Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome back to another edition of our diocesan podcast, Big City Catholics, with Bishop Robert Brennan, the bishop of Brooklyn, and myself, Father Christopher Henu. Today we're really blessed to be joined by Monsignor Al Pinto, the president and CEO of Catholic Charities and all its affiliates as we discuss the closing of the 125th anniversary year of Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens in the upcoming events this weekend with Cardinal Christophe Pierre's visit to the co cathedral and to our diocese. But before we begin, we'll begin with prayer. And I thought in the theme of Catholic Charities, we should read the excerpt from Matthew's gospel from the 25th chapter. And I think it sums up really the good work of Catholic Charities. In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, amen. Then the king will say to those on his right, come, you who are blessed by my father. Take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger. And you welcomed me naked and you clothed me sick, and you cared for me in prison and you visited me. And the righteous will answer him and say, lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison and visit you? The king will reply, amen. I tell you what you did for one of these least brethren, you did for me. Glory be to the Father and to the son and to the holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:01:42] Speaker A: In the name of the Father, Son.
[00:01:43] Speaker C: And the Holy Spirit. Thank you, Father Christopher, and welcome Monsignor Lepinto. Thanks for joining us on Big City Catholics this week.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Thank you for having me, bishop.
[00:01:51] Speaker C: We have a very big weekend coming up. I was speaking with Cardinal Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, and he was telling me how much he's looking forward to coming to join us. This weekend we have the celebration of the 125th anniversary of Catholic Charities. How amazing is that, right?
[00:02:07] Speaker B: Oh, no. This has been a great year for us celebrating the 125th, and we're all looking forward to this weekend, which will be the highlight of the celebration.
[00:02:17] Speaker C: And we'll talk more about the celebration itself later with the symposium and the mass. But let's go back 125 years. 1899. Imagine that in 1899, Catholic Charities in Brooklyn has to be one of the earlier Catholics Catholic Charities agencies. Although the church has always been involved in the work of charity and solidarity, this has to be an early experience of it.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: I think my recollection is that Catholic Charities here in Brooklyn and Queens was one of the earliest established Catholic Charities agencies in the country. It happened because there were a lot of smaller operations, and the bishop back then decided, pull it all together into the Catholic Charities agency, which was actually established through the state Senate here in New York. So it was a really interesting beginning. I think we're probably the only one that has that status.
[00:03:14] Speaker C: And, you know, I remember I always had a great interest in Cardinal Mundelein. I had lived in a parish that he somewhat established. He built the house, built the church, and then it was just before he went off to Chicago. He went to Chicago in 1916, and wouldn't you know it, he founded Catholic Charities over there. Actually, this became a model. It just took off in other places. He's very well known for really being ahead of his time in terms of lay involvement. We saw that in the Cathedral Club, which also will be celebrating 125 years in organizing people to do the work of Christ. And he replicated that experience. Experience that he had here in Brooklyn, in Chicago.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: Yes. He took the model and he brought it with him to Chicago, and it became the model out there. It was the idea being that the church was dealing in those days in the Northeast as well as in the middle of the country, Chicago area, dealing heavily with the influx of the migrant population that was coming from Europe, both the Irish and the Italian. And so the church was responding to the challenges that were there, and most especially initially for the challenge faced by the children, because often the parents would die young and the children would be abandoned. And so there was a lot of effort to provide quality living experience and support for the children, and then also for the families, food and different learning situations, in the sense of helping them to acclimate themselves.
[00:04:48] Speaker C: Many of us had seen that film, Cabrini, and I think that highlighted very well the realities of those days and the serious need, and especially with childcare, with the children. And then as I celebrate parish anniversaries these days, I've become more aware that, you know, with the building of the bridges, people in that lower region of Manhattan, which was featured in the early part of the film, were able now to start to migrate into Brooklyn. And so we saw that mass migration, but we also saw some of the great needs, the immortality rates. And like with Mother Cabrini, they were sisters, religious communities, doing a lot of that work. At that time as well, most of.
[00:05:26] Speaker B: The early childhood programs, the orphanages and the support system were done by the religious orders. And they had great facilities. I mean, here in Brooklyn, we had the facility over by the Mercy Sisters, their mother house. You had Angel Guardian. You had another group called St. Joseph's Home. They were about right here in Brooklyn. There were probably about five or six major facilities run by religious women who were providing those services.
[00:05:56] Speaker C: The other situation, I think you told me in another conversation, that particular to the needs in Brooklyn at that time was the presence of the Navy Yard and the harbors and all of the shipping industry.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: Well, this was. Brooklyn was certainly prior to World War II. It was a great shipping. The ports here were main source of livelihood for a whole lot of people. And certainly the Navy Yard up in Brooklyn became a central point for the efforts relating to World War II. So you had the Navy Yard and then you also had what we now call Industry City along Third Avenue, where all the ports are. That was major shipping area for things going out for the support of the war in Europe.
[00:06:43] Speaker C: And that, I guess, then created its own level of need as Catholic Charities now becomes ingrained, takes a lot of the work that's going on in individual places and organizes it all together. We see the early 20th century with its ups and downs, with really always a need, especially with the immigrant population, for help and direct services. But then we've seen a nation, a community that lived through two world wars, that lived through a depression, and then the development of an urban center which brings its own kind of poverty. So Catholic Charities had to adapt many times over the course of the decades to the changing needs of people.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Well, we had to adapt to the great influx of the black American community and then of the Caribbean community coming this way, people from the Caribbean areas, Haiti and those surrounding areas. And then we also had to adapt linguistically to the Hispanic community that came first from Puerto Rico and then from the Dominican Republic and some of the other areas down out of the Caribbean area. And so we've been constantly adapting. It's kind of like an unending process, you know, and then the tremendous change in the population, particularly the seniors. The largest concentration of seniors in the state of New York is here in Brooklyn and Queens. And we've had to adopt Tibet.
[00:08:12] Speaker C: That's important because the seniors are people who really built up our community. I mean, they certainly built up our families, our community. These are people who kind of aged in place and in many cases, with the changing neighborhood, really can't easily afford to stay in the place where they raise their families, where they conducted their business. And Catholic Charities responds with housing?
[00:08:32] Speaker B: Yes. Well, that's one of our biggest programs. We started that in the 70s, and we're now up to putting up the most recent building that will be opened in about 18 months. So that'll bring us up to 25 senior residences providing affordable housing with services on site for about 4,000 plus seniors. And as you know, the waiting list for our buildings is probably anywhere upwards of 10,000 on any given day.
[00:09:02] Speaker C: It's amazing. The need is so, so great. I had the chance to get to a couple of the openings of different housing places and the groundbreaking. And one of the things you've been doing recently is you're incorporating a lot of your services right into the building, which is, I think, ingenious. So the offices that you would have, the services that you would ordinarily provide for seniors in a community is located right in the building. So it integrates the services, but it also makes it very approachable for people.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: Well, what we try to do with the building is we built in senior centers in each of the buildings as we've developed them. Most recently, we now have nursing services available on site in the buildings. We have support services. There are social workers working in the buildings. Because what you're seeing is that again, the needs of that senior population grow almost on a daily basis. I mean, we have. We have a number of people in our buildings who are 100 plus years, you know, and have that kind of age. So that with that, we then have in home services that come to a system. And the thing is, once a senior comes into one of our buildings, they don't leave. It's not a temporary setting for them. It really becomes permanent living within a community of support.
[00:10:24] Speaker C: Right? Exactly. Another issue that just really strikes at home is the issue of hunger. A lot of the pantries. But the special things that we do around the time of Thanksgiving and Christmas, where people come, we provide meals for Thanksgiving. But one of the things I've noticed is that the people who come have a relationship with you already.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Many of them do, Bishop. Many of them have that ongoing working relationship with us doing a little different this year with the distribution of the turkeys in that. This year we're doing the distribution through the parishes so that again, we can enhance the connection between us, the parishes, and the people who are being served.
[00:11:09] Speaker C: That's great.
[00:11:10] Speaker B: So there'll be a little different approach this year.
[00:11:12] Speaker C: I think it's great. And I think what you're trying to do. You're making things more human, greater dignity, more connections. This is about solidarity, not just handing something out and working locally and working with the parishes. We had to respond to a couple of very particular needs over the years. Brooklyn and Queens were very much affected by Sandy. I remember I was. I had just left Long Beach a few days before, and I remember the devastation there. And I remember one pastor said to me a day or two after, he said, you know, if somebody's house gets destroyed, everybody pitches in and can help deal with it. But the church has a problem, you know, a flooding problem. Everybody's there rolling up their sleeves, jumping in and helping out. He said, here we're all destroyed at once.
And there too many people, maybe elderly, who didn't have the same support system. Some people had the help of family. But, boy, oh, boy, Sandy turned out to be a real emergency situation because the time was of the essence. You know, cleaning out the houses wasn't just trying to make things look nice and feel comfortable, but you were dealing with mold and health and the incoming colder weather. And Brooklyn and Queens were really very hard hit during Sandy.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: Oh, sure, yeah. Red Hook was underwater. And we certainly worked with the folks there out in Garrison Beach, Coney Island, Rockaway and Howard Beach. I was in Howard beach at that point, and Howard beach looked like a war zone. But the people got together, and we had one building that we could function out of, and we turned that into a resource center. And we operated that every day from early in the morning until well into the night. And we had, again, you know, clothing, food, all kinds of supports. And again, we were able to do all those things because, again, the support of Catholic Charities working with the parishes in those emergency situations.
[00:13:13] Speaker C: Right. The parishes knew the people. They knew the reality. They knew the situations, and you could bring the resources. The other thing is, many other people I remember at that time wanted to help but found themselves somewhat powerless. I mean, how do you help in the face of, first of all, all this devastation? But secondly, it wasn't so easy to get around to get directly involved. And Catholic Charities became a great vehicle for people to be able to reach out in solidarity with those who were more directly affected.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: Yeah, we were very fortunate in the sense of the connections that we had with only the people in the parishes, but also with the business community who were able to take donations and bring them to different sites where we could put them in use in the service of the people. That was the king, because people were. People were lost. There's not a way to Describe it. They were traumatized by the whole thing.
[00:14:11] Speaker C: That partnership between Catholic Charities and parishes was a great help. And then that came to be needed again. I was out of New York at the time that Covid hit. I was serving in Ohio, but boy, my eyes were on New York, especially on Queens, Brooklyn and Queens, but particularly on Queens. There was tremendous suffering through Covid and again, Catholic Charities had rise to the occasion and adapt to the need. Tell us about that.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, we did our pop ups, which were bringing actually food and support services to the different communities during the crisis of COVID and subsequent to Covid, because again, as part of the COVID experience, so many businesses had to close down. And all of a sudden you found a whole new part of the community, people who were used to supporting themselves, who had no resources. And so again, you were reaching out and offering them support through the pop ups where they could come and get food and other support services. But it was a whole new experience for many people who would normally have been on the giving side, who now had to go onto the receiving side because of all the COVID and all the after effects of COVID That was.
[00:15:26] Speaker C: So true both in Sandy and in Covid, that people who themselves were very active in Catholic charities or in St. Vincent de Paul in their parishes, people who are often the givers, were found in need. And we found communities where people were standing online for food, where you would never imagine that to be the case.
[00:15:45] Speaker B: You'd see the people online and you'd kind of like you'd be traumatized by what you were seeing because you would say, these are not people who would normally be online for this. And then through that whole period, we also had to supply meals, hot meals, to the people living in our buildings, because that was another issue, that they were in a sense, isolated in their apartments. And so part of it was reaching out. And we set up a whole system where seniors got a call every day or every other day, they got a call to just check in on them to make sure that they were okay.
[00:16:23] Speaker C: That's amazing. That's very, very important. And you know, we talk about the post Covid and the businesses that went under. And for a lot of us, that meant all my favorite restaurant closed. And it's an inconvenience or sadness. But for a lot of people, the business owners and the families, because some of these are family establishments, but also some of the people who worked there, they were kind of part of that family. And all of a sudden employment and the stability of employment went right out the window. No.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: A lot of people lost their jobs because they worked in the. Basically in the restaurant or in the bistros, the local community stores. You know, a lot of that has not come back. And so right now, just on a monthly basis, we're probably providing food support for over 10,000 throughout Brooklyn and Queens. The economy has not returned to where it was basically before COVID although there were always, you know, people in need. But that number has continued to grow. And the unfortunate situation is it almost becomes part of the life experience for a lot of people who were used to supporting themselves. And then you have the whole mental health issue.
[00:17:39] Speaker C: Mental health, suicide prevention, counseling services. These are all part of your regular routine. Right. Tell us about some of the different services that Catholic Charities provides to them. Wider community.
[00:17:51] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. It's just a growing part of what we're dealing with at this point, with the people, you know, again, with mental health issues and providing supportive housing for people with mental health issues, the ongoing issues of maintaining their medications. And then we're in. Now, I think we're in three schools, three public schools where we provide the mental health services or the student body, and that they keep coming and asking us to take on more. We do have the support services for the families for children a lot. Again, for education programs. We do provide videos to the parishes or live presentations, if that's what they would prefer, with staff going out talking about the issues that young people are facing, the drug issue being a very, very large issue, Fentanyl and all these other things that they keep coming out with. Matter of fact, we've gone out and we've done a big education program on the Narcon. Again, if you see somebody who is having a bad episode with the fentanyl, the Narcon, if you know how to use it. And so we provided, with the assistance of the city and the state, we provided the Narcon kits so that if you see somebody in that situation and you have the kit, you can use it. And it does save lives.
[00:19:15] Speaker C: It's an unfortunate part of our reality. I really do have to tip my hat to everybody who's part of Catholic charity. Staff, volunteers, benefactors, the board. But I want to say a word about the staff. One of the realities is that very often our staff, people have to work with people who have tremendous, tremendous needs. And when you look at the mental illness and the drug services, sometimes they're going into dangerous situations, sometimes they're a bridge. They help people to get the access to the services they're entitled to. Get. But that's not always easy to manage. And people will often take their frustrations out on the one who's in front of them. And so we have very, very dedicated people who are working in Catholic Charities, not under the easiest of circumstances.
[00:20:01] Speaker B: We're very blessed with the quality of the staff and the dedication of the staff in the sense of they deal with very, very difficult situations. When I do the orientation for new employees, it's one of the points I make, is that this is hard work, and it can be very frustrating. But you have to remember who you are and why we're doing what we're doing. And we're basically doing the work of Jesus in reaching out to our brothers and sisters who are struggling. And we want to walk with them, helping them to get to the point that they can walk on their own. That's always the goal, to get people to the point. Point that they can walk on their own with minimal support, to kind of.
[00:20:45] Speaker C: Wrap it up in terms of services. And there are many others. But you started by talking about the immigrant situation that gave birth to Catholic Charities. And that kind of comes to us in a new sense with the recent influx of peoples in the last couple of years and some very real needs in the community. And I have to say I'm really proud of the way our parishes and Catholic Charities have partnered, work together to complement each other, to get to meet the people who are coming to our parish doors.
[00:21:18] Speaker B: We're very blessed here in Brooklyn because we have a clergy that is priests that are very sensitive to the needs of people. And so when the migrants have come to the doors of the parishes, they immediately respond, and they'll call and we'll work with them. And I can't tell you how many of the places have become resource centers, parishes, resource centers for the migrant community. It's overwhelming, and it's a source of pride. It should be a source of great pride for the diocese.
[00:21:52] Speaker C: And then at the USCCB meeting, meeting of the bishops, and the president of the conference made the point, you know, immigration, it's a very complicated reality. I know that. I'm not. We're not weighing in on the political side of things, although we always try to call for comprehensive immigration reform. Dignity of the human person. But he said, we don't encourage illegal immigration. But one day we will all stand before the judgment seat and have to answer the question. When I was hungry, did you give me something to eat? Thirsty and something to drink? Naked and clothed me. And you know what? Catholic Charities is a vehicle that takes the efforts of so many good people who are really just trying to answer human needs, whether it be in the migrant situation here in Brooklyn and Queens or the long term realities of poverty. And so we thank you, Encino Pinto and everyone at Catholic Charities for helping all of us as a church to respond to people in need. You know, by myself, I can't do much. Maybe I can help this person or that person in this moment or that moment. But when we band together, we can accomplish so much more. And Catholic Charities gives us that possibility. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Why don't you tell us a little bit about how we're celebrating this weekend?
[00:23:09] Speaker B: Well, this weekend, as they say, we have the symposium over at St. John's Cardinal will be giving a major address at 1pm followed by three workshops, one on housing, one on food, one on mental health and the challenges that we see in front of us. And then on Sunday we have the Mass of Thanksgiving over at St Joseph's Co Cathedral. And the Cardinal again will be the main celebrant for that and the homilist that will be a highlight because again, what we do grows out of what we celebrate in the liturgy, the Eucharist in the sense of we try to take the message of the Eucharist and turn it into concrete action in service of people.
[00:23:52] Speaker C: Beautifully said. The source and the summit, the source of our strength, but really the summit of where we're going. Beautifully, beautifully said. Well, I'm looking forward to this weekend and as I said earlier, Cardinal Pierre is looking forward to this weekend. For those who are listening in on Sunday, welcome at the Mass at St Joseph's Co Cathedral. That's the regular Sunday Mass time at 11 o'clock. It's also broadcast on NET TV, so catch us live or later on. But regardless of whether you're there joining us by television or just being united with us in prayer, we'd love to have your prayers and solidarity this weekend. Monsignor Lepinto, thank you so much for joining us this week. We'll close by asking God's blessing. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May he look upon kindness and grant you his peace. And may the blessing of Almighty God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit descend upon you and your families and remain with you forever and ever. Amen.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: Amen. Thank you, Monsignor for joining us in this edition of Big City Catholics. We hope all will join in on the celebrations this weekend with the Cardinal. If not. Keep us in your prayers. God bless you, and we'll see you next week.
