Pints With Aquinas - The State of Catholicism in Ireland w/ Mattie Harte

Episode Date: June 15, 2021

This week’s episode of “Pints with Aquinas” is all about Ireland and Catholicism! I talk with Mattie Harte, a husband to one and father of three, about the current state of the Catholic Church in Ireland. We also discuss:  - The history of Catholicism in Ireland  - How the faith plays into Irish culture  - Catholicism vs. Protestantism in Ireland  - The contrast between the Catholic faith in the US vs. Ireland   Download my FREE ebook, "You Can Understand Aquinas," now!   SPONSORS Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/ Homeschool Connections: https://homeschoolconnections.com/matt/   GIVING Patreon or Directly: https://pintswithaquinas.com/support/  This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer co-producer of the show.   LINKS Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/   SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd Gab: https://gab.com/mattfradd Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/pintswithaquinas   MY BOOKS Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx   CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

And we are live, are we? Yes, Matty Hart, how are you? Doing good, Matt, and yourself? Yeah, awesome, man. Great to have you on the show. Thanks so much. All right, now, I'm so excited about this. I've gotten to know you these last few weeks.

We introduced you to sushi in my house. You'd never had sushi before. No, and I will not have it again. We introduced you to kombucha. I probably won't have that again either. And now, for the first time on live YouTube, you're going to drink your first espresso. So let me know what you to kombucha. I probably won't have that again either. And now for the first time on live YouTube, you're going to drink your first espresso. So let me know what you reckon.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're probably going to... What do you reckon, Matt? What do you reckon? Awful? It's like tar. Yeah. That's why I like it, man.

No, it's good. I don't mind coffee. I didn't drink coffee till i came to america yeah uh my first set of midterms for the masters here coffee creamer we don't have coffee creamer in ireland yeah and uh it's a joy it's an absolute it is you know yeah now growing up in australia at least in my day and age like coffee's a huge thing yeah probably in the cities of ireland and also in australia but, growing up, we drank tea and then instant coffee. Yeah, yeah.

You too? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tea and instant coffee. But even then, I was more of a hot chocolate drinker. Yeah. If anybody's never had white hot chocolate, it's... To die for. Yeah.

It's pretty beautiful. Yeah, yeah. And then I remember, I think I did World Youth Day in Canada, and I tried North American coffee, just like you're saying. And people would have these creamers in the fridge, like pumpkin and peppermint, and it was amazing. It's a science. People take it super seriously over here, and it's way better. I mean, it is. There's no point saying otherwise. So I'm impressed by America in many many ways but their coffee is really good yeah well i'm so glad to have you on the show today we want to talk about the state of the catholic church in ireland obviously i'm looking forward to hearing a bit of your story as well

yeah so maybe we can just begin there you're a faithful catholic uh i try to be yeah maybe tell us just for those watching who are you and uh how you know to tell us a bit about your story. Yeah, so I'm Matthew Hart. I'm married with three children. Mary is four and a half. Pio just turned three on the 20th of March. John Gabriel is almost nine months. And then we have number four on the way in August. And my wife, Catherine, is just the most superb person

I've ever met, and she's beautiful and amazing. I concur. She's great. Not the most amazing person. I shouldn't say that. She's one of the most amazing people. Cameron's somewhere crying. And, yeah, we moved to America three years ago to do the Master's in Theology.

Now, you've been to Ireland. You know that's not a typical journey for a young Irish person to come and want to study theology. I probably got a typical Irish upbringing in many senses from my generation. Like most of my kids and friends in elementary school, everybody went to mass, people would have said their prayers morning and night and I was the same. And I kind of got the faith of my parents which was caught rather than taught. They weren't able to maybe defend or catechize as much. It was just, this is what we live, this is what we did, this is what everybody did.

It was essentially a Christendom of sorts. It was like the same routines and mores and traditions and ways of living. It was Catholic Ireland, and that's what we were brought up with. And where did you grow up in Ireland? Oh, yeah. So I'm from the north, which I suppose for many American viewers, they won't understand the difference in north and south of Ireland. A hundred years ago, actually, in May,

Ireland became partitioned into effectively two jurisdictions. There was a war of independence against the British from 1920-21 and after that there was a treaty by which the 26 counties of the south were given their own free state, whereas the six counties in the north remained under British jurisdiction. We'll get to the history of the Troubles in a minute, but with an enshrined Protestant majority, deliberately so to protect them against their hostile Irish neighbours.

And I'm from the middle of the north, so my Catholicism would very much have been associated with Irish nationalism, where it was, we weren't too fond of the British. We weren't too fond of Protestants. I mean, there's no other way to say that. was we weren't too fond of the British. We weren't too fond of Protestants. I mean, there's no other way to say that. There was a civil war there called the Troubles from 1969 to about 2007. And you were fiercely proud to be Catholic because you weren't British and Protestant.

And I couldn't have told you. It was nothing doctrinal. I couldn't have told you what we believed, really. I couldn't have told you what Protestants believed i just know that we were catholic and they weren't and we were irish and they weren't um now my parents thanks be god were able to protect us a lot from the the worst of it um and we never hated anybody but it was a definite definite thing you grew up with that was what irish catholicism meant and it and it was tainted that way and that is the same in the South as well in the previous generations it was tainted with or associated with sort of anti-Britishness and a we are

other and we are proudly Catholic and Irish and that's our identity as opposed to being British. Is it fair to say people often hear about you know Protestant vs Catholic in Ireland? Are those basically synonymous for Irish and English then? So the reason you all are hating each other has less to do with religion and more to do with… Absolutely, absolutely. It's a nationalistic conflict that happened to be along religious lines. I mean, there's a comedian, Des Bishop.

He's actually an Irish-American, he came over and he did like workshops in the north with Catholics and Protestants trying to you know get a sense of the things and there were these two young kids from the Shankill area, a very very staunch British Protestant area and they knew he was from the south so they were eyeing him with suspicion but they could hear his American accent and they couldn't pigeonhole him and they were like

are you a Catholic or a Protestant? and he's like oh I'm not religious at all and they looked at each other and were like this has nothing to do with religion now are you a Catholic or a Protestant? Is that what they said? Yeah

Wow That's essentially what it was it wasn't about doctrine it wasn't about beliefs or practices it was a nationalistic conflict along religious lines and that's what we sort of we grew up with and because I believed in God and went to mass among my friend group I would have been the one who was into the faith I'd have been the one who was the faith

person and particularly when you get to secondary school and into college whenever you're like I went to 14 years of catholic education and didn't understand my faith whatsoever i mean that's we'll get on to that later on as well didn't really understand it didn't couldn't have defended it um and then when we get to college and my friends are you know i don't drink either but they're at 3 a.m and a bit tipsy and suddenly as you say everybody everybody's a philosopher everybody you know what is this about what is this life about and Why doesn't she talk to me? And then they would push me because they knew I believed certain things.

They'd ask me questions. Why are you doing this when nobody else is? Why are you not doing this when nobody else is? I couldn't defend it. It's so funny. It's like that people say, everyone makes fun of the Catholics until there's a house that's possessed, and then no one's calling the first Baptist pastor. But there's something similar. I remember

like kind of I became a Catholic when I was 17. And it was like that too. Everyone would shy away from talking about religion or even make fun of me for my faith until they were drunk. And then all of a sudden it got really serious. Yeah. I mean, it's one of our best cards to play, I think, as Catholics and as people of faith is that deep desire for meaning and purpose. And really serious yeah yeah i mean it's it's it's one of our best cards to play i think as catholics and as people of faith is that that deep desire for meaning and purpose and to know what life's about is in everybody i've taught in secondary schools for seven years north and south back home it's in everybody and they're hungry for it and they're being sold an awful version of what meaning and purpose is and it's we have the answer to the questions like

we we have the meaning of life we have the truth the capital t and we have to get better at telling them about it you know so so for you growing up the temptation wasn't should i become protestant obviously because protestants were like that's the last thing i'd become yeah so for you was it just okay live my catholic faith or just kind of become agnostic yeah yeah yeah like majority of my friends um even those who would say they believe in god um and maybe even they go to mass on sundays um would massively disagree with a lot of other church teachers they probably wouldn't affect their lives other than going to mass on sundays um and it got to the point where because i didn't have the answer to the questions

I felt so battered down and that I was like jeepers you know are we are we right you know all these other religions and all the other faiths like how arrogant am I to say we have the right answer you know how arrogant am I to say that the Catholic Church is the one true church and Jesus is the only God you know how old were you when you were oh that you know really 17 18 19 you know and then get into college and then people are moving lifestyles because you're in a catholic school at least you're in the rigors and the movement of you're going to religion class you're going to mass you know with your school and you're doing prayers the day of november and you're doing christmas and you know different

things are still there in the catholic schools that anchor you to it but whenever you get to college it's a different story and it made my faith seem like a fluffy cloud like a like a you're just not smart enough yet to realize there's no God you're just you know you'll get there eventually you know but I knew it was true in here but I couldn't I couldn't defend it and a number of things sort of happened to change that you know and growing up I'm the youngest of four two older brothers and my sister Michaela Mark and Michael my older brothers they were older and they can left me to my sister so I was like her guinea pig and do you know French tips are no yeah that's a good thing you don't what French tips are? No, tell us. No, it's a good thing you don't know what French tips are.

For any men out there, it's a good thing. It's the white bits at the end of the nail. Oh yes, yes. I'm really glad I didn't know that. Yeah, go me. So like, when this hand was wet, I had to paint the other hand. So I always had to paint her nails. I had to straighten the back of her hair.

I see. So when you say you were left as a guinea pig, I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Leave him alone. I had to like, you know, apply fake as a guinea pig. Yeah, yeah, yeah, leave him alone. I had to like, you know, apply fake tan to the parts that were hard to get, you know. Nice, go Irish girls with the fake tan. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

And, but I will say this, for anybody who has an older sister, they are a wealth of knowledge when it comes to the opposite sex. Absolutely, I'm sure. You know, she would draft text messages for me and explain to me how I'm supposed to act and behave and really give me like her own sort of morality, which was you respect yourself and you respect yours and you don't do this. And, you know, we had important conversations

about sex before marriage and why it wasn't a thing. And it wasn't particularly theological. Like we didn't, it wasn't, it wasn't even really a faith thing. It was like, this is the most intimate and important gift. We knew, we knew the church taught this, but didn't know why. I couldn't have told you anything about the theology of the body. And I am explaining about her, and I'll explain one other thing before I get to the point. At home, my father is, for want of a better term, a well-known sports coach. Our national sport is Gaelic football.

It's the best sport in the world. That's how you know it. Oh yeah, that's it. That's what it's about. Yeah, that one. It's like a cross between basketball, rugby and soccer. And it's like... Aussie rules football developed from it.

I'm sure it became worse in your opinion. But yeah, that's a great game. Absolutely. And it hasn't been kind of commercialized in the same way. No, it's an amateur sport. Do you know what I mean? It's a great game. Absolutely. And it hasn't been kind of commercialized in the same way. No, it's an amateur sport. Do you know what I mean? It's a voluntary organization. Now, it has employees.

Like, the central organization has employed different counties. Every county has their team. Every parish has their team. It's literally defined along parish lines. Yeah. And that was what my father became known for because we won, like, our version of the Super Bowl three times in 2003, 2005, 2008.

Made a bunch of semifinals, made another final. He was kind of well-known. And because of that, my sister was kind of well-known because she was always with him and went to training and went to the matches and was always on the pitch afterwards with him and stuff. And 10 years ago she got married to a great guy and they were on honeymoon on the island of Mauritius, which

is the island of Africa. And she went back to her room to get a biscuit or a cookie with her cup of tea and she walked in on two guys burgling or robbing the room um and and they murdered her um and they they strangled her and put her in the bath and filled the bath to make it seem as if she was as if she had drowned um and i mean to put in context her her wedding was front page news in ireland so then 10 11 days later this happened and it just became a media frenzy like we had never ever experienced or seen before and like everybody has their crosses everybody has their stuff going on like that's just part of life ours just happened to be in the public public eye you know um but again anybody's experienced that type of loss you're just talking deep deep mourning

um like serious grief where were you when you found out? I was actually teaching in a secondary school, a Catholic school. And my brother, my father got the call from her widow. And he could hardly talk. And he had to pass the phone to the hotel owner. And he's just like, this man's wife is dead. He just didn't know what else to say. And my dad went and got my brother Mark

and then they came and got me and my uncle Paddy, who was my godfather, was actually dying of cancer at the time and I thought, oh no, something's happened to Paddy. But it turned out what happened to my sister and then we went and got my brother and my mother And it was such an awful experience in so many ways. I mean, anybody who's experienced grief and mourning and loss knows what I'm talking about. Just a cloud descends over you. And I was training to be a teacher at the time, and I didn't care. I couldn't look beyond the cloud of probably depression and just utter grief. I'm sure people have experienced loss they've lost a loved one maybe they've even lost somebody who was young but not

a lot of people that i know have lost somebody to murder yeah that must have been atrocious it was uh it was utterly tragic and um i can only speak for myself and my father, but we got a grace to just not be angry. It was, again, I can't speak for the rest of my family, but for me and my father, I think it was down to my sister's faith because her faith was so strong. Out of all of us, me and my siblings, she prayed the rosary every day

and she just had this unerring belief in God's plan. I don't know where it came from. We didn't have it. She just had this unerring belief in God's plan I don't know where it came from we didn't have it and she just had this unerring belief in God's plan if it was something as simple as my father's team getting beaten a game her friend being kept back a year in school because of some administrative thing if it was something more serious don't worry God will turn to the good you know God turned to good and I've seen how he's done that in my life already through that tragedy I mean because it was such a big deal and like you know RT and BBC and all that initials landed into our parish and they literally covered and the whole thing at

our at the wake do you know what wakes are in America? They should but unfortunately I think we just throw the deceased away as quickly as possible and actually sit with it. A wake is honestly one of the most cathartic and phenomenal things I think we do in our Irish culture. It's beautiful. I remember that. I lived there for three years and I experienced a wake a few different times.

So why was it cathartic? Well, the body's brought back of the deceased and usually into their own room. It's cleared out and people automatically spring into action. I mean, Ireland does community really well not catholic community but community really really well where you'll have the local pub will bring in chairs people sit down on women will come in and clean the house they'll make tea and sandwiches

men will be out putting up lights and getting cars and doing ferries for people to park their car come up to see them up to pay their respects but it's a two and a half to three day process where people stay awake through the night with the body it's unbelievably cathartic because you get to spend time processing what's happening get to spend time obviously it's with the deceased body but you're spending time in that grief with them and people people come to share stories about how they impacted their life and to support you and to to have fun and talk and just get you through it and i can't imagine it i can't imagine not doing death that way you know but uh we had we gotta face it right there yeah yeah yeah but we had 20 000 people that came through our house holy moly because of that uh from all 20 000 yeah from all over the island and like you know in the north obviously you're

split between protest and Catholic, but the Protestant politicians, so there's joint prime ministership type thing. Protestant politicians and the Protestant prime minister came into our house and they said a prayer in the room with us. And then the president of Ireland came as well. And it was just, it was bonkers.

But it restored a lot of the faith and good of people in me. I saw the good in people come out more than anything. And again, my father and I had this grace just not to be angry because my sister's faith was so strong. And we saw that in her, and that gave us great consolation. Yeah, I remember when we first met and this came up, I think one of the first things I said is, did they catch the bastards?

You know, I was so angry. And I remember you said to me, I forget what you said regarding whether they caught them or not, but I remember you saying that you pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet daily for those who murdered your sister. Yeah. Brother, what a grace. It's only about grace, Matt.

It's only about grace because it's not easy. I mean, I'll come on to it later on, but Jesus asked us to pray for those who persecute us and love our enemies. And at the time when I read that, I was like, I don't really have many enemies. You know, I was thinking about people who, the kid who bullied me at school and stuff.

I was like, oh yeah, I need to pray for him then. Let that stuff go. But forgiveness is from the Lord. If he can look down from the cross and say to us, Father, forgive them because they don't know what they're doing. Who am I to hold back? The Lord's forgiven us from somebody else, and they are our Father.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. So I had begun to take him seriously. I was like, okay, if he said this, that means we have to do it, and he'll give us the grace to do it. And it's like okay if he said this that means we have to do it and he'll give us the grace to do it and it's only by god's grace and and and the principle over the emotion and the principle is jesus christ died for us on the cross to save us and forgives us our sins he calls us to do the same that's a principle and sometimes it feels like it and you feel okay you can do it other times it doesn't but it's like I know you're gonna give me the grace to do this day by day and and at the Sandeep and Avinash they're the two men I mean

there was a full murder trial say that again Sandeep and Avinash they're the two men those are the men who killed yeah yeah yeah there was a full murder trial it was the biggest court case in the history of Mauritius country like just yeah because all the all the Irish and British press landed into Mauritius and it ended up supposed to be a two-week trial. It became a six- to seven-week trial. And it was a whitewash. It was just nonsense from start to finish, you know.

There was no justice whatsoever. But again, that belongs to the Lord. Did they get off? Yeah, yeah, they got off with a scoffery. Yeah, yeah. Did they plead not guilty? So initially they pleaded guilty and they had confessions from them and then and then i mean there's there's actually a podcast my sister's what is a podcast murder and mauritius it's nine

episode series detailing the the the uh the details of the of the of the case i haven't been able to listen to it because i just know if i went back there it'd be a very dark place um they paid not guilty or sorry they did a very dark place. They pleaded not guilty. I'm sorry, they pleaded guilty and had confessions. Then they pleaded not guilty. Then they tried to pin it on my sister's widow. Then they tried to, you know, it was just all over the place. And it was sort of like, I mean, my sister was a teacher.

Her husband was a trainee accountant. It was like rich white foreigners in a country. And it was just, yeah, it was a whitewash from start to finish. in a country and it was just, yeah, it was a whitewash from start to finish. What was the incentive for the justice system to let them off? There were Christians in a Muslim-dominated country, it was one thing, so it wasn't really a jury that was going to be favourable to these rich white foreigners coming in to do this. And it's a bit of a kangaroo court type thing.

It's just corruption and one of the lawyers actually changed sides in the middle of the trial and stuff. It was just nonsense, absolute nonsense. And I mean, people dealing with that in different ways again you go back to home and different tragedies and things have happened and it can consume you it can get you really angry and bitter and I've seen it happen to people

but that's not of God I have to pray I have to pray that someday those men will be sitting beside me in heaven because what's the alternative like to wish hell for them you know that's not that's not of god um and justice belongs to him so we'll pray like keep praying that happens but that's that's what belonging to jesus looks like it's like and the freedom that comes from giving that over to him and not that it consume me and fill you for the bitterness and hatred.

That's on you, Jesus. You said this, I'm going to do it. And you're going to give him the grace to do it. A lot of people say that forgiveness is a decision. You know, you can't wait for your emotions to catch up. For you, was that the case? Or did you somehow have peace close to the start of all this? Well, like I said, my father and I got a grace not to be angry.

And I suppose out of sight, out of mind was partly true because it was a country thousands of miles away where that happened. So we were in deep mourning and grief. But you're dead, right? And that, like I've heard described as like, if our emotions are driving the train, right? Sometimes it comes to faith, it comes we'll feel it comes to faith it comes to forgiveness it comes to whatever sometimes we'll feel really great and close to god and feel like

oh yeah this is great other times depending on how we wake up we're feeling really down and really far away from god that that's not what we want we want our will to be driving the train and our emotions will follow afterwards so the active principle and act of the will to say i'm going to forgive these men i'm going to pray for them every day that gives me the strength and help to do it but also means keeps my emotions in check because that act of will that act of um a decision you know of the heart and informed by jesus help helps me do that you know and against only by the grace of god if i chose to there, if I chose to go into that room and think about it, I know, and even for the sake of my wife and kids,

I don't do that, because I know it would lead me to a dark place. And it's like I just have to pray and let God take it. All right, so it sounds like your sister, Michaela, was a strong influence in your life as far as the faith is concerned. But when she, what's that?

No, I'm just saying, because even at that stage, I was still an idiot. You know, it wasn't like, that all happened, but it was the start of a process. Okay. Do you know what I mean?

So you weren't kind of bought into Catholicism necessarily at that point. It was still a very traditional, customary sort of thing. It was very much, this is who we are. It's who I choose to be. I can't say Jesus is the one true God um i can't say jesus is the one true

god i can't say catholicism is always right but this is who i am i know god's real don't know what else that means sort of like uh sort of like i'm irish for good for better or for worse so for whatever sins we may have committed whatever things have been done to us yeah i'm irish i'm catholic that kind of thing that's absolutely it so how did that start to change so what happened was like football was my god that stage our sport and I mean like gung-ho three protein shakes a day weighing out my food well my mom was weighing out my food I was living at home and she was making my food um and doing two-a-day sessions and just busting myself to be the best I could be at this sport because that was manhood was it was know, how good are you at sport?

And that was what the parish was, because, you know, the parish is your team. A number of things happened to change that. I got injured and couldn't play in our big championship that season. And I met a young Catholic priest. Whenever I was 26 years old, 25, 26 years old, he was the first person who could ever answer my questions. So how did you meet him and actually through my sister? Okay, he Asked my father could he use my sister as a patron for his Catholic summer camp?

My dad said yeah, and then he says We've actually started this foundation So when people heard about my sister They kept sending letters and sending money and sending good wishes and stuff and do something to honor her and one of the things we did was we set up summer camps in her honor around elements of her life which was her faith and her fashion because she's a real girly girl like healthy living because she didn't drink and just exercise and looked after herself um fun or crack

as we call it i'll explain that one later it's not a drug i promise um and uh the irish language because she taught the irish language but the very first camp was like the week after the first murder trial and um it was a beacon of hope and light for us but uh one of the volunteers in the faith element of the camp was actually a girl called Catherine McGeer who's now my wife so that's how I met my wife. Did you meet her before you started having these questions about the faith? No I didn't meet her until after that until after my sister had died next year at the summer camp was the first time I met her so she was the faith one in her group as well so we both kind of started journeying together.

My father met this priest and he put us in touch with him through this foundation. He came to say mass for us and blew me away. Like his reverence was unbelievable. And this was in a retreat hall. It wasn't like it was the most beautiful,

incredible liturgy, but his reverence was unbelievable. And I was like, oh, this guy has something else. Then he came to my sister's. What did you notice about it? When you say reverence, what is it that you saw that struck you? Not to sound flippant, he said mass like he believed it. He said the words with purpose.

He preached with passion and conviction and fervor. said the words with purpose he preached with passion and conviction and fervor and the way he held our Lord with the utmost care and the duration of his consecration was essentially what it was the long consecration I was like whoa this this is something incredible what's happening here something very significant that was a big part of my journey towards the realization of the real presence he came to catherine's house and then we just started firing questions at him who's we myself catherine catherine's mom her sisters her brother you know a couple of her aunties heard this priest was coming so we all gathered together to really grill him about the catholic faith yeah which is

funny because y'all were going to mass your Your family are all Catholic. Yeah, yeah. And yet you were grilling him about the Catholic thing. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was caught rather than taught. It was lived. Yeah. Maybe it began with sort of issues you had with Catholicism. Yeah, we get a lot of it. We believe a lot of it.

But what about this? Yes, absolutely. What were those kind of hot-button topics that you began with? One of them was for me because I'd been really struggling with like, you know, if Jesus is really present in the Eucharist, how are we worthy to receive him? That makes no sense, you know. And Father was just like,

look, nobody's worthy to receive him. The Pope's not worthy to receive him. It's out of the goodness and grace of God that he wants us to receive him, his condescension to us. The realization like, oh, okay, this guy can answer my questions. This guy can speak truth.

This guy, and I remember in my heart, like literally on fire listening to him on the road to a mosque and like, oh, okay, this guy can answer my questions. This guy can speak truth. This guy, and I remember in my heart, like literally on fire listening to him on the road to a mosque, and like, that's it. That's truth. That's why we're Catholic. That's it. And this is like the answer to my questions

for years through high school and through college. I've been like, that's it. And he invited us to go on a pilgrimage to Fatima. Before we get to that, what other questions did you fire at him? Do you remember anything? Like, was his answer just very convincing? And he invited us to go into pilgrimage to Fatima. Before we get to that, what other questions did you fire at him? Do you remember anything? Was his answer just very convincing?

Or was that something of a blur and it was more his example that convicted you? It was both and. It was a convincing and articulate argument for the truth. Okay? It was that moment around the table, but then the week in Fatima, because I got to share a room with him. And I grilled him again. I was like, heaven, hell heaven hell purgatory same-sex marriage contraception even things i agreed with i was like tell me why we believe this tell me why we do this why do i hold

this demon demons the angelology the whole works like literally catechism 101 for me i felt like i was catechizing like nine days because i had all these questions the whole time i would write them on my hand read the answers in the back of my arm and come down and be like okay why do we believe this why do we hold this so did he invite you to fatima yeah yeah all right tell us about that so um he had a pilgrimage going with his with his uh with his parish he invited myself and catherine to go i was still in throws of sport I was like I need to stay home do my rehab get back from my injury um but I just knew this guy has something and I wanted so I said to go to Fatima and on the plane and then on the bus ride from Lisbon to Fatima I remember thinking like what am I doing in rural Portugal like what am I doing here I never heard of Fatima

like I literally didn't know anything about it. I was like, why am I in rural Portugal, Father? And he said a few things that just stay with me forever. He's like, Maddy, Our Lady appeared here. She knew millions of people were going to come here. She knew you were going to come here. She's left incredible graces behind. All you have to do is open your heart in truth and ask to receive them and you'll get them

you shall bless you that was a challenge for me because like real prayer of the heart you know previously it's like oh you know me and you're close come on like flicking a coin to a wishing well like sort me out you know like a like a like a divine vending machine you know um and i remember my prayer uh from having met c Catherine right up until going to Fatima was help me be the best man I could be for you God and for her because I knew I needed to be a better man

she made me want to be a better man and I knew I needed to be that and God knew better than I did and I was like I know you know this I needed you to help me do this I think Fulton Sheen's phenomenal in that and the history of the world can be written by its women by how they hold themselves their virtue their morals their standards men have to rise to be better to be worthy of them and that's that's that's that's the way i felt i was like okay i want that i want what he has this this priest

and i want him to be the best man i can be. So a number of experiences happened on that pilgrimage. The first one was we were praying in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament and praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet. And it hasn't happened to me since, but when we went in, there was something different in the room. There was electricity in the air

and I was just hit by the full force of the realize of our Lord's presence it was just revealed to me in that moment wave after wave of power and love just emanating from the host I took my breath away I was just transfixed I couldn't take my eyes off the monstrance I couldn't take my eyes off him and I was just like this whole time my whole life you've been there every tabernacle every time I went to adoration every church I went into you have been there and I didn't know it I could I was just I was utterly transfixed and we left that adoration church and it was Portugal in July the Sun was splitting

the skies I was like this world is dull, that's a window into heaven, I want that, I want that. The next day I'd been given the honour of carrying Our Lady in the procession around Fatima and this was a big deal for me because the last woman I'd carried on my shoulder was my sister at her funeral. So that was an emotional thing for me, I knew Our Lady's gonna heal me here but i also knew i needed to go to confessions now confessions growing up in ireland if you went at all it was just oh it's good to see you you know young man and confessions jeepers you know good man you're doing great go on ahead and like my prep you know my my prep would

have been the same as it was as an eight or nine-year-old, maybe for a long time, fought and cursed and things like that. I was like, if I want God to get real with me, I have to get real with God here. And I knew, and we all know deep down in our heart, the things that are holding us back from virtue, the things that are holding us back from being the best version of ourselves. And we know that right is right right even if nobody's doing it and we know that wrong is wrong

even if everybody's doing it in our heart of hearts we know that and i knew there were certain things holding me back so i went and i spent 45 to an hour just writing out everything i knew i was sorry for like everything over the years of my life because going to confessions previously i would have alluded to things or hinted at things or like oh no don't mention that you know that that never happened don't you just want to hear that so poured my heart out onto this page went into the the priest of the dutch priest who spoke english he must have knew i was ready for it because uh i can only describe it as an interview to get into heaven. Really?

He grilled me. He went for it. And he was like, I was saying my confessions. He was like, well, I'll stop you there. What are you going to do to improve that part of your life? I was like, you're not supposed to ask questions. Why are you? Do you not know how to do this?

Would you like me to teach you? You congratulate me, and I say you're welcome he literally he just called me out I was like I don't know how are you going to fix that? what spiritual reading are you doing

to improve this part of your life? I'm reading Lord of the Rings I mean I'm not you know he just made me realise I actually wasn't doing anything to really improve my spiritual life.

I wasn't doing anything to get closer to God. I was comparing myself to nothing. My atheist friends who were just, I'm better than them. Like, at least I believe and I go to Mass. You know, I don't, I'm doing X, Y and Z, but they're doing ABC and I'm like, you know, I'm not doing that.

And it just made me see how arrogant I was. Put myself in a pistol because, oh, look at me. I'm the good guy. I go to mass and I say some prayers sometimes. And it was like a really holy grab with a scruff of the neck and say, look up, like you're called to be a saint. You're called to be the best version of yourself. And he just called me in a few home truths.

And again, I had been sort of been catechised gradually that week and realised, and teaching in a Catholic school, having gone through 14 years of Catholic education, I think I was teaching heresy. I just didn't know what I was doing. I was like, okay, the church teaches this, but here's what I think might work better. I went totally serious.

Yeah, I know, man. And people would have asked me when I was younger, what do you ever think of being a priest? Because the criteria was, well, you go to Mass and you believe in God. So therefore, yeah, you should be a priest. And I remember thinking, no, I couldn't give my life to something that's so flawed. I couldn't give my life to something that's so behind the times. I just couldn't do it.

That was my understanding of the church. And I was 26 at this time. It was the first time i'd met an on-fire catholic um so i'm in confessions and he calls me in a few home truths and uh he he stops me because i said i felt like i was coasting through life i had this girlfriend i had you know i was teaching part teaching a maternity leave you with catholic yeah yeah yeah we did it for like maybe a year leave you with Catherine yeah yeah yeah we didn't feel like it may be a year and he stopped me was like when you gonna get married I was like like I'm 24 25 Catherine's just out of college I mean I want to be responsible I want to get a job when I you'll be able to afford a house and stuff you provide he's like

could you make it work I think could you make it work and i was like uh could you make it work and i was like maybe he says if this is your vocation if you know as a person you're going to marry if you know this is your path to heaven your path to sanctity what are you waiting for and i was like uh i actually don't know i don't know what i'm waiting for it's because the only thing that's going to stop you is more distractions more things that aren't as important, more temptations if you can make it work can you make it work? I was like, aye, maybe aye and then he called me

I'm going to go through my whole confession but I had no concept of mortal sin or venial sin and I now had so I went to him and was like Father does this mean I probably shouldn't have been receiving Holy Communion? He didn't even say anything.

He looked at me and was like... Oh, it broke me. It broke me. I was just like, oh, because I just realized the day before he's actually there. It's real. Jesus is present, body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Eucharist. So I left the confessional. I went into adoration for

my penance and again it hasn't really happened me since but I completely broke down I was inconsolable I was so sorry I was so sorry for everything I'd done for everything I knew was wrong in my heart of hearts for the times I turned away from God for my friends and my family who I also knew i was so sorry for them as well i was like oh this is the worst catherine was beside me and she was like like what's up with you and i was like i don't know i have no idea and then we'd laugh and i'd be like oh it's crying crying again i couldn't even look at our lord in the eucharist i couldn't even look at him i was so sorry And then just complete peace.

Like those things that were holding me back from being the best version of myself were just left out of my heart and they were gone. And that's the grace of the sacraments. That's the grace. I mean, we scour the earth looking for peace, looking for happiness. The world can't give. And we'll spend, I mean mean hundreds of thousands of dollars and pounds and euro and therapists

and different new age stuff and all these things looking for it and I'll tell you where I found it in confession in the Eucharist because

the world can help us cope with our guilt and deal with it but only the Lord can take it away oh amen only he can

you know take it out of your heart and give you a new start and give you the grace to do better. And that changed my life. I could have sat there to now in adoration beside Catherine, just effusive with the grace of God.

It was unbelievable. So the next day then, I was praying before Lydia in the apparition. And again, the story of Fatima, people who don't know it, is just unbelievable. It's unbelievable. The saints saint jacinta saint francisco please god hopefully someday saint lucia and what our lady did there and how she appeared the miracles she performed and what she told them it's it's a phenomenal story and the visions they had so i was praying before her i was really, my priest friend had told me, he's like, leave your heart with Our Lady.

Like give your heart to Mary. And obviously I didn't know what my own consecration was, but essentially I made my consecration to Our Lady, I was like, look, you take my heart, it belongs to you now, I'm yours. And she more or less, I don't like using the word, but she kind of spoke to me um and things just sort of burst out of my heart that it was just catherine catherine catherine

you've got to look after her you got to protect her she's the flower this is it and i'm just like okay like crying me i was at out again like okay so we come home from Fatima and just in love with being a Catholic just

utterly in love with being a Catholic did Catherine have a similar profound experience as you? it was one of the most greatest graces that we had she just came with me

lockstep wow I was the one getting like just my mind being blown she was just seeing what was happening she was listening to this priest as well.

She was with this group, and she was praying to Our Lady, and we both came together step by step, which is a phenomenal grace, you know. So we came home, and I knew things had to change. I knew things had to change, so we was engaged. Beautiful. And I was like, this is it. And we poured ourselves into the preparation for marriage

went to mass every day, adoration every day and really trying to learn and be the best please God husband and father and wife and spouse and mother we could possibly be and that was a joy, that was an absolute joy but certain things had to change because we were one way and now we were another

so the first thing was on a Friday evening in the church we were getting married in, there was Mass and Adoration. But my football training got changed to a Friday evening. And I had to make a call. I had to go and prepare with my friends to be the best footballer I could be and prepare for the next season and go and lift weights and go and go on to the pitch and train.

Or go with my future spouse to be the best husband and father I could be and please God get to heaven with her. And it was a no-brainer i just quit football i just i just let it go it was a disordered attachment my life now i'm not saying sport is the training ground of the virtues i mean i learned so much from sport i'll get to that in a minute you know so much discipline and desire and hunger and drive and you know determination and perseverance that you get from that you can really apply it to your spiritual life. I mean, St. John Paul II called it, you know, athletics,

the training ground of the virtues. And I still enjoy it and I always coach sport. If I teach in a school or I'm involved, I love coaching sport. I love getting guys ready to go to war. Like, I mean, my dad's a sports coach. I grew up watching him in the locker room, watching him get guys ready to go to war.

It's just, it's a great, you know, obviously in the most charitable way within the rules of the game you know but you don't rip their heads off so that was one big change it was a change I've made with with joy but it was hard because of my family and who we were you know that was a big call to make at 20 how did your family and friends and fellow sportsmates respond yeah respond to this change in you um my father uh came with us every step of the way and i don't know how we've done it without him uh he just he saw something in us something different and we

went to go to adoration every day and our priest gave us permission to expose for my father to expose and oppose because he was a Eucharistic minister right so again not gonna say that was ideal but that's what the priest gave us the permission to do and he would just watch us and then just just started staying with us and he would stay with us and stay with us so like for the whole pretty much the entire year was just me my future wife and my dad just in adoration and it really reignited his passion and fervor for the faith because what would have been a faith that was caught and lived was now something being

fed intellectually and being fed with answers to questions and lived out more probably um i don't want to dynamically or just more authentically i mean there's no other word to say it it was like this is an unbelievable life experience it's an unbelievable life-changing moment when you realize the catholic church of the catholic church jesus is the president eucharist grace is real and this changes our lives you know so my friends were very confused I'll use one example I got them into Game of Thrones I'd read the books and watch the series I got them into it I came back no guys we can't wait this is this is really this is this is just to wake you was this then this is 2014 Wow 2014 into 2015 and you know quitting the sport because I

was like I was mr. gung-ho at sport because I was Mr. Gung Ho at sport. I was busting myself. I was getting the guys to come to training. I was getting them to come and lift themselves and be better. And I gave a few of them my testimony. Some of them came to Fadlan with me the next year. Some of them were bemused, toleration.

Thankfully, there was no open hostility from my friends. There were times, family members and my friends it was there were times family members and stuff it was it was it was rough i won't go into it but i mean it was a tough year it was a tough year um trying to make those changes because some of the friends i had drop i mean like for an irish catholic when i came back, I did something pretty unthinkable, right? I opened the Bible. What?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, this is, like, we have the Mass, Protestants have the Bible, right? And it's just like, you know, you don't want, you know, that's not for us. And I started reading,

and I was like, okay, lay our Lord lunatic. You know, the trilemma is like, either he is who he says he is, or he's not. And I realized he is who he says he is, and he's actually spoken to us. So I better figure out what he said.

It might actually have an impact on my life. So I remember reading, beginning to read Matthew's Gospel. And a number of passages utterly changed my life. I remember where I was specifically when I read them. The first one was, if you look at a woman with lust in your heart you have already come adultery with her in your heart and uh here's me in adoration preparing to be the best husband and father i could possibly be and i was just like if you look like what like huh when did i add that to the bible surely he couldn't have meant that. Because every TV show, billboard, magazine, movie

trains us, trains men to objectify women and use them that way for our own gratification. That's just the air we breathe. So I remember talking, walking down the street, looking at the pavement, being like, how do I look at a woman now? How do I talk to a woman without checking her out and objectifying her?

And I asked my priest friend, Father, what do I talk to a woman without like checking her out and objectifying her? And I asked my priest friend, I said, Father, what do I do? And he was like, look, you just get on your knees and you pray for purity. Do you know what I mean? Jesus called us to this, this purity of heart.

Again, it's a grace. He's there. He's prepared to give us. So you get on your knees every morning and you pray for purity. You pray three Hail Marys. You pick saints. St. Joseph, St. Maria Greta,

St. John Galgiani. And you just go to confessions and you keep going you pray three Hail Marys you pick saints St. Joseph St. Maria Greta St. John Galiani and you just go to confessions and you keep going and you pick pick up because sometimes you want to change

everything in the spiritual life and really we pick one thing and pray about it and work on it until we see a change and then move on and he was like

look do this say your prayers pray for purity and keep going to confessions and it'll come and again only by the grace of God only by the grace of god only by the grace of god can i look my wife and i say look my wife in the face and say i don't look

at other women because i want i want to be that for her i want to be the best father and husband i could be now if it's even a hint of a fall or a furtive glance that's why confessions is there yeah as a protection for us you, it's a complete grace. The other one was the love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. And how I had to literally, if this is real, if this is legit, I have to pray for and forgive the men that murdered my sister.

I have to do that. That's what God's calling me to. Who am I to hold that back from them? I have to wish them in heaven with me someday. And that's so out of this world. Like otherworldly. I mean, it's literally dog eat dog eat dog a rat race you get your own back and revenge whereas jesus gives us something different you know and again the grace to follow through with it and the other one was that to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect um that spoke to me as a sportsman because i was looking for

every inch to be the best sportsman i could be i mean i was like weighing my food the protein shakes the recovery sessions all those things and i was like wow that's a high call like we're called to be the best version of ourselves we're called literally called to be saints and and that just i applied, as I said, the training I got in sport to my spiritual life. And my coach, my final year of sport, had a mantra for us we're going to use, right? He gave the example of British rowers. So forgive me if my dates are wrong, right? I think it was, what was Beijing?

Was Beijing 2008? I don't know. I think it was 2004 Olympics. They didn't do really well. And they said, in four years time in Beijing, we are going to win Olympic gold. And we're going to ask ourselves one question. Will it make the boat go faster?

So this new training regime, will it make the boat go faster? Yeah, let's do it. You know, this new diet regime, make the boat go faster? Yes, let's do it. This exercise session today,

will it make the boat go faster? Yeah, let's do it. Bringing in the best coaches, make the book go faster yes let's do it this extra session today will it make the book go faster yeah let's do it bringing in the best coaches make the book go faster yes let's do it going out for pints with our friends at this time no eating this takeaway you know eating this diet choosing this lifestyle choice won't make the book go faster we don't do it so i just flipped it and i was like will it help me and the ones i love get to heaven will help me become a saint and the ones i love get to heaven the answer is yes let's do it if there's no we have to say no so praying the rosary every day absolutely it's going to give me grace it's going to help me and my family get to heaven let's do it trying to get the mass every day absolutely our lord is

there the grace is accessible help us be the best version of ourselves regular confessions you know going to these studies with this priest and asking questions and learning about the faith absolutely let's do it staying in a whatsapp group or a group me group of of guys you're posting in indecent images i i can't justify that it's leading me to sin it's an occasion and it's leading me to the confessional hang out with friends who are who friends who are living a very different lifestyle and who are leading me away from my faith.

I can't justify that. Watching certain things on TV and movies, I can't justify that. When I'm in adoration before our Lord and these things are coming to my head,

and again, it's not a puritanical, oh, this is all bad. It's St. Paul. Choose what's good, what's beautiful, what's true. The things that are going to give you joy and peace. Fill your heart and mind with those things.

And that high call, it made me realize something a priest friend said to me later on. He was like, we're not called mediocre. The world has, believe me, Ireland has plenty of mediocre Catholics. We're not called to be mediocre Catholics. We're called to be saints. We're called to be the best version of ourselves. And that just drove us on and threw us back into the church.

And we wanted, we were hungry for it, you know. And then that ultimately led to then, I was a substitute teacher for a year. And honestly, if you get a chance to do it, I was like a substitute teacher in good schools. It's like I would walk in for a full day of teaching. Teachers left, worked for them. They're good kids, like, hi, I'm Mr. Hart. You've got work to do, I've got work to do.

If you just mind, if you talk and keep it quiet, we'll get on no problem. I'm reading the Lives of the Saints. I'm reading the church document. I reading these things been like oh my goodness unbelievable it's like a year of like reading these things i'm just again wanting more of it i got to teach more religion and theology in schools and saw like how hungry young people were for it and i was like because i was a teacher i taught high school for five years and two years of youth ministry and they probably saw in you what you saw in that priest that time well a reverence yeah please god please god i mean uh those questions that hunger

is there in everybody and for many of us particularly in ireland we get such uh for want of a better term a watered down nonsense version of the faith. There's no other way to describe it. Could we move to that kind of topic? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just the state of Ireland in general. I mean, so many people have commented on this, that it was once the land of saints and scholars.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, what is it that you have traded your halos and manuscripts in for? Yeah. So what is the state of Catholicism in Ireland today? Is it okay if I give a bit of context and just go back a bit further? Please, yeah. So it was the land of saints and scholars.

It was a phenomenally fruitful land of Catholic faith, of real piety, and a real contribution to the church. I mean, we'll skip right up until the 14th, 15th century. That's what the Irish church was. Then you have the political wars in Europe and the Reformation, and then Ireland was a guinea pig in that many ways because there was a backdoor to England, and the French landed there, the Spanish landed there.

So the British and the Protestant regime really tried to quash it and we had a couple of hundred years of real persecution real suppression of the faith like you know a significant but tell us what that looked like for those who aren't aware yeah so when when the Reformation happened in England became Protestant Ireland was under English-British rule so then that suppression that closing of monasteries that taking of church lands that hanging of the priest from the air street

that jailing of people if they didn't swear an oath of loyalty to the king as the head of the church the denouncing of popish loyalties the denouncing of popish priests for a long time the oath to be a member of parliament and included you know denouncing the blessed virgin mary the mass and the church as idolatrous um so those types of things how that was manifested on

the ground um no churches that would be built mass was illegal. People would literally have to hide their priests. So, like, in different times, they go to mass rocks. Do you ever visit a mass rock whenever you're in Ireland? Yeah, so for those who don't know, there was no churches. Mass was legal. So they went into the forests and they found a flat piece of stone, a nice place that was secluded, usually with maybe a position to lock out

to see whether any authorities coming they would have had to walk in ones and twos in complete silence somebody would have carried a candlestick somebody would have carried the breviary or the lectionary somebody would have carried the vestments somebody would have carried something else only then whenever people were arrived and looked around and everybody knows everybody then the priest comes out and he says mass sometimes even behind a screen so the faithful wouldn't actually see his face and be able to give him away um but that was the the depth and strength of the irish faith and irish priesthood where these

priests and bishops were martyred like hung and while they were still alive disemboweled you know um and brought to england put on trial for false charges in many respects in ireland trial without jury was done away with um and they really tried to quash the catholic faith in ireland giving incentives that you know if you if you dropped a certain irishness in your name and you became a protestant we'll give you more food and money you know literally trying to coerce people into the faith but through that how long did that sort of persecution last you're talking 1640s right up until uh mid 1700 mid 1700s to maybe early 1800s you know um so roughly because there was wars but previous to that there was different rebellions at different times you know that was the depth

and strength of the Irish priesthood that they were prepared to lie under bushes in the caves in fields to come and feed their flock and give them the sacraments

and keep the strength and the burning fire of faith alive in Ireland that's our heritage that's a big part of what I think needs to happen in Ireland is a reclaiming

of our narrative because our narrative is a tired old scandal ridden ineffectual and unconvincing church that's what I what I understood that's what I was brought up with yes I was 26 who wants to be a part of that absolutely absolutely I was 26 before I met a real on fire catholic and he just changed my life because we have the answers the questions like I said previously I had this image of you know sort of smoldering fire that it just needs to be fanned into flame things like you happen in Ireland you know when a holy man comes

along I mean who was it said that like one Christian being fully Christian or one Catholic being fully Catholic and change one catholic being fully catholic can change the world yeah you know um and like ireland ireland has 28 bishops for a population one million less than the archdiocese of los angeles wow okay now they're ancient and there was you know there's different reasons for why that's the case but the minute we we have i think maybe like maybe maybe 30 seminarians we have's the case but the minute we we have i think maybe like maybe maybe 30 seminarians we have roughly the same amount of seminarians we have bishops there might be even less uh seminarians and bishops but a reclamation of our narrative and

i never got taught in school the history of the irish church what saint patrick did and who he was what the irish monasteries did and how they ultimately re-evangelized and saved Western civilization by re-evangelizing whole swathes of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, of the martyrs who persevered, who went through persecution, who knew the love of God and lived it to the point of shedding their blood. That's the heritage we have, you know. I agree that we yeah we have you guys have to reclaim that narrative yeah but of course i think in order to do that

you have to look squarely at the abuses that have taken place and how bad things are in ireland right now yeah i mean do you agree with that as you'd love the espresso it's good as i mean as opposed to obviously you don't want to sweep anything under the rug you don't let's stop looking at the reality of ireland let's let's look back to the glory days absolutely absolutely i mean yeah i mean i just just share a story here i remember my wife and i lived in ireland for three years and um while we were there we were going to run a retreat at a particular retreat center and i remember you know showing up and i think it was a benedictine monastery or something but you've got these priests and their clerics you know call me john me John, you know, okay, Father John and that sort of thing.

And I remember going into their chapel and being surprised because there were yoga mats, you know, all over the floor and the tabernacle wasn't present. And I wasn't really sure what was going on. And I remember going next door to the library and in the corner, I was looking at the books, and in the corner on the floor was a tabernacle. And I thought, that can't be the tabernacle. Surely, maybe this is an old tabernacle. And I bent down, and I opened it up because it wasn't locked. And sure enough, the Blessed Sacrament was there. I fell to my knees and sort of made an act of faith and realized that, okay, someone has removed the blessed sacrament from the chapel in order to teach yoga. Like that was my kind of impression of where much of Catholic Ireland is. Now, there's pockets of hope and tremendous faithful people, 100%.

But I think by and large, it feels like that. It's almost like a new paganism. I heard somebody say that it's as if and i'm not making this statement so you can correct it if you think it's incorrect it's as if ireland was like a child who grew up under an abusive parent and then just decided to rebel and just okay we're old enough we're done with this thing so yes speak to that so well i mean we could trade stories back and forth about horrendous things that have happened but we don't want to scandalize anybody um the abusive parent thing um i think has has truth to it uh so we had this incredible faith we had this persecution we had

this strength 1930s 1920s 1930s s Ireland gets independence the southern 26 gets independence again I'm from the north so I still think we were left behind anyway look under that they get independence and the church had such goodwill and such a standing with the people such you will bat for me you've got my back you will come and give me the sacraments even rest your life you will support the Catholic Emancipation movement in 1920s 1820s where we get the chance to vote and put members of catholics into parliament you will support the repeal of the act of union where we want our own government and we want a catholic nation we want to be able to practice our faith

you'll support us on that you'll come to us and you'll stay with us through thick and thin new government brings and the irish church was given an incredible level of deference an incredible level of authority and social standing so i mean the nuncio of the pope was given one of the former estates of the british administration that's where he was this is our this is our guy now you know that the crown and the english are gone type thing um and comes to schools they're all catholic schools universities catholic universities hospitals catholic hospitals politics people take their cue from the bishops okay so that context explains the kind of abusive parent thing where

we get where it's like our trust was so deep and the status of the priest in our society was so high that the fall then went so far. I moved to America in August 18, right after the grand jury reports, right after the Cardinal McCarrick. And I was like, God, what am I? From one place to the other, I was like, jeepers, what are we doing here? I don't want to compare scandals, but because Ireland is small and virtually everybody had a priest or a nun or religious in some part of their family, that hurt was so much deeper. And because of the status of the priest, the fall was further. And then there was a real reaction. And the church almost took the place of the British in the oppressor. You're the one that's holding us back from our freedoms.

You're the one that's holding us back from our freedoms. You're the one that's, because coupled with that, there was a tendency towards Jansenism in the Irish church and clergy. You know, the fire, hell, brimstone, nobody's worthy, you know, legalism and a real, you know, do this or else type thing. I mean, that's what my mother grew up with that.

She grew up almost afraid of the Sacred Heart image because she was like, oh, God's watching this and I'm going to do, you know, which is obviously the opposite of what that was meant to be. Mm-hmm, indeed. So that's what they grew up with. In fact, the Sacred Heart was a response to Jensen. Exactly, exactly.

So that's what they grew up with. And there was a higher, too much political power, too much socialist standing, too much deference. There was a higher, too much political power, too much socialist standing, too much deference. There was a clericalism. There was awful, horrendous abuses. I've never heard it put like that before

and that just really hit the nail on the head for me that the Irish people view the Catholic Church today the way the Irish people once viewed the English. That's really profound you're the ones holding us back we have to throw you off you're the oppressor yeah wow yeah um and because of the the 60s which happened all over the world um and because ireland was kind of slower to get into that. I mean like divorce legal divorce was still illegal in Ireland

until 1985. I mean that's like people voted in in 1983 an amendment to the constitution to protect the unborn.

They voted in two to one. Glory to God. But then they removed it. Yeah. Were you there when that happened? I was.

Tell us what that was like and just kind of recap for people watching who are like, what happened in Ireland? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there were two referendums in quick succession in Ireland. And then after the scandals,

there was a real sense in which the church corporate, not just our bishops, not just our priests, not just lay Catholics, church had lost its moral authority and lost its ability to talk on things. And you were holding us to this standard, but you guys were all doing this. Like, how dare you try and speak to us about morality? How dare you speak to us about what we're supposed to do, not do? That couple, then the reports went into that. So there was like ground jury type reports into this yeah and a friend of mine says he remembers whenever they were released the next day at sunday mass it was like people

weren't there and he thought oh they'll come back in a few weeks and they didn't um and you had mass attendance from 1980s 90s of like 78 80% up until 2015 which is like 33% now maybe 30% less. So that culmination of scandals and a move away and a secularisation, I mean like my parents grew up with electricity so that secularisation brought about a set of circumstances that the church wasn't ready for. I still think we're not equipped to deal with it we had a very pious people a people of faith deep faith but as far as vincent to me says there was an anti-intellectualism they weren't a thinking church they weren't a church able to respond to the questions and to the the challenges of of society and even speak on moral issues to give arguments and they weren't used to defending their faith do you know what i mean like you'd ask somebody a question why you believe oh you believe you

don't don't ask questions and that that's not going to satisfy somebody who's coming through a modern secular culture where they're youtube atheists and you know these different exposed things and movies and agendas and things are like well obviously it's not true obviously it's not real you know so that culminated then in 20, was it 15 or 16, there was a referendum on redefining marriage. And again, there were heroic people and lay people and trying to fight the cause, but it's virtually... It's like trying to stand against a tidal wave.

Absolutely, and and like when somebody comes at you with an emotional argument of do you not want people to love yeah why do you hate people why are you on the wrong side of history you want to be on the wrong side of history that line is just and it doesn't help whenever you have a church leader a bishop come out and say that a catholic can vote in good conscience for same-sex marriage. You're kidding. God have mercy on him. And the confusion, the lack of wanting to really go at it because they've lost their moral authority.

And it was voted in. Maybe, I can't remember the exact stats, maybe like 60%, 40% or something like that. Maybe slightly less. then you fast forward two years later and there's a referendum on abortion um and it was brutal it was a guy was canvassing door to door going to events and rallies trying to get people and i was teaching in a school at the time trying to convince these young people was there ever a sense that this might happen we might keep abortion outlawed in this country? Or did you feel like you were fighting a losing battle to begin with?

I had hope. We all had hope. The fact that more people voted against same-sex marriage than against abortion in the space of two years kind of shows you the demographic of Ireland the older faithful conservative generation are just going going going and I've taught the next generation coming through and they're just products of their society I mean in the south where these referendums happened 96 percent of our schools are Catholic schools which means 96 percent of people who voted those referendums are sacramentalised, who've been through Catholic education. So we have to ask ourselves the question...

It's almost like those were the two death nails for overthrowing Catholicism in Ireland, right? We're going to redefine marriage and we're going to allow abortion and we're going to celebrate these two things. It really feels like substituting the true Christian faith for Satanism. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. But the damage was done in the years prior to that.

I mean, the people voted how they were formed to vote. Exactly. Do you know what I mean? So we have to look back further and say, well, how did that come about and what happened? And the lack of intellectual formation, lack of catechesis was a big part of that. We have great, great people in our church at home we have very faithful catholics we have you know some priests who are really holy men who are fighting the good fight and we have bishops who you know who are who are good men father rory brady would be

i do know him i am a good friend friend, a holy priest. Yeah, yeah. But there's different categories of leadership in the church, I suppose. Over here in America, you've got generals. I think you've got warriors. You've got people who will say, like, I'll take the fight to these people. And if you get behind me, we'll do it. I'm like, yeah, I want to get behind you. You've got other ones who are just good men, who are faithful,

and they want to support good things, but they're just not equipped to go and take on the culture that way and then you've other bishops who you'd be you'd be you have serious questions over what actually is going on yeah okay now whether they have living faith at all well yeah i mean that the the lack of it being equipped in many respects sometimes it's not it's not the fault of those who are there present now. It's what happened previously in that we didn't get the catechesis, we didn't get the formation. We were training people for a maintenance mode church where it's just like you're a good administrator and you're doing things and things are fine the way they are. All our schools are Catholic, we're still getting sacraments, we're still getting people evangelised. In the census, people are still saying, I'm Catholic.

You know, it's like we're getting along with things. But to steal an analogy from Father Mike Smith's, everybody should steal analogies from Father Mike Smith's. I think so too. Yeah, yeah. It's great. If you have the best, say you're making cars, right? You have the best will in the world.

You have the best motivated workers. You have the best processes in the world you're the best motivated workers you have the best processes materials and everybody's really excited but you don't produce any cars you're a terrible car manufacturer and something's really really going wrong and if we're sitting with 96 of our schools as catholics and not producing any catholics something's desperately wrong and again C.S. Lewis talked about this there was a was it a forward for a book or an article he wrote discussing whether England was still Christian at the time back in the 40s and he said if children came out of school suddenly not knowing their sums not knowing math we wouldn't be saying math

has failed us. We have to really think about math, what crisis in math. No, no, no. We've just stopped teaching them math. It's the same thing with the faith. We've just stopped teaching the truth of the faith. We've just stopped catechising people.

We've stopped giving them a convincing and articulate argument for the truth so that in schools, again, some of the best will in the world calicating people we've stopped giving them a convincing articulate argument for the truth so that in schools again some of the best will in the world for people who don't know the faith teaching young people the faith people who don't believe in god or don't believe in the sacraments teaching young people the sacraments leads to a disillusionment and young people can sense inauthenticity they can see straight through somebody doesn't believe you. Yeah, there's a real oppressive, it felt that way for me while I was there for three years, this sort of oppression that I felt as I would try to proclaim the gospel and we would try to start little small groups or rosary groups or do pilgrimages. And I think part of it is you had

just this like intense Catholic culture. You have all the beautiful churches still there, but as you say, just overnight, that all flipped. And so it's like trying to push, I don't know, this gigantic boulder up a hill. What signs of hope do you see taking place in Ireland right now? And what do you think the solution is? You've talked about restoring our narrative, which I agree with, but what else?

So the first thing, and I probably should have prefaced this at the very beginning, I was asked to give a talk up in Derry to a parish. Essentially, the talk was sort of the state of the church in Ireland. And my initial reaction was, oh, this is wrong, and this is terrible, and these guys need to do this, and this, this, this. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa whoa hold on a minute our church is perfect like like capital p perfect why because it's the church of jesus christ it's his mystical body his grace is perfect the sacraments the grace the church in ireland changed my life like utterly changed my life blew my mind and transformed

who i am as a man i'm a better man a better husband a better father for what the church and christ has done in my life that's the first and foremost in its manifestations in its members sometimes obviously we make mistakes we're sinners we fall as in paul says we have heavenly treasure and earthen vessels so macro the church is perfect so we have the answers we have to have confidence in that we have to reclaim that we have to have you know the knowledge of the truth in order to convince it wrestle with it but practically um there are like movements like you 2000 where there are like you know a couple of thousand young people coming together to to worship Lord, to grow in their faith,

to do some sort of formation. We have solid priests in certain areas who are trying to do their best and fighting the good fight. But we... Can I quote Braveheart? Always. Why wouldn't you quote Braveheart? Father Mike Schmidt's then Braveheart, in that order. quote Braveheart Father Mike Schmitz

then Braveheart in that order C.S. Lewis is in there he's got to go above Father Mike Schmitz there's a line in Braveheart where William Wallace comes out with

the squabbling of the nobles and Robert the Bruce follows him out and he says we need the nobles and he's like what do you mean we need the nobles

what does it mean to be noble and he says William Wallace says to him your title gives you claim to the throne of of scotland but people don't follow titles they follow courage they know you and they respect you if you would just lead them to freedom we'd follow you and so would i and i I'm just like... That was a powerful line. Oh my God, I'm just like, if you would just lead us, we'd get behind you.

We'd go to war for you, you know? But we need, we, I mean, Cardinal Pell in his first set of prison diaries spoke about Ireland. And it gave me a bit of a sucker punch. You know the way, like if you're, you know, something's happening, like I'm putting on a bit of weight.

Oh no, no, you're fine, you're fine. You don't see it every day. But somebody I haven't seen in a couple of years, like whoa, jeepers,

you're getting a bit heavy there, you know, you know, since I came to America, you know. And, it was like, the outside perspective of Cardinal Pell

talking about Ireland, brought it, it was like, oh. What did he say? He was speaking about Ireland, on St. Patrick's Day, whenever it oh what did he say he was speaking about Ireland on St. Patrick's Day

whenever he was in prison and he was just like sort of what's happened to Ireland we has all the good blood gone abroad

as in like going to America and going to Australia when Archbishop Charles Brown was there Pope Benedict was very sympathetic to the Irish.

Pope Benedict wrote a pastoral letter to Ireland in 2010. I was there. In response. I was there, yeah. I remember it being read from the Pope. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was like, if there's good leadership, you could avoid a Quebec-Holland type collapse.

And he says there were no bad appointments, but they were still beholden to the bishop's conference a bishop has to really plant a flag take a stand and say we're going to reform the school curriculum or we're going to do something outside of the system because the government's pushing heavily on the agendas and you have to teach this regardless of your ethos and it's quite scary i mean you're virtually guaranteed if you send your child to a catholic school in ireland that they will not come out practicing their faith okay so that's the scary thought scary reality then he said our seminary has to change and form a new one. I mean, I'm going to speak from my experience now.

Again, who am I to say I'm not a bishop, I'm not a priest, never been a parish priest. People are weird. If you ever work in a parish, you know, people are weird. Like, it's a tough station, especially in a culture where the media are against you, the government are against you, and the schools are not in your favor either, you know. So you've got to give incredible sympathy and empathy

towards what's happening for our bishops um and our priests but i know some of the best priests i know were kicked out of my youth kicked out of our seminary yeah um one particular guy um blew the whistle on some bad behavior he was he was kicked out and the bad behavior he's got to stay. You've got serious issues with our formation. If I want to have a better term, I think it's rocket science. It's like, you look at Chaput, Aquila, you look at George, you look at these guys in America who've turned things around, who've transformed their dioceses, who've really brought a renewal and an incredible grace of fire and faith back to their diocese.

We, as Cardinal Pell says, we need that. We need to tackle our schools. We need to tackle the seminary. We need to tackle certain aspects of what it is to be Catholic again. They're beginning some sort of like a signal discussion path type thing. I have no idea what way that's going to turn out. I just get so disappointed when I hear that there is another meeting that's going to happen and we're going to get really bloody serious about it now.

I'm like, this will come to nothing. We need saints who are on fire, who speak truth, who aren't afraid to offend, who don't seek to offend, but who aren't afraid to offend, and who love passionately and speak clearly and boldly, who love the Lord, who love the Eucharist, who love Our Lady. That's what we need. We don't need more meetings. We don't need more bloody...

Anyway. I think Father Vincent Toomey is really good on this. He said that... Who's that? Father Vincent Toomey is... He was actually a doctoral student under then Cardinal Ratzinger. He's an impressive guy. You might want to look him up and check him out.

He was a moral theologian for years. He studied under Ratzinger and then came back and taught in Ireland and taught in some other missionary territories. But he wrote a book in the early 2000s called The End of Irish Catholicism? And he made a really important distinction that the answer is no. The answer is an end to a certain form or type of Irish Catholicism. One that was akin to Christendom

where you had the Moors and traditions and you had the people and the government and everybody on site and the media on site. Whereas, like like you know the people who are faithful as you know again Karen Ratzinger when he spoke the church in the future will be smaller and more sure of itself and then more able to go and bring that to the world when man discovers his poverty when everything else in atheistic worldview collapses on itself you know so he's he's very good on that and he says the the throwing off we're not we're not hearkening back to a time of you know where we were because that that's not never going to

come back again it's never going to be that way because of where where ireland was at the time we're in a period of rebuilding, of trying to re-catechise, of trying to, and again, he's big on making atonement for what happened and the abuses, offering a day of atonement, First Friday of Lent every year

for what happened and everybody taking that on. He's also critical of a lack of theological, critical tradition in the Irish church. Again, the non-thinking, unthinking church of what it was, that we are able to then give a convincing, articulate argument of the truth to the next generation coming through. Because they want it and they recognize it.

And again, thanks be to God, I've seen that teaching in schools, working in youth ministry. They're hungry for it. They're really hungry for it, you know. And I do, I have hope. I have hope because Jesus has already won. He's conquered. We have to live out that victory.

The gates of hell will not prevail against the church. So we have to then get used to going back to the hedges, going back to the place of being marginalized. Living in mission territory. Absolutely, absolutely. Despite the church bells and the angelus that may still be appearing on some TV, right? It's almost like it gives us a false sense that things are okay. They're not okay, and we're starting again.

Like if you walk 10 minutes, roughly 10, 15 minutes, in any direction in Ireland, you'll find a tabernacle. Yeah. You'll find a church. You know, our Lord is everywhere and we have a history and tradition

that's just second to none and what we've done across the world for different countries and stuff, you know. And coming to America, actually,

we were humbled to see the sort of, the thanks people had for what the Irish church did for them and the nuns and priests who taught them and who gave them the faith and the heritage they were given there.

That was a real humbling thing for us to witness and to see. And I know so many Irish Americans that want to go back and to help the Irish mission. I was going to say, that must be really heartening to you, seeing good people coming back to Ireland to evangelize her,

like the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's a real desire there. I mean, real. People really want to do this. They want to go back and help the Irish. And it is very heartening. It's very, it's hoping and trusting that God's not going to forget the 1,500 years of Catholicism

that Ireland had, the missionary things that we did across the world. And to reclaim that through our Irishness and being authentically Catholic will make it stronger and a better place to bring it to the new modern Ireland, you know. Yeah, that's why, that's a big thing about, a big lesson I learned through the whole journey was that never let it rob your joy.

That's fantastic, yeah. Do you know what I mean? Because we could pessimism is so much easier oh yeah yeah absolutely and bashing bashing leadership

and bashing our priests and you know it's like no no do you belong to him or not has he changed your life or not has he given you a peace and a joy the world can't give

and surely to God we have righteous anger at certain things and righteous anger rightly so at certain times but at peace and joy that's as our Lord says you've built your house on rock and the waters came

and the storm came and it was strong but it stood firm you know we have to have that joy and peace because ultimately that's what's going to be infectious that's what people are going to be attracted to you know well okay what I want to do is take a two-minute break, and then when we come back,

I want to talk to you about being a pioneer and why it is you've chosen to give up alcohol for forever, or at least till heaven. I'm not sure if I'll have beer in heaven or not. I hope so. And we'll then take some questions in the live chat. So let's do that now. Perfect.

Cool. Thanks. I want to say thank you to Homeschool Connections. Go check them out at homeschoolconnections.com slash Matt. This is an excellent resource if you want your kids to have great presenters to teach them different classes and you want them to be faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church. So they've got presenters like Tim Staples, Trent Horn, who teach apologetics. How cool would that be to have your kids being taught apologetics? That's amazing by these guys. Also Joseph Pierce, who teaches literature. Erin Brown, who designed the Aquinas Writing Advantage program. So this is a really

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Homeschoolconnections.com slash Matt. Be sure to click that link in the description below. It'll send you right over there. That way, they'll know that we sent you. I also want to say thank you to Halo. Halo is an excellent app that will help you to pray and meditate. There are many apps out there that help people meditate, but many of them are mingled with all this sort of new age nonsense

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All right. Now back to the discussion. All right. How's that cold espresso going for you? It's an experience. Now the reason we're... We're cultured. What you need is that with sushi

and then wash it down with a bit of kombucha. All right. So the reason you're drinking coffee of course we're not having beer is that you don't drink alcohol and you've got this funny looking pin thing it's not funny it's actually quite respectable uh tell us about this and and why it is you chose become a pioneer yeah yeah yeah so um just for in the american listeners pioneer has a connotation of like, you know, go west. It's not that type of connotation, you know. It's a pioneer at the time. I think it's not, you know, hard to realize. Ireland had a problem with alcohol and still does in many ways.

A Jesuit priest, Father James Cullen in 18 1898, founded a temperance movement devoted to the sacred heart to make reparation for those who struggle with alcohol. And he started with it with four women because he saw how women were struggling from the men and the family, drinking and leading to poverty, leading to bad things. It's not a puritanical prohibitionist, alcohol is bad and evil i mean you look at our lord you know what are you doing in the wedding feast of cana you know um giving out pioneer so it's not that um yeah it's a it's an offering and reparation to the sacred heart for those who struggle with alcohol i'm a third generation pioneer so my grandfather on my mom's side was an alcoholic so my granny took the pin took the pin all you do is wear the pin say a very short prayer twice a day which i'll say in a minute um and uh promise to

stay off alcohol so um she took it for him and refused to marry my granddad until he became a pioneer. And at one point in the 50s and 60s, one in three people in Ireland were pioneers. That was the popularity of it. So on my dad's side, one of his great uncles, I think, was an alcoholic. And his father and his brothers took it. So my dad was one. So both my parents are. All my siblings.

But then it came to me. It was just, oh, you're Catholic you love football and you're a pioneer that was that was part of the whole part of the whole package and I was really proud to to be that and wore my pin throughout school and then but as I came more into the faith it took on more depth of meaning for me it took on a greater oh wow like I'm praying for those who struggle with alcohol I've met alcoholics recovering alcoholics and told them like I've been praying for you my whole life so of thousands and thousands of Irish people across the country I even met mission trip to Zambia I met pioneers in Zambia because they were struggling with alcohol as well and so how old were you when you decided to take the pin and what's so

well I've never drank so no I know know, but you must have made a decision for it. Yeah, so there's a junior pin. So you're a junior member until you're 18. And at 18, you become an adult member. But who talked you into it? Who suggested it to you? It wasn't even a thing. That drink was never in our house.

It was just, I want to be like my dad. I want to be like my mum. But did you know he was a pioneer? Yeah, so he wore the pin. So he wore the pin. So there's a kind of respect kind of respect around it yeah you were like I'm gonna do this yeah yeah and a number of things so my when my dad's the first brother of my dad's house died we were in the wake room and my brother is when you're 25 years a pioneer you get a silver pin a silver pin with a silver ring around it he was in his coffin with a 25 year pin and his seven

brothers were standing in line with their 25 year pins and i was like that's cool i think whoa that's a legacy that's that's my family that's my heritage i want to be like those men that's a real example and witness to me as a young man i want to be that for my family but it was caught rather than taught it was never like a alcohol is bad alcohol is evil you can't do this can't do that it was just a this is the story this is who we are and if you want to do it i think for my eldest brother it was probably the biggest call for him because he was the first one and once he decided to do it so is it is it talked about at first holy communion prayer sorry sorry so um whenever you get confirmed we get confirmed at 12 years old, right before we go into high

school. So again, you go to different types of school, from like four to 11 is elementary, and then 11, 12 to 18 is high school, so there's no middle school. You get confirmed before you go to high school at the age of 12. And in my time, everybody took the pledge to stay off alcohol until they were 18. and it was a big deal if you broke your pledge before you underage drank because legal age for drinking is 18 excuse me and you also got a prayer card of matt talbot and he's a phenomenal phenomenal phenomenal venerable matt talbot just quickly tell us who he is because his story is remarkable so he was a worker in dublin um really really bad alcoholic and would have sold his shoes stole a busker's violin to pay money for alcohol

um and whenever he got some money he would buy alcohol for everybody else whenever he was in the dumps they wouldn't reciprocate and he ended up being like a really low point and uh and became i had a big conversion um became a pioneer took off broke his addiction and became an aesthetic essentially um really read up on his faith went to mass daily maybe even more than once a day and uh wore chains and reparation for different things under his clothes yeah yeah and uh just a quiet humble holy man like he people only realized the depth of the holiness once he died and discovered the books he was reading in his room discovered the chains discovered and realized this guy lived an aesthetic and beautiful and holy life in reparation and as a real model and the real saint of those because please god he'll be

canonized he's venerable at the minute um because he'll be canonized to be to be a saint but uh like for me personally um that choice i suppose like my friends would have pushed me like oh well you're only a pioneer because your family are i push back like well you're only irish because your family are like like what do you want me to say what do you want to do you know it's like i recognize the good in it i recognize the the offering i recognize the truth behind it i want to i want to do this it's just a positive life choice really cool yeah and my friends always benefited from me driving them home after nights out and their parents they weren't laughing they're all thanking me yeah yeah and their parents love seeing me come but uh just one quick story about it my just bring that a little closer that's

right yeah my my wife okay we're not related every good story starts with we're not related right we're not related but 40 years pretty bit defensive for 40 years previously and my uncle on my dad's side married her aunt on her dad's side. So that's like 40 years ago we had in-laws. I grew up knowing my cousins had cousins called them yours. And my wife has cousins called the Harts, but we're not related. To be very clear. As I said in my wedding speech just two good families

come together twice um and uh at the funeral of my sister's funeral um one of the things we do in ireland is like people would prior to the liturgy beginning would bring up different mementos of the person's life and i brought up my sister's pioneer pin but I didn't realise that my aunt-in-law, so Catherine's aunt, who was helping out with liturgy, couldn't find my sister's spare pin. My sister was buried in her wedding dress with her pin on and couldn't find her spare pin. So she actually asked Catherine for hers.

So at my sister's funeral, there was thousands of people there. Catherine was actually there watching on a big screen in the car park I was carrying up my future wife's pin at the altar at my sister's funeral and we didn't discover this

we didn't meet for a year didn't discover this until after a year of dating wow that this has become something then like clearly it's just it's a grace

it's a grace of God that he had this he had this for us you know I'll just say the prayer, if that's okay. Please. For thy greater glory and consolation, O most sacred heart of Jesus,

for thy sake, to give good example, to practice self-denial, to make reparation to thee for the sins of intemperance and for the conversion of excessive drinkers, I promise to abstain for life from all tuscan drink. So it's for the sacred heart of Jesus give good example part of self-denial so it's a real father James Cullen called it like the heroic offering this idea because I gotta make

a cultural context as well I'm sure you saw this at home like in Ireland it's very different drinking culture to America and like coming here to America I've seen people have a really healthy relationship with alcohol yes like really ordered and just enjoy it like it was meant to be like convivial like people get together and they'll have a couple of drinks without getting hammered yeah yeah whereas in ireland you drink to get drunk um and you know it's like i will have a couple of drinks in this bar and then and then i should have one before we go okay yeah and then we'll go to the next bar have a couple of drinks here and then one before we go we and you

know yeah I remember trying to keep peace with my friends one time by drinking Sprite so like I was sort of I was able to go and have the crack with everybody yeah it's right crack crack just means fun and it's not a drug it's spelt differently sorry having the fun with my friends i loved going out and having the crack with my friends but i tried to keep pace with them i was like how do you guys physically do this like 13 14 pints 13 14 pints of sprite yeah i couldn't do it teeth are full i was in bits um but then i also had the benefit of really having some good fun with my drunken friends. You're on a sugar high.

It matches their alcohol. Yeah, exactly. So one time my friends, they were getting ready for a night out. And, you know, like pre-drinks. I don't know if that's a thing in America where it's like it's cheaper to drink at home first and get kind of tanked up and then go out and then get really go for it. They asked me to help them out with their buying their alcohol, which i probably wouldn't do now because they actually were drinking to get drunk anyway i they get vodka for this drinking game called kings um it's just a drinking game and i swapped the vodka for water oh wow and dipped my finger into the vodka and put it around the rim of the bottle

ah so it smelled like these six seven girls were playing drinking game with Sprite and water and they're getting all kind of you know tipsy and happy and no and totally serious and one girl took a big drink and was like that's too strong that's too strong no so uh I had the best placebo yeah yeah I had the best fun um just having the fun with that as well. So that's it. It's just a positive life decision. It's in no way prohibitionist or looking down on anybody on our high horses. It's just making reparation for those who struggle.

What's the advice? Because I imagine a good number of people who become pioneers are those who have had a problem with alcohol and have had something of a conversion and wear the pin. What is said to them when they go back to the booze? So they want to make this commitment, but maybe they can't make it or haven't made it in a sort of heroic way that you have. Does that happen often? Where they relapse back in?

Absolutely. I'm sure it does. I'm sure it does. I mean, that's why when AA came to Ireland, it went hand in glove with the pen year movement because the pioneer movement wasn't asking the alcoholics to give it up and just pray your way through it it was like we're gonna pray with you we're gonna help you we're gonna give you the grace we're gonna storm heaven for you and then we're gonna hopefully by our holy violence you know gonna help you through this and then aa came along and and and and helped them practically the um

the strength for somebody who becomes a pioneer after having struggled with alcohol I believe is in the wearing of the pen and saying the prayer twice a day it's like the strength of that commitment or the strength that offering is is by doing what is asked of us and then just throwing it all the sacred heart of jesus and saying lord you know your pierced and merciful heart is there for me and i'm wearing it on my breast and i want to do this for you give me the grace and help me do it and um it's not like oh you drank therefore you're out and you're gone so like some people take it temporarily like for example if you're going to do it for life they don't let you do it for life you take it for a year first and then see do i want to do this and become a full full life member

some people take it for lent some people take it for like a year just like an offering for own personal attention for somebody struggles with addiction for any addiction whatsoever and if they take it for lent do they wear the wear the pin? Yeah, there's a temporary pin. So like you supply, it's a website, the Pioneer Total Absence Association. You can Google it. Someone's got to do a new URL for that.

But again, was it good? I know. But it doesn't matter. But people can look up Pioneer. Yeah, yeah. How would they find it? It's the P-T-A-A. So Pioneer Total Absence Association

is the name of the organization. But if you just type in Pioneers Ireland or that type of thing, you'll get it. And we've had numerous people in America who've taken the life pledge because either they didn't drink already and they're like, okay, I'll get some grace for that. You know what I mean?

I'll join that. Or they have struggled with alcohol and they're just not able to have an orderly relationship with it and they've taken it and they're like, look, you want to have good fun when i enjoy yourselves just decide to enjoy yourselves and have fun you don't really necessarily need alcohol yeah um but uh again i just want to stress the difference in the irish culture in the american culture that i've seen people have a beautiful healthy relationship with it um and uh because i'm sure that is the objection

you get and so it's like you have to almost like preemptively respond to the objection You know, they're about to bring up. Yeah, no, no, no, yeah, especially with the prohibitionist history in America Yeah, which was necessarily the same in Ireland. It's a puritanical movie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Absolutely absolutely and Like I came to America people just all my oh, yeah, let's get some whiskey some Guinness and I'm like, I'm so sorry I would love you know, I just all like, oh, yeah, let's get some whiskey and some Guinness. And I'm like, I'm so sorry. I would love, you know, I just, I don't drink. And they're like, oh, well, I only have like one.

This is not. I'm not judging you. It's not about you. This is not the point. This is not what it's meant to be, you know. And yeah, it's just, it's something that I love. Like I truly love. It's something that, it's just a different life love. It's something that, it's just a different life choice.

It's helped me grow my faith. It's helped me pray for those. It's just a tangible act of reparation for those who struggle. I have even more respect for those who actually drank and then took it because I never drank and neither did my wife. And it's definitely an Irish thing as well.

It's a world of my movement now because the Irish missionaries took it across the world. But it's a real thing for my family as well. It's not only is it a Catholic thing and a Sacred Heart devotion, it's for my family. And I'm just so blessed because I have no doubt it protected me a lot growing up. Well, I know it's a devotion to the sacred heart,

but do you know Protestants who take the pledge or not really? I don't know, actually. I'm not sure. Again, think of the Irish context now between Catholics and Protestants. There's not too much overlap when it comes to faith stuff. Yeah, yeah. Like, there wouldn't be. Like, I'd never heard of a convert in my lifetime at home. Yeah, yeah. Like, there wouldn't be, like, I'd never heard of a convert

in my lifetime at home. Yeah. And you come here and it's like, whoa, Scott Hahn, John Bergsma, these guys are phenomenal.

Like, whoa. And they chose it. You chose to become a Catholic. Yeah. Are you sure? You know, like, kind of think,

what was it that drove them and what was it that compelled them? What was it about the faith that made them want to take it on? It's a different story at home. You're either born with it and then you lapse or you fall into new agey stuff or whatever it is. Well, let's take some questions here.

This is amazing. We've had over 500 people just watching throughout this live chat so far. I'm so sorry, everybody, if you don't understand my accent. I don't think we'd be having 500 people stick around for long if they couldn't understand you. can you do subtitles joe can you like you know you know spanish we should both ham it up i'll do my bloody australian accent the drool you know drag on the voice and have you found that you've had to kind of enunciate yeah yeah yeah absolutely like i taught at franciscan this semester and um i really did

slow down and enunciate i do have a teacher type voice where like i'm really careful what i'm saying yes i'm trying to get across my point you know so i'll slow down and really emphasize but if i get really excited about something yeah again my testimony or something i'm just like later yeah so uh yeah i felt like i don't know if this was your experience, but when I first came to North America, I liked the idea that people liked my accent. They were like, oh, wow, I can barely understand you. In the beginning, you come over, you talk a lot, this and this. But after a while, it gets annoying when people can't understand you,

and so you find that you begin to enunciate. I had some bloke the other day in a YouTube comment section said, I cannot figure out this host's accent. Is he British? Is he New Zealand? Heaven forbid. Heaven forbid. Yeah.

Well, let's see here. Andrew Montpetite. Thanks, Andrew, for your super chat, mate. That was super kind of you. He says, it seems other traditionally faithful Catholic countries like Italy, Mexico, etc., losing their faith and treat Catholicism as more of a cultural aspect of their lives. Could you speak to that and how Ireland relates? Yeah, I think you're – is it Anthony or Andrew?

Andrew. Andrew, I think you're spot on, Andrew. People my generation, people slightly younger as well, will still want to get married in a catholic church a couple my best friends are totally atheists but want to get married in a catholic church they won't get their kids baptized um they'll have uh you know catholic funerals and that's that's really the only time you'll see them throughout the year graveyard sunday like praying for the dead's a big thing at home so that we think called cemetery sunday or graveyard sunday where once a year everybody will come to the graveyard of their family plot and they'll pray the rosary

and they'll pray for the dead and it's packed people are really really excuse me really um have that the sort of vestiges of praying for the dead left behind they um are happy to call themselves catholic but totally happy to say i don't believe what the church teaches on many many things and again like you throw a stick in ireland like i lead pilgrimages around ireland like so like we go around all these different places you throw a stick and you're gonna hit something catholic something ancient a monastic site you know it's sort of it's still there and even as archbishop charles brown said he was non-sou at the time the lived experience of a pious faith was still there like my grandparents had that that's just that generation that's that's the difference like

they grew up with it they lived it they were pious and faithful people it's from my grandparents to me where things just went really haywire and that cultural catholicism is still there it's still like left over and we have a ways to go in ireland we have a ways to go uh for more things to be stripped away before we can really say like like for example in our hospitals they're still largely Catholic hospitals they still have statues of Our Lady the wards will be like St Bernadette's ward

or St Catherine's ward and they're trying the government's trying to bring about taking that out and you know trying to divest

certain elements of faith out of the schools and stuff and being let them let them exactly let the whole thing burn down

and let's start again small and faithful they're gleeful about it and we have to say well oh yeah okay fair enough that's fine

but we're already building we're already planning for whenever you guys are done with all your stuff we're already planning we're going to have something more fervent and better to come back with

you know that's what we have to do and but yeah cultural Catholicism is a huge thing at home and particularly more in the north because of the troubles and better to come back with you know that's what we have to do and uh but yeah cultural catholicism is a huge thing at home and particularly more in the north because of the troubles we never really got into the troubles but um because of the troubles and the war that happened um because your identity was irish catholic nationalist and you couldn't trust the

government you couldn't trust the police you couldn't trust the civil service the church in the in catholic identity was a massive part of that struggle. And it's kind of still lived more so that mass attendance and faith would be stronger in the north than it would be in the south. Well, that actually leads us to this next question. It comes from Michael Beaumont. Thanks for your super chat, Michael. He says,

How are Catholic-Protestant relations today? True Christian unity could be such a powerful counter-narrative in an ever-devolving and tribalistic world. Yeah. Thanks be to God, the violence has stopped. I sort of count the end of the troubles as 2007, but there's no hard end to it i mean you again when i leave pilgrimages around ireland we go to places where effectively territories marked out where you have

red white and blue kerbstones because that's the color of the british flag that's their territory you have green white and gold or green white and orange kerbstones and flags marking the catholic nationalist areas you still have sporadic violence and riots at different times, interface areas. There are parts of Belfast that are separated by peace walls, literally through housing estates separating the two communities. At certain parts of the year, particularly around the 12th of July, which is a commemoration of William of Orange having a victory over the Catholic King James, even though the Pope wasn't even sure he was supporting

it was just this is what happened they celebrate that there's generally riots there some things can happen like for example Brexit threw a real spanner in the works so there's a real stirring of Protestant loyalist tendencies

to say well we're staying with the UK we're staying with mainland Britain you guys can't put a border on the Irish Sea because the whole Northern Ireland Protocol was we don't want a border north and south because that would start the troubles again. So the EU and the Irish and British governments were really trying to maintain the peace that happened there.

But again, 2011, a friend of mine, I was more friendly with his brother, Ronan Kerr, was blew up in a car bomb because he was a Catholic nationalist who joined the police force, which was seen to be a Protestant police force. So he was seen to be crossing the line. And that was a guy in my school, he's two years above me in school, I knew him to talk to, I'm friendly with his brother, blew up in a car bomb.

And so it's still still there and even our politics are completely split along nationalist catholic lines and protestant unionist lines but i have to make a really important point our protestant brothers and sisters are way more catholic than our current catholic politicians at. Why am I saying that? I voted for the DUP. I voted for the Unionist Party for the last five, six times I was able to vote for them because they protect marriage and they protect life. And our other politicians don't do that. And I feel like, again, I know my history.

My degree was history and politics in my undergrad. I know what it is. I've taught the courses and I have no qualms about voting for these people who defend marriage and who defend life whenever these people don't. So there's definitely room for dialogue there but there's still a tension around nationalistic identity, around will Ireland become united or not? Will it end up sparking more violence? So until that happens, I don't see doctrinal issues really being talked about or discussed But what are relations like between faithful Catholics and faithful Protestants? Hmm people who don't view Catholic and Irish as synonyms for Irish and English Very amicable very amicable. They'll have the pro-life movement in the North, very cross-community,

really striving to fight for common goals. But, and again, the antagonism and the hatred really isn't there anymore because you would have had legitimate hatred and bitterness and actual sectarianism. So when I look at America and there's a big discussion about racism, I was never exposed to racism because sectarianism was our thing.

It was, you know, Catholic and Protestant. It was about which tribe, which side you belong to. And so amicable, very amicable, but still segregated. So, for example, like I grew up going on the same school bus as Protestants. We have a Catholic school, they have their Protestant schools. The Protestants sat at the front of the bus, we sat at the back of the bus. And the same with high school. On the way to Oma, which is our nearest town, they sat at the front of the bus, we sat at the back of the bus.

And it wasn't just because you were at different schools? No, no, no. That was just because you don't sit with the Protestants, they don't sit with the Catholics. Wow. And then you go to college and the Catholics hang out in this bar. They hang out and play these sports.

They do these things and hobbies. Whereas a Protestant does this bar, does these sports, these different hobbies. So like, I didn't know any Protestants growing up. But I think it's important. We mentioned this at the start of the show, but for those who are just joining us,

when we talk about this divide between Protestants and Catholics, we're talking about a divide between the English and the Irish. It really isn't a doctrinal thing from what you're telling me. It's a nationalistic conflict and issue that happened to be along religious lines. But see, I remember, who's that? Is it the Celtic, the soccer team up north everyone used to go for?

Celtic, aye. Now, if I'm remembering correctly, people would actually make the sign of the cross in the football stadiums when Celtics would get a goal against the Protestant side. Yeah, Celtic and Rangers. What an abomination that is. Sorry, was that too strong? No, no, no.

Are you going to use the sign of the cross as a kind of F you to the other team when you've got a goal? Yeah. I get that it's kind of cute but i know religious it's um the the the outworkings of that cultural nationalistic and then religious divide is really bizarre how it works itself out so like you'll have bonfires in the loyalist protestant side where the irish tricolored irish flags there statues of the virgin mary are there effigies of the pope are there and they're being burned on the other side you'll have the queen you'll have you know different aspects of the britishness and right you know protestantism and on the on their on their bonfires uh celdic and rangers

are like so the rangers are the protestant unionist people who they support but like if you if you look at the people in Belfast and city of Derry where they support these teams and you take away their jerseys and there they have the same social economic deprivation they have the same lack of social mobility they have the same lack of education they have the same lack of good jobs in the same lack of social housing the exact same scenario but we don't want don't want to be like them you know don't want to do anything to do with you you know but again thanks be to god it's it's nowhere near as bad as it was nowhere near as bad as it was you know yeah here's a interesting question uh kathy walsh says is it true that the sacraments are still on hold for most people in ireland uh tell us about

uh up until like a couple of weeks ago um wasn't it illegal to celebrate mass yeah yeah again yeah yeah from the first time since the penal times that we talked about earlier in the conversation um like for example there's a priest in Cavan where he refused to close his church. Good man. And he was fined by the police and still says, I'm refusing to pay it. He doesn't want anybody and a do-gooder to come and pay it. He's like, no, I want them to take me the whole way. The police had checkpoints around the church to stop people from coming to Mass.

So that was one issue. Then you had other priests who just quietly, probably just never closed their doors and just kept people kept coming but yeah we had the most stringent one of maybe the most stringent lockdowns anywhere in the world three of them three of them um and the worst of it is the t-shock the prime minister of ireland came out and said oh we can't do First Communions, we can't do confirmations. It's hard not to be conspiratorial, isn't it? In a country where all the major powers are against the church. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there are, without sounding conspiratorial, it's a fact,

overnight, the pro-abortion movement went from being very poorly funded and very scattered to being very well funded and organised from different donors and people in America and stuff who come over and really used Ireland as a testing board for how do we get this into Catholic countries, how do we push this agenda. And then you have the fact that Ireland is beholden to the EU, which is a very liberal agenda,

and they're dictating a lot of the fact that Ireland is beholden to the EU, which is a very liberal agenda. And they're dictating a lot of things that happen. And they're really the poster child for the modern liberal state. And every time they throw off some sort of vestige of a Catholic past, it's celebrated as if it's freedom. And yeah, through those lockdowns, it was bizarre for me and my wife talking to our family at home because we've we had mass from last summer like now obviously we're in Steubenville it's a small off city um it's not got a massive through traffic I mean the the measures were in place yeah they were masked you had a social distance we had the sacrament since last summer in Ireland you didn't have that they had it a bit of Christmas then it was locked down again like level five lockdown no no a chance of having any sacraments

whatsoever scotland i think maybe italy france and maybe belgium took the governments to court i think they were successful in saying this has gone constitutional the church didn't do it in ireland it was a layman um who it, took the government to court, it's still being processed, the churches are now open again, but I mean the numbers, like it was 10 at a wedding, it was maybe 50 at a church, no matter the size of its cathedral, 50 at a church, and they said you can't, the government said, excuse me, you can't do First Holy Communions and you can't do confirmations. How they got away with that, I don't know. But yeah, that's the story.

And people have been really suffering. I mean really suffering, like really hungering, desiring for the sacraments. I was speaking to an Irish friend of mine recently. desiring for the sacraments. I was speaking to an Irish friend of mine recently, and he said, it feels like I've been deprived from seeing my friend for the longest time, and I'm still friends with him.

I just don't have a vibrant relationship with him anymore. It makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. When I moved to Steubenville, and this was back in January, I said, I want to go somewhere, and I need to find a priest

who will absolutely disobey the government and give my family sacraments. Tell me that priest's name. So we found him. All right. John Kelly says, thanks for your super chat, John. He says, does Ireland offer us Americans with Irish roots dual citizenship back to Ireland due to famine exit?

citizenship back to Ireland due to famine exit? Well, I have no idea how far back it goes, Brian. I do know the grandfather-grandmother rule. You can get citizenship through that. As far as I'm aware, I'm sorry I'm not technically au fait with the ins and outs of the immigration and stuff, but as far as I'm aware, grandmother, grandfather, you can get Irish citizenship. I'm not as I'm aware, grandmother, grandfather, you can get Irish citizenship.

I'm not sure that it goes beyond that. I don't think. Sam W., thanks for your super chat, says, hi, I'm a convert in Northern Ireland who was received into the church this year. Good man, Sam. Yeah. Absolutely. Where can I find fellowship

with on-fire Catholics for the kind of fellowship I used to have, I suppose, as a Protestant? Any good organizations or movements? Okay. Again, it's in Northern Ireland. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sam, God bless you.

That's incredible. I'm delighted to hear that. Youth 2000 are one of the only shows in in town really um they have regional retreats uh whenever covid was allowing stuff like that regional retreats um in every province in ireland they have a massive annual retreat we have a couple of thousand people um i know good priests who are trying to make things happen and then i don't want to mention names but if you get in contact with me afterwards i'll try and direct you towards some of those guys who will try to try to make good things happen um but the unfortunate thing is uh that you have to work hard

to find it um and that's you know that's the case everywhere in the world obviously you have to how hard you prepared to work to find the catholic community i mean that was one of the reasons why we came to america um because we wanted to experience the catholic community that was here we wanted to see what it was like to be a lived catholic community again don't get me wrong ireland does community really really well but a community that's founded on the love of jesus and the sacraments and is prepared to live the faith it's not it's not so much and uh so you have to work hard to do it be prepared to travel um there are some things in Belfast there are some things um in different parts of the of the north but again at home we have a priest friend of mine

who actually is from America and we used to laugh at him being like you're driving three hours to come and see us like Like, three hours? You know, from one end of the country to the other. Because, again, Ireland's like the size of Indiana. And then he thought nothing of it. That's something we've seen in America. People will just go and they'll drive and they'll get involved in things. So you have to work a bit harder to find it.

But that's something I hope and pray will become easier for you. But, again, contact me afterwards and I'll try and plug you in a bit. How would you like him to contact you? He can get my email if he wants. How will he do that? Anybody can email me. So it's just mhart. H-A-R-T-E?

H-A-R-T-E at franciscan.edu. And that's my email. Very good, Very good. Very good. Yeah, I remember when I came to our Lord when I was 17, I didn't have any fellowship. You know, my bishop was really my source of fellowship. Would you believe that?

Go around his house, have cups of tea. That's unbelievable. He'd show up at my house with some Jesus videos. Here, Matty, you want to watch these? Yes, please. But I tell you you the lord is faithful yeah he really is and and uh whenever you know whenever we make decisions for him and the people in our lives previously who are beautiful good amazing people and still are but you want to be

able to share your heart with somebody and your deepest part of yourself which is your love of jesus and your love of the faith yeah the faith. God will provide you with those people. Alexander Harding says, why does Matthew think it is that it's the Protestant DUP who stands up for Christian values while the Catholic, scare quotes, parties have rejected them? Many, like if you listen to the first part of our discussion,

many of the reasons I mentioned, I mean, the sort of rejection of the faith, the oppression, the way it was taught, the fact they weren't catechized, the fact that, I mean, I remember a priest friend of mine, he was at an ecumenical forum and an actual Protestant pastor asked him that question. He was like, how is it that a church you've emphasized education so much but yet your people aren't prepared to to follow through with what's going on um so many of the things we discussed in the previous part of the conversation

are a factor of that lack of formation the the um the seeming oppression and the seeming you know obviously scandals and abuses, and then just the modern secular society that has carried these people away, the Protestants have just stayed stronger. They've just held out stronger. They've just been more fervent. They've been more, for what their formation is, they've been better at it.

As Sam said, there's better community. There's better emphasis on the faith. And they've held fast. Kyle Barrington says, we must know what is his favorite Irish music band. Has he heard of the Drowsy Lads from Columbus, Ohio, quite near y'all? Actually, I have not heard of the Drowsy Lads from Columbus, Ohio, quite near you all? I actually have not heard of the Drowsy Lads.

So Irish music. There's a band called the High Kings. They do some great stuff. They do some great stuff. And then, I mean, we have secular artists as well. I was a U2 fan for a while. I wanted to see them in concert. But some of their earlier stuff is better.

But yeah, the High Kings are probably the i really enjoy them yeah okay i had a question back here and then it went away so i'm just gonna awkwardly scroll through these while you take a drink of water. What is, and listen, I mean, some of these questions you've addressed, but feel free to run around them again or not. Eclipse Solar says, what is Matthew's opinion on Ireland going back to its deep Catholic roots? Against it. against it yeah no uh i would again echo father vincent to me where he sort of said this modern um rejection of traditional irish catholicism was actually a rejection of something that wasn't actually fully irish or fully catholic there was a lack of intellectual and uh formation there was a real conformism it's just this is what everybody's doing so we just do it um there was a real conformism it's just, this is what everybody's doing so we just do it there was a real sort of Jansenist

tendency to the faith so whenever that's expelled and we actually go back to what was it to be an Irish Catholic and you look at the monastic traditions we look at the missionary traditions we look at the penitential traditions we look at the deep love of Our Lady

I mean an incredible love of Our Lady and the Eucharist and the Mass, and the strength of our martyrs, the strength of our saints who've gone before us, who re-evangelize huge swathes of Europe, of men, women and children who died for the faith, that's a's a that's a baton that's a narrative that's an incredible heritage just waiting waiting to be taken up and run with uh and i'm excited for that to happen please god it will soon uh but to reclaim what is essentially irish and catholic i think is what father vincent is saying and that that's how it has to happen if you're not familiar with our lady of knock uh please go and check out that apparition. It's phenomenal.

I'm familiar, of course, but just give us a brief description of it. Yeah, so 1879, for two hours on the side gable wall of a church after a priest had just spent 100 days offering masses for the souls of the dead. Again, this is just post-famine. So famine time was 45 to 47. There were minor famines after that. In rural Ireland, you had just mass graves and you had people just dying on the side of the road.

But they kept strong to the faith. Our lady appeared, but she was actually too off-centre. In the centre was the Lamb of God on the altar with a cross behind him with angels adoring the Lamb and then to the as you as you look at it to the left Our Lady with the crown with the rose on the crown you know and sort of like in a priestly stance offering her heart offering the mass offering the hearts and the suffering the people of Ireland to God. Saint Joseph was beside her head bowed in prayer and Saint John the evangelist was there preaching the gospel

it's a silent apparition which I think speaks to the contemplative and deep spirituality of the Irish people she didn't say anything because there was definitely a movement from Irish language to English language and there's no official meditation or meaning understanding of that apparition.

One of my favorite things to do when I do pilgrimages is to bring people to Our Lady and to that Eucharistic apparition and just say, what do you think? Go and pray with that. Go and contemplate what's happening here. And then Pope Francis recently raised it to the level of an international shrine. Pope John Paul II, St. John Paul II came there. St. Teresa of Calcutta came there saint teresa calcutta came there pope francis visited when he came to ireland um and it actually was the shrine for the divine word sunday because um of the the heavenly liturgy is being is being seen there um the prayers are

offering the fact the gospel is being preached um it's an unbelievable apparition i think it's one of those things that's there are a few sites in ireland they're just waiting to be taken up again they're waiting to be like let's let's run with it like locked earth is another one you know a penitential uh pilgrimage site where uh affectionately known as the iron man of pilgrim of catholic pilgrimages you tell us about a lot so it's a three-day thing where you go onto an island in the middle of rural, rural Ireland, and it gets back to the time of St. Patrick

where you take off your socks and shoes, you don't see them for two and a half days, and then you pray stations which are laps of the basilica, then laps of ancient monks' huts in bare feet, praying the same prayers over and over again. You stay up all night doing the same thing, the prayers, inside the basilica. You don't go to sleep until 10 p.m. the next night. You wake up again.

So how many hours are you awake for straight? Over 24 hours? Oh, yeah, yeah. Probably, what, 36 hours. And you only have one meal a day, which is dry toast and black tea and and then you do your final station and you go off the island and you don't break your fast until midnight the third night now that might sound incredibly sadistic and it might say like people who don't have come from a tradition of me of penance of uh of uh

you know the irish tradition but this back in the middle ages when maps of ireland had three or four ports you also had locked erg like saint teresa of avila wrote about locked erg it was a yeah yeah it's a phenomenally well-known uh and it was a it was a place of retreat yeah yeah back then or was it it was known as saint Patrick's Purgatory so if you've seen Bishop Byron's Catholicism series the section on purgatory is actually filmed at Loch Derg um and people talk about like a thin veil between like this world and the next it's um it's an unbelievable experience um of of a realization that because you've no no phone reception you know you're you're at an island in the middle of you know this uh this lake and between the north and south of ireland and you're walking in the footsteps of hundreds of thousands of irish pilgrims and those from across europe has

liberal catholicism touched lock derg um you don't know answer i hope it gets its bloody hands off it as soon as possible uh it's um You can still have a phenomenal experience there if you go with somebody who's going to help you and go through it. So whenever I Lay Pilgrimage is there, we only do one day. I don't take them through the whole three days. We do one day and we do a tour, do a sample of it. But there's sites like that, like Loch Derg, Clonmac Noice, Glendalough where there's just

it's tangible the heritage and beauty and passion and fire of the Irish faith that's just there waiting to be picked up again and a good friend of mine is a priest in Galway he really thinks that we need to reclaim these sites and make them centres of worldwide Catholicism where they know you've gone to knock you're going to get incredible formation on the Eucharist on Our Lady on Saint Joseph and the Word of God and you're going to spend time in adoration and you're going to go there and get on fire for what that has to offer you go to Loch Derg you're going to get incredible experience of penance of offering up your suffering of getting a deep deep understanding of what our lord asked

us to do in the spiritual life like and if you're going to go for three days and you can bring your families and you can bring other people and it's going to be a phenomenal experience you go to glenn lock and clomac nice you're going to experience irish monasticism what they did how they lived it the beauty of the irish countryside it's like put these places on the worldwide map and say i want to go there i want to get what's best out of irish catharsis on there you know that's inspiring um alexander kush says are there any floats or parades on saint patty's day or just an excuse to get drunk any weird traditions for saint patty's day we may not know about

america actually does some patrick's day bigger than than uh than than ireland does um we uh again growing up it was it's a holy day of obligation at home so we always went to mass and one thing we do at home is that we actually wear shamrocks so like on the pale of our jackets or on our shirts you know like the shops will sell we small sort of tinfoil or wrapped things of shamrocks and you pin them to your shirt on your way to mass and generally the mass will be said in the irish language so you know not always um and then traditionally it was a big day for football so people would go back to their homes and get dinner and you know relax and then excuse me watch the football excuse me um and uh in america you guys you guys go big i know you guys you're obviously but america they they go big they do bigger than we do

dublin has a bit of a parade and some floats and stuff but it's a massive issue to get drunk as well let's be honest it is yeah what What do you think of Americans who are like, oh, I'm Irish? Yeah, that threw me off. If I were you, I would be cringing. Respect your culture, and it's great that you come from Irish. But I shouldn't say that

because people obviously identify with Ireland. That's a beautiful thing. No, so there's two answers. One was when I first came over, I went to Franciscan, and I saw a girl wearing a shirt saying, and I was like oh you're Irish and she was like yeah yeah I was like where are you from I was like I'm from Connecticut they go huh she's oh yeah yeah but I'm Irish oh okay so what like oh yeah you

know generations back oh wow okay Connecticut what count is Connecticut in there I'm blanking but over my time here it gives me great pride I'll be totally honest it gives me great pride to see how much

Irish Catholicism and Irishness means to people in America the Irish American diaspora runs deep

and even if people are some part German some part something else whatever part of Irish they are they are, they are Irish. They're fiercely proud of it, you know.

And I love it. I really enjoy it. Now, and if that could translate into the goodness and the best of what it is to be Irish, that would be obviously the best thing. But it does amaze me that people know their heritage they know where they come from they generally know where their parents or grandparents or great-grandparents or what it was where they came from and they're proud of it and I think that's a great thing I'm going to ask you to speak some Irish for us in a moment

my understanding of course is that Irish Gaelic different types of Gaelic, but predates Latin. Yeah. To my shame, I was the one child in my house that didn't do Irish. Well, this is going to go great. I know. I'm sorry. My brother and sister, my sister was, my brother isn't. Did you say Michaela taught it? Yeah, and my brother does. He speaks with an Irish language.

You've got to know some of it. I do know some of it. We'll do some of it. So I used to go to a church. We used to live in Donegal in the Gaeltacht. It still amazes me that you were there. Isn't that crazy? At Enya's church.

For those who know Enya, remember old Enya? Enya would come back Christmas Eve and sing. And I'd go to daily mass and Enya's folks would be there. I remember having a beer with Enya's sister. And I would actually sing in Gaelic. Wow. Do you know that? Yeah.

I don't remember a lot of it anymore. That's unbelievable. But you were doing the beginning. I know. I'm ashamed. I don't want to talk about the fact that I was up there with a guitar because I'd cringe over that now. But yes, I was there.

You were singing Irish. It was transliterated for me. And I was up there with a couple of teenagers with their tin whistles and their bowerons. That's so hilarious. How you found yourself in the Airstream talking area. Isn't that amazing? We weren't terribly welcomed. I'm not surprised. We were so new man. Can you explain just how do you end up there? So we serve with Net Ministries in Ireland. And while we were there, we encountered a priest, Father Michael Sweeney. He was about 120 at the time.

I'm just joking. But he's really old but strong, strong, old, beautiful Irish man and just really had a heart for the young people. And so after my wife and I got married, he asked if we'd want to come and live and work there yeah and so we did so we moved to donegal had no idea what we were getting ourselves into had our first two children there lived there for about three years and yeah yeah but um because like you know ireland uh in general is kind of suspicious of foreigners or somebody coming in particularly if you're trying

to sell them something yeah you're trying to give them the faith and they were all catholic here what are you doing oh definitely we got that we had people who were like you must be mormon you mean mormon no we're catholic you mean mormon no we don't believe money more we know what mormons are we're catholic yeah why would you need catholic missionaries i was in youth medicine people couldn't understand what i was doing. You're a youth minister. Are you a priest? Are you a priest? No, no, no, he's mine.

Is he a deacon? No, no, what is he? What are you doing? They could not figure out what I was trying to do because all our schools are Catholic and everybody's Catholic. So, huh? What are you trying to do? It's like you guys coming in as like foreigners.

Well, you know what people said, and I don't know if you would agree with this or not, but they said it was almost better that we weren't from ireland because people trusted okay yeah yeah fair enough now i wasn't sure if they were just saying that to make us feel better or not but they said there's something about americans and canadians and australians talking about the catholic faith that puts people's defenses down a little i don't know how true that is um i i'd say it depends on the person um because there is a debate there's a debate at home uh about what we do and what we how we use like for what so i do look to america in many respects because you guys again it's only you guys yeah uh you yeah yeah this guy camera guy just you

are doing incredible things. I have incredible hope with what the church is doing in America. We have Catholic universities. You have Catholic communities. You have people who are spreading the faith. You have people converting to the faith. You have bishops who are leading and priests who are following and lay people who are following and rising up and supporting and mutually giving and receiving of each other to say,'s do this together i'm looking on in awe being like

whoa like this is phenomenal like my first exposure was through focus um and we were actually hired as focus missionaries didn't we couldn't actually take up our position because of a complication in their pregnancy thanks be god everything was fine but we were exposed to then to the likes of people who teach at franciscan here the likes of the speakers who went in the guston institute and these things have been like these guys are living it it's actually changing their lives it's phenomenal and uh and then look at everyone like so we've imported your culture your hollywoods are hollywood your music's our music your thing know, why can't we import some of this?

Why can't we catch some of the good stuff, you know? We don't have the Kardashians. Could we at least have some faithful Catholics? But you have, there is a debate then because sometimes how that translates from American into Irish, and then like into the cultural context and stuff. And, you know, we do need Irish people trained up. Absolutely, yeah. Well, pray the Hail Mary for us okay an Irish yeah father son Holy Spirit I mean should the

vaha were a talent aggressive tantra lat a span a hood Amra inspired to the vanisa nevara water J given the paki in it's a rural wash I mean beautiful thanks a lot man yeah well I think we'll kind of wrap up with it you think no raise a good place to end oh Mary yeah I'm not just please pray for my country I really mean that please please pray for my country I love my country and I love you I really want to see it thrive and flourish again. It breaks my heart in so many ways what's happened. But the Lord is good.

And the faithful people there who are fighting the good fight, just please pray for them. Give them the strength of perseverance. And if you can help and if somebody's there and wants to go and do something, help Ireland, just give it a think. What would be some organizations that you would, you there's probably some americans who are like i want to go to ireland missionary work or anything in particular you would point them to there's there's there's unfortunately there's there's not a lot there's not a lot and that i would say you know and new rob mcnamara we have the same state of conversation is like people think we're holding

it on them but we're not like there's not a lot U2000 are one of the only ones Pure in Heart was one of them and I'm sure there's still going but the different the different

solid priests who are trying to do things will bring focus mission teams and they'll bring different mission teams to Ireland

and that's a way they can get involved that's a way and it is something I would like to see happen more is like a channel or avenue by which we can say, solid things.

You want to go and have a good experience and do solid things in Ireland? There you go. Yeah. As a former Netter, I would tell people to go check out netministries.ie. You can be a young, single person. You want to travel the country,

lead high school retreats. That would be one that I would think of. Of course, you've got the Friars of the Renewal in different places you could perhaps get in touch with them and see if they need any help I mean the Nashville

Dominican Sisters are there I mean if you want we would love some more religious orders to come over and help us out as well like you know we really tried to get the Sisters of Life over

prior to the abortion referendum because they're they're a great crack they are indeed alright Matt thanks so much for being on the show this has been real fun

I really appreciate it thank you very much all right cool god bless Kanskje vi kan ta en kål? សូវាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា Thank you. សូវាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា Thank you.