Latest / In the Valley of Giants / Making Amends: Answering for a History of Misinterpretations | Archbishop Timothy Costelloe | ITVOG Ep. 23

Transcript

Making Amends: Answering for a History of Misinterpretations | Archbishop Timothy Costelloe | ITVOG Ep. 23 · In the Valley of Giants

• 0:00
  How, how, how do you do it? Do you think that or, or is it,
• 0:02
  or maybe it's, it's specific to Archbishop Castel, Maybe you
• 0:05
  have a particular style. I'm sure you do.
• 0:06
  But what's the Roman Catholic style?
• 0:09
  Is it more Lithuanian Judaism? Is it Hasidic?
• 0:12
  Is it something else entirely? Like that to that
• 0:14
  judeo-christian foundation in the in the book of Genesis.
• 0:19
  I think it really matters what you believe.
• 0:21
  And although, for example, we believe something about Jesus,
• 0:26
  the Jewish tradition, what you believe, that's pretty basic to
• 0:30
  our two faiths, But there's in a sense there's something even
• 0:33
  more basic underneath that. That is our commitment, that
• 0:37
  even the people who don't believe what we believe about
• 0:40
  that are still human beings created in the image and
• 0:43
  likeness of God and worthy of respect and honour, even though
• 0:48
  they see things very differently.
• 0:49
  To us, I, I respect in a way the the, the evil of Hamas.
• 0:55
  I hate them, but I respect one thing which is, is that they
• 0:58
  will fight in the tunnels and they'll die for something they
• 1:01
  believe in. Do you think that if you were to
• 1:03
  have met Jesus that he would in his day-to-day look at least on
• 1:09
  the outside more like how Catholics Live Today?
• 1:14
  Or do you think that he would look more like a religious Jew,
• 1:18
  meaning Jesus himself? He would have looked like a
• 1:21
  religious Jew, absolutely. Hello everyone.
• 1:28
  Today we're joined by Archbishop Timothy Costello.
• 1:32
  He is the Catholic Archbishop of Perth and the President of the
• 1:34
  Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.
• 1:37
  A prominent leader within the solutions of the Donbasco, he is
• 1:39
  widely recognized for his pastoral stewardship.
• 1:41
  In his role in navigating the Catholic Church through the
• 1:43
  theological and social challenges of the modern era, we
• 1:47
  discussed the core of Judeo-christian ethics, as
• 1:49
  they're called, and the methods of effectively transmitting
• 1:51
  these values to the next generation, as well as the moral
• 1:53
  frameworks needed to confront today's most significant social
• 1:56
  evils. Our conversation also addresses
• 1:58
  the difficult history of Christian anti-Semitism towards
• 2:01
  Jews and explores nuanced questions regarding the New
• 2:04
  Testament and its impact on Jewish Christian relations
• 2:07
  throughout the centuries. Ultimately, I think we succeeded
• 2:10
  in our main goal, which was to create more of an interfaith
• 2:14
  conversation between our two peoples.
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  It was positive, informative, and respectful.
• 2:18
  We hope you enjoy. Archbishop Costello, thank you
• 2:21
  so much for joining us here on the show today.
• 2:22
  Oh. Thank you for inviting me.
• 2:24
  It's a. Privilege privileges.
• 2:27
  Let's share it. Let's share the privilege.
• 2:29
  Let's share the privilege. Good idea.
• 2:31
  OK, great. Well first I wanted to start off
• 2:34
  as you know the Roman Catholic religion and Judaism, although
• 2:38
  in many aspects are are complete opposite sides of the spectrum.
• 2:41
  There is a lot of there is some overlap.
• 2:43
  There is some overlap and for example, we believe in an
• 2:48
  almighty God. We share a lot of ethical moral
• 2:51
  foundations, judeo-christian ethics as they're referred to in
• 2:55
  common nomenclature. We believe in being humble,
• 2:57
  merciful and makers of peace. So that there is there is
• 3:00
  overlap. In your experience, what's
• 3:04
  what's the best way to give that over to the new generation
• 3:09
  because be it Jews are Christians.
• 3:11
  We know we definitely want the younger generation and the
• 3:14
  generations to come to be completely imbued with these
• 3:17
  positive moral ethics. So what is the Roman Catholic
• 3:21
  view of how? What's the best way to to give
• 3:23
  that over in your own personal view?
• 3:26
  Well, I'd probably give you my own personal view.
• 3:28
  I mean, in a sense I could speak for the church, but it didn't
• 3:30
  have the sense I can only speak for myself.
• 3:32
  But look, I think in many ways the best way to communicate it
• 3:37
  is by a common witness, you know, doing things together.
• 3:40
  But I think at the very basically, well, it's about
• 3:43
  creating positive relationships at the local level between not
• 3:48
  just Catholics, Christians and, and Jews and also amongst our
• 3:52
  leaders. I think one of the things that
• 3:54
  really carried us forward, at least from my perspective as a
• 3:57
  Catholic, is the, is the positive way in which some of
• 4:02
  our recent popes, for example, have helped the rest of us as
• 4:05
  Catholics to understand the role that Judaism plays in our own
• 4:09
  heritage, in our own tradition. So and I think too that building
• 4:14
  personal relationships is always a good place to start and, and
• 4:19
  we've been fortunate and I've been fortunate here in Perth to
• 4:21
  be able to do that. Does the Roman Catholic Church
• 4:25
  have have their own doctrine and how they pass on those ethics?
• 4:31
  Well, we certainly have a moral tradition, yes.
• 4:34
  And, and as you said, some of the values that you just
• 4:37
  mentioned are absolutely at the heart of, of what we believe in.
• 4:41
  And we have a long tradition in the Catholic Church of a very,
• 4:47
  what would I say, well developed ethical foundation for, for what
• 4:51
  we believe. It's really based on the
• 4:55
  fundamental idea that that really comes out of the book of
• 4:58
  Genesis, that every human being is created in the image and
• 5:02
  likeness of God. And therefore for that very
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  reason deserves great respect and to be treated with, with
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  dignity and respect. So that would be the basis of
• 5:14
  our ethical understanding. And every, probably everything
• 5:17
  else flows from that. In the end, how successful we
• 5:20
  are in communicating that is another question.
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  But it's very strong in our tradition and it, it helps to
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  inform all of the ethical positions that we have really in
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  relation to, to everything, all of the bioethics, the life
• 5:34
  issues, but also, you know, things like the T, you know,
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  homelessness and all of these kinds of issues.
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  It's all about recognizing that we have a common dignity
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  precisely because we have the one Father in heaven.
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  So that would be the basis of our ethical approach, I think.
• 5:54
  Yeah, so so Maimonides and his philosophical work The Guide to
• 5:58
  the Perplex. So he describes that verse in
• 6:01
  Genesis of us having the image of God as is the gift of
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  intellect, meaning we can see it as US versus animals.
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  We are, we are souls and bodies that can process in a very high
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  level and indeed that every single human being has that
• 6:16
  image of God within them. And of course, as you exactly
• 6:18
  said, Archbishop Costello deserves that respect.
• 6:20
  But I'll give you just an example from the Jewish
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  tradition there. It's splinters.
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  So for example, I'm, I'm more part of what we call the Litvock
• 6:27
  or Lithuanian strand of Judaism. So the way that that we teach
• 6:31
  ethics and ethosis is generally, I wouldn't say confined.
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  Confined is such a dirty word to describe this.
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  It's, it's, it's more restricted to textual, textual, textual
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  discussion and, and study. That doesn't mean that we don't,
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  that we don't look to our leaders in the real world for an
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  example. We do, but there's a tremendous
• 6:52
  amount of focus of understanding each particular ethic and, and
• 6:57
  how God reflects from it and its extension to it.
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  And we, we, we pass it on to our students and children and that
• 7:03
  same way. So we'll give, we'll give our,
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  you know, we'll give sermons on the importance of what it means
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  to be humble, how God is humble, etcetera.
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  However, the Hasidic sect of, of Judaism will generally do it in
• 7:15
  a, in a different fashion, not always, but they'll be far more
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  reliant on stories on, on example and highlighting that
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  like really strongly. And I think both Hasidic Jews
• 7:27
  and and Lithuanian Jews will will argue that their side is
• 7:30
  doing it somewhat better. How, how, how do you do it?
• 7:33
  Do you think that or, or is it, or maybe it's, it's specific to
• 7:36
  Archbishop Costello. Maybe you have a particular
• 7:38
  style. I'm sure you do, but what's the
• 7:39
  Roman Catholic style? Is it more Lithuanian Judaism?
• 7:43
  Is it? Is it something else entirely?
• 7:46
  How is it done? Look, listening to it, you
• 7:49
  describe that Rabbi Dorfman, I'd say this is a classic Catholic
• 7:54
  answer, if I can put it that way.
• 7:56
  I would say it's probably a question of a both end.
• 7:59
  We probably do both. You know, we, we have a strong
• 8:03
  intellectual tradition which is based fundamentally, of course,
• 8:07
  on, on the Scriptures, but then on a, a long phrase, we've been,
• 8:13
  you know, developing these over the last 2000 years of
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  Christianity, A strongly ethical tradition, which is based on
• 8:20
  often philosophical reflection. There's a lot of philosophical
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  reflection goes into the Catholic perspective and that's
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  at the kind of more, I would suggest more intellectual level,
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  but intrigued in communicating these things to our children and
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  now to our young people. We would also be very inclined
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  to tell stories as as concrete examples of what this living and
• 8:45
  ethical way of life looks like in practice.
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  You know, we have a strong, strong Catholic tradition, which
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  is probably more typical of us than some other strands of
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  Christianity of focusing on on the great heroes, if you like,
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  of our faith, the Saints. And usually we, we tell our
• 9:02
  children or help our children and young people through the
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  telling of the stories of these great figures of our tradition
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  who were kind of living examples of what living ethically might
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  actually look like. So I think it's probably, as I
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  say, a bit of both. I'm a, I'm quite drawn
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  particularly dealing with young people to use the story
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  approach. I think it helps them to grasp
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  something that philosophically might be a bit beyond them, but
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  the concrete reality can help them.
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  But I'm also trained theologian and I've taught theology for
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  quite a few years, so I also have that dimension to me as
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  well. Yeah.
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  So. What does the does the Roman
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  Catholic congregation, do they have access to that sort of
• 9:46
  philosophical study for views? It's standard.
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  Like there's intense study that's part of your curriculum
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  as you grow up and and almost every Orthodox you has access
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  to. Does the Roman Catholics have
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  that as well? In theory they would have access
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  to it, but whether they make use of that access is another
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  question. Most of our people, I would say
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  the vast majority of our people once don't leave school because
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  we have a very strong tradition, at least in Australia where I
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  am, we have a very strong tradition of Catholic education.
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  So I think a lot of our parents would rely on our Catholic
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  schools to communicate these dimensions of our faith.
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  And that's a wonderful thing. The negative side of it or the
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  other side of it is that sometimes it means that when
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  they leave school, that's the end of their, you know, the end
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  of their ongoing development, if you like, in their
• 10:36
  understanding. So sometimes we find adults who
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  are really operating out of a still a childlike or adolescent
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  like understanding of their faith.
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  So they don't keep up the the the journey of depth in it.
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  So that is the big challenge for us.
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  Yeah. So.
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  Does it does it have philosophical rigor meaning when
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  they're when they're doing their studies as as teenagers, is
• 10:58
  there, is there, you know, meat and teeth to it or is it more
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  general? It would vary, I think, from
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  from place to place and from school to school for that
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  matter. I'd have to be honest and say
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  probably doesn't have the the intellectual rigor that I would
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  like to see. But that's also a reflection of
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  our society, I suspect. You know, I think we're living
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  in an increasingly superficial society.
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  I hope that doesn't sound too judgmental.
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  But, you know, I don't think a lot of our people, our young
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  people as they're growing up are open to that kind of of in depth
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  study or reflection on their faith.
• 11:38
  Yes. Well, you know, we have that
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  challenge too, but we, we do try to keep up the rigor as as much
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  as we can. You say that you'd like to see
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  more rigor in the Roman Catholic Church for, for younger people.
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  Do you think that that's possible?
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  Because the danger that you're talking about of the newer
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  generation being less inclined to take a seat and focus is
• 12:03
  something everyone is experiencing.
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  And, and in my humble opinion, it's, it's the most dangerous
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  thing because, because, because what you're doing is you're
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  preventing deep thought. And when you're preventing deep
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  thought, then then you're, you're a surface level person.
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  The godliness inside of you is you're preventing it from coming
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  out or to be active. So it looks like you agree with
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  me, but does does this scare you?
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  And what do you think is the best way to combat it?
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  I don't know that it scares me. It certainly presents itself to
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  me as a major challenge for us and I do worry that that our
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  young people as they grow older, if they haven't depth their
• 12:41
  understanding of these things, they don't have the tools then
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  to deal with many of the challenges that they will face
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  as, as you know, their life unfolds.
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  So it is an urgent thing for us and we do do a lot of reflection
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  on it. I know that the bishops of
• 12:55
  Australia, when we get together, the whole question of the
• 12:58
  quality of our Catholic education and the capacity of
• 13:02
  our our schools to sort of lead our students into a deeper
• 13:09
  appreciation of the Catholic tradition, that's a big concern
• 13:12
  for US. One of the things that is I
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  think different, say, at least again here in Australia where I
• 13:17
  am, between our Catholic schools and so the Jewish schools, is
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  that I think Jewish schools are largely just for the Jewish
• 13:26
  families and the Jewish children.
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  Catholic schools are, yeah, Catholic schools are very
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  commonly schools of choice for people who aren't Catholic.
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  I don't want to sound like I'm boasting, but because of the
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  quality of the education that they get, the quality of the
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  environment that we create. So we have a lot of a lot of
• 13:46
  students in our schools and families who either are Catholic
• 13:50
  but don't. That doesn't mean a great deal
• 13:52
  to them in a day-to-day sense or belong to other Christian
• 13:56
  traditions and sometimes to to other traditions as well.
• 14:00
  So it becomes a bit of a challenge then to know well, how
• 14:04
  can we present this in depth when the foundations aren't even
• 14:09
  there in say the family life of of many of us friends.
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  So it's a big challenge, there's no doubt about it.
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  But we do, we are, we do invest a lot.
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  When I say invest, I don't think just in in resources and money.
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  We invest a lot of our time and our commitment to Catholic
• 14:26
  schools, but we live in a very secular society here in
• 14:31
  Australia. And you know, the battle, if you
• 14:34
  like, between the values of our Christian faith and the values
• 14:40
  of the society which we live are are sort of going to different
• 14:44
  directions. And that's a big challenge.
• 14:47
  Do you think that the we can even speak about just Australia,
• 14:50
  the church in Australia? Do you think the Church in
• 14:51
  Israel is being successful in preparing the the next
• 14:54
  generation for the challenges to come in your in your opinion?
• 14:59
  That's, that's a very good question.
• 15:01
  We're certainly trying. Look at, it's one of the things
• 15:07
  about the, the Catholic faith, as I've experienced growing up
• 15:11
  as a Catholic here in Australia and now in the role that I have,
• 15:15
  is that there are all sorts of levels of belonging.
• 15:18
  You know, there are people, I guess like me, who are fully
• 15:21
  committed to it. You'd hope so, wouldn't you, as
• 15:23
  a Bishop, but fully committed to it.
• 15:25
  That really means a lot to me. And there are lots and lots
• 15:28
  about Catholic people who are like that.
• 15:30
  There are big, big number of others for whom the faith is
• 15:33
  important, but it doesn't quite speak to them quite the same way
• 15:39
  or seem to claim their attention in quite the same way.
• 15:43
  Then there's another whole layer of people that are sort of
• 15:47
  there, but only just kind of hanging on if you like.
• 15:52
  And then there are other people who've walked away because of
• 15:54
  all of the challenges, challenges that we've had.
• 15:57
  So it's difficult. I think for the committed
• 15:59
  families and the committed young people, we've got plenty of them
• 16:02
  and seems to be a growing number.
• 16:04
  The future is looking quite positive.
• 16:07
  There is a challenge in it, though, because a lot of our
• 16:09
  younger people, they're picking up their religious ideas as much
• 16:15
  from social media as they are from the official church, if I
• 16:21
  could put it that way. And you know, that can present
• 16:25
  some challenges too, because the visions of what the Catholic
• 16:29
  thing is all about that I might have as as the local leader here
• 16:33
  and the vision that some of these people on YouTube and and
• 16:37
  all of these sorts of things can be very different.
• 16:39
  And so they're try to work out how we help young people to see
• 16:44
  through all of that to the things that really matter.
• 16:46
  That's also a challenge for us, and I would.
• 16:51
  But so if. I was just going to say, I would
• 16:53
  imagine also for for many of the Jewish families here in
• 16:57
  Australia or Israel trying to raise their their children in
• 17:00
  their tradition, but grappling with the society that's not
• 17:03
  always particularly of course. Yeah, yeah, of course.
• 17:07
  Definitely, definitely. Well, I mean, it does sound like
• 17:09
  a success if your numbers are growing, meaning if the Roman
• 17:12
  Catholic Church is growing, that sounds like a resurgence means
• 17:14
  that there's success, right? Yes, yeah, we're very, we're
• 17:18
  very fortunate. The Catholic Churches, as you
• 17:20
  probably know, is, is a universal reality and Australia
• 17:24
  is a very multicultural society. And so why is that not
• 17:28
  particularly true for us, less so for some of the other
• 17:32
  Christian traditions? Our, our congregations are
• 17:35
  made-up of people from all around the world.
• 17:37
  I was in our cathedral this morning and, you know, there are
• 17:42
  so many people from all around the world who are just regular
• 17:45
  people who come to the church. So we're growing partly through
• 17:49
  migration and partly through the the influx of people, Catholics
• 17:53
  from other countries, particularly from Asia and the
• 17:56
  Pacific. So we we continue to be quite
• 18:00
  strong. The Catholic population of
• 18:03
  Australia is about 20%. So we're certainly the biggest
• 18:07
  religious grouping in Australia. But the bigger group is the non
• 18:11
  believers. They're far more what they call
• 18:14
  the nuns. No, no religion at all.
• 18:16
  There's lots of them more than they're a Catholic.
• 18:18
  Sorry, yes, yeah. OK, but but you'd say that
• 18:21
  that's a that's a side issue or, or or a side result, meaning the
• 18:24
  the Roman Catholic structure is not just going because of
• 18:27
  immigration. You you also think that you're
• 18:28
  being successful in giving over pedagogically to the next
• 18:31
  generation, right, right. So So what what if I may ask as
• 18:36
  look, one of the reasons why I was so excited to speak to you,
• 18:39
  Archbishop Costello, is that you know, and and tell me the
• 18:43
  tradition. We have a tenant which is a wise
• 18:46
  man learns from all and I'm not a wise man, but I'm trying to be
• 18:51
  1 and so I'm excited to learn from a sage shows as yourself
• 18:55
  someone who has his God has been his interest and that his his
• 19:00
  his life life mission. So you told me that you've been
• 19:03
  successful giving over something to the next generation with all
• 19:06
  of these distractions and as you said, social media and instant
• 19:09
  gratification and hedonism. What is your secret, Archbishop
• 19:13
  Costello? How are you being successful in
• 19:15
  making those numbers grow outside of just the influx of,
• 19:18
  you know, immigrants? Yeah, yeah.
• 19:21
  Well, it is partly our schools, it's partly the commitment
• 19:25
  allowed. You know, we we're divided as a
• 19:27
  church into local groupings like that we call parishes.
• 19:32
  We have some very fine priests who are very committed and very
• 19:35
  good communicators with with people generally and
• 19:38
  particularly with young people. We work hard in Australia.
• 19:42
  We have a big, we call it every, it's every two or three years, I
• 19:45
  think the Australian Catholic Youth Festival, which is just
• 19:48
  two or three days together. We gather probably 4 or 5 or
• 19:52
  6000 young people from around the country in a particular part
• 19:55
  of the country for three or four days of, of, you know,
• 19:59
  combination of prayer formation, lots of fun, all of that.
• 20:06
  So we do a lot of those things and try to.
• 20:09
  Try to speak to young people at their level, but also to invite
• 20:14
  them to come a little bit deeper.
• 20:16
  So I think these things are all bearing fruit.
• 20:18
  Look, there are, you know, if there are only 20% of, if there
• 20:23
  are 20% of the population that are Catholic, there's certainly
• 20:26
  not 20% of the of the population that goes to Catholic churches
• 20:29
  every weekend. But of the families that are
• 20:32
  committed, I think we are doing relatively well in communicating
• 20:36
  the faith. In the end, we have a thing in
• 20:38
  the, in our set up in our tradition, it's a little saying
• 20:41
  where we say the faith is caught, not taught.
• 20:45
  And so it's, you know, we, we, we try and focus on not always
• 20:51
  successfully, but focus on the integrity of our lives and the,
• 20:54
  the, the harmony between what we preach and teach and what we do.
• 21:00
  And I think I honestly believe this, that as our society starts
• 21:05
  to kind of unravel around the edges, then the, the, the
• 21:09
  weakness of people of integrity and faith suddenly becomes more
• 21:14
  attractive because as everything else is falling apart, they're
• 21:17
  looking for something that they can ground their life in.
• 21:19
  I think that's called young people in particular.
• 21:22
  So I'm a big believer in constantly reminding myself and,
• 21:26
  and anybody else will listen to me that, you know, we have to,
• 21:30
  we have to be people of integrity.
• 21:32
  You can't just say lovely things.
• 21:35
  We've got to live according to those lovely things.
• 21:37
  Yeah, I mean, we all know that. But it's it's good to be
• 21:40
  reminded of it, I think. Yeah, but I mean, I, I, it is
• 21:44
  true. But what you're saying, I think
• 21:46
  brings the, the, you know, profundity of the fact that
• 21:51
  we're not in the 1700s where, where and look, in my humble
• 21:56
  opinion, life now is unraveling, as you say, at the edges.
• 22:00
  There's so much confusion, especially for young people.
• 22:03
  I mean, the amount of genders, which I don't know how one could
• 22:07
  be so confused about such a topic, but it's, it's, it's like
• 22:12
  everything that was simple is no longer simple.
• 22:14
  So yeah, I, I, I, I, I do think there's a profundity in what
• 22:17
  you're saying. Is that what I, I can imagine I
• 22:20
  didn't live through this, you know, I, you know, I grew up not
• 22:23
  in none of the two, you know, the 2000s, but I could, I mean,
• 22:26
  being a 10 year old and not knowing if I'm a boy or girl or
• 22:29
  can I, what color hair can I have or should I be put in all
• 22:32
  these different things? And I'm just looking for an
• 22:34
  anchor, and I just want to feel safe, right?
• 22:37
  And so I think that's exactly what you're saying.
• 22:39
  And that's very powerful. So I'm going to mine out two
• 22:40
  things of what you said, just so I say it back for myself, which
• 22:43
  is #1 which is speaking to the next generation, where they're
• 22:47
  at. So they, no matter their level
• 22:50
  of religiosity or their their complexity or their advancement
• 22:55
  of intellect, speak to them where they are, be involved with
• 22:57
  them, be warm with them. So that's one big power thing
• 23:00
  that you're talking about. And another thing is, is
• 23:02
  practice what you preach, right, as being being the thing, being
• 23:07
  the thing that that you're talking about, because a lot of
• 23:09
  what we're preaching are, is amazing things.
• 23:12
  And so when we practice that, when people are lost, they look
• 23:15
  and they say, wow, that's it, right?
• 23:17
  Yeah, Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what what I I
• 23:20
  think I'm trying to say. And I, I think yeah, yeah, it's
• 23:24
  interesting. I, I, I think, you know, I, I, I
• 23:27
  regard the retired chief rabbi here in Perth is a good friend
• 23:32
  of mine, Rabbi David Frelich. And he and I often talk about
• 23:36
  these kinds of things. And we often say that certainly
• 23:40
  Catholicism and Orthodox Judaism are probably the two closest
• 23:47
  faith traditions in Australia. And the way the way that David
• 23:52
  would say it is because we remain faithful to who we are
• 23:55
  and what we believe. And it's that fidelity to who we
• 23:58
  are and what we believe that in the end is attractive to people.
• 24:03
  That's what people are looking for.
• 24:05
  Excellent. Excellent point.
• 24:06
  Exactly, exactly. In your in your opinion, what is
• 24:09
  the biggest evil that you're seeing out in the world today?
• 24:12
  Oh. Gosh, I mean, evil's a big word,
• 24:21
  I'm inclined to say. I think the is it evil?
• 24:26
  I'm not sure, but I think the superficiality which seems to
• 24:32
  dominate so many people's lives. So that inability to go any
• 24:36
  deeper and to think about the deeper things.
• 24:39
  I don't know if it's evil, but I think it's a major, major
• 24:42
  concern for us, you know, because as I, as I said before,
• 24:48
  I, I look around Perth where I'm living and we see dreadful
• 24:52
  things happening in the streets and home invasions and homeless
• 24:56
  people being bashed and all sorts of dreadful things.
• 24:59
  And I just think to myself, we're losing any kind of moral
• 25:03
  compass. So I think that's, that's a big
• 25:06
  issue, whether I suppose it's a manifestation of evil in one
• 25:10
  sense. I think, you know, the, the, the
• 25:19
  growing disrespect for life, I think life is becoming a, it's
• 25:24
  one value among a whole lot of others.
• 25:26
  Whereas for me, I mean, it's the thing upon which everything else
• 25:29
  rests. What it's no good talking about
• 25:31
  any other rights that we might have if we don't base it in, in
• 25:35
  the fundamental right that we have to live a life of, of
• 25:39
  dignity and of worth and those sorts of things.
• 25:42
  So, you know, I, I think there's a big, big threat to that.
• 25:45
  And I think that is also a reflection of the superficiality
• 25:48
  of our society that it's losing touch with, with the fundamental
• 25:53
  values. And then of course, there are
• 25:56
  the dreadful things that you and I are so aware of.
• 25:59
  You're living in the midst of a a terrible war over there, a
• 26:03
  terrible crisis of violence. We're not here in Australia, but
• 26:09
  we watch it with horror. And we've had our own horror, of
• 26:12
  course, as you know, with the Rwandan massacre towards the end
• 26:16
  of last year. So that's a manifestation of
• 26:20
  evil and, and certainly this inability to to respect others
• 26:27
  and to even even others who are different and see the world very
• 26:30
  differently from us, the inability to respect that.
• 26:35
  I think it's is really important.
• 26:38
  If I could just reference Rabbi David again.
• 26:41
  I remember him saying to me once we were talking about these
• 26:43
  things and we're talking, we often say in Australia that
• 26:47
  Australia is supposed to be a very tolerant society.
• 26:51
  We're very multicultural society and relatively successful at
• 26:54
  that. But David would say being
• 26:58
  tolerant is not enough. Tolerance is sort of the, the,
• 27:01
  the base of what we really need is respect.
• 27:05
  Tolerance means you put up with others.
• 27:07
  Respect is where you recognise their value and and acknowledge
• 27:10
  it. So again, it's he's a wise man
• 27:13
  and I've learned a lot from him, but I think that's important.
• 27:17
  Yeah. But we can split that down, I
• 27:18
  think into into two, into two different reasons for that sort
• 27:22
  of lack of human respect. One of them is indeed what you
• 27:25
  said, a lack of an intellectual understanding, a superficial
• 27:29
  living, which therefore makes us not realize that the other
• 27:33
  person even exists. Someone reminiscent of a
• 27:35
  three-year old perhaps slapping another 3 year old because he
• 27:37
  has his candy, right. He's not thinking about the
• 27:39
  other three-year old. It really is.
• 27:41
  It really is that. But I think there's, there's
• 27:43
  this other aspect which is dogmatic hatred, which which I I
• 27:48
  respect 1% actually, and I'll explain why it's a strange thing
• 27:51
  for me to say, but I'll, I'll explain.
• 27:53
  You know, I think that there is a hatred for it is even even
• 27:58
  within the West itself, but I think there is a extreme
• 28:03
  religious element. And I'm not going to say Islam
• 28:07
  because there are I'm sure many wonderful Islamic people that
• 28:12
  that believe in peace, but there are definitely extreme elements.
• 28:15
  But that I don't think it's a lack of intellect.
• 28:18
  I think it's just a dogmatic hatred.
• 28:21
  And I'll just bring as an example, you know, on, on, on
• 28:23
  our channel, we've had some shorts where we're, we're hoping
• 28:27
  that the war goes well and that Iran can find peace, you know,
• 28:30
  etcetera. And that's really what we want.
• 28:32
  We want to take out these horrible extreme elements.
• 28:34
  And every single Iranian that I have met in person be a Jewish
• 28:38
  or not Jewish, they all say the same thing to me, which is the
• 28:41
  regime is horrible. They're afraid to speak, they
• 28:43
  escape that. They're worried about their
• 28:45
  sisters and brothers and their parents.
• 28:47
  I mean, it sounds like, I mean absolute, you know, horror.
• 28:50
  But yet, and almost every comment that we've gotten from
• 28:53
  the content that we've put out, showing solidarity with with the
• 28:56
  civilians there that hopefully the world will go out usually
• 28:59
  met with, you know, terrible anti-Semitism or anti, you know,
• 29:02
  American war stuff. And so I I think that that's
• 29:05
  dogmatic. I'm not just think it's a it's a
• 29:07
  lack of intellect. Now the reason why I respect it
• 29:11
  is back to what I was saying before, how you can learn
• 29:13
  something from everyone and everyone means everyone.
• 29:16
  So I I respect in a way the the the evil of Hamas.
• 29:22
  I hate them, but I respect one thing, which is, is that they
• 29:25
  will fight in the tunnels and they'll die for something they
• 29:28
  believe in. They will give everything just
• 29:31
  to cause pain because they think it's the right thing to do.
• 29:34
  If we could take just that one thing of, of being able to die
• 29:38
  for what we believe in, I mean really, really take it to heart
• 29:40
  and instead use that for love or acceptance or bring people
• 29:44
  closer to God, that would be a positive lesson.
• 29:47
  So I, I do think that there is, there's definitely a lack of
• 29:51
  human respect, but I, I just wonder, maybe it's dogmatic and
• 29:54
  not, not just the lack of, of intellectualizing and, and that
• 29:59
  is far harder to, to combat, right.
• 30:01
  Again, you're on the front lines.
• 30:02
  I'm on the front lines of intellectually trying to bring
• 30:05
  people up and have them think more.
• 30:07
  But when you're talking about dogma, it's very hard.
• 30:10
  It's very hard to to deal with dogmas.
• 30:14
  Look, it's an interesting reflection.
• 30:15
  I, I agree with you when you speak about that, that
• 30:21
  passionate commitment to what you believe in, even to the
• 30:24
  point of being willing to die for it.
• 30:27
  I mean, as a principle, it's not the only principle, but as a
• 30:32
  principle, that's a very admirable thing.
• 30:35
  But I think as, as you're saying that it occurs to me that this
• 30:38
  is where perhaps the word dogma is the right word.
• 30:41
  But this is where it's not just my passionate commitment to what
• 30:45
  I believe. It's also what I believe.
• 30:48
  Because if my passionate commitment to hatred for another
• 30:52
  race or my passionate commitment to, you know, any, any group to
• 30:59
  the, to the destruction of any group, then it matters what you
• 31:04
  believe. And you can't admire.
• 31:06
  I don't think you could admire a passionate commitment to a
• 31:10
  desire to wipe somebody else off the face of the earth, right?
• 31:12
  So of course, this is where I think what we believe is really
• 31:18
  important. And that doesn't mean, you know,
• 31:23
  as you said, as we started chatting together, Catholics,
• 31:29
  Christians and Jews are at opposite ends of the poll.
• 31:32
  In some respects, I don't think quite so much.
• 31:34
  But certainly some very basic things, we see things very
• 31:38
  differently. But even beyond those things or
• 31:42
  underneath those things, there's a foundation that I would say is
• 31:48
  just human. It's just good about human
• 31:51
  values. And I think any, any religion
• 31:55
  can be no, not any religion. The, the, the people who
• 32:00
  practice a religion can be, if you like, evaluated on the basis
• 32:05
  of whether or not the values to which they're committing
• 32:07
  themselves are basically stands for human values.
• 32:11
  Goes back to the question of the philosophy of that underpins
• 32:15
  religion in a way. And that takes me always back to
• 32:19
  that judeo-christian foundation in the, in the book of Genesis.
• 32:23
  I think it really matters what you believe.
• 32:26
  And although, for example, we believe something about Jesus,
• 32:31
  the Jewish tradition wouldn't believe, and that's pretty basic
• 32:35
  to our two faiths. But there's in a sense there's
• 32:37
  something even more basic underneath that.
• 32:40
  And that is our commitment, that even the people who don't
• 32:43
  believe what we believe about that are still human beings
• 32:47
  created in the image and likeness of God and worthy of
• 32:50
  respect and honour, even though they see things very differently
• 32:54
  to us. If you don't have that basis
• 32:56
  belief then then we're in a lot of trouble, as indeed we are.
• 33:01
  Right, absolutely. On that point, there's a lot of
• 33:05
  curiosity questions that I had on Christianity and maybe you
• 33:10
  can you can clear some of those up for me so I can better
• 33:13
  understand your principles and faith.
• 33:15
  OK, so so I would say that to to someone who is not a Christian
• 33:20
  and has gone through large parts of the New Testament.
• 33:25
  There are definitely, especially in the earlier books of the New
• 33:28
  Testament of there's there's an importance of of love, humility,
• 33:33
  understanding, sensitivity to the poor, etcetera.
• 33:38
  With those things. I wanted to know what your
• 33:41
  response is or what do you think the Roman Catholic view is on
• 33:45
  holy wars like the Crusades, which saw the Rhineland and, and
• 33:49
  shepherd massacres of 1251? Like, how can we explain a lot
• 33:53
  of Christian fervor, which again, if you look at the
• 33:56
  earlier texts are, are very positive, are very accepting,
• 34:00
  etcetera, etcetera. And yet we see a lot of, you
• 34:04
  know, death and destruction. What, what's your response to
• 34:07
  that? And I say this with respect, you
• 34:08
  know, I, I, I'm just very curious.
• 34:12
  Look, I suppose the the first thing I would say is that as we
• 34:15
  look back over the history of Christianity, there's a lot to
• 34:20
  be regretted and even much more strongly, a lot to be ashamed
• 34:24
  of. I don't think any religion can
• 34:30
  always claim that its followers have always lived according to
• 34:34
  these very beautiful things as you, you're saying that we find
• 34:37
  in the New Testament. We look back now and think how
• 34:41
  could they have understood that that was in harmony with things
• 34:46
  that Jesus of Nazareth talked about as we've got them recorded
• 34:50
  in the Gospels. None of that seems to be in
• 34:52
  harmony with what he taught. I, I think all we have to do,
• 34:57
  not what we have to do, what we have to do is to recognise that
• 35:00
  and to try and understand how that happened and why that
• 35:03
  happened so as to learn to make sure that it doesn't happen
• 35:07
  again. It's not just going back to the
• 35:10
  Middle Ages and sort of the sage.
• 35:11
  You look at the, what they call the Troubles in Northern Ireland
• 35:15
  not so many years ago when Catholics and Protestants were
• 35:18
  at each other's throats, quite literally tearing each other
• 35:21
  apart, all supposedly in the name of religion.
• 35:27
  And, you know, people like you and I couldn't look at that and
• 35:29
  think, well, how anybody can believe that that was a true
• 35:33
  manifestation of what the faith is all about.
• 35:37
  It's beyond us. You know, I think it it's true
• 35:40
  that sometimes religion becomes a, a tool for something else.
• 35:48
  And that's possibly one of the the problems with some of the
• 35:52
  adherence of radical Islam these days, that they're using a
• 35:56
  religion which claims to be a religion of peace for the very
• 35:59
  opposite of that. But that's not just the modern
• 36:02
  day radical Islam. That's been the case for
• 36:05
  Catholicism in the past and from many other religions as well.
• 36:09
  So it goes back to what I said before.
• 36:12
  This sounds almost like a, a pious platitude, but in the end,
• 36:17
  you have to constantly be striving to recognise the
• 36:22
  fundamental values of your faith and working out what that looks
• 36:26
  like in practice and, and being prepared to admit when when we
• 36:30
  get that wrong. You know, I mean, even at the
• 36:34
  time of the Reformation in the Christian tradition in the 16th
• 36:37
  century, when so many Christians broke away from the Catholic
• 36:40
  Church, you know, there was the 100 years war when people from
• 36:44
  different branches of Christianity were killing each
• 36:46
  other. You could never, never justify
• 36:51
  that in the name of, of the teachings of Jesus.
• 36:54
  I don't. Think, well, you know, I, I'd
• 36:56
  understand that mistake from common folk, but what about
• 37:03
  people? What about bishops or, you know,
• 37:06
  popes that lived during that, you know, that time that didn't
• 37:09
  really renounce those, those sort of actions that were being
• 37:12
  done against Jews. Yeah.
• 37:14
  Absolutely. Well, there's a complex
• 37:18
  question, but I, I think when religion and if you like
• 37:26
  political power begin to get too intertwined, then one or other
• 37:32
  is going to domino. And we know that in the middle
• 37:34
  agent, you know, in the Catholic Church, the paper thing was a
• 37:40
  very powerful political reality that brought some good things,
• 37:47
  but it also brought some very bad things.
• 37:50
  I think certainly, speaking as a Catholic, the church is much
• 37:55
  better off when it's not. I could give this expression in
• 38:00
  in the pockets of a political movement.
• 38:04
  You know, it's not our job to be political.
• 38:07
  It's our job to be witnesses to what we believe.
• 38:12
  So, yeah, I think one, in a strange way, one of the best
• 38:15
  things that happened to the Catholic Church in, you know,
• 38:18
  the last couple of centuries was when Italy was unified and the
• 38:23
  paper states were all dissolved. And you know what, the Pope used
• 38:27
  to control part of Italy and a lot of other places as well.
• 38:30
  Now he controls a couple of ages.
• 38:33
  We're much better off that when we don't have that political
• 38:37
  power, so. So would it be fair to say then,
• 38:44
  and I don't know if how it's viewed in the in the Catholic
• 38:48
  Church, but would you say that that because of that the popes
• 38:51
  of more recent couple 100 years were therefore more informed or
• 38:56
  perhaps even holier is that is that fair to say?
• 38:58
  Oh well. I'm not sure that I'm a good
• 39:03
  judge involved with this, but I think that tradition is, you
• 39:06
  know, we, we, we have what we call the capitalization of
• 39:11
  things. So John the 23rd, Paul the 6th,
• 39:18
  so John the 23rd, then his successor Paul the 6th, then his
• 39:23
  extension, John Paul the first, who only lasted for a month, and
• 39:28
  then John Paul the second have all been canonized.
• 39:32
  In other words, the church has recognized them as very involved
• 39:35
  men. There have been a lot of popes
• 39:37
  in the history of the church that certainly weren't working
• 39:39
  to be canonized. So we're the Catholics.
• 39:42
  We've lived in a very privileged and us still living in a very
• 39:45
  privileged time when we have remarkable.
• 39:49
  And I think you're right. I think the fact that we don't
• 39:51
  have that political power, which ways that we can focus on the
• 39:56
  spiritual authority that hopefully we have, is a much
• 39:59
  better place for the church to be enough.
• 40:03
  Interesting if if there was a particular time that you would
• 40:09
  would like to go back and be able to make your voice known to
• 40:15
  the the Christian Church, what time would that be and, and why?
• 40:19
  Oh gosh. Actually, look, I, I can't think
• 40:25
  of a particular time that I would think of as the golden
• 40:28
  age. For example, the Christianity.
• 40:32
  I could think of times when we were at a very low end and maybe
• 40:36
  they'd be the times when you might have needed someone, but I
• 40:39
  don't think I would have been the person, but you might have
• 40:41
  needed someone, you know, You know, one of the great heroes of
• 40:48
  the Catholic tradition, which many people know about in
• 40:51
  Francis of Assisi, who was changed in the Middle Ages and
• 40:55
  the previous Pope name was named after him.
• 40:59
  That was a period in the church's life where the church
• 41:02
  at the institutional level was very caught up in wealth and
• 41:06
  power and pomp and all of those sorts of things.
• 41:09
  And he introduced a movement into the church which was the
• 41:12
  very opposite of that. So sometimes, you know, when the
• 41:16
  church is going through a particularly bad negative time,
• 41:21
  someone seems to arise and calls us back and that would certainly
• 41:25
  attack. So I would have wouldn't have
• 41:27
  minded being around in the time with Francis in the city.
• 41:29
  I probably would have become one of his followers.
• 41:31
  So. But yeah, I think.
• 41:34
  Excellent answer. Yeah, yeah.
• 41:37
  OK, beautiful. Do you think with with that new
• 41:42
  sort of age of divorcing the power from the church that the,
• 41:47
  the church is more well, it definitely is.
• 41:51
  I think the fact that we're having this conversation is, is
• 41:54
  already proof of that. You know, the proof is in the
• 41:56
  pudding practicing what you're preaching.
• 41:58
  But do you think that for the the younger people or the less
• 42:02
  initiated, there is more respect for for Jews now that there was
• 42:07
  maybe even 200 years ago? I'd say there's certainly more
• 42:11
  respect now than there was 200 years ago.
• 42:15
  I'd say that, well, look, let me put it this way, I think at the,
• 42:20
  at the institutional level and at the official level in terms
• 42:23
  of, say, Jewish Catholic relations, things are much more
• 42:27
  positive now than they were even 60 or 70 years ago.
• 42:33
  I think, you know, there's the official church and I'm a part
• 42:37
  of it and I love it and I'm very happy to be a part of it.
• 42:40
  But there's also just the, the reality of the church, which is
• 42:43
  the people that belong to the church.
• 42:45
  And I'm not sure that, you know, at that level, certainly in
• 42:51
  Australia there was antagonism or hatred or disrespect to a
• 42:58
  great degree between Jews and British Jews.
• 43:01
  I don't think so. But I'm, I'm not that old, so I
• 43:04
  can't look that too far. But yeah, yeah, I'll go back to
• 43:09
  something I said a little bit earlier.
• 43:10
  I think it's all about creating common human relationships with
• 43:18
  people and you know, Catholics and Jews certainly here in
• 43:21
  Australia we live side by side in our various cities and
• 43:24
  suburbs and all the rest of it. And you know, unfortunately the
• 43:27
  anti-Semitism has begun to emerge a bit more strongly in
• 43:31
  Australia, but at the grassroots level.
• 43:35
  And the reaction I think to the Bondi tragedy shows is that the
• 43:38
  grassroots level, Australians generally don't have time for
• 43:42
  this kind of thing. It doesn't factor into their
• 43:45
  understanding of how you get on with your life and get on with
• 43:47
  your neighbors. Australia's, perhaps it's not
• 43:51
  unique, but Australia has a an approach which tends to make
• 43:55
  religion a very private thing. You get on with your religion
• 43:58
  and I'll get on with my religion, but we won't interfere
• 44:01
  with each other's religion. I'm happy for you to be your
• 44:04
  religion. You're happy for me to be mine.
• 44:06
  That kind of, it's really what Rabbi David used to talk about
• 44:10
  as tolerance, I suppose. But that kind of live and let
• 44:12
  live attitude is not a bad beginning.
• 44:18
  So yeah. But so I don't know.
• 44:22
  My impression is that the relationship between Jewish
• 44:25
  people and Christians is so much better than than it was in the
• 44:30
  past, certainly here in Australia.
• 44:33
  Yes, I'm going to let our viewers know now.
• 44:35
  For those that are watching, I'm going to put links to Archbishop
• 44:39
  Costello's response to the Bon Vie massacre, which I think is
• 44:43
  yet even further proof of how the Catholic Church is really
• 44:47
  changing its views and relationship to Jews in the far
• 44:50
  more accepting and positive way. And I thank you again,
• 44:54
  Archbishop Costello for your solidarity with the Jewish
• 44:56
  people during that that horrific event.
• 44:59
  Do you think therefore that the the rise in anti-Semitism in
• 45:03
  Australia would be fair to say that it's not coming from the
• 45:08
  the Catholics within the country, but it would be that
• 45:10
  80% that you were talking about previously?
• 45:12
  Would you imagine that it's coming from people that are not
• 45:15
  initiated or less initiated? Yes, I, I guess I, I think it's
• 45:21
  coming from ignorant people and there would be some ignorant
• 45:24
  Catholics as well as anybody else.
• 45:26
  I think it's coming from ignorant people, from people who
• 45:31
  going back to what we talked about before, who live perhaps
• 45:34
  on the surface of their lives, or they've never really thought
• 45:37
  their way into the deeper questions of life.
• 45:40
  And they get caught up in, you know, movements that erupt from
• 45:45
  time to time. So I wouldn't say Catholics are
• 45:49
  any better or any worse than anybody else, but I would say
• 45:52
  that Catholics who listen to what the church teaches and try
• 45:58
  and follow what their what their church teaches are very positive
• 46:02
  towards Jewish people. That would be my impression.
• 46:05
  And I know when the tragedy unfolded in Bunda and we issued
• 46:11
  not just by did, but many bishops did issued statements
• 46:16
  about this, we were contacted by many of our own people thank to
• 46:21
  thank us for speaking out because we were expressing not
• 46:23
  just what I thought as the Bishop, but giving voice to what
• 46:27
  our people thought as well. So look, you can't, you can't
• 46:31
  minimize the horror of what happened at Bondi and you can't
• 46:36
  minimize the reality that gave rise to it.
• 46:40
  And I don't want to do that. Very blasting I'd love to do,
• 46:44
  but it doesn't represent the main, the mainstream attitudes
• 46:51
  of certainly Catholics and not Christians generally.
• 46:53
  I would say a lot of people in Australia generally, I feel very
• 46:57
  strong about that. OK, absolutely.
• 47:01
  All right. I'd like to go into the New
• 47:02
  Testament itself to ask some curiosity questions that I have
• 47:06
  and to make sure for our our Jewish listeners from my
• 47:10
  perspective, this is this is just me understanding
• 47:13
  Christianity. I'm a Sonic Orthodox Jew, but I
• 47:16
  think it's important to understand different religions
• 47:18
  as as our Jewish listeners probably know that Rasajagam did
• 47:21
  as well. So one of the most, one of the
• 47:23
  biggest curiosities that I've had for a long time, Archbishop
• 47:26
  Casal. And I'm so excited to get to
• 47:27
  speak to some of your stature to hear the response.
• 47:31
  But everyone is very familiar with the Sermon on the Mount in
• 47:34
  Matthews in Chapter 5, of course.
• 47:37
  And and there I'm just going to I'll quote just even one line
• 47:40
  from it, but it goes on for a few verses.
• 47:43
  But verse 17 says, think not that I am come coming to destroy
• 47:46
  the law or the prophets. I come to I've come, I've not
• 47:49
  come to destroy, but to fulfill. And he continues to say that he
• 47:55
  Jesus is not trying to OK, we might have an, a, a rocket
• 47:59
  attack in a few minutes. If so, I will have to leave, but
• 48:02
  I'll be back in a in a few minutes.
• 48:04
  I apologize, but hopefully that will not happen.
• 48:07
  But if Jesus is putting this, this importance on the law and
• 48:12
  the holiness of the law, you know, how come do we see even a
• 48:16
  few chapters later, Jesus is out with his students.
• 48:20
  I think one of the examples, I think it's in the Matthews as
• 48:23
  well, and it comes up in Luke. So we see them picking ears of
• 48:27
  grain on the Sabbath, which is a biblical prohibition.
• 48:30
  So what is this focus of Jesus on the holiness and and divine
• 48:35
  importance of the law? But yet we're seeing his
• 48:36
  followers not not keeping the law.
• 48:38
  What's the what's the Christian view on that?
• 48:42
  Look, I, I think the basic view that we would have about those
• 48:46
  things that they are puzzling some of these things, because
• 48:48
  you're right there, you know, that, that, that saying in
• 48:51
  Matthew's Gospel is very clear. And I had not come to abolish
• 48:54
  the law and the prophets, but to bring them to fulfillment.
• 48:57
  That that second part is probably where we would have a
• 49:01
  different understanding of what it means to give, to bring the
• 49:05
  law to its fulfillment. So I think from a Christian
• 49:10
  perspective, and I don't, I think this is probably also part
• 49:15
  of the Jewish tradition, but we might understand it a bit
• 49:17
  differently. The creature perspective would
• 49:20
  would be inviting us to look to the fundamental values, perhaps
• 49:26
  that underpin the law and saying that there are certain
• 49:31
  circumstances in which those values require us not to follow
• 49:35
  the letter so much as to follow the spirit.
• 49:39
  So, you know, there's a there's another occasion I think that's
• 49:43
  responsible as well, where he says, well, if you're, I don't
• 49:49
  have the Bible in front of me now, But if you had, if your ox
• 49:51
  or your your cattle fell in to appear on the Sabbath day and
• 49:56
  they needed rescuing, would you rescue them, You know, or when
• 49:59
  he was criticised for works of healing on the Sabbath day.
• 50:04
  So he, I think Jesus would, would suggest to us that the
• 50:09
  values of compassion, not so much for the cow that falls into
• 50:16
  the hole, but compassion for a person in need and the desire to
• 50:20
  do something to help them on that occasion, even if it is the
• 50:24
  Sabbath day and technique thing like they them all.
• 50:26
  That would be the kind of thing I think that we would see that
• 50:29
  Jesus invites us not certainly not to look beyond the law, but
• 50:35
  to look to a deeper understanding of the law.
• 50:38
  It's like he's, when he says, for example, he talks about, you
• 50:44
  know, the prohibition on adultery and he says that in the
• 50:48
  Mosaic Law that adultery is very serious.
• 50:50
  And he's certainly not denying that.
• 50:52
  But then he goes on to say that if you look at a woman
• 50:55
  lustfully, you've already committed adultery with her in
• 50:58
  it, with her in your heart. So I think that that's that's
• 51:01
  where difference might lie. Well, let's let's open that up a
• 51:07
  bit. Yeah.
• 51:08
  So, so for example, the the prohibition of healing on the
• 51:11
  Sabbath is a rabbinic prohibition.
• 51:13
  There's no biblical prohibition to heal on the Sabbath.
• 51:15
  So although that is that is a deviation from again, what's
• 51:20
  what's allowed and what's not allowed.
• 51:21
  And I understand that point, but I think it's a more of a radical
• 51:25
  thing to deviate from the biblical, A biblical
• 51:27
  prohibition, which which I, I, I still think I find, you know,
• 51:32
  curious and a little bit more direction.
• 51:34
  Like, for example, you know, on a four corner garment, 4
• 51:39
  cornered garment having tassels, right?
• 51:41
  So the mitzvah of seats, seats, right.
• 51:42
  So it would again appear to me that from the Christian
• 51:45
  tradition that if a Christian had a four corner garment, that
• 51:49
  there is a, a biblical commandment to where tassels on
• 51:53
  this four corner garment. And, and I, I wonder why, why
• 51:57
  we're not seeing that. Like I would imagine again, from
• 51:59
  just reading the Gospels that if I were to ask Jesus, you know,
• 52:02
  should I be putting tassels on the four corner garment?
• 52:04
  He said he would lift up his you know, his four corner garments
• 52:07
  show that he has tassels himself and but but what you but what
• 52:10
  you said about adultery. I think the rabbi's also agree
• 52:13
  with the Pharisees and the Talmud.
• 52:16
  They do discuss how even looking at the pinky finger of a woman
• 52:20
  is considered is considered a prohibition.
• 52:22
  Maybe not in the same way or not the same level of violation,
• 52:26
  which I think, by the way, whom Jesus would probably agree to.
• 52:29
  I mean, you know, if Jesus was presented to someone who thought
• 52:31
  lustfully of someone else's wife versus someone who was actually
• 52:34
  with someone else's wife, that they're both horrible.
• 52:37
  But there's, you know, both different levels of.
• 52:39
  Right, of course, Absolutely. Yeah, there's no doubt about
• 52:42
  that. Look, I, I think what Jesus is
• 52:47
  inviting his followers to do is to look, I don't want to say
• 52:53
  beyond the law, but to look to the deeper value that is
• 52:57
  enshrined in the law and to then say, well, now how do we do that
• 53:01
  today? So, you know, we have the same
• 53:05
  challenge, I think in Catholicism to some extent, that
• 53:09
  in the past we have been probably more than some other
• 53:12
  Christian traditions, quite. Strict on them.
• 53:15
  That's you. I'm so sorry to to but do we do
• 53:20
  we have time for a for a 7 minute recess?
• 53:22
  You can stay on the line or must you go?
• 53:25
  I deeply apologize. OK, I'll be I'll be right back.
• 53:30
  I'll just buy a ticket. OK.
• 53:31
  I'll be right back. I'm sorry.
• 53:32
  Thank you. Serious apologies.
• 53:44
  That was not planned. Let's be grateful to have the
• 53:48
  lives under this sort of pressure.
• 53:51
  It is, but my outlook is, is that how I really think, at
• 53:58
  least from the Jewish perspective, that we're living
• 54:00
  in a messianic age? I think the, the Jewish people
• 54:05
  for thousands of years have been, have been hoping and
• 54:08
  praying and crying and dreaming almost in vain.
• 54:11
  Sometimes when we think that, you know, like hope is lost.
• 54:13
  Well, we make it back to Israel. We'll only make it back to our
• 54:17
  ancestral homeland. We'll make it back to Jerusalem.
• 54:20
  And now we can touch the stones. We can touch the stones of the
• 54:24
  destroyed Second Temple. And now the biggest threat to
• 54:27
  the Jewish nation, and the Western world for that matter,
• 54:31
  is slowly being dismantled. And we all thought here that we
• 54:37
  were, that there were 10s of thousands of us, that we're
• 54:39
  going to have to die for that cause.
• 54:42
  And there has been tragedies. And I don't want to minimize
• 54:44
  that. But overall, the price that we
• 54:47
  have paid and be that the lives that have been lost or in a more
• 54:52
  minor way, you know, fear, you know, hugging my children and
• 54:55
  telling them it's OK. It's just, you know, we're going
• 54:57
  to get by. It's just a it's in a way, it's
• 54:59
  a beautiful time, Archbishop Costello, because we see the
• 55:01
  hand of God. That's that's my perspective.
• 55:05
  Yeah. So let's go back to what we were
• 55:08
  discussing. I'm I'm, I'm sorry you were
• 55:10
  interrupted. So yeah, we were discussing you.
• 55:12
  You were, you were telling us that what Jesus was preaching
• 55:14
  was. Is that there?
• 55:16
  There's the law of Moses, but there's the the meaning behind
• 55:19
  the law, which which I can definitely understand.
• 55:23
  We definitely think in the Jewish tradition that is
• 55:25
  critical to understand the, the principles behind the law.
• 55:28
  But I think what you're saying is that the the principle behind
• 55:31
  law can even drive the law at times at which which the end
• 55:35
  result may be even not following the letter of the law per SE as
• 55:39
  as it as it may be, as it may be described.
• 55:42
  And, and I absolutely hear this answer, But my question would be
• 55:45
  then why are, are Christians not, not, not following that law
• 55:50
  when that principle is, is, does not have to override it like,
• 55:55
  you know, eating, eating kosher, following the proper
• 55:59
  slaughtering rituals or, or wording tassels on a four corner
• 56:03
  garment or the Sabbath, etcetera, etcetera.
• 56:05
  What's what's what's the response to that?
• 56:08
  Look, I think it probably in the end, I had a few minutes to
• 56:11
  think about it while you're away.
• 56:13
  And I think in the end it probably goes to the, the heart
• 56:17
  of the, I hope it's not the heart of the, the difference of
• 56:22
  the division between, but the heart of the difference between
• 56:25
  us is the way Christians see Jesus perhaps, and the way that
• 56:30
  the Jewish tradition would see Jesus.
• 56:33
  I think many people in the Jewish tradition would regard
• 56:36
  Jesus positively. And I know that there are some
• 56:42
  people in the Jewish tradition who would say, well, Jesus by
• 56:45
  and large can be seen as a faithful Jew about being
• 56:48
  Christianity, moved away from that, we think for Christians,
• 56:54
  and again, this is where we come to a major disagreement, I
• 56:59
  guess, or a different view on things.
• 57:01
  Christians would see Jesus himself as representing God in a
• 57:07
  way that had never happened before and will never happen
• 57:10
  again. We think of him if he could use
• 57:14
  Jewish language. We think of him as the Messiah,
• 57:18
  but we think of him as the one who brings to completion God's
• 57:23
  work and his presence in the world.
• 57:27
  And so in a sense, when Jesus says, for example, and this is
• 57:31
  the one of those phrases that often gets quoted, that
• 57:35
  somewhere, I think again, it's in Matthews possible where he
• 57:37
  points out to his disciples, the Sabbath was made for human
• 57:43
  beings. Human beings were made for the
• 57:45
  Sabbath. And so he would say that we
• 57:49
  would say that when Jesus comes along, it brings the
• 57:52
  absoluteness of of the of the law in a sense, not your
• 57:57
  conclusion, but your fulfillment.
• 58:00
  So it's really about I might be wrong here and I struggling to
• 58:06
  find the right words to say it, but it might be in a sense,
• 58:09
  Jesus himself becomes gone for us as Christians.
• 58:14
  So that in particular aspect of the law in the past now give way
• 58:21
  the centrality of Jesus. But I'm not sure if I've got
• 58:25
  Judaism right, but I suspect that in Judaism the more is the
• 58:29
  center of the father of things. Christianity is Jesus who is the
• 58:34
  center of the heart of things. But perhaps that can help us
• 58:37
  understand why we've seen. Yeah, I mean, well, for us, God
• 58:42
  is at the center of it, which just sounds like for you, you
• 58:44
  know, Jesus at the center of it. But but I think then there's the
• 58:47
  principles of the law and the ethics of God.
• 58:50
  And then like the law itself, there's a very famous book that
• 58:56
  was written, a Jewish philosophy book called The Duties of the
• 58:59
  Heart. And in there he says that there
• 59:01
  are two duties that you get from from just being a human being.
• 59:05
  And one of them is the the duties of the body, which is to
• 59:08
  put on phylacteries, keeping the Sabbath, wearing tassels on the
• 59:12
  four corner garment, etcetera. And he says, and then there's a
• 59:14
  far more important aspect, which is the duties of the heart, how
• 59:17
  you're supposed to feel about God, think about God, emulate
• 59:20
  him within your will, you know, etcetera, etcetera.
• 59:22
  But I think that what what you said does explain a lot of those
• 59:26
  differences in our view, which is that if Jesus is the, in your
• 59:30
  view, the embodiment of the law, so then he can dictate how the
• 59:34
  law should be performed. But for for me and and again,
• 59:38
  historically, I just might be incorrect.
• 59:40
  But like I see Jesus's sensitivity, for example, I
• 59:43
  forget exactly where it is in Matthews, but he instructs a
• 59:46
  woman to go bring AI think she was a leper.
• 59:51
  I forget exactly what her why why he told her to do this, but
• 59:55
  he instructed her to bring an offering to the temple in
• 59:58
  accordance to the law of Moses, which was like a technical like
• 1:00:01
  a technical thing. So like, I wonder, you know, if
• 1:00:06
  I if I met Jesus, would he have phylacteries?
• 1:00:09
  Would he have, you know, all of these, you know, classic Jewish
• 1:00:12
  things or or or or not and, and, and perhaps not, you know, I
• 1:00:15
  don't know, but but I, I hear that that absolutely,
• 1:00:18
  absolutely, which what you're saying with this explain.
• 1:00:21
  And it's my next question. But you you may have already
• 1:00:23
  answered it in the wisdom of the way that you answered this one.
• 1:00:26
  But some of that also always struck me is seeing paintings or
• 1:00:30
  depictions of Jesus and whether he's, you know, a baby and and
• 1:00:35
  we see that the nativity scene and everyone involved or as he's
• 1:00:38
  a bit older. I don't see any Orthodox or
• 1:00:43
  Jewish or law of Moses like imagery very, very rarely.
• 1:00:46
  While I see a, a Succo or you know, in Luke chapter, I believe
• 1:00:49
  it's chapter 5 or maybe no, maybe Chapter 7.
• 1:00:52
  But there's a, there's a tremendous amount of importance
• 1:00:55
  of Luke of Jesus doing what we call a Leah Lorego, which is
• 1:00:58
  the, the commandment to go up to Jerusalem to the temple on one
• 1:01:02
  of the three major festivals. And there's an, A massive amount
• 1:01:05
  of, of, of importance up to that thing that Jesus did.
• 1:01:10
  But, but you know, why, why do you think that's not depicted?
• 1:01:13
  Is it because of what you said before that that's not maybe
• 1:01:16
  what, what Christians are trying to show about Jesus because
• 1:01:18
  that's not as important. What's important more is Jesus
• 1:01:21
  being the law and, and, you know, embodying that ethos and
• 1:01:27
  embodying more of the, the spirit of the law.
• 1:01:29
  So therefore it doesn't need to be depicted.
• 1:01:31
  Or do you think there's another reason?
• 1:01:33
  Well, I'd say a couple of things about that.
• 1:01:35
  I think, you know, you've, you've captured well what I was
• 1:01:39
  trying to say before that I think for a Christian, Jesus now
• 1:01:43
  becomes the embodiment of the law.
• 1:01:45
  And so we follow Jesus. And in that sense, we don't feel
• 1:01:54
  obliged to follow all the dictates of the, the Mosaic law
• 1:01:58
  because we now follow Jesus. So in the sense that's, that's,
• 1:02:01
  that's possibly the difference. I would say, though, that a lot
• 1:02:07
  of the, the depictions of Jesus that you're talking about, of
• 1:02:10
  course, come out of European tradition.
• 1:02:12
  And they're, they're classic European pictures.
• 1:02:14
  I had a, a picture in my room of the story in Luke's gospel where
• 1:02:21
  the Angel comes and greets Mary will become the mother of Jesus.
• 1:02:25
  She's certainly not dressed as a Jewish woman because she's
• 1:02:28
  dressed in the, in the outfits of the time, you know, so, but
• 1:02:32
  I, I think this is something, and I tried to make this point
• 1:02:35
  in those statements that I issue at the time of the Bondi
• 1:02:40
  tragedy. Christians need to remember that
• 1:02:44
  Jesus was a Jew, that his mother was a Jew, that Joseph his
• 1:02:49
  father or his father was a Jew, that all of his first disciples
• 1:02:53
  were Jews, that he was raised in the Jewish tradition.
• 1:02:56
  He was raised in Jewish Jewish spirituality.
• 1:02:59
  He was raised in Jewish pioning his understanding of God as as
• 1:03:03
  the creator and the father of all.
• 1:03:06
  It's all part of his Jewish reality.
• 1:03:10
  I think it's the rediscovery of that which has also helped build
• 1:03:16
  better relationships between Christians and Jews, because we,
• 1:03:20
  I would say, and I say it often, that we that's where everything
• 1:03:24
  to the Jewish tradition, because Jesus comes out of the Jewish
• 1:03:27
  tradition and we we shouldn't learn much of the richness of
• 1:03:33
  the Jewish tradition. You, you may be aware that
• 1:03:35
  certainly for people like me, bishops and priests and many
• 1:03:39
  other Catholics, we have what we call the official prayer of the
• 1:03:42
  church. Now, the basis of the official
• 1:03:44
  prayer of the church is the 150 psalms of the Jewish scriptures.
• 1:03:49
  And we're praying them every day in every celebration.
• 1:03:53
  Yeah, Yeah. And we pray them 123 either 5 or
• 1:03:58
  7 times a day. It's all based on the psalms.
• 1:04:03
  Always in our religious services, we have not a life,
• 1:04:06
  but nearly always we would have at least a reading from the
• 1:04:09
  Jewish scriptures and the Psalms of the Jewish scriptures.
• 1:04:12
  So in our in our liturgy, if you like, Catholics are very
• 1:04:16
  connected to the Jewish roots of Christianity.
• 1:04:20
  And it's why I think the thing that I think it was, Pope
• 1:04:23
  Benedict said at first, I might be wrong.
• 1:04:26
  Certainly John Paul the Second believed it.
• 1:04:28
  And Fran, Pope Francis had said it too, that we have come to
• 1:04:33
  realize and to recognize and acknowledge that the Jewish
• 1:04:37
  people are our elder brothers and sisters in the faith.
• 1:04:40
  That's that's a realization that we've now come to.
• 1:04:44
  So I think these are important things for us as Christians and
• 1:04:49
  certainly in our Catholic tradition to remind ourselves of
• 1:04:52
  and to share with our Jewish brothers and sisters, because
• 1:04:54
  it's the reality. We don't follow all of the the
• 1:04:59
  requirements of the Jewish law because of what I said before
• 1:05:02
  about our particular belief in who Jesus is.
• 1:05:05
  But who Jesus is was lived out in the reality of his human life
• 1:05:11
  as a faithful Jew who began to offer a new way of understanding
• 1:05:16
  Judaism. Not everyone accepted it.
• 1:05:18
  Not everyone agrees with it, but that's where Christianity comes
• 1:05:22
  from. So it's, I don't know, I think
• 1:05:25
  there's a profound harmony between Judaism and
• 1:05:28
  Christianity. And there would be no
• 1:05:32
  Christianity if there had not been God's covenant with these
• 1:05:36
  chosen people. So for me, that's absolutely
• 1:05:39
  fundamental. And it's a growing understanding
• 1:05:42
  for me of who I am as a Christian.
• 1:05:44
  I'm a follower of Jesus of Nazareth who was, as I said,
• 1:05:50
  raised in the Jewish faith, steeped in the Jewish scripture,
• 1:05:54
  constantly in communion with God his Father than he understood
• 1:05:58
  through the Jewish tradition. So I think these things are
• 1:06:02
  very. Important.
• 1:06:03
  Do you think that, and this is somewhat of a mundane question
• 1:06:07
  but excuse my extreme curiosity, do you think that if you were to
• 1:06:11
  have met Jesus, that he would, in his day-to-day look, at least
• 1:06:17
  on the outside, more like how Catholics Live Today?
• 1:06:23
  Or do you think that he would look more like a religious Jew,
• 1:06:27
  meaning Jesus himself? He would have looked like a
• 1:06:30
  religious Jew, absolutely. He would have worn the the the
• 1:06:34
  common clothing of the Jewish men of his time.
• 1:06:38
  He followed all of the Jewish rituals of his time.
• 1:06:42
  He, he, How could he have been anything else than that?
• 1:06:46
  Yeah, I, I, I believe the same thing do you.
• 1:06:49
  Is it is it pious within your tradition to that therefore
• 1:06:52
  emulate him in those ways if he was following all of those laws
• 1:06:56
  of of Moses more literally, do you think that there again
• 1:07:00
  within your tradition, is there a a positive gain and and
• 1:07:03
  following those letters of the law just like Jesus did.
• 1:07:08
  Look, I think we wouldn't say it that way.
• 1:07:10
  Certainly very early on in our tradition, in the letters that
• 1:07:14
  are formed part of the New Testament, we're told that the
• 1:07:17
  task of Christians as to have in them the same mind and heart
• 1:07:22
  that was in Christ Jesus. So we wouldn't look necessarily
• 1:07:26
  to, if I don't want to minimize them by saying the externals,
• 1:07:30
  but we would look to what are the attitudes of mind and heart
• 1:07:33
  that motivated Jesus and that's what we would be trying to to
• 1:07:37
  emulate. Right, but would there be a gain
• 1:07:40
  at all? I mean, let's say 1 was able to
• 1:07:41
  emulate much of of the the heart and mind of Jesus for a
• 1:07:45
  Christian, would there be a positive aspect of of also
• 1:07:49
  performing performing those external things or not?
• 1:07:51
  Not really so much. I don't think so, although I'd
• 1:07:56
  say that Christianity has developed its own external
• 1:07:59
  things that that we do follow. Certainly, you know, we're right
• 1:08:02
  in, you know, we're about to celebrate Easter very soon and,
• 1:08:07
  and we have a whole 6 week period leading up to, to the
• 1:08:11
  celebration of Easter where we, we pick up the three things that
• 1:08:16
  come to us again from the Jewish tradition of prayer, fasting and
• 1:08:19
  alms giving as part of the way we live our, our lives in
• 1:08:23
  service of God. So that's a very, it takes many
• 1:08:27
  very different forms, but it is a, an outward thing, if you
• 1:08:32
  like, of, of we, we, we need to manifest outwardly what is in
• 1:08:37
  our mind and in our heart, But we've learned to do it in
• 1:08:39
  different ways, certainly. And it, it changes.
• 1:08:43
  I, I guess that would be the other thing, that Christianity
• 1:08:48
  would see itself as being a religion that can, well, I put
• 1:08:53
  this take on flesh in every culture and take on the best
• 1:08:58
  elements of that culture and express the Christian thing
• 1:09:01
  through that culture. And that would also be in terms
• 1:09:05
  of the way people dress and the way people eat and those sorts
• 1:09:08
  of things. So we would see it as a yeah, I
• 1:09:13
  don't know if I haven't explained it any better than
• 1:09:15
  that, but I really don't want to sound like I'm minimising the
• 1:09:18
  external observance. I'm not at all.
• 1:09:20
  But I think that for us, we would see it slightly
• 1:09:23
  differently that the external observance is.
• 1:09:27
  It's not the first thing. The first thing is to have in
• 1:09:31
  ourselves the mind and heart of Jesus.
• 1:09:33
  So it's a way, the way we treat people, the way we relate to
• 1:09:35
  God, They're the fundamental things for us.
• 1:09:38
  OK, yeah, I understand that for for us, it's just a bit
• 1:09:41
  different. Like when we look at, which is
• 1:09:43
  again just fine, just a different belief.
• 1:09:45
  When we look at perhaps let's say a leading rabbi of of 500
• 1:09:48
  years ago, something like that, we'd be like, wow, we wish that
• 1:09:51
  we were able to understand God as well as him, which would
• 1:09:54
  match up with what you're saying.
• 1:09:56
  But then also and keep all of those external things, laws and
• 1:10:00
  traditions. But that's just a difference in
• 1:10:02
  in in our faiths. Very interesting.
• 1:10:04
  OK, the next thing that I wanted to do is if, if reviewing in
• 1:10:08
  your view, so Jesus is as the as the Messiah.
• 1:10:11
  So Jesus is going to have this understanding of God that is
• 1:10:16
  profound, the connection with God that is absolutely profound,
• 1:10:20
  right? So he has then these the
• 1:10:22
  students which were the apostles.
• 1:10:24
  So we would expect him to be the the master of, of teaching,
• 1:10:29
  right? Which I think in your tradition
• 1:10:31
  that it is looked upon quite, quite positively.
• 1:10:33
  And I think he would not have had such a strong effect if he
• 1:10:36
  wasn't such an effective teacher.
• 1:10:39
  So, so there's two of the apostles that I want to focus on
• 1:10:42
  for a moment and I want to know what you think about that.
• 1:10:46
  So number one is Peter. So Peter is a loyal follower of
• 1:10:50
  Jesus, yet he does, he does deny Jesus three times in in the
• 1:10:57
  Jewish faith. Like we've had students of Moses
• 1:11:01
  and, and students of Aaron and students of Joshua, etcetera,
• 1:11:04
  etcetera. But we don't really have of
• 1:11:09
  like, chosen special students of the greats that have deviated.
• 1:11:14
  In your view, why do you think that happened to Peter?
• 1:11:17
  I mean, he had access. He didn't just have access to,
• 1:11:20
  you know, a simple teacher in his view.
• 1:11:23
  He had access to what he believed was the Messiah.
• 1:11:25
  So what do you think was was was the cause of his of his
• 1:11:29
  rejecting him for a moment? Yes, well, more than more than
• 1:11:33
  for a moment, I think, you know, certainly in our Catholic
• 1:11:36
  understanding and Peter plays a big role in the Catholic Church
• 1:11:39
  because we see the Pope of course as the successor of
• 1:11:42
  Peter, right. So, you know, in many ways
• 1:11:47
  that's a, that's a bit of a corrective for our Pope, but
• 1:11:51
  also for all of our leaders in our church that it's possible to
• 1:11:55
  really fail him very badly. And I, without preaching A
• 1:12:00
  hobbling here, I'd say that in our tradition we would see the
• 1:12:05
  failure of the disciples as being contrasted with Jesus, who
• 1:12:13
  never gives up on them even though they let him down so
• 1:12:16
  often. So it's about being real.
• 1:12:18
  I think it's about being very realistic about the capacity of
• 1:12:21
  people, even very godly people, even people who are doing their
• 1:12:25
  best to follow, to follow God, to fall and to fall badly and to
• 1:12:30
  make mistakes. But that that never stops God.
• 1:12:36
  And I'm sure this is part of the Jewish tradition.
• 1:12:38
  So it never stops God from offering his compassion and his
• 1:12:42
  mercy. It's really interesting to to to
• 1:12:45
  know that the story about Peter denying Jesus three times after
• 1:12:52
  Jesus had been arrested finds a parallel at the end of Saint
• 1:12:55
  John's Gospel where Jesus, after the resurrection, meets him on
• 1:13:00
  the shore of the lake and he asks him three times, do you
• 1:13:04
  love me? And it's kind of, I'm going to
• 1:13:07
  give you 3 opportunities to redeem your 3 failures.
• 1:13:12
  And I think the reason why the gospel writer tells us that
• 1:13:15
  story is to make exactly that point, that yes, we will fail.
• 1:13:18
  Yes, we'll fail often. Nothing will ultimately stop God
• 1:13:24
  from seeking to bring us back. So Peter's a big figure for us
• 1:13:28
  in, in the Christianity, but in our Catholic tradition as as
• 1:13:31
  well, he, he was failing all the time, you know, So in fact, on
• 1:13:36
  on the other screen here, I've got an image of Peter sort of
• 1:13:41
  sinking beneath the waves and Jesus reaching out to grab him
• 1:13:45
  and pull him into the boat. So, you know, Jesus spent half
• 1:13:48
  his time, it seems, trying to rescue Peter from his own
• 1:13:51
  mistakes. So, you know, that's that's the
• 1:13:55
  way we would see Peter. So he was the one you were going
• 1:13:57
  to ask me about another. One yeah well right before I do
• 1:14:00
  I love that answer who is is but what do you think what why why
• 1:14:05
  did Peter fail what why do you think he deviated I I think it's
• 1:14:08
  so true that the the redemption that you know God always has his
• 1:14:12
  hand you know reaching out to us there God's love for us and
• 1:14:14
  knows no bounds so there's no there's no pit we can fall too
• 1:14:17
  deep and God is always there with us 100% but why for us to.
• 1:14:22
  Believe. Yes, absolutely.
• 1:14:25
  It absolutely lost you for a second.
• 1:14:27
  Sorry about that. But yeah, so what's it's what's
• 1:14:29
  makes you know something so wonderful about life and our
• 1:14:32
  connection with God. I always say this, you know, I
• 1:14:35
  tell my students, if someone were to chop your hand off,
• 1:14:38
  which would be quite negative, OK.
• 1:14:40
  And they said, well, don't worry, you know, I'll, I'll pay
• 1:14:42
  you back. Is there any amount of money
• 1:14:45
  that they could pay you that you would forgive that person?
• 1:14:48
  And the answer would be no, but for God.
• 1:14:50
  We can do all of these horrible things to God.
• 1:14:52
  Not that we should on purpose, right?
• 1:14:54
  Yeah. But once we do them, God says
• 1:14:55
  I'm always ready to receive you back, which I think is a
• 1:14:57
  beautiful thing. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:01
  So why? But yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:04
  I think, I think it just points to the reality of human beings.
• 1:15:11
  I mean, you know, to be so close to such a holy man and to fail
• 1:15:19
  and, and to and to let him down so badly.
• 1:15:23
  I think it just captures the reality of the lives of perhaps
• 1:15:26
  most of us at one stage or another.
• 1:15:29
  Peter is a very complex character in the way the Gospel
• 1:15:32
  story tells about him. You know, when he first meets
• 1:15:34
  Jesus, he's overwhelmed by him, according to the story, and
• 1:15:38
  falls down at his feet and says, leave me, Lord, because I'm a
• 1:15:41
  sinful man. And I often say to people when
• 1:15:44
  I'm talking about these things, Peter wasn't just being humble,
• 1:15:47
  he was telling the truth. And the rest of the Gospel story
• 1:15:49
  tells us how sinful he was. I really do think it's it points
• 1:15:53
  to the reality of human life that even when we're doing our
• 1:15:57
  best to be close to God, and even when, you know, we're very
• 1:16:00
  religious people, there are times when we can fail and fail
• 1:16:05
  badly. That's the reality.
• 1:16:08
  But again, it's just going back to what you said.
• 1:16:10
  Nothing is bad enough that God can't reach out to us with his
• 1:16:16
  compassion and forgiveness. So I think, I mean for me
• 1:16:19
  anyway, it's just a very positive thing that in the
• 1:16:25
  Gospels, the leader of the group of Jesus appointed to be the
• 1:16:29
  leader of the group was a very frail and fragile man who failed
• 1:16:34
  often. Kind of tells you that whilst
• 1:16:38
  one, since God's calling us to be perfect, God's also very
• 1:16:42
  aware that we, we never are. And in fact, you know, there,
• 1:16:46
  there are some people who would read the Gospels and they'd say
• 1:16:49
  that, particularly those who, who study Saint Mark's Gospel,
• 1:16:52
  Mark's most, they'd say one of the themes in Mark's Gospel is
• 1:16:56
  that the disciple of all of them, most of them constantly
• 1:17:01
  fail to understand him and let him down.
• 1:17:03
  But he never gives up on them. And I think there's a message
• 1:17:07
  there that's really, really important for us.
• 1:17:09
  Absolutely. It's it's like, you know, we see
• 1:17:12
  Phineas who is the zealot of God.
• 1:17:15
  So he goes out and he puts himself in danger and he's ready
• 1:17:18
  to die for God. And I think it's such a
• 1:17:20
  beautiful thing. You're saying Peter's on the
• 1:17:22
  other end of that spectrum. He faces danger and rejects, but
• 1:17:25
  yet, yet God is there to to reach out to him.
• 1:17:28
  So that. Yeah, beautiful, beautiful.
• 1:17:30
  The other one I wanted to ask was Judas, who was not like
• 1:17:34
  Peter at all. So what, what, what, what was it
• 1:17:39
  about Judas that caused again in the Christian, in the Christian
• 1:17:41
  faith, such a failure enough so that that he would be willing to
• 1:17:46
  give up the Messiah? Meaning what?
• 1:17:48
  What was that temptation? Meaning again, I'm not part of
• 1:17:51
  the Christian faith, but if I had that sort of connection with
• 1:17:55
  someone that I thought that was the Messiah, or in your
• 1:17:57
  tradition perhaps the Son of whatever it may be, I wouldn't
• 1:18:01
  leave him for, for anything. So what?
• 1:18:03
  What? What was what?
• 1:18:04
  What happened to Judas? Ganis, this is this is I'm just
• 1:18:11
  speaking with Tim Costello now, not necessarily as as a
• 1:18:14
  theologian giving the definitive answer, but I mean, who can get
• 1:18:20
  into the mind of Judah? So we can get into anybody
• 1:18:22
  else's mind really. But a lot of people would argue,
• 1:18:26
  and this is not in, it's not clear in the Gospel, but a lot
• 1:18:30
  of people would suggest, not argue, would suggest that Judas
• 1:18:34
  was perhaps belonging to one of those groups within Judaism at
• 1:18:37
  the time that were, I think the zealots and those sorts of
• 1:18:40
  people who were seeing the province Messiah as more than
• 1:18:44
  anything else a political figure.
• 1:18:47
  And that perhaps he got frustrated with Jesus because he
• 1:18:50
  wasn't moving in that direction. And he thought, well, if I take
• 1:18:53
  this step, it might push him to actually step forward and bring
• 1:18:58
  out the bring, bring out the redemption that everyone was
• 1:19:02
  looking for. That's a theory.
• 1:19:04
  I don't know about it at all. My understanding of Judas is
• 1:19:08
  that, as I said before, all of the disciples failed him.
• 1:19:13
  But how about Judas? No, no, exactly.
• 1:19:16
  And I was going to say, Peter, apart from Judas, Peter most
• 1:19:19
  dramatically of all, but I think what that points to, and this,
• 1:19:22
  this might sound a very odd thing to say, that what that
• 1:19:25
  points to is that even though in the Christian tradition we see
• 1:19:30
  Jesus as the Son of God, he's also profoundly and fully human
• 1:19:35
  person. He failed with Judas.
• 1:19:38
  I mean, Judas lived with him for whatever that period of time was
• 1:19:42
  when Jesus was going around preaching.
• 1:19:44
  Judas was as close to him as all of the others.
• 1:19:49
  And you know, I've often said to people, you can imagine them,
• 1:19:52
  you know, on the evening if they're sitting around the
• 1:19:54
  campfire and they're spending time with Jesus when everybody
• 1:19:57
  else has gone home. You couldn't get closer to Jesus
• 1:19:59
  than that. And yet somehow or other.
• 1:20:03
  Jesus failed to get through to Judas and I think that that for
• 1:20:09
  me anyway, that highlights the the humanity of Jesus and the
• 1:20:13
  sorrow that was a part of his life, that he had a passionate
• 1:20:16
  belief in what he was doing. Most of his disciples messed it
• 1:20:19
  up from time to time, but in the end all of them but one came
• 1:20:24
  good, but he failed miserably with Judas.
• 1:20:27
  I think it, it speaks to us of the reality, reality of failure
• 1:20:33
  in our lives and, and perhaps for religious people who really
• 1:20:36
  have a deal for spreading their faith, that we sometimes will
• 1:20:41
  fail and that despite our best efforts, people won't see it and
• 1:20:46
  won't accept it and may even attack it and all the rest of
• 1:20:49
  it. So I think it's a, it's a, it's
• 1:20:52
  about, it's an invitation to think through the challenge of
• 1:20:56
  how you deal with failure. Even when you've been trying to
• 1:21:00
  do something really good and you put everything into it.
• 1:21:04
  How do you deal with that? And of course, in a sense, Jesus
• 1:21:06
  failed in the end as well. So for me, it's a reflection of
• 1:21:11
  that kind of thing. That's the story of Judas that I
• 1:21:14
  see. How profound, what do you think?
• 1:21:18
  How do you think Jesus failed him?
• 1:21:20
  Or perhaps you're saying, I mean, you were definitely saying
• 1:21:22
  in a more broad sense, because we don't we don't know that
• 1:21:24
  thing necessarily that Jesus missed with Judas.
• 1:21:27
  But if what do you think Jesus Judas was was missing that that
• 1:21:32
  he that he should have gotten from Jesus?
• 1:21:35
  In a sense, I think I'd only be guessing, but I think I think
• 1:21:39
  Judas must have been looking for something and hoping for
• 1:21:43
  something from Jesus that Jesus wasn't delivering.
• 1:21:47
  Now, what that was, you know, as I said before, some people would
• 1:21:50
  speculate that it was kind of a more political liberation and
• 1:21:54
  Jesus didn't understand his role in that way.
• 1:21:57
  Whether that's true or not, I don't know.
• 1:21:59
  But I think the other thing, again, this might sound a bit
• 1:22:04
  odd, but it can be very confronting to live with really
• 1:22:08
  good people. I happen to belong to one of the
• 1:22:13
  religious orders in the Catholic Church.
• 1:22:15
  And so all of my adult life, till I became a Bishop, I lived
• 1:22:19
  in a community of men or dedicated to, to the care of
• 1:22:23
  young people, to education and all the rest of it.
• 1:22:27
  And I know what it's like to live with good people.
• 1:22:29
  And sometimes the the better they are, the more confronting
• 1:22:32
  they are because they make you realise how you know not so good
• 1:22:36
  you are yourself. Maybe there was a bit of batting
• 1:22:39
  with us. Maybe there was something in him
• 1:22:41
  that he just couldn't overcome and that he was kind of in that
• 1:22:45
  sense, affronted by the goodness of Jesus and and sort of in
• 1:22:51
  order to escape that he took a different direction.
• 1:22:54
  We don't know. I mean, the the Gospels would
• 1:22:56
  think that he was a bit greedy and that he, you know, had
• 1:23:00
  charged the money for the group and maybe that was it.
• 1:23:03
  That could be. I mean, that's what certainly
• 1:23:05
  what one of the Gospels suggest. There might have been truth in
• 1:23:07
  that as well. But somehow or other there was
• 1:23:10
  something that Judas just wouldn't.
• 1:23:15
  He couldn't make that last step so.
• 1:23:18
  Yeah, no one, no one sells out of the Messiah for for 100
• 1:23:21
  bucks, you know what I mean? You're, you're at you.
• 1:23:24
  You must be there must be something deeper right there.
• 1:23:27
  There must be something deeper than just there.
• 1:23:29
  Absolutely. Yeah, that's funny.
• 1:23:31
  I think he was looking for something and Jesus wasn't
• 1:23:34
  giving him what he was looking for.
• 1:23:36
  Yeah, right. In terms of the of being
• 1:23:39
  confronted by greatness and and, you know, feeling odd about
• 1:23:42
  that. So I made this remark once and a
• 1:23:44
  student of me was so surprised. One of my, one of my Rabbaeum,
• 1:23:49
  one of my rabbinic teachers, he's considered one of the
• 1:23:53
  biggest rabbis that are, are currently alive.
• 1:23:55
  His name is Rabbi Usher Weiss. He lives here in Jerusalem.
• 1:23:58
  So he is a shorter man. And so since he, he studies a
• 1:24:03
  tremendous amount of the time, you know, he doesn't have the
• 1:24:05
  most imposing build and he's old and he's an older man.
• 1:24:08
  He's in the 70s. And you know, I'm, I'm, I'm a
• 1:24:12
  youngster in comparison to him. So I, I once remarked that I was
• 1:24:18
  going to see him to ask him a very difficult question.
• 1:24:20
  And I just said out loud, I was like, wow, I'm really scared,
• 1:24:23
  you know, And one of my students looked over to me.
• 1:24:26
  It's like, how could you possibly he's like half your
• 1:24:28
  size, both in height and like, what, what do you, I looked at
• 1:24:31
  him and like in disbelief. This is, if just being in the
• 1:24:35
  same room with the person is just like, you know, it's
• 1:24:38
  shocking. It's, it's odd.
• 1:24:40
  And you feel you've not threatened that he's going to do
• 1:24:42
  something to you. But just like there's, there's
• 1:24:44
  this, there's this responsibility that you
• 1:24:46
  immediately feel like I have to be living up to something
• 1:24:48
  greater. Right, exactly right.
• 1:24:51
  And if you're. Faced with that every day and
• 1:24:55
  you're struggling to do it, it you could understand how it
• 1:24:59
  wears you down in the end, you know, do I really want to put up
• 1:25:02
  with this every day, having this, you know, failure on my
• 1:25:06
  part, sort of there in front of me all the time that could.
• 1:25:09
  That could be a painful experience, I suspect.
• 1:25:12
  Absolutely. And, and I think that probably
• 1:25:14
  also there was an event or two, you know, because Judas follows
• 1:25:18
  Jesus for such a while. So there's probably just like a
• 1:25:21
  pockets of just something that, as you said, Judas was missing
• 1:25:25
  and, and if he would have had it would have gone a different way.
• 1:25:27
  I had I heard the wildest story the other day.
• 1:25:32
  So one of the people that we interviewed he, or to be more
• 1:25:35
  accurate, he was, although I guess technically still is, is a
• 1:25:40
  heavy metal Christian rocker. And he was, his name is Stephen
• 1:25:43
  Keach. And he was responsible for a lot
• 1:25:45
  of the resurgence of, of, of more hard Jewish music that,
• 1:25:50
  that started off in America, which, which really helped the
• 1:25:52
  Christian movement there. So I, I wanted to speak to him
• 1:25:54
  to, to hear about how, how he was so successful in getting
• 1:25:57
  people that were a little bit godless all of a sudden being
• 1:26:00
  excited to be hearing music about God, which I think is a
• 1:26:02
  very positive thing. And off the air, he shared with
• 1:26:05
  me a story which blew my mind. It just blew my mind.
• 1:26:09
  So he told me that when he was 12 years, it's just these little
• 1:26:11
  events. You never know what they can do.
• 1:26:13
  He was 12 years old and he went to a a rock concert and it was a
• 1:26:18
  messianic band that was playing. And before they played their
• 1:26:22
  event, they read from the law of Moses.
• 1:26:25
  They read some verses from the Old Testament.
• 1:26:27
  They took out a, a Torah. And he said that that just gave
• 1:26:31
  that made him so excited. And it was the thing that's
• 1:26:34
  like, I am going to have a band when I grow up and I'm going to
• 1:26:38
  sing about God, just that that that one event, right.
• 1:26:41
  So it's like these, you know, we never know that that one
• 1:26:46
  encounter that's going to change someone's life.
• 1:26:48
  Exactly. Right.
• 1:26:49
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 1:26:50
  And you never know when God's going to use you to be the
• 1:26:54
  person who changes someone else's life.
• 1:26:56
  Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely.
• 1:26:59
  Archbishop Costello, is there any final thoughts or questions
• 1:27:03
  that you'd like to leave us off with before we sign off?
• 1:27:07
  No, I don't think so. Not really just to say thank
• 1:27:09
  you. I've really enjoyed the
• 1:27:10
  conversation. I think it's a good example of
• 1:27:14
  of the way people with coming out of two very different
• 1:27:18
  traditions. Although I would also say at the
• 1:27:20
  same time, deeply linked traditions can, can recognize in
• 1:27:25
  each other, you know, I'm not wanting to talk about myself,
• 1:27:30
  even recognise, you know, a goodness and an openness and a,
• 1:27:35
  and a, a commitment and all we can do these sort of things.
• 1:27:40
  It goes right back to what we talked about at the start.
• 1:27:43
  The more we can create good, not just respectful, but true, the
• 1:27:48
  best sense of the word friendships amongst ourselves
• 1:27:52
  that's going to that's that is what's going to make all the
• 1:27:55
  difference. So so thank you.
• 1:27:56
  I'm really am grateful for the opportunity.
• 1:28:00
  The the thanks is is mine actress of Costello.
• 1:28:02
  I appreciate you taking time out of your schedule and and what I
• 1:28:05
  couldn't really say it, you know better than the way that you
• 1:28:07
  just said it. Now, if we stop getting so
• 1:28:10
  focused on our differences and we stop trying to think that the
• 1:28:14
  other side is just trying to change our religious beliefs and
• 1:28:19
  we focus on the things that we have in common, that we, we love
• 1:28:21
  people and we love God and we're trying to do positive things,
• 1:28:25
  then I just think that makes the, you know, the world a
• 1:28:27
  better place. When I, I'll, I'll, I'll tell
• 1:28:29
  you something. Some, you know, it, it's, it
• 1:28:32
  surprised me a little bit, but when I, I, I mentioned to
• 1:28:35
  someone first, a younger man that I wanted to speak to an
• 1:28:39
  Archbishop and he seemed surprised, but also negative.
• 1:28:43
  He was like, why would you want to speak to a Catholic person?
• 1:28:46
  And I, I respond a little bit in surprise to him by saying why
• 1:28:50
  he's a person. Why would I not want to speak to
• 1:28:52
  someone? You know, if we focus on that,
• 1:28:56
  if we focus on God's image and every person, there is no, I
• 1:28:59
  think there is no limit to what we can do together.
• 1:29:02
  I agree. I agree.
• 1:29:04
  So that's a great hope for us both to carry with us,
• 1:29:08
  particularly for you in in the situation you and your family
• 1:29:11
  and your people find yourselves at the moment.
• 1:29:13
  It's so that I can assure you that the Catholic people in
• 1:29:20
  Australia, and I would think most Australians, any faith at
• 1:29:23
  all, certainly the Christians are very conscious of the
• 1:29:28
  suffering of the Jewish people at the moment and the need for
• 1:29:30
  us to offer our prayerful support and our support in any
• 1:29:34
  other way we can. So I can certainly give you that
• 1:29:38
  on behalf of the other bishops in Australia and I hope also all
• 1:29:42
  of our people so. Yeah, well, that's very
• 1:29:45
  meaningful. Thank you so much.
• 1:29:46
  Archbishop Costello, thank you so much for giving us your
• 1:29:49
  wisdom and your time. You're a very generous man.
• 1:29:51
  Thank you. I appreciate it very much.
• 1:29:53
  Great to talk to you. Likewise.
• 1:29:56
  All the best.