“I was getting ready for a stampede,” one parishioner said.
QUICK FACTS:
- Worshippers at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles walked pro-abortion protesters out of their church on Sunday, The Catholic News Agency (CNA) reports.
- Footage posted by CNA shows congregants thwart the activists’ attempt to disrupt the church service.
- In the video, pro-abortion demonstrators can be seen walking between pews toward the front of the church, reportedly attempting to reach the altar.
- But before the activists could reach the front, they were blocked by parishioners and escorted out of the building.
- “You’re attacking me right now, you started attacking me,” one protester yelled at the usher blocking her from moving any closer to the altar.
- “You guys want respect, we want respect,” one churchgoer told the protesters as he walked them out.
- The protesters were apparently dressed in red costumes from “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
WHAT CHURCHGOERS SAID:
- Bradford Adkins, a parishioner of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, told CNA that when he heard the female protesters yelling in front of the church near the altar, he feared that a riot might erupt.
- “I was getting ready for a stampede and I glanced near the exits,” Adkins said, adding, however, that the Cathedral staff was able to stop the women and “whisked them away.”
BACKGROUND:
- Catholic churches had braced this weekend for protests after the pro-choice group ‘Ruth Sent Us’ encouraged activists to target Sunday Mass.
- The group’s prompting came after last week’s leaked Supreme Court draft showed that the justices will likely overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which granted women a constitutional right to abortion.
