Good morning. On behalf of the archdiocese of San Francisco, welcome to mosaic. The archdiocese has a weekly newsletter that goes out to parishes and schools and institutions and we pose this question. If you have the opportunity to sit down oneonone with a priest, what questions might you have . What would you want to know about this man, these men , and their unique vocation and way of life. You have questions about life . About faith . About his vocation, your own spiritual condition . You may wonder, how do i overcome my fear of going to confession . How can i learn to pray . How can i understand the real presence of jesus in the eucharist . Why do we see so many young people leaving the church or dissatisfied with the faith. We asked for questions to be submitted and today we have a guest two priest of the archdiocese to sit with us and share some answers. It promises to be an interesting discussion. After this brief break, join me in our guest for, ask a priest. Hello and welcome to mosaic. My guests are two priests of the archdiocese of San Francisco and we will talk about questions that are being submitted to the priests to see what answers can be. On the left his father kennedy. And on his left is father fowler. You can see we have a young priest and a slightly older priest. Lets find out about their careers. I have been a priest for four years and entering my fifth year as a priest and assigned the vocation director of San Francisco as well as the priest secretary of the archbishop. Four years. He went to st. Patricks seminary. Yes. For my theology studies. I grew up in marin county in novato. Wonderful. Father kevin, i think you are from i was born in san mateo and grew up in belmont. I am a local product. Have been a priest forever two decades. And your job . The pastor of our lady of fatima which is a byzantine catholic parish within the archdiocese. And also help is associate at saint monica and st. Thomas apostle paris. 20 years, four years. We have a set of questions coming in and i want to mixandmatch. One of the major ones was, about the recent , a pew study, a Reputable Organization says the real presence of christ in the eucharist which is a central teaching of the catholic faith and the eucharist is the center of what the priests of life is an job is, 70 of catholics say they dont believe in the real presence, or not sure about that. That is something of the you to respond to. Is this something you experience as the priest who is presiding over the eucharist . Father fowler. I would say the studies dont surprise me. I would say when we look out, in the mass we celebrate, it is something we can see in peoples faces in terms of their belief or lack of belief in the real presence of the eucharist. As a priest the question is, what do we need to do to address this . Catechism is one thing that i always felt that actions speak louder than words. When you begin to act like you believe, slowly began to actually believe more. As a church i think if we did a better job acting like we actually believe in the real presence from the way we talk about it, the way we act in front of it , the way priests celebrate mass, i think that would generate a deeper faith in our people because when i deal with younger kids, second graders in school , preparing for first communion, they have a deep belief in the eucharist. But they dont always see that belief lived out in the masses they go to or in the parishes. I think that belief begins to diminish, as they get older. I think acting like we believe could be a start to addressing this. The priest way of performing the liturgy. I think that is crucial. He is not an actor in the sense of performing something he does not believe. Because you cannot fool people. You have to be a priest who believes that he is acting in the person of christ. And that christ is central to the priesthood. His mission is not to drop the full so much to himself but threw himself to christ that encounter with the lord. If he believes , what the church believes in teachers in the celebration and the offering of the eucharist and believes this is the mystery of christs presence renewed offered to the father , then he will naturally express that through reverence. Through love. You cannot fake of that. Unfortunately, when a priest does not celebrate with reverence, people pick up on that and they think, if he does not believe, why should i . Priests are crucial in terms of their focus on their dedication to the central mystery and especially their reverence in the celebration of the mass. I guess the priest, we think of priests doing various tasks and jobs and they can be educators or teachers or is your central task the saying of the liturgy , the saying of the mass . A priest, the very nature of priesthood is offering sacrifice. In all world religions, a priest offer sacrifice. That is is crucial defining role. Others can do Academic Work and social work and community organizing, administration, all those things can be part of and part of anyones priesthood. In addition to preaching the gospel, his central role is to offer the sacrifice of the cross. The sacrificial love of the lord, offered, reaction lysed and renewed in the presence of the community and done with great reverence and care and love so that community sees christ renewing his offering of himself on our behalf to the father. I understand that. I cannot imagine what the real presence is but i understand the teaching and you are putting me in a special relationship with god, himself in that moment. I collect , that is the big sacrament. There is the slightly smaller sacrament of confession that seems absently important, in which you, the priest put me in touch with god, for giving my since. We had a question bearing on that about a fear of going to infection. How do i overcome my fear of going to confession . I think one of the fears, what is the fear . The fear that the priest will judge me. Especially if i know that priest and they hear my voice so they see my face they will judge me differently. One of the things that helps limit that as priests, we know first and foremost we are sinners and we know the sense of our past and we know the things we struggle within our own life and that gives us a certain level of compassion and empathy for the person coming to the confessional. We are not there to judge, we stand in place of christ the physician to bring ultimate healing to these peoples lives and that is who the people are seeking to encounter, christ our job as priests is to get out of the way so christ can speak to us, in a sense. I would say that is a helpful piece of advise is to know that we are not there to judge. We know the state of our own souls and we know the sins of many people that come to us. We are not there to judge. On a particular level i may say sometimes it is easier for people, if they are planning to go to confession, to find a priest they dont know. And go anonymously behind the screen so they dont feel on the human level that sense of trepidation. I understand. In whatever circumstances, the goal is they leave with joy. What the lord forgives and forgets and takes away as if it never happened and brings us back to the moment of our baptism which should be a great joy. We will take a brief break and come back and rejoin us and we will talk but the questions for the priests. Hello and welcome back. We are talking with father kennedy and father fowler about the life of a priest. We had a omnibus question come in and it is a pretty good one. What is success for a priest . We know what successful baseball player is. What is success for a priest . And by the same token , what is failure . How would a priest fail . Can you address those things . We were talking this morning about one of my favorite films, one of my mothers favorites from 1944, the keys of the kingdom. Gregory peck plays a priest , who is presumably a failure in his first two assignments. He is said to be a missionary in china. And yet, he ends up touching the hearts of many people. The lives of many people through his gentleness, through his humility and his authenticity. He embodies the best of the priesthood. Even though it is a fictional character, he is the best of Vincent De Paul and so many others who embodied the best of what it is to pattern their lives after the heart of the lord. Learn from me, for i am gentle and humble of heart. If a person with the kind of heart touches the soul of another human being, he is a success as a priest. He is a success in what matters to god. Reasonably, i have been think about success and on one hand i would say every day is successful and that as father kennedy was saying, the job of a priest is to offer the sacrifice of the mass and every single day i offer the sacrifice of the mass for the glorification of god the father and the salvation of souls. I can say every single day is successful. On another level, what does that mean, away from that reality . It is bringing people closer to christ. To having people come to realize that christ is the way, the truth, and the light and be willing to surrender themselves to that life and that would be a success for a priest, bringing people closer to christ. It seems the case that jesus founded this priesthood and named his apostles to be his followers and preachers. To bring people to him. I am the way, the truth, the life. It is the nature tradition you are carrying out but over new. Speaking of success and failure, the person to whom you are bringing people, jesus price, looks a lot like a massive failure when he is up on the crucifix. Doesnt he . But we have the crucifix in the church to remind us of, what . To remind us of failure and success is not exactly what we think it might be. From a christian perspective, failure and a sense leads to success. That god will allow us to fail. Through our sufferings, is actually where our successes and triumphs come. It is kind of in reverse on the way we normally think of things, in society , i would say. Also about your life as a priest, there must be joys and sorrows or difficulties. I was thinking about confession. If i had to your peoples sins day after day, year after year, i would get depressed. What is your reaction . That is what many people think. When a person has a humble and contrite heart, which is what ultimately god wants from us, there is nothing more beautiful than the confession and it does not initially matter the sins they are confession. Joys, difficulties, what stands out for you . I think the greatest joy for me would be to see the young people who are coming to the churches , where father and cameron celebrates and i celebrate , many of whom are converts. They have had to struggle to find their faith. In a very secular culture. They have had to sometimes evangelize themselves to some extent, and participate in the liturgies. Their courage in finding and persevering in their faith , their hope against difficult odds, and belief in the trust that make love, real love possible in their hearts. Love for god and love for one another. They are my greatest joy because they are the future of the church in the real future. You mentioned a young people. Converting or coming to the church. One of our questions was a concern many have, so many young people seem to be leaving the catholic church. Can you address that . Is that a problem . I think we see it when we look out and dont see many young people. College age or High School Age and many people ask, what are we supposed to do . How do we handle this . A lot of times if we think we make it more entertaining or engaging the young people will come back. But i deeply believe the young people are searching for god and the place where they can find a transcendence of god and they can be touched by the love of god, the more young people will come back. They are seeking it. I believe we can offer it, it may not be exactly the way we think trying to engage them with entertaining things are things that try to captivate their interest right away. The archbishop is trying to promote this sense of truth, beauty and goodness right now. When you begin with the liturgy itself, that the truth is being proclaimed in the goodness of a community, formed by faith, hope, by love, but through the beauty, the beauty of sacred worship. The beauty of images, music, the reverence of the celebration, especially on the part of the priest. Engaging homilies. That this is centrally, most important in the future of our christian, catholic communities. You find joy in the young people you see coming in. They are being drawn to this. They are not finding this anywhere else in their lives. Their lives are really empty, despite technology that is meant to facilitate communication. Often it leads to a self isolation. They will only find the healing of their loneliness and their inner emptiness in believing worshiping community. I think that is a given. We will take a brief break and be back for one more segment of discussion with our priests today. Welcome back for our final segment. Discussion with priests. You are both local and i have not asked how you discerned your vocation as a priest. Can i get that from you . I was in second grade. The year i made my first holy communion. My uncle was ordained a priest or another diocese, he lived elsewhere. That i was present in october of 1961. At his ordination. This was a magnificent been event and his first solemn high mass was at our lady of angels at burlingame and i to remember the beautiful choir and the family was present and i thought, i think i would like to do that. When i grew up. I have thought of a lot of other things but when i saw him at the altar i thought, this is a beautiful event and it was not centered on the priest but on christ. Bringing christ to people and the people to christ. Truth, beauty and goodness. Is a second grader i was not being compelled by theological arguments, i felt it as a child, at that age. What about you . I grew up never wanting to be a priest. I had no interest in that. It all changed when i went on this religious image to lords, france. My freshman year of college after that, in a moment of prayer i had the realization i never asked god what he wanted me to do with my life and i asked that dangerous question and i felt a deep inspiration and joy to be a priest. Definitely, a lot of fear but an inspiration and joy that this is how the lord is asking me to give up my life to him and i follow that path into the priesthood. How old are you . 31. A good decade and more. That is wonderful and very interesting. Let me ask this question , this program we are doing now i think will be broadcast on november 3rd , locations sunday or vocations awareness sunday. You are the director of the office of locations for the archdiocese in addition to everything else. Lets talk about , we find vocations to the priesthood among younger men or where are they coming from . How does a younger man begin to think about such a vocation . It is a great struggle. The numbers are not great. We dont have many inquiries or many men in the seminary. Other places in the country are doing better than we are on the west coast. But the fundamental crisis is a basic vocation crisis. We see there is a lack of people getting married. Marriage in the church. Quite true. It is a realization that our life is a gift that god gave a life as a gift through our parents and the ultimate question is, how am i being called to take this life of mine which is a gift and offer it back that is what a vocation is. How is god calling me to offer my life as a gift. If we can help young people realize that meaning of life, they can be open to a vocation of marriage, the priesthood, religious life, or other special vacation. They have to ask the question first before we can get them on the path of potential priesthood vocation. You mentioned the marriage rate is down. That is certainly a vocation. I can attest i am married and there are times when, if it were not my vocation and calling it will be difficult to fulfill it. It continues because it is a sacred obligation and a gift, a rift a regifting of myself to someone else. I think the key element is prayer. We pray for vocations because the lord asked us to do that. The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few, so pray to the lord of the harvest. This will be aired later but we are taping today, which happens to be october 15th him of the feast of saint teresa of jesus. And she wants said, prayer is simply a hearttoheart conversation with god , who we know loves us. A hearttoheart conversation to pray for your priests, for their sanctification, to pray for future priests, seminarians. To pray for those who are searching for meaning, truth, for value, for love in their lives, that through that prayer the grace of god might be communicated to them in a way that really touches them and changes them , so they can become a priest, even though he is a fictional character, that wonderful priest portrayed in the, keys of the kingdom. Pattering his life after the heart of the lord, gentle and humble and Loving Service to others. Talking about a vocation, are their hero or model or mentor priest you can recall in your life . A priest recently that has been a great model for me , he is a saint. Saint isaac joe. A north american martyr. He grew up in france and came to the new world to bring the faith to the people in this land in the amount he sacrificed out of love for the gospel, the amount he loved his people he was trying to communicate the faith to was deeply inspiring. I hope one day to visit his grave site and i believe it is in northern new york. He is an inspiration for me recently as a priest and saint. I think we only have 20 or 30 seconds left. Thank you very much father fowler for coming and discussing and father kevin, same thing. Great to talk with you. I learned a lot about the vocation of the priest. Can we say in closing, it is not the most typical life of all , or we dont want to scare people. It is difficult but doable. It is joyful and it should be joyful. Thank you very much for being here and thank you for watching mosaic. From cbs news bay area, this is the morning edition. A flashing xs has neighbors complaining about what they say is an intrusion