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St John the Baptist Catholic Church in Kemptown hosted the latest in a series of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) Conferences on Sunday (22 March), with keynote speaker Fr Toby Lees OP, a member of the Order of Preachers (known as the Dominicans) and Priest Director of Radio Maria England, joined by attendees of all ages at The Fitzherbert Community Hub in the grounds of the church.

The Conference, “Reclaiming Humanity, Attention and Love in a Fragmented World” explored “acedia” - also referred to as “the noonday demon” - a profound malaise characterised by sadness, which can include an aversion toward the divine good and the spiritual life, leading to apathy and the paralysis of will.

Reflecting on the challenges posed by the “change of era” identified by Pope Francis in 2015, Fr Toby highlighted that the pace of modern life, the speed of technological advancements such as AI, and society’s preoccupation with constant entertainment and noise has become rooted in one reality – acedia - which has impacted our spiritual good and mutated, on a cultural level, to become the disease of our age, with 1 in 4 ‘Gen Z’ young adults (those born between 1997-2012) experiencing a mental illness.

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“God promises abundant life, our era offers abundant entertainment, we know deep meaning is not found there or online, it’s in God, and so we are both entertained and sad. Our age hungers for novelty and, as a result, we look for a way out of our commitments, with worship - which involves sacrifice, virtue, and prayer - feeling too demanding”

“Our deepest most profound need is to deep worship, not be entertained yet, as a result of acedia, we become unable to commit to the one thing that would bring us greatest happiness, because it feels like we’re giving up too many opportunities.”

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Writing in The Flight from God (1934), Swiss philosopher Max Picard stated that while in earlier ages individuals had turned away from God, the surrounding culture remained centred on Him. Now, in a time of unprecedented change, we live in an atheistic society, with the world “in flight” from God and near permanent distraction and entertainment - the internet, television and streaming services, and mobile phones - creating a “freedom that imprisons and a culture of acedia through ambivalence and FOMO” (fear of missing out)."

Speaking during the second half of the conference Fr Toby highlighted the steps needed to combat acedia and the “culture of distraction and endless scrolling online” by developing the spiritual practice of attention:

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“Comfort and convenience shouldn’t be our expectation of life, they can be a barrier to true meaning. The internet is a tool of distraction monetised through ‘clicks’. Scrolling online causes us to buy things that we don’t need or visit places online that we know are not good for us. Attention to neighbour and God are the same act, to attend to another’s actual reality - to receive them as they are - is an act of love that brings us closer to God.”

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Highlighting the importance of cultivating a habit of perceptive awareness, Fr Toby emphasised the importance of avoiding acedia through discipline, practice, and commitment: truly paying attention and listening (which is not easy!) and making time for silence so that we can hear the “still, quiet voice” of God.

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“We can bring everything to God: silence - frees us from distraction, we must learn not to feel vulnerable in it. Noise gets into us, it forms our soul, we must recognise our own dignity and the dignity of others and to do so, we must give people our attention fully and absolutely. Attention is a very precious gift; pay attention to your family, people around you, your city and God, and you will find everything you are looking for.”

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Joanna Gilbert, lay leader and co-ordinator of the Brighton & Sussex University Catholic Chaplaincy team, helped to convene the conference. Speaking during the event she emphasised the importance of Fr Toby’s Paper in understanding how we as Catholics can live a flourishing human life and give witness and wisdom to others. Highlighting the importance of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) she said:

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“Today has provided an important opportunity to share some of the richness of Catholic theology and explore how we can shine the light of the Gospel, and its wisdom, to every corner of the world. We hope today offers a lasting a source of inspiration and helps us, in concrete terms, to be apostolic witnesses to the Gospel.”

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Fr Toby was born in London and studied law at Cambridge University, going on to work as a solicitor in a city law firm. After discerning a call to the priesthood, he specialised in moral theology in Rome, writing his thesis on the passion of sorrow and the vice of acedia in St Thomas Aquinas. His particular academic interest is the crossover between moral theology and psychology. Fr Toby was appointed Priest Director of Radio Maria England in 2022, Radio Maria is a 24-hour radio station and is part of a worldwide network of more than 80 stations on all continents, offering a Catholic voice of hope and encouragement. You can find out more about here: W: radiomariaengland.uk‍