October 9, 2020

Respect Life Award winners dedicated to ‘changing culture into a culture of life’

Brie Anne Varick, director of the archdiocesan Office of Human Life and Dignity, right, poses with this year’s winners of the office’s Archbishop Edward T. O’Meara Respect Life Award—Eric Slaughter, left, and Maria Guadalupe (“Lupita”) Aguayo and her husband Mario Soberanos Armenta, center—at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis after the annual Respect Life Mass on Oct. 4. (Photo by Natalie Hoefer)

Brie Anne Varick, director of the archdiocesan Office of Human Life and Dignity, right, poses with this year’s winners of the office’s Archbishop Edward T. O’Meara Respect Life Award—Eric Slaughter, left, and Maria Guadalupe (“Lupita”) Aguayo and her husband Mario Soberanos Armenta, center—at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis after the annual Respect Life Mass on Oct. 4. (Photo by Natalie Hoefer)

By Natalie Hoefer

Each year, the archdiocesan Office of Human Life and Dignity calls upon Catholics in central and southern Indiana to nominate individuals or couples for the Archbishop Edward T. O’Meara Respect Life Award.

This year’s winners are Eric Slaughter of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Parish in Indianapolis, and Maria Guadalupe (“Lupita”) Aguayo and her husband Mario Soberanos Armenta of St. Patrick Parish in Indianapolis.

“The 2020-21 Respect Life theme ‘Live the Gospel of Life’ is fitting for this year’s award recipients,” said Brie Anne Varick, the archdiocese’s Human Life and Dignity office director. She recognized the winners during the Respect Life Mass on Oct. 4 at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis.

“They not only live the Gospel of life, but lead others to recognize the dignity of the human person in the most vulnerable, and dedicate their lives to changing our culture into a culture of life.”

Below are the inspiring stories of one man who helps other men avoid regretting lost fatherhood through abortion, and a couple who serve women in unplanned pregnancies and migrants on Indianapolis’ east side.

(To hear Varicks’s comments and see the recognition of the winners during the Oct. 4 Respect Life Sunday Mass, go to cutt.ly/RespectLifeMass.) †

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