Interview with Bishop Tod D. Brown

by Mike Sullivan

Click here to read Bishop Brown's pastoral letter "Learning, Loving, and Living Your Faith."

Sullivan: Bishop Brown, could you give us a little background about your recent pastoral letter?

Bishop Brown: As I considered the pastoral needs of our diocese, and tried to begin to prioritize those needs, it became clear to me that we needed to focus on adult faith formation. Many of our people, while they are very good about participating at the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist and this kind of thing, too many of them were not knowledgeable about the faith.

I am hoping by means of the pastoral letter that they will come to see the beauty of our faith and that in turn will help to motivate them to live out that faith and share that faith with others. Certainly starting in their own families. So that’s really the pastoral letter. To know and to love and to live our faith is going to have an effect upon all of our outreach here in the Diocese of Orange for some time to come, and in terms of our many, many ministries. And the reception has been good. I continue to mention the pastoral letter whenever I get the opportunity.

One group in which I find a really good reception is the religious educators, at whatever level they are, which is very important because they are the ones who are going to pass on an abundance of catechesis and formation, really the basic message that we are trying to communicate.

Sullivan: The pastoral letter was primarily written for people of this diocese, but many of us out there are finding it very helpful.

Bishop Brown: I was pleased to see the Bishops' conference publication, Origins, published that, which gave it wide dissemination across the country and many people from outside the Diocese of Orange have responded to that and have told me that it has been helpful to them; a variety of peoples from different parts of the country. So I’m glad that was helpful to people besides ourselves, even though the primary focus was to deal with our own local church.

Sullivan: One of the things you spoke of was making a commitment to take your faith more seriously. I wonder if you could speak on how in the early Church we had martyrs, which simply means witnesses. Are we called to martyrdom today in some way, and could you speak on that?

Bishop Brown: In my confirmation homilies this year I emphasized to the candidates the fact that they are committing themselves to become not just . . . members of our Catholic Christian community by means of completing their sacramental initiation into the Church, but they are also committing themselves to be faithful disciples of the Lord. Today that means to be a witness to the mission, and the message, and the person of Jesus.

So to answer your question, yes, we are all called to be witnesses in our particular circumstances in life regardless of our vocation, in terms of the state of life that we have. And I think that we as Catholics need to realize that witnessing is very much a part of what we are called to do today.

Sullivan: In an age of relativism, secularism, and materialism, can you give us a couple of concrete things that the average Catholic can do to keep their focus on Christ and share Christ with others?

Bishop Brown: Well, of course, other than participating regularly in the sacraments, especially in the celebration of the Eucharist and hopefully receiving a helpful homily at the weekly service, I think that people need to look at their own set of circumstances and to see how these things you’re talking about—relativism, secularism, and materialism—have somehow eroded or entered into their own circumstances. It happens to all of us, including myself, and I think we need to be aware of that problem and realize that, really, these areas that you mention have had their affect on society and because of that they’ve had an affect on our church community.

Sullivan: In what ways do you think the laity, especially Catholics United for the Faith and our members, can help to build up the Church and assist you as a bishop in building up the Church.

Bishop Brown: Well, I think that primarily people can be of assistance in terms of building up the Church, in this case the local church of Orange, by becoming involved in an active fashion in their parish communities because that is where people really experience faith and learn more about their faith is in that context. Families, too of course, but parishes on a broader spectrum. I would appreciate, first of all, an attempt to become active parishioners in their particular parishes.

The Most Rev. Tod D. Brown is Bishop of the Diocese of Orange, California.

Back to the Latest Online Articles