Fr. Pavone is the National Director of Priests for Life. You may email him at: mail@priestsforlife.org; Website: www.priestsforlife.org.
I have been blessed to have Norma McCorvey as a friend since shortly after her baptism. The first time I conducted a taped interview with her, I began by saying, “Norma, you are the Jane Roe of Roe vs. Wade, is that right?” and she responded, “No, Father, I was the Jane Roe of Roe vs. Wade.”
Her response indicates how complete her conversion has been. The woman who once wrote the book I Am Roe now, in her new book Won by Love, explains why she can say “I was Roe.”
With the editorial help of Gary Thomas, Norma explains to us not simply the external events that led to her baptism and pro-life convictions, but she effectively pulls aside the veil and lets us watch the internal events that transpired in her mind, soul, and emotions.
As St. Peter was brought to repentance at the moment he heard the cock crow, so Norma shows us how she heard many cocks crow. She lets us see how at each instance, what might seem like a normal human event — an apology, a hug,
catching sight of a playground — became for her a deep interior summons to life.
She reveals the deep hurts she has experienced in her life, and how she dealt with them. Her story is of a wounded human being, treated as an object by the pro-abortion movement, but saved when she began to encounter the surprising power of Christian love.
It was tumultuous and surprising for her. One stereotype after another fell, as she began to see the pro-life movement close-up after Operation Rescue moved into the office next to the abortion facility where she worked. She was stunned when the leader of Operation Rescue admitted his sinfulness to her, and when she walked into the Rescue office and discovered her life was not in danger! She found herself wondering whether Christians take some sort of drug that explains their sense of joy and peace!
In a moving irony, she came to a deeper love of life and of Christ by the love offered her by a child who was almost aborted.
Norma met in her own journey the reality of unconditional love. Many in the abortion movement fail to see the value of the life of the preborn child precisely because they fail to see the value of their own life. Norma was blessed with people who showed her the value of her own life, and the reality of the God who gave it.
Moved by the goodness and truth, she was likewise increasingly repulsed by the evil of abortion, and by the careless, deceptive, and greedy practices within the abortion industry. Before quitting her work with abortion, she actually dissuaded women who called her facility for appointments.
Read this book. You will laugh, you will cry, and above all you will rejoice in the power of God, who restores His beloved children to life!
I am presently completing with Norma a supplement to the book, which details her journey into the Catholic Church. I was privileged, in August of 1998, to confirm her when she professed her faith in the Catholic Church and received our Lord's Body and Blood for the first time.
You may order Won by Love on our online store at www.priestsforlife.org/store.htm, or by contacting our orders department at PO Box 141172, Staten Island, NY 10314; Phone: 888-PFL-3448, ext. 237; Fax: 718-980-3900; email: Orders@priestsforlife.org.
