Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to another edition of Big City Catholics. I'm Bishop Robert Brennan, bishop of Brooklyn, serving in Brooklyn and Queens, and thrilled to be with you today. We have a special guest today. I was going to say an old friend, but a longtime friend from the Diocese of Rockville Center. Father Joseph Fitzgerald is pastor of St. William the abbot parish in Seaford, New York, and has a rich history in chaplaincy, vocation, work, youth work. We're going to have a great time talking together, but let's begin with the prayer. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Loving mother of the Redeemer, gate of heaven, star of the sea, assist your people who have fallen, yet strive to rise again to the wonderment of nature. You bore your creator, yet remained a virgin after, as before you who received Gabriel's joyful greeting, have pity on us poor sinners. In the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Father, if it's Gerald. As a south shore Suffolk county boy, I often turn to that prayer during the summer. The whole star of the sea. I got that salt water in my blood.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Absolutely, Bishop Brennan, and for both of us kind of being in from you, from Lindenhurst, me from North Babylon, the town of Babylon, and getting to those beaches when we were young, and the great gift of growing up here on Long island, as you said, that south shore, we got the accent, we got the salt water going on. It's great to see you, and thank you so much for this, the privilege to be with you today.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: Thank you. Thanks for saying yes to this. Father Fitzgerald and I grew up, really, in towns next to one another, though he hails from Brooklyn, right?
[00:01:40] Speaker B: I was. Yeah. So I was born in Brooklyn, and I spent the first five years of my life there. I actually. I was baptized at St. Patrick's Church on September 17, 1971. My uncle Bob baptized me at St. Pat's, and I went to kindergarten there before we made that move, like so many of us, from the city, from the big city out the long island and the farms of Suffolk county. And what a great gift that was. And we made that decision, made that decision because of the Babylon line on the south shore.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: That was the same thing with my dad.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Yep. It was nice and close and convenient and just so blessed to have that experience, both a little bit of the city, which is always in me and in us. And then, of course, growing up in that experience and going to St. Joseph's, just. You were at OPH, and I was just down the road at St. Joseph's in Babylon.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: And so we grew up nearby one another. I have a few years in age ahead of you, but I really only came to know you when I was already ordained a priest and you were serving as youth minister at Our lady of Papa that you will help in Lindenhurst.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: That's right. I moved south after college to Atlanta, and there was an experience which I think we'll probably talk a little bit with the Olympics. But after the Olympics, I started doing youth ministry at the program life teen and Montana Hamilton, who is just such a great example of a shepherd and pastor and a humble, humble servant who recognized for him there was maybe, I'd say, a lack of comfort to jump in with the youth experience, but he was humble enough to say, hey, let's create a program or hire youth ministers. And myself, Todd Lemieux, we were entrenched in that. And so many times you were so generous coming back to celebrate that mass for the youth and then the different experiences. And then you were encouraging me to enter the seminary at that time because I felt pulled. And we had those great dominican sisters that were there, Sister Catherine, Sister Anthony, who again helped to form you so well, and me so well in that wonderful experience at OOPh.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: To this day I get cards and notes from Sister Anthony Turenne, whereas on the anniversary of ordination, she's so faithful and so encouraging.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: It was almost like a gene, a special gene that the sisters had. They could almost see and say, hey, let me just offer that little bit of encouragement. And both of them were so good to us and to me and to our families.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: Right.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: And to our families. Oh, my goodness. Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: So you're a priest of the diocese of Rockvillescenti. You've had some rich history serving in different assignments. But let's go back to the time before because you had a recent experience at the Paris Olympics.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: And you were there as an observer of sorts because you're actually an olympian yourself.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: Yeah. So, Bishop, I played a little bit of everything, the sports, football, basketball and baseball and high school. But I was exposed to european handball or team handball, not the Coney island handball at so many in Brooklyn. In the great diocese of Brooklyn would be familiar. But handball is kind of like most of the world. When you say football, they think of soccer because you kick a ball into a goal. So you have two goals played on a field in a courthouse. So for handball, it was modified. Instead of kicking the ball, you throw it. And so often we'll say it's like water polo without the water. So it kind of encompasses a lot of the athletic movements that you would play in basketball or other sports. And I was fortunate enough to play it. I played college football and baseball, if you remember, and then I didn't get picked up by the New York Giants or the New York jets. So I had the opportunity to try out for the us national team because I'd been exposed to it when I was younger. And in 1993, I made the national team and eventually relocated to Atlanta because that's where the Olympics were in 1996. So I participated in the Olympics. I traveled around the world because handball is not so popular here. We had to go to places. So believe it or not, I've been to over 60 different countries for handball or actually even religious work. But after the Olympics, I played professionally for a short time in Sweden, as did my brother, also, my brother's five and a half years older than me. He played basketball at St. Bonaventure, also played on the national team, also from Brooklyn. And we really had that wonderful experience to both play in Sweden. He was in Stockholm and I was in Gothenburg. And then after some time, I came back to Atlanta. I was teaching and coaching football, still had that wonderful Olympic experience and was still kind of playing a little bit. You know, life changed, and I started to do some youth ministry, and the Lord moved me in just a little bit of a different direction. And as I said, I kept dabbling in the sport. I played for a few more years on the national team level, but God was shifting me away from that experience and using that, but also, you know, bringing me eventually back to Lindenhurst to serve as the youth minister at Ooph and then into Douglaston for my first year of pre theology.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: And as a youth minister, you were very involved with life teen. That was sort of part of the journey that brought you along to Lyndenhurst and then to the seminary.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: That's right. So I was involved in a parish in Atlanta. It would be one of the two hub parishes. One was over in Phoenix, Arizona. That was St. Timothy's. And then down in Atlanta was a parish called St. Anne's. And I actually had the opportunity to come up. I was encouraged to, you know, as I was discerning and moving back to Long island to check out OpH. And I was received so well again by Monsignor Hamilton. He was, I guess, crazy enough to hire me, I guess, and just wonderfully supported by the community. And life teen, for those who might not be as familiar, is a youth program. It's based on kind of relational ministry with the focus on the Eucharist. So bringing teens to the Eucharist through the intercession of our blessed mother Mary. So it's very scriptural, it's eucharistically based, it's got a marian devotion and has had served not only me, but I even know some of the parishes in both the Diocese of Brooklyn and Rockwell center so well.
[00:07:07] Speaker A: And it seems to me that in a sense, that was one of the early apostolic movements. We have so many great things going on right now, like focus, like net and all that, but life team was one of the early movements in this direction, and we see some great, great things happening now.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: It's interesting, I would say that, and you've said this before, I've heard you say it so many times, that the Catholic Church is always missionary. We've always eucharistic and Bible based. And sometimes there are some within the community who are a little bit more comfortable. Right? So you can look at some who are, whether it be in the northeast, it's so cultural for us. We have encountered so many wonderful priests, lay women and men, religious sisters and brothers who do have that charism. And I think that that's been so enhanced with life teen, and again, it's sometimes people will encounter a little bit more of a contemporary style of music that assists in the Eucharist or an adoration. And I've had powerful, powerful experiences of it. And to your point, it was one of the earlier ones, in the beginning of the eighties, where you saw that take off, and it's little by little continue to grow. And I will say this because I'm still involved with life teen on the national level. A huge majority, I think it's 45% of the most recent vocations have come through life teen parishes. So it's just a little plug for them, for some of the pastors who might be discerning something that could assist them, enhancing the mass, which, the mass is always perfect, but also to encourage vocations.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: That's great. And serving not only as parish priests, which is the greatest thing possible, you served as a high school chaplain and then as vocation director and campus ministry. At that time. It was when you were vocation director, we actually collaborated pretty closely. We were both working in the chancery at that time.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: It was such a gift. And I think you. I've said it to you before, but I want to say it again, your support. And sometimes when, you know, coming in with maybe some ideas, because there's so many things within the church that we need to touch on, like whether it be from the very beginnings at baptism to the more mature members of the church. You were always such an advocate when we would do youth, young adult college campuses and just really to evangelize and that collaboration because I would be picking your mind because you, too, are such a wonderful evangelizer. I think there was that a great love for you for that little bit of time down in Long beach, which, who wouldn't want to be a sign down there again, back to that saltwater experience.
[00:09:25] Speaker A: That's right.
They say that the sand gets in your toes on Long beach. It never gets away from your toes.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: So it was, it was such a great time. And I think, and for you, you know, your encouragement, you, of course, with Bishop Murphy with that assignment, to be at Holy Trinity High School, to be at Hofstra and to be involved with vocations, it was just such a gift to serve in that experience for me.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: And now you're doing such important work as pastor at St. William, touching many lives. And I'm looking forward to being there in September because talking about the sisters, the Ursuline sisters are celebrating a great anniversary, and I'll be there for that mass. The Ursuline sisters have a great tradition here in Brooklyn.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: And in Rockville center. They're kind of smaller than the sisters we're used to, the dominican sisters that we grew up with, but they certainly have an important part in the history of these two dioceses.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: When the convent first came here, it really was the place for the sisters to go through novitiate. And so they started here before they would kind of branch out to either other parts of Brooklyn and Rockville center or even up into Connecticut. So it is kind of a great connection here. And they're still here, and they are.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: And Sister Joanne, who's a provincial, had served as the superintendent of schools during our time there. So again, great contributions. But I want to go back to Paris. I had the chance to see you recently. We were celebrating our mutual friend, Archbishop elect Henning. We were anticipating his birthday and then suddenly celebrating his new appointment. But when we were together, you were telling me about your recent visit to Paris and to the Olympics at Paris.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: That was fascinating, and it was an awesome experience. Bishop Barris is involved with this commission, involved in the Vatican, the sarcastic on family life and culture. And so in the fall, he had been contacted about expanding the opportunities for the presence of the church, whether it be at some big events like the World cup or the Olympics. And so he, in the early part of the spring had mentioned to me, Joe, would it be possible, would you be open to possibly going there as a chaplain? And I kind of was jokingly saying, Bishop, if there's actually a chaplaincy, that person was probably decided four years ago, and it's probably some big archbishop or something after doing some investigation, because he was involved with this process, he was contacted with a woman who kind of oversaw the experience in Paris. I mean, obviously there were wonderful priests, religious archbishops, bishops involved. But Isabella Deschantelles, she was the point person with this vision of receiving chaplains to come and participate. By the time we contacted her, believe it or not, the credential piece was already done. So Bishop Barrist said, I still think it's worthwhile, so why don't you go over to observe? Because in four years from now, Los Angeles would be hosting the Olympics in 2028, so that he could possibly bring a report back to your meetings at the bishops conference. And so, to be honest with you, initially, I was really not that into it or excited to go, but, you know, with his encouragement and really with the great feedback from her, they opened up these wonderful doors, even to the point where I was hosted in one of the local parishes. I stayed in a rectory, just interacting with some of the different priests that were there, religiously, women and men who just served so well. And the idea was this, in the history of the Olympics, there's never been official chaplains that were involved within the Olympic village. Now, there have been countries still to this day who have had the tradition of having a chaplain. In fact, I was working with the austrian chaplain. His name was Johannes. He was actually on one of the boats during the opening ceremony, so he was with the rest of the team. I'm like, I didn't get that invitation. How come? You know, how come that didn't happen? But what was beautiful about this experience? Washington, there were a total of 120 chaplains of multi faiths. 40 were specifically catholic, and they were priests and religious and lay women and men. And what they did is they had access into the Olympic village, which was the first time experience. And the goodness about that was as opposed to just randomly meeting somebody, if you're lucky, on the sideline or in the stands at some random event. This gave them some track work, like, they could walk by within the village. They had an actual chapel that was there, which was basically a tent, and they had some rosaries and a few other things to kind of hand out. But the funny thing about it was, and I think I shared with you the other day, it was kind of in the back corner of the Olympic village where the back entrance was, but right next door was the anti doping tent. So a lot of times what would happen is the athletes would walk down and they'd come into the chapel and you'd have these different chaplains from, you know, the muslim community, the jewish community, protestant, hindu, and then there's like twelve or 15 people and one person, person comes in and they would all kind of rush to him and the guy's like, hey, is this the place to do the drug testing? Like, oh, no, that's next door. That's next door. So that was always kind of fun, some of those interactions, but in the general back and forth of going for a cup of coffee or going to grab something, eat. Not the official athletes chow hall, but just, you could walk around the village. The chaplains really interacted well and said, hey, there's going to be mass here, or you could go to this place, to this official chaplaincy. We can pray for you. And that just opened the doors for ministry and evangelization. I will say this, there was a hesitation from some, mostly the french bishops and priests and chaplains that were there because it's so secularized. And I looked up the laws in France, and it's actually concerning because it literally said you couldn't have excessively large crosses, you couldn't have head wear, whether that be for a religious nun or for a Muslim.
Yeah, because I was so surprised by it, and I just looked over the laws just since we spoke the other day, and that's why they were so concerned, because it was, it was almost like proselytizing, where you're forcing a faith on, and that wasn't happening by any means. It was just interacting with people. But, you know, I've come to realize why they were so nervous, because you could get thrown in prison, you know, for this offense against religious liberty. And that's, I mean, that's a big issue. And I didn't realize how bad it was in France. So arriving there, I was received so well. And as you can imagine, there was a lot that happened. And I'll just give you kind quick snapshot. The first thing that we did was the mass of the truce, which involved the truce of ceasefire around the world that has been present really throughout the Olympics. And the only times that it didn't happen, this actual mass was during the big wars and they didn't have the Olympics. So that was the first thing I attended, which was a great honor and privilege.
[00:15:55] Speaker A: Something that I remember Pope Francis was really trying to encourage.
[00:15:59] Speaker B: Exactly. And he spoke about it leading up to it. The pope calling for all of us, trying to pray for peace. But the mayor of Paris was there, the archbishop was there, the president of the International Olympic Committee was there and so many other priests, deacons, religious and lay folks. It was phenomenal. And they had these choirs and it was a beautiful mass. So that was the start of it. It started off on the right foot. Now that was about one week before opening ceremonies. And then leading up to it there were these little events that included prayer games, soccer games and ping pong games. They were called the Holy Games. And that was just awesome to participate in that as well.
[00:16:34] Speaker A: Now, we did talk about some of the unfortunate things that happened during the ceremonies themselves. And you had seen some of that.
[00:16:41] Speaker B: Look, Bishop, I would say that like France, obviously, we've always, often, it's often been referred to as the eldest sister or the eldest daughter of the Catholic Church. So there's been such a presence of Catholicism there. But after the French Revolution, it really was this pendulum that was anti faith. And I would say that they would say anti intellect. We, of course, know that in our faith it's fides at ratio. Faith and reason and intellect. And so the pendulum swung completely a different way. And I recognize that Paris is the home of the nouveau and arts fashion.
But what really surprised me about the opening ceremonies was that there was a disregard of the deep history of Catholicism. And so, for example, and please, I say this with great gentleness, but so often you would think of things you want to advance the woman. Now we know that in christian society and culture, the woman, the blessed Mother, saints have been lifted up and can we improve? Absolutely. Absolutely. But Joan of Arc is like one of the greatest and strongest women in history. There's no mention of that in these opening ceremonies. And again, I know it's nouveau and fashion, but when President Macron said, this is France and there's this expression of the drag queens and obviously that tableau, but even they held up, there was a statue of a. It was a gilded statue of a woman who, and I can't remember her name right now, but it was. It was like the Margaret Sanger, the queen of abortion, was like being presented during the opening ceremonies. And I just kind of said to myself, like, is that the best we can do? And they even said there's like 875 public male statues and there's only three dozen women. And the next day I was at mass and I looked around. I'm like public statues. There's the blessed mother, this St. Margaret Mary alacred. There's St. Teresa le Sueux. They're some of the greatest. The St. Joan of Goddesse. But it didn't fit the narrative, and that was what was really, I'd say, offensive to me. We can talk about the last Supper in a second, but how can you just remove. It's like saying to you, like, oh, my grandparents are those peasants from the three of them that were from Ireland and the one that was from Poland, we're just going to disregard all of our history. I found that to be very offensive.
[00:18:53] Speaker A: So there was that piece, and then the last Supper. I don't know. From this side of the ocean, I heard it being described as, well, you know, this is all part of our values of kindness and tolerance. And I thought, really, where's the kindness?
[00:19:08] Speaker B: Well, and especially it seems like there's this. There's a rejection of religion. And again, I want to be sensitive to this as we interact with people in our parishes, in our lives who would identify in the LGBT community. Right. So we're going to engage people in that wherever they are in their welfare journey. And how have they identified themselves? We're always going to come forth as beloved sons and daughters of God. That's our point of reference. That's our common denominator. And then people will identify in different ways. But when that was held up and then, like, challenged, you know, I did a little bit of research. I was there, right? I was actually there and watched it. Absolutely offensive. And the feedback. And I'm going to blow it again with this because I can't remember the exact quote, but the person who stood in the middle, which would have been the Christ figure, had displayed on their social media, like, I'm the parisian Jesus. Days before leading up to it, there was a sense like this was going to happen. Nobody else knew about it, but that's what this person portrayed. And the other thing is. And you would know this with Spanish, and my french is in that great. But Spanish, it'll make sense. The name of the tableau was, like the Seine. On the Seine. So the Seine river. But the word for supper is also Sen. Like Senna is for Spanish. And so, like, it was intentional. And I think it's like you're, like, mocking my intelligence if you think that in Paris, France, one of the most artistic places on this planet, that this was not intentional. Oh, no, no. You're misunderstanding. And even Dionysus, which was like, if you remember, there was like a platter for those who might have seen it. And when they revealed the platter, there was this blue figure which was supposed to be DionySus, which is the God of excess, of sexuality, of overabundance, food and drink. And what happens at this senate, it's the consumption of them. Well, that's where you mock us. The Last Supper is the consumption of Jesus Christ, who is lord of lords. The true bread that comes down from heaven. We consume that. You're going to tell me that you're not mocking us in that way. So you're so right.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: This is so true. But in a sense, it makes your presence at something like this all the more important. And I think we want to kind of focus on some of the good things that happened. Right? So that's the context that we're living in. We have to go out there and face that world, but also evangelize and transform that point.
[00:21:21] Speaker B: Right. There might be individuals or groups or communities that might respond in an irrational way, and you can fill in however that would be, but not us. Faith and reason. We respond with prayer and discernment. And the beauty is we just made ourselves more visible. And the encounters that happened, whether it be at the village, outside the village, walking through the streets, and then people will see. They would see me. And I was wearing the collar, but I also had a credential. And the credential I had on it was unique to just Olympians. So now I know some people say, like, Father Joe, you're this old guy, you're a former olympian, you're a pastor. Olympian. Yes, but there was one time that I was an olympian. So we had these cool credentials that had some access that other chaplains or other people didn't have. So I would be interacting with current athletes, their family members, people that on the support team, my trainers and coaches and doctors. And they'd say, first of all, like, is that a costume? Like, you know, you're really a priest? And I'm like, yes. And then we would share what sport? And then I would kind of say, hey, you know, in my experience with the Olympics, I'm Joe Fitzgerald. Right? Our team finished 9th out of 120 teams at the 1996 Olympics. And then I went into anonymity. Again. When you have big names like a Michael Phelps or Simone Biles or some of these other folks, and you see the struggle that they had, in some cases, some very difficult times, whether it be depression or inflicting self harm upon themselves or even thinking about suicide. Right. They're very public, and you know them well. Most people don't know the guy, Joe Fitzgerald, who played on the random team. And that's where the gold was, the opportunity to speak to some other people in a similar experience, and they shared, hey, I struggled. I went through a depression. I had a nervous breakdown. I struggled in my relationship with my wife and my kids. And that's where I think that the gold, like the ministry and the mission, really came together after all that other nonsense was there. We had work to do, some very.
[00:23:15] Speaker A: Important work, very serious work, and it kind of lines up with the work we do at home.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: Exactly. And I think that's the beauty of, like, for us as that public witness when we're out, especially wearing our collars, whether it be Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau and Suffolk, there are folks who are culturally catholic and very receptive, and there are some people who have no idea, like, who we are, but the physical presence, whether it be out going to the supermarket or out going for a meal, and the conversations that come that we can evangelize are so important, whether it be in a high stakes experience like the Olympic Games or just walking around the great neighborhoods of Brooklyn and queens, like, how powerful that witness is. And not just us, not just the priests, but all of us who are called to be in our baptism to be holy, striving for holiness with God's grace, and also to be missionary, to be disciples for the Lord.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: Any encounters that were particularly memorable?
[00:24:07] Speaker B: There were a couple. I think that one of the big things that people saw, whether you watched the closing ceremony, Olympics, there were big names, like, Tom Cruise was there, Snoop Dogg was there. I encountered. This would be a long island connection, which was a guy named Flavor Flav who grew up in Roosevelt and Freeport. And I think I shared with you the other day, like, he used to be very well known back in the day, but he's the guy that wears the clock, and he supported the women's water polo team. But, like, he was, like, in character, and I was dressed as a priest, and I pulled him aside and I started talking to him, and we were talking about Long island, and he's like, oh, my sister lives in Babylon. And he was like, hey, father, you know, like, God is good. And you could kind of see, like, there was. He's the character guy, and then there's the real person. So that was nice to have that encounter with him. And then just some of the athletes, like, I think meeting people who are striving for greatness and then having those, you know, individual conversations to just simply say, hey, father, can you pray for me? Oh, the one thing I did was I had a lot of the miraculous medals with me, and I actually went to the chapel of the miraculous medal and said a prayer, blessed them. And most people don't remember this, but in the second olympics, I think it was 2012, when, and Usain Bolt was the fastest man in the world, he actually wore the miraculous medal. And so there was this beautiful encouragement of passing that out to the athletes and just praying for them that whatever that miracle might be, maybe you win the gold, maybe you'll improve. But there was such a receptivity from the Catholics and Christians, you know, of the athletes and some of the other folks that we interacted with. It was pretty awesome.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: That's amazing. That's great. The missionaries of charity, Mother Teresa's sisters there here in Brooklyn, and that's something they do. They carry around miraculous medals. They just hand them out.
[00:25:44] Speaker B: It's a simple way to just kind of say, hey, they have our lady on there and just praying for her grace and protection and, you know, leading people. She always leads people to her son Jesus.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: So, actually, I was in France once in Paris and went to rue du Bac. So that miraculous medal has its origin right there in France, saying Catherine la Barre. And that was probably one of two places where I experienced faith, that people would come in with these intentions and just pour out their hearts in prayers. So in the midst of that whole secular society, in the midst of all of that, there is faith. And I think that's something I've been really focusing on these days, too, especially with eucharistic revival. The national eucharistic procession passed to Brooklyn, and at one point, a woman came over. We were passing the firehouse, and they brought the trucks out and all of that, and they they let us on. And this woman came over and says, you know, bishop, the faith is deep. And I thought about that. I said, you know, I wish it were wider. I wish there were more people.
But where there's faith, the faith is deep. And I think that I've been really focusing on that more and more, saying that's where our job lies, to tap into that depth and to encourage it and to keep igniting or reigniting that flame, because that's where we have the witnesses who then go out and bring others to Jesus.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: Amen. Bishop. And I think that that experience, and I remember watching, like, with the Brooklyn Bridge and all, we watched the social media out here. I know some of our guys came in to be a part of that. I think yes, they did. Yes, I was. But it comes back to, like, the beauty of, like, even thinking about Brooklyn, right? The borough of churches and the history and the soil and the very fabric of who we are. And so often we can talk about the cultural Catholicism of the Northeast, but it's like those embers which that woman said that, like, it's deep and it's just wafting it again and encouraging it again. You know, for us, we need that new revival and restoration. And I think that experience that you all had with the Eucharistic Congress was like, I mean, I was constantly watching from Paris because, first of all, I couldn't sleep and just trying to, like, see all these experiences of what was going on, like, and to be honest with you, if that's going to happen or the experience up in Canada with the knights of Columbus, well, the devil's going to respond, right? The devil's going to come after us. And so it's a spiritual warfare. And they've been trying to pick off all these aspects of what it means to be Catholic, what it means to be family, and it's a just resetting, regrouping. And to know, like, you know, as well, you talk, we read the book, Jesus wins in the end. So it's remaining faithful and re encouraging. And the beauty for you all, and certainly in the diocese of Brooklyn, and we were called to do it in Rockville center, too, is like, is to reinvigorate those longstanding communities. And remind me, Bishop, is it like 19 different languages that Mass has celebrated on the weekends?
[00:28:33] Speaker A: Close to 30.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. So, yeah, I mean, that's the beauty of saying, like, as God desires to move that. And you got a big job, kiddo.
[00:28:45] Speaker A: Let me finish on this note. You did offer a word of encouragement, maybe challenge that we do have Olympics coming up here in four years, and there are some opportunities right here in this country.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Yeah. So the idea would be to encourage, and obviously, you have a little bit more say on this, you, Bishop Barris, Archbishop Henning, because obviously, we're here on the east coast and Los Angeles is on the other side, but it would be to do just that. What can we do to encourage either volunteers or missionaries to go and be a part of this and to get out there and encourage the faith? Because we hold sports like a religion. Well, how can we incorporate our faith? Just like you think about Cyo, we see some athletes who are very, very faithful, but the Olympics come around once every four years. And I will say this. This was you who said this. This wasn't me. But with the coming back off of the eucharistic congress, Bishop Cousins said that.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: It'S going to be looking at 2030.
[00:29:38] Speaker B: Yeah, 2033. It's unlikely that we're going to do that same kind of a big event, but the Olympics are that big event. And so between, in between.
So before the next university Congress, this could be like a setup or preparation for that and to really engage it, whether it be locally for some people are not going to go to Los Angeles for the Olympics, but almost kind of like the Olympic torch goes through the different parts of the country in preparation to go and get lit in Los Angeles. That, that revitalization, there's things that we can do on the local level, in the parish level, in the diocese level to encourage that movement. And then even there might be some people called to do that, say, I'd like to be a missionary. I'd like to go out there and assist, volunteer, or be a part of that team. That's really going to be that presentation, this report that Bishop Aris has me writing to present to him, and then he'll present it to you all and hopefully discern that. But I think that isn't it. So often we talk about, like, look globally, and we want to have these effects nationally, but it's all about local. Like, how are we strengthening our faith? Diving deeper into the Eucharist and even for our young people out there who are watching, whether it be St. Francis prep or, you know, some of the other high schools, like, maybe it's just something small, like offering a prayer as a team. Maybe it's the CYo, like, engagement and saying, like, we're going to keep this balance. We're not going to make the sports a religion, but we're going to bring our faith deeper into the sport and, like, re catechize and restrengthen that. And it starts small, and then, like, you know, you talked about it before, like, our faith is deep. Our faith is deep. And just re encourage that.
[00:31:08] Speaker A: I think we're in for exciting times. On Sunday, we'll hear the gospel. Like I said at the eucharistic revival here in Brooklyn, probably the saddest line in the gospel. Many walked away from Jesus. But you know what? Those who stayed, they said, lord, whom do we turn? And we find that Jesus meets us where we are in the midst of our daily lives and encourages us to continue to follow him. And like those apostles, we try to build up that relationship of trust. I don't think they understood the bread of life discourse better than anybody else in the crowd. But what they did know is they knew that they could trust Jesus. They knew that he would lead them and he would guide them. And so we try to engender that same kind of trust. Father Joe, thank you so much. I love your enthusiasm. It's contagious. You light me on fire. Now, I needed my dose of a conversation with Father Fitzgerald to renew me a little bit as well. So thanks for joining us on big city Catholics.
[00:32:05] Speaker B: Thank you, Bishop.
[00:32:06] Speaker A: And thanks to all of you for joining us for this week's conversation. Join us again next week for another edition of Big City Catholics. Why don't we close? Just asking God's blessing upon us. Lord God, we give you thanks. We thank you for the many ways that you remind us of your presence in our lives and the ways that you call us to share that gift with one another as you walk with us along the way. We ask you to bless all of us in our everyday lives and to help us to bring others to know and love your son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. May the blessing of almighty God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit come upon you, remain with you forever. Amen.
[00:32:48] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:32:48] Speaker A: God bless you and have a wonderful week.
Don't.
