40 Days for Life founder David Bereit was the guest speaker at the Respect Life Mass event
By William Van de Planque | On Mission
DE PERE, WI — The number of abortions in the United States has increased, not decreased, since the overturning of the Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision three years ago.
This striking fact, along with many other challenges facing the pro-life movement in the current landscape, can be overwhelming, said David Bereit, founder of 40 Days for Life and a guest speaker at a recent Respect Life Month event at St. Norbert College (SNC).
In collaboration with the Diocese of Green Bay and SNC, Catholic Charities held the event on campus, featuring Mass, information booths from pro-life organizations and pregnancy resource centers, and a presentation by Bereit on Saturday, October 25, 2025.
St. Gianna Clinic, Catholic Charities, Vida Medical Clinic and 40 Days for Life, among others, were included in the information booths area.
40 Days for Life is an international pro-life organization that coordinates 40-day campaigns against abortion, fueled by prayer and fasting. Since the first coordinated 40 Days for Life campaign in 2007, the organization has reached over 1,000 cities in 63 countries.
Bereit is now an international pro-life speaker, broadcaster, strategist and leadership mentor. He is the executive director for the Life Leadership Conference, a strategic consulting and leadership development company.
Bishop David Ricken and Abbot Dane Radecki, O. Praem., of St. Norbert Abbey, were the main celebrants of the Mass. Multiple other concelebrants joined them, including Fr. Michael Brennan, O. Praem., chaplain of SNC and pastor of Old St. Joseph Parish.
“This year we celebrate Respect Life Month amidst the Jubilee Year of Hope,” said Bishop Ricken during his homily. “As a pro-life community, we’ve always relied on hope, but as the first reading so poignantly reminds us, we cannot put our hope in earthly, political or powerful realities of this world. If we do, we will likely be disappointed.”
“There’s one faithful witness that I’m reminded of often,” he said. “In fact, I’m reminded of the love of God and the selfless love and constant prayer of Christians for the unborn every time I drive down or pass by Oneida Street during a ‘40 Days’ session. I look out my car window and see a faithful walker praying and interceding, sometimes many, for the unborn.”
Jim Ball, who was present at the event representing the local 40 Days for Life campaign, has been leading the prayerful protest of abortion in Green Bay for about 20 years.
Bishop Ricken emphasized that the fight against abortion is a part of the Catholic belief system.
“The fundamental right to life, from conception until natural death, is the social justice issue of our day,” he said. “Even if we are persecuted for our beliefs — in small, subtle ways, or perhaps more overt ways — we have to stand firm.”
He ended his homily at the Respect Life Mass by emphasizing the need for humility in the fight for the right to life.
“We ought to recognize that it’s not completely up to us, to our own efforts. God is the one who wins souls,” he said.
Introduced by Fr. Brennan, Gabby Munoz, the president of Knights for Life, SNC’s on-campus pro-life club, presented Bereit before his talk.
Bishop Ricken asked those gathered to continue to pray for all those affected by abortion, especially mothers, fathers, children, doctors and nurses.
“May the Lord have mercy on each one of us as we confront this great social injustice of our day,” he said.
Bishop Ricken was also asked to open the speaker event in prayer. He prayed specifically that those preparing for marriage may be aware of their commitment and open to the gift of children.
Munoz, a junior at SNC majoring in political science and business, led a fundraiser throughout high school that raised over $30,000 for a local pregnancy resource center, Fr. Brennan said.
Bereit quoted Scripture as his first words to the audience: “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps 118:24).
After thanking all those who organized the event and all those who promote the pro-life movement in the Diocese of Green Bay, Bereit touched on the significance of speaking on the SNC campus and the powerful lessons to be learned from the life of St. Norbert.
“Number one (of the lessons) is the fact that there was that conversion experience where (St. Norbert) went from following the world’s plan to really trying to grow in holiness… But also, I found it fascinating that he is the patron of expectant mothers,” he said.
Bereit then invited audience members to imagine themselves on a boat ride in the middle of Green Bay. He described a scene in which a day with clear weather and blue skies turned into one with gray storm clouds. As he described an increasingly violent storm tossing the boat back and forth, Bereit asked the audience to imagine a woman holding her infant in her arms, standing on the edge of the boat, and falling into the water below.
“(The woman) cries out to you for help, and she says ‘we can’t swim,’ and my question is, what do you do?” Bereit said. “Do you get down on your knees and say a prayer for that mom and baby and hope everything works out okay? Do you look up at the sky and curse the darkness and say, ‘this ruined our day,’ but do nothing about it?”
Bereit continued to play out different scenarios and describe possible responses to such a situation, including finding someone to blame, forming a committee to brainstorm solutions, or calling elected officials.
“Now, as that mother is gasping for her final breath of air and she and her baby are being pulled under the waves for the last time, would any of those responses be enough?” he asked.
Bereit related the imaginative exercise to the reality of “what we do face as women and children fall overboard due to abortion in every one of our 50 states of America,” he said.
He talked about the personal responsibility of each individual, especially Catholics, to address the tragedy of abortion.
“Each of us is called to act, to rescue those being led to the slaughter, to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves, to reach out with everything we have and pull every mother and every child back from the brink of death and destruction, back to life,” he said. “That’s what we have, not only the opportunity to do; believe we have the obligation to do.”
Bereit brought up the current state of the cause for life, three years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and how the decision may have been cause for celebration but also how complicated the situation has become.
In the past three years, Bereit has been working with leaders of the pro-life movement, traveling to 44 of the 50 states of America.
“I’ve seen places where things have gotten amazingly better: places like Texas or Mississippi or Oklahoma… where there are more protections in place now than ever before,” he said. “But I’ve also been to many places where things have gotten tremendously worse.”
One of the biggest challenges that the pro-life movement faces is the abortion pill, he said. Now, anyone can order online, without a doctor involved, abortion pills directly to their homes.
Looking at many of these challenges, it can be overwhelming and seem helpless, especially taking into account the fact that the number of abortions has gone up since the historic U.S. Supreme Court decision, Bereit said.
“(During) this Jubilee Year of Hope, I’m here to bring a message of hope that in the midst of this, there are incredible things happening,” he said.