Organizers of a youth rally and pro-life Mass in Washington, D.C. say a growing U.S. movement in defense of the unborn will draw tens of thousands of young people to the events on Jan. 23.
Christa Lopiccolo, executive director of life issues for the D.C. archdiocese, attributed the expected high turnout to a “growing enthusiasm and dedication” to life among teens and young adults....
...The Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. will hold its annual youth rally and Mass on the morning of Jan. 23, before the march down Constitution Avenue.
To accommodate the large crowd, both the Verizon Center and the D.C. Armory [where we will be!] will be used for the events. The combined venues hold 28,000 people [which is barely a scratch on the total number of people who attend the March], and tickets for both locations have run out. [Praise God we were able to get tickets this year!]
Lopiccolo said that there were many others who had wanted to attend but were unable to get tickets due to high demand.
Starting last year, organizers added five additional sites to accommodate the overflow of people wishing to attend because “there simply isn’t an indoor facility large enough to support the crowds.”
Of those in attendance, between 80 and 90 percent are expected to be young people.
The number of teens and young adults at the march are “remarkably evident,” Lopiccolo said, noting that “today’s youth have grown up with sonograms and other technologies that shed light on the wonder of human development.”
Because of this, they are rejecting the idea that a baby in the womb is a mere “blob of tissue,” she said. [I think there is more to it than the technological advancement, but I certainly agree that that is a part of it.] Young people are also “very aware that many of their generation are missing” due to almost 40 years of legalized abortion in America.Read the whole article here.
CCM has a total of 24 people attending the March for Life this year. Since we have been taking a CCM group to the March for Life, this is the first year we were able to get tickets to the Archdiocesan Youth Rally & Mass for Life, which is quite exciting. When there are hundreds of thousands of Catholics coming to one place and they only have room for 28,000, it is really difficult to get tickets! Here is a little video put together by the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. from last year's rally at the Verizon Center (Two notes: The portion of video when you see and hear Archbishop Pietro Sambi, God rest his soul, reading from the lectern is a letter written to the youth from Pope Benedict XVI which he sends every year; secondly the music in the background of the video is the Ike Ndolo Band who will be performing at the DC Armory rally this year which is where we will be):
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