Chapters:

00:01 Welcome to Catholic Education Matters
02:19 From Pastor’s Kid to Catholic Curiosity
05:32 Discovering the Depth of Catholic History
09:28 Wrestling with Faith and Authority
12:19 A Night of Surrender
21:21 Marriage, Family, and the Cost of Conversion
29:42 Finding Home in the Catholic Church
39:05 God’s Timing and a Family’s Surrender
47:10 Living Catholic Joy: Family, Education, and Witness
50:22 Catechizing the Kids: A New Conviction
59:35 Catholic Education and Superior Outcomes
1:04:34 Four Pillars of Catholic Education
1:10:04 Goodness of Fit Study: Faith at Home and School
1:18:07 Financing Independent Schools: Costs, Infrastructure, and Fundraising
1:33:01 Independent Catholic School Advantages: Faith, Family, and Civic Formation
1:36:36 The True Purpose of Education: Cultivating Culture, Truth, and Values
1:42:24 Outro

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In this episode of Catholic Education Matters, host Troy Van Vleet welcomes David Hunt, Research Director at the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy and former Director of the Cardus Education Research Program, for an inspiring conversation about faith, education, and conversion. David shares his remarkable journey from growing up as a Protestant pastor’s son to finding truth and unity in the Catholic Church. Through deep study of Church history, the writings of the early Fathers, and prayerful wrestling with God, he came to recognize the fullness of truth in Catholicism. With honesty and humility, David recounts the intellectual, spiritual, and relational struggles of his conversion—especially within his marriage—and the profound peace he found in surrendering to God’s call. This heartfelt story reveals the beauty of obedience, the challenge of faith in action, and the transformative power of grace at work in one man’s life.

Transcript:

[00:00:01] Intro: Welcome to Catholic Education Matters, the podcast that celebrates the beauty of Catholic education, highlighting excellence in academics, athletics, and the transformative power of faith. Join us as we share the stories of those making a lasting impact on Catholic education. Let’s begin.
[00:00:25] Troy Van Vliet: Good day, everyone. Thank you for joining us here at Catholic Education Matters.
[00:00:29] My name is Troy Van Vliet, and I wanna say welcome. And I also wanna say welcome to Mr. David Hunt, who’s here with us today. And I’m so looking forward to this. I met David at a Catholic Pacific College luncheon, and you were the keynote speaker there.
[00:00:47] You did such an incredible job and you spoke on Catholic education and the importance of Catholic education and some of the challenges with it in the private sector. And I was like, and I leaned over to Silveria, I said, we have to have David on our podcast. So, and here you are today. David, thank you for coming.
[00:01:08] David Hunt: Hey, thank you for having me. Yes.
[00:01:10] Troy Van Vliet: And if I may, I want to read out a quick bio for you just so that people that are tuning in here know a little bit about you. And so first of all, David is the research director at the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy and the former director of the Cardus Education Research Program, shepherding research initiatives from, ideation to publication. He works with nearly four dozen scholars, primarily economists, historians, sociologists, and political scientists, people that are much more educated than I am. His work is regularly cited in Canadian media and presented to various levels of government. Three of his papers have been submitted as evidence and or referenced by experts in court or court submissions.
[00:01:59] David also teaches at the Melville School of Business at Kwantlen Polytech University and chairs the Pastoral Parish Council at his home parish Corpus Christi in Vancouver. David, once again, welcome.
[00:02:12] David Hunt: Yes, thank you.
[00:02:13] Troy Van Vliet: All right. So, we have so many things to talk about today and I know there’s not gonna be enough time. So, we’ll jump into a few different things. But first of all, in Catholic Education Matters here, you are a relatively new Catholic.
[00:02:27] David Hunt: Yes.
[00:02:28] Troy Van Vliet: And you’ve been discovering your faith for quite a while.
[00:02:31] David Hunt: I know it’s a bit
[00:02:31] Troy Van Vliet: of a long story, but maybe you can enlighten us a little bit on that story first before we start delving to all kinds of other wonderful topics.
[00:02:40] David Hunt: Sure, sure. So, okay, this opening question was totally unexpected. So if I’m thinking out loud here, one of the very first seeds of plantings, I was a pastor’s kid growing Okay. So the non Catholic world, and my mom’s father was also a pastor. So I grew up in a frankly beautiful home, very godly parents, bulletproof integrity, on fire for God, like Christ comes first and absolutely everything.
[00:03:11] Absolutely everything. So, I had Yeah, I can’t complain about my upbringing in any respect. So, that was the upbringing I had. And we lived right across the street from the church. There was a Christian school there, a Bible college, extraordinary place, thick community.
[00:03:26] Troy Van Vliet: Where was this?
[00:03:27] David Hunt: In Surrey.
[00:03:28] Troy Van Vliet: In Surrey, okay.
[00:03:29] David Hunt: And it was actually my school principal who’s a close friend. And I went K to 12 there with a few minor exceptions. There was a little homeschooling window and a teeny bit of public school, but mostly K to 12 there. And I was doing my master’s program and doing research on the education space and came back and interviewed my principal just as I was doing my exploratory research. I’m like, Hey, you’ve been in this space for so long.
[00:03:57] You’ve been remarkably successful. He took a failing school of something like 120 students and turned it around to frankly Siri’s best kept secret. So the campus, I think there’s 600 students on campus, long wait lists online. It’s like 2,000 or 2,500 students online, insane demand. And now there’s multiple campuses and the other campuses have however many students, he’s an extraordinarily successful man within the education space, in Christian education and raising up students and families that are again, fire for the Lord, kids that live first and foremost for Christ and families that come into the church as a result of it.
[00:04:35] But in the Protestant, even the evangelical world, so extraordinary man. So I’m sitting down with him like, Hey, you’re the best person to get a feel for the education space and where I should take my research. And there was a comment he made as we were talking, where he mentioned that Catholics have figured this out. Like the best schools are all Catholic. The most rounded graduates are Catholics.
[00:04:59] If you really want to understand how to do education, study the Catholics. And it threw me off because I’d never even considered anything Catholic ever, ever. My whole life was ignorant of Catholic history. I probably didn’t even know any Catholics, if I’m honest. But that kind of planted a seed.
[00:05:16] And fast forward, and I no longer believe that G. K. Chesterton is being hyperbolic when he says that there are 10,000, at least 10,000 reasons of why he became Catholic. I don’t think that’s hyperbolic. I think if you ask me to sit down, write out the reasons, I think I could genuinely give you 10,000.
[00:05:34] And in the process of doing research on education, the process of realizing that so much of what I knew of the history of Western civilization and frankly of the English speaking peoples, so much of that history had just been wiped. Like the most important pieces of that history, which is why you have a quote unquote dark ages. Because like, let’s just skip over this period, let’s pretend nothing happened. And then, oh wow, there’s enlightenment. Let’s now start talking again.
[00:06:01] And just in studying history, as Newman said, to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant. He didn’t mean that as a barb, he meant that very sincerely as his own personal experience that you study this and at first you’re in denial. Hold on, this isn’t a history podcast, we’re not getting into the weeds up at history. Could be, a little bit, go
[00:06:25] Troy Van Vliet: for it.
[00:06:26] David Hunt: But just you realizing, your eyes are just increasingly open, you start reading the church fathers, which you didn’t even know existed. And you’re seeing those who were discipled by the apostles and what they teach in terms of, because if you and I open up the scriptures, what are we gonna emphasize? Okay, what scriptures are the most important? What are primary texts? What are secondary supporting texts in terms of, as Augustine said, in essentials, unity, in non essentials, liberty, in all things charity.
[00:06:55] Okay, what are the non essentials in which we have liberty? If you and I can’t agree on what’s essential, there is no liberty. And the tension that you have within Protestantism where it’s not if, it’s when you have a church split. Set your watch. It’s only a matter of time.
[00:07:11] Because eventually we’re going to disagree on what’s essential. And because it’s essential, that’s non negotiable. We’re going to have issues there. So there’s a lack of liberty, there’s a lack of unity, and you need a mechanism by which you can be fully united in what’s true, where there is no compromise in terms of what is and is not true, terms of what is true and what truth and what’s error, while simultaneously being united because unity is not optional. And as a Protestant, which I never really identified with, because what’s a Protestant?
[00:07:45] Like, don’t think of yourself that way. You’re just a Christian. You love Jesus, right? You love his word, you wanna live according to his word and you wanna fall more in love with Jesus every day and serve him with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. I hope that’s the heart cry of every Christian.
[00:07:57] So you don’t think in terms of Protestant terms, but there’s so much disunity. And even within churches, like you’ll hesitate before you agree with the pastor. Like you’ll first search the Scriptures for yourself, like a good Berean in the Acts of the Apostles. But whether you admit it or not, you hold yourself as theologian in chief. Well, I’m sorry, David’s unqualified to be theologian in chief.
[00:08:22] And there’s a wisdom that comes from entering into a tradition that’s 2,000 years old and most especially the teachings of the church fathers, there’s so much wisdom there. And when Christ commands us to be in unity where it’s non negotiable, well, how do you actually realize that’s not, you can’t realize that
[00:08:43] Troy Van Vliet: in the Protestant world. Especially like if you’re going off of sola scriptura, well, there’s a whole wide interpretation every every church.
[00:08:56] David Hunt: Even within churches, within And so just when you have disagreements with those you’re supposed to be submitted to, say your senior pastor, if there’s disagreements, well, do you navigate that? Like, is it even appropriate for me to be disagreeing? And just navigating those distinctions. And then around doctrine, again, what are the things that are essential? Where it’s like, no, have to put our foot down and say, no, can’t budge on this.
[00:09:18] Which frankly, the Catholic church, there aren’t many. There are actually very few essentials, which means there’s actually an extraordinary amount of liberty. So just wrestling with all of that, again, in the I was in the role of a lay pastor. I was never ordained, but I was in a leadership role. Just, yeah, just hungry for more of the Lord, frustrated with a number of things and reading the church fathers, reading history.
[00:09:40] Eventually it reached the point and there’s so much to the story. And again, I haven’t rehearsed this. I should probably write out my testimony so that I can have it down pat, but it reached the point where I was I had all these excuses such as I believe in covenant theology.
[00:09:57] Troy Van Vliet: Right.
[00:09:57] David Hunt: And of course, Scott Hahn writes about that in wonderful way. But frankly, this is to read from Scott Hahn. This is my dad taught me. Right. So I grew up with covenant theology and understanding that in the church community, there is an obligation there where I’m not just going to church for myself.
[00:10:15] No, like I’m in a relationship with these people. I’m accountable for their spiritual walk as well. Especially if you’re in a leadership role, you’re there to shepherd. So I had really good excuses where I know I can’t become Catholic, even if intellectually I’m convinced of this. Because that happened earlier, where I sort of, I’d read my way into the church and reached the point that if I were to take the debate stage, obviously within a lifetime, can’t read everything there is to read, but I’d read enough that I was confident, give me any topic, any issue, because I looked into, take your pick of topic, because I looked so thoroughly into it in terms of what the Catholic church believes and the opposition because I didn’t want to become Catholic.
[00:10:53] So, okay, what do the anti Catholic Whatever it is. Maybe anti Catholic is too strong of a word, but those who are not Catholic that disagree with Catholics, what’s their perspective on take your pick of issue? Having done that for a considerable period and going really, really, really deep, I came to the conclusion that if I had to take the debate stage without knowing what the issue was and saying, are you going be on the Catholic side or the non Catholic side? I came to the point where I was like, no, I absolutely would want be on the Catholic side because I’m confident that on any issue they’ve thought it through and they have a really good answer to why they hold to the position that they do. You cannot say that for anyone else.
[00:11:35] And even David Berlinski, he’s a secular Jew, brilliant, brilliant polymath. He’s an expert in many things. He used to teach at the University of Paris. Someone once made a derogatory comment about Catholics and he cut them off. He said, I would never bet against the Catholics.
[00:11:50] He says, this is a 2,000 year old institution that has gone through what no other institution has gone through. Comments like that just, you’re like, okay, let that sink in. But it was all up here. And finally, had You can’t convert until it’s in the heart, right? And it was up here.
[00:12:07] It had to make its way down to the heart. And it reached the point where I was wrestling with the Lord one night because I had every excuse not to enter the church. And of course, family didn’t support it, and those closest to me did not support this journey whatsoever. They just thought it was an intellectual curiosity. And so long as it’s merely intellectual, well, great, enjoy your reading, David.
[00:12:25] But as soon as it’s like, oh, you’re actually thinking about being Catholic? Like, woah, hold on. So I was downstairs in my study, I got a gazillion books. I’m blessed with a beautiful study. And I was down there late one night, just wrestling with the Lord and just really fighting with the Lord.
[00:12:42] I do not want to become Catholic and no, like there has Yeah, I did not want to become Catholic would be the short way of saying it. And I’m looking at one of my bookshelves and it’s, I don’t know, it must be 11:30 at night or something. I’m looking at the bookshelf and I see Faith of Our Fathers by, oh, come on, which Cardinal is this? Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore. And I’d read most of it, but pull off the shelf.
[00:13:12] I’ve read at least two thirds of it, three quarters of it. And I randomly opened it to a section I had not read before. And there’s this big fat paragraph and right in the middle of it, I’m going to paraphrase. I should know it by heart, but I’m prepared for this. My paraphrase of what the sentence was, was like, God will give you all the information that you need in order to take a step of obedience, but no more.
[00:13:35] He’ll only give you enough so you can just take that step of obedience, but he won’t tell you everything. But at that moment to not take the step of obedience is disobedience. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. I’ve given you all that you need, David, in order to take that step. And I’m not telling you anymore.
[00:13:52] And of course, I’d gone through dozens and dozens, maybe even hundreds of books by this point on every topic you can imagine. And the best sources, according to Scott Hahn and Peter Kraft and guys like that, right? And when God speaks to your heart and says something of that magnitude, like you can only have one option. So the next morning I texted father Hamilton at Corpus Christi genuinely, he was only one of two priests, only knew two priests.
[00:14:21] Troy Van Vliet: How did you know him?
[00:14:22] David Hunt: I knew him through a French, Seamus O’Brien, whose wife went to university with my wife at UBC. So, I didn’t know him well. Like we’d had maybe one conversation, maybe two. And the other priest I knew was Raymond, Father Raymond D’Souza in Ontario in Kingston, who was a colleague of mine.
[00:14:36] Troy Van Vliet: Seamus is Matt’s or Sean’s brother?
[00:14:41] David Hunt: Yes. Okay.
[00:14:42] Troy Van Vliet: I know Seamus. Well, I know his mom and dad.
[00:14:44] David Hunt: Yes. Yes. Seamus is a great, great man. Great man. Godfather of all my children.
[00:14:49] Oh, wow. And he actually, he was also a big part of the journey, challenged me in some really, really good ways. But I texted Father Hamilton the next morning. I felt like I was texting, what must I do to be saved? But it was, what do I need to do to enter the church?
[00:15:09] And he responded back like, essentially something to the effect of like, where is this coming from? Like, okay, this is out of the blue. Because he knew a bit of my background and what I was involved in. And he was like, well, let’s meet to talk. And so, yeah, started going to church every Saturday night because I was leading on Sunday mornings, the music of the church where I was at.
[00:15:30] So I had to be there on Sunday mornings, but of course you got the Sunday obligations. So Saturday night has that mass to begin that journey.
[00:15:38] Troy Van Vliet: So you’re going to both?
[00:15:39] David Hunt: I was going to both, really, really irritated my wife because she had not agreed.
[00:15:47] Troy Van Vliet: Was she going to both?
[00:15:48] David Hunt: No, she had not agreed to any of this. This was all out of the blue. But again, when God speaks to you that way, like, the more clearly God speaks to you, the higher the standard that you’re held to. And if God is going to speak very directly to you and you know that you know that you know that you know God spoke and told you to do something, I’m sorry. You cannot not do that.
[00:16:13] So what am I supposed to say? Right. And I felt the Lord so clearly say, do not argue with Christa. Don’t preach at her. Just live it.
[00:16:22] Just obey and live it out and walk in love and let her see the change. And again, it’s complicated because when you are a Christian who like deeply loves the Lord, not only is it very humbling to enter into the Catholic church and be it like, it’s very humbling on a lot of levels, but it’s a bit challenging too, in that you already are a Christian. So it’s like, Like, yeah, it’s not like you’re some pagan or atheist. So there’s a bit of a different dynamic there. But then with Christa, and again, I didn’t know we were gonna go this route, so I should be Well, actually, I’m not gonna be careful what I’m gonna say.
[00:17:06] I haven’t asked her whether I can share this, but I’m gonna share it. Okay. And we’ll let the chips fall where they may. How would I describe her? Because, yeah, just to say the rest of this, actually I got to give a teeny bit more context.
[00:17:19] So, I met Krista when I was 15. So, we were in high school, grade 10. She came So, the wonderful school right across the street from where I grew up. She came there in grade 10. And my mom had told us when we were very young, are you praying for your wife?
[00:17:34] What do you mean? As a nine year old, 10 year old, what do you mean praying for my wife? Well, she’s somewhere. So are you praying for her that God would keep her pure, that God would prepare her for you? That God would prepare you for her and that you would be the man you need to be to have the wife God has called you to have.
[00:17:51] And that she would save herself for you, that you save herself for her and not merely in terms of purity, although obviously that’s what we’re referring to, but in every sense, in every sense that you would not be unequally yoked, but that you would both be of the same maturity and ready to enter into what God has called you to together in terms of the vocation of marriage. So like I was probably eight, nine, 10 years old when I first prayerfully then wrote out, okay, Lord, what should I be looking for in a wife? What should I be praying for in my wife? And so writing that out, trying to discern the Lord’s voice as you write that. And of course, when you’re that age, it’s not going to be that robust.
[00:18:27] But updated it again when I was about 12 and updated it again the summer that I was 15, right before I met Christa. And when I was, it was quite detailed because I just like prayerfully, like Lord, what should I be praying for? And then just like trying to hear His voice and then actually pray that out as often as you can, like praying for your wife and taking it very seriously. So, I was chatting with my mom that summer, I was 15 years old. She’s like, okay, David, that woman does not exist.
[00:18:54] Like, what you have written, that woman does not exist. I told you to do this, it was like You’re born. Yeah, exactly. It was like, you gotta be realistic here. So it was very, very detailed and as far as my mom was concerned, Did you take that list?
[00:19:08] I wish I did. I wish I did. No, I didn’t. No, I didn’t. Probably got lost in the move because my parents moved around that time.
[00:19:15] Anyways, when I met Christa, though, that September, I’d only known her for three weeks. And I said to Freddie, a very good friend of mine who still is a very close friend, I said, that’s the woman I’m going to marry. And he’s like, how do you know? And of course, it was a 15 year old. I’m like, trust me, I know.
[00:19:30] But it was because that list, it’s because it was way too detailed, way too specific and way too out there that when I met Christa, I’m like, oh my goodness, like you are exactly this person. And then of course the next step is to get to know her. And we became extraordinary friends. We were best friends by the time we were 16. And she truly is, if you were thinking like Proverbs 31, the virtuous woman, and like everything that that rattles off in terms of like the perfect woman, that’s Christa to the T.
[00:20:00] So, I wanted to get married as soon as we could, which was 22. By the time I had, you know, both her parents are lawyers and she’s an only child and an only grandchild. Grandfather was a World War II vet, I think a D Day vet. And he was district chief in Winnipeg, fire chief. So he was, was his only granddaughter.
[00:20:17] So, I would’ve got married at 19 if that was an option, it wasn’t. So, I got married at 22. So, when I speak of my wife, truly like virtuous woman, best woman you could ever imagine. So, with entering into the church, without consulting her, of course, we were thinking how close we were. We were best friends in scripture 16.
[00:20:38] Remarkably close. But on this issue, again, she’d been a part of the journey in terms of me navigating as an intellectual curiosity or seeking wisdom. Because again, if you have frustrations in your evangelical world and there aren’t answers, go looking, you’re like, hey, well, the church fathers say such and such, oh, in church history, Saint Bernard said such and such a thousand years ago, or Francis of Assisi says this, there’s things you could pull and that’s great, wonderful, so long as it conforms to our perspective on things. But to take that step of, no, now we’re entering in and I’m doing this, that was intense, a very strong woman, very strong, very talented individual on every front, very intelligent individual.
[00:21:25] Troy Van Vliet: Had you been speaking to her along the way just in terms of your, as you learned more about Catholicism?
[00:21:33] David Hunt: Yes, I don’t think it registered. I don’t think it registered that like, because I had every excuse, I had no intention of crossing the Tiber. And so, again, I wasn’t expecting God to say what He said that evening where it’s like, there’s no more excuses. Like, I’ve given you all the information you need to not take the steps now, disobedience. So, I didn’t consult with her.
[00:21:55] We’re just going for it. And long story short, we’re going every initially I was going every Saturday night. Soon enough, she was coming and the kids were coming.
[00:22:06] Troy Van Vliet: Soon enough. And what does that look like time wise?
[00:22:08] David Hunt: So September, it would have been September 2022 when it started going. But I would bring the kids and actually I should, I wish the kids were here so I could ask them. I’m probably getting this detail wrong. I was probably bringing the kids by myself and she probably was staying home. It was just me and the kids.
[00:22:28] But I don’t remember that detail. A detail I do remember is her saying very emphatically that she did not want to become Catholic. She would not become Catholic. And that November, her saying that she will not raise Catholic children. So, the children are not going become Catholic.
[00:22:46] And so much so, again, our understanding of marriage is an important qualification. Our understanding of marriage is marriage is a covenant. Until death do you part, quite literally. Because the covenant is not made merely with you and your spouse. It’s also made with the Lord.
[00:23:00] So, husband, wife, and God, the three of you make a covenant together. Because marriage ultimately is a metaphor of Christ in this church, right? And so Christ in this church being eternal, Christ will never leave you, he’ll never forsake you. You look even Hosea or his wife, Gomer, plays the harlot. And even still he’s like asks for a divorce.
[00:23:20] God’s like, Nope, because your marriage is a demonstration of my fidelity to you, that I will never leave you, I’ll never forsake you, God will never divorce you. Never. Doesn’t matter what you do, God will not divorce you. And Christ in his church is eternal, marriage is a metaphor. That’s why there isn’t marriage in the conventional sense in heaven when the Pharisees interrogate Jesus, like why isn’t there marriage?
[00:23:40] Okay, that’s understanding of marriage, which means murder may be an option, divorce isn’t, right? With that understanding, she says to me, if you are gonna become Catholic, me and the kids are leaving because I will not raise Catholic kids. So this isn’t a normal person saying this. This is someone who has a radical view of what marriage is. She’s like, that’s how serious this is.
[00:24:01] The kids and I will be leaving you become Catholic. So, we go on this holiday, we’re at Pender Island with Seamus and Daniella and their kids. And I looked up ahead of time on my phone, mass, I gotta be at mass every weekend, right? So, look up in Pender Island on Fridays, there’s mass because the priest goes around the Gulf Islands and there’s a different day at each island. So Friday there’s mass.
[00:24:27] Okay, great. So, no, no, no, no, sorry. I just messed up the story. There is mass on Pender Island. I didn’t know it was tour.
[00:24:37] There’s mass there. There’s a little chapel. I didn’t know it was on Friday. I just knew that it happened. So I’m there Saturday night.
[00:24:43] So Saturday night, I go to look to see what time it is on Sunday. And that’s where I realized, no, it’s not Sunday. It’s on Friday. So Friday’s when Mass is, it’s now Saturday night. So means the nearest Mass is in Victoria, which means I gotta take a ferry.
[00:24:58] We were only over there for two or maybe three days. And so you’re gonna take a whole day to go to Victoria, to go to Mass. Like, are you kidding me? And so she is like very upset about this. And I’m like, I have to, like, I’m submitted to authority.
[00:25:11] Like this is Sunday obligation. Like, you don’t get it. Like, I’m submitted to authority. I don’t get to decide these things and I have to. And also when you understand what the Mass is and what you Yeah.
[00:25:20] When you have an understanding of what Mass is, you understand the obligation. And so I’m like, so in the morning I have to go to Victoria. So we get ready to go I get ready to go on the ferry. She’s like, I’ll come, the kids will come, might as well just all go. It’s ridiculous for you to be gone a whole day when we’re only here for two or three days.
[00:25:37] So we’re on the ferry, we’re heading over. And when we get back in the vehicle, we’ve breakfast on the ferry. When we’re getting back in the vehicle, Oceana, who’s our third child at the time was the youngest and she would have been, I guess, two years old at the time, right around two years old. And she did not want to get in her car seat. She’s screaming bloody murder in a way you’ve never heard a kid scream.
[00:25:58] So, just, you have to get off the ferry though, because the vehicles are moving and you know what the ferries are Yeah,
[00:26:04] Troy Van Vliet: yeah, yeah.
[00:26:04] David Hunt: Get off. So we she’s not in her car seat though. So we just quickly get off, pull off to the earliest shoulder to like force her into her seat, get the seatbelt on. She was not cooperating. She’s screaming bloody murder.
[00:26:18] And of course, Krista already did not want to be over there. So she’s You’ve never seen someone so You’ve never seen a wonderful woman so angry as Krista was in that moment. And I started driving. She’s like, No, pull over. I’m walking back.
[00:26:31] She and I will walk back to the ferry. And I’m like, No, I just keep driving. She’s like, Pull over, pull over. I just keep driving. And she’s never been this way in the entire time we were married, right?
[00:26:38] So I’m driving, like, just okay. And we drive and I keep driving. She’s like, turn off, there’s a Catholic church down there. I’m like, no, going to St. Andrews Cathedral.
[00:26:47] And she’s like, anyways, super intense drive. I go all the way to St. Andrew’s Cathedral. We pull over, her and Oceana go off. I take the oldest two inside and we’re there at St. Andrew’s Cathedral. And I’m just like as unsettled as you can imagine. And during communion, a song plays a melody that I recognized, but the words I’d never heard before. It was, Oh God, beyond all praising.
[00:27:15] Troy Van Vliet: Don’t know know that one. One
[00:27:18] David Hunt: of the verses, it’s, And whether our tomorrows are filled with good or ill, we’ll triumph through our sorrows and rise to bless you still, to marvel at your beauty and glory in your ways. We’ll make a joyful duty our sacrifice of praise. I’m just, I’m bawling. Waterworks are coming down. I’m like, Lord, whatever it costs.
[00:27:44] I believe that is really you here in the Eucharist. You are really here. You are really present in a way you aren’t anywhere else. You are really here. And to reject you in the mass, to reject you in the Eucharist is to reject you.
[00:27:56] Now that I understand. John chapter six. Whatever it costs. Yes, I have a covenant in marriage. I’m never getting divorced.
[00:28:07] I’m never getting remarried. That’s not an option. But that covenant was made with you first, that our first loyalty is to you always. And that unless I’m willing to forsake all, quite literally all and follow you, I’m not worthy to be called a Christian. It’s like, Lord, if this costs me my marriage, I’m yours.
[00:28:29] I’m yours. And just extraordinarily emotional. And I go up, of course, receive the blessing, can’t receive the Eucharist yet. We come out and of course, Chris has calmed down by this point. We make the best of the day that we can.
[00:28:46] That Wednesday, I was driving out to I of course don’t live in Vancouver. I’m about forty minutes out, thirty to forty minutes out of Vancouver proper. But I’m driving in East Vancouver to see Father Hamilton once a week to connected. Because I’d been a pastor, I had an expedited RCA just with Father Hamilton. And he of course called the one priest, I didn’t know Father Raymond, is David ready to enter the church?
[00:29:08] Father Raymond was like, yeah. And so anyway, so I had an expedited process, but on that Wednesday, so I’m there and there was no traffic. So I arrive very early. So I’m sitting in the parking lot. Father Hamilton isn’t quite ready yet to meet.
[00:29:22] And I’m sitting there and of course I intellectually believe in the communion of saints, but I’ve never made use of that great gift. So I’m sitting there at the parking lot and I’m like, all right, listen up guys. All right. I believe, as I rattle off every saint I can think of, which is not many at this point, like eight or nine people at this point, like Augustine, Athanasius, Eunatius of Antioch, Ambrose, Aquinas, I for sure would have mentioned. I would have had a few others like rattle off seven, eight, nine, ten guys.
[00:29:53] Alright. Listen up, guys. I believe you guys can hear me. Just to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. So you’re right there before the throne of God.
[00:30:00] You’re more alive right now than you ever have been. You’re no longer bound by space, time, or matter. And I believe that the saints, as Revelation says, that the saints bring the prayers before the throne of God. So I believe you guys can hear me. Believe you guys can take these prayers to the Father.
[00:30:17] Of course, the Father can hear me. God’s everywhere. God, of course, knows what I’m thinking before I think it. But he’s asked us to come to him together because where two or three agree together, anything in his name, it will be done of the Father. And where two or three are gathered there, he is in the midst of them.
[00:30:32] So God comes to answer a prayer in a very special way when we pray together. Adam alone in the garden, God says, that is not good. In a perfect world. Right. In a perfect world, there’s no sin yet.
[00:30:42] And God says, that’s not good. I don’t want Adam to come and pray all by himself. I want Adam to bring Eve and I want the two of them to come and pray. And I want them to bring Cain and Abel and come and pray. Mhmm.
[00:30:51] So it’s like, this is what I believe. So I believe, guys, we’re supposed to do this. God wants us to pray together. God I’m a part of the body of Christ. I’m entering into the fullness of the of truth, the full body of Christ.
[00:31:03] Listen up, guys. We gotta pray together. Together. Come with me. We’re going to the throne of God to we’re going to the throne of grace to receive help in time of need.
[00:31:10] Hebrews four. Let’s go together. I said, here’s what we need. I said, let’s ask the father for Christa of her own volition to want to come into the Catholic church. Because God told me not to preach at her, not to argue with her, not to debate her, just to live it.
[00:31:26] For Christa to enter into the church of her own volition, for Arbutus, my eldest daughter and my eldest child, for her to enter of her own volition, for Bernd, my first son, second child, for him to enter of his own volition. And then I had one other prayer request. So, if this whole thing’s real and I’m not going crazy. This is what we’re bringing to the Father. Lord, hear our prayer.
[00:31:45] And a little more than that, but that’s the gist of it.
[00:31:49] Troy Van Vliet: So, this is you in the car.
[00:31:50] David Hunt: This is me in the car, sitting outside Corpus Christi. Troy, twenty four hours. So, every night, how I was raised, you do what’s called devotions in the evangelical world. Devotions every night. So, my parents would have something age appropriate, that scripture.
[00:32:13] So whether it’s a child’s version of Proverbs or the picture Bible or the new version is called the Action Bible, which you’ve probably seen, but something like that where it’s the Bible, but it’s at a kid’s level, read that, and then pray together before bed. That’s the ritual. So that’s what I was raised on. It was a wonderful way to grow up, I’ve continued that with my kids. But all that I’ve added in is also now do the saints as well.
[00:32:35] So just do some scripture and then also life of the saints and then pray together. So so what I from Sofia Press, Sofia Institute Press, they have this series called The Saints Chronicles. Mhmm. And so far, they only have five volumes, and each has five saints. So 25 saints in total.
[00:32:54] They’re extraordinary. Extremely well done. Especially for those of us who weren’t raised with the saints and for whom all of it is new. So I have this series and we’re going through the lives of the saints. So that night we went through, I forget her name.
[00:33:08] She was a very humble peasant in France and had all, she was deformed and her mother was extremely nasty to her and she’d like sleep with the pigs and stuff. And it was, forget her name, but a beautiful saint. And we read that one and it is just so striking that the kids wanna read one more, which hadn’t happened yet. And then we wanna read one more Life of the Saint. So the next one we read is Saint Vincent de Paul, who again was brand new to all of us.
[00:33:31] This whole saints
[00:33:32] Troy Van Vliet: thing
[00:33:32] David Hunt: is brand new. So, Saint Vincent de Paul, and we’re reading his story and how here he is with the aristocracy, like the nobility, the rich, and chooses to focus on the poor and to use the access to capital that he has to build hospitals and build schools and to help the poor. And even not just with resources, but with his time and his own strength, he went on the slave ships, the slave galleys, and would pinch hit for guys. Like he would hop in and he would row guys that their health was failing them. And he’d go down to the prisons, which we’re discussing at the time.
[00:34:06] We’re reading through all of this and we finish up. And this is within twenty four hours of that prayer in the parking lot of Corpus Christi. We’re sitting there. We finish up that story. And Barron was four years old at the time.
[00:34:18] And he says, daddy, is that guy Catholic? I said, yeah. He says, then I need to be Catholic. I’m like, sorry, what do you mean by that? He says, well, like, I want to be like that guy and only Catholics are like that.
[00:34:33] And I’m like, well, no, no, no. Are some, there are great missionaries who are and great people. He’s like, no, no, no, no, no. You need to be Catholic. And he’s just like, I need to become Catholic because I want to be like that guy.
[00:34:48] And then not to be outdone, Arbutus, my daughter, looked straight at the floor and she’s seven years old at the time. She says, daddy, I’m pretty sure God is calling us to be Catholic. I’m like, and so I said to her, you do realize that your cousins who are your best friends and who are very close to her and live close by, cousins are going to push back. Both sets of grandparents who love you dearly, they’re gonna push back really hard. Think of how many friends you’re gonna lose.
[00:35:16] Like, do you realize what you’re saying right now, sweetie? She says she’s looking straight at the floor. Most sober seven year old you’ve ever seen. Yes, daddy. I know that.
[00:35:25] But we have to because that’s what God has told us to do. We have to be Catholic. Wow. And this is unprompted. It’s just that this well, I shouldn’t say unprompted.
[00:35:34] Like, obviously, that story the story would
[00:35:35] Troy Van Vliet: be a
[00:35:35] David Hunt: promise, but in terms of, like, there was no propaganda on my part. Right? And I’m just like, okay. And for the next forty to fifty minutes, the questions that the two of them ask me, you would think I was sitting down with 25 year olds, like questions that I don’t think I’d ever felt like, rich, rich deep questions. And thankfully, because I’d done my homework, I had decent answers that I could convey to a four year old and a seven year old.
[00:36:02] But we then talked to the next forty to fifty minutes, just this rich, beautiful conversation about what this looks like and why we have to be Catholic and why it’s not enough just to be Christian. Like you have to enter into the church that Christ established and submit to the authority that Christ established to be fully and especially to receive the Eucharist. Think of it, the greatest gift we have, this side of heaven, right? And the fullness, all the sacraments, all seven, like the biggest surprise with being Catholic is confession, like how truly amazing it is on so many levels. So with the kids, I’m just blown away.
[00:36:35] So, course, then pray together. I put them to bed. And I don’t remember if it was that exact night or if it was the following evening, but Krista didn’t hear any of that. She wasn’t a part
[00:36:45] Troy Van Vliet: of that. That was my next question.
[00:36:47] David Hunt: But it that was night or the following night. And I could go back and look at my own journaling to see Again, this we didn’t come rehearsed for. This is all spontaneous. No, love it. Was either that night or the next night.
[00:37:02] Quite late. I’m in the kitchen cleaning up, doing dishes, which I will admit I don’t do as often as I should. But I was in there and Christa comes in, the kids are fast asleep. She says, David, And one other detail. I’m three weeks away from entering the church.
[00:37:20] Okay. So, I’m set to enter on the feast of St. Thomas Becket, which is December 29. So, it’s three weeks before that. I think
[00:37:26] Troy Van Vliet: it was
[00:37:27] David Hunt: three weeks before that. Roughly three weeks. Maybe it was four weeks. And Christa says, when you enter the church, would I be allowed to enter with you? And of course, my initial response is, well, the thing about being Catholic is I don’t decide those sort of things.
[00:37:41] Submitting to authority is kind of the name of the game. And that’s not my call. That’s not my call. That’s Father Hamilton’s call. But I’ll give you his number.
[00:37:48] You can text him. You can ask. And I’m like, why the out of nowhere change of heart? Because there was no gradual transition. It was just out of nowhere from like that extreme hostility we had just
[00:38:03] Troy Van Vliet: experienced And to how long of a gap was there in that? From
[00:38:08] David Hunt: the The crazy weekend? The crazy weekend? That was in days. Like three days ago? Three days?
[00:38:13] Three or four days ago. Yeah. Because it would have been that would have been that Sunday. Wednesday was the intercession of the saints and experiencing the communion of the saints. And then Thursday night would have been with Baron and Arbutus.
[00:38:25] So it was either Thursday night or the Friday night where she’s like, would I be allowed to enter with you? And so then, why the change of heart? And her response was, so I finally prayed about it with an open heart. I feel the Lord said very clearly, like, why are you not following David’s lead here? I’ve made him the priest of the home.
[00:38:44] I’ve entrusted him with the spiritual responsibility of this home. He’s been seeking me diligently, earnestly. Like, he’s done his homework. Why don’t you trust that he’s looking out for your best interest and that of the whole family? You’ve never questioned him on theology before.
[00:38:58] Like Chris and I could debate tons of different things, she’s extraordinarily intelligent. She was top of her class at UBC in the sciences. She’s brilliant. She was there in an insane fellowship, right? Scholarships, tons of scholarships.
[00:39:10] She’s brilliant. But on theology, she would never like, she loves the word of God. She knows the word of God backwards and forwards, but that’s not an area she would ever debate. Right? She’s like, just beautiful childlike faith.
[00:39:22] Right? And so this is the first time ever she’s pushed back on theology and we’ve been married for how many years and we’ve been friends for how many years before that. And so, yeah, God just called her out on that. So, she texts Father out and says, Well, let’s meet. So, then they sit down to meet and says, So, why is it you want to become Catholic?
[00:39:41] Just because God told me I have to submit to my husband, and if God has told him we need to enter into the church, then I need to trust him as the spiritual head of our home and come with him. And Father Hamilton’s jaw just drops. Like, sorry, what century are we in? He’s like, that’s the best answer I’ve ever heard. He says, yeah, forget RCAA.
[00:39:59] Don’t need it. He says, I’ve never heard such a good answer. You’re entering the church in whatever it was, three weeks or whatever it was. And then we all entered together on 12/29/2022, Feast of St. Thomas Becket.
[00:40:10] So, three of our kids were baptized. Because that’s another big conviction I had was I came to realize, again, from Scripture first, but then from the church fathers, and then also the testimony of history, that the waters of baptism are actually regenerative. Why was Jesus baptized? He entered the water. By entering the water, He made those waters holy.
[00:40:31] Because Jesus had no sin. If the purpose of baptism is merely the removal of original sin, then there’s no reason for Jesus to be baptized. Oh, well, he just had the father told him too, so he has be obedient. Well, no, again, God doesn’t do arbitrary things. Right?
[00:40:48] If God does something, it’s for a really good reason. So if Jesus is entering the waters, there’s a whole lot there for us to unpack. So He enters the waters. He makes those waters holy. Throughout the New Testament, repent and be baptized.
[00:41:02] And there’s something about entering those waters. And of course, understanding covenant theology and how baptism is the new circumcision, as Saint Paul says explicitly, etcetera, etcetera, and just the conviction that, hold on a second, I’m gonna be held accountable to God for the fact that my kids are not baptized. And I understand what this is and how essential it is in the same way that Israel had to pass through the waters. They had to pass out of Egypt, out of the world, through the waters of baptism, through the Red Sea, into the wilderness, which is this life in preparation for the promised land. Of course, they’d be fed on the journey, receiving the Eucharist.
[00:41:33] All of this, just this understanding. It’s like, no, I have to pass this on to my kids. So it was just so beautiful. At December 29, we all come in together, just so beautiful, super pregnant at the time, and Christa gave birth to our fourth child, our second son, about a month, a little over a month later. And of course, so his name is Beckett.
[00:41:54] So yeah, number five is on the way.
[00:41:57] Troy Van Vliet: That is awesome. What a story. That is amazing. Now, about the rest of your family? Like, how has it been, that’s been a challenge?
[00:42:11] David Hunt: Easy. And Not again, in part because my parents are such sincere and awesome Christians, like real Christians. And so few Catholics are. And so, pushback one of my brothers made, I’m from a large family and I have amazing siblings. One of my brothers is David, and he’s much older than me.
[00:42:34] David, and he’s lived his whole life here in Vancouver and works here. He says, do you know many Catholics I know? I don’t know one Catholic that I would call a Christian. And it’s like so I said, right to him. He says, well, Luke.
[00:42:45] So that’s fair. But of all the people that know you, how many of them would say that other than you, that they know another real Christian? Because I know what I’ve heard in the workplace is people encounter me and they say, you’re the first real Christian I’ve ever met. I’ve heard that nonstop my whole life. Says, I’m sure you’ve heard the same thing, Luke.
[00:43:04] Yep, good point. Fair enough. Fair enough. That doesn’t
[00:43:08] Troy Van Vliet: mean there aren’t Christian Catholics in that. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t mean that that
[00:43:14] David Hunt: But they’re rare. Yeah. They’re rare. Catholics that are actually on fire for God, that have forsaken all to follow Jesus, that have taken up their cross daily.
[00:43:21] Troy Van Vliet: It’s rare. It is very
[00:43:22] David Hunt: rare. And that move in the power of the Holy Spirit, an evangelical, you don’t see that. And so there’s genuine concern from a posture of love, of family members who are deeply concerned. And my grandmother who just passed away, she couldn’t believe I became Catholic. She’s like, David, like, what are you doing?
[00:43:42] She lost sleep for days, deeply troubled because as far as she was concerned, again, given the understanding that she had and from her own life experience of over ninety years on this planet, again, she’d never, in over ninety years here in the Lower Mainland, had never encountered a Catholic that she would say, no, that’s a genuine Christian. Never once. Over ninety years in the Metro Vancouver area. Right? So thankfully by God’s grace, because I was praying about that, like, Lord, like, and I, there’s a beautiful relationship there that was fractured by me becoming Catholic.
[00:44:18] So praying about that again, God is so good. He’s more generous than we deserve. And at Christmas time of this past year, we’re having our family Christmas on Boxing Day. And everyone, we spent the whole day at my parents, so there’s multiple meals. And it was kind of a gap in between meals.
[00:44:40] And in this one room, she’s resting on the couch. And I was in there, I think doing some reading or something. And she sits up and it’s only the two of us in the room. She says, David, David, good. I’m glad you’re in here.
[00:44:49] So, this is, okay, now tell me about this Catholic stuff. And she, in the most beautiful way, for the first time she was an argumentative or accusatory. It was just like, I’m genuinely curious because it’s been a while now and you’re And you’re still Catholic. But you’re still a Christian. You had because in her mind, was like apostasy.
[00:45:07] You might as well be a Muslim or an atheist. So it like, you’re more on fire for God than ever. And you’ve always been so on fire for God. Like, help me understand this. So it was beautiful.
[00:45:21] We had at least an hour, maybe it was even two hours together where she just very gently just trying to understand. And so the various objections she had to Catholicism in a very gentle, loving way says, well, but David, but what about this? And we’re able to talk in just a very beautiful way. And as I’ll explain myself, of course, first from Scripture, because that’s how I’m wired and that’s what she knows. That’s how she raised us, right?
[00:45:41] First from Scripture, here’s understanding from Scripture. And then, okay, but then how are we interpreting Scripture? Let’s look to those who first interpreted Scripture. Let’s look to the disciples of the disciples. What did they teach?
[00:45:51] And now let’s keep making our way through history. And then two, on top of all of that, then just again, living it through experience. The example I would give in terms of summing up a methodology for understanding whether or not you’ve got the gospel right or whether you’ve got your theology right. And again, a Catholic doesn’t have to wrestle with this the same way that a Protestant does. Again, you’re not cherry picking what you’re gonna believe.
[00:46:15] You’re accepting the whole counsel of Scripture. As a Protestant, again, wrestling with the key, well, how do I know that my theology is right and someone else who disagrees with me is wrong? Well, one Corinthians 15, Saint Paul establishes how you know you’ve got the gospel right. His first appeal is to authority, to the tradition. He says, I give to you what I received from so and so.
[00:46:40] And he mentions by name. Some apostles, not the 12, but some of the other apostles. I received from so and so. And then eventually he got to speak with the 12 and I received a deposit from them. So after he establishes that, no, I got this from the source.
[00:46:57] Of course, his encounter with Christ was with Rhodes Damascus. He did not experience the other 12 had. He says, I got this from them. Says, then look for yourself. You can see it in Scripture.
[00:47:06] And he cites Scripture as an authority in the fulfillment of prophecy. He gives the eyewitness a testimony that we have from the Gospels. Then he uses logic and he says, okay, just work with me here. He uses logic in one Corinthians 15, and he goes on this long ramble, making the case from logic. And only at the very end does he argue from experience.
[00:47:29] And if none of that has convinced you, well, I saw Jesus on the road to Damascus, and I can’t deny what my eyes have seen. Frankly, I was blinded. But the upbringing I had, we had it in reverse, where first I had to have experience with Christ, which in some ways is a beauty to that, because I think that’s what’s missing with a lot of Catholics, is that personal encounter with Christ. Like that real encounter actually walking with the Holy Spirit and walking with God, where it was said of Enoch, he walked with God and then was not. Like just that was said of him is like, this is a man that walked with God.
[00:48:00] But the problem with starting from experience is that we never end up getting to the tradition. We never get to what was handed on to the apostles outside of what’s in scripture. And there’s much to be said for that inversion. It’s like, no, the experience matters. The walk with Christ matters.
[00:48:17] You better believe it. And that walk needs to be real daily. But how do I
[00:48:22] Troy Van Vliet: know I’m not being deceived? Exactly. Or heading into error. So many diversions then start coming because you haven’t got that one grounding from the very beginning.
[00:48:32] David Hunt: Our nature is to justify whatever it is we want to do and to lie to ourselves and not realize doing it because what is it to be deceived? If you’re deceived, you don’t know you’re deceived.
[00:48:42] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, right.
[00:48:43] David Hunt: So, it’s a real problem. So, how do I know that that walk with God is real and that that actually is the Lord’s voice that I’m hearing and that is a prompting of the Holy Spirit? How do I know that? It’s because, no, I’m starting from the deposit that was passed on through the apostles to their successors. Guys like my patron saint, when I entered the churches, Ignatius Fanioch.
[00:49:04] And I’m so glad I had not yet discovered Joshua Charles, who’s very prolific on Twitter, on X. I’m so glad I had not encountered him yet because his testimony is so similar, where he refers to Ignatius of Antioch as the red pill. And it’s true because what he has to say about those who will not submit to the authority of the church Anyways, that’s the conversation for another day. But the point being, it hit me. He convicted me more than anybody else in terms of the fact that, no, I’m actually not walking in obedience to the Lord by staying outside of the church and how, no, I have to be within the Catholic Church to be in full obedience to Christ, and that this is the fullness of the church.
[00:49:41] Wow. So, sorry, that rabbit trail is from grandma, talk at Christmas. So that was my methodology with her. That’s the methodology with myself, and that should be with all of us, is no. What was passed on to the disciples are the disciples.
[00:49:56] Okay? And if that’s true, you will be able to find it in Scripture, or at least it won’t contradict Scripture. It’ll be consistent with the whole counsel of Scripture. You will see evidence of it. Logically, it will check out because that’s another important thing we miss.
[00:50:13] So this is another C. This is another one of the 10,000 reasons. 10,000 reasons I’m Catholic. I was deeply convicted. This would have been the late twenty teens, ’18, 2019, somewhere around there.
[00:50:25] Deeply convicted that I have to catechize my kids. I didn’t know what catechism was. We didn’t use that language in the world I grew up in at all. Totally foreign concept, but just realizing that the discipleship of your children in your home isn’t something to be taken casually. That my first and primary vocation is to be the priest in my household, in that to be a spiritual leader, both to my wife and to my kids, which means I got to get my own acting gear, right?
[00:50:57] And my walk has to be real every day. But that household discipleship and faith formation within the home, well, how do you do that? Yes, some of it’s organic, lots of it’s organic, it’s caught more than it’s taught, probably most of it. But there is something to be said for formal formation. And perhaps again, maybe because most in the education space, just realizing there’s much to be said for the Baltimore catechism, the way that the Baltimore Catechism catechizes where a question that you’re gonna ask at some point, and that is a critical existential question, Okay, and what’s the simplest answer to that?
[00:51:35] And we’ll expand on it after that, but let’s, if we can summarize it in one sentence, the answer is, there’s something about memorizing those question and answers. So I have this conviction that no, and I didn’t know there was a Catholic catechism at
[00:51:45] Troy Van Vliet: the time,
[00:51:46] Dvid Hunt: but my kids need to be catechized. So I was looking for what our options were. And in the non Catholic world, slim pickings, real slim pickings, especially that’s age appropriate for kids and that’s not too heavy. So I went on Amazon trying to find something and there’s one that had a gazillion reviews and it was like, however many stars, 4.9 or something. So and those who endorsed it were some names I recognized of preachers I trust.
[00:52:10] So I ordered it. It comes in the mail. I’m so disappointed for whatever I paid for that thing. It’s a skinny little thing. Big pages, but they’re mostly pictures and like pathetic pictures, frankly, and just simple statements at the bottom.
[00:52:21] There was so little content. And then going through the content, whatever was stated, there’d then be like scriptural references. But for some of the, like quite a few of them, like, I don’t agree with this. And then you’d look up the scriptural reference and you’re like, that’s a long shot. If you’re pulling this out of that text, I don’t know about that.
[00:52:41] And these were from guys who brag about exegeting the scriptures. They’re all about the text speak for itself. And the question that really, to use a word that we maybe shouldn’t use, triggered. The question that really triggered me was, why does God do what He does? Why does God do what He does?
[00:53:00] And the answer was because He wills it. And so, I looked up the passages of Scripture that were cited. That’s not what those passages say at all. Now, I can see how they got a derivative of that, but that’s not what those passages You’ve got to really work to impose that perspective onto the text. So, why does God do what He does?
[00:53:18] So, that sent me down a whole rabbit trail. This is early. This is again, 2018 or 2019. Like this is, no, it would have been 2019. Couldn’t have been 2018.
[00:53:28] Probably have 2019. That was one of the, again, the 10,000 pathways into the church. That was one of them. Because I went down that rabbit hole, why does God do what He does? And totally unsatisfied with the answer because he wills it.
[00:53:41] That’s arbitrary. Like, no, the whole reason I was raised on a kosher diet wasn’t for legalistic reasons because of course we’re in the new covenant. But my parents were like, if God told us not to eat rats and vultures, there’s probably a good reason to that. Oh, and now science tells us that, yeah, absolutely, rats are not healthy to eat and vultures are not healthy to eat and you shouldn’t be eating snakes. My wife’s a registered dietitian, she can tell you scientifically why those things are not good for you.
[00:54:06] Well, if the Bible said so, how long ago? Right? And so if God’s telling us to do that, it’s for a good reason. So we, a non legalistic fashion, we’re raising essentially a kosher diet, just because my parents were like, no, if God says don’t eat those things, don’t eat those things. Okay.
[00:54:23] So I’m like, it can’t be because God wills it. And so there’s a book, must have been the Holy Spirit because I did not buy this book for that reason, but it was in this book. The book’s called America on Trial. I’m trying to remember the author, like Robert Roberts or something. He’s a prophet, the Naval Academy in Annapolis.
[00:54:41] But brilliant book called America on Trial. And he does a survey of history starting with the ancients and brings us up to the present day to make the case for constitutionalism, and shows very clearly that it’s actually Catholicism that gave us constitutionalism. And if you want limited government, you wanna live in a free society, the origins of that, the roots of that are deeply Catholic. Although yes, you can trace some of it to ancient Greece and ancient Rome, it’s overwhelmingly Christendom that gave us that, and he walks you through that. But in the process, takes you on the survey of history.
[00:55:15] And he asks that question, why does God do what he does? Because of course, if you’re forming government, that’s an important question. Where does it first emerge, this idea that cause God wills it. In Protestantism, but it didn’t start there. The first place you see that in history is in Islam.
[00:55:33] The first place you see that is Islam, where Mohammed says, why does God do what he does? Cause he wills it. So take this glass I have here. Why did it fall onto the table? Allah wills it.
[00:55:45] Every single time. That’s all his will. It’s all his will. Well, that’s not gonna lead to scientific discovery. So whether you wanna read the works of Rodney Stark or Tom Woods or many others make the case for why did science emerge out of medieval Europe?
[00:55:59] Why did the scientific revolution come directly out of scholasticism? Well, it’s because the Christian doesn’t believe that fell because God willed it. That’s not the Christian answer. The Christian answer is gravity is the reason why that fell to the ground, and the God who created heaven and earth also created this thing called gravity, which we discover. Same thing with algebra.
[00:56:20] You don’t create no one created algebra. No one created m Discover it. The theory of relativity. They discover it. They discover it.
[00:56:29] Why does God do what he does? Not because he willed it, but because go back to John John chapter one. In the beginning was the logos. In the beginning was the word. The word was with God.
[00:56:39] The word was God. In the beginning was logos. What’s the word for logos? Reason. So to the to the Gentile who who the apostle John, Saint John is writing to, To the Gentile, they read in the beginning was the Logos.
[00:56:51] The Logos was with God. Logos was God. To the Gentile, especially the Greek. To the Greek, he reads in the beginning was reason. Reason was with God.
[00:56:59] Reason was God. Why does God do what he does? Because it’s reasonable. The same God that created mathematics, created science, created all this for us to discover. Why do we believe it’s discoverable?
[00:57:09] Mhmm. Because a reasonable God, a logical God made it. In the beginning was reason. Reason was with God. Reason was God.
[00:57:16] So same thing with theology then. If your theology is arbitrary, where there’s no good explanation, but what God told me. Sorry, that doesn’t check out. Even in Scripture, that doesn’t check out. Where God does it is for a good reason.
[00:57:30] That’s why we have the discipline called theology, theo, God. Logi, logic. This is the logic of God. We’re trying to understand God. That’s what theology is.
[00:57:39] It’s the queen of the sciences because we’re trying to understand the mind of God. And of course what is philosophy doing? The love of wisdom. Philo sofie. The love of wisdom is the other side of the ledger.
[00:57:48] We’re using reason alone, using purely what is our natural senses, natural law. Using reason alone, we’re trying to arrive at what is true. That’s what philosophy does. The love of wisdom, what does theology do? Starts from divine revelation.
[00:58:01] Here’s what we know God has revealed. Let’s make sense of it. And so when the two of those match, you know you’ve got something good. And in the Catholic world, you can do that every single time. Think about the theology of the body.
[0:58:13] Why didn’t a Protestant write that? Why has no Protestant written anything even remotely close to theology of the body? There’s nothing like it anywhere else. Not even close because they can’t. It’s only in the Catholic church where that marriage of philosophy and theology why?
[00:58:31] Because you’ve arrived at the fullness of the truth. The ledger actually balances. The accounts balance because you have the fullness of the truth here, which means even if you didn’t have scripture, we could if if if you had the wisdom that God has Mhmm. You you could arrive at that conclusion. But, of course, God helps us out because he realizes we’d be here for millions and millions and millions of years trying to figure this out and still wouldn’t figure it out.
[00:58:52] So he gives us his word. He gives us divine revelation to help us on the journey. As a Catholic, anyways, that that just it’s inexhaustible. Inexhaustible. The riches the riches within the Catholic faith are absolutely inexhaustible.
[00:59:07] And I’m I feel like a kid in a candy shop where I’ve been a Catholic now for, I guess, coming up three years. And, yeah, kid in a candy shop, just barely scratching the surface. Barely scratching the surface. So incredible. So sorry, that was a long testimony.
[00:59:21] Troy Van Vliet: No, your passion, well, it’s unstoppable and it’s so refreshing to hear. Your knowledge is incredible, not just of Christianity in general, but even of the church, of the Catholic church.
[00:59:33] David Hunt: But then to Catholic education. Let’s segue to Yeah, Catholic exactly. So, why do you find a Catholic advantage across the board? Whether we’re gonna look at United States results, whether we wanna look at results across Canada, you find a Catholic
[00:59:49] Troy Van Vliet: In the education system.
[00:59:50] David Hunt: In the education system. You find consistently Catholic advantage. Why? Because again, you have that balancing of the ledger where Catholic means of the whole, right? Universal, of the whole.
[01:00:00] So there is a wholeness, is a, again, like a ledger, there’s a balancing that happens when it comes to knowledge. The And answer, oh, we’ll have to wait till we get to heaven, which you hear all the time in evangelical world, to various hard questions. We have to wait till we get to heaven. You’ll never hear that in a Catholic setting. Never, because that’s erroneous.
[01:00:22] No, because we serve the God who invented logic. So you find there’s a huge carryover into, again, whatever findings we wanna look at, or we wanna take that apart, but you find superior outcomes and holistic outcomes. And number of ways we could unpack that. There’s a chapter I just wrote for a book, it’s an academic book, a bunch of profs were asked to contribute chapters. And the chapter I wrote is something along the lines of, because the book is about liberal education.
[01:00:55] So how do we restore liberal education like the classics in Canada with an understanding that part of the problem with our country at the moment is a lack of citizenship, a lack of understanding of what it means to be a citizen and the breakdown of various civic outcomes, take your pick, right? And how some of that flows obviously from education and the lack of civic formation within the school. So how do we restore that? So the book that’s seeking to be replicated, there was a book written in the 1990s about how bankrupt Canada’s education system is. And this is back in the nineties and just rattling off all the problems and how terrible the system is compared to thirty years before.
[01:01:40] So if we look at the 1960s and before, the results were on many different metrics and just how bad it is by the nineties and how the remedy is classical education. So return to the classics and a genuine liberal education. So we’re doing an update of this. So thirty years since 1995. So this updated version, we’re all asked to contribute a chapter, but someone who’s heavily cited in the 1990s book is Thomas D.
[01:02:04] C. McGee. And he was one of our founding fathers. He was the equivalent of Thomas Jefferson for the Canadian founding, where he was the intellectual in the room, the philosopher king, who was a politician, yes, but brought he was extraordinarily well read and brought a lot of wisdom to the table. So McGee has cited heavily, but it’s only in terms of liberal education and his view on the classics.
[01:02:30] And so the chapter I contributed is, well, hold on a second. You can’t talk about restoring Thomas Darcy McGee’s vision of Canadian education without talking about his public policy. Because he vehemently opposed a compulsory public education system. And what we have today, what in his day was called the common schools, but what today’s called public education. He opposed that.
[01:02:54] So if you’re gonna attempt to realize his vision of education divorced of the mechanism, public policy mechanism. That’s erroneous. So the case I make, because Thomas Darcy McGee is the reason why in the Canadian constitution you have separate Catholic schools and separate Protestant schools enshrined into the constitution as a constitutional right. Although ironically only three provinces actually benefit from it. But he’s the one who got that there.
[01:03:19] And as Sir Charles Tupper, one of our other prime ministers from Nova Scotia, what he said, Confederation never would have happened had it not been for that section of the constitution, which I think is Section 93. But had it not been for Thomas D’Arcy McGee, the full funding of separate Catholic schools, authentically Catholic schools, Confederation never would have happened. So that was a key component. So okay, well then what is this? How do we understand this and unpack this for our present day if Catholic education was so key to the Canadian founding?
[01:03:47] And so we’re gonna revive the civic spirit here and revive Canadian patriotism and national unity and all the rest. Well, we gotta understand what’s going on here. So I broke the chapter down into four points where I looked at, of course, just citing Thomas D’Arcy McGee left, right and center, and then bringing in recent research that backs up his perspective with current evidence. But I found four things, that there is a Catholic advantage, the importance of the goodness of fit, which happy to get into in terms of I think that’d be of value to your audience. The independent edge, so where private schools and independent schools, the fact that they’re independent, that also gives them advantage.
[01:04:26] And then lastly, the classical difference difference and how classical education is a superior type of education. So there’s four things there, four things to unpack. So the first one, the Catholic advantage where if we take separate schools, so what you have in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, most people, if you ask them some random person on the street, what are your thoughts on separate schools in those provinces? And people who actually live in those provinces, they would say, oh, they’re fancy public schools. Because they are.
[01:04:52] You have similar monopolies running the teachers unions. Even some of the cultural controversies around the culture wars and some moral and social issues, those issues are alive in those settings and in the same compromises that people have concerns about in the public space, the exact same dynamics in the separate schools because they are public schools. They’re just Catholic public schools. And most would argue quite emphatically Catholic in name only. Culturally Catholic.
[01:05:24] They’re really Catholic. And yet, even though most Catholics let’s say in terms of most Catholics who go to Mass every single Sunday and who go to confession regularly and try to be, you know, fully live out their Catholic faith. Ask any of those Catholics what their thoughts are in separate schools who live in those provinces. They’ll tell you they’re a disaster. Right?
[01:05:52] They have a very low opinion of them. And yet if we compare the data from those terrible Catholic schools to the public school, and we geographically control is take the neighborhood school to the neighborhood Catholic separate school, The Catholic separate schools are superior. And I don’t care how you want to slice it. It’s extraordinarily rare to find an example where they’re not superior, even on things like Okay. Even things like indigenous graduation rates.
[01:06:19] Like far better. Indigenous students that are the Catholic separate schools do way better, actually graduate. Whereas the public schools, the graduation rates are much lower, dropout rates are much higher.
[01:06:28] Troy Van Vliet: So why do you think that is?
[01:06:29] David Hunt: Okay. So clearly there’s a Catholic advantage. Now what is the Catholic advantage? Now, again, as someone who’s a new Catholic, I would argue there’s actually quite bit there. It’s not just as we talked about earlier, the balancing of the ledger and how do you arrive at what is true and discerning truth from error.
[01:06:46] There’s that piece, but there’s also praxis. There’s also the living out of the faith and there’s there’s an ethos. There’s a distinctly Catholic ethos, a Catholic way of living that that there’s a moderating factor where, yeah, there’s there’s yeah, to be impacted in another conversation, I’m still wrestling with that. But a dear friend who I’ve done a lot of work with a colleague, Brett Fawcett, he’s written a full manuscript, a full book on exactly this, the Catholic advantage. No one’s been willing to publish it just yet.
[01:07:15] He needs to pitch it to a Catholic publisher, but he’s been trying to get it published through, you know, just conventional publishers, but they don’t seem keen on the messaging. But it’s written in a fairly neutral fashion, and he just goes through however many chapters it is, quite a few chapters, teasing out, again, this Catholic advantage. But I would move, in answering that, I would move to the next thing where there is a Catholic advantage. So even if they’re both public schools that are fairly unimpressive on almost any level, the Catholic one does outperform and considerably so, and especially in the things that matter most. Okay, the next piece, the goodness of fit.
[01:07:51] So we did a study with Catherine Pakalik, who’s the smartest person you’ll ever meet. She’s a brilliant economist, did her PhD at Harvard, she now teaches at the Catholic University of America. She’s got be one of my favorite people. She’s just over the top smart, but just also
[01:08:05] Troy Van Vliet: And she’s smarter than you. By miles.
[01:08:09] David Hunt: By hundreds of miles. And she has eight of her own children and her husband have 14 children because his first wife passed away tragically. So, just brilliant economist with 14 kids and is as charitable and just like as humble as anyone you’ve ever met. So, I had the pleasure of working with her on a project where she’d written this econometric analysis that five people in the world can read, but it was so rich and so good. And I’m like, Catherine, let’s put this into plain English.
[01:08:36] And if we could put this into just lay terms, this will have huge impact. So repackaged her brilliant study that was published in an academic journal, repackaged it and wrote it as a think tank paper for Cardus. She wrote it for a think tank called Cardus, great, great institution. And looking at large dataset of longitudinal data. So, tracking people over time, very large dataset, which allows for certain controls where we can control for if a practicing Catholic is going to a Catholic school that’s faithful to the magisterium and where there’s a fit there, where the faith at home matches the faith at school.
[01:09:22] Don’t quote me on this, but there’s probably like 36, 38, 39, maybe 40 variables you can control for to then isolate for as best as we can. You can’t perfectly do this, but as best as we can isolate the school sector effect, but also in this case for for the effect of fit, for the for the effect of the match. So by by matching faith the faith at home and the faith of the school, does that match does that fit in and of itself have what economists call productive value? Meaning, does that fit regardless of everything else, does that fit in and of itself lead to better academic outcomes? So we looked at mathematics, reading.
[01:10:06] Was it just those two? I think it was just those two, but looking at reading outcomes and mathematics outcomes, and the fit in of itself, yes, it does lead to better outcomes, and not a small amount. The raw score, so without controls in place, the raw score was something like 14, don’t quote me, and this is from memory, this study was 2021. So it’s been a while since I’ve looked at it, but it’s something like 14 to 19 percentile points, which not percentage, percentile. Which means if you think of a bell curve, so a normal distribution, you got the wings on either end where a small minority are and two thirds roughly are going be hovered around the middle.
[01:10:45] What’s called a one standard deviation. So roughly two thirds will hover around the center point, a bit above average, but below average, but you’ll have the big hump in any normal distribution. Okay, so percentile points, what you’re doing is you’re moving outside of that hump. Because if you break down by quintiles or quartiles, whatever tiles you wanna use. How would I describe this?
[01:11:07] Someone who moves 14 to 19 percentile points, you’re taking someone who is right around the average point and you’re moving them beyond above average territory into not genius territory, but really strong territory. You’re taking someone who’s above average and actually moving them almost into what we call genius territory. Someone who’s well above average, for sure into genius territory. Someone who on the exact opposite end of the spectrum, what researchers would still call retarded, although that term is definitely not used in polite settings anymore or in the classroom, but still in research, you’ll hear that term because just identifying those who are essentially off the scale to one end of the spectrum, moving people from that point into average territory. The fit in and of itself does that, okay?
[01:11:54] Now, once we control for everything, that socioeconomic background, whole bunch of other factors, there’ll be a cleaning up of that data. The point being how strong this effect is. The only thing that we know of that has a stronger effect on academic outcomes are our parents, who your parents are. Like that’s by far the most important factor in terms of whether you’ll be a top student Let’s or a bottom go into
[01:12:14] Troy Van Vliet: that fit as well though. Because without that, the fit doesn’t work. Fair.
[01:12:18] David Hunt: But then in terms of the argument for Catholic schools, and it’s funny, Thomas Darcy McGee made the argument without using this kind of data, Mhmm. But he made the argument that we can’t call ourselves a free society if Catholics are being forced into an education that isn’t Catholic and that frankly explicitly undermines everything that the church teaches. If the opposite of what your parents, and not just your parents, but your whole community teaches, that’s what they’re indoctrinating you in school, sorry, you can’t call yourself a free society when you’re forcing kids to do that. And so he made the case.
[01:12:50] Troy Van Vliet: Which is what we’re experiencing right now today more than ever.
[01:12:54] David Hunt: Well, case he made at Confederation was a Catholic education has to permeate For it to be called Catholic education, Catholicism must permeate every subject. That’s basic understanding. So if it’s a Catholic education, again, Catholic is of the whole. Catholicism and a Catholic perspective will permeate every single subject. Okay?
[01:13:18] So that’s the first piece. So, permeation also will be controlled by Catholics, not necessarily the church, quote unquote, but it could be various religious orders. Most of the schools started across our country were started by various religious orders, brothers this, sisters that. So it needs to be controlled by Catholics. And then thirdly, if we’re gonna be funding any students, well then that funding should follow them to the school where they fit.
[01:13:44] So there needs to be accessibility where if we’re gonna have these government funded school systems, well then Catholics need to have access and equitable access, the same access they’d have to any neighborhood school. Well, they’re Catholic, should have access to the Catholic school. So there’s three criteria he established, where it needs to be all curriculum, all subjects, classroom needs to be permeated with Catholic, true Catholic teaching, needs to be controlled by true Catholics, and needs to be accessible to all Catholics, including those who normally can afford it. If we’re gonna fund any, and that’s the question I ask every audience is, why do we fund why do your taxpayers pay for the education of your neighbor’s kids? And of course, it’s interesting to always hear the answers that are given, but it’s simply cause we believe their education or the lack thereof profoundly affects all of us.
[01:14:31] And so if we’re gonna have funding for any students, it only makes sense that for Catholics, that funding follows. So he didn’t realize how powerful, like, goodness a fit was, but we did realize. Lived life and was able to see it. But we don’t have data to back that up. So, in terms of making the case for Catholic education, assuming it’s a faithfully Catholic school and it’s one without compromise, that fit in of itself.
[01:14:55] You think of the most socioeconomically disadvantaged. So those who need school the most, so ones that don’t have the opportunity to have a great homeschool setting, they benefit more than most by that fit. And so for those who are perhaps reluctant to sponsor with bursaries or, you know, have the means to pay for others to come to a good school, Like the case is right there that if you think of all the data that shows how correlated academic outcomes are with virtually any other desirable outcome, take your pick. There’s gonna be a study out there saying, hey, those who get good grades, they live longer, they make more money, they have better marriages, just keep going, they’re better citizens, keep going down the list. Okay, so if school matters, if academic performance matters, which it does, reading and arithmetic, being informed about history, having some cultural literacy, if those things matter, which they do, well then we would want every kid that we possibly can to get a Catholic education, especially those who are genuinely Catholic but don’t have the means.
[01:16:00] That’s most especially who we want in those schools because they’re gonna see the greatest lift, the greatest benefit from that. But then too, Ben, there’s the independent dynamic. So I’m not big on the separate schools. Okay? Now constitutionally, they’re protected, which is wonderful.
[01:16:13] But there’s also an advantage
[01:16:14] Troy Van Vliet: Well, they’re protected in three provinces. But only three.
[01:16:17] David Hunt: Because Newfoundland voted to get rid of them, Quebec voted to get rid of them. It’s only three that have them, which is also extraordinary considering how not gonna last. Exactly. But there’s an independent advantage. So being a private school, in the same way that we can control for the two types of public school, Catholic versus non Catholic, secular, in the same way we did the Carter’s education survey, which again, organization I used be part of exceptional think tank.
[01:16:41] They did the Carter’s education survey, the largest survey representative sample of graduate outcomes that’s not by the government. I think it’s like over 18,000 respondents to date over the last ten or however many years. But we can zoom in and especially the study that was done in 2016 in Canada, we can zoom in and there’s enough data that we can control for the public Catholic schools and the independent Catholic schools. And boy, are those results interesting.
[01:17:11] Troy Van Vliet: Those are different too. Extraordinarily different.
[01:17:14] David Hunt: Because again, if we’re saying that the separate Catholic schools aren’t much different than public schools, which is true, and there actually aren’t that much differences in terms of their graduates, they’re better, but not much better. The independent Catholic schools, they’re along the same lines as homeschoolers on many of the outcomes. Often actually, they’re the one category that often is superior to the homeschool outcomes on take your pick. And even on stuff that would really matter to, again, faithful Catholics, of family formation, think of getting married, staying married, having kids, how many kids? Those kinds of questions even.
[01:17:48] Your prayer life. Like those kinds of questions, again, we can control for school sector effect and the independent Catholic schools, the independent Catholic schools off the charts.
[01:18:01] Troy Van Vliet: So, for the people listening, the independent Catholic schools versus like here in British Columbia. So, it works financially is we get, first of all, get paid. There’s zero government support for the infrastructure. So the school gets paid for by the church or the institution that’s building. So there’s no support.
[01:18:22] And having just gone through building one, I can attest to that, that there’s zero government funding. So now once the school is built and it’s operating now, as long as you operate at the same level as a local public school, you will then receive half of what the operational funding that a public school gets. Independent school will get that here. That’s how it is
[01:18:48] David Hunt: in British Columbia. So long as 50% of the curriculum is the provincial curriculum.
[01:18:54] Troy Van Vliet: You have to follow BC
[01:18:55] David Hunt: Yes. Now you could opt out of that. What you described as a group one school. Yes. You could be a group three school where you don’t receive any funding, but you can teach whatever you want.
[01:19:03] Yes. But then there’s no funding and you can’t give the dogma diploma. That’s right. Grade 12 diploma.
[01:19:08] Troy Van Vliet: Exactly. So, now all of the Catholic schools in BC, well, in the Vancouver Archdiocese, I’m not sure. I would assume it’s everywhere, but they’re all in that 50%, they’re group one schools. So, whereas in like Alberta, for instance, they get 100% government funding for operational sites.
[01:19:28] David Hunt: Operational side we have to look into. I don’t think it’s 100%. I do have that in one of the studies that published at some point, but off the top of my head, don’t remember. I don’t think they get the operational funding. I mean, mean Well, as a taxpayer, can 70%.
[01:19:43] Troy Van Vliet: Where you want it
[01:19:43] David Hunt: to go. In Alberta, they get 70% of the public school operating grant. So seven zero. And on the capital side, I don’t think they get any capital funding. But on the operational side.
[01:19:55] Troy Van Vliet: But on the operational side, 70%?
[01:19:56] David Hunt: That’s it?
[01:19:56] Troy Van Vliet: Okay. Thought. In Ontario, same?
[01:19:59] David Hunt: Ontario, no funding whatsoever for private schools.
[01:20:03] Troy Van Vliet: For the Catholic schools in Ontario, don’t get any funding? Unless they got funding?
[01:20:06] David Hunt: If they’re a separate school. So the separate schools where you have the teachers unions controlling almost everything, and that whole dynamic, they’re fully funded the same way public schools are. Okay. But then you also have independent schools in Ontario that are growing like crazy. Right.
[01:20:21] Troy Van Vliet: Which is more like what we have here.
[01:20:22] David Hunt: But then there’s no funding whatsoever.
[01:20:23] Troy Van Vliet: But they get zero funding. Correct. So here we get 50%. Alberta gets 70. Seven zero.
[01:20:29] And then there’s, is there another version that gets a 100%? So in Saskatchewan, have,
[01:20:34] David Hunt: I think four different types of independent schools. And it’s complex until what’s what. And again, there’s at least a paper to where I dive into the details of it. Some of them do receive pretty generous funding, but again, there’s such a small share of the pie and most of the Catholic schools in Saskatchewan are separate schools. So, public Catholic schools.
[01:20:55] Troy Van Vliet: Exactly. And I don’t remember the statistics on it now. Read it a while ago in terms of how much the BC government saves due to not having to fund the private schools or the independent schools at only 50 of the infrastructure. So what do you mean by zero in terms of they don’t have to build the buildings, they have to buy the land. What we’re doing now is $130,000,000 high school project that is not being shouldered by.
[01:21:20] Did you
[01:21:20] David Hunt: say 130?
[01:21:21] Troy Van Vliet: 130,000,000.
[01:21:22] David Hunt: 130,000,000.
[01:21:23] Troy Van Vliet: Including the land.
[01:21:24] David Hunt: 130,000,000 is what that cost.
[01:21:27] Troy Van Vliet: Wow. So that’s what it’s appraised at when it’s finished. So the land is That’s not a sale project. No, the land itself is $30,000,000
[01:21:35] David Hunt: And that’s St. John Paul II. St. John Paul II.
[01:21:38] Troy Van Vliet: South Surrey. New schools opening a couple months. The new campus has been open since 2015, but a couple of months.
[01:21:45] David Hunt: That is a serious budget.
[01:21:47] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, no, it’s huge. It’s a massive, massive undertaking. That’s what the general public doesn’t realize in terms of how much it actually saves
[01:21:55] David Hunt: the taxpayer.
[01:21:56] Troy Van Vliet: It’s not shouldered by the taxpayer at all. Zero. And what I mean by zero, like nothing. Had to get on a 10 acre parcel, had to give back about two acres in setbacks and roads. So at three and a half million dollars an acre, that’s $7,000,000 that goes right off the top.
[01:22:13] That goes back to the community, goes
[01:22:16] David Hunt: back to the shelter.
[01:22:17] Troy Van Vliet: Plus we had to build the roads.
[01:22:20] David Hunt: Plus we had to hook up the sewer. Plus we got to
[01:22:21] Troy Van Vliet: put in the traffic lights. We got to put in the bus stops all on public land.
[01:22:24] David Hunt: So we have to
[01:22:25] Troy Van Vliet: do that, put up the fences, put up the boulevards, put up the sidewalks, put in plant the trees all in the city property. We got to do all of that. And that was another roughly 12,000,000. So, right out of the gate giving back two acres at 7,000,000 plus 12,000,000. 17 or $19,000,000 worth of infrastructure that we give back to the public that we
[01:22:47] David Hunt: have After to you paid for it.
[01:22:48] Troy Van Vliet: After we paid for it. So, we got to pay for all that. And then we’ve got build the school, you know. So now we’ve got another, you know, X amount that gets spent on just building the infrastructure for the school. So that’s huge.
[01:23:00] David Hunt: And may I ask how much of
[01:23:01] Troy Van Vliet: that is debt financed versus? Yeah, we’re probably gonna be, well, of the whole project, we’re gonna be rough 50%.
[01:23:13] David Hunt: Okay, but that’s 50 We’ll
[01:23:17] Troy Van Vliet: let me see here. From our appraisal amount, it’d be a little over 50%.
[01:23:23] David Hunt: Okay, that’s some amazing fundraising.
[01:23:25] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, it’s amazing fundraising, you know, and it’s incredible planning. I tip my hat to the archdiocese because they bought land
[01:23:32] David Hunt: long time time ago. Okay. Thinking ahead of that.
[01:23:34] Troy Van Vliet: So it’s 30,000,000 today. That’s not what they paid for. But that’s some
[01:23:38] David Hunt: legit fundraising to raise that much. Yeah, I live in that area. Like that’s yeah. Wow.
[01:23:44] Troy Van Vliet: Land is not cheap there. Wow. So it’s not Vancouver prices, but it’s still not free. And we’re in green space out there. There’s no sewer there.
[01:23:51] The only reason, here’s the one favor that the city of Surrey granted us is that we could build there without a sewer and we could at our own expense to the tune of $2,000,000 go two kilometers down 20 Fourth Avenue, wrap it up all the way to 160 Eighth to do a temporary sewer hookup. That’s temporary because when the sewer eventually does come, we’re gonna have to pay to hook up to the permanent sewer when it comes there as well. But it could be another ten years before sewer is there. So, we had to do it. I mean, we’ve been waiting forever for a sewer to come.
[01:24:20] It’s not gonna come. And the waterline, we had to do that. Put the city waterline in for them so that everybody will benefit from as they hook up to the new citywide. See,
[01:24:29] David Hunt: but here’s the thing. If funding followed students, so if you think of what’s the allocation per student and the number, it’s been a few years since I’ve looked at this number, there’s a study I did in 2021 called Funding All Students where my colleague anointing Momo Henai, he’s a brilliant economist. We went through every single province and working out the cost of the taxpayer per student. And the rough it’s gonna be different for every province, but roughly this was in 2021, But roughly it was $9,000 per student was what it worked out to. And I know some, there are reports out there that have different numbers, but again, the assumptions you plug in and what you’re controlling for.
[01:25:04] But we put it at $9,000 per student. So if you think of that, if that money followed you to the student, if that money follows students to their school, the best fit and to what made most sense for their family and for them. Yeah, like it’s what you just described. So risk you guys are taking, you’re not a business, this isn’t a for profit operation. The tuition you’re gonna, I would assume you’re gonna keep it as cheap as you possibly can because it’s a ministry of the parish or the diocese.
[01:25:38] But then think of the demand. So every new school that I hear about, especially the elementary schools at Corpus Christi, our parish. At Corpus Christi, before the thing was built, if I’m not mistaken, there was already a waiting list. And same thing, Vancouver Christian School, they built a new building, same thing. I think they hadn’t even kept the ribbon and there was already a waiting list.
[01:25:58] And they thought they were doubling capacity at both of those schools. So the demand is there, but the risk as well, it just is extraordinary expenses. And they’re offering a better education. They’re serving the community. Society greatly benefits.
[01:26:12] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. But it’s funny in the online comments we get with some of them, I mean, 95% of it’s all positive, you know, this is a great thing. But some of the comments that you get, like in terms of, you know, there shouldn’t be any funding for Catholic schools or there shouldn’t be any funding for independent schools.
[01:26:26] David Hunt: And and those same people will complain about the portables at their local public school and that they’re overcrowded. In case you wanna complain about the overcrowding at your school, you won’t support the building of other schools.
[01:26:36] Troy Van Vliet: I think it’s if it’s not 400, it’s close to 400 portables just in the city of Surrey, though. In the city of Surrey, there’s 85,000 kids K to 12. So in the city of Vancouver, there is about 50 or 55,000 kids K to 12. There’s way more out in Surrey. And we have four Catholic high schools in the city of Vancouver and we only had one in Surrey.
[01:26:57] So, that’s where it’s like, okay, we’re a little bit behind.
[01:27:00] David Hunt: It’s a big disparity there.
[01:27:02] Troy Van Vliet: Archbishop Miller was a great supporter, of course. So, the archdiocese did support financially and had the land. But we did a different model though. So, we’ve gone back to the parents because it’s been a parent led initiative from day one of this whole project. So, it wasn’t an archdising led initiative.
[01:27:20] Which is
[01:27:20] David Hunt: interesting because typically, so just again, going back to my evangelical roots, if we go back to the 1970s and maybe even to the 1980s, there were a ton of schools that popped up that were church schools. Yeah. Where you’d have a church and then they’d have often K-twelve schools. The only one that is left in British Columbia, there were tons of them. The only one that’s left where it’s still run by the church, the church plays an active role, and it’s not merely the school renting the campus or whatever, is the one I grew up in, Regent Christian Academy, and what’s called Bible Fellowship Church and now Horizon Church, where the school is still a ministry of the church and it’s thriving, just doing extraordinarily well on every level.
[01:28:01] That hasn’t happened because usually
[01:28:05] Troy Van Vliet: We play Regent in sports.
[01:28:06] David Hunt: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But very often what has happened with the various Christian schools that are not Catholic is they’ve been parent led. But the challenge with that is once all your kids grow up, there isn’t interest anymore. It’s the same problem you have politically with getting any significant change in the educational space that doesn’t just follow the path that the bureaucrats want to take it on.
[01:28:29] The challenge is as a ballot issue, almost so every single voter can relate to school in some way because everyone went through it at some point, but very few presently have an interest in the education system. Where if you think of smaller and smaller families, all the rest of it, there’s very few that have a direct interest in the education space, which is why it’s rarely the top ballot box issue. But then likewise, the challenge with the parent led school is keeping that vision alive, passing it down to those who have similar passion. Because to launch a school, the amount of work you’ve put into it and all the fundraising involved to then pass it to the next set of parents while keeping continuity there. Yeah, that has proven to be a challenge with non Catholic Christian Well,
[01:29:16] Troy Van Vliet: it’s funny in the South Surrey area too, we looked at it and we said, look at how many schools have popped up like White Rock Christian in the time that we’ve owned the land.
[01:29:25] David Hunt: The big building project they did.
[01:29:28] Troy Van Vliet: White Rock Christian did it, popped up. Southridge popped up in meantime. If you go further into Surrey Pacific Academy’s popped up.
[01:29:37] David Hunt: Diamond on high-ten.
[01:29:38] Troy Van Vliet: There’s so many that have popped up, you know, and so the pitch went to the archdiocese is like, what are we doing? You know, we have these great elementary schools because they’re attached to parishes. So all of them, all the elementary schools are built by the parish. And then the high schools, the regional high schools are built by the parishes pitching in in that region. So, they’ll have one high school, maybe five elementary schools that feed into the high
[01:30:04] David Hunt: school. And
[01:30:06] Troy Van Vliet: then there’s the congregational schools like St. Thomas More in Burnaby, Vancouver College and Little Flower Academy. And now there’s us. We’re kind of a hybrid. It just we came up with this because it’s a different funding model because the old funding model wasn’t working anymore.
[01:30:24] You know, and quite frankly, in my humble opinion, we’ve always, I guess, I don’t know, had pride or felt like our schools always had to be as low as possible in tuition, which you never you don’t want to crank out tuition prices, but realistically, they’re not paying. You can’t upgrade a school because they’re falling apart. It’s because, we gotta keep our tuition so low. It’s like, well, we need a building. So, I mean, why does our building have to be so humble?
[01:30:57] And so anyway, I’m of the belief, you know, when our tuitions are half of even the Christian schools or less than half a third of some of the Christian schools, it’s like, what are we doing here? And they’re just on the other side of the fence, in the case of White Rock Christian versus literally over the fence,
[01:31:16] David Hunt: you can throw
[01:31:17] Troy Van Vliet: a rock. And it’s like, we’re starting to see tuition might be 3,000 and change or something like that for a year. And White Rock Christian could be 10,000 for kindergarten. You’re like, okay, what’s the difference here?
[01:31:35] David Hunt: In your defense and in the Catholic school’s defense, White Rock is a wonderful school. They’ve become an elite school and it’s not accessible anymore for so many families.
[01:31:46] Troy Van Vliet: So, now our tuition at St. John Paul is similar to White Rock Christians now. And that’s what it costs to operate a school. And if you want the big school with all the bells and whistles, that’s what it costs. It’s not because we’re pocketing a bunch of money.
[01:32:06] David Hunt: And the teachers probably all feel underpaid already.
[01:32:09] Troy Van Vliet: Exactly. So, now what we have to do to make it accessible is we have to have a strong bursary program, which is what we’ve done. We just said, look, there’s our founding principal, Mr. Lorre, he said that from the very beginning, he says he will come in and start up the school with us. But he says on one condition, he goes, we are not going to turn any families away for financial reasons.
[01:32:26] Like if they want to come to our school and they fit in our school. So, that’s something that we’ve made sure we’ve held true to that so far. And we’ll keep doing that, too. We’ll make sure that we have a strong we have two fundraising programs every year just for the bursaries alone, just say, look, we want to make sure all of the families are welcome here. Then you have be humble enough to ask and some people aren’t.
[01:32:47] And it’s like, well, I can’t fix that, you know, but what I can do is make it accessible. You know, that’s something that we can make sure we do.
[01:32:54] David Hunt: But the outcomes data. So, in the Cartus education survey, there are many iterations of that. The one that teases out the independent Catholic school advantage the most would be 2016, just in terms of public facing data that’s presented there. And take your pick of outcome, whether it’s faith formation, family formation, academic outcomes, career advancement, giving back to the community, volunteerism, civic engagement, keep going down a long list. The independent Catholic schools create superior graduates.
[01:33:27] Wow. And especially if you wanna compare them to public schools. Like it’s not an understatement to say a night and day difference in terms of, and that’s after controlling for family background. And for everything you can control for, so you know the school effect. And then again, goodness of fit, look at best study, a good fit by Katherine Bukolic, Kennecardo’s study showing how important fit is and why for anyone who has the means to support a student or two or 10 or 20 or 100, just to help them with their tuition, critical it is for those who can’t afford these schools to be in them.
[01:34:05] If they’re serious about Catholicism, because that is an important point in terms of, again, just as far as this data is concerned, that’s the case being made. But it’s just extraordinary. The last one, is the classical difference. And I know within the current Catholic space, K to 12, historically the Catholic schools were classical schools. That isn’t as much the case anymore, but you are starting to see movement in that direction.
[01:34:29] Troy Van Vliet: And
[01:34:30] David Hunt: that again is where we can once again control. So we’ve controlled for Catholic versus secular school that are apples to apples, both public. We can then control for Catholic types. So public Catholic versus private Catholic. Okay, now let’s control one more time for those that are private schools and independent schools, as we call them here in British Columbia.
[01:34:48] Columbia, those who are Catholic independent and non classical, just your typical pedagogical approaches that are twenty first century, whatever, versus a classical approach. So the great books tradition, trivia, rhetoric, grammar and logic, But those that take that approach, again, night and day difference in terms of who their graduates, who they grew up to be. Truly extraordinary.
[01:35:24] Troy Van Vliet: That’s a study I’m sure. Is there a boiled down version of that?
[01:35:29] David Hunt: The most successful one would be it’s called Good Soil. It’s not Catholic explicitly. This is looking at Christian classical schools. But I know from being in this space that the Catholic results are not only similar, but superior. But this looks at comparing the association of Christian classical schools.
[01:35:49] So the Protestant schools, many of them Presbyterian, but comparing them to all the rest of the Cardis education survey. And this was done by Davis Sekenkat, University of Notre Dame. And yeah, it’s beyond extraordinary, the comparisons. And I know the Catholic results are even stronger. Do
[01:36:09] Troy Van Vliet: you have something that we should probably ask? Well, we can talk offline on that in terms of getting some of that information, that something would be interesting to put, like I said, a boiled down version of that, even on our website, even something that could be said, you know, when people are considering sending their kids to a Catholic school, this is something to take into consideration that here’s proof of outcome.
[01:36:28] David Hunt: Well, and an understanding of what education is. And this is again, I think where we often get lost is everyone quote unquote believes in education and we got to support education. But then, well, what do you mean by education?
[01:36:41] Troy Van Vliet: It’s not just your math score.
[01:36:43] David Hunt: But it seems like it should be so obvious that we can no longer define it. And what is education? If we have a room of 400 education experts, they’ll all give us a different definition of what education is. And if we just go back to basics in the beginning, go back to ancient Greece, where the Greek word for education that’s used is, I can’t pronounce it, it was like paideia or something like that, P A I D E I A. And that’s the Greek word for education.
[01:37:10] But then if we look into that and we tease out with what the literal meaning of that word is, it’s the cultivation of culture. Okay, well, that kind of makes sense because what is education? Was it Chesterton? I mean, maybe misquoting, but the passing, it’s the soul of one generation passing to the next. That’s what education is.
[01:37:31] And it’s the cultivation of culture. Christopher Dawson, probably the greatest historian of the twentieth century, he said, If you want to understand culture, you got to get to the root. What’s the root word of culture? Cult. You want to understand culture, you need to understand the cult.
[01:37:45] And you think of what a school is, a school cannot be morally neutral because it’s a moral forming institution. You’re shaping children in a particular version of what is and is not true. That’s the point. Like, what is discern truth from error? One plus one does equal two, four plus four equals Yeah.
[01:38:06] Like, it’s not nine, it’s not seven, Not 7.5. We’re not gonna split the difference. Yeah. K? So discerning truth from error.
[01:38:17] K? Same same with with good versus evil. So truth, goodness, beauty. Nietzsche, very brilliantly in the 1890s, got us away from good and evil. He introduced this term that Catholics love to use, values.
[01:38:32] That’s a Nietzschean term because he gets away from good and evil. What’s the word values? Values, you’re a businessman, the value of something is it’s worth. So why there’s a poll that came out, Angus Reid Institute a day or two or three ago asking Canadians whether they would go to war to fight for Canada. Would you risk your life to defend Canada?
[01:38:51] It was something like 20% give or take of 18 34 year olds, unless there was a really good reason. No. So, only 20% would just blindly defend Canada. What it’s showing, it’s not it’s not that they have different values than other people. It’s that, no, the the worth of Canada, when you’ve been told repeatedly, this is a genocidal nation, this is this is unceded territory, this This is an unjust society.
[01:39:18] When that’s all you ever hear, especially those coming through the K to 12 system. Well, sorry, you don’t think this thing has much worth. That’s not a values proposition. You think it’s valueless. So framing things in terms of values is like, no, there is good, there is evil.
[01:39:33] I don’t hold family values. No, I understand what the basic unit of society is. That is not the individual. Now yes, in a court of law, it better be the individual, and justice is blind and we want a justice system based on the individual, but society. If we take 10 guys and we go on a boat and we get shipwrecked in the Pacific, find an island that has a good water source and some goats and some wild rice, Us 10 guys, if you come back to pick us up in one hundred years, we’re all dead.
[01:40:01] There’s no society. If it was 10 gals, there’s no society in one hundred years. The basic unit of society, if you put those 10 individuals together, sorry, there is no society unless they’re particular 10 individuals. And so the basic unit of society is marriage, is family. So that’s not my values.
[01:40:22] That’s beginning from reality. And again, discerning truth from error, discerning what is good from what is not good, discerning what is evil from what is not evil. So every school does this whether they know it or not because schools are moral forming institutions. They are projecting what is good, what is not good, and also what’s beautiful, what’s ugly. They can’t help but do that.
[01:40:45] Because what’s education? It’s the cultivation of culture. And culture comes from the cult. So what cult is forming and shaping them? So in terms of why does Catholic education matter?
[01:40:55] Why does Catholic education matter? Well, if we understand what education is, it’s a pretty basic question. It’s like, being Catholic matters, if the church matters, if the deposit of faith matters, if forming in that culture matters, you better believe Catholic education matters. But it’s a matter of staying focused, staying true to that in the face of every kind of temptation.
[01:41:21] Troy Van Vliet: And there’s a lot of that. There’s a lot of that, my friend. Holy moly. Well, time has flown here and I want to be respectful of your time. And I want to say thank you for coming.
[01:41:33] I think we’ll end on that note and we’ll have to have you back There’s a lot more that we can talk about that we didn’t even get to here today. But what a pleasure learning more about your conversion. That was a treat, unexpected treat.
[01:41:49] David Hunt: Yeah, sorry. That’s not what we
[01:41:50] Troy Van Vliet: can do.
[01:41:50] David Hunt: No, absolutely fantastic.
[01:41:53] rToy Van Vliet: And, there’s a lot more that we can talk about education only getting into it. Can really delve into that. So I hope to have you back and, thank you. Thank you everybody for watching. I include, actually, I encourage you please like or and subscribe, and also please comment if you’ve got questions or anything like that or if you’ve got some comments or more of what you want to see here on, Catholic education matters, I encourage you to do so.
[01:42:20] Mr. David Hunt. Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right.
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