Portland Seminarians at the March for Life

On Saturday, January 24, 2026, six seminarians of the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon, who attend St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, California, participated in San Francisco’s West Coast Walk for Life Mass and the 22nd Annual West Coast Walk for Life. We joined the crowd to proclaim and affirm the sanctity of every human life. We also wanted to give witness to that proclamation by showing respect and reverence toward all those we encountered along the streets of the city.

As 3,000 people filled the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in San Francisco for the Mass celebrated by the Most Rev. Salvatore Cordileone, Archbishop of San Francisco, my brother seminarians and I lined up for the procession under an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. At that moment, as I gazed upon the mesmerizing colors of the tilma above me, I pondered the beautiful gift that God gives in bringing each of us into existence. I marveled that God does not need any of us, but in an act of sheer generosity, we are created to know and love him and to communicate his love to the ends of the world through the universal call to holiness and our unique vocation. Concretely, at each Mass, each of us is nourished by the Eucharist and encouraged by the Word of God to be living witnesses to the love of God. Therefore, before walking through the streets of San Francisco, it was fitting to begin by worshipping God at Mass so to be able to boldly proclaim the sacred value of human life to those we encountered. 

We then walked down to Civic Center Plaza, where we heard compelling addresses from Archbishop Cordileone, Jason Jones, Glendie Loranger, and Chris Vander Woude. Each speaker gave us all great hope, but they also reminded us that the pro-life work continues in our nation. Following the speeches, we joined thousands of participants in the walk, including students from the Oregon State University Newman Center. Throughout the 1.8 miles, we prayed the Holy Rosary and sang songs of praise to God for the gift of life. 

The day ended with a renewed gratitude for my own life and the gift of being a seminarian as I reflected on Saint John Paul II’s words in Evangelium Vitae. He said that we all have “…the inescapable responsibility of choosing to be [unconditionally] pro-life.” I considered that while I may be discouraged by news of attacks against the dignity of human life from conception to natural death, my hope is steadfast because it is rooted in Christ. So, through my own personal fiat, that is my own personal “yes,” to Jesus’ call, I will boldly proclaim to the world that every human life is worthy of life and love because we are all created in the image and likeness of God.