Catholic Transcript Online

WASHINGTON (CNS) – Droves of pro-life youths from across the country lined up outside the Verizon Center to get inside the annual Youth Rally and Mass for Life sponsored by the Archdiocese of Washington Jan. 22, forming a crowd of 17,400 people.

This year the event at the Washington sports arena was more in demand than ever -- about 10,000 tickets to the event were snapped up in just 45 minutes when they were made available through online ticketing in mid-November, said Christa Lopiccolo, executive director of the archdiocesan Department of Life Issues. "The youth are on fire for pro-life," she said at the time.

Fifteen alternate gathering sites near the Verizon Center were set up to accommodate 8,000 more pilgrims, she said.

Youths brought banners and signs, but most of all their faith and enthusiasm to the Verizon Center. Hundreds of seminarians and religious also joined the throng.

Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl of Washington was the principal celebrant of the Mass. Concelebrants included Chicago Cardinal Francis E. George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities; Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the United States; and more than 30 bishops and more than 250 priests.

Prior to the Mass, Archbishop Sambi read a message to the participants from Pope Benedict XVI, who said their "generosity, idealism and concern inspire youth to raise their voices in defense of the unborn." He urged them to embrace "a culture of life grounded in the unchanging truth of who we are as God's children" and to "rise to this urgent moral challenge and witness to the sacredness of God's gift of life."

In welcoming the youths, Archbishop Wuerl said, "We gather together to pray God's blessing on our efforts to promote the value and dignity of all human life." He also prayed that God would "fill the hearts of all with the fire of your love ... (and) secure justice and equality for every human being."

Archbishop Wuerl praised "the huge number of young people who recognize the dignity of all life" and assured them that that "your bishops encourage you in living the Gospel of life."

Father Lawrence Swink, a young priest who is associate pastor of St. Pius X Parish in Bowie, Md., delivered the homily. He shaped his remarks around what he called the "three P's" – protect life, remain pure and pray.

Father Swink, the oldest of 10 children, spoke about his family's 10-passenger van that was covered in pro-life bumper stickers. His father, a doctor, drove the van to the hospital where he worked. Father Swink occasionally accompanied his dad, and one time he noticed they had pulled in between two expensive cars – a Mercedes and a BMW. He asked his dad, "Don't you feel like a geek driving this thing?"

Father Swink said his dad frowned and replied, "'If I didn't have you and your brothers and sisters, I wouldn't be driving that car ... but you know, I wouldn't trade any of you for a Mercedes or a BMW.'"

Looking at the packed-to-the-rafters Verizon Center, the priest lamented that since 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe decision legalized abortion, "there would be 2,500 such stadiums filled with babies who have been aborted."

"Have faith in God, because God has a plan for all life. All life is precious. All life is worth living," he said.

He called it "stinking thinking" to believe "the myths that contraception and safe sex are the solution to abortion."

Father Swink added that it is "not enough" to be pro-life and to just have the "goofy bumper stickers."

"We are called to live it, we are called to be saints," he said. "We are going to pray, we are going to march and we are going to win."

Madeline Guay, a graduate of the Academy of the Holy Cross in Kensington, Md., who has Down syndrome, was featured in a video shown on a giant screen at the rally. Ms. Guay said she has a "life just like yours," and that she enjoys hanging out with friends, connecting with people on Facebook and playing the piano. Ninety percent of pregnant women whose children are diagnosed with Down syndrome decide not to carry their pregnancy to term, the film noted.

The Little Sisters of the Poor in Washington – whose apostolate is to take care of the elderly poor – came to the rally to show their support for life, said Sister Camille Hampton.

"We uphold the dignity of life, especially at the end, and we care about the treatment of the elderly. Our congregation is devoted to the witness to life," she told the Catholic Standard, newspaper of the Washington Archdiocese.

For Stephen Smith, an eighth-grade student at St. Andrew Apostle School in Silver Spring, Md., attending the rally and Mass "is what Catholicism is all about."

"We're here to practice our religion and to show we support our faith when it teaches that abortion is wrong," he  said. "We're putting our faith into action, and that is what Catholicism is all about."

Nelly Argueta and Xiomara Gonzalez, teenage parishioners from Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Takoma Park, Md., were among the 45 members of their parish youth group to attend the rally and Mass.

"I'm here to support life," Ms. Argueta said, explaining why she was at the Verizon Center more than three hours before the start of the Mass.

Gonzalez said the presence of so many young people "will show people that we support life, and we are living what we believe."