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League history, NOW v. Scheidler, Action News, Joe Scheidler, League staff
League history, NOW v. Scheidler, Action News, Joe Scheidler, League staff
Q & A on abortion, the unborn child, where we stand on the issues and more
Helping abortion-bound women choose life for their babies
Unmasking the truth about abortion in the public square
Our youth outreach, raising up a new generation of pro-life leaders
Abortion industry converts tell the inside story
News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
On Saturday, March 19, 2005, Julie McCreevy of the Chicago Helpers of God's Precious Infants held a sidewalk counseling seminar in the conference room at the office of the Pro-Life Action League, which sponsors the ministry of the Chicago Helpers. Every nook and cranny of the conference room was packed as thirty-one dedicated pro-lifers gathered to increase their knowledge and effectiveness as prayer warriors and sidewalk counselors.
Julie gave instruction and step-by-step advice on the Helpers sidewalk counseling methods. She also invited Walter Stumpf and Cathy Mieding to make presentations to the group.
Walter, along with Deacon Ed White, is a leader of the Gospel of Life group, a contingent of Archdiocese of Chicago seminarians from Mundelein Seminary. These dedicated future priests pray and sidewalk counsel regularly with the Helpers at Chicago area abortion facilities. Eight seminarians came to the training seminar.
A packed League conference room for the March 19 training seminar
[Photo by Julie McCreevy]
Walter and fellow seminarian Eduardo Martinez acted out a situation that is frequently encountered while sidewalk counseling. Eduardo played the role of the Abortion-Minded Father, and Walter took the role of the Sidewalk Counselor. The scenario was instructive to the neophytes in the group, and amusing to the veteran counselors, who could so well relate to it, as Eduardo played the role of the stubborn Abortion-Minded Father to the hilt.
In the end, Walter prevailed and Eduardo, the now contrite Father Ready To Choose Life for His Baby, agreed to go back into the imaginary abortion clinic to retrieve his imaginary wife.
Following this mini-drama, Cathy Mieding shared some insights gained during her eleven years faithfully and heroically sidewalk counseling outside Chicago's Albany Medical-Surgical Center, a late term abortion facility. She exhorted the group to be open to the inestimable gift of counseling abortion bound parents and helping them choose life instead of death for their unborn babies.
Cathy told the group, "There is no greater joy" than to know that a baby who was on the verge of being killed through abortion will live because her mother or father spoke to a sidewalk counselor who was willing to sacrifice and to be present at the abortion clinic. Hundreds of children are alive today because Catherine has been an instrument of God's grace to abortion bound mothers and fathers.
The meeting concluded with a delightful chanting by the Mundelein seminarians of the "Salve Regina," the Latin version of the prayer "Hail, Holy Queen." The inspiration and enthusiasm fostered by Walter, Eduardo and Cathy made for a very successful training seminar.
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