Warsaw: The Hydrozagadka Rabbit/Hare and Frog

Have seen quite a few good gigs at the Hydrozagadka over the last few years.

Love the drawings of the rabbit/hare and guzzling frog that I saw near the cloakrooms last Saturday night.
  

The Paper Kites at Warsaw Hydrozagadka 23rd November 2019

Saw Australian band The Paper Kites at Warsaw Hydrozagadka last night. Only know the band through Youtube videos but really enjoyed the gig:

Was brilliant listening to 'Revelator Eyes' and 'Electric Indigo' live.

Overall, the gig was a very nice balance of jangly/melodic and slower/therapeutic-type tunes.

Glad I arrived in time to catch Axel Flóvent too:

Finishing The Lord of the Rings

Finally got round to finishing The Lord of the Rings about a month ago.

Lost my first copy of Part 3, The Return of the King, through leaving it on a coach while travelling round Donegal during the summer, so I had to buy it again.

While reading Tolkien's masterpiece over about 8-9 months, mainly while travelling on public transport between places in Warsaw, I was constantly scribbling comments in the margins about possible Catholic symbolism in the work. Some of my ideas, I was convinced of, for example, Aragorn being a Christ the King figure, while with other ideas, I was not sure if I was just engaging in speculation (e.g. interpreting a red fire in an elf hall as the tabernacle/real presence in a Catholic church).

Moreover, a friend from Bolton has introduced me to Joseph Pearce's work on Tolkien which has positively added to my interpretation of Catholic symbolism in The Lord of the Rings:

Think that Joseph Pearce is a really engaging speaker and inspiring Catholic convert.

Lamb at Warsaw Stodoła 21st November 2019

Really enjoyed seeing Lamb again in Warsaw last night:

Great set containing old and new material.

Really liked the new stuff, it's really fresh, especially beautifully understated tunes like 'Phosphorous'; 'Imperial Measures'; and 'The Silence in Between', and the instrumental 'Deep Delirium'.

From the older material, I've never quite known what to make of 'Transfatty Acid', but last night it worked a treat, a great final encore tune.

First saw Lamb at Manchester Academy in the early 2000s (my hometown is Bury), and have enjoyed seeing them a few times in Warsaw since.

Walking Back to Crolly

Having spent a few hours in the hills, the roadside walk back to Crolly was still beautiful, as, hopefully, these two pictures testify:

How I miss the landscapes of Gweedore, Donegal. Hope I can return there one day.

The Crocus Planters

Gentle hands moved over the soil, gently ploughing it, they were human hands, a young woman’s hands, the bulbs placed in the soil. 

I joined in the tilling and tolling, my infant eyes were beginning to colour, seeing fresh light. Two years old, I saw my mother for the first time: short brown hair, impish smile, loving face.

This was spring time, the land was being renewed. After a few months, the bulbs would colour,  sprout purple, yellow, cream. New life would begin.

The dog next door sniffed at the fence, Sam was my first friend, a border collie cross. I still remember Sam. 

As a teenager, I saw a black-and-white picture, an infant patting Sam on the back. Broad Oak Terrace number five. 

An old New Zealand couple, the Mulrooneys, had helped take my mother to hospital in labour. 

January 12^th 1966, I entered the world. I still remember my infant days.

Gweedore, Donegal: Two Fishermen

Passed the two fishermen below as I was coming towards the end of my walk up in the hills in Gweedore, Donegal:

Loved the walk up in the hills, it was full of stunning scenery:

The sheep were happily munching away:

Gweedore, Donegal: Passing a Peat Bog

On the road back to Crolly, I saw the peat bog above. It was interesting to see how the peat had been dug in a kind of L-shaped gully.

Earlier on, in the Gweedore hills moving away from Crolly, I had seen the stockpile of peat below:

During my time in Gweedore, a few locals expressed a concern about the EU trying to ban Ireland from using peat.

The Tuna Sandwich Bag: A St. Gabriel's, Bury Tale

  

    They got off the old Selnec buses at the Interchange. The Queen opened this in the 1970s. They kept on walking, passing the ice-cream coloured Town Hall, the plush flowers, grass up front. There were purple crocus with yellow centres. My earliest memory of my mother was planting crocus. They passed the grey clock tower, the Boer War statue. Drummer Hodge was buried in the veld, looking up at the stars, sometimes starless nights, darkness on the veld.

      They turned right, to the spot where the fights took place. A kid’s hair was ripped out, he was kicked in the head. The ‘cock’ won, he was tough, hard as nails. They trudged over the Monkey Bridge, blue shirts, blue ties. Their trousers were black, Doc Martens ox-red or black. The girls wore make-up too young, their uniforms customised, sexualised.

      The school stood just outside the town centre. The kids came from all over Paper Town: rich areas, poor areas; good parents, drunken parents; English parents, Irish parents, Italians, Ukrainians, and Poles, a multicultural motley crue.

      The school stood on a damp marsh: saturated fields, sodden black. The football field squelched, the eyeballs muddied. Their navy blue kits dotted the square red brick. The newer buildings were more gentle fawn: the sports hall, Art block.

      Bobby Butcher was nuts, short, bald, bespectacled, not one to cross. He board-dusted Ragby: fresh chalk marks on a jet black blazer. The Maths lessons were crap, never-ending crap. This wasn’t Bobby’s fault, it was just Maths. Some boys liked it, they wanted to get on, make money, grow up.

      One day, the sun was shining through the windows. The boys’ shirt sleeves were rolled up, ties loosened. The room started to smell, but Butcher had gone somewhere. The smell came from a red and white plastic bag, a Kwik Save bag. It contained Bunt’s dinner, his tuna sandwiches. They’d gone off, and the bag sailed all over the room. Pink tuna raining down, what fun, what laughter. It stank the room out, the boys keeled over, they were pissing their sides. The girls slyly grinned. But Bobby was heading back.‘Boom-boom-boom!’, the door opened, it banged.

      Bobby  entered, cagey, real cagey, he could sense something, something wasn’t right. He smiled nervously, scowled the room. The boys smiled back: “Bobby wasn’t that bad, was he?” Wrong! Bobby went ballistic, a nuclear rocket taking off. The tuna stank, it was rancid. Bobby wanted his victims:

“Names, names! . . . I want bloody names! . . . you hear me! . . . I want names!”.

Nobody owned up, it was tense, a stand-off. Bobby’s eyes were black, fired up with rage. He’d lost it completely, steam coming out of his ears:

“Come on, the names! . . . I want names, I said! . . . Bloody names!”

His saliva spluttered, he would’ve killed for names. Martina Sleet was the swat, top of the class, she followed the rules, she would oblige, spill the beans:

“I’ll tell you sir . . . it was Martin Tufnell, Simon Ruddy, Mark Stretcher, Michael Loster, Jimmy Jones, and Gary Miles . . . They did it!”.

Bobby was happy, had his chance, his time for fun:

“You Tufnell, get down to Mr. McKonkie . . . Come back with the cane . . . Make it sharp . . . Sharply does it boy!”

Ruddy, Stretcher, Loster, and Jones, they were ready, ready to be thrashed. But Miles stood his ground, stayed in his seat, he was petrified:

 “It wasn’t me sir . . . honestly, it wasn’t . . . I wouldn’t do that, sir”.

Miles had small hands, bony wrists. They were shaking, he needed a meal, a big, bloody steak. Bobby wasn’t impressed, he shook and shook, almost took off:

“Stand on that chair lad! . . . stand on that bloody chair! . . . On the chair, I bloody

said!”.

Miles clambered up in the middle of the class, was judged up in the air:

“Is this boy a liar? Is he a fraud? Is he a cheat? . . . I say, is he a liar? Is he a fraud? Is

he a cheat?”

This was fun, but keeping a straight-face was difficult:

“Get down you coward! . . . You yellow-bellied coward! . . . You don’t deserve it! . . .

You’re a maggot or a worm!”.

Still, Miles was spared, missed the rod. His bony wrists spared, he wouldn’t be hurt.

       

      Tufnell returned, McKonkie’s cane was big and dark. It’d been soaked in linseed oil, it would have maximum effect. At Christmas, it was decorated with tinsel, some psychological game. Now, it was dark and plain, ready for use. The cane dwarfed Bobby, but he held it firm, took aim, and fired:

“Swish-swosh, swish-swosh, swish-swosh”.

They got belted, six of the best, three on each hand. Bobby loved it, his feet lifting off the ground. They were powerful strokes, but the boys absorbed them. Their faces were in pain, red pain, but none shed a tear. This was a code of honour, something we’ve lost.

The Sociology of Religion in Poland

An Interview with Professor Stanisław Obirek

The following interview took place at the Cafe Braga in the Mokotów district of Warsaw, Poland on 24^th June 2009.

Me: “Religious variety, indifference in post-communist Poland, is there any massive difference, do you think?”

Professor Obirek: “In the communist time, religion was perceived as a private sphere, more than this, to be part of the Catholic Church or any religious institutions was perceived as a political decision against the communist regime, which was willing to eliminate religion as such from the public sphere, so it was consciously or not unconsciously a political decision: “I want to be a part of institutionalised religion as a protest against the communist regime”, it was for the adults I think, for most, as me for example, people born in the communist time, it was a kind of schizophrenic situation, because, officially, religion was not existing in the public sphere, in media, organisations, whatever you consider the public presence, but, in (sic) the same time, it was a part of social reality, I mean families, even in the schools, we have (sic), although not in the school buildings, we have (sic) religious catechesis in the church, so I would say this made a huge difference, when the end of the communist time came, religion suddenly became not only possible but even desirable, because who won, I mean the Solidarity movement with Wałęsa and most of the leaders, they were fervent Catholics or fervent believers, so to become religious became a kind of, being with the winners, being against communism which was the bad evil system”.

“Now, in pre-communist (sic) times, a lot of Protestant choices were available, the Baptist Church and Methodist Church were in Poland, do you think the government was happy to see these Protestant Churches come in to kind of disrupt the Catholic Church in any way?”

“Well, yes and no, because it shows that religion could be perceived as not credible, because there are many Churches, and it was one more evidence that it’s hard to find the truth in Christianity, because there were many Christian Churches, but I think that the most important thing is again connected with different religions, different Churches, a tendency or attempt to play differences against religion as such, but I would say altogether, it was not successful, most Churches preserved autonomy and independence from political interference”.

“Now, the post-communist period, what it seems just on the face of it, and what I’ve heard from some Mormons I’ve interviewed, the Catholic Church is like the institutional norm here now, it’s the massive macro-body to attack, you know like the Communist Party was in pre-communist (sic) times”

“Yeah”.

“And now the young people, the Catholic Church is what the Communist Party used to be, would you agree with this, that it’s viewed as a a universal body that’s an institution?”

“In a way, it is perceived sociologically as such and a term which was used by this Pope person, Jerzy Urban, who said that the former red communists were substituted by black, by priests, it means that the most powerful organisation which play (sic) a decisive role in the public sphere is the Catholic Church, more or less like in Iran, the clergy, Ayatollah and all these people who are really controlling politicians, I think, sociologically speaking, it (sic) is something in this, that in terms of symbolic authority, even control on the most important element of Polish identity is controlled by the Church, and the Church is seen or perceived itself as the main reservoir of moral authority, but I think that the picture should be a bit different, seen more nuanced, that what particularly young people afraid of (sic) is not so much the political influence, but the criteria of being moral or being virtuous decided by the Church (sic), so this is a kind of discomfort, this is moral teaching like connected with contraceptives, all connected with sexuality is seen as the domain of the Church, I think this is for many young people, a kind of discomfort, they’re not happy with this”.

“Right, how about these factors, like greater freedom of access to information, multiculturalism coming in, definitely Warsaw, post-communist era, do you think this is a great factor that this ideology from the West, I mean from what I can see, it’s not fully-blown political correctness, but there does seem to be an influence of Poles travelling, coming back”

“I think that a symbol of this multiculturalism is Polish sociologist, Jerzy Zubrzycki, who passed away a few weeks ago in Canberra, Australia, he’s considered the father of Australian multiculturalism and he was a friend of Wojtyła, and member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, I think what he was saying Poland have (sic) to be prepared for the new period, this mono-cultural identity which was during communist times was kind of obvious, he said: “We, as all the world which is facing globalisation, we have to be prepared for this”, and I think that so-called open Catholics as me, we see this as not threat, but as a normal evolution of the present situation, of course, this new situation is polarising a little bit the Polish society, on the one hand, you have the most of the Catholic clergy with the Bishops, with the so-called Catholic media like Radio Maria, and Nasz dziennik, even TV Trwam, see multiculturalism as a real danger for Polish identity, but I think this time of polarisation is the normal one, and it will be the second time when it will be part of the normal picture in which we’re living as in West (sic) Europe”.

“How about the idea, pre-2^nd World War Poland was extremely multicultural, not just Jewish people, but Armenians, Belarusians, Slavs, Germans, all kinds of people, do you think that Poland feels an underlying need for a return to multiculturalism after having this strongly monocultural, post-2^nd World War ...”

“I can speak for myself, and definitely so, I see the multiculturalism or return to plural religious, cultural map of Poland as something vitally healthy, and I see this as a normal and very challenging but extremely exciting perspective, and I think that particularly 16^th or 17^th century, the Poland of many nations, as you mentioned, all these nations and religions, and ethnic groups which were part of Polish variety, Jews and all possible denominations of Christian Churches were all together, built this beautiful picture of multi-ethnic Poland, and I think that we need this, because, if not, every monocultural nation attempted (sic) to identify the nation with its own group, I mean the threat of nationalistic ideology is clear in post-communist Europe particularly, you can see this in Hungary, in Germany, East Germany particularly, and also Poland, so the presence of other groups where you can confront them, not only in the media, but on a daily life experience is very healthier (sic)”.

“Right, do you not see any dangerous possibilities, looking at the West now, it goes under the name of political correctness, zealous multiculturalism, when you look at Western Europe, do you see the potential for the destruction of religion in this country?”

“Of course, I think that every ideology, even multiculturalism, which could be non-tolerant, is threatening, I mean every ideology have (sic) the potential for destruction, and, for the moment, I don’t see this in Poland, because this tendency are (sic) too weak, probably not clearly articulated, we will see in the future, but I think that the substance, the powerful presence of institutional form of religion as Catholicism is a real challenge for this kind of uncritical political correctness, and I hope because of this strength and power of institutional religion, this new form of totalitarian ideology will not prevail here, definitely not, I am personally for many different ideologies which have to respect one other (sic) so multiculturalism yes, but not exclusivistic (sic) multiculturalism, you have to also respect groups that are not happy with multiculturalism, yes”.

“Now, I’ve interviewed a lot of Mormons, and I’ve been interested in the variety of Catholic backgrounds they come from, none come from strong Catholic backgrounds, what you kind of get is a mixture of people who come from mixed religious backgrounds, the father could’ve been Catholic, the mother Protestant, or that the family didn’t have a strong religious faith, and the furthest you get is people who classify themselves as average Catholics, would you agree these are the kinds of social groups within Catholicism who are there to be grabbed?”

“As far as I know, Polish Catholicism is not exceptional, so the big number of followers of one institutionalised religion follow the normal sociological principle that you have different degree (sic) of identification, myself, being many years a priest, although not a parish priest, but still I was in touch with the institution, in the core of this institution, I think the main problem of Polish Catholicism, it sounds perhaps strange, but I can give you many evidences (sic) this is true, the priests are too busy, it means that they don’t have time and even patient (sic) to deal case by case, I mean with people who are troubled with, you know, it could be a normal process of crisis for teenagers, sometimes, the people need a time for fighting for their own identity, it’s not enough to go every Sunday to hear Mass, and a few times a year, to participate in intensive religious experiences like retreat or this kind of thing, so these people who were probably trying to get closer to the priest, and who were unable to come closer, found these zealous apostle missionaries on the street, like Mormons, who not only have time, but even have interest for (sic) personal convictions, persuasions, so it was, for many people, the first time that somebody asked them how they feel about Jesus, how they feel about life, the first time that they have a possibility to speak out, to have a partner who listen (sic), and this is the first step, sometimes, and life crisis, many situations, illness or death of someone or whatever could be a good occasion to look around, and to found (sic) another Church, and Mormons, like the good possibility to deepen your faith, and this is a general problem with the Catholic Church, where you address not God directly, but the mediators, so in Poland particularly, you speak with people, they rarely articulate problems concerning Jesus or God, but more frequently priests or Bishops, so it means that in other religions like Buddhism, for example, for many people, even Judaism which is discovered by some people with Jewish background or even not, because they have this, the first time in their life, occasion to go through religious experience as such, interiorisation of your religious questions, so I will agree with this presumption that the conversions to new religion, in your case which you study, the group of new Mormons with a Catholic background is connected with the Polish average Catholicism, yes, definitely so”.

“I mean, a common thing they say is that in the Catholic Church, they’re not required to do anything, there’s little commitment, what they’re after is commitment”.

“As far as you’re not outstanding in your external life, I mean that you go in villages, Sunday, to the church, or you don’t work on Sunday or on the Catholic Christian feast days, nothing happen (sic) to you, so nobody’s really interested, it would be strange if you start to ask: “What do you think about God, about theology?”, yes, it’s the problem of a certain anonymity, nobody really ask (sic) you what you believe, because it’s obvious, that it’s a social factor”.

“Yeah, another factor which more directly concerns religious experience, there’s a deep desire to have a personal relationship with the Scriptures, to get to know the Bible, not just bits of the New Testament, but the Old Testament, to see how it connects, and these Mormons, they appear to be disenchanted with the Catholic Church because it doesn’t teach them the Scriptures, Mormonism, it doesn’t just teach them the Bible, it teaches them three other books of Scripture from Joseph Smith, so do you think they desire this scriptural experience, some people, and they’re not getting it from the Catholic Church?”

“Well, this is true that the Catholic Church, as an institution, realised this huge gap or lack in their own religious education, and Vatican II was a huge cry to rediscover the Bible, as both parts, not only the New Testament, but also the Hebrew Bible, the Council Fathers encouraged Catholics to come back to the sources, to the Bible, but unfortunately in traditional Catholic countries like Ireland, Poland, or Spain, it became a voice of the desert, it wasn’t translated into daily experience, so although the new identity which post-Council Catholics got, I mean community able to read and comment, and to be at home with the Holy Scriptures is still a far goal not reached by, so in this sense, although it is 40 years after the Council, I think that again we come back to the average Catholic in Poland, the idea of build (sic) your identity on the Holy Scriptures, like in Mormonism and the Book of Mormon, and they don’t reject the Bible, so you can read both, right, although in this special perspective, so it could be appealing, I mean it is in Polish, we say: ‘It’s the sin of neglecting your own tradition’, and now it come (sic) to my mind that the same problem you see with people who are attracted to Far East (sic) religions, Buddhism, Hinduism etc., where you have a very important component of meditation, of the deep inner experience of contemplation, we have this tradition in Catholicism, but it is forgotten”.

“Yeah, St. John of the Cross”

“Not only”.

“St. Theresa of Avila”

“And Jesuits’ tradition, you know, Spiritual Exercises, but it’s like neglected”.

“You see, from my years of experience with the Society of St. Pius X, this is one of the organisations which doesn’t neglect St. John of the Cross, St. Theresa of Avila, and as long as it’s the Douay-Rheims or Latin Vulgate version of the Bible, these are the only Catholics I know who read the Bible regularly”

“Yeah”.

“I remember one guy, he said the one thing which is wrong with the Society of St. Pius X, it’s too strict on morals, he said if Catholic society kept the Tridentine, old Latin Mass, the aesthetics, great contemplatives, and gave them to the people who are a bit loose on morals, don’t push the sexuality nuances, he said 50-60% of Catholics would still be practising worldwide, he said what Vatican II under Pope John Paul II, what it’s done wrong, it’s done the opposite, it’s gone very strict on morality, but there’s no sign of the old Latin Mass, there’s no St. John of the Cross, no Scholasticism, no Thomas Aquinas, does that sound reasonable that this loss of Catholic identity has been done in this kind of jigsaw, do you think?”

“Possibly, what is good in Catholicism today for me is the variety, you have Catholic Church in plural, and the national or new languages in the liturgy contributed to this, being more identified with your culture and language, and not with the universal Church, this is my personal opinion about John Paul II and even Paul VI and now Benedict XVI that these post-Conciliar Popes were less interested as one who started the dialogue with the world, John XXIII, they’re not interested in the world, in the variety of cultures, and what we call the postmodern world, the post-ideological, post-political world, what is a source of huge confusion for many, they are more interested in proposing a very strict and very strong Catholic identity, shaped not in dialogue with the world, but with rejection of the world, I think this is a source of strength on the one hand, there are many people at home with this strong moral teaching, but for other people like me this is the problem, I don’t feel at home totally in this polarising preaching, I’m really at home with the teaching of John XXIII who was opening his arms and said: “Well, I’m interested in what the world really feel (sic) about myself and my institution etc.”, so it is paradox, because many people like you mentioned the Society of Pius X and many conservative Catholics are saying that the post-Conciliar Church lost its identity, because of being too much open (sic), my perception is the opposite, that the Church is really afraid of the world, you know, this concept of the culture of death which was coined by John-Paul II is predominant, and the same Benedict XVI, he’s refusing the world as such, so I don’t see that the Church is too far in dialogue, the opposite”.

“Yeah, a lot of the Mormons have, they’ve not explicitly, but the way I’ve inferred is that their disenchantment with the Catholic Church, some of it is predictable moral-type stuff, they don’t want to tell their sins to a priest at confession, they have an aversion to that, and the other side is, there’s a loss of enchantment, magical reality, there’s no Gregorian Chant, no St. John of the Cross to read, no Thomas Aquinas for the lucid philosophy, but they go to the Mormons, and they get three extra books of Scripture, and they go in a temple, which has rituals which are as complicated as the Catholic Church, and more mysterious, because only the worthy can go there, so I mean, would you agree that maybe there has been this loss of enchantment with the Catholic Church, the loss of striving for the transcendent through beauty and not just beauty, like you said, the ascetic, reading about the Benedictines, about the Carthusians, you know?”

“You see in this, people try to, even to imitate this kind of personal attachment to Holy Scriptures, to Tradition, but this became more a question of I would say individual choice, it’s not the mass experience, you don’t see so many people doing this, but it’s privatisation of religion, it’s what sociologists of religion are saying, but at the same time, I would say interiorisation, so I see this as a positive, and the same connected with what you mentioned with this great Scholastic Tradition, Thomas Aquinas, and these mystic writers like John of the Cross or Theresa of Avila, all this you discover on your own, so we’ll see, I think, on (sic) the beginning, Christianity was also the phenomena of few, as our conversation, I mean, you don’t can have (sic) this kind of deep conversation with everyone, only people who are really making questions about their identity, they are interested in this, the most are saying: “Well, let us speak about”, you know, “culture, politics, economy, crisis, global warming, this is our problem, but religion is passé, it is not more relevant”, so this is the dominant problem I think, and the real crisis that religion became not relevant for average people, I see this with my students in Łódź, I need time to convince them that religion is relevant, also in terms of our future as the human kind, but for most of them not”

“I mean, I think that some people, if you bring up the subject with them, you can see the relief on their face, they thought that nobody else would bring up the subject, and I think that that amount of people is higher than what most people would think, you know, they’re a little bit embarrassed acknowledging it to other people, I mean, I’ve not done research on it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was 25-30% of people who would be open to a serious discussion like this, and after a few weeks, they would get conversant to it”

“Yeah, probably what is important in this 25 or even 30% of people, even more if you take the US, is the way how you approach the problem, if it’s not aggressive way, it’s open, it’s seen as an existential problem, and not as, you know, you have to declare how it is, it’s like, it have (sic) to grow up from your inner, and this yeah, I’m optimistic in this sense, if you are approaching religious questions in this open and tolerant way, the people recognise this is really very important dimension of their lives, yeah”.

“And what would possibly be most interesting to you, with the Mormons, there’s a surprising aspect of interreligious experience, there’s still a small attachment to the Catholic Church with some of the converts, some of it through predictable ways like going to family baptisms, first holy communions, they still have contact with the Catholic Church through them means, and the second one is more interesting, one or two on a hot summer’s day, like going into a Catholic Church to experience the stillness, you know, and the third point is that young women seem to be the subculture within the Mormons who absolutely hate the Catholic Church, hate the concept of transubstantiation, a few have said it makes them want to be sick, whereas it’s the men who still have a little interreligious connection with the Catholic Church, I mean do you have any comments about this kind of phenomena?”

“Not directly, I would say that it’s like with some atheists, you have peaceful, not aggressive atheists, and you have very aggressive people like Richard Dawkins or this kind of formation were you feel a deep need to fight against religion, and I think first of all, this is a very individual question, and connected I’m quite sure with personal experiences, with some traumas, with some negative experiences, if the transition from one religion to another was peaceful, was like falling in love, you don’t reject your past, you just think with gratitude that you discover something more beautiful, you can see that what was previous was a preparation for this, and you’re grateful that many things as (sic) Catholic Church prepared you for, for this new experience like Mormon Church, so I would say it’s, again in this peaceful atmosphere of conversation, you can discover this, that sometimes the people who hate Catholicism or some basic concepts like transubstantiation, or concept of redemption, or concept of cross etc., probably they go (sic) through some traumatic experience, and they refuse this deeply, so they have to go in like psychological or psychiatric treatment to heal these wounds, and yes, I would say this, it helps me a lot to understand the people, when I’m in touch with some agnostics or atheists who reject religion as such, I said (sic): “Tell me why?”, and usually they’re coming back from some traumatic experience when they were teenagers with priests, parents, and they want to walk on their own legs, and for me, religion is not actually in conflict with my freedom as a human being, I embrace religion, because it is my free act, not because somebody forced me to do this, so I would say that probably you have a variety of types, and what I like very much, and this is more and more well-known in the, even in Catholic Tradition, is this multi-layered religious belonging, which is a very new concept formulated explicitly by Peter Phan, a Catholic theologian with an Asian background, and Raimon Panikkar, also European but at the same time Asian, because his father was from India and mother from Spain, so you have these people who are from different backgrounds, first of all, they live this peacefully, belonging to different tradition, and they see this as mutual enrichment and dialogue, and if you have these kinds of leaders, as I see both of them and many others, I see the perspective of belonging to different tradition as not exclusive, not threatening, but the opposite, that you could be a Mormon who look (sic) with sympathy to Catholicism, you can be Catholic seeing with sympathy to Mormons and so on, so why not to see (sic) all your converts as examples of this?”