Benedictine College Students Ready to Lead March for Life

Ravens Will March

By Kathryn Brown | Junior Kathryn Brown is a Gregorian Fellow at Benedictine College and is the March for Life coordinator for Ravens Respect Life. Her work secured Benedictine College as the leaders of the 2014 March for Life in Washington, D.C.

Benedictine College is taking eight buses, 434 people, to the March For Life this year, breaking last year’s record of seven buses and making this the largest student trip in the history of the College. On Jan. 22, 58 students and 2 monks from our school will lead the march, carrying the “March for Life” banner in front of over half a million people who will gather from across the nation for the biggest pro-life event in the world.

On top of that, the World Apostolate of Fatima has asked us to carry at the March a statue of Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, blessed by Pope Francis, as the start of the statue’s tour of the United States.

This is all very exciting, but one of the most inspiring aspects of the whole trip is what it says about our student body. Our 386 Benedictine College students are missing three days of class, sitting on a 48-hour round-trip bus ride, and enduring the winter weather to stand up for something they deeply believe in: the sacredness of our God given gift of life.  They are joined by monks from St. Benedict’s Abbey, faculty, administrators, alumni, and students from three other colleges in the area. When it comes to their faith, Ravens are certainly willing to take action and sacrifice themselves for their beliefs.

Benedictine College’s participation in the March For Life has been student organized since the Knights of Columbus took a van to D.C. in January 1985. Once the College’s student pro-life organization, Ravens Respect Life, was founded in 1989, it took over organizing the trip and does so to this day.

The students also work for the pro-life cause throughout the year; they pray every other week at an abortion clinic in all weathers, sidewalk counsel, visit nursing homes, help struggling pregnant mothers in the Atchison community, and much more. For decades Benedictine students have been sacrificing their time, energy, and resources, giving of themselves because of the simple truth that our lives are precious gifts from God and as children of God every one of us deserves to live in dignity from conception to natural death. We travel to D.C. every year to witness nationally to this truth, to remember those whose lives have been taken unjustly, and to stand in hopeful solidarity with our fellow pro-lifers. We have pledged to not stop fighting until the battle is won.

Will you join us?

We will see you in D.C. in two weeks.