Sacred Heart students traveled to D.C. to take part in March for Life

For brothers Tre’ and Dreu Fontenot, the decision to walk along side thousands of other high school students in the 44th Annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. was an easy one, especially considering how passionate the Fontenots are when it comes to the issue of abortion.
“The reason why I attended the March for Life in Washington D.C. was to protest the unjust murdering of the unborn children by abortion and the use of contraceptives,” 18-year-old Tre’ Fontenot said. “I must speak out against something that is objectively evil. Abortion is evil because it is the deliberate disregard to the human dignity of the person because one says ‘it is my body, my choice’ or ‘it is my burden’.
“As a human being it is our ethical and moral duty to protect life at all stages because without the protection of life then all the other laws are meaningless,” 16-year-old Dreu Fontenot added. “Therefore to see an opportunity to show our lawmakers that we are the Pro Life generation and that being Pro Life isn’t just for ‘Holy Rollers.’ Who has the right to decide when life begins and ends? Who makes that call? The Pro Life Movement isn’t only the fight to end abortion but the right for all life.”
The Fontenot brothers were two of more than 50 students from Sacred Heart School to attend the march held on Friday, January 27.
Sophomore Sydni Ortego also jumped at the opportunity to take part.
“I have always wanted to go to Washington D.C. and I always wanted to do something to help end abortion in our country,” Ortego said. “I have always seen older people take part in the march and I always wanted to go because it will make a difference with other younger people.”
The group’s trip began on that Wednesday before as 50-plus students boarded a bus from Ville Platte to Houston in the early hours of Wednesday, then caught a flight from Houston to Boston and then drove to D.C. that same night.
The first two days, the group did some sightseeing, including visiting some of the country’s most hallowed and treasured historical sites, including the Jefferson Memorial, the Washington Monument, and a bus tour of Gettysburg.
In addition, SHS students visited holy sites such as the Mount Saint Mary’s Catholic Seminary College, the National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton and the Franciscan Monastery.
Many of the students in the group, despite all the traveling and site seeing that was done, remained skeptical of just how large the event they were blessed to take part in truly was. That all changed that Thursday night.
“Well, I had heard the accounts from people that went to the march in the past, who said that the number of people that participate in the March of Life in Washington D.C. is gigantic, but I was a little bit skeptical of those stories,” said Tre’ Fontenot. “My skepticism quickly faded away from my mind on the night before the Pro-Life March.”
That Thursday night SHS students arrived at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which at an estimated 75,545 square-feet is the largest Catholic church building in the United States. The students arrived more than two hours before the Mass to find seats but the group was already too late.
“Every pew and chair on the first and second story had been taken, so we like many others stood in an area for many hours or sat on the floor,” said Tre’ Fontenot. “I am going to make an estimate to say that there was a total of hundred seminaries, deacons, priests, bishops, archbishops, and a cardinal; this caused the procession to last about twenty minutes. I estimate that over four thousand, if not over six thousand, people attended that mass.”
“It was an amazing experience,” Sydni Ortego said. “To see so many people there wanting to do the same thing as us was -- there are no real words to describe it.”
The mass on Thursday night was just a warm-up act for the power of what all the students would bare witness to the following day in the streets around the U.S. Supreme Court, Capitol Hill and the Library of Congress.
“Once reaching the top of Capitol Hill, I had glanced behind to the location where we had began the march, and I was in awe at the sight,” Tre’ Fontenot said. “There were people that filled the road from where we had begun the march, and it went three or four more blocks behind that location. People were still just starting the march, while we were almost at the end of it.
“I told my brother, mom, stepfather, and aunt that this is the most and probably the only time that I will see that many people at once.”
“It was awe inspiring to see so many young adults and people my age in favor of my views,” Dreu Fontenot said. “It showed that we are the most Pro Life generation and that gives life to so much hope.”
“We were walking up and got on top of this really large hill and our teacher turned around and told us to look behind us,” Sydni Ortego said. “It was an amazing site to see.”
Added Madison Pitre, “It made me appreciate my faith and appreciate what were doing there. To see that people from all across the country believed in what were doing was breathtaking.”
Following the march, the students took in a few more sites, including visiting Arlington Cemetery to watch the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and President John F. Kennedy’s grave, and also visited the National AeroSpace Museum and also the National Holocaust Memorial and Museum.
The trip wrapped up with a stop in New York City where the students toured the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, and also attended Mass at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and later at the Shrine of Saint Francis Cabrini.
The experience of taking part in the march has reinforced the young students’ beliefs, and has inspired them to reach out to fellow students to attend future marches.
“The march has inspired me to encourage other teenagers to attend this march because it is extremely important to do this,” Tre’ Fontenot said. “I hope that more teenagers would attend in order to prove that there is a large majority that disagree with abortion and that something needs to be done to stop it.”
“Hopefully I can make others want to go in the next few years,” Sydni Ortego said. “I want to encourage more people to experience the march. I want more young people to go and experience what I just did.”
Added Dreu Fontenot, “Although nearly every Catholic school in America was there, there is still work to be done to share the message of life to everyone. Our message is not only for teens because as crazy as it sounds no one listens to us. The middle aged people decide what our future is like. Which is why I am urging every teen to express their voice because they will have to listen to us one day.”