March for Life + GU conference

A friend of mine who runs his own blog site sent the following invitation to me which I pass on to GW bloggers. The O’Connor Conference is the same weekend as the FOCUS Conference, so those not going to Baltimore should try to make this conference at Georgetown. EVERY GW Catholic should be involved in this year’s March for Life (Jan 24) in one way or another.


The Newman Center will send 25 students to the Verizon Center for a Rally and Mass with 25,000 other students from around the country. This event rocks! Rally and Mass are from 7:30am-11:30am.  Transportation and lunch will be provided.  To get more info and to sign up, email Amy at amy@gwcatholic.com.
For those who can’t go to Verizon, we’ll have a Mass for Life at 12:45 pm at Newman chapel. After Mass, the group at Verizon will join us for lunch downstairs. Then, we’ll walk down to the Mall to join hundreds of thousands for the March. To sign up for (Mass and) lunch at Newman, email me at chaplain@gwcatholic.com.
 
We will also provide yellow scarves that say "GW Catholics for Life".  We'll be doing some representin' while we keep warm!  The only costs of the day will be after the March - if students choose to grab drinks or food on Capitol Hill and/or pay for transportation back to campus.
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Upcoming Event: The 12th Annual Cardinal O'Connor Conference at Georgetown

The annual March for Life here in Washington, marking the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's dreadful Roe v. Wade decision on January 22, 1973 - the Dred Scott decision of our times - is coming up on Monday, January 24th. For those of my readers who will find themselves in the Washington area, I highly encourage you to consider attending the 12th Annual Cardinal O'Connor Conference and its associated events at Georgetown University over the weekend immediately prior to the March. Named in honor of His Eminence John Cardinal O'Connor, the late Archbishop of New York, the conference is the largest pro-life student conference in the country, and is co-sponsored by Georgetown University Right to Life, Georgetown University Knights of Columbus, Georgetown University Catholic Daughters of the Americas, and University Faculty for Life.

Among the many learned and interesting speakers, discussion leaders, and panelists scheduled to appear at the conference are Helen Alvaré, Professor at George Mason University Law School; Mother Agnes Mary Donovan, S.V., Superior General of the Sisters for Life; His Excellency William Lori, Bishop of Bridgeport, Connecticut; His Excellency Edwin O'Brien, Archbishop of Baltimore; keynote speaker Lila Rose, well-known student activist at UCLA; Thomas Brejcha, President and Chief Counsel of the St. Thomas More Society; and Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor-at-large of National Review Online. The annual Thomas King, S.J. Award, named in honor of the late Father King - whom all Georgetown undergraduates of a certain age will remember very well indeed - will be given in recognition of an outstanding collegiate pro-life group.

On Saturday, January 22nd, the evening prior to the conference, a Mass for Life will be celebrated by His Eminence Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago, in the historic Dahlgren Chapel of the Sacred Heart, located at the heart of Georgetown's old campus. This will be followed by a "Luau for Life" reception in the Copley Hall Formal Lounge, just a short walk from the chapel, in support of Washington's Northwest Pregnancy Center. The Center was founded by Georgetown University students and alumni back in 1983 and is today the largest crisis pregnancy center and maternity home in the city.

Please note that the website for the conference provides online registration until January 21st, however I have been told personally by the Director of the Conference that walk-in registrations will be accepted.

For those who are interested in reading a bit more about Cardinal O'Connor's views on abortion, I would encourage you to read a lengthy piece where he answered a number of questions frequently raised with him on the subject. I suspect that many readers will be surprised to learn that His Eminence held views which, in many respects, will strike Republicans as being Democrat positions - for example the Cardinal's appeal to trade unionists, a group whom he supported all of his life. Indeed, the Cardinal was often a strident critic of U.S. military actions throughout his episcopate. What this piece shows us is that the protection of life in all its forms is not a Republican or a Demoracrat issue, it is a human issue.

In this article, Cardinal O'Connor reminds us of how we must fight to save every life, and gives the very telling example of Moses, who himself was targeted for destruction at the time of his birth:

May I ask that everyone remember the story of Moses. By decree of the state, he should have been put to death at birth. A brave woman refused to kill him, and hid him in a basket in the reeds at the water's edge. His life was saved and God chose him to lead the Israelites to the promised land. If we spent the rest of our lives in an effort to save one Moses, or any other infant, could our struggle be called wasted? If any of us went into a burning building, or dove into icy waters, to save one baby, the community would bestow a medal for heroism, and we would always remember saving a single life. God knows the lives you have saved, even if you don't. Thank God for you.

The ending of this passage is an important point for us to consider. For those of us who are God-fearing people, we know that God sees and knows all that we do. Each of us, in our way, can be called upon to do something to rebuild the respect for human life which our society has been abandoning for some time now, and which continues to erode. What better way, for those of us able to attend, to shore up against that erosion than to meet with others who are as committed to this issue as ourselves, and thereby find ways of working together in this most noble of causes.