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In this episode of Catholic Education Matters, host Troy Van Vliet sits down with Murray and Patty Neilson to share their powerful family journey from Protestantism to Catholicism, sparked by their son Kyle’s studies in Christian history and theology. The Neilsons reflect on confronting long-held misconceptions about the Catholic Church, discovering the beauty, continuity, and sacramental life of the faith—especially the Eucharist—and how their conversion in 2005 deeply transformed their family, ultimately leading all three of their children and 14 grandchildren into active Catholic life. The conversation also explores the importance of Catholic education as a “third leg of the stool” alongside family and parish life, the role of conversion and reversion stories in deepening faith, and a strong commitment to stewardship and philanthropy.
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- (00:01) - Welcome to Catholic Education Matters
- (01:30) - Protestant Roots and a Son’s Question That Sparked Everything
- (03:38) - Confronting Misconceptions and Discovering the Catholic Church
- (05:53) - Books, Crisis, and the Pull Toward the Eucharist
- (09:32) - Entering the Church Together: RCIA, Family Unity, and Belonging
- (13:29) - Discovering the Real Presence: The Eucharist as the Center
- (16:34) - Why Catholic Education Matters: Faith, Formation, and Future Generations
- (24:18) - Stewardship, Philanthropy, and the Challenge of Giving Big
- (26:17) - “You Can’t Outgive God”: Learning to Ask and Give Generously
- (27:51) - A Hand-Carved Corpus and a Providential Gift to the School Chapel
- (32:16) - Art, Faith, and Saying Yes to Life
- (37:23) - The Joy of Giving and Why Generosity Fulfills the Soul
- (40:30) - Quiet Catholic Impact: Charity, Healthcare, and Pro-Life Witness
- (43:25) - Catholic Education and Forming the Next Generation of Leaders
Creators and Guests
What is Catholic Education Matters ?
Welcome to Catholic Education Matters the podcast that celebrates the beauty of Catholic education, highlighting excellence in academics, athletics, and the transformative power of faith. Join us as we share the stories of those making a lasting impact on Catholic education.
[00:00:01] Intro: Welcome to Catholic Education Matters, the podcast that celebrates the beauty of Catholic education, highlighting excellence in academics, athletics, and the transformative power of faith. Join us as we share the stories of those making a lasting impact on Catholic education. Let's begin.
[00:00:26] Troy Van Vliet: Welcome to Catholic Education Matters, the podcast that celebrates the beauty of Catholic education, highlighting excellence in academics, athletics, and the transformative power of faith. Join us as we share the stories of those making a lasting impact on Catholic education. Let's begin. Day, everybody. And thank you for joining us here for Catholic Education Matters.
[00:00:29] My name is Troy Van Vliet. And I am so excited to have Patty and Murray Nielsen, some of my favorite people. That I've got to meet them. Well, I guess a year and a half ago now, something like that through Legatus. And it's been an absolute privilege getting to know you both through our Catholic community.
[00:00:53] So I want to say welcome. It's mutual. Right. That's great. And I've just had the privilege also of having your son Kyle on our podcast.
[00:01:04] We recorded that last week and so he'll be coming out live here in a little bit. Kyle shared with us his whole conversion story, which was fascinating and such a wonderful thing to hear. So what can you tell us about your background? Give us a little quick, you're local, you're from Vancouver here. But you also had a conversion story as well.
[00:01:32] Patty Neilson: It's all Kyle's fault. As my mother would say. I said, I think it was the Holy Spirit's fault. Murray and I grew up both were born and raised in Vancouver and both in the same protestant denomination. Although not the same church.
[00:01:49] And that's a story for another day. How we met and fell in love and got married at 21. Nice. Many years later, Kyle came home one Thanksgiving from Trinity Western. He was going to school there.
[00:02:02] He was in his last year doing a degree in Christianity and culture, whatever that is. And he was standing in the kitchen. He said, mom, do you have any idea how many Protestant denominations there are? And he may have told this story. Did he tell this story?
[00:02:14] Troy Van Vliet: He didn't say that part, no. He may have forgotten this.
[00:02:17] Patty Neilson: I said, Is this a trick question? He goes, No, well, not really. He said, But how many do you think? I said, Well, maybe 12 mainstream and how about 15,000 offshoots? He goes, try 45,000.
[00:02:28] Troy Van Vliet: Oh, wow.
[00:02:28] Patty Neilson: And I went, wow. I had no idea. I said, why do you ask? He said, well, I'm doing a course as part of my degree on the history of Christianity. And we had no in our denomination, you knew up to seventy AD, and then you knew from the start of our denomination, was the late eighteen hundreds.
[00:02:49] But there was no if you had asked me what's the Nicene Council or the church fathers, I honestly couldn't tell you. So very other other than reading fascination of English history, knew that Henry eighth left the the Protestant church to get so he could get divorced. Kyle said, he said, mommy, he says, just don't understand how in the Protestant arena, every time someone wants to do something different, change the liturgy, doesn't wanna believe this part, they kinda go off and do their own thing. And he said, it doesn't sit well with me. So he said, did you know that the Catholic church has had the same doctrine for two thousand years?
[00:03:26] I said, Well, I've actually never thought about it. He said, Well, it's very appealing to me. I said, Well, could you I'm being very calm. Said, Could you give me something to read so I could understand? Because he said, I'm on a journey.
[00:03:38] So that was it. He came home the next time with some books for me to read because honestly, I had to save him from such a dire decision. We
[00:03:46] Troy Van Vliet: were Do you remember the books?
[00:03:48] Patty Neilson: I do. I do. I can tell you in a minute. But I think for both Murray and I, we had been raised with the mistaken impression that Catholics weren't really Christians, that they didn't have personal relationship with Jesus, and that's true in many cases. That we're not sure they go to heaven, that they just keep sinning and going to confession and going back sinning again, and that the Pope might be the Antichrist.
[00:04:14] That was kind of would you agree with me? Those were our presumptions?
[00:04:17] Murray Neilson: My father was a lay minister, He really knew his scripture because we come from a background called Plymouth Brethren. It's very rare. Very Quaker ish. And he would say that they only believe in works. They don't believe in faith.
[00:04:34] They drink. Like, was like, these were awful people.
[00:04:41] Troy Van Vliet: Had this
[00:04:41] Murray Neilson: fit right in, Mark. That's why I joined. So,
[00:04:46] Patty Neilson: Kyle came home. He handed me Rome Sweet Home by Scott Hahn, which was Scott's personal story from being a Protestant pastor to conversion.
[00:04:54] Troy Van Vliet: Did read that book back
[00:04:55] Patty Neilson: in the nineties. I
[00:04:56] Murray Neilson: have a
[00:04:56] Patty Neilson: couple copies of it too. It's wonderful. And another was a book on the history of the church, which he said this one you might find a bit rough. It was Ron Howard's book. And third one was a series of stories called Surprised by Truth, of which there are three collections.
[00:05:17] Some are by atheists becoming Catholic, some are fallen away Catholic, some are Protestants becoming Catholic. And I started to read, I couldn't put them down. We have to understand at the time in our church, which had become a non denominational church, I was an elder in our church and we were going through a church leadership crisis. And it was-
[00:05:37] Troy Van Vliet: How long ago would
[00:05:38] Patty Neilson: two that have thousand and three.
[00:05:39] Troy Van Vliet: Okay.
[00:05:40] Patty Neilson: And it was very hard and I was frustrated with it. So, I started to read these books so I could get educated in order to save Kyle
[00:05:48] Troy Van Vliet: from
[00:05:49] Patty Neilson: making this decision. And it was very quick, very quick for me.
[00:05:53] Troy Van Vliet: Really? Wow.
[00:05:55] Patty Neilson: Because I just felt like, wow, I didn't know. There was just so much that I did not know of the truth of the Catholic And so, as I read these stories that, we're talking about the Eucharist and about scripture, only scripture, because that's where we were based on. If it's in the Bible, it's true. If it's not in the Bible, it's not true. So solo scripture.
[00:06:19] So I started reading that and Scott's story was powerful. And I knew very quickly that that was the direction I was going. Murray's not a big reader as much as I am. So over the period of that year, it took me about three months where I went, That's where I'm going, but I need to do this wisely and carefully. Meanwhile, Kyle and his wife received And into the eight months later, our eldest son and his wife, based on the influence of Kyle and Denise, they started to read about John Paul II's Theology of the Body.
[00:06:51] They were blown away by the concepts, never heard anything like that. We're very drawn to the church because of that, they came into the church. And then that following year, Kyle in that period had received his master's in theology from Steubenville, had come back and was working here and was our RCIA teacher.
[00:07:14] Troy Van Vliet: Oh, really? Oh, he left that tidbit of information Because out
[00:07:18] Patty Neilson: we knew, but it was a couple of year process before we were received into the church in the 2005. And it was both a blessed thing. My mother, when I caught the courage, my dad had passed away by then, but my mother, when I had the courage to tell her that we were being Actually made the decision and would she come to the Easter vigil, she said, I will support you, but I have no joy in it. And I think when she died ten years later, I think she had huge joy in our decision because she could see that our faith had really deepened and developed and grown as we journeyed into the Catholic church. One of the things for me that was so powerful was we grew up in culture of stripping away everything that was beautiful.
[00:08:06] So, grew up with no music. That changed later, but there was no stained glass. There was no cross. There was no anything beautiful. It was all head knowledge.
[00:08:18] Reading the scriptures, a forty five minute preaching on the scriptures, doing Bible studies. We really know our Bible. It's fantastic.
[00:08:25] Murray Neilson: Often men and women were separated. Like Quakerism.
[00:08:30] Patty Neilson: It was I am a creative person. And when I started went to my first mass, which was when Kyle and Denise, their Easter vigil, it was just mind blowing me. Where were from?
[00:08:42] Troy Van Vliet: Was it at?
[00:08:42] Patty Neilson: Saint Augustine.
[00:08:43] Troy Van Vliet: In Saint Augustine.
[00:08:44] Patty Neilson: Oh. The lights came coming on, the the eye, was And something then I would go visit them in Steubenville, they had our only grandchild at the time, and started to go to mass with Kyle, I go to classes with him. And I remember the first time they had a priest for dinner, and the priest blessed me as he left, and I started to weep. And I'd never met a priest before. So, there was all these experiences where I realized as I both spoke to reading and experiencing that God was meeting me in every sense, in my emotional heart, in what I could see and what I could hear.
[00:09:25] I just love that he addressed all of the senses of the beauty of himself that I had never experienced. So that was a huge draw for me.
[00:09:33] Troy Van Vliet: Wow.
[00:09:34] Patty Neilson: So 2005 was the start of our journey and it has been such a rich blessing for us. Although we lost most of our Protestant friends, didn't we? It's really hard for them.
[00:09:46] Troy Van Vliet: They couldn't bear to see.
[00:09:50] Patty Neilson: We shared different things. The conversation is not the same.
[00:09:56] Troy Van Vliet: Especially, guess if that's the major thing that you had in common before too, if it's one of the major things and of course it comes down to your core beliefs and then tough, very difficult, very difficult. So, and you're fortunate your whole family.
[00:10:10] Patty Neilson: Well, was sick after us, our daughter had not yet come into the church. Two years down the road afterwards she was receiving the church, met a lovely man in Montreal from Nova Scotia who's come back to his faith. Yes, we're all practicing That's awesome.
[00:10:29] Murray Neilson: But meanwhile she was playing in a band in Montreal. She got home at two in the morning, then get up and go to Mass. That's kind of a unique situation.
[00:10:40] Patty Neilson: So yes, we all share it together. It's wonderful.
[00:10:42] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. Well, and congratulations for that too. Because not all families that that happens. Everybody's got a different story and for some it causes some real division. So, you're blessed for So, everybody to
[00:10:56] Patty Neilson: one of the great graces of our three kids becoming Catholic is we have 14 grandchildren.
[00:11:03] Troy Van Vliet: Congratulations on that. That is so great. And Bert, you just got back from a trip with Two of them. Two of them.
[00:11:10] Patty Neilson: Two kids and two grandkids.
[00:11:11] Murray Neilson: I promise them all when they're 16. I'll take them anywhere in the world with one of their parents. So this was I got about eight more to go. Just got home a couple of days ago. But my conversion wasn't as straightforward as Patty's.
[00:11:25] I wasn't as keen. Okay. So men want to be right and not happy, and it's one of the stupidest concepts I've ever seen. So I wasn't unhappy at my Protestant church, but I noticed that Patti and my other kids were going to this little Catholic church every Sunday. Mhmm.
[00:11:45] So I could get up in the morning, drive all the way across town to our Protestant church and go there. Mhmm. Because I wanted to be right, or I could suck it up and go to the Catholic church up the street with my family. Mhmm. Now I'm a really sociable guy, we and were kind of founders of the Protestant church.
[00:12:01] They call them church plants.
[00:12:03] Troy Van Vliet: And
[00:12:04] Murray Neilson: we were there since day one, but I never felt comfortable. And I'm a sociable guy. I go to Saint Francis of Assisi.
[00:12:12] Troy Van Vliet: You never felt comfortable
[00:12:13] Murray Neilson: At my at
[00:12:14] Troy Van Vliet: your at your partisan church?
[00:12:15] Murray Neilson: Wow. Okay. So I go to Saint Francis of Assisi Interesting. Which is a Italian church in the East Side Of Vancouver. And I always thought Italians are friendly, but they're not.
[00:12:26] I would
[00:12:27] Patty Neilson: With all due respect.
[00:12:28] Murray Neilson: Yeah. So I would go in. No one would talk to me.
[00:12:30] Troy Van Vliet: Uh-huh.
[00:12:31] Murray Neilson: No one would sit with us. And I'd go up and father Mark Schwab would give me a blessing. Mhmm. And I'd weep. I felt that it was Jesus looking right into my soul.
[00:12:46] And I'd go sit on not sit. Sorry. Neel on the dealer. Mhmm. And that's a really foreign concept for me.
[00:12:54] Mhmm. And I'd weep again. We'd both be weeping. Mhmm. And I thought something's going on here.
[00:13:02] Nobody talked to me. No one invited us out for lunch. No one was friendly, and I love it. I feel like I've come home. So I knew it was a God thing.
[00:13:10] So I decided that I read some of the books Patty read, and there was no deal killers in them. Yeah. Like, you know, my dad presented things which I thought were deal killers. Yeah. But, no, there's stuff I don't understand and I still don't understand.
[00:13:23] Mhmm. But it wasn't major theological issues that would be not the truth.
[00:13:30] Patty Neilson: I think for both of us, the first time we started to understand what the Eucharist was, because we were used to every Sunday having breaking of the bread. It a very it was a set alone part of our church service where we would have a glass little sip of orange grape juice and have some bread. And it was a lovely commemoration, but we realized very quickly that it was not the real thing. And we, over the period of our two years until we learned that and actually could receive it, we began to crave the body of Jesus. So, the Eucharist has become a very precious thing to both of us.
[00:14:11] As someone once said, really if knew what it was, they'd crawl on their knees together.
[00:14:16] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, it's true. It is true. I've experienced more of a reversion to the faith over the years and I credit it to, well, a lot of it, I guess the trigger was the school. And, you know, growing up Catholic we went to Mass every Sunday, we did everything all the way through and then you get through high school and then you're out into university and all a sudden you're in the real secular world, you're surrounded by it. And it can be really tough to not fall into the trap of that.
[00:14:53] Of which I somewhat experienced I always had my faith but I had a great grounding. My parents were fantastic growing up. So I have them to thank for that. But it's easy to fade away and then, you know, slides down the priority list quite easily in today's world. You're just inundated with today's temptations and they're not godly ones.
[00:15:22] You have kids and then all of a sudden it's like, okay, how are you going to raise your kids? And then you start going back to your roots a little bit. And then this school in order to get it built, St. John Paul II Academy, it was surrounding myself with the right people and moving forward and there's just more of it and more of it and more of it. I just kind of rediscovered my faith all over in a different And way than I hadn't I can't just say it's because I'm getting older because quite often you see people revert more back to their faith as they get older.
[00:15:57] But it's just surrounding myself with nothing but goodness and with nothing but people that are, you know, going in the same direction and then wanting that for my kids. But then unselfishly thinking like, I want this for everybody's kids, you know? I want them, you know, hence Catholic education matters. Like it truly, truly does if you want to bring that foundation in. Because we've got our parishes, we've got our family life and then we roll the dice throwing our kids into a secular world and just crossing your fingers, you know, hopefully that they don't get influenced in the wrong direction.
[00:16:48] So, we're like that third leg in the stool that's going to hold it up in being the education system. So I truly believe in that and like I said, just being part of building this new high school and that's exposed me to a whole new part of my faith. And I've grown fascinated with people's either reversion stories or conversion stories to find out. Not because it's like, okay, what got them over onto our team? It was like, what can I learn more about my own faith by hearing?
[00:17:27] Because there's so much to learn about Catholicism. You can learn about it till the day you die and you will never know everything. So what am I missing? What do I not know yet? And talking to others and hearing their conversion stories is something that really intrigues me.
[00:17:45] Patty Neilson: As you're speaking of that, I'm reminded for me after now twenty years of being a Catholic, that what the church provides for us is this gorgeous framework. Beautiful, if you wanna think about it as a gilded frame around both the history, but who Jesus is, who our God is, what he's done for us, what he hopes for us, and is to bring him into full communion with him one day. We have it here partially, but we'll have it fully one day. But I love that framework that even if I'm not feeling really connected or feeling that I know it's there and it holds, there's a safety in that. That is so incredible that you can't just push it out the frame and start your own idea over here.
[00:18:37] The framework is really solid. And that is very comforting thing for me. I've watched over my mother, back to my mom, she said to me, Well, I think she really just prayed that God would use us as missionaries in the Catholic church, that our story would help Catholics revert back because she didn't think many were really following the line. And I think God has really used that. And He certainly has grown our faith in a much deeper way.
[00:19:10] Would you not agree? Know, Maureen often sit in mass together and I look at him and I go, I cannot believe we're sitting here together. So united, like excited to get up in the morning, go to church, go to mass, traveling, finding a place to go to mass, but that we share that as someone that we've been married fifty six years and there's such a deep joy in sharing our faith. We have different faiths because we relate differently to God the Father, but we share the structure of the Catholic Church so deeply together.
[00:19:39] Murray Neilson: As a Protestant, I often found church an inconvenience because I wanted to go skiing. But as a Catholic, it's first. I go to church first. And if I'm going skiing, it's built around that. Yeah.
[00:19:53] One thing Patty didn't say, and she's being too modest about this, her mother is Christian royalty. She was the theologian. She's one of the founders of Regent College.
[00:20:02] Troy Van Vliet: Oh, really?
[00:20:03] Murray Neilson: She knew her stuff, taught hundreds and hundreds of women, bible study fellowship, etcetera, etcetera. So she was very educated on the subject. But she supported us but didn't necessarily endorse us.
[00:20:18] Patty Neilson: So, passed away just before COVID at 99, but she lived in Crofton Manor and would go to Mass on Friday noon, but it still bothered her at the end that he couldn't give her the Eucharist. Yeah, it was cute.
[00:20:29] Troy Van Vliet: Oh my goodness. So, would go to Mass?
[00:20:32] Patty Neilson: Yes, Oh wow.
[00:20:34] Troy Van Vliet: But she never went through RCA to be able to
[00:20:38] Patty Neilson: Kyle gave her lots to read.
[00:20:41] Troy Van Vliet: Really?
[00:20:41] Patty Neilson: He was wonderful with her. Really She open. She really wanted to know why. And I think she came to a much deeper understanding, but it was too ingrained in her to
[00:20:50] Murray Neilson: walk away
[00:20:51] Patty Neilson: from what she knew.
[00:20:52] Troy Van Vliet: Oh, wow. God bless her for being open to reading to see where her kids are going. So, you have siblings as well?
[00:21:00] Patty Neilson: I have three siblings.
[00:21:01] Troy Van Vliet: Three siblings? And are they practicing any faith denomination?
[00:21:05] Patty Neilson: One is not practicing any faith and two are and are supportive, skeptical, supportive. We have conversations, but they're not overly keen to know more.
[00:21:19] Troy Van Vliet: That's okay. That's alright. What about you, Murray? Didn't
[00:21:22] Murray Neilson: One of my brother's dead. The other brother is a Protestant and we're not close at all. But he would be practicing Protestant.
[00:21:32] Troy Van Vliet: Okay. That's good. And I'm happy to see in our world today in today's Western society, that Christianity, I think, is coming together more as well. There's not that hard line divide. The
[00:21:49] Patty Neilson: fear. Yeah.
[00:21:52] Troy Van Vliet: Information And is so readily available. If you have a question about anything, you're one little click away just saying: Hey, what about this? And that information is there. So anybody that's even a tad bit curious, it's really easy to go down around.
[00:22:07] Patty Neilson: Don't know. Bites on my Instagram right now is picking up a guy that last week was talking about what do you say to a Protestant who says confession is not right? Well, it was like this short, perfect thing around how the early Christians confessed once their sins to one another. That it wasn't just between them and God. This week it was, what do you say to the Protestant that says it's the Bible alone?
[00:22:36] And he said, well, early Christians didn't have scripture. No, exactly. It is tradition and Bible. So, yeah, there's so much out there that so much easier.
[00:22:47] Troy Van Vliet: Jesus left us the church, didn't leave us the Bible. And the Bible came soon thereafter, but in a great book for, well, the book for us to follow.
[00:22:58] Patty Neilson: It's a great segue from our Protestant experience. One of the things that was great about it into talking about philanthropy, can we do that?
[00:23:07] Troy Van Vliet: 100%. My
[00:23:10] Murray Neilson: dad was a house painter, humble man. We weren't poor, but he didn't do very well. But every now and then at church I'd see him shake hands with a widow and I'd notice there's some money folded in his hand. That always stuck with me. And I was brought up, I would say we were brought up, to tithe.
[00:23:33] The church talked about money.
[00:23:37] Patty Neilson: The church's
[00:23:38] Murray Neilson: budget was down they would get up and talk about it. Say we've got to raise X amount by December 31. For most of you, I'm sure you know what tithing is, for those who don't, giving 10% of your income. And people say, was it gross or net? It doesn't really matter.
[00:23:53] You're giving part of your income. And we were brought up with that.
[00:23:59] Troy Van Vliet: And that has grown into like you're known in the Bank of Archdiocese as philanthropists and also well you've called yourself a rainmaker before like in terms of getting some things done. For instance last year not the past archbishop's dinner but the one prior to that, there was a lofty goal of a million dollars. Well, and they entrusted it into your hands to say: How can we do this? How can we make a million dollars in one evening at a dinner? And that's a massive challenge.
[00:24:38] And the archbishop's dinner is how many people attend that? Thousands. Thousands people. Yes. I should know that.
[00:24:44] I've been there several times over the last few years. And they put you in charge of rallying people. You believe in philanthropy though. You believe in giving back.
[00:24:56] Murray Neilson: I'm not uptight about talking about money.
[00:25:01] Troy Van Vliet: Well, it's a real part of what we do.
[00:25:03] Murray Neilson: Yeah. And it's not our money. It's God's money. That's what Andy Sox
[00:25:07] Troy Van Vliet: talks Yeah, he does.
[00:25:11] Murray Neilson: Just losing proof of that.
[00:25:12] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. And we need to be good stewards of it. My dad used to always say too, you've to give till it hurts. And it's like, what does that mean actually? It's like, I could be spending it all on this, but okay, no, we're going to go here or I'm going to give, I don't know where it's going to come from, but I'm going to give anyway.
[00:25:30] Patty Neilson: I think that's where it hurts. I have memories of our elders coming to visit us in January or February asking us, Murray and I, what our contribution would be, because they were doing the church budget. So, they were asking everyone, what can you give or what do you think it will be? And we have always lived on never a salary, but based on Murray's business and mine was commission based. It was hard to tell.
[00:25:56] So, I kinda like that. But it's not a conversation that happens very often in many Catholic environments that we've been used to. Yeah. And I have to admit it is hard for me every Sunday when I see the basket go by and people put in $5, $5, $5. And I'm not judging.
[00:26:18] It's just I think people aren't well educated. Murray always has a saying is you can't out give God. What would you mean by that?
[00:26:27] Murray Neilson: Well, like you said, I've given money when I didn't have it and I had it when the check had to be written. And there's been times I've been overly generous and times I've been stingy. It seems the times I've been stingy, the money supply has kinda dried up. Mhmm. I had an interesting luncheon today with a businessman, Catholic, 52 years old, and we got talking about this giving money thing.
[00:26:54] Mhmm. And he said, very rarely am I asked. And I said, I've never heard that one before. And I said, I'm a pretty scary guy to say that to. And he mentioned a project at our church because he goes to my parish where they needed x amount of money to build something.
[00:27:15] And he said, we raised a $130,000 in, like, six days because somebody asked. So I thought, well, that's a new one to think about. Yeah.
[00:27:29] Troy Van Vliet: Most sales are made after the seventh No as well. I've
[00:27:33.] Murray Neilson: never heard that.
[00:27:33] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, it's true. You've got to go through a lot of objections before you actually get the sale. Know when you And Philanthropy is tough and raising money is tough. Not a lot of people are willing to ask. But, you know, quite often if you don't ask for the sale either, you're definitely not going to get it.
[00:27:51] So that's incredible. And you've been generous to our school as well. We've up this beautiful new chapel and we have, I think, one of the most beautiful corpus on our cross. Can you tell us a little bit about that, where
[00:28:12] Murray Neilson: it I'll came
[00:28:13] Patty Neilson: tell you the story. It's great.
[00:28:14] Troy Van Vliet: I
[00:28:17] Murray Neilson: got a good friend who is a checklist Clovakian on the Czech side, not the Slovakia side.
[00:28:24] Troy Van Vliet: Mhmm.
[00:28:25] Murray Neilson: And I met him twenty, thirty years ago, and he was leading Czech I'll just use Czech men. Mhmm. Leading them in Bible studies.
[00:28:35] Troy Van Vliet: Mhmm.
[00:28:37] Murray Neilson: And I went on a missions trip with him to Slovakia and just loved the guy. He's very straightforward, very black and white. And over the years, we started supporting him financially. Then he started this little side business where he would go to the backwoods of Slovakia where people were hand carvers and they hand carved crosses and corpuses. And he said it's a dying art because their fingers are pretty gnarled and they're pretty sore and younger people aren't coming into it.
[00:29:12] So we meet every Christmas and have a little visit. And he mentioned to me, oh, I don't know, six or seven months ago. He said, you know, I drive by this I think it's a Catholic school thing or something. And, you know, I've got this huge corpus that is in the process of being carved, and it's like, I don't know, six feet wide and eight feet tall or is big, it needs to be in a place like that. Do
[00:29:42] Patty Neilson: you know anyone? He said, yeah.
[00:29:43] Murray Neilson: Do you know anybody there? I said, are you trying to be funny? I said, do I? Do I? So that's what led to it.
[00:29:53] Troy Van Vliet: Oh, wow.
[00:29:55] Murray Neilson: And he is so excited. We are so excited. You are so excited. So how can that not be a wonderful Yeah.
[00:30:05] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. Like, it's just and and I I have a hard time not getting so emotional when I'm sitting you know, having been part of this project for twelve something years now. And to have it, I mean, the first time we did the it wasn't even finished inside our chapel yet. And we had this living rosary that was being done across Canada and live. So everybody across Canada at this time was going to be seeing the rosary in a chapel somewhere.
[00:30:32] And we did it in there and we sang some songs, you know, before we even had our piano probably set up and just the most emotional time that you could possibly have thinking like: Okay, this thing was created and the corpuses up there and it was like: Wow! It's absolutely amazing. And when we have mass in there or when we have it blessed or when we had the chapel blessed, you were there.
[00:31:02] Murray Neilson: I
[00:31:05] Troy Van Vliet: had such a hard time not getting all choked up when you think all that time that's and it's here now this chapel which is going be here for the next hundred years. It's alive. There's people in here and expressing their faith and they're there to worship. And the Corpus is magnificent. Can't
[00:31:26] Murray Neilson: carve. Mhmm.
[00:31:27] Troy Van Vliet: Has has the the person the carver or the person that Peter,
[00:31:32] Patty Neilson: we we send him pictures from from the blessing. Yeah.
[00:31:35] Troy Van Vliet: But is he here? Yes.
[00:31:36] Murray Neilson: He is. Your neighbor.
[00:31:37] Troy Van Vliet: Well, has to come and see it. He Yeah. Has to come and visit.
[00:31:40] Murray Neilson: I will write him. Yeah. I'll go with him.
[00:31:42] Troy Van Vliet: Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. He needs to see it. The impact that it's having every day on
[00:31:47] Murray Neilson: His carvers are so excited. Oh, absolutely love Because a lot of them are close to Poland. Yeah. Oh
[00:31:56] Troy Van Vliet: my goodness. That is so awesome. And there's another piece that's being worked on right now. And this is this one is, probably the most emotional piece that's going to go in our school for me anyway. So there's a famous artist now, Timothy Schmaltz.
[00:32:19] He's a carver. Well, not a carver, sorry. He's a sculptor. He's done artwork that's gone all around the world. His bronze sculptures.
[00:32:30] There's a rendition of one right in the back. There are a mini version of the homeless Jesus on the park bench. And he's done another one for us at our school, which is the last supper table. It's a life-sized granite last supper table with a bronze Jesus sitting there. All the seats are empty except for Jesus sitting there.
[00:32:51] So when it's right outside our courtyard where the kids have lunch every day, so they can actually have lunch with Jesus at the Last Supper table, which is hugely impactful. The same sculpture does another one that is very famous. It's called his Life sculpture. And the life is the Madonna, like a modern version of the Madonna and she's with child and you can see baby Jesus inside her womb. And our school was built with a pro life foundation to it.
[0:33:31] And I always say that school would not have been built. I wouldn't be there today had my wife Lisa and I had not said yes to life because our daughter was born with Down syndrome. And we did find out in utero, we found out early on and we were encouraged by our medical system to have an abortion all the way past six months. We were encouraged, you know, and kept giving that option over and over and over again. And, you know, abortion in itself is horrific, let alone that stage in life where, you know, people are having abortions today.
[00:34:06] I found it in our country, there are no federal abortion laws in terms of limiting it as to when you can have an abortion. It can go right up to term. And so we chose life of course, to the point where we had to talk to the doctors and say: Look, you need to stop talking to us about that because it's not an option. We won't do it. And so we gave life to our little Annika who's now going to be graduating.
[00:34:37] She's part of the first graduating class in our new campus of the school. And to have that sculpture in our lobby that will be there for the next hundred years and hopefully beyond, that says yes to life. And we'll encourage that for everybody that comes into our school is going to see that. And we're getting that sculpture. There's a greater story that goes on about the sculpture too and how we stumbled across it in our trip to Napa last summer.
[00:35:13] And that's thanks to you because these sculptures are not inexpensive either. So, have to say on behalf of St. John Paul the Second Academy, Thank you for that generous gift.
[00:35:27] Patty Neilson: I couldn't go in a better place.
[00:35:30] Troy Van Vliet: And I know when you saw it, you said you have to have that. You absolutely have to have that. And I wept.
[00:35:42] Murray Neilson: What sung out for me is you walk into your school with that sculpture there beyond a shadow of a doubt, it shows what you stand for. Yeah. Kids need to see that. Yeah. Young people.
[00:35:58] And I first saw it in Washington DC. Tim was there, I don't know, doing a display, and father Galvin was with me because it was like It was a no sloganist thing in California. Pardon me.
[00:36:10] Patty Neilson: But he had that sculpture there.
[00:36:11] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. The sculpture. He had the sculpture there.
[00:36:13] Murray Neilson: And father Galvin said, you know, we ought to put that in JP too. Really? And he just dropped the hint. Then when I saw it again
[00:36:23] Patty Neilson: He's a very subtle guy.
[00:36:25] Troy Van Vliet: Boy, has he ever? But he's so intentional.
[00:36:31] Murray Neilson: Why would we do that?
[00:36:33] Patty Neilson: And for me, then when Murray said, what do you think? And I just said, well, we
[00:36:37] Murray Neilson: have I didn't even ask her.
[00:36:37] Patty Neilson: We have 14 grandchildren and we have some babies in heaven. And for me, that's an honoring of the loss of them for us, but that we will see them again one day. But it just means a lot of things for me.
[00:36:53] Troy Van Vliet: We're in Napa at the Napa Institute this summer. And we're talking about this in one of the breakout sessions. We're having this chat about this, you know. What this? About the life sculpture.
[00:37:10] And I don't know if you remember that. And then it was yourself, myself and Silveria. And we walk out into the lobby and who's there sculpting live was Timothy Schmaltz.
[00:37:23] Murray Neilson: I remember walking out.
[00:37:26] Troy Van Vliet: And then we're like: Oh my God, look at other providential moment. And there he has one of his little sculptures sitting right there. And we were just talking about we got to raise money for that. And then bam! What an emotional moment.
[00:37:42] It's like holy well if this isn't a sign, you know, we're talking about it and all of sudden there's Tip. And so right there on the spot it was like: We got to make this happen. So, and once again, to you. To you.
[00:37:57] Murray Neilson: Good. You're welcome. Wow.
[00:38:01] Troy Van Vliet: What drives that in people giving and philanthropy?
[00:38:07] Murray Neilson: Well, somebody who should remain nameless recently criticized me for being too generous. I've never heard that one before. Wow. And I said, do you understand? And they said, instead of giving that money over here or doing that, you should do this with it or something.
[00:38:26] And I said, do you understand the satisfaction somebody gets from giving? Very few people talk about that. I get a lot more out of this than you do. No one talks about that.
[00:38:39] Troy Van Vliet: Isn't that something?
[00:38:40] Murray Neilson: The whole concept of giving and what a blessing that is to you.
[00:38:51] Troy Van Vliet: I've had that debate before with people. I came up with this on my own. I said: know what? People do everything for selfish reasons. And they even give for selfish reasons.
[00:38:59] Well, come on! And they brought up Mother Teresa. I said: Do you think that she's not the most fulfilled person on the planet? She has nothing and all she does is give. Can you imagine?
[00:39:13] Can you imagine how full her heart would have been that entire time? Had cared about nothing but giving. And she left here as well literally a saint, you know. And so there's nothing more fulfilling in life than giving. And yep, you're going get taken advantage of sometimes.
[00:39:35] And I'd rather be on that side getting taken advantage of rather than being selfish in another way and keeping everything for myself.
[00:39:46] Patty Neilson: You know, the Scripture that says to release it, you get it. You get it, God.
[00:39:53] Murray Neilson: Of my missions or causes is to motivate Catholic people to give more. And that is a whole other layer of satisfaction and blessing. Yeah. To say here was someone who's got money, who hasn't been overly generous, and now they are. And that little nudge got them there.
[00:40:15] Troy Van Vliet: Isn't that something?
[00:40:18] Patty Neilson: Maybe someone asked them and encouraged them.
[00:40:22] Troy Van Vliet: Some of the most generous people that are coming to our school or getting involved in our school aren't even Catholic.
[00:40:30] Murray Neilson: And
[00:40:32] Troy Van Vliet: they're coming in and they're falling in love with what we're doing there. They're falling in love with our culture. They're even admiring our faith and the foundation that we're giving to our kids there. And they're like: This is a good thing. I want to give generously.
[00:40:46] And it's really quite amazing to see, you know, and it kind of falls back on that too as Catholics, especially as cradle Catholics, so often we don't realize what we have. And the church is so vast, it's so big, you know, and it's seen as wealthy just because it's so massive though. And it's also the largest single charity in the world. And most people don't know that.
[00:41:15] Murray Neilson: No, they don't.
[00:41:16] Troy Van Vliet: And as Catholics we keep quiet about that. It's not something that we're boastful about. Like I talked about it at the new St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, that the archdiocese has given with the sale of the property downtown has given a billion dollars to that hospital. A billion with a B.
[00:41:41] That's one archdiocese has done that. When I talked to Archbishop Miller about it, I mean nobody knows that. They hear of Jimmy Pattison, God bless him, because he donated I think it was 75 or $100,000,000 which is for one person incredibly generous. And then the church quietly gives a billion. And why did it give a billion?
[00:42:03] You know, the archbishop said the main reason is to keep abortion out of that hospital. You know? Wow. How is that a powerful thing? You know?
[00:42:14] So and in today's world with we're we're keeping new people from entering the world and then we're hurrying them out of our world with MAID today. And that's an even tougher one to keep out of hospitals now. But abortion is something that we can have an influence on at least in one hospital to say, okay, look, we'll write a check for this, but we're not doing that there. And of course that resonates with me. It's something big.
[00:42:44] As Catholics were quieter about those types of things, it's the same thing like in the Downtown Eastside and what have you. There's a lot of Catholic initiatives going on down there, but they're quiet, they're not out in the forefront and we need to continue to be generous. We have to continue to give to these different initiatives out there. As Andy says, giving is living. We need to continue to do that for sure.
[00:43:11] Catholic Pacific College, speaking of Catholic Education Matters, that's another entity that you've sort of signed on to help in different ways?
[00:43:23] Patty Neilson: It is. So, Catholic Pacific College is a small Catholic university on the grounds of Trinity Western. They have affiliation with Trinity. So, young people or old people can go to school there and finish with a degree accredited from Trinity Western, but they can receive a lot of their classes at Catholic Pacific College. So it's kind of an unusual marriage.
[00:43:53] And we have a granddaughter that is attending her first year there, and I love what they're doing. And that's why I'm stepping up because they're young, fairly unknown. They need a new school built,
[00:44:07] Murray Neilson: a new campus, which I know
[00:44:08] Patty Neilson: you know about. But they're doing a remarkable job giving very deep solid foundation to young people when they need it the most. I have a theory that and it's kind of was born out of growing up as a child in a Christian home that was came to understand and have a personal relationship with Jesus when I was very young, the same with Murray. And in my teenage years was very influenced by an organization called Young Life, deep bible study, a lot of mentoring. So, I came into my young adult, we came into our adulthood with really solid foundation.
[00:44:44] But I had to go through a period of a couple of years where I tested, is that my faith or my family's faith? And I often say to parents who lament that their children are kind of a bit off the wagon. I go, they need to do that. They need to test it. But a school like CPC is a place where the pieces of foundation, spiritual foundation that maybe were missed in the growing up years can really become solid.
[00:45:10] And those are the people that are gonna be the future adults in our business, in our healthcare, in our education, in our engineering, in all of the professions that they need to have that incredible foundation too. Why think it's really important.
[00:45:29] Troy Van Vliet: It's a humble little school.
[00:45:31] Patty Neilson: Yes, is.
[00:45:32] Troy Van Vliet: Very humble. It's part of a great university. Trinity Western is absolutely fantastic. And so, it does need to be why I don't want to say rebuilt, it needs to be built more so. More kids and more kids are going there.
[00:45:47] I'm also happy to say my daughter, my older daughter is going. She's in her second year there in psychology and the culture at that school and the kids that go to that school and the families that are there supporting it. Oh wow! What a community! Couldn't ask for something better for my daughter Taylor to go to.
[00:46:12] My nephews and a niece went through Trinity Western as well and CPC and they are fantastic people. They're fantastic young people with families already of their own.
[00:46:25] Patty Neilson: And that's the future leadership in our parishes. Really
[00:46:29] Troy Van Vliet: important. 100%. Father Donnelly, he goes there and he does Mass. I don't know if he does daily Mass there,
[00:46:37] Patty Neilson: someone does daily Mass
[00:46:38] Troy Van Vliet: at 11:00.
[00:46:40] Patty Neilson: If you're ever in the neighborhood, drop by.
[00:46:42] Troy Van Vliet: Oh, I will, I will for sure. And Father Donnelly, he's at St. Joaquin Menon in Aldergrove, which I attend Mass there as well. And the young families there, I mean, and young parents that are there with not onesie twosie kids like three, four, five, six, seven kids, which is so great to see. And you attend Mass at 10AM.
[00:47:08] And it's a lot of screaming babies, have to be able to, you know, and they're all there. There's not some quiet room in the back. Everybody's mixed right in the parish. And it's so great to see. It's so awesome to see the growth in the parish that way.
[00:47:20] So that community is great. You know, I don't have to worry about my daughter. She's surrounded by good people of the same faith and getting, you know, really solid Catholic influence throughout her life. So yeah, couldn't be happier. So Catholic education does matter in a big, big way.
[00:47:41] So we need to do better. We need to do better. We need to do more. And I think we've taken it for granted in our schools. We don't want to just be Catholic in name.
[00:47:51] We want to have it infiltrated throughout the total education program. So thank you for what you do, for your generosity and giving back to Catholic education because it's huge and it's impacting so many kids' lives. Thank you.
[00:48:07] Murray Neilson: Our pleasure.
[00:48:08] Troy Van Vliet: And also thank you for coming here today. Do you have any other final words of wisdom or anything that you want to share before we wrap things up?
[00:48:18] Murray Neilson: I don't think for me. No. No.
[00:48:20] Troy Van Vliet: All right. Well, I'd love to have you back on again sometime. And we have something else to talk about for sure.
[00:48:28] Patty Neilson: Thank you.
[00:48:29] Troy Van Vliet: All right. And thank you all for joining us here today. Catholic Education Matters and be sure to join us again. And as always, please like it, like our video, subscribe and also share this with your friends. All right.
[00:48:43] Thank you, everybody. You enjoyed this episode, please follow the podcast on your favorite listening platform, rate it, and also leave a review. Don't forget to share this episode with your friends and family to help spread the word about the impact of Catholic education. Be sure to listen again.