40

First, a reminder that on this 40th anniversary of the US Supreme Court decision that gave our nation abortion on demand, Catholics are to observe a day of penance and prayer: penance in reparation for the violations of human dignity caused by abortion (55 million abortions; how many million post-abortive women and fathers?), and prayer for the legal protection of every human life. This is (significantly enough) the only communal day of penance we American Catholics are asked to take on outside of Lent.

CBS crowd shot of 2012 March for Life
(Read the story about their reluctance to post the images.)

This year's March for Life is not being held today; with the public inauguration festivities just yesterday, Washington DC and its hotels could not accommodate the additional tens (more likely hundreds*) of thousands coming in. So many of the participants are leaving for Washington today or tomorrow, to join in Thursday night's Vigil and the Friday March (appropriately enough, the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul).

And since the March for Life is traditionally the most underreported mass event of the year, our friend Ashley Collins at Peter and Paul ministries is rolling out a social-media way to get the news out from the pro-life marchers themselves. He's opening up a new Tumblr blog and welcoming submissions from the ground (send to: http://marchforlife2013.tumblr.com/submit), but also gives detailed instructions for creating a 2013 March Tumblr that a group can contribute to. And there's always Twitter. Wouldn't it be great to see

Sr Helena is involved with a documentary on the past forty years; the crew will be in DC to get final footage, but you can watch the trailer here:



*A little over a week ago, there was a massive march in Paris in which the citizens of France tried to make their voices heard on an unpopular issue. The most modest crowd estimate available was 350,000 (other estimates were upward of 1 million). The Boston Globe's headline that day? "Thousands march..."