Last Updated: Friday - 09/24/2010

Leading pro-life priest dies at age 89

ST. CLOUD, MINN. - Benedictine Father Paul Marx, the founder and former president of Human Life International, died March 20 in Minnesota at St. Cloud Hospital. He was 89.

Often referred to as "the father of the international pro-life movement," Marx visited 91 countries in his four decades of pro-life activism.

A biography of the priest on the website of St. John's Abbey said Planned Parenthood "labelled him as 'public enemy No. 1.'"

The site said he "was driven in his belief that life begins at the moment of conception, that life is a sacred gift from God, and that the family is the most important unit of society."

Marx, who was born in St. Michael, Minn., was once told by the late Pope John Paul II: "You are doing the most important work on earth."

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