In Washington DC last week

Brigid and I were in Washington the 28th to the 30th, with a swing down into Virginia to see my brother Jim and his wife Maria. We were in DC for the March for Life, which was mainly virtual but there were still some good activities which we were happy to get to.

Thursday evening we were at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception for the annual Vigil, which we had never been to. Usually the Vigil is packed with several thousand mostly young people attending. But with the pandemic only about 90 people were allowed in the pews. So we were lucky to get in. however it was televised live on all the Catholic stations so presumably hundreds of thousands of people saw the Vigil.

The chief celebrant and homilist for the Mass part of the vigil was The Archbishop of Kansas City, Joseph Naumann. He gave an excellent homily, starting by telling a bit about his mother who died at the age of 97, this past September. In 1948 when she was three months pregnant with him, her husband was murdered. So he never met his father, and she brought up he and his older brother as a single mother. He went on to give a wonderful talk on the dignity of all life and the incoherence of Catholics who are OK with destroying life before birth.

The next day we started by attending Mass at the National Shrine of Saint John Paul II (unusual for me; Mass two days in a row and not on a Sunday…) which also had very restricted numbers. The Shrine is closed for the pandemic, except for the Chapel, which contained beautiful mosaics.

The building from outside –

Then a few other events which I may post about later – here is Brigid having a chat with Fr. Fidelis Moscinski, CFR.

And at the end of the day we caught up with the tail end of the March for Life leadership, who did march as planned. But not to the front of the Supreme Court – it and the Capitol were protected by high fences, barbed wire and heavy armed presence. So they were going around to the back.