The founder of Project Rachel says she is extremely pleased by the
U.S. bishops’ decision to create a full-time staff position to work with
the post-abortion healing ministry.
“To oversee the ministry and keep on top of things that need to be done,
you really need a full-time person,” Vicki Thorn told CNA Nov. 18. “I’m
just delighted that they’re going to have one.”
“This is an important ministry of the Church,” she said, “and it is really key to the evangelization of our times.”
Thorn founded Project Rachel in 1984 as a healing ministry for those who
have suffered the devastating consequences of abortion. The program is
present in the majority of Catholic dioceses in the United States.
By a vote of 225-9, the U.S. bishops at their recent fall assembly
approved the creation of a new full-time position to work with the
ministry.
The new staff person, who will be funded by the Knights of
Columbus, will serve as a resource for diocesan directors who offer
retreats, support groups, models and training resources for priests.
Project Rachel has always had a very “open” relationship with the
bishops, Thorn said, explaining that it is designed to be a diocesan
program, under the authority of a local bishop.
Post-abortion healing is vital, she said, pointing out that it was one
of the major elements in the first Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities
issued by the bishops' conference in 1975.
“The bishops had called for education on the sanctity of all human life,
getting people involved in the legislative process, and pastoral care –
first for those facing a crisis pregnancy and secondly a call for a
ministry to help those who have had abortions,” she said.
Those who tend to be the strongest advocates for healing after abortion
are bishops and priests “who are confessors,” because they have seen so
much of the pain that comes with abortion, she added.
In addition to openly professing how harmful abortion is to men, women
and children, pro-lifers must also work to make healing possible for
those who have been wounded, Thorn stressed.
“Many women leave the Church or are away from the Church and have an
abortion, and don’t know they can come home,” she said. “And when they
do, there’s this incredible experience of God’s mercy.”
The Church must work to facilitate this healing, she explained, and Project Rachel helps to do that.
Thorn noted that Pope John Paul II accurately predicted the devastating
aftermath of abortion in his 1960 work, Love and Responsibility.
Pope Benedict XVI later took these ideas one step further, she said, by
admonishing the Church to fulfill its obligation to be a Good Samaritan
and to “go and find the wounded and bring them to the Church for care.”
Now, she reflected, Pope Francis’ image of the Church working in the field hospital “really applies to this ministry.”
“We’re taking care of the walking wounded and enabling them to come to a
new spiritual relationship with God to really encounter his mercy,” she
said.