Life Chain - Did You Participate

  • Thread starter Thread starter DadOf11
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
D

DadOf11

Guest
Who participated in today’s LifeChain?

Where (city) was it?

Our’s was in Canton Ohio - with about the same number of participants as last year!!!

Thankfully - I think we had far fewer middle finger salutes than in years past 🙂 !!!
 
we used to participate in Akron or Canton every year, how many do you estimate turned out?

we sent home invites to Life Chain in neighboring parish with all CCD families and in bulletin. 5 families from our parish turned up, fewer than 100 people overall. It is just not big here because the pro-life leadership does a poor job organizing and publicizing such things.
 
We don’t send home too many letters - just word of mouth and an announcement in the bulletin for the few weeks preceeding. Our parish typically gets about 50 people to attend - and we may be the largest turnout per parish - but there are perhaps 50 or so churches, catholic and protestant that participate overall. I’d say that today there were probably close to 200 covering the intersection by the mall. It has been going down slightly over the past few years - but nothing too bad. Unfortunately, participation hasn’t been growing either!!! They made a push to be better organized this year - but not until about a month ago. Hopefully they will start just a bit earlier next year!!!
 
Hubby and I took the three kids to Life Chain today. It was DH’s first time so I had to warn him about the people who drive by and do not like our signs and let us know in their various ways. We had the usual 10 people from our parish, it’s really a terrible showing considering the size of our parish. There was actually a priest in a black cassock today which was great as we have not had priests or the Bishop out for the last few years.
 
I took 3 of our kids to one of the LifeChains in Metro Detroit. It was our two year old’s naptime, so DW stayed home.

We had a lot of honk support and I only saw one negative response. That was (for the sake of the kids) thankfully a ‘thumbs down’ and not a finger salute.

Some yuppie style lady in a BMW.

We prayed for her.
 
Yes - I stood with 3 of my children and “wore” the baby in a sling. There was a large group of us from my parish, one of our Priests and our Deacon.

Mostly we got favorable honks & 👍 … but a few people called us names and flipped us off.
 
Ours is Oct 29 and we plan to be there with our homemade signs and our “God Bless You” ready when the middle finger salute is presented. 😃
This is our first year and I am nervous. We are the only ones from our parish, or for that matter, any parish in our area that we know of.

City: Clinton MS
 
puzzleannie said:
we used to participate in Akron or Canton every year, how many do you estimate turned out?

we sent home invites to Life Chain in neighboring parish with all CCD families and in bulletin. 5 families from our parish turned up, fewer than 100 people overall. It is just not big here because the pro-life leadership does a poor job organizing and publicizing such things.
Click to expand...
Hi Puzzleannie,

If you’re interested, I can put you in touch with the lady that was in charge of organizing ours. This was our second year for doing it in front of our suburban parish. We even got a huge non-demoninational church several miles down the road to participate as well (at their own highly-visible corner). Our parish also made it a requirement for the confirmation students, so we had hoards of teens out there as well! (This was key!) Maybe your local parishes could do something similar.

I’d be happy to pass on our flyers, bulletin announcements, invitations to other churches, etc. that we used.

God bless!
Debbie
 
we supposedly have a pro-life organization in the diocese which is responsible for coordinating and publicizing these things, but they are not doing much of a job, as they seem to be disorganized themselves. parishes are left on their own to observe right to life Sunday as they wish, but only a handful of parishes have done anything, and what is done is usually by a small lay group within the parish–Knights, Catholic daughters, youth group etc. Pathetic. the people here can organize in a heartbeat for a political candidate rally, BBQ, or a more glamorous social justice issue, but there is no concerted push from the priests on this critical problem. We had a dynamite sermon from our pastor, which thankfully is available to the whole diocese since our 5pm Mass is televised, but in most parishes the topic is ignored or left to a fringe lay group, not part of the parish mission.
 
Yesterday, the sun finally did come out after a week of cold, dark and rainy weather. Nevertheless, I have never seen so few people at our corner. Fortunately, two parish priests gave witness. My spirits were lifted because a very shy cousin made his first LifeChain yesterday. Many drivers honked horns and gave the thumbs up. The only incident was with a very elderly couple who pulled their car to a stop at the curb and the driver angrily yelled out, through his wife’s passenger-side window, “How do you know? Did you have one?” My sign read, “Abortion Hurts Women” in bold red letters.

He didn’t wait for a reply, perhaps because he had made an illegal stop on a busy main street. 😃 Obviously someone with a very disturbed conscience and impaired judgement.
 
puzzleannie said:
the people here can organize in a heartbeat for a political candidate rally, BBQ, or a more glamorous social justice issue…
Click to expand...
That is so true. Since I’ve been involved with this ministry at our parish, I’ve realized it is not the “popular” place to be. It’s not fun or glamorous. In fact, you get to have people yell at you!

What I was wondering if *you *might be interested in getting a LifeChain together at your parish for next year? We didn’t have any archdiocesan help (although we do have a great pro-life office at our archdiocese!). It was just a few of us, spearheaded by two ladies. You, Puzzleannie, can make it happen!

Like I said in my previous post, I’d be happy to hook you up with the lady that helped put it all together, and provide any materials we can!

Oops, forgive my zealousness! (but let me know if you’re interested!)

God bless,
Debbie
 
Rosalinda said:
The only incident was with a very elderly couple who pulled their car to a stop at the curb and the driver angrily yelled out, through his wife’s passenger-side window, “How do you know? Did you have one?” My sign read, “Abortion Hurts Women” in bold red letters.

.
Click to expand...
That wouldn’t have worked with where we were at. The lady standing next to us had the same sign, with a homemade attachement that said " I regret mine"

We thanked her for being here with us.
 
Rosalinda said:
The only incident was with a very elderly couple who pulled their car to a stop at the curb and the driver angrily yelled out, through his wife’s passenger-side window, “How do you know? Did you have one?” My sign read, “Abortion Hurts Women” in bold red letters.
.
Click to expand...
I was surprised at an elderly couple who slowed down and shook their heads at us as if they were disgusted. Not long after that, a car load of young men with the music blaring drove by and beeped giving us the thumbs up. Not what you would typically expect from either age group!
 
The man standing next to me was flipped off by some “grandmotherly” type that was driving by. HA!

Debbie
 
I showed up for one but the lady organizing it said the police told her she needed a permit. We just remained on the church parking lot and prayed.
 
Yes. In Lincoln Nebraska. Lots of honks. Not sure if there were any bad gestures, but no reporter like there was last year.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top