BOSTON — When protesters tried to shout down the speakers at a pro-life rally commemorating the 44th anniversary of Roe v. Wade on Sunday, they got an unusual response.
Mother Olga, the keynote speaker of the event, and Cindy Dorsey, the event’s emcee, walked calmly to the podium, rosaries in hand, and led the assembly in prayer, their communal “Hail Mary’s” drowning out the shouted profanities and chants for “abortion on demand.”
Mother Olga, who was born in Iraq, and began her ministry to the poor and marginalized in the days of Saddam Hussein’s regime, continued the event after the last of the protesters had been removed.
“I was born in a country ruled by a dictator,” she told the gathered crowd. “I understand what it is like to live with few rights. But to have these rights, you must be born first. You must have the right to life.”
Recalling stories of those she has served, from the streets of war-torn Iraq to the homeless on the streets of Boston, Mother Olga credited her ability to care for society’s neediest and most vulnerable members to her unflinching belief in the dignity of their person from the moment of their conception. “It is the gift of the unborn that allows me to love all God’s children.”
Highlighting her love of both God and the United States, of which she became a citizen in 2008, Mother Olga enjoined the audience to pray. “We have a responsibility to pray for our nation. We need to change the culture. We need to pray.”
It was a sentiment echoed by Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, who arrived to deliver the event’s closing benediction:
“God put us here to take very good care of each other. … We live in a culture of individualism that drives so many to make this terrible choice. So to these desperate women, we need to be the face of Christ’s love.”
The assembly at Faneuil Hall in Boston was hosted by Massachusetts Citizens for Life. Although the event is timed around the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, Anne Fox, the organization’s president, told New Boston Post that its primary purpose is not to mourn the ruling but to celebrate life.
Sunday’s assembly was even more energized than past rallies in the wake of the inauguration of President Donald Trump on Friday, and Trump’s announcement that he would be reinstating the Mexico City policy, a ban on U.S. funding of foreign abortions which had been rescinded by former president Barack Obama.
Raymond Flynn, a former mayor of Boston and the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See under President Bill Clinton, sat in the audience with his wife and grandson. Afterwards he commented that it’s a great time for the pro-life movement in the United States.
“These people and their determination and courage are responsible for the changes we’re seeing today,” he told New Boston Post in an interview, adding that Friday’s inauguration will hopefully usher in a “new respect for family, for the poor, and for life” in this nation.
For Tara Rohatgi of Waltham, who made the trip into Boston with her husband and children, the rally served as an important witness to the beauty of life and its defense for her family.
Mother Olga’s final words in her speech encapsulated the spirit of the event:
“We are not here fighting. I do not like the word ‘fight.’ We are ‘proclaiming’ the gift of life. The joy of life.”
