Reflections on the First Quebec City March for Life - Quebec Life Coalition
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Reflections on the First Quebec City March for Life


Participants in the Quebec City March for Life carrying a banner of the Virgin Mary. - Photo: Augustin Hamilton

By Father Francis Michael de Rosa

On the First of June 2024, Quebec City witnessed an historic moment when it hosted its first ever “Marche pour la Vie” (March for Life).

The organization behind the event was Campagne Québec-Vie, which in my purview is exceptional for its distinctively Catholic perspective on the “life issues” of such grave concern for modern society.

Not only does the Campagne seek an end to abortion, but it explicitly opposes the other evils on the spectrum threats to human life and human love: from contraception to euthanasia and all the malice in between. These evils are sibling symptoms of a false anthropology disoriented by neo-dualism, and they must be recognized as such by the pro-life movement in order definitively to reset the moral order according to human nature and right reason adequately understood. Can we honestly envision an abortion-free yet contracepting society?

Can there really be a freedom loving nation that attacks its own people? The hydra of sins against life and love must be cut off at the neck effectively to re-boot the moral order.

Notably, Campagne Québec-Vie is consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary in union with the Most Chaste Heart of Joseph. The union of the “Three Hearts” comprising the Holy Family are the mystical community of love that formed the Holy Family at Nazareth, which in turn is the mystical archetype of the Holy Catholic Church. As such “Nazareth” is the home which is open to receiving all of mankind.

Furthermore, Campagne Québec-Vie calls for the reestablishment of the Social Reign of Christ the King, a seldom heard expression in our current idolatrous saeculum. In other words, it comprehends that a properly ordered society without God (most explicitly, without Christ Who is God Incarnate) is not truly attainable. This is because man without God is nothing but an orphan-victim who easily falls prey to satanic forces that prowl about the world looking for someone to devour.

The sundry godless utopias of the worst of philosophers are all dead-end systems. They seduce by holding out the hope of an ever-unattainable but continually promised paradise-on-Earth. In the name of freedom, these ideologies suppress true freedom to produce a proliferation of rules, but they do not yield integral human flourishing. We are free when we freely choose the Good, the True and the Beautiful. Whereas freely choosing that which is objectively evil results in enslavement of the will. It leads to a veritable Hell on Earth.

The Quebec March for Life stood against this wave degrading insanity. It began at a rally backdropped by the architectural masterpiece of the Quebec Parliament building, and before the lovely Fontaine de Tourny. The location was reminiscent of the springs of living water offered to the woman at the well by Our Blessed Lord. We thirst for this living water. In fact, the howling crowd of tormented counter-protesters in their own confused way was crying out for this cleansing, life-giving element like those dying of thirst in a desert of lies.

After having been to dozens and dozens of such pro-life demonstrations in numerous countries and cities, it became evident to me that this particular event was genuinely unique.

It was unique, in large part, because Quebec City is unique. For this is the City that is the spiritual launch pad of Catholic North America inasmuch as it is the seat of the first diocese established on the continental mainland.* The first bishop of this historic diocese, St. François-Xavier de Montmorency-Laval, has been fittingly raised to the altars. His towering statue graces the City like a sentinel from Heaven calling us to return to fidelity to God. That is not all, for the Province of Quebec (originally Nouvelle-France), across its 490 year-long history, has literally produced dozens of Saints, Blesseds and Venerables, many whom shed their blood for Christ Jesus.

The opposition pressing upon us was typically enraged and unhinged in its sloganeering, incessant screeching and hellish drum-beating. If one might indulge a strange excess of generosity, we should admit that were honest in an evil sort of way. Their vitriol was sprinkled with outrageous placards and even overtly satanic displays. They had laid their Tarot cards on the table for all to interpret. Of course, there were the usual shallow, worn-out slogans, such as Mon corps, mon choix.

The Marche Pour La Vie providentially took place on the first day of the Month dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. His is the heart that suffered for fallen mankind with a burning love, aptly symbolized by the piercing crown of thorns with a flame issuing forth.

Standing in the crowd before the stage that was set up for the inaugural speeches, it quickly became impossible to hear clearly due to the cacophonous rage of the tormented. The pressed in ever closer, to the point where we were rubbing elbows with the advocates of legalized murder and perversion. They beat drums, blew whistles in our ears and pointed telephoto lenses at us like weapons.

One man curled up on the ground and writhed mockingly like an unborn baby under the abortionist’s knife. And then there was the plethora of obscene placards depicting women’s reproductive parts scrawled with furious slogans. Some of the placards seemed to deify the uterus, insulting the dignity and mystery of woman in the process.

On the pro-life side were those holding signs calling for the protection of the innocent unborn, the infirm and the terminally ill. A group from St-Zéphirin parish held aloft a beautiful banner of Our Blessed Lady, the Mother of God. This drew particular ire, and fittingly so. Did not God pass this sentence on the ancient serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the Woman?”

I wondered what The Man from Mars would have thought upon beholding this bizarre spectacle of contrasting Earthlings. Which side would ET have felt more comfortable with? Which side would have been perceived as representing the best of humanity? It’s a rhetorical question of course.

Yet the sun shone favorably upon the gathering, as if God were pleased with Campagne Québec-Vie, which He undeniably was. Then the March proceeded through the streets as if led by a host of Guardian Angels, peaceably and joyfully, past the onlookers and the street poles decorated with the satanic six-striped banner displayed ubiquitously to mark “Pride Month.” The marchers ambled along, intermingled and chatted, forming new bonds with one another, resolute in their Cause.

The opposition evaporated, just like the vacuous Devil does when God’s Holy Name is devoutly invoked. And the pro-life people fulfilled their day’s work for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

That was a rather abbreviated summary of what in my opinion was a spiritual pivotal point. For this was Quebec City, which cannot ever be thought of as just any other quaint old town. The Catholic history here simply runs too deep. And even if there is a collective Québecois amnesia regarding its past spiritual glory, the fact remains that this is, or ought to be considered, the touchstone of Catholicism in North America. We must rally around Quebec City like an American Jerusalem. The Marche pour la Vie was long overdue, yet poignantly providential.

In the days following I visited the numerous shrines of the erstwhile proudly Catholic Province. It is dotted with the tombs of the aforementioned Saints, Blesseds and Venerables. With each successive decree of their heroic virtue and intercessory power before the throne of God, they are emerging like soldiers arrayed for battle. With every holy Catholic death, the Church becomes stronger, not weaker. How many more such captains in the well-fought fight are forthcoming?

In the struggle to protect human life and drive back the powers of death, it is not only our present generation that engages the battle, for it necessarily includes these forever saintly men and women, the tenured members of the Holy Catholic Church. It is astounding to consider the glory of this former French colony, conquered by England but true to Rome until the nefarious Quiet Revolution began to sap it of its vitality.

But I refuse to think of holy Quebec as defeated. Rather she is tied to the column to be flagellated, in union with her Sovereign Lord, Jesus Christ. Her passion unfolds to the Day of the Resurrection to glory.

Father Francis Michael de Rosa is a priest of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia.


*The Archdiocese of Quebec (1674) was certainly the first diocese created north of Mexico, but it was not the first diocese in America or even North America, the first being Santo Domingo, Conception de las Vegas and San Juan de Puerto Rico (1511), followed by several others, notably the Archdiocese of Mexico (1530) - A.H.


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  • published this page in News 2024-07-09 12:38:24 -0400