Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to another edition of Big CD Catholics. I'm Bishop Robert Brennan, Bishop of Brooklyn, serving both Brooklyn and Queens. And I'm here this week with Archbishop Nelson Perez, the Archbishop of Philadelphia. Why don't we begin by invoking the Lord's assistance? In the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen. So Archbishop Perez and I were ordained bishops together. We were like brothers. I say we're like twins. He's my Cuban twin.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: I have his Irish twin.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: And twelve years in July, 12 years in July, went down in Baltimore for the bishops meeting. And can you believe we've been doing these meetings for twelve years?
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Twelve years. It's amazing how time flies and how the meetings have remained the same. By and large.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: What we've roamed around, but we've roamed around. Exactly.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: We haven't remained the same.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: That's right. Archbishop Perez was a priest of the Philadelphia Archdiocese, having served there for almost 23 years, 23 years as a priest, and then was tapped to be an auxiliary on Long Island. And we were ordained together for the Diocese of.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: I met you on your birthday.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: That's right. The night before we were announced on June 7. On my 50th birthday.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: On your 50th birthday.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: That's right. And my brother called me and says, what are you doing tonight? And I said, well, stop by.
We were about to have dinner with Bishop Murphy, and we met each other. And the next day was the press conference, the announcement.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: So we were there together for five years, and then you were moved to Cleveland.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: To Cleveland through the Diocese of Cleveland.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: And it's a very interesting journey that the two of us took. So in 2018.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: In 2018, I went to CleVeland.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: 2019. A year later, I went to Columbus, Ohio.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: Columbus, Ohio.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: A year later, you come back to.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: The East coast, right back to Philly.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: Where you have been serving all along. And a year later, I'm brought back to the East coast, to Brooklyn, right.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: Next door on the same island body of land than Long Island.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: So very similar journeys and a great adventure all the way. We have a lot of laughs along the way, but I think we've had some good experiences.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: I said to the nuncio when you got moved back to Brooklyn. So was that like part of the plan? How did that happen?
[00:02:40] Speaker A: He responded very coily, right?
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Yeah. They didn't say one thing or a little laugh. Yeah, that was about it.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: Very diplomatic.
[00:02:48] Speaker B: He's a diplomat.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: So the bishops in the United States meet altogether twice a year, once in November in Baltimore. That's pretty steady. And then in June we go about to different places. And the November meeting is really the business meeting. So we started off with committee meetings. You were here early because you're on administrative committee.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: Administrative. I'm chair of CRS. I'm member of Church in Africa, International Peace and Justice. So the two days before the conference began, as most bishops that are on committees, as you will be now, so.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: A lot of the work gets done at the committee level.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: And then it comes to the larger body where things are debated. There's a very nice order of things.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: Well, you can't put 300 people in a room without order and processes to guide that because it would be a free for all. So in a sense, the structure helps guide the conversation.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: It really does. And I'm finding in the last two years, they've changed some of the structure. So we have these, they call them fraternal dialogues.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: Right.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: So we're meeting in smaller groups.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: That has been very fruitful, actually.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: I think so, too. And they have somebody take minutes, and it does give a chance for more voices to be heard because not everybody's going to get to the flip, practically.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: You can't have everybody and the groups are randomly Selected. Right. They put you in a group. So I walked into a group today, of which there might have been 15 guys there or something. I only really knew kind of, well, three of them, but I got to know all the others, that I would see their face and stuff. But it is an opportunity to get to know some of my brother bishops in an environment that, in a big.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: Setting and to hear from them.
I went into those fraternal dialogues this morning. We had the questions before us, and I said, okay, I think I know where I'm going on this, but it was interesting to hear things that I hadn't thought about before.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:04:38] Speaker A: And then all that goes up to the larger body, and somehow or another the process seems to work.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: And I think the addition of the fraternal dialogues. We have regional meetings, but they're the same guys we meet with regionally. Anyway, the fraternal dialogues, I think, give an opportunity to hear other voices from other parts of the country.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: Yep, exactly.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: This is a big country.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: It is a big country.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: And our world of the Northeast is not the world of the Southwest.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: No.
[00:05:02] Speaker B: We wouldn't really have the opportunity unless you went there to really get a sense of how Church is church there.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: And the issues and the issues that.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: Are important to them.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: See, it's all very cynical, isn't it?
[00:05:13] Speaker B: It is absolutely cynical.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: One of the things we did is elect chairs. Elect for these committees.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: And you got a new mandate.
[00:05:21] Speaker A: I got a new mandate. I was asked to take on the chair of Cultural Diversity, Church. Now I have to tell you something. There is one qualification that I have exactly one qualification to chair that committee, and that is Brooklyn.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: Well, Brooklyn.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: Brooklyn and Queens.
[00:05:36] Speaker B: Queens, but also Long Island.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Yeah, but what I mean is that.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: Brooklyn, how many languages do you celebrate the Eucharist in?
[00:05:43] Speaker A: About 30 languages.
[00:05:44] Speaker B: 30 languages. Talk about diversity.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: You got them all there.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: Yeah. This is really the reflection of the Diocese of Brooklyn serving Brooklyn and Queens. That's what we are. That's the name of the game. And it's great.
[00:05:55] Speaker B: Yeah, you'll bring a lot to that.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: I look forward to doing it. So it's really a year off. What we do is we elect. Chair elect, and then next year, next.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: November, a year from now, we become the chair at the end of the meeting, actually.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: Now you served on this committee and you chaired it before, right.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: I served on the committee when I was chair of Hispanic Affairs. That's a subcommittee, so you'll have five subcommittees under cultural diversity. And then I was elected chair of the Committee of the Standing Committees. I think there's 16 or 17 standing committees. This committee has the largest number of subcommittees, I believe, because there are so.
[00:06:31] Speaker A: Many culturally diverse groups.
[00:06:34] Speaker B: Three years I chaired that committee. It was very enriching. I have to know. I was familiar with, obviously, with the Hispanic American world and with the Catholics, you know, black Catholic world because of my experience in Philadelphia. But, for example, I really wasn't that knowledgeable about the world of our Native Americans and how diverse they are in.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: Themselves and really how much of a factor that is when you get out of the Northeast?
[00:07:05] Speaker B: When you get out of the Northeast. Yes, absolutely.
[00:07:07] Speaker A: Many of our diocese are working primarily in communities with Native Americans.
[00:07:11] Speaker B: With Native Americans, yeah. And they're very diverse in and of themselves as the Hispanic community is. That's right. The other subcommittee that I found fascinating was migrants, refugees, and people on the move. The people on the move were interesting, really. Right. Because people on the move included apostolates of the church in the United States. That I actually didn't even know existed until I started hearing reports from that committee when I served as a member and then as chair, for example, circus workers, there is actually a ministry to circus workers that are people on the move, and that also includes actors and entertainers, and there's priests and laypeople that accompany people on the move. In the world of circus workers and entertainment Actors, right?
[00:07:59] Speaker A: Isn't it interesting?
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Who suffered greatly during the COVID time. Oh, because their world just stopped and.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: Everyone had a place to retreat, to retreat.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: And they didn't because by and large, in particular, circus workers lived with the circus. So all of a sudden, many of them had no job and no place to go. So it was a human, social, pastoral reality that, frankly, coming from the Northeast, all I knew about Circus was Barnum and Bailey Circus at Madison Square Garden getting popcorn and getting popcorn, right? And that's about it. And sitting there with 20,000 people watching the three ring circus. And my father loved to go to the circus, and I would love it, too, but that's all I knew about that. And to realize that there was a whole ministry that fell under the pastoral care of the church was pretty amazing to see. I understood migrants, I understood refugees, but people on the move, or travelers, we also call them, included a lot of people. The ministry to people on ships, our Marines, merchant marine, right. That bring goods to our country and at our ports, and oftentimes because of immigration issues, they can't get off the boat.
[00:09:12] Speaker A: Oh, wow. That's something new to me, too.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: They really can't get off the boat because they're from another country or something in some cases. So there's a whole ministry, the seafarer ministries of people on the.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: And that all comes in under cultural diversity.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: All under cultural diversity, right. So in a sense, it's serving the Church in its Catholicity. Right. The universality of the Church. And that particular committee in many ways keeps the general body sensitive to the fact that the Church is Catholic. It's universal, it's diverse polarity to it.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: One of the communities that I learned more about just in the general Conference is the ministry to Asian and Pacific people. I've been learning more and more, and now that's actually helped me because those are communities I'm coming, that you have to learn and to know better and to love.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: In Brooklyn, some of those communities have very deep Catholic roots. The Filipino community, the Vietnamese community, other communities like the Pakistani community, are a very small percentage in Pakistan, but they're very firm and solid in their faith and in some cases actually persecuted.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: That's true. That's very true. Many of these communities that are here come from countries where they are persecuted for the faith. There may not be many Catholics. There aren't many Catholic Pakistanis, there aren't many Catholic Chinese.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: But those who are here are often the ones who were persecuted back at home. So that does give a greater capitalicity to some of those communities.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: I think you'll enjoy that committee, as I did. They have a great inner staff, great associate directors, a great executive director, and they keep the conference and the Church of the United States at this level of the Bishops Conference, constantly sensitive to the diversity of the church. And a voice for those whose voice, because they come from minority groups, might not necessarily rise to a majority voice. And that's the task of that community and to accompany. One of the things that we did when I was chair of cultural diversity is we accompanied our young adults in an initiative called Journeying Together. And initially it was supposed to be a gathering at a university in Ohio, actually in Cleveland, but then COVID came and knocked that out of the park. But the young adults from the whole country came together and says, you know what? Time out doesn't mean we can't do it in another way. So we began to meet monthly.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: When I was in Columbus, I would get people working.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: I went to all their gatherings.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: So they first gathered by cultural families, and then we gathered intercultural. It was very beautiful. By the time it was done, we had over 2000 young adults coming together virtually as far away as Alaska and Hawaii.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: I remember that.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: That was quite, it was a beautiful, beautiful initiative.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: And then you did have a national.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: Gathering, and then we finally did have an in person gathering. What it was safe to do that in Chicago with over 400 young adults. It was beautiful. That is the work of cultural diversity at its best.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: And I think an important piece to that, because we can fall into the trap of having big events and then moving on to the next thing.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: We need to continue.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: It continued.
[00:12:28] Speaker A: We need to build on those experiences.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: It continued at World Youth Day, one of the tracks or one of the catechesis. They actually was on journeying together, and we had about 200 young adults gathered in an amphitheater. And that's what it a conversation about our cultural differences and how they enrich each other. It was great.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: Speaking of youth and young adults, you were talking about young adults, but you're also a representative, a liaison with NFCYM.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: National Federation of Youth Ministry. I'm their episcopal advisor.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: And so you have a conference coming up, an experience right from here. You are going to leave a little.
[00:13:05] Speaker B: Early to go to Indianapolis.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: Indianapolis.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: We're expecting 12,000 youth.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: To gather in Indianapolis for, like, three days.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: We have a very small delegation. Last year, I think we had two parishes involved. This year, it's just one parish. Some of those who went in the past went to World Youth Day this year.
[00:13:24] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:24] Speaker A: And I'm still hoping to get to that one time.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: This is the first time in several years that Philly sends a delegation. We have about 100 and 2130. I was talking to a bishop here in Baltimore. He has 600.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: So we're really looking forward to it. It's a very beautiful gathering. It's almost like a little mini World.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: Youth Youth Day, except it's a little more accessible for accessible people.
[00:13:46] Speaker B: We did two this year. Right. So last November, we started NCYC west, right, in California, and we had 3500 youth attend. It was the first time we gather in the West Coast.
[00:14:01] Speaker A: I remember that. So are you alternating?
[00:14:03] Speaker B: So that's the whole hope, is to alternate Indianapolis, NCYC west to give people on the West coast an opportunity. So hopefully that will continue to grow. We were very happy with 3500 the first time.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: Again. My group, the parish Mary of Nazareth, is the group that went with Father Henry Torres. They went the year before to Indianapolis.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: And then they went to the west, NCYC west, because I met them there.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: Yes, they did. And then St. Thomas Aquinas Parish, or the ambassador, is Father Dwayne Davis. They brought a group to West. I think Father Torres is going this time. Father Davis had a group in World Youth Day.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: So it's a beautiful gathering. When people say that we've lost our youth. Well, we've lost some of them, but not all of them.
[00:14:49] Speaker A: That's one of my big points. I say there are far too few young people involved in the church, but.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: Those who are, oh, they're very involved, deeply involved.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: We look to encourage and build them up. And the other thing is, I feel faithful. Catholic youth are often made to feel as if they're isolated. And so when you have these kinds of events that they can look around.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a lot of people, 1.5 million world Youth Day, 12,000 in one place. That's a major gathering for any religious denomination in the United States.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: So we have a lot to say that there are many, many challenges, but many, many good things going on. Without a doubt, after you finish the NCYC conference, you get back. I get back. Next week, we're already at Thanksgiving.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: Can you? Unbelievable. This year's, like, almost done.
[00:15:35] Speaker A: I look back now and I give thanks for the times that we had together, the formation and the experience that we had. The great people of Nassau and Suffolk counties and the priests we worked with. I'm so glad for the experience I had in Columbus. It was too short.
[00:15:51] Speaker B: I think we both share the same experience, that the church guided us into the know with a great mentor like Bishop Murphy, where he was the guy in charge, and we were able to listen and watch. And then we were made ordinaries of mid sized diocese. I would have died if I was made the Archbishop of Philadelphia, or you, the Bishop of Brooklyn from a parish.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: Yeah. It's not just the experience, but I learned a lot in Ohio.
It was good for me to experience a church outside of the Northeast.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: I learned some of the missionary endeavors. I learned a lot from the people in Ohio. And now I come back to Brooklyn. You're back in Philly, and I don't know what the Lord has planned, but I give thanks to each and every one of those experiences. I do.
[00:16:39] Speaker B: They form us. They make us. They prepare us.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: So I encourage you who are listening today. Think about the ways that God is working in your life, even in the disappointments that the Lord steps up and shows us new paths. But think of the opportunities that the Lord is giving to you and the ways he sustains you for it. I wish all of you in Brooklyn and queens and anyone who's listening, a very, very happy Thanksgiving.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: Philly as well.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: Philly as well.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: The place of the cheesesteak.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: Philly Cheesesteak.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Philly Cheesesteak.
[00:17:10] Speaker A: You introduced me to the Philly Cheesesteak during the world meeting of Families.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: Cheesesteak.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: Maybe Brooklyn should do a world meeting of families or a World Youth Day.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: World Youth Day would be fun, wouldn't it?
[00:17:23] Speaker B: Yeah, meeting families.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: Good. Well, listen, thanks for joining me today for Big city Catholics, for this podcast. But I wish to you, Archbishop Perez, very happy Thanksgiving.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: Thank you. Likewise.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: Time. Great blessings. Thank you for the people you serve. Thank you for joining us for another edition of Big City Catholics. I look forward to being with you again back home in Brooklyn and Queens and for another edition next week. In the meantime, again, a very blessed Thanksgiving to you and to all those you love. The Lord be with you and with your spirit. May the blessing of Almighty God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit come upon you, remain with you forever and ever. Amen. Amen.
