News
Featured Image
 Crusaders for Life via YouTube.

SPRINGFIELD, Illinois, March 25, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — A video of young pro-lifers singing a beautiful lullaby at the Illinois state capitol has resurfaced while state legislators debate current bills that would legalize abortion until the moment of birth.

Members of the choir of St. John Cantius — a parish in the Archdiocese of Chicago that seeks to preserve the beauty of traditional liturgy and sacred music — joined with Crusaders for Life in 2017 to sing the “Coventry Carol,” which stems from a medieval mystery play that depicts the massacre of the Holy Innocents by the soldiers of King Herod, as depicted in the Gospel of St. Matthew. In the video, the young activists are shown wearing yellow shirts and swaying arm in arm in the impressive rotunda of the State House in Springfield, where state legislators meet. Their voices reverberated up and down the space over which soared the cupula of the capitol building.

A spokesperson for St. John Cantius Parish in Chicago affirmed that the video was recorded in 2017 at a rally in support of the dignity of unborn babies. The video was produced by Crusaders for Life, a pro-life group which had its beginnings among young St. John Cantius parishioners and has since expanded elsewhere in Illinois and to Michigan. It was during a Midwest tour in 2017 that the young activists and choristers sang at the Illinois state capitol. The Crusaders have made the 16th-century carol their hallmark.

St. John Cantius Church sent out the video on Facebook March 20, and it has garnered over 100,000 views.

“Listen to our youth sing in the Illinois State Capitol for those lost through abortion,” they wrote in the post. “Extreme abortion legislation is being pushed in Illinois. Our bishops are urging us to take action.”

In a post on his blog Friday, Fr. John Zuhlsdorf described the song they sing as a “breath-taking, throat-choking, eye-blurring” arrangement by Philip Stopford of the ancient “heart-piercing” carol. The carol appears out of step with the joy of the Christmas season, he wrote, because it embraces the commemoration of the Holy Innocents and the wood of Baby Jesus’s crib that foretells “the wood of the Cross.” The irony of the moment was not lost on Fr. Zuhlsdorf, who noted also that at the same time, the Illinois legislature is working on “hideous” and “extreme Party of Death laws.” He wrote: “Dems. Herodians.”

Apparently moved by the carol and the participation of so many young people in pro-life activities, Fr. Zuhlsdorf also posted a photo taken at the March 22 rally organized by Crusaders for Life at the capitol building in Springfield. He posted a photo of one of his tears that fell next to his keyboard.

Anna Streeter, one of the young organizers of the rally, told LifeSiteNews that more than 100 Crusaders showed up on March 22 to rally against abortion legislation.

On March 20, activists from Illinois Right to Life, Pro-Life Action League, Illinois Family Institute, and other groups rallied to oppose two bills — HB2467 and HB2495 — that seek to repeal Illinois’s parental notification law and lift the state ban on late-term abortions. Hundreds of pro-lifers filled the state capitol that day. According to Illinois Right to Life, the bills would also rid the books of other abortion regulations. According to the Daily Herald, Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) plans to “make Illinois the most progressive state in the nation for access to reproductive health care.” Pro-lifers fear that Illinois will thus attract more women seeking abortion because a new state law would mean that the taxpayer-supported Medicaid program would fund them.

The words of the Coventry Carol, which Fr. Zuhlsdorf called a “lullaby of perfect pain,” are as follows:

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
Lullay, thou little tiny Child,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day
This poor youngling for whom we do sing
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

Herod, the king, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day
His men of might, in his owne sight,
All young children to slay.

That woe is me, poor Child for Thee!
And ever mourn and sigh,
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.