'Ireland is no longer Catholic': Priest says modernity destroyed the land of St. Patrick
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
148.99115
Summary
In this episode of the John Henry Weston Show, we speak with Fr. Brendan Kilcoyne, who is a priest in Ireland. He tells us that the faith is still alive but needs our prayers in this land where we received so much from Ireland.
Transcript
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Ireland is the homeland of so many of the Catholics in the United States.
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It's a land where St. Patrick prayed that the faith would always be retained,
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got that promise from God, and yet it was so disturbing to see Ireland vote for same-sex marriage
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We know that they were rocked by sexual abuse scandals.
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It survived some of the most unbelievable persecutions over the years.
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We're going to be speaking today with Fr. Brendan Kilcoyne,
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tells us that the faith is still alive but needs our prayers in this land
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Fr. Brendan Kilcoyne, thank you for joining us on this episode of the John Henry Weston Show.
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Not at all, John Henry. Thank you very much for having me.
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Great. Let's begin, as we always do, at the sign of the cross, if you wouldn't mind leading us.
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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Well, Fr. Brendan, it is a pleasure to talk to you from the land of Ireland,
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where historically known for such brave and fighting Catholicism,
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and yet coming out with a stronger and stronger faith every time.
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and then get more into that history, which I know you know very well.
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to find out what's happening in Ireland is very important,
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because we've had real, it's like an earthquake in the church all over the world.
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But one of the questions is, what's happening in Ireland right now?
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I suppose really, you're talking about modernity.
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It just happened for a number of reasons, historical, sociological.
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And it's been greatly accelerated by unfolding scandals internal to the church,
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So what you're looking at really is, it's really without precedent in our history.
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It's a situation in which the church is almost certainly,
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whatever the official census may say, the church is a minority,
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The most recent census showed that still a very high number of people actually self-described as Catholics.
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But that's a very, very marked decline on previous decades.
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Let's say, talking about the pre-COVID situation,
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practice, I would say, was probably somewhere in the 30s.
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Actually, in most of the cities, it's very low, with the exception of one or two,
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So you can see that it's, the tsunami of modernity has hit us.
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And, of course, what it hit really was an institution that was,
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But, in fact, it was terrifyingly vulnerable, looking at it in retrospect.
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I think Frank Duff, the founder of the Legion of Mary,
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had commented way back, perhaps back in the 50s,
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that he had become worried that Irish Catholicism, even then,
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And we also know, for instance, that in the clergy,
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there seems to have been a major failure of spirituality and morals,
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which really only started to come to light in the 90s.
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I doubt if I'm surprising any Americans who have relatives or friends here,
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But for some people in the States, it still comes as a surprise
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to realise that Ireland is really no longer a Catholic country.
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Because, I mean, you can't just take in the number of people
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But I can assure you we're not run off our feet
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looking after parishioners at weekly masses and so on.
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You know, so the whole thing really is very superficial.
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They had a real show of, I don't know, support from young people.
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All of a sudden, rather than walking into church,
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but often I've seen here in America, parts of Europe,
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you walk into a church, and if you're at a daily Mass, like I am,
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you go and you see there's usually a handful of old ladies.
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There was some men in there as well, which was really surprising.
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But the traditional Latin Masses, what I've noticed is that,
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by the way, I don't have access to one where I am as well,
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They're full of those, what you might call old-fashioned,
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They take up most of the row themselves, if not the whole row.
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And sometimes if there are huge families, the row behind them.
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My information is that the demographic at the Latin Masses is very healthy.
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It's a fantastic, as you said, the fantastic old-fashioned mix
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I'm sorry to say that's not the case in my church,
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In my parish, we've put a great deal of investment into youth ministry,
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and that has produced some results, but the going is hard and it's slow.
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This culture has taken root in the space of a few decades,
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you know you're dealing with something really powerful.
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A whole set of assumptions have taken over people's minds
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and have become part of their worldview and the way they view things.
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to hear that the Latin Masses were able to count on considerable numbers of young people.
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And indeed, to hear, as I did recently, from priests in France,
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that the same was very markedly a part of the French scene.
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It does tend to be that way, and that's why there's such consternation now
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if not killing off, the traditional Latin Mass.
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And knowing your Irish scene of at least your bishops,
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The solution to bringing young people back to the Church around the world
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You do have tradition-minded bishops opening Latin Masses,
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that caused most people to exit the Church in the first place
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It's been ridiculous to go forward in this direction.
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You know, a lot of the bishops in the United States,
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and in Father James Martin, who, you know, everybody knows well,
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is promoting, oh, it's too bad that we can't have
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But, blessings, civil unions, the Pope has said so,
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And what do you think that's going to do for the Church?
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I think our biggest problem here isn't a lack of goodwill.
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Like, we have a very solid crowd of men in our bishops here.
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I think that the particular tightrope that has to be walked,
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requires skills that most of us don't have yet.
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But it's the skill, it's probably always been difficult,
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it's the skill of separating the sinner from the sin.
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And I think where we've ended up in trouble is that,
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but I can see, I know this sounds passionizing,
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but I believe I can see what he's trying to do.
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I was taught by the Jesuits in the Gregorian room 30 years ago.
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He's very legible if you were there then at that time.
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He desperately does not want people to be left out.
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But it's so tricky in this world of instant communications
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without giving the impression that the lost sheep
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was quite right to take off in the first place,
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without seeming to justify the peregrinations of the lost sheep
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This is, in terms, the pastoral challenge here is absolutely huge.
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The subtlety, the nuance, the almost, I don't know,
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you need the sure-footedness of a mountain goat
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And I think my generation and the older generation,
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of the immediacy of communication in the modern world.
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I think it's absolutely clear that we get across
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that these people are so totally welcome in the church
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that we are desperate for them to stay with us.
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without sounding like some sort of homophobic maniac
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who just wants to go out and kill gay people or whatever?
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and are all too willing to pounce on the slightest nuance,
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I know we so desperately want these people to stay with us
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with, let's say, same-sex attraction or whatever
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They have a tremendous amount to offer to the church.
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to the development of Catholic spirituality in a new age.
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How do you identify with the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ
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We are trying to bring our brothers and sisters
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We have to pray, pray, pray for the Holy Father.