Alberta bishops object to graphic images

Edmonton (CCN)--Alberta's bishops will not participate in this year’s March for Life because organizers could not guarantee that placards displaying dead fetuses would not be present at the event.

Edmonton Archbishop Richard Smith, liaison bishop with the march organizers, said the presence of images of aborted babies at the march is not consistent with the message the bishops want to portray about the dignity of human life.

The graphic images “have started to become a predominant image in the march,” Archbishop Smith said on a March 9.

He said that because the Alberta bishops have been in the forefront of organizing the march, people could naturally assume that they have given their blessing to those images.

This year’s March for Life is scheduled for May 12 and Smith said the bishops “will not stand in the way of anybody else participating.”

SNIP

Archbishop Smith said he personally objects to the photos aborted babies.

“I do find them offensive because they do not honour the dignity of human remains and the dignity of the human person.”

He said the images may work to dissuade some women from having abortions, but is still not the right approach.

“We think a far more effective image, that would be consistent with what we are proclaiming, would be the images of unborn living children," he said. “That says the same thing and it says it far more beautifully.”

Archbishop Smith said he has had several discussions with organizers about the issue since the 2010 march. He spoke with the WCR shortly after meeting with the organizers when he informed them of the bishops’ decision.

Sister Elisabeth Coloumbe, chair of the march organizing committee, told the WCR she did not wish to comment on the bishops’ decision.

Archbishop Smith said he respects the organizers who are “wonderfully committed to life. This is not a fight or struggle with the March for Life organizers.”

“We all want to end abortion,” he said, but the presence of graphic images at the march threatens the unity and growth of the event.

Archbishop’s blog

In his blog, the archbishop wrote “from many discussions over this issue in the last several months, it is clear that the March for Life organizers are unable to pledge that the event will proceed without graphic displays. It is not that they will not do so; they simply cannot because it is beyond their control.”

The archbishop said he is also concerned about the effect the graphic images may have on women who are “deeply repenting” for abortions they’ve had in the past. He is further concerned about their effect on the growing numbers of school-age children attending the march who have not been prepared to see such images.

The Archbishop is talking about the March for Life in Edmonton. At the National March for Life in Ottawa, there have been, for the past several years, a group of people who display graphic images to the marchers----which I always find annoying, personally, because we know, already, what abortion is, and we don't need it shoved into our faces. And children participate in the march.

But the people who do this display ---I don't know who they are----they are not under the control or direction of Campaign Life Coalition, which always has a positive message.