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Episode Description
The TCA team descends on the campus of Notre Dame for a conference on feminine genius and women in the church, discussing the teachings of Pope Saint John Paul II, what Catholic feminism truly is, and the role of women within the church, the family, and the world. The conference presents a positive counter vision to distorted narratives about women in our culture and illuminates perspectives that are firmly grounded in church teachings. The entire team broadcasts from the campus’ radio station and speaks with some of the conference’s panelists about women and the church.
With the release of USCIRF’s report on religious freedom, Maureen Ferguson joins to highlight some of the worst areas of religious persecution across the globe, including Nicaragua and Nigeria. The religious freedom watchdog agency calls for sanctions for violations against Catholic clergy, religious organizations, charities, and the lay faithful, and for the immediate cessation of funding by international organizations to dictatorial regimes.
Msgr. Roger Landry also offers guidance as we continue our Lenten journey, urging all of us to make time for the sacrament of reconciliation.
Bios
Maureen Ferguson is a Commissioner for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), and formerly a Senior Fellow with The Catholic Association and co-host of the nationally syndicated radio show, Conversations with Consequences. She serves on the Advisory Committee for the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame. Ms. Ferguson is on the Advisory Board of The Belmont House, an initiative of Belmont Abbey College that seeks to restore civil society, cultivate religious freedom, and reclaim the public square for the common good. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.
Monsignor Roger Landry is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts. He writes for numerous publications, speaks on radio and TV, and is the author of the book, Plan of Life: Habits to Help You Grow Closer to God. A graduate of Harvard and the Pontifical North American College in Rome, he served as Attaché to the Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the UN in New York. Father Landry traversed the full 1500-mile Eucharist Pilgrimage in 2024 and joined the historic Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, an event which coincided with his 25th year in the priesthood. He was recently appointed the new National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the USA.
The following transcript is machine generated.
Episode 310 Transcript
| Ashley | Hello friends, and welcome to Conversations with Consequences. We are the radio show and podcast of the Catholic Association where we aim to change the culture one conversation at a time. You can listen to conversations with consequence sources on the EWTN Global Catholic Radio Network Saturday mornings at 7 a.m. Eastern or catch the encore at 5 p.m.. We are also on Sirius XM Channel 130. Of course, our radio show is also a podcast. Go to the Catholic Association dot org or directly to wherever you listen to your podcast. |
| Mary | Welcome to Conversations with Consequences on EWTN Radio. I am your host, Mary Fiorito. |
| Ashley | And I'm Ashley McGuire. |
| Mary | And we are alongside today our entire TCA crew. This is such a treat and we'd like to welcome Lee Snead and Betsy Fentress. |
| Leigh | Thank you, Mary. We're so happy to be all be together. |
| Mary | It's funny, this is the first time we have actually all been together in the flesh. And we are here for it, not for a football game. We are here for a wonderful conference called True Genius The Mission of Women in the Church and Culture. And you, if you're our regular listeners, will be very familiar with a lot of the names of the speakers here. They are often guests on our show. So we are really just so pleased to be here in person, to hear them and to interact with them, and then to share a little bit about what's going on at this terrific conference with all of you. So, ladies, what has struck a chord with you so far from what we've heard? |
| Ashley | Well, I, in the opening remarks, was struck by the fact that this conference is so incredibly necessary because we're arguing right now in our culture about even the meaning of woman. And you'd think that in 2025, we wouldn't need to have a conference discussing even the basics of what is a woman and and why does that matter? But it's it's clearly something our culture needs, our church needs. And I was really struck by the way that Angela Frank sort of brought us through the I don't know if evolution is the right word, but the progression of church teaching and the way the church has continually rose with the changes in the culture, you know, the Industrial revolution and that its teachings have remained consistent but have also adapted to changing times. And that was really, I don't know, just it was exciting and was just sort of a reminder of why I love being Catholic. |
| Mary | Right. Well, you know, I love how she she talked about the development of doctrine and then distinguished it from the church changing doctrine. And because there are two very different things. And she had a terrific quote from the papal nuncio to Spain complaining about Saint Teresa of Avila, who broke a lot of barriers for women back in the day. And the Council of Trent had indicated that women religious needed to be cloistered, that they couldn't be active, contemplative. And Saint Teresa of Avila in her with her very dramatic personality, really broke that mold. And there's a particularly funny line where she quotes the papal nuncio as saying she speaks as if she's a doctor of the church. So and and as Dr. Frank said, that did not age well for the poor papal nuncio and. |
| Leigh | The image she chose to accompany that. Yes, just. |
| Mary | A very stern picture. Yes, sir. |
| Ashley | Southern, I think she said, ticked off. |
| Mary | Well, and I love to that We're really delving into so much of what Saint John Paul, the second had to say. There was a video that was circulating on Twitter last week, and it must have been, I'm guessing, somewhere in 1980, 1981. It was early into his papacy and it's him visiting New York and somebody I don't know why takes him to the batting cages and he takes off part of his cape, you know, his white cape, and starts hitting balls in the batting cages in New York. It's marvelous. And, you know, he was really quite a naturally gifted athlete. you know, very much so. And that was it was so wonderful to watch it. And you just think of the many, many, many ways that he had people thinking differently and a whole host of different issues. Right. And so we've we've just acknowledged the 30th anniversary of Evangelion V2, which was groundbreaking in many respects, particularly in terms of capital punishment and, you know, preferential options for the poor and how that plays into other pro-life issues. But also he had very interesting and groundbreaking thoughts on women. |
| Leigh | Yeah, he sure did. Yeah. I'm really looking forward to hearing a lot of these talks over the next couple of days. Betsy, what are you looking forward to most? |
| Betsy | Well, I liked how John Carradine, he set the stage this morning and he said, we're not just talking about preserving tradition, but as Ashley said, developing it. And I think all the women at this conference have kind of devoted their life, the speakers, to figuring out how to develop it. And, you know, I think there's going to be some stops and starts and people are going to disagree on the word feminist or feminism or working inside of the home or outside of the home. And I am just so happy to be a listener right now and taking lots of notes. One of the things I wanted to highlight I was looking over John Paul, the second letter to women before the conference started and and John Carradine referenced it that he said, Thank you every woman for the simple fact of being a woman. And when I was growing up, my mom said, there's two things that you always need to learn how to say is, I love you and thank you, and I'm sorry. Three things. And I noticed that that John Paul the second does this. And there is something else in the letter where he apologizes for any hurt that the church has caused to women. And so he he's just so prescient in the needs of what we women need to hear. |
| Leigh | Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And I thought that was one of the great ways that having Angela talk first. Dr. Frank's talk first this morning was a great sort of like revving up of all the great things. We're going to cover this over the next three days and all the issues and I think giving everyone sort of the same sort of grounding like everyone, we're all now we're going to be launched off into these other like expertise. And we've got a couple of lawyers talking and we've got theologians and, you know, philosophers. And I think it's. |
| Ashley | It. |
| Leigh | I like to how it's a predominantly female crowd. It's always nice and comfortable, but I do like that little sprinkling of male attendees. That's sort of reassuring that men want to come to this conference, that it wasn't just something that was overlooked by them and, you know, shrug it off is not something that they felt would be entertaining. |
| Ashley | One of the things I liked about Angela's talk was she said a lot of things that seem simple, but they're not a for example, she she called our attention to the fact that God created two sexes. I've literally written a book about sex differences, and yet it's such a good reminder, you know, teleological step back. Why are there men and women? Clearly, there's a reason. And then she really kind of blew my my mind in the way that her thesis was so simple and straightforward, yet so profound. And that is that women, because we are the receivers of love. And, you know, she obviously delves into this and her talk took, you know, long time to flesh all this out. But we are the cooperators and that our existence embodies God's desire for cooperation. So we have not just this biological difference in reality, but this theological symbolism. I had never thought of it that way, and it just kind of blew my mind. And I thought sometimes the truth is so simple. |
| Leigh | And. |
| Ashley | We need to hear it put in such simple terms. |
| Leigh | It's the gift of hearing, I think, from such a talented and beloved teacher as Angela Franks is, because I think her students love her, her seminarians love her, and teachers are able to take those complicated, seemingly complicated, lofty ideas and pull them out of the sky and hand them to you right on a nice digestible. |
| Mary | It's very much like Pope Benedict, isn't it? He was always able to take very complicated ideas and break them down into ways that everyone can understand, the common person can understand. And I find her methodology very similar to his in that regard. And I think and that's a real mark of genius, truly to be able to take something that's, you know, that requires a PhD to fully, fully understand and to make that accessible to people who who don't have that kind of knowledge. So it's kind of interesting. Listeners have just the thought of being at a conference like this might be intimidating to you. It's not like that at all. I found that anybody could pretty much wander in and listen and take something away from it. And it's also very much inclusive of different vocations in the church because we have so many women religious here. |
| Betsy | Yes, I really noticed that. And yesterday Mary and I were able to get here a little bit early for a talk on evangelism vitae. And I loved what the Sisters of Life had to say and the importance for it. We don't I think we're all married women. We don't really realize how important these documents are for women religious and how it fleshes out the theology and the spirituality that they really need to feel honored in in their vocations. |
| Leigh | Yeah, that's a really good point. And that is something I just don't think about. I always I feel like I talk about it, I read it, I think about it in that like the context of motherhood and married life. |
| Mary | Well, and that they're not women religious because nobody asked them to marry them. They chose this, this, this is they're not God's leftovers right there. They actively chose this vocation because God called them to a very special relationship with him. And through that, they're also spiritual mothers and spiritual sisters. And it's it's beautiful to see not only that and how they're expressing it through their talks and their participation at the conference, but also the different charism that the different orders bring. |
| Leigh | Yeah. |
| Mary | Which is always fascinating, right? So different religious habits signify different religious communities. And each of those has a particular charism which would be sort of a way that they, they live out their religious vocation in the world. So the Sisters of Life take the, you know, the usual poverty, chastity, obedience, vows, but they also take a fourth vow of protecting and defending human life from conception to natural death. And so they live that out by not only running maternity homes and giving support to women in crisis pregnancies, but, you know, they also do retreats for women who've had abortions and do abortion healing work. And just their very presence, I think, in the community, particularly in tough cities like New York, they're just like a healing balm wherever they go. Yeah. |
| Betsy | Yes. Well, we just did a show last week on Sister Claire Crockett. And didn't you get that same feeling when you were watching that documentary and just the joy in Ecuador that they brought to the whole community and how the children gathered around them, just as in really being their spiritual mothers. |
| Mary | Right. and they brought joy wherever they went. So sister Claire Crockett, for you listeners who might not be familiar, is a I like to say, a real life Derry girl. She was a young woman from the north of Ireland who was on her way to Hollywood. She had a contract with the BBC. She had a contract with Nickelodeon, met the Servant Sisters of the Mother of the Home, which is a religious community founded in Spain, and and became a and became a sister, became a religious sister, and then was assigned to a Catholic elementary school in Florida. And then after that, she was reassigned to a mission in Ecuador where she was working with high school girls and was killed in that terrible earthquake in Ecuador about ten years ago. So her cause for canonization has just been introduced. And it's very interesting because one of the particular, I guess, intentions that she has been apparently very actively answering from her new place in heaven is women with infertility problems. So I think that's very so again, the spiritual motherhood, right? She she never had children herself, but she's making sure that others can and many of whom are being named Clare in the process. So maybe she has some self-interest there. I don't know. But don't take that personally. Sister Clare, You know, I'm joking. You had a good sense of humor. |
| Betsy | One of the things I love about Angela's talk again this morning and is the emphasis on Genesis, and I feel like that's just such this rich terrain that you can go over and over again and and there's always something new, you know, and going through the two Genesis one and Genesis two and the different stories that they bring, and she just really unpacked a lot about that and the importance of the the the husband and wife being mutual. And I think a lot of what these women are trying to do is to right some of the wrongs of how women were treated historically and made to feel like they weren't. They were they're they're complimentary toward men. But there is some asymmetry that she talked about this morning, especially related to giving birth and carrying children. |
| Ashley | And I also think they're trying to respond to kind of a problematic rising of like a new distorted theology is the best way to put it, which is trying to like, I think the intent. There's clearly a response to our very twisted current secular culture, which is, in fact we talked to this came up in the talk, the commodification of women, the rise of pornography, but bringing back the emphasis too much on like male headship. And yeah, and I really loved the way she talked about Pope John Paul, the second's extensive writing and speaking on this that actually like not tension within a marriage but that kind of you know, women aren't just supposed to roll over whenever there's, you know, a disagreement that that tug and pull is healthy. It's a. |
| Betsy | Partition. Yeah. |
| Ashley | You know, that that if the family is the soul of society, that that's, you know, that's healthy within the family. And then that, you know, by extension is healthy within a society. And so pushing back on some of this kind of new bad theology that I think is very problematic in its own way. |
| Mary | And she didn't shy away from Saint Paul and the submissive submission. |
| Betsy | She took it on. Yeah. |
| Mary | And I thought she explained it very beautiful. What struck you about the way she broke that down? I was speechless. |
| Betsy | You got me, Mary. |
| Mary | Sorry. I didn't mean to stomp you out. No. You know, in Chicago, where I live, there are some of our more, I guess, progressive parishes, you know, the church of what's happening now when that is in the reading schedule, they don't. They won't do it. |
| Leigh | Mary. |
| Mary | They admit it. |
| Leigh | From. |
| Mary | Chicago. I know they're there, aren't they? Literally won't do it because. Well, you know, we can all assume. |
| Ashley | That's that's what's giving rise to this new distorted theology is they're so like, no, we're emphasizing this. It's been overlooked and and so it needs to be it needs to be addressed and brought into the open and talked about and given oxygen. So I'm sure we're going to have a lot more conversations about that. |
| Betsy | Okay, Mary, I'm ready to answer it because I look okay, there is no longer male or female. Jesus, salvation is for all. And so he puts it in a in a, you know, kind of a meta context about salvation and rather than a battle of the sexes. And then, you know, he, he he also sorry Angela emphasized be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. And I think she considers that second phrase really key, that it's it's not out of reverence for him because you have to bow to him, but that you both have this triangular relationship in. |
| Leigh | Christ, you know, and I liked that part about the Betsy, you know, taking was so meticulous. I hope you'll you'll fill in some blanks. The part about the embodiment being a task. |
| Ashley | You know, we are in this together. |
| Mary | Break that down, if you will. I think it's. I'm sorry. I feel like I'm the professor at an exam, at someone's oral exams, but. Yes. |
| Leigh | Well, let's think so. She said first. It was a two part clause, right? |
| Ashley | It's from Theology of the Body. I actually wrote this down you go Creator assigned the body as a task. That's the direct, you know. |
| Leigh | And then what's the next thing, though. |
| Ashley | That I don't know. |
| Leigh | The next thing it was about femininity and masculinity. And somehow we something then comes through that. |
| Betsy | Well, I think what part of what she was saying is that before the fall, the man and the woman were were at one with who they were. And that part of the task thing is you kind of have to work at being a woman or a man. It's you have. |
| Ashley | To work together. Yes. Like this. |
| Leigh | Woman having a body. |
| Ashley | Race. |
| Leigh | She said. |
| Betsy | Yes. Yeah. |
| Ashley | And I loved the way she talked about, you know, the real fear that a lot of women have today about pregnancy and how John Paul, the second said it's the task of the man to allay that that fear. |
| Mary | That was real is the man. It's the man's role to make sure she's not anxious if she does get pregnant and that he takes responsibility right over his own actions. And, you know, it made me think I one of my teenagers, kind of started dressing, you know, kind of in a tomboyish way. And I you know, I was saying to her, honey, you know, you're so pretty. Why are you wearing that? You know, she was taking her dad's sweatshirts and putting them on, and she said, Mom, I get catcalled two or three times a week going back and forth. She said, I'm tired of it. I don't want men doing that to me. And you just think like, again, just to go back to our bodies and, you know, the way in which sometimes it's not safe in society for women to be feminine and, you know, and to and to live that out. But men are the ones that are supposed to protect our ability to do that, to be feminine. Exactly right. And, you know, I thought catcalling was like from the fifties, but apparently it's it's back now. And, you know, she's a very pretty young woman. And I just it just broke my heart. I thought, yes, it don't you Chase said that's a them problem, honey. Now, it's not a you probably. |
| Leigh | Know. |
| Mary | Right as the kids say these days safe you know. Well but for not feeling safe. Right. Exactly. And and so there's a lot that this sort of you know the whatever the not the merging of the sexes but the the attempt to erase the differences, the sexual differences. There's so much damages that are caused on all sorts of different levels. You know, we think like marriage, right? We think submission to them. But it goes way beyond that. |
| Betsy | Yeah, you know, it does. You know, I wanted to bring up something and get your all response when she talked about the industrial Revolution because I, I think about this all the time in that my husband works from home, so I have the joy when he's not on location of being with him. And but I think a lot of the loneliness that feminism addressed in the sixties and seventies and had bad conclusions was real, where all of a sudden that women were not with their families during the day and that we saw this slow progression from the 1850s to where we are now, where men went to work and that women were alone. And then when you add that layer of that, women are alone in the suburbs, they're they're not hanging out on their brownstone doorsteps like they might be in Brooklyn. |
| Leigh | And then generationally, they've moved away from their family, their parents, a grandparent, into the cities to find these jobs. |
| Betsy | Right. She says there's a public private split. It's hard on families. The women can't bring the baby to the factory the way that they could. Like, you know, spinning their yarn in their living room. And I just think that that's something. Don't you think we're still wrestling with that? |
| Ashley | Absolutely. I mean, the I've never thought of the cottage industry model. Yeah. But what we're living out right now is, you know, probably from, you know, 99% of human history lived family life one way. And we're living it this completely, radically different way. And I think there's a little bit of like revisionism when we think about and she addressed this like the idea that women only started working in the sixties. No, they were working at home hand in hand with their husbands. |
| Betsy | Forever. |
| Ashley | Using their hands with their children to either. |
| Leigh | Make money. It wasn't just like right, like helping. |
| Ashley | It was a mutual task. And so absolutely, we're still, I think, in the infancy stages of wrestling with this. And, you know, the whole work life balance discussion gets a little tedious, but it's still a real thing that men and women are wrestling with together. I mean, it's it's difficult for men, too, because I think, you know, this idea that you leave the house at 7 a.m. and come home at 7 p.m. and you don't barely see your children. And the entire burden of, you know, breadwinning in many cases falls on them. It's just it's new. And as she said, perfectly, it's hard on families. There's nobody can dispute the current. Our current model for work life balance is hard on families. |
| Leigh | And then people see that. And why would they want to be a part of that? And I think that's why we see that downward trend in marriages. Interesting. |
| Ashley | And children. Yeah. |
| Betsy | So she actually had a slide that I did a quick snapshot of, and it's from the press release for U.N. Conference on Women. So I guess this is John Paul, the second saying this A woman has the right to choose between having a profession simultaneously, being a mother and carrying on a profession and being and dedicating all of her activity to the home. |
| Mary | And do you remember when that conference was first announced and then John Paul put out that letter to the to the Beijing? It was the Beijing conference. And I remember so distinctly that Gertrud Mangala, who was the head of the conference, I can't remember what country she was from, but she made a statement because there was a lot of pushback that John Paul, the second was speaking to this conference. You know, I mean, through a letter, speaking to this conference to women. And she said if everyone thought like he did, we wouldn't need a world conference on women, which I thought was such a Yes. It's such a fascinating quote from that time. And, you know, and that's around the time, too, of Evangelion V, which is, you know, was sort of the initial reason for our gathering here. And I just like to revisit that for a moment because we're going to have Helen Alvarez on later to talk about that, the 30th anniversary, what not just a groundbreaking document, but what a profound document that was in so many ways. I saved the editorial that the Chicago Tribune did when it came out, and most of the major newspapers did editorials on it because it was an international news story. And they gave a lot of credit to Cardinal Bernadine, the late archbishop of Chicago, because it seemed to mirror the consistent ethic of life which she had articulated so beautifully in a lot of different ways. But there's a very funny part of the editorial where they actually said Senator Edward Kennedy missing the point as usual. It was so funny. It was such a takedown and said, you know, he said that religions shouldn't be legislating people's values. And in a democracy, which was not at all the point of the document, and even we had we had just had in Chicago a horrible crime where a young boy was thrown off the top of one of our housing projects and died, you know, by some punk stream. And they said, But in a city now where where little kids are being thrown off the top of buildings and nobody blinks, and I he is calling us all to take a look at that and say, no, this is all connected. This is all about the way that we treat vulnerable people. |
| Betsy | And we're really we're really in the weeds now with physician assisted suicide. |
| Mary | Well, there you go. And that was something else. He that was one of interestingly enough, you should mention that, Betty, because, you know, Cardinal Bernadine, when he was dying in November of 97, that was and he was only 67 years old. He died of pancreatic cancer. And that was one of the last things he did was to write to the Supreme Court to ask them not to legalize assisted suicide. And he said, as someone who is gravely ill now, first of all, I can tell you that every one of these days has mattered to me, as has made a difference to me, but that how I know how vulnerable I am because I'm so sick and I can't defend myself. |
| Betsy | And don't you think that that's been a great lesson for the pope to give to the world right now? I think it's amazing is that it's it's, you know, being old is hard and being on the brink of death is hard. And but all of a sudden, he's kind of been brought back and, you know, God's got some reason. Yes. |
| Mary | Well, you know, as I was saying to someone last night, to a priest friend last night, you know, there's there's that saying from Thomas Aquinas, Grace builds on nature. And nature in this case is a very stubborn South American man. And so he is like to go I know where he will go when he and the Lord decide that he's going to go and not a moment sooner. So I like that his temperament came out over this last month so strongly. Right. |
| Ashley | And even saw it when he brought him out on the balcony and were trying to do something. He was like, stop. Like, yeah, I got this. |
| Mary | Yes, exactly. Don't bother me. Well, listen, ladies, this has just been a tremendous opportunity to to first of all, just to be together in person and chat. And I'm really looking forward to our conversations this week and to everything we're going to be experiencing together. |
| Betsy | And I think that these talks will eventually be available online. Is that right? Lee Right, Right. |
| Leigh | All right. Well, this has been great in person talking, being together, learning. And we have three more days. |
| Mary | Three more days. Well, thanks for joining us, listeners. This has been conversations with consequences with all four of the TCA women in one room. |
| Ashley | Welcome back to Conversations with Consequence is on EWTN radio. I'm your host is Ashley McGuire. I think a lot of Catholics don't actually know the story of the rosary. One of my favorite stories about the rosary is told by this wonderful woman who's a great ambassador of the power of the Rosary and her own personal struggle against darkness and evil. Truly the most horrible evil you can imagine is immaculate. A little big is a Rwandan woman who survived the Rwandan genocide by hiding in a teeny, tiny bathroom, powder sized powder, room size bathroom with many other women there to take turns, you know, sleeping on the floor and could hear people being killed outside the window and hurt her whole family, except one brother who was living abroad were all killed in the most horribly violent of ways. And she just prayed the rosary around the clock. And now there's a lot of Rwanda was a very Catholic country. There's a lot of buzz about Mary and apparitions there. You know, none of it has been formally acknowledged by the Vatican, but it's certainly there's a lot of people talking about it. I have no doubt that it being such a Catholic country that there was so many people who came to Mary in the most in the darkest hour of their lives there. But her witness is just so beautiful because, you know, she could travel the globe talking about hate and revenge, but instead she travels the globe preaching forgiveness and the power of the rosary. And we're going to take a quick break here on Conversations with Consequences. Stay tuned right here on EWTN Radio. Welcome back to Conversations with Consequences on EWTN Radio. I'm your hostess, Ashley McGuire. |
| Mary | And I'm Mary Fiorito. |
| Ashley | And we are so glad to have back with us a dear friend and former colleague and former host of the show, Maureen Ferguson. She's now serving as a commissioner for the United States Commission on International Religious Liberty. And we're especially excited to be here with her on the campus of Notre Dame, where we're all together for a wonderful conference about the role of women in the church and the true feminine genius. But it also turns out to coincide with the release this week of the U. Surf's much awaited annual report on religious freedom. So welcome back to the show, Maureen. |
| Maureen | Hi, ladies. It is really a joy to be back on with you guys. |
| Mary | And in life, too. So we are we good to see you in person. |
| Maureen | So of all things on the campus of Notre Dame, it's really fun. |
| Ashley | So Maureen and I were on the same flight to South Bend together, and you were dressed in a suit because you had just come from the press conference where you serve announced the release of the report. This is a report that I've been reading for more than a decade. My understanding, Maureen, is that this year's report is unique in that it really focuses on Nicaragua. And I know we've been those of us who follow international religious liberty, or even if you just read the newspaper we've been hearing a lot about what's happening in Nicaragua. It sounds really frightening. So can you tell us a little bit about what the report has to say about what's going on in this country? Sure. |
| Maureen | So at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the shorthand is you surf. It's a funny acronym, but that's it. Every year we release a report on conditions in various countries around the world on religious persecution. And this list in this list, we make recommendations to the State Department because our agency is a congressional agency, which means we're a little protected from the DOJ's actions because those are focusing more on the executive branch agencies. But our purpose is to kind of be like a watchdog on the State Department who make certain designations with respect to religious freedom in countries around the world. So we make recommendations, and the State Department usually adopts most of those designations. And what these designations do is they if a country is sort of put on the bad list as a country of particular concern, it triggers certain actions from the government. It could be sanctions or conditions on foreign aid, that sort of thing, in an effort to pressure the country to just do something about the religious freedom conditions in the country and the suppression of the people. So in this year's report, we designated 16 different countries as countries of particular concern. And then we have this other designation called Special Watch List. These are countries that we're just kind of keeping an eye on. And then in addition to that, there's a designation called IPSE, which is an entity of particular concern. And these are they're essentially terrorist organizations like Boko Haram or ISIS or that sort of thing. So that's what we do with this annual report. And as you mentioned, yesterday was the release of the annual report. We had a fantastic press conference on Capitol Hill. We had a few senators came and spoke and a bunch of members of Congress. And it was it was really an interesting press conference. |
| Mary | Well, Daniel Ortega, the president of Nicaragua, his name Maureen, is is really just synonymous with suppression, particularly of Catholic religious people and organizations. He's expelled sisters from religious orders. He has shut down Catholic schools and Catholic media outlets. He has imprisoned dozens of Catholic clergy who oppose the Socialist government there. And in fact, your report calls the conditions in Nicaragua abysmal. I guess a lot of people were kind of considered a Catholic country. Why is he so opposed to the Catholic Church in its institutions? |
| Maureen | Yeah. So thanks for asking about Nicaragua, because that's a country that I sort of particularly have my eyes on. And it's the country that we chose to put to kind of highlight this year in our annual report. So they're photographs on the cover of the report from Nicaragua. And one of the photographs is the cathedral in the capital city that was firebombed. So what happened in Nicaragua is in it was 2018 or 19, I'm forgetting now, there were mass demonstrations against the communist dictator Daniel Ortega, who along with his wife, who was the vice president and sort of acts as a co-president, Rosaria maria was her name. They cracked down on those who were challenging their authority. And because the Catholic Church is an institution that has such authority and following in the country, the crackdown tended to focus on the Catholic Church. So the president there, as you mentioned, he shut down the Catholic universities. There's a long standing Jesuit university that those students were left in limbo without an education. He shut down the Catholic Charities. He you mentioned the nuns. He literally kicked all of the nuns out of the country. |
| Mary | Were these cloistered orders or different orders? |
| Maureen | Several different orders. He pretty much kicked all of the nuns out of the country, and in particular the Missionaries of Charity, who were running homes for the elderly, poor and and homes for abused and abandoned adolescent girls. So when you think what? Who's taking care of them Now, these girls are back on the street. They're being exploited, they're being trafficked. And when you combine that with everything else he's done in the country in terms of arresting clergy, you know, they're they're still allowed to have mass, but they monitor every church is monitored. The homily is our monitored. The government arrested Bishop Alvaro and when he was imprisoned, other priests who would even pray for his release would then be arrested and imprisoned. So they've all been exiled. The nuns have been exiled. So it's just a total collapse in the society. And, you know, I have a babysitter who came to this country a long time ago from Nicaragua, and she's back there with some frequency. Every summer she goes back. She's just heartbroken because she said, you know, this is how we raised our children. We have these public processions to Our Lady of Guadalupe or the Immaculate Conception. You know, it's so much a part of the culture, these public processions, but they're totally illegal. And she said they've been replaced with Carnival like they do in Brazil, where the girls are paraded out. They're essentially to be exploited. So instead of teaching the girls the value of family and their faith, the girls are being paraded out there. So it's just it's a total tragedy and just a heartbreak all around. |
| Ashley | You know, it seems like kind of dictator mistakes one on one to think that you can crack down on religion and not have it result in a resurgence in faith. And in your in the report, it notes that religious communities continue to show remarkable resilience in the face of such threats. Their members meet discreetly, sometimes in the middle of the night, to exercise their freedom of religion or belief. Have you discovered that whether in Nicaragua or some of these other countries that you're looking at the kind of what we would call the underground church is actually healthy? |
| Maureen | I would say, you know, where we're seeing that as in Nigeria, because these churches are bombed, people are arrested, the girls are kidnaped, but yet the. |
| Ashley | Churches are. |
| Maureen | Full. It's Congressman Chris Smith just had a hearing on conditions in Nigeria and a bishop from one of the most kind of explosive parts of Nigeria was there testifying. And I found it so incredibly moving. I mean, would you keep going to a church that's regularly bombed out? Are you know, are people are being, you know, gunned down or, you know, girls being kidnaped? |
| Mary | The Nigerians are just incredible. We have a my my former pastor at my parish was a pastor in Nigeria for 12 years and it's a Dominican parish. And that particular Dominican province has a special relationship with a couple of diocese's in Nigeria. So our priest who are American born and they go back and forth and now we have Nigerian religious sisters at our parish. But they regularly remind us, first of all, that not only about the great risks the people there take and how we take for granted what these people take great risks to experience, but also their masses are regularly 3 hours long. Every Sunday they walk to them and then and they're so overjoyed to be there. There's their singing for the first hour and then mass, you know, and kind of the elevation of the host goes on for quite a while so people can pray and adore the Lord. And it's it's such an example to people that we look at, you know, as having next to nothing. They look at us and see us as very spiritually impoverished. |
| Maureen | Definitely. Yeah. And, you know, if if you wouldn't mind, I would love to jump back to this press conference yesterday because it was very interesting because I, I frankly expected it to be a little partizan. Now at the usurp commission, we are very, very careful to be totally nonpartisan. But it seems in Washington, everything is partizan these days. So I thought since we were having elected official speak. I just sort of expected it to have a little bit of a partizan tone. And honestly, I was so impressed. It really did it. So I thought it might be just interesting to share what some of the members of Congress had to say because they a lot of them spoke very personally on the issue. So the first person to speak was Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. And she talked about how her father, who was also a congressman, you know, grew up in Little Italy, in Baltimore to an Italian Catholic. And she talked about how he really idolized FDR, but had to kind of go against him in the early stages of World War Two when it wasn't it wasn't fully acknowledged yet that, you know, the concentration camps weren't fully I guess they were known, but not yet acknowledged, really. So and FDR wasn't, you know, at that point doing much about it. So she talked about how her father, the Catholic, felt so compelled to speak up for the Jews. And anyway, she had this big interesting, you know, story that I won't recount all of that. But she was looking fabulous, by the way, even after her fall and her broken have you know, she usually walks around Capitol Hill in her signature heels. So she was wearing very stylish sneakers. I can't report. But anyway, so Congressman Chris Smith spoke and he's always just incredibly inspirational. He is such a workhorse. He was really talking a lot about conditions in Vietnam. Congressman Robert Aderholt came and spoke. He was just a real hero and leader on the issue of Nicaragua because there were Protestant pastors who were imprisoned and Congressman Aderholt led an effort to pressure the State Department. The previous State Department worked with the embassies. He rallied like, I think, 58 members of Congress to sign this letter to how pressure the State Department to get these pastors out. And the Ortega regime there had they even they so they imprisoned these Protestant pastors, but also an employee of this Mountain Gateway ministry who was a young mother. She had given birth two months earlier, and they separated her from her newborn child and put her in jail. And there were near starvation conditions in prison when she was finally released. Thanks to the leadership of Congressman Aderholt and Congressman Smith, there were a few senators very involved, Senator Katy Bread and Ted Cruz and others. She weighed £90 when she was released. They kept them for nine months, these pastors. So it's a great example of how something can done in these situations when people work together. And there were a lot of civil society groups and we hosted a hearing about it. And anyway, so I could go on about other members if you're interested. Congressman John Moolenaar, who he chairs the Select committee, I think it's called the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. So he came and he spoke about the cynicism Asian of the churches there. You know, that the Chinese Communist Party is essentially controlling the various churches in China. So he talked a lot about that. He mentioned the imprisonment of Jimmy Lai there, of course, who were all keeping our eye on and praying for Senator Chris Van Hollen, who, again, generally he's a very partizan Senator, but he was he spoke very beautifully and personally. He grew up he was a foreign service kid. His dad was in the Foreign Service and his mother was in some she was some sort of an analyst. So he grew up in India and Pakistan and Sri Lanka and sort of witnessed a lot of their religious strife firsthand, which is why this is now an issue that's close to his heart. And, you know, there was a really interesting congresswoman. Her name is Latifa Simon. I think she's a brand new freshman member of Congress. And she also reflected on how her I think she grew up in San Francisco and she talked about how she grew up with her grandmother, talking about, you know, her Lord and savior Jesus Christ, but her own parents had converted to Islam, so she was raised as a muslim, but somehow she was sent to a Jewish day school. So she talked about her appreciation for that tradition. It was just it was it was a really beautiful testament to the power of faith in people's lives. |
| Mary | We don't see those kind of unifying occasions very often anymore. I mean, just reflect back to the state of the well, I guess it wasn't a State of the Union. The president's address to Congress. And it was it was so the number one takeaway was how divided it was. And this sounds really beautifully unifying. So that's I'm sorry it was for such a sad thing. But nonetheless, it was it's good to see that both sides came out for it. |
| Ashley | You know, Maureen, we hear a lot about the Chinese Communist Party and the oppression of Christians and religious, you know, the weaker minorities there, Nigeria, Nicaragua. What are some of the countries and whether featured in this report or that you've discovered, you know, in this new role of yours that we're not hearing as much about, but where the oppression is equally bad? |
| Maureen | Well, I think about that. It's I mean, there are places like Syria where it's unknown how it's all going to play out. I mean, we know that there's the ethnic I think everybody is holding their breath with respect to these ancient Christian communities. There are actually a lot of reports that the Christians were targeted, but it turned out some of those were false reports. So I think I think we're still kind of holding our breath in a place like Syria. I mean, I think we're all familiar with what's going on in Afghanistan and Iraq and the challenges they are. Cuba. Eritrea is someplace that we don't hear a lot about, but I think they have 50 Christians imprisoned currently in Eritrea. India is a place where there is all kinds of violence, Christians and others suffering in India. Let's see. We talked about Nicaragua and Nigeria. I mean, Iran. Everyone, you know, is well aware of the problems there. One of the issues there is, you know, with an incoming Trump administration, we know that religious freedom is a priority for them. And Secretary Rubio, of course, was an absolute champion and leader on the issue of religious freedom, both domestically and internationally. In particular, when he in the Senate and now, of course, he's at the State Department. So we're looking forward to his leadership there. But there's been a lot of disruption in Washington, as we all know, and the dust has not quite settled yet. So in a country like Iran, for example, we did have a program where Jewish refugees, there was this whole set up that they would come through Austria. So but like that's been suspended. So, you know, we're kind of watching to see how that will all play out, because obviously that's you know, there's a lot of effects and fallout from that. You know, Turkey is a place that's had a lot of unrest. We just had a commission delegation I serve with former Congresswoman Vicki Hart. Vicki Hartzler on the commission, and she and one of our Democratic members just had a delegation in Turkey and actually the Turkish officials kind of refused to meet with them. So that was kind of interesting. And now there's a little bit more unrest in Turkey. You know, Vietnam is a place that maybe not a lot of people are paying attention to. And that's been a place where we've had some disagreements with the State Department the previous department, because. |
| Mary | Go ahead. I'm sorry. |
| Maureen | Well, just we recommend them as a country, a particular concern. But the State Department declined to do so. So and what happens there when we have a difference is that, you know, if you're the State Department, you have to prioritize a lot of different diplomatic concerns and geopolitical issues and such. So our job is to focus on the religious freedom issues and to, you know, encourage them to really prioritize that as part of our foreign policy because it leads to more stability. But in Vietnam, you know, there can be different business interests or that that sort of thing. |
| Mary | Well, what kind of consequences can the Trump administration impose on these countries of particular concern? Is there a variety of different things he would have in his toolbox to send a message that religious freedom is important to this administration? Is there kind of a favored way to deal with this sort of thing? |
| Maureen | I think it's different for different countries. So in our report, we put different recommendations for each country. And it can be sanctions generally. It can be targeted sanctions on the you know, offending government officials. And then there are different congressional bills that we, you know, encourage and support. And I think Congressman Chris Smith has a bill for Vietnam, for example. Congressman Chris Smith, I always knew he was an incredible workhorse on Capitol Hill. But now that I'm in working in this space with you, serve, he seems to be the lead on practically every bill, whether it's Nigeria, Nicaragua, Vietnam. I mean, he's just unbelievable. But so so there are you know, there are different bills that are tailored to the different issues in different countries. So there's not any one set of recommendations. |
| Ashley | We fortunate to have Congressman Smith on the show a couple of weeks ago, and I was amazed by the breadth of his knowledge about all of these different countries and their different religious freedom concerns and also his actual on the ground experience. Clearly, a man who isn't just talking, he's going to these places, he's meeting with these people. So he's really an inspiration to us. Another man who is an inspiration you mentioned him earlier is Jimmy Lai. And, you know, I continue to hear reports that his health is declining. Have you is there any hope for that? I know I remember the case of the the pastor who was detained in I want to say, Turkey. This was maybe ten years ago and I believe it was a commissioner you serve commissioner who really kind of used the platform to put the pressure on and they ended up releasing him. I'm forgetting his name. But that case was really I remember following that case and I feel like Lai is probably the most well-known prisoner of conscience right now in the world. Is there any hope of, you know, any movement there for him? |
| Maureen | So I wish I had an update on him. I wish I could report positive news. But the the other thing that we do, what you serve, in addition to making these recommendations on designations, is we maintain victims list a a list of prisoners of conscience. And Jimmy Lai is obviously on that list. And, you know, one of the most high profile of them. But you know, there it in some cases there are, you know, things we can do to pressure for their release, like, for example, in Nicaragua with the leadership of Congressman Aderholt in other places, there's not much we can do. But we know that just sort of speaking their name and keeping them in the conversation, we know that it's very meaningful to them. It's very meaningful to their families. Just know that they're not forgotten. |
| Mary | So, Maureen, the commission is urging President Trump to nominate or to appoint individuals to fill key roles that are relevant to religious freedom, particularly abroad. Have you heard anything on this particular front? And is the White House administration filling these roles or are they doing the domestic ones first? And then they'll do some of these others a little bit down the line? |
| Maureen | Yeah, So that's a great question. One of the key positions that we hope will be filled quickly is the ambassador at large for International Religious Freedom. So that's an office within the State Department to advocate, you know, from within, because as we were talking about, there are many competing interests when it comes to our foreign policy. So we would encourage them to appoint someone quickly. We have not heard a lot about that, other than there's so much disruption, a reorganization at the State Department. So I think we might have to kind of wait and see. But we are certainly advocating for the quick appointment of the ambassador at large for international religious freedom, as well as a few other key posts like there's also and a special adviser to the National Security Council staff for Religious freedom, as well as a few other special envoy positions. |
| Ashley | Well, I know something that makes you serve unique is the fact that it's interfaith, that there's members of different religions, different political backgrounds. But us in this room, we're all Catholic. We're here at a Catholic university. And I know that, you know, the church, the Catholic Church really has been a leader on religious freedom, especially for people of all faiths. So what can we as Catholics do to raise awareness about these cases and and to, I guess, pray for for these people who are suffering around the world for their consciences? |
| Maureen | Yeah, well, prayer is certainly the number one thing we can do. But I don't know. I mean, you're welcome to come to our website and read about these different countries. And I think particularly interesting is that the of the victims list of prisoners of conscience, because you can just read a little bit about their story and, you know, we keep that updated. But but yeah, prayer is the main thing. |
| Ashley | Well, Maureen, it's so great to be back on the show with you and we're so grateful for your leadership in your new role at the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. And to find out more about them, you can visit, you surf dot org and to find out more, the Catholic Association. You can visit us at the Catholic Association dot org to follow everything we do in radio, TV, print, online and in our local communities. Maureen, thank you for joining us today. |
| Maureen | Thanks for having me on and great to be with you, Ashley and Mary. |
| Ashley | I'm your hostess, Ashley McGuire. And we're happy to have with us Monsignor Roger Landry. Welcome to the show. Monsignor Landry. |
| MSGR Landry | Great to be with you, Ashley. Happy Lent. |
| Ashley | So, you know, we think of Lent as a penitential time, and one of the greatest emblems of that is, is the sacrament of confession. And tell us, Monsignor, about why this particular sacrament is so important during this season. |
| MSGR Landry | Saint John Paul, the second used to say that the most important way we grow up in our Catholic faith is through the sacrament confession, because when we examine our conscience really well, we see where we need God's help the most. And then we come in a concrete way to be forgiven of our fault, but also to be strengthened by him in this awesome sacrament precisely to confront those areas. Maybe it's just impatience. Maybe it's the way we use our tongue. Maybe it's that we're lazy, maybe that we don't treat a family member the way that the family member. But we see that we come to the Lord. We say, sorry to you, Lord, help me. And then he does give that help. So that's the first thing about the sacrament confession. The second is it was really the first thing Jesus did when he rose from the dead. Like on Easter Sunday night. He walked through the closed doors of the upper room. He said, Peace be with you twice. And then he was going to make the apostles peacemakers. He said, Just as the father sent me, you know, the father sent him as the LAMB of God to take away the sins of the world, just as the father sent me. So I said, you know, we're only going to be able to forgive sense by God's power. So we had to give him that power. He breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. And then he set up the essential structure, the sacrament confession. Those who send you forgive are forgiven. Those who send you retain retained in the only way they'd ever know which sense to forgive or retain is if people told them what their sins were. And so on Easter Sunday night, Jesus was putting into practice what he had said during the parable of the Prodigal Son. You remember when that son finally came over to the father's house? The father said, My son was dead and has come back to life again. Every reconciliation is ultimately a resurrection. When we come from sort of self death through choosing and serious cases, mortal sins. But God brings us to life in that incredible gift. |
| Ashley | Well, Monsignor, we thank you so much for your time today. And we'd like to thank all of our guests and listeners for joining us today. Make sure to follow us on social media. And as always, we'll go with our prayers. |