Dear Friends and Supporters of The Arch of Triumph Of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and Int'l Shrine of the Holy Innocents:
I'd like to bring you up to date on our Project, and discuss our direction from here.
Please watch for our half-page ad in this week's National Catholic Register. Our NCR ad will identify all 15 distinguished members of our National Advisory Board, and our additional 12, equally prominent and distinguished Endorsers, as listed below. We are diligently pursuing sources of free publicity, but some expenditures on paid advertising cannot be avoided. Please be assured that your donations will be put toward publicity very judiciously, prayerfully and sparingly.
An important source of publicity is our supporters and friends. Flyers can now be printed from the bottom of our homepage (and soon, visitors can sign up for our Web site mailing list and e-mail updates please consider doing both). If you are able to distribute large numbers of flyers, please print one, have as many as you can use commercially copied (at 4 or 5 cents per), let us know your costs and how they will be used, and we will promptly send you our check. We have been mailing out heavy packages of flyers, but the postage is better spent on making copies, you will agree. However, if printing is inconvenient we will send flyers in bulk upon request do not hesitate to ask.
You can also help publicize by e-mailing our Web site and forwarding this message to friends and family. I would gladly consider invitations to appear before interested groups, and will assist if you wish to present our Project to any groups yourself. Please inform us of any other desirable venues for paid advertising, or of prospects for no-cost publicity, that you may know of.
Numerous other publicity opportunities are coming our way. Very important, our local EWTN radio station affiliate, WLOF/FM (101.7) has produced a 27 minute informational interview with me that will air soon here, and hopefully also on EWTN's global network. A copy has been sent to EW's radio program director, who has expressed great enthusiasm and has encouraged us to seek an appearance on Mother Angelica Live. We have been hoping for such an opportunity, and the ripe time may be approaching, it seems. We will advise you of the radio air times as we learn of them. The complete interview can be listened to on our Web site.
Project Advisor Daniel Lynch, National Guardian of the Missionary Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe(www.OurLadyofGuadalupe.org), brought our flyers to a conference this weekend on The Triumph of the Two Hearts in Bridgeport CT, sponsored by Maureen Flynn and the magazine, Signs and Wonders. Dan was among the presenters, along with Ukrainian visionary Josep Terelya, our Advisor Dr. Tom Petrisko, and others. Dan will be sending our flyers out with his own mailings, and we are asking certain of our other Advisors to do likewise.
Brother John Samaha, S.M., a past co-president of the Mariological Society of America and prolific Marian author, will work on an article about our Project for the winter issue of Immaculate Heart Messenger. The Messenger's managing editor, Father Robert Fox, a recent addition to our Advisory Board, invited an article at our request; his wonderful apostolate certainly deserves your support as well (www.fatimafamily.org).
Locally, an insightful and supportive front-page report on our project, engagingly written by Rick Kern, appeared in the just-out Evangelical newspaper, The Word, distributed free to Evangelical churches. The August issue of Architecture Magazine carries a short piece about us that may prompt interesting reactions.
We have made changes to our website as suggested by Catholic internet powerhouses Bud Macfarlane, Jr. (CatholiCity) and Matthew Pinto (Catholic Exchange), and would welcome your own comments and suggestions for same.
Just ahead, we plan to apply to Catholic foundations for grants; we just received our official IRS 501(c)(3) designation, which assures donors that their contributions are tax-deductible. However, please remember that foundations typically donate only a small part of a charitable or religious campaign's funding the great bulk of funds always comes from the people themselves who believe in the mission.
We surely have come a good distance in the short time since our formation in January; I believe, and hope you do, too, because we are assisted from above. We implore the continued guidance of Heaven, and ask for the prayers of all who believe in the potential of this great Project, and who love its beauty and its message of Life, Purity, and Hope for Renewal.
In conclusion, dear friends, we are poised to carry forward this vision into realization. Our need for your prayers and your financial support, as we launch our national and international campaign, is great. Please consider prayerfully what God might wish you to do for this great endeavor on behalf of Our Lord, Our Blessed Mother, and the innocent unborn, at this time.
For the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart,
Laurence D. Behr
Executive Director, Ass'n for the Arch of Triumph Of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and Int'l Shrine Of the Holy Innocents
NATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD
Rev. Thomas Euteneuer, Human Life International
Rev. Robert I. Fox, Fatima Family Apostolate
Rev. Matthew Habiger, O.S.B., Human Life International
Daniel J. Lynch, The Missionary Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Bud Macfarlane, Jr., The Mary Foundation
Mario Mandina, Esq., National Lawyers Association
Mrs. Patricia Melvin, Universal Living Rosary Association
Prof. Mark I. Miravalle, S.T.D., Vox Populi Mariae Mediatrici
Alan Napleton, Catholic Marketing Network
Bernard M. Nathanson, M.D.
Rev. Frank A. Pavone, Priests for Life
Dr. Thomas Petrisko, Pittsburgh Center for Peace
Matthew Pinto, Catholic Exchange
Rev. Albert G. Roux, Marian Movement of Priests
Vicki Thorn, Project Rachel
ENDORSEMENTS
Carl A. Anderson, S.K., Knights of Columbus
Judie Brown, American Life League
Rev. Roger M. Charest, S.M.M., Queen Magazine
Terry Colafrancesco, Caritas of Birmingham
Rev. John Corapi, S.O.L.T.
Rev. Johnny Hunter, LEARN, Inc.
Prof. Peter J. Kreeft, Ph. D.
Ralph Martin, Renewal Ministries
Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, First Things Journal
Bro. Ronald Overman, S.M., Marianist Mission
Bro. John Samaha, S.M., Marian Author
John C. Willke, M.D.