World Over - 2020-05-28 - Full Episode with Raymond Arroyo

communist china is flexing its military muscle this week as protests continue in hong kong what are china's intentions and how should the u.s respond notre dame professor of political science victoria hoy is here with analysis and the pandemic lockdown is beginning to loosen but not necessarily for churches why not and what can be done about it activist lisa bergman of the saint charles vormeo society is here to update us from chicago and he's the oscar-nominated screenwriter for mel gibson's braveheart and so many other incredible films randall wallace talks about his faith career and his memoir living the braveheart life the world over begins right now [Music] now raymond arroyo greetings and a warm welcome to all of you joining us in the united states and the world over delighted you're here victoria hoy lisa bergman and randall wallace are here if you'd like to comment on tonight's show send me a tweet i'm at raymond arroyo lots to cover first bishop emeritus joseph zhu of non-yang china has died at the age of 99. in february he fell ill with kobet 19 but recovered becoming the oldest chinese citizen to beat the disease he was first ordained in 1957. in 1964 he was sent to a forced labor camp because of his faith and he was later sentenced to 10 years in prison and re-education on charges of counter-revolutionary activity in 2002 he became bishop of nanyang he served most of his priesthood as a member of the underground church with vatican permission he resigned as bishop in 2010 but then asked to be officially recognized by the government-run catholic patriotic association which accepted his request it is still unclear why he asked to be recognized by the government-run church sources say he was pressured others say bishop jews membership and move might have have been a means of gaining leverage against the government to secure the return of church property seized during the cultural revolution may joseph jew rest in peace and wednesday secretary of state mike pompeo notified congress that the trump administration no longer regards hong kong as independent from mainland china pompeo's statement comes amid calls in congress for the u.s to respond to beijing's imposition of national security laws over the territory this after thousands of protesters took to the streets in hong kong secretary pompeo said quote hong kong does not continue to warrant treatment under united states laws in the same manner as u.s laws were applied to hong kong before july of 1997 it is now clear that china is modeling hong kong after itself end quote the announcement by pompeo does not impose any immediate penalties on china such action would have to be decided by the president and congress but the state department has to evaluate that relationship every so often joining me now to discuss what is happening in hong kong what it means for u.s china relations and much more is professor of political science at the university of notre dame victoria hoy professor thank you for being here you're a hong kong native what do you make of pompeo's statement first and how dire is this situation for the people of hong kong well thank you so much for having me first of all um the what is important is that hong kong is supposed to have an autonomous status so what pompeo was trying to decertify is that hong kong no longer has autonomy which can then kick off a whole bunch of actions as stipulated by first the 1992 hong kong policy act and the revision uh also passed last year the hong kong human rights and democracy act at the same time the situation is very dire and in a way it is almost about time for the for the world to recognize that hong kong really has no autonomy that beijing has broken the promises of one country to systems with hong kong people ruling hong kong under a high degree of autonomy uh and in fact i would say that for 23 years beijing was taking actions in peace meal to erode hong kong's freedoms small steps one at a time so that the world so far the past 20 years whether it is washington or london they were issues reports and statements saying that they are very concerned about for example the abduction of a bookseller from hong kong taken across the border another abduction of a billionaire who have very good connections to high-level corruption or the disqualifications of democratically elected legislators of those actions every time oh these are concerning but overall things are doing okay but this time beijing took a very nuclear option and so it just makes it impossible to look the other way yeah let's talk about that that option that they they took here on thursday china's legislature nearly unanimously approved a new national security law for hong kong and is really aimed at suppressing what they call subversion secession terrorism or any acts that they deem a threat to national security now the specifics of the new law have yet to be defined however the final rules will determine the fate of hong kong's autonomy professor is this the beginning of the end of hong kong's autonomy that carve out status that they have and what does this mean to the protesters that you've written so eloquently about over the years well the important thing to also see is that this what they passed at the national people's congress was a decision and now the decision is going to be passed on to the national people's congress standing committee to actually draft the law is this the end of the one country to systems model or hong kong the end of hong kong definitely but at the same time for a lot of hong kong people for my friends and family now that when they go to the street when they try to just you know go to restaurants when they try to go to shopping mall they already already run the risk of getting um tear gas by the police or getting pepper sprayed by the police even if they are not even protesting and then also we grew up with all these freedoms that we could say whatever we like these days it's very people don't even dare to really speak their minds my sister was telling me that i should erase all of those pro-democracy posts on my social media but of course i'm already a cross-site public figure so that would be pointless but then i think some of my friends are unfriending me and what the law does is to mark the formal end and so turnings things have already been become lift experiences of the ordinary hong kong people into the law and it's going to be even a lot more scarier now uh tell me how the protests we're seeing now and they are limited because of covid and because of as you mentioned the the oppression and the regime watching carefully and arresting people i've i've been witnessing some of these arrests on social media and elsewhere tell me the difference between these protests and the 2019 protests those were really about leadership and the uh the that extradition act where they were going to pull people out of hong kong and try them in mainland china how is this different this is actually it's many times worse so the extradition protest that was introduced by hong kong by the hong kong government last spring would have if it had been passed would have allowed beijing to request to have anyone in hong kong extradited across the border to beijing and subject to to mainland china's jurisdiction we know how unjust the justice system in china is what this bill would do what this new law would do is okay you guys don't really want to be extradited to across the mainland to the other side of the border we are sending our state agents our security agents to come to hong kong in open shop in hong kong and this is actually explicit explicitly forbidden uh by the basic law the hong kong's mini constitution and that was really that was an agreement made when the when the british left hong kong and it was supposed to be hong kong was to be autonomous for 50 years starting in 1997. that apparently is not china is not holding up its end of the deal now i just read a story in politico the british government is saying anyone with those b o uh uh passports british national passports they can apply for british citizenship if china continues down this road with hong kong is that a good idea is that a a lifeline to the hong kongers it is going to be a great basically major piece of news for a lot of people in hong kong because there's a big difference between how um the portugal government treated macau which was also returned to china in 1999. in macau everyone was offered a chance everyone who had been born before a certain date was offered a portuguese passport and so people who those people who value freedoms all left and today beijing has actually taken over hong kong and has taken over macau and beijing is trying to reign in hong kong the way that it has already reigned in macau and hong ki british governments never agreed to to give hong kong citizens born before 1997 this exit option and so you have the majority of hong kong population who demand freedom who wants to preserve who wants to defend what they have grown up with and so why this why the national security bill is going to be so bad is that it's not just this minority of people who don't like beijing so that you can just knock on you know make midnight knocks on the door and arrest these people and no one would care but the majority of the population so the act would turn hong kong into not just another chinese city like shenzhen or shanghai but it could well turn hong kong into xinjiang wow the trump administration has not specified what measures it could take against china for this aggression in hong kong however during a press conference on tuesday president trump was asked about sanctions against china here's what he said we're doing it now we're doing something now i think you'll find it very interesting i'll be talking about it over the next couple of days it's uh something you're going to be hearing about over the next before the end of the week very powerfully i think now in a recent interview professor you pointed out the international community including the u.s has often spoken out against china and the steady build-up of power over hong kong but they haven't exacted any real punishments you say beijing is daring foreign governments to continue to issue words but take no actions what measures or sanctions would you think might be effective at this point you are quite right so i would say that even just a few weeks ago i think the words and probably beijing were hearing the words too that oh that this states department is unlikely to do anything major because um the us needs hong kong as much as beijing is hong kong and so if you um be certified hong kong's autonomous status of course this would hurt hong kong people rather than helping them this would also hurt u.s business interests and not just chinese interests and so imposing target extensions on these officials and police officers who have abused the human rights of hong kong people would be an important step but still this may not be enough because you know a lot of these people don't care about traveling to ch to the u.s they may not so very care about um getting visa to study at u.s universities and if this decisions are going to be effective they have to be coordinated with actually u.s allies what do you what do you make of the suggestion and i've read some reports of this i'm also hearing it from people in the diplomatic community that the trump administration is considering rescinding the visas of chinese students studying in the united states expelling them from our institutions of higher learning is that a good option so what i read today is that this is going to be targeted at graduate students who have connections with military establishment in china so it seems to be a very targeted move this may make sense because if chinese students they come to the us to get the undergrad education they will be exposed to liberal arts education they will be exposed to you know writing these essays addressing counter arguments and thinking broadly and critically but when they come here just to go to grad school that's very different especially i think that people become very worried about all these stem disciplines you know maybe they will get actually because grad students are very integrated into the research community and so they may actually learn more so people hoping that beyond target essentials beyond imposing visa restrictions that they may actually be more actions maybe stronger ashes about hong kong's separate custom status what beijing has done is that it's been trying to stifle hong kong's freedoms yet preserving special custom status grounded by the u.s and all the different international uh uh western countries and so that may be a much stronger trump card do you think the chinese are using this global covet crisis that is partially they're doing as well as the u.s china trade agreement to cover for these aggressive acts not only in hong kong but we see the military buildup and the aggression toward taiwan and there's a there seems to be a military buildup as well you are quite right so uh beijing has been taking very aggressive action not just against hong kong but also intruding into the median line separating the chinese territory mainland territory and taiwanese territory in the east china sea also sending out troops to to also breach the border with india and also taking more actions in the south china sea yeah so across the board that's honestly thinking that wow you know the rest of the world they may not like it just like we build up all these islands and leaves in the south china sea they condemn us but they what what actions have they actually taken and so and also that all these western economies they're probably so hard hit by the coronal virus whereas the chinese economy has recovered much faster they've because they can take very strongly measures and so they have put the virus under control probably just daring thinking that you know you guys may may have continued to to condemn us but if you don't take any ashes we don't care and so it is actually um very good a good sign that you know there's going to there's a declaration there's a de-certification and some actions have to follow well their provocative acts you mentioned it there have been clashes between indian troops and chinese troops in the himalayas we see aggression toward vietnam taiwan it seems they want to spread the hegemon throughout asia and is it time for the united states to align closely with india and perhaps uh help india and make india our partner in checking china it is correct in a way that the administration has been trying to build the indo-pacific uh kind of quasi-alliance so it is a very good sign but it's just as important as you also mentioned vietnam vietnam wanted to get into the the tpp the trans-pacific trade patch so badly but the current administration as soon as they came into office they could pull out of it a lot of these asian economies they are so beholden to the chinese economy and this is why beijing can coerce them can threaten them and yet they don't dare do anything so it is one and on the one hand the administration should take very strong actions against chinese actions but you also don't want the u.s to take actions unilaterally and so then essentially driving these other countries need to become even more dependent on the on the chinese economy so the tpp probably should be restored along with re um restoring the or strengthening the u.s security alliances for example not also not telling korea that you guys have to take care of your own uh security bills and military bills that we're not paying yeah no it leads up it leaves all sorts of openings for china and they have the money to burn and they don't care about human rights so they will use their people as slave labor and they can always beat a competition in trade and in in the building of goods i mean this is the this is the challenge with china um finally before i let you go i only have a minute what do you make of the religious hostility that uh the chinese government has has shown toward people of faith on them in the mainland i mean the pope commended the faithful of china to the blessed mother this week uh he he tried to engage them with this still private deal signed between the vatican and the chinese government did that deal by the vatican any real leverage in your opinion i do not think so the most important thing to understand is that for the ccp they are above god and if people catch the allegiance to something other than the party outside of the party that is why beijing doesn't really like it this is why they're tearing down crosses on the top of churches even state sentient churches and so the the deal the vatican has struck with beijing is really a bad mistake wow well we will leave it there professor hoyt thank you so much for your time we will check in in the days ahead professor hoy's latest columns on china and hong kong are available at victoria tbhui.wordpress.com professor thank you again thank you thank you for having me lisa bergman is next but first on may 30th pope francis will lead the major shrines around the world in praying the rosary for the blessed mother's protection amid the coronavirus pandemic francis will pray at the replica of the lord's grotto in the vatican gardens on pentecost eve among those who will accompany the pope will be a doctor a nurse a recovered covet patient as well as a person who lost a family member to the virus shrines around the world will connect to the event and take part in the prayer including the basilica of the national shrine of the immaculate conception in washington d.c the service will take place at 11 30 a.m eastern time on wednesday pope francis approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of father michael mcgivney the founder of the knights of columbus this will pave the way for his beatification according to a statement from the knights the miracle involved an unborn child in the u.s who was healed in utero of a life-threatening condition in 2015. mcgivney founded the knights of columbus in 1882 to provide spiritual aid to catholic men and financial help for their widows and families the first american parish priest to be beatified mcgivney will soon be declared blessed a second miracle is required for mcgivney's canonization and on tuesday the diocese of saint cloud minnesota reached an agreement to settle legal claims with survivors of clergy sexual abuse the diocese said the agreement includes a 2 a 22 rather 0.5 million dollar trust to compensate abuse victims along with plans for the diocese to file chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a news release saint cloud bishop donald ketler apologized to survivors for the harm they suffered and said he will assist in the healing of all those who have been hurt the diocese said it will disclose the names of all clergy who have been credibly accused of abuse on tuesday an executive order was issued in howard county maryland effectively banning the distribution of holy communion the most vital part of catholic worship the original order stated quote there shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before during or after religious services including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service after outcry by the archdiocese of baltimore and people of faith howard county on thursday announced they were lifting the ban in light of governor larry hogan's announcement that maryland restaurants are being allowed to reopen the archdiocese of baltimore hailed the decision and pledged to work with the state and county to ensure safety and the common good as churches resume services we need our churches and our synagogues and our mosques we want them open churches synagogues mosques and other we want them open and we want them open as soon as possible and if i have to i will override any governor that wants to play games now there may be some areas by the way where the pastor or whoever may feel that it's not quite ready and that's okay that's okay but let that be the choice of the congregation and the pastor president trump earlier this week speaking about the essential nature of worship as the country begins to reopen joining us now to discuss the tension between the first amendment right to religious expression and public health is lisa bergman she's co-founder of the saint charles bormeo society lisa why do so many think and particularly governors they've been slow to open churches even if the pastors and parishes are following social distancing and safety guidelines practiced by groceries and casinos what's the reluctance here honestly i wish i knew because that's the number one perception that we keep trying to fight is this very strange perception that somehow churches are more dangerous than any of those you know essential businesses that you've you've named i can't think of a single reason why and so i really don't know why that perception just continues to persist now you're working from a grassroots level and you started an organization to push the catholic hierarchy to speak out and restore the sacraments to the faithful give me a sense of where you believe we are today i mean we saw california they're opening up they they even went beyond the government governor's uh orders and said no we're going to go and you know open up to this capacity uh then you have other places like your archdiocese in chicago you still don't have masses right yes well i mean i think as a country we've come a long way just in the past month or so um you know may has seen a lot of openings around the country but certainly there are some frustrating areas like chicago archdiocese like you mentioned where there seems to be reluctance even among those who you would think would be pushing for the opening of the churches and you know um there's there's a limited amount that we can do to change that but nevertheless we we do it because it's the right thing to do the mayor of chicago lori lightfoot had this to say about the reopening of churches this is like turning a dimmer switch not flipping a light switch and these that we hope to bring online at some point in phase three include summer programs and youth activities especially those at our parks religious services gyms and yes the lake front and beaches all hopefully later in june does that sound like a workable timetable for you um yeah i don't understand why we don't have our churches open already we have them open in in many other states and you know when you look at what happened in minnesota when the governors tried to keep them shut down and the minnesota bishop said no um this is important enough that we are not going to follow that order it is not being applied evenly it's not being applied fairly and we're going to do what's right for our congregations that's the sort of um the sort of stance that we should expect to see from those who are supposed to be defending the faithful they're supposed to be our shepherds they're supposed to be there for us and so you know we've really applauded that courageous action by the minnesota bishops and we'd like to see that happen in other places are you satisfied with the way the archdiocese of chicago is working with the state to reopen they seem to be following pritzker's lead on this the illinois governor uh cardinal blais supe he's got this three-point in plan and it's rather complicated and bottom line is you still don't have masses there right and we don't even have a date set for when they will resume um and really part of the problem is not just the phasing but he's also requiring each parish to become certified in order to reopen and this is a very confusing requirement because that's not been required in any other diocese up to now that i'm aware of it's also not been required in any other essential business and so you have to wonder why he chose to place that burden on himself when it wasn't asked for and you know in the hoops that have to be jumped through in order to get that certification and the warning that spot checks will be performed randomly to ensure continued compliance just isn't the language of the church so not only is it not the language of the church you know people keep talking about controlled studies there's no controlled studies of of you know temperature checks or mass wearing all of this is all of this is voodoo science i mean they're throwing stuff at the wall hoping that this will mitigate but if you look at the trajectory of this this virus seems to have had its peak it's coming down it's dying out that's what happens with viruses happened with mers happened with sars there's no vaccines to some of these things they just die out but i agree with you the there there seems to be a predilection on the part of some bishops to close churches down early and then wait for the states to give them the the high sign or in some cases ignore the states altogether i mean in nevada there was initially a 10 person limit on religious services but after backlash from the justice department the governor changed that to a 50-person limit because that's what he was requiring of other businesses are those restrictions accessible and should the catholic church be beholden to them i mean i think we both can see that that's obviously a no there's why why would we apply a different standard to the church than we're applying anywhere else and when you look at the history of the catholic church i mean we basically invented hospitals we you know our saints went out and saved people in the streets why on earth would you not trust us to have people's best interests in mind that's crazy before i let you go um and it's such an important topic because i mean look my take is it's it's beholden and it's a duty of every pastor and every bishop to keep his people safe we want to be safe but you can be innovative and you can be creative about the way you keep people safe here in new orleans they've had outdoor masses for weeks and parking lots uh they they and in some of the bigger churches you can have 200 300 people in there and there's still social distancing there are ways to do this and with the enormous churches in chicago and some of the huge parking lots in the suburbs you could certainly do that with no risk to life or or of spreading contagion tell me about the saint charles borneo society you're sponsoring a national day of prayer on may 30th at 8 p.m what's that about how can we find out more about your society so the saint charles boro mayo society was something that we put together in order to kind of um create a place where everyone who's frustrated about this situation can come and they can meet up with other people who are also frustrated and want to do something about it so that we have a forum you can go on there you can find your state your city and you can post something saying i want to meet up to to pray have a prayer rally and other people can meet you there so that you know you're not alone we also have all sorts of different resources that you can look at canon law resources we have the actual document that was created by the thomistic institute for the usccb which actually tried to um balance the importance of keeping people safe along with the integrity of the sacraments so that neither one is risked um you know you can you can look at all of that and so you know those those are important things to know about um and then like you mentioned we are calling for a national day of prayer on the eve of pentecost that's this saturday and like you said that's at 8 pm eastern 7 p.m central and rolling on through the the other time zones we're asking people to get out there and sign a petition with your feet because a petition with electronic signatures is too easy to ignore and when you're out there standing in a big circle around your cathedral that's pretty hard to ignore and we really need to have a show of solidarity to show our bishops our our governments and other catholics other christians just how important this really is that it's perfectly safe and that we need access to the sacraments you can find out more about the saint charles bormeo society at open ourchurches.org thanks so much for being here thank you he's an oscar-nominated screenwriter for his work on mel gibson's braveheart which is having its 25th anniversary this month he's erected such films as the man in the iron mask we were soldiers and secretariat he's also a novelist a songwriter and a committed christian i sat down with him at his home in malibu california to discuss his memoir living the braveheart life finding the courage to follow your heart here is my exclusive interview with randy wallace i want to start randy with your father thurman what did he teach you about storytelling in your book you talk about how what what a sort of garrulous warm engaging personality he was how did he teach you to tell stories my father taught me that a story has to be relevant it has to mean something to engage the audience he would tell stories because he wanted to connect with people so that was the first thing but he would tell a story that they cared about that was about something that would entertain them and captivate them and ultimately inspire them my father was about inspiration he was a salesman he was a salesman by trade but my father's thing was i'll never sell anyone something that won't get them to prosper you would say to me if our customers don't prosper then we starve and he did not want his son being a storyteller he didn't want you to be a writer no he wanted me to be a salesman he wanted me to be in the family business and in a certain way i am but in a much grander or different sense yeah you have different customers yeah different customers very different customers you go to duke and you decide to study religion yeah why would you study religion one practice is it but did you have aspirations of leading a church being a pastor i to me that would have been a little bit getting it the wrong way around i wanted to find whatever it was that i was made to do and i was following religion because it fascinated me i thought the studies still do i still believe that the study of of faith what we would die for is about what we would live for like i've never been so concerned with life after death as much as i am with life after birth how do we live fully how do we have life and have it more abundant and music became a big uh passion of yours during this period and yet you weren't so sure if that's what you should be doing yeah that's that's what i wanted to do i had a plan uh it's always annoyed me that god's plans are better than my own i mean that really disturbs me i have that routine too i know i know what of what you speak and so i i love music and i love the feeling the feeling that i get when and and we in our church we would all sing at the top of our lungs and the top of our hearts so that a a congregation lifting up their voices would be as close to god as i knew how it was possible to feel and when i would write a song or or sing as as every aspiring songwriter does in the bathroom because it sounds better that's right you get all that resonance yeah uh when when i would do that i would feel a real sense of passion and i wanted to follow that passion so i thought this will be this will be the path at least the one i'll explore first and you you have a meeting with chris christopherson at one point which you were telling me about it's also in the book um tell me about that meeting it was rather pivotal for you i mean it set you down a path absolutely did i thought then and think now that he's one of the greatest american poets who's ever been i loved his music and he was doing poetry in music and though no one ever thought of chris christopherson as the greatest of singers like the singers who sang his songs right i thought he was a terrific performer and singer because he he was authentic i wanted to be like him here he was a he was an army ranger he had been a boxer and a football player he was a rhodes scholar he had studied byron um he he was a poet through and through and here he was also commercially successful in nashville but he wasn't the nashville that i had grown up knowing he was something new so he was coming to my university i finagled to be backstage i went up to him i tried not to interrupt him and i said you know i i really want to write songs and he said then you've got to go to nashville so you end up in nashville you're writing music what happened well i i signed with the the most successful national music publisher tree music and i was around some terrific songwriters i think the big and and many of them were having huge success and i wasn't at least in the ways of the world right i think i was where i needed to be but i wasn't writing songs that were becoming hits and a great country icon icon named wesley rose who had been roy acuff's partner who his father had been said to me is your heart really here and i said no i i don't think it is and he said don't sell your soul for a few pennies you've got to go where your heart is if this is the kind of music that you want to be doing stay here but if it's not and he had listened to my songs and he liked them but he said this isn't what the country music world is doing right now you need to find someplace else and you end up in hollywood yeah why hollywood why hollywood was a was a question that everyone who loved me asked and i wanted to come to california largely because i wanted the challenge i wanted to be in an environment where everybody didn't believe as i believed i it was my same idea that i've always followed of i'm in some ways created to be a stranger in a strange land and still with the intention of writing music yes now you end up working with stephen cannell a great writer producer of television did hit after hit after hit what did you learn from him how did you end up there from music to writing for television steve was a genius at many things not only at writing but at teaching he but i think that the greatest thing he conveyed to me was a passion he loved what he was writing and that taught me an enormous thing that was a great gift to say you know go down the road of of where you're really having fun he once said to me you know what people do business with us as and i was his protege for several years he said yes they know will always deliver a professional product yes they know we'll do it on time but the main thing is that they enjoy it they like us and and that's important to remember so he was much like my father in that way huh you you have a brave heart movement that's what you call it in your book when you're still writing but things aren't clicking and you're worried that you're not going to be able to feed your family you have a family now yes you're married you're the family i want you to go back 10 years prior you're in scotland right and you're visiting a castle and here's a statue and you thought what when you saw that statue of william wallace i felt that i had come across a story that was as provocative as if someone had said saint peter and judas iscariot were the same person it was that big a story that unique a story for me here's the story of a man who is scottish scotland's greatest hero he has the same name as i do i believe in every fiber of my being that he's actually one of my ancestors but i've never heard of him why has he been buried to history why is he lost who was this man how did he become his country's greatest hero what made him that and was there something in the quality of the way he lived and died that transformed robert the bruce from being a scurrilous coward to being his country's greatest king that scurrilous coward part that transformation part was what i was looking for in my own life uh people will say to me you know don't you see yourself as william wallace i go now i kind of see myself as robert the bruce i i you i i read that in the book of all the characters i mean this is the traitor this is the guy who ends up being the traitor now he has his turnabout at the end but he goes to kill wallace at one point yeah and you know when i think about these things when i actually pause to reflect on them it sort of explains why and i talk about this in the book too why i follow jesus because here's this element you know people say all these things that we think jesus taught and he's a great yes and he did and as c.s lewis would say he's a great moral teacher of course let's forget the nonsense about that that's all he was or he was that that's what makes him distinct the story for me is there are 100 sheep and 99 of them are in the fold and one of them is lost and the shepherd goes out and finds that lost one i'm not the shepherd i'm the lost sheep i'm really clear about that and that is transformative so you have a calling i don't think that's too strong a word to write this story you don't even really know why that's right you're just drawn to it and and we have to say there are a lot of question marks about william wallace i mean the truth of the matter is randy wallace gave william wallace a lot more shape than we had before this screenplay was written right nobody really knows anything william wallace said yeah well now we know what he said freedom we now know what he said but we're not sure if he said it or not in life but he did say it right um tell me about that braveheart moment where you are really on the fence you can you only have one more screenplay in you before you're going to run out of time and money right and your father wants you to come elsewhere go do something else that's right and and and i'm worse than on the fence i am i am broken and i am desperate and i i am so overwrought that i can't do the the habits of discipline that have gotten me to that point uh i my hands are shaking my my stomach's in a knot i can't sleep i can't eat and i'm thinking my sons are going to see me collapse and i don't want i saw my own father collapse yes and about the age i was then and i'm so i get on my knees and i say as sincerely to god as i know how to pray if what i am to teach my sons is what happens when i collapse when a man gets broken and this gives me a chance to teach them how man gets up the way my father taught me if that's what we're doing here then give me the courage to bear this bring this to me and let me face it but if i go down let me go down not on my knees to the false idols of hollywood to success money if i go down let me go down with my own flag flying saying this is what i believe this is who i am and it was from not only that moment for me but that gave me the words that i had made me understand what i thought william wallace was doing on the battlefield in the dungeon on the executioner's platform that's what gave me the window to see the story and it was really an insight into the battle that internal battle that you were going through that we all go through at some point yes yes i think we all have our braveheart moments that define us and it shaped the rest of our lives betrayal you write about this there's a whole chapter in the book about betrayal which is something that it's really at the core i didn't think about it i guess watching the movie and i've seen it so many times but it really is at the heart of the story yes because that's where the transformation happens that's right that's right through that betrayal that's right talk to me a moment about your mother you say somewhere in here that braveheart would never have happened but for her yes that seems curious i understand your dad but mom i i struggle to understand this ray all the time in my life how we combine the all of us combine an aspect of the masculine and the feminine whether we are men or women how do you and and we have these these little neat packages we make of it but the fact was in my life my father was the one who sort of loved me unconditionally and my mother was the one who had the standards it was my mother who once said to me son if they crucified jesus christ they're going to be some people that don't like you and my mother believed as mark twain did if if you were standing with the majority it is time to pause and reflect if everyone likes you you're doing something wrong so my mother gave me this this attitude this this posture this i'm looking for my battle i'm looking i'm looking for the place in life where i draw the line and say right here i finally found the spot right here i don't step back from this point i'll either die or i will be victorious but even if i die i do not lose because i am fighting for what i am for who i am and what's right well we're talking about women and braveheart what do you think is the magic if it's there that draws women in because normally historical action sandal and sword epics this is not feminine fair yet women are drawn to this story what is it women recognize authentic love and that's what women want you know sigmund freud didn't have to look very far it was right there women want to be loved and they want to be connected to love and that's what the story of braveheart is about it's not a war story it's a love story i tell the story in the book of the young woman who watched the screening and at the q a afterwards stood up and said i don't have a question i just want to tell you my fiance died six months ago and told me before he died he wanted me to watch braveheart so i would understand the way he loved me and there's a sense that i wrote this book not just for her and not for me but for that young man who understood that that life is eternal that what really is a is life is not about the scars or the the sword that pierces our heart and makes our blood leak out our life doesn't leave us you also talk about fear in the book how fear holds us back stops us and again you tie it into women in a neat way and you say the moment a woman says we need to talk about our relationship yes share that with people well to me this was a huge insight i think you're right i think there was some comedian that said when his wife comes in and says we need to talk he'd think what he hears is can i take a drill and just drill it into your brain what i what i mean in the book is that so often those conversations come from a place of fear and that what the woman is really saying to the man in that regard is that i don't really trust you so i want to take over the reins so i want to take away from you all of your authenticity and your integrity in this and i want to destroy any chance i have for loving you i want to make sure we kill it now because i'm afraid it's going to die as opposed to i will communicate with every every way i live my life i will be responsible for myself to the greatest extent but understand what i love as you and what i want is to give you me that's a whole different thing than being driven by fear i was i was amazed when in the book when you look at the totality of the how long did it take you to write this screenplay very far the screenplay well it took me 10 years to get started down into the chair yeah and it took me about four months to write it it came with remarkable rapidity for uh for all of my i've never written a screenplay any faster no outline none no no not at all no no no how do you randy how do you sit down with no no you didn't know where you were going you didn't know how this was going to end even i know how it would start and in fact the whole beginning of braveheart i wrote in a an effort to just warm up i i didn't want the story to start when i in in my conscious mind i didn't want the story to start with william wallace as a boy so i just sat down to warm up and my first words were i will tell you of william wallace historians will say i'm a liar but history is written by those who have hanged the heroes i never saw those words coming and suddenly i kind of sat back and went hmm that's interesting i'm curious to see where the rest of this goes i didn't know when they were standing at the grave of his father and mother that the little girl would give him a flower i didn't know that he would keep it until you were there until i was there and i didn't know that she was there at his execution when it happened it took my breath away i sat at my desk and i wept and that was to me part of part of what i want this book to be sure i want to share the story particularly for my own sons but i wanted to share for everyone who's looking at a place in their life when when they're not able to trust they're not able to let go not able to say you know what value do i have and to me everyone you know you have to get to this humble place of surrender first there's a wonderful line here that jumped out at me where you say i've learned that wounds are just as important as our weapons do those how do those wounds shape randy wallace and do you pass those wounds on to the next generation well the second part first that's that's one of the scariest things for me do it do i pass my wounds to my to my children or do i do i give them the strength to avoid them i have said you know my sons we're friends i i have said to my sons if i had my way i would take away from you everything that will make you a man every heartbreak every disappointment every bloody nose every skin knuckle i would i would remove it all i would fight every fight for you if i could um but that is that's how they become men and they carry they carry their they get their own ones their own scars i i don't want to pass mine along in that i i want to bear my own wounds i i say in the book something about that i learned from my father's wounds and largely his wounds did become mine uh the the wound that kills us is the one inside our armor the one we ignore the one we don't open up and say look i'm bleeding here and somebody's got to know how to how to touch that wound and and how to heal it that's that's another thing when when i hear the jesus story i go all right that this story strikes me as so true it has the ring of truth in all of the gospels you know i'll read a story and i'll know how everything is going to fall because i've told enough stories and i have enough stories since and that's when the story seems false to me but when a story surprises you and you go i didn't see this coming like i i think in braveheart people didn't expect that william wallace is going to be executed they think surely somebody's going to swing in on vines and save it right but then you see it happening you go you know what this is how life works and the life that surprises you at the end when it transforms everyone not only robert the bruce but the men who followed him then that strikes us as true as well yeah the great line that people always remember from braveheart and that really is the spine of this book is every man dies but not every man really lives how do you live the brave hard life that you depict in this book and that is captured in your great world that's the that's the question i wanted to explore in writing this i didn't want to tell hollywood stories i didn't want to i mean people there's so many people who love braveheart and they they they love to hear the story but it's the question you you just ask how do we live this now and to me it's wrapped up in that statement we all die but that's but that doesn't kill the really living part it's it's the acceptance i mean where that line came from again was inspired by the gospels jesus has been teaching his disciples they've been with him almost without any restriction for three years and yet he knows that they're all going to run away nobody's going to understand him they're going to deny him one's going to betray him and yet he doesn't make the situation ethics decision the rational one to say i should just back off here and go into the mountains and teach some more until they really understand catch up and that and that my measure of who i am and what i will do will be judged by the standards of do they understand let's have a show of hands how many here believe that i'm here to transform you and save your lives oh no one okay well let's wait until i can can get there but he makes a choice that's that's above and beyond the question of what do we understand how does the world judge us it's who are we made to be let's be that because this body will die but that's how we really live for me that's the best way i know to put it and 20 years i can't believe it's been 20 years oh me neither since braveheart came i wanted to end talking for a moment about working with mel um i know you all have been collaborators and not just braveheart but a number of projects i know you continue working with them um what did he bring to that particular film that might have been lost in the hands of another actor or director so many things um absolute commitment now but that alone isn't enough but absolute commitment that's there there's there's an all-in quality about mill but that was coupled with an appreciation for what the story was and what it spoke of mel got something that i don't know any other director who would have gotten and i was not directing at the time so i i couldn't have i had to grow into that that role but but he understood when william wallace is is on his knees in the dungeon praying give me the strength i'm so afraid give me the strength to die well he's like oh that's jesus and garden of good symphony yes yes he saw right he saw he understood he got it all right and and we began to resonate with each other and not feel that either of us was so alone in this we began to say aha we get each other i remember when the passion came out and people said you know it's a shame mel didn't do the passion didn't act in the passion i said sure he did he just did it ten years earlier and and in a certain way every character um is is a refashioning of jesus and a way to try to apprehend him right right and you put yourself into every character leonardo dicaprio um you know was in man in the iron mask with gabriel another great movie by the way which you all should go by my boys love this movie it's an adventure it's it's it's about honor it's about all the things yes really it's about all the things you were you were doing in braveheart as well but go on i'm sorry right and about your identity as well you know right who are you and uh and gabe was asked why he well i think it was on one of the big talk shows when he was asked a question but he just asked you know why did you choose to be in this movie and he said um well i thought every character was powerful and he said i think that's because randall saw himself as every character and then he paused with this little irish twinkle and he said probably including the queen and the funny thing was he's absolutely right in every character you see yourself and you say if i were her if i were if these were the tools i had and these were the obstacles i faced how would i feel and that's how you write a character that an actor looks at and says i want to play that because i see that in myself and that's why i say you know the for for an audience for a young man a young woman who is looking at this book it's not to tell them the stories of randall wallace it's to say who are you what is in your life what are the stories that when you tell this story or you hear this story that you go this is me randy wallace thank you for the time thank you thank you my friend living the braveheart life by randall wallace is still available at bookstores everywhere and online and summer's almost here it's a great time to read the will wilder series with the whole family all the books three in the series so far are available in paperback and in audiobook you can still get hardback too go to willwilderbooks.com for a preview you can order there don't forget about our world over podcast you can visit apple's itunes podcast store search world over on spotify we're at ewtn world over that's all the time we have for now be sure to catch us next week until then we'll be scouting the world over for all that is seen and unseen on behalf of the staff and crew of ewtn news thank you for watching i'm raymond arroyo bye now you

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Length: 59min 6sec (3546 seconds)

Published: Thu May 28 2020