As the nation has struggled this year with COVID-19 and racial unrest, Darren O'Brien and other Catholics began to sense that people were falling out of touch with God.

“There was a sense that we really needed to demonstrate a way for people to find their way through all this conflict, all this noise,” said O’Brien, a clinical psychologist in Clinton Township. “People are so anxious and fearful now that we really need to demonstrate that having faith in God is really the way forward.”

O’Brien’s brother, Kevin O’Brien of Madison, helped form Unite Our Nation, a lay movement whose mission is to “help bring peace and prayer to local communities, and healing to our nation.” 

Darren O'Brien help expand the movement to Michigan.

In just the last few weeks, the Unite Our Nation movement has spread to cities across the country with plans for Eucharistic procession and patriotic rosary rallies this fall. Events are scheduled for Lansing on Saturday, Oct. 17 and Detroit on Saturday, Oct. 31.

The first event in Madison in August, attracted 3,000 people to the state Capitol.

The pandemic was actually liberating, Darren O’Brien said.

“We weren’t able to go to church, we weren’t able to be in communities the way we normally would,” he said. 

Unite Our Nation is bringing the church community into the public sphere, he explained.

“Christ is pouring out from the churches as opposed to being locked in the churches,” said O’Brien.

The movement has been cathartic for many Catholics, he added.

“We trust God more than we trust our politicians,” he said. “We trust that God is guiding us. No matter what is coming, he’s never left us or abandoned us.”

For Catholics, the upheaval of 2020 follows years of scandal within the church, said O’Brien.

“We’ve been rocked left and right so much that we have been taking our eyes off of what God is calling us to be,” he said. “What is it that God wants to give us? Where does He want to lead us?”

Unite Our Nation is an effort to transcend the circumstances of the present-day world.

“The idea of the processions is that we are choosing consciously to follow him,” O’Brien said. “It reflects a genuine sense of leadership within the lay community but also a real  sense of confidence in the leadership of God. If we just listen to him and his voice, and not the noise around us, we’ll be able to find our way through.”