ST. PAUL, Minn. — In years past, Rachel Zurawski and Katelyn Merriman haven’t made the long bus pilgrimage from the Midwest to the March for Life in Washington, D.C., with some of their classmates at Chesterton Academy in Hopkins, Minnesota, but on Wednesday, the two high-school seniors experienced, closer to home, some of the energy and zeal that thousands of their peers generate for the pro-life movement at the national event.

With 700 other Catholic high-school students, grades 9-12, at a youth-focused day of prayer and training at a St. Paul parish and school — which included Mass and a Eucharistic procession to the annual Minnesota March for Life at the Minnesota Capitol in St. Paul, organized by the nonprofit pro-life organization Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL) — they were encouraged to seek their own generational space in the effort to end abortion.

“I think it’s amazing that we have this opportunity to march with the March for Life and to hear about the pro-life mission,” said Zurawski, who added that one of the conference talks has made her interested in volunteering at a pregnancy-resource center. “It’s very comforting to know that so many of us are part of the pro-life movement.” 

Merriman, who has attended the March for Life in St. Paul with her family, appreciated the chance to attend with fellow students. 

She told the Register, “I think it’s a really good opportunity that our school gives us, especially to come to this and be surrounded by so many other young Christian Catholic students who have the same beliefs as us and have the opportunity to march.”  

 

First Local Conference

The march and rally for students representing 10 Minnesota Catholic high schools and home-school groups was held at St. Agnes School in St. Paul and was the first local conference organized by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Fredricksburg, Virginia-based Students for Life of America, marking the Jan. 22 anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in 1973. 

The high court overturned the decision in 2022, returning abortion decisions to the states. 

With its partnership in the Minnesota march and rally this year, Students for Life of America is also starting to shift toward more local events to bring together pro-life youth, said Maddie Schulte, Students for Life of America development director. 

“We in the pro-life movement have to move away from the Roe v. Wade narrative because Roe is in the past now,” Schulte told the Register,  adding that the national March for Life is still the pro-life movement’s “rallying cry.” As part of the national march events, Students for Life of America’s annual pro-life summit, featuring top pro-life speakers, draws about 1,500 teens from around the country and was the inspiration for the Minnesota conference, she said. The national summit will be held in Washington on Saturday. (Watch the livestream here.)

“This is kind of our launching ground,” Schulte said of the Minnesota meeting. “This is our first one. We are looking to expand and do localized summits with dioceses across the nation.”

While the archdiocese has organized many annual trips for high-school students to attend the national March for Life, it now plans to make the longer trip every other year, alternating with a local pro-life youth conference such as this year’s St. Paul event, said Bill Dill, youth discipleship director at the archdiocese’s Office Marriage, Family and Youth.

Dill, who has led many archdiocesan trips to the March for Life in Washington, anticipated that the local event might not have “the same depth of impact that going to D.C. has.” But, he added, it will gather more Minnesota youth, “and we will be bringing that presence to the [state] Capitol.”

 

Life-Affirming Day 

The students’ day began with Mass at the Church of St. Agnes, at which Auxiliary Bishop Kevin Kenney encouraged them to “recognize the great life that was given to us in Jesus Christ — Jesus, who came into the world as one like us, lived his life calling forth life from those who were dead, opening the hearts of those who had their hearts hardened, opening their eyes and ears to the needs of others.” 

Following a morning session of talks, students took part in a roughly-1.5-mile Eucharistic procession, led by St. Agnes’ pastor, Father John Ubel, and three other priests, to the Minnesota Capitol to join the MCCL rally. 

Praying the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary as they passed through a St. Paul neighborhood, processors stopped for Benediction on the steps of a predominantly Vietnamese American parish on the route. 

Father Minh Vu, pastor of St. Adalbert parish, watched students continue on their procession after Benediction, and he told the Register that he was surprised to see so many students outside the church. “You can see the holiness of the sacraments when I see the big crowd like this.”

The Eucharistic procession was planned, in part, to continue the spiritual momentum of the U.S. bishops-led National Eucharistic Revival and 2024 National Eucharistic Congress, Dill said. “We’re letting Christ lead us in this effort,” he said. We know that this is a spiritual battle. It's not just a battle of flesh and blood.” 

Katie Blando walked as a chaperone in the procession with the 55 students from Unity Catholic High School in Burnsville, Minnesota. Blando, who serves as the school’s academic and student life director in addition to teaching, helped bring a smaller group of students to the national march last year. Many of the school’s students participate in its pro-life club, she told the Register, adding that attending a local conference and march this year might energize more students to attend the national march next year. 

 

52nd-Annual March

After again pausing for Benediction and repose of the Blessed Sacrament at a side entrance of the Capitol, the students joined thousands of other pro-lifers for MCCL’s 52nd-annual March for Life on the Capitol’s main steps, where the nonprofit displayed more than 14,000 fetal models representing the total number of unborn children who died from abortion in 2023, a 39% increase since 2021, according to statistics from the Minnesota Department of Health. 

Noting that Minnesota has enacted some of the most extreme pro-abortion laws in the country in the past several years, MCCL Co-Executive Director Cathy Blaeser told the crowd gathered from across the state, “We stand here today in tremendous hope as we move forward to restore protections for parents, for women, for victims of trafficking and abuse, for families, for newborn babies and for the unborn.” 

At the march, St. Agnes sophomore Ethan Johnson said he was moved by “seeing the [fetal] models, what 14,000 babies would look like.” He also appreciated getting practical information on how he could help the pro-life movement. 

Another St. Agnes sophomore, Thorin Anderson, said the highlight of the day’s events for him was the “really good talks and that they were passionate about being pro-life.” 

In a talk about sharing and defending the pro-life message, Jay Watts, founder and president of Marietta, Georgia-based Merely Human Ministries, Inc., told students the only way to fail is to say nothing and to let abortion supporters believe that their views will go unchallenged. He encouraged students, “Be calm. You’re right to argue that human life matters.”

 

In Vitro Fertilization

Speaking on the fertility industry, Kallie Fell, executive director of The Center for Bioethics and Culture in Pleasant Hill, California, explained the practice of in vitro fertilization, arguing that it’s not compatible with the belief that life begins at conception, as the Church has stated. She also explained the risks that egg donation and surrogacy pose to women. 

After the talk, Chesterton student Merriman commented, “I didn’t even know that IVF was against the pro-life movement until I heard that talk; and the way she explained it, now I understand that it’s just not all right.”

Of St. Agnes’ 350 high-school students, 250 participated in the march and rally. 

“The vision for this day [was] to say it’s not just a day of prayer where we’re going to the cathedral and the march, but a day, really, of education for high-school kids, equipping them” to be pro-life witnesses, said Karl Hendrickson, St. Agnes assistant headmaster and upper school director, also noting that conversations are underway on the school hosting a 2027 march and rally.

 

Post-Rally Plans

Following the St. Paul march and rally, Students for Life of America hopes to hold a similar conference in Denver, Schulte said, explaining that several bishops have also asked about events in their dioceses. 

The fact that the number of abortions continues to increase in Minnesota is probably a reason many students are enthusiastic about the pro-life cause there, she said. 

“What we see, time and time again, with our student groups is the places where abortion is the most extreme you have the most bold and brave kids willing to speak up against it because they don’t have to fall into the status quo — they have to fight it,” Schulte said.  “You see this in Minnesota.” 

Susanna Spencer contributed to this article.