Friday 30 March 2012

40 Days for Life with Bishop Alan Hopes: Summary

I've just got back from Bedford Square and here follows a brief report. I'll go into more detail tomorrow.

I think the numbers game - and let's face it, this was never about numbers, nor was it a game - has been misreported already.

40 Days for Life vigil attendees were by no means 'vastly outnumbered'. We were huddled in a large circle, whereas protesters were behind a fence and the lines were not, from what I could see, particularly deep.

I couldn't actually hear very well what Bishop Alan Hopes was saying through a megaphone because the wailing, shouting, jeering, drumming and screaming coming from the pro-abortion protesters was so excruciatingly loud. We just got on with praying the Stations of the Cross and saying prayers for the unborn and all at risk of abortion and all affected by it.

You'll be not too surprised to hear that the chants and slogans of today's abortion rights people are not much different to the previous generation's. The one about the 'Church and the State' is still there. 'Keep your Rosaries off my ovaries' is still going strong. Anyone would have thought that the slogans were peddled out by an aging Tablet reader in Eccleston Square. 'Keep your Pope away from my pussy' was another, so now our beloved Pontiff is accused of cat burglary as well as orchestrating the world's largest pederast network.

One woman spent about half an hour prowling around those keeping vigil shouting at men and women, from whom she was about a yard away, "Stop harrassing women", when, in fact we were just praying and she was, yep, harassing women (and men). A new slogan was, 'Keep your Eucharist out of my uterus' or something, as if we desire to thrust the Most Holy Eucharist down anyone's throats or other orifices, or put our Rosaries anywhere near anyone's ovaries. That would, I believe, be both sacrilege and a grave invasion of the human body which can only be rivaled by a 'Gynaecological Surgeon' taking implements, shoving them up a woman's vagina, killing her child and dragging it out by the feet.

When the 40 Days for Life vigil-keepers sang the 'Ave Maria' repetitively, there were, at times, strange periods of silence from the pro-abortion protesters. I don't know whether Our Lady just got them to shut up or they liked the singing and found it rather beautiful. It was very odd, those moments when it felt like the shouting, screaming, chant and slogan-singing, drumming, angry and aggressive mob looked rather deflated and as if they were thinking of packing up and going home.



It's hard to find moments of humour in such a solemn vigil for the unborn and all affected by abortion, but I must say that, despite the fact that 40 days for life were haranguing and harassing no woman, the pro-abortion crowd started shouting at us to "stop harassing women" when people were singing the Ave Maria gently over and over. Yes, the only woman we were harassing all evening was the Blessed Mother of God!



In conclusion: Drumming, shouting, screaming, slogan-shouting, whooping, slogan-singing, football-terrace like chants, banners about abortion, harassment of those who hold the opposite view to yourself, turning out in great force and being genuinely intimidating and making an almighty commotion that means that the voices of those who oppose you are barely audible - these are all tactics which we as pro-lifers can learn from the 'pro-choice' movement in the UK. Probably best we stick to silent witness, vigil and prayer, I think, because the only thing you really learn from listening to the pro-abortion protesters is a lesson in hatred. The hatred was all theirs, of course, by the end, I think most pro-lifers felt pity for them. I was told there was a particularly loud screeching 'wail' from the pro-aborts at the announcement of the Station of the Cross at which Our Lord died.

Oh and the other slogan that was repeated over and over again by the pro-abortionist government supporters who turned out in force, but with little charity, was "40 Days for Life, go home!" Has nobody told the pro-abortionists that 40 Days for Life are going home in two days, when, er, 40 Days for Life ends? It seems odd to turn out in such number to tell us to 'go home' when if they'd just left it a day or two, the rather low-key vigil keepers would have done exactly that anyway. Still, logic and reason isn't one of the great gifts of the pro-abortion movement in the United Kingdom, is it? From what I could see tonight, they're just an angry and aggressive mob who behaved as if they were not only children of the Devil, but of the State as well.

"Shame on you! Shame on you!" they cried. Hang on, isn't that what some US pro-lifers in the seventies used to shout at women going into abortion clinics? My, how times have changed and yet the times, they are-a-changin'.

It looks rather like the pro-aborts are far more 'American' in style than us. We shouldn't be too surprised by that, though. After all, it was the Rockefellers of this world that have donated so much money to the cause of abortion across the West, Africa and across the World, who continue to do so and who 'sit back and laugh as the death count gets higher'. I personally believe that if everyone stopped procuring abortion in the UK, the State would enforce it, for this is a war on its own people and population. It is so sad that even anarchists, feminists and 'freedom fighters' are oblivious to that sad truth. Marxists, of course, wouldn't have a problem with it.

Thanks to Sarto for the YouTube video.

12 comments:

Szophee said...

I was there at the times it went quiet - I must say that we found our music much more beautiful and rousing than yours, and if we went quiet it was just because we were catching our breath :)

szophee said...

P.S.

"Probably best we stick to silent witness, vigil and prayer, I think."

If you would do that, rather than harassing women as you have been (you do not need to be doing it at the moment we accuse you of it, very obviously), that might have some more credibility.

Lynda said...

Thank you for your powerful witness. I was outside an illegal referral agency in Ireland today with several others and we got the usual ad hominem accusation of harrassment from people whose clear aim was to harrass and intimidate.

On the side of the angels said...

This worked - we should try it!

http://liveactionnews.org/culture/silent-life-tape-demonstration-receives-a-loud-and-hostile-response/

epsilon said...

I managed to get there too. Everything you say is true - the irony of it - these are the sort of people I stood shoulder to shoulder with over the Iraq war nearly ten years ago. It got me thinking though back then - why are they anti-war but pro-abortion - there's no logic to that stance!

The more I thought about it the more I realised what's happening in the Middle-East is a drop in the ocean compared to the silent holocaust going on for the last 40 years in our own families, our own internal organs.

Another huge irony is these self-professed anti-capitalists are taking pride in collecting for BPAS - paying thousands into the coffers of "charities" with capitalist salaries for the likes of Furadi on £125,000 a year but who are cutting back on pay and conditions for their workers!!

The organisers of 40 Days for Life asked that we do not use cameras so I took it upon myself to tell a few people this who were and they immediately stopped. After the main prayers, when everyone was chanting the Ave Maria, I recorded about 5 minutes of it and you are right Laurence - they did seem to calm down now and then, the drumming stopped. We don't know how many hearts were touched in that crowd tonight, even as they scorned - it was like a modern day version of Our Lord's Passion - 'Father, forgive them for they know not what they do' sprung to mind. The scene I will remember most was a young man holding up a 40s Russian image of a woman with muscle extolling the virtues of abortion who had infiltrated the vigil, and he was surrounded with Rosaries being held up - a perfect example of compassionate witnessing - as soon as he realised this he moved away swiftly...

As misguided as they are, at least they are trying to care about something - it's up to us to let them see the Truth! They kept shouting 'shame' while we knelt and said the Rosary - I thought it is a shame that so many Catholics bury their head in the sand - in some ways, they are even harder to convert, I think!

The prayers were beautiful - the bits I could hear - we must pass the word along!

I'll put the recording on youtube later - too tired now!

God bless the young English Catholics of all hues who have worked so hard over the last few years to organise these vigils!

Clare@ BattlementsOfRubies said...

Wow. That was amazingly quick Laurence. Good on you for coming up from Brighton. I was there, If I'd seen you I would have liked to have said hello.
There were some very strange slogans. One that I haven't seen before, declared: " resistance is fetal"
Creepy.

Sarto said...

Good report, thanks for that.
I like the way they claimed to have outnumbered us. Some of us did a rough count earlier on in the evening- there were twice as many ProLifers as pro-aborts. The left are such liars!
You're also right about the dignified prayer vigil on one side versus anti-religious provocation on the other.

BTW here's a video:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=mhee&v=mP9N7yx8pNI

A Reluctant Sinner said...

Excellent report, Laurence!

Written with real humanity and great intelligence!

It was good to see you last night, too!

D

epsilon said...

It's up there now - www.youtube.com/allthelittleepsilons - five minutes of the Ave Maria with dissident percussion in the background

Lynda said...

May I take the opportunity to recommend "Unplanned" by former PP abortuary manager? This great book shows the effectiveness of 40 Days for Life year-round witness and outreach, in not only saving babies' lives, and mothers and fathers from the terrible consequences of their children's killing, but the effects within the abortuary itself and how individual staff members' eyes and hearts can be opened and they can get out and become powerful prolife warriors (like Abby Johnson herself). The prayers said at these evil places are also for the confounding of the abortion team efforts, and for their conversion.

John S said...

Dear Laurence,

Maria said...

Excellent summary, thank you!

Maria

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