Speaker 1: This episode includes discussion about sexual abuse and suicide that
Speaker 1: some listeners might find disturbing. Listener discretion as advised. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Modern Rules, a production of MSNBC and I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC anchor and NBC News correspondent,
Speaker 1: and this is a special bonus episode of Modern Rules. Ye.
Speaker 1: I had a couple of conversations this season that you
Speaker 1: didn't get to hear all. But those conversations stuck with me.
Speaker 1: They sat with me over the last few weeks and months,
Speaker 1: so much so that I wanted to share more. I
Speaker 1: sat down with Shawn Daugherty, and I want to share
Speaker 1: more of that conversation. Earlier this season, he and I
Speaker 1: talked about masculinity and faith in more leadership, but we
Speaker 1: covered more. Shawn's a Navy veteran, a restaurateur, and a
Speaker 1: prominent advocate for survive vers of sexual abuse. Back in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, between the ages of ten and thirteen,
Speaker 1: he was abused by a Catholic priest, and earlier this year,
Speaker 1: his activism on behalf of others took him all the
Speaker 1: way to Rome to share his story at Pope Francis's
Speaker 1: summit to discuss the church wide generation's long history of
Speaker 1: sexual abuse. I had a long talk with Seawn about forgiveness,
Speaker 1: what it takes, what it means, and the power it
Speaker 1: can have. One of the reasons we decided to start
Speaker 1: this podcast is because we are surrounded by conflict right now.
Speaker 1: We are surrounded by conflict. Lack of forgiveness arise in anger.
Speaker 1: But this is also a time when more people are
Speaker 1: telling their stories. So I would love it if you
Speaker 1: would share yours. Beginning when I was ten years old
Speaker 1: in my hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in my Catholic school
Speaker 1: of St. Clement's Parish, my religion teacher, who is also
Speaker 1: my basketball coach, began sexually assaulting me and classmates above
Speaker 1: me and below me, and continued with me progressively for
Speaker 1: three years until one incident went too far in a
Speaker 1: shower after a racquetball match and after shooting a very
Speaker 1: stern look, no words were spoken and it just ended
Speaker 1: with me. When you were a boy and this was
Speaker 1: happening to you, did you think it was just you
Speaker 1: or did you think it was happening to other boys?
Speaker 1: Did you think it was normal? When I was ten,
Speaker 1: I thought I was isolated. I thought it was just me,
Speaker 1: but you know, I'm the eighth and nine kids. You
Speaker 1: catch on the things quickly, figure things quickly out. Why
Speaker 1: didn't you tell anyone? Or did you no? When I
Speaker 1: was a kid, no one? And when I was young.
Speaker 1: You know, even though there were nine kids in my family,
Speaker 1: we didn't talk about sex, and we didn't It was happening,
Speaker 1: but we weren't talking about it. And in the faith
Speaker 1: it Irish Catholic. My dad is a good man, but
Speaker 1: he was a hard man. He was a steelmaker. You
Speaker 1: literally made steel for Bethleem Steel. That was my father.
Speaker 1: And if you said something against the priest, you just
Speaker 1: you just don't. You're not there to question what the
Speaker 1: teachers and the priests and the nuns are doing. You're
Speaker 1: there to learn, You're there to obey, You're there to behave.
Speaker 1: When did you tell people? When did you tell your
Speaker 1: parents you're sibling? When I was one? I joined the
Speaker 1: Navy when I was one, and right before they ship
Speaker 1: you off to boot camp, you were in what is
Speaker 1: called a maps station. It's a staging station before they
Speaker 1: send you the air portnight maps station. They swear you in,
Speaker 1: they give you the oath, and if you take that
Speaker 1: oath honestly, or any oath honestly, you have to say something.
Speaker 1: You feel a sense of duty that I know this guy,
Speaker 1: is it John Lester. I know my parents when I
Speaker 1: came home from boot camp. What did they say? It
Speaker 1: was at the time too hard for them to believe.
Speaker 1: I'm at at the church hierarchy. I'm at at the
Speaker 1: district attorneys, I'm at at the police. You know, we
Speaker 1: all seld a movie spotlight. I'm mad that that these
Speaker 1: other people that swore Ose two didn't hold their oath,
Speaker 1: didn't hold up their end of their oath, and didn't
Speaker 1: protect the people in the communities that they swore an
Speaker 1: oath to protect. If they apologized, If he apologized, could
Speaker 1: you forgive him? I forgive him a long time ago.
Speaker 1: When it all comes down to it, regardless of whether
Speaker 1: I'm a practice in Catholic or I believe in God
Speaker 1: or I believe in whatever I was raised to forgive,
Speaker 1: you know, that's part of the thing. And if sorry,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. I'm my rule is to forgive him,
Speaker 1: give him the opportunity to be sorry. You know, if
Speaker 1: he is unchangeable, I don't think you ake up one
Speaker 1: day and decided to be a pedophile. I think you
Speaker 1: are a pedophile. I don't think you wake up one
Speaker 1: day and beside to be heterosexual or homosexual, or bisexual
Speaker 1: or transgender. I don't think you choose that. I think
Speaker 1: that chooses you. So I believe he needs help just
Speaker 1: as much as his victims do. He needs treatment now,
Speaker 1: he needs to be punished. He's done horrific, horrific things.
Speaker 1: And in when I told my parents when I came
Speaker 1: home from boot camp, I was mad that night, and
Speaker 1: I found the rectory that he was at and I
Speaker 1: sat in front of it for three hours. It was
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve of and what did you do? And I
Speaker 1: just sat there and talked myself out and going up
Speaker 1: to the door and going inside and confronting him. I
Speaker 1: thought of his mother. Had I known in what I
Speaker 1: know today about everything that happened and to who and
Speaker 1: what was done, and the fact that people in the
Speaker 1: diocese and in the church hierarchy knew that he was
Speaker 1: a pedophile and didn't talk to any of us, didn't
Speaker 1: go to my parents and say this is what he's
Speaker 1: doing to you know, we know this. They didn't do that.
Speaker 1: You know so had I known then in the mood
Speaker 1: that I was in that night, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know what I would have done. You truly understand
Speaker 1: the value of forgiveness when you look at the rise
Speaker 1: and hate and the anger around us right now? Do
Speaker 1: you think an injection of forgiveness is what we need? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Do you know what really helped me solidify my forgiveness
Speaker 1: from him? South Carolina? The Charleston Church Baptist That floored me.
Speaker 1: Why immediately without hesitation? The church shooting, the church shooting.
Speaker 1: They were damaged, broken people, but yet they have a
Speaker 1: strong faith. Is that the most powerful thing you can
Speaker 1: have the power to forgive? I haven't seen much more
Speaker 1: powerful than that. I mean in all of the things
Speaker 1: that are going on in the world today. I mean
Speaker 1: tear gas being shot across the river, you know, a children,
Speaker 1: separation of children, sexual abuse of children, and custody. Somebody
Speaker 1: coming into your church and just murdering in cold blood
Speaker 1: for nothing more than rage and hateful fueled reasons. To
Speaker 1: immediately forgive that person takes a very strong person. But
Speaker 1: what an example if you were unable to forgive, whether
Speaker 1: it was the priest or the church, could you live
Speaker 1: a productive life. I forgive I'm gonna struggle to liver
Speaker 1: productive life. Now, are you kidding me? This is a
Speaker 1: hard setting to live in. This is a hard This
Speaker 1: is a hard time to live. This is a hard
Speaker 1: time to imagine. Imagine being a victim of abuse. And
Speaker 1: it's in the news constantly. You know, be careful what
Speaker 1: you wish for, you wish your whole life. You like,
Speaker 1: I want this in the news all the time. I
Speaker 1: want this in the news, And now it's like, this
Speaker 1: is the news all the time. So it's wonderful on
Speaker 1: one extreme, but on the other stream, it's like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I'm going out of my mind. So that's
Speaker 1: very interesting because I think you experienced this abuse decades ago,
Speaker 1: and now it's only in the last year. Here we
Speaker 1: are right back in it. You went to the Vatican
Speaker 1: in February. Is that a positive that you're dealing with
Speaker 1: it and addressing it, or do you simply want this
Speaker 1: to go away so it stops plaguing your life. Both.
Speaker 1: I want the ladder. I want them to absolutely address this.
Speaker 1: I want the church, the organization's, the federal government, the
Speaker 1: state's governments to address this once and for all, and
Speaker 1: protect the children, and I want this to all go
Speaker 1: away as an issue. At the same time, it is
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly in the news constantly without doing this. If I
Speaker 1: wasn't doing this, for the people listening to me doing this,
Speaker 1: I understand what they're going through, For the ones that
Speaker 1: are really struggling to go outside, really struggling just to
Speaker 1: go out and get a cup of coffee, you get
Speaker 1: the morning paper, come back in. You know. Doing this
Speaker 1: right here is the only difference between me and them.
Speaker 1: If I wasn't doing this, I would be literally going
Speaker 1: out of my mind right now. But I still don't
Speaker 1: understand why you're not angrier with the institution because right now,
Speaker 1: victims like you have found one another and come together
Speaker 1: and given one another strength, and really, in terms of
Speaker 1: the church, they've barely scratched. I am in raged at
Speaker 1: the church. The church. I have not forgiven the hierarchy.
Speaker 1: I will not forgive until they stop. The organization are evil.
Speaker 1: They are the worst, worst kind of evil. They are
Speaker 1: taking the most vulnerable o their followers. They are manipulating
Speaker 1: their faithful followers, children, They're manipulating the communities that they
Speaker 1: live in. They're manipulating through confessionally. Imagine the amount of
Speaker 1: information that is if my mom had nine kids, right,
Speaker 1: My father was an Irish steelmaking drinker like I mean,
Speaker 1: boiler makers like you couldn't imagine, I mean, and one
Speaker 1: after another after the shift the bars at seven am,
Speaker 1: after the seven a chef. It might as well have
Speaker 1: been a Friday night. You know. She did the island
Speaker 1: on meeting. You know, she had nine kids to raise,
Speaker 1: you know, and it was a rough life style and
Speaker 1: and that was her you know sanctuary. That was where
Speaker 1: she found grace. That is where you know, she would
Speaker 1: go into confession and talk about things that were going
Speaker 1: hard on their life. And instead of giving her hope
Speaker 1: and helping, they manipulated that and took that out on me.
Speaker 1: Why did an institution allow itself to do something like this?
Speaker 1: You went to the Vatican as the Pope a bad man.
Speaker 1: I didn't meet him. I mean I would have liked
Speaker 1: to have. You know, the twelve victims that met with
Speaker 1: the Vatican Summit committee chairs. I was one of the twelve,
Speaker 1: and we were all hoping to see the Pope come in,
Speaker 1: which he didn't do. I think he's a bad person.
Speaker 1: I don't know that he's a bad person, but I
Speaker 1: think he's protecting the Church and the institution and the
Speaker 1: secrets and the system um more than he should. And
Speaker 1: a few takeaways that I got from the Vatican meeting
Speaker 1: that I did have is, you know, the US is
Speaker 1: a very young country by comparisons to the other countries
Speaker 1: that the Catholic Church has had very very deep roots
Speaker 1: in for a very very long time. We're moving at
Speaker 1: a pace that makes the Church very uncomfortable, and they
Speaker 1: don't like it, not one bit. However, what I found
Speaker 1: unique is that while in Europe, so many European victims
Speaker 1: kept coming to the American victims saying, you have to
Speaker 1: keep doing it. To them, We're still the American cowboys
Speaker 1: from World War two, errors world. We're like, not in
Speaker 1: this country, you know. And that's what they're hoping for.
Speaker 1: They're hoping for the US to continue to drive this
Speaker 1: because we think that the Catholic Church has deep roots
Speaker 1: in our country, they have deeper roots in other countries.
Speaker 1: Hold on a second, because we have so much more
Speaker 1: to talk about. We'll be right back after a quick rate.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to modern rules and where's your faith in humanity?
Speaker 1: Where it's even harder to have that these days, isn't it?
Speaker 1: But I feel you are a soulful person. I feel
Speaker 1: you're an optimistic person in spite of all of this.
Speaker 1: So I want to understand where it comes from at
Speaker 1: a time when so many people, well, I have many
Speaker 1: people of faith tell me that I am faithful. I've
Speaker 1: had the Bishop of Altoona, Johnstown tell me that I
Speaker 1: believe in God. I'm just on leave, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: on break right now? Can I say that I pray? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Do I say that? Our father? And how Mary? No,
Speaker 1: I couldn't recite one right now. You would have to
Speaker 1: lead it. And if you let it, I could probably
Speaker 1: jump in. But I couldn't do it on my own
Speaker 1: right now. But they usually in an argument and rage.
Speaker 1: And I can tell you if God exists, I've said
Speaker 1: some very mean things to him over the years. How
Speaker 1: do you manage the rage? I scream? Throughout the years?
Speaker 1: I managed in different ways. I self medicated for a
Speaker 1: long time. Yeah, anything that would make me take me
Speaker 1: somewhere else, you know, conveniently being in the bar and
Speaker 1: restaurant business my whole life, especially nightclubs and things. You know,
Speaker 1: Cocaine is a magical tool you feel you fork and
Speaker 1: all of the alcohol, everything you know, it's magnificent until
Speaker 1: you get addicted cocaine and now you have two problems.
Speaker 1: But they don't help you forgive, they help you run.
Speaker 1: I was a pro at running until I got married
Speaker 1: two thousand four. If I wasn't married right now, I'd
Speaker 1: probably be behind the wheel of a eighteen wheel or
Speaker 1: truck or on some cargo ship to see. Are you
Speaker 1: at peace? No, not even close. Are you angry? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm incredibly angry. This has gone on long enough. What
Speaker 1: would make you not angry? If the federal government and
Speaker 1: the state individual state governments brought this issue up immediately,
Speaker 1: and we have separation of church and state, regardless of
Speaker 1: how much money that contribute to your campaign, we're supposed
Speaker 1: to be separated. And we have official state investigations from
Speaker 1: across the board in Pennsylvania that every single diocese in
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania is doing this, and now forty six other state
Speaker 1: attorney general world are inquiring at least say it that
Speaker 1: they are going to look into this. So but going
Speaker 1: to look into this? If we were talking about dozens
Speaker 1: and dozens of men of teachers of welders over the
Speaker 1: last fifty years that were abusing boys, they'd all be
Speaker 1: in jail. Are you kidding me? If this was a
Speaker 1: bike gang, if this was the Hell's Angels, Are you
Speaker 1: kidding me? Absolutely? But I alluded to it before campaign
Speaker 1: the power connection wealth. These reports said that these people manipuate.
Speaker 1: Why am I not upset at my parents now in
Speaker 1: the community now because they were groomed just like me.
Speaker 1: They were groomed before me. You have to groom them
Speaker 1: first in order to get them to hand you their children. Well,
Speaker 1: they're the people you're supposed to trust and look up
Speaker 1: to in your community, and we're finding out that you
Speaker 1: can't do that to everybody. So there have to be
Speaker 1: safeguards in place. And that is the role of our
Speaker 1: government to protect and serve these citizens in their communities,
Speaker 1: and they need to put better safeguards in to protect them.
Speaker 1: My statutes of limitation. When I was a kid, I
Speaker 1: had two years the end of my abuse. I told
Speaker 1: you earlier. I was thirteen years old, so I had
Speaker 1: to say something by the time I was fifteen years old.
Speaker 1: Talk about the power of the individual voice. Today it's changed.
Speaker 1: I'm one of nine kids from Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Three years ago.
Speaker 1: I came out for the first time publicly. I did
Speaker 1: my first public interview at the state Capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: and I am one of twelve people in the world
Speaker 1: that got a meeting with the Vatican Summit Committee chair people.
Speaker 1: One person's voice can do a hell of a lot
Speaker 1: if you just keep My mom used to say, squeaky
Speaker 1: will get the oil first. If you're tenacious, system works.
Speaker 1: If you're tenacious, you got right on your side. You're tenacious,
Speaker 1: and you have the I don't give an attitude. You
Speaker 1: can't hurt me. I don't care if I lose everything,
Speaker 1: You're not taking me now I'm I'm walking away. I
Speaker 1: don't care. I don't care. Then, as crazy as this
Speaker 1: sounds on some level, as horrible as this is what
Speaker 1: happened to you, do you ever think in the last
Speaker 1: few years that maybe, in some way this was your purpose.
Speaker 1: Look at what you've done, look at all of the
Speaker 1: people that you've helped. Just think about this for a moment.
Speaker 1: A few months ago, you into the Vatican. The Vatican
Speaker 1: brought every church leader from around the world. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying it's solved, but for the first time the
Speaker 1: Pope has actually addressed this. Do you think, in some
Speaker 1: crazy way maybe this was your purpose? Yeah, I have
Speaker 1: found my purpose in this. It didn't kill you, and
Speaker 1: you have made the world. I tried to kill myself
Speaker 1: and it didn't kill me. I swallowed three hundred pills
Speaker 1: here in New York when I was a young cook
Speaker 1: in the city. I didn't tell my brother I was
Speaker 1: flipping on, flopping on his foots on. But none of
Speaker 1: this killed you. And now you've done work that has
Speaker 1: saved people's lives. When you're in Rome, you were outside
Speaker 1: walking towards the Vatican with your wife and someone of
Speaker 1: Polish descent recognizes you from an article that a Polish
Speaker 1: magazine did and follows you on Twitter and Facebook. Comes over,
Speaker 1: says you're shot, ask you to keep it up. You're like,
Speaker 1: tells you you have to because we can only go
Speaker 1: so far. We're going to be right back after a
Speaker 1: quick break. Welcome back to modern rules. But think about that, Sean.
Speaker 1: If this never happened, you may have lived a regular
Speaker 1: life in Pennsylvania and it's been a brutal road. But
Speaker 1: now you've actually lived an extraordinary life where you're walking
Speaker 1: down a street in Rome, and a Polish person says
Speaker 1: to you, thank you for what you're doing. Don't you
Speaker 1: think that's amazing? It's incredible. It is the amount of today.
Speaker 1: When those feelings come up, there are things happening, things
Speaker 1: aren't buried. I have a very strong support group, a
Speaker 1: network of friends. Social media is incredible, the people like
Speaker 1: the person from Poland. I get phone calls all the time.
Speaker 1: A seventy six year old woman from Brooklyn called me.
Speaker 1: She was sitting next to her ninety six year old
Speaker 1: mother just a few months ago, bawling their eyes out
Speaker 1: because the mother was abused as a child by a nun,
Speaker 1: and the family always thought mom was nuts. They only
Speaker 1: learned two years ago the mom wasn't not she was
Speaker 1: abused and they were bonding over that. Me about the
Speaker 1: beautiful power of social media, because right now all we
Speaker 1: do is talk about the toxicity and the hate that
Speaker 1: it spreads. And you have had the comfortable amazing this
Speaker 1: can be the most amazing powerful told this being my phone.
Speaker 1: I told Bishop Barchek, I told in that Vatican summit
Speaker 1: meeting that I was in. On my desk, I had
Speaker 1: my copy of the Pennsylvania grand jury report, and I
Speaker 1: had four pictures of deceased victims from Pennsylvania, right. And
Speaker 1: I told them, whether you like it or not, whether
Speaker 1: you agree with any of this that has happened in
Speaker 1: to you, whether you are going to change anything or not,
Speaker 1: you just are no longer the most powerful entity on
Speaker 1: earth that belongs to social media now. And social media
Speaker 1: is demand that you do something about it. And if
Speaker 1: you don't, you can choose to do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: But social media is demanding you don't, and if you don't,
Speaker 1: you're going to get run over. I said, I'm one
Speaker 1: of nine children. I told them in this Vatican meeting.
Speaker 1: I said, I am one of nine children. They don't
Speaker 1: come more Catholics, the Novena's, the rosaries, the stations of
Speaker 1: the Cross. You know, I said, by rights, you should
Speaker 1: have had at least one none or one prise down
Speaker 1: in my family. Not only did you not get one,
Speaker 1: you only have one of my siblings coming to Mass,
Speaker 1: none of their children. That tells me, as a business person,
Speaker 1: as somebody that's following this very closely, you are the
Speaker 1: largest landowners in my country. And if you don't get
Speaker 1: ahead of this, and I mean properly, get ahead of
Speaker 1: this within one generation, my mother's generation. When my mother's
Speaker 1: generation is gone, you are going to have the largest
Speaker 1: yard sale in American history. And it's true, that's true.
Speaker 1: What has social media done for you? Though? In terms
Speaker 1: of reach? If Twitter didn't exist, if Facebook didn't exist,
Speaker 1: you could write an op ed in a local paper
Speaker 1: that maybe would get printed. It's incredible all of these things.
Speaker 1: You think you're alone, you're not alone, and now no
Speaker 1: longer are you alone. You're connected. And it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what time. If you're up at three in the morning
Speaker 1: because the monsters are in your head and your nightmares,
Speaker 1: you're kicking the bed off and you're rolling out of
Speaker 1: bed because you had raged. You can get on now
Speaker 1: the social media, if we allow it, it could be
Speaker 1: the worst tool in the world too, because as people
Speaker 1: like me are finding it comfortable to talk about the
Speaker 1: most horrific incidences of their lives, people are also finding
Speaker 1: it very comfortable that they might not say to somebody
Speaker 1: personally that they will just rip off in a tweet
Speaker 1: or in a thing. And we have to go through
Speaker 1: a phase where we learn you can't just throw tone
Speaker 1: through a tweet. You know, a person sending a tweet
Speaker 1: can have one meaning and it could be received in
Speaker 1: a totally different way. So there's gonna be a learning
Speaker 1: curve there, But I think in the end we all
Speaker 1: were very similar. Do you consider yourself a victim or
Speaker 1: someone living a blessed life both. I'm a survivor. I've
Speaker 1: survived to this point, sexual abuse, sexual assault. At times,
Speaker 1: I allow myself to feel the victim, probably sometimes too much,
Speaker 1: but in comparison to what I know now, I'm very fortunate.
Speaker 1: If I could change this what I yes, but it's
Speaker 1: part of my life story. It's formed who I am today,
Speaker 1: the good, the bad, and the ugly. You feel good
Speaker 1: about the world today, don't you know? I'm nervous as
Speaker 1: hell about the world today. I mean, but yeah, I've hoped.
Speaker 1: I mean it's gonna come out. Okay, we have elections.
Speaker 1: You know, people come another better senses. But on an
Speaker 1: individual basis, you feel good about humanity individuals one on one.
Speaker 1: I think if you would break it down to a
Speaker 1: one on one conversation, you would find more in common
Speaker 1: with the person sitting across from you. If you start
Speaker 1: adding more people into the conversation, you're only as strong
Speaker 1: as the weakest, most ignorant person In the room. So
Speaker 1: is that what's going to solve it for us? Because
Speaker 1: if you take the tribalism that we're living in right now,
Speaker 1: it's faceless, right. You know, one group is watching one
Speaker 1: set of news, one group is watching another. You're only
Speaker 1: following this group on social media and that group. But
Speaker 1: if more people sat at the table together on an
Speaker 1: individual basis, you think we can solve more. How are
Speaker 1: we gonna get to that table in towns all across
Speaker 1: the country. I think that's already happening naturally on social media.
Speaker 1: You know, the national divide as far as the world
Speaker 1: national press goes. And I'm not putting this on the
Speaker 1: presson I'm saying you have the national press, and you're right,
Speaker 1: you have the divide following this and following this well
Speaker 1: in each town you have Democrats and Republicans. You have
Speaker 1: people that are following one or the other, but they're
Speaker 1: still shopping and pulling lemons off the same shelf every
Speaker 1: Monday together at the grocery store or you know, and
Speaker 1: the right and they're like, what do you think about this?
Speaker 1: And wow, that's crazy? You know. I have conversations on serious,
Speaker 1: serious topics with people that I know from back home
Speaker 1: on both sides. Now, that are really good conversations that
Speaker 1: we can always end agreeing to disagree. But the conversation happened.
Speaker 1: Still it still happened, which means you've broken that ground,
Speaker 1: and I am begging you to keep having that conversation.
Speaker 1: The reason I wanted to do this podcast is that
Speaker 1: of a fear that more and more people aren't having conversations.
Speaker 1: We need more people like you having them because if
Speaker 1: you have respect and at the end of the day
Speaker 1: can respectfully disagree, you can still live together. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't always respectfully to disagree, but we're having the conversation.
Speaker 1: It's happening. You're gonna see elections happen, things change. I mean,
Speaker 1: think about some of the times. Can you imagine if
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King had a Facebook page? I mean, can
Speaker 1: you imagine if Congressman Lewis had a smartphone when he
Speaker 1: crossed the bridge? And so back then, you know, you
Speaker 1: only had that little slot on the evening news. Now
Speaker 1: we're moving much faster than the church likes. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what everybody thinks. We're not moving forward as the church.
Speaker 1: If we're moving forward as the church, if the United
Speaker 1: States is stuck right now, and we're not moving forward
Speaker 1: to them. We're moving way, way, way, way too fast now,
Speaker 1: and I'd like to move it faster. And that's why
Speaker 1: we're having conversations like this. This is exactly why we
Speaker 1: are having conversations just like this one. What I'm hearing
Speaker 1: from Sean is that no matter what happens to us,
Speaker 1: or what circumstances we find ourselves in, we can forgive
Speaker 1: you know what else we can do speak out, we
Speaker 1: can make a difference, and if we listen to others,
Speaker 1: we can have some empathy, and we can focus our
Speaker 1: anger not at an individual, but at the institutions that
Speaker 1: propagate or protect those who actually do the harm. And
Speaker 1: if we do that, then then maybe we can make
Speaker 1: those advance as a whole lot faster than we might think.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to today's bonus episode, and thank
Speaker 1: you for bringing an open mind and helping us create
Speaker 1: what are hopefully modern rules. That's it for today's episode.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Stephanie Rule. A very very special thanks
Speaker 1: to the extraordinary people who made this happen. My producers
Speaker 1: Julie Brown, Samantha Ullen and and bar arc Audio, Michael
Speaker 1: Biett for booking and wrangling the amazing guests who joined us,
Speaker 1: Julian Weller for editing and bill plaques, Michael Azar and
Speaker 1: Jacobo Penzo for their recording expertise. Special thanks to Steve
Speaker 1: lick Tide, Barbara Rab, Jonathan Wald, Marie Dugo, Holly traz
Speaker 1: Nikki Etre and Christina Everett are Executive producers are Conald
Speaker 1: Byrne and Mangesh Hatiga Door And of course, the men
Speaker 1: who brought us all together, Chairman and CEO of I
Speaker 1: Heart Media Bob Pittman and Chairman of NBC News Andy Lack.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.