Pro-life rosary inspires faith in participants
Bishop to lead Dec. 23 public rosary prayer

By J.D. Long-García, The Catholic Sun
December 21, 2006

On any given Saturday morning, abortion clinics throughout the Valley are the site of devout Catholic prayer.

Children of the Rosary, a group that recites the rosary outside abortion sites, peacefully prays with the hope that mothers will choose not to terminate their pregnancy.

On the feast of St. Juan Diego, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted joined the group to pray in Spanish at the Seventh Avenue Planned Parenthood Dec. 9.

In what has become a Christmas time tradition, Bishop Olmsted will again be praying, this time in English, with Children of the Rosary at 9 a.m., Dec. 23, at the same clinic, located at 4417 N. 7th Ave. in Phoenix.

“Just thinking about those babies, I mean, innocent babies, it’s just… I don’t know,” said Ivan Rodriguez, not having words for her sorrow.

On that day, despite the group’s efforts, the Planned Parenthood parking lot was jam-packed. While the organization provides other services, those praying feared the worst.

“Sometimes you feel like, ‘what am I doing here? They don’t even listen,’” Rodriguez said, stoically.

“But then it happens. A mother changes her mind,” she added, a smile creeping across her face. “It makes you feel good.”

That Saturday morning, one young lady did change her mind.

As her boyfriend pulled up to the clinic, she saw an image familiar to her from her childhood: Our Lady of Guadalupe. Something stirred in her heart.

She ran to the women calling to her in Spanish and the group embraced her. They gave her information on alternatives to abortion.

“God and His mother were with us this day,” said Frances Castillo, a St. Catherine of Siena parishioner. “We know for certain a baby was saved today.”

She held up an image of an aborted fetus.

“This is choice,” she said.

Other women called to a couple as they pulled into the parking lot. A rosary hung from the rearview mirror.

The women asked the passenger to look at their rosary and reconsider.

“Many people will tell you that you aren’t doing any good,” said Tom Takash of Children of the Rosary. “They think it’s a negative thing that we’re out here. They think we’re pointing fingers at people.”

Children of the Rosary began praying in front of abortion clinics in 1991. Takash himself started 10 years ago.

“Many women feel trapped, they don’t know where to go. No one helps them,” he said, noting friends and family sometimes encourage mothers to terminate their pregnancies.

“They tell them they don’t have any other choice,” Takash said. Part of what Children of the Rosary does is provide another choice.

Takash also said the group is there for women who have already had abortions.

“We’re not there to condemn them. We’re there to give them whatever counsel they want,” he said.

Women often fall into depression after having an abortion, Takash said, so the group provides them with information about support groups and other ways to deal with the loss.

He said the group is there for mothers before or after an abortion and for the unborn children.

Takash also said they are there for themselves. He noted a profound conversion in those who “speak up for the unborn.”

“The Holy Spirit influences our lives and our outlook and gives us strength that we’ve never had before,” Takash said.

Those who pray outside abortion clinics need that strength. While some drivers honk their horns and give them a thumbs-up, others give them a different finger.

It’s also heartbreaking for the group to see so many women go into the abortion clinic. Most women they see don’t change their minds.

“A lot of people are afraid to come out here,” said Isabel Galindo, who heads up the Spanish-language effort for Children of the Rosary. A lot of times, the group feels outnumbered.

But Galindo believes the group is accomplishing things.

“When we are here, our presence here is speaking a loud message of life and the people going in there are seeing us,” she said.

“You don’t know what’s happening. The Holy Spirit is in charge,” Takash said. “He’s changing minds and changing hearts and He’s using us and people like us. So we can’t sit there and count heads.”

With each passing Saturday, Children of the Rosary members are emboldened in the cause.

“As long as I live and the Lord Almighty gives me life so I can walk and breathe and talk,” Galindo said, “I am going to defend the lives of the babies.”

The public is invited to pray the rosary. For more information, call Tom Takash at (602) 548-3131.