They told me the church was my mother. I learned that at school, and in the seminary. ‘Holy Mother Church’, they said. But I soon discovered that she was a bitch.
This was one of the first things Father Bob Maguire ever said to me in a background interview I did with him in 1990 as part of my research for a television documentary about youth homelessness.
I guffawed, and I could see by the sparkle in his eyes he knew he had drawn me into his comical, satirical, deeply serious take on the world – and that I was intently listening.
