By Marie Powers Special To The Bulletin

PEACHTREE CITY—With the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s recent decision to approve mifepristone, or RU-486, better known as the “abortion pill,” the abortion issue is moving from outpatient clinics to the privacy of physicians’ offices.

It’s more important than ever to have young women, who represent the majority of those who seek abortions, on the front lines of the effort to defend life.

Rose DeCaro, 19, has been walking those lines for many years. The daughter of Mary and Greg DeCaro of Peachtree City, DeCaro is a sophomore at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, where she is a double major in theology and mental health. Since her family moved to Georgia in 1986, she has grown into a young woman who is an activist for her faith.

At Holy Trinity Parish, DeCaro has been deeply involved in LifeTeen and the Respect Life committee. In these capacities, DeCaro challenged fellow parishioners, including teens, to become more actively involved in efforts to support the dignity of life from conception to natural death. She has spoken at Masses, handed out roses for life, staffed information booths, participated in prayer chains and frequently gathered with other parishioners to pray for an end to abortion and for mercy on those involved in its practice.

DeCaro also served as a volunteer at the Advice and Aid Pregnancy Center in Hapeville. But God was calling her to do even more.

Last summer, DeCaro joined 25 college students in a three-month walk across the U.S. as part of the sixth annual Crossroads pilgrimage. The pro-life walk was founded by former Franciscan University student Steve Sanborn in response to Pope John Paul II’s call for youth to proclaim the Gospel of life.

“Since pro-life efforts are generally discriminated against by the media, youth need to take the message of life to the streets by meeting people one-on-one, face-to-face,” DeCaro said. “Crossroads aims to do this.”

DeCaro and 13 others began their journey on May 21 in San Francisco; a second group of 12 students set out on the same date from Los Angeles. The two groups crossed the Rocky Mountains and Mojave Desert and visited major cities along their routes before converging in August in Washington, D.C.

The journey serves both as a prayer of atonement for the holocaust of abortion and in supplication for its end, and as a witness to the sanctity of human life by young people. Since all but one of them was born after 1973, their lives could have been among the millions ended legally by abortion following the Roe vs. Wade decision.

“The mission of Crossroads is to bring Jesus Christ to the hearts and minds of everyone they meet, with the hope that this will bring about more active pro-life involvement,” DeCaro said. “It is three months of nonstop pro-life evangelization.”

According to figures from the United States Catholic Conference, 1.4 million children are aborted each year. In many U.S. cities, more abortions now are performed each year than deliveries.

“We walked our nation’s roads wearing shirts that said ‘Pro-Life’ in big, bold letters,” DeCaro said. Their prayer consisted of daily participation in the Mass, recitation of the Divine Office and the rosary. “The whole walk is based on prayer and sacrifice to convert hearts to the Gospel of life, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

The students walked 60 miles a day as a group and 15 miles a day individually. Along the way, they stopped to speak at Catholic parishes and met with pro-life groups, youth groups and the local media.

“We had a special interest in speaking with the youth because we know many of them have been subject to the lies of the culture of death,” DeCaro said. “They are hungering for the truth.”

Another key focus of the Crossroads mission was to counsel pregnant mothers considering abortion and to pray in peaceful protest outside abortion clinics. Mothers in need are offered spiritual and financial support through the organization’s Project Michael Fund.

“We talked to many, many people along the way at gas stations, in restaurants—anywhere we went,” DeCaro recalled. “We offered sidewalk counseling outside abortion mills a couple of times a week, helping those who have suffered from abortion and telling them of the mercy of God. By God’s grace, many hearts were touched.”

The northern Crossroads team witnessed that grace firsthand when a young mother and father in St. Louis chose not to abort their child during the tenth week of pregnancy. DeCaro, who serves as a core member of Franciscan University’s Human Life Concerns committee and coordinates its sidewalk counseling program, participated in that intervention.

The southern Crossroads team, which stopped in Atlanta in July, was accompanied by a mobile unit, equipped with a sonogram machine and staffed by volunteer pro-life physicians and nurses. The team offered expectant mothers free sonograms, pregnancy tests and counseling. Statistics show that mothers overwhelmingly choose life after seeing their babies on an ultrasound screen.

In addition to saving the lives of unborn children, DeCaro emphasizes the need to reach out to women who have chosen abortion and have suffered emotional, psychological and physical pain in its aftermath.

“It is so important that women who have had abortions know that God loves them and will forgive them,” she said. “Even though abortion is a terrible evil, God, in his infinite mercy, is waiting for them to come back to Him.”

“Many, many women have been lied to and exploited by the horrors of abortion,” she added. “The truth needs to be told that abortion hurts women and victimizes them in the name of ‘choice.’”

Participating in Crossroads gave DeCaro an opportunity to see “the heart of our country” and learn that most people are pro-life. The problem, she said, is that many of them remain silent.

“There are many ways to be pro-life,” DeCaro pointed out. “Not everyone is called to pray and counsel women outside an abortion mill. But you can visit an elderly person in a nursing home, write a pro-life letter to the editor of your local newspaper, volunteer a few hours a week at a local crisis pregnancy center or join a pro-life group at your school or church to help educate others in your community.”

“Not everyone is called to walk across the country, but everyone should pray about how God is calling them to be of service to the Gospel of life,” DeCaro said. “I especially encourage young people to get involved in the pro-life movement because this is our generation that is being destroyed.”

For information about Crossroads, contact Franciscan University at (800) 277-9763. For information about pro-life activities, contact your parish or the Archdiocese of Atlanta Pro-Life Office at (404) 888-7821.