St. Patrick’s Day Parade Excludes Pro-Life Groups

Right to Life groups, excluded from New York City’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, rallied in protest today along the parade route, under the leadership of Irish Pro-Life USA.

Pro-Life advocates gathered, peacefully, on Midtown Manhattan sidewalks, holding their banners aloft, to highlight the continued failure of parade organizers to abide by repeated promises to give faithful Catholics, supportive of Church teaching, a presence in the parade.

Eleven years after organizers pledged to permit a pro-life group to march under its own banner, the world’s most famous Saint Patrick’s Day Parade still has not welcomed right to life units to its ranks.

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Despite multiple applications and repeated efforts over a decade by various pro-life groups seeking permission to march, none have been successful. In 2015, parade officials said they were amending parade rules to permit pro-life groups to march. The regime of exclusion, however, continued.

While groups faithful to the religion of Saint Patrick are barred from the parade, organizations which reject Catholic morality are welcome.

LGBTQ groups, such as OUT@NBCUniversal, Lavender and the Green Alliance marched last year.

As Dawn Eskew, founder and President of Personhood Education NY, pointed out: “A group that directly attacks the teaching of the Catholic Church is acceptable, but groups that uphold the teaching of the Catholic Church are denied.”

Eskew added “A pro-life group carrying its own banner should be permitted to march in the parade as a matter of priority. It promotes a key message in this Catholic parade as we continue the campaign to restore a culture of life in our city and state.”

John Aidan Byrne, President of Irish Pro-Life USA, issued the following statement:

“This is a disturbing and troubling injustice: Eleven years after parade organizers said they would open the parade to pro-life groups marching under their own banners, we have been sidelined and marginalized, once again.

Each year our pro-life group applies to march under our banner, and we are either ignored or rejected by the parade as if we are a nuisance.

This parade should warmly embrace the best of our Irish and Catholic history, heritage and culture, and be proud to promote pro-life values in the US and in Ireland, our ancestral homeland.

We urge parade leaders to end their appeasement of politicians, special interests and secular culture, and admit to the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade those who adhere to the moral beliefs of Saint Patrick,” said Byrne, an area resident, dual US and Irish citizen, and a native of County Louth, Ireland.

Byrne added that parade organizers had no reluctance welcoming New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, despite his public opposition to Catholic moral principles.

In addition to Personhood Education NY, today’s demonstration is being supported by New York State Right To Life; LIFE Runners; United For Life; and the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts.

“New York State urgently needs to restore a culture of life. Radical pro-abortion laws are not the answer. We must defend the inalienable right to life from the moment of conception until death,” said New York State Right to Life.

“Did I hear that correctly?  A pro-life group isn’t allowed in the New York City Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, but a gay rights group is allowed?” asked Doctor Patrick Castle, the founder of LIFE Runners.

“May this un-Christian decision…be corrected.”

Nissy Bandar-Zarif, President of the New York based United for Life, said Saint Patrick would have encouraged Catholics to march proudly as pro-life units in the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade if he came back today.

“Please allow us to unite with the parade to continue Saint Patrick’s work of spreading Catholicism—and the message, choose life,” she implored.

C.J. Doyle, of Boston’s Catholic Action League, stated: “The Catholic Action League is privileged to support the courageous efforts of John Byrne and Irish Pro-Life USA to reform New York’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, and recall it to the purpose of its founders—to commemorate the Catholic saint who evangelized Ireland and Christianized the Irish people.

“The feast of Saint Patrick must not be reduced to a mere cultural festival celebrating ethnic pride. It is a Catholic holy day in honor of a Catholic saint.”

The parade stepped off at 11:am EDT.

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