00:03:19.140I mean, look, I converted, what, 25 or so years ago.
00:03:23.800I started going to church seriously, the Church of England, 30 years ago.
00:03:27.960I think as a convert, therefore, right at the stage of conversion,
00:03:34.060We go through that stage of suddenly realizing for the first time, seriously, if you're outside of practicing Christianity, it's conversion.
00:03:44.940I think the word reversion is certainly in Catholic sphere.
00:03:49.680If you were baptized, say, First Communion, what have you, and then you drop out from church practice and come back to it, say, late teens, early 20s, that's called reversion.
00:04:00.160can take place even after that as opposed to conversion reverts they are colloquially but
00:04:06.680most people will pass through the stage of it's essential actually uh of passing that stage of
00:04:13.060suddenly realize well hang hang hang on here christianity isn't simply a cultural affinity
00:04:18.920and it's not even essentially a cultural affinity though it is that as well it's a set of supernatural
00:04:26.760truth claims, which are actually true. And that's at its heart. And I know in the things that we're
00:04:34.460going to talk about throughout the course of this hour, there's a question as to how much the
00:04:43.280institutional church is, the institutional Catholic church, the institutional Protestant
00:04:49.060and churches as well how how well they're doing in transmitting that reality um because as far as
00:04:58.880i'm aware they're not doing they're not even trying certainly in the catholic church they're
00:05:04.240sort of what the bishops cardinals popes are going on kicking people in the back of the knees if
00:05:11.100they're trying to make that journey and say basically saying no no no no we don't want any
00:05:15.220supernatural belief that's crazy stuff we want the so we want the social activism right none of your
00:05:20.220crazy mystical nonsense um and yet the conversion process the reversion process jenny holland
00:05:31.260it's taking place anyway whether the institutional church is wanted or not probably in despite of the
00:05:37.160fact that they don't want it it's taking place on social media with with young guys like this
00:05:42.520speaking very frankly word perfect as to what he was saying absolutely word perfect tell me why
00:05:49.080um so that was my takeaway after watching that i was particularly impressed why did you um flag
00:05:54.780it up for the war room then well first of all it it fits into a lot of the other stories we've
00:06:03.580covered here over the last year or so young man um very secular seeming you know wouldn't fit
00:06:11.440the stereotype of a Christian that you and I would have grown up with in the very sort of
00:06:17.020secular Gen X youth that we had. But a lot of the videos we've watched and a lot of the numbers
00:06:26.060we've looked at over the months, I had sort of had a thought that a lot of this, and of course,
00:06:33.160we've talked about the overt, the extreme secularization, the extreme liberalism,
00:06:37.900the extreme promiscuity, the extreme materialism that is the norm now being very demoralizing and
00:06:47.240empty for young people. And that was driving them into faith. But also, I always sort of thought
00:06:52.900that, you know, why they're going to Catholicism in particular was an element of aesthetics. And
00:06:59.500there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not, I don't mean that as a criticism. I understand that very
00:07:03.280much um the catholic church does have the best best aesthetics but um actually this uh little
00:07:12.040instagram reel suggests that it's something far deeper and that is the supernatural element and
00:07:19.120of all of the elements when there's two the i think the two big the two most difficult elements
00:07:24.560of uh sort of true catholicism as opposed to what the pope might be saying god forgive me for saying
00:07:29.780such a thing, me a non-catechized atheist, there's two elements that are very difficult
00:07:36.280for the modern mind, let's say, to wrap its head around. One is the church's teaching on
00:07:42.100sexuality and sexual behavior, and the other is the supernatural. These are very, very big
00:07:49.800obstacles, I think, for a lot of people, I would say myself included, to overcome, because it takes
00:07:56.140a lot to leap from the material world is what we see, and it's all atoms, and everything's
00:08:03.400explainable, and that's how we were taught, and that's just the end of the story. Believe the
00:08:08.860science, that kind of thing. It's hard to jump from that to Christ rose from the dead three days
00:08:15.500after being crucified and was ascended into heaven, and Mary was also assumed into heaven
00:08:22.460bodily and all of these and all the miracles that the church over the millennia has really
00:08:30.920cultivated. That's a very big leap to make. I personally find that a hard leap to make. And
00:08:36.940when I'm thinking about this, which I do a lot, I think about this a lot. I sort of wonder, do I
00:08:42.020really have what it takes to say that I fully believe that in my bones? Now, the fact that
00:08:48.360this young man and, you know, from his accent and his manner, he is not a, you know, he's just a
00:08:54.820normal guy, right? He's just a normal young man living in England or from England to know where
00:09:00.480he lives. And he is seeing this in a very clear way that is, I think, reminiscent. I mean, I don't
00:09:08.580want to overstate it, but I think this is reminiscent to, you know, what monks and abbots
00:09:13.760and true holy people knew in their bones to be true, you know, in centuries past.
00:09:22.360I think that's really, really remarkable, given his presentation, given how he's coded,
00:14:19.320hosted by um the iona institute over there on the emerald isle um talk us through the couple of
00:14:30.880clips that you pulled out to illustrate this point that you're making yeah so it was at a
00:14:37.580at a conference, I think last week in Dublin, I believe, like you say, organized by the Iona
00:14:43.780Institute, which is a Catholic think tank, I suppose, in Ireland and South Ireland.
00:14:49.800And Melanie McDonough, who is a journalist, columnist, historian, author, was talking about
00:14:56.440her book called Converts, which came out late last year, I believe. And I haven't actually read the
00:15:01.500I only heard of it for the first time this morning, but she was presenting an article about how the 1890s movement of decadence, they were called the decadence, were really captivated by Catholicism and large numbers of them converted.
00:15:26.740Now, by decadence, by members of this sort of movement, this was an aesthetic movement that, you know, valorized beauty above all things and included people like Oscar Wilde and his longtime on-off lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, both of whom converted to Catholicism.
00:15:46.000You know, this was very arresting to me.
00:15:50.320I've always been interested in the story of these two men anyway.
00:15:54.280But she went on into detail about the sort of society around them at the time, starting in the 1890s, which was sort of the apex of Victorian, secular, scientific, worshipping, industrialized society.
00:16:10.580Now, I think we suffer from presentism a lot, meaning we think we're in an unprecedented time.
00:16:16.380And, you know, in some ways we are. But this this this lecture she gave really shows that there's nothing new under the sun.
00:16:24.500And the late Victorians in the late 19th century were living in a similar atmosphere of sort of hyper materialism, secularism and lack of sort of magic and faith.
00:16:43.320And that the people like Oscar Wilde, who she says in this lecture converted to Catholicism on his deathbed, really rejected that.
00:16:52.980And I just think it's very interesting how this particular era, which we now think of as very conservative and very kind of stodgy and old fashioned, was actually at the time very modern.
00:17:06.480um uh the the catholicism the appeal of catholicism continued throughout the early 20th
00:17:14.820century in england and wales in fact the guardian reports in a review of her book that um half a
00:17:22.060million people converted to catholicism in england and wales um between 1910 and 1960 i believe
00:17:28.800and many of them were leading intellectuals um the great war world war one had a big effect on
00:17:36.340this, and again, parallels to today in that post that disastrous, cataclysmic, catastrophic war
00:17:45.420that slaughtered so many millions of young men in the prime of their life, young people post-World
00:17:53.860War I were extremely alienated and embittered at the elder generations that had brought about this
00:18:01.040catastrophe that they had really suffered from. The old men didn't fight. The old policymakers0.98
00:18:07.100didn't fight. And again, that's a very strong parallel to today. Thankfully, it's not actual
00:18:12.380kinetic war, but we could say economic war, certainly, on the young of today. And that
00:18:18.000alienation drove poets and novelists into Catholicism, looking, again, not for ascetics,
00:18:25.140but looking for continuity and something solid to find refuge in,
00:18:31.500in a world that was full of tumult and disaster.
00:18:36.020She mentions also the Russian Revolution being a real kind of psychic break
00:18:41.020for some of these people, and finding refuge in that tradition.
00:18:47.180So do you want to explain the first extract that we'll play?
00:18:53.200Yes. So she here is talking about Evelyn Waugh, the famous writer, and she says that she's quoting him, essentially.
00:19:05.560And I'll just let her read out the quote, but she's quoting Evelyn Waugh in case it's not clear from the little intro.
00:19:11.140Waugh wrote about his motivation, which he said had nothing to do with any of the usual reasons that were reduced.
00:19:17.140he felt that in the present phase of European history
00:19:20.420the essential issue is no longer between Catholicism on one side
00:21:49.160the idea of the devil roaming through the earth like a lion.
00:21:52.380All of these things are part of Catholic doctrine,0.74
00:21:55.100and for Graham Greene, there was something to be embraced
00:21:57.500and not something to be got round or to be evaded.
00:22:03.260And it's worth pointing out, of course, they're both evil in war.
00:22:06.100who Americans might be more familiar with, as the author of Bride's Head revisited, right?
00:22:12.320But also Graham Greene, both Catholic converts themselves.
00:22:17.600OK, so here you are going to tie all this together.
00:22:21.100We're going to have a quick word now, or at least look at what Pope Leo said
00:22:27.620in his press conference flying back from Africa.
00:22:33.460Ironically enough, no, I make my point.
00:22:35.500let's go into this now right flying back and he gives this um press conference and he says
00:22:42.140uh that the unity or division of the church should not revolve revolve around sexual matters
00:22:48.560um i believe there are much greater and more important issues such as justice and equality
00:22:55.680that would all take priority before that particular issue.
00:23:02.700Now, there will be times, you know, we could do it now,
00:23:06.400but we've got about three minutes before we have to move on.
00:23:09.160So the Catholic Church has teachings on sexual morality
00:23:14.760because it derives them directly from the New Testament.
00:23:17.220You can either like that or not like it or support it or not support it
00:23:20.480or be obedient to it or not obedient to it.
00:23:24.920That's really the point of what we're talking about now.
00:23:27.900But it is an emanation out of what Christ himself taught in the New Testament.
00:23:34.520These issues, however, like social justice and equality and what have you, these are political positions.
00:23:43.480They are secular political positions of the late 20th and early 21st century.
00:23:50.700and there are prudential issues as well of which the church, you know, people of goodwill can choose their own path to get to the, to arrive at the common good.
00:24:03.940After what you've been saying over the first half of the show, Jenny, it would seem to me that ditching what the church has been teaching for 2000 years
00:24:14.620and substituting it for basically political opinions of the day
00:24:20.020is not going to help people on their conversion path
00:24:25.480if they're looking at Christianity as a supernatural belief structure.
00:24:32.340The vouching of the credibility of that
00:24:35.000is the unchangingness of those sets of beliefs over the last 2,000 years.
00:24:40.840That's right. That's what you're saying, right?
00:24:42.460that's right that's exactly right um yeah this that article was absolutely shocking ben i have
00:24:49.060to say and again i am a secular person i have lived a secular life um i i don't feel i i have
00:24:58.740a very modern outlook in all of these ways um but for the pope himself to say that the sexual
00:25:06.040morality upon which the family is based should no longer be the focus of the institutional church
00:25:15.900flies absolutely in the face of what these thinkers and what this young Instagrammer is
00:25:25.360talking about, which is the belief is the core. The belief requires sacrifice of the believer,
00:25:34.560and the sacrifice is for the greater good of the community.
00:25:39.780Now, I, as a secular person, you know, I understand and I'm happy that people can live their lives in privacy as they see fit.
00:25:51.840But what I don't like, even though I am still a secular person, is for you to pick and choose, to have your cake and eat it too.
00:25:59.580If you are going to live in a sort of moral sense that is against traditional church teachings, don't call yourself a Catholic.
00:26:09.500Don't ask for the blessing. You just live your life, commit to your lane.
00:26:13.580OK, you know, you can't have it both ways. That's that's always been my instinct.
00:26:18.400and your point here is because if you do that the incoherence between what you're proclaiming
00:26:26.060uh to believe and the life that you're living is going to be an inhibition to these young guys who
00:26:33.220are in their 20s sniffing out uh christianity for the first time you you know what the word
00:26:39.680is that we call that the word the word that that that theology ascribes to that right
00:26:45.180it's scandal it's it's it's scandal it's a scandal that is the true meaning of a scandal
00:26:51.980it's putting an obstacle in others path towards faith folks don't go away we will be back in two
00:26:58.740minutes everyone's focus on how the conflict in the middle east is raising oil prices but there's
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00:36:38.400The Augustinians are supposed to have as their charism the thought and teaching of,
00:36:43.280to my mind, the greatest philosopher and theologian in the history of the Catholic Church.
00:36:49.040Not Thomas Aquinas, but St. Augustine himself. And there is nothing in his thought or in his declarations that would indicate any familiarity with St. Augustine whatsoever.
00:37:03.040And I'll make the same criticism of Joseph Ratzinger, better known by his stage name, Pope Benedict XVI.
00:37:13.400I'll make the same criticism of Rowan Williams, the former archlayman of Canterbury.
00:37:19.340All three of them publicly propelled themselves in the public sphere as great, not exponents, as greatly inspired by the writings of St. Augustine.
00:37:33.580In none of them did you detect anything, even a person.
00:37:37.280And here's the point I want to make, and this is why what you're saying is so important on the practical basis.
00:37:43.440St. Augustine, I think, contributed in the history of Christian thought, really the idea that what we desire will form the soul.
00:39:24.220That is that is the most true, the truest thing that I've ever heard said in my entire life. He was also a man who had a child out of wedlock. He was a very imperfect person. So I think I think this speaks to your point.
00:39:36.660And he was a searcher. He was searching for belief, and he eventually did find it, and he eventually left this incredible patrimony.
00:39:46.280But the distance between those sort of, for lack of a better word, sort of soldiers, maybe spelled S-O-U-L, jurors, and the institutional elites is, it couldn't be vaster.
00:40:05.780And I think because the people you just mentioned, the popes and the Archbishop of Canterbury, former, they are in service to an institution, an institutional process, rather than this kernel of truth, which is the supernatural element, which that young man that we heard from at the very beginning was more wise to, more attached to than it seems.
00:40:35.780claims Pope Leo himself, because if Pope Leo is issuing bureaucratic edicts, these sort of
00:40:42.000anodyne, banal platitudes about, oh, well, we should all just be nice to each other. I mean,
00:40:49.420that is not the point. That is not where we're at. That is not where the young people are at.
00:40:54.480They need refuge from a materialist, atheistic hellscape. And listen, listen, I grew up a liberal.
00:41:01.460I remain in many ways a liberal, but you cannot deny, I cannot deny that the liberal worldview has failed to ward off against rampant immorality, and that has come at a huge consequence to our use.
00:41:20.180If we could dial back, which we can't, if we could dial back and tweak the secular order so that we could head off these disasters of porn consumption and, you know, childlessness and poor mental health in young people, all of these are outcomes from the secular worldview, then, yeah, we would.
00:41:42.080But, you know, if my if my grandmother had wheels should be a bicycle like it's not it doesn't happen.
00:41:46.860I think what the last 20 years have shown since the advent of the iPhone, it's shown that the liberal worldview could not withstand the onslaught of sort of extreme modernity and extreme liberalism.
00:42:03.260And that is why people are turning back to the old rock, the tradition of the Catholic faith in the traditional sense, not the modern. Yes.
00:42:16.500The liberal experiment failed fundamentally because it goes back to the Enlightenment.0.78
00:42:21.960And it was an attempt to arrive at, I think, Christian values without the Christianity through the exercise of reason.
00:42:33.260And I think that the failure of that, which is the failure of liberalism that you're describing, is the lesson to learn it.0.61
00:42:41.620We, you know, half of me wants us to continue talking about this.
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00:48:02.280jenny we've got about three minutes left this is a beautiful story i i liked um and i just wanted
00:48:08.120to chew chew it over here very quickly with you so and this ties a number of themes bizarrely um also
00:48:16.600uh dear to you dublin well i know you're in northern ireland but dublin rome uh you grew
00:48:24.360up in Italy. Here, the monk, the Venerable Bede, who wrote, considered to be the father
00:48:33.280of English history, a monk sometime in the eighth century, wrote a poem that was apparently
00:48:44.940from one of the cattle, an illiterate, composed by an illiterate cattle herder by a monastery
00:48:51.420in the uk he wrote it into his text um and this is this poem this hymn to god a nine line hymn
00:49:00.120that's what it is uh is the oldest poem in the english language that still exists goes back to
00:49:10.180the um the 600s that is to say the 7th century and 13 1400 years old uh just tell us the bare
00:49:19.480essentials of what these two researchers have discovered yeah so they discovered the old there's
00:49:27.440a couple of other copies of this or texts of this poem in existence but i think this is the only one
00:49:33.680that is in all in english and i'm assuming it's old english or anglo-saxon um and they actually
00:49:41.640are researchers from trinity college dublin which is my alma mater so that's another connection
00:49:46.700um to this story tangential though uh yeah so this is a lovely little story i am um very fond
00:49:56.000of a good historical tale now my knowledge of bead is is scant i didn't study him in school
00:50:02.600but this is this the the text of this being the transcription of a poem composed by as you said
00:50:13.460an illiterate shepherd, was it, really gets to the heart of why Catholicism or Christianity
00:50:20.620has such a powerful resonance with people all over the world because of its accessibility
00:50:27.280to the humble and the meek and the overlooked and the powerless.
00:50:36.300And I think this is just such a beautifully comforting and empowering element to Christianity that I personally think left-wing politics has tried to co-opt and invert to its own purposes, but it will never be able to withstand the sort of power that Christian messaging has because the left-wing politics are all built on lies and inhumanity.
00:51:06.300so sorry i had to get it i had to get a dig in at the communist there that's fun you you always
00:51:15.020have free shots at the commies uh on the warring right so this guy cadmon is his name because there
00:51:21.540was an illiterate cattle herder couldn't read um uneducated and he came up with this poem the
00:51:27.200the oldest extant poem in english language according to the venerable bead uh a divine
00:51:33.320um apparition a divine revelation the guardian said reading it is like leaning against a cathedral
00:51:40.700door preparing to go inside folks if i can get this in i'm going to read it to you now the nine
00:51:45.200lines now we must praise to the skies the keeper of the heavenly kingdom the might of the measurer
00:51:52.600all he has in mind the work of the father of glory of all manner of marvel our eternal master
00:52:00.240the main mover it was he who first summed up on our behalf heaven as a roof the holy maker
00:52:07.760then this middle earth the watcher over humankind our eternal master would later assign the precinct
00:52:15.480of men the lord almighty jenny where do people go on social media to keep up with your superb
00:52:21.860analysis uh you can find me on x at semper femina 21 you can find me on youtube at saving culture
00:52:30.200from itself. And all my essays are on Substack at JennyEHolland.substack.com.
00:52:39.380Folks, Jenny, God bless you. Thanks, Spencer at Real America's Voice. We'll be back at 10 a.m.
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