The John-Henry Westen Show - January 03, 2025


How a hermit priest helped save a woman from addiction during COVID lockdown


Episode Stats


Length

36 minutes

Words per minute

177.64572

Word count

6,447

Sentence count

455

Harmful content

Misogyny

8

sentences flagged

Toxicity

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Author Kevin Wells joins the show to talk about his new book, "How The Hermit Came About," and how the Holy Spirit gave him the idea to write a book about his wife's addiction to drugs and alcohol.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 It was ugly. I mean, like I said, sometimes it was like Satan was speaking through my wife.
00:00:04.300 Your viewer will have to read the book. But I point out some ugly things that seem to me to be
00:00:10.120 purely diabolical when I confronted Krista and things that happened in our home.
00:00:23.600 Hey, my friends. You know, some writers just have a gift from God.
00:00:30.000 They are able to communicate in a way that's so stellar.
00:00:33.340 When you read what they write, you want to read it.
00:00:37.180 And whatever message they're conveying underneath what they're saying the story about,
00:00:41.360 that will sink into your soul.
00:00:44.220 Well, those writers can be truly dangerous if they're evil.
00:00:47.580 But if they're good, they can communicate things in such a way that you are really blessed.
00:00:53.680 I mean, in a very spiritual sense to have read the writing.
00:00:56.460 We have such a writer with us today.
00:00:59.260 But he wrote a book that, wow, it's about his wife's addiction.
00:01:10.420 And who does that?
00:01:12.180 I mean, that's like, how really?
00:01:14.100 My wife would hear that, just the concept and go, you're never doing that.
00:01:19.280 Not that she has addictions.
00:01:21.000 No, no, no.
00:01:21.420 But nonetheless, that's really, really down and personal.
00:01:26.920 What?
00:01:27.640 How do you do that?
00:01:29.240 Well, this author, Kevin Wells, is a very holy man.
00:01:33.840 And in fact, he's friends with a friend of mine who endorsed his book so strongly that
00:01:41.180 I knew I had to talk to him.
00:01:42.500 In fact, I've known him because he's written for LifeSite News as well.
00:01:45.380 My complaint about Kevin Wells is that he hasn't written more for LifeSite News.
00:01:48.440 But when Michael O'Brien, whom you probably all know is a great friend of mine, came out
00:01:54.240 with such an incredible endorsement for him, I knew right away, this we have to do.
00:02:01.460 Not only that, he tells me that this book really was sort of given to him by the Holy Spirit.
00:02:08.680 And if you know anything about Michael O'Brien's writings, that's exactly what happens to him.
00:02:13.680 Stay tuned for this episode of The John Henry Weston Show with author Kevin Wells.
00:02:19.000 For U.S. residents, creating a will has never been easier.
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00:02:47.380 Thank you for your support, and may God bless you.
00:02:50.520 Kevin, thank you so much for joining us.
00:02:52.540 John Henry, it's wonderful to be with you.
00:02:53.980 Thank you very much.
00:02:55.040 Let's begin as we always do, with the sign of the cross.
00:02:57.960 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
00:03:02.760 Amen.
00:03:03.620 Ow. 0.99
00:03:04.360 You wrote a book about your wife's addictions.
00:03:07.380 It's like, it sounds right off the bat like the thing not to do.
00:03:11.840 Why did you do that, and how are you getting away with that? 1.00
00:03:16.040 Yeah, what a jerk I am, huh? 1.00
00:03:18.380 Husbands aren't supposed to do that, are they? 1.00
00:03:20.940 No, not at all.
00:03:22.140 Put their wife's stuff on the street. 0.99
00:03:24.960 Yeah, John Henry, the fact of the matter is, I didn't want to do it.
00:03:29.860 My wife, Krista, said, Kevin, write it.
00:03:33.060 Matter of fact, she urged me for several months after telling her no.
00:03:36.920 It's funny that you mentioned Michael O'Brien starting this podcast, because it was Michael
00:03:43.920 O'Brien who I called.
00:03:46.220 He's really my only writing hero, and I called him in the wilds of Canada, and I said, Michael,
00:03:51.860 this is the story of my wife, and she wants me to write this book.
00:03:55.460 I want to fictionalize it, because it's a heck of a story, and I think I can do it the
00:03:59.920 way, not the way you do, because you're up here, and I'm way down here.
00:04:03.760 But I want to fictionalize it, and he said, well, tell me the story, and I did, and after
00:04:08.460 speaking for not quite 10 minutes, I heard the voice of God, and John Henry, you hear
00:04:14.320 his voice frequently, and he's got that low, slow voice, and he says, write it as it was.
00:04:22.840 So in a lot of ways, in concert with the Holy Spirit, Krista's urging, and Michael O'Brien
00:04:28.420 sort of gave me the compass.
00:04:30.380 Amen.
00:04:30.600 Man, well, Michael O'Brien didn't say man, but he said, hey, write it as it was.
00:04:33.900 So that's how The Hermit came about.
00:04:38.220 Okay.
00:04:39.080 So your book, The Hermit, first of all, where people need to get it from, where can they
00:04:43.700 get it from?
00:04:44.360 Well, I'm sure Amazon, but where can they pick it up?
00:04:46.980 I would go to Ignatius.com.
00:04:48.840 Okay.
00:04:49.720 It's Ignatius' book, and so you've got, that's why Michael O'Brien's there.
00:04:53.500 He's published at Ignatius as well.
00:04:54.860 Well, so give us a story.
00:04:57.620 What happened here?
00:04:59.440 And as soon as you start, I'm sure people will know, ooh, that's why it was about, oh,
00:05:05.380 okay.
00:05:06.000 Go ahead.
00:05:07.080 Well, I'll try and capsize it, John Henry.
00:05:08.880 These stories are always circuitous, let's say.
00:05:14.160 But about 10 or so years ago, I had brain surgery.
00:05:17.120 I had an aneurysm.
00:05:19.000 It was actually failed brain surgery and was supposed to die.
00:05:24.260 My wife, Krista, never left the hospital.
00:05:27.840 I guess at this point, we were married for about nine years.
00:05:32.360 And a priest and his assistant came into my neuro ICU room after the failed surgery where
00:05:39.400 they couldn't, I had what's called an arteriovenous malformation.
00:05:43.380 They couldn't get to it.
00:05:44.440 The surgeons couldn't get to it and the blood really was drowning my brain.
00:05:48.400 And I was incapacitated after the surgery.
00:05:51.240 And my uncle's best friend, Monsignor Tom Wells is my uncle, my dad's brother.
00:05:56.400 He was murdered in his rectory in 2000.
00:05:59.160 And this priest who came into my dark, drab neuro ICU room where this is the floor in Maryland
00:06:06.160 where people go to die.
00:06:08.260 He said, I don't know, because I was incapacitated.
00:06:10.920 And his assistant said that he knelt on my bedside and said, hey, we've been calling on
00:06:16.340 the saints to intercede for you now.
00:06:19.020 Is there a saint that we can call on for you?
00:06:21.920 And he said that I whispered, bring my uncle down, you know, bring Tommy down.
00:06:29.260 He was Uncle Tommy, Monsignor Thomas Wells.
00:06:31.320 And, you know, he stands up like a V8 moment and goes to the foot of my bed and says, hey,
00:06:36.840 bud, you got to save your nephew's life.
00:06:39.680 He just if you don't do it, he's he's he's a dead man.
00:06:42.620 And so he began to call my uncle.
00:06:45.320 And and and that's when if Father Stack was on this podcast right now, he would tell you
00:06:51.700 that lights began to pop and the entire temperature of the room began to change.
00:06:56.600 And both of them knew that they were standing in the midst of something supernatural.
00:07:01.120 And he said, Kevin, I and this is months later when I recovered.
00:07:05.440 He said, Kevin, I knew that things were happening in there, but I knew that you were healed.
00:07:11.200 I knew it was a miracle when I saw sort of like a horseshoe interiorly, a horseshoe of
00:07:16.000 the heavenly court around your bed.
00:07:17.420 And your uncle was standing next to me and he was smiling and I knew it was all gone.
00:07:21.820 The next day it was the blood, the fluids, the AVM gone.
00:07:25.040 Get out of the hospital.
00:07:25.860 You're good.
00:07:26.480 Get out of the hospital.
00:07:27.300 And so, John Henry, to tell the story, I'm going to speed it up.
00:07:31.040 Great news, right?
00:07:32.020 I'm Lazarus from the grave.
00:07:33.220 But no, no.
00:07:35.100 What happened was it opened up a mother wound in my wife, Krista, a mother wound of shame.
00:07:40.020 And she saw me after my close call going closer to God in ways that maybe I wasn't before.
00:07:48.100 So daily mass, daily rosaries, more acts of sacrificial love, prison ministry, just, you
00:07:53.780 know, the typical thing a guy would do who's this close and maybe he's not set right for
00:07:58.840 the judgment seat, right?
00:08:00.440 So Krista interiorly had opened up this wound of shame. 0.68
00:08:05.140 She didn't know about it.
00:08:05.900 I didn't know about it, but she began to secretly binge drink red wine for the first
00:08:09.920 time in our marriage, in our life.
00:08:13.140 And that led to a long, dark night.
00:08:17.180 And just to put a bow on it, what led to the hermit during COVID-19, so it was a long time.
00:08:26.000 This was a dark night, about eight years.
00:08:29.600 A holy priest.
00:08:31.180 I know a lot of priests, John Henry, you do too.
00:08:34.560 I don't know if I'm ever going to meet anyone like Father Martin Flume, but he sort of took
00:08:39.100 a spiral staircase down into my wife's soul. 0.99
00:08:41.980 And he said, I'm going to stick here.
00:08:44.320 I know there's a sacramental moratorium worldwide, but I'm going nowhere, honey.
00:08:48.620 I'm not going anywhere for people like you that have ghosts, wounds, addictions, whatever.
00:08:54.860 I'm going to intensify my priesthood because I'm not concerned with the disease.
00:08:59.680 I'm not concerned with getting sick.
00:09:01.400 I'm concerned with your soul.
00:09:03.360 So Krista, I will be the shepherd of your soul and I will keep things wide open.
00:09:07.200 And so when Krista healed during that wonderful year, the worst year in world history was our
00:09:14.660 best year.
00:09:15.260 It started our honeymoon.
00:09:16.660 Krista said, write the book about what a strong, muscular, holy priest did for me during COVID.
00:09:24.380 So maybe in the future, if another pandemic comes down the pike, they can see what this 0.97
00:09:28.580 priest did to heal me.
00:09:30.160 What was it that was so stunning that this priest did?
00:09:33.060 I mean, a presumed confession and stuff, but what else does a priest do?
00:09:39.280 Father Flume, from the very beginning of his, even seminary days, he set himself right where
00:09:44.600 he stopped eating meat.
00:09:46.440 He stopped all alcohol because it knew it could soften sort of the burden of his identity.
00:09:51.200 If he was going to mimic the starved man on the cross, he needed to strip himself away.
00:09:56.040 So by the time he became a priest, he was set right for taking on the burden of who he was,
00:10:01.660 Jesus Christ and Persona Christi.
00:10:03.880 So for Krista in particular, he knew prior to COVID, where he had been working with her,
00:10:12.220 he knew her woundedness.
00:10:14.520 So as I mentioned earlier, he was consumed with trying to get the little demons and snakes
00:10:19.940 and beasts out of her soul. 0.76
00:10:21.480 The shame, it's all about shame, shame, shame.
00:10:24.220 So he intensified spiritual direction.
00:10:26.840 He allowed holy hour for Krista as many as two, three hours a day.
00:10:32.560 He allowed daily mass from the very beginning of COVID.
00:10:35.880 All the things that a shepherd would do for a wounded lamb, Father Flume did, not just for
00:10:41.400 Krista, but for others or two that were suffering.
00:10:43.900 So really, he just said, Krista, I'm not going to let you go.
00:10:47.000 The church has responded sort of in a strange way to COVID, but I'm not going to let you go.
00:10:51.680 So he was our shepherd during COVID.
00:10:53.900 Now, that would have put him into trouble.
00:10:58.780 I know, for instance, in Canada, we were at once told that if you continued with celebrations
00:11:04.020 of any kind, you would be charged $10,000 for the institution and $10,000 for each participant.
00:11:10.420 Was he facing any kind of danger that way?
00:11:13.360 Father Flume was brilliant.
00:11:14.740 Read the church doctors.
00:11:15.780 If you went into his library, you would see books 12 inches thick on the Encyclopedia of
00:11:21.220 the Saints.
00:11:21.880 And so when he read the first release from, it was Cardinal Gregory about sort of how he
00:11:28.480 was, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. was going to handle COVID, he read loopholes.
00:11:34.120 He read loopholes.
00:11:35.840 So his secretary said he came out of the office that day, the very beginning of COVID, and
00:11:40.820 he had this secret smile on.
00:11:42.440 And so for your viewer, Father Flume, just to put a face on him, he's got this big Old
00:11:48.000 Testament beard.
00:11:49.020 He looks like Ezekiel.
00:11:50.340 He just looks like a mystic.
00:11:52.140 And he came out and he had that smile hiding in his beard.
00:11:54.760 And he said, yeah, I think I know how to handle this one.
00:11:57.860 So he navigated the loopholes of bureaucracy and he found a way.
00:12:03.240 Where is Father Flume now?
00:12:04.560 I mean, what parish is he at?
00:12:06.700 Father Flume in 2021 approached Krista and said, hey, Krista, I'm going to tell you now,
00:12:14.420 this is a year and a half after Krista's healing, and said, Mary's calling me to offer the rest
00:12:19.860 of my life as a consecrated hermit.
00:12:22.620 I want to turn myself over really as a Holocaust for the state of this world. 0.99
00:12:29.860 We saw what happened during the summer of 2020 when the moratorium of the sacraments,
00:12:33.840 we saw BLM, we saw riots, we saw fires in the streets, murders.
00:12:38.380 So Father Flume believed, and I do too, and John Henry, I imagine you do as well, that
00:12:43.040 whenever you constrain the sacramental graces of the Catholic Church, well, the devil, the 0.83
00:12:47.100 devil's like, well, he just whistles to his chorus of demons and says, go in.
00:12:51.160 They're not even trying anymore.
00:12:52.420 And we saw that in 2020, and Father Flume did too.
00:12:55.800 So about a year later, he offered Mary the rest of his life.
00:13:00.140 So now, today, to answer your question, John Henry, the remainder of his life will be spent
00:13:05.100 in a cell in a forest, no larger than her childhood bedroom.
00:13:11.500 So essentially, his room is the monstrance, and his life is penances, mortifications, and
00:13:18.380 prayers.
00:13:18.720 Just like St. Anthony of the Desert.
00:13:20.140 I know it's a rare, sort of a rare vocation, but it's real.
00:13:26.080 And some priests take it on, and in this area, those that know Father Flume know he's not
00:13:32.960 only taking it on, but imagine that what's happening now, three or four years in, is that
00:13:38.700 he's also taking on what all the great desert monks did, and that's the devil, because that's 0.98
00:13:43.680 what Father Flume wants.
00:13:45.200 He wants to pick fights with the devil to take him out of this woke Western culture.
00:13:50.340 So he's fighting the devil for our souls, for our nations, for our church, for the recovery
00:13:57.380 of the priesthood.
00:13:58.760 That's what Father Flume's going to do for the remainder of his life.
00:14:01.660 Just so people get a vision of that a little bit more, really, perhaps, you mentioned, even
00:14:07.960 before his priesthood, I believe, that he had already given up all alcohol and also all
00:14:15.400 meat?
00:14:15.700 He was in love with how the saints acted.
00:14:18.540 So if John Vianney converted all of ours after the French Revolution, well, he wanted to know
00:14:23.360 what John Vianney did.
00:14:24.320 So, oh, John Vianney mortified his body.
00:14:26.860 John Vianney was 12 to 14 hours in the confessional.
00:14:29.800 Oh, he actually worked 18 to 20 hours every day and woke up at the Angelus Bells at three
00:14:36.640 in the morning to begin his day.
00:14:37.960 Well, that's what I want to do, because I want to help my parishioners.
00:14:41.700 So, yeah, anything that he knew could soften his identity or, like, he saw comfort as almost
00:14:49.680 like demonic.
00:14:50.620 Like, if it's comfortable, I'm going to cast it off, because if I embrace any measure of
00:14:55.600 comfort, then it could sort of metastasize or expand.
00:15:00.380 So he was always fighting off things.
00:15:03.500 And by the way, he wasn't like a, you know, a holier-than-thou guy.
00:15:07.480 He had Jesus exuding in him.
00:15:10.640 He had joy.
00:15:11.720 He had love.
00:15:12.600 But man, was he tough.
00:15:14.280 He was tough because he had rejected the world.
00:15:17.320 So you reject the world and attune to souls.
00:15:20.020 That kind of wraps up his life.
00:15:21.820 World, you're no good.
00:15:23.520 Saints, you are. 1.00
00:15:24.460 Jesus Christ, I serve you alone, and I consecrate it all to Mary.
00:15:27.900 That's kind of who Father Bloom is.
00:15:29.660 So oftentimes, when I'll be fasting, my mood is not the greatest sometimes.
00:15:36.980 It's sharper and less charitable.
00:15:41.280 What is that characteristic of Father?
00:15:44.260 It's like anything else.
00:15:46.500 When you, you hate to make it simple like this, but when you lift weights and use those
00:15:52.600 muscles for so long after a while, you're just like, well, it's a fast. 0.99
00:15:56.980 Not only, and I'm like you, John Henry, I've become like a jerk too, but not only don't 0.97
00:16:03.220 you become angrier, ornery, you actually say, let's extend this fast another day. 0.99
00:16:10.500 It's like, give me more.
00:16:12.180 Let me extend myself more.
00:16:13.480 Because he was always seeing Jesus Christ as a starved man on the cross who poured himself
00:16:18.460 out.
00:16:19.260 You know, Jesus for him was the poor man of Nazareth who had no place to lay his head.
00:16:23.440 He slept outdoors, you know, Jesus did.
00:16:25.460 So Father Bloom said, well, if I, if I call myself an ambassador of Christ and attuned to
00:16:31.740 souls, then I got to try and resemble him.
00:16:35.760 Pope Pius XI said, men must look for the peace of Christ in the kingdom of Christ.
00:16:42.660 And he urged that the faithful give public honor to Christ the King so that individuals
00:16:47.080 and states would submit once more to the rule of their savior.
00:16:50.700 And that is why LifeSite News is raising up the image of Christ the King across the United
00:16:56.420 States.
00:16:56.980 And you can help us reach millions more.
00:17:00.340 Please pledge your support today for these billboards at lifefunder.com slash Christ is
00:17:06.580 King.
00:17:06.920 One of the things that, that goes on today is such a priest as you're describing is it will
00:17:16.200 rare in the extreme, uh, just the exact stellar opposite approach, uh, vis-a-vis what happened
00:17:23.920 during COVID.
00:17:24.520 Um, I, I personally believe that the church had an exquisite, unique opportunity during
00:17:32.460 COVID to resurrect herself like few other times in history.
00:17:36.400 The, the, the, imagine had it gone the other way, the government says, shut down.
00:17:41.380 The church says, be gone, Satan, get behind me, Satan.
00:17:45.580 And, and says, no, we're, we're going to, we need, you say we need healing.
00:17:49.860 Let's, let's have healing.
00:17:51.540 Um, the mass is the most healing thing there is.
00:17:53.640 And, and they could have, it could have been so different and the world would have flocked
00:17:59.120 to the church.
00:17:59.860 I mean, I mean, my imagination anyway, but what do you think is the example for the church,
00:18:05.860 for her clergy that father, uh, Flume brings?
00:18:09.560 If historians are honest, a hundred years from now, and they look into 2020 and the Catholic 1.00
00:18:14.740 church, I think they'll conclude that it was one of the worst moments in the history of
00:18:19.480 the Catholic church in the millennia.
00:18:21.320 They responded terribly.
00:18:22.520 I'm not here to pick a fight with how horribly they responded.
00:18:25.140 But what you said is very prescient.
00:18:27.620 It, whenever a pandemic comes around, like Aloysius Gonzaga, Charles Borromeo, they understood,
00:18:34.020 they understood, no, you don't, you don't close up shop and lock your doors, your presbytery.
00:18:39.180 You go out into the killing fields and you pray over the ones that are dying.
00:18:43.340 And if you happen to catch leprosy, Damon of Molokai, if you happen to catch it, Charles Borromeo,
00:18:48.780 the bubonic plague, well, you saved a lot of souls in the process.
00:18:53.580 So I imagine if this comes down again, I think the church, I mean, let's be honest.
00:18:58.940 I think the church looks back at that time and says, we failed.
00:19:02.740 Now, has there been a reckoning?
00:19:04.000 Now there hasn't really.
00:19:05.340 Has there been apologies to the flock?
00:19:07.000 Now there hasn't.
00:19:07.980 But that's why I'm so thankful that Chris asked me to write the hermit because father 0.98
00:19:12.440 Blume is the, like, he's that plane with like puffing out those, those skywriting words,
00:19:18.040 like be a priest during pandemics, like don't, don't quit the fight.
00:19:22.500 So yeah, I, you, you, you bring up an excellent point.
00:19:26.200 One of the things, um, I'd love you to get into is, um, the, the book, when you told me
00:19:32.440 about it, you, you mentioned about how, when you wrote it, you thought you were writing
00:19:38.800 one book and what turned out was something else.
00:19:41.660 Tell us about that.
00:19:42.780 I wouldn't call myself a supernaturalist, maybe in the dimension that Michael O'Brien is.
00:19:46.660 I, I, I'd love to do everything out of my soul and, you know, I'm Irish, so I'm sure
00:19:51.000 there's a lot of that churning and burning in me.
00:19:53.840 But the book that Krista asked me to write was about father Blume and what he did during
00:19:58.720 COVID to heal her.
00:20:00.020 And once I finally got around to it and began to write, it was tough to get to, I kept wanting
00:20:07.300 to get to COVID-19, like the, the transcendent part, the recovery, the resurrection, Krista's
00:20:11.860 coming out of the tomb.
00:20:12.820 Yay.
00:20:13.360 I couldn't get to it in my writing.
00:20:15.360 And I didn't know why, but I just kept writing.
00:20:17.580 And I thought by chapter four or five, I could get to father Flume and the recovery, but I
00:20:22.420 kept, you know, chapter five, six, seven, eight, nine.
00:20:24.820 I couldn't get to it.
00:20:26.200 So finally chapter 11, I got to the recovery and Krista's and the fun, kind of the fun part
00:20:31.640 of the book.
00:20:32.100 And when I finished, I sent it off to four friends, a theologian, a couple of Catholic
00:20:38.640 writers and another person.
00:20:40.700 And, and I explained to them, Hey, I feel kind of uncomfortable about this book.
00:20:44.100 I read about my wife's addiction and, and what father Flume did it, but I wanted to show
00:20:48.060 and Krista wanted to show what a priest who healed her during COVID, et cetera.
00:20:52.000 Tell me what you think.
00:20:52.880 And then one by one, they all got back and they really said the same thing.
00:20:57.000 And they said, Kevin, we know what you thought you were doing, but you wrote a book about
00:21:00.920 marriage and I, I thought the first guy had it wrong and I, he lost the plot and second
00:21:07.500 guy, third, you know, they all said this book is about marriage.
00:21:10.340 And, and then since the book came out, it came out just a month or two ago from Ignatius.
00:21:15.460 Krista and I are getting letters from, and emails from throughout the, really the country
00:21:20.220 of married couples in travail.
00:21:22.680 You know, I don't know how to handle my porn addicted husband.
00:21:25.540 I don't know what to do with my wife.
00:21:26.880 She doesn't look at me anymore.
00:21:27.800 You know, and the, the book really John Henry, and I'll sort of shut it down here.
00:21:32.480 I didn't know that I was mourning as I was, I never mourned.
00:21:37.200 And the mourning process was me writing.
00:21:42.440 This is what I had to do in the dark night of the soul.
00:21:45.040 I had to nail my unknowingness of Krista's recovery to the cross.
00:21:49.460 I had to nail myself to the cross and say, God, I don't, she hates me.
00:21:53.440 She's on the other side of the ocean.
00:21:56.540 I speak a different language, but God, you're faithful and you will make this thing right.
00:22:02.920 And I just got to love her with no consolations, no marital entitlements, no good days.
00:22:10.400 None of that.
00:22:11.220 I need to love the way you did from the cross with nothing, naked in front of your mother, friends all run away except for beloved John, tortured Jews mocking you. 0.92
00:22:24.160 Well, it didn't matter.
00:22:25.540 You loved us regardless.
00:22:26.940 And Lord, if I'm going to say I'm a follower of you and I love Krista, I'm not going to abandon the ship.
00:22:33.100 But I got to love her with no consolation.
00:22:36.060 So I was loving Krista, I guess, in a desert.
00:22:38.500 And I think that's what resonated is sort of the unveiling of what I did during or what I tried to do as best I could.
00:22:46.320 And there was failing days, John Henry, during those days when I just tried to hang on to God and say, God, you hang on to me.
00:22:53.660 I'm going to keep trying to love her the best I can.
00:22:55.780 Do you guys have children?
00:22:56.880 We have three children.
00:22:58.060 And how old are they and how old were they during this process?
00:23:01.520 I was always juggling.
00:23:03.200 I was like, as soon as I sensed that the kids understand their mom's addiction is getting worse or she's not maternally loving them the way she should, I'm going to quit my job right away.
00:23:16.180 And that's actually what ended up happening.
00:23:18.260 I ended up moving home, took a sabbatical from work.
00:23:21.840 And I had a pretty good job, but I needed to stand by my wife.
00:23:27.140 But at that time, John Henry, they were young, but they were growing older. 0.98
00:23:31.520 And kids aren't stupid. 0.98
00:23:32.840 So now they're older. 0.96
00:23:34.460 Now we got 23, 21, and 16.
00:23:37.400 When I first 23, Gabby, my 23-year-old daughter, when I first sensed, like I would always kind of look into the nook and crannies of her eyes and ask her questions.
00:23:46.380 And if I sensed any kind of fear or like, Dad, what's going on with your marriage?
00:23:51.940 What's going on with Mommy?
00:23:53.400 As soon as I sensed that first conversation was bad, then it was time to go home.
00:24:00.020 And that's what I did.
00:24:01.360 That's really, really tough.
00:24:03.580 The whole discernment thing, because that must have been crazy for you.
00:24:08.580 I think how to discern, well, I'm going to deprive my kids of their livelihood.
00:24:13.820 I might be able to scrape by somehow.
00:24:16.520 But yet I've got to provide for them.
00:24:18.960 How did you discern that thing?
00:24:21.140 That's why God's so good.
00:24:22.400 I had a good job.
00:24:23.320 I was making a good salary.
00:24:25.340 I was at the family business, masonry contract.
00:24:27.960 We've been around forever.
00:24:29.240 So I had a good amount of money saved up.
00:24:33.080 So that's number one, in a practical way.
00:24:34.860 Number two, it's all about trusting God.
00:24:37.800 And John Henry, you'll get a kick out of this.
00:24:39.580 When I was home with Krista, and she really appreciated that her man came home.
00:24:44.620 She knew why.
00:24:46.200 She knew I was there to protect her or love her the best I could.
00:24:49.100 She was still sick then, but she appreciated it.
00:24:52.460 But I needed something to do.
00:24:54.080 So you'll appreciate this.
00:24:57.380 I began to write a book that every Catholic publisher rejected.
00:25:01.980 Because I'm a writer.
00:25:02.760 I've been writing my whole life.
00:25:03.780 I used to be a professional journalist.
00:25:06.600 And I had to pass the time.
00:25:08.520 So I wrote a book that every publisher rejected.
00:25:12.080 Until the Washington Post broke a story in June of 2018.
00:25:18.820 And then the publishers came back and said, are you still working on that book?
00:25:22.140 And I said, yeah.
00:25:22.740 And then a little while later, the priest we need to save the church came out.
00:25:27.700 And it became a Catholic bestseller almost overnight.
00:25:31.140 Not because of the writer, but because I was attuned to things much prior to that going wrong in the church.
00:25:39.920 There wasn't enough Father Flumes, let's say.
00:25:42.920 And so the book now has been read by, it's in seminaries on five continents.
00:25:50.600 It's been read by thousands of clergy members, bishops.
00:25:54.600 So God is so good because, sure, I had the money saved for my job.
00:25:59.100 But he also opened up a new avenue for me to return to a lot more writing.
00:26:04.740 So I've written four books since then.
00:26:08.260 So God's got a great sense of humor.
00:26:10.880 God's been very good to me.
00:26:12.460 I want to ask you about what some of this was like.
00:26:16.460 Because every guy knows in our relationships with our wives that there are times of real struggle.
00:26:28.920 But if you compound that with an addiction of some kind and then no respite, there are some men who have to deal with that and sometimes lose their wives to that.
00:26:42.680 But those are torturous situations.
00:26:46.300 But then you had the kids at the same time and had to deal with young kids and try and keep them afloat mentally, but mostly spiritually.
00:26:57.320 Can you give us a little piece of that?
00:26:58.920 I had to strip myself away from everything I ever knew.
00:27:03.180 I had to accept that I would never receive the love in the way I had hoped or the honeymoon stage of our marriage.
00:27:09.880 God, this is a desert.
00:27:12.740 But I understand that Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Moses, when you called them further into the desert, they took their walking stick and went in to find you.
00:27:25.680 And this desert isn't a place, really, to get sand whipped and starve to death and go to sleep with nothing to drink and be lonely.
00:27:35.260 Finally, this is a place that I can encounter you in a deeper way.
00:27:39.440 So that desert, and it was a desert.
00:27:40.980 It was awful.
00:27:41.680 It was a dark night.
00:27:43.400 I mean, I'll just say it.
00:27:44.180 It was dark.
00:27:45.180 But it was a palace.
00:27:46.680 Because I encountered God in a way I never could have ever imagined without this, I guess, in a way John of the Cross did when he wrote from Spain.
00:27:58.800 I, in the dark night, I experienced God in a very illuminative way where he spoke to my soul.
00:28:05.760 You know, really, it gets to the point, John Henry, where you realize as a man that you can't pray it away with rosaries.
00:28:12.360 Adorations don't take it away.
00:28:14.600 Cold showers, fasts, uh-uh.
00:28:17.120 They don't take it away.
00:28:17.960 What I needed to do and what I ended up doing, which helped, was I followed the way of Teresa of Avalo and John of the Cross.
00:28:25.820 And I just, and beloved John, and I just rested my head against his sacred heart.
00:28:30.880 And I said, Jesus, I'm just hanging on.
00:28:33.900 And I'm not going to speak.
00:28:36.400 There's nothing I, you know it all.
00:28:38.240 It's, it's, it's withering.
00:28:39.720 But, but God, you're faithful.
00:28:41.580 And, and you love Krista.
00:28:43.040 And you love me.
00:28:44.040 And you want it to be right for our kids.
00:28:45.860 And you want a healthy mom in the house, a healthy wife. 1.00
00:28:48.620 So I'm going to wait it out.
00:28:50.340 And I'm just going to nail myself to the hardwood the best I can and try and love the way you did.
00:28:55.220 I'm just going to try and love the, I'll fail many, many, many times.
00:28:58.660 But at least I'm going to try to nail myself to your cross and love with no consolations.
00:29:04.120 To get a glimpse of the inside of this, was there, you know, loud disparaging talk, to put it very mildly?
00:29:13.820 Are you kidding me all the time?
00:29:14.940 Well, you're always walking on a gangplank because even Krista understood, for the most part, she didn't want our children to know.
00:29:22.520 So, so yeah, there was, there was, it was almost, you know what, John, what it was like was this.
00:29:27.420 Those watching right now will understand this.
00:29:29.480 Those that have an addicted spouse.
00:29:30.980 You understand that you're speaking to someone who's firmly under an oppression.
00:29:36.800 It's almost like the talons are here.
00:29:39.980 The demon ventriloquist is allowing my wife to say something that it's not her voice.
00:29:45.520 She's responding in a way that's unreasoned.
00:29:47.980 She's, so when you can accept that the ugliness of the fights, it, it, it doesn't really matter because it's, it's not her.
00:29:57.860 You know, the umbilical cord to heaven's cut off.
00:30:01.720 The wine fills the shame.
00:30:03.840 So that's the poison.
00:30:04.740 That's the poison juice.
00:30:06.900 I knew Krista could come back where the umbilical cord could go to heaven and be nourished by something healthy. 1.00
00:30:13.380 The graces.
00:30:13.800 So yeah, it was ugly.
00:30:16.160 I mean, like I said, sometimes it was like Satan was speaking through my wife.
00:30:21.200 I mean, you're, you're, you're, um, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're viewer will have to read the book, but I point out some ugly things that seem to me to be purely diabolical when I confronted Krista and things that happened in our home.
00:30:36.480 And I'm not one of these guys who embellishes these stories.
00:30:40.320 Matter of fact, I grew up in a home that we're very Catholic.
00:30:43.460 We prayed the rosary.
00:30:44.480 There's 10 of us, but my dad and mom were like, Hey, your faith is your faith.
00:30:47.720 We don't need the supernatural for you to believe more.
00:30:50.880 And that's how I sort of, but I saw things and I experienced things that were of the devil.
00:30:56.060 And, and, um, um, and I know this because when Krista began to recover and went to unbound and exorcists and, and people began to pray over, she manifested.
00:31:07.000 I mean, again, I'll say it again.
00:31:09.000 I said this a few minutes ago, the devil is directly involved with alcoholism.
00:31:13.460 Um, and also I'll say this, the devil also loves when a little girl is wounded by her mother at a young age.
00:31:23.200 And the girl thinks, man, I just, I thought mom's supposed to love me and I'm not pretty enough, or I should be more like my sister.
00:31:31.100 And that's when the devil says, I got her.
00:31:33.820 She's mine.
00:31:35.340 And that's, that's what, that's what the devil tried to do to Krista until father flume broke in and said, Kevin, you step aside.
00:31:42.940 You played it.
00:31:43.820 You played the best you could.
00:31:45.400 Let me work with our lady. 1.00
00:31:48.580 Let me work with Jesus.
00:31:49.480 Let me work in the sacraments.
00:31:50.780 Let me go to work now.
00:31:51.660 You just take a break.
00:31:52.440 How did you do some of that shielding of your kids from it?
00:31:57.180 I think for a lot of parents, um, who go through this, either of the spouses is addicted or whatever, or, or just in, in, frankly, just in a bad mood in, how did you shield your kids or what did you do for your children?
00:32:12.960 A couple of things in a, in a supernatural dimension.
00:32:15.080 I'm a, I'm a big believer in prayer.
00:32:17.000 I mean, really big believer in prayer.
00:32:19.820 Um, every night I would go by their bedside.
00:32:23.160 It's, it's, it's actually in the book.
00:32:25.080 And as they slept, I prayed over them.
00:32:28.160 I prayed with them.
00:32:29.300 I begged God to protect them, um, to give them a good mommy, to bring mommy back.
00:32:34.740 So that was, that was one thing.
00:32:36.620 And if they were awake, then I would just pray with them in a normal way without mentioning, you know, the problems in a concrete way.
00:32:44.360 You know, all, all fathers do this.
00:32:47.040 I imagine our fathers who are attuned to their identity.
00:32:50.200 You, you just, you just love harder.
00:32:52.360 Like, like, you know, my kids were athletes.
00:32:55.500 So on the car ride across town, 45 minutes away, you have good conversations.
00:33:01.360 You, you know, you, you, you talk about their day school, the game they're going to play in, but you always bring in moments of God.
00:33:09.660 Hey, how are you feeling, bud?
00:33:10.680 How are you feeling?
00:33:11.140 What's going on?
00:33:11.640 What's going on?
00:33:12.280 Oh, dad, I'm good.
00:33:12.920 No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:33:14.720 How are you really feeling?
00:33:16.700 Dad, I'm good.
00:33:17.480 So, so it was, it was sort of a psychological dad.
00:33:20.540 It was a, it was a fun dad.
00:33:22.360 It was a hardworking dad because, you know, you gotta, you gotta make sure your kids are safe.
00:33:25.780 But it was also a dad who prayed.
00:33:28.220 And, and, uh, I did not, I did not miss praying over them or with them every single night.
00:33:33.840 You know, I hate the fact that there may be people watching right now that are in a troubled marriage that, that, uh, are tired of their spouse who doesn't look them in the eyes anymore or goes to bed without, or, or maybe they have an addiction.
00:33:47.240 What I would encourage is this, um, don't give up, do not give up.
00:33:53.660 Obviously, if there's violence, you need to leave them.
00:33:56.180 We, we know that.
00:33:57.040 But you will always have a heartbeat's chance if you believe, truly have the faith of the saints, of the martyrs and say, God, it's tough.
00:34:10.620 But I believe in you and you hear my prayers, you hear my pleas and you are faithful, God.
00:34:16.240 So I'm going to stick with it and I'm going to, and I know, I know it's, it's not going to get better anytime soon.
00:34:22.460 I know it, but God, you will make this thing right.
00:34:26.560 So I would encourage your, your viewer to keep that in mind.
00:34:31.000 If you're a man, do not be effeminate, do not separate in divorce.
00:34:35.380 Do not be effeminate, be a man, be muscular and stick by your wife's side.
00:34:40.640 If, if you're a woman, you know, everyone needs a spiritual director, but I, but, but I encourage you to seek out somebody like Father Martin Flume who healed my wife.
00:34:50.460 And you can always see a priest by the light in his eyes if they're really attuned to souls.
00:34:55.040 So ask around, you know, if, if you're just in an awful marriage and, and I, and I'm, as I mentioned, I'm in a lot of pretty nasty emails and letters about bad marriages.
00:35:04.620 I always encourage, look for a holy priest who will stick with you in this, who will be by your side.
00:35:09.380 So that's what I would encourage.
00:35:11.360 Stick by your wounded spouse's side and try and get a director to help lead you through.
00:35:16.520 Kevin Wells, thank you for joining us here.
00:35:18.680 Your life story reminds me of a former guest I had who, who basically said the one quality you want to look for in your spouse is a willingness to suffer, to not be afraid of the cross.
00:35:31.560 You, my friend, have taken that on.
00:35:35.000 And you had a great example in Father Flume to do that as well.
00:35:38.060 The book, ladies and gentlemen, is The Hermit, available from Ignatius Press.
00:35:41.620 Kevin Wells, thank you so much for joining us.
00:35:43.520 God bless you.
00:35:44.360 Thank you very much, John Henry.
00:35:45.460 God bless you.
00:35:46.380 And God bless all of you.
00:35:48.300 And we'll see you next time.
00:35:49.080 The Lord be with you.
00:35:54.240 I'm Deacon Keith Fournier, and I hope you enjoyed this video from LifeSite News.
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00:36:14.740 Thanks for watching, and may the Lord bless you.