Remembering a pro-life pioneer

RICHARD A. SOKERKA

The pro-life movement lost one of its most cherished members April 20 when Vicki Thorn, founder of Project Rachel, died suddenly. A Catholic pro-life pioneer, international speaker, author, and a member of the Pontifical Academy of Life, she was 72.

A certified trauma counselor and spiritual director who earned a degree in psychology from the University of Minnesota, Thorn launched Project Rachel in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, in 1984. The ministry was unique because a team of specially trained priests, spiritual directors, and other caregivers staffed it.

The response to it was immediate — not only from women who sought help after having an abortion — but also from husbands, boyfriends, siblings, fathers, grandfathers, and other male family members who were struggling from the abortion of a child they would never meet or hold in their arms. Thorn found out quickly that “so many people knew somebody who was wounded [by abortion] that it spread like wildfire.”

Today, Project Rachel is in almost every diocese across the U.S. and around the world. The initiative’s name comes from the Book of Jeremiah: “In Ramah is heard the sound of sobbing, bitter weeping! Rachel mourns for her children, she refuses to be consoled for her children — they are no more!” (Jer 31:15).

In 1990, Thorn founded the National Office of Post-Abortion Reconciliation and Healing (NOPRAH) in Milwaukee, to expand Project Rachel’s services to a growing list of dioceses in the U.S. and abroad. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) now runs the ministry.

Thorn was the author of “Progetto Rachele, il volto della compassione” (“Project Rachel, The Face of Compassion”), published in 2009 by Libreria Editrice Vaticana. She led workshops and conferences and had given speeches on post-abortion healing and the biology of male and female bonding in some 25 countries.

She and her husband, William, parents of six and grandparents to 19, were inducted in 2008 into the Pontifical Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. In 2009, she received the People of Life Award from the USCCB for her pro-life service to the Church, and in 2017, Pope Francis re-appointed her as a corresponding member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

In July 2021, the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame awarded Thorn its prestigious Evan­gel­ium Vitae Medal, a lifetime achievement award for heroes of the pro-life movement.

O. Carter Snead, the center’s director, called Thorn “a living witness to the unconditional love and mercy that lies at the heart of the Culture of Life.”

“I would describe Vicki as the heart of the pro-life movement,” Mary Hallan FioRito, a fellow at the center, observed in a video tribute shown during a virtual award ceremony.

Archbishop Jerome Listecki of Milwaukee praised her dedication to sharing the healing message of God’s mercy. “Vicki’s life was dedicated to a single mission; caring for men and women wounded by abortion. As the founder of Project Rachel, she single-handedly created a post-abortion healing ministry at a time when none existed.”

The most important thing we can do in honoring her memory is to see that her legacy lives on by making sure anyone needing to heal from the horror that abortion is, calls (888) 456-HOPE (4673).