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ATLANTA-Coming with a busload of about 100 from St. Catherine of Siena
Church in Kennesaw, Kristin Quinby made her first public stand against
abortion as she pushed her baby in a stroller for a pro-life walk around
the state Capitol. Quinby was among hundreds of other Catholics who attended
a Mass honoring the unborn at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
After Mass, they joined an estimated 4,000 more on the Capitol steps for
Georgia Right to Life's annual pro-life memorial service and one-mile
walk. The event was held on Jan. 22, the 29th anniversary of the Roe v.
Wade Supreme Court decision to legalize abortion. It was a year ago during
a talk in her parish RCIA program where Quinby, who will become Catholic
this Easter, came to the conclusion that all human life is sacred and
deserves protection, including that of the "unborn children." She had
previously attended a Methodist church, where "it was never something
they ever talked about," she said. "Actually (it was) about last year
at this time that I changed my mind. Before that I'd always been 'I'm
personally against it, but I can't tell other people what to do.' Then
I realized it was a rather cowardly position to take . . . It was just
hearing the position laid out, that if you believe it was a human and
a person, then the only other reason for believing in abortion was that
it was convenient." Taking a prayerful stand at Mass before a political
one at the state Capitol, Catholics, many with young children, overflowed
from the wooden pews into the aisles and the back of the Shrine for the
morning rosary and Mass for unborn souls celebrated by Archbishop John
F. Donoghue and concelebrated by about 25 other priests. It was sponsored
by the archdiocesan Pro-Life Office, directed by Mary Boyert. Cantor Mary
Rogers, organist Alan Brown and trumpeter Greg Holland led the congregation
in song, and students from St. Pius X, Marist, Our Lady of Mercy and Blessed
Trinity high schools participated. In his homily the archbishop spoke
of God's gift of procreation to man, where he shares in God's power to
create. Once an egg is fertilized, "it is no different than when God summoned
Adam out of nothing-the life is made, the life is created, the life is
given," he said. And "so precious" is this process, he continued, that
God chose to have Mary give birth to Jesus. "By giving us His own Son
in this manner, God teaches us that the birth of children is never to
be separated from the miracle of love. If this were not so, He would not
have chosen to be born, to have a mother, to see, to hear and taste and
touch, and to feel with His own heart, what men and women feel with theirs."
He said the Mass was a time to pray for the unborn, those robbed of birth
in "that place that should be the holiest, the most guarded, and the safest
of all places, their mother's womb." And while their fate is unknown,
surely, the Lord who loves children "somehow takes them into His heart,"
he said. He also urged prayers for all the innocent, including those killed
by ethnic cleansing and medical experimentation and other murder victims.
"May the murderers of all these innocents, we pray, see before their deaths,
the evil of their actions, their grave sins, that they may repent, and
know the mercy of God." He called on those present to continue fighting
for life and love, through the enduring strength of patience and grace.
After the Mass, leaders of parish pro-life and respect-life committees
were called forward to be commissioned, and given a special blessing by
Archbishop Donoghue, who invited them to publicly rededicate themselves
to their work to protect the unborn, the disabled, the elderly, the terminally
ill and all God's vulnerable. Abraham Franco, a member of St. Thomas the
Apostle Church, Smyrna, had stood and then knelt in the aisles throughout
the Mass with his parents, brother and a friend. Afterward Franco said
he came "because we want to speak up for the defenseless, the baby who
can't defend himself. Life is sacred. It's a life . . . It's our duty
as Christians to defend it," he said. Franco said that in his homeland
of Mexico, where abortion is illegal, the great majority of Mexicans oppose
it and "Christians work down there in favor of life." At his parish Franco
leads a monthly all-night adoration group which prays, among other things,
for all human life and he participates in a "spiritual adoption" program
where he prays for unborn children. He prayed for an unmarried pregnant
woman considering abortion, and was grateful for her decision to have
the baby. "God is very big; she had the faith to not abort." It was more
than just a morning to cut class for Blessed Trinity junior Caroline Murphy
who was grateful to be among the about 26 students participating from
her high school in Roswell. "It's pretty cool to make a statement in front
of the entire city, to support (the) pro-life (cause), to celebrate Mass
in conjunction with the political side of it," she said, adding that it
was good to see all the "Catholics out there, who are really passionate
about it and really feel strongly about it, to speak out against it."
Murphy said she wasn't truly pro-life until high school, where she heard
church teaching that human life starts at the moment of conception. "When
I heard that, I was pro-life from my heart."
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