Angelus News | December 17, 2021

ANGELUS 

MARIO’S MIRACLE 

A shooting survivor looks to Christmas 

December 17, 2021 Vol. 6 No. 25

B • ANGELUS • December 17, 2021

ANGELUS 

December 17, 2021 

Vol. 6 • No. 25 

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ON THE COVER 

VICTOR ALEMÁN 

Mario Ramirez, a sixth-grader at St. Elizabeth of Hungary 

School in Altadena, with friends during class. When 

Ramirez was shot outside his home on Valentine’s Day 

this year, his classmates did the only thing they could: 

pray. Starting on Page 10, writer Steve Lowery caught up 

with this “special” group of middle-schoolers ahead of the 

Christmas holiday about how Ramirez’s surprising recovery 

helped them discover the power of prayer and friendship. 

THIS PAGE 

CNS/VATICAN MEDIA 

Pope Francis greets a migrant mother and her 

child at the apostolic nunciature in Athens, 

Greece, on Dec. 4. During his five-day trip to 

Cyprus and Greece, the pope also met with 

migrants on the island of Lesbos, home to 

thousands of asylum-seekers from Africa and 

the Middle East waiting to be admitted to the 

European mainland. 

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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 

14 

18 

CONTENTS 

Pandemic, supply-chain crisis take toll on Port of LA’s spiritual needs 

Photos: Guadalupanos celebrate 90th annual East LA procession 

Angelus News 

@AngelusNews 

@AngelusNews 

22 

24 

Inés San Martín: Are bishops the last free men standing in Nicaragua? 

Father Peter Cameron: Why Christmas needs our anguish (and vice-versa) 

angelusnews.com 

lacatholics.org 

26 

Greg Erlandson: Advent as the answer to my news addiction 

Sign up for our free, daily e-newsletter 

Always Forward - newsletter.angelusnews.com 

28 

30 

An unusual new film looks for the hand of God in the life of C.S. Lewis 

Heather King takes on a godless post-Cold War narrative 

December 17, 2021 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH 

Faith over philosophy 

The following is adapted from the 

Holy Father’s address to young people, 

including young Syrian refugees, at St. 

Dionysius School outside of Athens. 

Pope Francis’ visit to the school was the 

last public event of his Dec. 2-6 apostolic 

journey to Cyprus and Greece. More 

reporting from the trip will be featured 

in the next issue of Angelus. 

Wonder, amazement, is 

the beginning not only of 

philosophy, but also of our 

faith. Faith is not primarily about a 

list of things to believe and rules to 

follow. In the deepest sense, faith is 

not an idea or a system of morality, 

but a reality, a beautiful truth that 

does not depend on us and that leaves 

us amazed: We are God’s beloved 

children! 

We are beloved children because we 

have a Father who watches over us 

and who never stops loving us. Think 

about this: Whatever you may think 

or do, even the worst things possible, 

God continues to love you. He looks 

at your life and sees that it is good (cf. 

Genesis 1:31). He never abandons us. 

Dear young people, think about this: 

If nature is beautiful in our eyes, in 

God’s eye each of you is infinitely 

more beautiful! Scripture says: “He 

has wondrously made us” (cf. Psalm 

139:14). In God’s eyes we are a wonder. 

Let yourself be loved by the One 

who always believes in you, by the 

One who loves you even more than 

you succeed in loving yourself. 

Remember those famous words 

engraved on the pediment of the 

Delphi temple? “Know thyself.” Nowadays, 

we risk forgetting who we are, 

becoming obsessed with appearances, 

bombarded with messages that make 

life depend on what we wear, the car 

we drive, how others see us. Yet those 

ancient words — know thyself — 

remain valid today. Realize that your 

worth is in who you are and not what 

you have. Your worth is not in the 

brand of the dress or shoes you wear, 

but because you are unique. 

Here I think of another ancient image, 

that of the sirens. In mythology, 

the sirens by their songs enchanted 

sailors and made them crash against 

the rocks. Today’s sirens want to 

charm you with seductive and insistent 

messages that focus on easy gains, 

the false needs of consumerism, the 

cult of physical wellness, of entertainment 

at all costs. 

Do you remember how Odysseus did 

it, threatened by the sirens? He had 

himself tied to the ship’s mast. Another 

ancient figure, Orpheus, teaches us 

a better way. He sang a more beautiful 

melody than that of the sirens, and 

thus reduced them to silence. That 

is why it is important to cherish the 

wonder, the amazement, the beauty 

of faith! 

We are Christians not out of duty, 

but out of beauty. And precisely because 

we want to cherish that beauty, 

we have to say no to anything that 

would mar it. The joy of the gospel, 

the wonder of Jesus, makes our 

sacrifices and struggles fade into the 

background. 

Don’t you agree? Remember this: 

Being a Christian is not essentially 

about doing this or that, about 

doing things. We must do things, but 

Christianity is not essentially that. In 

the end, being a Christian is about 

letting God love you and recognizing 

that you are a unique individual in the 

face of the love of God. 

Papal Prayer Intention for December: Let us pray for the 

catechists, summoned to announce the word of God: 

may they be its witnesses, with courage and creativity, 

and in the power of the Holy Spirit. 

2 • ANGELUS • December 17, 2021

NEW WORLD OF FAITH 

ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

The mission of Christmas 

The joy and warmth that we 

feel at Christmas comes from 

knowing that we are loved by 

Jesus and that he wants to share his 

life with us. 

On this beautiful feast, the living God 

enters into the darkness of his fallen 

creation, a world that, sadly, seems to 

be forgetting about him. He comes 

to shine a new light, he comes as a 

newborn baby to be born again in every 

human heart. 

It is said that St. Francis of Assisi, who 

gave us the beautiful tradition of the 

Christmas crèche, was inspired by the 

mystical vision of a poor man in Greccio, 

Italy, who saw the holy Infant in the 

manger awaken as St. Francis drew near 

to him. 

For St. Francis, this was a sign: “The 

Child was indeed asleep in the forgetfulness 

of hearts,” his first biographer 

wrote. St. Francis made it his mission 

to awaken the memory of Jesus in these 

forgetful hearts. That is still the mission 

of Christmas. 

When we know Jesus, everything else 

falls into place. We know the meaning 

of our lives. We understand our 

responsibilities, and God’s purposes in 

the world. 

I am more convinced every day 

that the future of the Church — our 

programs and ministries, our catechesis 

and evangelization, our prayer, worship, 

and service — all must begin from a 

new encounter with Jesus. 

This Christmas I would like to make 

an appeal to you and to every person: 

Allow Jesus to awaken in your heart, 

to become more deeply aware of his 

presence in your life. 

Jesus is real. He is not some mythical 

god or a hero from ancient history. He 

is true God and true man, and he is as 

real in your life as he was in the lives 

of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, and the 

apostles. 

His love for you is real. In the Creed, 

we say that he came into the world “for 

us and for our salvation.” We say that 

he suffered and was crucified “for our 

sake.” 

To be a Christian is to be a soul in 

wonder. Wonder at why we are worth 

so much to God, why does he love us 

so much? 

What happens in the Christmas story 

happens for you and for me. 

At Christmas, the image of the invisible 

God, the Creator of the universe, 

empties himself and comes down from 

heaven to earth, to become one of us, to 

share in our humanity. 

He does that for you and for me. He 

makes himself vulnerable, dependent, 

a Child in the womb, an Infant who 

needs St. Joseph to hold him in his 

arms and Our Lady to nurse him and 

comfort him when he cries. 

Jesus knows our human reality, all the 

sorrows and joys, all the burdens and 

blessings we experience in our daily 

lives. He had a family and worked for 

a living. He took his faith seriously, 

prayed, went to services, and read the 

Bible. He knew hunger and thirst, and 

how it felt to be weary and to be happy; 

and frustrated and misunderstood. 

He faced suffering and the prospect 

of dying as everyone does: “My soul is 

sorrowful unto death,” he said. 

His humanity is written on every page 

of the Gospels. And through his humanity, 

he shows us his divinity: “Whoever 

has seen me, sees the Father.” 

Jesus came down from heaven for 

each one of you, personally. He loves 

each one of you so much that he lived 

for you, suffered for you, and died for 

you. 

This Christmas I would like to make an appeal: 

Allow Jesus to awaken in your heart, to become 

more deeply aware of his presence in your life. 

He is the word of God who was made 

flesh to dwell among us. And as the 

word, he is speaking to us, calling to us, 

inviting us into a relationship. 

“Come to me … learn from me … 

and you will find rest.” Our Lord’s 

words are beautiful, comforting. But 

they are more than that. They are the 

starting point for a new way of life. 

Jesus has not left us. He is Emmanuel, 

our God who comes to be with us 

always, until the end of time. Even now, 

we can go to him, we can lean on him 

and learn from him, we can follow his 

words and his example, and make him 

the way for our lives. 

Although we are anxious and worried 

about many things, Jesus told us that he 

is the only thing that matters, the one 

thing necessary in our lives. We can 

trust and build our lives on his promise. 

Jesus is real. His love for you is real. 

And his promises are true. 

Pray for me this Christmas, and I will 

pray for you. I wish for your families all 

the joy and wonder of this holy season. 

And I ask our Blessed Mother Mary to 

awaken in all of us a new awareness of 

God’s tender love, that Jesus might be 

born again in our hearts, as he was born 

from her on Christmas. 


WORLD 

Archbishop Michel Aupetit. | CNS/PAUL HARING 

■ Paris archbishop steps down after scathing report 

Pope Francis accepted the resignation of the archbishop of Paris following 

questions about his leadership and a past relationship with a woman. 

On Nov. 22, French magazine Le Point published a news report describing 

Archbishop Michel Aupetit as authoritarian and divisive and calling into 

question his relationship with a woman while he was still a priest almost 10 

years ago. 

Archbishop Aupetit admitted he had engaged in an “ambiguous” relationship 

with the woman, but denied it was “intimate” and said he had reported 

it to his superiors at the time. 

In a video message released after the resignation became official Dec. 2, the 

70-year-old asked for forgiveness “from those I might have hurt.” 

“I have been deeply troubled by the attacks on me,” he said. “I pray for 

those who, maybe, have wished bad things onto me, as Christ has taught us.” 

■ Evangelicals outnumber Catholics in Honduras 

The rise of evangelicalism in Honduras, where 95% of people are baptized 

Catholics, can be traced to a shortage of priests, the apostolic nuncio to the 

country said. 

“Forty years ago, there were nearly 500 priests in the country, two-thirds of 

them missionaries,” Archbishop Gábor Pintér said. “The number of missionary 

priests is now extremely low; the clergy are made up of local vocations. The 

seminaries are full, but unfortunately, there aren’t enough Catholic priests.” 

As a result, some Honduran Catholics must wait six months to a year between 

visits from priests, while evangelical churches tend to have a pastor for every 50 

to 100 people. 

With lack of access to the sacraments, more Hondurans have turned to 

evangelicalism, with 46% describing themselves as evangelical versus 38% as 

Catholic, according to a survey by Honduran research group Paragigma. 

A painter from the peripheries — Adam Piekarski stands in front of his paintings in his studio Dec. 1 at Palazzo 

Migliori, the Vatican’s homeless shelter. Piekarski, a homeless man from Poland currently living in Rome, was 

commissioned to paint images for the Vatican’s 2021 Christmas stamps. One of his stamps can be seen on Page 

24 of this issue of Angelus. | CNS/JUNNO AROCHO ESTEVES 

■ After backlash, 

EU will still say 

‘Christmas’ 

The European Union backed 

down from removing the word 

“Christmas” in its communications 

after an internal dossier 

was leaked to Italian media. 

The document, “Union of 

Equality,” was signed by European 

Commissioner for Equality 

Helena Dalli and recommended 

that EU institutions use “inclusive 

communication” while 

avoiding direct references to 

Christmas. 

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal 

Pietro Parolin criticized 

the document for going “against 

reality.” 

“I believe that the concern to 

cancel all discrimination is just,” 

Parolin said in an interview with 

Vatican News. “However, in my 

opinion, this is not the way to 

achieve this goal. Because in the 

end we risk destroying, annihilating 

the person.” 

Following widespread criticism, 

Dalli announced the document 

would be withdrawn and revised 

to address concerns. 

“The initiatives in the directives 

were intended to illustrate the 

diversity of European culture 

and show the inclusive nature of 

the commission,” Dalli said. 


NATION 

■ Could the end of Roe v. Wade be near? 

Pro-life advocates 

are hopeful that the 

Supreme Court could 

overrule previous court 

decisions that legalized 

abortion in the U.S. 

The reasons for optimism 

came after justices 

spent two hours on Dec. 

1 hearing arguments for 

and against upholding 

a Mississippi law that 

bans abortions after 

Pro-life activists outside the U.S. Supreme Court Dec. 1. | CNS/JONATHAN the viability limit of 15 

ERNST, REUTERS 

weeks of pregnancy. A 

decision on the case is 

not expected until late spring or summer 2022. 

During the arguments, the majority of justices seemed willing to let the ban stay 

in place. What is more unclear, however, is whether their decision would overturn 

Roe v. Wade or limit the degree to which it ensures a legal right to abortion on the 

national level. 

“Across the political spectrum, many close court-watchers who would’ve said 

at 9:59 a.m. that there is no chance the court fully reverses Roe are now saying 

that’s the likeliest outcome,” Sherif Girgis, associate professor at Notre Dame Law 

School, told Catholic News Agency. 

A brief from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops warned that if the Supreme 

Court “continues to treat abortion as a constitutional issue,” it will face more questions 

in the future about “what sorts of abortion regulations are permissible.” 

“We pray that the court will do the right thing and allow states to once again limit 

or prohibit abortion and in doing so protect millions of unborn children and their 

mothers from this painful, life-destroying act,” said Baltimore Archbishop William 

E. Lori, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ pro-life committee. 

■ Federal government 

aims to revoke medical 

religious exemptions 

The Department of Health and 

Human Services (HHS) is looking 

to overturn religious exemptions that 

protected employers from covering 

abortion, end-of-life or contraceptive 

care, according to court filings 

uncovered by the Catholic Benefits 

Association (CBA). 

The proposed HHS rules would 

expand the interpretation of what 

discrimination on “the basis of sex” 

means under the Affordable Care Act, 

expanding abortion access and requiring 

religious entities to provide gender 

reassignment surgeries, sterilizations, 

and other procedures. 

A coalition of groups, including 

Planned Parenthood and the Southern 

Poverty Law Center, had laid out 

the legal framework for rolling back 

existing religious exemptions in a June 

memo. 

“This isn’t a Catholic issue; this 

is a religious issue,” Doug Wilson, 

CEO of the CBA, told the National 

Catholic Register. “This will impact 

everyone religious, and, essentially, 

they’re saying that your beliefs have 

no standing in this discussion.” 

Oxford High School students and staff during Mass Nov. 30 at St. Joseph Church in Lake 

Orion, Michigan. | MICHAEL STECHSCHULTE, DETROIT CATHOLIC 

■ Parish becomes healing space 

after Michigan school shooting 

Clergy from St. Joseph Church offered prayers and counseling 

to the community of Oxford, Michigan, following a 

Nov. 30 shooting at Oxford High School, which killed four 

and gravely injured six. 

Nearly 1,000 parents, students, and community members 

gathered at the church the night of the shooting for Mass, 

adoration, and confessions. Though many in attendance 

were not Catholic, St. Joseph is the closest parish to the 

high school and its services offered opportunity for prayer 

and healing. 

“Every time we experience a loss of friends or loved ones 

or something we don’t understand, the Lord wants not only 

to walk with us in that darkness, but to let us know that he is 

there,” Father John Carlin, associate pastor, said in his homily. 

“He’s not going anywhere, and he never will.” 

A 15-year-old student at the high school is in custody in 

connection with the shooting. 


LOCAL 

■ Prayers and petitions to ‘save’ 

iconic Hollywood monastery 

Neighbors are rallying to keep Hollywood’s Monastery of the Angels open even 

after its last remaining nuns leave the premises. 

Home to cloistered Dominican sisters since the 1930s, its number of members 

had dwindled in recent years. With only three sisters left, the monastery no longer 

meets canonical requirements for a viable community, and its members have 

asked the Dominican order to close its community. 

Preservationists are worried what would happen if the Dominicans, headquartered 

in Rome, were to sell the ultra-prime real estate. A Change.org petition to 

“save” the monastery had nearly 3,000 signatures as of Dec. 6. 

While the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has no jurisdiction over the property, it 

said in a statement that it hopes “that religious services can continue at the monastery.” 

For now, the monastery will continue to produce its famous pumpkin bread 

with the help of lay staff. 

“We are in the process of exploring all possible alternatives and open to a solution 

that would preserve the chapel of adoration, gift shop, and religious environment 

of the property,” said local prioress Sister Maria Christine, OP. 

■ Cathedral to host jubilee-themed ‘posada’ 

For the first time in its history, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels will 

host a Christmas “posadas” celebration on Saturday, Dec. 18, at 5:30 p.m. 

“Las Posadas” is a Mexican tradition that brings families together on each of 

the nine days before Christmas. Each night of the novena, families commemorate 

the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem in search of shelter, or 

“posada.” 

The cathedral’s “Open Hearts, Open Doors: A Jubilee Posada” is inspired by 

the “Forward in Mission” jubilee year, and will include a candlelight procession, 

prayer service, a photo booth, and refreshments. Guests are invited to 

donate an unwrapped toy or gift card to benefit families in need. 

Perfected by persecution — Archbishop José H. Gomez celebrated Mass on Saturday, Dec. 4, with the Los 

Angeles community of the Siervas de María Ministras de los Enfermos (Servants of Mary, Ministers to the Sick) 

in Jefferson Park to mark the 85th anniversary of the martyrdom of four sisters of their order. The sisters are 

remembered as victims of anti-Catholic persecution during the Spanish Civil War and were beatified in 2013 by 

Pope Francis. | VICTOR ALEMÁN 

Father “Bill” Fulco, SJ. | LMU/MEDIUM.COM 

■ Farewell to LMU’s 

ultimate Renaissance 

Man 

Generations of Loyola Marymount 

University alumni are mourning the 

loss of a Jesuit who could do it all. 

Father William J. Fulco, SJ, was born 

in Los Angeles and joined the Society 

of Jesus in 1954 before his ordination 

to the priesthood 12 years later. He 

began teaching at LMU in 1998. 

On campus, he was a wildly popular 

professor whose classes often drew 

waiting lists of hundreds of students 

and a beloved mentor to Sigma Phi 

Epsilon fraternity brothers. Off it, he 

was a world-renowned archaeologist 

and polyglot whose rare expertise in 

Aramaic was employed to shape the dialogues 

of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion 

of the Christ” and several other films 

throughout the years. 

“He was the classic Jesuit academic, 

equally at home on an archeological 

dig as in the classroom,” wrote LMU 

President Timothy Law Snyder in a 

statement on his passing. 

Before his retirement in 2019, Father 

Fulco held LMU’s National Endowment 

for the Humanities Chair of Ancient 

Mediterranean Studies. A cancer 

survivor, he died Nov. 29 at the Sacred 

Heart Jesuit Center in Los Gatos from 

pulmonary fibrosis. He was 85. 

Y 


V 

IN OTHER WORDS... 

Letters to the Editor 

A diocese’s controversial decision 

Regarding the national news brief “The diocese that won’t host vaccination 

clinics” in the Dec. 3 issue: Why is the Diocese of Madison being 

slandered as “anti-life” for simply letting parishioners make their own decision on 

whether to get vaccinated or not? It is not a sin of omission not to endorse something 

we now know is not as “safe and effective” as originally led to believe. 

— David Walter, Downey 

An out-of-bounds comparison 

I found the analogy used by John L. Allen Jr. in the Dec. 3 issue article “Tradition 

and transition” to be flippant and insulting. 

My concern is not with his point of view, which can be argued by theologians. 

But to compare those who assist at the Extraordinary Form of the Mass to a “cantankerous 

old uncle” that nobody wants around is beneath the standard of your 

magazine. 

I give the Holy Father the benefit of the doubt, and believe that he is trying to 

do what he feels is best for the Church. I hope Allen prays, as do I, for the good 

of the Church and not that of his own ideology. He is welcome to his opinion, 

but should imbibe a bit of charity and humility. After all, he may be completely 

wrong. That happens when you’re human. 

— Andre Coulombe, Sylmar 

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. 

A pink procession for Our Lady 

View more photos 

from this gallery at 

AngelusNews.com/photos-videos 

“What I do, what I make, 

what I made — is that 

going to help me on the last 

day of my life?” 

~ Actor Denzel Washington, in a Dec. 4 interview 

with The New York Times. 

“I told my husband to get 

ready for us to turn over our 

own car and set it on fire if 

we win.” 

~ Legal scholar Helen Alvaré on the prospects of 

the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in an 

interview with the National Catholic Register. 

“We don’t know how 

the court will rule. But as 

in 1989, this time feels 

different.” 

~ Andy Puzdur in a Nov. 29 opinion article titled 

“This abortion case ‘feels different,’ ” for the Wall 

Street Journal. 

“We need a calling outside 

of ourselves, to some sort of 

higher power, to something 

higher than ourselves to 

preserve life on earth.” 

~ Bill Jacobs, a Catholic ecologist who believes the 

fight for climate change will be won with spirituality, 

in a Dec. 3 New York Times article. 

Junior members of the Ballet Folklorico from Resurrection 

Church in Boyle Heights process through the 

streets of East LA during the 90th annual Guadalupe 

procession on Sunday, Dec. 5. | VICTOR ALEMÁN 

Do you have photos or a story from your 

parish that you’d like to share? Please 

send to editorial @angelusnews.com. 

“The biggest surprise is 

how boldly young adult 

Catholics are participating 

in their faith life outside the 

parish.” 

~ Mark Gray, one of three co-authors of the study 

“Faith and Spiritual Life of Catholics in the United 

States.” 


IN EXILE 

FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI 

Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father 

Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual 

writer; ronaldrolheiser.com. 

Leaving church 

Why are so many people leaving 

their churches? There 

is no one answer to that 

question. People are complex. Faith is 

complex. The issues are complex. 

Looking at the question, it can be 

helpful to distinguish among a number 

of groups. The “Nones,” the “Dones,” 

the “Spiritual-but-not-Religious,” the 

“Indifferent,” the “Angry,” and the 

“Marginalized.” While there is some 

overlap among these groups, each has 

its own set of issues. 

The Nones are those who refuse to 

identify with any religion or faith. 

Asked on a census form, what is your 

faith or religion? they answer “none.” 

Theirs is an agnostic stance. They 

are not necessarily atheistic or hostile 

to faith, religion, and the churches. 

Rather, it’s that at this time in their 

lives they refuse to identify themselves 

with any explicit faith or church. Some 

are humble about it, others arrogant; 

in the end, the stance is the same, an 

agnosticism about religion and faith. 

The Dones are those who, in their 

own words, are done with religion and 

often with explicit faith as well. Done 

with it! They can consider themselves 

done for any number of reasons, from 

having had a bad experience with 

religion growing up, to anger at the 

church, to the intoxicating power of a 

culture that can seemingly offer itself 

as a sufficient substitute for religion. 

They have been there, considered 

religion, and moved on. 

The Spiritual-but-not-Religious are 

those who believe in the value of 

spirituality but not of any church. They 

have chosen to pursue a spiritual path 

outside of any ecclesial community, 

believing that (at least for them) the 

spiritual journey is best done outside of 

organized religion. There can be many 

reasons for this kind of attitude, not 

least the overpowering ethos of individuality 

and personal freedom pervading 

our culture. In one’s faith journey 

today, people prefer to trust only their 

own search and experience. 

The Indifferent are just that, indifferent 

to religion (while perhaps still 

nursing some faith). There can be a 

myriad of reasons why these folks feel 

indifferent to religion and perhaps also 

to faith. Our culture, for all its goodness, 

is also a powerful narcotic that 

can, for most of the years of our lives, 

swallow us whole in terms of anesthetizing 

our religious instincts and 

having us believe in what philosopher 

Charles Taylor calls a “self-sufficient 

humanism.” For long periods of our 

lives, our world can seem enough for us 

and while this is the case, indifference 

to religion can be a real option. 

The Angry are those who for reasons 

they can name, no longer go to 

church. Any number of causes can be 

at play here: clerical sexual abuse, the 

Church’s treatment of women, racism, 

the Church’s failure to live out the 

gospels credibly, their own church’s 

involvement or noninvolvement in politics, 

a bad history with their church, a 

bad pastor, or personal mistreatment in 

a pastoral situation. Persons inside this 

group sometimes end up seeking a new 

ecclesial home inside another denomination, 

but many just stay at home on 

a Sunday morning. 

The Marginalized are those who feel 

themselves outside the understanding, 

empathy, and spiritual scope of the 

churches. This includes everyone from 

many who identify as LGBTQ to the 

homeless on our streets, to countless 

thousands who feel (consciously or unconsciously) 

that the messiness of their 

lives somehow excludes them from 

ecclesial community. They feel like 

outcasts to religion and our churches. 

People are leaving their churches for 

a multitude of reasons and this begs 

some further questions. When people 

are leaving their churches, what are 

they actually leaving? And where are 

they going, if anywhere? 

In a recent book, “After Evangelicalism: 

The Path to a New Christianity” 

(Westminster John Knox Press, $19), 

David Gushee asks this question about 

those leaving their churches. Are they 

clear on what they are actually leaving? 

Do they know whether they are leaving 

church, leaving their denominations, 

leaving the faith, leaving Jesus, or just 

leaving? 

More importantly, he asks, what will 

be their endgame? Will they end up in 

another denomination, or as Spiritualbut-not-Religious, 

or as agnostic, or just 

as disillusioned? 

Perhaps that question is not so important 

for the Nones, the Dones, the 

Spiritual-but-not-Religious, the Indifferent, 

and for many of the Marginalized 

— but it is for the Angry, for those 

who feel alienated from their churches. 

Where do you go when anger keeps 

you away from your family table? Do 

you search for a more like-minded 

family? Do you give up on finding a 

family table? Do you just stay home on 

a Sunday morning? Are you OK to go 

to your deathbed still angry? Are you 

content to remain disillusioned? 

Leaving church: two questions stare 

us in the face. Why are more and 

more people leaving their churches or 

simply not going to them? And what’s 

the religious future of those who no 

longer go to church? The former is a 

question for the churches themselves, 

the latter a question to ponder for those 

no longer going to church. 


MARIO’S 

MIRACLE 

His classmates’ 

prayers carried a 

Catholic school 

fifth-grader back 

to health after a 

harrowing shooting. 

This Christmas, 

they’re counting their 

blessings. 

BY STEVE LOWERY 


When Dallas McGowan saw 

his friend Mario Ramirez for 

the first time in months — 

well, for the first time in person — he 

could barely contain himself. 

“I ran over and picked him up,” said 

McGowan, recounting the moment 

this summer at the Westfield Santa 

Anita mall in Arcadia. 

McGowan kind of chuckles as he 

tells the story. Ramirez, sitting next 

to him in the library of St. Elizabeth 

of Hungary School in Altadena, 

surrounded by books, laughter, and a 

smattering of Christmas decorations, 

smiles broadly remembering that 

moment of uninhibited joy, though 

mindful that it wasn’t the first time his 

friends had lifted him. 

four blocks from Ramirez, had heard 

the gunshots, but thought they were 

fireworks being set off. 

When she learned what she had 

heard, she prayed because “it was 

important, we’ve been friends since 

kindergarten. I wanted for him to be 

OK and to be better.” 

Andre Ball said his family regularly 

prayed for Ramirez because what happened 

to him “was shocking, scary. It 

could have been me.” 

Laura Navarette, whose daughter 

Yael Correa has been friends with 

Ramirez nearly their whole lives, said 

St. Elizabeth “is a parish that prays,” 

and Correa soon found herself praying 

four times a day, sometimes at the 

small altar the family constructed in 

“The class turns to prayer because it’s what they’re 

used to doing,” said teacher Stephanie Hickey of 

the sixth-graders at St. Elizabeth of Hungary. 

Sixth-grader Mario Ramirez of St. Elizabeth of Hungary 

School in Altadena is back in the classroom after 

surviving multiple gunshot wounds from a shooting 

outside his home last February. | VICTOR ALEMÁN 

It was back in February (on Valentine’s 

Day, of all days) that Ramirez, 

then a fifth-grader, was caught in the 

crossfire of gunshots outside his home, 

and was hit multiple times. 

He says it’s common for people to 

ask him what it felt like to be shot. 

“It burns,” he tells them. “Then your 

whole body goes numb. After I got hit 

the first time, my ears began to ring, 

then I couldn’t hear the other ones. 

And then I was on the ground.” 

His friends’ concern was what they 

could do. Being from St. Elizabeth, 

their first thoughts turned to prayer. 

For McGowan, who had been playing 

video games online with Ramirez not 

long before he was shot, prayer was 

really the only thing that seemed to 

make sense. 

“I prayed when I found out [Ramirez 

had been shot] because I didn’t know 

what was happening,” McGowan said. 

“It was crazy. Fifteen minutes before it 

happened, I was passing by his house. 

If I had stopped by to see him and we 

had both been on the porch, it could 

have been me and him who got shot.” 

It was important for Johanna 

Jimenez to pray because she says she 

prays for all of the important people 

in her life. Jimenez, who lives just 

its living room, praying because when 

she found out Ramirez had been shot, 

“I was really scared. I just couldn’t 

wrap my mind around it.” 

Who could? 

Ramirez remained in the hospital 

for such a long time that he’s not even 

sure how long he was there, though 

he does know it was long enough to 

celebrate his 11th birthday in March. 

“I used to cry a lot because I wanted 

to see my family. It felt like a long 

time.” 

It was while on FaceTime that he 

first reconnected with his friends. 

“They told me they were praying 

for me,” he said. “I was going into 

surgery; surgery is kind of scary, so I 

was thankful.“ 

Of course, this being the Christmas 

season and the end of the year, 

Ramirez and his friends can’t help 

but think about what they’ve been 

through, how grateful they are that 

they made it through and still find 

themselves together. 

The friends are now sixth-graders. 

Their new teacher, Stephanie Hickey, 

knew that this was “a pretty special 

group. 

“I was excited to get a group of 

friends, especially a group that had 


The St. Elizabeth of Hungary School sixth-grade class earlier this month. At left is teacher Stephanie Hickey. | VICTOR ALEMÁN 

stepped up in this way. It 

was a bit of a gift to me to 

have that in the classroom.” 

Hickey said she knew 

about Ramirez’s friends supporting 

him through prayer. 

It didn’t surprise her. 

“We try to instill that in the 

kids,” she said. “The class 

turns to prayer because it’s 

what they’re used to doing.” 

She said she reminds her 

students that what they’ve 

endured over the last two 

years — a pandemic and 

the shooting of one of their 

classmates — is nothing 

close to what she ever had to 

deal with growing up. 

“They’re so resilient. When 

I see what they’ve been 

through, what they’ve been 

able to get through, with 

prayer and their friendship, 

it’s really inspiring. I get so much from 

them.” 

While it’s admirable this group has 

gotten through trying times they didn’t 

sign up for, the fact is they’re children. 

And so it gives Hickey a good deal of 

joy to see them as she did the previous 

day, together in what is called the “car 

line” helping students out of cars, 

acting “a little bit dopey.” 

The Los Angeles Lakers surprised Ramirez, a diehard 

fan, with special gifts for his birthday in March, which 

was spent in the hospital. | GOFUNDME 

“You know, there was some dancing, 

some testing of vertical jumps. This 

group needs to be goofy. All the things 

they are going through, there is a lot 

of stress. You’ve got to let loose at 

times.” 

As principal of St. Elizabeth, 

Phyllis Cremer said 

“goofy” is part of the goal for 

her students. 

“We find ways of letting 

them still be kids,” she said. 

“That’s really what our 

mantra is, we want them to 

be goofy. And I think that’s 

one thing, we’ve created an 

environment where kids can 

just be kids, we don’t need 

them to grow up faster than 

they need to.” 

But many times the world 

does not cooperate. In July, 

two men in their early 20s 

were charged with attempted 

murder for the shooting and, 

sadly, Ramirez’s shooting 

is not the only incident of 

gun violence in the area. 

McGowan can tell you 

about times he’s had a team practice 

canceled at a local park because of 

gunshots. It was just recently that another 

young boy, just 13, playing video 

games in his own bedroom, was hit by 

a stray bullet and died. 

Ramirez and his parents visited the 

family of the boy, bringing them food 

from their restaurant. 

“I prayed for that boy. We went to his 


LEMÁN 

St. Elizabeth of Hungary principal Phyllis Cremer. 

| VICTOR ALEMÁN 

them we were sad for their son being 

killed.” 

Though he’s happy to be back at 

school, back with his friends and back 

to preparing for a Christmas that will 

bring people together, in person, 

Ramirez admits he has struggled with 

some things, especially going outside. 

“I don’t really like going outside 

because that’s where [the shooting] 

happened. I’ve prayed to have the 

strength to go outside.” 

Just a few minutes later, he is standing 

and laughing with McGowan, 

their arms around each other’s neck. 

A couple of goofs, the very best kind, 

laughing, outside. 

“If you pray, something can really 

happen, it can actually happen,” 

McGowan said. “If you pray, it can 

happen. God can do anything.” 

Steve Lowery is a veteran journalist 

who has written for the Los Angeles 

Times, the Los Angeles Daily News, 

the Press-Telegram, New Times LA, the 

District, Long Beach Post, and the OC 

Weekly. 

house to donate,” Ramirez said. “[The 

family] knew about me. We met the 

family, we talked. They said they were 

thankful for me being alive. We told 

It was months after the shooting before Ramirez 

saw his best friend, Dallas McGowan, again. “I ran 

over and picked him up,” recalled McGowan of their 

reunion. | VICTOR ALEMÁN 


SPIRITUAL 

HUNGER IN 

THE HARBOR 

Hobbled by a pandemic and a 

historic supply-chain crisis, can 

the Port of LA’s Stella Maris 

ministry make a comeback? 

BY DANA BARTHOLOMEW / 

PHOTOGRAPHY BY VICTOR ALEMÁN 

The view from the Stella Maris Chapel in the Port of Los Angeles. 


For years, maritime crews streaming 

into the Stella Maris Chapel 

and Hospitality Center were 

greeted by a sign depicting the Virgin 

Mary, proclaiming “Mass — Quiet 

Time — Relax/Free: Wi-Fi, Coffee 

and Cookies.” 

Now the sign beckoning a safe harbor 

for thousands of global sailors and 

hospitality workers sits behind locked 

doors at the Port of Los Angeles World 

Cruise Center in San Pedro. 

Its overstuffed couches sit empty. Its 

care packages of shipboard necessities, 

from warm socks to shampoo to 

rosary beads, sit untended. Its coffee 

machine, cold, despite two Holland 

America and Princess Cruises ships 

tethered recently to a dock outside its 

capacious windows. 

And its Stella Maris Chapel — a 

sanctuary for global seafarers who 

once eagerly received the holy Eucharist 

after days, weeks, or months at sea 

— sits empty. 

“Normally, we’d have 40 to 50 

people in our chapel from both these 

cruise ships,” said Father Maurice 

Harrigan, pastor of the nearby Mary 

Star of the Sea Church and its maritime 

offshoot at Berth 93. 

“And now — zero. They’re not 

allowed off their ships. That’s a huge 

problem, for them and for us. They 

want to be served; we want to serve 

them. But we can’t do anything.” 

The doldrums of the San Pedro 

chapel occur as cruise lines, stalled 

during the COVID-19 contagion, 

restarted their engines this fall for 

world tours. 

It also coincides with a worldwide 

supply-chain backup that has clogged 

the nation’s busiest container port, 

with up to 100 merchant ships idling 

offshore waiting to unload their 

cargoes. 

With so many ships swirling around 

the Los Angeles and Long Beach 

ports, it’s not entirely clear why 

thousands of their Catholic seafarers 

haven’t been able to access the Stella 

Maris Chapel and Hospitality Center. 

For Stella Maris, the Latin title for 

Our Lady, Star of the Sea, has since 

ancient times been their guiding star, 

and the beacon for the historic Mary 

Star of the Sea parish, its 80-year-old 

maritime ministry, and for its parish 

priest. 

“I had a direct encounter with Our 

Lady, inviting me to be a priest for her 

Son,” said Father Harrigan, whose first 

Mass 25 years ago coincided with the 

feast of the Immaculate Conception. 

‘Fisherman’s Parish’ 

The Mary Star of the Sea Church, 

founded in 1889 on a hill overlooking 

the Port of Los Angeles, has been 

dubbed the “Fisherman’s Parish” for 

its links to the once-thriving fishing 

and canning industries. 

A shining Mother Mary has stood 

for decades atop its lofty bell tower, 

thanks to its largely Croatian and Italian 

fishermen who devoted a portion 

of their daily catch to pay for the 10- 

foot bronze statue. 

Her open-armed welcome has 

extended to thousands of sailors and 

ship crews streaming through the Los 

Angeles harbor past Angel’s Gate. 

Father James McLaughlin, a Mary 

Star of the Sea pastor during the 

Great Depression and World War 

II, founded the Stella Maris Chapel, 

a parish outgrowth linked to the 

Apostleship of the Sea, a Catholic 

organization that supports needy seafarers 

around the world. The dockside 

chapel and crew lounge serve as a 

wheelhouse for maritime ministries in 

the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. 

For decades, a Mary Star of the 

Sea priest conducted daily Mass and 

offered pastoral guidance, including 

Communion. They also shuttled the 

mostly foreign ship crews on shore 

leave to doctor appointments and to 

visits with their respective consulates. 

When not attending church in a 

small alcove toward the back, dozens 

of men and women hung out in the 

lounge, logged on to its computers, 

thumbed through its library, picked 

up Amazon deliveries, or received 

care packages of hygiene kits, prayer 

books, and more, assembled by local 

volunteers from the Catholic Daughters 

of America. 

Up until the COVID-19 contagion, 

the Stella Maris Chapel and Hospitality 

Center saw as many as 4,000 

mariners a year, a majority from 

visiting cruise ships, many of whom 

were natives of the Philippines, South- 

The supply-chain crisis has left dozens of ships idling in the port for more time than expected 

this year. COVID-19 restrictions mean that sailors — most of them foreign — can’t disembark. 


Father Maurice Harrigan is the pastor of Mary Star of the Sea Church in San Pedro and chaplain of the Port of LA’s 

Stella Maris Chapel and Hospitality Center. 

interview and risk-assessment for crew 

members in possession of a valid visa 

and passport to determine if a shore 

pass should be granted. It also grants 

leaves for crew members who are not 

eligible for a shore pass in special 

circumstances, such as a need for 

medical care. 

He said he suspects the decrease in 

Stella Maris Chapel attendees may 

be largely attributable to the pause 

in cruise ship operations over the last 

year, given that a cruise ship can have 

upwards of 1,600 crew versus a container 

ship that typically has about 20 

crew members. “Cruise ship arrivals 

have resumed over the last couple of 

months,” Ruiz said, “but we’re still not 

at pre-COVID volume. 

“We have received requests from 

carriers, cruise ships, and vessel captains 

to deny shore passes,” he said. 

“However, we still issue the shore 

pass based on the aforementioned risk 

assessment and not based on a request 

from the industry.” 

east Asia, and Southern India, Father 

Harrigan said. 

The chapel was closed in March 

2020 during a public health order 

barring indoor worship during the 

COVID-19 pandemic. Its former 

chaplain, Father Freddie Chua, now 

serves as pastor of Annunciation 

Church in Arcadia. 

Now with the COVID-19 restrictions 

eased and increased cruise and cargo 

ship traffic, Church officials say that 

worshippers aren’t able to return. In 

fact, they’ve simply disappeared. 

“It’s been in limbo,” said Nicholas 

Vilicich, sacristan for Mary Star of the 

Sea, who once helped shuttle crews 

in a designated church van for Stella 

Maris. “Crews can’t get off the ship — 

at all. We can’t get on the ships. It’s a 

great loss to crew members who need 

our help.” 

Mixed messages about shore leaves 

For decades, foreign-born crews on 

ships docking at U.S. harbors could 

simply request a shore-leave visa, and 

go. Then came the pandemic, when 

safety protocols stranded more than 

200,000 seafarers at sea for months. 

Now some crews are being granted 

shore leaves at various ports, including 

Los Angeles. 

But Father Harrigan, who has replaced 

Father Chua as chaplain of the 

Stella Maris Chapel, was mystified as 

to why cruise ship crews weren’t showing 

up at Stella Maris. The chapel is 

being opened once a week till they 

return. 

He said a Princess Cruises purser 

told him federal customs officials 

were barring shore leaves because of 

concerns that crews from certain nations 

could jump ship. U.S. Customs 

officials say that’s not the case. 

“We haven’t made any port-wide 

changes regarding shore passes,” 

said Jaime Ruiz, branch chief for 

strategic media engagement for the 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection 

(CBP), in an email to Angelus. “Last 

time I checked, there were over 600 

shore passes. I assume the volume 

will increase as the port congestion 

eases up and cruise lines resume full 

operations.” 

He said CBP officers conduct an 

The disappearance of worshippers at the Stella 

Maris Chapel during the pandemic was in large 

part due to the pause in cruise ship operations. 


Holland America, a branch of Carnival 

Corporation, based in Seattle, 

did not return calls. A spokeswoman 

for Princess Cruises, also a branch of 

Carnival, said from time to time due 

to operations, compliance, or safety 

considerations, shore leave may not 

be available. 

A spokesman for Carnival Corporation 

said in an email he did some 

preliminary checking, and “it appears 

that our crew members are taking 

shore leave” in Los Angeles. 

But according to the Sea Me Crew 

Foundation, a nonprofit advocate and 

support group for global crew members 

based in Vancouver, it’s been very 

erratic on who gets to leave a ship and 

who doesn’t, depending on the ship 

and port-of-call, as well as number of 

COVID-19 cases on board. 

“To my knowledge, [Princess is] not 

letting crews off in LA,” said Krista 

Thomas, founding president of the 

foundation, which has 60,000 Facebook 

crew members. “I haven’t heard 

of anyone getting off in LA lately.” 

Meanwhile, Father Harrigan said 

he’s working with Princess Cruises officials 

so that he can conduct services 

for seafarers on deck with their ships 

in port. 

“These people have a very difficult 

life, being seafarers,” said Father Harrigan, 

58, a native of Glendale who 

left the business world after feeling 

the call to the priesthood. “And it’s 

been especially difficult for us to 

serve them. Aboard ship, they don’t 

have Wi-Fi, comfortable couches, 

wide-screen TVs, stuff we all take for 

granted. 

“I’m very sad, distressed. I wish we 

could serve our people,” he said. 

“Those we serve can’t come in to 

worship — receive Mass, any of the 

sacraments. … They are spiritually 

starving to death.” 

Dana Bartholomew is an award-winning 

freelance writer living in Los 

Angeles. 

December 17, 2021 • ANGELUS • 17

Forward in hope 

Local Guadalupanos were back in 

full force at LA’s oldest religious 

celebration this month. 

PHOTOGRAPHY BY VICTOR ALEMÁN 

Heads up, Los Angeles: She’s back. 

On Sunday, Dec. 5, Catholics from around Southern 

California hit the streets of East Los Angeles for 

the 90th annual Guadalupe Procession and Mass, which 

returned as an in-person event after last year’s car-only procession 

due to the high number of COVID-19 cases at this 

time last year. 

This year’s event included a float contest with participation 

of Guadalupano parish groups and Catholic schools, and 

Aztec dancers, as well as a Mass commemorating the 490th 

anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe 

during the ongoing “Forward in Mission” jubilee year celebrating 

250 years of Catholic faith in the archdiocese. 

At the Mass, held at the East Los Angeles College (ELAC) 

Stadium, Archbishop José H. Gomez prayed for an end to 

the COVID-19 pandemic and for the “eternal rest of those 

who have died, and also for those who are sick and for those 

who assist them.” 

A Guadalupe-themed float made by the Marriage Encounter Ministry at St. John the 

Baptist Church in Baldwin Park won a second-place award of $2,000. 

For more photos, visit the Photo & Video section on the 

AngelusNews.com home page. 

Students from Epiphany School in El Monte with their parish’s 

float, which won the contest’s first place $3,000 award. 


Organizers estimated more than 8,000 people attended the outdoor Sunday Mass with Archbishop José H. Gomez at East Los Angeles College Stadium. 

Archbishop José H. Gomez was accompanied by religious 

sisters while praying the rosary during the procession. 

Archbishop José H. Gomez blessing the faithful 

and standing with the religious sisters who accompanied 

him in the procession praying the rosary. 


Returning 

to our 

roots 

This month’s 

Simbang Gabi 

celebration coincides 

with two major 

milestones for local 

Filipino Catholics. 

BY ANGELUS STAFF 

Nearly 100 parishes around the 

Archdiocese of Los Angeles 

will host celebrations marking 

Simbang Gabi, a Filipino tradition 

that celebrates the nine days leading 

up to Christmas with the celebration 

of the Mass, novenas, and food. 

For Filipino Catholics around the 

world, this year’s Simbang Gabi 

coincides with a historical milestone: 

the 500th anniversary of the arrival of 

Christianity to their native land from 

Spanish missionaries, who celebrated 

the first Mass in what is today the 

Philippines in March 1521. 

Add that to the 2021-22 Mission San 

Gabriel jubilee year, another historical 

milestone commemorating 250 

years of Catholicism in the Greater 

Los Angeles area, and a return to 

in-person, indoor Simbang Gabi 

liturgies after the tight COVID-19 

restrictions in place this time last 

year, and local Catholics of all stripes 

should find plenty to appreciate in 

this year’s celebrations. 

“In this country where Christmas 

has become a highly commercialized 

secular holiday, Simbang Gabi is a refreshing 

breath of fresh air that brings 

Jesus Christ back to the center of the 

Christmas season,” said Neil Motus of 

the Filipino Ministry of Los Angeles. 

Area celebrations will kick off with 

the annual Simbang Gabi opening 

Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of 

the Angels on Wednesday, Dec. 15, 

at 6:30 p.m., presided by Archbishop 

José H. Gomez. 

More than 25 parishes in the archdiocese, 

including ones with large 

Filipino communities like St. Lorenzo 

Ruiz Church in Walnut, St. Columban 

Church in Westlake, and Christ 

the King Church in Hancock Park, 

will host Simbang Gabi celebrations 

File photo from the 2016 Simbang Gabi opening 

Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. 

| VICTOR ALEMÁN 

on all nine days of the novena, which 

runs from Dec. 16 to Dec. 24. Dozens 

of additional parishes will host Masses 

on different days during the novena. 

For a full schedule of 2021 Simbang 

Gabi celebrations in the Archdiocese 

of Los Angeles, visit AngelusNews. 

com/SimbangGabi2021. 


Nicaraguan Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes 

Solorzano of Managua prays as he celebrates 

Mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral on July 31 

to mark the first anniversary after the Blood 

of Christ Chapel was destroyed in an arson attack. 

| CNS/MAYNOR VALENZUELA, REUTERS 

The perks of a soft alliance 

Why Nicaragua’s bishops can speak out against a 

dictator in a country where no one else can. 

BY INÉS SAN MARTÍN 

ROME — In a process widely 

dismissed as a “joke” and 

“dubious” by members of the 

international community, Nicaraguan 

President Daniel Ortega was reelected 

last month after having imprisoned his 

main electoral opponents. 

Even before the tally was announced, 

U.S. President Joe Biden said that 

Ortega and his wife, Rosario, the country’s 

vice president, had orchestrated a 

“pantomime election that was neither 

free nor fair.” 

Only one of the country’s 13 Catholic 

bishops cast a vote. The rest refused to 

take part in what they denounced as a 

charade, with many openly acknowledging 

the matter in homilies the 

weekend of the election. 

The bishops’ very public boycott of 

the November election reflects the 

unique situation they find themselves 

in: For the last three years, Catholic 

bishops and priests in Nicaragua have 

been the only members of civil society 

to publicly challenge Ortega, a leader 

who has come to resemble the dictator 

he helped overthrow in the late 1970s. 

In April 2018, when hundreds of 

thousands took to the streets to protest 

proposed pension reform, the Catholic 

hierarchy opened the doors of churches 

for the wounded to find refuge, and 

for doctors to clandestinely treat them, 

as they were banned from doing so in 

public hospitals. According to the Inter-American 

Commission on Human 

Rights, at least 355 people were killed 

during the protests. 

Since the 2018 uprising, Catholic 

churches have been attacked, including 

the Managua cathedral in 2020. In 

2019, Managua Auxiliary Bishop Silvio 

José Báez was essentially exiled from 

his diocese at Pope Francis’ request 

after receiving several death threats. 

This year, the Ortegas have called the 

bishops “coup perpetrators,” “offspring 

of the devil,” “foreign agents,” and 

accused them of preaching a false 

Christianity. They have dispatched po- 


lice to intimidate bishops and priests, 

even installing a police booth across 

the street from the home of Managua 

archbishop Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes 

Solorzano. 

In his first public appearance since 

falling ill with COVID-19 in September, 

Cardinal Brenes said last month 

that Church leaders cannot “remain silent” 

seeing the suffering of the people. 

Yet beyond the verbal attacks, the 

seizure of Catholic churches around 

the country by the government, and 

bullets shot at bishops’ cars (apparently 

intended to miss their targets), the 

government of Ortega has thus far dangled 

violence against the bishops as a 

metaphorical sword of Damocles, but 

has refrained from actually imprisoning 

clergy. 

As long as that policy continues, 

bishops and priests are expected to 

keep speaking up against Ortega and 

his wife. 

Father Pedro Mendez of the Diocese 

of Masaya, 20 miles southeast of the 

capital of Managua, was tortured by 

the government in 2018 as part of the 

“cleansing operation.” The day of the 

election last month, he hung a banner 

in front of his church with the support 

of his parishioners proclaiming that 

their “finger will remain clean” from 

participating in the elections, despite 

voting being mandatory in Nicaragua. 

Bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos 

of the Diocese of Matagalpa regularly 

speaks out against the government 

in his Sunday homilies. On Nov. 

28, he characterized the problem of 

widespread poverty in the country as a 

political one. 

“There are many things that have 

impoverished us,” he said. “We are not 

poor because we are poor, but because 

there is a political decision of not distributing 

wealth with equity, subjecting 

the people to poverty.” 

For someone so sensitive to criticism 

and prone to taking ruthless measures, 

why hasn’t Ortega taken stronger measures 

against the country’s troublesome 

Catholic bishops? 

Ortega, much like Latin America’s 

other well-known socialist authoritarian 

leader, Venezuela’s Nicolás 

Maduro, seems to have understood 

that despite being a “soft power,” the 

Vatican is too big a bear for them to 

poke. 

It is a subject that comes up often in 

my conversations with Cardinal Jorge 

Urosa Savino, the late archbishop 

of Caracas who passed away from 

COVID-19 earlier this year. I would 

bring up the criticisms of the Vatican’s 

apparent silence on Maduro’s dictatorial 

regime, under which 90% of 

Venezuelans now live in poverty. And 

as I’ve reported in Crux, every time he 

would tell me that prelates like himself 

dared speak up because they knew they 

had the support of the Holy See and of 

the Holy Father. 

Maduro too has verbally attacked 

the bishops, made threats against their 

lives and had his militants create havoc 

by invading churches during Sunday 

Mass. 

Yet both in Nicaragua and in Venezuela, 

though facing many challenges, 

Catholic non-governmental organizations 

(NGOs) such as Caritas and Aid 

to the Church in Need are exceptions 

to the rule when it comes to the presence 

of foreign organizations providing 

aid to undemocratic countries where 

people face starvation. The bishops, 

and the papal representative in the 

country, are always summoned for 

dialogue efforts, and the prelates always 

say yes. 

One explanation for why clergy and 

religious have mostly been spared 

violence is that unlike countries like 

Syria or Nigeria, where civil conflicts 

are permeated by religious fundamentalism, 

government supporters in 

Nicaragua and Venezuela aren’t ready 

to kill their adversaries in the name of 

God. 

But many observers also point to 

another important reason why Ortega 

and Maduro don’t seem to deliver 

on their threats against the hierarchy: 

Despite the growing secularization 

of the international community, they 

know that a hard power like the United 

States, together with the European Union 

and the United Nations, would all 

join the head of the Catholic Church 

in protest. 

Inés San Martín is an Argentinian 

journalist and Rome bureau chief for 

Crux. She is a frequent contributor to 

Angelus. 


Wooed back to our humanity 

By being born among us on Christmas, God offers the 

ultimate answer to our deepest problem. 

BY FATHER PETER JOHN CAMERON, OP 

My father died suddenly on 

Christmas Eve morning 

when he was 49 years old, 

leaving my mother a widow with seven 

children. The struggle I faced that 

Christmas, so I came to realize, was 

no different from the one that afflicts 

everyone every day: loss and longing. 

My challenge was to pay special 

attention to Christmas — seeing past 

the superficial — to get to the mystery’s 

real meaning. Can Christmas offer 

an answer to keenly felt sorrow and 

pain? I have never forgotten consoling 

words I discovered years later from 

poet Rainer Maria Rilke to a hurting 

friend: “Celebrate Christmas in this 

devout feeling that perhaps God 

needs this very anguish of yours in 

order to begin.” And who of us these 

days is not feeling intense anguish? 

The unexpected absence of my 

father made me yearn for something 

non-negotiable: a Presence to fill the 

void. The Son of God coming in the 

flesh — Emmanuel, God-With-Us — 

is that Presence. And only a Presence 

is adequate for answering the emptiness 

and need that the human being 

is. Why? Because a Presence is the 

beginning of the end of barriers in our 

life. Presence “is to know that there 

are experiences that lessen the dread 

of separation, loneliness, and even 

death,” wrote author Ralph Harper. 

An insight of Cardinal Joseph 

An image of the Holy Family is featured on one of the 

Vatican’s 2021 Christmas stamps. The images on the 

stamps were painted by Adam Piekarski, a homeless 

man from Poland currently living in Rome. | CNS 

ILLUSTRATION/COURTESY VATICAN PHILATELIC AND 

NUMISCATIC OFFICE 

Ratzinger seems to me positively 

prophetic: “In what does the human 

being’s wretchedness actually consist? 

The root of the human being’s wretchedness 

is loneliness, is the absence of 

love — is the fact that my existence is 

not embraced by a love that makes it 

necessary.” Christmas is the birth of 

that Love. 

Which is why, even now from the 


manger, Jesus is turning the tenderness 

of his Sacred Heart to the hemorrhaging 

woman who soon will stretch 

out her hand to Christ’s hem for a 

cure. Even now without words he is 

saying to her — and to us — Daughter, 

your faith has saved you. Even now 

he beckons the lame man in Bethesda: 

Do you want to be healed? Even 

now he sets out to find the leper and 

everyone who faces their affliction 

with trust-filled hope: If you will to do 

so, you can make me clean! 

We need the celebration of Christmas 

to happen every year in order 

to stanch our forgetfulness of God 

that otherwise takes over. Christmas 

proclaims that we are made by God 

and for God, and that we cannot live 

without him. For “without God man 

neither knows which way to go, nor 

even understands who he is,” wrote 

Pope Benedict XVI in his encyclical 

“Caritas in Veritate” (“Charity in 

Truth,” No. 78). “The human being’s 

alienation from God has so buried 

in oblivion so many of the human 

being’s aspects,” warned Father Hans 

Urs von Balthasar, “that these can be 

brought up again only through God’s 

Incarnation.” 

We long for a human touch, a human 

gaze to lead us back to God. The 

playwright Paul Claudel, who himself 

experienced a grace of reconversion 

on Christmas Eve, observed, “God, 

being unable to make himself known, 

contrived to make himself born.” 

St. Bernard counseled: “God’s Son 

came in the flesh so that mortal human 

beings could see and recognize 

God’s kindness.” Accordingly, “all 

the holiness God has destined for our 

souls has been placed in the humanity 

of Christ, and it is from this source 

that we must draw,” wrote Blessed 

Columba Marmion. 

To woo us back to our own humanity, 

Jesus comes to us — not in magnificence 

and splendor — but as a baby. 

St. Bernard spelled out the stunning 

logic of the Incarnation: “The lesser 

Jesus became through his human 

nature, the greater was his goodness; 

the more he lowered himself for me, 

the dearer he is to me. Jesus comes as 

a little one lest we be terrified.” 

The whole of Christ’s intention at 

Christmas is to share his life with us. 

“Christ did not live his life for himself 

but for us. ... Christ enables us to live 

in him all that he himself lived, and 

he lives it in us” (CCC 519, 521). 

Many years ago, a priest friend served 

as a missionary in Mongolia. The 

people had never been introduced 

to Christianity and had not heard of 

Jesus Christ. Being nomads, they opt 

not for stationary houses, but for big 

tents called yurts or gers that can be 

readily pitched and dismantled. 

At the Christmas Mass my friend 

celebrated in that country, what could 

he say to the Mongolians so that they 

could encounter Jesus Christ? He 

We need the celebration of Christmas to 

happen every year to stanch a forgetfulness 

of God that otherwise takes over. 

proclaimed the Gospel: “The Word 

became flesh and pitched his tent 

among us” (John 1:14). The people’s 

jaws dropped. They exclaimed to the 

priest in amazement: “God wants to 

be with us and he is just like us!” 

Our family custom on Christmas 

Eve was to open one gift. Returning 

home from the Christmas Vigil Mass, 

my brothers and sisters and I gathered, 

feeling awkward, wondering what we 

would do. Wouldn’t opening presents 

be disrespectful? But my mother 

assured us that opening gifts is what 

my father would have wanted. My 

mother never read the 20th-century 

Scandinavian writer and Catholic 

convert Sigrid Unset, but she certainly 

possessed her 

The author (at right) as a 

junior in college with his 

parents, one year before 

his father’s death. 

| SUBMITTED PHOTO 

wisdom: 

“When we 

give each other 

Christmas gifts 

in Jesus’ Name, 

let us remember 

that he has given 

us the sun and 

the moon and the stars, and the earth 

with its forests and mountains and 

oceans — and all that lives and moves 

upon them. And to save us from our 

own foolishness, from all our sins, 

he came down to earth and gave us 

himself.” 

Father Peter John Cameron, OP, is 

the former editor-in-chief of Magnificat 

and the author of 10 books. He is now 

engaged in itinerant teaching, giving 

parish missions and retreats. 

December 17, 2021 • ANGELUS • 25

INTERSECTIONS 

GREG ERLANDSON 

Salvation for a news junkie 

In a twist on a modern theme, it’s 

my kids who are worried about my 

media consumption. The news, 

to be specific. They harangue me on 

family vacations to turn it off, put it 

down, and shut it out. If only it were 

so easy. 

I try to tell them it’s my job, but I 

understand their concern. Increasingly, 

I share it. For the truth is, it seems 

relentlessly grim out there. And I’m 

not even talking about social media, 

which these days resembles Tennyson’s 

description of nature as “red in 

tooth and claw.” 

I am a member of a shrinking minority: 

a lifelong newspaper reader who 

starts each morning folding over those 

big billowy pages covered in type 

as I find out about all the disasters, 

coups, and other horrors judged fit to 

print. I may be eating Raisin Bran for 

my health, but my cortisol levels are 

through the roof before I’ve gotten to 

SHUTTERSTOCK 

the sports section. 

Not willing to stop at breakfast, however, 

I also read online news sources, 

watch the evening news, and listen to 

NPR in the car. One of my daughters 

recently told me that when she was 

a child, listening to NPR’s Morning 

Edition as I made her breakfast was a 

traumatic experience. 

I’m beginning to feel a bit traumatized 

myself. On any recent day, 

the front page headlines include 

pandemic news (hello Omicron), 

climate change trends (goodbye 

coral reef), Chinese, Russian, and/or 

Iranian threats (so long world peace), 

political standoffs (ta-ta for now 

bipartisanship), and the occasional 

earthbound asteroid. It can be quite a 

morning slog. 

Fellow news junkies confess to me 

they are feeling similarly. There are 

a variety of strategies for dealing with 

the growing phenomenon of news 

overdose. Some are stopping cold 

turkey, apparently choosing ignorance 

over anxiety. Others have taken 

to just scanning the headlines. Still 

others may watch only the evening 

news, which on the major networks is 

a pretty thin information diet on the 

best of days. 

Finally, there are those who get their 

updates from Stephen Colbert and 

John Oliver, though I’m not sure that 

laughing at their punchline cynicism 

makes the news itself any more 

palatable. 

The easiest to give up are the cable 

news shows, which are light on news 

and heavy on opinion anyway. One of 

the most memorable homilies I ever 

heard was by a priest who called our 

attention to the many wives coming 

to him to complain about their husbands’ 

news habits. They watch cable 

news all day or all night, the wives tell 

him, and then stalk about the house 

in a constant rage. “This anger is not 

of God,” the priest thundered from 

the pulpit, glaring at the guilty lot of 

us. 

Despair is not of God either. I 

recently heard (on NPR) the tragic 

story of a young man so concerned 

about the state of the planet and the 

drumbeat of news about climate 

change that he lost hope and took his 

own life. 

What seems to typify so many of us 

these days is a pessimism of the moment, 

a kind of apocalyptic fixation 

that we are surely living in the worst 

of times. We luxuriate in our despair: 

Our country is in decline. Our world 

is stewing in the environmental 

excesses of our species. Even our 

Church is splintering. 

All of which is to say that this year I 

really need to embrace Advent. Ad- 


Greg Erlandson is the president and 

editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service. 

vent is a time of expectation, a time 

of hope. The Jewish people hoped for 

a Messiah, and the Advent readings 

are rich with the sense that his coming 

was imminent. 

In the readings for the third Sunday 

of Advent, I hear words directed at 

me: First from Zephaniah, “Fear not, 

O Zion, be not discouraged!” And 

then Philippians exhorts me: “Have 

no anxiety at all. …” 

To our modern, world-weary ears, 

these words are both balm and 

rebuke. What message do we have if 

Our problem may not be the news. Our problem 

is how easily we forget the good news. 

not hope? What can we offer if not 

the joy of salvation? And what does 

the world need now if not an invitation 

from us to believe? 

Our problem may not be the news. 

Our problem is how easily we forget 

the good news. These days, we need 

to hope: hope in the Lord and hope 

in one another, that we are not the 

sum total of our misdeeds. 

This Advent, let’s focus on the signs 

of hope. The quiet witnesses of grace 

who work in food pantries and soup 

kitchens. The angels of mercy in our 

ERs and ICUs. The self-sacrificing 

priests, and women religious, but also 

the parents and grandparents who are 

themselves testaments in word and 

deed of their faith that God is with us 

always. Emmanuel.

NOW PLAYING THE MOST RELUCTANT CONVERT 

A RENDEZVOUS WITH A SOUL 

There is something for everyone in a new 

film about C.S. Lewis’ struggle to believe. 

BY MSGR. RICHARD ANTALL 

Along Oxford’s beautiful Addison’s Walk, C.S. 

Lewis (Nicholas Ralph, right) and his friend J.R.R. 

Tolkien (Tom Glenister), discuss Jesus as the myth 

that became fact in the film “The Most Reluctant 

Convert: The Untold Story of C.S. Lewis.” 

| © FELLOWSHIP FOR PERFORMING ARTS 

The man remembered when 

illness and death first cast a 

shadow in his life. It was a 

toothache, of all things, and he was 

calling for his mother. He became 

distressed when she didn’t come. 

“That was because she was ill, too; 

and what was odd was that there 

were several doctors in her room, and 

voices and comings and goings all 

over the house and doors shutting and 

opening,” wrote the great Christian 

author C.S. Lewis years later. “And 

then my father, in tears, came into my 

room and began to try to convey to 

my terrified mind things it had never 

conceived before. It was in fact cancer 

and followed the usual course.” 

The death of Lewis’ mother caused 

him to lose the little faith he had. 

His prayers had not been successful, 

and so he did not bother about God 

for another two decades. He was the 

grandson of an Anglican minister, 

the great-great-grandson of a Church 

of Ireland bishop, but none of that 

mattered. 

Lewis later recalled (to great shame) 

that he had made his first Communion 

(in the Church of Ireland) without 

any faith in Jesus. He was appalled 

at his earlier lack of faith after he had 

found God — or, rather, after God 

had found him. 

The young man served in the 

trenches in World War I and was the 

exception to the old adage that there 

are no atheists in the foxholes. He was 

a brilliant student at Oxford after the 

war, and there God gave him a set 

of friends, including the novelist and 

scholar J.R.R. Tolkien, who helped 

him accept the Christian faith (but 

never quite succeeded in converting 

him to Catholicism). 

He went on to become a Cambridge 

professor and the author of more than 

30 books, including the well-known 

“The Chronicles of Narnia,” “The 

Screwtape Letters,” “Mere Christianity,” 

and other classics of modern 

apologetics. During World War II, 

he broadcast inspirational Christian 

sermons on the BBC. The lonely, dis- 


appointed boy grieving for his mother 

became one of the finest Christian 

writers of the 20th century. 

It’s a conversion story that serves as 

the basis of a new movie, “The Most 

Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story 

of C.S. Lewis,” which began showing 

in select theaters in November. The 

film will serve both as an introduction 

to those who have never read him, 

and an enjoyable refreshment for 

those who know and love his writings. 

The movie originated from a oneman 

play written and acted by Max 

McClean, who plays the older C.S. 

Lewis in the movie. McClean’s voice 

and demeanor convey the richness 

of Lewis’ writings with gravitas. He 

speaks what seem to be actual quotes 

from the works, but in a way that is 

quite natural. Lewis is telling us the 

story of his conversion. 

Switching from a one-man play to 

a movie with other actors required 

some ingenuity, and the production is 

extremely clever. There is a younger 

Lewis, played by Nicholas Ralph, and 

his older self witnesses key events in 

the story of his conversion. It reminded 

me of Scrooge seeing his younger 

self with the ghost of his past in “A 

Christmas Carol.” It is as if we have 

been invited to accompany Lewis for a 

rendezvous with the history of his own 

soul, and we can see his bemused reactions 

to the distance he has traveled. 

The screenplay is subtle, and the 

more you know about Lewis the more 

you can relish the references to books 

and authors like G.K. Chesterton. 

Thankfully, however, understanding 

his intellectual legacy isn’t necessary 

to appreciate a production that involves 

the viewer in the young Lewis’ 

struggle about faith on an emotional 

and personal level. 

For a while, Lewis was what he 

called a materialist, denying the existence 

of God and holding for a purely 

mechanical-chemical explanation of 

human behavior. His friends would 

point out to him that if our lives were 

just a question of chemical reactions, 

then there would be no nobility, no 

spiritual values, no real meaning. 

I was reminded of a man making a 

Fifth Step in the Alcoholics Anonymous 

program at my parish, who said 

that he believed in no higher power 

(something really impossible in AA). 

We are the accident of molecules 

which come together, he said. He had 

spoken to me about his son, however, 

about how he was anxious to get 

custody of the child, and how it was 

the most important goal in his life to 

raise his boy. 

“And is that just about molecules?” 

I asked him. Different people have 

different religious experiences that 

point to the transcendent in the 

particular circumstances of their lives. 

This man’s love for his son was such 

an experience, even if he didn’t know 

it. Lewis was convinced by his friends 

because of aesthetic and idealistic values 

and then became what he called 

a theist. There was a Creator God 

but there was no way we could be in 

Author C.S. Lewis in a 

1955 portrait by Walter 

Stoneman. | CNS/COUR- 

TESY OF THE NATIONAL 

PORTRAIT GALLERY, 

LONDON 

relationship with him. 

He said he admired Jesus as a teacher, 

and Tolkien and another friend 

pointed out that we either take Jesus 

at his word or we reject him. He was 

either the Son of God, as he claimed, 

the source of salvation for all, or he 

was a madman. Jesus demanded all or 

nothing. 

McClean narrates the scene of 

Lewis’ conversion at Oxford, quoting 

from the writer’s splendid partial 

autobiography, “Surprised by Joy”: 

“You must picture me alone in that 

room in Magdalen, 

night after 

night, feeling, 

whenever my 

mind lifted even 

for a second from 

my work, the 

steady, unrelenting 

approach of 

Him whom I so 

earnestly desired not to meet. That 

which I greatly feared has at last come 

upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 

I gave in, and admitted God was God, 

and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that 

night, the most dejected and reluctant 

convert in England.” 

There are many young people who 

think that they are atheists today. My 

counseling of drug addicts and alcoholics 

leads me to believe that some 

are merely agnostic and most have 

problems with God because they are 

prisoners of resentments and a great 

deal of emotional pain. I hope some 

of them have a chance to see “The 

Most Reluctant Convert.” 

The last chapter of “Surprised by 

Joy” is titled “Checkmate.” May our 

prayers support all those who are 

trying to talk themselves out of belief 

so that they let God win. 

Msgr. Richard Antall is pastor of Holy 

Name Church in Cleveland, Ohio, 

and the author of several books. His 

latest novel, “The X-mas Files” (Atmosphere 

Press, $17.99), is now available 

for purchase. 


DESIRE LINES 

HEATHER KING 

What does it mean to live free? 

St. Michael the Archangel at war with fallen angels. | SHUTTERSTOCK 

In “Abandonment to Divine 

Providence,” 17th-century priest 

Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade, 

SJ, observed: 

“Since the world began, its history 

is nothing but the account of the 

campaign waged by the powers of the 

world and the princes of hell against 

the humble souls who love God. It is 

a conflict in which all the odds seem 

to favor pride, yet humility always 

wins. … 

“The war which broke out in heaven 

between St. Michael and Lucifer 

is still being fought. … Every wicked 

man since Cain, up until those 

who now consume the world, have 

outwardly appeared to be great and 

powerful princes. They have astonished 

the world and men have bowed 

down before them. But the face they 

present to the world is false. … 

“All ancient history, both sacred and 

profane, is only the record of this 

conflict. The order established by 

God has always conquered, and those 

who have fought with him enjoy 

eternal happiness. … If one solitary 

soul has all the powers of hell and the 

world against it, it need fear nothing 

if it has abandoned itself to the order 

of God.” 

I thought of that passage as I read 

“The Free World: Art and Thought 

in the Cold War” (Farrar, Straus and 

Giroux, $35) a newly published 727- 

page tome by public intellectual and 

cultural critic Louis Menand. 

I didn’t read the whole book because 

halfway through I realized 

that Menand was going to present a 

bunch of people from the U.S and 

Europe during the 1950s and 1960s 

with whom I was mostly already at 

least vaguely familiar. Period. 

The book has no slant, no take, no 

thesis, no theme. No point-of-view. 

No argument. No order: no idea more 

noteworthy, interesting, or absurd 

than another. 

Sure, he packs in the information 

and lively, carefully chosen anecdotes. 

The breadth of his research is 

staggering. The footnotes alone run 

to almost 100 pages; the index anoth- 


Heather King is an award-winning 

author, speaker, and workshop leader. 

er 40. But if you’re a child of the ’50s 

and ’60s, or anywhere near it, you’ve 

been reading about these individuals 

all your life. 

John Cage, Allen Ginsberg, George 

Kennan, Simone de Beauvoir, James 

Baldwin, Diana Trilling, Bob Dylan, 

Hannah Arendt, Jack Kerouac, Jackson 

Pollock, Clement Greenberg, and 

the Beatles, to name just a few — are 

all presented in the same neutral, 

faintly gossipy, tone. 

No life is more worthy of censure on 

the one hand (except in the case of 

gross stupidity or harm), or of respect 

and admiration on the other. 

Menand himself seems not much 

to admire any of them. Is he saying 

that, given an unlimited amount of 

freedom, this somewhat uninspiring 

group — the way he paints it, anyway 

— is the best that post-World War II 

Western civilization has been able to 

produce? 

If so, in a way, I agree with him. But 

what could possibly have prodded 

Menand — free to write whatever 

moves him — to spend what had 

to have been years researching and 

writing such a book? 

What he left out, as opposed to what 

he included, may provide one kind of 

answer. While mentioning hundreds 

of figures from politics, science, economics, 

public thought, and the arts, 

he barely mentions religion of any 

kind, much less Catholicism. 

Graham Greene, Flannery O’Connor, 

Walker Percy, Thomas Merton: 

silence. Vatican II — nada. The 

20th-century martyrs in the Gulag, 

Nazi Germany, Poland — who cares? 

The Berrigan brothers, St. Pope John 

Paul II, Dorothy Day — not important. 

Not, perhaps in Menand’s mind, 

“free?” 

I thought of a friend of mine who, in 

her 50s, has gone back to school and 

is earning her master’s in a “helping 

profession.” She spends an hour each 

morning in eucharistic adoration, 

then attends classes uniformly undergirded 

by woke ideology. She’s the 

oldest student in her program, and 

within a week had been taken to task 

by her professor in front of the class 

for being a racist, simply by virtue of 

being white. 

She didn’t bother to tell them that 

she’s a widow with two teenage sons 

and that her late husband was Black. 

She simply stood her ground and 

said, “That hurts my feelings. It’s not 

true and please don’t say it again.” 

The conflict continued for some 

months. My friend stayed the course. 

“I just try to bring Christ to class,” she 

told him. “What does he want from 

me? What is the deepest desire of my 

heart?” 

She asked for a couple of one-on-one 

Zoom conversations with her professor. 

She began to like him, and vice 

versa. Over time, a shift occurred. 

She saw that her fellow students were 

floundering. They were like sheep 

without a shepherd. Her heart opened 

to them. 

“God gave me the gift to love my fellow 

students as they are; an awareness 

of who they were for me. I realized 

their existence — the very fact that 

they exist — is more important than 

any disagreement I might have with 

them. “ 

“They see there’s something different 

about me, something they can’t 

quite put their finger on.” 

One day she told them simply, “My 

life is interiorly ordered.” 

That’s thought. That’s life as art. 

That’s freedom — in the Cold War, 

or at any other time in history. 


LETTER AND SPIRIT 

SCOTT HAHN 

Scott Hahn is founder of the 

St. Paul Center for Biblical 

Theology; stpaulcenter.com. 

A light goes on in Bethlehem 

Two million people visit 

Bethlehem every year. Almost 

all arrive as pilgrims. 

They stand in long lines 

to pause briefly before the 

site where Mary and Joseph 

took shelter. There’s time 

for a quick prayer before the 

monk-custodian moves you 

along. 

I felt exhilarated as my 

family moved toward the 

site. I strained to hear every 

whispered word of the 

guides. 

Amid my reveries, however, 

my eyes were drawn to 

a more familiar sight: my 

13-year-old daughter, Hannah. 

She looked restless. 

The devotion of an older 

generation can seem alien 

to a teen. Hannah knew the 

Bible stories, but not in the 

way I knew them. I could 

see that the guides who enthralled 

me bored her. And 

she seemed unimpressed by 

the reward at the end: a few 

seconds to strain forward to 

kiss a historic rock. 

“The Virgin and Child,” by Benvenuto Tisi da Garofalo, 1481-1559, Italian. 

| WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

Our group was large, hundreds of people, but Hannah 

and I were among the first to queue up, so we soon found 

ourselves standing in the crypt — the cave where Mary gave 

birth to Jesus. 

We prayed and bent low to kiss the silver star that marks 

the spot. 

As we emerged, we could see the line from our group. 

It stretched the length of the basilica and out the doors in 

back. I told Hannah it could be an hour’s wait till all our 

people made it through. She sighed, and I prayed the usual 

parental prayer for wisdom. 

Then came the godsend. 

One of the locals working with our group asked if we 

would like to visit an orphanage. 

Hannah nodded vigorously. 

It was a quick walk, and we 

had no trouble keeping pace 

with our guide. 

Inside, Hannah was giddy 

to be around children. She 

couldn’t understand the 

reason such a place was 

necessary — the bombs, the 

battles, and the primitive 

medical care that had left so 

many children without the 

care of parents. 

The little ones smiled as 

they saw Hannah and closed 

in for her company. She was 

a giant among the toddlers, 

yet she was not a grownup. 

Her age accommodated 

her perfectly to their care. 

The staff led her to a chair 

and asked if she would like 

to hold babies. She gave 

an eager yes. The third of 

six children, Hannah had a 

long experience with babies. 

When a nurse handed her 

the first bundle, she cradled 

the tiny boy in her arms 

and leaned her face down 

toward his. Her voice rose an octave as she lavished endearments 

on him. 

A caretaker came to cycle that baby out and replace him 

with another. Hannah beamed. 

And then it hit me. As I watched Hannah, I thought of 

another teen girl. She, too, had come to this town from 

far away. She had to wait in line and deal with crowds. 

First-century Bethlehem was not designed to handle a 

census. 

Yet that young woman found fulfillment there — in a baby 

placed in her arms. Everyone who saw her remembered her 

radiance; and after 2,000 years we still remember it. 

Looking at Hannah as she looked at those babies, I could 

understand why. 


■ FRIDAY, DECEMBER 10 

Retrouvaille: A Lifeline for Married Couples. Weekend 

program runs Dec. 10-12 in Los Angeles. Retrouvaille is 

an effective Catholic Christian ministry that helps married 

couples. The program offers the chance to rediscover 

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

Married couples of any faith are welcome. For more information, 

visit https://www.losangelesretrouvaille.com or 

call 909-900-5465. 

Advent Film Festival: The Grace, Mercy & Joy of 

Christmas Movies. Holy Spirit Retreat Center, 4316 

Lanai Rd., Encino. With Father Mark Villano, SP MFA. 

Festival runs Dec. 10-12. For more information, visit 

www.hsrcenter.com or call 818-784-4515. 

■ SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11 

Pray the Media: Living a Media Spirituality. Zoom webinar, 

9 a.m.-12 p.m. Presenter: Sister Nancy Usselmann, 

director of the Pauline Center for Media Studies. Learn 

and experience concrete ways of praying the media and 

learning to go forth to evangelize as an apostle bringing 

the message of Jesus to our media culture. Cost: $10/ 

person. To register, visit https://lacatholics.org/departments-ministries/religious-education/. 

In-Person Cards of Hope for Christmas Event. Bishop 

Conaty-Our Lady of Loretto High School, 2900 W. Pico 

Blvd., Los Angeles, 9:30-11 a.m., or St. Vincent de Paul 

Parish Hall, 2333 S. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, 2-3:30 p.m. 

Children ages 6-11 will make pop-up Christmas cards 

filled with words of hope and encouragement, to be distributed 

to those living in isolation due to the pandemic. 

Register here for a.m. session: http://store.la-archdiocese. 

org/cards-of-hope-for-christmas-am and here for PM 

session: http://store.la-archdiocese.org/cards-of-hopefor-christmas-pm. 

■ TUESDAY, DECEMBER 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, DECEMBER 15 

Simbang Gabi Kickoff Celebration. Cathedral of Our 

Lady of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 6:30 

p.m. In celebration of 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines, 

the 19th archdiocesan Simbang Gabi will feature 

a procession of parols and a eucharistic liturgy celebrated 

by Archbishop José H. Gomez. For more information, call 

Tom Lapidario at 562-347-5022. For a full schedule of 

Simbang Gabi events, visit AngelusNews.com. 

Virtual Record Clearing Clinic for Veterans. Legal team 

will help with traffic tickets, quality of life citations, and 

expungement of criminal convictions, 3-6 p.m. Free clinic 

is open to all Southern California veterans who have 

eligible cases in a California State Superior Court. Participants 

can call in or join online via Zoom. Registration 

required. Call 213-896-6537 or email inquiries-veterans@lacba.org. 

For more information, visit lacba.org/ 

veterans. 

■ THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16 

Virtual Centering Prayer. Hosted by Pippa Currey and 

team from the Holy Spirit Retreat Center, the group 

meets every Thursday on Zoom, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. For 

more information, visit www.hsrcenter.com or call 818- 

784-4515. 

■ SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18 

Open Hearts, Open Doors: A Jubilee Posada. Cathedral 

of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 

5:30 p.m. Las Posadas is an Advent tradition from Mexico 

that occurs on each of the nine days before Christmas. 

Families form a procession symbolizing the journey of Mary 

and Joseph to Bethlehem. Evening includes a candlelight 

procession followed by a prayer service with music, caroling, 

and refreshments. Participants can bring a new, unwrapped 

toy or grocery or retail gift card as gifts for families in need. 

For more information, email Gigi Castello at gcastello@ 

la-archdiocese.org. 

■ SUNDAY, DECEMBER 19 

“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. 

Advent Vespers and Harp Concert. Holy Spirit Retreat 

Center, 4316 Lanai Rd., Encino, 7 p.m. For more information, 

visit www.hsrcenter.com or call 818-784-4515. 

“A Year of Jubilee” Procession and Mass of Thanksgiving. 

Mission Basilica San Buenaventura, 211 East Main St., Ventura. 

Candlelight procession will begin at 5 p.m. at Thompson 

Street and Palm Street followed by a solemn Mass in the 

basilica with Archbishop José H. Gomez and Bishop Robert 

Barron, followed by a garden reception. 

■ TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21 

Labyrinth Walk. Holy Spirit Retreat Center, 4316 Lanai Rd., 

Encino, 7-9 p.m. For more information, visit www.hsrcenter. 

com or call 818-784-4515. 

■ SATURDAY, DECEMBER 25 

Music at St. Cyril’s: Midnight Mass. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, 

15520 Ventura Blvd., Encino, 12 a.m. The renowned choir 

and orchestra of St. Cyril of Jerusalem will present “Missa 

sexti toni” by Johann Ernst Eberlin for Midnight Mass and 

again at 12 p.m. on Christmas Day. Other music will include 

the “Ave Maria” by Franz Biebl, “Cantique de Noel” by 

Adolphe Adam, “Now Is Born” arranged by Roger Wagner, 

and “Noel, Noel, Bells Are Ringing” by Wilbur Chenoweth. 

Gregorian chant antiphons will be presented for Introit and 

Communion. Music at St. Cyril’s is under the direction of 

William C. Beck, who will accompany voices and orchestra 

on the Rosales Opus 23 organ. 

Free Christmas Day Meal Distribution. St. Agatha Church, 

2646 S. Mansfield Ave., Los Angeles, 1-3 p.m. For more 

information, email celeste.chretien4685@gmail.com. 

■ THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30 

New Year’s Retreat: Restoring Faith in the Human Race. 

Holy Spirit Retreat Center, 4316 Lanai Rd., Encino. With 

Sister Chris Machado and Michael O’Palco. Retreat runs Dec. 

30-Jan. 1. For more information, visit www.hsrcenter.com or 

call 818-784-4515. 

■ SATURDAY, JANUARY 8 

Living a Hope-Filled Life. St. Finbar Parish Hall, 2010 W. Olive 

Ave., Burbank, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. A day of teaching, prayer, 

and Mass with Father Bill Delaney, SJ, and Kay Murdy. Topics 

include “Rejoice in the Lord Always” and “The God of Peace 

Will Be With You.” Cost: $25/person if registered by Dec. 31, 

$35/afterward. For more information, visit events.scrc.org. 

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

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

Angelus News | December 17, 2021 | Vol. 6 No. 25

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Angelus News | December 17, 2021 | Vol. 6 No. 25

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