In a phrase long associated with the civil rights movement, Cardinal Sean O’Malley told the Pro-Life Vigil Mass in Washington D.C. last week that “we shall overcome” in the fight against abortion.
The National Shrine church was packed with thousands of mostly young people on Wednesday evening last week who marched at the National Mall with the cardinal and other pro-life leaders the next day.
“In our country, people have come together in the fight to overcome racism” and other social ills, he said. "The quest for human rights and solidarity brought together people of faith to 'repair the world', to use the Jewish expression," the cardinal said.
“Now, the fight is for the right to life, and we shall overcome.”
Cardinal O’Malley, chairman of the bishops’ conference committee on pro-life activities, preached on the Gospel story of the rich young man who comes to Jesus. “This story of the rich young man appears in all the synoptic Gospels. And Jesus' answer always begins with: ‘Thou shall not kill,’” Cardinal O’Malley said.
“We are all here today because we are convinced that human happiness and inheriting eternal life require us to embrace this commandment: ‘Thou shall not kill’ or to express it positively, ‘Thou shall protect human life.’”
The cardinal reminded the congregation that the second commandment Jesus mentions is “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and urged the pro-life movement to resist the promiscuity of contemporary culture.
O’Malley noted that Jesus then asks the man to sell all his possessions and give to the poor. “We follow the commandments, we are pro-life and we help the poor,” the cardinal said, pointing out that all these things were necessary.
The next day, as tens of thousands of pro-life demonstrators marched past the Capitol building, the Republican leadership in the House withdrew a bill that would have banned abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Several Republican women legislators objected that the exemption from the ban for women who had been raped required those women to file an official complaint with the police. Many victims of rape are reluctant to go to the police.
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