Father Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, will join Dr. Alveda King, Director of African-American Outreach, in commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and her uncle Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
Father Pavone will take part in an interfaith service from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 28, at Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. and will be present with the King family for the events throughout the day.
“We remember the events of 50 years ago because they speak to today, and the message that the march and the speech have for America is that we cannot have equality and justice until the children in the womb are protected,” said Father Pavone. “Dr. King’s dream would be absolutely unintelligible if one imagines that somehow the dismemberment and decapitation of thousands of children a day could be reconciled with that dream, or could be justified either morally or legally.”
Dr. Alveda King noted that her uncle often spoke of a “Beloved Community.” Father Pavone, Dr. Alveda King, her mother and brother are among the signatories of a 2011 declaration called “The Beloved Community and the Unborn” that draws on a Christmas sermon Martin Luther King delivered in 1967, in which he preached the following words:
“The next thing we must be concerned about if we are to have peace on earth and good will toward men is the nonviolent affirmation of the sacredness of all human life. . . When we truly believe in the sacredness of human personality, we won’t exploit people, we won’t trample over people with the iron feet of oppression, we won’t kill anybody.”
The statement, which calls on America to include the unborn in the Beloved Community, was placed in the time capsule underneath the new monument to Dr. King in Washington, DC.
“Nonviolence is not nonviolence if we still tolerate some violence,” Father Pavone said, “And equality is not equality if some are still not equal. Let the events of these days kindle in us all, from the President to the newest citizen, a determination to bring an end to abortion, and restore justice for the unborn.”
Priests for Life is the nation’s largest Catholic pro-life organization dedicated to ending abortion and euthanasia. For more information, visit www.priestsforlife.org.