One More Soul
Purpose Beliefs History, Philosophy
Purpose
One More Soul (OMS) is a Catholic lay apostolate founded and based on a common love for children and almighty God. Recognizing that contraception is the root cause of abortion and many other evils, the mission of OMS is to help others understand not just the evil of contraception, but, more importantly, the infinite blessing of caring for a child.
Beliefs
• Marriage is a covenant by which a man and a woman establish an indissoluble intimate community of life and love. (Can 1055 §1, CCC 1603)
• The marital covenant is ordered by its nature for the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children. (Can 1055 §1)
• Children are the supreme gift of marriage and contribute greatly to the good of the parents themselves. (CCC 1652)
• The role of marriage and the family in building a culture of life and love is decisive and irreplaceable. (EV 92)
• Human life in all stages, from conception to natural death is sacred (EV 101, CCC 2270)
• Abortion will continue as long as contraception is widely accepted. (EV 13)
• The renewal of a culture of life begins with the renewal of marriage and Christian communities. (EV 95)
• Natural Family Planning (NFP) is a morally licit means of spacing births and supports God’s plan for life, love, and marriage. (HV §16, CCC 2370)
CCC – Catechism of the Catholic Church, Can – Canon Law, EV – Evangelium Vitae, HV – Humanae Vitae
History
One More Soul (OMS) was conceived in the minds of Mary Ann Walsh and Steve Koob as a result of their common love for preborn children and almighty God. They realized that abortion and contraception were intertwined evils, with contraception being the root cause for abortion. In 1992, they resolved to spend their remaining years helping others understand not just the evil of contraception, but more importantly, the infinite blessing of caring for a child.
Steve and Mary Ann were both involved in their large families, parishes, and anti-abortion work throughout the 1980s, and began to work together at Dayton Right to Life Society in 1985. Between them, they covered the gamut of pro-life activities— education, legislation, politics, activism, and support for abortion-vulnerable women. In 1992, they realized that contraception was the root cause of abortion.1
With that realization, they began the formidable task of finding, developing, and distributing resources for explaining the harm of birth control and the blessings of caring for children. The following year, One More Soul became an Ohio not-for-profit corporation and received IRS recognition as a tax-exempt charitable organization 501(c)(3).
OMS’s first resources were Janet E Smith’s pamphlet “The Connection between Contraception and Abortion” and Bishop Glennon P Flavin’s, “In Obedience to Christ: A Pastoral Letter to Catholic Couples and Physicians on the Issue of Contraception.” Encouraging articles were beginning to appear, notably by Fathers Charles Mangan and David Meconi, SJ. Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae always resonated well and has been a constant source of inspiration. Janet Smith’s 1994 Ohio speaking tour resulted in the talk “Contraception: Why Not” which rapidly became One More Soul’s most recognized resource, with over one million copies distributed in a variety of formats.
For the following 18 years, OMS continued to add educational resources for helping people understand and accept God’s plan for chastity, marriage, sex, and children. The “One More Soul” name, and a distinctive logo inspired by Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam”, emphasize our primary mission— encouraging married couples to be open to life—accepting a child as the supreme gift from God to their marriage. Consistent with this “one more soul” focus is our great variety of resources describing the harm of artificial birth control and the benefits of Natural Family Planning. These resources are widely used by parishes, dioceses, pregnancy support centers, and schools to promote healthy bodies, minds, souls, and relationships. Strong marriages and real health care are promoted by a robust web site—www.OneMoreSoul.com.
We promote Natural Family Planning (NFP) by teaching couples and individuals, training teachers, and offering many educational resources in a variety of formats. Our online Directory of NFP-Only Physicians, NFP Teachers, and NFP Centers for the USA and Canada is very useful for couples, priests, and physicians. We constantly explore additional ways to help people take hold of and live the truth about human sexuality, for example by sending educational materials to seminarians to help them effectively minister to their congregations. Except for a brief sabbatical, Steve Koob was One More Soul’s Director until 2020, and we are very grateful for the enormous efforts he put into creating and promoting our organization.
Philosophy
The evil of abortion springs from the evil of contraception. Contraception is evil because it attacks love between human beings. Love is the choice of doing something for another without demanding anything in return. This, as Pope Saint John Paul II pointed out, is at the core of what being human is all about. This is love, in the true meaning of the word, and where love is, there is God for, “God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.” (1 John 4:16) In love God created man in his own image, male and female he created them. It was then God found that all he had created was very good. (Gen. 1:31)
Saint John Paul II calls this situation the “Law of the Gift.” When someone tries to find satisfaction or fulfillment in any other way, that person is doomed to disappointment. Couples who base their relationship on what they can get, sexually or otherwise, find their relationship deeply unsatisfying. This is why we see so many couples who “love” each other and then give up on the other, before or after marriage. Couples who welcome children soon find themselves highly involved in just the sort of love that we are talking about. They find their relationship growing ever stronger – and that is what marriage is all about!
By encouraging couples, particularly married couples and those contemplating marriage, to generously give this “gift of self,” we at One More Soul hope to move our whole culture closer to God.
References
1. The US Supreme Court admitted this connection in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v Casey —
for two decades of economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail.