Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Hello, and welcome to this week's edition of Big City Catholics. I'm your host, Bishop Robert Brennan, Bishop of Brooklyn, serving in Brooklyn and Queens. And we approach this week with a sense of the joy and the happiness and the hope of Easter, but also the loss of our Holy Father on Monday morning, the sense of mourning. But true to his teaching, we mourn as people with hope, as pilgrims of hope. And so today I'm joined by Archbishop Perez, the Archbishop of Philadelphia, a longtime friend of mine. We were ordained together as bishops and served together as auxiliary bishops in Rockville Center. And the two of us have had a number of encounters with the Holy Father, some of them a little more adventurous than others, but sort of like a family wake. This is a chance for us to remember with gratitude and with love, and then to pray. So we'll begin this session with prayer. In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. O God, mortal shepherd of souls, look upon your people's prayers and grant that your servant Pope Francis, who presided over your church in charity, may, with the flock entrusted to his career, receive from your mercy the reward of a faithful steward through Christ our Lord. Amen.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Archbishop Perez, welcome to Big City Catholics.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: Thank you so much, Bishop. It's great to hear you.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: Likewise. So we're broadcasting from one big city to another big city. And as I mentioned in the introduction, you and I were ordained together. You actually appeared on this show once before when I was selected to lead the USCCP Committee for Cultural Diversity. We had a little bit of a chat about that, and this is a great opportunity. You'll be going over to the funeral, and I think it'd be nice to share some of our recollections.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Sure, absolutely.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: So tell me. I was shocked to hear the news of the Pope's death. It's amazing we knew that he was ill. I guess I would have been less shocked a couple of weeks ago, but when I heard it this week, on Easter Sunday, he was out in the Square. Square. At St. Peter's Square. The next thing you know, on Monday morning, we get the news that he died.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: Yeah, that was shocking. One of my staff members in the archdiocese texted me at. I think it was 5:00 in the morning. I was shocked because, though, you know, he didn't look great on Sunday, but he did great.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: He was out there for 15 minutes and relishing that moment, which he so loved to do. And then it. It was done.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: Yeah. It's almost a sense that he wanted to lead his people through the Paschal Triduum. And it was, you know, like Simeon, now, lord, you can dismiss your servant in peace.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: I can't read his heart and mind, but I think he knew. I think he knew. And his final words that day are very interesting, aren't they?
[00:02:59] Speaker B: The Urbi ed Orbi.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Yes. And I have it here. I'd like to read it because it's very beautiful. Now, in hindsight, Right.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: This is like his last words to the world. The resurrection of Jesus is indeed the basis of our hope. For in the light of this event, hope is no longer an illusion. Thanks to Christ, crucified and risen from the dead, hope does not disappoint. And when I saw that, I said, wow, it's almost like this is his last words to the Church and to the world. Hope does not disappoint. And this is a guy who would be going back to the Father in less than 12 hours.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: So my initial reaction that morning was surprise. It took me actually, a few minutes for it to sink in. And then this sense of. Of like, sadness, because we both had a lot of contact with him, and he says, wow, he's gone back home.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: And.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: And there was, like, this sense of sadness and teary eyes.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: And then a real sense of gratitude kind of flooded my own heart. A real sense of gratitude to have been able to witness his pontificate and actually be with him personally quite a number of times.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: Yes. You know, we were ordained together under the pontificate of Pope Benedict. But a year later, in fact, to the very day of our first anniversary, we were in Rio with the newly elected Pope Francis.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: It was his first World Youth Day, Very first World Youth Day. I think that was kind of his. His first international trip where he greets the youth of the world. And I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember the night before he came. The Archbishop of Sao Paulo, I think it was. We had Mass and it was pouring rain throughout the whole Mass. We were absolutely soaked. Then he showed up, and we were there for the vigil and for the Mass. It was very beautiful, very moving.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: It rained so much that they had to change the venue for the Mass. Individual.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: The end. Yeah. I remember that little dance that they did over there, and the bishops were. You know, bishops can't dance. But I remember we all gathered up looking at the crowd that was like 3 million people.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: Yeah. All on the beach.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: All on the beach. And we're all trying to do that little dance that the kids were doing. It it was really a joyful moment.
[00:05:25] Speaker B: It was. It was. And it was his introduction, in a sense, to the young people. And I remember his message. He talked about making a mess. He said to the young people, yeah, a Ser Leo.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: A ser Leo, Yeah. He said that to the youth and really to the Church now with a negative connotation. But let's mix things up a little bit. And I think the Church certainly has. You know, he certainly revolutionized a lot of the trappings of his own pontificate, calling us all to simplicity. Pope Francis was a guy that, yes, he wrote and he spoke, but many times he spoke without words, though, like Francis of Assisi said, sometimes we speak, but sometimes we speak without words.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: One of my memories is that we kind of snuck in through the back door. We went to use El.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: Well, yeah, that was the situation. Yeah.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: And the people, we didn't know if we could go. We started to climb over the barricade, and the. The volunteers carried us over. They lifted us.
[00:06:21] Speaker A: And then I saw that they were the staircase going underneath that big platform. And there were two ways of getting there. You either went in front of the Holy Father while he was finishing up his address, or you jumped this railing. And so I picked up my cassock and jumped the railing, and you came right after me. I think the bishops around us actually started laughing. And then we got down there and got kind of lost because it was like a maze down there, if you remember.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: And then you saw this makeshift element elevator. And it turned out that's where he came down.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: And we came down right there.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: And so I'm getting out the elevator.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: Right into the car, and we're the only two bishops down there. And then his security detail. It was pretty amazing just to be.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: That close was at the time, so amazing. And yet we would have other encounters in Philly and in New York. When he came to the United States in 2015, it was the World Meeting of Families and the Diocese, now, where you are the Archbishop of. And the diocese from where you originally came was hosting. And we went. We had a delegation from Rockville center, and we spent time going up and down the Acela.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: We were on the Acela line, to quote one of our brothers.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: That's right. So Philly to Washington, Washington back to Philly, up to New York, New York back to Philly. It was quite the whirlwind, but each of those encounters was meaningful. I've been quoting his words to the bishops when he met us in Washington, D.C. how he held out his hands and he said, Brothers, when you're reaching out to touch someone in need, when you're reaching out to console somebody or dry their tears, imagine these elderly hands. He held his own hands out. Imagine these elderly hands in yours.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: That was beautiful. That was moving. Yeah.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: You know, a sense of a solidarity in that service, in the outreach, especially to those in need. It was just a powerful expression. New York was another powerful experience.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: Yeah, that was really beautiful. I remember we had to get there, like, really early because these faithful events is hurry up and wait.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: And they put us in a locker room. Remember that?
[00:08:27] Speaker B: I do. They put a TV on and some food, and they figured that would keep us still.
[00:08:31] Speaker A: I don't know if you remember, but when we were in that locker room, Madison Square Garden was filled with like 20,000 people, hours before he ever even arrived. And so what do you do with 20,000 people for hours? So they had entertainment, and they had Gloria Stefan, Harry Tonic Jr. I remember I wanted to go over and say hello to Gloria Stefan and her husband Emilio. And I stepped outside of the locker room, and I got stopped by a Secret Service individual who said, where are you going? And I says, I'm. I'm going behind the stage to see somebody I know. And I said, well, you can't go over there. Says, well, I think I can. And I remember lifting up all my credentials. I had like 200 of them. And I said, here's one, here's two. And says, well, you can't go. And I said, I want to speak to your supervisor. So I speak to the Secret Service supervisor who was nice enough to send an escort. And we both went over.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: I wrote your coattails.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: You wrote my coattails. We both went over behind the stage. You took a picture with Harry Connick Jr. You met Gloria and Emilio, and there we were. It was just amazing. And then the Mass started.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: Well, before the Mass and the Pope went around the. You could feel the energy in the stadium. People were just so excited. It was all kinds of cheering and excitement. And then he went back in invested for Mass, and it was a totally different scene completely.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: And, you know, it brought me back to when I was a college student. I was there in 1979 when John Paul II held a rally for youth there.
[00:10:06] Speaker B: I was there as well. And, you know, it's same thing took me back to that. And, you know, the funny thing is that was when everything was new here. You're kind of getting used to doing these rallies when you're around the Pope. But in 1979, that was unheard of.
[00:10:21] Speaker A: That was one of the first ones.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: He began Mass. The line, again, I quote this all the time because now I'm living in New York City. The reading was from that prophecy of Isaiah. We use it at the midnight mass. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light upon those who live in the land of darkness and gloom. A light has shown. And he said, jesus Christ is living in your city.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: How powerful, Right.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: Yeah. You're not walking alone. And now when I think of it, I'm saying, he said that to us. He didn't just say that in some theoretical way. He said that in New York City.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: And now you're the bishop of Brooklyn.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: Brooklyn, Queens, two of the boroughs in New York City.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: Right.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: You know, he was talking to us, and I think that was part of his style. He knew the audience, and he spoke to his audience.
[00:11:06] Speaker A: He sure did.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: And he spoke about some of the realities of living in a city, a metropolitan city like New York, some of the great advantages. And then some of. He said, the people are living in the shadows, people who are suffering, and Jesus Christ is walking among us.
[00:11:19] Speaker A: It was beautiful. You certainly had an incredible, incredible way with words and images.
[00:11:26] Speaker B: Yes. Speaking of images, we get to your hometown. Right.
[00:11:32] Speaker A: Well, do you remember how we had to get here?
[00:11:34] Speaker B: I do. Again, back on the.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: But there was a little situation there, too, because the city of Philly was closing down at midnight, and our train was at midnight. So we called somebody from the USCCB who tells us to get down there, like in 10 minutes and get on a USCCB train. And when we entered the train, I remember, I. One of the staffers who's still there at the usccb, I made a left. We made a left to go into the cart, which is basically empty. And she said, you can't go in that cart. And I said, well, why not? There's no one in there. And she said, well, that's for the Papal Masters of ceremonies. I thought myself, well, that's fine. They don't bother me.
But here there's some arrangement of some sort where they get their own cartoon and you and I walk in, and it was the two of them and the two of us.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: And they didn't seem bothered by it. But again, well, that's.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: It was in honor of Francis that's making a little Leo that's messing things up.
[00:12:35] Speaker B: And in the end, we're all just passengers on a train.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: That's it.
[00:12:38] Speaker B: We're all just passengers on the train. But the advantage to that is, once we got into the station, we Were able to get back to where we had to be at the hotel for this.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. I then knocked at Columbus or somebody like that.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: Yeah, they had special commission because the streets were. The whole city was closed.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: Yeah, they closed it down at midnight.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Because really, the venue was not in some stadium. The venue was the city itself. Right.
[00:13:02] Speaker A: The venue was the Franklin Parkway and the foot of the art museum, the Rocky Steps. I spoke about that in several of my interviews with the media, which I'm sure you had a bunch too, and spoke about. There he was, you know, in the steps of Rocky. He was like the superstar of the world as a religious leader. It was really very beautiful.
[00:13:21] Speaker B: The highlight of that part of the Philly visit was the vigil the night before. And I think there was a little situation there. But he ended up speaking from the heart. He had had a prepared text.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: Yes. But they gave him the wrong text.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: You see, you know, the inside information.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: Yeah. When they came over and gave him his text, it was a text of a talk he had already given. And so he handed it back and he spoke from the heart. And it was probably one of his best talks of that whole trip.
[00:13:52] Speaker B: It was amazing. You know, he started. A girl once asked him, what did God do before he created the world? And he said, he scratched his head. And then he said he loved. But then he got into this whole thing about the dynamics of family life. It wasn't this theological reflection on the family and all. It was the nitty gritty of what does it mean to be a family? And what about the day to day struggles and sacrifices and joys and celebrations?
[00:14:19] Speaker A: It was incredible. I remember he said something about breaking plates.
[00:14:22] Speaker B: He said, sometimes the plates will fly. Well, in Los Platos.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: Yeah, the plates will fly. And it's so real, right?
[00:14:30] Speaker B: It's.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: Yeah, because, you know, it's not talking about family life from a greeting card. It's talking about the real day in and day out, ups and downs of family life that is loving and caring and messy all at the same time.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: And that's so much of his message. I mean, and maybe this is the experience of growing up in Argentina, but he's got that vision of the extended family, of the multigenerational family. It's something that's getting lost in our society today because people are so much on the move. But the idea that you'd be living not only with your parents, but your grandparents as well, and other grandparents nearby. He would speak a lot. In fact, in his most recent book, he spoke about his grandmother and he. He really promoted care, not only the elderly, but for grandparents of all ages and health. But that was a very important theme for him. It's one of the ones that gets a little bit lost.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it's very rooted in his Latin American experience. For those of us who are Latin American, my parents are Cuban. The nuclear family is bigger than what it is in the States. So the nuclear family extends really to include your extended family, your cousins and uncles, and you have a very close relationship with them. And I remember as a kid, you know, seeing my uncles and cousins, like, weekly all the time. We knew what was going on in our lives all the time. And that was his experience, I'm sure, with his brothers and sisters and his family as well.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: And even so much so, he dedicated a day near the feast of Saints Joe at coming in at the end of July to grandparents and the elderly and the last World Youth Day in Lisbon, and we were there for that together. Before the World Youth Day, he had a message for all the young people going to World Youth Day, and he said, before you leave, say hello to your grandparents.
[00:16:24] Speaker A: Right, yeah.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: Before you leave, check in, you know, And. And I just thought that was a little detail, like that's what the Pope is worried about.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: Right. I had a little situation in Lisbon because the day the Pope arrived, there was a welcome ceremony in that, like, kind of park area that wasn't that far from the hotel where they put the American bishops in. But we decided to not go back with the bishops and walk back and yourself. And it was another bishop. It might have been Bishop Espad.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: He was sitting with him. Yes.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: And all of a sudden, the two of you disappear and leave me in the crowd.
And I was surrounded by all these people, and there was a woman who saw that I was. I wasn't struggling, but it was a little stressful because you couldn't move. And I'll never forget that. This wonderful woman came up and took me by the arm. She was one of the volunteers, and she walked me all the way to the hotel.
[00:17:23] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: And got a couple of cops to come with us as well. She came up to me and she says, are you alone in this crowd like this? I said, well, I wasn't alone, but my companions disappeared. So I never forget that young woman. She came out of nowhere, grabbed me by the arm and says, I'm going to be with you. I'm not letting you go. And she didn't let me go. Yeah, it was beautiful.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: What happens there if you stop? The crowd just keeps moving.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: Well, they come to us bishops asking for blessings, to sign. Sign your name.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: That's one of the beautiful things about world you think. You see, people love the church. It's not about me. It's not about you. They love the church. And that just comes. Oh, that comes out so strongly. Yes. So beautifully. We're remembering with a little bit of humor the situations and the adventures we had along the way, but it was a very profound experience that you and I, again, were able to share. In 2019, just before COVID I mean, when you think about it, the bishops of the United States made their adlimina visit to Italy. And literally, the adlimina visit is to the tombs ad limina, to the threshold. To the threshold of the tombs of Peter and Paul. But you do all these official visits, but there's always something with the Holy Father. And each Pope does his own thing, and. And even, you know, Pope John Paul adjusted according to. Over the years, according to age. But Pope Francis got us together, set us in a room for almost two hours, if I remember.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: And he just came in and he said, there's no agenda here. He didn't read a message. He said, ask me anything. Tell me anything. Let's just sit down as bishops and talk about anything you want.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: Yeah. It was beautiful. I remember what he said as soon as he walked into that room. Pope Francis was really kind of like an earthy guy. There's something about him. I said in one of the interviews then, in a lot of ways, he reminded me of some of my uncles. And I remember he walked into the papal library, which is where that takes place, and he walked in, he said, hello. And then he said, before we begin, if you need to use the restroom, it's right there. Just a simple detail, but an important one. Right. But he said just that. And then he began.
Really amazing.
[00:19:35] Speaker B: He really was true. You know, it was soon after the Amazonian Synod, the synod. He answered questions that bishop raised about that. He answered questions about the church itself. I remember talking to him, believe it or not, about hope. He made a joke at me. I said to him, I'm newly appointed. You just sent me to Ohio. He says, even the Holy Father makes mistakes.
[00:19:58] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: And then he laughed. But I remember saying that, you know, in Ohio, so much of life is somewhat idyllic. We were both there, Cleveland and Columbus, respectively. And yet there are parts of Ohio where there's a real poverty of hope. Down in Portsmouth, part of the diocese, that's the epicenter of the opioid crisis. There's a sense of the drug trafficking and human trafficking. There were all kinds of issues that lie underneath. And I said, there's a paucity of hope. And I thanked him because I said, he's such a champion of hope. And as I think about it, that really did mark his ministry up to this Holy Year and right the day before he died, as you mentioned, that tenths of hope. And he spoke to us about why that's so important to him to be Pope, that gathering.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: I was the last bishop to leave the library and ended up alone with him for about 10 minutes, just him and I at the door, just talking. And I thought, well, that's amazing that I'm just standing here with the Holy Father. And we spoke in Spanish, because we both speak Spanish, which is the language he feels most comfortable in. And three weeks later, he sent me back to Philly. Never said anything that day. Didn't say anything.
[00:21:15] Speaker B: But he knew. He probably knew.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: He probably knew at that point, you know, but wow.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: And, you know, we had a few adventures together. But you've had some meaningful contacts through your work with the USCCB with him as well, and some very individual one on one contacts.
[00:21:28] Speaker A: One on one contacts. When I was overseeing the 5th and Cuentro for the. For the bishops of the United States, we took the leadership of the fifth in Quentro to Rome to meet with him, and we actually stayed in Domos Santa Marta, where he lived. And that was a really interesting experience. Right. Because now we're in his house and we're in his dining room. So this is not like a formal event or it wasn't, you know, in a stadium or on a beach or in a. Or at Madison Square Garden or in Philly. It wasn't any of that. It was a completely different environment. And at one point, I just went up to get stuff for breakfast at this sort of like a buffet serving table. Yeah. And I look over to my side and there's a Pope standing, sticking, like something in a microwave. And that was like a surreal moment for me, you know, because you forget, well, he's a human being like anybody else.
[00:22:22] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: Well, you know, he's not going to eat his food cold. But it was surreal that there he is dressed in white. Didn't really say anything. Didn't need to say anything. It was quite a moment. Quite a moment for a week. A little over a week. I ran into him in elevators, and you saw him in a different light. He had friends. One night he had friends over, and I went into the dining room to get something to eat. And he's over at a corner laughing with friends that had come in to see him. You really saw the human side of him.
[00:22:53] Speaker B: You mentioned that he took a real interest in that moment, in that inquentro which was so important for the United States.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: He really did. You know, the word in quentro or encounter, was very central to him, especially in the beginning of his pontificate. His first kind of like writing that was all him, was the joy of the Gospel. And the very first paragraph is all about encounter, calling us to renew our encounter with Christ, saying that no one is excluded from that encounter. He said, and if at least let Christ encounter us. And what we'll discover, he says, is that he was always there, always there with his open arms. Encounter was really important to the Holy Father. And he so appreciated the bishop's process of the fifth in Quentro, because in many ways, spiritually and pastorally, it was like right up his alley. He understood that.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: Well, the whole process of the inquentro was really a precursor for us to the Senate.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: It was a total senator experience that reached out to over 300,000 people in the United States. So he understood it intuitively, took a.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: Keen, keen interest in it. Well, you know, Archbishop Perez, please bring my prayers and prayers of the people of Brooklyn with you as you make your way. You're going to the funeral. You weren't planning to go to his funeral. You were planning to go for the canonization Blessed Carlo Acutis.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Now it becomes. We're going with a group of 70 pilgrims. And now it becomes a pilgrimage to the celebration of Francis life, which is amazing. What a turn of events.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: It really is. It's a real change. And, you know, there's a blessing in that. He is a pilgrim of hope to the very, very end.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: And, you know, Bishop, we were both appointed bishops by Pope Benedict, but in our 13 years, is going to be in July, July 25, will be 13 years of bishop. For 12 of those years, Francis has been our pope.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: Right.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: And not only that, at his pleasure.
[00:24:58] Speaker B: That's right. So it was under Benedict that we were ordained, but it was Francis who sent us. He sent us, you first to Cleveland, me, then to Columbus, and then he sent you back to Philly and me back to Brooklyn. It's Francis who actually sent us to the places where we're here to serve.
[00:25:17] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:17] Speaker B: We personally have a lot to give thanks for to him, but the church does. He taught us to be attentive. I love, with the synod, the key word to the Synod is to listen, to listen attentively and then to listen together for the voice of the Holy Spirit. These are things he taught us. So we have a sense of gratitude. There's still that sense of mourning. Like I said, awake. We have a little bit of mourning. We have some happy memories that we share, and that gets to the heart of our gratitude. But under it all is those three virtues, faith, hope, and love.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: And that we commend him to the Lord. We pray for him on this journey, on this next pilgrimage of hope, where he goes to meet the Lord and share in the fullness of the resurrection.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: I think we will look back at these last 15 minutes in the public forum and really reflect on the significance of that and his words to the world. Very last words was to the world was, hope does not disappoint.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: Hope does not disappoint.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Quoting St. Paul. Hope does not disappoint. A total blessing. And. And I'm honored to be able to be at his funeral. Unexpected, but a reality nonetheless, because we both owe a lot to him and to be there to honor him and pray for him will be very special.
[00:26:33] Speaker B: So with that in mind, thank you, Archbishop Perez, for joining me for this week's discussion. And thanks to all of you who are listening to this episode of Big City Catholics. Please join us again next week for a new edition. And we close with prayer. And during the Easter season, we pray, which again, is just a beautiful prayer given what we're talking about. We pray that Regina Cheli, it means Queen of Heaven. Rejoice. It imagines Mary, Mary, rejoice because your son has risen from the dead. And we say now, Pope Francis, rejoice because Jesus rose and hope does not disappoint. So. And of course, he had that great love for the Blessed Mother, Queen of Heaven. Rejoice. Alleluia for the Son whom you merited to bear Alleluia has risen as he said. Alleluia. Pray for us to God. Alleluia Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary. Alleluia. For the Lord is truly risen. Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:27:30] Speaker B: The name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.
