Washington D.C., Apr 12, 2016 / 03:28 am (CNA).- “(W)hen it comes to issues like abortion, amnesty, and acid, I’m about as liberal as your grandmother. I don’t like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far.&rdqu... Read more

New York City, N.Y., Dec 23, 2016 / 03:39 pm (CNA).- Christopher Bell was in his twenties and living in Times Square when he heard something that sounded like the voice of God. Bell had been working with homeless and runaway kids in New York City, when he encountered pregnant women with young children who had no homes. At the time, Bell said there were no long-term programs that were ministering to pregnant women with other children. “I thought there was a need to have longer-term housing for mothers and babies, but I didn’t know what to do,” Bell told CNA. “I was close to Fr. Benedict Groeschel, and I complained to him, ‘Why doesn’t somebody do something to help these young mothers and children?’” Fr. Groeschel, founder of the Community of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, told Bell that he would help him start the ministry that would eventually become Good Counsel Homes. Hearing those words from Fr. Groeschel “sounded almost like the voice of God and it was a great encouragement,” Bell recalled. Good Counsel Homes was founded soon after in 1985 with the goal of helping women with children get off the streets and find stability through work or education. “As soon as we opened on March 10, 1985, we were getting calls from women who were pregnant and women who were pregnant with other born children... So we responded to the need and took in the mothers,” Bell said. Since 1985, Good Counsel Homes has aided more than 7,000 women at their residence homes and have expanded to four additional houses in New York and New Jersey. During their time at Good Counsel Homes, the women in residence are offered finance, health, relationship and life-skills classes, as well as information about child growth and development. The average stay for a mother and her children at Good Counsel Homes is about 13 months, which allows them enough time to establish a job or some kind of stable independence. Bell still remembers the first woman who came to Good Counsel Homes. She had a small son, but said that he was not her first child. She previously had an abortion when she was in high school, having been told that her nine-week-old baby in utero was a “blob of bloody tissue.” After this experience, Bell found that about half of the women who came through Good Counsel Homes had been involved in an abortion. He decided to start an extension ministry of Good Counsel Homes called Lumina, to help individuals who had been affected by an abortion. “Lumina is not only for the women of Good Counsel to learn about post-abortion healing, but also for women and men and siblings around the country to be educated and to find groups and healing and hope,” Bell said, adding “we want all of those involved in abortion to know that God can forgive you.” Bell has experienced countless other difficult situations in which the women at Good Counsel Homes have been victims of rape or incest. He also recalled a woman who had been advised by her doctor to abort because her unborn child could potentially be born with defects. “It's horribly unfortunate and really incomprehensible to me that doctors in these kinds of situations only offer pregnant women a termination,” he reflected. “We know that even if the child is only going to live a few moments, it’s healthier physically, and it’s healthier psychologically, and certainly it’s healthier spiritually for the mother to give birth to her child - to let nature and to allow God to have his way.” Over the years, there have been some 1,000 births from the women who have resided at Good Counsel Homes. They have also been instrumental in opening additional maternity homes in eight other states across the country. However, Bell says this “is not enough.” “We are now looking to open or merge with other maternity homes,” Bell stated, saying they will accept women of all statuses, regardless of poor mental health or addictive behaviors. “We want to take women in and try to help them make those next big steps. And we’d like to see other homes like ours open throughout the country.” The Good Counsel Homes hotline is (800)-723-8331.  This article was originally published on CNA April 11, 2016. Read more

Washington D.C., Apr 10, 2016 / 04:04 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- He had a courtside seat to a historic college basketball game, but Fr. Rob Hagan has actually witnessed many games over the years – and more importantly, has ministered to many players. He’s the basketball team chaplain at Villanova University. “The whole reason I’m here is because I’m an Augustinian priest,” he told CNA in an interview, noting the university’s Augustinian roots. “I owe so much of everything that’s happened in my life to the Augustinians, and that foundation that started with me as a student here at Villanova, myself.” Fr. Hagan graduated from Villanova in 1987. He’s been the basketball team chaplain since 2004, and also serves as an associate athletic director at the school, overseeing compliance with the National Collegiate Athletics Association as well as sports medicine and health and safety. During the recent NCAA men’s basketball tournament, an animated Fr. Hagan could be seen during Villanova games encouraging the team from the end of the bench. He got a front-row seat to Kris Jenkins’ historic three-point shot to win the championship game at the end, the first title-winning buzzer-beater in over 30 years. He admitted his courtside seat was a big perk of his chaplaincy, as well as “the thrill of being with them (the team) during such an exciting journey” during the March tournament. However, his work – and his story – runs far deeper than a basketball game. After his graduation from Villanova, he went to law school. Along the way, he considered a vocation to become an Augustinian priest despite misconstrued notions of what a vocation looked like. “I kind of had this understanding of priesthood as someone who was kind of in church praying 24/7,” he continued, but then realized that many Augustinians were active chaplains in hospitals, schools, mission work, finance, and other areas. “A lot of people talk about the notion of 'call,' as if St. Paul got knocked off his horse, and Moses saw the Burning Bush,” he added. His own calling turned out to be “not as radical as you might think.” “And so over time, it just began to speak more and more to my heart,” he continued, and found that he actually used his gifts as a lawyer in the ministry. “Meeting with people, building relationships, walking with them through difficult moments in their life and helping them see and find the light in the darkness is very much what lawyers do,” he noted During his formation in seminary, he spent one year helping at a Staten Island parish only a few miles from Lower Manhattan – which happened to be during the 9/11 attacks. “I had the incredible experience of dealing with people in loss and tragedy as our country kind of tried to heal from that incredible wound.” The experience aided him later on as a priest he said. After the 2003-04 basketball season, the long-time Villanova basketball chaplain retired, and Coach Jay Wright invited Fr. Hagan to take his place. He’s been the basketball chaplain for 12 years now. Sports is “a wonderful metaphor for life,” he explained. “When you’re dealing with wins and losses and getting up when you’re down, and the value of teamwork and doing things together, and overcoming mistakes and hardship – there’s a lot of common ground between sport and spirituality.” And in his ministry, he “inevitably” ends up in deep conversations “about the value of having a relationship with God, and the wisdom that comes from that, and the strength that comes from that, and the grace that comes from that,” he added. However, he listens first before preaching. “As much as people like to think that I’m teaching and preaching to them, I’m doing more listening, and I listen to them,” he said. “And I get a sense of maybe what’s going on in their head and their heart.” The “core values” of Villanova University are truth, unity, and love, he said, and these “are going to penetrate everything we do.” These values surface in his daily ministry, when “you’re constantly building relationships, you’re constantly looking for ways to work together,” he said. This champion basketball team was built on that foundation, he said, on brotherhood and humility. For example, during the middle of the season one of the players found out that his godfather had just died. His teammates were brothers to him, Fr. Hagan said. “These big tough strong guys were shedding real tears together for their friend who lost a close family member,” he said. “They were there for each other.” Along with brotherhood, humility was actually key to the team’s championship run, Fr. Hagan explained. Every player was “willing to sacrifice a piece of themselves, whether it might be playing time, points, minutes, popularity, attention, adulation.” There’s a saying that “it’s amazing what can be accomplished when no one’s concerned about who gets the credit,” he noted. “And these young men really exemplified that.” The values don’t automatically translate into championship trophies, but the team’s focus is on something greater than awards, he said. “Whether we lose or we win, we don’t want that alone to define us and who we are. But rather, how we cared and played for each other.” Relationships being more important than trophies “is a counter-cultural message,” he admitted. “TV highlights the one who makes the dunk, who scores all the points, and who signs the big contract,” but “what lies beneath that are all the intangible things that often go unnoticed that are really what’s most important.” Humility, brotherhood – it’s an example for everyone. “What a great message for others, whether you’re in a family, in a marriage, running a business, working in a school – these are universal values,” he said. Read more