This is the text of Fr. David Konderla’s speech at the state-wide Rally for Life at the Capitol Building in Austin 2000
When Joe Pojman asked me to speak to you, he mentioned that I should speak from the perspective of our battle against abortions and Planned Parenthood in our local area in Bryan and College Station.
It has been almost a year now since Planned Parenthood announced that they would begin to perform abortions in Bryan. So, perhaps I can begin by giving you a status report.
Our first hope was to prevent them from building. They built.
We then hoped we could keep them from opening. They opened.
We then hoped we could keep them from killing innocent children in their facility. They are killing them, over 230 according to their own statistics and counting.
And in view of such a record, you might think that I would be depressed or worried about the future. Well, that is simply not the case.
I came here today to claim victory over them. Not a shallow victory, not a rhetorical victory, but the only victory that counts, the victory that comes from God and endures.
In the face of the evidence, how can I make such a claim? It is easy. I can see the future.
I saw it in a debate I had on campus last year with a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood when she complained to the students that they did not seem to be interested in protecting the rights that she and her generation had fought so hard to give them.
I see the future in the women and men I work with in post-abortion counseling and healing. They more than anyone know how terrible is the lie that abortion is good for women. As they find healing, they are refusing to be silent. They will not allow the abortion industry to continue to spread the lie that abortion is good for anyone but the abortion industry.
I see the future in my Aggies and in all of you college students here who pray faithfully in front of the abortion mills and who do sidewalk counseling and who give out pamphlets and other information to your peers on campus. You are saving your own generation.
And I especially see the future right here in front of me with all these babies and young children and young families.
I remember an experience I had last year at the rally when I had to leave early. As I left this large group full of youth and life and vigor and joy, I passed through the gates out front and through a small band of maybe twenty young men and women chanting pro-abortion slogans. They had no babies, no children, no families, no future.
And that is the reason I claim victory over abortion.
The people who brought us legalized abortion are growing older. When I look at them, I don’t see youth and vitality and life. I see the violent past. While they thought they had made the right to abortion their servant, they are only now waking to find that it has become their taskmaster, that it has robbed them of their youth, of their children, of their future. Their tribe is shrinking and their influence and power is going with it.
Planned Parenthood and all the other promoters of the culture of death may have the money, but we have the true wealth, the children. They may have today, but without children, they have no tomorrows. We have all the tomorrows.
Meanwhile, those who understand the gift of life are always growing younger. When I look at you, I see life and youth and vitality. I see the future. Our tribe is increasing and these children will grow up and these children will see the truth about abortion and these children will vote.
In simple language, we are going to out-baby them. Perhaps I should rephrase that. As a celibate priest perhaps I should say you are going to out-baby them.
So, the writing is on the wall. Like slavery and other forms of institutional injustice, we will leave the violence of abortion behind with all the other violence of the 20th century. It is the most obvious violation of human rights and belongs to the primitive past.
We are moving forward into the 21st century. But as we do so, let us not leave anybody behind.
God has richly blessed us with an understanding and appreciation of the sacred dignity and value of life. So, let us not be stingy with God’s blessings.
As we move forward with the work that remains to be done to make abortion a thing of the past, let us not hold a grudge against those who in the waning years of the 20th century fell into slavery, in many cases sincerely following a false god.
As the Spirit of God blows the breath of life and fertility through you and into your families, don’t hold it in, but breathe it out in love to those who don’t believe anyone could love them because they were in the service of the culture of death.
Just as God loves you and your children into being, into life, so turn around and love your pro-choice brothers and sisters into life, into truth. Pray for them. Don’t give up on them. We need every person created in God’s image in our family. We are pro-life because we believe in the sacred dignity of every human life. God did not create them to follow the false god of abortion. It is up to us to help them see the beauty of life and the God of life. They are slaves, we must set them free.
There are millions of men and women all around us who are hurting, who are grieving a child lost in an abortion. This wound is so painful that like, a frightened child, they are very protective of it. They may lash out at us in their pain. They may act as if abortion was good for them and we are the enemy.
If we walk away from them, they may never find healing. You and I, let us examine our consciences and make sure that when they meet us, they will find love and forgiveness and life. The God who has given us life has called us to go out to them.
Even as we continue the urgent work of dismantling the culture of death, let us do all things in love and compassion for those who have been wounded by abortion which is the common enemy of the entire human race.
When you leave here today, praise God for the victory He is giving to us and pledge your lives anew to the service of God and a culture of life where all God’s children are respected and treasured.