Sunday Night Prime - 2017-10-01 - Remembering Fr. Groeschel

[Music] hello welcome to Sunday night run I'm father Andrew Apostoli a member of the Franciscan friars of the renewal and it's my pleasure to be your host with this program before we get into tonight's program which I'm sure you're going to find very very interesting I want to remind you that if you have any questions any suggestions and he even ideas for future programs please send your emails to Sunday night prime at ewtn.com that's Sunday night prime at ewtn.com well let me greet you with the greeting of st. Francis may the lord give you his peace well today we're going to speak about someone most of you know and that is father Benedict Groeschel you know his anniversary its third anniversary of death not that far away so we decided to do a program to remind our viewing audience and listening audience about the greatness of father Benedict after all he was the one who began the Sunday night prime but that point it was Sunday Night Live remember he used to do right from this studio he would do his program and send it down there to Alabama and then it would be sent all over the world I guess however they did it but he certainly was a great man and we'd like to remember him you know now I I've been working in this as the the host with Sunday night prime for at least three years now and I still get in the emails where people will mention I miss father Benedict they loved him so much so we thought maybe have been a nice tribute to remind you about him and some of the work that he began and that is now continuing and that's why we have a very special guest with this program today his name is Chris Bell Chris well thank you so much father Andrew it's great to be you are you the director of the good counselor Holmes yes and I say the co-founder because father Benedict we call the other co-founder of Good Counsel so you can see he worked very closely with father Benedict on something that was very dear to father Benedict's heart and I know very dear to Chris bells heart so I'm going to talk about the what who he was and even Chris will talk about how he knew him and the idea developing for Good Counsel homes and then where we are now especially with concern for the homeless and the needy yeah well let's talk a little bit about father Benedict that oh honey kind of some sum him up well when he passed away we put out a little holy card on him and it mentioned about four things I'm not sure if I got exactly right here I didn't have a copy of the card but first of all one of the things about him is he was certainly a very loyal Catholic all through his life it was always close to the church you know he prayed the rosary as a young child and you know so he was someone who really lived his Catholic faith and that came out later on in a very powerful way didn't it yes and he knew at seven years old he had a religious experience that he talked about many times being a little boy and seeing one of the nuns go to this apartment upstairs with an elderly woman and he actually said he thought this elderly woman in his little mind was a witch because she had a little wart on her nose and oh the other which he knew was and you know the Disney character a we hope that that doesn't it doesn't apply Wow yeah so he had that image and and there was a barbershop you know a good Italian barber on the first floor and the apartments above and he asked the barber why does the nun go to the witch and and he says she had takes a care of her you know and and what she was doing was bringing a bowl of soup so father Benedict and his youthful mischievousness climb the fire escape and peeked in and he says and the witch looked out at me and that frightened him she part of the curtains she'd caught him on the fire escape he ran into the church st. Aloysius in Jersey City he went before the statue of the Blessed Mother was kneeling servant Lea and he heard this voice he said it was just an internal instant voice that said be a priest and he got up and he felt some kind of courage and security and I he said he walked by the rectory and thought well I guess that's where I'm gonna live you know when I get older and just had it and he had never been never waivered now obviously that was a youthful interesting way that God spoke to him but it also matured in his years oh yes there's many ways that people get that first inkling yes you know I remember somebody told me said when I was a little kid my sister told me I should be a priest you know and today you think oh so it happened and if you ever saw that we have a photo of him you know as a young schoolboy you know all dressed up looking somewhat serious and his high school classmates like Charlie Kenworthy whom we know today said he was always a serious student he was respectful to to women but he never flirted or dated at all because he knew that he was being asked to be a priest and his choice of the Franciscans against his father's encouragement to consider the Jesuits had everything to do with wanting to work with the poor even then he had a desire yeah he was from mostly middle class you know Jersey City you're a Caldwell Caldwell yes yeah so you know wasn't like he lived in poverty at all but but he had a heart God gave him that heart for the poor and when he entered the Franciscans he did so with the full intention of being a servant to the poor and isn't it interesting I don't know who made the decision for him to go on to study psychology which in the 60s was pretty new I think for religious to study psychology but as you and I knew him as a psychologist he didn't act like a you know a doctor in any way he was very much he used that tool that knowledge to help others and myself included and many other religious certainly men women family priests and nuns but also bishops Archbishop's Cardinals weakened so he used that knowledge and experience to aid the growth of the gospel and to serve Jesus Christ you know my brother one of my brothers Michael knew him and he said to me one day he said the the real gift of father Benedict was that he was able to combine the traditional teachings of the church for example the three ways the purgative illuminative unitive way the teachings of Saint Teresa of Avila the mansions and st. John of the Cross you know and and and so on the dark night he was able to combine that with modern psychology yeah which it almost seemed like modern psychology is completely you know it's without God it's a known secular but he was able to to see how they come together and his first and I think great book and it's a seminal book spiritual passages was exactly that explaining how psychology and spirituality can work together and the great John Paul it's great Saint John Paul you know did speak often of a Christian psyche ecology which takes into account the whole person mind body and spirit and it's integrating because God made us one and he made us with emotions and with a brain and with a body and it's only in integrating these elements that we can be a whole and holy person and I think father Benedict saw that and he didn't see it only in what I would say are well balanced you know ordinary folks he saw it in his own patron saint the name he was given Benedict Joseph labret whom we know is a homeless follower of the gospel and he entered like 13 communities and was rejected because Benedict Joseph labret Saint Benedict Joseph was really a little crazy al upon so as they say in Italy he lived in the street he begged for food and he gave away what he begged but he but father Benedict could see you don't have to be completely whatever in fact he joke about what normal means you know normal in Times Square is talking to yourself you know he walking around I was like most people the the norm is the average so you take the average person around there and they're walking around talking to themselves so so but it's not about normal normality it's about balance it's about integrating faith into one's life and I know he even saw in people whom others might say are a little well unbalanced that he could see God working and using them I think he did in me anyway great teacher the preacher he was EWTN Mother Angelica Colton didn't he I think he told me he was preaching in your in England he was in England got the phone call from her mother and I think one of his questions was how did you find me here but she and and he would say of her she was certainly very close to God very close and her spirit and obviously the fruits of her work are way beyond any human any and machiya sure and you know he wrote 42 books I mean he was a scholar and everything so yeah it was loyal to the church let's go on and talk about one more quality be but we have to take our very short and that is he was a Franciscan brother he loved the the Franciscan charism as you say but to work with the poor st. Francis working with the lepers and you know the Franciscans working that way and you know he there's a funny story but he he lived in Caldwell and he came down to Orange now the church in Orange was a Capuchin Church but it was the Italian branch and so the priest that he spoke through there had a very heavy Italian accent see the the Capitan's in New York were from the German province background now they spoke more English and so on but father Norberto was his name and he said he said to father Benedict he said now he says Sam we have a house this is his Italian in the house in oranges and an AK in a sack and a Passaic and a Renault in Hoboken a big beacon and Ginola Road and to come five years to figure out that Ginola road was gun Hill Road in the Bronx so then father nor Bertha said to him this is your name grow show that's no Italian name no no father no no son that's not a tell you but your mother's Italian no because no father my mother's Irish he says hey you like the lasagna and father father ever for the Benedick answered father Norbert Oh father I never eat that that lasagna not Nevada you're like a manicotti father I don't even know what that is is that you eat spaghetti he said no father don't he says you better go to the German province or you will starve it to that so I always point out that's critical vocational service yeah but that's how we ended up in everything for the problem directed providence of god yeah so he had many more opportunities in New York to develop and you know as a psychologist and his work and so on you know so but he led he guided many religious started the reform of the Franciscan friars and sisters of the renewal well while you together like I mean it's it's an amazing I think story that you and and he have together isn't it and you know and you're you're even first meeting with him and you remember he many he guided many religious member and he also said that it was very important for the conference's for religious you know that they be that they come and so whenever he had conferences in different places many religious attended them yes yet monthly conferences and when he started may have been in the 60s but certainly in the 70s I was told that religious particularly women religious had to do a monthly day of recollection and that's what he was offering for them in different locations in New York New Jersey Long Island and I saw an early picture of that and there was a church filled with habits habited nuns so it shows you how far back that goes yeah but then that transformed he learned he certainly changed with the times and to more and more lay people and then he started the spiritual program for the lady and you taught in that - yeah yeah and I became a product of that course but you mentioned priests and I Christmas going to just have to take a little break now let's pick up on that when we do ok I'm going to take a break now but don't go away we've got so much interesting things to share with you we'll be right back [Applause] [Music] [Applause] welcome back to Sunday night crime I'm father Andrew Apostoli the host for this program and our special guest is Chris Bell who is the director of the Good Counsel homes for the homeless and also too wanted to mention that our topic is entitled our title for this show is father Benedict Groeschel a well beloved priest okay his anniversary is coming up fairly soon and we thought it would be right to remember him because you know he's the one who founded this it's program you usually do it live used to call it the father Benedict Sunday Night Live yeah and so we want to remember him many people when they write send me their emails they many of them mention father Benedict how much they love them and how much they miss him so we thought it would be nice to do something to bring his memory back okay we were talking about some quality we looked at how he was very loyal in his Catholic faith his vocation early in life Franciscan was a Franciscan brother concern for the order and so on but the third quality we can do is a guide for priests you were going to say something on that yes I meet priests today all over not only in New York and New Jersey whom he helped encourage and it may I think some would even say formed either before or after ordination to 'men courage their love for the church love for the teachings of the faith and also to help them navigate you know the the waters of of the culture that we're under attack here we've always been under some form of attack but in the 60s and 70s the revolution that people would talk about the sexual revolution the feminist revolution there was still a large somewhat large and faith-filled a church and I think people took refuge in it but that barrier has broken down the faith-filled are fewer those that are seeking God and seeking Christ are having a very interesting time of it but those that seek as he's quoting a book here those who seek will find and and those certainly the gospel says those who knock the door will be open and father was helping priests to be open to and to survive through the trials and tribulations that were found both inside the church and outside and also to be open to the faithful who are seeking in many different ways then for some of them when they were first ordained and let us remember you and he were ordained in a church that still was celebrating Latin Mass that its traditions had been sustained for hundreds of years and taken for granted and then like a window slamming shut everything seemed to change like boom and then what you knew is traditions just went by the wayside and here's where father Benedict psychology and spirituality I think really shown he recognized you can't throw everything out because in doing that you are actually removing what people need every human spirit need we need heroes we need examples and and that's what we find in the Saints and he always used the Saints as examples to to live a good life to live a holy life to live through troubled times the Saints always lived in troubled times we're always in trouble times and I think too he also saw that the human spirit needs rituals he didn't always put it that way but needs practices needs a way to relate to God that's very tangible very material God made us flesh and blood and it struck me when the great John Paul was Pope how he in so many ways people called him old-fashioned how he pray on his knees prayed the Rosary went to confession regularly yet these tangible actions help one deepen their spiritual life with God I remember him when the father Benedict's talks he say you know I he talked about the good religious sister who is you know praying her office and praying her rosary for 30 40 years and her life you know it may have seemed kind of ordinary or even dull but there she is with a deep spiritual life maybe like st. Teresa of Avila and if the 30 40 years she's kind of banking in towards the glory of God and that union with God which you know becomes indescribable and it's something to strive for at any age at any wage right and that that love that grows with age with a married couple with a religious with God it all is bringing us closer to union with the true love who is love who is God and that's what I heard and that's how I saw father Benedict preaching and talking and encouraging all of us no matter how trouble the the situation was you know to keep striving and he'd say you know he was slightly pessimistic you know that was his attitude to his life and he said you know that helped him a lot because when you you don't think things are gonna go right and they do you're surprised with joy and if they go a little bit worse it's like well you expected it to go a little worse so it's like you really and isn't that the human condition I mean one of the funnier jokes he would say is you know even even when we sin we sinned badly you know it's like we kind of stumble along but God is so merciful he wants to pick us up from wherever we're falling down and say try again and again well you know remember father Robert who was now deceased one of our early members of our community the Friars at renewal he used to say that the period after the council he said we had we had the council Vatican two and that was the council in Rome that sought to reform the church he said but then we had he called Vatican too much that was the term the turmoil that came after the council and all that a lot of that disruption broke out but remember we know Bishop Sheen was very instrumental in this the many people that he converted and particularly Bella Dodd who recruited men into the church to be priests who were really communist agents and I think they were responsible for a lot of that turmoil and then later on we had other troubles and you know but Bishop Sheen used to say that if there is any key to the reform of the church and the salvation of souls today he said it lies in the renewal of the priesthood so father Benedict was an exemplary priest and you know he loved his priesthood and you know and Trinity retreat where he spent please yeah well Cardinal cook God rest his soul a servant of God asked him to take over this house and a rather exclusive neighborhood I might add in Larchmont on the water and use it for priests and for the Benedict having his you know counseling psychology degree and insight and I think Cardinal cooks saw and father Benedict a priest and a man who could deeply assist those other priests who were struggling on all levels with all sorts of challenges and I think one of the only moments I saw a little bit of pride in father Benedict was when he talked about how many priests he brought back priests who had left the church or left the priesthood whether whether they were laya sized or not and he assisted I think it was three dozen or more at the time he was telling me it was in the thirties priest he brought back one man it was this dramatic he had been on retreat with father Benedict for the week and he had been outside the the priesthood for for I think well over a decade and the last mass they had together on retreat father Benedict asked him up to the altar he couldn't officially can't celebrate but he was helping him out of the church but he was I guess trying to make him feel the loves and also the the feeling that I saw I'm sure father Benedict wanted him to have in the priesthood that man before he left Trinity retreat house had a heart attack and died and you know it's certainly he's in the mercy of God but as father Benedict explained it he was on his way back you know fully to embrace and now and now we saw Christ you know please God he saw and it was embraced by the he certainly was embraced by the merciful Lord and please God he was reconciled completely you know at that moment how many other people I think father Benedict helped to reconcile and to assist in their journey I certainly won't know but that's where I think his really his greatest love was in addition to the poor was to helping priests well let's get to that one not yes yes we're coming about four minutes toward the end of this segment but we want to talk about his love for the poor pro-life yeah well you know he was somewhat famous for his turkey distribution on Thanksgiving and Christmas and that I think was an outgrowth of his work at Children's Village now I I don't know all of this for a fact but it seemed to me that Children's Village was where troubled kids were sent and being the chaplain and also knowing a little bit more in understanding the kids that he was healing with he really got to know the families usually single mothers and he knew that a lot of them didn't have much around the holidays so even when he left Children's Village and was in Trinity I know that he would collect turkeys and other food and he'd distribute it and at first it was just him but then it kept growing and growing and I I think hundreds of families and he did this so long that it wasn't only the the children who were now adults from children's will and their mothers but it was like these guys some of them had children and he he'd be there for them and I for Christmas we had great Christmases and Thanksgiving together when Good Counsel open our home for mothers and babies in the beginning when it was only one home we we'd go up to Trinity and he'd have all the fixings and he'd had gifts for the kids it was some of the best Christmases because you could see that there was a love being shared with some young mothers and certainly with their children who never had a good Christmas before we never had a Thanksgiving meal before I had not time for one girl asked me could I go to confession and father benig was a little bit harried making sure the food was out and everything was going when he took Emily you know into the chapel and what he later reflected on was just that how alone she was in the world you know yester how she came to us and and did she have any other relative she didn't she didn't have a relative in the world only her baby and it you know deeply moved him every single person I mean he must have heard similar stories his whole life but every single one touched his heart and made him want to do more and that's what Good Counsel was about and and we'll talk all about his more direct action with trying to stop abortion to maybe in that and in that next segment yahoo share okay yeah that would be very very important Chris because we we want to show this aspect of his life that is not as well known I think these other qualities more general qualities were known by a lot of people but now his love of the poor and his love of you know life to protect life to protect the poor this is going to be very very important so let's not stop here okay okay we're going to be right back but we've got some really interesting things to talk about especially the Good Counsel homes that father Benedict and Chris were cofounders you're going to really enjoy that and be really edified by love of the poor and the homeless we'll be right back [Applause] [Music] welcome to Sunday night crime welcome back I should say is this father Andrew Apostoli to host for this program which is entitled father Benedict Groeschel a well beloved priest and our very special guest one who knew him well I worked with him very closely is Chris Bell who is the director of the the homes the the Lady of Good Counsel homes that he co-founded with father Benedict Groeschel this is a part of father Benedict's life that I'm not sure is that well known but I know a lot of you know father Benedict from EWTN he founded this program and you watched him for years but now you'll see a part of this a great priest and his love for the poor which is really a sign a great sign of love of God so welcome back and Chris and you worked with him on this program you wanted to show how you met him yeah my very the very first day I met him I didn't know him and I was living in working at a shelter in Times Square helping homeless and runaway kids and I was in a community a lay prayer community and one of the community members said oh we have father Benedict Groeschel come and use a great preacher again I had never heard him well that day when I woke up and went into the shelter for young adults there was a young man there who shouldn't have been there I was asking him to to leave and he took a swipe at me and then another counselor jumped on him and there was all this rumbling going on and it turned out that the young boy lost any other outreach services that he was supposed to get he was on his way to a job program and the counselor that was too rough with him he got fired and I just felt it was the worst day I had ever spent there and mass for us was 5:30 in the evening I walked back to the chapel on 8th Avenue and 44th Street and I'm looking down and I see that there's this visiting priest I didn't even remember his name and I think oh no if he tells us how great we are how wonderful our kids are I honestly thought to myself I'm going to throw up and he starts off by saying and so I know it was the end of January beginning of February because he says you know Don Bosco his feast is around now and he's always seen with these cherubic kids he says and it looks like he has lovely you know flock of young boys and girls that he's helping out but the fact is the kids he worked with with Street kids they were tough kids they were like your kids they were troubled and I my eyes opened up and I said he understands he knows what we're talking about and then after mass and after dinner he gave a talk on the spiritual life and you mentioned this at the beginning of this program he talked about the three ways of the spiritual life the purgative the illuminative and the unitive way I had never heard about that when I was a teenager I was looking for you know meditating in an Eastern way because I had never heard that the Catholic Church had a tradition or had any knowledge or experience with meditation and unity with God by the way I should point it just fits right in here Chris you know he when I came to help on his courses yes that we talked about earlier you know that's where I learned a lot about the three ways he was kind of at one who introduced beats a lot of them and I had studies a lot of theology but he really knew that and he made it very real well and and in making it real we all should know that I mean we should grow up with that and and that was the first time I had heard that and so I talked to him some more not only that night but I called him up and he said come to one of my monthly days of recollection I did he said come up the Trinity and we did and we talked and we talked some more the long story short as I wound up going not necessarily because of him but through other circumstances going to Rome to study for a year and then I came back and I asked him to be my spiritual director got involved with the spiritual development program and that's when I heard God say as I was seeing more and more young women and children coming in off the streets of Times Square looking for help open a home from others and I of course talked to my spiritual director about that and when he said they didn't say it right away but when he finally said I'll help you I felt like it was the voice of God saying I'll help you because I had this fear here I was a single 27 year old boy you hadn't changed that many diapers and I thought wow you know can i really take care of women and children but when he said I'll help you even my fears I knew that God was there and as I look back because I was working with him he wasn't on EWTN much in 1985 but he was known among the clergy whom we had talked about whom he had counseled he almost every priest I talked to him I said oh you're with Benedict great you know and they helped me out a little bit and they do something I'm sure if it was just me on my own you know I wouldn't have gotten that first convent in Hoboken I wouldn't have been able to speak in the parishes which we still are speaking in parishes to share about our help for homeless pregnant women and children and we opened up in 1985 we had three homes the second one was in Spring Valley which we had originally dubbed the Cardinal cook residence because of Cardinal cooks also strong pro-life stance by now we had Cardinal O'Connor in the Archdiocese and he certainly was a wonderful voice and encouragement for us then we had a home on Staten Island Spring Valley and Staten Island are still homes that are operating today and today we're actually operating seven homes not only New York New Jersey but Connecticut and Alabama but the one specialty home that I think really touched father Benedict and I the most was what we call our day star program and let me explain how that plays out in the beginning when we opened up council we were getting referrals from mental health institutions and in the very beginning I took any woman in but then I had some challenges with women who were coming from maybe a residential group home for mental illness where they didn't want a woman giving birth and so when she came to us she had the baby and they were leaving the baby you know maybe alone in the room or on the toilet seat I said wait a minute we just not staff for this we we have our home where we help women go back to school and find a job and we weren't capable or I wasn't capable and I was fearful and I regret bitterly that I said no now and saying no we wouldn't take a woman who had a mental health illness God still has a way of yes yes yes but it took me a long time it took almost 14 years and women with mental illness they would come into the home they weren't diagnosed or they didn't have a history and so we kind of maneuver it or we did our best to help them but then I went to father Benedict I said I think we need to consciously make a program and we called it day saw because at the end of Revelations it is the Daystar that welcomes us mary is often referred to as the day star the morning star so we thought that this brought together the hope of the light for those who often when they're hearing voices or they are depressed they're in a dark tunnel we want to offer them this light and he said to me call up my good friend dr. dick Malone who was at st. Vincent's Hospital in Harrison at the time and when I wrote dr. Malone wrote him a letter then I followed up with a phone call and when we were talking there was a stunned silence and he said you know when I got your letter and now that I'm speaking to you I have to tell you that right before your contact I had written as one of my goals for this year to help women and children so dr. Malone who's also a faith-filled man he's retired now god bless him though but he welcomed us at st. Vincent's Hospital a hospital in Harrison New York which is a premier institution for the mentally ill it's only there for psychological purposes it was started by the Daughters of Charity longer than a hundred and twenty years before we had gotten there and then he eventually dr. moon found a house for us on the property and we opened up our Daystar home and what we learned from taking in women there who have a mental health and or an addiction issue usually it's a dual diagnosis what we learned there we now apply to all of our other six homes so that in any home we have through the grace of God and training our staff we take in any woman who is pregnant and needs a place to stay even if she has a mental health or an addiction issue and it's really been a great blessing and I remember father Benedict visiting there after we were opening a while holding the babies talking to the moms and saying it works through the grace of God it works and it was it's needed but it certainly was needed and and you know let's let's move on and that's why I think at the very end of his life in fact the year he died he told The Good Counsel Board of Directors which by the way he remained chairman of our board from 1985 from the very beginning until he totally passed away in October 3rd 2014 when he left us the same evening as st. Francis left us on the eve of the right after evening prayer but father Bennett told our boy just grow when they asked him what should happen to good counsel he said just grow and I think what he means by that it's not only in terms of numbers of homes but to grow the mission to help as many women as we can by teaching others to do the same and we we've helped homes in eight other states open home similar to ours and we want to keep doing that because there's such a need today and certainly it is to tell any woman who's in a crisis pregnancy who thinks her only alternative is to have an abortion which there's never ever ever a reason to do that we're telling them even if you need housing even if you need to stay with us we say for a year or longer we'll help you we'll get you back into school find a job we offer free daycare and if you have mental health issues you have addiction issues we'll work with you one day at a time and with the grace of God we'll we'll see you know more and more women saved from this horrible decision and babies born and it's father Benedict's encouragement from the beginning till right now and I still talk to him a lot and ask him for help and I still find a lot of encouragement in his words of wisdom and I think in his prayers and that's why we are also back in Connecticut and and in Alabama and lord knows where the next places will be so I hope by the way people can find us at Good Counsel homes org if you want to find out more information about our program Good Counsel that cou NSEL homes with an S at the end of it dot o-r-g and also if you know of a woman in a crisis pregnancy or needs a place to stay anywhere in the u.s. 1-800 just anywhere in the u.s call one eight hundred seven two three eight three three one and i'll repeat that one eight hundred seven two three eight three three one and of course you can like Good Counsel homes on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and and spread the good news about the the gospel of life well you could see the deep conviction of father Benedict and he was wasn't he almost like hand-picked by God to deal with this situation of not only mothers and children but where there might have been mental or emotional difficulties because he had the background to deal with that okay the background and the understanding and one of the many lessons he taught me is you know we we're all fallen creatures which means we all have defects in our mind body and spirit some are a little more obvious than others but we're all fallen Who am I to to judge the the lack or the inability of another and and God made and loved whoever we see and it's really our call to help take the next good step right help everybody take the next good step he'd say that's so often to me and that's really what I take is sort of our our motto I could counsel let's whoever we are whether staff or residents volunteers or benefactors let's take the next good step in our spiritual life to draw closer to God you know if you're praying pray harder if you're doing a good work give it even more you know if you're able to be generous be be extra generous and if you're struggling struggle in the right direction I know that his love also for the mothers and babies and his desire to see abortion and was so great many people may not know or remember that he joined Operation Rescue on several occasions but there was one particularly memorable one where after the the friars were formed he and father Fidelis along with Bishop Lynch God rest his soul - they went to the infamous abortion mill in Dobbs Ferry New York just the three of them and they sat down in the driveway the only driveway where the women had to enter in order to go into the sabor - airy and they sat peacefully and prayerfully as all pro-life rescuers do the police asked them to move and they didn't they said we're here to stop the women from taking their children to be killed and they were dragged away by the police and they were incarcerated and it wasn't an easy incarceration they were strip searched they were manhandled they were treated certainly like really not respectfully in any way shape or form I don't know the time wasn't long it might have been a week or two but it wasn't an easy time and his but he knows that it's a call that maybe many people are called to do and and to pray for and he was very he was always very sympathetic with rescue and he was we were rescued we rescued together back in 1988 when Operation Rescue first came to New York and I actually heard about that through one of the then novices at Trinity for the Harry Brock was my first introduction he wasn't even a brother then but he had been involved with Operation Rescue before so so far the Benedict's you know work he put his body on the line and he would encourage those to do as much as they can and but we see a good counsel you know for the women you know people say well they ask the hard questions about abortion you know rape and incest and you know we've seen women I've seen a fourteen-year-old girl you know who was brought to us by her mother who was petrified because she knew if she didn't know exactly what was going on she certainly suspected a family member and you know those who think oh she doesn't want that baby have an abortion they actually don't understand most women in the the very few studies that have been done I only really know of one on women who have been raped and then either had an abortion or planned an adoption or raise a child I only know one study but in that study and in other anecdotal stories many anecdotal stories women who have been raped they prefer to give birth regardless of what you know society or the culture will tell you because I think they have there's a natural maternal instinct and they understand much better than people who are yelling and screaming on the other side they deeply understand that they carry a life in them and that that life is not a central life that that's an innocent baby and even though that the man who perpetuated this hedonist crime this evil deed they don't want to visit that crime on their child mm-hmm and this 14-year old whom we took in gave birth and because she gave birth we were able to prosecute the appropriate relative and that child was protected because you know what would have happened if she had an abortion she would have been put right back into that situation and the incest would have continued and that's often what happens is the abortion allows the perpetrator to continue his evil crime it covers it up it wipes it away and and so we we know that in God's love and mercy when you do the right thing there is also an opportunity for healing and for wholeness and that's why out of good counsel we've developed the lumina program which is a post abortion healing program and lumina is not only for the women at Good Counsel it's not only for women nationally but it's also for men and siblings who've experienced an abortion well I hate to stop this wonderful presentation you're doing here Chris it's so important to hear these things I have not heard a lot of these little details but I can understand where even a girl who's been raped might rather keep the baby because the baby is connected to her in and want to save the life of that child you know it's not unthinkable it's sometimes parents or other relatives I don't want to be associated with this it's evil right that's they have the problem not the child necessarily yeah so we should really pray for pro-life of protection against abortion and for the really recognizing dignity like Chris I have to say thank you so much for your let me give a little blessing yeah Almighty God we ask you to bless Chris and all those associated with good counseling homes for all the people who work for pro-life in a very special way for all our visitors listeners today that they may be inspired by these wonderful examples and to pray for father Benedict I bless you all the name of the Father the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen well come now to this part of the program Chris where we make our fund appeal you know mother set up EWTN in such a way that it has to be supported by the generosity of those who listen to it and they hear wonderful messages like you presented today about the Good Counsel homes and father Benedict's real work and concern so we ask you help you wtn to stay on the airwaves or I should say me what is the TV waves I'm not sure but whatever to keep it going okay so be as generous as you can with your prayers of course but also too with your any donation you can give you know be as generous as you can because you're keeping a wonderful message of life life and family going out to the world which we need to hear today so thank you so much and God love you the Lord will bless you for your kindness [Applause] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: EWTN

Views: 4,167

Rating: 4.942029 out of 5

Keywords: NPR, NPR11285

Id: 4o1ZH5JLJ1A

Length: 53min 25sec (3205 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 01 2017