Wednesday, July 8, 2009 6:08 PM CDT
Teutopolis church hosts people from all walks of life for Day of Prayer
By BILL WARD, Staff Writer
Throughout the day they came to pray, sometimes in small numbers, sometimes in large groups.
By the end of the Effingham County Right to Life Committee’s annual Day of Prayer, hundreds of people had gathered in the sanctuary of St. Francis of Assisi Church: from Greenup to St. Elmo and Edgewood to Charleston; Boy Scouts and Fourth-Degree Knights of Columbus; Catholics and Protestants. Eight priests from the Effingham Deanery concelebrated the closing Mass, and a New York film crew was there to record the event.
Altogether, a remarkable turnout for a parish church in a village of 1,500.
But it has been happening there each year for 35 years, ever since the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
“I speak at many such events, and I can say that the positive pro-life spirit in Teutopolis is second to none,” said the Rev. Thomas Euteneuer, president of Human Life International, who spoke at the closing service.
That spirit is not limited to Teutopolis. It also is alive in the rest of the Effingham Deanery, a section of the Catholic Diocese of Springfield that covers Clark, Coles, Crawford, Cumberland, Effingham and Jasper counties. And it is not limited to the Catholic Church.
“Right now, we have 198 churches that are responding to our Baby Bottle project,” said Loretta Koester, a member of St. Francis Parish and secretary of Effingham County Right to Life.
That project is a major fundraiser for the Family Life Pregnancy Center in Effingham. Baby bottles are given out in churches on Mother’s Day and returned on Father’s Day, filled with coins collected in the intervening time.
“It’s so easy to just throw in your change,” said Liz Kremer, treasurer of Effingham County Right to Life. “Kids can do it, too.”
The pregnancy center is a nondenominational Christian ministry that opened about 15 years ago as an alternative to agencies offering abortions. It provides a wide range of free services, including testing, ultrasound and adoption referrals. It also has postbirth programs, teaching parenting and life skills. Teen Mother Connection is a support group for young mothers, and Dadz deals with fathers’ issues.
“Our focus is on families,” said the center’s executive director, Tami Shull.
Shull is the only paid staff member; the rest are volunteers from the community.
The center serves Effingham and surrounding counties. “Some women come from quite a distance away,” Shull said. “We welcome anyone who walks through our doors.”
Demand for its services has been increasing, she said. “We had 791 visits last year.”
Pro-life activities in the area are strongly interconnected and include religious groups such as Lutherans for Life, as well as nonsectarian organizations. In addition to the Day of Prayer, there are monthly vigils, the annual Chain of Life, and information and lobbying services.
Later this month, Vandalia and Effingham will welcome the Crossroads Walkers for Life, a group of college students walking across the country throughout the summer, speaking at churches and youth rallies.
“We give them supper and homes to sleep in,” Koester said, “and we wash their clothes.”
Young people form a major part of the local pro-life organizations. Each January, busloads of youth and adults travel from Effingham County to Washington, D.C., to take part in the annual March for Life. They also go on annual mission trips, ministering to poor people and special-needs children.
In his message in Teutopolis, Euteneuer urged those present to “speak the gospel of life in our everyday lives: in our travels, the workplace, playgrounds and where we worship.”
It’s a message that’s already taking root in the next generation in Effingham County. Kremer, who accompanies the young people each year in their trips to Washington, said that on one of their mission trips, they had the motto, “The church has left the building.”
“The small local pro-life organizations give great credibility to the pro-life movement,” Euteneuer said in an e-mail interview. “They keep hope alive in the hearts of those who value life and bear witness to the fact that our nation has not lost its moral conscience — yet.”
Euteneuer said the challenge of organizations such as those in Effingham County is “to keep the flame of pro-life conviction from going out in any given area.”
The film crew at the Day of Prayer is preparing a documentary on crisis pregnancy centers and wanted to highlight how crisis pregnancy work is connected to the larger pro-life movement, Euteneuer said.
“I also had a choice of where to do it, and I chose St. Francis Church because of its tremendous beauty and community. It is not just the exquisite look of the worship space but the faith of the people that stands out in great relief.”
Contact Bill Ward at bward@herald-review.com or 421-7968.
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