Angelus News | May 31, 2019 | Vol. 4 No. 20

ANGELUS
Made for Mission
Meeting LA’s newest priests
May 31, 2019 Vol. 4 No. 20

Contents
Archbishop Gomez 3 An LA priest’s overdue tribute to the greatest ‘teacher of teachers’ 18
World, Nation and Local News 4-6
Fighting despair on Skid Row 20
LA Catholic Events 7
John Allen: The pope’s got more than one Italian problem 24
Scott Hahn on Scripture 8 Robert Brennan: How ‘linguistic malpractice’ hampers the abortion debate 26
Father Rolheiser 9 Heather King checks out the museum honoring the reign of print 28
ON THE COVER
The six transitional deacons to be ordained to the priesthood June 1 by Archbishop
José H. Gomez pose outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. They include
an architect, a music producer, and a scientist. Starting on page 10, they each speak
to Angelus News about the paths their vocations took them on and why they believe
the priesthood is “worth it” more than ever in 2019.
IMAGE: A displaced Christian woman prays in front of a grotto with
a statue of Mary in Kaya, Burkina Faso, May 16. Bishops’
conferences from French-speaking West Africa have pledged
solidarity with Christian communities after a spate of Islamist
attacks.
VICTOR ALEMÁN
CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/ANNE MIMAULT, REUTERS

ANGELUS
May 31, 2019 | Vol.4 • No.20
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POPE WATCH
Fighting fake news
The task of journalism is to seek the
truth, which requires humility and
freedom of the press, Pope Francis
told foreign correspondents working
in Italy at a May 18 audience at the
Vatican.
“At a time when many spread fake
news, humility keeps you from peddling
food spoiled by disinformation
and invites you to offer the good bread
of truth. The humble journalist is a
free journalist: free from pressures,
free from biases,” he said.
Because of the great impact they can
have, journalists have a huge responsibility
to get the story right, which
includes paying attention to the words
and images they choose and the information
they share on social media,
the pope said.
Journalists, Francis said, must always
recognize the power they hold and
resist the temptation to assume they
already know everything and to publish
news that has not been adequately
fact-checked.
“At a time when many tend to
prejudge everything and everyone,
humility also helps journalists not
be dominated by speed and to try to
slow down, to find the time needed to
understand” and get all the facts right
before telling the story or commenting,
he said.
The pope recognized the temptation
to do what is easier: not ask too many
questions; be happy with the initial
answers or predictable solutions;
oversimplify; not go in-depth and stick
to just how things appear. Instead, it
takes much effort to carry out a proper
info@
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investigation in order to “represent the
complexity of real life.”
People must understand that “an
article, a tweet, a live television or
radio broadcast can do good,” but
journalists also “can do harm to others
and sometimes entire communities if
they are not careful and meticulous,”
the pope said.
The pope also recognized the perils
many journalists face and the lives lost
when covering conflicts or other tragedies,
and told the correspondents the
world needs journalists “who are on
the side of the victims, the persecuted,
those who are excluded, rejected,
and discriminated against” because of
their religion or ethnicity.
The world needs a light shone on
“the darkness of indifference” and
to be consistently reminded of those
who suffer, victims of forgotten wars,
babies who are aborted, children who
lack food and health care, child soldiers
and the lives of those who have
been violated, he said.
The pope urged journalists to cover
all the immense good that people are
doing in the world — people who do
not give in to indifference, who do not
flee in the face of injustice, but who
seek to quietly build a better world.
“There is an ocean overflowing with
good that deserves to be known and
that gives strength to our hope,” he
said.
Reporting courtesy of Catholic News
Service Rome correspondent Carol
Glatz.
@Angelus
News
www.la-archdiocese.org
@Angelus
News
2 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2019

NEW WORLD
OF FAITH
BY ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ
Christ is alive in his Church
These days have been a busy and
beautiful time in my ministry.
As I write, it is the ninth anniversary
of my welcome Mass as coadjutor
archbishop of Los Angeles.
Who knows where the time goes?
These years have been the joy of my
life and I thank God for this privilege
to serve the family of God here.
We are coming to the end of Mary’s
month, and in these years in Los
Angeles I have felt a growing sense
of her loving presence in my life and
her protection of this local Church
named for her as the Queen of the
Angels.
We are nearing the end of that happy
time after Easter. After baptizing and
welcoming many new believers at the
Easter vigil, in these weeks after Easter
I find myself celebrating three or four
confirmations a week in parishes all
across the archdiocese.
The Church is alive here in Los
Angeles, and growing — I see it in the
excitement of these young men and
women coming to be confirmed.
They are hungry to know what God
is like, and where they can find him,
and how they should worship him,
and what all of this means for how
they should live. These young people
are ready to follow Jesus wherever he
leads. And they are inspiring to me
in my own faith, my own walk with
Jesus.
This month I also had the joy
to install Auxiliary Bishop Joseph
Brennan as the new bishop of Fresno,
our neighbor to the north. And just
after that, we welcomed a new bishop
here, ordaining Auxiliary Bishop Alex
Aclan.
“Jesus promised to be
with his Church until
the end of the age
and promised his
Spirit to guide us.“
We were joined in these celebrations
by Pope Francis’ personal representative
to our country, Apostolic Nuncio
Christophe Pierre. His presence was
a sign of hope, a reminder that every
local Church is united by spiritual
bonds to a Church that is universal
and global and at the same time is
a divine institution established by
Christ on the foundations of the
Twelve Apostles.
We celebrated, here and in Fresno,
with joyful, festive liturgies, and simple
gatherings of families and friends.
There was fun and laughter and tears
of joy.
For me, it was a personal joy to be
with the families of Bishop Brennan
and Bishop Aclan, to meet their loved
ones and to realize how the loving
example they saw in their homes gave
birth to their vocations, their joyful
faith, and sense of service.
During his remarks at his ordination
ceremony, Bishop Aclan was visibly
moved as he talked about his love for
our Blessed Mother Mary. I will never
forget that moment and the feeling of
Mary’s maternal presence watching
over all of us and our families.
I am getting ready, in the weekends
to come, to ordain new priests and
permanent deacons for the family of
God. Once again, God has blessed us
with fine men who love him and have
a heart to reveal him to others.
We need to remember these graces,
all these beautiful traces of God that
we see in our everyday lives. I know
I do.
Jesus promised to be with his
Church until the end of the age and
promised his Spirit to guide us. He
will not leave us.
Jesus died for us, he rose for us, and
now he walks with us. And if we know
where to look, and how to look —
with the eyes of faith — we will see
that Christ is alive in his Church.
I see him working in the hidden
sacrifices of priests, giving everything
they have to bring Jesus to their
people, to help them know God’s love
and his plan for their lives.
I see him working in our parishes
and chancery offices, in our schools
and ministries and homes. There are
saints and servants of the Gospel in all
these places!
All around us, the risen Lord is still
making things new, still changing
hearts and minds, transfiguring this
rough clay of our humanity so that we
can partake in his divinity. Let’s ask
God to give us the eyes to see that!
Pray for me this week and I will pray
for you. Keep praying for the Church
and working to renew the Church by
your own holiness.
Let us ask Our Lady, Queen of the
Angels, to help us every day to love
Jesus more and to do everything for
the glory of God and the love of our
neighbors.
To read more columns by Archbishop José H. Gomez or to subscribe, visit www.angelusnews.com.
May 31, 2019 • ANGELUS • 3

WORLD
Right-to-die case takes
a last-minute turn
A surprise court order in France
was the difference between life
and death for a quadraplegic man
in a vegetative state for more than
a decade.
Vincent Lambert has been at
the center of disputes between his
family members in various courts
since he was injured in a serious
car accident in 2008.
Hours after the European Court
of Human Rights had affirmed a
doctor’s recommendation to stop
feeding him due to his “irreversible”
condition, an appeal by Lambert’s
devout Catholic parents to
a U.N. court resulted in a court
order to restore his life support at
a hospital in Rheims, France.
Vatican bioethics specialist
Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia
had called the original decision
“a form of abandonment, based
on a pitiless judgment about the
quality of life and an expression
of a throwaway culture.”
Catholics, Anglicans asked to pray together
Pope Francis has taken to Youtube to call on Catholics to join Anglicans in
a prayer campaign from May 30 (Ascension) to June 9 (Pentecost).
Anglican Archbishops Justin Welby and John Sentamu started the “Thy
Kingdom Come” initiative among the Anglican faithful in 2016 as a way of
encouraging evangelization.
According to the campaign’s website, those who participate are “praying
that the Spirit would inspire and equip us to share the good news of Jesus
Christ with our friends and families, our communities and networks.”
When Welby recently invited Francis to join in the “global prayer movement,”
even he was surprised by the response: an online video in which
Francis is interviewed by Welby, who holds the title of archbishop of Canterbury
in the Anglican church.
The pope says that “Come, Holy Spirit” is “the cry of all Christians” leading
up to Pentecost, and all followers of Christ should “expand their hearts
and the heart of the Church” with the prayer.
PRIEST MURDERED — Priests pray over the casket of 38-year-old Father Cecilio Perez during
his funeral Mass in Sonzacate, El Salvador, May 20. Parishioners found Perez dead in his
residence early May 18 with a note nearby that said he had not paid “rent,” a euphemism
for extortion money.
CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE PHOTO/JOSE CABEZAS, REUTERS
ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
A member of Vincent Lambert’s support committee
at a May 20 protest in Rome.
Iraqi prelate: Please, not another war
The leader of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq is urging President
Trump and Iranian leaders to de-escalate aggressive gestures and language
as relations between their countries reach a new low.
Cardinal Louis Raphael I Sako called for a focus on “restoring calm” and
promoting “civil dialogue.”
Iraq and surrounding areas “cannot tolerate another catastrophic war in
which everyone is the ‘loser,’ especially the innocent and poor,” said Sako,
according to Crux. He also insisted that dialogue is the most effective way to
promote “the actual needs of the region,” including peaceful coexistence,
mutual respect, and good relations among different communities.
Tensions have flared since a rocket suspected by some to be Iranian almost
hit the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad May 19. Trump responded by warning
in a tweet that “If Iran wants to fight … it will be the official end for Iran.
Never try to threaten the United States again!”
4 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2019

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/BOB ROLLER
NATION
ANDRES MARTINEZ CASARES/CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE, REUTERS
MANDATE FROM MOTHER CHURCH — Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory displays the papal
bull on his appointment to Washington, D.C., during his installation Mass at the Basilica of
the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington May 21. Gregory takes
over for Cardinal Donald Wuerl in a diocese shaken by the reawakening Church abuse
scandal of the last year. “Our recent sorrow and shame do not define us; rather, they
serve to chasten and strengthen us to face tomorrow with spirits undeterred,” Gregory
said in his homily.
Bishops see ‘misery’ in immigration overhaul plan
A woman, part of a convoy of Central American migrants,
reacts as she and her child are escorted into a van by National
Institute of Migration officers, after being detained at
a checkpoint on the outskirts of Tapachula, Mexico, May 19.
U.S. bishops aren’t
fans of the Trump
administration’s latest
immigration proposal,
saying it doesn’t do
enough to keep families
together.
The White House
announced plans May
17 to overhaul the
country’s immigration
system by giving
priority to those with
highly developed
work skills, while
reducing the number
of family members
someone already inside the country can bring in.
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops President Cardinal Daniel
DiNardo of Houston and Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin, Texas, said in a
statement that while Trump is right to emphasize secure borders, he can’t
accomplish that goal “by heightening human misery and restricting access
to lawful protection in an attempt to deter vulnerable asylum-seeking
families and children.”
The proposal also plans to limit the number of asylum-seekers the United
States will accept each year.
Alabama abortion
ban signed into law
The state of Alabama became the
first in the country to effectively ban
abortion within its borders after its
governor signed House Bill 314 into
law May 15.
The law will hit doctors who perform
the procedure, though never
mothers who seek it, with a Class A
felony charge and potentially a life
prison sentence.
Alabama Catholic leaders were
quick to applaud the bill’s passage,
with Bishop Robert Baker of Birmingham
praising “the efforts of
these legislators to promote life” and
hoping that the bill starts a process
that will make abortion across
the country “no longer viewed as
anything but the horrendous and inhumane
killing of the most innocent
among us.”
Bishop Baker’s thoughts reflect
the intentions of the bill’s authors,
who want to spark a Supreme Court
challenge and potentially reverse Roe
v. Wade.
Study links faith to
happy marriage
Newly released findings from a
study on religiosity and marital happiness
indicate that “highly religious
couples in heterosexual relationships”
find more happiness within
their day-to-day relationships than
couples who are less religious.
The study was conducted by a
group of researchers, professors,
and sociologists using data from the
World Values Survey and the Family
and Gender Survey and spanned
11 countries, including the United
States and Canada.
The factor “relationship satisfaction”
that was examined actually
revealed that both secular progressive
women and conservative religious
women both value “devoted family
men” within their respective relationships.
May 31, 2019 • ANGELUS • 5

LOCAL
Summer program to launch
at St. Anthony High School
From July 9 through July 18 this summer, Catholic
school students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades
will have a unique opportunity to give high school
a test run in St. Anthony High School’s Academy of
Saints enrichment program.
The Long Beach high school focuses on a STEAM
(Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics)
integrated curriculum, so the summer program’s
14 course options will be tailored to offer real
learning in a safe, fun environment. Choices include:
“Sports Medicine for Saints,” “Engineering is Exciting,”
and “Wonderful World of Fashion.”
Summer school principal Brett Minter said the program’s
goal is to provide students with “an opportunity
to discover their passion, in some cases, strengthening
what they already know they love, while others are
introduced to a beloved new concept.”
Information about the Academy of Saints program
can be found at longbeachsaints.org.
A TRADITION OF CATHOLIC EDUCATION — The Rivas sisters and
their daughters were recognized at the San Gabriel Mission High
School Annual Scholarship Benefit Luncheon, held Saturday, May
18. All four sisters graduated from Mission between 1993 and
2002, and now the daughters of two of the sisters are continuing
the family’s legacy. Senior Victoria will graduate this year, and incoming
freshman Rebecca will be a member of the Class of 2023.
PHOTO COURTESY SAN GABRIEL MISSION HIGH SCHOOL
CA closer to killing confession
The fight to save confession has moved to the California
Assembly.
Despite petitions from thousands of Catholics, the state
Senate on May 23 voted 30-2 to force priests to disclose
information concerning the sexual abuse of minors that
they hear in confession.
Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles said he was
“deeply disappointed” by the vote on Senate Bill 360.
The California bishops are urging lawmakers to
strengthen child protection reporting requirements while
maintaining traditional protections for “penitential communications.”
SB 360 now protects the seal of the confessional —
except in cases where a priest is hearing another priest’s
confession or in cases where a priest is hearing the confession
of a co-worker.
The bill will be debated in the Assembly in the month
of June. The California bishops are calling on Catholics
to contact their representatives in Sacramento and urge
them to oppose the bill. To make your voice heard, contact
www.cacatholic.org.
OFFICE OF PARISH LIFE
LAY LEADERS OUT OF LMU — This
year’s graduating class from Loyola
Marymount University’s Parish Business
Administration program pose
with Archbishop José H. Gomez after
10 a.m. Mass at the Cathedral of Our
Lady of the Angels May 19. Over the
course of 16 Saturday sessions starting
last fall, students were trained in
topics such as budgeting and canon
and civil law to equip them to help
with pastoral ministry in their parishes.
The program was hosted by LMU’s
Center for Religion and Spirituality.
6 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2019

LA Catholic Events
Items for LA Catholic Events are due two weeks prior to the date of the event. They may be mailed to Angelus (Attn: LA Catholic Events), 3424 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90010-2241;
emailed to calendar@angelusnews.com; or faxed to (213) 637-6360. All items must include the name, date, time, and address of the event, plus a phone number for additional information.
Sat., June 1
Italian Catholic Club 5th Anniversary Dinner. Spumoni’s
Restaurant outdoor patio, 24917 Pico Canyon
Rd., Stevenson Ranch, 6 p.m. Authentic Italian food,
one complimentary bottle of wine per table, a raffle,
and dancing to the live music of Duo Domino. Cost:
$45/person, prepaid. Call Anna Riggs for reservations
and information at 661-645-7877.
Little Sisters of the Poor Seasons and Celebrations:
High Tea and Fashion Show. 2100 S. Western Ave.,
San Pedro, 12-2 p.m. Cost: $25/person. RSVP by Fri.,
May 24. Visit http://www.littlesistersofthepoorsanpedro.org/seasons-and-celebrations-high-tea-andfashion-show/
for tickets.
The Life of the World to Come. Sacred Heart Church
parish hall, 344 W. Workman St., Covina, 10 a.m.-4
p.m. Talks by Father George Reynolds and Dominic
Berardino include “What Happens When We Die?”
and “Who Experiences Purgatory?” Day includes
Mass. Cost: $20/person before May 28, $25 at door
and includes catered lunch. Contact SCRC at 818-
771-1361, email spirit@scrc.org, or visit scrc.org.
Foster Care and Adoption Information Meeting.
Children’s Bureau’s Magnolia Place, 1910 Magnolia
Ave., Los Angeles, or 1529 E. Palmdale Blvd., Ste.
210, Palmdale, 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. RSVP or learn
more by calling 213-342-0162, call toll free at 800-
730-3933, or email RFrecruitment@all4kids.org.
St. Jerome Conference of the Society of St. Vincent
de Paul Annual BBQ Fundraiser. St. Jerome Church,
5550 Thornburn St., Los Angeles, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.
Enjoy BBQ spare ribs, tri-tip or chicken with baked
beans, potato salad, and dessert. Cost: $10-$16/person.
For more information, call Morris Bernstein at
310-467-4822.
“Love Everyone — Even My Enemy?” Mini-Retreat.
Pauline Books & Media, 3908 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver
City, 2-4 p.m. Jesus’ great commandments of love
teach us to love everyone without exception. In this
retreat, Sister Patricia Shaules, FSP, will share insights
and methods that can help us love even those
who have hurt us and the “hard to love.” Donation:
$10/person. RSVP at 310-397-8676 or email culvercity@paulinemedia.com.
Zydeco Dance Under the Stars, featuring Dennis G
and the Trailriderz. St. Agatha Church, 2646 South
Mansfield Ave., Los Angeles, 7-9 p.m. As part of Carnivale
and Fiesta May 31, 4-10 p.m., June 1, 3-10
p.m., June 2, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Free admission. Raffle,
games, rides, cuisine representing many cultures. For
more information, call 323-935-8127.
Sun., June 2
Christine Haapala: Author Meet-and-Greet. Cathedral
Conference Center lobby, 555 W. Temple St., Los
Angeles. Meet Christine Haapala, best-selling author
of “Seraphim and Cherubim” and “Speak, Lord, I am
Listening,” after the 8 and 10 a.m. Masses at the Cathedral
Gift Shop. Visit cathedralgiftshop.com or call
213-680-5277.
Thur., June 6
Dr. Scott Hahn: “The Riches of Our Catholic Faith.”
St. Rose of Lima Church, 1305 Royal Ave., Simi Valley,
8:30 a.m.-12 p.m. Cost: $20/person. RSVP and
details at stpaulcenter.com/simivalley. For more
information, email office@stpaulcenter.com or call
740-264-9535.
Fri., June 7
Dr. Scott Hahn: “Consuming the Word.” St. Therese
Church, 1100 E. Alhambra Rd., Alhambra, 7-9 p.m.
Cost: $15/person. RSVP and details at stpaulcenter.
com/alhambra2019. For more information, email office@st.paulcenter.com
or call 740-264-9535.
Sat., June 8
When One Door Closes: Day of Recollection for People
in Transition. Mary & Joseph Retreat Center, 5300
Crest Rd., Rancho Palos Verdes, 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m.
Join those who have lost loved ones, gone through
divorce, sickness, new jobs, and other transition periods
in seeking spiritual healing. Cost: $60/person and
includes lunch. Call Marlene Velazquez at 310-377-
4867, ext. 234 for reservations or information.
New Life in the Spirit Seminar. Incarnation School
auditorium, 1001 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, 9 a.m.-
6 p.m. On-site registration starts at 8:30 a.m. For
information or to register for this free seminar, call
818-421-1354 or email hojprayergroup@gmail.com.
Foster Care and Adoption Information Meeting.
Children’s Bureau’s Carson office, 460 E. Carson Plaza
Dr., Ste. 102, Carson, or Andrew’s Plaza, 11335
W. Magnolia Blvd., Ste. 2C, N. 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. RSVP or learn more by calling 213-
342-0162, call toll free at 800-730-3933, or email
RFrecruitment@all4kids.org.
Mon., Jun 10
Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the
Church. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 W.
Temple St., Los Angeles, 12 p.m. All are welcome to
celebrate this memorial of Mary, our Mother of the
Church, begun by Pope Francis last year.
Thur., June 13
Nazareth House Auxiliary Luncheon. 3333 Manning
Ave., Los Angeles, 11:30 a.m. Cost: $20/person donation.
Call Marilyn at 424-275-9609 to RSVP.
Sat., June 15
Healing Workplace Conflicts. Mary & Joseph Retreat
Center, 5300 Crest Rd., Rancho Palos Verdes, 9 a.m.-
4 p.m. Find the courage and strength to invite light,
integration, and healing into work situations. Dr. Pamela
Davidson is a researcher who has developed
a workplace training program, “Creating Positive
Organizational Climate by Design.” Father Thomas
Kelly is an Air Force chaplain (Ret.) who has served
the military for more than 30 years, counseling those
with PTSD. Cost, $50/person ($55 after 6/7), lunch
included. Call Marlene Velazquez at 310-377-4867,
ext. 234 for reservations or information.
Sat., June 22
Celebration of Our Cultures Mass. Cathedral of Our
Lady of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles,
3:30 p.m.
St. Catherine Laboure Rummage Sale Fundraiser.
3846 Redondo Beach Blvd., Torrance, 8 a.m.-2 p.m.
Sale will be held Saturday and Sunday in the Church
hall. For more information, call Sue Burin at 310-308-
9920.
Sat., July 13
Building Resilience & Finding Joy: Separated, Divorced
and Widowed Ministry Workshop. Cathedral
of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles,
9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Presenter: Joe Sikorra, LMFT.
Learn what God and research say about resilience
and joy in your life. Day includes a tour of the cathedral,
Mass celebrated by Father Jim Gehl, and lunch.
Cost: $30/person by July 8. Register at http://store.
la-archdiocese.org/building-resilience-and-finding-joy.
Call Julie Auzenne at 213-637-7249 or email
jmonell@la-archdiocese.org for more information.
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.
• Actor John Reilly is nourishing his audience’s souls at Pasadena Playhouse.
• Local high school sports stars now making it big in women’s college ball.
• Women of faith are the most satisfied in marriage, according to study.
May 31, 2019 • ANGELUS • 7

SUNDAY
READINGS
BY SCOTT HAHN
Acts 1:1–11 / Ps. 47:2–3, 6–7, 8–9 / Eph. 1:17–23 or Heb. 9:24–28; 10:19–23 / Lk. 24:46–53
In today’s First Reading, St.
Luke gives the surprising news
that there is more of the story
to be told. The story did not
end with the empty tomb, or
with Jesus’ appearances over the
course of 40 days. Jesus’ saving
work will have a liturgical consummation.
He is the great high
priest, and he has still to ascend
to the true Holy of Holies in the
heavenly Jerusalem.
The truth of this feast shines
forth from the Letter to the
Hebrews, where we read of
the great high priest’s passing
through the heavens, the sinless
intercessor’s sacrifice on our
behalf (see Hebrews 4:14-15).
Indeed, his intercession will
lead to the Holy Spirit’s descent
in fire upon the Church. Luke
spells out that promise: “In a
few days you will be baptized
with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5).
Ascension is the preliminary
feast that directs the Church’s
attention forward to Pentecost.
On that day, salvation will be complete;
for salvation is not simply expiation
for sins (that would be wonder
enough); it is something even greater
than that. Expiation is itself a necessary
precondition of our adoption as
God’s children. To live that divine
life we must receive the Holy Spirit.
To receive the Holy Spirit we must be
purified through baptism.
The Epistle strikes a distinctively
paschal note. In the early Church, as
today, Easter was the normal time for
the baptism of adult converts. The
sacrament was often called “illumination”
or “enlightenment” (see Hebrew
“Ascension of Christ,” by Benvenuto Tisi da Garofalo,
1481-1559, Italian.
10:32) because of the light that came
with God’s saving grace.
St. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians,
speaks of glory that leads to
greater glories still, as Ascension
leads to Pentecost: “May the eyes
of your hearts be enlightened,” he
writes, as he looks to the divinization
of the believers. Their “hope” is “his
inheritance among the holy ones,”
the saints who have been adopted into
God’s family and now rule with him.
This is the “good news” the apostles
are commissioned to spread — to all
nations, beginning from Jerusalem
— at the first Ascension. It’s the good
news we must spread today.
Scott Hahn is founder of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, stpaulcenter.com.
WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
8 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2019

IN EXILE
BY FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI
Where is home?
During the years that I served as a
religious superior for a province of
Oblate priests and brothers in Western
Canada, I tried to keep my foot inside
the academic world by doing some
adjunct teaching at the University of
Saskatchewan. It was always a oncea-week
night course, advertised as a
primer on Christian theology, and
drew a variety of students.
One of the assigned readings for that
course was Christopher de Vinck’s
book, “Only the Heart Knows How to
Find Them: Precious Memories for a
Faithless Time.” The book is a series
of autobiographical essays, most of
which focus on his home life and his
relationship to his wife and children.
The essays describing his relationship
to his wife don’t overplay
the romantic, but are wonderfully
heart-warming and set sex into a context
of marriage, safety, and fidelity.
At the end of the semester a young
woman, 30 years old, said this to me
as she handed in her term paper, a
reflection on de Vinck’s book:
“This is the best book I’ve ever read.
I didn’t have a lot of moral guidance
growing up and so I wasn’t always
careful with my heart and was pretty
free and existential about sex. I’ve
basically slept my way through two
Canadian provinces; but now I know
that what I really want is what this
man (de Vinck) has. I’m looking for
the marriage bed!” Her eyes teared
as she shared this. I’m looking for the
marriage bed! That’s a great image for
what the heart calls home.
At the end of the day, what is home?
Is it an ethnic identity, a gender, a
citizenship, a house somewhere, the
place where we were born, or is it a
place in the heart?
It’s a place in the heart, and the
image of the marriage bed situates it
well. Home is where you are comfortable
physically, psychologically, and
morally. Home is where you feel safe.
Home is where your heart doesn’t feel
out of place, compromised, violated,
denigrated, trivialized, or pushed
aside (even if it is sometimes taken for
granted).
Home is a place that you don’t have
to go away from to be yourself. Home
is where you can be fully yourself
without the need to posture that you
are anything other than who you are.
Home is where you are at ease.
There are various lessons couched
inside that concept of home, not least,
as this young woman came to realize,
some valuable insights apposite how
we think about love and sex. Some of
what’s at stake here is captured in the
popular notion of longing for a soul
mate.
The trouble, though, is that generally
we tend to think of a soul mate in
very charged romantic terms. But, as
de Vinck’s book illustrates, finding a
soul mate has more to do with finding
the moral comfort and psychological
safety of a monogamous marriage
bed than it has to do with the stuff of
romantic novels.
In terms of our sexuality, what lies
deepest inside our erotic longings is
the desire to find someone to take us
home. Any sex from which you have
to go home is still something that is
not delivering what you most long for
and is, at best, a temporary tonic that
leaves you searching still for something
further and more real.
The phrase, “I’m looking for the
marriage bed,” also contains some
insights vis-a-vis discerning among the
various kinds of love, infatuation, and
attractions we fall into.
Most people are by nature temperamentally
promiscuous, meaning
that we experience strong feelings of
attraction, infatuation, and love for
all kinds of others, irrespective of the
fact that often what we are attracted to
in another is not something we could
ever be at home with.
We can fall in love with a lot of
different kinds of people, but what
kind of love makes for a marriage
and a home? Marriage and home are
predicated on the kind of love that
takes you home, on the kind of love
that gives you the sense that with this
person you can be at home and can
build a home.
And, obviously, this concept doesn’t
just apply to a husband and wife in
marriage. It’s an image for what constitutes
home — for everyone, married
and celibate alike. The marriage
bed is a metaphor for what puts one’s
psychological and moral center at ease.
T.S. Eliot once wrote, “Home is
where we start from.” It’s also where
we want to end up. At birth our
parents bring us home. That’s where
we start from and where we are at ease
until puberty drives us out in search of
another home.
Lots of pitfalls potentially await us
in that search, but if we listen to that
deep counsel inside us, that irrepressible
longing to get home again, then
like the wise Magi who followed a special
star to the manger, we, too, will
find the marriage bed — or, at least,
we won’t be looking for it in all the
wrong places.
Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual writer, www.ronrolheiser.com.
May 31, 2019 • ANGELUS • 9

Ready to announce his glory
Los Angeles, meet your new priests
BY PABLO KAY / ANGELUS
The vocation to the priesthood
found each of this year’s new
priests for the Archdiocese of Los
Angeles in different places, phases, and
careers during their lives.
To one, the calling appeared after
atheism and a conversion spurred by a
personal tragedy. To others, it started as
a whisper at a young age that seemed to
come and go at times, but never really
went away for good.
On June 1, these six men will be
ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop
José H. Gomez at the Cathedral
of Our Lady of the Angels after years
of formation at St. John’s Seminary in
Camarillo.
They will be sent forth to evangelize
in a sprawling metropolis where so
many yearn for answers to the deepest
questions of their lives — answers that
these men have personally found in
Jesus Christ and his Church. Here are
their stories.
10 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2019
To watch interviews
with #NewLApriests visit
angelusnews.com/lapriest
ANGELUS

Miguel Ángel Ruiz
Age: 27
Hometown: Yahualica, Jalisco, Mexico
Home parish: St. Matthew Church, Long Beach
First Mass: 4 p.m., Sunday, June 2, at St. Matthew
First parish assignment: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
Church, Rowland Heights
Favorite hobby: Cooking
VICTOR ALEMÁN
The youngest member of the Class of 2019, Miguel Ángel
Ruiz knew by the time he graduated high school
that God was calling him to something different.
Ruiz grew up the second of three children in Yahualica, a
small town outside of Guadalajara, before his family immigrated
to the U.S. when he was 10. Since as early as he can
remember, his family frequently attended Mass, eucharistic
adoration and special devotions.
“That nurtured my faith a lot since a young age,” said Ruiz.
It also nurtured his vocation to the priesthood, which Ruiz
said was shaped by the faith he saw in family members during
difficult situations and by priests he grew up around in both
countries who “loved their priesthood.”
“They celebrated the sacraments with so much love, and
they really cared for the people of God,” recalled Ruiz. “That
was a good inspiration for me to continue in my discernment
until I entered the seminary.”
After high school graduation, Ruiz enrolled at the Juan
Diego House in Gardena (since renamed the Queen of the
Angels Center for Priestly Transformation), where college-age
seminarians aspiring to the diocesan priesthood live. He lived
there for five years before spending the last five years at St.
John’s Seminary in Camarillo.
As he prepares to embark on the fulfillment of those 10
years of studies and formation, Ruiz is simply grateful for “the
blessing to follow Jesus” despite the difficulties that are sure
to arise.
“In life there can be many different challenges and in the
priesthood especially, nowadays, it can be seen as a huge
challenge,” Ruiz told Angelus News. “But I am confident
that I am not by myself.”
Miguel Ángel Ruiz with older brother Luis (left), younger sister Lupita, and
his father, Reyes, at a family gathering.
His newest mission, Ruiz believes, depends on the prayers of
the Catholics he’ll be serving.
“It’s the Lord who has sent us here, so I trust that God will
be able to help us in any challenges that we may have,” said
Ruiz. “And that is the same message that I bring the people of
God: to trust in God amidst the challenges.”
For the young people of his generation, Ruiz believes that
the Church can reach them the same way she reached him:
through the personal witness of holy priests.
Ruiz’s first assignment will be St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
Church in Rowland Heights, an assignment he’s eager to get
started.
“I’m waiting for that wonderful day when I will be able to go
and minister to them (St. Elizabeth parishioners), to go and
learn from them, and most especially to share our faith.”
MIGUEL ÁNGEL RUIZ
May 31, 2019 • ANGELUS • 11

Luther Diaz
Age: 47
Hometown: Los Angeles (San Fernando Valley)
Home parish: St. Didacus Church, Sylmar
First Mass: 6 p.m., Saturday, June 1, at Our Lady of
Loretto Church, Echo Park; 8 a.m., Sunday, June 2,
at St. Didacus
First parish assignment: St. Anthony of Padua
Church, Gardena
Favorite hobby: Exercise (weights and swimming)
VICTOR ALEMÁN
For Luther Diaz, the call to the priesthood came not in
the form of “sudden bursts” but a persistent, patient
invitation from the Lord — much like the calling of the
prophet Samuel.
“There are multiple signs the Lord gives you, but it takes
time and the wisdom of one who knows to guide you, just
like Eli guided Samuel,” Diaz observed.
Diaz grew up in the San Fernando Valley, one of five
brothers. After high school, he worked in several positions at
Pacoima Elementary School before working in the accounting
department of a medical billing company.
He thought about the priesthood in his teenage years, but
eventually ended up dating a girl for a time. Still, the calling
didn’t go away.
“The calling was just a continual desire and a continuous
thought of wanting to be close to God in any way possible,
and in doing God’s work.”
Diaz went to inquire about his possible vocation to the
archbishop at the time, Cardinal Roger Mahony. He was surprised
to find that rather than send a secretary, the cardinal
met with him personally.
“He welcomed me with warmth and with the dignity one
would give a foreign minister,” said Diaz. “I approached him
directly and he responded to me directly and in kindness.”
The cardinal’s encouragement started a vocation journey
that has taken more than a decade. Now, Diaz is ready to
be a priest in the city that he calls home, but that where he
knows that secularization has caused “a great void in people”
and can be very lonely.
“Where loneliness exists, God needs to be there, and God’s
workers need to make sure the people have access to God’s
saving love made flesh, Jesus Christ. That is why I want to be
here.”
Luther Diaz with family members at his nephew’s First Communion.
Diaz says he knows from his own youth that young people
have a need to be listened to as part of their search for God,
and that a priest should listen to them “as if Jesus was doing
the listening.”
One of the aspects of the priesthood that he most looks
forward to is the sacrament of reconciliation, which he sees
as “an incredible grace” and “an awesome privilege” to bring
people forgiveness and healing.
LUTHER DIAZ
12 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2019

José María Ortiz
Age: 36
Hometown: Santa Maria
Home parish: St. John Neumann Church, Santa
Maria
First Mass: 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., both on
Sunday, June 2, at St. John Neumann
First parish assignment: St. Columbkille Church and
Nativity Church, both in South LA
Favorite hobby: Camping
VICTOR ALEMÁN
Coming from the northernmost edge of the Archdiocese
of Los Angeles, José María Ortiz knows a thing
or two about “the peripheries” that Pope Francis talks
about so much.
Ortiz was born in Jalisco, Mexico, the oldest of three children.
He first immigrated to Santa Maria, California (Santa
Barbara County) with his dad when he was 15. He worked
in the fields for a year and a half before resuming his high
school studies and eventually made it into UCLA, where he
studied to be a scientist.
It was in high school that he first felt the call to the priesthood,
but says he “refused” it.
So what convinced Ortiz to change course?
“I don’t know; God’s will for me was stronger than what I
wanted it to be in my life,” Ortiz answered in an interview
with Angelus News.
Although his Catholic upbringing brought him close to the
sacraments, he “went away a little bit” during college. But
God didn’t give up, he recalled.
“There were five instances in my life I really felt God strongly
calling me to this,” said Ortiz, who goes by his nickname
“Chepe.”
“And I refused four times, but the fifth time I was like, ‘No,
let me give God a chance’ — not knowing that it was God
who was giving me the chance of my life.”
Giving God that chance first took Ortiz from Indiana to
Oregon to California after entering religious life with the
Missionaries of the Holy Spirit, a religious order originally
from Mexico. He eventually ended up at St. John’s as a seminarian
for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
When asked why becoming a priest is “worth it” today, Ortiz
said “the Church needs witnesses,” and he credits his science
background for helping him understand that.
The Ortiz family at José María’s confirmation in Mexico.
“Sometimes we’ll look in different places without finding
what we’re looking for. And to me, God was the answer to
all that,” said Ortiz. “As a scientist, you’re taught to analyze
everything, to find empirical data, to prove everything. But
sometimes beauty and truth cannot be explained just by
mere words; you have to have an experience of God.”
Ortiz said he’s “very happy” to start his first assignment,
which will be at the St. Columbkille Church and Nativity
Church parish cluster in South Central LA, an area representing
a different kind of “periphery.”
His message to his new flock?
“I recognize some of the challenges that will be there
because of two parishes, but I’m pretty sure with God’s grace
we’re going to be all good, and I’m excited and happy to meet
you all and learn from you.”
JOSÉ MARÍA ORTIZ
May 31, 2019 • ANGELUS • 13

Louis Sung
Age: 28
Hometown: Cerritos
Home parish: St. Raphael Korean Catholic Center,
Norwalk
First Mass: 12 p.m., Sunday, June 2, at St. Raphael
First parish assignment: St. Peter Claver Church,
Simi Valley
Favorite hobby: Basketball
VICTOR ALEMÁN
Call it a leap, a jump, or a step: All Deacon Louis Sung
knew was, he had to take it in order to find out what
God wanted for his life.
The 28-year-old was born to Korean immigrant parents
in Long Beach, both of them devout Catholics. Between
attending St. Raphael Korean Catholic Center in Norwalk
with them and listening to stories of saints and biblical figures
from his mother, something began to stir in him.
During college, “the vocation kept going up and down,”
Sung recalled. During his senior year at UC Riverside, while
his classmates were applying for jobs and making plans for
the future, he knew he had to make “the jump” into the
seminary.
“I always felt like there was a calling from God,” said Sung.
“And here I am, six years later.”
That meant turning down the chance to teach English to
schoolchildren in Korea for a year — a popular choice for
many bilingual Korean-American college graduates. It also
meant foregoing marriage. In Sung’s words, his vocation
meant he wasn’t “going to get married to another person, but
to the whole Church.”
Sung said that he’s preparing for his ordination to the priesthood
expecting plenty of “bumps” along the way, but certain
that God will help him.
“It’s probably bumpier than if I chose the easy way out, and
just did what I thought I wanted to do. But by going on this
path I have faith that this is what God made me for,” said
Sung. “This is where I’ll be happiest.”
After years of formation and discernment, he said he most
looks forward to his new mission as an “instrument” of God
through the sacraments.
“I feel like I’m a nobody, I’m a nothing, but God is still
choosing to use me as a tool, especially for celebrating Mass,”
Sung told Angelus News. “That’s something that I’m really
Louis Sung with his brother Eugene after winning the UCLA Kyrie Eleison
basketball tournament.
looking forward to.”
He also expects God to use him to minister in a special way
to the young people he encounters.
“If I’m present, encouraging young people to go to Church,
not shoving Jesus down their throats, but just being present,
leading by example — that would be a good way to start
ministering to younger people,” Sung said.
Sung’s first assignment will be at St. Peter Claver Church in
Simi Valley. His message for his new parishioners?
“Please be patient with me, I’m new! I’ll do my best to love
you guys and bring Jesus to you guys.”
LOUIS SUNG
14 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2019

Brian Humphrey
Age: 38
Hometown: Elyria, Ohio
Home parish: St. Francis of Assisi Church, Silver Lake
First Mass: 12 p.m., Sunday, June 2, at St. Francis
First parish assignment: St. Mary Magdalen Church,
Camarillo
Favorite hobby: Music production
VICTOR ALEMÁN
The path to the priesthood typically takes a lot of prayer,
study, service work — and in the case of Brian Humphrey,
hours in the recording studio.
“When I was working in the music business there would be
a glimpse of something that would sort of satisfy my intense
longing, this passion, this drive I had for life,” explained
38-year-old Humphrey, who worked in music production for
15 years.
Humphrey grew up in a suburb outside of Cleveland, Ohio,
and attended Catholic school through high school. Soon after
he moved to LA in hopes of starting a career in the music
business. For the next 15 years, he worked as an engineer and
producer with an array of artists ranging from Prince, Bon
Jovi, and even Jay-Z and Beyonce.
During a period of three years living in Connecticut to
work on a series of albums, he experienced a time of interior
struggle.
“I started to realize that I couldn’t carry all this weight and I
couldn’t do all this work by myself and I needed God in my
life,” recalled Humphrey.
Living away from home, Humphrey left the Catholic faith
for nearly a decade, going to church only on Christmas or
Easter. But the seeds of his faith planted by his family, which
includes two uncles who are a priest and a deacon, were still
there.
“My parents always had to do that dance with me. They
had to say, ‘Brian, you know there’s a church right down the
street from you.’ Or they had to decide to not say something
because they knew it would push me away.”
It was during a time of crisis in his life that Humphrey recognized
he needed help and chose to turn to God.
“So I turned to him and he was there.
“I thought that I could find what my heart was longing for in
music because there’s something transcendent being revealed
Brian Humphrey during a mission trip to Haiti.
there,” said Humphrey.
“And it just wasn’t enough. I was hungry ... I was longing for
more. And when I was introduced to Jesus in the Eucharist
and to the Word of God — reading the Scriptures — I started
to actually experience that satisfaction that I was made for.”
When he decided to pursue the priesthood, Humphrey
chose to enter the seminary in Los Angeles — rather than
back home — with the example of one of the apostles in
mind.
“I think about people like St. Paul who went to the big cities
to evangelize,” Humphrey told Angelus News.
“He knew that if he could be a light in that dark place, that
he could affect great change where there’s a lot of hurt and
a lot of pain. People are really suffering. And if I could even
just be present to one person in such a big town then I know
that that will have effects that go beyond me.”
Humphrey will begin his ministry as a priest at St. Mary
Magdalen Church in Camarillo.
BRIAN HUMPHREY
May 31, 2019 • ANGELUS • 15

Emmanuel Delfin
Age: 50
Hometown: Lomita
Home parish: St. Margaret Mary Alacoque Church
First Mass: 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., Sunday,
June 2, at St. Margaret Mary
First parish assignment: Our Lady of Perpetual Help
Church, Santa Clarita
Favorite hobby: Architecture
VICTOR ALEMÁN
Before finding his vocation, Emmanuel Delfin had to
rack up a few frequent miles first.
Born in the Philippines, his family moved often
between the capital city of Manila and the country. When
he was in the first grade, his family began immigrating to the
U.S., and by the time he finished high school he had lived in
Chicago, Hawaii, and Northern California.
He was brought up Catholic, but during high school Delfin
fell away from the Church.
“Church for me was just going to a Mass and seeing my
peers from high school there,” said Delfin. “Nothing else,
really. That was the basis of my religion and it seemed really
empty — especially seeing that my peers weren’t portraying
the Gospel.”
He eventually pursued architecture school, an adventure
that took him from Switzerland to Los Angeles to New Mexico,
and finally back to LA. He remembered during college
going as far as trying to prove to others that God didn’t exist.
Tragedy struck during his time in New Mexico. He woke
up one morning to find out that a friend had been found
murdered in her car on the side of the freeway. Anguished,
he began to walk in circles around his block, passing a small
chapel each time. Finally, a nun came outside during one of
his rounds and smiling, invited him inside for Benediction.
“So I thought, ‘I’ll give that a try,’ ” Delfin remembered.
Kneeling in front of a statue of the Blessed Mother, Delfin
tried to remember how to pray the rosary as he had seen his
grandmother do. Looking at her face “got me more angry
because she was at peace,” Delfin recalled.
But after praying for the first time in years, something
changed inside Delfin: He described finding peace that day,
even in the death of his friend.
Since entering the seminary, he’s seen his calling as the
answer to a need for priests and the sacraments in the world.
Emmanuel Delfin takes a coffee break selfie with fellow St. Margaret Mary
Alacoque parishioners Sue (left) and Pearl (middle).
“I can’t imagine my life — or anyone else’s life — without
the Eucharist,” said Delfin, whose first parish assignment will
be at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Santa Clarita.
“Life is not life without the Eucharist. The world is not real
without it.”
When asked how his own experience might help those who
are struggling or confused — especially young people —
come to know Christ, Delfin said he believes developing a
relationship with Jesus is key.
“With this enthusiasm and great love for God — they’ll
come around,” Delfin said, referring to youth. “They’ll see
there’s great worth in that, and that the world can offer many
things but nothing can compare to that.”
EMMANUEL DELFIN
16 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2019

May 31, 2019 • ANGELUS • 17

Lasallian life lessons
What a legendary (and holy) teacher of teachers can still teach us today
BY FATHER SAMUEL W. WARD / ANGELUS
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Engraving of Jean-Baptiste de La Salle by Charles Müller, 1887.
I
recently had the chance to celebrate
the April 7 “Founders Day
Mass” at Cathedral High School
near downtown LA marking the
feast day of the founder of the Christian
Brothers, St. Jean-Baptiste de
La Salle. I was joined by the school’s
seven Christian Brothers, faculty,
students, and other invited guests.
Truth be told, I didn’t know much
about de La Salle before the Mass other
than the basics: He was a French
priest, educator, and founder of the
Institute of the Brothers of the Christian
Schools (known as the Christian
Brothers in the U.S.).
Thanks to online resources, I learned
much more about this holy man’s remarkable
life, which I think contains
some valuable life lessons for all of us,
no matter our vocation.
His path to the priesthood began
from an early age. Coming from a
wealthy family in Rheims, de La Salle
received tonsure at age 11 and at 16
was named a canon of the cathedral.
By age 18, he had received his Master
of Arts degree. A year later, he entered
the seminary.
His mother died less than a year
into his studies, and his father died
just nine months later. Days after his
father’s death, he left the seminary to
care for his six younger siblings. He
was 21 years old. It would be five years
until de La Salle would be ordained
to the priesthood; two years later he
earned his doctorate in theology.
That is where I see the first lesson
from his life that speaks to many of
us: The circumstances of life outside
of our control often interrupt our best
laid plans. The young de La Salle
stepped up to the plate to care for his
grieving and needy younger siblings.
His vocation was not thwarted, just
18 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2019

delayed for a time.
In his first year as a priest, Father de
La Salle served as the chaplain and
confessor for a newly formed order of
religious sisters. They cared for the
sick and provided for the education of
poor girls. This contact with the sisters
would prove providential.
The sisters were able to open a
school with the generous support of
a wealthy woman in town. There was
one condition to her financial
gift, and it was contingent on de
La Salle’s continued association
with the sisters and the school.
It’s almost certain that during
his seminary studies, de La Salle
would have never imagined that
education would become his
life’s work.
Lesson number two: God has
plans for us that take us to places
beyond what we think is possible.
As St. John Bosco would realize
two centuries later in Turin, de
La Salle came to see that education
was the surest path to give
hope and the promise of a brighter
future for children and youth.
He would literally spend himself
for the rest of his life, including
giving his family inheritance to
further the work of the Gospel in
unforeseen ways.
Lesson three: God uses our natural
talents and inspired vision to
do amazing things.
Religious orders of men and
women had been educating
youth for centuries. But de La
Salle was a true educational
innovator. It wasn’t only the kids
who needed education. He provided
training and support for teachers so
they could be the best qualified educators
as possible — even founding
a school dedicated to training them
(no wonder he is the patron saint of
teachers)
Beyond training and support, de La
Salle believed in instilling a spirit of
Christian fellowship in teachers. He
invited the teachers to eat in his home
and taught them proper etiquette and
table manners. His wealthy family was
not happy that he, even as a priest,
would deign to have these “lower
class” men dine in his home. Pretty
soon, some of them ended up living
in his home.
Lesson number four: Do not be
single-minded or single-hearted.
After the deaths of his parents, de La
Salle acquired a substantial inheritance
that could have provided for
the rapid expansion of and financial
support for his schools and fledgling
new order.
Thanks to advice from a wise priest
from Paris, he divested himself of his
A file photo from the 2014 Founders Day Mass at Cathedral
High School.
fortune and gave the money to the
poor in a French province devastated
by famine. Holy charity and works of
mercy are not meant for the exclusive
benefits of one’s even noble and
important apostolic works.
Rather, the mission of Christ and his
Church must reach beyond our own
worthy personal realm. We are called
to support the Universal Church
while still being faithful to the work
on the local level entrusted to us by
our blessed Lord.
And one more bold innovation:
Eventually, these men, whom he had
invited to live in his home, and was
forming in the Gospel and as first-rate
educators, became a new religious order,
the Institute of the Brothers of the
Christian Schools. Although he was
a priest, this new order was to consist
exclusively of teaching brothers and
still does not include priests.
None of this is what he had planned
or imagined for his life. De La Salle
looked back at his life not as a series
of decisions or coincidences, but as a
path in which God constantly guided
him without revealing the next
step.
“If I had ever thought that the
care I was taking of the schoolmasters
out of pure charity
would ever have made it my duty
to live with them,” the priest
wrote, “I would have dropped
the whole project.”
“God, who guides all things
with wisdom and serenity,
whose way it is not to force the
inclinations of persons, willed
to commit me entirely to the
development of the schools,” he
wrote in the same letter. “He did
this in an imperceptible way and
over a long period of time so that
one commitment led to another
in a way that I did not foresee in
the beginning.”
And that, perhaps, sums up de
La Salle’s wisdom best. If we are
faithful, day by day, to the small
IMAGE VIA FACEBOOK
and seemingly insignificant tasks
that God gives us to do, we will
find meaning and fulfillment.
I can attest from my own experience
that this is true: It wasn’t
until my last years in college that
I began to feel the call from God
to be a priest. My road to the priesthood
began later than de La Salle’s,
but it similarly took twists and turns
that I could never have predicted or
planned for. Even today, the fact that
I am now a vocations director kind of
blows my mind.
Thanks to the generous invitation
from Cathedral High School, I now
have a greater admiration for this
one-of-a-kind saint. St. Jean-Baptiste
de La Salle, pray for us. Help us to be
faithful as you were.
Father Samuel Ward is the director
of vocations for the Archdiocese of Los
Angeles.
May 31, 2019 • ANGELUS • 19

Growing homeless encampments on Skid Row often crowd out local businesses, making it difficult for them to survive.
VICTOR ALEMÁN
Facing LA’s ‘human
catastrophe’ with faith
On Skid Row, one civic leader takes on a crisis that
new rules and new money can’t solve alone
BY R.W. DELLINGER / ANGELUS
Few faces peek out of the
stained pup tents and tarp
encampments lining both
sides of Crocker Street in LA’s
Skid Row as a black Subaru SUV
passes by slowly. Water is trickling out
of a broken fire hydrant; garbage spills
out of plastic bags; a mutt is sleeping
on the sidewalk next to broken-down
bicycles.
“The bicycle is a big currency down
here,” said Estela Lopez from behind
the wheel. “Folks see them and take
them apart for parts to buy drugs.
Narcotics really rule their world down
here. And these tents go up in flames
constantly. See the burnt marks on
that building? Lately, it’s revenge.
Like: ‘I told you I don’t want you on
this block.’
“It’s territorial because a lot of gangs
are down here now. They have a ready
supply of customers. Their only intention
to be here is to sell narcotics and
to keep people rooted to the sidewalk.
And if people can’t pay, then they’re
recruited to sell drugs, too. And if
they’re women, it’s prostitution.”
Lopez has worked on Skid Row for
20 years, years that have included
20 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2019

more than one stint as executive
director of the Central City East Association’s
Downtown Industrial District
Business Improvement District.
There are some 45 “BIDs,” as they
are called, throughout Los Angeles,
including eight in downtown alone.
She started the first one back in
1993 in the historical theater district
on Broadway. Their stated purpose
is to enhance safety, maintenance,
economic development, and communication
programs beyond what the
city can provide.
But Lopez said her BID today —
which takes in 49 square blocks from
San Pedro to Alameda streets between
3rd Street to Olympic Boulevard —
has had to take on much more serious
and basic day-to-day responsibilities.
Why? Because it encompasses Skid
Row, home to the largest number of
unsheltered homeless in the nation.
“Our commercial property owners
here tax themselves $2 million annually
for our services, which were never
intended to deal with this human disaster,”
she told Angelus News during a
ride-along last fall, shaking her head.
“The job with business improvement
districts is to make the sidewalks look
nice and empty trash cans. You know,
make the place look inviting. We’re
not supposed to be a response to a
human catastrophe.”
At 6th and Crocker streets, we
approached a blue, tarped tent
stretching 50 feet. One pitbull stood
guard while another dozed. A couple
of young men wearing pressed white
T-shirts over baggy khaki shorts were
standing around smoking.
They were selling a strain of marijuana
laced with more addicting drugs,
Lopez explained. And even though
the combination can make people
violently sick, she said the demand
stays high.
Then Lopez pointed out a brick
storefront with no windows.The small
business, like a lot here, dealt in
textiles, selling to the nearby fashion
district.
The owner, a BID member, has
complained when tents were so close
together he couldn’t make deliveries
or receive buyers. He told her recently
that he came out to ask a guy if he
could make some space because he
had a special delivery coming in.
The guy lifted up his shirt, showing
a pistol stuck in his waistband, and
demanded, “Make me!”
“Now look,” observed Lopez near
San Pedro and 6th streets, looking
out the front windshield at a couple
sprawled on an Army blanket across
the sidewalk between tents.
“Human beings shouldn’t live like
this. People who should be qualifying
for housing, people who should be
getting mental health help are instead
laying on the sidewalk here just
looking to see how they can get their
next high.
“I think mental illness is expressing
itself more openly now, too, because
I see so many people down here who
are just lost. I mean, you can tell
they’re mentally ill. And they’ve found
their way here, I think, to quiet the
voices inside their head. And the drug
dealers are here to service them.”
‘Camping atmosphere’
In November 2016, LA City voters
overwhelmingly approved Proposition
HHH, authorizing $1.2 billion in
bonds to build or rehab 10,000 housing
units for people who are homeless.
Four months later, Los Angeles
County voters passed Measure H, a
quarter-cent sales tax on themselves.
An estimated $355 million a year for
10 years was promised to be raised,
which would provide so-called “wraparound”
services to go with the new
housing and help the homeless transition
into stable, affordable housing.
Those services include mental health
and addiction counseling, money
management, and job counseling.
A different ‘BID’
Lopez said her BID is “far from that
beautification point of what BIDs are
supposed to do.”
With three dump trucks, the Skid
Row BID does pick up between five to
seven tons of trash daily, and her hired
15 formerly homeless street workers
from the job-training Chrysalis Center
sweep the streets regularly.
But much of their time is spent dealing
with crisis calls from local businesses
to clean up feces, urine, and
vomit in front of their establishments
with “targeted” pressure washing from
another truck (not to be confused with
the block-by-block pressure washing
the city’s sanitation department regularly
does).
A private security force of seven
workers often has to go out with them
for protection.
Estela Lopez, executive director of the Central City East Association, has worked on Skid Row for 20
years. “I’m watching people not live on Skid Row,” she said. “I’m watching them die on Skid Row.”
VICTOR ALEMÁN
May 31, 2019 • ANGELUS • 21

A National Institute of Mental Health study concentrating on Skid Row found that 28 percent of residents were chronically mentally ill and 34 percent
were chronic substance abusers.
But Lopez said a decade is too long
for more than 2,000 unsheltered men,
women, and even children to wait to
receive help.
Another problem is the “camping
atmosphere” on Skid Row among
residents who choose to live there because
of ready access to drugs. Often
overshadowed are homeless persons
and families who reside mostly in and
out of local shelters and missions.
“As long as the streets are an alternative,
you have this very large
population that will choose the street,
where there are no rules,” she pointed
out. “And that’s what’s undermining
the whole thing that the city wants
to put in place. Plus, we’re caught in
this terrible vicious cycle of whenever
the city tries to do something, the
advocates file suit to stop them. It’s
unforgivable.”
The bond measure is just one of the
political issues affecting LA’s darkest
neighborhood. In 2017, a federal
appeals court ruled it unconstitutional
to prosecute individuals who
are homeless for sleeping on public
property as long as they don’t have
access to shelter.
A compromise ruling between the
City of Los Angeles and homeless
advocates has allowed that tents could
lawfully be set up on sidewalks from 9
p.m. to 6 a.m.
But as our brief tour showed, tents
and tarps didn’t come down on Skid
Row during the day.
In early March, the Los Angeles City
Council finally reached a decision on
the property rights of homeless people,
but left its details to City Attorney
Mike Feuer to work out.
Lopez said she believes that won’t
happen until this summer, just before
the case is scheduled to go to court.
And because the decision involves
constitutional rights, Lopez thinks it
will affect the entire city — not just
Skid Row — and limit LA’s ability
even more to clean up encampments.
“We are profoundly scared,” she said,
“because we are on the front lines,
and we don’t see it as City Hall sees it.
We clearly see what a bad track record
the city has on addressing the issue of
street homelessness. And we believe
sincerely this is another step in the
wrong direction.”
Looking down from 5 feet
Almost back to her Central City East
office now, Lopez spotted a woman in
a soiled pink sleeveless blouse whom
she had personally tried to help. “I sat
with her on a curb one day as her tent
was going up in flames. And she was
crying. I said, ‘What happened?’ ” she
recalled.
“She said, ‘My boyfriend went out of
town and now he’s back. He thinks I’m
cheating on him, so he set it on fire.’
“I put her in my car and said, ‘Look,
I know where I can take you — the
Union Rescue Mission. It takes in
women, and I know the director, Andy
Bales. I can get you in.’
“She said, ‘No. I don’t want to go inside.’
She was tattooed up. You could
see she was doing narcotics.
“I said, ‘If your boyfriend came down
here and did this in the daytime, what
do you think he’s going to do tonight if
you’re out here.’ I said, ‘Go with me.’
The woman refused, saying she only
needed money to catch a bus to see
friends in Boyle Heights.
“OK, so maybe she was playing me,
I don’t know,” Lopez mused.
VICTOR ALEMÁN
22 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2019

A National Institute of Mental Health study concentrating on Skid Row found that 28 percent of residents were chronically mentally ill and 34 percent
were chronic substance abusers.
But Lopez said a decade is too long
for more than 2,000 unsheltered men,
women, and even children to wait to
receive help.
Another problem is the “camping
atmosphere” on Skid Row among
residents who choose to live there because
of ready access to drugs. Often
overshadowed are homeless persons
and families who reside mostly in and
out of local shelters and missions.
“As long as the streets are an alternative,
you have this very large
population that will choose the street,
where there are no rules,” she pointed
out. “And that’s what’s undermining
the whole thing that the city wants
to put in place. Plus, we’re caught in
this terrible vicious cycle of whenever
the city tries to do something, the
advocates file suit to stop them. It’s
unforgivable.”
The bond measure is just one of the
political issues affecting LA’s darkest
neighborhood. In 2017, a federal
appeals court ruled it unconstitutional
to prosecute individuals who
are homeless for sleeping on public
property as long as they don’t have
access to shelter.
A compromise ruling between the
City of Los Angeles and homeless
advocates has allowed that tents could
lawfully be set up on sidewalks from 9
p.m. to 6 a.m.
But as our brief tour showed, tents
and tarps didn’t come down on Skid
Row during the day.
In early March, the Los Angeles City
Council finally reached a decision on
the property rights of homeless people,
but left its details to City Attorney
Mike Feuer to work out.
Lopez said she believes that won’t
happen until this summer, just before
the case is scheduled to go to court.
And because the decision involves
constitutional rights, Lopez thinks it
will affect the entire city — not just
Skid Row — and limit LA’s ability
even more to clean up encampments.
“We are profoundly scared,” she said,
“because we are on the front lines,
and we don’t see it as City Hall sees it.
We clearly see what a bad track record
the city has on addressing the issue of
street homelessness. And we believe
sincerely this is another step in the
wrong direction.”
Looking down from 5 feet
Almost back to her Central City East
office now, Lopez spotted a woman in
a soiled pink sleeveless blouse whom
she had personally tried to help. “I sat
with her on a curb one day as her tent
was going up in flames. And she was
crying. I said, ‘What happened?’ ” she
recalled.
“She said, ‘My boyfriend went out of
town and now he’s back. He thinks I’m
cheating on him, so he set it on fire.’
“I put her in my car and said, ‘Look,
I know where I can take you — the
Union Rescue Mission. It takes in
women, and I know the director, Andy
Bales. I can get you in.’
“She said, ‘No. I don’t want to go inside.’
She was tattooed up. You could
see she was doing narcotics.
“I said, ‘If your boyfriend came down
here and did this in the daytime, what
do you think he’s going to do tonight if
you’re out here.’ I said, ‘Go with me.’
The woman refused, saying she only
needed money to catch a bus to see
friends in Boyle Heights.
“OK, so maybe she was playing me,
I don’t know,” Lopez mused.
VICTOR ALEMÁN
22 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2019

“I gave her the money and off
she went. But that’s the thing
people don’t see because you
don’t come down here unless
you have to, right? You don’t see
what’s really happening unless
you’re here. The filth that
caused a typhus outbreak and
other diseases. The gang members
pushing drugs. The pimps
who treat women terribly.
“The folks in City Hall are
looking down from 500 feet. I’m
looking down from 5 feet,” she
said.
“I’m watching people not live
on Skid Row; I’m watching
them die on Skid Row. So,
they’re either going to die slowly
by disease or they’re going to
die quickly from violence. But it’s not
going to end well.”
God’s hands and feet
Lopez is an extraordinary minister
of holy Communion at the Cathedral
A homeless couple moves possessions on Los Angeles’ Skid
Row. Its population ranges from 8,000 to 11,000 people on
any given day in the 4.31 square-mile area.
of Our Lady of the Angels downtown.
Her mother was one of its first parishioners
in 2002. “I’m crazy in love with
my faith and Pope Francis,” she said.
It’s her steadfast Catholic faith, she
believes, that keeps her at her day job.
Born in South Los Angeles, she grew
VICTOR ALEMÁN
up going to Holy Cross Church
and went to St. Brendan School
and St. Matthias High School.
“We are here to do God’s
work,” she said. “We are his
hands and his feet. People ask
me all the time, ‘It’s so horrible
down there, how can you do
what you do?’ And they’re right.
Street conditions have even
gotten worse since our ride. Encampments
are moving south
and east.
“The secular answer is ‘Well,
I have a seat to the history of
the City of Los Angeles. It’s a
very important — and tragic
— chapter of the city, and I’m
certainly in the position to be a
witness of it.’
“But then I say, ‘What is the job of a
witness if not to give testimony?’ So, I
see that as my job, too.”
R.W. Dellinger is the features editor
of Angelus.
May 31, 2019 • ANGELUS • 23

Pope Francis leads the opening of the annual spring meeting of the Italian bishops’ conference at the Vatican May 20.
PAUL HARING/CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
Italian problems,
US solutions?
In a recent speech, the pope raised eyebrows for what he said and didn’t say
BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR. / ANGELUS
ROME — Back in the St. Pope John Paul II years,
the Vatican once brought out a document on lay
ministry decreeing restrictions intended to drive
home the uniqueness of the ordained priesthood,
such as a ban on laity holding the title “chaplain.”
Since that was common practice in the U.S., many American
Catholic laity were alarmed, especially those who
worked in hospitals, prisons, and the armed forces.
Amid the hubbub, I asked an American cardinal about
it who told me not to worry, that the document would be
a dead letter. When I pressed as to where his confidence
came from, he told me he’d spoken to Cardinal Camillo
Ruini, at the time the president of the Italian bishops’ conference
and the pope’s powerful vicar of Rome.
Ruini apparently said the document was really intended
for Germany and the Netherlands, and the Italians had no
intention of applying it.
“I figure if that’s good enough for the Italians, then it’s
good enough for us,” the American cardinal laughed.
That’s by way of saying, the Italians matter. Because of
their proximity to the pope, pastoral practice and interpretations
of Vatican edicts worked out here set a tone all
across the Catholic map.
Moreover, senior leaders in the Church pretty much
everywhere probably have spent time here either studying
or working or both, most have friends here, and so they’re
influenced by the realities here in a special way.
The insight comes to mind in light of Pope Francis’ address
to the Italian bishops on Monday night, opening their
May 21-23 General Assembly. The speech raised eyebrows
both for what it contained, and what it didn’t.
In terms of the latter, it was striking that on the eve of European
elections when right-wing, anti-immigrant populist
forces appeared poised to make historic gains, including
within Italy itself, Francis didn’t say anything about the
importance of welcome and compassion for migrants and
24 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2019

efugees — ordinarily, one of his stock themes.
The omission was notable given that just two days before,
Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, the leader
of the major populist coalition in the European elections,
had staged a rally in Milan in which he quoted John Paul
and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, and even brandished a
rosary at one point to style himself as a defender of traditional
European values and identity. In that context, many
had expected Francis to tackle the immigrant question.
The proximity to Salvini’s jamboree, however, actually
may help explain the pope’s discretion. Not only would
pushing immigrant rights immediately afterward have
seemed overtly political, but it could have created the impression
that Francis was being drawn into a tit-for-tat with
a populist firebrand — which, frankly, probably ought to be
below the pope’s paygrade.
In this case, Francis
seemed content to let the
Italian bishops do the heavy
lifting — which they did,
among other things using
the front page of their official
newspaper to admonish
Salvini that “rosaries are for
prayer, not rallies.”
In terms of what Francis
did say, the top note was a
rather stern rebuke to the
Italian prelates for failing
to implement the pope’s
reform of the annulment
process, issued in 2015. It
was intended to compel dioceses,
or groups of smaller
dioceses acting together, to
create simplified and accelerated
procedures for considering annulment requests.
“It is with regret that I note that the reform, after four
years, remains far from being applied in the great majority
of Italian dioceses,” the pope told the bishops’ conference.
Among other things, the new process gave a stronger role
to the local bishop, dropped automatic appeals in obvious
cases of annulment, and ensured that the process would be
free. Francis called for “full and immediate application” of
those measures, saying the process should be fast, free, and
characterized by “closeness” to families in difficulty.
Though he didn’t say so out loud, in the background of
his stern tone may be mounting frustration with the Italian
bishops (and prelates elsewhere taking their cues from the
Italians) for their slowness to embrace other aspects of the
Francis agenda too, including measures intended to combat
clerical sexual abuse.
When the pope recently issued a “motu proprio,” or
amendment to Church law, requiring every diocese in the
world to have a clear reporting mechanism for allegations
of either abuse or cover-up, many Italians took it in part as
a reaction to a perceived failure of many Italian dioceses to
implement such measures on their own despite repeated
papal exhortations.
Leader of the Northern League party, Matteo Salvini, shows a rosary during
a demonstration ahead of the European elections in Piazza Duomo on
May 18 in Milan, Italy.
During a media presentation of the new rules, the pope’s
point man on the anti-abuse effort, Archbishop Charles
Scicluna of Malta, told a major Italian broadcast network
that he would actually invite laity to rise up and hold bishops
accountable if they again fail to act.
“I would ask the people of God to help the pope,” Scicluna
said.
Perhaps Francis is simply running out of patience with the
Italian hierarchy. Its perceived lethargy may be especially
frustrating for this pope in particular, given that his own
family hails from the northern Italian region of Piedmont.
For Americans, there’s a deeply intriguing coda to all this.
Neither the annulment reform nor the new anti-abuse
rules contained in “Vos estis lux mundi” (“You are the
light of the world”) seem likely to have much impact in
the United States, largely
because the American
Church had already done
most of what they mandated
decades ago.
The Church in the U.S.
adopted a streamlined
annulment process after the
Second Vatican Council
(1962-65), which for
decades led to perceptions
of the U.S. Church as an
“annulment factory,” each
year granting around twothirds
of all the annulments
in the Catholic world.
Similarly, the U.S.
Church created clear
reporting mechanisms for
abuse cases in the wake of
the 2002 “Dallas Charter,”
as well as strong procedures for investigating and prosecuting
allegations if verified.
At the beginning, those reforms, too, drew criticism from
other parts of the Church, including many in the Vatican,
who saw them as an example of the American penchant for
litigiousness and “cowboy justice.”
Here’s the irony: From the beginning, observers, rightly,
have taken Francis as deeply ambivalent about the United
States due to his strong rhetoric on capitalism and militarism
and many other factors.
Anyone who’s spent time around Francis and his team
understands the distaste with which certain aspects of
American culture are regarded — for instance, a supposed
“ecumenism of hate” in the U.S. between conservative
Evangelicals and Catholics denounced in a celebrated
2017 article by a couple of the pope’s closest advisers.
Yet in at least these two areas, annulments and clergy
abuse, Francis basically has ratified and universalized the
American approach. If nothing else, perhaps that shows
this pope’s alleged “anti-Americanism” isn’t quite as inflexible
as some may be tempted to think.
John L. Allen Jr. is the editor of Crux.
PIER MARCO TACCA/GETTY IMAGES
May 31, 2019 • ANGELUS • 25

Word play
AD REM
BY ROBERT BRENNAN
The popular culture was
certainly caught off guard
by the spate of laws limiting
abortion recently passed in
several states. When I say popular culture,
I’m referring to the mainstream
media and popular entertainment.
There have been calls for boycotts
against the offending states by actors,
writers, film producers, etc. This
raw nerve that has been touched has
caused even some in the “pro-life”
movement to hesitate. Who wants to
be a pariah anyway, or on the other
side of an argument with Lady Gaga?
I put “pro-life” in quotes because this
article is more about language than
abortion. There are plenty of better
brains to defend life at all stages of development
and I’m happy to leave that
work to them, and God bless them for
it. But there is another victim in this
debate and that has been the English
language.
Words matter. Words can uplift people
— Shakespeare, Browning, and
Dante. Words can destroy — Goebbels,
Mao, and Stalin. George Orwell,
a man who had no idea how much of
a prophet he would become, foretold
this present-day reality in the 1930s.
He was so prescient that even people
who care about such things take him
for granted. Words like “newspeak,”
“doubletalk,” “Big Brother,” “thought
police,” and even “Orwellian” itself
are spoken routinely, with many people
having no idea of the dire warnings
these words were.
Obviously, the warnings went unheeded,
as all of these things we have
in triplicate in our culture today.
Those who support abortion from
Pro-life supporters participate in the March for Life in Washington, D.C., Jan. 18.
the moment of conception up to and,
if you’re the governor of Virginia,
even after birth, never call themselves
“pro-abortion.”
Way back in the late 1970s they must
have had a secret conference or something
and worked hard on coming up
with language that would sound much
better and cloak what the intent was.
The “pro-life” movement beat them
to the punch using a positive clarion
call.
So, the proponents of abortion came
up with a single word. It is a good
word. It is a positive word. It is a word
anyone who loves liberty and autonomy
would embrace — “choice.” Who
doesn’t want choice? The word speaks
to the core of our God-granted free
will.
But this usage has a twist; some
could even suggest its usage is
twisted, as no one has the right to
“choose” what is evil. When the
choice involved is the stopping of a
heartbeat, then we’re back on Orwell’s
Animal Farm. At the very least, the
word “choice” in this context violates
truth-in-advertising statutes.
The recent fetal heartbeat laws are
SHUTTERSTOCK
26 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2019

another example of linguistic malpractice
which further hampers the
debate, as debate requires logic and
honesty … even in disagreement.
It is obvious there has been another
clandestine conference somewhere
in the bastions of the popular culture
regarding the flurry of new laws popping
up that require abortion limitations
based on the appearance of fetal
heartbeats.
Those who champion any abortion,
anywhere and for any reason, don’t
seem to like the word “heartbeat.”
They have begun using the language
“fetal cardiac activity” instead. Sounds
more clinical and yes, less human.
An article by an Adam Rogers on the
Wired website insists the “heartbeat”
bills go against science by using the
very word “heartbeat.”
To back up his claim he refers to this
quote from a Dr. Jennifer Kerns from
UC San Diego: “The rhythm specified
in the six-week abortion bans is a
group of cells with electrical activity.”
Now I’m no doctor, but isn’t the
heart that is beating inside the chest
of every man, woman, and child on
planet Earth just a “group of cells
with electrical activity?” Orwell strikes
again.
Another turn of a word like it was a
kind of lathe being winnowed of all
its meaning is “viability.” Science certainly
informs us that a 1-month-old
fetus is not viable outside the protective
environment of her mother’s
womb.
But science also tells us that a
1-month-old baby girl, hopefully one
that has escaped the clutches of the
governor of Virginia, is also not viable
without around-the-clock care from
her parents.
Contrary to pro-abortion pundits and
most of the members of the Screen
Actors Guild and the Writers Guild
of America, science is and always
will be on the side of life. The more
developed science becomes, the more
definitive the evidence in favor of the
unborn becomes.
But what this new frontline of the
struggle over abortion in our nation
tells more clearly is that the most important
battle to come will not be for
scientific minds, but for open hearts.
May 31, 2019 • ANGELUS • 27

THE CRUX
BY HEATHER KING
The museum’s Grasshopper Press.
MIKE BARBOUR/FLICKR VIA THE INTERNATIONAL PRINTING MUSEUM
Refuge against the ravages of time
A Carson museum’s tribute to an era when the letterpress was king
The International Printing
Museum, located at 315 W.
Torrance Blvd., Carson, is
open Saturdays only, 10-4.
I visited on an open house day that
culminated in the screening of the
documentary “Endless Letterpress.”
The spot is a throwback to another
era. First, the smell: a homey combination
of ink, paper, and wood;
grandmother’s attic. Older guys in
vests, newsboys’ visors, and denim
aprons feed paper into hand-cranked
presses.
Lining the walls are grainy black and
white photos of printing-press days
gone by. Stacks of narrow, long wooden
drawers are filled with lead slugs of
type: Roman, Antique, Gothic.
The museum hosts frequent events.
“Inside the Box: Clamshell Boxes and
Antiquarian Books”; “Krazy Krafts
Day” for the kids.
They’re trying to raise $20,000 to
save a rare 1905 Heidelberg Cylinder
Press, one of eight in the world.
(Don’t miss the annual International
28 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2019

Wood type for a letterpress.
Printing Museum and Los Angeles
Printers Fair, which this year will take
place over the course of the weekend
of Oct. 19-20.)
But the heart of the museum consists
in its Ernest A. Lindler Collection,
touted as “one of the world’s largest
and finest collections of working
antique presses.”
I merged into a tour in progress, led
by Peter Small. We were just entering
the Industrial Revolution (before that,
presses were wooden), emblemized by
an 1810 Stanhope metal press, made
in England.
Snippets of info reeled by. The
Columbian Hand Press was the first
American-made metal press. The one
owned by the museum is a beautiful
object, topped by a painted cornucopia
of vines, flowers, and fruit.
One kind of ink, used in composition
rollers, was made by mixing
glue and molasses. The mixture was
temperamental, and as it turned out,
much beloved by rodents.
The Grasshopper Press was invented
circa 1878 by Enoch Prouty, a Baptist
preacher who wanted to broadcast the
evils of liquor. The Prouty Power Press
featured a pair of bars that jumped up
and down, a movement that uncannily
resembled that of the long-legged
garden insect.
In December 1881, the first edition
of the Los Angeles Times was printed
on one such press. Newspapers in
those days were at the most four pages.
Other models include a C. Foster &
Bro. Washington Hand Press (circa
1850), a LaTypote Stanhope Hand
Press (circa 1850), a La Magand
Card Press (circa 1900), from France,
featuring a cranked flywheel, and a
Model 1 Linotype Typesetting Machine
(circa 1890).
Then there was the California
Reliable Jobber Platen Press, which
was used for smaller tasks such as
handbills, posters, business cards, and
stationery; the Rogers Typograph (circa
1895), combining typewriter and
piano engineering; and the Howard
Iron Works Paper Cutter (circa 1870).
The linotype machine was invented
by Ottmar Merganthaler, a German-born
inventor also known as “the
second Gutenberg.” The museum
owns a Linotype 5 Meteor (circa
1961). By 1980, these were obsolete.
We viewed an ad for Dr. Miles’
Nervine, a medicinal remedy with a
very high alcohol content marketed to
women during the early 1900s. World
War II letterpress posters included
“Save a loaf a week, help win the
war.” “Order your coal now.” “Save
wheat, meat, fats, sugar, and serve the
cause of freedom.”
A nice lady made me an art deco
logo of City Hall card, done on a
Victorian parlor press, to take home.
On sale at the front desk were a Neato
Large Metal Harmonica, vintage postcards
for a buck each, a quilled ink set
($5), and craft ink pads.
As we settled in for the film, “Los
Ultimos” (“Endless Letterpress”), several
genial folks circulated with bowls
of free popcorn, candy, and snacks.
Many of the viewers had obviously
known one another for years.
The subject was the men who
operate the last remaining letterpress
in Buenos Aires. Printing is their vocation
and, lack of fame and fortune
notwithstanding, some had been at it
for 50 years.
One guy, nearing 70, laughingly
remarked about driving around town,
“If I get in an accident it’s because
I’m either looking at a woman or one
of my posters. I don’t know if anyone
cares as much as I do.”
Another, wearing a red shirt, solid
black with ink up to his armpits, observed,
“Young technicians don’t get
dirty. They don’t. We’re the last idiots
willing to get dirty.” A third printer,
now retired, remembered, “If you
hear the machine’s complaints, you’ll
know what’s wrong with it.” Like
monks, these men work in silence.
They don’t even listen to the radio.
“This was handicraft. In the old
days, one person could print a whole
anarchist newspaper.” “New technologies
are for the sake of speed. There’s
nothing human about them.” “Given
the current situation, we could say
[letterpress] no longer exists.”
Now machines do everything. And
hovering over the museum is the
unvoiced question: Are we really any
better for it?
A laminated card, prominently displayed
near the front of the museum,
says it best: “This is a Printing Office.
Crossroads of Civilization. Refuge
of all the Arts Against the Ravages
of Time. Armoury of Fearless Truth
Against Whispering Rumor. Incessant
Trumpet of Trade.”
MIKE BARBOUR/FLICKR VIA THE INTERNATIONAL PRINTING MUSEUM
Heather King is a blogger, speaker and the author of several books.
May 31, 2019 • ANGELUS • 29