Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
A very happy new year to all our listeners. And welcome back to another edition of our diocesan podcast, Big City Catholics. Bishop Robert Brennan, the diocesan bishop serving in Brooklyn and Queens and myself today, Father Christopher Henry here at St. Joan of our parish. Bishop, it's been a long time since we've gotten together. It's so good to see you and to to chat with you today as we we've got shortage of topics today, a little bit of a recap of what's gone on since the new year and all the exciting things that are to come in this, these next few weeks. So let's just begin with a prayer asking the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and the blessing of the Almighty God and all our saints and angels, and especially through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary, as we say, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Holy, Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: Amen. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Good to see you, Bishop.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Yes, it's good to be back in the routine a little bit, isn't it?
[00:01:10] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: It's not exactly a quiet time. It's been quite busy actually. Also since we last got together, we've had three appointments of bishops that two of them affect us pretty closely. So Archbishop Hicks was appointed to New York. He'll be taking the place of Cardinal Dolan, who retires after a very strong tenure of service.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: He.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: He's done remarkable things and I found him to be a good elder brother right here in the city of New York.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: And then of course, our own Father Manuel Rodriguez is going down to Palm Beach. He made an impression down there. All of these came before Christmas. And then one of the New York auxiliaries was appointed the Bishop of Rochester.
So the Pope's been busy and he's been looking at New York.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: It seems like it, yeah. New York must be on the magnifying glass. It's a great thing though. It's a great excitement. And Bishop, I just, you know, we're just prepping for the podcast and just talking about everything that's been going on. You know, I know our listeners had a chance to tune in and hear your on the roads at Seek. For me, it sounded really awesome. Every year that goes by, I hear about your encounters down there. This year was record setting. Right. Was a beautiful opportunity for our young people.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: It really was. It was a great occasion. 17,000 people in my Old stomping grounds of Columbus, Ohio. And then there were two other satellite sessions. Next year there'll be just two kind of full sessions. They're going back to Columbus and they'll be in San Antonio. But 17,000 people, bishops, priests, religious men and women, couples. Actually, one of the things that hit me this time probably more than others were the number of young couples. Primarily this is for college students.
And yet now, as the years go by, I'm starting to meet people I knew as college students who are now married and have little children.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Incredible.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: And you see the bonds that are formed in this setting. It really is remarkable. It really is remarkable.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: A great place for.
You've said this and, and it just, it strikes me every time I. We have conversations. I have conversations with even young people in my family, my nieces and nephews who never experienced that sense. They, they experience more the isolation effect of the Catholic faith, which is, I go to my church, my local parish, it's, you know, generally it's an older crowd, it's half full, if it's even half. And they've not been. They've not experienced the blessing of realizing you're not in this alone. There's a ton of people who believe what you believe, and it just rings true every time I have those conversations. So the work that seek does and focus missionaries and all the good things that are happening around our diocese as well. For young adults, I'm very pleased to announce that we've hired a youth minister, a young adult coordinator here at St. Joan of Arc, because it's just bustling with young people. We've got a dismissal time. Jackson Heights is just. The streets are filled with young people, school aged people and young adults in the neighborhood. So it's a great opportunity for us too.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: It really is. It really is. And again, for those in the different colleges, it's a shot in the arm, but it's also an exposure. That's one of the things that always inspiring to me is to see it through the eyes of somebody who hasn't been there before.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: And you know, it was fun going back to Columbus. It was fun. It was nice to see some people that I haven't really seen in, really in the time since I've been here and to see the church thriving and doing so well. But you know, it's like when you go back to your family after you've moved out, it's warm, it's welcoming, it's enjoyable, but it's not home anymore. And boy, oh boy, it was good to get on the plane and come back home to Brooklyn and Queens.
[00:05:14] Speaker A: That's great to hear. That is really nice. Really, truly. Right? I mean, it's. This is where you've made your home, and it's great.
[00:05:21] Speaker B: This is where we get home is. Yep. So it's great.
[00:05:25] Speaker A: Speaking of going places unknown, Bishop, as today, as we record this podcast later this evening, you're flying to Peru for what sounds to be an incredible mission experience and retreat experience. Have you ever been to Peru, Bishop?
[00:05:39] Speaker B: Never yet I served as a pastor in Long beach where there was a pretty significant Peruvian population.
And of course, I know that we have a strong Peruvian population in Woodside at St. Sebastian, and we do in other places. So I look forward to that connection, which is home for many of our people. But yes, this is something new and it's with St. James Society now. You know, St. James Society is a mission opportunity for diocesan priests here in the United States to serve in the missions in South America, essentially. Now they're really only in Peru, but one of the connections for us is that Bishop Daley, who was the bishop before Bishop Dimasio, was a missionary himself with the St. James Society. And so it's a great, great opportunity to make some connections with our own history here and with the heritage of our peoples. But it's something of a retreat for the missionaries, for missionaries who had served there in the past for other bishops. And so too it's an opportun I'll be able to make my retreat while I'm down there. So I'm glad for that time, too. Time to be able to pray.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: It should be a great opportunity. And then we come back and this is really where we begin, right? Our the topic of this week's podcast, really, you come back just in time for the Martin Luther King day on Monday, January 19th. And later that week, you're down in Washington, D.C. for the March for Life. This is really the theme that we want to talk about today, which is the theme of human dignity. I'd even say that connected with Peru and strangely enough with Bishop Daly, just thinking of him as serving as supreme chaplain in the Knights of Columbus and those Knights of Columbus which work so hard and bringing the idea of the topic of pro life, of the dignity and value of all human life. But, Bishop, what we've been seeing in our world and in our nation speaks otherwise, right?
[00:07:42] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. You know, so yeah, like let's look at these two days that we mark in the coming week. On Friday, we have the March for life, Thursday, January 22nd marks the anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision by the Supreme Court. And you know, while the decision was overturned, abortion is the law of the land. And it's becoming more and more available and more and more, how can I say this? Like, with medically induced abortions, it's almost like an at home kind of a project. It's, it's made to look like it's a simple, simple thing. And yet, you know, it's very serious. We talk about human life and it's also very dangerous. It's also very, very dangerous. So, you know, and I remember as a kid, I was a kid when Roe v. Wade was decided. He said, oh, this is going to lead to all kinds of problems in terms of human life, things like euthanasia. And I remember people in favor of abortion saying, that's ridiculous, that would never happen.
And yet what happened here in New York State, we've codified it, right, as in several other states.
So it's that so called slippery slope. Maybe it takes a while, but boy, it is steep enough. It's pretty steep.
And then the other day that's marked this week is Martin Luther King. And really we remember with a certain amount of shame some of the things of the past.
We go back to slavery and to disrespect for the lack of civil rights, basic human rights for many people who lived in this nation. So we always have to look at respecting the civil rights of one another, ending racism, prejudice, ending acts of hatred and violence against different ethnic groups, racial groups. Unfortunately, we still have hatred in our society. And so this is a week where as a nation, it gives us a chance to contemplate human dignity, to really think about its place in our society. Where have we come and where do we need to go? It keeps showing itself in different ways. And then as you say, that theme of human dignity, that's at the root of everything, you know. And when we talk about some of the different current events, again it gets down to human dignity.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: We see that certainly with current events, we're mentioning two topics that may seem different, but as we recognize are rooted in the grounding of being created, in God's image and likeness. And that means a care for the poor, for the vulnerable, for the immigrant, for those who may not share our same beliefs or ideologies, but yet we recognize in them the person of Christ. We recognize in them the divine.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: And one of the things that worries me today, you know, we use the term human dignity, there's a certain dehumanization.
And when we start to dismiss individuals or groups of people as being anything less than human.
And that happens sometimes simply because somebody's attached to a political point of view, or when you're trying to make a political point of view, it happens again, when you dismiss entire ethnic groups or people based on skin or religion, it leads to some pretty destructive behavior and some pretty serious consequences.
You know, one of the things that we witnesses on both sides of the political spectrums, so this is very much on both sides.
On one side, when immigrants are dehumanized, it's easy to justify many, many actions. And likewise, when law enforcement is dehumanized, it's just, you know, labeled as groups. And here's some political rhetoric that's pretty strong. And again, it justifies all kinds of behavior. And we've seen that the results have been tragic, for lack of any better word. It's been. They've been tragic.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: So.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: And we see it too, in our nation and in our own city in terms of some of the crimes that have taken place, some random crimes where, you know, a person becomes a means to an end, or sometimes things are. Are done very randomly. What I think we want to really try to pledge ourselves to, especially this coming week, is to recognize that great gift of human dignity. You know, just last week, we celebrated the feast of the baptism of the Lord. God chose to become human. God chose to stand with humanity at the muddy shores of the Jordan river. God chose to step into the messiness of human life, to be. Bear it as it is, and to walk with all of us through the messiness of human life Because God, who created human life, held it in such high esteem. God chose to become one of us so that he could lift us even to greater heights. And so that's what these days can call us to remember, to try to see that human dignity in our brothers and sisters, in our neighbors and friends, and in some of the strangers on the streets. And sometimes, hey, sometimes it's hard. I know. Sometimes my own guard goes up when I see, for example, some oppressive panhandling or something like that. But, boy, there's. There's still that challenge to see one another and stand in solidarity with one another as brothers and sisters created in the image and likeness of God.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: We say, right, let there be peace on earth. Let it begin with me. Let charity begins at home. And. And all of these things. I mean, how beautiful that what motivates us to serve the poor, to care for the vulnerable, to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves, is what motivates the St James Society to send diocesan priests all over the world. What motivated the Marinal Fathers, American priests, missionaries, what motivated all these at the root of our church and what brings you to Peru and what brings people into the Knights of Columbus and other fraternal organizations? It's all because at the root of it, we're saying we want to be side by side with people who are fighting for the recognition of the dignity and value of all human life.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: And when you think about some of the great American saints earlier this month, when we didn't get to celebrate Elizabeth Ann Seton because her feast day was the Feast of the Epiphany this year. But when you think of Elizabeth Ann Seton and her care for young children, which began a whole Catholic school system, and the Sisters of Charity, when you think of St. John Henry Neumann and his work with the immigrant poor, with the coal miners. My family were coal miners in Pennsylvania. At the time, he was the bishop of Philadelphia. When you think of people like Mother Cabrini, our own heritage is marked with tremendous heroes of people who really did show us how to see human dignity and how to respond in solidarity.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: May I add even more locally and in our own diocese and petitions for the causes of canonization of Monsignor Quinn, you know, in Irish Americans speaking and working on behalf of those men and women of color and Bishop Ford, who, you know, head to China to spread the gospel and bring that message of dignity to all parts of the world. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. And it's that which we are part of. And like, as we began talking about Sikh being with 17,000 people that share our belief, that share our joy and our energy, that mission is shared by all of us by the virtue of our baptism and by the life that we share. So what an awesome thing that is. Bishop, we're excited for a new year to come. Some great guests coming on soon. We are expecting here on our podcast, and it's a great opportunity for our listeners to keep tuning in and spreading the word about that there are Catholic podcasts and ways in which we can have that medium to hear about our faith and to share the good news that's happening.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: That's great. So we look forward to being instruments of God's peace in the year ahead. And I'll close with the blessing from the Book of Numbers. It's the blessing I often use.
And we heard on New Year's Day that was the first reading God told Moses, this is how you bless the people.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: The Lord be with you and with your spirit.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: 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. Amen.
[00:16:37] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: The blessing of Almighty God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit descend upon you and remain with you forever and ever.
[00:16:44] Speaker A: Amen. Thank you, Bishop, and thanks to all who continue to join us each and every week. We hope that you'll tune in again next Friday. God bless.
