Who is Roger and Maureen from Mao II and what is their importance?

Roger and Maureen are Karen's parents, and appear principally in the Prologue. Roger appears briefly in the narrative's description of Karen's de-programming in Chapter 6., a circumstance that fits with his determination in the Prologue to understand everything he can about Karen's situation, to find her, and to rescue her. Maureen, by contrast, only appears in the Prologue and is absent from the de-programming sequence, perhaps fittingly since in that Prologue, she seems to have given up on her daughter, to accept the fact that she has become lost to the crowd of Moonies.