A Strong Sense of Presence

Episode 2: Maggie talks about her Irish Catholic heritage and the ways her faith has influenced her professional life. She explains how she appreciates Catholic Social Teaching but reflects honestly on what she finds difficult about being a Catholic today. 

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Transcript

You're listening to All Kinds of Catholic, with me, Theresa Alessandro. My conversations with different Catholics will give you glimpses into some of the ways we're living our faith today. Pope Francis has used the image of a caravan. A diverse group of people travelling together, on a sometimes chaotic journey together. That's an image that has helped shape this podcast.

I hope you'll feel encouraged and affirmed and maybe challenged at times. I am too in these conversations.

So I'm here today with Maggie. Thanks so much for joining me today Maggie on All Kinds of Catholic and we're looking forward to our conversation.

Good to be here.

So where shall we begin, Maggie? Let's go back in time to when you were a child. What was your childhood like in terms of your faith? Were you a Catholic from the beginning?

Yeah. I was what they call a cradle Catholic. My parents were Irish. You know, typical story of anyone, born in London, you know,  they've met and married here in London and had their family here. I was brought up in West London, went to Catholic school with primary schools and secondary schools, and both my parents were very devout in quite different ways, really. And so, you know, there wasn't really much of a discussion about it. It was just part of our Irish cultural heritage, but, certainly important to my parents. And I can, I was thinking recently about you know, I remember my sister and I, we lived in a top floor flat, and we used to we used run up the stairs, and we used to sort of race Jesus up the stairs? So it was a very sort of presence, very strong sense of presence in our lives. You know? And then, of course, really and when you get to teenage years, then you start to enjoy challenging the nuns at school and, you know, asking difficult questions. And I was a teenager in the Vatican II era, but probably at the time, I don't know how much coverage it was getting. Both my sister and I have often discussed this in the past how, you know, it was a major sort of shift in thinking, even just in terms of the sort of visibility of the Latin mass changing. The priest turned towards the congregation, and, you know, all in a circle. And somehow the relationship also between the church, the priest, and the congregation. So sort of radical things as well as the sort of social justice doctrine of the church. But don't remember much or I can't remember much discussion about that at school or anything. I think it's probably in the later years that maybe when the reports started to come out and it started to be implemented that one was much more aware of what had been happening.

Can I just ask Maggie just to go back to growing up in West London, were you in an area where, you know, in the streets around you, there were lots of Catholic families too, you know, so that when you went to school, was that a kind of a local neighborhood feeling?

Very definitely. I mean, again, I often tell the story that I was in my teens, I thought, in my secondary school in Hammersmith. First of all, Shepherd's Bush and Hammersmith are very very Irish air were very Irish areas. This have changed a bit in composition now. And when I went to school, I remember being a bit surprised thinking, isn't it a strange country, England? Because it seemed to be Irish, Italian, and Polish. Took me a little bit to add these things together. I think, well, maybe just by virtue of being a Catholic school, that's the sort of, you know, the composition of the pupils. So but it was around the area, and my parents would have kept very much Irish social circles. They would have been involved in, yes, social activities. And and our family, our extended family, cousins and uncles and aunts, all lived in the immediate, different parishes, but walking distance from each other. So and I imagine it's true of other immigrant communities too. You know, one member of the family comes first, then they settle down, then they bring other members of the family over, and they sort of tend to stay in the same general area until until there's a particular reason to move on.

And then after school, what did you do? Are you somebody who went to university?

No. No. So I did do a levels, and then I was quite concerned to sort of earn a living. None of our family had been to university at that stage. And, so I followed a sort of 2 year bilingual secretarial course at the French Institute, which was fantastic. And just to jump ahead a bit, when I took a career break, I did go and do a university degree because I sort of felt, I kind of would like to do something now just for the sake of enjoying learning rather than, you know, worrying about getting a job. But the job decision making was quite I think I tie it very much. This is obviously, again, all in retrospect looking back, I tie very much to my faith because, after I finished the 2 year course, I was applying for jobs, and I got offered 2 options simultaneously. And one was with a voluntary organization working in Paris with oh, what's the equivalent? The equivalent here is the International Voluntary Service. So it's the French language equivalent of that. And so they would recruit volunteers to work in, the Global South. So that was one job offer, and I would get the sort of minimum. I'd be working in the Paris office, not not going further afield, but and on the minimum pay. And then I got offered a job in Geneva or somewhere with some sort of UN body that was, you know, fantastic sum of money for a new recruit. But I thought, well, I would have taken the sort of poor paying job if that was the only one available, and it's only for a year, so I might as well do that. Again, I think that's influenced a bit by my sense of social justice. And looking back on it, when I returned to England, I realized I was a bit of a workaholic. And if I was going to be a workaholic, I might as well work for something that I could believe in rather than that just brought money, this sort of wage pack in at the end. So I again feel very much that my faith was kind of directing me, partly luck and and partly making decisions that then influenced the rest of my professional life. Because thereafter, I worked for 17 years for Amnesty International, a huge organization membership organization. I worked partly in research, but mainly on membership and campaigning. And then as I said, after this career break and doing a degree, I went on to work on human rights in Northern Ireland. And I was very interested. I had no links to Northern Ireland, but I was just fascinated as someone living in London hearing, you know, and even experiencing the horrors, even long distance. You know, what was going on, and why was it going on?

And was that during the time that things were particularly bad in Northern Ireland then?

So I started going over to Northern Ireland quite a bit from '88 onwards. So that was quite tricky then, but it was the early seventies that was the worst of the sort of violence. Unfortunately, by the eighties, it had become much more targeted at certain groups of people that were at risk. But I was there. I was very lucky because then I got involved with the local human rights group, and we were very much at the heart of some of the sort of peace building efforts and the peace process eventually. So and I was living there from '93 to 2008. Almost my professional life divides into these 2 long periods with different organizations, one working on international human rights and one working on domestic human rights. So, and again, I I feel that that's very much come out of my faith background that you, you know, should be trying to do something and make a difference.

I'd like to hear more about, I think listeners will be interested in the, well, all of your career, but particularly the Northern Ireland part. But can we just dig into that, how your faith influenced - ? I can hear a kind of sense of justice in there, but can you explain a bit more? Are you able to put into words what your faith really, what it is about your faith that helped you to make those decisions around what to do?

Yeah. I think we were just brought up by our parents to be, you know, to think of other people, you know, to want to make a difference, to be fair to people, to be concerned about injustice. And so as I said, when I came back to to London after the Paris thing, you know, I wrote off to Oxfam and Amnesty and groups like that just to say, well you know? So I didn't have a particularly strong view about where, but I definitely wanted it to be of service in some way. And, again, I do think that came very much from from our parents, who themselves had to just basically, you know, either run pubs or they ran a small cafe thing. So it wasn't as if they'd been able to do it, but they, in all of their dealings with people, they were extremely fair and respectful. I've been talking with my nephew and niece recently about their grandparents. You know? And they, several times, they said to me, they were very advanced, weren't they? Very progressive. I mean so I was being brought up in the in the fifties, and there's a lesbian couple living in the flat in the house next door. And we must have said something one time, you know, about these two women, you know, together. And, my dad just sort of said, oh, they're just two women who love each other. And now looking back on that, you know, Irish working class man in the fifties. Yeah. That's that was the truth of it.

Yeah.

Ideas run very deep, sort of, in that sense. You know? So but I think you asked me more specifically about well, so that's why the faith thing but it's interesting that both in Amnesty and even more in Northern Ireland, I kind of tended to keep my faith a bit invisible, and particularly in Northern Ireland, because I was working with a group that wanted to work across the community and didn't want to automatically put up barriers to communication. So even though I, you know, fairly regularly I wouldn't say every Sunday I went to Mass. You know? But it wasn't, you know, in both organizations in a sense, they were both secular and very obviously secular organizations. And it was just unwise to be visibly, you know, talking about the reason that I was doing this work is because of my faith background. But I know that there are other people for for from different faith backgrounds who had possibly the same motivation, but we never necessarily had those exchanges because it just wasn't appropriate.

It can be distracting for people, can't it? I think they can go down a bit of a rabbit hole sometimes.

Yeah. Or even even that it sort of is a bit excluding. You know? Because if you say I'm doing this because I'm a Catholic, well, then if you're not a Catholic, should you not be doing it? Would you not be doing it? You know? Yeah. So it's just interesting that even though I feel that both of my all of my professional life has been sort of living out certain values instilled in me by by my faith. Actually, I don't know if many of the people that I worked with over all the years would know that I was Catholic. They might guess I was Catholic because they know I've got an Irish background. And my Irishness really was emphasized by working in an international organization. Because when you travel and people say to you, you know, where are you from? I felt, well, I, you know, I'm from London, but I couldn't really say I was English because I'd been brought up in such an Irish Catholic background. And so, you know, I would explain, you know, I was born in London, Irish parents. And don't know what your listeners will think of this, but Irish nationality is a much nicer nationality to have when you're traveling most of the globe than English. You know? Then you have to start defending all sorts of positions, which I which I couldn't have done anyway. It's partly this that it was so tied in also to this cultural aspect of my life.

I think that's an interesting point, Maggie, about not wanting to exclude others by talking about coming from a position of faith. Because I do think sometimes we can get a bit carried away as Catholics. Again, I hope I'm not offending anyone by saying this, but I think we can get bit carried away thinking that that we've got some sort of monopoly on caring about other people and being kind and thinking about people doing less well than ourselves and wanting to give them a helping hand. And really, those things are part of being a Catholic, but they're they're also part of being a human being and and just having some sense of humanity. And so I think you're right. I think there is something there that we need to be sensitive about in the way we describe that sometimes.

Yeah. Definitely.

May we go back to your work in Northern Ireland? And I'm very interested, when I was thinking about us talking today, I was hoping we might talk about this a little bit. So in my background, my father was in the British army. Mhmm. And, he was posted to Northern Ireland. And so I was there as a very small child. You know, the family went with him. I mean, I don't know too much about it. You know, he didn't speak about it a great deal, afterwards. But I do know that he had a couple of uncomfortable episodes where being during your time in Northern Ireland being a Catholic? Because it was such a politicized thing then. I don't know. Maybe it still is, but less so, I hope. Whether you were a Catholic or a Protestant was such a politicized

No. It still it still is very, very definitely. You know, it's still a very segregated society. People live in residentially segregated areas and so on. So there's still a long way to go. I mean, thank God, you know, people aren't killing each other in about the same way that of, you know, pre peace agreement, but there's still many issues to be to be resolved there. I have a, an old school friend who, went to school with same background, Irish Catholic.

She married someone working in the Ministry. Well, she actually worked worked in the Ministry of Defence and then married someone who was in the Ministry of Defence, and they got posted to Northern Ireland at one point. And, you know, she told several stories of, in a sense, passing. I had one passing experience before I'd moved over permanently. I was doing a piece of research about power sharing in local government. I was going around local government authorities and interviewing them, and and I was introduced as an English student from Oxford. I was then invited first of all into the nationalist group of councillors, which is the minority group, and they told me about how they weren't able to do anything because of fair employment cases, discrimination cases being taken, in the council, but, you know, they were the minority party and weren't being able to influence things. And then I went into the the sort of majority unionist delegation, and, they really sort of hit the ground running, telling you about how awful Catholics were. And at one point, it was so obvious. One of the members leant across and said, now we're not prejudiced, though. But then he said, Well, I'm not. Because I was busily taking notes, with a great glee. You know? And subsequently, I was sharing a house because of my age with postgraduate students, and it was an African American I was sharing with. And when I was telling her this story after, she said, Oh, that's like passing. You know? So when, you know, people can actually hear, what do white people really think about black people? What do these senior councillors really think about Catholics? But it obviously goes, it goes both ways. And it it's so easy to be judgmental because I can remember watching a TV program, and there was a man being interviewed. He was he was a Republican, Catholic, and he was talking with such venom about Unionists. And, you know, I was sitting pontificating about, you know, he's not being very fair minded. And then, of course, I hear the story that, you know, his wife had been killed and, you know, there was a whole sort of tragedy behind this. And you think, well, it's easy to judge when it hasn't touched you directly.

Yeah.

So my experience, though, was not going there, you know, with a faith label on. And I was trying to build bridges across different communities to say, you know, whatever divides us, we can all think that everyone must be treated fairly and, you know, human rights must be respected. For example, we did a lot of work around policing. Just, you know, just trying to say to people, well, you know, it's not healthy if 93% of your police force is is from one of the two communities. You know? So whether they want to or not, they will be feeling as if they're imposing order on on the other community. And so I think for your father, it must I can certainly see how it must have been difficult. First of all, for any soldier in a situation like that, they were first called in, you know, to keep the peace. They were warmly welcomed. There were lovely photos, you know, to communities coming out, bringing tea and cake and all the rest of it. And then in no time at all, that sort of changes, and they're seen as an occupying force by at least one part of the community, saviours by the other part of the community. And then that's not necessarily how the soldiers think of themselves. And then if you add the extra wrinkle that your father is sort of feeling, what is this thing about Catholics and Protestants here? And obviously, it is primarily a political dispute, but it has its roots way back. There are actually theological elements to this, an excellent series of books that was done about I think it's the Interfaith Group on Church and Politics or Interchurch Group on Faith and Politics, something like that. And they looked at, I'll just, sorry, give this one concrete example - they looked at funerals, and they explained how theologically Catholics and Protestants have different attitudes to what the funeral service is about. Simplistically, Protestants, you're either saved or not saved. You know, you basically, you know, secure your right to heaven by your actions during your life time. So you don't necessarily have to pray for the soul of the person. You live either, as I said, you know, through their own merits, secure the place in heaven or not. This funeral service is more to celebrate the life of the person and to come together as a community to sort of say goodbye and all that sort of that sort of thing. Whereas, Catholics have this theological belief that you can pray for the life of someone and hope for the best they would be. They go through purgatory or whatever. Protestants looking at the funeral of an IRA man killed by his own bomb,   see lots and lots of people turning out to celebrate the life of the individual, not understanding that many of those people, if not most of those people, will be there either to support the family in their grief and or to pray for this person who definitely needs prayer because he was involved in violent activities. So it is a deeply, it's political, but there are elements in which you say, oh, wow. of course people don't understand. Of course, people have a sort of misunderstanding why that's happened and so on. Because because it's two cultures that have grown up fairly, you know, well, segregated. They read different papers, they play different sports, they go to different schools, you know. How would you know about the different meaning of these things that you see on your TV, you know?

That is fascinating, Maggie. That is really interesting. I'm gonna go away and think about that. And especially because it's, I think there's something about Irish Catholic culture where reflecting on death, as a community, and the place of a funeral and the support that everybody will give when someone has died is, is particularly strong in Irish Catholic culture, I would say.

Oh, definitely. Yeah.

And so that is thrown into even more relief in a situation where the community living alongside your community maybe don't just don't see it in the same way, and perhaps haven't even realised that everybody's looking at it differently. You know, that that's really interesting.

No. Exactly.

And so when we began our little conversation this morning, Maggie, you mentioned that you might talk about why you're a Catholic. I wonder if you want to edge towards thinking about, you know, why why you're a Catholic today. We can see, you know, such a grounding there that that many Irish Catholic people listening will recognise. You know, your Catholic schooling, lots of people listening, perhaps that will resonate with them, and then the choices you've made around your career, which sounds like you really have made a difference to people's lives, you know, as you wanted to. But where are you now?

Well, I still go to church. I still consider myself and would self-describe as an active, practicing Catholic. I'm involved in quite a few Catholic organizations now, you know, so I'm visibly engaging with, you know, Catholic organisations. And suppose I've just, maybe just because there was such a long period where I don't know that I've received an awful -, so all of that because I suppose two things, that I think there's fantastic riches in the in Catholic Social Teaching. It just provides a kind of guide for life, really, all sorts of different aspects of of what's going on TV, on the news, and whatever. And secondly, and that's why I kind of talked a bit about my youth and childhood because I just happened to have been born into that faith group. So I don't know, you know, if I hadn't had, or I don't know if I rationally would think about which faith should I belong to. I don't know that I would sort of want to be a Catholic, but I was born Catholic. Brought up Catholic, and I still very much agree with Catholic Social Teaching. So, you know, why would you then go, you'd work a lot with everyone else, and, I was a bit frustrated, recently at some references to, it was Saint Augustine's feast day the other day, Saint Augustine of Canterbury now. But there was a reference to, you know, praying that Canterbury would return to the Catholic faith, and I felt, one, I don't like that, and two, I don't agree with it. I just don't see, as long as they're doing what they think is, you know, Archbishop of Canterbury is doing what he thinks is right, you know, according to his understanding of of Jesus' teaching. That's fantastic, and I don't want him to do anything else. So, but I was kind of caught up short, recently. Two experiences. One, I was doing, I was the synodal rep for our parish, and I had a fascinating discussion with my niece about why she no longer goes to church. She was brought up by my sister, would have done all that: she served, which we couldn't have done, but she served at Mass when she was a a child and with her brother, you know, would have gone to church until she became an adult enough to make her own decisions and doesn't any longer. But she's very sympathetic to certain church teaching. She's a teacher. She said she would love to teach in a Catholic school. She feels that Catholic schools have a whole person approach, very sort of moral and and very valuable approach to to students and and really really appreciated her own Catholic education and and would like to still be involved in it. But she said it really stuck in my mind when she said, but being a she, she's I mean, I suppose men can be equally very concerned about gender. But anyway, she is very concerned about gender and issues around sexual orientation. She says, I find it just immoral at times, the stance that the church takes. And it was quite a shock to hear that immoral! You know? So that was one. It's kinda played on my mind for quite a while afterwards. And then I woke up in the middle of the night, and I often turned the radio on. And it was BBC World Service, and they were talking about Afghanistan. And they were talking about, now with the Taliban and the loss of women's rights and how far backward it has gone. But there were I think there was someone who used to be a film producer, but now she has to set the things up and there's a man in the room. Obviously, absolutely, from my perspective, absolutely ridiculous. But, of course, I suddenly, you know, in the middle of the night, thought, but I belong to a church that says, I'm active in a church that has some of those same attitudes to women. I'm kind of going through a bit of self reflection thing. When I mentioned this to my niece that I was concerned about, she now she's very worried that she might have, you know, converted me the wrong way around. She still, you know, wants the church to be active on these things. So I've always taken the line, in fact, again, in all my working life, was very much to be influencing change, positive and progressive change. So why would I then not try to do that within my faith community? So it seems wrong to just sort of up and say, oh, well, you know, now I'm thinking about it afresh, I've been too just following along and not really challenging myself or people around me enough. And on the other hand, thinking, well, you know, giving up the ghost is not what I normally do, so I'll probably stick at it.

That reminds me, actually, Maggie. I heard, and I wish I could remember now, but it was a prominent Irish Catholic woman interviewed. And, she was asked why she stays in in the Catholic church when there is what the interviewer described as misogyny. And she said what what I which I think is what you're saying really, but in a more sound bitey way, she said, well, I'm damned if I'm leaving.

Yeah.

You know, and I just thought, yeah, I suppose that is, that is it, isn't it? I mean, we could all leave. We'd be no further on in a way, and it's not us, it's not us that need to leave.

No. No.Exactly. Exactly.

The church needs to change.

Yeah. Exactly. And it needs to yeah. It definitely needs to change, but how to do that and how in a sense to use, because I you know, thinking back, I don't know that I've used the spiritual resources of church as much as I could do. You know, so I'd go to church on Sunday, but I don't feel that it kind of replenishes me in the way that it properly ought. I'm not still not able to pray properly, you know, in a way that I, you know, as I said, gives me the sort of necessary kind of commitment to, you know, to carry on and to keep doing what I think is right, sort of thing. The church gives me teachings, many of which I like and it gives me a framework within which I can do what I think is right. My conscience has been framed to think is right. But I probably should be could be using it more effectively to give me some spiritual replenishment and probably need to take on some more battles.

Very honest, Maggie. That's very honest. Thank you for that. I feel like we might be coming to the end. So, I've really enjoyed that conversation this morning, Maggie.

Thank you. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

I think there's lots there that listeners, will find interesting and, challenging maybe, and things that will resonate with them. So that's, and that's what I'm hoping to do in these conversations. So thank you so much for joining me today.

Thanks so much for joining me today on All Kinds of Catholic. A new episode of this podcast is released each week on Wednesdays. I do hope you'll tune in again.