Answers to the most frequently asked questions:

1. What is Spiritual Adoption?
Spiritual Adoption is a prayer for a child in danger of being killed in the womb. It lasts for nine months and consists in the daily recitation of one rosary mystery – joyful, luminous, sorrowful or glorious (Our Father and the ten Hail Marys) and special prayer for the intentions of the child and its parents. Prayers can be accompanied by voluntarily chosen good resolutions.

2. What additional resolutions could be made voluntarily?
Additional resolutions could include, for example, frequent confession and Holy Communion, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, reading of the Scriptures, fasting on bread and water, combating addictions, helping needy people, additional prayers like litanies, novenas, chaplets. Realistic decisions should be made, taking into account individual possibilities.

3. Can Spiritual Adoption be made without additional resolutions?
Yes. Additional resolutions are not obligatory, although adopters are willing to take them.

4. How was Spiritual Adoption started?
It was born after the apparitions in Fatima, becoming a response to the call of the Mother of God to pray the rosary, do penance and make atonement for the sins that most severely injure her Immaculate Heart. In 1987, Spiritual Adoption was begun in Poland. The first Spiritual Adoption Center was set up at the Pauline Fathers’ Church in Warsaw. From there, Spiritual Adoption spread throughout the country and beyond its borders.

5. What are the fruits of Spiritual Adoption?
Spiritual Adoption effectively treats deep internal wounds caused by the sin of abortion. It allows mothers to regain their faith in God’s mercy, bringing peace to their hearts. As a very concrete, disinterested and personal gift (prayer, sacrifice, and fasting), it helps (especially young people) to shape character, fight selfishness, discover the joy of responsible parenthood, and empower the perception of love and sex with the eyes of God. Teaching systematic prayer and positive action deepens contact with God. It helps to discover the deep meaning of neglected ascetic practices. It can become a factor in the rebirth of common prayer and love in families.

6. Who can undertake Spiritual Adoption?
Any person, including lay people, consecrated men and women, people of all ages. Children undertake Spiritual Adoption only under parental supervision.

7. How many times can you make a Spiritual Adoption?
You can make the commitment to spirtually adopt many times, provided you fulfilled your previous obligations.

8. Do you have to make vows each time?
Yes.

9. Can you adopt more than one child?
Spiritual Adoption concerns one child during the nine-month period.

10. Do we know which nationality will be an adopted child?
We do not know. The child’s name is known only to God.

11. How can I be sure that God will listen to my prayer?
Our confidence is based on faith in the omnipotence of God’s unlimited Divine Mercy. God is the giver of life and His will is that every conceived child will live and be surrounded by the love of parents.

12. Is it a sin if one day I forget to pray?
Forgetting is not a sin. Sin is a conscious and voluntary disregard of a promise made to God.

13. Is Spiritual Adoption stopped when the prayer has been neglected for a long time?
A long break (a month or two) breaks the Spiritual Adoption. You must then renew your promise and try to keep it. In case of a short break, Spiritual Adoption continues, extending the prayer by the number of days you did not pray.

14. Can Spiritual Adoption be undertaken by people living in non-sacramental relationships?
Yes, similarly as divorced people.

15. Is Spiritual Adoption made via radio valid?
Yes.

16. Do promises of Spiritual Adoption have to be submitted in a solemn manner, exclusively in the church in the presence of the priest?
It is desirable that the promises be performed solemnly, although they may be submitted privately, too.

17. Can Spiritual Adoption be undertaken by people who have not been involved in the preparation – sick, disabled, at an advanced age?
Yes. It can be undertaken privately.

18. How can you take vows privately?
Read the formula of the vows (preferably before the cross or holy image) and from this point for the next nine months say one of the freely chosen mysteries of the rosary and pray for the intention of the child and its parents. In order to remember the nine-month period to which you have committed to pray, it is a good idea to mark the start and end dates of the prayer.

19. How to promote the prayer of Spiritual Adoption?
Gather some people interested in Spiritual Adoption. Get permission of the parish priest to carry out the vows of Spiritual Adoption in the church.