Rev. Simon Logo
The arrests of five pro-life students at Carleton University should inspire pro-lifers to step up and engage in the pro-life battle, said Fr. Simon Lobo, brother of arrested Carleton Lifeline President Ruth Lobo, in a powerful homily in Ottawa on Oct. 10.
“Yes – yes I am the brother of Ruth Lobo,” said the priest, a member of the Companions of the Cross community. “I’ve never been more proud to admit that, actually, than I am now.”
The students – four from Carleton and one from Queen’s University – were arrested by Ottawa city police on Carleton’s campus on October 4, and fined $130 each. They were preparing to set up the Genocide Awareness Project, which compares abortion to past atrocities through graphic imagery, as a protest in the university’s Tory Quad. The university had denied them the use of that central outdoor location, which has been used by other groups in the past, instead telling them that they could only set up the display in an out-of-the-way campus building.
“This is where we’ve come as a society,” Fr. Lobo told his parishioners at St. Maurice Parish in the nation’s capital. “As Canadians we pride ourselves on being so tolerant, and yet it seems the tolerance only goes in one direction – and it’s not in favour of life, and it’s not in favour of Catholicism at all.”
Fr. Lobo told LifeSiteNews that even though he is a frequent participant in the National March for Life, LifeChain, and 40 Days for Life, the incident has convicted him all the more. “I can’t be a moderate pro-lifer any longer,” he said. “It’s become something that’s drawing the line in the sand for a lot of people.”
It would be easy to blame the university, the police, or “those who promote a radically liberal agenda” for the arrests, he said in the homily, “but you and I are part of the problem, because we have put up with too much for too long.”
Fr. Lobo noted that Canadians’ tax dollars have fully funded abortion for decades, as well as academic institutions such as Carleton. He also noted that municipal tax dollars pay for the police, who were called in to arrest the students.
“On an annual basis, I would suggest that as a parish – indirectly – we give more money to support abortions and the pro-choice cause then we give to donate to support women in crisis pregnancies and the pro-life movement,” he said. “Does that bother you?”
Fr. Lobo called the graphic images of abortion used in GAP, which are often seen as controversial, ‘disgusting.’ He added, “But they’re also true and accurate. Abortion is disgusting.”
He asked, “What are we going to do about this? What are we going to do about this?” He implored “We’ve got to do more. We’ve got to get educated.”
Fr. Lobo urged his parishioners to write Carleton’s president, to get out to the ballot box and vote for pro-life politicians, and to come up with other ideas for promoting life.
“The battle has come to our doorstep,” he insisted. “Are you willing to step up and engage in the fight with your minds, with your hearts, with your spirits, and with action?”
A longer version of this story originally appeared Oct. 15 at LifeSiteNews.com and is reprinted with permission.
