Queen Elizabeth's Chaplain Became CATHOLIC？ I Fr. Gavin Ashenden
Summary
In order to stand firm behind the principles of Jesus Christ, a well-known Anglican priest decided to leave his position as a chaplain to the Queen of England. Why did he resign? And why did he do so in the first place?
Transcript
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It's clear that the church is under an attack, and if the Anglican church is going to be under
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attack, of course the Catholic church is going to be under more attack. But the difference,
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somebody put it rather beautifully, that it's like being in a building. If you were in the
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Anglican church, a fire breaks out and it's burnt the place down. The building's gone,
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it's been destroyed. But if it's in the Catholic church, the fire's broken out in a room.
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It's not the first time a fire is broken out in a room. There are fire extinguishers,
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there's a drill, we know what to do, we know what it is, we've just got to put it out.
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I want you to imagine being the chaplain to the Queen of England. Well, there was such a chaplain,
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but in order to stand firm behind the principles of Jesus Christ, he decided to leave his position.
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You see, he was an Anglican priest who was very well noted as a chaplain to the
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queen. And he also was at the cathedral, the Anglican cathedral, when they brought out on
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the Feast of the Epiphany, a Muslim speaker who was asked to read a verse which actually
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cast doubt on our Lord himself. So his reaction was to speak out, despite the fact that that meant
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his loss. Check it out. It was covered even on Fox News when it happened. Check this out.
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Welcome, Dr. Ashenden. Hi, Lauren. How are you? I'm very fine. The sort of curiosity,
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why verses, why were verses from the Koran being recited at a Christian church on that particular
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day? Well, there was a good reason and a bad reason. The good reason was the cathedral
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authorities wanted to reach out to their Muslim neighbors and make closer friendships with them.
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The bad reason was they chose to do it by introducing the Koran in the middle of a worship service,
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the Eucharist at Epiphany. And they chose to use verses from the Koran that effectively said that
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the Bible, the Gospels, were mistaken. So 10 out of 10 for trying to be friends, but not 0 out of 10 for
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doing it in that way. I want to read the verse in question in contrast with a verse which is
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actually the cornerstone of Christianity. The first verse is from Surah 19. It says,
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Allah can have no son. Now, you contrast that with almost the cornerstone of Christianity,
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which is the Gospel of John 3.16, which is, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
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son. What were the reactions in the church when that verse was read, the Koran?
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Well, I wasn't there, but I do know what the reaction was among some people, because some of
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the students who were there have written an open letter saying that they were really terribly
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distressed and horrified. And one of the reasons is that although, I guess there are at least two
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ways of looking at the way in which the faiths work together. In one sense, we're all Abrahamic faith,
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Judaism, Christianity, Islam. We're cousins. But in another sense, the Koran is predicated
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on the assumption that the Gospels are mistaken or that Jesus was mistaken. And however friendly
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you want to be, you can't avoid the contradiction that that implies. And the contradiction was brought
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right into the heart of Christian worship. And I think that's why it caused so much distress.
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Now, Queen Elizabeth, as monarch of Britain, is the defender of the faith. Now, why couldn't
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you, as wonderful chaplains, speak up and defend Christianity? Why did you have to resign?
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Well, Lauren, that's a great question. I'm an ex-broadcaster and an academic, and I've
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been defending the faith as vigorously as I can over the airways and what I've written and
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what I've said and preached for some time. One of the problems that we have in England is that
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the monarchy survives by not getting drawn into debates, particularly political and cultural
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debates. And you can understand why the monarch has to be a monarch of absolutely everybody
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in the country. So we have two contradictory principles, once again, that don't easily
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live together. The monarch is Christian. Queen Elizabeth is the most wonderful exponent of
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Christianity in her Christmas speeches, Queen's speeches, for example. But at the same time,
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the monarchy as a whole is for the whole country, not all of whom are Christian. So there can
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come points where, if you like, these two aspects of the monarchy come into contradiction with
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each other or conflict with each other. And my speaking out, it was beginning to be assumed
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that I was speaking out on behalf of the Queen personally and drawing her into cultural conflict.
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And so it was becoming clearer that I could either agree to quieten down and just enjoy the
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honour of being one of her chaplains. Or that if I wasn't prepared to do that, then maybe the more
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honourable thing to do was to give up my office. I decided that the more honourable thing to do was
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to give my office up so that I could go on speaking out quite freely as a Christian priest and disciple.
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I was going to say, probably after your resignation, you began more defending the faith than ever before.
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Well, that's the wonderful thing about Christianity and the Kingdom of Heaven. God takes the messes we make
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and he brings great stuff out of it. So the paradox is that by attempting to quieten me down and move
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me out of the public space, I've been given a platform for talking about the faith like no other.
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That same Reverend Gavin Ashenden then decided to take another step of faith to follow the truth,
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That is the subject of today's episode of the John Henry Weston Show. And we've got Gavin Ashenden
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Let's begin, as you always do, with the sign of the cross.
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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So, Gavin, it is great to have you on. I feel very privileged. I got to know of you,
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well, a while ago from what you did, we'll get into that, but more recently through Ron
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Tesoriero, a guest I had on my show that was just fascinating for the work he did, was led to do
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showing not only the first live stigmata as it happened, but also following the Eucharistic
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miracles, just incredible stuff. So it's, I'm very excited for, for our conversation.
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Now, as I said in the intro, you're quite well known as an Anglican for having objected to a
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Muslim coming into an Anglican cathedral to talk about, or even to read from the Koran.
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I had some public profile. I was a chaplain to the Queen, and I was a working theologian,
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and a fairly senior figure at a university, and was involved in public affairs as a commentator at
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a fairly minor level. But also, I was an authority on Islam. I taught courses on Islamic, on monotheism,
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Islamic Christian and Jewish mysticism. And so I'm familiar with the Koran. I don't read Arabic,
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which is a problem if you're arguing with Muslims, but it doesn't mean that you don't know what you're
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talking about. One of the strange things that came into the news was that an Anglican dean
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in Scotland decided on the Feast of the Epiphany, an important feast, celebrating who our Lord is,
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to replace St. Paul with the reading from the Koran. And the reading he chose was actually a surah in
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the Koran, which denies the divinity of Jesus. And this seemed to me to be so outrageous that it
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required comment on and some form of repudiation. But one of the ways in which the monarchy survives
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in England is not getting involved in politics. And so the problem is that because I'd been a
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chaplain to the Queen for 10 years, there was a certain association between me and the palace.
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And therefore, I did have to be fairly careful of things that I said in public and was.
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But it was put to me, and I wasn't surprised, that if I really wanted to speak out on issues as
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sensitive as this, then I needed to distance myself from the Queen and her from me, which is
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perfectly reasonable. But I could choose. I could either be quiet and retain my position
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or take a more informed action and retire. So it was perfectly clear to me what was required.
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We're engaging in a very, even in 2000, whatever that year was, about 2015, I think,
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the cultural clash between Christianity, Islam, and all things Marxist, new or old,
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was beginning to become more intense. And partly because I'd worked at a very progressive university.
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I knew what was coming down the road, including threats to freedom of speech and threats to the
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Christian integrity in the public place. And so I was all ready and prepared to take on this fight.
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I'm a Christian. I know, and I love our Lord. And there was a time when I used to smuggle Bibles
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into the Soviet Union, the early 1980s. I got arrested by the KGB and interrogated, and they were
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quite unkind to me in an ungentlemanly fashion. I had a very strong sense of what totalitarian Marxism
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meant. And so I wasn't prepared to be silent. And I had joined the dots between the old economic
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Marxism and the new cultural Marxism. They end up in the same place. So I did speak out,
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and then I was asked to resign. And that was fine. And I had already done some serious thinking,
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what I thought was serious thinking, about the relationship of gender to Revelation,
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and the importance of the Catholic tradition. And as gender became more contested in the Protestant
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and secular world, my thinking became, I mean, I'd been thinking about it for over 35 years,
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theologically. I became more and more convinced that the only safe position was the Catholic one.
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And so then the Anglican Church consecrated women as bishops. And that, to me, broke completely any
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pretense that the Anglican Church claimed, as it happened improperly, to be part of the Catholic
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Church. I was asked then to be a missionary bishop for some traditional Anglicans, which I agreed to.
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And then I discovered that although this was a good idea in theory, without the magisterium,
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there was no way of holding together people whose approach to biblical texts wasn't uniform.
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And I realized effectively that Anglicanism didn't work. And I'd been becoming Catholic for a while,
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partly because I'd experienced some satanic attacks, which drove me into the arms of Our Lady.
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I had a very good friend who was a Catholic diocesan exorcist. And in the middle of these attacks,
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where I thought either I was losing my mind, or I was engaging in a degree of spiritual warfare I wasn't
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ready for, he said, well, you have to use the rosary. And I said, well, you know, I believe in
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Our Lady theoretically and theologically. I'm just not sure. You know, all that nonsense, I'm afraid.
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And in a very dry way, he said, well, you know, you've got to choose between surrendering to her
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to ask for help or putting up with what you're putting up with. And I was astonished at the power
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of the rosary in those circumstances. And I became a devotee of Our Lady kind of overnight,
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and then began to go on a journey of looking at the apparitions and was, I was very, I began by
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looking at Garibondal with a colleague who was a psychologist at the university I taught at. And
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my colleague said, looking at the video clips, I thought it'd be good to look at video because
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Fatima seemed to me to be just a bit out of reach, but Garibond, the children of Garibondal were the
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same age as me. And so I thought, well, you know, if it's on video, let's, let's have a look at this
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thing. And my psychologist friend said, whatever those children claim is happening is true because
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we've done some studies and pre-bubescent children can't fake ecstasy. And so he said, you know,
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my colleague said, I've no idea what's being claimed, but you must take the children seriously.
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And as I then moved on from Garibondal to the other apparitions, I became increasingly convinced
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that this was Our Lady and she was calling the church to a deeper life of repentance and intimacy
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with her son. And then I came across the Eucharistic miracles and particularly the work that Ron Sorrow
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had done and was just astonished because for years I'd been arguing about Aquinas and Lutherans,
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Wenglian, Calvin, and all within the context of the sort of rational critique of Renaissance and
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Enlightenment rationalism. And, and suddenly science, which had been presented as, as an enemy
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of faith, I mean, including over the Turin shroud, but you know, that wasn't fair. They, they, they,
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they weren't playing fair. Well, I mean, they, they tested the wrong bits of the shroud, but, but
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suddenly if Ron was right, I mean, if, if all the evidence of what happened at the Buenos Aires miracle
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was right, then, then science simply said, this transubstantiation really happened. And one of the
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things I've not been able to understand ever since then is why the rest of the world isn't very,
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very excited about this because it's beyond contesting. I mean, it's, you know, for years,
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Christians have been complaining that rationalists and empiricists have been on our backs giving us
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a hard time. And suddenly empiricism comes to our aid. And, you know, why are we not saying pay
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attention? And so, and once that happened, I was familiar with the Eucharistic miracles. I'd been
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reading about them for some time, but I'd always felt they had a degree of hagiography. You know,
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there's a, I mean, there's a wonderful biography, St. Martin of Tours, whom I love and are very close
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to in terms of prayer because he converted Europe and we need to do it again. And you read his, his,
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his biography and you think, yeah, I can buy 80% of this, but, but they'll rent the other 20.
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Who knows? But, and so there was some element of that in the history of Eucharistic miracles.
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You wondered if they'd been overwritten and how could you know? But when it came to the
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Buenos Aires miracle, this is not a matter of overwriting. Laboratory told us that Jesus is
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alive and well and in the mass. And so at that point I was, I was fully Catholic apart from one
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step, which is really, it's the emotional step of the, the knee where the soul kneels and says, I,
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I give in, you can have me on any terms you like. And that, that came partly when my local Catholic
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bishop said, we need you on team. When are you going to convert? And I said, well, I think,
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I think probably, you know, like Constantine sometime before my, my death so that I don't
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get into too much trouble afterwards. And he said, well, we'd like you to come now. And I said,
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well then give me a year or two to write a book. And he said, no, I think I mean next week. So I prayed
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and you know how it is when you pray. Sometimes, sometimes the door opens, sometimes you get caught
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in the door and sometimes the door closes. We, we all know how the Holy Spirit speaks to us
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in moments of, of severe crisis or an important choice. And, and, and the door suddenly flung open
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in front of me and I felt the Lord's hand in my back and saying, go do it now. So I said, well,
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fine Lord. Okay. And then, then, and that was quite difficult because that was going to involve,
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I had some titles and credentials and a reputation and, and I knew perfectly well that in becoming a
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Roman Catholic, I'd have to start again. But I thought that's quite Christian really. I mean,
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it's, it's, you know, it's, I'm just asked, I'm just being asked to be a Christian. So, so I started again.
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Yes. Well, um, my wife had become a Catholic two years before and I'd given her a hard time.
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And in the process of giving her a hard time, I'd noticed, you know, have you know the video
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camera at the back of your head? Um, the referee, the referee's room. I had noticed that I was being
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very unfair to her and it did occur to me to ask myself why I was being so mean. Um, and, um, uh,
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but one of those questions is too difficult to, to, to face up to not enough information.
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And, uh, I mean, I, I now think it's Satan. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty sure, I'm sure of two things.
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One is that we're all slightly demonized and therefore there's a danger that there are things
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that we can't see, but we don't know we can't see them. And, and, and, and the enemy is very keen
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for us to stop us going anywhere near our lady. And I think also anywhere near the mass. I think
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these are two areas of serious spiritual conflict. And one reason I think that is because as I've
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tried to discuss these things theologically and rationally with friends, I've noticed that they,
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they, there's, you know, some, the shutters come down and these are not rational shutters. So,
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so their, their spiritual shutters and anything, well, what, what's going on? So most of the time
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now, before I talk, I usually, I usually engage in a degree of spiritual, I don't know, how would
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you put it? Putting in a banana skin under the enemy. It's because you, you, you can't simply,
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you can't just do this and imagine you're having a rational intellectual conversation. It's much more
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profound than that. And so what I'm really going around to is that I gave my wife a hard time because
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I think the enemy got at me to do that. And I'd noticed the irrationality. Very often irrationality
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is what gives, it gives, it gives it away. There's something metaphysical going on. Um, and so that,
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um, uh, that, that, that, that warned me there was more to this than met the eye. But I had a very
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strange, um, an experience of a kind. Um, we agreed that we'd go to mass. I'd go to mass with her on a
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Sunday morning and then she would come to the Eucharist with me. And this, I did this for about
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two years. And this is quite important because I think a lot of non-Catholics argue about Catholicism
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without ever having been to mass. And I think you really have to go to mass to, to allow your
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antennae to begin to process what you can both see and also not see. And, um, the point came when,
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as I began to think about going to mass on a Sunday, uh, the altar in the Catholic church in my
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imagination grew to an enormous size. I mean, just, it grew almost to the roof and the altar in the
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Anglican church diminished like to a coffee table. And, and it's very hard to explain this in rational
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terms. It's like a, uh, a picture in your head subject to some kind of alteration from somewhere
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else. And I thought, well, why, why do I see the Catholic altar as being enormous? And why,
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why, why is the Anglican table shrinking in, in my, you know, in this bit like, um, you know,
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when you stop and look at it full on, nothing's changed. It's the same. It's only when you're not
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looking at it or you're looking at it out of the corner of your eye that, that something. So
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again, I noticed this and thought, well, this is odd. Um, and it means something, but I wasn't
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entirely sure I was willing to put up with what it, what it meant. Uh, but, but anyway, um, as I
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continued to read about the Eucharistic miracles and read about our lady and to pray the rosary,
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uh, and was Catholic in all but surrender, the, the, the, my encounter with my local bishop was simply
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the, the moment when I stepped across. Um, uh, and I, I, I had no idea what would come
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then. And I've been very surprised. I've been very surprised at what, what God has done since then.
00:21:10.920
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00:21:36.680
We want to show people, because I think a lot of people do get to that precipice and then say,
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oh, but what's going to happen with me? I'm going to lose everything and that'll be it. Yeah,
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I'll have Jesus in the Eucharist, maybe if I believe that yet or not. But what will it look
00:21:52.420
like on the other side? What does it look like on the other side for you?
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I think I have to say that as a Christian, um, mass becomes so important that almost everything
00:22:03.220
else fades into insignificance. The quality of your bishop, the quality of your priest,
00:22:08.620
the dynamics of the congregation, the latest excitement of the Vatican, these, these all matter
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to some extent. But, but the act of encountering our Lord, our real Lord in the mass is so profound
00:22:23.160
that it's a game changer in terms of being a Christian and a spiritual journey. And one of the
00:22:28.460
things I try to say to my Anglican friends is, look, you know, you, you've been trained in
00:22:32.780
ambiguity. Well, why would you want to be ambiguous in love? You know, love and ambiguity don't go
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together. But if you become a Catholic, the ambiguity dissolves, it disappears. Um, and you
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know, it's, it's like, uh, it's, it's like Mary Magdalene before she realizes it's Jesus. And after
00:22:50.120
she realizes it's Jesus, why would you want to Mary Magdalene weeping saying, where have you laid
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him Lord? When, when you can be Mary Magdalene grabbing his ankles and burying your, your head in
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his legs, um, you know, what, why not? So particularly if you spent 35 years arguing,
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thinking, reflecting, pulling the thing around, to be freed from that is a wonderful thing.
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And I can't understand how any Anglican would not want to be freed from it. If they're at all
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serious about what, what they think might be happening in the Eucharist. I mean, the other
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thing is we talk, we often talk and quote C.S. Lewis and, and, and, and other writers who say that,
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you know, when you give God everything, you're not left any poorer. It's just, you, you give him
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some stuff and he gives you other stuff back. So I gave him some stuff and he, he's given me a lot
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back. And, um, so I've had to give up my public standing and, and I found it very difficult to
00:23:44.240
give up being ordained and standing and having an altar. That's been a real sacrifice. Um, but what I've
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found is that as I've spoken about Jesus and, and, and the Catholic church, the church that he
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founded, which I'm so pleased to have discovered, uh, in the public space, it's touched a lot of
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people in the heart and a lot of people have become Catholics. In fact, I, I can't, couldn't
00:24:08.680
have believed how many have become Catholics. I mean, week after week, my email is open with people
00:24:13.640
saying, this is happening to me too. Or, you know, I, I, I put, um, small, uh, um, catechesis on,
00:24:23.080
on the YouTube and a few other commentaries. And, uh, some of them get a lot of hits, you know,
00:24:28.340
some of the big ones get nearly a hundred thousand and some of the smaller ones get 800 or 80 or 80,
00:24:33.420
it doesn't really matter, but, but through all of them, the Holy spirit has been touching people's
00:24:38.540
lives. And so if I, if I thought I'd be giving up what I could offer the kingdom of heaven, it's,
00:24:45.200
it's quite the opposite. Through some strange, uh, generosity, um, I, I continue to be able to
00:24:52.880
speak for Jesus and to have a role. And, um, uh, well, that's such a privilege because, you know,
00:24:58.940
I'm on the last lap. I'm, I'm in the last bit of my life and I'm, uh, you know, it's judgment soon
00:25:03.820
and I need to, I need to come not empty handed. And so, uh, I mean, I've been serious all the way
00:25:09.240
through, but all I can say is it gets more serious as you, as you know, that the time you've been
00:25:13.460
given is being short. And also the times are very dangerous. Who knew that in the end of our lives,
00:25:18.880
we'd be fighting for the very existence of the church, for their existence of Christendom.
00:25:24.080
Who knew that the jaws of evil would be clamping around us so ferociously and with such speed
00:25:29.360
and that we'd be given the privilege of, of fighting for our Lord in these very significant
00:25:34.620
days. So, and other people, uh, freak out and get a bit panicky and say, why is this all happening
00:25:41.060
to me and to the church? But I, I, I look at the Lord and say, well, I never knew you wanted me for
00:25:46.640
this. This is very exciting. Let's get on and do it. Indeed it is. Before we get there, I do want to
00:25:53.540
get there. I just want to ask you about your wife, if I might. Um, are you able to tell us a little
00:26:00.020
bit about her reaction to your final conversion and, um, what life has been like since?
00:26:07.840
Well, I'm afraid it's very domestic. I mean, it's just one more long,
00:26:11.100
one more of those I told you so's. Why did you take so long? So, um, I mean, there was a moment when
00:26:19.180
she said, I mean, she, she said some, about five years before I need to become a Catholic. And I
00:26:24.200
said, don't be ridiculous. You know, this is, this is, um, are we not married? Do we not do these
00:26:28.660
things together? You know, all that, all that sort of, uh, rationalization after the event. Um,
00:26:35.380
and, and she said, look, the problem is when I go into an Anglican church, the Lord is not there.
00:26:40.300
And when I go into a Catholic church, he's there. So I, I don't need four degrees in theology
00:26:45.280
to tell me that I'm in the wrong place. And so she said, if you've got four degrees in theology
00:26:51.260
and you can't tell you're in the wrong place, what are your, what good are your degrees?
00:26:54.500
And so, I mean, she didn't exactly say that, but you know, that was, that was, that was the gist of
00:26:59.740
it. Um, and so the question was, to what extent did I trust her? But, but, but I had a, I had something
00:27:06.560
of that experience. I mean, I remember once, um, when a, a notably gay Anglican priest took over a
00:27:14.520
church, I prayed in for seven years, I'd said the office in, I went back 10 years later and, and it
00:27:21.520
was like somebody had stripped the inside of the church out. The, the Shekinah had gone. The, the,
00:27:27.020
the sense of the Lord's presence, um, had just become, it was like a museum. And I remember thinking,
00:27:33.300
well, the Lord was here a bit, but he's not here at all. How, how can that be? And, and I've,
00:27:39.960
I've no doubt at all now that it was to do with, um, with the offensiveness of, of distorted
00:27:47.560
sexuality. And, um, because, you know, it's, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's power, sex, money
00:27:53.060
or booze. And, uh, and the problem is that, that sex is probably one of the, is more potent
00:27:58.560
than, than those other disordered appetites. Um, so I was always very open to the sense of how
00:28:05.680
presence is, is God in a particular place. Um, and, and, and it's very hard when you go into a
00:28:13.860
building and you, you experience the absence of the presence of God and that, how can one say this
00:28:19.100
with confidence? But it, it, it was just one of those things that was sneaking up on you. And so
00:28:24.320
again, one of the, you know, one of, just like the mass, one of the most wonderful things about going
00:28:28.600
into a Catholic church in the presence of the blessed sacrament is on your knees. He's here. It's,
00:28:34.060
and, you know, it's tangible, you know, it, you feel it. And if you didn't know it and feel it,
00:28:37.600
you'll be told it. Um, so the, the journey, I have to be grateful to my wife for, uh, well, well,
00:28:46.240
for, for sort of getting with it long before I did. I mean, uh, and, and extreme, you know,
00:28:52.980
and so at the end she said, well, I told you so, what took you so long, which is perfectly reasonable.
00:28:56.240
Amazing. Now, one of the things that you've witnessed in the Anglican church, this sort of devolution
00:29:06.360
from, you know, a more orthodox way of practicing to just seemingly having given up, even on the
00:29:15.060
gospel calling the, the scriptures wrong, um, and going down this road, female ordination, as you said,
00:29:22.140
um, now homosexual, even prelates, um, and now homosexual blessings.
00:29:29.280
A lot of people look at the Catholic church today and say, Hey, they're heading exactly the same
00:29:36.280
direction. It looks from the German synod and everything else. And the various things Pope
00:29:41.440
Francis has done. I'd love to hear your take on it. Having experienced what you have, uh, in the
00:29:46.460
Anglican church. I think it very much depends on what you understand is happening. So, um, I really
00:29:54.260
did get a bit fed up with people when they said, ha ha ha, you've jumped from the frying pan to the
00:29:59.000
fire. Aren't you stupid? And I would say really, really not. This is a serious misunderstanding of
00:30:05.060
the categories involved. Um, what's happening at the moment is, is there is a very profound spiritual
00:30:10.820
conflict and the cultural aberrations that we're being presented with, all of which are
00:30:15.820
theologically anti-Christian. I mean, it, it, it, it can't be difficult for people to see, uh, just as
00:30:22.000
our, our lady said, that the, the family is going to be the place where the real conflict takes place.
00:30:28.200
Um, so if you start off, instead of seeing this as a sociologically or, or, or philosophically, or, um,
00:30:36.580
if you see, if you see it spiritually, it's, it's, it's clear that the church is under an attack. And if
00:30:42.340
the Anglican church is going to be an under attack, of course, the Catholic church is going to be
00:30:45.800
under more attack. So the different, but the different, somebody put it rather beautifully
00:30:50.280
that it's like being in a building. Um, if you were in the Anglican church, a fire breaks out and
00:30:55.000
it burnt, it's burnt the place down. The, the, there is, you know, the building's gone. It's been
00:30:59.860
destroyed. But if it's in the Catholic church, the fire's broken out in a room. It's not the first time
00:31:05.420
a fire is broken out in a room. There are fire extinguishers. There's a drill. We know what to do.
00:31:09.800
We know what it is. We've just got to put it out. So the fire has broken out in the room.
00:31:15.540
We know what to do. We have the fire extinguishers. We just need to put it out. It simply requires,
00:31:20.940
uh, keeping the faith and, and saying our prayers, but also calling it out for what it is.
00:31:27.200
And I think part of the problem is that of course, so many Catholics, as with so many other Christians
00:31:32.600
have been badly catechized. They've been secularized. This is not anyone's fault.
00:31:36.780
This is partly the impact of the media, which has, you know, we've had wall to wall media and
00:31:43.520
erotic and nihilistic entertainment for the whole of my life. I mean, none of my ancestors ever had
00:31:49.880
to put up with the level of, of, of, of distorted secular propaganda that the people of my age have
00:31:55.300
faced. And a lot of people have given way. And I mean, they don't understand they've been carried
00:32:00.500
along by it and worse because people always think they're doing the good. They've mistaken evil for good.
00:32:06.040
And of course, what's terrible is when the church knowing that it's evil, then calls it good. And I
00:32:13.140
mean, that's when you get into really the most very serious spiritual territory. And I, and I think,
00:32:19.080
I mean, I think this is where, um, I I'm, I'm very disturbed and very distressed. Uh,
00:32:26.780
I don't believe that many of the child abusers and the, the people who are promoting sexual disorder
00:32:38.020
one kind to another, I don't believe they think it's all good. I, I think many of them know it's
00:32:44.660
not, but are choosing because of the way in which their appetites have been distorted to justify what
00:32:51.120
they want. And I, I, I'm afraid, I think that's spiritually a very powerless place to be in, but,
00:32:56.920
but the rest of us should say so not because we're looking down on them. This is not judgmentalism.
00:33:03.540
This is discernment. The church, the Holy spirit gives the church discernment. Well, we should use
00:33:08.880
it. I mean, I was a charismatic in my early days. And as it happens, um, the gift I prayed for from the
00:33:15.360
very beginning was discernment because without it, how on earth can you, how can you deal with
00:33:20.000
the combat between good and evil? I mean, tongues are all very well. That's very pleasant and very
00:33:24.580
cheerful. And prophecy is, is, is exciting in the right circumstances. But if you don't have
00:33:29.380
discernment, I mean, so Paul would add love to that quite rightly, but after love discernment. Um,
00:33:36.020
so we should use discernment. And, and, and I'm very pleased to say that within the Catholic church,
00:33:40.440
um, I'm just so proud of some of the people who speak out in the public place, you know, you,
00:33:46.700
you know, we know who they are. Uh, and I'm very proud to be associated with them. Um, and it doesn't
00:33:52.220
matter what label they are critics attached to us. What we're doing is we're speaking out on the Lord's
00:33:57.840
behalf, uh, at a time when we're speaking out on our Lord's behalf at a time when the stakes are
00:34:03.820
really very, very high indeed. And some level of clear thinking, clean heartedness and discernment
00:34:10.320
is absolutely essential in order to be able to distinguish between cultural, philosophical,
00:34:17.920
uh, sociological categories and, and, and the kingdom of heaven, the metaphysical and spiritual
00:34:23.840
ones. We speak a different language from the people around us. We have all kinds of, we've got all kinds
00:34:29.200
of evidence for suggesting that our, the language we speak is better tuned to human good. Um, empiricism
00:34:36.700
works for us at that point, but we really mustn't give way to begin to talk to, to talk a language
00:34:42.480
of secularity. Um, you know, if you're close to him, you have the spiritual traction. It's only when,
00:34:48.320
it's only when people don't have spiritual traction, but they then look for traction elsewhere. Uh, and
00:34:53.260
so I think that's one of the great, you know, the issues in the church when you see people pushing
00:34:57.420
changes in gender, sexuality, uh, and also, uh, replacing, replacing the kingdom of heaven with
00:35:03.520
political programs. It's not that there isn't a complex relationship between politics and
00:35:07.900
spirituality that always has been, but there comes a point when you get the wrong end of the seesaw
00:35:12.480
and the balance shifts. And again, it seems to me that that only happens when you're not praying.
00:35:18.100
I mean, you know, these are people who are not praying or they wouldn't be putting their,
00:35:22.000
they wouldn't be seeking a political solution to the extent that they are.
00:35:26.660
Indeed. One of the areas that you, um, talked about setting is one of the areas that is the
00:35:32.820
most difficult today. Even the battle on life over abortion and euthanasia in the end
00:35:38.240
aren't the same. I remember back in about 96, I described it in an article as the whole gender
00:35:47.380
revolution as the hammer of activists, whereas the, you know, pro-life fight is hard and we get,
00:35:53.600
you know, criticized and so on for being pro-life. With this, it's something new. It's, you know,
00:35:59.640
you're a hater and a bigot, you're worse. Um, how do you respond to those confused on the issues?
00:36:05.260
Even, even Christians, even Catholics confused on the issues because they think it's so hateful
00:36:11.480
to, to say, Hey, you know, you, you shouldn't be doing that. Or, or even like the bishops of
00:36:17.160
Africa have just defended their laws, their anti-sodomy laws, even in the face of all sorts
00:36:23.000
of prelates, even, even, um, high-ranking prelates who tell them, Oh, they need a conversion on such
00:36:27.340
things. How do you speak to Catholics, well-meaning Catholics, but who are really confused?
00:36:34.820
I mean, these, these generalized questions are difficult, but it's, it's easier to talk to
00:36:39.200
in a specific case because there'll be different factors affecting the confusion.
00:36:43.840
But essentially the confusion comes from buying into a secular worldview. And so in, in our,
00:36:51.120
in our country, for the moment, they have just passed laws criminalizing saying a prayer, uh,
00:36:56.920
in a public place on the sidewalk. Um, and I think what I would do is I, I would, I would say to
00:37:03.100
somebody on the other side of the argument, just what is it that is so important that you think
00:37:08.960
that saying prayers should become criminal and that thought crime should become actionable by
00:37:15.400
the police? What, what is it that is so valuable for you to surrender these, what until now have
00:37:21.520
been absolutely essential aspects of human freedom in a civilized society? What is so important?
00:37:28.380
And then the answer can only be the right of a woman to, to end her pregnancy.
00:37:32.660
And, and, and, and I mean, but that in itself seems to me to be so ridiculous, even to, to force
00:37:39.040
someone to say that, well, but if the pregnancies have no significance, freedom of speech is significant.
00:37:46.100
I mean, it's, it's almost, it doesn't add up. Um, if, if the, I mean, either the child's important
00:37:52.580
or it isn't, if the child is not important, why sacrifice the freedom of conscience and the
00:37:56.740
freedom of speech for this clump of cells? It, it, it, um, but, but that, but you don't win this
00:38:04.080
by rational argument. I think what I would say is that, that, um, uh, well, I, I, I mean, there are
00:38:10.160
rational arguments to be made. Why are we practicing immigration? Because we don't have enough children.
00:38:14.320
Why do we have enough children? Because we've killed them all. Uh, where are, where are all the,
00:38:19.320
the, where are the, the lives of the children we've killed? What, what were they going to be? Why,
00:38:23.920
what gives us the right to terminate these, these pre-born lives? The, the, the, the, the thing
00:38:30.960
came to me when I was, as I said, I was a BBC presenter. I had a faith and ethics show and I was
00:38:36.940
careless up until this point. I hadn't noticed. I was a bit stupid and a woman phoned in to rant
00:38:42.860
about abortion. And I was, I, I, you know, while my, while people talked on the phone and I would
00:38:47.720
often Google facts just to make sure that I, as, as the impartial presenter had the facts, I,
00:38:53.220
I, I Googled terminations after 1967 act and the figure that Google gave me was 6 million.
00:38:59.880
Well, I, uh, one of the things that made me a Christian was the Holocaust because I couldn't,
00:39:04.740
I couldn't understand how human beings on their own could, could do what the Holocaust represented.
00:39:11.400
So for me, the figure 6 million is a profoundly, uh, is profoundly invested with all kinds of elements
00:39:19.760
to it. And I said on air, I said, goodness me, there'd been 6 million terminations. That's a
00:39:26.420
Holocaust. And, and, you know, I heard myself say it and realized what the implications were.
00:39:32.900
I have to say my bosses heard me say it too. And the next morning I was on the carpet in front of
00:39:37.440
the station, the station manager who said, if you ever say that again, we'll, we will cut the program
00:39:42.500
in mid sentence. Uh, and that, that made me think, why, why would you do that? All I did was to draw
00:39:48.740
the dots between the two figures. Um, it's the irrationality of the, of the response. Uh, it's out
00:39:56.520
of proportion, even for a human being's right to choose. I, I can't think of any right to choose
00:40:02.180
anything that I, as a human being, as a man could, could, could ask for and require somebody else to
00:40:10.080
no longer be able to pray or to be informed by their conscience. What, what, what hubris would
00:40:15.660
that, is that? How is it that feminism claims that level of autocracy, uh, over the diminishment
00:40:24.060
of the whole human condition? Do we think we got here without conscience? A whole society is,
00:40:30.860
is contingent upon freedom of conscience and the integrity that lies with that. Do the people think
00:40:35.320
we got here without being free to speak our minds, everything we value. What is it that a woman's
00:40:41.360
right to choose, um, has? It is so important to give up the building blocks of our whole civilization,
00:40:47.020
leaving aside the baby, which you can't leave aside. Um, and then of course, if you begin to go
00:40:53.020
down the, the, the spiritual route, you begin to get a sense that really, you know, those of us who
00:40:57.060
complained about Incas involving in barbaric child sacrifice to appreciate the gods. Well, the child
00:41:03.860
sacrifices that we have got engaged with, are we propitiating our gods? And the answer is,
00:41:09.780
it looks like we might be. It looks like the values, the lifestyle choices, the preferences,
00:41:15.060
the selfishnesses, the stupidities, the irresponsibilities, all these are values. And,
00:41:20.000
and what is a God, but your prime value? So it's really not very difficult to say that we have actually
00:41:26.500
sacrificed millions of our children in order to propitiate values that we have taken and made into
00:41:33.400
our gods, which again, becomes a very serious enterprise. So I, I, I, how would we do this?
00:41:41.100
I think by trying to say to people that, um, that it's irrational, but then again, we come back to this
00:41:46.900
business that this is not a rational argument. You begin, you begin to notice that, um, uh, that,
00:41:52.880
that something is going on clouding people's ears and hearts. They can't hear. And I, it's partly
00:41:59.740
programming. It's partly political programming from the media and fear of being in the wrong crowd.
00:42:06.480
But I think it's more than that. I, I think that this is another element of disorder that gives evil
00:42:12.580
greater, uh, higher octane in, in, in the struggle. And again, one of the reasons why the church is in
00:42:18.360
such trouble is because in a culture that has sacrificed children to the, to, to, to the dark side,
00:42:23.940
we, the dark side has been strengthened and we have become weakened. And that's not a, it's not a good
00:42:31.540
Gavin Ashenden, it is so good to have you on the inside fighting it this time, uh, when we need,
00:42:38.580
uh, the reinforcements like never before. Any final thoughts for us?
00:42:43.240
I just think that I, I, I'd like my fellow Catholics, please forgive me for, for, for,
00:42:49.100
for what might look like a bit of sort of juvenile euphoria, but, um, it sometimes takes a convert
00:42:55.560
to say, do you know what you have? Uh, I'm afraid I, I, I, I get some pleasure from saying to my,
00:43:02.460
my Protestant friends, but this is the church that Jesus founded. It's, it's, it's literally his church.
00:43:08.560
It is such a privilege to belong to the church in the unbroken line. And, uh, the fun, the first
00:43:15.480
things I did was to, when I became a Catholic was to buy myself a book on the popes so I could work
00:43:20.900
my way through how, how bad they'd been. And no one could surprise me at that point because I haven't
00:43:26.380
become a Catholic for the, for the, for the sort of personal quality of, of the popes. I've become
00:43:31.920
a Catholic because, uh, it's a way of, of getting closer to our Lord, uh, and our lady Theotokos
00:43:40.340
and, and, oh my goodness, and the saints and the angels. I mean, to have Padre Pio as, as a fellow
00:43:46.800
traveler, uh, and, you know, why would you not want to be a Catholic? So I think I'd want to say to
00:43:53.160
Catholics, um, be grateful for what you've been given. It is, it is the most wonderful place to be.
00:44:01.240
And although we're in a very serious fight, uh, and the issues are very serious and there's no guarantee
00:44:05.800
that we're not going to get really badly beaten in some places. Um, where, if we're beaten in some
00:44:10.900
places, the Lord will bring some greater victory in other places. It's, it's just an honor to fight
00:44:16.680
for him. Uh, and, and it's a, and a very particular honor to serve him in his own church. And, and I,
00:44:24.540
I think people would, they'd been, they would, what's the word benefit? That's not so patronizing.
00:44:29.540
Um, I wish that, that, that I and my fellow Catholics could, could share the profound joy
00:44:36.180
that the privilege of belonging to his church brings. Amen to that. Gavin, where can people,
00:44:42.580
uh, read you? Where can they find you? Um, so, um, Ashenden.org, um, or, I mean,
00:44:48.080
they just need to Google me. I'm afraid it's, it's, it's, it's, um, it's, but, but, but,
00:44:52.420
but Ashenden.org is my website and, uh, I have a YouTube channel. Um, uh, I say the office on
00:44:58.320
Facebook and, uh, and, and, and write things for the Catholic Herald and on my own website. So,
00:45:03.060
um, uh, very nice to have other people's company in the fight.
00:45:10.180
Thank you for having me. A pleasure to be here.
00:45:12.280
And God bless all of you. And we'll see you next time.
00:45:22.580
Hi everyone. This is John Henry Weston. We hope you enjoyed this program.
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