Angelus News | September 10, 2021 | Vol. 6 No. 18

ANGELUS
THE BISHOP
WHO LIVED
A former LA
priest’s story of
captivity and
forgiveness
September 10, 2021 Vol. 6 No. 18

B • ANGELUS • September 10, 2021

ANGELUS
September 10, 2021
Vol. 6 • No. 18
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ON THE COVER
PASHA NOSRAT
“Father Moses” Chikwe spent 14 years in California as
a student priest and hospital chaplain before becoming
a bishop in Nigeria in 2019, and made international
headlines when he was kidnapped and later freed by
bandits eight months ago. During a visit to California
this summer, he spoke exclusively to Angelus about
his experience in captivity and what saved him from
despair and possible death in the Nigerian jungle.
THIS PAGE
VICTOR ALEMÁN
Members of various papal orders and service orders
processed into the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
Aug. 28 for the “Many Peoples, One Mother”
votive Mass in honor of Our Lady of the Angels,
patroness of the city of Los Angeles. Presided by
Archbishop José H. Gomez, the liturgy celebrated
the archdiocese’s ethnic diversity and was attended
by various representatives of local cultural groups.
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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
16
18
CONTENTS
LA’s folklorico dancers draw on their Catholic faith
John Allen on the history of papal reservations over Afghanistan
Angelus News
20
A Catholic teacher’s case for a children’s ‘Great Books’ list
@AngelusNews
@AngelusNews
24
What past emergencies warn us about vaccine mandates
angelusnews.com
lacatholics.org
26
Grazie Christie on the looming Roe v. Wade showdown
Sign up for our free, daily e-newsletter
Always Forward - newsletter.angelusnews.com
28
30
Jesuit’s new book explores God’s divine adoption plan
Heather King: The opera that brought the mystery of martyrdom to life
September 10, 2021 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH
Blame yourself first!
Complaining is a poison that
causes anger, resentment, and
sadness, and closes one’s heart
to God, Pope Francis said Aug. 29
during his Sunday Angelus address.
“Let us ask in prayer for the grace
not to waste time polluting the world
with complaints, because this is not
Christian,” the pope told those gathered
in St. Peter’s Square.
“Jesus instead invites us to look at
life and the world starting from our
heart” because, by looking inside,
people will find “almost all that we
despise outside,” he said.
When people sincerely ask God
“to purify our heart, that is when we
will start making the world cleaner”
because the best way to defeat evil is
“by starting to conquer it within yourself,”
the pope said.
The pope reflected on the Sunday
Gospel reading from St. Mark in
which Jesus explains why he does not
follow some of the rituals of purification,
saying God knows when people
honor him “with their lips, but their
hearts are far from me.” Jesus told
the crowd that the things that defile
people do not come from the outside
world, but from within themselves,
from their hearts and “evil thoughts.”
Pope Francis said, “This also pertains
to us. We often think that evil
comes mainly from the outside: from
other people’s conduct, from those
who think badly of us, from society.”
“How often we blame others,
society, the world, for everything that
happens to us! It is always the fault of
‘others,’ ” including those who gov-
ern, misfortune and so on, he said.
But all that time spent blaming
others “is wasting time,” he said.
“We become angry, bitter, and keep
God away from our heart,” he said.
“One cannot be truly religious in
complaining: Complaining poisons,
it leads you to anger, to resentment
and to sadness, that of the heart,
which closes the door to God.”
The first step on the path of holiness,
according to the first Fathers of
the Church, was “to blame yourself,”
the pope said.
“It is wisdom: learning to blame
yourself. Try to do it, it will do you
good. It does me good, when I manage
to do so, but it is good for us,”
he said. He prayed that Mary would
help people purify their hearts by letting
go of “the vice of blaming others
and complaining about everything.”
After the Angelus, the pope greeted
members of the Laudato Si’ Movement.
He thanked them “for your commitment
to our common home, particularly
on the World Day of Prayer for
Creation” Sept. 1 and the Season of
Creation that runs from Sept. 1 to
Oct. 4.
“The cry of the earth and the cry
of the poor are becoming ever more
serious and alarming, and they call
for a decisive and urgent action to
transform this crisis into an opportunity,”
he said.
Reporting courtesy of Catholic News
Service Rome correspondent Carol
Glatz.
Papal Prayer Intention for September: We pray that
we all will make courageous choices for a simple and
environmentally sustainable lifestyle, rejoicing in our young
people who are resolutely committed to this.
2 • ANGELUS • September 10, 2021

NEW WORLD OF FAITH
ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ
‘Now I begin!’
Next week we begin a jubilee
year to mark the 250th anniversary
of Mission San Gabriel
Arcángel, the first church founded in
what is now the Archdiocese of Los
Angeles, on Sep. 8, 1771.
In the Church’s tradition, a jubilee is
far more than an anniversary celebration.
A jubilee gives glory and praise
to God and, in the words of Jesus and
the prophets, a jubilee is “a year of the
Lord’s favor.”
We will begin this holy year in worship
and prayer, offering homage and
thanks for Our Lord’s incarnation and
the gift of redemption that he brings
to us.
I will lead a prayer service at the mission
on the evening of Sept. 8, the nativity
of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The
following evening, we begin 40 hours
of eucharistic adoration at 22 pilgrimage
parishes designated throughout
the archdiocese. Our adoration will
conclude with the solemn opening of
the Holy Door and the jubilee year’s
inaugural Mass, which I will offer on
Sept. 11 at the Cathedral of Our Lady
of the Angels. For details, see our website,
forwardinmission.com.
Every jubilee is a season of mercy and
many graces, as we renew our belief
that all time and history belong to the
Creator, and that in his providence
he has a plan and purpose for every
person and every nation under heaven.
With the founding of San Gabriel
Mission by St. Junípero Serra and the
first peoples of this land, God began
a new chapter in salvation history,
planting the seeds of his kingdom in
Southern California, seeds that have
borne fruit in a beautiful local church
that embraces peoples from every race,
language, and nationality.
This jubilee also reminds us that
America has a Christian “soul,” that
the freedoms and values that our
country upholds are rooted in the
Gospel proclaimed by St. Junípero
and countless missionaries who offered
their lives to bring the good news of
Jesus Christ to this land.
That mission of bringing Jesus Christ
to America continues in your life and
mine. That is the deeper spiritual
meaning of this jubilee — the rediscovery
that to be a Catholic means to be
a missionary.
In the biblical tradition, the jubilee
was marked by specific practices —
canceling debts, freeing slaves, returning
property to its original owners,
letting the land “rest” from farming.
With our jubilee, too, we are also
inviting people to adopt new habits of
devotion: to pray together with family
members and neighbors; to study
the Gospels in the spirit of prayerful
reading or lectio divina; and to perform
acts of charity and works of mercy.
The point of these practices is, again,
to realize that our time belongs to
God. We are not just “here” in this
world. Each one of us was put here
by the living God for a purpose. We
are here to make a difference for Jesus
for his kingdom. We have a duty to
sanctify our time or “redeem the time,”
as the apostles used to say.
As I reflect on this jubilee, I have
been thinking a lot about a Latin
expression, “Nunc coepi!”
It means “Now I begin!” and it is
a concept that we find often in the
writings and lives of the saints, from
Venerable Bruno Lanteri to Servant of
God Dorothy Day.
One of my favorite saints, the holy
priest St. Josemaría Escrivá, said,
“ ‘Nunc coepi!’ — ‘Now I begin!’ This
is the cry of a soul in love which, at
every moment, whether it has been faithful
or lacking in generosity, renews
its desire to serve — to love! — our
God with a wholehearted loyalty.”
That is my hope for this jubilee year!
For me, this jubilee is providential. It
God is calling us in this jubilee to make a new
beginning, to get back to the basics of living and
proclaiming our faith in Jesus Christ.
comes at a time when our Church and
our society are facing so many challenges,
from the pandemic, from changes
and disruptions in our society.
And I feel that God is calling us in
this jubilee to make a new beginning,
to get back to the basics of living and
proclaiming our faith in Jesus Christ.
My prayer is that everyone of us
in the Church — bishops, priests,
deacons, religious and consecrated,
seminarians, and laypeople will use
this jubilee year to say, “Now I begin
again to love Jesus Christ! Now I begin
again to serve him with all my heart, to
speak of him, and to share his love in
everything I do!”
Pray for me and know that I am
praying for you. And as we begin this
jubilee year, let us entrust ourselves
to the Blessed Virgin Mary and let us
ask her to intercede and make this a
season of grace for all of us, that we
may begin again to know the great gift
of our Catholic faith; the beauty of
living as children of God and walking
in his presence.
September 10, 2021 • ANGELUS • 3

WORLD
■ Afghanistan’s remaining
Christians face harsh reality
A Catholic priest, five Missionaries of Charity sisters, and
14 disabled children arrived in Rome Aug. 25, refugees from
Afghanistan who boarded one of the evacuation flights from
Kabul Airport. But for dozens of Afghan Christians and other
religious minorities unable to flee the country, the future
seems bleak.
Only .01% of Afghans are non-Muslim, including around
7,000 Christians and 200 Catholics. The sole Catholic church
in the Sunni-majority country is in the Italian embassy.
“Our analysis, unfortunately, does not leave much room for
hope,” the papal foundation Aid to the Church in Need said
in an Aug. 26 statement. “The Shia (10%), the small Christian
community, and all other religious minorities, already
under threat, will suffer even greater oppression.”
“International recognition of the Taliban will also act as a
magnet for smaller radical Islamic groups,” the statement
added. “The situation for Christians and other religious minority
communities already suffering oppression, will further
deteriorate.”
Pope Benedict XVI boards an Alitalia jet in 2010. | CNS/ALESSIA PIERDOMENICO, REUTERS
■ Pope’s go-to airline folds
Alitalia, the Italian airline favored by popes for 57 years,
will fly its last papal flight this month.
The nearly 75-year-old airline will cease operations this
fall and be reincorporated into Italia Trasporto Aereo (ITA),
which will offer flights as of Oct. 15. The restructuring
comes after years of financial insolvency. Since 1974, the
airline has cost the Italian government nearly 7.4 billion
euros to sustain.
Pope Paul VI was the first to book an Alitalia flight in 1964,
and the airline has provided almost 200 papal flights since
then. Pope Francis will make one final Alitalia flight on his
September trip to Hungary and Slovakia. The Vatican has
not confirmed if the pope plans to travel with ITA, according
to Crux.
■ Sudan:
Extremists
blamed in
killing of
two nuns
A four-day period of
mourning was announced
Aug. 17 in
South Sudan, following
an attack on nine Catholic
sisters traveling from
Sister Mary Daniel Abud. | COURTESY PHOTO
a parish celebration.
Sisters Mary Daniel
Abut and Regina Roba
of the Sisters of the
Sacred Heart were killed
in the attack.
The South Sudanese
government, which is
participating in peace
talks involving Catholic
mediators in Rome,
blamed the attack on
anti-government extremists.
Sister Regina Roba. | COURTESY PHOTO “The responsibility for
death lies squarely on
the holdout groups,” and the government “condemns this
act of terror in the strongest terms possible,” said South
Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit.
Sister Abut had previously served as the order’s superior
general from 2014 to 2018 and was headmistress at a
school in Juba. Sister Roba was a tutor and administrator at
a nursing school in Wau. Both were buried Aug. 20 at the
St. Theresa Cathedral in Juba.
■ Haiti: A gang leader’s Sunday surprise
Catholics in Haiti received a small reprieve from the
hardships they faced following a 7.2 magnitude earthquake
on Aug. 14 that killed more than 2,200 and destroyed
almost 53,000 homes.
Relief efforts had been stunted by gangs, which hijacked
deliveries, blocked roads, and stole supplies. But one of the
country’s major gang leaders marked the return to church
services in the country on Sunday, Aug. 22, by calling for a
truce.
“The G9 Revolutionary Forces and allies ... will participate
in the relief by bringing them help,” said Jimmy “Barbecue”
Cherizier, leader of the G9 Revolutionary Forces
gang, in a Facebook video. “We invite all compatriots to
show solidarity with the victims by trying to share what
little there is with them.”
4 • ANGELUS • September 10, 2021

NATION
Sworn to serve — Kathy Hochul, right, is sworn in as New York’s governor Aug. 24, as her husband of more than
30 years, Bill, holds the Bible during the swearing-in ceremony. A graduate of Catholic University of America’s
law school, the state’s former lieutenant governor thanked her “big Irish Catholic family” at the ceremony. She became
governor after the resignation of Andrew Cuomo last month. | CNS/HANS PENNINK, POOL VIA REUTERS
■ Virginia bishop takes on ‘difficult’ gender questions
A Virginia bishop has published a document to help Catholics respond to the “increasingly
difficult cultural situation” presented by the influence of gender ideology.
The eight-page “Catechesis on the Human Person and Gender Ideology” from
Bishop Michael Burbidge of Richmond, Virginia, calls on faithful to show charity
for those who identify as transgender without compromising their faith.
“Denigration or bullying of any person, including those struggling with gender
dysphoria, is to be rejected as completely incompatible with the Gospel,” states the
catechesis, which was written in consultation with theologians, bioethicists, clinical
counselors, and civil and canonical lawyers.
At the same time, the bishop wrote, Catholic faithful should avoid “simple
solutions” that promise relief through changing one’s name, pronouns, or bodily
appearance.
The document also included a section addressed to parents of children struggling
with their gender identity.
“Trusting God,” Bishop Burbidge wrote, “parents need to be confident that a
child’s ultimate happiness lies in accepting the body as God’s gift and discovering
his or her true identity as a son or daughter of God.”
■ Catholics criticize
immigration ruling
Catholic leaders have criticized
the Aug. 24 Supreme Court ruling
that President Joe Biden could not
rescind the Trump administration’s
“Remain in Mexico” policy.
The court’s 6-3 ruling found
that the Biden administration
“had failed to show a likelihood
of success on the claim that the
memorandum rescinding the Migrant
Protection Protocols was not
arbitrary and capricious.”
Biden suspended the program on
his first day in office, but was sued
by the states of Texas and Missouri
in a lawsuit for the reinstatement of
the policy.
“With this pronouncement,
the situation will be worse,” San
Antonio Archbishop Gustavo
García-Siller told Crux, echoing
a statement from the U.S. Conference
of Catholic Bishops. “This is
not for the better of the people.”
Dylan Corbett, executive director
of Hope Border Institute in El
Paso, called on the White House
to “remedy” the situation. “The
president needs to marshal a strong
convincing argument about asylum
at the border, and he needs to
make it happen,” he told Crux.
The Department of Homeland
Security has signaled it will continue
attempts to end the policy.
Cardinal Raymond Burke in 2019. | CNS
■ Cardinal Burke out of ICU after COVID
Cardinal Raymond Burke, outspoken proponent of the Latin Mass and opponent
of vaccine mandates, left the ICU after a week of treatment for complications
from COVID-19.
The 73-year-old cardinal was admitted to the hospital and placed on a ventilator
on Aug. 14. He is believed to have contracted the virus while visiting his
home state of Wisconsin.
Cardinal Burke’s “family asks that we continue those prayers for his full and
speedy recovery, and they are grateful to God for the exceptional medical care
the cardinal has received from the dedicated doctors and nurses who continue
to assist him,” said Father Paul N. Check, director of the Shrine of Our Lady of
Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on Aug. 21.
A “spiritual bouquet” of people’s prayers and devotional acts was put together
by the Latin Mass Society for the cardinal’s recovery.
September 10, 2021 • ANGELUS • 5

LOCAL
Pablo Tiznado is interviewed for “Despierta America” in his classroom. | ADRIAN MARQUEZ
■ Guadalupanos gear up for
Our Lady’s return to East LA
Local “Guadalupanos” raised nearly $10,000 to support the
annual procession and Mass in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe
in December.
This year’s “tardeada,” or fundraiser for the event, brought members
of “Guadalupano” chapters from around the Archdiocese of
Los Angeles to Resurrection Church in East LA the afternoon of
Sunday, Aug. 29.
The procession typically takes place in East LA, but was canceled
(along with the “tardeada”) last year due to a surge in COVID-19
cases. East LA was one of the city’s hardest hit areas by the virus.
All the food and items for sale at the “tardeada” were donated,
including three paintings by local Catholic artist Lalo Garcia that
were raffled. Musicians from St. Martha Church in Huntington
Park performed for the more than 200 guests who attended.
Organizers say the event was a strong start for the fundraising campaign,
which aims to raise a total of $30,000. This year’s procession
and Mass are scheduled for Sunday, Dec. 5.
■ Generous Paramount
teacher gets his just reward
A third-grade teacher at Our Lady of the Rosary School
in Paramount is getting national attention for going the
extra mile for his students.
To prepare for his first year as a teacher, 21-year-old
Pablo Tiznado spent much of the summer decorating
his classroom and buying teaching materials with money
saved from working at a shoe store.
Word got to “Despierta America,” Univision’s national
morning show, that Tiznado had created an Amazon wish
list of classroom materials, but had decided not to make it
public for others to help.
On Aug. 23, the Spanish-language TV network partnered
with Amazon to surprise Tiznado with a $5,000 donation
to help toward school supplies for his students.
Tiznado, the son of Mexican immigrants and the first
in his family to graduate from college, told Univision
reporter Luis Sandoval that he hopes he can serve as an
inspiration for his students.
“I want my students to look at me and say, ‘If Mr. Tiznado
could do it, then I can, too,’ ” he said.
Performers from St. Martha Church in Huntington Park
at this year’s “tardeada.” | DORIS BENAVIDES
Y
■ Big name donations boost Homeboy’s ‘funding bonanza’
Thanks to a pair of multimillion-dollar
donations, LA-based Homeboy Industries
isn’t going away anytime soon.
This summer, the nonprofit received
$15 million in funding from the state of
California and a $20 million gift from
philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, the
former spouse of Jeff Bezos.
As the largest gifts in the organization’s
history, the gifts “will assure a level of
stability in this really important work
that it never has had before,” Homeboy
board member and Father Allan
Figueroa Deck, SJ, told Religion News
Service, which described the donations
as part of a “funding bonanza.”
Homeboy was founded by Jesuit
Father Gregory Boyle and focuses on
helping people re-enter society after
incarceration. It is currently studying
acquiring a property to accommodate
more than 100 people “transitioning
out of dependency on state institutions,”
Religion News Service reported.
6 • ANGELUS • September 10, 2021

V
IN OTHER WORDS...
Letters to the Editor
Our sisters deserve recognition, habit or not
Being “brought up” by sisters in my 11 years in boarding school, I loved
your article “A word from our sisters,” on the sisters and their important
work in our archdiocese. It’s about time these educated and prodigious women got
their share of space and overdue recognition for their work.
Question: Why did most of the sisters shown wear habits? If we are to have their
work increased and attract more women to their ranks, we must show, at least
equally, that there are women who are “disguised” as ordinary citizens working in
the fields of the Lord as per the Second Vatican Council.
— Mayra Fernandez, Long Beach
What Winston Marshall left out
A nation news brief in the July 30 issue of Angelus reported that rocker Winston
Marshall’s Catholic faith led him to leave Mumford and Sons over the backlash
to his support for right-wing activist Andy Ngo’s book on violence in the so-called
“antifa” movement.
I would like to point out the following: (1) The director of the FBI stated last year
that there is no organized “antifa” as it is “more of an ideology than an organization;
(2) Efforts to push this “antifa movement” are a smokescreen for the sinful,
racist hatred of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement; (3) 94% of all pro-BLM
demonstrations have been peaceful, while demonstrations involving right-wing
militias or militant social movements have turned violent or destructive over twice
as often, or nearly 14% of the time; (4) Andy Ngo has been credibly accused of
working in partnership with the violence-prone Proud Boys adjacent group Patriot
Prayer.
One’s Catholic faith is certainly no guarantee of clear discernment of the will of
the God of love.
— Donald Bentley, La Puente
Y
Continue the conversation! To submit a letter to the editor, visit AngelusNews.com/Letters-To-The-Editor
and use our online form or send an email to editorial@angelusnews.com. Please limit to 300 words. Letters
may be edited for style, brevity, and clarity.
In his own words
WATCH: Bishop Moses Chikwe tells
the dramatic story of his kidnapping
and release in an exclusive interview
with Angelus. Check out the full video
interview at AngelusNews.com starting
Sept. 8. | PASHA NOSRAT
To watch more
videos, please visit
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.
“Whenever a pope is
sick, there’s a breeze or
hurricane of conclave.”
~ Pope Francis in a recent interview, when asked
by Spanish radio journalist Eva Fernandez about
rumors of his possible resignation.
“The spiritual warfare that
is going on right now —
everything has been a battle.”
~ Political commentator Glenn Beck on the
evacuation crisis in Afghanistan. His nonprofit group,
the Nazarene Fund, raised more than $28 million
to evacuate Christians from the country before the
Taliban takeover.
“If you’re not happy with
yourself, you won’t be happy
in a cloister. And eating and
drinking are part of that life.
It’s not about being pious.
All I need to do is believe in
a higher power that accepts
me as I am.”
~ Sister Doris Engelhard, a 72-year-old Franciscan
sister from Germany, who claims to be the world’s
last nun brewmeister, in an interview with NPR.
My heart breaks for the
next generation of girls
& women whose nation
has been overtaken by
the Taliban. Kabul fell
on the same day my
village fell to ISIS 7 years
ago. The international
community must address
the repercussions before
tragedy is repeated.”
~ Nadia Murad, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and
survivor of the Islamic State-led genocide in Iraq,
in an Aug. 16 tweet. Murad met with Pope Francis
Aug. 26.
September 10, 2021 • ANGELUS • 7

IN EXILE
FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI
Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father
Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual
writer; ronaldrolheiser.com.
The fading of forgiveness
In a recent issue of Comment
magazine, Timothy Keller, theologian
and pastor of Redeemer
Presbyterian Church in New York City,
wrote an insightful essay entitled, “The
Fading of Forgiveness,” within which
he highlights how, more and more,
forgiveness is being seen as a weakness
and a naiveté.
He begins by pointing to a couple of
highly publicized incidents of forgiveness.
In 2015, Dylann Roof shot nine
members inside an African American
church in South Carolina and was
publicly forgiven by the relatives of his
victims. And in 2006, when a gunman
shot 10 Amish children in a school
room in Pennsylvania and then killed
himself, the Amish community there
not only forgave him, they went to visit
his family and expressed sympathies to
them for their loss.
What was the general response? Admiration
for extraordinary selflessness
and virtue? No, not that. More generally,
these instances of forgiveness were
judged as naive fundamentalism and as
unhelpful. Why? Why would these instances
not be recognized instead both
for what is most noble within humanity
and for what is highest within religious
virtue?
Keller suggests that there are a number
of reasons for this, but he singles
out two in particular. We are a “therapeutic
culture” (where only our own
truth and feelings matter) and a culture
that has a “religion without grace” (its
vision and virtue go no further than
what echoes in our emotions and
willpower).
Hence, our culture sees forgiveness
more negatively than positively. For it,
forgiveness allows oppression to maintain
its power and thus permits the
cycle of violence and abuse to go on.
Like a family refusing to stand up to
an alcoholic member, it enables rather
than stops the abuse and allows a sick
situation to continue. Forgiveness then
is a further injustice to the one who has
been violated and can lead to a form of
self-loathing, an acceptance of a humiliation
destructive of one’s self-image, a
further loss of dignity.
Moreover, the moral pressure to
forgive can be a further burden on
the victim and an easy escape for the
perpetrator. Is this logic correct?
From a purely emotional point of
view, yes, it feels right; but it is wrong
when scrutinized more deeply. First, it
is evident that vindictiveness will only
produce more vindictiveness. Vindictiveness
will never soften a heart and
help change it. Only forgiveness (analogous
to dialysis) can take violence and
hatred out of a relationship.
As well, in the words of Martin Luther
King Jr., “anyone devoid of the power
of forgiveness is also devoid of the
power of love.” Why? Because each of
us will get hurt by others and will hurt
others in every one of our relationships.
That is the price of community inside
human inadequacy. Hence, relationships
at every level, personal and social,
can only sustain themselves long term
if there is forgiveness.
Moreover, with Jesus, forgiveness
becomes singularly the most important
of all virtues. It decides whether we
go to heaven or not. As Jesus tells us
when he gives us the Lord’s Prayer, if
we cannot forgive others, God will not
be able to forgive us. Why? Because
the banquet table, eternal community
of life, is only open to everyone who is
willing to sit down with everyone. God
cannot change this. Only we can open
our hearts sufficiently to sit down with
everyone.
Recently, given some of our ecclesial
infighting, various groups have
attempted to single out one specific
moral issue as a litmus test for Christian
discipleship. For many, this litmus
test is abortion; others pick church
attendance or some other issue. What
might serve as a litmus test for Christian
discipleship? Precisely this: the
willingness to forgive. Can I forgive
someone who has wronged me? Can I
forgive someone whom I hate and who
hates me? That challenge lies most
central in Jesus’ teaching.
That being said, it must also be said
that forgiveness is not simple or easy.
That is why in the Judeo-Christian
spirituality of Sabbath, there is a (toolittle-known)
spirituality of forgiveness.
As we know, the command to celebrate
Sabbath asks us to honor this cycle
in our lives: Work for six days — rest
for one day. Work for 7 years — rest
for one year. Work of seven times seven
(forty-nine) years — have a major rest
(sabbatical). Work for a lifetime — and
then be on sabbatical for eternity.
Well, that is also the cycle for forgiveness.
In the spirituality of Sabbath: You
may hold a minor grudge for six days —
then you need let it go. You may hold
a major grudge for seven years — then
you need to let it go. You may hold a
soul-searing grudge for forty-nine years
— then you need to let it go. You may
hold a grudge that ruined your life until
your deathbed — then you need to let
it go. That is the final Christian moral
imperative.
The Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu
once said, “without forgiveness there
is no future.” True — on both sides of
eternity.
8 • ANGELUS • September 10, 2021

Salvation
IN CAPTIVITY
His kidnapping by
bandits in Nigeria last
year made international
headlines. Now, former
LA priest Bishop
Moses Chikwe has a
story of freedom and
forgiveness to tell.
BY PABLO KAY
Auxiliary Bishop Moses Chikwe of Owerri, Nigeria, spent 14 years as a
student priest in Los Angeles and San Diego. He and his driver were held
captive for five days the week after Christmas last year. | PASHA NOSRAT
10 • ANGELUS • September 10, 2021

When a priest becomes a bishop in the Catholic
Church, he is asked to pick a phrase from Scripture
as a motto for his new ministry.
When it was Father Moses Chikwe’s turn in 2019, the
bishop-elect chose the Latin words “ad liberandum captivos”
(“to free captives”) taking a line from the prophet
Isaiah, later repeated by Christ in the Gospel of Luke: “To
proclaim liberty to captives.”
He had no idea what those words would come to mean
in his own life a year later.
Last December, the auxiliary bishop of Owerri, Nigeria,
became the subject of news headlines, an international
still fill a room. But his mistreatment at the hands of
anonymous captors, the days and nights spent marching
through the African jungle, and the spiritual experience
he recalls having during his captivity have marked Bishop
Chikwe forever.
This is his story.
• • •
As far as Sundays go, Dec. 27, 2020, had been a
smooth one for Bishop Chikwe.
In the morning, he celebrated Mass at the parish
where he lives. Afterward, he spent time in his home with
families from the parish, and later in the afternoon set out
prayer campaign, and even a plea from Pope Francis
when reports emerged that he and his driver, Ndubuisi
Robert, had been kidnapped.
His release a week later was welcome good news in a
country plagued by widespread violence and corruption,
but for those who had followed his ordeal, questions remained.
Who kidnapped the young bishop and his driver,
and why?
As he prayed the rosary with
his fingers, Bishop Chikwe was
convinced the Virgin Mary
would intercede for his release.
Last month, Bishop Chikwe sat down to tell his story
to Angelus. The 54-year-old was spending a few weeks
in California, visiting priests from his home diocese in
Nigeria and old friends from his 14 years in the area as a
student priest and hospital chaplain.
Those friends will tell you that neither the years nor
his new title have changed “Father Moses.” His face has
hardly aged since he first arrived in Los Angeles as a student
priest in 2003. His bright smile and infectious laugh
to see an old friend, a woman in
her 80s visiting from Lagos, Nigeria’s
largest city, with her children.
A street in Owerri, Nigeria.
| WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Bishop Chikwe and his driver, Robert, prayed the rosary
on the drive back as the sun was setting over Owerri.
They were just a few blocks from home and Bishop
Chikwe was slipping his rosary beads back in their pouch
when a van suddenly stopped in front of them, blocking
their way forward. Four men with guns dressed in police
uniforms emerged and ordered them out of the car.
When they asked Bishop Chikwe to get into the van,
he refused. Instead, he tried getting the neighborhood’s
attention.
“I’m a bishop! I’m a bishop!” he yelled, dressed in his
white bishop’s cassock.
The attackers told Bishop Chikwe that he was being
stubborn. If he wouldn’t get into their car, he should get
back into his.
That wasn’t an option for Bishop Chikwe, either.
“You want to die?” the men asked him. “It seems you
want to die.”
“I’ve already given up my life to Christ,” Bishop Chikwe
replied.
Impatient, one of the bandits pointed his gun at the
bishop’s foot and fired, hitting the ground.
The bishop’s next memory is waking up in the trunk of
the van. One of the gunmen must have knocked him out,
he figures.
September 10, 2021 • ANGELUS • 11

Bishop Chikwe
being interviewed
in August during his
visit to California.
| PASHA NOSRAT
The vehicle arrived at a house a few hours outside of the
city sometime around midnight, Bishop Chikwe remembered.
He and Robert were stripped of their belongings,
blindfolded, and forced to start walking barefoot through
the Nigerian jungle in the dead of night.
• • •
It wasn’t until Bishop Chikwe and Robert began their
march that he began to fully process what had just
happened: This was a real kidnapping, and their lives
were in the hands of these men. His mind filled with
worry for his partner. Robert was married with four young
children, the oldest 5 years old and the youngest still
breastfeeding. What would they do without their father?
The band stayed on the move the next few days. A third
captive, a woman, joined them along the way. They were
placed in chains whenever they stopped. When it was
time to sleep, the bandits would find a clearing in the
jungle and spread a car cover for them to lay on.
Bishop Chikwe refused to eat that first night as well as
the next day. He was upset at their captors, unable to
understand why they were being treated this way.
But there was a moment in captivity that Bishop Chikwe
said changed everything.
“I had this vivid image of the passion of Christ,” recalled
Bishop Chikwe. “It came so clear to me: his being tortured,
the crucifixion, the crown of thorns … when I saw
that, I said to myself, I haven’t even gone one-half of what
he suffered.”
It was a moment he called “the saving grace” of his
captivity.
“At that point, I said to myself: ‘Oh, these guys can
beat me up, they can do everything to me. I don’t care
anymore.’ So that numbed me, really. That numbed my
body. Even when they slapped me and did all kinds of
things to me and my driver, it didn’t matter to me anymore.”
“That moment was God’s own intervention, the saving
moment,” he recalled. “It made everything easier for me,
it helped me to endure whatever suffering and all that
went into it.”
Another grace of the time spent “camping in the jungle”
— as Bishop Chikwe now likes to call it — was the time
for prayer and contemplation. He began to think of the
timing of their capture: just as they were finishing praying
12 • ANGELUS • September 10, 2021

to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
“I said to myself, ‘No, no, Our Lady will intervene,’ ” he
remembered.
If she had any say in the matter, Saturday would be
the day of their liberation, he thought. That was the day
of the week the Church traditionally dedicates to the
Blessed Mother, and in his own parish the bishop made a
point of dedicating the day’s Mass to her most weeks.
Without his beads, Bishop Chikwe began praying the
rosary with his fingers.
• • •
After a few days of walking around in the jungle, his
captors asked Bishop Chikwe to call his boss.
He was handed a cellphone and dialed the
number of Archbishop Anthony Obinna of Owerri, the
man who ordained him a priest, and later, a bishop. He
explained that the captors wanted 300 million Nigerian
Naira in ransom, a sum equal to more than $700,000.
Both bishops explained to the bandits that the Catholic
Church did not pay ransom. The bandits insisted they
would keep their prisoners for as long as it took to get
their money. They started walking again, this time to a
place where they were told they’d get a taste of “real captivity,”
with no food and no water.
It was there, at the lowest point of the bishop’s week in
the jungle, that something he still struggles to explain
happened.
The captives had walked for hours. They arrived at a
remote part of the jungle, where the bandits’ leader was
waiting for them.
“Bishop,” the man addressed his captive.
“Boss,” he answered back.
The “kingpin,” as Bishop Chikwe called him, ordered
his men to remove the bishop’s blindfold.
Bishop Chikwe figured the order could only mean one
thing. Removing the blindfold meant he would see the
kingpin’s face and be able to identify him in the future, a
After Church officials refused
to pay the ransom, the bishop
and his driver were told they’d
get a taste of “real captivity,”
with no food and no water.
death sentence for any captive in this situation.
“Now that they have been told there’s no ransom, they
know they’re not going to get anything,” he recalled
thinking.
The afternoon sun was bright, and he squinted as the
blindfold was removed. He kept his eyes facing down.
The kingpin asked him if he’d had any water to drink.
No, Bishop Chikwe answered, to which the boss responded
by telling his men to give him water, and a bottle of
Coke, too.
He asked Bishop Chikwe to look at his face. The bishop
tried raising his head, he said, but it seemed to automatically
fall. He kept his face down as the man began to
speak.
“I’m very sorry for what we did to you,” the kingpin
started.
The kidnapping was a mistake, he said. He began to
explain that he had “entered into this thing out of anger,
frustration, and revenge,” Bishop Chikwe recalled, and
claimed that on that Sunday in Owerri, the bandits had
seen the car’s driver but hadn’t recognized the bishop in
the passenger seat.
The leader said the captives would be set free that same
day, without any ransom. He asked for the bishop’s forgiveness,
and for his prayers.
“I forgive all
of you,” the
Bishop Chikwe with priest
friends during his visit to
California this summer.
| SUBMITTED PHOTO
bishop recalled
telling his
captors. “And
I said, ‘And if I
have done anything
wrong to
any one of you,
I also ask that you forgive me.’ ”
The men were indignant, insisting
to the bishop that it was they who
had offended him.
“You are the father of everybody!”
one told them. “Of both good and
bad!” another chimed in.
Before leaving the jungle and
putting their captives’ blindfolds
back on, the two men who had been
guarding Bishop Chikwe and Robert
knelt for a blessing.
• • •
September 10, 2021 • ANGELUS • 13

Standing on a street in Owerri
a few hours later, no
one could have recognized
the bishop the whole world
seemed to be looking for.
The same van that had been
used to kidnap Bishop Chikwe
and Robert five days earlier had
dropped them off late at night.
Now, they stood in the street,
Bishop Chikwe this summer
in California with Gary and
Cynthia Micaletti, friends
from his time as a student
priest at St. Mark Church in
Venice. Also pictured, in blue,
is their daughter, Francesca.
| MICALETTI FAMILY
barefoot and dressed in dirty clothes. If they had told passersby
who they were, would anyone have believed them?
The bishop found a phone to call his secretary, who
jumped out of bed to pick them up in his car. It was
almost midnight.
“It was like a big breath of fresh air, that freedom,” said
Bishop Chikwe when asked to describe that night. “That
now I am free, that now I’m no longer in captivity was, I
mean, my joy knew no bounds.”
His joy seemed to multiply when he began to think about
his prayer to the Virgin Mary. He had been sure she would
help, and that their liberation would come on her special
day of the week, Saturday. But she had done him one
better, it seemed. Their release came a day earlier than
he had predicted: Friday, Jan. 1, the day that the Catholic
Church celebrates the feast of Mary, Mother of God.
“It came through to me that our Blessed Mother really
intervened,” he said, chuckling.
The next day, he was taken to get a medical checkup.
On Sunday, he celebrated Mass at his parish, where he
was greeted with thunderous applause and sang a hymn of
thanksgiving to God for their “miraculous” release.
In an odd development, nearly all of the bishop’s belongings
were found dropped off at the Owerri cathedral,
among them his bishop’s cassock, pectoral cross, and
shoes. The bandits kept only his bishop’s ring and wristwatch.
• • •
After their release, the freed captives eventually
learned that a nighttime police raid had narrowly
missed them that week. The forces came so close,
in fact, that the bandits abandoned their prisoners in the
jungle that night and fled into hiding, before coming back
to retrieve them later.
Bishop Chikwe also learned of the story of another Nigerian
priest with ties to Los Angeles, Father Al Ezeonyeka,
whom he had known during his time in California. He,
too, had narrowly escaped death at the hands of armed
bandits in Nigeria the same week of the bishop’s capture.
(In another strange coincidence, Father Ezeonyeka also
described being attacked while finishing praying the
rosary.)
While Bishop Chikwe did not suffer lasting physical injuries
during captivity, the ordeal left him understandably
shaken. He is more sensitive to certain sounds, and feels
the need to be extra vigilant while driving at night.
Even while in chains, Bishop Chikwe began to wonder
if God had allowed the captivity to bring him closer to his
people.
“I said maybe this is a good thing for me to go through,
because now I feel the pain that everybody else in [Nigerian]
society feels,” he said.
But perhaps the most enduring takeaway from the experience
goes back to that line of Scripture, “to free captives.”
In choosing that motto, he thought back to his time as a
chaplain at a VA hospital in San Diego while a student
priest. He often met veterans who were prisoners of grief,
of addictions to alcohol and drugs, haunted by failed
relationships, beset by a loss of hope and meaning in their
lives.
“I’d go to bedsides and hear a lot of those stories, and I
was touched deeply by what people were going through,”
Bishop Chikwe said.
He is convinced that his time in California was a preparation
for his future mission in Nigeria. Now that he has
experienced a more literal kind of liberation, he said the
experience made him “even more convinced of the God
that we worship.”
“When I came out and was hearing that many people all
over the world … even the Holy Father, were praying for
our release, it touched me so deeply,” said Bishop Chikwe.
“And it tells me how this universality of the Church, you
know, it touches one part, and another is affected. And we
are all in communion. So, that was a very powerful thing
for me.”
Bishop Chikwe’s interview with Angelus can be watched
under the “Video” tab at AngelusNews.com/photos-videos
starting Wednesday, Sept. 8.
Pablo Kay is the editor-in-chief of Angelus.
14 • ANGELUS • September 10, 2021

Members of the Grupo
Folklorico de West Los
Angeles perform in front of
Old Mission Santa Barbara
on Aug. 4 at the start of
Santa Barbara Fiesta Days.
| FRITZ OLENBERGER
Steps to serve the Lord
For Grupo Folklorico de West LA, dancing is a
celebration of culture — and an act of faith.
BY MIKE NELSON
They come from all walks of life
— psychologists, lab technicians,
post office workers,
public school employees, college students,
and even a director of human
resources.
They are led by a man who grew
up in Watts, hung out with African
American friends, and knew next
to nothing about his own Mexican
heritage — or, for that matter, how to
speak Spanish.
They practice next to a Reseda
church in a residential area, making
sure they are quiet and respectful of
their neighbors, which is a challenge,
because folklorico dancing is, if nothing
else, a joyful, artistic expression
that is part of Mexican culture tied
deeply to the faith.
“Folklorico dancing is part of our
Catholic faith, and we share it with
others just as the Church shares its
faith with us,” said John Estrada,
founder and director of Grupo Folklorico
de West LA (GFWLA), which
for 44 years has performed throughout
Southern California, including the
recent Santa Barbara Fiesta Days.
“For us, to perform is to acknowledge
and celebrate our faith and express
our love for our culture,” continued
Estrada, a parishioner at St. Catherine
of Siena Church in Reseda. “The way
I see it, I’ve been given a gift to share,
and I do so in the name of the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
That faith and skill was on display
last month at Santa Barbara’s Old
Fiesta Days, where GFWLA has
performed for more than 30 years.
That tradition was interrupted in 2020
by the coronavirus pandemic, and this
year’s performances nearly suffered
a similar fate over concerns of the
16 • ANGELUS • September 10, 2021

ecent surge in COVID-19 cases.
But although several traditional fiesta
events were canceled — including the
opening Fiesta Pequeña at Mission
Santa Barbara, traditionally hosted
by the Franciscan Friars — GFWLA
was able to perform at two smaller
open-air venues, Nuevo Paseo and
La Cumbre Plaza, much to the joy
of its members and fiesta audiences
that included Auxiliary Bishop Robert
Barron of the Santa Barbara Pastoral
Region.
“The audiences were very gracious,”
said Annabelle Baltierra, a GFWLA
member for the past 16 years, and senior
director of Human Resources for
the Archdiocese
of Los Angeles.
So was Bishop
Barron, who
came to give the
group a special
blessing.
“He lifted our
spirits and we
told him how
we offer our
performances up
to God and our
ancestors, especially
when we
dance Azteca,”
said Baltierra.
Baltierra, who
had been in
professional
folklorico groups previously, said she
was drawn to GFWLA by its focus on
faith.
“In the other groups, there was a lot
of yelling and a lot of ‘practice till you
drop,’ ” said Baltierra, the daughter
of Mexican immigrants. “Coming to
this group in a more family-oriented,
parish-centered atmosphere has been
wonderful. We talk about our faith as
Catholics. We are aware of how lucky
we are to incorporate our faith into
performances.”
Folklorico and Danza Azteca
dancing, she explained, “is part of our
culture. We have been taught to love
our countries, to appreciate the tradition
of Mexico, to appreciate creation,
to appreciate the importance of family
and relationships, because this not
only respects our culture, but it ties to
who we are as Catholics.
“And dance speaks to so many of
those traditions. It’s a chance to
express our joy for the gifts God has
given us. And,” she added, smiling,
“we just love to dance.”
Cultural inspiration
Admittedly, there was a time in his
life when Estrada would never have
figured he would become so deeply
involved in anything like Mexican
folk dancing.
“In Watts during the 1960s,” he
recalled, “a lot of the focus was on the
African American culture and community,
where I had a lot of friends,
but we weren’t really talking about
Latino culture then.”
That changed for Estrada in 1966
when he attended a performance of
“Ballet Folklorico de Amalia Hernandez”
at the Hollywood Bowl. “I
was inspired,” he said. “I knew no
Spanish, or much of anything about
my culture, but when I saw Ballet
Folklorico I thought, ‘I wish I could
dance like that.’ ”
Two years later, while attending
UCLA, he enrolled in a Mexican
folklorico dance class led by the late
“Gran Maestro” Emilio Pulido, and
joined Pulido’s Mecha Grupo Folklorico
de UCLA. “And that became my
love.”
Estrada became a professional
dancer and teacher, attended local
and national conferences and workshops,
and in 1977 formed GFWLA,
celebrating the Mexican folk dance
experience. GFWLA now includes
25 in its adult group and 12 in its
children’s group (ages 3 to 14), and
performs both folklorico and Danza
Azteca.
In 1979, he and Sue Welsh organized
the Danzantes Unidos Festival,
which continues today, bringing
together Mexican folklorico groups
from California and beyond, to study
and celebrate the music, dance, history,
and costumes of Mexico.
“It’s about sharing our work with
our community,” said Estrada. “Since
the 1970s, I have always encouraged
people to share with the community
what you are learning, whether it’s
Auxiliary Bishop
Robert Barron visited
and blessed Grupo
Folklorico members
performing at Fiesta
Days. | COURTESY GFWLA
song or dance,
whether you’re a
doctor or nurse
or lawyer or
teacher. Go back
to the community
and encourage
people to strive
to be better.”
Now retired
after 30 years with the Los Angeles
Unified School District as a conflict
resolution counselor, Estrada still
finds it remarkable that “a guy from
the streets of Watts” could be a leader
in the folklorico movement.
He feels blessed to have learned and
passed down his love for folklorico
and Danza Azteca to his family and
students over the years. His wife,
children, and grandchildren all
participate in GFWLA, and daughters
Josie and Rachel are choreographers
for the ensemble. “I’m proud they are
carrying on this tradition,” Estrada
said. “That’s a beautiful testimony
to our faith and our culture. We’re
entertainers and performers, beautiful
dancers who serve the Lord.”
Mike Nelson is the former editor of
The Tidings (predecessor of Angelus).
September 10, 2021 • ANGELUS • 17

Cautious warnings
From the beginning, popes have walked a fine line in
speaking out about America’s war in Afghanistan.
BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
ROME — Though it’s hardly
the most important dimension
of the current crisis in Afghanistan,
U.S.-Vatican relations have been
affected too, with some wondering if a
much-ballyhooed “springtime” in ties
between Washington and Rome under
Pope Francis and President Joe Biden
may be among the casualties of the
conflict.
There’s no mistaking the fact that
the Vatican is unimpressed with the
Biden administration’s handling of the
situation. While the pontiff himself
has largely held his fire, restricting
his public commentary to appeals for
prayer, peace, and dialogue, his own
newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, has
been far more direct.
“It’s stupefying that, prior to deciding
to abandon the country, a similar,
predictable scenario wasn’t anticipated,
and that nothing was done to avoid it,”
L’Osservatore Romano fulminated.
“And it’s even more grave that such a
decision was made despite being aware
Internally displaced families from northern provinces
of Afghanistan, who fled from their homes
due to the fighting between Taliban and Afghan
security forces, take shelter at a public park in
Kabul on Aug. 10. | CNS/REUTERS
of its dramatic consequences.”
Italian Vatican-watcher Matteo
Matzuzzi has written that despite early
hope of a rapprochement under the
Catholic, social justice-oriented Biden,
the Afghanistan crisis illustrates that
18 • ANGELUS • September 10, 2021

“the fault lines between Rome and
Washington continue to be ample,”
especially on the crucial issue of an
“America-first” vision of foreign policy,
and that “Pope Francis doesn’t trust
the Yankee world,” no matter who’s in
charge.
Yet to put all this in context, it’s important
to recall that differences on the
right approach to Afghanistan between
the Vatican and the White House significantly
predate either Biden or Pope
Francis. In fact, they go all the way
back to the beginning of what’s become
America’s longest war.
When the Twin Towers attacks took
place on Sept. 11, 2001, Pope John
Paul II immediately denounced the
“unspeakable horror” that had unfolded
in New York and assured victims
and their families of his prayers. He
also dispatched a telegram to then-U.S.
President George W. Bush to express
“my profound sorrow and my closeness
in prayer for the nation at this dark and
tragic moment.”
Yet it was unclear from the start
whether Pope John Paul was also on
board with what seemed at the time
the inevitable U.S. military response
to the attacks, which everyone knew
would begin with the Taliban regime
in Afghanistan.
During his General Audience the
day after the attacks, Pope John Paul
renewed his “indignant condemnation”
of what the terrorists had done, but he
added that he also wished to remind
the world that “the ways of violence
will never lead to genuine solutions to
humanity’s problems.”
Just 11 days after the attacks, Pope
John Paul made a previously scheduled
trip to Kazakhstan, whose southern
border is just a few hours from Afghanistan,
despite concerns about security
as the region awaited American
retaliation. During the trip, the pope’s
ambivalence about the looming use of
force was evident.
During his Angelus address after a
Mass in the Kazakh capital of Astana
on Sept. 23, the pope appended a
special appeal in English to make sure
the international community heard it:
“With all my heart, I beg God to keep
the world in peace,” he said. In most
media coverage, it was styled as a papal
rebuke to the impending U.S.-led
military intervention.
That interpretation was strong
enough, in fact, that papal spokesman
Joaquin Navarro-Valls gave an impromptu
interview in Astana that night
to journalist Phil Pullella of Reuters, in
which he compared Bush to a father
seeking to defend his family, saying that
military action to prevent future terrorist
attacks would be morally justifiable.
In reaction, most media outlets carried
stories about a Vatican “green light” for
the impending Afghanistan campaign.
In turn, Navarro’s initiative dismayed
Vatican diplomats, who scrambled to
Twenty years ago, St. Pope John Paul II warned
against a military campaign unmatched by an
equally aggressive plan for rebuilding.
disown it. The next morning, Father
Federico Lombardi, then director of
Vatican Radio and later Navarro’s successor,
handed out a lengthy photocopied
statement to reporters, the gist of
which was that only Pope John Paul’s
Angelus address and not Navarro’s
interview represented the real thinking
of the pope.
In the end it was all something of a
muddle, which wasn’t really resolved
until two months later when Pope John
Paul issued his annual message for the
World Day of Peace. In it, the pope
St. Pope John Paul II gestures during a concert performance
in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Sept. 24, 2001, two
weeks after the 9/11 attacks. | CNS
acknowledged a right to defend oneself
against terrorists, but insisted that action
should be limited to the terrorists
themselves, not entire nations, and
that any military or police action must
be accompanied by “a courageous
and resolute political, diplomatic, and
economic commitment to relieving
situations of oppression and marginalization
which facilitate the designs of
terrorists.”
Though Pope John Paul never mentioned
the U.S. specifically, in context
the message seemed clear enough: no
to indiscriminate uses of force, and no
to a military campaign unmatched by
an equally aggressive plan for rebuilding.
Two years later, Pope John Paul and
his Vatican team would apply the same
criteria to their far clearer opposition to
the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Thus, in expressing reservations about
U.S. policy in Afghanistan, including
Biden’s abrupt decision to walk away,
Pope Francis isn’t just channeling his
Latin American animus for the great
power to the north, nor is he steering
the Vatican in a dramatically new
direction.
Instead, Pope Francis appears to be
voicing more or less the same reservations
as his predecessor back at the
beginning. It’s an open question how
different history might look had the
world listened then — and how different
the future might look if it chose to
do so now.
John L. Allen Jr. is the editor of Crux.
September 10, 2021 • ANGELUS • 19

Forever young
Is it time for
children to have
their own list of
‘Great Books’?
This Catholic
schoolteacher
thinks so.
BY SOPHIA MARTINSON
SHUTTERSTOCK
Cheri Blomquist. | ONCE UPON A PEN
Shakespeare and Cervantes, Dante
and Dostoyevsky. Their names
are often associated with the
“Great Books” of Western literature,
works used in classrooms since the
early 20th century to help form the
intellects of young thinkers.
But what if a young student simply
isn’t ready for Emily Brontë or Jane
Austen? As Cheri Blomquist knows
from experience, the effort to teach far
above children’s reading and interest
levels can backfire.
“When I was in 12th grade, I hit a
snag in my lifelong love affair with
books,” Blomquist, a freelance writer
and teacher, writes in the introduction
to her book “Before Austen Comes Aesop:
The Children’s Great Books and
How to Experience Them,” published
by Ignatius Press ($17.99) in March.
That year in school, she found many
of the assigned literary works too
dense, complicated, or downright frustrating
for her to appreciate. Are there
any great books that can appeal to and
edify a younger audience?
In “Before Austen Comes Aesop,”
Blomquist makes the case for her own
list of children’s great books, with tips
on how to make the most of them.
She spoke to Angelus about the book
and how it can help students and
educators.
20 • ANGELUS • September 10, 2021

What inspired you to write this
book?
I’ve always loved children’s literature,
and after I began teaching in local
homeschool co-ops, I started paying
attention to classes and programs for
literature. I noticed that many literature
programs were pushing kids only
in eighth, ninth, or 10th grade to many,
fairly heavy adult classics, like Dickens
and Austen and Brontë — books that
I was not ready to read at that age. I
didn’t see how
these kids could
absorb all those
books in a single
year.
Then in 2013
or 2014, I read
a book by Seth
Lerer that was a
children’s literary history, from ancient
times to the present. It was kind of a
dry, academic book, but I was very
inspired by it and thought, “Wait a
minute. If these books have been so
important throughout history, maybe
there is this counterpart to the ‘Great
Books’ that are really the children’s
‘Great Books’ — the ones that have
been the most important and have
impacted children the most. What are
those?”
And so I started on a journey. I was
just going to share on my website with
parents as I went, but it just got bigger
and bigger.
In the book, you mention that
you’ve tried to make the list as objective
as possible. Could you talk a bit
more about the importance of that
objectivity and how you went about
building the list?
There are a number of books full
of recommendations for Catholic,
Protestant, or secular parents to help
their children find good books to read.
I didn’t need to add onto that with my
own opinion. I wanted to know what
history revealed itself to be in terms
of what literature was truly important.
There are so many classics!
If you look at a literature program,
[you wonder] why is this book read in
this class, but not this [other] book?
How do you choose? I wanted history
to reveal to me what was truly important
in the development of literary
history and what was important in the
lives of children from ancient times up
until the modern times. So it was very
necessary that I be as objective as possible.
I did have to make judgment calls
here and there, but that was something
I only did when I felt that I had to.
One thing that’s important for Catholics
and any Christians to consider is
that because it’s an objective list, it’s
not all going to be in line with our
We tend to think of children’s literature as just for
young ones, as if they’re a steppingstone to the ‘real’
literature. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Catholic values. There was some discussion
with my editor at Ignatius about
whether to include a couple of books
because I don’t want [the books listed]
to look like recommendations. These
are not recommendations. I put labels
on some books saying, “Parents cautioned,”
and one of them actually says,
“Parents extremely cautioned!” So some
of them may be troublesome [books]
that parents need to be aware of.
In your own opinion, what are some
of the best children’s books for kids to
read, and why?
IGNATIUS PRESS
My favorite is “A Tree Grows in
Brooklyn.” That’s been my favorite
since my 20s, but that would not be
one of the most important books on
my list; it’s not one of the foundational
ones. The foundational ones are ones
that, paradoxically, we tend to think of
as the adult classics as well, because
actually the greatest books cross over.
Those works include Homer, “Aesop’s
Fables,” the Greek myths, King Arthur
legends, and “Robin Hood.” I have a
list in the back
of my book for
parents who
don’t have a lot
of time and want
to focus on the
most important
ones. “Pilgrim’s
Progress” is also
very important, and then there are
a few more modern ones, like “The
Hobbit.”
We tend to think of children’s literature
as just for young ones, as if they’re
a steppingstone to the “real” literature.
And that couldn’t be further from the
truth! First of all, [when it comes to]
great art, it doesn’t matter who it’s for.
Art is art. It doesn’t matter if it’s “Goodnight
Moon” or Homer; it’s going to
affect us differently, and it’s going to
have different elements and features,
but it’s still art. Second of all, some of
the important adult literature has been
embraced by children for centuries,
like “The Odyssey.” So we have to stop
thinking of it as, “This is for children,
and this is for adults.”
“Before Austen Comes Aesop” is
organized into various sections, from
the detailed list of children’s great
books to study guides and appendices.
How would you recommend
readers make their way through the
book?
It depends on parents’ interests.
It’s meant to be a reference book for
homeschooling or for parents who just
want to expose their children to the
“crème de la crème” of classic children’s
literature. In that sense, parents
can use [it] according to what their
needs are. But it’s also meant to be read
in terms of the history, because the history
of children’s literature is valuable
in its own right.
September 10, 2021 • ANGELUS • 21

Each section of the first part of my
book describes what was happening in
children’s literature during [a particular]
era, so that there’s some context for
the list of books that follows. That may
give parents some orientation as to
why these books were published when
they were. For example, “The Water
Babies” was published at a time when
Darwinism and fantasy were the rage
in Victorian times.
If I were approaching “Before Austen
Comes Aesop” for the first time, I
would be looking, first of all, to see
what the children’s “Great Books”
are because I’d be curious! But then I
would think, “OK, if I’m going to teach
my ninth-grader literature, I don’t want
to invest in this $200 program. I think
I want them to study “Alice in Wonderland.”
It’s a good, solid book that
they could handle; it’s at their interest
level and at their reading level. So let’s
dive into this one and follow one of the
study plans. That would be one way to
approach it in a logical way.
What impact do you hope “Before
Austen Comes Aesop” will have on
children and adults?
I want there to be a deeper respect
for children’s literature. I feel like it is
shoved aside too early and not taken
seriously enough at the older ages
of youth, [namely] preteen and teen
years. It’s often considered superfluous
in that [people think] it’s not important
anymore and we need to move
on to “Wuthering Heights.” We’re not
taking time to read “Alice in Wonderland,”
even though it’s one of the most
important Western pieces of literature
ever written!
I want people to access children’s
literature more easily and more deeply,
without having to depend on a curriculum
or study guides with regimented
questions. They can experience it in
other ways, and they can do it themselves
with their child.
Sophia Martinson is a writer living in
New York City.
“The man with the burden,” illustration by Rachael
Robinson Elmer, from John Bunyan’s dream story based
on “Pilgrim’s Progress.” | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The limits of an emergency
Encouraging vaccination in a time of crisis is a moral
duty. But mandating it risks repeating old mistakes.
BY CHARLES C. CAMOSY
Whether after an attack like
the one we experienced on
9/11, or when living through
a terrible pandemic, it is a perfectly
natural impulse to exclaim “we’re at
war” or “it’s a national emergency”
and insist we do things in a fundamentally
different way.
But as I warned back in March of
2020, we must not give up our foundational
values in so doing — putting
at risk the very way of life we are
trying to defend.
It is now clear how this happened in
the so-called “war on terror.” We gave
up on Congress’ constitutional role
in explicitly declaring war. We gave
up our privacy rights via the Patriot
Act and an expansive state. We even
looked the other way when our CIA
tortured people.
A similar mindset formed at the beginning
of the pandemic. Similar fear.
Similar willingness to put aside foundational
values. At that time, I was
concerned about how our rationing
strategies were discriminating against
the elderly and disabled. But we have
now arrived at a different stage of
concern: scapegoating the “anti-vaxxers”
and insisting many millions of
Americans violate their consciences
— perhaps even through government
mandates that citizens put a brand
new (by medicine’s standards) drug
into their bodies for the sake of the
common good.
Let me make my own view clear.
Unless one has a relevant medical
A health care worker administers the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to
a Marymount University student in one of the athletic buildings
on the Catholic university’s Arlington, Virginia, campus, during a
vaccine clinic April 21, 2021. | CHAZ MUTH/CNS
24 • ANGELUS • September 10, 2021

ccine to
ildings
uring a
condition, I believe one has a moral
duty to get vaccinated based on (1)
the care for the life God has given
us and (2) our duty to the common
good. I agree with Pope Francis and
the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith that it is licit to take the
vaccine despite its having been tested
using the cloned cells of a prenatal
child unjustly killed more than a half
century ago.
But how that moral duty plays out
in public policy is a separate question,
one which forces us into the realm of
prudential judgment and weighing of
different goods.
It may be possible to lower infection
rates by mandating vaccine compliance
— and this would be a good
outcome, especially as Delta ravages
the U.S. But discussion of public
policy asks us to think about what
kind of power we give the government
by upholding the following principle:
The government may force citizens,
against their deeply held religious,
moral, and/or personal beliefs, to undergo
a medical procedure in service
of the common good.
It isn’t difficult to see how such a
principle might be abused. Should
those who are obese — understood
to be a drain on public health care
resources given their increased health
issues (including from COVID-19) —
be forced to undergo bariatric surgery
for the sake of the common good?
Should deaf children have hearing
implants forcibly inserted in order to
take a load off the local public-school
system? And what might this principle
mean for a future with genetic therapies?
Do we really want a government
with the power to force such interventions
at the service of the common
good?
Basic civil rights are meant to protect
individuals from this kind of injustice.
It is true that a child must be
vaccinated in order to attend public
schools, but private schools and
homeschooling are still options for
families with a different point of view.
Until now there has been a clear red
line when it comes to the government
violating the bodily autonomy of
citizens by forcing them to undergo a
medical procedure.
But what’s all this talk about bodily
autonomy? I thought Catholics are
supposed to be pro-life? Doesn’t this
sound like “my body, my choice”?
What happened to using the government
to coerce someone’s medical
choices to protect the vulnerable from
death?
While at first glance these may seem
like similar issues, the claim pro-lifers
make against abortion is that one
may not, under the guise of a medical
decision and bodily autonomy,
actively kill someone else. According
to Catholic teaching, a woman may,
in fact, choose to undergo a necessary
medical procedure (say, removal of a
cancerous uterus or a fallopian tube)
that will result in the child’s (foreseen
but unintended) death. Pro-lifers are
instead focused on violent acts that
aim at the death of prenatal children.
Furthermore, though the science
on this is not yet settled, physicians
like Aaron Kheriaty argue that those
who have already been infected with
COVID-19 have natural immunity
to the virus, which is equal to or even
exceeds that of vaccines.
Indeed, in a recent federal lawsuit
against the State of California,
Kheriaty argues there is no benefit to
the common good by forcing COV-
ID-19-recovered citizens to take a
drug they don’t want to take.
At this difficult moment of the pandemic,
the Church should redouble
Demonstrators outside St. Joseph Mercy
Hospital in Pontiac, Michigan, on July 24, protest
the COVID-19 vaccination requirement the
hospital’s parent corporation, Trinity Health, has
put in place for all of its hospital workers. The
requirement is effective Sept. 21 and applies to
117,000 employees in 22 states. | JIM WEST/CNS
its important work in increasing
vaccine access and work to convince
those who pose a risk to themselves or
others to take it. But on the level of
public policy, the Church should also
defend the consciences and bodily
integrity of those who have decided
not to take it.
That many are willing to trample
the civil rights of their fellow citizens
— especially when those who are
not vaccinated are disproportionately
Black and Hispanic — indicates that
we are facing a danger similar to what
we faced after 9/11. Many are living
with understandable fear and even
desperation, but our response to this
new enemy must not repeat the mistakes
of the past. Our response must
not abandon those values that make
us who we are.
Charles C. Camosy is an associate
professor of theology and bioethics at
Fordham University. His most recent
book is “Losing Our Dignity: How
Secularized Medicine is Undermining
Fundamental Human Equality” (New
City Press, $22.95).
September 10, 2021 • ANGELUS • 25

WITH GRACE
DR. GRAZIE POZO CHRISTIE
The coming abortion showdown
SHUTTERSTOCK
This fall, the U.S. Supreme
Court is expected to revisit the
culture-churning cases of Roe
v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood,
which between them established
a wildly permissive abortion regime
pegged (in part) to the moving target of
fetal viability.
If “wildly permissive” sounds hyperbolic,
consider that the U.S. is one of
only a handful of nations that allows
elective abortion through all 40 weeks
of pregnancy, putting us in the disgraceful
company of Cuba and North
Korea. Due to Roe and Casey, our
states are not permitted to limit abortion
in any way before the point of fetal
viability, a threshold that is dropping
but today sits at about 22 weeks. In
most other (and more humane) countries,
babies can’t be electively aborted
after 12 weeks of gestation.
It would be incredible indeed if the
court could effect our exit from the
club of abortion shame by toppling Roe
and returning the regulation of abortion
to the people of each state through
their elected representatives.
I think we would find that in the dark
decades since that decision, our appreciation
of the fetus as a vulnerable, endearing
member of the human family
has grown, not waned. These are years
in which more than 60 million babies
have legally lost their lives; years in
which all the heady promises of “liberation”
and “equality” for women have
delivered nothing but the degradation
of the coarsest hedonism.
In a post-Roe America, compassionate
protections and protective regulations
could bloom once again, softening the
arid landscape of a country bearing
the scars of nearly five decades of legal
abortion.
Much of the growth in our collective
appreciation of unborn life is thanks to
ultrasound technology. It happens to
be part of my daily work, and no matter
how often I see it, the sight of a baby
nestling, breathing, moving, in the
velvet darkness of the womb affects me.
My little patients are so defenseless, so
voiceless. They are completely at the
mercy of the powerful people around
them, and are accorded such meager
sympathy and respect.
While it would be illegal to violently
rip apart a puppy, our laws allow the
barbarous dismemberment of a second
trimester fetus without anesthesia even
as the latest science suggests that babies
may feel pain as early as 12 weeks.
26 • ANGELUS • September 10, 2021

Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie is a mother of five
who practices radiology in the Miami area.
This is what is at issue in the landmark
case soon to be heard by the
Supreme Court. The people of
Mississippi, through their representatives,
passed a law restricting abortion
after 15 weeks, except for cases of fetal
disability or maternal danger.
They were responding to the blackand-white
ultrasound images imprinted
on the minds of people everywhere,
showing those petite profiles, those
delicate limbs, those soft round bellies
so much like the bellies of the newborns
that enchant us. Also to the
endearing, fleeting “expressions” that
stamp the fetus indelibly as a person:
the thoughtful frown wrinkling the
forehead, the mouth pursed as if in
distaste, the passing upward-curve of
the lips that looks for all the world like
a knowing smile.
It wasn’t just the obvious humanity
of the unborn child that prompted
the Mississippi law in question. They
were also addressing advances in our
knowledge of fetal pain and how that
awakens our empathy and our dread of
causing agony to a defenseless child.
They were reacting to the sad way in
which abortion distorts the medical
profession, making a doctor now a
protector, now an assassin, depending
on the parent’s will.
They were rejecting the false notion
that without abortion women can’t
flourish. They were waking up to
the possibility that, in fact, it may be
abortion that unjustly subjects them,
both to the desires of unscrupulous
men, and to those of a society that
won’t support the indispensable work
of mothering.
Just as inside a pregnant woman is a
tremulous, shining life aching to be
born, so inside our great country is a
new and gentle love for babies and
their mothers waiting to emerge. It has
been a long, hard labor, but with any
luck, and countless prayers, we may
soon be looking at a post-Roe America.
It will be a small and mewling thing,
at first, but bursting with promise and
hopeful possibilities.
626.795.8333
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Pasadena, California 91101
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our office or your home.
5/6/20 3:32 PM
September 10, 2021 • ANGELUS • 27

St. Teresa of Calcutta
cares for a sick man
in an undated photo.
| CNS/KNA
Our mystical identity question
What makes you or
me a child of God? As
a new book argues, a
lot depends on getting
the answer right.
BY CHRISTOPHER KACZOR
In “Christ Alive in Me: Living as
a Member of the Mystical Body”
(Emmaus Road, $22.95), Father
David Vincent Meconi, SJ, recalls an
encounter with a street preacher.
She asked him, “Do you have a
personal relationship with Jesus
Christ?” His answer: “I do, but I don’t
want one.” She was shocked. He was
shocked. This answer sprung from his
mouth without prior planning.
“With you and with friends,” Father
Meconi continued, “I want a relationship.
But with Jesus Christ, I
want something else. I do not want a
relationship; I want something more.
Father David Vincent Meconi, SJ. | ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY
28 • ANGELUS • September 10, 2021

I want union. I want his words to
become my words, the way he looks
at people to become the way I look
at people, for my heart to become
his heart. I want his incarnation to
continue in me.”
“Christ Alive in Me: Living as
a Member of the Mystical Body”
provides an engaging exposition of
this central message of the Gospel.
Jesus is not just a teacher, however
wise, nor a mere guru who gives us a
great example. He is the vine, and we
are the branches. He is the head, and
we are his body. He can live in us,
and we can live in him. This reality
is called by different names such as
divinization, “theosis,” and deification.
The truth at issue is that we become
not just pupils of a divine teacher,
but children of God adopted into the
Divine Family of Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit.
As Father Meconi puts it, “Since
the Son of God has taken my human
nature to himself, my humanity is
empowered to do things ‘in Christ’
that no mere human could — for
example, I can love my enemies, I
never need to give in to my own fallen
passions and desires, I can live with
joy and purpose, and everlasting bliss,
and so on.”
Father Meconi explores this idea
of “Divine Adoption” in a way that
resonates with me personally as
someone who was adopted. Adoption
(by human parents or by God) is not
an achievement of the one who is
adopted.
I did not become a member of the
Kaczor family by winning some competition
among the other newborns at
St. Anne’s Baby and Maternity Home
in Spokane. Rather, the initiative belonged
to my parents in choosing me.
I did not earn a place in the Kaczor
family through my outstanding behavior
in the crib. So, too, to become a
child of God through baptism is not
the result of our own efforts, merits,
and excellence, but it is a pure gift
from God.
In becoming part of the Kaczor
family, I received a new identity as a
Kaczor, an identity that shapes me to
this very day. So, too, in becoming a
child of God an individual is forever
marked as belonging to God, as part
of the Divine Family.
Father Meconi emphasizes the consequences
that follow from this Divine
identity that we share in Christ.
Following St. Augustine’s teaching,
Father Meconi emphasizes three ways
of encountering Jesus: “Christ himself
teaches us that his very body born of
a Virgin is also encountered in the
Eucharist he instituted for all time on
Holy Thursday, which, in turn, is to
be fed and clothed and visited in his
Mystical Body, ‘Whatever you did for
one of these least brothers or sisters of
mine, you did for me.’ ”
Perhaps of all the most recent saints,
St. Teresa of Calcutta best exemplified
these three encounters.
“In Mother Teresa we find a woman
who adopted our God in heaven with
an intensity that often left her desiccated
and confused about how close
God really was in her, a woman who
spent hours before the Blessed Sacrament
and received our Eucharistic
Lord daily for decades, and a woman
who spent her life serving the poorest
of the poor.”
Her efforts were not mere social
work, but animated with a purity
of intention that arises from a deep
understanding that she was a child
of God. Of course, most of us are not
going to move to Calcutta to care for
orphans and lepers in the slums. But
St. Teresa was the first to say that we
all have a mission to love — which is,
of course, the very mission of Jesus —
wherever we find those in spiritual or
bodily need.
This call to live more fully the reality
of Divine Adoption is not just a call
for priests or sisters, but for everyone.
This identity does not destroy our
individuality but enlivens it.
“Alone, a piece of iron is hard and
resistant,” writes Father Meconi. “But
if that piece of iron is put into a fire,
it takes on a new nature. It does not
cease being iron, but now it shares in
the luminosity and the heat of that
flame. In that fire, the iron now takes
on new dimensions: it becomes aglow,
it becomes malleable and able to be
worked into whatever the craftsperson
needs. This is our soul in Christ.
Alone and apart from our Creator,
we remain hard and recalcitrant. But
as we allow ourselves to let divinity
enrapt us, we do not cease to be human,
but we take on a new nature not
our own: we become illumined and
manageable in the Father’s hands. We
take on a new life that elevates and
thus perfects our humanity as we now
come to realize what the meaning
of life and our existence has been all
along.”
In “Christ Alive in Me: Living as a
Member of the Mystical Body,” Father
Meconi provides a winning and witty
presentation of the point of human
life and the deepest desires of the
heart. In our baptism, we are made
children of God. In our everyday life,
we are called to live that reality.
Christopher Kaczor is professor of
philosophy at Loyola Marymount
University and the co-author of “Jordan
Peterson, God, and Christianity: The
Search for a Meaningful Life” (Word
on Fire Institute, $29.95).
AMAZON
September 10, 2021 • ANGELUS • 29

DESIRE LINES
HEATHER KING
The sounds of the guillotine
An opera captures the spiritual triumph of a
group of French Revolution martyrs.
A scene from “Dialogues of the Carmélites.” | ©THE METROPOLITAN OPERA
Francis Poulenc’s “Dialogues of
the Carmélites” is a 1957 opera
based on the true story of the
Martyrs of Compiègne, a community
of 16 Carmelite nuns who were
guillotined during the French Revolution’s
virulently anti-Catholic Reign of
Terror.
The libretto is by Georges Bernanos
(1881-1948), a Catholic novelist best
known for “Diary of a Country Priest.”
I confess that opera (favorite arias
aside) is not my first love. Enter “Dialogues
of the Carmélites,” which I
came across in the form of a high definition
Metropolitan Opera broadcast,
a series that brings opera performances
live into movie theaters throughout the
world, and then archives them.
The opera (note, this is the April
4, 1987, performance, with director
John Dexter and designer David
Reppa) follows the spiritual pilgrimage
of Blanche de la Force (Maria Ewing),
daughter of an aristocrat whose
entire way of life is threatened by the
bloodthirsty mob hellbent on liberty,
brotherhood, and — so like our own
contemporary mobs — “equality.”
Emotionally frail, spiritually overwrought,
and initially driven by a desire
to escape from the world, Blanche
joins the convent, sits vigil with the
treasured Mother Superior, is guided
by two other mother figures, and forms
a special bond with Sister Constance
(Betsy Norden).
The sisters are arrested, thrust out of
the convent, and sentenced to death. In
prison, they take a joint vow of martyrdom.
Meanwhile, Blanche escapes and
flees back to the family home, from
which her father has been dragged
and guillotined the previous week and
where she is forced by the former servants
to act as charwoman. But at the
eleventh hour, her conversion becomes
complete. She leaves the house, makes
her way through the crowd, singing,
and joins her sisters at the guillotine.
In an otherwise glowing review,
30 • ANGELUS • September 10, 2021

Heather King is an award-winning
author, speaker, and workshop leader.
critic Michael De Sapio noted, “If I
have reservations about the piece, it
is largely because its first half is filled
with abstract spiritual discussions that
are poorly suited to musical treatment.
This portion of the opera feels
static and verbose — not to mention
overlong — with Poulenc having little
to do but spin exquisite filigree around
the text, between increasingly powerful
orchestral interludes.”
To me, those conversations were the
soul of the opera, establishing the backdrop
of Blanche’s very human journey
through fear, the death of pride, and
grace.
Blanche is “high-strung and inclined
to be morbid,” notes her brother, the
Chevalier de la Force, in the opening
scene. “There has been only one Resurrection,”
Blanche observes dreamily,
“that of Easter morning … but every
night of one’s life is like the agony of
Christ.”
She soon sets about discerning her
possible vocation. The stage set for the
convent is brilliant: a giant ivory-colored
cross, bathed in shadow, laid out
on the floor. A metal grille, a special
chair for the wimpled prioress, Madame
de Croissy (Régine Crespin).
“Our order does not tend toward tenderness
and pity,” the imposing Mother
Superior reports. Becoming a nun is
about letting illusions and desires for
heroism die.
“The purpose of an order is neither to
mortify the human soul nor to safeguard
virtue: We are a house of prayer!”
Then again, “Each and every prayer,
even that of a little shepherd tending
his flock, is really the prayer of the
whole world.”
“The trials that await you are not easy,
my daughter — but what God desires
is not your strength, but your weakness.”
Thus, Blanche enters the convent,
choosing the name Sister Blanche of
the Agony of Christ.
Mother Superior, knowing she is dying,
commends Blanche to the care of
Mother Marie (Florence Quivar). The
prioress’ death is difficult. Bulwark of
strength and faith, at the end she nonetheless
feels terrified and abandoned.
Mother Lidoine (Jessye Norman) becomes
the new prioress. In the ensuing
days, the black-robed, hooded sisters
glide, genuflect, beseech, work, joke,
and weep, all as their feet move across
that huge white cross.
Knowing of the mobs outside their
doors, they reflect on what they’ve been
taught: that prayer is a duty; martyrdom
is a reward.
Then again, they must ask themselves:
Is the desire for martyrdom mere
grandstanding, or does it stem from a
genuine abandonment to God?
The authorities close in. When the
chaplain is forbidden to preach, Mother
Lidoine observes, “When priests are
lacking, martyrs are superabundant.”
When the sisters are at last arrested
and sentenced to jail to await their
execution, Blanche flees. At the Place
de la Révolution, the nuns process
slowly, one by one, to the guillotine,
singing the “Salve Regina.” The heavy
metallic thud of the guillotine, heard
offstage, is indescribably chilling.
As Sister Constance, the last to go,
proceeds, Blanche emerges from the
crowd to follow her. As she sings “Veni
Creator Spiritus,” she walks offstage
and the guillotine falls, silencing her
mid-stanza.
The opera was worth every minute of
the three hours. The acting was superb;
French maestro Manuel Rosenthal
conducted. But it wasn’t the music
that stayed with me. It was the Mother
Superior’s death — so excruciating as
almost to be unworthy of her; so not a
traditional martyrdom.
Maybe Mother Superior’s difficult
end, Sister Constance reflected
afterward — somehow, somewhere —
made the death of another easier.
September 10, 2021 • ANGELUS • 31

LETTER AND SPIRIT
SCOTT HAHN
Scott Hahn is founder of the
St. Paul Center for Biblical
Theology; stpaulcenter.com.
Paul and the temple
Another in a series on St. Paul.
In modern times we have few
occasions to use the word “temple.”
It never caught on as a term
for Christian places of worship. And
other western religions have shied
away from the term. (Reform Judaism,
which sometimes calls its synagogues
“temple,” is the exception.)
But the term is extremely important
in the letters of St. Paul, and it’s fair
for us to ask why.
Paul addressed Christians of two
types: Jews and gentiles.
For Jews, Temple referred to one
place only: Judaism’s central sanctuary
in Jerusalem. Constructed by
King Solomon, it was destroyed and
later rebuilt, and then renovated in
St. Paul’s lifetime. This was the only
place Jews were permitted to offer
sacrifice; it was the divinely ordained
site of God’s presence. All Jewish
males, no matter where they lived,
were expected to make pilgrimage to
worship there.
The gentiles’ idea of temple had
some points in common with that of
the Jews. Pagan temples were sites of
sacrifice, and they were considered
places where a god or the gods were
present. Gentile sacrificial feasts, like
those of the Jews, included sacred
banquets that were occasions of great
cheer.
But a gentile temple also differed from the Jewish temple
in essential ways. Pagan worship made no exclusive claim
on individuals; they were free to enjoy the sacrifices of as
many altars as they wished. Also, pagan feasts included
“St. Paul,” by Michele Da Verona, 1470-1540, Italian.
| WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
elements that Jews (and Christians) could never abide: “sacred”
prostitution, drunken revelry, gluttony, the worship
of idols.
Thus, St. Paul was careful to make distinctions as he
spelled out a Christian meaning for “temple.” His theology
of the temple is founded firmly on two
realities: Jesus had identified himself
as God’s temple (see John 2:19-21),
and Jesus had identified himself with
his people, the Church (see Acts 9:4).
Thus, for St. Paul, the temple was
no longer merely a building. God
intended the Jerusalem Temple to
foreshadow the worship of the New
Covenant. The former Temple now
found fulfillment in Jesus’ body, the
Church.
The Jerusalem Temple was still
standing as St. Paul wrote his letters.
Destruction came later, at the hands
of the Romans, in A.D. 70. So his evocation
must have shocked his Jewish
hearers, who loved the Temple with a
profound piety.
To them he explained that the
Church was now the special place of
God’s presence. “Do you not know
that you are God’s temple and that
God’s Spirit dwells in you? … God’s
temple is holy, and that temple you
are” (1 Corinthians 3:16–17; see also
2 Corinthians 6:16).
No longer were God’s presence and
rites confined to a single location. No
longer was it the exclusive privilege
of one ethnic group. Now the temple
had no walls. It was universal,
Catholic.
To the gentiles, St. Paul made a
necessary clarification. The Church’s sacrificial feast was
incompatible with the goings-on at pagan temples. “Let us
conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in reveling
and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness,
not in quarreling and jealousy” (Romans 13:13; see also 1
Corinthians 11:20-22).
God’s temple is the holy place. If we’re becoming that
temple, we have to become holy. We have to become
saints.
32 • ANGELUS • September 10, 2021

■ WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8
San Gabriel Mission Jubilee Prayer Service. San Gabriel
Mission, 7 p.m. Archbishop José H. Gomez will lead a prayer
service to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the
founding of the mission.
■ THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9
“Forward in Mission” Eucharistic Adoration. Twenty-two
pilgrimage sites across the Archdiocese of Los Angeles will
host 40 hours of eucharistic adoration Sept. 9, 6 p.m.-Sept.
11, 10 a.m., to pray for the Jubilee Year “Forward in Mission.”
For more information, visit forwardinmission.com.
■ FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10
Centennial Celebration: Holy Name of Jesus Church. Holy
Name of Jesus Church will celebrate 100 years as a bedrock
of the Jefferson Park community with a special weekend
of events Sept. 10-12, ending with a Mass featuring
Bishop Clarke, celebrated by Father John H. Ricard, pastor
Father Kenneth Ugwu, SSJ, former pastor Father Gregory
Chisholm, SJ, and other local clergy. For more information,
visit holynameofjesus-la.org.
■ SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11
Opening Mass for Jubilee Year “Forward in Mission.”
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los
Angeles, 11 a.m. Mass will begin with the opening of the
jubilee year Holy Door by Archbishop José H. Gomez.
Fall Silent Saturday. Holy Spirit Retreat Center, 4316 Lanai
Rd., Encino, 9 a.m.-12 p.m. Arrive at 8:50 a.m. Join us for a
quiet morning of Centering Prayer and silence. This day is
open to beginners as well as those experienced in contemplative
prayer or silent meditation. The day provides time for
communal prayer, a contemplative walk, private journaling
and reflection, and ends with a period of Lectio Divina. All
are welcome. Register online at hsrcenter.com by Sept. 9. For
more information, contact Amanda Berg at spiritualdirection@hsrcenter.com.
Donations are appreciated.
■ MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13
Rosary Rally for a Better World. St. Louis of France
Church, 6 p.m. Mass, 7 p.m. rosary. Event held on the 13th
of every month through October 2021. Email Margarita
Acevedo at margie_therese@yahoo.com for more information.
■ TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14
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.
■ WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15
What Will You Do? Free Online End-of-Life Seminar.
Hosted by Catholic Cemeteries and Mortuaries, the seminar
provides a Catholic perspective on how to prepare for final
needs and what to expect when a loved one dies. English:
Sept. 15, 7 p.m., Sept. 18, 10 a.m. Spanish: Sept. 16, 7 p.m.,
Sept. 18, 1 p.m. Visit catholiccm.org for more information.
■ THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16
Children’s Bureau: Foster Care Zoom Orientation. San
Children’s Bureau is now offering two virtual ways for individuals
and couples to learn how to help children in foster
care while reunifying with birth families or how to provide
legal permanency by adoption, 4-5 p.m. A live Zoom orientation
will be hosted by a Children’s Bureau team member
and a foster parent. For those who want to learn at their own
pace about becoming a foster and/or fost-adopt parent, an
online orientation presentation is available. To RSVP for the
live orientation or to request the online orientation, email
rfrecruitment@all4kids.org.
■ SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19
Day in Recognition of All Immigrants Procession and
Mass. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 W. Temple
St., Los Angeles, 3 p.m. Archbishop José H. Gomez will
celebrate a special Mass at 3:30 p.m., which will be in
person and livestreamed via Facebook.com/lacatholics and
lacatholics.org/immigration.
“Pueblo Amante de Maria” Virtual Procession, Rosary,
and Tagalog Mass. Incarnation Church of Glendale will
host a virtual procession and rosary at 1:15 p.m. to celebrate
500 years of Christianity in the Philippines. Tagalog Mass
to follow. To join on livestream, visit the Incarnation Church
Facebook page. For details, call 818-242-2579.
■ SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25
Feast of San Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila Celebration. St.
Catherine of Siena Church, 18115 Sherman Way, Reseda,
9 a.m. procession, 10 a.m. Mass with reception immediately
following. Celebrant: Bishop Alex Aclan. Hosted by
the Filipino Ministry in the San Fernando Pastoral Region
and St. Catherine of Siena Church. For more information,
call Simon Paculan at 818-416-8438 or Ami Nakagiri at
818.486.8157.
■ FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1
Tepeyac Leadership Initiative Virtual Open House. Meet
future instructors, recent alumni, and other professionals
who share Catholic values at 4 p.m. Facebook Live event.
For more information, visit https://tliprogram.org/event/
virtual-open-house/.
■ SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2
Lessons From St. Padre Pio, A Modern-Day Mystic. St. Edward
the Confessor School gym, 33926 Calle La Primavera,
Dana Point, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Event includes Mass and blessings
with St. Padre Pio relics, talks “Mystical & Charismatic
Gifts in a Skeptical Era, Healings,” “Miracles & Spiritual
Battle in St. Padre Pio’s Life,” and “St. Padre Pio and the Holy
Angels.” Cost: $25/person by Sept. 22, $35/person at door.
To register, visit scrc.org/pio or call 818-771-1361.
■ TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12
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, OCTOBER 24
Health Care Professionals Mass. Cathedral of Our Lady
of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 3:30-5 p.m.
Visit lifejusticeandpeace.lacatholics.org/healthcare-professionals-mass
for more information.
■ FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5
Retrouvaille: A Lifeline for Married Couples. Weekend
program runs Nov. 5-7 in Santa Clarita. 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.
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.
September 10, 2021 • ANGELUS • 33