More Than 1,600 Attend Right To Life Banquet

 More than 1,600 people attended the April 24 banquet sponsored by Right to Life of Southwest Indiana.

“It’s awesome getting to walk by the room, peak in and see that we’re expecting more than 1,600 people tonight, which is really phenomenal,” Live Nation founder and banquet keynote speaker Lila Rose told the media just before the doors opened for the event. “People from all over the place are saying, ‘this issue matters. This is not just another political issue – this is the defining issue of our day … how we treat the weakest among us … and we’re going to take a stand.’”

Five-time Grammy winner Sandi Patty joined Rose as a featured guest of the banquet, which also included Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, U.S. Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) and Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke among its attendees.

 Pence and Coats received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the organization, and Pence used the occasion to present the state’s highest civilian honor – the Sagamore of the Wabash – to Mike Fichter, president of Indiana Right to Life. He also held a signing ceremony for 2014 legislation prohibiting health-insurance providers in the state from covering abortions.

 In accepting his award, Sen. Coats used one sentence to explain why more than 1,600 people came to Evansville’s Old National Bank Events Center for the country’s largest pro-life banquet. “We are for the most basic of values,” he said, “human life.”

 Patty wowed the throng with her stirring renditions of the Star Spangled Banner to begin the evening and God Bless America to conclude the event – and she also performed other selections that spotlighted her vocal range and talent. Before the event, she told media gathered for a brief press conference that she is passionate about pro-life issues because they have touched her life.

 “Two of the most amazing men in my life – my husband and my son – are in this world because their birth mothers chose life,” Patty said. “That’s one of the reasons I love to speak about this issue. Adoption has touched my life because these women –18 years ago and 53 years ago – chose life. These men are in my life because they did.”

 Rose talked exclusively to The Message about St. John Paul II, who was canonized April 27 with St. John XXIII. “You’re going to make me cry,” she began, emotionally. “Pope John Paul II has been a hero to me as with millions of people across the world. His first words of his papacy – ‘Be not afraid’ – should be the motto for pro life movement and, of course, are something I remember every day to try to get up there and take the fight out to the public.”

 During her keynote address, Rose – only 25 – told the huge crowd about her life in a home where her parents read works by the Doctors of the Catholic Church, even though they were Protestants. She talked about that Catholic theological foundation, which led her to conversion five years ago, and about asking God to use her for His work.

 As an undergraduate at UCLA, she began going undercover to expose abuse at Planned Parenthood clinics. Her posts to YouTube, which continue today, receive millions of views. As a result, the Live Nation nonprofit she founded and continues to lead is one of the most well known pro-life organizations in the world.

 Her underlying tone was, simply, perseverance – “… sticking it out until we see the success of this movement,” she said, “until we truly have accomplished our main goal, which is that we can, we will and we must have an America that respects and nurtures and protects every human life. This is possible, and it will be accomplished as we work together.”