‘We are standing up for the innocent’
‘We are standing up for the innocent’CHARLOTTE — More than 300 people from across the Diocese of Charlotte marched on uptown Charlotte Jan. 14 to demonstrate public witness to the sanctity of all human life.
The annual March for Life Charlotte recalls the anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v Bolton legalizing abortion. The march and a special Mass for the Unborn, offered earlier in the day at St. Vincent de Paul Church in Charlotte, are meant as a time of prayer to call attention to the more than 63 million lives lost to abortion and the need to change people's hearts.
Students from Charlotte Catholic and Christ the King high schools were among the marchers. They joined clergy and religious, Knights of Columbus, and laity from many parishes, as well as members of several local Lutheran churches, in marching the mile from the Diocesan Pastoral Center to Independence Square – carrying pro-life signs and banners and praying as they went.
The 2022 Charlotte march – held during a time when the nation's abortion laws and restrictions have come under intense scrutiny – was larger than in past years. Participants were smiling, cheering, hopeful and determined as they kicked off the march following a blessing from Bishop Peter Jugis.
The bishop thanked the marchers, telling them, "We are here as advocates for the right to life of the unborn child. We are here as witnesses to the sanctity of life of the innocent child in the womb, and we are standing up for the innocent – the defenseless little ones who cannot defend themselves."
He prayed that God would bless the March for Life. "May all that we say and do along the way be for Your honor and glory. We trust in the protection of your angels during this march, and we ask for the prayers of all the saints – especially St. Joseph, and for the Blessed Virgin Mother, who is patroness of our diocese, Mother of God and our mother."
This year's march attracted attention from a small group of pro-abortion protestors, three of whom walked a short distance in front of the pro-life marchers until reaching Independence Square. As the March for Life program got under way, about a dozen pro-abortion protesters, armed with megaphones, heckled the marchers from across the street. A line of Charlotte Mecklenburg police officers kept the groups separated so that the event remained peaceful.
Father Ernest Nebangongjoh, parochial vicar at St. Patrick Cathedral in Charlotte, was one of the keynote speakers of the March for Life program. His talk garnered enthusiastic cheers and applause from the crowd.
“Human life is sacred and the intentional killing of an innocent child is a grave evil, an evil that no reason or circumstance can ever justify,” he said. “But if we are sincere to ourselves, we must also admit that just knowing that something is a grave evil does not mean we will never find ourselves in a position where we are tempted to still want to do it. It is a fact that some of the women who have considered having an abortion are Christians, some of whom have even participated in marches like this."
“What does this mean?” Father Nebangongjoh asked. “It means that circumstances can still push people to want to do what they know is evil. This being the case, our approach must go beyond just condemning the evil, to actually taking time to listen to those who find themselves in such situations in order to understand what they are going through.
“We must approach them with compassion and love, offering them always the mercy and forgiveness of God,” he emphasized.
"As a prolife movement, our mission is to uphold life in all circumstances," he continued. "It is a daunting task, one that needs a collective effort. It is a mission that if we have to be faithful to it, we must strive to bring on board all of God’s children and all people of good will. All human beings desire to live. So, all human beings must put their efforts together to fight against anything that poses a threat to human life and its inherent dignity. It is not a fight in which one group is struggling to win over another group, or to consolidate power and control. It is not a fight between “us” and “them” whoever the “them” may be. It is a fight to destroy evil in our society in all its forms."
‘Our approach must go beyond just condemning the evil to actually taking time to listen to those who find themselves in such situations in order to understand what they are going through.’ — Father Ernest Nebangongjoh
In his closing remarks, Father Nebangongjoh shared a passage of sacred scripture and a prayer.
“When Jesus came on earth He said: ‘The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I have come that you may have life and have in abundance’ (John 10:10). It is Jesus who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. It is to Him that the prolife movement owes its loyalty.
“Let Him bless all the efforts of the prolife movement. Let Him bless and protect all of us, born and unborn. Let Him bless all the citizens of this great nation and all who live in it. And when our days on earth are ended may it please Him to grant us eternal life in His kingdom, where we shall live and reign with Him forever and ever. Amen.”
Read Father Ernest Nebangongjoh's full talk for the March for Life
Dr. Matt Harrison, a Catholic physician who pioneered the abortion pill reversal procedure, also addressed those gathered. He shared how his vocation as a pro-life doctor evolved over decades, precipitating from the tragic loss of his newborn sister, Phyllis, when he was only 8 years old.
“When my mother become pregnant with her sixth child, we were all excited to meet our new sister, but when the time came for her birth, she had died from the umbilical cord wrapping around her,” Harrison recalled.
“We were devastated. It was November of 1973, and I distinctly remember as an 8-year-old that the same nurses and doctors that were in that little chapel crying at Phyllis’s funeral, might be helping abort other babies who had just as much a right to life. That’s when I started wondering what I could do to protect life, at the age of 8. I felt the call,” Harrison said.
He became more interested in science and studied it in school. Along his educational path, Harrison took a job doing research in childhood leukemia at Johns Hopkins, he also took a year on staff with Young Life, learning how to support troubled youth and pregnant teen moms,
“All this time I still felt the call to protect life and fight abortion,” he said. “I then made a commitment to go back to science, so I took a job at Duke in molecular genetics.”
Harrison went back to school and got a master’s degree in protein receptor biology. He moved to the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond and started working in a lab studying brain receptors. And, after three rejections from medical schools over the years, he finally was accepted.
Harrison says he knew within the first week of his residency that he would not be able to prescribe birth control, or refer women for abortions or sterilizations. And, fortunately for him, his director was sympathetic.
After graduating as chief resident, he joined a pro-life practice in Concord, N.C., where he started delivering free prenatal care and delivery services for abortion vulnerable women.
In 2006, a young woman came into Harrison’s office wanting to reverse her abortion after regretting taking the abortion pill. “I truly think, that if I had gone straight to medical school out of college, I wouldn’t have been equipped to solve this problem that took an understanding of crisis teen pregnancies, protein receptor biology, and a prolife perspective on medicine,” Harrison said.
He shared that since that first baby was born in 2007, the network for abortion pill reversal has spread to more than 1,100 providers in 65 countries. More than 3,000 healthy babies have been born after their mother took the abortion pill, he said – to which the March for Life crowd cheered enthusiastically.
Harrison said God “took a person that was called and motivated, and then qualified me with training and education, that at the time, I didn’t even know I would need.” He encouraged those gathered to love their neighbor.
“You can see Christ in these moms and you can be Christ to them… You are here today because you are called – called to end abortion by loving your neighbor."
Also in attendance at the March for Life Charlotte were women and men from the Silent No More awareness campaign, which encourages post-abortive women and men to seek help and healing. Andrea Hines, a long-time prolife advocate, stood up to speak about regretting the abortion she had in college and how she felt she had "come back alive" later in life after discovering the Catholic faith and going to confession.
"My dead bones received flesh and I came alive again. Thank you, God! Thank you, Jesus! Thank you for Your Church!"
— SueAnn Howell and Patricia Guilfoyle. Photos by Patricia Guilfoyle.
