March for Life 2017 Report

As you know, I attend the March for Life when I can (last, year, for instance, our bus was canceled due to the snow). This year I took a "different" bus, to go with my son's youth group, rather than the pro-life group I usually go with. Because the bus was going at a different time, by a different route, this was not an apples to apples comparison. So, on with the report.

We had mass and then filed onto the bus and got on the road. Everyone was tired because of the early hour, and the bus was pretty quiet (the leaders had declared it a "quiet time" until we got to MD). As we headed to the Garden State Parkway, the bus stopped abruptly, as the road ahead was closed. After a lot of maneuvering the bus got turned around and went back almost to the start. Half an hour later, we were still trying to find a way to get to the parkway.

Due to that, we were late getting to the rest stop in MD. This is a different rest stop than the one we usually stop at, and we were late, so I can't comment on the crowd sizes there. We got back on the road and had an uneventful trip to Washington. Well, not totally uneventful, as we prayed the rosary and sang songs and talked and ate and had a good time.

When we got to D.C. things got bad again. Traffic was a disaster, and it would take 5-10 minutes to go each block. We were invited to meet up with our bishop and the rest of the Diocese at 11:15, but 11:50 had come and gone, and the rally had started. By the time we could see the Capitol building, it was 12:15, and before we got off the bus, V.P. Pence had given his speech (which we live streamed via phone on the bus).

IMHO the best speech we heard was Mia Love's "What might have been" speech.



We jumped off the bus and hurried over to the march proper, which was about to start. We never did find our bishop and the rest of the diocese. We wound up missing the whole rally, which is a shame because it's usually a lot of fun meeting the people around you while hearing the speeches.

A few things were different during the march. Usually the march is peaceful, with everyone singing, shouting, and praying about abortion. This year there was one man who has a hug sign and a megaphone telling people that the "Roman" Pope is the antichrist and that Catholics are idolaters who are going to hell. He was harassing all the groups that were clearly associated with Catholics, and following priests around.

Another thing different was the lack of any counter demonstration. Usually, there is a group of about 5-10 women on the steps of the Supreme Court building holding "keep abortion legal" signs. There are also a few women here and there along the route with similar signs. This year I saw only one woman, mixed into the crowd at the Supreme court, holding a sign with a drawing of a coat hanger on it and the words "Never go back" and "Say no to Trump".

Lastly, I actually saw an abc news truck, and a C-SPAN camera man, and someone said they saw a CNN crew. I have never seen any news outlet cover the march other than EWTN and a few independent cameras. I don't know what kind of news they are reporting - so far I've heard CNN's reporting was completely "fake" as expected, and I see an article on an abc site that says "thousands" marched and then goes into the "women's" march which had "500,000" march - amazing how they can estimate crowd size for one march but not the other. It was interesting to see them at least have a presence.

Maybe someday they'll give less biased coverage. It's still better than the time a few years ago where a (CNN?) reporter was standing with the group of ten "pro-choice" women, and when asked by the new anchor about the numbers says "I don't know which side has more people" as literally hundreds of pro-lifers pass in front of him. The video has apparently been deleted from youtube - I'm sure the news station didn't like people posting that story.

Again, since we were on a different bus, with a different schedule, we went immediately after the march to the Metro station to go to RFK stadium to get to the bus. Usually we go to our representatives' offices to lobby, and then take the Metro all the way to MD and meet the bus there.

Apparently some people in our group got lost and were on the wrong train, all the way to the last stop. So again we got a late start, even though we were leaving earlier. We stopped for dinner, and got home around 11 (plan was to get back around 8). The whole way back the bus was cheering and singing. It was a lot of fun.

So the big question people ask is "how many people?" I can't say. Someone on the bus said the estimate was 750,000 but it didn't look to me like it was bigger than other years (the largest crowd was 650,000 four years ago). If I had to guess I would say this was one of the smaller marches I was in, but the only measure I really have to estimate is the number of people I see on the mall, because in the march you can only see a small part of the crowd. This year the mall crowd was not a reliable estimate, because we were not on the mall during the rally, and a lot of people had probably left by the time we got there.

Perhaps you can watch this and count.

You might think that the crowds should be larger because of the support of the current administration, and because the V.P. was speaking. However, nobody knew the V.P. was going to speak until Thursday, when it was probably too late to change plans, so I don't think that had any effect on crowd size. Likewise, the fact that the administration is pro-life is not a reason to come to a protest march - if anything that would result in smaller crowds.

Overall a fulfilling day, and well worth the trip, but I'm still recovering.

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The Greatest Story Never Told

The March for Life is the largest civil rights protest in the world, but you won't see it in the news.

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March for Life 2012

Where has Mike been? At the March for Life in Washington D.C. I would have loved to have blogged about the event beforehand, but life got in the way. So, here's my all too brief recap.

This was my second time at the march. Despite all the news stories showing "clashes" between pro-life and pro-choice protests (in near equal numbers), neither I nor anybody I spoke with has ever seen a pro-choice protester during the march. I'm told by some locals that there is a small group of a dozen or so pro-choice protesters who come with news teams for a photo shoot at the Supreme Court building early in the day, before the march starts, and then leave. As I said I have not seen it, but if you look at the news shots they never show anything but closeups featuring a small number of pro-choicers. I do know that from before the march starts until it ends the Supreme Court steps are empty. [BTW if you look at the Washington Post slideshow linked to above, my favorite is picture 4, where an "antiabortion advocate, points her finger at an abortion rights advocate" - they don't mention the blurry finger in the foregound that the abortion rights advocate is giving the antiabortion advocate]

From what I saw, this year's march was about the same size as last year, although people who have been going for many years said they thought it was bigger. The U.S. government will not allow the official head count to be released, but according to LifeSiteNews the number was estimated to be 400,000. The thing that was different about this year's march was the ages. The last march I was at was a pretty good cross section of young to old. This year the march was by far dominated by kids. By kids I mean high school and college age kids. They were religious (one group handed me free rosary beads), political (many had "I vote Pro-life first!") signs and friendly (one group was giving free hugs).

A group of young ladies and gentleman gave me an "I'm worth waiting for" sticker, although I told them that I being married with three kids, I hadn't been waiting for a long time. I saw the very vocal "Silent No More" women, the "Chicago Life Mob" people, and the TFP youth, all impeccably dressed and handing out material while the bagpipes played.

I took a few pictures, but my batteries died at some point and by the time I replaced them I had lost some good photo ops. Here's a few that I did get:


I'm sot sure what building it was, but the people on the steps in the background were all spectators who were cheering wildly as we passed, and dancing on the steps, and the ones in front were giving out the free hugs.


The brave "Silent No More" women started the march right behind us.


It's hard to see much from the middle of the march (actually we were right near the front, but it's hard to tell). The umbrellas made it harder.


We passed the Chicago "Life mob" people. I'd seen their flash mob video and their pro-life rosary video.


They were carrying two platforms with cheerleaders on them. They were singing and chanting like crazy. I can't believe the amount of energy these kids have!


Not my finest shot, but this is looking down Constitution Ave. from Capitol Hill. The yellow crane, near the left hand side of the picture, is near where the rally was before the march started. Having been near the end of the march before I can tell you that it takes something like an hour after the march starts before the people in back even get moving.


Just another random shot taken during the march. I think this is near the Supreme Court, which is where the march officially ends. However, there is a steady stream of people continuing on to go talk to their representatives. The pro-choice ones make it a point to be either out or in "staff meetings" the entire time, so you don't actually get to speak to them, but you can leave messages with their staff.


The pro-life representatives have receptions for their constituents and whoever else wants to join. This was in "the gold room" of the house offices, where Congressmen Garrett and Smith, of New Jersey, were handing out donuts, coffee and other refreshments to pro-lifers after the march. The room was packed, so we basically got some food and went searching for our pro-choice legislators.

I could write about the fun we had on five hour ride down or the five hour ride home, but I'll leave that to your imagination. I left my house at 5:30 AM and got home at 10:30 PM. A long day, but a satisfying one.

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I'm going...are you?

March for Life January 24, 2011

2306 Those who renounce violence and bloodshed and, in order to safeguard human rights, make use of those means of defense available to the weakest, bear witness to evangelical charity, provided they do so without harming the rights and obligations of other men and societies. They bear legitimate witness to the gravity of the physical and moral risks of recourse to violence, with all its destruction and death.

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The Manhattan Project

Over on the right hand side of this blog you should find a button labeled "The Manhattan Declaration" (also in the image in this post). Just what the heck is this and why am I posting this?

The Manhattan Declaration is a document that you can sign online. As of this post, almost 500,000 people have signed it. It is ecumenical, and affirms beliefs common to all Christians, including:

1. the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every human being as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, possessing inherent rights of equal dignity and life;
2. marriage as a conjugal union of man and woman, ordained by God from the creation, and historically understood by believers and non-believers alike, to be the most basic institution in society and;
3. religious liberty, which is grounded in the character of God, the example of Christ, and the inherent freedom and dignity of human beings created in the divine image.

Earlier this year, the Manhattan Declaration wrote an iPhone app that let users access the site's blog from their iPhones. This is nothing radical. Lots of iPhone apps are underneath it all browsers designed to work specifically with one site or another. Apple vetted the app, and gave it a 4+ rating for containing no offe3nsive content.

This fall an "LBGT" group started a petition to have the app banned from the iTunes store, calling it "hateful" and "offensive". They collected 7,000 signatures. The Apple pulled the app from it's store over Thanksgiving (ironically). Of course, Apple is a business, not a branch of our government, so they are not bound legally to publish any particular app, but as a company they should be responsive to their customers. Do you think Apple would pull any content from iTunes if 7,000 people don't like it? I'm sure if it comes to that I could find 7,000 people who don't like a lot of what's there from pro gun apps, pro violence songs videos and apps, songs with explicit lyrics, immoral videos. I suspect Apple would not drop all of this for 7,000 names or 70,000 names.

To my knowledge, the only other apps that Apple categorically refuses to sell are pornographic. So in effect, Apple is saying that affirming Christian beliefs is as offensive as pornography. This I find offensive.

Please enjoy the video below, go to the site, send Steve Jobs an email, and sign the Declaration.

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The Notre Dame Debacle

As I write this, commencement is under way, and who knows what the fallout will be. I was thinking about this last night, however, because of a discussion by some friends on the arrests taking place. The debate was who was wronger; ND for arresting priests peacefully protesting on their property, or protesters protesting on ND property. I thought I would share my thoughts.

The protesters are engaging in acts of civil disobedience. Is civil disobedience justified? I think it is when we are being forced by an unjust law. Rosa Parks refusing to move was an act of civil disobedience. Does it apply in the ND protest case? I don't think so. The protesters were not forbidden to protest, they were just asked to stay off ND property.

One might argue that they were justified in using their civil disobedience in order to publicize their plight. I ask "publicize to whom?" Catholics and ND aficionados are all ready well acquainted with the situation. The media who are covering the arrests are making the protesters look like fools,a nd broadcasting to a public which is at best ambivalent about the situation.

That's not to say I am against the protesters, I just feel they are not handling themselves optimally. The same can be said of Fr. Jenkins. His "last letter" in the subject emphasized that this honorary degree is a formality and is not meant to endorse Obama or his policies. If this letter were his "first" letter on the subject instead of his last, perhaps a lot of this could have been avoided. However, Fr. Jenkins has already squandered all his credibility in previous volleys.

First there was the claim that this wasn't really a commencement speech, but an invitation to a "dialogue". When that became abundantly discredited the claim was that it was OK because Obama was not Catholic. There was his refusal to have a "dialogue" with his own students, in contrast with his desire to have one with the president.

Even in the face of almost 70 bishops, Fr. Jenkins insisted that his interpretation of the rules was correct. He even turned to out of context scriptural quotes to support his views against those of his superiors. Then there's the text of the honorary degree presentation itself.

"At the 164th Commencement The May Exercises The University of Notre Dame Confers the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, on the 44th president of the United States, whose historic election opened a new era of hope in a country long divided by its history of slavery and racism. A community organizer who honed his advocacy for the poor, the marginalized and the worker in the streets of Chicago, he now organizes a larger community, bringing to the world stage a renewed American dedication to diplomacy and dialogue with all nations and religions committed to human rights and the global common good. Through his willingness to engage with those who disagree with him and encourage people of faith to bring their beliefs to the public debate, he is inspiring this nation to heal its divisions of religion, culture, race and politics in the audacious hope for a brighter tomorrow."

This is sad. If I could turn back time and whisper in Fr. Jenkins' ear, I would have asked him to use that final letter as his first letter instead of going through the motions of lie after lie, to speak with students instead of turning them away, to ensure that the text of the degree did not appear to honor the president for things which are abhorrent to the Catholic view and to make this something less divisive.

Of course, in a better world we would have had the entire theology department, faculty, and many students demand that the invitation be rescinded, just as happened to Pope Benedict XVI at La Sapienza University (see my previous blog), but we don't live in that world.

Then again, perhaps Fr. Jenkins had no choice and was just a puppet of the board of directors?

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