Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to the latest episode of Big City Catholics with Bishop Brennan. My name is Deacon Kev McCormick. I'm the superintendent of schools for our diocese, and I want to welcome everybody for listening and thanking them. Bishop, it's always a pleasure to be with you, and as is the custom, your co host will lead with prayer. And so I appreciate that opportunity. Let's remember we're always in the presence of our God as we begin. In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, amen. Lord God, we live in a complicated world with many, many needs and desires. Help us to focus on what's truly important and give us the courage to let go of everything else. We ask this in your name. Amen.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:00:43] Speaker A: So, Bishop, it's great to be with you.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: It's great to be with you. How is your lent going?
[00:00:47] Speaker A: You know what? Here's the thing. I was a little embarrassed. It's not as good as I hoped it would be, but it's better than I feared it would be. How does that. So I'm in the middle. I'm in the middle.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: I think that's a good way to describe much of life, isn't it?
[00:01:00] Speaker A: Exactly. So I had a great thing about spiritual reading and making sure, and I'm kind of running a little late on that. But I do get two rosaries in a day that I'm very proud of, and so I'm holding on to that. So, all in all, I think the Lord's okay with me, but I could always be better.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: I was traveling, we recently, and I ran into a greek orthodox priest, a wonderful guy. I've worked with him, ecumenical dialogue and events, and he asked me, he said, so how's your lent going? I answered. I said, well, I think it's going all right. I told him about our Lenten pilgrimage, which I'm enjoying immensely. And then I turned and I said, so how's your lent going? And he said, oh, we didn't begin yet. And I remembered with the date of Easter, huge disparity between them this year for us, we're pretty early, but for them, they're as late as they can be. Easter is actually in May. So he said, we haven't even started.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: Greek lent is much more difficult than roman lent.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: Oh, tell me about it. I remember we were trying to set something up, and it was going to bring us into Lent, and there was no talking about it. That we're not going to be having a dinner.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: No.
I like when we complain about having to have fish and they don't eat meat for many days, so I'm glad I'm a Roman.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: God bless them. And hopefully their prayers are bringing us some help along the way. So that's great. But it's been good going around with the Lenten pilgrimages. It's just so moving to see so many people who really just want to be with the Lord, making all kinds of trips, traveling the diocese and doing it simply for a few minutes of prayer.
[00:02:34] Speaker A: I was with you at Holy family, Father Sean Sukil's place with the kids. It was really very powerful. You had almost 600 kids there from all over the diocese. And then I followed you at St. Gregory the great, Father ed Kachurka's place. And each place was there you see people, some who were traveling. St. Gregory the Great is probably about as far away as you can from the other side of Brooklyn. There were people know Sister Marianne Ambrose, who tries to make all of them. She was there. It just reminds us of the importance of this. And it's not just me doing my individual discipline, but it's also me praying with our whole community. It's very powerful.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: And I give a lot of credit to Father Gibino and the sales medium and the team that helps. I was a little skeptical about this app. They said, oh, no, people are going to want to book. And book was his innovation, too. So I was a little skeptical. But you know what people really take into it? They do the check ins. But also I'm really struck by the prayer intentions, so that people who are making these visits, but also people who aren't able to make the visits, are joining us in prayer. And just some beautiful sentiments in these prayer intentions.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: You see the crosses that people are carrying, they're all very real. Our topic this week, we're talking about life choices. If things were easy, they wouldn't be a discussion. It's not like, do I wrestle with a bear or do I cuddle with my grandson? Those are silly things. But there are real serious issues that we and our people struggle with trying to do the best they can and yet at sometimes not being given the information or the support that they necessarily need.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: How true. It would be simple if we could just say, choice A is good and choice B is very, very bad. Sometimes you have to work families along and there are very clear goods out there. But, oh, man, some of life's predicaments can be very, very hard. But one of my main themes is Jesus didn't come into the world made of porcelain and wood like the nativity sets. Jesus came into the world of flesh and blood, of mud and filth, and stepped into it with people, to meet people where they are, but then to bring them to those higher realms.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: I think what we do is we walk with our people because it's us. It's not like we're up here and they're down here. We're all on this together. So a young woman who's pregnant and becomes fearful has no idea how she's going to get through it. A family who's desperate for a child, a parent who's beyond their prime, appears to be suffering beyond suffering in a hospital bed, even a person on death row, all of these life issues that become an essential question, they're not easy. And anybody who thinks we have easy answers to that is not it. But we do have answers.
[00:05:12] Speaker B: We do. And we have the guidance and we have the support like we're called to live in this culture of encounter, encounter with Jesus Christ, but to encounter, to be in solidarity with one another. So we not only have answers, but we have ways of accompanying one another, of building up one another in that know, it's funny you mentioned some of those realities and the struggles that people face. Cardinal Dolan had a column recently, and it was shared with us in New York, where he raises a lot of those questions. He started off with the death row reality, and sometimes in the rhetoric you hear we're getting better at this. And when I was in Ohio, executions were put on sort of a stay because there was a bad case where somebody was given a lethal injection and it went badly and the guy really suffered. And so a couple of things happened as a result. Of course, the state had to take another look at how they do executions. And then drug companies were threatening to pull any contracts with the state which would have affected Medicaid and things like that because they didn't want their products being used in executions. In the long way about this and dealing with it, they were looking for a humane way to execute somebody.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: Sort of an oxymoron, isn't it? And the last one, the nitrogen that was used, the guy suffered for 20 minutes. And look, we're not talking about people who've done great things. These are people who've done heinous things. But as Catholics, you can't give away your humanity. And even if you don't respect your humanity, we do.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: And even that we respect our humanity, what does that do to us as individuals and as a society that reduces us then to the level of the criminal in this case, like you say, we're not talking about the best people. I'm sure very good people were deeply wounded, hurt, killed, families mourning. That's all valid. But that oxymoron, how do you do this humanely? That's the problem. There isn't a humane way, I think.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: Bishop, we live in a society that has a quest for junk food. And it's an old line from a Dylan song, fast food has its place. Don't get me wrong. It may be the man I am today, but it's a quick fix. It's a quick fix. It's sweet, it's salty, it's. Christy, whatever the case may be, but we know there's better ways to do that. If you're hungry on the road and you grab a cheeseburger, it is what it is. But when we're dealing with life issues, we're better than a quest for junk food, a quick fix, how we can kill someone more efficiently, how we can terminate a pregnancy because we're afraid. And no one is there to support a family that wants children and wants to be there for all of these questions. They demand time. We live in a world where 20 seconds is considered a long time period. How crazy is that? And yet the church, we're 2000 years old. We have a tradition of understanding and reflecting on what it is to be human. And sometimes we get beat up because people say, well, you're old fashioned. You don't understand the issue. But I think we do understand the issue, and we understand that the issue can't be done in a quick run to 711. And that's no disrespect to 711, but we're not in the business of 711 or junk food morality. And I think that's the key to where we need people to have a patience to take a breath and to really begin to see what's the need here.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: And so when we talk about the abortion mentality in the country, the celebration of the abortion culture, some of the legislators get giddy over some of the legislation that's out there to enshrine abortion into society. On the other hand, we are dealing with real people. In some ways, the abortion culture makes it seem like that's the only choice at the time. And so it forces choices. You talk about being pro choice, the abortion culture cuts out all other possibilities. And this is really the only option available to you. And now one of the things cardinal was concerned about was what's gone from a medical procedure to now medicine. Medicine, just a pill. And making that now even available over the counter. Are we really helping somebody who finds themselves in what seems like an impossible situation, or are we prolonging their suffering, the destruction of a human life, and really the messing up of somebody's whole future? This haunts people for so long.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: I think it's the Rachel project that works with women who project. Rachel has gone through abortions. The key here, and I think the really important thing for us is not only working on legislation and things like that, but once the baby's born, we got to make sure there's diapers and formula and mom, can. We have many places that do the bridge of life is one of my favorites, but there's plenty that do this.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: Exactly. And even that that has a certain appeal. We can get the diapers and we can get the strollers, but also we have to make sure that there's education. We have to make sure that there's family support structure. This is really something that Pope Francis talks about a lot when he talks about the culture. Now of accompaniment. John Paul II spoke about the culture of life, which is beautiful. We promote it. And the culture of life also calls for a culture of accompaniment. We need to stand in solidarity, walk with one another. And it's more than just getting through the first six months, more than getting through the diaper period. It's like, try and provide education for mom, if that's what's needed, to be able to function as a single mom and that whole future of being able to provide for a loving environment, a family environment, even under really difficult circumstances.
[00:10:32] Speaker A: Without that, the mom becomes entrenched in a poverty. She can't go to school. She can't do better. She's got childcare issues. She's got all the other things that are there, what we do. And we're at our best. And we're at the best more than not. We do give opportunity with catholic charities, with people beginning to give people opportunities so that they can become the people who then lift up the next generation. And again, it's beyond just going in for a quick fix to solve a problem like a toothache or a headache. I could take an aspirin for that. But these are monumental consequences. The uniqueness of a life can't be put in the same way as a headache.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: And when you have that culture, again, we talk about Project Rachel, helping to heal someone who has had an abortion. Part of the problem of the culture is that it pushes. You don't always make a free choice. It's not that you make a free choice to an abortion. I don't know that anybody really, nobody's happy about it.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: No woman or even a family that have decided on that. No one was thrilled with that decision.
[00:11:26] Speaker B: But basically, it's like all the other options get cut off. And what happens is it lets society off the hook. It lets society off the hook. There's a quick fix for this. There's junk food available, and so you ought to be happy with that. And it keeps us from, as a society, from having to say, gee, we've got to step up and support one another. We've got to walk with each other as a society through difficult times. And we have to be with each other for the long haul, not for the short haul. It doesn't do to push somebody in a direction and say, there's a solution for you. It's quick, it's easy, and don't bother us.
Know that's true at the end of life, too. And this, I think, is really the serious issue. And it's one of the ones that we need to be talking about right now here in New York state, assisted suicide. It's a long time since we heard a lot of talk about it. Remember with Dr. Kaborki?
[00:12:19] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: That was where it all began, and that was decades ago, and yet the reality is still among us. So there are real pushes in New York to get legislation. It didn't get through last year. I don't know if it's going to get to the floor this year or not. But as I say, with a lot of things, these kinds of legislative battles, you have to win them every time. You only have to lose them once.
So we're very, very concerned with the catholic conferences, but many people are very concerned about this throwaway culture now coming into the end of life. And one of the big concerns is back to that issue of freedom. You say, oh, if somebody wants to choose to end their life, they ought to be free to do it. That devolves into the convenient way. And therefore, as long as we have that quick fix option, we don't have to do other things.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: If I may be personal for a minute, my mom died about a year and a half ago. Your mom died very recently. My mom had a great life. Last few months were horrible. Horrible. And yet at the same time, and I'm not trying to Disney fy this at all, I mean, they were horrible times and the woman suffered, but she showed us the dignity of who she was and when it was the end, and I said, mom, what? She says, I need you now. We're done. And she died within the week, but she never gave up. She also, and again, I don't mean to be saccharine about this, and I'm sure you had the same thing with your mom and with your dad now being with him. And thank God he's much healthier than your mom. But you get it. Mom taught us the idea of having the responsibility to serve others. So she was in a hospital. She wasn't in a facility. She went to the hospital the last week of her life. She was in a hospital most of the time. She was at her home. We had a responsibility to take care of her. I wish I could say my wife and my sister in laws, they did it. Gina was with my mom all the time. And, I mean, they did good things there, but we had a responsibility. She was not a burden. And I won't tell you, I looked forward to those days, but that's what love does. And again, that's what it comes down to, is love.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: And that's what I had the power of witnessing more than doing in my family. I mean, everybody pitched in, myself included. We all tried to pitch in. But my dad was my mom's principal caregiver, and her last couple of years were tough because you lost some of what you had with her.
There was a time in her life she was grateful for everything, part of every decision. And in the last few years, she couldn't be that. Hers was Alzheimer's, a form of dementia. And so she couldn't show the appreciation for the things that were done for her. But you knew that she did. You knew what was inside. And I remember saying to my father recently, I think he was talking about his own limitations. And he says, oh, I'm starting to feel the effects of age. And I said, dad, the last couple of months have been somewhat overwhelming.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: You got beat up.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: You were constantly focused on Karen for mom, and you were constantly managing from moment to moment. And some of the needs were clearly overwhelming. He says, that might be true, but I would much rather have the overwhelming things than what I have now. I would trade being overwhelmed for not having her here with me. You talk about the horrible days and the horrible suffering and watching that kind of thing, but he says, and he says it a lot. In a sense, he was a prisoner of the house. He made many, many sacrifices, and he make those sacrifices continue today. How many years were they together? 63, 62. 62 and a half.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: And I said, a funeral. That's what they said. I do, too.
On the day of the weding. Right. Not knowing what it was, I'll take care of you when you're suffering and sick. But my mom continued to play an important role in our lives, even though she didn't realize it, even in those last days.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: And that's the love. So love is not just a good feeling, and that's a wonderful part of it, but it's also the carrying of the cross, which, I mean, we're a couple of weeks away from Holy Week. We're a couple of weeks away from the passion. And the thing I think we do best, when Christians are focused on what the Lord offered us, it was Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, each having their own place. The fear of the anticipation, the loss, the emptiness, the semicolon, as I like to call it, and then the ultimate victory, that all will be well, and in all things, all will be well this week.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: The readings, whether you're using the regular cycle b readings or the cycle A, either way, it's really about death and resurrection. The Greeks want to come and see Jesus. They go to Philip, who goes to Andrew, who goes to Jesus, and say, hey, there are some Greeks out there who want to see you. And Jesus picks up a grain of wheat and just says, unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and it remains just a grain of wheat. Now I'm picturing Andrew saying, hey, is that a yes or a no?
[00:16:55] Speaker A: What are we doing here, boy?
[00:16:57] Speaker B: But the point is, if you're really going to see Jesus, it means dying to yourself, letting yourself go into the earth and crack open and produce the new life.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: And that really connects our conversation at this time, because the cheap know, the easy grace, the fast food grace, but the real grace is blood, sweat, and tears. It's the agony and the ecstasy. And we can use all the cute metaphors that are there, but there's a reason the crucifix is our sign and not the empty tomb. We hope for the empty tomb. We know the cross, and sometimes you have to embrace it.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: That's it. The other life issue that gets out there right now is with the IVF. And I think we'll have a chance to talk about that another time with some of the experts. But one of the things I would hold out, we say there's a good that couples are trying to conceive to have children. This is a crass way of saying it, but there's a lot of collateral damage along the way. And one of the things that the church offers through its experience in medicine is something called the Gianna center right here in New York, connected somewhat with our catholic health, the system out on Long island, catholic health, they're connected with Dr. Nolte, who was the real expert of it. And basically through the Gianna center, many couples find that it's less expensive, far more effective, and it's rooted in nature. It's natural, it's organic. So one of the things that my experience, as I look at some of my experience of reflections on moral theology, is that what the church teaches, we teach based on gospel principles, revelation that the Lord has given us through natural law or in revealed teachings. But often, even if it doesn't seem like the quick fix, the easy answer, or if it involves some hardship in the long run, let's put forward as the moral teaching turns out to be the best course of action and that it actually is the true human way. So we want to encourage those kinds of opportunities. And like I said, maybe I'll have the opportunity to talk with somebody at length about the Gianna center and about other ways of approaching the cross. The suffering as a couple is trying to conceive or as people want to have pregnancies that are healthy. Sometimes some of the treatment is to accompany somebody through the pregnancy because it might be a difficult pregnancy, but getting to the root causes, if I may.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: Bishop, we're not museum curators. We work with the Holy Spirit through science, through the best of technology, through the things that are there. So this is not your mother's rhythm method of the 1950s, and it had its place, and I'm not here to condemn, but we have 70 years of science that works with us. Dr. McNulty and the people he works with, they're not looking back and saying, this is the best practice of the mid 20th century or the mid 19th century. They're saying, this is what's available to us now, and we can create and grow with that. And I don't think people give us credit for that.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: Right, exactly. We keep our eyes fixed on the great gift of life. You and I say this all the time when we look at the church of teachers, we are indeed bold, joyful, and unapologetic because the message that the Lord has handed on to us is indeed good news, good news for the world. And maybe if we, sometimes something looks like it doesn't make sense or it's the harder course of action, that might call for some self reflection. Maybe I ought to find out more about this. That's all. Maybe there's something to this. We don't have to wink and nod and, you know, the church doesn't do this you have to accept the B level, right? No. Bold, joyful, unapologetic.
[00:20:30] Speaker A: And if it's too good to be true, it is.
[00:20:33] Speaker B: White Castle and McDonald's are good, but it's not a steady diet.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: I worked at White Castle for six years. We'll talk about that another day.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: My friend Archbishop Perez would love to hear that story, too, because he's a big White Castle fan. But there, too, we also celebrate the fullness. I love Jesus's line, I came that you might have life and have it in abundance. I love it in Spanish. When you start it in Spanish, people join in. As soon as you start it, people just join.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: How does it sound like?
[00:21:09] Speaker B: People just join in as you start to say it. Abundant.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:21:13] Speaker B: So that's a good way for us to finish in these Lenten days that whatever we're doing for Lent, whatever we're doing as we live our lives, whatever we're doing, as we accompany one another, we walk with Jesus who came, that we might have life and have it in abundance. Thank you for joining us for another session of big city Catholics. Please join us next week. We're on another week. We're going to be talking about Holy Week, right? Next Friday we'll be on the cusp of Palm Sunday and Holy Week. In the meantime, we still have a little bit of the breaks of Lent, St. Patrick's Day. It happens on a Sunday, so Sunday takes precedence. But it's still March 17. We have St. Joseph's Day, so we have a little bit of fun along the way as we move into these solemn days of Lent. And we'll be back again next week to talk about Holy Week. In the meantime, maybe we'll offer the irish blessing. May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face. May the rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hands.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: And may almighty God bless you, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please join us again next week for another edition of big City Catholics. Thank you, deacon comic, for joining.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: Always good to be with you, bishop. Thank you.
