Hundreds of students from Catholic schools across Northwest Indiana and Chicago’s South Suburbs gathered at Franciscan Health Dyer Wednesday morning for the annual Respect Life Celebration.
The annual event, co-hosted by Franciscan Health and the Diocese of Gary during Respect Life Month, aims to celebrate all life with an emphasis on individual life, with the goal of drawing attention to the lives lost to abortion.
The Most Rev. Robert McClory, bishop of the Diocese of Gary, presided over the prayer service.
“Pope Francis reminds us that we live in a ‘throwaway’ world,” Bishop McClory said. “If something isn’t deemed valuable, we throw it away and this extends to human life. In his encyclical Fratelli Tutti (October 2020), Pope Francis asserts that in our society it seems that ‘some parts of our human family can be readily sacrificed for the sake of others considered worthy of a carefree existence.’ The pope makes the point that persons are not perceived as valuable, especially when they are poor and disabled, like the unborn and the elderly.”
The theme for this year’s Respect Life Month is “I Came So That They Might Have Life.”
“Being in radical solidarity with women who are pregnant or raising children in difficult circumstances means putting our love for them into action and putting their needs before our own,” said Sister Josetta Rose, OSF, director of mission services for Franciscan Health Dyer and Franciscan Health Munster. “Pope Francis reminds us that solidarity ‘refers to something more than a few sporadic acts of generosity. It presumes the creation of a new mindset,’ that requires us to walk alongside with vulnerable mothers in profound friendship, compassion, and support for both them and their preborn children.”
Sister Josetta Rose said programs such as Franciscan Health’s Prenatal Assistance Program, the national Walking with Moms in Need initiative, the Project Rachel Ministry and others are examples of radical solidarity in action.
Students in attendance placed crosses on the lawn of the hospital at 24 Joliet St., just east of the Indiana/Illinois border on U.S. 30 in Dyer, to represent lives lost to abortion.
The event included Catholic school students from Andrean High School in Merrillville, Bishop Noll Institute in Hammond, Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights, Ill., Marquette High School in Michigan City, Notre Dame Catholic School in Michigan City, Our Lady of Grace School in Highland, St. Casimir School in Hammond, St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Whiting, St. John the Evangelist School in St. John, St. Mary in Crown Point, St. Mary Catholic Community School in Griffith, St. Michael Catholic School in Schererville, St. Stanislaus Elementary School in East Chicago, St. Thomas More School in Munster, Queen of All Saints Catholic School in Michigan City and the St. Francis Center at Franciscan Health Dyer.
This year marked the 31st anniversary of the first Respect Life Celebration.