Last week, I had an opportunity to share my opinion about human life with 650,000 students all around the world at one place, Washington D.C., the city with roots to the most powerful democracy and its long history of freedom of speech.

A small group of students from the Diocese of Green Bay had decided to promote The March for Life pilgrimage by marching in the streets of the U.S. capital, and it was my tremendous honor to be one of them.

My whole story begins back in the Czech Republic at high school. This country, well known as Czechia, was occupied by the Soviet Union during Cold War for more than 40 years and most people had been negatively influenced by military leaders and pro-Russian teachers with communist ideology. There was no freedom of press, speech or religion.

Nowadays, almost 30 years after The Velvet Revolution for independence, the persecution of Catholic people from the last century is still very obvious. A majority of the population doesn’t believe in God and only about 20% are Christians. As a consequence, most of my peers at school don’t really care about the question of abortion.

There is no theology class, which makes it even more difficult to have a conversation. Even though my high school at home is represented by very good test scores/results, especially in terms of science, students in general treat Christian beliefs very poorly.

The March for Life gave me a chance to express my thoughts and what I truly believe in. I experienced many great moments with participants from several different countries and learned about the beautiful city of Washington.

Everything started with Mass in the Capital One Arena for 20,000 young people. An unforgettable homily about the uniqueness of every human life made all of us think about our actions. We saw the White House as well as the United States Capitol, while marching against 60 million abortions since 1973.

The 46th anniversary of the landmark decision by The Supreme Court, the case called “Roe vs. Wade,” was commented upon by a few famous speakers. Ben Shapiro and Mike Pence emphasized the main slogan: Pro-life is Pro-science.”

The huge crowd created an awesome atmosphere, which will stay in my memory forever. And not only that, I am very excited to share my experience with all my friends back home and discuss with them the true love of God.