Oprah's attorney

Legate Elizabeth Yore helps Oprah Winfrey shine a brighter light on child abuse . . .

Elizabeth Yore’s career as a lawyer has taken her to unexpected places –like The Hague and the newsrooms of MSNBC and ABC Nightly News as a guest expert.

But she never dreamed it would bring her to work for the queen of all media: Oprah Winfrey.

Child advocate

Yore, a member of Legatus’ Chicago Chapter, is truly the local Catholic girl who made good.

“I grew up in Chicago and went to Catholic schools — grammar school, high school and college,” she said. After studying law at Loyola University in Chicago, Yore soon discovered that she wanted to focus her career on helping children.

“It was my own children who inspired me to pursue a career in child advocacy,” she explained. “I feel it was my vocation and mission. At first, I was involved with missing and exploited children.”

For years, Yore worked as the chief legal officer for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va. During her time there, she created an international division which was among the first to use Internet technology to solve crimes and locate missing children. Yore also directed the Internet Child Exploitation Division and used her expertise to counsel several European governments.

Yore’s next career stop was with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. “We had 50,000 children in state care through foster parents,” she said. During Yore’s tenure, DCFS was able to procure federal subsidies to move 33,000 children out of foster care into stable homes through adoption.

Yore says this work gave her a deeper understanding of the devastating impact of abuse and neglect on children — usually occurring at the hands of family members or close friends. This kind of trauma, she said, is much different than that of parental abduction.

“The evil of child abuse is incomprehensible,” she explained. “It has a lifelong impact on children. If you study history, most despots were abused as children. Hitler is the most famous example.”

Oprah connection

While Yore was working with Children and Family Services, she received a call from Winfrey’s office.

“She asked me to serve on an advisory committee to look at laws that needed to be changed,” Yore said. The idea was that The Oprah Winfrey Show would produce segments on child exploitation issues and use the show to motivate viewers to push for tougher laws. Then, in 2006, Winfrey asked Yore to work full time for her company — Harpo Productions.

“I was asked to join Harpo’s legal department to help use The Oprah Winfrey Show — and the power of her voice — to talk about the need to protect children from abuse and neglect,” she explained.

Winfrey, herself a victim of child abuse, subsequently aired segments about at-risk children, which helped sway public opinion. This led to a federal bill requiring all day care centers in the country to conduct worker background checks. With Yore on staff, Winfrey later revisited national laws pertaining to child exploitation.

“She has used her show to shine a light into the dark corners of our nation, so people can see what child abuse really is,” said Yore.

As a result of Winfrey’s influence on this issue, many people have told Yore that their lives have been changed. “Some people have gotten into the area of child abuse prevention,” she explained. “Other people who had kept a secret, who had never spoken of their own abuse, finally did. It freed them.”

Winfrey told the world in her final show broadcast May 25 that the legacy she’s most proud of is opening a national discussion on the sexual molestation of children. Yore said it’s been a privilege to be an important part of this effort.

Yore has also been in charge of child protection issues pertaining to the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, a boarding school that opened in 2007 near Johannesburg, South Africa.

“This has been the highlight of my experience here — going to South Africa,” said Yore. “The girls are extremely brilliant and resilient, so full of love and energy. It is incredible to experience this new kind of school, which is creating a new generation of world leaders.”

Spiritual battle

Despite Winfrey’s success at exposing the evil of child abuse, the fight hasn’t been easy. Yore says her Catholic faith has been central to her decades-long efforts to defend and protect children.

“There is no question that my faith has impacted my work,” she said. “These stories I deal with are evil incarnate. I have heard horrible stories over the years. My faith and prayer is the only way to guard from hopelessness and frustration. This is a battle that God wants me to fight, and I’ve been blessed not to be burned out.”

According to Yore, burnout is common in this field — particularly for those who regularly interact with victims. Yore builds her personal spiritual reservoir through the daily rosary, a prayer to St. Michael for the protection of children, Mass as often as possible, and the Divine Mercy chaplet. During Mass, Yore always prays for wisdom and the capacity to see clearly.

“Those of us who deal with child predators are often fooled by their manipulation and denials,” she said. “In order to see through any disguise, you need to be hyper-vigilant and in prayer.”

Winfrey, who has delved into a variety of religious and New Age philosophies over the years, surprised many viewers in her final episode by acknowledging Jesus Christ. The famous host credited her “team and Jesus” for her success, before closing with “I won’t say goodbye. I’ll just say, until we meet again. To God be the glory.”

Now that The Oprah Winfrey Show has ended its 25-year-run, Yore says it’s been an incredible journey.

“It has been the nadir of my career,” she said. “Working with Oprah Winfrey and the Harpo team has been a real blessing. I never thought I’d be there and have the ability to impact this issue [of protecting children]. It has been a lifelong dream.”

Sabrina Arena Ferrisi is a Legatus Magazine staff writer.
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Oprah’s nuns

One of the highlights of working on The Oprah Winfrey Show, says Legate Elizabeth Yore, was having the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist on the show last year — twice. The religious order boasts one of the fastest growth rates of any order in the country.

“I was thrilled to see them,” said Yore. “Their authenticity and love for Christ was so evident on the show.”

Since their Oprah appearances — first on Feb. 9 and then on Nov. 23 —Yore has become a great admirer and friend of the sisters. As a fellow Catholic, she was happy to see a religious order of nuns get the exposure that only Winfrey’s show could give.

“The show aired in 144 countries, so the whole world got to see them,” she said. The episodes featuring the nuns earned exceptionally high ratings.

“Everyone who talked to them was charmed,” Yore explained. “They are lovely, warm. They have great faith and intelligence. This is TV you don’t often see.”

Mother Assumpta Long, OP, the order’s superior, speaks fondly about meeting Yore on the set. They met again at Chicago’s Institute for Religious Life and at the nuns’ mother house in Ann Arbor, Mich.

“Liz has a great love for the faith and is so eager to get the message out about our faith,” she said.

The opportunity to appear on Oprah was a great blessing for the entire community, Mother Assumpta said. “The women who come to us don’t really watch the show, but the impact it had, based on the reactions, was the good news about religious life. It provided a forum to talk about our vocation.”

Sister Joseph Andrew Bogdanowicz, OP, the community’s vocations director, recounts how her order had to scramble to update its server before appearing on Oprah.

“They told us before we went on that our computer systems might crash from the e-mails we would get,” she explained.

“The new system actually went live one hour before the show aired!”

When the Dominicans arrived for their second appearance last fall, Winfrey ran up to them backstage and embraced them, Sr. Joseph Andrew said. When they sat in front of the audience, Winfrey said, “These are my friends. They say they pray for me and I know they do.” Then she held up a rosary and said she was learning to pray it.

—Sabrina Arena Ferrisi