March for Life '09

Here are some pics we took at the annual March for Life yesterday. As usual, the March was a very powerful experience of solidarity for those of us who struggle for the full recognition of the rights of the unborn. And again, as usual, the only media outlet to give it any substantial coverage was EWTN (they're re-airing their coverage of the March in its entirety tomorrow morning if you want to see any of it). After we completed the usual route to the Supreme Court, we headed over to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception where we met our bus to go back home. We thought it fitting on this important occasion to offer these powerful words from the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus on this the great civil rights issue of our time:

The contention between the culture of life and the culture of death is not a battle of our own choosing. We are not the ones who imposed upon the nation the lethal logic that human beings have no rights we are bound to respect if they are too small, too weak, too dependent, too burdensome. That lethal logic, backed by the force of law, was imposed by an arrogant elite that for almost forty years has been telling us to get over it, to get used to it.
But “We the People,” who are the political sovereign in this constitutional democracy, have not gotten over it, we have not gotten used to it, and we will never, we will never ever, agree that the culture of death is the unchangeable law of the land...
We do not know, we do not need to know, how the battle for the dignity of the human person will be resolved. God knows, and that is enough. As Mother Teresa of Calcutta and saints beyond numbering have taught us, our task is not to be successful but to be faithful. Yet in that faithfulness is the lively hope of success. We are the stronger because we are unburdened by delusions. We know that in a sinful world, far short of the promised Kingdom of God, there will always be great evils. The principalities and powers will continue to rage, but they will not prevail.
In the midst of the encroaching darkness of the culture of death, we have heard the voice of him who said, “In the world you will have trouble. But fear not, I have overcome the world.” Because he has overcome, we shall overcome. We do not know when; we do not know how. God knows, and that is enough. We know the justice of our cause, we trust in the faithfulness of his promise, and therefore we shall not weary, we shall not rest.
-Fr. Richard John Neuhaus