Heeding a call from Toronto Cardinal Thomas Collins to “speak more loudly by silence” Canada’s largest pro-life march reversed course after it was blocked for at least 20 minutes by a counter protest.
An estimated 75-100 demonstrators in favour of allowing abortion, some wearing black bandanas over their faces, screamed chants and waved signs, halting the National March for Life.
Marchers turned around and took a different route through the streets of downtown Ottawa.
The pro-life marchers had been warned during a rally on Parliament Hill to expect counter-protests.
“Soon you will come upon people yelling and screaming,” Cardinal Collins warned the crowd that packed the walkway to the Peace Tower and the west lawn of Parliament Hill.
He urged the marchers to “speak more loudly by silence”.
“There is great power in silence,” he said, asking people to make a “silent pilgrimage of deep prayer.”
“Only in that disposition will we see the way in which these great evils will be overcome,” he said.
Change course
Marchers were also forced by protesters to change course last year, but this time they had to completely turn around.
Campaign Life Coalition President Jim Hughes said some marchers were angry the police did not clear the counter-protesters out of the way.
A police spokeswoman said that while the march had a specific route, the counter-protesters “have a right to protest” and police were “measuring safety against the right of people to protest.”
Cardinal Collins noted Parliament Hill was a “place of political power” and that people of Faith had a right to be heard.
“We have a right to a place at the democratic table,” he said to cheers from the crowd. He called it important to “profess our support for life” because the right to life is “under great attack at this time”.
The attack is “part of a much greater struggle” that must be “put into the context of the great struggle of good and evil,” he said.