Latest / The You Project / #1582 The Son Of A Priest & A Nun - Brendan Watkins

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#1582 The Son Of A Priest & A Nun - Brendan Watkins · The You Project

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I get a you bloody champions. It's the you project,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Tiffany and Cook and Brendon. I'm going to go. Brendan's
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: probably a probably a vow. Brendan Andrew Brennan, Andrew what cains?
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: He'll tell us in a minute if I fucked that up.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I'm sure I did. What are the odds? Tiffy?
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: You're good, I'm very good. Thanks. Happy Friday, Oh.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Happy Friday to you. You're still looking glamorous. What have
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: you done? You keep saying you haven't done anything? A
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: bit of bloody. It's Loncesston's blue ice eyeliner.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: Just been putting a grown up jumper on over my
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: muscletop for the You know, I'm being a grown up.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: We can't recognize you when you're not in a crop top.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: What's the difference between a crop top and a boob
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: tube is.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: That boobtube doesn't have straps on the arms. Boobtube just
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: goes around under your armpits with no straps.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: There you go. Do they still exist?
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: Am I?
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Is that even a term that we're allowed to use
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four? I'll just point out I didn't
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: invent the term, so don't you yell at me.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: You're asking them wrong person.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: I've been wearing blokes muscletops for the last five or
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: six years straight.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Well, there's I could say so many things. Hi, Brendan,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: how are you?
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: I'm good, Thanks, Craig, I'm I'm absolutely fine, enjoying my
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: Friday afternoon.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Well, gid you up. Thanks for joining us on the
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: new project. So what's the middle name?
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: Son?
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Does it start with a vow? Let me out ask
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: that first.
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: Well, I've got two and yeah, they're very Catholic names.
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: So one is Michael, you know, maybe the ultimate Mick name.
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: Of course, I've also got Francis, which they're all very Catholic.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Bro's middle names. Francis.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Oh really, Well my mum's brother's name was Francis rip
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: uncle Frank. And is that is that? Because the second
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: of those two names is a confirmation name.
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: Michael is the confirmation name.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, do you know what that is?
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: Tiff?
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Do you know what a confirmation name is?
• 1:52
  Speaker 5: A name?
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: But I was confirmed. I don't really pay attention to
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: the whole thing though.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Did you grow up in a Catholic church? How did
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I not know this? Were you?
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: Like?
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Are you the worst Catholic in the history of Catholics.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: Second to you, bro, Why did you know every word
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: of the Bible doesn't mean you're good Catholic?
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: No, I know that I'm a shit Catholic. In fact,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: what I loved I ripped something off Brendan's site. I
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: can't find it now, but it was something like Gandhi
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: said something like I like your Christ, but not your Christians.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Your Christians are nothing like your Christ. Did I get
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: that somewhat right? Brendan, Yeah, it's close. That's buried a
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: way somewhere rather in the socials page. But yeah, you're close. Yeah, yeah,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Well did you go to Sorry Brendan, this should really
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: be about you, but let me just catch up on
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: ten years of tiff that did you go to Catholic schools?
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: I went to a Catholic primary school.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Did you pray to Sweet Baby Jesus?
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah I did. Yeah, we walk down to the chap.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Wow, I did not know anyway, enough about enough about
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: our history. Let's talk to our guests, Brenda. Did you
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: only go to Catholic schools as well? Or did you
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: actually well, you were adopted, so mate, were your parents
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: even Catholic? Was your family Catholic.
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So in the sixties, so
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: I was born and adopted in sixty one, the church
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: went to huge pains to ensure all of the children,
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: all of the Catholic children born went to Catholic families,
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: right right, And so you know, the families that didn't
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: have kids, they were very very keen to I'm sure
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: that they were going to continue the community and to
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: adopt them into childless families. And particularly it's like me
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: that had the background that I had, so that the
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: birth parents that I had always ended up with Catholic
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: adopt for parents.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Well, and was that I mean, obviously not common, but
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: obviously not completely rare, because you say, when people who
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: came from situations like you, So you're not Robinson Crusoe in.
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: This No, there's well, depending on who you believe, there
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: are no firm statistics, but it's been estimated that there's
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: well over one hundred thousand children who have been fathered
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: by Catholic priests.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I'm writing them down. One hundred thousand.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: That is well, obviously, I mean, people have already read
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: the intro and the synopsis of this show by the
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: time they're hearing us, So they're going to know that
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: your dad was a priest, or your biological father was
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: a priest, and your biological mother was a nun. I
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: bet that's a great conversation starter at dinners.
• 4:56
  Speaker 6: Well, it makes it never good, no, no, no, it
• 5:01
  Speaker 6: It is a sort of a microdrop moment. But it's
• 5:03
  Speaker 6: probably the only advantage is you know your elevate a
• 5:07
  Speaker 6: pitch when you're talking to publishers.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm sure that's going to get a few doors
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: open and a few years open when you decided to.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: So your book is called Tell No One. When did
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: you come up with the idea to, you know, kind
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: of put your story, your life into something that we
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: could all read and connect with.
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: I've always been a journaler, so I've always written extensively
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: because my story is very complicated, and what is contained
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: in the book, or the majority of it, at least
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: covers thirty years. So I at nearly thirty years of age,
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: I discovered the identity of my mother when I got
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: my original birth certificate, and it took me another nearly
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: thirty years to find out who my birth father was.
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: And there are all sorts of issues that obstacles that
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: occurred in my path that I needed clear to find
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  Speaker 4: out that answer. I journaled as much as anything else,
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: to record the things that happened, but equally to try
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: and work out how I felt about it, you know,
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: to unpack the complexities of the journey I was taking.
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: When I found out my father was a Catholic priest,
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: so that was two thousand and eighteen, I ended up
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: quitting my job and thought I would spend twelve months
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: working out who this man was because he had a
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: very larger he had a huge life, and I wanted
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: to research him, record it as much as anything else
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: for my kids. I was job where I've been there
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: for thirteen and a half years. I was over it.
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: It was time to move on. I could afford to
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: take a year off work, and the more I discovered
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: and learned about my family, and more so the more
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: I discovered about the children of priests, the more research
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: that led to, and the more angry I became, and
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: the more determined I became to turn what I was
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: recording into a book to make public the reality of
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: what the Catholic Church has done in silencing the children
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: of prests, and indeed our mothers.
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: Can I say, and I'm not blowing smoke. Brilliant book,
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: so everyone should go and buy that. I bought it
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: on audible after I first met Brendan, so good tell no.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: One is the name of the book. Brendan Watkins is
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: the author. So I mean, I'm sure we could do
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: an hour just on what the Catholic Church has done
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: and not done. But give us a snapshot, just open
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: the door a little bit in kind of enlightening us
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: as to what the Catholic Church's response reaction is to
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: you know, all of these kids.
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: Well, look, I suppose to encapsulate the size of the issue.
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: The church, you know today has something like four hundred
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: thousand Catholic priests, and the church is very foggy around
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: its definition of celibacy. And in surveys that have been
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: done and Sipe is the most commonly quoted, half the
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: Catholic priests are not celibate. And when you think about
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: the Church's.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: View around what's hang on? Really yeah half.
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  Speaker 4: So it goes back to, you know, the Church has
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: put vasiline over the lens of what the definition of
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: celibacy is and it's not really all that old. The
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: notion of the introduction of celibacy. It's only three or
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: four hundred years old. The church was financially damaged by
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: priests having children and their estate ending up in the
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: hands of their family and not the church. Church introduced
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  Speaker 4: in the eleventh century are rules about preventing married men
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  Speaker 4: becoming priests, right, It didn't say you can't have sex,
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: and so surveys of priests still received a foggy notion
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  Speaker 4: about what celibacy means. And in recent years surveys of
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  Speaker 4: priests have found that anonymously conducted that half of them
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  Speaker 4: is still having sex of one sort or another.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: That is, that is, But I mean the Bible talks
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: about sex outside of marriage pretty clear, and lolls isn't
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: based on the Bible, isn't It isn't that isn't it
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  Speaker 1: considered a sin within the church? Yeah?
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: Indeed, And so I suppose in many ways, the press
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: that have had children this is an extension of the
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: abuse of minus in many ways. So it's a part
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: of that story. So I think everyone's been aware. In Australia,
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: the Royal Commission and largely what's happened is price have
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: fathered children and as has happened with child abuse. The
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: priest very often, if this becomes known, is moved on
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  Speaker 4: to another parish or another state or even another country,
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: and he has no recognition of the child. Very often
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: the women are honorable, very often. So you know, I
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: know a huge number of children of priest personally and
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: anecdotally through different groups, and the stereotype of my mother
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  Speaker 4: is the most common. So usually they're vulnerable single women.
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: They're believers, so they're parishioners, and very often are very devout. Yes,
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: and quite often they're the housekeeper or a woman that's
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: come to the priest and she's been experiencing domestic violence
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: or the husband's being killed, or the husband's run off.
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  Speaker 4: They're extremely vulnerable to spiritual abuse and in quite a
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: number of cases physical abuse. Wow. So she becomes pregnant,
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  Speaker 4: the priest moves on and the church will more often
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  Speaker 4: than not deny, but in most cases might put a
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: roof over the head of the woman. In extreme cases,
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: they might reward her with some money, essentially to buy
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: her silence, but that's always in exchange, or nearly always
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: in exchange for a confidentiality ran wow. In twenty fourteen,
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: the United Nation United Nations under the Rights of the
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  Speaker 4: Child Investigation recommended to the Vatican that it has to
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: stop silencing the children of priests. This is a huge
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: international phenomena and the Church has been incredibly successful in
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: silencing the mothers and the children. Wow.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: So, I mean this is an in your opinion question.
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: This is not.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: An analytical or a database question. In your opinion. Are
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: these priests more opportunists or predators, I'm sure or something else?
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Maybe Yeah, I'm.
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: Sure every case is unique, that they're all different, but
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: they're Again, there aren't firm stats on this, but generally speaking,
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: the priests that have had children very often have other children,
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: and so it's not a once off, you know what
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: I'm talking about. And the numbers I spoke about the
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: priests that remain priests and deny recognition of their child.
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: There are instances, and they're quite rare of the priest
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: you know, having you know, the thorn Bird's moment. You know,
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: it's a love story. And in some of those instances
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: they leave the priesthood and they marry the woman and
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: they have the family. That's the rarity. That's not the
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: that's not the story that I'm talking about. There are
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: well over one hundred thousand people who have pessentially been
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: gagged by the church because the priests won't recognize their child.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: And in many cases, you know, all the sort of
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: foundation documents, birth certificates, details about the press, access to
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: the priest's estate are all denied by the church.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Have you had any blowback, either by the church or
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: people within the church. There's probably a double question. I
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: probably should have said how much?
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: Well, not really, not really officially, no, not really. Yeah,
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: there's been a huge way of.
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: Response from mainly parishioners and mainly people in a similar
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: vote to me. Wow, But look, officially no. I was
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: with Alan and Nunwen. The book is published by Alan
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: and so we had a lot of high level barristers
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: working on my book to ensure that everything was able
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: to be verified. But now look, the church, you know,
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: treated me like it does every other child of a
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: priest and mother that comes forward. Basically, they pull down
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: the shutters and you hear nothing.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: And what can you? What can you or what are
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: you comfortable to tell us Brennan about your biological mother
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: and father that you can I know, we can read
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: the book. Don't forget everybody read the book. Tell no one.
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: Sure. Well, most importantly, I feel a great sympathy for
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: my mother. I believe my mother was a victim of
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: my father, even though they spent many, many years of
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: their lives together and she actually nursed him for the
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: last eight or ten years of his life. They lived
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: together under the same roof Wow. However, when they met,
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: there was a thirty year age gap when she was
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: around fifteen and he was a much older man, and
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: she was a vulnerable girl. And that's a stereotype. And
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: he was the man, the spiritual leader. He was the
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: hands and feet of God on earth. You can't say
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: no to that if you are a vulnerable young woman,
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: and that's the stereotopes. So that's the most important thing
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: to remember. And you know, I believe my mother has
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: not treated me well at all in the last thirty years,
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: and she is still alive. But I absolutely understand it
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: and empathize with her response. So, long story short, I
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: got access to my birth certificate when I was nearly
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: thirty because Kate, my partner, and I were about to
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: have a family. Our story was a little complicated because
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: I was always curious. I always wanted to know who
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: my birth parents were. I have an adopted brother, he's
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: a little older, we're super close, and he wanted nothing
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: to do with it, had no interest. He thought it
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: was bizarre that I was so keen to know these things.
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: And I spent the last thirty years, you know, banging
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: my head against a brick wall with no success, and
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: he just keeps standing back, shaking his head. So I
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: got my birth certificate, and I thought it had additional
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: justification to find out who my birth parents were because
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: Kate had a health issue called malignant hyperperrexia, which essentially
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: means sure you can't have anesthetics, and it had killed
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: a number of people within her family. And as we're
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: about to have kids, I'm thinking, well, hang on, I
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: know nothing about what's in my lurking in my DNA soup.
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: What are the things that our kids might be vulnerable to?
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: And you know, we were making plans how she was
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: going to have anesthetic. It was needed, you know, when
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: the birth occurred, and all those sorts of things, and
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: when you have kids, it just makes you think about genetics.
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: So I got my birth certificate. The Catholic Church arranged
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: the adoption, and they sat me down. I looked at
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: my mother's name, and it wasn't the stereotype that I expected. Normally,
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: it's a teenager in those days, and passion had got
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: the better of them and they were too young to
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: have a child, and the babies put up for adoption.
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: This was the woman who was twenty seven. Wow, she
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: didn't have an Anglo name. I thought she'd have an
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: Anglo name like ours, and it was something odd. She
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: was in South Australia. So I desperately wanted to know more.
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: And for all the reasons such as said, I really
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: wanted to at least find out the biological history healthy shies.
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: Cutting to the chase. They sat me down a few
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: weeks later. They insisted, or not insisted. They were very
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: persuasive in having me consent to then make contact with
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: her on my behalf. And they sat me down and said,
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: we're spoken to Maggie, your mother, and you'll never see her,
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: you'll never talk to her, you'll never meet her. You
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: need to go home and forget about it forever. And
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: you know that's that's a blow that you know is
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: reverberated through me for decades. And I didn't realize quite
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: at the time the significance of it, and I tried
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: to but I couldn't. And the further we went down
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: the path of you know, getting pregnant and having kids,
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: I couldn't let go of it. And again it's you know,
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: some chapters in the book. But Kate, we were doing sleuthing,
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: and so it was before the Year of Google. We
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: were doing some sleuthing and retraced a sister in law
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: who was in South Australia, and Kate rang the sister
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: in law, making out she was, you know, a long
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: lost friend. And I had a conversation with his sister
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: in law and said, I'm trying to track down Maggie
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: Beckett and this is a pseudonym. That's not everyone. And
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: the woman replied, oh, you mean Maggie vennun m wow,
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: And all of a sudden, the penny dropped. Ah, that's
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: why she can't see me. That's why she won't expect
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: to me. It made sense, and it was just so
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: bizarre because I was raised him, you know, an indoctrination
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: a school you know, not at all dissimilar to yours. Correct,
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: And so I sort of let it go for some
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: period of time, and eventually a year or two later
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: wrote to her and she replied, and there was essentially
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: thirty years of me discovering that she wasn't actually a
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: nun when I was conceived or born, which is a
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: very pertinent point to her. And she's still alive, and
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: she finds that offensive that people might think that's the case,
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: which I totally understand. She had been in an order,
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: she had joined but not completed her term in the
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: convent she left was outside of the convent. For my
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: estimation is around three years I was conceived, born, and
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: to pay her penance to atone she joined another convent
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: and stayed for twenty five years, and very close to
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: the period of her leaving that convent, twenty five years later.
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: I made contact around nineteen ninety, so, just when she
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: thought she'd done her penance, she'd paid the price, I
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: show up and little did I know that when I
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: made contact, she was living with my birth father. She
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: was living with father, Vincent Shield, and for thirty years
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: I tried to discover his identity and was told many
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: different stories. I was told it was a short relationship,
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: it was a long relationship. It was a man who
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: had a family, a man that she rang a number
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: of times until he had his phone disconnected, and eventually,
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: many years after first contact, she told me, no, well
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: I told you his name. I don't know why you
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: keep nagging about his name's Paul Hayes. So I hired
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: a private detective to run aroun around Sydney trying to
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: find this Paul Haze where she used to live with
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: my father, and spent a whole lot of money trying
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: to find him. And eventually he came back and said, look,
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: I've done a lot of these cases adoptions. I know
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: a lot about this that I spoke to just about
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: every Paul has that is in the age that could
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: be your father. He doesn't exist. It's invented. I went
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: back to my birth mother and her response is, well,
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: you were lied to, and so as I and agreed,
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: So she made out it it invented the name when
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: she knew him. But of course he was still alive
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: and they were still living together.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: In so that was thirty plus years ago. And so
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: you and your mum have never really connected, No.
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: It's all yeah, it's always been very arms length. And
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: look we're mainly communicated by a letter, and in those
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: thirty years it might only be six or eight letters.
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: We've met face to face. She's met our Capan, my
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: two kids. She and I look uncannily similar when I
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: met her. She's the age I am now at sixty
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: three or thereabouts. She's never wanted anything to do with
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: her only two grandchildren. I mean, I feel enormous sympathy
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: for her because this is the great trauma I am,
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: the great trauma of her life. And she's been warmer
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: to Kate, my partner, and her story is one of
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: horrendous experience experiences with men, including my father. And again,
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: you know origin I'm prepared to tell this story is
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: because this is the stereotype. The reason people aren't coming forward,
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: the reason people aren't talking is this is the stereotype.
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: And my mother, my birth mother, has lied to me
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: my entire life. And the relationship very often where a
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: child raised by their birth mother is very common, where
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: the priest is the father and the child discovers that
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: everything that their mother has told them about their father
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: has been alive, and it's destroyed families. It's irreparably damaged families.
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: I didn't have a relationship with my birth mother at all.
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: On the thirty years of knockbacks and prostration is not common,
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: but this is something that the Church has perpetuated ongoing.
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: And I didn't find out the identity of my father
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: until I did my DNA in Well. I did it
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: in twenty and fifteen. It was a complicated case which
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: Kate sold, which I didn't have the patient sold wherewith
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: all to solve And it took three years and I
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: found out his name in twenty and eighteen. And the
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: point that's important to know is that it's only now
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: that people are doing ancestry DNA and the other DNA
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: services that they're finding these things out. You know, since
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: my books come out I had I don't know if
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: it's hundreds, but it's dozens and dozens and dozens of
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: people come to me saying I thought the DNA was
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: wrong because my father. It's at my father was a
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: Catholic creed. And it's now that the church is being
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: confronted with this reality, and it's now that people are
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: coming forward and telling their stories and it's horrific. You know.
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: There was a woman in London called Sarah Thomas, who's
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: the daughter of a priest, who started a PhD and
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: spoke to one hundred children of Press, and she found
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: that fifty six percent of the children of Press, fifty
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: six percent had attempted suicide or had suicidal ideation.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Wow, how does it feel like when you say to me,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: and you say to our audience that you were the
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: great trauma of your biological, your birth mum's life, Like
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: you seem inexplicably okay with that. I have such admiration
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: for you, that is, like you so have got your
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: shit together or you're the best actor ever. But I
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: feel like it's the former. Why Firstly, it's amazing, and
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: I'm it's going to say I'm proud of you, that's silly,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: but I'm so respectful of you, Like there seems to
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: be so much compassionate understanding, And I don't know. Forgiveness
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: is that the am I on the money?
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: There?
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: Is that? What I'm absolutely it is forgiveness. I'm like
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: a dog with a bone and I haven't been able
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: to let go of it. And I don't know how
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: healthy it is to be looking in the rearview era
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: for so long. I have spent five years on this
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: and I'm going to leave it alone very soon and
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: work on another book that's about looking up, not looking down,
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: or looking forward not looking back. Look, I've spoken to
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: her quite a number of the mothers of press children,
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: like my mother, who have some couple in America in particular,
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: but deal with other mothers of children's Chris, and they
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: have been to Helen back. And I feel very strongly
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: that I've been in a position where my life was
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: at a stage where I was established professionally financially, I had,
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: you know, I've had a fantastic life, and I've had
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: everything going for me. I had wonderful, wonderful adoptive parents
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: and a partner and family, kids, friends and people have
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: flocked to me that have been in the same boat
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: and they're enormously damaged. So I felt as though I've
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: had an obligation because I've been in a position a
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: time of life, to be able to speak up when
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: others can't. You know, very often the children of priests
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: end up in orphanage's foster care, unsuccessful adoptions. They're in
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: that fifty six percent that attempted suicide or had suicidal ideation,
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: And by the skin of my teeth, missed that and
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: the church. So look, I want to be an advocate,
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: you know, the church silenced the damaged, and there are
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: people who would come forward that an'tswer damaged and are
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: prepared to speak up, but there's very few of us.
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: So I felt as though I had an obligation, and
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: I you know, I forgive my birth mother. Absolutely.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: I could be wrong here too. I'm just reading between
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: the lines. It feels like having a purpose bigger than
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: you has also been therapeutic for you. Yeah right, yep, yeah,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: like being able to serve and help and love others
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: and understand others, and for them to be able to
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: just the fact that you are as as mentally, emotionally
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: and healthy and physically healthy as you are. I'm sure
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: there's peaks and troughs like all of us, but that
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: you can talk to them like you talking to them
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: is way better than most people talking to them, even
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: if it's a compassionate person or a psych or a
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: you know you who have been through it. I guess
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: that for them is a different kind of connection.
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Look, I suppose it's trite, but you know the
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: old if you get lemons and make lemonade, you know,
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: I think it applies. You're trying to find a good
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: We all want to feel useful, and you know, there
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: were waves and waves of communications from people in the
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: same boat that have been enormously damaged, and that's encouraged
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: me to speak up because I you know, I've had
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: so much communication with people that have benefited from what
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: I've written and what I've said, and yeah, you feel useful.
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: And it's not healthy to stay in this space. It's
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: not easy to talk about. But I know it's good.
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: I know it does good, and so you know, in
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: some ways it's I think also an acknowledgment or but
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: it's gratitude or you know, the good luck I've had.
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: How old are your kids, Brendan, One is twenty seven
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: and one is thirty. How did they respond to this
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: news where they're like, my granddad was a priest, All right,
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: coffee anyone? Well, look, it's interesting. You know, they had
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: nothing to do with the church their entire lives, and
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: even though their grandparents, my parents were devout, they didn't
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: get me till quite late, and so they didn't really
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: have anything to do with the church through their grandparents.
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: On my side and on Kate's side, they were incredibly
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: cynical about the church. So they don't have all the
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: sort of hang ups about priests and what they're supposed
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: to be like. And Nun's been right, So yeah, I
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: think they just thought it was one of my little obsessions.
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: I didn't talk about it much to them. And my
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: son is very literate and he was really helpful with
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: the book. And my daughter didn't want to know anything
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: about it until it was finished and published and it
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: came out of a box that had a cover on
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: it and she read it and she was absolutely knocked out.
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: And it's had a real I think it's had a
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: real impact on her. So but yeah, look that the
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: whole you know, priests having sex thing's that's really an
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: old person thing, you know. It was interesting. Part of
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: the book is going out to the desert because my
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: father spent most of his time in the South Australian
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: desert and going out there to his parishes and going
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: to churches and going to masses and meeting people that
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: knew him really well. I thought that I'll be dead
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: because he died ninety years of asi in ninety ninety two,
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: because he was thirty years older than my mother, but
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: he was from a generation before mine adoptive parents. But
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: he was still remembered, and eventually it came out. You know,
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: I thought i'd be up all the cover it in saying,
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: you know, I can tell them the truth. I said, oh, look,
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: I've done my DNA and my father's this guy, sorry,
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: not my father, a relative, a distant relative. Is this
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: guy who used to be a priest. And you know,
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: I'd be standing there, you know, with my hand and
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: my chin sort of with one foot forward and back
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: and talking as I am. And they said, he used
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: to always do that. He used to always stand with
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: his hand like exactly your voice now and I think
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: about your voice is exactly like And a number of
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: them picked it pretty quickly.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: And the point I'm trying to make is the parishioners,
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: the people that were the most accepting of the reality
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: of children of priests and the most aware of the
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: fact that policts had sexual appetites and lives actively. Are
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: the parishioners, the people that are in constant denial. You know,
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: I've spoken to a number of groups, and you know
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: the first thing I say is I love Catholics. I
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: love the parishioners. I have no problem with the Catholics,
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: the most accepting, compassionate, people that I've ever met dealing
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: with this subject are Catholics. The people I have problems
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: with the hierarchy within the churches, the priests, and the
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: further up the totem pole you go, the more in
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: denial they are, so bishops and cardinals.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: On your website, it's got this thing said, I was
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: given my father's rosary beads, my birth father's rosary beads.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Recently it got me thinking, how many prayers does a
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: priest recite for deserting his son or daughter for his
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: own sins? Did my father confess and if so, to who?
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: When did you write that?
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah? Maybe, but towards the end. Actually, yeah, I was
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: given those rosary beads by a woman who was his
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: assistant right in his presbytery in the desert in South Australia,
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: which he'd had for many years. And yeah, I think
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: she picked up very very quickly who I was and
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: was not at all surprised, right, But yeah, look at it.
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: It's a question many children of priests have, you know,
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: do they confess who? Do they tell? Who knows?
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: Tell us about tell us about your adoptive parents.
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: Brennan, Yeah, Royan Bette Watkins they got me late Damien.
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: My brother is older and interestingly so we're a Richmond
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: family and sad Ignatius in Church Street was dead Parish church.
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: And my old man was very heavily involved with the
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: Richmond football club. He actually volunteered fifty years service. So
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: he did a whole bunch of things. But most of
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: what he did and what he's known for his being
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: the timekeeper for the Puddy club amazing. And they couldn't
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: have kids and were he was out walking their dash
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: hounds one after and the local priest tapped him on
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: the shoulder and said, you know Roy, you and Bette,
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: you know you. You're in your thirties year you don't
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: have children. What's going on? Good Catholic man like you
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: should have children? What say you adopt? And that was
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: my brother and Roy agreed and he put his name
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: on the list as you do. It's an application for adoption.
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: And fifteen months later they actually got a phone call
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: and said, and my mother was thirty nine at this stage,
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: get older than Roy, and they said we have another
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: child for you. It's a boy. You need to come tomorrow.
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: So they hadn't applied, they hadn't gone through any of
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: the processes, and they had no notice and they didn't
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: really have any say, that's the norm the children of chress.
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: People are selected, families are selected, and so they had me,
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: you know, so they're relatively old parents. They were fabulous people.
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: We lived in Richmond. We had a sort of a
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: delicate tests and sandwich shop in Bridge Road, Richmond, which
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: you know, I'm incredibly fond of that part of the world.
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: And you know, by chance, my son's brought house and
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: moved to Richmond. And they were mad about the football,
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: they were mad about sport. They were devout Catholics in
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: that way where really they didn't know anything about the
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: Bible or how the church went, but they were at
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: church come Wayne High or Shine every Sunday and they
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: were absolutely locked on and observed lantern whatever it might
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: be till the day they died. They both got to
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: around eighty. So they were absolutely supportive for Damien and
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: my entire lives went to the sport, did everything that
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: parents do and birth children couldn't have a closer relationship
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: too to their offspring that Damien and I enjoyed with
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: Ryan Bett. And they would have given their lives for us. Wow.
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: And that's how we felt, you know, that's how we
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: grew up. There was absolutely no difference. And probably, you know,
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: with them and many many many adoptive kids, you think
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: I think the family tries a bit harder. It was
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: weird that Damien and I and Roy and Bett couldn't,
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: for four people couldn't look more un alike, and our
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: interests were so different. You know, everything Damien is he's
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: like this computer scientist and he's sci fi and doctor
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: who and he's facts and he's directed. Is a nerd. Absolutely, yeah,
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: he's a PhD. He's very very successful in there. And
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: I'm the opposite. I'm humanities and books and totally different person.
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: And our parents were different again, And you know, I
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: always thought, why the hell didn't the church make some
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: effort to try and at least adopt kids into families
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: where there'd be some sort of physical resemblance at least.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: Good luck with that. They probably just went, you know what,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: they're really good people, and these kids need some really
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: good people.
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, well I think that's it. But I do
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: know that they made a really significant effort in trying
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: to place the children of priest and or nuns. But
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: you know some Vincent's Private in Melbourne. Melbourne was sort
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: of the epicenter of the children of priests in Australia
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: and St Vincent's Private is where the majority of priests
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: children were born and the adoptions were arranged from mother Fabian,
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: who's a well known sister within the church, arranged those
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: and then destroyed the records of the children.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Here's a weird question, but I'm just curious about your
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: thoughts about this is a big question, but the future
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: of the Catholic Church. Like, since I was a kid,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: it seemed to be flourishing, and I was a kid
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: pretty much when you were a kid, and I remember
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: going to Mass and there'd be two three, four hundred
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: people on a Sunday morning. It was just and my
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: mum and dad are still My mom and dad are
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: eighty five. They still go to Mass on Sunday mornings
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: and there's about fifteen old people that are pretty much
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: all the same as them. You know, I don't think
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: there's anyone there under seventy. What are your thoughts. I
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: know this is not specific to your story, but I'm
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: just curious as two blokes who grew up, or in fact,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: two blokes and a woman who grew up in Catholicism
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: that I just discovered. If what are your thoughts.
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: Well, look, I know expert, but my observation is, you know,
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: in the last forty years me being in a church,
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: funerals and weddings that you know, that was it, Yes,
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: and so it was a distorted view of the numbers
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: of people that were there. But since I found out
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: my father was priest, I went to a lot of
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: churches and a number of services in parishes where he
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: was and those numbers have really sinned out, and so
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: you'd go to the services. You know, there used to
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: be three or four services on a Sunday morning and
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: there was only one and usually there's the front two
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: or three rows that are occupied, and that was it.
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: And they were occupied by people who were very old,
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: so people like your parents great and there weren't any
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: young people are all older. And one of the things
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: in the outback, and one of the things that the
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: parishioners complained to me about was that most of the
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: treets were either from well in South Australia, from Malaysia,
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: Indonesia and Africa, and though they loved the priests, they
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: had a really hard time understanding, and it's evident that
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: when they die out, those churches will no longer operate.
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: And that's quite a number of churches. But I think
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: the Catholic Church is booming in the Third World. There's
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: a huge number of children of priests in the Children
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: of Priests social media groups that are from Africa, and
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: they're young men and women. So the church is doing
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: incredibly well, as it always has. It's a missionary, it's
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: in the hope and shame business, and it does incredibly
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: well in areas where people are undergoing extreme poverty. The
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: Catholic Church also is very successful at business, and what
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: it succeeds in the Western world is education. And so
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: you know, particularly in Australia, the funding of the Catholic
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: institutions is very strong and it's not going to go
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: away overnight. But I think in the Western world it's
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: got the hell of a lot of competition.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: Wow, I love chatting with you. So interesting, so interesting.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: So the book is called Tell No One. Brendan Watkins
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: is the man. He's a gun, He's a fucking treasure.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: He probably I probably shouldn't swear because I feel like
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: he doesn't swear.
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: How do people I swear plenty, but when I talk
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: about the god stuff.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he probably yeah, he probably needs to contrived. I
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: can imagine how you go for your life. But if
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: only I had that self restraint, you're a better man
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: than I youngered in as my mum would say. How
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: do people apart from your book? Is there any way
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: that people can connect with you? Do you want to
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: be connected with email, social media, home address, personal phone number?
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: Just kidding and.
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: Look, everything hangs off my website, so Brendan Watkins dot com.
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: There's a fair bit of information there. A lot of
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: people want information about academic research that have backed things up,
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: or where to go for help or who to speak to,
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: and a lot of social media content is there, and
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: of course a lot of people want to go there
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: to find links to buy the book, and there's there's
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: media there. So the ID Day at ABC Compass program,
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: which in eight or nine months ago has gone up
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: on YouTube and gone international. So the combination of I
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: view and the episode about children are prest I did
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: with Compasses somewhere around two and a half million views,
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: So you know, I'm getting a lot of contact from
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: people all over the world. But yeah, everything. If people
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: want to follow things is through Brendan. What cans stock
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: com on?
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: Are you?
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: And if you're a Catholic priest and you want Brendan
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: to come and talk at your church, just give us
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: your shout out. I'm sure you'll be super welcome. Make hey,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: thank you so much. We'll say goodbye, Affair, but appreciate
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: you so much for being on the You project. And Tiff,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: thanks for hooking us up. What a good get that.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: He's pretty a legend, isn't he.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: Here he goes all right, doesn't he. I thought it'd
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: be more damaged. I'm more damaged than him. That's fucking disappointing.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: Thanks Brandon, good on you.
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: Thanks great, Thanks Ti, thank you