(LifeSiteNews) — My dear friends, I have some important news to share with you today.

Steve Jalsevac will be retiring from LifeSiteNews.com after nearly half a century of service to the pro-life movement.

Steve was once an atheist, but he came to recognize the extraordinary injustice of abortion and to dedicate himself wholeheartedly to the battle to defend our unborn babies. He recalled:

The miracle of seeing our first child born after my conversion, and then seeing aborted baby photos, opened my eyes wide to the horror of abortion. I then realized I had been completely duped by the abortion movement.

In April 1977, after what he described as “a dramatic spiritual conversion,” Steve became involved in Campaign Life Coalition, Canada’s leading pro-life organization, as a volunteer while running a large and successful paint and wallpaper business.

After a decade of voluntary work, Steve sold his business and took on a full-time position at CLC. He later described his role as “doing everything imaginable, including writing, research, speaking, fundraising, photography, videography, setting up their first computer network, political lobbying, organizing special events, and on and on.”

Steve and I co-founded LifeSiteNews back in 1997 with support from CLC.

Steve explained:

There was a desperate need for this because of the terrible coverage pro-life initiatives were receiving in all the mainstream media. CLC had a unique international focus and understanding of the “big picture” of all the forces behind the anti-life, anti-family movement. We continued and greatly expanded on that approach to countering the culture of death. I have always been immensely grateful for having been given the opportunity to do this work for God.

What began as a Canadian email news service quickly grew into a website of international reach and reputation.

Steve played a key role at every stage of this expansion. In fact, in the early days, it was only Steve and I who were responsible for the news that appeared on LifeSite. And Steve has always remained a significant writer on LifeSite, even as his other responsibilities evolved.

Throughout this time his family continued to grow. Today, he and his wife Bonnie have eight children and – so far – 30 grandchildren.

For decades, Steve has fought to protect children, before and after birth, from the evils that threaten them, including abortion, corrupting sex education, and gender ideology. He is one of the great defenders of marriage and the family that Canada has produced in our time. His commitment to these truths has always been an inspiration to me and to our team.

Steve has also played a pivotal role in expanding LifeSiteNews’s coverage into other areas related to the core of our work defending human life and the family. In 2020 he was at the forefront of LifeSiteNews’ resistance to the global COVID tyranny. He led the way in researching vital issues such as the COVID-19 vaccine, the globalist depopulation agenda, and the threats to the nation state and the family emanating from global institutions.

Commenting on LifeSiteNews’s early and prophetic resistance to COVID tyranny, Steve has noted that LifeSiteNews is “simply open-minded much more than others to the reality of evil and had encountered research from relatively obscure persons whose research was impeccable on totalitarian minded movements and personalities.”

He continued:

I also extensively studied communism in university and read all the Solzhenitsyn novels. That is, the depravity of elites was a known, historical entity to me. I knew for a fact there was nothing, no matter how depraved, that some persons and movements would not do to advance their ideological goals. I knew that Satan was a real being who wanted to destroy all of mankind through humans who let him take over their hearts and minds.

Most recently, he has provided leadership within the LifeSiteNews team on the issue of Israeli policy and actions in Gaza.

Steve has been at the heart of the LifeSiteNews team since the beginning, generously sharing his expertise and his love of truth with each new generation of journalists.

He exemplifies the virtues that he saw in others who engaged in pro-life work. As he wrote:

There are special, unexpected rewards given to those who humbly give their all to do this usually very difficult work… One has to be disposed to it and to be able to endure frequent lack of normally expected results from good efforts that would otherwise be experienced in a business or other career.

He continued:

Pro-life work involves enduring a great deal of irrationality, frequent criticisms, lack of support from those whom one would naturally expect to be supported by and the negative reactions from institutionally minded persons and leaders who are blinded by ambition, intellectual pride, comfort, fear and not willing to endure any risk to their personal reputation.

It has been a great learning experience about human nature unlike any other. It separates the proud from the meek, the courageous from the cowardly, those who prize security from those who trust in God.

We owe Steve a debt of gratitude for decades of courageous journalism and for his extraordinary contribution to the growth of our organization.

As he leaves LifeSiteNews to begin his well-deserved retirement, we extend our thanks to him for a life of service and a job well done. We wish Steve, his wife Bonnie, and his whole family many happy years ahead.

Thank you, Steve!