A voice for life
I never met Kathy McEntee. To me she was a voice on the phone. It was a distinctive voice, equal parts gravel and velvet.
BY GREG MAGNONI
 | Although we were never formally introduced, we immediately were on a first-name basis. Over the past four-years, Kathy called me whenever she had something to say on the issue of life. Her calls were not infrequent.
Sometimes she would call my attention to a point she felt needed to be made about some Catholic politician whose public actions stood in contradiction to church teaching on the sanctity of life. Often it was about items that appeared, or failed to appear, in this newspaper.
At times the voice scolded, but always with the same tone my mother used when I failed to live up to her expectations. Like a spoonful of sugar, the maternal warmth in that voice always helped the medicine of her words go down a bit more easily.
We got to know each other over the phone, and I learned that I was not the only person with whom she carried on a long-distance relationship.
Kathy McEntee used the phone a lot. At Kathy’s funeral Mass her husband, Dick McEntee, joked that the phone company called him after her death to inquire what had happened.
I always took her calls and always hung up glad that I did. The voice and the reputation behind it commanded respect. It was firm, sure, clear and loving.
On Saturday, Jan. 12, 2008 the voice fell silent, but Kathy McEntee’s cause has not grown quiet. One of the founders and president of the Washington State March for Life prior to her death, Kathy would have been proud that the march she helped get underway 30 years ago went off on schedule only days after her death.
The March, like the prolife movement itself, made a lot of people uncomfortable. It grew in size and influence over the years as thousands marched to the steps of the state Capitol on the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion nationwide.
In her absence, new voices will be raised. Our culture needs them to speak out for the unborn and for the women who need support to make the choice for life.
The pro-life movement needs new voices, and no one would understand that better than Kathy herself. Perhaps that’s why her daughter, Noreen Hobson, was ready and waiting in the wings to lead the state March for Life immediately following her death.
We need voices for life, and we need them to be firm, sure, clear and loving. The culture needs to reclaim its reverence and wonder for life, and that won’t happen if the pro-life movement’s voices are equivocal, muddled or mean.
We need voices that can explain to our culture that the issue of abortion is a matter of life and death, and we need those whose actions speak louder than their words. We need those who will offer more than words to mothers of the unborn through crisis pregnancy outreach and adoption alternatives. We need the compassionate voices of post-abortion ministries like Project Rachel.
Even though I never met her in person, I am grateful for having known Kathy McEntee. She showed all of us how to use our voices for those who cannot speak for themselves.
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