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Phoenix parish dedicates memorial to the unborn
By Janice Semmel, news@catholicsun.org
November 20, 2008
Every Sunday, churchgoers will walk past a four-foot-tall monument on their way to Mass at St. Joseph Parish.
Fr. Eric Houseknecht blessed the memorial to the unborn victims of abortion in a ceremony held Nov. 2. The parish sanctity of life team headed up the effort to establish the monument, which was designed by Joni Judkins and Loretta Winn. Funds from parishioners to pay for the memorial were solicited in the parish bulletin.
A staked tree offers shade to the monument area. Judkins explained that this tree blew down during a summer storm, but the stakes seem to have saved it.
“Fr. John [Greb, the parish administrator] thought it was a testimonial to post-abortive women who were grieving over their choice to abort,” Judkins said. “And the tree was a symbol of their resurrection back to life.”
Benches flank both sides of the monument so that people can sit and reflect. There’s a figure of an angel off to one side and a vase to hold flowers on the other. A basket of white daisies with baby’s breath and pink and blue ribbons rested on the vase during the blessing.
The inscription reads, “Baby Unborn, in memory of all innocent victims of abortion, erected by parishioners of St. Joseph’s Parish, dedicated Nov. 2, 2008.”
“This monument is erected to the memory of those innocents who have died unjustly,” Fr. Houseknecht said, “whose lives were taken from them while they grew silently in their mothers’ wombs. May this monument be a memorial to their memory and a reminder of our own sinfulness and a call to do penance not only for our sins but the sins of the whole world.”
Fr. Houseknecht reminded everyone that life is fragile, and Jesus died on the cross so that we might live.
Parishioners joined Fr. Houseknecht in prayers for all the innocent children who died from abortion, especially those in the Diocese of Phoenix; for peace, courage and repentance for these children’s parents; and for doctors and all health care professionals.
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