Wednesday 27 March 2024

 PRO LIFE MARCH

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 25, 2024 / 18:18 pm

In what has become an annual confrontation, pro-life advocates faced taunts and intimidation from abortion activists as they made their way through the streets of New York City amid a heavy downpour for the annual International Gift of Life Walk on Saturday. 

As hundreds of pro-lifers walked the route, escorted by a contingent of “New York’s Finest” police officers, the protesters followed them, shouting “Shame on you!” and hurling expletives along the way.

The record-breaking deluge dropped 3.6 inches of rain on the group, but neither the animosity of the protesters nor the weather dampened their spirits.

“Man, did it rain. But the joy? It’s incredible,” Jeffrey Bruno, a Catholic photojournalist who documented the event, told CNA. He described the experience as “solidarity and joy on steroids.”

Hundreds of pro-lifers joined the International Gift of Life Walk in lower Manhattan, New York City, despite heavy rain and protestors on March 23, 2024. Credit: Jeffrey Bruno

Dawn Eskew, president of Personhood Education New York and one of the walk’s organizers, told CNA that between 350 and 400 pro-lifers of all ages joined the walk. Though most wore heavy jackets or plastic rain ponchos, all were still thoroughly soaked, one attendee said. 

The event began with a rally and several pro-life testimonies at downtown’s Foley Square after which participants traversed a mile through some of the city’s most iconic areas in lower Manhattan, including Broadway’s “Canyon of Heroes” and Wall Street.

Eskew said that since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the event, held this year for the eighth time, has been met with intense anger from abortion protestors. Last year, pro-abortion activists threw piles of trash in the path of the pro-life walkers, temporarily stopping them in their tracks.

Eskew said that she had feared the turnout for the walk might be light because of the violence of last year’s protest. But now she believes people must have been “energized by those protesters,” because this year’s walk was even more highly attended.

Hundreds of pro-lifers joined the International Gift of Life Walk in lower Manhattan, New York City, despite heavy rain and protestors on March 23, 2024. Credit: Jeffrey Bruno

Though she said that she was grateful for an increased police presence and barricades, she said that didn’t stop pro-abortion protesters from attempting to disrupt the walk again this year. 

As the pro-life advocates walked the route, they chanted prayers, sang hymns, and some played drums while protestors attempted to drown them out by clanging barriers and shouting expletives.

NOW: A woman yells “Shame on you!” at pro-life demonstrators as the “International Gift of Life Walk” marches down Broadway pic.twitter.com/6I7d46ZInt

— katie smith (@probablyreadit) March 23, 2024

The New York Police Department arrested at least eight pro-abortion protestors during the event, one social media user who was at the event told CNA. 

New York City police had to make several arrests of pro-abortion protestors during the event because of attempts to disrupt the International Gift of Life Walk in lower Manhattan on March 23, 2024. Credit: Jeffrey Bruno

Catherine Donohoe, president of the Pregnancy Service Network and one of the speakers at the rally, told CNA that she estimated there were about 120 pro-abortion protestors.

She said the walk was a good way to begin Holy Week and to join in Christ’s passion. 

1 comment:

  1. On March 22nd, Gene Vincent wrote:

    "Detterling you have a long history, both on the TES website and on my blog, of twisting others' words to suit your own nefarious purposes. Perhaps the most pernicious example of this concerns what I wrote about Delia. I wrote about mounting Delia from behind Doggy-style. You twisted this to make it appear that I had sodomised her." GENE

    To which outstandingly crass, tone-deaf and dazzlingly nasty remarks, I replied:

    "Because claiming that you had fucked my wife from behind was so much more tasteful than claiming you had sodomised her, wasn't it, Gene? a delicacy of expression to rival Jane Austen herself? you nasty, dirty minded little twat.

    Only you, the nasty bastards' nasty bastard, could make such a dazzlingly crass remark. And you know perfectly well that I I knew perfectly well that you had not claimed to sodomise my wife. My repeated allegations were simply my way of paying you out in your own dud and bogus coinage - you find a way of inflicting pain and, when it works, you repeat it ad infinitum. If you can't take it, you shouldn't hand it out."

    All of which was beside the point of Gene's vain and fruitless attempt to defend the indefensible Joseph Ratzinger.

    Challenged four times to go ahead and disprove the facts below, Gene has instead resorted to his usual tactics of posting a new thread on an unrelated topic to try to push his humiliation down the page. What's the matter, Gene? the cat got your tongue?

    You cannot go on denying facts, and these are the facts of the case regarding Ratzinger's involvement in concealing and enabling the continued sexual abuse of children by Fr. Stephen Kiesle between the years 1981 - 1988. These are the facts of the case, and they are not in dispute.

    FACT: Kiesle himself asked the Vatican that he be unfrocked in 1981.
    FACT: Ratzinger did nothing about this for four years.
    FACT: in 1985, Ratzinger then refused to unfrock Kiesle on the grounds that to so would do no good to the church and bring detriment to faithful Catholics.
    FACT: In 1985, Ratzinger also sought to minimise the vileness of Kiesle’s crimes by describing the rape and buggery of young children as of “grave significance” rather than as the vicious and unforgivable assaults they were.
    FACT: Ratzinger then did nothing for two years - two years during which Kiesle, still in holy orders, continued to rape and bugger small children using his post as Youth Minister at St Joseph’s, Penole to get access to his victims.

    Those are FACTS, Gene. And they place responsibility for Kiesle’s actions during those six years on Ratzinger.

    I will not apologise for telling the truth, and I will go on telling it until you acknowledge that it is the truth.

    In the meantime, I continue to wait for your answer to this:

    "Detters can we leave A.N. WILSON and ARIANNA HUFFINGTON behind?"

    Not until you have dealt honestly with this example of your lying bastardy:

    'Gene writes beautifully - something not always the case with authors of trail-blazing literary works.' [A.N. WILSON]

    'I was enthralled. A new star has shot into the literary firmament. [ARIANNA HUFFINGTON]

    When you are going to admit that you have made these reviews and their authors up? Make no mistake: I am going to keep on asking until you tell the truth, or I lose patience, inform Mr Wilson and Ms Huffington and let nature take its course.

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