We will never be silenced

The following address was presented by Mr. John Smeaton at the Palm Sunday Candlelight Vigil for the Unborn on Sunday 24 March, 2024. The Vigil was the final hour of the Auckland 40 Days for Life prayer vigil, held near the premises of the Auckland Medical Aid Centre, in Auckland. The vigil coincided with the fourth anniversary of the commencement of the Abortion Legislation Act, 2020.

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, a young British woman who lives in Birmingham, England, has been arrested twice and charged on four counts for silent prayer “thought crime” near an abortion facility. 

According to Alliance for Defending Freedom, a group of lawyers who are fighting in the courts on Isabel’s behalf, “Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was seen being searched and arrested by three police officers after saying that she ‘might be’ praying inside her head.

“Although she was acquitted by Birmingham Magistrates’ Court, Isabel was arrested a second time after returning to pray near the abortion clinic. The police have imposed bail conditions on her. She waits to see if they will charge her anew.”

I am delighted to tell you that Isabel Vaughan-Spruce has kindly sent a personal message to all of us attending Family Life International’s Candlelight Witness in Auckland. She says:

I would like to thank you all for your vital work to safeguard and strengthen the family unit.

I encourage you to continue with hope in this fight which is not a private battle for a special elite force but is a battle which belongs to me and you. There is a part assigned to each of us, a role which no other person can play because each of us is unique and irreplaceable. Whether inside or outside the womb, every person who has ever existed has been fashioned as an unrepeatable work of art, a one off masterpiece by a divine Creator Who does not make mistakes. So I unite with you in heart and prayer as together we play our own small roles in turning the tide and winning this war on the family. God bless you all.

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, pro-life advocate (UK)

What happened to Isabel in Britain is also happening to pro-life campaigners in France. In February 2017 the French parliament approved legislation which criminalises pro-life groups which publish information which might dissuade women from having abortions. It provides for a penalty of up to two years in prison and a 30,000-euro fine.

Governments worldwide have either enacted or are planning to enact legislation aimed at silencing the pro-life and pro-family movements on the right to life of unborn children and on speaking the truth about human sexuality, in particular, on the definition of true marriage.

We are in the midst of the worst, most murderous tyranny in world history, firmly in place in virtually every country in the world. More human beings are estimated to have been killed by abortion in the past thirty years, around two billion,[i] than the estimated total number of everyone killed in all of the wars in recorded human history[ii].

Pro-life organizations need urgently to be reinforced by the prophetic and unequivocal voices of Catholic bishops throughout the world faithfully preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ – for two reasons: because without Christ we cannot do anything; and because the full Gospel message about the truth and meaning of human sexuality and the sanctity of human life, teaching which is also part of the natural law inscribed on all human hearts, is nowhere more fully spelled out than in the teaching of the Church.

To my good pro-life colleagues who argue that we should keep the Church out of the pro-life battle, I respectfully put a variation of St Peter’s question to Our Blessed Lord: To whom shall we go? The Church has the words of eternal life.

I believe that one good bishop could do more in 50 days to end abortion than I have done in over 50 years. Jesus Christ astonished people because he spoke with power – and he passed on that gift to the apostles and to the bishops of our day, the successors of the apostles.

In the meantime, I believe that Family Life International and all of us here have a very clear message for governments and politicians who persecute those who speak out in defence of life and the family. We will never be silenced. We will teach our children and members of the public, with love and compassion, that innocent human life must never be deliberately destroyed. We will teach our children and members of the public, with love and compassion for those who disagree with us, that marriage is the exclusive, life-long union of one man and one woman, and is the foundation of a stable and flourishing society and the greatest protector of children, born and unborn. And we are prepared to go to prison to defend our obligation before God as parents rather than accept relationships and sex education programmes which destroy the innocence of our children including, I regret to say, in Catholic schools. Parents are the primary educators of their children. And we will teach our children and everyone willing to hear, with love and compassion, that the procreative and unitive ends of marriage cannot licitly be separated; the rejection of this truth lies at the root of modern attacks on life and the family. 

With the help of God, through offering prayers and sacrifices for our priests and bishops and the Pope, and through the intervention in history of Mary, the Mother of God, the strong tides overwhelming our families will be turned back. And, with the help of God, all of us gathered here at this Candlelight Vigil will, as Isabel urges us, play our own small roles in turning those tides and winning this war on the family.

FOOTNOTES:

[i] Guttmacher Institute, Unintended Pregnancy and Abortion Worldwide, July 2020
https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-worldwide;  https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/news/440KeyAbortionFactsFinal.pdf
https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/ipsrh/1999/01/incidence-abortion-worldwide
[ii] https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/books/chapters/what-every-person-should-know-about-war.html