Diocese prepares for March for Life

Diocese to live stream Mass in Co-Cathedral on eve of March for Life; Bishop O’Connell urges Catholics to defend ‘most fundamental human right’

The diocesan family will gather Jan. 18 in St. Robert Bellarmine Co-Cathedral, Freehold, for a special Preparatory Mass to pray for a renewed respect and protection for life at all its stages. Celebrated by Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., and concelebrated by Msgr. Sam Sirianni, Co-Cathedral rector, the 7 p.m. Mass is offered particularly for those who will travel to Washington D.C. the next morning to take part in the annual March for Life, and many others who wish to show their spiritual support.

The Diocese of Trenton will live stream the Mass for anyone who cannot attend but who want to join in asking God’s blessings on this annual witness to the sanctity of life. The video stream can be viewed, beginning at 7 p.m., at DioceseofTrenton.org/March-For-Life.

More than a thousand representatives of the Diocese’s parishes and schools will leave by bus from some 20 destinations across Burlington, Mercer, Monmouth and Ocean Counties early Jan. 19, to mark the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion in the United States. Check into bus availability and departure locations here.

In a Jan. 11 message to mark the anniversary, and to proclaim the irrefutable sacredness of every human life, Bishop O’Connell recalled the words of Pope Benedict XVI, who wrote, “The fundamental human right, the presupposition of every other right, is the right to life itself. This is true of life from the moment of conception until its natural end. Abortion, consequently, cannot be a human right -- it is the very opposite. It is a deep wound in society.” 
  
The Bishop exhorted, “We must not forget that the human right to life is not a religious right . . . It is a human right without which no other human rights can be, no other human rights can exist, no other human rights can prevail. We who are religious then, who are people of faith, who believe in God who created us embrace that human right to life in the deepest parts of our very being because we are human and because of our faith.”

Read the full text of Bishop's message here, or listen to a podcast on The Most Fundamental Right of All.

For more information on post-March events scheduled in Trenton, including the Mass for Life to be celebrated by Bishop O’Connell Jan. 22 in St. Mary of the Assumption Cathedral, click here.