Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Welcome to another edition of our diocesan podcast, Big City Catholics, with Bishop Robert Brennan, the Bishop of Brooklyn and Queens, myself, Father Christopher Henry. Today we're happy to be joined with Father Philip Tangora from the Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey, who will talk to us a little bit about his new book, this is our faith. But as we begin, especially in this ascension time, as we celebrate the ascension of our Lord Jesus and begin to prepare ourselves for the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, we pray in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord Jesus, you who in your ascension filled the 11 with joy, make us worthy of that same joy through your prayer and your mercy. Lord Jesus, you who in your ascension bore our fragile humanity into heaven and open for us the way that leads to heaven, fill us with the joy of serenity and peace.
Lord Jesus, you who by ascending into heaven, clothed us with the gift of the Holy Spirit, make us your witnesses in our daily lives, telling of the joy of your mercy. Amen. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Well, I love this time of the year, actually. It's great to celebrate the whole of the easter season. The 50 days of Easter is sort of a part of letting go of the season when we get to the ascension. But on the other hand, here we are in this great novena, really the. The original novena of the church, praying, come, Holy Spirit. We hear Jesus commissioning the apostles, sending them out, saying, now wait for this gift, but I'm sending you out into the world. Go and teach all the nations. Baptize all the nations. This is really where in this part of the Easter season that we're picking up on, that this is about us. The next chapter. You will.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: And you said it best, Bishop. It is a season of letting go, right? I mean, you know, the readings prepared us, as you see it in the scriptures, like the Lord is preparing his disciples. There will be a time when I will not be with you, but I will send this advocate, this Holy Spirit, let go.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: You know, I won't be with you as you want me to be with you, but I will be with you. I'll be with you in a deeper and more abiding way, and not bound by time and space, but really present and also working through us. You know, my friend Archbishop Perez, he often quotes the statement, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Lord works in us, through us, and often in spite of us. So what we're talking about is this ongoing abiding presence of the risen Lord Jesus.
So it's a great, great time of the year. Again, we look forward next week to the season of Pentecost.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Bishop I think it's a perfect lead in to our guest, Father Philip Tangoro, because, you know, there's so much about our faith that of course, you know, we study in seminary and many continue to study in theological training. But for the majority of our faithful, sometimes the last time that they've gone to a religious class or a catechetical class was maybe during their confirmation program. This is a lifelong journey of evangelization of catechesis and learning and developing our faith. So it's great to have these sort of resources available to us. Today we're joined by Father Philip Tangora from the Diocese of Patterson, New Jersey, to talk a little bit about a publication published about a year or so, your catechetical program, co authored by Ms. Monica Condit, called this Is Our Faith. Father Philip, welcome.
[00:03:34] Speaker C: And it's good to be here on the Big City Catholic podcast.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Thank you for reaching out to us. It's great that you're listening over in Patterson.
[00:03:41] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: And of course, you have a tie to Brooklyn through your bishop. Bishop Kevin Sweeney is a great friend to all of us.
[00:03:48] Speaker C: Yes. I was actually baptized in the Diocese of Brooklyn at Holy Family in Fresh Meadows.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. Right by St. John's University.
[00:03:56] Speaker C: Absolutely. My parents are both graduates of St. John's University. Graduate growing up in Bayside and Flushing.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: Isn't that great? You know, we talk a lot about a lot of the need in terms of catechetical work. And now, in a sense, evangelizing catechesis, I think, is the new phrase that we're using. It's something that I think we found we have to hit a hard reset after Covid. That's one of the experiences that I'm discovering in parish life, and it's a topic among the peasants. We're hoping at our next pastor's meeting to be able to talk about this a little bit. But you're involved in the work right at the forefront. So tell us about your series, what you see sort of as the need and what you've developed.
[00:04:37] Speaker C: Yeah. So, Bishop, you're absolutely right. We definitely need to reset catechesis and catechesis as evangelization, as they say, and make it that it is something that our young people, as well as adults. So the book that I wrote, this is Our Faith and is for confirmation programs. That is what it is officially approved by the USCCB's Subcommittee on Catechesis 4, but it can also be Used for teaching adolescents in, say, middle school, high school, and. Or we've also used it for the last five years for ocia, what was rcia, and it has been incredibly successful. One of the things that is so very important is the fact that it's complete. That's a big thing in the USCCB's subcommittee on catechesis, that we really present the faith in a complete, comprehensive manner, showing all the different connections. So if you're going to talk about Jesus and then you're going to talk about Mary, you got to show how there's these connections, how Mary is going to help us understand Christology. And then if we're going to talk about Christology and Mariology, then there's the reflection on anthropology, on who we are as human beings. And so connecting all of these different elements together is just so very important. And so in this text, we have a complete theological overview where we have trinitology, Christology, Pneumatology, Mariology, ecclesiology, divine revelation, the sacraments. We go through all of it. And. And it is a comprehensive study in a manner accessible to those who are adolescents and adults who, you know, have not studied theology in a very formal setting, but it's introducing them to all of it, and they can then see the connections and how important it is. Each thing leads to each other and builds upon the foundation of the previous unit, builds on that previous understanding already learned and how that then gets carried out. So if we're going to talk about the importance of the sacraments, we have to first understand the fact that it's Jesus Christ is the Savior. We understand that Jesus Christ is Savior, then we understand, okay, well, the sacraments are what's bringing his gift of salvation to us. For us to be able to participate in that gift, we then come to these connections. And I think that that's one of the real fruits of this work.
[00:07:13] Speaker A: That's great. To me, that reflects very much the Second Vatican Council. The whole point of Lumen Gentian is tying all of it together. Rather than a separate document on Mary, Mary is treated in the context of the church. And so you're right, you're connecting together Christology, Mariology, pneumatology, anthropology. You're bringing it all together, and it's all united in the Church.
[00:07:39] Speaker C: Correct. And then the other thing, you know, one of the biggest issues that I think we all deal with is indifferentism, okay? Indifferentism and a lack of reinforcement in the home. Those are the two things that I identify as the pastoral challenges. And with this text, we emphasize in each and every single unit, the constitutive elements or the essential elements. All right, so so often we hear why do I need to have the church? Or why do I have to have this sacrament? Or that? Why can't I just do this? Or why do I have to have these elements? Or yes, God, no church, you know, or something to that effect. We hear these things all the time. And what this does is it emphasizes those essential or constitutive elements of each unit and connects it all together through the different units. So that they can see how, for instance, Mary, we show, is constitutive to God's plan for our salvation. So when dealing with sacred, someone who might come from a more Protestant background or a background where they don't see Mary or they see her as superfluous, we're showing no, she was part constitutive in God's plan for our salvation. When it looks at the different elements of the church and we say, well, here's why we have to have a Pope in a college of bishops, here's why we have to have these sacraments and we show how they are constitutive to God's plan for our salvation. And I think that that is one of the most important elements of this text, which you don't find in other textbooks because it highlights this is why we need to have this. And if we don't have this, well, then this is what we're going to be left with. This is the we wouldn't then have what Jesus is trying to give to us. And we go step by step and in this textbook through those essential elements, highlighting and showing, even in the beginning of the second year, because it's divided between Confirmation one and Confirmation two, a two year program. The very first lesson, because the first unit is ecclesiology in year two, we go through all the different things in the first year from God and divine revelation and Mariology and the Christian anthropology. We then show how this is going to lead into the necessity of the Church and the necessity of the sacraments, they realize and when they finish the program, they come to Mass afterwards because they know I need this.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: I think you're right on the level of indifferentism. And in a sense I would tie that using your images to almost a consumer mentality in terms of religion. So what's the checklist? What do I have to do to get confirmation at the end?
[00:10:36] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: And you know, well, meaning very important things that we do become sort of institutionalized. And then that begins almost like a reductionism and really encounter of Jesus with Jesus Christ and the encounter with Jesus Christ through his Holy Spirit, in the community of the Church, in the communion of the Church. So it does all go together, you know, earlier this week, on the day before the feast of the Ascension. I love that reading from the Acts of the Apostles where Paul finds himself in Athens. There he is in the center of it all, in the cultural center, even today, considered right, the beginnings of the cultural center of the world. And there's an introductory line, but the line before his actual speech isn't there. It says, all the Athenians, as well as all the foreigners residing there, use their time for nothing else but telling or hearing something new.
But Paul takes their experience, their hungers, their longings, and shows first how God in his divine plan has been revealing the truth to them, but how that all comes to its completion in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The situation of Paul in Athens is not very different from our situation today.
[00:11:54] Speaker C: Absolutely. And one of the things that I think is so very valuable, this is where my co author really made her primary and main contribution was in the unit on Christian anthropology, but specifically through John Paul II's theology of the body. And most of all, the hot button issues that exist right now are a lack of our understanding of who we are, what we are, our nature and purpose as human beings. And to address that. But then it gets compliment in the first year, but then it gets complimented in the second year with the unit on prayer and really helping them understand Christian spirituality and how to connect to the sacraments, how to pray with the Mass, how to pray with Marian devotions, the Rosary, all of that, and see themselves as developing their own. Because we also talk about the different Christian spiritualities of the Dominicans and the Benedictines and the Franciscans and all those different spiritualities and charisms. We address that in that unit in prayer. And so they're capable of now saying, well, this is where I am at home. This is how I pray. This is how I'm going to make that contribution in prayer in my life and in my vocation. And it talks about vocations and vocational discernment in that unit. So they can really kind of find their own way in that. And that then is complemented by this huge treasury of prayers that we have. Because, you know, my goal is that they take this textbook and then after they're done, they keep it and they have it on their bookshelf. And when they go to college, I can't tell you, when I went to college, I was maybe one of five practicing Catholics on campus, okay? And I had with me my Bible and I had with me the Catechism of the Catholic Church. And by being challenged by all these people in what we believe as Catholic. And some of it, I had to go to the Catechism because I didn't know, I didn't understand. And that was a big part of my vocational discernment. But if they can have this and it has all that kind of stuff, we even have have in it in the very beginning, just as an extra thing, we have a where do I go in the Scriptures for different moments in their lives, good, bad, and indifferent. But then also where in the Scriptures they'll find specifically Catholic teachings about like, say, the Eucharist or confession or Mary. And so they have this tool, I mean, other than the fact that it's not a Bible, okay, but they have this tool that for the rest of their life they're capable of having and going, okay, well, here. Here's where it is.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: Who will drive you to the Bible? It will bring you to the Bible.
[00:14:37] Speaker C: Exactly. And even with the scriptural references, not just in the text, but in the where do I find in Scripture? They can then go and then go to that by their Bible and say, ah, here's where Jesus is talking about the Eucharist.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: I couldn't help but think about our new Holy Father and his Augustinian roots and him quoting right at the beginning of his pontificate, that famous statement of St. Augustine, you made us, O Lord, for you, and our hearts are restless. You know, during the synod, we had about four key themes that just kept arising in the different sessions. And one of the major ones was people would say, I don't talk about my faith because I don't know if I know it well enough. I don't feel secure in what I know. So you make a very good point.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: I definitely hear a Father Tangora, in your description of the book, a great sense of apologetics. You know, that you give the people, the readers and the children and the adolescents, those who are participating in the program. Even in your book, there is a frequently asked questions portion. I thought that was really exciting piece to that book.
[00:15:43] Speaker C: And the FAQs, the frequently asked questions are actually from my first year in my parish here at Our Lady Queen of Peace in Branchville. And I received some questions from one of my confirmation catechists and I said, you know what? Have them write out all their questions. But then the FAQs are actually written in the questions as asked by our teens.
So it's not just frequently asked questions. And I cleaned up the language. It's as asked by them. I thought it was important to have it as asked by our teens, how they're thinking, how they're hearing it, how they're. And then being responded to.
[00:16:24] Speaker A: Fascinating. I think that's brilliant. Great.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Father Tangora, just before we close, how our parish is finding your program. Have certain parishes, maybe locally to you adopted it? Of course. I'm sure your own parish has adopted it.
[00:16:36] Speaker C: Yes, my parish has been using it. It came out on January 2 this year.
So there's still a little bit of time for people to kind of discover it and then implement it in their own programs. So I've heard some things that, yes, some parishes are looking into adopting it next 2025 and then 2026. They can get it right on Amazon. It's very easy. You just go right on Amazon. Look up this is Our Faith, a confirmation program. Make sure you got the one with the red, all right, because there are like two or three other books all called this Is Our Faith out there. But, you know, this is the one by father Tangora and Ms. Monica Condit. And that's the one that you want, at least as far as I'm concerned.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: Very good. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today. And like I said, thanks for reaching out to us. It's a great opportunity for us to reflect on something very important. And thanks for your work in contributing to the field. It's a great contribution.
[00:17:31] Speaker C: Thank you for having me today. Bishop Brennan, thank you for having me on the Big City Catholic podcast. And thank you, Father Chris, for all of your hard work in coordinating all this. So thank you all. God bless you, and a very blessed ascension to you all.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: What a great discussion. Thank God for people like Father Tangor who are out there providing resources for our faith formation, for the work of really helping people to encounter Jesus Christ and to know the truth of his love.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: I'm truly impressed by it. I also find it quite impressive that a priest in active ministry, you know, in addition to being in his parish assignment, is taking the time to produce these types of material. It's quite impressive as well. So we're really grateful that we had Father Tangor on, Bishop.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: And in the coming weeks, we're going to look forward to a number of other guests. I'm looking forward, hopefully, to an encounter at Divine Wisdom Academy. And we've established a little bit of a custom before the ordinations of speaking to last year's ordination class about the experiences that they've enjoyed in this first year as priests. So hopefully, during this coming month of June. We'll have some interesting conversations together. As we are in this time of novena to the Holy Spirit. I'm going to use today a prayer of St. Augustine in the spirit of our new Holy Father. In the name of the Father and of the Son, of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Breathe on me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may be all holy. Act to me, O Holy Spirit, that my work too may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy.
Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy. Guard me then, O Holy Spirit, that I may be holy. Amen. May Almighty God bless you and your families. In the name of the Father and of the Son, of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[00:19:26] Speaker B: Amen. Thank you, Bishop. And again, thank you, Father Tangora, for joining us. For all those who listen each and every week, thanks for your continued participation. We hope that you'll join us again next week. God bless.
