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| Eileen Bianchini, Leticia Velasquez and Mary Rose Garych |
I was honored to be invited by my friend Eileen Bianchini to address the Gospel of Life Society at St Mary's in Norwalk, CT on April 13 after a lovely Mass in in the Extraordinary Form. St Mary's is a beautiful traditional church which features Mass in both Novus Ordo and EF. The parish is a mix of European Americans and recent immigrants from Africa, Asia and Latin America, a truly Catholic group. Fr Markey, the pastor is a wonderful homilist and inspires his parish to make a difference in the world for Christ.
The Gospel of Life Society meets once a month after Mass to read from Blessed John Paul II's encyclical "Evangelium Vitae" and to pray for a culture of life. Then, after prayers, they roll up their sleeves and get to work. Most months a speaker will address the group on current issues affecting the culture, and many times they will respond to urgent legislative issues in Hartford. An most recent example is when legislators in Hartford considered a bill on Physician Assisted Suicide, while the bill was still in committee. Eileen Bianchini sent out various emails instructing the group how to contact committee members with pertinent information of the dangers of PAS and many members of the group arrived in the Capitol to wait all day to testify to the committee. The hearings began and thanks to the GOLS the members had heard the rebuttals to the lies told by the pro-death side promoting PAS. Their arguments fell flat since the truth had preceded them and the committee had to admit they did not have the votes for the Physician Assisted Suicide Bill to pass and it died in the committee. Thanks be to God!I gave Eileen Bianchini the nickname "Terror of Hartford" for her amazing work defeating a bill which has lead to a tragedy where it has been legalized, in the state of Oregon suicides have risen 41% since approving PAS. Surely physicians are called to heal not to kill.
My talk, to a capacity crowd which included my Facebook friend Mary Rose Garych and many lovely families blessed by children with Down syndrome was warmly received and a lively question and answer session followed. Then I had the chance to meet the families and sign some books. I hope to meet with them again soon and give more talks, to medical students, doctors and all those who are helping mothers whose child has received a prenatal or postnatal diagnosis of Down syndrome to understand that their children are indeed blessings from God and opportunities to grow in holiness.
