By Kathleen Sweeney
NRLC Outreach Department
Jessica O'Connor-Petts,
who as an unmarried recent college graduate became pregnant and gave her
child up for adoption, recently shared the pain and joy of her experience
with an assembly of students at Bishop O'Connell High School in Arlington,
Virginia, who were about to start a school-year-long comprehensive pro-life
program.
"Everything seems insignificant when you compare it to having a baby,"
Jessica said. This brave young woman shared her story as part of the inauguration
of a program initiated by O'Connell's chaplain, Rev. Daniel L. Mode.
The program is focusing the whole school on pro-life issues for the entire
nine months of the school year, a convenient time period for detailing the
development of the preborn child month by month and week by week. This is
not just one of several programs, the O'Connell chaplain said, it is the
program.
Fr. Mode told NRL News that he was inspired by the advice, "Be
pro-life everything else flows from this."
Also speaking at the assembly to initiate the program last fall was a couple,
Tom and Mary Alice Dragone, who described their experience in adopting their
daughter, Caroline; and two pro-life obstetricians, Dr. James Sammans and
Dr. John Bruchalski. Following the talks, the students viewed the Video
Journal of Life in the Womb, which used direct photographs (embryoscopy)
of the unborn child to reveal fetal development clearly.
Central to O'Connell's many-faceted program is a pro-life billboard which
features the development of the child from conception until birth. Pictures
of a child in the womb, accompanied by a scripture verse, are changed weekly.
A healthy baby several months after birth beams from a photo in the center
of the billboard to remind all of what the unborn child will soon be.
On one side are photos of the pro-life project students are currently working
on. Each month students will work with a different organization or project.
This nine-month drama will culminate in a birthday celebration at the end
of the school year.
Every morning students pray together the spiritual adoption prayer written
by Bishop Fulton Sheen.
A collection of baby items continued throughout the fall, then were brought
to a Mass celebrated just before the Christmas holiday. Fr. Mode expected
to collect more than 8,000 items but actually collected more than 30,500
items, including two cribs, strollers, and lots of toys. (The school has
1,463 students.)
A committee is collecting pro-life bumper stickers and making a wall display
of them. Students are invited to participate in a competition to create
their own pro-life bumper sticker; the best one will be made up and used.
Use of pro-life bumper stickers will be encouraged.
More than 50 students are in a pro-life group which is responsible for implementing
the various projects. The responsibilities include, besides the projects
described above, March for Life participation (O'Connell students were chosen
to carry the lead banner for the March this year) and promoting the sponsorship
of a memorial nativity sculpture that will occupy a prominent place on the
school grounds.
The message Fr. Mode hopes the students get is that love is a commitment,
a responsibility that entails total giving. He believes their experience
of active involvement in the program is helping them to see and know reality,
so that they recognize that "the pro-death camp is a lie." Teens
are capable of doing anything that adults do in the pro-life movement, Fr.
Mode commented. He said that since the inception of a pro-life emphasis,
the school has experienced growth in the students' spiritual life.
Fr. Mode sponsored a very successful "Rosaries for Life" project
in the 1996-97 school year. Students and teachers asked family, friends,
and neighbors to pledge to say a certain number of rosaries for unborn children
and their mothers. The goal was 100,000 rosaries, but the students actually
collected more than 200,000 pledges to say the rosaries before the March
for Life.
"The best ideas are simple," said Fr. Mode, "and are ones
that students can run."
While such an ambitious program might not be possible in every high school,
there is nevertheless an urgent need to create opportunities for high schools
to reach the critical teen population with pro-life information, motivation,
and opportunities for service at a time when they are open, concerned, and
eager to understand and have influence on life issues and problems which
will most affect their future.