♪ Living on toes of time ♪ ♪ Living on toes of time ♪ (upbeat music) (crowd cheering) - So here we are this week and we have a special guest this week, Bishop, our very own father, Gary Castle, who's our new full-time, full-time vicar general. So it's great to have you with us today. - It is a joy to have been invited onto the show. That's right, you're here working at our headquarters, our mothership, this very sophisticated thing, but actually, you know, I think it's every week, I see a dead armadillo there on 91st Street as I'm pulling in, so it's a little more honky-tonk as we like to say, so. - It's a good drive from downtown out into the country every day. - That's right, that's right. - Yeah, so, so, finally Gary doesn't need to be introduced in the diocese, he's well known, but, and even he's been vicar general already for over two years. - Two years, it's just that recently, he's become full-time in the role, and so, that's the newness of it. - So before we kind of dive into kind of your story and kind of what brings you to the chance, we can maybe talk about the gospel a little bit for our coming Sunday here on this sort of Labor Day week. - 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, and so our gospel is remark, chapter seven. Again, Jesus left the district of Tyre and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee into the district of the Decapolis. And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment, and begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man's ears, and spitting, touched his tongue. Then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, "Ephata, that is, be opened." And immediately the man's ears were opened. His speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly. He ordered them not to tell anyone, but the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it. They were exceedingly astonished, and they said, "He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear, and the mute speak." That's by the Gospel of Mark. This opening, this word, "Ephata." We, all of us, encounter it at one point or another in our personal life and in the lives of our families and friends, because it's literally in the baptismal right of children after they have been baptized and anointed with the chrism and clothed in the white garment and received the lit candle. The priest then, as best he can, depending on how wiggly the baby is, tries to touch the baby's ears with the sign of the cross and make the sign of the cross over the baby's mouth while he's saying, "The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his word and your mouth to proclaim his faith to the praise and glory of God, the Father." So I think that's sort of like when we, in the old days, when we had to optimize a computer hard drive or something, you had to get it ready for work. When we're baptized, our ears are, by God's grace, opened in a way to receive his word and our mouths to speak. And that's all wrapped up in what we talk about when we talk about intentional discipleship. We're doing so much of that. We've talked about it in the pastoral plan. We've talked about it in our catechesis in the diocese. We're going to be talking a lot about it as we move into our restored order of the sacraments and as we prepare our children at the third grade level for confirmation and first communion, that they are themselves ready now. They're prefigured by God to be able to witness to others. They can hear what God is saying and they can share with others what God is saying. And so it's really exciting to see that in the gospel and people can reflect on that. How well are we hearing God these days? We've talked about that on the show before too, that if we allow too many other voices and distractions to come into our life because of our devices, it gets in the way of our ability, literally it just cuts down on the amount of time in the day that we can listen to God. And it trains our mind in a way, it shrinks our mind in a certain sense. I mean, literally the brain plasticity changes so that the brain is harder for a person to focus on big thoughts for a long period of time. So, you know, you can go on Facebook and scroll for five minutes and see something, but you can't go plop down in the blessed sacrament chapel and expect God to just jump right in there with you in five minutes. You may need to give him some time. He wants you to calm down and so this idea of listening for God is something that we have to train ourselves to. - Hmm, that's great. You know, I wonder, you know, maybe in one of these baptisms, there's a priest out there actually using his spittle and mud during these baptisms or if he's just still using the chrism oil or... - Yeah, well, there's a lot of spits sometimes, it's not his. - That's right, that's right. - No reports into the vicar drinker's office. Yeah, no, he's a spittle and fudge. - That's mud, right, no mud. - No, I think that that's, I have the same thought, you know, I think it's amazing that, you know, when I read this, you know, I was thinking about prophet, the prophet Isaiah, you know, sort of predicting these wonders, right? You know, and so in thinking about the amazing, the amazing sort of Christ giving us sort of the ears to hear because there's also sort of a deafness of soul, right, there's a weekend sort of block some of these things. So I don't know, it's interesting. - Well, but I mean, so think about a deaf person who knows how to pray and who spends time in prayer is hearing more and more important things than the person who has all their faculty of hearing but who is using it all day long and distracted in fruitless ways. So often when we hear of the blind and the lame and the deaf and the gospel, it's easy to make that transition of thinking typologically. What does it mean to be blind? It can be physically blind, but it can be, I'm seeing, but I don't see Christ in the people in front of me. - I think what stands out to me is the very, very personal approach that Jesus takes with this person, he took him off by himself. - Oh. - You know, and I think how often, you know, during the time of Jesus and the miracles he was performing, he did not want to be seen kind of as this magician, kind of as this guy who just kind of does cool things. So oftentimes the miracles are done in secret or they're done kind of behind closed doors. And in this case, again, he takes him out of the crowd and he heals him, you know. And so I think it's also that great reminder of just the personal way in which Jesus wants to touch us in our blindness and our deafness. And as the people of faith who again, who have that faith alive within them through again, are asking of the Lord, you know, to kind of, to give us the gift of the Ephatha to be opened again. We may have become deaf or blind due to our sinfulness, but again, turning into the Lord in a very personal way, letting him touch us as he touched this man, allows us again to have that renewal of sight and a renewal of hearing. And so it's that reminder that each of us are seen, each of us are known and each of us are very personally touched by the Lord. - Yeah, God's love is perfect. And the way he loves us is so perfect. And yeah, that's a great thought. And just thinking about the way that God's love encounters us, the way he wants to speak to us, the way he is calling us back to him in a very specific way. That's beautiful. - I think sometimes about the, if you think about the pedagogical task, to put it that way, that Jesus was faced with, he needed to attract people's attention and get them to see that he could do things that an ordinary man can't do. And at the same time, he needed them to understand that this is not the point. The 5,000 loaves is not the point. The point is who I am. I can heal this man who's deaf and mute, but that's not really the point. The point is who I am. So I need you to see who I am. But we, naturally, are focused in on what we need. And if we encounter someone who can give us what we need, we're more likely to say, "Oh, well, let me ask for some more things that I need." And we get distracted by the fact that he's not here to be a bubblegum, a cosmic bubblegum ball machine. But he's here to be God for us. And so when we pray to him, we ask him for what we need, but we have to be, if it's a prayer made in proper faith, it will always be made with the sort of a tag at the end that says, "But not my will, but your will, Lord." Yeah. - Yeah, it's amazing. - That's great. Any other thoughts? - Well, Father Castle, you know, we've got two preachers here now. - I know. - I'm actually three, 'cause you've got a congregation at home, but Father Castle in his new role will also be going out to the parishes more. So a new twist on the preaching. - Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I've already had the chance to visit the good people in Talaquale and in Stillwell. And I'm on the books to go down and see Father Nance and Father Duck in the next couple of months. And so it is exciting to get out of kind of the bubble that is Tulsa. I mean, all of my assignments as a priest for the last 17 years have been in the Tulsa metro area and I have not had the chance to really kind of immerse myself in the beautiful richness of the other 24,000 square miles of Eastern Oklahoma and the diverse parishes that are out there and the beautiful faithful that are in these communities. And so that's something I'm very much looking forward to is kind of getting out and experiencing the vast diversity of our diocese. Father, could you kind of share us just before we kind of dive into kind of your current role and what you're working on? Just kind of share with us just a little bit about sort of your story and sort of from, you know, whether you want to share a bit about your vocational story just a little bit and then kind of your route like some of the assignments you've had and some of the roles you've had as a priest. - I'll keep you brief. Born and raised here in the great state of Oklahoma and Perkins, Oklahoma, which is south of Stillweller, was baptized at St. John's Catholic Church in Stillweller and then received my first communion in confirmation when I was later in high school because there were kind of a gap in there between like first communion and ninth grade in high school that I was not necessarily practicing my faith. But when I came back at the inspiration of my sweet grandmother, Castle, kind of rediscovered my faith with her and then went through the confirmation program at St. John's and was confirmed, actually by Father Joe Townsend. My first communion was Father Chris Daggle, also at St. John's back in second grade. And then went on to OSU and spent my first two years of college at Oklahoma State University while I would say kind of ramping up my discernment for the priesthood. And then finally went into seminary on my 21st birthday. I arrived at Conception Seminary College. What a exciting way to spend your 21st birthday was entering into a Benedictine monastery seminary setting. But anyways, became my seminary in August of 2001 and graduated from Conception 2003. Went on to St. Meinridge for four years of theology and finished there in 2007 and was ordained alongside of Father O'Brien. And 13 of the permanent deacons that year at the Reynolds Center. So that was the year we had the ordination extravaganza where we had the deaconate and the priesthood ordination together. Was then sent to St. Mary's as an associate pastor under the great Munn Senior Dorny. And he and I were there together for four years and that I was named the pastor of St. Pius and was there for a very short period of time, about six months when I was asked to go work full time with Catholic Leadership Institute in Philadelphia. And Mr. Slidery said, you have two goods before you. St. Pius is a good Catholic Leadership Institute is a good. You're a young priest and you'll have a lot of years to be a pastor. And so they choose and all support you and kind of, considering that reality, I chose to go to Philadelphia and left Pius and they were supposed to have been gone for five years and about two and a half years into that, the phone rang and we did not have enough pastors to cover our spots and Tulsa. And so they asked if I would come home early from that assignment, which I did and went to St. Anne's and became the pastor there. But had the ability to continue working with a CLI in a very part time capacity and still even do a little bit of work with them on the sidelines. But finished my time at St. Anne's, was named the president of Bishop Kelly and then was president of Bishop Kelly and director of the Cathedral. And then was director of the Cathedral and named bigger general and then finished my time at the Cathedral in July after five years of being the rector. And so it's been a very diverse journey of assignments and different ways to serve both the local church and as well as the larger U.S. church. It has not been a dull 17 years and I'm grateful, really grateful and humbled by the many experiences I've had and again, and now I'm happy to be coming alongside of Bishop Condula on a daily basis, supporting the church in a different way. - Yeah, one thing that's sort of unique about your story is your work with CLI, I know, and sort of taking time away from the diocese and Bishop. I've seen, I know that Father David Webb recently, you know, he's sort of, there's different times where a Bishop will either send one of their, one of his priests out to go have an experience or to, you know, do something like this to bring back, hopefully some of that experience to the diocese and things like that. Are those decisions often sort of made with the pastor, made with the priest or are they sort of a bishops to serve? How do those things happen, you know? 'Cause it's not, I think from the, from most Catholics, it's like, oh, here's my new priest, my parish, I got a new priest this summer and now I've had him for six years, 10 years, whatever it may be, you know, and then I get a new, so how do some of those decisions get made? I mean, you've had so much. - Yeah, the expectation, the sort of the normal expectation is that a diocesan priest is ordained and then spends his priesthood serving perishes within the diocese, and there is a natural expectation and these move from here to there to there to there, he serves in dearest different perishes. But every diocese is dependent on good seminaries. Every diocese needs various kinds of consulting and expertise that may not exist within the diocese and so forth, so the church itself serves the military, the needs of our men and women who are serving in the military, the Catholic men and women serving the military. So every bishop is then cognizant that he's benefiting from these things and so he also needs to be responsible in sharing. So we sent Father Pratt, for example, for a five-year term to serve at the North American College in Rome as their vice-director. He was doing very good work here as a vocation director. It's a real cost to the diocese to send one of your good energetic young priests to serve in another mission field and yet we use the North American College. And if we don't have good priests available to serve there, then it's not gonna be an effective seminary even for our own use. So we have to be willing to give someone up if they ask for that. Same with the military, we now have two men, you mentioned one, Dave Webb, who are serving in the military arch diocese. And so same thing, we have people from our diocese who go into the military, men and women. And so knowing that they need someone to celebrate mass for them and to hear their confession and so forth, it benefits us to send someone to serve in the military. It cost us something, Dave Webb is another really young, energetic priest and so it cost us that, but there's a great benefit. Father Castle, when he went to CLI, learned various kinds of skills that are hard to get in a parish setting in a concentrated way. And so he brings all that back with him. So the diocese benefits from the kinds of things that he learned there. So yeah, so there are all of those things are part of the annual work of the personnel board and that work, Father Castle leads that work. I describe it to people as playing the three level chess set on the enterprise 'cause in Star Trek, there's the three level chess set. So imagine trying to play chess, not on just one level, but on three levels. It's complicated and so that's how that person works. - I think one of the dynamics, kind of for probably the person sitting in the pew, and I think this is the case for all of us, our world in which we live as, oftentimes, I've been a 10 mile radius bubble and we don't necessarily have an awareness of all of the other kind of complexities and components that go into church world. To think about the universality of the church, to think about all of those that are quietly serving and Vatican offices from different diocese all across the world, you don't see the effect of their work or you take it down to the national level, all of the priests and religious that are kind of working in behind the scenes at the USCCB level and you just kind of keep cascading that down. But to Bishop's point, all of those spots have to be filled and those come from either diocese or religious communities that make the sacrifice because it takes all of those leadership roles in the life of the church for the church to stay on point with this mission. But they're kind of out of sight, out of mind for probably most people who come to Mass each Sunday, but we're grateful for those individuals who are willing to step out of probably a vocation track that in their own discernment, they envision their priesthood to be this way, but their priesthood is this way. I think one of our own Archbishop Peter Wells is a great example of that. An occultable way from Guthrie, a Tulsa seminarian, a Tulsa priest released to go to the diplomatic corps and never came home as now a serving as the Apostolic Nuncio. And so those types of things happen and it's the sacrifice of a local church for the greater good of the church. - Yeah, if you were to sort of maybe sum up without taking too much time, but some of the things that when you were with CLI, like you got to step away and kind of step outside of your role as pastor here in Tulsa to go do that work, if you were to sort of share some of the goods that you were able to bring back or some of the things that you, the perspectives that maybe you were able to sort of bring back to sharing the diocese, what would you share that you sort of learned from that experience? - Yeah, I think in, you know, in seminary priests aren't really given kind of a deep dive into some of the kind of key skills heads and mindsets that really go into leadership and leadership is a skill and it is a, it is learning. You can have kind of natural tendencies towards it, but you know, we know that there are kind of proven tactics in ways in which one should go about organizing business, organizing people, organizing projects and it is a bit of a science, you know? And so I think not only did I have the opportunity to go through Good Leaders Good Shepherds, which was a formative program, which Bishop also went through in his home diocese, but then going into an organization that lived those skills kind of in their daily cadence was an opportunity to kind of reinforce the learning from Good Leaders Good Shepherds kind of into my own, again, mindset in my own skill set and having the opportunity to practice those skills in an environment outside of parish life. I think kind of exponentially helped me grasp some of those and they really did change my way of looking kind of at the parish and sometimes we don't like using this language because it seems too corporate, but to look at the organizational structure of a parish and to understand there's a need for a vision, there's a need for clarity, there's a need for kind of good feedback, there's a need for all of these different things that make health system function, a school function, our government function, our diocese function. And so I'd say my time outside of kind of a little parish community and in this broader kind of, I would say professional context of CLI definitely brought in my thinking and my own imagination of what could be. If we would just do things maybe a little smarter, a little bit differently or maybe tweaks here and there that, you know, vitality really does follow leadership. And we see that in parishes across the country, we see that in diocese across the country where bishops and pastors are being intentional about what they're doing in support of the growth of their people, those parishes are flourishing. Because when we get down to the fundamental question of why does a parish exist, a parish exists to make disciples of Jesus Christ, a parish exists as kind of came out on our planning process not to make volunteers, but a parish exists again to make disciples who volunteer. It is a response of their discipleship that should fuel their generosity in a parish versus being generous because I've been asked to be generous to do very different things. And then it's at the heart of a parish mission to again create an initiating community for the faithful to know, to love and to serve the Lord. - But, you know, an aspect of CLI, CLI is an exemplar of a really interesting and important aspect of the church today. You have executive level people working in very large businesses who are devout Catholics and who recognize, you know what, a lot of the stuff that we do every day is the kind of stuff that would really benefit my parish if they knew how to do it in the parish. And so how can we take the jargon and the processes and the ways that we think, translate that through the theological and ecclesiological lens of the Catholic church and its parishes and its dioceses and then offer it to people? And what you end up with is a lay lead organization that runs with its own board. It may have clerics on the board and clerics that work in the organization, but it's a lay lead organization that is providing to the church just invaluable learning that then just gets multiplied because when you take a pastor and run him through a leadership program that is effective and helps him to see new possibilities for what he might do or take a bishop even through a program like that, help him to see new ways to unfold things in a parish or new ways to make things happen in a parish, that multiplies for all of the people in that parish. So I really love the idea and you know, the church these days is replete with a lot. You worked for one, focus is another excellent one. So the church is replete with people who are taking their discipleship seriously, looking at the professional skills that they've learned and have their academic background and putting those two things together and launching into vocations of various kinds in the church. - Which I would say personally is one of the things that gives me the greatest hope, kind of living in these kind of apostolic times as the kind of the jargon is beginning to emerge is that it is the faithful, the laity that are more fully owning their vocation as priests, prophets and kings and are coming alongside of the church in really beautiful and marvelous ways to assist the clergy, to do their work better and to be supported in the work. That is essential that only the only things that they can do. You know, I think going back to CLI, you know, I think one of the things that's been humbling for me to watch over the last 10 years particularly, not only is it a lay let organization, but to see the number of laity who have the philanthropic capacity to support this work because they love the church so profoundly in the millions of dollars that have been given to CLI to directly support a bishop in the implementation of a plan in the formation of his priests and leadership skills to come into a parish and walk with a pastor, you know, to move the parish towards vibrancy at no cost to the diocese at all. And so I think CLI is at this place of maturity where they're a trusted partner in the church and they're a trusted partner among many philanthropists who see the benefit of this sort of work and they're able to remove the burden of the financial costs associated with doing business. We have to pay, again, the consultants, but to remove that burden and to take that off the table and really allow the freedom of a bishop of a pastor to utilize their services for the good of, again, the growth of their communities. - Yeah, I think there's maybe pastors or priests out there listening who may be like, oh man, I wish I could have gotten to work for CLI for a term. So, and they've done a lot of great work for our diocese. You know, in the last, you know, I've only been a member of the diocese now for eight years, but you're two, no way, Spider-Man, me, you know. But anyways, before we, you know, speak to, you know, some CLIs has played a huge role in sort of facilitating a process as we've got prepared for sort of the pastoral plan, the pastoral letter, et cetera. But before we manage, I think you made a really good point, which we were kind of talking about earlier, CI facilitated a process. You know, CI did not come to the diocese and say you have to do X, Y, and Z or come with any sort of motive, you know, a good facilitator, a good consultant actually raises up the local thought, the local kind of needs, the local issues, and then helps facilitate the conversation of the local team, you know, to come up with the solution. And I think that's one of the things I really appreciate about the work that they do. They don't come in with a prescribed way in which you have to do things, but they just have a great skill of coming alongside of a team and helping them scan their environment, have the crucial conversations and kind of emerge with a plan that is going to help to move that parish or that local church forward in ways in which that local church and that parish need to move forward, which again, I think is a unique skill set. - And unique perspective too. So it's one thing for someone to come in and work with our diocese, but when they've already worked with 20 or 30 or 40 other dioceses, then they bring with them a breadth of perspective that helps them in their consultation work. They see a group get stuck where they've been with other groups that got stuck. And so they can help them to ask questions that direct the group and help them get unstuck. They have a discipleship maker index tool that now has how many thousands, tens of thousands of Catholics who have responded to it all over the country. So it just becomes this ongoing database of really valuable information to understand what goes on and parishes that everyone can then participate in. - Yeah. And so they've helped us quite a bit in this process, but before we sort of get into the sort of larger pastoral letter, I wanna ask the question, and maybe this is for you, Bishop, maybe it's for you as well, Father Castle, but you're now full-time vicar general, full-time. And so what is the role of a vicar general? What is a vicar general anyway? You know, I don't even, I've never even heard the term vicar. You know, I mean, for those out there that may not know the structure of a diocese or a chanceary office. - Or canon law. - Or may not be a canon lawyer, that's right. - 'Cause the role of the vicar general is prescribed in canon law. So one way to describe it for people, I could say it this way. Probably a lot of people imagine that a bishop spends all his day running down all kinds of detailed, you know, agendas and emails and phone calls and meetings and so forth. If he did that, the real work that he's ordained to do would go undone because then he would just be stuck in the chanceary and it would be rare for people to see him and what's the point of having the bishop. But what makes it possible for a bishop to do his actual work is someone who is doing all of that because all of that does have to be done. A diocese in one way is like a large corporation and it needs to be run. It has a leadership team and then the leadership team has offices and departments under it. And so all of those things have to be coordinated. And so having someone like a vicar general who carries the bishop's authority when he's gone and who can oversee the curial staff and oversee the departments and get into the real weeds and details of things allows the bishop to be free on his calendar to accept all the invitations to the parish and to this and to that. So that's, for me, that's the value of the vicar general. Is my ability to be out in the diocese is because I have a vicar general, that's the way I am. And we've always had a part-time vicar general in this diocese and so now with Father Castle on board full time, we can do even more. And so it's an interesting time. We've been reflecting a lot on this sort of transition from Christendom to apostolic mission and sort of this season in the church and CLIs sort of facilitated this process with us. Maybe you could remind us or refresh us on maybe sort of the process with some of that process with CLI and what went into sort of this new pastoral letter and this new pastoral plan and maybe how Father Castle, how you sort of fit into that and how you're gonna be working with that. - Yeah. Yeah, so I think an important part to remember, that when a plan emerges, the plan should really reflect the hearts and the minds of the diocese. And so we talk about it as being Bishop's pastoral plan and it is and as much as the plan has to resonate with him and put fire in his belly to wanna kind of support and lead it forward. But in the process that we went through was a very collaborative process. Really kind of going back to the synod loosening sessions. When the Holy Father asked for a universal listening session more or less is what the synod was, really opening the opportunity for the faithful to share different aspects of their experience of being a Catholic in the church today. And so we held many listening sessions throughout the whole Eastern part of the state of Oklahoma and all that information was then again collected and organized in such a way that we could begin to see themes coming out of the synod information. We then worked with CLI to do some additional interviewing of different stakeholders in our diocese, from those who are involved in Catholic education to our religious, to the elderly, to the young, to the families, to the single people, to the divorced people. We really tried to have very direct conversations with people to understand again their experience where they see issues and opportunities in the diocese. And then Bishop called together a team of individuals who then began working to synthesize all of these inputs also which included surveys from the priests, surveys from the deacons. And when you start bringing that much information together, you do start to see the emergence of a singular voice and how the same thing is getting brought up over and over and over again. And so I think if you could summarize where some of the conversations were going in that process, the planning team as well as again the data really was showing there was a recognition that in the time in which we were living, the number of priests is a concern. As we look at our own projection of retirement and the number of guys that are in the seminary, there are less of us than there used to be in the past, but the work is just the same if not at times more. And so really kind of acknowledging that the care of our clergy, not just their creature comfort care, but the true care of the clergy in regards to their intellectual formation, their spiritual formation, their character formation, their pastoral formation, the things that they need to be healthy and to be on point is something that we need to be really attentive to because in the Catholic structure we rely upon the priests. He is called to be the father of a community. He's called to holy order both the spiritual and temporal affairs that has been entrusted to him. And so that kind of emerged, but also simultaneously kind of in that conversation was this idea that the parish has to also be seen as the epicenter of where evangelization happens. It's easy to kind of have scope creep in the diocese where maybe there's something that's not getting done at the parish level and we start trying to compensate for that at the diocesan level and try to put dosses and programs into parishes versus kind of changing our thinking and saying, how does the chance restructure that is again, the different departments of the diocese support the pastor in their role as spiritual father, as leader, to create a parish community that's a vibrant and that's on point in its work of evangelization. And so again, that kind of got clustered around the theme of supporting of our pastor, making sure the pastor has what he needs again to appropriately plan and anticipate the needs of the community, recognizing again, the parish as the primary point where evangelization happens. And then out of that came the conversation around the laity, our coworkers and the vineyards and so we want healthy parishes because a healthy parish forms the laity to a better understanding of their vocation and their mission in the life of the church. And so an important part of the second priority around the vocation and mission of the laity is looking at marriage and family. It's looking at really that central hub of society, the nuclear family of society and also really kind of recapturing the primacy that parents have as primary educators or their children. Bishop, I would say, courageously allowed a commission to be formed, again, a very consultative process that went on for over a year and a half or so of different interested parties of looking at the age of confirmation and looking at the way in which we're going about doing the formation of our young and striving again to put that noble work, kind of back in its rightful place which is in the hands of parents who on the day of their child's baptism made the promise to raise their kid in the practice of the faith. But we also have to recognize that that presumes healthy relationships and healthy marriages. And so the diocese is recognizing, we have a lot of work to do to come alongside of those who are preparing for marriage, those who are already married, those who are maybe are struggling in their marriages, those who are coming to the empty nest place in their marriages, all focused on that relational health and how that affects the formation of their children. Obviously, in addition to that, there are other initiatives that we need to be attentive to to support those who are single and those who are divorced, those who are not in marriages because they also have the same invitation to live a prophetic vocation in the secular world. And so that really was kind of the connection between a healthy parish forming the vocation and mission of the laity. And then lastly, we acknowledge that there have been times in our diocesan history where those who are outside the Tulsa metro area have felt somewhat disconnected from the larger mission of the diocese and have said that the diocese can be very Tulsa-centric. I think Bishop has gone to great links in his last eight years to demonstrate that every parish is just as important as the next. And oftentimes we'll say when one parish is thriving, it's benefiting the other parish. And so when we're all thriving together, the church is truly alive and external Oklahoma. And so that third priority around vicarious as communities of faith is really the invitation for us to start thinking a bit differently around how the structure we've already talked about, the diocese being an organization, how the organizational structures of the church, again, all have their end towards supporting pastors in their work of evangelization in the parishes. And so it's gonna take some work to think about things a little differently as it relates to our vicarious, which are our regions are also known as deaneries and how we can support those vickers, how we can support those pastors in the uniqueness that each parish is in the diversity of our vast geography in Eastern Oklahoma. And so we wanna put some renewed effort on making sure that the diocesan structure is appropriately tooled to again have our eye on the parish as the point of evangelization and to support the pastor and his teams of making Jesus known in their local community. - And just an observation myself with you here as vicar generals, I think many have noted that you've been out and about visiting some of our rural areas of Oklahoma. As you like to say, getting back to your roots. You know, being the pride of Perkins. And so, you know, so maybe you could speak into that and some of the things you're seeing, some of the things you're finding, some of the things you can look forward to in your role and how maybe your role as vicar general sort of helps us in a greater way as we embark on this process of sort of looking at our communities and saying, how do we create greater apostolic or cultures of apostolic mission within our Catholic communities? - Yeah, there's a phrase that you know, CLI oftentimes uses that, you know, leadership is not normative, but leadership is prescriptive. And that is oftentimes active in my mind. You know, that leadership is not normative, it's prescriptive that we can't respond to every single situation the same way, but we have to give the situation what it needs. And so, it is my hope as I kind of go out and I spend time with my brothers and I hear their stories and I see their ministry contacts. And I then kind of chew on what I experienced and listen to kind of what their needs are. We can be more prescriptive in what we offer them from the diocese. And so, that's what I hope to learn. I hope to be a learner, you know, as I go out. I don't go out with an ego or a box of tools to say you have to do this. I definitely have ideas about things, but again, each of these different parishes are so uniquely different. And what works in one place may not work exactly the same in the other, but how do we work with that pastor and his team to creatively think about what is a solution that may help them move their parish more towards mission. And so, I think the best way I can describe it when I start thinking about how we adjust some of our structures at the diocesan level is how are we being prescriptive versus normative in what we're offering the brothers? Because we treat them and their parishes as unique individuals, but yet still united to the whole. And so I think we have to help each person where they're at. - Yeah, and so you're kind of hinting at a lot of this, but Bishop, so why a full-time vicar general now? Is it a combination of sort of a lot of what we've talked about here? Is do you see sort of Father Castle as sort of an extension of you to kind of go out and assist in this work? Or how'd you answer that? - Yeah, when I came, we didn't have a full-time vocation director and I had been a full-time vocation director in my diocese in Austin. And so I understood the value of being able to do this kind of work with all your focus, you know? And so that also applies to a position like the vicar general, the kinds of needs and the kinds of tasks that a vicar general is attending to are, you know, they just grow in volume. And as you, as we're launching a plan and one that's pretty ambitious in terms of its potential to affect the future of the diocese, particularly in terms of clergy formation, one of the things that I'm very excited about in the plan is the ability to, in a sense, complete the education and formation of our clergy because seminary, it's not a critique of seminary, it's simply a reality. Seminary is not able to do the administrative kinds of education that priests will really benefit by in terms of becoming parish leaders, but they still need that. And increasingly so as parishes get larger and more complex. And so being able to create a program that will supply that after ordination to the men as they're ordained and begin ministry, life and ministry. So having someone full time will make that possible. The chance the operation has grown larger even in just the eight years that I've been here. So that means a larger and more complex curial structure. So again, the vicar general being able to focus his time and attention on that. I'm gone a lot just, I mean all bishops are out of the office a lot if they're out in the diocese, they're out of the office a lot. And work at the USCCB if you're on committees and you're going to meetings and various things that go on. So having someone who's here and who is able to carry the authority of the bishop and the bishop's gone so that the diocese doesn't grind to a halt when the bishop's away, that's also very useful. So those things all just coalesced around also the possibility. So it's not that we haven't wanted a full time directed before, vicar general before, but we didn't always have the possibility in terms of being able to supply the perishes with what they need and still have someone who can be broke loose free full time. - Yeah, that's great. It's a big job. How are you grabbing the oh no handles yet? - Yeah, are you? - It's been, actually it's been really refreshing because I think for the last seven plus years and there's kind of been a couple of big things and we've survived COVID and all those different dynamics that have kind of played in having dual positions. And so somewhat selfishly, I actually am just really enjoying the ability to focus on one thing. I have jokingly told people the kind of when I came to my senses on that first Tuesday after all the dust settled after I left the cathedral, there was this kind of physical feeling of a weight that was lifted because when you're a pastor of a community, as I was of the cathedral community, just as a parent is preoccupied about what their children are doing, the same thing applies I think to a pastor of a parent. So as I was dealing with the things, the diocese, because I'm preoccupied with that responsibility, I'm thinking in the back of my mind, okay, like how's school going today? Thinking about things that I kind of know I'm going to deal with that, my dad gets home. So that kind of nagging was always kind of in the back of my mind. And so it kind of was this relief, but also a joy as I think about that community having a single-mindedly focused rector. And as the cathedral has grown and has matured over the last five years, to be able to have someone that's single-mindedly focused on their pastoral needs is exciting for me for them as well. So yes, I'm very much at peace about kind of where I'm at and my mind doesn't idle very well. And so I'm constantly thinking about what's next and how we can kind of move this forward. And I have a wholly angst within myself of things can always be better and we can improve. And so it's just a matter of a bridling that at times. - Well, to hear your excitement for all of this is contagious and it's great. And I think a lot of people would share that sentiment, but you know, this is a different thing for you. I mean, what are gonna be some of the challenges that maybe you see, you know, in this new role, you know, it's very different than being pastor of a parish or even working at the high school or what do you think some of the challenges are gonna be that you? - I think Bishop kind of mentioned, you know, the word the plan is somewhat ambitious. I think it is somewhat ambitious because, you know, the diocese is, you know, being given, you know, some pretty amazing resources to help us implement the plan. And as much as I think all of us would say we want vibrant parishes. And I think every pastor would say we want vibrant parishes. But in order for vibrant parishes to happen, sometimes change has to happen. And people change and are open to doing things differently at different levels of enthusiasm, you know? And so I think it's a matter of figuring out like what is the pace and the cadence of introducing some of these new concepts, new opportunities. When do you introduce them, how do you message them? How do you get people on board? How do you buy in? How do you move kind of forward with, again, what we believe is needed and it's necessary, but it may not be needed or necessary to everybody from their perspective. And so it's, like I said before, going out as a learner and listening and talking and encouraging and kind of coaching is I think gonna be my biggest opportunity because I tend to have one speed and it's fast, but that does not necessarily always serve the common good to the best of our ability. - Yeah, I think the timescale, that's one of the, you know, when I said that something that CLI did and strives to do is to translate business level kinds of concepts into ecclesial life. One of the things that I think is different between the two is the timescale. So businesses operating on, we're competing with our other businesses and it's right now, we gotta be ready for the, whatever the thing has to be, the next quarter and so forth. And the church is not always moving like that, nor should it always move like that. It's harder to, it's a different kind of reality. And so you can use the tools, but you have to translate them correctly into the proper ecclesial context. So, you know, you've got 89 pastors or so, you know, 80 pastors or priests, rather. They're at all different levels of experience and ability and so all of that has to be factored in. The parishes, man, we've got, you know, everything from, thank Thomas Moore with people hanging out of the rafters to our smallest rural parishes with less than 20 people at mass on Sunday. There's such a wide difference in terms of the reality of the parishes. So how do you help all of them, where they are, to move to the next level? - Right. - Yep. - That's great. Many, many may hear this and be excited or charged or filled with some good, good energy. You know, what would you wanna share with them? Or is there some way that people can help if they want to assist the vicar general with his role or his activities and some of those things? Or what would you wanna share with those people? - Yeah, I think, you know, we're using the phrase, you know, from Christendom to apostolic mission, you know, and I think, so I would invite kind of, I would invite people to begin kind of contemplating on that. What does that mean? You know, what does it mean to move away from a culture that kind of has presumed structures that are gonna uphold, you know, the Christian faith, you know, and then to pray for their pastors and to be supportive of their pastors, you know, to be open to however the spirit is inviting their parish and the diocese, you know, to respond in this time. You know, I think a lot of our pastors can be conflict-avoidant and, you know, continuation-oriented, kind of in their work, just because they wanna serve and they don't wanna hurt people's feelings, they don't wanna upset the apple cart. You know, and so I think sometimes for our pastors to know that they have the encouragement of the faithful and of their community to try and test things that may be different than the way they have always been, all the little tea traditions in our parishes that are a little sacred cows that we don't wanna touch, but sometimes need to be touched for the movement into the future. So to encourage their pastors to pray for their pastors to always step up when the pastors are asking them, you know, or asking for help, kind of in different planning initiatives. I think that would be, I think some of the things I would suggest, yeah, and then I think to be positive, you know, to be positive about our faith, to be positive about the plan and to consider, again, ways in which they can participate as these different opportunities are made known more fully. - Any hopes from you, Bishop, for sort of this work in the pastoral letter and some of these things? - I'm thinking generationally, so in my mind, you know, pastoral plans last three to five years. That's the typical shelf life. But the change that a pastoral plan can effect may go on for a long time. And so, for example, to reach a place where couples who are getting married before they're even dating one another as individuals, their Catholic life has been such that they already have thought of themselves and are thinking of themselves as a disciple of Jesus Christ, a friend of his. They have already thought about, what do I want my life to mean and to be for? I want it to be for him. I want it to be dedicated into the mission that Jesus has in the world. And whatever I do with my future, whatever kind of job I have or whatever kind of location I want to pursue, I want to pursue it so that I can make that mission move forward. Those people will marry in a different way. They'll date in a different way. They'll think of dating in a different way. That will cause them to be open to a different form of marriage preparation and that will cause them to marry in a much higher and healthier way. And one of the things that they will go into marriage and expecting and looking forward to is being the pastor of their domestic church, is being the ones who are going to give birth to their children and then share with their children why Jesus is such a friend of theirs, how they met Jesus, what Jesus means to them so that those children will grow up with the expectation that who is this Jesus? I'm gonna meet him sometime. My parents are telling me that. So when I go to church, I'm looking for him. Now, that won't happen next year, right? That's not gonna happen because of what we're doing in this pastor plan next year, not for everybody, but it's a generational kind of a change, but it can begin next year. You see, we launch into this pastor plan, the things that we're trying to do in this pastor plan begin to move the needle in that direction so that generationally it makes a big change. You know, we're changing the age of confirmation. We celebrated yesterday the Feast of St. Pius X. He was the pope who lowered the age of first communion and he did that precisely in view of the fact he already was aware in his time that children who are not receiving the sacrament of communion at an earlier age or already being led by corrosive forces in the culture away from faith by the time they get to be 14 or 15 or 16 and receive first communion. And there's no reason for them to wait. Why can't we give them the gift and the grace of the sacrament as soon as they're able at the age of reason at seven years old? And so he said, no, we should do that. So that the grace of the sacrament they receive helps them as they go through those years that are so formative. And so similarly for us, that won't, you know, the child who received first Holy Communion at seven when it used to be 14, the next year didn't move the whole needle but began to move the whole needle. - That's beautiful. Well, Father Castle, thanks for joining us. - And honored to be here. - Yeah, it was great having you. - All right. - This has been "Tolls of Time" with Bishop Condor Love. Thank you all for listening. (upbeat music) (audience cheering) Thank you.
