Holy Week is a time to get clarity on the Faith. And on ourselves – our role in the world and the Church.
It’s not about the latest bishop-related drama. It’s not about abstract debates over 17th century opinions on sufficient grace. It’s not about how to own the libs and “save the West.” These are not irrelevant, but right now they are mostly distractions. They are not what the Faith is about.
The Faith is about a man, who is God, being nailed to a piece of wood, every hope being dashed, and then Him being seen alive again by His chosen friends, with the promise He will return to do the same for us if we follow the pattern of His life and death. It’s about what happened between a little hill and a cave on the edge of Jerusalem 2000 years ago, and what this does for the world and for your soul, whether or not you choose to advert to its significance and its truth. Other things only really matter because of these events.
We cannot hide from the choice to follow or not, to believe or not, to witness or not. And we cannot diffuse or deflect the responsibility for our soul and for our own testimony to Christ, neither by a cultural framework nor by simply living within a ministerial order. This is comfortable, but it is an illusion – you must choose for yourself – and the choice must be made again and again and again, in various ways.
We must choose, for ourselves, and ultimately by ourselves, even though it is done with others. You and I must stand at the hill and at the cave and render our own judgment, and we must be ready to conform the world and souls to our decision. It is our place in the universe to be “set over” the Gospel in this way, suspended in between the sight of eternal things and mere speculation. True, the Gospel will be carried on without your help – but you will be left behind unless you do your part. So then, choose, and move forward.
I will pray for my readers to have a fruitful Holy Week. Please do the same for me.
After countless ad hoc fundraising efforts – often to some success (thanks!) – I have decided to build a platform to facilitate donations to help BUILD WEALTH IN THE MISSIONS.
We KNOW that throwing money into the jungle doesn’t work. It gets squandered. It gets “misplaced.” It gets presumed upon, destroying motivation to work. Why would you try to run a farm, or make clothing, or repair houses, if some big NGO is showing up and doing all that stuff for free?
But it’s never free. There is a trade off. It means collective dependence. Long-term stagnation. Corruption. No bueno!
The idea of the non-profit is to be the first fully “lay-run” group dedicated to building revenue-generating projects in Catholic mission areas (and other underdeveloped regions) that simultaneously create jobs and give the local Church a source of revenue. There is a lot to figure out still, but that’s the core of it. (And yeah, I will still do athletics stuff for clinics – won’t be giving that up, it’s too much fun!)
It is the path forward for me. I hope you will join… More info coming soon. Next week I will tell you about one of our “starter projects” in the Pacific, on an island that is becoming a new country… Yours truly is one of the few white foreigners who is really trusted there in a “grass roots” way. Crazy but true.
In the meantime, would you consider a $100 donation to the Catholic pink salt project? We are making great progress but are hitting a plateau. You can donate here. THANK YOU!
A few years ago I decided to do a daily post… well, I won’t be trying that again, but one post a week is what I can do. So, start your Monday off right with a dose of crazy content from yours truly.
Today’s post is a taste of what’s to come. I am envisioning a world where capitalism and philanthropy work together in the Catholic missions… And I have just been at work on that “in the field.”
This is the kind of economic activity that the popes have called for in decades past. I call it “missionary entrepreneurship” – the idea is that the most disadvantaged people on the planet need help getting into the global market so they can “play the game.” That requires some extra risk… and no, it’s not for everyone, but someone needs to do it. I think God has given this charge to me. And to my supporters.
These projects are not easy. And they are not free. We are putting together a plan to build this company step by step. If you want to help at this initial phase, you can donate here:
Today I am releasing a long-awaited text on Natural Family Planning, on the eve of the USCCB’s “NFP Awareness Week.”
You may sign up to be emailed the book here, if you are not already on my company mailing list. I won’t use this blog just to push company content – though I will point to it occasionally.
I hope to begin writing a bit more on these pages… It has been a while. Thanks for sticking around!
With the approach of the start of this academic year, I am coming very close to the end of my doctoral studies. This has had me thinking about “what’s next.” As you know, I am working on the athletics and philanthropy stuff as seen in my last post.
I’m also getting into history.
After the fifth time I tried to leave Rome failed, I have resigned myself to staying there indefinitely. This bodes well for a career or at least intense hobby in the world of history, especially Catholic history. I’ve also been getting familiar with various archives in Rome, and now I also have an extremely helpful connection or two…
About ten years ago, I had started to collect filmed interviews of priests who had been ordained before Vatican II. It was so interesting… And I thought it was an important contribution. I still think that – not everyone I interviewed is still alive today. It’s a strange feeling to have a kind of responsibility to be a custodian of the stories of men who’ve gone before oneself.
I’m a moral theologian by training, but I’m very drawn to history, especially ecclesiastical history (and archaeology, its handmaiden). Part of it’s the existential thrill of uncovering the past and feeling part of a larger story than your own brief existence. Part of it’s the fear that people will not appreciate the present because they don’t know the past and its many lessons. And, being in Rome, it’s also just plain easy – every rock has a story to tell.
The show is going to be very different. First of all, it’s not just a show. It has a WhatsApp group connected to it – anyone in the group can talk with anyone else, and we can and will plan episodes together. We may even have some LIVESTREAMED visits to sites I hope… If you just want to get an email with a link to the latest episode, that’s fine too. Second, the feeling of the on-site episodes will be a bit “rough and tumble.” It’s a notch or two above “me and my cell phone.” Here’s a teaser I shot in an afternoon and edited in an evening:
The episodes will typically be once a week (at least) and will usually be about 3 to 5 minutes – this is my projection. There will be a non-publicly listed video posted on YouTube which you will receive the link for.
I will be doing all kinds of stuff in Rome, but also around Italy and the rest of Europe and even well beyond. Want to learn about the missionaries and martyrs of the Pacific Islands? Want to wander around the Seven Churches of Revelation? Want to see where the ancient Ecumenical Councils were held? Then you want to sign up for CHI.
The truth is that I wish I could do this for free, but I can’t. The full price is 100 Euro per year or 10 Euro per month. I am offering a special discount to readers of this blog – use the code CRM30 to receive a 30% discount off your first year. The funds help me to produce the show and also help my company, Pro Fide, to start businesses in the missions.
The first episode is coming at the end of next month.
The show’s website is here. I hope you’ll join me on the many adventures which await…
Now that we are almost 2 months into my “post-race” period, I think it’s safe to say I’ve recovered. Here’s the story of what happened when I ran from Rome to Assisi, what that means, and what’s coming next for me.
Let me be blunt. When I started out on the path of fundraising for Catholic mission projects, I was about as naive as it gets. The fundamental lessons I learned include especially something I have also learned from my limited business experience: the only person you can really count on is yourself. Others might say they’ll do this or that for you – that doesn’t matter until it’s real. Meetings are not progress. Soft-commitments are not progress. Fancy party invitations are not progress. Only contracts and cash are progress.
I also learned that credibility is king. Want to ask for $100,000 to work on some educational projects in the jungle? Great! Here is your interaction. “Who are you? …Who? Okay, well, here’s my card, email me.” You’ve just been politely shown the door to Nodonationsville.
But the coldest, hardest truth I learned is that nobody cares. What I mean is that no matter how good the cause, how well-crafted the proposal, or how exotic the promotional hook is, if it does not correspond to the potential donor’s interests, it will be a failure. It’s not like you’re the only person asking for funds. People with means have many options, and they have many people treating them like wallets with legs. You have to find out what the donor cares about and show that your project corresponds to their interests and values. Otherwise, you are climbing up an even steeper hill than before. Now instead of simply building trust and asking for help you are trying to reform someone’s values. Don’t try to do that. And if their interests are too divergent to make a real connection, then YOU must become their interest. It’s easier to build a relationship with Mr. Billionaire than it is to teach him why YOUR hospital project should get funded as opposed to the ones he is already working on in the USA in a context he understands with people and bank accounts he trusts to work. And then he will fly away from the island in his helicopter to go to Monaco a day early. (This is a true story.)
So, as much as I wish I could say I was playing 5-dimensional chess from the start, the truth is that it was about 99% fake-it-til-you-make-it, fly by the seat of your pants, jump in and find out what happens…
Here’s what happened.
I finally identified a single project to support with direct philanthropy. A small one, with a realistic goal. Relatively uncontroversial – help sisters in Africa with their clinical work by funding the purchase of medicines. In the meantime, and on the side, I would work on finding the right partners and investors for some kind of commercial work with Malawi’s large numbers of very poor tobacco farmers.
“But Eamonn, tobacco is bad for you.”
The truth is that the farmers aren’t even really consuming the tobacco they produce. That would almost literally be burning money. They go to sell it at the government market, and they collect their pennies. If the tobacco market dips, some farmers make the switch to growing marijuana. So let’s move on. (Besides, I just don’t want to hear the bad moral arguments against tobacco use. We’ll debunk that another time.)
The logistics of setting up an indie ultramarathon are… not for the faint of heart. You need a driver, a back up driver, a plan for navigation, a plan for checkpoints, a plan for medicine, a plan for pacers if you will use them, a plan for food and drink. All of these have to connect with your own running plan. Then you need to have a system in place for when everything goes wrong, which it will. I also needed a plan for communications, live tracking, charging my phone, advertising… All to connect with the philanthropic project. I needed a chaplain too – just in case, you know… if things got too difficult.
I found a great group of guys to help me along what I thought would be a 26 or 27 hour event. Sort of last minute I created a WhatsApp group to document the event and show my live location during the race. That was a great call.
The preparations wound down, and so did I. The few days before the race, I tried to relax a bit, but there was so much work to do. I was very tired, actually. But at this point, it was not possible to delay the run.
The day finally came. Words cannot describe how surreal it is to know that you are about to attempt to run for 100 miles in one go.
Unfortunately, I forgot my bus pass and had to walk all the way to the house where I had mass and got geared up… But what I’ll never forget was how sick I felt walking to the starting line. Like, really sick. I’ve never been that nervous for an event in my entire life.
The energy at the starting line was great. Fun. Plenty of friends, and some curious police as well who made us put our Malawian flag away for fear of a “manifestation.” (The starting line was at San Lorenzo in Panisperna, immediately next to the back gate of the Viminale, the Italian Ministry of the Interior.)
Malawi flag!
The moment arrived – “GO.”
After a small push of energy from the rush of adrenaline and a bit of showmanship, I settled into a plodding pace and began looking for the correct turns to get to the Porta Pia, the great northern gate of Rome. A friend linked up with me on a bike, and we cruised for a bit towards the northeastern limits of the city.
Exiting Rome.
After getting out of Rome, I really started to realize that this was happening. And that’s when the wild animals started to become a problem… First it was a family of boar, hanging around a farmhouse. I was deep in the dirt paths that crisscross the Roman countryside – there was not really a way around. I made a small retreat, considered my options, got a big stick, and walked carefully toward the mom… They all ran away! Huzzah! Then I booked it.
Later a wolf crossed my trail. Same thing. Step back, get a big stick, walk slowly, then bolt.
The checkpoints were a mixture of chaos and order. Arrive, be greeted, sit down, complain about the hills. Eat. Drink some Coke. Get a leg massage. Fill up my bag with what I need. Get a blessing. Off. Meanwhile everyone was trying to figure out the turns I needed to take, while calculating the time it would be to the next stop given the distance and elevation changes, trying to find the food and gear I needed… While getting enough of the right kind of footage to put together a nice documentary.
Lots of action at the checkpoints.
The evening came. Things were going much more slowly than I had expected. The hills were WAY worse than I thought they would be, and I had taken a seriously wrong turn at one point early on that went up an absurd hill and ultimately probably cost me close to an hour. But when I reached the famous Benedictine Abbey of Farfa, I was still feeling pretty good. Tired, but good.
All the while, my WhatsApp group was how I stayed plugged into the real world, and how my friends and fans stayed plugged into my world. It was exhilarating to take a picture of a hill and have 6 reactions within minutes, encouraging me. This was a huge deal for me psychologically. And I know the group enjoyed it too.
Night came. Fatigue came. Pain came.
A summary of the night.
The crossing into Umbria in the absolute dead of night was definitely the most intense part of the race. I brought my chaplain with me as a pacer for this stretch, after having had my medical assistant as a pacer a bit earlier on, when we were doing merely very difficult terrain at the tender hour of midnight. Around 2AM, there I was slogging through mud puddles in the middle of the forest between tiny farms on awfully maintained rocky dirt roads on large hills. We got turned around. We got barked at by angry dogs. We made jokes about my digestive system.
At the border of Umbria.
We emerged back into civilization, and my chaplain got to take a well-earned nap. Then it was off to the checkpoint at Stroncone. This was where things started to become very, very difficult physically and psychologically. Thankfully, the daylight was gracing the sky as I sat down for a while after around 22 hours or so of running.
The run from Stroncone towards Terni was uplifting in some ways, because the sun was out again after one of the roughest nights I’ve ever experienced, but it was also brutal. Every step was like being stabbed in my feet. By that point I think my digestive issues were reducing – it had been like every part of my body was angry with my stomach, and every movement made my stomach scream at each part of my body individually. Now it was just my feet telling me that they were on fire. Here’s a few clips of that section:
PAIN.
I almost quit at Terni, when I was told about the climb that I had right in front of me. 300 meters of elevation in a short stretch. Nope, wasn’t happening. But with some strategic thinking, I rearranged my planned shuttle for then rather than later. (I had about 10 miles of shuttle to use… Bringing the 110 mile course down to 100 miles.)
After Terni was when the heat started to become a real issue. I was continually being told about how little I was drinking. And I continually thought, “Yeah. Ok. It’s true. But they don’t understand what my stomach thinks about that.” (Though, oddly, I was never sick. That is still incredible to me.)
The mantra at that point in my head was so firmly rooted that it was like breathing… “If I get to Acquasparta, I will get to Massa Martana. If I get to Massa Martana, I will get to Assisi.” Repeat the phrase. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
I got to Acquasparta. We were 30 or so hours into the race at this point. And I had around a marathon left to run.
Just a marathon.
Off to Massa Martana I went.
At the checkpoint in Massa Martana. Some girl was walking by in the field. She took this nice picture of my and my team!
At Massa Martana, some of my team had to go back to Rome. Only my main driver and chaplain remained.
The evening started to come, and it hit me that I was really going to make it. Not just in my head, but really. A few small logistical hurdles jumped, and there I was, up on the hills overlooking the valley near Assisi. The song that I remember Spotify hitting me with was OneRepublic’s “Better Days.”
I was bawling. You have no idea what it is like until you’ve been there. 35 or so hours into a run. Seeing the place next to the finish line from afar. After dreaming about this for years, it was happening. It was real.
The valley near Assisi. It doesn’t look like much on the screen. It was everything to me in that moment.
One of the weirdest things, which some of my crew apparently also experienced, was that my sense of time really just went out the window. When I was coming up to the last checkpoints of the run, over 30 hours in, if you had told me that my starting line was yesterday, it would have seemed like nonsense. It felt like a month had passed. And I was having a kind of out-of-body experience, like I was just attached somehow to this man who kept running, wishing he would stop. It was very weird.
The final leg of the run was not without its challenges. It got dark, which was unhelpful for smooth movement over the rocky dirt roads in the fields below Assisi. Then my phone battery was dangerously low, and there was a serious scare from my team that I’d taken a major wrong turn – but it was my GPS glitching. I was able to pull off something like a 10-minute mile to get within a navigable distance just in case my phone died. Oh, and it was starting to rain.
Assisi in the distance – along with some rain clouds…
At long last, I came to the base of the hill. It was easy by that point, despite some hallucinations starting to creep in. My crew was there, along with my Malawian priest friend who had given me a blessing at the starting line. We approached the basilica, and then I touched the outer wall of the upper sanctuary at 12:15 AM on May 17, 2024… 40 hours exactly.
The run was finished. And so was I. Off to sleep.
The documentary drops on August 10. Here’s another teaser:
We’ve raised around $8,000 so far for St. Patrick’s Health Centre, a small Catholic clinic in Malawi. (We are still raising funds here until October.) But this is just the beginning. I have a lead now for tobacco exports, and we are already setting up my next event.
I am heading off once again into the unknown, albeit a little wiser than I was before. I will be doing more crowdfunding, both for straight-up donations and also for investments to help build businesses in the Catholic missions. Part of that will continue to be based on athletics – we will do the 100-mile again, along with other events TBA – but I am also setting up some media projects.
The first thing is that I will be launching a kind of weekly “training vlog” for my upcoming athletic event, in November. (It will be in Corsica – a “pedal-paddle,” bike and kayak, around the whole coast.) It will also be for the events that follow. You can watch me as I plan the event logistics, suffer through countless hours of physical pain, and also give thoughts on fundraising, philanthropy, Catholic social teaching, economics, entrepreneurship… all of that kind of stuff. If you want to subscribe, here is the door. BE ADVISED: it is not free… The truth is that I need a bit of income, and so does my company, Pro Fide. The funds help me to put on these events in the first place, and ultimately the cashflow helps us to build businesses in the Catholic missions together. (The group for watching the athletic events themselves remains free. That group is here.)
I’m also now preparing to host the world’s only show on Catholic history. Ever wanted to have a personalized and interactive tour of Roman basilicas while you sit on your couch? Well, now you can. We start in September when I get back to Rome. Here is that group, and here is the trailer:
That’s enough for today. I’m coming back now to more regular writing – and no, not just promotions of my stuff, though that’s coming too, sorry not sorry.
I am making a direct appeal for assistance with my ongoing fundraiser. Wednesday morning, I will run 100 miles to raise money for a Catholic medical clinic in a small town in Malawi.
No – it is not “over a few days.” It will probably take about 26-27 hours… Small breaks, no “stopping for the night.” This is the REAL THING. After a year of training, and a successful 50-mile run some weeks ago, I am ready for the challenge.
If you want to sponsor a whole mile, it is $250 – well over a year’s salary for many Malawians. I will give you a shout out on the course if you donate $250 by 7AM Rome time on Wednesday morning! It’s a, “This mile’s for you” kind of thing…
My goal is for $1,000 to come from THIS blog post. Will you be part of that accomplishment?
There is also a WhatsApp group you can join for live race updates, including a live location tracker (only visible from your phone) – this is where you’ll get the shout-out:
I hope to return to more normal blogging after the run. It has been an unbelievable experience to plan this whole thing… And it is just the beginning of some bigger things… I’m glad you’re along for the ride.
If you can spare the time, please check out my experimental fundraising campaign. The link is here, and the promotional video which was released today is below. I really hope you are able to make a small donation – or a large one! I am all set after a year of training to run my 100-mile ultramarathon, 2 weeks from today. To clarify, it is not a stage-race, over a few days… It is a “go until you finish” race. If that doesn’t get you hyped, what will??? Are you willing to sponsor a mile, or even a few yards?
We will be producing a full-length feature documentary on all this. The release date is October 4. I hope I can include you as a donor in the credits.
Christian Renaissance Movement 