In 1996, A Boulder mortuary notified the pastor of a nearby Catholic church that it had just received a disturbing shipment from the Boulder Abortion Clinic. The mortuary discovered that the shipment sent to be cremated contained the remains of aborted children, many nearly full-term. The mortician said that he didn’t know what to do with this, and his staff was traumatized. [ It is startling that people whose work is dealing with the bodies of the dead were traumatized by dead bodies and that a mortician would be unsure what to do with dead bodies. Perhaps this is one of the most clear examples of the inhuman nature of abortion.]
It was arranged that the babies would be cremated, but first they would be given names. Then their ashes would be buried on the church property. Between 1996 and 1998, the parish would periodically receive ashes from the mortuary for burial. In 1999, a memorial wall was built where the ashes had been buried, and the church’s ministry continued and became known to a wider community. In 2005 the media discovered the ministry and it was made known to the Boulder clinic’s abortion doctor what was being done. The doctor furiously ended ties with the mortuary. But it also became known to many women who had their children aborted at the clinic during those ten years when the ashes were being given to the parish for burial. Many of those women came to the wall and visited the graves, beginning the process of forgiveness and healing.
Boulder is the home of Colorado University. We can imagine that many of those mothers who came to the wall to grieve for their children had been young college students taken in by the lies of the culture of death.
So we continue through the latest 40 Days for Life.
Jezu, ufam Tobie.