Latest / Mahon McCann / Fr Conor McDonough - From Decline to Revival: The Untold Story of Catholicism in Ireland

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Fr Conor McDonough - From Decline to Revival: The Untold Story of Catholicism in Ireland · Mahon McCann

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  SPEAKER_00: Conor McDonough,
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  SPEAKER_00: thank you very much for joining me today,
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  SPEAKER_00: sir,
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  to discuss this important topic of Catholicism and Catholicism
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  in Ireland.
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  SPEAKER_00: And if I'm correct, are you a Dominican friar?
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  SPEAKER_00: That's right, exactly.
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  SPEAKER_00: Where are you based in terms of where you work?
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  SPEAKER_01: So as Dominican friars, we move around.
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  Monks tend to like be assigned to their,
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  they're in their monastery for life.
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  SPEAKER_01: They take a vow of stability.
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  SPEAKER_01: Friars kind of move around to different places.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I'm currently in Galway.
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  SPEAKER_01: So I'm looking out at Galway Bay.
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm here in the Clada, right where the river meets the sea.
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  There's all these students drinking outside because exams have
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  just finished.
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  SPEAKER_01: And literally before we got on this,
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  SPEAKER_01: I just heard two lads walking outside,
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  SPEAKER_01: kind of past my window.
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  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, Galway after exams, it's like, it's like heaven.
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  so yeah we're gonna like little foretaste here of the kingdom
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  to come it's pretty
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  special space yeah and is the weather also incredible there
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  like it is in dublin
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  it's like the it is it's so nice but we're here podcasting
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  instead so you know yep
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  somebody has to do it for sure but yeah i mean to start off
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  yeah thanks for making
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  time and yeah so like where do you think uh irish catholicism
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  is today like where
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  SPEAKER_00: would you say the state of uh irish catholicism is at the moment
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  SPEAKER_01: Well,
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
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  it's no it's no major revelation to say it's in a pretty it's
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  in a pretty poor state.
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  SPEAKER_01: And,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: especially relative to the past,
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  SPEAKER_01: which we might talk about in a wee while,
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  SPEAKER_01: but,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: rates of practice in Ireland.
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  SPEAKER_01: So let's say what,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: sociologists,
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  SPEAKER_01: they usually when they're defining,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: the number of practicing Catholics.
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  SPEAKER_01: And they'll mean like people go to church once a month.
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  SPEAKER_01: And that's down to something like 35 percent in Ireland.
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  Whereas,
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  you know,
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  just,
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  you know,
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  about 15 years ago or so,
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  it was something like 60 percent.
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  SPEAKER_01: And if you go a few decades back, it was like 90 percent.
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  SPEAKER_01: So it's a pretty low rate.
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  And that's that kind of decline just like tracks across the
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  board in Ireland.
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  SPEAKER_01: religious vocations, vocations to the priesthood.
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  There's like a few dozen seminarians in Maynooth for 26
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  dioceses in Ireland.
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  SPEAKER_01: So there's a,
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  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
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  I think there's about maybe a few dozen priests under the age
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  of 40 in Ireland.
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  So again,
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  there's like thousands,
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  several thousand in that upper age bracket.
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  SPEAKER_01: So there's this really, really top-heavy structure among the clergy.
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  If you think of schools,
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  like people outside of Ireland listening might not realize
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  There's,
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  you know,
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  a very high proportion of state schools in Ireland are Catholic
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  in ethos.
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  And so that gives the sense of like,
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  yeah,
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  the church is really strong in education.
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  But there was a survey recently done by the INTO,
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  the primary school teachers trade union.
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  SPEAKER_01: And something like that was a low response of teachers.
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  And it might have been kind of activists responding more than
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  more than the general
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  SPEAKER_01: population of teachers.
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  But like two thirds said that they would prefer their school to
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  be a secular school
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  SPEAKER_01: rather than a Catholic school.
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  SPEAKER_01: So it's not as if they're fully committed within the Catholic schools.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, the vast majority of those were in Catholic schools.
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  SPEAKER_01: So you're in this really,
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  SPEAKER_01: really strange kind of space where there's massive decline and increasing
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  SPEAKER_01: alienation from the church,
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  SPEAKER_01: even from people who still regard themselves as Catholic.
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  very high proportion i think like 69 percent in the last census
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  said they were
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  catholic so when they're asked they say they're catholic um but
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  anecdotally i see
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  all the time that people um are kind of unfamiliar with kind of
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  the basics of the
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  catholic faith even after catholic schooling and being familiar
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  with the churches
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  they've that are in their area and so on they're unfamiliar
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  with the basics and
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  they don't realize how ignorant they are they don't realize how
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  unfamiliar they are
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  SPEAKER_01: um
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  with these things um but just a few examples i was sitting out
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  of the grotto here
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  and the last night and there were these two lads who had been
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  again drinking it's a
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  common theme um but they came up for a chat and um and i was
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  delighted you know to
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  talk to them and uh eventually i was sitting there in my habit
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  praying my rosary at
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  a statue of our lady and one of them goes so are you um are you
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  protestant or a
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  SPEAKER_01: catholic
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  um so again it's like not not a clue not a clue or we have a
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  summer camp in cork
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  and and one of the kids there um was talking to one of the
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  dominican student
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  brothers and uh and he was just saying i don't know if i'm a
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  catholic or not and so
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  they were asking well do you go to church and and do you
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  believe this on the other
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  news and i'm not really not really and he says well i did my
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  confirmation last year
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  SPEAKER_01: does that mean i'm a catholic
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  You know,
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  so again,
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  someone who's confirmed the previous year didn't know they were Catholic.
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  SPEAKER_01: That kind of thing is fairly common.
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  SPEAKER_01: I saw Paul Meskel a while back.
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  He was talking about something to do with the faith and he
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  mentioned like blessing himself.
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  And he goes,
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  yeah,
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  in the name of the Father and the Son of the,
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  like,
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  what's the...
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  SPEAKER_01: What's the other one?
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  SPEAKER_01: He said.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh, man, again, just like there's not that many.
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  SPEAKER_01: There's not that many.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's three, like three.
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  SPEAKER_01: So so that kind of thing,
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  that kind of lack of lack of basic knowledge of the Catholic
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  faith is pretty common
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  SPEAKER_01: across the board.
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  SPEAKER_01: And yet,
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  SPEAKER_01: like at times of tragedy,
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  SPEAKER_01: at times of crisis,
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  SPEAKER_01: the church is often like the first part of call.
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  SPEAKER_01: Like famously,
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  SPEAKER_01: just a few years ago,
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  SPEAKER_01: in Kreislaug,
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  there was a huge disaster where there was an explosion in a
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  petrol station and
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  SPEAKER_01: several people died.
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  It was fascinating to see that the local parish priest just
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  play an extraordinary role in...
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  SPEAKER_01: in helping people to deal with this tragedy, with this grief.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he won lots of plaudits for it,
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  SPEAKER_01: but that's happening across the board at times of tragedy,
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  SPEAKER_01: that the church is still a bit of a harbor,
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  SPEAKER_01: maybe less so at times of weddings.
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  SPEAKER_01: They're in massive decline, people getting married in church.
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  SPEAKER_01: Humanist ceremonies.
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  Yeah,
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  even though it's way more expensive to pay a humanist person
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  than your average priest.
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  SPEAKER_01: And vague as well, I would say.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: What exactly you're signing on for is...
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  Yeah,
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  not entirely clear,
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  whereas it's pretty clear in a Catholic marriage.
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  SPEAKER_01: But I'd say there's a lot of that kind of favorability.
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  And where people have stopped practicing,
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  it's often like a kind of a soft rejection.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think of something Seamus Heaney said once.
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  He was interviewed by a guy called Dennis O'Driscoll,
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  this kind of book-length interview.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he talked about his faith.
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  SPEAKER_01: I think it was in that interview.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he talked about his faith.
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  And he says he didn't have it out with God in some big dramatic thing,
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  like in the West Wing.
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  an episode where the president's like shouting he didn't he
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  didn't use the example
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  of the west wing he's too classy for that but he said i didn't
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  have it out with god
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  it's a lot it's something that happened off stage and i just
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  think that's such an
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  interesting thing for for some people like there's an outright
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  intellectual
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  rejection or or you know rejection for all kinds of different
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  reasons and for a lot
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  of people it's something that just kind of happened off stage
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  um and in a sense
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  then it's not like the rejection is complete or final to me it
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  seems like it's very
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  SPEAKER_01: often provisional
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  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
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  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, what a, what a great answer.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like there's so much in there in terms of,
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  SPEAKER_00: uh,
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  SPEAKER_00: so much,
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  SPEAKER_00: uh,
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  SPEAKER_00: what I've seen with people is that they,
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  SPEAKER_00: they identify with the label of being Catholic in a sense of like,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's a name,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's a group identity.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like you,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's part of your history maybe,
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  SPEAKER_00: but they can't,
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  SPEAKER_00: they're not down with the practice,
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  SPEAKER_00: with the metaphysics.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like they don't,
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  SPEAKER_00: they don't seem particularly catechized in any sense of like having any
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  SPEAKER_00: understanding of it,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: on a deep level.
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  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah.
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  and there's another thing there which i had been calling like
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  choreography
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  catholicism which is like people who know all the moves really
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  well like they know
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  the stand-up sit down like they're perfect and all that stuff
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  but like yeah there's
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  no internal like why it's like they get the procedural but
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  there's no like why do
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  you do this why are you doing like if you were to ask them why
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  why are you doing
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  this thing i would be like i have no idea like i don't
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  understand and then i think
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  SPEAKER_00: yeah yeah that
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  SPEAKER_00: That troubles,
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  because then now the problem is that people used to do it
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  because it was the done thing.
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  SPEAKER_00: If they're in that state,
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  SPEAKER_00: like if they don't get it,
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  they have no like intrinsic connection to the story or
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  understanding of Christ.
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  SPEAKER_00: So now that it's not the done thing,
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  I think that's taken all those people that are in that kind of
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  liminal space.
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  They're just going,
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  all right,
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  well,
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  if other people aren't doing it,
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  I'm not doing it.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't really know what it is anyway.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
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  SPEAKER_00: So you get this kind of.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's like a multiplier effect or something.
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  Yeah,
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  and going from one kind of conformism to another kind of conformism.
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  And I think Irish people generally,
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  as a culture,
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  we are quite conformist.
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  I don't think we're very individualistic or kind of like
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  plowing our own furrow or anything.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, that's definitely part of the thing.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's like the sense, okay, this is where the trend is going.
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  SPEAKER_01: This is where the people are going.
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  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's doing this.
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  SPEAKER_01: Nobody's doing this thing anymore.
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  SPEAKER_01: So that's the way I'll go.
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  SPEAKER_01: But that choreography thing is interesting.
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  And for a lot of people,
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  they don't even realize that there might be a white.
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  SPEAKER_01: And they're just like,
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  they're just not even imagining that they don't even ask or
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  like that there,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: that there might be some truth claim associated with this behavior.
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  And even I've given talks to a good few different groups of
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  teachers in Catholic schools,
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  SPEAKER_01: again,
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  SPEAKER_01: around the country recently.
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  And a few times like I've I've I've mentioned these are
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  religion teachers in schools.
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  And I've just really emphasized like the beauty of the Catholic
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  intellectual
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  tradition and even mentioned just some like basics of like
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  online Catholic
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  SPEAKER_01: resources that could be useful.
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  And I'm just looking around to see if like any of this is
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  familiar to them.
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  SPEAKER_01: And like exceptionally rare that any of these teachers in,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  religion teachers in Catholic schools would have heard of even
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  somebody like Bishop
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  SPEAKER_01: Barron or Father Mike Schmitz or,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: or be able to name any Catholic online resource.
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  SPEAKER_01: So, again, it's just that total lack of curiosity.
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  SPEAKER_01: And for the most part, it's not their fault.
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  They don't realize that there is this really rich intellectual
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  tradition that's
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  SPEAKER_01: actually worth grappling with,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
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  it's so interesting because I'm of that kind of persuasion
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  where I won't do
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  SPEAKER_00: anything without a why.
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  I won't do anything just on the principle that other people are
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  doing it in some sense.
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  SPEAKER_00: That led me into trouble with the atheism,
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  SPEAKER_00: but then also coming back to Christianity,
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  SPEAKER_00: obviously I had a very heady kind of intellectual thing,
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  SPEAKER_00: but
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  all of the questions that i've had have had answers to them
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  like why do you do this
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  why is there like there hasn't been anything like from where a
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  candle is to where
• 9:57
  you know somebody's doing something it's like this is all
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  connected into you know
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  the drama of the incarnation the life the death of christ and
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  that when you go to
• 10:05
  mass you're living it out again like i'm like hyped going to
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  mass now i'm like in
• 10:09
  there i'm like whoa this is like i understand the rationale of
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  like this is
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  SPEAKER_00: the greatest thing that ever happened.
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  And now you transform it into this practice and techniques and
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  then we can
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  SPEAKER_00: participate in it to be,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: transformed in the same way.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's like,
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  SPEAKER_00: How they even came up with this is,
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  SPEAKER_00: and,
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: it's happening on every street corner in your local church that,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: everybody's ignoring.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like you're singing my song.
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  Well,
• 10:36
  well,
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  I mean,
• 10:37
  this is this is what I often say this to like the people at the
• 10:39
  720 a.m.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: mass here, which is really well attended.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's like my favorite congregation to preach to.
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  And I'm always just like trying to emphasize,
• 10:46
  OK,
• 10:46
  it's like Tuesday at 720 in the morning.
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  SPEAKER_01: But like what's happening here is glorious.
• 10:51
  and significant and just like so important and even actually in
• 10:55
  today's reading um
• 10:56
  it's where christ is saying that um that the bread of heaven
• 10:59
  comes down from the
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  father for the life of the world and i was just saying to them
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  like this is not
• 11:03
  just your little personal practice right this is for what we're
• 11:06
  doing here is for
• 11:07
  the life of the world um and and it kind of it sustains the
• 11:11
  life of the world um in
• 11:12
  so many kind of mysterious ways you know so yeah again there's
• 11:16
  that sense it's just
• 11:18
  there's a kind of the father tedification of attitudes to the
• 11:22
  Catholic faith,
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  SPEAKER_01: which is,
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: one way of dealing with,
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 11:25
  things that are kind of problematic or challenging is humor and
• 11:28
  just to joke about stuff.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that's, that's across the board, I think is, is,
• 11:33
  not allowing something to become solemn and serious and,
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  and,
• 11:36
  and mysterious and,
• 11:37
  and glorious.
• 11:39
  And so we have to kind of make a joke out of it,
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  you know,
• 11:41
  anything to be said.
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  That's something I've found like the entire time since convert
• 11:45
  is that people,
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  SPEAKER_00: people will only talk to me about it if it's joking,
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  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: or if it's not serious,
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: like in some sense,
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: like the best I'll get really from people is like something like,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you feel better or like you're living your truth,
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: man,
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: or something like that.
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  I was like no no this is like the best description of reality
• 12:03
  we've ever come up
• 12:04
  with right like I'm willing to argue the point like with people
• 12:07
  but the reactions
• 12:09
  have been so interesting in terms of like people are only
• 12:11
  comfortable with it if
• 12:13
  it's a joke or if it's yeah you know in a like you almost have
• 12:16
  to be like kind of
• 12:17
  they won't have like a serious conversation about a lot of time
• 12:20
  it's just right
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: there's a kind of aversion to it I found
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because obviously I've only been a Catholic for two weeks,
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: so I haven't been having these conversations for very long.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you'll find a lot of that.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it takes a bit of patience.
• 12:34
  I mean,
• 12:35
  I get it a lot at weddings when I go,
• 12:37
  all kinds of issues come up.
• 12:39
  And there's kind of like a certain amount of diminishing
• 12:41
  returns as like the drink goes.
• 12:43
  Starts fueling the conversation,
• 12:44
  you know,
• 12:44
  and you just say,
• 12:45
  okay,
• 12:45
  it's time for me to go now.
• 12:46
  But,
• 12:47
  you know,
• 12:47
  up to a certain point,
• 12:48
  you can have really amazing conversations with people.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: But really, like, the best thing is one-on-one with people.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Because if it's in a group, it's just, it's kind of jokey.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, oh, that was a quick math.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: You're just like, yeah.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: But you have to be patient.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's the one-on-ones when the stuff really comes out.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: And you can go deep into, like, what's this person's story with God?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a really, yeah, that's a beautiful thing for me.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but, but it takes, it takes a lot of time and a lot of trust.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Cause I think we're going to get into that,
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose,
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: as we go on and kind of,
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: um,
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: to delve into it a bit more deeply,
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: but like,
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to lose that thread of,
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: so that's kind of where we're at now,
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: obviously decline,
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: um,
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: in a sense of, yeah, numbers going down, not people practicing as much.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And,
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: and then in the past,
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: like you mentioned,
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: like 95% Catholicism,
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: like we had this,
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: camera who was described as,
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: but as the best Catholics in the world,
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: that's Derek Scully,
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Derek Scully is,
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: um,
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's a book, The Best Catholics in the World.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's a really interesting book.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Very, very interesting character.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like,
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: one of the top,
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose,
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: most Catholic countries for,
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: whatever,
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: thousands of years.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then we just suddenly have this kind of drop off.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 14:02
  do you ever think about the quiet secularization or the kind of
• 14:05
  generational thing
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: that's gone on of like,
• 14:09
  that there was just this continuous intergenerational passing
• 14:12
  down that's kind of
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: been broken in the last few generations,
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: I would say.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: For me, my parents, obviously.
• 14:20
  yeah yeah and like in in one sense you can tell like a big
• 14:22
  story of like a
• 14:23
  continuous passing down and one thing i love to do is to go
• 14:26
  into like the fine
• 14:27
  grain of irish history and just to see that like it's not as if
• 14:32
  you know that there
• 14:33
  is a golden age um i mean there's no real golden age in the
• 14:37
  past from a christian
• 14:38
  perspective i've said this in another context that the only
• 14:40
  golden age for us is
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: the age to come and and and and in every
• 14:45
  past moment you you'll find scandal you'll find disaster you'll
• 14:48
  find faithlessness
• 14:49
  you'll find conflict and even at the times where there's like
• 14:52
  great catholic
• 14:53
  martyrs um there were also like priests scrabbling over um like
• 14:57
  their incomes and
• 14:59
  and and fighting about you know um all kinds of petty stuff so
• 15:02
  yeah i mean and and
• 15:04
  a failure to pass on the faith in certain circumstances so um
• 15:08
  it's it's not as if
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: it's just like a story of you know
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Golden age up until 1969 and then just like,
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: and the kind of the height of the kind of success,
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: let's say,
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: of Catholic Ireland in the mid 20th century.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a particular social phenomenon as well.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it was definitely like there's a supernatural element to it.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: an element of like very sincere faith.
• 15:30
  And there's also then kind of sociological elements kind of
• 15:33
  baked into it as well.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I'd say sometimes when people look back,
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: first of all,
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: they look back to the scandals,
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: which we might come on to.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: But if they look back at all,
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: in a positive sense,
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: they might say like,
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: this was a really kind of well-ordered society.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: And like there was kind of a very clear...
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: system in place and,
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: and a kind of a,
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 15:53
  moral system that everybody shared and the kind of a liturgical
• 15:57
  rhythm of the year
• 15:57
  that everybody was able to participate in and shared kind of
• 16:01
  aesthetic experiences,
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: all that kind of stuff.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, I think, again, it might be Seamus Heaney.
• 16:05
  I'm not sure who talks about like the smell of the tantum ergo
• 16:09
  and referring to
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: benediction and like this,
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: like shared kind of almost,
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 16:12
  synesthetic spiritual experience that was shared by people and
• 16:17
  that that was all lost.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: But,
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: But sorry,
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: so you have this,
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: okay,
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: positively you have this like,
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: Catholic system within Ireland.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I think you can even go further than that.
• 16:27
  And you can say like,
• 16:27
  at its height,
• 16:29
  Irish Catholicism was doing far more than that.
• 16:32
  It was sending out incredibly generous young people out to very
• 16:37
  difficult missions.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think our generation,
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a bit older than you,
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: but like,
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think in a sense,
• 16:43
  like younger Irish people realize what it meant that Ireland
• 16:47
  was sending out tens
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: of thousands.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: So like,
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: I looked up some stats today,
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: between 1930 and 1970,
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: 30,000 young Irish people joined missionary orders.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so they would all have joined at like the age of like 16, 17, 18.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: And most of them joined without any hope of returning home.
• 17:05
  And so they were they were just joining and going off to India
• 17:09
  on the on the
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: presumption that,
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: that they would never see their families again.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: And again,
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: that's like sometimes we imagine that just,
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: again,
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Catholic Ireland was a very cruel and cold place.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: But like,
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 17:20
  these people were going with fire in their bellies and they
• 17:23
  were going freely.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody was forcing them to.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: And just for people to get a sense of maybe like.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: that slightly more appealing side of Catholic Ireland.
• 17:32
  There's a really cool short film on the Irish Film Institute
• 17:35
  website called The
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: Village with the Most Vocations.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's only about like 15 minutes,
• 17:40
  but it's a little documentary about this village called Dune in
• 17:42
  County Limerick,
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: which produced at a certain stage,
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: they had like 117 living nuns who had come from that little village.
• 17:50
  And it's just such a cool insight into kind of how things were
• 17:53
  at a certain time.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: But there has been like a huge shift.
• 17:58
  vocations to female religious life i mean there's 117 from that
• 18:01
  one little village
• 18:02
  in ireland in the last 10 years i guess there's been maybe you
• 18:06
  know six or seven
• 18:07
  women have gone into female religious life um something
• 18:10
  something along those lines
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: that i that i know of and i think i probably know them all
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's,
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: there's just a massive decline,
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: massive shift in kind of people's general attitude to the Catholic faith.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: So if you might say like in the 1960s,
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: there might have been great pride,
• 18:25
  people had great pride in their Catholic faith and in Ireland's
• 18:29
  fidelity to the
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: Catholic faith during centuries of persecution.
• 18:32
  Now I would say like the kind of knee jerk mainstream reaction
• 18:35
  towards the Catholic
• 18:36
  faith or Catholic church is of like disdain for the kind of the
• 18:41
  kind of disgust at
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: the dark side of Catholic Ireland,
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: which was very real as well.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: But like, that's the kind of the overall feeling.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I think now there's even,
• 18:48
  there's very little sense in Ireland today that the Catholic
• 18:52
  church was persecuted.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: I often just like drop this into conversation with people or I bring like
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 18:57
  I do a lot of kind of school tours and stuff and bring people
• 19:00
  around and I'll point
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: to a statue and I'll say like,
• 19:02
  this statue was hidden for 200 years because it was illegal to
• 19:05
  have the mass and it
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: was illegal for priests to be in Ireland.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: And they're kind of stunned.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Not only are the kids stunned, the teachers are stunned.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: That was something I was going to touch on,
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: in that,
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: because,
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: talking about that golden age of Catholicism that was,
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: whatever,
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: the end of the 19th century,
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: 1870s until,
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: 1960,
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: maybe 100 years.
• 19:26
  But,
• 19:26
  like,
• 19:26
  that's actually a very unusual period in the whole of Irish history.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like,
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: most of Irish history was,
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: since,
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: the Catholic Church,
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: it was,
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: paganism becoming Catholic.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: But then there was also,
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: the oppression of Catholics by,
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: the invasion of the Reformation.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: for a long time.
• 19:42
  And literally,
• 19:43
  yeah,
• 19:43
  Catholicism being actually illegal,
• 19:45
  where it's amazing.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody was telling me,
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: actually,
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: the head of DCU,
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Derek Hough,
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: did a talk on the history of our parish from Ralph Farnham,
• 19:53
  and he was talking about how this was one of the churches that
• 19:56
  was built after the...
• 20:00
  after the end of the penal laws and the old penal chapel was
• 20:03
  actually in the back.
• 20:04
  Like there's a little field you can go in where there's a well
• 20:07
  where they used to
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: say mass in,
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: in essentially just in this like forest because it was illegal.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then obviously once it was overturned,
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: then they were able to build these great churches,
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: but they were all built in a very short space of time and they weren't,
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: that hasn't been the norm before.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: you know, the entire time.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of people in their mind,
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: the Catholic Church is this dominant,
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: like conservative,
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: patriarchal,
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: like overbearing,
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: like huge thing.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, well, that's not accurate historically.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Or it's not native.
• 20:34
  There's this weird thing of like saying that,
• 20:36
  like,
• 20:37
  basically we were all pagans.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 20:38
  there was somebody writing a while back and they were talking
• 20:42
  about like in the
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Middle Ages when the Irish were pantheists.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was kind of thinking, no, I don't think so.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, genuinely.
• 20:52
  And until like Cardinal Cullen came in and like made us all
• 20:55
  like European Catholics.
• 20:57
  And so that's one thing I love to do is just to like dig into
• 21:00
  the fine grain of the history,
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: the history of Catholicism,
• 21:04
  of Christianity in Ireland and just tell the stories without
• 21:07
  being polemical.
• 21:07
  you know i don't think there's any point being like over the
• 21:09
  top about it and uh or
• 21:11
  like you know heroizing is that a word i don't think so but
• 21:14
  like being like telling
• 21:16
  overly heroic stories all the time as if there was no just like
• 21:19
  ordinary or even
• 21:20
  darker dimension to the life of the church of course there was
• 21:22
  in every time but
• 21:24
  one thing that we do as dominicans is we we kind of try to
• 21:27
  preach online so we have
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: a youtube channel and um irish dominicans and on that um i've done about
• 21:34
  nearly 80 videos at sites of christian heritage around ireland
• 21:37
  it's called treasure
• 21:38
  ireland and we have a new series coming out from from county
• 21:41
  kerry and the idea is
• 21:42
  you just go to the place and just tell the story to say like
• 21:45
  this happened here and
• 21:46
  and again people are really excited i think irish people have a
• 21:49
  love for place and
• 21:50
  their local place and if you just like scratch the surface of
• 21:53
  this field and you're
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: like there was a monastery here in the seventh century you know and i
• 21:59
  so anyway just to say like yeah huge decline massive attitude
• 22:03
  shift um which often
• 22:05
  like is just is mind-boggling to me um and i can't fully
• 22:11
  account for i can you know
• 22:12
  i can account for it in to some extent um but just the kind of
• 22:17
  the the total
• 22:18
  conformity with which people react to the church now i i kind
• 22:22
  of struggle to
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: understand
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 22:25
  I might be able to help there a little bit in terms of like my upbringing,
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: which is quite unusual.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was there.
• 22:31
  I had ringside at a time when that was actually very unusual
• 22:34
  because I was born in like 1994.
• 22:36
  And I think only 2% of the population were non-religious then
• 22:40
  or without religion.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: So like what my parents were doing at that time was super unusual.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like they were both raised Catholic,
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: but basically just decided like,
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: oh,
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: we're just going to get rid of this.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: We don't like it.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to do something different.
• 22:53
  what that was wasn't particularly clear in a sense of like
• 22:56
  there was kind of like i
• 22:57
  went to an educate together school which i guess is like a
• 22:59
  secular education system
• 23:01
  and kind of yeah there was i think there's it's a real
• 23:04
  enlightenment ideal there's
• 23:06
  this idea that of progress that we're going to get to something
• 23:09
  better like there's
• 23:10
  something there's something else coming that's going to be the
• 23:12
  replacement
• 23:13
  essentially for religion i felt that very personally like i
• 23:16
  tried like new agey
• 23:17
  stuff a lot of eastern spiritualities you know martial arts
• 23:21
  different kind of
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: things and
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: When you actually look at the full gamut,
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: really,
• 23:26
  of options of what's there in terms of human history and what
• 23:30
  we've thought of,
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: it's actually not that many things to go through.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: And for me,
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: it was like anything but Christianity was just the philosophy of like,
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'll do anything else but Christianity.
• 23:44
  just not that and i think for a lot of young people it's like
• 23:47
  they're doing yoga
• 23:48
  they're doing other stuff they'll try like anything but we're
• 23:51
  all just kind of
• 23:52
  avoiding like looking at the reality of our you know catholic
• 23:55
  past and who and how
• 23:57
  like we're still we still live by those values like people want
• 24:00
  to talk about
• 24:00
  equality and like it's like yeah that's i mean we're made in
• 24:04
  the image of god
• 24:04
  that's that was that you know what i mean the romans didn't
• 24:07
  have that the greeks
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: didn't have that tremendously unequal societies like yeah
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and so, yeah, there was going to be a reckoning, I suppose.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: But for me growing up,
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: it was very naive,
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: in a sense of just being like,
• 24:19
  we're just going to get rid of this and something better is
• 24:21
  going to come along.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be better.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're going to we're going to just figure something out.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I don't know what that is.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I haven't seen it, to be honest, in my own life.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, that's my impression is people aren't really thinking about it.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: They just think, you know, there's going to be something better.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: And for me,
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: one of the most important things I've realized,
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: when I,
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: again,
• 24:43
  when I go and speak to different groups or just in personal conversations,
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: like to gently interrogate their worldview and just to say,
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: okay,
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: how do you account for
• 24:54
  like freedom for example like do you think that there are
• 24:56
  certain acts that are
• 24:57
  praiseworthy and certain acts that are blameworthy like how do
• 24:59
  you account for that
• 25:00
  if you're a materialist and if you're not a materialist you
• 25:03
  know how do you how do
• 25:04
  you account for that yeah and and i love having those
• 25:07
  conversations and not not
• 25:09
  just because i like feel superior whatever like have it all
• 25:11
  figured out or anything
• 25:11
  like that i mean that's probably that's probably part of and
• 25:13
  but like it's it's to
• 25:14
  raise questions that just aren't aren't being asked at all and
• 25:18
  definitely aren't
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: being answered by the kind of the default like
• 25:22
  um materialistic worldview that's that's that's replacing
• 25:25
  people are feeling it
• 25:25
  though people are feeling like the youth mental health crisis
• 25:28
  so much of that like
• 25:29
  the meaning crisis is all connect even the culture war like the
• 25:33
  extremism needing
• 25:34
  to identify with groups political groups is your identity or
• 25:37
  your mental illness is
• 25:38
  your identity like you know the things that we put in to fill
• 25:42
  that void left by god
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: are not
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: the 20th century was a battleground of terrible,
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Nazism or communism or any kind of solution.
• 25:52
  So for me,
• 25:54
  you know,
• 25:54
  that kind of idolatry,
• 25:56
  I mean,
• 25:56
  that in itself is a punishment in a way.
• 25:59
  Like it leads,
• 26:00
  it doesn't lead to any kind of peace,
• 26:02
  any kind of,
• 26:03
  you know,
• 26:04
  there's no...
• 26:06
  there's no end point in it because it's not,
• 26:09
  it's not based on what's real,
• 26:10
  which is God.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um,
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: and so that,
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: for me having those conversations,
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: it's like,
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: you can have real gains there.
• 26:16
  Like people can,
• 26:17
  your life can get immeasurably better in a very short space of time.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you take those questions seriously,
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: but for sure,
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: difficult questions,
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: like they're not,
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: it's not simple stuff to discuss.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: And like there are, I think there are good reasons.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know about good reasons,
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: but like there are strong causes anyway that are,
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: that are kind of like pushing people away.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just that people are doing it willfully,
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: like not looking at Christ or,
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: just out of devilment or anything like that.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's, there's, there's, you know,
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Very,
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: very,
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: and,
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: in each in the case of each person,
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think you have to like you have to honor honor them and their story.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: And,
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'd have to be very,
• 27:00
  very careful not to dismiss or kind of just like put people in
• 27:03
  a category or like,
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: you're a lapsed Catholic because,
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: you think this,
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: this and this or you don't know about this,
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: this and this.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to be very careful not to do that.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it is worth just thinking a little bit about,
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 27:16
  what is happening and what has happened to kind of push people
• 27:19
  away or to make
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Christianity an unthinkable option for so many people.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: And like, on the one hand, it's kind of, you know, secularization.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just something that's been happening for centuries,
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: but maybe it's happening very rapidly in Ireland.
• 27:34
  And Charles Taylor,
• 27:35
  I don't know if you read Charles Taylor,
• 27:36
  but like his book,
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm literally reading at the moment.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was reading it today.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think his analysis is so good.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: And the idea of like the porous self versus the buffer itself.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for me, that's a really helpful thing.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: But that's like that's happening across the world.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's just it's kind of taking effects in Ireland rapidly.
• 27:54
  And I,
• 27:55
  you know,
• 27:56
  I couldn't offer much,
• 27:57
  you know,
• 27:58
  many great insights there.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: But.
• 28:00
  the reason if you ask most people in the pews or most not in
• 28:02
  the precisely not in
• 28:03
  the pews if you ask most people in the street um like why are
• 28:07
  people not practicing
• 28:08
  anymore they will give the straightforward answer a lot of them
• 28:12
  of of child sexual
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: abuse so like that is something that can't be
• 28:16
  can't be avoided and what i don't think it's it's sufficient i
• 28:20
  think like the more
• 28:22
  kind of carefully look at things there's more going on so like
• 28:24
  the way i kind of
• 28:25
  understand at the moment if you think about like people are
• 28:28
  drawn let's say on kind
• 28:30
  of classical philosophical accounts they're drawn to to truth
• 28:33
  to goodness and and
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: to beauty um and um in the catholic church
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: in the second half of the 20th century in Ireland,
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: those things have been really not apparent in strong ways,
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: or they've been occluded by really dark things at times.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd say in terms of truth, the intellectual dimension of the faith
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it hasn't really been,
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: and that goes way back,
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 28:59
  the kind of Irish Catholicism as kind of somewhat
• 29:02
  anti-intellectual or somewhat,
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: lacking in intellectual curiosity,
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: prioritizing like,
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 29:07
  primary schools and secondary schools over university education
• 29:10
  for the laity,
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: like the bishops at a certain point kind of said,
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: we're not really into third level education for the laity.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: We'll just get them the basics, you know?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that kind of anti-intellectual approach, not really...
• 29:22
  Appreciating the value of questioning,
• 29:24
  of deep thought,
• 29:26
  of engagement with literature.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so that was kind of across the board.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then it bore fruit in...
• 29:34
  There was still the kind of the teaching of the catechism was
• 29:36
  pretty strong in
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: mid-20th century Ireland.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: But then...
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: After the council, then that kind of went as well.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so people were kind of not really learning the catechism,
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: first of all,
• 29:49
  not really learning the basics of the faith and not really
• 29:53
  being part of a thinking,
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: reflective community.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that's truth.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: Goodness then,
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: in the early 1990s,
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: when scandals began to break about,
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: first of all,
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: it was Bishop Eamon Casey,
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: and it almost seemed,
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: like an innocent scandal now because,
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: it involved an adult woman.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then just like in the wake of that,
• 30:15
  there was just like a horrific stream of revelations of abuse
• 30:23
  and then of cover up
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: of abuse.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: And there was, you know, the Rhine Report.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the Murphy Report, you know, we're familiar with them.
• 30:30
  And then obviously then the whole question of the Magdalene
• 30:33
  laundries and how women
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: were treated when they were at a really vulnerable time.
• 30:37
  They're often treated with great cruelty in a society that
• 30:39
  prided itself on being
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: the most Catholic society in the world kind of thing,
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: you know.
• 30:44
  So that really dark underbelly,
• 30:47
  like all these hidden people coming out,
• 30:49
  telling their stories.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, at times it demanded great courage to do so.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that stunned people because,
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: they had been placing great moral authority in the hierarchy.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden it was like discovering that your father,
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 31:08
  has been leading a terrible double life and just the sense of
• 31:10
  betrayal and the
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: sense of hypocrisy.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: And therefore, you don't represent goodness.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: You represent like a really dark and twisted evil.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: So that's goodness is kind of gone.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then beauty.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Again,
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: if I compare Irish Catholicism to kind of other forms of faith in Europe,
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: we don't really have a great appreciation for beauty in the liturgy,
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: for singing in the liturgy,
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: just for the fine arts in relation to worship.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so when people come to your average Sunday liturgy,
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: it's not as if they're going to just be like,
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: oh,
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was transported,
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 31:46
  like Vladimir in Kiev and he sent his ambassadors to kind of to
• 31:51
  see if he'd become
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: a Muslim or Catholic or Orthodox or something.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then the guys in the Orthodox who were sent to Constantinople,
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: they're like,
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: we didn't know if we were in heaven or on earth.
• 32:00
  you're not going to have that problem when you go to your
• 32:02
  average liturgy in
• 32:03
  ireland it's like it's pretty earthly you know um so so beauty
• 32:08
  isn't all that
• 32:08
  apparent um and as i said there's a bit of a a bit of a kind of
• 32:12
  a gap between the
• 32:13
  world of the arts and the world of faith in ireland um it's not
• 32:16
  as if there's a
• 32:16
  great partnership i mean yeah i've done yeah plays i like i
• 32:20
  yeah i i mean i don't
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: know if you could even do
• 32:24
  anything overtly religious to be honest in that world at all
• 32:27
  like unless you're
• 32:28
  maybe very established or something like that maybe in the
• 32:31
  subject but and it's
• 32:33
  striking like yeah we might can we come back to that because
• 32:35
  i'd love to just talk
• 32:36
  about like a certain turn to like a really very tentative turn
• 32:40
  to religion in the
• 32:40
  arts in ireland but i we can come back to that anyway but so
• 32:43
  that's that's my sense
• 32:43
  is that i don't want to derail these yeah no not at all but
• 32:46
  like these three things
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: are kind of like
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: you know, pushing people away, have been pushing people away.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: And abuse is like very much kind of very central part of that.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: But there's more going on than that.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's the case.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's my... Yeah, I really... That was my sense in that the abuse was...
• 33:04
  horrendous um but also i don't because i think my argument with
• 33:08
  that a lot of time
• 33:08
  is like because people will say the abuse and you're like okay
• 33:10
  but that's the
• 33:11
  institution i mean the institution of the church can be corrupt
• 33:14
  and can be you know
• 33:15
  not good and that doesn't doesn't change the metaphysics it's
• 33:18
  like because a
• 33:19
  physicist is a pedophile or something doesn't mean physics is
• 33:22
  wrong like it's not
• 33:24
  it doesn't work that way in a sense of like and also you go
• 33:27
  back to reformation and
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: like
• 33:29
  the Catholic Church has always had corruption in it that's been
• 33:33
  horrendous like
• 33:33
  that was the argument but you know it's actually more important
• 33:36
  to keep it intact
• 33:37
  than to throw it away entirely but I can see I think yeah it
• 33:42
  was the worst time for
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: that to happen probably while this
• 33:44
  people were already kind of losing you know there was these
• 33:48
  questions coming about
• 33:49
  and even like the new atheists i think in the 2000s like if you
• 33:52
  have somebody like
• 33:52
  richard dawkins or christopher uh hitchens who just go on this
• 33:56
  insane run just
• 33:57
  going it's nonsense like they didn't they didn't really have
• 34:00
  like very good
• 34:01
  arguments a lot of the time it was just like there's no
• 34:04
  evidence for god and you're
• 34:05
  like yeah well god isn't an object so obviously you're not
• 34:08
  gonna see it with your
• 34:09
  eyes idiot like that's you know like how did you get this far
• 34:13
  with that like it's
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, there was no pushback to it, in a sense.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: No, there was no pushback.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: But like, again, I was really blessed to be exposed to the thought of St.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Thomas Aquinas.
• 34:24
  I mean,
• 34:24
  you mentioned a while ago,
• 34:25
  just like realizing,
• 34:25
  oh gosh,
• 34:26
  there are answers.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: And in my teenage years, early days of the internet, I would just like...
• 34:32
  managed to find my way to thomas aquinas and just realizing
• 34:34
  gosh okay there's
• 34:36
  something really significant they're very rich like i have to
• 34:38
  deal with this
• 34:39
  somehow and there are like things that sound very very true to
• 34:43
  me and more
• 34:44
  satisfying to my mind than than what people are offering
• 34:47
  instead and that to me
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: like what you just said about um
• 34:52
  okay,
• 34:53
  the corruption of this system does not mean that the faith is false.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it's such an obvious thing to say.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't necessarily strike home with people, though.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: They're looking for goodness in association with truth, right?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it is...
• 35:08
  jarring when when you find a really ugly gap between the truth
• 35:13
  of the faith and
• 35:14
  like you know the goodness that you expect but like i i
• 35:18
  remember the 1990s like in
• 35:19
  my i remember actually where i was and in you know my dad's
• 35:23
  office he was working
• 35:24
  as an accountant and and i was reading the newspaper and just
• 35:27
  like reading these
• 35:27
  horrific things and i was asking myself like okay what does
• 35:30
  this mean for me and
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: and i remember saying like if this is true like if the faith is true
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: then none of this matters to my following of Christ,
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: including the possibility of a priestly vocation.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: If God wants me to be a priest,
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'll do it,
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: no matter what these guys have done,
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: no matter how bad the cover-up was.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: If it's true, it's true, and it's worth giving my life for.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: End of story.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 35:56
  And that's a big,
• 35:57
  yeah,
• 35:57
  big decision in the midst of all of that to choose.
• 36:00
  I mean,
• 36:00
  for me as a young atheist,
• 36:02
  I was like,
• 36:02
  great,
• 36:03
  like this,
• 36:03
  they look terrible.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: They've done all these awful things.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: This wonderful, like, you know, yeah, we were right about them.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Look at all this.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, sure.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas you're, you're doing the exact opposite.
• 36:13
  You're still going,
• 36:14
  I still have the faith to actually sacrifice ourselves.
• 36:17
  to do that i mean that's you know heroic i was blessed and so
• 36:22
  difficult i'm sure
• 36:23
  like i don't know about heroic but like i'd say i was blessed
• 36:25
  as well just within
• 36:27
  my family life to have experienced the catholic faith at its
• 36:30
  very best and most
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: sincere and real and um and so i kind of knew a better
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: a better version of the gospel that I was able to like separate out.
• 36:43
  And for a lot of people,
• 36:44
  they didn't necessarily have that highly articulated faith in
• 36:48
  the home.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: They just had what they had in the parish church.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then they learned about the clergy and they're like,
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: oh gosh,
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going there again,
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: you know?
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I had all kinds of support that a lot of people didn't have.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: and I can see,
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: as well in terms of kind of to turn to a more personal faith in a sense,
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: like even some like in my family,
• 37:08
  older people that would still be Catholics and that were like
• 37:11
  after the abuse,
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: they're like,
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to confession with a priest that,
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: might be.
• 37:16
  doing something like that or i you know yeah and they turn to
• 37:18
  more like i'll pray
• 37:20
  myself and i'll kind of maintain my own faith outside of a kind
• 37:23
  of institutional
• 37:24
  structure in a way which is you know which is sad by the way do
• 37:29
  i need to okay my
• 37:32
  phone is going off a priest a priest is always busy the phone
• 37:34
  is always ringing off
• 37:35
  the hook so sorry to interrupt you but you said that yeah that
• 37:38
  that move away from
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: from let's say sacramental worship to kind of a more personal thing
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of people are doing that because like the lapse,
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: like when you mentioned like 95% Catholics and now it's like 69%.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think most of those people haven't necessarily gone to other religions.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: They've become nuns.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: They've become the N-O-N-E-S,
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: like the non-religious,
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: but sometimes spiritual and kind of like quasi,
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: you know.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: might have some,
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: they're not like hardcore materialists,
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: but like,
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: they're not going to be,
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: religious institutions.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: What amazes me is that their spirituality is often like Catholic coded,
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: and you know,
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: willingness to light a candle to go on the Camino.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's a lot of different things where,
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: or,
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: and like their,
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: their kind of moral worldview,
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: like they,
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: they kind of inherit a lot of that from,
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: from the Catholic faith as well.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: So that's, that's kind of striking.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm, I'm always amazed here.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I look out at a grotto, um,
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: And just the amount of people who stopped there.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I like, I almost never look out my window to see nobody there.
• 38:39
  It's almost always people there from like six o'clock in the
• 38:41
  morning until,
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: late at night.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: And very few of them are people who would come into the church.
• 38:47
  And so there's this,
• 38:48
  there is this Catholic code in spiritual practice that's still there.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: And, and, and that's, that's quite striking, I think.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: And there are other people who just go like, you know, fall on yoga.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: They go full yoga.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: They go full,
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: they go full Buddhist,
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: they go full whatever,
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: but,
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: but they're,
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: they're rare,
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just, yeah, I don't know.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 39:07
  probably not super sustainable as well in a society that
• 39:11
  essentially that's quite alien,
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: if you know what I mean.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's not,
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: it's like learning a foreign language,
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: but living in a country where nobody speaks that language in a sense.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's like,
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: if you want to be a Buddhist,
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: you should just live in a Buddhist community,
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose.
• 39:25
  Yeah,
• 39:25
  although I have to say,
• 39:26
  I have great time for people who are like really...
• 39:30
  really trying their best to live a kind of a spiritual path
• 39:33
  that they've um that
• 39:35
  they're really committed to like i i really have so much time
• 39:37
  for that um uh
• 39:39
  especially like people who kind of really take buddhism
• 39:41
  seriously um and and i've
• 39:43
  recently had the joy of of kind of accompanying a guy who was a
• 39:46
  teacher of
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: vipassana meditation for 10 years and who basically encountered christ
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: Totally on... He had no desire, no interest in Christian faith.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: But just in his meditation, he just kept feeling the presence of Christ.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he's now whole hog, fully committed to the faith.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: And he was raised with almost no exposure to Catholicism.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: And just last weekend, I was up in...
• 40:11
  in the north giving a talk about um blessed carlo akutis and
• 40:14
  blessed pierre georgia
• 40:15
  fasadi who are both going to be canonized this summer and there
• 40:18
  was a young guy who
• 40:19
  was like what 19 and he said when he was 10 he became a or
• 40:22
  whatever age he was 10
• 40:23
  or 12 or something like that he stopped practicing and um he
• 40:27
  became a buddhist and
• 40:28
  he's like he was fully committed to buddhism for his entire
• 40:31
  teenage years and he
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: said but now like there's this
• 40:35
  huge draw towards christ and he says he feels such light and
• 40:40
  peace when he's in a
• 40:42
  church or praying before an image of christ or um or just at a
• 40:45
  prayer meeting with
• 40:46
  the christians he's like why is this happening to me i have no
• 40:49
  desire for it but
• 40:50
  he's just experiencing a presence there which he doesn't feel
• 40:53
  in any of his other
• 40:54
  spiritual practices which is fascinating and i think there's
• 40:56
  probably a good reason
• 40:57
  for that in a sense of like even for me doing meditation
• 40:59
  because like if you're an
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: atheist kind of rationalist type you know
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: You're in a very propositional world, I think.
• 41:07
  You're not practicing,
• 41:07
  you're not praying,
• 41:08
  you're not meditating,
• 41:09
  you're not contemplating.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: None of those practices are involved in any of that.
• 41:13
  So if you do a lot of meditation,
• 41:15
  you're going to drop into this more attentional kind of world.
• 41:19
  changing your perception you're changing the way you're
• 41:21
  relating to things and that
• 41:23
  type of practice i think like what you mentioned um the secular
• 41:27
  age like going from
• 41:28
  that buffered self to the more porous self to seeing how things
• 41:31
  are actually
• 41:31
  influencing you noticing things that are coming up the images
• 41:35
  the like developing a
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: relationship with that stuff and then and then sure you're on
• 41:39
  you're on the way essentially like it's but for me I think
• 41:42
  because because at the
• 41:44
  end result of that is you're gonna yeah if you keep going
• 41:47
  you're gonna meet you
• 41:48
  know Christ he's there like exactly behind every door but like
• 41:53
  sometimes part of
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: the journey
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 41:55
  And some of my Catholic friends kind of are very dismissive of mindfulness.
• 42:00
  And although I met a Buddhist abbot of a kind of Thai forest
• 42:05
  monastery in England,
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: and I asked him about mindfulness and he was like,
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: no,
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: corporate mindfulness.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: He said corporate mindfulness is like...
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's like painting a train wreck.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, wow, that's a good image.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: But some of my Catholic friends are very dismissive of it.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, yeah, it's so empty or it's so pagan or whatever.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: But actually,
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: for me,
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: if somebody is taking mindfulness seriously,
• 42:32
  they're in a far better position than somebody who's just
• 42:35
  absorbed in social media,
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: for example.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd be like,
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: if you're sitting being attentive to yourself,
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: attentive to reality,
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm delighted.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I know because I know reality has a face,
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: and I know you'll meet him if you're really sufficiently attentive.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, totally.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe,
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 42:51
  it's probably because we've talked about the bad stuff a lot
• 42:53
  and we kind of got
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: through that.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe, you know, yeah, what is changing now?
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you brought up the internet as well.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: For me, that was huge.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: With the like IDW and Jordan Peterson kind of thing.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: What's the IDW?
• 43:06
  the internet uh dark web or intellectual deep web um that kind
• 43:10
  of thing that
• 43:11
  happened in like the 2010s that was kind of after the new
• 43:15
  atheism stuff really it
• 43:17
  was like peterson and pajot john verbakey and these kind of
• 43:20
  guys that started
• 43:22
  talking about religion in a totally different way like it
• 43:25
  wasn't it wasn't
• 43:27
  evangelizing it was talking about like the rationality of it
• 43:30
  how you could
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: understand like
• 43:32
  these transformations and what it's doing and gave new language
• 43:36
  i think for people
• 43:37
  like me who were just completely inept like i couldn't believe
• 43:40
  any religion let
• 43:41
  alone you know christianity so i needed a lot of retraining in
• 43:45
  a sense to see see
• 43:46
  the logic of stories of mythologies of yeah you know how our
• 43:50
  cognitive systems work
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: and how these things make sense and so that um
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: Their change,
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: their kind of impact on me anyway,
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_00: was to send me in that direction to be like,
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: oh yeah,
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: this is actually,
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: this isn't what I thought it was.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: I've been taught kind of a reduced version of Christianity or religion.
• 44:08
  And that's really just,
• 44:10
  you know,
• 44:10
  not what the actual thing is in a sense.
• 44:13
  And yeah,
• 44:14
  made it intellectually respectable,
• 44:16
  I suppose,
• 44:16
  for me at that time.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I definitely see that happening to a lot of people.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I know some kind of missionaries who work with students in UCD,
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: and they refer to Jordan Peterson.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: So they have like, JP2 is a nickname for John Paul II.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: They refer to Jordan Peterson as JP3.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: And not because they're fans of everything he says, right?
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's very important to say.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think like recently...
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I couldn't get behind everything he's been saying.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: But,
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: as a kind of,
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: a gateway drug or whatever,
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: like as just somebody who lead people from,
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 44:57
  just a materialistic kind of starting point to something that
• 45:02
  is far more open to
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: the scriptures,
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: far more open to the idea of divine revelation.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: And just like...
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: yeah, the big story.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's having a big effect on people.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, I mean, it's still kind of a tiny number of people, right?
• 45:23
  And then there's a kind of a broader number of people who are
• 45:26
  returning or kind of,
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: there's a definite move.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: All kinds of statistics have been showing this, that like Gen Z,
• 45:33
  for all that they're kind of the most absorbed in social media
• 45:35
  in a certain sense.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um,
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: they're also the,
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: far more,
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: far more spiritual,
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: let's say,
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: far more theistic,
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: than some of the older generations.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: There's been some really interesting research on this recently.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they pray more than, than, than millennials or, or, or Gen X. Um,
• 45:53
  which is really,
• 45:54
  really surprising because they're sometimes the least exposed.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a kind of dramatic and kind of unexpected thing.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not all explained by, you know, Jordan Peterson and so on.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: So there's like a broader kind of...
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: There's a major lack of satisfaction with kind of mainstream orthodoxy,
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: let's say,
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: mainstream kind of secular orthodoxy,
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: major dissatisfaction with that.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's not satisfying to people.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's not giving them a purpose, as you mentioned, kind of...
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: mental health crisis and people are being told kind of,
• 46:26
  you give your life its own purpose and that's a burden a lot of
• 46:29
  people can't bear.
• 46:30
  And so,
• 46:33
  yeah,
• 46:34
  they're searching for something into which they can insert themselves.
• 46:37
  And that makes it sound like a form of self-help,
• 46:40
  which I don't think this is.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think there's truth at the heart of this as well as just
• 46:45
  the fact that it's meaningful for people or helpful for people
• 46:48
  psychologically and so on.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: But it's definitely happening.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like the broader trend is still like huge numbers of people leaving,
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: leaving the church,
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: leaving practice,
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: all that kind of stuff.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: But there is a real trend and a significant trend,
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: nevertheless,
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: of people returning with a bang.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say especially young men, but plenty of others as well.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I think for Gen Z,
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 47:10
  my kind of meta theory of the whole thing is that modernity is
• 47:14
  really running out.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of the stuff that fueled the kind of enlightenment,
• 47:20
  optimism and this kind of idea that we're going to build
• 47:24
  something better has changed.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: has run aground,
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: particularly probably because of the technology,
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: like you point out social media,
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: but also artificial intelligence.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you can see that kind of like transhumanism, like where that's going.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: Most people are like, I want to get off that ship.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's not, I don't like the way that that looks.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that generation that grew up on social media,
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we talk about the poor self.
• 47:44
  This was something I was trying to explain to my girlfriend
• 47:46
  because I was talking
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: to her about spirits and she's like,
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like your life.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: You're talking about spirits.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like,
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: but no,
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: for ancient people,
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: we were influenced by forces beyond our control,
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: by transpersonal forces that could take over our minds.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I use the example of social media,
• 48:01
  like what those content ranking algorithms are doing are
• 48:04
  figuring out your
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: personalized weak points where things,
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: where they can insert spirits that will influence your behavior,
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: that will keep you on
• 48:12
  platform be it lust be it wrath be it any of these things and
• 48:15
  like you know these
• 48:16
  are powerful evolved neural circuits that literally take over
• 48:21
  control of your
• 48:21
  prefrontal cortex so like you lose you know your identity to
• 48:25
  them in a sense and
• 48:27
  yeah that's that generation has really experienced that i would
• 48:30
  say in real time in
• 48:31
  in a sense they're probably like oh yeah there are forces
• 48:34
  beyond me that are very
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: much sure you know
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: And certainly malevolent.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe there's good ones as well,
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: maybe that's...
• 48:42
  That's a really striking example of like a rediscovery kind of
• 48:47
  like against the
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: boomer generation,
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: which rejected all this,
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: let's say,
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: but like a rediscovery of something pretty prime.
• 48:52
  I see it as well in relation to like something like Original
• 48:54
  Sin in that there's a really...
• 48:59
  you know a strong sense that people have when they talk about
• 49:02
  things like systemic
• 49:03
  racism or or or white privilege like apart from like the
• 49:06
  substantive issue there's
• 49:08
  a sense or environmental justice there's a sense which like
• 49:10
  we're born into
• 49:11
  something that we didn't create ourselves but we nevertheless
• 49:15
  bear some collective
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: guilt
• 49:17
  and some kind of um we owe some kind of response to this um in
• 49:23
  order to make it
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: right and so like the younger again the boomers might be in their kind of
• 49:27
  individual individualistic things and saying like i'm i'm not
• 49:30
  into a sense of like
• 49:30
  collective sin or original sin i'm i'm like i do my own thing
• 49:33
  or whatever but that
• 49:34
  gen z i think has the kind of the intellectual framework to
• 49:38
  think about something
• 49:38
  like original sin and in a clearer sense um as well as spirits
• 49:43
  and and whatever
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: else uh which is which is kind of interesting yeah
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think ailing consciences in a sense,
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard it said about Gen Z that they're more moral,
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: but also I would say more morally confused maybe because a lot of things,
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: there's so many different ideologies online and so many normativities and
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: everybody's got a speech about who you should be and you should be this,
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: you should be that.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, yeah.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: that raises questions of like, well, who should I be?
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what's the actual, you know, what's the traditional answer?
• 50:09
  And you can see like with Christianity,
• 50:11
  it takes a lot of the virtues from the classical world.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_00: It integrates them, you know, with theological virtues.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: It brings it together.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: Christ is an actual person who did these things,
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: who you can emulate through him and the saints.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: And like,
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: it's the greatest vision of what a person can be that in my estimation,
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: anyway,
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: that I've seen has ever been created.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: So like, if you're asking those questions, you know,
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to take you there.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I see young people asking these questions online.
• 50:40
  And again,
• 50:42
  what they're finding there,
• 50:44
  so I mentioned the lack of truth,
• 50:46
  beauty,
• 50:46
  and goodness.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: Young people are finding these things in the Catholic tradition online.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: They're finding truth through things like...
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: podcasts they might listen to,
• 50:57
  like God's Plaining is a very popular podcast that American
• 51:00
  Dominicans produce.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: Pints of Aquinas is another,
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: or like Bible in a Year,
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: Catechism in a Year,
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: these two immensely popular podcasts with Father Mike Schmitz,
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: or kind of just apologetics websites like Catholic Answers.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of young people I know are like Peter Kreeft,
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: Trent Horn,
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: all these different people,
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: Bishop Robert Barron,
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: And there's loads and loads and loads of examples.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: And young people I know are really finding truth there.
• 51:25
  Something like that is coherent,
• 51:27
  internally coherent and kind of intellectually satisfying.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: So like Matt Fradd,
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: who presents Pines of Aquinas,
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: we got him over to speak in Tala,
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: in our church in Tala.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: And there was about 400 people there.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so few faces did I recognize.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so many people.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: kind of spoke,
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: got the mic and said like,
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: I've come back to the faith because of this podcast or I've,
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_01: I was baptized because of this podcast.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like there was a lot like that.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_01: So truth, then beauty, like Spotify.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 51:55
  even if your local choir is rubbish or there's no local choir
• 51:59
  in your church,
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_01: you can listen to Gregorian chant.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_01: You can listen to like...
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: you know, Mozart's masses or whatever.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're all there.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: We're all there.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly that.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: So you have, you have all this beauty.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: You have like people just like looking at pictures of,
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: they're,
• 52:14
  they might follow a Twitter account that'll show them pictures
• 52:17
  of beautiful Gothic
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: architecture or whatever.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then, and then goodness, like you can,
• 52:21
  you can have yeah i'm sure you do and then goodness you can
• 52:23
  have like um you're
• 52:25
  reading the lives of the saints or like the hollow app i don't
• 52:28
  know if people know
• 52:28
  the hollow necessarily and i'm not sponsored by them but like
• 52:32
  i'm often telling
• 52:32
  people like download it because there's a free version which is
• 52:35
  really really good
• 52:36
  and then there's other stuff you can get and my my little
• 52:38
  nephews they're um
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: They're only like,
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: eight,
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: five and three or whatever,
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_01: but they love listening to the lives of the saints on Hollow.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: And funny story,
• 52:48
  my brother is telling me that one of them was listening to one
• 52:51
  of them and like
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: drawing a picture of the saint as he was listening to it.
• 52:54
  And his older brother walked in and said,
• 52:57
  what saint do you listen to there?
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the younger fella said, it's Saint Ignatius.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: And the older fella goes, of Antioch or of Loyola?
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I just thought, oh my gosh, these kids like are better.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: They know the faith better than like...
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: Any, like most priests, but they're just absorbing it through hollow.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: So there are all these ways to like connect with the goodness,
• 53:17
  the moral goodness that's there in the life of grace and the
• 53:20
  lives of the saints.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: And either in practice or in theory,
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: as you mentioned,
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: so like just behind me here,
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: that's like the Summa Theologiae of St.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thomas Aquinas.
• 53:28
  And like the second part of that is just about the moral life
• 53:31
  and the virtues.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you read that and you're like, oh my gosh, this is so...
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: it's kind of like a universal account of human nature,
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: but at the same time,
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: it really corresponds well to the particularities of like,
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: moral psychology in all its kind of complexity.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, yeah, it's just, it's pretty incredible.
• 53:50
  And it's a vision that's not just presented as like a really
• 53:53
  demanding path,
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_01: but there's like,
• 53:55
  it's a demanding path in which there's so much mercy and
• 53:59
  humanity and so on.
• 54:00
  So yeah,
• 54:01
  so that goodness,
• 54:02
  beauty and truth,
• 54:03
  they're kind of presenting themselves
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: to younger people online.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then the challenges then are,
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: are they able to like connect with the,
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: the kind of the actual life of the church in the flesh?
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: Cause that's the next stage.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I agree.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think if it stays online, it can become an idol in a sense of that.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're just,
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_00: you're just consuming podcast content and you're not really,
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_00: cause there is,
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think something I've really noticed throughout the process.
• 54:28
  So like I was baptized at the Easter vigil and I started doing
• 54:32
  the RCIA and
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: Towards the end of the year.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I did RCIA and then going to mass every week.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_00: And there's something,
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: the communal aspect of it,
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: you're just never going to replicate online.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's just no,
• 54:47
  there's no alternative to people being together in the room
• 54:51
  relating intergenerationally.
• 54:53
  You know,
• 54:53
  I can talk to the 80 year old lady that's there and she'll tell
• 54:56
  me about her life.
• 54:57
  And then I can talk to,
• 54:58
  you know,
• 54:58
  the young guy that's coming from the internet thing.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_00: And like, you know,
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: it just brings all these people together in that space.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where, that's where it happens, I think.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the online is like, I think it's a good gateway drug.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um,
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: but for me,
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I had to overcome a lot of prejudices to get in the room,
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_00: to be like in there and actually practicing it to not be like,
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh,
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: what is this?
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_00: Or it's like, Oh, it's all eight year old people or whatever.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like,
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: I had to just consciously be like,
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_00: okay,
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_00: there's,
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_00: that's not,
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: not the important thing,
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_00: but I could see for other people,
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: that might be more difficult if you're not as like,
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_00: like I'm definitely doing this in some sense.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: Especially if you're a lapsed Catholic,
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: maybe where it's like,
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_00: you've already,
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: you've been there and now you've left.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the motivation's kind of different.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_01: that can be a, yeah, that can be a real challenge.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: And there's kind of questions of like pride to struggle with there.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and I'd say like two things to people in that position.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_01: One is like,
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_01: okay,
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_01: if you go to church,
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_01: there'll be a lot of older people,
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: but just like flip it on its head,
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_01: think about it in a different way.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_01: And these are people who've been through a lot.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_01: And these are people who've been through more than me.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: These are people who have been,
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_01: through bereavement and through,
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: dealing with addiction in their family or like all kinds of struggles.
• 56:14
  And to go to these like older,
• 56:16
  wiser people and be in their presence,
• 56:18
  why wouldn't you?
• 56:18
  You know,
• 56:19
  if you flip it on its head and think it in those terms,
• 56:21
  this is a real great gift.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's also, it's not just older people.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's, you know, a gathering of people at mass.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_01: It'll be like super, usually in Dublin area, super like multi-ethnic,
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_01: all kinds of different social classes that might mix.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you have people who just wouldn't mix socially,
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_01: but who'll just be there in the pews with each other.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_01: It really is like, it's kind of here comes everybody.
• 56:40
  And there's something beautiful about that and something really
• 56:43
  like human and healthy.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then the second thing is,
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: okay,
• 56:49
  I think there's good reasons to come to church because like the
• 56:51
  faith is true and
• 56:52
  that the sacraments are kind of saving sacraments and people
• 56:55
  need them and so on.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah,
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: If you needed a nudge to go,
• 56:58
  a good nudge is just to recognize the psychological benefits of
• 57:05
  shared spiritual practice.
• 57:06
  So there was good research done on this recently,
• 57:10
  maybe about three years ago.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: There's a massive study called Faith and Wellness.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a woman called Lisa Miller who's associated with it.
• 57:18
  in columbia university in new york and um they looked at kind
• 57:22
  of okay people who
• 57:23
  have like spiritual beliefs okay that actually has some marked
• 57:27
  benefit in in terms
• 57:28
  of their psychological well-being but people have shared
• 57:31
  spiritual practice and
• 57:32
  it's like getting together with other people who have kind of a
• 57:35
  similar spiritual
• 57:36
  outlook on life that is just a whole other level and so the the
• 57:40
  statistics she gave
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: um i have them here she says
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_01: when spiritual life is shared,
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: you're at an 82 percent decreased relative risk for suicide,
• 57:48
  80 percent decreased risk of addiction and a 75 percent
• 57:51
  decreased risk of depression.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_01: If that was a pill, who wouldn't take that?
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_01: So in a kind of a Pascal's razor kind of thing, like why not?
• 57:58
  Why not go for some of those benefits,
• 57:59
  whether you believe it's true or not?
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_01: And just see what happens.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_01: Just go to church regularly and see what happens.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like what's the worst that could happen?
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_01: And all those potential benefits are there.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's incredible, man.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't heard those statistics.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_00: But in the youth mental health statistics with social media,
• 58:16
  children that are in typically conservative homes that go to
• 58:20
  religious ceremonies
• 58:21
  every week have much lower rates of mental illness than liberal
• 58:25
  non-religious kids.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it's actually,
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
• 58:28
  and it's a marked trend like across the whole of the
• 58:30
  Anglosphere where it's like
• 58:32
  ones that are involved in religious practices have better
• 58:34
  mental health outcomes
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_00: than ones that don't.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, it's really good research on it.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's something that amazes me.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just thinking recently,
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: I put it up on Twitter kind of slightly out of mischief,
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_01: but also sincerely,
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_01: if this is like...
• 58:49
  true and nobody's disputing it in the field and why doesn't the
• 58:53
  HSC when it's when
• 58:54
  it's recommending things you know things for us to do if we're
• 58:57
  struggling with
• 58:58
  anxiety why doesn't it say like it doesn't even have to say go
• 59:00
  to church right
• 59:01
  because some of these benefits they're there even if you're you
• 59:04
  know if you're
• 59:04
  going to a mosque or if you're going to like um I don't know
• 59:07
  like a Buddhist temple
• 59:08
  or whatever um why doesn't it say like just try some religious
• 59:12
  practice like if
• 59:13
  it's if the evidence is there why is it unthinkable for them to
• 59:16
  suggest that it is
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_01: unthinkable but why
• 59:19
  because yeah at odds with the yeah the scientific enterprise or
• 59:24
  something yeah I
• 59:25
  don't know and just bringing people together what you said as
• 59:28
  well about mixing of
• 59:29
  different groups I think particularly in Dublin and Ireland
• 59:32
  we've seen such like
• 59:33
  fractionation the culture wars like these problems of people
• 59:37
  like even class
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_00: conflicts and like
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think really having a space,
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_00: because there isn't any other spaces where people mix across those lines.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're not, they're not going to be, you know, Garth Brooks concert.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_00: Garth Brooks, maybe.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's everybody.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like even, yeah, the GAA, I don't know, like, and men and women.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_00: No, but it's true.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 59:55
  I think that's the place where people can form the
• 59:57
  relationships that are the basis
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_00: of a functioning society.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if we don't form those functioning relationships,
• 1:00:03
  very hard to have a functioning democracy because people just
• 1:00:05
  tribalize they don't
• 1:00:06
  get along you know and we're really seeing that i think in real
• 1:00:09
  time um at the
• 1:00:11
  moment sure i mean if you're if you're worshiping your maker
• 1:00:14
  alongside these other
• 1:00:15
  people who might be very very different from you like there's
• 1:00:19
  hardly any more
• 1:00:19
  powerful like foundation for a kind of a brotherhood or kind of
• 1:00:24
  a you know a
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_01: kinship you know yeah
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so what do you think,
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_00: what's the,
• 1:00:30
  what's the answer for kind of catching these people from the
• 1:00:32
  online and putting
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: them into church?
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, or what's, you know, how should that look?
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_00: How do you think, you know, yeah.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think should be implemented there?
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm not sure.
• 1:00:42
  I mean,
• 1:00:43
  another question is like whether the churches are ready to
• 1:00:45
  receive these people.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think in a lot of cases,
• 1:00:49
  I talked again to a lot of priests and I mentioned this
• 1:00:51
  phenomenon and often
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: they're not really attuned to it.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_01: They're not looking out for it.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_01: They're kind of,
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_01: they've bought,
• 1:00:58
  a lot of them have bought the idea of just like a continual
• 1:01:00
  decline and they're not
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_01: looking for like the little spikes of interest that are there.
• 1:01:05
  But I go into,
• 1:01:06
  as I said,
• 1:01:06
  I go into quite a few schools and inevitably they're
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: there'll be students who will come up at the end to say,
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_01: I listened to like,
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_01: I heard this guy on Joe Rogan and I found it really interesting.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_01: Or during COVID, I mean, and again, this is, it's crazy.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_01: I never like would expect this to happen,
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_01: but these guys were saying like,
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: I saw this thing on TikTok.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so then I followed a few accounts.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so I started reading the Bible every day.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_01: And now we've just set up a prayer group in our school.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is in, you know, Newbridge College was the Dominican school.
• 1:01:35
  And the Dominicans have been trying for a long time to get
• 1:01:36
  these things started.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then it was just like it came that way.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like this guy who's, again, into martial arts and all this kind of stuff.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: And they set up a prayer group.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, all those things are happening.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_01: And the question is, so in Newbridge College, in that case,
• 1:01:51
  There was a young Dominican priest who was like excited about
• 1:01:54
  this and ready to be like,
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_01: absolutely,
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_01: we respond to that.
• 1:01:57
  In a lot of cases,
• 1:01:58
  if people go to their local church,
• 1:02:01
  they might not meet that interest.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so it is important.
• 1:02:05
  I have to be very careful about to say this because I wouldn't
• 1:02:08
  want to encourage
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: people to like shop around to great an extent.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_01: There's a book by C.S.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis,
• 1:02:13
  which is great for anybody who's kind of going through a
• 1:02:16
  conversion to read the
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_01: screw tape letters.
• 1:02:18
  um which are i don't have you come across them there it's it's
• 1:02:21
  really brilliant
• 1:02:22
  yeah it's it's kind of letters from a senior devil to a junior
• 1:02:25
  devil um so that's
• 1:02:27
  the form it takes that the senior devil is writing to his
• 1:02:29
  nephew giving him advice
• 1:02:31
  about how to tempt the person he's been assigned to and who is
• 1:02:35
  just converted to
• 1:02:36
  christianity and it's brilliant absolutely brilliant but one of
• 1:02:39
  the things that he
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_01: encouraged him to do is like try and get him to like
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_01: I hate the people around him in the pews,
• 1:02:46
  like point out all their annoying habits and maybe encourage
• 1:02:49
  him to go to a
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_01: different church.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's a really good thing.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_01: If he goes to a different church, will there be more people like him?
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you can see how if you get into that habit of thinking,
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_01: it can be a bit narcissistic and you lose that sense of.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:03:01
  being plugged into a community that's not of your choice and
• 1:03:03
  that can be challenging,
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_01: but it's where you're called to bloom.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I would, that's just a preface.
• 1:03:07
  I wouldn't want to say like,
• 1:03:11
  just shop around and you'll find,
• 1:03:12
  you'll find a welcome.
• 1:03:13
  But you do have to kind of look for communities that are going
• 1:03:17
  to be nourishing you
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_01: and encouraging you and challenging you in the flesh.
• 1:03:22
  So I think it's important to look for those and there's plenty
• 1:03:25
  of them in Ireland.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's difficult.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for me, C.S.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis influenced me a lot as well with his argument that,
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_00: he was like,
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_00: Christianity is the hallway and you have to pick a room.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can't live in the hallway.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have to pick one of the rooms in a sense.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so like,
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_00: I chose Catholicism because it's the universal church and,
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_00: it's apostolic.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so,
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_00: and then the room of that is,
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_00: my local parish that's in Raffinam and that I go to.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, well, that's where I have to go then.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it wasn't like,
• 1:03:55
  i can't just go for whichever you know one looks the funnest or
• 1:03:58
  something like you
• 1:03:59
  know it's good yeah and when i saw because i listened to your
• 1:04:01
  testimony and i'd
• 1:04:02
  recommend to everybody to to to listen to it it was really
• 1:04:05
  really interesting but i
• 1:04:06
  did actually like double check to say wrath farnham because i
• 1:04:10
  thought oh maybe
• 1:04:11
  maybe it's wrath minds because i knew there's like there's a
• 1:04:13
  really thriving young
• 1:04:14
  adult community in wrath minds and then i was like oh no it is
• 1:04:17
  it is wrath farnham
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_01: there are good things happening in
• 1:04:20
  but that was the thing as well because the rcia team in
• 1:04:22
  rathfarnham so who maura
• 1:04:25
  shout out to maura the absolute legend maura emailed me back
• 1:04:29
  she set up a meeting
• 1:04:31
  she sacrificed her own time always she's printed things out for
• 1:04:34
  me she was showing
• 1:04:35
  me how to do stuff the entire time she's the reason i managed
• 1:04:38
  to get in there like
• 1:04:39
  so it was just you know one person caring enough to make the
• 1:04:42
  space and that's
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_00: amazing and like i i
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_01: I got a message from a teacher.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_01: He's a teacher in a school in Dublin.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_01: And he had just brought his students on a pilgrimage in Europe.
• 1:04:53
  And about five of them went to confession for the first time in
• 1:04:58
  a very,
• 1:04:58
  very long time.
• 1:04:59
  And a number of them who weren't baptized said at the end of
• 1:05:04
  the pilgrimage they
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_01: wanted to be baptized.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so he messaged me saying, where should I send them?
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_01: And again, it was that thing of ideally the local parish.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe help them see if there is a welcome in the local parish.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_01: And if not, maybe...
• 1:05:16
  price and sabers which is our church in dublin and they
• 1:05:19
  definitely like find a find
• 1:05:21
  a welcome there and like a young adult group and whatever else
• 1:05:23
  you know yeah um but
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_01: yeah yeah it's a it's a it's a difficult one to to get right yeah
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess it's something,
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_00: cause for me,
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_00: even trying to do the RCIA was very vague and very like,
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_00: nobody was really on the same page with it.
• 1:05:37
  I was emailing people and they were emailing other people and
• 1:05:39
  they were kind of like,
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_00: what,
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_00: how is this meant to work?
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was quite,
• 1:05:43
  there didn't seem to be a very streamlined kind of process of
• 1:05:46
  like this as you get on,
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_00: but it does come down to the parish,
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think that you go to and,
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_00: and they'll be the ones to,
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_00: to deal with that.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_01: But that's going to be the challenge is like,
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_01: Is the church ready to receive this new interest?
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: Or are we too locked into the story of decline?
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I would just say for people who are kind of making a journey back,
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_01: just to be very patient,
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_01: to persevere.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_01: Again, if it's true, it's worth...
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's worth persevering for.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_01: You might have bad experiences.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_01: You might have underwhelming experiences.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_01: You might.
• 1:06:18
  I know one guy who kind of came back very strong in his faith
• 1:06:22
  and he met a few
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_01: priests who he had known in like his school and different things.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_01: And he was trying to ask them,
• 1:06:27
  trying to have like spiritual conversations with them and talk
• 1:06:30
  about his prayer.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_01: And they had no interest.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_01: And they were happy to,
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_01: like,
• 1:06:34
  have really surface conversations about football or his career
• 1:06:37
  or whatever.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_01: But they were uncomfortable when he was talking about his faith.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it was so hard for him.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_01: But he persevered, you know.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd say, yeah, be ready for some disappointment.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_01: And if it's true,
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_01: don't let,
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_01: you shouldn't let wild horses hold you back from this,
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_01: you know.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_00: Totally, man.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that it's about humility as well.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_00: if the devil had humility,
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_00: it wouldn't be the devil like you're supposed to be.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's an exercise in that, I think.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's part of the training in a sense.
• 1:07:08
  I come from a martial arts background and martial arts,
• 1:07:10
  similarly,
• 1:07:11
  it's like,
• 1:07:11
  you hang your head up at the door in a sense of being like your
• 1:07:15
  coach is going to
• 1:07:15
  tell you what to do because you don't know what you're supposed
• 1:07:18
  to be doing so in
• 1:07:19
  some sense the institution's a lot older than we are and and
• 1:07:22
  the people in it as
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_00: well you know and even a priest like might not have that in some he's the
• 1:07:26
  representation of christ you know you don't know what you could
• 1:07:28
  come out with in
• 1:07:29
  some sense or what could be there if you show up as the right
• 1:07:32
  person like if you
• 1:07:33
  show up as super critical then oh this sucks this person's not
• 1:07:37
  doing this yeah
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_00: you're probably not going to get anything back.
• 1:07:39
  Like,
• 1:07:40
  you know,
• 1:07:40
  you have to show up with the right attitude to get it out as well.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I, I, I couldn't agree more.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't agree more.
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_01: And if you turn up to mass just with a receptive attitude,
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_01: you will receive,
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_01: you really will receive.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's my, my testimony anyway.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm absolutely never going to mass or anything.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_00: I've, I've been bowled over week after week.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_01: The week after it was literally two weeks.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's not.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_00: Two in a row.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_00: Go for a third this week.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm delighted to hear it.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, there's so many more, there's so many more like that.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: and so many,
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: so many other stories that I,
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_01: just recently we had a retreat here for,
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_01: again,
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_01: for,
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_01: it was more like teenagers.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_01: And,
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_01: and,
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_01: and I met a guy there who had been kind of,
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_01: had been raised Protestant and had kind of left it behind.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um,
• 1:08:30
  And he was studying then on his own and he was studying the
• 1:08:32
  Bible on his own.
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_01: and getting really into it online and stuff.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then he went to mass just at his local parish in the Midlands.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and he was just like, this is the book of revelation.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_01: He was just seeing all these beautiful connections,
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_01: with,
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_01: with the book of revelation,
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_01: and heavenly worship and the worship of the lamp.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like he was just seeing all these connections,
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_01: just realizing,
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_01: okay,
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_01: there's something,
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_01: something really,
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_01: really beautiful and powerful here.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_01: And he was just,
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_01: received into the church at the East original,
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_01: the same time you were,
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_01: in,
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_01: in Molongar.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, um,
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there are these wonderful stories.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_01: And really interestingly,
• 1:09:09
  the Church of England did a survey maybe five years ago where
• 1:09:13
  they were asking new Christians,
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_01: what was the decisive turning point for them?
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_01: Was it doing an alpha course?
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_01: Was it joining a Bible study?
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_01: Or was it having a friend who recommended that they go along?
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_01: And for something like 20%,
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_01: really surprisingly high number,
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_01: it was actually going into a big old church.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it was,
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_01: again,
• 1:09:34
  it was just this thing of like the buffer itself suddenly is
• 1:09:37
  challenged to become porous.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the people who built this and the people who have,
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_01: kept this place going over centuries,
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_01: were witnessing to a reality that maybe you have never experienced.
• 1:09:50
  you know considered possible so it's similar like to having a
• 1:09:54
  an experience in
• 1:09:54
  nature where you're just like in awe this is something that
• 1:09:57
  like connects you with
• 1:09:58
  a reality that you might never have thought of um or never yeah
• 1:10:02
  just never a
• 1:10:03
  dimension of life that you'd never really considered um and and
• 1:10:07
  there's no going
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_01: back from that in those cases
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that it's there, you know, it's there if you look for it.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Seek and you'll receive a knock and your door will be opened.
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly that.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly that.
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't agree more.
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it's interesting to see, like we mentioned the arts and so on.
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_01: And just to see that there is,
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think these people are like watching Pines of Aquinas,
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_01: but there is like a certain curiosity that I find.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope I'm not like just...
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_01: you know, finding things that I'm looking for.
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_01: But just one example would be Tommy Tiernan,
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_01: who is a very interesting character,
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_01: a very interesting voice.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he is really into an Irish writer called John Moriarty,
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_01: who is,
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_01: again,
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_01: a very eccentric sort of a Christian.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_01: But he's going on tour now with a guy called Martin Shaw,
• 1:10:55
  who is a kind of a storyteller and you've,
• 1:10:57
  you've come across him,
• 1:10:58
  I'm sure.
• 1:10:59
  So we had him speaking here in our church and just a few weeks
• 1:11:01
  ago in February with
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Paul Kingsnorth and,
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_01: and Paul Vanderke and others.
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_01: So Martin Shaw and Tommy Tiernan are going on tour together.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_01: And Martin Shaw is a, is a new Christian recently baptized.
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um,
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm really unafraid to speak the name of Jesus.
• 1:11:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really interesting to me.
• 1:11:17
  I love one thing that Tommy Tiernan says about priests is he
• 1:11:22
  doesn't want priests
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_01: to look like bank managers.
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_01: He wants them to look like the choices.
• 1:11:27
  SPEAKER_01: So he wants their faces to look like.
• 1:11:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to remember that he wants the choices they've made in life.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_01: to have an impact on their faces.
• 1:11:37
  Basically,
• 1:11:37
  he wants them to look like John the Baptist,
• 1:11:38
  like wild characters in the desert.
• 1:11:42
  And I'm way more like to the bank manager end of the spectrum,
• 1:11:45
  which is not good.
• 1:11:47
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm trying.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_01: But just some other figures...
• 1:11:51
  who are a bit more open to the religious dimension of things in literature.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_01: And these aren't people that I've read a lot of, but it's quite striking.
• 1:12:01
  Sally Rooney,
• 1:12:01
  first of all,
• 1:12:02
  people often are just like,
• 1:12:03
  oh,
• 1:12:03
  she's a Marxist.
• 1:12:04
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, if you look at her works, there's like...
• 1:12:08
  There's religion and the Catholic faith makes some surprising
• 1:12:12
  appearances in
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_01: conversations with friends and intermezzo.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_01: I just read an article online where people are saying like,
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_01: intermezzo is just,
• 1:12:19
  SPEAKER_01: it's a religious book and it's so religious that I don't like it,
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_01: which is very striking.
• 1:12:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I can reveal, this is a scoop for listeners to your podcast.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_01: One of the cardinals that's about to go into the conclave tomorrow...
• 1:12:33
  I'm not going to name him,
• 1:12:34
  but is a big fan of Sally Rooney and of her books.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_01: And as precisely of like that dimension,
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_01: it's like grappling with God and the Catholic faith from a distance.
• 1:12:45
  SPEAKER_01: But there's definitely a grappling.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And if you look at Emma Donoghue, who wrote Rune,
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_01: she said that room is basically about,
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 1:12:53
  another way to tell a story which came into her head of like
• 1:12:56
  Mary and the devil
• 1:12:57
  SPEAKER_01: fighting over the baby Jesus.
• 1:12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and again, she's, she, she's always speaking about her.
• 1:13:01
  Like she,
• 1:13:02
  again,
• 1:13:02
  she's not a conventional,
• 1:13:03
  you know,
• 1:13:04
  she's in a lesbian relationship.
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_01: She's not practicing Catholic.
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but, um, but like, she's quite explicit in a way that, um,
• 1:13:12
  just how she's influenced by religion in her literature in a
• 1:13:15
  way that she doesn't
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_01: need to be in the current context.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I find that really, really interesting.
• 1:13:19
  SPEAKER_01: She's just written a book called Haven, or I've just read her book.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know when she wrote it,
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_01: but I've just read her book called Haven,
• 1:13:24
  which is about three monks going out to Skellig Michael and
• 1:13:27
  their journey.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_01: It gets very, very dark.
• 1:13:29
  But again,
• 1:13:30
  she doesn't need to be telling stories about monks,
• 1:13:31
  but she is.
• 1:13:32
  And then the last example is just a few days ago,
• 1:13:35
  this debut novel was released,
• 1:13:37
  Niamh Neuilon.
• 1:13:39
  SPEAKER_01: The name of the book is Ordinary Saints.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_01: And again, the main character in the book is in a lesbian relationship.
• 1:13:48
  But the story was inspired when Niamh Newellon read about the
• 1:13:53
  canonization of
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Blessed Carla Wakutas.
• 1:13:55
  SPEAKER_01: So in this story,
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_01: this girl who's over in London,
• 1:13:58
  her brother was a seminarian who died in a car crash and is
• 1:14:02
  going to be beatified.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_01: And she comes home.
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_01: when that news is released.
• 1:14:06
  And she's re-engaged,
• 1:14:07
  just reconnecting,
• 1:14:08
  reassessing the fate that she left behind.
• 1:14:11
  SPEAKER_01: So there's that kind of...
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_01: slight kind of very tentative,
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_01: like looking over the shoulder at least,
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_01: which I haven't seen for a long time.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And again,
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_01: it's been mind boggling to be like,
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_01: don't they,
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_01: like there's a poem by Dennis O'Driscoll,
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_01: that guy I mentioned earlier called Missing God.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of what I imagine is happening for many people.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it surprised me that it isn't happening for more.
• 1:14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Is it something that's just not happening for people?
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_01: They don't miss God.
• 1:14:37
  SPEAKER_01: They don't miss that dimension of their lives.
• 1:14:39
  SPEAKER_01: They don't miss kind of the liturgy.
• 1:14:41
  Or is it that it is happening and they're just not,
• 1:14:43
  they have no way to speak about it?
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_01: And are these writers now,
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Sally Rooney and Emma Dunne,
• 1:14:49
  are they finally giving voice to something that's actually
• 1:14:51
  there in a lot of
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_01: people's lives?
• 1:14:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 1:14:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's probably the latter,
• 1:14:56
  SPEAKER_00: to be honest,
• 1:14:56
  SPEAKER_00: that it's,
• 1:14:57
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_00: a lot of people,
• 1:14:58
  because the materialist kind of universe of this mechanistic
• 1:15:02
  model that you just,
• 1:15:03
  SPEAKER_00: you can't live on that.
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it doesn't, yeah, it doesn't really work for human beings.
• 1:15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think artistically, you know, as you pointed out, like,
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_00: Christianity is rooted in truth, goodness and beauty.
• 1:15:14
  SPEAKER_00: So wherever you're pushing for truth,
• 1:15:16
  SPEAKER_00: goodness and beauty is going to be evidence of,
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_00: it's universal in a sense that it's going to be there.
• 1:15:22
  If you put if you're honest about it,
• 1:15:24
  and that's what you're really going for.
• 1:15:25
  Because my experience in the arts was a lot of the Paul King's
• 1:15:29
  North calls the cult
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_00: of inversion.
• 1:15:31
  which is the kind of carnival aspect of you're always you're
• 1:15:34
  taking the story but
• 1:15:35
  you're trying to turn it upside down all the time so you're
• 1:15:37
  making it's so
• 1:15:37
  parasitical it's so it's so flipping boring like you're just
• 1:15:42
  like okay let's let's
• 1:15:44
  take this character and let's like dress him up as the virgin
• 1:15:47
  mary and everyone
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_01: will be shocked you're like no come on
• 1:15:50
  yeah it's not original yeah you know but I think that's again
• 1:15:53
  people are bored of
• 1:15:54
  it like there's yeah people are sick of seeing that same story
• 1:15:57
  and the inversion on
• 1:15:58
  that point you know there can be a certain like energy in
• 1:16:03
  running away from
• 1:16:04
  something and really rejecting something that felt like an
• 1:16:06
  imposition and I think a
• 1:16:07
  lot of people were you know that was their attitude towards the
• 1:16:10
  Catholic Church and
• 1:16:11
  there's an energy kind of an excitement about running away from
• 1:16:14
  that but you know
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_01: again if the faith is true like people are going to get
• 1:16:19
  SPEAKER_01: they're going to get worn out on that journey.
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think,
• 1:16:24
  SPEAKER_01: again,
• 1:16:25
  SPEAKER_01: if our faith is true,
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_01: we have to be really out there with them,
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_01: ready to love them,
• 1:16:32
  SPEAKER_01: to listen,
• 1:16:33
  SPEAKER_01: to share what we've found as well without being...
• 1:16:37
  condescending or smug and you know there's so many yeah uh it's
• 1:16:42
  it's a beautiful
• 1:16:42
  mission and i think there's going to be more and more time
• 1:16:45
  running away from them
• 1:16:46
  than i have run towards them to be honest so i have a lot of
• 1:16:49
  empathy for that
• 1:16:50
  position in a sense but yeah also the utility of it where it's
• 1:16:53
  kind of like you
• 1:16:54
  know you can hide in these things but you're gonna you know
• 1:16:59
  that's where it's going
• 1:16:59
  and and that you shouldn't run from it because again it's the
• 1:17:03
  truth the goodness
• 1:17:03
  SPEAKER_00: the beauty it's like
• 1:17:05
  oftentimes the stuff we're looking for is in the place we don't
• 1:17:07
  want to look you
• 1:17:08
  know right that in filth it'll be found and in the thing that
• 1:17:11
  you reject is is
• 1:17:13
  where the thing you need most is and our society has rejected
• 1:17:17
  to an extent all
• 1:17:19
  right i might just ask you like what was the hardest in in
• 1:17:21
  relation to like coming
• 1:17:22
  back to the catholic was it like what was the hardest thing
• 1:17:24
  about it or like what
• 1:17:25
  what was um like was it hard to tell people about it was that a
• 1:17:28
  challenge as well
• 1:17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_00: I remember I was getting the week before I was getting baptized,
• 1:17:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was getting my hair cut and the barber was like,
• 1:17:35
  SPEAKER_00: what are you doing this weekend?
• 1:17:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, nothing special.
• 1:17:40
  SPEAKER_00: He was like, you just got to stop cutting my hair.
• 1:17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, what's up with that?
• 1:17:43
  Like,
• 1:17:43
  I was like,
• 1:17:43
  yeah,
• 1:17:44
  I'm going to have to try and explain all this right now.
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, the conversation has been difficult.
• 1:17:51
  SPEAKER_00: People's reactions for sure.
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Hard to anticipate really.
• 1:17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm
• 1:17:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'd probably be a fairly agreeable guy as well.
• 1:18:01
  Like,
• 1:18:01
  you know,
• 1:18:02
  my tendency growing up would have always been to try and like,
• 1:18:05
  you know,
• 1:18:05
  fit in.
• 1:18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so going this way, you're going against the grain in a sense.
• 1:18:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've been so...
• 1:18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Over the years,
• 1:18:15
  SPEAKER_00: this journey has just so hit me at the most fundamental levels,
• 1:18:19
  SPEAKER_00: really,
• 1:18:20
  SPEAKER_00: that I couldn't ignore it anymore.
• 1:18:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 1:18:23
  SPEAKER_00: I could put it off for so long, but it was wrong, really, to put it off.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had to do the actual...
• 1:18:30
  SPEAKER_00: you know, whether it was popular or not.
• 1:18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to go that route.
• 1:18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so far, I mean, it's just, it's been amazing.
• 1:18:38
  Everybody's been kind and beautiful that I've met on the way and,
• 1:18:42
  you know,
• 1:18:44
  yeah.
• 1:18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah.
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm a particularly extreme case,
• 1:18:48
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose,
• 1:18:48
  in the sense of other people probably weren't raised as like
• 1:18:51
  radical atheists where
• 1:18:53
  SPEAKER_00: it was like literally denying the existence of a God was like,
• 1:18:57
  the main thing it wasn't like agnostic or like maybe it was
• 1:19:00
  like no and it was like
• 1:19:03
  you know the marxist argument that religion is just power
• 1:19:05
  structures that are meant
• 1:19:06
  to manipulate people and control them uh the freudian thing
• 1:19:09
  that it's childish wish
• 1:19:10
  fulfillment that it's just like having an imaginary friend like
• 1:19:14
  i made all of these
• 1:19:15
  SPEAKER_00: arguments to people like when people make them to me now i'm like
• 1:19:18
  man like you should i know your next move yeah yeah i know
• 1:19:22
  where this is going like
• 1:19:23
  i actually went to the evangelium conference oh yeah evangelium
• 1:19:27
  in maynooth um we
• 1:19:29
  did speed apologetics and it was like one person had to be the
• 1:19:32
  secular atheist and
• 1:19:33
  the other person had to be you know the apologist not like well
• 1:19:36
  this would be easy
• 1:19:37
  SPEAKER_00: i was yeah yeah quite recently um but
• 1:19:42
  yeah so i i mean yeah i i hope other people that are in a
• 1:19:47
  similar situation i
• 1:19:47
  suppose are willing to overcome their prejudices because that
• 1:19:50
  that's what it is
• 1:19:51
  it's a prejudice um and like all prejudice limits our our
• 1:19:55
  worldview and so yeah
• 1:19:58
  it's good to see i mean people and obviously like to meet
• 1:20:01
  people like yourself
• 1:20:02
  connor is incredible who've made that sacrifice and who are
• 1:20:05
  obviously a transformed
• 1:20:06
  SPEAKER_00: guy and going around educating people is like
• 1:20:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, I don't know how you're doing it, man, to be honest.
• 1:20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, it's a blessing for me.
• 1:20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it really is.
• 1:20:18
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it's kind of, it is a very challenging time.
• 1:20:21
  I have to say,
• 1:20:21
  like,
• 1:20:22
  in our Dominican way of life,
• 1:20:23
  we have so much support.
• 1:20:25
  SPEAKER_01: We live in communities.
• 1:20:27
  SPEAKER_01: We have daily structures of prayer.
• 1:20:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're really, really blessed and supported in that.
• 1:20:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'd say, like, diocesan priests are the real heroes.
• 1:20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, they're doing the very, very hard work, often dealing with
• 1:20:37
  people who are,
• 1:20:38
  you know,
• 1:20:39
  at a bit of a remove from the church,
• 1:20:40
  maybe more than we are.
• 1:20:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that's incredibly hard.
• 1:20:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I definitely encourage people to really pray for their priests,
• 1:20:49
  SPEAKER_01: but also to remember that the church is not the clergy.
• 1:20:53
  SPEAKER_01: It is, you know, it's the whole body of Christ.
• 1:20:55
  SPEAKER_01: And not to be afraid, like, to seek out Catholic community.
• 1:21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes people really want to have, like,
• 1:21:04
  you know when they come back they're like i need a spiritual
• 1:21:06
  director i need to
• 1:21:06
  like speak to a priest every week and very often when i meet
• 1:21:09
  these people i kind of
• 1:21:10
  encourage them i'll be like okay go to this prayer group every
• 1:21:12
  week or go to this
• 1:21:13
  bible study every week there's lots of really really good
• 1:21:16
  communities that that
• 1:21:17
  will help people um and where you'll as i said you'll you'll be
• 1:21:21
  you'll be nourished
• 1:21:22
  but you'll also be challenged by them and that's just as
• 1:21:24
  important you'll have to
• 1:21:25
  grow in the virtues of patience and love and compassion and
• 1:21:29
  wisdom and all that
• 1:21:30
  SPEAKER_01: kind of stuff
• 1:21:31
  yeah and are there any communities that you'd recommend people
• 1:21:34
  that you're um oh
• 1:21:36
  yeah in the whole of ireland or in dublin yeah you know loads
• 1:21:40
  so i'd say like first
• 1:21:41
  of all for university students um there are really exciting
• 1:21:44
  things happening like
• 1:21:45
  10 years ago i would have thought university is a time when
• 1:21:47
  people lose their faith
• 1:21:48
  in ireland now i'm thinking it's the best opportunity for your
• 1:21:52
  faith to be to be
• 1:21:53
  SPEAKER_01: born or to be to grow and
• 1:21:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because there are,
• 1:21:56
  SPEAKER_01: in several universities,
• 1:21:57
  there are what are called focused missionaries working together
• 1:22:00
  with the chaplains
• 1:22:01
  SPEAKER_01: in these universities.
• 1:22:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that has borne immense fruit.
• 1:22:04
  SPEAKER_01: So UCD, Queens, and UCC are all very, very active.
• 1:22:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I've seen UCD transform from being quite a god.
• 1:22:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just kind of observing, visiting there occasionally.
• 1:22:14
  SPEAKER_01: But it was quite a godless place.
• 1:22:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was...
• 1:22:16
  SPEAKER_01: I remember visiting there when I was just a new Dominican and like,
• 1:22:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'd say about 10 different people said incredibly nasty things to me,
• 1:22:24
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 1:22:25
  SPEAKER_01: on campus.
• 1:22:26
  It was,
• 1:22:26
  it was really like,
• 1:22:27
  it was the most aggressively anti-Catholic thing.
• 1:22:29
  Whereas now,
• 1:22:30
  um,
• 1:22:30
  there's like 150 students in Bible studies,
• 1:22:33
  um,
• 1:22:34
  and really thriving people.
• 1:22:36
  SPEAKER_01: Catholic community, Mass is booming there.
• 1:22:39
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of these people are kind of, again, new to the faith.
• 1:22:41
  So there's really cool things happening in those places and in
• 1:22:44
  other universities also.
• 1:22:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'd say in Dublin, our Priory of St.
• 1:22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Sabres is really thriving.
• 1:22:50
  The 1130 Mass there,
• 1:22:52
  there's a young adult community as well that I'd really recommend.
• 1:22:55
  Rathmines has a really,
• 1:22:57
  really great community,
• 1:22:57
  like kind of Spaniards at the core.
• 1:22:59
  So there's a bit of Spanish mixed in there,
• 1:23:01
  but really,
• 1:23:01
  really nice stuff.
• 1:23:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'd say in Cork,
• 1:23:05
  SPEAKER_01: And again, our Dominican church, St.
• 1:23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Mary's, has a student residence there.
• 1:23:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's a whole load of different events being put on for young adults,
• 1:23:14
  SPEAKER_01: especially really,
• 1:23:15
  SPEAKER_01: really thriving place and a beautiful church.
• 1:23:17
  SPEAKER_01: In Limerick, our Dominican sisters in St.
• 1:23:19
  SPEAKER_01: Xavier's,
• 1:23:20
  SPEAKER_01: They're doing excellent work with young adults.
• 1:23:24
  SPEAKER_01: Here in Galway,
• 1:23:24
  SPEAKER_01: we're Dominicans,
• 1:23:26
  SPEAKER_01: and then the Franciscans are like our frenemies for the last 800 years.
• 1:23:29
  SPEAKER_01: And the Franciscans, I must say, they're doing really good stuff.
• 1:23:31
  SPEAKER_01: They have a group called Euphra, and they go on pilgrimages.
• 1:23:35
  SPEAKER_01: They have a course in the sacraments, which we help teach.
• 1:23:38
  SPEAKER_01: They have prayer groups.
• 1:23:40
  SPEAKER_01: They have service for the poor,
• 1:23:41
  SPEAKER_01: which is really important to bake into your Catholic service as well.
• 1:23:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then for people who are looking to go on retreats,
• 1:23:48
  SPEAKER_01: And because that can be a really good thing for people to do.
• 1:23:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's one thing to go like to prayer groups and stuff.
• 1:23:52
  But if you want to go on retreat,
• 1:23:53
  one place would be Holy Family Mission in Glencomber.
• 1:23:56
  SPEAKER_01: They have these kind of God pods.
• 1:23:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'd also recommend Ross Trevor, a Benedictine monastery.
• 1:24:00
  SPEAKER_01: And they have incredible silence there.
• 1:24:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like I go on retreat there and I'm literally in silence for seven days.
• 1:24:05
  SPEAKER_01: No one says a word to me.
• 1:24:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I say a word to no one.
• 1:24:07
  SPEAKER_01: And all I'm doing is singing the Psalms for seven days.
• 1:24:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's incredible.
• 1:24:10
  SPEAKER_01: Or Glenstall in Limerick is another place.
• 1:24:12
  SPEAKER_01: They've got these little god pods and a retreat house.
• 1:24:15
  So I'd recommend like there are so many great places and so
• 1:24:19
  many good communities.
• 1:24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Just look around, be curious and try out different things.
• 1:24:23
  SPEAKER_01: There's the Evangelium Conference that you mentioned.
• 1:24:25
  There's a big Youth 2000 retreat in the summer that maybe a
• 1:24:30
  thousand young people will go to.
• 1:24:32
  And there's lots of diocesan groups that will go on pilgrimage
• 1:24:35
  to Lourdes,
• 1:24:35
  to Rome.
• 1:24:37
  SPEAKER_01: So just explore these things.
• 1:24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Don't feel like if you're not...
• 1:24:40
  very committed or like practicing for a long time that you
• 1:24:43
  can't go to these things
• 1:24:44
  just turn up and and you'll be welcomed totally that's been my
• 1:24:49
  experience anyway so
• 1:24:50
  SPEAKER_00: far um everybody's been
• 1:24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Super welcoming.
• 1:24:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hoping to start a young adults thing in Rathmines as well.
• 1:24:57
  SPEAKER_00: In Rathfarnham?
• 1:25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, in Rathfarnham, yeah.
• 1:25:01
  SPEAKER_00: You're getting confused there.
• 1:25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 1:25:05
  In Rathfarnham,
• 1:25:06
  yeah,
• 1:25:06
  with the RCIA team there and do some stuff for young adults in
• 1:25:11
  that area.
• 1:25:11
  It's also the least religious place in Ireland,
• 1:25:13
  I think,
• 1:25:14
  in terms of that.
• 1:25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Rathfarnham.
• 1:25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Rathdown, lowest levels.
• 1:25:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to try to turn that around.
• 1:25:20
  oh that is fantastic and there's new things happening yeah like
• 1:25:24
  i i just keep
• 1:25:25
  encountering new things i'm just it's a constant reminder to me
• 1:25:28
  like that that god
• 1:25:29
  is at work in the world god is at work in ireland um it's not
• 1:25:32
  like it's not my job
• 1:25:33
  to save the church like far from it um and and you just keep
• 1:25:37
  finding like just all
• 1:25:39
  the evidence of like people who should not be shouldn't
• 1:25:42
  shouldn't be this this this
• 1:25:43
  holy shouldn't be this why you shouldn't be this transformed
• 1:25:46
  and yet here they are
• 1:25:46
  SPEAKER_01: and i'm just like oh yeah god is real and he's at work
• 1:25:51
  amen to that thank you so much connor um is there anywhere
• 1:25:54
  people can go you
• 1:25:55
  mentioned the youtube channel i'll include that in the
• 1:25:57
  description is there
• 1:25:57
  anywhere else you'd like people to go check stuff out uh no
• 1:26:00
  i've been mercifully
• 1:26:02
  liberated from uh twitter recently i gave it up for length and
• 1:26:05
  i forgot after 30
• 1:26:07
  days i forgot to um to reactivate and so it was permanently
• 1:26:11
  deleted i had like 10
• 1:26:13
  SPEAKER_01: 000 followers and i was using it as a little but it was
• 1:26:15
  I was discerning,
• 1:26:16
  like for a long time,
• 1:26:17
  I was thinking like,
• 1:26:17
  I should get off this.
• 1:26:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's not good for me spiritually.
• 1:26:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's getting worse, I've heard.
• 1:26:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't use Twitter.
• 1:26:22
  SPEAKER_00: For sure, for sure.
• 1:26:23
  SPEAKER_01: No, like the Lord intervened.
• 1:26:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm off there.
• 1:26:25
  And,
• 1:26:25
  but no,
• 1:26:26
  I'd encourage people to have a look at the Irish Dominicans
• 1:26:28
  YouTube channel.
• 1:26:29
  SPEAKER_01: Look for Treasure Ireland.
• 1:26:30
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a whole load of videos that people might interest,
• 1:26:33
  SPEAKER_01: just like that people might be interested in.
• 1:26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Just nice little stories from the history of the,
• 1:26:38
  SPEAKER_01: of the church in Ireland,
• 1:26:39
  SPEAKER_01: from like really early stuff.
• 1:26:40
  SPEAKER_01: We look at an own stone that is possibly like witnessing to,
• 1:26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Christian faith in Ireland before St.
• 1:26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Patrick, because the OM has a Roman name on it.
• 1:26:50
  And so it could be like from these exchanges with Roman Britain
• 1:26:53
  to like very recent stuff,
• 1:26:55
  SPEAKER_01: like Alice Curtain,
• 1:26:56
  SPEAKER_01: who is a really interesting writer and intellectual from Tralee.
• 1:27:00
  SPEAKER_01: We filmed a video about her and the Foxford Woolen Mills,
• 1:27:04
  SPEAKER_01: which is incredible,
• 1:27:05
  SPEAKER_01: like project of social entrepreneurship in Mayo in the 19th century.
• 1:27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Incredible story.
• 1:27:12
  SPEAKER_01: So there's all these cool little stories we love to tell.
• 1:27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:27:15
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 1:27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'll put those in the description for people to check out.
• 1:27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'd encourage them.
• 1:27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 1:27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.