Yesterday, I went to the HHS Mandate protest outside the offices of the Department of Health and Human Services here in D.C. It was a great experience: upbeat, generally respectful of those on the other side, prayerful, and resolute.
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| The scene on my approach to the rally. There were certainly a lot of women in this alleged “War on Women” |
I was impressed by the turnout, given how little I’d heard this advertised. I was running late, and had to catch a cab to make it to the Rally, and the cab driver hadn’t heard anything about it. He was thrilled when he learned about it (he was Ethiopian Orthodox, and gets the problems with forcing us to subsidize contraception), so he, like several other drivers, honked their support. This video helps capture both the crowd size, and the honking supporters:
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In the center of this picture is a very-pregnant woman carrying a sign that reads,
“Fertility is Not a Disease.” Amen! |
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This was the scene to my immediate right: an older woman,
a young woman on her smartphone (like me), and a monk. |
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Part of the Rally was shaded, part was not. The weather has been incredibly hot for March.
Also, the Rally started with everyone getting down on their knees in prayer… which was beautiful. |
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| Gotta love the Dominicans. There were a lot of people in clerics, which was great to see! |
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| I eventually moved to the shade. |
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| There were a lot of kids present, which was great. |
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| Another shot capturing the crowd. |
A snippet of Lila Rose’s speech:
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The woman in the center of this picture brought her four well-behaved kids with her.
The future goes to the fertile. |
For more picture of the various rallies in opposition to the HHS Mandate, check out LifeSiteNews. Katherine Jean Lopez has been collecting shots of Mandate-protesting women, too. And by the way, at 2 PM tomorrow, there’s a prayer vigil outside the Supreme Court regarding the Obamacare challenge.
I know one of the Dominicans in that photo!
Being a part of a Dominican parish on the west coast, I can’t help but think:
“Those are our guys!”
I see guys in the exact same outfits here meandering around our little Cathedral. Medieval 13th century fashion never goes out of style. (Remove the Rosary, modern underwear, tennis shoes, and perhaps modern smart phones that they’re undoubtedly carrying, and you have the day-to-day outfit of the bulk of the people of Middle Ages.)
I’ve been wondering recently:
Do you know of any of these sorts of marches that took place in the wake of “The Spirit of Vatican II”?
From the 70s to the 80 or so, when things got a little bit chaotic in the Church as they always seem to do after each Ecumenical Council for 50 years or so, were there marches for life in the same numbers that we see today?
It seems like in the last 5-15 years when things have begun to settle down, the Church has mobilized a lot more for those sorts of things.
Were people less likely to do these sorts of public marches when they’re own local Parishes went a little koo-koo, for lack of a better term? Were there marches for life that numbered in the tens of thousands back in the 70s?
Or maybe it’s just my conversion that has really opened my eyes only recently, and the Church has always done those sorts of things…
Rob,
Actually, the USCCB was about the only group around fighting the pro-life fight before Roe. The Right to Life movement owes a lot to the Catholic bishops, more than most pro-lifers know.
I.X.,
Joe