WESTERLY — On Saturday, Jan. 18, Immaculate Conception Church in Westerly hosted its annual Respect Life Dinner. This year, the dinner honored former Governor Donald L. Carcieri with its Defender of Life award recognizing his nearly 50 years fighting against abortion and showing great compassion towards the unborn.
As he introduced the governor, Father Giacomo Capoverdi, pastor of Immaculate Conception, offered his sympathies and condolences on behalf of the parish community at the recent loss of former Gov. Carcieri’s wife, Suzanne, who passed away in November of 2018.
“She was an inspiration, a woman of deep faith who radiated warmth, and one could plainly see that you two were a team,” said Father Capoverdi.
The pastor explained to all those who gathered that the couple has been a force for good: practicing love of neighbor, defending the dignity of marriage, promoting respect for the sanctity of human life, and doing all of this courageously, often in the face of strong opposition.
“Rhode Islanders owe a debt of gratitude to you, Governor, and the First Lady for her support, in fighting the good fight, for life and faith,” he said.
Less than two months into his first term, Gov. Carcieri faced the terrible disaster of the Station Night Club fire in 2003. The club went up in flames when pyrotechnics for an indoor music concert lit flammable material on the walls and ceiling and quickly engulfed the venue, killing 100 people and injuring 230 others.
The Governor is noted for having triaged the aftermath with leadership and compassion, setting up a hotline for relatives to request dental records, requesting the state’s dentists to check their messages and pull the records, and then marshalling volunteer couriers to bring the records back to the morgue for matching. The Governor was a daily presence among the families of the missing. Many relatives saw him as a pillar of trust and reassurance.
Within days of the fire, Gov. Carcieri ordered immediate inspections of more than 1,700 places of assembly including theaters, restaurants, nightclubs and places of worship in the state. He declared a moratorium on indoor pyrotechnics for crowds under 300 people. And within a few months of the tragedy, the Governor signed into law the Comprehensive Fire Safety Act of 2003, a major re-write of the state’s code and the strictest fire-safety code in the U.S. at that time.
The Governor has also acted consistently with the Catholic faith and has taken a stand in vetoing wedge legislation intended to erode the meaning of marriage, in vetoing expansion on gambling, and he signed legislation closing the indoor prostitution loophole.
Last year, he joined with former Democratic Speaker Matthew Smith and former First Lady Margherite Garrahy to publish an opinion piece in the Providence Journal imploring the General Assembly to reject the so-called Reproductive Rights Act, because “the protection of all life is a moral absolute” and “the primary purpose of government.”
Upon receiving the Defender of Life award, former governor Carcieri said that he and his wife made it clear from the start where they stood on matters of life and death.
“We’re pro-life. People knew that about us,” he said. “I remember after the end of a long day of campaigning, I came into the office and was told that a woman wanted to see me. So I went in. The woman was my age and she told me, ‘I’ve been pro-choice my whole life, and I’ve been pretty outspoken about it. And I know that you have a different point of view. Well, I agree with you. I’m no longer pro-choice. I’m pro-life.’ I said, ‘That’s wonderful. What caused you to change your mind?’ She said, ‘I saw a sonogram of my first grandchild and thought, ‘Wow! This really is a baby, my grandchild!’”
He added that young people are the future of this cause and implored them to help pro-life lawmakers get elected.
“Young people are where the future is,” he said. “The other side tries to make you feel like a weirdo if you’re pro-life. Don’t let them bully you. This is the generation that are trying to figure out what their lives are about. Young people are searching for a mission. Get behind good candidates. They need legs, leafleting, going door-to-door.”
Even after the Reproductive Privacy Act Legislation passed last June, former Gov. Carcieri continues to offer words of encouragement to weary pro-life Rhode Islanders.
“This last go-round in R.I., the abortion bill barely passed. The timing is right. The polling is in our favor. As to things like partial birth abortion — people say, ‘that’s not right.’ This is our time. But you say, ‘Don, we just got banged over the head!’ But discouragement is the work of the devil. These things run in cycles. Life is going to win.”
Proceeds from the event will benefit the Deborah K. Fallacaro Pregnancy Center, a ministry of the Westerly area Catholic churches. The Center is currently undergoing a restructuring, moving to a new location, with a new director at the helm. The Center hopes to re-open its doors at its new location in the spring of 2020. The Center’s services will be provided free of charge, including pregnancy options counseling and pregnancy testing.
