By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
The man Pope John Paul II referred to as the “Apostle of Life,” Fr. Paul Marx, OSB, 89, beloved founder of Human Life International, died March 20 after 40 years of pro-life activism.
“In the more than forty-year pro-life career of Fr. Marx, and through his almost three million miles of world travel, Human Life International (HLI) saw the blossoming of the world’s conscience about the issues of life,” said Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, Fr. Marx’s successor as president of HLI. “Father put pro-life ‘on the map’ in a literal sense and through his efforts gave the world direct and organized opposition to the culture of death.”
Known as the “father of international pro-life movement,” Fr. Marx visited all 50 states and 91 countries in his over 40 years of pro-life activism. He saw the advances of the culture of death long before others did, founding HLI in 1971, two years before Roe v. Wade. It is known as the world’s first and largest international pro-life organization. Fr. Marx served as president of HLI until his retirement in 1999.
Father Marx was also a prolific author who wrote more than a dozen books, including The Death Peddlers: War on the Unborn (1971), Death Without Dignity: Killing for Mercy (1982), Confessions of a Pro-Life Missionary (1988), Fighting for Life (1989), The Flying Monk (1990), The Warehouse Priest (1993), and his autobiography, Faithful for Life (1997).
“He will be missed dearly by all pro-lifers,” Fr. Euteneuer said, “especially those of us who had a chance to work intimately with him, and whose lives were changed irrevocably as a result. . . . We pray for the repose of his soul and for the strengthening of the spiritual children and pro-life family that Father leaves as a legacy in more than 100 countries.”
A Mass of Christian Burial for Fr. Marx will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, March 26.
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