This year, for the first time I managed to get to the March for Life protest. As a priest running a parish, it hasn’t, until now, been possible to get cover and be able to attend.

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It was a wonderful experience of being with a crowd of people of good will, who chanted, sang and prayed their way on the march to Parliament Square. The good natured character of the event was typified by attendants thanking the police for their presence and for marshalling the event.

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What was also very special about the event was that a large proportion of those on the march were young people and young families. This annual event seems to be growing; is run and promoted by the laity, and gathers people from different denominations. The fact that it is a lay movement is significant.

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I was disappointed to see only five Roman Catholic bishops present, but regulars were excited that there were as many as five. There seems little reason why the bishops of England and Wales should not have this annual event in their diaries. Their vocal and physical presence would add great momentum to the wonderful movement and help provide clarity and moral leadership. That said, it was funny seeing a banner and hearing the chant “where is the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby?”

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Sadly, but not unsurprisingly, the mainstream media chose not to cover this protest event, choosing to focus on the almost weekly protest “to free Palestine, from the river to the sea.” Yet there is a shift and growing disquiet within the abortion industry in this country. The pro-Life lobby has been seen as gaining influence, especially since the overturning of Roe vs Wade in America.

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The concerns by the establishment and abortion industry is sufficient that legislation is about to come into law that creates 150 metre ‘Buffer Zones’ around abortion clinics and providers nationwide. Rightly no one should agree with the bullying and harassment of others. I might be wrong, but I had the impression that most ‘protests’ outside abortion clinics were made up of a handful of retired people with leaflets praying the rosary. It’s hardly interference, but at most, offers those who believe in choice an alternative pathway. Indeed a 2018 in-depth study revealed the peaceful nature of vigils and concluded that national buffer zones would be disproportionate.

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The detailed legal implications of this new legislation I will leave to those who are experts in the field to comment on. However, it does seem that merely being present in the area on a consistent and regular basis may be considered an offence. Also, that unbiased commentator, the BBC have stated that: “It is expected that silent prayer will fall under the scope of the law. Police and prosecutors will get guidance on enforcing the law in the coming weeks.”

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It would seem that this legislation is more about enforcing a principle than with the actual reality on the ground. Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, who is co-director of March for Life, has been arrested twice for silently praying outside an abortion clinic. The law at present has, in both cases, found in Isabel’s favour and she has received an apology from the police service and compensation for wrongful arrest.

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The new law and agreed amendment by Stella Creasy MP, attempt to make silent prayer an offence of harassment and interference. Only time will tell if it is successful. The broader implications of this law however are far reaching. It reveals a growing intolerance towards those who hold the view that mothers do not have the right to kill the babies they carry in their womb. This fits into a wider rejection and disdain for the Judo/Christian tradition that has been the foundation of our modern western society. It marks a shift from a culture of life, and sacred dignity of all human life, to a culture of death foreseen and so powerfully spoken of by St John Paul II.

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The culture of death ultimately finds its root in the demonic. It is anti-life and anti-human and marks a society that is on the pathway to internal collapse. If we normalise abortion as a sacred cow not to be spoken against, we open the door to abortion up till birth, euthanasia, the growing abuse of the elderly, the disabled, children with body dysphoria and increased interference of government in family life and our children’s development. This legislation threatens a fundamental tenet of our society - the freedom of religion.

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This culture of death isn’t without a moral code. This was ably illustrated when the Belgium government summoned the Pope’s nuncio to express their indignation about the pope’s comments on abortion. They assumed a moral superiority and wanted to correct the Pope who had called doctors who perform abortions ‘hit men’.

This new morality inverts the hierarchy of the old Judeo/Christian tradition and those who were once identified as sinners are celebrated. If that which once was good is now seen as bad, we should not be surprised by the growing number of cases where faithful Christians are being arrested or sacked for their personal beliefs: be it school chaplains, nurses, registrars and or even the Liberal Democratic Party not wanting to welcome conservative Christians.

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This shifting national landscape means that we can no longer assume we are a Christian Country. The Catholic Church in this country must alter its thinking and view this country as a mission field. The strategy by the Catholic hierarchy to not make waves so as to become part of the establishment to influence from within has failed. The time of silence is over.

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Far too many lay faithful, in the silence of the clergy, have assumed the culture and accepted as normative abortion, same sex marriage, co-habitation, contraception and euthanasia. Many of our catholic schools cannot be relied upon to transmit the faith. The response of the staff and governors of John Fisher school to the Lord’s Prayer scandal is indicative of this.

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My concern is that if the Church remains silent on this law, which many hope will criminalise silent prayer, it will be the slippery slope: the beginning of a slow creep of restrictions upon orthodox Christians who are already excluded from a number of public sector jobs if they are not willing to compromise their faith. A faithful expression of the Catholic faith, with its clarity on morality and emphasis on the goodness of marriage and family, is an offence to the culture of death.

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Offence is a major issue in our current cultural debate. It is very dangerous to try and enshrine in law the idea of offence. Who decides what is offensive? There has been much ink spilt over the policing of online offences. People have been taken into custody for posts on social media that have offended the complainants. The trigger for an arrest is that a person feels hurt by something a person has posted online. The measure of this is, of course, very subjective and in many ways ridiculous. No one has the right not to be offended. As a priest, a day hardly goes by without someone saying or doing something that I find offensive - welcome to the grown up real world.

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Yet this new law seeks to try and legislate into law an assumed feeling of offence. Just being present doing nothing other than praying silently, is deemed offensive in the eyes of the law makers and abortion providers. Quite simply a person’s existence might be deemed offensive to others and thus subject to arrest and prosecution. The possible implications of this type of law making are profound and should shock us all.

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In our celebration of St John Henry Newman we had this reading from 2 Timothy 4:1-5:

“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word, be urgent in season and out

of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths.

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As for you, always be steady, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

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This lays an obligation upon us; if we are to be faithful, to present to our wider society the gospel of Christ. A gospel that by its very nature is offensive to sinners with its call to conversion of life. I cannot see anything other than inevitable conflict between the Church and the state. Christ was crucified because he was an offence to the state apparatus and as those who are his disciples, we may find ourselves at odds with the law of the land.

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As a Church we are fast coming to a crossroads which will demand a choice; to either maintain the genuine prophetic voice of the gospel, or surrender it and ourselves to secularising forces that will neuter the faith to a mere irrelevant nostalgic pet.

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My last words I leave to Joshua as they speak for me and demand a response from all of us:

“If you be unwilling to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Am’orites in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

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