A "Gabriel Angel" may soon be available to women in the Arlington Diocese who are experiencing crisis pregnancies.

As a newly formed ministry of the diocesan Office for Family Life, the Gabriel Project Arlington (GPA) offers pregnant women long- or short-term help through parish-based assistance. The program is in place to meet the client’s physical, material, emotional and spiritual needs.

At the GPA main office, a toll-free number will be answered by a staff member from early in the morning until late at night. A message machine will take calls at other times. When a mother calls GPA for assistance, she is assigned a trained volunteer called a Gabriel Angel who is responsible for ongoing contact with her. The Angel lightens the mother’s concerns, making it as easy as possible for her to take care of the baby in her womb. Named for the biblical angel who announced Jesus to the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is hoped that through GPA more women will be able to choose life for their unborn children.

"With the Gabriel Project now beginning to operate in this diocese, the Catholic Church will be able to respond with love and compassion to any pregnant woman in need, regardless of her religious affiliation," said Rebecca Conaty of the Office for Family Life. She is GPA ministry director and parish liaison, as well as office director for diocesan Project Rachel, a post-abortion healing ministry.

"It will give people in each parish an opportunity to know that they are contributing to the pro-life cause by offering their assistance with real-life crisis situations."

She said that each parish has rich resources within its congregation. Though many parishes are already informally doing what the Gabriel Project is designed for, they will now have the experience and support of the Office for Family Life. GPA will have a network of churches, crisis pregnancy centers and other agencies working together to provide support for the mother.

"We’re very interested in working with the crisis pregnancy centers," said Pam Albanese, GPA administrator in the Office for Family Life. She explained that GPA will be ministering to the women along with the centers, rather than duplicating their efforts. For example, a center staff person could counsel one of the women and GPA could locate maternity clothes for the client.

Albanese said Gabriel Project originated in 1990 in Corpus Christi, Texas, and has been active in Houston for the last five years. It expanded to Maryland and now to the Arlington Diocese, where it has been in planning stages since last summer. Sherri Danze of the Houston project flew to Virginia to train the GPA staff. They included Conaty, Albanese,

Gerri Laird, GPA overseer and director of diocesan Project Rachel, and Andrea King, Respect Life director of the Office for Family Life.

The goal is to have the project in each of the five diocesan deaneries by 2003 and in 50 percent of the parishes by 2005. It will kick off in the diocese on Mother’s Day, May 12. Pastors have been notified and parish training is underway. In addition to GPA staff, Suzanna Ryan of the Center for Integrative Psychiatry in Vienna has also been helping train volunteers. The first session was held recently at St. Mary Parish in Alexandria. The first parish in the diocese to become involved in the GPA, St. Mary’s will be headed by parishioner Sandy Dinan. Each representative will locate GPA volunteers within their parish. Potential GPA and parish partnerships on publicity to the local community may involve advertising in the parish bulletin, posting a sign on the property and sponsoring radio public service announcements.

Individuals who wish to lead the project in their parishes need the pastor’s approval. A pastor may in turn request that one of the members of his parish head up the ministry there. Parish assistance may include simply referring the woman to a nearby Crisis Pregnancy Center for a pregnancy test or maternity clothes. Or it may involve making meals or providing child care for her older children if she needs medical bed rest during the pregnancy.

Conaty said each GPA case will be different. "The parish will benefit from their cooperating efforts and from the graces received for helping a woman in their community who is in need of their help," she said. "So often a woman who finds herself in a crisis pregnancy believes that she has no other option than to abort. Once the Gabriel Project is established throughout the diocese, these women will see that they do have other options and people care, not only about saving the life of their baby, but about the woman as well, throughout the pregnancy and beyond."

"We’re doing as Mother Teresa asked, ‘care for the babies and care for the women," said Conaty. "She said ‘how can there be to many children? That’s like saying there can be too many flowers."