Rome Newsroom, May 21, 2020 / 10:15 am
With restrictions still in place to control the transmission of the coronavirus, Rome's annual pro-life march will take place online this year.
Now an internet-based event, the Italian national March for Life is being called "Connected for Life," and will take place Saturday, May 23 at 2:30-3:30 p.m. Rome time.
"This year we cannot take to the streets and squares but we still want to make our voices heard to denounce the culture of death, which, also in a difficult situation like the one we are living, is unhesitating in moving ahead, and indeed promoting the crime of abortion," Virginia Coda Nunziante, president of the Italian March for Life, said in a press release.
The 2020 edition would have been the 10th anniversary of the "Marcia Per La Vita" in Rome, which was started after Coda Nunziante was inspired by the United States' March for Life in Washington, D.C.
The 10th anniversary celebration will now take place during the 2021 edition of the march.
The march has drawn thousands of participants in recent years, many of them foreigners living in Rome or people who have traveled from around the world to take part in the march and other related events.
Abortion was legalized in Italy May 22, 1978 with the passing of "law 194." The law made abortion legal for any reason within the first 90 days of pregnancy, and afterward for certain reasons with the referral of a physician.
Since 1978, it is estimated that more than six million children have been aborted in Italy.
Saturday's online event will have several speakers, including Gianna Emanuela Molla, the daughter of St. Gianna Beretta Molla, a physician, wife, and mother, who died from a tumor after refusing treatment which would have ended the life of her unborn child.
EWTN is a supporter of the virtual pro-life rally, which can be viewed live on marciaperlavita.it and connessiperlavita.it.
