The witness of Red Rose Rescuers Fr. Fidelis Moscinski and Laura Gies

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you.” John 15:18

A report from the June 30th sentencing of Red Rose Rescuers in Long Island, NY.

Today started out ominous, with a fog that hung over New York from the wildfires in Canada. Red Rose Rescuers Father Fidelis Moscinski of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and Pennsylvania pro-life activist Laura Gies entered Nassau County District Court of Judge Erin Moroney at around 9:40am and were greeted by about 15 supporters.

The actual sentencing occurred at 10:30am, giving Father Moscinski and Laura Gies ample time to say goodbye and hug loved ones. Laura’s husband, Walter Gies, was in attendance as well as Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal (the Female branch of the CFRs).

The Sentencing began with Laura first. Laura prepared a statement she read in front of Judge Moroney:

Your Honor, I stand before you, a fellow woman, unjustly convicted of trespass at an abortion clinic, in your court, in February of this year for peacefully offering roses inside an abortion clinic to other fellow women, mothers, in the hope of convincing them not to pay someone to dismember their helpless children.

I was disallowed the justification or “defense of others” defense, which was unjust, as I absolutely was only seeking the higher good of saving lives. As stated in my testimony during the trial, I have held babies of several mothers who are so grateful they changed their minds against abortion at the last minute. I know it is worth the effort to reach out to mothers at abortion facilities.

I live in a country that is confused because of judges, like you, and others on the Supreme Court in 1973, who had egregiously decided that abortion is ‘a right,’ when in fact it never was ‘a right,’ that the United States could allow, since abortion is against God’s law ‘thou shalt not murder.’ Last year, with the Dobbs decision, at last a corrective has begun to help America undo this horrendous damage which unleashed abortion leading to over 70 million unborn human beings being killed by dismemberment these past 50 years.

It is not possible for any rule of law to make abortion legal, right or just. It is always wrong. It is still wrong today, to allow abortion to be ‘a legal harm’ that is somehow protected. The State of New York is stubbornly continuing to claim ‘a right’ to ‘legally harm’ — to the point of lethal harm of the helpless unborn child within its own mother’s womb, while it is beautifully growing, and breathing amniotic fluid. This is wrong of the State of New York. The only difference between an unborn child and a just-born child and you and me, is time, growth and breathing air outside her mother’s womb.

On April 24th, 2021, I peacefully intervened between the knife and the child and mother, because this is needed resistance in the face of horrendous and grave evil. Why is it evil? Why is it horrendous? Because the pre-born child is alive, beautiful & growing as all of us know from the ultrasounds of our own children, nieces, nephews & grandchildren — and the child is innocent and never deserves death. The only reason the children who end up aborted are ever scheduled for this cruel death is because they are somehow losers in the lottery of inconvenience.

It is also evil and horrendous for the mothers. She is almost always strongly coerced by those closest to her, and truly women do regret the abortion almost immediately, and if not immediately, within weeks or months or a few years. The depth of the wound of an abortion in a mother’s life is deep. It is the wounded faces and broken hearts of too many of my women friends which motivates me to act as I have, in a true love and concern for other women to not go through this horrendous regret.

In many states it is against the law to coerce a woman to have an abortion. Most women do not even know this. For all the bloated rhetoric in this era of the abortion debate, about ‘women’s rights’ and the tragic belief that ‘abortion helps women’ — particularly stated in court as the reason Dr. Bruce Shulman does abortions — ‘to help women’ — I know from experience helping, listening to so many women weeping over their children lost to abortion, that almost all of them were coerced by someone to suppress their wish to have their baby, in order to please other people, thus ‘get rid of the baby’ against their own better judgement. It is therein, a euphemism to claim to be ‘helping women’ by allowing, protecting and defending abortion, because it only helps women feel absolutely horrible. Mothers do not regret having their babies. Mothers DO regret having abortions.

Abortion is a totalitarian act against a helpless child. In our recent history of these past 100 years, we have seen several chapters of totalitarian regimes crush nations, imprison and slaughter people who got in the way of totalitarian ideologies. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, author of ‘The Gulag Archipelago’, was a witness against the inhumane cruelty of the Soviet regime in his country of Russia. He was imprisoned for 8 years for merely writing in a letter to a friend criticizing Josef Stalin. It was only during this harsh imprisonment that he learned to hate Communism as he saw it was a mistake and a reduction of humanity to a mere materialistic machine to be misused for the good of the state.

He became a bold resister to the totalitarianism of his time. Like him, I say to you now, Judge Moroney:

‘The Lie may come into the world, the lie may run through the world, but the Lie will not run through me.’

You are holding to the lie when you uphold the ‘legal harm’ of abortion, as greater than defending life — by upholding the conviction of a peaceful woman whose sole purpose has been to save human lives from the lethal harm in abortion, and my conviction of trespass in order to save human life — is me saying with my my body, my choice that the lie of abortion does not run through me.

I wish, your honor, that you would say with your sentence of myself that this lie does not run through you anymore.

Laura Gies’ beautiful remarks were almost not uttered because Judge Karen L. Moroney kept on interrupting, yelling– “This is a simple trespassing case!”

But thankfully Laura was able to say her full statement.

The judge looked extremely uneasy about the topic of abortion.

The prosecution asked that Laura be sentenced for a full year (the maximum sentence); however, the judge sentenced her to 45 days for “obstructing government administration” and 15 days for “trespassing” which would be served concurrently.

Upon leaving the courtroom, Laura shouted “Vivo Cristo Rey!” and handed her wedding ring to her husband.

Father Fidelis next addressed the judge: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53:7).

Father Moscinski went up to the podium with a meek countenance and his head hanging low. Judge Moroney asked him if he had a statement and Father Moscinski just shook his head.

The prosecution asked for the maximum sentence of one year. The judge imposed a 90 day sentence for “obstructing government administration” and 15 days for “trespassing” to be served concurrently as well. The humble Franciscan priest left the courtroom in chains but to the cries of: “We love you, Father!” and, “You’re a hero, Father!” from supporters as he was escorted out.

Father Moscinski’s sentence follows on the heels of his June 27th sentence–given six months in federal prison for his July 21, 2022 “one-man” rescue at the Planned Parenthood in Hempstead, New York, in which he was convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.

Please pray for the rescuers!

• Here are addresses to write to them:

Write to Father Fidelis Moscinski under his baptismal/legal name:

Christopher Moscinski
Nassau County Correctional Center
100 Carmen Avenue
East Meadow NY 11554

Laura Gies
Nassau County Correctional Center
100 Carmen Avenue
East Meadow NY 11554

(Editor’s note: This report was posted originally on the Red Rose Rescue Facebook page in slightly different form.)