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Honoring commitments in business, pro-life activities
By Lou Baldwin
Special to The CS&T
Pro-life activism isn’t easy. People who are committed to the cause are sometimes labeled fanatics. They are constantly running up against indifference or lukewarm support, and often perceive little progress. Over time, many formerly ardent pro-lifers give up the cause.
Not so for Eugene “Gene” Krueger, who wears two hats. He’s founder and president of National Fulfillment Services in Holmes, Delaware County, and local organizer of the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants, a group that conducts monthly Saturday prayer vigils before various abortion clinics in the five counties of the Archdiocese.
“We have seven Helpers pilgrimages every month,” he said.
He concedes that legal abortion isn’t likely to be eradicated completely in his lifetime.
“My commitment is to Jesus Christ,” he said. “Jesus Christ demands I stand up for life. Whether or not laws change makes no difference to that.”
Krueger, who was born in New Hampshire, attended St. Dorothy School in Drexel Hill, West Philadelphia Catholic High School, Msgr. Bonner High School and finally St. Joseph’s College.
That was the late 1950s, and he remembers the president, Jesuit Father J. Joseph Bluett, leading 400 to 500 willing students of the then-all male college in the rosary every noon. The habit stuck. Praying the rosary is the hallmark of the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants.
Krueger married the former Barbara Dooley in 1961 and they raised seven children, Kathleen, Tom, Tim, Carolyn, Matt, Jenny and Nancy, in St. Dorothy Parish.
After college, he taught science at Msgr. Bonner for three years, then started his business, which originally focused on the redesigning and writing computer programs for other companies. Through client requests, it evolved into what it is today. National Fulfillment, with a staff of about 180 people, warehouses, packs and ships orders for its mostly catalog-client companies.
His business philosophy centers on integrity, truthfulness and honoring commitments, traits he attributes to his Catholic upbringing and the strong parental guidance in his early life.
The organizational skills honed through 43 years of running his own company have stood him in good stead during his pro-life outreach, Krueger believes. “You know what has to be done, you make plans and you execute them,” he said.
Krueger’s involvement in pro-life activities began through contacts made through the Charismatic Renewal in the mid-1970s. A priest told him they were killing babies at Crozer Chester Hospital and he went the next Saturday to pray the rosary in front of the hospital. The next year he and Barbara began visiting schools to spread the pro-life message.
That led to other pro-life efforts, including participation in the rescue movement in the 1980s and ongoing weekly Mass and prayer meetings for the unborn.
It was in the early 1990s that Krueger heard about the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants, a non-confrontational movement initiated in Brooklyn by Father Philip Reilly. “We started it here in 1993,” Krueger said.
Helpers of God’s Precious Infants is a strictly volunteer movement with no formal structure, although Krueger is generally acknowledged as the leader in the Philadelphia area, with Father John McFadden as the spiritual director.
Typically, early on Saturday morning people will meet for Mass at a church near an abortion facility, process to the clinic for the recitation of the rosary and other prayers, then return to the church for Benediction. At the clinic it is purely prayer and witness.
On the other hand, Krueger is convinced it is necessary to “challenge others on the issue.” Until middle-of-the-road Catholics start standing up for life, nothing will happen, he said.
“Barbara and I are committed to this, no matter what happens.”
Lou Baldwin is a member of St. Leo Parish and a freelance writer.