WASHINGTON—More than 5,000 Catholic Americans gathered at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception last week for an annual vigil Mass ahead of last Friday’s March for Life in the nation’s capital.
Featuring families, students, and pilgrim groups of all ages, the congregation spread out over two levels, numerous chapels, and a crypt, prefacing the Mass with prayer, receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and following it with a holy hour and rosary amid adoration of the Eucharist.
The reverent orchestra of prayer, incense, vestments, and music filled a 20th-century church of a scale and opulence to rival any European cathedral. It appeared to exemplify the home and guidance that religion offers to America’s pro-life movement as it strives to turn the national culture away from abortion.
“As Pope Saint John Paul the Second understood so clearly, culture is more significant than politics; elections reflect the values of a culture,” Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City said in his homily during the vigil mass.
Naumann, a former chair of the U.S. bishops’ committee on pro-life activities, was a last-minute replacement for the current chair of the pro-life committee, Toledo’s Bishop Daniel Thomas.
Naumann elaborated on Thomas’s notes and spent significant time talking about the relationship Christians have with politics.
“Elections are important. They have consequences,” he said, reflecting on the recent political wins and losses felt by the pro-life movement.
Naumann also remarked that even though the Roe v. Wade decision—a seminal motivation behind the March for Life—had finally been struck down, voters in several states, including his own, had subsequently found ways to protect abortion access at the state level.
The following day, those thousands of Catholics joined tens of thousands of other faithful—Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant Christian, and Jewish—in a prayerful civic procession from the National Mall, past the Capitol, and up to the Supreme Court to demand that their secular government recognize and defend pre-born human life.
Posters bearing secular demands such as “Defund Planned Parenthood” and “Don’t Tread On Me” were held aloft alongside bible verses; images of Jesus and his mother, Mary; and the banners of Christian colleges and high schools from across the country.
There were morning prayer services for various denominations before the march, such as the 30th Annual National Prayer Service held at the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Constitution Hall by Priests for Life.
The non-denominational service, led by Priests for Life Director Frank Pavone, touched on several of the political victories seen across the country since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022.
At the prayer service, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, and Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen were honored for their work in making their states more pro-life. The congregation lifted up prayers for all 50 U.S. states individually.
Pavone emphasized the need to invoke and protect certain freedoms that are the tools of the pro-life movement.
“We need, protected, the right to go out there on the street today, to have this march in the first place,” he said. “The freedom of assembly, the freedom of speech, the freedom to make known our grievances against the government and to express them, knowing that we will not be censored, canceled, or prosecuted.
“We need that, and the person who gives it to us and the people who defend it for us—they don’t have to say a word about abortion.”
Later that day, Naumann spoke at the pre-march rally on the National Mall, alongside secular leaders such as DeSantis, who signed pro-life legislation and worked to defeat his state’s pro-abortion amendment in November 2024, and Vice President JD Vance. Trump also addressed the crowd in a video message.
‘Pilgrims of Hope’
At the vigil Mass on Jan. 23, the archbishop told his congregation that amidst the momentary joy of political victories, Christians’ ultimate source of hope is not based on political leaders, athletes, or cultural celebrities but on their faith.“Friendship and communion with Jesus have given his disciples hope for 2,000 years, during times of adversity, illness, deaths of loved ones, persecutions, imprisonments, even more,” he said.
“When we march tomorrow, we march as pilgrims of hope.”
He said that the losses experienced by the movement were understandably due to young people, who have grown up in a time when not only has abortion been legal, but broader societal issues have fostered a “culture of death.”
“They’ve grown up in a culture where they’ve seen so much infidelity in love,” he said. ”They’ve grown up in a culture where we, as my generation, have failed to protect them from the pornography industry that targets children and young people to addict them to pornography—to this phony, this false kind of love.”
The archbishop told the young people attending the Mass that they were called to be witnesses to their peers. To transform the culture, he said, they should surround women facing difficult pregnancies with a community of life and support.
Pavone echoed that sentiment, adding that that all young people alive today, born after Roe v. Wade, are survivors of abortion. While their own parents may not have considered aborting them, they were conceived, carried, and born in a society that did not offer them protection.
“In speaking for the unborn, you are speaking up also for yourselves,” he told The Epoch Times after his prayer service. ”If you were not protected in the womb, you’re speaking for yourselves.”
That awareness of being a survivor, he said, should fuel people to speak up.
Intrinsically Human
But is that call to speak up—and the March for Life as a whole—intrinsically religious?Father John Jaddou, Parochial Vicar at St. George Chaldean Catholic Church near Detroit, Michigan, said no.
“It is an intrinsically human movement,” he told The Epoch Times before the march. ”It’s about truth.”
He said there has been a disintegration of truth and how truth is viewed in our culture. That disintegration has caused the position that “murder should be illegal” to face questions such as “What is life?” and “When does life happen?”
“We [have] just got to get back to the truth,” he said. “It’s not about religion; it’s about truth.”
While being Christian is not necessarily a prerequisite to being pro-life, it is clear that many participants credit their endurance in the pro-life movement to their faith.
“We march because we already have the victory,” Pavone said during his morning prayer service. ”We march to celebrate it, to proclaim it, to serve it, and to apply it to every segment of our society today.
“We march because we are disciples of the one who has conquered sin, abolished death, risen from the grave and is with us, speaks through us, works through us, and gives success to the work of our hands in this great movement for life.”
