The Respect Life Ministry: Faithful Stewards of God’s Greatest Gift

When Bridget Fay looks into the sweet face of her young son, she sees far beyond just his eyes. She sees a precious child of God that she was given to love, educate and bring into the loving arms of Our Lord and His Church.

“Being pro-life meant something to me even before I had my son, but now that I have him, it means much more,” Bridget says. “Now I want to do everything I can to advance the culture of life because it is his peers and classmates that are being murdered in the womb. When he gets older and he learns about what has been going on with the horror of abortion, I don’t want to tell him that I just sat back and watched it happen. I would like to say that I was doing everything I could.”

In fact, embracing the Gospel of Life means so much to Bridget that she recently volunteered to coordinate the Respect Life Ministry at our parish.

“I have been very active in pro-life activities for about 13 years, so when I was invited to be coordinator, I said ‘yes,’” she says. “I am a convert to Catholicism. I was a pro-life atheist, and the Church’s stance on the dignity and value of all life at all stages was one of the things that drew me to become Catholic. I love the pro-life stance of the Church! Ultimately, at the intersection between the scientific fact that life begins at conception and the moral teaching that you don’t kill humans, is where some people find God, and I was one of them.”

Now that she is heading up the Respect Life Ministry, she cherishes some beautiful hopes and dreams on how to help others fight for the cause of life.

“We have a very energetic group, and we have been talking about revitalizing Catholic respect life activities, not only in our parish but also in our local area,” she says. “Fr. John Moriarty was saying at our last meeting that he feels we should try to expand our ministry because there is a lot of pro-life activity in our local region but not a lot of specifically Catholic pro-life activity. We hope to encourage other parishes to get more involved.”

The ministry will also be starting up a couple of new pro-life events. For example, on March 19 in Hehman Hall, they will be showing the movie Unplanned, followed by a discussion afterward. There will also be resources available for women experiencing unplanned pregnancies and people suffering from the harm of abortion.

Currently, the Respect Life Ministry meets at the Parish Life Center or the O’Neill Center on the second Wednesday of every month at 7 p.m. One of the ministry’s main goals is to keep prolife issues — from conception to natural death — at the forefront of people’s minds and hearts. For example, they share pro-life bulletin announcements and the Prayers of the Faithful distributed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. During Respect Life Month each October, the ministry gives out materials on pro-life issues. This coming January, they plan on sharing information on prayers for the nine days preceding Jan. 22, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

“We also hope to continue to share information on the Kentucky Memorial for the Unborn at Frankfort Cemetery,” Bridget says. “There, people can have a name engraved in granite to honor a baby lost through abortion, miscarriage, or stillbirth.”

Finally, on Mother’s Day weekend, the ministry distributes baby bottles to our parishioners, so that they may fill them up with change to be collected on Father’s Day and donated to Birthright. Typically, our parish very generously raises about $3,500 annually through this effort.

“Birthright is a great organization that supports women facing unplanned pregnancies, and I am on its board,” Bridget says.

If you would like more information on how to savor and protect God’s gift of life through this ministry, please see future parish bulletins or call Bridget Fay at 617-538-4472.