Father Markey told The Catholic Transcript, “We started because there are so many Catholics out there but very little organization to keep us all networked. We have trouble keeping everybody moving on this issue. A lot of Catholics are not speaking up.”
He said Connecticut is one of the most pro-abortion states in the nation and many Catholics are poorly committed to pro-life causes.
“I think Catholics have become comfortable with dissent from Catholic teaching and that’s a real problem,” he said. “When we try to raise the issue, Catholics are just not responding.”
Father Markey said every Catholic is called to respond to pro-life issues. “We’re trying to encourage Catholics to know their faith and to act on their faith. It’s not enough to call yourself Catholic; you must truly be Catholic,” he said.
Dorothy Dugandzic, a fertility care practitioner and managing director of the St. Augustine Foundation, a Yonkers, N.Y.-based natural family planning center, met Father Markey about nine years ago. That meeting was the stimulus that led to the formation of the Gospel of Life Society.
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“He was very concerned, and so was I, that there was not very much going on with natural family planning in Connecticut,” she told The Transcript. “He’s a die-hard NFP priest here in Connecticut and I’m happy to know him.”
Mrs. Bianchini said, “I think what he felt was needed in Connecticut was networking, that there were a lot of groups but they weren’t talking to each other. That’s what this group does, and that’s why we’re growing so fast.”
Mrs. Bianchini mails information to sponsors in 58 parishes each month, and the sponsors spread the word by publishing it in church bulletins, tacking it on bulletin boards or organizing local events.