Sisters of Life: Unborn baby's heartbeat silenced Times Square

By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald

One of the priorities of the Sisters of Life, established in 1991 by New York Cardinal John O’Connor, is to criss-cross the country and speak to high school and college students, young adults and parish communities about the gift and dignity of human life.

The sisters smile and talk softly from the heart, but the irony is that even in historically Catholic New Orleans, that message, preserved for millennia in the Bible, sometimes becomes threatening, if not radioactive.

Such was the case this week when three members of the Sisters of Life made a series of appearances in the Archdiocese of New Orleans and the Diocese of Lafayette. 

Addressing two 11th-grade theology classes at Archbishop Chapelle High School in Metairie, the sisters talked about the value of human life and how God had called them to a religious vocation.

 Their Oct. 27 visit to Archbishop Chapelle came the morning after they gathered with young adults for a “Pro-Life & Pints” event at Rock’n’Bowl sponsored by ACCESS Pregnancy Services of Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans.

Their Rock’n’Bowl appearance was hastily arranged after the owners of the original location for their talk – Second Line Brewing in Mid City – “disinvited” the nuns from speaking, saying their pro-life message violated the brewery’s guidelines of promoting diversity and inclusion.

“In this situation, we did not uphold these values, and, for that, we are deeply sorry,” brewery owner Mark Logan told Gambit in canceling the event. “We informed the host (Catholic Charities) that we will no longer be able to offer Second Line Brewing as a venue.”

At Archbishop Chapelle on Oct. 27, Sister Faustina Maria Pia said having their pro-life appearances canceled is not a rare occurrence because the community’s charism of offering “a spiritual response to the culture of death” can ruffle pro-choice sensitivities.

Sister of Life Faustina Maria Pia addresses Archbishop Chapelle theology students.

“This is par for the course, and this is a spiritual battle,” Sister Faustina said. “We are here to pray and fast. One of the foundational graces of our community is Mark, Chapter 9, where the apostles were trying to cast out a demon, and they brought that person back (to Jesus) and said, ‘We can’t do it.’

“And, Jesus said, some (demons) can only be cast out by prayer and fasting. That’s a really pivotal point for us as Sisters of Life because this is a spiritual realm we are in – the fight for life. Life is sacred, and there’s somebody who wants to destroy life, who is the enemy of life. So, wherever good things are happening, evil is trying to kind of tear it down. 

“We don’t spend a lot of time getting worked up about it. We don’t lose our peace. In some ways, it can be flattering because we know we’re at the heart of the matter and there is a battle going on. At the same time, it also raises an awareness to pray deeply. If there is anger or a backlash or anything that is negative, it’s a call to pray. There are people out there who are suffering, who are angry, who need our spiritual aid.”

More often than having events canceled on college campuses, the sisters are the targets of angry social media posts, sign-waving and questions from students who are trying “to slice and dice the content” of their pro-life message.

“In the pro-life community, we recognize that these are people to be loved – these are our friends, not our enemies,” Sister Faustina said. “We are bringing a message to everybody that human life is sacred, and no matter what you have suffered in your life, no matter what’s been done to you or the choices you have made, your life is sacred, and we will lay down our lives for you. That doesn’t deter us in any way or make us lose our peace.”

Sister Maria Annunciata is a native of Lafayette, Louisiana.

The sisters told the Chapelle students the story of a young woman, Raquel, who had come to live at the sisters’ residence in Manhattan during her crisis pregnancy. Though Raquel had decided to carry her baby, she did not believe she had the right to advise another woman on what she should do.

On the way to a doctor’s appointment, Raquel ran into another woman who was crying because she was pregnant and who told her she had to have an abortion because she was in no shape to have a child.

Just then, Raquel felt her unborn baby move, and she asked the woman to feel it.

“You’re not going to have an abortion; you’re going to have a girl,” Raquel told the woman before giving her first and middle names and taking her to the obstetrician’s office. The two women never saw each other until two years later. The woman had given birth to twin girls and named them Raquel and Jasmine.

“She was pushing a stroller and ran up to me and hugged me,” Raquel said. “She said, ‘I love you. You don’t understand, Raquel. I love you.’”

In May 2019, Sister Faustina was in Times Square for the largest pro-life event in New York City history. Thousands gathered to see the movement of Abby Johnson’s third-trimester baby on three jumbo-sized TV screens. Several companies had refused to allow Focus on the Family to lease space on the large digital billboards in Times Square.

Because the event was well publicized, abortion-rights advocates were out in force with drums and tubas, trying to drown out the pro-life speakers.

“They had awful signs,” Sister Faustina said. “One of the ones I saw was ‘Focus on the Family is a hate group.’ Basically, Abby got up there talking about her story, and then she puts up an ultrasound of her baby on the screen, and that was beautiful. Then, without giving any warning, the screen goes black, and throughout the entire square, on every speaker, all you heard was the heartbeat. All the protesters, literally, exhaled. I can’t describe it. It was so shocking. We weren’t expecting it. In that moment, the loudest voice in the whole square was this unborn child.”

The Sisters of Life also were scheduled to speak Oct. 28 in Lafayette and Oct. 30 at St. Francis Xavier Church at an event sponsored by Louisiana Right to Life.

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