Participants at B.C.'s March for Life May 10. As Victoria Bishop Gary Gordon said, for marchers to appear credible, they must do what they say they do: be pro-life. (Agnieszka Krawczynski photos)
It’s a famous complaint among participants at the March for Life – that the mainstream media never covers their event. Two thousand people can parade down the main thoroughfare in downtown Victoria for 10 years in a row, and the major news outlets stay silent – save for perhaps a traffic update about delays on Government Street. For as long as I’ve been working at The B.C. Catholic, I’ve been just about the only news reporter covering the March for Life in Victoria.
But even the articles I write – describing where marchers are from, summing up main speeches, and trying to come up with a fair guesstimate of how many people are gathered on the lawn in front of the B.C. legislature buildings – don’t give the full picture. In trying to give our readers a succinct summary of what happened, I can’t include all details. These are the stories that don’t get told.
The stories that don’t get told are those of the university students from Vancouver who sang a hymn in a small corner of the ship on the way to the march, knowing that their peers at the University of Victoria struggle to have their voices heard at school.
It’s the stories of those who created their own signs at home, thinking carefully about exactly what they wanted to say during those 15 minutes they would march past neighbours and fellow British Columbians, hoping to make an impact.
It is the young woman who donned a veil as she entered St. Andrew’s Cathedral to pray for the success of the march one hour before it began. It’s the stories of the elderly folks, the disabled, and the people with Down syndrome who braved the trip despite their challenges, just to have a public say.
It’s the folks who came to the march with secret reasons for doing so: those who were born into crisis situations, grateful for the chance at life; or those who had abortions themselves, marching in regret.
Few of these stories are covered in this paper, or in any media outlet. For every story I tell, there are hundreds I don’t know about.
These silent stories feature people who live by the words Bishop Gary Gordon spoke at St. Andrew’s Cathedral before the march. “I would suggest that a radical pro-life stance is the invitation to accompaniment, drawing close to, and embracing in a real and tangible way, those who weep and mourn, those who are in pain,” he said.
“Our voice is only credible and can only be credible when we are close to the voiceless, when we feel the pain of those in addictions, those suffering illness, those in long-term care institutions. The voice of the voiceless is heard through our own personal witness of encounter. Marches are nice on pleasant spring days in our capital, but the real voice of us as Christians, the real impact, is when we can say: ‘I have a friend who is addicted to drugs. I have a family member who is in a long-term care facility, and I sit with them every day for two hours.’”
Dear marchers, take Bishop Gordon’s words and walk with them. Make the march – despite its dwindling numbers – credible.
Next year, invite your elderly friends, your disabled friends, and anyone who lives in a care home and would appreciate a day trip to Victoria. Flood your ranks with wheelchairs and strollers. Pack hundreds of sandwiches and hand them out to the homeless people you know you’ll pass as you walk down Government Street. Know anyone who’s depressed? Bring them. Bring your pets, your friends, your neighbourhood advocates who work toward human rights.
Be credible. Be pro-life.