In the late 1980s, Past Grand Knight Robert Mendoza and his wife, Vera, of John F. Kennedy Council 5729 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, established a Crusade for Life prayer program in their parish to ask the Blessed Virgin’s intercession for an end to abortion. Based on a Supreme Council initiative launched in 1986 by the same name, the program invited Knights and other parishioners to host a traveling pilgrim statue of the Blessed Mother in their homes and to pray the rosary for the unborn.
For more than a year, the Mendozas ran the prayer program within Council 5729, facilitating the transfer of the statue between households and praying alongside other families. “The rosary would be prayed with twofold intentions,” explained Vera Mendoza. “Number one, for the end of abortion, and secondly, to encourage families to pray the rosary in their own home.”
Council 5729’s Crusade for Life program was discontinued after the Mendozas moved away from Albuquerque. But upon Robert’s death in 2023, Vera, who had returned to the area, wanted to honor her husband’s memory by reviving the movement among other local councils.
Vera ordered three statues of the Blessed Mother from Fatima, Portugal, and donated them to three councils that agreed to revive the program: Archbishop Lamy Council 4227 and St. Magdalene of Canossa Council 14920 in Albuquerque, and St. Thomas Aquinas Council 6696 in Rio Rancho. The hand-painted statues, measuring less than 2 feet tall, are housed in plexiglass cases engraved with the names of each council and its officers.
“Prayer is not just for old ladies. It’s for everybody who has a soul,” said Vera. “Those beads are small, but they’re powerful. We have to stop [abortion], and prayer is the answer.”
ON THE FRONT LINES
Each of the three councils facilitates the Crusade for Life a little differently, but the intention remains the same: The pilgrim statue moves from home to home, prompting families to pray the rosary for the protection of unborn life.
At each monthly council meeting, St. Thomas Aquinas Council 6696 hands on the statue to a different member, who brings it home and commits to praying a daily rosary.
“There are some things we can do where service, or boots on the ground, is beneficial to the community,” said Grand Knight Doug Taylor of Council 6696. “But as we say with all of our work, it should all begin in prayer.”
As one of the few states that allows abortion without any gestational limits, New Mexico has some of the most permissive abortion laws in the country. Combined with its proximity to Texas — which has imposed a near-total ban on abortion since the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022 — this has made New Mexico a destination for women seeking abortions.
“New Mexico is considered the abortion capital of the United States, with very lax abortion laws,” said Taylor. “So this prayer program is really important here because it’s almost like ground zero for the country. And in a way, through our prayers, we feel like we’re fighting on the front lines.”
Daniel Doughty, a member of Council 14920, has coordinated the prayer program in his council for more than two years. Similar to Council 6696, his council also passes the statue to a new host family at each monthly meeting.
For Doughty, the program offers a ray of hope in a state “infamous for being a destination abortion site,” he said. “We’re in a very dark place, and having that statue circulate — knowing people are praying for life — is a very heartening thing.”
In recent years, Doughty has witnessed dramatic growth at local pregnancy resource centers, including Project Defending Life, where he serves as a board member. The organization has clinics in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Rio Rancho — and thanks to support through the Knights of Columbus Ultrasound Initiative, each location has an ultrasound machine.
“The Knights of Columbus has such a strong, enduring commitment to the sanctity of life,” said Doughty. “This statue has a prayer dimension to it that I think is strong, effective and provides opportunities for the Knights to continue their pro-life activities in New Mexico.”
A DAILY COMMITMENT TO LIFE
While the statues primarily circulate among council members, many participating Knights invite family and friends to join them in their daily rosary commitment. Doughty recently hosted the statue in his home and invited his grandchildren to pray with him.
“I wanted it to be here so that when the grandchildren were visiting, we would have an intentional prayer time with Our Blessed Lady,” Doughty said. “The rosary centers us as a family.”
In January, all three participating councils gathered for a rosary event hosted by Council 4227, also attended by New Mexico State Deputy Anthony Salazar and Vera Mendoza.
Council 4227 has also used the program to bring the parish community together in prayer, hosting rosary events in the council’s private chapel.
“It’s a very, very powerful program, and it’s really [the primary thing] we can do for the culture of life on an ongoing basis,” said Grand Knight Dan Martinez of Council 4227. “This is a way of making more people aware of what we need to pray for continually. We need to be praying the rosary every single day to get abortion out of our state.”
Vera’s hope is that the program — which is easy to replicate — will continue to spread among councils. In the meantime, she won’t stop working to advance the pro-life cause that she has supported for many decades.
“I’m not tired of working for the Lord. That’s all I’ve ever done,” she said. “My husband’s gone, but I’ll always be part of the [Knights of Columbus] family, because it meant so much to him, and it still means a lot to me.”