Angelus News | July 2, 2021 | Vol. 6 No. 13

2021 

BOOKS ISSUE 

ANGELUS 

THE MIND 

MATTERS 

Why reading and thinking 

are good for the soul 

July 2, 2021 Vol. 6 No. 13

July 2, 2021 

Vol. 6 • No. 13 

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ON THE COVER 

SHUTTERSTOCK 

For a Christian, how important is taking care of the mind? This year’s 

“Books Issue” has a few ideas. On Page 10, Mike Aquilina interviews 

Catholic convert and writer Zena Hitz on her new book about “the 

pleasures of the intellectual life.” On Page 14, Angelus contributors share 

their picks for the best new books of the pandemic. And on Page 18, 

Elise Italiano Ureneck reviews a groundbreaking new book by a scholar 

with autism who sees his condition as an intellectual gift from God. 

THIS PAGE 

VICTOR ALEMÁN 

Sixteen men from around the 

Archdiocese of Los Angeles, 

seen above with their wives, 

were ordained permanent 

deacons Saturday, June 12, by 

Archbishop José H. Gomez.

CONTENTS 

Pope Watch................................................ 2 

Archbishop Gomez.................................. 3 

World, Nation, and Local News....... 4-6 

In Other Words......................................... 7 

Father Rolheiser........................................ 8 

Scott Hahn.............................................. 32 

Events Calendar..................................... 33 

18 

20 

22 

24 

26 

28 

30 

How autism has helped one man connect with God 

Pope Francis goes to a Manhattan Beach carmaker for his new ride 

Communion discussion reveals key question among U.S. bishops 

Why Catholics are on the run in Myanmar 

Greg Erlandson: Do we have an answer to society’s sex problem? 

‘The Conjuring 3’ and Hollywood’s exorcism fascination 

Heather King: The legend of LA’s book temple 

July 2, 2021 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH 

Silence and storms 

In his Angelus message Sunday, 

June 20, Pope Francis offered a 

reminder that the Lord wants us 

to seek his presence in the trials and 

storms of life. 

“How often do we remain fixated on 

problems rather than going to the Lord 

and casting our concerns upon him?” 

the pope asked the pilgrims gathered 

in St. Peter’s Square. 

“Today, let us ask for the grace of a 

faith that never tires of seeking the 

Lord, of knocking at the door of his 

heart,” he said. 

Speaking from the window of the 

Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, the pope 

reflected on the Gospel account of 

the disciples caught in a storm at sea 

as Jesus slept on their boat. Filled 

with fear, the disciples cried out to the 

Lord, “Teacher, do you not care if we 

perish?” 

Pope Francis said: “Quite often, we, 

too, beaten by the trials of life, have 

cried out to the Lord: ‘Why do you 

remain silent and do nothing for me?’ 

“Especially when it seems we are 

sinking, because of love or the project 

in which we have laid great hopes disappears; 

or when we are at the mercy 

of the unrelenting waves of anxiety; or 

when we feel we are drowning in problems 

or lost in the middle of the sea of 

life, with no course and no harbor.” 

The pope urged that it is important to 

remember that even though Jesus was 

sleeping on the boat during the storm 

with his disciples, the Lord was there. 

“The Lord is there, present. In fact, 

he expects — so to speak — that we 

will engage him, to invoke him, to 

put him at the center of what we are 

experiencing. His slumber causes us 

to wake up. Because to be disciples of 

Jesus it is not enough to believe God 

is there, that he exists, but we must put 

ourselves out there with him; we must 

also raise our voice with him, cry out 

to him,” he said. 

“Today we can ask ourselves: What 

are the winds that beat against my life? 

What are the waves that prevent my 

navigation and endanger my spiritual 

life, my family life, and my mental 

health as well? Let us tell all this to 

Jesus; let us tell him everything,” the 

pope said. “He wants this; he wants 

us to grab hold of him to find shelter 

from the unexpected waves of life.” 

The pope also marked World 

Refugee Day, and said that the day 

is a reminder to “open our hearts to 

refugees” and to “make their sadness 

and joys our own.” 

“May we learn from their courageous 

resilience. And so, all together, we will 

make a more human community grow 

as one big family,” he said. 

Pope Francis commented that this 

Sunday’s Gospel of the disciples 

caught in the storm at sea reminded 

him of the many refugees who travel 

in boats and cry out to God in their 

need. 

“This is the beginning of our faith: 

to recognize that alone we are unable 

to stay afloat; that we need Jesus like 

sailors need the stars to find their 

course. Faith begins from believing 

that we are not enough for ourselves, 

from feeling in need of God.” 

Reporting courtesy of Catholic News 

Agency. 

Papal Prayer Intention for July: We pray that, in social, 

economic, and political situations of conflict, we may be 

courageous and passionate architects of dialogue and 

friendship. 

2 • ANGELUS • July 2, 2021

NEW WORLD OF FAITH 

ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

United in what is essential 

On June 16, Archbishop Gomez, president 

of the United States Conference of 

Catholic Bishops, delivered his address to 

the bishops’ Plenary Assembly, which was 

held virtually in Washington, D.C. The 

following is adapted from his remarks. 

We have been living through 

some extraordinary times. 

We’ve seen a pandemic 

shut down our civilization, including 

the Church, for more than a year. 

We’ve lived through riots in our major 

cities, rising social divisions and unrest, 

and maybe the most 

polarized election our 

country has ever seen. 

Even with the lockdowns 

ending, our 

neighbors are still struggling. 

They’ve lost loved 

ones and livelihoods. 

Many have lost confidence 

in God and hope for the future. After 

being isolated for months, some have 

grown distrustful of our leaders and 

institutions. 

It is not realistic to expect the Church 

to stay immune from the pressures of 

division. Those pressures are all around 

us. 

The Church is divine, she is the body 

of Christ. But we are all human in the 

Church, after all. And we are living 

in a secular society where politics is 

becoming the substitute religion for 

a lot of people. So, we need to guard 

against the temptation to think about 

the Church in simply political terms. 

In his homily for Pentecost, the Holy 

Father said, “Today, if we listen to the 

Spirit, we will not be concerned with 

conservatives and progressives, traditionalists 

and innovators, right and left. 

… The Paraclete impels us to unity … 

the harmony of diversity. He makes us 

see ourselves as parts of the same body, 

brothers and sisters of one another.” 

Unity in the Church does not mean 

conformity of opinion or that bishops 

will never disagree. The apostles argued 

passionately. They disagreed over pastoral 

strategies and methods. But never 

about the truth of the Gospel. 

In the wake of this pandemic, our 

Holy Father is calling us to strengthen 

the unity of the body of Christ. What he 

said recently to the bishops of Brazil is 

also important for us. 

“It is possible to overcome the pandemic,” 

he said. “It is possible to overcome 

Only a Church that is united can heal 

the brokenness and challenge the 

injustices that we see more clearly 

now in the wake of this pandemic. 

its consequences. But we can only do so 

if we are united. The bishops’ conference 

must be as one at this time, because 

the suffering people are one.” 

Only a Church that is united can 

heal the brokenness and challenge the 

injustices that we see more clearly now 

in the wake of this pandemic. 

The Gospel we proclaim is the truth 

of salvation. It is also the most powerful 

force in history for promoting human 

dignity and human flourishing. 

The power of our Catholic vision flows 

from our profound awareness of the 

unity of life, from conception to natural 

death, and the unity of the human family, 

every person a child of God. 

What God wants for the human family 

is meant to be reflected in the unity of 

the Church, which is the family of God. 

One of the saints said, “All with Peter 

to Jesus through Mary! By seeing ourselves 

as part of the Church and united 

to our brothers and sisters in the faith, 

we understand more deeply that we 

are brothers and sisters of all mankind, 

for the Church has been sent to all the 

peoples of the earth.” 

There are forces at work right now in 

our culture that threaten not only the 

unity of the human family, but also the 

very truth about God’s creation and 

human nature. 

Our Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has 

said, “This is the age of sin against God 

the Creator.” 

Pope Francis has stressed the truth of 

these words and said, “The problem is 

worldwide! The exploitation 

of creation, and the exploitation 

of persons. We are 

experiencing a moment of 

the annihilation of man as the 

image of God.” 

We stand at a historic 

crossroads, as our Holy Father 

is telling us. It falls to the 

Church in this moment to defend the 

truth about God the Creator, and the 

truth about the sanctity of the human 

person and the unity of the human 

family in God’s plan for creation. 

This is our mission, the urgent task of 

the whole Church in this moment — 

after this pandemic, in the face of the 

chaos and confusion in our society. 

My prayer is that as bishops we will 

all remain united in what is essential 

— our love for Jesus and our desire to 

proclaim him as the living God and the 

true path for humanity. 

Later this year, we celebrate the 490th 

anniversary of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s 

apparition. Let us look to her in this 

moment and entrust all our challenges 

to her maternal heart. 

May she help us to keep our hearts 

humble and united in the service 

of Jesus, as we seek to continue the 

evangelization of our country and our 

continent in this moment. 


WORLD 

Father Juan Antonio Orozco. | CNS/FACEBOOK 

■ Mexican priest caught 

in cartel crossfire 

A young Mexican priest was gunned 

down on his way back from ministering 

in a rural Mexican village known for 

drug cartel conflicts. 

Father Juan Antonio Orozco, 33, 

“entered the crossfire of two groups 

fighting” along a highway in western 

Durango, his bishop said. The Franciscan 

priest known as “Padre Juanito” 

had traveled to celebrate Mass in a 

rural village. 

At least 29 priests have been killed in 

Mexico since 2012, according to the 

Catholic Multimedia Center. 

“We call on the civil authorities to 

finally put a limit to the violence and 

harassment of our communities,” read 

a Facebook post shared by the village’s 

parish. “There are now many victims 

among our people and now our priest. 

Who’s next?” 

■ Pope tells German 

cardinal to carry on after 

resignation offer 

German Cardinal Reinhard Marx 

has stated he would “not simply 

return to business as usual” following 

Pope Francis’ refusal to accept his 

resignation. 

“The answer of the Holy Father 

surprised me,” Cardinal Marx said 

June 11. “I had not counted on him 

responding so quickly, and I also had 

not expected his decision that I should 

continue on as archbishop of Munich 

and Freising.” 

Cardinal Marx announced his offer 

of resignation June 4, stating that 

bishops must accept responsibility for 

institutional failures in handling the 

clerical sexual abuse crisis. Pope Francis 

responded June 10, confirming the 

Church’s need to better respond to 

the abuse crisis but asking Cardinal 

Marx to continue as archbishop. 

Following the pope’s response, 

Cardinal Marx reiterated his belief 

that bishops must bear both personal 

and institutional responsibility for the 

sexual abuse crisis, “particularly in 

view of the victims, whose perspectives 

must more strongly be taken into 

account.” 

■ Vatican mandates term 

limits for leaders of lay 

movements 

The Vatican announced mandatory 

term limits for lay leaders of ecclesial 

movements and associations. 

Under the new set of rules from the 

Dicastery for Laity, the Family and 

Life announced June 11, leaders 

elected to a central governing body of 

a lay movement will have a five-year 

term, which can be renewed once 

for a total of 10 years. After 10 years, 

the leader must step down for at least 

one full term before being eligible for 

leadership again. 

Founding leaders are exempt from 

the term limits. Full members of 

movements are to “have active voice, 

direct or indirect,” in elections, the 

Vatican decreed. 

The decree, which goes into effect 

in September, is widely seen as a 

response to revelations of abuse by 

charismatic lay leaders in recent years. 

The law is meant to target “negative 

experiences that have occurred in 

the case of associations which have 

retained the same people in government 

positions for a long time,” wrote 

canonist Father Ulrich Rhode, SJ, in 

“L’Osservatore Romano.” 

A river tradition — Egyptian Christians swim in the Nile River during a mirroring of the Holy Family’s “Flight 

into Egypt” in Minya Governorate June 9. | CNS/HANAA HABIB, REUTERS 


NATION 

Father Joseph Lafleur. | CNS 

Leonard LaRue. | CNS 

■ From war heros to saints? 

During their annual June meeting, the 

U.S. bishops gave their approval for two 

dioceses to advance the sainthood causes 

of two men revered for their heroism 

during war. 

Father Joseph Verbis Lafleur was a 

World War II chaplain who died saving 

others when the Japanese prison ship 

he was on was torpedoed in the Indian 

Ocean in 1944. Father Lafleur was a 

priest of the Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, 

who had joined the Army Air Corps 

in 1941. 

Leonard LaRue was at the helm of the 

Merchant Marine ship Meredith Victory 

in 1950 when it rescued 14,005 Korean 

refugees who were fleeing a Chinese 

military onslaught during the Korean 

War, according to Catholic News 

Service. He later joined the Benedictine 

Monks of Newton, New Jersey, and took 

the name Brother Marinus in 1954. 

He spent the rest of his life doing less 

celebrated tasks, like dishwashing and 

working in the abbey’s gift shop. 

In giving their approval via virtual 

ballot, the bishops voted to “consider it 

opportune to advance (their causes) on 

the local level,” not necessarily endorsing 

them. 

■ Court sides with Church in Philadelphia foster care case 

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the city of Philadelphia had violated 

the first amendment by denying Catholic Social Services (CSS) foster care 

referrals due to their policy of not placing children with same-sex couples. 

“CSS seeks only an accommodation that will allow it to continue serving the 

children of Philadelphia in a manner consistent with its religious beliefs; it does 

not seek to impose those beliefs on anyone else,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts 

in the majority opinion announced June 17. 

During oral arguments, Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh pointed out 

that CSS had never denied a same-sex couple placement because no couple had 

ever approached the agency, and that CSS policy would have simply referred an 

inquiring same-sex couple to another agency. 

University of Notre Dame law professor Richard Garnett predicted the ruling 

will have “a major effect on religious-freedom cases going forward.” 

“All nine justices agree that, when a rule targets religious practices for disapproval, 

or singles out religious exercise for burdens, it is highly suspect,” he told 

Catholic News Service. 

■ America’s top doctor thanks Pope Francis 

Dr. Francis Collins, director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, thanked 

Pope Francis for his efforts in promoting the COVID-19 vaccines. 

“Having a leader in the Catholic Church who has been so outspoken and so 

willing to lay out the facts and not be dissuaded by a lot of the myths and even 

conspiracies has been really helpful,” Collins said in a June 14 interview with the 

National Catholic Reporter. 

A member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Collins cited the Vatican’s 

affirmation of the morality of the vaccines, the pope’s calls for wealthy nations to 

share their doses with poorer regions, and the conversion of a papal audience hall 

into a vaccination clinic as deserving of praise. 

Collins’ comments come amid a “National Month of Action” announced by 

President Joe Biden, who set a goal of having 70% of U.S. adults receive at least 

one vaccine shot by July 4. 

Between knights — Supreme Knight Patrick E. Kelly, CEO of the Knights of Columbus, stands between retired 

Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson and Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori during Mass at St. Mary Church 

in New Haven, Connecticut, on June 11. Kelly was formally installed in the top post at the Mass, which was 

celebrated by Archbishop Lori, the Knights’ supreme chaplain. | KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS 


LOCAL 

■ Catholic school 

students get a $50 

million gift 

An anonymous benefactor has donated 

$50 million in tuition aid for new 

students at Catholic schools in the 

Archdiocese of Los Angeles. 

The gift will be allocated over five 

years “for new enrollees to our Catholic 

schools and for students who left 

our schools but now will be able to return,” 

said Douglas Cooper, executive 

director of the Catholic Education 

Foundation. 

Archbishop José H. Gomez also expressed 

thanks for the large gift, saying 

“the kindness and love reflected in 

this gift are beyond words.” 

“This gift will change the lives of 

countless young men and women 

for generations to come, opening up 

opportunities for the future they could 

never have dreamed of,” he said. 

Families interested in archdiocesan 

Catholic schools are encouraged to 

visit LACatholicschools.org or call 

213-637-7070 for more information. 

■ Churches reopen fully, dispensation lifted 

Churches in the 

Archdiocese of 

Los Angeles were 

fully reopened 

on June 19, after 

Archbishop José 

H. Gomez lifted 

the dispensation 

to attend Mass 

on Sundays and 

holy days of 

obligation. The 

dispensation will 

still be granted to 

those who are ill 

or have underlying 

health 

concerns. 

The archdiocese 

also issued 

new liturgy 

Sixty years of gratitude — Msgr. John Barry, longtime pastor of American 

Martyrs Church in Manhattan Beach, celebrated his 60 years of priesthood with 

elderly friends the weekend of June 18, his ordination anniversary. “Thank you for 

celebrating the greatest gift that God could give any human being to be, from my 

point of view, to be a priest,” Msgr. Barry, who survived a COVID-19 hospitalization 

in the spring of 2020, told parishioners at 8 a.m. Mass that day. The 83-year-old was 

ordained at All Hallows College in his native Ireland in 1961. | BOB VISTY/AMERI- 

CAN MARTYRS CHURCH 

Massgoers at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on June 19, the first Sunday 

that churches could open full capacity. | VICTOR ALEMÁN 

guidelines. Masses and other liturgical celebrations and activities can now be 

held indoors, with no capacity limitations, reservations, or social distancing 

requirements. Fully vaccinated faithful do not have to wear masks, although 

parishes will not be asking who is and is not vaccinated. 

For a full list of guidelines, and more information, visit lacatholics.com/emergency. 

■ Ex-St. James principal pleads 

guilty to stealing school money 

Federal prosecutors filed charges June 8 against a now-retired 

woman religious who had served as principal of St. 

James School in Torrance. 

Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, 79, agreed to plead guilty 

to fraud and money laundering for stealing more than 

$835,000 in funds from the school. 

For a period of 10 years ending in September 2018, she 

is believed to have embezzled just over $835,000 from the 

school to pay for personal expenses, including gambling 

trips. 

Sister Kreuper, a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet, is to 

appear in U.S. District Court for arraignment July 1. The 

two charges to which she pleaded guilty carry a maximum 

statutory penalty of 40 years in federal prison. 

In her plea agreement, she admitted to falsifying monthly 

and annual reports submitted to the school administration 

to cover up her fraudulent conduct and “lulled St. James 

School and the administration into believing that the 

school’s finances were being properly accounted for and its 

financial assets properly safeguarded,” the U.S. Attorney’s 

Office said. 

Y 


IN OTHER WORDS... 

V 

Congratulations, American bishops 

After reading Russell Shaw’s article, “Striving for coherence,” I felt 

compelled to congratulate those U.S. bishops who are not afraid to speak 

the truth, and have issued statements strongly arguing that politicians who support 

abortion should not receive Communion. 

For those bishops who believe that anything the bishops say may be viewed as political, 

I say this is why U.S. bishops have lost their moral authority. We Catholics 

look to our bishops to speak and take a stand for the truth, defending our Faith, 

regardless of which political party they may offend, reminding us as Catholics to 

live and act in a manner that is consistent with the precepts of our Faith, guiding 

us from not only advocating grave moral sins like abortion, but respecting life 

from conception through natural death. 

— Gayle Danko, St. Mary Magdalen Church, Camarillo 

President Biden’s common ground with the bishops 

President Biden and his administration are sending COVID-19 vaccines to many 

of the poorest countries in the world. Without a doubt, many lives will be saved as 

a result. President Biden is to be commended for this pro-life action. 

In addition, his initiatives on comprehensive immigration reform are in line with 

the U.S. bishops’ recommendations — path to citizenship, reunification of families, 

just treatment of the undocumented, border security, and aid to struggling 

countries. These are also pro-life issues. 

— Charlie Ara, Palm Desert 

Thanks for a lesser-known theologian 

Thanks to Heather King for making better known the important work of theologian 

John F. Haught in “Evolution and faith, working hand in hand.” When 

evolutionary evidence contradicts doctrines based on a literal interpretation of the 

Book of Genesis, it is imperative that we come to a more refined explanation of 

Church teaching. 

If we fail to do so, we will certainly see more people with a basic understanding 

of science who find the Church irrelevant because we are either unable or 

unwilling to reconcile the good news and the eternal truth we possess with the 

discoveries of science. 

— Chris Streip, Playa Del Rey 

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. 

‘Consecrated to the ministry of charity’ 

Archbishop José H. Gomez celebrates 

Mass with the new permanent deacons 

ordained for the Archdiocese of 

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. 

“Catholic families are 

struggling to live out their 

faith and raise their children 

amid a culture that is 

increasingly hostile to our 

beliefs.” 

~ Patrick Kelly, new Supreme Knight of the Knights 

of Columbus, at his installation ceremony June 11. 

“Without [the Eucharist], 

we starve to death 

spiritually.” 

~ Bishop Robert Barron, urging Catholics to come 

back to Mass as churches reopen fully after the 

pandemic. 

“You learn to live with just 

what is necessary, which 

means exactly what you can 

carry in a backpack.” 

~ Manu Mariño, a Spanish researcher studying 

the benefits of walking the Camino de Santiago 

pilgrimage route in Spain, in an interview with the 

Associated Press. 

“Respect for religious 

freedom should not be a 

partisan or left-right issue.” 

~ Richard Garnett, law school professor at the 

University of Notre Dame and director of the 

university’s Program on Church, State and Society, 

on the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of 

Philadelphia’s Catholic Social Services. 

“He salvaged souls through 

the valley of the shadow.” 

~ Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel of Lafayette, Louisiana, 

on the life of Father Joseph Verbis Lafleur, a World 

War II chaplain who died saving others on a Japanese 

prison ship during World War II. 


IN EXILE 

FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI 

Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father 

Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual 

writer; ronaldrolheiser.com. 

A Eucharistic Prayer 

As a seminarian, I was privileged 

one summer to take a course 

from the renowned liturgist, 

Father Godfrey Diekmann, OSB. This 

was back in those heady days shortly 

after Vatican II when it was very much 

in fashion to frown on prescribed ritual 

prayers and write your own. This was 

particularly true for the Eucharistic 

Prayer, the “Canon” of the Mass, 

which a number of priests began writing 

for themselves. 

Father Diekmann, it turned out, was 

not a great fan of this. Asked about it in 

class one day, he said, “It seems today 

that everyone who has a tiny bit of imagination 

and even less theology feels 

obliged to write a Eucharistic Prayer.” 

Because of the COVID-19 restrictions 

this year, I have often celebrated 

some form of the Eucharist virtually. 

At first, leading those services, my 

thought was, what’s the value of a 

Eucharistic Prayer if there is to be no 

Communion? 

Therefore, I simply jumped from 

the Liturgy of the Word straight to the 

Lord’s Prayer. Eventually though, I 

deemed that something more might be 

offered. Thus (with Father Diekmann’s 

words now 40 years distant) I wrote a 

Eucharistic Prayer for a virtual Mass. 

What is a Eucharistic Prayer? Most 

people would say it’s that part of the 

Eucharist where the priest consecrates 

the bread and wine, but that’s only part 

of it. 

The Eucharistic Prayer is that part of 

the Eucharist where we make “memorial” 

(“Zikkaron” in Hebrew) of the 

major event by which Christ saved us, 

in order to make that event present for 

us to participate in today. 

We come to the Eucharist not just to 

receive the body and blood of Christ, 

but (just as importantly) to participate 

in an event, namely, the saving 

action of Christ as he undergoes his 

passion, death, resurrection, ascension, 

and pentecost. The Eucharist is the 

Christian Passover supper and, like the 

Jewish Passover supper, its purpose is 

to make a past event present to us. 

How does this work? We don’t 

have a metaphysics within which to 

understand this. In sacred ritual, in 

the Eucharist, as in a Passover supper, 

something happens that transcends 

time. This doesn’t contradict the intellect, 

the imagination, or the laws of 

nature; it only takes them beyond their 

normal limits. 

Here’s a Eucharistic Prayer for those 

times when there is no bread and wine 

to be consecrated: 

“Lord, God, you break into our lives 

in extraordinary ways to manifest your 

love and save us. 

“For your chosen people you miraculously 

parted the waters of the Red Sea 

and led them to safety by suspending 

the laws of nature. Then, in the desert, 

you miraculously fed them with manna 

and revealed to them the law within 

your heart. 

“Since only one generation walked 

through the parted waters of the Red 

Sea and only that generation ate your 

manna in the desert, you, Lord God, 

instituted the Passover supper as a 

ritual through which every generation 

until the endtime could walk 

through the parted waters of the Red 

Sea and eat your bread in the desert. 

The Passover supper calls these saving 

events to mind in a way that, in your 

timelessness, makes them real again 

for us today. 

“This is true, too, for the saving 

actions of your Son, Jesus Christ. His 

passion was a new bondage; his trust in 

death a new faith; your raising of him 

in the resurrection and his ascension 

a new Exodus; and his sending of the 

Spirit at Pentecost a new entry into the 

Promised Land. 

“Therefore, Lord God, on the night 

before he died, your son left us the 

Eucharist as a Passover supper through 

which you make these saving events 

present again. 

“We ask you, therefore, to send your 

Spirit upon all of us gathered here to 

make memorial of your Son’s saving 

acts. Grant that through this ritual 

remembrance each of us, and all of us 

as one community, may be united with 

Christ in his passion, death, resurrection, 

ascension, and in his sending of 

the Spirit. You who are beyond time, 

grant us today the grace of being one 

with Christ in his sacrifice, one with 

him in his dying and rising. 

“As we celebrate this memorial, help 

us know that we are one with your 

Son, Our Lord, Jesus, united with him 

as he is undergoing his passion, death, 

resurrection, ascension, and pentecost. 

“Lord, God, help us to know that 

the food of this Eucharist is the new 

manna by which you feed your people 

with heavenly food. 

“Lord, as we make this memorial, 

above all we ask you to help us break 

down everything that separates us from 

one another, all division in our world, 

so that you may be able to feed us all 

at one table, as one family, as one God 

of us all. 

“We pray all of this through, with, 

and in your Son, Christ, Our Lord. 

Amen.” 

In the Eucharist, we don’t just eat the 

bread of life, we also die and rise with 

Christ. 


2021 CATHOLIC MEDIA AWARDS 

Angelus and its sister publications won a total of 29 CMA awards for works published in 2020. 

ANGELUS 

FIRST PLACE 

Best Illustration with Graphic 

Design or Art: “The Next Four Years: 

A Catholic Vision for America,” by 

Jacob Popcak 

Best Regular Column — Arts, Leisure, 

Culture and Food: “The Crux,” 

by Heather King 

Best Essay — Diocesan Magazines: 

“The victims of our progress,” by Elise 

Italiano Ureneck 

Personality Profiles — Laity: “Kobe 

the Catholic,” by Tom Hoffarth and 

Steve Lowery 

Best Sports Reporting: “Kobe the 

Catholic,” by Tom Hoffarth and Steve 

Lowery, “Embodying Kobe,” by Tom 

Hoffarth, “SoCal bishops reflect on 

Kobe Bryant’s Catholic faith during 

Rome visit,” by Pablo Kay 

Best Review: “Flannery O’Connor’s 

moral drama,” by Nick Ripatrazone 

SECOND PLACE 

Best Coverage — Racial Inequities: 

“Conversations and conversion,” by 

Sophia Martinson, “The ultimate 

scapegoat,” by Heather King, “George 

Floyd and us,” by Archbishop José H. 

Gomez, “My K Street epiphany,” by 

Andrew Rivas, “ ‘It should not be this 

way,’ ” by Pablo Kay 

Best Feature Article — Diocesan 

Magazines: “Evangelizing past the 

likes,” by Ann Rodgers 

Best Reporting on Catholic Education: 

“Marymount senior’s free tutoring 

program helps students during pandemic,” 

by Christa Chavez 

Best Photograph — Holy Days/Liturgical 

Seasons: “Signs of new hope: 

Why we need this year’s very different 

Advent,” by David Amador Rivera 

Best Photograph — Immigration/ 

Migration: “Hope comes home: Inside 

the local Catholic effort to reunite a 

family,” by John McCoy 

THIRD PLACE 

Best Electronic Newsletter: “Always 

Forward,” by Angelus Staff 

Best Coverage — 2020 Election: 

“Our mission is bigger than politics,” by 

Archbishop José H. Gomez, “Beyond 

the ballot box,” by Montse Alvarado, 

Dylan Corbett, Helen Alvaré, Deacon 

Harold Burke-Sivers, Louis Brown, 

Michael Vacca, Rosanne Haggerty, and 

Patrick T. Brown, “No lasting city,” by 

Archbishop José H. Gomez, “Resist or 

reach out?” by Elise Italiano Ureneck, 

“The homeless Catholic voter,” by Greg 

Erlandson 


“An American president’s ‘quiet rebellion,’ 

” by John J. Miller 

HONORABLE MENTION 

Editor of the Year (English): Pablo Kay 

Best Coverage — Pandemic: “Conversion 

in a time of coronavirus,” by Elizabeth 

Lev, Thomas D. Williams, and 

Mike Aquilina, “No-touch tenderness,” 

by R.W. Dellinger, “Sacrificing for 

smiles,” by Hayley Smith, “Providence 

in a pandemic,” by Caitlin Yoshiko 

Kandil, “Rescuing 2020,” by Pablo 

Kay, Msgr. James Gehl, Alison Nastasi, 

Patty Breen, Cardinal George Pell, T.J. 

Berden, Father Patrick Mary Briscoe, 

OP, Elise Italiano Ureneck, and Greg 

Erlandson 


“Changes within reach,” by Elise Italiano 

Ureneck 

Best Feature Article — Diocesan 

Magazines: “Picking up the mantle,” 

by Ann Rodgers 

Best Reporting of the Celebration 

of a Sacrament: “In sickness and in 

health,” by Sophia Martinson, “An air 

of hope,” by Christa Chavez, “Pulverizing 

sins,” by Father Bernard Mulcahy, 

OP, PH.D. 

Best Special Issue: “Be not afraid! 

John Paul II at 100,” by Angelus Staff 

Diocesan Directory: “2020-2021 

Catholic Directory of the Archdiocese of 

Los Angeles,” by Angelus Staff 

VIDA NUEVA 

FIRST PLACE 

Best Personality Profile: “Lecciones 

que aprendí de mi padre César 

Chávez,” by Paul F. Chávez 

Best Reporting on Social Justice 

Issues — Option for the Poor and 

Vulnerable: “Qué patrocinar a un 

niño apresado,” by Alicia Morandi 

SECOND PLACE 


Issues — Call to Family, Community 

and Participation: “Familias en duelo 

que perdonan,” by R.W. Dellinger 

Best Multiple Picture Package — 

Feature: “Más de 30 mil participan en 

caminata pro-vida en Los Ángeles,” by 

Victor Alemán 

Best Photo Story — Feature: “Acontecimientos 

del Congreso de 2020,” by 

Victor Alemán 

THIRD PLACE 


Issues — Life and Dignity of the 

Human Person: “Una familia con una 

historia que contar,” by Pilar Marrero 

Best Photograph — Color: “Situaciones,” 

by Victor Alemán 

HONORABLE MENTION 

Spanish Publication of the Year: 

Vida Nueva 



BOOKS ISSUE 

AN INNER LIFE 

WORTH LIVING 

After her conversion to Catholicism, 

Zena Hitz discovered pleasure in 

learning and study for its own sake. 

Now, she wants you to. 

BY MIKE AQUILINA 

It was 2020, and the world suddenly 

lost its bustle. Isolated from the 

workplace and other social contact, 

we were left with ourselves, and none 

of our distractions seemed adequate to 

the task of amusing us. We were ready 

to learn how to think. 

And then came Zena Hitz’s “Lost 

in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures 

of an Intellectual Life” (Princeton 

University Press, $16.95). Reviews in 

major media were effusive in their 

praise. The Wall Street Journal called 

it “disarmingly simple and deeply 

engaging.” NPR praised it as “a very 

thought-provoking book.” To scholar 

Stanley Fish it was “thrilling.” Rapper 

Zena Hitz | PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS 

MC Hammer called it “an amazing 

book.” 

“Lost in Thought” is part memoir 

and part self-help book. Hitz tells 

the story of how she achieved early 

success in academia, only to find the 

joy drained from her work. She had 

entered the field of classics because 

she loved literature, but then learned 

that literature was often less important 

to academic life than cliques, competition, 

and gossip. 

So she dropped out. She left a 

high-prestige position and spent 

several years revaluing the elements 

of her life: work, friendships, reading, 

and thinking. She also converted to 

Catholicism. 

She spoke with Angelus about her 

discoveries, and why the life of the 

mind is for everyone, not just the 

elites. 

There’s a rich tradition of books 

that lead us in the cultivation of an 

intellectual life, from Boethius to 

A.G. Sertillanges. Why do we need 

to be reminded so often? 

The simple answer is that intellectual 

life is always an effort! It’s an 

achievement to live out our nature 

in this way. We can survive at a bare 

animal level without thinking or 

studying. Worse, our inner autopilot 

goes for impressing others or securing 

comforts over the activities that matter 

just for us and our own growth, like 

study, prayer, and simple acts of love. 


That said, I don’t think there are 

enough books about intellectual life! 

Sertillanges is a hundred years old. 

Think of how many books we have to 

help us to pray. Prayer is more important 

than thinking, but there should 

still be almost as many books to help 

believers and nonbelievers to think. 

Are the same impediments and distractions 

common to all the ages? Is 

there anything peculiar to our time? 

Human beings of all times and 

places face the same challenges on 

a basic level: our need to please and 

impress others, our desire for comfort 

rather than greatness, our aversion to 

suffering. But our age is special in that 

we have large corporations that have 

developed sophisticated ways to make 

money off of our worst impulses. 

Technology reaches into even the 

most intimate corners of our lives. We 

need to remember that as we face our 

technological distractions, someone is 

making money off us. We can’t trust 

the masters of technology to act only 

with our good in mind. 

In your book, you describe an intellectual 

or vocational conversion — 

and your religious conversion. Is it 

possible to make a hard distinction 

between the two? Or was it the same 

work in two movements? 

I found my way from a more conventional 

and high-prestige intellectual 

life to a more authentic one, in the 

years following my conversion from a 

secular nonbeliever into a Catholic. 

I think the movements are probably 

distinct in principle, in that some people 

do resolve difficulties about the 

meaning of work without the benefits 

of faith. 

But for me, the recovery of my intellectual 

vocation was a development of 

my original conversion, the fruit of my 

rebirth in faith. It came to me from 

following the teachings of the Church 

about prayer, discernment, and sacrifice, 

and I definitely experienced it as 

grace. 

Your book is rich and yet the language 

is simple. There’s no specialized 

vocabulary to be mastered. It’s 

a work of philosophy in the manner 

of Augustine or Pascal. How did you 

come to write it this way? 

I’m very flattered to be compared 

with Augustine or Pascal! I wanted 

to reach as many people as possible. 

I was convinced that the message of 

the book would matter to all sorts of 

people, not just academics or Catholic 

academics. So I made an effort to 

avoid any jargon. 

It’s also true that the book is the fruit 

of my philosophical, intellectual, and 

spiritual maturity. I lived for a few 

years in the Madonna House community, 

and that time had the effect 

of bringing focus and clarity to my 

thinking, and it helped to detach me 

from the narrower academic audiences 

I used to write for. 

You draw examples of intellectual 

life from surprising places, not just 

professors, authors, and professional 

thinkers, but laborers and prisoners. 

You take pains to do this and even 

draw attention to it. Why is that? 

I’m persuaded that intellectual 

life is for everyone, not just for the 

professionals. Success distorts our 

perception of what intellectual life is. 

It isn’t leading a fancy lifestyle with 

wine-and-cheese parties, and it isn’t 

the power and prestige of publishing 

books or having one’s name in print. 

Because those things belong to the 

professional forms of intellectual life, 

professionals just don’t display the 

meaning of the intellectual life as 

well. 

Not that none of us professionals are 

authentic, but it is harder to see that 

we are. Whereas a political prisoner 

under a totalitarian regime might pursue 

the intellectual life for no reason 

other than his or her own dignity, to 

develop his or her humanity. They 

get no status, no encouragement; no 

one may even know what they are 

doing. Likewise, there are all kinds 

of ordinary people whose intellectual 

pursuits are only known to their 

friends or family. We can all aspire to 

an intellectual life of this kind. 

The men and women who fight for 

the time and the space to think and 

to read, whether they be working 

people, or caregivers, or religious, are 

my heroes. They know why thinking 

matters, and professionals like me are 

always in danger of losing touch and 

getting distracted. 


How does the intellectual life of 

Catholics today compare with different 

moments in the past? Was there 

a golden age for it? 

I think there was a kind of golden 

age that coexisted with a golden age 

for secular intellectual life, in the 

middle of the 20th century. People 

of all walks of life were learning and 

studying and struggling with great 

books or fundamental questions. 

Learning and study for its own sake 

was mainstream, a part of our broader 

culture. 

Writers like Jacques Maritain or Yves 

Simon are the product of that time. 

We’ve lost that, and with it much or 

most of the institutional support for 

that kind of study for most people. 

However, I have to say that I’m very 

optimistic. There are many inspiring 

young Catholic writers right now, and 

I think we will see wonderful developments 

in the coming decades. 

What would be distinctive or 

different about the intellectual life 

of a Catholic? Are there any helps or 

advantages built into Catholic faith 

and tradition? 

For me the core of the Catholic faith 

in this regard is the idea that grace 

builds on nature. There is a natural 

desire to know and to understand that 

we share with all other human beings. 

It is deeply related to our inbuilt destiny 

to know and to love. That means 

that we can find God through all sorts 

of inquiry: watching birds, looking at 

plants, mathematics, as well as philosophy 

or literature. 

It also means that our intellectual 

life can be a bond with other human 

beings, nonbelievers or believers in 

other faith traditions. We ought to 

seek out these bonds with our fellow 

human beings. That said, there are 

inbuilt problems with intellectual life 

for human beings: It degenerates into 

the pursuit of status and power. 

There Catholics have the advantage 

of knowing the paths of grace through 

prayer and the 

Denise Foster reads from 

the Little Rock Scripture 

series as Alicia Sandoval 

and Tom Garcia follow 

along during a Bible study 

at Holy Spirit Church in 

Fremont on Sept. 8, 2008. 

| GREG TARCZYNSKI/ 

CNS FILE PHOTO 

sacraments. 

Only grace can 

free us from 

the bondage 

to our worst 

impulses and 

bring us into the 

freedom and 

happiness of 

becoming our 

best selves. 

Mike Aquilina is a contributing 

editor to Angelus and author of many 

books, most recently “Friendship and 

the Fathers: How the Early Church 

Evangelized” (Emmaus Road Publishing, 

$22.95). 



BOOKS ISSUE 

A MENU FOR THE MIND 

The pandemic has given Angelus contributors extra 

reading time. Here are their picks from the last year. 

BY ANGELUS STAFF 

Reading has been on the rise since the COVID-19 outbreak, with studies showing that sustained 

reading surged in America during the most intense periods of the lockdown. With 

more time on their hands, some adults dove into books they had been hoping to get to, 

while others revisited favorite titles. Families read aloud together, finding joy in a former pastime. 

Ahead of the start of summer, Angelus contributors explored what historians, novelists, poets, 

and memoirists were writing and publishing in the past year, which they recommend below. 

Our contributors chose books that speak to the perennial themes about what it means to be a 

human being: why we’re here, where we’re going, and why it matters. Some of these authors reach 

back into history, examining how forefathers and ancient thinkers answered those questions. 

Others tackled the experience of loneliness and lockdown as it unfolded. And still others look 

more directly at Jesus Christ, who alone “is capable of giving the full and definitive answer,” as 

St. Pope John Paul II wrote. 

We hope these titles help you keep up the habit of reading or begin anew. 

MIKE AQUILINA 

Jane Greer’s “Love 

Like a Conflagration” 

(Lambing, $15.95) 

This book may be 

the best collection of 

poems I’ve ever read. 

Each of its 60 poems is 

meticulously crafted, 

cast in traditional form. 

Their subjects range 

from the might of 

the Archangel Michael 

to the glorious 

burn of bourbon as 

it goes down. Greer’s 

hallmarks are clarity 

and depth. She traces 

human actions to their 

metaphysical roots. 

She sketches the ulti- 

mate consequences of 

our casual choices. 

The book’s back cover 

bears deserved praise 

from poets, critics, and 

theologians. If you love 

poetry, this book will 

be the best book you 

read this year. If you 

don’t, this book will 

show you what you’ve 

been missing. 

LeighAnna Schesser’s 

“Struck Dumb with 

Singing” (Lambing, 

$15.95) 

This is Schesser’s first 

book-length collection 

of poems, and it’s 


extraordinary. Her lines display a deep knowledge of nature 

and enchanting musical quality: “What is a bell but the burden 

of echo? / Announce! And tell, and tell, and tell. // The 

keeper, the farmer, or child who knows / carries the news to 

the bees: toil and knell. …” 

With Catholic sensibilities she explores mercy, prophecy, 

incarnation, revelation. Especially strong are Schesser’s 

poems about marriage and motherhood. 

A.J. Benjamin’s 

“When The Son Frees 

You” (TAN, $27.95) 

Amid the rage of public 

discussions about 

same-sex attraction and 

conversion therapy, 

the media often focus 

on horror stories and 

tragedy. In this memoir 

is the story of what 

happens when a troubled 

adolescent gets 

sound spiritual advice 

and follows through 

on it. The subtitle 

summarizes the plot: 

“A Catholic Man’s 

Journey Of Healing 

From Same-Sex Attraction.” 

Benjamin charts the course of his healing through high 

school and college and into his decades of professional and 

(happy) family life. He is married and the father of three. 

Benjamin doesn’t flinch from the difficulties; nor does he 

bow to secular pieties. He speaks a powerful, countercultural 

message most needed today. 

Angela Alaimo 

O’Donnell’s “Love in 

the Time of Coronavirus” 

(Paraclete, $19) 

If you’ve wondered 

what good can come 

from the pandemic, 

read this book. She has 

taken the rough, raw 

material of our difficult 

year and fashioned it 

into poems. 

A New Yorker, 

O’Donnell experienced 

the plague in 

one of its epicenters, 

and early on she 

contracted it herself. 

Her lines capture the 

moment in memorable 

images: the loneliness in empty streets, churches, and 

classrooms — and in meals taken alone; the horror in bodies 

piled for mass burial on Hart Island. 

O’Donnell is a master of the sonnet form in its many 

varieties, but her voice is persistently informal, colloquial, 

and street-wise. For its loving detail, this book is a perfect 

remembrance of the year that was 2020. 

ROBERT INCHAUSTI 

George Sauders’ “A 

Swim in a Pond in the 

Rain: In which Four 

Russians Give a Master 

Class on Writing, 

Reading, and Life” 

(Random House, 

$14.99) 

This book is an 

anthology of Russian 

short stories selected 

with interpretive essays 

by National Book 

Award winner George 

Sauders. 

“We’re going,” 

Sauders tells us, “to 

enter seven fastidiously 

constructed scale 

models of the world, 

made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t 

fully endorse, but that writers accept implicitly as the aim of 

art — namely, to ask the big questions, questions like: “How 

are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put 

here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, 

anyway, and how might we recognize it?” 

Rest assured Tolstoy, Turgenev, Gogol, Chekhov, and Saunders 

do not disappoint. More than a master class on the short 

story, this is a master class on reading, feeling, understanding, 

empathizing, and drawing wisdom from experience. 

CHRISTOPHER KACZOR 

Luke Bergis’ “Wanting: 

The Power of 

Mimetic Desire 

in Everyday Life” 

(St. Martin’s Press, 

$20.99) 

At Stanford University, 

the late great 

Catholic professor 

René Girard came to 

the insight that whatever 

we want is characteristically 

shaped 

by whatever we think 

other people want. 

Translating the 

insights of Girard into 

everyday language, 

Bergis’ book helps us 

take control of our 


lives by helping us 

to more consciously 

shape our desires. 

Matthew Dicks’ 

“Storyworthy: 

Engage, Teach, Persuade, 

and Change 

Your Life through 

the Power of Storytelling” 

(New World 

Library, $15.63) 

Dicks reveals the secrets 

to his success in 

storytelling competitions, 

teaches us how 

to find the great stories 

in our everyday 

lives, and regales us 

with amazing (and 

true) stories from his 

own life. 

Gregg A. Ten 

Elshof’s “For 

Shame: Rediscovering 

the Virtues of a 

Maligned Emotion” 

(HarperCollins 

Christian Publishing, 

$18.99) 

In a culture that 

is suspicious of 

shame but accepting 

of shaming, Ten 

Elshof’s book makes 

a powerful case that 

we’ve gotten things 

exactly backward. 

This work places 

shame (and shamelessness) 

in the 

context of rival views 

of human flourishing 

and the history of philosophy, East and West. 

This book also takes empirical research in psychology seriously 

but not uncritically. His reinterpretation of the story of 

the prodigal son as a rescuing from shame is deeply illuminative. 

Clearly written, free of technical jargon, and biblically 

informed, Ten Elshof’s absolutely terrific exploration of 

shame deserves wide readership. 

EVAN HOLGUIN 

A. Ciucci, M. Fossati, G. Perego, and P. Sartor: “The Four 

Gospels for Young Catholics” (Pauline Books and Media, 

$29.95) 

This collection of the Gospels, recommended for ages 9-11, 

is an indispensable tool for raising a generation that knows 

how to encounter 

Christ. Rather than 

paraphrasing the 

Gospels — or leaving 

out the more 

difficult or complicated 

passages 

— this book offers 

the complete NRSV 

Catholic Edition 

text accompanied 

by whimsical illustrations 

reminiscent 

of Roald Dahl and 

age-appropriate 

commentary. 

The result is a prayerful children’s Bible that neither 

trivializes the faith nor makes it too daunting for young 

Catholics to approach. “The Four Gospels for Young 

Catholics” has been my go-to gift for first communicants 

and is invaluable for catechists of younger children. 

ALISON NASTASI 

Marcellino D’Ambrosio’s 

“Jesus: The 

Way, the Truth, and 

the Life” (Ascension 

Press, $15.99) 

I’ve listened with 

rapt attention to stories 

told by friends 

about their Holy 

Land pilgrimages. 

My inner-history 

nerd is fascinated 

by the events and 

culture surrounding 

Jesus’ life and 

ministry. So I picked 

up D’Ambrosio’s 

“Jesus: The Way, 

the Truth, and the Life,” hoping to bring the Gospels into 

sharper focus. 

The New York Times best-selling author and theologian, 

known on Catholic TV and radio as “Dr. Italy,” offers 

historical and social context about the earthly timeline 

and divinity of Jesus. D’Ambrosio sets the scene with warm 

familiarity through Scripture passages, geographical details, 

and rich historical notes that answer the “Why?” as you 

journey through Jesus’ time. 

The book is a great companion for a Bible study or an entry 

point for further exploration; gift it to (receptive) secular 

friends, bookish teens, or new converts. 

A beautifully produced 10-week video study program that 

accompanies the book, featuring D’Ambrosio with authors 

Jeff Cavins and Edward Sri, brings readers even closer 

to the places where Jesus walked and brought new life to 

those who followed him. 


SOPHIA MARTINSON 

Stephen Schmalhofer’s 

“Delightful 

People” (Cluny, 

$17.95) 

This little book 

introduces the 

reader to a series of 

faces whose lives and 

works intertwined 

to produce some 

of America’s finest 

works of literary 

and visual art. From 

Willa Cather to 

Henry James to John 

LaFarge, readers will 

learn of the friendships, 

challenges, 

and faith experiences 

that inspired these 

professionals. 

Who would have 

imagined that a group of literary friends would have found 

inspiration and solace in Marian art in Rome? And who 

knew that a boy raised by Father Michael McGivney, 

founder of the Knights of Columbus, would become a priest 

and impact the family of an influential Italian businessman? 

The perfect book to read on a summer evening, “Delightful 

People” blends history, culture, and faith seamlessly and will 

stir both thought and conversation. 

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ 

Inez Angeli Murzaku’s 

“Mother 

Teresa: Saint of the 

Peripheries” (Paulist 

Press, $29.95) 

Mother Teresa can 

be used and abused, 

misunderstood and 

miscommunicated, 

as has happened 

recently in The New 

York Times, among 

other places. 

Murzaku, a professor 

of Church history 

and director of the 

Catholic Studies 

Program at Seton 

Hall University, sets 

the record straight, 

focusing on the truth 

of the history, the holy collaborations, and the depths of her 

prayer — at least, to the extent we can know. “Mother Teresa: 

Saint of the Peripheries” can help us be more like her, 

letting God stretch our hearts for him in love of others. 

Dana Perino’s 

“Everything Will 

Be Okay: Life 

Lessons for Young 

Women (from a 

Former Young 

Woman)” (Twelve, 

$17.99) 

Former presidential 

press secretary 

Perino is some of 

the best of America. 

She prioritizes 

family, faith, and 

mentoring. She 

is all about giving 

back and looking 

out for others. 

Her book is reflective 

of this and, like 

her “And the Good 

News Is…: Lessons 

and Advice from the Bright Side,” are encouragements to 

make it a point to be grateful, and never letting anyone get 

lost in the shuffle. 

MSGR. RICHARD ANTALL 

Rosanna Warren’s 

“Max Jacob: A Life 

in Art and Letters” 

(Norton, $21.60) 

Warren’s book got 

many good reviews 

in serious publications 

and is the 

work of a lifetime 

of research. Are 

700 pages a lot to 

read about a minor 

French poet? There 

was a lot to him. 

Jacob was a painter 

and a figure in the 

art world of Pablo 

Picasso, his roommate 

and godfather, 

as well as Amedeo 

Modigliani. At the 

same time, he was 

also a poet and knew Guillaume Apollinaire, the surrealist 

doyen of French letters at the beginning of the 20th 

century. 

He was a convert and part of the French Catholic mini-Renaissance 

that included Jacques and Raissa Maritain. 

His whole life he struggled with his same-sex attraction. 

And he was a victim of the Holocaust because of his Jewish 

descent, dying of sickness before he could be put on a train 

to Auschwitz. 


THE AUTISM 

ADVANTAGE 


BOOKS ISSUE 

A Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, Jory Fleming 

says his autism has brought him closer to 

God. What can we learn from him? 

BY ELISE ITALIANO URENECK 

Jory Fleming | RYAN DAWKINS 

It is entirely possible that people 

who do not personally know 

someone with autism spectrum 

disorder might form their assumptions 

about it from popular television and 

film characters, like Dustin Hoffman’s 

Raymond Babbit in “Rain Main,” 

Freddie Highmore’s Dr. Shaun Murphy 

of “The Good Doctor,” or Keil 

Gilchrist’s Sam Gardner in the Netflix 

series “Atypical.” 

But for Jory Fleming, a real-life 

20-something with autism, these 

portrayals risk doing a disservice, 

since they either portray persons with 

autism exclusively as savants or as persons 

struggling with socially unacceptable 

behaviors and tics. 

It’s the reason Fleming doesn’t like 

being pigeonholed by the fact that 

he is the first person with autism to 

attend Oxford University on a Rhodes 

Scholarship. 

“Autism is on a spectrum for a reason,” 

he writes in his book, “How to 

Be Human: an Autistic Man’s Guide 

to Life” (Simon and Schuster, $26). 

What Fleming and co-author Lyric 

Winik serve up in “How to Be Human” 

is an honest, transparent, and 

hopeful conversation about what it’s 

like for one person with autism to exist 

in a neurotypical world. While the 

book explores the latest research into 

how autistic brains work, the writers 

acknowledge that much about autism, 

including why it arises, remains 

unknown. 

Winik and Fleming provide the reader 

with a window into Fleming’s daily 

— sometimes hourly — struggles in 

processing experiences and communicating 

with others, as well as the will 

he has to flourish in a world that was 

not set up for him. “There are no safe 

spaces for me,” he poignantly shares. 

It is a privileged look into the mind 

of a man who lives with a disorder 

that remains a mystery to so many. 

But it is equally a portrait of the gifts 

that persons with autism bring to their 


families, communities, and the world. 

Winik and Fleming begin their 

conversation examining Fleming’s 

childhood, one fraught with difficulty. 

Though Fleming does not have many 

memories of his childhood — something 

he attributes to autism — he 

does know one thing: His mother 

played an essential role in creating the 

necessary stability for him to flourish, 

and creating an at-home educational 

offering helped him move from 

being nonverbal to getting his Rhodes 

Scholarship. 

“Mom was the centerpiece of that 

environment,” he shares. 

In addition to the challenges of 

autism, including difficulty using 

language, following sequential commands, 

and sensory disintegration, 

Fleming had to battle a severe kidney 

infection and meningitis, on top of 

maneuvering the physical world with 

cerebral palsy. 

Winik asks Fleming to describe how 

his brain interprets what it sees, hears, 

and understands. For Fleming, using 

his brain depletes finite stores of energy, 

and he’s painfully aware of when 

his tank is low. 

Fleming depends heavily on visual 

memories and associations rather 

than language; he is more readily able 

to find the right words to articulate 

a point when he’s had a previous 

experience of something or someone. 

Fleming says that unlike neurotypical 

people, he’s never had an interior 

monologue or the ability to talk to 

himself, which he doesn’t really mind, 

nor is he bothered by his struggles to 

understand idioms or sarcasm. 

While babies are able to babble before 

learning language, Fleming says 

that he has to gain control of his mind 

and its associations before he chooses 

words that are accurate or appropriate 

to use. The latest research suggests 

not that there is a glaring deficit in 

any one sphere of an autistic person’s 

brain, but rather difficulty making 

connections between them. 

It would explain why Fleming is 

always painfully particular about 

picking the right words so as not 

to offend conversation partners or 

friends, whose facial expressions and 

emotional responses he has difficulty 

interpreting. 

In the book, Fleming also aims 

to dispel a myth: that persons with 

autism have no emotional life. While 

he can’t convey his emotions when 

speaking publicly, they are there. 

The difference for Fleming is that he 

doesn’t register having an emotion until 

it reaches a certain intensity. This 

means that he’s often misunderstood, 

which naturally saddens him. 

But he chooses to focus instead on 

the advantages this trait provides him: 

He’s less defensive and more open 

to constructive criticism; he doesn’t 

give more weight to what celebrities 

or pundits have to say about anything; 

and he’s able to be more objective in 

relationships and decision-making. 

In this, Fleming leads the reader to 

self-examination: Where one notices 

deficits — in nature, virtue, or elsewhere 

— there are also opportunities 

for grace. 

While he struggles to understand 

concepts like culture, Fleming believes 

his autism helps free him from 

some of our current societal trappings. 

He does not feel beholden to ideology, 

and is sharply critical of the way 

it clouds people’s judgment about reality. 

In a world marked by collective 

anger, Fleming says that he’s chosen 

to cultivate a personality marked by 

radical optimism. 

“I’m really driven by stuff that I want 

to see get better,” he writes. “I recognize 

that I only have about 40 or 50 

years to make a difference. The clock’s 

ticking.” 

Winik asks him about living in a 

world that is trying to eradicate what 

is perceived as weakness or flaws with 

the help of everything from gene editing 

to Instagram filters. This world, 

she suggests, might want to eradicate 

autism from the population. 

Fleming draws his conclusions from 

his work in marine biodiversity, which 

he says strengthens the ecosystem instead 

of weakening it. “I get confused 

when researchers try to find cures to 

autism,” he says. “I’m really appreciative 

for the way that I think.” 

While Fleming doesn’t make it a 

point to lead with autism when he 

is introducing himself to others (his 

LinkedIn and Twitter bios describe 

him as an “enigmatic and eccentric 

thinker”), he likewise doesn’t lead 

with the importance of his Christian 

faith. He’d prefer to leave that for 

after someone has gotten to know him 

rather than judge him for it upfront, 

especially because he says that his 

faith is driven by logic, not emotion. 

Fleming beautifully describes the 

peace he felt while attending Evensong 

services at Oxford University, and 

shares that while he prays for help in 

developing and sustaining interpersonal 

relationships, his relationship 

with his Creator is the easiest one 

for him, since he believes that God 

intimately knows and loves his own 

handiwork. 

In their book, Fleming and Winik 

invite the reader into an intimate 

conversation that unlocks the mystery 

of one autistic man’s brain. But their 

greatest gift is providing a window into 

his heart, one that is beating with love 

for a world that was not designed for 

him, but one he’s grateful to inhabit. 

To an increasingly hardened world, 

this book offers a fresh way of looking 

at things and one another, one 

that refuses to reduce people to a 

singular trait, one that is open to the 

beauty, complexity, and mystery of 

each person. Maybe that viewpoint is 

considered atypical, but it’s equally an 

essential way of understanding what it 

means to be a human being. 

Elise Italiano Ureneck is a contributor 

to Angelus and columnist for Catholic 

News Service writing from Boston. 


LA’s Petrine privilege 

A shared concern for the environment has made Pope 

Francis a Manhattan Beach carmaker’s newest client. 

BY TOM HOFFARTH 

It’s a simple sketch of a basic all-electric 

car, set off by designer Henrik 

Fisker’s signature at the bottom. 

What will make it a treasured 

keepsake is the fact there was another 

simple autograph added to the piece of 

paper, at the top. That came from Pope 

Francis. 

The signature is nothing less than a 

papal stamp of approval on the first 

exhaust-free and emissions-free vehicle 

to be part of the Vatican transportation 

fleet. It also represents the genesis story 

of how a globally renowned automobile 

visionary based in Manhattan 

Beach came to seek divine assistance 

in creating a one-of-a-kind ride for the 

leader of the Catholic Church. 

Last May 20, a private audience in 

Rome with Pope Francis was arranged 

for Fisker, the chairman, CEO, and 

founder of Fisker Inc., and his wife, 

Geeta Gupta-Fisker, the company’s 

chief financial officer and chief operating 

officer. 

Being familiar with the pope’s concerns 

about the impact of the climate 

on future generations, especially those 

expressed in his 2015 encyclical “Laudato 

si’,” Fisker explained to Angelus 

why he felt compelled to take action. 

“Pope Francis often speaks of his 

concern for the environment, so an 

electric vehicle with no emissions and 

no exhaust output is an ideal choice 

for the next papal transport vehicle,” 

Fisker said. 

“Pope Francis expected me to show 

him some renderings of the vehicle 

and seemed pleased with what we 

showed him.” 

The meeting 

Henrik Fisker shows 

car renderings to Pope 

Francis during a private 

audience with the pope 

in Rome last May 20. 

| HENRIK FISKER 

came about 

at least in part 

thanks to a 

mutual friend 

of Fisker’s and 

the pope’s, who 

suggested it. 

Domingo 

Zapata, a Spanish 

neo-expressionist artist and fashion 

designer, was appointed by Pope 

Francis to be his ambassador for his 

arts education charity, the Pontifical 

Scholas Occurrentes Foundation. The 

two first connected in 2018 to assist in 

Pope Francis’ idea to create a piece of 

art in celebration of immigrants. 

Zapata, who works from a studio in 

Hollywood as well as in New York and 

Miami, recently posted some Fisker car 

designs on his Instagram account and 

wrote, “Great to be joining the Fisker 

team. Together we will bring more 

beauty and purpose into the world.” 

Fisker showed Pope Francis more 

photos of his planned four-wheel 

drive EV SUV Ocean model, a 

$37,000-based-priced vehicle expected 

to be revealed at the Los Angeles Auto 

Show this November. The modified 

version to the pope’s specifications is 

expected to be finished and donated to 

the pope by late 2022. 

More than just an all-electric car, 

Fisker’s plans include an interior made 

up of a variety of sustainable materials, 

including carpets made from recycled 

plastic bottles recovered from the 

ocean — hence the vehicle’s name. 

“The initial meeting was conducted 


through a translator, but he did appear 

intrigued by the all-electric propulsion 

and the electrified operation of the 

glass cupola,” said Fisker, a 57-year-old 

Danish native, describing the term 

used for the extended bubble that will 

emerge from the 

car’s roof for the 

pope to stand in 

and be seen while 

driving through 

crowds. 

It is not the first 

time Fisker’s 

designs have 

appeared on the 

A rendering of the 

first exhaust-free and 

emissions-free vehicle 

that will be part of the 

Vatican transportation 

fleet. | FISKER INC. 

world stage. He started his career at 

BMW in Munich and put himself into 

the cultural map by designing a Z8 

roadster that Pierce Brosnan, as James 

Bond, drove in the 1999 film “The 

World is Not Enough.” 

“His feelings for James Bond were 

unfortunately not revealed” at the audience 

in Rome, Fisker was quick to add. 

Several eco-friendly vehicles for the 

pope’s use have recently been produced 

by Toyota (a hydrogen fuel-cell 

Mirai), Renault (an electric van) and 

Mercedes-Benz (a hybrid). Pope Francis 

has been said to be most fond of 

modest vehicles such as a Ford Focus 

or smaller economy cars produced by 

Fiat or Jeep. 

Through the years, custom-built 

vehicles often given to popes for their 

public appearances have been more 

commonly called “popemobiles.” 

Mercedes-Benz, which has been 

providing vehicles to the popes since 

1930, released a statement when it 

gave St. Pope John Paul II an M-Class 

Mercedes-Benz in 2002, asking the 

media to stop using the term “papa-mobile” 

because the pontiff said it was 

“not commensurate with the dignity 

and purpose of these automobiles.” 

Fisker says he has undertaken the 

project well-aware of the teachings of 

“Laudato si’,” in which the pope urged 

“swift and unified global action” to 

confront environmental degradation 

and man-made climate change. Pope 

Francis argued that the environmental 

crisis can ultimately only be solved if 

our immense technological developments 

are accompanied by a “development 

in human responsibility, values, 

and conscience.” 

The car sketch by Henrik 

Fisker that is signed 

by both him and Pope 

Francis. | FISKER INC. 

Asked if he 

might sense 

that employees 

of Fisker Inc., 

whether they 

were Catholic or 

otherwise, might 

take a sense of pride and a connection 

to the pope because of this new 

relationship, Fisker responded: “We 

are proud of any stakeholder willing to 

trust us to build a beautifully considered 

vehicle for them, regardless 

of religion. We are all humbled and 

honored to build a vehicle for Pope 

Francis, especially given his concerns 

for the environment.” 

Tom Hoffarth is an award-winning 

journalist based in Los Angeles. 


From left, Detroit Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron, vice president of 

the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop José H. Gomez 

of Los Angeles, USCCB president, and Msgr. Jeffrey D. Burrill, USC- 

CB general secretary, are pictured on the opening day of the bishops’ 

three-day virtual spring meeting June 16. | CNS/BOB ROLLER 

TEACHERS OR POLICYMAKERS? 

An intense, three-hour-long debate on a Eucharist document revealed 

key differences among bishops on their identity and role. 

BY PABLO KAY 

The U.S. Conference of Catholic 

Bishops (USCCB) began its 

virtual June 16-18 spring Plenary 

Assembly in an unusual fashion 

this year. 

Before the body’s president, Archbishop 

José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, 

or Pope Francis’ representative in the 

U.S., Archbishop Christophe Pierre, 

even had a chance to give their opening 

addresses via Zoom, the bishops 

found themselves voting on whether 

to officially give themselves more time 

to talk. 

They voted not to, but over the next 

three days they did just that anyway: 

On each of the meeting’s three days, 

the bishops went well over their allotted 

meeting time. On the second day, 

Archbishop Gomez ceded the floor 

to more than 40 bishops during an unprecedented 

three-hour discussion. 

The reason for all the talking among 

the bishops was for them to decide 

whether to begin drafting a document 

on the meaning of the Eucharist, 

including the notion of “eucharistic 

coherence” for Catholic politicians 

who publicly support legal abortion 

and other moral evils. 

The idea for the document originated 

from a task force formed by 

Archbishop Gomez last November to 

help the bishops navigate the delicate 

task of dialogue with newly elected 

President Joe Biden, a practicing 

Catholic whose policies on abortion 

rights and other social issues are at 

odds with Church teaching. 

As the debate on whether the bishops’ 

doctrine committee should move 

ahead with drafting the document 

unfolded, a key question emerged: Are 

the bishops teachers or policymakers? 

Although media reports widely portrayed 

that the bishops were debating 

whether to deny Communion to President 

Biden and other pro-abortion 

Catholic politicians, doctrine committee 

chair Bishop Kevin Rhoades 

of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, 

said it was never the bishops’ intention 

to determine a “national policy” on 

politicians and Communion. 

“We’re not talking about a national 

policy, but a teaching document 

here,” Archbishop Alexander Sample 

of Portland, Oregon, agreed in his 

comments during the debate. 

Bishop Rhoades said the bishops are 

deeply concerned with polls that show 

many Catholics do not understand 

the meaning of the Eucharist and that 

the proposed document was meant to 

be educational, not disciplinary. 

As a body, the conference of bishops 

has no authority to set policies on who 

is worthy to receive Communion. In a 

2004 statement, the U.S. bishops said 


that such determinations can only be 

made by individual bishops regarding 

politicians and public officials in their 

local dioceses. 

“Bishops can legitimately make different 

judgments on the most prudent 

course of pastoral action,” according 

to the statement. “Nevertheless, we all 

share an unequivocal commitment to 

protect human life and dignity and to 

preach the Gospel in difficult times.” 

Bishops opposing the drafting of a 

new document cited a May letter from 

Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect of the 

Congregation for the Doctrine of the 

Faith, who warned that any “national 

policy” on Catholic politicians and 

the Eucharist could “become a source 

of discord rather than unity” among 

the U.S. bishops. 

Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, 

New Jersey, said denying Communion 

to politicians would “thrust” the 

bishops “into the very heart of the toxic 

partisan strife which has distorted 

our own political culture and crippled 

meaningful dialogue.” 

Such a move, Cardinal Tobin said, 

“will drive a wedge between the 

Church and American society as a 

whole.” 

Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego 

warned against the “weaponization 

of the Eucharist in partisan battles.” 

Focusing too much on issues like 

abortion and euthanasia would also 

“limit the Church’s witness in other 

areas of moral concern,” such as 

immigration and the environment, he 

said. 

While bishops opposing the document 

stressed its possible political 

consequences, supporters seemed 

more concerned with the bishops’ 

responsibility as moral leaders and 

teachers. 

Bishop Donald DeGrood of Sioux 

Falls, South Dakota, said he had 

encountered Catholics in his diocese 

who were “scandalized” by 

the bishops’ lack of clarity on what 

the Church teaches on “eucharistic 

coherence,” an expression that comes 

from a 2007 Latin American bishops’ 

document drafted by a commission 

headed by then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, 

now Pope Francis. 

That document insisted: “We must 

adhere to ‘eucharistic coherence,’ that 

is, be conscious that they [legislators, 

heads of government, and health 

professionals] cannot receive holy 

communion and at the same time 

act with deeds or words against the 

commandments, particularly when 

abortion, euthanasia, and other grave 

crimes against life and the family are 

encouraged.” 

Bishop Donald Hying of Madison, 

Wisconsin, was one of a few supporters 

of the document who actually 

named President Biden. 

President Biden’s professed Catholicism, 

while advancing policies strongly 

contradicting Catholic teaching 

Bishop Kevin Rhoades, chair of the U.S. 

bishops’ doctrine committee, gave a taped 

presentation explaining the planned document 

on the Eucharist. | YOUTUBE 

on abortion and family life, had left 

faithful “concerned and confused” 

and looking to the bishops for clear 

teaching, Bishop Hying said. 

Following three hours of debate, 

nearly three-quarters (73%) of the 

bishops voted to begin drafting the 

document. 

Although the document was clearly 

intended to be pastoral, educational, 

and exhortative, not political 

or disciplinary, nearly every major 

commercial media outlet chose to 

characterize the bishops as moving to 

censure President Biden and others. 

“Targeting Biden, Catholic Bishops 

Advance Controversial Communion 

Plan,” The New York Times headlined 

its report. 

And in the confusion surrounding 

the document, some politicians chose 

to use the moment to challenge the 

bishops. 

More than 60 pro-abortion Catholic 

Democrats in the House of Representatives 

issued a “statement of principles,” 

warning the bishops against “the 

weaponization of the Eucharist.” 

One pro-abortion member of Congress 

took to social media to say, “Next 

time I go to church, I dare you to 

deny me communion.” 

The bishops are expected to meet by 

region in the coming months to generate 

input for a draft to be discussed 

and voted on at their next meeting, to 

be held in person in Baltimore Nov. 

15-18. 

The process will surely be marked by 

more of the intense, apparently fruitful 

dialogue from last week’s meeting. 

But it will also come with some 

challenges. Among these challenges 

will be trying to avoid direct confrontation 

with President Biden and 

other pro-abortion Catholics, without 

sounding too vague. 

Timing will also be a concern. Is 

there enough calendar space in the 

five months for the bishops to get 

together and come up with things to 

say in the document? Given the pace 

at which the bishops’ conferences 

processes normally move, and the 

unpredictability of the relevant policy 

battles that might break out in Washington, 

D.C., this year, who can say? 

But the biggest challenge may be 

coming to a shared understanding of 

what a bishop is supposed to say and 

do in 2021 America. 

Judging by their remarks this week, 

bishops opposed to a document on 

the Eucharist seem to fear that it will 

hamper the bishops’ conferences’ efforts 

to advocate for social justice and 

those “on the peripheries” of society. 

Those favoring the new document 

seem to fear that if the bishops fail 

to lead and teach strongly, they will 

lose their credibility with the faithful 

as well as their moral authority in 

society. 

In their remarks, both Archbishop 

Gomez and Archbishop Pierre 

identified unity as the bishops’ most 

pressing need in 2021. After their latest 

Zoom meeting, it is clear that the 

bishops will need all the talking time 

they can get in the next five months if 

they want any chance of finding it. 

Pablo Kay is the editor-in-chief of 

Angelus. 


A Church on the run 

Catholics are caught in the middle of an escalating battle between 

Myanmar’s military junta and resistance forces. 

BY ELISE ANN ALLEN 

Villagers who fled after insurgents attacked a Myanmar 

army post sit at a school in the Thai border village of Mae 

Sam Laep, Mae Hong Son province, Thailand, on April 27. 

| ATHIT PERAWONGMETHA/CNS, REUTERS 

ROME — Attacks on churches 

and arrests of clergy in Myanmar 

are becoming increasingly common, 

as the Catholic Church is being 

targeted for its alleged opposition to 

the ruling military junta. 

The persecution of Catholics is one 

consequence of a humanitarian crisis 

caused by an escalation in hostilities 

between Myanmar’s armed military 

forces and resistance groups, as the 

junta seeks to crush opponents of a 

Feb. 1 coup that ousted Aung San Suu 

Kyi and other democratically elected 

officials on charges of falsifying the 

results of the country’s November 2020 

elections and inciting public disorder. 

In parts of the country where fighting 

is more intense, civilians are fleeing 

their villages and seeking refuge in the 

jungle to avoid getting caught in the 

crossfire. 

For Catholics, stories like those of Father 

Michael Aung Ling are becoming 

increasingly common. Arrested June 

16 for suspected support of opposition 

forces in the town of Kanpetlet, the 

priest was reportedly released following 

11 hours of interrogation only after 

signing a document promising not to 

support opposition groups. 

The same day, six priests and one 

layperson were detained for allegedly 

assisting young rebels in the village of 

Mandalay. 

Several churches, where thousands 

have sought refuge amid shelling and 

gunfire, have also been targeted in 

recent weeks. On May 24, the military 

shelled Sacred Heart Church in Kayan 

Thar Yar, near Loikaw, with heavy 

artillery. More than 300 people had 

sought refuge in the church to avoid 

coming under fire. Four people were 

killed and at least eight wounded. Parishes, 

a cathedral, and even a seminary 

where more than 1,300 civilians had 

taken refuge have also been attacked. 

In response, Myanmar’s bishops have 

appealed to the military, asking them 

to allow humanitarian aid to reach 


people displaced by fighting, and to 

stop targeting places of worship. 

“As our country goes through her 

challenging times, this appeal is made 

on humanitarian grounds. We are 

not politicians, we are faith leaders, 

accompanying our people in their 

journey towards human dignity,” Myanmar’s 

bishops said June 11. 

Noting that thousands of people 

have sought refuge in churches amid 

increased fighting, the bishops asked 

the military to “kindly observe the international 

norms of sanctuary in war 

times: churches, pagodas, monasteries, 

mosques, temples, including schools 

and hospitals, are recognized as neutral 

places of refuge during conflict. 

“We appeal that these places are not 

to be attacked and the people who 

seek refuge should be protected,” they 

said. 

However, locals have said this request 

is being ignored, and that despite 

the repeated appeal of the bishops 

and United Nations human rights 

advocates, churches continue to be 

targeted. 

On June 13, military forces reportedly 

broke into a convent in the Archdiocese 

of Mandalay and detained 

several priests for more than 24 hours, 

questioning them about alleged ties to 

rebel groups. 

Most church functions in the Diocese 

of Loikaw, where some of the 

worst fighting in the east of the country 

is centered, have all but ceased since 

gatherings are considered too dangerous. 

Villages are being abandoned, 

and several parishes in the diocese 

are now empty, with the local pastors 

being the only remaining members of 

the community. 

The plight of Christians in the country 

has now caught the attention of the 

U.N. On June 11, U.N. High Commissioner 

for Human Rights Michelle 

Bachelet expressed worry about how 

the fighting has been largely concentrated 

“in areas with significant ethnic 

and religious minority groups. 

“State security forces have continued 

to use heavy weaponry, including 

airstrikes, against armed groups and 

against civilians and civilian objects, 

including Christian churches,” she 

said, estimating that around 108,000 

citizens have fled their homes in 

Kayah State alone in the past month. 

Many are sheltering in forest and 

mountain areas “with little or no food, 

water, sanitation, or medical care. 

These are people in urgent need of 

humanitarian assistance,” she said, 

citing what she said were “credible 

reports” indicating that military forces 

“have used civilians as human shields, 

shelled civilian homes and churches 

… and blocked humanitarian access, 

including by attacking humanitarian 

actors.” 

Not only have hospitals and religious 

churches and institutions been 

targeted, but schools have also been 

fired upon in an effort to stop parents 

from enrolling their children for the 

new school year, Bachelet said, noting 

that thousands of teachers have either 

refused to return to work or been 

suspended, meaning the majority of 

children in Myanmar “will not be able 

to access their right to education.” 

“Rather than seeking dialogue, the 

military is branding its opponents as 

‘terrorists’ and pursuing politically motivated 

charges against the democratic 

leadership,” Bachelet said, adding that 

in just four months, Myanmar “has 

gone from being a fragile democracy 

to a human rights catastrophe.” 

“The military leadership is singularly 

responsible for this crisis, and must be 

held to account,” she said. 

Bachelet is expected to update the 

U.N. Human Rights Council on 

the status of Myanmar July 7. In the 

meantime, the trial for ousted democratic 

leader Aung San Suu Kyi, which 

began June 14, is ongoing. 

Aung San Suu Kyi, who faces a total 

of seven charges including corruption, 

bribery, and breaking coronavirus lockdown 

rules, could face a decades-long 

prison sentence depending on the 

outcome of her trial, which is expected 

to conclude around July 24. 

Elise Ann Allen is a senior correspondent 

for Crux in Rome, covering the 

Vatican and the global Church. 


INTERSECTIONS 

GREG ERLANDSON 

A positive case for being negative 

I 

learned two new phrases recently: 

“sex positive” and “sex negative.” 

Sex positive means you have a 

“healthy” and “open” attitude toward 

sex. All sex. Any sex. With anybody or 

bodies. As long as it is consensual. 

Sex positive has a bit of a history, but 

it was pushed into living rooms everywhere 

by Katie Thurston, this season’s 

“Bachelorette.” According to Variety, 

“Thurston was first introduced to 

viewers on Matt James’ season of ‘The 

Bachelor’ when she stepped out of the 

SHUTTERSTOCK 

limousine with a vibrator in hand,” 

becoming “a buzzy fan-favorite for her 

sex positivity.” 

Sex negative (you are probably way 

ahead of me on this) would describe 

those who think sex is reserved for marriage 

between two people, ideally two 

different genders assigned at birth. 

It is a shrewd stroke of marketing, 

since we all know that being positive 

is way better than being negative, like 

all those fuddy-duddies who support 

traditional marriage. 

This continues a line of attack that 

has been going on for at least the last 

century, claiming that traditionalists in 

general, and the Catholic Church in 

particular, are obsessed with the “pelvic 

issues.” 

Because of this hang-up, we are told, 

we have all sorts of problems resulting 

from this sex-negative attitude, with a 

particular emphasis on guilt and shame. 

Walking on to primetime television 

with vibrator in hand like Lady Liberty 

holding her lamp aloft in New York 

Harbor is a declaration of independence 

and tolerance, and, you know, all 

that good stuff. 

It seems hard to believe that society 

still needs evangelists of sexual tolerance. 

Perhaps in the dark ages of 

the 1950s this was so, but we live in a 

society with no guardrails and very few 

boundaries. Every sort of coupling is 

tolerated these days. 

We have advocates for polyamory and 

sex workers. We are awash in porn, 

which means we are awash in what 

is coyly called “self-pleasuring.” We 

parade our preferences. In short, we 

tolerate everything with the exception 

of those darn sex negatives. 

We must be the happiest, most positive 

people in the history of the planet. 

Except we are most definitely not. 

Depression and anxiety among our 

young people are at sky-high rates. 

They face a world of infinite sexual 

and lifestyle choices, and it seems to be 

paralyzing. 

We are awash in consumer options, 

shoppers perennially strolling the aisles 

of a carnal mega-mart of sexual choice. 

Besides the usual alphabet list, we have 

demisexuals, asexuals, and two-spirit 

persons. (I’ll let you look the definitions 

up at home.) 


Greg Erlandson is the president and 

editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service. 

Against this astounding array of 

choices are pitted the poor, pitiful sex 

negatives who are committed to a stable 

marriage and a stable family. 

The truth is that we live in a world positively 

obsessed about the pelvic issues, 

a world where the Church and all of us 

sex negatives can hardly get a word in 

edgewise. 

Of course, we sex negatives do view 

things a bit differently. We believe sex 

is best understood within the context of 

marriage, in an atmosphere of trust and 

self-giving. The love between husband 

and wife “combines the warmth of 

friendship and erotic passion, and 

endures long after emotions and passion 

subside.” Pope Francis wrote that in 

the remarkable fourth chapter of his 

document “Amoris Laetitia,” or “The 

Joy of Love.” 

In a beautiful passage in the same 

document, he calls erotic love “a gift 

from God that enriches the relationship 

of the spouses. As a passion sublimated 

by a love respectful of the dignity of the 

other, it becomes a ‘pure, unadulterated 

affirmation’ revealing the marvels of 

which the human heart is capable. In 

this way, even momentarily, we can 

feel that ‘life has turned out good and 

happy’ ” (152). 

The truth that the Church defends is 

that which the human heart longs for. 

“The very nature of conjugal love [is] to 

be definitive,” the pope writes. “Marriage 

is rooted in the natural inclinations 

of the human person.” 

Sex is a powerful impulse. We have 

countless examples in our society of its 

abuse, as the #MeToo movement has 

graphically demonstrated. Pope Francis 

calls for a “healthy realism” when it 

comes to a vision of sexuality, recognizing 

how it can be depersonalized and 

exploitative. 

Even in marriage, “sex can become a 

source of suffering and manipulation,” 

he writes. The church is not so foolish 

as to think that marriage is some sort 

of guarantor of bliss. And yet it is in 

marriage where both the pollsters and 

the theologians say we can find a deep 

and profound joy, that combination 

of friendship and passion that is both 

positive and life-giving, and the best 

foundation for children. 

At the end of the day, phrases like “sex 

positive” and “sex negative” are simply 

ideological slogans selling a passé vision 

of human sexuality that feels more and 

more like a dead end rather than a 

brave new world. 


NOW PLAYING THE CONJURING 3 

STILL IN BUSINESS: GOOD AND EVIL 

The latest ‘Conjuring’ installment keeps 

Hollywood’s fascination with spiritual warfare alive. 

BY JOHN J. MILLER 

This scene in “The Conjuring: 

The Devil Made Me Do It,” 

is an homage to a lookalike 

moment in “The Exorcist.” 

| IMDB/WARNER BROS. 

“I 

just can’t remember one quite 

like this,” says the occult detective 

Ed Warren in “The Conjuring 

3: The Devil Made Me Do It.” 

The rest of us can, or we will, if we 

just wait a minute — because shortly 

after Ed speaks these words in the movie’s 

opening segment, a shadowy figure 

steps out of a taxicab. Wearing a hat 

and holding a briefcase, he gazes up at 

a lighted window in the darkness. The 

scene is an homage to a lookalike moment 

in “The Exorcist,” when Father 

Merrin, the priest played by Max von 

Sydow, arrives at the townhouse where 

he will battle a demon who possesses 

a child. 

Many viewers will be on familiar 

ground even if they haven’t seen that 

1973 horror-movie classic. Two previous 

installments of “The Conjuring” 

series, featuring the Catholic para- 

normal investigators Ed and Lorraine 

Warren (played by Patrick Wilson and 

Vera Farmiga), reached theaters in 

2013 and 2016. 

Five spinoffs also have hit the silver 

screen, as part of what fans sometimes 

call “The Conjuring Universe.” In 

worldwide box-office revenue, these 

eight movies so far have raked in 

around $2 billion, and even as their 

quality has varied, they’ve allowed Hollywood 

to show a surprising reverence 

for the idea of spiritual warfare. 

“The Conjuring 3” begins with a 

botched exorcism, as the Warrens seek 

to document the efforts of Father Gordon 

(Steve Coulter), who tries to expel 

a demon from an 8-year-old boy, David 

Glatzel (Julian Hilliard). Under the 

skillful direction of Michael Chaves, 

this initial sequence is the movie’s most 

harrowing moment, even as it relies 

on the usual theatrics of flying objects, 

glowing eyes, and impossible body 

contortions. 

Amid the chaos, members of the Glatzel 

family start to despair. Arne Johnson 

(Ruairi O’Connor), the boyfriend 

of David’s older sister (Sarah Catherine 

Hook), invites the unclean spirit to 

depart from David and to possess him 

instead. This is an amazing sacrifice as 

well as an offer the demon apparently 

can’t refuse, and the rest of the movie 

involves the murder and mayhem that 

follows from this supernatural transfer. 

It’s a tale of curses, witch totems, 

leatherbound books in Latin, black-sabbath 

ceremonies, and a creepy Satanist 

who bears an uncanny resemblance to 

Mrs. Danvers, the villain played by Judith 

Anderson in “Rebecca,” the 1940 

film by Alfred Hitchcock. 

Like its two tentpole predecessors, 


“The Conjuring 3” claims to be “based 

on the true story” — in this instance, 

a 1981 court case in Connecticut in 

which the real-life Warrens worked 

with Arne and his contention that he 

was not guilty of murder by reason of 

deviltry. 

In legal lore, it’s sometimes called 

the “Devil Made Me Do It” case, and 

this nickname provides the subtitle of 

“The Conjuring 3,” which nevertheless 

takes major liberties with actual events. 

This is not a true-crime documentary, 

but a horror flick that aims to provide 

frightful entertainment. 

Nor is it a work of theology, and it 

doesn’t approach its subject with the seriousness 

of “The Exorcist,” which was 

based on the 1971 novel by William 

Peter Blatty, who viewed his religious 

thriller as an expression of Catholic belief. 

The book and the screenplay, for 

which Blatty won an Academy Award, 

have their notorious aspects, including 

depictions of blasphemy. Despite their 

fame, they aren’t for everyone. 

Reasonable people differ on whether 

they do more harm than good. They 

are, however, honest efforts to consider 

the threat of possession, the nature of 

evil, the problem of doubt, the importance 

of hope, and the soul-saving 

mission of the Catholic Church. 

Although “The Conjuring 3” lacks 

the depth of “The Exorcist,” it shares 

an appreciation for faith as an aid to 

the troubled. As they go about their 

adventures, the Warrens and their 

spiritual allies make the sign of the 

cross, sprinkle holy water, and clutch 

rosaries, always with devotion. Moviegoers 

will hear Psalm 23 (“The lord 

is my shepherd”), Psalm 24 (“Who 

shall ascend the hill of the lord?”), and 

Ephesians 6:11 (“Put on the full armor 

of God”), uttered with piety. 

“The Conjuring 3” also understands 

a point that C.S. Lewis made in the 

preface to “The Screwtape Letters,” 

his epistolary novel on the behavior 

of demons: “There are two equal and 

opposite errors into which our race can 

fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve 

in their existence. The other is to 

believe, and to feel an excessive and 

unhealthy interest in them.” 

The Warrens are true believers who 

both confront and cooperate with 

secular disbelievers. “Ed and I have 

proven the existence of the demonic 

hundreds of times,” says Lorraine, 

as she discusses Arne’s predicament 

with a lawyer. “You’ve proven it to the 

Church,” replies the lawyer. “This is a 

court of law. The standards of evidence 

are completely different.” 

Then Ed jumps in: “The court 

accepts the existence of God every 

time a witness swears to tell the truth. 

I think it’s about time they accept the 

existence of the devil.” Later, the Warrens 

talk to a skeptical cop. “I’m only 

interested in leads that are grounded 

in reality,” he says. “Good,” replies Ed. 

“So are we.” 

But do the Warrens — and the entire 

enterprise of “The Conjuring” — 

move too far in the other direction, toward 

credulity and attraction? Do they 

display an excessive and unhealthy 

interest in hell’s legions? 

The movie certainly recognizes fiendish 

trickery: With humor and subtlety, 

it turns “Baby Hold On” and “Call 

Me,” the rock songs by Eddie Money 

and Blondie, into anthems of possession 

and summoning. It also knows the 

seductive power of evil. In a revelatory 

scene, a character describes how the 

study of the occult can become a 

source of human wickedness and then 

confesses, “I created a fascination.” 

While the movie’s tribute to “The 

Exorcist” is a fitting hat-tip to horror-movie 

tradition, the other recyclings 

of “The Conjuring 3” are less 

compelling. They include an obligatory 

levitation, creaky wooden steps that 

descend into spooky basements, and 

the flabbergasting refusal of otherwise 

smart characters in poorly lit rooms to 

reach for light switches. 

At the climax, 

Vera Farmiga and Patrick 

Wilson in “The Conjuring: 

The Devil Made Me Do It.” 

| IMDB/WARNER BROS. 

when life and 

death hang in 

the balance, Lorraine 

pulls out a 

platitude: “She 

thinks our love 

is our weakness, 

but it’s not.” Pause. “It’s our strength.” 

Go ahead and roll your eyes. There 

may not be a bigger cliché in the 

whole movie. But that doesn’t make it 

wrong. 

John J. Miller is director of the Dow 

Journalism Program at Hillsdale College, 

national correspondent for National 

Review, and the author of “Reading 

Around: Journalism on Authors, Artists, 

and Ideas” (Woodbridge Press, $12.99). 


DESIRE LINES 

HEATHER KING 

A place to soften solitude 

The Los Angeles Central Library. | PERUPHOTAR /SHUTTERSTOCK 

For those of us who can’t afford to 

buy all of the books we read, the 

library is as essential as a grocery 

store. We need books to remind us how 

deeply we are connected. We need 

books because we know we are going to 

die. Bewildered, alone, or despairing, 

we still have Anne Frank, Ivan Ilyich, 

Gregor Samsa. 

Susan Orlean, a New York writer and 

author of the best-selling book “The 

Orchid Thief,” had frequented her 

local library as a kid. As an adult, living 

in New York City, she got into the 

habit of buying her own books. 

In 2011, however, her husband 

accepted a job in LA. They moved to 

the Valley and one of her 6-year-old 

son’s first assignments was to interview 

someone who worked for the city. 

Orlean suggested a public library, so 

the two of them went to the Bertram 

Woods branch. 

Entering a library again after all those 

years flooded Orlean with sensory 

memories. Everything was the same, 

she realized: the “creak and groan 

of the book carts,” the soft sound of 

pencils on paper, the “muffled murmuring” 

of the patrons, the raggedy 

community bulletin board. 

“It wasn’t that time stopped in the 

library. It was as if it were captured 

here, collected here, and in all libraries 

— and not only my time, my life, but 

all human time as well. In the library, 

time is dammed up — not just stopped 

but saved. The library is a gathering 

pool of narratives and of the people 

who come to find them. It is where we 

can glimpse immortality; in the library, 

we can live forever.” 

A door opened. “The Library Book” 

(Simon & Schuster, $13.69) is the 

fruit of what happened when Orlean 

stepped through it. 

The book is ostensibly about the fire 

that ravaged the Central Library on 

April 29, 1986. A million books were 

damaged or destroyed. Irreplaceable 

artifacts were reduced to ash. The arsonist 

— if there was an arsonist — has 

never been found, though for years a 

would-be actor and fabulist Harry Peak 


Heather King is an award-winning 

author, speaker, and workshop leader. 

was the suspect. 

But Orlean’s triumph is really to 

champion the institution of the library 

in general, and in specific, our own 

Los Angeles Public Library. 

Her book is meticulously researched, 

amplified by countless interviews, and 

made human by the innumerable visits 

she made to the library itself. 

We learn of our city librarians, from 

John Littlefield in 1873, to Mary Foy 

in 1880, to Charles Lummis’ tumultuous 

reign from 1905 to 1910, to today’s 

John F. Szabo. 

Every page is packed with compelling 

stories and factoids. The notes left in 

returned books, like messages in a 

bottle. One, from 1914, reads: “I have 

searched three cities for you and advertised 

in vain. Knowing that you like 

books, I am writing this appeal in every 

library book I can get hold of in hope 

that it may come to your eyes. Write to 

me at the old address, please.” 

A wildly popular phone-in reference 

service was instituted in the 1930s, 

to which library patrons placed calls 

ranging from “What Romeo looked 

like” to “Number of Jewish families in 

Glendale” to “Whether immortality 

can be perceived in the iris of the eye.” 

The science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury 

(1920-2012) spent almost every 

day for 13 years at the Central Library, 

reading through the stacks and educating 

himself as an alternative to college. 

“The library was my nesting place, my 

birthing place; it was my 

growing place.” 

Bertram Goodhue’s Modernist-Art 

Deco temple, 

the Central Library at 630 

W. 5th St. in downtown 

LA, had opened in 1926. 

Critic Merrill Gage wrote 

in Artland News, “Like all 

creative art, it is disturbing: 

it leaves an impression that 

is satisfying yet mystifying. 

It follows no accepted 

method of architecture but through 

it strains of the Spanish, of the East, 

of the modern European, come and 

go like folk songs in a great symphony 

rising to new and undreamt-of heights 

in an order truly American in spirit.” 

Almost 100 years later, that’s a kind 

of description of the city itself that still 

holds. 

In fact, some of the most poignant 

passages are those describing the emotional 

devastation experienced by the 

library staff after the 1986 fire. People 

couldn’t sleep, eat. They worried that 

the patrons would feel abandoned. 

One woman wore white for several 

months, “hoping that would help her 

feel pure again.” 

Volunteers appeared out of the 

woodwork; donations poured in. 

Approximately 700,000 books had 

been damaged. Restoring the Central 

Library collection would prove to be 

the biggest book-drying project ever 

undertaken. What could be salvaged 

was salvaged. Loss, eventually, was 

accepted. 

After seven years, the last four in a 

cramped Spring Street location, the 

Central Library reopened. Today it 

serves more than 4 million people, the 

largest population of any public library 

in the U.S. 

“A library is a good place to soften solitude,” 

observes Orlean, “a place where 

you feel part of a conversation that has 

gone on for hundreds and hundreds of 

years even when you’re all 

alone.” 

Librarian Russell 

Garrigan had worked for 

the library department 

Teen’Scape for 17 years 

when Orlean asked if he 

enjoyed his job. 

Garrigan replied, 

“Well, my hero is Albert 

Scwheitzer. He said, ‘All 

true living takes place faceto-face.’ 

” 


LETTER AND SPIRIT 

SCOTT HAHN 

Scott Hahn is founder of the 

St. Paul Center for Biblical 

Theology; stpaulcenter.com. 

A force of grace 

First in a series of columns on St. Paul. 

It’s impossible to imagine what the last 2,000 years 

would have been if St. Paul had not lived at the far 

end of them. All the years since have borne the mark 

of Christianity — and so much of what we understand 

about Christianity, and especially about the cross, we have 

learned from the great Apostle to the Gentiles. 

St. Paul was among the first to set pen to paper to 

proclaim the Gospel. He took the heritage of Israel and 

renewed its language for the New Covenant. Paul gave 

the Church the vocabulary it would use to understand the 

life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. 

We have him to thank for so much of what we call the 

Church. It’s not that he was the “founder” of Christianity, 

as some people claim. But he did play a unique role in the 

early proclamation of the Gospel. 

His name from birth was Saul. He was a Pharisee, and 

so he worked to hasten the day of the Messiah’s coming. 

He went so far as to enforce the strictest fidelity to the Law 

of Moses, believing that this would bring about the Day 

of the Lord. It was for this reason that he persecuted the 

Christians (see Philippians 3:5–6). He thought they were 

abandoning the God of their ancestors in order to worship 

a man. 

Then Saul met Jesus. The encounter was dramatic (see 

Acts 22). Saul recognized that Israel’s expectations had 

already been fulfilled and the Messiah had come. 

There was no need for him to abandon the religion of the 

Old Covenant. Rather, he saw the signs and proclaimed 

the Day of the Lord, no longer in anticipation, but now in 

fulfillment. 

This came at no small cost. He had to endure afflictions 

and hardships — beatings, floggings, stoning, imprisonment, 

shipwreck, hunger (see 2 Corinthians 11:23–28). 

He traveled the world to announce a Church that was 

universal, intended for Israel and the nations together. He 

began to use the name Paul. 

Of all the apostles, it was St. Paul 

“Apostle Paul,” by Jan 

Lievens, 1607-1674, Dutch. 

| WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

who most consistently kept the 

Church from receding back to the 

safety of a provincial reservation. It 

was St. Paul who kept the universal, 

Catholic vision. It was St. Paul who 

proclaimed the power of the sacraments 

of the New Covenant. It was 

St. Paul who, together with St. Peter, consecrated Rome 

with his own blood, shed in martyrdom. 

Even today, St. Paul’s letters convey urgency. We catch 

on to his excitement, but we can also be frustrated. He 

rarely takes time to spell things out, and he assumes that 

we already know a lot about the Bible. Even St. Peter confessed 

that he found St. Paul’s letters “hard to understand” 

(2 Peter 3:15). 

When we read St. Paul, we sometimes feel we’re being 

propelled forward by a hurricane or some other force of 

nature. But it’s even stronger than that, because it’s a force 

of grace. 

Look at those maps of his journeys. Then remind yourself 

that the momentum has not diminished. God’s arm has 

not been shortened. When you read the Pauline letters, 

you’re exposing yourself to the same force. Brace yourself. 


■ 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. 

■ FRIDAY, JUNE 25 

St. Anthony High School End of Year Centennial 

Celebration. 620 Olive Ave., Long Beach, 3-6:30 p.m. 

Centennial celebration begins with 3 p.m. Mass and 

includes speeches from Mayor Garcia and Senator 

Gonzalez. St. Anthony President Gina Maguire will be 

honored for 20 years of service, and Archbishop José H. 

Gomez will bless the school’s courtyard and statues. For 

more information, visit www.longbeachsaints.org. 

■ 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. 

Torrance Knights of Columbus Spaghetti Dinner. Nativity 

Church Annex, 1415 Engracia Ave., Torrance, 5-7 p.m. 

Indoor dinner includes spaghetti, meatballs, salad, garlic 

bread, punch, coffee, tea, and dessert. Masks required for 

unvaccinated people. Cost: $8/adults, $7/seniors. Cash, 

check, and credit cards accepted. Proceeds support the 

Knights’ charitable causes. 

■ TUESDAY, JULY 6 

LA Council of Catholic Women Rosary Conference 

Call. 8 p.m. Call 1-424-436-6200, code 410510#. Prayer 

requests open. Rosary takes place every Tuesday and 

Thursday in June and July. For more information, call Carol 

Westlake at 661-263-0435. 

■ FRIDAY, JULY 9 

Retrouvaille: A Lifeline for Married Couples. Weekend 

program runs July 9-11 in Los Angeles. Retrouvaille is an 

effective Catholic Christian ministry that helps married 

couples. The program offers the chance to rediscover 

yourself, your spouse, and the love in your marriage. 

Married couples of any faith are welcome. For more 

information, visit https://www.losangelesretrouvaille.com 

or call 909-900-5465. 

■ SATURDAY, JULY 10 

Little Sisters of the Poor Rummage Sale. 2100 S. Western 

Ave., San Pedro, 7 a.m.-3 p.m. Call 310-548-0625 for more 

information. All proceeds benefit the Little Sisters of the 

Poor. 

St. Vincent de Paul Church Vigil Night. 621 W. Adams 

Blvd., Los Angeles, from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m., July 11. Vigil 

Night will have live music, rosary, prayer, and Holy Hour, 

and concludes with 8 a.m. Mass inside the building, the 

first Mass celebrated inside since the beginning of the 

pandemic. For more information, contact Silvia Macias at 

svdpsmacias@gmail.com. 

■ 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 be open to the public. 

■ 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. 

Vox Vitae California Pro-Life Leadership Summer 

Camp. Santiago Retreat Center, 27912 Baker Canyon Rd., 

Silverado. Day camp for teens ages 14-19 runs July 18-23. 

Vox Vitae campers explore the truth of Catholicism, the 

destruction of abortion and euthanasia, the beauty of 

chastity and holiness, and more. Campers also practice 

defending their faith and pro-life views. Speakers include 

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone and Bishop Joseph 

Strickland, and other leading Catholic pro-life voices. Cost: 

$200/camper, scholarships available. $100/family for 

online camp option. For more information or to register, 

visit voxvitae.com. 

■ MONDAY, JULY 19 

St. Michael’s Abbey Summer Camp. St. Michael’s Abbey 

Summer Camp. A Catholic camp for boys 7-14 in Orange 

County. Experience great summer activities like hiking, 

sports, campfires, etc., and learn more about the faith. 

Camp runs July 19-24, July 26-31, August 2-7, or August 

9-14. Visit stmichaelsabbey.com/summer-camp or email 

SummerCamp@StMichaelsAbbey.com. 

■ SUNDAY, AUGUST 1 

Eight-Day Silent, Directed Retreat: Jesus is Our Hope. 

Mary & Joseph Retreat Center, 5300 Crest Road, Rancho 

Palos Verdes. Retreat runs from Aug. 1, 6 p.m. to Aug. 

8, 1:30 p.m. Led by spiritual directors Sister Pascazia 

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

Ballotti, the retreat is based on the spiritual exercises of St. 

Ignatius. Cost: $820/person, single rooms only. Limited 

to 14 guests; register by July 9. For more information or to 

RSVP, call Jose Salas at 310-377-4867, ext. 250. 

■ TUESDAY, AUGUST 3 

2021 C3 Conference. Hosted by the Catholic 

Communication Collaboration, the 10th annual C3 

Conference will be free and virtual Aug. 3-6. Register at 

https://c3.leadlms.com/register. Contact April Zavala at 

C3Con@la-archdiocese.org with questions. 

■ TUESDAY, AUGUST 10 

Catholic Cemeteries and Mortuaries Memorial Mass. 

11 a.m. Mass will be livestreamed on LA Catholics social 

media channels and will not be open to the public. 

■ SATURDAY, AUGUST 21 

Catholic Bible Institute: New Testament Year Bible 

Study. 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Zoom Bible study from CBI meets Aug. 

21 and 28, Sept. 11, Oct. 9, Nov. 13, Dec. 4, Jan. 15, Feb. 

12, March 12, April 9, May 14, and June 18. Cost: $380/ 

year, course covers three years. Register before Aug. 21 for 

only $300. Participants can earn LMU Extension Semester 

Hours in the Certification Track. New participants can 

join in August of any year, starting with either the Old 

Testament or New Testament. For more information, 

contact cbi@la-archdiocese.org or Alex Moreno at 

JAMoreno@la-archdiocese.org. 

Items for the calendar of events are due four weeks prior to the date of the event. They may be emailed to calendar@angelusnews.com. 

All calendar items must include the name, date, time, address of the event, and a phone number for additional information.

Angelus News | July 2, 2021 | Vol. 6 No. 13

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