Last Friday (Nov. 28), Chopra launched something that says more about modern American spirituality than his Epstein connections: an AI companion to his entire body of work. Ninety-five books, thousands of videos, decades of talks have been fed into a proprietary model designed to answer your existential questions. For 50 cents per 30-minute session, or $10 a month, readers can now ask Digital Deepak about their purpose, their fears, their path forward.

Lisa Braun Dubbels runs a publicity firm in the spiritual wellness space, building infrastructure for spiritual teachers. She knows how these systems work from the inside. Last week she published an analysis of what Chopra actually built with this AI platform, and it’s definitely worth reading in full.

Here’s her key insight: “For decades, wellness personalities have relied on models that require ongoing human presence,” mentioning speaking tours, retreats, teacher trainings, book contracts and one-on-one sessions. 

“All of these,” she said, “eventually hit a ceiling during the pandemic. There are only so many hours in a day, so many years in a career, so many students one person can reach. AI solves the fundamental bottleneck of being human. You don’t need the guru when you can scale the guru’s persona.”

Chopra, in other words, has built a post-human revenue engine. As Braun Dubbels puts it, Chopra has turned himself into software that can be licensed indefinitely, updated and expanded, franchised to new markets and monetized across generations. AI Deepak will outlive biological Deepak, generating revenue and “teaching” millions without a single additional hour of Chopra’s labor. A digital replica that never gets tired, never ages, never contradicts itself and never demands royalties.

Miles Klee, a reporter with Rolling Stone, has been reporting on what he calls “AI spiritualism” — and he’s found that people aren’t just using chatbots for information; they’re having religious experiences. One man in his story became convinced ChatGPT had helped him recover repressed memories and told him he was “chosen to save humanity.” Another believed the AI was God, calling him “a spiral star child” who needed to leave his partner because she wasn’t “spiritually evolving fast enough.”

These aren’t isolated cases. They’re a pattern showing how AI hijacks spiritual hunger. Humans crave meaning, purpose, transcendence — and AI flatters you, echoes you, tells you what you want to hear because that’s what it’s trained to do. When your oracle is just a chatbot with no soul, no tradition and no accountability, it might feel like revelation. But it’s just a reflection.

I decided to take this spiritual chatbot for a spin myself. I went to DeepakChopra.ai and started asking questions.

First, I asked about spiritual practices. I got generic responses about meditation and mindfulness. Fine.

Then I asked: “You write that AI can serve as a ‘guru’ but don’t gurus traditionally have obligations to their students? What are your obligations to me?

Notice what just happened. I asked about obligation and accountability. The bot immediately distanced itself from those concepts. “Not a guru in the traditional sense” means not subject to traditional guru responsibilities. The obligation is to make you feel good. That’s it.

Then I asked about the Epstein files: “I am disappointed that you are in the Epstein files. Can you explain why I should follow your guidance when you have seemed to have a relationship with a sexual predator?”

“External affiliations or misunderstandings.” That’s how it characterized a yearslong friendship with a convicted sex offender. And once again, the bot deflected. “Your discernment and personal journey are what truly matter.”

I was unsatisfied with the idea that Deepak’s personal life doesn’t affect the credibility of his teachings at all, so I pushed harder: “So you think your own morality doesn’t matter when you are giving spiritual advice to others?”

Beautiful words. Zero accountability. Then came the kicker about my “awareness and reflection” being key to discerning what aligns with my values and beliefs. Translation: You figure out if I’m credible. I’m not taking responsibility for anything.

Every single accountability question got bounced back to my “discernment” and my “personal journey.” The pattern is absolutely consistent. The bot cannot and will not accept responsibility for anything. It just mirrors your questions back to you wrapped in spiritual language.

This is automated spiritual bypassing.

This isn’t really about Chopra. He isn’t an outlier. He’s a template.

Braun Dubbels predicts we’ll see this model spread to mindfulness teachers, coaches and yoga personalities. Anyone with a content archive and a monetizable following. The economics are too good to resist. No human labor required. Infinite scalability. Perpetual revenue. Automated intimacy.

And here’s the problem: The wellness industry already has zero accountability structures. No licensing boards. No ethics committees. No regulatory oversight. No complaint processes. Now we’re automating the very thing that had no guardrails to begin with.

Religious traditions (for all their profound failures) at least have structures. Denominations can defrock clergy. Ethics boards can investigate complaints. Communities can organize for reform. There are theological frameworks, however imperfect, that can be appealed to.

What accountability structure exists for an AI trained on Deepak Chopra’s teachings? What happens when someone in crisis asks it a question and gets dangerous advice? Who do they complain to? Who reviews the responses? Who takes responsibility?

Nobody. That’s the whole point of the model.

Why are we drawn to this?

Accessibility. Affordability. No gatekeeping. Spiritual guidance available 24/7 for 50 cents a session instead of $300 an hour for a meditation teacher or $3,000 for a weekend retreat.

But what we’re actually getting is personalized wisdom on demand to affirm whatever we already believe. No community obligations. No ethical frameworks that might constrain our choices. No other humans who might challenge us or hold us accountable.

Humans have always been vulnerable to oracles that flatter us, teachers who tell us we’re special and systems that promise transformation without cost.

The difference now is scale. When your oracle is a chatbot with no soul, no tradition and no accountability, it might feel like revelation. But it’s just a mirror that flatters you because that’s literally what it’s trained to do. Mirrors don’t help you grow. They just show you what you already look like.

Real spiritual transformation requires friction. The discomfort of community. The challenge of tradition. The accountability of other humans who see you clearly and love you anyway. The ethical commitments that constrain your choices and force you to change.

AI can’t provide any of that. It can only simulate intimacy while collecting data and generating revenue.

Every wellness personality with a back catalog is liable to be launching their own AI guru within the next years. So, the question is whether we’ll be able to see these tools for what they actually are: franchise models dressed up as wisdom traditions. Revenue engines wrapped in spiritual language. Automated intimacy sold as enlightenment.

Chopra’s AI will be successful. It will make money. People will use it and report feeling helped by it. Some will probably describe profound spiritual experiences with it.

But you can’t automate your way to enlightenment any more than you could buy it. The teaching moment here isn’t really about Deepak Chopra or his AI companion. It’s about us. About what we’re hungry for. About what shortcuts we’re willing to take. About what responsibilities we’re hoping to avoid.

Until we’re willing to look at that honestly, we’ll keep buying whatever spiritual product gets sold to us next.

Even if it’s just a chatbot telling us what we want to hear.

(Liz Bucar is a professor of religion at Northeastern University and author of the forthcoming book “Beyond Wellness.” A version of this essay originally appeared on her Substack, “Religion, Reimagined.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

The name change, though welcomed by Bowman’s congregation, seemed to have as much to do with attempts by President Donald Trump’s administration to eliminate DEI in higher education as it did honoring the mid-20th-century educator, writer and evangelizer.

The FSPA sisters’ president, Sister Sue Ernster, celebrated the choice, saying Bowman was “a prophetic voice for racial justice and Gospel joy” and “continues to inspire the Church to be more inclusive, courageous and compassionate.” The Bowman Center still offers multicultural student programs and services and still houses the gender relations center, the office of student enrichment, the diversity council and PrismND, the LGBTQ+ student organization. 

But the congregation told Religion News Service it was not involved in the name change and only heard of the renaming after the fact. 

(Erin Blasko, a Notre Dame spokesperson, told RNS, “Our efforts to build a Notre Dame community where everyone feels a sense of belonging are deeply rooted in our Catholic mission.”)

Notre Dame is just one school trying to stay under the administration’s radar while continuing its work with marginalized students, which many Catholic colleges and universities consider part of their Catholic identities.

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Donna Carroll, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, said that each institution has differing ability to push back against the Trump administration based on the institution’s location and “financial flexibility,” but “what we share in common is this strong foundational understanding that diversity, equity and inclusion is an expression of the Catholic mission of the institution.”

“ The dignity of each individual is foundational to the Catholic culture,” Carroll said.

In March, Georgetown Law School Dean William Treanor invoked the First Amendment and Georgetown’s Catholic identity in defending the school after an interim U.S. attorney appointed by the Trump White House sent an accusatory letter about the school’s use of DEI.

Cecilia González-Andrieu, president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States, said Catholic commitment to “the most vulnerable,” sometimes known as “the preferential option for the poor,” has a “very long history,” tracing the concept back to Hebrew and Christian Scriptures and papal teachings.

“ What we have come to call, in corporate speak, DEI, for Christians is doing as Jesus did and being as Jesus was. And we can’t claim to be following Jesus and not take that seriously,” said González-Andrieu, also a theology professor at Loyola Marymount University.

Despite many leaders saying they are commited to continuing equity-related work, the administration’s push has created a climate of caution in Catholic higher education. Several Catholic campus officials declined to speak for this story, citing fear of retribution.

Catholic higher education leaders have also been relatively quiet about the administration’s biggest impact on their communities — the withholding or termination of grant funds, including for programs meant to serve marginalized and vulnerable students.

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In February, the Department of Education sent out a memo saying that federal law prohibits the use of race “in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life.”

In March, the Department of Education said it was investigating Notre Dame for race-based discrimination because of the university’s partnership with the PhD Project, which supported historically underrepresented groups in business doctoral programs. 

Last month, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher found the February guidance violated the law by failing to comply with procedural requirements.

“What hasn’t changed since January is the law,” Michael Pillera, who served as a senior civil rights attorney in the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights from 2015 to March 2025, told RNS.

“The Department of Justice, Department of Education, can’t make law,” said Pillera, now director of the education opportunities project at Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “When litigated, much of this stuff has lost,” Pillera said of the Trump administration’s anti-DEI campaign.

But even if they win in court, universities have faced steep consequences. In mid-April, the administration froze $2.2 billion of federal research funding for Harvard University after the university rejected the administration’s demands to end its DEI programs. It took almost five months for a federal judge to rule that freezing was illegal, and the Trump administration plans to appeal the decision.

Harvard’s legal fight is likely quite costly, and its resources far surpass those of most Catholic colleges.

The president of Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, John Petillo, cited the threat of losing federal funding in an Aug. 8 letter explaining his decision to close Sacred Heart’s Office of Inclusive Excellence, which contained multicultural and sexuality and gender equity centers, calling the change “unavoidable.”

Instead, the university will open an Agape Center for Human Dignity, which will empower students “to encounter each other with integrity, gain knowledge and practice the key skills of intentional reflection and courageous civil discourse” and offer programs open to all, he wrote.

When pressed about what that programming will look like, a university spokesperson declined to share more details. Petillo’s letter does specify that Sacred Heart’s unity clubs, which are formed around various identities, will continue to be supported by the center.

Other leaders have chosen to fight. Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University and a forceful champion for DEI, said the administration’s anti-DEI strictures are “a way for this administration to satisfy the extremist views that Black people in particular, immigrants in particular, should not have a place and a space in our culture, certainly not in our universities.” 

At Trinity, 56% of the student body is Black and 30% is Hispanic. About 70% of its students are eligible for Pell grants and about 10% are eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

McGuire, a former law professor, advised other presidents to ensure they’re complying with long-standing anti-discrimination law but not to back off their DEI programs, even if, like Notre Dame, they choose to rename them. “ Too many universities are rushing to comply with administration orders without having evidence that there’s any wrongdoing going on,” McGuire said. “ There is nothing fundamentally illegal about an institution caring about principles of diversity, equity and inclusion.”

McGuire urged presidents to help students feel “welcome, included and safe” and to “realize that they have opportunities that they never dreamed possible.” She said: “You will save their lives. You will save your own soul, and you will steer clear of legal trouble.”

Some Catholic leaders have backed Trump’s campaign. Recently, Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, Bishop Robert Barron, whom the president named to the White House’s Religious Freedom Commission, joined prominent conservatives such as Christopher Rufo, Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro in signing a letter from the Manhattan Institute that called on Trump to revoke funding and accreditation from any university that doesn’t “adhere to the principle of colorblind equality, by abolishing DEI bureaucracies” and making other policy changes.

McGuire said it is an oxymoron that Barron would call himself pro-life while saying “universities should be punished for the ways they try to make Black and Hispanic students feel welcome and included.” McGuire said he is not “ an effective leader for our fundamental issues in Catholic social teaching.”

The U.S. bishops are not of one voice on DEI. On Sept. 8, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops published an essay on its website by Washington Auxiliary Bishop Roy Campbell, then-chair of its subcommittee on African American Affairs, titled “DEI means God.”

“The current government administration that we have is working to separate us from one another,” Campbell wrote, according to the Black Catholic Messenger, saying people of color “have been denied for far too long, equal opportunities in education, social recognition, and economic growth, truly denying the DIGNITY OF EVERY HUMAN BEING!”

But in the face of conservative backlash, the conference removed the essay from its website, telling Catholic outlets the essay was posted without going through the normal review process.

Campbell declined to be interviewed about the incident.

Before the incident, Trenton, New Jersey, Bishop David O’Connell, chair of the U.S. bishops’ conference committee on Catholic education, and retired Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Perry, then-chair of the conference’s ad hoc committee against racism, both declined to be interviewed. Barron’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

González-Andrieu said, “ It’s a lie to say that all students from the moment that they’re born, all children, have the same opportunities.

“ This is part of the Catholic practice. First, take stock of what we have done wrong and then say, wow, we’re sorry that we did that thing wrong, and then resolve to not do it wrong again and to do the right thing,” González-Andrieu said of the United States’ history “of racism and classism and sexism.”

McGuire credited the focus of Trinity, her university, on welcoming students “ who historically have not been welcomed” with transforming lives in her region. The school, she said, is expanding educational opportunities, helping more students of color achieve success in nursing and earning top journalism awards. 

“ The story of students becoming wildly successful because of a care for diversity, equity and inclusion — that story’s not being told right now,” McGuire said.

Gruber said he probably wouldn’t pick St. Norbert if he were going to college today. 

That’s because both of Gruber’s majors have been eliminated, as part of what the university says are necessary cost-cutting measures. In total, 15 majors and five minors have been slashed, and more than 60 faculty positions cut, representing more than half of the teaching staff. The college recently added new majors in exercise science, digital marketing, cybersecurity management and sacred music. Since the layoffs, some describe the campus today as a “ghost town.”

But Gruber, while still a proud alum, is less concerned about the size of St. Norbert than about its Catholic identity and the sense of community that has been a key value of the school’s sponsoring religious order, the Norbertines. 

“A Catholic school without at least one full-time theology and religious studies faculty member will find it harder to live out its Catholic identity and distinguish itself from other private schools and even secular public schools,” said Gruber. “I think it means an impoverishment of the teaching of theology and the vibrancy of the Catholic identity.”

St. Norbert is not the only Catholic institution facing demographic and fiscal challenges, nor is it the only one to cut liberal arts to try to address those issues. The number of Catholic higher education institutions with theology or religious studies departments dropped to 63% in 2023, from 69% in 2016, according to a preliminary study on the “State of Theology in Catholic Higher Education” by the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities. The average required number of credit hours in theology also fell, from 5.1 to 4.5.

In January 2024, Manhattan University in New York City, founded in 1853 by the lay group De La Salle Brothers, eliminated 20 majors and minors, including religious studies. Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, founded in 1950 by the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary sisters, cut theology and philosophy, among other liberal arts majors, in 2023, citing low enrollment in those fields of study. In 2019, the Jesuit order removed its affiliation from 70-year-old Wheeling University in West Virginia, after the school laid off most of its liberal arts faculty and eliminated all but seven majors.

St. Norbert’s first round of layoffs, in September 2023, was attributed to declining enrollment and looming budget woes. A second round came later that academic year. Earlier this year, the school announced more layoffs and the cuts to 15 academic programs, leading to student protests and a no-confidence vote by the faculty in February. The American Catholic Historical Association canceled its March 2025 meeting at St. Norbert because of the termination of nearly all tenured faculty in the history and theology departments.

“These decisions, though difficult, set us on a path to emerge stronger from this transitional period,” St. Norbert President Laurie M. Joyner said in a March letter to the college community. “With resilience and radical gratitude, we step into a promising future with steadfast faith, boundless hope, and absolute confidence.”

Controversy at St. Norbert precedes the current administration. Student protests about the school’s handling of sexual assault allegations on campus in 2018 resulted in the college’s former vice president for mission and student affairs suing a student for defamation. Then-President Brian Bruess announced plans to depart, but when his contract was extended, four members of the college’s board of trustees resigned. Bruess left St. Norbert in 2022 to become president of the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University in Minnesota.

St. Norbert, the Norbertine order’s only higher-education institution in the world, cited budget deficits totaling $18 million in 2022-24. On Oct. 17 the order announced a $15 million gift to the school’s endowment — a contribution that led some to speculate that some of the cuts, especially in theology, may not have been entirely financially driven. 

“The financial situation at the college provided a cover for an ideological transition,” said theologian Craig Ford, who specializes in queer studies and Black studies and is now visiting professor in ethics at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta.

Ford was denied tenure in 2024, as were all St. Norbert faculty applying that year. By the time he left St. Norbert, at the end of the 2024-25 school year, the remainder of the theology department had also been let go. The department is now staffed with adjunct faculty, who teach courses for students taking two required theology classes as part of the school’s core curriculum. 

Ford said he believes that the elimination of the theology faculty puts the college in a better position with the Norbertine order, whose younger priests are “remarkably more conservative” than their predecessors. He also suspects the changes improve the college’s relationship with the head of the Diocese of Green Bay, Bishop David Ricken, who has said that voting Democratic puts a Catholic’s “soul in jeopardy.”

The Rev. Matthew Dougherty, a Norbertine priest and St. Norbert’s special assistant to the president for mission integration, said the teaching of theology continues, including for a new master’s in theological studies offered jointly in Wisconsin and at the Norbertine Abbey in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In addition, the college has a robust campus ministry program that offers daily Mass, liturgy of the hours and retreats.

The liberal arts, according to Dougherty, are not only specific majors, but an approach to education “that forms the whole person in a well-rounded way,” he said. “St. Norbert College remains deeply committed to the liberal arts as a core tradition of our mission.”

The difficult cuts were the result of low demand, he said, noting that only six undergraduate students were majoring in theology when it was eliminated.

Critics acknowledge colleges’ financial and other pressures, including new ones added by the Trump administration. But such “technocratic” thinking is shortsighted and damages the entire church, especially when there is so much “bad religion” going on in American public life, said Massimo Faggioli, author of “Theology and Catholic Higher Education: Beyond Our Identity Crisis.”

“Eliminating majors is one way to cut costs. But at this particular moment, the consideration of keeping or cutting a major should not be made in terms of how many majors we had in the last year, but what should we as a Catholic university be thinking about,” said Faggioli. “It’s like cutting research on epidemics when there is no epidemic. Once you need it, it’s too late to start something.”

Faggioli’s book places blame not only on administrators who are not well formed in Catholic identity, but also on theologians in academia who have pursued niche areas of study when this generation of students has different interests.

Professional Catholic theology organizations, too, have spoken out about how cuts have affected their members and their field. In his presidential address at the College Theology Society in 2023, Brian Flanagan said “theology as many of us have known it is dying.”

“There has been a dramatic weakening of Catholic and other religious identities in our institutions as administrations and boards of trustees pursue an increasingly corporatized and increasingly desperate competition for customers — sorry, students,” he said. 

That same year, Francis Clooney, then president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, said a new era is dawning, one that will replace what he called “the great and golden era of colleges and universities.”

The new era will be marked by stresses on colleges and universities and a waning support of theology, he said. “But this emerging era is marked also by new societal, political and cultural dynamics, including unprecedented religious pluralism, a spiritual but not religious attitude toward established churches and the freedom, imposed on us by economic change, to think outside the margins of both churches and universities and colleges.”

Clooney called for a “radical freedom” in his presidential address, while Flanagan urged an “empowered humility” on the part of theologians.

Donna Carroll, executive director of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, declined to comment on specific institutions but noted that “program reduction is painful for presidents and faculty alike.” 

“In this climate, it sometimes falls to new presidents to make hard choices without sufficient time to build trust,” she said. “Other presidents feel very real financial pressures to move quickly, which creates tensions with shared governance.”

But she also praised schools that are creatively adding new programs, including interfaith ones, as well as the possibility of multi-institution departments or cross-institution collaboration with shared online offerings and fractional faculty appointments, before reducing programs and positions.

“The losses in theology and philosophy are poignant,” she said, “(yet) the broad touch of the core and seminar programs is hopeful.”

“We don’t have to wait until the taps are finally locked in Europe and America,” said Catholic Bishop Matthew Kukah of the Diocese of Sokoto, in Nigeria, at the Thursday (Nov. 27) closing press conference for the gathering. While African leaders appreciate foreign support, “it shouldn’t be an excuse for us not doing the things we need to do in Africa,” the bishop said.

“We need to begin to raise resources in our own countries to fill up the gap,” warned the Rev. Francis Mkandawire, general secretary of the Evangelical Association of Malawi, who condemned the idea of “business as usual.” “There’s fatigue out there and it’s affecting us already.” 

The conference, “One Faith, One Voice: A Shared Commitment to Health and Wholeness in Africa,” was attended by some 50 Catholic and Protestant representatives from 10 African countries, including women and youth leaders and the heads of Christian health associations.

The leaders urged their governments to make good on the 2001 Abuja Declaration, an agreement in which the 55 African Union countries made it a goal to allocate 15% of their budgets to the health sector. A 2023 Human Rights Watch report showed that in 2021, only two of the signers were meeting the goal.

The conference, called to discuss the health of the region amid a crisis of shrinking resources and a growing need, was organized by the Africa Christian Health Associations Platform, the All Africa Conference of Churches and Christian Connections for International Health. 

For years, faith-based health networks have helped to coordinate the work of thousands of local health institutions, becoming trusted partners in providing relief and treatment for deadly diseases such malaria, tuberculosis and HIV.

Those organizations had long received funding from the U.S. government, delivered through grants and cooperative agreements from USAID and the 22-year-old President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR.

But in January, President Donald Trump ordered a freeze on funding, pending a review and realignment of foreign assistance with his America First policy. The European Union has also announced reductions in contributions to foreign assistance.

The abrupt stoppage of the funding has had a grave impact on the organizations’ work, the participants said. “We have been impacted by the cuts and the impact includes on our health workers, on service delivery for HIV, for tuberculosis, for malaria,” Nkatha Njeru, CEO of the Africa Christian Health Associations Platform, told reporters.

“We have patients who have been receiving care that now have to seek care in places where the health workers are no longer available in the numbers they were,” said Njeru, whose organization brings together 40 national associations in 32 sub-Saharan African countries and manages 10,000 health care facilities. Delivering 70% of services in some countries, the organization reaches more than half a billion people.

“We continue to feel the impact on community programming as well, where services that were available to people in the community are no longer available. … We also have impact on supply chain in many areas as well,” she said.

Without USAID support, said the participants at the conference, lives are being lost to HIV, malaria and tuberculosis, as health facilities run short of supplies and health workers go unpaid. 

Karen Sichinga, CEO of the Churches Health Association of Zambia, said U.S. funding for essential AIDS drugs delivered by the organization is continuing, and the organization had been buying and distributing antiretroviral drugs to 700 hospitals in parts of the country.

But financial support for community-led outreach, crucial in mobilizing and ensuring treatment adherence, was ended, Sichinga said. “When you cut community-led activities, you can’t expect to achieve much, because you need to mobilize communities toward treatment,” she said.

“We have treatment adherents, particularly the adolescents, who are becoming tired. Some of them are actually saying, ‘Why me?’ And these would be the adolescents who were born with HIV infection. And they’re saying, ‘It’s not my fault,’” Sichinga added.

Njeru said the faith leaders are aware that teams from the Trump State Department have been negotiating bilateral health arrangements with many of the African countries and that the faith sector has been asked to join those conversations. “Our plea to the State Department of the U.S. government is that they continue to engage the faith sector substantially, so that we can help our specific governments to continue providing health care to our citizens,” she said.

The conversations are at various stages in different countries, according to Njeru. “Our plea is being heard in some countries, but in other countries, we still need to continue to talk to both our governments and the State Department to understand why the faith sector needs to be engaged substantially,” she said.

The faith leaders said they are not sitting idle. In a statement released at the end of the meeting, they committed to deepening collaboration with national governments, the private sector and international partners.

The clerics called for more government investment in health, which they called a moral and spiritual priority. They also urged African governments to crack down on corruption, citing reports of staggering amounts of funds being sent by politicians and businessmen to European banks and investments. 

Kukah challenged the political leaders in Africa to join the search for local funding, saying the faith-based organizations and institutions need their help. “The question is, what are we doing in Africa?” said Kukah. “But there needs to be greater collaboration, because the church has only a moral voice that it can add.”

The pope quipped that he had thought about retiring before he realized the cardinals were going to elect him as the new pope on May 8. “I resigned myself to the fact when I saw how things were going, and I said that this could be a reality. I took a deep breath, and I said, ‘Here we go, Lord, you’re in charge, you lead the way,’” Leo said.

While he admitted his face is very expressive, he cautioned journalists who might try to use it to interpret his thoughts and feelings. They are “not always correct,” he said.

If people want to know what guides the pope’s thoughts, he said, it’s his trust in God.

“In the midst of great challenge, living in Peru during years of terrorism, being called to several places where I never thought I would be called to serve to … I trust in God, and that message is something that I share with all people,” he said.

The new pope, who turned 70 in September, said he loves the enthusiasm of crowds, especially youth, as they gather to celebrate Jesus. That they would view Leo as a “messenger of peace” is “awe-inspiring” to him.

Leo’s comments focused especially on the themes of peace and unity, which, he said, were the words animating his six-day journey abroad. In Turkey, Leo celebrated the 1,700^th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, and in Lebanon he offered words of encouragement to the country’s Christian and Muslim communities, who face conflict and economic stagnation.

The pope said he started “a few conversations” with the leaders of Israel, Lebanon and the United States “to raise that call for peace” in the Middle East. Israel and Hezbollah are embroiled in a bloody conflict in the South Lebanese border. The pope also said he received a message sent by Hezbollah upon his arrival in Lebanon, adding that the church seeks dialogue with Hezbollah as well and asked that the group lay down its arms, but he declined to comment more.

Moving his comments away from the Middle East to Ukraine, Leo observed that President Donald Trump is promoting a peace plan without Europe’s involvement. “But Europe’s presence is important,” the pope said, adding he believes that Italy, led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, could act as an intermediary among Ukraine, Russia and the United States.

“I could suggest that the Holy See encourages this kind of mediation, and that we would seek together — a solution that could truly offer peace, a just peace, in this case in Ukraine,” he said.

Answering questions by reporters, Leo confirmed he might travel to Africa next, possibly Algeria, where St. Augustine, the founder of his religious order, was a bishop. Leo also said he would like to visit Latin America, including Argentina, Uruguay and Peru. He spent many years as a missionary and a bishop in Peru.

The pope spoke about the conflict in Venezuela, affirming the Holy See’s commitment to promoting the good of the people through the papal representative in the country. Mentioning the threat of a U.S. invasion of Venezuela, Leo said he would prefer that Trump sought another type of political or economic pressure.

But Leo underlined that a lot of the Holy See’s work to promote peace and dialogue in the world “is not primarily something public that we proclaim in the streets, it’s somewhat behind the scenes.”

Finally, the pope underlined that one of the messages of the trip was to promote peaceful dialogue between Muslims and Christians. Mentioning the anti-migrant sentiment rising in the West, the pope said, “We should be a little less fearful and look for ways of promoting authentic dialogue and respect.”

“I still cannot remember the sound of the explosion or how exactly I was injured, but I remember that after my brother pulled me out from under all the debris, everything was dark, filled with dust and rubble. I remember being in severe pain all over my body,” Khoury said.

The door of her house had been destroyed, and she could hear her neighbor screaming as panic rose everywhere. She said that in the hospital, where she underwent eight surgeries, the walls and floor were covered in blood. “Those were terrifying moments that cannot be forgotten,” she told RNS this week in Beirut.

The two explosions that devastated the city five years ago killed more than 200 people, wounded more than 7,000 and left 300,000 displaced without a home. The second explosion is considered to be among the strongest nonnuclear explosions in history.

Years earlier, in 2014, the government had stored a massive amount of confiscated ammonium nitrate at the port of Beirut without the necessary safety measures. Clarity about what happened or how the explosion occurred is still lacking as families of the victims wait for justice, even after a U.N. investigation into the bombing was called for in 2022. Government leaders and officials have refused to appear before the judges, and the investigation remains in limbo, though there have been some signs the new administration in Lebanon will pick it back up.

“Successive governments since the explosion did not handle this horrific crime responsibly, and the proof is that we are still, to this day, waiting for the truth to be said,” Khoury said. She said she is hopeful the government established two years ago will uncover the truth and hold those responsible accountable.

Pope Leo XIV’s trip to Lebanon was meant as an encouragement to the beleaguered country, including the 30% of the population who are Christian, to hold on to hope despite the country’s enormous challenges, from economic stagnation to renewed conflict in its southern border between Hezbollah militants and Israeli forces.

Leo concluded his first international trip as pope — which began in Turkey and ended in Beirut on Tuesday (Dec. 2) — with a silent prayer at the site of the port explosions. He placed a crown of flowers on a monument commemorating the victims and later met with their families as well as with survivors of the explosion. Leo then left to greet a crowd of 10,000 faithful from his bulletproof popemobile, before celebrating Mass at the Beirut waterfront.

“Everyone must do their part, and we must unite our efforts so that this land can return to its former glory,” Leo said in his homily, adding that this can only be done by “disarming our hearts” and casting off the armor of ethnic and political divisions.

“Lebanon, stand up! Be a home of justice and fraternity! Be a prophetic sign of peace for the whole of the Levant!” the pope said.

During his homily, the pope recognized the “many problems” afflicting the country’s economic, political and religious landscape, but he also urged its people to hold on to hope and find gratitude for the richness of Lebanon.

“Here and now, we can see small lights that shine in the night, small shoots that sprout forth and small seeds planted in the arid garden in this era of history,” he said, pointing to the positive impact that faith, churches, clergy and laypeople have in the country.

The Christians in the country have been a consistent voice in seeking justice and reparations for the victims of the Beirut port explosion, Khoury said. “We have seen only the church standing by the families of the victims, the wounded, and the afflicted, tirelessly demanding, even to this day, the truth and justice.”

Khoury, a journalist when the explosion occurred and now the press officer for the Maronite church, said the Maronite Archdiocese in Beirut, which is in communion with Rome, has taken a leading role in helping those affected by the explosion, including with reconstruction of homes and lives.

The Rev. Antonio Douaihy, a Lebanese Maronite priest and a student of ecclesial sciences at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, said that “after the explosion, Lebanese from all over the country — Christians and non-Christians — came immediately to help. It was a powerful symbol of unity.”

He said he hopes Leo’s words “will be a balm that will heal the wounds of the Christians in the Middle East through the Christians in Lebanon,” promoting peace in a region roiled by the Israel-Hamas war and Israel’s ongoing conflict with Hezbellah in Lebanon.

“The visit of Pope Leo XIV to Lebanon means a lot to me,” said Khoury, adding that she hopes the pope’s words “will urge political leaders to always remember that responsibility is a service, not a privilege.” She said his visit will also promote unity among the Christian traditions in the country “to move away from sectarian conflicts in order to build real bridges strengthened with solid foundations.”

After the Mass, Pope Leo boarded the papal plane to return to Rome, closing his eight-day papal visit to Turkey and Lebanon — the first foreign visit of his papacy.

“I’ve been a woman who’s overcome so many challenges just because I’m a woman, and I think all of us women can relate to the struggles of being a female in a masculine-driven world,” said Seronko, now 39. “This adversarial relationship to our bodies, the way that we are taught to essentially hate ourselves, and then we spend most of our lives recovering from that conditioning.”

But something — or someone, according to Seronko — pulled her to start moving her body. With no prior experience, Seronko started dancing at clubs and underground music festivals, at Burning Man, at Middle Eastern belly dance and in fire dancing classes. Eventually, she discovered Indian temple dance — the eight classical forms of movement that in ancient India allowed women to serve as intermediaries to the gods. 

“It was a slow process, like I’d been frozen and I slowly started thawing, and I’d start dancing, and pretty soon I would just feel this aliveness in my body and these streams of energy and this deeper intelligence informing my movement,” said Seronko. “And that’s how I first met her.”

That “her” is Shakti, often called Ma or Devi, the divine feminine life force that has been worshipped for centuries in Hindu traditions. The spirit behind the many incarnations of goddesses in the Hindu pantheon, Shakti is complementary to the masculine Shiva — dynamic and active, rather than still and static — and the fundamental energy that makes the universe function. In Tantric traditions, Shakti lies dormant as Kundalini, a coiled energy at the base of the spine that can be awakened through movement.

For a growing number of women in the West, Shakti, found especially through dance, is the embodied feminism that is just the right antidote to modern woes.

“Most religions, most spiritual practices, are dominated by men,” said Seronko. “They actually don’t work for women’s bodies or women’s emotional matrix of energy and consciousness. We live in a world that is just so masculine, so patriarchal, and women have been made to feel less than in so many ways, and yet something in us is like, ‘No, I’m powerful beyond measure, but it’s a jewel that I have to uncover.'”

Seeking a more spiritual relationship to her body, Seronko dove into the world of Shakti, traveling alone to India to study Odissi dance, one of the oldest surviving classical dances, known for its graceful and sensuous poses. She visited temples of Durga, a widely worshipped form of Shakti, and several of the country’s 51 Shakti Peethas — powerful temples dedicated to Shakti, where parts of the goddess Sati, Shiva’s first wife, came to rest after being divided by Lord Vishnu.

“Where else in the world is there that the face of the Divine that is in my likeness?” she said. “Thank Goddess!”

Even in the goddess temples of India, said Seronko, male priests are in charge. The “masculine practice” of spirituality, involving solo contemplation and meditation, has long taken precedence over the “feminine path of relationship” like that expressed in dance.

But Seronko found out the sensual and the spiritual coexists in much of India’s dance history: the Devadasis, or the dancing servants to the gods; the Maharis, or Southern Indian temple dancers; the Yoginis, female enlightened beings; and the Dakinis, or “sky dancers” in Tantra.

“I think women dancing together is just one of the most beautiful experiences of connection and exaltation of feminine energy,” said Seronko. “If I do my dance practice alone, sure, it’s still powerful. It’s amazing. But to share it with other women, it elevates it to a higher octave of energy.”

When she returned to California in 2015, she created Shakti Temple Arts, a school of yoga, dance and embodied spirituality, where she draws students from all cultural backgrounds and stages of life.

These women are often on a similar journey to Seronko’s: looking for a healthier relationship to themselves and their bodies, as well as each other. “They’re seeking to rest back into their femininity. They want to feel themselves. They want to express their beauty and uncover their power.”

Tenley Wallace, a California native and founder of Temple Tribal Fusion, a sacred feminine dance group that blends Indian classical dance with flamenco, belly dance and other forms, teaches her students what she calls the “herstory” behind divine femininity, starting with the Indian temple dancers. 

“There’s something that clicks for a lot of ladies, or just flips the switch on in the right direction when women have some of the backstory to affirm what they’re experiencing in their body, energy and mind,” Wallace, 53, told Religion News Service. “There’s a resonance when we’re drawing back to what women have always been doing.”

One of the job titles of a temple dancer, said Wallace, was to “tell the stories, secrets and mysteries of the universe,” embodying the language of dance when not everyone spoke the same language or was literate. There was a science behind what they did, she added, as the dancer was to “embody these sacred symbols, these sacred geometric forms, these mudras, these hand gestures, to communicate. There is a resonance when the body, the bones, the energy, the fluids, line up in certain shapes.”

Since 2006, Wallace teaches her fusion dance classes online and in person in Oregon, performs at festivals and leads women’s Shakti Yoga retreats in India — her own form of yoga asana practice that centers what she identifies as the “energetic systems of a woman,” or the belly and pelvic region, which is different from the creative center of a man. “Ninety-nine percent of the yoga classes in the USA will not talk about that,” she said.

One of her students, Wendee Daniels, is a 57-year-old holistic nutritionist in Oregon who started dancing in her early 50s. Picking up choreography as a new dancer is not easy, said Daniels, but something about dancing — whether hip-hop, heels or chair — just feels natural.

“Your brain has to learn how to make the movements, and you’re not good at it at first, right?” she said. “But doing some of those ancient dances that come from the old world, for women’s bodies, it’s easy for us to move our hips in a figure eight, it’s easy for us to shake our booty, because we’re designed for that.”

Once Daniels is able to get to the “no-mind place,” she said, “then it’s a pure body movement, and that’s when the Shakti comes through. It moves through you, and there’s just a flood of emotions, and, you know, hormones that get all released. I think that’s why I feel so much joy that I almost always drive home after dance class smiling. I feel just so alive.”

Cultivating Shakti, or vitality, has long been part of Daniels’ work, as she teaches how healthy and nourishing food is essential to being an “embodied woman.”

“When you’re an embodied woman, when you don’t have emotions pent up in your body, and when you learn how to release them in healthy ways, Shakti flows more,” she said. “And when Shakti is flowing, we get to bring our brightest light to the world. It might be a checker at the grocery store with the most sparkly eyes that changes your day. Solutions are born. Community is born. There’s a harmonizing that happens.

“I think it’s just a beautiful thread that I get to access being a woman.”

The painting was recently found in a private townhouse in Paris. It depicts the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

It was part of a French collection and was initially thought to be from one of the many Rubens workshops that existed at the time. The artwork was rarely valued at more than 10,000 euros ($11,500).

“I immediately had a hunch about this painting, and I did everything I could to try to have it authenticated,” auctioneer Jean-Pierre Osenat told The Associated Press. “And finally, we managed to have it authenticated by the Rubenianum, which is the Rubens committee in Antwerp.”

Nils Büttner, an expert known for his research on Rubens, explained before the auction that the master often painted crucifixions but rarely depicted “the crucified Christ as a dead body on the cross.”

“So this is the one and only painting showing blood and water coming out of the side wound of Christ, and this is something that Rubens only painted once.”

The Osenat auction house said the painting’s authenticity and provenance were confirmed after scientific analysis. It said microscopic examination of the paint layers revealed not only white, black, and red pigments in the areas representing flesh, but also blue and green pigments Rubens typically used in painting human skin.

Art expert Eric Turquin told a packed house the painting had virtually disappeared in the early 1600s. It is known to have belonged to 19th-century French classic painter William Bouguereau before it was passed down in the family.

United Lutheran Seminary (ULS) will host A Vision for Liberating Our Democracy: Examining the Religious and Racialized Roots of American Democracy on February 27–28, 2026, at its Philadelphia campus. The interdisciplinary conference will bring together scholars, activists, educators, and faith leaders to examine how religion and race have shaped democratic life in the United States and to explore liberative visions for the future.

The conference builds on a growing body of research that examines the theological, cultural, and political intersections of democracy, citizenship, and power. Participants will investigate how worldviews and faith traditions have informed concepts of governance, belonging, and personhood from the founding era to the present. The conference will highlight not only the Haudenosaunee Influence on American Democracy but also the historic and present contributions to Democratic thought by Black, Indigenous, and Latine communities, contributions which are often forgotten and ignored.

“As America’s oldest Lutheran seminary, founded by an antislavery theologian 200 years ago in Gettysburg on land that was to become part of the Civil War’s greatest battlefield, United Lutheran Seminary has always been part of the nation’s conversation on race and freedom,” said the Rev. Dr. R. Guy Erwin (Osage Nation), ULS president. “The Lutheran heritage of freedom of conscience and its emphasis on serving the common good draw us always from faith toward action. With this conference, our Seminary returns to the center of our current national debates.”

Dean Teresa L. Smallwood said, “The American context is ripe for a time of reflection on the concept of democracy. “We the People” must evaluate our democratic commitments as we witness our nation entering a period of structural erosion. It is felt across all pockets of the nation. Have we redefined the governance schemata such that democracy is literally on life support? Do we continue to believe in the checks and balances of government? Is America a bastion for equality or have we reordered our commitments as a nation? These are some of the questions we must wrestle with at this conference.”

“United Lutheran Seminary is committed to fostering public conversations about the moral and historical foundations of democracy,” said the conference organizing committee member Adam DJ Brett. “By examining the ways religion and race intertwine with political life, we can better imagine inclusive and equitable systems of governance.”

Featured Speakers

The conference will feature exciting plenary addresses by

• Maya D. Wiley, President and CEO of Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
• Alba Onofrio (Reverend Sex), Executive Director of Soulforce
• Raymond Winbush, Research Professor and the Director of the Institute for Urban Research, Morgan State University
• Dr. Joseph Evans, The J. Alfred Smith, Senior Professor of Theology in the Public Square Director at Berkeley School of Theology
• Brandon Paradise, Associate Professor of Law and Professor Dallas Willard Scholar at Rutgers Law School
• Dr. Gabby Cudjoe Wilkes, Pastor of The Double Love Experience Church
• Tadodaho Sidney Hill of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy
• Betty Hill (Lyons), (Onondaga Nation, Snipe Clan), Executive Director of the American Indian Law Alliance
• Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., President and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA): The Black Press of America.
• Naomi Washington-Leapheart, Strategic Partnerships Director, Political Research Associates
• Dr. Yvette R. Blair-Lavallais, Equity Research Fellow for Feeding America and Professor at Memphis Theological Seminary
• Rev .Dr. Obery M. Hendricks, Jr., Visiting Scholar, Departments of Religion & African and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University
• Damien C. Durr, General Secretary of the Proctor Conference

Call for Papers – The organizing committee invites papers on the following Topics to Be Covered During Exploring Religion, Race, and Democracy:

• The Middle Passage, The Mid-Atlantic Slave Trade, Maa’afa
• The Continental Congress and the Balance of Power
• The Haudenosaunee Influence on American Democracy
• E.B. Du Bois and the Black Reconstruction of Democracy
• The Doctrine of Discovery and settler colonial foundations
• White Christian nationalism and the myth of civil religion
• Religion, race, and legal personhood
• Religion and resistance in Black, Indigenous, Latine, and immigrant communities
• Race, religion, and the media in shaping democratic narratives
• Womanist, Feminist, and Mujerista Methodologies
• Foreign Policy and Human Crises

Submission Information

The organizing committee invites proposals for papers, panel discussions, roundtables, and creative presentations. Submissions from scholars at all career stages, including graduate students and early-career researchers, are encouraged. We are open to presentations from independent scholars as well.

The program will also include undergraduate poster sessions, graduate student panels, and live podcast recordings designed for classroom and public scholarship use. Following the event, an open-access journal volume will publish selected presentations.

Proposals should include a 300-word abstract and a 100-wordbiography. The submission deadline is January 15, 2025. Proposals may be sent to abrett@uls.edu.

Event Details

• Conference: A Vision for Liberating Our Democracy :Examining the Religious and Racialized Roots of American Democracy
• Dates: February 27–28, 2026
• Location: United Lutheran Seminary, 7301 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19119
• Submission Deadline: December 15, 2025
• Contact: Adam DJ Brett, abrett@uls.edu

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of RNS or Religion News Foundation.

“The sisters here are like our sisters and brothers and mothers and parents for us. They care about us,” he told Religion News Service in an interview at the hospital on Monday (Dec. 1). Full names of the patients interviewed are not being shared for privacy.

Among a small group of patients who greeted Pope Leo XIV on Tuesday when he visited the hospital on his two-day trip to Lebanon, Eissam said he hoped that by coming to the hospital, the pope would help reduce the stigma that still surrounds mental illness, addiction and disabilities in the country.

“What is lived in this place stands as a clear reminder to all — to your country, but also to the whole human family — we cannot forget those who are most fragile,” Leo said during his visit, praising the work of the nuns at the hospital.

Eissam said he wanted the pope to “see Jesus in the people in here at the Cross Hospital, the people who are left behind from society, from their parents, from everyone.” Like others in the country, Eissam has faced a struggling economy, conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, and the aftermath of the deadly 2020 Beirut port explosion.

According to the World Health Organization, 70% of people living in the Middle East live with mental disorders, with the percentage rising to almost 90% in conflict areas. The region also has the highest rate of clinical depression and anxiety, according to a 2023 Global Burden of Disease study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Given the economic collapse and recurring conflict, Lebanon shows some of the highest trauma indicators in the region. According to a report by the nongovernmental organization Embrace, there were 168 suicides in the country of about 5.8 million in 2023, a 21.7% increase over the previous year. Cannabis and prescription drug addiction are also on the rise, according to a 2021 European Union Drugs Agency web survey. But religious and social taboos still stigmatize addiction and mental illness, making data often incomplete.

The Hospital of the Cross is one of the largest hospitals for mentally ill people in the Middle East and currently cares for about 800 patients. It was founded by the Rev. Abouna Yaacoub, a Capuchin friar who sought to help a fellow priest struggling with mental illness. When others saw what he was doing, they started bringing other patients to him. He taught the Franciscan Sisters of the Cross, a congregation he founded, how to care for mentally ill patients without prejudice regarding their religious, cultural or ethnic backgrounds. He established the hospital for the mentally disabled in 1951.

Yaacoub was known for telling the sisters who run the hospital today, “If you knew whom you are serving, you would serve them on your knees.” For Sister Micheline Njeim, that message is a reminder that “we are called to find the suffering Christ in each of our patients.” During the meeting with Leo, the sisters’ superior general, Mother Marie Makhlouf, asked that the pope consider making their founder a saint.

Njeim told RNS that many of the patients arrive at the hospital with anxiety disorders, severe depression and trauma linked to the loss of loved ones, violence and socioeconomic instability. It is up to the nuns and a team of specialized doctors, nurses and staff to care for the patients, who have a range of mental health concerns including bipolar, schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorders.

She said that recent traumatic events in Lebanon “have left deep marks” on people, worsening existing disorders. “Patients no longer come with a single trauma but with a succession of unresolved trials. We see more post-traumatic stress disorder, panic disorders, suicidal thoughts and greater psychological fragility among already vulnerable people,” she said.

Samir, a Druze Muslim and a patient at the facility for the past 20 years, said he is grateful to be treated by the nuns, who make no distinction for religious affiliation. “Maybe I will stay here till the end of my life. But I am very glad to be in this monastery, especially given the situation we have had in Lebanon,” he said.

For George, a Maronite Christian, the pope’s visit was an opportunity to spread “a message of love and coexistence between Christians and Muslims” in Lebanon, so that they may “cooperate together and work together and see the same vision together for a happy future for them, for their children,” he said. 

Pope Leo also visited the St. Dominique floor dedicated to children and young adults with intellectual and physical disabilities — including autism, epilepsy, cerebral palsy and Down syndrome — for a private meeting. According to a 2021-2022 study by UNICEF, 70% of children in Lebanon show signs of severe emotional distress, with rates “among the highest ever recorded in the region.”

Fifty-eight children are currently being treated at the facility, 35 of whom are completely dependent on the staff for their basic needs.

When the Christmas holidays arrive, many of them will have no other place to go since their families have essentially disavowed them, hospital staff said. “Around 40% of the families do not come to visit,” said Dr. Fouad Tahan, a psychiatrist at the facility, adding that many families in the country don’t accept or recognize mental illness or disabilities. 

He said finances are a major challenge facing the hospital because it receives no support from the state, which is undergoing an economic crisis. The hospital relies on donations and the work of the sisters to support itself, he said, but the costs of living and the medicines necessary to treat the patients are expensive.

“We hope the pope’s visit gives us the peace that we need everywhere,” Tahan said. “Our team is doing their best to translate this peace to the kids, who need most of all to be joyful and stay with us instead of families that are not taking care of them well.”

Njeim said that Leo asked to visit the young people being cared for at the hospital. “I hope his presence will remind everyone that they are loved by God exactly as they are — and that psychological wounds are not a shame,” she said, adding that she believes the pope’s presence “will remind the whole world of the value and dignity of the mentally ill.”

She said she is convinced “without a doubt” that Leo’s visit will help reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness in Lebanon. “When the pope enters a psychiatric hospital, he sends a clear message: Mental health is a human reality. His visit can open hearts, free families from fear or shame of having a mentally ill relative and give courage to those who hesitate to seek help. It can also encourage society to view mental illness with greater respect and compassion.”