Latest / Regina UNSCRIPTED / Russell Brand & the Culture That Made Him | In Conversation

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Russell Brand & the Culture That Made Him | In Conversation · Regina UNSCRIPTED

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: I just was watching this on the news, Catherine, just going, What?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: This bloke's run away.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: He's run away from his children.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: He's got a grandchild who's 12 who he's never seen.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: He's boys grown up without his input.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: And like now he's gone to live in his mum's.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: He's come back in his mum's house.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: And everyone's going, Oh, yeah, well done.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well done for wandering aimlessly around the world for 28 years without a job.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: He sort of deserves some degree of um commendation for the fact that he managed to feed himself and find somewhere to go to the toilet, I suppose.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, it's pretty, you know, we all need a medal for basic job.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like, do you know what I mean?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: What are we celebrating here?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, Mark.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to be back with you again for an update.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a couple of weeks.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: How are you doing?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm doing really well, thanks, Catherine.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: You're just back in Egypt, aren't you?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: I am Prince of Egypt, yeah.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I'm doing fine, but I've just had a boring week at home.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, not boring, you know, all the wonderful things of being at home, but you've been diving in the Red Sea.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: I have, yeah.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: How wonderful is that?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: And uh sounds very exotic, but it was the cheapest place.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think probably because there were a lot of bombs going off.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: Where should we?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: You've been remarkable that way, but it certainly was a cheap place to get some sun.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, maybe you could book back Baghdad for um next half term.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think you get a really good deal on that.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think so, yeah.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Mind you, I say that.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: People people say the same thing about London.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: They're afraid to come to London and we live here, so yeah, yeah.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's always a bit, it's always the the the what's the reputation's always a bit worse, and it the reputation of the dog, the bark is uh always worse than its actual bite.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I mean Egypt is the one thing about Egypt, right?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: That I I mean I haven't been there before, but um I found there's a lot of security, which is reassuring, you know, because I think they have had problems with Islamist terrorists.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: But we went to mass at the Coptic Church, which was I mean, incredible that it's it exists.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, and they have a Roman liturgy of like four tourists.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I managed to get in touch with the priest before we went and sort of found his WhatsApp, got hold of his WhatsApp, and said, Oh look, father, we're coming, you know, when's Mass?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: And because there wasn't a lot of details.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, when you go there, you have to go through a metal detector before you go in, and there's someone guard outside and all that sort of thing.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: So there's obviously, you know, like it is a persecuted Christian community, isn't it?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and you and it's it's a a real privilege to sort of be a part of that.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: I really did feel like that, and it was it was lovely to see all these people, a lot of young people, especially, uh, coming out, you know, to to to sort of practice their Christian faith.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: It was really good.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that is great to great to hear.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like you say, the Egyptian people, I would say in sharm itself, like that there were they couldn't be more lovely, and you know, there was one particular guy I made friends with, they're all called Muhammad.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like one of the diving structs I had was called Islam Muhammad.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: They're all called Muhammad Islam Islam.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: In case there's any doubt whatsoever, yeah.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, you know, Mohammed's been the most popular boy's name in England for about the sixth year in a row.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I know.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: That's a bit scary, isn't it?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: But they're the only ones having children, as we were just saying to Peter the Criot.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: I know, I know, I know.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: We've just been chatting to Peter about uh a guest about um he lives in Sueta, uh, where they had an influx of migrants and all these political problems.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, we came back to he said the Spanish aren't having children, the Christians aren't having children.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you kind of think, oh man, you know, you you can't talk your way out of this, you have to live your way out of it or into the kind of culture you want.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, anyway, so I hadn't seen you for a week.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you've had a lovely holiday.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, a few things going on in the church and in the culture at large.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: One of the big stories has been Russell Brand's case, which I think is coming to a close.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: I find this interesting because obviously people are focused on him and his sexual perversions and potent possibly rapes.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know yet until there's a there's a conclusion to that court case.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Either way, it's clear from his own admission that he treated women, he picked up women and treated them like objects, and it's appalling.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it raises bigger questions about the culture at large.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he was voted shagger of the week or shagger of the month, and he was celebrated, all the TV channels got him on, knowing what he was like and what he was about, and thought, isn't he brilliant?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is 90s lad culture, ladette culture, everyone's going out drinking and picking up people in nightclubs.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it speaks to a much bigger problem um that we've lost the idea of sex as something sacred, and instead we've reduced it to this simple kind of aphorism that um sex uh consent is necessary and sufficient.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, as long as you consent, anything goes.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I just think this case has highlighted that that in itself, as an attitude, is entirely insufficient.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: What does it even mean to consent?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: What are you consenting to?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll see what happens to him individually, but I feel like saying chuck them all in jail, you know, all the mind-moulding media and all the people who celebrated him.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I've had some pushback from people saying, Oh, you're so stupid.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about rape here.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: They they didn't rape people, did they?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, even if they, you know, celebrated a sexual culture, they didn't rape.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the difference.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, they're getting hung up on that consent again.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: As if the way he treated women was fine, as long as they said, Yeah, you can pull me by the hair and strangle me and um do what you want to me and sleep with me and loads of other girls.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how is that okay?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Wind over.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, you're absolutely right.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: And that I think it really, it really saddens me.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: But the point that you made in your article, which is the most important point, is that this was facilitated by the culture.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's what we forget.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, when you look at what brand was doing, as you as you just said, it was celebrated.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, how what how would he make any if he's not if it if that's all the information he's got, and it's you know, we come back to that point that I often make about the law not being the moral arbiter, but we sort of treat it like it is.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: If it's legal, you know, it's then it's got to be moral, isn't it?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, but we like you know, the best example obviously being abortion, um, it's just not it's not a good um barometer of what is morally right, you know, and that's why we need the church so badly in our culture.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I think this is what we see um with people like Brand.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's interesting that he came to Christ, you know, that it like really sort of publicly.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: And if you were watching his stuff up until that point, like you know, he seemed to be moving very much in that trajectory, and it's almost like you have to empty the glass before you can put something good into it.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: If you've got poison in your glass, so you've got to pour it out before you can put something really good and beneficial in it.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: And he had to drink that poison to its dregs to uh for him to realise just how empty and bitter and nasty you know that sort of idea really was.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: And like we see with so much of the culture, then he's looking around for something more fulfilling, something uh deeper to put in that glass.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: Now, you know, I I I think the fact that he's sort of become a Christian is really powerful and moving um and redemptive.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it's uh you know, I wonder about that thing.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: Someone said to both of us, I think on Twitter, um, you know, they've only started attacking him since he was a Christian.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think that that there's any truth in that?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like what like as Catholics, we want to see him, we want to see this trajectory, don't we?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: We want to see him recognize how wrong he was and to come back to the light, you know, and that's what he seems to have done.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: Hallelujah, you know, like we're really happy about that, aren't we?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: And and it's now they're going for him.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like you say, they were celebrating him when he was actually doing it, and now they're all of a sudden they're coming after him in in spades.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's a really tough one, isn't it?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's definitely a spiritual element, I think.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I always go back to every saint has a past and every sinner has a future, that there isn't people get yeah, and people get really yeah, people get really annoyed if you say things like that, because they say, well, if you if you raped someone in the past and you've become a Christian, you maybe you wouldn't do it now, but you still have to face justice for that.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And there's an argument there, of course.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I think if that's something consequences we call it, don't we?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and so I'm not making any case like that.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not making the case because he's a Christian, let him off.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: My point is was always much wider, which is you know, he will face punishment.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: He is, we are all gonna face eternal punishment, but yeah, they that he will might rightly face that punishment with a prison sentence, if that is what has found to have been the case.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: But um I just have a real problem with this idea that like consent is all that matters because there's so many other factors.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: What does that actually mean when you've got a celebrity who everyone's screaming at and throwing their knickers at and wanting attention from, and he comes and picks you out, some young girl, and gives you that attention and this, this, this amazing.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying I thought like this about him, but you know, people were throwing themselves at him and loved him and wanted any attention from him.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then if he gives you that little bit of attention, you and you say, Oh yes, because he's just a figure on telly.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you don't know the man, he's just some figure on telly.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: What are you saying yes to?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like that we can perpetuate a culture where it's okay to even be in a position where a young woman goes out and says yes to something sexual with someone she doesn't know, which is what the hookup culture is about.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was watching a film the other day, Mark, with my my one of my older daughters had said, Can we watch 10 things I hate about you?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Which is like a meant to be a modern retelling of the taming of the shrew.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I had remembered seeing it ages ago, maybe 20 years ago, and I couldn't remember whether it was appropriate or not.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: This this daughter of mine is over the age of 18.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I re-watched it again for the first time with her, and it was just awful.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was just dripping with sexual innuendo, um, drawings of penises, um, jokes about oral sex.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a film based in a high school, and I think this is just this was just the culture we absorbed.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: My generation, and maybe one after, maybe not so much now, just absorbed this.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is the norm.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we talk about sex, yeah, we talk about oral sex.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're expected to have sex at us by the time you're, you know, by the time you're 18, for example.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they teach you in the classroom at 11, don't they?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, they're teaching them about sex and about the joys of masturbation.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Mechanics.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: How can you do that?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: How can you feed them?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you like what you feed yourself physically is how you all become, you know, and what we feed ourselves spiritually and what's fed to us will will be the outcome.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we've seen, I think.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And he has been right smacked dab in the middle of that culture, and yeah, maybe he's exploited that.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is, all whoever did the feeding, they are culpable.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: You saw it in you know, like in the movie culture, long time before that.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know what?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: I was I I caught one of my favourite films of all time is Logan's Run.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever seen that?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I have.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's brilliant.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: Honestly, you watch it, it's really, really good.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: But it's like an old sci-fi film, yeah.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's like 1972 or something like that, right?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely brilliant.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: And um in it, it's like basically there's this city of young people, and when you get to like 21 or something, that you ascend, and they've got this sort of carousel where you sort of, you know, you get to a certain age and you go through these different colours, and then you ascend, and basically they kill you, they kill you off at a certain age, yeah.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: So there's this culture of runners, and they but like they sort of don't want to ascend.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: They've sort of figured out that this this isn't what is it's all cracked up to be, and they're sort of trying to escape the city.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: So that's fundamentally what it's about.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: But there's this there's this sort of idea on it that you put yourself on the system and you just look through and find someone that you want to have sex with.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, it's just so like what you're saying is like it becomes like a handshake, it becomes like a conversation, you know.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: And we're we're it's like so much in in our world today when we've removed all the taboos that were put there.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they were put there for a reason, maybe those taboos existed for a reason, you know.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: And now we're kind of but like we've been our culture has been trying to remove those taboos and say, you know, the other thing I thought about today was this idea of the bonobo chimp, you know, which are these uh purportedly highly evolved chimpanzees, and there are lots of people that you speak to who would use this um as sort of a secular idea of, you know, this is what we should be like bonobos, you know, because they have sex about everything.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like the idea of that is just like craziness to me that that you know, we should sort of try and regress to an animalistic state.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: But that is what our cult, that is sort of that's what our culture's been trying to do for for ages.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of the whole thing of like the Darwinian experiment, in a way, isn't it?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um what was that?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: What was that uh I'm trying to think of that anthropologist or uh was he as a biologist in the 60s who wrote that book, The Human, was it the human ape or the human animal?
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: And there was a BBC documentary about it, just sort of saying, like the idea was that we're just animals, like you know, anything else.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: And this so we've removed all those sacred ideas about what it means to be intimate with each other, and how we, you know, when we this is one of the most important things about marriage in the church is that it sacralizes and sacramentalizes those and puts sacred duty on those, you know, otherwise, which becomes animalistic.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: And we're trying to push back to this animalistic state, which just is we're seeing these are the repercussions, aren't they?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: This is what we're gonna see.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and this is and we've had evolution push pushed at us for the last few decades, again, certainly my generation, as fact, as simply this is not a theory along with another number of others, but it's and and you can't help but see behind that this again, these subtle attempts to say, well, you're really you're really no more than chimps, you know, you're really no more than the animals.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: And as I always say, we share things in common with the animals.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're all created by God, living beings, and we breathe and we eat and we drink and we excrete, and you know, at that basic level, we share things in common, but but there's something that takes us away from the beasts, and that's our that's where that's our emargo day, that's what makes us in the image and likeness of God, not whether God has glasses and is white skin, none of that superficial, but the image is that that that human that elevates us from the beast.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: What is that that elevates us from the beast?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's these sorts of things.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if we just say no, we are like the beasts, and if the beasts get into groups and have sex, we can get into groups and have sex, and if sex is just fun and free, we can just have fun and free sex.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: But reality's catching up with us because obviously that doesn't work because we're left with a whole generation of people who feel angry, who are to who are the Me Too movement, who are saying actually it doesn't feel nice.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now I look back at my twenties and my teens when I was picked up, medicated, abandoned, babies killed, all to perpetuate this sex is fun and free, you know.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um I know this isn't a film club and we've got other things to talk about, but I have to just say a film called Sleepless in Seattle.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I didn't have a memory of it being a really awful film, but maybe I'll be.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: He says, What you do is you try people on like clothes and see what fits.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you try this for a while, maybe you try that for a while and it doesn't fit.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, It's not like I'm gonna marry her or anything, I'm just trying her on for size.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: I thought he's actually saying this in a film.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: This should shock us all.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then here we are in 2026, dealing with these sorts of things and saying, Where did this come from?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's bizarre, you're right.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Anywho, as I said, we've got other things to talk about.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh put comments below, tell us what you all think watching.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing was Bishop Batzing.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: So he has come out just, I think, just today.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Today.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And um been criticizing Pope Leo for the comments he made where he wasn't he Batzing felt that he wasn't clear on the systematic abuse in the church.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us a little bit about this.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so like it's hard not to see this as anything other than a uh like an attempt to use the abuse crisis to manipulate Pope Leo and to get some sort of uh agenda change out of him.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and it comes at a time when the guy who the the really dodgy guy who is currently the head of the Bishops Conference in Germany has said publicly that he wants, you know, that the church in German or the bishops in Germany want to move forward in communion with the Holy Father and doctrine and the magisterium, which is you know, that's a massive climb down, isn't it?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's really positive.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: The most positive thing we've heard for ages, and it made me wonder why is this happening under Leo when Francis didn't seem to get anywhere?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they just seemed to get worse and worse.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: But now they're sort of making noises and back the other way.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: But then Bishop George Bating, who was the who was the president of the German bishops conference, but was also the architect of the German Synodlweg, the Synodl Wei, um, has launched a I find German quite funny.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think we all do, Mark.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: Just as a language, yeah.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but he's launched a remarkable public challenge to Pope Leo over, and it's over clerical sex abuse.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: So um he suggests basically that Leo's reluctance to describe abuse as systematic risks contradicting scientific evidence and undermining the church's responsibility towards victims.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: The ironic thing is that Leo explicitly acknowledged that organizations within the church have behaved abusively as systems, and he's never denied that institutional failures facilitated abuse or its concealment.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: So, why is Batsing raising the specter of Pope Leo rejecting scientific findings when no rejection like this has occurred?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's the interesting thing.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: It makes me feel that that it's less about the evidence and more about putting pressure on Leo to accept the conceptual framework that Batsing is in is sort of in favour of and which underpins this odd away.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um so he's rightly being berated left, right, and centre for it.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you can't help but think that you know they'll instrumentalise anything basically to advance their own agenda, their own heterodox agenda, Catherine.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah that's how it's you know, yeah, yeah.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think you're right.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think Pope Leo made a good comment about um reminding us that that while we we don't have to um brush over the abuse in the church, certainly there's been some terrible clerical abuse um going on, which of which we know about, but it is a human problem, and Pope Leo is keen to say it's it's not like any other institution, you know, where you just say, Oh, we've got problem in sport or this systemic problem in um the church is um the spotless bride of Christ, the church, but humans within the church are going to be sinful abusers in the same way that they are in the population at large.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: As far as last time I looked, the statistics were around five percent as in the nation at large were uh sexual abusers, and in the church at the time, I think it was about 3%, might, I don't know, might be four, I don't know.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is it mirrored society.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got a church that is the church herself is perfect, and within the perfect church, you have human men, and a percentage of them which mirrors the the population are doing the same things that they would if they were weren't priests.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: In fact they they might you know they might have um wanted to use the mask of the priesthood to get away with their crimes.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought that was an important point.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's the horrendous hypocrisy obviously isn't it of doing it under the the the guise of the church where you know you you it's destroying the trust that people have it's a stumbling block isn't it from Matthew's gospel you know you that's really what uh I find the most horrendous thing and a horrendous betrayal of trust yeah and so yeah we're we're scandalized by abuse in the church absolutely and we you know we want to stamp it out one like you know we're the ones who are pulling this our children and our family and everything who are at risk isn't it you know Catholics so when you see some people say well don't you care about abuse within the church yeah I'd say yeah we care about it more than anyone else actually very much so yeah and have had but at the same time what you're saying yeah yeah exactly so you know I think we have to be absolutely crystal clear about that and and you know stamp on it as hard as we can but at the same time as you say you know we recognise that it is about it's about broken human beings isn't it and yeah and the abuse thing is something I find so difficult Catherine because I just can't get my head round it really and it you know confronted with it I think I'd probably be violent I'd probably be more Jesus in the temple than anything else.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I think people can understand that and empathize with that and it it's a righteous kind of anger.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And like you say yes you might have football coaches doing it you might have but there is something about the church that this is this is the the the holy the place where it shouldn't be happening this is the place where it shouldn't be happening.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is all the more offensive in a way because um you go to these trusted figures and that's what these abusers do.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: They go into teaching they go into football coaching they go into places where they know they'll be sought out as a trusted figure and abuse that system.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I think also I'm wary that there are so many good priests so many we know personally so many good and holy priests um and they take the flak you know that that once you say this is a systemic problem in the church and people don't have that interest in nuance generally we see that you know everything's polarized you're either Democrat or you're Republican you either love Trump or you hate Trump.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: You either it seems nobody can say well this was good but that isn't you know that and in that climate you say there's a systemic problem of child sex abuse in the church and you focus heavily on that then people are just going to go they're all pedos which they do say and that is such a shame for the many many many good priests who are not and are doing good work and get tired with that brush.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I think you're right it's both and it's it's calling out the awful abuse where it happens and not pretending it's not happening and not brushing it under the carpet and saying that there's been total failures.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: There have been failures in the way we know abusers have been moved around and and you know God have mercy on the souls of those priests who did that and bishops over time but but to also thank thank our wonderful priests and wonderful bishops and cardinals in the church of which there are many.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely yeah yeah I I and I that's what I think with this it's just the Germans are the ones who are pushing breaking the the the rules and so it's interesting that they're sort of trying to use this uh systemic sort of uh structure to attack very very poor intervention from batsing I think that's really interesting to see how it plays out sorry to interrupt Mark we're we're we're chatty so we're we're sort of not being very hugely formal but um the it is interesting the whole pushing to bring LGBT and you know all are welcome under the big tent and it's all it's like a kind of an erosion of authority of hierarchy of boundaries and that leaves that leaves I think an opening for the for the very thing that they're com now saying is a real problem is isn't it more likely that things are a bit oh well you know maybe this it this is okay very delicately put very impressively delicately put there very diplomatic of you Catherine well and and we have to be a bit careful don't we to draw that line but what we can say is that um you know for example the John Jay report um into the horrendous abuse in America was very clear about the correlation between the kind of abuse that goes on in the church um being of a particular kind let's just put it like that so so yeah I that's exactly what you're saying I that's what I find that it's incongruous that connection um with the Germans and the synodik and what they want you know seems to be the biggest facilitator of what they're sort of attacking the Pope over.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly basically is what you're saying.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah that is basically what I'm saying.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: So uh yeah we'll leave that as a little food for thought um for our viewers.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Before moving on to another B, we've done Batsing uh we've done brand and now Bush bee, Bush bee or bushbee do you know I know I know we haven't got long so we'll we'll just say a little something about this you've just written about it so do please check out our articles which you can now find on Reginaunscripted.org um and support the work that we're doing.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is the guy Join the conversation join the conversation that's the that's it join the conversation um this is the guy who walked around the globe for 28 years and is being celebrated as some kind of hero but it's not quite that simple there's another side to it which you explain very well in your article um because he left a young son at home.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: So tell us a little bit about what you've written well it I just was watching this on the news Catherine just going what why is everyone this bloke's run away you know he's run away from his children and he's like he's got a grandchild who's 12 who he's never seen he's always grown up without his input you know I mean apart from phone calls and one thing another and like now he's gone to live in his mum's he's come back live in his mum's house and everyone's going oh yeah well done well done for wandering aimlessly around the world for 28 years without a job I mean you know all right he degree he he sort of deserves some degree of um commendation for the fact that he managed to feed himself and find somewhere to go to the toilet I suppose but I mean it's pretty you know we all need a medal for the basic job like do you know what I mean what are we celebrating here and Andy Burnham the Prime Minister is going oh this oh it's amazing achievement no it's not an amazing achievement is the guys who get up and go and do really rubbish jobs to look after their children and they do it day after day after day and get beaten up at work and put under pressure and but they go and they do it because they love their families.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: Why aren't we celebrating those people?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah they sat they make sacrifices for others um they don't indulge what they want to do they go without what they want to do for the love of their children for the love of their wives and they they carry that cross that is like you say that's to be celebrated and this guy just left his responsibilities and it's been wonderful and he said that yeah he said that in an interview you know he said it's completely self-centered yeah uh you know I just think it's the most incredible thing phenomenon to see it and it's uh I quoted Ratzinger from Jesus of Nazareth in the article because it's one of my favorite things you know where he says one of my favorite quotes from him where he says that freedom you know is not that it you know true freedom isn't a freedom from it isn't the the radically arbitrary uh ability to do just whatever you like because we are by our very nature connected to other people and the decisions that we make yeah you know have an effect on everyone that we are connected with so make good decisions that's all you know just make good decisions no be aware of those connections no you're wrong don't he's like a beast yeah Bushby's just like oh yeah he's a prodopo if he wants to wander off the lead let him in fact why put a lead on him man you know do what you want man well and that's what I said in the article wasn't it is that that is again it's another example that's a really good you know you're exactly right we're drawing together those is that this is the result of the dumbing down of culture and the removal of moral boundaries the things that we learn as a civilization over centuries the traditions that we handed on and built in and said right we have to behave in this way otherwise society collapses and and that's what you're seeing.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know the other symptom of it that's been on the news is this thing they've brought out of law in the UK now that you're not allowed to play loud music on a I mean it's common bloody sense isn't it but unfortunately it's got so bad that Catherine you you're on public transport more than me but people just like come on the train and just put their thing on full blast that they put their phone on when I first heard it play their music speakers.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: When I first heard that uh going back a couple of years I thought oh no they haven't realized they haven't pushed the plug in fully you know sometimes you've got headphones and you and you think oh it's and then when they do they'll be mortified and then I realized they couldn't give a damn they don't care they're just playing it and think sod you and that and that's what I think that is part of this as well isn't it it's the breakdown of civilization because it's complete turn into self and people are just like I'm the only one that matters.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's only what I want to do is the only thing that's important.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: And this thing Carl Bushby is exactly an example of that.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: No one else matters my children don't matter by it I mean he divorced his wife before he went but like you know you that doesn't mean you haven't got any responsibilities I mean it's just this week we should be shunning him Mark we should be shunning him for shame we should be shouting on the Humber Bridge someone should tell him yeah to grow up a bit anyway like you know he's just been a big kid for 28 years I know it's gonna be probably quite a quite a um rude awakening returning home and finding he's got to get a job and he's got to grow up yeah exactly he's probably gonna get some contract he's gonna be in a photo op with Andy Burnham getting him some Nike trainer deal or something and he'll be like yeah I walk around the world get me and he'll be all over the talk shows and yeah there we are what can you do?
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: What can you do?
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: What can you do Mark eh?
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Covicard, Vesco and Baron this is in uh relation to an article a brilliant article written by the wonderful uh Stephen Morgan who has written for us before and he's like the foremost expert on Cardinal Newman he's he's a wonderful author and he's just written for Regina Unscripted.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: So tell us about what he's just published.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah so we when so um Cardinal Kukavad came to the UK recently because I'm blind is it sorry is that his yeah I think I said it I think I said it ku Kuvakad it's Kukavad yeah something like that anyway yeah sorry that's I don't want to be disrespectful but it's it's not an easy name to pronounce in English but anyway he he recently he's like in charge of um religious ecumenism or something some something like that Francis appointee of course yeah um he recently was in the UK and I I it was said to me I was like it was all over the Bishop's conference website um and I and and at the same time it's it come out and said that a CC so this is coming up to the meeting at the controversial meeting at a CC and Pope Leo didn't go thank God which was I didn't lose any sleep over that and Kukavad basically said that this was magisterial now because Pope Leo had said something about it in Magnifica Human Artists and blah blah blah and everyone was going what like and basically Stephen was so irate about this that he said right I'm gonna write something you know because this guy doesn't understand fundamental ecclesiological terms.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like you can't just say things are magisterial because you know the Pope like in what in what sense is it magisterial you know is it the lunch menu and it this article as well as being extraordinarily important I really do think this is important.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_02: So please do check it out we'll put a link in the in the show notes but it's uh it's there's no payroll or anything please do go and have a look at it because this is the information that we need to get out there to say look we understand how this works and you don't cardinal no you don't know and we do um and that's a terrible situation for us to be in let me tell you because we're the sheep and you're the shepan and uh if you don't know what you're talking about God help the rest of us but it's just plain and simple ecclesiology and this is the way that Vatican II gets a really bad reputation because um it's all blamed on Vatican II you know like you've got everyone doing it you've got Kukavad is saying oh this is the spirit of Vatican II or whatever no it's not that's not what Vatican II where does it say that you know it's and and as I've said so many times you know all through the wacky things that Pope Francis was saying and it's being put at the doorstep of Vatican II and if you know Vatican II you're saying well where's that in Vatican II you know it's just not in there.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so Stephen does an absolutely brilliant and important job of pointing that out and it's about seven and a half thousand words so it's a it's a chunky document but it's really funny in some bits you know he's wickedly funny in it but he's also very thorough and he goes through the whole thing.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: Of course this was then followed up the Kukabad thing by Vesco Cardinal Vesco is the cardinal of Algiers um coming out and saying that fundamentally like I mean he said that um he said a number of things one but fun what it comes down to basically is that we shouldn't be evangelizing we shouldn't be converting people or the way that we should be evangelizing people is by just you know like being in our own little group and living our lives as Christians and you know this obviously fundamentally contradicts the Great Commission in Matthew 28 that Jesus gives us all Christians you know um and it just doesn't make any sense and this started really during Francis's pontificate where he started talking about proselyticism and juxtaposing it with evangelization.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_02: And it was the thing is it's do you know what struck me about it when he started doing it I was thinking you don't understand this do you like it's like you know it was like he had an idea but he couldn't quite articulate it.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_02: And um so it came out like he contradicted himself sometimes so what he actually wrote was pro-evangelization in the Evangelical and stuff like that.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: But what he then went on to say his own rhetoric contradicted it on numerous occasions and so and that became a real problem you know um and this is the outpouring of that and this guy Vesco is a is a Dominican which really upsets me even more but anyway Bishop Barron came out thank God well done Bishop Barron and said what is this nonsense that this cardinal's talking about and then of course all the lefties you know all sort of uh Sean Winters and Michael Sean Winters and Mike Austin Ivory yeah they all started yeah bishop's a right wing bigot yeah right and they they've got this thing about Barron that he's marger or something like that you know um and like the the the Republican friends that we've got wouldn't say that he was particular I mean you know I I don't want to get into American politics but um there are you know like they there there are criticisms to be made of Bishop Barron.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: We don't make them we think he's one of the greatest powers for evangelization don't we you know that that have been on the on the planet but we are aware of the criticisms at the same time um but like he's he's got so much courage to stand up and I think someone said he obviously um you know he's not afraid of uh having his next episcopal see in in the Arctic or something you know exactly yeah uh well do go and check out that article by uh Stephen Morgan it's excellent and as Mark said there's no payroll so read all about it there um but again that's more of that polarised thinking when it comes to Baron you either you either think he's a heretic because he didn't take a look about yeah or it's like he can't have done a hundred good things and then made a misstep or poor judgment it it's it's he he's either good or bad you know he's easy if he's if there's a little bit of bad he's you know let's throw him to the wall it's making the perfect the enemy of the good isn't it yeah yeah and when you do this kind of work I know Bishop Barron's at a whole another level than than we're at um and it's a very professional setup as we are as you can see becoming now um but but um when you do this kind of work and he will be asked questions he won't know in advance and he will be put on the spot I remember once he suddenly went blank on the St.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: Michael's prayer on Michael the Archangel and everyone's going yo you don't even know the prayer and it's like of course he knows the prayer but this is the nature of the kind of work that we do is you know that everything you say will be raked over and you either want some authenticity and people speaking like we're speaking now which is off the cuff it's just you know really what we believe and what we're muddling through together imperfectly um or you want something very scripted and AI and um but you can't but you can't have both.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want the human with all their flaws you're gonna get it and that's what you get with Barron I think is he's not perfect.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: He wouldn't say he's perfect but he he does a good though he's pretty good isn't he if you've seen him talk he talks you know he talks extemporaneously I mean just phenomenal fantastically yeah he's got a brilliant mind yeah yeah he really has so well done on that Bishop Barron um thank you to everyone watching for joining us if you haven't yet seen a video I did on the accusation that Christians are judgmental it's linked below do pick it up because it helps to answer some of those things if you're watching if you feel like you um like raising things because your faith encourages you to and people say you're just judgmental and you're a judgmental Christian.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: All like the stuff about abuse in the church you've got nothing to tell me because you're all abusers in the church what might be a good way to think about that and to respond well that's all in a video done and linked below so hopefully you can check that out too but for now thanks Mark great to chat with you as always and thanks to all of you for watching.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: God bless.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: God bless