The John-Henry Westen Show - April 19, 2023


Queen Elizabeth's Chaplain Became CATHOLIC? I Fr. Gavin Ashenden


Episode Stats


Length

45 minutes

Words per minute

179.78159

Word count

8,215

Sentence count

430

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Toxicity

7

sentences flagged

Hate speech

22

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

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

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 It's clear that the church is under an attack, and if the Anglican church is going to be under
00:00:04.220 attack, of course the Catholic church is going to be under more attack. But the difference,
00:00:07.940 somebody put it rather beautifully, that it's like being in a building. If you were in the
00:00:11.080 Anglican church, a fire breaks out and it's burnt the place down. The building's gone,
00:00:15.180 it's been destroyed. But if it's in the Catholic church, the fire's broken out in a room.
00:00:20.040 It's not the first time a fire is broken out in a room. There are fire extinguishers,
00:00:23.880 there's a drill, we know what to do, we know what it is, we've just got to put it out.
00:00:30.000 I want you to imagine being the chaplain to the Queen of England. Well, there was such a chaplain,
00:00:43.040 but in order to stand firm behind the principles of Jesus Christ, he decided to leave his position.
00:00:53.000 You see, he was an Anglican priest who was very well noted as a chaplain to the
00:00:59.740 queen. And he also was at the cathedral, the Anglican cathedral, when they brought out on
00:01:07.320 the Feast of the Epiphany, a Muslim speaker who was asked to read a verse which actually
00:01:14.100 cast doubt on our Lord himself. So his reaction was to speak out, despite the fact that that meant
00:01:22.020 his loss. Check it out. It was covered even on Fox News when it happened. Check this out.
00:01:25.840 Welcome, Dr. Ashenden. Hi, Lauren. How are you? I'm very fine. The sort of curiosity,
00:01:33.600 why verses, why were verses from the Koran being recited at a Christian church on that particular
00:01:38.340 day? Well, there was a good reason and a bad reason. The good reason was the cathedral
00:01:45.500 authorities wanted to reach out to their Muslim neighbors and make closer friendships with them.
00:01:51.260 The bad reason was they chose to do it by introducing the Koran in the middle of a worship service, 0.98
00:01:58.520 the Eucharist at Epiphany. And they chose to use verses from the Koran that effectively said that
00:02:05.980 the Bible, the Gospels, were mistaken. So 10 out of 10 for trying to be friends, but not 0 out of 10 for
00:02:15.140 doing it in that way. I want to read the verse in question in contrast with a verse which is
00:02:20.000 actually the cornerstone of Christianity. The first verse is from Surah 19. It says,
00:02:24.660 Allah can have no son. Now, you contrast that with almost the cornerstone of Christianity, 1.00
00:02:29.640 which is the Gospel of John 3.16, which is, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
00:02:34.940 son. What were the reactions in the church when that verse was read, the Koran?
00:02:41.920 Well, I wasn't there, but I do know what the reaction was among some people, because some of
00:02:47.620 the students who were there have written an open letter saying that they were really terribly
00:02:52.240 distressed and horrified. And one of the reasons is that although, I guess there are at least two
00:02:57.580 ways of looking at the way in which the faiths work together. In one sense, we're all Abrahamic faith,
00:03:02.920 Judaism, Christianity, Islam. We're cousins. But in another sense, the Koran is predicated 0.57
00:03:08.600 on the assumption that the Gospels are mistaken or that Jesus was mistaken. And however friendly
00:03:15.140 you want to be, you can't avoid the contradiction that that implies. And the contradiction was brought
00:03:22.020 right into the heart of Christian worship. And I think that's why it caused so much distress. 1.00
00:03:26.880 Now, Queen Elizabeth, as monarch of Britain, is the defender of the faith. Now, why couldn't
00:03:32.380 you, as wonderful chaplains, speak up and defend Christianity? Why did you have to resign?
00:03:38.180 Well, Lauren, that's a great question. I'm an ex-broadcaster and an academic, and I've
00:03:44.720 been defending the faith as vigorously as I can over the airways and what I've written and
00:03:50.020 what I've said and preached for some time. One of the problems that we have in England is that
00:03:56.360 the monarchy survives by not getting drawn into debates, particularly political and cultural
00:04:02.760 debates. And you can understand why the monarch has to be a monarch of absolutely everybody
00:04:06.680 in the country. So we have two contradictory principles, once again, that don't easily
00:04:11.780 live together. The monarch is Christian. Queen Elizabeth is the most wonderful exponent of
00:04:18.380 Christianity in her Christmas speeches, Queen's speeches, for example. But at the same time,
00:04:22.900 the monarchy as a whole is for the whole country, not all of whom are Christian. So there can
00:04:27.820 come points where, if you like, these two aspects of the monarchy come into contradiction with
00:04:31.980 each other or conflict with each other. And my speaking out, it was beginning to be assumed
00:04:39.200 that I was speaking out on behalf of the Queen personally and drawing her into cultural conflict.
00:04:44.940 And so it was becoming clearer that I could either agree to quieten down and just enjoy the
00:04:52.860 honour of being one of her chaplains. Or that if I wasn't prepared to do that, then maybe the more
00:04:57.760 honourable thing to do was to give up my office. I decided that the more honourable thing to do was
00:05:03.140 to give my office up so that I could go on speaking out quite freely as a Christian priest and disciple.
00:05:09.280 I was going to say, probably after your resignation, you began more defending the faith than ever before.
00:05:14.660 Is that right?
00:05:16.400 Well, that's the wonderful thing about Christianity and the Kingdom of Heaven. God takes the messes we make
00:05:20.700 and he brings great stuff out of it. So the paradox is that by attempting to quieten me down and move
00:05:26.960 me out of the public space, I've been given a platform for talking about the faith like no other.
00:05:33.280 And I hope I can use it well.
00:05:37.600 That same Reverend Gavin Ashenden then decided to take another step of faith to follow the truth,
00:05:44.700 faith. And he became a Roman Catholic.
00:05:48.920 That is the subject of today's episode of the John Henry Weston Show. And we've got Gavin Ashenden
00:05:55.060 right here. Stay tuned.
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00:06:40.480 May God bless you.
00:06:43.280 Gavin Ashenden, welcome to the program.
00:06:45.400 Thank you for having me.
00:06:46.540 Let's begin, as you always do, with the sign of the cross.
00:06:48.460 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
00:06:53.360 So, Gavin, it is great to have you on. I feel very privileged. I got to know of you,
00:06:59.580 well, a while ago from what you did, we'll get into that, but more recently through Ron
00:07:05.340 Tesoriero, a guest I had on my show that was just fascinating for the work he did, was led to do
00:07:12.260 showing not only the first live stigmata as it happened, but also following the Eucharistic
00:07:18.940 miracles, just incredible stuff. So it's, I'm very excited for, for our conversation.
00:07:24.940 Now, as I said in the intro, you're quite well known as an Anglican for having objected to a
00:07:35.920 Muslim coming into an Anglican cathedral to talk about, or even to read from the Koran. 0.99
00:07:43.380 Give us that in a nutshell, if you would.
00:07:45.580 I had some public profile. I was a chaplain to the Queen, and I was a working theologian,
00:07:52.540 and a fairly senior figure at a university, and was involved in public affairs as a commentator at
00:08:00.080 a fairly minor level. But also, I was an authority on Islam. I taught courses on Islamic, on monotheism,
00:08:13.260 Islamic Christian and Jewish mysticism. And so I'm familiar with the Koran. I don't read Arabic,
00:08:19.160 which is a problem if you're arguing with Muslims, but it doesn't mean that you don't know what you're
00:08:24.040 talking about. One of the strange things that came into the news was that an Anglican dean
00:08:29.000 in Scotland decided on the Feast of the Epiphany, an important feast, celebrating who our Lord is,
00:08:39.760 to replace St. Paul with the reading from the Koran. And the reading he chose was actually a surah in
00:08:45.120 the Koran, which denies the divinity of Jesus. And this seemed to me to be so outrageous that it
00:08:50.680 required comment on and some form of repudiation. But one of the ways in which the monarchy survives
00:09:02.080 in England is not getting involved in politics. And so the problem is that because I'd been a
00:09:06.440 chaplain to the Queen for 10 years, there was a certain association between me and the palace.
00:09:10.900 And therefore, I did have to be fairly careful of things that I said in public and was.
00:09:16.920 But it was put to me, and I wasn't surprised, that if I really wanted to speak out on issues as
00:09:21.640 sensitive as this, then I needed to distance myself from the Queen and her from me, which is
00:09:26.820 perfectly reasonable. But I could choose. I could either be quiet and retain my position
00:09:31.780 or take a more informed action and retire. So it was perfectly clear to me what was required.
00:09:40.680 We're engaging in a very, even in 2000, whatever that year was, about 2015, I think,
00:09:47.400 the cultural clash between Christianity, Islam, and all things Marxist, new or old,
00:09:55.600 was beginning to become more intense. And partly because I'd worked at a very progressive university.
00:10:01.120 I knew what was coming down the road, including threats to freedom of speech and threats to the
00:10:06.440 Christian integrity in the public place. And so I was all ready and prepared to take on this fight.
00:10:12.680 I'm a Christian. I know, and I love our Lord. And there was a time when I used to smuggle Bibles 0.86
00:10:18.180 into the Soviet Union, the early 1980s. I got arrested by the KGB and interrogated, and they were
00:10:23.360 quite unkind to me in an ungentlemanly fashion. I had a very strong sense of what totalitarian Marxism
00:10:29.160 meant. And so I wasn't prepared to be silent. And I had joined the dots between the old economic
00:10:36.800 Marxism and the new cultural Marxism. They end up in the same place. So I did speak out,
00:10:44.260 and then I was asked to resign. And that was fine. And I had already done some serious thinking,
00:10:50.140 what I thought was serious thinking, about the relationship of gender to Revelation,
00:10:53.460 and the importance of the Catholic tradition. And as gender became more contested in the Protestant
00:10:59.580 and secular world, my thinking became, I mean, I'd been thinking about it for over 35 years,
00:11:04.200 theologically. I became more and more convinced that the only safe position was the Catholic one.
00:11:10.940 And so then the Anglican Church consecrated women as bishops. And that, to me, broke completely any
00:11:18.140 pretense that the Anglican Church claimed, as it happened improperly, to be part of the Catholic
00:11:24.480 Church. I was asked then to be a missionary bishop for some traditional Anglicans, which I agreed to.
00:11:32.160 And then I discovered that although this was a good idea in theory, without the magisterium,
00:11:37.680 there was no way of holding together people whose approach to biblical texts wasn't uniform.
00:11:44.880 And I realized effectively that Anglicanism didn't work. And I'd been becoming Catholic for a while,
00:11:53.040 partly because I'd experienced some satanic attacks, which drove me into the arms of Our Lady.
00:11:58.960 I had a very good friend who was a Catholic diocesan exorcist. And in the middle of these attacks,
00:12:04.400 where I thought either I was losing my mind, or I was engaging in a degree of spiritual warfare I wasn't
00:12:09.220 ready for, he said, well, you have to use the rosary. And I said, well, you know, I believe in
00:12:15.280 Our Lady theoretically and theologically. I'm just not sure. You know, all that nonsense, I'm afraid.
00:12:23.520 And in a very dry way, he said, well, you know, you've got to choose between surrendering to her
00:12:28.160 to ask for help or putting up with what you're putting up with. And I was astonished at the power
00:12:32.700 of the rosary in those circumstances. And I became a devotee of Our Lady kind of overnight,
00:12:37.260 and then began to go on a journey of looking at the apparitions and was, I was very, I began by
00:12:44.100 looking at Garibondal with a colleague who was a psychologist at the university I taught at. And
00:12:49.720 my colleague said, looking at the video clips, I thought it'd be good to look at video because
00:12:54.800 Fatima seemed to me to be just a bit out of reach, but Garibond, the children of Garibondal were the
00:13:00.040 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
00:13:04.140 thing. And my psychologist friend said, whatever those children claim is happening is true because
00:13:10.060 we've done some studies and pre-bubescent children can't fake ecstasy. And so he said, you know,
00:13:17.720 my colleague said, I've no idea what's being claimed, but you must take the children seriously.
00:13:22.980 And as I then moved on from Garibondal to the other apparitions, I became increasingly convinced
00:13:29.360 that this was Our Lady and she was calling the church to a deeper life of repentance and intimacy
00:13:34.060 with her son. And then I came across the Eucharistic miracles and particularly the work that Ron Sorrow
00:13:41.900 had done and was just astonished because for years I'd been arguing about Aquinas and Lutherans,
00:13:49.220 Wenglian, Calvin, and all within the context of the sort of rational critique of Renaissance and
00:13:58.200 Enlightenment rationalism. And, and suddenly science, which had been presented as, as an enemy
00:14:04.420 of faith, I mean, including over the Turin shroud, but you know, that wasn't fair. They, they, they,
00:14:08.900 they weren't playing fair. Well, I mean, they, they tested the wrong bits of the shroud, but, but
00:14:13.780 suddenly if Ron was right, I mean, if, if all the evidence of what happened at the Buenos Aires miracle
00:14:19.900 was right, then, then science simply said, this transubstantiation really happened. And one of the
00:14:26.000 things I've not been able to understand ever since then is why the rest of the world isn't very,
00:14:29.720 very excited about this because it's beyond contesting. I mean, it's, you know, for years,
00:14:36.080 Christians have been complaining that rationalists and empiricists have been on our backs giving us 1.00
00:14:41.200 a hard time. And suddenly empiricism comes to our aid. And, you know, why are we not saying pay
00:14:47.060 attention? And so, and once that happened, I was familiar with the Eucharistic miracles. I'd been
00:14:53.200 reading about them for some time, but I'd always felt they had a degree of hagiography. You know,
00:14:57.700 there's a, I mean, there's a wonderful biography, St. Martin of Tours, whom I love and are very close
00:15:03.320 to in terms of prayer because he converted Europe and we need to do it again. And you read his, his,
00:15:09.040 his biography and you think, yeah, I can buy 80% of this, but, but they'll rent the other 20.
00:15:14.780 Who knows? But, and so there was some element of that in the history of Eucharistic miracles.
00:15:20.080 You wondered if they'd been overwritten and how could you know? But when it came to the
00:15:24.540 Buenos Aires miracle, this is not a matter of overwriting. Laboratory told us that Jesus is
00:15:30.680 alive and well and in the mass. And so at that point I was, I was fully Catholic apart from one 0.93
00:15:37.960 step, which is really, it's the emotional step of the, the knee where the soul kneels and says, I,
00:15:43.540 I give in, you can have me on any terms you like. And that, that came partly when my local Catholic
00:15:50.420 bishop said, we need you on team. When are you going to convert? And I said, well, I think,
00:15:57.120 I think probably, you know, like Constantine sometime before my, my death so that I don't
00:16:01.500 get into too much trouble afterwards. And he said, well, we'd like you to come now. And I said,
00:16:07.900 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
00:16:15.160 and you know how it is when you pray. Sometimes, sometimes the door opens, sometimes you get caught
00:16:21.380 in the door and sometimes the door closes. We, we all know how the Holy Spirit speaks to us
00:16:27.260 in moments of, of severe crisis or an important choice. And, and, and the door suddenly flung open
00:16:34.060 in front of me and I felt the Lord's hand in my back and saying, go do it now. So I said, well,
00:16:38.640 fine Lord. Okay. And then, then, and that was quite difficult because that was going to involve,
00:16:44.380 I had some titles and credentials and a reputation and, and I knew perfectly well that in becoming a
00:16:50.560 Roman Catholic, I'd have to start again. But I thought that's quite Christian really. I mean,
00:16:55.480 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.
00:17:04.060 Yes. Well, um, my wife had become a Catholic two years before and I'd given her a hard time.
00:17:21.700 And in the process of giving her a hard time, I'd noticed, you know, have you know the video
00:17:26.720 camera at the back of your head? Um, the referee, the referee's room. I had noticed that I was being
00:17:32.760 very unfair to her and it did occur to me to ask myself why I was being so mean. Um, and, um, uh,
00:17:40.480 but one of those questions is too difficult to, to, to face up to not enough information.
00:17:45.960 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.
00:17:52.160 One is that we're all slightly demonized and therefore there's a danger that there are things
00:17:56.700 that we can't see, but we don't know we can't see them. And, and, and, and the enemy is very keen
00:18:01.300 for us to stop us going anywhere near our lady. And I think also anywhere near the mass. I think
00:18:06.700 these are two areas of serious spiritual conflict. And one reason I think that is because as I've
00:18:13.000 tried to discuss these things theologically and rationally with friends, I've noticed that they,
00:18:17.780 they, there's, you know, some, the shutters come down and these are not rational shutters. So,
00:18:22.640 so their, their spiritual shutters and anything, well, what, what's going on? So most of the time
00:18:28.640 now, before I talk, I usually, I usually engage in a degree of spiritual, I don't know, how would
00:18:35.400 you put it? Putting in a banana skin under the enemy. It's because you, you, you can't simply,
00:18:39.540 you can't just do this and imagine you're having a rational intellectual conversation. It's much more
00:18:44.020 profound than that. And so what I'm really going around to is that I gave my wife a hard time because
00:18:48.700 I think the enemy got at me to do that. And I'd noticed the irrationality. Very often irrationality
00:18:55.280 is what gives, it gives, it gives it away. There's something metaphysical going on. Um, and so that,
00:19:02.260 um, uh, that, that, that, that warned me there was more to this than met the eye. But I had a very
00:19:10.260 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
00:19:20.140 Sunday morning and then she would come to the Eucharist with me. And this, I did this for about
00:19:26.080 two years. And this is quite important because I think a lot of non-Catholics argue about Catholicism
00:19:30.940 without ever having been to mass. And I think you really have to go to mass to, to allow your
00:19:36.880 antennae to begin to process what you can both see and also not see. And, um, the point came when,
00:19:46.260 as I began to think about going to mass on a Sunday, uh, the altar in the Catholic church in my
00:19:52.180 imagination grew to an enormous size. I mean, just, it grew almost to the roof and the altar in the
00:19:57.940 Anglican church diminished like to a coffee table. And, and it's very hard to explain this in rational
00:20:03.800 terms. It's like a, uh, a picture in your head subject to some kind of alteration from somewhere
00:20:10.000 else. And I thought, well, why, why do I see the Catholic altar as being enormous? And why,
00:20:16.480 why, why is the Anglican table shrinking in, in my, you know, in this bit like, um, you know,
00:20:23.020 when you stop and look at it full on, nothing's changed. It's the same. It's only when you're not
00:20:27.020 looking at it or you're looking at it out of the corner of your eye that, that something. So
00:20:31.400 again, I noticed this and thought, well, this is odd. Um, and it means something, but I wasn't
00:20:37.040 entirely sure I was willing to put up with what it, what it meant. Uh, but, but anyway, um, as I
00:20:42.940 continued to read about the Eucharistic miracles and read about our lady and to pray the rosary,
00:20:47.060 uh, and was Catholic in all but surrender, the, the, the, my encounter with my local bishop was simply
00:20:54.140 the, the moment when I stepped across. Um, uh, and I, I, I had no idea what would come
00:21:00.360 then. And I've been very surprised. I've been very surprised at what, what God has done since then.
00:21:06.800 And, um, uh, I'm very grateful.
00:21:10.920 Just a quick note before we return. If you would like to stay up to date on LifeSite's coverage of
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00:21:31.000 Give.LifeSiteNews.com. And now back to the video.
00:21:36.680 We want to show people, because I think a lot of people do get to that precipice and then say,
00:21:42.680 oh, but what's going to happen with me? I'm going to lose everything and that'll be it. Yeah,
00:21:48.060 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?
00:21:56.200 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
00:22:14.060 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
00:22:38.240 together. But if you become a Catholic, the ambiguity dissolves, it disappears. Um, and you
00:22:44.100 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
00:22:54.480 him Lord? When, when you can be Mary Magdalene grabbing his ankles and burying your, your head in 0.77
00:23:00.400 his legs, um, you know, what, why not? So particularly if you spent 35 years arguing,
00:23:06.560 thinking, reflecting, pulling the thing around, to be freed from that is a wonderful thing.
00:23:12.200 And I can't understand how any Anglican would not want to be freed from it. If they're at all
00:23:16.060 serious about what, what they think might be happening in the Eucharist. I mean, the other
00:23:20.080 thing is we talk, we often talk and quote C.S. Lewis and, and, and, and other writers who say that,
00:23:25.820 you know, when you give God everything, you're not left any poorer. It's just, you, you give him
00:23:31.320 some stuff and he gives you other stuff back. So I gave him some stuff and he, he's given me a lot
00:23:37.880 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
00:23:50.600 found is that as I've spoken about Jesus and, and, and the Catholic church, the church that he
00:23:56.720 founded, which I'm so pleased to have discovered, uh, in the public space, it's touched a lot of
00:24:02.740 people in the heart and a lot of people have become Catholics. In fact, I, I can't, couldn't 0.64
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 0.99
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, 0.98
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 0.97
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 1.00
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 0.99
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 1.00
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? 0.56
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 0.98
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. 0.99
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. 0.98
00:38:14.320 Why do we have enough children? Because we've killed them all. Uh, where are, where are all the, 1.00
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 0.99
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 1.00
00:38:42.860 about abortion. And I was, I, I, you know, while my, while people talked on the phone and I would 0.99
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, 0.94
00:39:04.740 I couldn't understand how human beings on their own could, could do what the Holocaust represented. 0.83
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. 0.57
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 1.00
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 1.00
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 0.99
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, 0.97
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, 0.96
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
00:42:30.340 dynamic.
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.
00:45:07.800 Thank you so much, Kevin. God bless you.
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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