On January 22, 2009, hundreds of thousands of pro-lifers will march in Washington D.C. and thousands more in other American cities to commemorate the blackest day in American history.
That day was January 22, 1973,when the United States Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision violated the moral law, Thou Shall Not Murder, and the documents founding this country which guarantee a right to life to ourselves and our posterity. Since that blackest of days more than 50,000,000 unborn babies have been murdered in America.
Memorial To The Missing: Fifty Million Pennies To Represent Fifty Million Babies
Fifty million is such a large number that our minds can’t comprehend it, so for the past 36 years various pro-life groups have tried to make the number of killings more comprehensible. We have all seen Cemeteries to the Unborn, mostly displays of 4,000 white crosses representing a single day’s worth of abortions. In one city white shoeboxes representing baby caskets lined the road into a large city – miles and miles of white caskets laid end to end.
But in Jackson, MS there is a “Memorial to the Missing” sponsored by the Mississippi Baptist Convention’s Christian Action Commission that tries to help us visualize the fifty million deaths by filling a large glass box with fifty million pennies. This display is on the corner of Mississippi and President Streets in Jackson.
The fifty million pennies weigh 156 tons or over 300,000 pounds. The huge box of coins was placed at the corner on Mothers Day 2006. “It’s been real effective,” according to Rev. Clarence Cooper, who helped launch the project, and says it not only represents the fifty million babies aborted, but also the suffering and regret that goes into every abortion decision.
William Perkins says people stop at the box to pray, and some insert their own pennies. A plaque attached to the display urges passers by to stop and pray and to “consider what we are doing as a nation.”
The plaque asks God to forgive us and help us seek ways to help those struggling with an abortion decision. It urges God to restore each of us.
The coins are now six feet deep in a 7-foot by 13-foot glass box. The coins not only remind passersby of the American Holocaust, but they send a message to the legislators to pass laws that restrict abortion. Mississippi is way ahead of most states in this regard, having only one abortion mill in the state and some of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in the country.
The money, now more than half-a-million dollars, will eventually be used to help support pro-lifer groups. Emptying the large container will be a task, and taking the 50,000,000 pennies to the bank will be something to see. For more information and pictures of the memorial go to The Christian Action Commission.
Bishop Loverde Promises To Keep Catholic Hospitals Open Even If He Faces Arrest
During the recent presidential campaign, Roman Catholic Bishops came out as never before with strong statements on the pathological evil of abortion, the fact that any involvement in abortion is an excommunicable sin, that Catholic pro-aborts should be denied Holy Communion, etc. While all of these facts are known by educated Catholics, they are brand new to many and millions have never got the message.
But one of the strongest statements yet was issued recently by Bishop Paul Loverde of Arlington, VA who said that if the Freedom of Choice Act should become federal law and Catholic Hospitals were forced to provide abortions, he would not allow the hospital to comply and would keep the hospital open.
He says he would face arrest if necessary, because a Catholic is obliged in conscience to disobey a civil law that is contrary to the moral law, violates fundamental human rights, or defies the teaching of the bible.
President elect Barack Obama promised Planned Parenthood that he would sign a freedom of Choice act I it is f passed by Congress. While there is no Catholic hospital in Bishop Loverde’s diocese, bishops do get moved around, and his statement may help steel the backbones of other members of the Hierarchy, many of whom say they would do as he recommends. They’d have to.
