THE JOURNEY HOME - 4-16-12- Charlotta Levay - Former Church of Sweden Member

welcome to the journey home my name is Marcus Grodi your host for this program and this is a special episode of the journey home or here in Sweden we're here in the parish offices of st. Erik's Cathedral Stockholm and actually this is called paulie's summer palace it's about 350 years old it's a wonderful building you'll see some of the pictures from some of the wonderful artifacts here we're also next to the cathedral behind us I think it's about maybe 200 years old I'm not exactly sure but we're in an absolutely wonderful place and this morning we had mass in the crypt of the church and there was a sense of feeling that as we're here taping these interviews in Sweden there's a sense in which we see a breaking forth of the faith in a way that's been maybe hidden away but that's what you're gonna hear in these stories as these men and women share their journey home to the faith here in Sweden our first guest is charlotta Levi welcome charlotta to the journey home thank you it's great to meet you here and I'm just curious you're here in Stockholm do you live here in Stockholm I just moved from Stockholm actually to lune which is in the south of Sweden so are you familiar with this place that we're taping the program in I think I might have been in this part of the building but most of all I'm familiar with with the church yes that's where I was brought up actually or brought into the Catholic Church so this is your home base for your faith yes it is that's right what I normally do in the journey home program is I ask the guests to back up a bit and let the audience know where you've come from spiritually or how you brought up in the faith so if I would sure all that once you start there gives a little background okay so I was raised I was born and raised in Sweden by a Swedish mother and a Croatian father and they brought me up like I guess most people in Sweden with going to church perhaps now and then for Christmas and some catheters and catechisms but mostly as non-believers I'd say more cultural yes and then there might be Lutheran wanted to make sure Lutheran exactly in the state Church of Sweden and then when I was to go to confirmation I I realized that I didn't believe at all actually and so I didn't want to do it so I I never did and then as I grew older I I became an explicit atheist I didn't believe at all that's the sort of the conclusion that I that I drew from what from all the things that I knew but then later on I was gonna wonder is that because the content of your catechesis in growing up just didn't include a explicit expression of the faith or you weren't hearing or or both and as you look back on your own I think the version of of the Christian faith that I encountered when I grew up was watered-down version with lots of no really good explanations for anything if you had any questions what you would hear in general would be well it's natural to doubt and it's a good thing to doubt and you always doubt and it's like well why should you then believe at all there was no and and I think I would say specifically there were no sort of in intellectual explanations for anything if you had specific questions about the existence of God or basic things there were no good explanations really they were instead just encouragement to to be kind and and happy so was their underlying assumption that there was this battle between faith and reason this is what we believe what if we reasonable I wonder if that was if you were kind of set up for the atheism were you you been yes I think I think they had sort of the people who who explained faith to me in different ways explicitly or implicitly when I grew up I think they they made this difference between faith and the reason I think they had the I think they believed that they couldn't really defend faith with reason and I think that's a huge mistake if there's no way of taking it seriously if you can't now what about moral teaching in your catechetical upbringing well you I still remember that one was supposed to be nice and kind I think of other people that's basically what kind of the Golden Rule yes was the main underlying tenant yes and I think that also the people I met for them it was also very important to be nice and kind people and it was like Rakosi we're nice we're very kind to each other and also if you could see for instance the the young like the teenagers or the youth culture if there was any that the people who were attracted to church in that in their teens it was also like a particular kind of people who like to to be nice and cozy and in small groups playing the guitar so it seemed more like a various particular lifestyle rather than something for anyone if you teach the faith with this presume division of faith and reason and your main tenet is being nice that leads to a hyper tolerance so you know in other words you probably didn't talk about your faith with other young people at all that was something that was more private if there was there at all I think young people in Sweden speak about the faith but as you speak about anything but in Sweden in general faith has been it's changing now but it has been something very private almost taboo you don't speak about it in public it's very sensitive yes you be nice well no it's actually no it's true I mean it's it is considered something very private and it it's considered even people who take it seriously I think seeds are something you can't just it's too serious to be talked about likely if you see what I mean and it's not it's not good good upbringing for instance it's not good tone to talk about it and dinner parties for instance you're not supposed to talk about religion and it's a bit like that you're not supposed to talk too much about that's a religion that's what I meant by you know being nice yeah if you're being nice as your main tenets that's the main tenet of your faith then you don't dig into areas that are more private so and then it leads to a hyper tolerant culture and you ended up a trajectory then as a result of that was atheism when you're actually an outspoken atheist at one time then yes I was yes yes College is that where that was well yes or what would correspond to high school college university all through these years I I was I explicitly did not believe in God yeah had you made that bold statement to family and parents and even to the point of just not going to church well no one else went to church though that didn't make any difference but my other my my older brothers and my sister they they went they went to confirmation even if they just did it as a pastor you know you do that it's a rite of passage yeah and but but when I was at that stage I said no I don't want to do it because I wanted to be honest and I didn't believe in it and my it was a big problem well it was a problem because my father had already bought me a huge family Bible you know this size so that was and and also I think he was it a little sad but in general it was accepted yeah that I didn't do it did that atheistic conviction then shape the direction you took in college in your studies and your view of the world and the direction you took in your life at the time well yes that was mine I think I was a cultural relativist or a moral relativist and I think I had some I guess I also took some pride in this I think I saw myself as quite smart you know too - I was I was smart enough to find out that to look through all those stupid superstitions yes and I was I saw it and there was some pride but also a lot I would say honestly because I didn't I wanted to be honest I didn't want to to leave things you know just open I think you would also find a lot of people in Sweden saying well I I I don't believe in God but I think there is something they would say vaguely I think there is some explanation something and and of course I think that's basically it's a good thing it because it does mean that you're sort of open and you realize that it's not just the world consists of more things than chairs and tables but but it's also a very sort of an easy thing to say and I didn't want to go for easy solutions I think I've been all my life more of an either/or I've wanted to think things through and and and be clear about things my guess is that there are a lot of our viewers who've been men and women of faith all their life and they can in conceive of what life would be like to have decided there is no God and then to try and think out the ramifications of that mm-hmm that maybe can't even conceive how you would live without at least accepting that there's something else out there whether you have a strong faith than God and I'm wondering maybe talk a little bit more about that from if you look back as you were thinking through the ramifications you actually your description of many in the culture is more of an agnostic they haven't taken an active stand against the acceptance of God but they think there's something else out there so they but it allowed that allows them to avoid the strong position against morality or against coach because they're saying well there's something else out there something but you actually said you were an atheist so you've taken that strong position you look back on that a time I mean how did that then have ramifications to how you understood morality how would you understood the purpose of the life that you were given did you think of life that way you had a purpose in your life now I thought I think I I saw of course that there are human beings that have other dimensions than purely biological material I did realize that but I I think I sort of left it open okay so where does that come from I didn't I saw that more like perhaps we don't know exactly how that came about but I did of course realized that there are depths in humanity and and there are depth in life I I did realize that it's just that I I didn't see any recent to anchor it in in in a God that the way I thought would didn't know anything about that I saw more as a productive imagination I would say a large majority of people who are in the agnostic camp because they can't address that issue just put it up on the shelf and get on with life you know we're getting your career focus on life focus on relationships focus on people and leave those big questions kind of in the background that'd be my guess probably how I would have dealt with it I was in that scientific materialism for a brief period of time in college but I was so involved with my studies I never thought about the big questions once I thought about the big questions that brought me back to God and wondering with as you think about now was starting to introduce you to God was a deal well what were the issues that started you back to faith of course there's several steps what I think one of maybe the the very first step was that I I got more conscious about the problems with this relativism I got more conscious about but good and bad good and evil and I think I realized that this way of keeping everything open and it may be this and it may be that and it depends on that attitude I realized that it that it it's it's wrong you can't really have that and and one of the things that I think set off my thinking about it was the war in in former Yugoslavia because of the atrocities that were committed there and because of I think the indifference of the world and also because of the way people explained it the way people really recent about it in relativist terms that and and some of I don't know the the wrong versions that were propagated about it made me realize that there is such thing as good and bad and there is some things are true and some things are false and it matters it has consequences it's not you can't keep that open you can't say what it is of course that some moral habits and practices may be how are relative there are of course customs and things like that that differ from country to country and from age to age but there are some things that are just wrong so I think it was encountering even if it was only through newspapers and people I met not personally but still encountering and thinking more about evil I think that's what made me think no it did did it particularly touch you because you mentioned the battle on Yugoslavia I mean so you have family back in that part of the world yes my my father's from Croatia and it's not that he talked a lot about this it's more that it was a reason for me to to try to be better informed I guess so I did read about it I did try to to get to know about it I don't know how much people think about it today but it was such a horrible horrible war and there were so many versions of it circle and I think all those versions made it more difficult for people to take a stand point and and I think for me that was real it really made me think about about how should I say that truth matters and good and bad matters it's not you can't it isn't relative there are absolutes isn't that one of the problems is that you're what you're touching on is you're reading about the war through a medium yeah that is relativistic yes it has a whole different opinions on whether it's right or wrong it's more political at times the way it's being communicated and I think your audience recognizes that regardless of where they're listening from in their own culture they may have heard about that war and maybe they didn't hear about it at all depending on whether their media thought it was important or not so you were hearing it but you were getting a touch of grace to let you see there's something wrong here with this picture you know I love to see the work of grace in that out of your conscience you're recognizing there's a right or a wrong but did you did you identify it wasn't a direct connect well there must be a God you're just direct you're just recognizing there's something there that's the first step that's what took me I think that's what made me question all those things that I had taken for granted and that's what made me look closer at at some of my basic assumptions and so it it it made me think all over again about the basic questions in life and I think I don't want to generalize but I think maybe in Sweden and in other parts of the Western world we do live very protected lives and if you're protected if you don't really for me I think it was meeting as you said those relativistic the way the way the media portrayed it but it was also just thinking about you I think that such a thing does really exist and sometimes that's not always clear if you're very protected from everything and from the consequences maybe even of your own actions if you're very pampered then maybe you will never realize the acuteness of those questions of bad Anatomy good and evil yeah did you seriously did you discuss this with any of your friends do they have similar views or did you find I discussed it a lot and I was really a very obnoxious person at that time because I didn't you know I discussed it in a rude way I brought it up you know in in in situations where I shouldn't and and I was just generally horrible and that's all so yeah well then I suppose if you're an atheist you can be how are you are mmm and who's to say it's wrong you know what I'm saying I mean it's kind of like you're even you're recognizing right and wrong but it takes a while for that realization to come home to examine your own self to see if there's a right and wrong about the way that I am and yeah I see it now but at the time you're saying you didn't see it even in yourself at the time I think what I saw first was this thing no it's not all relative and then that the rest sort of followed that made me then open for other things that I've for which I've been more closed before I think in okay what was the next thing that nudged your lungs you how long did it take you to to move from the realization of right and wrong to a real conviction that there is we I think we're talking also about parallel developments here and maybe I should mention also well what happened then was that when I started to put those questions again I did actually then turn to to the Catholic Church know why the Catholic Church I mean why not back to the Lutheran one may ask that but then that's why I also should mention that I had this also background and and I knew about the Catholic Church a bit before and I had quite after all being still being this relativist Mathis and everything I did have quite a positive impression actually off the Catholic Church since before because I might say as I mentioned my father's from Croatia and he's actually he was brought up in the Catholic Church his family was very devout especially on his mother's side and I had met them before and they had from them I think I had a quite positive image of the church I had seen already that for them religion was something different than it was for people in general I think in Sweden and also I knew some other people some friends and acquaintances that were Catholic and they also were somehow I think different from from other religious people that I knew they were more like anybody it wasn't a particular lifestyle choice it could be people of all types and kinds and so I I I guess I had a quite positive image before of the Catholic Church and I think I guess I also had some sense that there there were more careful explanations of how things work that maybe there you could get some answers from to questions that are more tricky you use the word maybe and it seems that the emphasis there is that your own Lutheran upbringing you had not experienced a catechesis that clearly explained your faith but through the witness of your grandparents mm-hmm you sensed in their authenticity of their faith that they might have yes I'm just saying you didn't you hadn't been received any cata chemical training on what Catholics really believed except you saw the reality of it in your grandparents live is that what you're saying is the seed that was planted way back when you're a child that was now starting to ripen yes that was very important yes it's difficult to say exactly us I might also you know have read things or have had a general impression that you could be more recent about your face and and believe I'm not sure but definitely those people that I had met were very very important because what I had seen in them was I mean lots of different things as I said in my my my my grandmother and her family I could just see that for them faith was a source of of happiness it was for them it was something nice in their life I think in in sweet in the Church of Sweden faith was something very serious and heavy it was something that you would sort of really need to be careful about the first things you know but for them faith was a a joyous thing and so that was important and so definitely it was something that was sort of in the back of my mind another thing the audience might not realize is what about the atmosphere here in Sweden in your lifetime is there a more openness to the Catholic faith I know historically there wasn't is there more openness that enabled you to be wanted very recently there were very strong feelings against the Catholic Church in Sweden which was anchored in a strong Christian belief so it's it's people being quite attached to their faith and having some prejudice then against the Catholic Church now with more secularism and pluralism there is more tolerance and openness towards that Catholic Church but I guess there's also much more ignorance about Christianity in general so it's a it's a mixture people are more open but then also they might be open to anything Buddhism whatever hmm I noticed right down the street here there's a mosque there is the mosque right here yes so I mean there's there's openness to a great variety of things as a result of that tolerance yes well yes there's immigration and with people I would say actually there's not much openness to to Islam okay that's the the exception all right people aren't very oh but you have the immigrants though freely able to live by their faith yes in this environment which would not have been true for Catholics fifty years ago a hundred years ago a hundred years ago no and as late as I think in the forties you couldn't be a professor at the University and be a Catholic you had to belong to to the Lutheran Church you may want to check that as a fact statement but I think it was quite late actually and still our our King and the royal family and they are obliged to belong to the state church okay similar than other countries from our viewers that will England is a similar right when we take a break charlotta and will back just a moment to hear the rest of a charlatan Tobias story welcome back to the journey home we're coming to you from Stockholm here in the parish offices of st. Erik's Cathedral and these as I mentioned earlier these offices are part of a summer palace that's 350 or so years old so it's a wonderful environment here to do our taping and our guest is Charlotte de la vie and Charlotte - thank you for summarizing your journey so far it's hard to take a whole life and condense it into an hour but we left where you had talked about an awareness from your life experiences first of the reality of a good and bad evil that I'm assuming that your compatriots here in Stockholm didn't exactly share they hadn't all come to that realization but also you're talking about the seeds that had been planned in your life by the witness of your grandparents and even friends and and I want to go back there just a little bit more because I want our audience to recognize what important part that played in awakening your heart to the Catholic faith because your grandparents probably didn't realize what their witness had done in opening you to the faith I think perhaps most of all my father perhaps didn't realize for her because he is himself he doesn't believe in God but he's very Catholic in his views in his he's a cultural Catholic I'd say and very probably influenced by his upbringing with particularly on his mother's side a very religious and pious family and so in lots of things that he has told about the family and about the lives that they led about how they made their choices about the values that were important I think that has somehow transmitted and given me a sense of an example actually I still think quite a lot about my my grandmother and her sisters about the stories I've heard them from a different time a different life when other things mattered and just to take a small example of the stories he told of one of my grandmother's sister she recently she's dead now but when she was old or retired she she she got to know that the house where she had lived all her life she had no property rights to it which can be somehow I guess a shocking experience for people but what she did she fell on her knees and said thank you Lord for making me poorest you and that's that that's the kind of stories for at least that I was the that I was brought up with so even even just those stories of people that concern you make you think it's so completely different from from what you the rest of the thing you hear about how people make their choices what people care about and there are lots of other stories like that and I guess maybe from a culture where Family Matters from from a culture where you do tell stories about the family and so I think my father has transmitted that and also I guess in his own his own thinking when he for instance wants you to apologize for something I knew once he even wrote a list of conditions forgiving for being forgiven for something particularly serious offense to to me and my my brothers and sister and then he actually it was like that was a small catechism because it was like okay first you need to you need to realize that you did something wrong you need to be sorry about it you need to be prepared to to do men's etc so it was like so I think maybe somehow my mind was prepared in a way for for the more formal teaching than about sin and forgiveness well you mentioned the strong statement that you your father though a catholic calling himself catholic himself probably did not believe in God but yet even there the witness of his convictions of right and wrong planted seeds in your conscience that were there and these are all wonderful messages to our audience when we think about bringing up our children our grandchildren how we I mean this wonderful story about the attitude of thankfulness hmm that your grandmother expressed I mean that is such an important attitude to all of life when you face crucial issues that in the midst of that yet you'd be thankful for what you have or what you are yes I think I think that has also made me think about how everything you do in life it sends a message and you don't know who's ever going to receive that message it's what you do in your in your life and as validly my Graham grandfather said on his when he on his deathbed you say that on his deathbed he said to his children that I've been talking even when I've been silent saying that everything I did in my life was to show you how I think you know what is what what is what matters what is important in life and obviously that's the way we should think of what we do is and our attitudes there's always somehow someone watching there's it does make a difference even if you don't know and even if you will never know in your own lifetime it's so important it what what you do yourself even in almost in in your in your inner mind and in private it does matter too to other people we're all connected in that way well as a result of the witness and the seats planet both by your father and your grandparents you know that's awakening the right and wrong and then I know an interest in the Catholic faith but you can still have that and be a bit detached at what point do you become engaged in the Catholic faith I started going to those courses with introductions to the faith and there I was very impressed actually and attracted by it it was quite important to me that there were sort of a good reasoning sound reasoning about it that logics wasn't bidden that there was an intellectual tradition that if you had questions very specific and sometimes even you know stupid basic questions there were explanations that was very very important to me because it showed me that this is something that people take seriously it's not just a figment of their mind it's not something that they make up to comfort themselves no this is seriously they they take it seriously so it for me it then became a serious option but then I think yeah and then I did go to see a priest for a few times and of course I think I think it was in those conversations some of the things he said some of the things that made me stop thinking about it realizing that that this respect the truth that I think I somehow had had before it was actually a respect for God and that also a realization that that the evil that I had encountered in the world that I've started to think about it wasn't it was something that I could also have part in that I wasn't such a great person that I had thought that was also I think a very very important issue that I'm sort of part of the problem that the problems of the world are not it's not it's not I can't sit on the side being detached from it and think about it philosophically I'm part of it all and and part of the problem and I need to that confrontation would also I think a moment of truth and I realizing that that was also an encounter with God you know to see things that I hadn't seen before st. John and his first letter which is a part of the daily readings today talk about expressed almost the self realization of the fact that you've been touched by God when you realize you've been touched by God you see yourself differently yeah and even as you expressed that you used to have a certain attitude about truth and the way you would hit people with your opinions but you came to a realization that well that's not exactly right so you're starting to be changed by grace yourself yes and obviously if you have a relativist mindset you don't need to think very carefully about the bad things you've done in life but if you stop thinking more carefully about it then those things you know become more pressing and I think at that point it was I I did change the way I looked on myself and the world also definitely I I that was a very important part I think of that journey we're talking about realizing my own weaknesses my own faults basically repenting is somehow necessary part of the journey yes definitely a very very I can I remember I mean precisely that conversation those days when I realized hmm there's something wrong here and it's not just wrong with the world it's wrong with me you know it's as you went through the training of course you started encountering aspects of the Catholic faith there were a whole lot different than your Luther I'm learning not just because you may not have been trained well but now all of a sudden there's confession the sacraments there's teachings about Mary there's other theological differences how did you deal with those in your journey well I think well there were lots of things like that to think of and I think particularly about the role of the church as an institution and the role of sort of having all those dogs and and being expected to believe in them and I think that was even before my conversion I bought this it's a book this thick by Carl Orff summarizing the most important it's still it's quite interesting reading and and also if somehow if you've got problems falling asleep it might also help a bit it's very interesting but somehow tiring as well and it's so there of course there are lots of things you were expected to suddenly believe in but but I think for me it wasn't any particular singular explanation it was more a sense that when I had questions you could really get explanations I I did have the privilege of having good teachers at that point several and also I think well informed friends so I could talk you know more informally with them who knew a lot about those things and who would explain things in very good ways also sort of very sort of theoretically and factual they could give explanations and and that was very important I think to encounter those people as well but and then after a while I think I sort of get a sense of security okay if I have questions there are answers and there is an in there is a discussion going on and this discussion has been going on for 2,000 years I'm not the first one who's thinking about this so it's sort of I can relax I don't I don't have to scrutinize everything every single you know paragraph in every single statement that any Pope has made because I can have a general sense of confidence in the whole process you know okay so we've got lots of smart people who've been thinking about those things they've had church meetings quarreling about it and this means this has been going on for centuries and maybe I'm not the smartest and in this whole group you know the audience and we need to understand you have a PhD in business and you teach business organization yeah and I'm thinking the way you're describing how you're drawn to the church very order of this it makes sense it fits together which impressed me too when it came to the faith that the Catholic faith even though just a summary is that thick yet fits together yeah there's an order there's it's reasonable it makes sense it doesn't mean that you look at a difficult doctrine like the Trinity or the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist still takes faith to recognize yeah yeah but there's a reason behind the things that we believe and I love that as our recent holy father John Paul II emphasized so importantly their relationship to faith and reason and I think maybe the closer you come to faith maybe those things matter perhaps less and less because that's not really the core of the faith but I think those questions sort of about logics and intellectual matters they can be a stumbling block so it's very very important to have those that reasoning and it's important not to forget it because when people put questions to you it can be about those things well wouldn't you say probably yeah if you forget those then you end up like maybe where your father ended up in Catholic name only yeah not knowing the things very well talk a bit about the actual coming into the church was that a big event for you or you mean that that day and then yes of course it was it was well it was in this church it was on the day of the holy Heart of Jesus is that when you say no no the confession was on that day okay and the reception so to say it was the first communion it was on the day of the Immaculate Heart of st. Mary and yes it was I was nervous in a way I think that I'm not usually in public situations it was like don't know it was and my mother was there and my father had sent me flowers which was nice because I knew then that he he was happy for it and yes it was some well maybe I am Swedish also in that way then when he come to the deepest feelings maybe it's also difficult to talk about so easy to express like alright well your your your vocation your you teach in business but you also on the side find yourself in a bit apologetic areas talk to the audience a bit like that because you've been in in the press defending issues of the faith yes I've been working a bit like a bit as a opinion journalist and I still write you know Collins commentaries I sometimes participate in in debates and in television and on those occasions I sometimes it the issue is about morality and I think it's I think I then have the opportunity to present things that are sort of unheard of for a Swedish audience because there is such a very sort of politically correct you its weighs so heavily on the public debate in Sweden that there are some things that are just taken for granted and there are some things that you don't talk about you know there are two boosts and there are so just just with very basic I think understanding of some of the things that I think are very intensely discussed in the United States if you just have a small knowledge about that you can make a huge impact I think in Sweden I would say that especially from the United States perspective often when we think of Sweden we think about the sexual freedoms that it becomes such a just an accepted part of the Swedish culture now is that one of those things you just take for granted or is that one of those things you don't talk about or both and I think for instance it is taken for granted that the sexual revolution was a good thing and that abortion should be allowed that that section tea is a good thing for women and so on there's that it has to do with women's liberation there are lots of things that like that that are that are taken for granted but it's also to boo in the sense that you can't really talk about openly about about abortions about consequences for women about the consequences for society it has been for quite a long time I would say an area where only one opinion is allowed it's slowly changing those though I think it's getting now it's it's opening up a bit you can actually talk about it a little bit more freely and which is important well as you are what you're saying then also is that you have broken through some of those areas and actually speak the teaching of the church on some of these areas are you received well yes I think I am because I are you giving women courage I join you in that I don't know if I am it's just that I think that I I think when I discussed those thing I'm sort of careful not to try to be not too aggressive which is very easy to be when when you think about when you believe something strongly I tried to rather sort of invite people to to think about things in a new way and people are interested in it and I think there is as I mentioned the world politically correct before and I think there is sort of an a received opinion about this that doesn't really correspond to what people in general feel I think people in general do are much more open-minded and do know from their own lives that those things aren't completely unproblematic so if I think if I say things in TV or in in an opinion piece people think yeah well it's all yeah actually she's got a point there and even if they don't agree completely they are open and I do get you know thank you notes and people who are grateful and people who say it's quite important what you said there and and it's so I think there is there is an an openness among people in general I think well your own experience of realizing the right and wrong just from your own conscience even though you weren't believing in God at the time you know we're where we're staying in our hotel is just a block away from here and I arrived on Friday night late mm-hmm I got to the hotel one in the morning and the streets were full of people Saturday night full of young people and I was thinking as I looked at that that's the children of the sexual revolution as you look at your culture now you're looking at these young people who are the second generation of that I mean how do you see the status of things here in Sweden as a result of that how I see it yeah I think that young people today unfortunately not all of them have a very strong sense of their own value I think maybe they're a bit reckless with themselves and with one another but I do think that they also have an openness for for something different a longing and because precisely because they see the consequences of this in their own lives and in the life of others for them I think freedom when it comes to lifestyle it's not something new it's not a promising it's a sort of dreary reality if you see what I mean it's something that's always all options have always been open no one has ever told them you shouldn't do this you shouldn't do that or not very strongly at any rate they've always been told that everything is open you could do anything you like and I think maybe very early on in life they realized that if nothing matters well they're not nothing cutters then it's not very interesting either it's not very important either they realize I think quite they can become I think quite disillusioned quite early on in life and among the people who agree with me when I say things that aren't very often said in Sweden in the public debate among those people are quite often young people who've just simply had enough I think that's the sense in which why conversions like yours are very timely yeah I mean truly very timely you had talked about being brought up in in a sense where maybe the main morality was be kind mm-hmm which can often express itself as being hyper tolerant mm-hm well the Scriptures talk about speaking the truth in love and that's might include kindness but love is a real caring for another person to help them understand what's true in a gentle way and I think a conversion like yours at this time is very timely let's say that we've got some some people watching us who are right now where you were what would you like to maybe say to them as words of encouragement for their own journey I would like to say be very careful to keep your sense of truth of honesty and if you follow honestly the truth then you will find your way home and take your time it's there's one direction there is there is one God and as long as you keep that direction in your life you will end up in the right place I might even encourage him to to consider prayer talking to them that God up there that is our great loving creator I think pursuing truth that is a prayer yeah in my mind which it was for your own life yeah you didn't realize it at the time but you know as you look back as I said I think as a personal advice from me specifically I think that this the important of truth and how that is so intimately connected with with God that if if you if you're honest if you're faithful to the truth you're also faithful to God and that may help you in the most diverse situations I think all right sure a lot of thank you very much for your witness or for joining us on the journey home and thank you all you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 12,282

Rating: 4.7362638 out of 5

Keywords: convert, Catholic, Sweden, church, JHT01209

Id: QVjI5Kj4OEM

Length: 51min 53sec (3113 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 19 2012