News Post
Students Participate in 53rd Annual March for Life
Thirty St. Joseph’s Academy students traveled to Washington, D.C., for the annual March for Life.
This year’s march, held on January 23, was the 53rd annual event and the fourth since Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court. The theme for this year’s march, Life is a Gift, invited participants to be swept up into a movement that transcends politics and celebrates the joy, beauty and goodness of life.
The SJA students departed Baton Rouge on January 19, stopping at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, Alabama, and at the motherhouse of the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia in Nashville, Tennessee. They arrived at Camp Letts, a resident YMCA camp in Maryland, on January 20.
Trip highlights included daily mass, MP3, guest speakers and tours of historic and religious sites, including the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, Arlington National Cemetery, the Holocaust Museum, Museum of the Bible, Smithsonian Museums, the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center and monuments throughout the city.
The travelers were accompanied by Theology teachers Sheri Klemm and Francesco Pinque and Jenn Cavalier, mother of Stickers for Life Club President Hayley Cavalier.
Klemm said this year’s March for Life, her ninth, included the largest group of SJA students to date. Some participants, she said, have participated in two or three previous marches. “We talk about how this experience is a pilgrimage, that we are not tourists but pilgrims on a mission to witness the dignity of every human life, from womb to tomb,” she said. “This opportunity truly is a highlight of my year as I get to witness more than 400 high school students from our diocese come together to stand courageously in support of a culture of life, explore different aspects of our Catholic faith and learn more about their true vocations.”