I am the most blessed priest in the world! Ordained in 1971, I served in parishes in the diocese and as chaplain at the Pratt Institute for more than 20 years. During those years, I spent summers in Paris as the English-speaking priest at the Notre Dame Cathedral. I did that until COVID-19 and the fire.
My father, Ed Flood, carried around what seemed like hundreds of keys. As the athletic director and basketball and tennis coach at St. John’s Prep, a large Catholic high school in Astoria, Queens, he had the keys to the front doors, the side doors, classrooms, the theater, and a third-floor chapel. But most importantly — and impressively to an impressionable young athlete — my dad held the key to the school’s massive gymnasium.
In my mid-20s, I realized I should live alone for a while. It was a different time then, and getting my own apartment just off the Grand Concourse — 10 blocks north of Yankee Stadium — wasn’t going to cost much more than the apartment I shared a short walk from the stadium.
Since Pope Francis was elected in March 2013, his pontificate has emphasized a particular concern of the Church — the pastoral care of migrants, displaced people, and refugees. Migration is a complex and challenging mission. Many dioceses have taken steps to help migrants and the displaced people in their region. The Diocese of Brooklyn has an office to help migrants, those seeking asylum, refugees, and displaced people.
I wish to express my deep appreciation to all who have served this country. You are not just a group but a unique collective bound by shared experiences and an unparalleled spirit of service and sacrifice.
Before I converted, God gave me a mission, which soon became the idea for my nonprofit, The Solution to Hunger, Inc. I could see how all the components began to fit together to create something innovative and new that could truly become the solution to world hunger. I felt like God spoke to me then. The problem was I didn’t know how to make the vision come to life. So, I got to work on what I could do.
These days, we bishops (in Brooklyn) average 10-12 celebrations of confirmation in the spring season and 4-6 in the fall. For the past 12 years, since my ordination as a bishop in 2012, one of the most joyful experiences I have encountered is the celebration of the sacrament of confirmation.
he upcoming beatification of Father Michael McGivney (below), founder of the Knights of Columbus, was a poignant reminder of my family’s history in the Knights during its infancy in New Haven, Connecticut. My paternal great-grandfathers — Hugh Augustus Burns and William J. Fitzgerald — were members of that first council. Both had Brooklyn roots and lived in Ansonia, Connecticut, on the outskirts of New Haven, where the Knights began.
Oct. 28 marks the Feast of Sts. Simon and Jude, Apostles. Tradition holds they were martyred together in the first century while preaching the Gospel in Persia, and their remains were later moved to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, where a single tomb commemorates them to this day.
Why am I, a secular Jewish girl, the product of an interfaith marriage (Jewish mother, Catholic father), so concerned about a class ring from a defunct Brooklyn parochial school dating back to before I was born?
