‘It’s important that faith can have full and clear expression in the public forum’ – Peadar Tóibín

Aontú leader and TD Peadar Tóibín opens up about faith, cancer and the future of the Church, writes Ruadhán Jones

Aontú leader and Meath TD Peadar Tóibín made a name for himself in 2018 when he and one other Sinn Féin TD refused to toe the party line over the question of abortion. He was suspended for six months for voting against the Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy Bill 2018 and subsequently left the party to form the republican party Aontú.

Since then, Tóibín has been an outspoken critic of the major parties on a number of pro-life issues and many others, including education and the provision of cancer treatment services. Most recently, however, he made headlines when he opened up about a shock cancer diagnosis. The Meath West TD recently underwent surgery to remove a melanoma – a tumorous skin growth – on his head and is awaiting a Pet Scan to ensure the disease hasn’t spread.

The cancer diagnosis forced Peadar to reorder his priorities, he explains – but one of the things that remained constant through the scare was his faith. This, he tells me, helped him to maintain his peace despite the trying circumstances.

“I remember when I was a kid doing exams, my mother always used to say, ‘do your best and God will do the rest’,” he says. “And I think that kind of philosophy is a very positive one because it settles the mind – we realise that there’s only so much we can do and also it’s very comforting to know that there’s help there as well.

“So when I’ve gone through this particular challenge of the cancer, I’ve prayed and I’m very thankful for the nice people who have prayed for me and the Mass cards I’ve received. It has helped me to settle my mind and there’s a peace that results from the knowledge that I am being helped.”

Family

Peadar grew up in Navan, Co. Meath, the youngest of seven children. His father was a business man who owned a couple of garages in Navan, while his mother was a teacher. Both of his parents were practicing Catholics, and they instilled a great belief in God in Peadar and his siblings.

“We went to Mass every Sunday,” Peadar says. “When we were children, we were taught to pray in the mornings and at night before we went to bed, and you know there was a great belief in God in the house.”

The household was a very lively one, and the dinner table was often the sight of heated, but healthy debates. All of the Tóibín children had a natural instinct to take the opposite position to their parents, in a way “testing the veracity of their views”, Peadar says.

“At Sunday dinners and even during the week, there would have been big debates about the big issues of the time, whether it be the cultural wars of the day around divorce and abortion, or whether it was around the North of Ireland – obviously the troubles were raging at the time – or whether it was about economic situations, there were big political debates around the dinner table at home,” Peadar explains.

“My parents were definitely practising Catholics, but they weren’t dogmatic – ideas had to be reasoned, they had to be evidenced based. You know, your opinions on any particular issue had to have a foundation also in the sciences or human life as well. Definitely it was a practicing Catholic family, but it wasn’t a dogmatic family, if you understand.”

Peadar laughs when he thinks back on those times as a child and teenager. Married 10 years to his wife, Deirdre, hasv four kids of his own: “I think they’re noisy, I imagine what my parents must have felt like with seven of us arguing around the table,” he says.

Faith

But however noisy or chaotic it might have been, these early jousts whet his appetite for political life. After school, he went to University College Dublin, where he studied economics and politics. While he was there, he joined the Kevin Barry Cumann, the university branch of Ógra Fianna Fáil. However, in 1998, he changed his political affiliation and joined Sinn Féin.

“I felt that Fianna Fáil had good people within them, but a lot of the people in Fianna Fáil were career ambitious for themselves and the ideology and the objectives were secondary or weren’t as important,” he explains.

In all this time, his faith continued to be central to his life. One of the reasons for this is the positive contribution it makes to his health and well-being.

“In attending Mass on a Sunday,” he explains, “it takes an hour out of the rat race, out of the milieu of everything going on and it settles the mind on some level of understanding about how the week has gone, what’s important and it does that in the framework of really positive messages about life.”

But the main reason he remained a faithful Catholic was that it provided answers to what he considers the most important questions, such as why we are here and how can there be justice without God? Well-read in philosophy and history, he hasn’t found any other faith or philosophy which provides the answers.

“I don’t think there’s every been a time in my life now where I’ve left and haven’t practiced my faith,” he says. “I think there’s a couple of elements to it for me. For one, there’s the philosophy of what we are, where we come from, why we’re here, how does all this exist if it came from nothing.

“And I would have read a lot around philosophy, I would have read a lot around Stephen Hawkins just to understand his view, which would be that all of this exists by cosmic accident and it comes from zero. My understanding was that you can’t have an effect without a cause and y’know, there had to be some kind of creator to all of this that we live in.

“I would be very much an environmentalist, I do a lot of hiking and gardening so I think we live in a very, very beautiful planet and all the diversity and richness has to come from somewhere in my view.”

Evidence

This evidence from experience, as it might be called, makes up only half of the rational foundation for his faith. The other is the evidence from history and philosophy. Raised as he was to put a premium on supporting claims with evidence, he deliberately sought out the teachings and histories of the major faiths and philosophies to test Christianity’s veracity, much as he tested his own parents’ views.

“I’m a great believer in history and I would have read a lot around the history of the Jews, the history of the Islamic faith, the history of Christianity and I have probably found very few philosophies or ideas that are so outstanding in their positivity and beneficial in their direction as to how humanity can live peacefully and honestly in harmony with each other outside of the teachings of Jesus Christ.”

Ultimately, Peadar’s commitment to the faith can be summed up by the following statement: “For me when people say, well how do you prove that there is a God, I would say three things: one, where does all this come from; two, the teachings of Christ are in themselves uniquely inspiring and Godly; and three, if there isn’t a God then there’s no justice. And I would be a big believer in justice and the necessity for justice.

“If there is no God, well then, the result of lives such as Hitler’s or Mother Theresa’s are roughly the same – there’s no justice with regard to these individuals, with regard to how they live their lives. If there’s no God, then there’s a lack of justice in the long-term.”

If Peadar’s commitment to justice and fairness find their roots in his faith in God, they find expression in his political career. He has already proven himself to be a man unwavering in his commitment to deeply-rooted ideals – it was this which led him to form his own party. He believes it’s important for people to have “an ideological compass”. But he also believes that, while many people confess the influence of philosophers and theoreticians, to do so for the faith is considered taboo.

“I always find it interesting that you have a lot of TDs who will be massively by Marx or by Engels or Hayek or many other economic philosophers and be open about it,” he says. “I think that it is completely natural and logical that people would be influenced by their faith as well in how they make judgements with regard to the day to day politics.

“I think that people have to have an ideological compass. I think when you delete an ideological compass from a politician, an individual can literally go down any cul-de-sac, any route and that can be very, very dangerous. But I also believe that, and this goes back to my upbringing, that your views have to have a foundation in science, in evidence, in facts.”

Commitment

Along with his personal commitment to his faith, Peadar is staunchly in favour of a pluralistic society in which all faiths, cultures and distinctive characters can be expressed without fear or especial favour. This current society comes nowhere near achieving this, in Peadar’s view, because it tends to exclude faith from the public forum.

“I do believe we’re living in a society which has become extremely intolerant to the faith,” he says. “I do believe that many people of faith feel that they nearly have to live in the closet. I think it’s a shocking part of the rigidity and uniformity of modern society that we’ve taken some people out of the closet only to put another group of people into the closet.

“I do think it’s important that faith can have full and clear expression in the public forum. Aontú is very much a pluralist’s party – we believe a republic of Wolfe Tone, a republic of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, atheists – that everybody should be able to live without fear or favour to their full potential in the public forum.

“The richness of that type of society is far more beneficial to people’s lives then the uniformity of a society that pushes faith and culture and characteristics of those into the shadows and into the closet. I think it’s important for people to be able to open about these things.”

Pluralism

This is an approach which Peadar carries into his own life, as well as his political party, Aontú.

“To be honest I find it easy to live with differences of opinion,” he says. “I would have people who are very good friends, but would have radically different views from myself. And we would have, you know, hearty robust, but respectful debate and I think that’s absolutely necessary within an organisation.”

In some areas, this extends to his faith life as well. Peadar is up-front about the fact that he has differences of opinion with the Church, such as on the question of married priests and the ordination of women. He feels that differences of opinion are natural.

But he also believes that there are limitations to the extent one can disagree with your organisation, whether it be a Church or a political party, while still maintaining that difference of opinion is natural.

“You can exist within an organisation and have differences of opinion,” says Peadar. “Now, I do think that organisations have to have rules and absolute values and you know, I don’t think it can be the case where you just call yourself a member of Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin or Aontú and then pick and choose completely, totally different views.

“I believe it works simila RC2020-12-17 rly for the Catholic Church, or the Protestant church or being Jewish or Muslim – but if your greater understanding of the world is aligned to those religions or philosophies, I think it’s natural that there will be differences of opinions.”

Peadar Tóibín concludes the interview with final reflection specifically relating to the Church and its future. He is of Pope Francis’ view that the future of the Church must be in reaching out to the marginal in society.

“I think that for the Church in the future, if it wants to find role models and it wants to find ways back into the hearts of people, I think that they need look no further than the Capuchin day centre in Dublin, than Fr Peter McVerry and Sr Stanislaus,” he says. “There are very good people out there who are on the cutting edge of helping people who in the most difficult situations.

“I do believe that the Church of Jesus Christ should be about the marginal – It should be about making sure the marginalised, the poor, those who are suffering, are helped in the best way we can. Many people may feel that the younger people have parted ways with the Church, but that if the Church sought to reinvigorate their relationship with the younger generation, those three individuals hold the key.”