By Patrick Craine
OTTAWA, ON, June 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – While the big news in the lead-up to this year’s annual Canadian March for Life was the first ever official endorsement of the event by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), the unprecedented event should not be allowed to overshadow the years of support given to the march by the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada (ACCC)
As LifeSiteNews.com reported in May, two Anglican Catholic bishops participated in this year’s march. In attendance were the diocesan bishop of Canada, the Rt. Rev. Peter D. Wilkinson, from Victoria, B.C., and the Rt. Rev. Carl L. Reid, O.S.G. of Ottawa, ON. At the Rose Dinner, they were joined by the Rt. Rev. Craig R.G. Botterill of Halifax, NS.
Retired diocesan bishop of Canada, the Rt. Rev. Robert W.S. Mercer, C.R., who led the diocese from 1989-2005 in Ottawa, has also made attendance at the March a yearly practice and is well-known in the Ottawa pro-life movement. Mercer participated regularly in the Sunday afternoon silent prayer vigil in front of the Civic Campus of the Ottawa Hospital, says Bishop Reid.
Bishop Reid himself has participated in the March since 1998, except for 2006 and 2007, when he was made a bishop and was away in Europe. “As Church leaders,” said Bishop Reid in the ACCC’s diocesan newsletter, “we are responsible not only for defending and upholding the faith ‘once given for all’, but also to represent the same sort of steady beacon in an increasingly confused moral landscape.”
“There could hardly be a more representative example of how morally bankrupt western society has become than that our political leaders, and those others who promulgate or influence public policy, have dulled the collective consciousness into a state of moral stupor that feels that it is quite acceptable to murder our posterity with apparent impunity.”
Bishop Wilkinson, though located in B.C., nevertheless participated in the march for his second time this year. Referring to the document that separated the Anglican Catholic Church from the Anglican Communion in 1977, the bishop said in the diocesan newsletter, “The Affirmation of St. Louis mandates our belief in the protection of human life from conception to natural death. Therefore I believe that Bishops should lead in this matter ‘from the front’ – like the shepherds in Holy Scripture who led their flock from the front and not the rear.”
As a symbol of this leadership, Bishop Wilkinson pointed to the Catholic Archbishop of Ottawa, Terrence Prendergast, who lead this year’s march behind the Knights of Columbus. Wilkinson said that he believes the participation of the Catholic bishops is integral to the annual event. “They and the enthusiasm they generate among their flocks,” he said, “together with the day to day work of lay organizations, are the key to the success of the whole enterprise we have embarked on.”
In an undelivered homily prepared for the 2009 March, Bishop Wilkinson emphasizes that in the fight for life “we have an enormous task ahead of us, but, by the grace of God, not an impossible task.”
“We must not be afraid of the battle for the promised land of an abortion free Canada that is ahead of us” he said. “What we hope for is nothing less than that Canada should acknowledge, defend, and promote the natural moral law - that is, the law we can't not know - by enacting legislation to ensure the right to life of every innocent human being from conception to natural death – the first of all human rights. As Blessed Mother Teresa said ‘Any country that accepts abortion, is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what it wants.’”
Quoting Archbishop Miller, he concludes by emphasizing the urgency of the pro-life cause: “The longer we wait, the more arduous the task will be. The longer we wait - quite literally - the more lives will be lost before final victory. We and our children’s children cannot afford any more lost opportunities.”