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God Bless ’em! Great article on Tulsa Youth at Walk for Life West Coast
One of the nicest things at the Walk for Life West Coast is the participation of our wonderful young people! This year we had a group all the way from the Diocese of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Here’s a very comprehensive article by Alex Merrifield, about the Walk, that appeared in 4E Voices, the online publication of the Bartlesville Oklahoma public schools. The photo is of a flyer from the Diocese of Tulsa.
Bartlesville Catholic Youth goes to West Coast Walk for Life
Alex Merrifield
February 2, 2016
Flyer for Catholic Youth from St. John’s Church in Bartlesville, Diocese of Tulsa
The Bartlesville Catholic youth left town around 9 p.m. to travel to San Francisco Jan. 20, joining many others from the Catholic diocese of Tulsa and Oklahoma City. After 30 long hours, the group arrived in the bay area around 6 a.m. on Friday.
The students went to San Francisco for the West Coast Walk for Life, an event held in downtown San Francisco every year since 2004, around the time of the famous 1973 Supreme Court case that legalized abortion; Roe vs Wade. The intent of the West Coast Walk for Life is to walk and pray for the end to abortion, the reversal of Roe vs Wade, to end federal funding of Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, and other unnatural deaths such as assisted suicide and capital punishment.
In past years, the church youth group has gone to Washington D.C. for the March for Life DC, but this year decided to head west for the Walk for Life West Coast, which was somewhat of a smaller event compared to the 600,000 who marched in D.C. The local mainstream media projected around 55,000 people there, but some projections put the actual amount between 75,000 to 100,000 people.
The morning of the march, the group attended the Mass for Life at 9:30 a.m.; the mass was celebrated at St. Mary’s Cathedral by the archbishop of the San Francisco diocese, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone. In his homily, Cordileone spoke of the sanctity of life from conception to death, speaking of what is right in God’s eyes compared to the law of the country, state or city.
“…there are those who would defend the practice by deflecting the argument to questions of legal technicalities regarding what is and is not against the law, thus side-stepping the real question, the much bigger question. But the big question cannot be ignored, it has to be answered, there is no getting around it: what does this say about us as a society?”Cordileone said.
After the mass was over, the group walked back to the civic center plaza, which is where the annual pre-march rally was held. This year’s speakers included several influential prolife activists from the United States and several from all around the world, including Mexican prolife activist and singer Emmanuel and Obianauju Ekeocha of Culture of Life Africa.
“They tell us the lie that women– in order to have opportunities and in order for us be successful– we must have abortion rights. I stand here before you not just as a black person or an African person. I stand here before you as a woman to say we should never have to buy success with the blood of our babies,” Ekeocha said.
Ekeocha continually challenged Planned Parenthood and other organizations similar to Planned Parenthood, calling for a change in culture to the entire world.
Another notable speaker was David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress, the man behind the recent string of videos showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing the selling and buying of aborted baby parts and fetal tissue. Daleiden spoke with confidence and passion, talking about the lessons he has learned and the identity of a baby in the womb.
“The videos raise the biggest question that Planned Parenthood and their allies cannot answer. That is how on the one hand in our country the humanity of the baby fetus is not considered to be equal enough to our own in order to be totally protected by law, but at the same time it is precisely their equal and identical humanity to our own that makes them so valuable for sale,” Daleiden said.
Following the rally, the mile and a half walk began down Market Street, led by many priests, deacons, nuns and other church leadership. There were also thousands and thousands of youth of the next generation from San Francisco, other places in California, Arizona, Nevada, and of course, Oklahoma. Throughout the walk, the group faced many counter-protesters, many of them shouting vulgar terms and giving vulgar hand gestures.
“The counter-protesters were cool and all, but I got sad because they had so much hate, and God is not about hate,” sophomore Nathan Lauritsen said.
The West Coast Walk differed from Washington D.C. in the way that there were more counter-protesters and people with opposing viewpoints.
“There were a lot more pro-choice people there than Washington D.C.,” sophomore Paige Sauer said. “Seeing the way they acted really helped confirm my views.”
“The March itself was so much louder and more intense than the DC March,” Catholic youth director Greg Pellegrino said. “The counter-protesters also made it very interesting because we got to see people that don’t think the way we do.”
After the end of the walk, the youth went to Chinatown and Little Italy the rest of the night, touring the interesting places of San Francisco. The following day, they visited the Mission Dolores, a Spanish mission built in 1776. They also visited the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi and attended mass there. That same Sunday, Jan. 24, they started the bus ride back, eventually getting back into town late Monday night, Jan. 25.
Chief Big Faith’s Walk for Life Slideshow
Here is a Walk for Life West Coast slideshow by a guy called Chief Big Faith on youtube. We like it because he took a LOT of photos which show a lot of different signs and groups from the Walk:
‘Consistent Life’ at Walk for Life West Coast
More and more groups are posting pictures and tidbits of their experiences at the Walk. Here’s a photo and short description from Consistent Life, who had a table at the Walk’s Info Faire:
“The West Coast Walk for Life in San Francisco had no blizzard to contend with, and our table there was busy. Lisa Stiller reports: “We were pleased to find several students who embraced the CL ethic, and some who were open to discussions. The presence of petitions to abolish the death penalty in California promoted much discussion both days about connections between the life issues. Those petitions are to put abolition of the death penalty on the state-wide ballot in November.”
Above: Lisa Stiller (left), Tom Webb (middle), and John Ahlbac (right) at the West Coast Walk table.
The Wanderer Covers the Walk, Part II
Here is a second article from The Wanderer, the nation’s oldest Catholic newspaper, on the Walk for Life West Coast. Excerpt:
Prelate Notes Unworthy Communions: San Francisco Pro-Life Rally Urged to Continue Fight
As an African pro-life leader saluted U.S. pro-lifers and urged them to continue their fight for babies and moms around the world, two American pro-life strategists told The Wanderer of plans to help keep abortion giant Planned Parenthood in disarray.
This was part of the scene January 23 at the nation’s second-largest annual pro-life gathering, the Walk for Life West Coast, which assembles on the broad plaza in front of San Francisco City Hall for speeches, then marches curb-to-curb on major thoroughfare Market Street through downtown.
Before the 12:30 p.m. rally, Catholic Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone celebrated a packed 9:30 a.m. Mass at St. Mary of the Assumption Cathedral, which looks down from a hilltop onto City Hall. He commented in his homily about Catholics who unworthily receive the Eucharist.
Cordileone didn’t mention names. However, local Democratic Cong. Nancy Pelosi has become renowned for energetically promoting the Culture of Death while claiming to be a faithfully practicing Catholic and receiving Communion….
Traditional Latin Mass Society of SF at the Walk!
Our friends from the Traditional Latin Mass Society were exhibiting at the Info Faire, and always they took great photos. Here’s Sr. Agnes Mary Donovan, receiving the St. Gianna Molla award from our shepherd Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, on behalf of the Sisters of Life:
The TLM Society’s blog describes their day (beginning excerpt):
It was a full day for us last Saturday (Jan. 23, 2016), as we started the day getting organized for the Walk For Life Info Faire at Civic Center Plaza. This is what we’ve been doing for the past couple of years before the Walk For Life Program, where we display and distribute materials, flyers, brochures on the Traditional Latin Mass, along with 50 other vendors (ranging from pro-life pregnancy clinics to Diocesan and religious communities). We also volunteered to take photos of our fellow vendors at the Info Faire…
Check out their blog–it’s got lots of cool photos, and their SmugMug page has even more, including of Mass in the Extraordinary Form celebrated at the Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi, after the Walk.
The “Babe in the Bunker” Covers Walk for Life West Coast
That’s be Barbara Simpson, San Francisco’s own “Babe in the Bunker” writing in World Net Daily.
Walk for Life West Coast heads towards Ferry Building. Credit: Dennis Callahan, Catholic San Francisco.
Barbara nails the ongoing media bias against the Walk for Life West Coast in her own inimitable fashion.
Talk about media arrogance. Instead of taking professional responsibility seriously, mainstream media – and even “less-stream media” – now only cover events and report stories that comport with their own political point of view.
There was a time when citizens could look at print media – newspapers and magazines – and watch and listen to electronic media – television and radio – and know what was happening in the world around them.
That’s not to say there weren’t left- and right-leaning media, but there were enough of each so people could pick and choose and get the facts.
Now? Forget it. The mainstream is liberal-left, through and through, and the total number of outlets gets smaller ever year.
The result? Any semblance of truth and balance is gone.
The best and latest example is the annual Walk for Life.
Construction Workers for Life at Walk for Life West Coast
A number of people have mentioned this charming incident from Saturday’s Walk for Life West Coast:
“Last vignette: as we marched down Market Street, we passed a six-story building being constructed. On the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th floors, many of the workers were watching us pass by (and pass by and pass by and pass by…) One of them had an air horn; every time he blew the horn, the other construction workers cheered, clapped, and gave us thumbs-ups. Every time THAT happened, the marchers below raised their voices in massive, full-throated response.
Pro-life sentiment is everywhere, even in liberal San Francisco.”
That’s MaryFromMarin, commenting at the Stella’s Place blog.
The writers at the Secular Pro-Life blog discussed the same incident.
If anyone has video or pictures of this, we’d like to see them. Please send to media@walkforlifewc.com
West Coast Students For Life Conference Largest Ever, Blasts Planned Parenthood
Dexter Duggan, writing at The Wanderer, reports on the 2016 Students for Life of America Conference ‘Born to Win.’ The East Cost Conference was cancelled, because of the blizzard, but that did not deter the SFLA: East Coasters could watch live streaming of the West Coast Conference, from St. Mary’s Cathedral, the day after the Walk for Life West Coast. Here’s some excerpts from Dexter’s story:
Blizzard Doesn’t Obscure Student’s Focus on Planned Parenthood
Missy Stone, National Field Director, Students for Life of America.
Modern media capabilities allow pro-lifers to get their messages straight out to the public, jumping past the restrictions of dominant pro-abortion writers and editors.
Such capabilities also helped Students for Life of America (studentsforlife.org) reach young people even though the east coast’s dominant blizzard shut down SFLA’s annual major conference scheduled to complement the March for Life in Washington, D.C.
Although about 2,000 registrants couldn’t attend the planned January 23 east coast conference, “many of them tuned in to the livestream” of SFLA’s west coast conference here the following day, January 24, the organization’s director of communications, Kristina Hernandez, told The Wanderer…
The companion San Francisco conference was the largest in its three-year history, with about 450 students attending, SFLA national field director Missy Stone told The Wanderer. They were from Arizona, California, Idaho, Oregon, New Mexico, Nevada, and Washington state, she said.
The west coast weather was only cloudy with some sun and a few sprinkles.
Hawkins, the SFLA president, told the audience that PP is scared at the results of people learning about its activities.
“We are actually living in a very historic time in the pro-life movement,” with PP coming under investigation, she said.
Referring to SFLA’s goal, Hawkins said, “If we are going to end abortion in our lifetime,” PP’s financial lifeline has to be cut off.
PP receives about a half-billion taxpayer dollars a year that it uses to help fight against the taxpayers who oppose its depravity.
“They’re the leader of the abortion industry,” Hawkins said. “. . . They are scared!. . . . They have no defense” against facts shown in the videos. . . “We have a moral obligation to stop this because they have our money” through tapping taxpayers while pushing forward with the agenda of dismembering and selling babies.
Earlier in her talk, Hawkins said people don’t like corporations that don’t tell the truth and make money off them — the profile of PP.
PP’s plan is to keep its customers coming back to it again and again, she said, and it doesn’t like competition from pro-life pregnancy centers.
Missy Stone, the national field director, told the audience that PP has strategically branded itself as the best in women’s health care.
However, the videos show that PP didn’t get women’s consent before selling baby body parts, and unethically changed abortion methods in order to do better harvesting, Stone said…”
Charming Walk for Life Video by Sandra Torres!
Wow! Our young people are so talented! Check out this great video by Sandra Torres, which also includes footage of the Students for Life of America Conference, held the day after the Walk For Life West Coast, at St. Mary’s Cathedral:
EWTN’s FULL Walk for Life West Coast Coverage Now Up!
Bless their hearts and check it out! EWTN’s full coverage of last Saturday’s Walk for Life West Coast is now online:
Thank you EWTN!
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