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NRL News
Nation’s
Catholics Mark 35th Anniversary of From Washington state to Washington, D.C., American Catholics again planned and took part in pro-life activities to mark the January 22 anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. Events that earlier were organized around a kitchen table by pioneers of the pro-life movement are now occurring on a far grander scale, requiring hundreds of volunteers and coordination with city halls, local churches to house visitors and park buses, and security forces to keep participants safe from traffic and counter-protesters. As many media outlets reported this year, the face of the pro-life movement was younger than ever, and brimming with enthusiasm and a can-do spirit from coast to coast. In Olympia, Washington, Kathy McEntee, a Catholic mother of six, organized that state’s first March for Life 30 years ago and continued in that leadership role until her death on January 12, 2008. Like so many of her generation, “pro-life” was more than a once-a-year slogan for Mrs. McEntee. She counseled young women in crisis pregnancies and took many of them into her home after they’d been kicked out by their parents. The torch has now passed to her daughters and state March for Life board members, who have vowed to continue the march until Roe is overturned. San Francisco’s “Walk for Life West Coast,” founded by Catholics Dolores Meehan and Eva Muntean, has become an astonishing success in its brief four-year history, in one of the toughest environments in the United States. Over 25,000 took part this year (compared to about 250 counter-protesters on hand to heckle them along the 2.5 mile route). The January 19 Walk was preceded by an Interfaith Prayer Service at St. Mary’s Cathedral on Friday evening and all-night Eucharistic Adoration. Saturday began with a Holy Hour and Mass at the Cathedral, concelebrated by eight California bishops and attended by 1,500 worshippers. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles combined its annual “Celebration of Life” Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels with a stirring performance of the Shantigarh “Requiem for the Unborn.” Cathedrals from San Diego to Denver, Milwaukee to Dallas, Atlanta to Miami, and all points in between were the site of prayer vigils and special Respect Life Masses before or after public demonstrations of support for human life. Many services began with candlelight processions. The number of candles sometimes equaled the state’s or city’s daily abortion toll. In some processions, one individual born each year since 1973 carried a candle representing all the children who were lost in the year of his or her birth. Events in Dallas are especially poignant each year. January 19 began with recitation of the rosary outside Dallas’s oldest abortion clinic. The bishops of Dallas and Fort Worth then celebrated Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The Virgin Mary, who appeared near Mexico City in 1531 as Our Lady of Guadalupe, is honored by Catholics as the Patroness of the Unborn. A rally followed the Mass, and events concluded with a march to the federal courthouse where Roe v. Wade was originally filed. The activities sponsored by Catholics in Washington, D.C., bring thousands more young people to town every year. Georgetown University hosts the annual Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life, drawing top speakers and students from colleges around the country. Across town at The Catholic University of America, the Students for Life of America Leadership Conference boasts dynamic speakers and huge crowds of today’s and tomorrow’s pro-life leaders. Perhaps the premier Catholic event is the Vigil Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and the all-night Vigil for Life on the eve of January 22. The Basilica’s pews and aisles, side altars, lower-level Crypt church, and every nook and cranny are packed to capacity with about 12,000 pilgrims in town for the Roe anniversary events. This year, six U.S. cardinals—including the principal celebrant, Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities—over 40 bishops, and almost 400 priests from across the country concelebrated the Mass. A 7:30 a.m. Mass at the Basilica was nearly as crowded with Catholic students from the northeastern U.S. whose buses had been traveling through the night. On the morning of the March for Life, about 20,000 (mainly) high school students and about 600 seminarians attended a rally and Mass at the packed Verizon Center (the home of Washington’s professional basketball and hockey teams). Busloads of Catholic high school students who couldn’t fit into the center were spread out in various churches in downtown Washington and neighboring suburbs for prayerful gatherings with their hometown bishop preceding the March for Life. Catholics who could not join in the major demonstrations were able to be united in prayer and personal sacrifice on January 22. In 2001, the U.S. bishops designated January 22 as “a day of penance for violations to the dignity of the human person committed through acts of abortion, and of prayer for the full restoration of the legal guarantee of the right to life.” In recognition of this mandate, innumerable parishes held special Masses and other liturgies to pray for an end to abortion and for God’s mercy on our country. |