Angelus News | April 23, 2021 | Vol. 6 No. 8

ANGELUS
CATHOLICISM
AFTER
COVID
What will the
post-pandemic
Church look like?
April 23, 2021 Vol. 6 No. 8

April 23, 2021
Vol. 6 • No. 8
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ON THE COVER
JACOB POPCAK
There seems to finally be some light at the end of the dark
tunnel that is the COVID-19 pandemic. But even when the
coronavirus becomes a thing of the past, our world will never
be the same for it — and neither will the Catholic Church.
Starting on Page 10, veteran Church reporter John Allen takes
a look at five trends COVID will change forever. Also, on Pages
13 and 14, reflections from two popes and the Vatican’s man in
Washington, D.C., on what the virus might be trying to tell us.
THIS PAGE
CNS/VATICAN MEDIA
Pope Francis greets people after
celebrating Mass for Divine Mercy
Sunday at the Church of the Holy Spirit
near the Vatican in Rome on April 11.

CONTENTS
Pope Watch................................................ 2
Archbishop Gomez.................................. 3
World, Nation, and Local News....... 4-6
In Other Words......................................... 7
Father Rolheiser........................................ 8
Scott Hahn.............................................. 32
LA Catholic Events................................ 33
16
18
22
24
26
28
30
COVID-19 makes its first changes to LA’s Catholic schools map
Photos: Holy Week 2021 at the cathedral
Five pandemic Easter experiences from around the world
Why we’re more like Barabbas than we think
Robert Brennan’s thoughts on spring break and mortality
Kris McGregor: How to get armor for the spiritual battle
Heather King on the need for bolder preaching
April 23, 2021 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH
What mercy does to us
The following is adapted from Pope
Francis’ homily during Mass on Divine
Mercy Sunday, which he celebrated
April 11 at Santo Spirito in Sassia
Church in Rome.
It is hard to be merciful without the
experience of having first received
mercy.
The apostles receive mercy through
three gifts. First, Jesus offers them
peace, then the Spirit, and finally his
wounds.
They were locked away for fear of
being arrested and ending up like the
Master. But they were not only huddled
together in a room; they were also
trapped in their own remorse. They
had abandoned and denied Jesus.
The peace of Jesus made them pass
from remorse to mission. It entails not
ease and comfort, but the challenge
to break out of ourselves. The peace
of Jesus frees from the self-absorption
that paralyzes; it shatters the bonds that
keep the heart imprisoned. The disciples
realized that they had been shown
mercy: they realized that God did not
condemn or demean them, but instead
believed in them. God, in fact, believes
in us even more than we believe in
ourselves.
He also bestowed the Spirit for the
forgiveness of sins. The disciples were
guilty; they had run away, they had
abandoned the Master. Sin brings
torment; evil has its price. Of ourselves,
we cannot remove it. Only God takes
it away, only he by his mercy can
make us emerge from the depths of
our misery. Like those disciples, we
need to let ourselves be forgiven, to ask
heartfelt pardon of the Lord. We need
to open our hearts to being forgiven.
Forgiveness in the Holy Spirit is the
Easter gift that enables our interior
resurrection.
Let us ask for the grace to accept
that gift, to embrace the sacrament
of forgiveness. And to understand
that confession is not about ourselves
and our sins, but about God and his
mercy. Let us not confess to abase
ourselves, but to be raised up.
Jesus gave his disciples a third gift of
mercy: he showed them his wounds.
By those wounds we were healed. But
how can wounds heal us? By mercy.
In those wounds, like Thomas, we
can literally touch the fact that God
has loved us to the end. He has made
our wounds his own and borne our
weaknesses in his own body.
In adoring and kissing his wounds,
we come to realize that in his tender
love all our weaknesses are accepted.
This happens at every Mass, where
Jesus offers us his wounded and risen
body. We touch him and he touches
our lives. He makes heaven come
down to us.
His radiant wounds dispel the darkness
we carry within. Like Thomas,
we discover God; we realize how
close he is to us and we are moved
to exclaim, “My Lord and my God!”
(John 20:28).
Everything comes from this, from
the grace of receiving mercy. This
is the starting point of our Christian
journey. But if we trust in our own
abilities, in the efficiency of our
structures and projects, we will not go
far. Only if we accept the love of God,
will we be able to offer something
new to the world.
Papal Prayer Intention for April: We pray for those who risk their
lives while fighting for fundamental rights under dictatorships,
authoritarian regimes, and even in democracies in crisis.
2 • ANGELUS • April 23, 2021

NEW WORLD OF FAITH
ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ
The Catholic difference
heir
s,
On April 15, Archbishop Gomez was
slated to deliver the keynote address
to Catholic advocates convoked by
the Minnesota Catholic Conference
at the state’s capitol. The following is
adapted from his remarks reflecting on
the lessons of Pope Francis’ encyclical,
“Fratelli Tutti.” The full text is available
at AngelusNews.com.
Near the end of “Fratelli Tutti,”
the Holy Father offers a beautiful
reflection on the importance
of maintaining our Christian
identity as we work for the common
good of society.
He writes: “Others drink from other
sources. For us the wellspring of
human dignity and fraternity is in the
Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
The Church is not a political party
and we are not activists. We are followers
of Jesus Christ. We are Catholics
before we are anything else. This is
who we are.
That means our vision and approach
to social justice must be different. As
Catholics, we start with very distinct
assumptions about the purpose of
society, the meaning of life, and the
meaning of the human person.
Nowadays, our politics and culture
are aggressively secular. Sadly, some
of our leaders today seem to want to
close our society off from Christian
ideas and values. I am troubled by
the growing censorship of Christian
viewpoints on the internet and social
media and in other areas of public life.
Even though America has become
very secular, the religious impulse
has not died. In fact, among cultural
and political leaders and some of
our neighbors, politics seems to have
become their new religion. That’s
one reason our politics has become so
cruel and uncompromising, so lacking
in mercy and hope.
Pope Francis warns against the temptation
of “reductive anthropological
visions.” Sadly, we see such “reductive
visions” in some of the critical theories
and ideologies that are gaining ground
in our public life.
When we lose the sense of God,
when we lose the sense that our lives
are the gift of a loving Creator, then
we lose our sense of the true meaning
of the human person and the common
good.
What that means is this: Strictly secular
visions of social justice, even when
they are well-intentioned, cannot
lead us to create policies and social
conditions that truly serve human
flourishing.
In the Catholic vision, social justice
is not about personal identity, or group
power, or getting more material goods.
True social justice is about building
a society where people can be good,
a society where people can love one
another and take care of one another,
where they can find God and know
that they are made for heaven. And
true social justice can never be obtained
without simple human kindness,
compassion, and forgiveness.
As Catholics, we are called to keep
the truth alive about the human
person — the truth that every person
has a soul that is destined for eternity
and a meaning and purpose that transcends
this world.
As Catholics, we also believe that
the most basic purpose of government
and policy is to protect the sanctity
and dignity of the person, from the
moment they are conceived until the
moment they draw their dying breath.
Our task in this moment is to bring
this beautiful vision to our public
discourse, and to awaken this awareness
of God’s love in the hearts of our
brothers and sisters.
Let us never forget that this message
is delivered, not only by our words,
but by the witness of our lives.
By our example, we need to help
our society understand that we are all
True social justice can never be obtained without
simple human kindness, compassion, and forgiveness.
brothers and sisters. We need to do
this, like everything in our lives, with
humility and a joyful heart.
We need to draw strength from the
sources of our faith — the Gospels,
the writings and lives of the saints, the
Eucharist and the sacraments. These
are for us, as the pope says, the “wellspring
of human dignity and fraternity.”
Jesus taught us to pray “Our Father”
because every one of us is a child of
the same Creator. We belong to one
family. We are all sons and daughters
of God, created out of his divine love,
with the same dignity and sharing in
a common destiny and a common
hope.
This is the message that the Church
has proclaimed to the world from the
beginning. Now we need to bring this
message to the people of our times.
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.
April 23, 2021 • ANGELUS • 3

WORLD
■ Father Hans Küng,
controversial theologian,
dead at 93
Father Hans Küng, one of the most
prominent Catholic critics of Church
teaching in the 20th century, died at
the age of 93 on April 6.
Father Küng is perhaps best known
for his censure by the Vatican’s
Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith over his rejection of papal
infallibility in 1979.
The Swiss theologian’s life was also
Father Hans Küng in 2015. | CNS/HARALD OPPITZ, KNA marked by a complicated relationship
with the future Pope Benedict
XVI. He became friends with then-Father Joseph Ratzinger while the two
served as theological advisers at the Second Vatican Council, and afterward
taught together at the University of Tübingen in Germany.
But in 1968, the two split over Pope Pius VI’s rejection of artificial birth
control in “Humanae Vitae” (“Of Human Life”). Father Küng, who objected
to the 1968 encyclical, would go on to be a harsh critic of Pope Benedict’s
papacy.
“He was a person who wanted to promote renewal of the Church and realize
its reform,” said retired Vatican official Cardinal Walter Kasper, who was
Father Küng’s assistant as a graduate student in the early 1960s. “However, in
my judgment, he went too far — beyond Catholic orthodoxy — and so did not
remain tied to a theology based on the doctrine of the Church, but ‘invented’
his own theology.”
■ Police halt Good
Friday liturgy in London
Police in London were criticized
for stopping a Good Friday service
at a Catholic parish after receiving
a complaint that the church was not
meeting pandemic regulations.
A video from the incident shows
an officer ordering the people to go
home, and threatening a 200-pound
fine or arrest if they did not.
Though the congregation obeyed
the order, the parish has criticized
the police intervention as an overstep
of authority.
“We believe, however, that the
police brutally exceeded their powers
by issuing the warrant for no good
reason, as all government requirements
were met,” read an April 3
statement from the church.
The church also claims the police
were misinformed about current
guidelines for houses of worship,
which places no limit on numbers
assembled if sanitary precautions are
taken and a rigorous risk assessment
has taken place.
■ Massacre draws global
attention to Mozambique
A March 29 massacre in the port town
of Palma, Mozambique, has drawn global
attention to violence, which Catholic charities
in the region say has been going on for
decades.
Dozens were left dead, including seven foreigners,
after a multiday ambush that began
March 24 by a militant group connected to
ISIS. Attacks were made even on convoys
attempting to flee to safety.
“Whatever the world is seeing now has
been going on in Mozambique for years.
We have tried to talk about it, but no one
cared to listen,” Johan Viljoen, director of
the Denis Hurley Peace Institute, which is
connected to the local bishops’ conference,
told ACI Africa. “There is a global uproar
now because a handful of foreigners were
affected. But this has been going on.”
Violence in the region has led to more than
2,500 deaths and 700,000 displaced people
since 2017, according to the BBC.
Sidewalk Sunday service — People kneel in prayer during a drive-thru Easter Mass in Curitiba, Brazil, on
April 4. Brazil is going through a devastating wave of COVID-19 infections, with reports of overcrowded
hospitals and medicine shortages in some parts of the country. | CNS/RODOLFO BUHRER, REUTERS
4 • ANGELUS • April 23, 2021

NATION
Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles at a ceremony in Missouri last winter. | BENEDICTINESOFMARY.ORG
■ Shots fired at Missouri nuns
The Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles in rural Missouri are fundraising
for a security fence after three shootings on their abbey this Lent.
The latest shooting, which occurred just after 11 p.m. on March 24, left two
bullets lodged in the mother abbess’ cell — one beneath an image of the Sacred
Heart. This shooting follows one on Ash Wednesday and another a few days after.
No sister has been injured.
“We are all doing very well,” Mother Cecelia, abbess of the priory, told Catholic
news site The Pillar, “and trusting even more in God and the protection of the
angels and the solicitude of friends, neighbors, and law enforcement officers too!”
Though the nearby town of Gower, population 1,554, is not a high-crime area,
the abbey has been the target of shootings before, once in August 2019 and in
2010 before the sisters had moved to the property.
■ Black parishes hit
hardest by Chicago
mergers
Dozens of parishes have been closed
or merged since the Archdiocese of
Chicago launched the “Renew My
Church” project in 2016. But the disproportionate
effect the closings have
on Black parishes has the archdiocese
looking for new ways to support Black
Catholics.
“There has been some shared pain
here, but it’s just been disproportionate
in the Black Catholic community,”
Cliff Barber, chief strategy officer
for the archdiocese and leader of the
Black Catholic Initiative, told the Chicago
Crusader on March 29, a publication
that focuses on the African
American community.These mergers
include the archdiocese’s oldest Black
Catholic church, St. Elizabeth, which
will now only hold special Masses.
The mergers are mostly the result
of low attendance, according to
Barber. There are only about 6,000
Mass-attending Black Catholics, or
3% of the total Massgoing population
in Chicago.
■ Pay up, dad: Utah passes
in utero child support law
Utah has become the first state to pass
a law mandating prenatal child support.
HB 113, which was unanimously
passed by the state’s Senate but faced
Democratic opposition in the state’s
House, mandates that biological fathers
pay half of the mother’s insurance
premiums and other pregnancy-related
medical costs.
“We want to help people and actually
be pro-life in how we do it as opposed
to anti-abortion,” Rep. Brady Brammer,
the bill’s sponsor, told The Associated
Press. “One of the ways to help with that
was to help the burden of pregnancy be
decreased.”
Planned Parenthood criticized the
law, stating that it does not adequately
offset the costs of raising a child and is
not a sufficient alternative to abortion,
which fathers will not be required to
help pay for.
Migrant children take refuge from the rain in the back of a Border Patrol vehicle in Penitas, Texas, on March 14,
as they wait to be transported after crossing the Rio Grande into the U.S. | CNS/ADREES LATIF, REUTERS
■ Border crisis spurs more interest in foster care
As rising numbers of unaccompanied minors cross the U.S.-Mexico border, more
people have responded to the U.S. bishops’ calls for help through Migration and
Refugee Services (MRS).
“Some are looking to foster, some are looking to help in any way that they can,”
MRS’s Mark Priceman told Catholic News Service.
The increase in interest is a response to social media posts and advertisements,
which cycle through the needs for MRS resettlement programs.
Similar increased interest in foster care and other assistance for unaccompanied
child migrants occurred in 2017 and 2018, caused by child separation policies and
surges of unaccompanied children to the border under the Trump administration.
April 23, 2021 • ANGELUS • 5

LOCAL
The steel beams for the mission’s new roof arrived this month. | TERRI HUERTA
■ Mission San Gabriel not
under the same roof anymore
The mission to rebuild Mission San Gabriel just took an
important step forward this Easter: Workers have begun the
process of replacing the mission church’s roof, which was
heavily damaged by a devastating fire in July 2020.
Crews began removing the last parts of the damaged roof
and replacing it with a new one on April 5. The entire
process, which includes installing new steel beams and
trusses, waterproofing the mission’s adobe walls, and making
sure they have not been compromised, is expected to
be completed sometime in late July or August.
“There are a lot of intricacies in putting a roof back on a
200-year-old building,” said Terri Huerta, director of Development
and Communications for the mission.
That roof will cover the historic church in time for the
special Mass marking its 250th jubilee anniversary on Sept.
11, to be celebrated by Archbishop José H. Gomez.
To donate to the mission’s Fire Restoration Fund, visit
parish.sangabrielmissionchurch.org. Donations will go
toward restoration work not covered by insurance.
■ Vigil shows solidarity
against anti-Asian violence
Local Catholics brought their frustrations and hopes before
God at a special prayer vigil organized in response to
the alarming rise in targeted attacks on Asians and Pacific
Islanders.
“It’s important to see each other eye-to-eye, to grieve and
show solidarity, empowered by the Scripture, and to know
we’re not fighting this alone,” said Serapia Kim, one of the
speakers at the March 31 Prayer Vigil for Racial Acceptance
at Incarnation Church in Glendale.
Kim was joined by other speakers at the outdoor event,
including homilist Bishop Alex Aclan, who lamented the
rise in racially motivated hate crimes. Archbishop José H.
Gomez was the main celebrant at the liturgy.
“We need to love each other,” remarked Nicholas Lau,
another of the night’s speakers. “And, yes, some people are
going to take longer to love than others. But, there’s no
point in having such an event as this without giving hope.
Especially from the Church.”
To read the full story, visit the LA Catholics section of
AngelusNews.com.
Candles were lit in prayer during the March 31 vigil at Incarnation Church in
Glendale. | VICTOR ALEMÁN
Y
■ Feel welcome at home, court tells California faithful
The U.S. Supreme Court has once again ruled in favor
of religious groups challenging California’s COVID-19
restrictions.
This time, in a 5-4 ruling issued April 9, the court ruled
that the state’s ban on at-home worship for Bible study
groups or prayer groups violates the First Amendment’s
guarantee of the free exercise of religion.
The case was brought by a couple of Christian pastors and
others in a Bible study group in Santa Clara County, who had
initially seen their lawsuit denied by a federal appeals court.
California’s soon-to-expire pandemic restrictions on private
gatherings at someone’s home limited such a gathering to
people from three households with no more than 15 individuals
allowed to attend.
Christianity Daily quoted lawyers for the Bible study
group as arguing that “ ‘house church’ fellowship is just as
indispensable to (members’) faith as attending Mass is for a
Catholic. Yet for over a year now, California has completely
prohibited or substantially restricted those ‘gatherings’ and
many others.”
6 • ANGELUS • April 23, 2021

IN OTHER WORDS...
V
Y
Letters to the Editor
Nobody deserves salvation
Thank you for Greg Erlandson’s fine article on “Easter and the
scandal of saving sinners.” This is a very apt reflection for this present
time when it’s so common to “demonize” others. It’s good to be reminded
that nobody deserves salvation. I liked especially the author’s
choice of words describing how we are humbled when we remember
this truth: he says he is “bowed low.”
I agree that I don’t think we are qualified to “affirm” who truly is or isn’t a “regenerate
believer.” We don’t know for sure, even after someone has died, what
transpired with their last breath, between that person’s soul and our almighty,
merciful God. Isn’t that why we pray for the deceased?
Thank you for recalling these thoughts to mind during Holy Week.
— Marilyn Boussaid, St. James Church, Redondo Beach
Need knows no bounds
In response to the letter to the editor in the April 9 issue, “What ‘refugee’
crisis?”: I would like to think, as a Catholic and an American, that we as a faith
community and as citizens do not restrict our charity and compassion exclusively
to others who share our same beliefs.
Need knows no bounds, and neither should our mercy and care. Mother Teresa
didn’t limit her care that way. Neither do Father Greg Boyle and Homeboy
Industries. Neither was that the spirit of the Statue of Liberty.
In no case is “legality” the criteria. The imperative is compassion. Let’s meet
need wherever it presents itself, if we are serious about manifesting Christ in
this world.
— Eric Searcy, Glassell Park
Continue the conversation! To submit a letter to the editor, visit AngelusNews.com/Letters-To-The-Editor
and use our online form or send an email to editorial@angelusnews.com. Please limit to 300 words. Letters
may be edited for style, brevity, and clarity.
“It’s supposed to cure
anything that is wrong.”
~ Lucia DeClerck of New Jersey on the raisinand-gin
combo that she credits — along with her
Catholic faith — with helping her beat COVID-19
shortly after her 105th birthday.
“What greater happiness
can befall a Christian
man?”
~ Philip Evans, a Jesuit martyr writing to his sister
shortly before his execution in 1679. The bones of
Evans and his close friend and fellow martyr John
Lloyd were identified in Wales nearly 150 years
after they were discovered.
“The year 2020 will
be remembered as a
watershed year that
separates the ‘before’
and the ‘after.’ ”
~ Cardinal Peter Turkson, prefect of the Vatican
Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human
Development on World Health Day, April 7.
“This is not communism,
but pure Christianity.”
~ Pope Francis on the community shared by the
early Christians in the days after Jesus’ death.
Out of darkness into light
Archbishop José H. Gomez lights the
Paschal candle at the Easter Vigil at the
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on
the night of April 3. | VICTOR ALEMÁN
View more photos
from this gallery at
AngelusNews.com/photos-videos
Do you have photos or a story from your
parish that you’d like to share? Please
send to editorial @angelusnews.com.
“The governor is not
the high priest over
all religions.”
~ Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, on the
U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn California’s
ban on in-home worship.
“It’s the basis for
all Christian life.”
~ Michelina Tenace, professor of theology at Rome’s
Pontifical Gregorian University, on baptism and
the priesthood of all believers, the topic of a 2022
symposium recently announced by the Vatican.
April 23, 2021 • ANGELUS • 7

11032021_C
IN EXILE
FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI
Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father
Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual
writer; ronaldrolheiser.com.
The power of beauty
“T
he world will be saved by
beauty!” Fyodor Dostoevsky
wrote that, Dorothy Day
quoted it, and centuries before Jesus,
Confucius made it central to his
pedagogy. They were on to something.
Beauty is a special language
that cuts through and sidelines all the
things that divide us — history, race,
language, creed, ideology, politics, economic
disparity, gender, and personal
wounds.
Beauty melts down all differences.
Its speech, like that of a newborn, has
no explicit words, but is a language
so perfect that it can only be soiled by
violating oneself. Two things in this
world cannot be argued with: beauty
and a baby. They also cannot defend
themselves, and have only their own
vulnerability as protection.
In classical Western philosophy, beauty
is seen as one of the transcendental
properties of being, and therefore as
one of the properties of God. God is
understood as having four transcendental
qualities, namely, as being One,
True, Good, and Beautiful. Hence,
beauty possesses a divine, sacred
quality.
Artists and everyone sensitive to aesthetics
have always recognized this, not
necessarily in that they affirm explicitly
that beauty is a property of God, but
that they recognize a godly quality
in beauty; they sense a “blaspheme”
whenever it is defaced, and feel the
energy to create as divine.
Beauty, as we know, takes many
forms. Who of us has not at times felt
the stunning power of physical beauty?
Who has not been momentarily
transfixed by the beauty of a sunset,
an ocean, a mountain range, the stars,
a full moon, a desert landscape, a
particular tree, a thunderstorm, fresh
snow, a gentle rain, an animal in the
wild, a work of art or architecture, or a
human body?
Physical beauty is self-justifying. It
cannot be argued with and may never
be denigrated by an appeal to something
higher and more spiritual. It is
unequivocally real and thus needs to
be recognized, affirmed, and blessed.
For most of us, when we hear the
word beauty, physical beauty is what
comes to mind. Now, while that beauty
is real, powerful, and can transform the
heart, there are other kinds of beauty
equally as powerful and transforming.
I am not sure what language works in
terms of what I am about to describe,
so forgive me if my expression here
is amateur and awkward, but we can
speak, and need to, of beauty in the
emotional and moral realm. There is
something we might call emotional
beauty or moral beauty.
Emotional beauty is not the beauty
of a sunset or a great painting, but is
the beauty of a particular expression
of love, of empathy, or of compassion
that, like a beautiful sunset, we are
occasionally graced to witness. For
example, we can be transfixed when
seeing the miraculous rescue of a
child, when seeing a helpless animal
saved by rescuers, when seeing an
elderly couple affectionately holding
hands, or when hearing of a generous
response by the public to a plea for
help by a poor family.
As with physical beauty, there is a divine
quality here and, as with physical
beauty, there is something here that
only the most boorish of persons would
dare smudge. However, whenever our
emotions are involved there is always
the danger of an unhealthy sentimentality
also being present; but, that
danger notwithstanding, our emotions,
like our eyes, are also an opening to
beauty.
Finally, not least, there is moral
beauty, beauty of soul. The salient
example here is martyrdom and every
other kind of love that sacrifices its own
wishes, desires, and life for something
higher. While this does not always
make for a beautiful body, it does make
for a beautiful soul. In affirming this,
I am not thinking, first, of its most
salient examples, the religious martyrs
who gave up their lives rather than
deny their faith, or even of persons like
Mohandas Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer,
Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day,
Maximillian Kolbe, Oscar Romero,
and the many today who give up their
lives for others. These are powerful examples
of moral beauty, but many of us
see this firsthand in our own families
and circle of friends.
For example, I look at my own mother
and dad, who for most of their lives
sacrificed to provide for a large family
and, especially, to provide that family
with what is more important than food
and clothing, namely, faith and moral
guidance. There was a moral beauty
in their sacrifice, though sometimes
during those years, by Hollywood
standards, my mom and dad looked
more haggard than beautiful.
Moral beauty, though, is measured by
a different standard. That being said,
there is also the need to be cautious
here: While emotional beauty carries
the risk of sentimentality, moral beauty
carries the risk of fanaticism. Fanatics,
serial killers, and snipers are also
highly focused morally. Morality, like
anything else, can be misguided.
“The world will be saved by beauty!”
True, though I would employ the
present tense: The world is being saved
by beauty.
8 • ANGELUS • April 23, 2021

THIS EVENT IS ONLINE ONLY:
FACEBOOK.COM/LACATHOLICS and CATHOLICCM.ORG
Saturday, May 8 | 2 PM PSt
April 23, 2021 • ANGELUS • 9
11032021_CCM_MothersD_2021_Angelus_FP.indd 1
4/8/21 10:44 AM

Worshipers at a memorial
Mass March 13 for parishioners
who have died
from COVID-19 at St.
John-Visitation Church
in the Bronx borough of
New York City. | CNS/
GREGORY A. SHEMITZ
A virus leaves its mark
How will COVID-19 change the Church? Here are
five glimpses into the post-pandemic Catholic future
BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
ROME — Great global shocks to
the system inevitably produce
massive and profoundly important
consequences, most of which no
one actually sees coming at the time.
The Black Death in the 14th century,
for example, killed anywhere between
75 and 200 million people around the
world, causing a protracted economic
decline but also helping to shift power
from landowners to workers due to
depopulation and thereby contributing
to the end of feudalism.
The Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 hit
Europe harder than the United States,
cutting real GDP by just 1.5% in the
U.S., as opposed to 6-8% on the Old
Continent, thereby helping set the
stage for America’s Roaring ’20s and
the “American Century” worldwide.
Granted that guessing right now how
the COVID-19 pandemic will end
up shaping history is a speculative
enterprise, are there nonetheless a few
seemingly safe bets we can identify as
clues to the Catholic future?
Without straying too far into crystal-ball
territory, five trajectories
already in place before the pandemic
clearly have been turbocharged by it,
and they all have important implications
for the Church.
1. The geopolitical, and therefore the
ecclesiastical, importance of Asia.
2. The rise of digital work and commerce,
and thus of digital ministry.
3. Declining revenue in the nonprofit
sector and shifts in philanthropic giving,
which likely forecast permanently
reduced income and budgets for many
religious organizations.
4. The disruptive effects of remote
work, distance interactions, automation
and AI on the labor force, the
negative consequences of which fall
disproportionately upon low-income,
less-educated and more vulnerable
workers.
5. Increasingly authoritarian forms of
government around the world in the
name of public health and safety, with
consequences for personal movement,
surveillance, and informed consent
in health care, as well as religious
freedom.
Reaching those conclusions doesn’t
require a Nostradamus, since the
evidence already is fairly clear. Here is
a thumbnail sketch of what each may
mean for the Catholic Church.
10 • ANGELUS • April 23, 2021

ASIA’S ASCENT
Despite the fact that COVID was
originally reported in Wuhan, China,
by most accounts Asia has weathered
the storm better than most. China
recently boasted of being the only
major global economy to post growth
in 2020, and nations such as Japan,
Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, and
Cambodia have all won rave reviews
for their broadly successful early action
to contain the pandemic.
China has also skillfully exploited
the COVID crisis to expand its global
reach, ramping up industrial production
to meet the demand of equipment-starved
nations around
the world, and
offering humanitarian
assistance
and investment
to developing
nations rendered
increasingly
desperate by
COVID-related
shortfalls.
In a global
order in which
China is likely
to be the single
most dominant
Father Manuel Acosta,
in purple, prays with a
group of seminarians in
San Ignacio, El Salvador,
as they operate the
diocesan school online
on Dec. 15. Following
the pandemic, the school
that trained lay leaders in
the rural Diocese of Chalatenango
began religious
instruction online.
| CNS/RHINA GUIDOS
economic power, and in which Asia
generally will be better positioned for
an economic and political “relaunch”
as the worst of the pandemic recedes,
the Church’s ability to engage Asian
A priest hears confession at the Cathedral of the
Immaculate Conception in Beijing. | CNS/DAMIR
SAGOLI/REUTERS
societies will be crucial to its evangelical
prospects.
One can’t accuse the Vatican of not
seeing this coming. Its controversial
deal with China over bishops is open
to criticism on human rights and
religious freedom grounds, but it has at
least provided the Vatican with a small
opening to be in conversation with
Beijing.
Beyond China, the growing importance
of Asia also will cast a spotlight
on the Church in the Philippines, the
only large Asian nation that’s majority
Catholic, and also perhaps on South
Korea, where Catholicism over recent
decades has enjoyed a run of missionary
success, and where its social
influence is disproportionately high.
Forward-thinking Church leaders
probably ought to be pondering ways
to identify, groom, and position the
next generation of clergy and lay leaders
from those places, not simply for
the health of their individual nations,
but for the Church on the global stage.
A DIGITAL WORLD
It’s anyone’s guess right now whether
physical turnout at Catholic Masses
will rebound to pre-COVID levels
once all the restrictions are lifted and
the obligation of Sunday attendance
is reimposed. Some believe that the
enforced eucharistic fast of the past
year will stir a new hunger for the
Mass, while others suspect the habit of
staying home will be hard to break.
Even in a post-COVID world,
however, it’s clear that certain forms
of interaction likely have shifted to the
digital realm for good.
For one thing, even when large-scale
conferences are once again feasible
from a public health point of view,
costs and other logistics likely will
drive many such gatherings online.
More basically, however, a boom in
working from home, which allows or-
April 23, 2021 • ANGELUS • 11

ganizations to reduce expenses on their
physical plants and travel, will mean
that a much wider range of ordinary
human interaction will take place
through digital platforms.
Catholic schools will be compelled
to ramp up distance learning options.
Parishes likely will find that a number
of nonsacramental activities that used
to be delivered in person as a matter
of course — marriage preparation, for
instance, or adult faith formation —
are easier, less expensive, and more
effective online. Since people now are
accustomed to making their financial
transactions online, fundraising and
giving increasingly will migrate to the
clouds.
As Catholicism comes to rely ever
more on digital technology, it will
need to be careful that the same
“digital divide” that afflicts society at
large — in part between rich nations
and poor ones, in part among different
social strata in the same country
— doesn’t characterize the Church’s
internal life, too. That may mean
creative efforts on the part of the Vatican
and dioceses around the world to
promote technology resource sharing.
TIGHTENED BELTS
COVID-related shortfalls in revenue
are already causing the Vatican’s
annual deficit to balloon, and the same
thing is occurring at lower levels in
diocesan chanceries and parish offices
around the world. While some adverse
economic effects of the pandemic will
ease as vaccine rollouts continue and
the overall situation improves, there
are at least a couple of reasons to believe
that religious organizations won’t
just return to pre-pandemic levels of
income.
First, there will be permanent
economic damage that leaves organizations
and individuals with less disposable
income, and thus less to give
when the collection plate rolls around.
Second, large-scale philanthropy going
forward likely will be inclined to shift
a greater share of resources to medical
research, medical infrastructure, and
readiness for the next pandemic, possibly
implying a shift away from religious
causes.
In the end, many Catholic enterprises
likely will have to figure out ways to get
by with less.
Church leaders trying to get on top of
that trajectory right now might want to
consider expanding human resources
capacities, since parishes, chanceries,
schools, and social-service operations
likely will have to trim payroll,
meaning personnel left standing will
be pressed to work smarter and more
An usher at Notre Dame de Chicago Church
in Chicago collects offerings in 2019. | KAREN
CALLAWAY/CHICAGO CATHOLIC
nimbly.
Training an existing employee to
work more efficiently and effectively is
a lot less expensive than adding a new
one, so HR may be key to Catholic
fortunes in the near-term future.
Pope Francis prays
during his general
audience in the library of
the Apostolic Palace at
the Vatican on March 17.
| VATICAN MEDIA
GROWING DEMANDS ON
CHARITIES
As the post-pandemic boom in digital
technology unfolds, increasing sectors
of the economy will come to rely more
heavily on automation and AI. Over
time that will reduce costs, but it also
means increasing displacement of
low-income, unskilled labor, which
means more people will find themselves
jobless and poor.
Catholic charities thus will experience
greater demands
for help,
in a moment
when they’re
facing declining
resources themselves.
Catholic leaders
will be pressed
to become ever
more creative about ways to ensure
support for the Church’s front-line
charitable initiatives, perhaps finding
ways to blend appeals for both time
12 • ANGELUS • April 23, 2021

and treasure — asking ordinary Catholics
who may not be in a position to
give money to at least volunteer labor
and expertise, in order to ensure that
the Church’s traditional social safety
net doesn’t develop new gaps.
CHURCH/STATE BATTLES
Recently two legal scholars in Australia,
Stephen Thomson and Eric C. Ip,
warned of an “impending authoritarian
pandemic” as a result of a largescale
expansion of government power
amid the COVID emergency, which,
they concluded, is especially clear in
three areas: restrictions on personal
movement and assembly, surveillance,
Catholics stand outside Sts. Anne and Mary Cathedral in Cork, Ireland, on April 4, praying that Bishop Fintan Gavin
of Cork and Ross would open the doors for Easter Mass during the COVID-19 pandemic. | CNS/CILLIAN KELLY
What two popes see coming
Pope Francis greets retired Pope Benedict XVI on Nov. 28, 2020. | VATICAN MEDIA
Since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic last year,
Pope Francis has stressed the need for the world to avoid a
return to a pre-COVID “normal” and instead use it to the
advantage of the common good.
“The world will never be the same again,” said Pope
Francis in the new book “God and the World to Come,”
published last month. “But it is precisely within this calamity
that we must grasp those signs that can prove to be the
cornerstones of reconstruction.”
Those are words that sum up the pope’s consistent post-pandemic
aspirations: a renewed sense of global fraternity “to
face common threats without resorting to counterproductive
recriminations, the exploitation of problems, shortsighted
nationalism, propaganda, isolationism, and other forms of
political selfishness,” as he states in the book.
“The path toward salvation for humanity passes through the
rethinking of a new model of development, which has as an
indisputable point the coexistence of peoples in harmony
with creation,” he said.
While the current pope has mostly focused on the global
implications of the coming “new normal,” the thinking of
his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, wondered
what the Catholic Church would become as a result of rapid
secularization, a process that many believe will be accelerated
by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a 1969 radio interview, then-Father Joseph Ratzinger
predicted the future Church would look a lot more like the
Church of the first centuries.
“From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will
emerge — a Church that has lost much,” the future pope
said. “She will become small and will have to start afresh
more or less from the beginning.”
“As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose
many of her social privileges,” he continued. “In contrast
to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary
society, entered only by free decision. As a small society,
it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her
individual members.”
Fifty years later, the now-retired pontiff warned that
Western society had turned God into “the private affair of a
minority,” one in which “God is absent in the public sphere
and has nothing left to offer it.”
“In the old Church, the catechumenate was created as
a habitat against an increasingly demoralized culture, in
which the distinctive and fresh aspects of the Christian way
of life were practiced and at the same time protected from
the common way of life,” the pope emeritus wrote in a
2019 essay reflecting on the causes and consequences of the
Church’s reawakening sexual abuse crisis.
As he did one-half century before, Pope Benedict sees
the need for Catholics to live their faith in smaller, more
intimate settings: “I think that even today something like
catechumenal communities are necessary so that Christian
life can assert itself in its own way.”
— Pablo Kay
April 23, 2021 • ANGELUS • 13

and health care ethics, especially the
traditional right of informed consent to
all treatment.
These trends, the authors concluded,
have played out within authoritarian
and semiauthoritarian states as well as
liberal democracies.
For religious groups, where expanded
government authority tends to be felt
most keenly is in restrictions on the
right of free assembly for worship. In
various parts of the world, courts have
already been called upon to adjudicate
disputes over restrictions on religious
services imposed in the name of
combating transmission of the disease,
and it’s likely such tensions will flare
up every time there’s a new outbreak
of the coronavirus or any other deadly
disease.
More broadly, the experience of effectively
shutting down religious services
on the basis of emergency powers may
tempt governments in various parts
of the world to encroach on religious
freedom in other areas.
In the U.S., the Supreme Court of
late has shown great deference to
religious freedom claims. A new study
in The Supreme Court Review finds
that the court led by Chief Justice John
G. Roberts Jr. has sided with religion
in 81% of orally argued cases, up from
just 46% under the Warren court in
the 1950s and 1960s.
Whether that trend continues
remains to be seen — worryingly,
the same study found that religious
freedom has now become a largely
partisan issue in the U.S. — as does
how similar disputes may play out in
other parts of the world.
In any event, at the same time
Church leaders will be pressed to
adapt to a changing geopolitical order,
to keep up with rapid technological
change, to do more with less and to
keep their charitable operations afloat,
they may also find themselves spending
an increasing share of time talking
to lawyers and defending themselves
in court.
In other words, the post-COVID
era will be a challenging one for the
Church … just like, one might argue,
every other era that has preceded it,
and every one that will follow it.
John L. Allen is the editor of Crux.
COVID-19: Our
‘frightening teacher’
As apostolic
nuncio to
the United
States, Archbishop
Christophe
Pierre serves as
the pope’s personal
and official
representative to
the Church in
the U.S. and to
its government.
In an interview
with Italian
Catholic news
website Sussidiario
published
on Easter, the
prelate reflected
on the positive
and the negative
that the pandemic
has brought
out of American Catholicism.
“The pandemic taught us the reality of things,”
said Archbishop Pierre. “It is a frightening teacher
that forces us out of the comfort zones we so
easily settle into.”
In Archbishop Pierre’s estimation, the pandemic
brought out both good and bad. On
one hand, he said, “we have become better by
experiencing new gestures of solidarity, of reciprocal
help and self-giving.” He praised “doctors,
Archbishop Christophe
Pierre, apostolic nuncio to
the United States, speaks
during the fall general
assembly of the U.S. Conference
of Catholic Bishops
in Baltimore on Nov. 11,
2019. | CNS/BOB ROLLER
health care workers, priests, and social workers” who were able to “conquer
fear and put themselves to the service of others, without publicity, but with
competence, patience, and courage.”
But Archbishop Pierre also hinted that COVID-19 exposed some weaknesses
in the U.S. Church.
“After the closing of our places of worship, for obvious reasons, we were
not able to provide a rapid and effective answer to the needs of our mission,
which is to announce the Gospel, no matter the circumstances: ‘Woe to me
if I do not announce the Gospel.’ ”
In another part of the interview, Archbishop Pierre echoed the thoughts
of Pope Francis from last year’s “urbi et orbi” blessing in St. Peter’s Square,
framing the pandemic as a reminder to trust in God more deeply.
“The world we were thinking of building had become individualistic and
materialistic, secularized; and to protect ourselves from the other, we did
everything to exclude and isolate ourselves,” said Archbishop Pierre.
“The presence of the Father’s Son in our midst helps us rediscover that we
are brothers,” he said. “True, it is a difficult task, as it is a matter of reversing
the trend, of starting anew from a reality which we had erased from our
perspectives: we are all brothers because God is our father.”
14 • ANGELUS • April 23, 2021

April 23, 2021 • ANGELUS • 15

A district-wide test
The pandemic is speeding
up inevitable changes in the
landscape of Catholic education
in LA. But there have been some
surprises, too
BY PABLO KAY
Six parochial schools in the Archdiocese
of Los Angeles will be consolidated
with other schools at the
end of the school year, a consequence
of shifting demographics and financial
woes made worse by the COVID-19
pandemic.
The consolidations were announced
April 1 after school officials met in late
March with families at St. Ferdinand
School in San Fernando, St. Catherine
of Siena School in Reseda, Blessed
Sacrament School in Hollywood, St.
Francis of Assisi School in Silver Lake,
Assumption School in Boyle Heights,
and St. Madeleine School in Pomona.
All six schools had seen steep declines
in enrollment before the pandemic hit,
according to the archdiocese’s Department
of Catholic Schools (DCS).
Superintendent Paul Escala told
Angelus that in deciding which schools
would have to close this year, the
archdiocese took a “regional approach”
that ensured students could be served
in nearby Catholic schools.
“[The affected schools] aren’t the
only ones that have faced distress over
the years, but a hard look at school
finances, enrollment forecasting, and
trends in demographic shifts make it
clear that we’ll have fewer families in
these schools’ neighborhoods to draw
new students from,” Escala said.
At St. Ferdinand, located in a working-class
area near the northern tip of
the San Fernando Valley, “the signs
were already there way before” said
principal Luis Gamarra, who arrived
three years ago. Enrollment was
declining, tuition payments shrinking,
and families were leaving the area for
Students attend class at St. Ferdinand School in
San Fernando earlier this school year. The school
is among six in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles
that will be consolidated with other schools this
year. | COURTESY PHOTO
less expensive neighborhoods, like the
suburbs in the Santa Clarita Valley on
the other side of the Newhall Pass.
“I don’t think this was a surprise to
anybody,” Gamarra said.
Gamarra tried initiatives to make the
school self-sustainable again, including
offering registration incentives to
school families for referring new students.
But numbers remained low and
the school was forced to depend on the
archdiocese to meet payroll for faculty
and other employees.
With the school’s precarious finances,
the COVID pandemic has proven to
16 • ANGELUS • April 23, 2021

e, in Gamarra’s words, “the last nail in
the coffin” for the 91-year-old school.
“At the start of the pandemic we lost
about 52 students, and that really put
us in a pinch,” Gamarra said. Nearly
half of those students’ families cited the
need to save money by moving their
children to public school during the
period when pandemic protocols required
remote learning. But those families
had said they expected to return to
the school once in-person classes could
be resumed, an opportunity no longer
possible with the school closing.
News of the consolidations was not
welcomed by everyone. Some parents
have vowed to fundraise to keep St.
Ferdinand open. Gamarra feels their
pain, but insists the financial commitment
from parents to keep the school
open for even one more year would be
“unsustainable.”
“To be brutally honest, the last thing
I would want to do is to string anybody
along with false hopes,” Gamarra said.
“It would be unfair to families and to
staff. That’s where I’m at right now as
an administrator.”
At Blessed Sacrament in Hollywood,
the school’s fate is perhaps a little easier
to understand. Located in the heart of
the entertainment industry’s capital,
families with children that have left the
area have not been replaced by many
new ones.
Three alumni of the school, Mark,
Renee, and Annette Sikand said they
have long supported the school out of
gratitude for the Jesuit education they
received more than 50 years ago.
“While we are saddened by the news
of the school’s closure, we understand
that it is necessary to reimagine its use,
and we’re excited about the future for
the school and the community,” the
siblings wrote in an email to Angelus.
Escala admitted that conversations
with school communities last month
Catholic schools Superintendent
Paul Escala
speaks to the media on
March 24 on the first day
of in-person instruction
at St. Anthony High
School in Long Beach.
| SARAH YAKLIC
were difficult.
“The story here is a very human one,
and it was sobering, unfortunate news
that we had to deliver,” he said.
He does see encouraging signs for the
future. Catholic schools have led the
way in reopening classrooms, with now
more than 90% of the archdiocese’s
schools open for in-class instruction.
While enrollment in lower grades has
suffered — in part due to the challenges
of distance learning for younger
children — middle and high school
enrollment has remained relatively
steady. A few elementary schools have
even seen modest growth in enrollment
this academic year, Escala said.
With summer a few months away,
the archdiocese will work to identify
job openings at other Catholic schools
for teachers and staff from the affected
schools. The DCS will also work with
the Catholic Education Foundation to
help students and families in need of
tuition assistance
find a new
Catholic school
to welcome
them.
At St. Ferdinand,
some
families are
already enrolling
students for next
year at nearby
schools such
as Santa Rosa de Lima, which is just
three blocks away, and St. Didacus in
Sylmar. Others who have been commuting
from farther away may look
to schools closer to home, Gamarra
expects.
It is the opportunities like those
that Escala says brought an element
of hope to the tough meetings with
parents and staff at the affected schools.
“There’s that hope that we are going
to continue the promise of Catholic
education in our neighborhoods, and
that we’re going to continue to support
families and staff in finding them a
new home in our schools,” Escala said.
“We’re blessed with a very vast and
large system of schools, so people realize
there are alternatives and options
for them.”
Pablo Kay is the editor-in-chief of
Angelus.
April 23, 2021 • ANGELUS • 17

Our house
of prayer’s
Holy Week
Archbishop José H. Gomez celebrates the noon Spanish
Easter Sunday Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the
Angels on April 4. For the first time in months, faithful
were able to sit in the pews of the northern and southern
transepts of the cathedral, observing social distancing.
The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels hosted a
total of seven public liturgies during this year’s Holy
Week, the second of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Apart from the two English and Spanish Masses on Palm
Sunday and Easter Sunday, there were also bilingual liturgies
marking Holy Thursday and Good Friday, as well as
a bilingual Easter Vigil the evening of Holy Saturday. In
addition, more than 200 priests concelebrated the annual
archdiocesan Chrism Mass at the cathedral with Archbishop
José H. Gomez on Monday, March 29.
Here is a roundup of some of Photo Editor Victor
Alemán’s best shots from Holy Week 2021.
PHOTOS BY VICTOR ALEMÁN
Archbishop Gomez greets Massgoers after Easter Mass
at the exit of the cathedral.
18 • ANGELUS • April 23, 2021

The new
tapestry of
“Mary, Mother
of the Church”
behind the
bronze crucifix
in the cathedral
sanctuary on
Palm Sunday.
Faithful receive
palm fronds as
they leave Palm
Sunday Mass
on March 28.
More than 300 socially distanced
priests lined the pews of the
cathedral to concelebrate the
annual Chrism Mass, where Archbishop
Gomez blessed the three
types of sacramental holy oils that
will be used in parishes around
the archdiocese in the next year.
April 23, 2021 • ANGELUS • 19
A child comforts a woman during the March 14 funeral procession for three
of the migrants from Comitancillo, Guatemala, killed trying to reach the U.S. in
January. | CNS/LUIS ECHEVERRIA, REUTERS

After having processed with it at
the end of the Mass of the Lord’s
Supper on Holy Thursday, Archbishop
Gomez places the holy Eucharist
in the tabernacle of the cathedral’s
Blessed Sacrament Chapel. Per
Church tradition, no Masses are
celebrated until the Easter Vigil on
the evening of Holy Saturday.
Archbishop Gomez takes part in
the adoration of the cross during
the Good Friday liturgy. Due to
COVID-19 concerns, faithful were
asked to venerate the cross without
touching or kissing it this year.
20 • ANGELUS • April 23, 2021

Following the
Easter Vigil,
cathedral pastor
Father David
Gallardo blesses
local members
of the Sisters of
the Poor Jesus,
a religious order
founded in Brazil
who minister to
the poor in Los
Angeles and other
cities around
the world.
Archbishop Gomez blesses the congregation by aspersing holy water during the Easter Vigil on the evening of Holy Saturday.
April 23, 2021 • ANGELUS • 21

AN EXPLOSION OF HOPE
What the second Easter in a global pandemic was
like in five different parts of the world
BY ANGELUS STAFF
Although the circumstances varied
a little depending on where you live,
Holy Week and Easter for American
Catholics this year represented a gradual
return to normality. In most cases,
worshipers were able to gather following
certain COVID-19 restrictions.
But what about the rest of the world?
To find out, Angelus caught up with
Catholics in five parts of the world and
asked them what this second “pandemic
Easter” meant for them in this historical
moment of worldwide suffering
and uncertainty.
BONGOUANOU, IVORY COAST
Father Matteo Diotallevi
Infection and mortality rates are
extremely low in Ivory Coast, and we
were allowed to celebrate the Paschal
triduum as it is usually done in this
country.
The triduum is a big deal here.
Almost everyone participates in the
liturgies. On Good Friday there is
a massive pageant in which young
people reenact all the parts of Christ’s
passion. The whole assembly joins in
the “Via Crucis” (“Way of the Cross:
path of suffering”), following Jesus
around town as he is scourged by the
Romans and falls multiple times on the
asphalt and dirt of our roads.
On Saturday night we had the Easter
Vigil. It was not possible to celebrate
it in the parish, but we were hosted
by a convent of nuns. They gave us a
big room which is normally used as
a school hall. There was not a lot of
light (we needed a torchlight to read
the readings), but there were many
drawings by the school’s children to
brighten up the walls.
The faithful came from three different
cities, some as far as 100 miles away,
to attend. After the vigil we had a little
banquet. A woman from the parish
spent a lot of money to rent tables and
chairs so she could host all the vigil’s
participants, and they were able to kill
a lamb and feast together afterward.
Personally, this Easter was a great help
for me. It was my first Easter Vigil as
a priest, and I could not help thinking
about last Easter. I was suffering
a lot back then, not so much for the
pandemic, but because I could not
get along with the priest I lived with. I
experienced that not being able to love
another person is the greatest suffering.
And yet, this is what the resurrection of
Christ came to overcome for me: This
year we experienced a great sense of
communion, a new spirit!
It also helped me immensely to see the
joy of the people here, how they did not
spare any effort to be able to participate
in the liturgies, how they felt it was a
privilege they would not exchange for
anything. Their joy was contagious, and
our vigil was truly an explosion of joy.
Originally from Rome, Father Matteo
Diotallevi is a missionary priest of the
Archdiocese of Abidjan in Ivory Coast.
ROME, ITALY
Valentina Pietropaolo
While last Easter we had to have athome
celebrations with our families,
this year the government allowed us
to celebrate the triduum at our local
parish.
Due to COVID restrictions, however,
we weren’t able to do the rituals typical
of Holy Thursday and Good Friday: the
washing of the feet and the adoration of
the cross.
So for Holy Thursday, my husband
and I organized a little celebration at
home, in which we
Father Diotallevi
with families after the
Easter Vigil in Bongouanou,
Ivory Coast.
washed our children’s
feet and then
we gave them the
opportunity to wash
one another’s feet
and ask forgiveness
to one another. My husband gave a little
speech to the children explaining what
it means for Jesus to wash our feet, and
how he invites us to do the same to one
another.
On Friday night, we did the same with
the adoration of the cross: As we kissed
the cross at home, I explained to my
kids how this is a sign that we want to
participate in the suffering of Christ.
22 • ANGELUS • April 23, 2021

Fathers present their newly baptized children
during the Easter Vigil at San Timoteo Church in
Rome, among them Valentina Pietropaolo’s son
Diego (third from left).
The Easter Vigil was made possible
by a little miracle. It was scheduled to
take place outdoors, but the weather
forecast predicted it would be raining.
Instead of canceling it, our pastor went
ahead, and was vindicated: It ended up
raining in other parts of the city but not
in our neighborhood!
During the vigil our pastor baptized
our fourth child, who is only a month
old, and it was a great joy. Every Lent
seems to be a time of trial for us, and
this one was no exception. By the time
this Easter came around, we felt tired
and burdened. But the homily by the
pastor consoled us. He said that Easter
means that everything is possible; with
Easter, Christ defeats death and gives
us a Spirit that conquers everything.
This was the good news: the certainty
that no matter what would happen,
his Spirit would give us the strength to
accept every suffering.
The situation
with the pandemic
here in Italy is
pretty grim. We
are in the middle
of a “fourth
wave,” and we are
The Rios family in
Chile were all smiles
after their domestic
Easter celebration.
lagging way behind other countries in
vaccinations. This Easter was a reminder
that while vaccines may help end
the pandemic, they cannot solve the
problems of man’s heart. The triduum
helped us live this time of uncertainty
close to the Lord. The resurrection of
Christ gave us the certainty that God
will accompany us in whatever awaits
us.
SANTIAGO, CHILE
Roberto Rios
Here in Chile, there was a debate
leading up to Holy Week about whether
the state could suspend religious
gatherings due to the COVID pandemic.
The country’s highest court ruled
that the government could not suspend
public worship for any religion, but it
only allowed up to 5 people to attend
in person to help with livestream.
Despite being held online, I think
the celebrations were done with a very
strong spirit of community, especially
by how we were praying for those
affected most by the coronavirus, and
those who are most alone.
We have many elderly people in our
parish community who have suffered
a lot during this pandemic, so we have
tried to accompany them as much as
possible. Since Easter Sunday, the
pastor has been calling to check on
them, to bless them, and wish them a
happy Easter. This has been received
very well.
This Holy Week was a profound time
of silence and greater recollection for
me. This was our second Holy Week
in quarantine. Last year there was a lot
more fear than there was this time. I
lived it with a lot more hope, and with
a better sense of what the “domestic
Church” means, to live the faith at
home, celebrating the triduum very
intensely at home with our kids, and
transmitting a greater sense of community
to my family — but with joy.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Francesca Marconi
Being able to celebrate Easter this
year was a bit of a miracle for me, my
husband, and six kids. In order to be
able to gather legally for this year’s vigil,
Continued on page 31
April 23, 2021 • ANGELUS • 23

A surprise witness
to the Resurrection BY
What if we all
have a little bit of
Barabbas in us?
MSGR. RICHARD ANTALL
My spiritual reading for Lent
this year was a book by a
Spanish saint who proposed
a novel idea: that we should be so
involved and engaged as we read the
Gospels that we become virtual participants
in them.
As I explained this initiative to my
parishioners in my homily for Palm
Sunday, one of my applications of this
was that, inserted in the narrative, we
relate to the other actors in the drama
of our salvation. That included for
me Barabbas, I said, because we have
something in common with him.
Barabbas was guilty and was set free,
while Jesus was innocent and condemned
to die. Likewise, we are the
guilty ones and Jesus, the innocent
one, died for us.
As I was preaching, I brought to mind
an old Hallmark special TV drama
about Barabbas that fascinated me as
a boy. A woman after Mass told me
that there had also been a movie about
Barabbas based on a book that was
much better. She couldn’t recall the
name of the book, only that the author
was Scandinavian.
That clue was enough to lead me to
find the book online, where I was able
to download it from my local library.
“Barabbas” is a very short novel by
Swedish writer Pär Lagerkvist published
in 1950. I was surprised to learn
that he was a Nobel Prize winner for
literature and professedly an unbeliever,
though he had been raised a devout
Lutheran.
But Lagerkvist was not a hostile unbeliever.
The novel itself seems to be a
kind of wrestling match between belief
in Jesus and doubt. Barabbas, who was
portrayed by Anthony Quinn in the
An 1857 illustration depicting Barabbas after the
crucifixion in a French journal. | SHUTTERSTOCK
Pär Lagerkvist.
| ATELJÉ UGGLA/WIKIPEDIA
24 • ANGELUS • April 23, 2021

movie version, is described as a rough
customer, a violent man, with a scar
on his face that is revealed as a strange
symbol of the tragedy of his life.
The Gospels say nothing about him
after he is released to freedom by
Pilate, but Lagerkvist imagines the
ex-prisoner is driven by an impulse to
follow the crowd to Golgotha.
He spies Jesus on the cross, interprets
the Blessed Mother’s sadness as
including the idea that she held her
Son somehow responsible for his fate,
experiences the famous darkness at
noon, and then holds a secret vigil
at the tomb, which took place after a
drunken tryst with a mistress and an
enigmatic meeting with St. Peter.
The novel tells how Barabbas misses
the moment of the Resurrection, somehow,
but sees the empty tomb and is
given an account of it by a woman only
identified by her cleft lip. His relationship
to her is revealed when she is
stoned as a heretic for giving witness to
Jesus’ resurrection.
He is confused by what has happened
to him and to Jesus and, almost
unwillingly, he gets involved with the
early Christians. Lagerkvist imagines
the man’s thoughts and his version is
compelling:
“They spoke of his having died for
them. That might be. But he really had
died for Barabbas, no one could deny
it! In actual fact, he was closer to him
than they were, closer than anyone
else, was bound up with him in quite
another way. Although they didn’t want
to have anything to do with him. He
was chosen, one might say, chosen to
escape suffering, to be let off. He was
the real chosen one, acquitted instead
of the son of God himself — at his
command, because he wished it.”
Barabbas is attracted to the nascent
Christian community because of his
own strange “relationship” with the
Crucified One, but he is repulsed by
Jesus’ death. He cannot understand
why anyone would want to suffer,
much less adore someone who did so.
His ambivalence makes him decide
to reject the Christians one day and
return to them on the next.
The novel has imaginative power.
The bandit who was saved from crucifixion
and set free goes back to banditry.
His fellow bandits are frightened
of him and notice the change in him
since his captivity in Jerusalem.
His journey takes him to several
different places before ending up as a
slave in the mines of Cyprus, where
he is shackled to a man who has heard
of Jesus the Christ and prays to him.
Barabbas tells the prisoner, Sahak, that
he was a witness both to the crucifixion
and the resurrection but does not mention
that he was set free in exchange
for Jesus.
Their bond leads to their release
from captivity, but Sahak is eventually
The cover of the 1962 French edition of “Barabbas.”
discovered as a Christian and put to
death. Barabbas, who tells the governor
he only wanted to believe in Jesus but
could not, is spared. The governor then
takes him to Rome in his retirement,
where Barabbas hears about clandestine
Christian gatherings and even
attempts to go to a Eucharist in the
catacombs.
When Nero sets Rome on fire, Barabbas
is caught up in the rioting and
thinks that the Christians are burning
the city because Jesus has returned.
He is captured and imprisoned with
the Christians, including St. Peter,
who recognizes him from their strange
encounter in Jerusalem.
The other prisoners are horrified
that Barabbas had told the judge his
violence was an expression of belief in
Jesus the Christ and, although St. Peter
speaks to him kindly, he is avoided by
the others as they all await execution
and, even when crucified, is located at
a distance from the others.
Faith still eludes him and he cannot
understand the God of love that the
Christians speak about and pray to.
André Gide, who wrote the foreword
for the edition of the book that I read,
found the ending of the book to be
particularly moving.
“The closing sentence of the book
remains (no doubt deliberately) ambiguous:
‘When he felt death approaching,
that which he had always been so
afraid of, he said out into the darkness,
as though he were speaking to it: — To
thee I deliver up my soul.’ That ‘as
though’ leaves me wondering, whether,
without realizing it, he was, in fact,
addressing Christ, whether the Galilean
did not ‘get him’ at the end. Vicisti
Galileus [“You have won, Galilean”],
as Julian the Apostate said.”
Sounds like my idea of a happy ending:
God wins.
And so, a casual remark in my Palm
Sunday homily made it so that I spent
Holy Week this year with Barabbas.
He is a man worth thinking about.
The famous Christian teacher Origen
thought that the man released
instead of Our Lord might have been
named Jesus Barabbas. He saw the
last name as an Aramaic reference to
“bar” (“son”) and “abba” (“father”). So
one Son of the Father was the reason
another was set free.
The seemingly endless irony of the
figure of Barabbas gives us something
to meditate about. The novel-parable
was a spiritual “vade mecum” (“handbook”)
for me this year. The enigmatic
ending can be interpreted as the dying
man’s redemption. Lagerkvist’s Barabbas
took the leap of faith as he left this
world. He became another witness of
the Resurrection, a difficult witness,
as the lawyers might like to say, and a
tortured one.
And for me, I might add, a very
convincing one, because many of us
struggle like him.
Msgr. Richard Antall is pastor of Holy
Name Church in Cleveland, Ohio, and
author of “The Wedding” (Lambing
Press, $16.95).
April 23, 2021 • ANGELUS • 25

AD REM
ROBERT BRENNAN
Our rush back to normal
There is an old Irish joke about a husband who drank
too much (is there any other kind of Irish joke?) and
went to church too little. His wife gave him an ultimatum:
If he were late for Mass one more time, she would
leave him. And so, after an all-night bender, the husband is
driving his car, rushing to make the 7:30 a.m. Mass. When
he arrives at the parish, he finds the parking lot is packed,
throwing him into a full-blown panic.
The husband begins to pray desperately. If you help me
find a parking space before Mass starts, he promises God,
I will stop drinking and never be late for Mass again. He
then turns a corner and sees a parking space right next to
the church door.
He immediately looks skyward and says, “Never mind … I
found one.”
That joke came to mind when I watched news reports of
spring break revelers making fools of themselves in Florida
in recent weeks. Even beyond making a strong case for
revoking the right of 18-year-olds to vote, the headlines
offered an instructional story for us all.
I would wager that a year ago, many of these same young
26 • ANGELUS • April 23, 2021
people were hunkered down
in their parents’ basements,
worried sick about getting
sick. Though they could not
get inside the business end of
a church even if they wanted
A large crowd walks along Ocean
Drive during spring break festivities
in Miami Beach on March 5 during
the COVID-19 pandemic. | CNS/
MARCO BELLO, REUTERS
to, they may have been looking skyward and asking for
deliverance from the ravages of the pandemic when it was
in full flower and filling up intensive-care units in hospitals
from coast to coast.
We were all in that same place a year ago, and many of us
were probably having that same kind of conversation with
God (or monologue in most cases) that the man in the joke
was having. We promised all manner of amendments of
wayward ways in exchange for deliverance from harm. We
would be good if God would just do this one thing for us.
But now science has come to our rescue. Certain doctors
have become famous and even revered by many. Thanks
to their emergency approval, the vaccines are becoming so
plentiful, even I can now get one. Pharmaceutical salvation
is now at hand, and there is a kegger at the beach to
Send __
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Robert Brennan is director of
communications at The Salvation
Army California South Division.
get to.
The young people in Florida were being young people in
Florida during this time of year (I shudder to think of my
college-aged self and the foolishness I exhibited on a regular
basis). But the boorish behavior aside, what took place
in Florida may also be a harbinger of a return to normalcy.
Normalcy — that is a loaded word in the age of COVID,
but things are beginning to look like they are turning for
the better.
Baseball is back and many stadiums in the first week of
play have had real human beings in the seats rather than
cardboard cutouts.
The Dodgers will allow limited numbers of fans to return
to Chavez Ravine, but it is unlikely my family will be attending
a game anytime soon, seeing that seat prices online
are comparable to the national debt of Lithuania.
The freeways are returning to their pre-COVID orientation,
with drivers experiencing higher volumes of traffic
and lower patience thresholds.
Whatever form normal takes — and I believe it is inevitable
that normal will never look the same again — we
must all face that same temptation the kids in Florida and
the man in the Irish joke succumbed to. It is the tendency
we all have to call on God when there is a crisis and then
conveniently put God back into our pockets and go about
our lives when things seem less scary.
There is little effort involved in getting in touch with God
on the deck of the Titanic when it is about to slip under
the sea. The harder trick is to keep God first and foremost
in our thoughts and in our lives when times are good.
I am certain the 10 lepers from Scripture sought God’s assistance
for years as they suffered in a leper colony outside
the city walls. But when their deliverance came in the form
of Jesus, only one came back to praise and honor the Lord
while the other nine lepers went back to their normal.
As this pandemic, through the grace of God, continues to
wane, may our normal never be without God in front of us,
God behind us, God on our right, and God on our left.
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April 23, 2021 • ANGELUS • 27

INSIDE THE PAGES
KRIS MCGREGOR
The spiritual battle for happiness
Why a ‘spiritual audit’ is necessary
for God to do what he wants with us
| SHUTTERSTOCK
There are hundreds of self-help
books selling “happiness” with
a few simple habits, like making
your bed or doing yoga. But Catholics
know that finding true happiness lies in
following God’s plan for your life.
Where do you start?
In “The Willpower Advantage:
Building Habits for Lasting Happiness”
(Ignatius Press, $17), Ryan Hanning,
Ph.D., and Tom Peterson lay out a
roadmap to follow, based on the virtues
and how your personality can help you
build them.
Kris McGregor: Virtue is something
we need today. Many of us don’t truly
realize the battle that is taking place
right now.
Ryan Hanning, Ph.D.: A spiritual
battle has been raging since the moment
of the fall. It is played out in the
very practical realities of everyday life.
It often comes down to the decisions
we make every day.
With all the uncertainty and challenges,
all the things that rob us of
peace and joy, we need to remember
who we are as beloved sons and
Ryan Hanning, Ph.D.
| RYANHANNING.COM
28 • ANGELUS • April 23, 2021

Kris McGregor is the founder of
Discerninghearts.com, an online resource for
the best in contemporary Catholic spirituality.
daughters of the father; to remember
that God doesn’t see us as a problem
to be solved, but as a beloved child
that he wants to help bring to fulfillment.
We need to remember four forgotten
truths. One, God wants us to be
happy. That happiness comes from
participating with his grace.
The second is, the Christian life takes
work. I think we often forget that. But
maybe this is the work of our generation,
to navigate this tumultuous time.
The third, that grace builds upon
nature. God doesn’t want to destroy us.
God wants to bring us to fulfillment.
And the fourth forgotten truth: We
can’t do it on our own. We need one
another. We need church. We need
our friends and our family. We’re all in
this together. God works through all
of these moments to form us into the
person he’s calling us to be. It’s not in
spite of our family or our community
that we become saints. It’s through
them that we grow in virtue.
McGregor: We have to start by
understanding ourselves first, knowing
who we truly are.
Hanning: We begin this entire journey
by first knowing ourselves. And
part of knowing ourselves is knowing
our natural biology, our natural inclinations.
That is why a spiritual audit is
so important!
Our character and experiences build
upon the foundation of our temperaments,
and that leads us to our
personality.
Every Christian disciple is called to
enter into this discovery, to understand
who they are, their strengths and weaknesses,
and how they’re called to fulfill
their missions.
In our book, we explore the virtues:
We walk through Scripture on each
virtue, we walk through how Jesus
lived that virtue, and then we look at
some real, practical ways in which you
can grow in that virtue according to
your temperament.
For each of the temperaments, we
provide insights from the lives of the
saints, to help us understand how
we’re meant to participate and build
upon the foundation of our temperament
to grow in virtue. That it is needed
now more than ever before. And it’s
really dynamic. It’s fun. It’s energetic.
McGregor: And it is joy, because
you’re free. You’re no longer a captive,
you know who you are.
Hanning: The challenge now is not
so much that we’re accepting a false
vision of ourselves, but accepting one
that’s insufficient, that’s too small for
us. I am not my job, my food preference,
my sexual identity.
I am a unique beloved son of the
Father — that’s my identity first. And
secondly, it’s my vocation, the mission
God has placed for me to fulfill.
And then so on, my talents and gifts
that I bring to the world, and service to
others, that’s who I am.
The devil tries to trick you, to get
you to not remember who you are.
He tries to prick your wounds that rob
you of peace and steal your joy. And so
much of our media today is meant to
point this out — you’re not as good as
you ought to be, on the one hand. Or,
you’re fine just the way you are, don’t
do anything about it.
The truth is that God created us for
so much more.
McGregor: The virtues are key to
living the Christ-like life. But often we
don’t understand what the virtues are,
and sometimes we even rail against
them.
Hanning: We live in a fallen and
broken world. We have a fallen and
broken nature. But it’s not so broken
that it can’t be redeemed, and it’s not
so broken that it doesn’t resonate with
what is good, beautiful, and true.
I think we live in this world that tends
to present a false vision of virtue, or
the view that you have to do it all on
your own.
When I pray for the virtue of patience,
God in his power can certainly
infuse that in my heart, but he chooses
not to. Rather, he puts me in the longest
line in the grocery store, he puts
me in the longest line of traffic, so that
I can begin to exercise. I can practice
that virtue.
McGregor: How does your personality
change how you live out a particular
virtue?
Hanning: We tried to go through all
four classical temperaments and say,
“Here’s some hope, here are saints that
had a similar temperament. Here’s
how they manifested these virtues. And
here’s some practical ways that, given
that temperament, you can grow in
that virtue and be aware of the particular
weaknesses of your temperament.”
McGregor: It sets us free to be able,
in our will, to say yes to God. And it
can be a struggle.
Hanning: Virtue is about participating
with the good, beautiful, and true.
St. Paul tells the Philippians (4:8) to
think about those things that are good
and beautiful, and even uses the word
in Greek, “arete,” which is the word
for “virtue.” We translate it as “excellence.”
It’s something lived the way it
ought to be lived.
It’s interesting that for all the saints,
it’s not as if growing in virtue and
holiness overcomes their temperament.
No, it actually fulfills and builds
upon their temperament. We can
think of St. Peter — he didn’t lose any
of his recklessness, but rather it was
transformed into an authentic drive to
share the gospel.
There’s no better time to start discovering
our mission and cooperating
with God’s grace. We can truly start to
experience the happiness that waits for
us in heaven, just a little taste of that
here on earth.
April 23, 2021 • ANGELUS • 29

DESIRE LINES
HEATHER KING
WANTED: Disturbing Homilies
| EXE LOBAIZA, CATHOPIC
Recently I heard a homily in
which the priest shared that he
and his brethren are generally
instructed by their superiors not to
say anything that will disturb people.
I almost wept. If we’re not here to
be disturbed, to be challenged, to be
called higher, what are we here for?
Madeleine L’Engle, beloved writer
of such children’s classics as “A
Wrinkle in Time,” once observed,
“We do not draw people to Christ by
loudly discrediting what they believe,
by telling them how wrong they are
and how right we are, but by showing
them a light that is so lovely that they
want with all their hearts to know the
source of it.”
So invite us to consider whether we
are showing the world a “lovely light,”
or in fact any light at all.
Disturb us!
Remind us, for example, that, however
precious our right to vote, no one is converted
to Christ through a ballot box.
People are converted by those who
actually try to live by a way that is different
from the way of the world, and
that costs, and that leads to new life.
How about a homily, then, a real
homily, about what it means to be for
life, in every manifestation, in every
eventuality? A homily, for example,
about the sins of capital punishment,
of separating families at the border,
about the amassing as private citizens
of arsenals of military-style assault
weapons?
How about a homily on the teachings
of the Church on marriage and
the family? I don’t mean just parroting
the Catechism of the Catholic
Church, but how and why the teachings
are from the most profound form
of human love: calculated to invite us
all to the table of the mystical body, to
bring us to full flower, to challenge us
to take up our crosses and to lay down
our lives for our friends?
How about a homily about the
strange beauty and mystery of celibacy
— since all of us Catholics who are
single, widowed, or same-sex-attracted
are called to this simultaneous cross
30 • ANGELUS • April 23, 2021

Heather King is an award-winning
author, speaker, and workshop leader.
and crown?
How about a homily emphasizing
that spending hours a day arguing
on social media is a straight-up sin: a
waste of time, a squandering of our
intellect, and the willful cultivation
in our hearts of spite, contempt, hate?
How about an invitation to emerge
from the tiny, confined, artificial
bunkers in which we all like to hide
and from which we can safely take
potshots at our neighbors?
How about a homily on money?
Tithing? On Christ’s exhortation
to store up our treasure in heaven?
Homilies on consumerism, waste, our
eating habits, our “common home,” as
Pope Francis called planet Earth.
If my friends and I are any indication,
we in the pews are hungry, fam-
ished, for real instruction, real meat,
real questions that we can ponder,
pray over, chew on. Real challenge,
real encouragement: to examine our
consciences and hearts, to change our
lives.
Homilies that suggest the priest
himself is wrestling with the vital
question: What does it mean to love
Christ as he loved us and to love our
neighbor as ourselves?
In an essay called “On Being a Witness:
The Catholic Lawyer and the
Method of Presence,” the late Msgr.
Lorenzo Albacete observed:
“When Saint Augustine in ‘The
City of God’ is trying to identify
what distinguishes its citizens from
the citizens of the ‘earthly city’ —
what distinguishes Christians from
non-Christians — he recognizes that
the dividing line, so to speak, is not
in the area of moral behavior. As he
says, we know that so many times
non-Christians are equally if not more
ethically-motivated than Christians.
For Saint Augustine, what distinguishes
Christians from non-Christians is
an event — that is, something happened
to us that has not happened to
those who do not know Christ.”
These Easter season days would be
a fruitful time to ponder: What has
happened to me that has not happened
to those who do not know Christ? And
how can I devote my life to transmitting
that event to the people around me?
As Christ said, “Nothing is hidden
that will not come to light.” In the
best possible way, let that disturb us.
Continued from page 23
we had to pass many tests. Not only did
all our family have to test negative for
COVID-19 beforehand, but all the tests
done to all the students in our children’s
classes had to come back negative.
And yet, it happened. We were able
to celebrate the Paschal triduum in a
small church with the other families
of our “missio ad gentes” missionary
community from the Neocatechumenal
Way, and all our children were with us
for the all-night Easter Vigil that began
Saturday night.
Personally, I was really struck by
the Gospel in the Easter Vigil. The
women went to anoint the body of Jesus
without even knowing how to roll back
the stone. But when they arrive, the
problem is already solved: The tomb is
empty and an angel tells them that Jesus
is risen.
What does that mean for me? That
God asks me to encounter situations of
suffering in my life even if I don’t have
the means to solve these problems myself.
In other words, these situations are
an opportunity to see that Jesus is risen
and has conquered death.
The third reading in the Easter Vigil
(the Exodus account of the opening of
the Red Sea) seemed to say the same
thing: God only asks his people to set
out on a journey, but he takes care of
the rest.
He opens up the sea, blocks the chariots
of the Egyptians, and so on. All the
people of Israel have to do is walk. This
was the good news for me.
This, for me, was the hope of Easter:
Death is conquered and you can
endure suffering in peace. It is not easy
being an immigrant family here, having
six kids with all their needs and sufferings,
but Easter offers me a new spirit
to endure any suffering with Christ-like
peace.
KAOHSIUNG, TAIWAN
Tamara Perez
Since the pandemic is largely under
control here in Taiwan, things have
gone back to pre-pandemic normal.
That’s what made being able to gather
again for Easter this year so beautiful.
Last year, we were all stuck in our
homes, doing domestic celebrations.
This year felt like a new beginning, and
it filled us with gratitude.
Personally, I was struck by the first
reading during the Easter Vigil. I have
never noticed a detail in the account of
Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, that it took
him three days to get to Mount Moriah.
What three days of anguish and pain
they must have been, what horror to
be knowing where he was going and
what he had to do! And yet the Lord
answered him. This great suffering
Abraham had later found its meaning.
This helped me very much; to think
that every suffering has a meaning.
Thanks to this word, I am experiencing
the whole of Easter as a time of rest.
Experiences were compiled and
edited by Angelus contributors Stefano
Rebeggiani and Inés San Martín, and
Editor-in-Chief Pablo Kay.
April 23, 2021 • ANGELUS • 31

LETTER AND SPIRIT
SCOTT HAHN
Scott Hahn is founder of the
St. Paul Center for Biblical
Theology; stpaulcenter.com.
Signs of life
I
’ve been a Catholic for 3 1/2
decades, and still I marvel at the
richness of the life we share. We’re
borne along in this life by a sacred
tradition, a primal element of customs
of prayer. We pray with our hearts
and minds, our souls and bodies. We
pray with our posture and gestures,
our words and silence, with water and
wool, with bread and wine.
I love the Catholic life, and I wanted
to write a book that would celebrate
the things that make it so full and
rich.
So I did. In
2009 I wrote
“Signs of Life:
40 Catholic
Customs and
Their Biblical
Roots” (Image,
$19).
“Christ Healing the Blind
Man,” by Giaocchino
Assereto, 1600-1649, Italian.
| WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
In its pages I practice a method I
learned from the Church Fathers. It’s
called mystagogy, or guidance in the
mysteries. Mystagogy enables believers to see beyond the
Church’s signs and rituals to the things signified — to see
beyond the symbols and glimpse the divine mysteries that
will one day be fully visible to us in heaven (1 John 3:2).
In “Signs of Life,” I apply the method to the Church’s
sacraments, of course, but also to its most beloved customs
and sacramentals. A sacramental is any object set apart
and blessed by the Church to increase our devotion: holy
water, scapulars, medals, icons, the sign of the cross, relics,
incense, votive candles, feast days, and holy seasons.
I also touch upon basic practices of prayer, such as reverence
for the tabernacle, devotion to the angels, making a
morning offering, care for the dying, prayers for the dead,
and dozens of others.
For as I studied, and as I grew into these devotions, and
as I spoke with other Catholics, I learned that the biblical
roots of these customs are deep indeed. They are evidence
of the close attention the Church has paid, over the course
of centuries, to Scripture.
Ordinary people, desiring to be more and more faithful to
God’s word, found old-fashioned ways to be new. From the
Bible, they learned to sanctify water, make the sign of the
cross, and let their prayers rise like incense. From ancient
times, Christians expressed their love in devotions that are
biblical in form, content, and spirit.
I was thrilled as I made new discoveries. Did you know
that the custom of the brown scapular was inspired not
only by the doctrine of the New Testament, but by the
prophecies of the Old as well? Learning the back story
changed my experience of wearing the scapular, and made
it a more powerful prayer.
As Catholics, we know that matter matters. Jesus could
have cured the blind man with a simple nod or a word. But
he didn’t. He made a paste of mud and spit, and then he
sent him off to wash in a nearby pool.
He did that not for his own sake, but for ours. God knows
human nature, and so he knows that we often need to do
something, and not just stand there, and so the Catholic
life is filled with glorious things to do.
When you and I do these things, we pray in the Spirit.
When I pray this way, I pray for my readers. When you do,
please remember me!
32 • ANGELUS • April 23, 2021

■ AVAILABLE ONLINE 24/7
“Walking with Jesus in Difficult Times” SCRC virtual event. Available to view online 24/7 for free. Event
includes teachings by Father Bill Delaney, SJ, Sister Regina Marie Gorman, OCD, and Patti Mansfield, with a
special video tribute to the late Father John H. Hampsch, CMF. Register for free at events.scrc.org.
■ SATURDAY, APRIL 17
Called and Gifted. The Office of New Evangelization
invites you to join a three-step process of discernment
to discern God’s call through the charisms that God
has given you. Process starts with an Online Self-Study
Program that you will have a month to complete starting
April 17. Cost is $39/person. To register or learn more,
visit LACatholics.org/called-and-gifted.
■ SUNDAY, APRIL 18
Diaconate Virtual Information Day. The Office of
Diaconate Formation invites all interested in joining the
diaconate program to learn more, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Send your name, parish, and pastor’s name to Deacon
Melecio Zamora at dmz2011@la-archdiocese.org.
Presentations will be in English and Spanish.
Free COVID-19 Testing. Epiphany Church, 10911
Michael Hunt Dr., South El Monte, 8 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Walkup
or drive-up. Register online at bit.ly/lavoice-epiphany.
■ WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21
Virtual Record Clearing Clinic for Veterans. The
legal team will help with traffic tickets, quality of life
citations, and expungement of criminal convictions
at 3 p.m. Free clinic is open to all Southern California
veterans who have eligible cases in a California State
Superior Court. Participants can call in or join online
via Zoom. Registration required. Call 213-896-6537
or email inquiries-veterans@lacba.org. For more
information, visit lacba.org/veterans.
■ THURSDAY, APRIL 22
Launch of Novena for National Child Abuse
Prevention Month. Novena for the first night of
the nine-day event will be held at 6 p.m. at St. John’s
Seminary in Camarillo. For more information, visit
lacatholics.org/child-abuse-prevention-month.
■ FRIDAY, APRIL 23
Day 2: National Child Abuse Prevention Month
Novena. Christ the King Church, Hollywood, 6 p.m.
Novena will be livestreamed at lacatholics.org/unitedtogether.
For more information, visit lacatholics.org/
child-abuse-prevention-month.
■ SATURDAY, APRIL 24
Day 3: National Child Abuse Prevention Month
Novena. St. Pancratius Church in Lakewood, 6 p.m.
Celebrant will be Auxiliary Bishop Marc Trudeau.
Novena will be livestreamed at lacatholics.org/unitedtogether.
For more information, visit lacatholics.org/
child-abuse-prevention-month.
■ TUESDAY, MAY 4
South Bay Catholic Jewish Women’s Virtual
Conference: Faith Rituals and Celebrations: A
Woman’s Significance. Via Zoom, 9 a.m.-12 p.m. Keynote
speakers: Janet Sullivan Whitaker, music minister for the
Diocese of Oakland and Rabbi Cassie Kail of Temple Beth
El San Pedro. Conference includes small group discussions.
Cost: $20/person. For more information, visit sbcjwd.com
or email sbcjwd@gmail.com.
■ SATURDAY, MAY 8
Removal of Defects & Repairing Damages: Spirituality
Series with Herb Kaighan. Via Zoom, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Are you
experiencing life as serial suffering? Are you unhappy, irritable,
or discontented? Do you find yourself frustrated by selfdefeating
patterns of negative thinking, feelings, and behavior?
This workshop provides a process for removing the primary
obstacles to a healthy relationship with yourself and others
and taking responsibility for a process of effective actions
for establishing and sustaining abstinence. Donation: $25/
person. Zoom information and links will be emailed a few days
before the event. Call Jose Salas at 310-377-4867, ext. 250, for
reservations or information.
■ SUNDAY, MAY 9
Mother’s Day Virtual Rosary. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles
and Catholic Cemeteries and Mortuaries will host a special
prayer of thanksgiving for Mother’s Day weekend at 2 p.m.
Rosary will be livestreamed at facebook.com/lacatholics and
catholiccm.org.
■ TUESDAY, MAY 11
Catholic Cemeteries and Mortuaries Memorial Mass.
San Fernando Mission Rey de España, 11 a.m. Mass will be
livestreamed on LA Catholics social media channels and will not
be open to the public.
■ THURSDAY, MAY 13
USC Graduating Student Mass. USC Caruso Center, 844
W. 32nd St., 10 a.m. Mass for graduating students will be
celebrated in person and livestreamed on the Caruso Center
website. Students are invited to wear their graduation robes
and bring parents or friends to celebrate. RSVP required for
in-person Mass.
Workshop: “Uncovering the Healing Power of Dreamwork”
with Father James Clarke. The LMU Center for Religion and
Spirituality will host an online workshop with Rev. Clarke, chair of
the Spirituality Commission of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles,
from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Workshop will offer basic guidelines on
how to interpret and work with dreams. Cost: $35/person.
Register at https://cal.lmu.edu/event/power-of-dreamwork.
■ SUNDAY, MAY 16
“Pueblo Amante de Maria” Virtual Procession, Rosary, and
Tagalog Mass. Incarnation Church of Glendale will host a
virtual procession and rosary at 1:15 p.m. to celebrate 500 years
of Christianity in the Philippines. Tagalog Mass to follow. To join
on livestream, visit the Incarnation Church Facebook page. For
details, call 818-242-2579.
■ THURSDAY, MAY 20
Children’s Bureau: Foster Care Zoom Orientation. The
Children’s Bureau is now offering two virtual ways for
individuals and couples to learn how to help children in foster
care while reunifying with birth families or how to provide
legal permanency by adoption. A live Zoom orientation will
be hosted from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. by a Children’s Bureau team
member and a foster parent. For those who want to learn at
their own pace about becoming a foster and/or fost-adopt
parent, an online orientation presentation is available. To RSVP
for the live orientation or to request the online orientation,
email rfrecruitment@all4kids.org.
Items for the calendar of events are due four weeks prior to the date of the event. They may be emailed to calendar@angelusnews.com.
All calendar items must include the name, date, time, address of the event, and a phone number for additional information.
April 23, 2021 • ANGELUS • 33

With Your
Help
Hope is
Born in
Bethlehem
Because of the pandemic, families in Bethlehem today do not have enough money
for food, let alone medical care.
Holy Family Hospital welcomes all, regardless of need or creed.
No one is ever turned away.
This Catholic teaching Hospital has impacted over one million lives since 1990 just
1,500 steps from the birthplace of Christ.
Honor your mother by giving the gift of life this Mother’s Day at
birthplaceofhope.org/giving
2000 P St NW Suite 310 | Washington, DC 20036 | 202-785-0801 @HolyFamilyHF