LifeSite's Gen Z leader energizes young pro-life base!
Summary
In this episode, LifeSite's own Christina Rossini talks about her family and growing up in a devout Catholic family, how she became a Catholic, and how she got into pro-life and pro-family advocacy.
Transcript
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I know it's really sad to like see families around just because I went to like a Catholic
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high school and the Catholic college. I know people who there's a member in their family that
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fell out of the faith and fell into hard times, maybe has an alcohol addiction, drug addiction.
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Hello, LifeSite family. Now, you know that we have social media accounts, we have an Instagram
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account, we have YouTube shorts, we have all these things. And you might have seen these short videos
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with a very attractive young woman and wondered, who is that? Well, that is LifeSite's own
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Christina Rossini. And you're going to get to meet her right here. This is the John Henry
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Awesome. Awesome. Let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross.
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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So, Christina, I think there's probably people who are wondering, who is this young lady?
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Why is she promoting LifeSite stories all the time? And they're into like TikTok and Instagram now.
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Tell us about yourself. Let people know who you are.
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Hi, everybody. My name is Christina. I have been working with LifeSite full time since August. But
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before that, I was actually an intern here. So, it's kind of a new thing for me. But I've always had
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a love of social media. So, that's where I work mostly. And I took it upon myself to get more
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involved in just what was happening, the news. And I will check our, you know, the last 10 days
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articles every single day, just going through just to see if there's anything good going on,
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just because I love keeping up with stuff. Like at one point, we found a need, just LifeSite found
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a need to kind of showcase more of a personal, like a storytelling almost, of these articles.
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articles. And I decided, hey, it'd be fun if we did some sort of like just short video
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platform, like TikTok or something, just to make it easier for these articles to digest
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with some people. So, that's kind of where I came into the whole mix. And they were like,
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Christina, you seem good for this. Like, let's try you out. I'm like, okay, cool. Sounds good.
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And so, that's what I've been doing. A lot of people would look at you and say,
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hey, what in the world is she doing that for? This is a kind of an alienating thing. It's hardcore
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pro-life, pro-family, pro-faith. What are you doing in there? You're a young person. You should
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be out enjoying yourself. Aren't you concerned about people who are going to look down upon you
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because of this, what you're doing and think, oh, what an extremist.
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So, from a very long time ago when I was in college, so I guess not too long ago,
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but maybe three years ago, I was met with a big controversial whole thing with,
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I was part of Turning Point at the time. And so, I'm very used to the controversy. I am used to
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people disliking me for my views and my vocalness of those views. And so, I don't know. It's kind of
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my, it's like my comfort spot. Like, I'm just used to kind of being, like, kind of hit against,
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like, people lashing out just because of what I'm saying. I feel like this is kind of a hill that's
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worthy of dying on, like, and staking my reputation on, just because, like, pro-family
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and pro-life values resonate with me and my family so much that it just means the world that I'm able
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to speak on it and work with an organization such as LifeSite that is so openly pro-family and pro-life.
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You speak of your family. What's your family life been like?
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I am one of six. I am the second oldest. I have an older sister and then a brother-sister,
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brother-sister. And it's always been a fun time. My parents are both devoted Catholics. They
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try to pray the rosary daily. They caught us prayers when we were really little. I think that
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one of my first, like, sentences was being able to say the whole Hail Mary. So, if that gives you an
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idea. But yeah, so my family life has always been so good. They have always inspired, my parents have
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always inspired us to strive for holiness. And then my grandparents as well on both my mom's and
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my dad's side. So, it's definitely a fun family dynamic. We're all really close. We were all
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homeschooled until, like, high school, like, until ninth grade. And so, we grew up very close. We've
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always been each other's best friends. And I would say that is the best dynamic, I think,
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In today's day and age, there's normally periods of great rebellion, sometimes even leaving the
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church. And your experience has been fairly smooth comparatively.
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Yeah, I would say so with all my siblings. We're all still very Catholic. We went to Benedictine
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College, which is a really great Catholic school in Kansas. It's in the Midwest. There's really
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not a lot to do. So, maybe that's the whole, like, that can stay, it can keep you Catholic just
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because there's not a lot to do other than, like, just pray and everything, which is good. It's good.
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But yeah, so we all went to Catholic schooling. And we just learned religion up from the time that
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we were in kindergarten, even before just, like, learning how to pray and all that. But I know it's
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really sad to, like, see families around because I went to, like, just because I went to, like, a Catholic
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high school and the Catholic college. I know people who, like, there's a member in their family
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that fell out of the faith and just fell into hard times, maybe has an alcohol addiction, drug
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addiction, stuff like that. And I am just so blessed to have a family that hasn't had problems
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like that, crossing fingers, sorry, the superstition. Like, I'm just very happy that I've never had
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to deal with that. But it must be all the prayers that are just coming from, like, my parents
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and grandparents, aunts, uncles, you name it, everybody around.
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This is a model. I'm sure many people would like to want to stop here and dissect what
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your parents did, because this is a dream for so many parents. But you guys are very
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Catholic, but LifeSite is very controversial, even for Catholics, because we've been, maybe
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10 years ago, it was much more normal. But now, with Pope Francis, things are very controversial,
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and it's kind of, you know, some Catholics look at us and say,
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oh, gee, they're like anti-Catholic or something. What does your family make of your work for LifeSite,
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and what's your take on it? I mean, you know, trying to strive to be a faithful Catholic,
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and there you are with this organization that some view even as anti-Catholic.
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My mother, specifically, she has always been very involved in politics. She worked on a couple
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campaigns, like 10 years ago, just throughout the years. And so, just by that nature, she's always
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wanting to be involved, knowing the news. She's a skeptic, so she likes to take every single side
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and, like, dissect it like that. But I know that when Pope Francis came into the papacy,
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she immediately kind of saw a little red flag go up with a couple of the things that he did in the
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early parts of his papacy. And so, she's always kind of been on the ball in that way. And I think,
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like, one of the biggest reasons that I feel so free to be part of an organization that views
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what he's doing in this type of way is because I have my family behind me because my mom, she's kind
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of, she tells us everything. She's always relaying news articles and just, like, Catholic things going
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on, too. She's keeping us in the loop all the time. It's awesome. So, I think that the way that I was
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just right away able to understand that these things that he's doing are not in accord with the
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Catholic Church, they're wrong. It's definitely helped me ease into, like, taking a role in a company
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such as LifeSite that also see something wrong. It's just, it's very, I identify with it. Like,
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it's just really, it's really cool. I reflect it, definitely.
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What is your experience with social media? Because, I mean, it's a hard area. I mean,
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it's actually an area that's replete with all sorts of things that might lead people astray.
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Flipping through videos and stuff can get you into real trouble. What's your advice for young people
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on how to navigate these waters in which you swim in just about every day?
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TikTok is one of the things that I love to be on. It's just really nice to be able to see,
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like, the culture around the world just in these little videos. But there are definitely some that
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are not appropriate for, like, younger kids. For me, I don't know why, but I never really had a
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problem with them. I would just swipe past them or, you know, report them if they're wrong. But I would
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say that it would be healthy if people had a screen time limit put on for, like, TikTok or Instagram
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just so you can kind of stop yourself. Be like, okay, no more. Time to do something else. Time to do something
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constructive and productive with my brain, you know? But, I mean, it is cool because, like, on social
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media, there's so much to learn and to see. It's almost addicting. Like, it's definitely kind of
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an addiction, especially if you're, like, posting things. You almost get addicted to the sensation
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and the dopamine of, like, all the likes and the comments that you're getting. And that's also very
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dangerous because it's super easy to just fall into that and just become addicted to the process.
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So, I would say definitely, like, a screen time limit would be good, but also just be prudent
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with how much time you're spending, who you're following. I would definitely say that.
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What message would you like to leave your fans with? Because there's a little fan base developing
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there of people who like to see you are following your posts on Instagram, TikTok, and so on. What
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My words would be, well, thank you for following me and liking my videos. I definitely appreciate it.
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I try to keep them a little short, try to keep them informative, while also having a little
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sense of humor in there, too. So, thank you so much for everything. And if you like and continue
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to share them with people, that would be great. It'll help Lifesite's name grow.
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Thank you so much, Christina. God bless you, and thanks for joining us.
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And God bless all of you. We'll see you next time.
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Hi, everyone. This is John Henry Weston. We hope you enjoyed this video. And to see more like this,
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