Knights of Columbus to Protest Abortion by Erecting ‘Tombs’

The nation’s largest Catholic organization voted Thursday to establish a “Tomb of the Unborn” in every diocese in the country as a monument to what it called a new slaughter of the innocents through abortion.

At the end of a convention that heard anti-abortion appeals from Mother Teresa and President Bush, the Knights of Columbus delegates voted unanimously to create memorials to the “holy innocents” in Catholic cemeteries modeled after the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington, Va.

It was Cardinal John J. O’Connor of New York who first suggested to the Knights on Tuesday that they create “tombs of the unborn child” in Catholic cemeteries.

The resolution unanimously approved by delegates Thursday said the Knights would urge their state councils, in consultation with bishops in local dioceses, to erect and maintain a permanent “Tomb of the Unborn” in at least one Catholic cemetery in all 188 dioceses in the country.

Supreme Knight Virgil C. Dechant, the group’s executive director, said the resolution still must be brought before the Knights’ board of directors in September, but he expects work to begin on the memorials within the next six months and the project to be well on its way over the next two years.