National pilgrimage spreads pro-life message

11 Dillon Pilgrimage for life photo 006

by JEFF DILLON

Using euphemisms “to make an evil sound good to lessen the evil of it” was
deplored by Bishop Emeritus Colin Campbell at a Mass during the Dunedin
stage of the Family Life International Pilgrimage for Life in opposition to new abortion legislation.

“If the unjust taking of a human life is a crime then isn’t that a matter of
justice not health?” he asked. “How can it be ‘health’ when it takes the life of a child and causes such trauma and angst to the mother?”

Speaking at a pilgrimage Mass in the chapel of the Sacred Heart Home run by the Little Sisters of the Poor in Brockville, Bishop Campbell said noted
Southland gynaecologist Dr Norman Maclean had told him of letting women listen to the heartbeat of their unborn baby of only a few weeks old, when the child is but a few centimetres in length.

The bishop said “our country is working on science that is quite unscientific” with the view that a human life only begins when it is born. That was 18th-century thinking.

He noted that the 1979 abortion law stated that decisions had to have “full regard for the rights of the unborn child”, but Dr Maclean had told him after about three years the situation became basically abortion on demand.

Bishop Campbell urged people to persevere in the struggle for life of the
unborn child.

About 70 attended the Mass, concelebrated by Fr Fredy Permentilla, MSP, with Bishop Campbell, Msgr Vincent Walker and Fr Mervyn McGettigan.

The next day the pilgrimage went to Sacred Heart Church in North East
Valley where Rosary was recited at noon and Fr Aidan Cunningham, IC, celebrated Mass at 7pm.

It then made its way to St Francis Xavier Church in Mornington for a midday Rosary and a 7pm Rosary before the pilgrimage headed north to Oamaru for its next stage.

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  1. Greg says

    A number that should jar you is 46.
    Because of abortions back in 2002, on average 46 students are missing from the Y13 of each high school across the country. Not 46 across the whole school y9-13, not 46 from the town or suburb.
    46 from the year 13 group alone at each and every school. They were aborted in 2002.
    So next time someone bemoans the lack of “youth” or school enrollments or that they don’t have enough customers or wish they had grandchildren consider the reality of the society you live in.
    Of course, about the same number are missing from each of y12, and y11, and y10, and y9, and y8…

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