A group of 14 babies has been baptized into the Catholic Church after pro-lifers rescued them from abortion.
The Diocese of Getafe in Spain announced the baptisms, which took place at San Josemaría Escrivá Parish on Sunday.
“When I see a baby, one says what a miracle life is!” said Bishop Ginés García Beltrán, who administered the baptismal rite. “From conception we are that perfect being. None of us here were born by chance.”
“These children that you present to the Church today have been thought of and loved by God, before all centuries. I have been thought of by God before all centuries,” he added. “I am not a coincidence, but the fruit of a project of love, the love of God. And this has to shake us.”
According to the Diocese, two pro-life organizations – Más Futuro and the Rescatadores Juan Pablo II – helped provide the mothers with financial and other forms of assistance.
One of the children, named Marcos, was almost aborted but his parents encountered Más Futuro at the abortion facility where his mother obtained an ultrasound. Marcos’ parents, the Diocese said, were unemployed and were unsure if they could take on Marcos, their fifth child.
His mother, María Elena Cabrera, said that her encounter with Más Futuro “was the answer I needed from God to continue with my pregnancy.” She added, “After a hard birth, when I held Marcos in my arms for the first time I felt a lot of emotion and I realized that it was worth it.”
READ: She chose life for triplets with the help of a pregnancy resource center: ‘I’m thanking God’
The baptisms came amid a debate over whether minors in the country should be able to obtain abortions without parental consent. The Spanish Bishops Conference criticized a draft of the law released in August when Spanish Equality Minister Irene Montero reportedly defended it as protecting “rights for half the population.”
During Sunday’s homily, Bishop Ginés García Beltrán indicated that focus on consent bypassed the key issue of life’s inherent value.
“There is talk of the extension of the Abortion Law and it seems that the whole debate is on whether minors under 16 years of age have to ask their parents for permission, as if that were the problem,” he said, according to a translation of the Diocesan website. “All life is worth, it is not about permission, all life is sacred.”
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