May 21, 2021 Vol. 6 No. 10

ANGELUS 

SIGNS ON 

THE STREETS 

Catholics take on LA’s 

homeless emergency 

May 21, 2021 Vol. 6 No. 10

May 21, 2021 

Vol. 6 • No. 10 

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ON THE COVER 


The Order of Malta’s Mike Psomas hands water to a resident of LA’s 

Venice Beach boardwalk, which has gone from a tourist destination 

to an expanding homeless encampment during the COVID-19 

pandemic. On Page 10, veteran local journalist Dana Bartholomew 

offers an up-close look at efforts in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles 

to combat Southern California’s exploding homeless crisis during 

the COVID-19 pandemic, and hears from local Catholics on the 

frontlines on what it will take to end the crisis. 

THIS PAGE 


Archbishop José H. Gomez blesses the 

100th ultrasound machine donated to 

the Guadalupe Medical Center near 

downtown LA on May 1. The machines, 

the first of which was donated in 2009, 

have been made possible by funds 

raised by the Knights of Columbus over 

the years.

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 

15 

18 

20 

22 

26 

28 

30 

Inside Los Angeles’ permanent housing dilemma 

The unexpected blessings of this year’s abuse healing novena 

Elise Allen on the latest missionary bishop to get caught in a turf war 

The holy failures and secret success of Bl. Charles de Foucauld 

Greg Erlandson on sin, spiritual nakedness, and ‘The Good Place’ 

Robert Inchausti on the neurologist who tapped the power of empathy 

Heather King: Before blaming systems, look at the human heart 

May 21, 2021 • ANGELUS • 1

FOR DADS, GRADS 

& LOVED ONES . . . 

ANGELUS 

MAKES A 

GREAT GIFT. 

POPE WATCH 

Good loves, bad loves 

The following is adapted from the Holy Father’s remarks from his Sunday Regina 

Caeli address to visitors gathered in St. Peter’s Square, Sunday, May 9. 

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A FATHER 

IN THE SHADOWS 

Why the pope is telling us to ‘go to Joseph’ this year 

March 26, 2021 Vol. 6 No. 6 

ANGELUS 

Jesus explains what fruit is borne 

by those who remain united to him: 

love. He again repeats the 

key verb: “abide.” 

He invites us to abide in his love so 

that his joy may be in us and our joy 

may be full (John 15:9–11). 

What is this love? It is the love that 

originates in the Father, because “God 

is love” (1 John 4:8). This love of God, 

of the Father, flows like a river in his 

Son Jesus and through him comes to 

us, his creatures. 

The love Jesus gives us is the same 

with which the Father loves him: pure 

love, unconditional, freely given love. 

It cannot be bought, it is free. By giving 

it to us, Jesus treats us like friends — 

with this love — making us know the 

Father, and he involves us in his same 

mission for the life of the world. 

To love as Jesus means to offer 

yourself in service, at the service of 

your brothers and sisters, as he did in 

washing the feet of the disciples. It 

also means going outside of ourselves, 

detaching ourselves from our own 

human certainties, from earthly comforts, 

in order to open ourselves up to 

others, especially those in greater need. 

It means making ourselves available, 

as we are and with what we have. This 

means to love not in word but in deeds. 

To love like Christ means saying no 

to other “loves” that the world offers 

us: love of money — those who love 

money do not love as Jesus loves — 

love of success, vanity, [love] of power. 

... These deceptive paths of “love” distance 

us from the Lord’s love and lead 

us to become more and more selfish, 

narcissistic, overbearing. 

To love as the Lord loves us means 

to appreciate the people beside us, to 

respect their freedom, to love them 

as they are, not as we want them to 

be, gratuitously. Ultimately, Jesus asks 

us to abide in his love, to dwell in 

his love, not in our ideas, not in our 

own self-worship. Those who dwell in 

self-worship live in the mirror: always 

looking at themselves. Those who 

overcome the ambition to control and 

manage others. Not controlling, serving 

them. Opening our heart to others, 

this is love, giving ourselves to others. 

Dear brothers and sisters, where 

does this abiding in the Lord’s love 

lead? Where does it lead us? Jesus 

told us, “That my joy may be in you, 

and that your joy may be full” (John 

15:11). And the Lord wants the joy he 

possesses, because he is in complete 

communion with the Father, to be in 

us insofar as we are united to him. The 

joy of knowing we are loved by God 

despite our infidelities enables us to 

face the trials of life confidently, makes 

us live through crises so as to emerge 

from them better. 

Our being true witnesses consists in 

living this joy, because joy is the distinctive 

sign of a true Christian. True 

Christians are not sad; they always 

have that joy inside, even in difficult 

moments. 

WHY HE ROSE 

Our Easter opportunity in 2021 

April 9, 2021 Vol. 6 No. 7 

Papal Prayer Intention for May: Let us pray that those in 

charge of finance will work with governments to regulate 

the financial sphere and protect citizens from its dangers. 

2 • ANGELUS • May 21, 2021

NEW WORLD OF FAITH 

ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

Becoming what we pray 

The prayers that we say during Mass 

are a treasure of spirituality. 

During this Easter season that we are 

now concluding, I was again struck by 

the force of these prayers — the Collect, 

the Prayer Over the Offerings, and 

the Prayer After Communion. 

These prayers express all the range of 

human emotions, desires, and hopes. 

Through these prayers, we thank God 

for the gifts of his mighty love; we call 

on him to strengthen and keep us safe 

from harm and error. We ask him to 

turn us from earthly desires, conform 

us to his will, and transform us in the 

image of his Son. We pray that he 

keeps us on the path of life, and that 

our lives become a worthy offering to 

him, that we might obtain the perpetual 

happiness that is our hope in 

heavenly glory. 

Looking back through my Daily 

Roman Missal to write this column, it 

is hard for me to choose among all the 

beautiful samples. 

Here is one at random, the Collect 

from the Fourth Thursday of Easter: 

“O God, who restore human nature to 

yet greater dignity than at its beginnings, 

look upon the amazing mystery of 

your loving kindness, and in those you 

have chosen to make new through the 

wonder of rebirth may you preserve 

the gifts of your enduring grace and 

blessing.” 

There is an ancient principle in the 

Church: “lex orandi, lex credendi” 

(“the law of prayer is the law of faith”). 

The words we pray express what we 

believe and our prayer shapes how we 

live out our beliefs. 

To put it another way: We pray what 

we believe, we believe what we pray, 

and through our prayer we become 

what we pray. 

That is the purpose of these prayers 

that vary day to day in the Mass. What 

we are praying for is to be changed, 

transformed day by day into a new 

creation, refashioned after the image of 

Jesus Christ. 

“Lead those you have imbued with 

heavenly mysteries to pass from former 

ways to newness of life,” we say in one 

Prayer After Communion. 

And in another: “As we have been 

brought from things of the past to new 

mysteries, so with former ways left behind, 

we may be made new in holiness 

of mind.” 

We pray what we believe, and we 

believe that Jesus has set us free from 

sin and death by his death and resurrection. 

And we believe that in our worship 

in the holy Eucharist, Our Lord 

continues the work of our renewal and 

sanctification. 

“Through the sacred mysteries, which 

we celebrate as our dutiful service, 

graciously complete the sanctifying 

work by which you are pleased to 

redeem us,” we say in a Prayer Over 

the Offerings. 

This prayer brings us into the heart of 

our eucharistic worship. In our prayers, 

we join our sacrifices to his, asking him 

to purify our hearts and minds with 

grace from on high. “Make of us an 

eternal offering to you,” we pray. 

We can never take the Eucharist for 

granted. The Eucharist is the most 

powerful force in the universe. In our 

worship, heaven is brought to earth, 

and earth is lifted up and offered to 

heaven. 

Every word that the priest prays in 

eucharistic celebration is for us and for 

our salvation. 

We cannot simply listen to the words 

of these prayers passively, as if we are 

the “audience.” We need to make these 

words our own and live them passionately, 

praying to grow in holiness and to 

achieve the promise of our immortality 

and eternal gladness. 

In the mysteries of his love, Jesus has 

unlocked for us the gates of eternity, 

We cannot simply listen to the words of the 

prayers of the Mass passively, as if we are the 

“audience.” We need to make them our own. 

and so our life now is destined for the 

glory of heaven and the resurrection. 

Everything we do on earth, we should 

do with our hearts fixed on our heavenly 

homeland. And our longing for 

heaven only increases and intensifies 

the love that we have for our neighbors 

on earth. 

We know that the love we show to 

others is the love that will be shown to 

us, and that our life must be made a 

gift. So we press forward, following in 

our Savior’s footsteps. This is what the 

prayers of the Mass “teach” us. 

So pray for me this week and I will 

pray for you. 

And in this month of Mary, let us ask 

our Blessed Mother to help us to pray 

more deeply the prayers of the Mass 

and enter more deeply still into the 

heart of the Eucharist and the mystery 

of her Son’s love for us. 


WORLD 

■ Pope enacts Vatican 

court, ‘envelope culture’ 

reforms 

Pope Francis issued a new law 

that promises to remove procedural 

obstacles that protect many curial 

officials from being prosecuted for 

civil crimes. 

In an April 30 “motu proprio” (“on 

his own impulse”), the pope made 

cardinals and bishops accused of 

violating civil law accountable to 

the same courts as the Vatican’s 

lay employees. Previously, only the 

Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic 

Signatura — the highest Vatican 

court, made up of only cardinals and 

bishops — had jurisdiction over these 

cases. 

The pope still retains sole judicial 

jurisdiction on cases against cardinals 

in spiritual matters and violations of 

canon law. 

A day before announcing the new 

law, Pope Francis also issued curial 

financial restrictions, including a 

requirement that all Vatican investments 

adhere to Catholic social 

teaching and a ban on large cash gifts 

among curial officials. 

■ Venezuela’s 

blessed ‘doctor 

of the poor’ 

Though his beatification ceremony 

was attended by fewer 

than 300 people, devotion 

to Venezuela’s “doctor of the 

poor” offers the country hope 

in a time of uncertainty. 

The April 30 beatification 

of José Gregorio Hernández 

Cisneros, who died in 1919, 

was announced last June, but 

the celebration was delayed by 

the COVID-19 pandemic. His 

intercession is credited with 

the complete recovery of a girl 

who was shot in the head. 

“It seems providential to 

celebrate the beatification 

of a doctor in the midst of a 

pandemic that affects all of 

Breaking the siege — Archbishop Franco Coppola, the apostolic nuncio to Mexico, gives a rosary to a child 

during a visit to the town of Aguililla in Michoacan on April 23. The Italian bishop’s surprise visit came as drug 

cartels battle one another and block highways into the besieged town, leaving residents unable to travel freely 

and causing shortages of everything from food to fuel. | CNS/ALAN ORTEGA, REUTERS 

An image of Hernández outside the church where his remains rest 

in Caracas. | CNS/MANAURE QUINTERO, REUTERS 

humanity,” Archbishop Aldo Giordano, the Vatican’s ambassador to Venezuela, 

said at the beatification Mass. “In the figure of Bl. Dr. José Gregorio, the Church 

today pays a tribute of recognition, gratitude, and prayer to medical and health 

professionals.” 

Bl. Hernández is famous for refusing to charge poor patients for his services 

during the Spanish flu pandemic. A founding member of Venezuela’s academy 

of medicine, he was the first person to introduce the use of microscopes into the 

country’s hospital system. 

■ Ireland’s long 

eucharistic winter 

Think not being able to go to Mass 

for a couple of months last year was 

tough? Catholics in Ireland have had 

it tougher. 

The country’s government announced 

last month that churches 

in the country could reopen May 10 

for the first time since Dec. 26, when 

public liturgies were banned amid 

COVID-19 concerns. 

In April, Ireland’s health minister 

announced criminal penalties for 

priests and Massgoers who violated 

the ban. Archbishop Eamon Martin 

of Armagh criticized the statute, 

which carried a penalty of a fine or 

six months in prison, as a “draconian” 

measure. 

Under the new rules, attendance at 

churches is capped at 50 people. 


NATION 

■ Sister Norma’s Tex-Mex invitation 

to Biden: ‘Come down and visit’ 

Sister Norma Pimentel with migrants at a camp in Matamoros, 

Mexico, during the COVID-19 pandemic. | CNS 

Sister Norma 

Pimentel, 

executive director 

of Catholic 

Charities 

of the Rio 

Grande 

Valley, has 

a message 

for President 

Biden: “Come 

down and 

visit.” 

The Sister of 

the Missionaries 

of Jesus 

extended the 

invitation 

for the president to see the troubling conditions along the 

U.S.-Mexico border at a May 4 forum on immigration hosted 

by Georgetown University: “I always say the best way to 

understand what is happening at the border is to come and 

see, you know?” 

Since taking office, neither the president nor Vice President 

Kamala Harris have visited the border region. The importance 

of a firsthand visit cannot be overestimated, Sister 

Pimentel argued, and she thinks all national leaders would 

benefit from a visit. 

“You know, these are families,” Sister Pimentel said in the 

discussion. “Niños y mamás, simple just like you and me, 

our friends and our neighbors, they’re people and they’re 

hurting at the other side of the river.” 

■ Altar boy purchases his old church 

Joe Breiding grew up serving at Christ the King Church in 

North Akron, Ohio, right across the street from his childhood 

home. But the parish has stood vacant since its 2009 

merger with another parish in the Diocese of Cleveland. 

The onetime altar boy has purchased the church property, 

which sits on land that originally belonged to his grandfather. 

In an interview with the Akron Beacon Journal, 

Breiding explained that the purchase is primarily an investment. 

He plans to renovate and lease the church to a new 

congregation, while the attached school continues to house 

a charter school, which moved in seven years ago. 

But as owner of the church, Breiding can now fulfill one of 

his childhood dreams: playing the organ. 

“Growing up, you never were allowed to play the organ,” 

he said to the Akron Beacon Journal. “So when I bought it, 

my mission was to figure out how to turn on the organ. And I 

figured it out.” 

■ You can’t hurry love — or divorce 

A Texas bill that would ask couples to wait longer before 

finalizing a divorce has an interesting group of supporters: 

the state’s Catholic bishops. 

“TCCB supports HB 3190, which establishes a six-month 

waiting period for no-fault divorce in marriages with minor 

or school-age children or disabled adult children,” the Texas 

Catholic Conference of Bishops tweeted April 26. 

The bill, which would not apply to domestic violence cases, 

was proposed by a Republican state representative who 

has also submitted a separate bill ending all no-fault divorce. 

In response to criticism of the bill and the bishops’ support, 

El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz tweeted, “What is absurd is that 

the greatest commitment that two human beings can make 

with one another is treated with less seriousness than the 

contract we sign for a car. If only people would learn to fight 

for their marriage instead of fighting each other.” 

■ A grade school first 

Communion pioneer? 

Carson Crosby receives his first Communion 

April 24. | CNS/JANET JONES, 

THE CATHOLIC LIGHTHOUSE 

Carson Crosby of Columbus, Texas, receives all his food 

and water through a feeding tube, but the Eucharist is not allowed 

to be distributed by this means, according to Catholic 

rules. So what was he supposed to do for first Communion? 

The search for an appropriate means for Crosby to receive 

the Eucharist led to meetings with diocesan officials, including 

his local bishop. With their guidance, Crosby, who 

suffers from a rare mitochondrial disease, was able to receive 

Communion with the rest of his class. 

Father Augustine Asante, pastor of St. Anthony’s Church 

where Crosby attends school, prepared a fraction of the host 

for Crosby by dissolving it in a small amount of distilled 

water. 

Jenna Crosby, Carson’s mother, told The Catholic Lighthouse 

diocesan newspaper that during bedtime prayers that 

evening, her son said, “I am thankful to Jesus that I was able 

to receive my first Communion and change the way people 

like me can do Communion.” 


LOCAL 

■ Arrest announced in 

Mission San Gabriel fire 

Authorities announced charges 

against the man they believe is 

responsible for the fire at Mission San 

Gabriel last July. 

John David Corey Jr., 57, was arrested 

last year for another “unrelated” 

arson attack in the San Gabriel Valley 

that took place days after the mission 

fire. He was charged this month with 

arson, and faces up to 14 years in state 

prison if convicted. 

Officials announced the arrest at a 

May 4 press conference outside the 

mission, where pastor Father John 

Molyneux thanked fire and police 

officials and pledged “our continued 

cooperation with the District Attorney’s 

office as we seek justice tempered 

with mercy.” 

“For many lifelong parishioners, 

this fire has been a little death,” said 

Father Molyneux. “But we are resurrection 

people, and look ahead to the 

future with a renewed sense of hope 

and purpose.” 

The announcement came as crews 

work to install a new roof in time for 

the start of the mission’s 250th jubilee 

year in September. 

A poster with a photo of arson suspect John David 

Corey Jr. is displayed at the May 4 press conference. 

| VICTOR ALEMÁN 

Josh Klinghoffer and Eddie Vedder perform onstage at the “Vax Live” concert in Inglewood broadcast May 8. 

| CNS/KEVIN WINTER, GETTY 

■ Pope (kind of) takes the stage at LA concert 

Global Citizen’s “Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite The World” event at SoFi 

Stadium in Inglewood featured appearances from A-list names like Jennifer Lopez, 

President Joe Biden, Oprah Winfrey and, of course, Pope Francis. 

Without having to leave Rome, the pope delivered a recorded video message for 

the benefit concert, which promoted “vaccine equity” and raised money for vaccines 

for poor countries. It was taped May 2 in the presence of vaccinated health 

care and essential workers and broadcast globally May 8. 

In it, the pontiff urged the world not to forget the world’s poorest and most 

vulnerable people bearing the brunt of the suffering caused by the COVID-19 

pandemic. 

“In the face of so much darkness and uncertainty, we need light and hope,” the 

pope said. “We need paths of healing and salvation. And I mean healing at the 

root, healing the cause of the evil and not just the symptoms.” 

The first cause, he said, is “the virus of individualism, which does not make us 

freer or more equal or more brotherly or sisterly, but rather makes us indifferent to 

the suffering of others.” 

■ Is the Golden State shrinking? 

California’s population has gotten smaller for the first time in recorded history, 

according to a new report. 

California lost 182,083 people in 2020. State officials cited an increase in deaths 

from COVID-19, less immigration, and a declining birthrate as reasons for the 

decline. 

Figures from the 2020 Census, however, also indicated a slowdown in growth 

over the last 10 years, which means that the state will lose a congressional seat for 

the first time in its history. 

For many, the biggest reason for the shrinkage lies in the state’s soaring cost of 

living. 

“California represented the dream of the common man and woman,” Catholic 

poet and Hawthorne native Dana Gioia told the Los Angeles Times May 8. “Now 

it’s changed. Now it is a place that represents the dream of the elite and the affluent, 

and that’s an enormous loss for the state.” 

Y 


IN OTHER WORDS... 

V 

Sounding the alarm on the Equality Act 

Thank you to Grazie Christie for her rather alarming column in 

the May 7 issue on the Equality Act recently passed by the U.S. 

Congress and sent to the Senate. 

It was alarming to me because much of this bill is detrimental to 

the beliefs of American Catholics and the majority of our citizens. 

It can be laid completely at the door of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, 

a nominal Catholic, but, if the Senate passes it, and President Biden signs it, 

it is at our door. 

One example of the bill’s many controversial topics that Christie warns us 

about is the very real possibility that Catholic and private schools could be 

sued by the federal government under this bill, unless they give in completely 

to gender ideology. 

I hate to say it, but I think this subject is quite a bit more important than 

the seven pages devoted to the restoration of the fire-damaged San Gabriel 

Mission (which I am happy about). 

— John DeLaney, Downey, Our Lady of Perpetual Help 

Who is really worthy to receive? 

Reading the May 7 national news brief “How worthy must I be to receive 

you?” I was reminded of two recent homilies I heard on the same question. 

The priest mentioned a conversation he’d had with a fellow priest who told 

him, “The only time I know I am telling the truth is at Mass when I say, 

‘Lord I am not worthy to receive You.’ ” 

Think about that. Who is truly worthy? We should not condemn or accuse 

anyone who approaches the eucharistic altar. 

— Gloria Lopez, Pasadena 

Y 

Letters to the Editor 

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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. 

An ‘ultra’ pro-life milestone 

On May 1, Archbishop Gomez blessed 

the 100th ultrasound machine donated 

by the Knights of Columbus to the Guadalupe 

Medical Center in Los Angeles. 

| 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. 

“We are not a civilization 

confident in its own 

continuity, which is 

why more and more 

Americans are choosing 

not to bring more 

children into it.” 

~ Writer Bethany Mandel in a Deseret News 

op-ed on the CDC’s announcement that the U.S. 

birthrate had reached a record low of 1.64 babies 

per American woman. 

“There is a lot you can do 

in a small space.” 

~ Deacon Randy Saake, the founder of the Mesa 

Harmony Garden in Santa Barbara, a community 

garden that supplies local food banks and charities. 

“It is not love of chastity 

that leads the vast 

majority of Americans 

who attain it to ‘delay 

parenthood’ … but the 

apparently successful 

attempt of pharmaceutical 

corporations to reduce 

the marital act to a sterile 

parody.” 

~ Catholic writer Matthew Walther in a May 6 

article for the American Conservative titled “The 

Conservative Case For Teen Pregnancy.” 

“For many lifelong 

parishioners, this fire has 

been a little death. But we 

are resurrection people.” 

~ Father John Molyneux, pastor of San Gabriel 

Mission, at the press conference announcing the 

arrest of the suspected arsonist. 

“We must ask, ‘Why are 

we so violent?’ ” 

~ Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez. 

Since January, his city has seen a 33% increase in 

homicides over 2020, with at least 132 victims. 


IN EXILE 

FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI 

Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father 

Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual 

writer; ronaldrolheiser.com. 

The eyes of love 

Imagine a young couple intoxicated 

with each other in the early stages of 

love. Imagine a religious neophyte 

in love with God, praying ecstatically. 

Imagine an idealistic young person 

working tirelessly with the poor, 

inflamed with a thirst for justice. Is this 

young couple really in love with each 

other? Is that religious neophyte really 

in love with God? Is this young social 

activist really in love with the poor? 

Not an easy question. 

Whom are we really loving when 

we have feelings of love? The other? 

Ourselves? The archetype and energy 

the other is carrying? Our own fantasy 

of that person? The feelings this experience 

is triggering inside us? When we 

are in love, are we really in love with 

another person or are we mostly basking 

in a wonderful feeling that could 

be just as easily triggered by countless 

other persons? 

There are different answers to that 

question. St. John of the Cross would 

say it is all of these things; we are, in 

fact, really loving that other person, 

loving a fantasy we have created of that 

person, and basking in the good feeling 

this has generated inside us. That is 

why, invariably, at a given point in a 

relationship the powerful feelings of 

being in love give way to disillusionment 

— disillusionment (by definition) 

implies the dispelling of an illusion, 

something was unreal. 

So for St. John, when we are in love, 

partly the love is real and partly it is an 

illusion. Moreover, St. John would say 

the same thing about our initial feelings 

of fervor in prayer and in altruistic 

service. They are a mixture of both, 

authentic love and an illusion. 

Some other analyses are less generous. 

In their view, all initial falling in love, 

whether it be with another person, 

with God in prayer, or with the poor in 

service, is mainly an illusion. Ultimately, 

you are in love with being in love, in 

love with what prayer is doing for you, 

or in love with how working for justice 

is making you feel. 

The other person, God, and the poor 

are secondary. That is why, so often, 

when first fervor dies, so too does our 

love for its original object. When the 

fantasy dies, so too does the sense of 

being in love. We fall in love without 

really knowing the other person and we 

fall out of love without really knowing 

the other person. 

The very phrase “falling in love” is 

revealing. “Falling” is not something 

we choose, it happens to us. Marriage 

Encounter spirituality has a clever slogan 

around this: Marriage is a decision; 

falling in love is not. 

Who is right? When we fall in love, 

how much is genuine love for another 

and how much is an illusion within 

which we are mostly loving ourselves? 

American author Steven Levine 

answers this from a very different perspective 

and throws new light on the 

question. What is his perspective? 

Love, he says, is not a “dualistic emotion.” 

For him, whenever we are feeling 

authentic love we are, at that moment, 

feeling our oneness with God and with 

all that is. He writes, “The experience 

of love arises when we surrender our 

separateness into the universal. It is a 

feeling of unity. … It is not an emotion, 

it is a state of being. … It is not so 

much that ‘two are as one’ so much as 

it is the ‘one manifested as two.’ ” 

In other words, when we love someone, 

in that moment, we are one with 

him or her, not separate, so that even 

though our fantasies and feelings may 

be partially wrapped up in self-serving 

affectivity, something deeper and more 

real than our feelings and fantasies is 

occurring. We are one with the other 

in our being — and, in love, we sense 

it. 

In this view, authentic love is not so 

much something we feel; it is something 

we are. At its root, love is not an 

affective emotion or a moral virtue 

(though these are part of it). It is a 

metaphysical condition, not something 

that comes and goes like an emotional 

state, or something that we can choose 

or refuse morally. 

A metaphysical condition is a given, 

something we stand within, that makes 

up part of what we are, constitutively, 

though we can be blissfully unaware. 

Thus, love, not least falling in love, can 

help make us more conscious of our 

nonseparateness, our oneness in being 

with others. 

When we feel love deeply or passionately, 

then perhaps (like Thomas 

Merton describing a mystical vision he 

had on a street corner) we can awake 

more from our dream of separateness 

and our illusion of difference and see 

the secret beauty and depth of other 

people’s hearts. Perhaps, too, it will 

enable us to see others at that place in 

them where neither sin nor desire nor 

self-knowledge can reach, the core of 

their reality, the person that each one is 

in God’s eyes. 

And wouldn’t it be wonderful, Merton 

adds, “if we could see each other that 

way all the time.” 


SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL | LOS ANGELES 

A group of college students was assessing the problem 

of local poverty and homelessness when they were 

challenged to find a solution. The year was 1833 and 

the university was the Sorbonne in Paris. Rising to 

the occasion was a young student named Frederic 

Ozanam. He and some fellow Catholics decided to 

meet the challenge with an innovative program that 

included venturing into the slums of Paris, providing 

food, clothing and firewood to the poor of the city. They chose as their patron St. Vincent de 

Paul, already famous as the consummate devotee of the poor. Thus was born the Society of St. 

Vincent de Paul. 

A mere 12 years later the charismatic movement had come to St. Louis in 1845. The Society 

reached Los Angeles in 1908, which now encompasses Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara 

Counties, and is served by 2,500 volunteers. Worldwide the Society cares for the poor in 160 

countries with over one million volunteers. Members of the organization--we call ourselves 

Vincentians-- specialize in one of the core activities of the Society: the home visit, an in-person 

encounter to fully assess the challenges facing the struggling person or family. While the 

pandemic has curtailed this direct contact, cell phones and the Internet have allowed us to 

continue assisting with delinquent bills, rent, car repairs or whatever financial setbacks people 

may face, regardless of their faith. Not all our activities have gone virtual, however. Our many 

food pantries, for example, have received increased donations, enabling us to feed more of the 

hungry, many of whom are first-timers. In fact, due to the extraordinary efforts of our 

Vincentian Services staff and despite social restrictions, we were able establish three new 

Conferences of Charity in parishes around the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 2020. 

We have been operating our Cardinal Manning Center 

on Skid Row since the mid 1950s. It’s an oasis of comfort 

where the homeless can drop in and receive access to 

food, restrooms, computers and other basics. The 65-bed 

facility offers the homeless residents rehabilitation, 

counseling and job training while transitioning them 

into permanent housing and employment. Our 

dedicated social workers and case managers have 

exhibited great resourcefulness and ingenuity as 

social distancing has altered long-standing protocols. 

Their ongoing devotion to these vulnerable members 

of society is inspirational. 

In addition to donations and bequests which we need and gratefully welcome, income is 

generated from our two thrift stores, one in L.A. the other in Long Beach. This income funds 

part of our operations and provides employment for about 80 workers who might otherwise 

be among the city’s homeless. The pandemic forced the shutdown of our stores for a couple 

of months, but they are recovering nicely as “thrifting” becomes ever more popular. Our 

trucks provide free pick up of donated clothing, furniture, appliances and other usable 

household items for sale or for a needy family unable to afford them. To donate, simply call 

1-800-974-3571. Also, donated cars are lined up for sale in front of our store--another source 

of income that supports our outreach. 

Our “Crown Jewel” is our 75-year-old summer camp for boys and girls north of Santa Barbara. 

Circle V Ranch Camp has a trained staff of college students offering positive role models for 

the youngsters, many of whom come from foster or group homes. We are anticipating reopening 

camp this summer after several seasons of closure due to fire damage and Covid-19, which has 

left hundreds of disappointed children missing what is for many the highlight of their year. 

At a cost of $650 per child for a week of camp, these disadvantaged youth depend on 

“camperships” to attend. We turn to individual donations and foundations to help fund 

this life-changing experience. 

The vision and prayerful example of Blessed Frederic Ozanam have inspired and touched 

the lives of millions for nearly two centuries. Still a bird’s-eye view of today’s L.A. maps out 

sprawling streets dotted with the tent cities of ever-growing homelessness. We invite you to 

join us in continuing to feed, clothe, house and heal. Please consider donating. 

Ray Sweet - President 

Society of St. Vincent de Paul Council of Los Angeles 

210 N. Avenue 21, Los Angeles, CA 90031 

www.svdpla.org 

May 21, 2021 • ANGELUS • 9 

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4/29/21 8:56 PM

Once a popular tourist destination, much of the Venice 

Beach boardwalk has become an expanding homeless 

encampment since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

10 • ANGELUS • May 21, 2021

HOW TO SAVE A CITY 

While public officials struggle to respond to LA’s exploding homeless 

crisis, Catholics are rolling up their sleeves to help the needy 

BY DANA BARTHOLOMEW 

PHOTOGRAPHY BY VICTOR ALEMÁN 

Chris Seminatore and Mike 

Psomas veered down Venice 

Beach boardwalk, toting a 

wagon stocked with 120 homemade 

ham-and-cheese sandwiches, bottled 

water, Oreos, and Nutter Butter 

Bites. 

Their mission: to offer sustenance 

to residents along a half-mile stretch 

of beachside tents, shanties, and 

lean-tos that now make up one of the 

largest homeless encampments in 

Los Angeles. 

“Hey brother, how you doing today? 

Sandwiches, water?” called out 

Seminatore, 52, holding out a couple 

of sandwiches to 

a bearded man 

in a dark hoodie 

and shorts. 

“Have a good 

one.” 

“Thank you, 

thank you, we 

appreciate it,” 

said Zack, 29, 

who declined to 

Volunteers from the St. 

Vincent de Paul Society’s 

local Our Mother of 

Good Counsel conference 

serve the homeless 

at LA’s MacArthur Park. 

give his last name. The Pennsylvania 

native homeless man in LA for two 

years then sank his teeth into two 

stacked sandwiches at once. “This is 

awesome. This helps so much.” 

The sandwich brigade, based at 

Church of the Good Shepherd in 

Beverly Hills, is among the legions of 

lay Catholic volunteers and charities 

lending a helping hand to tens of 

thousands of homeless Angelenos 

during the worst viral pandemic in a 

hundred years. 

From the Great Recession to the 

COVID-19 contagion, the percentage 

of those without a roof over their 

heads in Southern California has 

soared by double digits, according 

to government data, topping 60,000 

residents in LA County, of whom 

two-thirds live on the streets of Los 

Angeles. 

Homelessness has long been a 

reality in Southern California, but 

the signs have never been this widespread 

— or as alarming. From the 

rows of tents crowded into downtown 

LA’s Skid Row to the makeshift 

shantytown across the sands of Venice 

Beach. From encampments sprawled 

across public sidewalks to battered 

cars crammed with personal belongings 

along city curbs. 

The region’s destitute are now visible 

along freeways, parks, neighborhoods, 

and business districts from Los 

Angeles County to Ventura County 

and Santa Barbara County, which 

together comprise the territory of the 

Archdiocese of Los Angeles. 

The squalor and human suffering 

has drawn a national spotlight on a 

city best known for its Hollywood 

stars, shiny cars, and shimmering 

surf. 

An out-of-control homeless crisis has 

triggered a spectrum of lawsuits, both 

by advocates and local businesses. It 

has drawn hundreds of millions of 

dollars in taxpayer-supported funds 

for programs and permanent supported 

housing. And it has spurred 

ballooning budgets to relieve the 

homeless horde. 

Last month, Los Angeles Mayor 

Eric Garcetti unveiled a billion-dollar 

blueprint to build more housing, 

shuttle people into permanent 

homes, and do away with the hundreds 

of homeless encampments. 

A day later, a federal judge caused 

a billion-dollar tug-of-war by ordering 

the proposed funds be reserved 

instead to provide shelter for an 

estimated 2,100 men, women, and 

children living on the streets of Skid 

Row. The city and county of Los Angeles 

are appealing the decision. 

CATHOLICS GET TO WORK 

While local governments have struggled 

to respond to growing homeless- 


ness, Catholics across the region have 

rolled up their sleeves to help the 

down and out. 

They include, but aren’t limited to: 

Catholic Charities of Los Angeles; 

St. Vincent de Paul Los Angeles; the 

Sovereign Order of Malta Los Angeles; 

Knights of Columbus Los Angeles; 

Los Angeles Catholic Worker; 

and hundreds of parishes across the 

archdiocese, including the Dolores 

Mission Church in Boyle Heights, 

which has the only sanctuary-based 

shelter in Los Angeles. 

Despite the public health restrictions 

imposed over the past year, 

such Catholic agencies and ministries 

have ramped up food, clothing, 

and hygiene kit giveaways, while 

coming up with creative ways to keep 

safe while helping their homeless 

friends. 

They’ve also continued to maintain 

a wide range of homeless services, 

from community centers, food 

pantries, and shelters to coordinating 

health care, job, and financial support 

services for the poor. 

Because of severe cutbacks to 

volunteers during the worst of the 

COVID-19 outbreak, some agencies 

have had to limit hot meals, face-toface 

counseling, and a summer camp 

for needy kids. 

But with restrictions easing, 

COVID-19 vaccines and a flood of 

returning volunteers are now helping 

services return to normal, charity executives 

say. And they agree that the 

difference Catholic ministries have 

made is incalculable. 

“The Catholics are doing a lot,” said 

David Garcia, executive director of 

the Society of St. Vincent de Paul 

Msgr. Gregory Cox is 

the executive director 

of Catholic Charities 

of Los Angeles. 

of homeless women and children, 

and more families. 

Throughout the pandemic, Catholic 

Charities stepped up its homeless 

prevention, including rental and 

utility bill assistance, in addition to 

apartments for aged-out foster adults. 

Meanwhile, Catholics flooded the 

agency with $4 million in donations, 

even without face-to-face fundraisers. 

“The final issue is: How do we 

maintain the services to the poor, 

and how do we maintain the safety of 

“Without us, you’d see a lot more hungry people. 

If we quantified all the Catholic work in the 

archdiocese, it would be huge.” 

LA. “Without us, you’d see a lot more 

hungry people. If we quantified all 

the Catholic work in the archdiocese, 

it would be huge.” 

ANOTHER VIRAL SHOCK 

Catholic Charities, whose LA 

wing was founded as the Spanish 

flu pandemic killed tens of millions 

across the globe in 1919, prepared for 

another viral shock. Msgr. Gregory A. 

Cox, its executive 

director of 28 years, 

addressed the crisis 

during weekly 

Zoom meetings 

with top staff. 

The $55 million 

nonprofit, considered 

an essential service during 

COVID-19 lockdowns by public 

health regulators, adjusted safety 

protocols at its 10 shelters containing 

340 beds, as well as 18 community 

centers that remained open, with 

quarantine rooms dedicated to at-risk 

families. 

For Msgr. Cox, the problem of 

homelessness has never been worse. 

When he was called to serve Catholic 

Charities nearly four decades ago, 

LA’s homeless residents were mostly 

men living on Skid Row. But as time 

marched on, he saw more and more 

women, then an increasing number 

our staff?” said Msgr. Cox. 

In all, Catholic Charities of Los Angeles 

served some 265,000 residents 

during the COVID-19 contagion, 

according to a recent analysis. 

As COVID-19 restrictions ease, 

many of its 3,300 volunteers — 

including 800 at its shelters and 

community centers who have been 

vaccinated — are now returning 

to help an overworked staff of 350 

employees hand out food, run thrift 

stores, and support more than 70 

different homeless services. 

Within five years, the charity aims 

to open St. Joseph’s Village, a $68 

million complex next to its office just 

west of downtown with services for 

the community, a gym, soccer field, 

an 18-bed shelter for runaway kids, 

and a 12-bed home for foster adults. 

Msgr. Cox said solving a complex issue 

like homelessness may take years, 

combining both transitional shelters 

and permanent housing as well as 

new, effective models to ease troubled 

residents into long-term homes. 

“You can’t microwave this issue — 

open the door, put it in for a short period, 

and get it resolved,” he said. “At 

one time, we had shelters, and not 

enough housing. Now, we have more 

money for housing, but have kind of 

pushed shelters aside. You need both. 

And you need time.” 


LA’s worsening homeless crisis is seen in the 

growing number of people living in spaces 

like MacArthur Park west of downtown. 

THE VINCENTIAN RESPONSE 

One of the agencies confronting 

the crisis head-on in Los Angeles is 

the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, 

whose local headquarters in Lincoln 

Heights is now bordered by homeless 

encampments. 

The $13 million nonprofit society 

linked through local parishes has 

been providing homeless relief and 

prevention services in Los Angeles 

for 114 years. It operates a downtown 

Cardinal Manning Center shelter, 

two thrift stores, and a Circle V 

Ranch camp near Santa Barbara. 

“The message stays the same; it goes 

back to Matthew 25, which is to feed 

the hungry, clothe the naked, and 

provide drink to the thirsty,” said Garcia, 

a former Fortune 500 executive 

who joined the society 20 years ago. 

Before COVID-19, its 2,200 

volunteers (known through its 140 

local parish-based “conferences” as 

Vincentians) gave food, clothing, financial 

assistance, and more to more 

than 300,000 needy residents. 

But when COVID-19 locked down 

Los Angeles a year ago, Vincentians 

famous for face-to-face home visits 

with their friends in need had to improvise 

with Zoom meetings, phone 

calls, or distant chats. Its 65-bed 

downtown shelter cut its beds by half, 

while its drop-in soup kitchen and 

resource center remain closed. 

The Circle V Ranch is expected to 

reopen this summer at half capacity 

for as many as 600 needy kids. 

Meanwhile, the food, clothing, 

and toy drives continued, with every 

conference meeting accompanied by 

a prayer to ask God “for the strength 

to seek and find the forgotten.” 

Each week, Vincentians distribute 

food, clothing, and blankets in 

MacArthur Park, plus hundreds of 

sandwiches in other parts of town. 

They also hand out hygiene kits 

assembled by the Sovereign Order of 

Malta. 

Over the past year, the Vincentians 

raised $800,000 to help prevent 

homelessness through rental and 

mortgage assistance. But with a national 

moratorium on rental evictions 

set to end this summer, it expects an 

“eviction tsunami” that could require 

more aid. 

Garcia said he believed LA’s homeless 

crisis was caused by the soaring 

cost of Southern California housing, 

a loss of jobs during the COVID-19 

pandemic, and many convicts released 

early from jails and prisons. 

“I personally don’t know what the 

solution is, but we can figure it 

out,” he said. “I believe in miracles, 

because I see them happen every day, 

just because of the work that we do.” 

A CRISIS BECOMES VISIBLE 

Dolores Mission Church, founded 

by Belgian nuns nearly a century ago 

in Boyle Heights, is now a Jesu- 


it-run parish known for launching 

Homeboy Industries, the renowned 

job-training program for gang youth. 

Its Christian-based communities 

also founded the Proyecto Pastoral 

Guadalupe Homeless Project 33 

years ago, the only sanctuary homeless 

shelter in Los Angeles. 

Before COVID-19, the parish 

housed up to 50 men on cots around 

its wooden pews, with 10 more in 

another wing. A separate shelter for 

15 women was founded in 2015. 

After the onset of the pandemic, 

the shelter became the only one 

in LA to lock down 24/7, blocking 

any incoming or outgoing traffic to 

keep residents and church staff safe. 

Volunteers stopped showing up. And 

unable to leave for work, the number 

of residents dwindled by more than 

half. 

Now with COVID-19 vaccines 

and residents permitted to leave 

for work, cots are filling up again. 

Within its quiet courtyard, a statue 

of St. Ignatius of Loyola as a pilgrim 

beggar stands next to the sanctuary 

steps where daily outdoor Mass is 

celebrated. 

“Homelessness is kind of in the 

papers, talked about as ‘the new 

crisis,’ ” said Father Brendan Busse, 

SJ, associate pastor at Dolores Mission. 

“But we’ve been doing this here 

for 30 years or more, and homelessness 

is always present, not always 

visible. 

“Now it’s visible,” he said. “The wisdom 

of this place is the thing we’ve 

always been doing — is the thing we 

need to do more of.” 

That wisdom, he said, includes 

gaining the trust of each resident 

and what services they deserve, from 

government relief checks to job 

counseling and health care, which 

can support him or her. In the past 

year, Project Proyecto spent $500,000 

on grocery cards for the poor. 

“They feel safe, they feel connected,” 

said Veronica Meza, director of 

the Guadalupe Homeless Project. 

“With God, everything will be OK.” 

KNIGHTS TO THE RESCUE 

Across the city in one of the nation’s 

wealthiest enclaves, a half-dozen volunteers 

gather each day to slap together 

hundreds of ham-and-American 

cheese sandwiches for the homeless. 

The Feed My Poor program at 

Church of the Good Shepherd in 

Beverly Hills grew out of a weekly hot 

breakfast for between 100 and 150 

homeless residents, now shuttered by 

the pandemic. 

So church leaders thought: If we 

can’t bring the homeless to us, we’ll 

bring the food to them. Volunteers 

then stepped up to buy bread, cold 

cuts, fresh fruit, and more. 

The resulting sandwiches now fly out 

the door and across the city made by 

busy hands from All Saints Episcopal 

Church, Beverly Hills Presbyterian 

Church, and Sinai Temple. The new 

nonprofit also harnessed a food truck 

to deliver hot meals. Since March, 

they’ve delivered 250,000 meals. 

“The hand of God has been leading 

the whole thing,” said Father Edward 

Father Brendan Busse, SJ, is associate pastor 

at Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, 

where homeless residents sleep inside. 


Los Angeles fails on permanent housing 

A homeless encampment has formed around the statue of St. Oscar Romero in MacArthur Park. 

For many Los Angeles residents and one federal judge 

frustrated by the city’s inability to hold back the rising 

tide of homelessness, time is short. 

Five years ago, Mayor Eric Garcetti helped convince Los 

Angeles voters to pass Proposition HHH, a $1.2 billion 

bond to help build 10,000 units of supported housing with 

accompanying services for homeless residents. Measure H, 

also approved by county voters in 2016, raised the sales tax 

by ¼ cent to pay for homeless services. 

But as of last fall, only three Proposition HHH projects 

had been completed, with just 228 housing units built, 

according to a September 2020 report by LA Controller Ron 

Galperin. 

Meanwhile, the number of homeless residents across the 

city jumped to 41,290, a 16% increase from the year before 

and a 45% rise since the passage of HHH, according to a 

January 2020 homeless count. 

Deaths among the unhoused population climbed almost 

100% over seven years, with 1,047 people dying on the 

streets in 2018 alone, according to the controller. And 

COVID-19 has caused outdoor health and safety conditions 

to deteriorate even further. 

“While these facts illustrate the depth of the humanitarian 

emergency, they also reveal how one of the city’s primary 

tools to address it is coming up short,” Galperin said. 

Last month, Garcetti responded with a $955 million 

proposal for the upcoming fiscal year to combat the city’s 

homelessness scourge. A third of the funds would come 

from HHH for housing, including a reported 5,651 apartment 

units to be finally in the works. 

Enter U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, who intervened 

with a 110-page order to block the mayor’s $1 billion homeless 

plan and reserve the money to shelter every homeless 

person on Skid Row by mid-October, and earlier for single 

women, children, and families. 

The explosive ruling, issued in response to a lawsuit filed 

by a coalition of downtown business owners, castigated 

LA county and city officials for trying to build permanent 

housing at the expense of more temporary shelter, “knowing 

that massive development delays were likely while people 

died in the streets.” 

“Los Angeles has lost its parks, beaches, schools, sidewalks, 

and highway systems due to the inaction of city and county 

officials who have left our homeless citizens no place to 

turn,” Carter declared in his brief. He pointed to “a legacy 

of entrenched structural racism” that caused thousands of 

Angelenos — a disproportionate number who are Black — 

to end up on the streets of skid row. 

Garcetti, who in news reports questioned the legality of the 

injunction, did not respond to a request for comment. 

Former Los Angeles Councilman Dennis Zine, who is 

Catholic, laid blame squarely at the feet of the mayor, the 

city attorney, and other elected officials in America’s second 

largest city for failing to control its sprawling homeless 

problem. 

Zine, a former LAPD cop and head of the local police union, 

said he had just stopped at an intersection in his former 

district in the west San Fernando Valley, when he saw a man 

who appeared to be homeless urinate in public. 

“I’m looking down at this guy. He’s looking around. No 

concealment, he’s doing his thing, on the sidewalk,” Zine 

recalled. “No concealment. Broad daylight. On the sidewalk.” 

“It’s disrespect for humanity, and for public health,” he 

said. So is homelessness, he added. “It’s inhumane to accept 

it. It’s unacceptable for elected officials not to be able to 

handle it.” 

— Dana Bartholomew 


14042021_C 

Benioff, pastor of Good Shepherd. 

“God loves us all. And in a time of 

crisis, he leads people to step up.” 

One of those volunteers is Mike Psomas, 

head of the local Order of Malta 

chapter, a religious order founded 

nine centuries ago to help the poor 

and sick. 

A homeless resident along 

the Venice Beach boardwalk. 

During 

COVID-19, its 

free Order of 

Malta Medical 

Clinic closed. 

And its 250 “Knights” and “Dames” 

were forced to shift from making hot 

breakfasts at St. Francis Center downtown 

to turning out hundreds of cold 

lunches a day at Good Shepherd. 

They also switched from a group 

assembly line of personal hygiene 

kits at St. Peter’s Italian Church near 

downtown to the bagging of toothbrushes, 

socks, Kleenex, and other 

items to deliver to families. As a result, 

productivity doubled to 1,440 kits a 

month. 

An Order of Malta mobile unit now 

delivers 50,000 pounds of fresh produce 

a month to food pantries, serving 

an estimated 1,000 families a week. 

“For me, helping the sick and poor is 

a vital aspect of my life, more important 

than my accounting practice,” 

said Psomas, 57, who serves as 

president of the order’s Los Angeles 

location and became transformed by 

serving those in need. 

“I started to see myself in them. I 

started to see Jesus in them. And so 

then it became more of a calling.” 

After a 10-mile drive to the Venice 

boardwalk, he and Seminatore headed 

into a stiff breeze. Palms rustled 

overhead. Whitecaps danced across a 

greenish sea beyond rows of flapping 

tents inhabited by the hungry. 

Each sandwich is received with a 

smile and words of thanks. 

“You guys are awesome,” said Adam 

Schneider, 44, homeless on and off 

for four years after his wife died of a 

heart attack and he lost his job as an 

inspector of foreclosed houses. “Helps 

a lot. 

“And these things last!” 

Dana Bartholomew is an award-winning 

freelance writer living in Los 

Angeles. 


May 21, 2021 • ANGELUS • 17 

14042021_CCM_MemorialDayMass_FP_bleed.indd 1 

14042021_CCM_MemorialDayMass_FP_bleed.indd 1 

4/30/21 5:39 PM 


Finding grace 

and space 

The chance to pray 

anonymously was one 

surprise benefit of this 

year’s virtual novena for 

abuse healing 

BY ANN RODGERS 

A Christ the King parishioner 

proclaims a reading at the day-two 

novena prayer service April 23. 

COVID-19 restrictions proved 

an unexpected blessing to the 

Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ 

annual novena for healing from 

abuse, as the online prayer services 

drew far more participants than 

in-person liturgies of past years. 

One service 

alone had 850 

live views, far 

exceeding past 

in-person services, 

said Heather 

Banis, the clinical 

psychologist 

who serves as 

Archdiocesan Victims 

Assistance Ministry Coordinator 

Heather Banis 

in 2018. | WILL JOBE 

victim assistance ministry coordinator. 

The possibility to pray virtually, 

it seems, allowed people who are 

hesitant to spotlight themselves by 

attendance to participate anonymously. 

They could also choose to identify 

themselves and write comments. 

“The livestream gives you all the 

grace and space you need,” Banis said. 

“United Together in Prayer — Novena 

for Child Abuse Prevention 

and Healing” was livestreamed April 

22-30 from eight parishes and St. John 

Seminary. Every auxiliary bishop in 

the archdiocese took part, as did all its 

seminarians. 

It included prayers for all victims 

of child abuse, but the focus was on 

those abused by Catholic clergy. 

Petitions were offered for victims, 

their families, therapists, Church 


leaders, teachers, youth ministers, and 

in particular for those who died from 

suicide related to abuse: “May they 

find eternal peace in the embrace of 

their loving God.” 

Deacon Michael 

Masteller, 

who is scheduled 

to be ordained 

a priest next 

month, gave the 

reflection at the 

opening night 

Holy Hour at St. 

Bishop Robert Barron 

speaks at the novena’s 

closing prayer service at 

Mission Santa Barbara 

April 30. 

John’s Seminary in Camarillo. He focused 

on Jesus’ desire to offer healing. 

“Jesus was innocent, yet he suffered 

so he might bring healing, peace, and 

hope to the innocent who suffer,” he 

said. 

Over several years, Masteller had 

been moved by Banis’ presentations 

to the seminarians, especially when 

she had them listen to a man who had 

been sexually abused by a priest. 

“It really helped me move it away 

from being an issue to being a reality, 

a personal reality,” he said. 

At the same time, he learned how 

much the archdiocese and the wider 

Church have done over two decades 

to put a stop to sexual abuse by clergy, 

he said. 

As he participated in the liturgy, 

“what moved my heart was feeling 

the pain of people who have left the 

Church, who have been pushed away 

from Christ because of the abuse 

they suffered, which was out of their 

control,” Masteller said. “I pray to 

God in his mercy to give a special 

path for them to find him again, to 

find healing and come to find Christ 

once more.” 

On the second night of the novena, 

Father Juan Ochoa at Christ the King 

Church in Hancock Park centered 

his reflection on the spiritual damage 

done when the institution someone 

trusts most betrays him or her. 

“How many people have been 

abused by people for whom they 

developed trust and respect, leaving 

them not only to suffer with the terror 

of the abuse, but then in isolating 

silence, saying nothing,” he said. 

They end up “living with the shame 

and the pains and, at the same time, 

“What we are suffering is just, because 

of the horrific nature of this crime.” 

believing that they are responsible for 

what happened to them.” 

He invited all victims — whether 

abused in the Church or somewhere 

else — to find healing in the community 

of Jesus’ love. 

“For those who, even at this moment, 

may be abused, we gather to 

pray for you, to be with you and to 

recognize that healing does not take 

place on its own,” he said. “We give 

thanks for the gift of therapy ... but we 

also need God’s healing.” 

The closing Mass was celebrated 

by Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron 

at Mission Santa Barbara. He called 

abuse by clergy “the devil’s masterpiece” 

for its efficacy at undermining 

Church ministry and outreach. 

“What we are suffering is just, 

because of the horrific nature of this 

crime,” he said. At the same time, he 

pointed to the reforms that have all 

but eradicated new cases. He cited 

reform movements of centuries past, 

calling on Catholics to stay in the 

Church and help it to act like the 

Church Jesus created it to be. 

“It’s during times of crisis that many 

of the greatest ... saints have arisen,” 

Bishop Barron said. Among others, 

he cited St. Francis of Assisi and St. 

Dominic, who renewed a corrupt and 

stagnant medieval Church. 

“Now is the time for great saints to 

arise, to speak again the great truths 

of our faith. And so, we stay and 

we fight. And above all, we rely on 

the grace of God as we pray for our 

Church, and we pray for those who 

are still victimized by this terrible 

crime. And we pray that we might 

continue to walk the path of discipleship.” 

Ann Rodgers is a longtime religion 

reporter and freelance writer whose 

awards include the William A. Reed 

Lifetime Achievement Award from the 

Religion News Association. 


Growing pains down in Africa 

The attack on a young bishop-elect in South Sudan illustrates the 

advantages — and perils — of asking missionaries to lead dioceses 

BY ELISE ANN ALLEN 

ROME — When a newly appointed 

bishop in South Sudan 

was shot in the legs last month, 

it shocked and concerned the local 

community, and again shed light on 

complexities the Church faces in the 

oversight of a country ravaged by conflict 

and war. 

One of these complexities is the 

difficulties the Holy See often faces in 

appointing foreign missionary bishops 

in places like Africa and South America, 

which are still considered “mission 

territory” in the Church, but which 

have large Catholic populations with 

strong and rooted cultural identities. 

Bishop-elect Christian Carlassare, 

43, was appointed to lead the Diocese 

of Rumbek in March, filling a 10-year 

vacancy after the death of the previous 

bishop, Caesar Mazzolare, in 2011, the 

year of South Sudan’s independence. 

Msgr. Carlassare, a Combonian 

missionary originally from northern 

Italy, was assaulted the night between 

April 25 and 26, just after midnight, 

when two unidentified men broke into 

the bishop-elect’s house and shot him 

in the legs. 

The priest survived the assault but 

suffered significant blood loss and was 

transferred to a hospital in Nairobi, 

where he underwent a transfusion and 

is recovering. His episcopal consecration, 

initially set for May 23, has 

been postponed as both local and state 

authorities search for the culprits. 

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, 

tribalism was pinned down as the 

primary motive, as Rumbek is a majority 

Dinka area, and Msgr. Carlassare 

for 10 years prior to his appointment 

worked with the Nuer tribe, which are 

traditionally the sworn enemies of the 

Dinka. 

There is also speculation that the 

attack could be retaliation for Rome’s 

perceived snub of a Dinka priest who 

has run the diocese for the last 10 

years. Msgr. Carlassare’s appointment 

amounted to the priest being passed 


A young woman outside a church in Rajaf, 

South Sudan. | CNS/MATTHIEU ALEXAN- 

DRE, CARITAS INTERNATIONALIS 

over for a foreigner. Local divisions 

within the Dinka tribe reportedly made 

naming a local impossible, although 

this and tribalism have been disputed 

by other missionaries working in the 

area as the real motive. 

It has long been the Catholic 

Church’s practice to name foreign 

missionaries as bishops in places still 

considered mission territories. 

In the United States, for instance, it 

was a historically common practice for 

the Church to name Irish missionaries 

to fill diocesan vacancies. Eventually 

local nominations became more 

common as Catholic communities 

in the U.S. grew and local vocations 

increased. 

It is still the common practice to 

name foreign missionaries in many 

countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin 

America. Since these missionaries 

have no roots in the place and are less 

prone to be tied up in local drama, the 

reasoning goes that they are easier for 

locals to accept. 

While often true, this latest incident 

in Rumbek illustrates that is not always 

the case. 

The fact that no bishop had been 

named to lead the diocese in 10 years, 

since South Sudan’s independence 

in 2011 following a bloody war with 

strong ethnic undertones shows just 

how carefully the Holy See was treading 

in making the decision. 

Just two years after its independence, 

fresh conflict broke out in South 

Sudan. The country has yet to reach 

a cease-fire, while millions are either 

dead or displaced in what has become 

one of the world’s most serious humanitarian 

crises. 

Finding a person who can strike the 

right balance without stoking local 

tribal sensitivities is no easy task, which 

is why numerous dioceses in South 

Sudan have stayed vacant since South 

Sudan’s independence. 

Yet Rumbek is far from the only place 

where locals have taken issue with 

their incoming bishop. Last year, the 

appointment of a new archbishop in 

the South Sudanese city of Juba also 

met resistance, and similar instances 

have also occurred in other African 

countries. 

In 2012, for example, Pope Benedict 

XVI appointed Bishop Peter Ebere Okpaleke 

to lead the Diocese of Ahiara in 

Nigeria, but a group of priests and laity 

rejected the appointment on grounds 

that Bishop Okpaleke belonged to a 

different ethnic group. 

What resulted was a yearslong 

standoff preventing Bishop Okpaleke 

from being installed. In June 2017, 

Pope Francis issued an unprecedented 

ultimatum, giving priests in the diocese 

a 30-day deadline to either accept the 

bishop, or be suspended. 

Most of the priests reportedly complied 

with the pope’s request, however, 

Bishop Okpaleke resigned in April 

2018, saying his continued presence 

in Ahiara was problematic for the 

Church. In April 2020, he was named 

to a different, 

newly formed 

diocese in 

Nigeria. 

Not all 

disputes over 

new diocesan 

leadership are 

that dramatic, 

and assaults 

such as the one 

inflicted on 

Bishop-designate Christian 

Carlassare speaks from a 

hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, 

in a video message posted 

April 28 on Twitter. In 

his video message Msgr. 

Carlassare encouraged 

forgiveness and reconciliation. 

| CNS/COMBONI 

MISSIONARIES 

Msgr. Carlassare are also rare, yet they 

illustrate the difficulties that are often 

involved in these appointments, where 

choosing a local is often a “damned if 

you do, damned if you don’t” scenario. 

Another thing Msgr. Carlassare’s 

incident illustrates is the Catholic 

Church’s “Africa moment,” given that 

Catholicism in Africa is growing faster 

than anywhere else in the world, and 

vocations are exploding. 

Many African priests are themselves 

sent as missionaries in the U.S. and Europe, 

however, as the Church on the 

continent grows, so does the expectation 

and pressure for local bishops. It’s 

not a bad problem for the Church to 

have, but it is one that will need time 

and careful consideration to solve. 

As with any other community facing 

growing pains, there are still lots of 

wrinkles to work out. In the meantime, 

the Holy See will have to work out a 

strategy for navigating these nuances 

when naming pastors for some of the 

world’s most complex, yet largest and 

fastest-growing Catholic communities. 

Elise Ann Allen is a senior correspondent 

for Crux in Rome, covering the 

Vatican and the global Church. 

May 21, 2021 • ANGELUS • 21

HOLY FAILURE 

The life of soon-to-be-saint 

Bl. Charles de Foucauld 

challenges our ideas of success 

BY MSGR. RICHARD ANTALL 

Bl. Charles de Foucauld in an 

undated photo. | AFP VIA GETTY 

I 

was in the eighth grade (53 years 

ago) when I first read about Charles 

de Foucauld in Henri Daniel-Rops 

book, “The Heroes of God.” The book 

deals with 10 men and one woman 

whom he calls “Adventurers of God,” 

who “lived … suffered … died to hasten 

the fulfillment — as much as it is 

possible for it to be fulfilled on earth — 

of the wish that every Christian addresses 

to the Father: “Thy Kingdom Come.” 

Daniel-Rops had what they call in 

Spanish “buena puntería” (“good 

aim”). Three of the five non-saint 

heroes who were not canonized 

(nor beatified) at the time he 

wrote the book have since been 

raised to the altars: St. Junípero 

Serra, St. Damian of Molokai, 

and now, Bl. Charles de Foucauld, 

whose canonization date 

has yet to be announced. 

Perhaps of all the heroes in the 

book, Viscount Charles de Foucauld 

had the strangest life story. 

He was born in Strasbourg, France, 

into a family that had historic ties to 

St. Joan of Arc and St. Louis, as well as 

some relatives who died for the faith in the 

French Revolution. 

And yet, his path to heaven had many twists 

and turns. His mother was a devout Catholic, 

but she died when de Foucauld was 8 years old, 

a few months before the death of his father. He 

was raised by his maternal grandfather, who was 

very indulgent to the boy and his sister. 

That indulgence became a weakness because 

the boy became a man who was extremely 

self-willed, even within the French Army, 

where he became a very wealthy and, as Daniel-Rops 

writes, a “boastful, lazy and dissipated 

second lieutenant.” He lost his faith when 

he was a teenager and lost his grandfather 

soon after — but not before he had been 

given an ample inheritance. 

They say in Alcoholics Anonymous that 

your strengths are your weaknesses — and 


vice versa. I 

think de Foucauld 

was a good 

example of that. 

He was self-indulgent 

to an 

extreme, famous 

for ordering 

catered foie gras 

and the finest 

wines when he 

was in cavalry 

school and earning 

the name “le 

An undated photo of Bl. de Foucauld. | CNS 

porc” (“the pig”) 

from his fellow 

students. One of his cousins remembered that chubby 

Charles was the terror of the dessert table at family parties. 

But this young man, extremely intelligent but so lazy 

he got poor grades, was converted by the strangest of the 

Lord’s devices. Posted to the Sahara, and getting in trouble 

constantly for scandalous behavior, de Foucauld fell in 

love with Northern Africa when fighting a rebellion in the 

French colony of Algeria. 

He explored Morocco incognito, disguised as a Jewish 

rabbi, and wrote and published a report that won him 

prizes and made him well known among geographers in 

France. Contact with Judaism and Islam in his travels 

marked him for life, however. 

After a time in Paris, he went back to serve in Africa. 

Then came disillusion with the army because of political 

issues. God had him where he wanted him. He later 

marveled how God used “unexpected solitude, emotion, 

illnesses of dear ones, deep and intense feelings, and a 

[sudden] return to Paris in the wake of a surprising event.” 

Through the prayers, example and prodding of a beloved 

cousin, Marie de Bondy, de Foucauld was converted 

back to the faith. His cousin arranged an encounter with 

Father Henri Huvelin in St. Augustine Church in Paris. 

De Foucauld went for a “discussion” of his lack of belief 

and Father Huvelin said to him, “Kneel down and confess 

your sins.” 

“But I have no faith,” the “penitent” responded. 

The priest only responded: “Confess!” And he did. 

Then Father Huvelin said, “Have you eaten breakfast?” 

He had not. “Then go into church immediately, Mass is 

starting, and take communion.” That is how de Foucauld 

made what he called his “second first communion.” 

His exotic pilgrimage continued. The heraldic motto of 

his aristocratic family was “jamais arrière” (“never retreat”), 

and so it was with de Foucauld’s search for what 

God wanted from him. The same lack of satisfaction that 

had driven his expensive and often immoral lifestyle was 

evident in the extreme choices of his religious vocation. 

He was never satisfied with the sacrifices he made for 

Christ. The ex-soldier entered a Trappist monastery of 

Notre Dame des Neiges. Seeking still greater asceticism, 

he transferred to another monastery, this one in Syria at 

Akbes. 

The last known photograph of Bl. de Foucauld 

before he was killed in 1916. | CNS 

His soul was not 

at rest in Syria. 

He wanted to 

live the hidden 

life of Jesus in 

Nazareth. He 

found work at a 

Poor Clare convent 

in Nazareth 

itself, becoming 

the gardener for 

the nuns and 

spending hours 

in prayer before 

the Blessed 

Sacrament. Still, 

he was not at peace. He returned to France, studied for the 

priesthood, and was ordained. Then he decided to return 

to Africa as a chaplain to the French soldiers. 

I say “as a chaplain,” but it was not that simple. He 

desired to be a hermit like the Egyptian Fathers of the 

Desert. By a life of prayer and fraternity in a hermitage 

in Beni-Abbes, he would give witness to the Muslims and 

evangelize silently, preaching only with his presence and 

his charity. He had dreams of founding a religious order, 

“The Little Brothers of the Sacred Heart.” 

But Beni-Abbes was not enough. A friend suggested an 

even more remote and poor site, Tamanrasset, where he 

could get to know the Tuareg tribesmen. He built a hermitage 

there and began his study of the Tuareg language, 

his translation of the Gospels in that language and the 

scholarly work of compiling a bilingual dictionary and a 

grammar book, then a collection of indigenous poetry that 

would later be published. 

His gift of tongues was formidable, but also his charism 

to inspire even the Muslims with respect for his vocation. 

They began to call him their “marabout” (“holy man”). 

Prayer of Charles de Foucauld 

My Father, 

I abandon myself to you. 

Make of me what you will. 

Whatever you make of me, I thank you. 

I am ready for everything, I accept everything, 

provided that your will is done in me and in all 

your creatures. 

I desire nothing else, Lord. 

I put my soul into your hands. I give it to you, 

Lord, will all the love in my heart, because I love 

you, and so need to give, to surrender myself 

into your hands, without reserve, and with 

boundless confidence. 

For you are my Father. 


A holy man for the times 

He believed that the prayer of adoration would be the 

groundwork for evangelization in the desert. 

When World War I broke out, some tribes declared 

a jihad against the French. Father de Foucauld was 

convinced by the military to move from his hermitage to 

a small fort, where he lived alone but could give shelter to 

the other villagers in the case of an attack. There he was 

killed by a party sent to kidnap him on Dec. 1, 1916. 

He never got anyone to join his proposed religious 

community. Nor did he ever convert anyone in the village 

to Christianity. Although he is well known now as a writer 

of meditations and reflections, he never saw any of his 

religious writings published in his lifetime. His “project” 

had failed. 

Thankfully, holy failures are often the seeds of success. 

After his death, Father de Foucauld found disciples. A 

biography by René Bazin in 1921 brought attention to the 

desert hermit’s life and vast writings, and eventually many 

of these were published. 

Pope Benedict XVI greets Tuareg nomads at the beatification of Father Charles 

de Foucauld at the Vatican in 2005. | L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO 

In moving to name Bl. Charles de Foucauld a saint, 

Pope Francis is lifting up a holy man whose witness to 

the faith he believes is specially relevant for believers 

today. 

At an “ordinary public consistory” held earlier this 

month, Pope Francis and cardinals based in Rome 

officially concluded the sainthood process for Bl. de 

Foucauld and six others, voting to canonize them at a 

date still to be announced. 

Bl. de Foucauld was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI 

in 2005, who highlighted his imitation of “the humanity 

of Jesus” and how he made the Eucharist and Gospel 

“the heart of his life” as a priest. 

Pope Francis has also stressed Bl. de Foucauld’s “hidden 

life” as a religious hermit and laborer in Nazareth, 

where Jesus lived with Mary and St. Joseph for 30 years 

before beginning his public ministry. 

At a prayer vigil on the eve of the Synod on the Family 

in 2015, Pope Francis said Bl. de Foucauld’s example 

should help the Church to see that holiness is to be 

found in the “most ordinary conditions” of family life. 

Bl. de Foucauld, “like few others, grasped the import 

of the spirituality which radiates from Nazareth,” the 

pope said, “attracted by the mystery of the Holy Family, 

the mystery of Jesus’ daily relationship with his parents 

and neighbours, his quiet labour, his humble prayer.” 

The pope has singled out Bl. de Foucauld’s witness 

in some of the most significant teaching documents of 

his pontificate, including his exhortations on the call 

to holiness and his two social encyclicals, “Laudato Si’” 

(“Praise Be to You”) and “Fratelli Tutti,” the encyclical 

“on fraternity and social friendship,” urging the Church 

to reflect on the saint’s “pure adoration” of God, his 

“rich and balanced understanding of the meaning of 

work,” and “his desire to feel himself a brother of every 

human being.” 

A seminarian by the name 

of René Voillaume read the 

biography and was inspired. 

He eventually founded the 

community of the Little 

Brothers of the Sacred Heart 

and then the Little Brothers 

Bl. de Foucauld’s hermitage in the 

Assekrem Hills in southern Algeria is 

still inhabited by a small number of 

monks. | SOFIANNE MOHAMMED 

of the Gospel. Women disciples founded the Little Sisters 

of the Sacred Heart and the Little Sisters of the Gospel, a 

group I got to know in El Salvador. 

Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said that God does not 

call us to be successful, but to be faithful. I would add that 

faithfulness brings spiritual success. The Church needs 

more failures like Bl. Charles de Foucauld so that maybe 

we can all be more faithful. 

Msgr. Richard Antall is pastor of Holy Name Church in 

Cleveland, Ohio, and author of “The Wedding” (Lambing 

Press, $16.95). 



INTERSECTIONS 

GREG ERLANDSON 

Sin and 

going to ‘the 

bad place’ 

The pandemic has provided many 

of us with an opportunity to dig 

up a favorite TV show and binge 

watch it again in our COVID-induced 

solitude. For my kids, it was “Gilmore 

Girls” or “Psych.” For me it was “The 

Good Place.” 

“The Good Place” is a witty secular 

take on the afterlife. I can’t think of 

another network comedy show that 

has as a refrain, “That’s why nobody 

likes moral philosophers.” It is in some 

ways an extended comic reflection on 

sin and humanity’s stumbling efforts to 

improve itself. 

While what it defines as sin might not 

satisfy many moral theologians, to its 

credit it mocks the kind of woo-woo 

secular wokeism where one might be 

sent to “the bad place” for drinking 

almond milk in heedless disregard for 

its impact on the environment. 

You’ll have to watch all four seasons to 

see how all this turns out, since I know 

one of the great sins of the modern era 

is the unexpected spoiler. 

Suffice to say that how the show 

wrestles with all this confirms that sin 

is a tough nut for us moderns to crack. 

On the one hand, we see evidence of 

it all around us. Selfishness, disregard 

for others, anger, greed, envy. Abortion, 

yes, and human trafficking, but how 

about gossip and racism, disregard of 

the poor, disregard of the elderly, all 

manner of exploitation, or just the 

Ted Danson and D’Arcy Beth 

Carden in NBC’s “The Good 

Place.” | COLLEEN HAYES/NBC 

spiritual sloth of not wanting to be 

bothered by anybody else’s problems? 

A bit of honest reflection suggests 

when it comes to sin, our inclination 

is to give ourselves a big pass. We can’t 

imagine ourselves as really bad people. 

Heaven may still be believable as a 

place where we and our pets will be reunited, 

but hell is out of the question. 

And if we did do something a teeny 

bit bad, we know just enough about 

psychology or genetics to be convinced 

it’s really not our fault. 

In our more generous moments, we 

give just about everybody else passes 

too except, maybe, for people we really, 

really dislike. Like people who voted 

against our 

candidate 

William Jackson Harper and 

Kristen Bell in NBC’s “The Good 

Place.” | COLLEEN HAYES/NBC 

in the 2020 

election. 

They are 

evil. 

Even for 

Catholics, who ostensibly believe in all 

this sin stuff, few of us avail ourselves 

of the sacrament of penance regularly. 

And those of us who do go, I’m told 

by confessors, aren’t very exhaustive or 

wide-ranging in our self-evaluations. “I 

Send __ 

Name __ 

Address _ 

26 • ANGELUS • May 21, 2021 

City ____

Greg Erlandson is the president and 

editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service. 

wish someone would look at the other 

commandments besides the sixth,” one 

confessor plaintively asked. 

What we are much better about than 

finding the beam in our eye is identifying 

the splinter in someone else’s. 

Here our vision is 20/20. Whether it’s a 

family member, a co-worker, or a public 

figure, we zero in on the faults of 

those we disagree with or dislike, while 

too often ignoring the pride or anger or 

jealousy spurring our words. 

When Pope Francis gave his first 

interview to Civilta Cattolica in 2013 

after he was elected, the most striking 

passage for me was when the interviewer 

asked, “Who is Jorge Bergoglio?” 

Pope Francis replied, “I am a sinner.” 

Immersed as we all are in the celebrity 

hagiography of popes, it was striking to 

hear this pope’s simple, blunt assertion: 

I am a sinner. 

“If we say we have no sin,” said St. 

John, “we deceive ourselves, and the 

truth is not in us.” If we say we have no 

sin, we become like that Pharisee who 

smugly compares himself to that tax 

collector in the rear of the synagogue. 

Pope Francis says the tragedy of that 

Pharisee is that his pride did not allow 

him to seek God’s mercy. 

That is what we risk when we refuse 

to see ourselves for who we are. For 

what need do we have of redemption if 

there is nothing to redeem us from? If 

we are all basically good people, then 

who really needs Jesus? 

On the other hand, the saints tell us 

that seeing ourselves honestly for who 

we are, identifying our tendency to sin 

and identifying our desire to excuse 

our sinfulness, shatters our pride and 

turns us in humility toward the Lord. It 

is at this moment of spiritual nakedness 

that we begin to understand the great 

gift of God’s mercy. 

Spoiler alert: In “The Good Place,” 

heaven isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, 

not in season one and not in season 

four. But the show is a reminder of one 

truth: that the road to goodness — we 

might say holiness — means falling 

and then picking yourself up again 

and again. Holiness is not perfection. 

I think holiness may simply be the 

refusal to give up the struggle, the impossible 

struggle, “to be perfect as our 

heavenly father is perfect.” 

And, of course, avoiding the almond 

milk. 

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The life of a wounded healer 

How neurologist Oliver Sacks helped patients — and 

popular culture — understand the power of empathy 

BY ROBERT INCHAUSTI 

Fans of Oliver Sacks — the neurologist 

whose book “Awakenings,” 

which became a hit movie 

in 1990 and starred Robin Williams 

— already know the important role 

he has played over the last 30 years in 

popularizing neurological science and 

turning the “medical case study” into a 

literary genre all its own. 

But I didn’t realize until I saw the 

new documentary, “Oliver Sacks: In 

His Own Life,” that more than a talented 

writer and dedicated clinician, 

Sacks was what Henri Nouwen would 

have called “a wounded healer”: 

someone who through suffering great 

personal difficulties transforms himself 

into a healer of those very same maladies. 

Sacks had a very difficult childhood. 

A troubled youth, he battled addiction 

and recalled being suicidal as a 

young adult. His older brother of two 

years suffered from schizophrenia and 

ultimately committed suicide. His 

mother, a renowned British surgeon, 

would bring home dead fetuses from 

time to time and even suggested that 

10-year-old Sacks dissect one. 

During the London Blitz of World 

Oliver Sacks with a patient at New York’s Beth 

Abraham Hospital. | LOWELL HANDLER 

War II, he and his brother were sent 

to a boarding school for safety, where 

they found themselves the victims 

of extreme bullying and frequent 

beatings. 

In late adolescence, when Sacks 

admitted under questioning from his 

father that he “liked boys better than 

girls,” his mother told him she “wished 

he had never been born.” He left the 

UK on his 28th birthday for California 

and remained celibate for the next 35 


years. 

In California he acquired an addiction 

to amphetamines and to riding 

his motorcycle at dangerous speeds 

along the coast, sometimes riding from 

Venice’s Muscle Beach to the Grand 

Canyon nonstop for 12 hours to see 

the sunrise. 

Eventually Sacks found his way to 

UCLA, where he studied medicine. 

Initially, he did so with mixed motivations 

and to not much success, until he 

landed an internship at the university’s 

hospital. Then began a long, winding 

journey that brought him to New York 

to work as a clinical neurologist. 

It was there that his famous experiments 

with the drug “L-dopa” led to 

the miraculous awakenings in which 

many of his patients returned from 

their comas wondering where all the 

years had gone — some still stuck in 

1927 or 1949. 

Tragically, these awakenings were 

not permanent, and all the patients 

eventually returned to their previous 

catatonic states. When his book about 

these studies was turned into a film, 

Sacks was suddenly propelled to the 

forefront of his profession, where he 

has stayed for more than 30 years as 

one of the most important voices for 

(and practitioners of) compassionate 

neurological care. 

Sacks’ career was marked by a 

Robin Williams, who 

played a character 

based on Oliver Sacks, 

and Robert DeNiro in 

the 1990 film “Awakenings.” 

| IMDB 

fascination with the experiences of 

outsiders, beginning with himself 

and continuing into his research into 

bats and octopuses, creatures that live 

on the same earth as we do, but live, 

move, and have their being in entirely 

different realms of experience. 

These studies complimented his 

clinical care of comatose and catatonic 

patients, ultimately leading Sacks to 

publish his case studies that acknowledged 

the often unseen, underappreciated 

heroism, grace, and dignity of his 

patients. 

Many of Sacks’ patients could not 

walk, talk, hear, or see. And, yet despite 

the difficulties this poses for treatment, 

Sacks made it his life’s calling to 

serve them. And by giving them rapt, 

personal attention — attuned to every 

nuanced attempt at communication 

— he has come to learn how many of 

them experience their lives. 

The questions they posed to him are 

the same questions he once posed to 

himself as a young man: “Who am 

I?” “Why do I feel these things?” and 

“Why don’t I feel what other people 

feel?” — questions many doctors simply 

have not the time or the capacity to 

entertain for very long. 

Yet Sacks, it appears, knew what 

these suffering souls needed to hear 

because he had spent most of his life 

on the patient’s side of the stethoscope 

— suffering from childhood trauma, 

ADD, migraine, addiction, depression, 

suicidal ideation — and, as we find out 

moments after the film begins: a diagnosis 

of fatal metastatic liver cancer. 

The film quotes a nun of the Little 

Sisters of the Poor, Sister Lorrain, 

who worked with Sacks at one of the 

hospitals run by her order: “Clearly 

Oliver’s been through something. You 

don’t get like this without deep, deep 

experience.” 

The journalist Robert Krulwich believes 

that, by publishing case studies, 

Sacks “storys” his patients’ lives into 

the world, which releases them from 

isolation and diminishes the stigma of 

their afflictions. 

In fact, Sacks exhibits such profound 

empathy for his patients, he seems at 

times to “become” one with them, 

often taking up their movements, 

cadences, voices, and gestures in 

sympathetic accord with their various 

symptoms and states of mind (these 

moments are some of the most moving 

scenes in the film). 

“We are all patients,” Sacks explains, 

the doctors and himself included. We 

all “treat” one another — sometimes 

with care and compassion, sometimes 

not so much. But no one possesses a 

higher biological status than anyone 

else, and although each of us see the 

world from a unique point of view and 

have our own unique crosses to bear, 

not one is exempt from mortality or in 

any way above it. 

Viewers of all stripes, religious or 

not, will find much to learn from this 

moving portrait of the quintessential 

“wounded healer” who shows us what 

“agape” looks like on the embattled, 

ever-changing frontlines of clinical 

neurology. 

“Oliver Sacks: His Own Life” is a 

documentary film by director Ric Burns 

that is part of the acclaimed PBS series 

“American Masters.” To watch, visit pbs. 

org/video. The film is recommended for 

mature audiences; viewer discretion is 

advised. 

Robert Inchausti is professor emeritus 

of English at Cal Poly, San Luis 

Obispo, and the author of several books, 

including “Thomas Merton’s American 

Prophecy,” and “Subversive Orthodoxy.” 


DESIRE LINES 

HEATHER KING 

Resurrection, reparation, and recovery 

“Kiss of Judas,” fresco by Giotti, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua (1304-06). | WIKIMEDIA 

On the road during Holy Week 

this year, I attended noon Holy 

Tuesday Mass at the Church 

of the Sacred Heart in the town of 

Nogales, Arizona. 

The Gospel that day was the story of 

Judas, poised at the Last Supper to betray 

Christ. “What you are going to do, 

do quickly. … So Judas took the morsel 

and left at once. And it was night.” 

It’s night in a lot of places at the moment. 

The news would have us believe 

that it’s night just about everywhere. 

But every so often I hear a homily that 

pierces the night. The priest that day 

gently pointed out that every one of us 

is exactly like Judas. How many times 

have we sold him out for 30 pieces of 

silver — or, for that matter, way less? 

We, too, dip our morsel in the dish 

of the Eucharist. We, too, go out and 

commit deeds in the darkness, that 

constitute anything but love. 

“Let’s not waste our time criticizing 

the pope, complaining about the 

Church, and demonizing those on the 

opposite side of the political fence,” the 

priest continued. “Let’s think about the 

old-school idea of making reparation. 

We don’t even want to make reparation 

for ourselves, never mind others. But 

that’s what we’re called to do as members 

of the Mystical Body. When one 

part is hurting, we’re all hurting.” 

Later I reflected that the Gospel-based 

notion of reparation, however, is utterly 

distinguishable from the self-abasing, 

faux, public “apologies” currently 

demanded by woke culture for real or 

perceived wrongs. 

Mea culpa without Christ becomes 

a kind of travesty. Snitching, shaming, 

the imposition of groupthink, the 

hatred and fear of truth, especially from 

the safe preserve of online anonymi- 


■ 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. 

■ 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 foster-adoption parent, an 

online orientation presentation is available. To RSVP for 

the live orientation or to request the online orientation, 

email rfrecruitment@all4kids.org. 

■ SATURDAY, MAY 22 

“Together in Prayer for Unity & Peace”: Candlelight 

Prayer Vigil. Incarnation Church, 7 p.m. The vigil 

follows the March 31 prayer vigil for racial acceptance. 

For more information, call 818-242-2579 or visit 

incaglendale.org. 

■ SUNDAY, MAY 23 

Glendale PeaceWalk. Incarnation Church is 

participating in the PeaceWalk, sponsored by Glendale 

City Church, 2 p.m. Register at glendalepeacewalk.org. 

■ SATURDAY, MAY 29 

Transitional Diaconate Ordination. Cathedral of Our 

Lady of the Angels, 9 a.m. Mass will be livestreamed at 

lacatholics.org/ordination2021. 

■ MONDAY, MAY 31 

Catholic Cemeteries and Mortuaries Memorial 

Day Mass. Chapel of the Risen Christ at Holy Cross 

Cemetery and Mortuary, 10 a.m. Celebrant: Archbishop 

José H. Gomez. Mass will be livestreamed and will not 

be open to the public. 

■ SATURDAY, JUNE 5 

Priesthood Ordination. Cathedral of Our Lady of the 

Angels, 9 a.m. Mass will be livestreamed at lacatholics. 

org/ordination. 

■ TUESDAY, JUNE 8 

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 


■ SUNDAY, JUNE 13 

Five-Day Silent, Directed Retreat. Mary & Joseph Retreat 

Center, 5300 Crest Rd., Rancho Palos Verdes, June 13, 6 

p.m.-June 18, 1:30 p.m. Retreat led by spiritual directors Sister 

Pascazia Kinkuhaire, DMJ, Father Joseph Miller, SVD, and Sue 

Ballotti offers a unique, contemplative opportunity to commune 

with God in the solitude of our hearts. Cost: Single room: $600/ 

person, commuter: $425/person. Call Jose Salas at 310-377- 

4867, ext. 250, for reservations or information. 

■ SUNDAY, JUNE 20 

Father’s Day Virtual Rosary. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles 

and Catholic Cemeteries and Mortuaries will host a special 

prayer of thanksgiving for Father’s Day weekend at 2 p.m. 

Rosary will be livestreamed at facebook.com/lacatholics and 

catholiccm.org. 

“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. 

■ SATURDAY, JUNE 26 

Drive-Thru Food Distribution Event. St. Barnabas Church, 

3955 Orange Ave., Long Beach, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. Sponsored 

by the LA County Sheriff’s Community Advisory Council. For 

more information, call Peter Ramirez at 213-440-2707. 

■ TUESDAY, JULY 13 

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 


■ SUNDAY, JULY 18 

“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. 

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. 


19 

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May 21, 2021 Vol. 6 No. 10

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