Two weeks after the USCCB (United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops) launched its new Spanish-language
Facebook page to reach the U.S.’s 40% Hispanic Catholic population (half
of which is under 25), the country’s bishops have kick-started another
initiative with a slightly more spiritual edge but which also clearly
serves a political purpose given that the presidential elections are
less than two months away.
On Sunday 14 October all Catholics are invited to a great “pilgrimage for life and liberty” at one of the country’s most famous Marian shrines, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington (not far from the USCCB headquarters, but on the opposite side of the city in relation to Pennsylvania Avenue where the White House stands).
This joint initiative conceived by American bishops, is the fruit for the work carried out by the Committee for Religious Liberty, headed by Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore who will be leading the pilgrimage. The theme of his homily takes its inspiration not from the Gospel by from a phrase pronounced by Thomas Jefferson, one of the Founding Fathers of the Nation: “The god who gave us life gave us liberty.”
Aside from the obvious patriotic feeling incited by these words and their reference to two subjects which bishops have strongly criticised the Obama administration for in recent months (they claim Obama is not doing enough for the defence of life and harming religious freedom with his healthcare reform), the pilgrimage is intended as an occasion to celebrate the beginning of the Year of Faith alongside the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. It is also intended as an expression of gratitude for the imminent canonization of two nuns on 21 October.
The first native American, the Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha and Marianne Cope, a German nun from the Sisters of St. Francis congregation in Syracuse (New York) who is quite famous in the U.S. for helping Fr. Damien of Molokai, proclaimed a saint in 2009, during his mission in the leprosy colony on the island of Molokai in the Hawaiian archipelago (the nun was born in Germany in 1938 and emigrated with her family - whose surname was Koob - to the U.S., joining the Third Order Regular of St. Francis at a very young age).
Those taking part in the pilgrimage - which will begin with a solemn midday mass celebration broadcast live on Catholic television network EWTN - will recite the rosary as part of the first day of the Rosary Novena for Life and Liberty.
Here is an interesting fact: on 14 October, the U.S. received a telegram from Stockholm, announcing that the Nobel Peace Prize was to go to Rev. Martin Luther King. This is what drove “the firm and continuous defence of the principle of non-violence in the racial battle going on in his country.” In 1968 King had started organising the “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence”, but was assassinated on 4 April that same year.