Belfast City Hall shouldn’t be a billboard for abortion

Abortion is a ‘David and Goliath’ fight – and we all know how that turned out. But securing the right to life for unborn children is going to be a long battle before victory is won. While David had five stones, we Catholics have five decades on our rosaries – powerful spiritual weapons. “God has never needed great armies to win,” Bernie Smyth of Precious Life told around 150 Catholics, who gathered to pray outside Belfast City Hall on Sunday.

This followed a decision by a Council subcommittee to light up the building in celebration of so-called ‘International Safe Abortion Day’. The request to light up City Hall on September 28 came from the National Women’s Council of Ireland. It was opposed by the DUP but backed at Belfast Council’s Strategic Policy and Resources Committee by Sinn Féin, the SDLP, Alliance and the Greens.

While they opted for green light, blood red would in fact be a more appropriate colour. As we went to print, the full Council was deliberating the decision.

A group of Catholics gathered on Sunday at the gates of City Hall to object. Children played and adults prayed, among them a priest from Banbridge. “This is an important form of witness,” Fr Andrew McMahon told The Irish Catholic, “prayerful, peaceful witness, and it’s a voice that needs to be expressed in a one-sided and uneven, unjust debate.”

There is no such thing as a safe abortion. A child dies and parents are left wounded, especially mothers. More than 70,000 boys and girls have been denied their right to life since abortion was introduced across this island. Politicians have a reputation for spinning the truth, but putting deceit in lights? It’s astonishing that the battle over the ‘right to life’ has shifted to ‘right to light’.

His vision of the darkness descending on Ireland, with only a flicker of light still burning, is coming to pass”

For both Christians and non-Christians, light has long been a powerful symbol – and is used today for political point-scoring.

In pre-Christian Ireland, this ‘right to light’ was closely guarded by the High Kings and Druids until St Patrick came to challenge their authority with the light of Truth. And it was that showdown at Slane in 433AD that comes to mind now. Patrick prevailed – and his vision of the darkness descending on Ireland, with only a flicker of light still burning, is coming to pass. St Patrick saw that flicker eventually fan into a flame again.

The argument over the lighting up of Belfast City Hall comes as Pope Leo prepares to visit France, where the lighting up of buildings was insisted upon during the French Revolution. In those days, public lighting was expensive – and not without its risks – and was a highly calculated statement of victory or loyalty. After the fall of the Bastille, revolutionary groups forcefully demanded that candles be placed in civic buildings and in homes to celebrate the ‘Light of Liberty’. Refusing to do so was regarded as an act of treason.

Significance

Given the significance of light in human and salvation history – indeed we need it for our survival – perhaps it is not a surprise that the decision by a group of councillors on a Council subcommittee should have struck such a chord with citizens. “Belfast City Hall is not a billboard for abortion,” said Bernie Smyth of Precious Life, who reported a dramatic response at prayer vigils in Belfast. “This has really enraged people. People are angry. People want to stand up now and say enough is enough.”

Abortion was introduced in the south of Ireland following a referendum campaign”

Within a week, the Council had directly received almost 600 complaints – not counting the individual councillors who were contacted. Thousands have signed a Precious Life petition.

She said she believed the row over the lighting of Belfast City Hall could be a “catalyst for change.” “Even people who are not fully pro-life are on our side.”

Martina O’Neill brought her grandchildren, Caodhan (8) and Aoife (3) to Sunday afternoon’s prayer vigil. She said Catholic voters have been abandoned by politicians, especially the SDLP, which was founded on a civil rights movement. “Where are the rights for the unborn?” she said. “If we can’t protect the unborn child, who can we help? Pro-life parties should be brought into play.”

While abortion was introduced in the south of Ireland following a referendum campaign, the practice was imposed on the north by the British government through stealth – a regulation from Westminster in March 2020.

Mrs Smyth said there was pressure from both Sinn Féin and the SDLP to do so. Who could forget how Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald and First Minister Michelle O’Neill – jubilant over the referendum result – held up a sign outside Dublin Castle in May 2018 with the words: “The north is next.”

Care

How odd that the unborn child is the only human being whose destruction is routinely described as ‘care’ – though sadly that is changing too with so-called assisted dying in places such as Canada.

The notion that a new life is just for the mother is a nonsense: the child is an autonomous person in their own right, and new life brings blessings for society. In Deuteronomy, Moses tells the Israelites that God has set before them a clear choice between life and death, blessing and cursing, and urges them to “choose life, so that you and your descendants may live.”

This is surely a message for the Irish today.

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I was delighted to hear that a young man from my Parish of St Michael’s Uanán Ó Mealláin is one of two from Down and Connor Diocese who have begun a journey towards the priesthood. My own parish has a weekly hour of adoration, with Intercession for Priests – and all the baptised – on a Sunday evening. Uanán will join Cian from Saul and Ballee Parish (where St Patrick began his mission in 432AD) will travel to Spain this year for a preparatory or propaedeutic year at the Royal English College, ahead of academic studies in the seminary. There are further plans to visit post-primary schools to speak to pupils about the joy of the priesthood. I also read in the summer edition of the Down and Connor Newsletter that there are plans to host a Discernment night for women considering a vocation to religious life. This is good news indeed.

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There are seminal moments in our lives where we remember exactly where we were when we heard the news. Such moments include the assassination of Irish American President John F. Kennedy, the death of Princess Diana – on August 31, 1997 – almost thirty years ago, and September 11, 2001, when two planes crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York. Now journalists from the state-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation have been told not to call this event a terror attack when using their own voices. A leaked memo, written by the corporation’s senior director for journalistic stands and public trust, Basem Boshra, instructed journalists to use “factual descriptions such as attacks or hijackings resulting in “aircraft crashing”. This in itself is not a neutral position. Words fail me, but Proverbs tell us that the Lord delights in people who are trustworthy. So do those who care about the media.