Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E249: From Pageant Stage to Parish Pew: Carrie Prejean's Journey | Lila Rose Show

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E249: From Pageant Stage to Parish Pew: Carrie Prejean's Journey | Lila Rose Show · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  I was going to compete at Miss Universe and everything changed
• 0:03
  during that final question. It was like the Lord just
• 0:05
  smacked me right in the face and was like, don't you dare lie
• 0:08
  right now. And I was super convicted.
• 0:10
  You were one of the first very prominent attempts at cancel
• 0:13
  culture. It was headline news, Carrie.
• 0:15
  It was everywhere. I just knew at that moment this
• 0:18
  was going to be war. This was the first time someone,
• 0:22
  let alone a blonde pageant girl from California, was going to
• 0:25
  take on this beast. Whatever the early church
• 0:28
  believed, I must believe. I just felt like I was home.
• 0:31
  I was finally home and it was just like the greatest day of my
• 0:34
  life. I just felt like I was home.
• 0:38
  She won Miss California and was on her way to becoming Miss USA
• 0:42
  until Judge Perez Hilton asked her one of the most
• 0:45
  controversial questions in pageant history.
• 0:49
  Today on the Lila Rose Show, I sit down with my friend, San
• 0:52
  Diego native Carrie Prejean Bowler.
• 0:55
  She shares about her journey of being one of the first people to
• 0:58
  be cancelled for standing up for marriage.
• 1:01
  She talks about the strengthening in her faith that
• 1:04
  God gave her despite the challenges that she faced.
• 1:07
  She shares about how to stand up for your kids as a mom and
• 1:10
  school board activism, as well as her new role on the Religious
• 1:13
  Liberty Commission. Carrie also shares a huge update
• 1:16
  in the life of her faith after years of study.
• 1:18
  Thank you to everyone who has been subscribing to the show and
• 1:21
  watching. We are building something good,
• 1:23
  true, and beautiful on this part of the Internet and I couldn't
• 1:25
  be more grateful for all of you. Don't forget to subscribe.
• 1:29
  Don't forget to like this video if you're watching here on
• 1:31
  YouTube and hit that subscribe button.
• 1:33
  And if you're listening on podcast app, make sure you're
• 1:35
  subscribed and leave us five stars in a review that helps the
• 1:37
  show continue to grow. Carrie Prejean Buller, welcome
• 1:40
  to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:43
  Lovely to see another beautiful Californian here in the studio.
• 1:46
  And I met you, I think 15 years ago now.
• 1:49
  Yeah. And it's crazy.
• 1:51
  We're life is taking us. We're both here, we're both
• 1:53
  Catholic. Amen.
• 1:55
  Beautiful. We met years ago and then it
• 1:58
  kind of stayed in touch via the Internet basically, and just
• 2:01
  watching you and your beautiful work, your beautiful family,
• 2:04
  your beautiful faith, and now the work you're doing with the
• 2:08
  Trump administration for the Religious Liberty Commission,
• 2:10
  and I mean just you. I've always admired you, Carrie,
• 2:13
  because of your courage. You've always been outspoken
• 2:15
  about marriage, what matters, life.
• 2:19
  But now you're living at an even more beautiful way than ever.
• 2:22
  So thank you. Thank you for being here and
• 2:25
  it's so excited to hear all of the ups and downs of where what
• 2:28
  brought you here. It's crazy.
• 2:30
  It's been a, it's been an exciting journey.
• 2:33
  Very excited to tell my story. So let's start from the
• 2:36
  beginning for people that didn't, you know, weren't
• 2:39
  watching this national pageant where you really stun the world
• 2:43
  for the first time in more ways than one.
• 2:45
  When I say stun the world, let's just start with Carrie Prejean
• 2:49
  before Bowler. You know your background, how
• 2:52
  you got involved eventually in pageants, and then we'll talk
• 2:55
  about the events of that really monumental moment when you did
• 2:59
  surprise the world with what you said at the pageant, a national
• 3:02
  pageant. It feels like it was just
• 3:03
  yesterday too. It was 2009.
• 3:07
  I will let me back up a little bit.
• 3:08
  So I grew up in San Diego, CA. My parents got divorced when I
• 3:12
  was eight. It was a very rough divorce.
• 3:16
  Both my parents loved us. There was three of us, me, my
• 3:19
  brother and my sister. And but it was a nasty divorce
• 3:24
  and very difficult on us, you know, at a young age.
• 3:26
  And I love both my parents. And I had a, my own lawyer when
• 3:30
  I was 8 and she sat me down one day and said, I'm your voice and
• 3:34
  you don't have a voice and I'm going to be your voice.
• 3:37
  And so I'm going to go before the judge and let him know who
• 3:39
  you want to live with and, you know, kind of be your
• 3:42
  spokesperson. And I remember at a young age
• 3:45
  thinking, I hate this. I hate that this person has to
• 3:50
  speak for me because I knew in my heart that I love both my
• 3:52
  parents. I wanted to live with both.
• 3:55
  And I didn't understand why this person had to speak for me.
• 3:59
  So that's kind of the back story, kind of creating this
• 4:02
  little rebel in me where nobody's going to tell me, you
• 4:06
  know, what I can say and what I believe.
• 4:09
  Back up a little bit more. I was an athlete my whole life,
• 4:11
  so I total tomboy. Thank God I didn't have parents.
• 4:16
  You know nowadays where they're transitioning their kids because
• 4:20
  they're tomboy? You would have been the most
• 4:21
  beautiful man. Ever.
• 4:22
  My gosh, I'm like, thank you mom and dad that you weren't crazy
• 4:26
  and you didn't. That makes me want to cry for
• 4:27
  all the kids that are me too. Me too.
• 4:29
  So this is like the little seeds that were planted in me long
• 4:32
  ago. But I was this tomboy didn't
• 4:35
  bloom until high school and, you know, played all the sports.
• 4:39
  Basketball was my main sport. I wanted to play in the WNBA.
• 4:43
  Most of my friends were guys. Just was the rough and tough
• 4:47
  kind of girl. And then it was in high school
• 4:49
  where, you know, my parents would always fight over money.
• 4:51
  Like I'd ask my dad, hey, I need cleats or hey, I need a
• 4:53
  basketball. Go ask your mom.
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  I give her the money. And then I'd ask my mom and
• 4:57
  she'd be like, your dad doesn't give me enough money.
• 4:58
  So it's just this constant back and forth of always relying on
• 5:02
  on other people. And so I came home one day and I
• 5:06
  said, mom, I'm going to do the local city pageant.
• 5:10
  And she's like, what? And I said, yeah, I said my
• 5:13
  friend convinced me that I'm going to do the Miss Vista
• 5:15
  pageant. And I think I can win.
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  I love competing. I love competition.
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  And this is something that could, you know, further my
• 5:22
  career or give me scholarship money and be me, be able to
• 5:26
  purchase my own things when I want to buy them and not have to
• 5:28
  rely on you guys as much. And she's like, OK, I, I think
• 5:32
  that you're a little crazy, but sure, go ahead and and do it.
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  So I signed up, borrowed her little suit that she had as a
• 5:39
  realtor, did the pageant, got second place.
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  And I was just devastated. I'm like, how come I didn't win?
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  This is not just I should have won.
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  And so the winner ended up going on to the next level competition
• 5:54
  or didn't want to go to the next level and so they offered it to
• 5:56
  me. So I ended up going to Miss San
• 5:58
  Diego, won that and then ended up at Miss California and the
• 6:02
  rest is history. I ended up at Miss USA when I
• 6:05
  was 21 years old, on stage in front of millions of people.
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  Where was that? Las Vegas.
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  Las Vegas? Yeah, it was Las Vegas.
• 6:12
  We lived there. Was Donald Trump there?
• 6:14
  Yes. He owned the pageant at the
• 6:15
  time. Crazy.
• 6:16
  So we were all there the night that we got to meet him, and it
• 6:19
  was unbelievable. We were so excited.
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  I just felt like I was the next Miss USA.
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  I would be called to interviews. Hey, we need California come do
• 6:28
  this interview. And hey, you're the girl to
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  beat. And, you know, we really wanted
• 6:31
  a blonde this year, so we think that you're.
• 6:34
  Yeah. Wow, it's really that.
• 6:35
  Oh yeah, behind the scenes. I've learned a lot since, but
• 6:39
  so, yeah, so I would just, I just felt at peace, like I was
• 6:43
  going to compete at Miss Universe.
• 6:44
  And so there I was, got called in the top 15, the top ten, the
• 6:49
  top five. And everything changed during
• 6:52
  that final question I was asked. Vermont just recently became the
• 6:57
  4th state to legalize same sex marriage.
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  Do you believe other states should follow suit?
• 7:01
  Why or why not? And Lila, I remember standing
• 7:05
  there looking at the audience thinking, there's my pageant
• 7:09
  director for the last few years who's worked so hard preparing
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  me for this. There's my mom and dad sitting
• 7:16
  together after everything they've been through with their
• 7:18
  horrible divorce and they're united as a family, cheering me
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  on, seeing my sibling like just, it was like my moment of what
• 7:27
  are you going to do? Do you really want to win this
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  thing? Because if you really want to
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  win, you can go along with him and be that girl from
• 7:35
  California, that liberal. You know, love is love, and
• 7:38
  let's just marry who you want. You're going to be the next Miss
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  USA, Carrie, if you say that. But if you don't say it, and if
• 7:46
  you stand firm in what you believe in your faith, you're
• 7:49
  going to lose it all. And I just remember starting off
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  and oh, it was like, it was just yesterday.
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  And I remember saying, you know, it's great that Americans, you
• 7:58
  know, you can choose one or the other.
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  And it was like the Lord just smacked me right in the face and
• 8:02
  was like, who are you and what do you believe?
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  You know what you believe. Don't you dare lie right now.
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  And I was super convicted. In the moment.
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  In the moment while you were starting.
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  While I was starting, but then I also knew that I would lose.
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  I knew that I would lose. And so I said, but I believe
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  marriage should be between one man and one woman.
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  And no offense to anyone out there, but that's what I
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  believe. And that's how I think it should
• 8:27
  be. And it was like silence.
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  And then you heard cheers, and then you heard booze.
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  And I see Donald Trump sitting in the front row.
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  And I'm like, my dreams are over.
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  Like, I wanted this so bad. I worked so hard for this Lord.
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  Why? Like, why did I have to get this
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  question the other girls got? What do you look for in a man
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  Literally, like, what do you want?
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  A husband? And I get this controversial
• 8:53
  gotcha question that, you know, 30 seconds I had to answer it.
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  And the judge was a openly homosexual, outspoken Perez
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  Hilton. Oh, and everyone, everyone knew
• 9:07
  that. Everyone knew that secret.
• 9:09
  Exactly. So yeah, that was really my
• 9:11
  moment of truth. And it was the best decision I
• 9:15
  ever made. So what happened next?
• 9:19
  So I remember at the commercial break, I'm standing there with
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  the other girls and I, I remember looking over saying
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  what just happened. And I remember one of the girls,
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  I think it was Kentucky. She was like, you did the right
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  thing, like good job. You know, they were inspired
• 9:33
  question, but you nailed it, you know, And I just remember
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  thinking, I, I, I had to do this.
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  I had to tell the truth. Don't ask me a question that you
• 9:44
  don't want to hear the answer to.
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  And I'm entitled as American to believe what I believe.
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  You know, don't ask me my favorite color and then
• 9:51
  criticize me when I tell you what my favorite color is.
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  And so I remember the judge's face.
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  And he just, he just looked disgusted.
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  He, like, leaned back and was just shaking his head.
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  Perez Hilton. Perez Hilton.
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  Yeah. And it said on my bio that I was
• 10:04
  a Christian and that, you know, I went to San Diego Christian
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  College. And so he, he knew, but I think
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  it was a test. He thought that I would.
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  He thought that I would, you know, forsake my faith to win
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  this crown. And boy, was he surprised
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  because I doubled down after that.
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  I got sent to New York to go on Matt Lauer's Today show.
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  And all of my handlers were saying, Carrie, you need to
• 10:29
  apologize. You need to take back what you
• 10:31
  said. You've offended so many people.
• 10:35
  And remember Lila, this was like I always say, like this was way
• 10:40
  before cancel. Culture.
• 10:41
  So like you were the first, I think one of the first very
• 10:45
  prominent at least attempts at cancel culture.
• 10:48
  You were, I mean, I remember it, it was headline news, Carrie.
• 10:50
  It was everywhere and everyone was all of the people that knew
• 10:54
  right from wrong, black from white, you know, left from
• 10:57
  right. They knew that.
• 10:58
  This is clearly true. But marriage is between one man
• 11:01
  and one woman has been throughout human history.
• 11:03
  Multiple major religions say that natural law shows that.
• 11:06
  And this fad of calling same sex marriage the same as marriage is
• 11:11
  a fad. It is, yeah.
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  And I believed at the time as a Protestant, like, nobody is
• 11:17
  going to read like you can't redefine marriage.
• 11:20
  You can call it whatever you want to call it, but it's not
• 11:23
  marriage. Like marriage is instituted by
• 11:25
  God. Now, I believe it is a sacrament
• 11:28
  from God, but I just knew at that moment that this was going
• 11:32
  to be war. Like this was the first time
• 11:36
  someone, let alone a blonde pageant girl from California was
• 11:42
  going to take on this beast. And and it was a beast.
• 11:45
  It was very vicious. And like you said, I mean, it
• 11:50
  was on headlines every day. You had every media channel
• 11:53
  talking about. This was before social media.
• 11:55
  So every network was talking about it.
• 11:57
  I was going on every show defending my faith, saying in
• 12:01
  fact on Matt Lauer, when I was told to apologize, he looks at
• 12:04
  me and he says, well, let's do a do over right now.
• 12:07
  Oh my goodness. Let me ask you the question and
• 12:09
  let's just do it over. What would you say?
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  And I said, Matt, I have no regrets.
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  I would say it all over again. In fact, I would rather be
• 12:17
  biblically correct than politically correct.
• 12:21
  Wow. And after that I turned my phone
• 12:23
  off and my I'm sure I got. I I feel like the hate was in
• 12:26
  two camps and 1 camp was she's a bigot like just hating on you
• 12:30
  and again only you have only love for any anyone and everyone
• 12:34
  including those that have different sexual attractions,
• 12:37
  desires, issues. Like everything.
• 12:40
  People are all made in God's image, have equal dignity, but
• 12:43
  there are certain natural laws around sex and male male and
• 12:47
  female God creating them for each other.
• 12:48
  So these are not things that we can change with our opinions.
• 12:51
  So I saw the camp of oh, bigot, bigot, bigot, which is the
• 12:54
  favorite thing to say against natural law believers or not
• 12:57
  even. It's not a matter of religious
• 12:59
  belief. It been, I think it's a matter
• 13:00
  of reality, right? And then there's the other
• 13:02
  category where they made fun of you, your intelligence.
• 13:04
  It's like they mocked you because you're beautiful and
• 13:07
  blonde and like, oh, she must not be intelligent.
• 13:09
  That's why she's saying this. She's some antiquated person.
• 13:13
  And it's funny because I would say the lack of intelligence is
• 13:16
  more around that assumption than putting that on you, right.
• 13:20
  But what was that like for you when you would receive this
• 13:25
  blowback? It sounds like it made you stand
• 13:26
  up taller. I mean.
• 13:28
  It was by the grace of God because I remember as I was on
• 13:31
  the plane going to New York, I was on the plane all by myself.
• 13:34
  My mom had to go on a different plane.
• 13:36
  So I was literally alone. And I remember opening up my
• 13:39
  Bible and reading Second Timothy where it says all who desire to
• 13:43
  live a godly life in Christ will be persecuted.
• 13:46
  And I remember thinking like just get emotional even thinking
• 13:50
  about it. Like I remember just thinking
• 13:52
  like here I am this little like 21 year old beauty queen.
• 13:56
  Like why? Like why God?
• 13:59
  Why are you, why are you having me go through this?
• 14:02
  Like all I wanted was to be Miss USA and just, you know, be
• 14:05
  beautiful and serve others. And obviously I had my faith
• 14:10
  since I was little and I just wanted to be a good role model
• 14:12
  to little girls. And, and I remember so vividly
• 14:15
  him saying, because I knew you'd be the one.
• 14:18
  I knew you would be the one to tell the truth and get ready
• 14:21
  because this is going to be, this is a, this is a war.
• 14:24
  And you are my soldier. And so I just from that very
• 14:29
  moment of hearing his clear voice, I said, I have to stand
• 14:32
  firm. I cannot waver no matter what
• 14:34
  comes, no matter the opportunities.
• 14:37
  Hey, do you want to do this? You know, you could make a lot
• 14:39
  of money doing this. I got offered Playboy.
• 14:41
  I got offered all these crazy things.
• 14:44
  Bless Donald Trump's heart. He had me in his office one day
• 14:46
  and he's like, what do you want to do?
• 14:48
  Do you want to be on The Apprentice?
• 14:49
  Do you want to be a host on Fox News?
• 14:51
  I tried that out for a week, knew I didn't want to wake up at
• 14:54
  2:00 AM everyday. He's like, you know, do you want
• 14:57
  to be in Dancing with the Stars? And I told him, I said, Mr.
• 15:00
  Trump, all I want to do is tell my story.
• 15:03
  I want to write a book. And so he signed off on that.
• 15:07
  So this was. After the pageant, So he was
• 15:09
  supportive of your career even when you're outspokenly being
• 15:12
  for marriage. I remember one day being in his
• 15:16
  office and I would have a cell phone.
• 15:18
  I would call him all the time. Hey, the pageant people are
• 15:21
  asking me to go to the gay pride parade.
• 15:23
  Obviously I don't want to do that, but that's their way of
• 15:25
  like, she's really not a bigot. Look, she's at the gay pride.
• 15:29
  So, and I mean, Donald Trump owned the pageant, but he didn't
• 15:33
  really have a lot of it's, it's a franchise.
• 15:34
  So everybody kind of has their own state and they all make
• 15:37
  their own decisions. He's the face of it, obviously,
• 15:40
  but he was disgusted with what was going on with me.
• 15:43
  He's like, why would they ask you to go the gay pride parade?
• 15:46
  Absolutely not. Do you have to do that?
• 15:48
  So so he. Was he was.
• 15:49
  I mean, I think it's a a great story what you're sharing
• 15:53
  because, you know, there has been a watering down in the GOP
• 15:56
  of marriage between one man and one woman.
• 15:58
  And there's been these kind of overtures to overtures to LGBT
• 16:02
  ideology. But I think you can also see the
• 16:05
  concern and the pushback internally with that.
• 16:07
  So it's interesting to hear that even, you know, now what was it
• 16:09
  20 years ago? President Trump even then was
• 16:12
  like, what is what is going on? Yeah, and he's yours.
• 16:15
  I respect you. Like you stood for what was
• 16:18
  right. And he he respected me for that.
• 16:20
  In the, in a time where there was no cancel culture, like, you
• 16:25
  know, you should be able to speak your mind and speak it
• 16:27
  boldly. And I think he, he respected me
• 16:29
  for that. And that's why to this day I
• 16:31
  respect him because he says things that sometimes are
• 16:33
  unpopular, but it's what people are thinking.
• 16:35
  It's the right thing, But it goes against the culture of
• 16:38
  what's popular and what's going to bring you money and what's
• 16:41
  going to you know, everybody's afraid to speak out because of
• 16:44
  what they're going to lose. But I would rather stand before
• 16:47
  the Lord one day and Him say a well done, good and faithful
• 16:51
  servant, rather than depart from me.
• 16:53
  I never knew you. And that's what I think about
• 16:56
  every day, and that's how I try to live my life.
• 16:59
  So you were not planning to become the marriage girl.
• 17:02
  I mean, that was not the not on the cards.
• 17:04
  It happened to you because of that got your question that you
• 17:07
  had no idea was going to be posed to you at the at the
• 17:10
  pageant. And then you're on this media
• 17:12
  circuit. It's headline news and they they
• 17:14
  just like run round and around and I remember they were
• 17:16
  obsessed. They were obsessed with you
• 17:18
  because but you were this contradiction.
• 17:20
  That's what they couldn't get over.
• 17:22
  It was, you know, flashy. And so they just kept going.
• 17:24
  And then you wrote your book telling your story again,
• 17:28
  inspirational. How did somewhere along the line
• 17:33
  you end up meeting your husband and getting married and starting
• 17:36
  your family? But at what point did you
• 17:38
  realize, OK, I came into this to be be a pageant winner and and
• 17:43
  to be a role model. You said it was that was the
• 17:45
  deeper hope there and and goal there.
• 17:47
  And it'll become, OK, I'm actually going to be a, a
• 17:50
  countercultural warrior. Like that's my that's my gig.
• 17:53
  I have to do that because it it clearly the culture needs it and
• 17:56
  here I am. Yeah, And I remember thinking at
• 17:59
  the time, like, yeah, I'm from California, but even California
• 18:02
  didn't want gay marriage. Like I'm representing.
• 18:05
  Yeah. Like I'm representing my state.
• 18:08
  I'm representing Barack Obama at the time, Hillary Clinton at the
• 18:11
  time. What is so controversial about
• 18:13
  saying marriage is between a man and a woman?
• 18:16
  Why is that so? Oh my gosh, headline news.
• 18:19
  Like it should have just been OK, That's what she believes.
• 18:23
  So I ended up getting 2nd place that night and you know, first
• 18:25
  runner up and I'll never forget the not to diss on the winner
• 18:29
  that night. But you know, we had been
• 18:32
  spending three weeks together and you know, all the girls that
• 18:36
  were leading the Bible study and doing all the things and praying
• 18:39
  together. And I remember they asked her,
• 18:41
  she was one of the leaders of the Bible study and they asked
• 18:43
  her after the pageant, you know, what would you have said if you
• 18:47
  would have gotten this question? And she was like, I think that,
• 18:53
  you know, love is love and you should just marry whoever you
• 18:56
  want. And I just thought to myself,
• 18:58
  like, what are we doing as Christians?
• 19:01
  That was really when it hit me like, are we called to really
• 19:05
  obey God? Or is Christianity just this, I
• 19:08
  can live however I want and I don't need to obey God or be
• 19:11
  held accountable, even obey the 10 commandments.
• 19:14
  And that's when I feel like the Lord really planted that seed in
• 19:17
  me that now I'm seeing as a as a faith filled Catholic where our
• 19:22
  our works do matter and and what we do with our life does matter
• 19:25
  and we will be held accountable one day.
• 19:28
  What was the moment that you what, what was the career
• 19:32
  choices I should say that you made after all of this?
• 19:36
  Because the doors I'm sure closed, other doors opened,
• 19:39
  right? And then you eventually get
• 19:41
  married. How did you discern those doors
• 19:43
  and which doors did you walk through?
• 19:45
  I remember thinking, who's going to want me?
• 19:47
  I'm such a liability. I speak my mind.
• 19:50
  I, you know, this is a very controversial topic.
• 19:54
  Nobody was talking about LGBT back in 2009.
• 19:57
  It was just, it was kind of like one of those things where
• 20:00
  everybody just held their beliefs to themselves.
• 20:02
  And we didn't have social media. We, we just had the news.
• 20:05
  And I remember thinking, gosh, I'm not going to meet anybody.
• 20:09
  I'm 21, Like, who's going to want me, you know?
• 20:12
  And so there I was at opening day, at the horse races, they
• 20:16
  had had me singing Where the turf meets the surf that day as
• 20:19
  like AD list celebrity, you know?
• 20:21
  And I'm sitting there with my parents in the suite, and I'm
• 20:25
  just sitting there, you know, hanging out.
• 20:28
  And all of a sudden, these three gorgeous men walk in.
• 20:31
  It's my husband, Aaron Rodgers, and this other quarterback in
• 20:35
  the NFL. And I remember looking over,
• 20:37
  thinking, wow, OK, what? What are they doing here?
• 20:41
  You know? And my husband walks right up to
• 20:43
  me. Kyle walks right up to me.
• 20:46
  And he's like, I want you to know something.
• 20:48
  He said I watched you that night and I called my mom and I told
• 20:52
  her I need to marry that girl. Wow, I know.
• 20:55
  Isn't that cute? Really cute.
• 20:57
  Very bold, very bold, very bold. And then he's like, you want to
• 20:59
  make a bet? And I was like, yeah, let's make
• 21:00
  a bet. That's very cute.
• 21:02
  And so within six months we were engaged.
• 21:05
  Six months later, we were married.
• 21:06
  Nine months later we had our beautiful daughter, Grace, and
• 21:10
  now we have a son. And God is so good when you.
• 21:12
  Obey him so he he was inspired by your courage and he shared
• 21:16
  obviously your beliefs. Yeah.
• 21:18
  And I said, Are you sure that you want to date me?
• 21:20
  And he's like, yeah, should I really, really respect what you
• 21:23
  said? He's like, I watched it.
• 21:25
  I watched the whole thing. And I thought, wow, that girl
• 21:28
  has guts. And I really respect you for
• 21:30
  that. And so that really started off
• 21:32
  our relationship where he really understood me and and knew that
• 21:37
  I would never, ever waver in my faith.
• 21:39
  And that was my number one thing.
• 21:42
  I also love that he has a strong guy with his own career, his own
• 21:46
  opportunities. Valued that in you.
• 21:49
  He did. That's what I loved.
• 21:50
  I loved that because I thought, why would he need like I could
• 21:54
  maybe hurt his career? I mean, he was a quarterback in
• 21:56
  the NFL at the time that we met. He still played three years.
• 21:59
  We had our daughter while he was still playing.
• 22:01
  And so I thought, you know, what's the, you know, coach of
• 22:04
  the team going to think that he's dating this, you know,
• 22:06
  because the headlines were she's a bigot, she's a homophobe,
• 22:09
  She's all all these anti things. You know what you hear?
• 22:13
  But I learned that people actually would come up to me and
• 22:16
  whisper to me and say, you know, I really respect you for what
• 22:18
  you did and I admire you. And that would get me through
• 22:21
  the the hard days. I really think it's like a huge
• 22:24
  psychological trick that the left and certainly the
• 22:28
  ideological, you know, pro LGBT group or lobby has played on
• 22:33
  people to make them afraid to be proud of the truth.
• 22:37
  And I, I kind of marvel at it because you were just saying
• 22:40
  earlier, you know, most of California had just voted for
• 22:43
  Proposition 8 to enshrine marriage between one man and one
• 22:46
  woman in the state constitution. And that passed and then Gavin
• 22:50
  Newson as a little, you know, stinker, my mayor at the time of
• 22:56
  San Francisco's like La Dee Da and he just starts shelling out
• 23:00
  marriage licenses illegally to same sex couples.
• 23:03
  And there's this, you know, like I'm cool now.
• 23:06
  Like it's cool that Gavin is like, I think Newsom has always
• 23:09
  sort of favored himself as this like, you know, Maverick and
• 23:12
  he's going to go and like be cool.
• 23:14
  And he you know, he's he comes across off in a suave and he's
• 23:16
  like the cool dude. And by the way, he has a very
• 23:18
  traditional family himself. He was raised Catholic and I
• 23:21
  think deep down he has deeply a deep sense of what is true.
• 23:25
  But he's kind of riding currents to find like, what's the edgy
• 23:28
  thing that's up and coming that I can get some political clout
• 23:31
  from? So for him, it was the LGBT
• 23:32
  stuff, it was gay marriage, and California didn't want it.
• 23:36
  But the people that knew the truth, I think many of them,
• 23:39
  they're good salt and earth, salt and salt of the earth
• 23:43
  people. So they don't want to be like,
• 23:44
  they're not out there to wave a finger.
• 23:46
  They're not out there to be mean.
• 23:47
  They want to love people. Like we know these people.
• 23:50
  They're they're friends and family.
• 23:51
  They they love people. So when someone says, well,
• 23:53
  you're a bigot to disagree with me, they'll still cast the
• 23:56
  ballot that they cast because they know it's right.
• 23:57
  Marriage is between one man and one woman.
• 23:59
  But then they're kind of like, I don't really want to get into
• 24:01
  some like political activism thing here, you know, like you
• 24:03
  guys, I don't want to like tell you, you guys can it gets to
• 24:06
  what you want, but we can't change marriage as a society.
• 24:08
  It's impossible. But I'm not going to like, get
• 24:10
  in your faces. But then they're getting in
• 24:12
  their faces. They're getting in your face.
• 24:14
  And then people are just froze, a little frozen about what even
• 24:17
  to do. And that's what made your
• 24:19
  position so powerful, because you weren't getting in their
• 24:23
  faces back. You were being very gracious
• 24:25
  about it, loving about it, simple about it.
• 24:29
  And that made them all the more angry because they wanted you to
• 24:33
  be a bigot. They wanted you to be this
• 24:35
  angry, mean person and you aren't.
• 24:37
  No, no. There have been so many times
• 24:40
  when I've been looking for an OBGYN or a pediatrician or a
• 24:44
  family doctor when I wonder, is this doctor pro-life?
• 24:48
  So how do we find pro-life doctors?
• 24:50
  I am so thankful to my friends over at Presidio, they have
• 24:54
  launched pro-life providers.com. pro-life providers.com is a
• 24:58
  values based platform where you can find doctors that share your
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  values from everything from infertility to vaccine schedules
• 25:05
  to abortion. Don't settle when it comes to
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  your family's health. Find the best doctor
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  They're doing a seven day challenge accompanying with the
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  That's hollow.com/lila. My favorite diaper and wipes
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  They wanted you to be this angry, mean person and you
• 26:55
  aren't. No, no, in fact, full circle.
• 26:58
  I want to mention this before I forget.
• 27:00
  I actually ended up reaching out to Perez Hilton.
• 27:03
  Not many people know this, but I reached out to him on social
• 27:06
  media, I think it was like 2 years ago and I just sent him a
• 27:09
  message. Hey, it was actually when I was
• 27:12
  studying to become Catholic and I just thought, you know, I just
• 27:14
  want to like get this off my chest.
• 27:16
  I don't want to live with this anymore because I, I really, I
• 27:19
  never hated him, but I, I always had this like grudge against
• 27:23
  him. Like you ruined that moment for
• 27:25
  me because of your agenda. He docked you.
• 27:27
  He docked me, Yeah. And he called me awful names.
• 27:30
  I mean, I wouldn't mention it now, but.
• 27:33
  So he just quick pause. I want to hear what you said to
• 27:35
  him. But this is important.
• 27:37
  I think he was the judge of the pageant is supposed to be
• 27:40
  objective at least in some way. And he is specifically docking
• 27:45
  you for the beliefs that 2000 years of society, you know, not
• 27:48
  more than 2000 thousands of years, you know, billions of
• 27:51
  people believe. And it's also objectively true.
• 27:52
  Men and women go together, they bring life into the world.
• 27:55
  You would have been a beautiful judge.
• 27:57
  Thank you, Karen. So instead they hired this man
• 28:00
  who I found out later, actually Mr. Trump at the time, Mr.
• 28:03
  Trump, I always call him Mr. Trump, he said, who hired this
• 28:07
  guy? Like I was in his office and my
• 28:08
  mom said Mr. Trump. Why?
• 28:10
  Why was? This man, a judge, and he had no
• 28:12
  idea who this guy was. And he, he was not happy about
• 28:15
  it. He knew that this man had an
• 28:17
  agenda and he took it out on me. And he was going to pick the
• 28:20
  question. The the judge picked his own
• 28:22
  question. Yeah.
• 28:23
  So Perez Hilton, he picked his own question.
• 28:26
  But the organizer of the pageant, she admitted that they
• 28:31
  wanted controversy that year at my expense.
• 28:34
  But it ended up being the biggest blessing of my life.
• 28:36
  But you know it, it was wrong what he did.
• 28:39
  You know, why didn't he ask me what I want to do as Miss USA?
• 28:42
  How I want to be a role model of young girls?
• 28:43
  Or it was right what he did and thanks, thank God.
• 28:46
  Because look what you need exactly.
• 28:48
  Thank God. I thank God every day for that
• 28:50
  question. But I ended up reaching out to
• 28:52
  him and just saying, I just want you to know I totally forgive
• 28:56
  you for what you did. I forgive you.
• 28:58
  I release you like I don't hold any more grudges against you.
• 29:02
  And he responded back and he was like, I am so sorry for what I
• 29:06
  did to you. And it was like this moment
• 29:08
  where I was crying. I'm sure he was crying.
• 29:11
  And it was this real moment where God had used that
• 29:13
  horrible, horrible time. I mean, I had some dark days,
• 29:17
  dark days at the time. I mean, 21 years old and your
• 29:19
  face is plastered on every news channel for three weeks.
• 29:23
  It was horrible. And them criticizing you and
• 29:27
  saying you're awful things, harassing your family, digging
• 29:30
  into your past, trying to find nasty things about you, paying
• 29:33
  people to say bad things about you.
• 29:35
  I mean, my, my 90 year old grandmother was harassed every
• 29:37
  day by TMZ. Like, what do you have on her?
• 29:40
  What can you tell us about her? And so was this beautiful moment
• 29:44
  where I was able to release him and forgive him fully and let
• 29:48
  him know that. And I said, I want to know, are
• 29:52
  you a Christian? Like what has been your faith
• 29:55
  journey this And he and he said, I'm not, but I wish I was.
• 29:58
  How powerful is that? And so I just kind of let him
• 30:02
  like in this little, you know, I said, you can be, you know, like
• 30:05
  it's available to everyone, like your past, it can be all be
• 30:09
  washed away. You know, like, come on, like
• 30:11
  you got this, you know, and he goes, I've done so many bad
• 30:15
  things, I've hurt so many people and like there's no way that I
• 30:19
  can be basically forgiven. And I said, yes, you can.
• 30:23
  And his name is Jesus and he just did the little prayer
• 30:26
  emoji. So I'm like, Lord, whether he
• 30:30
  accepted you and is following you, that's between you and him.
• 30:33
  But at least I was able to show him a little bit of mercy and
• 30:37
  and forgiveness and show him that I no longer have any
• 30:41
  bitterness towards him. That's incredible.
• 30:45
  Let's pray right now for Press Hilton for people.
• 30:48
  If people listening, do you wanna say a little prayer for
• 30:50
  him? You want me to pray or you in
• 30:52
  the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
• 30:55
  Heavenly Father, I just lift up prayers Hilton right now, Lord,
• 30:58
  I know that he is hurting. We all are hurting, Lord, and we
• 31:02
  are in need of a Savior. And so I just asked Lord that
• 31:05
  you would just come into his life and heal him from any
• 31:10
  trauma and pain that he's suffered and any sadness that
• 31:14
  he's endured throughout these years.
• 31:16
  And I just want him to know that he is deeply loved by you and
• 31:20
  that there is forgiveness and repentance.
• 31:23
  And I pray that he turns to you and turns away from his sin and
• 31:28
  just is reunited with you and welcomed into the the church one
• 31:32
  day. I pray for that.
• 31:34
  And I pray this in the name of the Father and the Son and the
• 31:36
  Holy Spirit, Amen. Amen.
• 31:38
  What a beautiful example, Carrie, that you that you
• 31:41
  reached out and that you you love him.
• 31:43
  I had to. I, I can't.
• 31:46
  He's my brother. He's my brother.
• 31:48
  And, and I and he had shared some things with you that I
• 31:51
  won't share, but just from his past.
• 31:53
  But there's always a reason behind pain, you know, and why
• 31:56
  people lash out. And so I was able to really show
• 32:00
  him a little bit of the love of Christ.
• 32:03
  And it was beautiful that he apologized and I just said very
• 32:06
  beautiful. Yeah.
• 32:07
  It's very It shows a lot of beautiful, beautiful parts of
• 32:11
  his heart that he did that. And I hope people listening to,
• 32:14
  I mean, every one of us, ourselves included, but we all
• 32:18
  know people that are hurting and are away from God or fighting,
• 32:23
  you know, God's truth or whatever it is in their lives.
• 32:25
  And so it just reminds me your, your example reminds us all to
• 32:29
  reach out in love, pray and always be forgiving if there's
• 32:34
  any interpersonal stuff that attached to that.
• 32:37
  So thank you. After you got married, just kind
• 32:40
  of zooming back to your timeline, you have your welcome
• 32:44
  your first child into the world. During that time, you were still
• 32:47
  very outspoken. I remember that you had
• 32:51
  mentioned a bunch of opportunities that were coming
• 32:52
  your way and you were kind of figuring out what you wanted to
• 32:55
  do. How did you enter the season of
• 32:57
  being a wife and a mother in the midst of also the controversy
• 33:00
  and your ongoing platform? So I not a lot of people know
• 33:04
  this, but I ended up suing the Miss California organization.
• 33:07
  They took my title away so they ended up removing my title from
• 33:11
  me. A title that I that I earned.
• 33:14
  I beat out over 90 girls in this beautiful state of California.
• 33:18
  Still to this day, my name is not mentioned on the list of
• 33:21
  they still don't mention me. They still don't mention me,
• 33:23
  which is fine. They stripped your Miss
• 33:25
  California. Yeah, not a title.
• 33:27
  Know that because you said marriage is between one man and
• 33:29
  one woman. But they were really sneaky
• 33:31
  because they ended up but finding a loophole in my
• 33:34
  contract. So they would say things like,
• 33:37
  oh, she violated her contract by not doing the gay pride parade
• 33:41
  and little things like that. Yeah.
• 33:42
  So I ended up suing. And lawsuits are terrible,
• 33:48
  terrible. You know, I mean, nobody wants
• 33:51
  to be in a lawsuit. But I was just like, I just want
• 33:54
  to walk away. I don't want anything.
• 33:56
  I, I want my freedom. I just want to be a wife.
• 34:00
  I want to be a mom. It was when Kyle and I were,
• 34:03
  we'd gotten engaged and I just said, Kyle, I just don't want
• 34:07
  any part of this. Like I don't want to be famous.
• 34:09
  I, I want nothing. I just want to marry you and be
• 34:12
  a wife and a mom. That's it.
• 34:14
  And so it was on Larry King. I went on Larry King's show and
• 34:17
  I had told Larry before the show.
• 34:18
  I told the producer, hey, we can talk about everything.
• 34:21
  I just can't talk about the lawsuit.
• 34:22
  So please be respectful and not talk about the lawsuit because,
• 34:26
  you know, when you're in, you know, a legal lawsuit, you can't
• 34:30
  really talk about the things of the case.
• 34:32
  So he knew that going into it, and that was the only thing that
• 34:35
  he kept talking about, of course.
• 34:37
  And so, at one point, cable news.
• 34:38
  With Larry King, yeah. I literally was like taking my
• 34:41
  microphone off and I said this, this interview's over.
• 34:44
  You're being really inappropriate.
• 34:45
  I said I told you before the show that I'm not going to talk
• 34:48
  about the lawsuit. Why do you keep talking about
• 34:50
  the laws and. That's because you to talk about
• 34:52
  it would have endangered your ability to be successful,
• 34:54
  whether your lawyers are all things.
• 34:55
  Exactly. Button up, don't say anything.
• 34:57
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 34:57
  I mean, that happens in most lawsuits.
• 34:59
  So I walked off Larry King. And I remember I took my
• 35:02
  microphone off and I said, this conversation's over.
• 35:05
  I'm leaving. And I looked over at my
• 35:07
  publicist and I said I'm done. And she's like, what do you mean
• 35:10
  you're done? And I'm like, I'm done.
• 35:11
  I'm going home. I'm going home to Kyle.
• 35:14
  I am done with this. This is it's become.
• 35:16
  I went on The view with Joy Behar.
• 35:19
  Barbara, we should pray for them right now.
• 35:22
  Oh Lord, listen, I have a vision.
• 35:24
  All these media personalities are going to come to Jesus and
• 35:26
  and and enter the church and it's going to be 1 beautiful big
• 35:29
  party. Me too.
• 35:30
  I I pray for them, I really do. Because they're blinded.
• 35:33
  They're blinded. So you can't, you know, it's
• 35:35
  like, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
• 35:37
  You know, they are so confused and blinded by their own agenda.
• 35:43
  And so I ended up leaving Larry King that night.
• 35:45
  And I just went back to Saint Louis where my husband was
• 35:48
  playing for the Rams. And I just said, I'm done.
• 35:51
  I'm so exhausted. I can't do this anymore.
• 35:54
  And he's like, OK, you're done. And I just forgot about the
• 35:58
  book. I forgot about everything.
• 36:00
  And I just said, I just want to move on with my life.
• 36:02
  And so I took really a lot of time off, like probably a year.
• 36:06
  And then I had my first child and then I had my second child.
• 36:09
  And then all the school stuff started.
• 36:11
  You know, the LGBT was popping back up.
• 36:13
  And I remember thinking, wow, this is such an attack by Satan
• 36:17
  because first he wants to attack marriage and the family.
• 36:21
  And that's really, that was really like the root of it.
• 36:24
  And I feel like Christians back then didn't stand up enough.
• 36:28
  We didn't fight back enough and I would have people come up to
• 36:31
  me whispering me on the streets. I'm really proud of you.
• 36:34
  Keep fighting the good fight. I'm like, you want to hide
• 36:36
  behind a 21 year old, but you don't want to speak up.
• 36:38
  Everybody was living in fear. And so the school stuff started,
• 36:42
  you know, they started doing the indoctrination stuff with my
• 36:44
  kids. And that's when I just went full
• 36:47
  blown Mama bear. And I was like, no, you're not
• 36:49
  going to do this. So we pulled our kids,
• 36:51
  homeschooled our kids, and thank God now they're in a Catholic
• 36:55
  school. So.
• 36:55
  OK, there's a lot to unpack there, and I know it's an
• 36:58
  experience that is all too familiar to any parents who
• 37:01
  might be listening or people that know kids and the school
• 37:03
  system, especially here in California, but not just in
• 37:06
  California, all over the country, both the public and the
• 37:09
  private school, certainly the public school system.
• 37:12
  What did you start seeing as a young mom that raised the alarm?
• 37:16
  For you, this is going to blow your mind, but it's something
• 37:20
  that people would be so shocked with.
• 37:22
  Do you want to know what it was? It was yoga during PE.
• 37:25
  So I thought to myself, you are going to now have my child
• 37:29
  participate in Hindu yoga with praying to the sun God.
• 37:35
  So they were including it wasn't just like move your body like
• 37:37
  this. It was like we're going to do
• 37:38
  the prayer salutations as well, because that's that's an
• 37:41
  interesting distinction. Like you can do certain
• 37:44
  movements and like there's some good medical.
• 37:45
  Benefiting and all that. Then they add in the chance or
• 37:48
  the certain kinds of the salutations or whatever, and all
• 37:52
  of a sudden it becomes a religious ritual.
• 37:53
  Exactly and and actually. I know prayer allowed in school.
• 37:56
  And then they do. Thank you.
• 37:57
  Yeah, I'm. Like, OK, but you won't allow a
• 37:58
  Bible study or you won't allow prayer, You know, like a prayer
• 38:01
  group. So I was the only mom that opted
• 38:05
  my child out of that because I'm like, well, I don't First of
• 38:08
  all, I don't want my kid doing yoga during PE.
• 38:11
  That's to me. They need to be running outside
• 38:13
  and playing. You know, I have a boy.
• 38:14
  That's all good. Yeah.
• 38:16
  Put your little boy in a mat. He's like, I am miserable.
• 38:18
  I just starts wrestling. Yeah, my son is funny choice for
• 38:21
  little boys. It was ridiculous.
• 38:23
  So anyway, a, a family, a bunch of families sued.
• 38:25
  They ended up losing the lawsuit because they didn't argue it the
• 38:27
  right way. But that's when I started seeing
• 38:31
  that there was this anti Christian agenda happening and
• 38:35
  then the whole LGBT stuff. So the books and the library
• 38:39
  books and what they're sending the kids home with and what
• 38:42
  they're teaching, the pronoun stuff.
• 38:44
  I was like, we're not doing any of that.
• 38:46
  We're not participating in that. So I pulled my kids and then
• 38:49
  COVID happened and then the rest is history.
• 38:52
  But I still go to the school board meetings.
• 38:53
  They still know my name. They don't like me very much,
• 38:57
  but I'm like, my tax dollars are paying for these dirty books and
• 39:02
  I'm not OK with that. So.
• 39:04
  I just think if people listening were willing to do more of what
• 39:08
  you've you're doing, show up at the school board even if you
• 39:10
  don't have kids in the school because it is your tax dollars,
• 39:14
  you know, run for your local government is another thing that
• 39:17
  a lot of people don't realize the power that local governments
• 39:19
  have. What advice do you give parents,
• 39:22
  first of all, to even know about what's happening in their
• 39:24
  school? Because I think a lot of parents
• 39:25
  don't know. And then what advice to give
• 39:28
  them to make a difference the way you're making that
• 39:31
  difference? Yeah, that's a great question.
• 39:33
  I get it all the time from moms who are like, what can I do?
• 39:36
  And I always tell them, know your school board members by
• 39:38
  name, participate in the school board meetings, Speak out.
• 39:42
  You have that right as as a citizen, as a taxpaying citizen
• 39:46
  of this country, you, you should know them.
• 39:48
  You should be able to FOIA Freedom of Information.
• 39:51
  You can FOIA request documents to see why they're getting these
• 39:55
  books. Who's funding these books?
• 39:57
  Be a participant in your child's school years.
• 40:01
  You know, know their teachers by name.
• 40:04
  Try to get to know their teachers, ask them questions,
• 40:07
  find out what they're teaching. Sign an opt out.
• 40:10
  Praise God we have this opt out now where parents can opt out of
• 40:14
  gender ideology. With their child in school, a
• 40:18
  lot of not a lot of parents know that they have to now require an
• 40:21
  opt out for any of this that's taught in the school due to a
• 40:25
  case in Encinitas, my district where a parent sued because they
• 40:30
  were denied an opt out for this LGBT curriculum being taught.
• 40:34
  So there are we have the power. We just have to be involved.
• 40:37
  You can't just drop your kid off at school anymore and wish the
• 40:40
  best. There is an agenda.
• 40:43
  Satan wants our children. There has been an attack on the
• 40:46
  family and the best way he can do it is to take down our kids.
• 40:50
  And so you have to be like little warriors and you have to
• 40:53
  fight this battle and stop worrying about be invited to
• 40:55
  places. I, I forgot about that a long
• 40:58
  time ago. I was like, you know what?
• 40:59
  I don't even care about that. You, you can't be so worried
• 41:03
  about pleasing people that you forget about pleasing God.
• 41:06
  That's really my message. It's such a good message and and
• 41:10
  I think there are a lot of people like you're saying that
• 41:12
  actually agree so many people, more people than don't and but
• 41:16
  that it's the ones that don't have this special, I guess
• 41:20
  courage sometimes. And that's where I think it
• 41:22
  should convict us to have courage to to speak out and be
• 41:25
  willing to stand up for what's right.
• 41:26
  Because children's lives and their souls, their formation are
• 41:31
  on the line. They are.
• 41:32
  There's a lot at stake right now.
• 41:34
  Yeah, I'm witnessing it first hand.
• 41:36
  And so many people think, oh, I just send my kid to private
• 41:39
  school. I'm good.
• 41:40
  Well, your kids are going to be growing up with these kids who
• 41:42
  are furries and who are identifying as cats and dogs and
• 41:46
  who are, you know, their teachers are transitioning them
• 41:49
  in kindergarten. I mean, this, this is an not
• 41:53
  only is it an ideology, but it, I believe, I truly believe this
• 41:58
  has become almost like a religion to these people.
• 42:00
  This is a religion. And they are trying to hurt as
• 42:04
  many souls as possible. And we as Christians really need
• 42:07
  to step up our game because we're on the sidelines and we
• 42:10
  think, oh, we're good. We just protect our little kids
• 42:13
  and our little bubble. No, we have to be, we have to
• 42:16
  care about the kids that are in the public school.
• 42:18
  Those are our, our kids, future husbands and wives.
• 42:21
  You know, we have to, as a society, care about them too,
• 42:25
  because they're really the most vulnerable.
• 42:27
  Do you sometimes wonder, I wonder this, it's a lack of
• 42:30
  almost hope or vision that we have or Christians have where we
• 42:35
  think, well, the culture is so dark, it's so confused, People
• 42:38
  are so misled. But that's the way it's always
• 42:41
  going to be because, you know, there's always been, like you
• 42:43
  said, persecution. We talked about that a little
• 42:45
  bit earlier. And so they kind of take this
• 42:47
  posture of sort of really a lack of confidence, where it's like,
• 42:51
  well, we're confident in maybe our beliefs, but we're not going
• 42:54
  to put them out there because we don't want to tell others what
• 42:57
  to do. And the world's just going to do
• 42:58
  what it's going to do anyways. Yeah.
• 43:00
  So there's kind of no hope anyway.
• 43:02
  So we just have to do our best to kind of protect our little
• 43:05
  turf over here and then everything else can just go.
• 43:07
  Yeah, that's, that's what I've experienced, you know, and
• 43:10
  that's why I really try to mobilize other moms and dads,
• 43:13
  especially the dads, because I'm like, it can't just be the Mama
• 43:16
  bears. You know, we saw so many moms
• 43:18
  stand up at the school board meetings.
• 43:20
  And I would say, you know, we need the family like we need the
• 43:24
  family participate in this because there is an attack on
• 43:27
  the children, the family. And we as a family, as
• 43:30
  Christians have to stand up and we have to fight back.
• 43:33
  You know, we, we can't just be the kind Christians that sit
• 43:37
  back and just allow our children to be indoctrinated.
• 43:39
  We can't just sit back and watch them, you know, destroy them,
• 43:43
  destroy their minds, destroy their souls.
• 43:46
  What are we going to do? Because we will be held
• 43:48
  accountable one day for what we do and what we don't do.
• 43:51
  So give me the 2 minute or however long it takes primer for
• 43:55
  somebody who wants to figure out how to get involved with their
• 43:58
  school board to make an impact. Where do they first look?
• 44:01
  And this can be for homeschool moms listening to homeschool
• 44:03
  tats. You know, again, it doesn't have
• 44:05
  to be your kids are in school or you don't even have any kids.
• 44:07
  I know someone, by the way, very involved in their young 20s, not
• 44:10
  married and no kids. So there's people that are
• 44:12
  getting involved as they should, right?
• 44:14
  So what, where does one start? What are the steps you need to
• 44:16
  take to figure out what's going on in the school and then to get
• 44:18
  involved with the school board? I would say definitely know what
• 44:21
  your, what your children are learning in the classroom.
• 44:25
  So first day of back to school night, hey, misses so and so I
• 44:30
  would really like for you to notify me if you're going to be
• 44:32
  teaching anything about XY and Z.
• 44:35
  And you have you have the right to request, you have the right
• 44:37
  to request that, yes. And also now that we have the
• 44:40
  opt outs, you can have it in writing.
• 44:42
  So get to know your teachers and then get to know the
• 44:44
  administration and just be that squeaky wheel.
• 44:47
  Always be in the office, always be, you know, calling if you see
• 44:51
  any red flags, see anything going on, and then also
• 44:54
  participate in the school board meetings.
• 44:55
  So get to know your school board members, write them emails,
• 44:57
  introduce yourself, let. That publicly listed
• 45:00
  information, school board meetings.
• 45:02
  So if you go to your local government, county government,
• 45:05
  you look at the public school website, you can access where
• 45:09
  the school board meeting is happening, what time, and you
• 45:12
  can physically show up to it. And then also with my platform,
• 45:16
  a lot of times moms will send me stuff.
• 45:17
  So a mom sent me this flyer that the school had sent out.
• 45:22
  You're not going to believe this.
• 45:23
  It was inviting the school to a drag show.
• 45:27
  This, this really happened in Encinitas.
• 45:30
  The whole, the whole school K through 6th grade.
• 45:33
  So of course, unreal as the oh, it's insane.
• 45:37
  You can't believe. And guess who one of the
• 45:38
  sponsors was on the drag show? It was a surgical center worse,
• 45:43
  well, not worse, but pretty equal as bad as bad.
• 45:45
  It was a surgical center that does transitions, gender
• 45:49
  transitions. This is happening in a public
• 45:51
  school. My tax dollars are paying for
• 45:53
  it, so I went crazy. So that was a flyer presented.
• 45:57
  Around It was a flyer that literally got sent out to every
• 46:00
  parent in the district. So I'm like, they have no shame.
• 46:03
  They're literally inviting kids during Halloween.
• 46:06
  Yeah, it was a drag show. And I'm like, these people are
• 46:09
  ruthless. Like they're not even trying to
• 46:11
  hide it. And so I threw the biggest fit.
• 46:13
  I went to the school board. I rallied the troops.
• 46:15
  They all came and it was incredible.
• 46:19
  I was like crying, thinking, wow, I didn't think people
• 46:22
  really cared. I didn't.
• 46:23
  I mean, not that parents don't care, but I didn't think that
• 46:25
  they would be. So like, no, we're going to do
• 46:27
  something about it. Not just, you know, be at their
• 46:29
  homes thinking, oh, that's really unfortunate, but I'm not
• 46:31
  going to send my kid. We have to participate.
• 46:34
  We have to be active. They're activists.
• 46:37
  Why aren't we activists? Who cares more about kids?
• 46:40
  I think that's what it comes down to.
• 46:41
  It's like we're not doing this to try to control other people
• 46:46
  per SE. It's about love and it's about
• 46:48
  caring about a generation of children.
• 46:50
  And they're very beautiful souls, hearts and minds that are
• 46:53
  being formed by everything around them.
• 46:55
  They're sponges. So you tell a child that it
• 46:58
  doesn't matter if you have a mom and a dad, you have two moms.
• 47:00
  It's the same as having two dads.
• 47:02
  Men and women are interchangeable.
• 47:03
  You tell that to a little child. They know it's like a little
• 47:06
  weird that doesn't make sense. But you, you brainwash them and
• 47:09
  they grow up and there's identity city crises happening
• 47:12
  left and right. What does it mean to be a woman?
• 47:13
  What does it mean to be a man? You know, what is sex even
• 47:16
  designed for? What is sex?
• 47:17
  What is relationship? What is marriage?
• 47:19
  I mean, these things are all now up for.
• 47:21
  Grabs. Oh, I know.
• 47:22
  But I always tell people, I say, if you can redefine marriage,
• 47:27
  you can redefine what a woman is, you can redefine anything.
• 47:31
  We have lost objective truth. And I always tell people love in
• 47:36
  Corinthians it says what love is.
• 47:38
  And the very last one it says love abides in the truth.
• 47:41
  You can't have love without the truth.
• 47:43
  And so it's the loving thing to do to tell your child, I know
• 47:47
  you think that you are a, you know, Superman and that you can
• 47:51
  climb the building, but sweetie, you, you're not.
• 47:54
  That's the loving thing to do. You would never amputate your
• 47:57
  child's arms because they think that they are fly, you know,
• 48:02
  like that they can just fly around with wings.
• 48:05
  You would never give your daughter liposuction because she
• 48:08
  thinks in her mind that she's fat when she's obviously a twig.
• 48:13
  You know, like we are, we are doing the most unloving thing,
• 48:17
  but they want to gaslight us and manipulate it and say you're a
• 48:21
  bigot, you're homophobic, you're transphobic, you're hateful.
• 48:25
  No, actually I I'm the only one that's really loving because you
• 48:29
  guys aren't loving my kid by affirming their mental illness
• 48:31
  and. They're also not loving
• 48:32
  themselves. Exactly.
• 48:33
  That's the other thing that's the lie, is that you love
• 48:35
  yourself by acting out on same sex attraction.
• 48:38
  You love yourself by acting out on body dysphoria and not, you
• 48:41
  know, loving the sex you were given.
• 48:44
  That's actually loving yourself, to reject yourself and saying,
• 48:46
  no, we, we love you and we want you to live in reality so that
• 48:50
  you can be free to love too. But the big lie of obviously the
• 48:54
  LGBT ideology is that love is not what is the truth, but love
• 48:59
  is this alternate reality. Ultimately it's like a cult
• 49:01
  religion. I I do agree with that
• 49:02
  assessment and it just leads to a lot of suffering.
• 49:06
  Yeah, and it's it's just anti God.
• 49:07
  What we're seeing in the schools is, is atheism.
• 49:10
  It's it's anti God. It's to get you forget to forget
• 49:13
  about the truth about how God designed beautifully men and
• 49:16
  women so perfectly to be united. It's to it's to just turn away
• 49:21
  objective truth and truth is now subjective.
• 49:25
  I don't know what a woman is. That's that's what we're hearing
• 49:27
  from a Supreme Court Justice that she can't even define what
• 49:31
  a woman is, but yet she's this women's rights advocate.
• 49:35
  That doesn't even make sense. We've lost all like reason and
• 49:39
  truth and reality. We're living in a time where
• 49:43
  Christians who have the truth need to speak.
• 49:46
  It's not good enough just to sit at home in your little bubbles,
• 49:50
  in your little Bible studies and have keep your faith to
• 49:54
  yourself. We must go make disciples, and
• 49:57
  that means telling them the truth.
• 49:59
  Do you think, Carrie, that it's easier now to speak the truth
• 50:02
  than it was for you 20 years ago when you first spoke the truth
• 50:06
  on the pageant? You know the USA Miss USA
• 50:09
  pageant stage. I think about that all the time.
• 50:11
  I'm like, gosh, it's so much easier now.
• 50:14
  So much easier. Thank God no.
• 50:16
  Excuses, guys, no. Excuses at all.
• 50:18
  There's so many more of us. No, now you speak the truth and
• 50:21
  you're given a podcast or you're given, you know, all these
• 50:23
  accolades. I'm like, no, I literally got
• 50:25
  cancelled. Like where you lost everything,
• 50:30
  but that is when really the Lord used me the most.
• 50:33
  And now I feel like I tell people all the time.
• 50:35
  I'm like I feel like I've been Miss USA for the last 15.
• 50:37
  Years. For a lot of people, yes.
• 50:40
  For a lot of people, yes. You're now on the Religious
• 50:42
  Liberty Commission. President Trump just appointed
• 50:45
  you. What are you doing on that
• 50:46
  Commission? What does that mean?
• 50:47
  What is? What is the the job description?
• 50:50
  Such an honor. Oh my gosh, I was in Mass the
• 50:52
  other day and just in front of the Lord, just thanking him,
• 50:57
  like just saying thank you, Lord, for just how far he's
• 51:01
  brought me. Like here I was this little 21
• 51:03
  year old where they tried to discredit my faith.
• 51:06
  They tried to say you're not a real Christian.
• 51:08
  Let's discredit you. Let's, let's make you look like
• 51:11
  you're a liar. You know, you're not really a
• 51:13
  Christian. And they just did nasty things
• 51:15
  to really wear me out and tear me down.
• 51:18
  And I, they, they did not succeed.
• 51:20
  Like my book says, still standing.
• 51:22
  I'm still standing. And so I was reminded of that
• 51:24
  the other day during Mass. And I just thought, you now have
• 51:28
  appointed me because I believe this is an appointment from God.
• 51:31
  Yes, the president did appoint me, but I feel like God has been
• 51:36
  so gracious to me. And now I am appointed by the
• 51:40
  president to this new religious liberty Commission.
• 51:42
  There's only 12 of us. Cardinal Dolan is on the
• 51:44
  Commission. Bishop Baron, incredible people.
• 51:48
  I mean, just brilliant minds. Doctor Phil is on the
• 51:51
  Commission. Saw you on with him.
• 51:53
  That was amazing. Does he identify as Christian?
• 51:57
  I haven't asked him. OK, yeah, but.
• 51:59
  He, But he's on it because he's considered someone who's gonna
• 52:03
  defend religious liberty. Interesting.
• 52:04
  OK, I need to get to know him a little more.
• 52:06
  Honestly, I didn't realize that he was on it, but that's
• 52:08
  interesting. Yeah, he's on it.
• 52:09
  And so there's 12. I know the president likes to,
• 52:12
  you know, get celebrity folks involved, but I hope he's very.
• 52:17
  Yeah. Positive towards.
• 52:18
  Yeah, towards religious liberty. Yeah, he has like a very
• 52:21
  brilliant mind, as you know. And so I think he adds a good
• 52:26
  part of, you know, diversity to the Commission because there are
• 52:29
  different religions on the Commission, even though and
• 52:33
  Cardinal Dolan. And Bishop Baron to hold it down
• 52:35
  for SK and. Then do you know Ryan Anderson?
• 52:38
  Yes, he's on course. I knew that.
• 52:39
  And Ryan's the best. Ryan's good, super solid
• 52:42
  appointment. Yeah.
• 52:43
  Yeah, there's really good appointments on there.
• 52:44
  So yeah, we're one of the, I'm one of the 12.
• 52:47
  And so the president signed the executive order on the National
• 52:51
  Day of Prayer. So we got to go to the Rose
• 52:53
  Garden and be there with him. And I take this with such
• 52:58
  humility because I feel like, I mean, who would have thought?
• 53:02
  Like, who would have thought that this young girl, this Miss
• 53:05
  California that dared to speak the truth was now being
• 53:09
  appointed alongside Bishop Baron Cardinal Dolan?
• 53:15
  I mean, these are incredible people.
• 53:17
  It's poetic justice. That's how I feel.
• 53:20
  I really feel like that. I, I just, I'm like, Lord, I am
• 53:23
  so not worthy. I'm so not worthy of this.
• 53:28
  I think you're very worthy. Of it.
• 53:30
  But I feel so-called to stand up for other people's faith because
• 53:34
  I was persecuted for my faith and I don't ever want that to
• 53:37
  happen again to anyone. Is that something that the
• 53:41
  Commission is tasked with reporting on?
• 53:43
  What are the anti Christian or anti faith movements in the
• 53:48
  country? Where are there potential
• 53:51
  violations happening at people's religious liberty?
• 53:53
  What does that look like? Yeah, So we we have hearings
• 53:57
  once a month regularly in DC and we will be hearing from people
• 54:01
  from across the nation who have faced persecution for their
• 54:04
  faith. It's incredible.
• 54:05
  This shows you the president cares about religious freedom.
• 54:09
  He wouldn't have, he wouldn't have created this if he didn't
• 54:11
  really care about it. And he respects every one of us.
• 54:15
  And there's like 30 advisors to our Commission who are some
• 54:19
  pastors, priests, you know, lay people.
• 54:22
  And so they're going to be advising us and the president, I
• 54:25
  believe. But our job really is at the end
• 54:27
  of this Commission to sit down with the president and say,
• 54:31
  here's what we discovered. Here's certain executive orders
• 54:34
  that can that you can sign legislation that can be put into
• 54:37
  law that will protect religious freedom because people are
• 54:41
  persecuted every day. Look what we just saw the
• 54:43
  Catholic school shooting because of the anti Christian rhetoric,
• 54:49
  you know. Both of us as Catholic moms
• 54:51
  taking our kids to school and you it's just it's devastating
• 54:56
  to think about what those moms and dads saw and what those kids
• 55:01
  had to endure because of anti Christian violence.
• 55:06
  That's what it was. I mean, the person was clearly
• 55:07
  mentally deranged, but mental derangements.
• 55:10
  They take whatever is toxic in the culture and they'll grab it
• 55:15
  and then they can get lost in it and go crazy with it, right.
• 55:18
  I mean, it didn't come out of nowhere.
• 55:20
  It came from, yes, anti Christian sentiment and and a
• 55:24
  narrative that says that if you believe that you are though your
• 55:28
  God-given sex is your sex is your identity and there it is
• 55:31
  good. And if you have struggle with
• 55:32
  it, that you need mental support.
• 55:34
  If you believe that, then you are somehow a threat that needs
• 55:37
  to be taken out violently. There is that narrative that's
• 55:40
  publicly being spoken. You go to Reddit as an example,
• 55:43
  or you go to, you know, popular, you know, trans influencers
• 55:46
  online, and they're publicly speaking this violent rhetoric
• 55:49
  against people who disagree with their identity, as they call it.
• 55:54
  Yeah, I mean, I've seen it for the last 15 years that there
• 55:57
  many of the people in that movement are not tolerant.
• 56:01
  They they, they are not tolerant at all of, of your Christian
• 56:04
  beliefs. And So what we're seeing now, I
• 56:07
  mean, we see it every day, this idea that, you know, this attack
• 56:11
  on Christianity, I mean, I'm just going to call it what it
• 56:13
  is. It's an attack on Christianity.
• 56:15
  And we know who hates Christianity, Satan hates it.
• 56:19
  And so as more and more parents are, you know, protecting their
• 56:23
  kids, pulling out of the public school system, putting them in a
• 56:26
  private Christian or Catholic school, taking their kids back,
• 56:30
  that makes him very angry. And so now I tell parents, now
• 56:35
  is when you need to be activated, now is the time.
• 56:38
  Like, don't think like, oh, my kids protected.
• 56:42
  Look, we can't even send our kids to a Catholic school
• 56:44
  without being attacked. And so I think it's very
• 56:49
  important that we as as a member of the Commission that we hear
• 56:53
  from everyday average Americans who are facing persecution and
• 56:57
  really show them their rights as believers and people of faith
• 57:02
  and say, no, you, you will not in this country.
• 57:04
  You will not be persecuted for your faith.
• 57:07
  And really just, you know, give them the tools that they can.
• 57:11
  You know, we get to interact with the with the people
• 57:13
  testifying. And so we get to talk to them
• 57:16
  about their experiences and just really advise the president on
• 57:19
  certain things that he can do. But he can only do so much.
• 57:21
  You know, we realize that at the end of the day that it comes
• 57:24
  down to how we raise our kids. How can, how can people make a
• 57:28
  report or make the Commission otherwise aware of
• 57:33
  discrimination, faith-based discrimination, that they may be
• 57:36
  experiencing or they may see happening in their community?
• 57:39
  Yeah. So you can go on.
• 57:40
  So it's through the Department of Justice.
• 57:42
  So you can go on our website and you can report things.
• 57:45
  There's emails on there that you can send us emails, try to link
• 57:49
  it in the description. Yeah, that would be great.
• 57:50
  Yeah. And then you can also attend the
• 57:52
  hearings. So they're open to the public.
• 57:53
  So I encourage people, if they would like to attend, to go
• 57:56
  online and and be an audience member and participate because
• 58:02
  we are founded on Christian principles.
• 58:06
  People forget that, you know, we are a Christian nation and we
• 58:10
  need to go back to that. And you do have religious
• 58:14
  freedom in this people of all faiths.
• 58:16
  You do have freedom in this country, and we just have to
• 58:19
  make our voices heard. And so praise God for this
• 58:22
  Commission because now we are amplifying these voices, giving
• 58:26
  them a platform, and then they're able to come to
• 58:28
  Washington, DC and testify and show the world and the president
• 58:33
  what's happening. So he's very involved in all of
• 58:36
  our hearings and cares about it deeply.
• 58:39
  Is there a? Sense of beyond the United
• 58:42
  States in the overview of the Commission because there's
• 58:45
  obviously so much happening against, yeah, Americans
• 58:49
  overseas who are Christians or being persecuted for their
• 58:53
  faith. And then certainly in other
• 58:54
  countries. I mean, I think about the
• 58:56
  killings in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the slayings
• 58:59
  of Christians. I think about the, you know,
• 59:02
  attacks on Christians throughout the Middle East.
• 59:04
  Really, you know, it's not contained to one place.
• 59:07
  So there's definitely brothers and sisters in the faith, you
• 59:09
  know, the underground church in China who are being persecuted.
• 59:13
  What can be done? I know for those Christians, I
• 59:16
  know, I mean, it's hard because I'm like you, I always think
• 59:20
  like big picture. I'm like, gosh, there's so much
• 59:22
  going on in the world and we can't, we can't solve all the
• 59:27
  problems, you know? And I'm reminded of Mother
• 59:30
  Teresa, how she says, if you want to change the world, go
• 59:33
  home and love your family. And that, that hits me hard
• 59:35
  because I'm, I'm such a doer and I'm an activist and I want to do
• 59:38
  so much and save the world. But I realized sometimes that
• 59:41
  means just retreating a little bit and focusing on the things
• 59:44
  that I can control. And so really God has me on this
• 59:49
  Commission in America and focusing on religious liberty
• 59:52
  here. But my heart does break for all
• 59:54
  the Christians who are persecuted throughout our, our
• 59:56
  world. It's tragic.
• 59:59
  It's, it's horrific. I do think the stronger we are
• 1:00:01
  here, the more better an influence we can be.
• 1:00:03
  I mean, if we if we lose religious liberty here, where
• 1:00:07
  are we going to find it in the world?
• 1:00:09
  And that's part of this responsibility we have as
• 1:00:11
  Americans to safeguard, safeguard all of these beautiful
• 1:00:15
  blessings we've been given and rights we've been given.
• 1:00:18
  Because it's not just protecting them for ourselves or even our
• 1:00:21
  children is really the beacon on the hill protecting them for
• 1:00:24
  being a witness to what protection looks like for the
• 1:00:27
  rest of the world. And we've exported evil things
• 1:00:29
  as a country. We can export good things as a
• 1:00:32
  country if we're willing to model them.
• 1:00:34
  Yeah, and they're looking at us. Yeah, the whole world is
• 1:00:37
  watching us and they're seeing what we do and what we allow.
• 1:00:41
  So we cannot allow our faith to be attacked.
• 1:00:44
  We cannot allow people to be persecuted in this country.
• 1:00:49
  I have skin in the game because I was fired for my faith, and I
• 1:00:53
  don't ever want to see that happen again.
• 1:00:56
  That breaks my heart to know that someone could be fired or
• 1:01:01
  lose something because of their faith.
• 1:01:04
  Did you win that lawsuit? What happened with the lawsuit?
• 1:01:06
  I know we ended up settling, yeah.
• 1:01:08
  Good. I mean good in that hopefully
• 1:01:11
  they paid you for that and then you can go out and speak
• 1:01:15
  continue to. Speak.
• 1:01:15
  I just wanted the ability to speak because like I said, when
• 1:01:19
  I was 8 years old, nobody's going to take my voice away.
• 1:01:23
  And I think it also the the power of a lawsuit and a
• 1:01:26
  settlement that cost them something is it's a warning sign
• 1:01:29
  for them to know that if they do this again to other people,
• 1:01:32
  they're going to have to pay. Yeah, I, I, I don't wish
• 1:01:37
  lawsuits upon anybody, but sometimes that's what it takes.
• 1:01:40
  There's a family in my district right now that sued because
• 1:01:44
  their 5th grader came home from school saying that he had to
• 1:01:47
  read a book called My Shadow is Pink.
• 1:01:49
  But a little boy that transitioned to be a girl.
• 1:01:53
  And then that 5th grader, their 5th grade son, had to go and
• 1:01:56
  indoctrinate his kindergarten buddy and asked the
• 1:02:00
  kindergartener, what color is your shadow?
• 1:02:02
  That's so evil. So evil.
• 1:02:05
  Praise God. How's that lawsuit going?
• 1:02:07
  Praise God. The judge in San Diego, the
• 1:02:10
  federal judge said that was a violation.
• 1:02:13
  It was compelled speech. You forced that 5th grader.
• 1:02:16
  That's so crazy. Yes.
• 1:02:17
  So it takes parents like that. Thank God.
• 1:02:20
  So they're winning the lawsuit, yes.
• 1:02:21
  So they they just got the opt out are.
• 1:02:23
  Those teachers going to be fired.
• 1:02:25
  Oh, they got promoted. The teachers got promoted.
• 1:02:28
  It's still at the school. Oh, yeah.
• 1:02:30
  They're welcomed with open arms. Yeah, but thank God for these
• 1:02:34
  parents. What's the consequence, though,
• 1:02:36
  if they win this lawsuit? Is there what?
• 1:02:38
  There has to be a consequence to the for the school?
• 1:02:40
  The parents are incredible people.
• 1:02:41
  The the the wife is actually one of my best friends now.
• 1:02:44
  We've become so close. I'm so proud of her and it took
• 1:02:47
  a lot for her to publicly sue for this because she got all the
• 1:02:51
  hate that I got and I was able to mentor her and say, you know
• 1:02:54
  what, come what may, you're, you're, you're in this fight and
• 1:02:58
  you're going to win. And I think, I think they will.
• 1:03:00
  So praise God, you're not going to believe this.
• 1:03:02
  They're going to be testifying on Monday.
• 1:03:04
  Amazing, incredible. Like to see how God just uses
• 1:03:08
  all of this for his glory. And so now the world is going to
• 1:03:12
  hear what happened to their Son and he is testifying.
• 1:03:15
  Wow, incredible. We got to get them on the show.
• 1:03:17
  They're in San Diego. What a brave family.
• 1:03:20
  Because it was not a fight that we're looking for.
• 1:03:22
  That's the thing that no one's looking for a fight here.
• 1:03:25
  But the fights come to us. And you know, to your point
• 1:03:28
  earlier, if we maybe had been bolder 20 years ago, it wouldn't
• 1:03:32
  have gotten as bad. But we are where we are.
• 1:03:34
  God's grace is sufficient. But let's not, let's not let,
• 1:03:38
  let's not let ourselves off of the both opportunity and
• 1:03:41
  responsibility that we've been given.
• 1:03:43
  Yeah, we need to start going on offense, Yes.
• 1:03:45
  In a loving way, Yes, because it's not loving to just give up
• 1:03:48
  ground and to deny our faith and to deny the truth.
• 1:03:51
  That's not loving. I'm so tired of that.
• 1:03:54
  We need to go on offense and proclaim the truth because we
• 1:03:56
  have the truth and the truth is objective.
• 1:03:59
  So you recently entered the Catholic Church, which is so
• 1:04:03
  beautiful. Welcome.
• 1:04:06
  I think when I first met you, when, I don't know, 15 plus
• 1:04:09
  years ago, I was either just about to enter or I was just
• 1:04:13
  entered. I don't remember exactly the
• 1:04:14
  timing. But I know for myself, it's been
• 1:04:17
  the greatest blessing of my life.
• 1:04:18
  Just a way to get closer to Jesus Christ and get in the
• 1:04:22
  boat. You know, the bark, the church
• 1:04:24
  that he founded. What a blessing.
• 1:04:26
  So I'd love to hear your story how that happened.
• 1:04:30
  Sounds like you were raised with a beautiful faith and you had a
• 1:04:32
  faith that gave you the courage to speak out years ago, and
• 1:04:35
  you've been speaking since. But this sounds like an even
• 1:04:38
  deeper, deeper entry into the heart of God.
• 1:04:41
  Yeah, it's so beautiful. This is actually my first time
• 1:04:44
  publicly talking about it, so I'm happy to be with you.
• 1:04:47
  Yeah, I have been Protestant my whole life.
• 1:04:51
  My mother was Catholic. My father was a Protestant
• 1:04:55
  Baptist, Southern Baptist, and he won the battle on how we were
• 1:04:59
  going to be raised. My mom actually, when we were
• 1:05:01
  little, me and my sister, she got us our first Holy Communion
• 1:05:03
  dresses and was never able to have us receive, you know, we
• 1:05:08
  were raised Protestant and, you know, parents divorced, but my
• 1:05:13
  mom ended up becoming Protestant because of my dad.
• 1:05:15
  So we was raised that way. And so I was really into Bible
• 1:05:18
  studies, really into, you know, Scripture.
• 1:05:22
  And it wasn't until it was right after COVID and I just started
• 1:05:27
  to see some things. And I know a lot of your
• 1:05:29
  listeners are Protestant. I started to see some things in
• 1:05:33
  the evangelical churches that really was concerning to me.
• 1:05:38
  I, I started asking myself, well, why am I Protestant?
• 1:05:41
  Like, why? What am I protesting?
• 1:05:43
  Well, I'm protesting the Catholic faith and so I really
• 1:05:46
  started to go down into studying, well, what am I
• 1:05:49
  protesting? Who is Martin Luther?
• 1:05:51
  What did the early church teach? You know, was there an early
• 1:05:55
  church or did my faith begin in the 16th century with the
• 1:05:58
  Protestant Reformation? Why are there 40,000
• 1:06:01
  denominations? Why isn't the church unified?
• 1:06:04
  You know, I started really so many different churches
• 1:06:06
  everywhere. Exactly.
• 1:06:08
  And I started going to 1 church and if I didn't like that
• 1:06:10
  pastor, I'd go to the next church and then go to the next
• 1:06:12
  church. And then and I realized that
• 1:06:14
  every church was sort of, they had their own like magisterium
• 1:06:17
  within themselves, like they were the Pope and they decided
• 1:06:19
  how they interpret scripture. And you know, they decided on
• 1:06:23
  doctrine and what they believed about eschatology, different
• 1:06:26
  theological ideas. And I just thought to myself, so
• 1:06:31
  I'm going to this church and putting my whole faith into what
• 1:06:35
  this pastor teaches me and who is in charge of him?
• 1:06:40
  Like who is his authority? And it was always like, oh,
• 1:06:43
  well, we have bored, but we don't like there's no real like
• 1:06:47
  accountability. And so I started to see some
• 1:06:49
  things. I started going to the
• 1:06:50
  prosperity gospel churches and that was a big mistake.
• 1:06:53
  I the whole health Wellness gospel.
• 1:06:57
  My dad was dying of stage 4 cancer and I brought him to the
• 1:07:00
  church for this like healing night.
• 1:07:02
  And it was just horrific. Like, they did this, like fake
• 1:07:05
  healing on him and said, you're healed and he wasn't going to go
• 1:07:08
  through with the surgery that he needed to, like, save his life.
• 1:07:10
  And he told the doctor like, no, I'm healed.
• 1:07:12
  I was healed the other night at church.
• 1:07:14
  Not saying that miracles can't happen, but I just started
• 1:07:17
  seeing some things where I was like, this doesn't sit well with
• 1:07:21
  me. And it was a conviction that I
• 1:07:22
  had because I was welcomed to the churches.
• 1:07:25
  I mean, that's what I did. I spoke at churches.
• 1:07:27
  I would speak at all these women's conferences.
• 1:07:30
  And, you know, that was sort of like in my lane, you know, of
• 1:07:34
  being this strong Christian woman that stood for traditional
• 1:07:37
  marriage. And so they welcomed me in and
• 1:07:40
  it was great. It was, you know, felt good.
• 1:07:43
  But I said to myself, there has to be something more.
• 1:07:48
  And so I started studying the early church and I realized,
• 1:07:51
  wow, the church was all centered around the Eucharist.
• 1:07:55
  The Eucharist was the center of the church and there was 1
• 1:07:59
  unified church and it was beautiful.
• 1:08:03
  And I just thought, wow, I'm, I'm taking communion at these
• 1:08:06
  evangelical churches. Like I don't even remember
• 1:08:08
  taking it at one church that I went to and then this other
• 1:08:11
  church I went to, it was like, I would take it once a month, if
• 1:08:14
  that. And it was just a symbol that
• 1:08:16
  they said, you know, didn't really mean much, but.
• 1:08:20
  And so I started studying it and I read Scott Hahn's Realm Sweet
• 1:08:23
  Home Classic Classic. And I remember watching you
• 1:08:28
  interview him and that was that really got me through a lot of
• 1:08:32
  questions that I had and I just leaned on him a lot.
• 1:08:35
  I would listen to debates, Catholic first, Protestant
• 1:08:37
  debates. And there was one time where I
• 1:08:41
  went to the Catholic Church and I remember I was going through a
• 1:08:44
  really hard time personally with like family stuff.
• 1:08:47
  And I remember I walked in and never been in a Catholic Church
• 1:08:51
  before. And I just was like overwhelmed
• 1:08:54
  with like, not only the beauty of it, but just the holiness of
• 1:08:58
  it. Like I had never felt walking
• 1:09:00
  into, and this isn't a diss on Protestant churches, but I never
• 1:09:03
  felt like it was a church. I always felt like it was just a
• 1:09:06
  Starbucks church, you know, like a great Ted Talk.
• 1:09:10
  But when I walked in, I was just overwhelmed with this presence,
• 1:09:14
  like presence of, of the Lord, like, wow, this, this goes on
• 1:09:19
  for ages. Like this isn't just this church
• 1:09:22
  wasn't just created recently. Like this is decades long of
• 1:09:26
  tradition and history. And, and I, it can't just be
• 1:09:30
  scripture alone. It it can't be because what did
• 1:09:34
  they have before they had scripture, you know, like what
• 1:09:39
  was the church? They had each other.
• 1:09:41
  They had each other and the Eucharist, and they had the
• 1:09:43
  Eucharist, and they had the Holy Spirit guiding the teaching
• 1:09:46
  authority exactly in the line of Apostolic succession that Jesus
• 1:09:50
  Christ established. Yeah.
• 1:09:51
  And so I remember reading Saint Ignatius and I remember
• 1:09:55
  thinking, wow, he said without a Bishop there is no church.
• 1:10:01
  Without the the presbyters, which are the priests, there is
• 1:10:05
  no church. So yes, it's great that I was
• 1:10:08
  going to these amazing places that claim to be the church.
• 1:10:13
  But personally for me, I recognized I was missing the
• 1:10:17
  fullness of the faith. I knew my Bible.
• 1:10:20
  I knew it because that's what we as Protestants, you know, relied
• 1:10:23
  on with scripture alone. But it couldn't just be
• 1:10:26
  scripture alone. It had to be some.
• 1:10:27
  Who gets to interpret Scripture? The pastor, What are his
• 1:10:31
  credentials? Many pastors that I went to
• 1:10:34
  their churches, they didn't even go to seminary.
• 1:10:36
  How can you say you're a pastor? And so all these things started
• 1:10:40
  coming up, and the more I dove into the history of it, I just
• 1:10:44
  said I have to become Catholic. And I knew that that would be
• 1:10:48
  super controversial. Did you know any?
• 1:10:51
  Were you close friends with Catholics at this time?
• 1:10:54
  No, I had one friend that was Catholic and actually it's
• 1:10:56
  funny, I tell her all the time, I'm like, why didn't you tell me
• 1:10:58
  to become Catholic? Like you guys just keep it to
• 1:11:01
  yourselves and you don't you're not like, I don't want to say
• 1:11:03
  they're not good at evangelizing, but you know, as
• 1:11:05
  evangelicals, they're like, we got to get people saved.
• 1:11:07
  And I'm always like, save from what?
• 1:11:09
  Like, is that the goal? Like save from hell?
• 1:11:11
  Like, is that what being saved? Like, I just I started
• 1:11:14
  questioning so much. Yeah.
• 1:11:16
  Saved for what? Yes.
• 1:11:18
  Saved for what? And.
• 1:11:19
  And do we? And the big thing for me was
• 1:11:22
  faith without works is dead. Do we as.
• 1:11:25
  Christians, that Scripture, that Protestants do.
• 1:11:27
  Exactly. Technically agree with and that
• 1:11:29
  it's in the Protestant Bible and.
• 1:11:31
  Yep. And the performers tried to take
• 1:11:33
  that out. They tried to take it out
• 1:11:34
  because of Martin Luther. He was, he was tormented by that
• 1:11:37
  idea. And even I was telling your
• 1:11:39
  producers earlier today, we were having a great discussion and I
• 1:11:41
  said, you know, even Martin Luther believed Mary was the
• 1:11:44
  mother of God. What do they have to love Mary?
• 1:11:48
  He loved Mary. And so many Protestants would
• 1:11:51
  say, oh, you can't say Mary's mother of God, you know, And so
• 1:11:55
  just all these little things where I'm like, well, then why
• 1:11:58
  aren't, why aren't every, why isn't every Protestant Lutheran?
• 1:12:01
  If that was your way, why isn't every, why are there so many
• 1:12:05
  different denominations? Oh, we believe this.
• 1:12:07
  I, I drive by some Methodist churches and I see the
• 1:12:09
  homosexual flag out front. How can they say that, that,
• 1:12:14
  that homosexuality or, you know, gay marriage is acceptable in
• 1:12:18
  this book? How can they justify that?
• 1:12:20
  Well, because they don't have oversight.
• 1:12:23
  They don't, they, they're their own Pope.
• 1:12:25
  And so I really had to just come to a realization that I, I don't
• 1:12:30
  need to figure this out on my own, that we have had 2000 years
• 1:12:33
  of church history and I do not need to.
• 1:12:36
  I was studying theology and studying eschatology and I was
• 1:12:39
  just getting so caught up and what do you are you all meal,
• 1:12:43
  pre meal, post meal, just all these ideas and I, I just said,
• 1:12:46
  I don't have to figure that out anymore.
• 1:12:48
  Like who am I? Who do I think that I am that I
• 1:12:51
  get to decide and interpret Pope?
• 1:12:54
  Cary. Yeah, Pope Cary.
• 1:12:55
  It is a lot of pressure, yeah, it is a lot of pressure to say
• 1:12:59
  all of the moral issues. You have to personally figure it
• 1:13:03
  out with you in the Bible. And there's ever more complex
• 1:13:06
  moral issues because of technology, like reproductive
• 1:13:09
  technologies, as one example, right?
• 1:13:11
  And the reality is like, of course, Holy Scripture is Holy
• 1:13:15
  Scripture and it's part of the Magisterium and it's the Bible
• 1:13:17
  like we, we love. I mean, this is, this is a, the
• 1:13:20
  core, a core guide for the church.
• 1:13:22
  But then there has to be a teaching authority by which to
• 1:13:25
  interpret and to apply. Yeah, but back to what I was
• 1:13:27
  saying earlier, because I want to talk about.
• 1:13:29
  So I walked in the church. I was going through a really
• 1:13:31
  hard time and I remember sitting before we have this little like
• 1:13:39
  room in the back where you can, where the candles are, you can
• 1:13:42
  light the candles and there's the Blessed Mother there.
• 1:13:45
  And I remember kneeling. I was the only one in the
• 1:13:46
  church. And I remember just like sobbing
• 1:13:49
  and I was just a hard time I was going through.
• 1:13:52
  And I remember saying to the Blessed Mother, like, I don't
• 1:13:55
  know you. I've never talked to you.
• 1:14:00
  I've never even considered you. I am so sorry, but I, I just, I,
• 1:14:07
  I don't know you and I remember just saying to myself, this is
• 1:14:13
  the blessed mother in Scripture it says she is blessed.
• 1:14:19
  She is our mother. When Jesus says this is your
• 1:14:23
  mother to the, to the Apostle John, this is your mother.
• 1:14:26
  She is our mother and I remember coming before her and saying,
• 1:14:30
  I'm so sorry for never caring about you or knowing who you
• 1:14:34
  are. But if you can intercede on my
• 1:14:38
  behalf, like I will dedicate my whole life to the Catholic
• 1:14:43
  Church. Like the IT just I need you.
• 1:14:46
  I need you. And I just remember like the
• 1:14:49
  the, the statue of her was like so real.
• 1:14:52
  It was like her eyes were looking right into my soul.
• 1:14:56
  And I just remember just feeling a sense of just sorrow.
• 1:15:00
  Like, wow, I haven't even acknowledged you.
• 1:15:03
  I haven't even cared about you. I mean, you're the mother of God
• 1:15:08
  and you are our mother. And so the next day, a miracle
• 1:15:12
  happened. And without getting too much
• 1:15:14
  into it, all of everything just was released.
• 1:15:18
  And it was like the supernatural, like where I
• 1:15:20
  believe that she did intercede on my behalf.
• 1:15:23
  And here I was this evangelical Christian for so many years,
• 1:15:27
  didn't, didn't care, didn't, you know, acknowledge that she is
• 1:15:31
  the mother of God. And here she is now so
• 1:15:34
  beautifully interceding on my behalf.
• 1:15:37
  And it was just a beautiful moment of truth where I said I
• 1:15:41
  must become Catholic. And so I got welcomed in at the
• 1:15:45
  Easter Vigil. I did the RCIA classes.
• 1:15:47
  It was incredible. Learned so much.
• 1:15:49
  I was the student in the class that was like asking all these
• 1:15:51
  questions because I'm like, I better know for sure that this
• 1:15:54
  is this is the real deal. But yeah, I will be a student
• 1:15:58
  forever. And that's the beautiful thing
• 1:16:00
  about being Catholic is that you get to study forever and got the
• 1:16:04
  Catechism of the Catholic Church and just started diving into
• 1:16:07
  that and just, I have the fullness of the faith, you know,
• 1:16:10
  I, I now have my beautiful Protestant background of Bible
• 1:16:15
  and now I get this beautiful Magisterium and not have to
• 1:16:20
  figure it out on my own. And that was just such a relief.
• 1:16:23
  And so, yeah, it's been a beautiful journey.
• 1:16:27
  What was it like to receive Holy Communion for the first time?
• 1:16:31
  An Easter vigil. It was very emotional.
• 1:16:35
  It was very, very emotional. I I had to repent because I
• 1:16:39
  never looked at it as the true presence and now I can't even be
• 1:16:45
  in mass without crying because I feel like it's the closest we
• 1:16:49
  can get to Jesus and to receive him.
• 1:16:55
  Like the prayer that says Lord, I am unworthy, that you should
• 1:16:57
  enter into my roof but only say the words in my soul shall be
• 1:17:01
  healed. Like those prayers are so
• 1:17:04
  meaningful to me, like we are unworthy that you should enter
• 1:17:10
  under my roof. But through this, I am healed.
• 1:17:14
  I am healed by your blood and and body.
• 1:17:19
  And it says in Scripture, scripture alone, this is my
• 1:17:24
  body. How much more clear can that be?
• 1:17:28
  It's not a symbol. It is the real presence of
• 1:17:31
  Jesus. And receiving it for the first
• 1:17:33
  time, Oh, my goodness, I was overwhelmed with such emotion.
• 1:17:39
  And it was the closest I could ever be.
• 1:17:42
  And I believe it is the real presence of Christ.
• 1:17:47
  And every time I receive him, it is like so humbling and I am
• 1:17:53
  unworthy. But because of what he did and
• 1:17:56
  who he is, I am able to receive. And it's just been.
• 1:18:01
  And now my kids, they got to receive their first Holy
• 1:18:03
  Communion. Really.
• 1:18:04
  Yeah. So they're they're coming into
• 1:18:07
  the church. How?
• 1:18:08
  Beautiful, Carrie. So beautiful.
• 1:18:11
  What about your sweet husband? I know.
• 1:18:13
  So my husband, I want this to be his decision, of course.
• 1:18:17
  And I I never want to be that wife.
• 1:18:19
  That's like, you need to do this.
• 1:18:21
  And yes, but he goes to Mass every Sunday.
• 1:18:24
  Wow. He obviously refrains from the
• 1:18:25
  Eucharist, but I know the Lord's working in his heart.
• 1:18:28
  And I know that one day he will be welcomed in.
• 1:18:32
  Wow. Yeah.
• 1:18:33
  And your children, it sounds like they've just come to it
• 1:18:36
  naturally. It hasn't been because they're a
• 1:18:38
  little older than they're. Are they in high school yet?
• 1:18:40
  OK, they're junior high. Yeah, junior high in high
• 1:18:42
  school. But they're.
• 1:18:43
  How do they feel about this new face?
• 1:18:45
  I know because it's so unusual to like, people tell me all the
• 1:18:48
  time, wow, that's so unusual that you converted like in your
• 1:18:51
  adult, you know, life and now you have kids.
• 1:18:53
  Like, how did your husband handle it?
• 1:18:56
  And my husband was so wonderful during this time.
• 1:19:00
  He supported me. He, he saw all the work that I
• 1:19:03
  was doing, the studying that I was doing, and just the Lord
• 1:19:05
  softening my heart because remember, I'm the carry that
• 1:19:08
  nobody's going to tell me what to believe and nobody, you know,
• 1:19:11
  I need to figure this out on my own.
• 1:19:12
  And I'm, you know, kind of the one that's more, I can do it
• 1:19:18
  myself because I'm so strong. But he saw this like weight that
• 1:19:23
  was lifted off where it was like a sense of peace that I didn't
• 1:19:26
  have to figure it out on my own. And he respected all the
• 1:19:29
  studying that I did and seeing, you know, I'd call my friends.
• 1:19:33
  And I have this wonderful priest that is my spiritual advisor.
• 1:19:37
  He's in Washington, DC, and he's been incredible to me.
• 1:19:41
  I mean, he says, call me anytime, ask me questions, I'll
• 1:19:44
  guide you through it. There's another book that I
• 1:19:47
  recommend to anybody. It's called The Faith Explained.
• 1:19:50
  But I just started reading. I started reading everything.
• 1:19:52
  I started listening to Bates and really start forming my own, but
• 1:19:56
  it was really the Holy Spirit just bringing me home.
• 1:19:59
  And so I was welcomed into the church.
• 1:20:02
  How crazy is this, Lila? The church that I was welcomed
• 1:20:05
  into was the church that my grandparents went to when they,
• 1:20:10
  because my grandparents were Catholic.
• 1:20:11
  It was the first church that they went to in Little Italy in
• 1:20:14
  San Diego when they first moved to San Diego from New York.
• 1:20:17
  How sweet. And so here I am.
• 1:20:20
  And I told the they must. Be praying for you in heaven.
• 1:20:23
  That's what I was, that's what I told the parish.
• 1:20:25
  I said don't give up because they had me give the RCIA class
• 1:20:29
  pitch at Mass last weekend and I told them don't ever give up on
• 1:20:34
  praying for your children and your grandchildren to come home.
• 1:20:37
  Don't give up because you never know in 60 years your
• 1:20:40
  grandchildren could be here being welcomed in.
• 1:20:44
  So beautiful. It's, it's an amazing story of
• 1:20:47
  how God just uses people and I mean, the Holy Spirit really
• 1:20:53
  just bringing this fullness of the faith together so
• 1:20:57
  beautifully. And I'm so grateful for my
• 1:20:59
  Protestant upbringing. But now I just, I, I, I feel
• 1:21:03
  like I want to go to mass every day.
• 1:21:05
  I, I can't get enough of it. The beautiful liturgy and seeing
• 1:21:10
  that you read from the Old Testament in the New Testament
• 1:21:13
  and the, the, the, the Eucharist and it's just this beautiful
• 1:21:17
  holy Apostolic Church that has been around for 2000 years.
• 1:21:26
  I think if there's anyone listening who I'm sure is moved
• 1:21:28
  by what you're sharing, Carrie, and maybe they're already
• 1:21:31
  Catholic or they are not and they're curious, but maybe
• 1:21:34
  they're also afraid. They don't want to get into
• 1:21:36
  something that is not good and true.
• 1:21:39
  And God's, you know, God's obviously, I think a beautiful
• 1:21:42
  prayer is, Lord, if this is your church, if this is the true
• 1:21:46
  church, the Catholic Church, soften my heart and open my
• 1:21:49
  mind. And if it's not, then protect my
• 1:21:53
  mind and, you know, protect my heart and let me have open
• 1:21:57
  enough eyes to see what is true. Because I do think there's a lot
• 1:22:01
  of baggages and weights that people carry about Catholicism,
• 1:22:06
  or there's just a lot of not knowing because people weren't
• 1:22:10
  raised with it. Even people were raised.
• 1:22:11
  Catholic. I know.
• 1:22:12
  Think about my mother, Carrie. She was raised Catholic and she
• 1:22:16
  did not really get much formation at all.
• 1:22:18
  Her parents would send them to Mass on Sundays and stay in bed.
• 1:22:20
  Italian Catholics and like Little Italy in Boston.
• 1:22:24
  And then when she was 20, she kind of didn't really ever
• 1:22:26
  understand what what this was. She had the grace of the baptism
• 1:22:30
  and sacraments, but she didn't really connect at all.
• 1:22:33
  She came, became born again at 20, lived with my, I mean my to
• 1:22:37
  my father, got married and they ended up being very Protestant
• 1:22:40
  together beautifully, you know, us kids, thanks be to God.
• 1:22:43
  Anyways, years later, she would come back to her faith and
• 1:22:46
  really understand it and love it.
• 1:22:48
  And now she goes to Mass every day.
• 1:22:50
  Just put your rosary every day. And but it's, it's just a night
• 1:22:53
  and day. But she had to really open her
• 1:22:55
  heart in her mind because she had these misconceptions.
• 1:22:58
  Yeah, and there definitely is. I mean, I was, I was anti, I
• 1:23:01
  would say I was anti Catholic as a Protestant.
• 1:23:04
  I, I had these things in my old they worship Mary and oh, they
• 1:23:07
  pray to the Saints and oh, how can you do that?
• 1:23:09
  And we have our Bible and they never read their Bible and now
• 1:23:13
  some don't. And now I'm realizing now I'm
• 1:23:17
  like, no, we read the Bible every Mass like we read the old
• 1:23:21
  and the new beautifully. It's connected.
• 1:23:25
  It's such a beautiful faith. And to receive the Eucharist is
• 1:23:31
  the most important thing to me. It is so important to me.
• 1:23:34
  It's what gives it, It's what gives me life.
• 1:23:37
  It really gives me life. And now that I'm able to receive
• 1:23:41
  it, it's been, it's been the best decision I ever made.
• 1:23:45
  And so I would encourage people who are listening, you know, ask
• 1:23:49
  the Holy Spirit to guide you and lead you.
• 1:23:52
  And like you just said, if this is the truth, show me and the
• 1:23:56
  Lord will. How has the response been from
• 1:23:59
  other friends and family, Your sweet parents?
• 1:24:01
  I mean, it sounds like your your children and your husband have
• 1:24:03
  been beautifully open and excited.
• 1:24:06
  But what about friends and family and also work people on
• 1:24:09
  your mission? Because a lot of our closest
• 1:24:12
  friends, you know, in mission, work, pro-life, pro marriage,
• 1:24:15
  it's Protestants and Catholics coming together, some Orthodox.
• 1:24:18
  Yeah, no, it's a good question. I obviously my husband was very
• 1:24:22
  supportive and it was beautiful when he was there when I got
• 1:24:27
  confirmed. And it was just, it was like the
• 1:24:33
  happiest day of my life because you know, obviously like the
• 1:24:36
  person you marry is very important.
• 1:24:38
  But then also, you know, having my children there to see this
• 1:24:42
  was my decision. And it was the Lord leading me
• 1:24:46
  to his church. And it was just like the
• 1:24:48
  greatest day of my life. It was really just, I just felt
• 1:24:52
  like I was home. I was finally home and I didn't
• 1:24:55
  have to figure it out on my own. I didn't have to reinvent the
• 1:24:58
  wheel and it was already there and it's been there for 2000
• 1:25:01
  years. And what really got me was that
• 1:25:05
  whatever the early church believed, I must believe.
• 1:25:09
  I don't get to re reinvent things.
• 1:25:12
  I don't get to create doctrine. I don't get to be the Pope.
• 1:25:16
  We have the Pope, and the first Pope was Peter.
• 1:25:19
  And we have had this line of, of succession and it's been so
• 1:25:23
  beautiful. And no.
• 1:25:25
  Is the Catholic Church perfect? No, but it has been.
• 1:25:28
  The gates of hell will not prevail.
• 1:25:30
  And it has prevailed. And now I think 2025, we've
• 1:25:34
  received so many conversions into Catholicism and it is so
• 1:25:38
  beautiful. And so my mom was obviously so
• 1:25:42
  happy, so happy. Is she back in the church?
• 1:25:45
  Yeah. So we actually just went to Rome
• 1:25:48
  and we went to the Vatican. Oh, my goodness.
• 1:25:49
  I saw that Jubilee year, Yeah. And I got to go to the Holy Door
• 1:25:53
  and I got to confess my sins at the Vatican, you know, 'cause
• 1:25:58
  you know the five things. Amazing on what you need to do
• 1:26:01
  in order to for Jubilee year. For Jubilee year, Yeah.
• 1:26:03
  So I did all the five things. Yes.
• 1:26:06
  And so that was really special. So we were able to do that
• 1:26:08
  together. And it's just been this
• 1:26:11
  beautiful. Like.
• 1:26:12
  So your mom's back? Yes.
• 1:26:13
  Yes. Wow.
• 1:26:14
  So my mom's back. Yeah.
• 1:26:15
  She actually lives at Ave. Maria in Florida.
• 1:26:18
  Did this happen before or after you came back?
• 1:26:21
  It happened. Came in.
• 1:26:23
  It happened after. Yeah.
• 1:26:26
  That's amazing. Yeah, it happened after.
• 1:26:28
  So I really inspired God. Oh, yes.
• 1:26:31
  Yeah. So it was really beautiful.
• 1:26:32
  But a lot of my friends, you know, in the political world, of
• 1:26:35
  course, you know, there's a lot of, you know, not so nice things
• 1:26:39
  to say about the Catholic Church and stuff.
• 1:26:41
  So I really had to learn how to defend my faith.
• 1:26:44
  And I think we as Catholics need to do that better.
• 1:26:47
  We need to understand what we believe and that's why RCIAOCIA
• 1:26:51
  is very important because you are, you know, in those every
• 1:26:54
  Tuesday night classes, you better know what you believe.
• 1:26:57
  It's not just like, hey, come and become Catholic one day.
• 1:27:00
  No, you have to be formed and you have to know what you
• 1:27:03
  believe and be able to defend your faith.
• 1:27:06
  And so it's just been this beautiful journey for me.
• 1:27:09
  And so I'm able to now debate my friends and I win those, I'm
• 1:27:12
  sure. You do a great job.
• 1:27:14
  What would be 1, you know, thing that you wish all of the
• 1:27:19
  Protestant friends that you have and I'm just people we love,
• 1:27:22
  right? That maybe they misunderstand
• 1:27:24
  the most that you've seen that you want them to know.
• 1:27:27
  And I'm sure in your private conversations you will share
• 1:27:30
  this openly. But if there's that one thing
• 1:27:31
  you would say, this is what I want people that are not
• 1:27:35
  Catholic or yet hopefully to understand about what we really
• 1:27:39
  believe. What would that be?
• 1:27:41
  I would like them to delete all the preconceived, you know,
• 1:27:46
  judgments and ideas without really knowing what it is that
• 1:27:51
  the Catholics believe. So I would tell them, start
• 1:27:54
  studying what it is the Catholic Church teaches because so many
• 1:27:59
  of it is it's just, oh, you worship Mary or, you know, they
• 1:28:04
  don't understand that the rosary.
• 1:28:05
  Oh my goodness, we can talk about the rosary on another
• 1:28:07
  episode. That really changed my life.
• 1:28:10
  I had no idea what the rosary was.
• 1:28:12
  I I thought it was worshipping Mary, that you're doing these
• 1:28:15
  beads and worshipping Mary. And why would someone ever do
• 1:28:18
  that? No, you are meditating on the
• 1:28:20
  life of Christ. It is so beautiful.
• 1:28:24
  It's, it's, it's, it's a weapon. I love Father.
• 1:28:29
  What is his name? He's incredible priest.
• 1:28:32
  There's so many ingrity priest. By the way, I just came to San
• 1:28:35
  Diego and I'm blanking on his name.
• 1:28:36
  Callaway. Callaway.
• 1:28:37
  Callaway. Yes, yes.
• 1:28:38
  So he did a whole thing. I have him on the show.
• 1:28:41
  I brought my kids to his. He spoke out of parish and he
• 1:28:44
  talks about how the rosary is, is a weapon.
• 1:28:46
  It is so powerful and it's meditating on the life of Christ
• 1:28:51
  and it's so beautiful. Every time I pray the rosary,
• 1:28:54
  it's quiet. I'm not distracted.
• 1:28:57
  It's such a beautiful gift that that God has given us to
• 1:29:00
  meditate on the beautiful mysteries of Jesus.
• 1:29:05
  And it's, it's just changed my, my whole faith life really
• 1:29:11
  praying the rosary. And so I encourage people, you
• 1:29:14
  know, if they have doubts, just really dig in deep for yourself
• 1:29:19
  and start really studying what it is the church teaches because
• 1:29:23
  I'll, I'll bet you anything you'll agree more than you
• 1:29:25
  disagree with. And then also study the early
• 1:29:28
  church Fathers. I recommend Bishop Barron's book
• 1:29:31
  called the I think it's called the early Church Fathers.
• 1:29:33
  And it's, it has all the letters.
• 1:29:34
  Wonderful. Yes, it has the letters that the
• 1:29:38
  Saint Ignatius, St. Irenaeus Polycarp, I mean, what
• 1:29:42
  they taught, what they believed, they all believed the Eucharist
• 1:29:45
  was the real presence of Christ. How come we don't?
• 1:29:49
  I mean, I do, you do. But why don't Protestants
• 1:29:52
  believe that? That's the biggest thing.
• 1:29:56
  You you must believe that the the body of Christ is the real
• 1:30:01
  presence of Christ. Well, it's interesting because
• 1:30:03
  they are right, Protestants are right, that the Eucharist that
• 1:30:06
  they're doing in their churches, you know, bread and water or
• 1:30:09
  wine, that they grape juice when I was growing up, grape juice
• 1:30:12
  and they slice up kind of the Wonder bread and whatever that
• 1:30:14
  isn't Jesus's real body and blood.
• 1:30:16
  They are doing that in their own symbolic, ritualistic way.
• 1:30:19
  But there is real Eucharist. Jesus is true food, the true
• 1:30:24
  food that is God, his real body, blood, soul and divinity.
• 1:30:28
  And that is in every Catholic Church in America and the
• 1:30:31
  Orthodox Church they're not they're the valid but not lisit
• 1:30:35
  right. So it actually because the line
• 1:30:37
  of Apostolic succession those are actual consecrations
• 1:30:39
  happening too. Now they're not in line with.
• 1:30:42
  Rome, which they, I pray that they, you know, will all be one.
• 1:30:44
  We need to come back again. But so that's what you felt when
• 1:30:47
  you walked into that church. Yeah.
• 1:30:49
  The presence of Jesus Christ and the Eucharist.
• 1:30:51
  Oh, yeah. And going to adoration.
• 1:30:53
  I mean, I, it's, it's, I don't want to use the word crazy
• 1:30:56
  because it's not crazy, but it's amazing to see the hunger that I
• 1:31:01
  have now. It's, it's literally like I'm
• 1:31:02
  hungry for the bread of life. Like I'm hungry to receive Jesus
• 1:31:06
  and I, I want to receive him as much as possible.
• 1:31:08
  You know why? Why are we just OK as
• 1:31:11
  Protestants to receive it? Because like you said, it's,
• 1:31:14
  it's not the real presence. It's to them, it's a symbol.
• 1:31:17
  But yet how can you justify? I would love to have a debate
• 1:31:20
  with a Protestant one day on your show.
• 1:31:22
  How can you justify the early church, the the Saint Ignatius,
• 1:31:28
  who was discipled by John, the closest you can get to Jesus, he
• 1:31:34
  believed it was the real presence.
• 1:31:36
  It was not even, it was not even a question the the real presence
• 1:31:40
  of Christ. It actually was heretical.
• 1:31:42
  If you didn't believe that, how can you justify that it's not
• 1:31:47
  the real presence? How can you justify going to any
• 1:31:50
  other church to receive Jesus other than the Catholic Church?
• 1:31:54
  And Jesus said my church will be unified.
• 1:31:58
  There was a there was a a goal for the church to be unified.
• 1:32:01
  And what I love is when I was in Italy, it's beautiful, the same
• 1:32:05
  mass as it was here, the same every Sunday.
• 1:32:08
  It's the same. It's unified.
• 1:32:10
  It's it's. Truly mind blowing to consider
• 1:32:14
  that in any given moment there's a mass being said somewhere in
• 1:32:17
  the world. The same Scripture, the same
• 1:32:20
  authority, the same Church, the same liturgy, the same Jesus
• 1:32:23
  Christ in the everywhere around the world at any given moment.
• 1:32:27
  And I will say one thing now just came to me.
• 1:32:30
  I think as as Americans, we're so spoiled.
• 1:32:33
  We're so spoiled rotten that we are so free, which is so
• 1:32:37
  beautiful. I'm so grateful for our
• 1:32:39
  freedoms. We're so free that you can chop
• 1:32:43
  your kids body parts off. We're so free that you can
• 1:32:47
  decide I'm a woman. If you're a man, we're so free
• 1:32:52
  that you can create 40,000 different denominations.
• 1:32:57
  You're so free that you don't have to submit to a king.
• 1:33:00
  We don't have to submit to a king in America.
• 1:33:04
  But Christ is my King, and if I want to submit to him, I must
• 1:33:08
  submit to His church, which he established.
• 1:33:11
  And I think that's that's been really in my heart and in my
• 1:33:14
  head thinking, why is it that there's so many people that are
• 1:33:18
  hesitant to come into the church?
• 1:33:19
  I honestly believe it's because we're so blessed with freedom
• 1:33:22
  that we don't want to submit to authority.
• 1:33:25
  Meaning that roots of American independence exactly bucking the
• 1:33:28
  monarchy and exoticism was a large part of our founding.
• 1:33:31
  And so there's this sort of a little bit baked into the DNA.
• 1:33:34
  Is this rejection of authority? Yeah.
• 1:33:36
  And just like, we're so, yeah, we're so free that we don't want
• 1:33:39
  to submit to anyone, you know, whether it's a king.
• 1:33:41
  Radical individualism. And.
• 1:33:43
  Autonomy and it does lead you mentioned like chopping off body
• 1:33:47
  parts of children, transgenderism, ideology, but
• 1:33:49
  then abortion. I mean, think about that.
• 1:33:50
  Oh yeah, horrific 1,000,000 abortion, child radical autonomy
• 1:33:54
  at anybody's expense. And you have no authority over
• 1:33:57
  you. I'm my own boss.
• 1:33:59
  Exactly. I am my own.
• 1:34:00
  God, I don't need authority. And so really, when I got
• 1:34:04
  welcomed into the Catholic Church, I I was able to submit
• 1:34:09
  and say I am yours. You're daughter of the church.
• 1:34:12
  Yes, and I don't need, I don't need to figure it out on my own.
• 1:34:16
  It's been 2000 years. It hasn't changed.
• 1:34:19
  It's the same 2000 years ago as it is today.
• 1:34:22
  It's so beautiful. And I, I encourage everybody.
• 1:34:26
  That's why I really want to be that Catholic that evangelizes.
• 1:34:29
  I'm like, if we could mix the two together, like I love that
• 1:34:32
  evangelistic spirit with the Catholic fullness of the faith,
• 1:34:35
  I think that would be you. You will see so many people be
• 1:34:39
  welcomed in if we have that. Well, that's the life.
• 1:34:41
  That's what we're called to be as Saints, right?
• 1:34:43
  Because I think it's really just like a cultural Catholicism that
• 1:34:46
  kind of doesn't evangelize, but the heart of the Catholic faith
• 1:34:50
  is a fiery evangelization out of love for souls.
• 1:34:53
  And that's the lives of all the Saints when you when you look at
• 1:34:55
  them, and it's very inspiring. Who was your confirmation St.
• 1:34:58
  Saint Joan of Arc? Oh, what about you, Mother
• 1:35:01
  Cabrini? Beautiful for you.
• 1:35:03
  Oh wow, I love her. What a what?
• 1:35:06
  An evangelizer in Word and indeed.
• 1:35:10
  She inspired me so much. Oh my.
• 1:35:12
  Did you see the movie? Yes.
• 1:35:14
  Beautiful. I've seen it about 10 times.
• 1:35:16
  My kids have seen it. It's I want to live a life that
• 1:35:20
  she lived. I mean, just incredible.
• 1:35:23
  Just so resilient and strong. And that's the other thing too,
• 1:35:28
  is we can be both. You are so kind and loving and
• 1:35:32
  sweet. You honestly, I told my mom I
• 1:35:35
  was coming up here and she's like Lila reminds me of a lot of
• 1:35:37
  the Blessed Mother, like sweet her.
• 1:35:39
  I'm sure you hear that a lot. But you know what I'm saying?
• 1:35:42
  Like what? Your disposition is so kind and
• 1:35:45
  loving and sweet. And I need to be more like that.
• 1:35:47
  You're very loving, but I also have this little fire in me
• 1:35:51
  that, you know, that I think that if I could be more like you
• 1:35:58
  in a lot of ways, but then also keep who God made me.
• 1:36:00
  I think it's a great combination.
• 1:36:03
  And we don't always have to be this Christian.
• 1:36:06
  That's like, oh, I can't, you know, offend people.
• 1:36:09
  Like Jesus was very offensive. You know, his teachings were not
• 1:36:15
  welcomed by most people and it was very radical his teachings,
• 1:36:19
  you know, him saying unless you eat my body, you do not have
• 1:36:23
  life. Can you imagine what they
• 1:36:25
  thought when he said that? I mean, that's pretty.
• 1:36:28
  That's a pretty bold statement. And so we are really called, I
• 1:36:32
  think as Christians to go and speak the truth in our actions,
• 1:36:36
  in our deeds. And what a beautiful example
• 1:36:38
  that you've done, the organization that you've built
• 1:36:41
  and just the way you live your life.
• 1:36:43
  It's, it's really inspiring. And even though I have that
• 1:36:46
  little Mother Cabrini fiery side of me, I, I'm learning to be
• 1:36:51
  also at times you pick and choose your battles and have
• 1:36:53
  that discernment on things that I need to fight and then things
• 1:36:56
  that I can retreat on. So it's been a beautiful
• 1:36:59
  journey. There's only going to be 1 St.
• 1:37:02
  Carrie, and I'm so excited to see you becoming that St.
• 1:37:08
  I'm so grateful for your courage and your love and your beautiful
• 1:37:12
  faith that you share so openly. You're just getting started,
• 1:37:15
  Carrie. God has incredible mission for
• 1:37:18
  you. You've already been living it
• 1:37:19
  faithfully and now it's it's going to come on even stronger
• 1:37:23
  what he has for you in both your family life, raising your
• 1:37:26
  beautiful kids, your marriage, and in your your apostolate,
• 1:37:30
  your mission. So thank you for being fierce.
• 1:37:33
  And Mother Cabrini is absolutely tearing you on.
• 1:37:35
  She's proud of you. Thank you.
• 1:37:37
  And she's so excited. I know I'm I'm so grateful and
• 1:37:41
  thank you for having me. Where can people find you,
• 1:37:44
  Carrie, or follow you? I'm not really active on Twitter
• 1:37:48
  or X, but you can find me on Instagram at Carrie Prejean
• 1:37:52
  Bowler. Beautiful.
• 1:37:54
  Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you.
• 1:37:55
  You're my sister. You're my sister.
• 1:37:57
  We're in this together. God bless you, I love you.
• 1:37:59
  I love you too. So good.
• 1:38:02
  Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Lila Rose
• 1:38:04
  Show. I hope it was inspiring and
• 1:38:05
  encouraging. All of us are called to stand up
• 1:38:07
  for what is good and true and beautiful, and I love bringing
• 1:38:10
  on people who can inspire us to do that.
• 1:38:13
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• 1:38:15
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• 1:38:17
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• 1:38:19
  Thanks so much and we'll see you next time.
• 1:38:21
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• 1:38:25
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• 1:38:28
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• 1:38:31
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• 1:38:35
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