Max Pearson
speaker
1,342 appearances
10 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2025
last heard 11 Apr
Max Pearson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 10 in all, peaking in Jan 2026 with 3.
Appearances
For Michael, who'd visited Poland just a few years before, it was important to show support publicly.
If I wore a solidarity button or a T-shirt, I would have more than likely been arrested over there because when I was there, I remember in 1984, 85, the only place you would see solidarity ephemera and things like that was within the church.
But if you stepped outside wearing something solidarity, you'd have either got thumped over the head or you'd have been arrested and ordered to remove it.
We had the freedom to do it here and also being so far away, we were showing our solidarity with the Poles who were still in the country.
In New Zealand, the Pope has called on world leaders to put ideological issues aside and promote world peace.
Christ's love breaks down the hostility and barriers that keep people divided from one another.
The world was in quite a bit of turmoil in 1986, especially in his homeland and in Europe.
But his message to us was, yes, was to live in peace, live in harmony with each other, but also do not lose sight of your faith.
Michael's faith has led him to a papal audience in Rome with Pope Francis in 2018, but the open-air mass with Pope John Paul II at Auckland Domain more than 30 years before remains a highlight of his life.
It really awakened in me two things, an evaluation of my faith, which I've kept going, and also it awakened an interest in my culture.
Sort of never really felt an affinity with the Polish culture.
It was just sort of something different.
We had a funny surname, but it meant a lot more than that after this visit, because this visit pulled people together.
Even though I was a Catholic and sort of had almost what you might say a right to be there,
And the same like being a Polish Catholic, having a right to be there.
It was just so special to be there and to be part of the group that was involved with the dance, wear the national costume and things.
I know it sounds maybe a bit tokenist, but to me it was very special.
I felt very privileged to be there.
Michael Yarko was speaking to Jen Dale.
Pope John Paul II crisscrossed the globe during his papacy and remains the only pontiff to have visited New Zealand.
Showing 121–140 of 1,342 · page 7 of 68
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