Over the years, my parish’s Respect Life Committee has witnessed varied reactions to our Cemetery of Innocents. Cars have passed by with thumbs up or middle finger out; callers to the office have anxiously asked for help or angrily left a profane message. We’ve always hoped the message persuades, but we have known that it also disturbs. That was the point. Yet in all these years we’ve never seen someone leave a doll by one of the crosses. This time, it was our turn to react. Was it from a regretful post-abortive mother or from a like-minded neighbor equating one cross so strongly with a dead child that a baby-like figure was left for all to ponder? We’ll likely never know, but our little crosses moved someone.
We have been displaying a Cemetery of Innocents every January for more than 30 years now, with the hope of educating passersby, reaching abortion-minded mothers and commemorating the children so violently killed by legal abortion. This year, 63 crosses for every million babies murdered since 1973 covered the lawn. This sad little graveyard has been subjected to countless acts of vandalism, yet its existence has encouraged other Catholic and non-Catholic churches to share their own similar message.
Unfortunately, even with cemeteries like this across our nation, our country still doesn’t want to acknowledge the absolute evil we are allowing every minute of every day to the most innocent and most vulnerable. Alarmingly, with the help of many Catholic votes, we now have two disturbingly pro-abortion extremists in the White House spreading this wickedness worldwide and funded by us. They have no limits to killing these children, even should they survive an abortion.
If tiny graveyards don’t provoke images of this evil, if ultrasounds of babies in utero don’t touch hearts, if photos of aborted babies don’t disturb, if people don’t comprehend that killing 63 MILLION children is causing our nation to lose its soul, then our Cemetery of Innocents will sadly go on for many, many more years.
There’s a story told of Germans in church during World War II just singing louder as a train passes by filled with screaming and crying Jews. Thirty-seven years ago, the film “Silent Scream” likewise revealed the agony of a baby being aborted. People continue to turn their eyes away – even as today’s advanced science now proves even more the torment these babies endure.
As cars rush by our crosses every January, are we any different?
Diane Hoefling is a member of St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Charlotte, where she serves on the parish’s Respect Life Committee.
Kudos to Father Peter Ascik for telling it like it is in his Jan. 29 commentary “An example of Catholic integrity in public life.” One cannot profess they are a practicing Catholic and then not only sanction, but promote, abortion. The political divide over abortion is becoming a divide in our Church. Kudos also to Archbishop Jose H. Gomez, the current president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who issued a statement condemning President Joe Biden’s stance on abortion.
Secular columnist Cal Thomas recently questioned Biden’s faithfulness to Church teaching in his Jan. 31 commentary “Biden: A liberal wolf in moderate sheep’s clothing,” writing: “Biden has reverted to an old and meaningless excuse when he says he doesn’t want to ‘impose’ his faith on others. The question then becomes why have a faith at all, if he won’t apply what his church teaches as truth? How is Biden different from a person who is about to witness a murder but doesn’t try to stop it, or call the police, because he doesn’t want to impose his moral views about the value of life on a man about to commit an illegal and immoral act?”
A second article in the Jan. 29 Catholic News Herald was about nine Catholics nominated to cabinet-level jobs in the Biden Administration. If they are all “Catholics” like Biden, I am not impressed. In fact, I am downright concerned about several of the appointees, whose track records speak volumes about their level of adherence to Catholic values and teachings.
Rosemary Hagerott lives in Hendersonville.