Two veteran pro-life activists’ earthly pilgrimages have ended recently – on the same day.

Pro-Life Action League president Ann Scheidler wrote:

Monsignor Philip Reilly, founder of the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants, died at age 90 on November 30, 2024. Having spent more than 50 years on the sidewalks in front of abortion clinics—mainly in his native Brooklyn, New York—bringing a message of life and hope to abortion-bound women and men.

Msgr. Reilly developed a particular approach to his outreach to those seeking abortion. He gathered a prayer group as support at the clinic, and remote prayers at home, in convents and in nursing homes, praying for the lives of the mothers and babies at risk at the abortion clinics. He truly loved those he encountered on the sidewalk. With a winning smile and a kind word, he invited those he called ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ to talk to him about why they thought abortion was their solution. With amazing frequency, after a conversation with Msgr. Reilly, a baby’s life was saved.

Msgr. Reilly founded a movement he called the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants. He handed rosaries to the men and women he met in front of the clinic, and they thanked him. He assembled a prayer book with Scripture passages, hymns and the mysteries of the Rosary.

In 1997, my late husband Joe and I, along with a group of pro-life activists from Chicago, traveled to Brooklyn to learn from Msgr. Reilly. He stressed the importance of prayer and fasting in this life-saving work and the need to bring a sense of calm with you to the clinic. It was clear that he truly cared about whoever he was with, whether it was the sisters at the Precious Blood Monastery where he lived and whom he served as chaplain, pro-life activists he was training, or the troubled mom heading for an abortion.

We were blessed to know and work with Msgr. Philip Reilly. May he rest in peace and enjoy the eternal reward he so richly deserves.

Warren P. Dorman, 78, who I got to know in the late 1990s, also died on Nov. 30. During at least a 26-year time period, Warren regularly sidewalk counseled and prayed at three Chicago area abortion facilities. (One of those facilities closed in 2015.) He was very dedicated to helping the pro-life movement and did so “in the trenches,” so to speak.

May they both rest in the peace of Christ. Please pray for the repose of their souls.