By Marnie McAllister, Record Editor, and Catholic News Service
Ed and Cathy Harpring set out for Washington, D.C., last week to attend the Jan. 22 national March for Life before the warnings of a possible blizzard had reached fever pitch.
As group after group cancelled their trips, including delegations from the Archdiocese of Louisville, the couple stopped outside the city to reassess — weighing the risks against their desire to “stand up for life.”
“I looked up the word pilgrimage and it talked about making a trip based on your religious beliefs and convictions,” said Harpring after he and his wife returned home. “We decided we’d be the representatives for Louisville. This pilgrimage is bigger than us, it’s about our faith and the pro-life movement.”
Harpring is the coordinator of pro-life ministries for the Archdiocese of Louisville. And despite the slow-moving highways — that doubled their driving time on one leg of the journey — he’s glad they went.
“We were amazed at how many people were there,” he said, considering the blizzard that descended on Washington, D.C., in the midst of the Jan. 22 event. The storm left more than two feet of snow on Washington, D.C., more than the city has seen since 1922, CBS reported afterward.
Organizers estimated that nearly 50,000 people took part in the March for Life, which is held every year on the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe vs. Wade, legalizing abortion. The event began with a rally at the Washington Monument and proceeded to the U.S. Supreme Court as snow began to fall.
Jeanne Monahan-Mancini, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, told the crowd gathered at the rally, “The world may think that we’re a little bit crazy to be here on a day like today, but those that are standing here know that there is no sacrifice too great to fight the human rights abuse of abortion.”
Prior to the march, participants attended Masses for life, including one at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Jan. 21.
Harpring and his wife attended that liturgy, the National Prayer Vigil for Life, which was celebrated by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan.
Cardinal Dolan, who is Archbishop of New York, told the congregation during his homily about a child who was abandoned at one of his parishes during Christmas. The newborn infant was left by his mother in the crib of a manger scene at a parish in the New York City borough of Queens.
He explained that the mother came forward a week later and said she hid in the back of the church to be sure her son was found. The mother said she gave birth at home and unaided. She turned to the church, the cardinal said quoting her, because “ ‘I just knew if I left him in God’s hands, my baby would be OK.’ ”
“True story,” said Cardinal Dolan, “and I submit it to you, the jury, this evening, as Exhibit A in our case for promoting the culture of life.
“It’s not far-fetched to imagine another scenario, what might have happened: that mother’s legitimate and understandable apprehension and isolation could have led her to Planned Parenthood,” he said. “She could have been going to a parish which she found cold, unwelcoming and impersonal, where she did not feel safe, and where she would not have been inclined to turn in her crisis.
“Or, in those fretful minutes after her baby’s birth, she might have run to a church only to find it bolted-up, with a sign on the outside telling her, probably in English, to come back during office hours. Thank God that scenario remains only a ‘might-have-been.’
“We are summoned to be such agents of conversion,” he told the congregation. The way to do that, Cardinal Dolan said, is “by imitating those priests and people of Holy Child Jesus Parish in New York City.”
Harpring said the homily is a reminder that, “Certainly we’re there for the unborn, but we’re also there for the mother who finds herself in an unplanned pregnancy. It’s a ‘both and.’ ”
After the liturgies, the rally and March for Life ended, and as snow began to pick-up, the real hardship began for many of the attendees.
Delegations from across the country were stranded on highways as they tried to return home. A bus carrying about 40 high school students from Owensboro, Ky., made the national news after it was stranded for 20 hours on Interstate 76. The students departed Washington after the March and became stuck behind other stranded cars and semi-trailers at about 7:30 p.m., NBC reported.
Chaperones told NBC that the bus had plenty of gas, a bathroom and the students had snacks. The group provided shelter and shared their food with other motorists. Their prayers for release were answered at about 3 p.m. the next day, Jan. 23, after snow plows dug out the cars ahead of them.
Delegations from Nebraska made the national news, too, and went viral on social media — at least among Catholics — when they celebrated Mass on an altar made of snow on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. That happened not too far from where the Owensboro group was stranded near the Somerset, Pa., exit.
Local observances of the Roe vs. Wade decision also felt the effects of the snowstorm. The Archdiocese of Louisville’s Walk for Life, which was set for the evening of Jan. 22, was cancelled. The annual Right to Life rally in downtown Louisville, which usually draws more than 100 people, wasn’t cancelled, but fewer than a dozen people ventured onto the snow-covered streets to attend.
