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Episode Description
After the viral Coldplay concert cheating scandal, the TCA team discusses the sad reality of adultery and why our first reaction when we are caught sinning is to hide. The team looks at how we become desensitized to our sins and craft internal narratives that make our choices feel inevitable, excusable, even noble. But we conclude with confession, which is always there for us, and how when used regularly, can help us keep our lives on a moral path and stay close to God.
We speak with Dr. Gavin Puthoff, featured in Maddie Kearns’ beautiful reflection about her road to motherhood, about his decision to work in naprotechnology and this life-giving science that treats the real underlying issues of infertility. Naprotechnology is a medical approach to women’s reproductive health that supports natural conception with inherent respect for the dignity of embryonic human life.
We also talk with resident TCA chaplain Msgr. Roger Landry about this week’s Napa Institute conference, where thousands of Catholics gather to build culture and grow together. This year’s summer conference, entitled “Doers of the Word,” expounds on ways to practice the three great tenets of faith, hope, and charity in the context of personal conversion and renewal of the world.
Bios
Madeleine Kearns is a journalist, writer, and associate editor at The Free Press. She has written for publications like The Spectator, The Wall Street Journal, The Catholic Herald and numerous others, and appeared on news outlets like BBC, Fox News, the Ben Shapiro Show, and the Megyn Kelly Show. Previously a staff writer at the National Review, she earned her degree in English from the University of St. Andrews. She obtained her postgraduate diploma in Education from the University of Glasgow and a Master’s in Journalism from New York University. She lives with her husband and daughter in New York City.
Dr. Gavin Puthoff is the founder and medical director of Veritas Fertility and Surgery. A board certified gynecologist, he specializes in infertility and naprotechnology, a form of advanced reproductive treatment and surgery. He earned his medical degree from the University of Texas at Houston and completed his residency in obstetrics and gynecology from Mercy Hospital in St. Louis. He completed an additional fellowship in medical and surgical naprotechnology at Pope John Paul VI Institute and Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha. In 2015 he founded Mercy Clinic Fertility Services, and in 2020 he opened Veritas Fertility and Surgery, serving couples seeking infertility solutions and medical assistance for gynecological issues through naprotechnology. Dr. Puthoff lives with his wife and seven children in St. Louis.
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 United Nations 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. In 2024, he was appointed the new National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the USA by Pope Francis.
The following transcript is machine generated.
Episode 327 Transcript
| Mary | Welcome back to conversations with consequences now on EWTN radio. I'm your host, Mary Fiorito. |
| Ashley | And I'm Ashley McGuire. |
| Betsy | And I'm Betsy Fentress. |
| Mary | And we have an almost full team chat today. Our colleague Lee Sneed is out with a cold, but I'm glad the three of us can be here together to catch up on this new story that we're going to discuss that has taken the internet by storm. So who wants to have the privilege of breaking down the story? |
| Betsy | You go. |
| Msgr. Landry | Mary. |
| Mary | Okay. All right. Well, I'll, unless you've been living under some kind of, proverbial or literal rock. We have a couple, from a, coworkers at a very prestigious company, and they, the head of H.R. And the head of the company, Andy, Brian and Kristen Cabot, were at a Coldplay concert together, and the, kiss cam, I guess, is what it's called. The jumbotron, caught them in sort of an intimate pose. He was standing behind her with his arms around her. And when they realized they were being shown on the jumbotron at the Coldplay conference. Cam. Sorry. The Coldplay. What is it called? Oh, gosh. I'm sorry. You guys. Concert. The concert. Sorry. Oh, my gosh, the Coldplay concert. Once they realized they'd been caught on the camera, Mr. Byron just drove into the seats and she turned her back. And then Chris Martin, who's the lead singer of Coldplay. Coldplay. He even broaches the possibilities. And he says into the microphone, either they're extremely shy or they're having an affair. And so then the next day, the tabloids just lit up and Twitter lit up. And, you know, now, of course, because we have this facial recognition software, it was not difficult to find out who they were. And it does appear that they were in fact, having or at least he was having an extramarital affair. I don't know, her marital status. But boy, lots of lots of people coming out of the woodwork to, appraise the situation and to comment on it. What did you ladies think when you saw it? |
| Ashley | Well, I will say that I'm a little bit surprised by how into it people are, because it's not exactly like our culture is hot on monogamy right now. I mean, divorce is rampant. I mean, I feel like people are, you know, promiscuity is rampant. So I found that very interesting. And, you know, I, I know we're going to talk about Noel Manning's, Substack piece, but she, she used a phrase something like, you know, everybody was aflame with schadenfreude. And, I don't know, I thought that was an interesting insight because I don't know if it's that so many people have been wounded by these types of affairs, that they're kind of enjoying seeing the public spectacle of this particular affair or, or people who know and had friends who were wounded by this. I mean, this kind of hits home because, you know, close friends of ours, this this just happened. And it was a really tragic situation. But anyways, this is something that I think has affected or touched pretty much everybody. So, I, I guess I was just really interested it my first reflection in the kind of consensus that what they were doing was bad, almost encouraged, like, okay, at least we still agree that monogamy is a good thing. Affairs bad thing. |
| Mary | Yeah. And it used to be that men, particularly men of that stature in the business world, they one of the things you never wanted to be caught doing was having an affair that would become public. I remember my mother telling me, I think it was the guy who was ahead of the PGA and was found to have been having an affair with someone, and he was forced to resign from his job, because of it. Now, that was 30 years ago or 40 years ago. So it used to be it was a career ender, you know, there was a big social stigma attached to it. But yet, on the other hand, I mean, you look at, for example, King Charles and Queen Camilla, you know, everybody kind of looks the other way. And his first marriage ended because of his infidelity and her infidelity. They were both cheating on their spouses. Let's see, how did it strike you? |
| Betsy | Well, I agree with Ashley that my first response was, I'm glad that people are upset about adultery, but I really don't like the piling on because I think that his spouse and his kids, are the real losers in this. And at a certain point, the glee on the internet started to bother me. You know, the memes just went on and on and on, especially on Twitter. And, and I thought, this needs to be taken off the grid, and these people need to work this out and, you know, any chance of redemption at all, I think, must become infinitely harder when when you have a backlog of photos and memes and jokes, around this really tragic situation. |
| Mary | Yeah, all of which is children will see. Right. And they're the they are the primary victims in all of this. And it is heartbreaking to think, first of all, just not what what they're going through in terms of all their friends and the front, their parents, friends and everybody else knowing about this. It's not even being done in secret. Right. And but how it will how the divorce will affect them for the rest of their lives. And what does this teach, his daughter and his son, about the importance of keeping a vow that you take publicly about the way you treat the mother of your children, about all of these things that will affect their ability to have healthy marriages themselves. I mean, the percentage for children of divorce going on to divorce themselves is shockingly high because they have no good role models. And there's always an exit door, right? So in the back of your mind, there's always an exit strategy for marriage. And, you know, that's something, one of my friends who used to teach, pre-K for years with her husband, that was one of the first, questions. They would they would have them write up the answer to what are your. But if reasons for leaving the marriage so adultery, you know, etc., etc. and they would go through each excuse saying, you know, you're taking promises, vows, you're making vows for life and you can't have anybody else. The. But if said, I mean, obviously abuse is a different situation when separation is actually the church encourages you not to be in a situation where you're abused or your children are. But bracketing that, but all the other, including adultery, all those other excuses, are not excuses to end a sacramental marriage. |
| Ashley | I will say I agree with Betsy about, the meme thing. I always joke to people that I feel like we live in the golden era of memes. I can't believe the humor, the creativity. |
| Betsy | A lot of them are funny, I got to say. |
| Ashley | Well, I will say there was one I love Lord of the rings memes, and there was one. It was like, ring bearer caught trying to steal or carrying ring by the Tower of Mordor. And it was like the tower with the beam on the thing. But no, it's true. Like Katherine Lopez, who's very active on social media, was like, right out of the gate. She was like, this is not funny. And and that is something I think we should all agree on. Is that, like the, the whole thing at the sporting events where they're now doing like Coldplay, Kiss Cam, where you're supposed to like, reenact it, that is inappropriate. And I think this is what some writers have pointed out, which is that that is actually almost making us complicit in the sin, by making a mockery of adultery. You know, I think the reason it went so viral was because their reaction and being caught, I mean, it almost made me think of, like, Adam and Eve, like there's just nothing new under the sun. Like. Like they think a little fig leaf is going to hide them from God. And these people think if they, you know, just duck out of the camera, nobody's going to know. And, you know, there's there's been so many takes. But another take I saw was this reminder that everything we do, you know, we live in the era of cameras of like, we have no privacy. And, you know, it's a little bit should be a stark reminder to people that like, I mean, I laugh when I hear about the quote unquote right to privacy and like, privacy, like privacy is a joke. Like there is no privacy. Everything you do or say, is being recorded, can be used against you, etc., etc.. But you know, the person that, you know, even when the phones are gone, the cameras are gone, that we have no privacy from his God. And that's what reminds me of Adam and Eve. Like, you know, maybe you can hide from the Coldplay kiss cam, but you can't hide your sins from God. I don't know. It's just, again, to get back to my first point, I do think it's interesting that there's this nationwide reflection, you know, not always in the healthiest way on on sin. And, but I agree that we shouldn't be we shouldn't be mocking the pain. And and, Mary, you sent around this interesting Twitter thread by a CPA who's got an active social media presence where it was really interesting. You know, he was like, forget about the costs of divorce. Which are crazy. But it's the human cost is is the thing that we should be talking about. Right. And and he just goes, he just unloads all these statistics about like, what you were just mentioning about, the, the odds that children of divorce will go on to divorce, but there's so much data about the harms of divorce to children. I mean, really, it hurts. It hurts everybody. And gosh, I wrote an article probably 15 years ago, but the case against no fault divorce. But it's interesting. It's like maybe this will open. You know, the Overton window a little bit and cause us to reflect on the way we just assume, I mean, that divorce. You just divorce, you know, like. Right. And back to your point about no ifs or buts, ifs or whatever, it's, you know, what do we mean, vows or not? And in that article, I said, it's it's easier to get out of a marriage than a cell phone contract. And, you know why? I mean, infidelity is so deeply painful for people, but it doesn't invalidate the vows. I mean, my understanding is that's not grounds for an annulment. |
| Betsy | Well, I mean, I think back to what I said earlier, that's why, I mean, if this had happened in another era and a spouse found out about the cheating, it was a private matter. And I, I cannot imagine what it's like to have your mom or your dad plastered all over Instagram and Twitter and YouTube and, and how do you recover from that? It's it's got to be infinitely harder for any kind of reconciliation. And, you know, maybe they do get divorced, but I just thought about just just the fact that those their children go into work and everybody knows. And I just think that that would be devastating. |
| Mary | Yeah. He would almost need to kind of go into some kind of self-imposed witness protection program or something, you know, and actually, to your point about, you know, grounds for annulment, there is a grounds called intervention against fidelity, but that you need to prove that there was an intention on the part of one party not to be faithful, like your fingers were crossed behind your back while you were standing on the altar, and you know you had an affair within the first year, your marriage, then you had another in another. There are there are sometimes cases, and it's almost always men when they go into marriage thinking, I don't have to be faithful to her. This is just, this is who I'm going to be married to. But in my, you know, I'm I'm reserving myself mentally, and not intending to, to keep that piece of that. So it's kind of harder to prove it is a, it is a grounds. It's not often used, as far as I know. But, it just does that again, to kind of go back to our original point of how it it's shocking to me that so many people were shocked and, because I just kind of thought it was something that was sort of, you know, run of the mill in the same way we used to be shocked about, for example, premarital pregnancy. Right. And, women would go away, you know, or go to maternity home and then come back into society, that sort of thing. And it wasn't glamorized in any way. And we didn't have the show friends where, you know, Jennifer Aniston gets pregnant and has a baby out of wedlock and nobody bats an eye about it. You know, the whole, like, I love, Katie files, Substack them before us where she says, you know, the children really do come before the parents and their wellbeing and their mental health. And I loved that. CPA's. I think his name, first name is Brennan. Brennan. Schlossberg. Mom. And he said this is, I think, about his daughter right now. She is learning that love is conditional, that promises can't be broken, that dad chose someone over mom. She'll carry that wound into every relationship she ever has. And it will not be her fault. I mean, what what a burden to have on your conscience if this man has one that's functioning well, that you've done that not just to your son, but to your daughter as well, that your daughter will look for somebody who will treat her that way because she's been programed by you to do so. |
| Betsy | You know, it's funny that you mention Katie's letter. She has a great Substack. Yes, I'm working on a piece for our Substack. And it's called Ode to Weddings. And, I've been to two weddings recently, and one of the things that struck me, one was in a barn, but, Dylan. And it turns out that the minister, who I thought was a bona fide minister, is actually the groom's law school buddy. That got a, you know, universal minister license on the internet, but he crafted it and it was very scriptural. And at the end, he made each of them say, this is my solemn vow. And I don't think Catholics say that. And I thought, I, I do like that, but yeah. Again, what does that even mean? Unless it's before God and you feel that you have a duty before God to live up to your vows. |
| Mary | Yeah. We were at a family wedding over the weekend. My niece married, a young man from Ireland, and it was a real nail biter because after a year of attorneys on both sides of the Atlantic and lots of interviews, etc., etc. with American immigration and the intervention of the UK's ambassador, he finally got his his visa to come here to get married about 48 hours before the wedding. So my, sister in law and her husband had one of those big cardboard cutouts of him made up, and that was going to be the standard issue. They had it out at the reception. You could get your picture taken with the cardboard cutout of him. But during the, you know, the blessing for the, couple, it struck me in such a deep way. It's been a while since I've been to a wedding where that formal blessing is used, where, you know, the the priest says, help! Help this man to a, to understand that his wife is his equal and that he also will respect that as do no other. I mean, it was really beautiful, but very serious. I mean, when when you heard those words and I could tell there were a couple of non-Catholics in the crowd, and I could see they were riveted and they were listening very carefully. And, you know, I wonder that shouldn't just be sprung on you at your wedding. You should be shown that your very first preconception and say, this is what you have to promise. This is what you're signing up for, and you need to understand that you know this in advance. |
| Ashley | Yeah. I remember Pope Francis during the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia. I think this is when he made this comment, talked about the fact that priests get like seven years of preparation for the priesthood. And married married couples get like one, like weekend session, you know, if that. And I do think that there's a real truth to the fact that I don't think couples are adequately prepared for marriage anymore and and to have a much more solemn understanding of the first of all, how important your choice of spouses. Because because of how bad our divorce laws are and I'm sure we all know people who've gone through a divorce. But, you know, my sister is divorced and I would listen in on her calls. And it was absolutely shocking to me how little rites, people have, especially if they don't want to be divorced. I mean, 80% of divorces are unilateral, meaning that one person wants to stay married, which is just unbelievable to me that you can make these joint vows. And then one person like, it'd be one thing if both couples, both in the couple wanted to split right? When you have one person who really still wants to stay married, they have zero rights. They have zero rights. They're treated as if they were an adulterer. Yep. Anyways, I'm getting sidetracked. But, you know. |
| Mary | Zero rights and zero recourse, right? So actually, that's the other piece of it. |
| Ashley | You have to choose extremely carefully, because if you choose wrong, that person can destroy your life and destroy the lives of your children. They can remarry. They can take those children and live in a different home with them. It's just unbelievable. Yeah, but also just, you know, the fact that that you don't know what difficulties are coming down the pike. I mean, I remember my, cousin's wife, sister got married and like, within the first three months, found out that he had brain cancer. That's an extreme example. You know, many couples don't encounter anything like that, but, you know, there's just I do think the Catholic Church deserves a lot of praise for for the efforts that it does. Do I mean, as far as I know, they're the only institution that if you want to be married, affiliated, you know, in the Catholic Church requires this level of preparation where, you know, you do have to take a course. And I think the I don't know if it's required, but, the test, there's a test. |
| Betsy | I, I do marriage prep for my husband, and I do it with young couples, and it's called the inventory. Yeah, it's quite interesting. And and back to what somebody said about would you leave your with it? One of the questions is what would you do about infidelity? Would you remain married? And a lot of times they check unsure. And so we talk about that. I mean, it seems so far off to have that conversation before you're married about thinking about him or her cheating and what you would do. But, it is interesting how many things that they have not discussed, from money to personal habits. And I think it's really, really terrific that the church basically mandates it. No. Because if they don't they're going to be they're going to be dealing with it on the other side. Mary, are you a canon lawyer or. |
| Mary | Somewhat so I yeah. So I have a, I don't have a canon law degree, but I have a certification, in canon law, which is kind of the tear down from that. And I was the vice chancellor in Chicago for a good number of years, but I did. What are called prohibitions on marriage cases. So if a couple does receive an annulment, the judge in the case can take an additional step if he or she is concerned about the behavior or the problems that one of the two might have, or both of them, and put what's called a prohibition on it, which means they have an annulment. But there's still a restriction on them getting married again in the church. And that's notated on their, their records, their, their papers for their annulment. So, if they go to try to remarry again, the person preparing them for marriage or the priest or the pastor has to have a conversation with them, and usually it's mandated counseling, like, we want to see three meetings with a psychologist or psychiatrist, and we want a report back that says you've dealt with the issues that led to your the breakup of your first marriage. So even, you know, it's it's not Annulments aren't just Catholic divorce judges have other tools in their toolboxes that can help to protect the future spouse, right? So that he or she is not getting into a marriage with somebody who has a lot of unresolved problems and issues. |
| Betsy | Do they still have retro VI, which are the weekends for couples who have experienced infidelity? |
| Mary | Yes, they do. And retro VI, I think it's French, right? And I think I believe it means rebirth. I never took French in high school. We had to take Latin. But anyway, but many of the couples who come to retrofit, they're already civilly divorced. Many of them. And for the sake of their children, they go on one of these weekends, and they're incredibly helpful in helping couples to you know, reevaluate what they're doing, to look at the promises that they made initially and to try to in a very kind of controlled setting that's supportive to try to talk through some of the issues that led to, the separation and the divorce. And a lot of times there's adultery involved, and a lot of times there's adultery. That was somehow encouraged or driven by, significant use of porn. Yeah. Points a huge problem. And, you know, I remember I was in downtown Chicago one time and there's a parish in what's called Chicago's Loop, the busiest, section where, I think they hear 40% of all the confessions in the archdiocese because they have confessions from 7 to 7 every weekday. And so a lot of people go and I was chatting with one of the priests outside the church, and he's like, well, I got to go back, go, go, go back to the box. He said. Two more hours of porn and adultery. That's all I hear these days. And I was not surprised by the first, but I was really surprised by the second. And so it must be more prevalent than we know. But I'm grateful whoever is doing that is confessing it. That's a very good sign that they know it's wrong. But, we have a culture that doesn't encourage lifelong, committed marriage. |
| Ashley | No. And I mean, again, I do think it was interesting that the instinctual reaction of the couple that got caught was to hide. Like, it does show that in our natures, we we understand sin. We understand right and wrong that that's written in and even in our very distorted, bizarre culture. People understand, and I'm sure there was an element of not wanting to be caught, you know. |
| Ashley | Right. There's that too. And probably not wanting to lose your job. And I my understanding is that the CEO did step down, and I'm sure that. |
| Mary | I saw that on the. |
| Ashley | She she will she will too. |
| Mary | But but to your point about Adam and Eve, they had they had because they were ashamed. So maybe some of the Adam and Eve memes, you know, while I'm sure attempting to be funny, but they're also quite on point, aren't they? You know, we want to hide our sin when we're it's discovered and we know we've done it right. |
| Betsy | But what a gift that we have. Confession. You know, it's that you think of the burden and the guilt and the shame that these people feel. And the church does give absolution. It's it's remarkable. And it's it's mystical. |
| Mary | Right, right. With a firm purpose of amendment. And, you know, people do make mistakes. And, you know, again, I think you see fueled a lot by porn. And then, you know, if you're in a situation where you're not, maintaining what they used to call custody of the eyes, remember? So, there were, you know, my mother used to say all the time, God gives us rules not to make us miserable, but to make us happy. And if you follow those rules, then you have a much better chance of not falling into these kind of sinful and difficult situations, because you will have, you know, used self-discipline to apply those rules to yourself. |
| Ashley | Noelle Manning's article on this is just so great, and she writes, that instinct to hide kicked in immediately as the camera captured them, because hiding is in the heartbeat of an affair as it is with all sin. Perhaps it took a global pop star and a 10,000ft view, quite literally, for reality to break through. This isn't love or healing or destiny. It's just the same old story of a tawdry affair. It's boring as sin. Okay, props for the kicker. But to our point that we can't hide from God. And that's what the confessional is. Therefore, it's. I mean, we are encouraged that, you know, this whole thing about Catholic guilt. It's so silly. It's like, no, the confessional is there to help you. Not blow up your life. Right. Because sin, it starts with one step in the wrong direction. And the more frequently you go to confession, the more likely you are, the easier it is to get back on the right path. And so it's it's really a gift to us from God to help us be happy. Yeah. |
| Mary | And I would recommend Graham Greene's The End of the affair for anyone who wants to take sort of a literary look at the damage that adultery can do. And from a spiritual, perspective, it's a terrific book. Graham Greene's The End of the affair. |
| Betsy | Well, I think that we've about covered all things kiss cam, and we're going to end with One bright Star, which is another meme that went viral about a golfer whose son tumbled, tracked, trying to get to him on the green, and how he said that the most important thing of his life was not the money he was making, but his family. |
| Mary | Yeah, that was a very hopeful and very beautiful sign, wasn't it? And just these moments that really it can only be God, right? You couldn't create that if you wanted to. Well, listeners, thank you for joining us today. You can find out more about us at the Catholic association.org, where you can follow our articles and our interviews and all the things we're trying to do to make this world a better place. This has been Betsy Fentress, Ashley McGuire, and Mary Fiorito. Thank you for joining us. Welcome back to conversations with consequences. Now on radio. I'm your host, Mary Fiorito. |
| Betsy | And I'm Betsy Fentress. |
| Mary | And so many of you have likely read a really wonderful first person account last weekend of journalist Maddie Kearns in the pages of the Free Press about her journey to becoming a mother, and her story is colored by the amazing science of natural technology. So we are so grateful to have with us today, Maddie's doctor, Doctor Gavin put off, who treated her for her, infertility symptoms and has helped many other women in addition to Maddie, to become mothers. Welcome to the show, doctor put off. |
| Dr. Gavin Puthoff | Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity. |
| Mary | So you are both the founder and the medical director of Veritas Fertility and Surgery, and I know your board certified in gynecology and you specialize in the treatment of infertility, endometriosis, recurrent miscarriages and other gynecological conditions. And I know you're also trained in surgical natural technology, so you're one of not many physicians in the country, who help Catholics and then other people who, don't want to enter into the world of IVF to conceive. So in 2015, I know you started the Mercy Clinic Fertility Services, and you've cared for many, many couples over the year, years, rather. And you and your wife have seven children. |
| Dr. Gavin Puthoff | So we actually just had our eighth. Oh. Did you graduate ago? Yes we did, thank you. |
| Mary | Boy or. |
| Dr. Gavin Puthoff | Girl? This is a little boy. |
| Mary | Oh. What's his name? |
| Dr. Gavin Puthoff | James Prasad. |
| Mary | Oh. Oh, beautiful. Oh, perfect. Time for the canonization. |
| Dr. Gavin Puthoff | That's right. That's fantastic. |
| Mary | Well, tell us what led you to begin Veritas Fertility in surgery. |
| Dr. Gavin Puthoff | That's a great question. Again, thanks so much for having me on. You know, with with fertility medicine and reproductive surgery, there's such a need for a concierge or really, truly tailored approach to each of our patients that, as many of us will try to start out a practice in a hospital system, which is where I started at Mercy Hospital here in Saint Louis. We find ultimately that we want to be able to provide even another level of care compared to what we are able to do in, in a hospital setting. So having a private practice then gives us full control over how we build out the practice, who we hire, how we build up this team to take the best possible care of all of our patients, and allows us to be more flexible, to be able to grow, with the needs of our patients as we see the need. Then we can bring on additional physicians or nurse practitioners or nurses. So having the, having the entity where we know that we can offer this very specific, specialized, personalized type of treatment to our patients who are struggling with gynecologic symptoms, who are struggling with infertility, recurrent miscarriages, and to be able to do this in an environment and in a setting with a clinic that is so well tailored to what we do it, and it just means the most both to us but also to our patients. |
| Betsy | So you went to the University of Dallas, and then you had your medical training in Texas and in Nebraska. Can you tell us, was there a faith component for you deciding to go on this track of medicine? |
| Dr. Gavin Puthoff | Well, of course, you know, when you think about, being a practicing Catholic and going into the field of obstetrics and gynecology, you know, going into it, that you're going to run into potential ethical issues, whether it's related to in vitro fertilization or contraceptives or tubal sterilization. There's always going to be those hot topics that you're going to have to navigate during training. And of course, there's sometimes an unknown of how that's actually going to work when you're out in practice. So the fortunate thing for those of us who are coming through, kind of with my generation or even those who are coming through now, is that others have tried this path before us and have shown us that it is possible. But I think a lot of us who do this type of restorative reproductive medicine never want to be defined by what we say, what we won't do, but rather what we say that we can do and that other people oftentimes aren't offering. Which is, for me, the the main reason I pursued the fellowship in medical and surgical knapper technology, because it allowed me to have this very comprehensive, in-depth toolbox, both medically and surgically, to be able to help our patients. |
| Mary | So, doctor, we've had Mary Kearns on the show in the past, as it happens. And we you know, she's a incredibly gifted writer. And so she doesn't normally write about something so personal. So it was so moving to, to read, her story. And it really has gone viral, which surprised me a little bit because it's about a non IVF, you know, sort of Catholic approved method of helping people to achieve pregnancy. But it would probably be helpful for our audience who might not be familiar with some of the terms. We've already used nanotechnology. And, you know, can you explain just kind of the basic definitions of what it is your clinic specializes in? |
| Dr. Gavin Puthoff | Absolutely. Of course. And and I think Maddie did an outstanding job. And, and obviously there's a beautifully written article, but also explaining that, okay, well, Natera Technology was founded by Doctor Hilgers in the 70s and 80s, and created as this medical system. Perhaps he was thinking of it primarily for Catholics to be an alternative to contraceptives, to be an alternative to IVF. It really, as Maddy said, so well, is completely applicable to any and all couples who are striving to improve their overall gynecologic health or improve their fertility, or be able to optimize their hormone levels. So all of that is not ideological or religious in a sense. It really is just good medicine and good surgical care for patients. I think that's a that's an important thing for a lot of our patients to know. Is that sure, those of us who practice this way may have come into the field with sort of some religious motivations. Of course, it drives us to to take on this extra training. But ultimately, when we're seeing the patient across the exam room, what from us or in the operating room, they're there because of the very high level of precision fertility care or gynecologic care that we provide, separate and apart from potentially any moral issues or religious issues for them as individual patients. So it's it's a joy, a joy, obviously, for us to be able to meet the patients where they're from and to be able to offer this, alternative to the standard approaches. |
| Betsy | So on your website, you have a section devoted to endometriosis and the ways to treat that. And you have two different procedures. One that seems to be more prevalent, full duration, correct, and one that's less prevalent, which is excision. So my question is if excision, which you can explain is is a better treatment, why is the other one used way more often? And then people come to you and you have to fix what they've done in that procedure just to be able to get them up to the point where they might be able to achieve a pregnancy. Sure. |
| Dr. Gavin Puthoff | No. Great question. And I have patients ask me this exact question all the time. If I can just take a moment just to describe the two types of of treatments, I think it'll help to better understand why more surgeons don't do excision. So the mainstay so-called standard of care for the treatment of endometriosis surgically is to simply burn or plait or cauterize the surface of the neutral tissue implants in the pelvic tissues. I often will compare this to melting the tip of the iceberg. You quite literally have left centimeter roses in the pelvic tissues as much as 60% of the time, so it's actually not a treatment. It's sort of a temporary measure. Perhaps it might help to improve pain or even fertility for brief time, but the rate of recurrence is so high that truly, that should never be done. Ablation, full gradation, colonization of roses should never be performed, because it is not the most effective way for treating enemy process. And we know that excision is with excision. We we quite, quite literally in the surgery are, are cutting the roots of the disease out. We're completely eradicating the disease from the pelvis. And I can then confidently tell our patients, by the time you roll out of the operating room at the end of the surgery, any and all spots of enemy trusses have been fully remote. So the benefits of AI obviously are huge because now our patients don't have residual disease that potentially can grow back. The pain relief is better and then cutting it endometriosis out results in far less inflammation or tissue damage that can then lead to scar tissue like you mentioned. So excision always and everywhere will be the preferred and optimal treatment for enemy trusses and has the best long term outcomes for patients in terms of fertility, but also especially, for the potential need for repeat surgery or, or having to to mess with medications or anything else down the road. The reason, I think that the majority of surgeons don't perform excision is when you're going through your ObGyn residency training program. It's a four year program and there's a lot to learn. You have to learn how to deliver. Babies have to learn how to take care of patients in in the operating room or in the office. And so quite simply, there's just not the time to get the specialized training. And obviously, as the doctors graduate residency, if they don't pursue a surgical fellowship, an enemy trust is excision, like many of us do, or several of us do, I should say. Then they continue to do the type of treatment that they saw performed in residency, hoping that it'll get the patients that the the type of pain relief that they're looking for. And unfortunately, it just does. And so it really comes down to a training issue, I guess you could also say, well, there's a little bit more complexity or a lot more complexity to an excision surgery. So it does require more precision and more training to be able to competently, remove enemy tresses by excision. |
| Mary | So unfortunately, doctor, there was a case from Alabama, where the state Supreme Court in Alabama ruled that a particular statute, wrongful death statute, could include unborn children even if they lived in a frozen state in an IVF clinic, because the statute didn't specify that they had to be in utero in order to be considered an unborn children. And that led to a terrible domino effect of laws being very hastily passed across the country to ensure that IVF, will be available at all times in all places, and that, IVF clinics will be completely indemnified for any malpractice that they commit. So what are the real dangers to IVF that were not really brought forward when that story broke last year? As a physician, why do you, not do IVF yourself, other than the ethical and moral objections? As a Catholic, what about the the physical nature of doing IVF is dangerous and harmful to women? |
| Dr. Gavin Puthoff | Yeah, it's a great question and obviously it's a very complex scenario. But IVF, just from a philosophical standpoint, is not a cure of any disease. Women are going to address infertility, sure. But the IVF specialist simply says we have a workaround called IVF. We're going to hijack and basically take control of your hormonal system, of your ovulation for the next several months and put you through a very strenuous set of protocols to make your ovaries and body do what they were never really designed to do, which is hyper stimulate and develop ten, 15, 20 eggs to make multiple embryos. So just the process is so physically taxing and demanding, not to mention psychologically and financially burdensome for couples and patients who go through the IVF process. And then at the end of it, potentially, they would have spent tens of thousands of dollars to complete several rounds of IVF with not even a single pregnancy to show for it. So they walk away with quite literally nothing. In addition, not just not a pregnancy, but they haven't gotten a treatment or diagnosis or or any underlying evaluation of of the underlying causes of the issues that are causing their infertility. So they're left no healthier, so that from a medical reasoning perspective, we would say, well, that's simply just not the way medicine in my mind should work, that we are having a patient come to us for a particular condition. We don't care enough to identify or treat the underlying reasons for that condition, called infertility, which has a myriad of underlying causes. And instead we ask the patient to just bear with us while we put their body through something that it was never meant to do. So I think that's one major issue with IVF. Of course, the other issues that attend IVF are there's a much higher rate of preterm delivery. You know, we care a lot about pre-term birth because it comes with higher childhood, issues and, and infant mortality. We also know there's a higher rate of having congenital defects like cleft lip, cleft palate and neural tube defects. Even a single ten to a singleton pregnancy, a 1 to 1. It's not just because IVF oftentimes will result in a twin pregnancy, or sometimes even a triplet or quadruple a pregnancy, but even 1 to 1, those children born of IVF are not as healthy as those born from a natural conception. The women who are going through the IVF process are at risk for having what's called ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome, which is can be a very severe and even life threatening condition in cases. So it doesn't take long to start to walk down this path of understanding. Once we know what IVF really means for the person who's going through it. Yes, I know that the couples have the goal, the sights set on the pregnancy ultimately, but it not only, potentially endangers the patient as they're going through it because it's so intense, but also leaves you with a much lower success rate. |
| Betsy | Can we talk a little bit about tubal ligation and the reversal of that? How often do you do that and how successful is it in most cases. |
| Dr. Gavin Puthoff | So tubal ligation reversal is a very successful treatment in most cases. For patients who are under the age of 40 weeks, 70 to 75% chance for pregnancy after a tubal ligation reversal, when we use the micro surgical technique that we do, and generally our patients who are coming to us, they know that their options are either, well, of course, outside of adoption, potentially, but their options are basically IVF or tubal reversal. Well, here's another dichotomy where IVF is a 15 to 20 or $30,000 process with maybe a 30 to 50% chance for pregnancy or tubal ligation. Reversal is under $10,000, with not just a 70 to 75% chance of that first pregnancy, but they can go on to have two or 3 or 4 pregnancies even after a single tubal ligation reversal. So we do tubal reversals, probably several tubal reversals every single month. We love to, to offer these patients this, very life affirming treatment. Obviously, we're we're giving them their fertility back by this procedure. So it's an outstanding, procedure that we get to offer our patients. And, you know, yes, it's surgery. It's slightly invasive in the sense of having to make incisions, but we are restoring their normal anatomy, which is so much of what we love to do with restorative reproductive surgery is that we just want to fix the underlying issue. We want to fix the problem. So in the tubal ligation reversal standpoint, it's a relatively straightforward. If you know the tools and you know how to do it, relatively straightforward procedure to allow somebody to regain their fertility for the rest of their gynecologic or reproductive life. |
| Mary | I think most people have heard the word android and have a sense of what it is, but what are some of the other conditions that might be causing infertility? |
| Dr. Gavin Puthoff | Oh, that's a big, can to open up right now. So there are quite literally dozens of issues that can cause infertility. When we think about the most common things, like blocked fallopian tubes from some past pelvic infection or from a prior ectopic pregnancy or surgery, we can have ovulation disorders where a woman doesn't ovulate at all, or perhaps she's ovulating in an incorrect way. The egg is not being completely released from the ovary, so it never has a chance to be fertilized. There can be issues with the uterine structure, whether it's large fibroids or polyps or scar tissue inside the uterus. That can also cause infertility. I take care of a lot of patients, for example, who have infertility. What's called secondary infertility after a C-section, simply because they have a cesarean scar niche or defect where the prior incision was made and the muscle didn't heal correctly. So that is actually probably the most common cause of secondary infertility after C-section. And it's readily treatable with restorative surgery, we just resect that part of the abnormal part of the uterine wall and reconstruct the uterus so that they can go on to achieve a healthy and carry healthy full term pregnancy. So of course, that's just on our patient side. And then there's other nuance issues like, bacterial inflammation or chronic enemy treatise or issues with cervical mucus or sperm, issues as well. So there's a lot there. And obviously these are, very long conversations. And sometimes, we get through a lot of it, different information about the patient's history. But of course, the workup also demands us to be very thorough when we start to go through and evaluate each of these different, type of causes for infertility. |
| Betsy | So is the first procedure that you would it's not a procedure. The first thing that you would have a new patient do if they weren't already actually kind of aware of their for ability through charting or through apps. How do you feel about some of these new technologies for people to to track their fertility? Do you find them successful? |
| Dr. Gavin Puthoff | I think by new technologies, new meaning, like the, the cycle tracking bracelets and, yes, basal body temperature thermometers. You know, for some patients, they can be very accurate. Unfortunately, you don't know if you're that one that it's going to work for or not. So you may be operating on less than complete information. The benefit of charting your cycle with, for example, the Creighton Model Fertility Care system, which is where Napper technology was, was really based from, is that the woman from a day to day standpoint gets to see the objective biomarkers of her fertility. She gets to see the cervical mucus develop around the time of ovulation, and then the mucus dries up. And you can also identify bleeding abnormalities and different problems. So you get such a more three dimensional view of what the menstrual and the fertility cycles look like for each individual patient from one cycle to the next, which helps us to better understand and identify subtle issues like inflammation or regulatory issues or problems with cervical mucus. So while an ovulation predictor test or a basal body temperature test in and of itself is a data point, it helps to help the the woman understand her cycle a little bit better. It truly is not the most accurate way to track their system, and it also doesn't really give us that same kind of foundational understanding of what's happening with their fertility every month. |
| Mary | Well, doctor, pull it off. It's been such a pleasure speaking with you. Can you tell us how our listeners can get in touch with you? Do you take patients from out of state? How can any woman come and see you? Give us a little bit of information about that. |
| Dr. Gavin Puthoff | We do. So our website is Veritas fertility.com. We're also on social media on, Instagram, I believe, and as well as Facebook. So, it's Veritas Fertility on, on Instagram as well as my own account. Gavin put off MD on Instagram. So that's a way that they can learn more about what we do, both on the website and also on the social media channels. The way to reach out, of course, you can always call our office and, speak with Vicki upfront. She takes care of all of our onboarding for our patients and gets, you know, get some situated for the initial consult. We do see a lot of patients from outside of Missouri. We also see, usually by a telehealth visit for the initial visit. We also see patients from across the world in different countries. So telemedicine has provided this opportunity for us to be able to see patients, even if they're not in our locale. Of course, I can't do surgeries remotely, so our patients do at some point end up coming to Saint Louis to be able to have the surgical correction or have a more in-depth diagnostic evaluation here at our office. But, yeah, I think that that allows us to be able to have a larger reach and be able to take care of more patients, which of course, we love. We want to be able to help as many as we possibly can. |
| Mary | Well, doctor, put off, thank you again for joining us today. Again, to learn about Veritas Fertility, go to Veritas fertility.com. And if you'd like to read Mandy Kern's moving piece, you can go to the Free press at the Free press.com. And to catch all of the great content by our TCA team, please visit the Catholic association.org. Thank you for joining us today. |
| Betsy | Welcome back to conversations with consequences, where I'm joined by our TCA chaplain, Monsignor Roger Landry, who is headed to Napa for an annual conference that he's going to tell us all about. |
| Msgr. Landry | The Napa Institute has been part of my summer schedule for the last four years. I've been asked to give a keynote on hope because this is the jubilee of hope and we're going to be exploring there with about 800 Catholics, mainly from the United States, a few who travel from all over the world in order to be able to attend. We're going to be exploring how we're capable of living by hope today in a way that's credible and giving hope to others. And so I've got the keynote trying to explain what hope is, because a lot of people are confused about what hope is. We know what faith is. We know what charity is. But trying to define hope, not even Pope Francis defined it in his book of addiction for this jubilee and Pope Benedict back in 2009 just kind of gave us, a photographic negative of what hope is. He says hopelessness means living without God in the world. And therefore you can almost imply that hope, fullness, is living with God in the world. So I'm going to explore that in my keynote. And then I'm hosting, I'm happy to say, breakout session with two other great Catholic organizations in the country once the papal foundation, and the second is the Catholic nearest welfare association, or Canada. And together with the difficult mission societies, we're going to be talking about the hope Americans bring to the whole Catholic world through the generosity of Americans, making possible the growth of the church in areas where she's poor, she's persecuted, she's too young. And so that's what I'm going to be doing. But there are 12 keynotes out there in Napa. There are about 50 of these breakout sessions. And then the real fun stuff at Napa is seeing so many friends all in the same place at the same time. You've got great, great meals, you've got the best wine that America produces. And so it's just a great way for Catholics to grow in faith in and friendship in one place together. And so this is the 15th in our annual Napa Institute conference. I think the larger theme, Betsy, with, with all of this is how do we as adult Catholics grow our faith? There are many awesome opportunities that are out there in terms of conferences like this, or online materials through the Augustine Institute or Dynamic Catholic or Ascension Press, or Word on Fire for sure with Bishop Barron. But it is super important for us to have a hunger to get to know our faith better so that we can share it more effectively. And that's one of the most inspiring things for me as a priest. When I go to Napa, that you've got so many Catholics who come together not just to have great meals and wine, not just to see friends, not just to enjoy some of the best weather in the country in the month of August. But to really get to know their faith better, ask the tough questions. Learn it so that they can be credible witnesses in the middle of the world. |
| Betsy | So between last year and this year, Monsignor, how does this, how does the atmosphere change with a new pope and kind of Pope Leo's focus on some of the issues that you're talking about? And and being basically a missionary priest in Peru? Tell us about how you see maybe a different bent on any of this because of him. |
| Msgr. Landry | So all the speakers, myself included, have been asked to incorporate Pope Leo into the talks, whereas we were all encouraged when we were invited. Several months ago to use Pope Francis's, inaugural letter for this Jubilee of Hope. So we're probably most of us are going to use both. But Pope Leo has brought an incredible enthusiasm to Catholics in general, and American Catholics in particular, because he understands the world in the church from an American lens. And so as we start to look into the types of things that he's seeking to do to fill American Catholics with hope, it's pretty obvious he's teaching with clarity. He's really working for authentic unity, not as a lowest common denominator, but as, as C.S. Lewis used to say, a highest common factor, not just trying to sort of eliminate anything that we could disagree about, but trying to bring us together in the most important things. His message of peace. Today, every pope preaches peace. That's not big news, but the way that he's trying to bring about peace, I mean, he's using much clearer and we could say less diplomatic language with regard to some of the conflicts that are going on in the world with regard to Russia's unprovoked attack in Ukraine, with regard to Israel's bombing with a military tank right. League, Catholic Church in Gaza. I mean, sorry, the apology of, Netanyahu wasn't sufficient. No. How could a mistake like that happen? How could it be errant that almost hit the top of this church and took three lives and sent scores to the hospital? I mean, Pope Leo is speaking very clearly about those evils and about the goods that need to come. And so I think he, underneath this whole subject of the Jubilee of Hope, is going to be the one about which we're going to be speaking the most. There are panels out there, two of them specifically on what Pope Leo has said in his first three months as our Holy Father, what it means for us as American Catholics, what it means for the church moving ahead. And so there are going to be a couple of explicit panels, all staffed with bishops, really from their own office, not just American bishops, but the one of the greatest bishops of hope throughout the entire world is Bishop Eric Vardhan, who's from Norway. He's in his young 50s, super smart, super eloquent. He's been writing various books, writing blog articles, giving major speeches. He's going to be one of the keynotes in a likewise be on that piano. I think he's going to make all of us there much smarter, and he's going to help us integrate it within our own personal relationship with the Lord and a liturgical worship of God. |
| Betsy | Monsignor, will our listeners be able to see video of the conference posted online once the conference is over? |
| Msgr. Landry | So the way the Napa Institute works is at first they want people to come to the conference, and so they're not going to put it up live. It's not going to be a live stream for those who can't come to the conference. But somehow they want to participate. There is an option by which I forget exactly how much it costs, but you can watch those live streamed. But then after about four months, they put all the talks on YouTube for anybody to access so that everybody is able eventually to profit from them. And so they'll they'll be accessible for everybody at no charge in about four months or so is when they start rolling them out 1 or 2 of these keynotes a week. |
| Betsy | Fantastic. Will be looking for those online, and we will talk to you after the conference and find out, all the things that you learned. And thank you for joining us today. Monsignor Landry. |
| Msgr. Landry | I bless you, Betsy, and I can't wait to be able to greet you with a little bit of California. |