WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The Sisters of Life and Knights of Columbus announced that they will be teaming up for a second year to host Life Fest in conjunction with the National March for Life in Washington, D.C.
The event will be held Jan. 19 at the 10,000-seat D.C. Armory prior to the march, which begins around 1 p.m. along Constitution Avenue.
According to organizers, Life Fest will feature “dynamic speakers and testimonies” and music by Sarah Kroger and Damascus Worship.
It will also include Mass celebrated by Knights of Columbus Supreme Chaplain Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore; Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley of Boston; and Msgr. James Shea, president of the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota.
Life Fest attendees also will have the opportunity to venerate first-class relics of the Ulma family, beatified last year in their native Poland.
“On March 24, 1944, Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma and their seven children, one of whom was still in the womb, were killed by Nazis in Markowa, Poland, for hiding members of two Jewish families,” Life Fest’s organizers noted in a media release, saying that the “Ulma family bears special significance to the pro-life movement” and their “lives exemplify what it means to value the dignity of every human person.”
A special exhibition on the Ulmas’ martyrdom will be on display at the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington until at least March 24. The exhibition also includes first-class relics of the Ulmas.
“I’ll never forget the first time I attended a rally before the March for Life when I was a teenager,” said Sister Mary Grace, a Sister of Life, in the media release. “I knew the pro-life movement was important, but standing in a packed stadium, listening to stories and seeing countless other youth celebrate the gift of life, changed the trajectory of mine. I marched differently.”
“None of us are here by mistake; every single person is wanted and necessary,” she said. “I left the rally with a fresh conviction that every single human person is precious.”