Supreme irony

At the March for Life conference at the Capitol Hill Hyatt today, I stopped by a display table filled with books and devotional items from Marytown, the National Shrine of St. Maximilian Kolbe (right).

A soft-spoken, gray-haired woman with kind blue eyes at the table explained to me that she and the other volunteers there were members of the Militia Immaculata, the group started by St. Maximilian to spread devotion to Jesus through Mary.

The woman introduced herself as Margaret Mary and said she was a convert to the Catholic faith, received into the Church on September 8, 1966. We spoke for a few minutes about St. Maximilian, who is a patron saint of the pro-life movement.

As I walked away from the table, one of Margaret Mary's fellow volunteers told me something quite beautiful and poignant about her. He said she was the daughter of the late Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger — who presided over the Roe v. Wade decision, which made abortion legal throughout all nine months of pregnancy.

She is now doing her part to bring healing and justice in the wake of her father's actions, which have resulted in the legal murder of more than 48 million children since 1973. God bless her, as well as her fellow convert to Catholicism and the pro-life cause — Norma McCorvey, aka "Jane Roe."