/
RSS Feed
Episode Description
Joining us this week, Noelle Mering of the Ethics and Public Policy Center discusses her new book, No Contact, shedding light on the seductive ideologies driving families apart, and how to restore those broken bonds. She explains how online culture and modern individualism contributed to an epidemic of fractured families, while offering practical and hope-filled advice for parents and loved ones seeking reconciliation and healing.
Author and official promoter of Blessed Stanley Rother’s cause, Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda previews the upcoming documentary, American Martyr: The Stanley Rother Story. She shares the remarkable journey of the humble Oklahoma farm boy who overcame academic struggles to become a beloved missionary in Guatemala, ultimately laying down his life for the people he served. She reflects on the enduring impact of his witness, the continued growth of his cause for canonization, and the powerful legacy he left behind.
TCA chaplain Msgr. Roger Landry commemorates the feast days of Blessed Stanley Rother and Blessed Solanus Casey, highlighting the extraordinary holiness of these two American blesseds. Reflecting on their humility and unwavering commitment to Christ, he encourages Catholics to imitate their example of faithful discipleship and courageous witness in everyday life.
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
Noelle Mering is a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in the Life and Family Initiative, where she co-directs the Theology of Home Project. She is the best-selling author of Awake, Not Woke: A Christian Response to the Cult of Progressive Ideology, co-author of the Theology of Home book series, and author of the forthcoming No Contact: How a Seductive Ideology Broke Families and Friendships—and How We Can Repair Them. She holds an M.A. in philosophy from Franciscan University of Steubenville, and studied philosophy and theatre at Westmont College. A columnist for the Catholic Herald and contributor to outlets including Newsweek, National Review, First Things, and National Catholic Register, she has appeared on Fox News, EWTN, and Relevant Radio. She is a frequent speaker and media commentator on family, culture, and ideology. She lives in Southern California with her husband and their six children.
Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda is an award-winning American Catholic journalist, author, and retreat facilitator born in Cuba, who grew up in Puerto Rico and immigrated to the US at age 13. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in English from the University of Oklahoma. A freelance writer since the 1980s, she has published widely in national and regional outlets, including The New York Times, Our Sunday Visitor, St. Anthony Messenger, Catholic Digest, and others. She has authored biographies of Edith Stein (St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), Blessed Stanley Rother (The Shepherd Who Didn’t Run), and Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe (Sewing Hope in Uganda), as well as The Seekers Guide to Mary. She is the recipient of the Catholic Press Association’s St. Francis de Sales Award for outstanding contributions to Catholic journalism. She and her husband Michael live in Oklahoma. They share four adult children and 13 grandchildren.
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 380 Transcript
| Ashley | Welcome back to conversations with consequences now on EWTN radio. I'm your host, Ashley McGuire. |
| Betsy | And I'm Betsy Fentress. |
| Ashley | And we are glad to have a friend of the show back with us, now known for her book, awake, Not Woke. Noelle Mering works with the Ethics and Public Policy Center and is now out with a fascinating book called No Contact How a Seductive Ideology Broke Families and Friendships and How to Repair Them. Noel, thanks so much for making the time to join us today. |
| Noelle Mering | I'm delighted to be here. Thanks for having. |
| Ashley | Me. So, I wanted to read a quote from your book that resonated with me, said the True Story. You describe a, story of a, one of these breakdowns, going, no contact. And you said the true story of Jack and Genevieve's family is sadly not an outlier. Family estrangement or going no contact isn't a new phenomenon. But in recent years, it has gained significant visibility. Unlike previous decades, when estrangement was often shrouded in shame and secrecy. Today, it's more openly discussed and sometimes celebrated as an act of courage and self-care, calling into question long held social norms and beliefs about the importance of family and the topic of your book is so dear to me because as I get older, I'm just more and more conscious of the fact that family is everything and family is not perfect, but family is sacred. And this phenomenon that you describe in your book is really an assault at the cell of society. And one of the most sacred things that we have. So how how did this happen? How did we go to get to a point where something did as you as you mentioned in the quote I just read, has happened since time immemorial, but was something that was shrouded in grief becomes something that people are are celebrating is almost as an act of empowerment. |
| Noelle Mering | Yeah. I mean, I think like most cultural phenomenon, there's not a single answer, but you certainly can pin a lot on online culture. You know, I, I think we can't underestimate how much the online culture has really formed this younger generation, particularly because they became so very online during the 2020s. And the short form videos, you know, I found on TikTok is there's a real prevalence of sort of pop psychologists there who are, you know, offering a very what seems like a caring presentation, an invitation for their viewers to, you know, examine their lives and their families for points of toxicity, often in their parents. And, these videos get millions, sometimes billions of likes and views. And I think there's something incredibly seductive about, you know, trying to examine our lives for our wounds. Everyone has them. Family, inevitably, is going to have them right, because it's imperfect people living in intimate closeness with other imperfect people. And the clash of wills will happen. There's going to be friction there. But I think this is combined, you know, this online kind of invitation to search for your family trauma, your history of childhood trauma is combined with a real currency of victimhood that I think we've long established before the 2020s, right, that, you know, the grievance culture is a real thing, and it's a real thing with a lot of power, because it's a universal temptation for all of us to sort of deflect from our responsibility and to claim some sort of victim narrative. There's something that we can get out of it, you know? And now this is confusing and complicated of a topic because there are people who truly have been victimized by their families, people who are, you know, or abused or what have you. You know, there's reasons why people legitimately take the measure to go, no contact. And I think part of that, reality is what makes it so much more difficult to detangle in this issue because, people, some people rightfully are very defensive. If you kind of call this a phenomenon or something that's destructive because they might have a legitimate reason. And so I always have to say that outright that, you know, it's sort of like an opiate biotics, you know, antibiotics are important and can be lifesaving as a measure, but if they are overprescribed and overtaken, they are actually really damaging to our health. And I think that's what we're seeing right now. The no contact movement, it's a measure that can be needed in extreme cases. But the invitation and the sort of celebration of it now is to making it something different. And even as you get off of online culture, it starts to spread just in society. Right? So that women getting together, young men maybe getting together, communities of, people getting together and sharing stories of woundedness has become a real point of bonding. And so I think insofar as that becomes not only a point of bonding, but a currency, a social currency, we have a lot more people are going to be filtering their past through a lens of harm, and parents are going to be vulnerable in that situation, particularly when it's combined with a cultural revolutionary mindset that wants to sort of, detach ourselves from what's preceded us in order to recreate the future and recreate, even sometimes, our star identities. Parents are an existential threat to an older identity. |
| Betsy | So you brought up antibiotics. So along that medical line, you use an auto immune, an analogy, and you've described the widespread phenomenon of family estrangement, not as an immune to system defending itself against harm, but as a cultural auto immune disorder. How are now everyday familial friction incidents being turned into toxic threats? And explain a little bit this autoimmune analogy. |
| Noelle Mering | Yeah, yeah. So that's the other analogy that your immune system is supposed to detect harm and then help keep harm away from us or, you know, help us to heal. An autoimmune disorder, however, starts to conflate the host, the body itself with a wound or with harm itself. And so it starts to attack its own flesh and blood. And so, you know, the analogy becomes clear, I think that this is what's happening now. It's a pathology, you know, that's sort of similar to an auto immune disorder. So, you know, there's lots of examples in the book. I mean, certainly Covid was a big flashpoint for a lot of families, disagreements over how to handle it, whether or not people are going to get the vaccine. A lot of families I interviewed really had a split and division either begin through that or call or attempt to head, also who you voted for, I call it voting booth estrangement. A number of kids and you know, the the thing that is, I think new is that, you know, a lot of the parents I talked to would say, you know, my my very progressive daughter, for example, came to me and said, I don't want to hear your arguments. I don't want to hear your reasoning. I don't want to hear why you voted this way. I just want you to I just want to hear from you that you were wrong and you're never going to do that again, and that you're going to do the work, you know? So it's a it's, you know, incredibly emotionally driven and it's not going to be emotionally or reasonably resolved in, in certain ways. But so, you know, it's a combination of different things. It's can be politics can be ideology, can be gender. Stuff was a real flashpoint too. It could be Covid. Oftentimes underlying it, though, is something deeper. Maybe there are some more anxious anxieties within the within the, young adult. And that politics kind of is something to glom on to, that they can find an identity through and find sort of, virtuous struggle what feels like a virtuous struggle. But oftentimes there are some deeper things going on. So one of the deeper things that I think is happening is what I call the empowerment delusion. And what that is, is to sort of, self-conception that we've given or not we but, you know, I think have been promulgated in the culture, one that we have sort of a godlike power, radical autonomy. We can redefine what the meaning of our body is, what the meaning of sex is, the meaning of my life, the meaning of marriage. At the same time, we've communicated the message that of radical victimhood, radical grievance, and so that the things, the successes and failures in my life are attributable to systemic forces outside of myself, or the woundedness that somebody has done to me, inflicted upon me, that I've has calcified into an identity so radical idea, the sense of radical power over things we can't control, and no control over things that we actually might be able to effect. And I think that combination makes people feel incredibly, powerless. And the despair that sort of comes from that is, precursor to maybe an anger and a rage wanting to blow up the system. Because if you don't feel like your successes or failures or you have any ability to prove your life, it doesn't matter what you do on a Tuesday at 3 p.m., you know, this is an incredible message of despair. So I think that that is maybe a deeper part of the issue is that this is a real nihilism, and you can hear the tales of nihilism in the discussions of the no contact movement. So one thing I heard over and over again was young people saying, I did not choose to be born. You chose to have me, and I didn't choose to be born. And so you owe me. I don't owe you. You know, basically, it's an inversion of the fourth commandment to honor thy father and thy mother unit, that I have no obligation to you. But it also means that my life is not a blessing. It's a burden, you know, it's not good that I am. Being is bad and privation is better. You know, it's also an inversion of the first principles of philosophy. But there's a spiritual disease there, too, right? There's a deep spiritual nihilism underlying that. So it's no wonder that we have a, you know, a fertility crisis as well, because, why would you move into parenthood if parenthood is now recast as a selfish act, as something you're inflicting upon someone? It's almost like an assault. And under that, they their life is an assault. So, you know, it's it's deeply disturbing. And it seems to me, though, politics oftentimes is the veneer that is, the flashpoint or the point of contention. It's a far deeper, I think, what's actually happening here? |
| Ashley | You also talk about therapy culture. And this, I think is starting to you're ahead of the curve because people are only just starting to talk about this, really. I've read a lot of Jonathan Haidt, and he talks a lot about the victimhood mentality that you've talked about. But also in his book. But it's a book basically about how so many young people are basically doing the opposite of what cognitive behavioral therapy tells us we should do, which is to confront the things that upset you, that make you uneasy, that you're afraid of, in small doses. And that actually lessens the threat. And so what people are what people in your book are doing is you describe is essentially the opposite. They're cutting off, they're running from, from the thing that upsets them. And it's I just find it fascinating because we have decades of an understanding of this in, in therapy culture, what should be done. And it seems like the therapy culture has kind of turned its own self on its head. So can you talk about the role of therapy culture in exacerbating this problem, and how can we redeem therapy because people actually need therapy. It's a good thing, but it's becoming almost a joke. |
| Noelle Mering | Yeah, no. Great question. I mean, I think two examples I would say to illustrate, what you're talking the phenomenon you're talking about, one is the word triggers. So triggers you should and I think in reality what a trigger is, is the exposure of some wound that I would need to heal. Right. If something's triggering me, that should telegraph to me. Okay. Why am I having a disproportionate reaction to this thing or this word or this, whatever it is? What do you mean? What do you mean? It's hurt here? And what do I need to peel instead? What we think of as triggers. The most common understanding of triggers is, oh, we need to keep the triggers away from the person that that that's that's what we need to control. We need to control their exposure to the trigger, not their resilience in the face of the trigger. If you if you do, I mean, another word that I think illustrates this phenomenon is boundaries. Boundaries. I've traditionally, and I think properly understood, should most often be for the sake of preserving a relationship. You know, if you've got, a tricky in-law, tricky parent or what have you, and they are maybe are coming over too much or giving criticizing you too much or something, you know, there might be reasons just to establish some sort of boundaries. You know, why don't you come over this time and then, you know, or whatever. But this is for the sake, so that I don't feel frustrated and so that you don't feel like you're burdening me because now everyone's communicating and everyone's clear about what the expectations are. Boundaries have shifted far more now in the in conversation to be about protecting the self, not the not the relationship, not for the sake of the relationship. And so I think those are two things that illustrate that. But also, you know, I detail in the book how the absolute skyrocketing of casual uses of words like narcissism, gaslighting, toxicity, you know, the average of the how often those words are looked up, you know, in Merriam-Webster online, it's documented as having been astronomically increased over the last few years. So they, you know, it's called therapy speak. The casual use of therapeutic terms without real, you know, precision or any sort of actual diagnosis involved. And some of that makes sense, right? We have a rise, severe rise in mental health, illness, mental illness. And so, of course, you know, we're going to have more awareness and people are going to start thinking about and using the terms more. But I think in so far as it's become such an explosion of the use of that vocabulary casually is starting to it's therapy. Words are just plausible enough to start to really affect our are we were framing our lives interiorly and then project you know some reality and externally that is more of a diagnosis. And so it's going to cripple how we see both ourselves, our own ability to handle and navigate certain things if we're calling it toxic, if we're calling this person narcissistic, you know, then the only if there truly are a narcissist, then the only there's not there's really little that you can engage with. And, you know, if with somebody who's diagnosed a narcissist. But I don't think that we're using that word with precision. And so, the only, you know, reasonable answer, if we think in those terms is going to be, you know, the extreme measures, because we've labeled it such with such extreme terms. So, I think that's a that has a lot to do with it. And it is a shame, as you say, because therapy can be very good, very helpful, and people who need it and avail themselves to it, it's good that they're not stigmatized. That has become so much more normal because they should be seeking health. But it can also be sort of, almost like a elite kind of signifier of at this point, you know, that we've really raised it to the point of, almost like an accessory, you know, that I've got a therapist, I've got, you know, I've got this mental thing I've got, you know, I'm I'm tender here. I've got boundaries. You know, these are these this casual way of talking about is almost, becomes, you know, such a social contagion that it's turned into something very positive and almost something that you wear with a badge of honor. And there's something, that's a signifier that something's become disordered there. |
| Betsy | Well, it makes me think of Philip Reeves book, The Triumph of the Therapeutic. And how we have have let this sort of dictate a lot of family relationships. I wanted to bring out that it's a heavily, footnoted book and that you bring in a lot of the influences in academia Wilhelm Reich, Christopher Lasch, and I notice a lot of Charles Taylor, you just talk about expressive individualism and this sort of obsession with that. But I'd like to turn toward what I think is a really great part of the book, where you start to say, we've diagnosed all this, and like I said, you you've really laid your case out quite convincingly that this is a big problem. But you you give some advice for people who are in these estranged parent child relationships. And the first one that really resonated with me was parent for the world your children live in, not the one you grew up in. What did you mean by that? |
| Noelle Mering | Yeah. No. And that came out of interviews. A father, one of the fathers I interviewed actually said something very close to that, if not exactly that. But, you know, I, I think the things have changed, particularly technologically, so rapidly that oftentimes, even as parents now, you know, I it's hard for me to know I'll be on top of all the technological evolutions that my my children are experiencing. Excuse me. And I think, you know, oftentimes there's a tendency to think back on our own childhood and say, okay, well, this is what I did. This is what I'll allow my children to do without recognizing how rapidly that world is changing, not just in technology, but also in their peer groups. Right? That what what their peer groups were into then what was rebellion when I was growing up? Very different than what rebellion is now? And in some ways, you know, it's a far more curated lifestyle that the kids are living. You know, with far less risk, far less friction. I mean, that's a product of online life, where it's the elevation of, you know, kind of everything smooth, seamless. No, no embodiment. You know, kids get driver's license far less frequently or less or, you know, later than when I was a kid. I was there at age 16, you know, the peer groups and peer dynamics are just so different. And so parents also just just advice. That advice is just, you know, stay on top of things, you know, that we can't just sort of rest on our laurels and think that the world hasn't shifted too much. And while this is just a new rebellion, I even had one parent say to me, this isn't in the book, but, about the transgender movement just thinking, you know, that's sort of like when we were kids and kids became goth, you know, I thought, you know, this is very different. This is a medical intervention. This is radically different. But that's a, you know, another sign if like, I think there's a tendency in us just to think that the world hasn't changed too much. And, you know, in some ways there's a truth there, but in other ways it's very, very naive. So that I think that's an important piece of advice for parents. |
| Ashley | One of the things you note is the normalization of divorce. And you made a point that I thought was really interesting, which is, you know, we've had decades of no fault divorce and that, you know, in the divorce rate exploded. It's since kind of calmed down. But, divorce is there's no stigma around divorce. And so we've normalized this idea that you can basically walk away from a family and, you know, I've, I've seen it in my own friendships, just, you know, this shocking idea that, you know, you're not bound to this commitment that you made to these children that you made. And so it's almost like the logical outcome of of that talk about divorce. And, have you seen, sort of the online culture also to help fuel the normalization of divorce and in this connection between people going no contact. |
| Noelle Mering | Yeah. So, you know, that's one point I make in the book that, you know, we haven't sold so normalized divorce. And I think it's at the point of one out of two. It's been for a long time. One out of two marriages end in divorce. And that is and that's an incredible statistic. And I think it's been like that for decades now. So a lot of these kids have are, you know, naturally growing up in a divorce, family or divorce culture, whether it's their own family or the ones around them. And I think, you know, there's a message that's communicated in that regardless of whether somebody might have really needed to to leave a spouse or something, you know, obviously there's extreme situations, but the casualness and the normalization of it communicates a cultural message that you are replaceable. You can be replaced. And so if you can replace my mom or my dad, you know what they've state I'm speaking as a one of the kids. Why can't I replace you. And so one of the things are opting for is what they call a chosen family. This has been an idea that's been in the culture for a long time. And most people think of that phrase as referring to something like the show friends or, you know, your friends become like family, which is innocuous, if not a lovely idea, that friendships can become so close that they feel like family members. But it's got a academic pedigree that I think a lot of people aren't aware of, and it really out of an abolish the family kind of movement that the families and social construct. And so, you know, you see that empowerment delusion coming out there, that radical autonomy that the people I want in my life are not the people who are given to me, but the people that are emanating out of my autonomy, the people who come for my choice. And so I can walk away from the people who I'm obliged to because those obligations are, predicated on my will. And if I will something else, then that obligation is no longer, binding for me. And so, you know, the interesting thing that that this winds up being such a sad thing, of course, for the people who are walked away from but for the people with the kids who opt for the chosen family, oftentimes find out that it's a concept hoisted on its own petard, that the people that are their chosen family can just as easily and choose them, and that happens happens quite frequently where the, you know, they will say, you know, I thought this these people were going to be there for me through thick and thin. And they went on, their lives changed and things evolved. And now maybe they have their own, their kids of their own or whatever or what have you. And I'm no longer chosen. And so it's a, you know, like all ideological ideas, it doesn't work, to say the least. But, the devastation is quite real. And I think that that, really is not it's not all that different, really, from the normalization of divorce. You know, it's just another way of dividing and attacking the family. And that, that division and that attack always comes through that sort of separation. I mean, it's a scattering of people, it's scattering of the members because of how powerful and how stabilizing of a force the family is. |
| Betsy | So, Noel, for parents or relatives who are currently living through the heartbreak of being cut off, they might feel paralyzed by grief or want to reach out in anger. What is your primary advice for how they should conduct themselves to keep that door open for future healing? Maybe it won't happen immediately. |
| Noelle Mering | Yeah, one of the most important pieces of advice, and I know this is hard, is to try to never communicate out of a place of deep emotion. Oftentimes, the instinct in the parent will be to if I can convey how hurt I am, you know that I'm crying myself to sleep every night or, that then they'll see. And, you know, paradoxically, it often or ironically, it often turns out to be that hearing about the grief of the parent pushes the child away further. Why? Because I think they have either they have two choices that at that point, to recognize how that how much they're hurting their parent or to think this is more of a this is this neediness is another it's more evidence of their sort of toxicity. And so I'm going to recoil from it. And so then the parent which tries to communicate even more, you know how hurtful this is. And then they pull away even more so it can get into a bad feedback loop. You know, I think that the parent has to assume sort of a parental nobility. And, you know, always taking the higher road, which is not being reactive, that reactivity is a real temptation when you're in the confusion and depths of, feeling abandoned, betrayed and hurt, you know, these are incredibly huge emotional and destabilizing emotions, especially for a parent, who identifies so deeply with having having a child that they aren't in relationship with. So, trying to kind of stabilize that so that we are always acting out a deliberation and speaking at a deliberation. Oftentimes, writing things can be better than speaking because conversations can go exact, can escalate, pretty intensely, especially when there's a lot of emotions flying around. So writing things helps because you're saying exactly what you're saying and not more and not less, and the person can sit with it. They can't re-imagine it or change the memory of it. They've got the words in black and white. So then you can communicate, exactly what you want to communicate and not say things in an emotional way. Keeping the door open, you know, really the the posture of the prodigal as a father and the prodigal son story is really the ideal who did not chase after or grovel after his son, who I respected his son's freedom, you know, gave him his inheritance, knowing that he was not going to make prudent decisions with it. But then also was not calculating his grievances like the older brother, you know, that he was tending to his obligations and waiting, with great hope and readiness to receive his son again. I think that really is, you know, the wisest posture to adopt the two extremes are, you know, parents sometimes will try to control things too much or they will try to accommodate and placate too much. We have to stand strong and what we know to be true without compromising what we know to be true. And also respecting the freedom of that adult child. |
| Betsy | Have you seen the clip of Gayle King and Oprah talking about no contact? You know, Oprah had a whole show on the I watched a show. There's a clip and they're like in a studio getting ready for something. And Gayle and Oprah is like getting her makeup put on. And Gayle King says to her, I would never let my kids do this. I would go to their house and I would not leave until this gets resolved. And I mean, it's just interesting that she is forcefully saying, I literally would not leave the premises if they were trying to do no contact to me. Have you seen that clip? |
| Noelle Mering | I have not now that's interesting. I did see the Oprah episode on No Contact, but I think there was a second episode that maybe I didn't see it, but I have not seen that clip. |
| Betsy | And and since you handed the book over to your publisher, is there been any do you see signs of hope that maybe this has peaked? |
| Noelle Mering | I don't know that I see signs of hope that it's peaked. I think this is like all these types of things. The more light is shown on it, the more it's takes the power away from it. I think that's what happened with the woke movement, you know, just people, enough people talked about the absurdities of it. So I think that that that will deflate it. I don't know that it's peaked yet. I there's certainly signs of hope just insofar as there's a lot of, you know, Gen Z people who are returning to the faith. And, you know, there's a lot of hope there. |
| Ashley | So we could talk about this for so much longer. This is such an important topic. It's, truly tragic to see how many families are impacted by this and continue to be. I mean, just yesterday I was listening to a friend tell me a story about, in this case, it was a friendship that basically was ruptured because of this. So where can our listeners who would like to read your book and follow your work? Where can they buy your book? Where can they follow your work? |
| Noelle Mering | Yeah. It's on oh, everywhere. Book sold. No contact. It's on pre-sales. It comes out September 8th and you can follow me on my Substack. Noelle Maring It's called Family Revival or@epic.org. |
| Ashley | Wonderful. Well, Noelle, thank you so much for coming on our show today. |
| Noelle Mering | Thank you both for having me. |
| Ashley | Welcome back to conversations with consequences now on EWTN radio. I'm your host, Ashley McGuire. |
| Betsy | And I'm Betsy Fentress. |
| Ashley | And we are delighted to have Maria release Orlando with us today. She is the official promoter of Blessed Stanley Rollers. Beatification cause, and she is also featured in a new movie coming to theaters this summer entitled American Martyr The Stanley Rollers Story. Blessed Stanley became the first U.S born priest to be beatified as a martyr, and we've just marked his his feast day this week and we are so happy to have you with us today. Maria. |
| Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda | I'm delighted to be with you. Thank you. |
| Ashley | So, Betsy and I have both had the privilege of watching this, documentary that you are featured extensively in. And, what an extraordinary movie. I there was so much I didn't know about this American blessed. And I was really taken by how much footage and photographs they have of him. But tell us a little bit about this incredible man and how it is that you came to be somebody who's playing a key role in moving his cause towards sainthood forward? |
| Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda | I still feel like I'm living in some kind of alter reality because I. I'm a writer, and I wrote his biography. I was commissioned by the archbishop to, to write the biography. And it was really because that's an important part of having a cause, right? We want people to hear about him, and we want to tell his story so people can say, this is why we think he should be, declared a saint. So I wasn't ready for seeing myself so much. And then the documentary, because I'm a writer who likes to work at home in pajamas, that God knows what God is doing and I'm just trying to say yes, I got involved. We're not from Oklahoma. We moved here many years ago when, my husband took a job with the University of Oklahoma, and he taught at the law school for many years. So my kids were very young. They were I have four, and they were in grade school going to Catholic school. And they'd come home with all this stories about this man. And really, when I look at the timeline, it wasn't really it wasn't even 20 years after he had died and we we moved here. So it was all still very fresh for a lot of people who knew him. So the stories were many. And, as a journalist, it really gave me curious. And I started doing some short pieces for, different Catholic publications. And, it wasn't really until they did, open their course officially and brought me in. Really? I had known the bishop at the time quite well, so he invited me to come and help with the Spanish part of things, because that is my first language. That's how it started. |
| Betsy | Well, he has quite a story because he was born into a farming family, and he had a little bit of a rough time actually becoming a priest. Can you talk about his journey and some of his academic challenges? |
| Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda | Is it they still laugh about these things because anyone in Nocatee that knew him, that's the name of the town where he was born. They're they're all farmers. And everyone expected him to to senior years. Say, I'm ready. I'm going to be the next farmer alongside my dad and keep things going. And instead he said, I feel I called to the priest, said, his dad gave him a hard time and said, why did you sign up to do Future Farmers of America and not take Latin? And, you know, those are things that an 18 year old is really not worrying about. But he did go to a seminary in San Antonio and he really struggled. Everything was in that. Know the the textbooks even. And it was very hard for him and he did not do well. He repeated one class once and then the big one was first year of theology. He flunked out. And, they sent him home with a note, basically saying he should consider a different vocation. |
| Ashley | We'll talk a little bit about how he ended up translating his nonacademic skills to the mission. I found that to be such a perfect example of how God has a plan for everything. |
| Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda | Yeah, that eventually the bishop did find him. A home, a place that supported him. And he learned, allied. And he was at Mount Saint Mary's in Emmitsburg, the town now of Elizabeth Ann Seton, by the way. So there are now two holy people in this town. They claim. Okay, so he graduates, right? Finishes all the courses, becomes a priest, and does kind of weird functions around, archdiocese. Then in five years in, he volunteers to go to the Oklahoma mission. And to me, that's that the amazing part really because he well, his brother used to say he he can fix anything but just give anything to stand this broken. And he you can fix anything. He can make anything go, and he, he could he could work as an electrician, you know, you you're, have many tools at your hand when you have to do it all yourself. And the farmers know how to do these things. Does precisely the things that he grew up in and but also the values of family and faith and taking it all and living as, hard work as farmers. All of those things were precisely the things that God had him use in San Diego. I did land Guatemala in the Oklahoma mission. When he was there. He was just the right guy to be there. He he could fix anything. He would bring broken things from the States and take him there and make them work. And he could talk to them about the the land and the seeds and how to have better crops, because they are farmers and faith centered community on. And the family is such an important part of things that he totally related on earth. And really, only God can make those kind of connections. And it's makes me laugh just thinking about that, that this guy who, was barely making it through the seminary could then go there and just fit right in with the people. And I think that's why God blessed them. I think it's a special grace. Maybe his first miracle, that God helped him not only to learn Spanish, but become completely fluent in Zu to Yale, which is a very obscure language only spoken in two little villages around this lake. And nobody else could do it in the mission. But this guy who had flunked out because of that and could do it there, I, I think it was a special grace. I knew he wanted to be close to them, you know. |
| Betsy | Well, one of the extraordinary parts about the movie is how many living, people you interviewed or including you, who have been part of this course and who were part of his life. And there's some people from the village who, through translation, we hear their beautiful, beautiful stories. And for someone who supposedly was an academic, the letters he wrote back that are narrated in the movie are really extraordinary. But I also wanted to just talk about how when he gets there, people are just barely subsisting. And the hardest part for me watching it was, how could the government be against someone who really lifted up these people out of abject poverty, into a life of farming where they could support themselves? Do you have an insight into. |
| Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda | That now that that is a difficult thing, isn't it? And I think it was difficult for him when he got there to see all of that happening. I think for Father Stan, the fact that he was so focused on being a good priest to those people is what kept him in line and like, like kept him seeing what is the truth of why I'm here. It was hard for the whole team. When he got there, there were 12 of them. But the last few years that he was there, he was the only one left. You know, at the beginning, everybody got a second call. There were dentists, doctors, obviously educators, people who knew about nutrition and things that could come and help them. And everybody was ready to help because it was such a hard life that they had, and they needed so much physically. And Stan could do physical things, but probably not in the same vein as all of them. His letters are beautiful. And I love when he describes fixing things or bringing one of the kids with him. I think one of the people in the documentary talked about how, he would just say, come with me. And, and at the same time, he's teaching them skills. You know, he, he was, concerned with the physical, but the physical and his stance was definitely that building, fixing and building. And he could teach that to them. And being out in the land with them and farming there. I love the views that they added. You know, the actor, they guy just to hold the land. And because land in Oklahoma is very red dirt and very was very rich and brown and but he could know all about that, you know, this is his, his world. |
| Ashley | Well, one of the you know, one of the things that he did that completely doesn't fit the category of what you think of priests doing, not even priests who are good with working the land is the story about him taking the baby that the parents tell us about that story of the family that had twins and how he stepped in and and cared for that baby. |
| Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda | Well, you know, in Latin America in general, there's, I'm, I'm Cuban and I've traveled throughout Latin America. Spanish is my first language, and I, I totally get the the thing that you bring everything to the priest. The priest is like, you're a father figure. Really? And they're not. You don't just bring your, your, spiritual, concerns, but you bring everything, and the priest will listen. And if he can help you, he helps you. And if not, you go on and somebody else will help you. I think that was just in general, true. But in this case, he was so, so much their their father spiritual, but also just his shepherding, figure. He they would bring anything any concern that was happening in their family. And there were some that were hard. And one night, I think what I remember from some of the descriptions where that at night after dinner, he would, just wait and they'd kind of come in one by one. But the one you're talking about was like, everybody was asleep and this man showed up and sea, then got up and went to sea, and he was, a father holding a baby. And he said, father, we've had our baby. And I first, you know, he must have thought, well, yes, you're holding everybody here. But he said, there are two of them. And, we cannot do two of them. And he didn't make the guy feel bad. He didn't say, oh, it's going to be okay. He said, it's okay. And to the baby and took care of this babies several nights until he figure out what couple he knew that was dying to have a baby and could take care of baby Maria. He was pretty hands on. There's so many pictures of him with nephews and nieces in Oklahoma, and he's always around the kids and the babies. And so same thing there. You know, the babies, I mean, the kids were attracted to him and would always come play. And in one of the letters he describes practicing his zoo. To hell with the kids. Because the kids were not would only laugh at him, but, would still talk to him in situ. Yeah, till he could learn how to do it. Perfect. So good technique. Get the kids with you. |
| Betsy | What are the things that really struck me in the movie? Was that he trained catechists, and that was a big part of his mission work. And I think when you go to countries like Guatemala, you are tempted to get really political because you have oppressive regimes, and you also have to meet people's physical needs. There are medical issues, but that seemed to be at the forefront of what he did. What is that village like now in terms of their Catholic faith being practiced? |
| Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda | It's just a powerful story. I don't have the quote in front of me, but do you remember hearing that quote about, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church? Yes, it is. So, it is so true. There we went. Because they had not had a parish priest in a hundred years, said that church so obviously no vocations of any kind. And since his, martyrdom and, everything that's happened since his death, I mean, terrible person on numbers, but is something like ten parish, ten priests and then like seven more in the, in the seminary. Not from that diocese I'm talking about from that church. Wow. That's remarkable. |
| Betsy | That's remarkable. |
| Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda | So I would say their faith is is strong. I've done a few things where with this world of ours that we can do zoom and all of these things. I've done some with them. They used, cable or radio still. Cable for those who live in that town and then radio or the nearby. And it's all catechetical and is to, you know, they play music, obviously. Who doesn't want that? But it is still used as a tool of, educating in the faith and just giving information. And when I did it with them, I find it kind of funny because I would talk to them in Spanish and they would translate it to Zoology Hill, because that's still the main language there. And I will never be able to say even one word in it. It is really, really different. |
| Ashley | We just have a couple of minutes left. But, I'd love to touch on his cause. It was an incredible scene in the movie where they showed the jars of blood and how they rushed to collect his blood, like they knew right away that he was a saint. So where does his cause stand now? You being his primary promoter? |
| Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda | You know, the promoter part has been, just a very new thing. Thank the deacon that was working on it is retiring. So I'm taking, one aspect of what he used to do, and they're trying to figure out the rest, but it's simply because I. I want my, as my daughter said, to be a mom, you gotta you gotta stay with her. I just started and we all feel like we're progressing and we know how strong his cause is. And it is. It's time to just figure out where we go from here. We need a miracle. And, Archbishop is great. And his being evaluated. We need a miracle. What will it take? A miracle. So if anyone listening, if you have something that you really need, Please ask for Father's Day and intercession and then let us know, because I know there's a lot going on, and he's a very good intercessor. He has already been busy, both here in Guatemala, in a special way. We had, one of my friends down there, his name is Philippe Crochet, and he came up for the premiere last night, and he dressed in his traditional clothes and everything, and he, he has like, he brought lists of things for us to look at, of people that he knows. We need to talk to you. I want to make sure I say that. Well, after he died, yes, they immediately collected his blood. And that's instinctively they knew this man gave his life for us. And he is a martyr in the faith. And, they put him in those pickle jar, said you, you see, from schools or other agencies, and they are so asked if they didn't want to let him go. So they asked to keep his body. But, the family said he needs to come home to be buried in Oklahoma. But they allowed them to keep his heart, which was their next petition that they did. I can't imagine as a mom what I would say. But when I think about it, just from looking at the picture, makes all the sense in the world because they knew that he had already given them his whole heart. So it's it's powerful. And I can tell you that the year of the beatification, the bishop brought our archbishop a little vial of blood, and they had dug it out to make sure that, you know, it was still there and all that, and it had not undulated. And it's become a public thing. So I can say it out loud. We also exhumed his body to be moved out here to that new shrine that I hope everyone will come visit in Oklahoma City. But his his heart is still there. And that's just very beautiful to me. |
| Ashley | Beautiful. Well, Maria, thank you so much for joining us to tell us about this incredible man on the path to sainthood and for your time, please make sure to check out American Martyr The Stanley Road Their Story, which will be released in theaters August 25th to 26th in English and on the 27th in Spanish. Maria, thank you so much for joining us today. |
| Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda | Thank you. Please do go see it. |
| Betsy | Welcome back to conversations with consequences, where I am joined by TKA Resident Chaplain, Monsignor Roger Landry. And this week we'd like to talk about two blessed American saints that might not be on your radar. Monsignor, what can you tell us about these two saints? |
| Msgr Landry | Well, the. Last days of July, Betsy, are always special for American Catholics because. Two American. Bless we mark this week. So earlier this week on Tuesday, July 28th, we celebrated blessed Stanley Row. They're originally from Okazaki, Oklahoma, who died in Guatemala in 1982. As a martyr. He was a shepherd who wouldn't run away from the danger of caring for Christ's beloved, sheep and lambs in Guatemala. And he was killed in his own house by these hit squads in Guatemala, who just didn't like the fact that he was teaching them how to become good disciples of Jesus, rather than just pawns in, communist Marxist chess game in Guatemala. So he was martyred in 1982 as beatification was in 2017, in Oklahoma City, at the place where the Oklahoma Thunder play. I was privileged to be able to be present there as we raised him to the altars. I'll never forget Archbishop Paul Coakley, now the president of the US bishops, encouraging all of us who were present. There were 18,000 of us were able originally to get in, and then 24,000 people showed up. So there were standing room only, but everybody was watching like was on EWTN. And he said at the end, if you need a miracle, Blessed Stanley needs a miracle, in other words, for his canonization. So it was really encouraging people to pray. And since that beatification mass in Oklahoma City, they've built a beautiful new basilica to Stanley, rather a shrine to him, that people from all over are going as pilgrims. But for those who don't know blessed Stanley Road, there's a, story. He wanted to become a priest for the then Diocese of Oklahoma City before it became an archdiocese. At the founding of the Diocese of Tulsa. And he went to seminary in San Antonio. But because he couldn't master Latin, much like Saint John Vianney, who we might be able to talk about next week, he was booted from the seminary. Thanks be to God, a bishop intervened for him and wrote to Mount Saint Mary's Seminary to take him in. And he did, and he finished there. And ironically, even though he couldn't learn Latin, he was the one who translated the entire New Testament into the local dialect of the indigenous in Santiago Atitlan, which is where he evangelized and built the church and built a radio station, did everything else. So this guy who was kicked out of seminary originally because he couldn't master Latin, actually became the translator of the Word of God and the great preacher of it, not just with his lips, but with his life. And, you know, one of the most moving things for me about Blessed Stanley is he had been commanded to leave, Guatemala by his bishop because his life was, at risk. He was put on contracts, and everybody knew that he was a marked man. And he went home to Oklahoma, and he was trying to serve. And he was not on his farm. But every day he would look south out of his windows toward Guatemala because he said, a shepherd doesn't run. And he was just wondering what was happening with his people, that he had gone on vacation, but he just hadn't returned because he was prevented from returning because of the threats. A shepherd doesn't run. Eventually, his bishop gave him permission to return, and he paid the supreme sacrifice out of love for Jesus and a love for his people being killed in his house. Now, in. The, in the place where he martyred, where you still have blood. On the wall, there's a chapel built. Where people are able to adore the same. Lord that Stanley Rowe there served and introduced with people. And then on. Friday, July 30th, we have the. Memorial of Blessed Solanus Casey, this great capuchin priest who died in the 1950s and is remembered not just in Detroit, where he made most famous, but in Huntingdon in Indiana, and in three places in New York City Yonkers, the Lower East Side, and. Brooklyn, because. He served in all of those monasteries. He was from Wisconsin. He had entered the Capuchin monastery in order to try to become a cabbage and priest, but he couldn't learn German, so they refused him the full sort of faculties of a priest because his German wasn't good. Solanus Casey was an Irishman, and so Germans hired for anybody, but particularly for Irishman and, so that they just ordained him a simplex priest. We might not even know. What that means today, but he was. Given permission to celebrate mass just by himself or by people. But he couldn't preach. And he couldn't hear confessions, and he couldn't do those types of things that an ordinary priest is able to do, because they didn't think that he was smart enough in order to be able to do it. He was clearly smart enough. But like, you can be super smart, not know German. But he became a porter humbly, especially in Detroit, where he would welcome people into the Capuchin monasteries. And he was introducing them ultimately into a much deeper relationship with God. He was the minister of first impressions, the love that he had for the poor who were coming by, who needed anything, whether they needed a good confession from. One of the other priests, whether they needed something blast, whether they needed some. Food. Solanus was the one who always received them with the love of God. Often he would receive their prayers, and Solanus Casey would pray for those intentions and so many miracles happened as a result of it. He reminds many in North America of Saint Andre Bessette, who did the same thing at Saint Joseph's Oratory as a porter in Montreal, and so Blessed Solanus Casey. He was beatified in 2018 and Detroit in November. I was present to be there with 70,000 others. This was the largest beatification ever on American soil up until. What's going to happen this September in your town of Saint Louis, Missouri? Betsy. So two great saints and we remember with Saint Saint Ignatius, whom the church will celebrate on Friday after he read the Lives of Saint Francis in Saint Dominic. He said. Why can't I do to what Francis and Dominic have done? And this week we Americans can say, why can't we do what Stanley and Solanus have done? We might not be a priest. We might not be a Capuchin religious, but can we say yes to. God and give him the same blank check? These two great Americans have done in our 250th anniversary of our country. They're among the greatest Americans in our history. Let's ask for their prayers. This week is especially. That we might imitate their faith, their hope in their love. |
| Betsy | Truly inspiring. Thank you so much, Monsignor Andrew. |
| Msgr Landry | Happy happy feast. That's. |