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Dan Medeiros
The Herald News
May 8, 2025
"FALL RIVER — The Diocese of Fall River on May 5 opened what Irina Robinson called 'an island of mercy for all families in need.'
Inside the walls of the new Faustina Center, freshly painted in calming pastel colors, are stacks of diapers, toys, racks of clothes. The center is intended to be a place for families and expectant mothers in need to receive material and financial help, counseling and spiritual support.
Robinson is director of the Family and Respect Life office of the diocese. She said she and her team have spent the past six years 'praying to find a place so we can expand our love, expand our compassion and our services to moms and families in need.'
Though the diocese has previously provided such services in the past at offices across Highland Avenue from the chancery, the group now has rooms set aside in another of the diocese’s properties solely to store supplies for needy families and expectant mothers-to-be.
'Here they will be seen, they will be heard, they will be loved, and we’ll try to provide for their needs as much as we can with God’s help,' Robinson said.
In a room packed with volunteers and well-wishers, Bishop Edgar da Cunha offered a blessing for the new center. Though borne out of the Catholic Church’s faith-based opposition to abortion services, da Cunha said the Faustina Center is a way to demonstrate not only religious guidance but compassion.
'Sometimes we need to do more than just tell them that it’s wrong. We need to also offer help and an alternative because some of them are desperate,' da Cunha said. 'They are not killing a baby because they are bad people, but because they find themselves in a situation where they don’t know what to do.'
Robinson said most of the clients her department serves are not Catholic, and most were not born in the United States – many are immigrants from Brazil, Haiti and Hispanic countries...
'We’re actually helping a mom that was living in a tent with her boyfriend,' Robinson said. 'And they were doing drugs and alcohol, found out they were pregnant – and they were like, ‘OK, now that we said yes to life and we’ll stop drinking … how are we going to provide for this baby?’'
Her department connected them with state services and has provided them, she said, with $3,000 of 'everything you can imagine' a struggling young family needs.
In another situation, she said, the center provided grocery gift cards to a 27-year-old father of two who was treated for colon cancer.
The center has provided needy young families with everything from money for groceries to baby clothes to diapers and more. Because it’s a faith-based organization, it’s also planning to offer spiritual teaching.
'We’re going to be offering classes for building virtue, like fatherhood, motherhood, womanhood, manhood – helping teens and young men and women find their way, whatever way that could look like,' Robinson said..."
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