Save the Lives of the Most Vulnerable

October, Respect Life Month, is just around the corner. It is a month when we remember the tremendous gift of life that we receive from the hands of God our Creator and Father.  It is a time when we work to protect all life from womb to natural death.  We redouble our efforts especially to protect the most vulnerable and the most innocent among us, our children not yet born.
           
We believe that a human person is created at the moment conception occurs. A new, amazing, and unrepeatable person comes into existence when sperm and egg come together in the body of his or her mother. This tiny person, this beautiful child, comes body and soul into the world with incredible potential for good.
           
Dear friends, we are called to love, protect, and nurture our children no matter how young they may be, whether they are born or still in their mother’s womb. We must act to protect them from destruction.  Jesus Himself says, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13). Our conscience tells us to lay down our life for them.  We must not allow a culture of  culture of egoism and death, rob us of this voice.
           
Across our nation and in our own diocese, women and men respond heroically to the call to protect and love these tiny, innocent children who harm no one and long only for the chance to live the life God has given them. Armed only with love and often a rosary, these heroic men and women come to places that destroy the life of the unborn and irrevocably damage the lives and the future of the women who carry them. Participants in organizations like 40 Days for Life, Sidewalk Advocates for Life and others brave inclement weather, verbal and physical abuse as well as threats from passersby to stand up faithfully and lovingly for these beautiful tiny ones.  They come to be the voices of the voiceless. These wonderful advocates for unborn children and their mothers are making an important impact on a world given over to the destruction of our future generations.
           
They need your help. Won’t you please consider joining this army of love and mercy? Won’t you stand up for the most vulnerable in our society, the tiny children who cannot run or hide from the pain and violence of an abortion that will rob them of life? Won’t you please help those on the front lines of abortion mills or those who support preborn children and their mothers ?
           
To do so please contact:

• 40 Days for Life: [email protected]
• Sidewalk Advocates for Life: [email protected]
• Birthright of Pittsburgh: [email protected]
• Genesis of Pittsburgh: [email protected]
• People Concerned for the Unborn: [email protected]
• The Magee Project: [email protected]
• Women’s Choice Network: [email protected]

Please come to the opening of the 40 Days for Life Fall Campaign 2023 on September 26 beginning with Mass celebrated at 6:30 PM in Epiphany Church, 164 Washington Place, Pittsburgh.  Immediately after Mass there will be a Procession with the Most Blessed Sacrament to Planned Parenthood on Liberty Avenue.  Let us raise our voices in prayer and love for the protection of the preborn.

Think of the welcome and love of the army of white robed children who will meet you when you arrive at the gates of heaven. They will welcome you with love and gratitude.

Most Reverend William J. Waltersheid
Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh