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Welcome to Off the Page. I'm Stephen Copeland. Today's guest is Dr. Elizabeth Booker-Barkley,

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known by her loved ones and students as Buffy. Buffy is an English professor and chair of

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the Department of Liberal Arts at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, Ohio. She

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has her PhD in English and is also the author of four books and numerous articles for the

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St. Anthony Messenger. Buffy has an especially personal connection to the staff at the St.

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Anthony Messenger as she taught our editorial director, Chris Heffron, and our executive

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editor, Susan Heinz-Brigger. The focus of this conversation and many of Buffy's articles

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is the impact and legacy of religious sisters and how they have helped to show us the way.

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In this conversation, we discuss Buffy's interview with Sister Helen Perjean for her

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January 2025 cover story and what it looks like to speak truth to power and fight for

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justice. Sister Helen, as you probably know, is the author of the 1993 bestseller Dead

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Man Walking, which two years later was turned into a film that was nominated for four Academy

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Awards. Buffy and I also discuss her March feature story about the Sisters of Charity

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and the vital role of contemplative dialogue in both reform and activism. This story was

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especially close to Buffy's heart as she is a former Sister of Charity herself. I just

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absolutely love interviewing our writers at the St. Anthony Messenger. A lot goes into

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each story that does not always come out on the page. And one of the things I love about

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feature writing personally is the impact on your own heart as you let a story take you

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in, as you let listening really be your guide and curiosity to lead the way deeper and deeper

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into the story itself. So that really comes out in this conversation and the impact all

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these sisters have had on Buffy's spiritual journey. One quick final thing with Sister

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Helen's ministry and accompanying people who are on death row. At one point, Buffy and

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I began talking about the difference between the Biden administration and the Trump administration

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in their approach to capital punishment. I spouted off something I had read, but was

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actually not very informed about. In this case, I happened to be right, but it was a

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lucky guess. And I wanted to say that upfront because, well, one, I don't really like that

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I did that. In our age of polarization and outrage, I think it's important for, yes,

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young podcast hosts to seek a journalistic standard in their conversations. And at the

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same time, I recognize that the nature of having a free flowing conversation that's

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animated by listening is to kind of work things out in real time through a dialogical process.

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So pretty much everything I write or create is anchored in interviewing, but I'm learning

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that podcasting is a different beast. It requires both careful speech, a journalistic kind of

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direction and groundedness, but also the grace and freedom to work things out in a dialogical

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way in real time. So all that to say, thanks for your patience with me as I learn and grow.

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And I'm excited to share this interview with you. If you do want to learn more about the

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recent developments in capital punishment, I recommend Sister Helen's recent story, Joe

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Biden's act of advent mercy in America magazine, or a recent story by the Catholic news agency

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titled Trump signs pro death penalty order calls capital punishment an essential tool.

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If you're curious what the Catholic Church teaches on this moral issue, I've dropped

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the link to the new revision of number 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in

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the description of this episode. So without further ado, here is Dr. Elizabeth Booker

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Barclay. Elizabeth Booker Barclay, welcome to Off the Page. Thank you, Stephen. So you

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have two really wonderful feature stories. You have the January cover story and the St.

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Anthony messenger, and then you have a really beautiful feature in our March issue as well.

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So I'd like to first get into your cover story. But before we do that, can you tell our listeners

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a little bit about your background and your writing background as well? Yeah. And they

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might notice on my screen that my name says Buffy Barclay. And that's my nickname that

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I got at birth. And everybody wants to associate me with the vampire sire, but I do not say

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vampires. You don't that's why you're on this podcast. Gosh dang it. That's my next my next

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dig. So anyhow, I was born in Pittsburgh. I'm one of six daughters from Wally and Catherine

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Booker. I found something quite interesting. Just last year, everybody always wanted to

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know why my nickname was Buffy. And my mother named me after her Girl Scout leader who was

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Elizabeth that she admired very much. And her nickname was Buffy. And I have known other

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people with that combination. There's a lawyer in Cincinnati who named Elizabeth and her

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nickname is Buffy. But one of my sisters was reading a biography of the great Queen Elizabeth,

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not the one that recently died and found out that Buffy was her nickname. So I think there's

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like something royal about my heritage, my background that's coming with the name Buffy.

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So most of my friends, all my friends, and a lot of my students call me Buffy. Some of

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the students don't feel very comfortable. They call me Dr. Buffy or Miss Buffy or something.

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I like the ring of Dr. Buffy. So we moved from Pittsburgh to Springfield, Ohio, when

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I was in second grade. And that was my first contact with the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati,

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who by the way, are the sponsors of Mount St. Joseph University, where I teach and their

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mother houses a walk down the road. So I have a great devotion and admiration for the Sisters

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of Charity. They taught me in grade school and in high school. And then I came to Mount

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St. Joseph and I had Sisters of Charity here. And I happened to also join the Sisters of

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Charity right after high school. So I was a member of the Sisters of Charity for about

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11 and a half years. So I have a very deep admiration for the sisters who are still alive.

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I lost a lot of dear friends who aged out beyond me. And I periodically walk over just

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to visit their graves at the mother house, but they were wonderful women. I have a great

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devotion to Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, who was the founder of the Sisters of Charity.

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In fact, my late husband and I named our second daughter Elizabeth Ann after Elizabeth Ann

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Seton. And in fact, we really met. He was a TV journalist and I was a Sister of Charity

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working on communications. We met when he and the reporter were going to do a special

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about the canonization of Elizabeth Seton. So I think Elizabeth has a very special part

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in my life. So in fact, one issue of Saint Anthony Messenger, last year or the year before,

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I wrote a feature called Dear Elizabeth Ann Seton, where I talked about what she meant

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to me. So I've been a teacher for many years. I taught high school English until 1978. And

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then I went to work three years for the Catholic Telegraph newspaper, which I think is still

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the oldest existing Catholic newspaper in the country. So I got great, great training

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under the editor, Jim Shea, who interestingly had worked as a police reporter in Philadelphia

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before he came to be editor. But he was quite a gentleman. He just knew so much about journalism.

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He could not call me Buffy though. One time he called me Buffy and said, there I've said

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it, that is no name for a grown woman. But he did say it. So I worked for there for the

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Telegraph and then I was pregnant and had my first daughter in 1981 and thought I'd

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take a year off. But I really felt committed to being more with her than without her and

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ended up having three daughters. And I was able to teach part time at Mount St. Joseph.

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So that got me into the teaching and writing field at the same time. And I love teaching.

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I could have retired several times, but I just think there's so much energy in being

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with young people. And this is a wonderful, generous generation of students and they just

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bring me great joy. I was in my office, it had been painted and I had been in a different

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room for a while. So I had boxes in my office and one of my students stopped in to say something

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and she said, wait, what are those boxes? Are you packing? And he said, no, no, I'm

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still here. Don't worry about it. So teaching, it's interesting because a couple of times

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I've used students in my article. I did one feature story about what makes Catholic universities

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so special and it's their mission. And I talked about a student there in my lead and then

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later on I did one on aging and growing old. And I used Sister Helen Prejean in the opening

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of that. And then for this article on Sister Helen, I used my students at the beginning.

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So they get a lot of lines for me in the St. Anthony messenger, which is good.

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Yeah. Yeah. Before we get into your cover story in the January, 2025 issue, tell me

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a little bit, I can tell just how much you love to teach and I would be curious what's

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beneath that. Like why do you love teaching so much? What is it about teaching that brings

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you so much life?

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I think it's being with younger people. And some of my friends had said that they said

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when they retired, they were around young people. Like one of them was a junior high

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teacher and she said, I was kind of depressed for a couple of years because just that energy.

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And I also, I know I can teach them. I'm especially good at teaching writing. I also teach literature

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and like one of my favorite courses I'm teaching this semester is African-American writers,

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but I'm also teaching feature writing, which is great because that's my genre that when

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I write. I have done news writing, but not feature writing is where I like, but I love

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seeing them grow. I love seeing them have this aha moment when something clicks. This

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is a particularly sharp class of feature writers this semester. There's 17 students. I've taught

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most of them and some of them are going to be high school English teachers. Some of them

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want to go into editing or creative writing and the conversations have been so rich because

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I've given them so many really, really good feature articles to read and they talk about

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them. Why are they good? What about this sentence? What about the structure? And they, you know,

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we're only in the third week and they're really getting it. So I can't wait to read their

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first stories because I think it'll be great. I also gosh, for maybe 30 years have been

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the advisor to the student newspaper. And that makes me happy because I can get them

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into print and you know, Steven, it's a thrill to see your work in print and I want them

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to have that joy and they're very excited when they get a byline. So that's some of

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the joy of teaching.

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Yeah. I remember my journalism teachers, particularly my high school journalism teacher, she managed

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our school newspaper and so many of the lessons I learned go back to her and in her giving

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us permission to take a risk on a story or, you know, take that risk and fail. Doing the

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story and learning from it. So yeah, and one thing I personally just love about feature

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writing is every feature story for me, at least it's kind of like a puzzle, you know,

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and here's something, it's something that I don't think AI will ever be able to do because

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you are bringing together all the information, interviews that you have done and you're trying

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to figure out how to fit it together and tell it in a compelling way that gets the reader

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on board. Do you have anything to add there? I personally just love feature writing.

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And I think that that's something that people don't think about and when younger writers,

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when you talk to them about structure, they don't understand how important it is to have

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a structure. But these students I'm taking now, because they also have done fiction and

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poetry that some of them are creative writing minors and they get the idea of structure.

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And I always feel nervous about taking on a feature story because I research and I interview

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that I have like piles like of stuff that I have. And I think once I figure out the

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arc of the story, where this is going, how I'm going to get into it, I'm so relieved.

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The writing is nothing. It's just trying to figure out, it is like a puzzle. Like what

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pieces can I get rid of? There's so much left over. My first editor at The Telegraph said

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you should use about a third of what you have when writing a story. And I think that's a

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good gauge. So I like that you said that because structuring and setting up the pace of the

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story is very important to me. Yeah. And it's always interesting asking yourself the question

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in the process, like, okay, I've conducted all these interviews, but what's the heart

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of the story? Because there's many different stories you can tell when you have that much

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information, when you have tens of thousands of words of transcripts, but what's the heart

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of it? And that's the journalistic piece where it's not just about telling a compelling story.

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It's about getting to the truth of the story as well. Once I did the Sister Helen interview,

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I knew what the thread was going to be. And that was going to be about incarnations. She

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had, no, not incarnations, the quote that she was saying that incarnations are rare,

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but annunciations are frequent. So I knew that that was going to be the thread. Once

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I got that, I thought, I got it. I know where I'm going with this.

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Yeah. Well, let's give listeners a little background here. To begin with, you told me

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you had a 90 minute interview with Sister Helen Prashan, who is just a legend, and you

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had 90 minutes with her. So for starters, though, who is Sister Helen? And then I would

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also be curious to learn about what you learned from her in that interview.

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Sister Helen Prashan is one of my icons and role models. Just because she speaks truth

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to power, she's just so out there saying what she needs to say. And she's 85 years old and

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she's still doing it. So she's also a role model for aging, I think. But she grew up

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in a rather sheltered Southern family in Louisiana. And she says she had a really good childhood.

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She had good school. She had a good family. And she happened to have, they happened to

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have house servants who lived in a servant's house. And she treated them well, but she

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didn't really, she said she really never knew any people of color or any poor people. She

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was quite prayerful and really had this idea that sisters should be praying and doing that

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kind of spiritual work and not be involved in social justice issues. So she had a moment

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of reckoning when somebody started to talk about all the injustices and what the sisters

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should be doing. And she publicly, well, in their forums argued against that. And then

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she had this really lightning moment where she began to realize that she didn't know

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poor people. She didn't have any connection with social justice. She had been a teacher

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of English and decided that was really good, but she felt she had to do something else.

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So she and a couple other sisters moved into one of the poorest neighborhoods of New Orleans

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among mostly people of color because she wanted to get to know people besides white people.

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And it was then that she got to know some very socially active lawyers and people who

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worked with prisoners. And at that time it was like so innocent. Somebody asked her if

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she could be a pen pal to a prisoner. And she said, well, I can write. Yeah, I can do

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that. I'll be a pen pal. And then she ended up going to the prison to visit these people

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and realized that she could do more than be a pen pal. She could advocate for, well, I

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would say the abolition of the death penalty because eventually she went to death, walked

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people to death several times. And the one time she said the first time she did it, she

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went outside and threw up because powerful experience. And she felt like she had like

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a commission, like to really get the word out about what the death penalty is, what

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prisons are like, and to do something to advocate for the abolition. So she's kept that up.

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And she's delightful because when she gave our two graduation speakers this year at our

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university short, you know, she's done this a lot. She didn't have any notes and they

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were both a little bit different. But one of my colleagues who's in the mission office

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really wanted to meet her. So I introduced her and they took a picture together. And

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Michelle said, I will never forget the time you were here last time you talked about Sneaky

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Jesus. And that's one of her things that she threw into her graduation address. Like you

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look out because Sneaky Jesus is going to tell you what you have to do and you better

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be listening. He'll be sneaking up on you. So that's the kind of person she's just so

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down to earth and so real and so much fun. And I think people don't like you're working

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on the death penalty and you got a sense of humor and you like the party. And yeah, she

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somehow has that work-life balance that she's able to pull off.

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Nat, yeah, the title of your January cover story is Dead Man Walking at 30. The fight

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continues. Can you tell listeners who perhaps have not seen or read Dead Man Walking? What

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was this book and what impact did it have on your life when you read it?

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So Dead Man Walking is a memoir of Sister Helen's work with people on death row. And

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in it she talks really primarily about one person that she accompanied to death. And

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she said she was telling me I never wrote a book before, but I felt like I had to write

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a book, but I didn't know how to do it. So I just started writing and one of her friends

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had a publisher friend in New York and sent it to a publisher who gave it to another publisher

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and said, I think you want to publish this. This is a book you want to publish. But she

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said I learned so much from my editors. And she said one thing I learned when they first

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read it, they said, you wait too long to tell what happened. What crime did this man commit?

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And the editor said, if you haven't told that by the 10th page, you've lost your reader.

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So she was so open to, you know, she had been a writer, she had been an English teacher,

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but she was so open to the feedback that really good editors can give. And that's what I think

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grabbed people when they read the book because by 10th page she had pictured the murder that

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this young man had done, he and a friend had done, took two teenage kids out and murdered

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and raped them and left them to die. And that's pretty grisly. But then she goes through,

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it talks about the background, it talks about their family and talks about the victims.

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She also learned that she was perceived as being more sympathetic to the murderers than

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to the victims' families. So she really tried to change that and go to prayer sessions and

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help with victims to work through what they had to deal with because of the death.

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In the movie, the movie was, how this came about, it was not something she had planned,

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but Susan Sarandon, the actress, was on a set with another film and one of her friends

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gave her Dead Man Walking and said, don't read this tonight because it's too grim and

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you won't want to. But she stayed up all night and read it because she was so moved by it.

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And then she was able to meet with Sister Halle and talk to her about what she can do with

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this book. Could we make it into a movie? So the husband of, well, he wasn't the husband

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and he was a partner of Susan Sarandon, was Tim Robbins, the actor and director. And she

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worked for him for nine months. She said, finally she started crying and said, we've

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got to make this movie or I'm going to give it to somebody else. So he did. And Susan

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Sarandon played Sister Halle and Sean Penn played the convict that she worked with. And

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she told me how Tim Robbins did exactly the same thing that her editor had done. He said,

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we got to early on get people to understand what happened. And those are hard scenes to

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watch. I mean, they're well done, but they're hard to watch. And so she's humble enough

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to know that she can learn from other people. These are the people that know what they're

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doing and I'm going to put myself in those hands. So the movie came out like the end

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of December, 30 years ago. They timed it right so that they could get nominations for the

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Academy Awards. So they got best picture, best director, best picture, best director,

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best actor, best actress and best song. And the only one that won was Susan Sarandon.

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But Helen was telling me in the interview, she said, I don't care how many they got because

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every time a nomination was read, they heard dead men walking, dead men walking, dead men

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walking, dead men walking. And so she said by the time the Oscars were over, they had

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a lot of free publicity about the film. So she was excited about that too.

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I saw a quote from Sister Helen. She said, the death penalty is about us. And I think

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what she was saying was that capital punishment is a pro-life issue because, and I think your

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story indicates that, but it's a pro-life issue because we have put ourselves in charge

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of the death penalty. We've taken control of something that is God's ultimately. Am

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I reading and understanding that correctly?

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Yeah. And I think because there have been so many people put to death who were wrongly

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accused. Another person that I admire a lot is Brian Stevenson. He wrote Just Mercy and

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he has this Southern work in trying to get people, open up their trials again to show

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that they were not well represented, that not enough evidence. And he has been able

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to get people off death row. So they both have a saying, I don't know who started it,

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but they both say you're always better than the worst thing you've ever done or the worst

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thing you ever have done does not define you. And that she believes in God's mercy and she

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believes that people are unjustly. And often it's people of color. You rarely find a rich

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person on death row because they have the lawyers and they have people they can argue

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with. Well, some of the overloaded cases of these public defense attorneys is amazing.

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How can they even do the research in order to get a good case? So Helen, I think in the

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book, she acknowledges the tension because she found what they did very repulsive. But

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in the book and in the movie, a powerful scene is when she talks to the person she's working

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with and tries to get him to admit what he had done because he had never admitted it.

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He always said he hadn't done it. And at the point in the book and in the movie when he

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says, yes, that's what I did. I did that. And she says to him, well, you know, you are

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a child of God and God loves you. And he starts crying in the film and says, nobody ever called

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me a child of God. And it's a very moving point in the movie. I think what Tim Robbins

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and she in her book got right was this balancing act between the families are suffering too.

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The families of not only the victims, but the family of the people going to death row.

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And that's in the movie. It's a very hard scene to watch because he's trying to say

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goodbye before he goes to death. And this whole family is in there. His little brother

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is in there kicking a ball around. They don't know what to say because their brother is

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going to be executed. The mother wants to hug him and she's not allowed to hug him

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before he goes to death because that's the rule in the prison. And I was saying, and

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I said this in my note as a contributor, I'm not in the story, that I heard about Sister

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Helen Prejean from my oldest daughter who's now 42 when she was a student at McNiglas

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High School in Cincinnati, which the Sisters of St. Joseph founded and that's Sister Helen's

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order. She came home and talked about this energetic little nun that was saying that

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we should abolish the death penalty. And she just was so excited about it. So from then

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on I was like, I followed Sister Helen and knew she was on my radar. In fact, one of

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my friends in my English department here says, this is the interview you've been building

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up to all of your life, isn't it? Kind of, yeah. This was just like a joy for me. It

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was such a blessing to be able to have those 90 minutes with her, even if it was on Zoom,

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that's fine. It was just-

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Yeah. What did you personally take away from that interview?

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Personally took away how kind she was to me. Everybody has written about her all over the

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world. And she gave me the time and I had been with her a few times. I hosted her at

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our university a couple of times. I got her to be the keynote speaker for this group of

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Catholic communicators I'm in called the Salesian Guild. So during that day I got to take her

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around to interviews and I got to take her at night after the thing was over to her friend's

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house so she could party. But the fact that she gave me her private email, she gave me

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her phone number, and she was just like having a conversation with a friend. When we went

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to the graduation ceremony, she said, I just want to talk to you about this book I'm writing

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because you're a writer too. And she said, I'm writing this book with another guy and

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it's about this guy that's on death row and here's how we're going to structure it and

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blah, blah, blah. And you know what that's like because you're a writer. I'm thinking,

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yeah, me and Helen, writers. I texted her and said it was so enjoyable. And she said,

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yeah, I had a good time.

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Yeah. Well, it's a beautiful story and a real celebration of the work she's done and continues

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to do, which kind of leads to my next question. The death penalty again, capital punishment

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has again been in the news the last four weeks, right when your article came out. First with

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some of President Biden's final actions and his commuting of several federal sentences.

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And then now in wake of the inauguration of Donald Trump, where I believe he signed an

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order on the death penalty, basically emphasizing this push to reinstate and facilitate the

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process of capital punishment.

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He had more death penalties under his one term than any other president. So it's kind

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of scary. So I was delighted when I heard, I was driving along on NPR, I heard that he

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had commuted 37 sentences of people. He can only do federal. He can't do anything.

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President Biden.

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Yeah, President Biden. He can't do anything about the people in the state. But he, I was

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very thrilled about that. And then in American magazine, just like a day or so after that,

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Sister Helen had an article that she wrote and it was titled, Sister Helen Prejean on

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Joe Biden's Act of Advent Mercy. And she starts by saying, when the call from the White House

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came on December 19th, I was so excited I couldn't sit down. I kept walking around saying,

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thank you, God, thank you. And she said, along with other faith leaders, she does not take

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all the credit herself. She said, I had pleaded with President Joseph Biden to use the power

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of his office to show mercy to the condemned on federal death row. Now here was the heads

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up telephone call, assuring me that President Biden would soon announce the greatest tidings

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of mercy that people condemned to die ever hoped to hear. And I was kind of confused

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by the use of Advent Mercy in the title until I read that it was December 19th, that she

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got the news, not that, not when it happened. So I admire her for never giving up. She's

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to me, probably like the prophet people get tired of hearing, like, oh, not the death

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penalty again, you know, can't you give it up? You know, you're 85, just slow down. But

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she's not giving it up. And she's still visiting one person on death row who she thinks she

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knows was wrongly accused of a murder. But I was so disheartened to hear that news about

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Trump because he's going to make sure that all these people who are on death row and

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did you read, Stephen, did you read the actual executive order? I was a little confused about

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whether he was ordering the attorney general to get enough supplies just to the people

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on the federal level or whether he was saying he should give supplies to the people at the

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state level. Yeah, that's a good question. What I read briefly, it seemed like it was

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both. However, before this is published, I'm going to go back and double check that. Either

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way, the bottom line was that it was a hard stance directly after Biden shows mercy in

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this way, to use Sister Helen's words.

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Well, and the other thing is many states have delayed executions because they botched them.

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And they think that they have the right and certain companies are not giving them the

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supplies that the older version of injection use because they don't want what they produce

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to be used to kill people. So that's what the issue is that they can't find a safe way

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to do this without causing terrible, terrible pain. And I think sometimes they've tried

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in certain states and it was so botched, they had to take the person back and try again.

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So the suffering, I think some people would say, yeah, well, they caused other people

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to suffer. But, you know, I'm with Helen. I'm with who are we to decide who's like to take.

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That should be just something that's not in our power. We are not gods. And I don't think

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our God, my God, would ever want somebody to die that way. I've always been against

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the death penalty, but I really became very committed to it when my first husband was

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dying of glioblastoma, a brain cancer. He diagnosed in July and he died in October.

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But I remember being in his room when we had to make the call to take him off life support

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and people were around him. Daughters were crying. People were crying. We were singing,

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do not be afraid. And I left him because his one brother was in Vermont and he really wanted

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to spend the night with him because the nurses said it could be several nights, go home and

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get rest. And this brother, I think, really wanted to reconcile some things with his brother.

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And I remember leaving and thinking, this is what death is like. And I never want to

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be a part as a voter, as a US citizen, of saying that I have taken somebody's life that

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was not ready to die. So it was very personal to me and I just can't forget the look of

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my husband lying there about dying.

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Yeah. The frailty and vulnerability that you're getting at, I mean, yeah, no matter what side

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of the aisle listeners are on in this issue, I don't think it's possible to deny the reality

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that something like this takes matters into the state's hands. And the state, our systems

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often get it wrong, you know? And even if they get it quote unquote right, now we're

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into the realm of theology where does God ever hold back mercy for us? Do I want to

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be defined by my worst mistake? Who is this person's true self? Who is this person at

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the core beyond deeper than their behavior? Not excusing their behavior, but are they,

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it goes back to that scene in Dead Man Walking, are they a child of God or not? And depending

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on how you answer that question, that leads to policy and how we deal with this particular

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issue moving forward. Do you have any thoughts on what I just said there?

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Yeah. Well, very few other countries have the death penalty. They'd be eradicated. And

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some of that, I can't remember exactly which countries they are, but they are not countries

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that we would want to be identified with. Perhaps Iran is one, I'm not sure. And then

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if you look at the death penalty in the United States, that primarily the higher number of

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death penalty executions correlates mostly with Southern states that were formerly slave

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states. And when my husband, I remarried in 2014. So when my husband was reading this

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article, he was astounded when he read the death penalty centers reports of deaths by

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regions since 1976. The South alone had 1,303, the Midwest 201, the West 90, the Northeast

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four, and Texas alone had 589. Wow. So those are mind boggling statistics, how uneven this

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is and who's going to want to have that on their heads. And Helen even talks about her,

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she's talked about this before, the toll the death penalty takes on the people in the prison

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that have to take the steps to do it. Yeah.

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Yeah. By law, like their job requiring them to basically step into a divine position and

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decide when someone's going to lose their life or how they're going to. Yeah. Well,

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do you have anything else you wanted to hit on about your January cover story? I know

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we've covered a lot of ground here and I'd love to talk about your March story at some

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point.

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I would just like to say that one of my favorite parts of this was that Helen lives in this

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little house and she was sitting at her desk and you could see the kitchen behind her.

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She had to take a break once to go stir what was on the pot on the stove. So I think that's

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just her. She's just does not have any of the trappings of celebrity that a lot of people

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would think she would. Yeah. Things like that don't always come out in the piece itself.

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But it's a personal experience that you have that says a lot about her. And this kind of

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leads into your March article where you began this interview by talking about your affinity

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for religious life, your past background. How many years were you with Sisters of Charity?

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Eleven and a half. Eleven and a half years. Yeah. And your March 2025 feature story, the

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story is titled The Nuns Are Okay. What did you explore in this story?

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Well, I know that in our university, we are still what's considered a sponsored institution

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of the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati. They had five sponsored institutions and several

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years ago said, we are not equipped to do this because of our numbers and our resources.

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I think they made a rather large financial donation to the university to make sure it

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was secure. But we are still working with a group to try to find it. And then I'm not

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even going to use the language because it's so puzzling because it's so churchy. But we

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have to find somebody to be a sponsor. And so just thinking about what this means, because

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I have a sister who's a Sister of Charity, and she just turned 80 and their numbers are

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not. When I entered in 64, I think we had 1,600 Sisters of Charity around the country

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and around the world. And I don't know what the number is. It might be like 180 right

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now sisters who are left. So they have to figure out what they're going to do with their

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resources. And then there are sisters, young sisters in the Sisters of Charity. And there's

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00:40:08,180 --> 00:40:13,700
like four or five or six maybe like in the past decade. So they're called the Young Sisters.

396
00:40:13,700 --> 00:40:23,780
And some of them aren't that young, some are 40. So how will they make sure that they have

397
00:40:23,780 --> 00:40:31,980
a viable future? The movement seems to be making a global sisterhood. So these sisters

398
00:40:31,980 --> 00:40:37,340
might be living with and working with people from other countries, but there are still

399
00:40:37,340 --> 00:40:46,300
going to be sisters. A few orders that I know of have come to completion, which means they

400
00:40:46,300 --> 00:40:52,540
have divested of all their property and they have made arrangements for their retired sisters

401
00:40:52,540 --> 00:40:58,060
to be taken care of. The Sisters of Charity are not there, but I think everybody's dealing

402
00:40:58,060 --> 00:41:02,660
with what's the future going to be. So one of the exciting things that happened a couple

403
00:41:02,660 --> 00:41:08,900
years ago, maybe a year and a half ago was the mother house of the Sisters of Charity

404
00:41:08,900 --> 00:41:15,500
sits on a huge plot of land called Bender's Mountain in an Oberloopsie Ohio River. So

405
00:41:15,500 --> 00:41:21,860
they decided that they were going to make a gift up of many of the acres that we stayed

406
00:41:21,860 --> 00:41:31,420
on to this local conservancy who already has property adjacent to this. And that was, I

407
00:41:31,420 --> 00:41:37,460
love the fact that one of our local NPR stations covered that story because I think that's

408
00:41:37,460 --> 00:41:42,220
wonderful in this, like who will take care of this property? Who will know that it's

409
00:41:42,220 --> 00:41:47,900
something sacred and this group will do it. So that's happening all over the country.

410
00:41:47,900 --> 00:41:52,420
People are giving away land, they're giving away buildings. But the emphasis of my story

411
00:41:52,420 --> 00:42:01,300
is that we are not dying. We are reimagining what the future will look like and it will

412
00:42:01,300 --> 00:42:09,820
be very different. It will not be sisters running hospitals or sisters running universities.

413
00:42:09,820 --> 00:42:16,740
Like we have no Sisters of Charity on our faculty or our staff at Mount St. Joseph University.

414
00:42:16,740 --> 00:42:23,780
But the point is that through this new sponsorship form, we should be continuing the work of

415
00:42:23,780 --> 00:42:28,980
the Sisters of Charity and their mission. And I think that's the challenge for a lot

416
00:42:28,980 --> 00:42:35,660
of groups, like how do we continue this? And I know that there are people in my department,

417
00:42:35,660 --> 00:42:40,520
which is the Department of Liberal Arts and it's English, History, Religion and Philosophy.

418
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:44,980
We are very dedicated to understanding who the Sisters of Charity are. In fact, one of

419
00:42:44,980 --> 00:42:51,300
our or three of our religious studies faculty came up with the idea of doing a book about

420
00:42:51,300 --> 00:42:59,660
particular Sisters of Charity that people should know about. So it's funny because only

421
00:42:59,660 --> 00:43:07,420
one of the three is Catholic. One is, I think, trying to figure out what he is to find a

422
00:43:07,420 --> 00:43:16,100
home and another one was just ordained an Episcopalian priest. And so the main title

423
00:43:16,100 --> 00:43:20,980
is Our Clown of Witnesses and then there's a subtitle. So it was really wonderful to

424
00:43:20,980 --> 00:43:27,260
have people dig into who some of these amazing Sisters of Charity were that preceded us,

425
00:43:27,260 --> 00:43:35,620
whose shoulders we stand on. So I think in one of the people I quoted in this March article,

426
00:43:35,620 --> 00:43:40,100
she said, it's not like our ministers are going away. We're just having a new level

427
00:43:40,100 --> 00:43:44,620
of cooperation with lay people, which we should have been doing all along. And the laity are

428
00:43:44,620 --> 00:43:49,440
the church. And people don't really realize this. I think sometimes they think sisters

429
00:43:49,440 --> 00:43:55,020
are part of the clergy, but they're not. Sisters are laity. So this is just another expression

430
00:43:55,020 --> 00:44:01,500
of the laity. And they're finding these people that are really willing to carry on what the

431
00:44:01,500 --> 00:44:06,300
sisters have been doing. I know it's very hard, but they're doing it in a realistic

432
00:44:06,300 --> 00:44:13,820
way. And the people that have put their heads in the sand are finally realizing we need

433
00:44:13,820 --> 00:44:17,700
some help to figure out where we're going with this. But I think the Sisters of Charity

434
00:44:17,700 --> 00:44:23,700
have been working on this for... They knew this was coming. There was predictions that

435
00:44:23,700 --> 00:44:29,900
about this time there would be a deep decrease because the world is changing. When I injured,

436
00:44:29,900 --> 00:44:35,780
there weren't that many options for women to be engaged and to be in a ministry of any

437
00:44:35,780 --> 00:44:44,580
kind. But now there are many, many options. So it's not that people don't want to be religious

438
00:44:44,580 --> 00:44:52,300
or spiritual or servants, but there are other ways of doing this than joining a religious

439
00:44:52,300 --> 00:44:53,300
order of women.

440
00:44:53,300 --> 00:44:59,900
Yeah. That's what I was going to ask you about next was if you had any particular theory

441
00:44:59,900 --> 00:45:05,380
about why religious life, at least in the United States, is on the decline.

442
00:45:05,380 --> 00:45:13,540
If you look at what's happening to political institutions, government institutions, universities,

443
00:45:13,540 --> 00:45:20,500
we're in a kind of a collapse. It's been predicted and it's happened cyclically. So I'm going

444
00:45:20,500 --> 00:45:25,820
to just read a little bit from a book that I used. Somebody happened to mention it that

445
00:45:25,820 --> 00:45:29,660
I interviewed and she said, you should get that. So I did. I found a copy of it. And

446
00:45:29,660 --> 00:45:34,540
what was kind of neat was I couldn't find the actual book. So one of our librarians

447
00:45:34,540 --> 00:45:39,740
copied the chapter I wanted. He said, I think you're going to want the introduction too.

448
00:45:39,740 --> 00:45:46,260
I didn't even use the chapter. I used the introduction. So good for him. Good librarian.

449
00:45:46,260 --> 00:45:54,940
So in 1984, it's called Shaping the Coming Age of Religious Life. It was written in 1984.

450
00:45:54,940 --> 00:46:01,640
And Marianist Brother Lawrence Cata, I think he's had been with the University of Dayton

451
00:46:01,640 --> 00:46:07,940
near us, but he describes four or five years of this group of scholars meeting, researching

452
00:46:07,940 --> 00:46:13,060
and drawing upon their experiences of renewal and each of their religious communities since

453
00:46:13,060 --> 00:46:20,400
the 1970s. What emerged was quote, an intriguing exploratory hypothesis that religious life

454
00:46:20,400 --> 00:46:25,860
in America was undergoing a major transition, one that had been underway for at least 15

455
00:46:25,860 --> 00:46:30,620
years, and which would take another 15 or 20 years to complete its major movements.

456
00:46:30,620 --> 00:46:34,860
The magnitude of this transition would be major and significant and perhaps would be

457
00:46:34,860 --> 00:46:41,100
viewed in the future as one of the most significant periods in the evolution of religious life.

458
00:46:41,100 --> 00:46:49,060
So he predicted and then he went on to say the transition would effect a deep reorientation

459
00:46:49,060 --> 00:46:53,220
in the way that religious would live in community and the way they would be of service to the

460
00:46:53,220 --> 00:46:59,120
church and the world. And it's just phenomenal that that far back they could say this is

461
00:46:59,120 --> 00:47:05,500
coming and I think sisters have known about this for a while. So it's not like they are

462
00:47:05,500 --> 00:47:12,460
surprised. It's just sending shockwaves through some of the people like of my generation that

463
00:47:12,460 --> 00:47:18,120
lived in the 50s and all they knew was sisters as teachers and sisters as this, but there

464
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:24,100
aren't those people anymore. And sponsorship of our university demands that certain number

465
00:47:24,100 --> 00:47:28,260
of sisters of charity have to sit on the board. The sisters sitting on the board are in their

466
00:47:28,260 --> 00:47:32,860
80s. The younger ones don't want that stuff. They want to be out with the people doing

467
00:47:32,860 --> 00:47:37,980
their thing, protesting against injustice and doing their work. So they, I'm not going

468
00:47:37,980 --> 00:47:44,300
to sit in a board room. So even that aspect of sponsorship would be difficult to find

469
00:47:44,300 --> 00:47:45,620
the sisters to do that.

470
00:47:45,620 --> 00:47:50,980
Nat, I really enjoyed reading your article because in your article you can sense that

471
00:47:50,980 --> 00:47:58,820
there are all these different kinds of models of renewal for the evolution of, you know,

472
00:47:58,820 --> 00:48:03,260
like the book you just read, the passage, the evolution of religious life. But not just

473
00:48:03,260 --> 00:48:11,300
that, like you broke this open earlier. The age we're navigating right now is one of an

474
00:48:11,300 --> 00:48:19,980
extreme distrust, it seems, of our institutions. So what does renewal look like? And one of

475
00:48:19,980 --> 00:48:24,600
the themes you highlighted in your article was this notion of contemplative dialogue

476
00:48:24,600 --> 00:48:30,340
as a path toward renewal. So can you talk a little bit about contemplative dialogue,

477
00:48:30,340 --> 00:48:36,980
its role in renewal, not only on an institutional level, but this is for us individually and

478
00:48:36,980 --> 00:48:38,340
in our own communities as well?

479
00:48:38,340 --> 00:48:42,820
Well, I'm glad you brought this up because I'm not sure this made it into the article.

480
00:48:42,820 --> 00:48:49,180
But contemplative dialogue is not something that's new, but its premise is you sit in

481
00:48:49,180 --> 00:48:56,740
prayer with one another and you don't speak. But when you do speak, it's a dialogue. It's

482
00:48:56,740 --> 00:49:03,460
not me telling you what to do or pouncing on your ideas. And it's very difficult to

483
00:49:03,460 --> 00:49:09,620
do, but the sisters have been using this process to work through where they're going. And it's

484
00:49:09,620 --> 00:49:15,260
been hard and they've spent many weekends and meetings and Zoom calls trying to work

485
00:49:15,260 --> 00:49:22,740
together on this. And one of the sisters said, as divided as our nation is, as difficult

486
00:49:22,740 --> 00:49:30,060
as it is for people of opposing views to talk to one another, maybe we can model contemplative

487
00:49:30,060 --> 00:49:36,140
dialogue to them and they will take up the challenge of listening in prayer.

488
00:49:36,140 --> 00:49:43,020
Yeah, I love that. Yeah. And I mean, not to get too political here, but I mean, I don't

489
00:49:43,020 --> 00:49:49,180
know if you saw the story today about the Episcopalian bishop. Yeah. That's making the

490
00:49:49,180 --> 00:49:56,860
speaking. Making the rounds. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So we're recording this on January 22nd. And

491
00:49:56,860 --> 00:50:03,660
there was a Episcopal bishop who basically, and she did. A woman, I might say. Yes. Yes.

492
00:50:03,660 --> 00:50:12,300
Yep. Exactly. And she essentially calls out, I don't want to even say calls out because

493
00:50:12,300 --> 00:50:19,420
I can challenge it. Yeah. The way she did it was so gentle. It was so rooted in this

494
00:50:19,420 --> 00:50:25,100
kind of contemplative dialogue, I would say that we're talking about. And this kind of

495
00:50:25,100 --> 00:50:32,700
goes back to Sister Helen, but she was basically just advocating for the new administration

496
00:50:32,700 --> 00:50:42,260
to show mercy for people that often are forgotten, people on the margins. And she exercised her

497
00:50:42,260 --> 00:50:48,460
free speech, you know, and she did it in such a gentle way. And people that's when they

498
00:50:48,460 --> 00:50:53,540
actually watched, they said she was beautiful. She was gentle. I just read the transcript

499
00:50:53,540 --> 00:51:03,860
of it. Yep. Yeah. It was. And she even brilliantly brought integrated Trump story into her invitation

500
00:51:03,860 --> 00:51:09,300
where she said, you just admitted in your inaugural address that, you know, you have

501
00:51:09,300 --> 00:51:16,620
been touched by the providential hand of God, you know. So mercy was shown to you. That's

502
00:51:16,620 --> 00:51:22,460
what you're saying. So like, now you're in this position of power again. What does it

503
00:51:22,460 --> 00:51:28,660
look like for you to show mercy? You know, I mean, it was a very powerful scene. Yeah.

504
00:51:28,660 --> 00:51:35,420
One thing about Helen that I love is that she's 85. And she's, of course, slowing down

505
00:51:35,420 --> 00:51:40,580
a little bit. She's prioritized what she can do. I think we might be one of the last universities

506
00:51:40,580 --> 00:51:45,700
to have her as a keynote speaker because I think she's saved her energy for more important

507
00:51:45,700 --> 00:51:57,420
things. But I really resent the way some people brush off the people who are in their 70s and

508
00:51:57,420 --> 00:52:04,940
80s and 90s because there's so much wisdom and so much experience in that. And she, to

509
00:52:04,940 --> 00:52:10,220
me, is a role model. Some of my sisters, the charity friends, were role models to me. And

510
00:52:10,220 --> 00:52:15,460
they were, one had been my novice director and we became friends. And actually I was

511
00:52:15,460 --> 00:52:21,540
with her the day she died because one of her nieces called me over and said, can you come

512
00:52:21,540 --> 00:52:26,720
over on a break? And I got to say goodbye to her and then she died. So we are missing

513
00:52:26,720 --> 00:52:32,700
a lot, but we have to keep their memories alive of what they have done and how gracious

514
00:52:32,700 --> 00:52:38,860
and how wise and how spiritual all these people are. And they don't have to be a religious

515
00:52:38,860 --> 00:52:44,660
sister or a priest to be that way. But there are some sisters that I really think encapsulate

516
00:52:44,660 --> 00:52:47,980
what I would like to be as I continue to age.

517
00:52:47,980 --> 00:52:55,700
Yeah. Yeah. The last thing I wanted to ask you was, is you delved into this story in

518
00:52:55,700 --> 00:53:02,300
the March issue. Was there anything that you stumbled upon that perhaps you weren't expecting?

519
00:53:02,300 --> 00:53:03,300
Hmm.

520
00:53:03,300 --> 00:53:11,740
And maybe that's not something that jumped out in your interviews, but something rising

521
00:53:11,740 --> 00:53:13,700
up within you from your own personal experience.

522
00:53:13,700 --> 00:53:19,980
I have something up within me. I just felt so privileged to be talking to these people.

523
00:53:19,980 --> 00:53:24,740
They're leaders of like national groups, they're leaders or retired leaders of communities

524
00:53:24,740 --> 00:53:31,620
and they trusted me. I mean, I think people could really botch this story and make it

525
00:53:31,620 --> 00:53:37,220
all about the nuns are dying out, but I didn't take it that way. And I think I said at the

526
00:53:37,220 --> 00:53:43,460
end of the story, I really wanted to honor the people that I interviewed because they

527
00:53:43,460 --> 00:53:49,940
invited me into their Zoom world so I could talk to them. And that's a great trust because

528
00:53:49,940 --> 00:53:57,040
I know as a journalist, every time I interview people, I think you're trusting me. I got

529
00:53:57,040 --> 00:54:05,060
to get it right. I can't take this in the wrong direction and have this in print for

530
00:54:05,060 --> 00:54:07,260
people to read.

531
00:54:07,260 --> 00:54:14,260
Yeah. Yeah. And we began the interview talking about feature writing and you're exactly right.

532
00:54:14,260 --> 00:54:21,100
Every time I go into an interview for a story or even for a podcast, I mean, it's like,

533
00:54:21,100 --> 00:54:29,980
oh wow, what a privilege to be able to sit and listen and learn. I mean, it's not about

534
00:54:29,980 --> 00:54:37,480
taking something and putting it into what I want to say. It's about, I mean, talk about

535
00:54:37,480 --> 00:54:43,660
contemplative dialogue. It is just this open reception and curiosity. I love that about

536
00:54:43,660 --> 00:54:49,940
interviewing. It's curiosity that helps you to get to the heart of the story. And it's

537
00:54:49,940 --> 00:54:55,420
one of the few things in our world that is so bent toward certainty and always having

538
00:54:55,420 --> 00:55:02,260
the right answer that is just completely animated by a posture of deep listening. You know what

539
00:55:02,260 --> 00:55:06,820
I'm saying? Yeah. Well, this has been great, Dr. Buffy.

540
00:55:06,820 --> 00:55:07,820
Thanks Mr. Steve.

541
00:55:07,820 --> 00:55:11,300
Yeah. Is there anything I left out? Anything else you want to hit on?

542
00:55:11,300 --> 00:55:15,200
No, but I just would like to thank St. Anthony Messenger because they have become my publication

543
00:55:15,200 --> 00:55:24,720
of choice. And I love that I get so much freedom. And if I present an idea, the editors review

544
00:55:24,720 --> 00:55:29,820
it and say that this is a good fit. So I feel very special. I have a very special relationship

545
00:55:29,820 --> 00:55:32,300
to this magazine.

546
00:55:32,300 --> 00:55:38,020
Yeah. Well, your stories are always a real joy to read. So thank you for everything that

547
00:55:38,020 --> 00:55:44,100
you do for us. And yeah, I'm excited for our readers this year and listeners of this podcast

548
00:55:44,100 --> 00:55:49,860
to experience your work and to learn something in the process. So thank you again for your

549
00:55:49,860 --> 00:55:51,860
time and for joining off the page.

550
00:55:51,860 --> 00:55:58,340
Thank you, Stephen.

551
00:55:58,340 --> 00:56:04,200
Once again, that was Dr. Elizabeth Booker-Barkley. If you enjoyed this conversation, if there's

552
00:56:04,200 --> 00:56:08,440
anything you agreed with or even disagreed with, please share it with your friends or

553
00:56:08,440 --> 00:56:13,700
family and begin a conversation of your own. If you feel inclined, please consider leaving

554
00:56:13,700 --> 00:56:19,580
a review or subscribing to the St. Anthony Messenger to read articles like Buffy's. You

555
00:56:19,580 --> 00:56:25,260
can also visit the donation link in the show notes. We'd be humbled if you help us to continue

556
00:56:25,260 --> 00:56:30,380
creating content like this. Thanks again to Buffy. And thanks as well to Father Ciprian

557
00:56:30,380 --> 00:56:35,620
Concilio for providing the music for this episode. This is Stephen Copeland signing

558
00:56:35,620 --> 00:56:42,620
off. Peace and all good.