Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
LOCAL<br />
Beds for parentless migrants at the Long Beach Convention Center in April. The center is able to house up to<br />
1,000 children. | BRITTANY MURRAY/POOL<br />
■ SoCal welcomes migrant children<br />
amid border crisis<br />
Hundreds of unaccompanied migrant children from Central America are<br />
arriving in Long Beach, where the city’s convention center is being used to house<br />
them temporarily.<br />
The shelter is one of several being opened by the Biden administration around<br />
the country. The San Diego Convention Center is being used to house teenage<br />
girls, and the Pomona Fairplex is also expected to host unaccompanied children<br />
in the near future.<br />
<strong>May</strong>or Robert Garcia said facilities like Long Beach’s are “a more humanitarian<br />
setting” for the children while they wait to be reunited with family or sponsors.<br />
“Detention centers along the border,” he said, according to the Los Angeles<br />
Times, are “no place for a child.”<br />
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is in the process of making resources available<br />
to help the children, according to the Office of Life, Justice and Peace. Oficials<br />
have already expressed interest in hosting Mass for the children at the Long Beach<br />
shelter.<br />
Anyone interested in learning more about how they can help can write to immigration@la-archdiocese.org<br />
■ Bill seeks to expand<br />
assisted suicide in California<br />
Pro-life advocates are warning that a proposal to expand assisted suicide in<br />
California will remove crucial “safeguards” touted by supporters of the End of<br />
Life Option Act passed in 2015.<br />
Senate Bill 380 would cancel a scheduled review of the 2015 law legalizing<br />
assisted suicide in the state. It would also eliminate the mandatory 15-day “safety<br />
period” to receive the life-ending prescription drugs.<br />
“SB 380’s ‘safeguard’ elimination, these ‘safeguards’ they touted were simply a<br />
ruse to get the original law passed,” wrote Matt Valliere, executive director of the<br />
Patients Rights Action Fund, in an April 21 op-ed against the bill in the Orange<br />
County Register.<br />
The bill is currently under review and is expected to be amended again before<br />
it makes its way to a vote in the state senate.<br />
■ Guadalupe mural<br />
smashed in Van Nuys<br />
Parishioners at St. Elisabeth of Hungary<br />
Church in Van Nuys are asking<br />
for prayers after a beloved mural of Our<br />
Lady of Guadalupe was vandalized<br />
April 21.<br />
The parish security system caught a<br />
man in black smashing the tiles that<br />
make up Mary’s face with a sledgehammer<br />
several times before fleeing. Police<br />
are investigating.<br />
“I feel an unspeakable sadness,” said<br />
Father Antonio Fiorenza, who is in<br />
residence at the parish. “But I feel pity<br />
for the one who made this sacrilegious<br />
gesture. I pray for his conversion and<br />
for all those who show contempt to the<br />
Virgin Mary.”<br />
St. Elisabeth School students led a<br />
procession to pray before the damaged<br />
mural the day of the discovery, and the<br />
following Friday, pastor Father Vito<br />
Di Marzio led a livestreamed prayer<br />
service urging parishioners to ask Mary<br />
“to touch the heart of the person who<br />
did this.”<br />
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has<br />
arranged for a local artist, Geo Rhodes,<br />
to repair the mural.<br />
The mural of Our Lady of Guadalupe was vandalized<br />
April 21. | ST. ELISABETH OF HUNGARY CHURCH<br />
Y<br />
6 • ANGELUS • <strong>May</strong> 7, <strong>2021</strong>
Change language