Posted on 12/27/2003 6:55:15 AM PST by NYer
SOME PARISHIONERS WALKED OUT during a homily given by Father Walter J. Quinn, O.S.A, of New York City-based Priests for Life at Sacred Heart Parish in Coronado the weekend of November 14-16. In his hard-hitting homily, Father Quinn chided apathetic Catholic laity, particularly Catholic politicians, for voting their finances instead of their faith. The following are excerpts from the homily Father Quinn gave at the 9:00 a.m. Mass, for which he received a hearty ovation.
"...There is nothing in our society that destroys more lives than abortion: not crime, sickness, disease, natural disasters, not even war. There are more lives taken in this country by abortion in one single year than all the wars that the United States ever fought, from George Washington right up to the present. The figures don't even come close. Death by abortion in one year is 35 times greater."
"...There are two generations of Americans who have grown up, especially if they went to public schools, hearing that abortion is somehow some kind of a right, and everybody else has to pay for it with their tax dollars. Most Americans seem to be unaware, and might be quite shocked to learn, that there are 4,400 abortions in this country every 24-hour period. That's more than [died in] the World Trade Center every single day.?
"...The great tragedy of the last and the current century is the deliberate and brutal destruction of countless human lives, sanctified by government and bought into by all levels of society including the United Nations."
"...Economics, education, war, capital punishment, jobs, whatever, none of these other life issues is equal to, superior to, can be equated with, or used as an excuse not to support the very right to life."
"...Women do not get an abortion because of freedom of choice. No. They get them because they feel they have no freedom and no choice. They feel trapped, desperate, and afraid because they have no one to turn to except the abortionist."
"...Legal abortion facilities in this country of ours are the most unregulated surgical facilities in the entire nation. Unregulated. Animal hospitals, veterinary clinics, are cleaner and safer, held to higher standards and subject to stricter legal controls than are the facilities where 4,400 human babies are destroyed every single day."
"...At the March for Life in Washington in January, I usually stand at the corner of Seventh and Constitution, because when you're in the parade, you don't see it. From curb to curb, there are 25 or 30 people abreast. Every four rows is 100, every 10 units is 1000. It's simple mathematics that there has to be 250 to 350 thousand or more people there. And yet we get phone calls and e-mails from all over the country in which people tell us that they didn't read or hear about it in their local press. That's called suppression of truth."
"...Human life is being destroyed on a massive scale, and all the levels of society are looking the other way, just like they did in Nazi Germany in the 1930s."
"...Don't be bullied by slogans that sound very, very nice such as pro-choice. It sounds very fair, very feeling, very American. But some choices have victims. The child of abortion is the obvious victim, destroyed by the mother's choice."
"...Those who continue to support and to vote for candidates, persons and programs [that support abortion] are simply making possible the deaths of millions of innocent human lives."
"...It's long overdue that all those anti-life and so-called pro-choice Catholics begin to suffer a guilty conscience, because someday they will meet God, and then they will know the meaning of God's will and God's grace."
FR. WALTER J. QUINN, O.S.A., a member of the Augustinian Province of St. Thomas of Villanova, headquartered at Villanova, Pennsylvania, was born August 8, 1930 in Lansdowne, PA and attended West Catholic High School in Philadelphia. He then went on to the Wharton School of Finance & Commerce of the University of Pennsylvania where he graduated in 1952 with a BS in Economics with a major in Marketing & Industrial Management. He served two years in the Army as a First Lieutenant during the Korean War. He then worked in industrial sales in the PA, NJ and DE tri-state area.
In 1955 he entered the Augustinian Novitiate and began graduate studies for the Priesthood at Villanova University and at Augustinian College in Washington, DC with an MA in Religious Education. Along the way he picked up credits for an MA in International Law at Catholic University and was ordained to the Priesthood in Washington's National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in 1961.
Fr. Quinn brings to Priests For Life his long experience of 40 years as an Augustinian Priest in parish work, having served in many parishes in the Northeast: in the Philadelphia area at Our Mother of Consolation in Chestnut Hill, St. Genevieve in Flourtown, Our Mother of Good Counsel in Bryn Mawr, St. Thomas of Villanova in Rosemont-Villanova and as Pastor at Olde St. Augustine, the First Foundation of the Augustinian Order in the USA in 1796, six blocks from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. In New York, Fr. Quinn served at St. Nicholas of Tolentine in the Bronx, Our Lady of Good Counsel in Staten Island, and at Immaculate Conception in Hoosick Falls-Albany Diocese. In New Jersey, he ministered at St. Nicholas of Tolentine in Atlantic City-Camden Diocese. During this period he also served as Chaplain in Chestnut Hill Hospital, Bryn Mawr Hospital, and the Atlantic City Medical Center.
After a 1992 storm wrought catastrophic damage to the 200-year-old Olde St. Augustine Church, he replaced the church roof and steeple, and the many interior historical paintings covering every wall and ceiling, a project costing 1.2 million dollars. The paintings were restored by methods similar to the restoration of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
After seven years as Pastor at Olde St. Augustine, Fr. Quinn volunteered to work in the Augustinian Province of St. Joseph in Canada on the scenic northeastern shore of Nova Scotia at St. Augustine Monastery (the first Augustinian Foundation in Canada), where the ministry is hearing confessions and conducting retreats.
Bishop Colin Campbell, Bishop of the Antigonish Diocese, appointed him Diocesan Spiritual Director of the United Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a recently formed lay group (based out of Manchester, NH) encouraging spiritual growth and reparation to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary. The group now has chapters in the US, Canada, England and Ireland.
Fr. Quinn has been actively involved in the pro-life movement since the late sixties, long before the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision of the US Supreme Court and the advent of the computer age. He led parish groups to the annual March for Life in Washington, and is founder of still-active pro-life groups at the parish level, both "Main Line Life Line" in suburban Philadelphia in the late 70's and "Atlantic Life Line" in Atlantic City, N.J. in the late 80's.
Upon returning from Canada he joined Priests For Life in September 1999. "I am convinced that the main focus of the Gospel of Life reaches people in and through the Church at the parish level." As the latest addition to the Priests for Life staff he will be preaching on abortion and euthanasia to groups of clergy and laity throughout the nation encouraging all to "stand up and be counted" and be actively involved in this most important crusade of our time: to serve, protect and defend life from the innocent unborn to the oldest of the old among us!
Fr. Walter Quinn is available to speak by invitation. Please contact our travel office: PO Box 141172, Staten Island, NY 10314; Tel: 888-PFL-3448, 718-980-4400; Travel Dept. Fax: 603-908-3075; email: travels@priestsforlife.org
Our new Bishop did pray the rosary with us on Christmas Eve outside of an abortion place and on Christmas Day said Mass and visited with prisoners in the jail.It sems that we are very blessed.
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