FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: January 25, 2013
Contact: Leslie Palma
347-286-7277
Washington, DC – Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, today delivered his sermon Recall Abortion at the National Memorial for the Preborn and their Mothers and Fathers at the DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, DC.
Excerpts from the sermon, which was given before pro-lifers gathered on the Mall for today’s March for Life, follow. For the complete text, please go HERE
We recall abortion today.
We recall the most destructive decision and costly error ever made by a human authority, the Roe vs. Wade decision.
We recall what abortion is, because in Christ we have the courage to both face the truth and call things by their proper name.
We recall, and must recall to others, what the abortionists themselves admit about abortion, that it is dismemberment and decapitation, that it tears children apart and brings out the skull in fragments rather than as a unified piece.
Brothers and sisters, if abortion can be called right, if it can in the least way be tolerated, then –
We are not our brother’s keeper after all.
….
Therefore the Christian Church must rise up to meet this hour. We must rise up, we must speak up, we must act up.
We must make it clear to those in our midst who are tempted to abort their child that we recall them, that we recall their confusion and despair, and are ready to meet it with compassion and hope.
We must make it clear to those in our midst who every day recall the child they aborted and recall their grief and pain, that we recall them, too, and that we have good news for them, that we have someone to introduce them to, that we have a Savior who lifts us up out of the darkest sin, and that his name is Jesus Christ.
We must recall mothers and fathers and families to their original dignity.
We must recall to their proper status the children in the womb.
We must recall the medical profession to its proper and noble role: healers of life, not takers of life.
We must recall the government to its fundamental role: to protect the rights God has given us, not to be a god over us.
We must recall public servants to their fundamental duties. We need public servants who know the difference between serving the public and killing the public. And if they don’t, they do not belong in public office.
….
We recall the Church to acknowledge, furthermore, the sacrifice it is going to take to end abortion. We have been promised trouble in this world, and we know trouble comes when we address abortion.
When we speak about it in Church, we’re told it’s too political.
When we speak about it in politics, we’re told it’s too religious.
In the world of media the topic is too disturbing.
In the world of business it’s too distracting.
In the world of education it’s too controversial.
In the streets it’s too disruptive.
So if abortion is wrong, where do we go to say so?
We go into the Churches, into politics, into the media, into the business world, into education, and into the streets!
….
When faced with trouble and opposition, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded the civil rights activists that no dogs were going to turn them around, no water hoses were going to turn them around, no police clubs or jail sentences were going to turn them around, and no injunction were going to turn them around.
And I say to you today in the pro-life movement: no Planned Parenthood is going to turn us around, no biased media is going to turn us around, no HHS mandate is going to turn us around, and no Obama administration is going to turn us around.
It’s been forty years. The Promised Land is in front of us! And we are going to enter it together!
Priests for Life is the nation’s largest Catholic pro-life organization dedicated to ending abortion and euthanasia. For more information, visit www.priestsforlife.org.
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