Pro-Life leader and former Miss America, Erika Harold, gets a page 6 story by Leslie Griffy and color photograph in Monday’s Chicago Sun-Times, as one of three women who will speak at the American Conservative Union’s upcoming conference later this month. Also speaking at the conference will be author Ann Coulter and Florida’s Republican Rep. Katherine Harris.
Erika Harold at SpeakOut
Harold will also be the main speaker at SpeakOut Illinois January 25 at the Hyatt Regency Oakbrook. The Sun-Times article says that Harold, of Urbana, IL will also be a delegate to the Republican National Convention in August. Harold is well known for speaking for abstinence and for her strong pro-life position.
The article also suggests that Harold may be considering a political career. Libby Gray, head of Project Reality, is quoted in the Sun-Times article as saying Harold would be a great public servant.
Pray for Activist John Arena
One of the truly great pro-life activists who has not only been fighting abortion effectively for more than thirty years, but has paid a huge price in persecution, jail time, fines and punishments that most of us only read about, is our old friend John Arena of Rome, NY.
We had a nice visit with John and his wife, Anne, last April while in Syracuse NY speaking to a pro-life gathering of 300 guests at Barbagallo’s Restaurant. John has spent five years behind bars during his more than thirty years of pro-life activism, and he assured me recently that he never prayed for his own release, but rather that he would accept God’s will and remain faithful to his pro-life mission. That he has surely done.
Before his sentencing in 1997, John read a twenty-four page statement before the court. It took two hours. Although the statement gave arguments for why he deserved clemency in the face of charges of extortion and interference with interstate commerce, it also exposed the lies of the abortionists.
John was handed a three-and-a-half year sentence on that occasion, of which he served nearly three years. While John is free now and is still very active in pro-life, he is having some health problems and asks for prayers as he continues his fight to end abortion. If ever you think you have suffered enough for the cause of the unborn, just remember John and Anne Arena of Rome, NY.
Pray for Guidance
There are many heroes and heroines in the pro-life movement, and we make no judgments as to what anyone else is required to do in the abortion wars, but we do ask everyone to pray for God’s guidance so that we will each do His will in this important fight.
That is what we at the League do each morning when we gather in our St. Joseph Chapel — we pray for guidance, for renewed strength, and also for all our benefactors.
We also pray for all the women making decisions about abortion this day. Prayer is our sustenance, and we know it. Prayer is how we get in touch with God who is the only one who can show us the way.
Hats Off
Our hat is off to the hundred or so who came out for our very first talk of 2004 at Sacred Heart Parish in Lombard on Saturday morning. On that day we could truly say we were speaking to the choir.
