Footprints III_01

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Respect Life Week a Success!

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October / NovemberVolume III, Issue I

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Respect Life PrayerProf. Rice LectureCemetery of InnocentsDawn ParkotProf. Reimers LectureCommissioner FeaturePictures

CONTACTS:Right to LifeUniversity of NotreDame314 LaFortune HallNotre Dame, IN 46556

EMAIL :[email protected]

WEBSITE:www.nd.edu/~prolife

The Notre Dame school year isfull of awareness days, weeks, andmonths. Nary a day or a weekendgoes by that a student-run club doesnot try to promote some sort of causeor idea. But one of the campus’ mostpowerfulawarenessweeks washeld October1st – 7th byNotre DameRight to Life.

Known as“Respect LifeWeek”, theweek featuredguest lectures,prayer, symbolic visualizations,round-table discussions, and, yes,even a little Notre Dame football.

On Monday, October 1st, Right toLife “came to table” in South Quad’sColeman-Morse Building withmembers from Human Rights NDand the Peace Alliance to open adiscussion about life issues oncampus and throughout Americatoday.

On Tuesday, Right to Life joinedin solemn prayer: group memberstook part in three Rosaries, a DivineMercy Chaplet, and EucharisticAdoration.

Professor Charles E. Rice, of theLaw School, lectured at the Right toLife Club meeting on Wednesdayevening. A proponent of the natural

law philosophy, Professor Riceexpanded on most students’ limitedunderstanding of just why it is thatthey are pro-life. Club Mass at theLog Chapel followed the lecture andwas well attended, as usual.

More thanforty Right toLife helpedconstruct theCemetery ofthe InnocentsmonumentThursdaymorning – adisplay whichvisualizes thedaily loss of

life effected by abortions. DawnParkot also delivered an excellentlecture on Thursday evening.

Professor Adrian Reimers, aleading scholar on Pope John PaulII, lectured on the “Theology of theBody” Friday afternoon before morethan fifty students at the Center forSocial Concerns Building.

Respect Life Week concludedSaturday with the Club Game-watch– as club members watched the Irishrally to their first victory of theseason. Respect Life Sunday wascommemorated with pro-lifehomilies at Masses across campus,in each dorm and in the Basilica.

Read more about each of theseevents throughout this edition ofFootprints!

Respect Life Week Logo

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2007-2008

Officers

Mar y Liz [email protected]

Adam [email protected] President

Emily [email protected] President

Caitlyn [email protected]

Adam [email protected]

Victor [email protected]

Laura [email protected]

Philip [email protected]

Respect Life Week Prayer

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The newly created Respect Life Week Prayerserved as the foundation of the entire week forNotre Dame Right to Life. It was printed on theback of a prayer card and distributedthroughout campus. For members, it served as areminder that activism is nothing if it is withoutprayer.

Eternal God, Source of all life, you have cre-ated us in your own divine image. By the powerof the Holy Spirit, your Son became flesh andrevealed to us the sancitity of all human life.Grant, we implore you:Protect all unborn children;Guide and support all expectant parents;Comfort the aged, the sick, and the dying;Strengthen prisoners, especially those await-ing executuion, and their victims;And bring peace to our world, torn apart by war,terrorism, and countless other acts of violenceagainst life.May our Notre Dame community bear witnessto a seamless culture of life and so calue the dig-nity and worth of every human being, from con-ception until natural death.Grant this through Christ our Lord.

Amen

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Club Meeting: RTL packs Montgomery

Auditorium for Professor Rice lectureLaw Professor helps Right to Life members articulate “Why pro-life?”


For most members of NotreDame Right to Life, answeringthe question “Are you pro-life?” iseasy. Articulating why cansometimes be difficult. Althoughthe truth about most life issuesseems almost intrinsic,being able to say “why”is just as important to thepro-life movement.Professor EmeritusCharles Rice, of theNotre Dame LawSchool, addressed thisissue on Wednesday,October 3rd, at themonthly Right to Lifemeeting.

After a fewintroductory remarksfrom Club PresidentMar y Liz Walter ’08,Professor Rice took themicrophone to address apacked MontgomeryAuditorium. He began his lectureby posing the question to severalmembers of the audience: “Whyare you pro-life?” The bevy ofanswers was expected: becauseeveryone should have a right tolife, because abortion is murder,because it’s in the Constitution.

As Professor Rice expected,

By Adam HansmannClub Secretary

most people struggled to trulyarticulate their reasoning. He firstaddressed the Constitutional issue.To one student who derived his pro-life stance from the Constitution,Professor Rice replied: “OK – well,let’s amend the Constitution. We’llamend the Constitution to permit it.Problem solved. Do you still have a

right to life?” He also wonderedabout other countries that do notexplicitly or implicitly guarantee lifein their governing documents – is theright to life there nonexistent aswell?

His point, of course, was that aperson’s “right” to life was not aright in the public sense of the word

at all. Instead, a person’s “right” tolife is rooted in his inherent dignityas a human being created by God.Interestingly enough, ProfessorRice took it a step further. “Howdo you know there’s a God?” hewondered.

The answers became evenmore varied than before. Somecited St. Thomas Aquinas. Othersreferred to personal experience;still others offered theologicalinsights. But Professor Rice’sexplanation was rather simple:“Nothing can exist,” he said, “thatdoes not have a prior cause.” God,he concluded, is that which,through divine infinitude, broughtthe universe into effect. And withthe universe comes the naturalrights with which we are allendowed.

For Right to Life members,Professor Rice’s lecture was bothchallenging and insightful. Hechallenged the notion that beliefscan be held without sufficientreasoning to articulate them andgive them credibility. But he alsooffered very useful insights for thedozens in attendance. And affirmedwhat many of them knewintrinsically to be true: that thecause for which Right to Lifestands is rooted in more than apolicy preference.

Professor Emeritus Charles E. Ricelectures on the question: “Why pro-life?”

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‘Cemetery’ Visualizes Abortion’s EffectsRight to Life members raise crosses, memorial on Notre Dame’s South Quad

By Adam HansmannClub Secretary


Right to Life MemberBrendan Kiley ‘10

For most Notre Damestudents, Thursday morning is atime to catch up on some much-needed sleep. Classes begin at9:30 AM at the earliest, somoving under the covers before9:00 AM is almost unheard of.But for more than forty Right toLife members, Thursday, October4th was not a morning to sleep in.

Shunning their shut-eyeneeds, they arose before the crackof dawn to help construct one ofRespect Life Week’s most visualtraditions: the Cemetery of theInnocents. The concept is to raisea number of white crosses tomemorialize the number ofabortions that take place in a

particular amount of time. The ideais to show that abortion cannot beunderstood in purely “statistical”ways; every abortion represents onechild that will never receive the giftof life for which heor she wasintended. Thisyear, 600 crosseswere alignedacross the campus’South Quad – eachrepresenting theapproximately 600children that areaborted during thespan of the averageNotre Damefootball game.

“Getting up at6:00 AM wasn’tfun at the time,”said Right to Life member Joe

Scolaro ’10, “but seeing thefinished product – andknowing what it stood for –certainly was.” Other clubmembers reiterated Joe’ssentiments.

While for the most NotreDame or St. Mary’s studentslife issues are a “no-brainer,”not everyone agrees with thepro-life stance. Two years agothe display was vandalized bya group of students, who toredown or uprooted most of thecrosses. To deal with this sadproblem, the Knights of

Notre Dame Right to Life’sCemetery of the Innocents

Columbus, Notre Dame Council1477, stationed a guard to watchover the Cemetery during theovernight hours on Thursday andFriday.

Though it is perhapsdisappointing that it came to that,the support of the Knights reinforcedthe idea that Right to Life is not anindependent, exclusive group: pro-life issues are important to manycampus members, especially theCatholic men of the Knights.

At Notre Dame, students aremotivated, driven, and success-oriented. It is easy to sometimesforget that there are more importantissues than grades or socialactivities. But no one who traversedthe campus’ busiest walkways onSouth Quad could ignore theCemetery. And that is exactly thepoint: to remember those who are soeasily forgotten.

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Lecture Review: Dawn Parkot UpliftingFirst Notre Dame graduate with multiple disabilities delivers talk

By Emily ToatesVice President

Respect Life Week washighlighted by keynote speakerDawn Parkot, the first person tograduate from Notre Dame withmultiple disabilities - literally aliving piece of Notre Dame history.

Afflicted with cerebral palsy atbirth, Dawn overcame all odds tograduate from Notre Dame with anundergraduate degree in Math in1995 and with a Master’s inComputer Science in 2000.

Dawn spoke about beingdisabled and the shocking way oursociety regards people who are“dif ferent”. Looking through theeyes of someone whose mother hadbeen told her daughter was nothingmore than a “mindless vegetable”who would die before age 5, Dawnprovided a new perspective to theTerri Schiavo case. Sometimes, itis obvious, a medical prognosis islittle more than a medicalconjecture.

Fortunately, Dawn’s motherdid not listen to the doctors,providing herwith theeducation andtherapy thatallowed her toreach theplace she istoday. Had itnot been forher mother’s hard work and

encouragement, Dawn might haveended up very much like Terri.

Instead Dawn became a double-Domer - someone with anundergraduate and graduate degreefrom Notre Dame. Dawn also

became the first person with aspeech impairment to win the MissWheelchair USA pageant. She waseven an alternate on the US

Paralympicteam inhorsebackriding, and hasbeen successfulin the businessworld.

Dawn wasable to succeed because of herenormous determination and the

“Fortunately...Dawn’smother did not listen tothe doctors...”

enduring support of her family.But she pointed out that not allpeople with disabilities are luckyenough to have the opportunitiesshe did.

All too often, Dawn said, they

are sent to institutions or specialschools which do not provide theopportunity for them to work sothat they can reach their fullpotential.

Dawn’s talk reminded us of theimportance of respecting life in allits stages and that pro-life workdoes not end once the baby is born.The pro-life movement is aboutaffirming the worth and dignity ofall human life in all its stages, bornand unborn, from birth untilnatural death.

Dawn Parkot ‘95 at the 2007 March for Life in Washington D.C.Right to Life Guest Lecturer

The evening of FridayOctober 5, just before theweekend of Respect Life Week,was devoted to an outstandinglecture on Pope John Paul II’sTheology of the Body.

About fifty RTL membersgathered to listen to PhilosophyProfessor Adrian Reimers, alongwith his wife Marie, explain thelate Pontiff ’s teachings on thesubject and its implications for thePro-life movement.

Professor Reimers, anexpert on the writings of PopeJohn Paul, began the informaldiscussion by deploring the ever-present hedonism of our time,specificallyin thecinema.Theimpuritythat starsin so manyfilms is ofcourseharmfulenough, but Professor Reimerspointed out a subtler thread oferror fed to us by theentertainment industry. Citing

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Pope John Paul II scholar Professor Reimers

Delivers “Theology of the Body” LectureTheology professor gives Friday afternoon lecture to more than forty

students

By Will EricksonSpiritual Commissioner

specific movies, Professor Reimersexposed their underlying messagethat man is (and ought to be) able tolive in a blissful state of pleasure-seeking, following hispassions withoutconsequence. This isthe supposed natural,primitive human state,free from theconstraints of religionor social norms. Thatattitude, of course, isbald-headedmodernism at its worst.It is a flat denial oforiginal sin, free will,and divine grace; itmakes us little morethan brute animals; andit maims the truth ofhuman love, thereby reinforcing the

claims oftheCultureof Death.In reality,of course,we arenot merebodiesbut

instead enfleshed souls, created forgenuine sacrificial love, notpleasure. Most of all, we are madewith the dignity to be free from

slavery to our passions, not to cavein to their every whim.

In addition to addressingthe grave falsehoods we face today,Professor and Mrs. Reimers alsooffered their insights and wisdom(and exchanged a couple of jabs!)about the married life, the roles ofhusband/father and wife/mother,the demands of raising a family,and the joys in the midst of thesedemands. Incidentally, theabovementioned films all try torender the phrase “joy amid

Professor Adrian Reimers lectures, joinedby his wife Marie and Right to Life

President Mary Liz Walter

CONTINUED ON PAGE 7

“We are not mere bodies butinstead enfleshed souls, cre-ated for genuine sacrificiallove, not pleasure.”

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Professor Reimers lecture


CCCCCOMMISOMMISOMMISOMMISOMMISSIONERSIONERSIONERSIONERSIONER F F F F FEAEAEAEAEATURETURETURETURETURE:::::

Hometown: Long Island, New York

Dorm: Morrissey Manor

Major: Biology & Philosophy

Inter ests: Theology, Poetry, Piano, Music

Favorite Thing about Notre Dame: “I love the geographic diversity of Notre Dame. It’s stereotypedas very homogenous population, but there are really people from everywhere. I also like that students arewell-informed and that faith is important to them.”

Why pro-life?: “Abortion is one of the most important issues facing our country. I believe with strongconviction that we must spread the pro-life message – or risk facing the consequences.”

Fun Fact: Enjoys ice sculpting and also plays the bagpipes. Joe is also interested in entering theseminary upon graduation from Notre Dame.

Proudest Moment: “Acceptance letter – definitely!”

JOE SCOLARO

CONCESSION STAND

COMMISSIONER

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6

demands” an oxymoron—eitheryou are freefromresponsibilities,they suggest,or else youare not reallyhappy—butall of us atthe lecturesurely agreedthat Adrianand MarieReimers arewalkingdisproofs ofthis claim. The couple alsoanswered several questions in

detail regarding topics such as thefailure of today’s young men as

fathers, thefallacy ofhandicappedchildren’s“inability tolead a full life,”and theexample of theHoly Familyfor today’sparents.

Professorand Mrs.Reimers treated

us to an engaging talk, a thoughtful

and personal explanation of theTheology of the Body, and a mostfitting conclusion to the pro-lifelectures of Respect Life Week2007.

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Our Mission Statement:The Notre Dame Right toLife’s mission is to pro-mote and uphold thesanctity of all human lifefrom conception to natu-ral death through educa-tion, service, and prayer,according to the teach-ings of the Roman Catho-lic Church.

Education: We are pri-marily called to instructand communicate thepro-life message on thecampus of Notre Dame.Our secondary mission isto proclaim the Gospel ofLife beyond the campusof Notre Dame, by meansof outreach, sponsoringeducational events, andby example.

Service: Charity calls usto reach out and supportour peers, especiallythose women who findthemselves in crisispregnancies. We willwork to service the needsof ND students in thismanner.

Prayer: We will holdsteadfast to prayer, themost powerful means ofbringing about change.

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