Pro-Life Leaders of Tomorrow
Newman Guide education is key to building a nation that is pro-life, pro-family, and pro-religious freedom. Faithful educators are preparing the next generation of pro-life leaders for our country. Here are just a few:
Jason Evert
Founder of Chastity Project
Graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville
More than one million people on six continents have heard about the virtue of chastity, because of the Chastity Project, led by Jason and Crystalina Evert.
The catalyst for the entire ministry? Jason’s experience at a Newman Guide college.
“Franciscan University of Steubenville prepared me for the ministry God entrusted us with and opened the doors for the ministry to become possible,” says Evert.
“I don’t know where I’d be today, or if our ministry would even exist, if I hadn’t attended Franciscan University,” he continues.
The Chastity Project is all about helping young people see that “chastity is the virtue that frees us to love.” The Project educates young people about the truth of human sexuality and tackles topics like dating, birth control, homosexuality and pornography.
Evert and his wife have given more than 3,000 talks to high school and college students about the virtue of chastity, but he still remembers his first talk, during a spring break mission trip in college. After that, one thing was clear: “I knew I wanted to do this for the rest of my life,” says Evert.
Katie Short, Esq.
Vice President Legal Affairs
Life Legal Defense Foundation
Graduate of Thomas Aquinas College
Katie Short and her husband Bill graduated from Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, Calif., in 1980. A homeschooling mother of nine children, Katie earned her law degree from U.C. Berkeley and has used her legal expertise to advance the pro-life cause. She has defended the rights of pro-life activists, including sidewalk counselors, and most recently defended David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress, who worked to expose illegal practices at Planned Parenthood.
When asked about how her TAC education prepared her for her work at Life Legal, Short responded, “It’s a no-brainer to say that four years arguing with one’s fellow students in the seminar-style classes at TAC is a great preparation for the legal profession.”
“But practicing law in the pro-life field brings its own set of challenges,” Short continued. “In most jurisdictions, one has to be prepared to lose not just the losing cases, or the iffy cases, but cases where the court has to contort well-established law to rule against the pro-life side. As for getting fair rulings on evidence, the backdrop of every pro-life free speech case is that ‘everybody knows’ that anti-abortion advocates are dangerous zealots out to terrorize abortion providers and their patients. Needless to say, this sharply tilted playing field can lead to discouragement, for which the surest remedy is the reflection that the justice of this world is not the final word.”
Jennie Bradley Lichter
President of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund
Former Deputy General Counsel and founder of the Guadalupe Project, a pro-life initiative, at The Catholic University of America
Jennie Lichter was a pro-life leader at Newman Guide Recommended college and now is the head of the March for Life organization, which draws tens of thousands of pro-lifers every year to Washington, D.C., to stand against abortion.
While serving as Deputy General Counsel at The Catholic University of America, Lichter founded and led the Guadalupe Project, an initiative to “go all-in on being pro-life,” explained Lichter. Catholic University is the “literal and figurative home” to thousands of people and the Guadalupe Project is a “set of initiatives to serve everyone who is building a family” at the University, including faculty, staff and students. These initiatives include extending paid parental leave, creating parking spaces for expectant mothers, sending gift boxes to faculty and staff members who welcomed a new child, and adding stickers in women’s bathroom stalls about the University’s pregnancy resources.
“Catholic education is preparing students to pursue a life of virtue and to live for the Lord throughout their lives, and for many students, that means in family life,” says Lichter. “And so, I think any formation that can be provided around family life is an incredible contribution that Catholic schools can and do make.” She also encourages Catholic schools and colleges to “continue bringing your students to the March for Life” because “that experience itself can be so deeply formative—as it was for me after attending my first March for Life as a college student!”
Clare Donohue
Development Associate at the National Catholic Bioethics Center
Graduate of Belmont Abbey College (undergrad) and the University of Mary’s Master of Science in Bioethics Program
Clare Donohue’s pro-life beliefs were “nurtured from a young age” but “became her own” through Newman Guide education. Now she shares the pro-life message with others through her work at the National Catholic Bioethics Center.
“My experience studying at Belmont Abbey as a member of the Honors College and at the University of Mary in the Bioethics Master’s program has encouraged me to approach life with a sense of wonder and curiosity at the orderly beauty of God’s creation,” says Donohue. “The beauty of the Abbey, the presence of the monks, the exceptional curriculum, and the excellent professors have guaranteed that I remain a student for life and will always see the opportunity to learn as what it is: a blessing.”
“The right to life is the most basic and fundamental right upon which all others are built and introducing uncertainty as to whether some individuals possess it in full or at all leads to abuse of human life and dignity,” she argues.
Katie Portka
Database Specialist at Students for Life of America
Graduate of Benedictine College
Katie Portka credits her faithful Catholic education at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, with strengthening her pro-life convictions. Portka learned about Benedictine through The Newman Guide, and then, while a senior in high school, saw the College’s students carrying the banner at the head of the March for Life.
“I loved how energetic they were — this huge group of young adults who were so full of life and passionate,” says Portka. She had been involved in pro-life efforts with her family, but she didn’t often see large groups of young people standing for life as a high school student. Shortly after the March for Life, Portka signed her acceptance letter to attend Benedictine.
On campus, Portka immediately got involved in the large Respect Life Ravens Group. “The school at large was a very pro-life campus,” she says, “in the dorms, in classes, and in the faculty.”
Benedictine “really did embody the Church’s teaching on life and the dignity and sanctity of life,” says Portka. “In college was when I realized why I was pro-life and why I wanted to be pro-life.”
Sister Mariae Agnus Dei
Sisters of Life
Graduate of The Catholic University of America
Sister Mariae Agnus Dei of the Sisters of Life is one of many religious sisters whose vocation was nourished by Newman Guide education.
Founded in 1991, the Sisters of Life now have more than 100 sisters serving across the country and in Canada. The sisters take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, plus a special vow to “protect and enhance the sacredness of every human life.”
“To those discerning colleges, all I can say is you will never regret choosing a place that is invested in forming, supporting and flourishing every dimension of your life — mind, body, heart and soul,” said Sr. Mariae Agnus Dei.
“The years you spend at college, the people you encounter, the culture in which you immerse yourself, will inevitably lay a foundation for the rest of your life. In choosing an authentically Catholic college, you will be on course to live the good life you desire and become who you were made to be.”
Timmerie Geagea
Host of Trending with Timmerie on Relevant Radio
Graduate of John Paul the Great Catholic University
Timmerie attended John Paul the Great Catholic University in Escondido, Calif., which is recommended in The Newman Guide, where she “fell in love with studying theology” and also had the unique opportunity to “fuse together communications, philosophy and theology.” She credits her faithful Catholic education with helping prepare her for her ministry and for her life, including her marriage to a fellow alumnus.
“Close proximity to the sacraments, my formation in theology, and my education in business and communications equipped me not only for my apostolate but most importantly for a life oriented toward the Cross of Christ,” says Timmerie about her undergraduate years at JPCatholic. “I sharpened my tools of communication, and I learned to appeal to the deepest desires of the human heart — authentic love and, ultimately, God.”
On her radio show, Trending with Timmerie, which is nationally syndicated, she discusses topics such as gender identity, abortion and pornography. She believes that it’s important to tackle controversial topics, especially those related to human sexuality.
“Society is parched for relationships that express authentic love and ultimately the sacrificial love of Christ,” Timmerie explains. “Our culture and the breakdown of the family doesn’t prepare people for sacrificial love anymore.”