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Garden of Grace, in remembrance of life lost to abortion, progresses

Full-sized sculptures now installed, trees and shrubbery work happening this week.

Work is proceeding on the roughly $91,000 Garden of Grace at the top of Catholic Hill, adjacent to monumental Basilica of Our Lady Immaculate. A grand opening is scheduled for the end of the month at the site.

The garden, with its figure-eight walking path and life-sized, highly symbolic sculptures, is a Guelph and Area Right to Life project intended as a memorial to life lost through abortion and miscarriage.

It is meant as a place of peace, contemplation and grief for those who chose abortion, but perhaps came to regret the decision, Jakki Jeffs, past-president of Guelph and Area Right to Life, and the founder and organizer of the garden said in previous interviews.

“The idea behind the garden is that we have a lot of women who have, at one point or another, chosen to have an abortion,” Jeffs told GuelphToday.com last October. “And their children haven’t been given a place of rest.”

The walking path with its limestone surface was installed last year, and two miniatures of Timothy Schmalz’s bronze figurative sculptures were unveiled at that time. Schmalz is known internationally for sculptural work with religious overtones.

The full-sized sculptures - one depicting a kneeling Jesus with an infant cradled in the arms, the other an angel in mourning over a cradle - are now being installed. They make up about $40,000 of the garden’s costs. The grounds around the path are in the early stages of landscaping.

Soon after being made public last October, the garden concept fomented outrage and protest. A large group of protesters gathered within a few days of the announcement at the foot of the church on Norfolk Street. Many interpreted the garden as an anti-abortion memorial and a statement against women’s right to choose abortion.

Following the daylight protest there was a nighttime defacing of the Garden of Grace’s path, with the stonework being sprayed with graffiti, and tampons seemingly dipped in red painted places around the path.  

Flowers, trees and shrubbery planting is scheduled to happen this week. The land, directly in front of the church’s rectory/office building, was made available by the church. Benefactors and members of Right to Life contributed funds to make the project happen.

Jeffs did not want to comment on the progress of the garden when contacted on Monday, nor did she want any public attention brought to it prior to the official opening. She worries there will be further protest and vandalism.

“We are opening on the 31st and we will talk about it then,” she said by telephone Monday. The garden will be blessed at that time by Fr. Dennis Noon, pastor of Basilica of Our Lady. Noon has previously defended the garden.  

Last year, Jeffs said cemeteries serve as places of remembrance for those who died, but there is no such commemorative place for life lost through abortion or miscarriage.

“The Garden of Grace gives them room to vent the grief that society says they shouldn’t have,” Jeffs said in October. “I’m hoping that people will respect the fact that, while society wants to ignore that we actually kill a child through abortion, the reality is very different. Thousands of women, and men as well, regret that. The idea is to give them a space for their grief.”


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Rob O'Flanagan

About the Author: Rob O'Flanagan

Rob O’Flanagan has been a newspaper reporter, photojournalist and columnist for over twenty years. He has won numerous Ontario Newspaper Awards and a National Newspaper Award.
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