Paul and Judie Brown's history with the great and unforgettable Father Paul Marx, OSB goes back to their earliest days in the pro-life effort. It was in 1977 that Paul Brown¸ then executive director of Life Amendment Political Action Committee (LAPAC), travelled to Syracuse, New York, with LAPAC president Sean Morton Downey, Jr. to speak at a pro-life rally. His fellow participants included Anita Bryant and Father Marx. But soon after Paul and Sean arrived in Syracuse, they learned that Father Marx had just that evening been thrown out of a rectory because he refused to accommodate a request from the cathedral's pastor to avoid the subject of contraception during his homilies the following Sunday morning. Father Marx took it in stride and wrote it off to dissenting priests who abhorred Pope Paul VI's totally pro-life encyclical Humanae Vitae. Father Marx asked Paul Brown if he could spend the night in the LAPAC hotel room, sleeping on the floor. Of course, Paul ordered a bed for Father Marx, and on that evening, a lifelong friendship began.
