Linking Up In DBQ For Life

The picture above is just a small part of the over 250 people who took part Sunday afternoon in the Life Chain at DBQ. The chain began at the corner of Bluff St & Dodge St (Highway 20) & extended almost 9/10 of a mile West along Dodge. As you can see the weather was perfect. The sun was shining bright. & the temperature was in the mid 50s(F).

The event ran from 2 to 3 pm. But it actually started well before 2 pm as people gathered to sign in & get their signs. By 2 pm most of us were in place. The ages ranged from young children in strollers to folks in their 80s.

Fr. Parker (St. Mary's E DBQ) was there with his bullhorn to lead us in all 20 mysteries of the Rosary. He was occassionally spelled by Deacons Tony Keppler & Doug Kremer. Given the size of the group not everyone was able to pray along with fr. Parker. But up & down the chain others prayed the Rosary or (for those who weren't Catholic) other prayers.

The location where our chain was held is near the junctions of US Highway 20 (Dodge) with Iowa Highway 3 & US Highways 52, 61 & 151. We were just west of where 20 goes over the Julein Dubuque Bridge to Illinois. The area has a sidewalk & plenty of grassy area behind it that is unused. That makes it 1 of the best areas to be seen by a wide number of people, local & out of town, as they go buy. The reaction of most drivers was very positive. Many gave us the thumbs up sign. & a lot of people honked their horns & waved. Yes there were a few negative reactions. I saw 4 "1 finger salutes" myself. It was also interesting to see a few drivers looking uncomfortable & changing lanes only because we were there. (Yes, it was possible to tell in some cases just by the look on the person's face.) But as I said, overall the response was very positive.

What effect it had will probably never be fully known this side of eternity. But you can be sure that even for those who were not happy to see us, God planted some seeds that may bear fruit down the road.

See also: Life Chain connects believers (TH coverage of DBQ event)

TH Video interview of DCRTL's Steve Brody here

MILLIONS SEE PRO-WOMAN, PRO-LIFE MESSAGE ON ABORTION AT 2010 LIFECHAIN EVENT

PS: The DBQ Archdiocesan paper was there as well but the next issue won't be out until the end of the week.

PPS: Yes I am in the picture. I'll give you 2 clues. I wore a purple sweatshirt & a blue hat w/ a flag of Italia on it.

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Added 11 Oct 2010 @ 3:43 am Here is the link to the Witness article: http://www.arch.pvt.k12.ia.us/Witness/PDFs/Lifechain.pdf

You will notice the article was buried on page 9 of the paper. Bluntly, even though there were plenty of pictures, the rest of the coverage by the Witness was pretty poor. I think the TH coverage was much better. A pretty sad thing to say about what is supposed to be a Catholic newspaper. & no I am not just saying this because the Witness didn't use the picture of me that was taken. I am saying this because while you would expect the TH to put it on page 3 like they did, the Witness should have put an article about it on page 1 with the pictures inside. Instead they felt an article about a sinkhole at Church was more newsworthy. Yes a sinkhole was more important than people "witness"ing (pun intended) to a basic tenet of the Catholic faith. (Note: At least the other front page article on Catholic Charities can be justified.)