“From the Archives” Saint Mary’s and the Pro-Life Movement

A momentous decision by the Supreme Court on January 22, 1973, struck a blow to Catholics and many others around the world. Roe v. Wade, which ruled that abortion was legal, was totally opposite Christian doctrine that all human life from conception to natural death is sacred, and that abortions violate God’s commandment, “Thou shall not kill.”

The pro-life, right-to-life movement immediately emerged. Prayers, protests and rallies – including the annual March for Life on Pennsylvania Avenue to the U.S. Capitol and U.S. Supreme Court, which began in 1974. Buses filled with Saint Mary parishioners and junior high students typically joined the March every year until COVID-19 restrictions intervened in 2021.

In recent decades, parishioners of Saint Mary have worked to maintain the pro-life momentum and prayerfully seek reparation for the sin of abortion. Members of our parish, along with people from other local churches, regularly – even weekly – pray the rosary outside local abortion clinics. We participate in the annual Life Chain, publicly witnessing to the sanctity of life by praying the rosary along Franconia Road. Novenas, holy hours and other prayers for the unborn are a longstanding part of Saint Mary’s parish life.

Parishioners of Saint Mary also have and continue to participate in a range of pro-life programs and organizations sponsored by the Arlington Diocese, including:

• The Gabriel Project, which provides prenatal assistance and mentors to help pregnant women, especially those with difficult pregnancies.
• Project Rachel, which provides support for women who have had an abortion.
• The MaRIH Center (originally called Birthright), which offers counseling and spiritual and material support to women with troubled pregnancies and new mothers.
• The Paul Stefan Homes, co-founded in 2006 by Father Stefan Starzynski, a former parochial vicar at Saint Mary, which operates homes in Northern Virginia for single mothers facing crisis pregnancies and their babies. The women can live there, attend school and receive job training to enable them to support themselves and their children.
• The Adoption Project, in which individual parishioners or families sign a virtual pre-natal spiritual adoption agreement. They “name” the baby, affirming its humanity, receive monthly updates on the pregnancy and the baby’s progress, and pray for their baby and its mother.  After nine months, the MaRIH Center holds a baby shower to which the spiritual adopters bring layettes and all the things a new mother needs for her infant.

As in the past, 48 years after Roe v. Wade, parishioners of Saint Mary continue to prayerfully hope and work for a conversion of all Americans toward protecting the unborn and defending life.

– Kitty Guy, Parish Historian

In 2020, to commemorate the 225th anniversary of our parish, we started “From the Archives” as a weekly feature online and in our bulletin to spotlight the history of Saint Mary’s. Due to its popularity, we are continuing the series in 2021. An archive of the features is located here.