Elizabeth Oldfield speaks with writer and Catholic priest, Fr James Martin. 23/10/2024

Father James Martin and our host, Elizabeth Oldfield discuss his journey to becoming a Catholic priest and the Jesuit motto of finding God in everything. We spoke about the difficulty of living a life of chastity, becoming a vocal advocate for LGBTQ inclusion within the Catholic Church and navigating backlash as a public figure.

Purchase Fr James Martin’s new book ‘Come Forth’ here: https://www.eden.co.uk/christian-book…

Chapters

00:00 What is Sacred to you? Father James Martin replies 
00:54 Understanding the Sacred
02:50 The Role of Discernment in Life
05:46 Childhood Influences and Early Life
09:08 Transitioning from Business to Jesuit Life
11:56 Exploring Religious Orders
14:51 Community Living and Its Challenges
18:10 Chastity is difficult
20:05 Having a public voice
23:00 Advocacy for the LGBTQ Community
27:16 Spiritual Rejection and backlash
32:06 Understanding Radicalisation and Disagreement
34:32 The Role of Politics in Division
38:58 Finding the Balance in Discourse
40:24 Exploring the Themes of ‘Come Forth’
44:44 Jesuit Wisdom on Understanding Others
49:06 The Importance of Connection in Disagreement

The Sacred with James Martin 

What is sacred to you? Father James Martin responds.  

Elizabeth   

Father James, we’re going to kick off with a question that you can really take in any direction you like. For people who aren’t coming from a religious perspective, it’s often more about their deep values and principles. I’m trying to get a sense of what you would like to be orientating you in your life. So I’m going to ask, what is sacred to you? 

Fr James Martin   

Oh gosh. Well, first of all, thanks for having me on, it’s a real honour. What is sacred to me? You know, I’m a Jesuit, and one of our mottos is finding God in all things. And so I guess I could say everything really is sacred. That doesn’t mean every act is sacred, but you know, every person you meet is sacred. I think everything that’s created by God is sacred. But you know, in my life, the sacred is really focused around Jesus, that’s what the heart of my spiritual life is about. So I would say, in my life, it’s not so much what is sacred, but who is sacred? And that would be, for me, Jesus. 

Understanding the Sacred 

Elizabeth   

For someone who that’s not their tradition. Honestly, the question that comes up is, what does that mean? What does it look like for you? 

Fr James Martin   

I know, it is kind of crazy. So what does that mean? There’s two ways of answering that question. So as I said, I’m a Jesuit, and one of our mottos is finding God in all things. And that means that God can be found not just in reading the Bible or doing good works or going to church or praying, but in relationships and family and work and nature and art, which is really a very capacious spirituality. That that’s the first thing that I mean when I talk about the sacred. But the center of my faith is really focused on Jesus. Now, what does that mean? You’re right, that can be vague. So it means Jesus as we meet Jesus in the gospels, you know Jesus’ actions, his words and his deeds. But we also believe that Jesus has risen from the dead and  is present to us through the Holy Spirit, and so through the Spirit, is sort of leading us to do good things. We find Jesus in the church and in the sacraments. So there’s all sorts of ways of encountering Jesus. So yeah, I would say that when I hear ‘sacred’, those are the two things that come up: finding God in all things, the sacred in everyday life, and also the person of Jesus. That that’s how I would answer that question for me, at least.  

The Role of Discernment in Life 

Elizabeth   

Can you think of a moment in your life when those sacred things have been tested. I often think we’re not sure what are the things we’re trying to live by sometimes, until these moments of challenge or moral profundity or the temptation to compromise. You know, when we’re at a fork in the road and our life could go one way or the other, can you think of a moment where they have guided you, and sometimes we fail so you might not have chosen what you would have wished to at the time, but does anything come to mind?  

Fr James Martin   

I mean, I think just things recently, you know, in my own life. One of the things that’s helpful to understand is that we Jesuits talk about, this is going to sound like a very strange term, discernment of spirits, which sounds like it’s like ghosts flying around! But it basically means that there are impulses, movements, when I say voices, I don’t mean actually hearing voices, but you know the movements within you, voices that pull you one way or another. And there are impulses and movements and voices that pull us towards God, right? The charitable, loving, hopeful impulses and wants to move us away from God, selfish, mean spirited, despairing. And what we talk about in the Jesuits is, not only that God wants us to make good decisions, but God helps us to make good decisions through what we call discernment of spirits. In other words, you can kind of gage within yourself, what’s coming from God and what’s not coming from God. And recently, I was in a situation I want to get too detailed, where I just felt really despairing and just kind of miserable and turned in on myself. And I, thanks to discernment of spirits, said, this is clearly not coming from God.  

I often use the example these days, thank God we’re more or less past it, of the pandemic. And people were so despairing, right? Nothing will change. I’m sure you, maybe you experienced it personally, or you knew people that were like this. And the short hand was for me, that despair is never coming from God, it just isn’t, and hope is really always coming from God. That doesn’t mean everything’s always going to be perfect, and sunshine and lollipops and rainbows, but the feelings of despair are not feelings to follow. So that’s how in the Jesuits, as we say, we discern which way to go.  

Childhood Influences and Early Life 

Elizabeth   

Thank you. I’d love to get a sense of your story. Could you paint me a picture of you as, maybe we’d call it primary school age, I guess, kind of eight, or nine or ten, what was your world? And particularly, what were the big ideas that have been formatted on your later life? 

Fr James Martin   

Well I’m laughing because I’m writing a memoir now about just that, which is tons of fun, and I’m sort of living in that world. I’m laughing not at your question. It’s a great question, I think, like big ideas as an eight–year–old, it was, you know, how am I going to do on my math test? and 

Elizabeth   

How much sugar am I allowed?  

Fr James Martin  

Ha! What TV shows can I watch? I grew up outside of Philadelphia, in a suburban town. It was a very, if you’re familiar with this TV show, a very Brady Bunch, kind of lifestyle. In the suburbs, middle class. Not particularly religious, my family wasn’t super religious well we were Catholic, but, you know. I went to public school, now I know that means something different over there in the UK, meaning not a private school, not paid. And so I was just this kind of average kid, biking to school and working hard, and I was good in school and wasn’t really thinking about much else, other than doing well in school and friends. That was really important to me, having friends and being cool. When I was a young person, that was the focus of my life. How do I get people to like me? How can I be cool? How can I be in the ‘in crowd’? And eventually that’s kind of paralyzing, because if you’re just dependent on what other people think of you, you don’t have any real freedom. I mean, that took me a while. I certainly didn’t know that when I was eight or nine or even in high school. So yeah, just this kid who was trying to do well in school. And eventually I went to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, studied business, worked for General Electric for a couple years, and then I entered the Jesuits. But yeah, I was a nice kid, but I don’t think I was thinking any big ideas, that’s for sure. 

Transitioning from Business to Jesuit Life 

Elizabeth   

So what was it that led you to study business? What was the thread you were pulling on? 

Fr James Martin 

Yeah well my dad was in business, and pretty much all the families I knew in the street, the fathers, not the mothers, at this time, this was in the 60s. I mean, some did, some were teachers and but the fathers all went to work, and so we didn’t have a lot of money. And when I went to college, I thought, well, you have to get a job, so what’s the best thing to do to? Go into business. And I studied finance, and I did well, and ended up at this great job at General Electric, formerly a great company. But, I say this in the book and I’ve said this in several of my books, there was really no one to say, what do you want to do with your life? Like, what would make you happy? What are you called to do? The idea of a vocation, never did anyone ask me that. I mean, my parents were like, how do you like business? Well, you seem to be good in business. Why not do that? They weren’t against it, and I don’t mean to denigrate them at all, but we didn’t have a lot of money. They were Depression era babies, and so you’ve got to make a living. And so that was the most practical thing I could do. And but eventually I just didn’t really like it. 

Elizabeth  

I’ve heard you talk about that time, there’s this little vignette that made me really sad of you being at your desk writing, ‘I hate my life. I hate my life’ on a piece of paper. It sounds like you were quite ill?  

Fr James Martin   

Yeah I mean, I only wrote it once!  

Elizabeth   

It wasn’t like plastered all over the walls? 

Fr James Martin   

Ha no. I mean, basically what happened was this, I studied at Wharton, at Penn. I had a great time at the University of Pennsylvania. I did, and it was fascinating. Business is fascinating. I mean, you know, I knew nothing about it. This was in 1982 I graduated. I was a yuppie. You’re familiar with that term, young urban professional. I was in New York in my 20s, making a ton of money  

Elizabeth 

And doing quite a lot of clubbing. Is that, right?  

Fr James Martin 

Yeah, well you will see how much when this new book comes out, yeah, a lot of it. 

Elizabeth   

Well I did a lot of clubbing a lot in my youth. I think there’s something ecstatic about it. 

Fr James Martin   

I was in my 20s and drinking a lot, and it was exciting. You know I was a yuppie. But what happened was I basically took a job at another section of GE, in GE Capital in finance, and it just got more and more stressful. And I just thought, what am I doing? I don’t really like this. It’s not really interesting. Business is a real vocation for a lot of people, and I just couldn’t see a way out. I thought, well, I’d studied business, what am I going to do? I and there was really no one to kind of encourage me to think more creatively and I felt stuck. And one night, I came home and saw a TV show about Thomas Merton, the American Trappist monk, and it just blew me away, just the whole idea the monastery and prayer, about which I knew zero. I mean, I really had no idea who Thomas Merton was. I knew there were monks and they prayed, and I don’t know what do they do? And that really just was so romantic and so beautiful, that was what drew me. And, you know, looking back, I’m not sure, depending on who’s listening, this is how God calls us. God calls us mainly through these attractions and desires. From a simple point of view, like, if you are a business person, you love business, you’re going to be drawn to that. Or an attorney, or someone who works for in radio or podcast, or religion. Even in terms of marriage, that’s how it happens, people are drawn together. It’s a call and that’s how it worked for me. 

Elizabeth   

Had you been going to church this whole time? How much had the faith that you’d inherited from your parents been a kind of live part of your identity through that whole period? 

Fr James Martin   

Kind of on and off. I mean, I didn’t go to Catholic school ever. In elementary school, I went most Sundays. My parents weren’t super religious, but if we missed mass, it wasn’t the end of the world. Junior High School and High School – yeah, most Sundays. College, when I wasn’t too hungover, I would go to Mass. And, at GE, most Sundays. But that’s all, I went to mass and I don’t think I ever talked to a priest outside of mass, ever. I mean they would visit our homes in the 60s, something called the block collection, going to different blocks and asking for money. The priest would visit you, and it was very awkward, because I didn’t know any priests. I was a kind of lukewarm Catholic, I sometimes call myself and all my friends were shocked when I told them what I was doing. 

Elizabeth  

And what was the hunger? What was it about it that made you feel that I hate this life, I might love that life? 

Fr James Martin   

Well, it was a push and a pull. So I did hate that life, so it was pushing me. So that wasn’t some big discernment. I didn’t like it. I was stressed out, I was getting all these stomach problems, I was getting migraines. I was just stressed, it was like almost 24/7. And the pull was this other life, whatever it was that Thomas Merton seemed to represent, seems so romantic, so beautiful, just seems so beautiful, like life in a monastery and helping people. And then I stumbled across the Jesuits. Someone randomly said you should talk to the Jesuits, which are a Catholic religious order, and that seemed to fit. I didn’t think I’d be a monk because, as you can tell, I talk a lot, but that’s how it sort of happened. You know, God writes straight with crooked lines, as the proverb says. 

Exploring Religious Orders 

Elizabeth   

And I do not come from a Catholic background. I think I had a sense of what a priest is, and I kind of knew what a monk was, but I am being slowly introduced to this whole new world of different religious orders, like the Jesuits. What is a religious order? 

Fr James Martin   

So, okay, most people know parish priests. Like they get that a parish priest, he’s ordained, he works in the parish, he’s under the bishop in the diocese, right? Sometimes they become bishops etcetera. There’s another way of being a priest or a brother, which is by living in community together. We take vows of poverty, so everything goes to the community. Chastity, we don’t get married. Obedience, we’re told kind of where to go, and we are living together, right? It’s not in a rectory, but in a religious community. So the ones that people would know would be the Franciscans – they’re a religious order, the Dominicans, very big in the UK, of course, the Trappists, there are monastic orders, and 

Elizabeth  

And they’re the silent ones?  

Fr James Martin 

Yeah Trappists are the silent ones. But even more silent would be like the Carthusians, really. If you ever seen the movie Into Great Silence, that was a great movie about the Carthusians. So it’s just two ways of being a priest or a brother, and there arr sisters, of course. There are women’s religious orders, and they’re all under the Pope. Basically, they’re the same. So I don’t work in a parish. You can see this office, I work in a magazine. Most Jesuits are known for working in schools. So a lot of the schools in the UK, and parishes in the UK, and Farm Street, you know, is our big parish in London and whatnot. So we do all sorts of different things, but the key is, we live in community. We take those vows, we were founded by Saint Ignatius Loyola, and we also do a lot of retreat works and spirituality. 

Community Living and Its Challenges 

Elizabeth   

So I should confess, the reason I’ve got interested in all of this is that this house that I’m sitting in is a very small experiment in intentional community. So my husband and kids and I have moved in with another family and turned the garage into a chapel, and we do kind of morning prayer and evening prayer. And we have a Rule of Life, and we’re trying to do sort of rhythms of prayer and hospitality. But we’re bodging this together from books and podcasts and like helpful modern translations of the rule of Saint Benedict, not the original because it’s too hard to read! But it’s a kind of recent interest in my life, this kind of monastic understanding of how we how we live together. What does it mean to love each other? What does it mean to grow together? And I think in this moment, whether you’re religious or not, the sort of trust crisis, loneliness crisis, housing crisis, climate crisis, means there’s an openness to the possibility that this tradition might have something to teach us, that this way of living might have something to teach us, whilst at the same time, certainly in the UK, like I think membership of religious orders is going right down. Do you see something changing in the way people think or talk about this? Or is there always a bit of interest and it holds steady across time.  

Fr James Martin   

I would say the latter, I think there’s always a bit of interest. I think there is a lot of loneliness in society today, and there’s a lot of isolation, and so people are looking for community. That’s a that’s a big word, I’m sure you hear that on your podcast all the time! I think the difference is for the Jesuits, it has a purpose, and it’s serving God, carrying out God’s will, doing charitable works, those kinds of things. And in a sense, the thing that makes it kind of easier for us than in your situation, is that there is this organizing governing principle, and we have vows of obedience. And so when we have the superior of the community who says we’re going to do this and we do it right. It’s not blind obedience. But the idea would be, okay, Jim, now you’ve been an America magazine for 25 years now I want you to go work at this parish. And so there’s a kind of structure there as well, and we don’t say no, because we take this vow of obedience. We believe that God’s working through this. That’s, that’s the challenge in a situation like yours, because, who’s in charge? And who says what time we’re eating dinner? And who says how –  the the kitchen’s always a big thing – who says how the dishwasher is unloaded or not unloaded? I’m sure you’re smiling, because I know you’ve been through all this. 

Elizabeth   

It’s because it’s the biggest argument we’ve ever had! 

Fr James Martin  

And one of the easy things about living in a religious house is you know the tradition, and this is how we do it. And you buy into that. So I think it’s harder for families to do it. And we’ve also been doing it for 450, years. So it doesn’t always work, but we’ve gotten most of the kinks out of it, right?  

Elizabeth   

Yeah, you know all the things that can go wrong. 

Fr James Martin   

Oh yeah, definitely. And all my salary, goes to my community. The end, I don’t see any of it. And, you know, I get what I need for my community, but there’s no, there’s no money arguments in our house. 

Chastity is difficult 

Elizabeth  

Yeah. So this is quite personal, but I get asked this question a lot, what is the hardest thing about living in a religious community? 

Fr James Martin   

Chastity, definitely. I mean, you know, it can be lonely and you don’t have an exclusive relationship, as we call it, and lack of physical intimacy, that’s definitely the toughest. Anyone who tells you otherwise is not being true. But by the same token, I live with wonderful people, I have tons of friends, I have a lot of love in my life, and it works for me. And I think, if I were in a relationship, I think I’d actually get bored. I think I kind of know myself well enough. Poverty is not as difficult, except at times. And I’ve never found obedience difficult, frankly. Obedience, mainly in the Jesuits, is, we want you to work here, that’s what the obedience comes down to. But yeah, chastity is definitely the hardest. 

Elizabeth  

Thanks for raising that. It’s down on my list of questions, because reading your writing honestly, and obviously there’s lots that I won’t have read, but it felt like one of the few times I’ve heard that spoken about with such honesty and actually, such tenderness. You know, the ways the public conversation about priestly chastity is either this sort of salacious, icky, overly interested, you know. Or the like but it is God’s call, and it is important, and there is no problem. Why do you feel able to talk about it in public, and what are the healthier ways we could narrate it?  

Fr James Martin   

As I’ve lived it for 36 years, I’ve been saying to people, do you have any aunts or uncles that are unmarried? Oh yeah, so and so. Any cousins? Oh yeah. Are they crazy? No, they’re just unmarried. Why are they unmarried? They’ve chosen to be unmarried, or things didn’t work out, or they’re widowed. Are they nuts? Are they like, sick? No. 

So I think that needs to be kind of reminded, I often remind people that. I was like, Do you have any aunts or uncles that are unmarried? Oh, sure, they’re wonderful. Are they loving? Oh, I love her, she’s wonderful. Is she a loving part of your family? Oh, she’s amazing, the kids love her more because she has more time. Yeah, that’s kind of what we’re getting at. But the idea that people would choose it, it just kind of freaks people out. So I think it’s just important to talk about it honestly. But yeah you’ve identified them very well. The two strains are: that’s crazy, no one can do it, you’re sick or, you’re so holy you’re a saint. And it’s just as wrong to talk about motherhood that way. Oh, mothers are saints or, you know, mothers they they’re so dysfunctional and they screw up their kids. And so it’s another way of living in the world, another way of loving, I would say. 

Having a public voice 

Elizabeth   

Yeah. Thank you. I want to talk about your vocation in particular, as someone shaping the public conversation. At what point in your journey did you think, actually I need to use my voice in public, or were you told to by your order? 

Fr James Martin   

So I went through what’s called formation Jesuit training, we call formation because you’re formed. And what did I do? I studied philosophy at Loyola University Chicago. I worked for two years in East Africa with refugees, helping them start small businesses. I came back and worked at America Media for a year. We work full–time during our studies. I studied theology for three or four years, I forget how long. And then I was assigned to work at America Media. And pretty much from the get–go, you’re writing articles, and I was writing books. So from the beginning, after my ordination, I was kind of contributing things I would say in the public square. And then recently, I started to do more work with the LGBTQ community, starting about 2016. Most of my work has been writing books about spirituality and prayer and the saints, things like that, a little more mainstream than the more recent work that I’ve done, which has brought me much more into the public eye! 

Elizabeth   

What prompted that in 2016? What happened? 

Fr James Martin   

The Pulse nightclub massacre happened, which you may remember in 2016, 49 people… 

Elizabeth 

Was that Miami? 

Advocacy for the LGBTQ Community  

Fr James Martin 

Yeah, Orlando, at a nightclub. And I felt that the church’s response was really pretty pathetic. And I thought if this were any other group, we would be saying how we should pray with them and having masses for them and I did a Facebook post that went viral, when viral was a good thing, and pre–pandemic. And then that led to a talk and a book called Building a Bridge and that led to this ministry. We were talking about discernment before, each step I was discerning, is this the right thing to do? Should I do a Facebook post? Should I do this talk? Should I do this book? And then I got invited to give all these talks, and there was a lot of pushback. Then I was invited by the Vatican to give a talk at The World Meeting of Families in Dublin in 2018. I met with the Pope in 2019 and he supported the work, and it just sort of took off. And now we have this ministry called Outreach, our website is Outreach.faith, and we’re even having an event, which I can say at the Synod during the Synod in Rome in a couple of weeks. So that’s been interesting; that’s been a real shift in my life. And it’s not something that I planned, it just kind of happened. But I discerned each step of the way, and also asked for permission each step of the way. I think most people now today, if they know me at all, they know me more for the LGBT stuff. And I’ve become this figure, it’s just the strangest thing. This boy who was biking to school didn’t expect to be this person that everybody either hates or loves. It’s very strange. 

Elizabeth   

This might reveal my naivety, but you know you say you ask for permission every step of the way, presumably, because there’s a lot of people that would see this as a change or in opposition to Catholic teaching, there must have been some turbulence internally about your identity and your sense of belonging and the possible cost of this? 

Fr James Martin  

Well, yeah, I didn’t realize when I when I wrote a book called Building a Bridge, and it’s very small, it’s 120 pages, I thought we what we call in the United States, ‘a one off’, it’ll be used by parishes, and I’ll move on to my other stuff. Yeah, 

Elizabeth 

Yeah and go back to writing about the saints? 

Fr James Martin 

Well, yeah, which I actually feel much more comfortable about. My new book is called Come Forth, it’s about Lazarus, and it’s what I feel more comfortable doing. I’m not a controversialist. I really hate that kind of stuff. But at each step of the way, I felt like this was the right thing to do. It is the right thing to speak up for LGBTQ people, you know, for whom very few people are advocating in the Catholic Church. I thought that was really important. And so when I asked for permission, it was more that I knew that as a Jesuit, it would affect other Jesuits, and I’m part of a whole and I can’t just strike out on my own and do what I want. And even though I felt that it was the right thing, I needed to say to my superiors, I’m going to do this, does this make sense? Yes, that’s fine. And sometimes they say, no, we don’t want you to do that. And that’s the benefit of doing all this from within the church, is that I think I have more of a voice. The negative is that sometimes they say, no, you can’t do that. So it’s kind of navigating that, that’s where the obedience comes in. That’s a new kind of obedience for me. It’s kind of checking with people and making sure it’s okay. 

Spiritual Rejection and backlash 

Elizabeth   

Yeah. So you know, you say you’re not a controversialist, and from reading and listening to you, I can just hear that your tone and posture is not like someone who’s really up for a fight. But when I went was doing my deep dive research, going searching and listening to podcasts and videos. And half the entries are these very lovely, devotional, long form things on the examine, and that’s you speaking. And then half of them are this terrible heretic works of Satan, I don’t need to repeat it, bile really. They seem to feel very strongly about it. 

Fr James Martin  

Yeah they’re really mean. They do. Yeah, it’s really a strange thing. 

Elizabeth   

How have you navigated that, personally and spiritually?  

Fr James Martin   

Well, that’s actually an easy question to answer, because I think about it all the time! I was on a retreat like seven or eight years ago, and I was praying about a passage called the rejection at Nazareth. And so for those people who aren’t Christian, who don’t know the Bible very well, it’s about Jesus preaching in his hometown of Nazareth. He preaches, and initially, everybody thinks he’s great, and then he starts to say, well, you’re probably going to say, do miracles here like you did somewhere else, and the Prophet is not welcome in his own land. And they start to get angry at him. They get so angry at him, they chase him out of the synagogue, and they drive him to what’s called the brow of the hill to throw him off i.e. they try to kill him, which is usually kind of downplayed when we talk about this. And I remember praying about this, in the Jesuits, we have this tradition of imagining yourself in a scene literally, just picturing yourself and trusting that what comes up is maybe what God wants you to look at. And I imagine myself in the scene, and I imagine asking Jesus, like, how could you do this? Like you know what they were going to say if you come up and you say, “I’m the Messiah.” And what I heard in prayer, not orally, but what kind of came up to me, was Jesus asking me in prayer. “Must everyone like you?” That was a big thing. And remember, we were talking about when I was young, how that was a big thing for me, right, getting everyone to like me? And it is for everybody at that age. And I had to admit to myself, I needed to be free of that. That’s the first thing: not everybody’s going to like me. Second thing is: I had the support of the Pope, of the Jesuits, of my brother Jesuits, I do everything within the church, I remind myself of that. And then the third thing: I think it’s the right thing to do, and people are going to push back. Our model for this is Jesus and a lot of people didn’t like Jesus.  

And then there’s a lot of homophobia out there, and I have to kind of ignore it. I’m used to it now. I’ll be honest, I don’t talk about this too much, it’s still very weird for me, because I go about my daily life, and maybe I give a talk at some someplace, and there’s like 100 protesters. And I just think, you’re upset about me!? And people think I’m devious and deceitful and all this, I’ve never challenged Church teaching. I’m basically just trying to get people to listen to LGBT people, but people feel very strongly about it. When I was at the Synod last year, it’s supposed to be a big gathering where everybody listens to each other, one delegate refused to sit next to me, and he left. He was so angry. And I was like look, dude, I didn’t say this, but even if you think I’m a sinner, right, you’re supposed to sit next to me, that’s the Gospels. The other thing we have to remember is this, most of the people who are there might be people who would disagree with me and say, “I’m not sure about that.” But the people who get enraged, a lot of it’s their own stuff. It’s something going on inside of them about their own sexuality. And I’ve had enough people write to me, believe it or not, saying 5 or 10 years ago, I was against you, but I’ve just come out, etc, right? So there’s a certain psychological makeup of the person who’s just enraged. 

Understanding Radicalisation and Disagreement 

Elizabeth   

And I’m really interested in this. There’s a sociologist who calls it ‘mutual radicalization’, the way in which disagreement and difference kicks us into fight or flight, and when someone attacks us, and we react defensively, then they attack and we sort of harden into these extreme positions. And I sort of see Jesus’ teaching in the New Testament around turning the other cheek and loving our enemies as these amazing sort of countervailing practices. But I know I’ve had radically less than the abuse that you’ve had, but in the instances where I’ve experienced something similar, the reaction to me is really like screw you! Like, these are the reasons you’re stupid and wrong! 

Fr James Martin   

Yeah. I mean, you’re a human being, and I sometimes feel that interiorly. But you know, I did something really interesting over the last year. So I’m a member of the Synod, even a lot of Catholics may be familiar with it, but it’s a worldwide gathering of people to help the church move ahead in terms of its governance and looking at different issues. And we met last year for the first time, 350 delegates. We’re meeting in October of this year, and it’s to really help Pope Francis make his decisions. It’s very consultative. They call it the largest consultative gathering in world history, which it probably is, because it asks people from every parish in the world, there are Catholics everywhere. 

Anyway, when I was there, the LGBTQ issue came up. And let me tell you the stuff people said:  most people were quite open and welcoming, but some people were really just… I said to someone, “You could get arrested in the States for hate speech, for saying some of these things.” So what I did was I really sought them out. I really tried to talk to them face to face. And then over the past year, I did a little project off and on, where I would meet with them on Zoom or email or just in–person. And I wrote an article about it that just came out on Outreach.faith, which is our website and America Media, on that process and what I learned, and what their objections were, and also what my responses are. So it is possible. It’s hard, though. I had an African Archbishop say to me, imagine you have to be polite to everyone you meet, but certainly at the Synod and certainly to an archbishop, it’s a priest, “The only reason people are gay in my country is because Americans like you come and pay them to be gay.” So you have to just say, okay, Archbishop, let’s talk about that. So it’s hard, it’s a lot of work, but we have to become good listeners and good friends before we can tackle the tough stuff. 

The Role of Politics in Division 

Elizabeth   

Yeah, it’s not just sexuality, is it? I think the Catholic Church is in a moment of increasing division, and that’s just mirroring societies across the world. You know, the Church of England is similarly at each other’s throats about sexuality. What is your hunch about what is driving some of these dynamics that are pushing us apart?  

Fr James Martin  

Well, one thing I want to say, because I know your audience, one of the most helpful insights came from, I’m sure you know him, Father Timothy Radcliffe, who was the former master general the Dominicans, who gave brilliant talks. They’re collected in a book called Listening Together. And he quoted Saint John Paul II, I’d never heard this before, and it really changed my mind about the Synod and what the goals were, “Affective collegiality precedes effective collegiality.” So affective collegiality, friendship, precedes any effect of collegiality or discussion. You cannot really talk about these tough things without being friends.  

What is driving it? I think a lot of it iss driven by politics and politicians right, who are increasingly vituperative and us versus them. I think social media has a lot to do with it; people can say whatever they want and put out all sorts of lies. I also think, I would say two things: in the United States, I think a lot of it’s a racism. I know this sounds very specific, but I think when Barack Obama was elected, people were very upset, and a lot of racists thought, this can’t be happening. The influx of migrants in all different countries, which is a legitimate challenge. I worked with refugees in East Africa, so it’s a challenge to host, you know, hundreds of thousands of people, but demonizing them is not the way to go. This is not Christian. And I think really certain political actors. I’m trying to be careful not to mention names have made it okay to hate people again. And I think it’s really sad, and do you remember, we were talking about discerning spirits earlier in the conversation? That is not coming from God. Anything that is  demonizing other people, making them into animals, literally calling them animals, that is not coming from God and that’s not Christian. So I think it’s okay to hate people again publicly and we have to work against that. 

Finding the Balance in Discourse 

Elizabeth   

Where’s the line? I think about this a lot, because I’m sort of listening across difference, you know, radical empathy. Honestly, I think a lot of this is just personality, like so much of my theology and philosophy, maps onto my temperament, and I think that’s true of most people, rather than being the outcome of a rigorous intellectual exercise. But I am aware that, well, partly I just annoy people because I’m seen as a wishy–washy fence sitter, but how do we hold together that posture towards others, and we would share a kind of Christian commitment to people being made in the image of God, and a commitment to wanting to protect their dignity and to name their value and their beauty and their vulnerability actually, and then holding lines on things that need lines? 

Fr James Martin  

That’s a very good question, I was just thinking about that yesterday. We were having a discussion here at American Media. You know, you don’t want to demonize people who vote for one side or the other, but you also want to call out things that are actually wrong, right? So demonizing migrants and refugees, calling them animals. In the United States, saying that you’re going to basically become a dictator. You know, there are some lines that you should not cross. I think part of it is not demonizing the person that’s what I try to do. Anytime you say “He is like this”, or, “She is like this”, or, “You are like that”. For example, anyone who votes for this person you know anyone in the United States right now, if you vote for Donald Trump, you’re racist. If you vote for Kamala Harris, you are a baby killer, those kinds of things. But it is important to call out the things that are said, and to say this is not in keeping with, certainly for me, Christian values or even moral values. I really do struggle with that, like, what is the line now? As a priest, I try to stay out of politics. That’s very important, we’re not allowed to endorse and I think that’s reasonable. I don’t want to split my congregation. But by the same token, we have to say, look, there are certain Christian values: love, forgiveness, charity, don’t that’s, that sounds pretty wishy washy, but also welcoming the stranger. Sorry you don’t like it, take it up with Jesus, right? Helping the poor, helping the sick, visiting the prisoners. One of the lines I like, I think it’s Matthew 5, “If you call anyone a fool, you will be liable to the fires of hell.” Jesus is saying, if you call people names, you’re going to go to hell. It’s pretty blunt, and people just pass that by. So, you know, for me, it’s, it’s the gospel, and if the gospel has political implications, so be it. But I don’t set out to be political.  

Exploring the Themes of ‘Come Forth’ 

Elizabeth   

I’d love to hear about Come Forth. What is the thesis of your newest book? 

Fr James Martin   

I’d love to talk about Come Forth. Here’s the beautiful cover of Come Forth, also available in the UK. So it’s a deep dive into the story of the raising of Lazarus, which is in John’s Gospel for those people that don’t know. Two sisters, Martha and Mary, two very outspoken, wonderful sisters in the Gospel, send word to Jesus that their brother, Lazarus, is ill. Interestingly, they call him, “He who you love, is ill”, which is very beautiful. Jesus waits, he comes, they take him to the tomb. And there’s a stone there. He says, “Take away the stone.” He calls out, “Lazarus come forth!” And the dead man comes out. It’s traditionally called Jesus’s greatest miracle. So  the thesis of the book is a combination of spirituality. So what does it mean? What does that story mean for our everyday lives? Biblical exegesis, like looking at the text and what does it say? A little bit of a cultural history of Lazarus through the years or the centuries, and then a travelog, I go to the place where it happened. But it’s basically, what are we called to leave behind in our tombs and, in a sense, let die? What are the things that keep us from hearing God’s voice? Who is calling to us every day, come forth, you know, into new life? So what do we need to let go of? What do we need to let die? Resentments, grudges, disappointments, old ways of being, anger, negativity in the sort of metaphorical tomb, and hear God’s voice calling us to new life. So that’s the thesis. 

Elizabeth   

Obviously, one of the most famous bits is that the, you know, the shortest verse, “Jesus wept.”  

Fr James Martin   

You know that’s actually I have a whole chapter on that “Jesus wept.” And one of the interesting things, which might blow your mind a little bit, it blew my mind, is so the New Testament is written in Greek, when you go back to the Greek, the Greek words that are used around that passage, “Jesus wept”, actually are more words that are used about anger. So he’s clearly sad about this friend’s death, but there’s a bit of anger and frustration. And the word that is used is the word that’s used for a horse snorting. And he was deeply perturbed and moved in spirit, and he wept. So I go over through the chapter, why is he angry? Is he angry at people’s disbelief? Is he angry at the fact of death? Is he angry because he knows this is going to lead to his death? Because, interestingly, in John’s gospel, and this, to me, makes more sense than the Synoptic Gospels, the reason he gets this great triumphant entry on Palm Sunday was because he’s just raised somewhere from the dead, and the reason that people want to kill him is this. So there’s a death life, death life pattern. Lazarus’ death leads to his life, leads to Jesus’s death, leads to new life. And so that passage, I have a whole chapter on it, because it’s so it’s very shocking to people. 

Now we don’t know this is, this is also being sort of translated from the Aramaic, and we don’t know exactly, but it’s good to go back to the Greek and try to puzzle out some of these things.  And there’s a challenge there but the key is, he’s human, he shows emotions. And we’re uncomfortable with that. We’re very uncomfortable with a human Jesus. He weeps, he learns, you say that, and people get very upset, right? There’s some things in the gospels he seems not to know. This is just to sort of tease people’s minds. The theological conundrum is this, we believe, I believe that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. It’s the great mystery. Jesus is the mystery. And anyone who says they they have Jesus down pat, they don’t, because he’s always bigger than our conceptions. We can’t get our minds around that.  

Jesuit Wisdom on Understanding Others 

Elizabeth      

What have you learned about how to be people who can navigate divides and deal with difference without dehumanizing people who disagree with us? 

Fr James Martin   

Well, there’s some Jesuit wisdom to be brought to bear. At the very beginning of what’s called The Spiritual Exercises Saint Ignatius’ great spiritual text, the kind of mapping out of a four–week retreat. He has something called the presupposition, supposed to undergird everything. And you would think the presupposition is, God’s in charge, and we should always pray to Mary, or we should do XYZ. The presupposition for The Spiritual Exercises is, always give people the benefit of the doubt about what they’re saying. That’s the presupposition, always try to put a positive spin on things. And if you don’t understand it, ask. So that’s really powerful for me. That’s the first thing as a Jesuit, always try to give people the benefit of the doubt. And then the second thing is, as I learned this year: be comfortable listening to people that you disagree with, and try to really understand where they’re coming from, because they’re human beings. But by the same token, have a sense of where your lines are. You know, someone says something crazy like ‘I am fearful of losing my job with migrants coming in’, or “I’m fearful that the government’s resources will be diverted to migrants because my family is so poor.” I understand, that’s a real fear. Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about what migrants actually bring to the country and how they actually help the economy. And let’s go back and forth. If he says, “I think all migrants should be killed”, I draw the line. 

So there are lines that I think we need to kind of be clear about, but we also have to listen to where people are coming from. It’s challenging, Jesus does this. He listens to people, of course it’s easier when you’re the Son of God and you can raise people from the dead! But that’s our task, and we do it imperfectly, but we have to do it, because not to do it at all would be, I think, the end of civilization. 

Elizabeth   

Yes. Father James Martin, on that note, thank you so much for speaking to me for The Sacred.  

Fr James Martin  

My pleasure. Thanks for having me on. 

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