The 40 Days for Life fall campaign of prayer and fasting and community outreach to end abortion will be a 960-hour around-the-clock vigil at three locations in Fairfield County from September 27 to November 5.
“We want to reach people in a peaceful, prayerful way,” said Maureen Ciardiello, Coordinator of Respect Life and Project Rachel Ministry for the Diocese of Bridgeport. “The campaign will bring awareness that there are other options than abortion. We hope to work on hearts and minds one at a time.”
In Bridgeport, the campaign is being led by Barbara Grabowski, and the vigil will be held at the public right-of-way for Planned Parenthood at 4697 Main Street. In Danbury, the campaign leader is Don Mallozzi, and the vigil will take place at the public right-of-way for Planned Parenthood at 44 Main Street. In Stamford, the campaign is led by Monika Twal and Sal Constantino, and the vigil will be held at the public right-of-way for Planned Parenthood at 35 Sixth Street.
Interested people can sign up for vigil hours for their community by going to (http://www.40daysforlife.com/en/), according to Mallozzi, who said, “Forty Days for Life is a worldwide mobilization to end abortion through prayerful vigils, and as Catholics, it’s important that we give visible witness to life because the Gospel of Christ is the Gospel of Life….By praying in public, we hope that many hearts will be changed and women who are choosing to abort their pregnancies will choose life instead.”
Since it began 20 years ago, 40 Days for Life now has 1 million volunteers in more than 1,000 cities in 63 countries.
According to the organization, since 2007 more than 23,500 lives had been saved. The slogan for the group is “Ending abortion where we live,” and the campaigns in spring and fall are possible through the efforts of people of different faiths, including Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians and Evangelicals, who “seek God’s favor in turning hearts and minds from a culture of death to a culture of life.” Volunteers do not approach people individually and the signs they carry have positive messages with the goal of spreading the message of God’s love, mercy and forgiveness.
“Saving a baby’s life is the most important reason that we are out there on the sidewalk,” Grabowski said. “Our always peaceful, prayerful presence offers hope to the moms-to-be that they have alternatives to abortion that they may not have considered. We offer compassion, resources and support to women who are facing anxiety over their pregnancies.”
She said that the Bridgeport campaign is blessed to have many clergy and pro-life groups willing to spend hours praying at the sidewalk vigil.
“If only one baby is saved, it is worth it,” she said. “We are the voice of the baby out there, since they have no voice yet. We are the hands and feet of Jesus, as Mother Teresa said.”
Sal Constantino who leads the Stamford campaign with Monika Twal, said: “We hope to see even more faithful Catholics and others participate this year on the sidewalk as witnesses to the sanctity of human life in the womb. Participants, young and old, men, women and teenagers of various denominations, will engage in prayerful and peaceful vigils, saying the Rosary and other prayers on behalf of the unborn.”
He said there are an estimated 660,000 abortions each year in America. “Abortion also harms women emotionally, psychologically and even physically,” he said. “The killing of innocent human life is always morally wrong and must be opposed by all of us, not just privately in our hearts and homes, but in public.”
He hopes the 40 Days For Life campaign will soften people’s hearts and change their minds and that more participants will join the group in their sidewalk ministry to end abortion.
The national organizers say that minds have been changed and that during the sixth 40 Days for Life campaign in Bryant/College Station, Texas, Abby Johnson, who was Planned Parenthood’s employee of the year, saw abortion in a new light and “turned to the 40 Days for Life team for encouragement as she left her job.”
