Our Peaceful Protest

In the midst of all of the protests (and rioting) in St. Louis right now (just follow the Twitter hashtag #stlverdict for a bit), it was refreshing and provided some good reflection to be able to be part of a peaceful prayer walk and “protest” yesterday. It was our annual Diocesan pro-life Mass and prayer walk to the abortion clinic in downtown Granite City.

After Mass, as we walked down Washington Avenue from the church to the clinic, I was reflecting on how nice it was to be able to exercise our rights to assemble, to march, to pray, and to protest – and to do it in such a way that everyone knew that we weren’t a threat, and that we wouldn’t misbehave or riot. In fact, we were lucky to have a police escort helping to keep the road clear for us as we walked the few short blocks.

I believe in peaceful assembly and protest, and was proud to be a part of how it’s done “well”.

It’s unfortunate that we have to pray and protest for a closure of a place that provides for the killing of innocent human life, but such is the nature of protesting against things that we believe are injustices in our society.

And we even made the local “rumor” mill on Facebook!:

For what it’s worth, my second oldest was one of the vimps for the Bishop, serving his very first Mass (vimping alongside his older brother)! And he got to continue to “vimp” for the whole walk to the clinic, carrying the Bishop’s crozier as we walked: