Citizens for a Pro-life Society, Priests for Life, and Pro-life Action League Host MemorialsContact: Tom Ciesielka, TC Public Relations,
312-422-1333,
tc@tcpr.net MEDIA ADVISORY, Aug. 11, 2014 /
Christian Newswire/
-- The National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Children on Saturday,
September 13, 2014, was first marked in the modern era last fall, but
memorialization
of society's tiniest innocent victims is not a new idea. Citizens for a
Pro-life Society, Priests for Life, and the Pro-life Action League
have reached back to ancient Rome for the inspiration behind this solemn national event. Dug into the walls of
the earliest
Christian catacombs in the outskirts of Rome are countless small
tombs, only a foot or two across. These are the burial places of infants
cast out of their pagan homes and left to die of starvation and
exposure - a common practice of that time. Members of the early church,
charged by Christ to love all their neighbors, offered these newborn
sacrifices to Roman cruelty the only act of love they could - that of
burying their little bodies and mourning for them in prayer.
This
tradition of mercifully burying abandoned children continues in our
own day with the National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Children,
taking place on September 13. Mourners across the country will visit
the gravesites of aborted children, whose broken bodies were recovered
from trash dumpsters and pathology labs and solemnly buried over the
four decades of legal abortion in the United States.
Under the
director of three national pro-life groups - Citizens for a Pro-life
Society, Priests for Life, and the Pro-life Action League -
simultaneous memorial services will be held at more than forty such
gravesites, as well as at scores of other memorial markers set up in memory of the aborted unborn at churches and cemeteries.
Eric Scheidler, Executive Director of the Pro-life Action League, stated, "It's sobering to realize that grave
markers
for the unborn victims of abortion list only a date of burial. They
have no birthdays because they were never allowed to be born. We can
list no date of death, because those who killed them discarded their
bodies like garbage. But they are not garbage to us. They are our
brothers and sisters. That's why we buried them, and that's why we visit
their graves to mourn for them and testify to their humanity."
Monica
Miller, Director of Citizens for a Pro-life Society, added, "Since
1973, 55 million innocent unborn children have been killed with the
sanction of law. A fraction of these victims of the American slaughter
have actually been buried. The graves of these victims are scattered
across America - graves of sorrow and graves of indictment
on a nation
that permitted the killing of the innocent. As we visit these graves on
September 13, we call upon our nation to remember these victims and
bring an end to the injustice of abortion."
"Abortion is not an
abstract issue," explained Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of
Priests for Life. "Having a memorial service where these babies are
buried reminds us that abortion is not merely about beliefs, but about
bloodshed; not just about viewpoints, but victims. By visiting the
graves of the aborted unborn, we allow our hearts to be broken for
them, and we recommit ourselves to protecting other children from
suffering the same fate."
The first National Day of Remembrance
was held last September on the 25th anniversary of the solemn burial of
several hundred abortion victims in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Prayer
services were held at over 100 locations, with thousands of mourners
participating.
Response was so great that the National Day of
Remembrance has been established as an annual event, to be held on the
second Saturday each September.
For more information about the National Day of Remembrance, including the stories behind the
gravesites of aborted children and the locations of memorial services being held September 13, visit
AbortionMemorials.com.
To arrange an interview with Monica Miller, Eric Scheidler, or Fr. Frank Pavone, contact Tom Ciesielka at
tc@tcpr.net or
312.422.1333.
Learn more about the sponsoring organizations by visiting their respective websites:
Citizens for a Pro-Life Society: http://ProLifeSociety.com
Citizens
for a Pro-life Society is an activist organization, founded on
Catholic principles of morality and social justice, dedicated to
advocacy of the sanctity of human life, especially protection of the
right to life of unborn children through the organization of public
demonstrations, pickets, educational programs, literature distribution,
conferences, seminars, workshops and lectures as well as reaching out
to mothers in crisis pregnancy and offering them material and spiritual
aid. The organization's goal is to work to end the culture of death
and restore a culture of life, to re-establish respect for human life
created in the image and likeness of God.
Priests for Life: PriestsForLife.org
Priests
for Life works to galvanize the clergy to preach, teach, and mobilize
their people more effectively in the effort to end abortion and
euthanasia. Priests for Life also represents a family of ministries that
reach and enrich every aspect of the pro-life movement, for clergy and
laity alike, in a wide variety of activities via Gospel of Life
Ministries, which include Deacons for Life, Seminarians for Life,
Missionaries of the Gospel of Life, Rachel's Vineyard (post-abortion
healing), Silent No More, African-American Outreach, Hispanic Outreach,
Stand True Ministries (youth outreach), Parliamentary Network for
Critical Issues (civic action), Life on the Line (radio, television,
and internet broadcasts), Prayer Campaign, Political Responsibility,
Networking Leaders.
Pro-Life Action League: ProLifeAction.org
The
Pro-Life Action League was founded by Joe Scheidler in 1980 with the
aim of saving babies from abortion through direct action. Not content
to await a political or judicial solution to abortion, the League seeks
to stop the killing of unborn children right now through all available
peaceful means, including public protest, sidewalk counseling,
education, youth outreach, and national leadership.
