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Episode Description
The team opens this week’s show by reflecting on Catholic economist Catherine Pakaluk’s recent New York Times essay, celebrating the beauty of siblings and large families amid America’s historic decline in birth rates. Drawing from their own experiences as mothers, the TCA team discusses the unique joys of growing up with siblings, the blessings of raising large families, and the lifelong relationships that develop between brothers and sisters—including how a young sibling can be a balm to older teens struggling with depression or anxiety.
Next, we sit down with Catholic mother Keishera Joubert to hear the harrowing, beautiful story of her son, baby Cassian. Known as the “miracle baby born twice,” Keishera shares her ordeal of keeping her son alive against all odds. Keishera reflects on months of hospitalization, the power of prayer, the support of the Catholic community, and the spiritual transformation her family experienced through the ordeal.
Following the appointment of TCA chaplain Msgr. Roger Landry to the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of Evangelization, we talk with the Pontifical Missions Director about his new call. Msgr. Landry also addresses the recent SSPX excommunications and explains the Church’s teaching on ordinations, the importance of remaining in full communion with the Holy See, and Pope Leo’s continued desire for reconciliation
Catch the show every Saturday at 7amET/5pmET on EWTN radio!
And don’t forget to subscribe to TCA’s daily media roundup for smart Catholic news and commentary delivered straight to your inbox.
Bios
Keishera Joubert is a Catholic wife, mother, and writer whose family’s remarkable journey through a life-threatening prenatal diagnosis has inspired thousands around the world. After her unborn son, Cassian, was diagnosed with a rare condition known as Congenital High Airway Obstruction Syndrome (CHAOS), Keishera and her husband chose to pursue an innovative fetal surgery while placing their complete trust in God’s providence. Her powerful testimony of faith, perseverance, and the sanctity of human life has been featured by Word on Fire and other Catholic media outlets. Their saga helps pave the way for future medical breakthroughs that could save countless other children diagnosed with similar life-threatening conditions. Keishera and her husband hope to use their journey to encourage parents facing difficult prenatal diagnoses and advocate for every child’s inherent dignity.
Monsignor Roger Landry is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts. 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. In 2024, he was appointed National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the USA by Pope Francis. He writes for numerous publications, speaks on radio and TV, and served as executive editor for the Diocese of Fall River weekly paper. He is the author of Plan of Life: Habits to Help You Grow Closer to God, and was an on-site commentator for EWTN during the last two papal conclaves. He is national chaplain for Catholic Voices USA and New York Chaplain for the Leonine Forum. Msgr. Landry traversed the 1500-mile Eucharist Pilgrimage in 2024, coinciding with his 25th year in the priesthood. In June 2026, he was appointed by Pope Leo XIV to the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of Evangelization.
The following transcript is machine generated.
Episode 377 Transcript
| Ashley | Welcome to conversations with consequences here on EWTN radio. I'm your host, Ashley McGuire. |
| Betsy | And I'm Betsy Fentress. And I. |
| Ashley | Leigh Sneed. And it's so fun to be back with each other, talking about something that a topic that we know very well. All of us are mothers and have several children. And today we're talking about a piece that really made a big splash in The New York Times, by the Catholic economist Catherine Bacalar on the beauty of siblings and the terrible state that we are in right now, with so many people opting to have only one child or none, and just our general plummeting birth rate. But even more than that, just a lack of a lack of appreciation of the joy and the fun that big families are. And I know that, Betsy, this is something that you know very well because you are one of 11 children. Am I right? Correct. So tell us what it was like growing up as one of 11, and how did this article resonate with you reading that, having lived the experience of a truly a big family? |
| Betsy | There's just so many aspects to it because, you know, so my older siblings were gone pretty much by the time I remember them. They were off in college, but there's just so many stages that I didn't really know them that well. Then they had kids, so I became an aunt, which was one of the real blessings of being a sibling is not everybody has their own children. So being an aunt was one. Just all the things I learned about music and art and sports, and people were pulling me into the yard to do something. Or my sister learned how to make chocolate chip cookies or caramels or embroidery. It's so rich and and so deep. It's even hard to put in words. And I never thought this is a drag. I did it because I was part of the caboose, but in my own life, with my own children, it I was not. It did not seem daunting to me to have a multi child family, and that is one of the biggest gifts, is that it took all the fear out of having a big family and and I knew I wanted. When I met my husband, I knew I wanted to really be open to life and to to be open to what God was going to send my way. |
| Ashley | Well, this article really, really resonated with me because I just spent a week with my five children and several of my siblings and their children, and then several of my cousins, all of us, my mom, my aunts, my cousins, all have probably 4 or 5 kids and getting together for a week. I was struck by how incredibly privileged my children are. And this is something you get more perspective when you're a little bit out of the most difficult phase, when you're just constantly exhausted and changing diapers, but I thought, this is worth more than gold. It's a cliche, but, you know, as Peggy Noonan has written, cliches are cliches for a reason. It's just what? There's nothing that can replace the experience of spending time, quality time with extended family. And in the article, she she cites a lot of research that shows how quickly we're moving away from that mentality. She said over the past 50 years, the share of American mothers with only one child has nearly doubled, from 11% in 1976 to about 20% today. Meanwhile, she says, large families have receded. In 1976, 40% of mothers at the end of their childbearing years had four or more children. By 2014, just 14% did. So, Lee, you have an interesting perspective because you were an only child, but now you have your own big family by today's standards with four kids. What was your what were your thoughts reading that article, having kind of lived both experiences. |
| Leigh | You know, it just made so much sense to me. And I, you know, my children are mine through adoption. So, you know, everyone was, you know, a real sort of active choice on our parts. There were no, you know, surprise babies really for us. And there's a big gap between them. Six years between my first and my middle two and then nine years between them and their baby brother. You know, it was I think it's funny because people in the comment section of a doctor for colleagues article were really upset about the idea that the attention can get, you know, too thin from the parents. They don't have enough to give to the siblings, but it's also easy to, you know, one, it's easy to ignore, one, you know, and, you know, I mean, I don't ever get bored, which is great because I entertained myself a lot. I didn't even I had one aunt who had no children, so I didn't even have first cousins. So I was the only kid in a lot of situations for most of my growing up. And you know, I really envied my friends with even one sibling, you know, and especially I think when you when you're growing up and you have close girlfriends, you know, through high school and college, there comes a time when you realize that closeness is, you know, is always going to be beat out by like, their sisters, like, you know, you may feel like they're your best friend, but you don't make the cut for a bridesmaid because they have all these sisters, you know, and that's like something silly. But it is, you know, it's definitely the reality. You're just kind of like the cheese stands alone. And, you know, I think, I think my parents were divorced, and I think having a sibling to do that, you know, my parents, I think, you know, as far as divorces go by, pretty good job. I've been complimented by telling me I don't seem like an only child, and I don't seem like a child of divorce, which I think have to be good things. I'm not sure you know what the other the flip side of that would look like, but, I always, you know, I used to almost pretend that my, like, friends were my siblings. You know, sometimes I'd be like, let's pretend we're brother and sister. And they'd be like, that's really weird because I have siblings and it's not that big a deal because it's not that big a deal. If you have them. But, you know, either my father died in my late 20s, and I think, you know, that was another time I missed having a sibling. And, you know, I'm lucky now that my children do have, two cousins, but I think it's going to take. We had a couple generations of, you know, one or none in our family. And it's going to take, you know, a while for them to have a situation like you just had on your vacation with us, you know, multiple cousins everywhere. Because I do think cousins can take the place of siblings. Yeah, but I had neither. So. But yeah, I love having big family. I wish I had more kids because I see the way and I also similar to what doctor McCulloch stated in the article, we really did see, we had a sullen, you know, kind of a little depressed 17 year old who just lit up when our youngest came on the scene. And, I mean, everyone calls, you know, him like my youngest is like my oldest baby because they're just so close. In fact, this summer that it's home from college, they're sharing a bed together. They're just so close. And it was just great. And it's also my twins in the middle, are on the autism spectrum, and it was easy for them to sort of stay in baby mode, but they really have risen to the occasion. Like they really like to make sure that the their younger brother is safe. They take care of they like to teach him how to do things they like to help him. The Lego sets I have one son who's really into origami and he is teaching, you know, it's very frustrating for him, but he's trying to teach him origami, you know, so much so that he. Anyway, he just calls him my precious baby brother. And now. Now the baby who's not a baby anymore. He's four, but he calls them my precious big brother. It's just been it just. It's just so good. And I think opting out of that, on purpose is one thing to. I don't know, I don't know, I feel like I've gone on. What do you guys think, Ashley, you've got a whole situation. You grew up with a lot of siblings and you've got a lot of kids. |
| Ashley | Well, one of the things that struck me in the article was she had a line where she said, every single woman. And in her book, she went around the country interviewing mothers with five or more children. And she said they all agreed that raising five was easier than raising one. And I thought, that is so interesting. I vividly remember when I had three and they were five, two and a half and baby feeling like I was drowning and a mom who has. I've lost track more than ten said that was the absolute hardest stage. And I thought, how can that be possible? She said. Having more kids makes it easier. Well, I completely understand now because here I am with my oldest daughter, gone at sleepaway camp, and I'm sweating because she's so helpful. |
| Leigh | Yeah, but. |
| Ashley | It's, you know, I think it's important for us to step back, as you just pointed out and, you know, say we completely understand. And you more than anybody leave that. There are many people who would love to have more than one children or even even one child. But there's definitely a broad cultural trend of people who are choosing not to have more. And I think it's because they are they're they're fed a constant, a steady diet of antenatal list material, but also because they have an idea that it would just be too hard. And, you know, it's important to acknowledge that it is hard. It's not easy. And parenting one child is hard. Parenting five children is hard. But but certainly people I think they've lost sight of the fact, maybe because they are experiencing it less and less. The other children help, they help, they help play with the other siblings so that you have someone to give loving attention to the toddler while you're cooking dinner. They help with homework. I can't even help my kids with my math homework anymore. I need my older two to help with the younger two because I can't do math without a calculator. |
| Leigh | And I mean, it's. |
| Ashley | Just it's there's a culture in big families of everybody is pitching in and that's weirdly viewed as like parent defying or like almost abuse to children, like making them change diapers. |
| Leigh | Crying is when the child has to parent the adult, right? That's the real that's the real meaning of that term. You know, I also think the big families, you can't by default, you can't be a helicopter parent. Right? So when you're exhausted from helicopter parenting your two children, of course you're going to think you don't have energy for more. But you don't. You know, your job is not to entertain your children. |
| Ashley | Betsy was that you're experiencing your experience raising six kids that by default, people just start helping. And also now your grandmother is probably seeing this. How do you see things changing? The grandmother's perspective? |
| Betsy | Yeah, I'm seeing it played out with, my grandchildren and the way it played out in my family where my older kids were tremendously helpful. I think that is a big part of this discussion, is the ending to this article where she says, I'm not telling everybody to go and have these huge, huge families just don't say, I'm done right after you've you've had a child. I think that's fantastic advice. And I think that the advice for people, first of all, my doctor said to me one day, you know, fertility is a gift. And I think if you look at that, why do I have a large family? Why was Lee did Lee grow up in a small family? I mean, a lot of this is, you know, God's mystery that we'll find out one day, but I think it's important for big families to really be open and embrace. And I grew up this way. My front door was never locked. My house had so many people in it at all times. And I think that if you are given the gift of a big family, you're required to share that to open your home, to let kids who don't have siblings come in and be part of your family. And, I think the financial component is very daunting for people, especially people who are concerned that the kind of education they want often a religious education, if they have big families, isn't working in the public school system. So there are a lot of issues, but I think taking it one day at a time. And also this is a sad thing to say, but I know several people who have lost children, and I think that one of the reasons to remain open to life on a daily basis is you can't guarantee that your family will be the size that you planned it to be, and that's a hard thing to talk about. But it is a reality. And I think that sometimes people in their grief actually reopen their idea of the size of their family and have more children. |
| Ashley | Well, that's what JD Vance did, that they they've been very forthright that it was the grief of seeing what happened to their friend being assassinated that led them to reopen. You know, they had kind of been negotiating about you know, these are the terms for having more kids. And they decided to have another baby. Now she's 40 and having a fourth child. And you just know that they're going to be so happy that they had that baby. And, you know, somebody once told me, and this is so true, everybody that I speak to doesn't matter. Their family size says, we wish we would have had one more. Yeah. Nobody says, I really regret having that last kid. I mean, that last kid is just always everybody is, you know, the the kid that lights up their world. And I don't know if my fifth will be my last, but I was with I was with my sister and my other kids were with my husband, and they all called and they all just wanted to talk to my fifth on the phone. I think it's so cute. They all want to say hi to Felicity, and it's just, you know, that last child is is like the rainbow is like a gift. But, |
| Betsy | And please don't call it a booboo. Thank you. Know, well, people will say, oh, there's our there's our mistake. |
| Ashley | Accident or accident. |
| Betsy | Yes. |
| Leigh | Yeah. We call our youngest our bonus baby. Yeah. Because I was 46 at the time and was just like, you know, we weren't sure we were going to be able to adopt again. And there he is. And he's said, yeah, Apple of everybody's eye. |
| Ashley | Well, and again with so much of the article we've talked about, this is there's such a crisis of loneliness and isolation and it's like we have the tools right in front of us. You know, we have the ability if you're if we're blessed with the ability. But even if not through adoption to, to provide kind of like, built in friends, you know, and it's, it's just, I think it's a very worthwhile project that she's trying to, raise awareness of the many, many different, joys and consolations that a big family provides. |
| Leigh | Yeah. |
| Betsy | I think also on the other end of the spectrum, and I'm older than both of you people, is that as parents age and that burden sometimes falls on the children, it's awfully nice to be able to spread that out among multiple people. And and some people live in town. Some people don't, but they might send something or come in for a long weekend and allows that person to have a break. And there's a lot of different ways to contribute to the care of our aging parents. But what a beautiful thing when the siblings can share the burden together. |
| Ashley | Well, I'm sure we could talk endlessly about this topic. It's it's a fascinating topic. It's an extremely important topic and acutely so as as our birth rate is now at a historic low of 1.6 births per women, to try to revive a conversation about viewing children as a gift and and viewing family as, something that's an irreplaceable, positive part of life. But to read Katherine McCulloch's piece entitled Life is Better with Siblings, please visit the New York times.com and make sure to check out her book, Hannah's Children, and to find out more about how we do what we do. At the Catholic Association, you can visit the Catholic Association. Dot org ladies, so great chatting with both of you today. |
| Betsy | Thanks, Ashley. Ashley, thanks. |
| Ashley | Welcome back to conversations with consequences. Now on EWTN radio. I'm your host, Ashley McGuire. And with some big cases making waves this week, including one that will soon be picked up by the Supreme Court. We welcome Adelle Kime, legal counsel of the Becket Fund. Since 2012, she has defended the rights of rock bands, Native American sacred dancers, organizations supporting Cuban orphanages and nuns and Adele. That's one of the first cases we wanted to discuss today. The Little sisters of the poor. Welcome to the show, Adele. |
| Adele Kim | Thanks for having me, Ashley. |
| Ashley | So I have been either working on or following the Little Sisters of the poor case for what seems like the entirety of my adult life, and I was writing a piece recently and actually had to go quadruple check to see that. It's true that the Little sisters of the poor are still actually in court fighting over the same thing the right to serve the poor and elderly without being harassed by the government about contraceptives. Can you please give us an update of what is going on with this case? |
| Adele Kim | Initially, the Little Sisters have been to the U.S. Supreme Court to or depending on how you count, it's three times. And every time the Supreme Court has told the federal government, hey, back off. And of course, that's the right answer. At the beginning of the Trump administration, the first Trump administration, the federal agency that had been harassing the sisters and had been seeking to force them to distribute contraceptives to their employees in their in their employee health plans, had a change of heart and a change of mind in response to the Supreme Court's repeated brush facts, and finally issued a rule that would protect religious objectors like the Little sisters. You know, sincere people who are seeking to run their ministries in a way that reflects their Catholic faith or their Christian faith and and said, hey, since we've exempted plans covering millions of people simply because they're grandfathered to keep the political promise, if you like your plan, you can keep it. That's a deep cut, actually, that goes back, we've exempted plans belonging to, you know, New York City employee unions and U.P.S. and, and Coca-Cola bottle works. To keep a political promise, you have to, under the Constitution, exempt the little sisters as well. Their obligations to follow their faith are something that our Constitution requires you to respect. So the Trump administration did the right thing, promulgated a very broad, very good rule protecting little sisters and people like that. That's the end of the story, right? |
| Ashley | It sounds like not. |
| Adele Kim | It's not immediately like the day that this, this rule came down and the sisters were rejoicing in their newfound freedom. The, the the state's attorney generals, who are elected officials in many states and have to run, decided that this was their time to shine. So California, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and a grab bag of other states with very political edges, I will say, rushed into court and claimed that I can't make this up. Actually, it violates the Establishment Clause for the federal government to protect the little Sisters of the poor from soul crushing fines. |
| Ashley | So does that create a new legal is because that's like a novel legal argument. Is that is that why there's this new round of litigation? |
| Adele Kim | Well, the all of the litigation up to that point had been the sisters asking the federal courts to tell the federal government to stop trying to crush them once the federal government changed its mind, that round of the fight was kind of over, right? It had been sisters versus, you know, the David versus Goliath sisters versus the government saying, please protect us. The government said, okay, fine, we will protect you. We can continue to pursue these policy goals without crushing you. Right. And that's the right answer. It's been the right answer all along. Then it became states versus the federal government, where the state said, hey, because you're not crushing the little sisters and forcing them to to bow the knee, we're going to have additional costs in our state contraceptive programs, because women who are employed by the sisters will have to come to us to get the contraceptives that they want instead of having the sisters pay for them. And we say that's unconstitutional. We say that's like arbitrary, capricious, like you're totally irrational. You could never pass a rule protecting the sisters, and you don't have authority to exempt the sisters under federal law. So they went up to the US Supreme Court. And in 2020, the US Supreme Court said, yes, they do. They completely have authority to exempt the Little sisters. And so the cases went back down. And the states, for reasons of their own, decided to pick up the remnant arguments like the arguments that they didn't even think were strong enough to make it to win the first time around and and throw those back now, I will say actually, like in the in the sense of the state, Justice Kagan didn't set out like kind of roadmap for them. Here are some arguments you could still make notwithstanding the Supreme Court's holding today. So they were kind of being obedient footsoldiers and saying, well, okay, we'll keep making those arguments. The problem was actually by this time Trump won, had ended and Biden was in, was back in the white House. And the Biden political appointees at House said, went into court and told the states and the federal court system, hey, please put these cases on ice while we think about whether we are going to continue to protect the Little Sisters and the federal judges and the states both said, sure, we'll we can wait. So whereas four years before they had rushed into into the the court on the very day the rule was filed and said with their hair on fire, said, you got to protect us. You've got to protect us right now. When the Biden HHS came back in four years later and said, you know, we want to think about this some more, we might change the rule. They said, no problem. We've got all the time in the world. And do you know how long they waited on this issue and how long, how long they took Ashley? |
| Ashley | No. |
| Adele Kim | Four years. Wow. |
| Ashley | So that's why this is reactivating I see, I see. |
| Adele Kim | Yeah, it reactivated as soon as the Trump administration came back in. They were like, well, now, I mean, now we got to get really. |
| Ashley | What a convenient slice of time. So how are the sisters holding up? I mean, I've met so many of them over the years. And, you know, these are women who their life's work is, is serving and caring for the weakest of people. They're not the types that are wanting to go in, you know, swinging fists into the courts. How has this affected their their outlook on things? |
| Adele Kim | The sisters eyes are on heaven, Ashley. Yeah, I mean, they're truly eternal things. I mean, they they are walking forward, you know, day by day. Look, their, their their charism is to be it is humility like that is that that is one of the primary aspects of their care. So it has been very uncomfortable for them to be in the spotlight. They're all in literally the day to day for, for a little sister of the poor is very frequently they have had meetings with them and they'll be like, well, we need to get back to the home right now because we need to help feed it, feed our residents their lunch. Like literally like spoon feeding people who can't feed themselves and can't afford to have other caregivers. Right. So I think when you're shaped day in and day out by just the practice of being a caregiver, and when you're found dress, you know, Saint James, you can had to labor in anonymity for as long as she did for a better life. I highly recommend it. It's very inspiring. You. You just have this sense that God is in control and that he cares for the sparrow, and that not a hair falls from your head or the head of the people, the residents in your homes, and you just keep walking forward with your eyes on him. That's what I see, and that's what I experience when I'm alongside them or visiting in their homes. |
| Ashley | Well, God bless the Becket Fund for being there to defend them. And you're also working on another case that we've been following closely at TCA, the case of Saint Mary Catholic Parish v Roy. We just have a minute left. But this is the universal preschool case out in Colorado, where they're purposefully excluding Catholic schools from this program and by extension, Catholic families who want to send their children to those preschools because of the faith beliefs of those schools. But my understanding is that there was some big news this week about, you know, more more groups and people joining the coalition, standing behind those families and standing with Becket. Just give us a quick update, if you could. |
| Adele Kim | So this the US Supreme Court is going to hear the case of the Catholic schools that were excluded from the so-called universal pre-K program. And remember, Colorado, the Colorado's officials testified that they were fine, approving preschools that specialized in serving LGBT families, specialized in serving families of color, specialized in serving families that had kids with special needs that just were not going to approve preschools that gay that specialized in serving Catholic families so that, you know, it was truly a Catholic exclusion rule that Colorado was applying. It's pretty outrageous. And so I think it's not surprising that this last week, it has been agreed to hear the case earlier this spring and in April, and then this last week, there was just a tremendous coalition of people from different faith groups coming before the court as friends of the court to say Colorado is violating the US Constitution. And if they're allowed to do this to Catholic preschools, there's all kinds of things that state governments across the country will be allowed to do to other religious groups that they are disfavored. I remember it's a big it's a big country, actually. So Colorado might be picking on Catholics, but if you're in a different state, it might be a different religious minority group that's going to get picked on. Right? So there's truly the the breadth of the coalition truly showed that, you know, people get it that we stand together, we fall together when we're talking about, religious communities and our rights to to live out our faith in public. |
| Ashley | Well, we'll be certainly following that case very closely. Adele, thank you so much for your time joining us today. And we wish you all the best with Beckett's continued winning streak in the courts. So thank you so much, Adele. |
| Adele Kim | Thank you, Ashley. |
| Betsy | Welcome to conversations with consequences here on EWTN radio. I'm your host, Betsy Fentress, and we're so privileged to have with us today a courageous mother that many have read about. Cachoeira and Greg Juba just survived a harrowing ordeal with their son, Cassian. Known as the Miracle Baby. Born twice, their youngest son had a rare diagnosis that most often is fatal. But, Cachoeira, your story is so different from those first fears that you had. And it turned out so beautifully. Thank you so much for joining us. |
| Keishera Joubert | Thank you for having me. |
| Betsy | Take us back to that room. When baby Cassian was 19 weeks in utero, and you first heard the diagnosis of darling baby Cassian. And what the doctor said was the problem with his breathing. |
| Keishera Joubert | When the Obi told us the news for us that the baby had a rare condition and referred us to Yvonne with specialist doctor, immediately the world around me just came crashing down. There was nothing else that I could think of at that moment. It, it totally encompassed all of our thoughts, all of our feelings. Like this dark, shadow cast over us. To think that, you know, the baby that we had loved and prayed for so much up until that point has a very real chance of not surviving pregnancy at all. It was easily, easily one of the worst days of our lives. I remember I just ran into, into to our room. I just sat in the corner crying. My husband found me, in the corner, and obviously he immediately knew that something was wrong, but he didn't ever expect that something was wrong. That would be the baby. And yeah, the two of us, we just sat there. We didn't. We had no inkling of what to do. So very little research we did in the beginning was, was devastating. We kept searching. Article after article after article for some type of hope and despair. There were a couple of cases that survived, but they were very, few and far between. And in fact, most of the cases we read about, like we were like autopsies of babies that were terminated in Europe. The parents were likely told that this condition has a very poor prognosis, and because of that, they chose to undertake this life's, effort. And from the beginning, Greg and I knew that that would not be our story. First of all, we were never going to entertain that option for Cassian, and we came out ready to fight for him. So the first specialist that we saw, he said this, this case is very rare, and it requires extremely specialized care that I can't do. But we know of a doctor that does this type of work, and he referred us to that doctor. And even that appointment, we still we had our, we're very guarded. We thought, if he's not going to do anything, we need to think about exploring other options. And thankfully, that never came because he sat down with us. He never even once mentioned termination. Instead, he said, I've dealt with this before. Let me see what I can do for you. Yeah. And well, for us as parents that lifted up this great big worry because now we're not worried about how can we convince, you know, our doctor to fight for Cassian's life? He was fully in that fight with us. |
| Betsy | The acronym for his condition, congenital high airway obstruction syndrome. Chaos probably was very unsettling. How did you and Craig, how did you and Greg pivot from hearing this news of devastation? And what role did your faith play in this? |
| Keishera Joubert | I would say that our faith was perhaps the most important factor in all of Cassian's story. The surgery, obviously, it's it's a wonderful sea of medicine. But even then, there were still so many different outcomes, so many things that can happen. Like, for example, Cassian was brought out of the womb and he started breathing, and that would've been it for the surgery. So there was, a lot of things that we had to like, you know, hope and pray for. And then even after the surgery, Bastian still wasn't, in the clear. And I spent the entirety of my hospital stay praying for Cassian. And I will say, also, I was not alone in this prayer. Our entirety at the entire of our church parents, joined us. One of my friends, actually, she went on retreat, and she brought back a relic of Saint Gianna so that I can pray for pray with it in the hospital for Cassian. And we had so many of our friends, like, we they have a surgery. They did a 24 hour rosary novena for us. So many of our friends, they brought like Saint Charles oils. They took our prayers towards everyone. Like, besides for praying, I am fully invested in praying for Cassian. Asking God for one miracle. Basically, like everyone, all of our friends, all of our families, they were walking this journey with us. And it was a really beautiful thing. And and I think, you know, if it weren't for how all of us, leaned on God and prayed for his divine providence, I highly doubt that, you know, Cassian Cassian's case could have gone like, the way that it did. Well, your doctor, you. |
| Betsy | And you got it. Your doctor really saw Cassian as a patient and as an A, you know, a human being, not as some matter in your womb. So walk us through that day that you go in. And for this procedure at 25 weeks. And what they actually did to little baby Cassian. |
| Keishera Joubert | Yeah. So 25 weeks, we go ready and prepped for the O.R.. At that point, we've met with all the specialists, the team, the team. We sat down with palliative care. You. As we sat down with the palliative care team to make a memory making plan for Cassian. In the event that he passed. And when we got into the room on the front room, I think everyone was in high spirits. It was actually fantastic to see that everyone that I didn't know personally, I've never met these people, but they're also very invested in Cassian's case. And the Crna actually say, you know, this is a very high profile case. So everyone, everyone's wants to help, everyone wants to be a part of this. And so they brought us back to the O.R. and the doctors, they in my abdomen ops and my C-section, and they partially delivered Cassian from the shoulders up. And they brought out one of his arms so they can put a pulse ox on it. Replenish the lost amniotic unit with warm saline. The EMT team took over, and they made a decision in his neck, and they, suction some fluid out. They put a little fetal tracheostomy in, and then they returned Cassian to me, and they put me in the ICU. They put me on multiple different medications so that I can stay pregnant. And then I stayed in the hospital for another, six weeks. |
| Betsy | Six weeks. So you're on strict bedrest at that point? Yes. And you've written about this and spoken about shifting your focus from your own discomfort to a deeper spiritual mission. What did that daily practice of surrender and prayer look like for you in that hospital room? |
| Keishera Joubert | Well, going back a little bit the morning of Cassian surgery, after I got ready to work, before we had to leave, I sat on the bed and I remember looking out and at that time, it felt to me almost like Jesus felt in the garden right before, you know, he would enter willingly into his passion. He would sacrifice himself for his people. And here I was, a perfectly healthy mother, and I knew that I was about to sacrifice myself for my my health impact, all future pregnancies, some issues I'm actually probably still dealing with right now, all for the sake that my son might have the smallest, infinitesimally small chance of life. And this was not a decision that I had to do this or saying things that was necessary, but it was something that I wanted to do, something that I needed to do because I knew that this might might save my son's life. And if it was just that small chance, I would take it. So after, when I was in the hospital, at a certain point, it dawned on me that, you know, I'm going to be here in this room until Cassian is born. And the more I fight being in this room, the worse it will be. So instead, I decided to completely embrace it, and I made, essentially, that the four walls of the hospital room in my little sanctuary. So I sort of to curl up, I wouldn't quite say like a rule of life, but like, sort of like a little pattern of prayer. Every morning I would wake up and my morning prayers. I read a little bit scriptural reading, durable scripture like litany rosaries. I would still keep up with my, for the briefest of all things that I had said. And then at night, out of peace, all of that again. I'd make sure I was just trying to make sure that the time I was spending inside of that room was devoted to the person that put me in the room, just. |
| Betsy | So prior to this crisis in your family would you say that you had a pretty robust spiritual life or did this kind of supercharge it? |
| Keishera Joubert | I would say I thought I was doing that before this, and now I would say this experience has completely transformed me. |
| Betsy | And did you grow up in the Catholic faith with a family life where there were a lot of devotions, or was this something that you developed along the way? |
| Keishera Joubert | So my family was more, the cultural Catholic side. So I was baptized and I received my first communion, but I was never confirmed. In fact, after I converted a reverted, however, to, more appropriate terminology. My husband actually was a confirmation sponsor. |
| Betsy | Nice. |
| Keishera Joubert | Yeah. So a little bit background. I, my family was not very, Well, practicing. I've become an atheist as a young teenager. And my husband, he was raised in the faith, but then he became, agnostic later in life. And our second date, actually, we went back to mass together. And because we wanted to, like our own religion, essentially be the foundation of our relationship. |
| Betsy | That was a good call, considering what you were about ready to go through. You didn't know it, right? |
| Keishera Joubert | Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. |
| Betsy | Well, you described, back to moments where you really have to lean on your faith. You described a terrifying moment in the NICU during a routine tracheostomy cleaning where casket nearly coated and you had to stand there helplessly. Tell us what that moment was like. And what's your what's going through your mind as a parent that, you know you could again lose this precious child? |
| Keishera Joubert | Yeah, it was totally, totally and completely unexpected. So essentially what it is, it's routine tracheostomy care. So you have to take off of the ties that hold, passing tracheostomy in place. So one person in this case, it was the hospital, the respiratory therapist who was holding the tracheostomy. And I was the one, like, actually physically cleaning around his neck. And, Cassian starts coughing a lot, and he starts just saturating because oxygen starts going on low for a little bit. So we do what we usually do. In my situation, we start suctioning him and give him a little boost of oxygen on the ventilator, and that didn't work. So they gave him the promise of this boost to 100% oxygen. And that still wasn't working. And his, oxygen kept going lower and lower, and his heart rate followed lower and lower till in like a split second. The room was just filled ten different people. The doctors there, the hospital chaplain shows up to him and she's standing by my side. And she said, I called your chaplain, which was actually Catholic Deacon also. It was very late at night at this time. I think it was like 10:00. So he was leaving and he had to come back to the hospital. Actually. I just I just stood there like the room felt cold is just suffocating. I couldn't do anything. I just looked at the monitors. I looked at all the people surrounding myself, and I was like, please, God save my son. Please. Please, God save my son. And in that moment, I. I think I was just like too shocked to have, like, any sort of reaction, like now talking about it and almost breaking down. But in that moment it was just standing in fear. I had not done anything wrong. The respiratory therapist had not done anything wrong. Yet this was happening to Cassie and I was like, oh my God, please save my son. And thankfully he didn't code. Thankfully, it did not get there. They were able to, resuscitate him before that happened, but that was just the first of several incidents where we can hold Cassie, and we had to always remember to be vigilant. Even though it looks like he's growing fantastically and it's just the reality of a medically complex baby. Sometimes things come clean unexpectedly. You go in. |
| Betsy | And you really have had to live this idea of surrender and God's will be done on a daily basis. Yeah, but Cassian is not your only child now. He has an older brother named Matthias, or sometimes called MJ, as he's been floating in and out of our little zoom call here. So how has Matthias been handling this whirlwind year, and how do you emotionally balance this act of being there for a toddler while simultaneously fighting for little Cassian? |
| Keishera Joubert | You know, prayerfully, that's something I found constantly, going back and forth between is in the hospital. You know, I was gone for six months, and in that six weeks, obviously my son couldn't see me. And when I came back, it was like, almost like I was a stranger in his life. He had just turned two and that time. So I calculated I was gone for like 5% of his life. And that's pretty significant for a toddler. And then in the nick, you. I had to alternate my time too. I spent it with my son at home. Where do I spend? Spend it with my baby in the hospital. And in either situation, you have mom guilt because when you're with your toddler, you miss the baby. When you're with the baby, you miss the toddler. So even after Cassian has, he said, all right, it makes it a little bit easier, because sometimes they can actually stay through, you know, when Cassian has his own things I have to like, you know, because until my mama can't, you know, play with you right now because I have to, you know, section Cassian or give Cassian his medications. But I do tend to sort of like and instill some sort of understanding. And I know he's not he's not quite old enough to, like, really grasp it, but he does know I think his brother's a little bit different. His brother has a little bit different needs. I try to get him, to sometimes help if he can. Just little things like, can you turn on this machine for me and he'll do it and teaches him, you know, not to be jealous of his brother because his brother kind of needs a little extra attention. And I sort of also, you know, try to have dedicated time or take care of MJ. So he's not feeling left out, or he might have an influence of jealousy with his brother, but it certainly is a balancing act. I can't say when I've perfected, because I even now even the cassian's like off the ventilator and stuff makes it easier. But yeah, it's just difficult. |
| Betsy | Right. Well, your your family has really sacrificed a lot for this amazing medical advancement. How does it feel to know that your family's bravery and cassian's life have paved the way for a whole new era of treatment given and giving hope to future parents facing a chaos diagnosis? |
| Keishera Joubert | Honestly, it's like the feeling is indescribable. Because, you know, we remember what we were, what it was like reading those articles and seeing words like devastating or fatal, universally fatal. And now that we were the family that God chose to make this great leap in medical science, it's like it's completely unfathomable to me. Because I, I'm just a woman. I have not done like anything great in my life. |
| Betsy | Oh, I would disagree. |
| Keishera Joubert | Well, just to think that like this one sacrifice that I made for my son. Okay, now you know, saying who knows how many babies in the future and not just with chaos because they can take, like, you know, similar, cases to this and like, you know, use that treatment to treat other kinds of things. Because that's how innovation works. Someone says, oh this worked well. What if we did. And then they expand on that. So it's not just like the chaos babies we're treating. Who knows what next. And that is it's just like really unbelievable to think how my little act of love for Cassian and being transforming to so many other babies and to like the, their parents lives as well. |
| Betsy | Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. It's so heartwarming and encouraging. And to learn more about Cachoeira and Baby Cassian, make sure to check out her moving reflection on Word on fire.org. Thank you for joining us. |
| Keishera Joubert | Thank you for having me. |
| Betsy | God bless you, little baby. Cassian, who has been on the zoom call the whole time. Welcome back to conversations with consequences here on EWTN radio, where I am joined by TCA Chaplain Monsignor Roger Landry. And we'd like to congratulate him on his appointment to the diecast for evangelization. And he is calling from Poland. Thank you for joining us. Monsignor Landry. |
| Msgr Landry | Would it be with you, Betsy? Yeah, that was a real surprise on January 1st when Pope Leo named me a member of that I category for evangelization, for a section which means for the traditional sort of propagation of the faith stuff. And so, it'll help me in my work as a national director of a difficult mission society, but it'll mean a lot more travel to Rome. And so we'll be doing more of these programs, I think internationally, just like we're doing this one from Poland. |
| Betsy | Well, I think we should maybe start with a pretty controversial thing that happened this week that where the Vatican excommunicated the members of the society of the suspects who had illicitly ordained bishops. Can you talk about that? |
| Msgr Landry | Yeah. They incurred an automatic excommunication. Didn't have to be declared by the Vatican. It's called the latest intentional excommunication by, ordaining, four new bishops without the Vatican mandate. And it like, there were a couple egregious aspects of this. The first is that the date was set on the anniversary of the communications of Archbishop LaFave and the original bishops who had who he had consecrated decades ago. That Saint John Paul the Second needed to, handle that situation where they were Lord centered here, automatically excommunicated by those. You know, why would you set up, new ordination on a day in which, like, it should be embarrassing, but they were really looking at it as a celebration of when they were excommunicated. And that's just very sad. And it's an aspect of the distortion of all of this. And then the second egregious thing was it's part of the rite of the ordination of bishops. Prior to 1970, there was the need for an apostolic mandate to show that they were being consecrated bishops with the permission of the Holy Father and in place of showing a mandate of the Holy Father, which they obviously hadn't received. He was before Leo was opposed to these, Episcopal, ordinations. They just gave their own justification, which was that there was a state of emergency in the church that they thought required in the state of emergency is really that they only have two bishops left, and they just want to be able to continue their own thing as if there's a state of emergency in the church as a whole. There are plenty of bishops still in the church who would be able to be able to ordain if people were in communion with the church. And so right there in the right, it was, basically exposing that they didn't have what they said they had. And you know what I mean? The Society of Saint Pius the 10th, which loves the Latin Mass and loves tradition, there are a lot of very faithful people who are sort of being led into schism by bishops and priests who feel justified in their action, but they're just not justified. But the Society of Saint by the 10th wants to stick to liturgical tradition, and they were violating liturgical tradition. And the consecration is for new bishops. They also sort of want to talk about Orthodoxy and all the rest of it. And this is just, not consistent with, regular practice of the teaching in the church. And so just a very sad, day for the church overall. We want to keep the church together. Pope Leo is one for unity. Jesus prayed for that unity un when he gave us the mass for the first time. And anytime that there's something that destroys that unity, it pains the Lord the most. And this was this was, a conscious choice to, do something that would separate now, the Society of Saint Pius the 10th. Some of their leaders, especially Father Puglia. Ronnie, who is their, who was their leader? He's been pretty arrogant in some of his statements. And in that justification for the lack of a papal mandate, they basically argued that the that the Catholic Church has placed itself as a whole in a situation of almost of heresy since the Second Vatican Council, which is ridiculous. And it's pronouncing judgment on the church and the Holy Father and everything else like this. And so Pope Leo, this has been a cross for him. He's, when he was asked whether he would meet with Paglia. Rini, he said, well, the society is going to do what the society is going to do, and we hope that they don't. And we'll make one other intervention. And he did the day before, pleading with them not to go through the and put themselves into a situation of separation from the church, but they basically sort of lectured him in the letter back and it's the whole thing is just really sad. And so what's important for Catholics in the United States to know is that if we if Catholics go to masses celebrated by the Society of Saint Pius the 10th, they're doing something that could be a new occasion of sin in which their, attending situations that are intentionally, putting their communion with the church at risk. There's question, depending upon how much their will is involved, whether they go into schism, if they formally cooperate with the schism, or if they're just materially cooperating by attending mass there, they wouldn't be in schism. But it's a it's a dangerous thing to put one soul in. And so lots of the US bishops, especially those with Society of Saint Pius, attend communities located geographically within the diocesan boundaries, have been inviting them into communion with the church, trying to make it as easy as possible for them to, celebrate mass outside of the Saint Pius the 10th communities. And we pray to the Lord who wants us to pray for communion for the reconciliation with the, Society of Saint Pius the 10th. Unfortunately, I mean, one of the reasons why Pope Leo is active the way that he has, has been proven that, like the Society of Saint Pius the 10th will come back into communion if it gets everything it it wants. But it doesn't seem open to being persuaded on any of the things, particularly with the Second Vatican Council documents on religious freedom as well as, approach to the Jews. Those are two things that they find heretical in the church, and they're just flat out wrong. Right. |
| Betsy | Well, let's end on a positive note. We have the Feast of Saint Benedict this Sunday. Can you share why you. |
| Msgr Landry | This this Saturday, July 11th, is the feast of, Saint Benedict, who is one of the greatest figures in the history of the world. He founded the whole sort of Benedictine families, first man, and then to his sister Saint Scholastica women. And they basically preserved Christianity, preserved culture in the Benedictine monastery throughout many of the, centuries. In the Middle Ages, he wrote, put nothing before the love of Christ. And that's the way he and the Benedictines have lived ever since, helping the entire church to do that. He had a motto Order at labora, at studio, to pray, to work, and to study. And so each of those is supposed to be united with God. Prayer is obviously toward God. Our work is for God and in communion with the one who, when he became a man, worked, basic job, and he was saving the human race that way, too, as well as to study, to get to know our faith better, to get to know, wisdom better, because all sources of truth ultimately flow from the one who wins the truth and can lead us back. And so we can pray through the intercession of, Saint Benedict's, not only for all his Benedictine sons and daughters, but for the church overall, that, through our prayer, through our work, through our study, we might ever become more one. And if I can. Betsie, this Feast of Saint Benedict, July 11th is my mom's 80th birthday. So a quick little shout out to Midge Landry in Lowell, Massachusetts. Thanks for being my mom. |
| Betsy | Happy birthday, Mrs. Landry. Thanks for joining us from crack of Monsignor Landry. |
| Msgr Landry | God bless you. That's. |