Testimonial from the National Pro-Life Summit
1/25/25
At Saturday’s Summit, I attended Pete and Tricia’s talk along with many from Mission Love and Life, including my 15- and 14-year-old daughters, Kate and Caroline. There were several great speakers taking to the podiums at the same time, but I decided that even though I have heard their story, I wanted to support them.
The conference room was packed. It was standing-room-only, much to the chagrin of the organizers. During their hour-long presentation, Pete and Tricia exceeded my expectations.
They spoke from the heart; they were vulnerable and funny and raw and real. They are both wonderful storytellers, but more than that, they are able to relate profound messages of faith, life, responsibility, and the Truth of God’s mercy and love to seekers of every age. I felt a kinship with them as a wife and a mother who, like everyone, has experienced suffering and loss and repentance and a deep desire to grow in relationship with God as well as share the richness of this relationship with my children. Their visually rich storytelling, enlivened with emotion and vulnerability, also invited me to recall my own youth and young adulthood and examine them with honesty, repentance, and the openness to God’s mercy. Their talk inspired me even further as I listened to my daughters reflect on their experience.
Neither had heard Pete and Tricia’s story before that day. Caroline was both surprised and full of compassion, admiration, and love for them and their family. Kate was so moved, she and the boy of the same age whom she is dating, took a break from the talks after this session to sit and talk about what they had heard. The depth of Pete and Tricia’s love and the profundity of their commitment to each other affected them greatly, inspiring them to continue talking about these themes on their own.
When we returned home, Kate and I continued to discuss Pete and Tricia’s story and the themes of Theology of the Body with which she is familiar. This young woman who is quiet, introverted, a deep thinker, and incredibly sensitive, actually raised her voice and shouted, “I am so grateful I heard that talk! How could I possibly have missed that? I had to be there. I just had to hear what they shared. Everyone needs to know about this! About life, family, and how to love one another!”
Pete and Tricia are sharing what so many kids, young adults, and parents need to hear. Amidst the passion of the pro-life movement, with its call to cultural and political renewal based on protecting the most vulnerable and supporting the family, Pete and Tricia are infusing thismovement with an invitation to return to what is most true and good and beautiful in the world.
They insist that to be pro-life is not just about saving babies and supporting mothers and fathers; they insist that it is to be pro-family, open to life in all its beauty and challenges and sufferings. Because to desire to protect life, we first must commit to opening our hearts to God—to calling on Him, listening to Him, and being obedient to Him.
Their mission of supporting life, by definition, encourages this openness to love. As Karol Wojtiyla tells us, “[With love], the person no longer wishes to be its own exclusive property, but instead to become the property of the other. This means the renunciation of its autonomy and its inalienability. Love proceeds by way of this renunciation, guided by the profound conviction that it does not diminish and impoverish, but quite the contrary, enlarges and enriches the existence of the person…[T]he lover ‘goes outside’ the self to find a fuller existence in another” (Love and Responsibility, pp.125-126).
I think this is the greatest significance of Pete and Tricia’s work as reflected in their Summit talk. Faithful young people as well as adults desire to be called to something great—something that calls us to renounce our selfish “autonomy” and through Christ be “convicted” into a love that “enlarges and enriches” us and the other.
We are ready for this Mission of Love and Life.
-Jennifer Lindner
