“Natural and native” – meet Brother Ade

Diploma student – and Irish Capuchin Franciscan Friar – Ade Green talks about his journey to joining a religious order, the revelations of study at CMS, and how to live hopefully in eco-crisis.

Ade, can you tell us a bit about your background, your life of faith?

Yes. Well, I grew up in Plymouth where my parents, John and Judith, had settled after my dad’s time in the RAF was finished. At this time my sister and I went to Sunday services at our local Anglican church, St Pancras’.

My dad is Catholic but following the death of his father when my dad was in his early teens, he became, in his words, very “angry with God”. However, he did rediscover faith, and my mum was then received into the Catholic Church, and we all were regular churchgoers from then on. In my teens, not anger but disappointment led me to ‘forget’ about faith.

Looking back, I can see that I never really stopped believing in God and that Jesus was his Son who had made all things new, but I just couldn’t bring myself to be a Christian! I found out later that I already was.

I went on a bit of a spiritual pilgrimage, taking in the sights, sounds, and teachings of Buddhism, Hinduism, Communism, Indigenous spirituality, among others, and ended this seeking and searching at a Catholic church in Bristol called Holy Cross. In all the other places I had visited there seemed to be something missing, at Holy Cross I realised it was somebody not something – it was Jesus.

As I feel like I mature in my faith life, the more I am able to see that none of the experiences I had on this pilgrimage are wasted or to be rejected. They enrich who I am, and the way in which I walk in faith.

In 2015, I became a Capuchin Franciscan, by which I mean I joined a religious order. I am now perpetually professed, and forever more to be known as Brother Ade!

In more recent times I have stumbled my way through a sort of ecological conversion. I was asked by the order to spend some time at our place in Donegal, Ireland, called Ards Friary. (An answer to prayer. Four years before this I had spent a little time there and prayed that I might get to live there at some point.)

It was at that time that an awareness of my own disconnect from creation had begun to sprout. I am now convinced of our ecological nature as being something created. We are natural and native by God’s intention. This has deepened my faith and changed the way I see and act.

I understand that your Capuchin Order, Franciscan base in Ireland is expanding, but not with people, can you tell us more and paint us a picture of this rural idyll and how it related to your faith?

Aye!! In the last while we have welcomed a small herd of Dexter cows to the Friary.

Our place, Ards Friary, is situated in 240 acres of upland coastal land. This land, once under the ownership of Anglo-Irish landlords, has seen substantial landscaping, and is a mixture of woodland, farmland, wild coastal land, and parkland.

County Donegal is rugged and beautiful, with great mountain ranges, deep oak woodlands, and flocks and herds munching away. Ards Friary is flanked on one side by woodlands with a long and ancient oak wood heritage, and on the other by Sheep Haven Bay, an inlet of the North Atlantic, where we often see seals, and (less often) dolphins playing among the surfers. It extends out to Pointe nagCappal, a wilding area that opens out to views of the North Atlantic and leads to the rest of the peninsula managed by the Irish Forestry service (Coillte) which is around 4,000 acres of forest and coast.

In 2021 – I think – I was asked to pack my bags and head over to Donegal. There was no real plan for me there. I was to spend the last year of my formation there, I suppose to make sure I was ready to commit myself for life to the Capuchin way.

After a little while of being there, I was handed the proposed Land Management Plan that had been drawn up as part of a broader regeneration plan for our holistic life in Ards Friary. I was asked if I could learn how to make this plan a reality.

This is where I began a deep dive into Ecology, Regenerative Farming, Agrarianism, Permaculture, Woodland Management (even getting myself certified as a chainsaw operator).

I began to see where my belief that I am a created child of God and my belief that I am a member of the community of beings of Earth connected, and what this meant for us as a community.

It became clear to me that the best reason to respond to the poly-crises facing us at the moment was that we are both natural and native beings, and that this is what God created us to be. Human Beings, part of a great Ecology of Creation. This has led me to believe that a significant part of my vocation is to farm, and that farming is a spiritual life common to all human cultures.

I know from conversations with you that you certainly seem to have a handle on all things green. Can you share some of your environmental and creation care thinking with us?

Well, as I mentioned earlier, I am now convinced that the human person is both a natural being, and a native one. This means that we are meant to be part of nature; not an outsider, but an insider, and that our home is the earth and heaven, and these are not exclusive. So, to care for creation, the first commandment of God to humans in the Bible, is actually the most natural thing for us to do. To discover this reality is to be truly humble (of the earth), and I suppose gives us a deep reason to change the way we see and act.

One question that always emerges when I think about this kind of stuff is: “If we are natural and native, and it is natural for us to look after the place we are native to, why don’t we?”

It’s a good question, and not an easy one to answer if we are looking for a universal answer that is true for the whole history of humanity. For instance, we can suggest that we are currently dealing with the consequences of a post second world war scarcity mentality, but this doesn’t really explain the whole of the development of industrial agricultural practices that have contributed significantly to the mess we find ourselves in.

I do wonder if the Genesis story of Adam and Eve illustrates for us something fundamental. That we humans seem to not trust in the abundance promised and brought into being by God. Adam and Eve took rather than received. This is something we can see in the world right now – a tendency to take what we want rather than receive what we need!

So, for me, it is important to change those actions in our daily lives that contribute to pollution, climate change, poverty. It is also vital for the future generations that we seek our own naturalness and nativeness, so that we inhabit our place in creation in such a way that we pass on health, joy, and possibility. The first without the second will not be sufficient to heal the wounds we have inflicted, and to look forward to an abundant future for all.

For us Franciscans, and I think for all of us, one way to express all this is that we are brothers and sisters in Creation, and with all beings human and non-human, and when we act from this, we will only be a force for the good of all.

So, on to CMS, please remind us about the course you have been on at CMS and how you are finding it?

This year I have been taking the first year of the Diploma in Theology, Mission, and Ministry.

There are two aspects of studying at CMS that are really important to me. The first is the actual study itself, the content and methodology of teaching are new ways of doing theology for me. The emphasis on theology and praxis as partners has really opened up for me a different way of approaching the intellectual foundations of my own work.

Second, the community at CMS, admin, tutors, and students, are, in my experience, authentic in their desire to connect, support, and educate. There is not a sense that this is just a place to learn, it is also a place to build friendships and community.

What has been especially significant for you in your studies here at CMS? I understand you are now going to be studying the MA with us, so there must have been some lightbulb moments?

Most definitely. I think the most significant is the Practical Theological approach. Exploring practical theology has really opened my mind, and heart, to theology in a new way. I suppose, in some sense I was reluctant to take on theological study, as it didn’t seem too relevant to the kinds of work that have emerged in recent years. I am also a stubborn believer that knowledge does not need validation: if something is true it doesn’t matter to me who says it. (I think St Augustine says something similar in the Confessions!)

Discovering an approach to thinking theologically that also takes seriously experience and practice has been almost revelatory for me. Studying the MA is the next step in this process.

Finally, Ade, how can we pray for you?

Maybe we can pray together to discover our natural and native truth, and to be humble enough to accept our place in creation, and to act as brothers and sisters to each other – human and non-human.

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