Seamus is a young Catholic who grew up in Rangiora and is now studying law and public relations at Waikato University.
He was one of 12 university students chosen from the Asia-Pacific region to interview Pope Francis in a live video call on June 21.
The one-hour connection with the pope was part of the Building Bridges Initiative organised by Loyola University in Chicago.
Each student was the chosen leader of a group in their country who was asked to decide what issue they would like to raise with Pope Francis.
Seamus’ group decided they wanted to speak about human dignity, specifically the Church’s approach to people on the margins such as the LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning intersex) community and women’s rights.
Seamus was invited to speak to Pope Francis first and told him his group saw the church as being inconsistent in their approach to human dignity.
‘‘We (the Catholic Church) expect people to meet our rules instead of us meeting, and then elevating them. I am confident that this turns people away from a relationship with Christ and makes our church unattractive.’’
Other students raised similar concerns during the session.
Pope Francis took notes while listening to each student before answering their questions together, telling the students they must never give up on wanting to belong to something because having a sense of belonging led to human dignity.
‘‘You must help one another to be stronger in the face of vulnerability.’’
Seamus, 20, said there had been times during his ‘‘faith journey’’ when he believed he was walking alone because he did not see certain actions and perspectives of the Catholic Church as positively as others did.
Being able to talk to Pope Francis ‘‘the leader of our church, who also has a large moral influence on the Western World’’ about his views was amazing because it felt like the concerns raised were being taken seriously.
‘‘This topic was selected by a group of young people across New Zealand, Australia, and Papua New Guinea after discussions led by the Australian Catholic University, so it is clearly a prominent issue identified by young people,’’ he said.
Seamus returned home to Rangiora for the early morning interview and his parents were also in the room with him during that time.
‘‘They insisted on staying up to be there with me,’’ he said.
‘‘My dad's not a Catholic and also had to work early in the morning, but he wouldn't miss it for the world,’’ he said.
By Shelley Topp
