We began in 1984 as a litigation organization known as Free Speech Advocates, a project of Catholics United for Life. This association of lawyers was established by Charles E. Rice, a Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Notre Dame who has long been active as a prolife advocate, and by Thomas Patrick Monaghan, an attorney then serving as General Counsel to the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Mr. Monaghan has been active in the prolife cause as a lawyer since 1978 and has been involved in cases at the state and federal levels.
Two other attorneys, James M. Henderson Sr. and Walter M. Weber, joined the Free Speech Advocates team, both of whom are still with us and have been invaluable through all our phases of development.
Many other fine attorneys have worked with us over the years, helping us, learning from us, and teaching us. These attorneys are still actively fighting for human life. James E. Murphy, a former Free Speech Advocates attorney, now works as Administrative Vice President with the American Center for Law and Justice.
Based in New Hope, Kentucky, with Catholics United for Life, an apostolate of the St. Martin de Porres Third Order Lay Dominican Community, Free Speech Advocates' primary focus was defending prolife individuals and causes. From advocating on behalf of sidewalk counseling, a concept and practice introduced by Catholics United for Life, to fighting for the rights of prolife printers who refused to print literature supporting abortion, we were there.
Always searching for ways to strengthen and expand our litigation efforts, Free Speech Advocates joined with attorney Jay Alan Sekulow of Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism and then with Keith A. Fournier, the Executive Director of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). The ACLJ, headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia, is a public interest law firm and educational organization.
In an effort at further alliance building, Free Speech Advocates, Catholics United for Life, and Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism started working more closely with the ACLJ in Virginia. We drew on each other's resources which made us more effective in our areas of expertise. We saw many exciting victories, some even at the United States Supreme Court. We also survived the defeats.
To better reflect the cooperative efforts of Catholics, Evangelicals, and all people of good will in the prolife movement and our broader pro life legal scope, Free Speech Advocates became New Hope Life Center. Then our voices and efforts multiplied and united with offices established abroad and so we became the Center for Law and Justice International. In continuity with our beginnings, the Center for Law and Justice International has the same corporate structure and legal advisory committee as did Free Speech Advocates and the New Hope Life Center. The President of Catholics United for Life, Theo Stearns, has been active in the prolife movement for over 22 years and is a director of the Center for Law and Justice International.
With offices in Brussels, Belgium; Strasbourg, France, and San Jose, Costa Rica, the Center for Law and Justice International fights to keep prolife countries, prolife. In spite of some victories, the culture of death is still rapidly spreading. Our offices abroad work with pro-life Europeans to make the EU hospitable rather than hostile to the sanctity of life. Other Americans have established a presence there promoting an altar of "a quality of life" chimera. We work diligently to stop and halt our shameful compatriots.
The Center for Law and Justice International is dedicated to life without apology or fear of media hostility. We ground ourselves in faith and resolutely oppose violence and killing, inside and outside abortion facilities. We seek a moral, lawful, and orderly response to our cultures' lack of morality, law, and order.
Along with Patrick Monaghan, our Executive Director; Professor Charles E. Rice, Chairman of our Legal Committee; and Fr. Ralph Mendoza, the Center for Law and Justice International works closely with others, such as lawyers Francis J. Manion, Vincent P. McCarthy, and Walter Weber.
The Center for Law and Justice International is dedicated to confronting the current culture of death with the truth about the inalienable right to life, the inherent dignity of the human person, and the right of a man and woman to marry and raise a family without government manipulation or oppression.
The contemporary assaults on life are abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, certain genetic practices, and governmental contraceptive programs. A self-anointed elite has set a price on human life determined by such factors as what this elite thinks human beings are worth, whether they are wanted, what function they might serve, and what burdens they may create. Under the guise of "health care," "rights," and "compassion," life has been wrongfully taken from millions of people. Furthermore, governments are moving steadily toward Huxley's "brave new world," where there would be no mothers, no fathers and no families, only a totalitarian state overseeing a feral pack.
In contrast, the Center for Law and Justice International is committed to upholding the truth that human beings from the womb possess within themselves dignity and worth as creatures made in the image and likeness of God. We defend pro-life people like the nurse from Riverside, California fired for refusing to distribute the “Morning after pill;” the pharmacist fired for refusing to dispense abortifacients and the Roman Catholic family ordered to cease prayer meetings because of “zoning concerns."
The culture of death looms large, but with the grace of God and the support of our benefactors, the Center for Law and Justice International will carry on its mission of defending and proclaiming the Gospel of Life.