By LifeSiteNews (Politics) | Created at 2024-10-04 10:39:24 | Updated at 2024-10-06 22:47:14
3 days ago
Thu Oct 3, 2024 - 3:09 pm EDTFri Oct 4, 2024 - 6:11 am EDT
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — A pro-abortion group, “Catholics for Choice,” staged a protest in front of the Vatican today, calling for acceptance of abortion.
On the morning of October 2, Catholics for Choice (CFC) displayed a 50-foot-long quilt banner on the ground of the Via della Conciliazione – the road leading straight out of St. Peter’s Square.
The group’s quilt was comprised of squares which wove “together dozens of abortion stories in front of the Vatican with a simple message: Pope Francis, listen.”
READ: Warren Buffett has given $50 million to pro-abortion ‘Catholics for Choice’
“Listen to Catholics with abortion stories. Listen to those who have used contraception or IVF. Listen to the faithful pro-choice majority crying out to be welcomed in the church,” they wrote online.
However, contrary to CFC’s claims of being “faithful,” the Catholic Church has always taught the “moral evil of every procured abortion.” “This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable,” states the Catechism of the Catholic Church. “Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.”
The Church’s condemnation of abortion – the direct killing of an innocent unborn child – as always gravely immoral is “based upon the natural law and upon the written Word of God, is transmitted by the Church’s Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium,” as Pope John Paul II declared in Evangelium Vitae.
In a press release, CFC noted that their protest was directly linked to the Synod on Synodality and the fact that abortion is not included in the discussions. According to CFC’s Ashley Wilson:
The Synod on Synodality is a groundbreaking opportunity to reshape the life and future of the church, especially regarding the inclusion of women and [so-called] LGBTQ+ people. But there is a real disconnect: Catholics have reflected on their lived experiences of pregnancy and abortion – issues that our hierarchy cannot understand because they are celibate and have no wives or daughters – and determined that church teaching is at odds with their beliefs.
READ: ‘Catholics for Choice’ projects pro-abortion slogans onto DC basilica during Vigil Mass for Life
Squares in the quilt bore varying messages from people who have had abortions or supported them.
“God loves them – and me – not just regardless of our no but because of our no,” read one quilt square from an anonymous mother who aborted her child, blasphemously suggesting that God “loves” people due to them having an abortion. “God gave us the power to choose.”
Another read:
At the age of 68 I’ve never regretted (my abortion) nor never having children. Five years after my abortion I donated eggs to my sister who became a very happy mother of twins!
The Catholic Church teaches that egg donation is gravely immoral because it violates the right of spouses to become parents exclusively through each other, separates sexuality from procreation, and denies the right of children to be born of a conjugal union.
Messages were not just from mothers who aborted their children, but from abortionists, including a Dr. Josie Urbina – an “abortion physician” – and priests also.
READ: Abortion killed 44.6 million people worldwide in 2023, more than any other cause of death
The group had a sponsorship page online for people to sponsor part of their trip or a square in the quilt. Donations given through the page are “received and processed” by ActBlue, a fundraising platform connected to the Democratic Party, according the website.
In addition to their early morning protest – it was gone by the time this correspondent visited the site later in the day – CFC is meeting with various ambassadors to the Holy See this week to lobby for acceptance of abortion within the Church.
Furthermore, they have delivered a book to Pope Francis containing numerous testimonies of women who had abortions – and wider family members of those who had abortions – and who claim that the Church should be accepting of their decision to murder unborn children.
Earlier in the year, CFC submitted a formal response to the Synod on Synodality, citing alleged growing acceptance of contraception, IVF, and abortion among Catholics in the U.S.:
These numbers demonstrate that these Catholics have reflected on their lived experiences of pregnancy and abortion, and they determined that Church teaching on reproductive rights is in disagreement with their carefully formed consciences and beliefs. We pray that the hierarchy realizes that these numbers do not reflect the idea that Catholics are leaving the Church, but in fact, the Church is leaving them. [Emphasis original]
The CFC cited a Pew Research Center poll, despite Pew having previously published inaccurate claims about Catholic beliefs.
Pointing to Pope Francis’ condemnation of abortion as akin to “hiring a hitman” CFC claimed that such words were “spiritual violence against women, and we as a Church need to name it.”
They added that they see the current Synod as “pivotal” for the Church to change Her teaching and accept abortion.
The dissident and misnomered group “Catholics for Choice” has been publicly disavowed by Catholic hierarchy time and again. Cardinal Timothy Dolan wrote in 2016:
As the U.S. Catholic bishops have stated for many years, the use of the name ‘Catholic’ as a platform to promote the taking of innocent human life is offensive not only to Catholics, but to all who expect honesty and forthrightness in public discourse … It is funded by powerful private foundations to promote abortion as a method of population control.
Your support makes stories like this possible!
LifeSiteNews is completely donor supported, allowing us to report on what truly is happening in the world, free of charge and uncensored. A donation to LifeSite will ensure millions around the world can continue to come to our site to find the truth people are so desperately searching for on life, faith, family and freedom.
