The Gloria Purvis Podcast

Latest Episodes:

On justice issues, is the church a moral first responder or a funeral director? Jun 28, 2022

Show notes

When it comes to social justice issues “the church can show up as moral first responders or as funeral directors,” says Cornell Brooks.

Professor Brooks joins “The Gloria Purvis Podcast” with an impressive pedigree as the former president and chief executive officer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a civil rights attorney, a professor of public leadership and social justice at the Harvard Kennedy School, and an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episocopal church.

Gloria and Professor Brooks discuss several issues that threaten Black lives, most notably racial profiling, police violence and voter suppression.

“You are more likely to see the Easter bunny standing next to Santa Claus at the voting booth than to encounter an actual instance of voter fraud,” Professor Brooks says. In reality, it is politicians who are committing the overwhelming amount of voter fraud, not the citizens whose voting rights are being suppressed.

Abortion-related episodes:

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How a ministry of presence is changing the way Alabamians fight poverty and mass incarceration Jun 21, 2022

Show notes

“My job is to get in the car and drive to every far flung, criss-cross part of Alabama, talking to people about what our hopes are for the future.” Dana Sweeney is the statewide organizer at the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice. He joins Gloria this week to discuss mass incarceration, economic and racial justice, and government accountability in Alabama.

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Missing persons of color should be a pro-life issue for Catholics Jun 14, 2022

Show notes

Gwen Ifill famously coined the expression “missing white woman syndrome” to describe our national obsession with a small subset of missing persons–largely white and female– to the exclusion of many other victims, especially persons of color.

This week Gloria talks to Natalie Wilson, co-founder of The Black and Missing Foundation, Inc., a Maryland-based non-profit dedicated to searching for missing people of color when police and the media fall short. Their work is also the subject of the award-winning 4-part HBO documentary series, Black and Missing, produced by Geeta Gandbhir and Soledad O’Brien.

For Catholics, this should be a pro-life issue, and one that we examine seriously. Forty percent of the about 600,000 people who went missing in 2019 were people of color — most of them Black. And Black people's cases takefour times longer to resolve.

Gloria and Natalie also discuss how the Black Lives Matter movement encompasses more than police violence; it extends to the issue of police neglect to investigate cases of Black persons gone missing.

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Links:

The Black and Missing Foundation

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How to advocate for your loved one in the ICU Jun 07, 2022

Show notes

New medical research is revealing the detrimental effects of being sedated or placed in a medically induced coma for an extended period of time. And with the surge of Covid patients in ICU’s, the rates of brain disease, including dementia, have only increased.

Here to talk with Gloria is Dr. Wes Ely, professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine whose research has focused on improving the care and outcomes of critically ill patients with ICU-acquired brain disease.

Dr. Ely is the author of the book Every Deep-Drawn Breath, which shares his quest to return humanity to doctoring by tending to patients’ emotional and spiritual needs, as well as his effort to end a practice in hospital ICUs that leaves patients suffering from long-term brain problems. The title of his book is taken from John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, which reads "The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet."

Gloria and Dr. Ely discuss the dangers of prolonged sedation and how to advocate for your loved one when they are receiving critical care. “This is an entire person. This is not just a set of lungs on a ventilator,” Dr Ely says. “It's an entire person of inestimable work. This is a priceless human being.”

Over the course of his long and storied medical practice, Dr. Ely had the honor of caring for the poet Maya Angelou in advance of her reading at President Bill Clinton’s inauguration. Dr. Ely was originally inspired to become a physician, in part, because of Maya Angelou’s writing. “I write from the Black perspective,” Ms. Angelou told her son, “but I aim for the human heart.” Upon hearing these words. Dr. Ely has made them a personal mantra or his own life and medical practice. He aims always for the human heart.

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Related links:

Every Deep Drawn Breath: Dr. Ely is donating all his net proceeds from this book to a fund at the CIBS Center established to help ICU survivors and their families.

The Christopher Awards

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The mental health toll of mass shootings and why we must name the evil of racism. May 31, 2022

Show notes

On Saturday May 14, 2022, motivated by the evils of racism and white supremacy, an 18 year old man drove 200 miles with an AR-15 rifle with the intention to seek out and kill Black people. He shot and killed ten people at Tops grocery store. And then, only a week and a half later, on May 24, we witnessed another mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas. This time at Robb Elementary school. Nineteen children and two teachers were killed.

Gloria welcomes Sr. Josephine Garrett back to the show. Sr. Josephine is a Sister of the Holy Family of Nazareth and a licensed counselor specializing in trauma.

This conversation was recorded after the racialized killing of people in Buffalo, but before the tragic shooting in Uvalde. Gloria and Sr. Josephine discuss how racially motivated violence takes a toll on our mental health and why its important for our bishops to name the sin of white supremacy. They also talk about how to protect your mental health, while fostering real empathy and understanding.

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Archbishop Cordileone explains why he will bar Nancy Pelosi from Communion May 20, 2022

Show notes

Gloria interviews the Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, about a statement he just released restricting the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, from receiving the Sacrament of the Holy Communion. Speaker Pelosi is a Catholic, who represents the congressional district of San Francisco.

In his statement, the Archbishop laments that Speaker Pelosi’s position on abortion has become more extreme over the years. He says that he’s made numerous attempts to speak with her to help her understand this grave evil, but to no avail. He states, “I have determined that the point has come in which I must make a public declaration that she is not to be admitted to Holy Communion unless and until she publicly repudiate her support for abortion “rights” and confess and receive absolution for her cooperation in this evil in the sacrament of Penance. I have accordingly sent her a Notification to this effect, which I have now made public.”

Gloria speaks with Archbishop Cordileone about his decision, how it came to be and what consequences it will have on an already polarized political climate in the country, and in the Catholic Church.

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Archbishop bars Nancy Pelosi from Communion in her home diocese, citing ‘aggressive’ defense of abortion rights

Interview transcript

Video interview on America's YouTube channel

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How fear is being used to politicize and weaponize the Catholic Church May 17, 2022

Show notes

The Catholic church is facing increasing divisions and tensions that are also reflected in the country at large. Those divisions once again made headlines a few weeks ago when Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke with Michael Voris of Church Militant about a range of topics. In the interview, both Voris and Greene were critical of the U.S. bishops welcome of immigrants. They also weaponized the scandal of the sexual abuse crisis to argue that the bishops had lost their moral authority.

Here to discuss this interview and what it says about polemics in the Catholic church is Bill McCormick, S.J., a contributing editor at America and a visiting assistant professor at Saint Louis University in the departments of political science and philosophy.

“I think my primary impression was that this is a discourse of fear.” says McCormick, “There's a fear that if we try to help other people, we can't help ourselves, the fear that we can barely take care of our own families so how could we possibly take care of other families?”

These fears and scarcity mentality are driving much of the conversation, but McCormick adds, “That's not the gospel. You know, one of the most common lines in the gospel is have no fear.”

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What would a post-Roe world look like? May 10, 2022

Show notes

Last week, there was a leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, raising myriad questions across the country and the political spectrum.

“The Gloria Purvis Podcast” welcomes Kristen Day, the Executive Director of Democrats For Life of America and the author of “Democrats For Life: Pro-Life Politics and the Silenced Majority.”

Gloria and Kristen discuss what will and won’t change should Roe v. Wade be overturned. They also look at what historical precedent exists for overturning established law and why, as a legal matter, Roe v. Wade was on rocky ground from the start.

“The flawed reasoning behind Roe v. Wade,” Gloria says, “is that they used bad history. They couldn't actually tie it to the constitution. And then the opinion itself was crafted more like legislation rather than an opinion.”

Amidst all the political disagreements, there are competing claims to what women really want. At the center of this debate are those most vulnerable to abortion, who Gloria says are still being exploited:“Often the poor, Black woman is used as the mascot for why Roe V. Wade should not be overturned without really delving into the messaging behind that.”

A better abortion debate is possible. Here’s where we can start.

I support overturning Roe. But pro-lifers need to understand why so many Americans fear this decision.

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Pro-choice advocates often appeal to reproductive freedom. But freedom without real choice is coercion. May 03, 2022

Show notes

In December 2021, California established a Council for the Future of Abortion. It’s goal: to improve access to abortion and to protect reproductive freedom, as several states are passing more restrictive abortion legislation.

But for Catholics, this is not merely a question of freedom, but of authentic choice. Do vulnerable women, especially poor women of color, have the same choices available to them when determining their future and that of their unborn children?

On this week’s episode of the “Gloria Purvis Podcast” we hear from Gina Vides, the associate director for parish and community leadership at the Office of Life, Justice and Peace in the Los Angeles Archdiocese. And Gina says that the idea of these women having a choice is met with the demoralizing realities of poverty, lack of affordable housing and domestic violence. Additionally, they are saddled with the responsibility of providing for their other children. “Sixty percent of the women that have abortions in California are already moms,” says Gina.

The L.A. Archdiocese is working around the clock to connect vulnerable moms to programs with wraparound services, including medical care, food, rent assistance and a community of support to help them carry their babies to term. However, California’s Future of Abortion Council is dedicating $61 million to provide gas, lodging, transportation, childcare, food, lost wages, and doula support for women seeking an abortion.

“When you have this asymmetrical emphasis and funding and marketing toward abortion,” Gloria says, “that's not freedom to me. That's coercion.”

Related links:

Gina Vides’ article in the San Diego Union-Tribune, “Opinion: California might expand abortion funding. What about help for mothers who carry to term?”

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The long battle for hair freedom in the United States Apr 26, 2022

Show notes

This week on “The Gloria Purvis Podcast,” we hear from Pamela Ferrell, a pioneer and advocate in the natural hair care field. When Pamela was only 18, she was fired from her job for wearing braids. So she started Cornrows & Co., a hair braiding salon that has passed along a centuries-old tradition in the African American community.

“The history of hair for Africans in America has been one of control,” Pamela says. It can be traced through the restrictive Tignon Laws of 1786 that forced Black women to cover their natural hair, up to the present, where African hair is still policed by schools and employers across the nation. “Slavery is about ownership of your body,” Pamela says, “and so while we are no longer enslaved, those are the remnants of it.”

For over 40 years, Pamela has been a passionate voice for natural hair care causes and a key contributor in efforts to get states to change outdated laws that impose unfair policies and fines on hair braiding salons. In 2014, the U.S. Army and Navy asked Pamela to advise the military on hairstyle policies. There she shared her discovery of what she calls “circle hair.”

“I was combing out a client’s hair after shampooing it and there were perfect circles on the floor.” Pamela began collecting samples, measuring them and ultimately using them as a scientific way to describe all hair types by their shape—circle or line hair. “Hair became a visual argument for me,” she says, to unpack the nefarious forms of racism that persist in our institutions and policies but to do so from the perspective of science.”

Pamela also talks to Gloria about how she overcame punitive policies from the Board of Cosmetology and what language we need, in the Crown Act and in society, to better describe African hair.

Related Links:

The Crown Act

Cornrows & Co.

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