Press Release: Vote Life, Canada! Welcomes New Archbishop of St. John’s NL and Calls for Rebirth of Catholic Leadership and Defense of Unborn Children

Distributed to the media and posted today to the Vote Life, Canada! website:

Friday, October 19, 2007

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Vote Life, Canada! Welcomes New Archbishop of St. John’s NL and Calls for Rebirth of Catholic Leadership in the Province Accompanied by Vigorous Defense of Unborn Children

Contact: Eric Alcock, President, Vote Life, Canada! 709-773-0700

St. John’s, NL October 19/Christian Newswire—Vote Life, Canada! congratulates St. John’s newest Archbishop, Most Rev. Martin Currie and strongly appeals for a new era of authentic Catholic leadership and a ray of hope for the Unborn of NL.

“For too long,” says Eric Alcock, President and NL Provincial Director of Vote Life, Canada, “unborn children in this province have been denied the human rights bestowed upon them by their Creator. As a result, an estimated 30,000 have perished in NL since child-killing was legalized in Canada.”

Alcock notes very sadly that for at least the last four decades, under the nurture of Catholic Bishops in his home province of Newfoundland and Labrador (NL), “the rise of a pseudo-Catholic culture has had devastating consequences for both the practice of a genuine Catholic faith and a successful opposition to the culture of death.”

Despite the daily slaughter of nearly 300 of Canada’s Unborns, Alcock says the Bishops of St. John’s, like those in other parts of Canada, busy themselves with, and boast of, their strong social justice initiatives focusing on issues like drinking water supplies and immigration.

“Our previous Archbishop,” reports Alcock, “was involved in advancing recommendations to government concerning immigrants and refugee claimants, claiming that laws and politics are placing national interests before human dignity.” News media quoted the Archbishop as saying that “it's part of our Christian ethic to welcome the stranger," and that “we need to recognize that migrants enrich our Canadian life.”

But, Alcock asks, “When have we seen such concern for the human dignity of the Unborn? Do they not ‘enrich our Canadian life?’ Is it not ‘part of our Christian ethic’ to prevent unprovoked, murderous attacks upon the innocent?”

Alcock claims the rarity of pro-life appeals in parishes along with “virtual silence on the subject of abortion in homilies and prayers at Masses throughout the province insulates Catholics from any reminders of the child-killing taking place around them. It also serves to marginalize advocates of unborn children and distances them from the Christian community, portraying them as extremists.”

Vote Life, Canada! says to the new St. John’s Archbishop: Rise up and do the work of a true Catholic Bishop. Vigorously proclaim the Catholic faith and refuse to pander to a pseudo-catholic religion that breeds for our society the true extremists: anti-life and anti-family renegades who call themselves “Catholic.” Lead this province in a campaign of justice for the Unborn.