Life

The Untold Story of How Cardinal Dolan Helped Make a Times Square Pro-Life Rally Possible

Many evangelicals are aware of Timothy Michael Dolan, the Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of New York’s 2.8 million Catholics.

Cardinal Dolan, as he is called, will be retiring next month. He’s been a priest for almost 50 years, and at his current post since 2009. As a result of Canon 401 of the Code of Canon Law, bishops are required to submit their resignation at the age of 75, which Cardinal Dolan did earlier this year. He’ll be officially turning things over to Bishop Ronald Hicks.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal last month, the Reverend Raymond de Souza called his friend a happy warrior — an apt description. He explained:

The premise of Cardinal Dolan’s pastoral approach is that it is easier to do hard things with a lightness of spirit. Things are easier if you are having fun. Following Jesus is already challenging enough without the added burden of being chronically annoyed, angry or aggrieved.

Cardinal Dolan exhibited that lightness of spirit the day Focus on the Family president Jim Daly joined him in his First Avenue office on a snowy January day back in 2014. I had the privilege of accompanying him that day and was honored to meet the Catholic prelate. I had admired Cardinal Dolan from a distance since his appointment. His public persona of a “hail fellow well met” guy was well known.

Greeting us warmly, we were ushered into his office. He immediately started asking questions, inquired about our personal backgrounds, family, ministry efforts, our hopes and dreams. The conversation turned to baseball. Growing up in St. Louis, he idolized Stan Musial. We had just passed the one-year anniversary of Stan’s death. Dolan said being a fan of his “made him proud to now be a Cardinal.”

Jim Daly and Cardinal Dolan spent some time talking about their mutual commitment to preserving and protecting innocent preborn life. They discussed the upcoming March for Life in Washington, D.C., adoption, efforts to save more babies, and specifically, Focus on the Family’s Option Ultrasound program. The two happy Irishmen parted ways with promises to remain in touch and to continue looking for ways to work together.

There were notes and conversations in the proceeding years, but nothing as significant as in the spring of 2019 when Focus on the Family announced plans to feature a live ultrasound in New York City’s Times Square on Saturday, May 4.

The audacious idea was hatched after the New York State Legislature passed a radical abortion bill that expanded and increased the deaths of preborn babies. In fact, many of the legislators literally cheered its passage on the chamber floor. The Empire State Building was specially lit to commemorate the politician’s embrace of the culture of death.

“Let’s broadcast a live ultrasound on a big screen in Times Square,” suggested Daly. The team reached out to owners of the various digital billboards. All of them eagerly took our calls — until they heard what we wanted to put up on their screens. Suddenly, they didn’t have any availability, despite having plenty moments earlier.

We decided to rent our own screens, which would be pulled in on big trucks. But an event of this caliber and scope required special permitting from the city. We were told city officials would likely frown on allowing such a high-profile pro-life event. The New York City Police Department also needed to approve — and given the controversial subject matter, it was unlikely they would sign off on such a spectacle.

Back at Focus headquarters, teams were praying daily for the many details of the event, which we decided to title, “Alive From New York.” Messages and emails weren’t being returned very quickly from city officials. We were told that if approval came at all, it would likely take a long time. With the days ticking away, we had to plan as if it would happen despite not having approval to hold it.

It was the writer of Ecclesiastes (traditionally thought to be King Solomon) who observed, “And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken” (4:12). Amid the delay, Jim Daly reached out to Cardinal Dolan to brief him on our plans. He was excited and the archbishop offered to help break the logjam.

Over the years, Focus had also forged a relationship with not only Cardinal Dolan, but also the “Sisters of Life,” a religious community in New York City dedicated to supporting women navigating unplanned pregnancies. A colleague and I visited a representative of the group during a visit to New York to see if they might be willing to help us navigate city politics.

When approval finally came the night before the event, we later found out it was Cardinal Dolan, along with the Sisters of Life, who had pressed the issue on our behalf. Over 20,000 people packed Times Square that next day — the largest ever pro-life rally in New York.

Scripture makes clear the power of relationships, especially when it comes to partnering with likeminded people and groups. There was no way of knowing back on that snowy day in 2014 that a friendly meeting would five years later lead to a remarkable day at the “Crossroads of the World” — but that’s just how the Lord works.

We wish Cardinal Dolan a productive and happy retirement.

America’s Birthday Should Be a Declaration of the Right to Life

Red, white and blue confetti fell from the sky in Times Square, as a patriotic New Year’s Eve crystal ball came down to welcome 2026.

At the same time, the Washington Monument lit up like a giant birthday candle for America, with video projections celebrating key moments in an American history that can fittingly be described as miraculous.

As we welcomed the New Year, we have welcomed the 250th birthday of America, marked by the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

On Friday, January 23, the day of the national March for Life in Washington, DC, I will again lead the National Prayer Service in the historic and beautiful Constitution Hall, located at 1776 D St. NW, at 18th and D Streets.

The theme of this inspirational event will be In Celebration of America’s 250th Birthday – Celebrating the Right to Life as Recognized in Our Declaration of Independence.

My pro-life ministry, Priests for Life, and I are honored to be a part of the America 250 Civics Education Coalition, along with other national leaders, which is preparing for the celebration of our nation’s Semiquincentennial in 2026. The Coalition is led by the America First Policy Institute, in coordination with the U.S. Department of Education.

In the coming months, events will be held as we plan to celebrate the 250th birthday of this bold and hopeful experiment known as the United States of America, and to educate our fellow citizens on the meaning of our founding documents and the extraordinary system of government our Founders have left us.

The key focus my ministry brings to this anniversary celebration of the adoption of the

Declaration of Independence is that this birth certificate of our country clearly and strongly proclaims that God is the source of our rights, that the first of those rights is life, and that government exists to secure those rights.

A proper understanding of these founding principles can only lead to one conclusion regarding abortion: governments have no authority to permit the killing of babies.

This is why the first of our activities as a member group of this Coalition is the National Prayer Service. Clergy and activists of all denominations will gather to pray for an end to abortion, for unity in the pro-life movement, to honor individuals for their outstanding work, and to praise the Lord before we march to the Supreme Court.

At this interdenominational service, Liche Ariza—who plays the role of Gedera, a Sadducee in Jerusalem and a member of the Sanhedrin in The Chosen—will be our special guest speaker. I will preach the sermon, and we will honor the memory of Charlie Kirk. For him, abortion was indeed a fundamental issue, a key passion. We spoke of it, privately and publicly, many times, and worked together to elect pro-life candidates. His message and example inspires a new generation of pro-life activists.

Co-sponsors of the National Prayer Service include the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, American Principles Project, Bott Radio Network, Thomas More Society, Human Life Alliance, The Justice Foundation, Operation Outcry, Timothy Plan, and Intercessors for America.

Please join and/or promote this event, as well as the numerous events throughout this new year for America’s 250th birthday. May our love for this country and our faithful citizenship be renewed as never before!

For more information on the prayer service, visit NationalPrayerService.com, and for more information on the educational activities for America’s 250th birthday, visit America250Civics.org.

Which Book Would You Want Your Child to Read?

Two children’s books. Two opposing worldviews. One cultural fork in the road.

This month, Live Action released I’m a Baby. Watch Me Grow, a children’s board book highlighting prenatal human development in the womb.

Next month, Abortion Is Everything, a children’s book written by abortion activists and aimed at kids as young as five, will be released.

The timing is not accidental. It reflects a broader cultural struggle over who will shape the values of the next generation — and how early that influence begins.

Abortion Is Everything was written by the founders of Shout Your Abortion, an organization devoted to normalizing abortion. Marketed directly to young children, the book presents abortion as a “superpower” — a tool that enables people to pursue their future.

This is not education. It is indoctrination.

The book offers no honest account of abortion’s reality: that it ends a human life. It entirely avoids the moral gravity of that act. Instead, abortion is framed as something good, necessary and affirming — presented to children who are still learning the most basic distinctions between right and wrong.

The underlying message is clear: personal autonomy matters more than life itself.

In sharp contrast stands I’m a Baby. Watch Me Grow. It simply presents biological reality — heartbeat, growth, movement and development in the womb.

It doesn’t mention abortion. It doesn’t need to.

Both books communicate a position on abortion, but they do so in fundamentally different ways.

One begins with a political conclusion and attempts to train children to accept it morally.

The other begins with biological truth and allows moral understanding to follow naturally.

One refuses to recognize the preborn child at all.

The other acknowledges that the preborn baby is a human being in its earliest stage.

These books reflect a deep cultural divide — a disagreement not just about policy, but about who is human and which humans deserve protection.

Abortion advocates understand this debate is not merely legal, but moral and generational. They know children form beliefs early, so they wrap abortion in pictures, affirming language and emotional appeals.

Pro-life advocates are responding by grounding children in truth: that life before birth is real, human and worthy of moral consideration.

Every culture reveals what it values by what it protects. Are we a culture that elevates self-autonomy and self-interest above all — even when the cost is a vulnerable human life? Or are we a culture that recognizes the value of human life regardless of size, location, ability or dependency?

Children’s books are not neutral. They are tools of moral formation. They teach children what matters — and who matters.

One book teaches children that abortion is freedom. The other teaches that life is worthy of protection.

These are not competing facts. They are competing visions of humanity.

One leads toward a culture that affirms death. The other toward a culture that chooses life.

So, which book would you want your child to read?

House Passes Annual Defense Bill Enacting Conservative Priorities

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a massive $900 billion annual defense bill, sending the measure to the Senate before the year-end deadline.

The House passed the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in a 312-112 vote; 94 Democrats and 18 Republicans opposed the bill.

The NDAA includes a 3.8% pay raise for U.S. troops, blocks the Pentagon from reducing the number of U.S. troops “permanently stationed in or deployed to” Europe below 76,000 for longer than 45 days, and authorizes $400 million in annual security assistance for Ukraine, The New York Times reports.

According to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, the bill codifies all or parts of 15 of President Trump’s executive orders, including:

  • Restoring America’s Fighting Force
  • Ending Radical and Wasteful DEI Programs
  • Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border
  • Securing Our Borders
  • Clarifying the Military’s Role in Defending U.S. Territorial Integrity
  • Modernizing Defense Acquisitions & Spurring Innovation
  • Building the Golden Dome for America
  • Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies for National Security
  • Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty
  • Unleashing American Drone Dominance

The speaker’s office also highlighted multiple “major conservative victories” the bill delivers, including:

  • Ends wokeness and DEI by eliminating programs, offices, and training across the Department of War (DOW).
  • Secures the border by expanding DOW support for Department of Homeland Security operations, National Guard deployments and National Defense Areas.
  • Revitalizes the defense industrial base: Grows U.S. defense manufacturing jobs, onshore critical supply chains, and expands surge capacity.
  • Ensures allies pay their fair share: Adds new tools to push allies to shoulder more of their own defense costs.

House Democrats had pushed for the inclusion of a provision covering the cost of in vitro fertilization (IVF) for service members and their families.

Thankfully, Speaker Johnson “intervened during final negotiations to kill that provision,” the Times reports, over concerns it would lead to the destruction of many embryos.

Speaker Johnson is entirely correct. The provision he killed would have used taxpayer money to subsidize an industry that routinely creates and discards hundreds of thousands of tiny human lives each year.

In fact, the baby-making industry (fertility clinics) destroys more human lives every year than the baby-taking (abortion) industry.

Kristi Hamrick, vice president of media and policy for Students for Life of America, applauded the speaker’s intervention.

“IVF is not an industry that deserves blanket support and funding. We can do better,” she said in a statement.

Lila Rose, president of Live Action, also thanked Speaker Johnson for “ensuring TRICARE was not used to subsidize this destruction of life.”

The House’s original version of the NDAA contained additional conservative priorities, “including a ban on the Pentagon covering [transgender] surgeries for troops. But that provision and several others were stripped out in final negotiations,” the Times notes.

Though the provision doesn’t appear in the NDAA, the Pentagon stopped funding transgender medical interventions for U.S. soldiers earlier this year after President Trump signed an executive order prohibiting transgenderism within the military.

The NDAA still includes a prohibition on biological males participating in women’s sports at U.S. military academies.

The Senate is expected to overwhelmingly approve the legislation, with President Trump signing it into law before the end of the year.

Related articles and resources:

Counseling Consultation & Referrals

IVF: Moral and Ethical Considerations

Frozen Embryos: Ethical Issues, Cryopreservation Risks, and IVF

Court Upholds Trump Ban on ‘Transgender’ Service Members

Photo from Getty Images.

Correcting the White House: God Became Man at Conception, Not Birth

On Monday, the White House gave a strong presidential message recognizing the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day in the Catholic liturgical calendar. The President’s message begins, “On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Catholics celebrate what they believe to be Mary’s freedom from original sin as the mother of God.”

Of course, Protestant do not accept this belief, and Orthodox Christians hold an alternative view. All the same, it is notable that President Trump’s White House recognized it.

The statement briefly explains and celebrates the biblical story of how a lowly virgin from Nazareth is chosen by God to give birth to the Savior of the world. The statement properly states, “Mary’s decision forever altered the course of humanity.” But of course, God becoming man changed all of redemptive history.

This statement from the White House can at least be appreciated by all Christians as a reminder of the historical and biblical truth of the coming of the Son of God, even if we don’t accept the Catholic belief surrounding Mary’s own conception. So, the Trump White House is to be thanked for that. After all, as the statement documents, Catholic believers have played important roles in our nation’s founding and success.

But the statement included an unfortunate error that, no doubt, the president nor his staff who drafted the statement, intended.

At the end of the third paragraph, it states:

Nine months later, God became man when Mary gave birth to a son, Jesus, who would go on to offer his life on the Cross for the redemption of sins and the salvation of the world.

Can you spot the error? We hope so!

God did not become man – while also remaining fully God – at His birth. The incarnational miracle that shifted the balance of the whole universe happened at the moment of conception within Mary’s womb.

In fact, the Scripture beautifully notes this divine God-drama in the womb.

Shortly after hearing the angel Gabriel’s remarkable announcement, Mary went to the “hill country, to a town in Judah” to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was miraculously pregnant with Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist. As Mary entered Elizabeth’s home and greeted her, baby John excitedly leapt in Elizabeth’s womb. Elizabeth then exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” She then added, “And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:42-43 ESV)

John the Baptist, while in his mother’s womb, miraculously discerned the approach of the Savior of the world in Mary’s womb and leapt in joyful worship. Elizabeth also noted the blessed nature of the preborn Jesus in the womb, calling Mary blessed at that moment and “the mother of my Lord.”

God became flesh in a womb.

Of course, this is also a profound statement about the wonder of the feminine, the maternal and the nature of the unborn, for God used all of these to reveal Himself. It is also a profound statement about the second person of the divine Trinity, Jesus Christ, and His human origins.

This, after all, is the miracle of Christmas and Christianity itself. In fact, it is what C.S. Lewis called “the Grand Miracle”:

The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this. … If the thing happened, it was the central event in the history of the Earth – the very thing that the whole story has been about.

It is important to get our theology right on the matter. We hope the White House will correct this mistake.