On the 20th Anniversary of Pope John Paul II's Evangelium Vitae, Canada's two Angels for Life ~ Linda Gibbons and Mary Wagner ~ are in prison

In the Annunciation to the Virgin, she welcomes the announcement of her divine motherhood. In the "yes" that she proclaims, culminates the "yes" of every mother to the life of her child.

Pope John Paul II, Angelus, March 26, 1995

Twenty years ago, our now sainted Pope John Paul II issued the encyclical, Evangelium Vitae. It it, he reaffirmed the infallible teaching that procured abortion, is an intrinsic evil. In fact, so evil is abortion, that it is condemned by Sacred Scripture as the first of the Four Sins that "cry to Heaven for vengeance". Willful murder of the innocent; the shedding of innocent blood, is regarded by God as the most abominable of crimes. 

Yesterday, we witnessed the arrest of Linda Gibbons for most peacefully, and in total silence opposing the horror of abortion. For this, Linda was arrested. Last December 23rd, 2014, likewise Mary Wagner, for peacefully offering mothers an alternative to abortion, was arrested and awaits trial this coming April 16th. How is this possible? How did our society end up with such a perverted view of "freedom" and "rights"? The alleged "freedom" to murder, the "right" to do so, unhindered, even protected by "law"?

Pope John Paul explored this in his encyclical: 

19....freedom negates and destroys itself, and becomes a factor leading to the destruction of others, when it no longer recognizes and respects its essential link with the truth. When freedom, out of a desire to emancipate itself [from]... objective and universal truth, which is the foundation of personal and social life, then the person ends up by no longer taking as the sole and indisputable point of reference for his own choices the truth about good and evil, but only his subjective and changeable opinion or, indeed, his selfish interest and whim. 

20. This view of freedom leads to a serious distortion of life in society. If the promotion of the self is understood in terms of absolute autonomy, people inevitably reach the point of rejecting one another. Everyone else is considered an enemy from whom one has to defend oneself. 

And so, the unborn child in the womb is made out to be "an enemy", to be killed. This is the result of a reduction of good and evil to personal whim. It leads straight to a "culture" of death. The person is reduced to an object, an "enemy" to be destroyed at "whim". At the beginning of life, at the end - it does not matter to the moral relativist; life is "an enemy" to destroy. 

The holy Pope develops the ramifications of this selfish subjectivist rejection of universal truth as manifested by the State: 

20...the sinister result of a relativism which reigns unopposed... democracy, contradicting its own principles, effectively moves towards a form of totalitarianism. The State...is transformed into a tyrant State, which arrogates to itself the right to dispose of the life of the weakest and most defenceless members, from the unborn child to the elderly... what we have here is only the tragic caricature of legality; the democratic ideal, which is only truly such when it acknowledges and safeguards the dignity of every human person, is betrayed in its very foundations: "How is it still possible to speak of the dignity of every human person when the killing of the weakest and most innocent is permitted? In the name of what justice is the most unjust of discriminations practised: some individuals are held to be deserving of defence and others are denied that dignity?" When this happens, the process leading to the breakdown of a genuinely human co-existence and the disintegration of the State itself has already begun.

To claim the right to abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others. This is the death of true freedom: "Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin" (Jn 8:34).

Thus we now know why our two Angels for life dwell in prison. They oppose the tyrant State. They are asking, through their presence at the abortion mills, the Pope's very question:... how is it possible...? 

There is no real answer, the truthful answer. How could there be? Our Angels for Life are also considered "an enemy", to be shunned, locked up, derived, despised. But they are in good company. Our Blessed Lord too, for the Truth, was likewise shunned, despised, hated.... even unto the Cross. 

Please pray for Linda and Mary, who have incarnated Christ's love for the babies. We ask you to join us in pledging a Rosary for them and their intentions. It is not enough to claim to be against abortion, and evil but not pray. Ora et labora. Prayer is the centre of the Christian life. Praying for someone is the greatest act of love. I will go further: a Christian who will not pray for these Angels for Life may carry the name "Christian", but is not a "sincere Christian". 

Please visit Easter Rosary Bouquet to pledge your gift of a Rosary for Linda and Mary.