The Catholic News Agency article from January 18, 2026, reports on Embrace Grace, an ecumenical nonprofit founded by Amy Ford that partners with “evangelical, Baptist, and Catholic churches” to provide material support and baby showers for women with unplanned pregnancies. While presenting itself as pro-life, the initiative exemplifies the post-conciliar shift toward naturalistic humanitarianism divorced from the Church’s primary mission: the sanctification of souls through the sacraments and uncompromised doctrinal witness.
Humanitarian Substitution for Supernatural Charity
The article celebrates how Embrace Grace provides “support and community” through 12-week programs and baby showers while remaining conspicuously silent on the sine qua non of authentic Catholic charity: leading souls to the state of grace through Penance and adherence to doctrinal truth. Pius XI condemned this exact reductionism in Divini Redemptoris (1937), warning that when charity degenerates into mere philanthropy, it becomes “a useless show” that disregards humanity’s need for redemption (n. 30). Embrace Grace’s curriculum emphasizes emotional healing and practical parenting skills yet omits any mention of sacramental reconciliation—the only remedy for the mortal sin of fornication that put these women in their predicament. This dangerous omission implicitly validates the Protestant heresy of sola fide by suggesting moral transformation occurs through “support groups” rather than sanctifying grace.
Ford hopes that Embrace Grace serves as a tool of “courage and the bridge to get them actually going to church and raising their kids in the church and being a part of a spiritual family.”
Herein lies the fatal flaw: The article promotes a false equivalence between attending any “church” (whether Catholic or heretical) and embracing the one true Faith. This indifferentism directly violates the dogmatic teaching of Mortalium Animos (1928), where Pius XI forbade Catholics from promoting “a federation of Christians” as it would “imply the universal Church of Christ exists nowhere” (n. 8). By treating Baptist and Catholic communities as interchangeable, Embrace Grace propagates the conciliar heresy that the Church of Christ merely “subsists in” rather than is the Catholic Church (Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 8).
Pastoral Malpractice and Protestantization
The article inadvertently exposes the spiritual bankruptcy of post-conciliar structures when describing Ford’s teenage pregnancy. The evangelical pastor who refused to marry her due to her “sin” acted more consistently with Catholic pre-1958 discipline than today’s typical conciliar “priest”—who would likely dispense sacrilegious Communion without demanding repentance. Yet Ford’s solution—finding another willing “pastor”—highlights Protestantism’s fundamental error: private judgment in matters of doctrine and sacramental validity. The embrace of this anarchical model by Embrace Grace (which calls its facilitators “group leaders” rather than chaplains) confirms its alignment with the Protestant revolution.
Embrace Grace is in over 1,200 churches across the country — mostly in evangelical, Baptist, and Catholic churches.
This ecumenical promiscuity mocks the First Commandment. How can Catholic bishops permit heretical communities—which deny the Real Presence, reject papal authority, and invalidate sacraments—to operate under the guise of “pro-life” work? St. Pius X condemned such collaborations in Pascendi (1907), noting Modernists reduce religion to “vital immanence” where doctrine matters less than shared social goals (n. 14). The article’s glowing description of “Love Boxes” distributed through pregnancy centers exemplifies this apostasy: The boxes contain a onesie and feel-good testimonials but no scapulars, holy water, or miraculous medals—the true spiritual weapons Catholic mothers need.
Omissions That Condemn
Nowhere does the article mention:
- The necessity of Baptism for salvation (John 3:5), despite Embrace Grace serving many mothers cohabiting outside marriage—a state that bars them from sacraments until repentance.
- Abortion’s status as a canonical crime requiring excommunication latae sententiae (CIC 1917, can. 2350). Embrace Grace treats post-abortive women as “victims” rather than calling them to formal reconciliation through the Sacrament of Penance.
- The intrinsic evil of contraception, ensuring these “supported” mothers will likely return to near occasions of sin.
The article’s silence on these truths reveals its complicity in the conciliar church’s universalist heresy—the belief that all are saved regardless of adherence to dogma. As Leo XIII taught in Satis Cognitum (1896), the Church is no “human community” but Christ’s Mystical Body requiring “unity of faith, government, and worship” (n. 9). By replacing supernatural aims with secular psychology (“healing”) and material aid (“baby showers”), Embrace Grace completes the modernist program of transforming the Church into an NGO.
Symptomatic of the Conciliar Apostasy
Embrace Grace epitomizes how the post-1958 establishment uses “pro-life” rhetoric to mask its abandonment of Catholic identity. The initiative’s nondenominationalism and focus on “practical skills” align perfectly with Bergoglio’s call for a “Church of the poor for the poor”—a Marxist construct equating spiritual works of mercy with socialist wealth redistribution. Nowhere does Ford mention leading these women to the Traditional Latin Mass or encouraging devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows—the true consolation for mothers in crisis. Instead, the article promotes the Protestant notion that “a personal relationship with Jesus” (detached from His Mystical Body) suffices for salvation.
The group’s expansion into 1,200 churches demonstrates the conciliar sect’s effective surrender to evangelical fundamentalism—a betrayal Pius XI called “the greatest scandal of the 20th century” in his condemnation of ecumenism. Until Catholic bishops expunge such syncretic initiatives and restore exclusive support for authentically Catholic apostolates (like the Sisters of Life), they remain complicit in the ongoing demolition of Christ’s Kingdom on earth.
Source:
How one woman’s unexpected pregnancy launched a pro-life group helping women in need (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 18.01.2026