Angelus News | March 25, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 6

ANGELUS
STAY OR GO?
The road ahead for families
under siege in Ukraine
March 25, 2022 Vol. 7 No. 6

March 25, 2022
Vol. 7 • No. 6
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ON THE COVER
CNS/GLEB GARANICH, REUTERS
A man walks by the debris of buildings destroyed during
Russian aerial bombing in the village of Byshiv outside
Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 12. On Page 10, Ann Rodgers
hears from Catholics in the U.S. and on the ground in
Ukraine working around the clock to rescue families
in harm’s way. On Page 14, an Italian missionary family
spoke exclusively to Pablo Kay, Angelus editor-in-chief,
about their dramatic escape from a besieged city and
why they still believe they have a mission in Ukraine.
THIS PAGE
VICTOR ALEMÁN
Several hundred catechumens gathered with
Archbishop José H. Gomez and auxiliary bishops
at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on
March 6 for the Rite of Election. The rite is the
final step in the catechumenate leading up to baptism
for the men, women, and children who will
officially be welcomed into the Catholic Church
when they are baptized at this year’s Easter Vigil
Mass in their respective parishes.

CONTENTS
Pope Watch............................................... 2
Archbishop Gomez................................. 3
World, Nation, and Local News...... 4-6
In Other Words........................................ 7
Father Rolheiser....................................... 8
Scott Hahn.............................................. 32
Events Calendar..................................... 33
18
22
24
26
28
30
Meet Richard Grant, Catholic education’s ‘true believer’
What to expect at the first hybrid RE Congress
The lessons of the pope’s push for Syria come to bear in Ukraine
Grazie Christie on what Catholics can like about Jordan Peterson
A musical about unrequited love, ‘Cyrano’ doesn’t forget God
Heather King on the spiritual side of postpartum ‘Lent’
March 25, 2022 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH
Time to wake up
The following is adapted from the
Holy Father’s Angelus address on Sunday,
March 13, with the faithful and
pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square.
The witnesses of the transfiguration
of Jesus were the apostles
Peter, John, and James. We
imagine them with their eyes wide
open before that unique spectacle.
But the evangelist Luke notes that
“Peter and those who were with him
were heavy with sleep,” and that they
“kept awake” and glorified Jesus (cf.
v. 32). The same apostles then fall
asleep in Gethsemane, too, during the
anguished prayer of Jesus, who had
asked them to keep watch (cf. Mark
14:37–41). This somnolence in such
important moments is surprising.
However, if we read carefully, we see
that Peter, John, and James fall asleep
before the transfiguration begins, while
Jesus is in prayer. The same will happen
in Gethsemane. This is evidently
a prayer that continued for some time,
in silence and concentration. We may
think that at the beginning they, too,
were praying, until tiredness prevailed.
Does this ill-timed slumber perhaps
resemble many of our own that come
in moments we know to be important?
Perhaps in the evening, when we
would like to pray, to spend some time
with Jesus after a day of rushing around
and being busy. Or when it is time to
exchange a few words with the family
and we no longer have the strength.
We would like to be more awake,
attentive, and participatory, not to miss
precious opportunities, but we can’t, or
we manage it somehow but poorly.
The strong time of Lent is an opportunity,
a period in which God wants
to awaken us from our inner lethargy.
Because keeping the heart awake does
not depend on us alone: it is a grace
and must be requested.
The three disciples of the gospel show
this: they were good, they had followed
Jesus onto the mountain, but by their
own strength they could not stay
awake. This happens to us, too. However,
they woke up precisely during the
Transfiguration. Like them, we, too,
are in need of God’s light, that makes
us see things in a different way: it
attracts us, it reawakens us, it reignites
our desire and strength to pray, to look
within ourselves, and to dedicate time
to others.
We can overcome the tiredness of
the body with the strength of the Spirit
of God. And when we are unable to
overcome this, we must say to the Holy
Spirit: “Help us, come, come, Holy
Spirit. Help me: I want to encounter
Jesus, I want to be attentive, awake.”
Ask the Holy Spirit to bring us out
of this slumber that prevents us from
praying.
In this Lenten time, after the labors
of each day, it will do us good not to
switch off the light in the room without
placing ourselves in the light of God.
To pray a little before sleeping. Let’s
give the Lord the chance to surprise us
and to reawaken our hearts.
We can do this, for instance, by opening
the gospel and letting ourselves
marvel at the word of God, because
Scripture enlightens our steps and
inflames the heart. Or we can look at
the crucified Jesus and wonder at the
boundless love of God, who never tires
of us and has the power to transfigure
our days, to give them a new meaning,
a new, unexpected light.
Papal Prayer Intention for March: We pray for Christians
facing new bioethical challenges; may they continue to
defend the dignity of all human life with prayer and action.
2 • ANGELUS • March 25, 2022

NEW WORLD OF FAITH
ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ
Mercy for the journey
Lent is the season of return.
This is the theme we hear in
the weekday liturgies of Lent, especially
in the Old Testament readings.
Day after day, we hear accounts of the
people coming back to the Lord, opening
their hearts to confess their sins
and failures, and asking his forgiveness.
The people’s honesty about themselves
and their weaknesses is astonishing.
So is their confidence that God will
treat them with mercy and welcome
them back.
As I write, we are early in the second
week of Lent. On Monday, we heard
the prophet Daniel’s confession: “We
have sinned, been wicked and done
evil; we have rebelled and departed
from your commandments and your
laws.”
And on Tuesday, the prophet Isaiah
gives us this beautiful promise from
God: “Come now, let us set things
right, says the Lord. Though your sins
be like scarlet, they may become white
as snow.”
This is the promise that is available
to each one of us in the sacrament of
penance and reconciliation.
This sacrament was the first gift that
Jesus gave to the world after rising from
the dead. On that first Easter night,
he breathed his Holy Spirit into his
apostles, his first priests, and granted
them the awesome power to forgive
sins in his name.
“Whose sins you forgive are forgiven
them,” he told his priests.
Our Lord knew that, in order to
follow him, we would need these
“traveling mercies,” all the beautiful
mercies and graces that flow to us in
this sacrament, enabling us to keep on
our journey with him.
Even the saints are sinners. The
Scriptures tell us that the righteous fall
seven times daily. That is why we need
confession. We need to have some way
to tell God that we are sorry, to hear
his words of forgiveness, and to pick
ourselves up.
The most beautiful scenes in the
Gospel are scenes of confession and
forgiveness, as Jesus shows the merciful
face of God to those who come seeking
healing and liberation.
We all remember the story of the
prodigal son who confesses his sins and
is welcomed home to the loving arms
of his father.
God’s mercy matters; we all need it.
That is why his door is always open to
us, he is always waiting for our return.
Just as in the story of the prodigal son.
God forgives the contrite heart, even
though we continue to sin or make the
same mistakes. What is important is
our resolve, our desire to get stronger,
to grow in holiness.
In my last column, I urged you to get
in the habit of making a daily examination
of conscience. Here I want to
appeal to you to make a habit of regular
confession — once a month, even
once every couple of weeks.
Do not make it complicated, or get
hung up on the “form.” The priest will
be there to help you.
Tell the priest, “Lord, you know all
things, you know that I love you.” Then
confess your sins. The saints speak of
the “four C’s” — make your confession
clear, concise, contrite, and complete.
Speak honestly, tell all your sins; you
do not need to go into detail or give
explanations. And most important,
have true sorrow in your heart and
the intention not to commit these sins
again.
Remember, you are talking not to a
man, you are confessing your sins to
God. The priest has been ordained
to stand in the place of Jesus himself.
Listen closely to what he tells you after
you confess your sins; he will have
words of advice, encouragement, and
he will assign a simple penance.
Then make a good act of contrition.
Speak personally, from the heart: “Lord
Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me,
a sinner.”
God forgives the contrite heart, even though we
continue to sin or make the same mistakes. What
is important is our desire to grow in holiness.
After that, listen as the priest prays,
with the power and authority given to
the apostles by Jesus: “I absolve you
from your sins in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit.”
These are some of the most beautiful
words we can ever hear.
We have gathered some excellent
resources on our website, LACatholics.
org, to help you examine your conscience
and make a good confession.
Just know that the more often you go
to confession, the easier it gets. The
better you are able to examine your
conscience and to make a complete
confession, the more satisfying the
experience is.
Pray for me and I will pray for you.
And let us ask our holy Mary, Mother
of Mercy, to help us to go with
confidence always to seek “the tender
mercy of our God,” that her Son came
to show us.
March 25, 2022 • ANGELUS • 3

WORLD
Blessed Titus Brandsma.
| TITUS BRANDSMA INSTITUTE
■ Priest killed by
Nazis to be canonized
Pope Francis added three more
names to the list of people he
will canonize on May 15.
The soon-to-be saints include
Blessed Titus Brandsma, who
was killed by lethal injection
in 1942 at the Dachau concentration
camp. One of the more
than 2,400 Catholic priests to
be detained at the Nazi camp,
Brandsma was arrested for treason for his public defense
of the Jewish people. He had also urged the editors of the
Dutch Catholic press to refuse to print Nazi propaganda.
Blessed Marie Rivier, founder of the Sisters of the Presentation
of Mary, and Blessed Carolina Santocanale, founder
of the Congregation of the Capuchin Sisters of the Immaculate
of Lourdes, will also be canonized.
The three blesseds will be canonized in May along with
seven others, including the French missionary and mystic
Blessed Charles de Foucauld.
■ Argentinian bishop
gets jail sentence for abuse
Four years after the first accusations of sexual and financial
misconduct against him became public, Bishop Gustavo
Zanchetta was sentenced to four years and six months
in prison for aggravated continuous sexual assault of two
former seminarians.
The Argentine is known for his friendship with Pope
Francis, who made him a bishop of the Diocese of Oran
in 2013. Four years later, Bishop Zanchetta resigned at the
age of 53 for “health reasons,” and was shortly after appointed
by the pope to APSA, the Vatican office that oversees
Vatican investments.
A Vatican spokesman claims that there were no abuse
allegations when Bishop Zanchetta began his appointment
in Rome. Bishop Zanchetta had claimed to Pope Francis
that allegations that explicit images found on his phone
were the result of hacking.
“Before I asked for his resignation, there was an accusation,
and I immediately made him come over with the
person who accused him and explain it,” Pope Francis said
in 2019.
■ Nicaraguan dictator
evicts Vatican
ambassador
After months of deteriorating
relations with the Vatican, Daniel
Ortega’s Nicaraguan government
has expelled the apostolic nuncio
from the country.
The expulsion of Polish Archbishop
Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag
came directly from Ortega and
Rosario Murillo, his wife and vice
president. It follows the government’s
Nov. 18, 2021, dissolution of
the role of “dean of the diplomatic
corps,” which is traditionally held
by the papal nuncio.
Ortega has been aggressive
toward the Catholic Church since
2018, when the country’s bishops
condemned his government’s
use of violence against peaceful
protesters. His recent moves against
Archbishop Sommertag follow
the archbishop’s use of the term
“political prisoners” in reference to
jailed opposition candidates who
ran against Ortega in last year’s
presidential election.
The “bishop’s palace” in Kraków. | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
■ Ukrainian refugees to be
housed in JPII’s former palace
A Polish archbishop announced he would be opening his “bishop’s palace” to
house Ukrainian refugees.
Archbishop Marek Jędraszewski of Kraków made the announcement on
March 9, as part of the archdiocese’s efforts to involve every parish in providing
refugee housing following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to
the archdiocese, several thousand of the 1.3 million Ukrainian refugees in
Poland are being housed in rectories and other Church buildings.
“As children of the same God, we are called to a particular fraternity and a
sense of great solidarity, to generosity, to readiness to renounce what we have
lived for the sake of those who come to us with one bag in hand and a child in
the other,” Archbishop Jędraszewski said.
Kraków’s bishops, including the future St. Pope John Paul II, have lived at
the palace since the 14th century.
4 • ANGELUS • March 25, 2022

NATION
■ Texas bishops ask state to
call off mother’s execution
Pro-life advocates, including Catholic
bishops, are calling on Texas officials to
grant clemency to a Catholic mother
of 14 set to be executed in April for the
2007 death of her 2-year-old daughter.
Melissa Lucio maintains the death
was the result of an accidental fall
down a stairway, despite her admission
of guilt after an interrogation the night
her daughter died. Lucio’s lawyers say
the guilty plea was made under duress.
“There is just too much doubt,” said
Lucio’s attorney Vanessa Potkin. “We
cannot move forward in this case and
risk executing an innocent woman.”
In a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas’
Catholic bishops said the court failed
to consider Lucio’s history as a victim
of sexual abuse or “troubling interrogation
by law enforcement,” and instead
relied on a flawed process that lacked
evidence and witnesses.
Lucio’s appeals have been denied
by a federal appeals court and by the
Supreme Court. Her case is the subject
of the Hulu documentary “The State
of Texas vs. Melissa.”
St. Francis Convent in
Springfield, Illinois, which
will house Norbertine
Fathers from Orange
County and the new
Evermode Institute. |
DIOCESE OF SPRINGFIELD
■ Group of SoCal Norbertines establish Illinois home
Some of the Norbertine Fathers of St. Michael’s Abbey in Orange County are
heading to Illinois to establish a new community and center for catechist formation.
Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of Springfield announced on March 3 that his
diocese will be welcoming the new community, which will be established on the
grounds of the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis in Springfield.
“In light of the growth in our community, we had already been discerning the
possibility of establishing a new community when Bishop Paprocki approached
us,” Abbot Eugene Hayes, O Praem, said March 3. Though St. Michael’s Abbey
was recently expanded, the community is almost at capacity with 50 priests and 40
seminarians.
The Norbertines will partner with the diocese to establish the Evermode Institute,
a formation center for lay and ordained teachers of the Catholic faith, on the
same grounds as their abbey.
Mini-heroes — Students at St. Mark Catholic Academy in Brooklyn, New York, held a fundraiser for the
children of Ukraine March 7. The school raised more than $2,000 for Voices of Children, which provides
psychological and psychosocial support for children affected by war. | CNS/DIOCESE OF BROOKLYN
■ Florida passes abortion
ban ahead of Roe decision
Florida’s Catholic bishops praised the
state legislature for moving to ban most
abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
“While we continue to look forward
to the day when the full protection of
unborn life is recognized in law,” said
Christie Arnold, associate for social
concerns and respect life at the Florida
Conference of Catholic Bishops, “we
are encouraged that HB 5 further limits
the grave harm that abortion inflicts
upon women and children.”
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is
expected to sign it into law. The law is
similar to the Mississippi law that the Supreme
Court is considering in Dobbs v.
Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
“If the Supreme Court upholds Mississippi’s
law, Florida’s legislation will likely
be upheld,” the bishops conference said
in a March 3 news release.
March 25, 2022 • ANGELUS • 5

LOCAL
The relic of the heart of St. John of Ávila
coming to LA this month. | FATHER
GUSTAVO CASTILLO
■ St. John of Ávila relic to
spend a week in LA
A piece of the heart of 14th-century Spanish
saint and Doctor of the Church St. John of Ávila
will be in the Los Angeles area March 19-26.
The relic is being brought by two priests from
the Archdiocese of Cordoba, Spain. Stops will
include St. Joseph Church in Hawthorne (Sunday,
March 20) and the Sacred Heart Retreat
Center in Alhambra (Wednesday, March 23).
On Tuesday, March 22, the relic will visit St.
John’s Seminary in Camarillo, where the two
priests, Father Carlos Jesus Gallardo and Father
Guillermo Padilla, will speak at the seminary’s annual Serra conference on “The
Influence of St. John of Ávila on the seminaries of the American Continent.”
The visit was planned with the help of Father Gustavo Castillo, director of
spiritual formation at St. John’s.
“As priests, we are called to have hearts of good shepherds,” he said. “We welcome
this relic of one of these shepherds configured to Jesus in this historic first
trip to the United States.”
For the full schedule of the relic’s visit, go to the LA Catholics section of AngelusNews.com.
Msgr. Terrance Fleming at the Missionary
Childhood Association Mass in 2019. Msgr.
Fleming continues to lead the archdiocese’s
Mission Office. | VICTOR ALEMÁN
■ Msgr. Fleming named OLA Region episcopal vicar
A priest familiar to many LA Catholics has been asked to help oversee the
Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ most populous pastoral region.
Archbishop José H. Gomez announced on March 1 that he had named Msgr.
Terrance Fleming episcopal vicar for the Our Lady of the Angels Pastoral Region
following the February retirement of Auxiliary Bishop Edward Clark.
As episcopal vicar, Msgr. Fleming will oversee the region’s administrative
duties on a temporary basis.
“I want to thank Archbishop José Gomez for his great confidence in me,” Msgr.
Fleming told Angelus. “Having been a priest for over 30 years in the region, I
hope to share my experience and wisdom with all of those living in the region.
Please pray for me, but especially for the priests and people of the Region of Our
Lady of the Angels.”
■ Additional collection
for Ukraine at LA
Masses
Parishes in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles
have been asked to add a special
collection at Masses this month to help
Ukraine.
Donations from collections held
at Masses during the weekends of
March 12-13 and March 19-20 will be
managed by the Los Angeles office of
the Society for the Propagation of the
Faith and go toward relief efforts in the
war-torn country.
“During this time, Ukraine is in solemn
need of our prayers and support
as they face such devastating loss and
tragedy within their country,” wrote
Vicar General Father Brian Nunes and
Msgr. Terrance Fleming, executive
director of the Archdiocese’s Mission
Office, in a letter to all parishes.
Anyone interested in donating online
can do so at MissionsLA.org/product/
donate-1312/ and specify “Ukraine
Disaster” in the memo box.
■ State, counties update
indoor masking rules
Face coverings are no longer required
for Mass and parish activities
in all three counties of the Archdiocese
of Los Angeles.
The new guidance aligns with public
health protocols in Los Angeles, Ventura,
and Santa Barbara, all of which
have now dropped mask requirements
in indoor settings as COVID-19 cases
and hospitalization rates continue to
fall.
Masks also became optional in California
classrooms effective March 11,
including at schools in the Archdiocese
of Los Angeles.
Still, a memo sent to the archdiocesan
community announcing the
guidance noted that the state still
“strongly recommends” indoor masking
and that one cannot be prevented
from wearing a mask “as a condition
of participation in an activity or entry
into a business or other location.”
Y
6 • ANGELUS • March 25, 2022

V
IN OTHER WORDS...
Letters to the Editor
Is God leading men to something special for Our Lady?
In the cover story of the Feb. 25 issue “Trending: The rosary,” John
Burger reported that these new public rosaries “are being organized
and attended almost exclusively by men.” This is truly a testament to Our Lord’s
faithfulness to his people, that his movements through his mother, to restore his
people unto himself, should make use predominantly of men.
But it’s here where I must depart from Burger’s claim that it is “most surprising.”
It seems of little surprise that Our Lord should revive a public rosary devotion,
or that he should choose to do so by raising up men as its primary organizer and
participant.
What more proper antidote to the cultural and spiritual dissolution of our times
than to restore defiled femininity, by raising up voices to the praises of Our Lady
most undefiled? What surer way of restoring defiled masculinity, than to make
those voices overwhelmingly masculine?
Dr. Tim O’Malley is right in noting that it’s “important to remember … that the
Church teaches that prayer and worship are for the glorification of God first and
then for the sanctification of men and women,” and that “prayer can’t be overtaken
by the protest.”
Yet, today, even the mere espousal of Christian belief in the public square may
be considered a protest of the secular, and rightfully quashed.
Therefore, these rosary gatherings will be called politically motivated protests
regardless, so such concerns shouldn’t alone be the cause of their discouragement.
— Paul Binotto, Bridgeville, Pennsylvania
Y
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may be edited for style, brevity, and clarity.
Turning to him ‘with all your heart’
Archbishop José H. Gomez celebrated noon Mass on Ash
Wednesday (March 2) with faithful at the Cathedral of Our Lady
of the Angels to begin the season of Lent. | VICTOR ALEMÁN
View more photos
from this gallery at
AngelusNews.com/photos-videos
Do you have photos or a story from your parish that you’d
like to share? Please send to editorial @angelusnews.com.
“We aren’t just sinners; we
are sinners who can ask
for mercy and believe that
we can receive it. Living in
this posture is what makes
forgiveness possible, which
is the only thing that makes
lasting peace possible.”
~ Tish Harrison Warren in a March 6 New York
Times op-ed, “We’re All Sinners, and Accepting
That is Actually a Good Thing.”
“Working-class people
can no longer thrive in our
dense urban environments.”
~ Joel Kotkin, presidential fellow in urban futures at
Chapman University, in a Feb. 24 Newsweek opinion
piece, “You Can’t Fix the Housing Crisis with New
Houses. We Need New Cities.”
“This new style of public
education takes my tax
dollars and uses them to
produce a generation of
children who won’t need
their religious beliefs
protected because they
won’t have any.”
~ Andrea Picciotti-Bayer, a civil-rights attorney and
mother of 10, in a March 7 National Review article,
“Why School Choice Matters Now More than Ever.”
“A world that idolizes
achievement and defines
freedom and autonomy
very narrowly can’t make
sense of this ‘waste’ of a life.”
~ Maggie Garnett in “Chesterton and the Millennial
Nun,” an essay on the rise in religious vocations
among young people, published in The Lamp.
March 25, 2022 • ANGELUS • 7

IN EXILE
FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI
Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father
Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual
writer; ronaldrolheiser.com.
Advice on prayer from an old master
At the risk of being simplistic, I
want to say something about
prayer in a very simple way.
While doing doctoral studies, I had a
professor, an elderly Augustine priest,
who in his demeanor, speech, and attitude,
radiated wisdom and maturity.
Everything about him bespoke integrity.
You immediately trusted him, the
wise old grandfather of storybooks.
One day in class he spoke of his own
prayer life. As with everything else
he shared, there were no filters, only
honesty and humility. I don’t recall
his exact words, but I remember well
the essence of what he said, and it has
stayed with me for the nearly 40 years
since I had the privilege of being in
his class.
Here’s what he shared: Prayer isn’t
easy because we’re always tired,
distracted, busy, bored, and caught up
in so many things that it’s hard to find
the time and energy to center ourselves
on God for some moments. So, this is
what I do. No matter what my day is
like, no matter what’s on my mind, no
matter what my distractions and temptations
are, I am faithful to this: Once
a day I pray the Our Father as best I
can from where I am at that moment.
Inside of everything that’s going on
inside me and around me that day, I
pray the Our Father, asking God to
hear me from inside of all the distractions
and temptations that are besetting
me. It’s the best I can do. Maybe
it’s a bare minimum and I should do
more and should try to concentrate
harder, but at least I do that. And
sometimes it’s all I can do, but I do it
every day, as best I can. It’s the prayer
Jesus told us to pray.
His words might sound simplistic
and minimalistic. Indeed, the
Church challenges us to make the
Eucharist the center of our prayer
lives and to make a daily habit of
meditation and private prayer.
As well, many classical spiritual
writers tell us that we should set aside
an hour every day for private prayer,
and many contemporary spiritual
writers challenge us to daily practice
centering prayer or some other form
of contemplative prayer. Where does
that leave our old Augustinian theologian
and his counsel that we pray one
sincere Our Father each day — as
best we can?
Well, none of this goes against what
he so humbly shared. He would be
the first to agree that the Eucharist
should be the center of our prayer
lives, and he would agree as well with
both the classical spiritual writers
who advise an hour of private prayer
a day, and the contemporary authors
who challenge us to do some form of
contemplative prayer daily, or at least
habitually.
But he would say this: At one of
those times in the day (ideally at the
Eucharist or while praying the Office
of the Church but at least sometime
during your day) when you’re saying
the Our Father, pray it with as much
sincerity and focus as you can muster
at the moment (as best you can) and
know that, no matter your distractions
at the moment, it’s what God is asking
from you. And it’s enough.
His advice has stayed with me
through the years, and though I say
several Our Fathers every day, I try, at
least in one of them, to pray the Our
Father as best I can, fully conscious
of how badly I am doing it. What a
challenge and what a consolation!
The challenge is to pray an Our Father
each day, as best we can. As we
know, that prayer is deeply communitarian.
Every petition in it is plural
– “our,” “we,” “us” — there’s no “I” in
the Our Father.
Moreover, all of us are priests from
our baptism, and inherent in the
covenant we made then we are asked
daily to pray for others, for the world.
For those who cannot participate in
the Eucharist daily and for those who
do not pray the Office of the Church,
praying the Our Father is your eucharistic
prayer, your priestly prayer for
others.
And this is the consolation: None of
us is divine. We’re all incurably human,
which means that many times,
perhaps most times, when we’re trying
to pray we’ll find ourselves beset
with everything from tiredness, to
boredom, to impatience, to planning
tomorrow’s agenda, to sorting through
the hurts of the day, to stewing about
who we’re angry at, to dealing with
erotic fantasies.
Our prayer seldom issues forth from
a pure heart but normally from a
very earthy one. But, and this is the
point, its very earthiness is also its
real honesty. Our restless, distracted
heart is also our existential heart and
is the existential heart of the world.
When we pray from there, we are
(as the classical definition of prayer
would have it) lifting mind and heart
to God.
Try, each day, to pray one sincere
Our Father! As best you can!
8 • ANGELUS • March 25, 2022

HOLY RESISTANCE
From the US to Ukraine, Catholics are stepping up to save
lives in the war zone. The relief can’t come soon enough.
BY ANN RODGERS
Psalms have been the focus of
Taras Tymo’s scholarship as vice
dean of the theology faculty at
Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv,
but he has discovered new depths in
them as he helps the displaced persons
flooding his city near the Polish border.
“The psalms are sometimes very
brutal, and we never understood. We
thought this was some kind of outdated
Near Eastern thing that has to be
explained away because Christians
are too nice and refined to curse our
enemies,” he said.
“But in days like this it becomes extremely
necessary to be able to voice
your outrage, your anger, your panic
— all of your dark emotions — and to
voice them in a way that is before the
face of God.”
Such prayers echo through the
Ukrainian diaspora.
In the kitchen of St. George Ukrainian
Catholic Church in Pittsburgh,
church ladies make thousands of
pierogi — Slavic stuffed dumplings
— with some proceeds providing body
armor vests for Ukrainian soldiers. At
a sister parish in nearby Carnegie, the
pastor just returned from an emergency
mission to Ukraine, where a
parishioner rescued dozens of people,
including 22 orphans. Every Tuesday
he hosts a prayer service in Carnegie
with the neighboring Ukrainian
Orthodox priest, who remains frantic
about the fate of three other orphans
that he and his wife had been trying
Pro-Russian troops in uniforms without insignia walk
near a residential building destroyed in the separatist-controlled
town of Volnovakha, Ukraine, on
March 11. | CNS/ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO, REUTERS
to adopt.
In Lviv, Tymo is producing English-language
YouTube videos,
showing bombed churches, burning
school buses, and massive apartment
complexes whose basements weren’t
shelters but death traps.
“Those multistory Soviet-style buildings
are made of concrete blocks, and
when they collapse, it’s like a house of
cards,” he said.
Though the Tymo house is always
crowded with five children, they
10 • ANGELUS • March 25, 2022

Sisters of the Servants of
shelter displaced
Mary Immaculate order
families who
in Poland help refugees
are on their way
at their convent. | FAto
becoming
THER JASON CHARRON
refugees. Tymo’s
wife, an art historian,
is working
with a Swiss organization to protect
cultural treasures. Their oldest son,
20, is collecting nonlethal supplies
for Ukrainian troops — a project for
which Tymo’s videos raise money.
“Everything is badly needed and
every dollar converts to a saved life or
a protected life,” Tymo said.
The next two eldest are Girl Scouts,
who volunteer at improvised transit
shelters for displaced persons.
Lviv is ordinarily a loud, happy city,
popular with tourists. Initially after the
Feb. 24 invasion it was unnaturally
quiet. Then refugees began arriving
by the hundreds of thousands, pouring
from trains packed to triple their
capacity, in which passengers had
stood for 18 hours.
Some stepped off wearing little more
than the pajamas they had on when
the bombs fell.
“They are very sad, scared people,”
Tymo said.
Catholic organizations such as
his own university, Caritas, and the
Knights of Malta render aid and
assistance. Most refugees are women
and children. Men aged 18 to 60 must
remain to defend Ukraine.
Tymo is grateful for American support,
both spiritual and military. He
asks everyone to keep reminding their
elected officials in Washington, D.C.,
of the need to support Ukraine.
“You will have to pay a price, probably
at the fueling stations,” he said.
“We understand that the world doesn’t
owe us anything. You don’t have to do
this, strictly speaking. On the other
hand, we are not just protecting our
own country. It is clear that [Russian
President Vladimir] Putin will not
stop with Ukraine. He is determined
to destroy the whole security system,
the world order that is not perfect —
but is as good as we have ever had.”
Some Ukrainian-Americans are
taking great risks to help. Shortly
after the invasion, Father Jason
Charron, pastor of Holy Trinity
Ukrainian Catholic Church in Carnegie,
went to Ukraine with one of
his parishioners to rescue a 9-year-old
girl that the parishioner intended to
adopt. They emerged with a busload
of 22 orphans and just as many other
refugees, whom they took into Poland,
across Slovakia and the Czech Republic,
to Lithuania.
The parishioner, Pittsburgh businessman
Allen Sherwood, had promised
Orphans rescued by
Father Jason Charron
and Allen Sherwood during
meal time at a refugee
center in Lviv, Ukraine.
| FATHER JASON CHARRON
the child when
she visited last
Christmas that,
if anything
bad were ever
to happen, he
would rescue
her.
When the
tanks rolled
across the border, “he flew into action,”
Father Charron said.
Sherwood had never been to
Ukraine and spoke no Ukrainian.
Father Charron had taught English
in Lviv, where he had met his wife,
Halyna — Eastern Catholic Churches
ordain married men. The Charrons
have seven children, ages 2 to 21.
The orphanage director in Kyiv told
March 25, 2022 • ANGELUS • 11

them that, to rescue one child, they
must take them all. So they did.
As they crossed the Polish border,
the two Americans were almost the
only people moving east while waves
of humanity fled west. One of the few
headed their way was Eliza, 24, who
had earlier carried her 18-month-old
from Kyiv to Poland after their apartment
was bombed. At the border she
handed the child to her husband, who
works in Poland, then turned back
into Ukraine to help the resistance.
Ukrainian Orthodox priest John Charest of Pittsburgh
and his wife have been trying to adopt three young
children still stuck in Ukraine. | REA ANDREW REDD
“Mr. Putin does not have soldiers
with that kind of fortitude and resolve.
And it’s from those virtues that wars
are won,” Father Charron said.
In Lviv, Father Charron and Sherwood
found the 22 orphans and four
staff members waiting in a 15-person
van, in which they had traveled
hundreds of miles. Despite harrowing
experiences, Father Charron said, the
children were happy.
“It was a lesson for me that, no
matter what you go through, there
is always a choice of whether to be
despondent or joyful,” he said.
Father Charron and Sherwood wrangled
a 55-person tour bus, which they
filled with refugees.
“If you don’t have a bus, you stand in
line [at the border] for days. With cold
temperatures, that really is in some
cases as bad, if not worse, than staying
home,” he said.
Catholic relief workers were highly
visible. He was especially impressed
with the Servants of Mary Immaculate,
a Ukrainian order.
“They are the shock troops of the
Church,” Father Charron said,
describing sisters in blue habits, distributing
food, blankets, and medical
supplies.
In the rush to escape, the orphans
had to leave their passports in Kyiv. It
is currently impossible to bring any of
them to the United States. That can
come later.
“Our main objective was just to save
all those kids,” Father Charron said.
Not all such children can be
rescued. Father John Charest,
a Ukrainian Orthodox priest
with whom Father Charron alternates
Tuesday night prayer services
for Ukraine, is heartsick over three
orphans in
Kyiv whom he
and his wife,
Laryssa, have
been trying to
adopt.
The Charests
met in
People are evacuated after
the destruction of the children’s
hospital in Mariupol,
Ukraine, on March 9.
| CNS/UKRAINE MILITARY/
HANDOUT VIA REUTERS
12 • ANGELUS • March 25, 2022

An image of Mary and the Ukrainian flag are
pictured during the funeral for three fallen
Ukrainian army members in Lviv on March 11.
| CNS/KAI PFAFFENBACH, REUTERS
college, when both volunteered at a
Ukrainian orphanage. After their marriage,
and continuing after the birth
of their son Sebastian, 7, they began
hosting Eastern European orphans on
short-term visits. Three years ago their
hearts melted over two Ukrainian sisters,
who turned out to have a younger
brother. Their efforts to adopt all three
have stalled for three years over the
technicality that the siblings — now
ages 10 and 13 — are in a foster home
rather than an orphanage.
At St. Peter and St. Paul Ukrainian
Orthodox Church in Carnegie, the
Charests are organizing relief supplies
and trying to stay in touch with the
children. Bombs and rockets have
come perilously close.
They had given the children a
cellphone, telling them to text a daily
minimum of one thumbs-up emoji.
When that doesn’t happen, their
hearts stop.
“Hours later, we will hear that they
were in a [bomb] shelter where there
is no service,” Father Charest said.
He has offered to pay the whole
foster family’s way to Poland, to have
a friend in Kyiv escort them out. The
foster parents, an older couple, don’t
want to leave their home for a journey
that is also fraught with danger.
“I’m not there. It’s easy for me to
make the right decision,” Father
Charest said.
“They are in a terrible situation. The
kids are frightened. They hear things
they don’t fully understand. … If they
can’t come to us, if we can’t adopt
them, then at least they should go to a
good home, out of that war zone.”
Father Ihor Hohosha, a parish
priest and hospital chaplain in
Pittsburgh, spent his childhood
under Soviet rule in the 1980s, when
the Ukrainian Catholic Church was
illegal. His grandmother taught him
to pray in secret, from a book that
had been hand-copied because it
could not be published legally. Now
42, Father Ihor is among the oldest
of Ukraine’s Catholic priests. “The
generation above me were all killed,”
he said.
After World War II, Soviet dictator
Joseph Stalin — who a decade
earlier had engineered the starvation
deaths of at least 3 million Ukrainians
— forced the merger of the
Ukrainian Catholic Church into the
Russian Orthodox Church. Bishops,
priests, nuns, and parishioners who
resisted were killed or deported to
labor camps. After Ukraine’s 1991
independence, however, millions of
Catholics emerged from the shadows.
In seminary, Father Ihor met elderly
priests.
“Many of them were tortured,” he
said. “I still remember one priest
who was so beaten that only one of
his lungs worked well. He never had
enough air to speak and breathe at the
same time.”
He sees little difference between
the new Russian regime and the old
oppressors.
“This is genocide,” he said, citing the
bombing of a maternity and children’s
hospital. “I have no doubt that Putin
is the new Hitler. This is Russian
fascism.”
The fight is personal. His brother,
who like Father Ihor is married with
several children, had been an army reservist
and has volunteered for active
duty. He was given minutes to pack
and say goodbye to his family. He now
awaits deployment.
One of Father Ihor’s parishes, St.
George Ukrainian Catholic Church,
supports itself with an annual Lenten
pierogi (or “pyrohy”) sale. Church
members prepare thousands of the
delicacies from a secret recipe handed
down for generations. This year they
upped the price by a dollar, with the
proceeds for Ukrainian relief. Some
go to humanitarian aid for civilians,
some to buy protective gear for soldiers.
“This is not just war between
Ukraine and Russia. This is between
darkness and light, and we have to
win,” Father Ihor said. “Maybe it looks
like my country is being crucified,
even sacrificed. I still believe in resurrection.
I believe there will be a new
start, a new beginning. After night,
comes the sunrise.”
Ann Rodgers is a longtime religion
reporter and freelance writer whose
awards include the William A. Reed
Lifetime Achievement Award from the
Religion News Association.
March 25, 2022 • ANGELUS • 13

‘He’s guiding our history’
A missionary family describes their harrowing escape
from Kyiv — and why they don’t want to leave Ukraine.
BY PABLO KAY
On the evening of Feb. 23, Emmanuele
and Maria Capretti
gathered with a community
of other Catholic missionary families
and Ukrainian Catholics in a home
in Kyiv.
As they do every Wednesday evening,
they prayed, listened to the word of
God, and sang the psalms. Front page
news headlines and rumors had been
warning of an impending invasion of
Ukraine by Russia for weeks. If the
invasion were to happen, the families
guessed, it would surely strike the
eastern part of the country already
embroiled for years in armed conflict
with Russian-backed separatists,
before Kyiv.
Still, the Caprettis, with their five
children (ages 1 to 7) and another on
the way, had to discern what to do in
the same dilemma faced by the rest of
the country: to stay or to go?
But on a Sunday morning the week
before, while praying with their young
children at home, Emmanuele and
Emmanuele and Maria Capretti at their new temporary
home in Uzhhorod, on the Ukrainian border
with Slovakia, after their escape from Kyiv this month.
Originally from Italy, the family have been missionaries
in Kyiv since 2016. | CAPRETTI FAMILY
Maria say they got their answer. In
front of his kids, the husband opened
his Bible to a random part of the Gospel.
His finger fell on a reading from
the Gospel of Luke.
“No one who has put his hand to the
14 • ANGELUS • March 25, 2022

plow and then looks back, is fit for the
kingdom of God,” he read.
The family took it not as a direct
command, but as a sign that God was
close to them, and that he wanted
them to decide freely.
A few hours after the missionaries
went back to their homes that night,
the invasion began. To their surprise,
the violence soon reached Kyiv. Gun
battles with suspected Russian infiltrators
broke out in the streets. Explosions
and air-raid sirens followed.
Today, Emmanuele and Maria feel
secure in their decision to remain in
the country where they’ve lived since
2016.
“Since we took that decision to stay
in Ukraine, God has given us so many
signs, so many graces,” recalled Emmanuele
in a phone interview.
A few years after getting married and
settling in Emmanuele’s hometown of
Brescia in northern Italy, the couple
were officially sent by Pope Francis as
a missionary family of the Neocatechumenal
Way to Kyiv, together with
several other young families, at the
request of Kyiv’s Catholic bishop.
For the last six years, their mission
has been a simple one: to be a visible
presence of God’s love in the capital
city together with their small
children, living and working among
ordinary people. The families meet
a few times a week for Mass and a
liturgy of the word, as well as for street
evangelization. Some families help
give catechesis in parishes, others
with marriage preparation for young
couples.
For Catholic missionaries in Ukraine
like the Caprettis, a different mission
now begins.
Two days after the invasion started,
Kyiv was under attack and
Emmanuele needed to get food
for his family. Some friends who had
fled the city had left him their house
keys, and their permission to take
whatever he needed. He was amazed
by what they had left him.
“We had never, ever had that much
food in our home until that day,” he
said with a chuckle. He later heard
in the news that players from toptier
Ukrainian soccer team Shakhtar
Donetsk had lacked food while taking
shelter with their families in a Kyiv
hotel.
“Hearing that made me see the love
of God,” said Emmanuele. “He gave
us to eat when we had nothing, while
so many people in this country are
going hungry.”
That didn’t make the situation in
Kyiv less frightening. The threat of
Russian airstrikes turned the city into
what Maria described as a “ghost
town” shrouded in total darkness at
night. The family covered their windows
with mattresses to protect against
possible blasts. The evening of the first
bombings, Maria sang the Litany of
the Saints to her children to drown
out the noise. While the explosions
kept Emmanuele and Maria awake
every night, they experienced nothing
short of a parenting miracle: The kids
slept through them without fail.
“To see the children always happy
and serene in this unbelievable
situation was a grace from God,” said
Maria. “We’ve seen how God has
always given us a great peace, despite
the fear.”
A few nights later, as the attacks on
Kyiv intensified, a terrified Emmanuele
made his way to a church for a
weekly catechesis session. No one else
showed up, but he found out another
missionary family who had just fled
Kyiv had left their car there for his
family to use.
“It was totally crazy to go out that
night, to leave my wife and children
alone at home, absolutely crazy,”
admitted Emmanuele.
Yet the risk paid off. The car helped
get the Caprettis to the city’s train
station, where a chaos that reminded
Emmanuele of a scene from the film
“Life is Beautiful” awaited them.
“It was total panic,” he recalled. The
day was Friday, March 4. A sea of people
waiting for the next train rushed
the train’s doors, with soldiers armed
with machine guns standing in the
way. To make it onboard, the family
had to abandon their suitcases full of
clothes at the station.
“It was like the Lord opened the Red
Sea for us that day,” said Emmanuele.
The family spent the next 12 hours
cramped inside the train headed west
to Uzhhorod, a city on the border
with Slovakia, as far as possible from
the violence without leaving Ukraine.
The train moved through the
Ukrainian countryside in darkness.
Cellphones had to be turned off to
avoid detection by enemy forces. The
family had nothing to eat or drink, or
anywhere to sit or move around. To
relieve themselves, passengers were
shown a hole between two train cars
where they could do so.
A photo of an empty food display at a supermarket
near Kyiv taken by Emmanuele Capretti March 2.
The children slept on the floor and,
to their parent’s amazement, didn’t
complain once. (“They were angels,”
said Maria, as their ruckus could be
heard in the background of the phone
interview a week later.) A man gave
up his seat so that Maria, six months
pregnant, could sit down. And a woman
on the train offered to hold their
March 25, 2022 • ANGELUS • 15

1-year-old daughter so that the weary
couple could tend to the needs of their
other four children.
They arrived at Uzhhorod at 4 a.m.
the next morning, carrying only their
travel documents. A week later, even
Maria struggled to believe the story of
their odyssey.
“I still don’t know how we got on that
train.”
themselves.
“We don’t feel at this moment that
God is calling us to go back home,”
said Emmanuele. “What do we feel?
We feel at peace. Our children are
happy. We showed up here with nothing
but the clothes on our backs, and
now we have clothes.”
The Caprettis will keep praying for
an end to the war, that the country
The family said they are especially
strengthened by the witness of other
Catholics in Ukraine, among them
priest friends who have stayed behind
in Kyiv and other embattled cities
to minister to Catholics there. And
whatever happens in the future, the
Caprettis say nothing — or no one
— can take away the miracles they’ve
witnessed.
Now in Uzhhorod, the Caprettis
have been joined by other
missionaries forced to flee
different parts of the country.
There, they continue to see God’s
hand at work. They were first taken in
by a local seminary, but a Ukrainian
family has since offered them a home
to stay in. They visited a local church
where Catholic aid agency Caritas
had dropped off a fresh truckload of
donated clothes for them to choose
from.
For now, they will continue their
work with the other refugee missionaries
in their new city. When asked
why they don’t return to the safety and
comfort of home in Brescia, Emmanuele
said the blessings speak for
“We’ve seen how God has always given
us a great peace, despite the fear.”
they have grown to love will be spared
the worst. Still, Emmanuele fears that
even if Russia relents and peace is
achieved, Ukraine will never be the
same again. While some Ukrainians
are bravely staying behind for whatever
the future brings, many of the
millions who have already left have
found better jobs and living conditions
abroad.
“The question is: How many of the
people who have left this country and
are building better lives elsewhere will
want to come back?” said Emmanuele.
“I see how in all this, the Lord has
really been our Father. He’s given us
the certainty that he’s the Father of our
children, and he’s guiding our history,”
said Maria.
“The biggest grace of this time is that
God has always given us a communion
and a serenity that just doesn’t come
from ourselves,” said Emmanuele.
“I’ve never seen God act in my whole
life like he has in these days.”
Pablo Kay is the editor-in-chief of
Angelus.

TIED TO A
GREATER
PURPOSE
The quiet force
of Richard Grant,
Catholic education’s
‘true believer.’
BY STEVE LOWERY
AND PABLO KAY
In downtown LA two years ago,
some 200 people gathered for a
dinner honoring Richard Grant, the
retiring president of the Dan Murphy
Foundation.
The crowd was not, in the words of
his wife, a “collection of professionals.”
Sure, there were people who had
worked with Grant in the world of
Catholic education and philanthropy,
but there were also friends with whom
Grant had forged the unlikeliest of
connections.
One of those friends was Carlos Granados.
A graduate of Cathedral High
School who grew up in Highland Park,
Granados spent 18 years in state prison
for attempted manslaughter committed
while in college. About five years
into his sentence, a chaplain at the LA
Men’s Central Jail — where Granados’
mother volunteered — put him in
touch with Grant.
The pair began to trade letters. A
few times a year, Grant would drive
up to visit Granados at whatever state
penitentiary he was in at the time. The
two would talk about books, life, faith,
their families. He says Grant’s mentorship
and “living example” were a
godsend, helping him finish his college
studies while behind bars — and build
a foundation for the future.
“He encouraged me more through his
example, his kindness, his open-mindedness,”
said Granados. “He was the
kind of man that I could envision
wanting to be like, as opposed to all the
other people I was around on a regular
basis in prison.”
By the time he was released in 2016,
Granados had earned a bachelor’s degree
in accounting and business from
Richard Grant.
Ohio University. He went on to earn
a master’s in business administration.
Today, he’s married with two young
daughters and manages the accounting
department at a professional services
company.
“The only reason I was able to do all
that was because of Richard’s support,”
said Granados. “He made a huge impact
on my life and really helped me
18 • ANGELUS • March 25, 2022

change the direction of my life.”
Stories like that about Grant abound,
though most of them will probably
never be told publicly. Those who
know them well say that Grant and his
wife, Maria, are humble people who
value their privacy. They are not ones
who like to talk about their good works
or charitable deeds.
But Grant is known for his generous
friendship to those in need, as well as
to those in higher ranks.
Los Angeles Archbishop José H.
Gomez said he is “privileged to call
Richard my friend and mentor.”
The archbishop told Angelus that he
is grateful for the Grants’ kindness and
hospitality when he first came to Los
Angeles in 2010.
“For decades now, Richard has been
the driving force behind so much of
what is good and hopeful and beautiful
in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles,”
Archbishop Gomez said. “He is a man
of deep faith, with a true heart for the
poor, and I am grateful every day for
his wise counsel.”
Grant retired from the Dan Murphy
Foundation in 2020 after
having served in the organization
for 50 years.
Founded in 1957 by Daniel and
Bernadine Donohue, the foundation
was named for Bernadine’s father, Dan
Murphy, the very successful Catholic
businessman whose many charitable
beneficiaries included the Archdiocese
of Los Angeles, the construction of
Catholic Girls High School, as well as
Cathedral High School and the Little
Sisters of the Poor Home in Boyle
Heights.
Continuing her father’s work, Bernadine
used her philanthropy to continue
to promote vocations as well as service
to the poor and disadvantaged youth.
Cardinal James
McIntyre goes over
blueprints for Don
Bosco Technical
Institute in Rosemead
in the early 1950s.
The former archbishop
of Los Angeles envisioned
parish churches
and schools within
walking distance in
neighborhoods and,
according to Grant,
considered Catholic
education “critical”
for the Faith.
Richard Grant with his
predecessor Sir Daniel
J. Donohue, who
served as president
of the Dan Murphy
Foundation for more
than 40 years.
But the foundation’s focus increasingly
turned to education, especially high
schools in the inner city.
When Bernadine died in 1968, Grant,
whose father was the foundation’s first
treasurer, came on as a board member.
He would succeed his father as treasurer,
before becoming executive director
and, in 2008, president.
Under Grant, the foundation increasingly
turned its attention and support
toward all facets of Catholic education,
most especially those schools located in
the inner city.
With shifting demographics and
socio-economic trends, those schools
were finding it increasingly hard to
survive.
“The challenge of [the inner city]
high school system is how to address
things in what is always a very fluid
situation,” Grant said. “There is always
going to be need, there are so many
things that you need to be aware of and
address.”
And most of those things are not of
March 25, 2022 • ANGELUS • 19

the shiny, eye-catching architectural
variety that come with artist renderings.
These are far more essential.
“The kind of work [the Dan Murphy
Foundation] makes possible is the
kind we call plumbing and poetry,”
said Paul Escala, superintendent of
Catholic schools for the Archdiocese of
Los Angeles.
“It’s the not-so-sexy stuff that no
one is interested in because no one
is interested in putting a plaque on a
bathroom. But bathrooms matter. They
matter a lot. So does paint and safety
systems. Dan Murphy recognized that.
Richard Grant recognized that a big
fancy building doesn’t matter if it’s next
to a dilapidated building that isn’t safe
for kids.”
Grant cites the work of Cardinal
James McIntyre, archbishop of Los Angeles
from 1948 to 1970, who presided
over Southern California’s post-war
population boom, and at one point
was overseeing the building of a new
church every 66 days and a new school
every 26 days.
Cardinal McIntyre, Grant said,
“believed that a Catholic elementary
and high school education was critical
because, by stressing not only religion,
but also math and English, it made
clear that everyone should be able to
develop and unleash their God-given
talents.”
When parents can’t afford to give
their children a Catholic education,
enrollments drop and high schools
close. It happens. In fact, in 2008, a
Catholic all-boys high school located
in Los Angeles closed due to dwindling
enrollment. The name of the school?
Daniel Murphy High School, named
in the 1960s after the foundation’s
namesake.
Still, there are success stories such as
Cathedral High near downtown LA,
which also experienced a drop in enrollment
and looked to be in danger of
closing itself. But concerned alumni,
getting help from organizations such as
the Dan Murphy Foundation, managed
to not only save the school but
erect a new building for classrooms as
well as a new gym.
Grant considers the success story of
Cathedral High “a perfect example of
how people came together to make
that happen.”
“It took more than a foundation, it
took more than money to make it work.
It takes a team of committed individuals,”
said Grant. “It’s about passing the
ball and allowing people to help.”
Does that sound suspiciously close to
allowing others to roll up their sleeves?
Grant would likely not deny it. He said
it was his father who instilled in him
that all labor was sacred. His father, he
said, was “my best teacher. He looked
at things, saw what there was to do and
then would say, ‘Let’s do it.’ He was a
wonderful example to pitch in and do
things. That was always part of my life
growing up.”
And it has stuck with him to this
day. Now retired and living with
his wife in Pasadena, Grant remains
a part of the foundation’s board.
Maria is a board member emeritus.
She said one reason her husband has
always done any job that needed doing
is because he never saw the foundation
as a job in the first place.
“He never approached it as a business,”
Maria said. “It has always been
Grant with Dan Murphy Foundation trustees on Christmas Eve last year, at the first performance of the Cathedral Children’s Choir. In late 2021, the foundation made a
$1 million grant to endow a children’s choir at the cathedral. The choir is directed by Cathedral Music Director Joseph Bazyouros and is completely funded through the
Dan Murphy Foundation endowment and Richard Grant’s family foundation.
20 • ANGELUS • March 25, 2022

Richard and his wife,
Maria, at their Pasadena
home. | VICTOR
ALEMÁN
about the mission of the foundation,
and the mission has always started with
people. The foundation has the best
board of really good people.”
To David Fuhrman, Grant’s successor
at the foundation, “Richard is a doer,
there is no task too small or beneath
him. He just rolls up his sleeves and
takes care of it.”
By “sleeves,” he means his actual,
well, sleeves. At events involving the
foundation over the years, friends and
associates can all recall the times they
caught Grant picking up this, sweeping
up that, or moving something from
here to there.
“If you were at one of these events,
you really wouldn’t know Richard was
the head of the foundation,” said Heidi
Talbot, the Dan Murphy Foundation’s
chief administrative officer. “Because
he would just roll up his sleeves and be
doing whatever it is needed to be done,
without a peep out of him.”
To his wife, Grant is “a true believer
in the mission of Catholic education.
He firmly believes in what it can provide
— the faith and guiding light —
and he firmly believes everyone should
have access to it, no matter where you
were born or who your parents are.”
Though he has retired from everyday
duty, Grant said he still keeps in
constant touch with everyone at the
foundation and sees great things ahead.
“It was time for me to move on and
I couldn’t have left things in better
hands than with David and Heidi,” he
said. “And Paul Escala has such a wonderful
vision of things to come. They
are all going to make this work.”
Escala said, if it does, it will be with
the ongoing example of Grant.
“All that he’s been able to accomplish,
all those he’s been able to bring
together for a purpose, he’s become
an incredible force multiplier,” Escala
said. “He’s always been the first one to
roll up their sleeves. We’re blessed to
have him as a model.”
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.
Pablo Kay is the editor-in-chief of
Angelus.
March 25, 2022 • ANGELUS • 21

A Congress
of connection
LA Congress is back as a ‘hybrid’ event
this month. Here’s what in-person and
virtual participants can expect.
BY TOM HOFFARTH
Sister Rosalia Meza, director of the
Office of Religious Education, greets an
attendee after the Opening Ceremony
& Welcome at the Anaheim Convention
Center for RECongress 2020. | ADLA
Two years after its last full in-person attendance and
a year removed from an all-virtual presentation, this
month’s Los Angeles Religious Education Congress
(REC) will be a hybrid event for the first time in its history.
“A lot of energy, heart, and mind has gone into Congress’
logistics,” said Sister Rosalia Meza, senior director of the
Office for Religious Education.
A lot of that has gone into conforming with COVID-19
pandemic safety requirements. As an indoor mega event
with 1,000 or more people, organizers have had to comply
with California public health guidelines, as well as those set
by the Anaheim Convention Center and surrounding hotel
partners.
“It has been super challenging to plan with so many changes,
but the reality is we will see what happens and make sure
everyone can experience a wonderful faith-sharing experience,”
said Sister Rosalia.
Speaking to Angelus, Sister Rosalia acknowledged the 2022
Congress will be held on a smaller scale and will be a “bit
different” from past Congresses.
“But everything from the spiritual liturgies to the keynote
speakers will be refreshing and healing. We are really trying
to honor what we have been through, and move forward as a
faith community.”
In-person attendance, once as large as 40,000, will be closer
to 5,000 this year, Sister Rosalia estimated. Identification,
proof of vaccination, and indoor masking will all be required.
All transactions are cashless at the Convention Center —
debit or credit cards only.
“People are longing to come back in person and we know
we can safely do that,” said Sister Rosalia.
Live participants will be able to attend the opening event,
keynote talks, workshops, liturgies, sacred space, art exhibits,
film showcases, and wander the exhibit hall. Other years
have seen as many as 280 workshops. This year’s will have
just shy of 100 one-hour sessions (available in English, Spanish,
and Vietnamese), down from the previous 90-minute
format.
Congress favorites like Father Greg Boyle, Bishop Robert
Barron, Father Robert Spitzer, and Sister Norma Pimentel
will be among those speaking in person. The pool of in-person
speakers purposefully focused on those able to come
from nearby LA, Orange County, and other states.
This year’s Thursday “Youth Day” will welcome high
school students March 17 with the theme, “Let God Take
the Wheel,” the subject of a talk by keynote speaker Ansel
Augustin from Vagabond Missions in New Orleans.
Linda Dakin-Grimm of the Southern California Catholic
Task Force on Immigration will return for a Sunday afternoon
workshop for her annual talk on the intersection of
faith with immigration law and practice. She admitted she’s
curious to see what the smaller crowd will be like.
“One of the best things about REC was the weirdness of the
huge crowd — it really was a ‘here comes everyone’ experience
of Catholicism,” Dakin-Grimm told Angelus.
“I hope this year’s REC is energetic, and I believe it will
be, with so many people yearning for connection. It is
much more fun as a presenter to see people’s real faces and
expressions, as opposed to recording something on video and
wondering how it is received. Chatting with people afterward
is a real joy.”
Those who opt for the virtual Congress experience (price:
$35/person) can also access livestreamed keynote addresses
and liturgies. An on-demand menu of pre-taped workshops
— 31 adult and four from Youth Day — are included with
an interactive “Click — Connect —Converse” connection.
Registration for this option is open until March 31, with
access to all content until May 17.
22 • ANGELUS • March 25, 2022

Father Robert Spitzer, SJ
Msgr. James Vlaun
John Allen Jr.
Ansel Augustine, DMin
Father Gregory Boyle, SJ
Sister Norma Pimentel, MJ
Linda Dakin-Grimm, JD
More than 10,000 signed up for the all-virtual event in mid-February 2021.
Sister Rosalia explained that when planning the 2022 REC, there was a period of
time when no one overseas could count on flying in to participate. That meant the
virtual option platform was geared to focus more on international speakers. Virtual
workshop hosts this year include John Allen Jr. and the Catholic Faith Network’s
Msgr. Jim Vlaun.
Organizers chose the theme, “Living Waters of Hope,” for this year’s event. Sister
Rosalia explained that in the context of the pandemic, Exodus 17:6 gives us an
invitation to “strike the rock so that water will flow from it.”
It also reflects on the Samaritan woman’s question to Jesus from the Sunday Gospel
of the gathering’s last day: “Where then can you get this living water?” (John 4,
11).
“They are beautiful words and appropriate, as we have gone through a lot of
dryness and pain, and it’s important to recover and hope for our personal lives and
for the world,” said Sister Rosalia. “We found that very meaningful.”
Bishop Robert Barron
Tom Hoffarth is an award-winning journalist based in Los Angeles.
Highlights to look forward to
» A special video message from
Pope Francis at the opening
ceremonies Friday morning.
» Two eucharistic liturgies honoring
essential workers during the
pandemic on Friday, March 18,
at 5:15 p.m. (Dolores Mission’s
Father Brendan Busse, SJ, is
the English presider; theologian
Father Eddie Fernandez, SJ, will
be the Spanish presider.
» A eucharistic liturgy celebrating
“500 Years of Christianity in the
Philippines,” also on March 18
at 5:15 p.m. presided by former
LA Auxiliary Bishop Oscar Solis
of Salt Lake City.
» A special art exhibit paying
tribute to the work of artist John
August Swanson, a longtime
Congress exhibit hall fixture
who died at 83 last September.
For more information, visit
RECongress.org.
March 25, 2022 • ANGELUS • 23

Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny,
interim president of the Dicastery
for Promoting Integral Human Development,
visits Ukrainian refugees
in Barabás, Hungary, on March 9.
| CNS/COURTESY LAMBERT ATTILA/
MAGYAR KURÍR
Keeping the hatch open
How Pope Francis’ approach to Ukraine was shaped
by the other big diplomatic crisis of his papacy.
BY INÉS SAN MARTÍN
ROME — Among the throng of
visitors who gathered in St. Peter’s
Square on Sunday, March
6, for the pope’s weekly Angelus, many
had come with prayers of peace and
shows of solidarity with the people of
Ukraine following the Russian invasion
in late February.
And Pope Francis came with a surprise.
In a show of his support and that of
the “entire Christian community” for
the East European country, he announced
that he was sending two of his
closest aides, Polish Cardinal Konrad
Krajewski and Canadian Cardinal
Michael Czerny, to Ukraine.
Both cardinals play a key role in
carrying out the pope’s social vision. As
the “papal almoner,” Cardinal Krajewski
essentially serves as Pope Francis’
charitable arm, while Cardinal Czerny
headed the Vatican’s migration office
for several years before taking over the
Vatican’s Dicastery for Integral Human
Development a few months ago.
Cardinal Czerny first went to Budapest,
where he met with refugees,
before making his way to the border
with Ukraine. Almost as soon as he’d
wrapped up the visit, the Vatican
announced on March 14 that the pope
had asked Cardinal Czerny to return
to Ukraine a second time, this time
via the Slovakian border, to show Pope
Francis’ “closeness” to the suffering
country.
Meanwhile Cardinal Krajewski told
Crux that he sent the pope photos of
what he was seeing while crossing the
border from Poland into Ukraine.
“People are standing in freezing
weather, women with little children
are standing in long lines,” he described.
“They are hair-raising scenes.”
Pope Francis has also made a point
of staying informed by speaking
to Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskyy, the head of the Ukrainian
Greek Catholic Church (UGCC),
and even the Russian ambassador to
the Holy See. On March 14, Vatican
Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro
Parolin revealed that Russia had “taken
24 • ANGELUS • March 25, 2022

note” of the Holy See’s offer to mediate
peace talks, but gave no indication that
Russian President Vladimir Putin had
expressed interest in the offer.
What’s becoming clear is that rather
than be resigned to a passive vision of
world affairs, Pope Francis seems ready
to lead a new age of diplomatic and geopolitical
leadership for the Holy See.
By now, Pope Francis has demonstrated
how he wants to engage the world as
a peace pope: He approaches conflicts
in a uniquely spiritual fashion, relying
on the resources of faith — prayer and
fasting, invocations of the sacred texts
of the world’s great religions, and popular
devotions and religious observances.
He sees this not only as the appropriate
way for a pope to exert his influence,
but also as good politics.
Many of the world’s bloodiest conflicts
have a clear religious subtext,
which means that a spiritual leader
can engage them in a fashion that no
secular diplomat could. In the case
of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the
Kremlin has had close ties with the
Russian Orthodox Church, which has
long seen the UGCC as a roadblock
the Soviet Union failed to annihilate.
While Pope Francis clearly wants to
deploy whatever influence he can to
promote peace, he is selective about
how, and how often, he wades into
conflicts, and whose feathers he is
willing to ruffle.
His first real test came over Syria,
months after his election to the papacy.
In August 2013, after President Bashar
al-Assad’s regime was believed to have
carried out a sarin chemical attack on
opposition areas near the capital, Damascus,
Western leaders tried rallying
public support for the use of military
force.
As the first pope from the developing
world, Pope Francis feels a special
responsibility to listen carefully to the
“peripheries,” those places outside the
usual Western centers of power. In the
Syrian conflict, he was determined to
hear from local Christian leadership.
Christians are an important minority
in Syria, composing about 10% of the
population of 22.5 million. They were
unanimous in their reading of the situation:
Forcing Assad from power was a
recipe for disaster.
As they saw it, if Assad fell, Islamic
radicals would most likely fill the void.
Even if most Syrian Christians are no
fans of Assad, many believed that the
alternative would be even worse.
Pope Francis made it clear that the
crisis in Syria was a deep concern,
making a point of praying for Syria on
Easter Sunday weeks after becoming
pope, and later leading a prayer service
for peace in St. Peter’s Square.
Behind closed doors, Pope Francis
asked for updates from Church officials
on the ground. Even with other world
crises percolating, the pope felt a special
urgency to get involved because of
the precedent of Iraq, where the Christian
population was reduced to a third
Cardinal Mario Zenari, the apostolic nuncio to Syria, looks on as Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad reads a
letter from Pope Francis during a Dec. 12, 2016, meeting in Damascus. In the letter, the pope urged Assad to
do everything possible to end the war in his country, to protect civilians, and to ensure humanitarian agencies
can deliver emergency aid to the people. | CNS/SANA NEWS AGENCY
following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
He was determined not to stand by
while another Christian community in
the Middle East suffered the same fate.
Throughout the process, he tried not
to burn bridges in his public statements,
avoiding naming Assad or even
the other countries involved in the
conflict.
Fast forward to Feb. 24, 2022, the day
that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began.
The pope has called for two days of
prayer and fasting for peace, has spoken
about the crisis on a weekly basis
in the lead-up to the invasion, and sent
public messages of support and prayer,
including with the hashtag #PrayForUkraine
on Twitter.
But, as many have pointed out, he
hasn’t named Russia or its leader. This
does not mean he hasn’t made direct
appeals to the Kremlin. In fact, he first
told Putin to seek “an honest and great
effort to achieve peace” with Ukraine
in 2015.
Now, his messages have gotten less
cryptic as the violence worsens.
“Those who pursue their own interests
to the detriment of others, scorn
their human vocation, because we
were all created as brothers and sisters,”
Pope Francis said Jan. 23. “Those who
wage war, those who provoke war,
forget humanity,” he said Feb. 27, his
first public appearance after the invasion
began. On March 6, he directly
challenged Putin’s euphemism for the
invasion: “It is not merely a ‘military
operation,’ but a war, which sows
death, destruction, and misery.”
Popes have historically kept a window,
if not a door, open for dialogue. Pope
Francis’ increasing forcefulness in his
appeals in favor of Ukraine represent
the metaphorical hitch that is keeping
the hatch from closing.
However, seeing that the war in Syria
is still ongoing and those dialogue
efforts long forgotten, in the Russian
invasion of Ukraine the question
becomes how can the Vatican actually
open the hatch and how fast it can do
so, because keeping it from closing
won’t be enough.
Inés San Martín is an Argentinian
journalist and Rome bureau chief for
Crux. She is a frequent contributor to
Angelus.
March 25, 2022 • ANGELUS • 25

WITH GRACE
DR. GRAZIE POZO CHRISTIE
Starving for meaning
Zach Blomberg holds
up a cross as students
and others take part
in the Stations of the
Cross on the campus
of Arizona State
University in Tempe,
Arizona, in this 2016
file photo. | CNS/
NANCY WIECHEC
One of the most worrying features of modern times is
the falling away of young people from the ways of
faith.
The sad fact is that we Catholics seem to be struggling
to fill young hearts with the joy of the gospel — with the
certainty that each has an indispensable role in salvation
history. Our secular world insists that anything transcendent
is an illusion. As a result, we’ve gotten used to the dark
ways life becomes disordered and weary when meaning
and purpose are absent from our lives.
It’s a surprise, then, that the person who seems to have a
key to the great puzzle of how to reach young people on a
spiritual level isn’t very religious.
Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson has
arguably become the West’s most prominent cultural and
intellectual influencer of late. His videos and best-selling
books have attracted millions of young followers.
I went to hear him speak last month in Miami to better
understand him. Some 3,000 people, most of them under
35, sat in rapt attention as he spoke about the human need
for a philosophy rooted in the transcendent. The discourse
was university level, a compliment to the audience that
knew it wasn’t being condescended to.
In digging into some of his writings, talking to young
people who follow him (among them my two young adult
sons), I’ve come to appreciate his attempts to teach them a
way out of the blankness and despair of skepticism and into
the easement of moral certainty.
As a professed agnostic, I’m sure Peterson is out of step
with the Church on several crucial subjects of social teaching.
But after checking him out for myself, I’ve come to
believe we Catholics can learn a valuable lesson from him.
At the heart of Peterson’s ideas is this: First, life is difficult
and filled with suffering. There are afflictions we can’t
control, like illness, the loss of loved ones, war, and natural
disaster. Even worse is what he calls “malevolence”: the
dark parts of our nature that hurt others, and the malevolence
of those around us that wounds us.
That is the baseline condition of life, and to young people
who suffer it comes as a relief to learn that it is everyone’s
experience.
The good news, according to Peterson, is that we can still
prevail. We can “take up arms against the sea of troubles,
and by opposing, end them.” Or if we cannot end them, we
can courageously confront them. We are not victims but
protagonists, and able ones, at that.
Second, Peterson proposes that the first step toward a life
of meaning is the adoption of responsibility, starting with
our own actions and moving out to our families and then to
the community. In cultivating this sense of responsibility,
our lives acquire meaning and purpose, shaping us into
the kind of men and women that shine like lights in a dark
world that others rely on.
Both ideas are familiar to people of faith. The Scriptures
remind us that we are pilgrim wanderers traversing a “vale
of tears.” And the malevolence that adds the horror of
purposeful injury to the accidental cruelties of our days is
26 • ANGELUS • March 25, 2022

Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie is a mother of five
who practices radiology in the Miami area.
nothing else but original sin, the inky darkness that lives
deep inside each of us, without exception.
As for the responsibility that leads to meaning — it is a
great responsibility for a Christian to know himself as a
son or daughter of God. With that knowledge comes the
welcome weight of eternal duties, to Father and neighbor,
to the greater good and to the created order itself.
When Peterson proposes responsibility to young people
raised on a steady diet of self-esteem and the “pursuit of
happiness” as the meaning of life, they immediately recognize
it as a lifebuoy.
That’s especially true for young men. They are aching for
a challenge, for a citadel to conquer, even if the first one
is, in Peterson’s famous words, “make your bed.” Whether
male or female, they know, inside, that they were created
not for the banal pursuit of comfort but for the glorious
adventure of heroic deeds and noble purposes, and it is to
this intuition that Peterson speaks.
And it is to this intuition that I think we Catholics are
not effectively speaking. In listening to Peterson, I was
reminded that for too long, we’ve taught our religion as a
comforting, healthy way to pursue happiness and grow our
self-esteem.
We’ve forgotten, at times, the meaning that comes from
taking on responsibility — for our relationship with God,
for the beautiful practices of our faith, for our brothers and
sisters. If Peterson starts with “make your bed,” perhaps we
can start with “go to Mass on Sunday,” because it is in the
fulfillment of duty that the heart is engaged and enkindled,
and that dysfunction becomes peace.
Jesus Christ modeled and proposed a life of valorous responsibility:
The words “Take up your cross and follow me”
call us to something different, to face crushing situations
with hope. Jesus goes a huge step forward, of course: His
shouldering of the responsibility of mankind’s sins is the
cure for the malevolence that plagues us.
What can be more important than speaking to the emptiness
that so many young people experience? We know,
after all, that our faith is in one who promises “the words of
eternal life.”
March 25, 2022 • ANGELUS • 27

NOW PLAYING CYRANO
A MUSICAL FOR NOBODIES
In telling the story of a soul angry at God,
‘Cyrano’ puts hope before condemnation.
Haley Bennett and Peter
Dinklage in “Cyrano.”
| METRO-GOLDWYN-
MAYERS PICTURES INC.
BY HANNAH LONG
Once again, Hollywood attempts
to revive the grand
romantic musical, mere
months after a remake of “West Side
Story” premiered. This time, it’s an
adaptation of “Cyrano de Bergerac,”
the 1897 French play about a swashbuckling
poet with a large nose.
Director Joe Wright’s “Cyrano” is an
odd adaptation, a mixture of formal
stanzas from the play, new informal
dialogue, and musical numbers. What’s
important, though, is that it remains
genuinely moving in the moments
where it matters. There is a moral
seriousness at its heart, which renders
its sentiment profound rather than
saccharine. And despite some early
tonal fumbling, its scaled-back human
moments work beautifully.
Peter Dinklage takes on the titular
role, substituting the traditional
character’s anxiety about his nose with
resentful insecurity over his dwarfism.
Cyrano is madly in love with his childhood
friend, Roxane (Haley Bennett),
but just when he’s prepared to tell her
how he feels, she reveals that she’s
smitten with a handsome guardsman,
Christian Neuvillette (Kelvin Harrison
Jr.).
Cyrano reluctantly becomes a go-between
for the young lovers, going so far
as to volunteer as ghostwriter for inarticulate
Christian to send worthy love
letters to Roxane. Thus begins a tragic
28 • ANGELUS • March 25, 2022

deception, as Roxane falls in love with
the mind behind the letters, convinced
the writer’s face is that of the beautiful
Christian.
Wright’s painterly style gives Cyrano
a fairy-tale sheen, the gentle pastel
surroundings reflecting the earnestness
of the story’s heart. Cyrano is a cynical
man, but his cynicism isn’t the dominant
tone in the end.
“They say light is the soul of a holy
place,” he muses, standing in shabby
rags of self-inflicted poverty in a
pristine convent. “It’s designed to be
enough beauty to just let go.” Whether
he can achieve that self-forgetfulness is
another matter.
If you’ve not already seen this version
of “Cyrano,” you probably have no idea
it’s a musical. I do sympathize with
the film’s marketing team, as the film
is such an odd mix of parts, romantic,
dramatic, literary, emo angst-fest,
stylized period piece. How to pitch it
to audiences? Still, it seems an odd
choice to conceal that most of the film
is spent as the cast sing moody ballads
penned by the indie-rock band The
National.
The songs are seldom witty, but
in tone they do a pretty good job of
reflecting the yearning and melancholy
at the heart of the story, more so as the
film goes on. Early scenes struggle to
hit the right note (especially Cyrano’s
introduction), serving up the sentiment
in dollops, which means the film is
occasionally too sweet, occasionally
imbalanced. But overdoing it is what
musicals are all about.
I prefer this sort of totally committed
melodrama to an understated “realist”
musical like “La La Land” (which did
have its charms). The opposite danger
is to feel more like a glitzy and overproduced
perpetual music video (a weakness
of “The Greatest Showman”), and
there are moments — particularly as
“Cyrano” attempts to interject sexuality
into letter-writing — where this is
the case. But its excess is anchored by
some surprisingly genuine character
moments where the story slows down,
strips away the scenery, and lets the
performances shine.
Bennett is excellent as the beautiful
Roxane, both sweet and coquettish.
Cyrano, the man, is most appealing
when he’s the irascible and witty
literary critic, rather than a prodigy
swordsman. Dinklage is well cast as a
hangdog intellectual so caught up in
his own words and metaphors, so entangled
in a false narrative of his own
making that he can’t accept happiness
when it’s offered to him. If the Cyrano
of the play bragged of his “panache,”
it’s appropriate that this introspective
and angry cinematic Cyrano would
more honestly blame his “pride.”
While Cyrano drops hints that he’s
angry at God during his opening
number, his real antagonist is himself.
He is terrified of “the world,” even as
he brags of his independence, that he
will “follow no one.” Ironically, his
paranoid concern for reputation means
he’s more dependent than anyone else
on the fickle whims of society.
Hyperfocused on his short stature,
Cyrano is blind to the fact that he’s not
alone: Everyone feels somehow inadequate
to be loved. The film gains great
strength when it shifts its focus away
from the primary leads, both characters
a bit selfish — to an endearing supporting
cast. There’s Kelvin Harrison Jr. as
the charmingly naive and — “What’s
that word for when you’re bad at
expressing yourself?” “Inarticulate?”
“That’s it!” — rather stupid Christian.
His straightforward sense of honor and
justice contrast with Cyrano’s “coded”
and cynical sophistication. Christian’s
artless humility counterbalances Cyrano’s
mighty pride — and yet aiding the
guileless Christian humanizes Cyrano.
This tendency to elevate “nobodies”
is apparent in other scenes as well. On
a battlefield, a series of nameless and
incredibly normal-looking soldiers sing
their final letters to family, underscoring
how every person, no matter how
unlovely or anonymous, has a secret
sorrow or romance in their souls.
The final small but important part is
played by a convent sister who, near
the end of the film, is determined to
convert Cyrano. When he grandly tells
her he will allow her to pray for him,
she responds, “I have not waited for
your permission.” Cyrano has been
angry at God for a long time, too proud
to accept grace. This young woman
forges right past his permission to plead
God on his behalf. “Cyrano” is unlikely
to work for everyone. It’s thoroughly
committed to a series of creative choices
that don’t sit entirely comfortably
cheek by jowl. But this is an emotional
spectacle that is also determined to tell
a morally true story. That’s rare.
“Cyrano” is playing in select LA-area
theaters and is available via streaming.
For more information, visit Unitedartistsreleasing.com/Cyrano.
Hannah Long is an Appalachian
writer based in New York City.
March 25, 2022 • ANGELUS • 29

DESIRE LINES
HEATHER KING
Forty days in the
desert of a new child
James and Laura Zambrana of San Gabriel with children Peter, 5, Helen, 4, Jane, 20 months. Laura is pregnant with
their fourth child, a baby girl due in May. | MICAELA DARR
Laura Zambrana is director of
content for Endow Groups, a
Catholic women’s organization,
and works from home 25 hours a
week. Her husband, James, is account
manager at the media company Deluxe
Entertainment Services Group.
They live in San Gabriel. Their parish
is St. Andrew in Pasadena. They have
three children: Peter was born in 2016,
Helen in 2018, and Jane in June 2020.
Their fourth child, a girl, is expected in
May of this year.
Says Laura, “Your heart has to break
each time you give birth.
“There’s a book called ‘The First Forty
Days: The Essential Art of Nourishing
the New Mother’ (Stewart, Tabori &
Chang, $17.99), that’s not Catholic but
is common in crunchy Catholic mom
circles.”
The author, Heng Ou, emphasizes
that in ancient Chinese culture the
recommended length of time for postpartum
solitude is 40 days.
“Just like Lent.”
The idea is to open up a space for the
new child. It’s an emptiness that’s also a
fullness. A Fillmore, California, mom
with a bunch of kids has a blog called
“The Fike Life.”
“She posted a piece called ‘How to
Post-Partum Like a Boss’ that also really
helped.
“You stay in your room for a whole
week and you do nothing but drink
wine, eat chocolate, and watch Netflix.
People bring you soup. The impulse is
to go back to what you were before. But
spending a week in bed eye to eye with
this new baby, you see the reality you’re
no longer who you were before. You
may look the same, act the same, talk
the same, but your heart has fundamentally
changed.”
So the 40 days are a space, a desert.
The desert is very lonely and motherhood
is very lonely. “You can ask for
advice and consult with friends, family,
your husband. But you’re the mother.
30 • ANGELUS • March 25 2022

Heather King is an award-winning
author, speaker, and workshop leader.
“Part of the reckoning consists in the
fact that here’s this adorable new human
and I’m not enough for them. I’m
in charge. I’m their comfort, their food.
But I’m not their savior.
“You wrestle deeply with your selfishness.
Motherhood has taught me how
very attached [I am] to my quiet time,
and having two hands free to hold my
coffee.”
The hormones around labor and
postpartum mirror the spiritual reality.
Everything is running on full as the
mother is about to give birth — more
blood; she’s glowing!
“And right after you have the baby
your hormones crash. The tears, the
fatigue, the sense of emptiness are the
signs of your heart breaking. Another
cool book is called ‘The Postnatal Depletion
Cure’ (goop press, $28). ”
What are some of the other parallels
with Christ’s 40 days in the desert?
“One is the hiddenness of maternity,
both physically and spiritually. You can
see the pregnancy but you can’t see
the baby. After the birth the spiritual
hiddenness comes into effect.”
The temptation to turn stones into
bread translates to wanting to shirk the
work involved. Where’s the fairy magic
wand?
“The real bread is the sacrifice. Am I
going to choose to help this child grow
into who he or she is called to be? Am
I open to growing into who I’m called
to be because of them? That’s a hidden
potency. The seeds are there. But the
temptation is to take the shortcut, to
give less than your full self.”
The second temptation was Satan
telling Christ: This can all be yours if
you only bow down and worship me.
“I think the temptation there for
mothers is to think, ‘I can do it all. I can
have things all ways, and with no help.’
Which really leads to self-worship.”
To that end, for two years Laura has
attended the Christ the King Homeschool
support group that meets every
Friday in Pasadena. “It’s been the
greatest gift in the world. Moms, kids.
Having these friends for support and
guidance helps to mitigate the Instagrammy
compare-and-despair.”
Finally, Satan invited Christ to jump
off the parapet, but Christ replied, “I
will not test the Lord, my God.”
“In other words, motherhood is an
adventure but you’re not foolhardy; you
take it seriously.”
This time Laura will take off 12 full
weeks from work. The first 40 days are
for physical, mental, emotional, spiritual
healing. The next portion the baby
and Laura will both need to reintegrate
into the family — and vice versa.
“James will be a new kind of husband
and father. And it’s amazing this time to
witness Peter and Helen truly opening
their hearts to the idea of a new person.
We hear, ‘The family is a school of
love.’ I have a better idea now what that
means.”
“If you’re able in some way to be
vulnerable and open, pregnancy is an
invitation, an attraction, a curiosity,
and a sharing. An invitation to humility
and an acceptance of roles, which is
really hard for the post-modern woman
(laughing).”
What will this Lent, 2022, be like?
Each Lent, Laura points out, should be
as unique as each child. “What’s really
comforting is that the angels came to
Christ’s aid. Ever since I discovered I
was pregnant again, I’ve been praying
like crazy to the kid’s guardian angel.”
March 25, 2022 • ANGELUS • 31

LETTER AND SPIRIT
SCOTT HAHN
Scott Hahn is founder of the
St. Paul Center for Biblical
Theology; stpaulcenter.com.
The greatness of Lent
We are deep within the season of mercy — the
season that Eastern Christians call “Great
Lent.” We in the West are fond of brevity, and
so we call it simply “Lent.”
But we should not forget its greatness. For believing
Catholics, it is a defining moment in the year. It gives a
distinctive and necessary contour to their personal lives.
The Church marks the time with laws and rites that make
a deep impression on our memory and our identity. At
the beginning, she marks us with ashes and reminds us
that we are dust. She imposes strict fasting on two days
and bids us to abstain from meat on others.
These, however, are just the outward signs. They’re
meant to indicate a deep, interior conversion. In Lent
we make a more probing examination of conscience. We
pray the “Miserere” of King David (Psalm 51), and we
make it our own. We ask a little more of ourselves — in
terms of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving — even as we beg
much more of God in terms of mercy.
How great it is to celebrate Lent in the pontificate of
Pope Francis. Journalists have called him “the Pope of
Mercy,” and on this score (and maybe only on this score)
I think the media got him right. Mercy has been his
watchword. “I believe this is the time of mercy,” he told
reporters during one of his famous
“Forgiveness,” by Carl Vilhelm
Meyer, 1870-1938, Danish. |
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
airplane press conferences. “This
change of epoch … has left many
wounds, many wounds. The
Church is a mother: It must reach
out to heal the wounds, yes? With
mercy. If the Lord never tires of
forgiving, we don’t have any other path than this one.”
Pope Francis was elected during Lent in 2013. It was in
the season of mercy that he came to the world preaching
mercy; and perhaps it will always be his hallmark. May it
be so. St. Thomas Aquinas said that mercy is the greatest
attribute of God himself. It is right and just that it should
be the quality we associate with his vicar.
For you and me, the greatness of this season depends
on the greatness of our repentance. What are the habits
that God wants us to root out through our prayer and
fasting? What is the sin that needs to be confessed and
renounced?
We can do the work of Lent if we recognize it as a work
of God — if we allow him to work in us through the
healing power of the sacraments — and if we strive, then,
to live up to the gift we’ve been given. God is unstinting
in the grace he gives. We’re the problem. We’re the ones
reluctant to receive what’s good for us.
Pope Francis says it often and says it well: “God never
tires of forgiving. We’re the ones who tire of confessing.”
Let’s be thankful, then, for the greatness of this season
and gifts it brings to us — in the ministry of the pope,
in the application of mercy, in the memorable signs of
ashes, abstinence, and absolution.
32 • ANGELUS • March 25, 2022

■ FRIDAY, MARCH 18
Religious Education Congress. Anaheim Convention
Center, 800 W. Katella Ave., Anaheim. Conference
runs March 18-20 (Youth Day March 17) and includes
in-person and virtual offerings. Virtual format includes
31 on-demand workshops, keynotes, livestreamed
events, and liturgies. Cost: $35/person for both youth
and adult day content. Registration closes March 31.
In-person format includes keynote workshops, liturgies,
entertainment, art exhibits, and more. Cost: $35/youth
day, $75/adult days. Registration closes March 10. Visit
recongress.org to learn more.
Fish Fry. Nativity Annex, 1415 Engracia Ave., Torrance,
5-7 p.m. Fish fry, hosted by Knights of Columbus council
#4919, will be held every Friday in Lent through April
8. Baked or deep-fried fish, baked potato or french fries,
coleslaw, roll, and cake. Cost: $12/adults, $10/seniors,
$7/children under 12. Limited seating, and facemasks
required. Takeout service is also available.
Stations of the Cross and Mass. St. Barnabas Church,
3955 Orange Ave., Long Beach, 5:30 p.m. Stations of
the Cross and 6 p.m. Mass will be held every Friday
during Lent. Immediately after Mass, the Knights of
Columbus Fish Fry will be held, 6:15-8:30 p.m. at the
parish hall. For more information, visit stbarnabaslb.org.
■ SATURDAY, MARCH 19
St. Joseph: The Silent Partner Speaks Volumes. Holy
Spirit Retreat Center, 4316 Lanai Rd., Encino, 10 a.m.-3
p.m. With Michael O’Palko, HSRC staff. For more information,
visit hsrcenter.com or call 818-784-4515.
Protect Us, Oh Lord! Feast of St. Joseph Celebration.
St. Didacus Church hall, 14325 Astoria St., Sylmar, 10
a.m.-4 p.m. Presenters: Father Bob Garon and Dominic
Berardino. Topics include “Why St. Joseph is Called
the Terror of Demons?” and “God’s Many Provisions of
Spiritual Protection.” Mass included. Cost: $35/person,
and includes catered chicken lunch. To register, visit
scrc.org/stjoseph.
■ SUNDAY, MARCH 20
Spring Equinox Labyrinth Walk. Holy Spirit Retreat
Center, 4316 Lanai Rd., Encino, 7-9 p.m. With the
HSRC team. For more information, visit hsrcenter.com
or call 818-784-4515.
Stations of the Cross. Calvary Cemetery, 4201 Whittier
Blvd., Los Angeles, 2 p.m. Stations will be held each
Sunday of Lent. Special reenactment of the Passion of
Christ on April 10, presented by Resurrection Church.
For more information, visit http://CatholicCM.org/
stations or call 323-261-3106.
St. Barnabas Almsgiving Food Drive. 3955 Orange
Ave., Long Beach, 7:30-11:30 a.m. Collecting dry food
items that will be donated to Catholic Charities in Long
Beach. Items needed: sugar, brown sugar, flour, corn
meal, cereal, oatmeal, boxed pasta, mac and cheese,
sauce, 1-5 lb. bags of dry beans and rice. For more
information, visit stbarnabaslb.org/food-drive/, call
562-424-8595, or email church@stbarnabaslb.org..
■ FRIDAY, MARCH 25
Knights of Columbus 1990 Fish Fry. 214 Ave. I, Redondo
Beach, 5-8 p.m. Hosted by Knights of Columbus
Council #1990, dinner includes baked or fried fish,
french fries or roasted potatoes, dinner roll, green salad,
ice tea, beverages, and dessert. Full sports bar, takeout, dine
in, and online ordering available. Cost: $15/adults, $10/children,
two or more: $7. Proceeds benefit the pregnancy help
center, Special Olympics, and St. Lawrence Martyr Church’s
food pantry. Visit KOFC1990.org.
■ SATURDAY, MARCH 26
Alleluia Dance Theater, Trust in the Lord! Holy Spirit
Retreat Center, 4316 Lanai Rd., Encino, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. With
Stella Matsuda, Marti Ryan, and Emmalyn Moreno. For more
information, visit hsrcenter.com or call 818-784-4515.
Cards of Hope for Easter. St. Kateri Church, 22508 Cooper
Hill Dr., Santa Clarita, 2-3:30 p.m. Free workshop where
children and families will learn to make an Easter pop-up
card. Cards will be distributed by religious sisters to many
of the elderly population in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
Livestream option via Zoom available. Registration required.
For more information, visit https://lacatholics.org/liturgical-workshops/.
■ SUNDAY, MARCH 27
Diaconate Virtual Information Day. The Diaconate Formation
office invites all interested in joining the diaconate
program to learn more, 2-4 p.m. Send your name, parish, and
pastor’s name to Deacon Melecio Zamora at dmz2011@
la-archdiocese.org. Presentations will be in English and
Spanish.
■ SATURDAY, APRIL 2
Camino: A Walk with Jesus. Mission San Gabriel Arcángel,
8 a.m. Ten-mile spiritual pilgrimage starts at Mission San Gabriel
with prayer and visit to the first church in Los Angeles,
and ends at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels with rest
and water stops along the way. Prayer service will be held at
the cathedral 2:30-3 p.m. Lunch will be provided at Cathedral
High School. Shuttles available from cathedral to mission. For
more information, visit lacatholics.org/event/camino-a-walkwith-jesus/.
■ FRIDAY, APRIL 8
Knights of Columbus 1990 Fish Fry. 214 Ave. I, Redondo
Beach, 5-8 p.m. Hosted by Knights of Columbus Council
#1990, dinner includes baked or fried fish, french fries or
roasted potatoes, dinner roll, green salad, ice tea, beverages,
and dessert. Full sports bar, takeout, dine in, and online
ordering available. Cost: $15/adults, $10/children, two or
more: $7. Proceeds benefit the pregnancy help center, Special
Olympics, and St. Lawrence Martyr Church’s food pantry.
Visit KOFC1990.org.
■ SATURDAY, APRIL 9
“Heal Us, Oh Lord!” St. Finbar Church, 2010 W. Olive Ave.,
Burbank, 11:45 a.m.-4 p.m. An uplifting time of healing prayer
for the harmful events of the pandemic. Special presentations
by Father Marinello Saguin, Dr. Elizabeth Kim, Father
Ethan Southard, Maria Velasquez, LMFT, and Father Charles
Lueras, CRIC. Healing service led by Father Patrick Crowley,
SSCC. Palm Sunday vigil Mass celebrated by Father Bill Delaney,
SJ. For more information, email spirit@scrc.org.
■ MONDAY, APRIL 11
Chrism Mass. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 W.
Temple St., Los Angeles, 7 p.m.
■ TUESDAY, APRIL 12
Memorial Mass. San Fernando Mission, 15151 San Fernando
Mission Blvd., Mission Hills, 11 a.m. Mass is virtual and
not open to the public. Livestream available at CatholicCM.
org or Facebook.com/lacatholics.
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.
March 25, 2022 • ANGELUS • 33