Archbishop Riordan is a RCC diocese school in San Francisco.
S.F.'s Riordan high school students walk out during antiabortion presentation - SF Chronicle
Hundreds of students at Archbishop Riordan High School staged a walkout Friday during an all-school assembly that featured a prominent antiabortion speaker.
About five minutes into the presentation, during which staff members patrolled the doors, students at the Catholic high school exited the theater and walked into the gym, since school rules don’t permit them to leave campus. A few dozen of the school’s more than 800 students remained in the theater for the entire presentation.
The speaker, Megan Almon, works with the Life Training Institute, a program that focuses on teaching people who are opposed to abortion to “persuasively defend their views in the marketplace of ideas,” and sends its speakers to Catholic and Christian schools everywhere, its website says. The Catholic Church’s official stance is also antiabortion.
The assembly comes on the heels of women’s marches across the nation, including one in San Francisco, in support of reproductive rights as conservative states like Texas attempt to restrict abortion rights — timing that was frustrating to Riordan parents and students.
Almon’s speech also follows San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s intensified public campaign to persuade House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a fellow Catholic, to renounce her support of abortion rights. Cordileone, who oversees the diocese’s Catholic schools, including Riordan, is launching $50,000 digital ad in which he asks viewers to pray and fast as a sign of support, calling the effort the Rose and Rosary for Nancy Campaign.
