Youth Make Up Largest Contingent in D.C. March for Life
The snow was gone but the cold rains came as more than 350,000 mostly young people gathered earlier in the week at the Mall in Washington, D.C., to hear speakers and to begin their March for Life. The vast crowds, which included students from hundreds of high schools and colleges, took courage from each other as they commemorated the 39th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions. In San Francisco tens of thousands marched down Market Street during the west coast edition of the Walk for Life. (Read the Catholic San Francisco account.)
In D.C., the March is part of a series of events. One of which is the annual Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life hosted by Georgetown University. The gathering boasted the most attendees ever—including a bishop and a dozen youth from Australia. Keynoting the conference was Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput who spoke passionately about the dignity of human life -- all human life. He lovingly described the lives of Down syndrome children of friends and pointed out that the lives of babies with genetic defects or physical imperfections are more and more at risk in our current culture. Looking at the sea of young faces in the auditorium, he challenged them to the “new evangelization”—where the young evangelize the “old.”
Archbishop Chaput’s complete homily is here. Bishop William Lori of Bridgetown, Connecticut, chair of the USCCB ad hoc committee on Religious Liberty, offered the homily for the Mass for Life at the Conference. His homily is here.