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Archdiocese youths give witness at March for Life in D.C.

High school and college students from the Archdiocese of Omaha were among the thousands of people participating in this year’s March for Life, held Jan. 24 in Washington, D.C.

They took part in the march and also visited shrines, churches, memorials and museums as part of their pilgrimages.

Students hailed from home schools, Chesterton Academy, St. John Paul II Academy, St. Peter Parish, V.J. and Angela Skutt Catholic High School, Roncalli Catholic High School, Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart, Creighton Preparatory School and Marian High School, all in Omaha; Daniel J. Gross Catholic High School in Bellevue, Mount Michael Benedictine High School in Elkhorn and Archbishop Bergan Catholic High School in Fremont.

Joy, conversion and students witnessing their faith at the march and elsewhere were hallmarks of a pilgrimage made by a group of students from St. John Paul II Academy and Roncalli Catholic, which also included one student from each Marian and Mount Michael, said Clare Fletcher, a teacher at St. John Paul II and campus minister at Roncalli Catholic.

The group traveled by train to Washington and by airplane back home.

People were edified by the group’s joy, especially when the pilgrims sang in public places, Fletcher said.

The pilgrimage also was edifying for the students.

Geoffrey ten Bensel, a sophomore  at Roncalli Catholic, said adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was one of his favorite experiences. “It’s the first time I’ve ever really done adoration and it was joyous!” he said.

“The benefits of the March for Life for teens are threefold,” Fletcher wrote in an email. “The first is conversion or a metanoia towards Christ, the second is vocational exposure (we want teens to encounter the normality and joy of religious and priests), and the third is pro-life witness.”

Many of the groups chronicled their experiences in photos:

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