Lila Rose, founder and president of Live Action, sat down for an exclusive interview with Sister Bethany Madonna of the Sisters of Life during the week of Live Action’s 2023 Life Awards Gala, where the Sisters were presented with a Life Award for their service to the pro-life community. Sister Bethany shared some of the things her community does to help promote a culture of life, and why she chose to eschew a life of marriage and become a religious sister instead.
The Sisters of Life were founded in 1991 by John Cardinal O’Connor, who intended the sisters to be a community that would focus primarily on the pro-life needs of society around them, laying down their lives so that others could have life. Though their lives center on prayer, their primary work is in serving women who are pregnant and vulnerable to abortion. Among the services they offer include a home for pregnant women, retreat centers, a post-abortive hope and healing program, and a campus ministry program.
Sister Bethany said the work of walking with women is beautiful, as so many have been ensnared by the darkness and lies of the culture. It’s important for the sisters to uphold these women, offer them hope, encourage them, and admire them for their bravery in choosing life. The sisters also attempt to portray the value of motherhood and the good of marriage, encouraging the women they encounter not to settle for anything less.
Sister Bethany also shares her own personal story with Lila, explaining that she always thought she would be a mom with a large family until a friend invited her to pray outside an abortion facility one morning. That experience, she said, changed her life.
“Abortion went from being a political issue, or a debate topic, or a sin, or a medical procedure, and now abortion had a face. These were my classmates, my friends, my sisters,” she explained. Eventually, what she saw that day opened her heart to the idea of becoming a religious sister so that she could spend her life helping vulnerable mothers and their babies.
“I knew that day I was going to live and die for this.”
