ROME, October 18, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Msgr. Philip Reilly, the founder of Helpers of God’s Precious Infants, delivered a fascinating address to attendees of the Human Life International World Prayer Congress last week. Reilly, who has devoted most of his 50-year-long priestly ministry to the pro-life cause, recounted his experiences of the horrific September 11, 2001 terrorist attack from the perspective of a native New Yorker.
“On the morning of 9/11 I was praying and counseling outside of a large abortion clinic in Brooklyn,” said Msgr. Reilly. “The abortion mill is located a few blocks from New York Harbor, at a point where you could look across the Harbor and easily see the Twin Towers.”
“The wind was blowing that day from Manhattan to Brooklyn,” recalled the veteran pro-life leader. “So when the Towers came down, an incredible black cloud came over our heads. Outside the abortion mill, it became midnight at midday.”
Committed as he is to praying for the women contemplating abortion and the abortionists themselves, Msgr. Reilly refused to abandon them even on that day, when he wanted to go to Ground Zero. Reilly noted that due to the disaster all businesses stopped but, he said, “There was a bizarre exception, namely the killing of unborn babies continued, especially at the mill where I was counseling. Inside the abortion mill, they were actually watching the events unfold on TV, yet the killing of the babies inside continued.”
“Thus I could not leave the mill at that time to go to Ground Zero,
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” he said. “I didn’t get to Ground Zero until it was midnight.”
Msgr Reilly described how helpless he felt standing at Ground Zero at midnight. He noted that he then decided to pray the rosary and described his vision:
As I prayed the rosary, I closed my eyes and with my eyes closed, I suddenly saw the people in the Tower getting ready for work at 9 a.m. Some were getting a drink of water, others a cup of coffee, all feeling safe and secure inside their office. Then I saw the terrorist plane breaking into their secure quarters and exploding like a great bomb with the people in the office having no place to hide, no place to flee. Then still standing at midnight at Ground Zero, I saw not the people in the Towers, but I saw a womb with an unborn child inside, feeling so safe and secure and suddenly breaking through the wall of the womb was this terrorist object, the instrument of the abortionist, with the child having no place to hide, no place to flee from this terrorist instrument.
Msgr. Reilly concluded his address noting that when he opened his eyes, there at Ground Zero, “it became absolutely clear to me that Ground Zero is ongoing. Be not afraid then to go Golgotha, to the abortion clinic, to Ground Zero near you, to rescue the unborn children.”
