By Anne DiBernardo - Florida Catholic
SOUTHWEST RANCHES | The 38th Annual Culture of Life State Conference was held Oct. 4, 2025, at Archbishop Edward McCarthy High School in Southwest Ranches. The event was sponsored by the Archdiocese of Miami in collaboration with the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops (FCCB).
This signature event for the Respect Life Ministry was an opportunity for pro-life advocates to convene among peers, reignite their shared passion, and learn from a lineup of distinguished speakers. The daylong event, which closed with a Mass celebrated by Archbishop Thomas Wenski, empowered 150 participants with tools to foster a culture that values the dignity of each person.
The theme this year was “I came that they may have life,” which expresses the Church’s core commitment to promote the dignity of each person from womb to tomb, including the unborn, the elderly, the sick, and the marginalized, as reflected in the Gospels of Jesus Christ.
Photographer: COURTESY
About 150 people participated in the 38th annual Culture of Life State Conference, held Oct. 4, 2025, at Archbishop Edward McCarthy High School in Southwest Ranches.
Angela Curatalo, director of Respect Life Ministry of the Archdiocese of Miami, said, “We are covering some topics that are very pertinent to what is happening in the state.” She said that in vitro fertilization (IVF), death penalty, and human trafficking, remain urgent issues.
Dr. Grazie Christie, a radiologist and senior fellow for the Catholic Association, kicked off the conference by discussing the upcoming extreme abortion legislation, Amendment 4. If passed, Amendment 4 would legalize abortion in Florida and enshrine it in the state constitution.
Christie offered hope, citing what was accomplished in November; however, we won by the “skin of our teeth,” she said. The battle continues, as the amendment will be proposed on the next ballot.
“By no means can we let our guards down,” said Daisy Ramos, Respect Life parish representative at St. Augustine Parish in Coral Gables. “We need to educate the young, fertile women, so they are not lied to and so they understand what an abortion is.”
Actress, feature film producer and author Nicole Abisino shared her testimony about her return to the Catholic faith in 2009 during a miraculous encounter with Jesus on the red carpet of the Cannes film festival in France.
Abisino works as an actress in Hollywood and is involved in the development of the television series The Advocate, created to raise awareness of and prevent sex trafficking, a multimillion-dollar industry. According to the tv series, 1-million people are trafficked in the U.S. per year, compared with 29 million reported worldwide. Of those, 50% are children, and 80% are females between the ages of 14 and 18.
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Auxiliary Bishop of Miami, Enrique Delgado, addressed the audience at the 38th annual Culture of Life State Conference at Archbishop Edward McCarthy High School in Southwest Ranches Oct. 4, 2025.
The presenter, Patricia Sandoval, courageously shared her shame over having had three abortions, having worked at Planned Parenthood, having lived on the streets, and having become a drug addict. She underscored how rich in love and mercy Christ has been through it all.
Isabella Iskar and many others in the audience were deeply moved by Sandoval’s testimony.
Iskar, who was raised Catholic but reverted to her faith just a year ago while attending Ave Maria Law School, said, “Her words resonated on a personal level. I had long struggled with reconciling my faith and pro-life beliefs, questioning whether advocating for life imposed my faith on others. Through prayer and reflection—especially during the Amendment 4 vote—I began to see the moral weight of the issue.”
Dr. Joseph Harmon, policy coordinator at FCCB, presented the hotly debated position of Capital Punishment that divided Catholics since Pope Francis changed the Churches age-old doctrine from being morally permissible in certain situations to ruling it out altogether, a position that Pope Leo XIV also endorses.
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Angela Curatalo, director of the Respect Life Ministry of the Archdiocese of Miami, addressed the audience at the 38th annual Culture of Life State Conference at Archbishop Edward McCarthy High School in Southwest Ranches Oct. 4, 2025.
Harmon has argued against expanding the application of the death penalty before the House Judiciary Committee and believes life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is already a severe punishment, which also protects the public. He believes there is reason to doubt the deterrent effect of the death penalty, and the additional cost incurred by the state.
Next author and international speaker, Stephanie Gray Connors gave a meticulous overview of in vitro fertilization, the process of conceiving new human life in a laboratory, its difficulties and dangers, and its moral implications. Connors, who holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of British Columbia and a certification in health care ethics from the National Catholic Bioethics Center, began by calling attention to the need to acknowledge the very heavy cross of those who suffer with the inability to conceive children with their spouse.
Speaking on behalf of the dignity of the numerous lives created by IVF, Connors presented arguments for why IVF is inherently evil. She shared tragic stories about how IVF has backfired and offered hope-filled alternatives involving natural procreative technology (NaPro). In her book, On IVF, Connors addresses the morality of IVF and the stories of those who have either embraced or refused it.
During the Q&A session, Iskar asked Connors if one could argue that IVF is the same as eugenics. Connors said yes, but stressed the primacy of being compassionate, since many couples are coming from a good place, wanting to start families and be fruitful and multiply.
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An image of the Virgin Mary pregnant accompanied participants at the 38th State Conference on the Culture of Life, held at Archbishop Edward McCarthy Middle School in Southwest Ranches on October 4, 2025.
“It may not be intended that way, but when you start becoming selective about attributes, such as eye color, sex, and even I.Q., it just seems inherently wrong,” said Iskar during an interview with the Florida Catholic after the event.
“Even the inception of it is already sinful, since it requires masturbation. You don’t even need to get to rest of it if you start there,” Iskar said.
“People don’t realize that they are aborting babies,” said Madelyn Ocasio, a Respect Life parish representative at St. Raymond Parish in Miami. “Once you fertilize an embryo, it is a baby, and if you do selection, you are aborting babies. They just don’t implant one; they implant about five. They are not being conceived the way God intended, and it is against what the Church teaches about conception in marriage,” added Ocasio.
Students from two archdiocesan high schools, St. Thomas Aquinas High in Fort Lauderdale, and Archbishop Edward McCarthy High in Southwest Ranches volunteered at the event. Curatalo hopes to engage more young people in the pro-life movement in the future.
After the event, a mobile pregnancy center donated to the Miami Respect Life Ministry by the Forida Pregnancy Care Network, was blessed by Archbishop Thomas Wenski. Curatalo added that another unit, donated by an anonymous person will arrive in December.
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Archbishop Thomas Wenski blesses a mobile pregnancy center donated to the Miami Respect Life Ministry by the Florida Pregnancy Care Network, Oct. 4, 2025, during the 38th annual Culture of Life State Conference at Archbishop Edward McCarthy High School in Southwest Ranches. Standing with him are Father Edivaldo da Silva Oliveira, left, chaplain at Archbishop McCarthy High, and Father Agustín Estrada, secretary to the archbishop.
