By CatholicVote | Created at 2025-03-06 17:04:13 | Updated at 2025-03-06 21:13:11
4 hours ago
CV NEWS FEED // Nearly two years after being brutally attacked while peacefully demonstrating outside a Baltimore Planned Parenthood, pro-life advocate Mark Crosby remains steadfast in his mission.
On May 23, 2023, Crosby, then 73, and his friend Dick Schaefer, 84, were peacefully demonstrating outside the abortion facility, praying and offering life-affirming resources to women considering abortion, when they were violently attacked by a man named Patrick Brice. Brice knocked Schaefer unconscious and brutally beat Crosby, leaving him hospitalized for three days with a fractured eye plate.
For Crosby, the violent attack that left him with severe facial injuries was not a moment of despair but of spiritual clarity, Catholic Review reported. Crosby called it “the most glorious day of my life.”
“If you look at what Jesus went through and his Passion, this was nothing,” Crosby told Catholic Review. “Shedding blood and suffering pain for Jesus was the most powerful spiritual thing that has ever happened. It was a gift.”
Crosby, a lifelong Catholic, became more active in his faith after joining Christ the King parish in Towson. There, he met Schaefer and became involved in pro-life advocacy. The two men continue their mission outside Planned Parenthood five days a week, despite ongoing harassment. They pray, speak with passersby, and distribute pro-life materials, including rosaries and prayer cards.
“When we leave there, it’s a spiritual high,” Crosby said.
During his recovery from the 2023 attack, Crosby received an unexpected call from Donald J. Trump, CatholicVote reported. He was later invited as Trump’s guest to the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference.
A friend of Crosby’s, Sister Deirdre Byrne, a physician and member of the Little Workers of the Sacred Hearts in Washington, D.C., admires his perseverance.
“It is really a calling – not everyone has it,” Sister Deirdre told Catholic Review. “Not everyone could be able to do what he does at abortion clinics. He is inspired.”
A jury in Baltimore Circuit Court found Brice guilty Feb. 6 of two counts of second-degree assault and two counts of reckless endangerment for attacking Crosby and Schaefer, CatholicVote reported.
Crosby hopes more Catholics will stand alongside him in pro-life advocacy.
“I’m a baptized Catholic,” he said, “and I feel as though I have a moral obligation to save as many babies as possible.”
