Father Joseph Illo, pastor of Star of the Sea parish in San Francisco, gave a 13-minute homily on Sunday, September 11.

Father told of growing up on the East Coast and visiting his Aunt Margie in Washington D.C. who had eight children. When people criticized her for her large family, she would line up the kids from oldest to youngest and ask which one should she not have had.

Then Father described the love of God shown in the parable of the Good Shepherd. The loss of one sheep made the shepherd grieve as if the whole flock was lost

In the movie Schindler’s List, Schindler, who had saved many Jews, at the end of the movie looks at his car and thinks how many more lives he could have saved if he had sold the car.

Father Illo: “To be like God we must value one human life.”

Father gets  to the meat of his sermon: Proposition 1, the California legislature’s answer to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision turning abortion back to the states.

He reads the 78 words of Prop 1. “The state shall not deny or interfere with an individual’s reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and their fundamental right to choose or refuse contraception. This section is intended to further the constitutional right to privacy guaranteed by Section 1 and the constitutional right not to be denied equal protection guaranteed by Section 7. Nothing herein narrows or limits the right to privacy or equal protection.”


“[After 24 weeks] To abort a child legally in California there must be a threat to the mother’s life or health. Proposition 1 would remove that limit – it would make abortion legal until the moment of birth for any reason.”