The worshipers prayed at the Chapel of Mary, Mother of the Unborn, for the souls of those they call innocent victims of abortion, a social policy they abhor.

"We did a service for children, as well as for expectant couples and for adoptive parents," said Monsignor Dino M. Zeni, pastor of St. Rosalia-Regina Pacis parish, whose 1230 65th Street Street Dyker Heights church houses the chapel.

The May 15 service marked the 10th anniversary of the chapel's founding, when Archbishop Renato Martino, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, dedicated the sanctuary and gave its first homily.

"It was started naturally about the abortion issue, because we're so adamant against it. But people come here to pray for other reasons, too. They pray for a safe delivery, for a child to be born healthy, for people to get pregnant and for help in bringing a child up properly," Zeni said.

The one-hour service was presided over by Bishop Ignatius Catanello, the Brooklyn diocese's auxiliary bishop.

The service followed what diocese spokesperson Frank DeRosa called a "prayer vigil" by some 100 coreligionists at a Sunset Park woman's clinic. The facility performs abortions and offers other services.

Led by Brooklyn-Queens diocese Bishop Thomas Daily and Msgr. Ronald T. Marino, director of the area's Catholic Migration office, the faithful stood to one side of the Brooklyn Women's Ambulatory Surgery Center entrance in Sunset Park to genuflect and show their opposition to the medical procedure.

"It was also Msgr. Marino who first set up the Chapel of Mary," DeRosa said.

DeRosa added that while both events were held on the same day, "and both display the church's concern for the value of life and the unborn child," they were not planned to occur as successive events.

Contested Terrain

The . . . medical facility is the site of frequent competing demonstrations by pro-choice and pro-life activists. The clinic was in the news last fall when then-Lieutenant Governor Betsy McCaughey Ross, a gubernatorial candidate, brought her campaign to the facility's doorstep to pledge continued support for "a woman's right to choose." She and her supporters decried what she called efforts by abortion critics to "shut the clinic and harass and intimidate patients" by keeping them from availing themselves of any of the clinic's many health services, including abortions.

Shirley Ranz, president of the National Organization for Women's Brooklyn chapter, who joined some 50 protesters at a counter-demonstration by the Brooklyn Pro-Choice Network against the Saturday vigil, said she attended because "I want to protect choice. The goal of these people is to close down all clinics. We cannot let that happen.

Asked if she objected to the diocese's activities in the Chapel of Mary shrine as well, she said, "As long as they keep it in a church, I don't have any problem with it."