Angelus News | October 5, 2018 | Vol. 3 No. 33

SPECIAL ISSUE 

ANGELUS 

A TIME FOR 

MILLENNIAL SAINTS 

What this month’s synod means for young people 

October 5, 2018 Vol. 3 No. 33

C 

ON THE COVER 

Chiara Corbella Petrillo, a young Roman woman who refused treatment for her illness to avoid risking 

the life of her unborn child, in a 2012 photo months before dying of cancer. On page 22, Claire 

Giangravè reports on Petrillo’s path to possible sainthood as part of our special issue previewing this 

month’s 2018 Synod on Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment. Starting on page 10, 

four lay Catholic leaders share with Angelus their insights on what the synod can do for young people 

in the Church. On page 18, Mike Aquilina looks at the impact of ordinary young people on the direction 

of the Church throughout history. And on page 20, Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez and 

one of his auxiliaries, Bishop Robert E. Barron, speak to Angelus News about what’s on their minds as 

they travel to Rome as delegates at the synod. 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/CRISTIAN GENNARI, COURTESY PETRILLO FAMILY 

IMAGE: Hundreds packed St. Denis Church in Diamond 

Bar to attend the funeral Mass for Msgr. James 

Loughnane presided by Archbishop José H. 

Gomez September 25. Msgr. Loughnane served 

in several parishes around the Archdiocese 

of Los Angeles, and most recently served as 

episcopal vicar for the San Gabriel Pastoral 

Region and pastor of St. Denis. 

VICTOR ALEMÁN

Contents 

Archbishop Gomez 3 

World, Nation and Local News 4-6 

LA Catholic Events 7 

Scott Hahn on Scripture 8 

Father Rolheiser 9 

LA nuns share the secrets of successful begging 24 

Robert Brennan takes issue with a certain kind of sign 28 

God and social media meet in new CBS show 30 

Heather King: Prison theater that frees 32

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October 5, 2018 | Vol.3 • No. 33 

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POPE WATCH 

Prayer versus evil 

In a move suggesting Pope Francis 

believes the Church is in a moment 

of “spiritual turbulence,” the pontiff 

is asking Catholics around the world 

to pray the rosary every day during the 

month of October for protection of 

the Church from the devil. 

The daily praying of the rosary during 

the “Marian month of October,” a 

September 29 Vatican statement read, 

will unite the faithful “in communion 

and penance, as a people of God, in 

asking the Holy Mother of God and 

St. Michael the Archangel to protect 

the Church from the devil, who always 

aims to divide us from God and 

among us.” 

The statement also read that, as the 

pontiff noted during his daily homily 

on September 11, prayer is the weapon 

against “the Great accuser who 

‘travels around the world looking for 

accusations.’ ” 

Beyond daily praying of the rosary, 

the pope is also requesting that the 

faithful add two prayers: An ancient 

invocation “Sub Tuum Praesidium” 

and a prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, 

“who protects and helps fight 

against evil.” 

“Only prayer can defeat [the devil],” 

read the statement. “The Russian 

mystics and the great saints of all traditions 

advised, in moments of spiritual 

turbulence, to protect themselves 

under the mantle of the Holy Mother 

of God by pronouncing the invocation 

‘Sub Tuum Praesidium.’ ” 

The Marian prayer, also known in 

English as “Beneath Thy Protection,” 

is the oldest hymn dedicated to the 

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Virgin and is well-known among 

many Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, 

and Oriental Orthodox countries, 

and is often a favorite song used along 

with “Salve Regina.” 

With the request, the pope asked 

“the faithful of the whole world to 

pray so that the Mother of God puts 

the Church under her protective 

mantle to preserve her from the 

attacks of the evil one, the great accuser, 

and to make [the Church] all the 

more conscious of the faults, the mistakes, 

the abuses made in the present 

and in the past, and more committed 

to fighting without any hesitation for 

evil not to prevail.” 

The prayer to St. Michael the 

Archangel was written by Pope Leo 

XIII and incorporated into the rubrics 

of the Low Mass of the Church from 

1886 to its suppression in the 1960s 

after the Second Vatican Council. 

After the signing of the Lateran 

Treaties in 1929, the prayer remained 

in the Missal but was instead offered 

“to permit tranquility and freedom to 

profess the faith to be restored to the 

afflicted people of Russia.” 

St. Pope John Paul II also asked the 

faithful to recite the prayer, saying in 

1994 that “although this prayer is no 

longer recited at the end of Mass, I ask 

everyone not to forget it and to recite 

it to obtain help in the battle against 

the forces of darkness and against the 

spirit of this world.” 

Reporting courtesy of Crux Rome 

Bureau Chief Inés San Martín. 

Papal Prayer Intentions for October: That consecrated religious men and women may bestir 

themselves, and be present among the poor, the marginalized, and those who have no voice. 

@Angelus 


www.la-archdiocese.org 

@Angelus 


2 • ANGELUS • October 5, 2018

NEW WORLD 

OF FAITH 

BY ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

‘Where Peter is …’ 

As I write, I am on my way to Rome 

to take part in the monthlong Synod 

on Young People, the Faith, and Vocational 

Discernment. 

It is difficult to be away from home 

for so long, but I am looking forward 

to spending these days praying and 

reflecting with Pope Francis on the 

challenges we face in the evangelization 

of youth. 

There is an ancient expression: 

“Where Peter is, there is the Church.” 

What it means is that Rome is the 

foundation of the Church, because 

the bishop of Rome, the pope, is 

the successor of St. Peter, who is the 

“rock” that Jesus said he would build 

his Church upon. 

In the mystery of God’s plan for creation, 

Jesus has sent the Church into 

the whole world, to the ends of the 

earth, to continue his mission of proclaiming 

God’s love and salvation. In 

this mystery, the pope — whoever he 

is at any given moment in history — is 

the Vicar of Christ on earth, to whom 

we owe filial devotion and service. 

St. Catherine of Siena lived in a time 

of deep corruption in the Church 

and weakness in the papacy. She did 

not hesitate to write urgent and blunt 

letters to the pope, calling him to 

holiness and courage. Yet still she understood 

with reverence that he was, 

as she called him, “sweet Christ on 

earth.” We need to deepen this spirit 

of the saints in our time. 

The synod process is a unique reflection 

of the ties that connect our local 

Church here in Los Angeles with the 

universal Church, the worldwide family 

of God. the Church of the apostles, 

with the pope as the successor of St. 

Peter. 

“Synod” is a Greek word that 

indicates a path that we walk together. 

An early Church Father described 

the Church as “companions on the 

journey.” 

The Church is one family, gathered 

from all the nations to the ends of the 

earth, and all of us together follow 

Jesus through the course of history, 

walking with him — lay faithful, 

clergy and religious, the bishops, and 

the pope. 

In the early days, gatherings of 

Church leaders came to be called 

“synods” and “councils.” 

In our day, Francis sees the idea of 

the synod, what he calls “synodality,” 

as an image to describe how the 

Church should work. 

In the “synodal” vision, the entire 

family of God takes responsibility for 

the Church’s life and mission, under 

the leadership and ministry of the 

bishops, who are the successors of the 

apostles, and in communion with the 

pope, as the successor of the apostle, 

St. Peter. 

Jesus established the Church to be 

led by his apostles and their successors. 

But the hierarchy of the Church 

is a hierarchy of service. Jesus said that 

the apostle — and by extension, the 

bishop — must consider himself, “last 

of all and the servant of all.” 

All of us — including the bishops — 

are followers of Christ. We are Christians 

before we are anything else. In 

a new document, Francis says that 

the bishop must be “simultaneously a 

teacher and a disciple.” 

Bishops have the special task of 

guiding the Church along this path 

we walk with Jesus. Like the apostles, 

they are called to teach and sanctify 

through the sacraments and govern 

the Church. Again, always in the spirit 

of being servants of the family of God. 

This is what it comes back to — in 

the Church, we are brothers and 

sisters, all of us walking together on 

the path set before us by Jesus Christ, 

each of us in our own way following 

his call to become holy and to proclaim 

his kingdom. 

The Christian life really is beautiful 

and simple. If only we could realize 

this! Jesus said that to follow him, 

we need to love God and love our 

neighbor. Loving God means living 

according to his commandments and 

his plan for our life. It means living 

as his children and being holy as he 

is holy. 

Loving our neighbor means treating 

others as Jesus treated them and 

sharing in his mission of spreading the 

love of God and building his kingdom 

on earth. It means being missionaries. 

We need to return to this beautiful 

simplicity, to seeking holiness and 

being missionaries. Everything in the 

Church — the sacraments, all our 

theology and all our ministries — can 

be understood in light of the call to 

holiness and evangelization. 

All of us in the Church — every 

baptized man and woman — are 

called to this task of seeking holiness 

and bearing witness to Christ in the 

circumstances of their everyday lives. 

That is the “spirit” of the synod. 

Pray for me this week and I will be 

praying for you in the Eternal City of 

Rome. And may the Blessed Virgin 

Mary, Mother of the Church, guide 

the synod, that we might find new 

ways to proclaim the gospel to our 

young people. 

To read more columns by Archbishop José H. Gomez or to subscribe, visit www.angelusnews.com. 

October 5, 2018 • ANGELUS • 3

WORLD 

Pope writes to Chinese Catholics 

ORDER OF FRIARS MINOR ROMANIA 

Romania: ‘Martyr for chastity’ 

Veronica Antal beatified 

A 22-year-old 

Romanian 

peasant who 

was murdered 

while resisting 

rape took the 

final step before 

sainthood. 

Cardinal 

Angelo Becciu, 

prefect of 

the Vatican 

Veronica Antal 

Congregation 

for Saints’ Causes, beatified Veronica Antal at a special 

Mass September 23 in Nisiporesti, Romania. 

Antal was a lay Franciscan born in 1935 who was 

unable to become a nun due to religious oppression 

by Romania’s communist government at the time. 

Instead, she created a prayer cell from which she 

could visit the sick and needy and prepare children for 

confirmation. 

As she walked home from church while praying the 

rosary one day in 1958, she was stabbed to death by a 

neighbor who tried to rape her. 

“The communist regime claimed to eliminate God; 

(it) destroyed churches and formed young generations 

for atheism, but could not erase faith from the hearts 

of many families,” said Becciu, who praised Antal as an 

example of “serenity and courage” for contemporary 

young people. 

Chile: Infamous abuser laicized 

Pope Francis defrocked a Chilean priest whose sexual 

abuse of teenage boys over decades was at the center of 

the country’s emerging clerical sex abuse scandal. 

The decision to laicize, or remove from the priesthood, 

88-year-old Father Fernando Karadima, was 

announced September 28. 

“It is one more step in Pope Francis’ determined 

stance against abuse,” said Vatican spokesman Greg 

Burke. “We were before a very serious case of putrefaction 

that had to be pulled out from its roots.” 

Karadima, who has repeatedly denied all accusations 

against him, was found guilty of sex crimes by the Vatican 

in 2011 but has not been prosecuted by Chilean 

authorities due to the country’s statute of limitations. 

Pope Francis urged Chinese Catholics to trust in God 

after last month’s historic agreement between the Holy 

See and the Chinese government. 

“The Catholic community in China is called to be 

united, so as to overcome the divisions of the past that 

have caused, and continue to cause great suffering in 

the hearts of many pastors and faithful,” Francis wrote 

in a September 26 letter to Chinese Catholics. 

Catholics in the country are split between an “underground” 

Church loyal to the pope and the statebacked 

Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which 

is not. 

The pontiff acknowledged the “doubt and perplexity” 

felt by some, as well as those who may have felt 

abandoned by the Holy See in return for loyalty to the 

pope. 

But he compared the country’s “new chapter” to the 

story of Abraham, who left out on a journey with few 

assurances. 

“I want to … ask you to place your trust ever more 

firmly in the Lord of history and in the Church’s discernment 

of his will,” wrote the Holy Father. 

A royal renunciation 

A teenage European 

princess’ 

conversion to 

Catholicism is 

coming with an 

interesting price: 

her place in line 

to the British 

throne. 

Nineteen-yearold 

Princess Alexandra 

of Hanover 

is the only child of 

Prince Ernst August 

of Hanover, 

a Lutheran and a 

distant relative of 

Princess Alexandra in March 2018. Queen Elizabeth, 

and Princess Caroline 

of Monaco, a Catholic and daughter of famous 

American actress Grace Kelly. 

Alexandra was baptized Lutheran as a child, but 

recently converted to the Catholic faith, according to 

recent media reports. 

Because of the Queen of England’s role as the head 

of the Church of England, British succession law 

prohibits Catholics and other non-Protestants from 

becoming sovereign. 

GETTY/PASCAL LE SEGRETAIN 


NATION 

New green card 

plan criticized 

A Trump administration plan to 

deny green cards to legal immigrants 

using public benefits is 

being criticized as a “fear-creator” 

by Catholic officials. 

William Canny, head of the 

USCCB’s Office of Department 

of Migration and Refugee Services, 

told Catholic News Service 

that the rule change for those 

seeking permanent residency in 

the U.S. would make “people 

afraid to seek housing assistance 

and food assistance lest they be 

seen as a ‘public charge’ and then 

deported.” 

In announcing the proposal, 

Homeland Security Secretary 

Kirstjen Nielsen said September 

22 that “those seeking to immigrate 

to the United States must 

show they can support themselves 

financially” and not become 

“burdens” on American taxpayers. 

According to data from the 

Migration Policy Institute, 10.5 

million children live in families 

receiving public benefits where at 

least one parent is not a citizen. 

CATHOLICS ON THE SUPREME COURT — If confirmed by the Senate, Judge Brett Kavanaugh 

would be the fifth Catholic Supreme Court Justice, replacing another Catholic, retired Justice 

Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh is being investigated by the FBI after multiple accusations of 

sexual misconduct dating back to his youth, all of which he has denied. 

Are millennials staying married? 

Members of the millennial generation are divorcing at a lower rate than 

older generations, a new study claims. 

An analysis of census data by University of Maryland sociology professor 

Philip Cohen released September 15 showed that the divorce rate in the 

U.S. dropped by 18 percent between 2008 and 2016. The study said the 

drop was in large part thanks to millennials staying married, despite marrying 

at lower rates than previous generations did at the same age. 

“The good news is: The divorce rate is falling, particularly among millennials,” 

Catholic University of America moral theology and ethics professor 

Dr. John Grabowski told Catholic News Agency. 

“The bad news is less people are getting married, especially poorer people. 

Many people are just choosing to cohabit.” 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/JOSHUA ROBERTS, REUTERS 

A protester stands in a spray of water from a 

fire truck during a late June rally by immigration 

activists outside the White House. 

Ex-cardinal moved to Kansas 

Disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick has been moved to the St. Fidelis 

Capuchin Friary in Victoria, Kansas, according to statements from Diocese of Salina and 

the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., released September 28. 

Pope Francis had ordered the former archbishop of Washington, D.C., to a life of 

penance and prayer while he awaits a Vatican trial amid allegations of sexual abuse that 

emerged this summer. 

Bishop of Salina Gerald L. Vincke said he realized the move “will be offensive and 

hurtful to many people,” but that he accepted the request to send McCarrick to Kansas 

with the right intentions. 

“In saying ‘yes,’ I had to reconcile my own feelings of disappointment, anger and even 

resentment toward Archbishop McCarrick,” he explained. 

Meanwhile, Crux reported September 26 that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops 

is preparing “an investigation led primarily by lay individuals” into McCarrick “that will 

focus on the four dioceses in which McCarrick served: New York; Metuchen, New Jersey; 

Newark; and Washington, D.C.” 


LOCAL 

Brown vetoes abortion pill bill 

In the final hours of this year’s legislative calendar, 

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill that would have required 

California’s public universities to offer medicated 

abortions on campus. 

“Because the services required by this bill are widely 

off-campus, this bill is not necessary,” he wrote in a 

September 30 letter to state senators. 

“We are grateful to Gov. Brown for vetoing SB 320,” 

said Kathleen Buckley Domingo, senior director of the 

Office of Life, Justice and Peace for the Archdiocese of 

Los Angeles. 

“He recognized that this bill was unnecessary for 

California and did not empower our college women, 

but only offered more abortion for our state.” 

“We really shouldn’t be surprised the governor vetoed 

the bill,” said Andy Rivas, executive director of the 

California Catholic Conference. 

“Students were not pushing for passage and universities 

did not want the responsibility of providing 

abortion pills to students. 

“Hopefully, next session we can convince legislators 

to pass a bill that students and universities really need, 

one that provides financial support for students with 

children,” he added. 

LA goes into ‘modo Romero’ 

TORRANCE PERFECTION — Bishop Montgomery High School 

seniors Gerrick Cardenas (left) and Matthew Craig have something 

to celebrate before graduation. They’ve recorded perfect scores 

on their ACT and SAT exams, respectively. Craig took the SAT in 

December 2017 and achieved what only .03 percent of test takers 

had — a perfect 1600, as well as a perfect 800 on a specialized 

SAT math exam. Cardenas’ perfect score of 36 on the ACT was a 

score earned by only one-tenth of one percent of ACT test takers 

nationwide. 

BISHOP MONTGOMERY HIGH SCHOOL 


Los Angeles Catholics are gearing up to celebrate 

a special moment in the history of the Church: the 

canonization of Blessed Oscar Romero. 

Thanks in large part to Southern California’s large 

Salvadoran community, parishes, and schools will be 

offering prayer services, live viewings of the October 

14 canonization Mass, and even a movie screening. 

You can find more details about the several planned 

events by visiting the Catholic LA section of Angelus- 

News.com. 

Members of the Salvadoran community process into the Cathedral of 

Our Lady of the Angels with an image of Blessed Oscar Romero at the 

start of the Celebration of Cultures Mass September 15. 

Health and Human Services ends 

NorCal company’s contract 

The U.S. government has ended a deal with a 

California business criticized for using aborted fetal 

remains for research. 

In a September 24 announcement, Health and 

Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said his department 

was terminating a Food and Drug Administration 

contract with Advanced Bioscience Resources, which 

is based in Alameda. 

In a September 27 statement, Cardinal Timothy 

Dolan of New York praised Azar for “cutting off ties to 

a company whose business is to procure aborted baby 

parts for research.” 

“While we are grateful for this first step, it remains 

incumbent on the Administration to act quickly to 

cease all funding for research involving body parts 

from aborted babies,” wrote the cardinal, who serves as 

chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life 

Activities. 


LA Catholic Events 

Items for the Calendar of events are due two weeks prior to the date of the event. They may be mailed to Angelus News (Attn: Calendar), 3424 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90010-2241; 

emailed to calendar@angelusnews.com; or faxed to (213) 637-6360. All calendar items must include the name, date, time and address of the event, plus a phone number for additional information. 

Fri., Oct. 5 

St. John Fisher Women’s Council Movie Night: “I 

Can Only Imagine.” Barrett Hall, 5448 Crest Rd., 

Rancho Palos Verdes. Dinner at 6 p.m. includes hot 

dogs, sodas, chips, candy, and popcorn. Movie starts 

at 7 p.m. Cost: $15/person. RSVP by Wed., Oct. 3 at 

parish office. Call Bernie at 310-541-1826. 

Raul Julia Romero LA Film Premiere. Mount St. 

Mary’s Doheny, 10 Chester Pl., Los Angeles, 6 p.m. 

Limited free tickets available at RomeroFilm.org. 

Parking available. 

Sat., Oct. 6 

9th Annual Friends of St. Francis Center Event. Cathedral 

of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., 

Los Angeles, 5:30-8:30 p.m. RSVP to Marianne Kulikov 

at marrianne@sfcla.org or 213-747-5347, ext. 

100. Purchase tickets at www.sfcla.org. 

Lay Mission-Helpers Association Annual Rose Gala. 

Luminarias Restaurant, 3500 Ramona Blvd., Monterey 

Park, 4-8 p.m. Evening includes cocktails, dinner, 

and a silent auction. Guest speaker: Father Greg 

Boyle, SJ, founder of Homeboy Industries. Bishop 

Joseph Sartoris will be honored with the St. Thérèse 

of Lisieux Award. Tickets: $100/person. Proceeds 

benefit the Lay Mission-Helpers Association. Call 

213-368-1870 or visit www.laymissionhelpers.org. 

The Grace of “Yes” Retreat. Pauline Books & Media, 

3908 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. 

Led by Lisa M. Hendey, this retreat considers how 

we can live with generosity in our daily lives. Includes 

personal reflection, prayer, group interactions, and 

lunch. Mass at 4 p.m. Donation: $30/person. RSVP 

to 310-397-8676 or email culvercity@paulinemedia. 

com. 

Celebration of Columban Missionaries Centennial 

Year. St. Vincent Church, 621 W. Adams Blvd., Los 

Angeles, 6:30 p.m. Vigil Mass in English followed by 

a religious music concert sung by Jubilate Korean 

Catholic Choir. Freewill donation. Email mission@ 

columban.org for more details. 

Pet Blessing. Santa Teresita Campus, The Green, 

819 Buena Vista St., Duarte, 10:30 a.m. Join campus 

cats Pepa and Angie with your pets or a picture 

of them for a special blessing. Need not be Catholic 

to participate. Free raffle for a PETSMART gift card 

and free weekend retreat at Sacred Heart House in 

Alhambra. Visit www.santa-teresita.org/2018/blessing-of-the-animals 

to learn more. 

Children’s Bureau Foster and Foster-Adopt Information 

Meeting. 1529 East Palmdale Blvd., Suite 

210, Palmdale, or 11355 Magnolia Blvd., Ste. 2C, 

North Hollywood, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. Discover if you 

have the willingness, ability, and resources to take 

on the challenge of helping a child in need. To RSVP 

or for more information, call 661-208-4212 or email 

RFrecruitment@all4kids.org. 

Ordinary Mysticism: Ignatian Prayer for All. Mary & 

Joseph Retreat Center, 5300 Crest Rd., Rancho Palos 

Verdes, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Father Randy Roche, SJ, will 

offer descriptions of various Ignatian Prayer options, 

followed by occasions for praying and for sharing reflections 

about the experiences participants have in 

prayer. Handouts will be provided. Cost: $50/person, 

includes lunch ($55/person after Sept. 28). Call Marlene 

Velazquez at 310-377-4867, ext. 234. 

In the Company of Heaven’s Prayer Warriors. St. 

Angela Merici Church, 585 S. Walnut Ave., Brea, 10 

a.m.-4 p.m. Father George Reynolds and Dominic 

Berardino will discuss topics including, “Why does 

Jesus share his intercessory prayer power with those 

united with him in heaven?” and “Do those in heaven 

really know what is happening to us on earth?” Includes 

Mass. Cost: $20/person and includes catered 

chicken lunch. Call 818-771-1361 or email spirit@ 

scrc.org. Online registration is available at: http:// 

www.scrc.org. 

Rosary and Mass for Life. St. Cornelius Church, 5500 

E. Wardlow Rd., Long Beach. Rosary begins at 4:30 

p.m. followed by 5 p.m. Mass. Call Sylvia Aimerito at 

562-429-1965 or visit AudioGirlMinistries.com. 

St. Charles Annual White Elephant Rummage Sale. 

Gallagher Hall, 10830 Moorpark St., N. Hollywood. 8 

a.m.-6 p.m., Oct. 6-7. All proceeds benefit St. Charles 

Elementary School. Art, books, furniture, jewelry, 

knickknacks, china, etc., available. Call Gretchen 

Schreck at 818-766-3838 or email kdss@aol.com. 

Ministry of Consolation: San Fernando Pastoral 

Region. St. Maximilian Kolbe Church, 5801 Kanan 

Rd., Westlake Village, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. English trainings 

held on Saturdays, Oct. 6-Nov. 10. Cost: $25/session. 

Email ehernandez@la-archdiocese.org for more information. 

Register at http://store.la-archdiocese. 

org/ministry-of-consolation-training. 

Sun., Oct. 7 

Praying the Rosary — A Catholic Spiritual Practice. 

Mary & Joseph Retreat Center, 5300 Crest Rd., Rancho 

Palos Verdes, 2-4 p.m. Workshop led by Sister 

Mary Mortz, DMJ, will reflect on the four mysteries of 

the rosary. Bring your Bible and a rosary. Cost: $25/ 

person. To register, visit www.maryjoseph.org. 

Italian Catholic Club: Pechanga Resort & Casino 

Trip. Meet at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, 

23233 Lyons Ave., Newhall, 8 a.m. Return at 6 p.m. 

Cost: $25/person, prepaid. Coffee and donuts provided, 

and $5 casino credit included. Birthdays will 

be celebrated on the ride home. Call Anna Riggs at 

661-645-7877. 

Book Signing and Concert: Liturgical Composer 

and Author Ken Canedo. Incarnation Church, 214 W. 

Fairview, Glendale, 7 p.m. Free event will include Ken 

Canedo talking about his new book “From Mountains 

High,” and music performed by the Incarnation music 

ministry. Call Dennis Doyle at 818-636-0912. 

Magnificat In Blue. Holy Spirit Retreat Center, 4316 

Lanai Rd., Encino, 4 p.m. A sacred oratorio based on 

The Annunciation and The Visitation of Mary and Elizabeth, 

composed by Scott Detweiler and performed 

by Detweiler Ensemble. Cost: $15/person. Tickets at 

www.detweilermusic.com. Call 818-800-5899. 

Tues., Oct. 9 

Ministry Renewal for Lectors. Incarnation Church 

community center, 214 Fairview Ave., Glendale, 7-9 

p.m. Two-part series on Oct. 9 and 16. Cost: $15/ 

person. Register online at store.la-archdiocese.org/ 

lector-ministry-renewal-incarnation. 

Catholic Laughs Show. Laugh Factory, 8001 W. 

Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, 7:30 p.m. Featuring Bone 

Hampton, Tom Clark, Sherri Shepherd, and more. 

Cost: $20/person. Tickets available at laughfactory. 

com. Call 323-656-1336. 

Wed., Oct. 10 

Healing Mass & Service. St. John Eudes Church, 

9901 Mason Ave., Chatsworth, 7 p.m. Celebrant: 

Father Lou Cerulli. Sponsored by Forever Grateful 

Community Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. Call 

Jazzy at 818-625-3386 or email jazzy@yuhico.com, 

or call Imelda at 818-882-8962 or email FGCSJE@ 

yahoo.com. 

ACCW Day of Prayer and Fellowship for Catholic 

Women. St. Bernard Church, 2516 W. Avenue 33, Los 

Angeles, 9:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Every Catholic woman 

is a member and there are no dues. Cost: $12/ 

person. Checks payable to Maria Urrutia and send to 

1351 Loreto Dr., Glendale, CA 91207, before Friday, 

Oct. 5. Call 818-244-0547. 

This Week at AngelusNews.com 

Visit AngelusNews.com for these stories 

and more. Your source for complete, 

up-to-the-minute coverage of local news, 

sports and events in Catholic L.A. 

• Ruben Navarrette on the death of DACA, revisited. 

• A call to action for Catholic laity. 

• The latest in sports scores for LMU and Catholic high schools. 


SUNDAY 

READINGS 

BY SCOTT HAHN 

Gen. 2:18-24 / Ps. 128:1-6 / Heb. 2:9-11 / Mk. 10:2-16 

In today’s Gospel, the Pharisees 

try to trap Jesus with a 

trick question. 

The “lawfulness” of divorce 

in Israel was never at issue. 

Moses had long ago allowed 

it (see Deuteronomy 24:1-4). 

But Jesus points his enemies 

back before Moses, to “the 

beginning,” interpreting the 

text we hear in today’s First 

Reading. 

Divorce violates the order 

of creation, he says. Moses 

permitted it only as a concession 

to the people’s “hardness 

of heart” — their inability to 

live by God’s covenant Law. 

But Jesus comes to fulfill 

the Law, to reveal its true 

meaning and purpose, and to 

give people the grace to keep 

God’s commands. 

Marriage, he reveals, is a 

sacrament, a divine, life-giving 

sign. Through the union 

of husband and wife, God intended 

to bestow his blessings on the 

human family — making it fruitful, 

multiplying it until it filled the earth 

(see Genesis 1:28). 

That’s why today’s Gospel moves so 

easily from a debate about marriage to 

Jesus’ blessing of children. Children 

are blessings the Father bestows on 

couples who walk in his ways, as we 

sing in today’s Psalm. 

Marriage also is a sign of God’s new 

covenant. As today’s Epistle hints, 

Jesus is the new Adam — made a little 

lower than the angels, born of a human 

family (see Romans 5:14; Psalms 

8:5-7). The Church is the new Eve, 

the “woman” born of Christ’s pierced 

“The Marriage Feast at Cana,” by Juan de Flandes (Netherlandish), 

circa 1500-1504. 

side as he hung in the sleep of death 

on the cross (see John 19:34; Revelation 

12:1-17). 

Through the union of Christ and the 

Church as “one flesh,” God’s plan for 

the world is fulfilled (see Ephesians 

5:21-32). Eve was “mother of all the 

living” (see Genesis 3:20). And in baptism, 

we are made sons and daughters 

of the Church, children of the Father, 

heirs of the eternal glory he intended 

for the human family in the beginning. 

The challenge for us is to live 

as children of the kingdom, growing 

up ever more faithful in our love and 

devotion to the ways of Christ and the 

teachings of his Church. 

Scott Hahn is founder of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, stpaulcenter.com. 


IN EXILE 

BY FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI 

What’s in a name? 

We’re called to a name change. 

We’re all familiar with the incident 

in the Bible where God changes the 

name of Abram to Abraham. The 

change seems so small that oftentimes 

it isn’t even picked up by those reading 

that text. What’s the difference 

between Abram and Abraham? 

The name Abram, meaning “Exalted 

Father,” is the name given the great 

patriarch to whom God made the 

promise that one day he would be the 

father of all the descendants of the 

nation of Judaism. 

But later, when God promises this 

same man that he is to be the father 

as well of all nations everywhere, God 

changes his name to Abraham: “You 

will no longer be called Abram; your 

name will be Abraham, for I have 

made you a father of many nations” 

(Genesis 17:5). 

What is implied in this change? The 

name Abraham, in its very etymology, 

connotes a stretching to become 

something larger; he’s now to be the 

father of all nations. Abram, the father 

of one nation, now becomes Abraham 

(in Hebrew, “Ab hamon 

goyim”), the father of all the other 

nations, the “goyim.” 

That change doesn’t just stretch a 

word; it stretches Abraham, a Jew, and 

redefines his understanding of himself 

and his mission. He’s no longer to 

understand himself as the patriarch 

of just one nation, his own, his ethnic 

and religious family, but he’s to see 

himself and the faith he is entrusted 

with as someone and something for 

all nations. 

He’s no longer to think of himself as 

the patriarch of one particular tribe, 

since God is not a tribal God. As well, 

he’s no longer to think of just his own 

tribe as his family, but to think of all 

others, irrespective of ethnicity or 

faith, as also his children. 

What does that mean for us? 

T.S. Eliot might answer that by 

saying, “Home is where we start 

from.” Our particular ethnic, religious, 

cultural, and civic roots are 

precious and important, but they’re 

not the fully mature tree into which 

we’re meant to grow. Our roots are 

where we start from. 

I grew up a very sheltered child, in 

a very close family, in a very enclosed 

rural environment. We were all of one 

kind, our neighbors, my classmates, 

everyone I knew, all of us, we shared 

a common history, ethnicity, religion, 

cultural background, set of values, 

and lived in a young country, Canada, 

that for the most part looked exactly 

like we did. 

I value those roots. They’re a great 

gift. Those roots have given me a stability 

that has freed me up for the rest 

of my life. But they’re only my roots, 

precious, but merely the place where 

I start from. 

And it’s the same for all of us. We 

take root inside a particular family, an 

ethnicity, a neighborhood, a country, 

and a faith, with a particular slant on 

the world and, with that, some people 

constitute our tribe and others don’t. 

But that’s where we start from. 

We grow, change, move, meet new 

people, and live and work with others 

who don’t share our background, nationality, 

ethnicity, skin color, religion, 

or particular slant on life. 

And so today we share our countries, 

cities, neighborhoods, and churches 

with the “goyim,” the people of other 

tribes, and that makes for the long 

struggle, hopefully successful, to 

eventually see that those others who 

are different from us, share the same 

God, are also our brothers and sisters, 

and have lives that are just as real, important, 

and precious as those of our 

own biological, national, and religious 

families. 

Like Abraham, we need a name 

change so that we don’t make idolatry 

out of our youthful patriotism, which 

has us believe that our own tribe is 

special and that our own country, skin 

color, background, and religion give 

us a unique and privileged claim to 

God. 

Our world is globalizing at a dizzying 

pace and countries, neighborhoods, 

and churches are becoming evermore 

plural and diverse ethnically, linguistically, 

culturally, and religiously. Our 

countries, neighborhoods, workplaces, 

and churches are literally taking on a 

different face. 

The old sheltered communities that 

gave us our roots are disappearing, 

and for many of us this is scary and 

the temptation is to retrench, to go 

hard to the right, to militantly defend 

the old boundaries, and to claim God 

and truth more exclusively again for 

ourselves. 

That’s understandable, but not 

where we’re called to be by what’s best 

inside our humanity and our faith. 

Like Abraham, we’re called to a name 

change. 

We’re called to cherish our heritage, 

country, mother tongue, culture, faith, 

and church because only by being 

firmly rooted within primary community 

are we stable and altruistic 

enough to offer family to those outside 

of our own. 

But home is where we start from. 

From those wonderful families that 

give us roots, we’re called to stretch 

our hearts religiously, ethnically, 

culturally, so that everyone eventually 

is embraced as family. We’re called to 

move from being Abram to becoming 

Abraham. 

Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual writer, www.ronrolheiser.com. 


THE SYNOD S 

WHAT 

WHAT 

CAN 

CAN 

THE 

THE 

CHURCH 

CHURCH 

DO 

DO 

TO 

TO HELP 

HELP 

YOU 

YO 

BY PABLO KAY / ANGELUS 


SITUATION 

ELP 

ELP 

YOUNG 

YOUNG 

PEOPLE 

PEOPLE 

– AND 

– AND 

VICE-VERSA 

VICE-VERSA 

? 

? 

Pope Francis poses for a 

selfie during a pre-synod 

gathering of youth 

delegates at the Pontifical 

International Maria Mater 

Ecclesiae College in Rome 

March 19. The meeting 

was in preparation for the 

Synod on Young People, 

the Faith, and Vocational 

Discernment this October 

at the Vatican. 

CNS PHOTO/VATICAN MEDIA 


Youths pray over Bishop Anthony B. Taylor of Little Rock, Arkansas, at the national V Encuentro 

in September. 

JAMES RAMOS/TEXAS CATHOLIC HERALD 

Imagine the scene. Every few 

years, a select group of bishops 

from around the world travel to 

Rome to sit in an auditorium with the 

pope. 

The bishops spend the day taking 

turns talking. They then return to the 

“Synod Hall” inside the walls of the 

Vatican the second day, and the third, 

and repeat this routine for almost a 

month until all the bishops have taken 

their turn to offer input to the Holy 

Father on a variety of issues. 

In the last 50 years these gatherings, 

called synods, have been convened 

to discuss broad themes that bishops 

usually have previous experience 

talking about. Topics have included 

evangelization, the Eucharist, priestly 

formation, and in the case of the most 

recent synod, the Christian family. 

The 2018 Synod on Young 

People, the Faith, and Vocational 

Discernment being held October 3-28 

may be a little different. The Church 

hasn’t really devoted large parts of 

her teaching to focusing on age 

differences. What can prepare bishops 

to talk about an age group they no 

longer belong to? 

Pope Francis’ answer was to make 

sure the Church heard from young 

people themselves: their experiences 

in the world today, their hopes, their 

worries, their sorrows, and even their 

confusions. 

To ensure these voices were heard, 

the pope sent a questionnaire around 

the world last year with 15 questions 

for everybody and three specific 

questions for each continent, as 

well as a request to share three “best 

practices.” 

The result was a working document, 

or “Instrumentum Laboris,” that 

tried summarizing the feedback 

from young people and bishops 

conferences around the world. In 

doing this, the process outlined by 

Francis sought to “listen to the voice 

of young people themselves, so as to 

make them key players right from 

the very beginning,” according to 

Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, Secretary 

General of the Synod of Bishops. 

For our special Synod 2018 issue, 

we invited four lay Catholic men 

and women with experience in youth 

ministry and evangelization to share 

their thoughts on what the synod can 

address based on what they see young 

people saying, doing, and hoping for 

in 2018. 

Archbishop José H. Gomez poses with the 375 delegates representing the Archdiocese of Los Angeles at the V Encuentro in September. The LA 

delegation was the national gathering’s largest. 

ERNESTO VEGA 


A RETURN TO THE BASICS 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/COURTESY CARDINAL STUDIOS LLC 

What young people need 

from the Church today 

BY CHRISTOPHER STEFANICK 

Chris Stefanick is an author, 

speaker, and the host of the 

reality TV show “Real Life 

Catholic,” which reaches 

millions of viewers each month. 

I’m not a theologian, cultural 

commentator, or pundit. I’m 

not a statistician who can track 

all the trends in youth culture. I’m 

an evangelist. I have been my entire 

“career,” and what I see working is a 

return to the basics. 

My work isn’t groundbreaking or 

complex. There is no secret formula. 

In fact, I strive to run the least 

innovative ministry in the Catholic 

Church. The central driver of our 

ministry is a parish-based evangelistic 

outreach event for all ages. 

Our events are consistently full. 

Even in small towns we typically get 

1,000 people — and it’s typically from 

just a 20-mile radius. Pastors tell us 

that up to 70 percent of the crowds 

at our events aren’t “the usual pew 

sitters.” It’s also safe to say that half of 

our audience are millennials. 

Our outreach plan consists of 

coaching parish teams of volunteers 

to reach out to their entire 

community and personally invite 

people home to the Church. When 

parish outreach teams get too creative 

in their efforts, too media savvy, or 

too innovative, my team of parish 

coaches gets nervous. 

When outreach teams stick to basics 

and invite people, personally, they 

succeed every time. 

So, what am I seeing that they need 

from the Church? A back-to-basics 

clarity. I’m not merely speaking about 

clarity when it comes to our teaching, 

but in a more encompassing sense of 

the word: They want clarity on what, 

exactly, we have to offer for their lives. 

And if we can’t answer that for them, 

they want us to get out of their way. 

Our message, the “thing” that we 

offer, is the gospel, which, despite all 

the failures of the Church, remains 

the best news ever. 

It’s the message that we’re created 

with a purpose, redeemed by a loving 

God who has a plan for our lives, 

and destined for eternal glory. It’s the 

message that we’re called to greatness 

by making Jesus the Lord of our lives. 

We’re not just invited to call him 

“friend” and then do what we want. 

It’s the message that he loves us, even 

in our weakness. 

The results are conversions. Every 

week. A young woman recently 

approached me after an event and 

said, “I had an abortion. You’re the 

first person I’m telling this to. And this 

is the first time since my abortion that 

I feel like God can love me again.” I 

walked her to her priest, who heard 

her confession, and she left a different 

person. These stories happen all the 

time. 

Simplicity. Clarity. Back to basics. 

It’s the same principle used by any 

truly effective company in the secular 

world. If people are going to “buy” a 

product from you, they have to know 

exactly what you’re selling. If you 

aren’t clear on the value you’re going 

to bring to their lives — so clear that 

they can “get it” quickly — they’ll find 

you annoying. 

My hope from any document the 

Church writes to youth is that it mark 

a return to first things. 

We need that now more than ever. 

Vague language about hard moral 

issues won’t win souls. 

After the McCarrick debacle, 

frankly, vague language from our 

clerics attempting to be more “openminded” 

and push the envelope on 

sexual ethics will just seem … well … 

creepy. 

Spelling out, in a document, ad 

nauseum that we’re listening won’t 

win souls either. It’ll make us look 

like we’re trying to be relevant. 

Facebook and Apple didn’t rise to 

the top by telling millennials, “We’re 

listening.” 

Creating a rift between new 

propositions and old teachings in an 

effort to go along with the times won’t 

make us attractive either. It’ll make us 

look faithless and desperate. 

If we want to actually win souls 

in a world where young people are 

bombarded by 3,000 ads per day, we 

have to come back to basics. We have 

to be clear about what, exactly, we 

offer them. In the midst of a culture 

of death, we have to offer “life to the 

full” in him. We have to be known as 

the Church of the gospel again. 

Thankfully, we don’t have to rewrite 

the playbook. 


SPEAKING THE TRUTH 

BY KATIE PREJEAN-MCGRADY 

Katie Prejean-McGrady is an 

international speaker, educator, 

and author. She was one of three 

young adult delegates selected by 

the U.S. bishops to attend a March 

pre-synod gathering in Rome. 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/KATIE PREJEAN-MCGRADY 

We’re at a unique moment 

in the life of the Church 

right now. 

On the one hand, young people 

find themselves living in a relativistic, 

“feel good” culture that condones 

almost any behavior and endorses 

any “philosophy” of life, so long as it 

doesn’t necessarily “hurt” other people. 

On the other hand, though, young 

people are beginning to recognize the 

intensity of these cultural lies, and seek 

solace, comfort, and a home in the 

tradition and truth of the Church. 

Knowing young people hear a lot of 

“mumbo-jumbo,” and knowing young 

people don’t like to be lied to, this 

Synod on Young People, the Faith, 

and Vocational Discernment comes 

at a perfect time. 

The Church is uniquely situated to 

speak truth to generations of teens 

and young adults, invite them to a 

relationship with Jesus Christ, and 

articulate in a beautiful and engaging 

way why Catholicism is life-giving, lifechanging, 

and the Church is the home 

they’ve longed for. 

This is what teens and young adults 

want from the Church — an honest 

and beautiful presentation of the truth 

of our faith and an authentic and 

welcoming invitation to live life 

with Christ. 

THE ANSWERS TO OUR 

DEEPEST QUESTIONS 

BY CURTIS MARTIN 

In the working document for the 

upcoming youth synod — the 

“Instrumentum Laboris” (IL) — 

we were presented with an ambitious 

attempt to listen to the concerns of 

the youth of the world. 

While the IL has rightfully generated 

a lot of attention, I want to offer 

a different point of departure for 

our consideration of young people 

and their faith and vocational 

discernment. 

Anyone reading the IL will be struck, 

and possibly overwhelmed, by the 

depth of the socio-cultural survey. 

While the concerns and aspirations 

described there should not be lightly 

dismissed, taking that as the starting 

point and then trying to work out how 

to help is, to say the least, difficult. So, 

what are we to do? 

I think the answer lies in the 

delightful fairy tale of George 

McDonald called “The Golden Key.” 

In this Christian allegory, professor 

Peter Kreeft explains that: 

“A boy and a girl find a golden key, 

but they have to search all worlds for 

the door it opens. They get the answer 

first, then they look for the question. 

… For the answer, the golden key, is 

Christ. This answer has been dumped 

into our laps, into our world. 

“Now we have to rearrange and 

reinterpret our lives around this 

answer. We have to rearrange our 

questions. Our fundamental situation 

is hilariously ironic: millions of people 

milling around looking not for the key 

but for the door, not for the answer 

but for the question.” 

Possession of this Golden Key is the 

good news. To know from the outset 

that the answer to all our deepest 

questions is Jesus — the Joy of the 

Gospel — is truly the best news. 

Jesus Christ is also the Golden Key 

to helping our estranged and non- 

Christian youth understand their 

every hurt, every tear, every joy, and 

every hope. 

St. Pope John Paul II understood the 

duty to share this news as a mission, a 

high calling to discipleship: 

“I sense that the moment has come 

to commit all of the Church’s energies 

to a new evangelization and to the 

mission ad gentes. No believer in 

Christ, no institution of the Church 


At times, many young people 

(myself included) have felt like the 

rich young man in the Gospels who 

walks away sad from Jesus, thinking 

that all he has prevents him from 

following Jesus. 

We, too, can sometimes think we’re 

somehow unworthy and unable 

to fully follow Jesus, for whatever 

reason. What we’ve been attached to 

— ways of thinking and ways of living 

— have kept us far from the Church 

and Jesus. 

For some, they’ve been distant 

because of confusion and 

misunderstanding of specific 

teachings of the Church that haven’t 

been articulated properly or well. 

For others, it’s a fear of giving up 

a life that’s been pleasurable and 

temporarily satisfying. 

Some young people have never 

seen or met followers of Jesus 

who themselves have been 

inviting, welcoming, honest, and 

compassionate. They’ve thought the 

Church is distant and uninviting, 

rigid, and closed-minded. And still, 

for others, the Church seems archaic, 

old, outdated, out of touch, and 

inaccessible. 

These young people are worth 

reaching, they are worth welcoming, 

they are worth walking with, and they 

are whom this synod is for. Your task 

is to speak to them and invite them 

home. 

There are also many young people 

who love their Faith and have given 

their hearts and minds to Jesus. This 

synod is for them as well, and the 

synod Fathers need to know that 

many teens and young adults around 

the world have been swept up in the 

grandeur, beauty, and richness of the 

Church’s history and teachings, and 

have encountered men and women 

who have taught them well. 

Many of us who have fallen in love 

with our Catholic faith, and Jesus 

Christ, have done so because we 

have experienced the compassion 

and love and beauty of the Church 

that preaches authentic truth, boldly 

proclaims her teachings, challenges us 

to live virtuously, and invites us into 

the adventure of becoming saints. 

The synod is a chance for the 

Church to continue doing this — to 

share the depth and beauty of our 

Catholic teaching, teachings that 

are life-changing, life-giving, and 

necessary in this relativistic and 

sometimes hopeless world. 

The synod is the moment the 

Church needs to speak to the faithful 

young men and women who are in 

the Church and say, “We are so happy 

you are here,” and a moment to speak 

to those who are outside the Church 

and say, “This is a place for you, and 

we want you here.” 

can avoid this supreme duty: to 

proclaim Christ to all peoples” 

(“Redemptoris Missio,” no. 3). 

But this high call of discipleship 

comes at a cost — our entire life 

trustingly and completely offered to 

Christ: … “If any man would come 

after me, let him deny himself and 

take up his cross daily and follow 

me…” (Luke 9:23). 

While it may be tough, if we give 

our life to Christ every day, we hope 

that one day we may be able to say 

with St. Paul that, “I consider that the 

sufferings of this present time are not 

worth comparing with the glory that is 

to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). 

St. Theresa of Ávila did it and could 

tell us that, “In light of heaven, the 

worst suffering on earth will be seen to 

be no more serious than one night in 

an inconvenient hotel.” 

If we are to do this, we must be 

uncompromising in our love and 

witness of the truth. 

There are some with sincere but 

mistaken intentions who would 

weaken the demands of Christ (cf. 

Matthew 5:19). We have seen where 

that leads in the experience of many 

mainline Protestant churches, in 

whom I have many dear friends, 

which have not grown in size or 

enthusiasm. 

Jesus walked with the two on the 

road to Emmaus and he let them 

speak their hearts, and so, too, ought 

we listen to our young people and let 

them speak their hearts. 

It should be noted that after listening 

to them, Jesus offers a correction 

before he begins to teach them. Only 

when our young people let Christ 

form them, will they be able to 

recognize him to their heart’s content. 

We are all called to walk with our 

young brothers and sisters through the 

joys and travails of life. 

We must begin with ourselves, 

recommitting, without reservation, 

to Jesus Christ and his Church, in 

order to meet the young and walk 

the journey of faith and vocational 

discernment with them in Christ. 

Curtis Martin is the founder of 

FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic 

University Students) and 

author of “Making Missionary 

Disciples: How to Live the 

Method Modeled by the Master.” 

COURTESY FOCUS.ORG 


CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/COURTESY ELISE ITALIANO 

THREE QUESTIONS 

THAT MATTER 

Who am I? 

Who do I belong to? 

Am I needed? 

BY ELISE ITALIANO 

Elise Italiano is the executive 

director of the GIVEN Institute, 

which inspires and equips the 

next generation of Catholic 

women leaders for the Church 

and wider culture. 

These three questions seem to 

be on the minds of millennials 

today, and it’s time for the 

Church to take notice. 

Indeed, keeping this triptych front 

and center at the Synod on Young 

People, the Faith, and Vocational 

Discernment in Rome this month 

could serve as a focal point and could 

recenter participants when peripheral 

topics begin to encroach on the 

central questions at hand. 

For centuries, Christians have boldly 

proclaimed that “Jesus Christ is the 

answer to the question posed by 

every human life.” The Church has 

the message that young people want 

to hear — that they are loved, they 

belong, and they are necessary. 

But for a whole host of reasons — 

including the alternatives proposed by 

cultural prophets and the Church’s 

own diminished credibility — young 

people do not seem to be hearing 

that message or experiencing its 

transformative power. 

In order to get their attention, the 

bishops must demonstrate that they 

understand what young people are 

looking for, and they must be able to 

testify to why the alternative proposals, 

no matter how attractive they are, 

fall short of fulfilling their deepest 

longings. 

In previous generations, young 

people would receive an education 

in who they were and the values 

that should shape their lives from 

communal support networks. 

Families, neighborhoods, places 

of worship, and civic associations 

helped to provide young people with a 

meaningful sense of self to build upon 

as they matured. 

As these associations have weakened, 

the framework of building identity 

within community has been replaced 

by individual identity politics. At an 

early age, young people are expected 

to publicly declare allegiance to 

lifestyles, philosophies, and political 

parties, independent of external 

reference points. 

There is enormous pressure to 

construct a persona according 

to a lengthy checklist of cultural 

identifiers. 

That transition has had an effect 

on community. Young people follow 

the lead of adults who segregate 

themselves into communities 

exclusively made up of like-minded 

members, which reinforce existing 

belief systems and allegiances. 

Because many of these communities 

only exist on digital platforms, 

authentic connection is never made. 

But even in the midst of joining 

“lifestyle enclaves,” young people 

are reporting loneliness and anxiety 

at some of the highest rates to date. 

The symptoms of this epidemic are 

devastating, ranging from suicide to 

mass shootings to addictions. 

The bishops should be able to 

diagnosis the problem: that fleeting 

affirmations of identities built in 

isolation fall short of providing an 

authentic experience of belonging. 

And, of course, all of this is related 

to a young person’s desire for purpose. 

The post-9/11 world, one that has 

been characterized by economic 

instability, an unending war, 

unraveling civil discourse, and an 

increasingly secular public square, has 

forced young people to ask, “What is 

it all about? Is there any point?” 

In a world that likes to tell young 

people that identity and purpose 

depend on what you own, there’s an 

opening for the Church: If she can 

meet them at that critical moment 

of self-reflection, she can propose 

— with compassion and sensitivity — 

something more. 

If the synod Fathers can identify this 

threefold search and diagnose where 

the cultural solutions have fallen 

short, they can gain back credibility 

as a trusted voice and guide. Young 

people might then listen to the freeing 

message that what comes before any 

other “identifier” is the reality that 

they are beloved children of God. 

They might be attracted to a 

community of believers who will bear 

their burdens and rejoice in their 

blessings. And they could be open to 

hearing and believing that they have 

been entrusted with a singular mission 

that no one else can fulfill. 

Identity, community, purpose. In 

the face of so many complexities, a 

simple formula could provide the way 

forward this fall. 


The invention of youth 

How Christianity shaped young life as we know it 

BY MIKE AQUILINA / ANGELUS 

Youth preparing for their pilgrimage to Panama in January for World Youth Day pose with the WYD 

Cross and Marian Icon during a special Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels Aug. 26. 

Check into any media and 

watch the advertising. You’ll 

see that it’s mostly aimed at 

young people. Ads aimed at 

older folks sell the same products — 

but as ways of recovering lost youth. 

We live in a youth-centered culture. 

Entire industries turn on the opinions 

of adolescents. 

The Catholic Church is no exception. 

Since 1985, its World Youth 

Days have drawn crowds numbering 

in the millions to spots as scattered as 

Manila, Kraków, Rio, and Denver. 

To the world, this focus on youth is 

a fairly recent phenomenon. To the 

Church it’s as old as the gospel. 

With the gospel, however, it arrived 

as something new. 

We could, in fact, speak of early 

Christianity as the time “When 

Children Became People.” That is the 

title of a recent book by Norwegian 

historian O.M. Bakke (Augsberg Fortress, 

$17). Bakke argues that Christianity 

transformed the way people live 

their young years, and the change was 

much for the better. 

The ancient Greeks and Romans admired 

young physiques, but they were 

little interested in the intellectual 

contributions or emotional experience 

of anyone under the age of 20. 

The philosopher Plato considered 

children to be like animals, only worse 

because they were more intractable. 

Aristotle believed that young people, 

like women and slaves, lacked sufficient 

reason to participate in society. 

Roman law treated minors as property, 

to be disposed of as their fathers 

wished. A father had the authority 

(though rarely exercised) to condemn 

a child to death for misdeeds. Fathers 

also had the right to reject a newborn 

baby and demand its death. Infanticide 

was a routine part of family life in 

traditional Roman and Greek society 

and was defended by the philosophers. 

At the beginning of the second 

century, the Roman governor Pliny 

wrote of the “rewards of childlessness” 

and said that having even one child 

was a “burden.” The historian Tacitus, 

writing around the same time, spoke 

of the “powerful attractions of childlessness.” 

To the poor, children were useful as 

laborers. To the upper classes, they 

were admired as sex objects. Pedophilia 

was considered normal in the upper 

circles of Greek and Roman society. 

It appears everywhere in classical 

literature. Socrates openly practiced 

pederasty, and so did the Roman emperors, 

most of whom kept boy lovers 

at the imperial court. 

In such a world, Christianity 

emerged as a revolutionary movement 



— and one of its most revolutionary 

attitudes was its reverence for the 

dignity of young people. 

the children come to 

me,” Jesus told his disciples 

“Let 

(Matthew 19:14). He had 

to tell them that because the disciples 

were shooing the little ones away from 

adult society. 

Jesus summoned the children 

because, he said, “to such belongs the 

kingdom of heaven.” 

He went even further and praised 

children as models of Christian life: 

“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn 

and become like children, you will 

never enter the kingdom of heaven” 

(Matthew 18:3). These lines contained 

a new world order — a society 

in which young people were welcome 

as active contributors. 

The early Christian Fathers found 

many radical new principles implicit 

in Jesus’ simple statements. For example, 

Christians tended to encourage 

their young to think in terms of vocational 

freedom. 

In traditional Roman society, girls 

were customarily married off at age 11 

or 12 to a man more than twice their 

age. The marriage was arranged by the 

girl’s father. The girl had the right to 

refuse the husband her father chose, 

but her father had the authority to put 

her to death for doing so. 

The early Fathers, most notably 

Clement of Alexandria, argued forcefully 

against the practice of marrying 

child brides and insisted that Christians 

must reject this custom. 

The Fathers also called for universal 

respect of the vocational choices of 

young people. For the first time in history, 

girls and young women had the 

right to forego marriage entirely and 

consecrate their lives to Christ. The 

earliest Christian documents testify 

that many young people made the 

commitment to virginity and celibacy. 

Young people emerged in important 

roles in the early Church. St. Aquilina 

of Byblos (no relation to the author), 

a Lebanese saint of the third century, 

was a model evangelist who converted 

a passel of her classmates. St. Tarcisius 

of Rome was a youth who took the 

Eucharist to the homebound sick in 

Rome. Both Aquilina and Tarcisius 

died as martyrs. 

Some historians believe it was the 

public torture of St. Agnes of Rome, 

at the beginning of the fourth century, 

that finally swayed Roman public 

opinion to favor an end to persecution. 

The crowds marveled at the 

courage and eloquence of 12-year-old 

Agnes. 

Within a century, she was the subject 

of tributes and biographies by several 

of the world’s leading intellectuals: St. 

Ambrose of Milan, St. Augustine of 

Hippo, Pope Damasus I, and the poet 

Prudentius of Rome. 

Christian youth were prized not 

for their usefulness or their physical 

beauty, but because they were people, 

created in God’s image and likeness. 

As such, they were children of God 

and not the property of men. 

This had very practical consequences. 

Children and adolescents were 

full members of the Church, and they 

could participate in Christian society 

in ways unimaginable in old Rome. 

An adolescent named Origen taught 

adults in the intellectual capital of 

Egypt. Agnes exercised more influence 

in the Roman Church than even 

adult pagan females could muster in 

their sexist society. Young women had 

a voice in the Church; outside the 

Church, pagan women were confined 

to silence. 

Young people were welcome to 

participate in the central mysteries of 

faith. The Church encouraged parents 

to baptize their sons and daughters 

as babies, and some churches 

even admitted infants to Holy Communion. 

“Let the children come to me,” Jesus 

said. “To such belongs the kingdom of 

heaven.” 

To such also belonged the Church 

on earth and its future. 

This is the radical and revolutionary 

message of Christianity — not the 

acknowledgment that children can 

have marketing clout, but that they 

have the power to live the life of Jesus 

Christ right now in its fullness. 

Mike Aquilina is a contributing editor 

of Angelus and author of many books, 

including “The Apostles and Their 

Times” and “A History of the Church 

in 100 Objects.” 


Bishop Robert E. Barron and Archbishop José H. Gomez at the 2018 Catholic Prayer Breakfast outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels September 18. 

Invading their space 

LA’s two representatives at this month’s synod on youth discuss the 

influence of Hollywood, the need to ‘switch gears,’ and their homework 

BY PABLO KAY / ANGELUS 

Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez and Auxiliary 

Bishop Robert E. Barron are two very busy men. 

One serves as both the shepherd of the country’s 

largest archdiocese and vice president of the U.S. 

Conference of Catholic Bishops, while the other presides 

over a successful and growing Catholic media apostolate, 

not to mention plenty of confirmation Masses in his 

pastoral region of Santa Barbara in the Archdiocese of Los 

Angeles. 

Their ability to maintain those busy schedules, as well as 

their very different backgrounds and their common affinity 

for working with young people, may explain why they were 

chosen as two of the five elected bishops to represent the 

U.S. at the Synod of Bishops on Young People, the Faith, and 

Vocational Discernment, taking place October 3-28 in Rome. 

In light of the synod and the Church’s “summer of 

shame,” Archbishop Gomez has been reading up on the 

life of a saint who lived in similarly turbulent times for the 

Church: St. Charles Borromeo, whom Archbishop Gomez 

notes was sent to Milan as a young bishop to implement 

the reforms of the Counter-Reformation. 

“It’s been very helpful to study the renewal and reform of 

the Church after the Council of Trent, especially for me 

now with the situation we have in the Church in the world 

and in the U.S.,” he admitted. 

He’s also found inspiration in reading “We, The Ordinary 

People of the Streets,” a compilation of the reflections 

of Madeleine Delbrêl, a 20th-century French laywoman 



declared “venerable” earlier this year. 

Archbishop Gomez says it’s made him think about how 

young lay people can live out their faith in today’s world. 

“I think that is what the young people are going through 

in a society that is more and more secular: How do you 

practice your faith in your ordinary life?” 

Besides reading up on his favorite Catholic thinker, St. 

Thomas Aquinas, Bishop Barron has been doing research 

on sociological studies of today’s youth. One of them is 

San Diego State University professor and psychologist Jean 

Twenge’s book “iGen,” which he thinks does a good job of 

understanding the current generation, 

especially their attitudes on 

religion. 

As a widely read movie fan and 

critic, Bishop Barron says one thing 

he sees a lot in today’s films is their 

promotion of “the culture of self-invention.” 

“It’s celebrated almost constantly: 

that I decide what my life is about, 

I decide what I’m going to believe, 

how I’m going to act, and no one 

tells me what to do,” Bishop Barron 

explained. 

The Chicago-born auxiliary believes 

one movie that sums up that 

mentality is “The Shape of Water,” 

a movie he reviewed earlier this 

year in a Word on Fire post. 

“It’s exactly the contemporary sensibility: 

it’s the shape of water. Everything is fluid and what 

you want it to be: If you want to have a relationship with a 

fish, off you go,” said the bishop. “I thought it was symbolic 

of the complete fluidity in the culture.” 

With the synod in mind, how can the Church evangelize 

young people living in the culture of self-invention? 

“We have to get them, we have to invade their space,” said 

Bishop Barron during an interview with Angelus News at 

the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. 

That motto sums up his ministry as an evangelist in the 

digital peripheries, but it will also shape his approach to 

the synod, which many hope will chart the course for the 

Church’s approach toward young adults, particularly the 

millennial generation. 

Archbishop Gomez has had plenty of facetime with 

millennials recently. Having just attended the national 

V Encuentro gathering in Texas, he thinks the 

excitement he’s seen from Catholic youth indicates a need 

for greater lay involvement in the life of the Church. 

“It was interesting because they were asking me how 

they can be more active in the celebration of Mass, in the 

formation programs of the parish, and kind of demanding 

that the priest and the elders in the parish listen to them,” 

said Archbishop Gomez, recalling his recent meetings with 

young people, which have included the annual City of 

Saints gathering held at UCLA in August. 

So what’s the most pressing need going into the monthlong 

summit in Rome? 

“The young people of today, it seems to me, are trying to 

do something, to take action,” answered the archbishop 

during an interview with Angelus News. “It is difficult for 

them to stop and learn the teachings of the Church. The 

first encounter with Christ in serving other people is what I 

think is most important for us.” 

For the Church to communicate that to today’s generation, 

the Mexican-born prelate believes there needs to be a 

change in mentality, not Church teaching. 

“We need to understand that we all are called to holiness; 

that sometimes we are still in the 

process of understanding that the 

Church not only belongs to the pope 

and the bishops and the priests, but 

to everyone — the lay faithful,” said 

Archbishop Gomez, echoing the 

words of his homily at the closing 

Mass of the V Encuentro a few days 

earlier. 

“We need to change gears and say 

that the lay faithful are also called 

to holiness and to be leaders in the 

Church,” he added. 

Bishop Barron agreed that the 

Church will not reach young people 

by changing essential doctrines 

or moral teachings, saying those 

things are “not ours to play with.” 

Archbishop Gomez speaks to media at the V Encuentro 

in Grapevine, Texas, September 21. 

“Dumbed-down Catholicism has 

been a disaster,” he said. Instead, 

he believes, proposing the beauty and truth of Church 

teaching is a better alternative. 

His template? LA’s youngest auxiliary likes the example of 

the encounter between Jesus and two disciples walking to 

Emmaus, where he accompanies and listens to two people 

who don’t recognize him. 

“In a key moment, he speaks, and he speaks with great 

clarity,” said the bishop of the Gospel passage. “He upbraids 

them, even: ‘You fools, all slow to believe!’ And then 

that’s when their hearts catch fire, when he starts to speak 

to them about the faith.” 

“We have to find a new way, once we’ve listened and 

walked, to speak compellingly,” he added, hinting at a likely 

theme of his intervention, or planned public remarks, 

that he’s written for the synod. 

When asked what Los Angeles can contribute to the 

most important Church gathering of the year, both prelates 

agreed that the city’s reputation as a media capital 

shouldn’t be ignored. 

“So much of the culture in the West is determined out 

of a place like this, for weal and for woe: both the good 

and the bad are here,” said Bishop Barron. “I think that is 

important.” 

Archbishop Gomez pointed to the archdiocese’s thriving 

parishes and the large presence of active young people who 

take Catholicism seriously. 

“Nobody thinks of Los Angeles as a place of people with 

faith, and that’s what it is.” 



Chiara’s ‘holiness of next door’ 

Could a young woman who preferred to die rather than risk 

harming her unborn child become the first millennial saint? 

BY CLAIRE GIANGRAVÈ / ANGELUS 

ROME — For most couples, 

their 10th wedding anniversary 

is supposed to be a happy 

day — maybe there’s a party, 

or they go out to a special dinner, 

even take a trip to someplace special. 

Often they’re surrounded by family 

and friends, and festivity is in the air. 

This September 21 would have been 

that 10th anniversary for Chiara Corbella 

Petrillo, a young Italian woman 

and deeply faithful Catholic born 

in Rome in 1984, and her husband 

Enrico Petrillo, whom she met in 

Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina, 

in the summer of 2002 while he was 

making a pilgrimage sponsored by the 

Catholic Charismatic Renewal. 

As it turns out, September 21 actually 

was a festive day for the Petrillo 

clan, but hardly in the conventional 

sense. 

On that Roman Friday, more than 

2,000 people, mostly young people, 

including Chiara’s husband and 

7-year-old son, her parents and sister, 

all came together in Rome’s Basilica 

of St. John Lateran — not principally 

to celebrate an anniversary, but the 

launch of a sainthood cause for Chiara 

that could end in her beatification 

and, eventually, canonization. 

Chiara died in 2012, after being diagnosed 

with a cancer of the tongue one 

year earlier, but refusing treatment out 

of concern that it might damage the 

child she was carrying. (Two previous 

pregnancies in 2009 and 2010 

resulted in a girl named Maria Grazia 

Letizia and a boy named Davide Giovanni, 

but due to complications both 

died shortly after birth.) 

Chiara gave birth to her son Francesco 

on May 30, 2011, and this time 

the child was perfectly healthy. By this 

point, however, her cancer had spread 

Chiara Corbella Petrillo in 2012. 

to a point at which it was beyond treatment, 

and she died in June 2012. 

Her story is often associated with 

that of St. Gianna Beretta Molla, an 

Italian pediatrician who died in 1962 

after refusing treatment for uterine 

cancer out of fear for her unborn 

child. She was canonized by St. Pope 

John Paul II in 2004. 

From the beginning, what struck 

people who knew Enrico and Chiara, 

or who heard about them as word of 

her sacrifice spread, was the juxtaposition 

between the seeming ordinariness 

of their lives and the extraordinary 

choice Chiara made to offer her own 

life for her son’s. 

As Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, 

vicar of the Diocese of Rome, put it 

during the September 21 ceremony 

opening her cause, she exudes the 

“holiness of next door, of those who 

live next to us and are a reflection of 

the presence of God.” 

“Opening the diocesan phase [of the 

sainthood process] today,” De Donatis 

said, “we hope that at the end of the 

canonical path Chiara can become 

a model of holiness, approved by the 

Church, for all the Christian faithful 

but especially for those who, in this 

young married woman and mother of 

three children, find encouragement 

and support in the service of married 

love and of life.” 

The 64-year-old De Donatis, 

appointed by Pope Francis to his position 

in 2017, is widely seen as a close 

ally of the pontiff and a reliable guide 

to his priorities. 

From the beginning, scores of people 

have seen in Chiara precisely the 

qualities De Donatis mentioned. 

More than 1,000 people turned out 

for her funeral Mass at the parish of 

Santa Francesca Romana in 2012, to 

celebrate and remember the mother 

who gave her life for her child with 

a constant smile on her lips. To this 

day, faithful make a pilgrimage to 

her tomb at the Verano Cemetery in 

Rome to bring flowers and prayers. 

“This day represents the fact God has 

passed through my life, and continues 

to pass through, so much more than 

we may think or imagine,” said Enrico 

on the significance of the opening of 

his wife’s sainthood cause. “Chiara 

was a daughter of God,” he said. “She 

was beautiful, amazing, a child of 

God, and therefore you can be, too.” 

Part of Chiara’s attraction, say people 

drawn to her story, is the way she 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/CRISTIAN GENNARI, COURTESY PETRILLO FAMILY 


CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/COURTESY JENNIFER PELLEGRINE SLOSS 

CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY PHOTO / VATICAN MEDIA 

The bond of friendship between Chiara Corbella Petrillo and Jennifer Pellegrine Sloss is an enduring 

one, despite Chiara’s death from cancer in 2012. The two women are pictured at left in Italy in 

2008. After learning of her friend’s death in 2012, Jennifer, then the mother of two sons, prayed, 

“Chiara, send me a little brown-eyed girl.” Jennifer is pictured with her daughter, Chiara. 

Pope Benedict XVI greets Chiara, her husband, Enrico, and her son, Francesco, on May 2, 2012, a 

month before Chiara’s death. 

accepted the hardships of life with a 

sense of humor and peace. 

Growing up amid a generation of 

“papa-boys” inspired by John Paul II, 

the young woman had a stubborn and 

unwavering faith. To those around 

her who tried to change her mind, 

convincing her to save her own life, 

she would laughingly say in a Roman 

accent: “It’s all OK, the challenge, the 

disease, but if you make these faces I 

can’t do it!” 

Chiara, however, wasn’t just good 

cheer and smiles — she also had an 

acute sense of spiritual depth. 

“In marriage, the Lord wanted to 

give us special gifts: Maria Grazia 

Letizia and Davide Giovanni, but he 

asked us to accompany them only 

through birth, which gave us the 

chance to hug them, baptize them, 

and then hand them over to the 

Father with a devastating serenity and 

joy,” she once wrote. 

“Now he’s given us a third child, 

Francesco, who’s just fine and will be 

born soon, but he’s asked us to continue 

to trust in him despite a tumor 

discovered a few weeks ago and that’s 

trying to sow fear of the future. But 

we’ll continue to believe that God will 

do great things this time, too.” 

Now that the diocesan phase of her 

sainthood cause is open, Chiara’s 

pathway to a halo may be helped 

by Francis’ 2017 “Maiorem hac 

dilectionem” (“On the Offering of 

Life”), a “motu proprio” (“on his own 

initiative”) legal document that added 

a new category to certify holiness 

through offering one’s life for God or 

neighbor. 

The next steps, according to Church 

law, are establishing a conviction of 

Corbella’s holiness among the faithful 

(“fama sanctitas”) and establishing the 

effectiveness of her intercession from 

heaven (“fama signorum”). 

If the diocesan phase is successful, 

the case will then pass to the Vatican’s 

Congregation for the Causes of Saints, 

where she could first receive a “decree 

of heroic virtue,” allowing her to be 

called “venerable,” then beatification, 

with the title of “blessed,” and finally 

canonization, formally declaring her 

a saint. 

De Donatis summed up Chiara’s 

legacy at the September 21 ceremony 

at St. John Lateran. 

“She was a beacon of light,” he 

said, “who helps us touch the loving 

closeness of God with our own hands, 

a God who’s our Father and helps us 

discover the beauty of the Church, 

which, in the fraternity of its sons and 

daughters and in the care of its pastors, 

shows itself to be our mother.” 

Claire Giangravè is the Faith and 

Culture correspondent for Crux, a 

partner of Angelus. 


Sister Maureen O’Grady (left) and Sister Pauline Kelly with the fruits (or vegetables) of a day’s “begging” at Daniel’s Western Meats. 

When God provides 

For the last 150 years, trusting in Divine Providence has 

worked out well for the ‘begging sisters’ in the U.S. 

BY R.W. DELLINGER / ANGELUS 

The 2007 GMC Savana Cargo 

Van with 200,000 miles 

on the odometer pulls off 

the exit a little past 9 o’clock 

on this Friday morning. 

It’s August 31, one day after the Little 

Sisters of the Poor marked the 150th 

anniversary of the religious community’s 

arrival in the United States from 

France. 

Two of these “begging sisters” in 

full white habits are in the back seat, 

silently reading their prayer books. 

While driver Gustavo Magallanes has 

made good time in the express lane 

of the 110 Freeway from San Pedro, 

they were slow getting started on their 

collecting, and the Little Sisters are 15 

minutes late. 

Sister Pauline Kelly, with 50 years 

of begging experience from locales 

across the country, looks a little 

anxious, maybe even peeved. Leaning 

forward between the bucket seats, she 

asks, “What time does the food line at 

Resurrection [Church] open?” 

Gustavo, who’s been making these 

runs for 11 years, says, “Ten o’clock, 

sister,” keeping his eyes on the road. 

“Don’t worry. We’re fine.” 

Sister Pauline sits back, concern still 

creasing her face. They must stop at 

the meatpacking place first. And she’s 

well aware that the best pickings at the 

East Los Angeles food bank are before 

the line opens. But, oh, no, now gates 

are going down at a train crossing, the 

lone engine blowing its whistle. 

Turning to Sister Maureen O’Grady, 

R.W. DELLINGER 


the community’s other begging nun, 

she asks: “Let’s pray to St. Joseph?” 

They do. The engine reverses its 

course, and the gates go up. 

“You see,” Sister Pauline points out 

to the ride-along up front from Angelus 

News. “I’m telling you, praying to 

St. Joseph works.” 

The van arrives at Daniel’s Western 

Meats at 9:30 a.m. The 77-year-old 

woman religious slides open the van’s 

side door, deftly steps down with her 

cane and makes straight toward a man 

in a navy baseball cap, greeting him 

with an open smile. 

Returning the expression, manager 

Rick Gutierrez says, “Hold on a 

second, Sister.” He barks out orders 

to men driving forklifts with pallets 

stacked with boxes of food racing 

along the loading dock, like bumper 

cars at an amusement park trying to 

stay out of one another’s way. Sirens 

sound off as they back up, then swing 

around to maneuver their pallets into 

waiting delivery trucks. 

In 10 minutes, a forklift with a pallet 

piled with 40 pounds of beef, 30 

pounds of pork loin, 10 pounds of hot 

dogs, plus sausage links and chicken 

shows up at the spot where Gustavo 

has already backed up the Little 

Sisters’ van. 

After spending a few minutes catching 

up with Gutierrez, the begging 

sister bids farewell. 

“Thank you for helping us. God 

bless.” 

The first Little Sisters of the 

Poor to come to Los Angeles 

arrived on a train from Chicago 

on Jan. 18, 1905. But it wasn’t until 

three years later that their first home, 

St. Ann’s, was able to open in Boyle 

Heights. 

That’s where they took in and 

sheltered the elderly poor in Southern 

California for 71 years, until the 

wooden-beam building could no 

longer meet modern fire codes. The 

Archdiocese of Los Angeles, however, 

offered the community the closed 

Fermin Lasuen High School in San 

Pedro as its new home. 

After major modifications and 

additions, the Little Sisters moved 120 

senior citizens into the Jeanne Jugan 

Residence on Aug. 7, 1979. Today, the 

connected three-floor, brick-trimmed 

stucco buildings are home to about 

100 older men and women. Range 

of care goes all the way from independent 

living apartments to residential 

care, assisted living and skilled 

nursing. 

But the mission harkens back to 

Jeanne Jugan, who in 1839 took into 

her own home in France a single 

elderly blind and paralyzed woman. 

Later, when other women joined her 

ministry, they would walk the streets 

with begging baskets, knocking on 

doors asking for food, clothing and 

wood to keep their homes going. It 

was their charism, their fourth vow of 

hospitality: to provide a caring place 

for older impoverished men and 

women. 

Today, that’s no easy task to keep 

going in a place like LA, with a 

youth-dominating culture that often 

treats the frail and elderly as disposable. 

And then there’s the basis of the 

Little Sisters’ economic model that 

seems downright crazy in today’s 

American secular society: begging. 

St. Jeanne Jugan, who believed “the 

poor are Our Lord” and was canonized 

by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009, 

had complete faith in Divine Providence. 

And the religious community 

she founded has never sought any 

long-term steady source of income 

from endowments, investments, or 

stock portfolios. God would provide, 

often through the generosity of 

donors. 

So over the 179 years of their existence, 

begging baskets have become 

begging horse-drawn carts and today’s 

begging vans. Nearly 30 homes are 

spread across the U.S., although 

others closed due to a shortage of 

vocations. 

Worldwide locations include Chile, 

Colombia, England, France, Ireland, 

Australia, Kenya, Taiwan and the 

Philippines. 

Sister Pauline has been an integral 

part of that incredible financial 

plan for half a century. But as a 

young woman religious, who became 

a Little Sister of the Poor right out of 

Catholic high school in Oakland, it 

was hard. Really hard. 


Auxiliary Bishop Marc V. Trudeau celebrates the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the Little 

Sisters of the Poor to the U.S. at their residence in San Pedro Aug. 30, 2018. 

“I was in my 20s, and the Little Sister 

who did the begging in Baltimore 

died, so I was asked would I do it,” 

she explains. “But at first I was scared. 

I didn’t really like to go and ask for 

things. But after a while, you know, 

it’s not for yourself. It’s for the old 

people and it’s for the glory of God. 

And you’re giving these people the 

opportunity to make an act of charity, 

to do something for God.” 

She ticks off the places where she’s 

begged: Indianapolis, New Orleans, 

Gallup (New Mexico), Denver, Delaware, 

Washington, and since last year, 

San Pedro. 

Sister Pauline remembers being 

assigned to raise $500 for every hole 

in a golf tournament near Chicago. 

Desperate, she decided to approach 

a local produce businessman other 

sisters had warned shooed them away. 

And they were right. 

“Who are you and what do you 

want?” he asked when she showed up 

at his office. As she tried to explain 

about the 18-hole tournament, he 

grabbed the flier from her hands. 

But then his disposition changed 

reading it. Lighting up a cigarette, he 

asked, “Do you want a smoke?” 

“No, thank you,” she managed to say. 

“Do you want a drink?” 

Another polite decline before noting, 

“But I do play cards, and I have a card 

trick I’ll bet you $500 you cannot 

figure it out.” 

He couldn’t and turned to his secretary: 

“Get her a $500 check and get 

her out of here.” 

Anthony, however, became a dear 

friend, donating $500 every time she 

happened to come by. 

That and other encounters only 

honed her begging skills. 

“I’ve had the privilege of going out, 

asking for donations and seeing the 

goodness of people in businesses, 

homes, and churches,” says Sister 

Pauline. 

“You have to be able to talk about 

our order and tell them about what we 

do — taking care of the elderly, giving 

them love, respect, dignity. A lot of 

people, even Catholics, don’t know 

what we do. They see us in these 

habits and think we’re teachers. 

“But it’s been a beautiful life. The 

Lord says, ‘You’ll have a hundredfold.’ 

And it’s true! We certainly have seen 

a hundredfold, seeing how God has 

blessed us in so many ways. People are 

giving us stuff all the time. Of course, 

you have your ups and downs. But 

that’s every life.” 

Sister Pauline’s worries are coming 

true as the van pulls into the 

parking lot behind Resurrection 

Church. At 10 minutes after 10 

LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR 


o’clock, there’s not only a long line, 

but some people are walking away 

with bags of groceries. 

“Oh, my gosh!” she sighs, but then 

catches herself, “Well, they need it 

more than we do.” But the van is still 

able to swap loaves of bread, buns, 

bagels, and frosted cakes for potatoes, 

onions, asparagus, grapes, and six 

watermelons. 

Twenty minutes later, now by surface 

streets instead of freeways, the GMC 

Cargo Van arrives at Los Angeles’ 

Central Market, south of downtown. 

It pulls up to a spot near the center 

of a loading dock half as long as a 

football field. Again, she’s the first one 

out, going up to a man this time with 

a long scraggly beard. “How are you 

doing, Joe?” 

Nodding at the nun in her still spotless 

white habit, he says, “Good, thank 

you. We’ve got cantaloupe, Honey 

Dew?” 

“What about strawberries?” Sister 

Pauline asks. 

“I’ll check around,” he says, walking 

away. When Joe comes back, he cautions, 

“Ok, but with these strawberries, 

you’ve got to use them fast. You need 

more, we give you more.” 

When she nods, he asks, “Eggplant?” 

“Yeah, we can stick one or two in 

the icebox.” Then she spots a wood 

carton full of brown, hairy fruit. 

“What are those?” 

“They’re coconuts,” he answers with 

a chuckle. 

“Really?” 

“They cut off the tops, clean them 

up. And they get a big meat.” 

Sister Pauline is shaking her head. 

“People eat that stuff?” Then the Little 

Sisters’ pallet on a forklift catches 

her eye. “Holy moley, look at all those 

melons and strawberries,” she quips. 

This gets Joe smiling. After the van is 

loaded, and goodbyes are exchanged, 

she whispers, “Thank you, my God.” 

On the way back to San Pedro, Sister 

Pauline points out how the five-daya-week 

food runs offset 90 percent 

of the food bill for residents and the 

eight Little Sisters at the Jeanne Jugan 

Residence. 

That, along with special collections 

at parishes in the archdiocese, allows 

the home to have a sliding scale to 

house the elderly poor. Most are on 

Medi-Cal (California’s version of the 

federal antipoverty Medicaid program) 

and Medicare for seniors. Along 

with their Social Security benefits 

and pensions, fees can be adjusted 

downward. 

And that’s great, she believes, because 

with aging Baby Boomers falling 

into poverty and needing health 

care, St. Jeanne Jugan’s mission to the 

elderly poor will be needed more than 

ever in the U.S. 

“Our foundress was truly a humble 

person, very humble, even when a local 

priest took over her ministry from 

her,” says Sister Pauline, frowning 

now. 

“She never said a word about that 

and died anonymously. But God saved 

her before for something special. He 

wanted her to take care of the poor, 

take care of the old people. So we 

want to keep her spirit going.” 

To support the Jeanne Jugan Residence 

in San Pedro, email Sister 

Pauline Kelly at clsanpedro@littlesistersofthepoor.org 

or call 310-548-0625. 


AD REM 

BY ROBERT BRENNAN 

Sign language 

There’s a reason McDonald’s 

spends more than a billion 

dollars a year in advertising. 

It works. Whether there is 

truth in McDonald’s advertising or 

any other form of advertising is another 

matter altogether. 

Advertising is all about hitting 

one’s “target” audience. That is why 

commercials for retirement funds, 

prostate medication, and senior living 

facilities sometimes are accompanied 

by music from Baby Boomer rock 

bands of the 1960s. Nothing like the 

cognitive dissonance of hearing a song 

about youthful rebellion by The Who 

shilling for a Fortune 500 investment 

portfolio. 

There is a sameness to advertising 

whether it is trying to entice someone 

to buy a slab of processed ground 

beef on a sesame seed bun, purchase 

a particular brand of soft drink, or 

encourage someone to think about 

who Jesus is. 

So, what are we selling and to whom 

are we selling with those signs outside 

of almost every church that almost 

always have a ubiquitous “All are 

welcome”? 

I’m dancing precariously close to 

crabby old guy on the porch yelling 

at the kids to keep off my lawn here, 

but that “All are welcome” bit always 

leaves me a little cold. Am I some 

kind of unwelcoming troglodyte who 

SHUTTERSTOCK 


should be living under a bridge? I 

don’t think so. Should a church be a 

welcoming place? Yes. 

But it’s a phrase that seems to have a 

subliminal advertising message to me. 

It seems to be saying it doesn’t matter 

who you are, and it doesn’t matter 

what you do. 

Come inside and everything is going 

to be happy and soft and nothing 

inside is going to make you uncomfortable. 

But something inside at the outset is 

going to make you uncomfortable … 

or at least it should. 

For starters, there is going to be a 

representation, sometimes a rather 

large one, of a 33-year-old man 

strapped to a tree with nails in his 

hands and feet, a crown of thorns, and 

blood oozing from a severe gash in his 

side. 

You go into some churches in other 

parts of the world and you will see a 

corpse under the altar and skulls and 

bones used as design elements. 

And if you’re still feeling welcomed, 

you are liable to hear the words of this 

same man telling a bunch of people 

things either they were not prepared 

to hear or things they absolutely did 

not want to hear. 

When people voted with their feet after 

Jesus revealed the fact his body was 

true food and his blood true drink, 

he didn’t run after the doubters. He 

kept walking in the opposite direction, 

pausing only when he realized Peter 

was still following. 

Peter was also one of those people 

who heard a lot of things he didn’t 

want to hear and found himself on the 

wrong side of a rebuke from Jesus. 

Let’s face it, Christianity is hard. It 

was hard for 1st-century fishermen to 

get right and it’s hard for 21st-century 

men to get right. 

Where the disciples did feel welcome, 

and where we should seek 

our sense of security and calm, is in 

the truth that Jesus revealed despite 

the difficulty in some of those truths 

handed down to us and kept safe by 

Holy Mother Church. 

And if you follow the “All are 

welcome” sign into this place and 

get there in time for the Scripture 

readings, you’re liable to come across 

some more uncomfortable messaging. 

Big companies get sued for false 

advertising all the time. 

If our “All are welcome” signs just 

mean come in, hear some nice music 

and a couple of nonthreatening 

platitudes, then we are guilty of the 

age-old advertising gimmick of the 

bait and switch. 

Jesus taught the truth even when it 

hurt, and he told us to expect nothing 

short of challenges and struggles for 

anyone who was to follow him. Of 

course, he also taught about the light 

at the end of any length of tunnel we 

may find ourselves in. 

In the spirit of keeping on the right 

side of the Federal Trade Commission 

and not adding a scandal of false 

advertising to other lists of scandals 

plaguing our Church at the present, I 

would suggest a small “rewrite” of all 

those “All are welcome” signs in front 

of churches. My ad man take would 

go something like this: 

“St. [insert name of saint here] parish 

community … memberships available / 

radical personal change required / only 

saints and sinners welcome.” 


A scene from “God Friended Me.” 

No random request 

‘God Friended Me’ explores mankind’s oldest search 

with a new attempt to bring God to the small screen 

BY CARL KOZLOWSKI / ANGELUS 

The world is a confusing 

place these days for many 

millennials — the current 

generation of teens and 

20-somethings who, according to 

polls, have been largely raised without 

any traditional religion or concept of 

God. 

Yet many studies also show that 

there is a yearning for a spiritual life, 

purpose, and meaning among many 

of these same young people, and that’s 

a feeling all ages can relate to. 

CBS has tapped into this quest by 

creating the terrific new series “God 

Friended Me,” which plays like a 

“Highway to Heaven” in the social 

media-driven present day. 

The show (which premiered Sunday, 

September 30) is centered around 

a young African-American man in 

New York City named Miles Finer 

(Brandon Micheal Hall), who’s the 

son of an Episcopalian priest named 

Arthur (Joe Morton), yet hosts an 

atheism-themed podcast that he 

hopes to sell to the satellite-radio giant 

SiriusXM. 

A childhood trauma has led Finer 

into losing his faith, to the disappointment 

of his father and bartender sister. 

But just as he’s preparing to meet with 

a SiriusXM executive about selling his 

show, he starts to get nonstop friend 

requests from someone claiming to be 

God on Facebook. 

God’s avatar, or account image, is 

of a cloud in the sky, so Finer thinks 

it’s a prank, until someone also starts 

sending him other friend suggestions 

for two people named John Dove 

(Christopher Redman) and Cara 

Bloom (Violett Beane). 

Just as Finer is about to angrily dismiss 

all the requests, Dove literally runs into 

him on the sidewalk while his girlfriend 

is dumping him. Stunned, Finer 

follows Dove down into the subway, just 

in time to save the distraught dumpee 

from jumping in front of a train. 

Now certain that there’s more to 

the story, and dying to find out who’s 

bothering him and why, Miles asks his 

computer wizard co-worker Rakesh 

Sehgal (Suresh Sharma) to find the IP 

address of the computer the requests 

are coming from. 

IMAGE VIA IMDB.COM 


He also decides to find Bloom, who 

turns out to be a website journalist 

suffering from long-term writer’s block 

— and who decides that the search for 

“God” as a Facebook presence might 

be the story to break her out of her 

slump. 

Thus the wheels are set in motion for 

a show that delivers solid performances 

across the board, fun dialogue and 

personalities, and a sense of purpose 

that is often lacking in today’s entertainment 

age. 

The mystery has some nice tense 

moments, and there’s just a spark of 

possible romance between Finer and 

Bloom, but the real power comes 

from the family dynamics involved 

once it is revealed that Bloom has 

mom issues akin to Finer’s struggles 

with faith and his father. 

At a special panel discussion for 

TV critics held in August, the producers 

and cast claimed that “God 

Friended Me” isn’t trying to put forth 

the idea that God is present in the 

Judeo-Christian sense or any other 

specific world faith. 

But refreshingly, the show actually 

has a clear embrace of a Judeo-Christian 

God, thanks to its positive 

portrayal of Finer’s father and Bloom 

referring to Old Testament miracles in 

a matter-of-fact way. 

The show has some touching 

discussions of God’s presence amid 

tragedies, divided families, and how to 

reconcile them and other universally 

relatable issues. 

As Finer, Bloom and Sehgal continue 

their search for who’s behind God’s 

Facebook account, the idea is that 

each week they’ll be helping a new 

troubled person out along the way. 

Considering that the show’s creators, 

Steven Lilian and Brian Wynbrandt, 

are a writing team from shows like the 

superhero drama “Gotham” and the 

“Hawaii Five-O” reboot, it’s hard to 

tell how faith-based the writers are in 

their real lives and how much more 

deeply they will explore theology 

beyond a surface level. 

But the pilot is a big-hearted, 

entertaining, and sincere effort that 

provides plenty of positive signs to find 

faith that it will continue to deliver as 

a show that Catholics and believers of 

all ages can enjoy. 


THE CRUX 

How the Poetic Justice Project is 

‘unlocking hearts and minds’ 

through prison theater 

BY HEATHER KING 

Acts of freedom 

The Poetic Justice Project 

(PJP), based in Santa Maria, 

“advances social justice by 

engaging formerly incarcerated 

people in the creation of original 

theatre that examines crime, punishment, 

and redemption.” 

The PJP began in 2009, in conjunction 

with the William James Association’s 

Prison Arts Project. 

The stats are staggering. 

One in 104 American adults is 

behind bars. 

The State of California alone has 

added 21 state prisons in 30 years, 

with the prison population expanding 

from 23,000 to 170,000. 

Taxpayers pay $11 billion per year to 

operate the California Department of 

Corrections and Rehabilitation. 

Our recidivism rate is 70 percent — 

twice the national average. 

Enter Deborah Tobola, the PJP’s 

founding artistic director, and a widely 

published poet and children’s books 

author. Tobola, 62, worked for more 

than 12 years teaching writing and 

managing an arts program in California 

prisons. 

“It was kind of a journey. When I 

taught my first poetry class, at Tehachapi 

in the early ’90s, I went in 

with the typical stereotypes. I pictured 

walking down a dark corridor and 

there’d be arms sticking out from behind 

bars and they’d all have tattoos. 

In fact, the guys were very much like 

the college students I was teaching 

at the time, except they were dressed 

the same. And they were maybe more 

polite.” 

The problem with 

the prison industry, 

Tobola quickly 

realized, was that it 

becomes a revolving 

door. Recently released 

inmates tend 

to want to isolate — 

which can be fatal. 

She soon switched 

her focus to theater. 

In 2009, when she 

left full-time teaching 

to begin the PJP, 

her aim was twofold. 

“One, to educate 

people about incarceration 

reentry 

while entertaining 

them, and two, to 

help the individual 

actors reconnect to 

their communities.” 

Last summer the PJP staged a 

production in Santa Barbara called 

“Crossing the Line.” Directed by 

Robyn Taylor, the play is based on 

peace activist Dennis Apel’s account, 

published in a series of essays in The 

Santa Barbara Independent, of his 

four months in federal prison for 

protesting nuclear war and weapons at 

Vandenberg Air Force Base. 

Apel, a 66-year-old husband, father, 

and member of the Guadalupe 

Catholic Worker, plays himself in 

“Crossing the Line.” Two of the other 

actors are recently released former 

lifers. 

One, Brian Alsup, served almost 38 

years. 

Actors Dennis Apel (left) and Ryan Dunn perform in a recent production 

of “Crossing the Line.” 

“On Feb. 26, 2009, my birthday, I 

had reached a low point. I woke up 

in prison that morning with a dilemma: 

either give life another chance 

— or end my life. I sat down and I 

prayed to a God I didn’t even believe 

in. Suddenly I felt a kind of warmth 

I’d never felt before. I decided I was 

worth one more shot. From that point 

on, I dedicated myself to getting out of 

prison. And once out, I knew I had to 

give back to the community.” 

Alsup’s character in “Crossing the 

Line” is named Frankie. When Apel 

enters the cell block, Frankie greets 

him with a menacing demand: “Are 

you a chomo?” — chomo being prison 

lingo for child molester. 

CYNTHIA SEMEL 


The play is told through the lens of 

Apel’s experiences in prison — strict 

racial segregation, inedible food, 

being thrown into the hole for over a 

week because a letter sent by a friend 

had supposedly contained traces of 

cocaine. 

But the purpose is to showcase the 

plight of people who spend far longer 

than he did behind bars. “These are 

human beings we lock up who have 

a life basically no one should have,” 

he says. 

Alsup admits that when he first read 

the play he thought, “Come on, this 

guy served a big four months?” But 

afterward he took Apel aside and told 

him, “I thought you were maybe a 

whiner. But now I see you’ve dedicated 

your life to your belief system. 

I see four months was a long time 

for standing up for what you think is 

right. I want you to know how much I 

appreciate and respect you for that.” 

As for those of us who were watching, 

the support and embrace of the 

crowd was palpable. The actors tell 

a bit of their stories in the post-show 

Q&A, which humanizes the event 

even further. Says Tobola, “By the end 

of the performance the audience feels 

‘I am one of them. We’re all in this 

together.’ ” 

“Crossing the Line” will be staged at 

Loyola Marymount University on Jan. 

31, 2019. Other future productions 

can be found at the PJP website. 

Tobola’s social justice memoir, 

“Hummingbird in Underworld: 

Teaching in Men’s Prison,” will be 

launched by She Writes Press in July 

2019. “There seems to be a new commitment 

to rehabilitation, lawsuits, 

progress in general oversight,” she 

says. “We’ve seen some change. I’m 

an optimist by nature, but how long 

is it really going to take to turn this 

around?” 

Alsup is now a Dean’s List Paralegal 

Studies student at Allen Hancock College 

with a 4.0 GPA. “I’m extremely 

proud of that. I used to try to drown 

myself in drugs and alcohol. I like 

Brian now.” 

As for Apel, he can still be found 

outside Vandenberg Air Force Base 

every first Wednesday of the month, 

carrying his sign, vigiling for peace. 

Heather King is a blogger, speaker and 

the author of several books. 

October 5, 2018 • ANGELUS • 33

Angelus News | October 5, 2018 | Vol. 3 No. 33

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