CV NEWS FEED // The story behind the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s annual Requiem Mass for the unborn is inspired by a musician’s experience with abortion as a young man, according to a recent Angeles News article.
Every January, the archdiocese of Los Angeles holds a Requiem Mass for children who were killed by abortion at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels. The candle-lit celebration “began as a memorial to one of those children—the son or daughter of its composer, John Bonaduce,” the article stated.
Every year, parishioners take part in a procession during the Mass, bringing forward a lit candle for every unborn child who had been aborted. This year, there were 120 candles.
The candles, says Bonaduce, are the “power” of the Mass, “not the music.”
When Bonaduce, 72, was a young 26 year-old fallen-away Catholic living in Hollywood, he paid for his then-girlfriend to have an abortion, a decision which he said left his conscience “seared” when he realised a child had been killed by his decision:
It was genuine. I had come to it on my own — that this was a bad thing I had invested in. It’s 135 bucks for an abortion to get me out of a jam. A terrible, terrible idea. But embracing it is powerful. And God is your friend on a whole new level after you’ve acquired this level of self-knowledge
The experience led Bonaduce to return to the Church and make a Confession. Three years later, he re-entered the Church and wrote his most-known musical piece, Requiem for the Unborn in 1999.
Bonaduce stated in the article that people need to take responsibility for its role in promulgating abortion, saying: “I want them to embrace what we’ve done. We’ve sinned on a magnificent scale.”
