PHILADELPHIA (LifeSiteNews) — On Saturday, November 1 — the Solemnity of All Saints — Cardinal Gerhard Müller celebrated a Holy Mass at Our Lady of Czestochowa Shrine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on behalf of Mark Houck in gratitude for his acquittal from charges that led to an FBI raid in September 2022.
During that raid, FBI agents arrested Houck at gunpoint in front of his wife and seven children, who were in the family house. Cardinal Müller visited the Houck family on October 12, 2022, as LifeSite reported at that time.
Houck and his family – to include the smallest children of his large family who were then toddlers – were raided on the grounds that Houck pushed a pro-abortion escort who was harassing Houck’s son, whom the father simply tried to “protect,” according to Houck’s attorneys from the Thomas More Society.
As LifeSiteNews reported in 2023, Houck was acquitted of two felony charges after he was found not to have violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.
Childrens’ advocate Elizabeth Yore told LifeSite that she was very happy Cardinal Müller celebrated this Mass of Thanksgiving: “Those are the Houck children who had to endure the trauma of the FBI raid! They’ve been through so much as a family.”
Houck spoke about Cardinal Müller after the Mass: “Within weeks of this cross [of the FBI raid] that was being handed to us – I don’t know how he found out, but he found out – he came to our home, he blessed our children. He reclaimed our home for our family in the name of Jesus. And then what happened in the house? As a priest in church, he comforted us. He strengthened us. He pastorally cared for us.”
“And my wife and I thought: wouldn’t it be fitting to bring him back to us?”
At the end of a legal journey that acquitted Houck of the charges, the Houcks invited Cardinal Müller back to their home and wanted to thank him in public.
Houck also pointed out that Bishop Joseph Coffey was present at the Mass, calling him a “dear friend” and thanking him for his support. “He was the first bishop to reach out to us,” Houck added.
READ: Exclusive interview with Cardinal Müller: ‘A good Catholic is firm in the real faith’
The other bishop who reached out at the time in 2022 was Bishop Joseph Strickland, who was invited but could not come to the Mass.
“Those were the three bishops that reached out to our family, and we are so blessed to be able to be here with two of them,” Houck went on to say.
The pro-life activist also thanked the Pauline Fathers running the Shrine for “being with us” throughout his family’s trials and suffering.
Finally, Houck addressed the faithful present, whom his family invited to attend because they had been supporters as well. “We are grateful for your love, for your support,” he stated.
“We humbly await the next cross that Our Lord has in store for us, whatever that might be,” Houck concluded, adding that with the prayers of Cardinal Müller, Bishop Coffey, and the Pauline Fathers, “there is nothing we cannot do together.”
“We do not have it all together, but together we have it all together. Amen.”
READ: ‘The Church is not an NGO’: Cardinal Müller says bishops, pope must conform to Christ
Following Mass, the Houck family invited their guests to a reception on the premises of the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa to “break bread, as we did with His Eminence when he came to our house, and shared his great sense of humor with us, and broke bread, and told my son how much real men need spicy mustard.”
Brian Brown, one of Mark Houck’s supporters, posted on Instagram a short video of Cardinal Müller blessing the children of the Houck family and wrote:
At Mass of thanksgiving for the freedom of pro-life hero Mark Houck being celebrated at Our Lady of Czestochowa Shrine by Cardinal Müller and Bishop Coffey. I was blessed to be with Cardinal Müller to visit Mark Houck and his family after his unjust arrest and raid by Biden FBI in 2022. So glad that Mark was found innocent and is free and that Cardinal Müller could be here [in] Pennsylvania again three years later to celebrate his acquittal.
After his acquittal in early 2023, Houck had tried in 2024 to sue the Justice Department for the damage done to his family and himself, and to defend the civil rights of pro-lifers. However, the case was dismissed at the beginning of 2025.
