On December 28, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, Archbishop Marcel Gervais conducted a special pro-life mass at Notre Dame Basilica in Ottawa. The Archbishop chose the date specifically to commemorate the lives of approximately 90,000 unborn babies who are killed each year by abortionists in Canada. The Feast of the Holy Innocents has always been a significant date for Catholic pro-lifers as it is held to honor the lives of male children two years old and younger who were ordered murdered by King Herod, in Bethlehem.
In his homily, delivered to over five hundred people, the Archbishop attributed our society’s acceptance of abortion to three things: the worship of money, the attitude that sex without responsibilities is all rights; and the belief that life must be convenient.
“We are willing to sacrifice anything for money and possessions, even the unborn,” he said. “if something is inconvenient, we dispose of it. This is the way, in many cases, we handle the unborn.”
Quoted in the Ottawa Citizen, Archbishop Gervais said that abortion “is a tragedy that reflects the moral decay of the Canadian society.” It is the Church’s duty to :sensitize the consciousness of people” on the abortion issue. And “The fact that society largely accepts it without question shows that people have become morally corrupted and spiritually impoverished,” he added.
The Archbishop immediately came under attack from the pro-abortion faction which is vigorously lobbying provincial and municipal politicians to allow Henry Morgentaler to establish one of his killing centres in Ottawa.
Cindy Moriarty, a spokesperson for the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League, accused the Archbishop of playing politics with Christmas. “if the Catholic church spent as much time and energy on sexual abuse of children, and sex education, none of us would have to spend so much time on abortion,” she said.
