LOCAL SERVICE MARKS ANNIVERSARY OF RULING

More than 60 people gathered beneath a funeral tent Sunday afternoon in Cape Girardeau to pray together and sing hymns of faith. Behind them stood rows and rows of white crosses representing the abortions that have taken place in the United States since the historic 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

The people were participating in an ecumenical prayer service at the Cemetery of the Innocents near Interstate 55, an annual service held in connection with the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision legalizing abortion.

"We are here," said Bishop John Leibrecht of the Springfield-Cape Girardeau Diocese, "as a reminder of the sad anniversary of Roe v. Wade."

Although represented strongly by the area's Catholic community, the service also included the Revs. Vernon Long, pastor of the Jackson Free Will Baptist Church; Charles Lance of the First Assembly of God Church in Cape Girardeau and Ray Rowland, a General Baptist pastor from Dexter.

Leibrecht was in Cape Girardeau not only for the prayer service, but also for a Sanctity of Life Mass held at St. Mary's Cathedral Sunday morning.

The bishop called on those in attendance to work more diligently on banning abortion, particularly to focus their opposition to getting the legislature to outlaw the partial-birth abortion procedure.

"What's the difference between partial-birth abortion and infanticide?" he asked.

Leibrecht will leave today for St. Louis where he, as one of the bishops of Missouri, will be the special guest of Pope John Paul II during the pontiff's two-day stay in Missouri.

The pope arrives in St. Louis Tuesday afternoon and will celebrate Mass Wednesday morning with nearly 1 million people.

The bishop said Sunday that he anticipates the pope will talk this week about human rights around the world not being sufficiently recognized, about wealthier nations needing greater solidarity with developing nations, and about the need for protection of all human life, including, he said, the life of the unborn. It was that message that Leibrecht brought to the crowd on Sunday.

Among those in attendance at the prayer service was Jeanette Dohogne of Cape Girardeau who had just returned from Washington, D.C., where she attended the annual March for Life rally.

Dohogne was among the estimated 250,000 people who attended the march. Thirty-seven people from Cape Girardeau also attended.

An additional 17 buses were taken from the St. Louis area.

"People are still very much fighting for the unborn and hoping eventually for a reversal," said Dohogne, who attended her second march.

On the trip with Dohogne was Christine Stephens, also of Cape Girardeau. Stephens, who attended the annual march for the third time, said that an important part of the rally was marching to the Supreme Court to voice opposition to legalized abortion.

"We wanted to call attention not only to the preborn, but to women exploited by abortion," she said.

As they traveled through Ohio toward the nation's capital, the group hit inclement weather that soon turned to ice and made travel by bus very dangerous.

"I thought the devil was trying to keep us from going," Stephens said.

"We don't know when it will happen, but we know in the end, God wins," she said.