A Father Who Taught Me How to Protect the Weak and the Innocent

My Father is the reason why I am pro-life.

His total fidelity to the Church's teaching wasn't a blind obedience. But it was a complete and a totally free obedience.

He often said that "abortion" was just a word to him when he first came to England in the 50's. Though he and his friends thought abortion was something degrading and scandalous, he never connected the word with a death of a baby. Much later on, when abortion was legalised, during the years when he had his own children, the real understanding of what abortion was dawned upon him. As an avid reader he followed news and politics and wrote and spoke out against abortion at every opportunity.

He was always a defender of the weak. The sort of man who stays there when someone is being threatened by some well-built thug. Who stands up for the person being ridiculed, at whatever cost to themselves. When he was 90, he wrestled with an intruder in our home to protect his family. So it makes sense that once he realised what abortion really meant he would fight it tooth and nail.

Being Catholic for me as a child was an uplifting experience. Both my parents had a very strong faith and loved devotions honouring the Blessed Sacrament and Our Lady.

My Mother has a very serene and gentle character, always full of goodness towards everyone, which lends itself to doing good. But my Father gave goodness very definite avenues, directing us all towards not just good works in general, but particularly those that defended the innocent and the weak - those that the Popes of his later years stressed as being the most urgent.

Abortion, euthanasia as well as the attacks on the Church and on morality.

I thank God for the grace to be born into a pro-life family.

And I thank God especially for the gift of my Father, Stanley McCarrick.

Today, on the 2nd anniversary of his death St Patrick's Day 2010, please pray for the repose of his soul.

Clare McCullough