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Book Review: BERNI NEAL: Paperback: 77 pages: $14.99: Copyright 2025 TLI Publishing
Berni Neal, of Cuban, Korean, Dominican, and French-Chinese descent, demonstrates how the richness of her ethnicities has shaped her in BERNI NEAL, on Life, Faith, and Leadership, a part of the Tepeyac Leadership Series.
Neal serves on the governing boards of EWTN, Legatus, Live Action and Thomas Aquinas College. She has also served on boards or committees for Catholic Leadership Institute, Magnificat Foundation, Given, World Priest, Woodsen Center of Free Speech, Civil Rights Coalition, and Vanguard University Committee to eradicate human trafficking.
She is an Asian-American who spoke Spanish as well as English in the public schools that she attended, and was also singled out as “That Catholic kid.” Her family was mostly Methodist, but her Dominican mother was Catholic. She said that she “is culturally Latina.” Berni Neal stands out and always makes the most of the “immigrant experience” her parents gave her. She was born in Orange County, California. There weren’t other cultures, but she says, “It was a fabulous place to grow up.”
As I dove into the pages, I found myself catching my breath because this woman is a dynamo, whose words and reflections display wisdom, sensitivity, warmth, joie de vivre, and a sprinkling of humor. She discusses how her Catholic faith has influenced her family life with her husband, Rob, and their children. She regales us with tales of hosting visiting Cuban and Dominican relatives in the 1960s and 1970s as a child, and how her family always helped other relatives gain a foothold in the U.S. It is written as a question-and-answer interview.
Berni Neal carved out a successful career in marketing after attending California State University, Long Beach. However, she gave up her vice president position in the company when she and her husband decided it would be best for her to be a full-time Mom. She began volunteering at organizations, which led to her involvement in serving on mostly Catholic nonprofits. There, she applied her marketing savvy to solve problems and bring about successful outcomes on these boards.
She discusses the role of the laity in the Church, being a housewife, the pleasures and challenges of motherhood, and becoming a “minivan grandma,” always seeking to unite people from different cultures.
Neal says it’s up to the laity to help priests fulfill their mission. [The biggest need of lay leadership] “is the partnership with the priest. How do you best support your parish? Support the priest; the priest is the leader… “I, as a lay person from the pew, can say to my pastor, ‘Where do you need help? What are we trying to accomplish here?’…”That is subsidiarity, that’s our cell. That’s our family, if you will, as we look at the Church….”All those little parish families are working together to advance the mission [of the Church.] Let’s say it was pro-life. If we at the parish level took up pro-life and if we gave our pastors the courage to speak up in the way that they know in their hearts what the truth is—and what’s required of us to be courageous—that might abolish abortion.”
“It also takes the pastor saying, ‘I need your help.’ And for the pastor to say it in a way to mobilize and organize these things. And it starts with small things, right?”
St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Bernadette and St. Francis are among her favorite saints, and she gave a medal of St. Claire to a clerk she met in a sandwich shop who wasn’t Catholic and described the saint’s life. “Just get the sandwich and go!” people who were in line said. A woman once told her that she was a “recovering Catholic.” Neal said, “ Oh my gosh! That’s a terrible affliction!” Then she invited the woman to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet or the rosary at her house. She also reflects on the divine mystery of Eucharistic Adoration.
Neal supports the Tepeyac Leadership Initiative (TLI), which is loyal to the Magisterium, founded by Bishop Thomas Olmsted and Cristofer Pereyra to develop Catholic leaders among the laity. She also speaks on a panel at TLI’s The Hour of the Laity Conference once a year. Neal received TLI’s Leadership for the World Award.
Neal says, “Success is knowing that you are loved and knowing that the gifts you’ve been imbued with are very particular and very important…Share those gifts—share them!... My tiny little gifts, but I put them at the service of the Lord” [as St. Therese did].
The book is available on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Berni-Neal-leadership-Tepeyac-Leadership/dp/B0FWC1Q5HL
Marianne Zanko Komek is a freelance journalist whose articles have appeared in the National Catholic Register, the Catholic News Service, Catholic Philly, Joy in Truth, and The Catholic Spirit, the official newspaper for the diocese of Metuchen, New Jersey. Her poetry has been featured in the children's magazine, St. Mary's Messenger. The Manhattan School of Music featured her poetry as lyrics for a composition performed there. She has also worked as an editor and editorial assistant for publishers in Manhattan. Marianne is a consecrated member of the International Marian Apostolate of Schoenstatt. She is also a graduate of the Tepeyac Leadership Initiative. In her spare time, she enjoys classical music, experimenting with recipes, and going for walks by the bay in her hometown. Her novel for teenagers, Promises to Theresa, is available on Amazon.
