Brand new Catholic-focused pro-life group launched in Ohio
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Summary
In this special episode of the John Henry Weston Show, we talk with Gabriel Vance, who is the Director of External Affairs at Catholics for Life, a Catholic pro-life ministry based in Columbus, Ohio. We talk about what Catholics For Life does, why it exists, and what it's all about.
Transcript
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Hello, and welcome to this special episode of the John Henry Weston Show, where we're
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going to be talking with a young man who has started a new Catholic pro-life group and
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We know Gabriel Vance because we brought him to Rome.
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LifeSite began a first Catholic fellowship program and now an internship, and the first
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crew was just an incredible group of young Catholics, totally vibrant for the faith,
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Let's begin, as we always do, with the sign of the cross.
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
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I mean, before this started, I gave you a little bit of an intro, but tell us a little
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about yourself, and we're going to get into what you're doing in just a sec.
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I've been here all my life, and in high school, I started a pro-life group at my high school
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after going on the March for Life in Washington, D.C., and that kind of really started my process
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of getting personally involved in pro-life work.
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I'm one of five siblings, and I grew up seeing my older siblings do a lot in the pro-life movement,
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And in high school, I really started to make it my own.
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And I went to Ohio Dominican University in Columbus, Ohio, and got a bachelor's in theology there.
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And summer after, my freshman year, my wife, Anna, and myself got married and got pregnant
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So throughout college, I was involved in pro-life work.
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And immediately after I graduated, I started full-time with a pro-life ministry, a national
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group based in Columbus, Ohio, called Created Equal.
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They focus mainly on public activism and education in the pro-life movement.
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But like you said, several years ago in 2018, my wife, Anna, and myself, along with our second
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little boy, Leo, he's one of three now, we were able to go to the pilgrimage in Rome that
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LifeSite News and Voice of the Family hosted the Rome Youth Conference in 2018.
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And it was a really moving experience where I had a great desire to not only work alongside
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with other Christians in the pro-life movement, but to really saturate my pro-life efforts with
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the fullness of the Catholic faith and work within a Catholic apostolate.
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And that was kind of the vision that started Catholics for Life.
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And you are not only open to life, you came to Rome with the little baby, which is just
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But there's no shyness about being open to life and just making that baby totally part
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Now, Created Equal is a very, I guess you could say, in-your-face kind of pro-life work.
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I know Mark very well and see him every year at the March for Life, well, he used to before
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And just, you know, they present the reality of abortion like few others do.
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Created Equal focuses a lot on training and activism.
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So we're trying to train the next generation of pro-life leaders.
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We go to high schools and college campuses, present for churches and youth groups, giving
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presentations so that young people can be equipped to make a defense for the pre-born.
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But then we don't just don't stop with the apologetics.
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So Created Equal goes to, leads hundreds of outreaches every year, going to college campuses
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and urban areas and high schools, overpasses, abortion facilities all over the nation.
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And we bring with us images not only of pre-born babies, but also abortion victims.
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So real images of little boys and girls who've been killed by abortion.
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We use these images and these pictures to start conversations, asking people just in public
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areas what they think about abortion and striving to change hearts and minds on abortion,
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to rescue pre-born babies, and to bring the gospel and healing to post-abortive men and
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So I've been with them five years now as a director of external affairs, and I still
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am with Created Equal part-time, but just this January is when I also started Catholics
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And with Catholics for Life, are you similarly involved in kind of street outreach on the
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Yeah, and that's really what the vision that started it was.
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I loved the activism that Created Equal was doing.
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Hundreds of minds change each year, many babies saved.
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And I think it's really important that we are engaging the culture, because if we can
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change public opinion on abortion, then the laws will follow, and then lives will be saved,
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and pre-born children will be protected, as the rest of humans are in America.
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So I knew how important that was, and I saw the great fruit that came from this public activism.
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But like I said, I really wanted to saturate it with the Catholic faith.
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I wanted to incorporate sharing the fullness of the faith in outreaches, evangelizing the Catholic
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faith, the salvation of souls during all of our outreaches we're doing on the street,
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I wanted to incorporate the team participating in the sacraments, the mass, and reconciliation
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I wanted to bring in especially the grace of the Eucharist and of Our Lady's intercession,
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some of the most powerful avenues of grace that God has given us through His church,
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and things without which I do not believe we will end abortion.
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So Catholics for Life has still a very focused on public activism, while also incorporating
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So what we're doing right now, what we have planned right now, is we are doing regular
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sidewalk counseling outside of Planned Parenthood people praying and people counseling the mothers
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We are also half-started, and once it gets nicer out, we'll start doing more public street
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outreaches that are not only a pro-life outreach, but also really street evangelization to pass
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on and share the gospel and communicate the Catholic faith to passerbys.
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And then we're also looking into organizing Eucharistic processions to abortion facilities.
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This has been done in other areas and has really been almost miraculous in closing down facilities,
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as well as different trainings and things we can do to maybe set up chapters or clubs at
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different high schools and churches and youth groups around the area to get more people
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So those are some of the big projects we're doing.
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But yes, a very, very focused on education outreach and very centered on this public activism.
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Now, one of the aspects that is, I guess, challenging here for a lot of people is, you know, let's
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And you're on the street and you're supposed to, what, start talking?
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So how do you get over that, you know, that initial, gee, you know, here's a soapbox.
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The only answer I have is you just have to do it.
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You have to ask for God to give you the grace, the courage to do it.
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Um, because I think when we go out in the streets, whether it's to do evangelization, um, strictly
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about the gospel, or whether it's to do, or still evangelization, sharing the pro-life
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message, um, sharing the gospel of life, um, it is, it is hard to do, right?
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And it is nerve wracking and it can be scary at first.
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But the only way you're really going to get comfortable with it, you're going to get used
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That's not to say that you shouldn't attend a training beforehand.
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So with Catholics for life, I've already done four different trainings this year.
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Um, I'm doing a training for two different youth groups for about 80 different young
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people, um, next month as well with two of the Catholic churches here in Columbus, Ohio.
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You can even, um, watch people role play in front of you and get the opportunity to kind
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Uh, we usually set people up so they role play.
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So one person acts as a pro-abortion advocate and the other person then defends the pro-life
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So there, there's trainings like this to learn how to use science and reason to defend the
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unborn, how to settle counsel, minister to post-abortive men and women, how to use conversations
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about abortion as a, as a springboard to go strictly into the gospel.
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So there's these training, these opportunities to do this, that can help equip you to begin
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with, but then to actually go out and do it, you just have to make a commitment, find other
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people who are experienced, who've been out there before, go out there with them.
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So you can kind of shadow them to begin with, but then you really just need to start having
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the conversations yourself and really just entrust yourself to God's grace, ask for, uh, fortitude
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from the Holy spirit, ask for that gift and let him guide you, um, in your evangelization
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So Gabriel, let me just ask you one last question.
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How did you get the inspiration to start Catholics for life?
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Well, John Henry, you mentioned how my wife, Anna and I attended the Rome youth conference
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And that actually started kind of the story behind Catholics for life.
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So it was there on that, on that pilgrimage in Rome that I really felt a desire, a call to
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work in a pro-life Catholic ministry, to be part of a Catholic apostolate and have my pro-life
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And I didn't really know what that looked like, but it was something that I kept praying
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So this was exactly the one year anniversary, uh, when my wife and I were leaving Rome from
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the pilgrimage, I was actually reading a life site news article about guardian angels.
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And I just said a general prayer to my guardian angel, just to help guide me and inspire me,
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um, to follow God's will and intercede for the grace that I need to do that.
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And I just felt this overwhelming urge, the sensation that it was time to pursue, uh, Catholic
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And I didn't know exactly what that looked like.
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I just kind of said, I couldn't explain the urge, the desire that I had for it.
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And I said, okay, Lord, you know, I'll reach out to some different Catholic groups, um,
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maybe some Catholic ministries locally, and I'll see what happened.
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Um, but then just a few seconds later, I got a text on my phone from my cousin, uh, a photo
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of father, Stephen Imbrato saying mass in his trailer outside of an abortion facility.
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So father, Stephen Imbrato is, he used to work with priests for life.
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And now he started his own ministry, life ministries, us.
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And one of his initiatives is on the road for life.
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And he travels across the country going outside of abortion facilities, um, doing minor exorcisms,
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um, bringing the Eucharist outside of abortion facilities, giving talks in churches and things
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And he was in Dayton, Ohio at that very moment that I said this prayer.
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I went to my garden angel and felt really inspired to get involved in pro-life activism.
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And my cousin was there sending me a picture of him.
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So I was able to contact, uh, father, Stephen Imbrato and meet with him the next day.
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And he made it possible for me to start Catholics for life as an initiative of his nonprofit life
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So we function as the affiliate of that initiative of life ministries us, but it was, it's very
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cool, very providential how Catholics for life has come about.
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Um, and it seemed miraculous at times, but it was very linked to, to life site news, um,
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and that pilgrimage to Rome, even in the very beginning and things that you shared there
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on the pilgrimage, John Henry, like, um, your devotion to our lady, especially to, um,
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St. Louis de Montfort and his book, a true devotion, we're now concert, we're actually
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in the process of consecrating Catholics for life to our lady.
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I'm using St. Louis de Montfort's, uh, manual and as well as consecrating Catholics for life
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So things like this, from this pilgrimage are still, um, bearing fruit in, in my life's
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If it wasn't for that pilgrimage that my wife, Anna and I, and our little boy went on.
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And, um, please continue to keep me in your prayers because throughout this process, I've
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become more and more convicted of how great a sinner I am and how much I need God's grace.
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And I'm just praying for the grace to be open to make Catholics for life as, as small or as
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So if you all could pray for me, I'd be very grateful for that.
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How do they get to find out about Catholics for life?
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So we have a website, uh, catholicsforlife.us and they can go there.
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Um, there's a, uh, contact form they can fill out to get ahold of me.
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There's also a contact form, uh, if they would like to host me for a presentation, like I
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guess, so those different trainings we can do on pro-life apologetics, on sort of counseling,
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ministering to post-subortive men and women, um, just a general pro-life presentation, how
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to use conversations about abortion to share the gospel so they can contact me.
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Definitely if they're, if they're close to central Ohio, that would be great.
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Even if they're from another state, um, or, or far away from me, I would still love to
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do a training maybe, um, over zoom or something like that, if it would be possible.
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Um, or if I could travel there to go there and do a training, do outreaches with them,
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or just even to help give them the, the instruction and the resources they might need to start
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sidewalk counseling in their own community to start leading public activism, uh, outside
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their state house or at a college campus or just different ways they can get involved
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I'd love to talk to them about this where if anybody has any advice or guidance for me,
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um, I've only been doing this for a couple months now, but I'm trying to reach out to
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as many different groups, pro-life groups, Catholic groups that I can to get advice on what
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outreaches we should be doing, what specific devotions are our participants, our volunteers
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So if any of you, um, are interested in what I'm doing, or think you might have ideas for
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me, or you'd like just to talk to me, please go to our website, catholicsforlife.us, and
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you can fill out the contact form there, fill out the form to host us for a presentation.
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Um, and yeah, you can also reach us at contactcatholicsforlifeatgmail.com.
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That's our email, contactcatholicsforlifeatgmail.com.
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Gabriel, thank you so much for being with us on this episode of the John Henry Weston Show.
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