Florida Catholic | March For Life 2008

Many from Florida will ‘march for life’

Students from Miami will carry lead banner and be among hundreds of young people at annual pro-life event in Washington.

ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO | FLORIDA CATHOLIC MIAMI BUREAU EDITOR

Published: 01.18.08

Florida House on Capital Hill provides hospitality and other services for Florida residents while in Washington.

MIAMI | It’s not easy being pro-life on a secular college campus.

Nevertheless, 54 students from Florida State University and 14 from the University of Central Florida will be among the thousands of young people taking part in the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., Jan. 22.

In fact, the state of Florida will be well represented this year: Joining the college students from Tallahassee and Orlando will be a group of 100 high school students from the Archdiocese of Miami who have been selected to carry the lead banner in the march.

Nearly two dozen teenagers and college students from pro-life and parish youth groups in the Diocese of Venice will be taking part, along with a large group of people from the Diocese of Palm Beach and members of youth groups from the Diocese of St. Petersburg.

Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice will deliver the closing prayer at the march and Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando will meet up with the group from his diocese during the march.

“Definitely, we think we’re making a difference,” said FSU sophomore Bridget McCaffrey, who along with other members of the Catholic Student Union will board a bus Saturday night and in order to reach Washington Sunday morning.

On the day of the march, they will meet up and walk together with like-minded Catholic students from Rutgers, Boston and Northeastern universities.

“It brings together all the universities where the Brotherhood of Hope are present,” said McCaffrey, referring to the religious community that helps staff the campus ministry at FSU. The community’s members are dedicated to the evangelization of college students.

CAMPUSES HAVE PRO-LIFE VOICE

FSU’s Catholic students have been taking part in the March for Life for 10 years, McCaffrey said. Despite the secular nature of the campus, “We have so many people sign up that each year we have to turn some people away” to make room for first-timers.

“We are definitely the minority, but we’re speaking out more and we’re very present on our campus,” said UCF senior Jessie Cuadros, president of Students for Life, the only pro-life organization on campus.

“People are starting to wake up, praise God,” said Cuadros, noting that Students for Life had only three members her freshman year. Now it has a mailing list of 50, and about 15 members who are really active.

“So many girls will come up to us having no clue that that’s actually a baby. They had never seen a sonogram before. They just grew up hearing the word choice,” Cuadros said. Many will leave the Students for Life display table saying, “You gave me something to think about.”

Participating in the March for Life is a boost for her group, she added.

“It encourages you. It gives us hope to go. Here you can tend to feel alone, hopeless. It’s just so refreshing to go up to D.C. with thousands of other people, young people, fighting for the same thing.”

“For them to actually participate in a strong, Catholic witness to the sanctity and dignity of human life in all of its stages and conditions is something that I think is necessary. It’s also a grace-filled event,” said Father Dennis Cooney, pastor of St. Raphael Parish in Lehigh Acres, who is taking 15 members of his parish youth group to the march.

The members range in age from ninth-graders to college students. In addition to taking part in the Masses and retreats, the young people will spend an hour in prayer outside an abortion clinic in the Washington area.

“The most important thing is to strengthen our commitment to the sanctity and dignity of human life. Let’s face facts, there’s so much in our culture today that would diminish it,” Father Cooney said.

ABORTION NOT ONLY TOPIC

Indeed, abortion will not be the only topic covered by many of the groups in attendance. The Youth for Life group from St. William Parish in Naples, consisting of six young people ages 11 to 30, will visit injured soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital. They did it for the first time last year.

“It’s a very difficult thing, probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” said Cathy Velund-Stucko, founder and coordinator of the group, who has participated in the march every year since 1991.

Her group will bring gifts for the soldiers, everything from international phone cards, CD/DVDs and Beanie Babies to “prayers and love and sunshine from Florida.”

The lesson for the young people is that “all life is precious and you have to take care of those less fortunate than us,” Velund-Stucko said. “These young men are laying their lives on the line for our freedom. … They give us life.”

The students from Miami will tour the Holocaust Museum to drive home “a sense of the cruelty that is possible from one human being to another,” said Joan Crown, director of respect life for the archdiocese.

“We then ask the question: Is history repeating? We apply this to embryonic stem-cell research, euthanasia and abortion. The first euthanasia program was started in Nazi Germany and the Nazis did medical experimentation on live human beings.”

Students from Miami also have been selected to spend a morning lobbying congressmen on life issues.

“The students are encouraged to speak up for life and to ask the legislators to protect all human life, born and unborn, when they vote,” Crown said.

“Even if it’s not changing the law, yeah, it’s changing hearts,” UCF’s Cuadros said of the march. Once hearts are changed regarding abortion, she added, the law won’t matter, because “people won’t have abortions.”

“We see more and more young people each year who are getting involved and have a passion for this,” said FSU’s McCaffrey. “It’s obvious that the tide is changing. There is hope for change. Roe v. Wade can be overturned.”

Many from Florida will ‘march for life’

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