Pro-Life Champion: The Untold Story of Monsignor Philip J. Reilly and His Helpers of God’s Precious Infants by Frederick W. Marks (review)

Frederick Marks is an accomplished historian who has explored the nuances of the foreign policy of selected American presidents. Here in Pro-Life Champion Marks travels a different path, describing the inspiring life of pro-life activist, Monsignor Philip Reilly. Part biography, part apology, Marks’s 2017 book is a welcome addition to the growing list of memoirs of leaders published in recent years.

Marks’s book contains a few blemishes. The first third is somewhat disjointed with the author jumping from topics. It is not as chronologically arranged as expected. Because Reilly’s ministry is sidewalk counseling, Marks draws inspiration from activist groups like Pro-Life Action League and American Life League while totally ignoring larger organizations like the National Right to Life Committee and Americans United for Life despite their superior roles in helping to enact pro-life laws and leadership in the movement.

Having expressed the negatives, the positives far outweigh any deficiencies. Philip Reilly is pictured almost larger than life. A man of humble beginnings, Reilly became a priest, a teacher, and later a high school principal in New York City. Even while administrator at Cathedral Prep, in October, 1989 he formed Helpers of God’s Precious Infants, a pro-life ministry that centers on prayer outside abortion clinics, not Operation Rescue-style civil disobedience. Marks explains that Reilly formed Helpers to counter the disastrous image presented by “pro-life” terrorists whose exploits included bombings, arson, and later murder at abortion clinics, a strategy that was not only detrimental to the movement’s peaceful message, but counter-productive in trying to win the hearts and minds of the American public. Reilly’s many dedicated and committed Helpers, armed with prayers and rosaries, do not block clinic entrances and are not arrested. Several times a week in all kinds of weather, they counsel women not to abort their babies. Much to the frustration of abortion clinic personnel, Reilly’s Helpers lead many women to choose life for their babies.

Monsignor Reilly traveled the world preaching his message of prayer and compassion and Helpers expanded internationally. Here in America 60 chapters have formed in 37 states.

Marks provides many historical events in the final third of the book. The June, 1990 prayer vigil at New York’s largest abortion clinic included 1,000 Helpers. Another vigil in June, 1992 featured Reilly and Cardinal O’Connor and thousands more, an event dutifully reported by the New York Times the following day. In 1996 another clinic sued Reilly and Helpers for $117 million. Reilly won the case. In 2001 the New York City Council tried to pass a buffer-zone restriction on Helpers. Again, Reilly diffused the effort with an impassioned statement.

Reilly, while preaching peace and love, holds strong convictions about those who advocate for abortion. He has little regard for pro-choice Catholic politicians who vote for abortion rights, endorsing the policy of denying them Communion unless they repent. Marks also notes that Reilly believes America is in deep spiritual decline and quotes Bishop Fulton Sheen with an appropriate comment about a decaying civilization and man’s unwillingness to see his own wickedness.

Marks gives the reader a glimpse of the Monsignor’s character through many quotes. In challenging abortion’s legality, Reilly said, “Evil is evil and good is good whether the law permits it or not. You cannot make evil good by legislating it. Neither can you make good evil by making it illegal.” Seeing victory in the future, Marks quotes Reilly, “A culture of life will be restored,” while referring to abortion-rights as “the tree of death.”

Pro-Life Champion applauds Monsignor Reilly’s heroic life and his Helpers’ dedication: lives saved, women restored, God victorious.