By Grace Petrasek
The Interim
The outside of the building needs a facelift and the inside needs fixing, but now Fredericton has a much needed crisis pregnancy center. Located next door to the well-appointed downtown abortuary, in the area that encompasses a Catholic church, a public school and gathering places for many of the city’s 5,000 university students, the new Mother and Child Welcome House opened its doors last August and was blessed in November. This will be its first Christmas – offering a culture of life next door to a culture of death.
When Peter Ryan first heard that a Morgentaler “clinic” had opened in his home province in 1994, and that its capitol, Fredericton, was becoming the “abortion capitol” of New Brunswick, he was appalled. Always a believer in doing what you can to counter evil, in 1999 he seized a job opportunity in Fredericton, leaving his Vancouver executive pro-life position. In the family van, with his wife Suzie and their seven daughters, aged eight to 23 years, he crossed the country and came home.
In Fredericton, he became both the executive director of the New Brunswick Right to Life Association (which he founded in the early ‘80s) and a director of Campaign Life Coalition. Now he would have to find an office for these groups.
Earlier while at home on visits, he’d walk around the abortuary area, resolving someday to establish a pro-life presence nearby. Then one day he got his chance. He noticed a neglected house next door to the abortuary. After seeking out the owner, who eventually agreed to sell the place to Peter, he was in business. He’d worry about the financing later. His work had just begun – the house was in bad shape.
Despite the difficulties and frustrations of starting again for the pro-life cause, in a new setting with little help or money, Peter says that over and over he’s been shown that pro-life work is a spiritual struggle. For weeks nothing went right. Then suddenly, in one day, help arrived and the project was on track. On reflection he says, “The completion of the center and its success will depend upon our prayers and perseverance and giving God a chance to work through this place and believing that His help will prevail.”
And God’s help has prevailed for Peter many times in his 50 years. In 1974, after graduating from university as a teacher, he met Jean Vanier, founder of the worldwide network of L’Arche communities for the mentally disabled. Impressed by his work with these wounded individuals, Peter worked for three years at Victoria’s L’Arche community where he met his wife Suzie.
Here, he learned the importance of abandoning oneself to Divine Providence especially in difficult times and marveled at how staff managed to pay bills despite little or no money. With legalized abortion spreading, he began to wonder what was being done for the “unwanted” or wounded child in the womb. Feeling a call to the pro-life cause, he also learned here “the important thing is to do what you’re called to do and the other stuff takes care of itself.”
Since 1977 he has worked as a full-time executive director for several pro-life organizations in Canada, co-founding over 15 pro-life groups and Birthright centers across the country. In the 1980s he worked from a New Brunswick base until he left to study in the U.S., after which he became executive director of the Vancouver archdiocese Respect Life Office, where he also founded the B.C. Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.
He interrupted his working career in 1988 because he realized a need “to equip myself more intellectually.” He, Suzie and their daughters left New Brunswick for Steubenville, Ohio, where he obtained a Masters degree in Theology through the John Paul II Institute in Washington, D.C.
Although his studies were funded by scholarships, he still had to provide for his family by working at part-time jobs. Money was scarce. During this time a surprise seventh daughter arrived. While the family felt blessed, Peter was besieged with financial pressures. Again, he abandoned his difficulties to Divine Providence and God’s help prevailed. Generous and compassionate parishioners at their Steubenville church donated small and large gifts of money to the struggling family, enabling them to rejoice in their new baby and to survive financially.
Peter believes that “the intellectual sustains the practical.” He refers to the Gospel of Life “as something we are called to energize and bring to others in the streets, the community and the media.” His own studies have fortified him with the unshakable confidence and certitude that pro-life is a workable thing, whereas others might be daunted by the evil around them or by people’s behaviour and feel stymied and frustrated. “What you need to do is to keep doing what you know is the truth in your heart. The power of truth when presented with love becomes a powerful force that cannot be diminished or stumped.”
He talks about his supportive wife, Suzie, whom he likens to the biblical Ruth, willing to follow him wherever his pro-life work takes him even though she and the girls aren’t fond of moving. Sometimes his own pro-life commitment is tested when he struggles with time or money constraints, as when he’d like to spend more time helping Suzie home-school their children or when he thinks, “this is enough. Time now to get out and get a well-paid professional job.” Still he perseveres.
His vision for the Mother and Child Welcome House is “to showcase the pro-life movement in New Brunswick, to make a stand and to be a visible symbol of people for life and love in the face of evil.”
On this first Christmas, the center’s offer of life and love to the distressed woman with child shines like a star – not unlike that over Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.
