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Fall 2024 Greetings
to our English-speaking friends
from the Rachel's Vineyard Italy Mission



The HOPE Monument
has arrived in Italy!



August 2024
Artist Beverly Paddleford with Italy Hope Monument

before it is shipped from Wyoming to Italy



13-15 September 2024
Perguia, Italy
The Hope Monument's first engagement was at a weekend retreat
for parents who have suffered the death of a child.
Rachel's Vineyard offered an exhibit table and our 2 collaborators,
pictured here, spoke for 15 minutes about the ministry.
Several participants personally expressed gratitude,
sharing privately their own abortion experiences.



"Her Choice" by Diana Botkin

Sign-ups began in mid-September for our Fall Retreat,
to be held October 25-27 in Bologna.
A diverse group of women and men are already expressing interest.
We anticipate the retreat will come close to financing itself,
thanks to the few Italian donations that always help supplement program fees.


Yet there is presently a critical Italy Mission funding need!





URGENT
Autumn FUNDING NEED:

Because the Italy Mission had no Stateside sponsorship for approximately 2 years,
we started year 2024 from scratch.
Thankfully, our 2 Knights of Columbus Councils are again supporting us,
as are some of our longtime friends.

But we are still in a long "rebuilding" season.

In this, our first year of expanded activities following the pandemic,
w
e stepped out in faith and took part in various special events highlighted below,
knowing we would have to seek funding as the year progressed.

While year 2024 has brought us new and much-needed exposure in Italy,
this leap of faith has led to never-before encountered financial strain for our Mission.



When the "Hope for Italy" Monument was completed ahead of schedule in June,
I
was granted permission by the administrators at the Goretti Group
to raise $5,000 to help our Italian friends
pay the final half of their total balance of over $35,000.

We achieved that goal, assisting the Italian project sponsors to
"cross the finish line"
so "HOPE" could be shipped to Italy.
 

But this led me to neglect fundraising for our general programs.



I must now bring in funds for our most recent special events,
for which my husband and I advanced personal funds
and have yet to be reimbursed:

$1,200 Rome Walk for Life
w/ Exhibit & Dinner for Women
$1,000 Veneto Team Formation
& research new retreat venues
$450 Veneto Christian Music Concert
w/ Exhibit & RV Testimony
$1,000 Veneto 2 Dinner Events
(1 for women, 1 for helping professions)

 


All these events required lengthy travels and overnight lodgings
beyond our regular activities,
but they are already bearing fruit
in new connections and new collaborations.


Below you'll find photos from some of our Year 2024 special activities.





Your Italy Mission Partnership for 2024 and beyond

We can only continue this vital work
with your prayer support

and your sacrificial giving!


Please help fund our Year 2024 activities
with an Autumn Gift
made today by check (preferred) or credit card!




The Rachel's Vineyard Italy Mission is now administered by
The Goretti Group,
a Catholic ministry and 501(c) (3) Non-Profit Corporation based in San Diego, CA


Response Form 2024
(to accompany donation by check)


Our Response Form details how to make a tax-deductible Gift by Check
to the Rachel's Vineyard Italy Mission.

Gifts made by Check continue to be sent
to our collaborator Robin Conway in La Selva Beach, California

for forwarding to our The Goretti Group.

NOTE for year 2024:
Checks are now made out to The Goretti Group

with a MEMO: Rachel's Vineyard Italy Mission.


Donations to the Italy Mission
can now also be made by Credit Card at
The Goretti Group website:





IMPORTANT for CREDIT CARD DONATIONS:
Please read below!


When declaring your gift amount you must
also click + Add special instructions to the seller
and NOTE "Rachel's Vineyard Italy Mission".

I also ask those of you who give by Credit Card to inform me directly
(Italy Mission directo
r Monika Rodman)
by sending a brief email to  mimmont@hotmail.com
.

In this way I can track the arrival of your Credit Card donation
with our sponsors in San Diego.

We thank you in advance for helping us flag the attention
of The Goretti Group to gifts restricted for
Rachel's Vineyard Italy Mission arriving by Credit Card.




Thank you for your active support of the Italy Mission!




 A special "Grazie!" to those of you
making a "first time in a long time" donation




To our Retired Friends:

If you have begun taking retirement account withdrawals (RMD's)
we invite you to consider a Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) to the Italy Mission.


If you are of an age to take an IRA required minimum distribution (RMD), please consider making a qualified charitable distribution (QCD) to the Rachel's Vineyard Italy Mission. In this way our ministry benefits while you can exclude the amount of the QCD from your taxable income.

Because a QCD reduces income and is not an itemized deduction, the gift benefits even those donors who do not itemize on their tax return.


So if you're in a position to still dedicate a Year 2024 RMD to charity, or if you're considering such giving for Year 2025 and beyond, please consider including the Italy Mission among the charities to which you direct a QCD.

You may divide your distribution among as many qualified charities as you wish, and for our part we will ensure that you receive an acknowledgement proper to this form of giving. You may also divide your Qualified Charitable Distribution to the Italy Mission into more than one gift for the year.


Please contact Italy Mission director Monika Rodman at mimmont@hotmail.com to discuss this QCD possibility. I can then alert Robin Conway and The Goretti Group to your intentions, should you decide to make such a gift.


Year 2024 Italy Activities

A Spring retreat was held in the Lombardy region
and both winter and spring were filled with special events
in various Northern cities.


       
February 2024, Emilia-Romagna

A former abortion clinic worker from Spain

gave her testimony in 6 Italian cities.
One of our Italy team members

provided simultaneous translation for 3 of these events.
We stayed long after to speak and pray with those seeking us out.

 

May 2024, Venice

2 team members speak of Rachel's Vineyard

before one of them offers her personal testimony.
Despite stormy rain, the church was full for a Concert-
Testimony by Italian Catholic singer Debora Vezzani.








Monika and Domenico also travelled to the Veneto region
to meet with the team's 4 collaborators there.
This is one of Italy's regions
most dramatically experiencing intense secularization.

In the city of St. Anthony (Padova)
we are developing a relationship
with a women's religious community interested in our work.
The city is home to one of Italy's largest and most important universities.



In collaboration with our past participants
we took part in Rome's

June 22, 2024 "Choose Life" Walk.

This is always an important missionary event where we encounter
Italians from across the country and gain visibility among
Romans who may have never heard of
post-abortion help and healing.

This year we had an Exhibit Booth, while in other years
organizers have requested a Rachel's Vineyard testimony
on stage.



May 2023, Rome
One of our married participants
now collaborates in various ways.
Here she shares her and her husband's abortion story
at last year's "Choose Life" Walk.


We met (and are still praying for) Roman women like "Gaia"
who spoke with us at length,
sharing her own abortion experience
and grateful to learn of possibilities for healing.



         

"Abortion harms. Jesus heals."
(In Italian, the message rhymes!)


We lend out lovely signs to those wanting to carry
one of our messages affirming life
&
offering HELP and HOPE to those
who have experienced abortion.



The evening prior we offered a small-scale
informational dinner and evening of prayer
for potential retreat participants from Rome.
Team members
and 2 past participants
shared their experience
in Rachel's Vineyard.

These events become a "door of entry"
for those just discovering us.


A similar dinner event was offered
one week later in Venice - with 15 participants!



In Padova we hosted a dinner event for
those in the helping professions.



Italy Mission founders Monika & Domenico


The "HOPE for Loreto" Story:

Much energy was dedicated in 2024
to a collaboration
which in 2025 will bring to the

Basilica of Our Lady of Loreto

the HOPE Monument,
sculpted by American artist Beverly Paddleford.


June 2024 brought the culmination of this exciting,
once-in-a-lifetime financial partnership
coinciding with the quickly approaching
Jubilee Year 2025.




With approval by The Goretti Group,
during June 2024
I raised $5,000 from select sponsors
who each made a one-time gift toward
the
"HOPE" Monument.

8 households participated, not only with evangelizing zeal,
but often with personal motivations
ranging from Italian family heritage
to the loss of a child in the family.


"It was meant for us to be involved."
- Husband of one of the "HOPE for Loreto" sponsor couples


We continue to support HOPE for Loreto
by encouraging our Italian friends to donate directly to Loreto sponsors
to help with costs related to the park area
where the Monument will be installed in 2025.




Why the Hope Monument?

...women say that after an abortion or miscarriage
there was no baby, no grave site or memorial
and it was as though the child never existed.
No one spoke of this child
or acknowledged his or her existence.



These women felt the Hope Monument was "my baby's place".
It is a tangible spot that acknowledges life,
confirms hope and conveys forgiveness where needed.
I've heard many women and men
visit the Hope Monument repeatedly
because it brings them comfort,
reminding them that their child is with Jesus...
safe, secure and so loved.



I am so excited that the Monument will be coming to Italy
and I pray it ministers in ways unique to each visitor.

We are praising God for His incredible Goodness and Love.
Thank you for praying that He would place the monument there!"

- HOPE sculptress Beverly Paddleford, March 2024, Wyoming


2 min. Video!

Loreto Hope Monument Jubilee 2025 - YouTube

YouTube:
Loreto's HOPE Monument for Italy (English)





Domenico and I have visited the precise site where HOPE will be planted.
It is a small green space just steps from the statue of Pope John XXIII,
on a major pedestrian thoroughfare leading to the Basilica courtyard.



Summary of the Hope for Loreto Project  (English)
(1-pg. PDF w/ photos)

Hope Monument and the Italy Mission

Shortly after Jubilee 2000
Monika first discovered the Hope Monument
at the Archdiocese of Los Angeles Catechetical Congress in Anaheim,
where artist Beverly Paddleford and her husband exhibited yearly.

A friendship grew that led Beverly to donate a tabletop bronze statue
for the Rachel's Vineyard Retreats in California.

In 2007, another tabletop HOPE went to Italy on Mission!


       
Tabletop "HOPE" has for years accompanied us on retreats
and countless mission events across Italy.


It brightens up even the most dull event venue
before coming home to rest in its dedicated corner.


Planting "HOPE" in Italy



In 2015 a physician from Loreto, Italy
discovered the HOPE Monument

visiting our exhibit table
at an Italian Bishops conference on
Health Care Ministry.

Only in early 2024 did he write to us of his plan,
already well underway,
to install the Life-Size HOPE Monument

at the Basilica of Our Lady of Loreto,
a major Italian pilgrimage site.

 We have seen the signed documents guiding the project.
Civic and Church approvals have been granted.
Catholic associations and the local Rotary Club are collaborating.

In September 2024 the Monument arrived in Italy
and had its first "missionary" stop.
It will travel across Italy during the next 10 months
before being permanently installed in Loreto.




 
Ever wonder why??
You may notice we post very few photos
of our team members and none of our retreat participants. 

We love good photos, but are extremely respectful of our collaborators' privacy.
Thus we only publish photos of those team members who have agreed
for their image to appear on the internet.

Even some of our most dedicated team members
understandably prefer to retain their anonymity.

While some past participants feel called to later speak publicly
of their abortion experience and healing,

we never push such a move,
but encourage prudent discernment of any such decision.


Our new Stateside collaboration
with The Goretti Group
allows the Rachel's Vineyard Italy Mission
to again welcome your tax-deductible donations
to our missionary apostolate active in St. Maria Goretti's homeland!




We are confident this new collaboration will further enrich
the Rachel's Vineyard Italy Mission,
whose purpose remains unchanged:


In communion with the Universal Church
and in partnership with our American friends,
we strive to open doors of Mercy and Reconciliation
to all in Italy who bear the wounds of abortion.



 Year 2023

Our silence during year 2023 perhaps led some of our faithful friends and supporters to wonder if we continue our ministry.
We do indeed! Italy team members pioneering a new retreat site have begun offering Rachel's Vineyard retreat in the Milan region, at personal financial cost since they have not enjoyed the reimbursements for various expenses which in the past were subsidized by our Stateside ministry partners. In Fall 2024 we are also resuming retreats in Bologna, the crossroads of Italy which continues to offer an advantageous geographic position to arriving participants.

A brief explanation of our year-long silence is in order:
In 2022 our sponsoring ministry in Colorado went through leadership changes and internal difficulties that did not permit us to continue to receive your Italy Mission gifts there as we had for years. (It was providential that my longtime contact there had advised me before her departure to find a new Stateside sponsor, so we concluded that relationship on good terms, without getting entangled in their subsequent difficulties.)
Rest assured: all Italy Mission donor funds given through Spring 2022 were properly disbursed to cover only Italy Mission expenses.

In 2023 Monika undertook a search for a new sponsor in this financial partnership which has been critical to the Italy Mission's success.
Thanks to a member of the Knights of Columbus, we were led to a Catholic 501 (c) (3) Non-Profit Corporation whose leadership had attended a Mission talk I gave over in the Diocese of San Diego.

After prayerful consultation and discernment, a decision was ratified by the group's Board of Directors: in October 2023 we were offered the opportunity to collaborate with The Goretti Group, a Catholic non-profit 501(c)3  incorporated in the State of California and based in San Diego.




The Goretti Group is an apostolic movement that responds to the "need to heal the brokenness caused by sexual sin and to proclaim the beauty of pure love." While the group's activities are specific to its unique mission of helping Christians in every state of life "experience the joy of purity", our shared vision is evident.

The experience of abortion is one of the wounds known to The Goretti Group.
As you can imagine, our apostolates share a central emphasis on purity, mercy and forgiveness.
And the Goretti apostolate will surely offer precious experience and resources that we might integrate into our "aftercare" companioning of those who have participated in Rachel's Vineyard.

If you'd like to read more, see the following 2 articles on St. Maria Goretti and Alessandro Serenetti, the man who assaulted her yet years later went on to experience a profound conversion while in prison:

An Astounding Mercy: The Conversion of the Man Who Killed St. Maria Goretti (America, April 21, 2016)

What St. Maria Goretti teaches  us about transformative forgiveness (Denver Catholic, April 20, 2023)



Alessandro died in 1970.
His biography was published in English only in the year 2020.


So the Rachel's Vineyard Italy Mission continues!

Today I humbly ask you to re-enlist (or enlist for the first time) your precious support of this Mission of hope and healing, which accompanies the Italian women and men who find us after the experience of abortion.

Both of our longtime supporting Knights of Columbus Councils have already sent their annual charitable donations to "plant the seed" of our new collaboration. Thank you, Council 5300 of the Goleta Valley, CA and Council 6043 of Pleasanton, CA!

Our hope is that our faithful individual donors will join the Knights of Columbus in coming back as active partners in the Italy Mission!

The Italy Mission must still fully self-finance its activities, and our new Stateside relationship with the 501(c)3 organization The Goretti Group will facilitate your active role in helping meet that need.

Our fixed costs of approximately $400/month remain in force, so your Year 2024 Gift made by Check or by Credit Card (see below) would help us carry this burden which we have shouldered through personal financial sacrifice for over a year.

Again, each Rachel's Vineyard site, including ours, must still be financially self-sustaining. Your donations make our work possible as they help defray infrastructure costs we are not able to cover through program fees and Italian donations. The support and encouragement of the Italian hierarchy has not yet included any form of financial support. Those Italians who do financially support this ministry are mostly former participants joined by a few clergy.

Now that we are again able to again accomodate your tax-deductible giving,
we hope you will re-commit to playing an active role in the Italy Mission.

Whether or not you are able to make a financial donation,
please continue your partnership with us through prayer!






Year 2023

          

Dec. 28, 2023 Feast of the Holy Innocents
Our celebrations in Sicily, Naples and Rome...




On this day Peaceful Prayer and Public Testimony
of post-abortion healing

were also given by Rachel's Vineyard Italy Mission team members
at hospitals practicing abortions

Photos are from Piemonte with a similar gathering held in
 Emilia-Romagna.

We are grateful to collaborate in such witness with another Catholic organization
which offers moral support and practical assistance to women and couples
facing an abortion decision,
thus seeking to open for them the possibility of an alternate path forward.
These occasions offer an opportunity to bring a human face
and a kind, hope-filled voice to the idea of after-abortion healing.

Excerpt from one Testimony:

“It is not the first time that I have been invited to give my testimony in Rimini
on the occasion of the memory of the Holy Innocent Martyrs...

I believe that the simple and humble prayer of the rosary meditated in front of a public place
is a most revolutionary act for these times that exalt political correctness
and want to silence every voice that conflicts with the single dominant thought.

Moreover, praying at a hospital
points to the contrast between what this place should be (a place of care)
but is not (because it is a place where death is voluntarily brought about).


I saw incredulous, sometimes amazed, or curious faces pass by,
even if they kept a safe distance; some made the sign of the cross, others smirked,
but no one remained indifferent.

Even the bouquet of flowers placed on the cross expressed special care:
the red rose to indicate the shed blood, a white gerbera for the innocence of the victims
and a pink flower to remember that what conquers all is the Mercy of God,
who knows how to write words of life even in the crooked lines of our story.




            

April 2023, Lombardia
To protect team members' privacy, instead of an 8-person team photo,
we feature one team member with our 3 faithful clergy collaborators.

 
Year 2023
was filled with post-pandemic energy and the laying of groundwork for new initiatives.
Thanks to an innovative spirit and financial sacrifices made by a number of veteran and new team members, two first-ever retreats were offered in the Lombardia (Milano) region.

Speaking engagements and public testimonies, both in person and on radio, were numerous.

The larger of the 2 main retreat houses we've long used in Bologna is still closed for rennovations, and but we've already booked the other retreat house for year 2024. 







Is the Italy Mission new to you?

We invite you to view a
1-page summary of our work (PDF)






Retreats in Italy are heavily dependent on the public transit.
Travelling light and not knowing what they will encounter,
participants live this experience as true "pilgrims".


Italian women and men tell their abortion stories
Meet some of those we've served in these first years of the Italy Mission....


Participants say of Rachel's Vineyard:


"The whole experience, while in some ways extremely difficult,
was unforgettably beautiful and went far above and beyond my expectations."

- An Italian retreat participant



, ,
A Message from Dr. Theresa Burke, Founder of Rachel’s Vineyard,
recalling the power and purpose of this Mission:

"Rachel's Vineyard promotes a holistic approach to healing for both (abortion) survivors and the professionals and retreat teams who support them, anchored in our track record that it is possible to not only overcome trauma, but also to thrive and reclaim joy and meaning as thousands of our leaders have become an incredible wellspring of life-affirming and life-saving ministries.

Participants come filled with a deep yearning for peace and healing, and they leave with far more than warm memories. For several days they immerse themselves and their painful histories in God's Word. Gently yet powerfully, many for the first time begin to hear the voice of Jesus with increasing clarity and experience His touch with increasing trust in His Mercy.

This encounter with the Lord and with a healing community "... brings a piercing ray of light and hope into some of the incredibly dark realities and traumatic experiences of this fallen world. No matter what we've been through, whom we've lost, or what setbacks or violence we've experienced, we're loved deeply by our Heavenly Father. This truth has the power to shatter unbearable shame, grief and even despair. God actively intervenes with the gifts of hope, mercy, compassion and reconciliation.

The impact of this encounter helps those who have suffered abortion loss to open up to the reality and the unique personhood of their children. As they remember and honor these lives, they recognize the gift of their children's priceless humanity...


Remaining on the vine and experiencing the Lord's continued presence, they feel His life flow and grow within them. And this leaves and indelible mark on their lives. Indeed, it settles into the soul in such a way that they are forever changed... The fruits of this experience are eternal..."




SHARE ON FACEBOOK
NOTE: While Facebook shares are appreciated, all communications to Italy Mission director Monika Rodman Montanaro should be sent via email to: info.vignadirachele@yahoo.it




"The Rachel's Vineyard Retreats are one of the most powerful experiences
of the reality of the Gospel that I have ever seen."
November 8, 2020
Auxiliary Bishop Andrew Cozzens, Archdiocese of Minneapolis-St. Paul



St. John Paul II's "Special Word to Women":



 The year 2020 marked the 25th anniversary of Pope St. John Paul II's encyclical
Evangelium vitae, famous for its tender, encouraging words
to those who've lost a child through abortion.
These words, by now well known in American Church and pro-life circles,
remain largely unknown here in Italy.
So much so that we continue to use every means possible
to make them reach those who most need to hear them.




What Pope Francis has said of "mission" work is certainly truly of the Italy Mission:



"Mission is never the fruit of a perfectly planned program or a well-organized manual.
Mission is always the fruit of a life which knows what it is to be found and healed, encountered and forgiven.
Mission is born of a constant experience of God's merciful anointing..."
- Pope Francis, 23 Sep 2015 Homily at the Canonization of Junipero Serra, father of the California missions


Over 10 years after launching this Mission, we remain Italy's first and only Christian post-abortion healing ministry approved by the Catholic Church. While we operate with the blessing of one of Italy's most important dioceses (that of Bologna), no Italian diocese, religious community, pro-life or other organization has yet stepped up to sponsor this Mission. We are still a very small seed planted in a field of vast need, yet we are resolved to help this seed continue to grow, with your prayers and assistance!




PRAYER for the Italy Mission
Please share with friends and family!


Italy Mission Snapshots




At the heart of the 3-day retreat is a Saturday All-Night Eucharistic Vigil,
a profoundly personal yet intensely communal time before our Lord.

This remains a time of ongoing discernment of the new forms of outreach necessary in the post-Covid era. Thus far we've decided against "virtual" (online only) forms of gathering. We continue working behind-the-scenes on various adaptions and innovations. We've also begun the long-overdue preparation of the original weekly format of the Rachel's Vineyard support group, which we hope to pilot in 2024. This would serve participants who cannot get away for 3 full days, especially women deeply embedded in family caregiving. This original format of the Rachel's Vineyard journey of healing remains a powerful and deep method of healing we believe to be uniquely suited to some people we've not yet been able to welcome on the retreat. The Veneto region will likely be our pilot location.



Thankfully, old and new technologies permit us to still reach those who contact us in need. Our dedicated team members remain available to assist them with the same generosity of time and spirit they have always offered.





May 2021, Rome
A married couple, past participants in our program, gives public testimony of their abortion experience.

Their story was amply reported in one of Italy's most well-read Catholic online daily journals.



               
Milan, November 2021, Conference on Fatherhood
Our psychotherapist and one of our husband/father participants presented
as other team members joined in the day's outreach to professionals in medicine, psychology and social services.






December 28, 2021 Mass of the Holy Innocents, Milan
Our team and associates in Rome and Naples offer similar celebrations each year.
We are grateful to the local clergy who publicly extended an invitation to all those
desiring to honor a child in this way.





The movie Unplanned finally came out in Fall 2021 and continued showing in many regions through 2023. Team members and former participants attended, publicizing the work of our apostolate and speaking of their own experience after the film. The film is soon to be released on DVD in time to impact Italian schools starting this 2023-24 year!

Our job was to produce companion materials, both printed and subtitled video clips, that highlight the healing purposes of the film. We are proud of our small contribution to this important project now set to reach ever-increasing numbers of young people in 2024 and beyond!



                                          

Check out our Unplanned in Italy page:
Unplanned film Italia

Even if you can't read the Italian,
you can watch any of the 3 YouTube videos we've subtitled.
These inspiring interviews give you a clear picture of the film's healing and evangelizing purposes!






Quotes by some of those we reached during the pandemic:





One woman wrote starkly:
"
I've seen your site and need your help. I thought I could deal with this on my own, but I can't. Help me, because in this already difficult time of the virus, I just can't manage my own."

And another woman began her correspondence:
"I don't know if I'll be able to come to the next retreat, but I just want to thank you because knowing you're here helps me see a glimmer of light in the darkness of my existence... This is a pain I've carried inside for so long because I feel ashamed to confess it to a priest. I would so like to make this move now, to be able to return to the eucharist. My mother's recent death has brought up this pain. I helped her in her final year of life, but only with her bodily needs. I'm devastated that I wasn't able to help her spiritually because of this unresolved problem of mine..."


Through past participants and other contacts in her area, we were able to direct this woman to a welcoming priest and to offer her telephone companioning by one of our team members.

Such requests for help remind us of the power of the in-person community experience which lies at the heart of Rachel's Vineyard - whether in the 3-day Retreat or the Weekly Support Group format we plan to pilot in 2024.








11 Lessons Learned in the first 11 years of the Italy Mission


1) As our Dominican priest collaborator Fr. Cristiano often marvels, "the method works!"
It's not just the American-style self-help program many Italians imagined when we began our activities in 2010, but an internationally tested instrument for helping deeply wounded souls - women, men and couples together - open up to the truth of their own life story and the grace of God's saving power within that story. A particular strength of this "method" is the intense collaboration of former particpants (now leaders) from various regions of Italy, who exercise a critical, complementary role alongside Domenico and me, our priests and team psychologist.




2) The Holy Spirit is working powerfully through the internet!
At least 80% of our inquiries come directly from that source. We marvel at the deep degree to which many women and men open up in email correspondence and phone appointments. Our team members are always ready to talk with someone who might express desire for a contact in his or her area or with a particular experience. (One of our team members is available particularly for those who've been through late-term "therapeutic" abortion as she has.) This is essentially a new, itinerant model of pastoral care, which makes multiple offices unnecessary and yet allows us to quite closely companion individuals all over Italy in the months before and after retreat participation. Help is offered over time even to those who haven't yet committed to a retreat.

3) Bologna, with its central location, remains in many ways an ideal hub for us.
The women and men who travel from near or far to make a Rachel's Vineyard retreat in Bologna experience the sacrifices involved in that journey as a true "pilgrimage", which is already a strong element of Italian spirituality. Cardinal Carlo Caffarra (+ 2017) more than once reaffirmed his appreciation of Rachel's Vineyard, noting in a meeting with his Clergy Council, shortly before his retirement, our apostolate's activities as one of the highlights of his years as bishop there.  We are working to earn similar trust as we cultivate a relationship with the new bishop of Bologna, who met with us in his first months in office.




4) The Rachel's Vineyard model of post-abortion care is particularly well-suited to a country like Italy, where the Church has not yet found a voice to publicly issue a reconciling invitation to Her many sons and daughters who've participated in abortion.  After 40+ years of legal abortion (which the Italian populace voted for by referendum), there are still no diocesan post-abortion pastoral programs such as those active in the United States and elsewhere. Furthermore, in the States almost all clergy have long had the faculties to deal with the canon law aspects of abortion during a normal confession. In Italy, until the Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2016, abortion confessions were more strictly treated and generally reserved to the Bishop's collaborating penitenzieri (confessors in the cathedral), to the clergy in Rome, as well as the mendicant clergy (Franciscans, Dominicans, etc). Some of our participants have literally rung the doorbell at the Bishop's office, or have had their parish priest tell them to come back in a week or at the end of the month to receive absolution. Others have been "welcomed" in confession with the words, "You're very fortunate to have come to me.... this is an extremely grave sin and not all priests can absolve it."  In such a context, our patient listening over weeks and months, with an invitation to be fully reconciled through a program that carries the universal Church's blessing, is truly "GOOD NEWS"!

5) We offer an absolutely unique and highly effective service not found elsewhere in Italy. While some naysayers continue to assert that "the family" and "the confessional" remain the only appropriate places to reveal an abortion experience, those who request our assistance often say they are unable to reveal their true struggles in the family (or their effort to do so hasn't been fruitful), and that even multiple confessions haven't yielded the deeply felt sense of forgiveness and reconciliation they need. Our team's support, sometimes including local clergy or psychotherapist referrals and ideally culminating in the 3-day retreat experience, fills that gap.




6) One element of our work remains particularly challenging: the difficulty in finding mental health professionals to volunteer with our team on the 3-day retreats. The mutual alienation and prejudices (sometimes downright hostility) between "faith" and "psychology" are much stronger in Italy than what I ever encountered in the U.S. In addition, Italian socialism has thwarted the development of a vigorous spirit of unpaid volunteerism like that which is so strong in the States. Please pray for us as we search for additional mental health professionals with whom to collaborate!

7) There is NO substitute for the precious collaboration of our former participants now become leaders. The offer personalized "companioning" to those who contact us for help. Email and phone support are simple but powerful apostolic tools that empower those in need take one step at a time toward healing and renewal, as they finally discover they are not alone in this journey that ideally leads to retreat participation.

8) For many women and men we serve, particularly those who are still single, an important part of the healing process we offer is our willingness to propose Christian chastity as a positive and liveable decision, as well as the only sure way to prevent further abortions. Please pray for our entire team in this matter, which can involve courage and discernment, and which calls us all to live with the same integrity to which we invite others.

9) Over the years we've seen in the increased number of married couples requesting help the critical importance of reaching out to those who work to help couples in crisis. Though they often arrive on the brink of separation, the couples who heal their abortion experience with us often experience a powerful re-birth of their relationship. And those in fertile age may go on to conceive another child. So we are constantly building on the connections made with Marriage and Family Ministry offices.  Other marriage ministries such as Retrouvaille and Mistero Grande remain natural sources of publicity and collaboration.

10) Two other Italian after-abortion services de-activated in recent years. This sad fact confirmed our ongoing sense of how challenging the financial and organization aspects of this work are. Both ecclesial and secular culture largely remain quite impervious to the needs of those we serve, but we are more motivated than discouraged by this fact. We are resolved, with the help of our Stateside supporters, to crown our first 10 years of ministry by looking ahead to, and planning for, our next 10 years!

11) The adage "Necessity is the mother of invention" is true of this Covid era, as well! Our team is strategizing novel ways to reach those whom we can't invite on a full 3-plus-1 day residential retreat. While we've opted against Zoom offerings, we're looking to pivot toward offering an adapted version of the original weekly support group format (to avoid the challenges of overnight residential gatherings and increased retreat house limitations), that may combine day-long meetings with weekly Zoom gatherings. Our team's precious, hidden work companioning those who reach out to us continues unabated.


Clergy collaboration: A precious treasure!


An Italian priest in his 50's wrote to us: "I'd like to take part in your retreat to better be able to help the many women who confess this sin, this wound, this problem. With the Pope's authorization many people are deciding to confess it - here at our church (NB: a Marian pilgrimage site in N. Italy) we are seeing greatly increased numbers, including penitents who aborted 50 years ago and those who'd never confessed this before. I realize confession alone isn't sufficient, though. And I feel I don't know how to really help them because I see they need something more, something deeper that I can't offer them."



Milan
Our Dominican priest collaborator Fr. Cristiano is from Brasil but has served in Italy for over 25 years.
Despite having been transferred from Bologna, he continues his work with us.

Please read of one of the fruits of Fr. Cristiano's work:


Elena's Story:
the power of one priest ready to respond


Before moving to Bergamo (Italy's hardest hit city affected by Covid19),
Fr. Cristiano served at Milan's famous church, the Basilica of Santa Maria delle Grazie.
It's most well known for being the home of Leonardo DaVinci's painting, The Last Supper,
so many people think of this church as a tourist destination,
but it's also a vibrant Christian community in one of Milan's nicest neighborhoods.

Stumbling into a confessional at this very church on a hot summer's dayElena met Fr. Cristiano
and discovered the Rachel's Vineyard Italy Mission. At age 53, but still mother to a young child,
she was at the end of her rope trying to deal with a decades-delayed reaction to the trauma of an abortion
undergone at age 16 plus the realization that the Spanish fertility clinic
that had more than once used donated eggs to produce her 5 year-old daughter had also discarded multiple embryos.
A breast cancer diagnosis and 2 years of treatment had lead her to reflect on all this in a new light.


Elena hadn't practiced the faith since her teen years.
Her husband of 10 years was nearing the end of his patience with her emotional outbursts and psychological fragility,
so Elena's only hope was to return to her psychotherapist (which we certainly didn't discourage).


She recalls:
"I entered Father Cristiano's church totally at the end of my rope.
I was a wreck and I thought they were going to take my daughter from me.
My husband didn't know how to help me -
he was losing his patience for my yelling and other erratic behaviors.
We were both exhausted and didn't know where to turn."


Fr. Cristiano spoke at length with Elena and told her about Rachel's Vineyard.
She called us immediately and we had several lengthy phone conversations during the summer.
Another team member, who's also dealt with infertility, companioned her, as well.


One month after participating in the Fall 3-day retreat with her husband,
Elena wrote:

"The days in Bologna were a marvelous grace
that has given me a new way of looking at my entire life.

If the Lord has taken me by the hand and brought me to to point
of being able to meet all of you,  it means that maybe I deserve another chance
and I want with all my heart to seize it.

Alfredo and I feel very close and it seems to me
we're finally looking in a common direction.

It's so beautiful to go to Mass on Sunday with our daughter,
who, we've discovered, goes there with joy!

She also asks us to pray with her before bedtime..."

Two months later the couple participated in the 4th day of their retreat and continued to reap the blessings of hope restored.
Despite work that has taken the family abroad at times, Elena and her husband remain in contact with us and with other women from her retreat. The go out of their way to come to our events in Milan. The family continues their practice of the Christian faith.
Elena's husband has more than once told us:
"We will always be grateful to you!"





It's been your prayers and financial support, together with the remarkable commitment by our Italy retreat team
(priests and past-participants) that have allowed us to reach those like Elena.




Reaching "Rachel" in Italy: The Cultural Context



 Further reading:

 How COVID Accelerated
the Collapse of Religious Practice in Italy

5 Sep 2023, National Catholic Register

Is it true that 99% of women believe
that their abortion was the right decision?

19 June 2023, Mercator
How do women see their past abortions?
A short British analysis of conflicting data poses important questions.




Healing after Abortion? It's Time for Dads, Too!
13 October 2022, National Catholic Register
A man shares his experience of a Rachel's Vineyard Retreat

The men who feel left out of U.S. abortion debate
28 August 2019, BBC News

Rachel's Vineyard and other after-abortion outreaches are mentioned
in this secular but fairly written article.

Crescendo - 15 min. short film
Eduardo Verastegui and Metanoia Films tell the story of Beethoven (German with English subtitles)

My burden lifted forever

Laura Keynes, December 3, 2015, Catholic Herald (U.K.)
Released in Advent 2015, this post-abortion conversion story is by a British author with a doctorate in philosophy from Oxford. Her story also points to the need of so many women and men to continue a journey of inner healing even after celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation.



 Europe's Down Syndrome "Thought Police"
LifeSiteNews, November 29, 2016
In recent years we've had increasing requests for help from women and couples who aborted a child with health problems, most often Down Syndrome. It's truly "open season" on these children, ironically in a time when "disability rights" are gaining visibility everywhere but in the womb. This news report shows how far Europe will go to censor any message that might touch on the post-abortion trauma many of these moms and dads carry inside.


After Abortion Why Can't I Feel Forgiveness?
Theresa Bonapartis, July 14, 2014, Aleteia
A spiritual challenge common to many women and men...
 

What Happens When People Share Their Abortion Stories

Cullen Herout, June 9, 2016
The Federalist
Written by a mental health professional who for years has served in Rachel's Vineyard



I wish I could have prevented my girlfriend's abortion
The Telegraph of London, 12 Sep 2014
A story of abortion's effect on men that also points to the importance
of challenging singles and couples with the value of chastity.


Why We Should Welcome Abortion Narratives (30 April 2014, First Things)
A society growing toward greater maternal support and respect for the dignity of all human life needs these narratives,
even the ones that do not end in remorse.
By giving women narrative, they are empowered in precisely the way their pregnancies left them feeling powerless.
And they encourage those of us in the pro-life movement to view the woman with full sympathy.

They called my baby biowaste - it broke my heart in pieces (30 June 2019, BBC News)
Clearly inspired by a similar practice in Japan, Victoria (British Columbia, Canada)
opens "The Little Spirits Garden" dedicated to the memory of children lost during pregnancy.



IVF exploitation alleged by British journalist (29 June 2019, BioEdge)
Commentary on an article appearing in the UK Independent, written by a freelance journalist who reflects on her personal experience
in the desperate attempt to have a child. More and more of the couples and single women who arrive in the Italy Mission
have been through (or are considering resorting to) the treadmill of treatments proposed by the fertility industry.
Few have any idea of what they will face in this attempt to become biological parents.
Some of these women have an abortion history, while others face decisions such as "selective reduction" of multiple embryos.


"Every girl I knew was on it": Why Some Women are Questioning Hormonal Birth Control
(17 June 2019, The Cut, New York Magazine)

The author reflects on her own decision to abandon the Pill as she also explores why so many young women
are questioning and often quitting hormonal contraceptives.



 

For Italy aficionados:

Must-read!  Reaching "Rachel" in Italy: The Cultural Context

Gucci makes abortion rights statement with 2020 collection
Associated Press (May 29, 2019)
&
Gucci debuts abortion-themed fashion collection
Live Action News (June 3, 2019)
 
Births and Religious Marriages Collapse in Italy. After Two Synods on the Family
Sandro Magister, L'Espresso (December 3, 2018)

Meet the Italian Boy with Down Syndrome who Saved a Girl from Drowning
Aleteia (Aug, 22, 2017)

Italy: First in the Historic Reversal of Populations
Joseph Chamie, former Director of the U.N. Population Division (August 9, 2016)

In 1995 Italy became the world's 1st country with fewer children than elderly in the population.


2015: the year when Italy's demographic malaise become apparent
(26 February 2016, MercatorNet.com from Australia)

Italy is a "dying country"
(13 February 2015, The Guardian)

More Italian Women are Choosing to Have No Children
(22 April 2014, Wall Street Journal)
While this article naturally focuses on economic forces leading to the choice of childlessness, we hear the very personal stories of past abortions contributing to a sense of unworthiness to become a mother. Imagine the pain as women hit age 45 realizing they aborted the only child they will ever carry. And imagine the family wound as others approach 35 or 40 still living with the mother who years ago encouraged them to abort and now continually asks when they will produce a grandchild. One of our women reponded to such a mother, who'd twice convinced her (at age 24 and 26) she was "too young" to have a child: "I gave you two grandchildren but you sent them away."

California Native Takes Rachel's Vineyard to the Old World
(Elizabeth Lev,
Oct. 22, 2010, Zenit - original title "Healing Abortion Survivors")







 Italy Mission Archives
10th anniversary:
Year 2020 remains forever etched in our minds as the moment when the Covid pandemic took over our lives.
It was also the "10th anniversary" of the Italy Mission. Good thing we'd started the year off strong with public events offered before the lockdown was imposed. 
We offered innovative outreach activities in Rome and Milan. (We got home on one of the last long-distance trains leaving Rome, just as Italy's first Covid-drama was rapidly unfolding and the first lockdown was imminent.) In the future we will offer similar opportunities in Venice and Bologna.
Here's a glimpse into the two powerful 4-day outreach missions we were able to carry out just as Covid emerged:

January's 4-day Milan Mission included a well-attended public event co-sponsored by a large parish and a Catholic women's association. Five members of our team spoke (3 were from greater Milan), and this collaboration expressed the true richness of Rachel's Vineyard, which is not just a powerful post-abortion retreat experience, but the embrace of a trusted community guided by collaborators whose blending of gifts and experiences help those we companion to finally make a breakthrough in resolving their grief.  Several women approached us to confess their need for our services, and our newest Milan team member is already companioning them.

In Milan we also met with the new director of the Archdiocesan Family Office (a relationship that continues to be cultivated by one of our team members). We held a lovely outreach evening for those not yet sure about participating in the retreat, and we offered the "4th day" of our recently completed retreat with 9 participants. Their encouraging updates included a married couple's testimony of the first fruits of the retreat in their large family, and a 34-year old professional woman's report on a reconciliation between herself and her parents. No one in this family has practiced the Catholic faith for years, but these parents went out of their way to meet with the Franciscan friar whom their adult daughter had spoken with at length on our retreat. For the entire family last year has been very different from those lived in the ten years after an abortion facilitated by the mother, which had brought much destruction into the daughter's life.



February's 4-day Rome Mission included another outreach evening drawing a fascinating cross-section of women, along with our first-ever meeting with the new Director of the Italian Bishops' Office for Family Life, as well as participation in a 3-day Inner Healing Seminar at a well-known Rome parish, where the pastor (who's sent us several participants over the years) allowed us to present Rachel's Vineyard The Italian Bishops' new director of Marriage and Family ministry is a friend of one our clergy collaborators and has been invited to participate in an upcoming retreat.


2019:


With Rachel's Vineyard foundress Dr. Burke
at Central European formation in Slovenia (Oct. 2019)

In October 2019 the Slovenian Rachel's Vineyard site which Monika mentored years earlier
hosted an international training with foundress Dr. Theresa Burke, PhD.
Italy team members participated together with teams from 6 other countries.

It is a joy to see a site we mentored come into its own and provide leadership for Central and Eastern Europe!

                                       


Rachel's Vineyard Italy is recognized as a  "Work of Peace" (Sept. 2019)






"Thank you" to the Diocese of San Diego Missions office
which for several years selected Rachel's Vineyard Italy
as a Mission with a story worthy of sharing at a San Diego parish.



Mission Talk at a San Diego Catholic parish
 The presiding priest congratulated us on our work, and
 a gentleman leaving Mass said this was the best Missions talk he'd ever heard!

       
With San Diego's diocesan Mens & Womens Post-abortion ministry leaders       A longtime collaborator from AbortionChangesYou.com at the Mission talk.



Diocesan Missions Talk Summary



Monika with fellow missioners and staff at San Diego's diocesan Missions Office






Rome witness 2019
Our signs, in various lovely styles, use color and beauty to convey our message of hope.



Dominican friends at the pro-life March in Rome were happy to carry a message of hope and healing:
"Abortion harms. Jesus heals."
(In Italian, the message rhymes!)




Spring 2019 Family Life Event with children's "Plant a Flower" activity.
While Monika happily worked to dirty kids' hands while teaching the marvels of Springtime,
our collaborators spoke with the many adults who viewed our info table and took home information.



In Milan during Summer 2019 we met for the first time in over 5 years with the married couple that directs the Archdiocesan Family Life Office. By renewing and cultivating these ties we expect our dialogue to lead to increased clergy awareness of our apostolate's readiness to collaborate with them, as well as to increased awareness of the importance of touching on pregnancy loss during marriage preparation.

With our most veteran collaborator in Milan preparing to complete her psychotherapy licensure, and with the renewed commitment of our Domenican priest collaborator in that region, we are strategizing how to make vital inroads in this city which is Italy's economic hub and can most aptly be compared to New York City.




Spring 2019 Rome Marriage and Family Event
When blustery weather destroyed the exhibit gazebos,
instead of calling it quits we took our outreach directly to the Main Conference Room,,
utilizing every break time for face-to-face approach with individuals and couples.
3 of our Rome retreat alumnae were the force behind this day-long event!


2018:

As many of your know, in 2018 we suffered the loss of one of the Italy Mission's greatest fans, Monika's father, Ray.
Five years later we still include this reflection on his life which continues to inspire us:                   
                                       

     
Ray Wilbur Rodman
15 April 1932 - 18 May 2018
May the Lord support us all the day long,
till the shades lengthen and the evening comes,
 and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done.
Then in His Mercy may He give us a safe lodging,
 and a holy rest and peace at the last.
   
-  Cardinal John Henry Newman

Ray was in many ways not only a supporter of the Italy Mission, but a source of the vision that inspired it:

Dad passed on to me (Monika) the precious treasure of our Catholic Christian faith, living a quiet trust in the Lord Who penetrates suffering with grace and brings life out of death. Daily shared prayer, a simple lifting of the heart to our Source and Summit with few words but deep intention, was one of the exquisite gifts we shared from the time I was small to his final waking hours.

Dad taught me perseverance in tackling challenges of every sort, a love for life, especially for preborn children and their mothers, fidelity to family ties despite the cost, and an unfailing willingness to practice Mercy.

Ray loved and served his country through his Navy service and aeronautical engineering career. He knew, as the son of illiterate immigrants from a country that later went communist (Yugoslavia), that the United States has unique gifts to offer the world. He was so happy when he heard of my work a few years ago to help bring Rachel's Vineyard to Slovenia, the part of Yugoslavia very near to the area from which my grandparents had emigrated.

Dad had hoped I might go into another field of work, but took pride in my service to the Church. And He accepted with few complaints the Mission which marriage brought me, despite the personal sacrifice which that Mission required of him, as it took his only child from California to Southern Italy for the last decade of  his life. He understood our Mission of post-abortion hope and healing to be a seed God sowed first in the U.S. Church so that it might be planted throughout the Church universal, and dad was proud we could bring this work to the heart of the Church
and to "Old World" Europe in dire need of a New Evangelization.




2017:


June 2017, Rome
Italy Mission leaders Monika and Domenico with priest Fr. Rito (blue shirt) and former participants,
a married couple, after our workshop given at the "Mistero Grande"
Marriage Preparation and Enrichment National Conference

A couple attending the workshop that day, thanks to their priest's invitation,
participated in our July retreat after a late-term "therapeutic" abortion,
and our November retreat that year included another married couple who learned of us through the same conference.




 
Italy Mission founder and director Monika Rodman Montanaro with our Franciscan collaborator, fra Daniele
September 2017




"We have been called to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart,
and to bring home those who have lost their way."

- St. Francis of Assisi



 
Our 4-day Franciscan Festival exhibit (twice this size on a highly visible corner) offered not only printed materials
but also a chance to be cared for with a drop of handcream or a spray of rosewater.

Our team of ambassadors (all former participants) often ended up speaking at length with passers-by,
who on numerous occasions were stunned that our volunteers had been through the abortion experience themselves
and were now willing to talk about it in such a way that might bring hope to others.
              


Monika and Domenico with past-participant ambassadors at Bologna's Franciscan Festival
(individuals, 2 married couples and a father-daughter team)
September 2017





Monika and Domenico before a July retreat at the Poor Clares convent in downtown Bologna
The sisters are cloistered but by no means cut off from the world!
They helped sponsor our outreach at the Franciscan Festival.
"Grazie, sorelle!"



Mons. John Cihak from the Archdiocese of Portland,
a priest with extensive experience in post-abortion pastoral care who served in Rome for 8 years,
annually invited Monika to join him in speaking to Italian and international clergy
doing ongoing formation at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family.
We look forward to continuing our relationship with this university.



                   

Our annual Mission trips to Rome for a day of outreach at Italy's March for Life have undoubtedly been a success! Most recently, religious sisters (two of whom have also participated in our retreat) joined past participants in distributing materials before, during and after the walk. One of our former participants (in above photo), whom we'd not seen for 6 months, remarked that in the year since the retreat her personal physician, whom she used to visit frequently with various problems, had run into her and joked she must have changed doctors because he'd not seen her for so long! Such can be the amazing effects of releasing and resolving old hurts such as abortion wounds, and we rejoice to hear such stories! Having finally made peace with God, herself, and her never-born child, this former participant now radiates joy and tranquillity and is continuing with diligence the spiritual path on which she's embarked.





March 2017 Rome seminar "The Experience of Abortion"

Italy Mission founder and director Monika Rodman Montanaro with 2 collaborators.
Several former participants of our program attended this public event and spoke of their experience.





2016: Jubilee Year of Mercy

You may recall that the Jubilee Year of Mercy included Pope Francis' conferring to all clergy of the world the priestly faculties to deal with any abortion excommunication and absolve this sin "in one sitting". (Formerly it was Franciscan, Dominican, Carmelite and other mendicant order clergy who had that authority, together with Jesuits and the bishops' penitenzieri, i.e. priests hearing confessions at cathedrals.)

On November 21, 2016 Francis extended his new policy permanently. In the United States this changed practically nothing in pastoral practice, but Francis' move was truly big news for post-abortion pastoral care in countries like Italy, where longstanding restrictive policies had created a tremendous silence and led many to perceive a miserliness in the invitation to seek God's Mercy after abortion. At least some clergy sometimes found themselves preoccupied about how to proceed with a penitent confessing abortion. That preoccupation has had a chilling effect on the Italian Church's ability to respond pastorally to this tragedy which has touched so many individuals, couples and families. We're delighted to help Italy move into a new era in this regard.

During the Jubilee Year Monika mentored a new retreat site, the first in Slovenia (in the former Yugoslavia, next to Croatia and Austria, near Italy's northwest border). Our relationship with Slovenia began 4 years earlier when we welcomed on our retreat a participant from there.


Rome Testimonies
(given May 2015, Rome March for Life)

                                                            
      Pina                        Brother Evagrio                 Daniela
                                                     






Rachel's Vineyard Italy Mission founders Monika Rodman Montanaro (California, USA) and Domenico Montanaro (Puglia, Italy)

The Origins of the Rachel's Vineyard Italy Mission

In 2007 Monika Rodman, former coordinator of Respect Life Ministry and Post-abortion Healing Ministry in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland, CA, married her Italian husband Domenico Montanaro and moved to Italy. It was Domenico's encouragement that led the couple in 2010 to pioneer Italy's first Christian ministry for healing after abortion, a ministry active since the 1980's in the United States (both in Catholic and other Christian communities) but truly a novelty in Italy.


Together with our Italian collaborators, we labor in this Mission in the spirit of the New Evangelization called for by St. John Paul II, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.  However you discovered the Italy Mission, we welcome you!



"Abortion compounds the grief of many women who now carry with them deep physical and spiritual wounds after succumbing to the pressures of a secular culture which devalues God’s gift of sexuality and the right to life of the unborn.”

- Pope Francis, 25 April 2014, ad limina visit from Southern Africa's bishops




Italy... DID YOU KNOW??



Maybe you recently visited Italy and took home our Prayer Cards from the U.S. Bishops Visitors Office in Rome.

Perhaps you have a heart for proclaiming in a non-traditional missionary context the Good News of God's saving Mercy. Post-Christian Europe is certainly one such mission land and the experience of abortion is a wound that often leads to what our women and men often call a "spiritual divorce" from God and from the Christian community.

You may be of Italian heritage and are pained to learn that marriage, traditional family life and practice of the Christian faith are quickly dying out in this, Europe's most rapidly aging nation, where single child families have become the norm.

Perhaps you have a strong commitment to human life, and a deep desire to offer healing balm to those carrying the pain of motherhood lost and fatherhood aborted. It may be through 
the Knights of Columbus, the Italian Catholic Federation or another Italian-American association that you learned of our Mission. We would be so very grateful to welcome you as partners!

And some of you have personally benefitted from Rachel's Vineyard, having found there your own deep healing after the experience of abortion.  In learning how unique the Church's post-abortion healing ministries are to the United States, you now desire to extend the same healing opportunity to women and men in a post-abortion Mission country.



Looking for a Rachel's Vineyard Retreat in the U.S.??
Click here!








How to make a Gift to the Italy Mission

Our Year 2024 Response Form details
how to make a tax-deductible Gift by Check to the Rachel's Vineyard Italy Mission.

Prefer to give by Credit Card?
You must not only declare your gift amount but also click " + Add special instructions to the seller"
and NOTE there "Rachel's Vineyard Italy Mission".

I also ask those of you who give by Credit Card to email me directly (Italy Mission directo
r Monika Rodman)
at  mimmont@hotmail.com
so I can track the arrival of your donation. 








Prayers
:
 
Good Shepherd Prayer for the Rachel's Vineyard Italy Mission
 
Prodigal Prayer for the Rachel's Vineyard Italy Mission




Inspiration:



Saint John Paul II's "Special Word to Women" who have had abortions (from Evangelium vitae, 1995)





Click here for:

Knights of Columbus information

Italian-Americans interested in this Mission




Blessing of Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino,

President Emeritus, Vatican Congregation for Justice and Peace:

Cardinal Martino's Italian letter

English translation of Cardinal Martino's endorsement

Personal recommendation of Monika and the Italy Mission
addressed in 2007 to the Italian Bishops by
Most Reverend Allen H. Vigneron, presently Archbishop of Detroit

(Bishop Vigneron was pastor of the Diocese of Oakland, CA during the final years of Monika Rodman's 12-year full-time tenure there)

Archives

 Spring 2014 Mission Update: Reaching out to ecclesial and pro-life leaders (Easter 2014)

Thanksgiving 2013 Mission update: Meet our team! (November 2013)

Spring 2013 Mission Update: Pope Francis and Mission in the 21st Century (Pentecost 2013)








© 2009-2024 Monika Rodman, Vigna di Rachele/Rachel's Vineyard Ministries™. Tutti i diritti riservati.