Local News

Sept. 21, 2006

Diocese reinstates Sanctity of Life collection

By Andrew Junker
The Catholic Sun

For the first time in five years, parishes will hold a Sanctity of Life collection during Masses the first weekend of October.

Mike Phelan, director of the diocesan marriage and respect life office, said restoring the collection will help finance a media campaign centered on pro-life issues.

“We’re going to be working with Virtue Media, which is a pro-life lay apostolate that does radio and TV commercials,” Phelan said. “They do really excellent, positive, informative work.”

The campaign will preach the pro-life message in places it might not be heard. Phelan said the message will be spread in areas that the Catholic Church does not always visit, but where the everyday American lives.

Tom Peterson, president of Virtue Media, said the “diocesan-wide effort will take pro-life education to a much higher level with greater fruits.”

The goals, he said, are “more babies saved and more post-abortive parents healed.”

In proclaiming the Gospel of Life, Catholics pit themselves against an uninformed population, Phelan said.

“We have a lot of catechesis to do within our own Catholic community about exactly what’s happening with life issues. The general culture really experiences a lack of complete information,” he said.

Peterson agreed.

“The lack of knowing true alternatives while in crisis mode is the number one message we can provide” to pregnant women, he said.

“These women feel trapped,” he added, noting that many think their only recourse is through Planned Parenthood.

Phelan said the ads will direct these women to the pro-life ministries available in the diocese.

Peterson has experienced some of the “miraculous results” of a pro-life ad campaign. He has met children saved from abortion because their mothers saw a Virtue Media ad on TV.

He hopes that Virtue Media and the diocese will be able target ads in the Valley throughout 2007. The ads will run on all major television stations in English and Spanish.

“We have to be in the media as Catholics,” Phelan said. “John Paul II urged us to do so. It’s not as if we dwell there, but we must be there because the other voices are there.”

Virtue Media

To view and hear some of the pro-life lay apostolates’ television and radio ads, visit www.virtuemedia.org