November 1st and 2nd are days of great importance in the Catholic Church. On November 1st, the Church celebrates the Feast of All Saints — a solemnity in honor of all saints — while on November 2nd, the Church celebrates the Feast of All Souls — a day of prayer and remembrance for the faithful departed.
The pro-abortion organization Catholics for Choice decided to “celebrate” All Saints Day with a litany dedicated to abortion… including George Tiller, the abortionist murdered in 2009 who was known for aborting children very late in pregnancy.
On Facebook, Catholics for Choice posted pleas for Tiller, along with other deceased abortion advocates, to be seen as saints, even, though they are not recognized by the Church.
“On this All Saints Day, we honor our ancestors in faith — some who are officially recognized by the church, others whom we know to be saints in our hearts,” they wrote [emphasis added]. “We call upon them all to pray for us as we continue working to build a church and society where we can lovingly encounter one another across lines of difference and where each and every person can fulfill their god-given potential, embraced and loved in the joyful fullness of their authentic selves.”
Attached were photos asking the prayers of the “Saintly Six,” a group of Black Catholic American men and women all on the road to being canonized as saints by the Catholic Church — a worthy group to honor for All Saints Day. However, Catholics for Choice then added:
We also honor all those murdered at the hands of the antichoice [sic] movement: Dr. George Tiller, Shannon Lowney, Lee Ann Nichols, Robert Sanderson, Barnett Siepian, Garrett Swasey, Dr. David Gunn, Ke’Arre Stewart, James Barrett, Jen Markovsky, and Dr. John Britton.
We hold in our hearts the memory of all those who have died because they could not access safe abortion care.
This abortion group, which purports to be comprised of faithful Catholics, took one of the Church’s most holy days and exploited it to promote abortion – something the Catholic Church is ardently against, and always has been. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.”
And while Catholics are encouraged to pray for those who have died, venerating someone like George Tiller on All Saints Day — an abortionist — is beyond the pale.
George Tiller was murdered by Scott Roeder, shot at point-blank range while he was at church. (Tiller, by the way, was Lutheran, not Catholic.) This was inexcusable. The murder of a human being is never acceptable, for any reason. Yet the abortion industry has done all they could to erase his true legacy, and build him up as a saint or a hero.
Tiller’s murder was unacceptable, but it doesn’t make him a hero. In reality, women who actually visited Tiller’s facility didn’t have positive experiences, with some even calling the staff callous and coercive.
“They all literally looked like zombies just lying there. It was creepy,” one woman said of the other patients. “I was not allowed to have my husband come back to see me or comfort me. Finally it was my turn. I was taken in and given a drug to almost knock me out. It’s one where they say you don’t remember things, but I do… I can remember him [Tiller] half delivering my baby, jabbing the scissors into his head and killing him, then just kind of throwing him to the side and finishing up.” She may have been describing a D&X (partial-birth) abortion.
So many late abortions were committed at Tiller’s facility that a full-size crematorium had to be used to dispose of the bodies. He was also accused of committing illegal abortions, and rarely informed police about suspected child rape, despite seeing numerous young girls as clients.
While there is nothing that could excuse Tiller’s murder, there is likewise nothing that can justify Catholics for Choice looking to make him a saint.
