Shirley Phelps-Roper discusses her son who left the church: “I feel exceedingly sad” 

We can tell the hate is eatting her away and she is miserable. I think she just can’t let it go because she grew up embedded in it. Maybe it will take her kids reminding her she will be alone if she continues her path of hate.

@@Jojosworld000 Yep you’re right. Hatred truly eats away at you. Unfortunately I doubt she’ll ever reunite with her estranged children thanks to her ridiculous religious beliefs. She’s pathetic and hopeless.

I would run away from her the first chance I got! I’m proud he got away. That “church”s days are numbered with their unbridled hatred.

It's crazy you could say that about her son but his mother said "I forgot about him"

@@unshdhGbzbs It’s crazy how she can simply forget about an extraordinary son she has. She favors her toxic, dark religious beliefs over the sanctity of her own children. Absolutely grotesque.

Thanks for the comment. Why do you think Shirley isn't a bad person?

@@EmpathyEnemyshe and her father picked at dead soldiers and gay people, they believe that god hates “f**” and we can tell her own hate and evil has and is devouring her and led to the lose of her children. Hopefully she realizes god hates no one and she mends her wicked heart so that she may have her children again.

@@Jojosworld000 how can you tell what is happening to her? how much time have you spent with her?

@@EmpathyEnemy Have you seen what she pickets along with her family? Don’t you think it takes a “bad” person to sabotage a person’s funeral, preaching that their loved one is in hell? That’s what she and WBC are famous for…and it’s downright grotesque.

@@TheGreekPianist It’s called being doxastically closed, and some people are never able to break free because of it. Her brother and her daughter escaped, but she didn’t. So is the difference due to their quality, or rather who changed their ideas for better ones?

Do you think Shirley never experiences happiness? Why?

I don't think she has.... She is far too caught up in the dogma and far too hateful. ​@@EmpathyEnemy

Thanks for sharing; what makes you hurt for her?

@@EmpathyEnemy I felt the same way. there’s nothing more beautiful than a loving mother. I didn’t have family in my life for long. I know what it’s like to lose everyone you’ve ever loved and I don’t wish it on anyone. I pray for Shirley, to heal her heart of the pain she must suffer

@@EmpathyEnemyI feel for her because I believe she was raised in this environment, also. Ultimately, I do think some accounts of Fred Phelps just before his death show he had realized some of the errors of his ways, but by then it was far too late. I think what’s difficult and “cult-like” about this church is that you cannot have contact with those outside of it anymore, because it clearly damages the family to have to excommunicate their own children. Shirley is clearly hurting from losing so many kids in such a fashion.

I almost fell sorry for her for a moment too when I watched that but then I remembered she’s a terrible person. It’s her fault she lost the kids who left. I’m sure she could have contact and a relationship with them if she wanted to but the only thing that’s important in her life is being an awful, hateful person

Thank you for sharing! What were some of your experiences like as part of that fundamentalist movement? Did you experience similar responses to your beliefs as Westboro members receive?

@@EmpathyEnemy Yes, I sometimes encountered objections from more moderate believers : but that led nowhere or very little, because I remained stubborn in my opinions and did not want to hear anything. I had adopted a rigid behavior, in particular on the rigorous and systematic observance of the old rules of Catholicism : fasting, abstinence from meat on specific days, refusal to eat like everyone else if "forbidden" foods were on the table that day, etc. Today, I have remained religious and observant : open to other people's opinions, but easily hurt when someone tells filthy jokes about religion, Christ, etc. So imagine what it looked like when I was a religious fundamentalist !! I wasn't just reprimanding the offense : I was reacting viciously. Sometimes, I would shout in writing in the mail from the readers of the regional newspaper from my home... It happened that other readers reacted, seeming to wonder who I thought I was... Inside the fundamentalist Catholic parishes, we literally tip over into another world. Bishops, priests and faithful remain fixed on an idealized vision of France, such as it was before the Revolution of 1789... It celebrates a medieval Catholicism, one is wary of the modern world like the Plague : it is more a pastoral of terror which is preached there, not really a religion of love... Mortal sin and the fear of hell are waved around like so many scarecrows ! Anti-gay, anti-democratic, anti-liberal speeches are legion there... We must constantly pray for the conversion of sinners, for the return of heretics to the "one true Church of Christ", etc. There is also a more or less xenophobic and racist discourse, with an anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim tendency. It is encouraged the faithful to watch television as little as possible, to limit dating with people who do not share the same vision of the world, or to end any relationship with someone who puts our faith "in danger"... After a few years, I began to have doubts about the validity of this obscurantist doctrine. In 2020, the first confinement due to COVID 19 deprived me, by force of circumstance, of direct contact with the fundamentalists. I was able to take a step back and reflect, and I realized that all of this no longer suited me at all. I broke radically with fundamentalism, but also with the Catholic Church in general. With hindsight, I understand that the entire Roman Catholic religion is flawed right down to its foundations (even if it has been relatively modernized since 1962). I got closer to the Old Catholic Church (separated from Rome since 1870), and also to the Reformed Protestant Church. It is another Christianity : more liberal, more enlightened, better adapted to the present time... and where the believer enjoys full freedom of conscience. I'm much happier that way !

@@EmpathyEnemy The main fundamentalist Catholic group that I frequented was born in my country in 1970 (but it soon moved to Switzerland) : it is the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X, present today throughout the world (and which has a large district in the United States). I also spent a few years with some even more radical groups. The Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen (Omaha, Nebraska), and the Seminary of the Most Holy Trinity (Brooksville, Florida) are also American branches of this fundamentalist Catholic movement (but they have no connections at all with the Society of Saint Pius X..) I don't know if the clergy and the faithful in the United States are as crazy as in France : but I strongly recommend not to approach it too closely if you are thirsty for Jesus Christ...

We really appreciate your thoughtful comment! What was it like for you leaving your religious group?

@@EmpathyEnemy Well, I can say without exaggerating that I clearly experienced it as a release. I felt myself breathing better, as if I was rid of a suffocating weight. I had the distinct feeling of having advanced in the dark, within a cult (rather than within a religion animated by a living faith). The break happened very quickly, almost overnight : but it took several more months for me to gradually lose my reflexes and my fundamentalist thoughts... It takes time.

She doesn't want to leave; she feels she is doing God's work. Her problem is that she is misinterpreting God's will in the most profound way.

Brilliant!

yes, as I recall, she says would say that she loves them as a mother, but puts it in the framework of POV on non-believers Steve Drain moved to a southern state and, though I've been in slight touch, he's no longer a research subject of ours (i.e., his current activity is not a subject of our research)

Thanks for your interest; we don't typically share full interviews, but hope you continue to enjoy the clips!

they won't upload the full interviews, they've made very clear they're hoping to stay extremely under the radar and don't want people discovering their channel and gaining tons of educational information whatsoever they hate us I guess. Why would you not just upload the full interview? People would die for a chance to interview this person for academic reasons and you're over here flipping us all off going "nah enjoy the clips fuckers" like fuck offffff fuck you dude. Fuck you guys, seriously I genuinely mean that.

@@EmpathyEnemy Why not?

@@EmpathyEnemy I think I can safely say a lot of us are perplexed as to why you don’t upload full interviews. It feels a bit like a cat and mouse game. Please upload full interviews. Many people have kindly requested this.

@@nr1785 hi. I'm not sure when we might upload full interviews, but the process is slower than expected. when you say, "a lot of us" how are you in touch with others who are interested?

Hi. Some ppl believe our entire effort to understand WBC is in "bad taste." So aesthetic preferences are not a big factor in our research. We are trying to understand them better, their lived experiences, and the departure of young adults is a noticeable factor

'aesthetic' means concerned with beauty. That's not the issue. A mother was asked about the departure of her son. She's a human being. It's not bad taste to understand the WBC, their rationale is that the Bible says so, so by all means they can be asked about that but to ask a human being about the departure of an offspring without them raising the issue themselves is just plain immoral.

@@poetlaureate7334 what’s immoral about asking what it was like for her, when her son left the church? Keep in mind that she has consented to these interviews as a subject of our research

Picketing at someone’s funeral is a bit of bad taste, too. So yeah….

@@TheGreekPianist "bad taste" sounds like a matter of style or preference, I'd encourage you to think about ethical principles

And now they are all supposed to rejoice aren't they...

I wonder how Shirley would feel if she was told 'Thank God for Noah's death'.

That's horrific, I had no idea...

Hi, Empathy and the Religious "Enemy" does not typically share full interviews. We will continue to share clips from team trips, so subscribe to be notified of those!

@@EmpathyEnemy Just a longer format with Shirley as typically she's good on a range of topics. Particularly doctrine

Since 2010, I 've asked church members about a wide range of emotional experiences, including how they've felt about their children leaving the church. Regarding Louis T's approach, I wrote: "Theroux asks Shirley Phelps-Roper, Megan’s mother, to talk about losing children from the church. As he listens patiently, Phelps-Roper chokes up and shows how it pains her as a mother. It is effective filmmaking." -- so this part was similar to our methodology but... "Yet, abruptly, Theroux’s narration immediately calls Shirley a “self-created victim of the hate she had sowed.”" -- here I'm noticing that he immediately takes sides and uses this question against her or her church, right? Does this difference come across? I encourage religious ppl to open up, but I do not condemn (or praise) them after they do so. I do want outsiders to empathize with Shirley and others, but that empathy is nonjudgmental, it is connecting to them emotionally, not sympathizing or condemning. Make sense?

I’d like to set up a digital archive. But I admit it’s a slow process, sorry! HG

@@EmpathyEnemyi love how every one of your replies shows no empathy.

@@EmpathyEnemy HURRY UP!!!!

I think we will do a larger section with her response, but it will take more editing, thanks for your feedback

Thanks for your interest in the clips! What kinds of clips would you like to see?

@@EmpathyEnemy we'd like to see the clips that have the whole interview in them. so. actually. just not clips at all. we'd like the full interview. upload that as a clip and call it a day. stop being stingy and stubborn

She's obviously fronting. She's devastated about her children leaving. Just check out the interview with Louis Theroux in which she expressed her grief.

@@Lotte.Macchiato Crocodile tears and nothing more.

@@thepanda1044 Hmm, I feel like her emotion seemed pretty sincere. In the first documentary (around 2007?), Louis Theroux asked her what she'd say if one of her kids left, and she answered: "I bid thee farewell." In a very cold tone. Now, in this more interview, I see that she's obviously reluctant to admit that she's exceedingly sad about her son leaving, and in the most recent clip with Louis, she broke down and started crying. She tries to act like nothing can hurt her, emotionally, so as not to open herself up / make herself vulnerable to people dying to bully her. And I'm sure that she does not empathize one bit with the people whose funerals she pickets (and has picketed), but she does care about her own family and grief, of course 😒 Her life is obviously falling apart right now. But you're entitled to your perspective 🙂

Exactly. They try to show a strong indifference for defectors. However by all accounts including in Louie theorix latest documentary Shirley is visibly heartbroken over Megan’s departure regardless of how hard she denies it

She has narcissistic personality disorder. People like this will "play dumb" at questions that are very obviously painful and emotional. They don't display their hurt outright as that would show too much vulnerability and narcissists keep their vulnerabilities locked deep, deep, deep down within... With titanium steel plating surrounding it... Welded together with kryptonite... And so on you get the point hopefully... There is no breaking through to them. Ever. Not with the full criteria of traits. That IS WHO YOU ARE. They experienced an event/multiple events during their upbringing that caused their brain to adjust at a young age to something severely abnormal/stressful to the average human. And it becomes maladaptive. Just think about how young they start making the kids picket. When you're out there as a 6-year-old, holding up signs that say "God hates fags" and other horrific slogans, you get yelled at by the public who doesn't understand the deeper psychology and cultism behind all of this... The people at funerals, I can imagine said some very hurtful things to the WBC (regardless of how hurtful what they did was, they are brainwashed and WARPED beyond comprehension). All you've known so far is that the people you grew up with have taught you about the way the world is and it's so warped beyond what everyone else's understanding of it is... Then the world condemns you from childhood. You will grow up with what I described as extreme, unbreakable "narcissist" armor.

Do you think it was sarcasm?

@@EmpathyEnemy I don’t know. Sarcasm, trying not to think about it…. Could be many things

I believe she was attempting to show that once someone leaves the church, she doesn't think about them because it would be contrary to the ideology. However, she most certainly didn't forget and I think the pain is always with her. So not sarcasm, but deflection from her pain and an attempt to show herself of WBC above all else.

I generally don’t comment on ex-members. But this video is from June 2022 and, by searching his online interviews, you’ll see that Zach left awhile ago -HG

@@EmpathyEnemy she’s probs talking about Noah. He left in late 2020

Hi. We study WBC, so our research scope doesn’t include ex-members and their private lives. Megan is by far the best known among those who are active in public

Five of her eleven children have left: Joshua, Megan, Grace, Zach and Noah. Sadly, in September 2023, Noah died by suicide.

Do you think she feels abandoned by her children?

@@EmpathyEnemy then she should smarten the fuck up and leave too if not it's her fault

@@EmpathyEnemy i hope so

I don’t see a monster, I see someone whose behaviours have been monstrous, not the same thing. Shirley is herself a victim of dysfunctional upbringing, maybe she learnt at an early age to display certain behaviours as a survival mechanism. I feel that behind the outer facade is a woman who yearns to love and be loved but simply doesn’t know how.

I don’t see a monster either. I see a human being