hour of death. Amen. https://t.co/F89HCPnHUS
— Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone (@ArchCordileone) January 21, 2022
Cardinal Wilton Gregory, archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, issued a short statement that got straight to the point and served as both an expression of support for the pro-life cause and a sick burn inflicted on Catholics for Choice.
“The true voice of the Church was only to be found within The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception last evening,” the statement read. “There, people prayed and offered the Eucharist asking God to restore a true reverence for all human life. Those whose antics projected words on the outside of the church building demonstrated by those pranks that they really are external to the Church and they did so at night – John 13:30.”
John 13:30 tells us that Judas left the rest of the disciples to put his betrayal of Jesus into motion at night.
Catholics have had to reckon with abortion more lately than they may ever have before since President Joe Biden is a supposedly faithful Catholic who has gone against the grain of the church’s teaching and expressed his support for baby-killing. However, the president hasn’t talked about abortion all that much since entering the White House, which has led to some bewilderment among the left and the mainstream press (but I repeat myself).
Many people believe that the Supreme Court is closer to overturning Roe after December’s oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which is leading the abortion lobby to become even more desperate to paint a post-Roe future as one in which women would have to resort to coat hangers and back alleys to kill their babies — an untrue characterization.
All of this means that we’ll probably see more stunts like these, which goes to show just how desperate the left is to preserve the right to wantonly snuff out new lives.
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