Prolifers care about babies in the womb, of course. That’s part of what being pro-life is all about. But there’s something you notice when you spend time in the pro-life movement: Pro-life people are good at what comes after birth, too. So many of the prolifers I know are life pros—they know how to live good lives, sharing love and joy with everyone they meet.

One of the best life pros I ever encountered was a man named Peter Redpath. He died in April following a season of illness. To the end he was cheerful, gentle, generous, and kind. He was a pro at being alive. He loved people and God, and he knew that all would work out well in the end. He was pro-life, as solid a prolifer as you’ll ever find. It was because of that, I think, that he was a life pro, someone who cherishes the gift of living and wants to do good with the time on earth he’s been given.

Peter Redpath was my teacher. Not just mine, but that of countless others, too. For decades he taught philosophy at various colleges in the United States and at several correctional facilities. I knew him as Professor Redpath, and I suspect that was how he was addressed in all his other classrooms. Not just in America, but also, for instance, in Poland, where he was highly honored for his mastery of Thomistic philosophy, and in many other countries where he visited and taught. Some of his best students, Professor Redpath once said, were prisoners. I sit back in awe at the number of lives Professor Redpath changed for the better.

He changed my life, too. I was Professor Redpath’s student in an online program in Philosophy and Christian Wisdom he helped build at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Connecticut. His lectures were scintillating. Thomistic philosophy is hard, and we worked deep in the texts under Professor Redpath’s guidance. But his humor, and his humanity, pulled us through. He called himself a “ragamuffin Thomist,” and insisted that he learned big philosophical and life lessons growing up on the not-always-friendly streets of Brooklyn. He knew St. Thomas and Aristotle like the back of his hand. He wrote giant books, a lot of them, about philosophical history. But he wore his learning as lightly as a breeze. He taught us from the heart, moving effortlessly from the high-cerebral register to the pithy corner talk of his childhood New York.

The abstractions of the mind and the gritty details of human life are one and the same thing, he showed us, all part of the human person. He understood like no one else what a human being is, how we are all created to know and love God with all our hearts and minds and souls. It’s as simple as that (although try it and see how difficult it is!). He was a life pro in the most accessible way, a master philosopher opening door after intellectual door for learners sitting at his feet.

And he was the real deal outside the classroom as well. He was a family man, raising children with his beloved wife while doing good in his community—a model citizen, a loving father, a strong and caring husband, a stand-up man. A life pro. I wish everyone reading this could have met him and learned from him.

But Peter Redpath was not the only life pro in the pro-life movement. There are so many like him, freely sharing wisdom and light with those they encounter. They are good at living. They know that life is good. Prolifers like Peter Redpath, may God rest his soul, love life and want it in abundance—for everyone.