The brief quotation from the late John Cardinal O’Connor that I used yesterday prompted me to go back and re-read the complete homily from which it was taken. The Cardinal preached this homily on Epiphany Sunday, a little more than a week after the murder of two abortion facility employees in Boston in 1994. Boston’s Cardinal Law had called for a temporary suspension of peaceful pro-life demonstrations in the wake of those murders (and Bishop O’Neil of New Hampshire followed suit). In New York, Cardinal O’Connor took a different approach.
After the recent shootings that killed three people and wounded nine others at a Colorado abortion facility, Cardinal O’Connor’s words sound as fresh as if they were written today. The complete text of the homily is on the EWTN web site. Here’s an excerpt.
It is this sense of the sacredness of every human life that has prompted my very close friend, His Eminence Cardinal Law, archbishop of Boston, to denounce unconditionally the recent killings and woundings that took place in two abortion clinics in his archdiocese. I joined him in that unconditional denunciation and expressed my deep sorrow for the victims and their loved ones, as I have done on previous occasions. Indeed, on this current occasion I have repeated publicly what I have said before and mean, with every fiber of my being: “If anyone has an urge to kill an abortionist, kill me instead.” That’s not a grandstand play. I am prepared to die if my death can save the life of another.
Cardinal Law, one of the strongest pro-life leaders in the United States, knows the situation in Boston as I and others do not, and has called for a moratorium on pro-life demonstrations outside abortion clinics…It is quite possible that were I the archbishop of Boston I would be inclined to call for such a moratorium in the Boston area, at least for a period of time, while trying to sort things out. Indeed, I intend to borrow at least one page from Cardinal Law’s book and ask that every week a different pastor in each of the 19 regions of the Archdiocese of New York schedule a period of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament in the cause of human life. I would ask, however, that this be in addition to any prayer vigils that responsible individuals or groups believe that they should conduct legally and non-violently within the Archdiocese of New York in the vicinity of abortion clinics.
The rosary vigils led by my brother bishop in Brooklyn, Bishop Thomas Daily, are wonderful examples of peaceful processions and prayers in the vicinity of abortion clinics. I cannot imagine that any people of good will could object to them, and certainly no one would deny their constitutionality. To my knowledge, prayer vigils held here in New York have been equally peaceful and non-violent.
Here in the Archdiocese of New York, however, I too would be prepared to call for a moratorium on these peaceful prayer vigils on condition that a moratorium be called on abortions. The first is within my power, to call a moratorium on prayer vigils, although I would respect those who might disagree with me and carry out such vigils anyway.
The second, a moratorium on abortions, is obviously not within my power, but only within the power of those who operate abortion clinics. Perhaps during a moratorium on both abortions and prayer vigils here in New York, both sides could meet to determine whether there is anything that can legitimately be the subject of dialogue.
…The New York Post of Jan. 5, 1995, editorially asked, “Why the readiness to tie the Boston killings to the pro-life movement?” The Post answered its own question: “To marginalize the movement in the eyes of the general public.” And it concluded: “Thus far, moreover, the effort seems to be working—which is a pity.” I would like to believe, however, that the current outcries against the pro-life movement are a reflection of frustration rather than a concerted effort to marginalize millions of non-violent, peaceful people whose only sin is their love for every human life, the life of every baby, the life of every mother. If there is a concerted effort, however, I cannot believe it will “work” for very long. Too many wonderful people in the pro-life movement have sacrificed too much for too long to give up now.
…I do not pretend to have a monopoly on how best to save human life. Only Jesus is the expert, and he did it only by dying on a cross.
Leaven for the Loaf 