Pints With Aquinas - Re-Evangelizing Ireland w/ Tony Foy

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

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How you do it? Like, do you have questions pretty prepared for people? Or like, I ask, we are live with Tony Foy from Ireland. Good to be here, Matt. Great to have you. Yeah, thank you. You're at our house, obviously, right now with your beautiful wife, Sheena. Whoa. Questions pretty prepared for you. And I was thinking to myself, I knew you before the iPhone existed, which isn't that big of a deal. Indeed. Yeah, yeah. But kind of weird.

Yeah, yeah. It's a lot has happened in the year since you left Ireland. Mm-hmm Yeah, I don't know if your listeners know or the people who watch these videos know that you were a missionary in Ireland with net ministries and you know you and Cameron were a large part of me getting involved and she na getting involved and you know you were involved with stuff in our house and and And whatever and in our community and it just, yeah, it was great. It was a really interesting time. We lived in a place called Giddaw. Is that how I pronounce it?

Yeah, yeah, you got it right. One of the two prominent Irish speaking areas of Ireland, would you say? Yeah, for sure. In Donegal. Enya's dad owned a pub up the road. That's right. And would go to Daily Mass and... Yeah. Yeah. Incredible. Yeah. It was a good, it was a good, it was a good time. It was a tough time.

Yeah. And that's how we remember it as well. It was like, it was tough. We felt so sorry for you and Cameron cause you were stuck up in the middle of nowhere. And I think we knew because we had lived in America, we knew how to make people feel welcome. Yeah. But because people hadn't been abroad or hadn't been out of Donegal, you know, in that area, they just didn't know that it was important to make you feel welcome.

And no disrespect to the people from Gador, but. Not at all. Yeah. No, no, some wonderful folks in Gador for sure. But I will say this, when we left Gador, we parked our car to the side of the road, got out, took off our shoes, and banged the dust in its direction.

That's how rough it was. We had Catholic school teachers making fun of us, which is fine, but what they were making fun of us, which is fine. But what they were making fun of us for wasn't for teaching chastity and that people could save sex till marriage. And they were just openly mocking the idea. It was rough. Yeah. So meeting y'all was so beautiful.

We were like, oh, my gosh, there's so many. There's it's like Australia. There's pockets of great hope. Yeah, for sure. It comes to the faith, I think. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I suppose for us, like how long are you out of Ireland now? Oh, golly, when did we leave? 2010 or 2011? Yeah. So you say you're 12 years out of Ireland. You know, at the time when people come to Ireland, they do work like you and Cameron did. It's very hard

to see the fruit, but you know, you're building, you're putting in blocks and you mightn't see the wall being built, but the wall gets built eventually. And the work that you guys did is bearing fruit and certainly in Ballet Buffet, where we are and in Ireland in general. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks. You're welcome. And you like him being in Steubenville? Love it. Absolutely amazed.

A lifelong ambition to be in Steubenville. One of our daughters, Anna, always wanted to go to Steubenville, and so it was kind of an ongoing conversation. It just didn't work out. Why was that? Why did she want to go? Living in Ireland, how did she hear about it? We hear about it all the time,

because we've met missionaries coming to Ireland, and a lot of them have been to Steubenville, or are going to Steubenville after their year. And so it's just this great place, and the legend is there. And to finally be here, and to witness it firsthand is amazing. How so? Well, can I go back to, you know, what I was thinking of, you know, and this thought came to me while I was at mass there, full of young people.

The response to all the mass parts was just full on. It was deep throated and it was like really powerful. And I'm going back to, you know, St. Patrick, all right, when he first came to Ireland. And Stuart, as I do this, just to tell you, no, you're probably pushing forward a bit. Thank you, thank you very much. So going back to St. Patrick,

like he was trafficked to Ireland, all right? You know, he was brought as a slave to Ireland. I, you know, up in the hills, minding sheep, he came from a wealthy Roman background, his dad was a civil service in the Roman Empire. And, you know, he came from that wealth to abject poverty, didn't speak the language of the Gaels. And he was left miting sheep up on Mount Slemish,

did that for six, seven years, until he escaped, essentially. And he somehow, like he could see what we were and we were, we were pagans. He went home, went to France, became a priest and he wanted to come back to Ireland. And there's lots of stories about him, you know, he risked his life, life and limit was dangerous coming back to the people who actually trafficked him, and you know, we're capable of doing that and much, much more. But he lit a fire on a mountain that was illegal at the time to get the High King's attention, and that was at pain of death.

And so he risked his life to get the King's attention, and he got the King's attention. He couldn't convince the High King at the time to convert, but the High King gave him permission to talk to people basically about the faith, about this God that he talked about. And so that was around the same time as St. Augustine in Hippo. Crazy. Yeah, exactly the same time pretty much. So St. Augustine, he had four heresies to deal with. He's one of the greatest bishops we've ever had. He had four heresies to deal with and he had the Vandals and the Goths come on, just destroying absolutely everything. And in this one place in the Roman Empire, in

the Christian world, you have everything is falling apart. The faith is falling apart, like all his work was falling apart, you was destroyed. Roman Empire was collapsing as he was dying. Absolutely. As he was dying. And at the same time over in this island, they call it the Romans. They didn't, they didn't invade Ireland cause it was too cold. And that's true. And at the same time, Patrick is raising up a nation of saints and scholars. And, and you know, that sounds, that sounds so cliched. So at the same time over here, it's fall like in the whole of the Roman empire,

it's falling apart. These, these guys are just destroying wherever they went. Patrick is raising up saints and scholars and the men and women that he raised up the men, the monks that he raised up, they then a hundred years later, they come and they re evangelize the whole of Europe. And that's not me saying it, that's fact. And when Pope St. John Paul the Great came to Ireland, so he went to the cities, he went to Dublin, he went to Galway, he went to Limerick, but he insisted on going to a place called Clon MacNoise.

Were you ever in Clon MacNoise? I believe I did, but I... It's in the middle of absolutely nowhere. It's in the middle of Ireland and it's in ruins. Okay, but he insisted on going to Clomic noise And do you know why he went there? Is this because they were they had monks there at some point? They had monks there that from that place He could trace his faith in Poland back to the Irish monks that left there in the sixth and seventh centuries And he knew about this like there there are festivals all over Europe for the Irish monks that came to Europe to bring the faith there. Our

daughter Anna who you know, Anna spent a month out in a place called Wurzburg in Germany. They have a week-long celebration still to this day for St. Kylian who brought the faith to that part of Germany and that's the same in in in Babiou in Italy and and in different places around Europe. So the Irish have had, you know, we've been doing this for a long, long time. So what am I thinking? What was coming to me? I don't know if your head is going to... No, I see it. No, it's beautiful. I see what you're doing. You're drawing, you're bringing it together. Yeah. Yeah. In Stubanful today, like I am so convinced. I always have been, okay.

Ever since I took this job of, of running net, I always have been convinced that America has a huge part to play in the re-evangelization of Ireland. And today, with these deep-throated young men and women, today, I'm even more convinced that you guys need to get your butts over to Ireland and help us. Amen? Yeah, that's cool. I mean, I always wondered if Irish people found it patronizing when we would talk like this, like Americans need to go and re-evangelize Ireland. Yeah. But you don't find them.

I'm Irish. Yeah. We need you. Okay. Yeah. Bottom line, we need you. We need, we need the faith that you have here because we don't have it in Ireland. There are pockets and it's, it's really good. I mean, there's beautiful green shoots that are there, but it is, we need you to come and we need you to come in droves. So just as the faith seemed to be collapsing in Augustine's day, but was being built up in Ireland, it's being corrupted in Ireland, but maybe built up in another way. Augustine was one of the greatest, he's doctor of the church.

He was one of the greatest saints that we ever had. Like we could so easily blame the bishops in Ireland and blame the priests in Ireland and whatever. But do we blame Augustine for the fall of the, you know, the Roman Empire, the fall of faith at that stage? And I'm not suggesting we are, but it's like there is, our beautiful priests have, they weren't ready for this. They weren't ready for what happened in Ireland. You were there, you saw it. You know, it's just, they were trained for maintenance and for a different time in the church. And then it just all fell apart. The culture fell apart. The faith was being supported by the culture. Like, I don't know, you know, maybe we need to

go back a bit further and explain, I suppose, what the faith in Ireland was like. Well, yeah, I'd like to get to where faith in Ireland is today. But before I do that, I want to talk about the time between Patrick and now. Like, talk to us about the good, holy Irish men and women and the martyrs and what we know about them. I'd honestly love to learn. Yeah, yeah. So like, it's a long, it's a long history, but we had the faith, we were the land of saints and scholars. How we did it, the system that we used was essentially monasteries. Like we were an agrarian culture, okay? So an agriculture, and it was basically small farms and the faith was spread by the, the monasteries, like we were an agrarian culture, okay, so an agriculture, and it was basically small farms, and the faith was spread by the monasteries, the monks in the monasteries,

essentially, and they settled in places like Clom mac Noais, and the society was built around them, and they held the faith together, basically. They had the manuscripts, okay, they had the learning, they had the archives as well, they were the hospitals and you know and they they had everything that was that was built around them and you know that's how Ireland held its faith until they they so we were occupied by the the Norman English invaders okay in 1169 just before Thomas Aquinas was born, maybe 50 years later. We were persecuted as a people, but England was Catholic.

We were Catholic. We were allowed to practice our faith. Then comes Henry VIII. Right. All right? And what was a land persecution, like a dominance of a culture, became a religious persecution. Right. Just, and I want you to take your time here, don't you need to rush because I really want you to try to Yeah, she'd like to go about this. Okay, this is fascinating

It is really because it's fascinating because I think what I realized when I lived in Ireland is when people would talk about the bloody Protestants of the bloody Catholics what they really meant is the bloody English or the bloody Irish that it really had little to do it At least now. Yeah, but yeah, but this for sure. And you know, the interesting thing is we have lots like English people are fantastic. We have the Queen, you know, she's just died. We all admire the Queen. And in the same breath, we admire the English people and the culture and what they have achieved. But it doesn't take away from the fact that this is our history, it's our shared history. It was, you know, it was complicated. But it was, yeah, Henry VIII was an interesting character. His marriage wasn't working out with Catherine of Aragon. She didn't bear him a son. So Anne Boleyn was there in the sidelines. He wanted to marry

her and he applied. So he respected the authority of the church. He applied for permission to marry this other woman. He didn't get the permission and he said okay I'm gonna do my own thing. The only thing he wanted to do was dominate the church, so basically cut off the pope and keep everything the same. But what actually happened was something completely different. He thought that at the end of his reign the church would basically go back to being Catholic and be loyal to Rome. Now we don't know this for sure but they're speculative or whatever but he had masses set for himself, in his will he wanted masses set for himself, there were masses being set for him in his room as he is dying. His faith in the Virgin Mary was just beautiful. And this is complicated,

everybody's complicated, he didn't live a terrific life, but what they did in Ireland was terrible. It became a religious persecution, so those same monasteries that spread the faith and held society together, he sacked all the monasteries in England and Ireland to basically fully fund his lifestyle. And so all that learning, all those manuscripts, and so on and so forth, this is in the 1530s, all that learning went to naught and they were destroyed and it became a religious persecution. So what then did it mean to become a Catholic?

There were so many different, it was in and out, you had Protestant monarchy, then you'd have a Catholic monarch, and all bets were off, it was good to be a Catholic again. But for the next 300 years, essentially, you were persecuted if you were a Catholic. What does that mean? What did that look like? So, they had to say Mass in complete isolation. You weren't allowed to say the Mass, so they had to say, there's a Mass rock beside our house. I don't know if you ever saw a Mass

in the field beside our house. So that was where the priest and the people would actually hear Mass. And the risk, you know, that sounds, oh yeah, they heard Mass or they said Mass. So what was the risk if they were actually caught? So if the priest was caught, he would, in some cases, in a lot of cases, he would have his arms and his legs broken.

And in some cases when the persecution got really bad, because he was holding up what they thought was a sacrilegious host, they would cut his thumbs and they would cut his finger, his forefinger off on in both hands. They would leave him overnight with the arms and legs broken on this here. Then the next day they would hang him. And then before he was dead, they would take out, I hope there's no kids watching if they're listening.

Sure. Yeah, yeah. Now's the time to turn it off. Three, two, one. You've had enough time. Go. Yeah, yeah. They would take, they cut him open, take out his innards, and then they would quarter him

while he's still, now he's probably dead at this stage, his heart is going to give up on it. In case he's just not dead, they're going to quarter him and take off his head. And that was, that was what the priest faced. And we had that book is full of... Yeah, tell us, I mean, you can get into that in a minute. This looks cool. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and then like, what were the penalties facing the people? If they didn't become, if they didn't become Catholic or Protestant, essentially, they had to take the oath of abjuration. If they refused to take it,

they lost two-thirds of their property. If they were caught hearing a mass, they potentially faced the same as a priest, not always. Sometimes they were sent to Van Diemen's land, where you're from, Australia. Sometimes they were sent as slaves to Barbados. It was, and that's really what they're faced, they lost all their property. And in the persecution of the Catholics in Ireland, at different times they were sent, their land was taken off them. Right, so you and Cameron, you know, we haven't seen you in a while, you've got this beautiful property, okay, you've worked really hard for it. How would you feel if somebody stuck a notice on the tree and said you've got a

vacate and you're getting nothing for it? You the tree and said, you've got to vacate and you're getting nothing for it. You can go and live in wherever you want to live, but you're not living here. And we're taking this off you. And we're going to give it to some Protestant family because they deserve it better. Because they're of the true faith.

That's what happened. And if you didn't go, it was to hell with you. You were going to be hanged in the same way as the priests were hanged. Yeah. And, you know, it got, and then you had Cromwell, so this infamous character, Oliver Cromwell, he came to Ireland in the 1650s,

and he was particularly egregious. He was a Puritan, so the Catholics, it was a Catholic-run, English-run, what would you call it? We were a branch of the of the Empire. Right. And it was run by English Catholics. OK. And Cromwell came over to sort these English Catholics who were running Catholic Ireland at the time.

And he invaded firstly that he laid siege in a place called Drogheda. So in County, do you remember Drogheda? Yeah, I do. Yeah. Do you remember the head of Oliver Oliver Plunkett? Anyway, it doesn't sound like something I'd forget. So I mustn't have said it. Sorry. So he laid siege to the city of Drogheda and they didn't give in initially. They eventually gave in. This is English against English in terms of the leadership. And it was, they had their soldiers lined up and whatever. And they had agreed that they were going to let all these guys live. And There was a guy called Lord Ashton, okay, was the head

of the Catholic English forces that were occupying Drogheda prior to Cromwell's invasion and they had agreed terms and whatever. They go to meet each other. Basically they knock Lord Ashton over, he has a wooden leg, take his wooden leg off and bash his brains in in front of everybody and all hell breaks loose. Like this is, there have been books written about this, this is recorded, okay, this is not me making stuff up or historians making stuff up. This is recorded and it's, it's a... When you say all hell breaks loose, what does that mean?

It means basically house to house, the Inq, the Cromellian forces go house to house and they slaughter everybody. Man, woman and child. People fled to St. Peter's church in Drogheda and just for, for freedom. They're like, they're killing priests. They're killing anybody they can, they can see. And the people wouldn't come out of the church. So what did they do? They burned them out of it. Men So what did they do? They burned them out of it. Men, women and children. House to house. Killed everybody. Now there's a word for that

and it's not good. It's genocide, essentially. So they did that there. They did it in a place called Wexford, which is down in the southeast as well. And then they said to the other cities, do you want the same? And what did the Irish do? They didn't the Irish do they didn't give in they didn't give in they held on to the faith some given but for the most part they didn't give in because they did not want to give up their faith that's the sort of faith that we've had okay do we have any kind of like anecdotal stories of what happened is when these people weren't given in like that's full of it and Walter Mackin is a great Irish author.

Okay. Have you ever heard of Walter Mackin? He's, he's, he died in the, in the sixties. His son is actually still alive called water, Walter Mackin. And guess what? He's a Catholic priest. So this guy was very simple. He was strong Catholic himself and he, he's written historical novels about that time. And they're very, very accurate in terms of you know

The history and and the facts that are there, but there's there's a yeah, it was just genocide But yet we we clung to the faith and and the lands the land where we could stay in Ireland It was just rough land you were you were sent to Connacht basically where the land was just pure and absolute Rubbish and you were sent off your nice Matt and Cameron's front lawn you know people made their livelihood out of the land that their fathers gave them and that they had been working on for centuries and they were sent to this bog essentially to eke a living out of. Awful stuff and yet they held on to the faith and so now we are in a situation where you you know, you fast forward many,

many years. So was the faith technically illegal for a great deal of time for three years? So much off and on, how did, how did they, 95% of that, you say the Irish kind of hung on and didn't kind of give up the faith and fair enough, but what did that look like for those 300 years? I mean, it went underground. That was for that. For about that long, for about that long.. That was why we ended up with for about that long. And that's why we ended up with, uh, with the mass rocks and, and, you know, and we

had Irish would go abroad, they get trained as priests and then they would come in today to lay their lives down to die for the faith of the people who wanted to get mass, you know, who wanted to get the sacraments. And we were a rosary play praying people as well. You know, very talk about that. Just like that's something Cromwell said when he reported back. He he found it very hard to beat the Irish just because they held these beads in their hand. You know, that's so cool. Yeah. Yeah.

And so that's the stuff that we're made of. And that's in a still now we're and we went through the famine as well, like the, we're still under British rule at this stage, 1829, it's become legal to practice your Catholic faith in Ireland. You can now own property, you can practice, and if you look in the graveyards, you'll not see many people buried in Ireland before that who are buried in Catholic graveyards. It's, Whether they couldn't afford it or it was illegal we don't know for sure but you'll not see heads much older than 1829 and so it's now legal and then we have nine million people living, we're still

under British rule and again we love the British okay but this did happen and whatever and we've English missionaries actually serve in Ireland and they're absolutely amazing and they've been persecuted themselves any English person who's held on to their faith they were persecuted in the same way you know under the same and under this similar system and but anyway 1845 were under British rule, potato blight sets in and it's bad the first year but they managed to save 30% of the crop and there's not too many people dying. The first year or two there's a government in England that actually step in and help the Irish. Okay, it's not bad in England, it's really bad in Ireland. They have a change of government and they let the Irish die

basically and we have a million people who die of starvation they let the Irish die basically. And we have a million people who die of starvation out of the 8 million people that we have on the island of Ireland. In what time frame? In a time frame of 1847 to 1852. Most people, they left the country. Now, not at that time, but we started a wave of emigration. That's why you have so many Irish priests and nuns and so many people can trace their heritage back to Ireland because of,

we were emigrating before this, but this started a mass wave of emigration. And that's why you have people who identify as Irish in America and in other countries as well. But particularly in America, you have people who identify as Irish because of that. Now if you think of the population of Ireland, let's say at that time it was 8 million people, the population of England at that time, so England, Scotland and Wales at that time was 16 million. The population of England, Scotland and Wales now, what is that? What do you think it is? I have no idea. 66 million. So use the same maths, we in Ireland, if it wasn't for the famine, would have a population of over 30 million. Okay, so use the same maths. We in Ireland, if it wasn't for the famine, would have a population of over 30 million, 32, whatever rough-and-tumble sort

of a population. Our population is 7 million and it is the only country in Europe that has a population less now than it was in the 1840s. Really? Yeah. And we still haven't got up. We're 7 million now north and south of the border, so it still hasn't caught up with what we were pre-famine times. But again, we left and we brought the faith with us. Now it wasn't easy for people who came abroad. A lot of them spoke Irish, didn't have any English at all. And they didn't have a whole lot when they got onto the boats. A lot of them died on the boats, but they brought the faith with them and they clung to the faith.

This book really does look amazing. It's called Al Martyrs. I guess a friend of yours, you said found it and republished it. What I love about it, and we're not here to sell this book, but I'm genuinely interested in reading this, is it has stories of these martyrs. Yeah, how they died, what they died for.

Here's what my ADD self loves about it. Like some of these are like a paragraph long, because this is what we know about them. Yeah, yeah, exactly. This is beautiful. And is this for sale? It's for sale.D self loves about it. Like some of these are like a paragraph long. Because this is what we know about them. Yeah, yeah, exactly. This is beautiful. Is this for sale? It's for sale. You get it online. It's it's. Do you mind looking that up, Neil, and putting a link to it in the description? Our martyrs.

It's by aid to the church in need. And and yeah, so it's not exclusive. It's not limited. Is it a record of Catholics killed for their faith in Ireland under the penal laws 1535 to 1691? As I want to read, I haven't. Let me. Yeah, I didn't pick one. Let's do it. Let's see what happens.

Richard Butler, OSF was that he's an order of some kind. Sixty forty seven. He was a learned theologian and a zealous preacher. This great glory of his illustrious family with hundreds of others, both ecclesiastics and laymen at the time that the parliamentarians held sway in Munster and captured the city of Cashel, cashel, cashel, took refuge in the cathedral church. He was pierced through with a sword at the high altar and so obtained the

crown of martyrdom. Like I'll glory like pray for us. Richard Butler. But I, again, I. Like, pray for us, Richard Butler. But I again, I just I love this is so beautiful. Look at this like this is so simple. Philip was a flaspery, flaspery. He was a native of Leinster. Yeah. Well known for his holiness of life and learning. He was hanged in the year 1651 by the heretics near Dublin. Yeah, that's it.

And they call it like they call the Protestant performers heretics, you know, they will on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Um, and this like Charles O'Dowd, this illustrious nobleman was hanged in 1651. The end. Next. Next guy. Yeah. Yeah. That's, and these are all referenced to other documents. So there's not stuff powerful thing for Catholic parents to referenced to other documents. So there's not stuff. Powerful thing for Catholic, like Irish Catholic parents to read to the kids. And so the martyrs are not limited to the people who are recorded in this book.

This is just the ones that we actually have recorded. Of course. Let's see James O'Reilly. He too belonged to the convent of Colerain. Colerain. Colerain. Colerain. Up the north of Ireland. He expired under the blows of soldiers about the year 1656. Like, honest to God, like as an I.

Here's the thing. It seems to me that like this, the Catholic story is so much more interesting than the bullcrap banal sodomite celebrating modernity that you guys are swamped in now. I don't see how you don't have a revolution of Catholics because who the hell can stand that crap for too long. Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, uh, so we're, we're like the, you know, and there's lots of green shoots in Ireland. I think, I think it's, you know, let's go back to the famine, right? Uh, to put it into context.

So we exported a million people in that 10 year period. We exported 3 million cows. So we didn't close the ports. We actually exported food. The people starved. Okay. And you know, while we, it may go in England, all the cows, they're going to America, Australia, wherever the cattle were going to England yet. Yeah. Yeah. And again, this is not to feed the English, but it gives you, or to give out. I'm sure that's a difficult needle to thread, right? Yeah. Yeah. And again, this is not to feed the English, but it gives you there to know. No, no. Yeah. I appreciate you saying that. I'm sure that's a difficult needle to thread, right? Yeah. Yeah. I'm walking a tightrope here and I don't want to incite any, you know, any hatred there.

And, you know, I love the English and a family living there and all the rest, but it has to be recognized and I ain't making this stuff up. This is not silver tongue Irish exaggeration. This is recorded in English people when they actually do look it up English historians. Well, as you said, the English Catholics suffered as well. Yeah, absolutely. And something else as well. That's really interesting There's a lady who studied the famine. She's a doctor Katherine Christine Keneally And she's she written many books about the famine specialized in in history and she says the Irish were the tallest People in Europe at the time and we were the most fertile. Okay. Yeah. Now maybe it was the potatoes. And I actually like I was like that's

such an outrageous claim I haven't you know before I'd heard it I hadn't heard it hadn't heard it before and so I look you know the only thing I could actually back it up with was I we were at least an inch taller on average than the British at the time. So and height was an indicator of wealth. Now we were at least an inch taller on average than the British at the time. So height was an indicator of wealth. Now we were not wealthy, but we were very healthy. We were very far down with big families. So how do you go from that to what the hell is happening today? I mean, I think we all just gasped with horror when we saw people flying in from all around the world as abortion was now made legal in your wonderful country,

we can now slaughter the unborn and people were cheering and partying in the streets. How do you go from Catholic Ireland to that? Yeah, it's... What did you trade your halos and manuscripts in for? It's like my heart is is beaten really fast and you know when I when I think of what we've given up, and we just weren't ready for what was coming for us, the secular onslaught. We simply were not ready.

We were training priests who had given up their lives for a model of church which is now obsolete, okay? So we didn't have to defend the faith. You know, we just lived the faith. And that's what, you saw that in Gidore. You know, people didn't talk about their faith if they went to mass. It was just you go to mass like, what are you talking about? Let's not have this stupid conversation.

Let's talk about football. You know, what are you talking about? Theology like absolute nonsense. You live, you live the faith and you talk about football, you know? And so whenever, whenever the onslaught came, it was, we just weren't ready. And the priests weren't ready for apologetics. They weren't ready to defend the faith. And it's, it was, you know, there was a little bit of heterodoxy but it was more so we just didn't have the formation to deal

with all that was coming down the tracks and you know was Catholic Ireland a difficult place to live before this onslaught came I grew up very happy you know and and I know my wife grew up very happy, you know, and I know my wife grew up very happy. We lived, we both lived in, everybody lived in Catholic households, like there was no such thing as not living. You were an idiot if you didn't go to Mass. That was it, you were a social outcast if you didn't go to Mass. And it wasn't the case of people would round on you and pick on you or whatever, you were just considered a bit of a flippin' idiot, you know? And that has

changed to now the people who actually go to Mass are a bit of a flippin idiot, you know? And that has changed to now the people who actually go to mass are a bit of a flippin idiot and the social and the social like us now to an extent, it's not that bad. It's, it's, uh, it's not that bad at all, but we don't talk about faith. You know, we don't, we don't talk about it. We do amongst ourselves. We don't talk about it in the culture. It's just not, you know, you guys are quite content. I'm talking about you as if you're an American, but the American culture, it's very comfortable having conversations about God. And for whatever reason, I don't know what that is.

We are very uncomfortable having conversations about God. And you've been there. You know what it's like. Sure. Yeah. It's probably the same. It's similar in Australia. Yeah. Yeah. Not as not as much, but similar. So you do the thing, but you don't talk about it. Yeah, that's right. You know, it's and people will even say that like it's a virtue. Well, it's a private thing for me. It's like, well, it's supposed to be supposed to proclaim the gospel to all creatures. So why is it private?

And people attribute, especially in Ireland, this saying to to St. Francis, you know, it's proclaim the gospel and use words if necessary. He never actually said that. You know, we actually need to use words to proclaim the gospel. We need to actually talk to people and whatever about what we believe and why we believe what we believe and so on and so forth. Yeah. Where were we?

So you were saying you grew up in a happy Catholic family like. Yeah, is it something like, you know, as we look back on COVID and COVID lockdowns and how things have escalated or feel like they have over the last couple of years, it's just shocking how different things feel. Was it sort of like that? No, they call the Celtic tiger this. Yeah. Boom, that took place in. Yeah, yeah. Dublin and. What do they call the Celtic tiger, this economic boom that took place in Dublin?

When I was a kid, I remember hearing a story about women in a bit like your Peter, right? My son, yes. Your son, yeah. A beautiful child. He is. And hearing a story about women in England who couldn't go down the street on their own without having somebody accompanying them. And why is that? Because they're just not safe. You know, and you know, maybe it was my child's brain, but it definitely wasn't that way in Ireland. And you know,

in that intervening period, like it was, it was no, there is no utopia on earth. So Ireland was not a utopia at all. And you know, priests weren't sinless and Catholics weren't sinless. Exactly. There was plenty of stuff going on, but it was like, let's just take the figures for example, and I don't want to bore people with statistics, but it's very hard to get this online, which is really interesting why it's so hard to get online because I think

there's a, people are uncomfortable. We as a society are uncomfortable with what we have given up in order to have this liberation that we've now experienced where we can basically do what we want. We can, you know, marry the same sex, we can cut our genitals off and do whatever we want, you know, in the name of freedom.

But in the 50 years that I'm alive, indictable crime, which is crime, is so serious that it needs to be tried in front of a jury has trebled. And in that same, so your crime has gone like that. OK. And in that same time frame, faith has gone like that.

So basically, it's practice of faith has like that. Right. Faith is like that. So people who say, I believe in God, I might in practice, but I believe in God, it's down to a third. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's, uh, and how did all that happen? Like we, we have a, in America, you have a system of government which

has left you where you have at least options you know you can vote this way or that way you mightn't like everything that this candidate or this party stand for but for the most part you know you might align yourself to a particular party and be it left or right whatever it doesn't matter in Ireland we don't have that same system we have a similar system but what we've ended up with is magnolia, basically bland, everything the same. We don't have another respectable option. Yes. All right.

So the people in government are the same as the people who are not in government. And it doesn't seem to matter. Our media is all. See, this is funny. I've been thinking about this, too, as I chat with my parents from home about the Covid lockdowns and things like this. And let me see if I can articulate it. And you tell me if it's similar to what you're experiencing, right?

That in America, you have this significant contingent that's pushing back against the mainstream modernist narrative. Yeah. Right. So you have the Ben Shapiro's and the Fox News. And as you just said, you may not agree with everything. Yeah. You shouldn't agree with everything. At least pushing. Yeah. But at least they're kind of bringing together this significant contingent

of people whose voices are being heard. Whereas in Australia, it feels like all the media is singing from the same sheet of music. If somebody questions certain COVID restrictions or implementations, they're quickly dismissed as idiots. Get the tinfoil hat out. Yeah. Is that what a nut job? Yeah. That's exactly. And do you agree with that? It's like assessment as to why that's the case? Why people will dismiss so quickly? Is it media, big tech?

They're brainwashed. They're brainwashed. They're absolutely brainwashed. And we've become so woke, we don't know, like there's a fish in the water, we don't know we're woke, we just think this is normal. Yeah. And we have become more extreme than America because a lot of your viewers are from America, let's use that as an example.

We have become more extreme in our embrace of the liberal because we don't have a bulwark to say, hang on a second, let's talk about this in a reputable way. There's stuff on YouTube, there's stuff online or whatever, but it's relatively small and certainly not large enough that somebody who wants to give a reasoned response can hang their hat on and say,

this website or this media outlet actually disagrees with you. We don't have anybody. So for that reason, do you find people are listening to American media to kind of get a sane take? Totally. Yeah. I find that in Australia as well. And it's interesting.

Like I listened to Russell Brand, like he's a comedian. He's a comp, do you ever listen to him? Yeah, sometimes. Yeah. He's very likeable. He's well. And it's interesting, like I listen to Russell Brand, like he's a comedian, he's a, do you ever listen to him? Yeah, sometimes. Yeah, he's very... He's likeable. He's likeable. He's very, and he's a deist.

I don't know what his theological beliefs are, but he believes in the higher power and whatever. And he's come through porn. He's had a porn addiction. Yeah, he's had some great things to say on overcoming porn. Absolutely amazing. And so he's questioning the narrative. And he's a secular guy that we can say,

okay, well Russell Brand's actually questioning this and people will listen to him. Dave Rubin, another guy, you know, living in a lifestyle is completely contrary to everything that we stand for or most of the things that we actually stand for. But yet we can reference him. Okay. Because he's somebody that's acceptable to the woke. Not left. We don't have left. It's just mainstream. It's the woke mainstream. Everything is woke. Like we have a, we have a Tisha, he's a Tanisha now, which is the second in command essentially in government, who is, he's a homosexual man living in a gay lifestyle. And it's a, and he's actually a decent politician. He's, I've never met him.

He's probably a very, very decent man, but it doesn't change the fact that his life is completely at odds with everything that we stand for. And how did we get to be this? And I can say that on the one hand, I think I like him as a politician, actually. Mason Hickman We've got to make allies where we can. If we were waiting around for somebody who aligned with everything we thought was moral, then we'd be still waiting. I actually know Dave Rubin personally, and as you say, there's things that he does and that I would

obviously disagree with and think immoral. But I think he's a real open-minded guy who's doing a lot of good as well. And we can admire him as a person, what he's doing exactly, while at the same time saying, look, there are some things about your lifestyle that I would really question. Yeah. So the fact is, I think what some things about your lifestyle that I would really question. And in fact, yeah. So the fact is, I think what's great about Dave is that we could disagree with each other and neither of us would want to cancel the other. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And that doesn't happen in Ireland. Yeah, it doesn't happen. You're immediately an idiot if you question anything. In fact, we have lost the ability to have a conversation about anything that isn't football or, you know, just simple, you know just simple you know the weather exactly we can't have an ideological conversation in Ireland and like we you know we have a great tradition of that you know of actually talking to people

and whatever we came out of we came out of British rule in 1920s and we had to figure out our Constitution ourselves we had to develop all like we had to start from scratch and we couldn't take the British system. Because we're Irish, we had to develop our own system. Anybody gets a chance should read the Bunraach na Hheran, which is the Irish constitution. It is a holy document. It is amazing. It's absolutely amazing. And that's what we are founded on. And it's like it's in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, you know? Because we, you know, we fought for this, we died for this, we died for our faith. Like many of the rebels were saying the rosary as they fought, you know? Since this is such a prominent part of your history, do you find that there's young men and women who are seeking to align themselves with it, even before they have living faith.

In other words, this is part of my tradition and part of my heritage, and I'm going to start to respect it. And I think, yeah, I. I'm not sure what you mean. I guess what I mean is, you know, you see Jordan Peterson speaking on the Bible, although he's not a Christian, and he seems to be helping people have respect in the Bible. And yeah, I would imagine if I was an Irish 15 year old, okay, so a bit of a thought experiment here. Where do you rebel?

What do we do? Just like become gay and get drunk? It's like, no, that's the norm. Exactly. Not the norm, sorry. But you know, so it's like, well, I could become a Christian. Experiment and get drunk. Yeah.

Yeah, I could become a Christian and that seems to be pretty against the grain. Wouldn't that be lovely if it went as far as them becoming a Christian? But they will rebel and it has to only end up this way. Like it's so crazy that it's going to eat itself. Like it's just, it's absolutely nuts. It doesn't make any sense. I see that with the trans ideology today. I think it's eating its head off.

Yeah, totally. It totally is. Speaking of Jordan Peterson, he was in Dublin last weekend, I think it was. And there were 13,000 people, like Catholic Ireland, you know, is small, all right? Pretty much when you're in ministry in Ireland, you know everybody. You know, you can see, ah, I recognize that head, I recognize that head. We know a lot of people.

And I didn't, I recognized one guy, and I met one other fellow outside. 13,000, mostly men. There were a few women there as well. Mostly men who were there because Jordan Peterson was there talking some modicum of sense. Absolutely. Yeah.

So I'm sitting there. I think he's a gateway drug. He totally is. He's an on-ramp to us, you know? And whereas we can get annoyed that people are listening to Jordan Peterson and they're not listening to us, actually it's really good they're listening to Jordan Peterson and maybe we should take on board

some of the things he's actually saying. He's actually talking philosophically, he's making a good argument for faith and maybe we should look at that as well. But the interesting thing is, I was turning around, I was asking, so why are you here? You know, to all the people that were sitting around me and they were either in faith in a strong way and I didn't recognize them or they were being reintroduced to their Catholic faith. And you know, I was talking to one guy sitting behind me and he said, you know, I'm not really in my faith and I know I need to be, but I'm here because I like this guy. What a man. You know, what a man is right. Yeah. Peter Crafters once said when a maniac is at the door, feuding brothers reconcile. Yeah. So we have the maniac

of wokeism. Is there a sort of reconciliation taking place among Protestants and Catholics in Ireland today? Oh, big time. Big time. We have, you know, we have more in common as Catholics with our Protestant brothers. And it's not to say that we don't have differences in what we believe, et cetera, but we have more in common in terms of our faith, a common baptism, and so on and so forth. And what how we live our lives and what we stand for them we do with most non Catholics. and so forth, and how we live our lives and what we stand for, than we do with most nominal Catholics. That's right. 100%. Yeah. And so we are totally united on this, and the Evangelical Protestants are absolutely with us toe to toe on all these, you know, neurologic issues, let's say.

You know, the difficult issues. So you mentioned a moment ago, NET, I can't believe we haven't brought this up until now, so you are the, what's the title? Executive Director. Executive Director of NET Ministries National Evangelization Teams. I'm gonna go net. I can't believe we haven't brought this up until now. So you are the what's the title executive director? Director of net ministries national evangelization teams. I want to talk about you know, you said at the start of this like we need you now Come in droves evangelize our country. I love that you put it that way I love you said it so strongly talk to us about what is taking place in Ireland right now frayers of the renewal net But maybe begin by just kind of give us a brief explanation

of what NET is. So NET, so you did NET, you met your wife on NET, you worked in Canada. Not a dating program strictly. Yeah, exactly, we asked you to be on a dating fast, so don't come to meet your wife or your husband or whatever, but it's essentially what it is, is a faith-based gap year,

where we invite a young person of faith to come to, a Catholic of faith, to come to Ireland. Now we're in America, Australia, Uganda, Canada, and Scotland as well, so it's not just Ireland, but I'm here to invite people to come to Ireland. We invite you to give a year of your lives, okay? So we died for our faith. We sent priest upon priest upon priest abroad

to bring faith to the new colonies, and we ask, and again, it's Augustine of Hippo sent priest upon priest upon priest abroad to bring faith to the new colonies. And we ask, and again, it's Augustine of Hippo and St. Patrick, we ask that faith is strong here in Steubenville. The faith is strong in America generally. We ask that the people put their hand up and volunteer for a faith-based gap year, proclaiming the gospel. So you say gap year, we don't use that expression. Okay, so basically nine months, essentially, from August through to May.

And you may have already said this, but 18 to 30, you've got to be single, you apply to net ministries, and if you accept them, they basically get to spend nine months traveling Ireland and proclaiming the gospel to the youth. Yeah, we train them up, we give them the tools. Sounds beautiful. And for the most part, a lot of what we do is

make sure that they have a faith strong enough to, you know, you can't give what you don't have. And that is the, that's the transformative thing in the missionaries case. And that's why net is so fruitful worldwide. But I can speak from an Irish context. It's the transformative effect of the gospel. So just briefly, what do your teams do

when you send them out to evangelize? What are they doing? They're not knocking on doors, presumably. No, they're not send them out to evangelize? What are they doing? They're not knocking on doors, presumably? No, they're not. Are they going into schools? What does that look like? So we work in conjunction with the local parish, and if the parish is working in conjunction, which they all are in Ireland, with the Catholic schools, we'll work in the Catholic schools,

and we'll invite young people. We'll do RA classes, we'll do whatever, and we'll take a fun approach to it initially, but we'll eventually, by the end of the year, go deep. And so we invite young people to youth group at night off campus or off the school campus and we'll journey with, we'll basically disciple young persons. So a missionary who's coming to Ireland, they will have to disciple at least two young people on their year of mission with Ned in Ireland. And we hope that they will make a decision to follow Jesus by the end of that year, that young person that they've come to disciple in Ireland and we hope that they will make a decision to follow Jesus by the end of that

year, that young person that they've come to disciple in Ireland. Yeah. And so what kind of feedback you're getting or what kind of... how do you gauge your success and are you being successful? Yeah, so we'll judge a tree by its fruits and net Ireland is incredibly fruitful. The marriages that are coming out of the young missionaries, the priests and vocations are incredible. We have 17 and a lot of it has happened during COVID and remind you to come back to the vocations. Like we kept going when COVID

lockdown happened and we had a choice to send everybody home. Our missionaries home and we put it out to them and most of them decided to stay. And it was like, hell yeah, I'm staying, you know, and the Irish as well stayed as well. And we went online. We, and we, we continued that discipleship journey with the, with the young people that we were ministering to. And they needed us at that point, a lot more than they ever needed us before. You know, they needed the faith to make sense of what was actually happening because we didn't know how serious this COVID thing was. You know, initially,

we thought we were all going to die. It's easy to look back and be like people reacting like that. Yeah, it wasn't a big deal or whatever. No, it was washing groceries. You know, I know you do that. Yeah. Everything was soaking and soggy, but we washed the groceries because we didn't want to catch this bug. And like, so they didn't know that they weren't putting their lives at risk and they put their lives at risk and full knowledge that they could die for the sake of the gospel.

And the same way in the same way that these guys did it years and years ago. And, and it's a, yeah, so, so we kept going and then we kept going the following year, but the fruit out of the difficulty and the, I don't want to say persecution because it wasn't persecution right you know we didn't know none of us knew that let's you know the government's didn't know how serious it was but it was difficult let's say but when the gospel proclaiming the gospel became more

difficult we became more fruitful yeah and the majority of our missionaries would be from abroad but the majority of the vocations are in Ireland. And this Irish and people from abroad who just have come to our shores and like this is not to married life or to singlehood or whatever, but the majority of people who have come to our shores are who felt called to the priesthood or religious life stayed in Ireland. It's, it's, it's just incredible. Yeah.

And when vocations are not, they're not like, they're falling off a cliff in Ireland. And I'm not saying this because we're amazing. I'm saying this because God is amazing and he is doing something. He's blessing what it is that we're doing. And me as a director and the rest of the staff who are incredible, we just get to sit back and look at and praise God for what he's doing and keep walking behind him because he's doing amazing things. So just let me do the...

Sorry, go on. And that's only about the missionaries. That's not about the young people that we actually minister to. You know, and I could tell you a few stories about that, but you're going to get to that. But I just want to do a plug for y'all. So just if you're right now watching this or if you have a son or a grandchild or a niece or a nephew who's between the ages of 18 and 30, are single and want to spend a year of their life Evangelizing in Ireland click the link in the description below. We have a link to net ministries.ie You can look into it for yourself. And if that's something you want to do

You know if you hate the Sun but love Jesus, I'm just joking The weather hasn't improved actually since you were there Well I hope it doesn't improve or else you'll have a... Yeah that's right, Not worked out well for us. Yeah, check them out, look into the website and I'm sure it's pretty easy to apply. It's easy to apply. The one thing I would say for internationals,

for people from North America, is get your application in before the 31st of December because we're having a terrible time with immigration. And yeah, I could tell you more about that, but it's interesting, lots of stories around that. And it's not just net, Friar's the renewal now in Ireland. What's not just NET, Friar's the Renewal now in Ireland. What's going on with them? Friar's the Renewal are in Limerick and in Derry, they're doing amazing work and they're

absolutely beautiful, we're closely aligned with them, they come to all our trainings and they're just beautiful. There's another order called Home of the Mother that are doing fantastic work as well. Focus Missionaries are in Ireland. Oh really, I didn't know that. They're amazing, they're in Dublin, like Brian lived with the Focus Missionaries are in Ireland. Amazing. They're in Dublin. Like Brian lived with the focus missionaries, our eldest son lived with the focus missionaries in Dublin and they like just living in the house with them. They're just Catholic. It's just good, normal people who are

trying to love Jesus Christ. And it's, it's important. Yeah. And, and, and so they're there and they're just living a normal life and they're, they're inviting people, Hey, do you want to come to a Bible study? And people are coming to a Bible study. And so they worked in UCD for a few years. They're still working in UCD and UCD, the canteen in UCD has become a place where people actually bless themselves now. And, and wow, like the authorities in UCD are looking around and they're, they're like, Hey, what's UCD?

It's a university college, Dublin, where they work. So basically it'd be the main university in Ireland. I thought that's what you meant. Yeah. Yeah. And so they're, they're, uh, the authorities are like the authorities are like, what are these people doing with their hands? Yeah. Kind of thing. So they're now in Queen's University as well. I want to ask people right now who are watching to do two things. Number one, click subscribe,

obviously. Number two, stick around because at 5pm today we are hosting a debate on set of accountism. A little nervous about it, we'll see how it goes. But we'd love to have you there for that see what happens but then send in your questions right now if you got a question for Tony about Ireland or net or whatever else yeah can I see you yeah you go yeah and like there there are so many other great things like Opus Dei at my spiritual director Opus Dei they're not in a way all the time no fuss whatsoever whatsoever. Like they were started in the civil war in Spain. I love Obispo. I like, I stress, I keep saying like, Father, we're in 1930s Germany, you know, the way things are, you know, totalitarianism and all that. He's like, will you calm down? You know, he's like, we started in the civil war,

cop yourself on kind of thing. And there's another beautiful, like it's just, there's so many good things happening. There's another beautiful ministry down in Waterford, Holy Family Mission. And it's young beautiful, like it's just, there's so many good things happening. There's another beautiful ministry down in Waterford, Holy Family Mission, and it's young people as well, mostly Irish young people. They do a year of formation down there. And they're beautiful.

And so many green shoots are, you know, like I could talk for a long time about all the green shoots. Youth 2000 is there all the time. Were you at Youth 2000 when you were in Ireland? I think I may have attended one or two meetings. Yeah, Summer camp. What about, um, what's the, uh, the, the Marion, uh, Duffy, Frank Duffy.

Frank Duff, uh, Mary, Mary's beautiful. It's gone down, but it's coming back. What's funny is in Australia, the Legion of Mary, it's usually old folks together, but I remember being shocked in Ireland. There's a bunch of young solid or some folks who are running those meetings. Yeah. Beautiful to see. Yeah, and two of our daughters went through the Legion of Mary. And I think, my wife actually was in the Legion of Mary.

And Sheena would always say that whenever you're in the Legion, it's Mary puts her hand on you and she doesn't let go. You know, it's absolutely beautiful. Yeah. I love the Irish and their devotion to our Blessed Mother. Yeah. It's really unique and beautiful.

Yeah. I thought it was normal. You know, I thought it was like everybody was like that. Like what could creep you out about the words Legion of Mary? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The first thing you do when you go into churches, kneel in front of the statue of the Blessed Virgin. Never mind the Eucharist.

Well, okay. Look, Mary Ann asks, I'm so excited to listen to this as someone of Irish and German ancestry. I've been so sad watching the direction of both countries have been going with regard to the faith. I want to know how to pray specifically for Ireland. St. Patrick, pray for us. Yeah, pray and fast, Marianne, pray and fast.

We need it all. New Glouf, thanks for the super chat says, what is the state of the church of Ireland with Anglicanism in Ireland as opposed to the county? So yeah. So how's, what's the state of Anglicanism in Ireland? Anglicanism is really small and you know, they have, they have done a deal with the enemy and they have accepted, uh, you know, I don't want this to sound really harsh,

but they've accepted the liberal agenda essentially essentially, and it's not good. And we have whole swathes in the UK, like Pope Benedict welcomed a whole swathe of Anglicans into the Catholic Church. And these are men with families whose kids are, like we have a couple of sons and daughter of a priest on net, and it's just, they've been fantastic. Yeah. Let's see, we have someone else. I remember seeing the Irish pilgrims in Medjugorje. They were awesome.

Could listen to them say the rosary all day. You got a great accent. You really do have a great accent. The Irish are fantastic. Thank you. Hey Tony and Matt wanted to say hi. I live, I lived the episode. I don't know if that makes more sense.

I'm glad he loved the episode. He can live it too. He can come down. He can love it. He can do it. It was slow down. I haven't even got a, okay. This is why I shouldn't be reading comments

because people are just chatting amongst themselves. So this doesn't help. But Tony, here we go, here's a question. What's the biggest resistance to the gospel in Ireland right now? Apathy, I would say, is the biggest resistance to the gospel in Ireland. We're a wealthy country. We have everything that we, on the face of this, need, and we are completely apathetic to the gospel.

It's like, so what? That's the biggest resistance. And until somebody faces an existential crisis, that's the only thing that will actually bring them to actually, what is this all about? I remember for us, what was so difficult is proclaiming the gospel to people who are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it. No, but you don't. It's much more difficult to tell something to somebody

when they think they know it. They have had a version of Catholicism that has not inoculated No, but you don't. It's much more difficult to tell something to somebody when they think they know it. They have had a version of Catholicism that has inoculated them from the real faith. Yeah. So everybody thinks they're Catholic and essentially they've had, you know, they've been indoctrinated into a version of faith that is not Catholic. Someone's asking if they need to be vaccinated into the country. Uh, they don't, they do not have to be vaccinated.

And we'd love to talk to you if you're interested in coming. Uh, let's see, this is a bit of a different question, but do you like Connor McGregor's Irish whiskey proper 12 also hello from holy, holy angels, Byzantine Catholic, St. Diego. What's up? Uh, do I like it? 12 also hello from holy holy angels Byzantine cathedrals in the ego. What's up? Uh, do I like it? It's never tasted it. Uh, Connor McGregor is an interesting character though.

How so? Uh, he's just vulgar, you know, and uh, he's not representative of a virus people. Yeah. So he's a, you know, he's probably a good man, but in some ways, in some ways, I'm sure. Yeah. But he, he doesn't, I cringe when I hear some of the stuff he gets up to. Someone asks, um, this is Dean Paul. Could you elaborate on the fact that a lot of marriages have stemmed from net probably a lot of single people who are like, uh, yeah. So yeah, what's his name?

Dean. Dean. Don't come and do a year of mission because you want to meet a wife. Come and do your mission. Cause God is calling you. If you happen to meet a wife after a year of mission because you want to meet a wife. Come and do your mission because God is calling you. If you happen to meet a wife after your year of mission, then that's God blessing you. But don't come for that reason. Do you know who Professor Lennox is? No. He's a Protestant theistic apologist. So he's asking whether or not he's been helpful to Catholic faith in Ireland

because he's from Northern Ireland. That's my understanding. But anyway, we'll. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, good. You seeing anything else, Neil, or are we getting to the bottom of the barrel? There's a ton of people talking to each other. We have only 500 people watching. Does Tony have anything he would say to my aunt regarding her anti-Catholicism?

I'm converting and she's not happy, but love of Ireland in touch with our Irish roots, want to retire there. Yeah. I would say get her to read a book called Ireland's Loyalty to the Mass by Father Augustine. He wrote it in 1933 and it'll just give her a sense of what we gave up, or what we held onto rather, and didn't give up in order to hold on to our faith. And yeah, it's just sheer martyrdom. And then we get rich and we drop it all. Yeah, you probably felt a lot of animosity

as abortion was being pushed through. That was a really difficult time, really, really, talking about, can you hear me Neil? Why did you say that? Because I'm speaking in a lower voice. A really difficult time to be Catholic in Ireland and we didn't think that we would lose that referendum.

And interestingly, the only constituency in the country that actually voted against abortion was the place where NET is based in Donegal. It's just a beautiful, beautiful place. But anyway, the government changed the immigration rules and they wouldn't let a person into the country. They changed it without consultation. They wouldn't let anybody into the country because now some would say conspiratorially that it wasn't to implement a new system. It was so they didn't want young people

from around the world coming in to volunteer, to campaign, to keep abortion out of Ireland. This is what happens whenever there's an abortion referendum or something big coming up, people flock to that country to support the cause and nobody could get in. And after the referendum, as soon as the referendum was over, the new system was introduced. So five months, you couldn't get anybody into the country. And we were the same. We weren't campaigning directly for the abortion. We were going at the root cause, which was faith. Annual local supporter Amy asks, why would I encourage our daughter who is discerning

a vocation with a traditional Benedictine community to check out net as a possibility for a year? I would say if your daughter wants to know what real faith is, lived in action, and to actually know how to, you know, if she's joining an order, she's going to have to at some stage deal with men, she's going to learn how to deal with the opposite sex, and to deal with sisters as well in a very intense environment, as well as proclaiming the gospel. Sure. E Robert says, hello lads, here in Newfoundland, or Newfoundland, we are currently in the midst of a mass sell-off of churches and church properties as a result of bankruptcy due to abuses committed by the Irish Christian brothers in the fifties.

Since then, we've lost the Irish Catholic culture as Ireland has. How do you dialogue with people who only remember the church as presentation sisters hitting people with rulers, how have similar abuses affected Ireland? I would say, and that man is half Irish, he's from Newfoundland. Well he began with, hello lads. Yeah, yeah, he's halfway there. I would say it depends on how ideologically captured the person actually is, and if they're open to, you know, maybe the best thing to do is to say nothing. We have all the power to say nothing, but I would say probably the best thing to do is discern, pray for that person and say nothing, because you're probably not going to change them. And they're hurt for a reason. They've had a really difficult experience and we've got to be really sympathetic towards that.

You know, this is a good question. I think like people have heard a lot of atrocities that have come out of the Catholic Church in Ireland and I'll let you speak for yourself, but obviously it does no one any good to downplay them or to pretend they didn't happen I think one of the best things that happened here was when that excellent movie came out that expo What was that movie called? No paper in Boston? Yeah, yeah Boston global Whatever it was called it exposed the absolute atrocities that were being perpetuated by Catholic priests It was despicable and I thought was a very fair representation of what took place. There are evil spotlights. Yeah, spotlights. This is great. Yeah, you're right. Anyway, so this, so in light of that someone says this, you say you grew up happy,

but then there are other stories like those of Frank McCourt, Angela's ashes. My husband also believed there's a fierce Catholic versus Protestant football rivalry. Okay, so believe there's a fierce Catholic versus Protestant football rivalry. Okay. So let's put that one thing in Scotland. Yeah. Yeah. Nevermind. Yeah, fair enough. Let's put that to one side, but like, what, what about this? I mean, what do you say to a Catholic who says to you, you want us to go back to the way things were before when you had all these bloody abuses in the church? Um, it's disgusting. No, I don't. I don't want to go back to that. I want to go forward and I want,

you know, it's, we're not about changing the Irish culture. We're about changing the individual soul and giving that person the opportunity to experience Jesus' love for them. And if that happens to change the culture, great, but we're not about the culture. And net is a very small part of what God is doing in Ireland. And, you know, we're not the only thing that's actually happening, but we don't get above ourselves at all. It's just about one individual soul at a time. And if that happens to lead to a change in culture, which it will eventually lead to a change in culture, but that's not our objective. Our objective is not political. Our objective is spiritual. People would push back and say, yeah, but you're still asking me to become Catholic,

and Catholics committed all sorts of abuses, physical, sexual. This is coming from the hands of priests and nuns. Why the hell would I want to join this church? They still have that objection. Even if you say you want to move forward, how do you respond to that? Yeah. You know, I would say I would respond with sympathy. I didn't follow the abuses.

It's not that I'm in denial that bad things actually happened, but we actually don't encounter that argument at all, frankly. Young people, actually don't encounter that argument at all. Okay. Frankly. Yeah. Young people, they don't care. You know, older people, they have a, they have an argument, but it's not as vehement as, you know, the Frank McCorrie, he wrote a book called Angela's ashes and the media in Ireland trotted him out everywhere because he had a really difficult time. And that was a story that the media were invested in actually telling over and over again, the abuse in Ireland happened. and I'm not downplaying that at all but it's

nowhere near the proportionally to the coverage that it actually got and you know whereas the government let us down in so many different ways at the same time for the same reasons there's very little mention of that it's only because the big guns are out for the church and again it's not to take away from anybody's pain that did genuinely happen, but we're, we're not about that. We're moving forward. And you know, it's time for us to stop apologizing for the sins of the church in the past. You know, it's like,

because I mean, it's like the church is your only option to confess these sins. I mean, it's the church who's saying these things that you're complaining about are reprehensible and evil. Yeah. So you should agree with the church and say they ought to be repented of. Yeah, totally. And the church has done a great job itself. You know, the hierarchical church has done a great job of actually dealing with the scandals whenever the moment came that they actually were like, okay, we can't hide this anymore. Or, you know, I don't know enough about it to make a comment. So scratch what I just said, hide this

anymore. I don't know. I didn't follow it. I have too many other things to be doing. And it's not to say I've never met anybody who was hurt by the sins of a priest in the past. And that doesn't mean to say that those people aren't there, but I don't come across them. I have met people who are in faith, who had a difficult time in school, they might have been beaten by a Christian brother or whatever, but they have forgiven. So your basic thought seems to be not denying that terrible abuses took place

at the hands of priests and sisters, right? They did. That said, it seems like our secular culture, which hates Christian morality, especially Christian sexual morality, has a vested interest in demonizing the church in a way that it's not equally invested in, say, demonizing public school teachers who did atrocious things or government officials who did atrocious things. Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. They've let

that one go a long time ago, but it keeps getting trotted out anytime the Catholic Church in Ireland is mentioned. And like we haven't ever apologized for the sins of the church in the past. We just haven't ever needed to because it hasn't been an issue. Okay Cafe Canela says Matt you you can ask your guest if he has seen the documentary of Sister Claire Crockett all or nothing Have seen it. It's brilliant. Please recommend anybody to see it. She's a home of the mother nun in Ecuador She died and she's from dairy anybody who watches dairy girls I wouldn't recommend dairy girls, but this father Ted yeah father Ted I wouldn't recommend that either but she's she's from Derry and she died for her faith and she was up for it she was

totally up for it and a great great woman yeah it's just yeah man so many have you seen it so many father Ted clips are coming to my mind. I'm sorry. That's OK. I just bled for a little bit. Doogle. Oh, all right. You're a racist father. Remember that? No. Another company. I go on. You will. You will. You will.

Man, well, I I love my time in Ireland. It was it was terrific. It really was. Good on you. Well, beautiful. It's so good to have you on the show. Links in the description. Go check out Ireland and yeah, anything else you want to say as we wrap up? No, just thanks for everything you're doing here. And you know, it's like I have a great privilege of working for a wonderful organization that's

international around the world. And it is it is a real blessing, my kids have faith because of it. And you know, it's it's a and you know, they grew up in a family where the parents were faithful, but in Ireland, that's not enough. There's no guarantee. And because they were surrounded by faithful young missionaries who came to our country, who shared, broke bread with us, lived in our house, you know, many of them had stayed with us and whatever that inspired our kids just to want to be like them. So they didn't do it because we were telling them they should do it because they

would have not done it. If we told them to do it. They did it because they wanted to do it. And I would recommend it to anybody. And I think it's cool, too, like so many folks are pushed into university or feel obligated to go to university for some reason. But taking that year in between the end of high school and university, that's a great idea, I think, because you grow up as a person, you get to travel, you get to be amongst good, holy company. You're being put in difficult situations where virtue is required. I mean, if you don't think it's difficult to stand up in front of a few hundred teenagers and proclaim the gospel,

you don't know what you think's difficult. And then when you come back, you're a little kind of more clear maybe about what you might want to do after that. So. Priorities are different after a year of telling people about Jesus. Yeah. 24 God bless you. Thanks so much for being on the show.

I want to just tell people to get this book to again. I don't even know who wrote it. You didn't write it. I didn't write it. We're not promoting it for any other reason. Yeah, exactly. There's no money in this for anybody. Yeah. It's just to tell about the murders that have been in Ireland and to say you can come to Ireland, you won't get murdered, but you may have white murdered him, but we need you and please come. Beautiful, yeah, click the link in the description

to get that and learn more about Net. God bless, thanks Neil. Thanks Matt, thanks Neil.