Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life and President of the National Pro-life Religious Council, announced yesterday that a special prayer service will be held for March for Life founder Nellie Gray.
The service will be held on the morning of Friday, January 25, in Washington, D.C. will be dedicated to the memory of the March for Life leader who led the national event every year since 1974.
The service, known as the National Memorial for the Pre-Born and Their Mothers and Fathers, is interdenominational, and has taken place for nearly two decades. The planning for the January service has been in the works for a couple of years already, due to the significance of this January being the 40th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade.
“Now, we have an even deeper meaning to the service,” said Fr. Pavone. “We will thank the Lord for Nellie, we will commend her to the Author of Life, and we will beg God that He will bestow on us all a double-portion of her spirit. Attending this service will be a wonderful way to honor her memory and renew our determination to fulfill her vision.”
The service will take place from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. on Jan. 25 in the DAR Constitution Hall, 1776 D Street Northwest, Washington, D.C. It is open to the public. That same afternoon, the March for Life, which Nellie Gray led, will take place.
Nellie Gray passed away earlier this week and, since then, there has been an outpouring of support.
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Every year since its founding in 2003, Miss Gray invited the women of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign to stand on the rally stage holding signs that said, “I Regret My Abortion,” and she arranged for a larger group of post-abortive men and women from Silent No More to be in the vanguard of the March.
“We are so grateful that Nellie Gray shared our vision of Silent No More, and recognized that the women who have had abortions speak with unquestioned authority about the ways they have been harmed by this choice,” said Janet Morana, executive director of Priests for Life and co-founder of Silent No More. “Every year more women and men come to march and to share their testimony,” said Georgette Forney, president of Anglicans for Life and co-founder of Silent No More. “Nellie Gray helped make that possible for us.”
Gray is also credited with realizing that African-American pro-life leaders had to become more vocal and visible in the fight for life.
“Nellie Gray knew that abortion took a heavy toll from the black community and she urged us to lend our voices to the fight against this terrible injustice,” said Dr. Alveda King, director of African-American Outreach for Priests for Life.
