A pro-life youth group, a woman who has served the pro-life cause in many ways for more than 20 years, and an attorney and law professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law will each be honored with a St. John Paul II Champions for Life Award, an initiative of the Office of Marriage, Family and Life of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
The attorney, Teresa Collett, has been defending the unborn and their mothers since the late 1990s.
Collett, 66, a parishioner of St. Mark in St. Paul, believes abortion is “the most important human rights issue of our times,” recalling that more than 63 million unborn children have been killed in the U.S. That is more than 40 times the number lost in all wars involving the U.S., she said. “This is truly horrifying to me.”
Much of her work has been pro bono. “I believe this work is a major reason God has blessed me with a tenured faculty position that allows me to read and think about these things as a part of my daily job, and do much of the legal work for free,” she said, adding “a few generous donors” to the Prolife Center at St. Thomas help cover expenses like student researchers and printing costs.
Among qualities named by Collett’s nominator is her co-founding of the Prolife Center about 15 years ago “to train students and lawyers to defend life in the law.” The nominator noted Collett’s 2009 appointment by the late Pope Benedict XVI to the Pontifical Council for the Family, where she served for seven years, and her role in coauthoring three amicus briefs in “the recent Dobbs case which overturned Roe v. Wade.” “With these amicus briefs, Collett helped free our entire country from the chains of Roe v. Wade,” the nominator wrote. “The many lawyers she has trained can now work towards a pro-life, pro-family America.”
Collett moved to Minnesota from Texas, where she taught at a secular law school and worked with Govs. George W. Bush and Rick Perry on pro-life issues. “We came to Minnesota because I felt called to serve the Church by teaching at a Catholic law school,” she said. “To receive an award from this diocese for my pro-life work here, work far more challenging than my work in Texas, is very affirming.”
Five people nominated Karen McCann, 55, a member of Nativity of Our Lord in St. Paul, for her approximately 30 years of pro-life work. One mentioned McCann’s volunteer work at pro-life center Birthright in St. Paul since the early 1990s, where she now is director and has served as a counselor. She often promotes pro-life causes, such as 40 Days for Life, hosts a pro-life book club and led her parish’s respect life initiative.
McCann is the pro-life director at Nativity and regularly prays outside Planned Parenthood clinics. She started a monthly newsletter sharing respect life updates such as webinars, conferences, fundraisers, rallies, meetings, talks, prayer vigils and other local pro-life events; and serves on the board of directors for Philomena House in St. Paul for homeless women in crisis pregnancies.
One nominator wrote, “She has the heart of a true pro-life warrior and sees value in every life, knowing that we are all made in the image and likeness of God.”
McCann said she is honored and humbled by the award because she knows of “so many people that also have worked so hard and so tirelessly for so many years.” She said she felt this call since she was “really young” and “I need to keep on track and not give up.”
The St. Gianna Club, a pro-life youth group of 10-15 seventh-through ninth-graders at Sacred Heart in Robbinsdale, is the third award winner. Members of the club have either graduated from or are current students at Sacred Heart Catholic School.
Club adviser and award nominator Morgan Leisgang, 28, said she has been impressed with the students’ commitment to the pro-life movement “and how active and involved they want to be, and to be those witnesses with their young ages.” Leisgang also serves as faith formation associate at the parish.
Club members have toured the Robbinsdale Women’s Center, Leisgang said, where they learned about this pregnancy resource center’s services, and saw detailed ultrasounds, enabling them to later describe fetal development in a presentation to their peers, and they have prayed outside the Chapel of the Innocents, located next to an abortion clinic in Robbinsdale.
“I’m just really impressed by their desire to continue their work in the pro-life movement and to speak out to their peers and be witnesses to help with prayers and service,” Leisgang said.
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