By Peter D. Ferrigno, PGK
Director of Church Activities and Pro-Life

The 31^st annual March for Life in Washington, D. C. will be held on Thursday, January 22, 2004. The March begins at noon, just south of the White House and continues to the U. S. Capitol and then onward to the Supreme Court.  All Knights and their families are urged to participate in this March. Once again we have invited approximately 20 youths and their sponsors to stay with us for three or four nights to allow them to participate in this event.  They plan to arrive from Texas on Wednesday afternoon, January 21, and depart Saturday (or Sunday) morning, January 24 or 25.   Breakfasts will be available for them each morning prior to their departure for the day or when they return home.  Arrangements will be made so there will be no conflict with their presence in the building and our Social Meeting that Thursday, January 22.   There will be a Mass on Wednesday evening, January 21^st, at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Other scheduled Masses will be celebrated Thursday morning, prior to the March. More details, if available, will be reported during the January Business Meeting.

The Maryland State Council is asking for our continued support with the Father Michael J. McGivney Guild. Currently they are striving with the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome for Father McGivney’s canonization. Although there are more that 1.6 million members of our Order, as of October 2003, the total membership of the Guild was 74,471, with only 1718 members in the Maryland jurisdiction. The State Council is asking we sign up new members for the Guild. If anyone is interested, our Grand Knight or I can supply forms they sent, for you to fill out and forward to Supreme Council.

There is an Archdiocesan Pro-Life Prayer Team for our local Priests. You may request a calendar stating the name of a Cardinal, Bishop, Priest, Seminarian or even our Holy Father, for each day of the year 2004. You may then be able to offer some prayer(s) for those specified for each day. If interested, please contact me and I will get a form for you to fill out and submit to the Pro-Life Office, Archdiocese of Washington.

Recently, there was a U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops held at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill. This brought out a number of protestors stressing Canon Law 915, which states: “Those who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Communion.”  On some of their posters were requests for Cardinals and Bishops to “bravely refuse” certain Pro-Abortion individuals from receiving communion: Posters asking Theodore Cardinal McCarrick to refuse Holy Communion to Senator Teddy Kennedy; for Bishop Kenneth Angell to refuse Holy Communion to Senator Patrick Leahy and for Roger Cardinal Mahony to do the same to Ex-Governor Gray Davis.  These men profess to be Catholics and yet they promote the killing of babies under the odious excuse of “Women's Choice.”  As Knights of this Order, we should each ask ourselves, when it comes time to vote: “Am I not equally at fault in the killing of innocent children when I vote for a politician who supports abortion?”

God bless.