Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians recently united for a day of prayer in anticipation for an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case concerning abortion.
“Our Christian churches and all people of goodwill must pray, fast, and work harder to end this pandemic of child sacrifice,” Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., said at the event held on Nov. 18.
The National Virtual Prayer Gathering comes as part of the “Pray for Dobbs” campaign. On Dec. 1, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case that involves Mississippi’s law restricting most abortions after 15 weeks. The case challenges two landmark cases: Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that legalized abortion nationwide, and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which upheld Roe in 1992.
The “Pray for Dobbs” campaign provides “resources to help your church, school, ministry, or faith community pray for a just decision in the Dobbs case,” including an informational webinar, flyers detailing the case, and action ideas. Those ideas include prayer, fasting, and organizing local prayer vigils for Dec. 1.
Kat Talalas, the assistant director for pro-life communcations at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, explained the initiative during in an informational webinar on Oct. 19. Some 3,500 church leaders participated in the webinar.
“Several faith leaders, all around the same time, had simultaneously the same idea, which is that we need a unified effort of Christians across the country joining together in prayer and fasting to end the scourge of abortion,” Talalas said during the webinar. “They also realized this would have to be an effort that comes out of the body of Christ and is not necessarily tied to any political group or political movement, but is truly an effort from people who are seeking to intercede and to ask God to protect all human life.”
With leaders of different faith traditions involved, she stressed, “We welcome you, we hope that you will join us in prayer and fasting from now until June 22.” The Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs case is expected to come sometime before July 2022.
The prayer event, hosted by Mary Szoch, the director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council, featured 16 guests including Naumann, former chair of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities.
“Our nation stands guilty of not only promoting, endorsing, and enshrining abortion across the land, but we are responsible for exporting abortion throughout the world in a sinister form of colonial imperialism,” Naumann said during the event. He asked God for forgiveness and to “strengthen us to stand against evil, to love those who may attack us, and show great compassion to those who’ve been involved in sins against life.”
Mother Agnes Mary Donovan, the superior general of the Sisters of Life, began her prayer during the event with the sign of the cross. She prayed for those wounded by abortion and for the children who have perished by abortion.
“We pray that those whose hearts have been pierced by abortion may experience anew your gaze of love upon them and, in your gaze, be restored to experience their own great dignity,” she said.
“Holy Spirit,” she added, “inspire our Supreme Court justices and clerks for the deep sense of reverence for the sacredness of every human life so that every human life be protected in law. That the sufferings of abortion may end.”
Szoch described “Pray for Dobbs” as “bringing together Christians from around the country to pray for the end to abortion in America.”
“It was really an effort all across the board,” she told CNA. “We had Catholics involved, we had Baptists involved, we had Presbyterians involved. I know I’m leaving out people there, but we really did have a unified effort.”
The speakers at the prayer event included Tony Evans, the senior pastor Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, Benjamin Watson, a former NFL star and Super Bowl champion, Tony Meléndez, a singer and concert guitarist, and Metropolitan Tikhon, the archbishop of Washington and Metropolitan of All America and Canada for the Orthodox Church.
She said it was advertised by churches across the country, the USCCB, FRC, and the Alliance Defending Freedom.
She acknowledged the importance of prayer and fasting in anticipation of the case.
“The atrocity of abortion is a grave evil and we know that God, the author of life, is pro-life,” she said. “He is the being who brought every unborn child into being, and he knows each unborn child intimately, and he has called each one of them by name for a purpose.”
Szoch highlighted another upcoming cross-denominational and non-partisan event called “Pray Together for Life.” Separate from “Pray for Dobbs,” FRC is organizing it to be held on Nov. 28 in Jackson, Miss.
“We need America to return to a nation that believes in the dignity of the human person,” she said, “and for that, we can’t do it without God.”
The above comes from a Nov. 22 posting on the site of the Catholic
News Agency.
Can anybody name one other similar “initiative” from last year? Nope. Here today, gone tomorrow.
Here today, last year and in previous years, 40 Days for Life would seem to be a similar initiative. Of course, there are other initiatives where virtually all Christians work together as well. The point you’re trying to make is not clear to me (unless you’re saying give up and do nothing?).
So God is pro-life? If God wanted abortion to end he would end it.
God created us with freedom. Our love for God and others would be meaningless if we were forced to love (which really is impossible, a contradiction). According to your logic, if God wanted to end racism, He could end it. Do you think God is racist (being the Creator of the human race in all of its racial diversity)? Similarly, does God want to end COVID, poverty, crime, cruelty or any other condition of life in a fallen world? If so, He could. That doesn’t mean He will override our freedom. (It seems only some governments are willing to assert that type of authoritarianism over individuals.)
Do folks really and truly think this way? Lemme re-phrase that …. do Catholics really think this way?
CCC 309
“If God the Father almighty, the Creator of the ordered and good world, cares for all his creatures, why does evil exist? To this question, as pressing as it is unavoidable and as painful as it is mysterious, no quick answer will suffice. Only Christian faith as a whole constitutes the answer to this question: the goodness of creation, the drama of sin and the patient love of God who comes to meet man by his covenants, the redemptive Incarnation of his Son, his gift of the Spirit, his gathering of the Church, the power of the sacraments and his call to a blessed life to which free creatures are invited to consent in advance, but from which, by a terrible mystery, they can also turn away in advance. There is not a single aspect of the Christian message that is not in part an answer to the question of evil.”
Oh..God’s gonna end abortion alright….and it’s best just to post under one screen name…
God wants a lot of things to end.
God wants a lot of things to increase.
People don’t care what God wants.
This may rival the response from Pope Pius V’s request to pray the rosary against the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Lepanto.
I joined them. We all must keep working and praying to end the evil of abortion. Our Archbishop Cordileone called the sin of abortion, child sacrifice. It may take a long time, but in the end, Christ will triumph over Satan. When Baby Jesus was born, his family had to escape the massacre of the Holy Innocents, by their flight into Egypt.