A week or two ago, I referred to “the great conundrum, for the English Church, about the reign of John Paul II: why was it, when he had appointed most of our bishops, did nearly all of them go out of their way to undermine his vision for the Church?” Now, perhaps the greatest and most persistent example of this undermining of John Paul’s teaching has been the English bishops’ failure, over the years, collectively to oppose abortion and euthanasia as they should have been opposed. And perhaps the most grotesque and cynical example of this phenomenon is in the annual Day for Life, which year after year has in this country been about anything but what Pope John Paul, when he called for its annual observance, intended that it should be about. This is how Pope John Paul launched the Day for Life, in Evangelium Vitae (§85):