A packed house of supporters gathered at the Villa Milano restaurant in Columbus on Monday, June 9 for Greater Columbus Right to Life’s Banquet — An Evening with Jason Shanks.
This year, the annual dinner was a special one as it celebrated the organization’s 50th anniversary. Dozens of past and current leaders, including Mike and Peggy Hartshorn, attended. Also on hand was Meade O’Boyle, founder of many pro-life organizations across the country, including Greater Columbus Right to Life (GCRTL), who traveled from Louisiana for the celebration.
The event also welcomed home former Greater Columbus Right to Life president Jason Shanks, who currently serves as the president of the National Eucharistic Congress.
Though the event was deemed a celebration, Shanks and current GCRTL president Beth Vanderkooi acknowledged that it may not feel as if there is much to celebrate.
Both recognized that while those in the movement are naturally hopeful and joyful, the pro-life faithful in Ohio are tired. They are fatigued, angry, sad and discouraged. The road since the passage of Issue 1 in 2023 has been incredibly difficult for organizations like Greater Columbus Right to Life and its supporters.
With state laws no longer protecting the most vulnerable among us, a heavy political and social climate in Ohio has left many pro-life faithful wondering how to continue and where to go from here.
In Vanderkooi’s opening remarks, she touched on the four wounds of abortion. The first three wounds of abortion, she explained, are inflicted to the victims of abortion — the unborn and their families — and the wound to society at large. The fourth wound of abortion, however, is experienced by those dedicated to the cause of life and the battle-weary.
She reminded everyone that they are redeemed to be a people of life. Simply put, defenders of life do not have to worry about what happened on election day in 2023 when they know what happened on Easter Sunday so many years ago.
It is in this vein that Greater Columbus Right to Life is reigniting a vision of redemption and renewal.
In Shanks’ talk, he shared the seemingly overwhelming odds that he has overcome in his life — the miraculous healing that he experienced from COVID-19 after being intubated and placed in a coma for 45 days in the ICU. Pro-lifers must continue to pivot, he said, and continue to fight.
He shared a vision in which abortion will end by 2033, 2,000 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, and he offered eight anchors to guide this next chapter as an organization and community of life. These anchors began with the idea that freedom is ordered toward truth and ended with the idea that the final word is hope.
Greater Columbus Right to Life has announced that over the next 12 weeks they will be sharing a different aspect of their reignited vision and work as it relates to each one of these eight anchors.
The evening concluded on a hopeful note with an invitation to consider a path forward and to embrace a new vision for what it means to be pro-life in Ohio.
Father Bob Penhallurick, the diocese’s director of pro-life ministries and pastor at Columbus St. Catharine of Siena Church, led the crowd in praying the Pro-life Prayer, a keepsake offered to each individual in attendance, that concluded with the encouraging words “Lord, in our work for you, may we find you. As we build a culture of life, may we find life eternal. In our efforts to change the world, may we be changed.”
It was also announced that Greater Columbus Right to Life will host an upcoming summer social for pro-life faithful and a Faithful at the End of Life event with Fr. Tad Pacholczyk, Ph.D., a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts who serves as senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, on Saturday, Aug. 15 and Friday, Oct. 10, respectively.
Learn more about the programs that Greater Columbus Right to Life offers from their Speaker’s Bureau and Community Education Program and Sidewalk Ministry Program to their Faithful at the End of Life Resource by visiting gcrtl.org/programs. More information about becoming involved is available at gcrtl.org/volunteer.