Of course you don't like the border the border should never have existed in this day and bringing together a century of archives as a border the source of the trouble or is it merely a symptom of the testimonies of people who've lived there smuggled my wedding dress from trees mortgagers cut up this is a story of border country that is on the police civil Wednesday at 1035 on B.B.C. One Northern Ireland. You're very welcome to Sunday sequins If you're just joining us I'm ordering Carvel at will if you are just joining us you missed a very busy and interesting 1st half hour of the program today you can catch up with all of it on the B.B.C. Stands out just to that you know what we've been talking about in your absence the continuing campaign to legalize assisted dying and in particular this week's vote by the Royal College of Physicians to adopt a neutral position on the issue we also heard from Catholic priest Father Martin the Galen Presbyterian minister Reverend Norman how much time on whether or not tensions remain among the major Christian faiths in Ireland and just before 9 we heard of the desperate situation in parts of southern Africa where hundreds of thousands of people have been affected by cycling. So lots for you to listen to again it's all there on the B.B.C. Sounds app we wanted to you to take part as well in the program this morning as always we want to hear your views and comments 81771 we're going to have our main discussion this morning and it's been prompted by a week of tragedies both here at home and abroad and the question for our panel is whether faith or simple hope really can take us through the worst of times is there really any difference between faith in God or a god or simply having a positive attitude we're going to discuss this now with Presbyterian minister the Reverend Sheryl Mabon Michael Nugent from atheist Arland and Jane sure she's a cranial sacral therapist and younger and psychologist and you're all very welcome indeed and Jane perhaps you're new to the program and you're very welcome and delighted to have you thank you explain for listeners just just what you do briefly certainly certainly yes I am what's called a crane you say call therapist and union psychologist and the crane you say call therapist is someone who I work with people who have suffered trauma. And I hope then find a way back to health and normal living after. Big overwhelming experiences and by reconnecting with what we might describe as a higher intelligence a higher healing force within the body and and body awareness it's about bringing them into the present moment. And having empathy for themselves compassion and feeling feeling their experience and a union psychologist also works in a similar way in that it. Brings people to the experience of life and but looks to. Something greater than ourselves as individuals OK well we explore as we go the influences on that and of that and Cheryl it has been a dreadful 7 days so much tragedy on a small scale to a large scale and the pain and the grief is the same in the face of such an onslaught at times like this and we've had them from time to time how do you how do you deal with it. I cry out to go out primarily. In anger sometimes an anger the main thing is to be honest and not to pretend because there's no point in pretending Anyway God knows more than we do. I don't really want to spend the time today discussing there is or isn't a god. But for me the experience has been that there's a promise that we are deeply loved deeply valuable and then when you see massacres and floods and crushes and terrible things. It does make you think will what's going on are these people not valuable to you God And so we cry on their behalf and we cry out for ourselves and our helplessness. And I find in the scripture in the Psalms you know company throughout the centuries and across the the world and with people who have experienced great loss and great hardship and great pain and all the same questions that we have. So we're not on our own in the US and we journeyed together with what we can learn from where people have been before and there's wisdom there too in the sun and in the the. Different ways that people have tried to challenge God or to sometimes placate God sometimes but God in a box and learning from all of that in my Christian life. But also. Just being alongside people who are suffering today so so. There's been a few sad things that I can't talk about individual people concerned but I was able to say to them you know what does that mean to you what is your faith mean to you where do you find your hope in the midst of you know the loss of your child or or whatever you're going through. And I'm amazed at the responses that I hear from those people today that the depth of maturity and the strength of commitment to being related to people and that we're more than just stardust we're more than just molecules and that the love that is at the heart of the universe. Which we put in terms of the Creator and whom we live and move and have our being that he holds us together and has a purpose beyond what we can understand OK Michael Nugent Michael from a theist Island You're very welcome the same question really to you Michael in the face of such such tragedy and how do you how do you deal with that how do you face it. Well I should preface it by saying course that atheists react in different ways because we're different people who are on a personal level I mean there are 2 types of tragedies that I would have to deal one is you know the death of well younger brother when I was in my parents my wife and then at the water level there are atrocities you know close to home with a lot over over the over our lifetime in northern or in the particular. Elsewhere and the way that I deal with it is 1st of all by recognizing that we have we all as human beings have empathy and compassion and sense of reciprocity and co-operation and fairness and justice I will try to channel my. Depression or anger into those rather than into the other stages of grief which are do you know denial and bargaining and then ultimately you reach acceptance where I think David Castro who wrote the book with Elizabeth KOHLER Ross on the 5 stages of grief which are denial anger bargaining depression acceptance he's since written another book out in the sixty's which is finding meaning and I think that's the key to it you find your own sense of meaning that arises from us and you channel your feelings in so that for example when my wife died recently I've channeled a lot of my work into campaigning for assisted dying which is something that meant a lot to her because she died of cancer and a societal level when the euphemistically described troubles were happening in Northern Ireland I was involved in organizing protests in fame U.T.A. Offices organizing flowers and condolence cards from people from the Republic to the society to the local societies that had experienced atrocities in Northern Ireland and then political lobbying So those are the type of things that I do I try to work towards ensuring are not insuring but work towards minimizing the impact of future events like that on other people and Jane to bring you back in at this point most of us weren't directly affected by the events of the past week but yet we're still impacted by them at this distance so how do you how do we deal with them how do you deal with them. And I think. Following on from what the other 2 have said it's not a point denying what's happened it's about really feeling in too high we do respond and also knowing that there is another possibility as well so if I see what's happening in New Zealand. My initial response might have been to be angry to have felt all those feelings of rage and anger and despair in my body and and then to see that something else has come through now I and to see high the community has come together and love compassion empathy support that's really what has. Balanced on it in a way in to some mix extent and the atrocities and of the killings there and I think for me and whether it's a huge situation or whether it's a smaller situation it's a boy being with water and not denying that but also knowing that there is another possibility. And maybe orienting towards those those qualities of compassion presence and Kathy a connection to others. Sheryl Where does hope come in to this for you well I would like to follow on from what Jane's saying you know when we find that there are events that are just so unbelievably horrible and evil that we don't think that there is any way I mean the whole cost you know that there's no way of balancing that out with goodness and saying well you know people were kind to each other and that's OK then but to know. As I sense that very deeply that that God was with us and Christ. And not avoiding pain not glossing over it but coming and experiencing our human experience on our pain right to the to the depths of hell. And to God is with us and what we're going through so it's kind of counter narrative to the kind of great view of Zeus throwing down under bolts from heaven and God comes down and acts the lightning conductor and don't ask me where the lightning bolt came from that's the whole problem but but you know God chooses to be with us to take the heat and to take the paying and to transform up and to make it possible to be more than the victim. And to become the victor through love through perseverance and through the gift of life that is given to us the promise of it at Easter with resurrection but that we find and many signs as Jane was saying you know that the kindness and the compassion of the people in New Zealand really speaks of the capacity to transform something negative and to something incredibly positive and I see that as testily I think I think that's the key isn't it it's the transformation it's the transformation through the relatedness through the interconnections through the interconnections that realising that there is something bigger. Than Than us as individuals Michel. Well I don't think it's a question of hope I think what it is closer to is resilience and I think that there's a lot of study in recent decades by a group of psychologists who call themselves positive psychologists who have said you know that psychology has told us a lot of bells and research not improper terms proper scientific terms or you know . Depression and psychosis and neurosis but there's not enough study done on positive emotions like optimism and hope and strength and resilience and they've done a lot of research on that in recent years and one of the things that I find very interesting from an evidence based perspective is that lottery winners typically a year later are a Belgian as happy as they were before they won the lottery and part of play jacks a year later are the bells as happy as they were before they became paraplegics and it's because one of the things with humans is where we're very good and in fact to good at recognizing how good good things are and how bad bad things are in the moment but we don't recognize how resilient we are and how we can adapt and how we can get beyond regardless how we do it regardless of what we go through through religious beliefs or through secular beliefs but that we can move beyond these and the the it's so the old. Time heals all does actually show to have a basis in scientific research Michel putting hope in ourselves is really another way of saying we have resilience Yeah except I don't think it's hope you see I think I think the problem is when we talk about faith we typically associate faith with religion but you can have faith and secular project as well you can of people of faith and communism people of faith in the on regulated free free markets I'm sure people had faith in 2006 and the breakfast will be easy but ultimately reality intervenes and we have to adjust. Beliefs based on reality and I think that there's a lot of evidence now that shows that we are stronger than we think we are and that we can get through these things and I think a lot of that is working together and like for example if you take recently here atheist aren't obviously believes that's. The reason atheism is a more reliable worldview than religion but we also work with religious people including the arm of the Muslim community in the evangelical and some secular issues and when recently the the I'm a day a Muslim mosque and go away was it was attacked by vandals. Atheists are and were the 1st people there the following day to stand alongside them and to show compassion and empathy and solidarity and so I think that's very important in these issues is that while we can and do strongly disagree on the nature of reality in the nature of morality that's one tragedies arise we can and do stand alongside the center and work together sharing and Michael just so glad that you're saying that because Jesus affirms to us that it's not what we say we beliefs of faith isn't just an abstract system of thought and belief but what we do how we treat the people made in God's image is how we treat God And so our faith shows itself not by our metaphysical notions but highly we actually engage relational faith as an act of thing it's about our faithfulness and actually the great word and New Testament for faith and Faithfulness is the same word so you know there's a whole day. Dichotomy it's not a call to me it's a bringing together of what you believe and how that makes you act that's really easily lost in Christian faith and shouldn't be lost in Christian faith because Jesus was central to saying it's not who calls me Lord Lord but those who do the will of God which is to love each other and. Love our enemies so what you've just described is a very good example of thought how you have acted by faith even without naming God but my understanding of God would be that Jesus has said that you have responded an ungodly way by showing up and being that well kind of clarify that I wouldn't consider what we're doing to be acting knew he would suffice and that I will have to you have I think. For me faith is believing things disproportionately to the best available evidence and as a side are not restricted that religion I'm saying can equally apply to secular projects but what I base my. My morality and $1000000.00 is on evolved human attributes that are common to everybody as I like empathy compassion reciprocity cooperation fairness justice and those things are natural no religion to me is an extra element complicates those natural reactions and if we go back to faith being possible with some religious and secular projects the difference between those that would faith and secular projects like communism or the unregulated free market you eventually realize because the bomb central authority that you have to change of years but because religious faith hides its testability in an afterlife it means that it doesn't come up against those checks and balances and so you can get people in of obviously not for a moment suggesting that this. Is yourself or a book but you can get people who do believe that gods are telling them to do horrible things and therefore do them because of faith yeah OK we are discussing the merits of faith as opposed to hope or simply a positive outlook on life this comes after a week of of dreadful tragedies both here and abroad where in studio Presbyterian minister the Reverend Cheryl Megan and Jane Shore cranial sacral therapist and young and psychologist on Michael Nugent is in Dublin he's with atheist art and Jane for you what is Faith's relationship to hope both being theological virtues are they 2 sides of the same coin how do they work how do you use them in your work . Well referring back to what Michael and show both mentioned is this idea of resilience and experience experience in the moment and so. For me faith is it's an interesting wired because it's an excess if for me it's an experience of that there is another possibility and and can we feel that in our in our body so we might feel the rage and the anger and the grief held in our heart by a contract did I contracted body we might feel our throat close up we might get a headache and is it is it possible to let go of some of that to relax to to express ourselves in an authentic way Quidditch and allies us to feel that we can return to who we really are rather than being and being conditioned by the experience around us and yes if we are and. Where we where for me and there's the idea of another possibility and being reminded that there are these feelings and it to me it's an embodied feeling of love compassion empathy those more. Related qualities and can we remember that they are there within everything so that. Yeah that for me the danger is that the God who's telling us to to perform atrocities. That to me is. A very dissociated way of behaving it's not being here in the present moment because if we're here in the present moment and related to each other we act from the heart from a place of compassion and in the Christian faith clearly I think we're using different definitions of faith which is why we're sort of sorting across cross purposes and it's quite clear that there were religious people who put Jesus to death you know who sacrificed him allegedly for the good of the nation in order to protect the status quo and so were they acting in God's will I don't think so were they acting out of love well they might have argued that they were were they being faithful to God only knows what their heart was doing at the time but my understanding of faith is that it's acting in faithfulness towards the character that the loving kindness of God that I believe is the heart of the universe and that binds us together in the makes all relationship possible so am I. So to kill somebody in cold blood like that is not to be acting in faithfulness to the love of God and I don't believe that that's who God is. But that's my sense of it and I do understand that it's your well yeah and to to bring in the concept that Michael was referring to this idea of resilience if we act in that place we're not acting from a place of resilience were packed in from a place of actually quite disempowered behavior we're acting in a high state of fighting the light of anger rage Michael just just finally I suppose is it is it always right to maintain hope even in awful times do we do we sometimes have to yield to negative forces to admit reality and perhaps ultimately that can lead to positive transformations Well of course and that's the whole point of an evidence based worldview is that is that you do try to find you never know exactly what's true but you try to find what's closest to being reliable in terms of what your way what you put the evidence suggests is true and so one of the things for example that when you're if you're talking about reactions tragedy atheists can look at a tragedy more realistically because we don't have to wonder why God let it happen we don't have to wonder why God save one person to let others die or how God can help us to get through the tragedy are part supplications that we have to make to the god in order to help us and those things that they kind of tell you in with the denial and bargaining stages of grief so so we don't have to go through those so we can more easily get to the stages of acceptance and seeking meaning because of us find work to share I'm just not sure that it's the belief in God or not belief in God that helps with that because somebody who believes in God can equally accept and say it is well it is well with my soul Jane final word for me if we can have an involved experience and whether we know the. Other possibilities if we can have a more authentic and empowered life well we'll we thank you all very much for taking part in our program this morning Jane Shaw Reverend Cheryl Mabon and Michael Nugent 81771 is the tax number for your thoughts to Sunday sequence this morning it's 926. Stories in Sox where documentary must come tonight. My name is Dan Carsen I write from the end it plain and these are stories from the same border. Here the water and your Majesty pretty. Easy monthly huge I. See it. To create an experience but it's a feast for not money human beings can get to. That's in the next stories inside this afternoon 1230 on the D.C. Already a long story and also available on B.B.C. Sounds. In this week's classical connections here on B.B.C. Radio whilst a presenter John tolls visits and Maliki's college to hear their new organ gifted to them by their north Belfast neighbors Fort William and McCrory Presbyterian Church as you're about to hear it's sounding great. Mark McGrath is the director of the college choir director of the chamber choir here at some of the scholars about fast and obviously delighted to have this new toy and he thought it's wonderful thing to have and it was more than we could have expected we're thrilled to have it and we have it here in the college old which means that we can use it for teaching but we can also use it for any kind of important ceremonial things that we have here like prize day or and it's hard things as well as concerts that are in the college bowl and I know this idea of solar plinth you can buy those I wonder for you can move around all is can actually see when there's a recital maybe that the. It Up close and see what they can see which is often looks like if you're a pupil and doing a recital is terrifying but it's brilliant because sometimes if you hear an organ played and you don't see the organist you don't really realise what's going on but here you can see that the feet are working away as well as the hands and you can see the page turners doing their thing and you can see it all but also because we can move it if we need it to be out of the way for other college stuff we can do that so it's a really wonderful thing for us it's perfect seat of a whole new generation of organ scholars coming out of some of these days it's wonderful that in the parishes across the dices and a fight across the country there are lots of places where they have organs and no one to play them what is brilliant about what we've got going on here with the organ scholarships and there is a couple of old boys have been so keen to keep this going that they are actually personally helping us fund organ scholarships for the next generation but there are so many parishes with empty organ councils and no one to play them and what we hope we can do is train a couple people here who can then go on into parish life and raise it started to keep the tradition. From St Maliki's college on the new organ gifted by Fort William and McCrory Presbyterian Church you can do so one classical connections B.B.C. Radio all star 3 o'clock this afternoon blasphemy is one of those words that seems to be locked in the 16th century and then suddenly reappears as a fiery topic in the 21st century are we too sensitive about faith and religion too afraid to take criticism on the chin and defend whatever beliefs we may have with the Reverend Andrew Conway's a Presbyterian minister in his town and Tom Duff in County Down He's written a book called The right to be ridiculed and he's with us this morning and you're very welcome thank you thanks for coming into us what inspired this book. I suppose that keep a bite in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the Charlie Hebdo Mike is even par us. And. There was a bit of public discourse with the on the question of the right to read the kill Have you ever got a right to ridicule somebody else's beliefs because the magazine had drawn cartoon images of the Prophet Mohammed that's right to that's right yeah so I did a quite a bit of thinking I suppose if I do have a right to ridicule out I didn't come to any definite conclusion but it struck by on the basis of what Jesus says of Matthew 5 that when you're one of his followers you have the right to be ridiculed in the sense that if you are ridiculed for your faith you have something that it's worth being ridiculed for and does that happen to you often I mean have you had much need to queue for your beliefs and your faith and not an awful lot I made I did nothing that would be particularly unusual as they would say maybe they ahd to do you have discussions slow yes or yes discussions Yes And how do you hide you deal with it how do you respond. Well I I at the pens I suppose are the called Tech Sometimes I think it's meant to be hubris that I would generally just laugh it off as sometimes it's maybe a bit more heartfelt that it's possibly coming from the fact that the person has some hurt maybe even hurt caused by the church and then what I would want to do is listen to us there's an opportunity that maybe it's just a very brief conversation or maybe there's an opportunity there for them to share a bit more so to respond with my ears I suppose was probably before what do you say how do you defend your beliefs. Well I suppose I just point to who Jesus as of what he says and. That's all of it have been so but to tell us what's what's in your book how do you how do you defend the right to be really cute . The book is as more or less a kind of practical exploration of Jesus' words Blessed are you when people insult you persecute their falsely say all kinds of evil against you so I suppose at what he reads ovens familiar with church probably find that it had a raids a little bit like the the star but in a Presbyterian service so. They explored what the words made and either really at that they did a life of kind of thing and the right to ridicule and the mocking of the sincerely held beliefs of others do you believe that is morally appropriate. I don't think so it started out some thought that I I wouldn't attend the day I think Lish probably I am to some extent of interested conversationalist of what the Bible says on the matter because I think you might argue that Alija for instance ridiculed the prophets of Baal and you might possibly argue that there's some indication that Jesus to certain extent ridiculed the Pharisees but I don't think. Even if the Lord that I'm self with as true to compassionate heart doesn't necessarily mean that they that he gives me the right that it. That's why I suppose for many people that they would ask why religious beliefs hold a grace or prohibition on ridicule and then say social views are economic lose Yeah adults are lots of fair question and. They are I don't have any intention of ridicule or that able to belief social they get over philosophical or whatever and I don't under the books not a bite at the books or by. Exploring Jesus' words that said that as Christians if we find that wherever killed we should know that Jesus is worth the. So that's what's at the not. Blasphemy it's still on the statute books he or she should be removed do you think. I am I think that I think it's something that needs to pay I handled very carefully I appreciate that we're in a very different context from when those laws were framed at the same time. Certainly you're beat you to want to make any change in the law that leads to. The speech that is offensive the people at the same time I I think you got a card for a speech very carefully so. Not afraid after the answer I'm afraid if I suppose if you believe in the right to be ridiculed then does that logically extend that you believe in the right to ridicule and that I am not sure. They get out and I and a practical sense I I am I'm not intend to read a kid on a boat I am not encouraging Christians to ridicule me but I have absolutely say in F. Way already killed by other people way way should love them none the less. So. When your book is called the right to be ridiculed and it's published by onwards and upwards of I'll try to publish your right straight right now and thank you very much for coming in to talk to us on Sunday sequence this morning the Reverend Andrew Conway that both the right to be ridiculed it's 25 to 10 now and Sunday sequence constantly told you it's going to drama see your car going from mistakes through to the semifinal days it's got to easy as if. I were going to the ceiling in the summer and it's getting really exciting to. The contenders take to the stage for the 1st semifinal of B.B.C. Northern Ireland school choir I think here THIS HOUR tuning in to B.B.C. Weighty Well Star and on B.B.C. Selling. I think of a remote island town perhaps like us your mind is full of swaying palm trees afternoon cocktails lazing by the pool Well if that's what you're looking for then wet windy and cold lock dark is maybe not for you but T.V. Producer Damian McCann has been there 4 times in one month to make a documentary series on the centuries old pilgrimage sites Damien You're welcome thank you very much and you lived to tell the tale. But would you describe for us its geography and its landscape so Loch Derg. Is on the border between from Ana and Donegal it's quite a small lark and in the middle a lock there's an island which is where the pilgrimage charms so you drive down a road I said a petty go on the road only goes one place and that's to the island takes 20 minutes to get down the road so essentially there's nothing else and we were near you there's no more no place else to go and when you get the luck a basilica rises up out of it it's a 1000 person or Celica So it's not a small building. And as I say once you're on the island you get a boat you get a kind of ferry boat across and it takes maybe 10 minutes to get there but once you're there there's nothing else to see but wilderness isn't a date on the 5th century what is said to have happened there why is it a place of pilgrimage Well the 1st written a kind I guess that they have dates back to a boat I think the 12th century and it was based on the the troubles of the night called or one who had been. Around Europe and had been fighting in wars and stuff like that and he came back to Ireland kind of atone for his sins and the place that he went to was locked or it had been norm previous to that that had been said that sympatric had been short of key if by God and that's were on went he went and got into the cave and that's where the vigil starts he's there for 48 hours and the modern day a pilgrimage short of is based upon the tradition when you go into the basilica at night the doors are locked and it's supposed to replicate the key of that ornament because it's also known as an Patrick's purgatory is that that's correct yeah that's where it comes from that's the original as you said the 1st century that it was whose with the Potter could been shown in the 1st place OK so what is the pilgrimage then what happens when pilgrims go there to spend 2 days it's kind of tough to explain which is probably best for T.V. But essentially she was there for 3 days you're there you're Burfoot on an island and the rocks are very harsh they're very rough I'm pretty sure someone sharpens them every night but I can't be throwing a lot of. You fast you get one meal a day which is dry toast and blacked. Or coffee. And you do a series of prayers around these penitential beds. And it's a certain amount you go around the outside of $13.00 times at the end and at the entrance to you go around the inside of 3 times then you need to cross the middle to there's a whole routine to essentially and you do. It takes an R. To do each kind of round you do through that 3 of them the 1st day you do for them in the middle of the night so you're up in the Basilica you don't go to bed for you don't go to bed at all so at 10 o'clock you go into the basilica and you don't come out again until 6 o'clock the next morning so overnight you're Rappler kitten the kind of pilgrimage they do you do outside so it's essentially it's a very bar an island there and you're just walking around barefoot the whole time it's very physically tough which I hadn't really a kind of for. But I met them and signed all awful and yeah does OK I can hear and I felt. You know the upside it's interesting. Again I had a kind of Ford and I did the pilgrimage initially myself before when I was the crew and it's really tough and you spend the whole time thinking I can't with the GO HOME AND I CAN'T WAIT for this to end and I'm never going to do it again but there's something about putting your shoes back on in your socks back on and going home and having a bar of chocolate in a kind of makes you appreciate the small things that the. That you don't always account for in everyday life you go home and think to push you know a roof over my heads enemies and think you know going to talk about the people you met there in just a moment. Because you're talking there about what happens during the program by gender and eating that the dry toast and so on and we can hear a clip now from the kitchen workers in Dr Eric. Tell him that he wanted a. Place where elders. And he in cop a. There should be you know take their light on a table and wheaten bread. And just preparing all the terms for telegrams and. Most say no I can tell how 3. In here you'd be lucky to get a day off by someone out here for water anything with 30 to your coffee if you bring it to dessert menu and everything. You toss with no butter. Who was there Damien when you who are the pilgrims so the pilgrims come for a variety of reasons a lot of people it's it's to reconnect with their faith and of course a lot of people go there are depressed for very specific reasons and vigil reasons not just Catholics is that for the most part you know for the most part it is Catholics I mean there are there is a certain amount of other people who go there and it's an increasing thing that we find is people going for a digital detox people who maybe haven't you know being connected with their feet for a long time people who don't have any fear the tall but it's you know it's a very unique place in that there's not many other places now and you can go on the strip. your you know phone your laptop to get aware from work so why say would to the majority of it is our religious experience there is a certain amount to people who who look out of from that angle as womb and many young people there i surprise in the mind i have to say i may bit with my own preconceptions but i thought the was quite a lot of young people are i can it couldn't believe it the the 1st there that we were there for example we mad a woman who was $23.00 she was university whitney on exam results which is another classic reason my boo boo go and she had a range the boss load of me be 30 of her friends to go the role common from on hunt so the 1st there was there are you know woods there was quite a lot a young people yeah so i think they're still a strong tradition with my grandparents did it or my grip grandparents the editor aren't these are uncles dead it on the and people calm for those reasons they come for for their exam reasons of course on then again it's young people mostly for the digital the talks and i know it is not interesting because am i wonder sometimes how we bit too cynical a bike young people i'm prayer and high they pray have just meeting recently about justin bieber asking his fans to pray for him at the moment because he's struggling and clearly there are many young people who for of for them prayer is import absolutely get it's all dined it you know again i can only speak from a personal point of viet my own preconceptions of an island that's a 1000 years old on that seems a bit inch and than a but ken of foreign a bit removed but you know people go for different reasons it own personal reasons and you know i domy it was kind of incredible the see this he saw many young people it wasn't just that there was a feel it was saw many of them and i mean it's being there for so long our numbers reducing their wire their fewer people going now then maybe 304050 years ago yeah i mean i think there were pretty open about that there are definitely less people are and you know a lot of people in we were speaking to them were town us that the you know a years ago 3040 years ago there would have been hundreds and hundreds on the island young you couldn't move for the amount to people To me there seems like a lot you know that last year we were there you know there was maybe 140 people or over which to me seemed quite a lot for such a small island but definitely as far as I understand the numbers are declining again if we spoke to some of the priests maybe they would say that there are some benefits that as well that it's a lot quieter and it's you know you have the opportunity be a lot more reflective and have a lot more space of your own so why it's there are you know concert there also looking at the positives of the day I mean what did people say to you at the end of that the 3 day pilgrimage what what were their thoughts as they were leaving the island most people did there is a can euphoria to when you're We on the boat to go back you can get a bit giddy maybe and a lot of people said that you know the funny thing I always thought when people were going home was that everyone told you about the rumor that if you look back from the boat if you look back at the island it meant you were going to go back now really so when you're on the boat everyone forward don't ever look back but of course the boat man turns the boat for everyone to look at you can hear the whole say go to. The guard but you know for the most part of the euphoria people looking forward to getting home and you know the feel like they've done something worthwhile of the how to challenge and of you know they've lived up to yeah exactly would you go back you know I guess when I was on the air and I swore I would never go back but as soon as I set my foot back on the mainland the thought you know might give it another go but I don't know I mean to me that maybe next several for you know a lot of evidence meant Tell us about your program then when is it OUR So it's on tomorrow night on B.B.C. 2 10 pm and it's a 3 part series so that's the 1st the 1st episode and then it's every Monday after that a touch of course it's called Rock which means pilgrimage access to thank you very much Dave may look forward to that tomorrow night B.B.C. To Northern Ireland at 10 o'clock Damien McCann thanks very much for coming in to tell us all about what we're saying on a T.V. Theme but on a radically different story this one involves a mayor born Catholic priest Hollywood movie stars. And the CIA The Life and Times of Father Patrick Peyton it was the focus of the R.C. Documentary with the great name of Guns N Roses Reese Peter Kelly was producer and director and he's with us this morning Peter you're welcome good morning Audrey should be an award in itself for the title it's brilliant Well I think it catches a lot of what the whole mission of Father Payton was doing its bold sets the tone for the times that he lived through and that mission of promoting family prayer and the family rosary Let's talk a little bit about him Father Peyton he was born in County Mayo Yes born in a little place called and he mastered side of. The guard family on a small farm it was no great surprise I suppose that when he was a young man there weren't very many options so he emigrated to America but he always had I think a yearning to be a priest he had discussed back home in Mayo but he hadn't got much education actually and it was only when he got to America and he got the opportunity to do his high school diploma that he went forward to the Seminary of the Holy Cross congregation at Notre Dame. And while there was studying he contracted TB which in those times is pretty much a death sentence and that's where the rosaries reference in the title is about his devotion to the rosary so where did that devotion come from well as he was lying as they say on his death bed and he was that there were very few options in terms of treating his T.V. What he did was he turned to the prayer that he knew growing up looking for some hope and the prayer was to found the rosary and he prayed the rosary very diligently and contrary to all medical expectations as they say he actually he became cured he came free of TB And for him of course this was a miraculous cure and he was totally sold on the idea that the rosary was the cause of his cure and he said I will dedicate the rest of my life to promoting the family rosary and he would have said the rosary as a family at home in County Mayo you know pretty much thought that that wasn't that unusual and I think a lot of a lot of older people certainly an ardent across Arlin today would say well yes we used to play the family rosary as well and people often talk of a trying to have you know being on their knees and try to hold a straight face is true it's true giggles and that as their parents lead them in the family rosary that memory is still very much alive an ardent today let's hear a little bit from Father Peyton himself here he is from the archive talking about prayer we are brought to this picture as we bring your the family here every week because we know not only united each day and prayer and bring an end to the work. But I believe with all my heart and promise you. To gather together. And I work prayer will be a work. A world of prayer will be a world of peace he also used the phrase the family to praise together stays together Peter we can hear him there in the tape he's. On the radio so how does he do that he wanted a bigger stage to spread the word so how did the radio gig come to him well he was you know absolutely passionate about spreading this he had a crusade as he called it for family prayer and he realized that the media was a way to do this so he had been tinkering around a bit with local radio in upstate New York where he was based and then he got a chance to appear on a national broadcast and he was talking about the rosary and they said maybe you could give away a free rosary rosary beads and a little pamphlet too you know to promoters and they said you know you might get a couple of 1000 you know people who might want this after 3 weeks there were 56000 so he knew that there was an appetite at least if he in his on his terms he felt was an appetizer and he knew that he had to get on national radio so he just went around by during the big broadcasters to try and get some time on a national radio and he was put in the position where they said look you're going to have to get some celebrity endorsement here I got somebody that some recognition that the audience could relate to and his breakthrough moment actually was on a Mother's Day broadcast in in May $945.00 and a coincided with the kind of national mood that the Thanksgiving that the 2nd World War in Europe was over and it was a huge hit and Peyton had the genius to bring in Crosby on the show being cross becomes on the show and he talks about Suppose he encouraged prayer with his own family and all of us and this was really a breakthrough moment and capture is the magic formula that Peyton would going to pursue for the next 3040 years getting a celebrity endorsement for his crusader family prayer because Bing Crosby was probably the biggest star in America at that stage was he yeah it's a funny kind of coincidence because American Catholics in America were not a particularly popular group they were treated with a great deal of suspicion up until the 2nd World War So and obviously after the war would. Greater you know wealth and moved to the suburbs and all of that kind of integration of the Irish American Catholics happened a little more easily but the media played a very important role in changing the kind of popular perception and being Crosby it was in this movie going my way and we make a little feature out of it in the in the film where he played a Catholic priest in an inner city parish turning a gang of juvenile delinquents into a church choir and this was a hugely popular film biggest grossing movie of $944.00 nominated for 10 Academy Awards won 7 including one for being Crosby and because he was just a huge huge multi-media star on radio in accordance and now in movies and having him on board kind of and playing the role of a Catholic priest turned a Catholic priest into a popular hero I mean he was very clever wasn't he was a real clever strategist a marketing strategist because he in a bid to get the Hollywood celebrities on board he used his connections within the Catholic church he went to Beverly Hills he went to the church frequented by most of the top Hollywood celebrities of the time absolutely I mean there was an Irish Catholic priest. Who is the parish priest there so these are the kind of things that Peyton did he was terribly he had that kind of good naivete a childlike kind of just let's just do a kind of attitude very American actually. And he happened to chance upon loads and loads and he basically twisted the arm of every artist American Catholic movie star but then of Catherine momentum he got loads of other people I mean Jimmy Stewart he wasn't catholic Kirk Douglas he was Jewish all of these people in the names of people that he got to come on his show and adore family prayer is just so impressive it's all the big movie stars of the forty's and fifty's that you could possibly imagine singlemindedly just say oh yeah OK I'll become part of that. Loretta Young I mean she she was very religious so she got on board as well and you mentioned Jimmy Stewart they're here here's him endorsing father Patrick Peyton Manning very. Very stork tonight the family sailor stars Loretta Young and on a mission you know since there's our 1st program everywhere I have a medication all right now. Let's barricade the families there or to your family I hope the families everywhere around always be together. Like your home or me a happy one with a conviction. Prayer. Simple Prayer. It's Jimmy Stewart What a voice and then Grace Kelly later to become Princess Grace she would get involved as well yet again time I heard the word the family that prays together stays together I was listening to a radio program as a young girl in Philadelphia the words are as true today as they were then they were added by a man we knew is the rosary priest Father Patrick father Patrick Peyton and Peter Kelly is joining us this morning to talk about his documentary guns and rosaries and these rosary rallies they were huge across America when the piece ran he had woman in Arlington 1954 you had the During the Marian year of 1954 the year that the pope dedicated to Mary father Peyton came back to our lives on a kind of a homecoming tour and he did a series of these rosary rallies as they were called for they in a football stadium they just. Thousands of people and have a parade of the living rosary with local school children dressed up and forming the shape of the Rosary in the middle of the field and he held a series of 2122 rallies including one in Belfast. With 100000 people who showed up I mean this must have been a very very odd and certainly very significant display of Catholic triumphalism and feel. Like in Belfast in 154 where we'd love to hear from anyone this morning if they remember that event in 1954 and it is if things couldn't get any stranger Peter they do he then came to the attention of the CIA Well the backdrop to all of this period the late forty's 950 S. Into the sixty's is the Cold War and the CIA would have been very conscious of the NIE of guests they talked about Soviet expansion and all that and the dangers of international communism and those those fears I think you know we have to try and understand the context of the times they were pretty legitimate fears because their wares situations where Soviet and Chinese Communism was taking over parts of the world and in American terms they were actually losing and they saw the next place where this could happen being Latin America and Latin America was largely Catholic and then on the radar comes this father Peyton who's got this message of family prayer which is very much in sync with the American values at the time and they said well OK maybe we could use this guy to fight communism in Latin America and they did. They did they and Payton was a willing participant in this basically that he took money to help organize the the rallies these big rosary rallies across Latin America and the CIA directed where and when these things would take place and this was kind of coordinated in the you know before joining in after elections and that kind of thing every strategic approach to try and help fight communism in the in the in the region it was it was a way of using front groups and the CIA did this I mean Peyton wasn't alone there were others I mean Billy Graham got money from the CIA lots of journalists and intellectuals and civil rights groups even trade unionists the Boston Symphony Orchestra got money from the CIA to tour Europe which was all a kind of part of the battle for hearts and minds and we make the point in the in the film that well this was both the battle for hearts and minds it was also a battle for souls yeah and did the Vatican eventually find out well they did and the pope wasn't was none too happy about this father Payton taking money from the CIA and in the mood of the 1960 S. When everything starts to change you know the social and political values in America and across the world are changing and even in church terms but Vatican 2 underway. The mood was changing and when the Pope found out about what for the Pagan was doing he told him to stop. Did he make much money from it at all Peter Oh I think people are surprised when they heard that the CIA were funding father Peyton the documentation would seem to show that he got about a $1000000.00 which in one way is a lot of money in another way on a huge big kind of global geo political campaign it's a pittance the money was spent on the events and advertising and that kind of thing paid him self as was no money man and the joke was that he never even paid for anything in his whole life he was always as you know looking for a favor here and there. You know being in a lift on a flight of whatever would never pay for anything him self he didn't this wasn't anything for his own personal benefit his motivation was purely the promotion of prayer and how it could help save as he said a word of prayers a world of peace how did he see out his life well he never gave up on his mission I think it's probably fair to say to some extent that his the old style devotions of the of the Rosary and that kind of model that he had is just became old fashioned and it fell out of step with the seventy's and eighty's but Peyton ready never gave up it's quite extraordinary even the year before he died he died in 1902 the year before he died he was organizing rosaries for Russia because the you know the curtain to just come to town and he or he organized a 1000000 rosaries to go to Russia the year before he died he never gave up on his mission he was totally single minded totally dedicated to this mission and he's on the path to St Issey Yes In December 27th he was declared venerable by the Vatican his cause for his sainthood was actually open to just a couple of years after he died and now he's one step away so there is this point in trying to understand the man and his times and there will be a judgment made by the good people in the Vatican as to whether this man is going to be a saint Well it's a remarkable story and the documentary is really. Well worth a watch it's called Guns N Roses Reese and Peter Kelly is the producer and director and Peter we're grateful for you to you for talking to us this morning thank you very much indeed for that it's Peter Cathy O'Connor Bradford has joined us in studio to tell us what's on the Sunday news at one morning Conor guns rosaries good title I was coming up on the program seen a Conservative M.P. Say they've told the prime minister that her breaks a deal is more likely to be approved in a fresh Commons vote if she promises to step down so will she stand down and will the deal be voted on this week will be asking those questions also police have said they'll continue to patrol facilities at Queen's University after a controversial motion put forward by the Queen's Students' Union Council calling for police officers to be excluded from the university campus so political not 1 o'clock before that Connor thank you very much indeed the time now is 10 o'clock on Monday 2 to 95. 1341 media. B.B.C. Radio one. The chancellor Philip Hammond has accused cabinet ministers allegedly plotting to iced teas a May of being self-indulgent senior conservatives are said to have told the prime minister she could unlock more support for her brags that daily if she offers to stand during sitting and is not in charge of the next each of negotiations with the E.U. Mr Hammond was speaking on Sky News the world.