Fr Dwight Longenecker on The New Radicals, the Young Pro-Life Advocates

The new radicals are the hundreds of thousands of college aged and high school students who thronged into Washington for the March for Life. All statistics show the future belongs to them. Anti abortion sentiment is strongest among the young, and the young people who marched on Washington yesterday are not only young and joyful. They're smart.

P>GREENVILLE, SC (Standing on my Head) - Some time ago I read a piece by an aging former hippie complaining that the younger generation have no passion of political protest.

This old guy was remembering his glory days of sit ins and peace protests and riots in the streets and anti war protests and rock concerts.

He's blind to the fact that young people are just as radical as they've ever been. They're just as idealistic and fed up with the complacent status quo. What the aging hippie didn't see is that the complacent status quo is the brave new world he and his generation have created.

The new radicals aren't really the unwashed and angry young people occupying Wall Street, they are the well scrubbed and happy young people marching up Constitution Hill.

What the sour old hippie didn't realize is that you don't have to be angry to protest injustice. You can have a peaceful, well organized and legal protest and still be radical.

The new radicals are the hundreds of thousands of college aged and high school students who thronged into Washington for the March for Life.

All statistics show the future belongs to them. Anti abortion sentiment is strongest among the young, and the young people who marched on Washington yesterday are not only young and joyful. They're smart.

The new radicals won't drop out. They'll get involved in life and they'll change the world. They will do so because they not have faith, but they come from solid families, good communities and from a people who know how to work hard, achieve solid results and do so with a positive, upbeat and can do attitude.

They know how to use the new technologies and overcome the MSM bias. They know how to get involved and stay involved--not just launch a few noisy protests.

They know how to work together with others and communicate their message. They will do so with intelligence, shrewd new ideas, hard work--and most of all--joy!

Then I thought of another reason why the aging hippie isn't seeing any of his grandchildren espousing his radical causes....he probably doesn't have any.

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Fr Dwight Longenecker is parish priest of Our Lady of the Rosary Parish in Greenville, South Carolina. Read his blog and connect to his website at www.dwightlongenecker.com  
 

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Fr. Dwight Longenecker is Parish Priest of Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Greenville, South Carolina. A former Evangelical, he studied at Oxford and was ordained as an Anglican priest in England. He was received into the full communion of the Catholic Church in 1995 and ten years later, ordained a Roman Catholic Priest.He is a prolific writer, sought after speaker and dedicated blogger. Connect to his website and blog at dwightlongenecker.com