NEW YORK (LifeSiteNews) — Right to Life groups excluded from New York City’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade rallied in protest today along the parade route under the leadership of Irish Pro-Life USA.
Pro-Life advocates gathered peacefully on Midtown Manhattan sidewalks, holding their banners aloft, to highlight the continued failure of parade organizers to abide by repeated promises to give faithful Catholics, supportive of Church teaching, a presence in the parade.
Ten years after organizers pledged to permit a pro-life group to march under its own banner, the world’s most famous St. Patrick’s Day Parade still has not welcomed right to life units to its ranks.
Despite multiple applications and repeated efforts for over a decade by various pro-life groups seeking permission to march, none have been successful. In 2015, parade officials said they were amending parade rules to permit pro-life groups to march. The regime of exclusion, however, continued.
While groups faithful to the religion of St. Patrick are barred from the parade, organizations that reject Catholic morality are welcome.
LGBTQ groups such as OUT@NBCUniversal, Lavender and the Green Alliance marched this year.
As Dawn Eskew, founder and president of Personhood Education NY, pointed out, “A group that directly attacks the teaching of the Catholic Church is acceptable, but groups that uphold the teaching of the Catholic Church are denied.”
John Aidan Byrne, president of Irish Pro-Life USA, said, “This is disturbing and troubling: Ten years after parade organizers said it would open the parade to pro-life groups marching under their own banners, we have been sidelined and marginalized, once again.”
“Each year our pro-life group applies to march under our banner, we are either ignored or rejected by the parade as if we are a nuisance.”
“This parade should warmly embrace the best of our Irish and Catholic history, heritage and culture, and be proud to promote pro-life values in the US and in Ireland, our ancestral homeland.”
In addition to Personhood Education NY, the demonstration was supported by New York State Right To Life; Tradition, Family and Property; LIFE Runners; and the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts.
“We applaud the pro-life rally on the sidewalks of the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade today,” New York State Right to Life said in a statement. “We must defend the inalienable right to life from the moment of conception until natural death.”
“Did I hear that correctly? A pro-life group isn’t allowed in the New York City Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, but a gay rights group is allowed?” asked Dr. Patrick Castle, the founder of LIFE Runners.
“May this un-Christian decision … be corrected.”
C.J. Doyle of Boston’s Catholic Action League stated, “The Catholic Action League is privileged to support the courageous efforts of John Byrne and Irish Pro-Life USA to reform New York’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, and recall it to the purpose of its founders — to commemorate the Catholic saint who evangelized Ireland and Christianized the Irish people.
“The feast of Saint Patrick must not be reduced to a mere cultural festival celebrating ethnic pride. It is a Catholic holy day in honor of a Catholic saint.”
