(upbeat music) (upbeat music) good morning and on behalf

of the archdiocese of san francisco, welcome to mosaic. we have a weekly newsletter that goes out to all our parishes and schools and we recently posted this question. if you had the opportunity to sit down one-on-one with the priest, what questions you have for him? what would you want to know about this man and these men and their unique location? do you have questions about life, about faith, about his vocation and your own spiritual condition? you may wonder such things about how to wake overcome my fear about going to confession, how can i learn to pray and how can i learn about the point of jesus in the eucharist. we ask for questions to be submitted and today we have two priests of the archdiocese sit with us and answer questions. it promises to be a very interesting discussion. after this brief break please join me and my guests for ask a priest.

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- virtual weather, only on kpix and pix+. 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 priests. on my left his father kevin kennedy and on his left is father cameron. you can see we have a young priest and a slightly older priest. so let's find out about their lives. >> i have been a priest for four years and i am currently the vocation director of san francisco and the priest secretary of the archbishop cornlea only. i went to st. patrick's for many theology

studies. i grew up in novato and so, yeah. >> father kevin, the i think you are from -- >> born in san mateo and grew up in belmont. and have been a priest for over two decades. i am the pastor of our lady of fatima itches a byzantine catholic parish and also help as an associate at st. monica and st. thomas as well. >> we had a set of questions coming in from people. one of them was about the recent study, this reputable survey organization that says the real presence of christ in the eucharist, which is the central teaching in the catholic based on the eucharist is the center

of what the priests life is and the job is, 70% of catholics say they don't believe in the real presence or are not sure about that. that is something i would like you to respond to. is this something you experience as the priest residing at the eucharist? >> i would say those studies don't surprise me. when we look out into the pews and the masses that we celebrate, it is something we can see in people's faces in terms of their belief or lack of belief in the real presence of the eucharist. but as a priest the question becomes, what do we need to do to address this? catechesis is one thing and i always felt that action speaks louder than words, and when you begin to act like you believe slowly you will begin to actually believe more. so as a church if we did a better job acting that we really believe in the presence, with the way we talk about it and the way we

celebrate mass, i think that would generate a deeper faith in our people. when i deal with second graders, they have this deep and mysterious belief in the eucharist but they don't always see it lived out in the masses that they go to or the parishes. so it begins to diminish as they get older. acting like we believe could be a start to addressing this. >> the priest's way of performing the liturgy? >> i think that is crucial. he is not an actor in that sense that he is performing something he doesn't believe because you cannot fool people. you have to be a priest that he believes that he is acting in the person of christ. and christ is central to the priesthood. his mission is not to draw people so much to himself but threw himself to christ, that encounter with the lord. if he believes with the church believes and teaches in the offering of the eucharist, he believes this is cruelly the

mystery of christ present, renewed and offered to the father. then he would naturally express that through reverence, through love. you cannot fake that. unfortunately, when a priest doesn't celebrate with reverence, people pick up with that. so priests are crucial in terms of their focus on their dedication to this central mystery and especially the reference in the celebration of the mass. >> i guess the priest is, we think of priests as doing various tasks and jobs, they can be educators and teachers. is your central task the saying of the liturgy and the mass. >> the very nature of priesthood is offered sacrifice. in all religions, the priest offers sacrifice.

that is his defining role. others can do academic, social and community work. all of those things can be part of and are at some degree part of restart. but the central role is to offer the sacrifice of the cross. the sacrificial love of the lord, offered, re-actualized and renewed in the presence of the community and done with great reverence, care and love. so that community sees christ renewing the offering of himself on behalf of the father. >> i understand that. i can't imagine what the real presence is. but i understand the teaching in that you are putting me in a special relationship with god in the moment. now there is the slightly smaller sacrament of confession. it seems also absently is important in which you put me in touch with god.

we had a question bearing on that, a fear of going to confession. how do i overcome my fear of going to confession? >> what is the fear? one is that the priest will judge me. especially if i know that priest and they hear my voice and see my face they will judge me differently. one of the things that helps them at that, as priests, we know that we are sinners, we know the sins of our past and the things we struggle within our own life. that gives us a certain level of compassion and empathy. we are not there to judge, we are there to stand in the place of christ, the physician to bring ultimate healing to people's lives. our job as priests is to get out of the way so christ can speak through us in a sense. so i would say that is a helpful piece of advice, we are not there to judge and we know the state of our own souls in the sins of many people that

come to us. we are not there to judge. >> on a practical level i might say that sometimes it is easier for people, if they are planning to go to confession, maybe find a priest they don't know and go anonymously behind the screen so that they don't feel that sense of trepidation. whatever circumstances, the goal is that they leave with joy, that the lord forgives, forgets and takes away sin and brings us back to the moment of our baptism. that is a great joy. >> amen to that. we will take another brief break and please rejoin us while we talk about questions to the priest.

welcome back. we are talking with father kevin

kennedy and father cameron faller about the life of a priest. we had an ominous question coming, a pretty good one. what is success for a priest? i think we know what success for a baseball player is, but what is success for a priest? and by the same token, what is failure? can you address those things? >> we were talking this morning about one of my favorite films and one of my mother's favorite films from 1944. the keys of the kingdom. and gregory peck plays a priest who is presumably a failure in his first two assignments and he is sent to be a missionary in china. yet he ends up touching the hearts of many people. the lives of many people, through his gentleness, humility, authenticity. he embodies the rest of the priesthood. even though it was 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 that kind of a heart touches the soul of another human being, he is a success of the priest. he is a success and what matters to god. >> i have been thinking about the idea of success and what it means in my priesthood. on one hand i would say every single day is successful in that the job for a priest is to offer the sacrifice of the mass and every single day i offer the sacrifice of the mass for the location of god, the father and so in a sense i could say every single day for a priest is successful. on another level, what does it mean away from that reality? it is bringing people closer to christ. having

people realize that christ is the way, the truth and the life and being able to surrender themselves to that life and that would be success for a priest. >> it does seem 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 and the life. it is an ancient tradition you are carrying out. speaking of success and failure, the person to whom you are bringing people looks a lot like a massive failure when you're looking up at the crucifix. we have the crucifix in the church, to remind us of what? >> remind us of failure and success are not exactly what we might think they are. from a christian perspective, failure in a sense leads to success, that god will allow us to fail.

through our sufferings is where our successes and triumphs come. it is kind of a reverse on the way we normally think of things in society. >> also about your life as a priest, there must be joys and sorrows or difficulties. when you were talking about confession, if i had to hear people's sins day after day, year after year, i might get a little depressed. >> that is what many people think. when a person has a humble and contrite heart, which is what god ultimately wants, there is nothing more beautiful than that confession. it does not necessarily matter the sins they are confessing, but when you are able to reconcile them to god, the father, that is one of the greatest joys of a priest, i would say. >> joys, difficulties, what stands out for you? >> the greatest joy for me

would be to see the young people who are coming to the churches where father cameron celebrates, where i celebrate, many of whom are converts, so they have had to struggle to find their faith in a very secular culture. dave had to sometimes evangelize or catechized themselves to some extent, and participate in the liturgies. their courage in finding and persevering in their faith, their hope against difficult odds and that belief and trust that make real love possible in their hearts. love for god and for one another, they are my greatest joy because they are the future of the church, and they are a real

future. >> you mentioned young people converting or coming to the church. one of our questions was a concern many people have. so many young people seem to be leaving the catholic church. can you address that? is this a problem? >> i think we see it when we look out into the pews and don't see many young people and people ask, what are we supposed to do and how do we handle this? a lot of times we think if we just make things more entertaining and engaging that the young people will come back to it but i do believe they are searching for god. the more that we can be a place where they can find the transcendence of god and can experience the mystery of god and be touched by the love of god, the more young people will come back. they are searching for it and i believe we can offer it and it may not be exactly the way we normally think, trying to engage them with entertaining or captivating there interest right away. >> the archbishop is trying to promote a sense of truth,

beauty and goodness. when you begin with the liturgy it is still, the truth is being proclaimed in the goodness of a community formed by faith, hope and love. through the beauty of sacred worship, the beauty of images, music and the liturgical celebration itself, especially on the part of the priest. engaging homilies, this is something that is centrally most important in the future of our christian catholic communities. >> you find joy in the young people coming in. >> yes, because they are being drawn to all of this. they are not finding it anywhere else in their lives. their lives are really empty despite technology that is meant to facilitate communication, it often leads to a sense of self estrangement and isolation. they will only find the healing of their loneliness and inner emptiness in a believing and worshiping

community. >> all right. we will take a brief break and come back for one more segment of discussion with our priests today.

welcome back for our final segment of discussion with the priest. you are both local fellas, i have not asked you how you discerned individually 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 for another diocese, he lived elsewhere. but i was present in october of 1961 at his ordination. this was a magnificent event and his first solemn high mass was later at the lady of angels church and i remember being present , and the beautiful

choir and the family was all present and thinking, you know what, i think i'd like to do that when i grow up. i have thought a lot of other things but when i saw him at the altar i thought, this is a beautiful event. it was so not centered on the priest but on christ, wringing christ to people and people to christ. truth, beauty and goodness. and as a second grader i was not being compelled by theological arts, it is something i felt as a child at that age. >> that seat -- seed can be planted. what about you? >> i did not grow up wanting to be a priest. that was my sentiment in high school and it all changed when i went on this religious pilgrimage to france, after my freshman year of college. after a moment of prayer i had the realization that i never asked god what he wanted to do with my life and i ask that dangerous question and

all of a sudden i felt this deep inspiration and joy to be a priest. definitely a lot of fear but also inspiration and joy that this is how the lord is asking me to give my life to him and i followed that path to the priesthood. >> how old are you now? >> 31. >> about a good decade or more in training. that is wonderful. let me ask this question, this program i think will be broadcast on november 3rd. you are a director of vocations, are we finding vocations to the priesthood, where are they coming from and how does a young man begin to think about such vocation? >> it is a great struggle., we don't have many inquiries and we don't have many men in the seminaries. other places in the country are doing then we are

on the west coast. it is a basic vocation crisis. so i think it is a realization that our life is a gift that god gave us through our parents and the ultimate and fundamental question is, how am i being too take this life of mine and offer it back. that is what vocation is. the more we can help young people realize that is the meaning and purpose of life, the more that will be open to a vocation of marriage, the priesthood, some other type of special vocation. but i think they have to start asking that question first before we can get them on the path of potential priesthood vocation. >> it's interesting that you mentioned ameritrade, that is certainly a vocation. i can attest, i am married. if it were not my vocation and

calling it might be difficult to fill. but it is sort of the sacred obligation. and a regifting of myself. >> i think the key element is prayer. we pray for vocations because the lord himself asked us to do that. the harvest is abundant but the laborers are few. pray to the lord of the harvest. this will be aired later but we are taping today which happens to be october 15th, the feast of st. teresa. she once said, prayer is simply a heart-to-heart conversation with god, who we know loves us. heart to heart conversation to pray for the priests and their sanctification. for pray for the future priests, to pray for those who are searching for meaning, truth and value, and love within their lives. through that prayer the grace

of god may be communicated to them in a way that really touches them and changes them so they can become a priest like, even though he is a fictional character, the wonderful priest portrayed in the keys of the kingdom, patterning his life after the lord, offering loving service to others. >> are their hero or model or mentor priests you can recall in your life? >> one of the priests recently that has been a great model is st. isaac, one of the north american martyrs. he grew up in france and came to the new world to bring the faith to the people in this land and the amount he sacrificed for the gospel and the amount of love he had for his people, that is deeply inspiring. i hope to one

day visit his website in northern new york. but he is a recent inspiration for me. >> we only have 20 or 30 seconds. we will wrap it up. thank you very much, father faller, father kevin, same thing. i've learned a lot about the vocation and can we say in closing, it is not the most difficult life of all? we don't want to say it is not difficult but it is doable. thank you very much for being here. and thank you for watching mosaic. - lift the clouds of...

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