Angelus News | October 30-November 6, 2020 | Vol. 5 No. 27

ANGELUS 

October 30-November 6, 2020 Vol. 5 No. 27

ON THE COVER 

The year 2020 has seen a global pandemic, upheaval over issues of race and equality, 

and partisan rancor further divide the United States. In this special election issue of 

Angelus, beginning on Page 10 seven guest writers offer their thoughts on the issues 

that American Catholics should be caring about for the next four years — regardless 

of the ultimate outcome of the Nov. 3 general election. 

IMAGE: 

Archbishop José H. Gomez baptizes an adult 

catechumen in the plaza of the Cathedral of 

Our Lady of the Angels Sunday, Oct. 25. Several 

adults received the sacraments of baptism and 

confirmation at the Sunday Mass. 

JACOB POPCAK 

VICTOR ALEMÁN 

Contents 

Pope Watch 2, 26 

Archbishop Gomez 3 

World, Nation, and Local News 4-6 

Scott Hahn on Scripture 8 

Father Rolheiser 9 

Inés San Martín: What’s gone wrong for the Church in Chile 28 

Spiritual resolutions to make the most of a pandemic 30 

Robert Brennan: Pondering the universe as a living thing 32 

A look inside an immigrant’s soul in ‘Transcendent Kingdom’ 34 

Heather King: Thoughts on a French saint and a late rock star 36

POPE WATCH 

October 30-November 6, 2020 

Vol. 5 • No. 27 

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What did he say? 

Pope Francis made front page headlines 

around the world — perhaps on a 

level not seen since his election to the 

papacy in 2013 — when comments 

that seemed to endorse civil unions 

for homosexual couples aired in a 

new film. 

The truth, however, is not as revolutionary. 

The documentary film “Francesco,” 

which premiered in Rome Oct. 21, 

tells the story of the Argentinian 

pontiff’s papacy through his impact on 

people he has personally met. 

The controversial comments come 

in a scene in which the pope talks 

about pastoral care for those who 

identify as “LGBT.” 

“What we have to create is a civil 

union law. That way they are legally 

covered,” the pope is seen to say in 

the scene, before adding, “I stood up 

for that.” 

While many news media and observers 

seized on the remarks as an embrace 

of homosexuality, reporters who 

have covered Pope Francis’ papacy 

pointed out that the comments don’t 

really say anything new. 

Rather, they resemble his position on 

the issue while archbishop of Buenos 

Aires: that civil union laws could 

provide legal protection for couples 

in long-term, committed relationships, 

and that accepting civil unions 

was a way to protect the definition of 

marriage as only between a man and 

a woman. 

Then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio had 

first taken that position during a debate 

on legalizing same-sex marriage in 

his native Argentina in 2010. 

Still, such a position marked a 

contrast from the approach of his 

predecessors, Pope Benedict XVI and 

St. Pope John Paul II, both of whom 

warned against endorsing same-sex 

unions of any kind. 

The other controversial excerpt from 

“Francesco” is the pope’s on-camera 

declaration in his native Spanish that 

“homosexuals have a right to be a part 

of the family. They’re children of God 

and have a right to a family. Nobody 

should be thrown out, or be made 

miserable because of it.” 

Some interpreted those words as a 

subtle endorsement of adoption by 

same-sex couples. But as J.D. Flynn, 

editor-in-chief of Catholic News 

Agency noted, “the pope has previously 

spoken against such adoptions, 

saying that through them children 

are ‘deprived of their human development 

given by a father and a mother 

and willed by God,’ and saying that 

‘every person needs a male father and 

a female mother that can help them 

shape their identity.’ ” 

The pope tackled the issue in a more 

official manner in his 2016 apostolic 

exhortation on the family, “Amoris 

Laetitia” (“The Joy of Love”), where 

he wrote that “we need to acknowledge 

the great variety of family situations 

that can offer a certain stability, 

but de-facto or same sex unions, for 

example, may not simply be equated 

with marriage. No union that is temporary 

or closed to the transmission of 

life can ensure the future of society.” 

Continued on Page 26 

Papal Prayer Intention for November: We pray that the progress of robotics and 

artificial intelligence may always serve humankind. 

2 • ANGELUS • October 30-November 6, 2020

NEW WORLD 

OF FAITH 

BY ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

Our mission is bigger than politics 

As we are voting this year, I think 

we all recognize that there are some 

problems in our democracy. 

We see the obvious things — the 

polarization, the lack of charity and 

civility in how we talk about our 

differences; we see the struggles that 

our political leaders seem to have in 

working together and compromising 

for the common good. 

But the deeper questions about our 

democracy begin in the human heart: 

Who are we and why? 

Unless we know what it means to be 

a human being, we cannot know how 

to create a society that will be good for 

human beings. We cannot know what 

justice is, what a good life is, what the 

best way is for us to live and work. 

Our society today tells us that we 

humans are “expressive individuals” 

— that we have no necessary relationships 

with others; that our only obligation 

is to pursue our own desires. 

Because our society thinks about 

the human person in these terms, we 

often see messages and agendas in our 

culture that promote this idea that 

people must be totally free to define 

their own happiness, and that nothing 

should stand in the way of how they 

want to live. 

But what society today is telling us is 

not what human life is all about. 

Following this path does not make 

people happy. We see that in the widespread 

addictions and mental illnesses, 

in the epidemics of abuse and suicide. 

And much of the violence and injustice 

in our society can be traced to 

this self-seeking vision of the human 

person, which leads to an indifference 

toward the needs of others. 

The truth is that we do not create 

ourselves. To be human is to be a 

“creature,” to be created. We come 

into this world as male or female. We 

are born into families and communities, 

we have relatives and histories. 

We are not isolated individuals. We 

have a basic need to be loved and 

cared for and we have a basic need to 

love and care for others. We are made 

to belong and to be in relationships — 

with other people, with the world we 

live in, and with our Creator. 

Our Creator has revealed to us that 

he is a Father, that he made us in his 

image and likeness, that he gave us 

not only our bodies, but our souls. And 

our Creator makes each of us for a 

reason. He has a plan, a loving destiny 

for each of our lives. 

America was built on the foundation 

of these basic religious truths about 

the human person. 

Our founders insisted that democracy 

cannot be maintained without 

religion and the virtues and values that 

religion brings, especially the virtues 

of personal discipline and the values of 

family and community. 

And we need to remember: This 

country’s founding commitments to 

equality and human rights have no 

foundation apart from this belief in a 

Creator who endows men and women 

with inalienable rights. 

That is why the indifference toward 

religion in American public life and 

the marginalizing of religious believers 

is so disturbing. 

And that is why even beyond this 

election, our mission as the Church 

and our duty as Catholics remains 

bigger than politics. 

We are here to serve God and bear 

witness to the resurrection of Jesus 

Christ and the coming of his kingdom. 

We do that first by living faithfully as 

Jesus teaches us to live, even when his 

commandments and priorities for our 

lives are not popular or are opposed by 

our culture and society. 

The most important thing we can do 

right now as Catholics in America is 

to strengthen and share our faith, with 

joy and with confidence. 

Now is the time to build up our 

parishes, schools, families, and communities. 

We need to pray together, 

read the Bible together, find new ways 

to gather and support one another in 

living our faith. 

We need to see our lives and our 

world in light of the Christian “story,” 

in light of the Gospels and New Testament, 

in light of God’s ongoing plan 

of love in history. 

Most important of all, we need to be 

deliberate and vigilant about passing 

on this story — our Catholic way of 

life — to the younger generation. 

As Catholics, we need to witness to 

what human life really means. We 

do that by serving our neighbors with 

sacrifice and love, by caring for the 

elderly and vulnerable, by helping 

mothers and their children, by helping 

married couples and families to 

grow and thrive. 

This project is far greater than politics. 

But this is what we are here for. 

And if we live our faith with generous 

and grateful hearts, we can renew the 

soul of our nation. 

Pray for me this week and I will pray 

for you. 

And let us entrust this great nation 

to Mary our Blessed Mother and her 

Immaculate Heart. 

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

October 30-November 6, 2020 • ANGELUS • 3

WORLD 

Vatican extends All Souls’ Day indulgence 

The narrow window for plenary or full indulgences for the souls of the faithful in 

purgatory traditionally obtained in November has gotten a little wider this year. 

The Vatican announced Oct. 23 that it will be extending the traditional indulgence 

around All Souls’ Day to include every day in November instead of the normal 

Nov. 1-8. This expansion was made in response to restrictions in response to 

the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which could impact visits to cemeteries. 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines an indulgence as “a remission 

before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been 

forgiven.” Plenary indulgences remove the temporal punishment fully, while 

partial indulgences remove it in part. 

According to Vatican News, “the indulgence can be obtained by anyone who 

visits a cemetery, even if only mentally, on any day in November, and devoutly 

prays for the faithful departed.” 

The announcement was made by the Apostolic Penitentiary, a Vatican tribunal 

that deals with matters of conscience. The tribunal also asked that priests be 

particularly generous throughout November in offering the sacrament of reconciliation 

and in administering Communion to those who are infirm. 

Sister Gloria Cecilia Narváez 

Africa: France asked to 

help free captured sister 

A newly released hostage of Al 

Qaeda in West Africa has issued a 

desperate plea to French President 

Emmanual Macron: “Sister Cecilia is 

alive, but in need of care. Everything 

must be done to free her.” 

Sophie Petronin was a fellow captive 

of the Colombian missionary Sister 

Gloria Cecilia Narváez, who was 

kidnapped by Al Qaeda in the west African 

country of Mali. Sister Narváez 

has been missing since Feb. 7, 2017, 

and according to Petronin has spent 

that time traveling through about 30 

different camps, as she told Agenzia 

Fides. 

Petronin, a French national, was 

herself kidnapped while she worked 

as a humanitarian worker in Mali. 

Since her release from captivity Oct. 

8, she has been calling for the French 

government to intervene on behalf of 

the sister. 

“Her spirit is giving way,” she told 

President Macron, according to Agenzia 

Fides. “We must do everything to 

get her out of there.” 

FILE PHOTO 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/JONATHAN REBBOAH/PANORAMIC VIA REUTERS 

Mexico’s fake priest problem 

UNSPEAKABLE 

TRAGEDY — A 

woman places a 

rose on an image of 

Samuel Paty during 

a vigil in Conflans- 

Sainte-Honorine, 

France, Oct. 20. 

Paty, a history and 

geography teacher 

at College du Bois 

d’Aulne in the 

Paris suburb, was 

beheaded outside 

his school Oct. 16. 

The Archdiocese of Toluca, near Mexico City, has recently warned its faithful to 

beware of men falsely claiming to be priests. 

According to reports from the local newspaper El Sol de Toluca, the archdiocese 

has received dozens of complaints from Catholics who attended services or 

received sacraments from these false priests. Toluca Archbishop Francisco Javier 

Chavolla Ramos first issued a reminder in June that anyone offering to celebrate 

Mass in one’s home is not a valid priest. 

“[If] a priest says he’s part of the archdiocese, ask for his license,” Archbishop 

Ramos said. “Every priest must bring an identification.” 

According to sociologist Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez, this rise in phony priests is a 

common occurrence during national disasters and demonstrates a disconnect 

between priests and their people. 

The rise in false priests “lets you see how distant are parish priests from their 

folk,” Soriano-Núñez told the Catholic Universe. 


NATION 

DC YouTube priest named bishop 

Then-Father William D. Byrne, right, at a charity house that serves adults 

with developmental differences in Potomac, Maryland. 

Bishop-elect 

William D. 

Byrne has been 

many things: a 

pastor, a president 

of Catholic 

Charities, a 

mentor, and 

even a popular 

YouTube host. 

But those who 

know him say 

those things 

alone aren’t why 

he’ll make a 

good bishop. 

“Pope Francis 

says the most 

attractive face of 

holiness is joy,” 

Susan Timoney, colleague of Bishop-elect Byrne and a theology professor at 

the Catholic University of America, told Catholic News Service. “What you 

see immediately is a joyful priest and a man who loves the Lord,” she said of 

the priest, whom Pope Francis named the next bishop of Springfield, Massachusetts, 

on Oct. 14. 

In addition to his ministry as parish priest in the Archdiocese of Washington, 

D.C., and significant service with people with developmental disabilities, he 

is known for his video series “Five Things” and the book it inspired, which 

expounds upon small ways people can grow in holiness. 

ED LANGLOIS/CATHOLIC SENTINEL 

A PRAYERFUL APPROACH — Catholics in Portland, Oregon, kneel to pray a rosary for peace 

and justice in a downtown park Oct. 17. The event, led by Archbishop Alexander Sample, 

also included a procession, eucharistic process, and prayers of exorcism. “There is no better 

time than in the wake of civil unrest and the eve of the elections to come together in prayer, 

especially here in Portland,” Archbishop Sample said before the procession. 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/JACLYN LIPPELMANN, CATHOLIC STANDARD 

A historic first 

for the Church 

Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Washington, 

D.C., was among the 13 new 

cardinals named by Pope Francis in a 

surprise announcement Oct. 25. 

The 72-year-old’s appointment would 

make him the first African-American 

cardinal of the Catholic Church. Archbishop 

Gregory will be eligible to vote 

for the next pope in a conclave until 

his 80th birthday. 

Other cardinals-designate include 

Archbishop Celestino Aós Braco of 

Santiago, Chile; Archbishop Antoine 

Kambanda of Kigali, Rwanda; Archbishop 

Jose Fuerte Advincula of Capiz, 

Philippines; Maltese Bishop Mario 

Grech, secretary general of the Synod 

of Bishops; the Italian Bishop Marcello 

Semeraro, who was named prefect of 

the Congregation for the Causes of 

Saints earlier in October; and 86-yearold 

Italian Capuchin Father Raniero 

Cantalamessa, who has served as the 

preacher to the papal household since 

1980. 

The 13 men are set to be officially 

elevated to the rank of cardinal at a Vatican 

consistory ceremony Nov. 28. 

US brokers Middle 

East peace deal 

For the third time since August, the 

U.S. has announced that it has brokered 

a peace deal between Israel and 

one of its historically hostile neighbors. 

“The State of Israel and the Republic 

of Sudan have agreed to make peace,” 

announced President Trump Oct. 24. 

The announcement was made in 

the Oval Office with Israel’s Prime 

Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on 

the phone. Sudan later confirmed the 

deal on their state TV, saying: “Sudan 

and Israel agreed to normalize their 

relations, to end the state of aggression 

between them.” 

“It is a new world,” Netanyahu said 

over the phone during the press conference 

in the Oval Office. “We are 

cooperating with everyone. Building a 

better future for all of us.” 


CCM_DiaDe 

LOCAL 

Farmworkers pray before the pilgrim images Oct. 22. 

LA County inches 

toward reopening 

classrooms 

The streamlined process for LA 

County schools to obtain waivers 

to reopen for in-person instruction 

means that thousands of students 

in transitional kindergarten 

through second grade could be 

returning to the classroom soon. 

In October, county officials 

dropped a step in the process that 

requires schools to have a letter 

of support from employee unions 

in their application for waivers to 

reopen. 

Until now, most of the waiver 

applications in the county have 

been submitted by private schools, 

including several Catholic ones. 

The process would get easier 

once LA County moves to the less 

restrictive red tier. Currently, LA 

County is still in the purple tier, 

while Santa Barbara and Ventura 

(the other two counties within the 

Archdiocese of Los Angeles) are in 

the red. 

Holy Angels School in Arcadia 

is one of four schools that has already 

received a waiver to reopen. 

Students will come back under 

a staggered attendance plan, and 

families will still have options for 

hybrid and virtual learning. 

Guadalupe pilgrimage 

kicks off in the fields 

The pilgrim images of Our Lady of Guadalupe 

and St. Juan Diego began their annual journey 

through the Archdiocese of Los Angeles with an 

Oct. 22 visit to workers at Muranaka Farms in 

Moorpark. 

During the procession and Mass, Father Juan 

Ochoa, president of the Commission for Our Lady 

of Guadalupe, blessed the farmworkers, recognizing 

their essential work in feeding families across 

the country during the coronavirus (COVID-19) 

pandemic. “Food and agriculture are about life,” he 

said, “life for the hungry and for all who depend on 

farmers and farmworkers for what we eat every day.” 

This is the first visit the pilgrim images have made to a working farm, organized 

in a partnership with the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) and Muranaka 

Farms. About 40 farmworkers participated in the celebration. 

The images will visit parishes throughout the archdiocese before the feast of Our 

Lady of Guadalupe on Dec. 6. Visit the AngelusNews.com/Events-Calendar for 

dates and locations. 

DAVID AMADOR RIVERA 

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone conducts an exorcism at the 

site of the destroyed statue at Mission San Rafael Oct. 17. 

SF archbishop performs exorcism 

after St. Junípero statue destroyed 


Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone performed an exorcism at the site of a destroyed 

statue of St. Junípero Serra at Mission San Rafael Arcangel in San Francisco. 

He called the destruction by rioters an “act of blasphemy.” 

“We pray that God might purify this place of evil spirits, that he might purify the 

hearts of those who perpetrated this blasphemy,” he said Oct. 17 before offering 

exorcism prayers and sprinkling the site with holy water. 

This marks the second exorcism Archbishop Cordileone has performed in connection 

with a destroyed St. Junípero statue, the first after a crowd tore down the 

statue at Golden Gate Park on June 19. 

“Father Serra is the wrong symbol of those who wish to address or redress this 

grievance” of the indigenous peoples’ mistreatment at the hands of European 

colonizers, he said. 

DENNIS CALLAHAN, ARCHDIOCESE OF SAN FRANCISCO 


CCM_DiaDeLosMuertos_Angelus_fp.indd 1 

10/15/20 7:37 PM

SUNDAY 

READINGS 

BY SCOTT HAHN 

Rev. 7:2–4, 9–14 / Ps. 24:1–6 / 1 Jn 3:1–3 / Mt. 5:1–12 

The first reading focuses us for today’s 

solemnity. In the Book of Revelation, 

St. John reports “a vision of a great 

multitude, which no one could count, 

from every nation, race, people, and 

tongue.” 

This is good news. Salvation has 

come not only for Israel, but for the 

Gentiles as well. Here is the fulfillment 

of God’s 

promise to 

Abraham, 

that by his 

seed all the 

nations of 

the world 

would bless 

themselves 

(see Genesis 

22:18). 

The 

Church celebrates 

many 

famous 

Christians 

on their 

individual 

memorials, 

but today 

she praises 

hope. In our second reading, St. John 

tells us that to be “saints” means to be 

“children of God”, and then he adds, 

“so we are”! Note that he speaks in the 

present tense. 

Yet John also says that we have unfinished 

business to tend. We are already 

God’s children, but “what we shall be 

has not yet been revealed.” Thus, we 

work out our 

salvation: 

“Everyone 

who has this 

hope based 

on him 

makes himself 

pure, as 

he is pure” 

(1 John 3:3). 

We do this 

as we share 

the life of 

Christ, who 

defined 

earthly 

beatitude for 

us. We are 

“blessed,” 

he says, 

when we are 

poor, when 

we mourn, 

when we are 

persecuted 

God for all 

his “holy “Sermon on the Mount,” by Carl Bloch, 1834-1890, Danish. 

ones,” his 

saints. That 

is the title St. Paul preferred when he for his sake. It is then we should “Rejoice 

addressed his congregations. 

and be glad, for your reward will 

Divinized by baptism, they were be great in heaven” (Matthew 5:12). 

already “saints” by the grace of God Until then, we pray with the psalmist: 

(see Colossians 1:2). They awaited, “Lord, this is the people that longs to 

however, the day when they could see your face.” Salvation has come 

“share in the inheritance of the saints through Abraham’s seed, but it belongs 

in light” (Colossians 1:12). 

to all nations. For “the Lord’s are the 

And so do we, as the Scriptures give earth and its fullness; the world and 

us reasons for both celebration and those who dwell in it” (Psalm 24:1). 

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

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

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

8 • ANGELUS • October August 16-23-30, 30-November 2019 6, 2020

IN EXILE 

BY FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI 

The Prince of Lies 

Looking at our world today, what 

frightens and unsettles me more than 

the threat of the coronavirus (COV- 

ID-19) virus, more than the growing 

inequality between the rich and the 

poor, more than the dangers of climate 

change, and even more than the bitter 

hatred that now separates us from 

one another, is our loss of any sense 

of truth, our facile denial of whatever 

truths we judge to be inconvenient, 

and our slogans of “fake news,” “alternate 

facts,” and phantom conspiracies. 

Social media, for all the good it has 

brought, has also created a platform 

for anyone to make up his or her own 

truth and then work at eroding the 

truths that bind us together and anchor 

our sanity. 

We now live in a world where two 

plus two often no longer equals four. 

This plays on our very sanity and has 

created a certain social insanity. The 

truths that anchor our common life are 

becoming unmoored. 

This is evil, clearly, and Jesus alerts 

us to that by telling us that Satan is 

preeminently the Prince of Lies. Lying 

is the ultimate spiritual, moral, and 

psychological danger. It lies at the root 

of what Jesus calls the “unforgivable sin 

against the Holy Spirit.” What is this 

sin and why is it unforgivable? 

Here’s the context within which 

Jesus warns us about this sin: He had 

just cast out a demon. The religious 

leaders of the time believed as a dogma 

in their faith that only someone who 

came from God could cast out a 

demon. 

Jesus had just cast out a demon, but 

their hatred of him made this a very 

inconvenient truth for them to swallow. 

So, they chose to deny what they knew 

to be true, to deny reality. They chose 

to lie, affirming (even as they knew 

better) that Jesus had done it by the 

power of Beelzebub. 

Initially, Jesus tried to point out 

the illogic of their position, but they 

persisted. It was then that he issued 

his warning about the unforgivable sin 

against the Holy Spirit. 

At that time, he’s not accusing 

them of committing that sin, but he’s 

warning them that the path they are 

on, if not corrected, can lead to that 

sin. In essence, he’s saying this: If we 

tell a lie long enough, eventually we 

will believe it and this so warps our 

conscience that we begin to see truth 

as falsehood and falsehood as truth. 

The sin then becomes unforgivable 

because we no longer want to 

be forgiven nor indeed will accept 

forgiveness. God is willing to forgive 

the sin, but we are unwilling to accept 

forgiveness because we see sin as good 

and goodness as sin. Why would we 

want forgiveness? 

It’s possible to end up in this state, 

a state wherein we judge the gifts of 

the Holy Spirit (charity, joy, peace, 

patience, goodness, endurance, 

fidelity, mildness, and chastity) as false, 

as being against life, as a malevolent 

naiveté. And the first step in moving 

toward this condition is lying, refusing 

to acknowledge the truth. 

The subsequent steps also are lying, 

that is, the continued refusal to accept 

the truth so that eventually we believe 

our own lies and we see them as the 

truth and the truth as a lie. Bluntly put, 

that’s what constitutes hell. 

Hell isn’t a place where one is sorrowful, 

repentant, and begging God for 

just one more chance to make things 

right. Nor is hell ever a nasty surprise 

waiting for an essentially honest 

person. If there’s anyone in hell, that 

person is there in arrogance, pitying 

people in heaven, seeing heaven as 

hell, darkness as light, falsehood as 

truth, evil as goodness, hatred as love, 

empathy as weakness, arrogance as 

strength, sanity as insanity, and God as 

the devil. 

One of the central lessons in the 

Gospels is this: Lying is dangerous, the 

most dangerous of all sins. And this 

doesn’t just play out in terms of our 

relationship with God and the Holy 

Spirit. When we lie, we’re not only 

playing fast and loose with God, we’re 

also playing fast and loose with our 

own sanity. 

Our sanity is contingent on what 

classical theology terms the “Oneness” 

of God. What this means in lay terms 

is that God is consistent. There are no 

contradictions inside of God and because 

of that, reality can also be trusted 

to be consistent. Our sanity depends on 

that trust. 

For instance, should we ever arrive 

at a day where two plus two no longer 

equals four, then the very underpinnings 

of our sanity will be gone; we will 

literally be unmoored. Our personal 

sanity and our social sanity depend 

upon the truth, upon us acknowledging 

the truth, upon us telling the truth, 

and upon two plus two forever equaling 

four. 

Martin Luther once said, “Sin boldly!” 

He meant a lot of things by that, 

but one thing he certainly did mean is 

that the ultimate spiritual and moral 

danger is to cover our weaknesses with 

lies because Satan is the Prince of 

Lies! 

Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher, award-winning author, and president of the Oblate School of Theology 

in San Antonio, Texas. Find him online at www.ronrolheiser.com and www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser. 



★ ★★ 

★ 

★ ★ ★ ★ 

Beyond the ballot box 

Once the dust of 

the 2020 election 

settles, how 

should Catholics 

approach the most 

important issues 

facing America in 

the next four years? 

A 48-foot U.S. flag outside 

Sacred Heart Church in 

downtown Peoria, 

Illinois, in 2016. 

The backdrop of the Nov. 3 general election is not a 

sunny one to behold. In this year alone, the United 

States has endured a global pandemic that has resulted 

in unexpected death, sickness, prolonged social isolation, 

and economic difficulties for millions. This followed three 

years of divisive political rhetoric, information wars, and 

cultural changes. 

Meanwhile, frustration and anger over political differences 

and social injustices have boiled over into our country’s 

streets in the form of protests, some peaceful, others violent. 

As we come to the end of an election season marked by partisan 

rancor, misinformation, and personal insults, much of 

our attention is held by the two candidates vying for the U.S. 

presidency for the next four years. But our lives will be affected 

by other choices on the ballot, too, among them local 

elected positions, congressional seats, and propositions. 

In this special issue of Angelus, we have invited noted experts 

from a variety of fields to examine critical social issues 

that our country is facing and offer a vision for how elected 

officials and ordinary Americans can address them over the 

course of the next four years. 

In these essays, our contributors look at the issues of economic 

disparity, homelessness, racial justice, health care, 

abortion, immigration, environmental concerns, and religious 

freedom from a Catholic perspective. 

It is our faith, Pope Francis reminds us in “Fratelli Tutti,” 

that helps us to see that our political engagement, insofar as 

it seeks to further justice, reconciliation, and the common 

good, is an act of love, a chance to help bring God’s plan to 

fruition. 

Rather than a “voter’s guide,” these contributions are intended 

to inspire readers to embrace the challenge of building 

a healthier society according to the teachings of the 

Gospel. After all, our work doesn’t end in the ballot box. It 

begins the next day. 


★ ★★ 

★ 

★ ★ ★ ★ 

Religious freedom is needed 

for a ‘culture of encounter’ 

COURTESY IMAGE 

BY MONTSE ALVARADO 

“The freedom to order 

our lives according 

to our religious 

convictions is a fundamental 

right that 

we have because of 

our human dignity. It 

is a freedom worth 

protecting.” 

In his new encyclical letter, “Fratelli 

Tutti,” Pope Francis calls people of 

all faiths and goodwill to see every 

human person as worthy of dignity, 

as beings with their eyes fixed on the 

transcendent, recognizing the magnitude 

of the gift we have been given in 

one another, manifested in a desire to 

become ever more fully themselves in 

the image of God. 

The freedom to order our lives 

according to our religious convictions 

is a fundamental right that we have 

because of our human dignity. It is a 

freedom worth protecting. 

The Holy Father opens the encyclical 

with a simple but important 

statement for us to consider as we contemplate 

what role we as Catholics 

have in securing this freedom for all 

Americans: “It is not possible to settle 

for what was achieved in the past and 

complacently enjoy it.” 

As Americans, we have at times rested 

on the laurels of those who have 

come before us. This includes the 

people who established and protected 

our religious freedom. 

Although most Americans (71% in 

2019 and counting) believe that the 

freedom to share beliefs with others 

and to have open conversations about 

religion in public should be protected, 

we are seeing sweeping violations 

of religious freedom in our country. 

In the last 10 months, the organization 

I work for, the Becket Fund for 

Religious Liberty, has consistently 

defended the religious freedom of 

Americans from diverse backgrounds. 

This includes: the rights of Sikhs 

and Muslims to have unshorn hair 

or beards and serve their country; 

of religious schools and seminaries 

to choose who will teach the Faith 

to the next generation free from the 

meddling hand of government; of 

religious hospitals not to have to pay 

for and participate in doctor-assisted 

suicide, abortion, or gender transition 

surgeries and therapies for children; 

of religious foster parents to serve 

children in their community; of the 

Jewish community in New York to 

keep an all-girls school open after 

proving they can safely operate during 

the pandemic; and the rights of the 

Little Sisters of the Poor to care for the 

elderly poor and dying free from the 

threat of a government mandate. 

Religious freedom is what I like 

to call “the great litmus test.” If it is 

being restricted or violated, then our 

other freedoms will be soon to follow. 

Though our work at the Becket 

Fund is plentiful, I’m not pessimistic 

or alarmist. That is because religious 

freedom has been winning in the 

courts. For the past 15 years, these 

cases have been winning often by a 

supermajority vote, not a divided one. 

Most recently, judges at all levels 

of our federal courts system have 

protected parental choice, the right 

of religious schools to choose who 

teaches the Faith to students, and the 

freedom to partner with the government 

to feed the homeless, shelter the 

orphaned, care for the elderly poor 

and dying. 

I also believe that common sense 

and a return to the American principles 

of pluralism and diversity is 

possible. The time of the coronavirus 

(COVID-19) pandemic is a telling 

example of how appealing to these 


fundamental principles is essential 

during a national crisis. 

The pandemic forced the global 

community to face the exact same 

problem and enemy. In many ways 

it brought us together. But it should 

concern us that we have allowed 

what were supposed to be temporary 

emergency restrictions to continue, 

especially insofar as they infringe on 

other goods. 

For example, the governor of 

New York is singling out the Jewish 

community, using the age-old tactic 

of scapegoating against a minority 

religion. In San Francisco, it took a 

letter from the Department of Justice 

to bring equality to the level of restrictions 

that were being imposed on 

houses of worship. 

It is in times of crisis that the government 

expands to mandate certain 

types of behavior to keep us safe. But 

in these moments, our Constitution 

is key. This is what our founding 

documents were made for. They were 

created under similar debates about 

the proper role of government, and 

are meant to guard our individual and 

community rights. 

Promoting religious diversity and 

protecting religiosity in general is a 

shining feature and not a bug in the 

way laws in our American society are 

structured. 

Religious freedom is not a political 

tool or tactic, but a natural expression 

of our membership in the human 

family and a net positive in closing the 

gaps the government cannot fill. Canceling 

those religious beliefs is not just 

un-American, it’s unconstitutional. 

We have recently struggled as a 

country to reject “freedom of worship” 

as a substitute for religious freedom, 

and to restore freedom of religion as 

People recite the rosary while participating in a roadside prayer rally marking Religious Freedom 

Week at St. James Church in Setauket, New York, June 24. 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/GREGORY A. SHEMITZ 

a human right, one that encompasses 

our ability to live a full citizenship 

that allows us to bring our religion 

with us when we step on to a university 

campus, walk into a government 

building, or make a profit. 

All of these issues involve our government, 

which consists of elected 

officials, appointed bureaucrats, legislatures, 

executives, and judges. And 

informed citizens will surely bring 

their views on all sides of these issues 

to the ballot box. 

But in addition to voting, the next 

four years are also about asking the 

right questions: of our government 

leaders, our cultural institutions, and 

of ourselves. 

Will we be allowed to close the gap, 

to reach within our own communities 

inspired by our religious beliefs, and 

use our religious freedom to “contribute 

to the betterment of society?” 

Will we be able to act on our beliefs, 

as Pope Francis says, in an “effort to 

assist another person,” which is “a 

duty?” 

The Holy Father exhorts us to remember 

our past, and the foundational 

teachings of religious freedom as 

the door to human flourishing, as the 

common agreement to allow religious 

conversations between human beings 

to take place. 

Embracing a culture of encounter 

and openness to different beliefs 

should be at the forefront of our 

efforts to protect religious freedom in 

the years ahead. 

Montse Alvarado is vice president and 

executive director of the Becket Fund 

for Religious Liberty. 


★ ★★ 

★ 

★ ★ ★ ★ 

Building an immigration 

policy for the least among us 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/TYLER ORSBURN 

BY DYLAN CORBETT 

“The most effective 

and the most moral 

action we can take 

on immigration is to 

redirect our attention 

and resources to 

addressing the drivers 

of migration, so 

children like Jakelin 

do not have to leave 

their communities 

and migrate.” 

In 2018, just a few weeks before 

Christmas, a young girl battling 

organ failure was airlifted to an 

emergency room in downtown El 

Paso, Texas. Seven-year-old Jakelin 

Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin died 

soon afterward. 

She had made a journey of 2,000 

miles with her father from an indigenous 

community in the highlands of 

Guatemala. Because of new measures 

designed to dissuade asylum-seekers at 

the border in El Paso, she and her father 

traveled almost 200 miles farther 

west into the remote and dangerous 

desert, where they crossed the border 

to ask for asylum. 

Soon after turning themselves into 

the Border Patrol, she began to suffer 

seizures, and her temperature spiked 

to over 105 degrees. Then she was 

airlifted to the hospital. 

Not long after her death, together 

with three priests from El Paso, I 

traveled to Guatemala to meet with 

Jakelin’s family. Getting to her village 

was not easy. We traveled first by helicopter, 

then by bus, and finally walked 

the last long mile or so on a straight 

dirt path. 

Meeting Jakelin’s family was one 

of the hardest moments of my life. 

We could offer nothing in response 

to the unthinkable grief borne by 

her mother. Her mother told us that 

Jakelin had insisted on accompanying 

her father because she was a dreamer, 

and because she thought it would be 

an adventure. 

As she told us that, I glanced back 

at the dirt path and imagined her 

setting off, filled with a childlike 

sense of adventure. In looking at the 

path, I felt privy to an intimate and 

dreadful truth: Jakelin was a martyr 

to her dreams, and killed by a deeply 

flawed system. I could never look at 

something like the border wall in my 

community the same way again. 

It is difficult to assign blame for 

Jakelin’s death. Does it lie with the 

Border Patrol agents responsible for 

providing her with water and ensuring 

her medical care? Or with the officers 

who turned asylum-seekers like Jakelin 

away at the border and toward the 

desert? Does it lie primarily with an 

administration that has demonized 

asylum-seekers for political gain? Or 

with a sprawling and vastly unaccountable 

border enforcement complex? 

Finding an answer to who is responsible 

is a complex one. What is clear is 

that our current hardline immigration 

policies are producing innumerable 

casualties and destroying families, 

not moving us closer to meaningful 

reform. It’s well past time for a new 

direction. 

A majority of Americans support 

comprehensive immigration reform, 

including an earned pathway to 

citizenship. The failure of Congress to 

act has left a population, which contributes 

positively to our national life, 

vulnerable to attack and exploitation. 

In the absence of congressional 

action, immigrants have fallen victim 

to the constant seesaw of executive 

action and judicial intervention, 

which is bad for migrants and bad for 

democracy. 

In order to demonstrate credibility 

with advocates and the immigrant 

community, our next administration 

will have to prioritize a long overdue 


legalization program for the undocumented. 

But even more must be done. America 

has a system which, over the last 

few presidential administrations, has 

criminalized more and more categories 

of migrants and has militarized 

the border, while paying little attention 

to the root causes of migration. 

There are three things the next administration 

should prioritize: 

1. End the politics of exclusion 

Our current harsh immigration policies 

do not address real policy gaps. 

In fact, the unauthorized immigration 

population in the United States had 

declined during the Obama administration 

and apprehensions at the 

border largely continued to plunge 

from their historical highs around the 

turn of the century. 

Attacks on migrants have solely 

served the purposes of a base politics 

of xenophobia, “fomented and exploited 

for political purposes,” as Pope 

Francis says in “Fratelli Tutti.” This 

must end. 

2. Rethink enforcement 

The U.S. currently spends more 

than $25 billion annually on immigration 

enforcement, which dwarfs the 

budgets of all nonimmigration related 

federal law enforcement agencies, 

including the FBI. 

We have constructed a top-heavy 

system of immigration enforcement 

— greased with dollars that flow 

to private contractors — narrowly 

designed to detain and deport rather 

than a system capable of humanely 

processing asylum-seekers like Jakelin. 

The gross mismatch between the 

realities on the ground at the border 

and the politics of exclusion has 

resulted in more migrants and migrant 

children dying in the custody of the 

federal government in the last few 

years than ever before. 

Friends and family carry the casket of Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin during her burial on 

Christmas Day 2018 in San Antonio Secortez, Guatemala. 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/CARLOS BARRIA, REUTERS 

Monies should be redirected toward 

creating well-functioning independent 

immigration courts, as well as legal 

representation, and we should embrace 

proven alternatives to detention. 

3. Address root causes 

An obsessive focus on wall building 

has distracted us from the fact that 

we are implicated in many of the 

drivers of immigration to the border. 

Our consumption of drugs is driving 

an increase in criminality and the 

weakening of democracy in the major 

countries of origin in Central America. 

Multinationals are engaging in a 

hostile competition for natural resources 

there, which is driving families 

like Jakelin’s off their land and into 

poverty. And our lack of leadership on 

climate change means that those who 

depend on cultivating the land for 

their livelihood face a more precarious 

existence every year we don’t act. 

The most effective and the most 

moral action we can take on immigration 

is to redirect our attention and 

resources to addressing the drivers of 

migration, so children like Jakelin do 

not have to leave their communities 

and migrate. 

Wherever I go, I carry with me a photograph 

of Jakelin. Whatever happens 

this election season, I pray that people 

of faith continue to work toward a 

compassionate system worthy of her 

dreams. 

Dylan Corbett is the executive director 

of the Hope Border Institute, a Catholic 

advocacy organization located on 

the U.S.-Mexico border. 


★ ★★ 

★ 

★ ★ ★ ★ 

Want to end abortion? 

Try thinking ‘radically’ 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/BOB ROLLER 

BY HELEN ALVARÉ 

“It turns out that 

severing sex from 

‘tomorrow’ — from 

a shared future, marriage, 

children, kin, 

even love — paves 

the way for mistrust 

between the sexes, 

later and fewer marriages, 

more cohabitation, 

and for 

abortion when contraception 

fails.” 

The values that structure and 

propel the pro-life movement 

are never merely personal, but 

are also political. 

They include a commitment to truth 

and radical solidarity with the human 

person, both of which are foundational 

to a just political order. These 

values should animate every branch 

of our next administration when it 

comes to the issue of abortion. 

If they did, they could be the basis of 

a number of laws and policies likely 

supported by a majority of Americans, 

and genuinely helpful to women and 

couples facing the abortion question. 

But before articulating such laws and 

policies, it’s helpful to think about 

what “drives” abortion in the United 

States, and how a radical reorientation 

to truth and love might help. 

Thirty years of work in the pro-life 

arena lead me to a few conclusions. 

First, women seek abortion because 

they became pregnant while single, 

thus lacking a supportive, stable 

husband taking equal responsibility 

for mother and child. Single women 

have nearly 86% of all abortions in 

the U.S. 

In turn, the U.S.’ high nonmarital 

pregnancy rates are a function of 

our high rates of nonmarital sexual 

involvement, and these emerge 

from a “relationship marketplace” 

(if you will) in which nonmarital 

sex is expected, marriage is delayed, 

and women are expected to bear the 

lion’s share of the risks of pregnancy 

and childbirth, or abortion and its 

aftermath. 

This marketplace has largely been 

built by decades of federal and state 

policy — and plenty of help from 

media and the academy — promoting 

the lie that “consent plus contraception” 

will fix everything. 

It’s been a train wreck for all involved, 

and perhaps especially for 

women and children, because after 

contraception is widely promoted to 

single women, rates of nonmarital 

birth go up, not down, along with 

rates of abortion. 

It turns out that severing sex from 

“tomorrow” — from a shared future, 

marriage, children, kin, even love — 

paves the way for mistrust between the 

sexes, later and fewer marriages, more 

cohabitation, and for abortion when 

contraception fails. And contraception 

fails a lot, according to the Centers for 

Disease Control and Prevention. 

Second, economics also drives 

abortion. Many women report that 

they are unable to afford a child. This 

overlaps considerably with their being 

unmarried, and lacking the father’s 

steady income. But it also overlaps 

with a dearth of humane, living-wage 

jobs for less-educated Americans, who 

are also the most likely to obtain an 

abortion. 

This is complicated, and involves 

factors that mutually influence one 

another. Part of the problem is the 

intergenerational transmission of 

poverty, especially in single-parent 

families. Another involves the interplay 

between poor neighborhoods, 

poor schools, father absence, crime 

rates, and substance abuse. 

Third, and related to the first two, 

is the complete and total lack of anything 

that might be denominated a 

“family policy” in the U.S. Alongside 


no family policy is no thoughtful, cultural 

support for the married family. 

By this I mean that the media and 

the academy act as if we could live 

without the married family. 

Instead, every man and woman is 

an island. Our laws and policies do 

the same, in the fields of tax, employment, 

housing, zoning, education, 

health care, child care, and the family 

law of marriage and divorce. This is 

exactly wrong. 

Clearly, the way children are formed 

SHUTTERSTOCK 

shapes the neighborhood, the community, 

the world. But in the U.S. the 

state says only, “Don’t get pregnant 

while you’re a teenager. Here’s some 

free contraception. If you’re 20 or 

older, do whatever.” It says, “Getting 

married is a snap. So is getting divorced.” 

It says, “If you get pregnant, 

do whatever. It’s your choice. If you’re 

poor we’ll give you enough money to 

scrape by, but we have no idea how to 

help you move forward.” 

All of this indicates what a next administration 

needs to do to ameliorate 

our abortion situation. 

First, never dodge or lie about what 

legal abortion is or who it wrecks. It 

licenses killing, but only within the 

family. It tears a hole in a mother’s 

psyche. Honesty on this point is foundational 

to the rest. Without respect 

for human life, qua human life, why 

would we care to sacrifice as a nation 

to promote human love, marriage, 

and family life? 

Second, stop lying about the importance 

of the family, and start orienting 

every law and policy even touching 

the family toward fostering and stabilizing 

it. 

Next, stop pretending that individualistic 

programs touting sexual consent 

plus contraception are helping 

build up male/female relations, marriage, 

or parental willingness to care 

for children. They do the opposite. 

And finally — whether it’s a matter 

of reenvisioning educational or 

employment, or training or housing, 

or whatever policy — pursue radical 

solidarity with those Americans falling 

further and further behind. They 

want and deserve dignified employment 

at a living wage. They have a 

right to a standard of living sufficient 

to realize a vocation to marriage and 

parenting. 

Helen Alvaré is a professor of law at 

Antonin Scalia Law School, George 

Mason University, where she teaches 

family law, law and religion, and 

property law. She publishes on matters 

concerning marriage, parenting, 

nonmarital households, and the First 

Amendment religion clauses. 


★ ★★ 

★ 

★ ★ ★ ★ 

The method is Love: 

A Catholic response to racism 

DEACONHAROLD.COM 

BY DEACON HAROLD 

BURKE-SIVERS 

“Catholics, working 

closely with the next 

administration, can 

play a significant 

role in assisting 

lawmakers to break 

down the walls of 

racism by taking a 

‘hands-on’ approach 

to creating pillars of 

mutual respect and 

understanding.” 

There is a leadership vacuum in 

the United States when it comes 

to effectively dealing with issues 

of race. This is one of the reasons why 

we have seen violent protests, looting, 

and vandalism on our streets this year. 

There is no one to “rally the troops” 

like Nelson Mandela did. There is 

currently no individual who can cut 

through the rhetoric and speak to the 

heart of the issue, someone whom 

Americans can stand behind and say, 

“Finally, someone who gets it; someone 

who can unite us.” 

This leadership void has, instead, 

been partially filled by shallow organizations 

and individuals who are more 

interested in promoting secularist 

agendas and ideologies than closing 

the racial divide. 

A great leader of the past shows us 

the way forward. Martin Luther King 

Jr. said that if peace and racial equality 

are to be achieved, “man must evolve 

for all human conflict a method which 

rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. 

The foundation of such a method 

is love.” Racial injustice and prejudice 

are antithetical to love, truth, freedom, 

and peace. 

Prejudice is a preconceived notion 

about someone that is not based on any 

factual or objective experience, while 

racism is prejudice or discrimination 

directed toward someone of a different 

race rooted in the belief that one race 

is superior to another. 

Racist attitudes expressed by individuals 

sometimes infiltrate institutional 

structures and organizations, forming 

the foundation of systemic racism. 

Clear examples of this include: slavery; 

the Dred Scott decision; Jim Crow 

laws; segregation; and government-approved 

discrimination in housing, 

education, and employment. 

Even in the history of the Church, 

Catholic leaders and organizations 

chose to follow civil law rather than the 

law of God by owning slaves, implementing 

segregation in the churches, 

and excluding minorities from participation 

in the life of the Church. 

That said, we must be careful with the 

term “institutional racism.” Institutional 

racism must be distinguished from 

individuals within institutions who 

continue to hold prejudiced and racist 

attitudes. 

The Church, founded by Jesus 

Christ, cannot be racist. But there are 

undoubtedly individuals within the 

Church who are racists. Likewise, the 

U.S. government is not racist (there are 

A man wal 

Nath Murd 


very strict anti-discrimination and civil 

rights laws now in place), but there 

are individuals within the government 

who exhibit prejudice or are blatantly 

racist. 

This sad reality should serve as a reminder 

that we are all sinners in need 

of God’s mercy, and that we are still 

dealing with the effects of original sin. 

The solution to what we are seeing 

and experiencing in this country with 

respect to the issues involved in police 

brutality cannot be found in rioting, 

looting, or vandalism. 

Catholics, working closely with 

the next administration, can play a 

significant role in assisting lawmakers 

to break down the walls of racism 

by taking a “hands-on” approach to 

creating pillars of mutual respect and 

understanding. The two main pillars, 

A man walks past an anti-racism mural by street artist 

Nath Murdoch in Peterborough, England, June 2. 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/JOE GIDDENS, PA IMAGES VIA REUTERS 

as I see them, are promotion of open 

dialogue about racism and a reevaluation 

of “use-of-force” law enforcement 

practices. 

Efforts to facilitate change through 

dialogue and understanding need to 

be applauded and multiplied, where 

communication barriers are shattered 

and respectful dialogue is opened 

between those in power and the disenfranchised. 

Deep-seated commitments 

to building integrity, sharing wisdom, 

and imparting knowledge can lead to 

reciprocity of love and change. 

Reaching out with compassion to 

those of different races and hearing 

their stories, responding with empathy, 

and working through differences with 

humble, contrite hearts, can create a 

harmonic of love that will reverberate 

in our hearts and throughout our land. 

During my 23-year public safety 

career, I served in various leadership 

positions and received training through 

the National School Safety Center, the 

Federal Law Enforcement Training 

Center, the Crisis Prevention Institute, 

and the National Association of School 

Safety and Law Enforcement Officers. 

From 2002 to 2008, I had the honor 

and privilege of serving on the board 

of the Department of Public Safety 

Standards and Training for the state of 

Oregon. I am very familiar with how 

law enforcement officers are trained, 

and I will be the first to admit that 

there needs to be reform and rebuilding. 

So what can be done? Advocates 

should consider the following: 

• Go on a ride-along. See what police 

officers do on a daily basis, then 

make an informed decision with 

government officials on how to move 

forward. 

• Implement better psychological 

testing/screening to identify bias and 

prejudice. 

• Implement more effective scenario-based 

training. 

• Have police departments follow 

the recommendation of the Police 

Executive Research Forum to assist 

officers to recognize the inherent 

dignity of every human person. This 

should be part of the required curriculum 

at every police academy. 

• Provide ongoing, mandatory cultural 

diversity training for all officers. 

• Work with police unions to toughen 

accountability regarding moral 

turpitude and officer discipline 

investigations. 

In their 1979 pastoral letter on racism, 

“Brothers and Sisters to Us,” the bishops 

of the United States said the following: 

“The ultimate remedy against evils 

such as [racism] will not come solely 

from human effort. What is needed 

is the re-creation of the human being 

according to the image revealed in 

Jesus Christ, for he revealed in himself 

what each human being can and must 

become.” 

I encourage all American Catholics to 

lovingly accept Our Lord’s invitation to 

“go and do likewise” as living signs and 

witnesses of God’s tender love and mercy, 

so that the world may see the good 

that we do and give glory to God. 

Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers serves in 

the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon. 


★ ★★ 

★ 

★ ★ ★ ★ 

Promoting a culture 

of life in health care 

© 2020 CHRIST MEDICUS FOUNDATION 

© 2020 CHRIST MEDICUS FOUNDATION 

BY LOUIS BROWN 

AND BY MICHAEL VACCA 

“People who attend 

religious services are 

happier and healthier 

than their counterparts.” 

While health care has long 

been a prominent issue in 

American politics, it has 

never played such a central part in an 

election year as it has in 2020 amid 

the coronavirus (COVID-19) public 

health crisis. 

Much has been made of the weaknesses 

in our country’s health care 

system that COVID-19 has exposed. 

We have witnessed the reality that 

much of our system operates under 

an abortive mindset; that is, the 

assumption that persons who are 

disabled, poor, or living with chronic 

conditions lead lives that are not 

worth living. 

Dealing with disparities in access to 

health care and improving access to 

preventative care (including health 

and wellness options) have taken on a 

heightened urgency. 

The essential domestic political 

task of the next four years will be to 

advance a culture of life in medical 

care in three key ways. 

THE RIGHT TO LIFE IN HEALTH CARE 

Every person has a right to medical 

care that is based on the inherent 

right to life from conception to natural 

death. The right to medical care 

for each person flows from the duty 

of society to provide that care and not 

the government alone. 

As St. Pope John Paul II proclaimed, 

our country’s ability to fully defend 

the right to medical care and all other 

rights is dependent on whether we 

fully defend the right to life. Our 

elected officials have a moral obligation 

to protect the life and dignity of 

every American beginning with the 

most vulnerable. 

Consistent with papal teaching 

and the U.S. Conference of Catholic 

Bishops’ introductory letter on 

“Forming Consciences for Faithful 

Citizenship,” the preeminent priority 

of the next presidential term must be 

to defend the right to life of the most 

vulnerable: unborn children. 

Abortion, which involves the murder 

of a child in utero, claims the lives 

of well over 600,000 Americans per 

year. Of the 60 million children who 

have been aborted since Roe v. Wade, 

19 million of them have been African 

American. 

Concretely, the next presidential 

administration and Congress should 

implement a pro-life health care 

policy that fully defends the unborn, 

upholds the Hyde Amendment’s 

prohibition on public funding of 

abortion, protects the life and health 

of infants who survive abortion, and 

provides support, medical care, and 

material assistance to mothers in 

crisis pregnancies. 

FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE 

The rights of conscience and 

religious freedom in health care are 

under the greatest threat in American 

history. More than 100 U.S. 

Senators and members of Congress 

have endorsed a government takeover 

of health care that would create 

a federal abortion mandate, shred 

conscience and religious freedom 

protections for doctors and nurses, 

and virtually destroy the ability of 

Catholic health care to serve the poor 

and vulnerable. 

In just the last 10 months, a Catho- 


A doctor at Common Spirit’s Dignity Health 

California Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles 

takes care of a COVID-19 patient May 18. 

lic physician in Oregon was fired by a 

Catholic medical institution because 

of her beliefs, a Catholic hospital in 

Maryland that was sued because it refused 

to violate Catholic teaching in 

their medical services, and a federal 

court blocked the Trump administration’s 

civil rights regulatory action 

that safeguarded civil rights in health 

care, while also protecting the rights 

of medical conscience and religious 

freedom. 

The right of health care workers to 

provide medical care that is consistent 

with their moral or religious convictions 

is one of the most fundamental 

rights in a society. If our country 

passes laws that force medical professionals 

to violate their conscience, 

our country will do serious damage to 

civil rights, while putting every other 

fundamental right at risk. 

Instead, the White House should 

work with Congress to pass federal 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/LUCY NICHOLSON, REUTERS 

health care conscience legislation 

that protects the right of doctors, 

nurses, medical students, medical 

professionals, and health care entities 

to care for their patients according to 

their consciences. 

COVID-19, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, 

AND HEALTH CARE CIVIL RIGHTS 

The COVID-19 public health crisis 

has caused pain and suffering for so 

many in our country. It has exposed 

underlying inequality in our medical 

system: Certain communities of color, 

persons with pre-existing conditions, 

and the materially poor have proven 

to be susceptible to this virus. 

It has also exposed serious concerns 

about religious freedom as well as 

the importance of religious practice 

in many Americans’ well-being and 

overall health. 

Tragically, we have seen many local 

and state government and public 

health officials express apathy, and at 

times hostility, toward the freedom 

of religion and the essential activities 

of people of faith. There is no 

public health exception to the First 

Amendment’s guarantee of religious 

freedom, as the U.S. Department of 

Justice has declared. Even during a 

public health crisis, religious freedom 

must be protected as least as strongly 

as commercial business interests. 

While religious freedom, the 

freedom to know and love God, is a 

fundamental freedom deserving of 

the elevated legal protection of the 

First Amendment, religious freedom 

also plays a vital role in the whole 

health of a person. According to social 

science research, people who regularly 

attend religious services are happier 

and healthier than their counterparts. 

This crisis has also exposed the 

reality that many vulnerable persons 

have unequal access to medical care 

and experience serious discriminatory 

violations of their civil rights in their 

medical care. 

We have seen patients denied medical 

care, family visitation, and access 

to spiritual support from chaplains 

and patient advocates. Hospitals and 

other medical facilities have moral 

and legal obligations to safeguard the 

life, dignity, and civil rights of patients 

and families. 

In response to these troubling trends, 

Christ Medicus Foundation has 

called for a new birth of civil rights 

in health care, beginning with the 

fundamental right of religious freedom 

and expanding into the defense 

of the civil rights of patients who are 

marginalized and most vulnerable. 

Catholic bishops, medical professionals, 

and health care leaders must 

come together with the laity to bring 

Christ-centered medical care to the 

margins of American life. 

The road ahead requires that elected 

officials prioritize the defense of the 

unborn, conscience protections, 

religious freedom and civil rights 

in health care, and advance federal 

legislation that allows Catholic health 

care to fulfill its mission. 

Louis Brown, J.D., is the executive 

director of Chris Medicus Foundation. 

Michael Vacca, J.D., serves as the 

director of Ministry, Bioethics, and 

Member Experience at Christ Medicus 

Foundation. 


★ ★★ 

★ 

★ ★ ★ ★ 

To solve homelessness, 

it takes a community 

© 2020 COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS 

BY ROSANNE HAGGERTY 

“Perhaps the single 

most impactful step 

our federal government 

could take is 

expanding rental assistance 

to all eligible 

households.” 

Residents of the Archdiocese of 

Los Angeles don’t need to be 

persuaded that homelessness is 

a critical issue this election. 

They see or experience this misery 

every day. At last count, almost a 

quarter of the estimated 568,000 men, 

women, and children experiencing 

homelessness in the United States lived 

in California. Around 59,000 were 

counted in Los Angeles County alone, 

the great majority living on the street. 

And that was before coronavirus 

(COVID-19) and the wake-up calls of 

2020. 

Too easily our society has treated 

homelessness as an individual misfortune 

or a lifestyle choice. The events of 

this year have dropped the scales from 

our eyes. When we see homelessness, 

we’re seeing the failure of our community 

to support the economic well-being 

of all its citizens in times of crisis. 

Without a secure place to live, those 

experiencing homelessness are at 

greater risk of illness, hospitalization, 

and death. Without addressing racial 

disparities in access to housing, our 

communities can expect new inflows 

into homelessness. Without federal 

action to assist households at risk of 

eviction, economists project that the 

homeless population may increase 

by more than 40% after the eviction 

moratorium ends. 

Awakened by the pandemic, we’re 

seeing a new sense of urgency emerging 

to solve homelessness, alongside 

an eagerness to know what works and 

what policies and approaches to support. 

Communities across the country 

have proven that homelessness is solvable. 

What we’ve learned is that it starts 

with accountability and a commitment 

to results. 

I lead a nonprofit organization, Community 

Solutions, that supports more 

than 80 cities and counties working 

together toward “zero” homelessness 

in their communities. This means in 

practice that in their communities, 

homelessness is rare overall and brief 

when it occurs because a coordinated 

system is in place to prevent most 

homelessness and to rehouse more 

people each month than those who 

become homeless. 

Participation in this network of “Built 

for Zero” communities is voluntary. 

These local teams commit themselves 

to a new way of working, using a public 

health approach that embraces the 

goal of zero homelessness across their 

community. 

Since 2015, more than half of these 

communities have reduced — and 

in some cases, ended — chronic or 

veteran homelessness on their way to a 

comprehensive solution. 

Their success tells us about the federal 

and local policies that are needed to 

get results and what we should expect 

of our leaders at all levels of government. 

It tells us what we should do to 

protect one another from ever experiencing 

the indignity and nightmare of 

homelessness. 

We should be advocating and working 

for the following: 

• Policies that support a public 

health approach. Good individual 

programs for addressing homelessness 

don’t add up to zero homelessness 

in a community. They must be 

part of a system that is accountable 

for results. Homelessness needs to be 


approached as a public health challenge: 

measured in real time, with 

each individual accounted for, and 

regular public reporting on current 

rates of homelessness and actions 

taken to reduce it. 

• Policies that support collaboration 

and efficiency. Those experiencing 

homelessness typically interact 

with many organizations to try to 

piece together the help they need. 

It should be the job of organizations 

to eliminate the fragmentation that 

harms vulnerable people and adds 

unnecessary time and cost. We need 

policies that reinforce collaboration, 

reduce bureaucracy, and incent 

reducing homelessness. 

• Policies that support quality data 

and data sharing. Having a comprehensive, 

accurate view of homelessness 

at all times is key to a community 

knowing what’s working to reduce 

homelessness and how the issue is 

moving and changing. Federal and 

local policies are needed that create 

common data standards, establish 

regular reporting requirements, and 

enable critical data to be collected 

easily and appropriately shared 

among collaborating organizations. 

• Policies that expand rental assistance. 

Perhaps the single most 

impactful step our federal government 

could take is expanding rental 

assistance to all eligible households. 

This is a smart investment in the 

strength of our communities. 

• Policies that support innovation in 

housing. Communities need new 

ways of financing, building, and 

managing housing, a range of housing 

options that fit the needs and 

preferences of all their residents, and 

ways of taking an honest look at their 

housing supply and what policies 

they need to assure a decent home 

for all; policies that enable housing 

options to keep pace with demographic 

changes in their community 

are a step in that direction. 

The pandemic has clarified our sight 

and the need to make ending homelessness 

a shared national mission. 

The urgency is clear. Misguided policies 

created homelessness. Effective 

ones can end it. 

Rosanne Haggerty is the president of 

Community Solutions. 

A homeless woman on a sidewalk in South Los Angeles in October. 



★ ★★ 

★ 

★ ★ ★ ★ 

Creating a post-COVID-19 

economy of inclusion 

COURTESY IMAGE 

BY PATRICK T. BROWN 

“Families want help 

paying for big expenses 

like health 

care and small ones 

like formula and diapers, 

but they don’t 

necessarily want to 

see big government 

programs in order to 

make that happen.” 

A 

year ago, the economic forecast 

for American families was like 

one of those sunny Southern 

California evenings that gives you a 

warm, easy feeling about the future. 

The median household income had 

reached an all-time high of $68,700, 

according to the U.S. Census Bureau. 

Household earnings and labor-force 

participation were increasing, the 

official poverty rate had fallen to 

an all-time low, income inequality 

was falling, and all racial and ethnic 

groups were seeing their economic 

fortunes improving. 

Then a once-in-a-generation storm 

rolled in. 

As the nation tries to get a handle on 

the ongoing cultural and economic 

impact of the coronavirus (COV- 

ID-19) pandemic, the incoming 

Congress and next administration will 

face no shortage of problems to get 

things back on track. 

Ever since the initial lockdowns and 

stay-at-home orders went into effect 

in the spring, economists and policymakers 

have been hoping for a short 

halt followed by a quick rebound: a 

“V-shaped recovery,” in economic 

shorthand. 

Instead, the continued spread of 

the virus, and the disparate impact it 

is having on different social classes, 

means some economists are seeing a 

“K-shaped recovery.” 

The upper branch of the “K” is 

made up of those with enough 

resources to insulate themselves from 

the worst of the damage: professionals 

with the ability to work from home, 

families with savings to tap, and 

parents who can afford private schools 

when their public school remains 

closed. 

The lower branch of the “K” consists 

of everyone from low-wage service 

workers who have seen hours cut, to 

parents who have to cut back hours 

because they have no child-care options, 

to the millions of workers who 

have lost jobs due to the immediate 

and ongoing effects of COVID-19. 

It is these households that deserve to 

be the focus of elected officials’ efforts 

as the calendar turns. As Pope Francis 

said in “Laudato Si’” (“Praise Be to 

You”) and reminded us in “Fratelli 

Tutti,” “to claim economic freedom 

while real conditions bar many people 

from actual access to it, and while 

possibilities for employment continue 

to shrink, is to practice doublespeak.” 

States and localities are facing tight 

budgets thanks to decreased tax 

revenues, and nothing can match 

the spending power of the federal 

government’s purse. With federal policymakers 

seemingly unable to agree 

on another coronavirus aid package 

before the end of the year, the beginning 

of next year could, depending 

on the result of November’s elections, 

see a large legislative package. 

Assuming the next administration 

will work with the next Congress, 

that package could include another 

round of economic stimulus checks 

or increased tax relief, additional 

support for schools, state, and local 

government, health care systems, 

and expanded support for child care, 


and other measures aimed at helping 

working families. 

Whatever this package looks like, 

it will be essential for officials to 

remember the vast diversity in experience 

and situations across the U.S. 

Not every family is looking for federally 

subsidized child care; nearly 1 in 

5 parents choose to stay home instead 

of enter the labor force. 

Not every family will benefit equally 

from increasing funding for public 

schools. Surveys show more than half 

of parents would support plans to use 

government funds to allow children 

to pay for tuition in private schools. 

Families want help paying for big 

expenses like health care and small 

ones like formula and diapers, but 

they don’t necessarily want to see 

big government programs in order to 

make that happen. 

Policymakers should prioritize 

increasing the choice set facing 

families, with a preference for getting 

resources to families on the lower 

branch of the “K.” 

This requires creative thinking, a 

willingness to explore other mechanisms 

aside from the tried-and-true, 

and a recognition that what is appropriate 

for getting households back 

Agricultural workers labor in a Marina field March 30 amid the coronavirus pandemic. 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/SHANNON STAPLETON, REUTERS 

on their feet amid a global pandemic 

may look very different than what 

would be appropriate in more normal 

times. 

Again, Pope Francis reminds us: “A 

truly human and fraternal society will 

be capable of ensuring in an efficient 

and stable way that each of its members 

is accompanied at every stage of 

life.” 

Last year at this time, there was nary 

a cloud on the horizon. All signs 

pointed to labor markets that drew 

workers off the sidelines, increasing 

take-home pay for families and providing 

upward mobility for households 

all across the income spectrum. 

It had been almost two decades since 

we had seen our economy work to 

this degree, and there is no shortage 

of painful “what ifs” of how a worker-friendly 

labor market could have 

boosted more families’ prospects. The 

body blow of the pandemic came just 

when we started to see the potential 

of a fully humming economy. 

The first order of business will 

be getting the virus under control. 

Once it is — God willing, soon — 

attention will turn to restarting the 

economy and hopefully recapturing 

the momentum that had seemed so 

promising for poor, working-class, and 

middle-class families, and hopefully 

will be again. 

Patrick T. Brown writes from Columbia, 

South Carolina. He has 

experience on Capitol Hill and in the 

nonprofit advocacy sector, and is on 

Twitter at @PTBwrites. 


Continued from Page 2 

When it comes to civil unions, the 

pope’s approach may actually have 

drawn inspiration from a bishop in 

California. 

During his time in San Francisco 

from 1995 to 2005, then-Archbishop 

William Levada (later cardinal and 

the Vatican’s doctrinal chief under 

Pope Benedict XVI) instituted a policy 

that allowed unmarried archdiocesan 

employees to list any person they 

lived with as their “domestic partner,” 

regardless of the nature of their 

relationship. The policy helped the 

archdiocese avoid being forced to 

recognize illicit relationships. 

Additional controversy erupted 

in the days following the release of 

the pope’s comments, when it was 

revealed that his statements on civil 

unions were actually from unaired 

portions of a 2019 interview with 

Mexican news station Televisa. 

The pope’s sentences in the documentary, 

it was determined, were 

spliced together, out of context, 

from the unaired parts of the 2019 

interview, America magazine Rome 

correspondent Gerard O’Connell 

reported Oct. 24. As a result, the full 

context of his remarks is unknown, 

since the complete, unedited version 

of the interview has not been released 

by the Vatican. 

However, in the version of the Televisa 

interview that aired last year, Pope 

Francis answered the following when 

asked whether his position on samesex 

unions had grown more liberal as 

of late: 

“The grace of the Holy Spirit certainly 

exists. I have always defended the 

doctrine. And it is curious that in the 

law on homosexual marriage. ... It is 

an incongruity to speak of homosexual 

marriage. But what we have to have is 

a law of civil union (‘ley de convivencia 

civil’), so they have the right to be 

legally covered.” 

In any case, many Vatican watchers 

and Catholic experts have pointed out 

that the pope’s comments were, well, 

just comments: Made in an on-camera 

interview, they were not expressed 

in an official teaching document, like 

an encyclical or exhortation, and thus 

do not affect the established magisterium 

of the Church on marriage or 

the family. 

What Legacy will YOU 

leave? 

It’s easy to include a gift 

for your favorite 

Parish, School or Ministry 

in your will or trust. 

To leave a lasting legacy, 

contact us today. 

Kimberly Jetton 

Director of Planned Giving 

(213) 637-7504 

KJetton@la-archdiocese.org 

www.ADLALegacy.org 

Like Sister de Lourdes and Sister Florence 

Kruczek (right), 91, some 30,000 senior 

Catholic sisters, brothers, and religious order 

priests have spent their lives doing the Lord’s 

work. Most served for little or no pay, and now 

their religious communities do not have enough 

retirement savings. Your gift to the Retirement 

Fund for Religious offers vital support for 

necessities, such as medications and nursing 

care. Please be generous. 

Roughly 94 percent of donations 

directly aid senior religious. 

“ Live with good humor 

and just do the Lord’s 

work,” says Franciscan 

Sister de Lourdes 

Okoniewski (left), 87. 

Retirement Fund 

for Religious 

Please give to those who have given a lifetime. 

26 • ANGELUS • October 30-November 6, 2020 

Please give at your local parish 

December 7–8. 

To donate by mail: 

Archdiocese of Los Angeles 

Attn: Office of Vicar for Women Religious 

3424 Wilshire Blvd 

Los Angeles CA 90010-2241 

Make check payable to Archdiocese of Los Angeles/RFR. 

retiredreligious.org 

©2019 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC. All rights reserved. 

Photo: Jim Judkis

October 30-November 6, 2020 • ANGELUS • 27

Arriving at the 

unthinkable 

How Chile became 

ground zero in a wave 

of anti-Christian 

violence spreading 

across Latam 

BY INÉS SAN MARTÍN / 

ANGELUS 

A protester gestures while a church is set on fire during a demonstration against Chile’s government 

in Santiago Oct. 18, the one-year anniversary of the protests and riots that rocked the capital in 2019. 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/IVAN ALVARADO, REUTERS 

ROSARIO, Argentina — Tens 

of thousands took to the streets 

of Santiago, Chile’s capital, on 

Oct. 18, to mark the one-year anniversary 

of a social revolt that left some 

30 people dead, 25 metro rail stations 

completely destroyed, and thousands 

of storefronts damaged. 

Two churches were attacked in that 

uprising 12 months ago, with pews 

and wooden statues looted to burn in 

nearby barricades, but the buildings 

were left standing. 

Yet this time around, several hundred 

protesters broke off from those 

who had, until the first hours of the 

afternoon, rallied peacefully — almost 

joyfully, based on available 

footage — to fulfill an ominous threat 

someone had written the previous 

year: “The only church that illuminates 

is a burning church.” 

The phrase, found today scribbled 

on church walls throughout Latin 

America, home of the world’s largest 

Catholic population, is often credited 

to Spanish anarchist Buenaventura 

Durruti. 

Sunday’s violence against the two 

churches, the Assumption of the 

Virgin Mary and the parish of the 

“Carabineros” — Santiago’s police 

force — built to a crescendo. The 

attacks began with graffiti and looting, 

then profanation, and, finally, they 

were set ablaze. 



“Death to the Nazarene” was one of 

the mottos scribbled on the walls. 

As the pulpit of one of them burnt, 

a woman in a gas mask posed for a 

picture with her arms raised and her 

fingers forming the “V” for victory. 

The snapshot was posted on Instagram 

and went viral, through the help 

of both those who celebrated the fire 

and those who condemned it. 

A series of videos show hundreds 

of onlookers watching as the spire of 

one of the churches, consumed by 

the flames, fell to the ground. The 

scenes resembled a grotesque festival: 

Some cheered and danced over the 

religious objects they had ransacked, 

celebrating their accomplishment as 

they held phones set to a camera app 

to capture the moment in one hand, 

and in the other, beer cans. 

Catholic leaders in Chile condemned 

the violence amid tensions 

over a constitutional referendum that 

Demonstrators and riot police clash during a demonstration 

against Chile’s government in Santiago Oct. 18. 

was scheduled for Oct. 24 to decide 

whether the country’s Pinochet-era 

constitution needs to be rewritten. 

“Violence is bad, and whoever sows 

violence reaps destruction, pain, and 

death,” said Archbishop Celestino Aós 

Braco of Santiago, on Sunday, Oct. 

25, hours after the videos showcasing 

the violent scenes became viral on 

social media. 

“Let us never justify any violence,” 

he added in a statement. 

“We feel the destruction of our places 

of worship and other public property; 

but above all we feel the pain of 

so many Chilean people of peace and 

generosity,” he said. “Those images 

not only impact and hurt in Chile, 

but also impact and hurt in other 

countries and other peoples of the 

world, especially Christian brothers.” 

The Chilean bishops’ conference — 

long under fire for its handling of the 

country’s clerical sexual abuse crisis 

— released a statement condemning 

the attacks on private property and 

looting, as well as the attacks on places 

of prayer, “sacred spaces dedicated 

to God and the charitable service of 

people.” 

The bishops noted that the violent 

groups that torched the churches 

“contrast with many others who have 

demonstrated peacefully.” 

The two buildings were specifically 

targeted for what they are: Catholic 

churches. Yet the bishops avoided personalization 

or calling the attacks an 

example of a slow but steadily growing 

trend on the continent: violence 

against the institution motivated by 

ideological and religious reasons. 

Back in 2018, charitable foundation 

Open Doors International warned 

that the expansion of the secular 

humanist movement and its agenda of 

equality was expanding to historically 

conservative nations, particularly in 


the form of promoting a new sexual 

agenda. 

Examples abound, from a growing 

radical feminism ready to set effigies 

of the pope on fire and make “street 

performances” showcasing the Virgin 

Mary aborting Jesus, to indigenous 

movements burning churches both in 

southern Argentina and Chile to raise 

awareness of historic land conflicts. 

The stage seems set for a new wave 

of anti-Christian persecution in Latin 

America. 

Thomas Heine-Geldern, executive 

president of the International Pontifical 

Foundation Aid to the Church 

in Need, released a statement on 

Monday saying the group is “dismayed 

by the aggression, looting, and 

attacks on churches in Santiago de 

Chile: Yesterday’s events show how far 

the violence and hatred promoted by 

some groups can reach.” 

Nothing justifies “the attacks on 

sacred spaces, nor the use of violence 

against the faith and beliefs of others 

will contribute to defend social, racial, 

or economic justice,” he argued. 

To ask for social changes, he said, 

is legitimate, while hatred against 

religious groups generates violence 

and destruction and should be openly 

condemned. 

The turmoil in Chile has even 

captured the attention of the Council 

for Religious Freedom in neighboring 

Argentina, which has criticized the 

attacks themselves and warned of the 

temptation of shrugging them off. 

“We express our concern that the 

repetition of these serious events 

leads to reducing them to mere acts 

of daily social misconduct,” the group 

declared in the wake of the attacks. 

Violence against Christians is not 

new to the region: Mexico and 

Colombia have long disputed the 

yearly honor of being the world’s most 

dangerous countries to be a priest, 

courtesy of organized crime. But 

today’s violence seems nastier, less 

impersonal, and targeted specifically 

at Christians, and there’s little sign it’s 

going away anytime soon. 

Inés San Martín is an Argentinian 

journalist and Rome bureau chief for 

Crux. She is a frequent contributor to 

Angelus. 


A woman weeps next to the grave of her husband at a cemetery in La Paz, Bolivia, Sept. 24, after the cemetery reopened for visitors during the 

COVID-19 pandemic. 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/DAVID MERCADO, REUTERS 

Blessed with desolation 

Spiritual resolutions 

that can help us take 

advantage of this time 

of pandemic 

BY FATHER PETER JOHN 

CAMERON, OP / ANGELUS 

A woman prays in a window opening overlooking 

a street in Milan, Italy, March 21, during 

the nationwide lockdown. 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/SALVATORE LAPORTA, REUTERS 

Here in New York City, where 

I live, the pandemic has so 

demoralized people that one 

Brooklyn pizzeria just implemented 

a rather unconventional measure to 

encourage forlorn customers. 

For the price of one extra dollar on 

your order, the delivery person at Vinnie’s 

will look you straight in the eye 

and tell you, “Everything’s gonna be 

OK and you’re doing the best you can.” 

Incredibly, more than 50 people 

have already availed themselves of this 

amenity. Others have ordered it for 

their friends. Still others wonder about 

walk-up service. 

This is not silly. People are suffering. 

The coronavirus (COVID-19) 

pandemic, trauma caused by COV- 

ID-19-related deaths, widespread civil 

strife on our streets, and anxiety over 

our country’s political situation have 

all played their part. Through it all, 

people know that they need something 

to comfort them, and they realize that 

it must come from another. This is the 

beginning of what we call faith! 

The essence of faith is that something 

meets me that is greater than anything 

I can come up with on my own. It 

breaks me out of isolation and liberates 

me from my preoccupation with 

myself. It enables me to resist the brute 

force that would otherwise pull me 

under. It frees me to escape my own 

gravity. 

Faith is fellowship with him who has 

the power to carry me safely over the 

elements of death (insights courtesy of 

a man once known as Cardinal Joseph 

Ratzinger). And all of this can start 

simply by acknowledging a pepperoni-scented 

presence! 

However, Jesus asks ominously, “But 

when the Son of Man comes, will he 

find any faith on the earth?” (Luke 

18:8). 

Now is the time to recommit to living 

by faith — not by our ideas, not by 

emotions or feelings or passions or 

fears, not by our resources, by preconceptions, 

our plans, or by our understanding. 

We need to realize something crucial 

about faith: It cannot grow without 

affliction. The 18th-century spiritual 

genius Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade, 

SJ, spells this out: “Our faith is never 

30 • ANGELUS • October 30-November 6, 2020

more alive than when what we experience 

through our senses contradicts 

and tries to destroy it. The life of faith 

is the untiring pursuit of God through 

all that disguises and disfigures him 

and, as it were, destroys and annihilates 

him.” 

What we are being blessed with at this 

trying moment in time is the exquisite 

gift of desolation. Yes — it is a gift! 

God purposely puts to the test the very 

confidence he himself inspires in us. 

He does this, says Father Jean-Nicolas 

Grou, SJ, who lived in the 19th century, 

“by seeming to forsake those who 

have forsaken all for his sake by throwing 

them into a state of such desolation, 

of such a strange upheaval of all 

things, that they no longer know how 

they stand, and are almost inclined to 

believe that God intends their ruin.” 

But why would God do what seems 

diametrically opposed to the very thing 

we need? St. Ignatius of Loyola brilliantly 

replies: “Desolation is visited on 

us so that we are not able to build our 

nest where we do not belong.” 

How then are we to respond to our 

desolation? Simply by being obedient 

to God’s will in the present moment, 

and by surrendering to whatever it is 

that God asks of us. “Our circumstances 

are given to us to help us become 

more attached to the One who calls us 

in a mysterious way. Faith is trusting 

that he is calling us,” says J. Carrón. 

We must resolve to live by this counterintuitive 

conviction. 

And we must do so with hope! Hope is 

a reaching out for a future good with 

the certainty that God’s providence 

is real and active. Why can we do so? 

Because, as the encyclical on hope, 

“Spe Salvi” (“Saved in Hope”), assures 

us, we know that in Jesus Christ we 

are definitively loved and that, whatever 

happens to us, we are awaited 

by love, a love that takes pity on our 

nothingness. That is what engenders 

hope. There’s one simple reason for 

having hope, says St. Thomas Aquinas: 

“Because we belong to God.” 

So we need to increase our sense of 

belonging. That is difficult when we 

can’t go to church and receive the sacraments. 

But in 2020, we can take to 

heart one of the first things Jesus ever 

said to us: “Whenever you pray, go to 

your room, close your door, and pray to 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/MANAURE QUINTERO, REUTERS 

A doctor is pictured in a file photo interviewing a woman in a low-income neighborhood of Caracas, 

Venezuela, during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

your Father in private” (Matthew 6:6). 

Because quarantining has basically 

forced us to do just that. 

Yet, this contemplativeness is a lesson 

we are long overdue in learning. The 

17th-century philosopher Blaise Pascal 

makes a prophetic observation in his 

“Pensées”: “I have discovered that 

all the unhappiness of people arises 

from one single fact: that they cannot 

stay quietly in their own room.” That 

unhappiness is not long for this world, 

thanks to the graced occasion for solitude 

the pandemic has afforded. 

Hope emboldens us with the certainty 

professed by St. Paul: “I am content 

with weakness, with mistreatment, with 

distress, with persecutions and difficulties 

for the sake of Christ; for when 

I am powerless, it is then that I am 

strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10). 

We use that hope-gained strength to 

love our brothers and sisters whose 

company we miss and whose communion 

we now appreciate for the 

precious gift it is. We have never been 

better poised to love without counting 

the cost. So many are languishing in 

loneliness, in need of a friendly voice, 

an encouraging word, companionship. 

Pope Francis urges us to be lavish in 

showing something called gratuitousness: 

“the ability to do some things 

simply because they are good in themselves, 

without concern for personal 

gain or recompense” (“Fratelli Tutti” 

139). 

A perfect example of this: Jane 

McGonigal, Ph.D., suggests that we 

think about someone in our life and 

then contact them, asking them how 

their day is going on a scale of 1 to 10. 

If they say their day is around a six, 

then our response would be: Is there 

anything I can do to move you from 

a 6 to a 7? By doing so, McGonigal’s 

research shows, you have just made 

that person’s day. 

The beautiful part is that anyone can 

do this, and it is ridiculously easy. Even 

more, by offering to make someone’s 

day plus-one better, we communicate 

that we care about them and that we 

can be counted on. Bonds of friendship 

become more deeply forged. 

Since faith is, in the words of Pope 

Francis, a light “coming from the 

future and opening before us vast horizons 

that guide us beyond our isolated 

selves,” let’s be generators of that faith 

for others. And if we can do so with 

pizza, all the better. 

Father Peter John Cameron, OP, is 

the former editor-in-chief of Magnificat 

and the author of 10 books. He is now 

engaged in itinerant teaching, giving 

parish missions and retreats. 


AD REM 

BY ROBERT BRENNAN 

infinity and beyond 

SHUTTERSTOCKTo 

There are a lot of mysteries I will 

never understand. I do not understand 

why the outer corona of the sun is 

hundreds of times hotter than the surface 

of the sun; it should be the other 

way around, but it isn’t. 

I do not fully understand the hypostatic 

union of Christ being all man 

and all God. I believe it because I 

have just enough faith to flavor the 

reasoning found in Scripture. 

I don’t understand how soccer became 

the most popular sport on planet 

Earth, and that, I’m afraid, is going to 

remain a mystery until the day I shed 

this mortal coil. 

I am comfortable with acknowledging 

my lack of power to understand, 

while at the same time believing the 

science that informs me our sun works 

the way it does and the sacred writings 

that instruct me how God so loved 

the world he gave us his only Son to 

redeem us. 

And the enigma that is the universe 

has been a topic of infinite wonder 

and speculation by really, really smart 

people, as well as people like me. 

Who hasn’t been far enough outside 

the light pollution of the general metropolitan 

Los Angeles basin and gazed 

up at the Milky Way in all its glory and 

been amazed, not to mention been 

made to feel insignificant? 

When it comes to our galaxy, there is 

some good news and bad news. The 

bad news is astronomers have identified 

a black hole in our neighborhood. 

The good news is that neighborhood 

is a relative term, as the black hole 

and the evidence of the destruction 

it is creating is 8.4 billion miles from 

us. More bad news though: That may 

sound far away, but it is a lot closer 

than the next closest black hole to us, 

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Address 

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SHUTTERSTOCK 

which is many trillions of miles away. 

So, is our universe on borrowed time? 

We all are. Black holes are star 

killers, and if they are big enough, 

they can be galaxy exterminators. 

Their existence reminds us there is so 

much we have to learn about creation. 

Thousands of years of scientific and 

philosophic inquiry of the cosmos has 

yielded many answers, but almost as 

many questions. 

We continue to think of the universe 

as ever-expanding and going off into 

eternity. That is only because our 

minds can’t comprehend much of 

anything else. There are people who 

do seem to have that capacity, and 

some who even insist giants like Isaac 

Newton and Johannes Kepler got it 

all wrong. They are either hyper-intelligent 

savants or they wind up 

living in cabins in the woods writing 

30,000-word manifestos in single space 

10-point fonts. 

I have been saved from such a fate by 

possessing an extremely ordinary IQ. I 

could barely pass Algebra I. 

But thanks to the work being done 

by black holes billions and trillions 

of miles away, it’s easier to think of 

the universe as not finite and almost 

as a living thing. And it strangely has 

made me think more about God’s true 

infinite status. 

The universe is a physical thing, just 

like us. It is atoms and particles with 

names I can’t even pronounce, with 

each one doing precisely what it was 

designed to do, which a guy living in a 

cabin writing a manifesto could try to 

explain to me, but he wouldn’t get far. 

And as astronomers observe the 

dastardly work being accomplished by 

black holes against stars and galaxies 

all those light years away, the universe, 

now more than ever, begins to 

resemble a finite living thing, with its 

own life cycle. Granted, it’s a life cycle 

that can include the Big Bang, advent 

and demise of the dinosaurs, mankind 

walking on other celestial bodies and 

beyond, but galaxies can and do come 

to an end. Even without the help of a 

black hole, our little sun is scheduled 

for remodeling in about 3 billion 

years. 

Like everything we see here on Earth 

from our lowly perspective, when a 

star finds itself in the path of a black 

hole and cannot resist its immense 

gravitational pull, it may not be able 

to operate as a sun anymore, but it 

doesn’t really disappear. The energy 

goes someplace. 

In my Algebra I level brain, I’d like 

to think of this transfer of energy of 

dying stars as a template for our own 

existence. The day will come when we 

encounter our own versions of black 

holes. It may come in the form of old 

age, cancer, or a bus accident. But 

whereas stars in the throes of the gravitational 

pull of a black hole go toward 

darkness, God willing, the energy that 

he instilled in us at our conception 

will be moving toward the Light. 

Robert Brennan is director of communications 

at The Salvation Army 

California South Division in Van 

Nuys, California. 

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Tackling transcendence 

SHUTTERSTOCK 

A New York Times bestselling novel struggles with 21st-century 

tensions between faith and science 

BY EVAN HOLGUIN / ANGELUS 

Kingdom” 

(Penguin Random House, 

“Transcendent 

$27.95), the second novel 

by young author Yaa Gyasi, is a praiseworthy 

work of fiction. In fewer than 

300 pages, it tells a captivating story of 

immigration, persecution, addiction, 

heartbreak, and depression. Yet for all 

its heavy content, the narrative never 

becomes melancholic or morose. 

The book, which quickly reached 

The New York Times bestseller list after 

its Sept. 1 release, describes itself as 

“a novel about faith, science, religion, 

love.” Of these, faith — particularly of 

the evangelical Protestant kind — is 

the theme that gets the most profound 

treatment. 

The plot of “Transcendent Kingdom” 

unfolds in the form of a cleverly disguised 

vignette. The novel is set in the 

span of a few weeks in which narrator 

Gifty hosts her mother, a devout evangelical 

and beaten-down immigrant 

from Ghana caught in the throes of 

depression. 

The backstory, told through frequent 

flashbacks in between, helps us understand 

the relationship between these 

two characters during this span of time 

together. 

Yaa Gyasi 

Though the story is told from Gifty’s 

perspective, the reader soon discovers 

that this novel is more about her 

mother than herself. We learn how this 

now elderly woman came to Alabama 

from Ghana; how she lost her husband 

and her son; how she struggled against 

the Americanization of her children 

while coping with the loneliness of an 

immigrant separated from her roots. 

We are told how her evangelical faith 

and Christian community were both 

a vanguard and a stumbling block for 

her relationship with her daughter. 


For Gifty, the evangelical faith cannot 

be removed from the person of her 

mother. 

“I had prayed my prayers, written 

my journal entries, and heard only 

the faintest whisper of Christ,” says 

the narrator of her initial hesitation 

of evangelical altar calls. “And that 

whisper was one I distrusted, because 

maybe it was the whisper of my mother 

or of my own desperate need to be 

good, to please.” 

Even Gifty’s childhood nickname 

for her mother — the Black Mamba 

— captures some of the irony embodied 

by the woman. Gifty’s mother is 

described as the epitome of maternal 

ferocity, and yet she is introduced and 

known by the audience as the frail 

and meek inhabitant of a bed, kept 

there almost perpetually by crippling 

depression. 

A talented young student, Gifty is 

finally able to escape the constraints 

of her mother’s religiosity by pursuing 

a Harvard education in neuroscience. 

But even while living in what seems 

like the antithesis of her Alabama 

evangelical community of her childhood, 

Gifty continues to be haunted 

by her mother’s faith. 


“And, though I hadn’t worked out 

how I felt about the Christianity of my 

childhood,” thinks Gifty, as her classmates 

ridicule people of faith before 

her, “I did know how I felt about my 

mother. Her devotion, her faith, they 

moved me. I was protective of her 

right to find comfort in whatever way 

she saw fit. Didn’t she deserve at least 

that much?” 

Bothered by the seeming intolerance 

of her Ivy League classmates, Gifty 

finds herself alone, neither accepted 

by her evangelical community, nor 

always comfortable with the scientistic 

philosophy shared by her fellow neurobiologists. 

She is, in a certain sense, an 

immigrant like her mother was, caught 

not between two countries, but two 

radically opposed creeds. 

As the dust jacket promises, there is 

a scientific slant to the novel, but its 

argument is weak and hackneyed: that 

science provides the how of life, whereas 

God provides the why. But the God 

presented in the mind of Gifty the 

narrator lacks the substance to answer 

the question that corresponds to him. 

He certainly seems much too flat, too 

aloof to be the convincing companion 

that the Black Mamba finds him to be. 

In addition to the lessons of faith 

taught through the Black Mamba and 

the God-versus-science hypothesis, 

“Transcendent Kingdom” skillfully depicts 

the slow descent of addiction and 

the stark change that illness causes. It 

falters, however, on the many other 

themes that are stuffed into the story. 

The most powerful lines and anecdotes 

in the book address the reality 

of racism (both in and out of the 

Church), but they are disjointed from 

the book’s narrative. And though 

there are vivid scenes that brilliantly 

illustrate the depths of Black Mamba’s 

lethargy and depression, as a whole 

the book seems to avoid exploring 

the causes and effects of prolonged 

depression. 

In “Transcendent Kingdom,” Gyasi 

could be accused of being overly ambitious. 

She leaves most characters undeveloped 

and two of the central themes, 

depression and racism, unresolved. 

The epilogue spoils an abrupt ending 

with an even more abrupt time leap, 

building up relationships between 

characters that 

could barely 

be seen at a 

second glance 

through the 

plot. Taken 

together, these 

shortcomings 

leave the 

novel feeling 

somewhat 

unfinished. 

Despite these 

imperfections, 

Gyasi’s skill as 

a storyteller shines through her prose, 

and her handling of faith and family 

make this book both important and 

enjoyable to read. And the knowledge 

that “Transcendent Kingdom” is only 

the second novel in what will hopefully 

be a long career in fiction lends 

much promise — Yaa Gyasi will be a 

name to follow. 

Evan Holguin is a graduate of the 

University of Notre Dame. Originally 

from Santa Clarita, he now writes from 

Connecticut.

THE CRUX 

BY HEATHER KING 

In search of 

TRUE RICHES 

Thoughts on St. Thérèse of Lisieux, 

Eddie Van Halen, and the ‘poor in spirit’ 

During the coronavirus (COVID-19) 

pandemic, I’ve been trying to spend 

more time in prayer. In particular, I’ve 

tried to devote 15 minutes, each day for 

a week, to meditating on a particular 

Gospel passage. 

The first week the parable of the 

rich young man (Matthew 19:16–22) 

bubbled up from my subconscious. 

The next week: “An evil and unfaithful 

generation seeks a sign, but no sign will 

be given it except the sign of Jonah” 

(Matthew 16:4). The third week, un- 

St. Thérèse of Lisieux 

mistakably, the verse that rose to mind 

was: “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” 

from the Sermon on the Mount. 

You can’t be a by-the-book practicing 

Catholic without running up against 

some form of exile, in or out of the 

Church. Secular friends I sense are 

baffled by my failure to canvass doorto-door 

trying to drum up Democratic 

votes. I’ve been accused by the “woke” 

of being responsible for hundreds of 

deaths for my failure to accuse myself 

of white privilege. 


Catholic Workers feel anyone worth 

his or her salt should have done prison 

time. Right-leaning Catholics are 

baffled by my failure, in spite of my 

fidelity to the teachings of the Church 

on marriage and the family, to take up 

the “pro-life” banner. 

The fact is that a single, childless, 

celibate woman is an outcast to all. 

The fact is I’m not a narcissist, but 

my psychic constitution is such that 

since birth much of my energy goes 

toward simply maintaining, managing, 

controlling, shoring myself up 

sufficiently to function. I’m organized, 

conscientious, high-functioning, and 

hardworking. I’m also an extreme 

introvert. Noise is a scourge. Too much 

talk drains me. 

Thus, I am simply not built for family 

life, not because I’m selfish, but because 

I’m constitutionally unsuited. 

Blessed are the poor in spirit. 

Neither am I an empire builder. If I 

were a better organizer, leader, commander 

of attention, I, too, perhaps 

would be thinking, “My God, we need 

to get the right person in the White 

House, the right laws passed. Let’s get 

on with the important work: Nuclear 

disarmament; the abolition of the 

death penalty; immigration.” 

All of that is important work. It’s just 

not my primary work. 


For decades I have wept, interceded, 

and prayed ceaselessly for my family. 

Not only have they not been converted, 

to many of them, I’m a poseur and 

a crank. 


This is why I’ve taken St. Thérèse 

of Lisieux — “My Vocation is Love!” 

— as my patron saint. St. Teresa of Calcutta 

observed, “We can do no great 

things, only small things with great 

love.” But Mother Teresa actually did 

great things. In her lifetime, the whole 

world knew her. 


Flowers, a candle, and a cigarette are placed by Eddie Van Halen’s handprints at the California 

Rockwalk of Fame in Los Angeles Oct. 6. 

St. Thérèse of Lisieux, during her lifetime, 

really didn’t do great things. She 

died as she’d lived, in utter obscurity. 

Her triumphs consisted in refraining 

from yelling at the klutz nun who 

splashed laundry water in her face; in 

training herself not to turn and glare at 

the annoying nun behind her in chapel; 

in escorting the crabby old impossible-to-please 

nun to the refectory each 

night as if she were Christ. 

This is the kind of thing that with 

superhuman effort on my part, and 

supernatural help from God, I might 

be capable of at least working toward. 

To that end a Catholic friend, father 

to six, and a wealth manager in the 

Midwest, recently emailed that he was 

devastated by the death of rock guitarist 

Eddie van Halen. Knowing I live in 

Pasadena, he asked if I could go by the 

house on Las Lunas Drive where his 

teenage hero had once lived and light 

a candle, or leave a flower. 

I barely knew who van Halen was, but 

I sympathized entirely with my friend’s 

heart. 

So I made a little homemade card, 

and baggied up a votive candle and 

matches, and cut a spray of oleander 

from a bush in my side yard. Then, after 

finishing work that day, I made my 

way to van Halen’s former address and 

placed my friend’s vicarious offering on 

the sidewalk, among the many other 

showier bouquets and larger candles. 

Heather King is an award-winning author, 

speaker, and workshop leader. For more, 

visit heather-king.com. 

Did my little action help change the 

course of the election, or feed a starving 

child in India, or save a drunk from 

the gutter? Did it go toward giving van 

Halen’s soul a moment of peace? Maybe 

not — but then again, who knows? 

626.795.8333 

140 South Lake Avenue, 

Suite 208 

Pasadena, California 91101 

SHUTTERSTOCK 

In “The Story of a Soul,” St. Thérèse 

wrote: “The heart of a child does not 

seek riches and glory (even the glory 

of heaven). She understands that this 

glory belongs by right to her brothers, 

the angels and saints. … Astounding 

works are forbidden to her; she cannot 

preach the Gospel, shed her blood … 

she loves in her brothers’ place while 

they do the fighting. But how will she 

prove her love since love is proved by 

works? Well, the little child will strew 

flowers, she will perfume the royal 

throne with their sweet scents, and she 

will sing in her silvery tones the canticle 

of Love.” 

Or as Jesus said: “Blessed are the poor 

in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of 

heaven.” 

Hablamos Español. 

Please call for a 

free consultation in 

our office or your home. 

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Angelus News | October 30-November 6, 2020 | Vol. 5 No. 27

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