Editor's Note: Congressman Chris Smith, R-NJ addressed the 20th Annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. Please find the full transcript of his remarks below.

Thank you very much for that very kind introduction. And you know, I look around as I walk through, I know most of you. It's amazing. And you are the warriors. You're the people who have done it every single day, faithful to our Lord's admonitions in Matthew 25: "When I was hungry, did you feed me? Whatever you do to the least of these, you do likewise to me." 

And that is what we have, and you have tried to do so faithfully and have succeeded so amazingly. So I want to thank you for that. I'll be very brief because I know the Vice President is coming.

I work a lot on religious freedom and Tim just mentioned the legislation we did to help the Chaldean Catholics. Carl Anderson is sitting back there in number 32. He provided testimony and insights that became the law. The points that he made and the contacts that he had, made that law possible. So I want to thank him. He's been amazing on a myriad of fronts, including helping those Christians who have been neglected by the administration. Thanks, Carl. 

You know, from Nigeria to Nicaragua, and I have a hearing coming up, again on Nigeria, where more Christians have been killed than in any other country in the world simply because they're Christians. I know Archbishop Kaigama very well and actually went to Jos, and this is like 15 years ago when his churches were being firebombed by Boko Haram. Just an amazing, courageous bishop, and now he's in Abuja as the bishop there. Just amazing.

Nicaragua, look what's happening there. A great bishop who Daniel Ortega incarcerated, as well as the attacks that he has leveled against the church, which is just unconscionable. And then China, there's so many countries, but in China, and you know, our Gospel this past weekend was Luke 6. And I remember in 1994 meeting with Bishop Su of Baoding Province. Now, Bishop Su is a man who spent decades in prison. He went back to prison soon after visiting with my delegation in Beijing. He celebrated Mass, but he talked about how he loved his tormentors and prayed for them. He hated being in prison, but he lived out the Gospel as, again, as articulated in Luke 6 just this past week, of loving your enemies, do good to those who persecute you. 

And you know, when I get an editorial or 30-second ads run against me, I have a hard time dealing with Luke 6. I want to go at 'em! So, to see in his eyes that beautiful love even for his enemies, it's inspired me ever since. So I want to just acknowledge him. We think he may have passed away, but an amazing bishop like we have clergy all over the world.

I would like to recognize my dear wife, Marie, who I met more than 50 years ago in the pro-life movement. Who would have thought that the pro-life movement would be a dating service? It was just lunch, but I met her. At first, she didn't want to go out with me. I made her treasurer because I was the president. She became the president of the pro-life group. Marjorie Dannenfelser, her husband, we co-established that pro-life college group, and I wore her down, and she finally went out with me. And now we've been happily married for 47 years. She has been — Marie has been and continues to be — a powerful, talented, and incredibly wise, faith-filled pro-life leader, especially in the battle to defend human life around the world, serving on several Holy See delegations at the UN and through an organization that she founded two decades ago called the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues, knowing that the other side is so organized. They have the money, of course, Soros and all the others, Planned Parenthood, there's the deep pockets there, but we can beat them through strategy and by finding like-minded fellow pro-lifers around the world. And Marie's been doing that as have so many of you, but she has been a leader.

Words are inadequate to express my love, my respect, my admiration, adoration, and gratitude for her. When facing a major health challenge this past year that was catastrophic, her faith and her indomitable spirit helped bring about a recovery, but so many of you who knew about it, prayed for her, and I can't thank you enough, 'cause I do, as do you, believe in the power of prayer. So thank you for that. She is recovering and she is here at table 32 with me and Carl Anderson and his wife with us as well. 

And Tim mentioned this, is our youngest daughter, Elise. She's an attorney. Her husband, Julio, works with ADF. They're strong pro-life leaders. She was the head of the UVA pro-life organization when she was in undergrad, and she's expecting her third child. It's our ninth grandchild. So Lee, great to see you always.

Also a special thanks to the Catholic Prayer Breakfast leadership for this wonderful 20th annual prayer breakfast. You know, as Mark said in the beginning, our Lord said, you know, "Wherever two or more gather, there I am." He's in this with angels and saints, I'm sure, when you have so many people like-minded who believe so passionately in the power of prayer and in our Lord Jesus Christ, as well as the Blessed Mother. We have a special devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, and I know many of you do, and other apparitions that she has had over the centuries. So I just want to thank you again for this  award. Thank you so much.

You know, St. John Paul the Great's Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici, made clear, it was mentioned earlier, and I went and read it. I had read about it, I never read it, but I read it this week,  cover to cover. It's very long, but one of the things, the biggest things that you pull out from it, he says, do not—there is no place for idleness, no place. He also said that the laity has a co-responsibility for the church. You know, we need the clergy, the clergy, they can't do it alone, and we as the laity need to be right there by their side helping. And I loved when he said in part of it, in public life, it is for everyone and by everyone. Thankfully, the amazing people in this room, the laity and the religious alike, have answered the call.

Marie and I have been richly blessed in our own diocese. We have a great Bishop, David O'Connell, who takes so seriously the defense of human life, and so I'm so happy that we are blessed by him. And one of the things, next to Marie's workstation, she's got a great big poster of St. John Paul the Great, and I love this quote:

 'Never tire of firmly speaking out in defense of life from its conception, and do not be deterred from the commitment to defend the dignity of every person with courageous determination.' 

What an admonition that is to each and every one of us, even though at times we get tired and grow weary. I know I do. None of us have the luxury of growing weary. The existential threats to life and human dignity today have entered a new phase that absolutely begs our time, our talent, and our intervention.

Abortion, as you know, and you know, the introduction of the pro-life members who are here today, Dan Lipinski, Jeff Fortenberry. Lipinski, who was a courageous pro-life Democrat, and others, all of them that are here. Josh Hawley who fights in the Senate today, it is a huge battle, and we will not shrink from our responsibility. But abortion has become a weapon of mass destruction. We all have very deep concerns about nuclear weapons, other weapons of mass destruction, but abortion is a weapon of mass destruction. More than 66 million babies have been aborted in the U.S. since 1973. A numbing death toll of children that equates with every man, woman, and child living in the nation of France, or looked at another way, more than the populations of Texas, Florida, and Illinois combined. What a loss of life!

As never before, we need to expose abortion methods. You know, there's a segment of society, particularly the elite, especially the media, that have chosen to be blind to the realities of brutally dismembering helpless babies or poisoning babies with pills. You know, the pill is baby poison. I met with the Secretary-General of the UN, Guterres, in my office. I meet with them frequently, and while talking, he said the UN is all in in disseminating the abortion pill all over Africa and all over the world. I said, "Do you know how it works? It starves the baby to death." He didn't know. His staff didn't know, at least they put on an air that they didn't know. I said, "You and I, Mr. Secretary-General, worked very, very hard on world hunger mitigation. How could you now turn around and starve to death people who are in the womb, little children, boys and girls?"

The risks to women from what is euphemistically called 'medication abortion' must be exposed as well, including the sham trials that purported to demonstrate safety, non-reporting of adverse events, and dispensing this dangerous pill by mail. Under Clinton, Obama, and Biden, the FDA politicized the process, and we fought it all the way and lost. They had the power to do it, but now we have a president who I think will expose the harmful impacts on women that have been grossly underreported,  especially since the Biden administration.

We know that the cruel injustice of abortion need not be forever, that each day, despite setbacks, unborn children and their mothers have been and are being protected by the grace of God, and we are moving towards a culture of life coming to America and coming to the world.

Finally, just let me say, since the reversal of Roe v. Wade, achieved by three Supreme Court Justices that President Trump appointed and authored by Justice Alito, who's from Marie's hometown of Hamilton Township, an amazing opinion; half the states today have laws to protect unborn children. And according to our good friends over [at] Susan B. Anthony List — Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America — over 200,000 children have been saved over two years.

President Trump has issued several executive orders, including reinstatement of the Mexico City Policy, although it is not fully in effect, we need guidance, and we're waiting for that. Reversing Biden's hijacking of the global health funding, including the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. I was all in and still am all in for PEPFAR, but not when you double-hat it and say, 'Oh, we're also going to push the abortion issue and change laws all over the world.' And that's what the guidance that came out of Biden clearly stated, and that's what they've been doing through NGOs like Planned Parenthood, DKT International, and many others. So this is really, really important.

We also need to continue to fight for pregnancy care centers at home and abroad. Many of those centers are under siege. I remember years ago, I was at a pregnancy care center fundraiser. Two ladies stood up and thanked the director because she was outside of an abortion mill in Middlesex County, New Jersey, and she said, 'Please reconsider,' totally, totally benign approach to them, and they said, 'We will,' and they were helped. They gave marvelous testimony later in the program. Two young girls, 12, 13 or so, got up, talked about school and what they're doing on [for] life, and then they looked at the director and said, 'Had you not been there that day, we would have been dead.' And that's what is missing. You know, we've got all of these governors, including my own Governor Murphy, who are trying to shut down pregnancy care centers, and of course, the last administration was going overboard to do that.

So finally, again, I just, I can't say enough. Mention has been made, says, 'Please wrap up,' so I will. You know, I've learned to be a little shorter and more succinct over the years, and I know Jeff Fortenberry will like this because I heard him say this once before. I spoke at a Lyme disease conference. I am the caucus chair, and they said, 'You got the keynote.' I said, 'How long you want me to speak?' They said, 'You got an hour.' I took an hour and five minutes. At the end of it, this little girl came up, and she said, 'Mister, a lot of families were at that conference. It was here in Washington. 'Your speech was long and boring.' She spun around and walked away. A few minutes later, her father showed up, and he said, 'You know, I saw you talking to my little daughter, Melissa. I just want you to know, she's at that awkward age. She just repeats whatever she hears.'

We need to fight as we are, this church, this marvelous church of ours, you the faithful, and us too, for trafficking victims, for persecuted believers of all kinds, whether it be Uyghurs in China. We just need to up our game, and we are trying, and there is no place for idleness. 

Thank you so much.