Teresa Tomeo

Clarkston, Michigan -- Teresa Tomeo is determined to spread the message that it’s what’s on the inside that counts.

“All these makeover shows (on TV) only deal with externals: the home, the wardrobe, the scale and piles and piles of junk,” she writes in a recent article in the National Catholic Register.  “I have yet to see even one episode of any of these programs address what’s on the inside.”

On October 6, 2011, the Catholic radio and television host and author paid a visit to Everest Collegiate High School in Clarkston, Michigan to talk to the students there.  A Michigan native herself, Tomeo said she is an “east-sider” from the Detroit-metro area, having attended St. Joan of Arc school in St. Clair Shores, Michigan.

Choices Today Affect Tomorrow

She talked about her own high school experience, warning the students that the choices they make now will affect them in their later lives. 

“God has given me an interesting perspective to talk about choices and challenges of today’s culture,” she said. 

In a moment of great candor, Tomeo shared with her listeners the mistakes she made during her young life.  She said that -- knowing she wanted to be in the communications field and active in her school plays and productions -- she became obsessed with her appearance.  “I thought I had to look a certain way,” she said.

“I loved the Partridge Family.  I wanted to look like Susan Dey,” she said, commenting that during the 1970s when she grew up she wasn’t even exposed to “1/10th” of the media messages kids are today. 

Tomeo’s “obsession” would soon lead her to become one of the first diagnosed cases of Anorexia Nervosa.  “I went down to 89 pounds,” she said.  “I was so obsessed that I look like someone else, that I almost killed myself.”

Today she has recovered from the disorder, but says it has been a constant struggle.
“There are days I still obsess about it,” she said.  And there are also the physical “scars.”

“Now I am not able to have children, and this (disorder) could have been one of the reasons,” she said.  (She also blames her infertility on the fact that she did not always follow the teachings of the Catholic Church and used contraception.)

Tomeo said that during her teenage years she received little support trying to make the right choices.  She remembers the day she

	Teresa Tomeo opens a gift presented to her on behalf of the school from Everest Assistant Principal Greg Reichert.

confronted her two best friends who she learned were dabbling in drugs and alcohol.

“I asked them about it, and they called me a ‘goody-two-shoes,’” she remembers.  When she reminded her “friends” that she had just gotten over an eating disorder and was trying to get healthy, they responded by emptying her locker’s contents onto the school hallway floor.  Tomeo remembers, as the bell rang for the change of classes, she was nearly trampled as she tried to retrieve her things. “It was one of the most humiliating times during my life in high school,” she said.  But she is proud that she stayed strong and resisted temptation.

Satan Hates Women

Today, Tomeo feels quite strongly about sending positive messages to young people, especially girls.  “I have a great deal of respect for young people, especially those trying to live their faith.  It is not easy.”

She is convinced that the treatment of women by today’s media is much more “diabolical” than most realize.  “It goes back to Genesis,” she said, recalling how Satan targeted Eve in the garden. “Satan hates women,” she said. 

Blessed John Paul II refers to a satanic “attack” on women in his document On the Dignity of Women, recalling in a meditation on Ephesians 5 how women, in their femininity, are symbolic of the Church.  He writes that women bring life into the world and that they are symbolic of all humanity (see Mulieris Dignitatem, specifically #25).

Tomeo addresses these ideas in her new book “Extreme Makeover: Women Transformed by Christ, Not Conformed to the Culture.” She also has available a book series called “All Things Girl” which addresses the challenges that young women face in the world and how to combat these challenges.  (For information, go to www.teresatomeo.com.)

Her “Extreme Makeover” book is recommended by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia, who Tomeo says is one of her personal “rock stars.”

“He gets it,” she said simply.  Chaput responded to Tomeo’s request to review her book the same day she asked.  He writes “(Teresa) Tomeo knows the pressures and dishonesties facing women in modern American culture from firsthand experience, and she leads women to Jesus Christ with compelling personal testimonies and uncommon persuasive skill.  For any woman who seeks the true foundation of her dignity, this is the book to read and to share.”

God “Pulling Me Out”

Women are not the only audience for Tomeo’s work.  Her first book in 2007 – NOISE: How Our Media Saturated Culture Dominates Lives and Dismantles Families” was a Catholic bestseller.  In it she chronicles how she decided to leave the secular media to work in Catholic communications. 
“When I was in the secular media, it very difficult,” she said. “I realized I could no longer justify living this way.”

She talks about once covering a story about the death of a young girl killed by a drunk driver.  “She was a good kid, a good student.  Her father gave me a great interview,” Tomeo said. But when she called in the story, the assignment editor told her to take the man to the scene of the accident and get him to cry.

In another incidence, while covering a train accident where 3 to 4 teenagers had been killed trying to beat a train, she and her coworker were waiting in their car, not wanting to bother the family members.  But the families assumed otherwise.  “One of them ran out and screamed and cried at us in our car.” She remembers vividly the pain in that man’s face.

During this time, she said she felt “God pulling me out.”

“I now know I want to use my gifts and talents for God,” she said. “I left journalism in year 2000 to start Teresa Tomeo Communications.  Now I work in the Catholic media and I am free to speak my faith.”

She is not shy about discussing her conversion experience, after a young life of what she calls radical feminism and being pro-choice. During this time when she said she “strayed from God” she found that “when I did it my way, I was miserable.”

Following God’s Wisdom

Tomeo now fits motivational speaking into her busy schedule, talking to audiences of parents and young people about the wisdom of following God’s law and his Church.

She said defending the teachings of the Catholic Church is actually easy.  “Just look at what is happening in the world. The research is there.” 

She puts up a visual for the students to compare worldly wisdom to God’s wisdom.  Among her observations:

• The World says: premarital sex is OK.  Jesus says: It is a sacred gift for husband and wife.
• The World says: women and girls are objects. Jesus says: women have dignity.
• The world says violence is an easy answer. Jesus says: those who live by the sword die by it.
• The world says: appearance is everything. Jesus says: God looks at the heart.

She suggested her audience do some soul searching and consider if their media habits are leading to bad choices.  “Ask yourself: are my choices making me more selfish? Leading to vanity? Immodesty? Immoral behavior? Poor self esteem? Relationship problems? Eating disorders?”

She quotes Pope Benedict XVI from one of his addresses in 2006.  “The Church is not a series of ‘nos,’ but a big ‘Yes’ to God!”  Then she gave her high school listeners a list “Dos”:

• Do recognize yourself as a child of God – you are unique and spiritual.
• Do receive the sacrament of the Eucharist as often as possible.
• Do realize God’s mercy is new every morning and practice the sacrament of confession.
• Do take an honest look at your media usage and take control! Silence the noise in your life.
• Do look for wholesome role models.
• Do keep the 10 Commandments, which are a big “Yes” to love and life.
• Do honor your father and mother (“And listen to them,” she said. “My Italian mother would tell me as I went out on a date, ‘The Blessed Mother is watching you!’”)
• Do practice chastity and modesty. (“There is a proper way to dress in public,” she said.)
• Do use everything in moderation.

She suggests the students consider the amount of time they spend with social media, and to discern whether or not they use it wisely.  She warns that once something is online, “You cannot get it back…. and colleges look at what you put on Facebook,” she said.

She reminded her young audience that there is “no better place for a person then to be in a relationship with Jesus Christ.”

And she encouraged them to go out there and “make a difference!” Catholics can change the culture through their actions, she says giving the example of the recent cancellation of the program “The Playboy Club” by NBC, which some in the media blamed on the “Catholics.”  News reports suggested that the network and Chrysler, one of the program’s major sponsors, “had been deluged with complaints about the show’s theme and sexually suggestive content.”

 “NBC offended too many people with a show that degraded women and attempted to bring porn even more into the mainstream,” Tomeo said in a press release from the Maximus Group. “People spoke up, and their voices were heard.” 

To obtain information about Tomeo’s books, or to find out about upcoming events, such as the mother-daughter pilgrimage to Rome entitled “Feminine Beauty in the Arts” with Tomeo and Brenda Sharman of Pure Fashion, go to Tomeo’s website at www.teresatomeo.com.  For the trip information, click here.