I AM PROLIFE | KAIROS GLOBAL | JANUARY 2020

Author: Dino Paul

Intro: Dino Paul shares passionately about the need for prolife activism, the importance of increasing awareness of the teachings of the church and also throws light on simple actions that promote life.

Every Jesus Youth is called to be Prolifer, NO, in fact every human being is called to be a Prolifer because this ministry promotes the value of life of human beings which should be our basic call regardless of our cast, creed and religion. Why Prolife? Why do we need such a ministry ? We live in a world today which usually promotes that we are the owners of our own lives and our own bodies and we can use/abuse it the way we like. Most advertisements today make a business out of demoralizing the value of life and sexuality. The world today teaches us that sex is only for pleasure and you can use it the way you like, with whomever you like, wherever and whenever you want it. The world teaches that the baby in the womb is not a human being and is just a part of the mothers body, so the mother can decide whether to give birth or kill the baby. The world teaches that its absolutely fine and normal to masturbate.

This is a culture of anti life spreading across the world. If this continues for a few more decades, then a time will come where society will lose all its morals and values of life and sexuality. By then it may be too late to make a change. This where people like you and me, instruments of God are called for a greater purpose in life to stand up for the morals and values of basic human life. The Catholic teachings on the morals and values for life and sexuality are amazing. However its very sad to know that our people only understand these teachings in its peripheries and not in detail. If you spend some time, effort and prayer into learning this you will unleash the beauty of the church’s teachings on the different ProLife and Theology of the Body concepts. People say church teachings are not practical and only possible in theory. Seldom do they understand that church teachings are backed and supported by science, logic and statistics. Be it abortion, contraception, immoral sexuality, pornography, ProLife clearly explains all these from a theological, logical, scientific and statistical perspective. We need you all to learn this and spread this Gospel of Life and Love to save our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. We are responsible for their lives and souls.

 ProLife ministry has two aspects, one is awareness creation and the other is activism. Awareness is created by teaching people the beautiful concepts of Prolife. How can we spread awareness? We can take sessions, conduct exhibitions, write prolife articles, use social media like, facebook, instagram, twitter etc to promote the culture of life. All Jesus Youth across the world should have the knowledge on ProLife because this is one of your primary responsibilities to promote and protect life and to save souls even if you are not a part of the ProLife ministry. When our time comes to leave this world to our heavenly Father i believe that during our final judgement God will be more interested in knowing how many people we have helped, how many lives we saved and how many souls we were able to bring back to God. How many have you helped or saved or brought to Jesus so far? Creating good awareness is the first step of ProLife and soul saving mission. Our people live in darkness of sin due to ignorance of the value of life.

The next step of ProLife mission is activism. Prolife awareness in itself covers some part of ProLife activism, but I would like to emphasize a little more on real scenarios which we need to encounter and handle on a day to day basis to promote and protect life. Provided we do the awareness part well we can rest assured that we will encounter people who approach us, asking our guidance and support from their different types of brokenness in life related to abortion, pre marital sexuality, pornography, suicidal thoughts, substance abuse etc. We need to help and support them and guide them in the right way or lead them to people who are experienced in handling such situations.

Different countries need different types of ProLife activism based on the rules and regulations in that country. In an Indian context we can speak to a woman contemplating on abortion, offer her help and support to save the child. Jesus Youth Bangalore ProLife ministry has saved more than 60 babies from abortions so far. We speak and try to convince against abortion and if they agree, based on the need (if unmarried) take them to a convent for crisis pregnancy and they stay there till delivery and once the baby is born, the mother can take the baby if she wants else the baby is placed for legal adoptions. There are very few mums who took back their baby and are leading a single parent life and one of them still sends us photos of her son on his every birthday and thanks us for our support in saving that life. In a US context you could pray outside abortion clinics within the legal limits allowed. We need to guide our young men and woman addicted to pornography, masturbation, pre-marital sexuality, contraception and homosexuality, accompany them in this difficult journey and lead them back to Jesus and help them to lead a peaceful catholic life. To do all these we need to learn and be equipped how to handle these situations and also need to identify the different options, centres, experts, elders available in our areas to help people who are in need of such issues.

We all often get a prayer request like, " a lady planning for abortion, please pray". We all usually pray and forward the message, but thats just not enough for a Prolifer. We need to pray as well as trace back to the source, find the person and try to speak to her and convince her to save her child, offering all the help we can. This is what a ProLifer is supposed to do. Prolife does not mean only doing big things, Prolife means simply sharing God`s love to others. Even as small as making a depressed friend happy, or helping an old person to cross the road is a ProLife activity. Prolife activism is not easy. It’s challenging, requires risk taking, is tiresome, demanding and stressful. It takes us out of our comfort zones. This pain and suffering to save another life and soul is similar to what Jesus did on the cross. One of the key requirements for the success of ProLife activism is a strong prayer life, intercession and personal holiness. If you work for ProLife, your lives could be transformed to a better prayer life and holiness, without which it’s difficult to sustain this challenging ministry. 

Let me conclude with some statements which inspired me over the years and still motivate me in this life for Prolife. It was 9 years ago when my first son, Mighael was battling for life in the Neonatal ICU, that I committed my entire life for this ministry to God. I made a deal with God on that day that all my life I will work for this mission to save lives and souls. I will try to be a ProLifer always.

Dino Paul lives in Bangalore, India with his wife Soumya and three sons Mighael , Raphael  and Gabriel. He is the coordinator of Jesus Youth Prolife ministry in India.