Catholic Education Matters | From Mennonite Roots to Catholic Scholar: Dr. John Martens' Journey of Faith

In this episode of Catholic Education Matters, host Troy Van Vliet interviews Dr. John Martens from St. Mark's College at UBC, tracing his rich personal and academic journey into the Catholic faith. Dr. Martens shares how his fascination with Christianity led him from a Mennonite upbringing to Catholicism, through studies at institutions such as St. Michael's College, McMaster, and international universities. Now the director of the Centre for Christian Engagement at St. Mark's College at UBC, he discusses the college’s role in theological education, its collaboration with other theological institutions, and the growing demand for faith-based formation among Catholic teachers, deacon candidates, and lay ministers. They reflect on how deeper engagement with Catholic theology—particularly for those who didn’t grow up with it or took it for granted—can revitalize faith, inspire conversion, and equip people to serve meaningfully in church and community life.

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• (00:00) - Introduction
• (03:08) - St. Mark’s College & Catholic Education
• (07:05) - Faith Formation & the Diaconate Program
• (10:00) - Converting, Reengaging, and the Beauty of the Faith
• (16:53) - Welcoming Non-Catholics in Catholic Schools
• (18:24) - Whole-Person Evangelization and Interfaith Experiences
• (20:00) - Deepening Faith Through Theology and the Catechism
• (29:03) - Lifelong Learning and Catholic Engagement Today
• (32:49) - Reaching the Margins through Catholic Education
• (35:44) - Hope for the Church and the Power of the Mustard Seed
• (38:58) - From Mennonite Roots to Catholic Unity
• (46:33) - The Lasting Impact of Catholic Education
• (50:06) - Faith and Family: Raising Kids with a Shared Belief
• (52:16) - The Cost and Funding of Catholic Education
• (55:24) - Scholarships and Accessibility in Catholic Education
• (01:00:45) - Encouragement and Outreach: Welcoming Families to Catholic Schools
• (01:03:32) - Outro

Creators and Guests

Host

Troy Van Vliet

Host of Catholic Education Matters, father, and founder of Saint John Paul II Academy

Guest

Dr. John Martens

Director, Centre for Christian Engagement

Producer

Silveria Roselli

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.

(00:01) 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. [Music] Okay, welcome everyone and uh thank you for joining us today here for Catholic Education Matters.
(00:31) My name is Troy Vanble and I'm with St. John Paul II Academy Foundation. Um and today I am very pleased and honored to have uh with us Dr. John Martins from St. Mark's College in Vancouver up at UBC here. Yeah. And uh welcome. Thank you. And I I'm going to if I may, I'm going to read some of your bio so that it's just gonna and it's gonna give us lots to talk about because there's much to say about you here as well.
(01:01) So um and your bio is written in the in the first person, but I'm going to I'm going to switch it around and um and try and uh put in the second person here. So uh you were born in Vancouver and raised in South Vancouver in Richmond. Yeah. uh your mom and dad both passed in the last few years, but um you've got four siblings um to whom all are local here as well.
(01:22) Uh you got several numerous relatives throughout the lower mainland and the Fraser Valley. And um though you were raised in a large and loving Menanite family, uh you were fascinated by the course uh by a course on Christianity that you took with Father James Roberts at Langangera. Yeah. And decided to continue your studies at St.
(01:42) Michael's College, the Catholic College in the University of Toronto. Um, and from there your interest in Judaism and Christianity continued to grow and you completed your studies at McMaster University. Yeah. With stops at um Eber Eberart Carl University. Did I say that right? Yeah. Um of uh Tubingan Tubingan. Yeah.
(02:07) In the University of Halifax. Um, also after you received your PhD, you began to teach at several institutions in Winnipeg, uh, but spent most of your time teaching at the University of Winnipeg. While in Winnipeg, um, you also started a crisis line at the Salvation Army. Yeah. And worked as a crisis counselor and clinic community healthc care center.
(02:29) Uh, in Winnipeg, your wife Tabitha and you entered the Catholic church at St. Ignatius Church and soon after you moved to the Twin Cities of Minnesota where you began teaching biblical studies at University of St. Thomas. My goodness, you've jumped around. Yes. Fantastic. You also taught at US for 20 wonderful years. Yeah.
(02:50) Uh rising in the ranks to full professor and director of the MA in theology program at St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. Yes. Wow. Uh, and then you came home to Vancouver to direct the Center for Christian Ed uh, engagement at St. Mark's College at UBC in 2021. That's right. Which is where you are still today. That's right. All right. Wow.
(03:15) What a what a journey you've been on so far. And um, uh, love to hear more about it. There's there's so much to there's so much to say. First of all, um, as I, you know, we always talk about with Catholic education matters, there there it does matter and there are so many matters. Uh, and you've experienced so much of it already, different aspects of Catholic education. Yeah.
(03:36) Um, and here you are today at St. Marks. So tell us a little bit about St. Marks first. Sure. Um, so St. Marks is, uh, the Catholic college at UBC. It's been around since 1950s, 1956, 1957. was um founded by Basilian fathers. Uh and right now um that that cha that relationship changed. Uh there's a kind of an affiliation with uh the Jesuits now.
(04:05) Uh the Basilians um had sort of moved out of out of that role. There weren't that many Basilian fathers to sort of continue that that relationship. But St. Marks is interesting. It's in that sort of theological neighborhood at UBC. Vancouver School of Theology, Regent College, Kerry Theological, St. Andrews.
(04:23) There's actually a lot of them and we do have good relationships with those schools as well, which is really important. Uh, but St. Marks is doing theological work. It's the graduate programs um because there's also Corpus Christi, which is an undergraduate college, right? and that handles sort of the associate of arts degree and undergraduates move from our uh college into UBC, SFU, Trinity Western, wherever they might want to go.
(04:51) But we do this sort of the graduate programming. uh we teach deacons here uh in the uh in the Vancouver area and we also have a BA in theology and although the government won't give us as as such uh credit for the BA degree or will not sort of give it uh academic approval it is accepted at the school of education at University of British Columbia and so a number of our graduates move from St.
(05:19) marks BA in theology and then they move into the Bachelor of Education program at UBC. Oh, okay. And then they'll teach in Catholic schools. We also have right now currently a student from Vancouver School of Theology who came from Toronto and she's doing her undergraduate degree at St.
(05:37) Marks and then she'll move into Vancouver School of Theology when she finishes that. So, it is a pattern that can or a pathway that can lead people to theological degrees at a different level. Um but yeah, the the British Columbia government simply does not sort of certify theological degrees for any church or for any Yeah, maybe that'll change one day. I hope so.
(06:02) Who knows? Uh our our degrees are are certified by the Association of Theological Schools, which is a Canadian and American governing body. So we have completely uh certified degrees, right? These these are accredited and accepted anywhere. So that's interesting because I mean on your resume you'd still put you've got your BA in theology. Yeah.
(06:22) So but it's that's right. Yeah. You have to put it's not it's not accredited by the VC government but I have my BA in theology. So that's right. So um do a lot of the students start at Corpus Christie first and then end up at St. Marks or Yeah, that that that's interesting. We do have a cohort of course of BA and theology students and they might move on from their theology degree to a master's degree in theology or something like that.
(06:50) Um but uh many many of our undergraduate students actually move on to other schools because uh they're not able to get the full BA in in liberal arts let's say or the humanities or in business and so then they'd move on to solder let's say after two years at Corpus Christi. Um we get more students coming back like Catholic school teachers. Yes.
(07:10) Who come to do master's degrees who want to get a deeper understanding of their faith and and of course it's good for their their careers as well. But I think so many of them find the faith development really significant. Right. Yeah. So and um I have a friend actually that's going through the deaconate program right now as well.
(07:31) Um how long is that program at St. Marks? Uh so they they take generally a couple of years. The diacinate program I'm not sure of the of of the number of years that are that sort of governed through of course the arch dasis as to how long that program is but they would take basically the same number of courses that you would for a master's degree. Okay.
(07:51) And you know I I'm I'm teaching right now. I'm actually doing an individual study because there was one diacinet candidate who wasn't able to take uh his New Testament course with the rest of the cohort. So, I'm doing a one-on-one right now. I'm doing one-on-one with a wonderful uh diacinetic candidate. I won't mention his name only because he might not want it. Okay. Fair enough.
(08:11) But he's terrific. So, I'm saying nothing but good things about him and his hard work. And so, you can see the dedication that these men and their wives have, of course, to the diacinet program and to the church. And and it's terrific uh to to work with them. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I know uh another um another friend who became a deacon later who's he's also a physician. Yeah.
(08:34) And he's become a deacon. So I call him, you know, deacon doctor. Yeah. Or Dr. Deacon. So um it's really quite uh it's quite comical. But a lot of people which is really quite encouraging. There's a lot of uh people going through that program right now to Yeah. help out and relieve some of our um uh some of our pastors in our parishes that are a little overworked right now. Yeah.
(08:57) And and we we get pastoral workers from churches who take our our degrees and I think that kind of training is really helpful for them in their work in the parishes. We need lay ministers of course and so we're there for lay ministers. We're there for school teachers for the diinet uh for anyone who really wants to broaden their horizons.
(09:19) you mentioned to the um the uh doctor when I was in Minnesota teaching in the diacinet program there as well. I had a surgeon um who was who actually diagnosed a back problem I had and said I know who you should go for surgery. So that was an added benefit but uh yeah terrific guy uh and other other doctors as well.
(09:40) So a lot of people see this kind of training and and it's a little bit more than training too. I mean it is theological training but it's also a deepening of one's faith right preparing one to serve in the church more fully. Uh I mean you don't have to have theological training to to serve in the church but it helps right. Yeah. It helps to understand the depth of our tradition and the depth of our faith.
(10:01) Absolutely. And and a lot of these things as I you know we were talking before this and I said you know I was cradle Catholic. I was born Catholic and and quite often we're guilty as Catholics when you're born into the church a lot of it gets taken for granted because it's just you know it just becomes you know tradition or this is just what we do.
(10:20) um you don't question things or you don't um you might not well and we learn it at such a young age where it's just not interesting at that time you know you're just like oh well you know I'm not here because I want to be I'm here because I'm told I have to be and um so we end up taking a lot of it for granted well I'm speaking for myself but I think I can I think I can say that um you take a lot of it for granted and then there's the rich history of the church and if you start questioning things it it's funny when people, a lot of people
(10:50) question um uh their their ideas with the church or or their beliefs with the church, but they fail to actually do the research before they either leave or fall away or whatever. They they they fail to dig into it. And um and that might be because we learn so much of our faith at a young age um that we don't appreciate it.
(11:16) And then what I have found a fascination just for myself um is um even watching others that have um either reverted to the faith or converted to Catholicism even from other um Christian denominations. Yeah. And we'll get into that. Yeah. um that they've they just started learning more and more about their faith and as they dug into the history and dug and and they went into the the found the the original fathers and they started going wait a minute um we're supposed to be Catholic.
(11:49) Um that's where this all stemmed from and you know we've kind of just split away and started a whole bunch of different versions of Christianity. Yeah. Um, but um I I see as we get older and the more I dig into it and the more it you start getting interested, well, why do we do this? Oh, that's why we do this, you know, as we've just been practicing these rituals forever.
(12:12) And um and uh so it's a real I I I encourage everybody to actually, you know, dig into your faith more and learn some of the the history and um uh because it's relevant. It's not just history. It's relevant to what we do and what we practice and how we worship today and and and why it matters. Absolutely. Yeah. So, um I' I'm encouraged that there's a lot of how actually how many students would be at St. Marks. Yeah.
(12:39) It So, in the graduate program, we have about 80 students and then there's a few hundred at the undergraduate level, right? Uh and so, of course, we're always would like more students. uh the graduate programs are all virtual now and that started with co but the reason why I think it was maintained and I think it's a good reason I mean there are some I mean it's more fun to be in class with students uh even in graduate programs but we can get people from northern British Columbia right in our classes we can get people from the island we can get people from
(13:13) all over the place who would have a difficult time getting out to point grave getting out to the UBC campus beautiful place to be, but if you can't get there, then then you can't take the course. So, yeah, we um our our programs, you know, we we try to reach out through all of British Columbia. We have connections with dascese in the interior on Vancouver Island.
(13:33) You know, we really um you know, welcome anyone, you know, to to dig into their Catholic faith as you say, uh because you know, the more you dig into it, the more there is to know and the more beautiful it is. And and this is just, you know, this is from someone who started off with these sorts of questions, right? As you say, I didn't grow up in the Catholic church, but took a course and I was taking this course and I was like, I didn't know this. I didn't know this. I didn't know.
(14:02) Now, maybe I'm a theology nerd, right? That's what I wound up doing. I mean, what can you say? If you're drawn to it, you're drawn to it, right? But yeah, when I went to a Catholic college, and that's the thing about Catholic education, I was welcomed. I wasn't Catholic. Mhm. Uh I was welcomed there. Started to make Catholic friends of course. Started to go to church.
(14:23) Never been to a Catholic church. I I I mean I arrived on St. Michael's campus. I'd never been in a Catholic church. I'd never been to Toronto. But that that's sort of the olden days, right? No internet, you know. I sent in a paper application. I was accepted. I arrived in Toronto and went to school. Isn't that something? Yeah. That's great.
(14:40) So that's how you were introduced into the Catholic faith was just you just went to school there. I went to school there. I I I had been taking this course at Langera with Father Roberts. I'd never really met a priest before either. I actually did deliver newspapers to St. Monica's Parish in Richmond. My my grandma and grandpa lived on that street.
(14:59) So there was your formal introduction. Yeah, there was my formal introduction. The priest would give me a dime. Uh you know, get a tip at the end of the month when you collected. Right. For those who don't know about paper roots, No, you have to go and collect at the end of the month from all your people. Yes.
(15:15) Um, so no, Father Roberts was my first introduction and he was talking about the history of Christianity and he talked about how Christians had persecuted Jews in the Middle Ages and things and I was like, "No." You know, I was naive, right? I was like, "No, that can't be so." And I said, "I'd like to know more about this." And he said, "Well, you should go to St. Michael's.
(15:30) " And I thought, "Okay." I was young. Yeah. And um, it it was a great introduction. And I studied with father Robert Behringer who taught a course on Christian holiness. Y and we read like the church fathers and mothers like the de desert fathers and mothers these early monastics read about the tradition in in the Orthodox church and I'd never heard about that either really.
(15:56) And so we were digging into all of these texts. So I read about learned about Eastern Christianity uh from a Ukrainian Catholic priest then studied the Bible but I was surrounded by priests right and and they were really supportive and really helpful. Yeah. Uh and so it drew me into the tradition and I have to admit for me that intellectual tradition came first.
(16:19) That that's a real attraction for me. Yeah. So there's a lot of different ways that people will get attracted I think to the Catholic Church. For me, it was that intellectual tradition. There was that great beauty in it. And 2,000-y old history, right? I mean, it's amazing. And but there's a lurggical tradition that started to draw me in.
(16:39) There's a spiritual tradition, the formation, lots of different ways. So, I'd let people know that in terms of Catholic education, there's a lot of lot of different paths in uh and it it's worth exploring them. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Um our uh school St. John Paul II Academy um we're a tiny school right now. Right now we're Yeah, exactly.
(17:01) Right now the doors are opening in September for the new campus and that'll it's going to explode and we know there's going to be a lot of non-atholic well we already have a lot of non-atholics that are applying saying do you have to be Catholic to be here? No, absolutely not. I know. And um I and a lot of those um I think a lot of those families that are looking for that are just looking for something, you know, solid, maybe an introduction to some sort of faith, some kind of grounding, some kind of moral compass.
(17:31) And um you know, we had uh one of our graduates this year um stand up and was talking at the open house for, you know, to to attract more families. and uh he he was one of our non-atholic kids that stood up and talked and he said um I'm actually going to be getting baptized this spring, you know, and I was like, "Well, that's why we're here.
(17:51) This is this is what we're here to do." And and um so he felt welcomed by the fa we welcome everybody. And uh um but some of the comments online on our Facebook page are really quite comical when people are asking this and then and then other people would pipe in and say, "Why would you go to a Catholic school if you're not Catholic?" Yeah.
(18:09) And uh and that's not the Catholics speaking, that's somebody else, you know, piping in some things like that. So some of the conversation is really quite uh quite interesting there. Um so it it's that's one thing that should be known is that yeah, you don't have to be Catholic to be going to Catholic school. And you're a perfect example of it.
(18:26) I mean, and it's a kind of a it's a way of doing whole person evangelization, right? Because it doesn't have to be coercive. You just have to be present for people and you have to make real for people the love of God and the love of neighbor. And I think that's how you really show people uh the gospel, right? Is you live it out and you welcome them.
(18:50) I I had an interesting uh so I have a podcast through the center for Christian engagement called what matters most. And one of the things we do is we do have guests on like that represent other religious traditions. So yeah, most of our guests are Catholic. We have some other Christian guests as well, but we've had a few guests also who represent other religious traditions.
(19:09) And I didn't know this, but the seek chaplain at UBC, Indjet Singh, was born in Malaysia. He went to a Catholic high school in Malaysia and it was had a profound influence on him and he speaks so glowingly of his experience at this Catholic high school. Yes. Yes. It's wonderful.
(19:29) We've had um yeah, we've even had a few um um what what is the how do you not um not local not Native American or Native Canadian but um Indian families too that have come from from India that have gone through the school system the Catholic school system there's quite prominent and um and that's what they're seeking for their kids here now too that are coming to us and say no we're not Catholic we're seek but we we want our kids to go to Catholic school or whatever it was a great experience for us in India and now we want to have now we want to have it
(19:59) here. So um yeah so yes all all are welcome. Yeah um a question on that at St. Mark's College. Yeah, what percentage would be Catholic there if you had to guess or you might know the exact Yeah. In in our program in in our um graduate and theological programs almost all people are Catholic. I would think so. Yeah.
(20:21) I mean it's that kind of formation. We do have one or two students who are not. Um, so I mentioned a student who'd come from Toronto who's preparing to go to theological school at Vancouver School of Theology, the Protestant school. And so she's not Catholic, right? But she's being trained in her uh BA in theology and Catholic theology.
(20:42) And of course, uh, she's she's more than welcome. But I I think as you say, the vast majority of people who are going to be trained theologically in Catholicism are going to want to use that training either as teachers, as deacons, as lay ministers or just for their own uh I want to say self-improvement. I mean, because it's not like sort of a self-improvement program, right? It's a deepening of your faith.
(21:09) And there are people who want to do that. And I I had a student um when I was in Minnesota at the St. Post Seminary uh who is a lawyer and she was coming to the end of her career and she was like she said I can't even give you references anymore for my former professors. They've all passed. Wow. Well then she could say anything she wanted. That's right.
(21:28) But she said I'm not sure I can write a paper anymore. And I said well look you're a lawyer. You've been practicing law. Take a couple of courses. See what you think. See how you how you like it. And so she did that and she did fine. And she loved it. That was that was even more important. So she's like, I'm going to do a whole degree in Catholic theology.
(21:43) So I'd encourage people to take a course. Yeah. You know, if you're interested, uh because it's grounded in the Catholic faith. Yes, we ask real serious academic questions, intellectual questions for a deepening of the faith and a growing of the faith. But there are some of us who, you know, just, you know, want to keep doing that.
(22:02) And we'd encourage anyone who wants to to to join in. Yeah. Yeah. H how much would be based on or uh um or how many references would there be made to the catechism? Well, it's sort of a a constant reference in in a sense. I I had a a former student who described the catechism as the fruit of theology. Ah, right.
(22:29) These are the teachings of the church in a sense sort of not not boiled down but but this is what theological training does. that gives us the catechism, right? It comes from the church. And um so it's an interesting question because I mean if you're studying scripture, you know, and you go to the catechism, you see what the catechism says about scripture, right? And so the catechism is sort of the the fruits of what we do theologically.
(22:56) And so what it allows us to do in theological training and education is to really dig into those truths in at a deep level. Right? So you know the catechism for instance I'll talk about what I know best. I'm a I'm a scripture scholar. Talks about the three stages of development of the biblical tradition. You have the teaching of Jesus.
(23:17) Here I'm talking about the New Testament in particular. You have the teaching of Jesus. Then you have the passing on in stage two of the oral tradition. even before the gospels were written. And then at stage three, you have the written gospels, right? But it starts with Jesus himself, then the apostles, then the New Testament.
(23:36) And so the catechism talks about these three stages. What we do in a scripture course on the gospels is let's pull that apart. How was the oral tradition passed on? Yeah. How how did they how can we trust that the oral tradition that the apostles passed on in their churches was was true to what Jesus taught? and and so we sort of go into that in depth, right? And so that's just one example, but there was in Minnesota something called the Catechetical Institute. Yeah.
(24:05) That lay people from all sorts of parishes would come and they'd go through the catechism over a year. That'd be great to see something like that. Well, uh speaking of catechism in a year, I'm not there yet because on the the hallow app, I'm in the midst of the Bible in a year. um which still in the Old Testament in the book of numbers and stuff bit dry so he getting a bit dry is that is that Mike Schmidz yes student of mine was he in I was going to ask you about that because Catholic education bears fruit yes it does it does wow what
(24:37) a testimony to yourself there it really isn't I I'm joking I mean he uh you know but I just taught one course letters of Paul but yeah uh no but those kinds of um those this kind of education bears Right. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. And um one of the things I mean beautiful part I'm going to get way off here for a second but the Bible in a year. Yeah.
(25:04) Um uh which is I'm going through that right now but Father Mike he you know he talks about each you know. Yeah. He he goes in and gives an explanation. And if you didn't have that explanation you'd be you'd read it and go what the heck am I reading? Exactly. you know, you need that explanation. You need that all the way along.
(25:25) And um so the cate without the catechism. So like there's the Christian faith that are, you know, based solo scriptura that Right. Right. Well, okay. So you've got that and saying, well, the Bible is the foundation of our faith. It's like, okay, but who's interpreting this? That's right. you know, and we've the Catholic Church has we've got these this these guiding um uh leaders in our church that, you know, um that can say, "No, this is what this means and this is how we believe it.
(25:55) " And it's the same throughout all of uh throughout all the Catholic Church, right? Um around the world, it's the same. Like, we've all got the same thing. So we don't have, you know, this church saying one thing, this one saying another thing, this one saying another thing. So there's just kind of this one guiding light um in the catechism that helps, right, keep us all on track with that.
(26:17) And of course, we've got one pope. So am I am I Well, yeah. What we have in Catholicism that's that's so wonderful is you have scripture, of course, and you have uh the Old Testament, um which of course was what Jesus is talking about when he's talking about scripture. Then you have that interpreted in light of Jesus and by Jesus himself, right? He interprets scripture.
(26:39) And so you have scripture now, including obviously the New Testament. And you have tradition, right? The church fathers, the tradition of the church as it's grown over the centuries. We talk in centuries, right? Not decades, not years. And you have the magisterium, right? The magisterial teaching of the church.
(26:56) And I think th this is what offers Catholicism this understanding that moves beyond just the individual. Right? Of course, there's room to ask questions. There's room to grow. There's room to understand. Dave Verbam from the Second Vatican Council talks about our understanding growing and developing, but within the church, right? And so with scripture, tradition, and the magisterium, you have this three-fold in a sense structure, right? that gives meaning, that gives purpose, and as you say, interpretation.
(27:30) Um, because there is this problem, right? It if I say, well, I don't like the way they're doing it. I'll start my own church, right? The church of John. Big problem. That's a big problem. You wouldn't want a church that I started. You really don't. uh but but you know and and this is not to to fundamentally criticize others who you know who you know the Lutheran church let's say or the United Church I mean these are brothers and sisters in Christ we know we know that and so we want to always be reaching out to them and that's that's
(28:01) what we do at the center as well right we connect to we reach out to we join together to um whenever we can um because it's important that we seek unity yeah that we seek to understand other but I remember I I will say this um so I there was a very good New Testament scholar Arland Hulgrren at the Luther Seminary in Minnesota so there's a lot of Lutheran in Minnesota as well and we gave a talk at a Methodist church I was giving a Catholic perspective he was giving a Lutheran perspective and he said about solos scriptura and this was
(28:36) these were his words he said after 500 years Lutheran have their own sort of tradition right like that that it's it's and so the question is where does that tradition begin? Right. Right. And and from a Catholic perspective, we say that tradition begins with Jesus himself and the apostles. Right.
(28:55) And so that's that's that deep deep tradition uh that goes back to Jesus own incarnate ministry and the people he called to follow him. Yeah. Wow. Yes. So there's formal Catholic education and then there's continuing absolutely Catholic education, which is kind of what I'm Well, I had a Catholic high school education. Yeah.
(29:19) Uh I had a Catholic education growing up, you know, with in the church through the catechism programs, what have you. So, and then now I'm at this stage of my life where I'm trying to learn more about the faith in uh in different ways. You know, one of the beauties of of the internet and podcasts today is that oh my good, there's so much.
(29:39) If you don't know something, and you need to learn it, it is right there. It's in front of you. We all carry our cell phones around with us all day and and it's right there. You have a question, it's right there. You need you need an explanation or something inspirational on a specific topic, right there. Here we go. It's true.
(29:55) You know, so there's no excuse to stop learning about that. And if you're if you're learning um a bunch of negative things either whether it's about whatever the topic is in the church um you might be typing in the wrong questions as well because um you you'll find what you're looking for on the internet good or bad. That's right. So yeah, it's uh it's a fascinating thing.
(30:17) And so this is where the center for Christian engagement uh that I directed St. Mark's College comes in. Like we're in terms of continuing education and also finding things on the internet. So we do have a podcast as well called what matters most. Beautiful. And so we we talked to people like Catholic theologians about questions like we had recently had Bill Kavanagh who teaches at Depal University in Chicago talking about our idols consumerism. Yeah.
(30:45) And nationalism and how ultimately these don't satisfy. had uh Jenny Martin from University of Notre Dame who directs the D Nicholas Center there talking about how wonderful it is that we exist, how beautiful it is that we exist. And because we both love gardening, we got into that and how gardening is a great expression of theology, how you need to put down roots, need to grow in the sunlight.
(31:08) So I' I'd encourage people apart from this podcast, you should listen to what matters most. Uh we also do lectures. Uh and so that's part of continuing education. One of our goals is to reach out to people. Yeah. Uh and so we do lectures. Um we just had Father Andrew Lagona from California, Jesuit priest talk last week.
(31:31) Uh he came and he was talking about uh you know the wonderful work of the Jesuits with immigrants and immigration and how difficult a position that is right now. um but also how as Christians we have to you know really be there for people and really be present for people in terms of caring for our neighbor. So these are all things we do.
(31:52) We also have a conference coming up May 1st to 3rd called the promise of Christian education. Ah so we're we're looking at the whole of Christian education. And I'd really invite Catholic school teachers, but anyone who wants to come that we're going to be talking about like things like Catholic school funding that might be boring for a lot of people, but also how do you deal with a diverse population in a Catholic classroom when you're teaching Catholic theology? Yeah.
(32:19) And so I'm I'm really pleased to say that I I taught a class last summer at St. Marks called Catholicism and Interreligious Dialogue. M and three of the papers being presented at this conference are by Catholic school teachers. Oh wow. Two from Vancouver and one from the island because they have on the ground experience, right? And they're bringing their knowledge and their understanding.
(32:40) We have someone from Sisva who's also going to be presenting at the conference. Who from Sysva? Rosette uh Korea. I believe I've got the name correct. I don't think I know it. So I'm happy to to have to have her present as well. So yeah, this is what we're trying to do in terms of outreach, right? Um that we want people to connect uh to the Catholic Church.
(33:06) We know that for some people they might have been hurt. For some people they might have just drifted away as you were talking about and this we think is a kind of a low-key way to draw people in. Come to one of our lectures or listen to that lecture on YouTube. All of our lectures go up on YouTube, right? Um join us in that way.
(33:22) Um, even our lectures because UBC is hard to get to, we also live streamed them. Yeah. Um, so that people can watch from home. But we've also had people from all across Canada and the US uh watching our our lectures as well. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's great. That's the beauty of the beauty of podcasts, you know. Wow. I know.
(33:46) We we had somebody in Ireland, somebody in Italy watch our shows last week. You know, you get that feedback. Really? really watch us on the other side of the world. That's great. You know, that's fantastic. Yeah. Here we are in little old Vancouver here and kind of, you know, pumping out some good information regarding Catholic education.
(34:01) You know, as we said, there's so many different topics um that you can go into with Catholic education and the overlap and it's so needed. It's so needed now more than ever. I I mean there's probably been generations before that have that have said that as well, but um where um uh we we we're replacing religion. Yeah.
(34:22) Um it's it's kind of fallen in the West especially. It used to be the grounding, you know, for for our absolutely our for our lives. And um the West was built on Judeo-Christian values. And what's happened is that's kind of just falling away and we're falling into more selfish type lifestyles. Yeah. And as the church crumbles or has become less valuable then uh so goes the family and the family starts to fall apart and when the family starts falling apart the society starts falling apart and we look to replace that religion with something
(34:53) right you know we all believe in something right now whether it's the you know the the the um uh the the financial uh um lures out there that we're striving for or government tends to want to put their um replace religion with that's right with you know more government more government more government and rely on the government the government should do this the government will take care of you the government will you know and um that's the wrong direction uh in my humble opinion um we need to get faith back in
(35:27) our our entire society you know so that our it strengthens with with strong faith comes strong families and from that becomes a strong society um so hopefully our education, our Catholic education systems will contribute to that and uh keep it going in the right direction. So, well, I I'm hopeful, you know, the the church is always even Thomas Haleik, this great Czech priest, uh talks about the fact that um you know, maybe the church has less of an influence in some ways, but he says maybe this is a way for the church to re
(36:03) regain its its its its footing again. The church started small. Started without any kind of political power. Started without any kind of influence. But the way it gained that influence was simply by living out the gospel and convincing people of it in that manner. Say look at how the Christians live. Look at how they do it.
(36:26) And so he's he uses the image of the mustard seed and says maybe Jesus wants us to get smaller so that we can spread more widely. And it's a really interesting image uh that of course we can't give up hope in the church because it's a church that Christ founded. So it's we just have to recognize that the Holy Spirit is always at work. Yeah.
(36:48) That the same Holy Spirit that came on the apostles at Pentecost is still active today. And so we have to trust and have that that's where our faith needs to be too. that that God is still working, that God is going to work in many ways, through our center, we hope, through your school, through our school, you know what I mean? And quite often in strange in strange ways, in ways you might not expect. Yeah.
(37:09) You think, why am I going down this road? What the heck is um and then all of a sudden, oh well, if that didn't happen, then none of these other great things would have happened. You know, that's the thing, you know, you pray for strength and it's like, well, it's going to make life hard cuz that's right. You don't get stronger by things being easy um and simple and nothing worth doing of course is easy.
(37:33) Um anything rewarding is difficult. You have to put in a lot of effort and you have to come over through a lot of challenges and that's something um you know quite often I've said if I known this school would have been this challenging you know getting this cool job I would have never done it but I think many people say that about everything that they've done that they've accomplished.
(37:48) It's like I think that's right. Yeah I I think that's right. I was thinking actually about when I moved to Toronto to go to St. Michael's College. Uh I had nowhere to live. I I thought I did because but I guess you know back then uh I thought I had a dorm room but apparently there wasn't one. I don't know if my application got lost or what cuz it just sent out a letter and I only had $537.
(38:11) Oh. And I was like, well, here I am. I got to find a place to live and I've got to uh go to school. What a challenge. Yeah. But, you know, maybe maybe being young is helpful in some ways. You know what I mean? Just here I am and you just got to do it. But yeah, when I think about it, you can you can see God leading, right? Uh ultimately into the church and ultimately into what my vocation is. Yeah.
(38:39) And ultimately back to Vancouver after 39 years away. My goodness. Welcome back. Thank you for coming back. Yeah. I love being in Vancouver again. It's uh it's been a it's it's been wonderful. Right. um to be around family when so long I was not except for my own family. Yeah. The um now your wife did not grow up Catholic as well. No, she didn't either.
(39:02) She grew up in the Menite church. In the Menite church and that's the same as you. Same as me. Yeah. Ah but you met in back east Ontario. In Winnipeg. In Winnipeg. Yeah. And so that is where we both decided that we wanted to enter into the Catholic church. It had taken me a long time and part of it was that I didn't, you know, I I I loved the kind of faith that my family had. Yeah.
(39:26) It was a deep faith. We were very involved in our church on number five road in Richmond. Uh now it's a highway to heaven. Uh Richmond Bethl Church was a Midnight Brethren church there. Okay. And it's still on Five Road, but I don't think it has the same name. Yeah. Um and and I think both of us felt well we had grown up in a in a church where faith was really significant uh and really mattered but that we had been called in a variety of ways and one of them was you know there's so many different churches as you had mentioned and we felt well we
(40:01) one sign of unity is coming into the Catholic church right is saying I'm not giving up the the beautiful things I learned from my family cuz my family was sustained by their faith. My dad grew up in Ukraine. Mhm. That's where he was born in the Menite communities there. And his father was killed in the Stalinist purges like millions of others.
(40:24) And then they were uh in the early 1940s they were going through Poland trying to escape the war and wound up in a refugee camp for three years. And what sustained them before they got to Canada was their faith. Right. Wow. and uh in in the face of great terror, persecution. And so I I I wanted my parents to know this is not something I feel like I'm turning my back on, but that am trying to become a part of something greater and maintaining the roots that I was given as a Menite as well.
(40:59) And I have a friend Gerald Schlabok, uh also a Catholic theologian, but raised a minionite as well. and he started a group called Bridge Folk, which is Catholics and Menites together. And so I I think it's one way that he could do that is because he knows both those traditions. Yeah, we need more of that. Yeah, we definitely need more of that.
(41:18) In today's world, too, as Christians get persecuted, we need to Yeah. Um, you know, unite, not as an army, but as as um those of us with the same belief. There's way more that unites us than what separates us in Christianity. Yeah. And I think once we realize that and and grow to, you know, to understand cuz quite often it's just we just don't know, right? Like we don't we don't have the information as to oh why we're Catholic or where the Catholic Church started from and the traditions of it. Um and we don't know where some
(41:51) of the Protestant faiths came from and why what happened. I mean none of us were there during that time when these things, you know. So there's there's history there. That's right. that can be shared and you know I think that that enriches you know even if you you stay Protestant or you stay Catholic or whatever but we know more about it and you can be much more understanding and supportive of uh Christianity in general and I will say that's why it is called the center for Christian engagement I didn't name it that was named already uh
(42:21) by the donors uh to the center it was distinctly supposed to be a Catholic center but these connections with the other faiths are really significant so we've we've done work with Regent College and Vancouver School of Theology on we we had a a talk on artificial intelligence and what it means for the Christian faith.
(42:40) Uh and and some of the problems with that in in terms of not really taking seriously our embodied humanity, right? That we are all created in God's image. And so we're going to continue to do this work with the other colleges. Uh a number of the local colleges are supporting our um our Christian education conference from May 1st to 3rd um by buying ads in our program.
(43:05) Ah from Regent to Vancouver School of Theology and we're really thankful St. Andrews College, the Presbyterian College. That's great. And I I'm connected with a lot of these Protestant groups and you know to start a a writing group called the Bell and this is bringing Protestants and Catholics together. Tom Cooper's been involved in this uh in in and so that we write from a Christian perspective right about things that matter to the whole community and we're connecting with other Christian podcasts.
(43:36) So refreshing to hear. Yeah. So, we're we're doing all we can. And, you know, I have to say with some of my uh Protestant friends, we we and Catholic friends, we have a beer once a month. Yeah. Oh, great. It's it's we get together involved in Christian education together and just talk about the work we're doing. I love hearing that.
(43:55) It's a good thing to do. It's good to have a beer, but it's even better to be with friends and to just connect that conversation. That's that's great. Um um I'll ask so your your family getting back to your family um your siblings um they all remained Menite um you know not in in a sense I mean and I don't want to overstep evangelical evangelical so some of them go like uh my brother and his family go to South Delta Baptist okay um and yeah most of my family yeah I I you know my parents always remained active in the Midnight church
(44:31) my dad was a deacon in the Midnight Church my mom had a deacon couple in the Menite church. Uh so they always remain connected. Um my family are all um connected I would say if not to Menite churches and more evangelical churches. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And and some of that might have to do just with location too.
(44:51) Yeah. Like I have a sister in Los Angeles. She's been there for over 40 years. Have a sister in New Brunswick. like there I don't know that the Minionite communities are all that strong there like they are in the freezer valley or Manitoba and things like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My um first uh encounter with the Midnight community was um playing basketball against MEI MEI Eagles in the Eagles. Yes.
(45:13) Basketball team. Yeah, they were. We had a hard time with them all all the time. All the time. I think it we we may have split split decisions in terms of the win losses with them, but yeah, we we struggled with them. Um they were great and and we got along great with the community out there.
(45:30) So yeah, that was fantastic. Yeah. I mean it's it's a really interesting I think part of my connection of course to the other Protestant and Anabaptist traditions is that that's a tradition I grew up in. Yeah. So I know about the great love of scripture, the great love of of Jesus. Yes. Right. And I was raised not just by my parents but by older relatives, my great aunts who had who had come from uh Ukraine as well. Mhm.
(45:55) They they were all, you know, single. I mean, they'd gone through horrible times there. Yeah. But they ran their own little farm in Yurrow out near Chilowak. These three great ants. And they never learned to speak English. They always spoke really German. Uh because, you know, I I think probably because, you know, they they didn't have husbands, they didn't have children, and went and learned English.
(46:13) Yeah. Um but they they were wonderful models, right, of great love and of great dedication to scripture. Yeah. And so that kind of model I think is what really, you know, encouraged me to keep seeking and keep keep asking questions about scripture. Yeah. The um in in your teachings, yeah, you know, outside of Father Mike Schmidz.
(46:42) Um, do you have any examples of I know this isn't a question we gave to you before, but do you have any examples of uh any students or something that you think their lives changed or that they were really hugely impacted by um the Catholic education that they receiving? Yeah, I I I think so that it's you know immediately my mind goes to two students and and the and I I'm going to try to think about some more because but I I think of two students.
(47:09) I had a student David Turnblum who's now a theologian at University of Portland uh and he took uh a theology 100 course with me. Actually it was 101. Theology 101 is what it it was called at University of St. Thomas. and he had just, you know, come to university to do a business degree or something and he took that theology 101 course and he said, "I I'm going to uh I think I'm going to be a theologian.
(47:35) " I had no idea what had what happened to him and I wrote for America magazine uh and I was introducing Scott Han at a talk in New York City and somebody came up to me at the reception after and said, "David Turnblom wants to say hello to you." He wasn't there, but a friend of his from graduate school was there and he was at Boston College doing a PhD. Oh. So, that was one.
(47:59) Another one is someone I'm even closer to, uh, a priest, Father Kevin Zberg, and Kevin took my New Testament course as an undergraduate. Now, he was already in, uh, a minor seminary, an undergraduate seminary, which University of St. Thomas had. Most of those young men though don't go on to become priests. Uh but Kevin did and he went on to become a biblical scholar as well. Oh wow.
(48:23) And he now teaches at University of Salamanca in Spain, like one of the oldest universities in the world. Wow. And so we're still in touch. He asked me questions about scripture. What are you reading on the Apostle Paul um because he sort of moved into a new direction. He's an Old Testament scholar, but he's teaching Paul there.
(48:42) So I we talk fairly regularly uh about what books are you reading on the Apostle Paul and um trying to keep him up to date on on that as he grows into that new role. But yeah, I I do think you hear from a lot of students in general, they don't have to become Catholic theologians for the education to have an impact. That's a thing, right? And and that's important to keep in mind.
(49:03) Those ones jump to mind because you think, ah, you know, it really took root in a in a specific way. But I can I can think of lots of students who recognized the seeds that were planted after they left university, started families, had kids, had businesses, run into the realities of life. Sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's tough. Sometimes you lose a job.
(49:27) Uh sometimes a child gets sick. And that's when their faith re really becomes uh a comfort to them and a strength for them, right? and is important for them to really recognize. Yeah. The what we were learning then is was even more important than my courses in entrepreneurship. Nothing against studying business or anything like that.
(49:51) You know what I mean? But they're like this is what really matters, right? And this is where uh the depth of the tradition can sustain me and can nourish me. I know the older I get, the more I appreciate my high school um experience at St. Thomas Moore. Yeah. And um uh yeah, reflect back on that and you're just like, "Oh my goodness.
(50:15) " Yeah, that was sure good that that we went that I went through that. Um and and quite often that happens, you know, where you absolutely go and you you're busy kids. Sometimes it's when you have kids that you say, "Okay, life just got real. True. Now I'm not living for me or just me and you anymore. Now it's us. And um how are we going to raise our child? Which is one of the reasons, you know, I try and instill in my daughters too.
(50:37) It's like it's so important if that you end up with somebody of the same faith. Yes, it it works other relationships. Yeah, it can work when you're of a different faith and go, but it's just if that one thing is uniting you, then there is so many more um challenging times that you can overcome without having to worry about, you know, oh, but you think this, I think this, and now we're, you know, there's a whole another thing to challenge us on a day-to-day basis.
(51:07) So, and how you going to raise your kids? Yeah, life has challenges, right? That is, and this is where faith comes into play. like what is what is our purpose? What is our meaning? And this is what drew me to theology and and keeps me interested in in connecting to people with this respect.
(51:26) Is that if again I I think of it in terms of planting seeds and and trying to nourish those seeds and and to let God do the work that God will do. Yeah. Uh and and but it's important to get out there, right? And I thought ah the podcast is a good idea, right? Because people might be listening to it as they're driving to work.
(51:43) Yeah, you might be listening to it halfway around the world. I know we have listeners in Guatemala, in Asia, even at times we've had for our podcast listeners in Saudi Arabia. Yeah. Like, isn't that something? That's good. And even over there, if you've impacted them like in this podcast, if somebody was to listen to this and say, "Well, I'm thinking about putting my kids in a um you know, in a Catholic school um or a faith-based school of some sort and um they hear a podcast like this and go, "Yeah, you know what? I'm doing it."
(52:14) Yeah. No, we don't even know. We're not even hear from these people. We don't know. Like we said, it could be the other side of the world, but all right. You know, there's there's Catholics all around the world. There's the faith is everywhere. It's not limited to where we are at.
(52:28) So um now here's a here's a different sort of uh um topic to get into. Um Catholic education unfortunately like all education it's not free. There's a cost to it. That's right. Yeah. And um we've experienced that of course in our new school. We it's over$und00 million build and um that's real money. That's real money and we got to pay for it somehow.
(52:50) So um and we do you know we've got capital campaigns you know fundraising the archbishop or the arch dasis Vancouver arch dasis with the archbishop here um archbishop Michael Miller they've been supportive of course they had the land they had uh the money now that's all donor money to begin with. So our entire program is based on donor money and um also tuitions that we have to charge.
(53:13) Um our founding principal for at our school um Mr. Laurier Yeah. He uh was somebody that said always right out of the gate, he was like, you know, look, we do not want to deny anybody a Catholic education for financial reasons. He said, that's got to be that's a must. He said, if I'm going to teach, if I'm going to be your founding principal, this this is we have to have this.
(53:36) I mean, I we had him on the podcast actually a few weeks ago. Yeah. And he's going to tell his story. I didn't know why he felt that way. So, um, why he was so adamant about that and I was just kind of, okay, I guess I guess so. We'll do we'll do that. All right, sounds like a good one, I guess.
(53:53) Um, and we've abided by that. We've that's been our mandate going forward. Um, anybody that's come and said, you know, um, they have to kind of show it or prove it. That's the discussion. Absolutely. Because like they said, there are bills to pay. Um and he said on the podcast he had said um um you know I was one of those families.
(54:15) He came from a big family and it was at St. Thomas Moore as well in Burnaby and um the uh they had to go there humbly and say look we can't. And they were like no come all of you guys are going to come here and the Christian brothers at the time they put them through the schooling there. And then uh Mish was in the Catholic school system for over 40 years now.
(54:33) he's been teaching and his brother has his brother Roier, same thing. He's the principal at Notre Dame over 40 years in Catholic education. Um, which is huge, you know, and had we not had had they not had the ability to say, "No, you're going to come anyway. We will figure it out, you know, and quite often I've said to, you know, Mish had said to me too, he's like, "How are we going to pay for this?" I'm like, "I don't know.
(54:55) Just we have to do it though. Let's keep going." And um, so St. Mark's College and Corpus Christie, same kind of I was at a fundraiser there last week or a couple of weeks ago. Father Greg Boy. Father Greg Boy. Yeah. Fantastic speaker. Absolutely great. It was an honor to to see him and meet him and hear him speak.
(55:11) Powerful. Um so what do we do for um at St. Marks for um uh students and families that they they might not be able to afford all the tuition because it's not cheap either. No, it's not. There are a lot of scholarships. There are and this is the case for students at Corpus Christi as well. Yes. And so a lot of that money raised uh at the Father Greg Bole dinner uh will be going specifically to scholarships for students.
(55:42) So we offer a lot of scholarships, some even sort of like full ride scholarships. And at the undergraduate level, many of our students are not uh uh Catholic students and not and not Christians. And so we think that's important to bring people in as well to give them that access to to education like that. We also have scholarships available uh at the graduate level right for Catholic school teachers for instance uh to encourage them to come.
(56:10) The arch dasis uh has been really generous in giving us money as well. Uh we raise uh donations to pay for scholarships as well. And I should say the center for Christian engagement is based on funding uh that started with Peter Bull, Andy Sox and Andy Angus Reed and the arch dasis. Right. And so I mean it that's why our we basically all of our programming is free with the exception of of the conference right um where we have a you know our our our bienial conferences we have one every two years we had one on Pope Francis two years ago we have this one coming up but
(56:48) it only costs $60 for the whole conference that includes reception and coffee breaks and stuff like we we're just trying to offset costs right because We re recognize that we've been given this great gift by these donors and so and the reason is to get the word out there. Yeah. So yeah, there are um scholarships available and I and and I should say anyone who wants to donate is welcome to as well.
(57:14) I know both both to your uh St. John Paul 2 Academy and and to our colleges and I know people are are strapped, but there are so many people who who are willing to give and and are we're so honored by that. Yeah, that that's huge. Yeah. Our donors, like you say, our school is built on donor money. Yeah, it's amazing.
(57:34) And um a lot of people don't know like financially how in the the elementary and high school um we get 50% government funding as long as we're running at the same operating at the same level as as the public schools are in our area. So we'll get 50% towards operations, right? Not towards infrastructure. So that building that we see there, that 100 plus million dollar structure is paid for, that is donors.
(58:00) No taxpayer money. zero. Wow. So, um that's something a lot of the general public don't know and because they think, oh, well, private schools are a drain on the system. It's like, uh, no, actually, private schools are actually saving the government and saving the taxpayer a lot of money and especially today when there's such a shortage of schools in the public system, um, generally speaking.
(58:24) Um, so our tuitions are we have them in place not because we're an elitist school, which we've been accused of. Um it's not that at all but we do have to pay bills and um we do not get the funding like a public the public system does. We don't get virtually any in terms of uh infrastructure. So um you were using the word scholarships. Yeah.
(58:46) um in order to get a scholarship. Is that a uh a nice way of saying bery in some case scenarios or are they scholarships based on okay you've reached you know you're you're a um um got a high GPA and um and you're an athlete or or whatever you know so we can we can um uh give you a scholarship based on what your your u past history has been in and your credentials. Yeah.
(59:16) Are they that or are they just people saying, "Hey, look, I've I've reached the the minimum level to get into university here. I really want to go here, but I just we can't afford it." Yeah. So for Corpus Christi, I I think Jerry Turkot, our our president, um could speak to that even more, but I think we have needs-based scholarships as well as scholarships like our circle of fellows for undergraduates, which are for our, you know, a real leadership sort of scholarship where I and students of course have to apply and and and earn
(59:46) those. But like you say, burseries uh can be very helpful. St. Michael's College sort of uh kept me afloat with a very nice bursery. Yeah. Um when I when I arrived there, which was really wonderful for the graduate program, St. Marks gives out scholarships like based on it really isn't need. It's more like if you're a Catholic school teacher and you want to come and study with us, we have money available for you.
(1:00:12) And some of that money, a lot of it comes through the arch dasis as well to support their own school teachers. Okay. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's something uh and I always encourage families too. I I've um younger families coming to our school u to SGB2 um where they've said I, you know, we can't go there.
(1:00:31) We can't afford that. And I'm like, come anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll figure it out. Come anyway. You know, we've got room right now. It's not going to always be like this, but come anyway. And uh well, I feel bad. You know, I don't want somebody else paying. It's like, no, no, no. What do you think happens at the public school? That's right.
(1:00:50) That's right. Everybody else is paying for your kids to get educated. Like that's how this system works. Yeah. You know, so we want you to come to our school whether you can afford it or not. We we want you apply apply anyway, you know, and if we can fit it in, we're going to fit it in. So, um we hate turning anybody away.
(1:01:08) So, yeah. Well, Dr. John Marts, thank you. Oh, my pleasure. for coming here today and um if you have anything else your podcast you may you may want to mention before we wrap up uh sure what matters most you can find it on Apple and Spotify and what matters most what matters most uh trying to get people to think about that what matters most to you all right um our lectures are available on the um on the St.
(1:01:34) Mark's YouTube channel, okay? And our if you connect to us at the Center for Christian Engagement, our website is there, uh, Center for Christian Engagement, and you'll find all of our programming and links to it. And I'm really hoping we can continue to do what you were talking about, more of that continuing education stuff, too. Wow.
(1:01:52) So I'm thinking about how do we do sort of Bible courses for people not not as a you know for credit course necessarily just to connect them um to the faith and to help deepen their faith. So it's always a matter of not just money but time right small center and it's like how much can we do? We'd love to do more and more and more.
(1:02:14) Um, but we encourage people to check us out and we're happy uh to do more and more and I', you know, I'm happy to engage people anytime they want with Catholic theology. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I know. And networking amongst the different um uh organizations within our church and education, you know, uh we have to network as much as possible.
(1:02:34) Absolutely. So, you know, we've said it out in the valley in our schools. There's Holy Cross, there's SJB. They're like, we're well, we're in competition. No, no, no, no. we're all on the same team, you know, we're trying to promote each other here. So, um, we have to make sure we have to make sure of that.
(1:02:48) So, getting the word out that, you know, Catholic education matters and, uh, we're doing the right thing and not it's not just the kids that are going to our schools now, but it's the ones that aren't yet. We have to get the word out to them that they're they're welcome and we want them to come and uh, receive the wow the great education I know that I got to I was privileged to receive.
(1:03:11) So, Thank you. Yes. Thank you very much and uh thank everybody for joining us here today and we are also on Spotify and Apple and YouTube. So be please share the word and um uh uh invite others to uh come and watch our show here. So thank you. That's what I say. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. Yeah, my pleasure.
(1:03:33) All right. Thank you for listening to Catholic Education Matters. If 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.
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