Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E158: What Was It Like Being Mother Teresa's Friend? w/Jim Towey

Transcript

E158: What Was It Like Being Mother Teresa's Friend? w/Jim Towey · The Lila Rose Show

0:00
She spoke from her heart. She talked about how the evil of
0:03
abortion. People interrupted the speech to
0:05
stand up and applaud. A lot of them were doing it to
0:07
stick it to the president and vice president.
0:10
There's something very specific that The Dark Knight that Mother
0:12
Teresa experienced meant. It floored us to find out that
0:16
she had experienced this sense of being abandoned and forsaken.
0:19
I was stunned by, but I think the Lord allowed her those
0:23
experiences so that she could enter into the experience of the
0:27
poor and they're being abandoned, unloved, unwanted,
0:31
unwelcome. Jim Toohey, welcome to the
0:35
podcast. Thanks for having me on.
0:37
I'm so excited to talk to you. Well, this is a blessing.
0:40
I've watched your work from afar, admire it, and so it's
0:43
great to be out here. Thanks for making it out.
0:45
I know you're busy. You've got a lot of things your
0:47
your organization, Aging with Dignity.
0:49
But you're here to tell us about your work and also your
0:53
incredible friendship with Mother Teresa.
0:55
Yeah, life changing and a gift that I hope I never forget the
1:00
the spiritual richness of what the Lord did.
1:05
So you have to try to pay that back, right?
1:07
So. So I have loved Mother Teresa
1:09
since I was probably 12 years old and I've admired her.
1:13
She helped me, inspired me to help start Live Action, my
1:15
organization. I probably quoted her and more
1:20
than 50% of every speech I've ever given, I've quoted her
1:22
speeches. I know you had an integral part
1:25
in even setting the stage for some of her speeches.
1:27
We're going to talk about that. But she's a St.
1:30
I mean, she's someone that the world loves and admires as a St.
1:33
She's inspired millions and millions of people, and you had
1:36
this incredibly personal and close relationship with her.
1:40
So I'm very excited because I have a ton of questions to ask
1:42
you about what that was like. Fire away.
1:45
All right, so you'll, you'll, you're going to bear all in this
1:47
interview. Anything you want to know?
1:49
And it was, I always felt like I didn't deserve it.
1:51
So if I was given this gift, it was a gift that was meant for
1:54
others. So I'm happy to share anything.
1:57
All right, and also I have to say when I applied to college,
1:59
you could write a a letter to to anybody that if you could be
2:02
have an actual conversation with them in in history or living.
2:06
And I actually picked Mother Teresa as the person I'd want to
2:09
have a conversation with, so. And look what you're doing with
2:11
your life. It's so consonant with what
2:13
Mother Teresa believed. I hope so.
2:15
Yeah, it is. Trust me.
2:16
Maybe you can't see it, but people can.
2:18
I hope so. That would that that is, that
2:20
would be such a a life well lived.
2:23
All right. So, Jim, tell me first how you
2:25
met Mother Teresa. Well, in the book To love and be
2:29
loved that I just put out, I tell the story in detail.
2:33
This quick version is I was 28 years old working for Senator
2:38
Mark Hatfield and just a very mediocre Catholic, comfortable
2:42
in my hypocrisy, not following the teachings of the Church,
2:46
willing to ignore whatever I wanted to ignore about it.
2:49
And but I saw this woman from afar that was seen to be living
2:53
the Gospel, Mother Teresa, you know, I wasn't, but she was and
2:56
I wanted to meet her, you know, and the nice thing about being a
2:58
hypocrite as you can spot hypocrisy everywhere, you know,
3:01
So I was critical, the church, critical everybody, but I
3:04
thought she's the real deal. So I was overseas on a trip for
3:07
Senator Hadfield and I made a arrangement because he knew her
3:12
to come through Calcutta on the way back from Southeast Asia.
3:15
And so then on August 20th, 1985, I walk into the Mother
3:19
House. I didn't want to even be in
3:21
Calcutta. I didn't want to be around the
3:22
poor, but I wanted to meet her. So I made a deal that I'd go in
3:25
and see her for one day and then go to Hawaii for five days.
3:28
So that's where I was, and that's what I did.
3:31
And well, I she founded out like a schoolgirl after Mass.
3:36
She was everything I wasn't Focused, sincere, joyful,
3:41
cheerful. She was just an extraordinary
3:44
presence. There was a goodness that
3:46
radiated from her. She was 75 that week.
3:48
She turned 75 that week, and yet there she just was, all about
3:53
there. There was an urgency to her.
3:54
She always spoke of the Blessed Mothers going in haste to
3:57
Elizabeth. You know, Mother was always
3:59
going in haste so well. I was smitten.
4:03
And I then she came to New York in October, saw her again.
4:10
I'd gotten, she'd told me to go see her sisters in Washington.
4:12
I had no idea she had sisters in Washington.
4:14
I had no interest in being around the poor.
4:16
So I, they hooked me because I was single then and had me
4:20
volunteering. And then I started doing
4:22
mother's legal work as she opened the AIDS home.
4:24
She had immigration problems. And then people are trying to
4:26
use her name. So those are the things I did
4:28
for her. So yeah, that's How I Met her
4:30
and and her spectacular sisters and priests that I've gotten to
4:34
know over the nearly 40 years. When you were her attorney and
4:39
working on her in these different matters, you also
4:41
travelled with her. At times, Yep.
4:43
And, and you also met with her alongside when she would be
4:47
meeting with some very important people, including US presidents.
4:51
Yes. What was her relationship like
4:54
with, let's start with this, with these very, you know, VIP,
4:59
very well known people, very powerful people, whether at one
5:02
point she was meeting with Reagan, President Reagan when he
5:05
was president, and after she met with the Clintons, she met with
5:08
Princess Diana. What did you observe about these
5:10
meetings that she would have? The thing that was extraordinary
5:13
about mother was that she treated everybody the same.
5:15
She was a respecter of authority.
5:17
So she understood that these individuals had enormous
5:21
responsibility, just as she did in the position she was.
5:24
She didn't set out to head a worldwide missionary order.
5:27
And then, you know, at the time of her death, she was in 120
5:30
countries. So she understood the pressures
5:33
of leadership. And so when she met them, she
5:34
was respectful of that, but she did not, she didn't show the
5:38
favoritism. When you talk with mother, she
5:42
was locked in on you. You know, like politicians, if
5:44
you're in a reception in Washington, you know, they're
5:46
like looking at you and then looking over your shoulder to
5:48
see who came in and looking who's more important to talk to
5:51
and all this not with mother. She was locked in on the
5:53
individual she was talking to. And and she was she was very
5:59
direct, very blunt. She was, you know, very clear
6:01
about her pro-life stance. You know, she she talked about
6:04
the evil of abortion. She decried these efforts to try
6:08
to kill the dying and to dismiss the handicapped as if their
6:12
lives weren't living. So mother truly was.
6:15
Her entire life was given to the person of Christ and what she
6:18
described as his distressing disguise of the poor and the
6:21
unborn. And yeah, so mother was
6:23
fearless. She when she needed something,
6:26
she asked for it. You know, one of the reasons I
6:28
wrote the book was I wanted to show the humanness of her
6:31
because mother went to confession.
6:33
She said she could be impatient, stubborn, critical, you know,
6:36
but she grew in holiness and was sanctified in community life,
6:40
just like you and I are in marriage, right?
6:42
He gets sanctified in the midst of the kids and all the
6:46
challenges of life. So, yeah, mother.
6:48
Mother was great with these figures.
6:50
When you say she was locked in on every person that she
6:53
encountered and that's one of the things I loved about and
6:56
I've loved about her writings about that encouragement of
6:58
seeing every single person you meet.
7:00
They are Jesus like see Jesus in every single person you meet, no
7:04
matter who they are. And of course, the poorest of
7:06
the poor was her had so much of her undivided love and through
7:10
her work with, you know, and founding Missionaries of
7:12
Charity. But when you saw her lock, I
7:15
lock on to someone and really see Jesus in them.
7:17
How did that work when she was also busy?
7:20
I mean, she was traveling, speaking.
7:24
She met with so many people in any given day in Calcutta.
7:27
If she's in the mother house, she's dealing with the dying
7:29
they have. They're so needy, yes.
7:31
How does that work to be able to be fully present with someone
7:35
and then be on time for the next person?
7:38
Well, she had extraordinary wisdom.
7:40
She she knew how long to be in conversations when someone when
7:44
she was just very tentative to the moving of the Spirit in in
7:47
every situation. She really she used to talk
7:50
about love until it hurts, give until it hurts.
7:53
She made a private vow once to in April of 1942 to refuse Jesus
7:58
nothing. She, she was, she'd say to her
8:01
sisters, let the poor eat you up.
8:03
So she gave everything. You know, she, I was always
8:08
stunned by how hard she went at the age she was.
8:10
I would pick her up some mornings, 6:00 in the morning
8:13
and be with her the whole day. And I was in my early 30s then
8:16
and I'd be exhausted at the end of the day.
8:18
And I'd pull up to the convent 9 at night.
8:21
There's a long line of sisters waiting for one-on-one time with
8:24
their mother. And she'd do that.
8:26
She'd be up at the mother house till midnight.
8:27
So she was gifted with this energy.
8:30
Not everybody has this gift. You know, she was equipped for
8:33
the responsibility she had. But it, I mean, physically, I've
8:36
never seen anyone go at it as hard as she did.
8:40
She had five heart attacks, a stroke, She had TB, she had
8:42
malaria dozens of times. This was a tough, gritty
8:45
Albanian woman. And I tried to describe it with
8:48
the stories the sisters told me that are in the book that put
8:52
flesh to those, to that reflection on Mother.
8:56
She would also, though, have her sisters take time for obviously
8:59
prayer, Like no work, you're praying now.
9:02
They'd have tea time every day. And then my understanding is
9:06
she'd also have her sisters take, I don't know, if it was
9:08
six weeks off in the summertime where they would not be serving
9:11
the poor. They would be on retreat
9:13
basically. Did she do this herself when
9:16
she's going so hard and there's so many needs?
9:19
Did she do the self-care, we call it in today's world?
9:21
But I mean, did she do that? I mean, really, it's not
9:24
self-care. It's it's taking time for your
9:26
first love, which is Jesus Christ directly, you know, in
9:28
adoration or the Mass. What did that look like for
9:31
mother? Did she?
9:31
Did she pamper herself? I.
9:33
Mean I have I used to have a picture of her feet that I was
9:36
going to put on the wall in my studio.
9:37
Haven't done her gnarled feet as a teen.
9:40
This was a picture on my wall because I thought this is true
9:42
beauty. How much she spent herself for
9:45
love she took. Care of her spiritual needs, for
9:47
sure. And yes, the sisters take three
9:49
weeks every year for a retreat and seminar and some just
9:52
downtime. She's always talked about you
9:55
can't give out what you don't have.
9:56
And so they had a very strict prayer schedule.
9:58
Mother adhere do it. She would stop her work with the
10:01
lepers and the poor, walk right past them to go into the mother
10:04
house for midday prayer, to have her meal with her sisters, to
10:08
have a community life, to have her siesta.
10:11
She took them, you know, And so she, she lived that.
10:14
Now as she got older and the responsibilities grew, she, she
10:20
often had to deviate from that, especially because of all the
10:22
travel. You know, when I would travel
10:24
with her, it was extraordinary how scheduled she was.
10:27
Everybody wanted to see her. This is after the Nobel Peace
10:30
Prize because I didn't meet her till 85, and that's six years
10:32
later. By then she was a worldwide
10:34
celebrity, but she always placed Jesus.
10:38
She said it begins with prayer. And she said to me once she
10:40
said, if you're too busy to pray, you're too busy.
10:43
And that stuck with me that you've got to find time for
10:46
prayer. And and she did.
10:47
I can with some of my fondest memories are seeing mother in
10:50
the back of the Chapel in the Bronx with her Bible just
10:53
hunched in the corner reading the word of God.
10:55
It was just beautiful to see. She she knew the word of God.
10:59
She loved the Eucharist. She hungered for it.
11:02
The only requirement she had when she opened the house, she
11:05
didn't get salaries for her sisters, no health benefits.
11:07
They get none of this. The only requirement was that
11:10
the Bishop would promise to have a priest say Mass every day in
11:12
their Chapel, and if they did that she'd come.
11:15
And so she knew the importance of prayer and that I think is
11:18
gave her the balance in her life.
11:20
A big thank you to our sponsorgoodranchers.com Good
11:23
Ranchers is American meat delivered.
11:25
Did you know that up to 90% of the meat in your grocery store
11:29
is not from the United States? It might say USA on the label,
11:32
but it's not actually from American ranchers.
11:34
It's imported and packaged in the United States.
11:37
Good Ranchers is 100% sourced from the United States and when
11:40
you choose goodranchers.com, you're choosing more than just
11:44
delicious meat. You're choosing to support local
11:46
American farms and ranchers standing up for transparency and
11:50
safety in our food supply. At my house, chicken Nuggets are
11:53
an easy and kid friendly meal, but I'm concerned about the seed
11:56
oils and the additives in the brands that we purchase at the
11:59
grocery store. Thankfully, Good Ranchers has
12:01
created a new seed oil free nugget.
12:04
No other nugget on the market offers a pure seed oil free
12:08
recipe that prioritizes your family's health without
12:11
sacrificing flavor or crunchandrightnowifyousubscribe@goodranchers.com
12:18
For a limited time you can get a free add on for a full four
12:23
years or until the next presidential election.
12:26
That means that when you subscribe to any of the Good
12:29
Ranchers boxes, you get to decide if you want free chicken
12:32
breast, Angus ground beef, applewood smoked bacon or wild
12:36
caught salmon in every one of your orders for four years.
12:39
So go to goodranchers.com today. Use my code Lila at checkout
12:43
back out to get up to $1200 of free add-ons.
12:47
That's goodranchers.com. American meat delivered.
12:50
You were there when she gave this very, I call it historic
12:54
speech in 1994, the National Prayer Breakfast before Bill and
12:59
Hillary Clinton, then President Bill Clinton.
13:02
And my understanding is you helped schedule that, that you
13:05
helped make that happen. Yes.
13:06
Sandy Mcmurtry and Jim Petrie, two Americans, were very close
13:10
to mother. We we were all in discussions
13:12
about this trip and mother coming over.
13:15
First of all, was her health good enough to come?
13:17
Second of all, was she going to be used by the Clintons?
13:21
And the prayer breakfast was not known for being really pro
13:23
Catholic. The National Prayer black
13:25
breakfast, it was largely contentious.
13:28
That never worked with Cardinal Hickey in Washington.
13:31
So there were a lot. There was a subplot to all of
13:33
that. But it worked out.
13:35
And mother was prepared for it and had written remarks which
13:38
she almost never did. I think twice in her life did
13:40
she read a written speech. But.
13:42
She won the Nobel Peace Prize and.
13:44
Yeah, she had notes at the podium for that.
13:46
That's right. But every time else when she
13:47
spoke, it was extemporal. Yes, yeah.
13:49
And she was a she was aware that the significance of this
13:54
gathering and she knew the president and vice president and
13:56
their wives. And, you know, she knew this was
13:58
a big deal. And she accepted the invite.
14:00
And I think they brought her thinking, oh, great, she's a
14:02
celebrity. And she was.
14:05
They weren't prepared for what she had to say that morning.
14:08
You really think they didn't know that she'd come in
14:10
swinging? Because because she was swinging
14:12
at the Nobel Peace Prize exception speech, she called
14:15
abortion the greatest destroyer of peace, and she said it to the
14:17
world at that time. And my understanding is when
14:20
I've tracked her work, she was always is very passionately
14:23
pro-life in every encounter public opportunity she had.
14:27
So the fact that she was going to do that at the prayer
14:29
breakfast, if you knew anything about her, I would think you
14:31
would know she was going to do that.
14:32
You you really think that the the pro aborts and the Democrats
14:36
were surprised by. If Clinton and Gore had known,
14:40
that must. Have been a God thing, Jim.
14:42
It must have been that they were confused that they, I think they
14:45
thought she would never have bad manners like that.
14:47
And the amazing thing was she pulled it off.
14:50
I mean, she spoke from her heart.
14:52
She talked about how the evil of abortion.
14:54
People interrupted the speech to stand up and applaud.
14:57
A lot of them were doing it to stick it to the president and
15:01
vice president, which wasn't particularly Christian, you
15:04
know, but but they were also emphasizing what she was saying.
15:09
And but yet mother did it so lovingly.
15:12
I mean, she didn't do it with the kind of scourge that you
15:16
would sometimes see someone give a bitter speech.
15:18
You know, she said it is the truth.
15:20
And she met with the Clintons afterwards and she loved them.
15:24
She truly did. She didn't she hated the sin and
15:28
she loved the Sinner and and a mother would that morning she
15:31
was fearless. She spoke her piece.
15:33
She wasn't afraid to say it. I just think the people there
15:36
are so accustomed to the politic that you don't say this.
15:39
It's bad manners to say this in a setting like this that you
15:42
know, well, she wasn't a politician, you know, so she was
15:46
going to speak the truth. What was well for context do for
15:50
folks listening when she gave that speech, this was around the
15:52
time when President Clinton, then President Clinton was, was
15:56
vetoing the partial birth abortion Act.
15:59
So abortion was, you know, this is his 90s thing as president
16:02
for eight years, he would, he vetoed it I think 4 times.
16:05
The act that would forbid partial birth abortions of
16:08
babies, half delivered a viable baby.
16:11
You're stabbing the neck, crushing the skull.
16:12
I mean, really heinous, horrific, sick crime against a
16:15
baby. And so there's the context,
16:17
right? This is a very pro abortion
16:19
president. And she's gave this pro-life
16:22
speech at the prayer breakfast. I quote her own words in a lot
16:25
of my speeches to this day. Hillary Clinton was in the room.
16:29
I heard a report that Hillary Clinton pulled out a Mrs.
16:33
Clinton pulled out a like a shopping list or a checklist of
16:35
some kind and started taking notes as if she was trying to
16:37
ignore the speech. I don't know if you've heard
16:39
that. I don't, I didn't see her do
16:41
that. I did see President Clinton keep
16:43
picking up his cup of coffee that was empty and pretending he
16:47
was drinking it because it was so uncomfortable.
16:50
I mean, who? How dare she speak that way, you
16:52
know, to power? So, yeah, I don't think they
16:55
were prepared for that. And mother didn't do it as doing
16:57
a way to be mean and all. She simply, it's like what Jesus
17:00
said. He said the reason I was born
17:01
and came in the world was to testify to the truth, to witness
17:04
to the truth. That's what Mother was doing
17:06
that day. Wasn't going to change a vote.
17:08
Probably anybody in that room. But.
17:11
And she actually met Missus Clinton later, and I'd write
17:14
about it in the book. And Missus Clinton led the
17:16
delegation of Mother's funeral. So it was complicated.
17:20
Mother had an impact in the lives of individuals that you
17:23
wouldn't think would care too. What's about her.
17:26
So that was the unique thing about Mother, was her appeal.
17:29
And so when she met with Hillary Clinton after the speech, do you
17:34
know what their conversation was?
17:36
I don't the president, misses Clinton met privately with
17:39
mother and a woman, Sandy Mcmurtry, and one sister was
17:42
there. But I did see mother right after
17:45
the that meeting. She came back to the convent.
17:47
Mary and I were there with our son Jamie, who now works at
17:51
Aging with Dignity. And and I just said, mother, how
17:56
was I was dying to know, you know, what was said?
17:58
How did it go, you know? Well, with mother, you listen to
18:01
what she didn't say as much as what she said.
18:04
And mother just said, pray for Mrs. Clinton.
18:07
That's what she said. And then this was years before
18:10
the scandal. And I'm not sure what all that
18:12
led mother to say that, but that's all she said.
18:15
So yeah. Well, you know, mother also
18:18
defended life at the end of life, too, you know, and was
18:20
very courageous about that. And I'm sure she'd be mortified
18:23
now by the the assisted suicide euthanasia movement that's now
18:27
catching momentum all over the world.
18:30
And but she had their home for the dying to witness to the
18:33
sanctity of life at the end, too.
18:35
When you were following and learning and helping Mother
18:39
Teresa for the 12 years you spent with her, you were sharing
18:43
before the show that she also had a really big role to play in
18:46
your personal life, obviously your faith life, but also your
18:50
vocation to marriage. Can you share more about that?
18:52
Yeah, she had. She had sent me.
18:54
I read about it in detail again in the book, But she she sent me
18:57
to Tijuana, Mexico, to live with the MC Fathers, to help them get
19:01
situated because they just moved there and to discern the
19:04
priesthood. I always saw mother telling
19:07
people to oh, you should be a priest.
19:09
She never said that to me, you know, And I was like, well, she
19:11
reads me right. I'm not worthy.
19:14
But I went and spent that time just.
19:16
Someone's going to have the kids, OK?
19:19
Yeah. And so after the year I wrote
19:23
her and I just said I just don't feel called mother, you know,
19:26
I'd love to be a priest. I don't feel called.
19:29
So I came, went to Calcutta. I tell these stories.
19:31
But it was and then I met a young woman that I knew of that
19:36
it entered the sisters who had left and the sisters now wanted
19:40
to be matchmaker. And so on page 84, it begins the
19:43
story of Mary so your listeners can get to love and to be loved
19:48
but and viewers. But she she did urge me and she
19:53
sent 35 of her sisters to the wedding.
19:55
You know, I got her blessing. She even told me which day to
19:58
get married. And then on the morning of the
20:01
wedding, we had a chat on the phone and and she said she'd
20:04
make a holy hour and said mother spoiled me.
20:06
And I think she saw I needed that.
20:07
I needed a mother. I was so lost.
20:09
He just can't, you know, by God's grace and I just the mercy
20:13
of God, you know, so mother knew that.
20:15
But she also knew how much I loved her.
20:17
And I did. I would have done.
20:18
And I was like a puppy dog. I would do anything, follow her,
20:21
just to see her, you know, I had such a debt to her.
20:24
So yeah. And then she she met three of
20:28
the three children while we were alive.
20:30
They all have quick stories. One Jamie.
20:32
Jamie buttered her. She was holding him and he head
20:35
buttered her. I'm sorry.
20:37
Jamie bit her. He he, she had her finger and he
20:41
took it and bit her. You're first.
20:42
Born. Yeah, he's biting her.
20:44
I'm like, good luck telling that to Saint Peter.
20:46
You bit Mother Teresa and Joe head butted her.
20:49
And then Mac's mother gave him a Miraculous Medal and he ate it,
20:53
swallowed it. Well, he got it in there.
20:55
I had to fish it out. But she just, he just looked at
20:57
it. You know, Mother thought that
20:58
was funny. Mother had a great sense of
21:00
humor. I tell some of the stories.
21:01
But Mother loved to joke. She loved to tease.
21:03
She she was, she was everything, you know, fully human.
21:07
What? Was one of the funniest things
21:08
you saw her do or say. Well, she, the stories I got
21:12
from the sisters about, I mean, I would see her laugh at things,
21:15
you know, she was tickled by, she would tease the sisters, you
21:19
know, but she, this my favorite story of her humor.
21:22
Well, the nun bun story I tell you meant you can Google that
21:25
nowadays to see that story because this guy had a pastry
21:28
that they said looked like mother and it came out of the
21:32
oven, you know, so, and so they were selling T-shirts, calling
21:34
it the Miraculous Nun Bun and the Immaculate confection and
21:38
all this. So, so Mother sent me this
21:40
going, what is this? You know, they're selling these
21:42
T-shirts, you know, because so I contacted him.
21:44
I'd worked out an arrangement, had to bring it to Mother's
21:46
attention. Meaning she wanted, she wanted.
21:49
She didn't like that the T-shirt was being sold.
21:51
Right. Yeah, just what she didn't, you
21:53
know, my job was to protect the use of her image and likeness
21:55
and it, you know, it was kind of but she she had a good sense of
21:58
humor about it, but she was just like, stop it, you know.
22:00
So I, I got with the guy and we negotiate an agreement that they
22:04
could have it this local folklore, because it it was on
22:06
the nightly news, it was in, it was on.
22:08
Did it? Really look like her.
22:10
You know, I have to look at the photo, but you can see on the
22:14
Internet. But it it so that gets to the
22:17
point of it because then I had to brief her on the settlement
22:21
and it was 10 weeks before she died.
22:23
Sister Nirmal, her successors there.
22:25
And I said, mother, I've been dreading bring this up, but I
22:27
have to get your approval. I said, remember that when you
22:30
sent me that story about the T-shirt that had an image of a
22:34
pastry that they said looked like, yeah, I was dreading like
22:37
saying, how do you tell someone they look like a Danish pastry,
22:40
Right. And I was dreading how to bring
22:43
it up. And then I said, do you remember
22:45
that? And she kind of nod and I said,
22:46
well, I've got it. And she, I said, I've got it,
22:49
negotiation. And she just interrupts me.
22:52
And she goes, sister normal is now the superior general.
22:55
Put her face on the T-shirt and she just broke out.
22:59
She loved that it tickled herself, you know, that she said
23:01
that, but she would the ice cream would be frozen at the
23:04
sisters, you know, so rock hard and she'd ask the sister to
23:08
bring her a hammer and she'd be chipping away at the ice cream.
23:10
You know, she just, she, she delighted.
23:13
I'd love to try to make her laugh, you know, but she
23:16
obviously had such a serious side.
23:17
Then the chapter on the darkness, you know, talks about
23:20
how she felt abandoned, forsaken, you know, so she
23:24
extraordinary. I think the church is going to
23:25
be unpacking the Mother Teresa Center, which is in Tijuana, San
23:29
Diego. They're, they're now unpacking a
23:33
lot of the letters that mother wrote.
23:34
And I said some of this stuff's going to be available now to the
23:37
church for your kids and grandkids to read and study.
23:40
So, yeah, I think people are going to learn more and more
23:43
about that extraordinary woman that walked among us and her
23:45
friendship with John Paul the Great, the two of them together.
23:48
I'm so excited to introduce a must listen, extremely Benjable
23:52
new podcast brought to you by Coronation Media.
23:55
The podcast is called Firebreaker and is a fictional
23:58
rendition of the story of Saint George and the Dragon.
24:01
It was created by fathers to introduce strong Christian
24:04
heroes for their boys and girls to look up to.
24:07
And let's be honest, we're living in a time where there
24:09
isn't an emphasis on moral character of strong male
24:12
characters for young boys in media.
24:14
The Princess 2IN Firebreakers is a model of Christian virtue,
24:18
just like what I'd hoped my daughter to grow up to be like.
24:20
Firebreakers is done an old school radio style with sound
24:24
effects and is guaranteed to engage your kids.
24:26
The portrayal of Dragons as captivating symbols of evil is
24:29
masterfully executed. It's kind of like spiritual
24:32
warfare training for your kids. Plus, the podcast features
24:34
captivating voice performances including Wizards of Waverly
24:38
play Star David Henry and The Chosen's Elizabeth Tabish, whose
24:42
plays Mary Magdalene, as well as a full orchestra score by a
24:45
Hollywood producer, Kevin Casca. The podcast Firebreakers is
24:48
available available on Apple and Spotify for free.
24:51
So go download it right now or visit firebreakerseries.com.
24:56
That's Firebreaker series.com. OK, They're just that like 4
25:00
things I don't have some more questions about.
25:02
So well, let's start back to your marriage, Jim, because I, I
25:06
think this is so beautiful that she was this Mama to you helping
25:10
you prepare for your own marriage.
25:12
But my understanding is she also helped you discern marriage.
25:15
She did tell. Me more about that.
25:17
Well, she just, I mean. If I had had Mother Teresa when
25:20
I was dating people and then now dating my now husband to be like
25:23
hey should I marry him? Kind of awesome.
25:28
Yeah, like did you? Ask her if you should marry your
25:30
wife. I did because Mother knew Mary
25:34
and and met Mary and your. Wife Mary in.
25:37
Fact, when Mary was asked to told that she didn't have that
25:41
calling, they discerned out as they say.
25:45
I joke and say she was told she wasn't holy enough.
25:48
But when she left, I was travelling back.
25:52
I was living in Mexico and that happened.
25:53
But when I came back with mother to the to the US and came to
25:58
Washington, there's Mary and she's out of the habit.
26:01
And I just was like, whoa. And she had come to ask mother
26:05
to appeal the decision she wanted back in.
26:09
And and then I see Mary leave that meeting crying.
26:11
I had no idea what the answer was.
26:13
I think knowing that she was back in the lay life interfered
26:17
with my discernment to the priesthood a little bit because,
26:21
you know, this man called me up in Tijuana and he said, did you
26:24
hear the news, Sister Katrina's out.
26:27
I knew who. She was, but I just didn't, You
26:30
know? You stayed.
26:31
You didn't. Feel like you can't have a crush
26:32
on a nun? Nah, you stand, stay away.
26:34
You know, and mother allowed me around the sisters is a single
26:37
man in that category. It was, you know, she was very
26:39
discreet, protective, so that just didn't happen.
26:42
But she trusted me. And so I was very careful with
26:45
that. But I I knew Mary was and I tell
26:47
a great story in there, which George Weigel says is the
26:49
funniest Catholic story ever. But you know, we're it's too
26:53
long and it's also a little colorful.
26:55
We. Like color on the show?
26:57
Oh well, Mary is now this is before she entered the convent,
27:02
and I saw her there. She was to enter it in two
27:05
months or no, in a month. And she was directing a play of
27:09
Our Lady of Lourdes. And they, she had dressed up
27:14
this girl Debbie and this girl Nyla, both had AIDS, they'd been
27:17
prostitutes, drug addicts, but they came to the home for the
27:20
dying and they were becoming angels.
27:22
I mean, it was extraordinary what Mother did with these
27:24
people and the sisters. And so Mary had them all dressed
27:28
up and they rehearsed it. And so Debbie is playing
27:35
Bernadette and Nyla's playing the Blessed Mother and Nyla is
27:39
was to, you know, Debbie used to say, who are you?
27:41
And they had build a grotto and all this and say, who are you?
27:44
And then Nyla was supposed to say, I am the Immaculate
27:48
Conception. So we get to the play.
27:51
I wasn't part of the preparation.
27:53
I just would wield all the guys in.
27:55
And I'm seeing Mary there standing there in her pink
27:57
sweater and and she she starts off, introduces the play.
28:01
And then and then now Bernadette comes to the grotto.
28:04
And and so there's she's pretending she's picking up
28:07
flowers. And then and then Debbie comes
28:10
in dressed, dressed up. No, Nyla comes in dressed up as
28:13
a blessed mother into the steps to be like an apparition, you
28:17
know, And Debbie goes, who are you?
28:21
And Nyla goes, hi. Hi.
28:23
I no, she. Yeah, she goes, hi, I'm Nyla.
28:28
And the other, the woman, there he goes.
28:30
You dumb bee. I know the sisters just gasp.
28:34
You dumb bee, you're supposed to say you're the Immaculate
28:37
Conception. So I tell it in the book.
28:39
But it was George Howell. George, every time he sees me,
28:43
he tells me how many people he's told that story today.
28:46
But it was funny. I mean, and I remember Mary just
28:49
covering her face with the notebook because obviously that
28:51
was not the script, you know, but the sisters all have a great
28:55
sense of humor. And but they, that one was kind
28:58
of a shocker. Yeah.
28:59
But yeah, Mary, I did discern. Mother was very clear about
29:04
discernment that you had to pray.
29:05
And she said to me, listen to God.
29:07
He'll tell you what to do. And I would like, could you be
29:10
more concrete, you know? But she really knew that God
29:14
would lead you in discern, you know, and if.
29:17
You took the time to pray, she's saying.
29:18
If you pray for your. Vocation If you're called to
29:20
marriage, you're dating someone. If you pray, she was saying God
29:23
will lead you. And to get counsel from wise
29:25
people you know, that are prayerful so that that you're
29:28
discerning this together, so you're not deceiving yourself.
29:31
I remember one time she said to me, she said, if Jesus puts you
29:34
in the palace, be all for Jesus in the palace, but make sure he
29:39
put you there. And I've thought about that a
29:42
lot. And, and I think with mother in
29:46
discerning matrimony, she always felt like as long as it's not
29:50
self willed and if it's something that's not a you know,
29:53
but if it's going to because she always said, you know, the
29:55
family that prays together stays together.
29:57
So she wanted to make sure there was this union of hearts, this
30:00
desire to follow Jesus to, you know, that that was the key to a
30:05
marriage was prayer, because you know how hard it is with little
30:07
kids. They wipe you out and then you
30:09
have nothing good with for your spouse.
30:11
You know, we had five and and it was boy Mary and I, you know, we
30:15
thank God for it, but it was hard.
30:17
And by the way, mother told us, she said, I want you to have
30:20
five children, one for each of the joyful mysteries.
30:23
I love that. How about that I'd?
30:25
Love to get to 5. What would you say?
30:28
What do you think Mother Teresa's advice would be to a
30:31
young woman like me? I guess I'm in my 30s now, a
30:34
youngish mom like me and other young women and men.
30:38
But let's start with the women specifically what?
30:40
What would her vice be? Well, mother was a mother.
30:44
I mean when you look at her maternal love, she was the most
30:48
Mary like person since Mary a virgin and mother to the world.
30:52
And she saw the heroic sacrifice her own mother had made and she
30:56
saw all of the lay people in their lifetime and the sacrifice
30:59
to somebody. Often it is the mother that's
31:01
left there with the children and the responsibilities, the
31:04
challenges, the feeding, the sleep with the sick kids, the
31:07
whole deal. So she always wanted, she said,
31:09
pray the work, you know, and to to let God use you without
31:13
consulting you. And so to be open to what the
31:16
day was and to celebrate it and to just be a mother to be
31:20
present to the work. She was a big fan of, you know,
31:23
obviously she knew that there were situations where women had
31:25
to be separated from their kids so they could go earn money to
31:28
pay. You know, that's not uncommon in
31:30
the third world to leave the children with an aunt and uncle
31:32
or someone family or even friends to go work.
31:35
But she was big on the family and and on the role that the
31:39
mother plays in it. And in an age now today where
31:42
motherhood is denigrated, attacked, of course it was going
31:45
to be if you allowed abortion. So of course motherhood was
31:48
going to be attacked and birthing persons and all this
31:51
nonsense, all the gender nonsense.
31:53
It all started really, I believe, with this attack on
31:56
motherhood, on the it's what Genesis and Revelations, all of
32:00
these great scriptures point to is this attack on the woman.
32:05
And so mother was a, you know, encouraged women in their
32:09
vocations to to pray and to, you know, have time for each other.
32:14
Mother said to marry me. She goes, you should have a
32:15
proper home. You know, don't try to live like
32:18
the MCS life. Have a proper home, you know,
32:20
and just choose not to have some things, you know, so that life
32:23
of choosing not to have. And So what does?
32:25
That look like for you all. Well, Mary and I choose
32:29
different things not to have. That's the problem.
32:33
But yeah, I mean, the life of choosing not to have means you
32:36
have to, you have to grow together, you know, if you want
32:39
to, you know, if you want to think of yourself as a St. live
32:42
alone, right? So when you live in marriage and
32:44
family life, there's going to be struggles and trials.
32:47
And that's part of the growth is that we learn how to to love in
32:51
the midst of that and to not picket the speck in their eye,
32:54
but to deal with the plank in her own eyes.
32:56
And so mother was very pragmatic, extremely pragmatic.
33:00
The advice she would give to people.
33:01
I would watch her in discussions, you know, where she
33:04
was just very direct and if she had a light, she would give it,
33:08
you know, if it, even if it meant separate from that
33:11
situation, she would tell the people that.
33:13
So she was, she followed the Holy Spirit, incredible
33:15
judgment. Never.
33:17
I worked for U.S. President, I worked for US
33:19
senator, Governor never, never knew anyone that had the
33:22
judgment she had. And you think that's sourced in
33:25
her prayer? I do.
33:27
I believe it was the wisdom of God that was given to her
33:30
because she was so receptive that she could receive it.
33:33
And she always felt it was for others.
33:36
And, and I think it was to the extent of her love, you know,
33:39
that she loved until it heard and she trusted that the Lord
33:43
would equip her for the battle. And she had battles, you know,
33:45
she was tried and she spoke with the devil often, you know, and
33:48
letters to me, she wrote about, you know, the devil's mad angry
33:51
in Haiti. She wrote in one letter to me,
33:54
you know, because they were doing work there, you know, So
33:56
she's still in the sisters are in Gaza, Ukraine.
33:58
They have to pray, you know, without prayer, they would be,
34:03
they'd be at the mercy of the world.
34:04
But with prayer, they're united with Christ.
34:06
And so they're still, they didn't leave Haiti.
34:08
They're in Syria, they're in Yemen.
34:10
They're, you know, these women and the priests that are in neat
34:13
Nairobi. It's just beautiful to see.
34:16
Did you ever see Mother Teresa give practical, specific advice
34:20
to married people, especially married mothers?
34:23
And I'm asking this because obviously the plan of life for
34:25
an MC for missionary charity includes, you know, Holy Hour
34:28
Mass. It has these certain prayer
34:32
responsibilities that they have to keep them close to their life
34:34
source, which is Jesus Christ. When you're a busy mom, you
34:37
can't do the exact plan of life that maybe you would have done
34:40
before becoming a mom. Does she ever advise Mary or
34:43
you? And what did that look like?
34:45
She she certainly said you'd have to be respectful of your
34:48
station in life and to pray the work.
34:50
So even if you couldn't be in the Chapel, she knew that the
34:52
religious life allowed them this undivided time and adoration,
34:57
the Liturgy of the Hours, all the things that you can do when
34:59
you're single, you know, but when you when you're married and
35:03
you have children, it's very difficult to do those things to
35:06
find time for the rosary. So, you know, prayed in the car.
35:08
Mother showed, you know, we would, when I would drive her,
35:11
she would take my rosary, give me hers and we'd pray a rosary
35:14
while we were driving somewhere because mother prayed.
35:18
But she, she was big on balance, you know, that that there'd be
35:21
time for recreation like her sisters get recreation and that
35:24
there was time for rest and that and to make sure that you had
35:27
time for each other, you know, that you would have date nights
35:29
and things. Mother was very pragmatic.
35:32
So yeah, I think without prayer, we won't have the patience.
35:36
We, you know, you won't grow in the virtues.
35:38
You know, Mother became a St. not because she was a foundress
35:42
or a Mystic. She became a St. through the
35:44
heroic practice of Christian virtue.
35:46
That's the test of the Vatican. And it was through that practice
35:49
of virtue and community life with Mother.
35:51
And for you and me and our married states to to that it's
35:54
how do we practice virtue in the midst of all these challenges?
35:57
And how do we in the school of mercy, you know, his mother did
36:01
not think that that marriage was about happiness.
36:04
It was about holiness. And so that's what going to be a
36:08
trial. You know, there's going to be a
36:09
cross. And there's no authentic
36:10
Christian life that doesn't have one.
36:12
And she knew that. In today's modern world, it can
36:14
be very difficult to take the time and the space to pray and
36:18
even to know how to pray. That's why I love the Hollow
36:21
app. The Hollow App is the number one
36:23
Christian app in the world. It's been downloaded over
36:26
15,000,000 times and it helps us deepen our relationship with
36:29
God. When you use the Hallow app, you
36:31
get access to over 10,000 guided prayers, meditations, stories
36:36
and other content to help you with your prayer.
36:39
Whether you're driving in your car or you're doing dishes or
36:42
you're just going about your day and you just need 5 to 10
36:45
minutes to sit down and focus on what matters most, your
36:47
relationship with God, Hallow App will help you do that.
36:50
With Hallow, you'll learn to pray with scripture using the
36:53
Bible. You'll also discover prayers
36:55
that have been prayed by Christians for thousands of
36:58
years. I also love that Hallow takes
37:00
some of the most beautiful and the best spiritual classics and
37:03
incorporates them for you into your daily prayer life.
37:06
Right now, there's a special challenge going on with Hallow
37:09
to rediscover the Christian classic by CS Lewis, Mere
37:13
Christianity. Mere Christianity was one of the
37:15
key books for me that helped me in my journey and my walk with
37:18
Jesus Christ. And what Hallow is doing is
37:20
taking excerpts from Mere Christianity and doing guided
37:23
prayer times. After reading through the
37:25
excerpts, there's all kinds of fun challenges on the Hallow app
37:28
to help you improve your prayer life and again, access to every
37:32
kind of prayer that you can imagine.
37:34
I especially love the kids content on Halo.
37:36
I use it with my kids and they also have wonderful sleep
37:39
prayers and sleep stories that you can use to help you wind
37:41
down at the end of a long day. You can download Halo for free
37:45
for three months when you go to the link in the description or
37:48
go to halo.com/lila. That's halo.com/lila.
37:53
Download Halo today and deep in your prayer walk with God.
37:57
You mentioned earlier, and I'm going to ask you too, about
38:01
aging with dignity, but you also mentioned her dark night of the
38:05
soul and the darkness that she wrestled with.
38:08
And there was another book alongside your great book, Here
38:12
to Love and Be Loved, which we're going to put in the
38:14
description notes for people to get access to.
38:16
But there's the book Come Be My Light, which is publishing her
38:19
letters, many of which include her wrestling with the spiritual
38:23
darkness that she experienced. And I think there is maybe a lot
38:27
of confusion about what that means, because some people think
38:30
that that means that she didn't know, she didn't have confidence
38:33
or trust in God's love for her. So there's that
38:35
misunderstanding. And I think there's also a
38:37
misunderstanding where when people feel an aridity in their
38:40
own spirit life or dryness, like they feel a maybe a distance
38:43
from God, they think, oh, that's I'm in a dark night.
38:46
You know, maybe like Mother Teresa or maybe they have a lot
38:48
of negative feelings or they lack feelings in their prayer.
38:51
And so they might think, oh, I'm having this dark night, but
38:54
there's something very specific that The Dark Knight that Mother
38:57
Teresa experienced meant. Can you share more about that
39:01
and what you observed being so close to Mother Teresa in the
39:03
last 12 years? Yeah, it was.
39:05
It floored us to find out that she had experienced this sense
39:08
of being abandoned and forsaken. When when Father Brian sent me
39:12
the galley proofs to Come Be my Light to read for the first time
39:15
before it was published and just to do a legal review, I was
39:19
stunned by it. I, I called Sister Normal.
39:21
I was like, wait a minute, did you know this, that Mother had
39:25
felt this and written? No, she had no idea.
39:27
So Mother didn't tell anybody. But if I'd had that, I'd have
39:30
been complaining to everybody, you know, like, oh, where's God,
39:32
you know? And she never said it.
39:35
She killed her confessor though. She did in letters under
39:38
obedience. She did and, and she shared it
39:40
and, and wrote it out, poured out her heart.
39:42
I mean, when you read those letters, they're powerful.
39:45
And I came, I wrote a chapter on it, but I think the church is
39:50
going to spend hundreds of years because it was a very prolonged,
39:52
lengthy period of utter darkness.
39:55
When you read Padre Pio's biographies, when you read the
39:57
Little Flowers biography, you see that they went through these
40:00
same periods of darkness. The extraordinary thing about
40:03
mothers was it just never let up.
40:05
And so she learned to befriend the darkness.
40:07
But like, I was in her hospital room with her in 1996 when she
40:10
had had a heart attack. She was there in Calcutta.
40:14
She had the Blessed Sacrament directly in front of her bed.
40:17
She had an image of the Blessed Mother here, one of the little
40:20
Flower here. There was no doubt in her mind
40:22
where she was going. You know, Time magazine had put
40:25
on the cover. You know, when those letters
40:27
came out that had. Did Mother Teresa lose faith?
40:29
You know, like you said, no. But that's the secular take.
40:34
Mother knew that Jesus was with her.
40:36
She she took, she just had the darkness of faith.
40:38
But when she received communion, when she was with the Word, when
40:41
she's with the poor, it was holy.
40:43
So Mother knew, but she just had learned to accept the darkness.
40:46
But what did that mean? That she experienced darkness?
40:48
Was that like an emotional experience that she had where
40:51
she wasn't feeling good emotions in prayer?
40:53
Can you what? What did it mean?
40:55
You know, when you read her letters, it it, it describes it.
40:58
So it's kind of hard to paraphrase these gut wrenching,
41:02
you know, that you've abandoned your early love for me and that
41:04
you, you know, you've hit you're hidden yourself from me and
41:07
you've abandoned me and forsaken I've I came to accept the fact
41:11
that that when she spoke of being forsaken, it was the is
41:17
sharing then what Jesus had said.
41:19
You know, my God, my God, why have you abandoned me, forsaken
41:22
me? You know, she was experiencing
41:23
the hit in his whole humanity. In her humanity.
41:27
She was experiencing that. And I think, yeah, there was
41:31
that lost sense of the intimacy that she once enjoyed was gone.
41:35
And when you read her visions that she had had that described
41:40
that intimacy, you can see why the contrast was so dramatic.
41:43
But when we were with her, we had no idea.
41:46
I saw how hard she worked physically, the hours she kept.
41:50
I kept thinking, well, the Lord's whispering sweet nothings
41:53
in her ear and that's how she had all this energy.
41:55
And then to find out it was exactly the opposite.
41:57
But I think the Lord allowed her those experiences so that she
42:02
could enter into the experience of the poor and they're being
42:06
abandoned, unloved, unwanted, unwelcome.
42:09
I think Mother experienced that in that small way.
42:13
And do you think it could be also that because she had had
42:16
these intense consolations, like the visions she had had this
42:20
like, almost like this euphoria of experiencing the delight of
42:24
God in her and being, you know, the spouse of God.
42:27
Now she's, you know, this consecrated religious, I mean,
42:30
that whole experience, having so much tremendous consolations
42:34
that she experienced once that maybe was removed.
42:37
And she's now like in in the thick of it, like the intensity
42:40
of what she was doing without having that same consolation.
42:45
It's easier to feel the darkness when you've felt the light, you
42:47
know I. Think that's right?
42:48
And the intensity of that love she felt.
42:51
I think that's right and experienced in every way, not
42:54
just in the order of senses, but also even in the order of faith.
42:58
She was illumined about the thirst of Christ for love and
43:01
for souls. This was the charism of the
43:04
Missionaries of Charity. That's why if you go to a
43:06
Missionaries of Charity Chapel anywhere in the world, you'll
43:08
see the crucifix in the Chapel and you'll see the words I
43:11
thirst right next to it, you know, because that was at the
43:14
heart of her spiritual awareness of what God communicated to her.
43:19
So, yeah, I think she just came to accept it and she just
43:23
trusted him. And she felt if that's what God
43:25
was asking of her, she would give it.
43:26
That's why she, when she prayed, you know, that she wouldn't
43:31
refuse him anything. I think that was one of the
43:33
things he took from her. But she came to accept it and
43:36
you just never knew it. And she wrote about it in the
43:38
letters that that her cheerfulness was a cloak.
43:42
She wasn't being a hypocrite. She was basically just doing,
43:46
you know, just aware of the fact there's a happy ending to this.
43:49
She truly knew she was going home to God.
43:51
I mean, when I she knew she came from God and was going home to
43:55
God, it was that simple to her. You know, when I, when I saw her
43:59
before that time, before she died, I was said, mother, I'm
44:03
going to miss you so much when you're on the other side.
44:05
And and she said I have my bags packed.
44:08
You know, she had her bags packed.
44:09
She was she was knew where she was going.
44:11
There was no doubt in her mind where she was going.
44:14
So I mean, people didn't want to distort it.
44:16
Just like the chapter having the book on the critics.
44:18
It's very fashionable now to troll mother on the Internet.
44:21
And if you troll her, you, I mean, if you put in some
44:24
keywords, you'll see how awful and ugly it's gotten.
44:27
It's all untrue. So I it's.
44:29
A demonic attack. All the critics, Mother Teresa
44:32
saying she was, you know, trafficking and all these sick
44:35
accusations about inverting the beautiful work she did to care
44:39
for the poor. Somehow she was hurting them,
44:41
hurting children. Right.
44:43
No, there that there's criticism.
44:45
So I rebut them in the book because it's fashionable now.
44:48
But but there's an attack on the holy.
44:50
I mean, look at the oppression that we see now in the world
44:53
where the truth's been turned upside down.
44:55
Whenever you see all these lies that are going on.
44:58
And then the lack of leadership in the world where there's
45:00
really, you know, where is the leadership, you know, So thank
45:03
God for our church and for the where we make our spiritual
45:08
home. And mother loved, you know, she
45:09
said, I love all religions, but I'm in love with my own, you
45:12
know, and she was able to operate in an environment where
45:15
she just loved. And, and I think that the world
45:20
now there's growing fears and you know, but our hope's not in
45:23
God. It's in, I mean, our hope is not
45:25
in government, it's in God. And that's our savior.
45:29
Government's not our savior. Mother Teresa encouraged you and
45:32
even asked you to start your organization Aging with Dignity.
45:35
Tell me more about why she asked you to do that and what?
45:38
Aging with Dignity. Well, I was talking to her about
45:40
the assisted suicide clouds that were forming in Florida at that
45:43
time in 199596. And I was worried about it.
45:48
And I felt like if we, as we saw with abortion and that polarized
45:52
debate, I felt if we could get the discussion about what good
45:55
end of life care looked like. Because I had lived in the AIDS
45:57
home for a year and I'd seen it. And I wrote a document called 5
46:01
Wishes, which helps families plan for, discuss end of life
46:04
care. It's a legal document.
46:05
I had the American Bar Association help me.
46:07
It's now 43,000,000 copies out there and 33 languages.
46:11
So by God's grace, that's being used to help families have a
46:15
hopeful vision of end of life care without embracing the lie
46:18
of assisted suicide, that somehow that's going to solve
46:22
the problems of the dying and disabled.
46:25
When you look at the world today, it's frightening to see
46:28
how quickly this has taken hold. 10 states, the District of
46:31
Columbia have legalized assisted suicide.
46:34
Eight countries euthanasia, 14 assisted suicide countries.
46:39
Netherlands killed 10,000 people, euthanized 1000 people
46:43
in Oregon where they've had assisted suicide forever.
46:45
They always say, Oh well we'll have mental health.
46:47
You know, they always have these so-called protections.
46:49
You know, we'll have mental health services.
46:51
One out of 50 got the mental health screened, one out of 50
46:55
of. Those killed by assisted suicide
46:57
in Oregon. So you see that all these
46:59
so-called protections, they just, they put in these strict
47:02
guidelines and then proceed to just move all the guardrails,
47:05
dismiss them waiting periods. Now look at Canada.
47:09
They've, they've, they, they now allow assisted suicide.
47:12
They called medical aid and dying.
47:14
You know, they were already engineering the language, just
47:15
like they do at abortion, medical aid and dying.
47:19
And to have physicians instead of caring, now they're killing
47:23
patients. And that's called compassion.
47:25
Fortunately, American Medical Association hasn't fought that
47:28
argument. But you know, it's a matter of
47:30
time before the woke gets to that point.
47:33
But I think a better way to go, we focus our attention on good
47:37
end of life care, good palliative care, Hospice care,
47:39
family communications, helping people pray that time see that
47:44
God's waiting. So it's a challenge for the
47:47
churches to do their job and to help people see that aging is
47:50
not a curse, it's a blessing. So Aging with Dignity has a
47:52
bunch of programs, seminars, webinars, training healthcare
47:55
professionals with our 5 Wishes document and now our new
47:58
Finishing Life Faithfully document, which is an end of
48:01
life died for Catholics that takes all the church teachings.
48:05
60 footnotes. Cardinal Dolan, Cardinal
48:07
O'Malley. But bunch of my Bishop friends
48:11
have endorsed it, are promoting it in the diocese.
48:13
Cardinal Archbishop Laurie in Baltimore is giving it to every
48:16
one of his priests. So we have to help people.
48:20
We can't just say you can't do this.
48:22
You can see the sympathy. But if they see how the disabled
48:25
are going to be pushed toward euthanasia, the right to die is
48:28
going to become a duty to die. As a Bishop in England just
48:31
said, because they're voting October 16th, they have the
48:33
Parliament's taking up the legalization of it in Britain.
48:37
So it's scary. Last year, Massachusetts,
48:41
Delaware came real close to Maryland.
48:43
They're they're all flirting with this and compassionate
48:46
choices is pushing their agenda and it's awful.
48:48
So a better way is to promote good end of life care and to
48:51
help our disabled and instead of killing a person, care for them,
48:55
help, help them see what is it they need.
48:57
A lot of times it's loneliness. They feel like they've been
49:00
rejected or they're a burden and they don't feel they're a gift.
49:03
So that's an invitation for us to visit nursing homes, assisted
49:05
living facilities and help our own family members.
49:08
Can you describe for people who might not understand what it
49:11
means assisted suicide? I think there's again, it's even
49:15
though the the word euthanasia is a sanitation sanitizing of
49:20
killing somebody, just like abortion is sanitizing killing a
49:24
baby. We talk a lot of live action
49:26
about what abortions do. They starve to death, they
49:28
dismember. I mean really brutal acts
49:30
against this developing new human life.
49:33
But it's not like a walk in the park to die via assisted
49:37
suicide. Can you describe what are the
49:40
methods that are being used to kill not just elderly folks, but
49:44
sometimes even children who have a debilitating condition or a
49:48
disability? That's right.
49:49
I mean they they had dozens of of anorexic women, young women,
49:54
some of them a 17 year old was just euthanized in the
49:57
Netherlands. A 17 year old girl with anorexia
50:01
was killed who just wanted doctors in the Netherlands.
50:04
Yeah, and so, but assisted suicide is you, you want your,
50:08
you've made the decision to end your life.
50:10
And most states it's illegal to support a suicide.
50:13
You know, we when someone's up on a building about the jump,
50:16
you don't sit there and go, oh, maybe it's good for them.
50:18
Maybe it's the right thing. You know, we're wired for life.
50:22
You know, we want to help them. What's wrong?
50:24
You know, we're our brother's keeper.
50:26
You know, this is the call. But but with assisted suicide,
50:29
very often there's depression or there's pain that could be
50:32
treated and is being poorly treated because sometimes
50:34
medicine doesn't know when to stop and it keeps doing some
50:38
procedures and ignoring the pain of people.
50:40
So yeah, I think that what has happened with assisted suicide
50:45
is, you know, a person is they have certain guidelines in the
50:50
state statutes that you have to be certain months of expected to
50:53
die. And although interestingly
50:55
enough, if you have a disability, immediately qualify.
50:58
So this is how they're looking at it.
50:59
So if you call a suicide hotline and you're disabled, you're
51:02
presumed to be pushed toward assisted suicide.
51:05
Where in states that have it legal?
51:07
Like Oregon. Yeah.
51:08
And what are the other states? Oh.
51:10
There we have a list on our website at Aging with Dignity,
51:14
but they, the states like Arizona don't even capture the
51:18
data. California, of course it's
51:19
legal. California had the most assisted
51:21
suicides last year. And how are these being
51:23
performed? In the US.
51:24
Is it lethal injection? So they have the patient, they
51:28
up the morphine and then they stick, right?
51:30
It's a cocktail of drugs to to end their life, to immediately
51:33
end their life. I've heard some reports, Jim,
51:36
that even in the process of these lethal injections, and by
51:38
the way, they use similar poison for the baby in lethal injection
51:42
abortions, which are all late trimester abortions, they do a
51:45
lethal injection of the baby. It's, it's, it's heinous.
51:48
But for these patients, like in California who are doing
51:50
assisted suicide, they call euthanasia, whatever they want
51:52
to call it, aid and dying in, in Canada, I've heard reports that
51:56
in some of these lethal injections that they're doing to
51:58
kill these people that it doesn't always this idea that
52:02
they just drift to sleep and they don't feel pain.
52:04
That's not always the case, that sometimes they go into a almost
52:07
a paralytic state where they feel basically they're drowning,
52:14
like they're drowning to death, but you don't see them in pain
52:17
because they're paralyzed. Have you heard this report?
52:19
I've, I've heard some of it and quite frankly, I'm out of my
52:23
depth on that issue, the medical consequences, the injection.
52:26
But what I can tell you is what's really chilling is what
52:30
precedes it because it's often a bunch of adults that are pushing
52:34
you. It's in supporting a suicide.
52:36
I mean, who does that? I understand people can be in a
52:39
lot of pain. I understand the baby boomers
52:41
want control. They want to call the shots at
52:44
the end. They want death on their own
52:45
terms. I get why there's, there's some
52:48
sympathy or support for it, but when someone usually it's a cry
52:52
for help when someone's talking about I want to die, you know,
52:55
to get underneath that and say what's really going on.
52:58
It's very many times it's they feel they're a burden to others
53:01
or they're getting subtle signals from family members to
53:04
why don't you finish this up? Because we can't stand your
53:06
suffering. You know, I had a twin sister
53:09
who died of ALS. It's a terrible disease.
53:12
You know, she was cared forward and loved till the very end.
53:15
It's, you know, we, we have a responsibility to accompany
53:19
people when they're sick and dying, not to, to, to simply
53:23
accelerate, you know, cut to the chase, you know, because the
53:27
God, they're going home to God. These are, you know, it's a
53:30
defiance in a way of life. But I, I, I, it doesn't have to
53:33
be a religious issue. People can approach it their own
53:35
way. To me, if you care about the
53:38
disabled and people who are fragile, get them help.
53:41
You know, don't say your solution is for us to end your
53:44
life because that is a slippery slope.
53:46
And we're watching In Canada, they've now extended it to
53:49
minors, to minors, no parental consent to minors, no mental
53:53
health screening. That's of consequence.
53:55
You look at the waiting list to even see a doctor in Canada now.
53:58
So they, they cultivate the very environment in which they
54:02
cultivate despair. And then they say, oh, here we
54:05
can end your misery quickly with this medical aid and dying or
54:09
assisted suicide or euthanasia. But euthanasia, to your
54:11
question, is simply any act or or mission with the intent of
54:17
ending someone's life. And so it's the intent that
54:19
that's the focus. And the Catechism explains this
54:22
very clearly. Jim, how can people find your
54:25
work with aging with dignity and also your guidance for how to
54:30
prepare end of life care for individuals?
54:32
Because if people have a, you know, a will, a living will,
54:36
they have a trust, whatever they you have different things that
54:39
can set up to ensure that their healthcare at the end of their
54:42
life is done in accordance with not just their faith, but I
54:45
believe human rights to give them proper care they can.
54:48
Do two things, one is they can go to our website at ageing with
54:51
dignity.org or Google 5 wishes. It'll take them to it at agent
54:56
with dignity.org. You'll see finishing life
54:58
faithfully prominently displayed and this is the new guide for
55:01
Catholics on the life care you. But the other is to start having
55:05
discussions in your parishes. We we when's the last time you
55:08
heard a sermon at church about end of life care right.
55:11
You know, how many sermons do you hear?
55:13
Abortion, we need both. Those are like the two biggest
55:16
things that are happening culturally.
55:18
It's how we care for the youngest and the oldest and the
55:20
sick and our society. Legally, system systems are
55:24
being weaponized against the youngest, the eldest and the
55:27
sick. That's right.
55:28
And so I think the more that we start to discuss this issue,
55:32
baby boomers think they're going to live forever, but unless
55:34
you're Elvis Presley, you're not, you know, so you've got to
55:37
start addressing these questions of anti life care and, and
55:41
having family discussions where people come together and say
55:44
there's a diagnosis of Alzheimer's and this person's
55:47
going to change. They sometimes say that's two
55:49
deaths. You know, you lose the person
55:51
once and then you lose them finally.
55:53
Well, you commit. You come together and commit and
55:56
say I'm going to be with you. I'm going to accompany you.
55:58
Your pains going to be managed. You're going to be prayed for it
56:00
and loved. So that's why 5 Wishes took off,
56:03
because it talks about also comfort, dignity, how I want to
56:06
be remembered, what I want my loved ones to know.
56:08
Who do I forgive? All these tools in addition to
56:11
the living will and durable power of attorney for health.
56:13
So yeah, we need to start having these discussions and we need to
56:16
be careful, compassionate choices as an agenda.
56:18
They are pushing assisted suicide.
56:21
They're the former Hemlock Society.
56:23
They're trying to change the word suicide so nobody uses it.
56:26
It's bad manners now to use it. It's not.
56:28
It's suicide when you take your own life.
56:30
And I'm not judging anyone. And the Lord is solely the one
56:34
that judges, including the hearts.
56:35
And I had a close friend commit suicide, and I don't judge where
56:38
he is. I know the Lord saw his troubled
56:41
condition and so I understand it.
56:44
But as a society, are we really going to start making the
56:47
disabled so uncomfortable that they have a duty to die, that
56:50
they should get out of the way, do the decent thing?
56:52
Because when you get to be with disabled people, you say they
56:55
love their lives. You know, they fight every day.
56:57
Just be alive. It's so hard to be have
57:00
Parkinson's, hard to be in a wheelchair all day long, you
57:04
know? So they love their lives.
57:06
It's meaningful. And they give lives to life to
57:08
others, the kids, the grandkids that are around it.
57:10
So we have to rediscover the beauty too, that comes in that
57:14
season in life. It's not all just darkness,
57:16
despair, you know, It's the cross, yes, but there's also at
57:19
the cross in this suffering, meaning in that suffering.
57:22
And we sometimes lose the sense of that.
57:25
I'm sure Mother Teresa is very proud of what you're doing, Jim.
57:29
I don't know. I'm, I got to pay.
57:31
So I credit card debt, I'm trying to pay it off.
57:33
I could, I'm barely keeping up with the interest payments, so
57:36
I'm not going to. But yeah, I, I, obviously Mary
57:39
and I and our children have a debt too.
57:41
So yeah, thank you. And thank you for what you do.
57:44
You have a lot of courage. How any any final words that you
57:48
think Mother Teresa might want to share if she were alive
57:52
today? Let's just stay with our
57:53
podcast. I don't know if that's too, too
57:55
intense to ask with the people listening.
57:56
And yeah, society at large, the way the world is today, what do
57:59
you think Mother Teresa would say?
58:01
Well, on her tombstone is John 1512.
58:03
Love one another as I have loved you.
58:06
When society heeds that command, there's a flourishment of grace
58:12
and kindness and all the virtues.
58:14
When we ignore that, we get into the kind of contentious politics
58:19
we see today and the breakdown in between men and women, the
58:23
attack on motherhood, the attacks on marriage, all the
58:26
things that we see today that have taken place when we stop
58:29
loving one another is God loves us.
58:31
So I think mother would urge people to to pray and to
58:36
reorient their lives to that. They realize they came from God
58:40
and we're going home to God and that this journey, maybe it
58:44
seems insignificant, but there's no insignificant life.
58:47
That's been your ministry, you know, to, to talk about the
58:50
beauty of that unborn child and to be a voice for that, that
58:54
beautiful life, you know, and for, and it also helped the
58:57
mothers who made those regrettable decisions to become
59:01
aware that their lives can now be a gift and, and not be lived
59:05
in shame. And so I do think that your
59:08
ministry and live action and what you're doing is a grace and
59:12
keep it up because it's not easy, is it?
59:15
Thank you, Jim, where can people find to love and be loved?
59:19
Well, it's on obviously Amazon and if you just Google it, Agent
59:24
with Dignity sells it. But you can get it Barnes and
59:27
Noble. That mean Simon Schuster didn't
59:29
exactly promote the book, but it's out there and I feel like
59:33
the sisters liked it. That was my primary audience and
59:36
Mary and I are giving all the royalties to the MCS and to
59:39
pro-life and other causes that aligned with Mother.
59:42
So we're not keeping any of the money.
59:44
So buy it. Jim, thank you so much.
59:47
Thank you. It's truly an inspiration and
59:49
what a joy to get to talk to you.
59:51
I've finally met Lila Rose and. I've met Jim Toohey, thank you,
59:56
a huge thank you to our partner. EWTNEWTN is the largest
1:00:01
religious network, reaching millions of people with the
1:00:04
truth of the faith, entertainment and news.
1:00:07
Check them out at ewtn.com.