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. We're in for a real treat today. I have two guests from religious congregations celebrating significant anniversaries here in the United States, but specifically here in Brooklyn. Sister Marianne Lopiccolo is a member of the congregation, a sister of the Sisters of Charity of Halifax, and she's also our delegate for religious here in Brooklyn and Queens. Sister Joanne Callahan is a longtime friend. We were colleagues together in Rockville Center. Joanne is the provincial leader for the Ursuline sisters. They just celebrated their anniversary here in the United States, but specifically in Queensland. We take a minute to place ourselves in the hands of God and ask for God's blessings. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. We hear in the gospel this week after jesus explains the sufferings, difficulties that they must all undergo. And the disciples were arguing with each other over who is most important. Jesus says to them, if anyone wishes to be the first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all. And taking a child, he placed them in their midst and putting his arms around it, said to them, whoever receives this child such as this in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives not me, but the one who sent me. Lord God, we ask you to bless us this day. We thank you for the people in our lives who show that servant mentality to help us to know your love, your presence in our lives. We thank you for those who dedicate themselves to the education and the care of our children who pass on that gift of faith and the experience of being loved. And we ask you to instill that within all of us we may be filled with your joy and bear that joy to others through Christ our Lord. Amen. So, Sister Joanne, we were together, actually, we were all together a couple of weeks ago, but it was your congregation that was celebrating the 100th anniversary in the United States. And while I was touched by you personally with the Ursuline ministry, we certainly had a great presence of the Ursulines in the Diocese of Rockville center. But it all began here in Queens.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: It did.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: Would you like to tell us about those beginnings?
[00:02:35] Speaker B: Sure. Our congregation is international, began in Belgium. We celebrated our 200th anniversary in 2018. Our sisters, beginning in Belgium. In 1903. They went to India, 1914, to Canada, 1924, to the US, 1955, to the Congo. Our beginnings began on September 8, 1924, at Nativity, the Blessed Virgin Mary in Ozone park. The pastor had prayed in Italy that he would get a religious congregation to come to his school. And sisters came from Canada and began the mission nativity. We celebrated 100 years of the day on September 8, 2024. It was just a wonderful, wonderful experience to celebrate 100 years. Religious from across the diocese came. So as one person said to me, the singing was great because the sisters all knew the songs. I was also with Bishop on Sunday at Our lady of Grace in Howard beach for the 100th anniversary of the parish where we began there 99 years ago. And we were there until about 15 years ago with our sisters working in the school in both places and expanded then to Long island, to Connecticut. We had missions in Virginia for a while, Vermont. Some sisters worked in Louisiana with the poor. And then we have sisters in hospital ministry and have in hospice and campus ministry, young adult facilitators. But the celebration, I mean, from beginning to end, I said from the moment I woke up in the morning a week ago Sunday, and the weather was beautiful.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: It was a great day. Oh, beautiful.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: And that reception afterwards, seeing former sisters who were delighted to be there with us and former students, it was really just a great, great day and much to be grateful for. I always say anniversaries are meant to look at the past, celebrate the present, and look forward to the future and hope. And I think our celebration did just that.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: I would say that's exactly right. And, you know, you were talking about the different missions. One of the mission, a lot of them were around education, but you also had a mission of spirituality. One of the great missions on the, was a retreat center.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: Yes. In both blue point and at Tabor in Oceanside.
[00:04:48] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: We had retreat centers. And some of our sisters are still very involved in giving spiritual direction, and.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: That'S a great gift to the church. And in Blue point, it was kind of a, you were doing both. You had a retreat center, and then you were caring for some of the sisters there, right?
[00:05:01] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: And, you know, Nativity parish, you mentioned we were at a lady grace this week. Nativity parish celebrated an anniversary last year. That's when we first started talking about your celebration. It's when you told me that you were coming up on 100 years here. But you, you were at the celebration for the anniversary of Nativity because of your connection there. And the sisters were there for a good long time. I think one of, if we could name drop a little bit, one of the more celebrated Ursuline sisters in New York, at least, was Sister Marguerite Tory, who died about two years ago.
[00:05:32] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:05:32] Speaker A: And the sisters were there for a long time, recently the schools and the parishes in Ozone park came together. So it's one regional school and adjoined parish nativity stans. But again, the whole thing was built on these religious foundations. And, Sister Marianne, you're about to celebrate this week. I'll be with you. You're going to be celebrating 100 years in the United States as well, right?
[00:05:59] Speaker C: Yes, we are. On Saturday, we're celebrating 100 years in the Diocese of Brooklyn is where we began. But the history goes back. This is also a year for us because it's our 175th since our founding. And Halifax, it's an interesting full circle because the four sisters that were sent to Halifax in 1849 were New York Sisters of Charity living in Brooklyn who went and opened that mission. And then after some years, they knew that there was no future there unless they had a separate novitiate and foundation there for the congregation to grow. So there was a separation after that. But the irony of it is that the sisters came back to Brooklyn. The first sister who came from Halifax, they were four, so they said it was kind of like a refund. We sent four in the beginning and we got four back. But those four sisters went to Our lady of Angels in 1924, and within a couple of weeks, they had 350 students in that school. And if you know the history of Ola, it became one of the largest, if not the largest school in the diocese with thousands of kids. Thousands, you know, so we left a mark there. We still hear from people who would taught there and say, oh, we knew sister so and so, or she was great. And I think that happens in all the places where we've been. We opened about nine or ten schools in Brooklyn and Queens.
The original Bishop Riley High School then, which became St. Francis Prep now. But that was a milestone for us. Seton hall high school.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: I knew people who went to Seton hall. That was my first knowing of the Sisters of Charity of Halifax.
[00:07:46] Speaker C: Right, right. And we laid that foundation, and now it's St. Joseph's University, you know, so the gift of education keeps going on and on in so many of the places where we were. You know, it's just such a wonderful experience to hear back from people. The gratitude and the little stories that you don't remember happened, and they'll say, and you did this, and I'll say, I did that kind of a thing. But the impression that we as a congregation or any of our congregations leave on the people is a lasting one, and for that, we're so grateful. So Saturday we're celebrating 100 years that we came to Our lady of angels with a specific request that we open a school. It came from, not the bishop as much as Monsignor McClancy, who was writing for Bishop Malloy at the time, saying, we need sisters in the school. We need sisters. So we started there, and then, you know, spread out like all of us.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: Did, we'll have the celebrations at Resurrection Ascension.
[00:08:47] Speaker C: And that's right where we had and that one of the few convents where we still have sisters living. And for us, as we move into the golden years, we have to look at convenience of parking, travel and all of that. So resurrection ascension fit all those bills, and they welcome us to come.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: So we're looking, really looking forward to that. My own interaction with the Sisters of Charity, really, again, Rockville Center. I worked with Sister Mary and Fitzgerald, the other sister Mary, and I also worked with Sister Kathleen O'Donnell. Yes, my first encounter, I didn't know the Sisters of charity from nothing. I couldn't have told you what congregation? But your own provincial leader, Sister Margaret Mary Fitzpatrick, was one of my first bosses. I. St. John's. Orientation at St. John's.
[00:09:34] Speaker C: St. John's, that's right. That's right.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: Whereas the Ursulines, you bring this international flavor, which I think is a great blessing for the church, the Sisters of Charity, really, they have that vincentian charism, but they really trace their roots to mother's seat.
[00:09:48] Speaker C: Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. Mother Seaton sent the first sisters to New York, then, who sent us to Halifax. But we do keep that strong connection with her, just everything that she was and who she stands for. But we have a very strong federation of Sisters of charity, too. So there are 14 congregations across the United States and Canada that trace our roots either back to Elizabeth or to Vincent de Paul himself. So it's a strong network. We do have a lot of good communication.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: You mentioned hearing people pointing to you is something you did here or there. The other thing is, both of you are in some kind of leadership at the provincial level here in diocesan leadership. So you must hear an awful lot, not only about your interactions, but people love to talk about, oh, I had sister so and so, and they talk about the impact that sisters have had on their lives. Sister Joanne, you were giving an example of that before the mass. You were talking about somebody really reaching out about the impact.
[00:10:47] Speaker B: Yes, I shared last Sunday that I was preparing my remarks for the welcome, and I happened to clean off my desk then and found this paper that was a letter from two sides. And the person who. I know, she didn't sign it, but I know who she is had written it about every sister that she had. So only the different grades with sisters and all that they meant to her. And she captured each of the sisters so wonderfully well. And at the end, after she talked about everybody, she said that she signed it that Ursuline's uniquely Ursuline. And to me, part of our terrorism we've always felt from Sister Angela Maricci, was that she was a person who believed in doing things differently, not necessarily what they wanted from Rome. The pope wanted to stay in Rome, and she just left and went back to Italy. But there's a piece of us that recognizes then, hopefully, in other people that everyone's unique. And I think that's been even our own interaction with each other. That has been our strength and allowed people to do things that before other congregations might have done. We were the first community in the country to go to a short habit in 1965, coming out of Belgium, which you would be surprised, but that was the beginning. I entered in 67, and I actually never wore a long habit. And I didn't wear a habit for too long either, because we then went to lake clothes as an option. But I think that this letter that I read was so touching to me because I knew all the sisters that she was describing. I actually knew in my lifetime two of the sisters that were the foundation in 1924, really, eventually they went to my home parish in Connecticut, and I knew them. So when I would read about them coming from Canada, I had the unique opportunity. We didn't have a school then. I went to religious education, and so I knew sisters. The first, actually, one of them was I had for first communion class.
[00:12:45] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:12:46] Speaker C: Isn't that something?
[00:12:47] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: It's funny, you made a comment that you said something. You know, it's hard to believe it's 100 years already. And I had a laugh to myself because I know this is true. For me as I'm getting a little bit older, 100 years doesn't seem like all that long ago.
[00:13:01] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:13:02] Speaker A: And it's true that basically our generation would have touched that generation. And so 100 years isn't all that long ago. And you've served in Connecticut a while. I always remember telling stories about your own ministry in school. In Connecticut, I was a high school.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: Guidance counselor, first freshman, sophomore, and taught juniors and seniors marriage and family and moral theology. I have to say it was one of the highlights of my teaching career, because if you can actually remind yourself every day, if whatever they ask you, you have to answer.
And that was a challenge.
I can still see one girl who knew tried to get me on everything, but it was wonderful. I really enjoyed high school.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: That's great. And again, you have a variety of missions, but education was really a cornerstone for both of your congregations, right?
[00:13:55] Speaker B: Yes. Yes.
[00:13:56] Speaker A: And I mentioned at the anniversary celebration for the Ursulines, that film Cabrini, about Mother Cabrini. And one of the things that struck me as I was watching that was when it was particularly the scene when they were building the hospital and are having to go against all the odds to build that hospital. And then I thought about all of the institutions that were built around the same time, early days in the United States, especially here in Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau and Suffolk, all of the hospitals, all of the schools that really were built by religious, run by the religious women, and staffed by the. For a long time. It's an amazing story, if you think about it. And so, you know, each of you speak about the first schools that you had here in Queens, but that grew into a wide network of Ursuline presence and of the Sisters of charity presence. And then, Sister Joanne, you served in the diocese in a very important role. This is where we were together when you were superintendent of schools. But even prior to that, you had a role in the nineties of regionalization. And that was a critical moment, I think, for catholic schools in the New York area, certainly on Long island, where we had to face some real decisions. And I know Bishop McGahn had to face it in the nineties with the hospitals, but where you could see things getting knocked off. It's like the bottle game with the water guns or the balloons with the water guns, you know, and then. But they get knocked off one by one. Or do we try to work out some plan to strengthen what we can do? And you began that work of regionalization, but you led us through some of those troubling decades.
[00:15:37] Speaker B: I always kept reminding myself that the importance was that we needed catholic schools. A product of public education and religious formation. I have only the highest regard for both, but as a church, and I still believe we need catholic schools, and maybe now more than ever, because of what's out there.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: I agree with you. The whole question of education and healthcare in this country is truly because of the leadership of women religious. Years ago, my sister and I went to the John Paul II library when they had in DC. I wanted to go. We went, and it was about the history of religious in education and healthcare. And my sister made the comment. When we finished, she said, I did not realize the leadership women religious made in this country in catholic education and hospitals. And I think that's true. You look at catholic health system on Long island today, no, there would not be, well, would not have been without the religious women.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: All of those hospitals out there were founded by women religious, and the religious still have a connection to it when, for congregational reasons, numbers and all of that, but also because of changing realities in the work of healthcare. Sisters also knew when to say, we need to broadened, we need to bring in expertise, develop boards and all that. But I remember Bishop Geohan used to talk about St. Charles Hospital, and this would be the daughters of wisdom. And he said when he was a kid growing up in lady good council in Brooklyn, his parents would drive them out, take them out to Port Jefferson. That was a polio hospital at the time, and they would go out there and visit. And he learned then as a kid, he said, that was a time when there was tremendous anti catholic bias out that way. You know, we talk about in Wading River, Monsignor Quinn, and the burning down of the home there. But the sisters overcame an awful lot of that because they served children who had polio, whoever they were, whoever they were. And that just changed a whole attitude. But, yeah, now a new generation takes on the leadership in new ways. And I think you provided some really, really important foundations. I, for one, I'm grateful, but I think you can be really, really proud of those foundations and the way they continue today. And then, Sister Marianne, you know, you mentioned, too, paying back the loan, the refund. That's what you said.
[00:17:59] Speaker C: Yeah. Right.
[00:18:01] Speaker A: So on the refund, how many sisters worked in international, were missionaries, and how your work involves so many communities from outside this country are coming to serve. We're going to welcome a group of sisters from the Dominican Republic with the spanish speaking people in Williamsburg. It's just, that goes all around that circle.
[00:18:20] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a constant turnover. You know, you have more and more of the long time religious communities. The sisters are retiring, moving on to the mother houses away from the diocese, but those places are being filled by sisters from other countries to work differently. They're not into the institutional supports that we did, but they're there in the parishes with the people, a lot of them with home care and healthcare, a.
[00:18:46] Speaker A: Lot of them very professional doctors. And yes, yes.
[00:18:50] Speaker C: You know, so it's, it's still ministry to God's people. It's just a different way, a different.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: Realm, you know, and really, that's the story of Brooklyn, Queens. It's the story of the Holy Spirit right from the very, very beginning.
[00:19:04] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:19:05] Speaker A: From that pentecost Sunday on, the church is always being renewed, reformed, building on the foundations.
[00:19:11] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: So I want to thank you. I'm sorry, it seems like we're just getting started, but we're coming to the end of our conversation. But thank you for this opportunity. Congratulations to both of you. And having been touched by each of your congregations in so many profound ways, I thank you personally for your witness and charisma. Okay.
[00:19:31] Speaker C: Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to be with you and share too.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: Yes, thank you very much.
[00:19:36] Speaker A: It's good to be invited.
Lord God, we ask you your blessing upon us as we pray. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May he look upon you with kindness and grant you his peace. And may almighty God bless you, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[00:19:53] Speaker C: Amen.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: Thank you for joining us for this week's edition of Big City Catholics. Please join us again for next week's episode, which releases on Friday. In the meantime, God bless you and have a wonderful week.
