World March for Women IV: Was it worth it?

The World March of Women has come and gone. Organizers of the Quebec-based initiative claimed 30,000 marchers for the Sunday, October 15 event in Montreal, many of them wearing witches' hats, according to the National Post (Oct. 16). A few days earlier, the Montreal Gazette had forecast that "many of Quebec's 15,400 nuns would be participating in the nine days of WMW activities." Did they? The Montreal Catholic Times reports as follows: "Under a large pink banner, proclaiming 'Blessed are those who fight for justice,' Christian Women marched together. There were some Catholic Women's League members and many francophone Catholic women's groups. And women religious were out in force" (Nov. 2000).

Ottawa

In Ottawa, according to the organizers, 50,000 participants marched, a figure deflated by the Ottawa Citizen to 15,000, while the Canadian Press, Ottawa Sun, Toronto Sun and National Post all put the figure at a dramatically reduced "just over 5,000." Catholic schools and teachers and the Canadian Religious Conference marched under their own banners.

There were many pro-abortion, feminist and lesbian signs, not to mention especially unpleasant ones, in English and French. These dominated the rally; as for the leaders, they were cut from the same cloth.

Seven of the organizers met privately with Prime Minister Chretien giving him the same old list of feminist requests (all 68 of them), among which "abortion and homosexual 'rights' form part of the central non-negotiable demands." As usual, the leaders demanded billions of dollars for their various projects: $2 billion for a National Child Care program; $50 million for "women-care controlled groups"; 1% of the federal budget to be committed to social housing; $30 million for groups that promote equality for women; funding for "a national meeting of lesbians"; funding for immigrant and refugee settlement programs; "non-repayable" grants to replace student loans, etc. Afterwards, they were not happy with the Prime Minister's response.

Was it worth it? Yes, insofar as any such demonstration reminds spectators, and viewers and readers throughout the country, of certain inequities and problems. But no, because the demands look to political answers when the problems arise from spiritual and cultural disorders. Again no, when one counts in that the demands are framed and marred by a feminist ideology. For its basic flaws, see our September issue, pp.12-13. For feminists, violence and poverty have a selective meaning which goes contrary to reality including the law of God, such as hatred for men, family, marriage and religion.

Catholic cooperation

Was the March worthwhile for the Catholic community? Ottawa's low turn-out was not for lack of trying by some bishops. In Calgary, Bishop Fred Henry had sponsored an evening prayer vigil on October 9th, Thanksgiving Monday. When some pro-life Catholics, who had reluctantly decided to bring some signs in protest arrived at St. Mary's Cathedral, they discovered that no protest was needed. The parking lot was empty, people apparently preferring Thanksgiving dinner to praying for the success of a feminist march. Prayer services were held in other cities such as Saskatoon.

In Ottawa, many Catholic parish bulletins carried requests to billet women coming to Ottawa, as well as detailed schedules for the day of the March itself, following the directives of the Archbishop who actively encouraged participation.

One Mass at the Cathedral was set aside for the March. Six bishops concelebrated: Archbishops Marcel Gervais (Ottawa)and Ernest Leger (Moncton), and Bishops Fred Henry (Calgary), John Sherlock (London), Francos Thibodeau (Edmunston, N.B.) and Paul Andre Durocher (Sault Ste Marie). The church was filled (over 500), and afterwards many lined up outside to participate in the March. Outside the cathedral a handful of Catholics carried signs saying, "Reject Feminist Supremacy."

In their joint homily Bishop Henry emphasized hope: "So our work is to believe, sing and dance, yes, even to march." Bishop Sherlock claimed that "our objectives in supporting the March are reflections of positions powerfully promoted by the Church."

Archbishop Gervais, speaking of involvement in politics, asked rhetorically, "Does the fear of being tainted permit us to disengage from politics? No, we have to take our responsibilities in public and we have to vote". (Catholic Register, Oct. 23).

Among Catholics who attended the Mass and the March, the pro-life committee from Holy Redeemer parish had brought a very large sign saying, "End violence from womb to tomb." This caught the attention of the Ottawa TV and radio stations, not least because a plane flew the same banner over Parliament Hill for about an hour. Whether the average viewer would have recognized this sign as pro-life is impossible to say, but the pro-abortionists certainly did. They planted people selling "pro-choice" buttons in front of the sign and later on trotted out some women of "Catholics for Free Choice". When the pro-life group left for the day, they were booed for their efforts.

Was it worthwhile?

Was it all worthwhile from the Catholic point of view? I would think not and this for several reasons: the division left in the ranks of the CWL; the display of open hostility towards pro-life among Church leaders; and the reiteration of false arguments and thinking.

1. The March has left a deep fissure in the Catholic Women's League. Some chapters have voted to leave the Council, and other members have renounced their membership individually. A petition demanding the resignation of the CWL executive bodies will come to nothing; nor will a call for a genuine Catholic march of women under the banner of Our Lady.

Meanwhile, the CWL supporters of the March are seeking revenge. "Not a penny to Campaign Life Coalition ever again," announced one Toronto Council. "We shall take revenge," said a member of the Toronto Archdiocesan Council. And the new national president, Vivian Bosch of Saskatchewan, called a meeting to consider taking away the life membership of one woman who had dared to publicly contradict the executive. It doesn't bode well for the future.

2. Secondly, the controversy has brought into the open the hostility towards pro-life which has smoldered under the surface of the Catholic Social Justice "champions" for many years. Each of the three leading pro-March bishops let slip disparaging remarks described in this magazine earlier, as did leaders of other groups. This hostility is the result of a resentment which goes back to the late nineteen-sixties, a resentment born out of a bad conscience for having made economic/political/ 'Social Justice' a top priority, while abandoning the defence of the family and family morality to a handful of pro-life laity and to "Rome."

For thirty years pro-life activists have battled one government after another while a politically-correct Bishops' Conference remained silent. As for individual bishops, with very few exceptions they haven't so much as dared question, let alone oppose, pro-abortion or pro-sodomite Catholic politicians and deny them Catholic institutional support. Archbishop Gervais' rhetorical question, "Does the fear of being tainted permit us to disengage from politics?" is really another crack at a supposed pro-life standoffishness. However, shortly after, the Archbishop did express his "disappointment" at Chretien's talk to students at a Catholic school. The archbishop called on Catholics to vote pro-life. (LifeSite, Nov. 3)

3. Finally, pro-life people had thrown into their faces more tired old arguments, this time not by hard-nosed pro-abortionists but by fellow Catholics. The "one issue people" charge, for example, is an attempt to deny that the issue of human life is at the foundation of all other rights and, therefore, superior to them all.

The "one issue people" accusation is closely tied to the pathetic argument that in elections abortion is just one issue among many. This has been the stand of the 'Social Justice' people and the Ontario Bishops' Conference, for example. First they listed abortion in the midst of two dozen other topics; then they decided a couple of years ago to move it to the head of the list, as if that made a difference. It still left abortion as one issue among many.

As recently as October 28, Joe Gunn, Social Justice spokesman for the CCCB, reiterated this view when interviewed by the CBC radio program The House (LSN, Nov. 3) Similarly, in a November 8,2000, interview, Suzanne Scorsone, spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Toronto, answered the question how to rank the issues of gun control and protection for the unborn with a brusque "I am not going into ranking issues" and "there are a multiplicity of issues." Saskatchewan's Catholic weekly, the Prairie Messenger has pushed the primacy of economic/social "values" while ignoring the protection of the unborn for many years. Its November 1, edition did it again with the article "Many moral issues to be included in our voting." Abortion wasn't even mentioned.

For a better evaluation of the status of abortion as an election issue see News in Brief in this issue, under United States, or read John Paul's Evangelium vitae.

Another accusation--and this is the last one I'll mention--is the red herring that 'legislation won't change anything' because the hearts of people must be changed first. How these detractors know this they do not tell. But when the law prohibited abortions, there were practically none. Why? Because as St. Thomas Aquinas points out, the law is a teacher. Only when the law was altered did abortion increase rapidly. When the law is restored--as recently in Poland--the numbers drop rapidly.

In conclusion, the March showed how deeply and widely many Canadian Catholics are immersed in the spirit of the times, of the world, and of political compromise.

P.S. In New York the March of Women delegates handed in 17 demands to the U.N. These included one for access to abortion (in the language of "reproductive health"), and one in favour of freedom for homosexual activity. Among the official speakers at the March in both Washington and New York was the anti-Catholic, pro-abortion group "Catholics for a Free Choice" (Lifesite, Oct. 18).

The New York March was attended by 130 New Brunswick women, and no doubt others from Nova Scotia.