New pro-life blog in Dallas, ya’ll
I met my friend Andrew Smith when he worked as travel coordinator at Priests for Life.
While travelling the country for PFL, Andrew met pro-lifer Jacquelyn (whose previous last name I have already forgotten!), who worked for Catholic Pro-Life Committee in Dallas.
Theirs is a great pro-life love story. Andrew and Jacquelyn fell in love, asked for and received my blessing (just kidding), got married, and are now expecting! Andrew moved to TX and became communications director for CPLC. I don’t know how any pro-lifer could marry a pro-abort, but for a pro-lifer to marry someone with the same level of passion for pro-life work must be very cool – and intense!
Everyone who ever works for PFL comes away a top-notch pro-life worker, having gone through a combination boot camp/doctorate program during their time under Fr. Pavone. Any pro-life leader who spots PFL on someone’s resume should snatch that someone up.
Andrew is no exception. He just launched a blog for CPLC and gave me permission to post his note to me on its backdrop and ironed-out kinks for others to gain from. Read his thoughts on page 2.
We had hired a Communications Assistant back in September and she is a young lady (Victoria) with a background in TV/Computers and other areas.
I had come up with this idea of “Chronicles,” meaning that we chronicle the work of the Catholic Pro-Life Committee in an attempt to raise awareness and to show people what we do. I find that the more people are aware of what we are doing, the more they themselves become involved in the work of the pro-life movement.
I was doing the Chronicles manually on our web site and it was a lot of work. Formatting issues kept popping up and I finally had a guy develop a blog for us using Blogspot but it was just a black and white thing. I wanted something that was professional looking and easy to use.
When I hired Victoria, she started doing the updates on the web site but told me it was hard to do and we needed to switch to something else. I showed her our black and white blog and within about 4 hours she had developed our new, cool-looking blog using the HTML codes that blogspot provides. We still maintain our main web site at www.prolifedallas.org that consists of the bulk of our ministry work.
The blog is not totally done yet, we will continue to add links and other items to it as we go, but the basic design is done and I am updating as much as possible. I find that it takes some time to develop ideas but I really enjoy doing it and want to do it some more. I am not a writer either so that makes it twice as hard. My goal is to update several times a week at least.
Our blog has two purposes: 1 – to chronicle the work of the Pro-Life Committee with pictures and stories about the things we are doing, highlighting our ministries and our people. I have assigned Victoria this job and I do the second job, which is to provide commentary on pro-life issues from a Catholic viewpoint, especially in the Texas area.
There is really no authentic voice for the pro-life issue from a Catholic viewpoint around here and are we are trying to fill the gap. This blog is just one aspect of us trying to do that.
Andrew Smith
Director of Communications
Catholic Pro-Life Committee
Respect Life Ministry of the Diocese of Dallas
Office: 972-267-5433
Fax: 972-385-3851
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Hey Jill,
Great post! Thanks for all you do in making this country more secure for the unborn!
Hello Jill
What a neat Romantic wedding story Love the photo too you will have to do a history of the couple and the pro life issues they work with 15 years later.
Gods blessings to the newley Marrieds and their desire to save life as they start there new life.
hope that same enthusiam continues as they work to save future life.
Hello Jill
What a neat Romantic wedding story Love the photo too you will have to do a history of the couple and the pro life issues they work with 15 years later.
Gods blessings to the newley Marrieds and their desire to save life as they start there new life.
hope that same enthusiam continues as they work to save future life.
we still live in a patriarichial society where women will have sex against their better judgment to secure a man. what do they get out of it? finacial security. the descrepencies between the earnings of men and women in this country are huge. and as hard as it is for some people to face, sexism still exists. (that is evident by the whole “pro-life” movement) until women are provided with an atmosphere where they feel financially secure enough to take care of their children we will face women attempting to have abortions at any cost. Is it really that easy to forget the women who have died from back alley abortions? I always wonder how many “pro-lifers” would quickly change their views if it was their daughter, sister, wife or mother who was one of those women?
I wish that people could realize that abortion is an effect of society’s problems, and address the actual problems rather than the effect.