April 26, 2004

We took a busload of about 35 from our area, and got there Friday night. We stayed at the hotel in Arlington with Randall Terry's Operation Witness group.

Saturday morning, we peacefully protested at the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in DC, then attended talks by Randal Terry that afternoon at the hotel.

At 5:00pm, Fr. John Nesbella (from my diocese, mentioned here, http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36109), who organized our bus, said mass in our hotel ballroom (beautiful, reverent mass!!!), with about 75 attending. Then we set up an Adoration Chapel in a hotel room we paid for just for this purpose. We had exposition from 7:00pm til midnite, with approx 60 attending throughout those hours. There were generally 6 to 9 individuals in our hotel room Chapel at any given time, in half hour shifts, praying for the success of Sunday's Operation Witness. It was like a Eucharistic retreat. Father thought of everything...mass kit, monstrance, prayer books for adoration, bullhorn, crucifix, incense, Holy water, everything.

On Sunday, we arrived at Freedom Plaza with Randall Terry's group, Operation Witness. Our busload then moved to about 50 feet from the start of the March of Death, across the street from the White House museum/tour center on Pennsylvania Ave.

Fr. Nesbella brought a 3 1/2 foot crucifix, and a bullhorn, and I stood behind him with a 4 x 8 foot sign of an 8 week old baby in utero, and we prayed the Rosary and Litany of Life and Divine Mercy chaplet repeatedly for the duration of the march.

Many media photographers shot pictures of Fr. Nesbella with his crucifix and bullhorn, but I haven't found any online. I was interviewed by the BBC World Service for their English radio news edition.

I've never seen such a mass of angry and hateful freaks and kooks and perverts in my life. As they passed, they were drawn towards Fr. Nesbella and the crucifix. Several girls stopped and removed their tops in front of our Rosary group, with only small pro-abort stickers as "pasties", and gay couples paused in front of us to kiss and grope each other. Others hissed and screamed and spit. Father John simply held forward his hand and made the sign of the cross over them or towards them, at which almost all of them moved on.

The DC police in our area were all professional and friendly with us, with one of them even comforting a 13 year old girl from our group holding her own handmade sign, when several lesbians screamed at her they wished her mother had aborted her and she broke into tears. Several pro-aborts complained to the police about our presence and signs, but Randall Terry had reserved the sidewalks on both sides of Pennsylvania Ave for our protest, so we were there with full rights. Apparently the pro-aborts hadn't thought of this, and it really enraged them.

What a weekend.

Brian

Brian J. Kopp, DPM, is vice president of the Catholic Family Association of America, officer of the board of the Polycarp Research Institute, a member of the Catholic Media Coalition, and freelance Catholic writer.