Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The views and opinions expressed in the following programmer those
of the speaker and don't necessarily represent those of the station.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
It's staff management or ownership.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Good morning, you'll find me out with Pete and the
poet Gold. I'm Peter Leonard and I'm the poet Goals,
and we're on the air this morning with Reverend Susan
Fortunato of the christ Episcopal Search and Peughkeepsie. And before
we welcome Susans to the show, we're going to go
right to the poet Goal for her weekly poem prayer incantation. Gold,
please let it roll.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Okay, I'm going to give everyone a sneak peek. You're
going to be the first to hear some words that
are coming in my upcoming book, be the poem living
Beyond Our Fears.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
The thinking human contemplates the complexities of life, making sure
to demonstrate success, not the vice. The rise and fall
of our kind calamities are daily news. When we front,
we build walls to hide away our truth. You are
what you think You are are all the thoughts inside
(01:01):
your head. We are what we think we are. We
are all the thoughts inside our heads.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Amen. To that, and we start as the thoughts inside ahead,
and then we go to who we really are the
action in the community. That was partly editorial in my thought.
The reverer Susan. Everyone knows what an episcopopal priest is.
Some people are still not used to women being a
(01:29):
prescopal priest. Yeah, you might, maybe we could start there,
you know, how you knew that is and how you
personally became a priest.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Sure, the Episcopal Church started ordaining women in the nineteen seventies,
around nineteen seventy seven, and actually I was a young
girl in the church. It was an acolyte at my
little church in Madison, Georgia, when I found out that
women could become priests. And in fact, I grew up
(02:02):
in a little town with about twenty five hundred people,
and the editor the local newspaper was also the senior
warden of our church, and so he wanted to have
a front page article on women becoming priest in the
Episcopal Church. And so when I was about eleven years old,
there is a picture of me holding the cross in
(02:26):
the church showing that women could now be have leadership
in the church. For me, you know, the Episcopal Church
has always been a place that I felt safe and
through my own journey. When I was a young mom,
I saw my son was about a year old, and
(02:50):
I decided I wanted to raise him in a community
of people that tried to do good in the world.
So I brought him to the Episcopal Church. And through
the process of bringing my son there, I listened to
the Gospel and I woke up one day and thought,
(03:12):
this is how I want to spend my life. I
want to spend my life working with other people, trying
to make the Kingdom of God become a little more
explicit in the earth.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
And so so there was so there was not a
straight line between the eleven year old girl on the
front page of the Georgian local paper and in your
adult life. But it wounded up that picture was a
prophecy itself.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
That's exactly right. Like every teenager in America, I spent
some time dabbling in Buddhism and atheism, reading poetry, hanging
out at clubs. I was, you know, and living life
and experiencing as fully as possible.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Right. Well, uh, not every but you know, every teenage
of America has brushed by Buddhism.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
That reflects poorly on the youth of America.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
I think.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
I think when you're on of a sort of enlightened journey,
you have those different types of exposures.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
You know.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
It's funny that that you said that you were exposed
the Episcopal church, uh in the in the seventies, and
so it helped you with your path. I was in
a Catholic church, and when I went to the priest
at seven to say that I wanted to be a priest,
I was told I couldn't because I was a girl.
And and it it just put me on a different
path at that point, you know. But uh, but but
(04:49):
somehow I've maintained that sort of relationship within myself and
finding my own way to to uh to that enlightenment
and spirit.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Gold is I listen to us know on Gold there
is not a bitter person but her brush up against
I'm being told she can't be a priest when she
was seven.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
It really does, you know. And I didn't, I really,
I really didn't be what.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
It was for me.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
It let me know that the world that that I
was born into was not what I thought it was.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
That's right, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
And and so it made me look at the world
through a different lens at that point and said to me,
you really need to pay attention at seven. Whichever way
that's translated at seven, but it really said you have
to pay attention. You know. It's not what you think
it is.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
It's a valuable in size for for everybody.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah, because I was just trying to be close to God,
and from a seven year old perspective, the priest was
the one that had like the track to God, it seemed,
you know, and any and he said at the time,
you can be a nun. And I asked why and
he said, because you're a girl and girls are not priest.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Right, you know.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
And so I said, God is love and why would
he love me less because I'm a girl?
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Right, That's where the quasi bitterness comes in. If I
take an extra thirty seconds what seems the version. But
a great friend of both old and maybe this guy
Tree Arrington, who ran Real Skills Network in Poughkeepsie. And
she was a big charismatic, a black guy with a
(06:32):
booming voice. And he was politically keen, socially keen in
a lot of things. And you know, he had a
pretty predictable path as you grew up in the Bronx
as a young, poor black guy, and he had a
journey that was sort of expected through you know, problems
(06:52):
with law enforcement and coocerational, but he was so intensely
political and really just when he was the best seven
his mother, it looked like his mother was going to
die and he didn't and his family was not a
church group at that time, and so he went to
(07:16):
the local church and hung around there until the minister
there said, you know, basically, you know, what are you doing.
He said, well, you know, I think my mother is
going to die, and in my family, we don't go
to church, and I wanted to talk to somebody who
God might listen to, you know. But just like him,
(07:39):
he didn't think he had the status to talk to God.
But he knew politically, oh you know, the priests, the
minister and you know. But it's such an essentially political,
speish religious perspective that reminded me of that. So we're
doing that power dynamic. Oh yeah, and with the power
(08:03):
for sure. And yeah, before we go to gold you might.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yes, if you're just tuning in, you're listening to finding
out with Pete and the poet Goal. I'm Peter and
I'm the poet Goal. We're here with Reverend Susan Fortunato,
a pastor at christ Episcopal Church right here in Poughkeepsie,
New York.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
And you know, Susan, Uh, the place where religion brushes
up against social norm social laws, politics going forward. I
think a lot of people are alarmed on one of
them about you know, how we should proceed, uh, you know,
(08:44):
with a new administration coming in basically tomorrow, and you know,
sort of maybe you could frame it, is there a
Christian way forward in the world that might be since
some of us perceive as becoming a threat to Christianity.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
It's a great question. I mean, I think that's the
question of the moment, Peter. For me, it's really about
values I have. I have always as a priest, believed
that it's not my role to be political. Although clearly
I'm a human being, I'm a citizen. I feel very
(09:28):
deeply and passionately about politics in America. But but as
a pastor, I try very hard to avoid taking a
stand that would that would in any way distance me
from any of the people in my community.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
And also it's a legal for you to take a stand.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Well, that legal illegal. Some some churches have a history
of being Some black churches historically bring in candidates and
are pretty aggressive about that personally, and I think the
Episcopal Church and the structure of the Episcopal Church supports this.
(10:11):
I don't think it's appropriate in my role as a pastor,
but this administration poses some special and unique challenges because
what I can talk about are the ways in which
my values as a Christian and the values of the
community that I serve are in conflict with the incoming administration.
(10:36):
So some of the people that we care for, like migrants,
like the unhoused, like the trans community, like women, and
the queer community, are actually in a place where they
feel rightly or wrongly. And I think we all have
to wait and see how this plays out. But people
(10:59):
feel threatened, and I think that because of that very
unique situation, Uh, it is appropriate to talk about ways
that we protect people who are who may become vulnerable.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
When you say, uh, protect, I don't look at the
idea of protecting as a sort of a political stance,
but I could see someone on the other side, you know,
going what any protection for you know, right, so to speak,
and so from their perspective, it may be a political
stance because it stands a front to what what their
(11:35):
beliefs are.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
That's correct, and I think that you know, for instance,
we have a deep commitment to migrants, and we have
a congregation that's comprised largely of people from Wahaca, that
that that speaks Spanish, that meets in our church. We
(11:57):
also have English as a second language. As for those
that group of migrants in Poughkeepsie, we know them as
the people who've lived in the red roof in for
the last year. So we these are people that we know,
that we care about, that we support, and we support
(12:18):
them as children of God. And so when we hear
rhetoric about deportation, about closing the border, all of a sudden,
we become concerned not on a hypothetical or political level,
but on a deeply personal level about people that we've
worked with and care about and want to make sure
that they can have as full and safe and experience
(12:43):
in this country as possible.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Yeah. I mean, that's a perfect example. And you know,
when you talk about protecting them, Yeah, you don't have
to protect people until they're targeted. And I think that
at least in terms of what is said, so you
can't always believe it is said, especially Uh, you know,
help me be specific about h Donald Trump says many
(13:06):
things and very few of them are true. But when
he says he's going to be tougher on migrants, when
he's gonna be tougher on uh trains people into the
gay community in general. Uh, you got to start waking
up to that. And uh, you know in Poughkeepsie, Poughkeepsie
(13:27):
would be in desperate position without the migrants, something like
you know, the uh, the Wahawkan community has really enliven
Poughkeepsie in a way that we need. And just truths
throughout the country that uh we don't talk about the
net net great benefits of migration. Uh, you know, documents
(13:50):
that are undocumented.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
And how do we create funding for ourselves, you know,
if we're excluded from the funding, if we're perceived to
be a a a place, a geographic location that supports
you know, these communities, the trans communities, the gay community,
the migrant community. Because in this past administration, he has
(14:11):
held money back from states and local municipalities that may
have supported you know, communities like that, and you.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Know, I know, I expect you you are friends with
Richard with from the Rural Microministry.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
He is a close friend, Yes.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Yeah, and Gold works with them every summer. You know,
I've known Richard a very long time also, but he
has he's the executive director of the Rural and Migrant Ministry,
which came out of Christ's Episcopal Church. That's correct. Maybe
you could talk about the long term commitment your church
(14:54):
is not only the Episcopal Church, but specifically Christs Episcopal
Church and Poughkeepsie has had with.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
The microan sure, and I would defer to Richard if
he was here, but I can I can tell you
that one of the things that makes me so proud
to be the rector at Christ's Episcopal Church is that
it has historically been a place that is supportive and
welcoming to all people. But I will tell you. I
(15:22):
can tell you that Richard actually began his ministry as
the assistant rector at Christ's Episcopal Church, and in fact
was ordained in our church by Barbara Harris uh And
and they have. Richard has always had a heart for
the migrant community and has really spent his entire career
(15:46):
lifting up the work, especially that that migrants have brought
such richness, uh and work and so many wonderful things,
especially to the Hudson Valley and who are farming communities,
and so Richard is really a beacon and a hero.
I think he's going to go down as one of
(16:08):
the great sort of saints of this century because of
the work that he's done.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Yes, and he does it with a sense of social consciousness,
you know, as well as love. He is I always say,
on the right side of the heart.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
In this movement.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
He is an amazing leader and has really helped to
mobilize the entire Episcopal Church around issues of the importance
of standing with migrants, which is as amazing.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
If you're just tuning in, you're listening to finding out
with Pete and the poet Gold, and I'm the poet
Gold and we're here with Reverend Susan Fortunado, the pastor
at Christ Episcopal Church in Poughkeepsie.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
You know, she's one of the other things is happening,
and it just makes us think, uh, you know, tomorrow,
one day we're going to have a new administration in America.
And it's also celebration of Martin Luther King Day, and
I think the issue it makes it clear. The issue
of race relations in America is also another thing that
(17:15):
I expect will be rougher over the next couple of
years than we have had. Do you have any thoughts
on that and how Christianity should well could address that issue.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yes, sure, it's a you know, it's a It's a
humbling thing as a as a white woman to speak
to the question, especially as a white woman who grew
up in the Deep South, uh, to speak to the
issue of race relations. But I can tell you that again,
one of the things that drew me to the city
(17:51):
of Poughkeepsie is is that we are such an integrated
community and as much as we have had we have
all lived through injustice in Poughkeepsie, redlining, the slave trade,
(18:12):
all kinds of hardships that every community in America has
suffered through. I also feel that Poughkeepsie is very self
conscious and intentional about trying to work through those issues.
In fact, today we were preparing our bulletin for Martin
(18:32):
Luther King Sunday, which we celebrate as a holy day
this Sunday, and we were going through we were looking
to pick a picture for the cover of the bulletin.
And I remembered that in twenty twenty after George Floyd,
when we had those marches all through Poughkeepsie, and also,
(18:56):
I mean the nation, but Poughkeepsie. I remember that beauty
full picture of Tom Pabe, who is the chief of
police at the time, kneeling on the bridge with an
African American teenager. And I said, that's the picture. That's
the picture we want on the cover of this week's bulletin.
(19:20):
And and because to me that really that picture says
more than more than any of us could ever articulate.
Not that we have it perfect, because we certainly don't.
There's still lots of inequality, but that we are really
united in making efforts in Poughkeepsie to understand for those
(19:46):
of us in the Anglo the white community, to understand
our own privilege, and to really lift up and respect
the leadership in the African American community. And I think
that we've we've done a lot of good work here,
and like America, we have a lot more work to do.
(20:09):
I worry, quite honestly about the next administration because I
remember the last time that they were in power and
I remember that the rhetoric felt so demeaning to the
African American community, and and and and it felt like
(20:29):
our divisions were really were really worse in during that time.
And and that makes me sort of feel compelled to
redouble our efforts to work with Clinton Elementary School, which
is right across the street, and to really make sure
we're to to support ways that we can continue to
(20:50):
work for justice.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
And I know that that a vaster I believe is
also doing a celebration on Monday morning, a breakfast. There
a number of local events that will be taking place
in the city of Poughkeepsie. And on a national level,
there's actually the daughter of Martin Luther King, Junior, Bernice King.
I believe it's doing something in Washington, d C. Along
(21:12):
with Revenue Revenue Shopton's organization that will be taking place
simultaneously in Washington while the inauguration is taking place.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
And what about the you know, you're just the RDA
wreck around race? I mean, no nobody in America has
gotten race right. But the way people talk about race,
you feel it, uh is more pointed now than it
was in the rest of your life. Will one.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
I think it's it's it's it appears to be, you know,
but it's but it's always been present, depending upon which
which circle I'm meant. But I believe that this generation
has a heightened because of the technology. So we told
the stories, but you couldn't see it. The church has
(22:02):
never stopped burning in the South. It's just that you
couldn't see it. But now you can, and the technology,
the social media really put it in a lot of
people's faces and said, see, it never stopped when people thought, well, hey,
you can write, you can get you get to you know,
go to some of the same schools and you get
(22:23):
to ride in the front of the bus. I don't
see what the problem is, you know. But the problem
is that we knew that it never really stopped. We
knew that redlining existed, but until you live through it
and see it, it became invisible. Uh for the Anglo community.
You know, you have the right to vote and all
(22:43):
of that, but it was still relevant in our community every.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Day, every day, and every day is the data count,
that's right? I know, you know, so you you know,
some of us think in terms of national issues, but
you have a very perspective on things. We want to
explain that a bit.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Sure, Thanks, Peter, I do. I Actually I really think
that at this moment in in in the world, and
in some ways this is really informed by Timothy Snyder's
book on Tyranny. He writes about about people who live
through Nazi Germany, and he says that that you can't
(23:29):
you can't affect a corrupt government. And I'm not, by
the way, saying that this is Nazi Germany, or even
that our government is corrupt, but I think those are
the kinds of fears that are out there. But but
Timothy Snyder makes the point that even in Nazi Germany,
(23:49):
some communities did better than others, and they did better
because they had better local leaders who work together, collact aboratively,
and all who agreed basically on working for justice. They
all had a common understanding of right and wrong. And
(24:12):
that's the kind of community organizing I'm interested in, is
about working with other people who can say that everybody here,
everybody in our town, everybody in our county, deserves to
have safety, security, equal rights, dignity. And that seems to
(24:37):
me that something that we can all we can all
agree upon and begin to organize around protecting each other's
rights and respecting and modeling that we do.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yeah, faciat putting that is, people believe in human rights
can join together on a local level.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
That's a exactly right.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Right right, no, absolutely and make it happen. I mean
we talked a little bit about that prior, you know,
and go ahead.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Peter, I'm just saying we can all say amen to that. Yeah, amens,
we believe it, but it also beens since the end
of the prayer. Yeah, So Susan Forcenado, Reverend Susan for General,
thanks for being with us and we look forward to
seeing you regularly.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
And thank you so much for our listeners for listening
to finding out Pete in the poet Gold
The views and opinions expressed in the following programmer those
of the speaker and don't necessarily represent those of the station.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
It's staff management or ownership.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Good morning, you'll find me out with Pete and the
poet Gold. I'm Peter Leonard and I'm the poet Goals,
and we're on the air this morning with Reverend Susan
Fortunato of the christ Episcopal Search and Peughkeepsie. And before
we welcome Susans to the show, we're going to go
right to the poet Goal for her weekly poem prayer incantation. Gold,
please let it roll.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Okay, I'm going to give everyone a sneak peek. You're
going to be the first to hear some words that
are coming in my upcoming book, be the poem living
Beyond Our Fears.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
The thinking human contemplates the complexities of life, making sure
to demonstrate success, not the vice. The rise and fall
of our kind calamities are daily news. When we front,
we build walls to hide away our truth. You are
what you think You are are all the thoughts inside
(01:01):
your head. We are what we think we are. We
are all the thoughts inside our heads.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Amen. To that, and we start as the thoughts inside ahead,
and then we go to who we really are the
action in the community. That was partly editorial in my thought.
The reverer Susan. Everyone knows what an episcopopal priest is.
Some people are still not used to women being a
(01:29):
prescopal priest. Yeah, you might, maybe we could start there,
you know, how you knew that is and how you
personally became a priest.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Sure, the Episcopal Church started ordaining women in the nineteen seventies,
around nineteen seventy seven, and actually I was a young
girl in the church. It was an acolyte at my
little church in Madison, Georgia, when I found out that
women could become priests. And in fact, I grew up
(02:02):
in a little town with about twenty five hundred people,
and the editor the local newspaper was also the senior
warden of our church, and so he wanted to have
a front page article on women becoming priest in the
Episcopal Church. And so when I was about eleven years old,
there is a picture of me holding the cross in
(02:26):
the church showing that women could now be have leadership
in the church. For me, you know, the Episcopal Church
has always been a place that I felt safe and
through my own journey. When I was a young mom,
I saw my son was about a year old, and
(02:50):
I decided I wanted to raise him in a community
of people that tried to do good in the world.
So I brought him to the Episcopal Church. And through
the process of bringing my son there, I listened to
the Gospel and I woke up one day and thought,
(03:12):
this is how I want to spend my life. I
want to spend my life working with other people, trying
to make the Kingdom of God become a little more
explicit in the earth.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
And so so there was so there was not a
straight line between the eleven year old girl on the
front page of the Georgian local paper and in your
adult life. But it wounded up that picture was a
prophecy itself.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
That's exactly right. Like every teenager in America, I spent
some time dabbling in Buddhism and atheism, reading poetry, hanging
out at clubs. I was, you know, and living life
and experiencing as fully as possible.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Right. Well, uh, not every but you know, every teenage
of America has brushed by Buddhism.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
That reflects poorly on the youth of America.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
I think.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
I think when you're on of a sort of enlightened journey,
you have those different types of exposures.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
You know.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
It's funny that that you said that you were exposed
the Episcopal church, uh in the in the seventies, and
so it helped you with your path. I was in
a Catholic church, and when I went to the priest
at seven to say that I wanted to be a priest,
I was told I couldn't because I was a girl.
And and it it just put me on a different
path at that point, you know. But uh, but but
(04:49):
somehow I've maintained that sort of relationship within myself and
finding my own way to to uh to that enlightenment
and spirit.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Gold is I listen to us know on Gold there
is not a bitter person but her brush up against
I'm being told she can't be a priest when she
was seven.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
It really does, you know. And I didn't, I really,
I really didn't be what.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
It was for me.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
It let me know that the world that that I
was born into was not what I thought it was.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
That's right, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
And and so it made me look at the world
through a different lens at that point and said to me,
you really need to pay attention at seven. Whichever way
that's translated at seven, but it really said you have
to pay attention. You know. It's not what you think
it is.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
It's a valuable in size for for everybody.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah, because I was just trying to be close to God,
and from a seven year old perspective, the priest was
the one that had like the track to God, it seemed,
you know, and any and he said at the time,
you can be a nun. And I asked why and
he said, because you're a girl and girls are not priest.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Right, you know.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
And so I said, God is love and why would
he love me less because I'm a girl?
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Right, That's where the quasi bitterness comes in. If I
take an extra thirty seconds what seems the version. But
a great friend of both old and maybe this guy
Tree Arrington, who ran Real Skills Network in Poughkeepsie. And
she was a big charismatic, a black guy with a
(06:32):
booming voice. And he was politically keen, socially keen in
a lot of things. And you know, he had a
pretty predictable path as you grew up in the Bronx
as a young, poor black guy, and he had a
journey that was sort of expected through you know, problems
(06:52):
with law enforcement and coocerational, but he was so intensely
political and really just when he was the best seven
his mother, it looked like his mother was going to
die and he didn't and his family was not a
church group at that time, and so he went to
(07:16):
the local church and hung around there until the minister
there said, you know, basically, you know, what are you doing.
He said, well, you know, I think my mother is
going to die, and in my family, we don't go
to church, and I wanted to talk to somebody who
God might listen to, you know. But just like him,
(07:39):
he didn't think he had the status to talk to God.
But he knew politically, oh you know, the priests, the
minister and you know. But it's such an essentially political,
speish religious perspective that reminded me of that. So we're
doing that power dynamic. Oh yeah, and with the power
(08:03):
for sure. And yeah, before we go to gold you might.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yes, if you're just tuning in, you're listening to finding
out with Pete and the poet Goal. I'm Peter and
I'm the poet Goal. We're here with Reverend Susan Fortunato,
a pastor at christ Episcopal Church right here in Poughkeepsie,
New York.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
And you know, Susan, Uh, the place where religion brushes
up against social norm social laws, politics going forward. I
think a lot of people are alarmed on one of
them about you know, how we should proceed, uh, you know,
(08:44):
with a new administration coming in basically tomorrow, and you know,
sort of maybe you could frame it, is there a
Christian way forward in the world that might be since
some of us perceive as becoming a threat to Christianity.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
It's a great question. I mean, I think that's the
question of the moment, Peter. For me, it's really about
values I have. I have always as a priest, believed
that it's not my role to be political. Although clearly
I'm a human being, I'm a citizen. I feel very
(09:28):
deeply and passionately about politics in America. But but as
a pastor, I try very hard to avoid taking a
stand that would that would in any way distance me
from any of the people in my community.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
And also it's a legal for you to take a stand.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Well, that legal illegal. Some some churches have a history
of being Some black churches historically bring in candidates and
are pretty aggressive about that personally, and I think the
Episcopal Church and the structure of the Episcopal Church supports this.
(10:11):
I don't think it's appropriate in my role as a pastor,
but this administration poses some special and unique challenges because
what I can talk about are the ways in which
my values as a Christian and the values of the
community that I serve are in conflict with the incoming administration.
(10:36):
So some of the people that we care for, like migrants,
like the unhoused, like the trans community, like women, and
the queer community, are actually in a place where they
feel rightly or wrongly. And I think we all have
to wait and see how this plays out. But people
(10:59):
feel threatened, and I think that because of that very
unique situation, Uh, it is appropriate to talk about ways
that we protect people who are who may become vulnerable.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
When you say, uh, protect, I don't look at the
idea of protecting as a sort of a political stance,
but I could see someone on the other side, you know,
going what any protection for you know, right, so to speak,
and so from their perspective, it may be a political
stance because it stands a front to what what their
(11:35):
beliefs are.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
That's correct, and I think that you know, for instance,
we have a deep commitment to migrants, and we have
a congregation that's comprised largely of people from Wahaca, that
that that speaks Spanish, that meets in our church. We
(11:57):
also have English as a second language. As for those
that group of migrants in Poughkeepsie, we know them as
the people who've lived in the red roof in for
the last year. So we these are people that we know,
that we care about, that we support, and we support
(12:18):
them as children of God. And so when we hear
rhetoric about deportation, about closing the border, all of a sudden,
we become concerned not on a hypothetical or political level,
but on a deeply personal level about people that we've
worked with and care about and want to make sure
that they can have as full and safe and experience
(12:43):
in this country as possible.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Yeah. I mean, that's a perfect example. And you know,
when you talk about protecting them, Yeah, you don't have
to protect people until they're targeted. And I think that
at least in terms of what is said, so you
can't always believe it is said, especially Uh, you know,
help me be specific about h Donald Trump says many
(13:06):
things and very few of them are true. But when
he says he's going to be tougher on migrants, when
he's gonna be tougher on uh trains people into the
gay community in general. Uh, you got to start waking
up to that. And uh, you know in Poughkeepsie, Poughkeepsie
(13:27):
would be in desperate position without the migrants, something like
you know, the uh, the Wahawkan community has really enliven
Poughkeepsie in a way that we need. And just truths
throughout the country that uh we don't talk about the
net net great benefits of migration. Uh, you know, documents
(13:50):
that are undocumented.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
And how do we create funding for ourselves, you know,
if we're excluded from the funding, if we're perceived to
be a a a place, a geographic location that supports
you know, these communities, the trans communities, the gay community,
the migrant community. Because in this past administration, he has
(14:11):
held money back from states and local municipalities that may
have supported you know, communities like that, and you.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Know, I know, I expect you you are friends with
Richard with from the Rural Microministry.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
He is a close friend, Yes.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Yeah, and Gold works with them every summer. You know,
I've known Richard a very long time also, but he
has he's the executive director of the Rural and Migrant Ministry,
which came out of Christ's Episcopal Church. That's correct. Maybe
you could talk about the long term commitment your church
(14:54):
is not only the Episcopal Church, but specifically Christs Episcopal
Church and Poughkeepsie has had with.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
The microan sure, and I would defer to Richard if
he was here, but I can I can tell you
that one of the things that makes me so proud
to be the rector at Christ's Episcopal Church is that
it has historically been a place that is supportive and
welcoming to all people. But I will tell you. I
(15:22):
can tell you that Richard actually began his ministry as
the assistant rector at Christ's Episcopal Church, and in fact
was ordained in our church by Barbara Harris uh And
and they have. Richard has always had a heart for
the migrant community and has really spent his entire career
(15:46):
lifting up the work, especially that that migrants have brought
such richness, uh and work and so many wonderful things,
especially to the Hudson Valley and who are farming communities,
and so Richard is really a beacon and a hero.
I think he's going to go down as one of
(16:08):
the great sort of saints of this century because of
the work that he's done.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Yes, and he does it with a sense of social consciousness,
you know, as well as love. He is I always say,
on the right side of the heart.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
In this movement.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
He is an amazing leader and has really helped to
mobilize the entire Episcopal Church around issues of the importance
of standing with migrants, which is as amazing.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
If you're just tuning in, you're listening to finding out
with Pete and the poet Gold, and I'm the poet
Gold and we're here with Reverend Susan Fortunado, the pastor
at Christ Episcopal Church in Poughkeepsie.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
You know, she's one of the other things is happening,
and it just makes us think, uh, you know, tomorrow,
one day we're going to have a new administration in America.
And it's also celebration of Martin Luther King Day, and
I think the issue it makes it clear. The issue
of race relations in America is also another thing that
(17:15):
I expect will be rougher over the next couple of
years than we have had. Do you have any thoughts
on that and how Christianity should well could address that issue.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yes, sure, it's a you know, it's a It's a
humbling thing as a as a white woman to speak
to the question, especially as a white woman who grew
up in the Deep South, uh, to speak to the
issue of race relations. But I can tell you that again,
one of the things that drew me to the city
(17:51):
of Poughkeepsie is is that we are such an integrated
community and as much as we have had we have
all lived through injustice in Poughkeepsie, redlining, the slave trade,
(18:12):
all kinds of hardships that every community in America has
suffered through. I also feel that Poughkeepsie is very self
conscious and intentional about trying to work through those issues.
In fact, today we were preparing our bulletin for Martin
(18:32):
Luther King Sunday, which we celebrate as a holy day
this Sunday, and we were going through we were looking
to pick a picture for the cover of the bulletin.
And I remembered that in twenty twenty after George Floyd,
when we had those marches all through Poughkeepsie, and also,
(18:56):
I mean the nation, but Poughkeepsie. I remember that beauty
full picture of Tom Pabe, who is the chief of
police at the time, kneeling on the bridge with an
African American teenager. And I said, that's the picture. That's
the picture we want on the cover of this week's bulletin.
(19:20):
And and because to me that really that picture says
more than more than any of us could ever articulate.
Not that we have it perfect, because we certainly don't.
There's still lots of inequality, but that we are really
united in making efforts in Poughkeepsie to understand for those
(19:46):
of us in the Anglo the white community, to understand
our own privilege, and to really lift up and respect
the leadership in the African American community. And I think
that we've we've done a lot of good work here,
and like America, we have a lot more work to do.
(20:09):
I worry, quite honestly about the next administration because I
remember the last time that they were in power and
I remember that the rhetoric felt so demeaning to the
African American community, and and and and it felt like
(20:29):
our divisions were really were really worse in during that time.
And and that makes me sort of feel compelled to
redouble our efforts to work with Clinton Elementary School, which
is right across the street, and to really make sure
we're to to support ways that we can continue to
(20:50):
work for justice.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
And I know that that a vaster I believe is
also doing a celebration on Monday morning, a breakfast. There
a number of local events that will be taking place
in the city of Poughkeepsie. And on a national level,
there's actually the daughter of Martin Luther King, Junior, Bernice King.
I believe it's doing something in Washington, d C. Along
(21:12):
with Revenue Revenue Shopton's organization that will be taking place
simultaneously in Washington while the inauguration is taking place.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
And what about the you know, you're just the RDA
wreck around race? I mean, no nobody in America has
gotten race right. But the way people talk about race,
you feel it, uh is more pointed now than it
was in the rest of your life. Will one.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
I think it's it's it's it appears to be, you know,
but it's but it's always been present, depending upon which
which circle I'm meant. But I believe that this generation
has a heightened because of the technology. So we told
the stories, but you couldn't see it. The church has
(22:02):
never stopped burning in the South. It's just that you
couldn't see it. But now you can, and the technology,
the social media really put it in a lot of
people's faces and said, see, it never stopped when people thought, well, hey,
you can write, you can get you get to you know,
go to some of the same schools and you get
(22:23):
to ride in the front of the bus. I don't
see what the problem is, you know. But the problem
is that we knew that it never really stopped. We
knew that redlining existed, but until you live through it
and see it, it became invisible. Uh for the Anglo community.
You know, you have the right to vote and all
(22:43):
of that, but it was still relevant in our community every.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Day, every day, and every day is the data count,
that's right? I know, you know, so you you know,
some of us think in terms of national issues, but
you have a very perspective on things. We want to
explain that a bit.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Sure, Thanks, Peter, I do. I Actually I really think
that at this moment in in in the world, and
in some ways this is really informed by Timothy Snyder's
book on Tyranny. He writes about about people who live
through Nazi Germany, and he says that that you can't
(23:29):
you can't affect a corrupt government. And I'm not, by
the way, saying that this is Nazi Germany, or even
that our government is corrupt, but I think those are
the kinds of fears that are out there. But but
Timothy Snyder makes the point that even in Nazi Germany,
(23:49):
some communities did better than others, and they did better
because they had better local leaders who work together, collact aboratively,
and all who agreed basically on working for justice. They
all had a common understanding of right and wrong. And
(24:12):
that's the kind of community organizing I'm interested in, is
about working with other people who can say that everybody here,
everybody in our town, everybody in our county, deserves to
have safety, security, equal rights, dignity. And that seems to
(24:37):
me that something that we can all we can all
agree upon and begin to organize around protecting each other's
rights and respecting and modeling that we do.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yeah, faciat putting that is, people believe in human rights
can join together on a local level.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
That's a exactly right.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Right right, no, absolutely and make it happen. I mean
we talked a little bit about that prior, you know,
and go ahead.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Peter, I'm just saying we can all say amen to that. Yeah, amens,
we believe it, but it also beens since the end
of the prayer. Yeah, So Susan Forcenado, Reverend Susan for General,
thanks for being with us and we look forward to
seeing you regularly.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
And thank you so much for our listeners for listening
to finding out Pete in the poet Gold
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