"They Screamed At Us, They Spat On Us"

So back in August, a feminist group in Neuquen, Argentina decided to hold a pro-abortion protest in front of the city's cathedral. Some Catholic youth, fearing their church would be desecrated, organized to defend it by surrounding the cathedral and peacefully praying. The following video shows what happened.



Here is a news story describing the event from a Catholic youth named Pablo.

“Everything lasted more or less an hour and forty minutes. It was terrible. They wouldn’t go away. They screamed at us, they spat on us, they threw cans and rocks, they tore up an Argentinean flag and burned it. We were only praying one Hail Mary after another, without stopping, praying for each one of them, praying for each aborted child, praying for our Church and her pastors, and also in reparation for the blasphemies,” Pablo said.

Despite the tension, “we felt an extraordinary peace, and all of us who were there agreed [it was] a peace that cannot come from anyone else besides our Lord and God. We felt his consolation in our souls.”

Asked if they felt tempted to respond to the aggressions with violence, Pablo responded that all the young people came with the intention of “resisting to the last drop of our blood. Some guys up in front became very upset, because they insulted the Virgin Mary, calling her a lesbian. You feel like doing everything, but we know that our testimony needs to be different, and the virtue of fortitude is more perfect when we resist than when we attack.”

According to Pablo, after that experience in Neuquen, the young people were more committed to “living life as it truly is: a battle, a war.” “I think it is time to wake up, we must be aware that if we don’t do it, nobody will. Nobody will bear witness to hope if we Catholics do not do it. The world is waiting, the world expects that we go out to find it and conquer it.”

Notice in the video how the first line of Christian defenders, those bearing the full brunt of the crowd's hatred and abuse, are all young men - and I do mean men, not boys, whatever their chronological age. This old-fashioned chivalry must have driven the radical feminists into even more of a frenzy.

Unless you hang out in front of abortion clinics, you don't see this sort of thing in the U.S. very often. Mark my words: you will, and maybe sooner than you think. American Christians are going to make some tough choices in the next few years. How many of us will have the courage shown by Pablo and the others in Neuquen on that night?

Centuries ago another Pablo - St. Paul - took full advantage of all the rights his Roman citizenship gave him to spread the Gospel truth and defend the helpless. Eventually he paid the price in blood. Yet he was not defeated; the empire that killed Paul fell even as Christianity thrived. The same will happen again, but not before some of us face the modern-day lions.