Cause for beatification of Sister Clare Crockett opened

Pro-life supporters march in this year’s March for Life in Ottawa, Canada, May 9, 2024. / Credit: Peter Stockland

Ottawa, Canada, May 10, 2024 / 16:00 pm (CNA).

Thousands of pro-lifers packed onto Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada, and spilled out onto Wellington Street on May 9 for the 27th annual National March for Life.

The diverse crowd gathered on the Hill at noon with its members bearing both homemade and professionally crafted signs pledging them to stand fast for the unborn and vulnerable.

The march’s theme, “I Will Never Forget You” was taken from the prophet Isaiah’s poignant question: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast?”

The rally and march were broadcast live by the U.S. cable network EWTN. (Editor’s note: EWTN is the parent company of Catholic News Agency.)

This year’s speakers included pro-life speaker and author Abby Johnson, President of 40 Days for Life Shawn Carney, and Campaign Life Coalition Vice-Chair Jeff Gunnarson.

The opening prayer was led by Father Daniel Szwarc, OMI, who traveled to Ottawa from the Arctic Circle together with three young women engaged in pro-life activities in their small Inuit village of Naujaat.

Diana Kringayark told the crowd that every week she and the other women buy baby products to distribute to 40 village families to show that “every baby is important.”

Ottawa Archbishop Marcel Damphousse encouraged the marchers to act with “courage, compassion, and conviction.”

Conservative members of Parliament Cathay Wagantall and Arnold Viersen were the only federal politicians to address the crowd.

In her brief speech, Wagantall emphasized that advocating for the unborn and the vulnerable is particularly difficult for Canadian politicians. But she hailed the number of young people in the crowd as a sign of hope.

“If you think it is a battle out here, you know it is a battle in there,” the Saskatchewan member of Parliament said, indicating the Houses of Parliament behind her.

Angelina Steenstra of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign introduced Nathalia Comrie, a young woman who, at 17, was pregnant and felt that “abortion was the only choice my family would accept.” She said she was told that “everything would go back to normal after the abortion.”

“That was a lie,” Comrie said. After years of depression and substance abuse, she was introduced to the Sisters of Life, and through them to other women who, like her, had suffered as the result of abortion.

“I will never forget my son Kaeden. He is why I am silent no more,” Comrie said.

In the crowd of clergy, habited religious sisters, elderly, schoolchildren, and loud teenagers were women who had found themselves, like Comrie, in situations where they felt pressured and alone.

Christa Ranson came to the March for Life from Montreal because she knew what it was to have considered abortion.

Ranson had been scheduled to undergo an abortion on two separate occasions. The first time she was actually on the table being prepped for the abortion when she decided not to go through with it. The second time, after hearing her son’s heartbeat by ultrasound, Ranson decided she “just couldn’t do it.”

Ranson said she now tells her son: “I loved you when you were just a heartbeat.”

When asked why it was important for her to come to the March for Life, she told Canada’s The Catholic Register that it was to let women know there is a choice other than abortion.

“What a lot of people don’t realize is that, when you are on that table, those babies are living, they have a heart, they have feelings.”

“I want other women to know that even if it is difficult, it will be okay and it is worth it. If women are making the decision because of health reasons, or financial reasons, they should reach out. There are resources out there, there are doctors out there who will help.”

This article was originally published by Canada’s The Catholic Register and is reprinted here with permission. 

[…]

Santiago, Chile, Aug 11, 2018 / 06:01 am (ACI Prensa).- Police seized documents and equipment from the office of the bishop of Chile’s military diocese Thursday as part of an investigation into accusations that Church officials in the country covered up clerical sexual abuse.

Personnel from Chile’s Carabineros arrived at the headquarters Aug. 9 in Santiago with a court order from the O’Higgins Regional Prosecutor’s Office. The offices of eight senior Church officials have been raided as part of the investigation, according to Reuters.

Chile’s military diocese was led from 2004 to 2015 by Bishop Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid. Attention to clerical sex abuse has heightened since Bishop Barros’ 2015 transfer to the Diocese of Osorno. Barros had been accused of covering up abuses committed by Fr. Fernando Karadima, who was convicted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2011 of abusing minors.

In a statement, the military diocese said it turned over the requested documents and equipment and expressed its willingness to cooperate in the investigative process “in everything that is required.”

According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, prosecutor Mariano Arias ordered the raid because the investigations “indicate that a cover-up by the military diocese may have been committed”, considering that the head of this office must report these incidents in his capacity as a public official of the armed forces.

The raid was authorized by the Chilean defense minister and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Bishop Santiago Jaime Silva Retamales of the military diocese was outside Chile at the time of the raid. Bishop Silva is also head of the Chilean bishops’ conference.

As part of the investigation, the Rancagua Regional Prosecutor’s Office summoned Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati Andrello of Santiago to testify Aug. 21 concerning his possible responsibility for the crime of cover-up in cases of sexual abuse and the abuse of power and conscience.

On Aug. 9, the Archdiocese of Santiago reported that Cardinal Ezzati will be hospitalized for two days for a routine checkup following the insertion of a pacemaker in March.

On June 13 and July 12 the O’Higgins Regional Prosecutor’s Office seized documents of the Diocese of Rancagua and the Santiago archdiocese respectively in the process of this investigation.

Other dioceses, including Villarica and Temuco, also were the target of orders to seize their files as a result of the investigations being conducted on sexual abuse. Files from the Archdiocese of Santiago have been seized on two occasions.

On Aug. 9, the Diocese of Talca reported a new complaint of sexual abuse against Fr. Luciano Arriagada Vergara, who was in charge of the diocesan youth ministry.

Following the accusation, a preliminary investigation was initiated in order to determine the credibility of the allegation. A complaint was also filed with the regional prosecutor’s office.   

The diocese stated that while this process is going on, the accused is barred from the public exercise of priestly ministry.

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

[…]

A tent camp in Haiti. / arindambanarjee/Shutterstock.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Apr 14, 2021 / 15:45 pm (CNA).
The Archbishop of Port-au-Prince has called for the release of 10 people who were kidnapped in Haiti on Sunday and are being held for ran… […]