PRIESTS CONVENE
                                                TO ‘HEAL THE HEART’                                            

            The planning for a convocation of the priests of the Diocese, focusing on their spiritual, intellectual, psychological and fraternal lives, began about a year ago. Late last month, the planning became a reality. It couldn’t have happened at a better time.

            For the past nine months, across the country, priests have been under siege. The sins of a very few have become the burden of the majority. Tension, anger, frustration on several levels has been palpable.

            While the planners of the Brooklyn convocation could not know what lay ahead when they came together the first time, the program they assembled helped the priests step back and take a breath from the turmoil created by the sexual abuse scandal. They needed a morale boost and, most say, they got it.

            About 300 priests met under the theme, “Healing the Heart of the Priesthood,” as part of the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Diocese. They convened alternately in two two-day sessions, in a pastoral setting light years away from the grit of an urban diocese, at the Legionaries of Christ conference center in Thornwood, N.Y.

            Believed to be the first time that a large number of priests of the Diocese had met for a meeting away from Brooklyn and Queens, the convocation was an opportunity for busy priests to spend quality time talking to one another.

In some cases, it meant meeting for the first time brother priests who drew their first breaths in Korea and Cuba, Pakistan and Poland, Ireland and Italy, reflecting the diversity of the Diocese in which they minister.                                                                                                          

“I enjoy the afternoon-long clergy conferences held each year in the Diocese, but meeting over the space of a couple of days gave us a chance to have deeper conversations between and after the sessions,” said Father Dominick F. Cutrone, retired pastor of Our Lady of Grace, Brooklyn. “I found this to be terrific.”

Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, who has preached Advent and Lenten retreats to the Holy Father and papal household since l980, addressed the priests twice on Wednesday, Oct. 23, the midway point of the convocation, when about 175 priests were concluding their two-day participation and l25 were beginning theirs.

In English that was charmingly accented, the Charismatic and charismatic priest, a popular, non-histrionic television evangelist in Rome, invoked the presence of the Holy Spirit and said He leads one “from chaos to cosmos, from chaos to harmony and communion.”

Through the Eucharist, he said, “we approach the fountainhead of the Holy Spirit where we receive the fire of spirit to be changed.”

Saying that as the Paraclete the Holy Spirit is an advocate “for our relationship with the world,” Father Cantalamessa said with a smile: “God knows the Church in America needs a good advocate.” The priests responded to the touch of humor with their own knowing smiles.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the turbulence created by the clergy sex abuse scandal, the Capuchin told his listeners to “take courage because ‘I am with you,’ says the Lord.”

Bishop Daily called Father Cantalamessa “a great gift to us.”

At the end of Wednesday’s Mass, Bishop Daily expressed words of encouragement to the priests, saying “it is a struggle to be holy because the challenges today are horrendous.”

He added: “I want to say as your bishop that you are very precious. It is no secret that you are facing a difficult time, but your goodness and humility encourages me. Our Diocese counts on your generosity. I urge you to continue.”                                                                                                  

Speakers during the week included Jesuit Father Joseph S. Constantino, a Brooklyn native who directs the St. Ignatius Retreat House in Manhasset, L.I.; Mother Agnes Mary Donovan, superior general of the Sisters of Life; Dr. Richard D. Milone, medical director at St. Vincent’s Catholic Medical Centers division in Westchester, and Father Peter I. Vaccari, professor of Church history at the Immaculate Conception Seminary in Huntington, L.I.

 Father Thomas G. Caserta, director of the Office of Ministry and Life of Priests, who chaired the committee that planned the convocation, announced that in Advent a new program will begin asking each priest to “pray and sacrifice” for the spiritual needs of another priest. “It will be a way to hold each other up through prayer,” he said.