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I Care About Other People. It’s Terrible that You Don’t

I Care About Other People. It’s Terrible that You Don’t

Last updated on: July 26, 2025 at 2:02 pm by Mary Pezzulo

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I Care About Other People. It’s Terrible that You Don’t 2025-07-26T14:02:49-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

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You have to understand, I actually care about other people.

No, I’m not a perfect or even a very good person. I’m often awful. But I genuinely do care about other people. And I thought most everyone did. I used to think that the world was full of people who genuinely care about others.

When I was a teenager, when I was in the pro-life movement, carrying my cardboard sign on the bus to the March for Life, I was doing that because I was told that little babies were being ripped apart. I couldn’t imagine anything more horrible than babies being ripped apart. I still can’t think of anything more worthy of your rage and horror than the thought of babies ripped apart. So I went on the bus trip and marched with my sign. I didn’t do it because I wanted a fun trip with my friends. I did it because I actually care about other people.

When I found out that one of the Evangelical preacher who screamed at people outside the clinic on Saturday mornings also took his camper to a homeless encampment to serve them hot lunches on Saturday afternoons, I went with him. I hadn’t known there were homeless encampments in Columbus before. I was surprised. I asked the homeless people what they needed, and they said they needed socks and toilet paper. So I went and got them some. I didn’t do that to proselytize Christianity and put on an act. I don’t know whether the preacher fed the homeless for that reason or not. But as for me, I bought socks because there were homeless people camping out in Columbus, and they needed socks. And I assumed everybody serving the homeless had the same motive.

I voted Republican, at first, because I thought they actually cared about unborn babies. I didn’t like them, but I thought that was more important than my reservations. I went to Franciscan University to study Catholic bioethics, thinking I’d end up working in a Catholic hospital or teaching at a college. I didn’t do that so I could wow people with my fancy apologetics and become a Catholic influencer. It was because I care about people, and wanted to help save lives. And I thought the other people in my classes were the same.

Frank Pavone in a Roman collar, yakking into a microphone with one finger upraised.

Frank Pavone, back when he was a priest but not in good standing. He’s not even pretending any more, of course. Image in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

When I watched my fellow Catholics flush themselves down the moral toilet to vote for a con artist sex abuser in 2016, I was shocked.

I thought that Trump would lose the 2016 election in a landslide, and they’d all be embarrassed, and vote for the next run-of-the-mill Republican in the next election, and that would be that. And, of course, I was wrong.

When the disgraced alleged sex abuser priest Frank Pavone put that naked baby corpse on the altar to stump for Donald Trump, I was appalled. I was sickened, because that’s a human body. That’s something we’re supposed to regard as worthy of respect. We’re not supposed to desecrate a corpse. And I found myself publishing piece after piece, a years-long investigation with information given me by several different people, trying to get to the bottom of where that corpse came from and whether she was even aborted: something I’m now notorious for, even though none of the difficult investigative work was really mine. I’m just the loudmouth who compiled what everyone gave me and published it. I didn’t do that to become notorious. I did it because I cared about that baby.

The backlash I got shocked me even more, because I thought pro-lifers cared about babies, and here they seemed to only care about defending the reputation of pro-life celebrities. And I’ve had a long, painful, horrifying awakening since 2016. I now know the pro-life movement is a confidence game for people who just want power. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being embarrassed and ashamed, that I thought it was about babies.

All through the first Trump term, when I begged people to listen to the cries of little children torn away from their parents and put in cages, I did it because I cared about those children. I wasn’t putting on a show to stump for the Democrats. I believe that kidnapping and abusing children is wrong. It’s hideous. It’s a sin.

Donald Trump hugging an American flag at CPAC in 2019

Donald Trump getting handsy with the American flag, in the public domain courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

When I watched Trump’s defamation and sex abuse trial work its way through the court, and when I watched his criminal trial for fraud to cover up his payments to the woman he talked into a traumatic sexual encounter, I was sickened by him once again. I didn’t talk about the trials so much because I wanted to embarrass Republicans. I did it because his behavior was disgusting. It was appalling. It was a sin.

Now that Trump is back in office: I think he’s so senile that he’s not exactly steering the boat anymore, for the most part. I think that Stephen Miller is in charge of his immigration policy. And I care about the people being tortured. What Miller is doing is a sin.

And if you talk to me about the sex trafficking of teenage girls: I think that’s even more horrendous. I think that Jeffery Epstein was a Satanic monster, and if there’s anyone at all in the pit of hell, he is.

I don’t think that because he was Trump’s pal. I think it because I care about people. If there are Democratic politicians guilty of sexually abusing minors documented in the Epstein files, I want those politicians in prison forever. I want everyone who’s sexually abused a child or an adult removed from our society, because sexual abuse is wrong. I don’t want my side to win. I want people to be safe from sexual abuse.

Trump is a sexual abuser. That’s already been adjudicated in a court of law. It’s been documented again and again, including by his own words, that he and Epstein were buddies. He’s boasted again and again that he likes his girlfriends very young. He’s publicly fantasized about molesting his own daughter. Women with nothing to gain have credibly accused him of sexual abuse, again and again. But a good number of his followers were convinced of a conspiracy theory that he was going to release the Epstein files and put an end to a filthy cabal of sexual abusers. I don’t know why they believed that obvious claptrap, but they did.

the mugshot of Ghislaine Maxwell, with a bob cut and a smirk on her face.

The mugshot of Ghislaine Maxwell, in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Trump did not release the Epstein Files, after Bondi told him he’s in them. He is musing about pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted sex abuser who conspired with Epstein to traffic and molest girls. And we’re told she’s just been given limited immunity, in exchange for her testimony. He’s not going to release the Epstein Files, but he’ll be nice to a sex abuser if she’ll lie that he’s innocent and point the finger at a bunch of Democrats.

And I don’t think this obvious bait-and-switch is going to turn his remaining disciples against him. I hope I’m wrong. But I don’t think they actually care about sexual abuse victims, at all. They just like Trump because he’s a powerful bully, and he was going to bully people they hate.

I do care.

I have always cared.

It’s been terrible to find out that the rest of you don’t.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows an d Joys of Mary, and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.

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