Scottish Catholic Observer

The annual pro-life vigil began in Glasgow’s George Square, with around 300 people gathering to pray the Rosary before processing through the city centre streets—complete with a statue of Our Lady—to Glasgow’s St Andrew’s Cathedral for the celebration of Mass.

People of all ages—youngsters, their parents and grandparents, office workers, clergy and religious—stood side-by-side holding aloft candles to show their support for the pro-life movement and all those whose lives have been affected by the many traumas of abortion.

Fr John Keenan, parish priest of St Patrick’s Church, Anderston, and Catholic chaplain for Glasgow University, led the pro-life evening in Glasgow and spoke to those in attendance.

Fr Keenan related the writings of St Paul to modern times, emphasising that the battle will be fought over ‘the meaning of the human body.’

“The secular, pagan world of his time held onto an ideology of the body as for pleasure, self-gratification and really selfishness,” he said. “It could be summed up in the pro-abortion mantra: ‘This is my body for me.’  In the end, this logic brings shame and death to the body. Just as in Ireland last year we saw shameful manipulation of the case of a woman who died in childbirth as a ruse to foist abortion on the country.

“Then the legislation they introduced, purportedly to protect the life of women in pregnancy has a clause stipulating that there need not be any immediate or inevitable danger to her life at all for the abortion to go ahead. MPs who voted on the legislation were not allowed to disagree on grounds of conscience and were sacked from posts for voting against it.

“Then in the UK the mantra, a woman’s right to choose, now allows abortions as legal under our law simply because the foetus is female.”

Despite the best efforts of pro-abortion supporters, who had gathered with banners at George Square and outside the cathedral, the pro-life movement was encouraged by last Thursday’s peaceful, but strong, display of prayer.

Participants were all encouraged to bring a friend along to next year’s vigil, ensuring the pro-life message is made even more evident in Glasgow’s city centre.

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—This story ran in full, with additional photographs, in the November 1 edition print of the SCO, available in parishes.

Pic: Robert Wilson