The John-Henry Westen Show - EXCLUSIVE： Pro-Life Arrestee and Father of 11 Describes His Conversion to Catholicism

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the John Henry Weston Show. I've got a beautiful guest

00:00:06.660 for you today. And for a reason that's just incredible, he's been on my show before. Paul

00:00:12.400 Vaughn is a father of 11. And you know him because one of the people who very much like

00:00:19.240 Mark Houck's story was raided by the FBI. And on our last program now, over a year ago,

00:00:27.140 he described how the police came at gunpoint, four of them to arrest him in front of his wife

00:00:34.200 and children. He's got 11 children, young children crying and weeping as they see armed officers come

00:00:42.400 and arrest their dad. Why? For peaceful pro-life activism. It's a story all too familiar to pro-lifers,

00:00:49.780 But Paul's here to talk today about his conversion to the Catholic faith, which happens in the

00:00:57.780 midst after all of that.

00:00:59.900 And it's really stunning.

00:01:01.680 You're going to want to stay tuned for this episode.

00:01:03.260 Paul, thank you so much for joining us again.

00:01:04.920 Welcome back to the program.

00:01:06.740 I'm glad to be back with you, John Anner.

00:01:08.240 Okay, this is really unbelievable news.

00:01:11.760 You are a father of 11 children.

00:01:13.860 You've been active in the pro-life movement all your life.

00:01:17.560 You took it to such an extent that you did, I believe, one of the rescue missions, basically,

00:01:24.140 going to save children in a peaceful way.

00:01:28.180 There's no violence involved whatsoever.

00:01:32.200 It's sometimes civil disobedience.

00:01:34.620 But unlike when there's sit-ins and all sorts of things on the left, you guys were prosecuted.

00:01:41.320 In fact, over a year after the fact is when you were arrested at gunpoint in front of

00:01:48.880 your family.

00:01:49.660 Unbelievable.

00:01:51.840 And yet, despite all that pro-life conviction going on, a massive member of your own church

00:01:58.500 community, obviously with a huge family like that, you decided to make the, I would think,

00:02:07.760 massive decision to come to the Catholic Church. Tell us about that journey, because

00:02:15.760 just thinking about it, the unbelievable challenges that would result, I know it's the truth,

00:02:23.660 obviously, but the massive movement, because when you leave, it's a hard thing. When you have a huge

00:02:32.520 family and you leave, that actually gets compounded. Tell us about it.

00:02:37.460 John, like you said, it was a massive decision and a long time coming. I mean, you know,

00:02:44.000 our Lord is faithful. And so long before the FBI arrest or anything, I was reading Church Fathers

00:02:50.720 and, you know, there was a journey already in its nascent stages. And even back down, I found

00:02:59.320 and ran a little Baptist church for about seven years or so. So early on, you know, you're writing

00:03:05.120 a church constitution, which is what Protestants do. You know, you have to define what, who's in, 0.55

00:03:09.540 what's the, what's the politic and how does this work? And, uh, and we come across the pillar and

00:03:14.920 ground of the truth, uh, passage. And I look at my, my co-elders and I'm like, uh, you guys got

00:03:20.960 this? Cause I think this is a little, this is a tall bar for me to be the pillar and ground of

00:03:24.900 the truth. You know, one man in one lifetime, it seems like an unreachable goal. And so even way

00:03:31.720 back then. And so there's always been this arc, I guess, to what we're doing. And God knows it,

00:03:37.740 the beginning from the end. And it's, you know, it's great to see it work out. But certainly as

00:03:43.880 we, you know, got into this trial, there were several things in the federal trial that led us

00:03:50.060 to really dig in, understand the theological differences, and we can get into some of that.

00:03:54.320 But but the decision itself was was challenging on a lot of fronts.

00:03:58.780 We have, you know, six married children married into our local church, some to the elders, some to some deacons, some to other members of the church and congregation.

00:04:08.000 We have grandchildren that we share. It was a big, you know, a big deal for all of us, everyone involved and not just my children, but their in-laws.

00:04:15.480 And, you know, there were many, many conversations, lots of grace, lots of love in that process.

00:04:20.760 But ultimately, you have to, you know, I think the underlying principle is where where can I be where I can grow and fulfill my calling in Christ and become more like Christ?

00:04:36.660 You know, Patrick Coffin, I read just recently and this wasn't before, but but since we've come in or around the time, I was looking at some of this stuff and, you know, become a saint.

00:04:45.580 What else is there? And certainly Protestants teach about becoming like Christ and becoming sanctified and things.

00:04:50.820 But there is an emphasis that that I needed, you know, that I wanted to to press in and understand how I can, you know, be more more like Christ.

00:05:02.780 And what does that look like on a daily basis, a weekly basis?

00:05:06.380 Every mass is that opportunity to come into his presence and to be transformed.

00:05:11.680 So, you know, in spite of all the challenges, we felt like we had to do it.

00:05:15.540 And like I said, we had lots of conversations, lots of grace, and God has been good.

00:05:19.380 And the conversations are ongoing, as you might imagine.

00:05:22.320 But, you know, that's some of the challenges.

00:05:24.940 At the end of the day, you've got to go where you can become like Christ and where God is leading you and be thankful to what he shows you.

00:05:31.620 You know, he may not have shown some of the people what he's shown me.

00:05:35.440 And my walk and my journey is a little bit different, perhaps, than most.

00:05:39.060 Not everybody gets an FBI raid to wake you up in the morning.

00:05:42.040 And so, you know, there's certainly challenges and there's certainly grace that goes along with that.

00:05:45.780 And I think it's that really is the grace in the midst of the trial that it really strengthened my wife and I and our children at home that were walking with us on a daily basis.

00:05:57.640 That, you know, just let it where there really wasn't any other decision there.

00:06:02.120 There comes a point where you can't unsee what you've seen.

00:06:04.580 and we we came to that point and and that's the way i explained it to

00:06:08.740 to my children others that uh they're associated with this obviously so you

00:06:13.620 came in this past easter now only really only weeks ago

00:06:17.100 um and uh well you received holy communion for the first time

00:06:24.160 um anything you'd like to share about that well it's phenomenal um gosh i'd

00:06:32.080 really uh sat down to consider that in light of sharing that journey but you know obviously there's

00:06:38.220 a difference in our you know our little church is is a very high church presbyterian where we

00:06:43.740 where we came from so we practice weekly communion uh the lord's supper and of course you get into

00:06:49.280 the theology and the the reality of the real local presence of christ and and you know the

00:06:54.420 authority of the church to convect the elements and uh and so that was a big thing for us considering

00:06:59.280 it. But it was very humbling and to be estranged from the table as we went through class and as we

00:07:10.000 were, you know, coming into the church and to go forward each Lord's Day and to have a blessing

00:07:15.720 and not receive was new, even as we came to, you know, the understanding of the real presence and

00:07:21.160 everything. So, yes, the Easter vigil was an amazing journey. And in being able to come into

00:07:28.540 the Lord's presence and consume, partake of the Lord's body, as he tells us in John. 0.61

00:07:34.680 And it was, yeah, I mean, obviously a highlight of a Christian walk, right? 0.87

00:07:40.240 I mean, there's a reality there that you can't explain away and theologically parse, you

00:07:45.800 know, and without just looking at the historic church and seeing what the church believed

00:07:50.160 and practiced throughout time and place.

00:07:52.640 And so that's certainly a high mark of the Christian walk.

00:07:56.700 Beautiful.

00:07:56.900 what since you were sort of considering this or had seen parts of it or what were some of the

00:08:04.100 struggles what held you back from declaring right away oh we have to be catholic what was it were

00:08:09.580 there things that held you back and how were they overcome that's a great question the it's funny

00:08:15.500 i'm probably different than most because of our pro-life work and uh working with so many catholics

00:08:20.120 over the years and having 11 children you know i don't i never went into kroger and got asked are

00:08:24.580 you a Protestant? I got asked, you know, are you a Catholic? Many, many times over our lifetime,

00:08:29.000 every time we had, you know, the children out shopping and stuff. So, but we were always very

00:08:33.380 Catholic friendly. And I think John Henry, if I had to go, you know, to, to really dive into the,

00:08:39.880 the, the arc and the, the, the underlying tenets of that is it was really coming to an understanding.

00:08:48.260 We started with, you know, the Catholics are going to heaven too. We're going to heaven and

00:08:51.520 everybody's everybody loves Jesus and we can all just get along. 0.94

00:08:54.480 And I love the Catholics.

00:08:55.780 They love us.

00:08:56.560 And that's great.

00:08:58.020 And I'm still there.

00:08:59.660 You know, the

00:09:01.660 I love the idea of the Holy Spirit

00:09:04.860 and how the Holy Spirit works in individual lives.

00:09:07.020 And, you know, we see in the Bible and Cornelius

00:09:08.960 even long before he joined the church, you know, his prayers

00:09:12.520 and his alms and come before the Lord as a petition

00:09:14.880 and God had received them and knew them.

00:09:17.020 And so we know that the Holy Spirit works in us around the world,

00:09:20.420 wherever we are in a church, out of the church, that the God who created us is not distant and

00:09:24.900 far from us. And so the, the, the idea of the Pope, and, and well, honestly, it wasn't really

00:09:30.660 a theology, theological issue as much as it was the state of the church in my generation. And,

00:09:36.820 and seeing, you know, we, we deal with this in the politics, right? We deal with it and the

00:09:43.260 corruption of our leaders, national body politic. And we unfortunately see the same thing in our

00:09:48.280 church. There's corruption. There's, there's, you know, they're good, they're good men. There's

00:09:51.780 humanity, right? There in humanity, you get a mixed bag, you get good, you get bad, you get in

00:09:56.380 between. And I love the Solzhenitsyn quote was part of our journey here, where he said that the

00:10:04.000 threat of good and evil runs right through the heart of every man. And that it's left, right,

00:10:09.240 Republican, Democrat, Catholic, Protestant, you name it, we are all capable of vast amounts of

00:10:16.120 evil and vast amounts of good and so but that was certainly a hindrance early on and you know there's

00:10:24.600 and there's john really i think the underlying thing is my biggest hang-ups were uh listening

00:10:32.200 to what protestants said catholics taught instead of listening to what catholics teach

00:10:36.600 and so that is always a uh a challenge and so it's really hard you almost cross a line long

00:10:43.620 before you get there when you say, oh, I think I'll listen to this Catholic or I'll read this

00:10:47.860 Catholic. And of course, a good way to cross that line without crossing it in the modern sense is

00:10:54.880 to pick up the church fathers. If you believe Athanasius and Augustine and Basil the Great and

00:11:01.400 these people were in the church and that they loved God and they served God and they had the

00:11:06.020 fruits of the spirit exhibited in their life, then you have to go back and ask yourself, well,

00:11:10.300 What did they believe? What did they practice? And so it was, you know, St. Vincent de Laurent's fifth century had a great quote that was instrumental in this journey.

00:11:22.560 And he said, if you want to know what the faith is, the faith is what is believed by all people in all places at all times.

00:11:28.680 And so I began to process that.

00:11:31.600 Well, that didn't mean that the church was 100% all the time.

00:11:36.380 But if you find that Antioch, the Christians in the 300s in Antioch, and Rome in the 800s, and Russia in the 1200s, and Greece in the 1400s, all believed the same thing, there's a very good chance that that is the faith of the church, and it has been and always will be.

00:11:52.940 And so that was kind of the that was a huge point for me theologically.

00:11:58.140 And so once you once you cross that Rubicon, it's you can't go back.

00:12:01.480 You begin looking and things just fall in place.

00:12:04.760 And you, you know, from one doctrine to the next, you know, one one nuanced in the next.

00:12:09.920 And so, yes, it's an amazing journey, but no, no major doctrinal things.

00:12:16.380 It was just a journey, I think.

00:12:18.180 And just being willing to open a book and objectively, you know, being willing to ask God in prayer, lots of prayer, obviously.

00:12:26.460 Lord, you show me. This is your church. This is your truth. I am your person.

00:12:30.620 You created me. You created the world. You created your church, your body.

00:12:34.380 And just lead me. And being sincerely, spiritually, honestly open to that. And he's faithful.

00:12:41.200 It's beautiful that you came in eyes wide open.

00:12:45.120 It's not like you were shielded from the havoc in the church, which is great.

00:12:50.140 On behalf of all of LifeSite and our fans, I want to welcome you and say how grateful 0.95

00:12:56.080 we are because having good Bible-believing Catholics, especially those with large family,

00:13:03.840 is an amazing witness.

00:13:05.660 I mean, I was amazed to hear you say that there weren't that many theological stumbling

00:13:09.560 blocks. Because even though for Presbyterians, the going to the Eucharist is actually not that

00:13:16.240 far of a stretch, especially as it would be for sort of low church Protestants, one of the

00:13:20.440 stumbling blocks still tends to be Our Lady. Was that all copacetic for you? Was there anything

00:13:26.260 there, anything you had to explain to your children or anything like that? Might have

00:13:29.480 questions about that. You know, that's a great point. And this has been a great topic,

00:13:33.000 your conversation. First, not really. And the direct answer is there weren't any real nuances.

00:13:39.560 But as I explained to our friends in this journey, lest I forget, in my explanation,

00:13:45.080 Bram Petrie's book, The Jewish Roots of Mary, was a phenomenal book.

00:13:48.880 A good friend recommended that to me early on, and that was a phenomenal part of the journey.

00:13:56.720 But when understanding Mary and what she is to the church and to us,

00:14:02.340 jokingly, it's been said that the Protestant church is a single-family church,

00:14:08.500 or a single parent family.

00:14:11.260 You know, we don't have a mother in the Protestant world. 0.89

00:14:13.540 And, you know, it's a cheeky joke or whatever about it.

00:14:17.860 But the reality is what I've told my children

00:14:20.420 and those that have asked me about it

00:14:23.100 is to understand Mary, you really,

00:14:24.960 first you got to understand the saints

00:14:26.140 and you got to understand

00:14:27.600 what the church believes about the saints.

00:14:29.220 To understand the saints,

00:14:30.320 you have to go back and understand

00:14:31.860 what the concept of eternity and the here and now

00:14:36.800 in the visible church, the invisible church, you have to understand what the historic church taught

00:14:40.560 about that. And, and then to understand that, you really got to go back and understand, well,

00:14:45.640 what is my role in that church? And in relation to those other saints in relation to our mother.

00:14:51.320 And so when you, when you begin to look at it, it, it flows through differently than if you just

00:14:56.780 start with the thing, I know I don't agree with Mary. And so therefore I can't go there.

00:15:01.700 If you don't know the right questions to ask, you don't know what questions, right? You just

00:15:06.180 don't know if you're asking the right questions to get there.

00:15:09.020 And I found that as I begin to understand the communion of saints

00:15:13.560 and actually even in our Presbyterian church, we say it every Sunday.

00:15:17.500 It's on our liturgy.

00:15:18.420 We are coming into the presence of the saints that have gone before us.

00:15:21.960 We're right there in Hebrews.

00:15:23.000 They're a great cloud of witness. 0.72

00:15:24.440 And so if you're not separating them out

00:15:29.040 and they are actually in the church with us as we come before our Lord,

00:15:32.880 that's a whole different view. When you begin to really parse that out and say, well, I want to

00:15:37.800 make sure my actions are consistent with what I'm professing. And so when we come into the church,

00:15:43.220 are they really here or are they just somewhere else? And there's a veil between us and we're not

00:15:47.820 able, they're not watching us. Like Hebrew says, they're actually looking down, watching us run

00:15:51.740 the race. So if that's true, then why would I not, why would I ask my, my pastor or my, my son or, 0.95

00:15:59.860 you know another friend in the church to pray for me and send out a church email and say please pray

00:16:04.320 for me i'm having these struggles or i'm i'm going on this media presentation i want to make sure i

00:16:08.300 represent the lord well nobody hesitates that but why wouldn't i go oh saint augustine you walk this

00:16:15.640 path you're in the presence of our lord pray for me yeah it's just right it's just it makes so much

00:16:21.040 sense it's so consistent does it does it's like we're saying um well god doesn't have email or

00:16:28.240 text messaging or phones so we can't do it that way right yep i i was always amazed when i would

00:16:36.500 hear the the protestants sing mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is one and then

00:16:42.780 turn around and say how can catholics do that but nonetheless there it is but uh yeah really

00:16:49.020 really beautiful friends on september 24th in saint louis missouri life site news invites you

00:16:56.140 to an unforgettable gala honoring the beatification of Archbishop Bolton Sheen,

00:17:01.320 one of the greatest Catholic voices of the 20th century,

00:17:04.900 featuring world-class speakers including Bishop Joseph Strickland,

00:17:08.640 John Henry Weston, Terry Barber, and Peter Howard.

00:17:12.140 Enjoy a formal dinner, powerful keynote addresses,

00:17:15.840 and even exclusive access to Archbishop Sheen's favorite miter.

00:17:19.920 With only 200 seats available, this historic night will fill up quickly.

00:17:23.620 reserve your ticket now and be a part of an evening for the ages so the understanding of

00:17:32.940 the coming into the church and the understanding of what the church is has that affected your

00:17:38.200 pro-life witness thoughts or or thoughts about what you were doing any any uh new insights that

00:17:46.920 way yeah we're still wrestling with some of that right we're because not only you know major life

00:17:52.440 events all around. Right. You know, most people deal with getting a child married off as a major

00:17:58.060 life event. And during this federal trial and risking 10 years in jail, we married two children

00:18:02.800 off and began this journey into the church. And so there's it's hard to parse out what pieces are

00:18:09.000 from what what events. So we're still looking at, you know, going forward in ministry, what that

00:18:17.100 looks like for us there is certainly a challenge and uh and we're wanting to make sure that we

00:18:25.520 have it uh we just want we're really trying to discern where god has us i yeah i am still

00:18:30.320 learning how ministry works in the catholic church it's like is it a publicist and apostate what are

00:18:34.280 these third orders what are you know all these different fun things that we're we've learned

00:18:37.760 about obviously i met some wonderful people um we our oa oica ocia instructor is actually a lay

00:18:46.060 Dominican. And we found out that one of the ladies we ministered to on the sidewalks here

00:18:51.400 in Nashville for years as a sister of hers and knows, you know, a Dominican sister. And, you

00:18:58.580 know, we knew her long before we ever thought about this and prayed with her on the sidewalk

00:19:02.720 many times and stuff. So, so we're still looking at into that. But I think the one thing, John

00:19:09.700 Henry, that I know, and one of the challenges is Protestantism. Early on, I led March for Jesus in

00:19:15.380 Waco, Texas. I was part of the Ralph Reed Christian Coalition stuff. I've been a part of

00:19:20.620 many efforts, lots of obviously sidewalk ministry, pro-life ministry, trying to get the church in

00:19:25.120 unity to come out, to speak with one voice, to come out and pray for the unborn, to come to the

00:19:31.420 abortion clinic, to show up at an event, just to come and make a public proclamation of the gospel

00:19:37.060 in like the March for Jesus back in the 90s stuff. And the hardest thing was trying to get

00:19:45.020 all the disunity and trying to get, well, the Lutherans won't sing this song or the

00:19:49.760 Presbyterians will sing this song or the Baptists won't say this creed or, you know, there's

00:19:53.880 all this stuff.

00:19:55.160 And so there's an aspect of there's a Catholic church in every county in Tennessee, and I

00:20:00.320 can set up and begin to go forward in unity with the Catholic church as an anchor and

00:20:06.560 certainly being gracious and inviting all the Protestants and others to come and still

00:20:10.840 enter into, you know, some kind of ministry.

00:20:13.180 I don't like activism, really, just faithfulness is what I would call it, and just being out and making a public declaration.

00:20:19.380 I'd say we, a group of our original sidewalk counselors from our sidewalk counseling minister and a person in Tennessee,

00:20:26.220 has been singing hymns for over five years on the city square here in our small town.

00:20:31.260 And, you know, that was something we said, hey, this is a great opportunity to make a public declaration, a public witness,

00:20:36.860 and just being able to enthrone Christ in our prayers right at the public at the city square

00:20:43.360 and make that a declaration and make him a home, you know, a seat there in our body politic and

00:20:49.620 in our civil life and our retail lives, you know, all those things and just declare him Lord over

00:20:55.620 all that. And so I have a heart and that's kind of where I'm leaning is to see something like

00:21:02.740 that done, first in Tennessee and ultimately it's 4,000 some odd counties in the nation,

00:21:08.060 wouldn't it be great to have 4,000 some odd counties meeting once a week or once a month

00:21:12.420 or once a quarter and just publicly declaring Christ and singing some hymns directly out of

00:21:16.860 scripture and just lifting him up. So that's kind of where our heart is. And we're just seeking God

00:21:23.220 as we finalize. We're still a few nuances here in our countersuit with the government and trying

00:21:29.500 to settle everything and finish that up.

00:21:31.780 But we're waiting on God at that point.

00:21:35.780 What a beautiful idea.

00:21:37.640 The singing of hymns in public spaces

00:21:42.720 as part of the pro-life movement.

00:21:44.420 I think that's, first of all, it's genius

00:21:47.120 because I think there's just such a love

00:21:50.520 for the hymnology anyway.

00:21:52.900 A lot of people will know and love

00:21:55.700 the the songs of the faith that are that are heard i that the the whole trend of the uh whatever

00:22:03.080 they call it that when they show up in a mall and start singing christmas hymns that everybody knows

00:22:08.620 and they love it and it's secular love it's loved secularly it makes you know massive views on on

00:22:14.560 youtube and all over social media because it's beautiful and it is the traditional hymns you

00:22:20.560 You hear Handel's Messiah, you know, and everybody is singing the Hallelujah Chorus because it speaks to the heart and of the whole wide world.

00:22:30.280 So that, first of all, I think that's genius.

00:22:32.780 It's also prayer because, you know, singing is praying twice is attributed, I think, to St. Augustine.

00:22:39.180 But it's also true that it lifts the heart to Christ, but also as a public witness.

00:22:48.780 So, A, you have my vote for doing that. I think it's fascinating. And I'm going to encourage people to do it because that's just gorgeous. But let's talk for a moment about the latter half of what's happened to you.

00:23:01.020 So after the arrest, you are thankfully not taken to prison. But now, under the Trump administration, they've just shown how horrific this was, how the Biden administration went after you and pro-life leaders specifically, looking especially for Catholics and traditional Christians with a vengeance,

00:23:26.640 did the unthinkable in going after Mark Houck and your son. Family men at the point of a gun

00:23:35.320 on, he's like purposefully doing it to disturb. You've now been apologized to by the government.

00:23:44.740 There's a huge report just released a few weeks ago on detailing the horrendous nature of this

00:23:51.140 and sort of apologizing on behalf of the government.

00:23:54.900 There's more to come as well.

00:23:58.460 And I'd just love to hear your thoughts on the sort of after effect now.

00:24:03.640 It really is a strange time in our political life in America, isn't it?

00:24:07.820 And in all my years, I've not seen anything like this.

00:24:11.280 We just came back from D.C. yesterday.

00:24:13.100 We attended Monday night.

00:24:14.320 The premiere of by Don's Early Light is the movie that actually is a video documentary that that actually puts that report that came out into a documentary form, into video format.

00:24:29.380 And we we have a small our story is a small snippet in there, along with a couple other our co-defendants, Eva Edel and Coleman Boyder in the movie.

00:24:36.720 It was really it was very surreal to sit there and see leaders in our Department of Justice and high political officeholders being there, apologizing, acknowledging the wrongs done.

00:24:52.080 But it's also kind of schizophrenia in a sense.

00:24:55.360 Our body politics, it's the same Department of Justice that showed up at my doorstep armed that is now on stage apologizing.

00:25:03.280 you know it's just it's hard to get your head around of how we as a nation metabolize this

00:25:09.420 political system and i think there's some real reforms and things that need to be done but that's

00:25:13.880 another you know probably a conversation for another day you know we are very pleased with

00:25:19.300 the way god's using the story i think the one of my co-defendants said the the discernment and

00:25:27.360 their analysis of what happened is dead on. The solution being proposed may be limited.

00:25:35.920 And I would say it's probably limited. You know, John, we have 160 appointees each term

00:25:42.020 and they manage some hundred thousand employees that are there. It would take it takes a very

00:25:49.200 good leader to make an impact on someone's life in four years, let alone to actually have a

00:25:55.980 continuous change, a meaningful change in our government. So there's more that needs to happen.

00:26:01.640 I don't know what that is yet. I don't know exactly what that means, but I tend to lean this

00:26:07.940 way. I think it was Ben Carson, actually, who may have said it just the other night. He said,

00:26:12.380 just focus on being a Christian and expect to be persecuted. And quite honestly, that's a part of

00:26:20.520 the embracing martyrdom, persecution, the saints that have gone before us is a beautiful history

00:26:26.800 of the Catholic Church. And I, you know, never sought any of this type of martyrdom or persecution

00:26:36.140 or anything. We've just tried to quietly live at peace with all men as the Bible instructs and

00:26:39.740 raise our family on our farm. But, you know, they showed up at our door and my prayer then and now

00:26:46.700 is God make me faithful.

00:26:49.120 As a matter of fact, I keep it on my desk,

00:26:51.900 Psalm 51, and the last verse here

00:26:55.320 in the way we sing it says,

00:26:57.280 give me back the joy of your salvation

00:26:58.920 and a willing spirit sustain in me.

00:27:02.980 You know, there are many days

00:27:04.340 over the last several years I woke up

00:27:05.940 and I was, Lord, I just, I'm tired of this fight.

00:27:07.900 I'm tired of the battle.

00:27:08.960 I'm weary.

00:27:10.240 I'm from every angle in business

00:27:12.720 and polygyric and family and church.

00:27:14.720 I'm fighting and struggling.

00:27:16.700 And I'm just weary, just sustaining me a willingness to enter in today where you have me and to be faithful where you place me today.

00:27:25.940 And in some days it's like that.

00:27:27.680 Some days it's hour by hour.

00:27:28.900 And sometimes it eases up when we go week by week and we're, you know, we get a little momentum going and we can do some things.

00:27:34.880 But, you know, that's that's the challenge with it.

00:27:37.600 But it's, you know, it's very much a part of our journey.

00:27:40.960 And at the end of the day, it's all his story.

00:27:42.860 So we're we're thankful for the opportunity to to be used to them.

00:27:46.120 Yeah. It's an incredible thing, I think, for the whole of the pro-life movement in the world,

00:27:53.580 actually. America is a different place. This has really not happened. Maybe the extremity

00:28:02.080 also of the arrests, although that's happening in Europe and in Canada as well. But the gunpoint

00:28:08.980 stuff, that was a bit much. Even for Canada, that was a bit much. But there it was. And

00:28:15.920 this colossal reversal, I mean, kudos to Trump. I know a lot of people are down on him. And we're

00:28:24.900 very honest about him too. His promotion of the pill and the abortion pill, et cetera, et cetera,

00:28:30.700 terrible stuff. But God has used him powerfully. And it's unthinkable to think any other way,

00:28:38.500 because just look around politically, this does not happen. You don't have a government looking

00:28:44.640 back and saying, yeah, that was bad on us. So in some ways, it's truly miraculous. And it's

00:28:52.580 obviously our Lord's doing, and he is using it. He is making use of this, even to tell your powerful

00:28:58.720 stories. Mark Houck, yourself, obviously Joan Andrews Bell, et cetera, et cetera. The list goes

00:29:05.760 on and on. Sister Didi, Father Fidelis, who, by the way, is coming up to his anniversary of his

00:29:11.140 peacehood. It's been an incredible thing that our Lord is making his truth known through his

00:29:20.880 soldiers. And I think your entree into the church is just such a powerful story. In one way,

00:29:30.500 the whole of the pro-life movement has always been about evangelization to the truth.

00:29:37.200 I remember going to the March for Life year after year after year in Washington, D.C.,

00:29:42.680 and we'd all show up at the march, and we'd all be working like crazy, and you do. You run like

00:29:47.620 nuts. And afterward, all the leadership would go to the pub. And if you went around the pub,

00:29:55.480 it was always evangelization. Everybody is talking about the faith. And so many of the

00:30:04.660 pro-life leaders from Abby Johnson, Reggie Littlejohn, all come into or back to their Catholic

00:30:13.600 faith, often because of the pro-life movement. So in that way, your story is a consolation.

00:30:25.200 It's a beauty. And for us too, it's also a, oh, thanks be to God, there are new soldiers

00:30:33.960 in the fight because we've never before in the church needed more Bible-believing Christians

00:30:41.360 than today

00:30:42.940 so my friend thank you so much for joining us

00:30:45.560 for sharing your story

00:30:47.420 and God bless you

00:30:49.380 pray for us as we pray for you and your beautiful

00:30:51.880 family and welcome

00:30:53.780 to the One True Church

00:30:55.300 Amen, thank you John Henry

00:30:57.420 appreciate your prayers, appreciate you having us on

00:30:59.560 and God bless all of you

00:31:00.780 and we'll see you next time

00:31:02.280 Hi I'm Liz Yor

00:31:07.800 I'm really urging all the audience

00:31:10.040 to continue to follow LifeSite News for all information news about life for a great perspective

00:31:18.840 on all the breaking news in the world thank you for watching and continue to watch and follow LifeSite News

The John-Henry Westen Show - May 29, 2026

EXCLUSIVE： Pro-Life Arrestee and Father of 11 Describes His Conversion to Catholicism

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