GRANITE CITY — Nearly 300 people attended a diocesan Respect Life Mass Oct. 13 celebrated by Bishop Thomas John Paprocki at Holy Family Church in Granite City. After Mass, most of those in attendance joined Bishop Paprocki in praying the rosary as they walked several blocks to Hope Clinic for Women for a brief prayer service outside the place where medical and surgical abortions are performed.

"We respond to violence with God's love," Bishop Paprocki said to the crowd gathered on the street outside Hope Clinic. "We pray for the conversion of souls. We pray for the doctors and nurses (who work at the clinic), for the conversion of their hearts."

Shane Kapler, from the Archdiocese of St. Louis, was guest speaker at a light luncheon held at Holy Family Parish Hall after the prayer service outside the clinic. Active in evangelism and catechesis in the archdiocese for 20 years, Kapler told the crowd their participation in Mass that morning and later in their prayers to the Blessed Mother on the rosary walk, "are lifted up through the Holy Spirit to God," said Deacon Patrick O'Toole, assistant director of the Office of Marriage and Family Life, who was there with four of his children and two other children from his confirmation class at St. Maurice Parish in Morrisonville. Deacon O'Toole helped with the balloon launch at the prayer vigil.

"Kapler told us, 'Our prayers to end abortion will be answered by God. But it will be in God's time, not in our time'," Deacon O'Toole said.