http://www.cooganresearchgroup.com/crg/index.htm 26 October 2019 COOGAN story appearing in "The Long Island Catholic" (18 JUL 2001): DIFFERENT STORIES - SHARED FAITH Brothers Coogan sharing that special call to serve [photo] [caption: Father Bob Coogan] By Pete Sheehan Roosevelt — Bob Coogan was 16 when his newborn brother, Tom, was baptized at St. Joseph's Church, Garden City in 1969. "Bob was my godfather," said Father Tom Coogan, associate pastor of St. Patrick's Church, Bay Shore. "My brother has always had an influence on my faith," Father Tom said. "I remember him taking me to Mass when I was four, pointing to the tabernacle and saying, 'That is where Jesus is.'" He recalled that he went on to frustrate his older brother by asking if Jesus was in the car, in a tree, and other places. Though his older brother preceded him in Baptism by 16 years, Father Tom would be first to be ordained, in 1997, to the priesthood - preceding his brother by four years. On July 3 Bob Coogan, 48, following his younger brother's footsteps, was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Saltillo in Coahuila, Mexico. Father Bob's ordination followed years of lay ministry in that diocese and his graduating from Immaculate Conception Seminary, Huntington, in May. He had previously studied with the Vincentians at the Huntington seminary, before deciding to become a Saltillo diocesan priest. "Our family was really excited about Bob," Father Tom said, having recently returned from Mexico following the ordination. - Different stories — shared faith - Despite their different paths to the priesthood, both brothers cite the influence of their family, whose example and encouragement help foster the faith that would lead them to the priesthood. Besides Bob and Tom, their parents had six girls and six other boys. "Our Dad went to Mass every day of his life," Father Bob recalled. "We would sometimes go with him. Going to Mass was very much a part of our lives." The discernment of their priestly vocation, however, was different. "I guess mine was the more conventional," Father Tom said. Their aunt had asked him as a young child if he wanted to become a priest. He was never certain. As he progressed through St. Joseph's School, Garden City, Chaminade High School, and Loyola University, Baltimore, Father Tom said, he always wondered about his aunt's question. "In college, it became very clear." After graduating from college and working for a year, Father Tom entered the seminary. - 'Job security' - Father Bob, on the other hand, graduated from Fordham in 1975 with a major in theology and worked for 10 years as a commercial artist. There were hints, Father Bob said, that he might have an interest in the priesthood. "I was always involved in the Church," serving, for example, as a volunteer catechist for his parish in Brooklyn. His involvement intensified a decade later when he returned to Fordham as a campus minister, he said. "I was looking for deeper involvement in the Church." He helped promote Fordham's Mexico Project, where college students agree to spend time serving the Church in Mexico. After three years as a campus minister, a Mexican priest suggested that he go serve there himself. "He told me that he couldn't pay me, that I would have to provide for myself. I figured that meant job security," Father Bob quipped. He ministered in Nueva Rosita, Coahuila, in the Diocese of Saltillo. His ministry included youth groups, working with gangs, visiting prisoners, and starting a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. "Everything that I was doing provided opportunities for encountering Christ," Father Bob said. "Christ was born poor so you find Christ among the poor. Christ was imprisoned so you find Christ in prison." He found his time at the drug and alcohol treatment center especially enriching. "It was like living in a monastery." Father Bob also liked the vision of Church and style of ministry that prevailed in the diocese. "The diocese does not allow paternalistic ministry. They have a saying that God has no grandchildren. I couldn't go into prison and give a prisoner a piece of bread and pat him on the head and smile. "What I did was start a work program," Father Bob said, where prisoners made jewelry for sale. "If they didn't work they didn't get paid. When they worked they were paid generously." "We did human development." - Back to Long Island - He might have stayed there longer, Father Bob said, but their father, Robert Coogan, was suffering with cancer. In 1995, he came back to Long Island. After returning, he met a group of Vincentian Brothers and priests ministering to Spanish-speaking immigrants on Long Island. He began working with them. "There is a growing number of Hispanics on Long Island but the Church is not reaching out to them the way it should," Father Bob said. "I know of one parish where a Pentecostal Church has opened up within a few blocks of the parish. Hispanics are going to the Pentecostals." Often, he meets people in Mexico who left to live in the U.S, and when they have come back to Mexico, they had joined another Church. Eventually, Father Bob said, he found himself entering the formation program that the Vincentians have at the seminary in Huntington. "What was really neat was that my last year at the seminary was his first year," Father Tom said. "I had spent all my life being compared to older brothers who had gone to school before me," Father Tom said. "It was great to be the first one for a change. After two years, the director of the Vincentian program told him that that his vocation lay in the diocesan priesthood. As a result, Father Bob said he applied to study for the priesthood for the Saltillo Diocese. "Because of Bishop McGann's generosity," Father Tom said, "my brother was able to stay at Immaculate Conception and finish his seminary training." Their father died in 1996, the year before Father Tom's ordination. "My first Mass was on Father's Day," Father Tom said. "I offered it in memory of Dad." For Father Bob's ordination earlier this month, the Coogan family went to Mexico. "It was a wonderful ceremony," where the family hands over the one to be ordained to the community, Father Tom said. "There were 1,000 people there for the celebration. They killed a cow for the feast." Father Tom was also moved by the words of a woman whose son Father Bob had helped. "She said that she owed him her son's life. She really meant it," he added, smiling at his brother. In addition, Father Tom noted how Bishop Raul Vera Lopez thanked their mother, Emma Coogan, for raising a son who would serve in his diocese, and assured Mrs. Coogan that he would look after her son. "The bishop was very gracious." Father Bob offered his first Mass on Long Island last Sunday at St. Ignatius Church, Hicksville, where Father Bob had helped start a ministry to the Spanish-speaking when he was working with the Vincentians. His brother, who had helped shaped his faith, Father Tom said, is now influencing his priesthood. "I'm working on outreach to the Spanish-speaking myself."