Rev. Paul Marx, OSB

When we review the constellations in the dark sky of the 20th century we will surely see a bright star shining in the firmament which has the name "Fr. Paul Marx". Fr. Marx shone the light of the "Gospel of Life" on a world that is overshadowed by every conceivable depravity and attack on the most sacred of human realities: innocent human life, family and marriage. In order to do so, he had to be immersed in the doctrine of the faith and centuries of prophetic tradition and full of apostolic zeal that would motivate someone to travel to 91 countries of the world even past his seventieth year. Now into his eighties he has not stopped spreading the Gospel of Life to the nations.

In the 1950s and 60s Father was heavily involved in promoting the teaching of the Church with regard to Natural Family Planning. Indeed he was an expert teacher of the method and trained thousands of young couples to live chaste marital lives. At that time he began to see that the industry which promoted artificial contraception was also the industry that was pushing to legalize abortion. He began to teach and write against Planned Parenthood in particular and to defend the church's teaching on sexual morality handed down to us in the 1968 papal encyclical Humanae Vitae.

In 1971 even before the legalization of abortion in the United States, Father infiltrated a pro-abortion conference in California and exposed the evil agenda of the abortionists in a book called "The Death Peddlers" which has sold tens of thousands of copies. He went disguised as "Dr. Paul Marx" instead of "Fr. Paul Marx"! He then took his message to the whole world to warn them of the storm of abortion that was coming from the west.

In 1972 Fr. Marx formed the Human Life Center at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota in anticipation of the legalization of abortion on the horizon in the United States and through the Human Life Center sponsored international conferences to train people to fight the anti-life movement which was gaining momentum all over the world.

In 1981 Father Marx moved to Washington DC, and with a few dollars in his pocket, a broken down car, and the Holy Spirit as his guide, he established an international network of pro-life activists and professionals based upon his two decades of pro-life work and travel. This network he called "Human Life International" whose headquarters are now located just outside of Washington DC and which continues to carry on his prophetic mission in nearly 50 countries of the world. People on every continent of the world look to Fr. Paul Marx as their spiritual founder, including Dietmar Fischer and the office of HLI-Austria, and it is largely due to Father Marx's inspiration that his spiritual children continue to hold back the tide of abortion on demand that is knocking at the door of every culture of the world.

Fr. Marx's legacy is alive and well not only in his writings and the organizations that he established such as PRI and C-Fam, but most importantly in the hearts of the people he inspired to commit themselves to the cause of life. I can personally testify that his vigorous spirit lives on in the ministries of thousands of pro-lifers that I have met in my short two years as President of Human Life International. I have only traveled to 20 countries so far (!), but everywhere I go I hear testimonies about how Fr. Marx spoke to the consciences of good people and asked them to give their lives for the babies:

• When I traveled to Peru last June HLI's representative Adriana Tapia told me that she could not ignore Fr. Marx's call to do something for the babies: now she has three homes for unwed mothers and has saved thousands of babies and their mothers from the ravages of abortion;
• Colleen Bayer of New Zealand attended an HLI conference in Canada some years ago and returned home to form "Family Life International" in imitation of the model of HLI that Fr. Marx set up;
• Dr. Antun Lisec of Croatia, who is here with us tonight, actually gave up his profession as a surgeon and saves even more lives than he could in medicine because Fr. Marx gave him the opportunity to work full time in pro-life work;
• Dr. Claude Newbury from South Africa has a similar story of giving up his profession to work for life because of Fr. Paul Marx;

And when I was in Tanzania last August I met Msgr. Julian Kangalawe of the Archdiocese of Dar Es Salaam who said that Fr. Marx told him that he must never be silent while innocent babies are being killed; and that was the beginning of the office and the pro-life work of this marvelous priest.

We all know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, and only in Him are we saved. Yet Christ raises up men and women in every age to carry on His work in an extraordinary way for the salvation of souls, and it is in this context that we must see the life's work of Fr. Paul Marx. He has given his life to teach us the meaning of God's precious gift life, and we are all blessed for having walked in his light. He has taught us all how to
be pro-life.

It is also a great blessing that we have in our presence tonight the founder of Human Life International and the man who Pope John Paul II called "the Apostle of Life", Fr. Paul Marx.

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Our Lady of Guadalupe - Protectress of the Unborn »
Legatus Honors Fr. Marx »
Fr. Marx's Act of Consecration to Our Lady of Guadalupe »