Former Rockville Centre bishop takes helm in Brooklyn

To much fanfare, longtime Rockville Centre Bishop Robert Brennan was installed as the eighth bishop of the Archdiocese of Brooklyn on Nov. 30.

Brennan, 59, was ordained at the Archdiocese of Rockville Centre in 1989, and he served there until he moved to a parish in Ohio in 2019. He was born in the Bronx, raised in Lindenhurst and spoke Mass in Smithtown, Rockville Centre, Long Beach, Roosevelt and Lynbrook over the years. Last month, he took the helm as bishop in Brooklyn, which houses 1.5 million Roman Catholics in the city’s two most-populous boroughs, Brooklyn and Queens.

“It’s nice to be coming back to the New York/Long Island area,” Brennan said. “I’m getting to know the diocese, and there are lots of new people to get to know and new neighborhoods, so my initial experience is just getting to know people, and it’s actually quite wonderful.”

Brennan replaces Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, who held the post for 18 years. He said the outgoing bishop left the parish in “good shape,” and gave him encouragement and support. Brennan began his tenure with three ceremonial taps with a hammer on the cathedral door, part of a ceremonious welcome for the new bishop, who displayed an ornate letter from Pope Francis naming him bishop of Brooklyn and Queens. A crowd of 1,500 filled the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn for the ceremony, including the bishop’s parents, Patricia and Robert, a retired NYPD officer.

The band from Brennan’s high school alma mater, St. John the Baptist in West Islip, performed outside, which he said meant a great deal to him, while Timothy Cardinal Dolan presided inside.

Brennan said he enjoyed the past two years in Ohio, despite the challenges brought on by the pandemic, but he was excited for new experience and the multi-cultural feel of the boroughs.

“It was very, very moving to see so many people at the installation,” he said. “Talk about a Brooklyn-Queens welcome. People were incredibly welcoming and really that was one of the first large gatherings that they’ve had in a long time because of Covid and they took all the precautions they could. We had a big celebration.”

Brennan said the experience was an encouraging start to his tenure, including having students from his former Catholic school there. He added that a Catholic school upbringing was a major part of his life. After St. John the Baptist, Brennan went to St. John’s University in Queens, which helped him become well-versed in one of the boroughs he now serves.

He also recalled his three decades in Rockville Centre fondly.

“I loved the church in Rockville Centre,” he said. “I was very much at home in Nassau and Suffolk counties. I knew many of the parishes, loved many of the people. We have wonderful, wonderful people and there’s a great sense of faith. People are good people and they’re trying to live good lives and they practice their faith and they raise their families, and it’s great being part of all of that.”

Now that he’s in a new diocese, Brennan said, his goals are to get to know the parishioners and the neighborhoods, and to follow the methods he has always used as a leader.

“An expression I use is to live the joy of the gospel and the splendor of truth,” he said, “to live our Catholic faith boldy, unapologetically and joyfully, and my main goal right now is to get to know everybody, to give the parishioners an understanding of what the experience of life is, what the challenges of life are, and to live together that good news, that joy of the gospel.”