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Fr Benedict McGlinchey - Why Irish Young People Are Returning to Faith · Mahon McCann

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SPEAKER_01: Father Benedict McGlinchey, thank you very much for joining me today.
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SPEAKER_01: The second Dominican to come through these hallowed halls.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02: It's good to be with you.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: And I mean,
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SPEAKER_01: it was interesting because I spoke and Connor had mentioned,
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SPEAKER_01: obviously I went to Evangelium,
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SPEAKER_01: which you're the spiritual director of as well.
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And I mentioned that you have a very interesting story yourself
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in terms of your
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SPEAKER_01: becoming a Dominican friar.
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SPEAKER_01: And I wondered like,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: what's your background with Catholicism,
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SPEAKER_01: like before you were ordained and like how,
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SPEAKER_01: what,
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SPEAKER_01: what made you,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_01: take that decision and pursue the religious life.
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SPEAKER_02: It's a fairly long story, man, but I'll try and kind of got time.
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SPEAKER_02: The main point, I suppose.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02: I mean, I, I entered the order.
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SPEAKER_02: I was in my thirties, later thirties when I entered the order.
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SPEAKER_02: So,
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SPEAKER_02: So I'd grown up as a Catholic.
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SPEAKER_02: My family are Catholics.
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SPEAKER_02: I'm from the north coast of Northern Ireland in County Derry.
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SPEAKER_02: I suppose I'm old enough to remember,
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SPEAKER_02: I guess,
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SPEAKER_02: the tail end of Catholic Ireland,
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SPEAKER_02: I guess you can say.
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When I was younger,
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mass attendance would have been extremely high in my local
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parish.
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SPEAKER_02: You know, you would have had thousands of people
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SPEAKER_02: on a Sunday.
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SPEAKER_02: So it was still quite a religious culture.
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SPEAKER_02: The area I'm from is predominantly Protestant,
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SPEAKER_02: so the Protestant people would have been quite observant as well.
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SPEAKER_02: My family is predominantly Catholic, some are Protestant.
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SPEAKER_02: So I guess I grew up in that type of environment.
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SPEAKER_02: But even then,
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you could see the cracks that were there in terms of what was
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to come in terms of
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SPEAKER_02: the decline of the church,
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because you could see that although mass attendance was very
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high and it looked
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SPEAKER_02: good on the outside,
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SPEAKER_02: knowing it from the inside,
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SPEAKER_02: you could see that a lot of it was surface devotion,
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SPEAKER_02: I like,
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SPEAKER_02: if you like,
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SPEAKER_02: or surface devotion.
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SPEAKER_02: commitment to faith.
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So I suppose that was my whole sort of background,
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was kind of in that sort of environment.
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SPEAKER_02: School was the same,
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SPEAKER_02: and pretty much everyone I grew up with,
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SPEAKER_02: with no exceptions that I can really think of as a teenager anyway,
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SPEAKER_02: was from a practicing Christian background,
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SPEAKER_02: whether practicing Catholics or they were practicing Protestants,
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SPEAKER_02: I guess,
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SPEAKER_02: for the most part.
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SPEAKER_02: So that was, I suppose, the backdrop.
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But you became aware of a lot of the bigger issues that were
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going on as well.
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SPEAKER_02: And I started to think about those issues.
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SPEAKER_02: when I was, I guess, about 17.
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SPEAKER_02: Because I took part in this thing,
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SPEAKER_02: Senator Gordon Wilson,
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SPEAKER_02: if you remember him or ever heard of him,
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SPEAKER_02: he was a senator in the Irish Senate and his daughter,
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SPEAKER_02: Mary,
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SPEAKER_02: had been killed in the Enniskillen bombing.
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SPEAKER_02: And so he had sort of set up this kind of...
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SPEAKER_02: project,
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I think it was designed to kind of identify leaders in Northern
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Ireland and get
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SPEAKER_02: them to know each other from different sides of the community.
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SPEAKER_02: So I went to Latvia, Russia and Latvia as part of that kind of thing.
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SPEAKER_02: And there for the first time in my life,
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SPEAKER_02: I was really challenged by people that were not Christians,
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SPEAKER_02: basically.
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SPEAKER_02: So it wasn't so much the people from Ireland,
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SPEAKER_02: it was the people that were from,
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SPEAKER_02: there was an English group that joined us as well.
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So I met there some really great people who were atheists,
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really,
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and agnostics.
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And it really challenged me because it was the first time in my
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life that I had
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SPEAKER_02: ever seriously had to defend my faith.
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SPEAKER_02: And I sort of found that I couldn't, actually.
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SPEAKER_02: I had a very good upbringing.
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SPEAKER_02: I was very kind of happy in the sense of faith and all of that.
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Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02: But it lacked any type of intellectual aspect to it.
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SPEAKER_02: It was primarily ethical in the sense that you behave well,
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SPEAKER_02: you treat people well,
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SPEAKER_02: and that's all good.
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SPEAKER_02: But when it came to having these debates when I was 17 turning 18,
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SPEAKER_02: with people.
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SPEAKER_02: They were a bit older, in fairness, but I really didn't have the answers.
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SPEAKER_02: And it really caused me to start thinking.
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SPEAKER_02: And I think it sort of caused then,
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SPEAKER_02: I suppose,
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SPEAKER_02: a crisis of faith,
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SPEAKER_02: because I had to,
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SPEAKER_02: for the first time,
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SPEAKER_02: really think about,
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SPEAKER_02: is this actually what I believe?
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SPEAKER_02: So that was, I suppose, then my upper sixth, my final year in school.
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SPEAKER_02: And then I went to Trinity to study law.
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And that sort of thing then happened again,
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because again,
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I was back in an environment where
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: the majority of people are,
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SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it was a majority,
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but certainly a large number of people that I was coming into
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contact didn't have
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SPEAKER_02: faith
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I can imagine,
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yeah,
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Trinity wouldn't have been the most religious places.
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SPEAKER_02: No, I mean, you had a mix of people.
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SPEAKER_02: You would have had,
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SPEAKER_02: I suppose,
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SPEAKER_02: at that time,
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SPEAKER_02: this is sort of the later 90s,
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you would have had a fair number of people coming from a faith
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background,
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SPEAKER_02: but very little personal commitment to it.
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I think probably today it's less people coming,
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fewer people from a faith background.
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SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it was the same thing in Trinity.
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SPEAKER_02: You were kind of being challenged.
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SPEAKER_02: And so I really had to start thinking about this.
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SPEAKER_02: And so I kind of went on, I guess, a sort of spiritual quest.
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SPEAKER_02: And I was kind of looking around.
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SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, I suppose I had two questions.
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SPEAKER_02: I mean, the first question was, do I believe that God exists?
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SPEAKER_02: And that's the first question.
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SPEAKER_02: And then the second question is, well, what about Christianity?
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And then the various questions that come from that,
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Christianity,
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the church,
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etc.
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SPEAKER_02: So I sort of went on this sort of spiritual quest,
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SPEAKER_02: looking around different options,
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SPEAKER_02: trying to figure out...
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SPEAKER_02: What do I believe?
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SPEAKER_02: And at the first place, it was focused on the question of God.
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SPEAKER_02: So I started reading pretty widely on it.
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SPEAKER_02: I had remembered St.
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SPEAKER_02: Thomas Aquinas, which obviously I became a Dominican in the end.
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SPEAKER_02: That was part of that story.
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SPEAKER_02: But he had these five proofs, and I was sort of aware of that.
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SPEAKER_02: So I started reading those five proofs and thinking about that.
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SPEAKER_02: I was reading some works by Richard Swinburne.
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SPEAKER_02: He was the Noleth Professor of Philosophy at Oxford, I think.
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SPEAKER_02: Various other kind of... I was reading widely.
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SPEAKER_02: And I suppose after a long time,
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SPEAKER_02: I came to the idea that,
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SPEAKER_02: yes,
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SPEAKER_02: I do believe that a belief in God is rational.
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It's something that a modern person can credibly believe,
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you know,
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thinking the issues through.
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SPEAKER_02: So I suppose in the midst of all this, I also...
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SPEAKER_02: The idea that there isn't a God isn't simply an intellectual abstract.
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SPEAKER_02: It has an effect on the person, I think.
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SPEAKER_02: Because,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: as I started to think about if there is a God,
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SPEAKER_02: how you perceive life,
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SPEAKER_02: and if there isn't a God,
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SPEAKER_02: then your view of life,
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SPEAKER_02: if you're being honest about it,
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SPEAKER_02: it seems to me,
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SPEAKER_02: must be pretty bleak,
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SPEAKER_02: actually,
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SPEAKER_02: because there is no ultimate meaning,
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SPEAKER_02: there's no ultimate purpose.
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And so there's a human dimension to this sort of intellectual
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kind of thinking that
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SPEAKER_02: I was doing as well.
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SPEAKER_02: And it seemed to me that if I ended up in the position that
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SPEAKER_02: God is simply a human construct,
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SPEAKER_02: that is going to have a big impact,
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SPEAKER_02: if you're honest with yourself,
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SPEAKER_02: on what you think.
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SPEAKER_02: So I got myself into the position where I believe that God exists.
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SPEAKER_02: So I thought, well, that would solve everything.
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SPEAKER_02: And it made pretty much no emotional difference whatsoever.
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SPEAKER_02: I just came to this idea, yeah, there's a God, and so what?
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SPEAKER_02: And that sort of surprised me.
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SPEAKER_02: I didn't really expect that.
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SPEAKER_02: I thought that that would have been the answer to kind of everything.
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SPEAKER_02: I wasn't exactly an atheist.
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SPEAKER_02: It wasn't that I was an atheist.
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SPEAKER_02: It was, I'd say, a crisis of doubt, I guess, in that sense.
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SPEAKER_02: But I came to this firm belief that there is a God.
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SPEAKER_02: It didn't have an impact that I thought it would have.
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SPEAKER_02: And so then I turned to the second question.
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I mean,
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I'm looking back and saying it was the second question at the
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time.
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SPEAKER_02: I don't think I understood it as the second question.
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And that is,
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I suppose,
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the question of faith and faith in Jesus Christ specifically.
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SPEAKER_02: So I kind of went back to that again.
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So I was blessed with a very good experience of faith when I
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was growing up.
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SPEAKER_02: I didn't have...
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SPEAKER_02: I didn't have a bad experience at all.
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SPEAKER_02: In fact, it was very, very positive.
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But at this time as well,
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a lot of scandals had started to come out in the church.
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SPEAKER_02: And so this was beginning, I guess.
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SPEAKER_02: And that sort of shook my faith in that aspect of things.
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SPEAKER_02: And I suppose you're kind of questioning, you know,
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SPEAKER_02: the impact that has on your belief.
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SPEAKER_02: So again, I did the sort of same thing with the question of faith.
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I'm looking at,
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you know,
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I started off looking at,
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you know,
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can we believe the Gospels?
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SPEAKER_02: Can we believe the Bible?
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SPEAKER_02: Is it just something that, you know, was changed over time?
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SPEAKER_02: Do these...
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SPEAKER_02: stories?
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Do they give us an accurate eyewitness account of what had
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happened or are they fictions?
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And I suppose I did a lot of thinking about that question kind
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of as well,
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SPEAKER_02: and sort of questions kind of related to that.
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SPEAKER_02: And again,
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SPEAKER_02: I came to the same position that,
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SPEAKER_02: yeah,
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SPEAKER_02: I think that actually this is,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: these are historical documents,
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SPEAKER_02: because when you look at
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SPEAKER_02: the Gospels,
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SPEAKER_02: there's more evidence for the Gospels than many,
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SPEAKER_02: many other historical events,
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SPEAKER_02: for example.
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SPEAKER_02: And again,
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SPEAKER_02: I thought that would be the end of the search,
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SPEAKER_02: that I would believe that these things are true,
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SPEAKER_02: that Jesus Christ is,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: it's credible to say that he's the Son of God.
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SPEAKER_02: And that sort of brought me a step further.
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SPEAKER_02: But I suppose what I was really missing at this stage was,
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SPEAKER_02: I suppose,
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SPEAKER_02: the directly spiritual element of
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I guess you could say something that's directly religious in
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the sense that I
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SPEAKER_02: hadn't really asked God about any of this.
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SPEAKER_02: All of this was kind of stuff that I was thinking about.
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SPEAKER_02: I was reading about,
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but I hadn't ever really had that sort of relationship with God
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where I was saying,
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SPEAKER_02: well,
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SPEAKER_02: Lord,
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SPEAKER_02: If you're there, reveal yourself to me, that type of thing.
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SPEAKER_02: And that sort of really happened,
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SPEAKER_02: I guess,
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SPEAKER_02: during my second year at university,
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where I sort of really went on the spiritual quest in a
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directly spiritual sense
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SPEAKER_02: rather than in an intellectual quest to understand faith and God.
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SPEAKER_02: And it's there, really, that I suppose I came to understand
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deep understanding of faith that yes I believe these things but
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that I'm going to
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act on them and give my life to God in a fuller way and I
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suppose that really was
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the tipping point in my own faith journey where it was
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something that I can't
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really describe in a systematic way because I think it was
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something that was
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SPEAKER_02: really spiritual but
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SPEAKER_02: So I suppose that's how I started the journey to becoming a Dominican.
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I think those events were the core events that laid the
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foundation stone for
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SPEAKER_02: becoming a Dominican later.
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SPEAKER_02: And it was,
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SPEAKER_02: of course,
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curious because I was at Trinity going in this spiritual quest
11:34
towards God while
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SPEAKER_02: all of my contemporaries were going precisely the other way.
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SPEAKER_02: The other direction.
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SPEAKER_02: And...
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SPEAKER_02: And rejecting belief in God,
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even though I'd say still at that time the majority had some
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type of religious
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SPEAKER_02: background.
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It would have been relatively rare for someone at Trinity to
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have had no religious
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SPEAKER_02: background at all,
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SPEAKER_02: I would have said.
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SPEAKER_02: So I was going one way.
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SPEAKER_02: Most people, not everybody, but most people were going the other way.
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SPEAKER_02: I guess it was that real time of change in Ireland.
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SPEAKER_02: So...
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So yeah,
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that was the sort of the basis of where I kind of went from at
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that stage.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:13
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
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SPEAKER_01: And thank you.
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SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing that.
12:15
There's so much in there that like so many valuable things,
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I think,
12:19
in terms of
12:20
your own like positive experience with faith connor had a
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similar story i think in
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terms of like having a very positive catholic upbringing that
12:28
kind of endeared him
12:29
to it in a way because i know a lot of people have a catholic
12:31
upbringing and that's
12:31
kind of like the horror show like they just remember being
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bored in mass and
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they're just like trying to get away from that desperately and
12:38
just like they're
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not interested so it seems like having a positive early
12:41
experience can really like
12:43
SPEAKER_01: it pays dividends down the line in some sense
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think so.
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SPEAKER_02: I mean,
12:48
SPEAKER_02: we had good priests in our parish growing up and,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
12:53
SPEAKER_02: there were never any difficulties with them.
12:56
And I suppose what impressed me about the church is that if
12:59
something happened in
13:00
SPEAKER_02: the community,
13:00
SPEAKER_02: it was very often people from the church that stepped in.
13:04
And,
13:04
you know,
13:05
if someone was sick,
13:06
the church was there in the middle of it.
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SPEAKER_02: So you had that experience of...
13:12
of practical religion and action where people were living out
13:15
their faith in a very
13:16
SPEAKER_02: practical,
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SPEAKER_02: down-to-earth kind of way.
13:19
And some of those people would have been highly educated and
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others would have had
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SPEAKER_02: very elementary education,
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SPEAKER_02: but their faith made a difference in how they acted.
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SPEAKER_02: And that was my experience growing up.
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SPEAKER_02: I didn't experience Catholicism as something oppressive.
13:36
SPEAKER_02: You hear people saying that.
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SPEAKER_02: That wasn't my experience.
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SPEAKER_02: And to be honest,
13:42
SPEAKER_02: I think even for those of my contemporaries,
13:45
SPEAKER_02: well,
13:46
from school or from home who maybe didn't end up continuing
13:52
with the faith,
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SPEAKER_02: I think few of them would have really said that they experienced that,
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SPEAKER_02: that they experienced Catholicism.
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SPEAKER_02: as something kind of oppressive.
14:02
SPEAKER_02: That was something I found when I came to Trinity.
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SPEAKER_02: I heard people saying this,
14:06
SPEAKER_02: but I can't really say that I experienced it,
14:08
SPEAKER_02: and I can't say that people that I knew who didn't
14:12
go on to become lifelong Catholics,
14:14
I don't think that was their experience as well.
14:16
SPEAKER_02: So I guess there are probably people who have different experiences,
14:21
SPEAKER_02: depending on the local circumstances,
14:22
SPEAKER_02: perhaps.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
14:23
and I also think if you don't understand something and you're
14:26
kind of just forced
14:27
SPEAKER_01: to do it and there are these questions around it,
14:29
SPEAKER_01: it could feel oppressive in some way.
14:32
Retrospectively,
14:33
you could look back and be like,
14:34
I was tricked or I was duped.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: Because you don't believe it in the first place.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: Like that's really whether or not you think it's true.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: Like if it is true,
14:42
it's like you're getting super valuable moral formation and
14:45
community and all these
14:46
SPEAKER_01: things.
14:46
SPEAKER_01: Whereas if it's not true,
14:47
SPEAKER_01: you're being manipulated,
14:48
SPEAKER_01: you're being lied,
14:49
SPEAKER_01: you're being like,
14:50
SPEAKER_01: you know,
14:50
SPEAKER_01: you're part of a cult if it's not true.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: So it really is that question of like the truth.
14:56
And you said,
14:57
yeah,
14:57
because you said there was cracks emerging whenever you were
15:00
younger.
15:01
Do you think,
15:01
was that just like this intellectual conversation encroaching a
15:05
little bit?
15:05
SPEAKER_01: Like people were becoming more aware of that?
15:08
Do you think that was the cracks that were emerging or is it
15:10
something else?
15:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: I think that was part of it.
15:15
SPEAKER_02: I don't think it was the specific practice that I was seeing.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: I think what had happened really was that I guess a number of things.
15:26
SPEAKER_02: You mentioned there about people being bored during Mass.
15:29
SPEAKER_02: I think most people's experience of the liturgy growing up was poor.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: My own wasn't great either.
15:36
SPEAKER_02: I think it became something that
15:40
SPEAKER_02: lacked intellectual substance.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: So it wasn't so much that,
15:43
SPEAKER_02: I suppose,
15:44
the counter arguments to Christianity were coming in and
15:49
overcoming the Christian
15:50
SPEAKER_02: argument.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: It's the fact that those arguments weren't there at all.
15:54
So when you were at school and you were studying religion,
15:57
it was almost purely ethical about
16:00
SPEAKER_02: being good to other people, which is a good thing.
16:04
But the reality is there are people that are atheists and
16:07
agnostics that are good
16:08
SPEAKER_02: to other people as well.
16:09
SPEAKER_02: And so what I think was really happening is that there was a lack of,
16:13
SPEAKER_02: I would say,
16:13
SPEAKER_02: meat,
16:14
SPEAKER_02: a lack of strength in the presentation of the faith,
16:19
SPEAKER_02: and that people ended up sort of thinking,
16:22
SPEAKER_02: well,
16:22
SPEAKER_02: it doesn't have very much to offer,
16:24
SPEAKER_02: because my sense growing up was that people were not offered,
16:27
SPEAKER_02: I guess,
16:28
SPEAKER_02: the fullness of the
16:30
SPEAKER_02: the tradition of the church in the sense of,
16:32
SPEAKER_02: you know,
16:33
sort of the intellectual tradition or the credibility of the
16:36
faith as the root.
16:39
And that,
16:39
you know,
16:40
religion had become a little bit watered down in a certain
16:43
sense.
16:44
And now maybe that was a necessary corrective or an
16:47
overemphasis on certain
16:49
SPEAKER_02: practices that had gone before that.
16:51
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
16:52
But I think that most people that I knew sort of felt that it
16:56
was a bit...
16:57
watered down um and that's not to sort of suggest that you know
17:01
faith needs to be a
17:02
sort of a very fundamentalist type of thing not at all but uh
17:05
but at the same time
17:06
if there isn't a certain um i guess rigor to it it becomes
17:12
uninteresting because
17:13
you know i at school so pretty much everyone from my school
17:16
went to university they
17:18
were all intellectually uh so it was a grammar school so it was
17:21
academically
17:22
SPEAKER_02: selective
17:23
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, people were intellectually capable.
17:26
SPEAKER_02: And those were the questions they had.
17:29
SPEAKER_02: But those were not questions that were ever really addressed.
17:33
SPEAKER_02: So,
17:33
SPEAKER_02: of course,
17:33
SPEAKER_02: those people,
17:34
the majority of people from school would have gone to
17:36
university in Scotland,
17:38
SPEAKER_02: primarily in England,
17:39
SPEAKER_02: and they would have encountered arguments against Christianity.
17:43
But they would have had no basis on which to say,
17:45
well,
17:46
hang on a minute.
17:46
SPEAKER_02: I think that, you know, maybe it's not as simple as that.
17:49
SPEAKER_02: So I'd say that was the sort of cracks that I was seeing growing up.
17:54
SPEAKER_02: Now, later, I was aware of different things.
17:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:58
Yes,
17:59
yeah,
17:59
that was kind of...
18:02
I've heard Bishop Barron describe it as beige Catholicism.
18:06
He seems to attribute it to a kind of misinterpretation of
18:09
Vatican II that led to
18:12
SPEAKER_01: trying to make it more palatable to people in some sense,
18:15
SPEAKER_01: but that involved actually making it less demanding than it appeared,
18:20
SPEAKER_01: which actually had the opposite effect,
18:22
SPEAKER_01: if I'm quoting correctly,
18:23
SPEAKER_01: but...
18:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that definitely seems to have played a role in it.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, a little commitment.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: And then you mentioned also being in the North, I wondered.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean, does that factor into it a little bit?
18:41
There's a political element there of like the Northern face of
18:46
Catholics and Protestants.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: Is faith different, do you think, in the Northern variety?
18:55
SPEAKER_01: because of the conflict there.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I don't want to take us too far off topic.
19:02
SPEAKER_02: I would say that there is a distinction.
19:05
SPEAKER_02: The biggest difference I would see is not necessarily the faith itself,
19:12
but I suppose what I noticed was that in the North there were
19:16
people that were
19:17
SPEAKER_02: rejecting faith to some extent,
19:19
SPEAKER_02: but there wasn't that animosity,
19:21
SPEAKER_02: whereas in the South I found an animosity
19:24
SPEAKER_02: Generally speaking, well, I mean, it varies from person to person.
19:28
So I would have said that most people in the north had a
19:31
positive experience of faith.
19:32
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's possibly because during the Troubles,
19:35
SPEAKER_02: and this was during the Troubles,
19:37
SPEAKER_02: I guess the priests were leaders in many of the communities.
19:41
And they were respected and they stood up for people at times
19:45
where people were
19:46
SPEAKER_02: finding life difficult for various reasons.
19:49
SPEAKER_02: Perhaps it was sectarian tensions or something going on.
19:53
And so the priests were generally well respected,
19:56
I think,
19:56
in that respect.
19:57
So I think as a result of that,
19:58
the northern Catholic community,
20:01
in my experience at least,
20:03
SPEAKER_02: didn't have that sort of animosity.
20:05
SPEAKER_02: And the political factors,
20:07
SPEAKER_02: I suppose,
20:07
SPEAKER_02: played into that,
20:08
SPEAKER_02: whereas the political factors were in the South,
20:11
SPEAKER_02: where the church was very strong,
20:13
SPEAKER_02: it was connected to the government in a
20:16
SPEAKER_02: an indirect sense of,
20:17
SPEAKER_02: you know,
20:18
SPEAKER_02: it would have had an influence at certain times in history anyway.
20:22
SPEAKER_02: That didn't exist in the North.
20:24
And so I suppose the trajectory was different in terms of how I
20:29
would say people
20:30
SPEAKER_02: experienced faith.
20:31
I don't think it was much different in any intellectual or
20:36
practical sense,
20:37
SPEAKER_02: but I think the political context shaped how people perceived the church.
20:41
SPEAKER_02: which probably has a difference.
20:42
SPEAKER_02: And I think you still see the legacy of that.
20:44
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
20:44
SPEAKER_02: I don't know the statistics,
20:45
SPEAKER_02: but my sense is that faith remains,
20:51
practice of the faith remains significantly higher in the North
20:54
in general than in
20:56
SPEAKER_02: the South.
20:56
SPEAKER_01: That was kind of what I was getting at,
20:58
SPEAKER_01: I think,
20:59
SPEAKER_01: because that will be my impression as well,
21:01
SPEAKER_01: that it seemed more in the South and more animosity for sure,
21:05
SPEAKER_01: like a quicker rejection,
21:08
SPEAKER_01: possibly to do with the institutions as well and the
21:12
the church becoming so involved with the institutions and then
21:15
failures of
21:15
institutions gets blamed on the church automatically because
21:18
they were in charge of
21:19
but I mean institutions fail anyway I mean that's you know so
21:24
there's more
21:24
animosity maybe in the south because of that has been my
21:28
experience anyway from
21:30
SPEAKER_02: what I've seen yeah I'd say that's probably probably true yeah
21:36
SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, so I made the foundation kind of work.
21:44
SPEAKER_02: I'd say at that stage,
21:46
SPEAKER_02: my faith had sort of,
21:47
SPEAKER_02: as it was come full circle,
21:48
SPEAKER_02: where I'd come back to,
21:52
SPEAKER_02: you know,
21:53
SPEAKER_02: a fairly strong,
21:54
SPEAKER_02: basic faith again.
21:56
SPEAKER_02: But I was still,
21:56
SPEAKER_02: you know,
21:57
it took some years to put all the other sort of pieces of the
22:00
jigsaw back together,
22:02
SPEAKER_02: I guess.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: And what was your kind of perception at that time,
22:05
SPEAKER_01: like in the 90s,
22:07
SPEAKER_01: 2000s,
22:07
SPEAKER_01: like the rise of the new atheists,
22:10
SPEAKER_01: kind of like increasing secularization of Ireland,
22:13
SPEAKER_01: quiet secularization?
22:15
SPEAKER_01: Like what did you think of seeing that?
22:17
SPEAKER_01: I mean, how did that impact you?
22:21
SPEAKER_02: It seemed to me that that was definitely the direction of travel,
22:26
SPEAKER_02: but that it wasn't bringing the promises that it had made.
22:31
SPEAKER_02: into people's lives.
22:32
SPEAKER_02: So it seemed to me that people were abandoning religion,
22:36
SPEAKER_02: and it seemed that they were abandoning something that was good,
22:39
SPEAKER_02: and moving in a direction of something that,
22:43
SPEAKER_02: frankly,
22:43
SPEAKER_02: wasn't bringing all the benefits that they thought.
22:46
SPEAKER_02: So I suppose it was the time of the Celtic tiger.
22:49
SPEAKER_02: You know, everything became very materialistic.
22:52
SPEAKER_02: There was a huge emphasis on wealth.
22:54
SPEAKER_02: And some of those things, you can exaggerate things as well.
22:56
SPEAKER_02: I mean, Ireland wasn't historically a very wealthy country.
22:59
Those things were bringing prosperity to the country and those
23:02
things were good.
23:04
But it seems to me that there's only so long that those things
23:07
can really satisfy
23:08
SPEAKER_02: the human person.
23:09
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, extreme poverty is stressful.
23:13
So people,
23:14
you know,
23:15
to be prosperous,
23:16
to be reasonably well off is not a bad thing as such.
23:20
SPEAKER_02: But if that's all you're living for,
23:22
SPEAKER_02: it seemed to me,
23:22
SPEAKER_02: and this was part of my thinking at the time,
23:24
SPEAKER_02: if that's all you have to live for,
23:27
SPEAKER_02: it's a kind of a thin conception of life.
23:29
SPEAKER_02: And what I was seeing around me wasn't people that were like,
23:33
SPEAKER_02: for example,
23:34
SPEAKER_02: Richard Dawkins and people like that who were very much...
23:39
SPEAKER_02: I don't know how you could have principled new atheists.
23:41
They had a certain philosophical outlook on life that they
23:46
believed was true.
23:48
SPEAKER_02: Whereas that wasn't how I saw most people rejecting religion.
23:52
SPEAKER_02: It was simply,
23:53
SPEAKER_02: it wasn't something that they enjoyed,
23:55
SPEAKER_02: but they weren't moving into a different philosophical outlook on life.
23:59
They were simply rejecting something and moving into something
24:02
that really was
24:04
SPEAKER_02: really a sort of a,
24:06
SPEAKER_02: a culture of consumerism and materialism and,
24:09
SPEAKER_02: and I suppose a hedonism of enjoying life,
24:12
SPEAKER_02: living for the moment,
24:14
SPEAKER_02: which,
24:15
SPEAKER_02: you know,
24:15
SPEAKER_02: doesn't always last because life is difficult and challenges come along.
24:18
SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of what I kind of saw at that because,
24:22
SPEAKER_02: so after my time at Trinity,
24:23
SPEAKER_02: I moved to,
24:24
SPEAKER_02: I went to Oxford for further studies and then to London.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: So I suppose that sort of cut off my,
24:32
SPEAKER_02: familiarity with the trajectory that Ireland was on at that time.
24:36
But that's what I saw at the sort of,
24:38
I suppose,
24:38
around the time of the Celtic Tiger.
24:40
SPEAKER_02: And some of those things were good.
24:42
The country was becoming wealthier,
24:44
poverty was lessening,
24:46
which was good.
24:47
SPEAKER_02: But at the same time,
24:48
SPEAKER_02: it was bringing with it,
24:50
SPEAKER_02: I would say,
24:52
SPEAKER_02: a vacuum was being created in terms of
24:55
values and in terms of things that really bring people lasting
25:00
kind of happiness.
25:01
And it didn't seem to me that people were getting happier as a
25:04
result of it.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: So interesting, man.
25:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
25:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm slightly obsessed with the Celtic Tiger,
25:09
SPEAKER_01: to be honest,
25:10
SPEAKER_01: in terms of the kind of spiritual element of it.
25:14
Because it's almost like,
25:15
yeah,
25:15
you throw out God and it's like,
25:17
well,
25:17
what fills its place?
25:18
SPEAKER_01: You know,
25:19
SPEAKER_01: like that kind of Augustinian idea of like,
25:21
SPEAKER_01: you have to have something at the top of the value hierarchy.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: And if you throw out God, you're going to put something else there.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: And in that case, we really put like money here.
25:29
prosperity the kind of material well-being and like to such a
25:34
degree where it
25:34
became so unstable like it was almost this crazy situation of
25:37
like the people are
25:38
addicted to the credit the banks are addicted to the credit the
25:42
government's
25:42
SPEAKER_01: turning a blind eye on it and then it almost like blows up like uh
25:46
you know like a kind of some kind of bodily disease or
25:49
something where it was just
25:50
like it had been allowed to accelerate so much because there
25:53
was no nothing pumping
25:54
the brakes like there was no values constraining our desires
25:58
anymore and so why why
26:00
SPEAKER_01: don't they just run out
26:02
And I think even though we did that and we got,
26:03
you know,
26:04
we got in trouble for that.
26:05
I think we're just doing it again,
26:06
to be honest with a lot of the tech stuff.
26:08
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's my job as a tech ethicist.
26:10
SPEAKER_01: It's just like, that's all just manipulation of desire.
26:14
SPEAKER_01: It's hedonism essentially like,
26:16
SPEAKER_01: and we're doing it in a similar,
26:18
SPEAKER_01: and it's like,
26:19
SPEAKER_01: I think if we don't put God back in the proper place,
26:21
SPEAKER_01: we'll just do that until it,
26:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
26:25
SPEAKER_01: until we can't do it anymore essentially.
26:27
SPEAKER_01: So it's not, the story hasn't changed.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: I don't think since the Celtic tiger really,
26:31
SPEAKER_01: We're just kind of doing it in a different way.
26:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that's true.
26:37
SPEAKER_02: But what I think is different is that I see – and this is jumping –
26:41
SPEAKER_02: way ahead to the current circumstances,
26:44
but I do see in the work that I do now a real uptick in
26:50
interest in faith again
26:53
SPEAKER_02: among young people.
26:54
SPEAKER_02: Okay, well hang on, you're jumping ahead of me here.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
26:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
26:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: But I suppose one thing I did find interesting,
27:06
SPEAKER_02: so I went to England after that,
27:09
SPEAKER_02: like qualified as a lawyer.
27:11
SPEAKER_02: And I find actually,
27:14
SPEAKER_02: although England was quite a different religious landscape to Ireland,
27:17
SPEAKER_02: obviously the historical background there is Protestant,
27:22
SPEAKER_02: Church of England,
27:24
SPEAKER_02: but most people,
27:24
SPEAKER_02: but it's been secularized for a very long time.
27:27
SPEAKER_02: And so most people didn't have
27:32
SPEAKER_02: strong links to the Church of England, largely.
27:36
SPEAKER_02: But in a certain sense, I find a greater openness of people.
27:40
You know,
27:40
if you said at the weekend what people would ask,
27:42
what did you do?
27:43
SPEAKER_02: You'd say you went to church and say, what church do you go to?
27:46
SPEAKER_02: And they would ask questions.
27:49
SPEAKER_02: They may not have been particularly interested in joining themselves.
27:53
SPEAKER_02: But there was a certain openness that I think at the time in Ireland,
27:56
there was a narrowness that crept in that it was kind of like
28:00
it was fashionable to
28:01
SPEAKER_02: be
28:02
anti-Catholic and so anyone who kind of held those views really
28:08
where it was a sort
28:09
of a there was a hostility there which I didn't experience in
28:13
England even though
28:14
it was a much more secularized society so that was an
28:17
interesting kind of uh
28:20
SPEAKER_02: shift that I saw when I moved over there.
28:24
SPEAKER_02: So I finished my studies in Oxford,
28:30
went down to London and Oxford was an interesting time for me
28:35
as well because I
28:36
think it was there that I really understood the Catholic faith
28:39
better and I think
28:40
that was interesting that it took me coming outside of Ireland
28:44
to look back at the
28:45
SPEAKER_02: Catholic faith
28:47
SPEAKER_02: And I think it gave that distance that allowed,
28:49
SPEAKER_02: because I was in the middle of it before then,
28:52
to really see it in a different sense with people that didn't
28:55
have the same
28:55
SPEAKER_02: historical kind of baggage.
28:58
But I remember one particular incident when I was walking,
29:03
it's the Oxford Oratory.
29:04
SPEAKER_02: I was just walking past it one day and I called into the church,
29:08
SPEAKER_02: not for any particular reason,
29:10
SPEAKER_02: and they were having...
29:11
SPEAKER_02: an exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.
29:14
SPEAKER_02: And I hadn't really seen it done like that before.
29:17
SPEAKER_02: I have a feeling it might have been a 40 hours devotion.
29:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure.
29:22
SPEAKER_02: But anyway, the Blessed Sacrament was exposed.
29:25
SPEAKER_02: There were lots of candles all over the place.
29:27
SPEAKER_02: And I really sense the presence of Christ
29:32
SPEAKER_02: in that place in a very deep way, which touched me a lot.
29:36
SPEAKER_02: I really then was asked,
29:37
SPEAKER_02: I said,
29:37
SPEAKER_02: well,
29:37
SPEAKER_02: what is it about that experience that I experienced Christ?
29:42
And it was then I really started to think about the Eucharist
29:45
and to think about
29:46
SPEAKER_02: the very,
29:47
SPEAKER_02: up until that point,
29:48
SPEAKER_02: I'd been putting the,
29:49
SPEAKER_02: I'd say,
29:49
SPEAKER_02: the big pieces of the Catholic faith together.
29:52
SPEAKER_02: These are the intellectual pieces,
29:54
SPEAKER_02: the big questions on fundamental theology of revelation,
29:58
SPEAKER_02: that type of thing.
29:59
SPEAKER_02: And now I was getting into,
30:00
SPEAKER_02: I suppose,
30:02
a different element of it where the pieces were beginning to
30:06
come together.
30:06
SPEAKER_02: So that was,
30:07
SPEAKER_02: I think,
30:08
another key moment that I would identify in my own sort of life
30:13
that influenced me
30:14
because it then made me interested in the idea of the Eucharist
30:17
and what that means
30:18
SPEAKER_02: for a Catholic.
30:21
SPEAKER_02: So I left Oxford, went down to London,
30:25
SPEAKER_02: And it was there, really, I was working in the city.
30:27
It was for one of the big city of London law firms called
30:30
Slaughter and May.
30:31
SPEAKER_02: And it was very, very intense.
30:34
SPEAKER_02: You know,
30:34
SPEAKER_02: you're working,
30:34
SPEAKER_02: you know,
30:36
SPEAKER_02: crazy hours doing these sort of large sort of corporate deals.
30:40
SPEAKER_02: But there was a little church.
30:41
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's not so little, but it's called St.
30:44
SPEAKER_02: Mary Moorfields that's beside that was beside my office.
30:47
SPEAKER_02: And I started going quite often at lunchtimes to daily mass.
30:53
And that was kind of like a big kind of thing because I think
30:58
it kept me grounded.
30:59
You're in this sort of corporate world of high finance and a
31:04
very ambitious sort of culture.
31:06
But yet you move from that space into this sort of transcendent
31:10
space for 20
31:11
SPEAKER_02: minutes at a lunchtime,
31:13
SPEAKER_02: you know,
31:13
SPEAKER_02: quite often.
31:14
SPEAKER_02: And I think that was something as well that was...
31:17
important for me in terms of integrating my faith into everyday
31:21
life that I was living.
31:23
I was going to say,
31:25
I can't imagine there was many lawyers going to daily mass in
31:28
London.
31:30
Maybe it's more common than anything,
31:32
but it's a very interesting contrast.
31:35
SPEAKER_02: No, actually, there were quite a lot.
31:37
SPEAKER_02: The church was everyday.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: Really?
31:38
SPEAKER_02: That is so interesting.
31:41
There was another church that I had gone to with some friends
31:43
that had invited me a
31:44
SPEAKER_02: few times,
31:44
SPEAKER_02: St.
31:44
SPEAKER_02: Helen's Bishop's Gate.
31:46
SPEAKER_02: which is a Church of England, an evangelical church.
31:48
SPEAKER_02: And they had talks on, I can't remember, a weekday.
31:51
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, they were the best part of a thousand people at them.
31:55
So I find this kind of curious because it wasn't similar to
31:58
Ireland in the sense
31:59
SPEAKER_02: that you had this very secular culture,
32:02
SPEAKER_02: but yet you had...
32:04
SPEAKER_02: What I saw was a lot of faith going on at the same time.
32:07
SPEAKER_02: So that was kind of an interesting change, I found.
32:11
And when did you decide then to go and actually,
32:14
you know,
32:16
to adopt a religious life?
32:18
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's still a few years to go after that.
32:23
SPEAKER_02: So I continue.
32:24
SPEAKER_02: I guess I bought into the whole idea of the Celtic tiger thing.
32:30
SPEAKER_02: So I was very ambitious.
32:32
SPEAKER_02: And I worked very hard.
32:34
SPEAKER_02: So I was in this firm, Slaughter May.
32:36
It's kind of one of the big kind of corporate M&A,
32:39
mergers and acquisitions firms.
32:40
So I was specializing in mergers and acquisitions and equity
32:43
capital markets.
32:45
SPEAKER_02: So I was doing that.
32:46
SPEAKER_02: I then joined another firm called Norton Rose Fulbright,
32:51
SPEAKER_02: which is,
32:51
SPEAKER_02: again,
32:51
SPEAKER_02: is one of the sort of the big
32:53
SPEAKER_02: international law firms.
32:55
SPEAKER_02: And then I started moving around a lot.
32:58
SPEAKER_02: So I moved first to Dubai.
33:00
SPEAKER_02: So I was spending time there.
33:02
I was in Hong Kong and South Africa,
33:05
back in Europe,
33:06
back in London,
33:07
back to Dubai.
33:08
SPEAKER_02: I spent a bit of time in Saudi Arabia, a bit of time in Abu Dhabi.
33:12
SPEAKER_02: Most of my work was cross-border mergers and acquisitions.
33:15
SPEAKER_02: So my whole career was spent sort of traveling around.
33:19
Most of my clients,
33:20
actually all of my clients,
33:21
were either governments or
33:24
SPEAKER_02: large corporations, mostly listed corporations.
33:27
SPEAKER_02: And you were doing sort of high value mergers and acquisitions deals.
33:30
So they were usually in the hundreds of millions,
33:33
sometimes the billions of dollars.
33:34
SPEAKER_02: So it's a very intense life where you're working round the clock,
33:40
SPEAKER_02: you're on call all the time,
33:41
SPEAKER_02: you're working weekends,
33:43
SPEAKER_02: You're constantly traveling.
33:46
So as I said,
33:47
I was super focused,
33:48
which with hindsight,
33:50
I think,
33:50
was not the right thing.
33:52
SPEAKER_02: It's not something I would recommend to someone.
33:54
SPEAKER_02: But to succeed in that world, that's what you have to do.
33:58
SPEAKER_02: And I became a partner in Norton Rose Fulbright when I was,
34:03
SPEAKER_02: I think,
34:03
SPEAKER_02: only seven years qualified,
34:05
SPEAKER_02: which was young to become a partner.
34:07
SPEAKER_02: Normally it's 12 to 15 years now.
34:11
SPEAKER_02: And so I guess I had been very, very focused.
34:15
SPEAKER_02: I had worked to achieve this goal.
34:18
I became a partner,
34:19
as I say,
34:20
I don't know what age I was,
34:21
but I was young anyway.
34:24
And,
34:24
you know,
34:25
and you're earning huge amounts of money in these sort of
34:28
firms.
34:28
And I kind of got to that stage and I thought,
34:32
so I heard I got through the partnership process.
34:35
SPEAKER_02: And then it was like a complete anticlimax.
34:37
SPEAKER_02: I thought,
34:39
SPEAKER_02: I'm not even sure that this kind of means that much to me.
34:44
SPEAKER_02: And in fact, I was pretty sure it didn't.
34:46
SPEAKER_02: Because,
34:46
SPEAKER_02: you know,
34:47
SPEAKER_02: at that time when I was made a partner,
34:48
SPEAKER_02: I was living in Dubai and,
34:51
SPEAKER_02: you know,
34:52
SPEAKER_02: it was a very sort of luxurious lifestyle.
34:53
SPEAKER_02: So the people,
34:54
SPEAKER_02: my friends,
34:55
SPEAKER_02: everyone was,
34:57
SPEAKER_02: you know,
34:57
SPEAKER_02: it was,
34:58
SPEAKER_02: you know,
34:58
SPEAKER_02: people were spending money like,
35:00
because it was sort of a chandeliers in the kitchen type of
35:02
environment where it
35:05
SPEAKER_02: was a very affluent life.
35:08
But the thing I noticed that I had got involved in the church
35:11
and in Dubai,
35:12
SPEAKER_02: and Dubai is a very unequal society.
35:13
So you have extreme wealth on the one hand,
35:17
but at the same time,
35:18
you have extreme poverty.
35:20
And in the church,
35:22
it was the one place in Dubai that I found that you found both.
35:24
SPEAKER_02: You found people that were very well off and you found people that were,
35:28
SPEAKER_02: you know,
35:29
SPEAKER_02: earning $100 a month as a construction worker or something.
35:32
And in some strange way,
35:33
those people were coming together in the church.
35:36
And I was finding that the thing that I find most life-giving
35:39
wasn't sort of,
35:40
SPEAKER_02: you know,
35:40
SPEAKER_02: eating out in great restaurants and flying off somewhere.
35:43
SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, so I guess I was kind of living a very, very good lifestyle.
35:51
SPEAKER_02: But I found,
35:52
SPEAKER_02: you know,
35:52
SPEAKER_02: in the church,
35:53
that was the one place where the rich in Dubai and the poor in
35:58
Dubai were coming
35:58
SPEAKER_02: together.
35:59
SPEAKER_02: And I found that that was more life-giving to me than
36:02
the experience of corporate law,
36:05
as well as that,
36:06
you're working killing hours.
36:08
I mean,
36:08
you would rarely finish work before nine in the evening,
36:12
and usually more than that.
36:16
SPEAKER_02: So I really began to get disillusioned with it,
36:20
even though it wasn't that obvious to people that would have
36:24
known me at the time.
36:25
It wasn't something that I was kind of consciously saying,
36:28
but I could see that I wasn't
36:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
36:31
my heart wasn't in it in the same way as when I'd been a junior
36:34
associate or a
36:34
SPEAKER_02: senior associate
36:35
SPEAKER_02: aiming for partnership.
36:38
SPEAKER_02: And again, I think it was coming back to that idea of faith.
36:41
I just sort of thought there are bigger things and more
36:43
interesting things in life
36:45
SPEAKER_02: than the life that I'm living,
36:46
SPEAKER_02: where I'm giving up pretty much all of my time for a career.
36:51
SPEAKER_02: So I started really to question that.
36:54
SPEAKER_02: And then at that time, I took ill.
36:58
I have this form of spina bifida,
37:02
which is not terribly,
37:03
it's not the most serious form.
37:05
But there are some kind of complications I've had over the
37:07
years with it.
37:09
SPEAKER_02: And one of those was that I had sort of benign tumors on the spinal cord,
37:13
SPEAKER_02: which were growing and they were creating a lot of neurological problems.
37:18
SPEAKER_02: So I had to kind of go back home to have it assessed.
37:20
SPEAKER_02: And I needed fairly major surgery to deal with these kind of,
37:28
SPEAKER_02: I can't remember the technical term,
37:29
SPEAKER_02: but these type of tumor type of,
37:32
SPEAKER_02: growths on the spinal cord.
37:34
SPEAKER_02: And so I was off work for six months,
37:35
SPEAKER_02: which I couldn't really walk properly afterwards for a long time.
37:39
SPEAKER_02: But it was then that I really just sort of thought,
37:42
SPEAKER_02: what do I want to do with the rest of my life?
37:44
SPEAKER_02: I mean, what is it that is most important to me?
37:46
SPEAKER_02: What's most valuable?
37:48
SPEAKER_02: And I was kind of really thinking corporate law is not that thing.
37:52
SPEAKER_02: And that seemed pretty clear to me.
37:55
And so I went back to work after and I worked for another
37:58
couple of years.
37:59
SPEAKER_02: But it was at that stage,
38:00
SPEAKER_02: I thought,
38:00
SPEAKER_02: this is not what I want to spend my life doing,
38:04
SPEAKER_02: even though I had everything that you would,
38:07
SPEAKER_02: I guess you would normally want out of life.
38:08
SPEAKER_02: And I'm not saying those were bad things.
38:10
SPEAKER_02: But for me, they were not, they were not fulfilling.
38:14
SPEAKER_02: But what I did find fulfilling and what
38:16
SPEAKER_02: continued to capture my interest was faith,
38:20
SPEAKER_02: was Christ,
38:21
SPEAKER_02: was the church,
38:23
SPEAKER_02: and all of this sort of thing.
38:25
SPEAKER_02: So I decided that I would leave the partnership.
38:31
I took a sabbatical effectively,
38:33
but I knew that I wasn't sort of coming back really.
38:37
SPEAKER_02: So I took some time off to think about what I wanted to do for the
38:43
SPEAKER_02: I suppose the rest of my life is maybe exaggerating the thing,
38:45
SPEAKER_02: but I just knew I didn't want to do corporate law anymore.
38:48
SPEAKER_02: So I took a sabbatical.
38:50
SPEAKER_02: I went to Spain.
38:51
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to learn Spanish.
38:53
And I started to really kind of think about the idea of
38:57
priesthood and religious
38:59
SPEAKER_02: life kind of really came back to me at this stage.
39:02
SPEAKER_02: So when I had been younger, I'd been interested in being a priest.
39:05
SPEAKER_02: And that came and went over the years.
39:07
SPEAKER_02: I'd explored it in more detail.
39:09
SPEAKER_02: when I was in my sort of mid-twenties.
39:12
SPEAKER_02: As a teenager, I'd been interested in it.
39:14
SPEAKER_02: But it was something that never quite left.
39:16
SPEAKER_02: And it came back to me again and again.
39:20
SPEAKER_02: And this time,
39:21
I suppose I was living in Spain and I had time for the first
39:25
time in a long time to
39:26
SPEAKER_02: really think about
39:27
the direction of my life and what was important and what was
39:30
most valuable to me.
39:33
SPEAKER_02: And really, you know, I started praying about it more.
39:36
SPEAKER_02: And it was just the same thing came back again.
39:38
And I knew it was something going to be connected to the church
39:42
and to priesthood specifically.
39:45
So when I had been at Oxford,
39:47
I had met the Dominicans there for the first time.
39:50
SPEAKER_02: And what I noticed there compared to what I'd seen in Ireland, at least,
39:54
is that the Dominicans there were engaging in the intellectual
39:57
life of the university.
39:58
SPEAKER_02: They were engaging in a lot of these debates and,
40:01
SPEAKER_02: you know,
40:01
SPEAKER_02: attempting to answer questions that I had,
40:04
SPEAKER_02: that young people had at the time,
40:07
SPEAKER_02: in a way that I found kind of interesting.
40:09
SPEAKER_02: And so from that point, I had always kind of had an interest in
40:13
in the Dominican spirituality because I guess they were engaged
40:17
in a lot of those
40:18
SPEAKER_02: contemporary questions that people have.
40:20
And so it was then I was living in Spain and I decided to
40:25
investigate this issue a bit more.
40:27
SPEAKER_02: And I didn't want to be a diocesan priest.
40:30
And so I contacted the Dominicans and that's how I sort of got
40:37
involved,
40:39
got involved there.
40:41
SPEAKER_02: And what year was it that you started with this?
40:46
SPEAKER_02: I joined the order in 2017.
40:47
SPEAKER_02: So this was 2016 I was living in Spain.
40:52
SPEAKER_02: So I, yeah, I started to think about it more kind of seriously.
40:57
SPEAKER_02: And I got in touch with the vocations director at the time.
40:59
SPEAKER_02: And
41:01
SPEAKER_02: And he was very positive.
41:02
And I guess I didn't end up looking around a whole lot of
41:06
different orders because
41:07
SPEAKER_02: when I met the Dominicans,
41:10
SPEAKER_02: you meet the brothers as well.
41:12
SPEAKER_02: And I find them interesting.
41:13
SPEAKER_02: And I thought, yeah, I could live with these people.
41:16
You know,
41:17
there's a sense in which there's also,
41:19
is it a natural fit as well?
41:22
And so that was,
41:23
I suppose,
41:24
the two elements,
41:25
I suppose,
41:25
the attraction to the charism of
41:28
SPEAKER_02: and also the natural fit.
41:30
SPEAKER_02: And then on the charism,
41:31
SPEAKER_02: I suppose that idea,
41:32
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
41:32
SPEAKER_02: where the order of creatures,
41:34
SPEAKER_02: formally speaking,
41:35
SPEAKER_02: is the formal title of the order,
41:36
SPEAKER_02: and that idea that
41:39
you share the gospel with people in the world is important
41:44
because I think that we
41:46
have something to offer that's something that is of value to
41:49
people and that can
41:50
SPEAKER_02: have a real impact on people's lives.
41:52
SPEAKER_02: And for me, that's something I'm eager to share with people.
41:55
SPEAKER_02: And so I guess that's at the core of our preaching mission.
41:57
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
41:58
there's obviously the formal type of preaching where you're
42:00
standing in a pulpit
42:02
SPEAKER_02: and preaching in that sense.
42:04
SPEAKER_02: But in a much broader sense, it's about, you know,
42:08
SPEAKER_02: making Christ better known,
42:10
and presenting to people reasons for belief and the credibility
42:14
of the faith.
42:15
SPEAKER_02: A lot of those issues that have been important to me as a younger man.
42:21
SPEAKER_01: And was there anything in the culture in like 2016?
42:23
I kind of think like that's that for me anyway was the start of
42:26
like Jordan
42:27
SPEAKER_01: Peterson,
42:28
SPEAKER_01: that kind of Jonathan Pajot,
42:30
the internet kind of response to a lot of the new atheism that
42:34
suddenly it was like
42:35
people were actually having conversations about Christianity
42:37
again online that was
42:38
SPEAKER_01: like.
42:39
SPEAKER_01: It was like very intellectually rigorous.
42:42
SPEAKER_01: And there was this kind of slight turning,
42:44
SPEAKER_01: I think,
42:45
SPEAKER_01: going on for me personally anyway,
42:47
SPEAKER_01: I suppose for other people.
42:48
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I wonder, were you tuned into that?
42:51
SPEAKER_01: Was that something that was going on for you?
42:53
SPEAKER_02: No, no.
42:54
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I became aware.
42:55
SPEAKER_02: You were just doing it independently.
42:57
SPEAKER_02: I was just, you know, just going against the grain.
43:01
SPEAKER_02: I became more aware of it later, actually, than at the time.
43:05
SPEAKER_02: But I would say no, it had no idea of doing something.
43:07
SPEAKER_02: I mean, yes, it may have an influence in an unconscious way.
43:12
SPEAKER_02: But I suppose a lot of the thinking that,
43:14
SPEAKER_02: you know,
43:15
SPEAKER_02: people like,
43:15
SPEAKER_02: as you say,
43:16
SPEAKER_02: you know,
43:16
SPEAKER_02: Peterson and other others were kind of doing challenging,
43:20
SPEAKER_02: I guess,
43:21
SPEAKER_02: an agnostic or atheistic sort of consensus.
43:25
SPEAKER_02: I had been interested in those issues kind of a long time earlier.
43:29
SPEAKER_02: And so I'd followed my own trajectory.
43:32
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I was still doing reading and all sorts of things.
43:35
SPEAKER_02: But I guess I probably wasn't.
43:38
SPEAKER_02: I think because I was working so intensely,
43:41
SPEAKER_02: I really wasn't following stuff on the Internet,
43:44
SPEAKER_02: actually,
43:44
SPEAKER_02: to be honest.
43:45
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I read the news on the Internet and that was pretty much it.
43:47
SPEAKER_02: I mean, so I wasn't really up to date.
43:50
You're also a little bit older as well,
43:51
maybe like it's kind of a generational thing.
43:54
SPEAKER_02: It could be that as well.
43:57
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
43:57
SPEAKER_02: I suppose then when I entered the Order,
43:59
SPEAKER_02: I became sort of more familiar with,
44:00
SPEAKER_02: I suppose,
44:01
SPEAKER_02: some of the contemporary challengers.
44:03
SPEAKER_02: But I guess at that stage for me,
44:05
SPEAKER_02: those issues had been,
44:06
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to say settled,
44:08
SPEAKER_02: because issues are never quite settled in that sense.
44:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean, faith isn't a static thing.
44:13
SPEAKER_02: But I guess the dynamism of faith for my own life,
44:16
those issues had been sort of a bit more kind of settled at an
44:20
earlier stage.
44:22
SPEAKER_02: So I wasn't so much,
44:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
44:24
William Lane Craig was the only one that I can really think
44:27
that was kind of doing
44:28
SPEAKER_02: sort of apologetics.
44:29
SPEAKER_02: I mean, he's obviously a Protestant, but
44:31
SPEAKER_02: He was doing apologetics in the public sphere that I remember.
44:35
I don't quite agree with all of his views anyway,
44:37
but that I can remember at the time.
44:40
SPEAKER_02: But I wouldn't have been very aware.
44:42
SPEAKER_02: But at that stage for me,
44:43
SPEAKER_02: it had become less about,
44:46
SPEAKER_02: I suppose,
44:47
the proofs of Christianity and that type of thinking and more
44:51
sort of the desire
44:53
SPEAKER_02: for a spiritual life,
44:54
SPEAKER_02: I suppose,
44:54
SPEAKER_02: was the stronger thinking.
44:56
SPEAKER_02: thing that was going on for me at that stage.
44:58
SPEAKER_02: But then,
44:59
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
44:59
SPEAKER_02: obviously,
44:59
SPEAKER_02: when I entered the order,
45:00
SPEAKER_02: you were then,
45:01
SPEAKER_02: I suppose,
45:02
SPEAKER_02: focused on this way of life,
45:04
SPEAKER_02: and you became aware of thinkers out there and people that were,
45:09
SPEAKER_02: you know,
45:10
SPEAKER_02: challenging the consensus of the new atheism.
45:13
SPEAKER_02: And I do think that,
45:14
SPEAKER_02: as you say,
45:15
SPEAKER_02: I think that did shift a turning point,
45:16
SPEAKER_02: because what you see now is,
45:18
SPEAKER_02: you know,
45:19
SPEAKER_02: the thinkers that would have been very,
45:20
SPEAKER_02: very strong and almost unchallengeable when I was
45:25
SPEAKER_02: thinking about that,
45:27
SPEAKER_02: you know,
45:27
SPEAKER_02: suddenly then,
45:28
SPEAKER_02: you know,
45:28
SPEAKER_02: you've had,
45:29
SPEAKER_02: you know,
45:29
SPEAKER_02: Richard Dawkins declare himself to be a cultural Christian,
45:32
SPEAKER_02: which when I remember Dawkins in his heyday,
45:34
SPEAKER_02: and I heard him speak live a few times,
45:37
SPEAKER_02: he would never have said that,
45:39
SPEAKER_02: as far as I could tell.
45:41
SPEAKER_02: That would have been a definite no-no,
45:43
because it would have admitted he has a sort of a Nietzschean
45:46
sort of view
45:47
in the sense that I think it would have involved admitting that
45:49
there was some
45:50
SPEAKER_02: cultural merit in Christianity.
45:54
SPEAKER_02: So I did definitely see that shift.
45:57
SPEAKER_02: But I think you're right, it probably was around that time.
45:59
SPEAKER_02: But I wouldn't say it had a huge influence on me at that stage.
46:04
SPEAKER_01: yeah and you'd say so you mentioned like two things in terms of like the
46:07
intellectual argument that's like okay once you tick those
46:10
boxes in some sense it's
46:11
like all right the ontology i'm okay with that but that that
46:14
doesn't really that's
46:16
not the thing that makes the big difference in a sense like the
46:18
direct spiritual
46:19
element to kind of encounter with with the divine or with kind
46:24
of did you find in
46:25
your training like in entering the religious order did that
46:28
emphasize that aspect
46:30
SPEAKER_01: more for you did that did that cause um
46:34
SPEAKER_01: Was that beneficial, I suppose, to that direct encounter relationship?
46:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I suppose in our life, it's the balance of both.
46:42
SPEAKER_02: So I guess the Dominican life,
46:44
SPEAKER_02: I suppose we have an intellectual charism to some extent as well,
46:49
a very strong tradition of Thomism and the thought of Thomas
46:53
Aquinas and the
46:55
SPEAKER_02: tradition that follows him.
46:57
So I suppose there is a strong emphasis and we've been blessed
46:59
in the order of
47:00
SPEAKER_02: including here in Ireland with men that are gifted in that sense.
47:04
SPEAKER_02: So that's going on.
47:05
SPEAKER_02: But at the same time,
47:07
SPEAKER_02: you know,
47:07
SPEAKER_02: we live the regular life,
47:09
SPEAKER_02: which is the life where,
47:10
SPEAKER_02: you know,
47:10
SPEAKER_02: you have,
47:11
SPEAKER_02: you know,
47:11
SPEAKER_02: lords,
47:12
SPEAKER_02: midday prayer,
47:13
SPEAKER_02: office of readings,
47:14
SPEAKER_02: vespers,
47:15
SPEAKER_02: compliments.
47:16
SPEAKER_02: And that takes priority.
47:17
SPEAKER_02: And so that you're constantly moving in and out of,
47:22
SPEAKER_02: I suppose,
47:22
SPEAKER_02: the spiritual dimension of your life,
47:24
SPEAKER_02: the study dimension of your life.
47:26
SPEAKER_02: And for Dominicans,
47:28
we have regular observances and study is one of our regular
47:32
observances that
47:33
SPEAKER_02: Dominicans are obliged to study,
47:35
SPEAKER_02: not to pass exams,
47:36
SPEAKER_02: but to equip yourself for the preaching of the gospel so that
47:40
You're not some sort of out of date duffer that is not up to
47:44
date with what's happening.
47:45
It doesn't mean to say that everybody's going to be an expert
47:48
on everything.
47:50
SPEAKER_02: But yeah,
47:51
SPEAKER_02: so I would say that in the Dominican life,
47:53
SPEAKER_02: certainly for the first year was a very much a spiritual focus.
47:56
SPEAKER_02: The novitiate year is a spiritual year.
47:58
And then when you enter the student house in Dublin,
48:01
it moves between the two things.
48:03
SPEAKER_02: But what you do find is that one thing feeds off another.
48:08
SPEAKER_02: So when you're studying, let's say,
48:10
SPEAKER_02: the Trinity,
48:12
SPEAKER_02: that should impact on your spiritual life as well,
48:15
SPEAKER_02: because you're getting to know God better.
48:17
SPEAKER_02: You're getting to know who God is.
48:19
SPEAKER_02: When you study Christology,
48:20
SPEAKER_02: the nature of Christ,
48:22
SPEAKER_02: you're understanding something more about this God-man,
48:25
SPEAKER_02: and that should have an impact on your spiritual life.
48:28
SPEAKER_02: And so the two things,
48:29
SPEAKER_02: it should be like a symbiosis,
48:31
SPEAKER_02: if you like,
48:32
SPEAKER_02: of the things feeding off each other,
48:36
SPEAKER_02: I would say.
48:38
SPEAKER_01: And so,
48:39
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
48:40
SPEAKER_01: so now I suppose,
48:41
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
48:41
SPEAKER_01: we're kind of at the point where it's like,
48:42
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
48:42
SPEAKER_01: you're in the religious order,
48:43
SPEAKER_01: you're practicing,
48:44
SPEAKER_01: you're preaching,
48:45
SPEAKER_01: you know,
48:47
SPEAKER_01: and did you,
48:48
SPEAKER_01: so have you seen in recent times,
48:50
SPEAKER_01: I suppose,
48:51
SPEAKER_01: the kind of revival of faith,
48:53
SPEAKER_01: the kind of quiet revival that's been going on,
48:55
SPEAKER_01: like versus before when you would have been growing up,
48:58
SPEAKER_01: like what's the kind of counterbalance,
49:00
SPEAKER_01: do you think,
49:01
between like what you're seeing now and then what you saw kind
49:04
of in those earlier
49:05
SPEAKER_01: days?
49:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
49:07
SPEAKER_02: I'd say the first time I really sort of started to see it,
49:14
SPEAKER_02: I suppose I would have said that,
49:17
SPEAKER_02: and part of it,
49:18
I suppose I had been out of Ireland for a while and so I was
49:21
coming back into it
49:23
SPEAKER_02: and it had changed in those years enormously.
49:27
So I was then starting to sort of get reacquainted at least
49:33
with Southern Ireland and
49:36
SPEAKER_02: I would say up until sort of the COVID time,
49:39
SPEAKER_02: I hadn't sort of seen sort of,
49:42
SPEAKER_02: you know,
49:43
SPEAKER_02: too much or wasn't aware of it.
49:45
SPEAKER_02: But I first became aware of it.
49:47
SPEAKER_02: I was spending some time living in Toulouse with our brothers there.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: And I did a week of apostolate.
49:53
There was about 20 young adults and it was kind of there was a
49:57
faith formation.
49:58
SPEAKER_02: had a program, and I was helping with it.
50:00
SPEAKER_02: But what really,
50:02
SPEAKER_02: really struck me in France was of the 20 adults,
50:06
SPEAKER_02: only one of them had been baptized as an infant.
50:09
SPEAKER_02: The others had been baptized as teenagers.
50:12
SPEAKER_02: Some of them were catechumens preparing for baptism,
50:14
SPEAKER_02: and some,
50:15
SPEAKER_02: they were all in their early 20s or thereabouts.
50:19
SPEAKER_02: And that really made me curious about what was happening in France.
50:22
SPEAKER_02: And I sort of
50:24
started to explore that a little bit more and became aware of
50:27
this thing in France,
50:28
where people with no background in Christianity were coming to
50:31
faith through their
50:33
SPEAKER_02: experience,
50:33
SPEAKER_02: effectively,
50:34
SPEAKER_02: of a deeply secularized culture,
50:36
SPEAKER_02: which they have found...
50:38
wanting essentially and so I started that was the first time I
50:43
really noticed it in
50:44
person and then when I came back to Ireland I started seeing
50:48
this same thing where
50:49
people so I guess when I had been first thinking about those
50:53
issues the vast
50:54
majority of people had some faith background who were Irish at
50:58
least they had a
51:00
SPEAKER_02: faith background in
51:01
SPEAKER_02: relatively close to them.
51:04
SPEAKER_02: Whereas now you were finding people that had no faith background at all.
51:08
SPEAKER_02: They were starting to come to mass.
51:09
SPEAKER_02: They were inquiring.
51:11
SPEAKER_02: They were asking questions.
51:13
SPEAKER_02: I remember once a friend of mine asked, would I meet a guy?
51:18
SPEAKER_02: He had some questions about faith and doubt and
51:22
SPEAKER_02: And this type of thing.
51:22
SPEAKER_02: And so he came into our priory at St.
51:24
SPEAKER_02: Saviour's.
51:25
SPEAKER_02: And we had a long conversation about faith.
51:29
SPEAKER_02: It was really all about Cartesian doubt in the end of the day.
51:32
SPEAKER_02: So we did all of that.
51:34
SPEAKER_02: And I met him again, actually, quite recently.
51:36
SPEAKER_02: And I discovered then he had become a Catholic since that.
51:40
SPEAKER_02: And so that's just an example.
51:42
But I've seen many such cases in recent times of people either
51:50
coming back to faith
51:51
SPEAKER_02: that perhaps had been baptized or confirmed as
51:53
SPEAKER_02: as a child, but also people with no real background.
51:57
SPEAKER_02: And I would say that it's,
51:59
SPEAKER_02: I'd say it's probably less than it is in other places in Ireland,
52:02
SPEAKER_02: but it's a definite shift in what I see.
52:06
SPEAKER_02: And I think that what you see is that when these younger people,
52:11
SPEAKER_02: mostly,
52:12
SPEAKER_02: they're coming into faith,
52:13
SPEAKER_02: they're looking for,
52:14
SPEAKER_02: I would say,
52:15
SPEAKER_02: the fullness of the faith.
52:16
SPEAKER_02: They're looking for a rigorous kind of intellectual tradition
52:21
SPEAKER_02: They're looking for answers.
52:22
They're questioning because they're living in a society where
52:25
other people are
52:25
SPEAKER_02: going to be asking them those questions.
52:27
SPEAKER_02: So it's yeah.
52:28
SPEAKER_02: So I definitely do see a shift in my own sort of anecdotal experience of,
52:34
SPEAKER_02: you know,
52:35
SPEAKER_02: things like,
52:35
SPEAKER_02: you know,
52:36
I met you at Evangelium and groups like that that I am involved
52:40
in around the
52:40
SPEAKER_02: country.
52:41
SPEAKER_02: I meet,
52:42
SPEAKER_02: you know,
52:42
SPEAKER_02: young people like yourself that,
52:45
SPEAKER_02: you know,
52:46
SPEAKER_02: their faith journey has not been the standard,
52:49
SPEAKER_02: you know,
52:49
SPEAKER_02: traditional Catholic.
52:52
SPEAKER_02: way of being brought up as Catholic and continuing in that.
52:55
SPEAKER_02: So that's been very, very interesting.
52:57
And I think a lot of that comes out from the experience of
53:01
living in a world that
53:03
SPEAKER_02: is not offering people the answers to their deepest questions.
53:07
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's fundamentally what it's connected to.
53:12
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
53:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
53:12
SPEAKER_01: And that's so interesting,
53:14
like that it's a kind of taking like a sense that people are
53:17
going to eventually
53:18
SPEAKER_01: get,
53:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
53:19
SPEAKER_01: if the secular world isn't meeting those needs in some sense,
53:23
SPEAKER_01: they're going to look elsewhere.
53:24
SPEAKER_01: And,
53:26
SPEAKER_01: you know,
53:26
SPEAKER_01: some of the places people look,
53:27
SPEAKER_01: I think,
53:28
SPEAKER_01: are bad in terms of like political extremism or,
53:30
SPEAKER_01: you know.
53:31
SPEAKER_01: different kinds of tribalism or other ways they fit in.
53:34
SPEAKER_01: But I think, yeah, there is a real hunger again for it.
53:38
SPEAKER_01: And I mean,
53:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm a prime example of it being like,
53:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm actually,
53:41
SPEAKER_01: I've only realized how weird I am,
53:43
SPEAKER_01: I suppose,
53:43
SPEAKER_01: after getting baptized as well.
53:45
I've been like,
53:46
there was,
53:46
you know,
53:47
I was unrelatable as an atheist and then I get baptized.
53:50
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh yeah, nobody else had that either.
53:53
SPEAKER_01: Like everybody's,
53:54
SPEAKER_01: everybody I know was baptized or kind of had something,
53:57
SPEAKER_01: but like,
53:58
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
53:58
SPEAKER_01: being like completely,
53:59
SPEAKER_01: without religion is very unusual, even based on what I've seen.
54:04
SPEAKER_01: But more common now than ever before,
54:07
SPEAKER_01: you know,
54:07
SPEAKER_01: where you have 25% of people are technically nuns,
54:11
SPEAKER_01: have no religion.
54:13
SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah.
54:16
Yeah,
54:17
I think it's the experience of the modern world,
54:20
but also,
54:20
I guess,
54:21
people are thinking.
54:24
SPEAKER_02: So it's not just that they've had an emotional kind of,
54:28
bad experience so and as you say people do go I mean I suppose
54:32
that's what St.
54:33
Thomas Aquinas talks about a lot of people are always searching
54:36
for happiness and
54:37
SPEAKER_02: that's the fundamental driver of human action and that they
54:42
You know,
54:43
even the heroin addict is looking for happiness in the heroin
54:46
fix.
54:47
SPEAKER_02: He's looking in the wrong place.
54:49
SPEAKER_02: But out of that experience,
54:50
SPEAKER_02: but also sort of intellectually,
54:52
SPEAKER_02: people have questions about the meaning of life,
54:56
SPEAKER_02: even if life is going well.
54:57
So it's not that I remember once I went to the Franciscan
55:01
Sisters of the Renewal in Drogheda.
55:03
SPEAKER_02: They run a youth club.
55:05
SPEAKER_02: They're great sisters.
55:06
SPEAKER_02: And so they invited me to speak at their youth club.
55:08
And so I asked the kids,
55:10
you know,
55:11
why do you think anyone becomes a religious?
55:14
SPEAKER_02: So this one little girl,
55:14
SPEAKER_02: she put up her hand and said,
55:16
SPEAKER_02: because your life fell apart and you had nothing else to live for.
55:18
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, well, no.
55:30
I know a lot of people that would give that answer to be honest
55:33
so I thought well
55:35
SPEAKER_02: that might be true for some people it's not true for everyone
55:39
SPEAKER_02: But I think it is also that sort of,
55:40
SPEAKER_02: you know,
55:41
SPEAKER_02: even when people's lives,
55:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
55:42
SPEAKER_02: you know,
55:43
I didn't give up my career and everything else because I was
55:47
deeply unhappy.
55:48
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I was restless with it.
55:51
SPEAKER_02: I wasn't, you know, I wasn't miserable.
55:53
SPEAKER_02: Life was going well.
55:55
SPEAKER_02: So it's,
55:56
SPEAKER_02: you know,
55:56
SPEAKER_02: so people are looking at things from a different,
55:59
SPEAKER_02: it's not just satisfying an emotional need.
56:01
SPEAKER_02: It's a much bigger thing than that.
56:03
SPEAKER_02: And it's also looking at reality and asking yourself the question is,
56:08
SPEAKER_02: Is this true?
56:08
SPEAKER_02: Is it true that there is no God?
56:10
SPEAKER_02: Or, you know, where have all these things come from?
56:13
You know,
56:13
so there is that intellectual kind of quest that's going on as
56:17
well.
56:18
SPEAKER_02: But it's always individual.
56:19
SPEAKER_02: People's stories are different.
56:21
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, that depends on the person.
56:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
56:26
SPEAKER_01: And you'd mentioned like the,
56:27
SPEAKER_01: the direct spiritual element,
56:29
SPEAKER_01: which I was talking about,
56:30
SPEAKER_01: but like that encounter,
56:31
SPEAKER_01: because for me,
56:32
SPEAKER_01: I started doing that as well,
56:34
SPEAKER_01: kind of through IFS work.
56:35
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you know that internal family systems therapy,
56:38
SPEAKER_01: it's a type of therapy,
56:40
SPEAKER_01: but you essentially speak to parts.
56:43
SPEAKER_01: Like you,
56:43
you kind of like turn your aspects of your psychology as
56:49
characters and things like
56:50
SPEAKER_01: that.
56:50
And you do parts work and you have,
56:52
it's kind of like an imaginal exercise.
56:54
that they do in therapy and then through that you know you
56:57
there's also like
56:58
guardian spirit and then you get you're kind of interacting
57:00
with beings that are
57:02
extra personal beings in some sense and you're like yeah this
57:05
is getting pretty
57:06
SPEAKER_01: weird and then there's the encountering
57:09
SPEAKER_01: So then encountering, I suppose, of higher beings.
57:12
SPEAKER_01: And then in IFS now,
57:13
there's like a lot of great IFS psychologists that are talking
57:17
about demons.
57:18
They're talking about unattached burdens that they essentially
57:21
encounter with
57:22
SPEAKER_01: people while doing IFS therapy of being like,
57:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a part of this person.
57:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm here to destroy them.
57:27
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, you're going to have to get rid of me.
57:29
SPEAKER_01: And so this type of...
57:32
exercise that would have been very familiar to ancient people
57:34
would have made
57:35
perfect sense of like our minds aren't you know a fortress
57:38
there are other
57:39
influencing things that we can interact with good ones and bad
57:42
ones and do you
57:43
think that's a way for like modern secular people to start to
57:48
experience uh god and
57:51
also i mean just like i mean angels other things in the
57:54
hierarchy because like i
57:55
SPEAKER_01: kind of think we need this experience in a sense
57:58
SPEAKER_01: to ground it, you know what I mean?
58:00
SPEAKER_01: It can't just be the intellectual arguments,
58:03
but how do you get that experience if you were recommending it
58:06
to somebody?
58:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
58:09
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
58:10
I think you're right in the sense that I think that partly
58:13
because the culture has
58:14
SPEAKER_02: shifted as well,
58:14
SPEAKER_02: that experience of God is so vital.
58:18
SPEAKER_02: And I think that is one of the reasons,
58:19
SPEAKER_02: I think,
58:20
SPEAKER_02: for much of contemporary atheism in the sense that our society is...
58:27
SPEAKER_02: I suppose it's constructed in such a way that it's very,
58:30
SPEAKER_02: very difficult to experience the divine in the modern world.
58:35
So if you,
58:36
for example,
58:36
compare that to someone living in the medieval era,
58:41
SPEAKER_02: I suppose the taste of eternity would have been easily accessible.
58:45
SPEAKER_02: And in our modern world, it's not easily accessible.
58:48
SPEAKER_02: So I don't have a simple answer to that.
58:50
SPEAKER_02: How would someone experience the divine?
58:52
I think what I see is that very often people experience a
58:57
dissatisfaction with modern culture.
58:59
SPEAKER_02: And then on the basis of that,
59:01
SPEAKER_02: They look for the divine.
59:03
But it's one of the areas that I think that really needs sort
59:06
of attention in the church.
59:08
SPEAKER_02: So one of the things I think is that when someone comes to Mass,
59:12
SPEAKER_02: to the liturgy,
59:13
SPEAKER_02: because very often if someone is seeking,
59:15
SPEAKER_02: particularly in Ireland,
59:17
SPEAKER_02: they may look online and then they may attend Mass.
59:21
SPEAKER_02: And what they should experience there,
59:23
SPEAKER_02: at least particularly in this Sunday Mass,
59:25
SPEAKER_02: is something where the senses allow them to experience the transcendent.
59:31
and that it opens a glimpse for them of another world and of a
59:36
better world.
59:37
And of course,
59:37
that's,
59:38
you know,
59:38
you're dealing there with symbol and everything else.
59:40
But I think that's why the Catholic liturgy and why you do find
59:44
an attraction to
59:46
SPEAKER_02: the Catholic liturgy among many younger people is that if it's done well,
59:50
SPEAKER_02: that can open up,
59:52
SPEAKER_02: I suppose,
59:53
SPEAKER_02: the mind itself
59:54
SPEAKER_02: to the transcendent.
59:55
SPEAKER_02: But I would say outside of that,
59:58
SPEAKER_02: and it doesn't always happen there either,
1:00:01
SPEAKER_02: but outside of that,
1:00:01
I suppose it's people's experiences of meeting someone with
1:00:05
faith that can point
1:00:07
SPEAKER_02: them to that.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_02: But I think in terms of easily,
1:00:10
SPEAKER_02: I'm not familiar with the IFS therapy that you've discussed,
1:00:13
SPEAKER_02: but I would say it's probably very difficult in the modern world
1:00:18
SPEAKER_02: to have those type of experiences.
1:00:20
SPEAKER_02: And I don't think they're readily available,
1:00:22
but sometimes people do experience something of that
1:00:24
transcendent in nature.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_02: Um,
1:00:26
SPEAKER_02: they see that,
1:00:27
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:00:27
SPEAKER_02: when they're,
1:00:28
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:00:28
SPEAKER_02: in,
1:00:29
SPEAKER_02: in,
1:00:29
SPEAKER_02: in the mountains or by the sea or something like that,
1:00:31
SPEAKER_02: it causes them to,
1:00:33
SPEAKER_02: to think,
1:00:34
SPEAKER_02: um,
1:00:34
SPEAKER_02: about something beyond themselves.
1:00:36
SPEAKER_02: So I'd say that's probably the closest we get.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_01: Cause that's so, it was such a problem for me.
1:00:41
Cause like now I can see the mass as a transcendent experience
1:00:44
and even having
1:00:45
SPEAKER_01: knowledge of,
1:00:46
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:00:46
SPEAKER_01: some of the tradition and,
1:00:48
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:00:48
the mass is heaven and earth and it's like rooting and the book
1:00:51
of revelation and,
1:00:53
I can really have that experience but the past me wouldn't have
1:00:56
been able to have
1:00:56
that experience in a sense like there would have been all these
1:00:59
obstacles and
1:01:00
barriers even if that was occurring you know I wasn't in a
1:01:04
state to be able to
1:01:05
actually perceive that and so I've been on this kind of
1:01:07
stumbling journey of like
1:01:09
how do you how did I unwind that but like how could you
1:01:12
actually systematize that
1:01:13
SPEAKER_01: for modern people to allow them to actually re-enter in a sense like
1:01:17
i guess like prayer self-denial fasting probably helps a lot of
1:01:21
people i think are
1:01:22
using like psychedelics or like imaginal practices and you know
1:01:26
very unstable
1:01:27
things probably that aren't necessarily good but like i kind of
1:01:31
think there needs
1:01:32
SPEAKER_01: to be some way for helping modern people to see that divine again
1:01:38
SPEAKER_02: I think it's where you would see it.
1:01:39
SPEAKER_02: So,
1:01:39
SPEAKER_02: for example,
1:01:40
SPEAKER_02: even if you're not well disposed,
1:01:41
SPEAKER_02: but if you go into a church that is,
1:01:44
SPEAKER_02: I think beauty has an important role to play here.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_02: So the beauty of,
1:01:49
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:01:50
SPEAKER_02: architecture,
1:01:51
SPEAKER_02: and of course,
1:01:52
SPEAKER_02: you're not going to find this in every church,
1:01:54
SPEAKER_02: the beauty of the music,
1:01:56
SPEAKER_02: those things can,
1:01:57
SPEAKER_02: and the way the liturgy is carried out,
1:02:00
SPEAKER_02: those things can point people in the direction of God,
1:02:04
SPEAKER_02: even when they themselves are not,
1:02:06
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:02:07
aware that it's heaven on earth and all of this type of they
1:02:10
have no theological
1:02:11
construct but the beauty is if you like a doorway into into the
1:02:16
divine and so you
1:02:17
know for example like people go all the time to classical music
1:02:21
concerts or even
1:02:22
SPEAKER_02: sacred music concerts that are not in churches and
1:02:25
SPEAKER_02: and they listen to music, which transports them.
1:02:29
And so I think the recovery of beauty in the Catholic faith is
1:02:33
of enormous
1:02:35
SPEAKER_02: importance for allowing people to glimpse the divine.
1:02:40
SPEAKER_02: Now,
1:02:40
SPEAKER_02: that's not going to be the case on an everyday level,
1:02:45
and parishes down the countryside are possibly not able to do
1:02:49
all of those things.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_02: So I think, yeah, as you say, it's the other experiences that can
1:02:55
SPEAKER_02: point people, I think ascetical practices are interesting.
1:02:58
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:02:58
SPEAKER_02: I saw something recently that the Orthodox in America,
1:03:03
they've attracted some converts because it's seen as a kind of
1:03:06
a demanding faith in
1:03:07
SPEAKER_02: terms of its ascetical practices.
1:03:10
SPEAKER_02: Now,
1:03:10
I think you could have a risk there that asceticism becomes an
1:03:13
end in itself,
1:03:14
SPEAKER_02: whereas it's really only designed insofar as it brings you closer to God.
1:03:20
SPEAKER_02: But I mean,
1:03:20
SPEAKER_02: one of the great practices,
1:03:22
SPEAKER_02: which is,
1:03:22
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:03:23
SPEAKER_02: not very much used nowadays,
1:03:25
SPEAKER_02: but not Derg,
1:03:27
SPEAKER_02: for example,
1:03:27
SPEAKER_02: as a pilgrimage.
1:03:29
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I'm a huge fan.
1:03:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I've had very good experiences there.
1:03:34
SPEAKER_02: So not many people are willing to do that.
1:03:36
SPEAKER_02: But if you look at hiking,
1:03:38
SPEAKER_02: like hiking is popular,
1:03:39
SPEAKER_02: but then you look at the idea of pilgrimage has resurfaced again.
1:03:42
SPEAKER_02: You know, Croke Patrick is always busy.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_02: So people aren't always doing it for directly spiritual reasons.
1:03:48
But I suppose our task is to kind of channel that interest that
1:03:52
they have in the
1:03:53
concept of a pilgrimage and point people to the divine through
1:03:58
that or through
1:03:59
SPEAKER_02: their ordinary experience.
1:04:00
SPEAKER_02: I think also the experience that people have of friendship,
1:04:04
SPEAKER_02: of love,
1:04:05
SPEAKER_02: love on their families,
1:04:06
I think that also is a transcendent thing that people can
1:04:10
experience a glimpse of
1:04:12
SPEAKER_02: the divine in that.
1:04:14
SPEAKER_02: So I don't think there's one simple
1:04:16
answer to that but we do live in a culture which is where it's
1:04:20
very difficult to
1:04:21
SPEAKER_02: perceive anything beyond the material and so that's challenging
1:04:27
Yes,
1:04:27
that it's so,
1:04:28
you need to almost create spaces for it outside of the norm.
1:04:32
Because in a medieval person's life,
1:04:34
it would have been,
1:04:35
God was integrated everywhere.
1:04:37
It was integrated politically,
1:04:38
religiously,
1:04:39
your days were structured by it.
1:04:41
SPEAKER_01: Whereas now it's the exact opposite in a sense.
1:04:44
The faith exercises are often the odd thing out for people
1:04:48
compared to their normal routine.
1:04:50
SPEAKER_01: So maybe it's about making spaces for that.
1:04:53
Yeah,
1:04:54
I mean,
1:04:54
I think Bishop Eric Varden,
1:04:56
I don't know if you've come across him.
1:04:58
SPEAKER_02: He's a wonderful writer.
1:05:00
And he writes about this idea that we need to have some type of
1:05:05
experience of the
1:05:06
SPEAKER_02: faith because that is how most people today experience life,
1:05:11
SPEAKER_02: through their experiences.
1:05:13
SPEAKER_02: And so it is creating those opportunities where people can,
1:05:19
SPEAKER_02: yes,
1:05:19
SPEAKER_02: experience that dimension of their lives.
1:05:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
1:05:24
SPEAKER_01: well,
1:05:24
SPEAKER_01: we've gone a little bit over here,
1:05:25
SPEAKER_01: but there's one question I had for you,
1:05:28
SPEAKER_01: though,
1:05:28
which is that imagine if you were a Catholic personal trainer
1:05:32
and you've got
1:05:33
SPEAKER_01: somebody that's born Catholic,
1:05:35
SPEAKER_01: but has fallen out of faith.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_01: They're kind of maybe getting a little bit curious about it now.
1:05:41
SPEAKER_01: What would you recommend starting with to get back into it?
1:05:45
SPEAKER_01: Like, what would you say to them?
1:05:49
SPEAKER_03: I think, well,
1:05:54
SPEAKER_02: I think it depends on the person.
1:05:55
So the first thing I would do is really sort of see what type
1:05:59
of person this is.
1:06:01
SPEAKER_02: Is he a reader?
1:06:02
SPEAKER_02: Is he someone who likes kind of, you know, internet stuff?
1:06:06
SPEAKER_02: And then sort of see what, I guess...
1:06:11
SPEAKER_02: is his motivation?
1:06:12
SPEAKER_02: And what is it that is motivating his interest in faith?
1:06:15
So that'd be the first thing I would kind of try and sort of
1:06:17
see what is there.
1:06:20
SPEAKER_02: But if you want to just put it in a general sense,
1:06:24
SPEAKER_02: I would say getting to know other Catholics is crucial,
1:06:28
because one of the problems in Ireland is that very often
1:06:32
Catholics can be a little
1:06:32
SPEAKER_02: bit isolated,
1:06:34
SPEAKER_02: At a younger age group, there's maybe not many people practicing.
1:06:38
SPEAKER_02: And when you meet other Catholics who are interested in their faith,
1:06:43
SPEAKER_02: it's sort of an iron sharpening,
1:06:45
SPEAKER_02: iron kind of a thing.
1:06:46
SPEAKER_02: It causes you to think and it can be a stimulating kind of thing.
1:06:52
SPEAKER_02: I think prayer is essential to try to pray.
1:06:56
And prayer,
1:06:56
I think sometimes people imagine that prayer is like taking a
1:07:00
warm bath.
1:07:00
SPEAKER_02: It's very easy.
1:07:01
SPEAKER_02: It's a beautiful experience.
1:07:02
SPEAKER_02: But very often prayer can be quite difficult for people.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_02: So I think that,
1:07:06
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:07:07
SPEAKER_02: wrestling with those things and actually really,
1:07:08
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:07:09
SPEAKER_02: getting stuck into it,
1:07:10
SPEAKER_02: I think,
1:07:11
in prayer is vital because I really believe that if you ask God
1:07:15
for something,
1:07:16
SPEAKER_02: he will answer it.
1:07:17
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, you've got to ask in the first place.
1:07:21
SPEAKER_02: I think getting involved in the life of the church in terms of mass,
1:07:25
SPEAKER_02: even when it's not maybe done with all the beauty and all the rest of it,
1:07:29
SPEAKER_02: but just learning about the faith.
1:07:31
And when you learn more about the faith,
1:07:33
it should set your heart on fire for Christ.
1:07:37
SPEAKER_02: Reading your Bible, when you read the Gospels.
1:07:40
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
1:07:40
I remember I was studying in Rome last year and I was doing a
1:07:45
course in the Gospel
1:07:45
SPEAKER_02: of St.
1:07:46
SPEAKER_02: John.
1:07:47
And it just sort of brought everything completely alive again
1:07:52
for a gospel that I
1:07:53
SPEAKER_02: had already read a number of times.
1:07:56
So I think those things set the heart on fire because God's
1:08:01
grace is already
1:08:01
SPEAKER_02: working in the person that is coming to you asking that question.
1:08:05
SPEAKER_02: And so,
1:08:06
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:08:07
SPEAKER_02: the more they delve into it,
1:08:08
the more God's grace is going to kind of continue to work and
1:08:11
to draw them into
1:08:12
SPEAKER_02: that.
1:08:13
into that mystery and so yeah so i'd say those are the kind of
1:08:16
the things it would
1:08:17
depend on the person to some extent as well perfect thank you
1:08:22
very much benedict um
1:08:23
for your time is there anywhere you'd like people to go or
1:08:26
anything or check out uh
1:08:29
SPEAKER_02: um i know the dominican website i'm the vocations director so the uh
1:08:36
the vocations page on the Dominican website,
1:08:38
because we're always looking for new men.
1:08:41
SPEAKER_02: But I think I would say that of sort of contemporary resources,
1:08:45
SPEAKER_02: I think you mentioned them earlier,
1:08:46
but I think Robert Barron's Word on Fire is probably the best
1:08:50
sort of comprehensive
1:08:51
SPEAKER_02: online resource that's accessible,
1:08:54
SPEAKER_02: but it's pitched at a level that is kind of challenging at the same time.
1:08:58
SPEAKER_02: I'd say that's probably...
1:08:59
SPEAKER_02: Of all of the resources that I've seen,
1:09:01
SPEAKER_02: I think it's a place that is really kind of very,
1:09:05
SPEAKER_02: very useful and fruitful for people to kind of look at.
1:09:11
SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
1:09:11
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
1:09:12
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:09:13
SPEAKER_03: Thank you very much.