May 6, 2025 // Bishop

Evangelium Vitae Award Winners ‘Shine Light on the Importance of Family’

Clare Hildebrandt

Reporter

As Anthony and Phyllis Lauinger received the prestigious Evangelium Vitae Award for their pro-life efforts, their eight children looked on proudly. The Oklahoma couple were honored for promoting a culture of life in politics, education, and medicine – but most importantly, by loving their own family.

On Saturday, May 3, officials with the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture held the organization’s annual Mass and dinner for the recipients of the Evangelium Vitae Medal Award, which this year was given to the Lauingers. Each year, officials with the de Nicola Center at the University of Notre Dame recognize true heroes of the pro-life movement by bestowing the award.

The Lauingers are no strangers to Notre Dame, as all eight of their children studied beneath the golden dome. 

In his work, Anthony defended life through education and public policy, as he serves as both the state chairman of Oklahomans for Life and the vice president of the National Right to Life Committee.

As a physician, Phyllis often lectures on the pro-life cause as well as provides free medical care to the uninsured in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The two touched hearts in their acceptance speeches, praising all those involved in pro-life efforts.

“Phyllis and I are merely representatives of all of them here tonight – symbolic stand-ins for the thousands of grassroots volunteers,” Anthony said to the crowd. “These are ordinary people doing extraordinary things and are those who recoiled in horror at what the Supreme Court did in 1973. They began meeting around kitchen tables, in church basements, volunteering at pregnancy resource centers, praying in front of abortion buildings, writing letters to editors, lobbying elected officials, and so much more.”

He also applauded his wife for her dedication to the family and their children.

“Phyllis is the heart and soul of our family,” Anthony said. “After 17 years in New York Catholic schools, Phyllis attended Columbia University Medical School. She put medicine on the back burner during the years when the eight children with whom we’ve been blessed were growing up. Our kitchen was the epicenter of Phyllis’ universe. During those years, [it was] the place our kids came for loving attention, gentle guidance, and a mother’s help with all of life’s childhood challenges,” Anthony said.

“With all of that, Phyllis found time each year to recruit scores of volunteers for pro-life projects, time to give pro-life talks where medical credentials gave her special credibility, and time to serve the unborn child in countless other ways,” Anthony continued. “We have been regular visitors to Notre Dame these past 35 years. Beginning when our first child, Elizabeth, began her freshman year, we entrusted all eight of our children to Our Lady’s university, and they all thrived here by the grace of God and their own hard work,” he finished. 

Jennifer Newsome Martin, director of the de Nicola Center, commented on the award recipients, calling them both “models of pro-life values.”

“Both in the intimacy of their family life and in their respective professional lives – Tony with his tireless defense of the unborn through legislation at the local and national level and Phyllis as a volunteer physician at St. Francis Xavier Clinic, which offers medical care at no charge to women, children, and men who are uninsured or underserved in their community – the Lauingers model pro-life values with sincerity, generosity, and humility. Both their marriage and family life, and their professional work, strenuously resist a culture of death that would sanction such practices as abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and assisted suicide,” she said.

Newsom added: “[The Lauingers] trust courageously in their most deeply held conviction that ‘human life is a gift received in order then to be given as a gift’ (Evangelium Vitae, No. 92) and thus exemplify the virtues that Evangelium Vitae identifies as commensurate with living out the Gospel of life: ‘authentic freedom, actualized in the sincere gift of self,’ ‘respect for others, a sense of justice, cordial openness, dialogue, generous service, solidarity, and all the other values which help people to live life as a gift’ (Evangelium Vitae, No. 92).”

Petra Farrell, culture of life program manager for the de Nicola Center, told Today’s Catholic that the Lauingers “are just regular people like you and me, and in that, they are extraordinary. They chose to embrace this call and vocation to support life from conception to natural death. … The reason they landed on Tony and Phyllis this year is we really wanted to shine a light on the importance of family in the pro-life movement, and that is what we think will change the culture,” Farrell explained.

“It starts in the home. They have eight children who are just wonderful people. They live what they believe,” she said.

Ferrell continued: “This is a lifetime achievement award, and having Notre Dame’s support behind this pro-life award, means so much at Our Lady’s university. Especially, with Father Dowd’s presence in the last year, Notre Dame is living the mission – the call to declare that all life is sacred,” she said.

Before the dinner and award reception, Bishop Rhoades celebrated Mass at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. He praised the Lauingers for their determination.

“In Evangelium Vitae, Pope St. John Paul II reminded us that the Gospel of Life is inseparably ‘the Gospel of God’s love for man, the Gospel of the dignity of the (human) person,’” Bishop Rhoades said in his homily. “Anthony and Phyllis, like our past honorees, share the conviction expressed by Peter and the apostles when questioned by the Sanhedrin about their apostolic activity: ‘We must obey God rather than men.’ Filled with the strength of the Holy Spirit, Tony and Phyllis did not cease that activity.”

Clare Hildebrandt is a staff writer for Today’s Catholic.