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Daniel Meloy
October 3, 2023
"DETROIT — Sisters from the New York City-based Sisters of Life hosted a morning seminar for pro-life ministers across the Archdiocese of Detroit on Oct. 2, sharing strategies and pointers on how best to conduct effective pro-life ministry.
The seminar, hosted at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, allowed the sisters to share best practices from their time in New York and share tips in effective communication, showing empathy and compassion and how best to offer the healing heart of Christ to any pregnant or post-abortive woman who comes into contact with a parish’s pro-life ministry. The next day, the sisters spoke to a gathering of Detroit priests on the same topics.
Sr. Mariana Benedicta Uribe, SV, said it's important that any initial conversation, whether it is someone calling a pregnancy resource hotline or walking into a parish looking for help, needs to be an encounter filled with grace.
'When meeting someone who comes to us for help, I’m meeting them with love. That promises love going forward, and it is an encounter that changes this woman’s life,' Sr. Uribe said. 'Over the years, we’ve developed a way in which we listen, a way in which we accompany and let the circumstances unfold, but is open to God’s grace.'...
In the aftermath of the passage of Proposal 3 in November 2022, and the possible expansion of abortion via the 'Reproductive Health Act' that is making its way through Michigan’s Legislature, Sr. Uribe said ministries such as Walking With Moms in Need and Project Rachel will be all the more important...
'I know you all with Proposal 3 have been in a battleground,' Sr. Uribe said. 'But this is not about labels or politics; this is about people. We know as a family we are hurting. As a city, a diocese, a state, we are hurting. There are a lot of people who are hurting, and we need to heal.'
That healing can come from pro-life ministers, who can be the first ones to tell a scared pregnant woman or a mother or father of an aborted baby that they are loved, that they matter and that someone is there for them.
'Every person who ever was, who comes into existence, was chosen by God to be here and is loved,' Sr. Uribe said. 'This is astounding, mind-blowing. God loves you. He chooses you. It's not just about the sacredness of life or the devastation that abortion is, but it's about God’s plan of mercy and healing. Because He is holding all of us with His love, and He desires to bring us into the fullness of who we are.'"
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