{"id":4771,"date":"2010-08-12T21:16:34","date_gmt":"2010-08-12T21:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2010\/08\/abortions-other-victims.html"},"modified":"2010-08-12T21:16:34","modified_gmt":"2010-08-12T21:16:34","slug":"abortions-other-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/08\/abortions-other-victims.html","title":{"rendered":"Abortion&#8217;s other victims"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Archdiocese of St. Louis is launching a new ministry to reach out to men affected by abortion &#8212; and deacons are involved in coordinating it.<\/p>\n<p>From the <a href=\"http:\/\/stlouisreview.com\/article\/2010-08-11\/respect-life\">St. Louis Review: <\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nProject Joseph will provide free, confidential professional counseling, spiritual direction and retreats for men who either have been directly involved in an abortion experience, or affected by a loved one&#8217;s previous abortion experience. The first daylong retreat will take place in St. Louis next month.<\/p>\n<p>Project Joseph is being coordinated by the archdiocesan Respect Life Apostolate, in cooperation with the permanent deacons of the archdiocese.<\/p>\n<p>While post-abortion ministry always has been a critical part of the work of the Respect Life Apostolate, said director Beth Lauver, the apostolate is looking forward to expanding this ministry to more directly approach men.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The introduction of Project Joseph will hopefully help to more formally bring to light and ease the pain of the fathers of aborted children,&#8221; said Lauver. &#8220;It&#8217;s certainly a very different kind of grief from what mothers experience, simply because it doesn&#8217;t involve the physical procedure. The loss is still just as deep and painful, though&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>More than a dozen permanent deacons have volunteered to assist with planning efforts. Deacon Alan Whitson, who is helping to coordinate the September retreat, said that permanent deacons make a perfect match with this ministry.<\/p>\n<p>The format of the retreat, he said, is &#8220;men for men.&#8221; In addition to making a priest available for Mass and Reconciliation, a member of the laity will share his personal reflections and insights on the subject. Deacons also will be on hand that day.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The family is under tremendous attack from virtually every corner,&#8221; said Deacon Whitson, who serves at St. Clare of Assisi Parish in Ellisville. &#8220;The family is vital to society and the Church. Abortion, I believe, is probably the most devastating&#8221; issue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> You can read more at <a href=\"http:\/\/stlouisreview.com\/article\/2010-08-11\/respect-life\">the link.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/stlouisreview.com\/article\/2010-08-11\/respect-life\"> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Archdiocese of St. Louis is launching a new ministry to reach out to men affected by abortion &#8212; and deacons are involved in coordinating it. From the St. Louis Review: Project Joseph will provide free, confidential professional counseling, spiritual direction and retreats for men who either have been directly involved in an abortion experience,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pro-life"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Abortion&#039;s other victims - The Deacon&#039;s Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/08\/abortions-other-victims.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Abortion&#039;s other victims - The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Archdiocese of St. Louis is launching a new ministry to reach out to men affected by abortion &#8212; and deacons are involved in coordinating it. From the St. Louis Review: Project Joseph will provide free, confidential professional counseling, spiritual direction and retreats for men who either have been directly involved in an abortion experience,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/08\/abortions-other-victims.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-08-12T21:16:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"jmcgee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Abortion's other victims - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/08\/abortions-other-victims.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Abortion's other victims - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","og_description":"The Archdiocese of St. Louis is launching a new ministry to reach out to men affected by abortion &#8212; and deacons are involved in coordinating it. From the St. Louis Review: Project Joseph will provide free, confidential professional counseling, spiritual direction and retreats for men who either have been directly involved in an abortion experience,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/08\/abortions-other-victims.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon&#039;s Bench","article_published_time":"2010-08-12T21:16:34+00:00","author":"jmcgee","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/08\/abortions-other-victims.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/08\/abortions-other-victims.html","name":"Abortion's other victims - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-08-12T21:16:34+00:00","dateModified":"2010-08-12T21:16:34+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/bdb748767d0f27ba523435391c927150"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/08\/abortions-other-victims.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/08\/abortions-other-victims.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/08\/abortions-other-victims.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Abortion&#8217;s other victims"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon&#039;s Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/bdb748767d0f27ba523435391c927150","name":"jmcgee","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b07\/b071769d942178df26e06d8859867b37x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b07\/b071769d942178df26e06d8859867b37x96.jpg","caption":"jmcgee"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/jmcgee"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4771\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}