Pro-Life Nuns Send Christmas Cards To Every Abortion Mill In US

A beautiful, behind-the-scenes project has been taking place during the Christmas season for the past five years.

Religious sisters from convents across the country have been sending Christmas cards to abortion centers, letting the staff there know they are prayed for, and that help is available if they’re interested in finding other work.

Sr. Christina Nazareth, a Capuchin Sister who lives in a Williamsport, Pennsylvania convent, received a letter from And Then There Were None, an organization that helps abortion workers leave the industry. With no computers, website, or email, the letter was the first the five nuns there had heard of the ministry.

The letter was an invitation to participate in a project of mailing Christmas cards to abortion center staff. The order of nuns is contemplative, meaning they don’t leave the convent much, and devote themselves to prayer.

“We thought this would be a great way to reach out, like an extension of our prayer,” Sr. Christina told me.

Boxes of cards, all addressed to abortion clinics, are mailed to each participating convent. In the first year of the Christmas card project, the cards had the return address of ATTWN. Realizing some abortion workers might toss a card from a pro-life group in the trash, they decided to use the convent’s return address. 

At the beginning of each Advent, Sr. Christina and the other nuns sit down to write notes on each Christmas card, expressing prayer and concern for abortion center staff. Before the cards are mailed, “All the cards are placed on our altar by the Blessed Sacrament.  We pray that our Lord will bless them and get them into the hands that need them,” Sr. Christina said.

It was the inspiration of former abortion worker herself, Abby Johnson, to reach out to abortion workers at Christmastime through Catholic nuns. Johnson announced her new idea in 2022 on her Facebook page:

I have a very special project for any nuns and religious sisters who would like to participate. Last year, we had sisters from 21 different convents write and mail Christmas cards to every abortion clinic in the country with loving messages inviting them to reach out to And Then There Were None for a way out of their jobs in the abortion industry and into life-affirming employment and healing resources.

Regardless of the “financial pressures” of the Christmas season, “November and December are our busiest months with our highest volume of calls from abortion workers who just can’t take it anymore,” Johnson said.

Johnson recalled her time working at a Planned Parenthood facility, where a Franciscan nun prayed for her outside. “Her steady, peaceful presence had a profound impact on me. There was no condemnation from her, only prayers. She served as a reminder to me that something much better was outside of the tall iron fence that was supposed to make me safe but had started to feel more like a cage.”

Johnson founded ATTWN in 2012, offering counseling, healing retreats, and job direction. She started receiving an average of ten calls a month from workers wanting out of the abortion industry.

“Many abortion workers have some faith,” points out Karen Herzog, director of marketing and communications at ATTWN. “Each year, we choose a Christmas card with a Holy Family scene.  The nuns write handwritten notes inside, letting the person who opens the cards and hopefully everyone else working there, know that religious sisters are praying for them to choose to leave the abortion industry.”

“Over the years, we’ve brainstormed ways to expand our outreach to abortion workers,” said Herzog. “We send mailers and handwritten cards to every abortion-providing and referral clinic each month, but Abby remembered how convicted she felt by that nun’s presence. COVID made it especially difficult to reach out to workers, and at our year-end planning meeting, Abby had an idea to recruit convents to mail Christmas cards to abortion workers.”

In 2021, 20 convents committed to a specific number of cards their sisters would write and mail out the first week of Advent.

Each summer, the convents are contacted to see if they’re still willing to participate. “Despite illnesses, strokes, and even nasty responses from abortion clinics, they keep going and are overjoyed to assist,” added Herzog.

The “fruits are evident when ‘quitters’ share their experience of receiving a card and feeling prompted to reach out for help.”

One former abortion worker who wished to remain anonymous intercepted the mail at her office. A pretty envelope with no return address caught her eye, and she opened it. “I still have it, this beautiful Christmas card. It was handwritten, and basically said, ‘Are you looking for a way out? We can help you get out of the abortion industry. Call this number.’”

“I asked a colleague if the letter was real, and she said don’t pay any attention to it. Something prompted me, which I know is the Holy Spirit, to put it in my bag and bring it home.”

She did, and then called ATTWN.

After reaching out to ATTWN’s resources, this former worker has found gainful employment, connected with other former abortion workers, and participated in healing retreat programs.

The simple effort of religious sisters sending postcards and Christmas cards can be a lifeline to workers feeling trapped and searching for a way out of the abortion industry. They serve as a reminder that there can be a new beginning in Jesus Christ.

Patty Knap is a certified pregnancy care counselor on Long Island.