The Journey Home - 2013- 07- 15 - Talat Storkirk - Former Muslim

good evening and welcome to the journey home program my name is Marcus Grodi your host for this program and this is a special edition of the journey home we're here in Stockholm Sweden in the parish offices of the Cathedral of Saint Eric here in Stockholm filming the conversion stories of men and women who because of their great love for Jesus Christ also came home to the church it's not always in that order because our guests each guest has a unique story as they were led by the Holy Spirit and my guest for this program is to lot stro Kirk is that right - that's right well welcome to the journey thank you it's great to meet you here in Stockholm thank you and you have a different journey we're here in Sweden but you weren't brought up here in Sweden you know all different stories born in pre partition India which is not Pakistan and I've been there when you said pre partition India Pakistan about that that was when the British - still India was still a colony of the British it was partitioned in 1947 and my parents then opted to become citizens of Pakistan and at the time I was going to school in Darjeeling at a convent school and it's not that I was every off the bat that it seems like an irony that you were really you're in Islam right Islam that's right my parents and one was limps my family are all Muslim they still are I'm the only Catholic in the family and my parents sent me to a convent school because they thought that the nuns my father especially he thought that the nuns were the best Muslims he said they dressed modestly they they had the right moral values and he thought he couldn't trust his daughter to them so I I know I don't know any other form of schooling I've only been to convent schools all my own eyes would you would you option it have been Muslim schools or state-run schools I probably would not have had a schooling had there not been this form of schooling because my parents my father was always stationed in rather remote areas he was working for the railways but in the Assam Bengal side and east eastern India that is now or in Bangladesh and they were not always schools in these places so they had to either send me to my grandparents or to but even my mother she went to a convent school so I think all girls of that generation and my generation we would not have received an education we would have a post probably learn to read and write it over though and so on but it would have been a very conservative very years so your father felt that your mother had gone to convent school and hurt her in terms of reason that's right that's right you thought it was safe for you it also basically says and is this true or maybe this is a caricature that your father when he thought it was Muslim faith it was he was very emphasized on the morality of it not so much of the theology of it perhaps but I think you know my for my my parents are very religious and they very prayerful I remember my father praying half the night early morning he was always praying so my mother Joe but I'm not quite sure if there if I could compare it to the way Catholics pray you know there's more contemplation I think it was more just saying certain I may be wrong about it but this is my perception from that time then it was more it was not quite so deep gosh I hope my father will forgive me for saying this because I cannot judge it but just from how I saw it that they of course you know most of the prayers were said in Arabic which we did not speak so you learn even I learnt them by heart and we and then you know you it's a very ritualized prayer you form certain gestures kneel and you bow down and prostrate yourself and so on so it's really interesting you're doing rituals and reciting words that you may not truly understand but now that's really the practice that's right that's right and then also when we when I was a young in overview I was taught to read the Quran and of course it had to be read in Arabic and we had to really use the alphabet to go to ABC you know to pronounce words because we couldn't read the Arabic we didn't understand it there is a commentary in order to underneath so you could read it but the real significance of reading the Quran is thought to come only from reading it in Arabic so which was another difficulty at least for me it really could be a really actually a practicing Muslim but not know your faith very well got you good good and I think that is and of course people pick up like give me Catholics do you know you think up certain cultural ways of being of and was L'Amour being a Catholic and without really understanding I mean it can happen also to us Catholics do but definitely I found it was more so in Islam that people at least when I was younger that's how I was it true for you it was definitely true for me it I was always searching I didn't know what I was searching for I mean this in the when I first became conscious of God and then and then and my spiritual life it was in the 50s the Cold War was going around us they were after bombs being exploded in the atmosphere and there was a I remember a kind of a fear around me of what would happen and there was a fear of the Communists it was a from Stalin was still alive and so on so I became very interested in religion because I felt really maybe the end of the world was great coming and I wanted to go to heaven so that's what really spurred me on and were the sisters in the school because it was a Muslim country now when I was in Pakistan but this time of my life so we used to get received we non-catholic children and girls and that school means to receive something called moral armament I think it was come to Casa I think just called that I don't really fully recall it but it was something that we just received basically how to live a good life good moral I have to fight the battle that's right well something like that it says yes so that's what we would get but of course I was very interested in the Catholic side what the but and I remember when people would say what are you a Catholic I would say I'm a Protestant but I was younger because I thought but I'm not a Catholic was I can't you know I don't go to catechism so I must be a Protestant because when I was younger but then when I grew older and I was in my teens early teens I realized but in the meantime I'd received Muslim it's an Islamic education to model I used to come home and go through the inter parents did you that the Muslim we had a mullah you know learn and tutor who was a Slavic Deuter who'd come home and he we went through the Quran together and he we went through the life of Muhammad and so on but I found that at that time when I asked questions it was rather bad better go GTO because if you asked a question that he thought was inappropriate he'd say oh you know he wouldn't kind of shame you that you can't question that this is the Word of God you know something kind of was so you know you we didn't get help in that way either so but anyway I think the spirit was leading me someplace else already then this is your Pakistan this is my Pakistan period then in 1955 my father was transferred to Sudan and he was stationed in a small town there with again there were no schools so I was again sent to a Catholic convent and run by the Verona sisters and here I was older more interested in in the faith plus I was asked to take up the synoptic Gospels as a subject for school with my father's permission because it was just an extra subject for my CEO levels as they were called as an English it exam for the audience the synoptic gossipy Matthew Mark and Luke that's right that's right and I just took this is a school subject and that was over the first time I really immersed myself in the Gospels before it kind of hearsay you know I had the Muslim view of the Oh about Jesus's life and about a lady and so on so that was your first touch and it really shocked me because III you know being a teenager I was extremely affected by Jesus's words I've been wiping sepals their you hypocrites I somehow so all this all around me and it really did it penetrated deep down it made me feel that oh my gosh this is how everybody I see around me maybe I again it's my perception I don't want to conserve condemn my people around me for that but it was that's how I thought that we were hypocrites and white and Sepulcher saw Jesus as a teenager that's what came across so I started to I felt very uncomfortable and I realized that there was a kind of a turmoil in my in my being that I was being drawn towards Catholicism at the same time I felt loyalty towards Islam it was it was a difficult time for me at that time and I was a teenager I didn't know who to approach what to do and did your parents know that you were going through this you know no no but I wasn't I was in a boarding school and I didn't think I could speak about this to anybody so it was within me and III nobody tried to evangelize and jörgen about to me know that nobody did it was all for me and of course then I used to go sometimes to the to the cathedral for the liturgies and I was absolutely fascinated by this it used to be the old old the Latin Mass as it used to be and I'm assuming that then what you experienced in the liturgy was radically different than what you experienced salutely absolutely I mean there was music there was incense there was candles they were singing I mean it was just something totally different yes I could understand well it was in Latin but you know there were missiles with this English text on the other side it was just absolutely like you know you hear about the and when the people from Russia wanted to see the liturgies had seen at the angels it felt like that I haven't had come down for me there but but I did resist inside me because I really did not I I think I went through a short anti-catholic phase at that time of my life because I think that was my way of trying to put it off and then in the meantime I was sent to England to continue my my schooling and I came to Worthing doing another convent this time run by the sisters of sign and I was again over there I had more books around for me to look at and then there you encounter Anglicanism yes but not really in my school because we were in a Catholic environment there so I was never really interested because for me it was started with Henry the eighth then I don't know I know I don't want to mean he wasn't one of my favorite games either so it really didn't they didn't attract me in that way but it was danced around when I was about 17 or so that I'd really it within me began to say that I wanted to be a Catholic but it took another six months or so before I voiced it I struggled with it myself was really unique happening there that period of training that no no nothing and I cannot explain it because it was just it was there and it was it was something that I couldn't it was like like a tsunami almost within me I couldn't keep it away it is something I've been building yeah childhood the the subtle teaching that you're receiving that's right this is a work of the Holy Spirit I mean one can't explain it in any other way really but anyway then I asked for instruction and you see because I was a board and because Pakistan was so far away I stayed at school also for my holidays I read my parents had some friends it's a first part of that I would go away but most of the time I spent in school even during the holidays and the priests next door they we were a group of us so do you know they sometimes would take us out or invite us over for everything so I became friendly we could talk a little bit when I'm in a more relaxed way but and there were the nuns - I couldn't discuss and these Catholic girls in my school so we had discussions and so on so it it just gradually led to the that I wanted instruction something else I was wondering is that and again I don't know that all the audience appreciates the fact that probably once you're in England they were there's a fair number of Pakistani not in the 60 in the 50s was oh no see I came to England in 1957 there were not many count foreigners living there we not from the third you know the third world living there so because I was thinking maybe you would encounter some someone they were beginning to come but no no I I came across no Pakistanis and in fact most of my school I think the 95 percent of the of the school the student body was was British there were few foreigners my best friend was from Iraq Catholic but there were many but anyway in 1959 then the beginning of 1959 I was by this time I was 18 years old so I asked for I would be baptized but before I did that I wanted my father to know so I wrote a letter to my parents to say that I hadn't thought about it I studied yet and I was going to convert to Catholicism I didn't I I guess I was naive I did not expect the reaction I got my father immediately wanted me to be sent back to Pakistan I had an exam coming up nothing I I just had to go back so within a week the nuns had to arrange for my departure and then I asked the priest if I could be baptized before I went back to Pakistan and he said no because he thought that I was in the care of the sisters and this would be a breach of confidence so he refused so then I said to him all right if you won't do it I will ask my friend to baptize me and as I've learned from you this is quite valid and so he said well that's very disobedient but it is but in addition he baptized me he did so I was baptized on the feast of Corpus Christi he wanted me to take a Christian name and I said well I'm going back to Pakistan and I don't think I should have a Christian name he should baptize batalla then when you do that I will automatically have a Christian name because it'll be baptized but we had a little bit of a struggle on that in the end I said all right baptize me Darla's Christina because Christi was Corpus Christi the feast of Corpus Christi so so we compromise there so I was baptized with my given name too and that I returned and then on the way to the App Airport we stopped by it the Bishop's office and he confound me so I went back to Pakistan strengthened the two sacraments I didn't need confession because and then I was confirmed so I came back and then and my father asked me on my return whether I was baptized of course I had to admit that I was that led to a lot of problems for me because my father then kind of made sure that I didn't meet Christians that I didn't go out and I that I was restricted and I was pretty well guarded at home that continued for about a year and in the meantime I hadn't succeeded in smuggling a little letter to a priest who was the principal of my brother's school because he also went to Catholic school and then when I finally left home after a year at home I just wanted out I just walked out I had nothing with me the clothes I wore and I just walked out and I asked the taxi to take me to the nuns - this into this convert that I had been at as a school girl and I didn't even have the taxi money I had to ask the sisters to obey them which they did and when I was very surprised when I came that they knew about me because this priest who was in another town had told the bishop and everybody I think all of Catholic might be standing you about me by that there was something pretty hidden Catholic somewhere I my father did turn up with the police to fetch me but because I was of age they they couldn't I did not I refused to go so I stayed with the nuns for about six months they kept me in the cloister in fact because for my protection because they thought maybe somebody would try to kidnap me or something and then what was their fear there was there was verdict yes yes I'm it's a Muslim country in the lands were in a difficult situation but but still this is this was in 1960 1960 so it things were quite they were not as they are now I think it probably would have been much more difficult today today it's very dangerous it is it is but it wasn't as dangerous although of course we didn't go around telling everybody you know and and I also had made tried to say to my father I will not embarrass you in front of your friends because I think that my parents were more upset by what people would say then that I had begun that I'd become a Catholic I think it was to what the social pressures would be on them and I remember my mother said something to me that I've never forgotten she said to me I wish you'd come home with a child from England and that you converted and for a Muslim woman to say that it just shows you how extremely ashamed they were of me and I thought it was interesting that your the question your father has the understood that baptism means yes yes yes not just did you accept Christ or did you have a faith but were you baptized that was yes and then another very interesting thing happened too because you know when I was became a Catholic I was given a few presents somebody gave me a Bible somebody gave me a rosary and I was given a crucifix all these things I still possess and my father then said I have to read this by but I don't think he'd ever read the Bible so he picked it up and he went through the pages and he was so shocked yeah he said I think you only read the first few pages of Genesis and say ah and all these yeah this is this is Bible all these people are sinners Abraham did this you know I said well because you see it's it's a very in the Quran all these patriotic they have a very it's been cleaned their their image kind of you know they're not they don't they're not sinners they're all I think the word for that is hagiography that's right that's that's right and he was really shocked by that that I should you know take on a faith that showed people that they respect it as and of course I did not think about that at the time but since then I've often thought about it and it's so that was the the first part of my conversion story of my parents eventually I had to leave of course I realized I could not stay in Pakistan because I could not live this hidden life where I could not do anything and unless you were called to the comment that's right I did consider that too you know I think on with girls do that you know they want to become nuns or something I think even thought about the Poor Clares but I went back to England I had friends there who had in fact supported me in England in the beginning and I was there for two years no one other when you were back in in Pakistan you said at one point you were involved with the sisters that mother Teresa was involved with at one point is that right I was I went to school with them but I was not with them on the Teresa sisters and I went to school with those sisters you know but not with the mother Teresa sisters with her former convent okay Loretta now she had she been in India that was after you were there is that right she was you know in an Indian I think she came to India in the 1920s so she was there and when I I think she had her the second call it I think it was in 1946-47 something something I don't remember 48th somewhere around there so when I was in the school as a young child she was still a member of that congregation older she was in there in their house in Calcutta well I was in Darjeeling but she was coming up to Darjeeling for her retreat and so that's what I probably knew her as a as a child yes probably did I was knows in the time you were there and she become known yet no no and I think that came later with Malcolm Muggeridge as TV program about I mean I think the Indians knew about to the people in Calcutta knew about her but you know worldwide she became me I think that was really when it she saw after six months or so you then I went back to England I but I because I and my family I'm very very loving I must say I and I'm very very very grateful to my family for my gift of faith because that I've never lost I received it from my parents and I'm extremely grateful I've always believed in God and I I thank them for that and I pray for them for that great gift they gave me but do you discuss but we don't know we don't unfortunately i'm various my father was much older than other than my mother he was doing and so he III never had the opportunity to defeat died in 130 years ago now so I never really when I was able to discuss he was not there with my mother although she's a very prayerful woman and in her own way very holy I don't think she has the you know you can't discuss with her because she just does not like anybody to bring doubts into her and so you know you you can't discuss I've tried now now she's unfortunately has dementia so I can't talk to her anymore but 10 years ago 15 years ago I would try to discuss when she'd come and visit us here I tried to talk to her about her faith about her but I always found that I think she was a little scared to discuss with me because she didn't want me to she saw what happened to you and I find that very sad that people are so afraid to discuss their faith because either they will get strengthened because because of the discussion which is a good thing or they will find the truth which is also a good thing and either way they're fine so I find it very nice sad when people will not discuss I I find it everywhere people they're very timid and but I you know our folks they tell us do not be afraid and I think that's really good John Paul that's right see I was this team let's take a break and we'll come back in just a second with more of italics welcome back to this special edition of the journey home our guest is a lot stro Kirk and thank you a lot for sharing the first part of your journey it's hard to condense a whole life into it in our but thank you very much thank you at this point in your journey are now in England you know I guess you could say you've kind of left back to stand behind it I have no culture I mean oh you're a Catholic living in England right that's right I went to nursing school there to begin with and but in the meantime I'd always correspondent with my parents in the beginning they didn't answer my letters but my brother had also come to England to study and I took up a relationship with him because he was younger than I was and I've been living in England longer time so we we had no difficulty in reconnecting and then my mother she I she really wanted me to come back and so we did a deal I told my parents I'll come home but two conditions one that I would be allowed to practice my faith and secondly that I would be allowed to work and then I would in my part not make a big thing about my Catholicism I'd be discreet so that their friends they didn't have to be embarrassed yeah a woman working is that normal in Pakistan oh yes it is so my parents they said okay come home so I went oh I wanted to go home I my parents are very loved they were very loving my mother was also very loving and the whole family it's a very very warm wonderful people so I really felt very welcome back home and and this was a wonderful opportunity for me because I could I was working as a journalist and in fact I was an editor for a magazine in an english-language magazine and this gave me an opportunity to meet foreigners to meet other people I could move around and for my parents it was a wonderful job too because they didn't have to because I was moving around they could say oh she's doing it for her work you know otherwise it was a little bit strange for an unmarried girl to be kind of gallivanting around with the photographer but I could do that and it was alright and I and my experience working for a grandma it I worked for a publishing and newspaper Pakistan's largest newspaper dawn and their magazine tourism magazine that they had and I must say I was treated very nicely by my male colleagues I was the only girl in this particular office and I was very well treated really like a queen so this idea about Muslim men not knowing how to treat women is not true they did they did they did or some of them it maybe not all of them because I was very discreet and at that time I didn't wear a cross because I I wasn't quite sure of the reception I'd get so I was perhaps I'm ashamed to say too discreet however this gave me an opportunity to meet with other people and this is how I met my husband who was it was his first posting he worked for the Swedish Foreign Office and he was working at the Swedish embassy in Karachi and I met him there and when you came back to her did your father try the challenge no they didn't it was just we never talked about it I could take a taxi or a Ric shortened to Mass every Sunday and nobody asked me any questions that my parents knew I was going and in fact my first date with my husband was he came to pick me up and take me to church I met him on the son of party and Saturday and he found out I was a Catholic interested him because he was a Lutheran and he said I was sweet he was a sweet he said okay I'll take you to massaman because he was curious about a Catholic Mass so that was our first date was a mass at the casino and then about we were very you know we decided very quickly that we were going to marry a thing after just six months but my husband in the meantime had been transferred to Holland and when I told my parents that I wanted to marry a Swede hell broke loose again because I think my parents had always hoped that I would marry a Muslim and then I would reconvert come back here and when that did not happen they realized that it would not happen so they were very very sad so I had a second rupture with my parents I again had to leave home my parents tried to you know really almost black me and my husband from backing off and which I was very upset over because I thought that they didn't it was not in addition to have done that and with that then I left again and I and I and I and I came back to Europe eventually my husband and I were married in 1965 and then for the next four years I had no no contact with my parents because they were very upset with me and but I continued with my brother and through some of my friends I was able to keep in touch with them although not directly and then an uncle of mine died my mother's brother and I went to London for his when he was in hospital there and that bridged because I always held great affection for my family and I know that they felt it for me too although they were a little bit angry with me for what I had done what to do and what they saw is rebellion but also a different world it was very hard for them to understand that and of course they they could perhaps thought it out that I was rejecting them in some way that is why it was so important for me to keep my name because I thought that otherwise they think that I am you know not only I'd rejected my name I'd rejected my culture I'd reject it and I've really never done that it is not in my heart I've always been very proud to be a Pakistani and I'm very grateful to them for my faith so it's it has never been a rejection from my part but I can see that they might have taught that but anyway then with my husband we got married of course that we dare not tell anybody that we were getting married we have nobody at our wedding to witnesses from my husband's office and that ellipse we marriage in Holland and there you have to have these civil wedding first and then a religious wedding so we have that in Holland and I know it was a Catholic wedding Oh in those days they still have to sign you know that their children would be brought up I don't think they'd do it anymore but this is preme no this is not pretty Vatican but still they haven't I don't think they have changed those rules then we must accept it was your husband at the time John you mean do you think for me the most important thing about marrying my husband was I didn't I I would never have married a Muslim that I would not have done and I would not have married somebody who did not support me in my values and in my faith that was the most idea he didn't have to be a Catholic but he had to not to be against it because I don't think I would have been interested in somebody who was against it yeah absolutely it had to be and then that has been my principle even with my daughter's I've always advised them and they were dating that please don't marry somebody who was doesn't share your values and I'm very happy that they both married very good men some my husband he was very attracted to Catholicism he was he always fought came to church with me and he was a great support the first 16 years of our marriage you and he was not a Catholic but he came in fact in the end our daughters were telling him why don't you become a Catholic you're more Catholic than mama so when we were stationed in Tokyo he he finally became a Catholic he was received into the church there what did your husband do he was he was working for the Swedish Foreign Office so we've lived in Algeria in Holland in Italy in Poland and B finally yes lots of places yes and then we were in Tokyo for five and a half years and there we belong to a parish that was run by the American Franciscans from the Holy Name province New York and they had this Chapel Center and in Tokyo in Roppongi very close to where we lived and that became our second home and our daughters I'm very happy to say they have real first experience of being in a Catholic milieu was a bad Chapel Center which was very warm very welcoming and we had a great time and they they they have never ever not wanted to be Catholic it's been a very good for for us it was a wonderful place I'm very grateful to the Americans for their warm Catholicism lessons people that I met there at that Chapel said they were mostly Americans who came there but at the time when we were there most of your journey has been about your discovering of the faith so many ways it's what you've been receiving and after becoming Catholic coming home you did you yourself get involved oh yes I became involved already when we were living in Tokyo I started to go to retreats and all kinds of courses and so on to deepen my faith because I really wanted to do that and because everything was in England before we know we lived in non-english speaking countries so there was a handicap there to get into the parish life of these places that we lived in it was difficult in Poland it was difficult in Italy and Algeria and so on so but when we came to this english-speaking community it really blossomed for me and when then when we returned to Sweden I got immediately I had already started to teach catechism in the lower grades in Tokyo but when we came back here I got involved in there in the in the parish I go to Santa Eugenius parish here which isn't jesuit-run parish and after a while somebody asked me to take over the to be responsible for the English speaking group there and so it started a catechism there for the English speaking group and I'm very involved there and I teach catechism to children who are between 9 10 11 12 13 years old it's kind of a mixed group and because I'm not preparing them for a sacrament for the post First Holy Communion I I'm trying to teach them to pray so we do a lot of sharing and praying together and also I try to get them to think about their faith you know I ask them questions and I invite them too so that we don't follow any course material anymore with just discussion and try to get them to take up abortion all kinds of things so did they start you because I think that that's it doesn't mean a problem at catechesis in I have sorted my daughter they unfortunately did not receive very good catechesis and but you know it was the materials um and I look back at those books that are they received my gosh it was really awful my stuff I don't know how anybody stayed Catholic that that and I think maybe you can see the results in in in many countries that people my age and my children's age are not very well catechized but but thank god that's changing I see new books coming out that are much better but but there is a lost generation there you know I think not because of what was in the council because of how people thought the council's called absolutely not no but it's the way it was interpreted absolutely and then um and I look at the First Communion material it's just absolutely appalled in ten years so we have to change all that gradually because we don't have the resources here either because you don't maybe everything else but because I teach in the English group we are very lucky we can get a lot of stuff from from the United States from England and all through the internet it's just fantastic what is available now I'm absolutely very happy to live nowadays she said your husband came don't you yes yes after sick people mattered sixteen years they became a Catholic and so now we are totally Catholic family and two daughters one of them she's married a Catholic and the other one she's married to a Lutheran but he totally supports her in her and her faith and what are your thoughts you this in your lifetime there's been a lot of changes in the relationship between the Islam Islamic world and and the West and we really see it now and for many in many ways those of us that have no direct contact with the Islamic world we're seeing it only through the news and we're seeing them but you've lived it no I you know it's like with any faith they're good and bad people they're extremists and moderates and you know on all sides but what I do think that I'm very personally I was very happy but for Benedict that he said that we have to have a reciprocity I think that is absolutely important I think yeah I I think I I can't understand what anybody should take offense over that that there should be freedom of expression from that your freedom of religion I mean for me it's absolutely vital I mean I can't see how I could live in Pakistan if it if it wasn't I do not understand the the the commotion that was caused because of Pope baptized a Muslim at the Easter liturgy I mean it was his choice he's a 56 year old man I think he was I mean we know how can you force people ago to go against their conscience I mean yeah I've often wondered and I may be completely wrong in this but I've often wondered when you have a whole country or area that refuses freedom to others it almost makes me wonder whether it's because down deep they're insecure about their own I think I think that is the reason absolutely afraid they're gonna yeah they believe it I mean there's certain firebrands who you know ignite of you know that the others you know to do that but most people like everywhere I mean I they're not very well informed about their faith I'm sad to say that we Catholics are the same many of us don't really bother to deep enough our our our legend of faith either so I'm not pointing fingers at the Muslims but but it is like that but unfortunately there are ruthless people who inside and some of those very radicals take their faith they're taking their faith very seriously I wonder if they are well that's their that's a good point are they or they're taking it's either they're taking it so seriously but not guided well so they're off-base I mean I know fundamentalist Christians that unguided can become very radical right or they're using their faith that's right I think very often it's that you know this because one one has to have a humility about it and and and please give the other person the benefit of the doubt you know how can anybody go into anybody's heart and say in that you're you know you should be this or that I mean in the end you know we all have to make make the decision and then I mean I used to tell my father I said okay maybe heaven and I'll find out that it's Muslim but okay you know I did it out of sincerity and God can hardly if he's a merciful God as Islam says he is how can he punish me for that you know if you are sincere and I said it might be the other way around so you know you might find that he carefully got after all where we have ecumenical dialogue all right do you know how can you mean you've got if you have to be open and we have to be tolerant and we have to disrespect each other's though of course well the reason we're having a program like this is because we really do want everyone to come home to the fullness for me for the bed there is nothing else yeah we believe that the church is the church because it's the the church that Christ established and so we're following that fullness of that yeah and I look back one of your thoughts on you were brought up in these wonderful schools by the nuns and you'd mentioned a little bit earlier that that that sadly after vatican ii were some of those monastic movements are not providing those services and I'm very sad that these that charism was to teach that some of them don't do that anymore or maybe that's why they don't get the perhaps I don't know they be the vocations either because people like me have only good things to say I I am I will I pray for them to my dying day because I think they have done a fantastic job and I don't think even Catholics are aware of what missionaries have done in mission countries I think maybe they learn now because now the the stream has been reversed now their mission people from my country and I coming back to Europe which was really the the the source of missionary activity for so many centuries and now it's sadly it's no more the case and now we have only in our own diocese we have traced from all over the world right all in America I mean I've kind of many Indian priests back not for what we receive but I think this your your story your own conversion is a witness to the seats planted by those wonderful nuns maybe in their environment they couldn't katak eyes but they delivered the faith you know imagine a sister that from England coming from a temperate climate coming to our part of the world the heat the dirt the Flies the smells the whatever you know you name it and then to make it their home for the rest of their lives gosh I wonder how many would do that it just and for what for nothing but for the love of God I mean that is just such a but similar kind of thing you mentioned from England but then that's also the parallel to Mother Teresa's same that's right yeah or I'm just take the my but I was also thinking that again Americans particularly who are also watching this show we live in a country where we have really no concept of the caste struggles that are in India so you have the Munder 'full nuns and brothers coming to serve in the system yeah and they're treating everyone was I went back to Pakistan last year with two of my grandchildren and two boys they were then 13 and 9 years old and of course they were very shocked by the by Pakistan they loved the people because they're wonderful very kind very warm and they had a great reception everybody almost wherever they went but the poverty the dirt the Flies and this absolutely shocked them I was really little and then I took them to I know an belgian nun who lives in the poorest section of town and she's built a school there 4,000 children there two shifts and in this absolute slum of a place you go into the walls behind and it's like a little oasis clean god it's just the it's so shocking that you can't believe it my grandchildren it was a fantastic experience for them to see that and to see what this lone Western woman there has been doing and has done there it is just it was mind-boggling for the new feminist us to pray for those sisters and those orders they're struggling they're struggling that and there's nothing and they get know that of course they have a few Catholics very poor Catholics and in fact they're moving in around at school because the education is so good there and these nuns these missionaries they are really absolutely you'd mentioned also something to me were again outside of Indian culture we may not understand and that is for when when you have those of the the lower caste who are treated and cared for by the sisters than they themselves become sisters yes I I just reflected with my former school I went there and I was asking them how it wasn't the st. Joseph School and Karachi's was the elite school when I was growing up everybody wanted to send that children there it is no longer that and I asked some wine they said well you know there are no more European sisters coming there few of them there you go there and then if I don't the Pakistan allows missionaries to come in anymore I'm not quite sure on that but anyway so but these young girls that they have trained and educated now they're taking over these teachers and principals of the school but unfortunately they belong to the lower caste the absolutely the lowest caste and many of the ladies you know from these fine families they find it very difficult to accept that these girls although they're educated probably have all the degrees you can think of but because they've come from the wrong caste or the wrong class I don't know what it is in America we say the wrong side of the tracks that's right that's right which is very very sad and it is a bit because they don't did that is one of the problems there and but I think you know they must live in Pakistan we don't have a caste system there but because of the culture you know it is very much in will helps us know how to pray for those people in those cultures and the struggles they have and especially now in our world today when the issue of Islam and Christianity are confronting themselves in a way that maybe it's been almost seven eight hundred years as we've confronted the way that we're confronting today helped us understand so how we need to reach out in love and prayer and mercy and and recognize God's great love for everyone we want them to know the fullness of the faith but we do that in love yes we were called in to evangelize talat thank you so much thank you so much for joining us on the journey home sharing your story with us and our prayers are for you and your family thank you continued ministry and and thank you all for joining us on this special edition of the journey home from Stockholm Sweden god bless you see it gets you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 50,729

Rating: 4.8035364 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television, Muslim (Religion)

Id: S0iXAXXxQvY

Length: 51min 46sec (3106 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 17 2013