Award sheds light on archdiocesan pregnancy- and child-loss ministry
Gabriela Ross, archdiocesan director of the Office of Marriage and Family Life, second from right, accepts Red Bird Ministries’ Mission Star 2026 Chapter of the Year Award during the organization’s Boogie-with-the-Birdies event in Broussard, La., on April 17 (based this year on a disco theme). With her are the organization’s board chair Janet Morein Wood, left, and co-founders Kelly and Ryan Breaux. Red Bird Ministries is a non-profit organization providing resources—through a Catholic lens—to those who have experienced the loss of a child from pre-born through adult. (Submitted photo courtesy of Hannah Louise Photography of Lafayette, La.)
By Natalie Hoefer
Like the death of Christ leading to salvation, some victories in life stem from roots of tragic loss watered by tears of grief and nurtured by enduring faith.
So it is with the archdiocese receiving Red Bird Ministries’ (RBM) Mission Star 2026 Chapter of the Year award in March.
The events leading to the honor began with the heartbreaking loss Nicole and Nathan Coulombe suffered through two miscarriages.
In the fall of 2024, the couple searched online for Catholic-based help “that specifically addressed early infant loss, stillbirth, miscarriage—those hidden griefs someone may not know someone has lost,” says Nicole. “We looked at Catholic resources, one that serves couples and families, not just the mom.”
That search led them to RBM, a non-profit organization founded by devout Catholics that provides resources and accompaniment for those who have lost a child of any age, from pre-birth through adulthood.
The Coulombes found the organization so helpful, they wanted local Catholics experiencing heartbreak like theirs to benefit as well.
So, with the assistance of their pastor at Our Lady of the Greenwood Parish in Greenwood and the archdiocesan Office of Marriage and Family Life, they established an archdiocesan RBM chapter with a branch at their parish last year.
The efforts of all involved resulted in the archdiocese’s recent award from RBM.
But more importantly, says Office of Marriage and Family Life director Gabriele Ross, “Sharing about this award will help us to reach those families experiencing pregnancy or child loss” and “open doors to share about our miscarriage and child loss resources with the priests of the archdiocese who accompany these families.”
‘Helping a couple grieve together’
RBM was founded in 2018 by Kelly and Ryan Breaux of Breaux Bridge, La. According to the organization’s website, it provides “a Catholic grief support program exclusively for parents who have experienced the unthinkable, the loss of their child,” a demographic the couple knows well, having lost two children through miscarriage and two after birth.
Part of that support is directed toward those grieving. The organization offers direct accompaniment through phone calls and spiritual direction, as well as online and app-based written, audio and visual resources for parents, siblings, families and friends of those experiencing the loss of a child, from pre-born to adult, for any reason, from miscarriage through suicide.
“They do just a wonderful job in that you’re not alone,” says Nicole. “And it’s all with the Catholic element of respect for life.”
She and Nathan, who have a 4-year-old child, found RBM’s resources on grief particularly helpful—especially when they lost their third child through miscarriage last June.
“Going through grief is different from women to men,” Nicole says. “I feel like their resources are wonderful for both sexes and for helping a couple grieve together. It helped me better understand that Nathan was focused on pulling our family together. He was still grieving, but in a different way from me breaking down and crying. …
“We still grieved, and it was hard and difficult. But we kind of knew what to do, where to turn, what was normal. It was just a totally different experience, having the resources already.”
Nathan appreciates that RBM “supports the family, the father as well. There are many programs just for women, like the dad doesn’t exist.”
RBM also provides resources and training for clergy and lay ministry leaders to help those mourning the loss of a pre-born, young, adolescent or adult child “understand grief, navigate its complexities and take practical steps toward healing” that is “rooted in Catholic teaching” and “centered in the healing power of the sacraments,” its website states.
“I had Red Bird on my radar for several years as the national leader in grief ministry that intentionally incorporated and was rooted in our Catholic faith,” says Ross. “But as a diocesan leader, I knew that starting a local chapter is not something one person could do on their own. It would take a partnership between the diocese and local leaders at a parish.
“So, I prayed and kept an eye out.”
Her prayers were answered late in 2024.
‘We definitely saw a need’
After discovering RBM that fall, the Coulombes approached their pastor Father Todd Goodson about starting a chapter, and he contacted Ross.
“I told him I was familiar with Red Bird and had been praying for leaders in our archdiocese so we could begin the ministry here,” she says.
“And we definitely saw a need” for the ministry, Ross says of her office.
When she contacted Nathan and Nicole early in 2025, they “shared how many families at their parish opened up to them about their hidden struggles with pregnancy loss, once the Coulombes began to tell their story and share their hope of starting a parish ministry,” she says.
“And on the diocesan level, I regularly hear from priests, deacons and parish lay staff who are accompanying families through pregnancy and child loss and are looking for resources to offer their families.”
Ross would point them to her office’s online resource page and other materials.
“But losing a child is an extraordinary cross to carry, and what helps the most is having someone to carry it with you,” she notes. “By having a local [RBM] chapter, we now have a place where parents can go to meet other local parents who have been carrying that cross a little longer and can enter into their grief without fear, while providing their own witness of faith and hope.”
Together, Ross and the Coulombes started an archdiocesan RBM chapter in 2025. They pursued and received a grant last June through the Catholic Community Foundation’s Growth and Expansion fund for Our Lady of the Greenwood Parish to launch the ministry, where the focus will be “on the younger side of child loss,” says Nicole.
With money from the grant, the Coulombes received RBM’s “companion couple” training to learn how to accompany other couples going through child loss.
The grant also helped fund other RBM offerings at the parish: small support group materials, a library of resources, an in-person workshop for grieving parents, and resource material handed out last November after the parish’s Requiem Mass for infants lost before baptism.
The Coulombes are now looking for couples “on the other side” of child loss to receive RBM training.
And in the fall, a combination in-person/virtual study of the Breaux’s book, Restoring Love: A Couple’s 33-Day Guide for Healing and Restoration After Child Loss, will be offered at Our Lady of the Greenwood and open to Catholics from neighboring parishes.
But those suffering from child loss are not the only people the archdiocese’s RBM chapter seeks to help.
‘Priests are our first line of help’
Nicole recalls the couple reaching out to Father Goodson in the midst of their grief, seeking the comfort of a special blessing for couples who have suffered a miscarriage.
“Our priests are our first line of help, like EMTs,” when it comes to child loss, she says. “They field, they listen, they can refer couples or material to us.
“But for them to know what resources are available and even just how to talk with couples during their loss is just huge.”
Making priests in central and southern Indiana aware of RBM’s resources is one of the goals of the archdiocese’s chapter.
Receiving the organization’s Chapter of the Year award “opened doors to share about our miscarriage and child loss resources with the priests of the archdiocese at their April meeting, where they received information and prayer cards to share with families,” says Ross.
“After my presentation at that meeting, I had conversations with clergy who are interested in learning more about grief support for parents after pregnancy loss … .”
Ross notes that “some statistics say one in four families will experience pregnancy or child loss.”
She hopes through word of the award, “more pastoral leaders will become aware of the need to break the silence about pregnancy and child loss and let their families know that their parish is a safe place to bring their grief and to honor their child or children.”
RBM offers a workshop for clergy to learn about the information and skills needed to support parents and families who lost a child.
“It would be wonderful to see the archdiocese adopt that,” says Nicole. “But right now, we’re just taking baby steps.”
Receiving RBM’s Mission Star award proves those small steps were made in exemplary fashion.
A sign of God’s care for little souls ‘gone too soon’
In an e-mail to The Criterion, Kelly Breaux notes the archdiocese received the award “because of the extraordinary intentionality, leadership and heart [the Coulombes and Ross] have brought to grief ministry from the very beginning.”
She compliments the three for demonstrating “what it looks like to build accompaniment with both vision and action. … Their leadership reflects the very heart of what we hope the Church can become for grieving families: present, intentional, compassionate, and willing to walk closely with those who suffer.”
The Coulombes say receiving an award was not on their minds when they helped establish the archdiocese’s Red Bird Ministries chapter.
“We just want to get information out there, because you don’t know you need the information until you need it,” says Nicole.
Nathan agrees.
“We just want to support others who go through [early child loss] and make sure that they have resources and know where to find good information,” he says.
Ross calls the award “very affirming.”
“God saw fit to bring this ministry to the spotlight through this award,” she says. “I can’t help but see this as a sign of the closeness and care that God has for the littlest souls that were gone too soon, and the grieving parents and families who miss them.”
(For information on how to start Red Bird Ministries in a parish, contact Gabriela Ross, director of the Office of Marriage and Family Life, at 317-592-4007 or gross@archindy.org. For more information on Red Bird Ministries and to access their resources or app, go to redbird.love. For more pregnancy loss and child loss resources, go to marriageandfamily.archindy.org/miscarriage.) †
