Catholic Advocacy & Respect Life Ministry

As Roman Catholics, we believe that God calls us to be a prophetic voice for the rights and dignities of all men and women. We also believe that the values and morals which flow from our Baptism into Christ will bring about the most good for humanity. As Catholics, we seek to instill the values of Christ and His Church in the world. Through public policy initiatives, advocacy, and voter education, we seek to bring those unchanging values into a changing world.

Advocacy is primarily done though the Virginia Conference of Catholic Bishops. Parishioners are kept informed of the issues in the government here in the Commonwealth as well as on a national level.

First and foremost in any effort for Catholic Advocacy is the call to respect the dignity of every human life, from conception to natural death. Holy Trinity participates each year in Respect Life month in October, as well as the annual March for Life, which seeks to make a pro-life voice heard. John Paul II, in his Encyclical Evangelium Vitae reminds all Catholics of our duty to speak out against a culture of death, against abortion rights, and for the rights of the poorest among us:

“The Church knows that this Gospel of life, which she has received from her Lord, 1 has a `profound and persuasive echo in the heart of every person-believer and non-believer alike-because it marvelously fulfils all the heart’s expectations while infinitely surpassing them. Even in the midst of difficulties and uncertainties, every person sincerely open to truth and goodness can, by the light of reason and the hidden action of grace, come to recognize in the natural law written in the heart (cf. Rom 2:14-15) the sacred value of human life from its very beginning until its end, and can affirm the right of every human being to have this primary good respected to the highest degree. Upon the recognition of this right, every human community and the political community itself are founded” (2).

The Virginia Catholic Conference works closely in partnership with the Virginia Family Foundation, which seeks to promote laws which build up the family through Biblical, Christian values.