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Promoting the New Evangelization in Italy through Post-Abortion Healing:

La Vigna di Rachele ministry update (Pentecost 2013)

Monika Rodman Montanaro, MDiv. Italy Site Coordinator, Rachel’s Vineyard Ministries

Dear Friends,

Since I last updated you almost one year ago the Church has been gifted with a new Bishop of Rome in Pope Francis, whose humility and good humor captivated our hearts that first evening from the balcony of St. Peter’s Square:

“It seems that my brother Cardinals went almost to the end of the earth to get a Bishop of Rome!...”

He expressed his leadership vision as follows:

“…I hope that this journey which we as Church begin today will be fruitful for the evangelization of this most beautiful city (of Rome)!”

The evangelization of Rome?

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To some the phrase seems almost oxymoronic, or at least outdated by about 1,500 years. It’s serving as a challenge and a holy “jolt” to many. You see, Italians don’t easily place themselves in the role of those needing evangelization. Rather, they are accustomed to missioning priests, brothers and nuns to far-away, economically underdeveloped or non-Christian lands. That God would import a Bishop of Rome from the most southern tip of the Americas, and that this new leader would invite those in Rome and across Italy to evangelize first and foremost their own family and friends, colleagues and neighbors, has thrown many for a loop!

A 21st-century vision of Mission

Francis’ first words point to a foundational truth about the Church’s evangelizing mission in the 21st century: Contemporary Europe, Italy, and even Rome itself are mission territory! Both Europe’s post-Christian secularism and the wounds of post-modern life require a new evangelization beginning with those already baptized.

Francis calls us to “go to the peripheries, not only in the geographical sense but also to go to the existential peripheries: those of the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and of religious indifference, of thought, of all misery.” This is precisely what the Rachel’s Vineyard Italy Mission is accomplishing, by God’s Grace and through your support.

Thus, the 21 households and 2 Knights of Columbus Councils presently partnering with us are not just “supporting an overseas charity”. Rather, they are partners in a forward-looking, international evangelizing Mission operating at the heart of the Church.

“Foreign missions” have been the Church’s life blood from the beginning. The Book of Acts, our liturgical companion during the 50 days of Easter, recounts the personal sacrifices and the missionary zeal that allowed the Good News of the Risen Jesus to spread to lands near and far. A similar zeal impels us in the Italy Mission.

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We see ourselves as ambassadors for the Divine Physician who desires to heal the wounds left by abortion in the hearts and minds, souls and relationships of those we serve. One of the women who came through our program actually called it “spiritual surgery” that saved her life in more ways than one!

Like the Gospel itself, Rachel’s Vineyard Ministries is a gift given by the Holy Spirit and a seed sown first in one specific place, and only through missionary effort planted throughout the world. This “vine”, first planted in Philadelphia almost 20 years ago by Catholic psychologist Dr. Theresa Burke and her husband, expanded first throughout the United States, and only now is being “planted” elsewhere, where it is touching and transforming the lives of individuals, marriages and families.

Mission Progress and Plans 2012 - 2013

- Our last 3 Rachel’s Vineyard retreats, offered in Bologna, have been subscribed to maximum capacity and have drawn women and men from all over Italy, including Sicily and the island of Sardegna. Our last retreat included 3 married couples, a Benedictine monk grieving the loss of his older brother through abortion, and quite a few individuals just beginning to make their way toward a personal practice of the faith. We’ve even welcomed our first 2 Muslim women, each of whom participated beautifully, with deep respect for our Christ-centered prayers yet very free in their own expressions of faith in an infinitely Merciful God.

- Our retreat team now includes not only my husband and me, a Dominican priest and Catholic psychologist, but also 2 women who successfully completed the program in the last 2 years. They say they are blessed to offer the fruits of their experience to others. This “peer” element has always been an integral part of the Rachel’s Vineyard model. (The international regulations require that a retreat team be composed of no fewer than 5 team members, and only in the last 9 months have we met that requirement.) The leadership potential we saw in each of these two new team members - one married, one single, both professionals who’ve become casualties of Italy’s skyrocketing unemployment - is being confirmed! This addition improves the quality of care provided to participants, but has also brought additional costs of approximately $500 per retreat. (All team members, including myself, receive no stipend, but only reimbursement of travel and retreat lodgings.)

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- Winter and Spring special events included a speaking engagement in the Archdiocese of Milan for Italy’s Respect Life Month, and exhibits at several pro-life events in northern Italy.

- We recently replaced our 9 year-old laptop computer, which, despite many years of Domenico’s impressive repairs, finally came to the end of its remarkable lifespan!

- Here in California we’ve printed English-language Prayer Cards for the Rachel’s Vineyard Italy Mission, and are currently distributing them to individuals and prayer groups. I would be happy to send “Good Shepherd” and/or “Prodigal” prayer cards for you and others in your prayer circle to use. Please email me at mimmont@hotmail.com to request them!

- In the past 3 years three excellent books have been published in Italy on post-abortion issues. I am delighted to hear Domenico say that our growing presence and focused efforts have without a doubt helped catalyze this development. (While we are largely the pioneers of Christian post-abortion ministry in Italy, we have no desire for a monopoly in this field! ) Italy’s first book on Men and Abortion was released last month. It followed release of a short but rich book on emotional healing and the Sacrament of Reconciliation authored by a Franciscan priest/psychotherapist. This trio of publications began in 2011 with “Motherhood Interrupted,” a compilation of essays by psychologists and physicians. Two of the three books offer our website as a referral, and the men’s book lauds the fact that Rachel’s Vineyard considers men among those needing healing and includes them as natural partners on the healing journey.

- Next month, on June 15-16, together with retreat alumnae from Rome, I will be leafleting to publicize our ministry at the Vatican’s “Evangelium vitae (Gospel of Life) Day”. I am honored to be joined in this outreach by several past participants, as they are in many ways our best ambassadors! We are so very eager to spread the news of hope and healing among the pro-life folks who will gather in Rome on that weekend. We hope to count ever more of them as allies in spreading the good news of hope renewed and life restored through the Mercy of our great God!

- While Bologna (the city of St. Dominic!) remains our chief retreat site, there is interest in Milan and Rome for us to train retreat teams. We are eager to welcome on our July 2013 retreat priest and psychotherapist participants who are discerning a leadership role in such expansion. Two women from Slovenia (one a psychologist) have also asked to take part in this retreat, as they hope to bring Rachel’s Vineyard across the Adriatic to that part of the former Yugoslavia.

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- Our translation of the Canadian book “Women’s Health after Abortion: The Medical and Psychological Evidence,” continues with target completion for the end of 2013. This resource serves as an invaluable outreach tool to those requesting “secular” resources on the topic.

The above programmatic highlights don’t even begin to tell the full story of lives touched and transformed by the Rachel’s Vineyard Italy Mission. The following four testimonies do!

4 Participant Testimonies

While the “presenting problem” which prompts women, men and couples to contact us is the wound of abortion, the path we journey with them often leads them to re-evaluate in a much more basic way many elements of their life. Not infrequently they are led to change direction, and to plant their roots in a new soil made fertile by their encounter with the Mercy of Christ through His church community.

“Oriana”, a 41 year-old cohabitating woman from near Milan, who had aborted 10 years earlier with the husband from whom she has long been separated but whom she never divorced, spoke of such a foundational shift during our post-weekend retreat day:

“I initially thought that this process I’m going through with you would serve to definitively close a chapter of my life. Instead, I’m facing a whole host of new questions. All of the inconsistencies I’ve avoided looking at for so many years are suddenly in front of me, and for the first time ever I’m finding the courage to look at them. I’m feeling a deep desire to make some necessary changes, and I’m finally finding the spiritual strength to take concrete steps in a positive direction.”

A husband from Rome had a rather remarkable experience on our last retreat. He reluctantly attended with his wife, who years ago had had 2 abortions, the first with him and the second with another partner. (The couple has no living children.) The wife’s spiritual director, a Franciscan priest, had encouraged her to attend. While the couple had arrived to grieve the abortion of their first child as well as the embryos who died through two unsuccessful IVF attempts, during the retreat the husband shared a long-repressed memory of having forced the

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abortion of his first girlfriend years earlier. The wife was able to receive this news with equanimity and compassion thanks in part to the expertise of the retreat team and the uniquely supportive environment of the retreat itself. Speaking of the entire 3-day process, he shared the following:

"... When I arrived I wasn’t sure of what would happen during the three days of the retreat, but the presence and sharing of the others helped me let go and release this unresolved experience. The closeness and compassion of the whole team was a treasure to me. I cried so much, and for me, just that was a huge gift."

Testimonies by others who in recent months courageously stepped into Rachel’s Vineyard indicate that not only are they personally reaping the fruit of their labors, but their families, too, are enjoying the blessings of healing.

Healing and restoration of a young family

A young civilly married couple from Tuscany attended our last retreat after having aborted their second child due to the possibility of a congenital illness. (Note: Italy has among the world’s highest rates of prenatal genetic testing, with the overwhelming percentage of children who present problems ending up aborted.)

During the preparation process before the retreat, the husband stated:

“As a child I’d had an accident that left me with a handicap, so when I heard our child would possibly have serious problems, I just freaked out and we ended up taking the path we took.”

Following a second-trimester abortion the couple found itself in a full-blown marriage crisis that was negatively affecting their 6 year-old son, who daily clung desperately to his distraught mother, seeking to console her in her obvious distress. Thankfully, the couple found us on the internet, received intensive support for 2 months and then made the retreat together. They originally feared leaving their son for 2 nights with his grandparents, and were considering the possibility of having the husband commute, which in many ways would have interrupted their shared experience of the nearly non-stop grief process facilitated by the retreat. Providentially, a huge snowstorm hit all of northern Italy the night before the retreat,

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and the couple took it as a sign that the husband should come and stay for all 3 days. The couple made an intense and beautiful retreat, and the wife wrote 2 months later:

“If you remember my first email, how distant Diego and I were from one other and how worried I was about our relationship, just look at us now! Our love has been brought back to life, and that love has led to the creation of a new life!! Yes, we’re pregnant! We conceived shortly after the retreat, and you’re the first ones we’re sharing the news with! All of this is for us a huge MIRACLE!!! ...We’ve decided to not do any genetic testing, and we are prepared to accept this new child for whoever he is, healthy or sick, as God’s gift to us.

The other amazing thing is the effect of the retreat on our son: Since we came back that Sunday night, he clearly noticed that something had changed and things are now okay. He just seems to realize that mom’s ok, dad’s ok, and there’s peace in the home again. You remember my telling you that from the time of the pregnancy and the abortion, we’d spent days at a time not talking except for the essentials to survive each day. Talking was just too painful. Our son had picked up on all of this and that’s what made him so very anxious and clingy. Now, he gets up in the morning by himself, prepares himself for school without help, and is so very happy to just be occupied with his own little life. This is the other big miracle that happened for us through the retreat.”

NOTE: During the process leading up to their retreat, the couple had begun discussing with their local priest, who continues to companion them, the possibility of marrying in the Church. Indeed, in July they will celebrate the Sacriment of Matrimony, saying they now realize that to have a good marriage and a strong family, they need Christ at the center. They are so grateful for God’s presence and help in their family, and their son loves their newly adopted routine of praying before meals and at the end of the day.

Healing and restoration of a family with grown children

“Daria”, a 31 year-old single woman still living at home, aborted 11 years ago. She had been abandoned by her boyfriend (a “good guy” she’d met through the parish youth group), coerced by her mother and left without a defender as her father kept silent through the

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entire episode. The rage toward her parents was still strong after more than a decade which had included clinical depression and several months’ stay in a psychiatric hospital. The young woman, a gifted artist and poet, found the courage and humility to invite her parents to the Sunday Memorial Service and Mass at the retreat. When the parents arrived they told my husband, “We sure hope you can help her…. Nothing else has gotten her out of this.” Domenico pointed to Jesus as the Healer and the team simply as His instruments. He made a point of encouraging the couple to stay close to Jesus to see their daughter’s healing deepen and blossom.

During the Memorial and Mass these grandparents heard not only their daughter’s letter written to her aborted child, but similar expressions of love read by the other women and men who’d made the retreat. Their daughter’s grief was normalized and her lost motherhood was finally honored. Daria’s mother sobbed during most of the service and Mass, and her father was visibly moved.

Here’s the letter we received from Daria one month after the retreat:

“…The Monday night after we came home from the retreat my mother put a letter under my bedroom pillow. I’d been waiting 11 years for that letter! That gesture of hers, together with the retreat, totally healed my heart, which I feel opening up to the merciful love of God. I can’t prove it, but I just know deep down that I have received a miraculous spiritual healing…. I feel reborn… I now see my whole life in the light of Christ. No more pain, anger, resentment, guilt. The Lord has simply worked a healing I never thought possible. And my parents? They realize I’m very much at peace and obviously this makes them happy. On top of that, they’re going to mass every Sunday!... I truly want this apostolate to grow so that other women like me may be saved from despair. Humanly it’s impossible to heal such searing pain, only the power of God can heal it. It’s crucial that this mission expand as much as possible. Count on me to be an ambassador for the Vigna di Rachele, and know that I’m lifting you and the Vigna up in prayer. I send you all a hug, with immense affection and gratitude…”

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Our Funding Goals for 2013

Italian friends of the ministry and former retreat participants have been wonderful about offering financial aid to participants in need. Our chief Italian fundraising goal for this year is to secure our first financial assistance from Cardinal Caffarra of Bologna, as well as from Italian diocesan clergy who have shown enthusiasm for our work.

We also will be soliciting our Italian friends for the donation (or sale at a special price!) of a spacious car or small van to replace of our 1999 VW Passat station wagon, which has given the ministry almost 3 years of faithful service, but which Domenico fears may one day soon no longer rise to the needed level of performance, i.e., a 7-hour drive each way to Bologna from Puglia for each retreat.

Our U.S. funding goal for 2013 is to add to our current team of mission partners ten (10) new households, at least one more Knights of Columbus Council, at least one Italian-American organization and one Diocesan Missions office.

I invite you and/or your organization to join, with a gift of any amount, our small but strong corps of partners to help ensure the future and expand the growth of the Italy Mission!

St. Paul reminds the Corinthian Church of the sacrifices made by the Macedonian Christians so that missionaries could bring the Good News of the Gospel to Corinth. Paul’s description of the Macedonians’ generosity is remarkable: “For according to their means…, and beyond their means, spontaneously, they begged us insistently for the favor of taking part in the service (diakonia) to the holy ones…” (II Cor 8: 3-4).

Similarly, we pray that your participation in the Italy Mission is a blessing to you as it is to us and to those we serve!

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Your Opportunity for Partnership in the Italy Mission

While we are greatly encouraged by the few financial gifts that have arrived from Italians, our apostolate is still heavily dependent on the generosity of friends back in the United States who wish to see this outreach grow and flourish.

The Italy Mission receives no financial support from any Rachel’s Vineyard or Project Rachel office in the United States, but thanks to a partnership with Rachel’s Vineyard of Colorado we are able to accomodate your Tax-Deductible restricted Gift for this apostolate.

I am particularly seeking to expand the circle of Italian-American families and organizations supporting this Mission. I am also working to expand our team of individual Monthly supporters beyond the two families which have so faithfully given in the past 3 years.

Together with two mission-minded Councils of the Knights of Columbus, with our faithful friends and the generosity of my husband, your sacrificial gift will assure that this apostolate not only survives but thrives.

In particular, if you know anyone who might be able to sponsor in part or entirely the costs of our June 2013 “Gospel of Life Day” Rome mission, (approximately $500-$600 including travel and materials distributed), such a donation would be a particular godsend!

The participation we ask of you

a) Pray with and for us! Before all else, it is through prayer that the Italy Mission is already

producing a harvest of lives renewed, marriages healed, and families restored. Please help us plant this “vine” in good and fruitful soil by joining your prayer, fasting and sacrifice to ours. See our website for 2 lovely prayers which we also have in prayer card format. I would be happy to send prayer cards for you and others to use, so please email me to request them!

b) Make a financial gift to ensure that the Italy Mission continues to grow. You may support our

Italy Mission by making a check out to Rachel’s Vineyard of Colorado (Tax ID number 90-0115001) and sending it with the RESPONSE FORM (page 12) below. PayPal donations are now possible at our website (on Home page click on the American flag and scroll to “Donate by Credit Card”).

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Please mail your gift by June 30, 2012 if possible, later if necessary, to the address on the Form.

“Pizza in the Vineyard” Might you consider a donation equal to the amount you would spend

with family or friends for an evening in the Pizzeria?

Simply print the following page (p. 12) and enclose it with your check! Or use PayPal at our website!

Feel free to email me with any Questions at mimmont@hotmail.com.

Thank you once again for partnering with us as we pioneer Catholic post-abortion outreach in Italy!

Affectionately yours in Christ,

Monika Rodman Montanaro Italy Site Coordinator, Rachel’s Vineyard Ministries (La Vigna di Rachele) 805-680-0406 (in the U.S. through June 6, 2013)

www.vignadirachele.org (click on the American flag for the English-language page) www.progettorachele.org

“…[T]he Catholic community should be open to welcome back all who repent of having participated in the grave sin of abortion, and should guide them with pastoral charity to accept the grace of forgiveness,

the need for penance, and the joy of entering once more into the new life of Christ.”

- Pope Benedict XVI, November 2007

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RESPONSE FORM

Rachel’s Vineyard Italy Mission (“La Vigna di Rachele”) A Mission of Mercy to the Heart of the Church

www.vignadirachele.org – www.rachelsvineyard.org

Your Tax-Deductible Restricted Gift will go to work exclusively in Italy to sponsor Rachel’s Vineyard post-abortion healing retreats, phone and internet support, development of

training materials for Italian clergy and mental health professionals, speaking engagements and outreach to Dioceses across Italy!

____ I am sending a tax-deductible gift payable to Rachel’s Vineyard of Colorado (Check Memo: Italy Mission) for exclusive use in the Vigna di Rachele Italy Mission. I understand

the contact information requested below is NEVER passed on to other individuals or organizations, but used solely for acknowledgement purposes.

NAME:__________________________________________ (Organization: ____________________________________) ADDRESS:_______________________________________ CITY, STATE, ZIP:________________________________ EMAIL:_____________________________ PHONE: _________________________

(Rachel’s Vineyard of Colorado Tax ID number: 90-0115001)

Please mail your gift with this COMPLETED RESPONSE FORM to former Rachel’s Vineyard retreat team member: Tara Somerday

37151 Ila Court Fremont, CA 94536

Reminder: Check is made out to “Rachel’s Vineyard of Colorado” (Check Memo: “ITALY MISSION”) and sent to Tara Somerday in Fremont, CA. Tara will forward your check to our sponsor agency in Colorado, so that your gift may be put to work exclusively for our Italy Mission. Questions? Contact Italy Mission coordinator Monika Rodman Montanaro at mimmont@hotmail.com

Thank you for your prayers and sacrificial giving which both make you partners in this mission!