The mission of Mater Filius is to defend life with love by providing housing, support, resources and spiritual guidance for any woman who is experiencing an unexpected or unsupported pregnancy.
By Reagan Scott
for the Register
In January, Bishop James Conley announced a new pro-life initiative in Lincoln, a maternity home for pregnant women in need called Mater Filius (Latin for “Mother and Child”). The mission of Mater Filius is to defend life with love by providing housing, support, resources and spiritual guidance for any woman who is experiencing an unexpected or unsupported pregnancy.
Mater Filius was founded in Mexico City in 2003 and has four other locations in the United States as well as other countries. Omaha residents and National Directors for Mater Filius US, Jim and Julie Mainelli, were instrumental in bringing Mater Filius to the US in 2012, and helped to open three other branches in Cincinnati, Colorado Springs and Milwaukee.
When Bishop Conley was approached about bringing Mater Filius to the diocese, he said he immediately felt that it was something that Lincoln needed. When he was a priest in Wichita, Bishop Conley was involved in opening a home for pregnant women and had thought about the prospect of doing something similar in Lincoln.
The Mater Filius home will provide women a safe, cost-free, family-like setting to live throughout their pregnancy and for eight months following the birth of their child. Children under the age of 5 are also welcome to live with their mothers at the home.
Mothers and their children will be provided a private room, transportation to appointments, jobs or school, life skills lessons and education assistance, should they be pursuing a GED or college degree.
Mater Filius is a Catholic lay organization, and will be entirely funded through the generosity of private donors and supported by trained volunteers.
The steering committee for Mater Filius Lincoln includes members of St. Teresa Parish, Mike and Elizabeth Fitzgerald and Patty and Greg Lang; and Cathedral parishioners Karen and Andrew Pease and Julie and Kelly Heftie. Msgr. Timothy Thorburn, pastor at Sacred Heart, serves as the chaplain.
Katie Patrick, the executive director for Catholic Social Services of Southern Nebraska, has also been instrumental in establishing Mater Filius in the diocese.
Patrick said she first heard about Mater Filius a few years ago when she was studying best practices for CSS to incorporate into St. Gianna Women’s Home in Lincoln, which serves women and children fleeing domestic violence or coercion into abortion.
When Patrick heard about Mater Filius Omaha, she reached out to its executive director couple, who invited her to tour the home and learn about the program. She said she was inspired and moved by the community life that the home offered to the women who stayed there, and the holistic approach to care for mothers and babies.
“What I love most about Mater Filius is that it cares for the whole person, the whole mother—supporting her spiritually, supporting her emotionally, supporting her physically with helping her meet basic needs, but also providing family and community support. It was just huge,” she said.
In 2024, Elizabeth Fitzgerald approached Patrick to ask if there was a need for maternal-child outreach in Lincoln. Patrick shared her vision for Mater Filius, and asked if Elizabeth would discern whether she would be called to be part of this new apostolate.
Elizabeth was well aware of the ongoing needs of single mothers, as the result of working as a labor and delivering nurse for 30 years.
“I saw the women come in to the hospital without any presence from the father of their baby, and oftentimes without sufficient support from family and friends,” she said. “They were such warriors. They said yes to their pregnancy, under their less-than-ideal circumstances, and they did it out of pure love for their child. It was so difficult at the time of discharge, with the uncertainty as to whom would be available to help them continue to care for themselves and their newborn in the postpartum period and as the years passed.”
Her husband Mike said the steering committee has met as a prayer group every Wednesday evening for the past year, and they fully believe that Mater Filius Lincoln is God’s mission and will operate on His time.
The team, working with the national Mater Filius office and Mater Filius Omaha, has been reminded several times that an apostolate like this is not like starting a business, but is more similar to serving as a mission outreach.
“It encourages us to be prayerful, patient and to continually seek the Holy Spirit’s divine direction,” he said. “This has been really helpful to us, as we lay the groundwork for this maternity home.”
So far, the team has set up its organizational infrastructure, secured non-profit status and established a location – a home owned by CSS in the boundaries of Sacred Heart Parish, which they will rent from the organization.
Patrick said her visit to Mater Filius Omaha coincided with purchase of the home by CSS. She said that the interior had been 80 percent gutted by the previous owner, who had been unable to complete the work, which allowed the home to be finished and designed according to the layout and requirements of Mater Filius.
Elizabeth said one question the steering committee often gets is how Mater Filius will differ from St. Gianna Women’s Home. While St. Gianna is set up for apartment-style living, at Mater Filius, women and their children will live as a family, together with other residents.
The residence includes a communal living and dining area, three private bedrooms, shared bathrooms and a chapel in the center of the home offering space for quiet prayer, with times for Mass and Adoration.
The chapel is being furnished by a grant from the St. Joseph the Protector Foundation. Msgr. Thorburn, architect Kevin Clark and Tim Brox, owner of Gloria Deo, are helping with design tasks. The altar, pews and chairs are being built and donated by Pat Ratigan of Ratigan-Schottler Manufacturing.
Bishop Conley said, “They put a lot of effort into the larger living spaces so that the women are with each other and they can talk, and the chapel’s right there. It’s really built to engender a community and a family atmosphere.”
One of the things that struck Bishop Conley about the Mater Filius model is that it is really intentional about helping the women who live there to build bonds and friendship with one another, and to model for their children what a family looks like, even though they might be a single mom. By preparing and sharing meals together the women will be able to grow closer to one another.
“One of the things that’s neat,” he said, “is they don’t put dishwashers in the kitchen because they want all of the residents to do dishes together. Because when you do dishes together and wash and dry, conversations begin. Everything is sort of geared towards communal living.’’
Mike works at CSS in the Family Support Services Program and sees and works with clients who have needs that Mater Filius can meet. He said that it was natural for him to want to help support them in an extended way.
“One of the key things that Mater Filius will do will be modeling Catholic family life, and a lot of them need that because they’ve said yes to life with their pregnancy but they don’t, many times, have a background of a strong family life, let alone Catholic life,” Mike said.
Patrick said part of the reason Mater Filius sees so much success with the women that it works with is because the mothers who live at the home are taught life, parenting and homemaking skills, “…just a lot of lessons that I think these women in vulnerable situations were never taught when they were children,” she said.
It is the steering committee’s hope that Mater Filius will be able to open its doors later this year. To meet this goal, they’ve embarked on a campaign to spread the word about Mater Filius and grow their support network.
The group has begun to visit and spread the word at parishes around Lincoln using a combination of ambo talks at the end of Mass, information tables and bulletin notices.
The steering committee’s primary objectives now are to raise funds to cover the home’s first year of operating expenses, and secure an executive director couple who will serve as a role model for a holy family, lead the mission of Mater Filius Lincoln and guide its organizational structure.
Mater Filius is actively seeking volunteers who will fill administrative, operational, spiritual, doula/mentoring and childcare roles, to name a few. There will be three paid positions for Mater Filius: two Ima (house mother) positions and a director position for the home’s Early Childhood Learning Center.
There will be a registry for home furnishings on the Mater Filius website so that the home and rooms can be decorated uniformly.
There is also an opportunity for parishes to sponsor rooms if they so choose, which was suggested by Bishop Conley, inspired by his time working with the home in Wichita. Any interested groups are invited to reach out.
Beyond the need for donations and time, the steering committee is also asking for the prayers of the diocese.
“We really want to expand our prayer team to include volunteers whose entire role will be to surround Mater Filius Lincoln with continual prayer,” Elizabeth said.
All are invited to Sacred Heart Church in Lincoln at 12:15 p.m. every Wednesday to pray the Rosary and hear mission updates.
Elizabeth said, “My hope is that within our Lincoln diocese, there will be mothers who will one day happily share their story and say, ‘I lived within this Nebraska community and felt overwhelmingly supported when I found out I was expecting a baby. I had numerous resources within the community, encouraging mentors who walked alongside me each step of the way and a loving family at Mater Filius Lincoln, who were instrumental in helping me create a successful pathway for both myself and my child.’”
Anyone interested in supporting the work of Mater Filius is encouraged to visit the organization’s website https://materfiliuslincoln.org/ where they can donate, learn more about the mission and submit a volunteer application. Groups or individuals may also reach out via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or to Elizabeth at 515-745-7866 and Mike at 402-416-1475.
