I was out of town last week when I heard the news that Msgr. Philip J. Reilly passed away on November 30, at the age of 90.

Most of you probably heard this already. However, a week away from the internet gave me some time to reflect upon this holy priest and his contributions to the Catholic pro-life movement in San Diego. I would like to share some personal anecdotes and memories of Msgr. Reilly who came to San Diego to help form our local chapter of Helpers of God’s Precious Infants.

I first met Msgr. Reilly more than 20 years ago when he flew out to San Diego from his home state of New York to give a talk on sidewalk counseling and prayer vigils. Sue Lopez had been reading about his successes, and convinced him to make a side trip from Los Angeles to speak to our local pro-life community. One of the things he said is still seared into my brain: “If not you, then who? If not now, then when?”

While this phrase has been used throughout history, Msgr. Reilly used it to great effect in his talk about motivating people to become engaged in the pro-life movement. You can’t in good conscience think “Oh, it’s somebody else’s responsibility” when you know you can do something, no matter how small or insignificant it might be.

Msgr. Reilly first became involved in pro-life activism in the late 1960s when New York was pushing to legalize abortion. In 1974 he was one of the original organizers of the first March for Life in Washington DC. He told me of a 6,000-person Pro-Life Rosary procession with a police escort through the city of New York one time when they came upon several dozen “counter protestors” lying in the street trying to block the procession. The police captain came up to Msgr. Reilly and asked him if he wanted all of them arrested. Msgr. Reilly responded, “No…(while pointing) just this one… and this one… and that one…” That was all it took to clear the street. To him, he had no enemies, only future converts. He was known for counseling in front of the abortion center run by Bernard Nathanson, the co-founder of NARAL, who later became a pro-life advocate, and eventually converted to Catholicism. Msgr. Reilly’s calmness and courage is credited with influencing his conversion.

Msgr. Reilly participated in the first “rescue” in 1978, eight years before Randal Terry formed Operation Rescue. He was arrested six times while participating in 21 rescues. He told me a few years after our first meeting, it occurred to him that while he was sitting in jail (always less than a day), babies were not being saved. He said there had to be a better way. This led to the founding of Helpers of God’s Precious Infants in Brooklyn on October 7, 1989, the feast day of Our Lady of the Rosary, 35 years ago.

This new method spread to the nearby cities and states, and by 2005 there were local chapters of Helpers of God’s Precious Infants in 45 states (including our local chapter here in San Diego) and is now in 40 countries across six continents. Msgr. Reilly personally traveled to all, or nearly all of the locations to start up and train the individual chapters. The successful 40-Days for Life organization was founded by members of Helpers of God’s Precious Infants, and its peaceful prayer vigils and sidewalk counseling were modeled after the Helpers method.

Msgr. Reilly was quoted in 2009 as saying “Taking the law into your own hands… that’s a revolt….Blocking the entrances to abortion clinics only delays the killing of babies, it doesn’t stop it….You have to convert the heart, something only God can do, and this requires prayer and fasting. More important than saving babies [the aim of civil disobedience] is saving the soul of the parent or that of the abortionist, and this requires spiritual conversion, something entirely different from the mere saving of physical life”.

The “Helpers” monthly vigil as Msgr. Reilly started it in Brooklyn, begins with Mass, then a Rosary procession to the abortion center, prayers and sidewalk counseling, then returning to the church for Benediction. Msgr. Reilly did this procession with us from Our Lady of the Rosary in the Little Italy area of San Diego about 20 years ago. This became a monthly event for us, and continues to this day in San Diego (without Benediction at the end). Most local chapters of Helpers have groups of prayer warriors and sidewalk counselors who meet in front of the abortion centers on a daily or weekly basis, including San Diego.

The last time I saw Msgr. Reilly was a little over a decade ago when he visited San Diego for a talk. I had the honor of being his “altar server” for a private Mass he celebrated in his room early the next morning. After Mass I drove him to LA for a flight to South Korea, where he was starting a new chapter of Helpers. He told me at the time that abortion was illegal in South Korea, but the abortion rate was equal to that in the U.S., as many doctors simply did it illegally. He emphasized that eliminating abortion will require a conversion of heart, and that laws alone will not stop it.

That is why he was invited to South Korea. I had the privilege of speaking to him one-on-one for over two hours in the car, listening to his many amazing stories of babies being saved. Up through his 70s he would spend six hours a day, six days a week sidewalk counseling, often getting half a dozen or more saves per day. He would often be on the phone till 1 or 2 in the morning fielding phone calls with more counseling to the women he spoke with that day or the preceding days. There is one story I don’t think I will ever forget.

He told me he was in a grocery store one day in Brooklyn when a woman walked up to him and said “You don’t know me, but I know who you are. You talked my mother out of an abortion 26 years ago, and I want to thank you for saving my life.”

That pretty much says it all.

His funeral is today. May eternal light shine upon him. May his soul rest in peace.

God bless,
Roger Lopez
Helpers of God’s Precious Infants San Diego