Aug 31, 2017 / 15:31 pm
Prayer. Sacrifice. Friendship. Charity. Could one Virginia community's work to put basic Gospel tenets into action be a model for the future of the pro-life movement?
"I think it is a turn from desperation to great hope and transformative hope going forward," Art Bennett, president and CEO of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington, told CNA of a new free medical clinic set to open in November, replacing a long-standing abortion clinic.
The story began with friendship. The Amethyst Women's Health Center was a decades-old abortion clinic in Manassas, Va., a western suburb of Washington, D.C., founded by a husband and wife and operating since 1988. The clinic averaged 1,300 abortions per year.
As the clinic opened its doors day after day for years, local Catholics began to regularly pray outside the building all year round for the victims of the abortions, for the clinic workers and owners, and for an end to the abortions there.