St. Michael Catholic Parish

Activities organized to celebrate the fun, faith, and family that define Maine’s Catholic schools highlight the Catholic Schools Week schedules across the state on January 31 to February 6, but teachers and administrators hope that it’s the ways in which the students will give back that will provide the most indelible memories.

Locally and nationally, late January has become a time of solemn community each year at events calling for the end of abortion and the protection of human life from conception to natural death. It was on January 22, 1973, that the Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion across the country.

Every day we should thank God for the blessings of liberty, freedom, and democracy. These are the characteristics of the American experience on full display today in our nation’s capital with the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States, Joseph R. Biden, Jr. I join with my brother bishops in congratulating him on his election and inauguration. An inauguration is a beginning. That really means that the work of all of us has just begun as together we build our nation.

The “Hands Around the Capitol” event scheduled for the statehouse in Augusta on Saturday, January 23, has been cancelled due to safety concerns.

From invocation to closing prayer, the inauguration of a U.S. president provides a patriotic vision of the fabric and essence of America, an opportunity for rebirth, and a reminder of the liberty and democracy that defines our nation.