learn how abbvie could help you save. (upbeat instrumental music) good morning and on behalf of the archdiocese of san francisco, welcome to mosaic . a weekly newsletter goes out to our parishes and schools and other institutions and we recently posed this question . if you had an opportunity to sit down one-on-one with the priest, what questions would you have for him? what would you want to know about these men and their vocation ? you have questions about the life and about his vocation and your

own spiritual condition ? how do i overcome my fear of going to confession ? how can i learn to pray . how can i understand the presence of jesus in the eucharist or why are so many people leaving the church and dissatisfied with the faith. today we have two priests of the archdiocese to sit with us and share answers . it promises to be an interesting discussion . after this break, join me and our guests with ask a priest .

hello and welcome to mosaic . our guests are two priests from the archdiocese of san francisco and we will talk about questions submitted to the priest and we will see with their answers could be. on my left is father kevin kennedy and we have a priest and a slightly older priests. father fowler , let's start with you . >> i've been a priest for years and i'm currently the vocation director of san francisco as well as the pre-secretary. >> four years ? >> i went to st. patrick's

seminary for upinmarin county in novato and in that parish. >> you, i know and i think you are from -- >> i was born in san mateo and i'm a local product . >> you've been a priest two decades? >> yes . i am the pastor of our lady of fatima which is a byzantine parish. i also help with the st. thomas the apostle parish as well. >> okay, 20 years and four years . we have questions that have come in and one of the nation recent ones was about a reputable survey this is the real presence of christ in the eucharist which is a central teaching of the catholic faith and the eucharist is the

center of the catholic priest's life and job . 70do not e re pr or are not sure about that . that is something i would like you to respond to. is this something you experience as esidthe eucharist ? >> those studies do not surprise me . when we look into the pews at the masses we celebrate, we can see it in the faces with their real belief or lack of belief in the presence in the eucharist . what do we need to do to address this . obviously catechesis is one thing but actions speak louder than words . if you act like you believe then slowly you believe more. as a church if we acted like we believe in the real presence from the way we talk about it in the way we act in front of

it and the way the priest celebrate mass, that would generate more faith. when i deal with the young kids and the second graders preparing , they have a deep belief but they don't see it lived out in the parishes and so i think that belief diminishes as they get older. acting like we believe could be a start . >> and the priests way of performing the liturgy ? >> that is crucial . he is not an actor in the sense of performing something he doesn't believe. you cannot fool people . the priest has to believe in the person of christ and that christ is central to the priesthood . the mission is not to draw people to himself but threw himself to christ two people to encounter the lord. if he believes what the church believes and teaches in the

celebration of the offering of the eucharist and this is the mystery of christ's presence renewed and offered to the father, then he will now actually express that through love . you can't fake that . unfortunately when a priest does not celebrate with reverence, people will pick up on that . he doesn't believe, so why should i? >> priests have their focus on the dedication to this central mystery and their reverence to the celebration of the mass . >> we have seen priests doing various tasks and jobs and they can be educators and teachers but is the central task the liturgy in the saying of the mass ? >> the nature of the priesthood is offering sacrifice. in all world religion , the priest

offers sacrifice . others can do academic work and administration . all of those things can be and are a part of a priesthood, but in addition to preaching the gospel, the central role is the sacrifice of the cross. the sacrificial love of the lord reauthorized and renewed in the presence of the community and done with reverence, care, and love . so the community sees christ renewing his offering of love on our behalf . >> i understand that . i can't imagine what the real presence is but the teaching and that you put me in a special relationship with god at that moment. i call that the big sacrament . there is a smaller sacrament of confession which seems absently important . in which you the priest put me in touch with god for the forgiveness of my sins. we had

touch on that with the fear of going to confession. what do you think about that ? >> one of the fears is the priest is going to judge me . especially if i know the priest and they hear my voice and they see my face, they will judge me differently. as priests, we first and foremost our centers . we know the sins of our past and the things we struggle with in our lives than gives us compassion at the confessional. we are there in the prop price of christ the physicians and that is to people are seeking to encounter , it is christ. as our job as a priest is to get out of the we way so christ can speak through us . to know we are not there to judge . we know the state of our own souls in the

sins of the many people that come to us and we are not there to judge. >> on a practical level , it's easier for people, if they plan to go to confession , to find a priest that maybe they don't know when to go anonymously behind the screen so they don't feel on a human level that sense of trepidation. >> i understand . >> the goal is to leave with joy . that what the lord forgives he forgets and that brings us back to the moment of our baptism which would be a great joy. >> host: we will take another brief break and when we come back we will talk about the questions from the priests.

hello and welcome back as we talk with father kevin

kennedy and father fowler with the life of the priest . we had an omnibus question come in which i think is good . what is success for a priest . we know what success is for a baseball player but what is success for a priest? and conversely, what is failure . we know how a plumber might fail , but can you address those things ? >> we were talking about one of my mother's favorite films from 1944, the keys of the kingdom. gregory peck pays plays a priest who is presumably a failure in his first two assignments and he is sent to be a missionary in china. he ends up touching the lives of many people through his gentleness and through his humility and through his authenticity . he embodies the priesthood . even though he is

a fictional character, he is the best of those who embody 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 the success of a priest and is accessed and what matters to god . >> i have recently been thinking about the idea of success than what success means in my priesthood. every day is successful if the job of the priest is to offer the sacrifice of the mass. i do it every day for the glorification of the father and the salvation of souls. i can say every single day that the life of his priest is successful. christ is the way,

the truth, and the life and to be willing to surrender themselves to that life would be a success for the priest , to bring people closer to life. he named his apostles to be his followers and teachers and to bring people to him. >> host: i am the way , the truth, and the life , it is an ancient tradition . the person to whom you are bringing people to jesus christ looks like a massive failure when he's on the crucifix, doesn't it ? but we have the crucifix in the church to remind us . >> to remind us that in life failure and success are not what we think it might be . from a christian perspective,

failure leads to success . god allows us to fail and that's where our successes and triumphs come . it is a reserves reverse of the way we normally think of things in society. >> host: in your life as a priest there must be joys and sorrows and difficulties. if i had to hear people's sins day after day and year after year, i would get a little depressed . what is your reaction ? >> that's what you would think but when a person has a humble and contrite heart , there is nothing more beautiful than the condition confession . when they come with a humbling contrite heart and you are able to reconcile them with christ , that is one of the greatest joys as the priest . >> host: joys and difficulties , what stands out for you ?

>> the greatest joy for me would to see the young people who are coming to the churches where father cameron celebrates and where i celebrate , many of whom are converse and have had to struggle to find their faith in a very secular culture . they have had to sometimes evangelize and catechized themselves to some extent. to participate in the liturgies , their courage in finding and persevering in their faith. their hope against , you know , difficult odds. the belief and 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 . >> you mentioned young people

converting and coming to the church and one of our questions is so many young people seem to be leaving the catholic church. can you address that? >> we see that when we look out to the pews and don't see many young people that are high school and college age. what are we supposed to do? how do we change this? some think that if we make things more entertaining that people will come back . many young people are searching for god and if they can find the transcendence of god and the mystery of god and be touched by god, the more the young people will come back. they are searching and seeking and the young people will come back . it is not entertaining things or things to captivate their interest right away . >> there is a sense of truth and beauty and goodness right

now. when you begin with the liturgy itself and when the truth is proclaimed in the goodness of a community formed by faith and by hope and by love, as i was mentioning. but by beauty of sacred worship and the beauty of the music and the liturgical celebration itself, especially on the part of the priest. engaging in homilies . this is centrally most important in the future of our christian catholic communities . >> host: the joy for the young people coming and ? >> they are drawn to this because they are not finding it anywhere else in their lives. their lives are empty despite technology meant to facilitate communication . often it leads to estrangement and isolation and they will find the healing of their loneliness and their emptiness and they worshiping

community . >> host: we will take a brief break and be back with more discussion with our priests today.

>> host: hello and welcome back for a final segment for discussions with a priest. you are local . how have you

discerned individually with 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 and 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 that a church in burlingame . i remember being present and the beautiful choir in the family was present and i remember thinking , i would like to do that when i grow up . i have thought of a lot of other things but when i saw him at the altar , it was a beautiful event and so not centered on the priest but on christ. bringing christ to people and people to christ. as a second grader, i was not compelled by theological

arguments . it was something i felt as a child at that age. >> host: that seed can be planted . what about you? >> i never wanted to be priest and of 10 things i wanted to do, a priest would be at the bottom. that changed when i went on a pilgrimage to france after my freshman year in college . i had never asked god what he wanted me to do with my life and i felt the dangerous inspiration . i felt he wanted me to be a priest and this is how i've given my life to him. >> host: how old are you now ? >> a good decade ago . >> yes, a decade ago . >> host: that's very interesting . this program that

we are doing now i think it will be broadcast on november 3rd, vocations awareness sunday . you are director of vocations for the archdiocese, let's talk about -- are we finding vocations to the priesthood as young men? how does the young man again to think about such a vocation? >> it's a great struggle and as everyone knows, the numbers are not great. we do not have many men in the seminary. other places in the country are doing better than where we are on the west coast . it is a vocation crisis and we are not seeing people getting married in the church anymore. it's a realization that our life is a gift . god gave us our life through our parents and the ultimate fundamental question is how am i called to take this

life which is a gift and offer it back? how is god calling me to offer my life as a gift ? that is the meaning and purpose of life and the more young people will be open to the vocation of marriage and to the priesthood into other vocations . they have to ask that question first before we can get them on the path of the potential priesthood vocation . >> marriage is a vocation and i can attest that i married and there were times that if it were not my vocation and calling that it would be difficult but it continues because it is a sacred obligation and a regifting of myself to someone else. >> 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 so pray to the lord of the

harvest . >> this is aired later but we are taping on the celebration of st. teresa . and prayer is to have a heart to heart conversation with god we know loves us. to pray for your priests for their sanctification . to pray for future priests, our seminarians . pray for those who are searching for meaning and for truth and for value and for love in their lives. that through that prayer the grace of god might be communicated to them in a way that touches them and changes them so that they can become priests alike . even though he is a fictional character, the wonderful priest in the keys of the kingdom . to pattern his life after the heart of the lord . gentle and humble and of

service . >> host: are their hero or model or mentor priests you can recall in your life? >> one priest is a saint who was a north american martyr . he grew up in france and came to the new world to bring faith to the people of this land. the amount that he sacrificed out of love for the gospel and that he loved the people he was trying to communicate the faith to was deeply inspiring. i wanted to visit his grave site in northern new york that he was an inspiration recently as a priest and as a saint. >> host: we have seconds left here and we will wrap it up. thank you father fowler and father kevin , same thing . i've learned a lot about the vocation of the priest . can we say in closing it is not the

most difficult life of all because we don't want to scare people off. it is difficult , but not the most difficult of all. >> it is joyful. >> >> host: thank you for watching mosiac and thank you for being here.

from cbs news bay area, this is the morning. >> the decision to place oakland police chief on leave but others aren't so sure. >> oakland is a cash cow for a permanent pension for chief . >> we deserve the best in the city and if that means we go through some chiefs, that's what we do. >> squaring off outside city hall what anti-abortion protesters are trying to accomplish in the roe era