I’ve been doing music my whole life long. I probably have a pre-natal dimension to music when I was in my mother’s womb. Music has been a part of my whole life, and I thought that would have changed after my conversion, but it didn’t. Music even became a more central part of my life after my conversion, because music helps me to pray.
Music has its own interior dimension that’s unparalleled by any other human experience. That’s one of the reasons why music is used by God to reach hearts and souls of many people.
There are many different styles of music that can express many different things. But the vehicle of music itself is always good, even when people do bad things with it. It’s like an apple… an apple is always good. But if someone puts poison inside of the apple, it’s not the apple that kills the person, it’s the poison.
There’s lots of poison in the world of music, and it’s precisely the poison that’s the problem – not the music. It’s the same as with all of the other gifts that God has given to the world. There are many people doing many bad things, and the bad things that the people do are the problem. God doesn’t like the bad things that people do, but God always loves the person.
You have referred to your call to the Franciscan life and to the priesthood as a tsunami. What did you mean by that?
I never experienced a tsunami, but from what I’ve seen from the most recent one that effected our world, a tsunami has a total impact. It consumes everything in its path. So when I use tsunami as an analogy for my conversion, it’s an expression of how God lavishly pours out His love upon us. God pours out His love in a way that’s completely consuming; it’s completely overwhelming. And His love can provide for all of our needs. And the outpouring of God’s love is so consuming that it even takes up our ability to love. And when our ability to love is taken up into God’s own love, then we can play a major part in having an impact on the lives of other people.
You are one of the eight founding members of the Community of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. What can you tell us about this initiative?
The beginning of the Community of Franciscan Friars of the Renewal was inspired by God, and the ongoing existence of this Community is sustained by God’s inspiration. The Community is really a gift and a work of God. There are many details involved in the lives of many people for this Community to come into existence, but as the great John Paul II said, “God’s love is always at work in the history of man.” So within the details of our own history, because of God’s love, we can create the world of God within the world of men.
Our Community’s attempt to live the Gospel in a radical way by serving the poor and by doing evangelization in the spirit of Saint Francis of Assisi is an attempt to sustain the revolution of God’s love in the world. Thanks be to God our Community is growing; we have six houses in America, 2 in England, 1 in Ireland and 1 in Honduras. And we will continue to grow, not just in numbers, but with God’s help everyday we grow in and learn something about love.
How did you come to the idea of using your musical talents and rap music to evangelise?
Using rap music to evangelize was a work of Providence, not a result of my planning. I never grew up with rap music, and I never liked rap music. And I still don’t like rap music now. I love Johann Sebastian Bach, Jazz, Brazilian music, African music, and many other types and styles of music. But getting involved with rap music was a work of Providence for me.
My first encounters with rap music were in the streets of Spanish Harlem in NYC. The spontaneity of the young people who were doing this music on the street corner with no instruments making beats with the sounds of their mouths and freestyling and improvising lyrics on the spot was something that was very moving to me. It was something that was attractive to me, and it’s something that I’m able to do. So it was my initial experience with these people, more than the music.
The music that these people were doing expressed deep feelings of pain and frustration as well as of joy and elation. Being a jazz musician, and having spent many years studying and training to learn the art of improvising, this vehicle for spontaneous improvisation in its primal form was something that touched me deeply. With the focus being on the lyrical content, it was a natural match for proclaiming the Gospel. And it was through my encounter with the suffering of many young people that wound up inspiring me to address their pain and the challenges causing their pain. It was the great inspiration of Pope John Paul II that moved me to take the message of redemption and to make it intelligible for these young people (in a language that they could understand) because it is only the redemption of Christ that gives meaning and value to our suffering.
The earnings from the sale of your CDs and the proceeds from your performances go to the South Bronx Youth Cultural Centre. What can you tell us about this initiative? What are its aims?
All of the proceeds that come into Francesco Productions through the sales of the many different products we have, along with whatever income I receive from doing concerts and preaching and donations (see www.francescoproductions.com) goes to our work with the poor and needy families, and especially with young people. We have the St. Francis Youth Centre, the Padre Pio Shelter, the St. Anthony Residence, food distribution networks, and one-on-one contact with many young people and families who all benefit from whatever money comes in. We assist them in their educational and spiritual needs as well as provide food and clothing and many other necessities of daily living.
The aim of all of the endeavours of Francesco Productions is to put love in action; to proclaim this love in word, in song, in deeds is a longstanding tradition of Saint Francis. The aim of Francesco Productions is to make some sort of an attempt for Love to be loved.
When Saint Francis was a young man living in Assisi, he ran wildly through the streets passionately knocking from door to door, crying out “Love is not loved.” So in a small way, there’s nothing else I hope for than at least to have Love be loved a little bit more.
To be in a position to serve the needy is a privilege: I receive more from many of the people I serve than I could ever give.
Your evangelisation through jazz and hip hop is very successful, yet many Catholics have raised eyebrows at these attempts, and refer to you as The Irreverent Fortuna, saying you should elevate others to your level rather than descend to theirs. What is your answer to these objections?
I could certainly appreciate how people can disagree with what I’m doing, and I can appreciate how people can misunderstand what I’m doing. But if the concern about lifting people up is legitimate and authentic, this cannot take place without a descent to meet them where they are. Jesus did not wait for us to be elevated to a state of a redeemed humanity before He took on flesh. Jesus descended into the realm of unredeemed humanity; He descended into the realm of sin and death in order to save us from the effects of sin and death and impoverished love. So in order for any authentic redemption of humanity to occur, following the life, Gospel and spirit of Jesus, it is the work of the Christian to meet people where they are. The great Pope John Paul said, “Love is mercy’s second name,” and that mercy descends into every human misery.
It must be clear that descending into human misery does not mean acceptance of sin. More precisely, it means rejecting sin… in act, hating sin while at the same time loving the sinner. This vital synthesis is something that is certainly beyond any human capacity, and the very fact that a human being can make this claim is, in fact, itself a testimony to the greatness of the dignity of the human person.
By virtue of the reality of the descent of Jesus into flesh through the womb of the Virgin Mother Mary, we can boast of the hope to lift others up to achieve the full potential of their destiny. Every human person is called and destined to love. To love is the highest dimension of every human vocation, and if we are to assist others in a real and fruitful way in fulfilling their high calling, we must cast out the fear of meeting people where they are with the perfect love of God Himself.
Besides publishing a number of CDs, you have also written two books, U Got 2 Believe and U Got 2 Pray. What is the most pressing message you have for young people today?
The complexity that young people face today is more complicated than any other time in human history, precisely because of the development of technology which provides an occasion for an accelerated experience of deluded reality.
The most pressing message for any person is love – for young and for old, for sick and healthy. What does it mean to be loved? What does it mean to love? The most pressing message of love emerges out of the question, “Is love possible?”
You have also published a CD called The Great One, dedicated to Pope John Paul II. Why did you pay such profound tribute to our late pontiff?
It’s hard for me to communicate the depth of the love I have for this man. This man has touched me very deeply in many, many different ways. And my vocation to be a Franciscan and to be a priest unfolded in 1978 at the same time when he was elected Pope. So from the beginning of that specific point in my life, my eye was squarely fixed on him. And when I would hear the things he said, the way that he said them, the way that he lived, the way that he prayed, and the way that he loved, it touched me very deeply. As I began slowly to learn a little bit more about him, my heart was touched greatly.
Have you ever met Pope Benedict XVI? What is your opinion of him?
I think that Pope Benedict XVI has been provided by Divine Providence to lead the Church and the world at this time riding the great wave of the great pontificate of the great Pope John Paul II.
He himself has said that his job is not to write many new documents, but rather to assure that the great patrimony of John Paul II is assimilated into the life of the Church. The brilliance of Pope Benedict’s intellect, precisely with his amazing gift of clarity along with his depth of heart and soul makes this beautiful Bavarian man more than fit for the job. As one airport security lady in Lisbon put it after I showed her a picture of me with Pope Benedict, “He was the right hand man of John Paul.”
Will you be participating in the 2008 World Youth Day in Sydney? If so, are you planning anything special for that occasion?
Yes, I am participating in the WYD in Sydney. I’ll be doing concerts, giving talks, and other events they have planned for me.
The West is rocked by all sorts of cults and movements. How should the Church respond to this challenge?
The Church should respond to these challenges, along with every other challenge, with truth and love. The details of this response will depend upon the details of the circumstances of the challenge. There are many different people with many different gifts in the community of the Church, and if we each work more closely together utilizing our diversity of gifts, we will be able to make an effective response to every challenge with the force of truth of love. It is essential that love and truth come together and stay together in responding to every challenge. When love and truth are separated, the result is a tragic impoverishment of the human person; this tragic impoverishment of the human person is the ultimate challenge facing the Church today.
How do you spend your spare time? Do you have any worldly hobbies or occupations?
I don’t have very much spare time. The little spare time that I do have, I try to use to catch up on the many things that I fall behind on. And if basketball is a worldly hobby, then I have one.
You are a Franciscan friar. Do you remember any special episode of devotion to Saint Anthony of Padua?
When I was a boy growing up, I belonged to a parish – Our Lady of Mount Carmel/St. Anthony. And the parish church right next to the house where I grew up was St. Anthony of Padua. I can remember selling candles to all of the Italian ladies for 25 cents in honour of Saint Anthony on his feast day. My Italian grandmother was a great devotee of Saint Anthony, and she made one of those old-school shrines for her statue of Saint Anthony in her garden out of an old bathtub.
She had a great love and devotion to this saint which rubbed off on me.
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AN AMERICAN CITIZEN of Italian and Greek heritage, Fr. Stan Fortuna’s lifelong interest in music began in the second grade when he received an electric guitar for Christmas. He spent his formative years playing improvisational sessions in and around New York City. Father Stan studied, at one point, with the legendary jazz musician, Lennie Tristano, and was an accomplished, professional bass player before becoming a priest.
He is one of the eight original members of the Community of Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, a Franciscan order established by John Cardinal O’Connor in 1987. Fr. Stan became a priest in 1990, and was ordained in the Bronx. Fr. Fortuna established the non-profit Francesco Productions in 1987.
An international speaker in great demand, Fr. Stan has been a featured speaker at numerous Franciscan youth conferences, and has numerous appearances to his credit on the EWTN program, Life on the Rock.
He frequently performs and lectures all over the world. His work and music have garnered him write-ups in a number of publications, including the US hip hop magazine XXL, and currently there is a film in production on his life.
Among his most memorable songs are Everybody Got 2 Suffer and Cell 91 from the album Sacro SongII. He released his third rap album, Sacro Song 3: The Completion of the Trilogy, in 2006, and is in the process of writing his third book U Got To Love. His other books U Got To Pray and U Got To Believe along with all of his other dvds and cds can be ordered through his website: www.francescoproductions.com.
All proceeds from Fr. Stan’s concerts, tours and merchandise sales go to Francesco Productions’ and the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal’s hands-on work with the poor.
Updated on October 06 2016