KINGSTON – On Sunday, Oct. 4, about half of the parishes in Ulster County held “prayer life chains” on local streets, joining Catholic parishes and other pro-life organizations across the United States. The observance fell on Respect Life Sunday, which the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops designates for the first Sunday in October in support of the pro-life cause.

About 150 local Catholics, including children and teens, held signs opposing abortion and euthanasia and prayed, silently and aloud, offering motorists and pedestrians a peaceful, prayerful presence. Parishioners and a few clergy staffed sites at St. Mary-Sacred Heart in lower Kingston and Esopus; St. Joseph’s in uptown Kingston; St. Mary-St. Andrew in Ellenville; Our Lady of Fatima in Plattekill; and Immaculate Conception and St. Catherine Labouré in the town of Ulster.

Robert D. Smith Jr., a parishioner of Our Lady of Fatima in Plattekill and chairman of the Ulster County affiliate of the New York State Right to Life Committee, said the chain at his parish grew from last year to this year. “I am very proud of this accomplishment. Plattekill had great positive feedback,” he said.

Fr. Arthur F. Rojas, pastor of St. Mary-Sacred Heart parish, which serves lower Kingston and the town of Esopus, said: “Let us start reclaiming New York as the Empire State by our acts of reparation and witness over the legalization and promotion of abortion, euthanasia, and other intrinsic evils by our policymakers, judges, public servants, and certain leaders of public opinion. Today, our Prayer Life Chains urged New Yorkers to move from a ‘vampire state’ mentality towards a state that respects human life from conception until natural death. Kudos to all clerics who cooperated or supported our laypeople to evangelize for the Gospel of Life today!”

Scores of parishioners from St. Mary-Sacred Heart gathered in the morning on Broadway in Kingston with Dcn. John Carr, and in the afternoon at Esopus with Fr. Rojas, in front of the parish’s churches at both sites.

The recently combined parish of St. Mary-St. Peter-Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary-Sacred Heart serves lower Kingston, the Ulster County seat, and the town of Esopus to its south. In Port Ewen, Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church is home to the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Hudson.