OTTAWA, May 16, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The French-language Mass for the March for Life in Canada last Friday was celebrated by Quebec City Archbishop and Primate of Canada Gérald Lacroix, primate of Canada, and concelebrated by Bishop Paul-André Durocher, of Gatineau. “Every year, in Canada, we know that almost 100,000 children are not allowed to live, are not given the right to live, because the choice to abort them is made, a choice to terminate their lives before they even have the chance to join our great human family,” said Archbishop Lacroix in his homily at the Sacred Heart Church in Ottawa.
Archbishop Lacroix exhorted the assembled worshipers saying, “We cannot remain silent and allow humanity to run to its perdition, to allow itself to be destroyed, to persist down paths that lead to death.”
Georges Buscemi, President of Campagne Quebec Vie, the Quebec branch of Campaign Life Coalition which organizes the annual March and it’s associated events, told LifeSiteNews that the attendance at the French-language Mass was significantly higher than in previous years. He had hoped however for a stronger presence from Quebec and felt that a surge of participation by French-speaking Canadians is coming soon.
“The presence of these Quebec Bishops,” said Buscemi, “has kindled new hope for the fledgling francophone pro-life movement.” A hope, he added, “that perhaps with time and patience the classic Christian paradox of small beginnings leading to big results will once again play itself out. A hope that that this weak Christ child, who, away from all the action and bustle, made his weakness known that day in Sacred Heart Church, is preparing something unique and even astounding for the pro-life movement in Canada.”
Archbishop Lacroix added in his homily: “World history has proven many times over that wherever the rights of the unborn child are not respected, other rights are sooner or later compromised. When we look at all the issues that touch human life today, it seems that we are right to ask these questions and to express serious doubts. Are we building a culture of life, or its opposite?”
When the Archbishop said those words, recalled Buscemi, it affected many in attendance. “Many in this crowd have given the best of their adult lives to the pro-life cause in French Canada, and the question many were debating was whether Quebec society had gone past a point of no return, whether it would be more efficient to keep quiet and through lack of intervention allow the whole edifice to crumble, rather than trying against all hope to patch something that is doomed to collapse anyway.”
As if putting such thinking to rest, Bishop Lacroix warned everyone that despair had no place in the life of a Christian: “Created in the image and semblance of God, grafted on the sap of life that is God, we say No, … We cannot remain silent and allow humanity to run to its perdition, to allow itself to be destroyed, to persist down paths that lead to death. We are made for life; we insist that our lives be respected, but also the lives of others.”