Auspice Maria: March for Life 2025

I participated in the 2025 March for Life liturgies, rally, and march event on Thursday and Friday of last week. Maine also had a bus delegation that traveled to Washington, D.C., on Thursday. On Thursday evening, at the Vigil for Life opening Mass held at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the Catholic News Agency reported over 5,000 attendees at the Mass. On Friday, there are no accurate estimates for the number of people who attended the rally and March for Life. I do know that at one point, when I was on an incline, I looked back and saw a sea of people behind me stretching for about one-quarter of a mile.  Seeing the varied ages and cultures represented among the masses was so impressive. Equally impressive was the perseverance of our Maine March for Lifers. Our group included students, a seminarian, priests, parishioners, a college professor, and our diocesan pro-life liaison who organized the trip.  I am very grateful for the Maine presence in March.

The March Rally, which took place at the Ellipse at noon on Friday, featured some well-known elected officials. Vice President JD Vance, Governor DeSantis (FL), Speaker Johnson (LA), and Senate Majority Leader Thune (SD), among others. There were religious leaders representing the Orthodox Faith and the Lutheran Church of Missouri. The keynote speaker was Bethany Hamilton. Ms. Hamilton is a well-known pro-life motivational speaker famous for surviving a shark attack while surfing.  She resumed her surfing career without succumbing to the limitations of having one arm. She spoke of her experience of discovering she was pregnant for the first time. She was overcome with fear, thinking that she was not prepared to have a baby. Her honest testimony, I am sure, connected with many women in the crowd who have experienced similar feelings of fear at the news of their pregnancy. She went on to say that she worked through her fear, and now, being the mother of four, she considers her children the greatest joy of her life.

In addition to the speakers, another interesting dimension of the rally was the plethora of pro-life signs. Creative, demonstrative, and expressive, these signs showed their support for life in their own unique way. There was one sign that some high-school-age boys were holding in front of me. The sign said, “Make More Babies.”  When I first saw the sign, I smiled to myself thinking about its uniqueness among the others. “Make More Babies” is a pronatalist campaign sponsored by the pro-life diaper company EveryLife. The campaign is directed at fostering a culture that welcomes more children. There are concerns over diminishing birthrates, especially in places like Japan and Italy. While certain areas of the world, like sub-Saharan Africa, are still experiencing robust birthrates, many developed countries are showing decline and are projecting further decline. This does not bode well for the future. Lower birthrates are the result of varied causes. 

In his speech to rally participants, Vice President Vance spoke of how it is important to make America again a country that welcomes babies by helping families. He said that he wants more babies in our country. He noted how often women face fear and questions when finding that they are pregnant. He said that it is the task of our government to make it easier for families to welcome babies. Maybe our new administration can help make having a baby and raising children more economically feasible. Maybe making our nation safer or helping to improve education, its quality, and accessibility would be helpful in convincing spouses that having babies is not only possible but desirable. We can live in hope.

Finally, seeing the numbers of children and youth at the events was edifying and encouraging. It really is a “self-evident” truth that life is a basic human right. Seeing the numbers of youth and young adults in attendance at the different events reinforces that for me. What happens along the way in life? Where does the self-evidence that all life is sacred and deserving protection from the moment of conception to natural death get lost? It’s a good question. St. John Paul II, in his encyclical, “The Gospel of Life,” talks about the “culture of death” that does not welcome all human life from the womb to its natural end. In number 20, St. JP II writes, “This view of freedom [based on one’s personal opinion, whims, and self-interests] leads to a serious distortion of life in society. If the promotion of the self is understood in terms of absolute autonomy, people inevitably reach the point of rejecting one another. Everyone else is considered an enemy from whom one has to defend oneself. Thus, society becomes a mass of individuals placed side by side, but without any mutual bonds. Each one wishes to assert himself independently of the other and in fact intends to make his own interests prevail.” 

This quote is very interesting among the enormous amount of thought-provoking writing in “The Gospel of Life.” St. JPII says that the more independent and selfish we become, the more disconnected we become. The more disconnected we become, the more we seek to protect ourselves. The more isolated we are from others, the easier it is not to value the lives of others or to see them as a threat to mine. Thus, a baby in the womb for a mom who is disconnected is a threat, inconvenience, problem, and burden. The mom, disconnected from the father of the child, disconnected from family and authentic friends, disconnected from the truth of her own identity as good and beautiful, out of fear or selfish self-preservation, may seek to abort her unborn child. A possible solution to remaking our culture and country into a more pro-life culture and country is connection. Human solidarity is truly seeing that I need others. Human solidarity is believing you are a gift, not a rival to my happiness. Maybe that is why Jesus gave one new commandment: “Love one another.” 

-Bishop James Ruggieri