Why I can't identify with Bishop Galantino

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | May 19, 2014

So Bishop Nunzio Galantino can’t “identify with the expressionless person who stands outside the abortion clinic reciting their rosary”? Well, I can’t identify with Bishop Galantino.

If the people praying on the sidewalks don’t look jolly, maybe it’s because they have something troubling on their minds—such as, just possibly, the slaughter taking place inside the clinics. Or maybe they’re just focused on their prayers.

Back in the late 1980s, in the heyday of Operation Rescue, those of us who gathered on the sidewalks would regularly be confronted by militant pro-abortion demonstrators, who would shout insults and obscenities as we prayed. It takes some discipline to resist the temptation to shout back, to shut out all the noise and concentrate on the prayer.

One day M, a woman from our parish joined us outside the clinic. We were only casual acquaintances, although our few conversations had been friendly enough. I didn’t know anything about her background, and I didn’t know whether she was prepared for the hostility we faced. That day there were dozens of pro-abortion demonstrators, and their mood was even angrier than usual. After a while I caught a glimpse of M, standing at the edge of the people saying the Rosary, right next to the counter-demonstrators. People were leaning over her shoulders, screaming blasphemies. And M just stood there, quietly praying, her face completely serene.

To me, the fact that M could walk into this situation without any experience, and bear the brunt of the opposition’s anger without losing her composure, was evidence of a robust interior life. I recognized her as someone with a deep reservoir of spiritual strength. It was her expressionless face that impressed me.