Rally and March for Life in Washington, DC (leaving from Long Branch)

Contact: Fr. John Butler
Cost: $15 per bus passenger (no fee will be charged to students, clergy, and religious)
Phone Number: 7322228080
Email: [email protected]
Details: PLEASE!! Attend the National March for LIFE (if at all possible) on January 19. YOUR Presence and YOUR Witness and YOUR Voice are Urgently Needed to Help Defend the Dignity of the Human Person and the Sanctity of Human Life and to Protect the Lives of UNBORN Babies. PLEASE!! Sign-Up for a Four-Parish Chartered Bus to Washington, D.C. on Friday, January 19. • Mass at 5:45 a.m. at St. Michael's Church in Long Branch; • Bus Departs at 6:30 a.m. from St. Michael's (bus passengers may park their cars for the entire day in the St. Michael's parking lot); YOUR Participation and YOUR Sacrifice Will Help to Save Unborn Babies’ Lives!!! The 2024 National Rally and March for Life will take place on Friday, January 19 in Washington, D.C. Four parishes (listed below) are pooling their resources and co-sponsoring a chartered bus to drive up to 57 individuals to Washington to participate in the Rally and March. Please remember that even though the Roe vs. Wade case was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 (in the Dobbs vs. Jackson decision) on the feast day of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist, the need to attend and to support the National March and Rally in Washington still continues. Why you might ask? Here is a brief summary of the reasons quoted from the March for Life website (See,  https://marchforlife.org/national-march-for-life/): "Even with the wonderful blessing of Roe v. Wade being overturned, which allows more freedom at the state level to enact pro-life laws, the necessary work to build a culture of life in the United States of America is not finished. Rather, it is now focused differently. Sadly, the number of abortions annually is still well over 900,000 each year, and that number is expected to decrease only by roughly 200,000 each year in a post-Roe America. Many national legislative battles still loom at the federal level in Congress, including even keeping in place longstanding Hyde protections, which limit federal government funding for abortion on annual appropriation bills. The Hyde Amendment has saved over 2 million lives and is arguably the most impactful pro-life policy in our nation’s history, but now Hyde cannot be taken for granted. Last, our most important work is changing hearts and minds. The goal of the national March for Life is to not only change laws at the state and federal level, but to change the culture to ultimately make abortion unthinkable." The four parishes participating in this co-sponsored bus are: St. Michael's Church (Long Branch), Christ the King Parish (Long Branch), Our Lady of Hope Parish (West Long Branch and Deal), and St. Luke's Church (Toms River). Seats on this bus WILL be available for passengers who are not registered parishioners of those four parishes. Parishioners who ARE members of those four named parishioners will be given priority when reserving their seats on the bus. To reserve a bus seat and for further information, please contact the "Bus Captain" Kathryn Perez via phone at 732-581-9735 or via email at [email protected]. The bus will depart at 6:30 a.m. PROMPTLY from St. Michael's Church following a 5:45 a.m. Mass at St. Michael's for the bus passengers and for all others who would like to attend that Mass. The bus will also pick-up passengers at 7:00 a.m. PROMPTLY at the Park & Ride parking lot at the Garden State Parkway's Exit 98. The bus will return to those two locations Friday night at approximately 9:00 p.m. at the Parkway's Exit 98 Park & Ride lot and approximately 9:30 at the St. Michael's church parking lot. The fee for the bus is $15 per passenger, which will be collected on the bus (NO bus fee will be charged to students, clergy, and religious). The day's itinerary includes attending a post-March afternoon reception hosted by N.J. Congressman Chris Smith at his conference room in the House's Cannon Office Building. Additional information may be found at the St. Michael's Church parish website at www.stmichaelnj.com.