In the Federal Hill section of Providence, R.I., a neighborhood once known as the smallest state’s “Little Italy,” stands a new stucco house that fits right in with the old-world ambience around it.

The Mother of Life Center is “a comforting sign for women because it’s a home, not an office building,” explains the center’s director, David O’Connell.

That’s only one among many exceptional reasons why Mother of Life Center has been bringing this comfort to hundreds of women since it opened on “the Hill” in 2004 — right next door to an abortion business.

Outside that facility in 2000, several people from Catholics for Life were praying as usual when one woman looked at the grassy lot next door and got the idea to build a pro-life place on it.

“Between going around with our hands out and fundraiser tournaments and dinners to help us with this great vision,” says O’Connell, “we ended up purchasing the land and getting the Mother of Life center open.”

It became the new home of Problem Pregnancy of Providence, which had been operating in rented space.

The start was unforgettable on Aug. 29, 2004, with the first Mass celebrated in the center’s newly blessed chapel. Father Michael Woolley, pastor of St. Joseph’s Church in Woonsocket, R.I., and the center’s chaplain, explains what happened.

“When I was concelebrating the Mass, at the consecration lifting up the host, it was as if the foundations of the abortion mill next door were rumbling,” the priest recalls. “So many graces were poured out. You knew it was the end. I sensed that when the Lord came into that chapel. The Lord had come next door and he wasn’t going to allow that abortion mill to stay open.”

“Forty days later in October,” says O’Connell, picking up the story, “the abortion clinic next door closed its doors for good. We are very happy to be a part of what we believe to be a Eucharistic miracle in closing the abortion clinic.”

The wonders continue in the success stories of girls and women who have found comfort and help here. Take the results of the ultrasounds they’ve recently started giving when pro-life counseling doesn’t go far enough to move hearts.

“We’ve done 16 ultrasounds and every girl changed her mind,” says Marlo Mooney, the center’s director of crisis pregnancy. Since two had twins, that means 18 babies were saved. “Little did we know what the success rate would be.”

Mooney remembers one girl who brought her boyfriend along. He wanted a music career and was insistent on an abortion, but he agreed to the free ultrasound.

“The baby was moving,” says Mooney, “and the boyfriend started crying, ‘My baby’s dancing.’ It was the first time I saw a man cry here, and he changed his mind at that point. The girl was happy because she didn’t want the abortion all along.”

A few months later they delivered a baby boy.

Last year, Mother of Life Center saw 764 girls and women in possible crisis pregnancies. Three-quarters tested positive and, after help and counseling, three-quarters of those opted for life. All because the Mother of Life Center actively promotes the Gospel of Life.

The center’s free services include information on pre-natal care, medical referrals, maternity and baby clothes, and assistance with housing, jobs and education. The staff and volunteers also provide follow-up help and outreach after the babies are born. If some need housing while pregnant, the center refers to an affiliate, the Little Flower Home in Tiverton, R.I. (online at littleflowerhome.org).

But Mother of Life meets more than material needs.

“We also like to invite the girls to consider what God thinks of them and their baby and their crisis, and how he may have a solution,” says O’Connell, adding that the faith-based dimension of the center is explained in a gentle way so women don’t feel pressured by “religion.”

He and Mooney invite the girls to pray with them in the chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved in the tabernacle. If a girl or woman will talk about the faith, they will offer a rosary and, if she’s open, teach her how to pray it.

The center’s inviting chapel makes a big difference. A large statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe faces the altar. Two large stained-glass windows of the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart were donated by a neighborhood woman who purchased them from a closed church. The St. Joseph window was designed to match.

On Fridays, several pro-life friends pray the Divine Mercy chaplet and Rosary. O’Connell’s goal is to see people praying in the chapel for every hour the center is open “when we are counseling women to choose life,” he says. “That would be a perfect situation.”

The center’s other unique feature, a small bookstore, includes racks of books on pro-life issues and the Catholic faith. All the pamphlets and pro-life brochures are free for women like Betsy, who spoke with the Register under condition of anonymity.

Because Betsy has been in difficult situations resulting in her children being made temporary wards of the state, she wasn’t sure she wanted her new baby before he was born because she’d lose his custody immediately.

“The Mother of Life Center stood behind me with the pregnancy I had,” she says. “I needed counseling at the time. They called one of their therapists. That’s how they put me on track to get my son back.”

Betsy had her baby and named him John. Last June she got him back, thanks to Mother of Life. Now she has reconnected with her Catholic faith, attends Mass regularly and is training to become a certified nursing assistant.

“We’re trying to be a pro-life center for everyone in the state,” says O’Connell. “This is a clearinghouse for counseling, information, prayer — everything to promote God’s will for life in this state.”

The littlest Little Italy never had more to be proud of.

Staff writer Joseph Pronechen

is based in Trumbull, Connecticut.

Mother of Life Center

& Problem Pregnancy of Providence

400 Atwells Ave.

Providence, RI 02909(401) 421-0820 motheroflife.org