With marches and Masses, voters' forums and baby showers, Catholics across the United States and as far away as Guam came together to mark October as Respect Life Month.

Three dozen participants in a "life chain" in Braidwood, Ill., had their links cut by local police when enforcement of a city ordinance disrupted the planned hour-long event.

Linda Hanahan, a spokeswoman for the pro-life demonstration, said she never dreamed the Oct. 3 event staged in coordination with Respect Life Sunday would ruffle the feathers of government officials.

Police Chief Rob Andreina ordered the demonstrators off public property because they did not have a permit; an ordinance passed last year requires all types of protests to submit an application no later than 12 days before the event.

Hanahan told the Catholic Explorer, Joliet's diocesan newspaper, that she had visited the local police station a week before the event, leaving a telephone number and address with instructions to notify her in case of a problem. "No one told me about the ordinance while I was there," she added.

Andreina, who described himself as pro-life, said he regretted having to move the group, which reassembled a few blocks away at Immaculate Conception Church, but he felt compelled to follow the letter of the law. "We are a small town and I only have a few guys to help take care of it," he said.

Things went more smoothly at other life chain locations in the Diocese of Joliet, with many participants reporting favorable responses from passers-by.

"People slowed their cars down to thank us for what we were doing," said Maureen Sager, coordinator of demonstrations in Hinsdale and Northlake.

In Boston, nearly 1,000 children, mothers, fathers, clergy and senior citizens came to the Boston Common Oct. 3 for the annual Respect Life walk to aid mothers and children. Some held signs proclaiming "All life is meaningful," "Respect life, at any time" or "Help us save the babies."

"I look around and see the preponderance of young people and that is very hopeful," said Father Stephen A. Fernandes, director of the pro-life apostolate in the Diocese of Fall River, Mass. "It's like a family picnic. We've got babies in strollers and grandparents with canes and all ages in between."

Speakers at a rally before the 2.5-mile walk began included Raymond Flynn, former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, and Susanna Brennan, who talked about the many years of depression she suffered after an abortion.

In Agana, Guam, more than 1,000 people gathered on an overcast day Oct. 3 to walk, pray and show support for unborn babies at the sixth annual walk for life, sponsored by the Guam Catholic Pro-Life Committee.

"God gave us life and he should be the one to take it from us, not the person who is carrying us," said Crystal Borja, 14, who is preparing for confirmation at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Toto.

Sixty-five-year-old Jesus Cepeda, a member of Our Lady of Peace and Safe Journey Parish in Ordot, said the walk for life was a great way to teach youngsters about the realities of abortion.

"I do believe the walk instills in the youngsters what life is all about, how important life is," he told The Pacific Voice, Agana's archdiocesan newspaper.

A woman who is all too familiar with the realities of abortion spoke in Kansas City, Mo., recently about her efforts to reverse the 1973 Roe vs. Wade abortion decision.

Norma McCorvey, who was "Jane Roe" in the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion nationwide, said Sept. 27 that the bid to reopen that case -- which was rejected Sept. 14 by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals -- would be refiled.

"If they throw it out, in another six months we're taking it all the way to the Supreme Court," she said at a gathering of some 400 people to benefit Living Alternatives-Romania, a crisis pregnancy center in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

McCorvey, 57, spoke about her life and her conversion from a spokeswoman and worker for the abortion industry to a dedicated opponent of abortion and her eventual return to her Catholic roots.

In addition to those who walk and those who work through the courts to end abortion, there are those who concentrate on the day-to-day work of the pro-life movement by providing resources for pregnant women and new mothers.

Parishioners at Holy Name of Jesus Parish in Woodbury, N.Y., became part of that group Oct. 3 when they threw a "birth day party" for newborns in need, complete with cake and presents. The parish recently completed a nine-month spiritual adoption program in which parishioners prayed for a child at risk of being aborted.

"We tried to donate items that the moms would really need," said parishioner Annalisa Grossfeld. She and her children --- Ashleigh, 10; Arianna, 5; and Anastasia, 3 --- donated bed sheets, clothes, a receiving blanket and crib pads.

"I remember what it was like getting up in the middle of the night, stripping the crib at 2 in the morning," Grossfeld told The Long Island Catholic, newspaper of the Diocese of Rockville Centre. "Parents need these things."

The donated items were to be distributed to families served through the Interfaith Nutrition Network, a nonprofit organization that runs 19 soup kitchens on Long Island and provides emergency and low-income housing.

Frank Rice of Itasca, Ill., has spent countless hours over the past 12 years finding and repairing used baby cribs, high chairs, infant car seats, strollers, playpens and a host of other baby supplies, which he then donates to young mothers who cannot buy them.

The 70-year-old retired engineer --- a member of Holy Ghost Parish in Wood Dale, Ill. --- loads his van each Wednesday with a week's worth of repaired equipment and delivers it personally to struggling families.

Among the Respect Life month events in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles were talks at various parishes on life issues. Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, director of education for the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, made presentations Oct. 1-3 on the scientific and moral issues surrounding stem cell research and cloning at St. Mel Church in Woodland Hills and at St. Philip the Apostle Church in Pasadena.

Father Pacholczyk's presentations were designed to help Californians decide whether or not to vote for Proposition 71, a Nov. 2 ballot initiative to have the state fund embryonic stem cell research. The California bishops have opposed the measure.

---CNS