Angelus News | June 3, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 11

ANGELUS 

HOW THEY GOT HERE 

LA’s new priests in their own words 

June 3, 2022 Vol. 7 No. 11

ANGELUS 

June 3, 2022 

Vol. 7 • No. 11 

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Published by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese 

of Los Angeles by The Tidings 

(a corporation), established 1895. 

Publisher 

ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

Vice Chancellor for Communications 

DAVID SCOTT 

Editor-in-Chief 

PABLO KAY 

pkay@angelusnews.com 

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TAMARA LONG-GARCÍA 

Production Artist 

DIANNE ROHKOHL 

Photo Editor 

VICTOR ALEMÁN 

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RICHARD G. BEEMER 

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HANNAH SWENSON 

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JIM GARCIA 

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ON THE COVER 

VICTOR ALEMÁN 

The eight men set to be ordained priests for the Archdiocese 

of Los Angeles on June 4 are pictured outside 

the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Starting on 

Page 10, Steve Lowery tells their stories: where they 

come from, how they discerned their vocations, and 

what they have to say about the people they have to 

thank for helping them say yes to their special calling. 

THIS PAGE 

CNS/VATICAN MEDIA 

The postulators, or promoters, of the 

sainthood causes of 10 men and women 

stand before Pope Francis as he proclaims 

the 10 saints on May 15 during a Mass in 

St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. Banners 

with images of the 10 hang from the facade 

of St. Peter’s Basilica. 

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CONTENTS 

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

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

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

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

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

Scott Hahn................................................................................................................................... 40 

Events Calendar......................................................................................................................... 41 

info@angelusnews.com 

Angelus News 

@AngelusNews 

28 

32 

Surprises among this year’s LA transitional deacon class 

John Allen: A new saint’s uncomfortable lesson for Catholic journalists 

@AngelusNews 

angelusnews.com 

lacatholics.org 

34 

What Robert Brennan found — and almost lost — on a Mexico pilgrimage 

36 

A legendary Catholic director’s sacramental approach to summer 

Sign up for our free, daily e-newsletter 

Always Forward - newsletter.angelusnews.com 

38 

Heather King: When magic tricks fail to impress 

June 3, 2022 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH 

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Don’t complicate Christianity 

The following is adapted from Pope 

Francis’ homily at the canonization 

Mass for 11 blesseds on Sunday, 

May 15, in St. Peter’s Square. 

We have heard what Jesus 

told his disciples before 

leaving this world and 

returning to the Father. He told us 

what it means to be a Christian: 

“Even as I have loved you, so you 

must love one another” (John 13:34). 

This is the legacy that Christ bequeathed 

to us, the ultimate criterion 

for discerning whether or not we are 

truly his disciples. It is the commandment 

of love. 

How did Jesus love us? To the very 

end, to the total gift of himself. It is 

striking to think that he spoke these 

words on that night of darkness, 

when the atmosphere in the Upper 

Room was one of deep emotion and 

anxiety: deep emotion, because the 

Master was about to bid farewell to 

his disciples; anxiety because he had 

said that one of them would betray 

him. 

Yet at the very hour of his betrayal, 

Jesus reaffirmed his love for his own. 

For amid the darkness and tempests 

of life, that is the most important 

thing of all: God loves us. 

Brothers and sisters, may this message 

be the core of our own faith and 

all the ways in which we express it: 

“…not that we loved God but that he 

loved us” (1 John 4:10). Let us never 

forget this. Our abilities and our 

merits are not the central thing, but 

rather the unconditional, free and 

unmerited love of God. 

Our Christian lives begin not with 

doctrine and good works, but with 

the amazement born of realizing that 

we are loved, prior to any response 

on our part. While the world frequently 

tries to convince us that 

we are valued only for what we can 

produce, the Gospel reminds us of 

the real truth of life: We are loved. 

At times, by over-emphasizing our 

efforts to do good works, we have 

created an ideal of holiness excessively 

based on ourselves, our personal 

heroics, our capacity for renunciation, 

our readiness for self-sacrifice to 

achieve a reward. This can at times 

appear as an overly “pelagian” way 

of viewing life and holiness. We have 

turned holiness into an unattainable 

goal. 

Being disciples of Jesus and advancing 

on the path of holiness means 

first and foremost letting ourselves be 

transfigured by the power of God’s 

love. Let us never forget the primacy 

of God over self, of the Spirit over 

the flesh, of grace over works. 

The love that we receive from the 

Lord is the force that transforms our 

lives. It opens our hearts and enables 

us to love. … The love I give is 

united to Jesus’ love for me. “As” he 

loved me, so I can love others. The 

Christian life is just that simple. Let’s 

not make it more complicated with 

so many things. 

To serve the Gospel and our brothers 

and sisters, to offer our lives without 

expecting anything in return, any 

worldly glory: this is a secret and it is 

our calling. That was how our fellow 

travelers canonized today lived their 

holiness. They discovered an incomparable 

joy and they became brilliant 

reflections of the Lord of history. For 

that is what a saint is: a luminous 

reflection of the Lord of history. May 

we strive to do the same. 

Papal Prayer Intention for June: We pray for Christian 

families around the world; may they embody and experience 

unconditional love and advance in holiness in their daily lives. 

SANTIAGORETREATCENTER.ORG/CAMP 

2 • ANGELUS • June 3, 2022

NEW WORLD OF FAITH 

ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

Loving and imitating the Lord 

Recently, Pope Francis canonized 

10 men and women, including 

a priest that I have long admired 

and talked about in my preaching and 

teaching, now St. Charles de Foucauld. 

He was a French man, born into a 

noble, extremely wealthy family in the 

late 19th century. He lost his faith early 

and his story reads like the prodigal 

son in Jesus’ parable. 

His parents died when he was very 

young, and Charles squandered all of 

his inheritance in a lifestyle that was 

filled with excesses. 

But then Charles found God. Or better, 

God found him. He had prayed: 

“O God, if you exist, let me know of 

your existence.” 

Charles came to feel God’s presence 

in the beauty of nature, in the beauty 

of creation. He joined a geographical 

expedition to the deserts of Morocco 

in Africa. When he saw the stars in 

the sky at night, millions of stars extending 

as far as his eyes could see, he 

said he realized that this world must 

have a Creator. 

Back in France, his awareness of 

God continued to deepen. Charles 

joined the Trappist religious order. “I 

love our Lord Jesus Christ,” he said, 

“though it be with a heart that wishes 

to love more and more perfectly.” 

His desire to love Jesus more perfectly 

led him to leave the Trappists to 

live as a hermit in Nazareth. There 

he sought to imitate the “hidden life” 

of Jesus, living as Jesus did in the 30 

years when he worked as a carpenter 

before beginning his public ministry. 

In his journal he wrote the words of 

Jesus that he heard: “Your vocation: 

Preach the Gospel silently as I did in 

my hidden life, and as also did Mary 

and Joseph. Your rule: Follow me. 

Do what I did. In every situation ask 

yourself: What would our Lord have 

done? Then do that.” 

He lived from his daily contact with 

Jesus in the Eucharist and in the 

pages of the Gospel, and he spent his 

days in both prayer and in manual 

labor, working tirelessly to serve his 

brothers and sisters, especially the 

poor. 

In June 1901, Charles was ordained 

as a priest, and he asked permission 

to minister among the Muslims in 

the Saharan Desert. He served there 

for 15 years among the native people, 

learning their language, performing 

works of mercy, and defending them 

against the injustices of European 

colonial rule. 

In one of his last diary entries, he 

wrote: “Loving others as Jesus has 

loved us means making the salvation 

of all souls our life’s work, if need be 

giving our blood for them, as Jesus 

did.” 

He would die a martyr’s death later 

in that same year, in 1916. 

I am so grateful to the Holy Father 

for this canonization because I believe 

St. Charles’ story and his beautiful 

writings should be widely known, 

especially by every new priest. 

I have been reflecting on this as we 

approach our priestly ordinations on 

June 4 at the Cathedral of Our Lady 

of the Angels. This year I will be ordaining 

eight fine men to be spiritual 

fathers to the family of God here in 

the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. 

It is a beautiful time to be alive, and 

a beautiful time to be a priest! 

This class of new priests has been 

training for many years, and these 

final years of their formation were 

under the conditions of a pandemic, 

a time of fear, uncertainty, and death, 

and also during a period when there 

has been widespread social unrest in 

our country and in the world. 

Now, God has called them, each one 

personally, by name, and he is sending 

them out, just as he called and sent 

out St. Charles, to do what Jesus did, 

to live with the simplicity of the Gospel, 

and to proclaim his kingdom, a 

culture of life and civilization of love. 

In all times, the priesthood is 

a great adventure of following 

and living with Jesus. 

In all times, the priesthood is a great 

adventure of following and living with 

Jesus. In our times, the priesthood is 

an especially beautiful calling to walk 

in an intimate way with Jesus and to 

share in his mission, to carry our cross 

and offer our lives for those he loved 

and came to save. 

Pray for me and I will pray for you. 

And let us pray for our new priests. 

St. Charles used to pray: “Let me 

love him, obey him and imitate him 

as much as I can at every instant of my 

life.” 

Let us make that our prayer. And let 

us ask Blessed Mother Mary to walk 

with our new priests and help them 

to open their hearts to follow and love 

her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. 


WORLD 

■ Vatican-backed app launched 

for Catholics in the military 

Men and women in the military can connect to chaplains, search for wartime 

prayers, and find answers to their questions thanks to a new app designed to meet 

their spiritual needs. 

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, recommended the Catholic 

Military App in an address to military personnel on pilgrimage in Lourdes. He 

praised it for helping to create a community of faith among those who serve the 

cause of peace around the globe. 

“In this difficult time, it is important to disseminate the Catholic Military Connect 

app to meet the spiritual needs of Catholic military personnel and give them 

comfort in whatever theater of operation they find themselves in,” he said. 

“Your vital role in promoting the cause of peace, freedom, and the common 

good has become all the more evident in recent weeks. …” he added, referencing 

the war between Russia and Ukraine. 

The app was developed by Apostolat Militaire International and Tweeting with 

God. It is free in Google Play and in the Apple App Store. 

■ Is there a hidden Church in North Korea? 

A retired South Korean bishop thinks there could be Catholics secretly keeping 

the faith alive, despite living in hiding and facing persecution. 

Archbishop Victorinus Youn Kong-hi, 97, former head of the Archdiocese of 

Gwangju, South Korea, made the remarks in a recently published book on the 

history of the North Korean Church, according to UCA News. 

He was studying for the priesthood at the Tokwon Benedictine monastery and 

seminary, in what is now considered North Korea, when in 1949 the Korean 

War broke out and communist forces took over the monastery and eventually 

killed the abbot. 

All these years later, though, he said he believes the “Church is growing in 

hiding, just like the trees of Tokwon seminary.” 

“The trees sprout new shoots in each branch each year. Like that, the Catholics 

who are hiding somewhere in the north are also growing,” he said. 

A city’s faithful departed — A bird perches on a cross amid newly made graves at a cemetery near Mariupol, 

Ukraine, on May 15. The last of a Ukrainian battalion holed up in a steel plant in the port city finally surrendered 

to the Russian military a few days later, completing the city’s capture. More than 20,000 civilians in the city are 

feared dead. | CNS/ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO, REUTERS 

Cardinal Joseph Zen. | CNS/PAUL HARING 

■ Hong Kong’s 

Cardinal Zen arrested 

Hong Kong’s 91-year-old cardinal 

was taken into police custody for his 

support for the island’s anti-government 

movement before being released 

hours later. 

Cardinal Joseph Zen, the island’s 

emeritus bishop, and three other 

activists linked to a now-defunct fund 

for pro-democracy protesters, were detained 

separately May 10 and May 11 

and interrogated for allegedly colluding 

with foreign forces. Cardinal Zen 

was allowed to return home and told 

Hong Kong’s Bishop Stephen Chow 

that he was “fine.” 

In a statement, the Vatican said it 

had “learned with concern the news 

of Cardinal Zen’s arrest” and was 

“following the development of the 

situation with extreme attention.” 

Cardinal Zen has attracted controversy 

for his vocal criticism of Hong 

Kong’s China-supported government, 

and has been the subject of a series 

of recent articles in state-run media 

attacking his activism. He has also 

criticized the Holy See’s agreement 

on bishop nominations with China as 

a betrayal of persecuted Christians in 

the country. 


NATION 

Oblate Sisters of Providence attend Mass in the chapel 

of the motherhouse near Baltimore in February. | CNS/ 

CHAZ MUTH 

■ Project gets big gift to help care for aging sisters 

A newly announced $5 million grant aims to help religious orders provide the 

best care possible for aging sisters. 

The gift from the Catholic Sisters Initiative at the Hilton Foundation will help 

launch the “Catholic Sisters Cognitive Impairment-Alzheimer’s Global Initiative,” 

a project of the International Union of Superiors General and the U.S. 

Leadership Conference of Women Religious. One of the biggest challenges for 

orders, the initiative’s leaders said, is caring for sisters with Alzheimer’s disease, 

dementia, and other forms of cognitive impairment. 

At a conference in early May announcing the initiative, Sister Peter Lillian Di 

Maria of the Avila Institute of Gerontology in Germantown, New York, who has 

more than 35 years’ experience in the continuum care ministry as a Carmelite 

Sister for the Aged and Infirm, explained that such care must include “continually 

assessing the person for what they can continue to do and what modifications 

we might make to help them remain independent or as independent as 

possible,” she said. 

■ Archbishop bars 

Pelosi from Communion 

after talks fail 

San Francisco’s archbishop said he 

had no choice but to publicly forbid 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from 

receiving holy Communion after attempts 

at dialogue over her persistent 

support for abortion rights had failed. 

“After numerous attempts to speak 

with her to help her understand the 

grave evil she is perpetrating, the 

scandal she is causing, and the danger 

to her own soul she is risking, I have 

determined that the point has come in 

which I must make a public declaration 

that she is not to be admitted to 

holy Communion unless and until 

she publicly repudiate her support 

for abortion ‘rights’ and confess and 

receive absolution for her cooperation 

in this evil in the sacrament of 

penance,” wrote Archbishop Salvatore 

Cordileone in a letter to lay Catholics 

in San Francisco, which Pelosi calls 

home. 

“Please know that I find no pleasure 

whatsoever in fulfilling my pastoral 

duty here,” Archbishop Cordileone 

said. “Speaker Pelosi remains our 

sister in Christ. Her advocacy for the 

care of the poor and vulnerable elicits 

my admiration. I assure you that my 

action here is purely pastoral, not 

political.” 

■ Bishops call for dialogue on racism, 

assault weapons after Buffalo massacre 

Julie Harwell, who was in 

the Buffalo, New York, 

TOPS supermarket when 

a gunman opened fire 

May 14, is consoled by 

the Rev. Charles Walker 

during a prayer vigil 

May 15. | CNS/SETH 

HARRISON, USA TODAY 

NETWORK VIA REUTERS 

The country’s Catholic bishops are calling for an honest dialogue “addressing 

the persistent evil of racism in our country” following a racially motivated shooting 

on May 14 that killed 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo. 

“The Catholic Church has been a consistent voice for rational yet effective 

forms of regulation of dangerous weapons,” said a spokesperson for the U.S. 

Conference of Catholic Bishops in a statement offering prayers for those affected 

by the attack. 

Bishop Michael Fisher of Buffalo called the attack an act of cowardice, writing 

that “this country has struggled for years with the practice of racism and white 

supremacy that has victimized communities of color and has weakened us all.” 

“The tragedy in Buffalo is hardly the first such violence against African Americans. 

... Racism has claimed an inordinate number of Black lives simply because 

they were Black. When and how will it stop?” wrote Bishop Mark Brennan of 

Wheeling, West Virginia, shortly after the attack. 

Eighteen-year-old Payton Gendron was arrested by Buffalo police after livestreaming 

the attack. He allegedly outlined his plans for the attack in a 180-page 

document shared online. 


LOCAL 

Father José Guadalupe Rivas Saldaña. | CONCIENCIA 

NACIONAL POR LA LIBERTAD RELIGIOSA 

■ Tijuana priest 

found murdered 

Police are investigating the apparent 

murder of a Baja California priest 

after his body was discovered just 

south of the Mexican border with 

California. 

According to the Mexican press, 

Father José Guadalupe Rivas Saldaña, 

57, was reported missing May 15 and 

found dead a few days later outside of 

the border town of Tecate. His body 

showed signs of violence, and was 

found together with the body of another 

man beaten beyond recognition. 

A priest of the Archdiocese of Tijuana, 

Father Rivas was pastor of St. 

Jude Thaddeus Church in Tecate and 

director of a local migrant shelter, as 

well as an adviser to the local charismatic 

community. 

The Archdiocese of Tijuana called 

for prayers for the priest’s “return to 

the Father’s House” and “that the risen 

Christ be strength and comfort for 

his family” in a May 18 statement. 

Catholic News Service reported that 

apparent murders came as migration 

through Mexico picks up in anticipation 

of the May 23 lifting of health 

restrictions at the U.S. border imposed 

at the beginning of the COVID-19 

pandemic. 

■ Sheriff pulls ad filmed inside LA church 

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s reelection campaign canceled a 

TV ad filmed inside a local Catholic church after revelations that it did not ask 

for permission from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. 

The ad showed Villanueva praying inside a church for help dealing with issues 

including violent crime and the homeless crisis. The sheriff’s campaign said 

it had received permission from St. Alphonsus in East LA, where the ad was 

filmed and where Villanueva and his family attend church. 

But the archdiocese said that the ad violated its prohibitions against the use of 

Church properties for political purposes. Archdiocesan policy also states that 

parishes are required to submit any requests for outside filming on church property 

to the archdiocese. 

“The Archdiocese first became aware of the ad through concerned inquiries 

and media reports portraying the ad as a possible endorsement,” read the May 

19 statement. “The Archdiocese, which includes our parishes, schools and ministries, 

does not endorse political candidates.” 

The archdiocese “regrets any misunderstanding and appreciates that the ad has 

been removed and the matter has been resolved,” it said. 

■ Cathedral among LA parishes getting new pastor 

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has released this year’s list of new pastors and 

administrators. 

The list can be found online at AngelusNews.com/NewPastors2022. A full list of 

pastoral assignments, including associate pastors, will be published by Angelus in 

the coming weeks. 

Among the parishes getting a new pastor is the Cathedral of Our Lady of the 

Angels, where Msgr. Antonio Cacciapuoti will replace Father David Gallardo. Father 

Gallardo has served at the cathedral since 2015 and has been appointed the 

new pastor of St. Ignatius of Loyola Church in Highland Park. Msgr. Cacciapuoti 

comes from St. Bede the Venerable Church in La Cañada Flintridge. 

The new assignments take effect July 1, 2022. 

Papal print — Vietnamese American photographer and LA resident Nick Ut gives Pope Francis a copy of his 

famous 1972 photograph “The Terror of War,” also known as the “Napalm Girl.” As a girl, Phan Thi Kim Phúc, 

third from left, was featured in the photograph. Ut retired in 2017 after decades working as an LA-based 

photographer for the Associated Press. | CNS/VATICAN MEDIA 

Y 


V 

IN OTHER WORDS... 

Letters to the Editor 

When the Church holds fast to truth 

Russell Shaw’s article “The trouble with legalism,” featured on AngelusNews.com 

May 9, is one of the best explanations of the difference 

between change and development in our understanding of Christian mores. The 

point that truth does not change, and our understanding develops, is articulately 

explained so that Catholics and anyone else will be able to understand why the 

Church holds fast to truth. 

— Deacon Thomas E. Brandlin, Los Angeles 

More praise for the Mozart maestro 

I found myself in agreement with Stefano Rebeggiani’s review in the April 22 

issue of Mozart’s great “Mass in C minor” with the LA Philharmonic and the Los 

Angeles Master Chorale led by their conductor emeritus, Zubin Mehta. 

Mozart’s great Mass is not, in my opinion, the greatest Mass setting ever composed 

— that honor goes to Johann Sebastian Bach and his Mass in B minor. 

However, it is my personal favorite. This is music that serves the Lord with fear 

and rejoices with trembling. 

Nobody knows why Mozart did not complete this Mass, but I hesitate to call the 

work unfinished; for me, it is perfectly satisfying just as it is. The listener needs 

simply to love it and to accept the gift of its beauty. Maestro Mehta and his musicians 

provided everything that was needed the night that I heard them perform; 

his own weakness allowed the music to speak for itself — and when Mozart is 

allowed to speak freely, it is always more than enough. 

— Mike Malouf, Orange County 

Y 

Continue the conversation! To submit a letter to the editor, visit AngelusNews.com/Letters-To-The-Editor 

and use our online form or send an email to editorial@angelusnews.com. Please limit to 300 words. Letters 

may be edited for style, brevity, and clarity. 

Ready for the journey 

On May 28, eight men will be ordained transitional deacons for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the next step in their 

path to the priesthood. | 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. 

“Do you know what I need 

for my knee? Some tequila.” 

~ Pope Francis to a group of Mexican seminarians. 

The pope has been suffering from strained 

ligaments in his right knee, and recently began using 

a wheelchair and cane. 

“Who would have thought 

this would be the shot in 

the arm that we needed to 

show how wonderful our 

schools are.” 

~ Erin Barisano, superintendent of schools for the 

Diocese of Orange, in a May 15 KTLA news report 

on rising Catholic school enrollment during the 

pandemic. 

“We are in a crisis 

of the soul.” 

~ Elena Zuniga, co-leader of LA group St. Dymphna’s 

Disciples, which offers mental health support to LA 

Catholics, in a May 14 LA Times article. 

“Everybody sins, but there 

is a difference between 

struggling to get things 

right and publicly rejecting 

that struggle altogether.” 

~ J.D. Flynn, editor-in-chief of The Pillar, in a May 22 

Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Pelosi’s Abortion Stance 

Is Out of Communion.” 

“The cultivation of your 

relationship with the Lord 

must be the top priority of 

your life.” 

~ LA Auxiliary Bishop Robert E. Barron, to the 

graduating class at Benedictine College in Atchison, 

Kansas, on May 14. 


IN EXILE 

FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI 

Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father 

Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual 

writer; ronaldrolheiser.com. 

Love, not excuses, moves things forward 

excusable doesn’t need 

to be excused and the 

“The 

inexcusable cannot be 

excused.” Father Michael Buckley, 

SJ, wrote those words commenting on 

Peter’s triple betrayal of Jesus. Here’s 

the context. Peter had betrayed Jesus 

in his most needy hour, not out of 

malice, simply out of weakness. Now, 

facing Jesus for the first time since 

that betrayal, Peter is understandably 

uncomfortable. What do you say after 

betraying someone? 

Well, he didn’t need to say anything. 

Jesus took the initiative and, as Father 

Buckley highlights, he didn’t excuse 

Peter. Jesus didn’t say things like, It’s 

perfectly understandable to be afraid in 

a situation like that! You weren’t really 

yourself! I understand how that can 

happen! 

He didn’t even tell Peter that he still 

loves him. None of that. He simply 

asked Peter, “Do you love me?” and 

when Peter said yes, everything moved 

forward. No excuses were needed. 

A couple I know had this happen in 

their marriage. They went to a party 

together one Friday night and the 

wife, partly through the influence 

of alcohol and drugs, left the party 

with another man. Her husband was 

unaware of this for a time but, upon 

finding out what had happened, was 

understandably very distraught. He 

went home alone and spent a sleepless 

night thinking, his thoughts moving 

through a series of vengeful fantasies 

to what (through grace) he eventually 

decided on. 

He was sitting at the kitchen table 

midmorning the next day when his 

wife, sheepish and self-chastened, 

came home. She had her apologies 

rehearsed and was ready to face his 

justified anger and fury. She got something 

else. Her husband didn’t let her 

voice any apologies or excuses, nor did 

he explode in anger. Rather, calm and 

sad, he simply said this to her: “I’m 

going to move out of the house for a 

week, so you can think this through. 

You need to decide. Are you my wife or 

are you someone else?” 

He came back a week later to her 

apologies, but more importantly to 

her renewed, more radical commitment 

to their relationship. Their 

marriage has been solid and gracefilled 

since. She is now committed to 

a marriage in a way she never quite 

was before. 

No doubt upon his return, this man’s 

wife did offer some tearful apologies 

and excuses. His refusal to let her 

voice them earlier may well have 

served a purpose long-term but was 

admittedly somewhat cruel shortterm. 

Even when something can’t be 

excused, we still need the opportunity 

to say we are sorry. Apologies are important, 

both for the person offering 

them and for the one receiving them. 

Until an explicit apology is made, 

there is always unfinished business. 

However, explicit contrition is not 

ultimately what moves things forward 

when a relationship has been wounded 

or fractured. What moves things 

forward is a renewed commitment to 

love, to a deeper fidelity. 

The inexcusable cannot be excused. 

Strictly speaking, that’s true, though 

sometimes a deeper understanding of 

things somewhat excuses the inexcusable. 

Here’s an example. 

Several years ago, this incident occurred 

in Australia. A Catholic school 

board had just finished building a new 

multimillion dollar school. Not long 

after its opening, one of its students, a 

boy in high school, started a fire in his 

locker, unaware that the gas valves for 

the school’s heating system were right 

behind his locker. A huge fire started 

and the whole school burned down. 

To his credit, the boy summoned 

his courage and owned up to what 

had happened. Then, of course, 

a never-ending series of questions 

ensued: Why would he ever do that? 

Why would anyone start a fire in his 

locker? What accounts for that kind 

of reckless stupidity? What can excuse 

the inexcusable? 

I very much appreciated an answer 

given to these questions by one of 

the Australian bishops. Speaking to 

a questioning group of teachers and 

school administrators, his short answer 

said it all. Why would this young student 

do something like that? Because 

he is a boy! Young boys have been (for 

no explicable reason) starting fires 

long before gas valves ever appeared 

on the planet. Moreover, there’s no 

excuse for it, save human nature itself. 

Often, that’s the excuse for the 

inexcusable: Because we’re human! 

Indeed, this was the real excuse for 

the woman who, under the influence 

of alcohol and drugs, betrayed her 

husband, just as it was the real excuse 

for Peter when he betrayed Jesus. 

But this must be read correctly. This 

doesn’t give us permission to appeal to 

our morally inept human nature as an 

excuse for betrayal or stupidity. We’re 

human! Boys will be boys! The lesson 

rather is that whenever our moral 

ineptness has us fall into betrayal 

or stupidity, what ultimately moves 

things forward is not an apology or an 

excuse, but a renewed commitment 

in love. 


WITNESSES 

AND S 

BY STEVE LOWERY / 

PHOTOGRAPHY BY VICTOR ALEMÁN 

God’s call has 

brought them 

here from near 

and far. Meet the 

new priests of 

LA’s class of 2022. 

Among the eight men being 

ordained to the priesthood on 

June 4 at the Cathedral of Our 

Lady of the Angels by Archbishop 

José H. Gomez, there are football 

players, teachers, and even a TV animator. 

There are children of immigrants 

and immigrants themselves. 

From as far away as Poland and 

as near as Boyle Heights, the men 

of the class of 2022 make up the 

youngest group of new priests for the 

Archdiocese of Los Angeles in several 

years. 

What unites them is their call to 

service, a call that has led them down 

a sometimes circuitous road that one 

described as a tug-of-war, and which 

another confessed to traveling down 

“kicking and screaming.” 


SERVANTS 

Yet, here they are, ready and excited 

to begin the special life God has 

called them to. When asked what 

they are most looking forward to 

about the priesthood, some said 

the opportunity to administer the 

sacrament of reconciliation — others, 

to being a source of comfort and 

guidance during people’s “greatest 

moments and their worst moments.” 

These new priests know well 

through experience the kinds of unexpected 

turns that life can take. But 

they are also witnesses that, if you 

remain open to God’s call, the trip is 

well worth it. 

As one said: “God has called you to 

be a saint, and he really means it. He 

wants you to reach sanctity, and it 

begins in the now.” 

And “now” has arrived for these 

eight men. Here’s how they got 

here, in their own words. 

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. 

June 3, 2022 • ANGELUS • 11

GUILLERMO 

ALONSO 

Age: 26 

Hometown: Boyle Heights, Los Angeles 

Home parish: Cathedral of Our Lady of the 

Angels, Los Angeles 

Parish assignment: St. Genevieve Church, 

Panorama City 

Looking back, Guillermo “Memo” Alonso is amazed at 

how many times and how many ways God placed the 

right people at the right time and place to help him 

along on his journey to the priesthood. 

First, of course, were his parents, both from Mexico, and 

four older siblings, whose lives revolved around the Church. 

Sundays had a regular routine: He would wake up to music, 

Alonso (left) at a Cathedral High School football game with two of his mentors, Cathedral 

alum Father Juan Ochoa and principal Brother John Montgomery, FSC. 

take part with his entire family in cleaning the house, and 

then go to Mass all together before a family outing afterward. 

“Sundays were the days that I looked forward to.” 

“Faith was a big part of our family,” he recalled. 

At 26, Alonso is the youngest priest to be ordained for the 

Archdiocese of Los Angeles in five years. While it’s difficult 

for Alonso to pinpoint a moment when he first heard the call 

to the priesthood, he credited a few factors in his upbringing. 

One was the joy that he saw parish priests serve with. Another 

was growing up in a tough area like Boyle Heights, which 

“imprinted in me this desire to want to help others, help the 

situation in my community. Sharing the faith was a powerful 

resource; sharing the faith was something I wanted to do.” 

Of course, there were other things to take care of. Like high 

school. 

He attended Cathedral High School, where he played football 

as a defensive end but was also around other like-minded 

young men considering the priesthood. He observed and 

spoke to other priests, including Cardinal Roger Mahony, 

a regular at home football games (the emeritus archbishop 

built up a special connection to the school when he helped 

save it from closing in the 1980s). 

And each step of the way, at times he found people to guide 

him, listen to him, encourage him, and temper his enthusiasm. 

“I felt this outburst of love,” he said. “I felt God was placing 

more and more mentors for me along the way.” 

Those mentors include Msgr. Kevin Kostelnik and Father 

Brian Castaneda, who both served at the Cathedral of Our 

Lady of the Angels while he was discerning his vocation, Cathedral 

High alumnus Father Juan Ochoa, and the Lasallian 

Brothers at Cathedral High. 

And he needed them. Though he recalled being happy 

when he entered St. John Seminary in Camarillo, he found 

the transition difficult, in part because Camarillo seemed 

very different from Boyle Heights. 


“When I first came to St. John’s, I 

was struggling with the environment,” 

he said. “My whole world was upside 

down and I was having a hard time 

adapting.” 

It was at this time that Cori Marasco, 

the principal of Santa Clara High 

School in Oxnard, reached out and 

asked him to get involved with students, 

especially the school’s football 

team. It helped his adjustment tremendously 

and, the following year when he 

was assigned a field education ministry, 

he was pleased to discover that it was 

Santa Clara. 

“It showed me that God wanted me 

to be even more involved,” he said. “I 

took up campus ministry, was teaching 

religion on Thursdays. It worked out 

beautifully. The beauty is in how God 

works, placing the right people in my 

Alonso with his parents at his 2017 graduation from 

Cal State Dominguez Hills during his time in formation 

at the Juan Diego House in Gardena. 

life every time I have needed them: 

confirmation sponsors, people who I 

can be myself to.” 

All of it, he said, has led him to trust 

God even more. For anyone seeking 

a religious life, he suggested letting go 

“of those expectations of what we think 

our ministry should be about. Simply 

allow God to mold us and allow this 

formation process to reveal itself in 

time. Be open to this, be open to the 

surprises God can reveal to us along 

the way.” 


JUAN 

GUTIERREZ 

Age: 35 

Hometown: Texcoco, Mexico 

Home parish: St. Lawrence Martyr Church, 

Redondo Beach 

Parish assignment: St. John the Baptist Church, 

Baldwin Park 

To hear Juan Gutierrez tell it, his path to the priesthood 

has been an ongoing contest between him 

and God. Nothing in the way of fun and games, but 

rather, this has been a decadeslong competition for his 

very heart and soul. 

“My journey to the priesthood,” he said, “has been one of 

a constant pull and tug with God.” 

It is one that has had more than its share of twists and 

turns, starts and stops. Growing up in a small Mexican 

town about 15 miles outside of Mexico City, his parents 

split when he was 2 years old. He, his older sisters, and 

his younger brother were raised by their mother, a devout 

Catholic who saw that they regularly attended Mass and 

received the sacraments. 

Still, by the time he was in high school he said church 

“was not relevant to me.” 

“You start hearing that religion is the opiate of the 

masses, and religion is just an invention, and you start to 

believe it,” he recalled. 

This was a dark period for Gutierrez, who began to hang 

out with a crowd that did not have the best of intentions: 

“I joined the other side.” 

Not long after, his mother was diagnosed with cancer, 

and Gutierrez moved to Omaha, Nebraska, to reconnect 

with his father and work to help pay for his mother’s treatments. 

He lived there for a few years before moving to Los 

Angeles. 

Gutierrez found himself drawn back to the Church 

through a persistent friend who kept after him to attend a 

retreat. He decided to go at the last moment, and though 

Gutierrez (sixth from left) as a deacon with friends and parishioners of St. John 

Vianney Church in Hacienda Heights, where he served during his seminary 

internship year. Also pictured is seminarian Joseph Morel and Deacon Sergio 

Legarreta, a St. John’s Seminary classmate from the Diocese of El Paso. 

he didn’t like everything about the event, the preaching of 

a priest at the retreat drew him in. 

Soon, he was attending daily Mass, helping with prayer 

groups and retreats, visiting the Blessed Sacrament after 

work. He was in church so often that many people, clergy, 

and laypeople, asked him if he was going to become a 

priest. 

Rather than feeling honored by the question, he was 

annoyed. “I said no. I already had my plan.” 

That plan included a career, a wife, a family. The 

annoyance he felt briefly led him to stop going to church 

and drop out of those ministries. He stopped visiting the 


Blessed Sacrament. But soon enough, 

the change of lifestyle “didn’t sit well 

with me for too long. 

“You stop watering a plant and you 

see it withering, little by little; that’s 

how I felt.” 

Though drawn back, he wasn’t necessarily 

happy. “I was very honest with 

God, sometimes I would tell him off. 

I would say, ‘I told you my dreams 

and now you’re crushing them for this 

priesthood thing. I don’t want it!’ 

“But, there was a point that it 

dawned on me, if this is what God 

wanted for me, I should try it.” 

Now, having finally arrived at the 

beginning of a vocation many others 

saw for him before he did, his advice 

to others is that choosing discernment 

can be “scary, intimidating, maybe we 

don’t really want to do it, but there’s 

a voice telling us that maybe we’re 

called to something else. 

“A sister told me that this is a process, 

she told me whenever the Lord 

lights a candle for you, it doesn’t matter 

how small that little light is, just 

follow where it takes you. And always 

keep talking to God about it. Look 

at me, I went kicking and screaming 

into discernment, now I’m joyful and 

happy.” 


DANIEL 

LOPEZ 

Age: 31 

Hometown: Hacienda Heights 

Home parish: St. Therese Church, Alhambra 

Parish assignment: St. John Chrysostom Church, 

Inglewood 

Daniel Lopez has to laugh when asked about God 

calling him to the priesthood. That’s because he’s 

heard the call so many times. Like, a lot. 

Of course, being called was the last thing Lopez, 31, 

would have considered growing up. Though he grew up 

in a very loving family, with five older sisters and brothers, 

religion was not really part of his life. He wasn’t baptized, 

didn’t attend Mass, and really didn’t think about it. 

That is until, while a sophomore at Los Altos High 

School, two of his classmates were killed suddenly. “That 

left a big question in my life — what’s the point of life? 

Lopez and his late father. 

Lopez (second from left) with fellow seminarians during a visit to Lambeau Field, home 

of the NFL’s Green Bay Packers. 

What are we doing here? Where am I going?” 

Soon after, his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. 

He died months later, using his last interaction with 

Daniel to give his son his rosary beads. “I was just trying to 

figure out the answers to life,” he recalled. 

“I remember coming home from football practice and 

seeing the rosary on my desk. I just found so much consolation 

in it,” he said. “I found a prayer book, learned how 

to pray the rosary and learned about the Faith.” 

For two years he prayed the sorrowful mysteries of the 

rosary every day. Looking back, “it consoled me,” he said. 

But it didn’t necessarily give him peace. He admitted to 

being very confused during this time, as well as angry. 

“I would get so frustrated with God, sometimes I wanted 

to rip that rosary apart.” 

Instead, he felt compelled to attend Mass for the first 

time at the end of his senior year, feeling awkward because 

he had no idea of “what to do, what were the prayers.” 


Still, something told him to stick with 

it. “I knew not to receive Communion, 

so I was just sitting in the back.” 

A few friends from high school got 

him involved in youth ministry, and 

eventually he joined the adult RCIA. 

It all brought him such joy and fulfillment, 

but still he felt like something 

was missing. 

So, while sitting in church one day, 

he asked God, What do you want me 

to do? 

“I closed my eyes and saw myself 

celebrating Mass. And I said, ‘No 

way, this can’t be.’ I said, ‘God, if this 

is what you want, show me again. I 

closed my eyes and saw myself listening 

to someone’s confession. And I 

opened my eyes and said ‘No, I know 

you can’t want that for me.’ ” 

Still resistant, 

he asked God 

to work through 

other people. In 

short order, he 

was approached 

by a woman at 

a midday Mass 

who told him 

blankly, “You’re 

going to be a 

priest,” followed 

by a priest who 

asked if he ever 

considered a vocation, 

followed 

by a RCIA counselor 

who told 

him he’d always 

assumed Daniel 

would become a priest. 

Finally, finally, he relented. 

“This was like the cock crowing 

three times,” he said with a laugh. 

“This was the truth, this was substance.” 

He is the first to admit that as a 

Christian, he is a work in progress, 

and that he aspires to “continue to 

love as God loves” and “to wrestle 

with that, as well.” 

As a priest, he looks forward to helping 

people share the same “intimacy 

with the Lord” that he has experienced 

since his conversion. 

“God has called you to be a saint, 

and he really means it. He wants you 

to reach sanctity, and it begins in the 

now.” 


JUAN CESAR 

MARTINEZ 

Age: 36 

Hometown: Colima, Mexico 

Home parish: St. Finbar Church, Burbank 

Parish assignment: St. Mariana de Paredes 

Church, Pico Rivera 

The road to the priesthood has been a circuitous one 

for Juan Cesar Carrasco Martinez, one he has traveled 

between two countries, in and around certainty 

and doubt, questions and answers, until landing him with a 

commitment born of, he said, “the strength that you need 

to be the instrument God wants you to be.” 

Raised with a younger brother by grandparents who 

“taught me to love Jesus and his Church,” he went to Mass 

every Sunday and took notice of all the parish priest did. 

“My grandparents didn’t know how to read or write; they 

just had this beautiful faith,” he recalled. “And I used this 

beautiful testimonial from them [to] fall in love with the 

saints, with the Blessed Mother, with the Church.” 

When he was 8, Martinez’s pastor asked him to be an 

altar server, something he would do until he graduated 

from high school at 18. “This caught my attention, all the 

service the priest offered to the community,” the 36-yearold 

said. “I think this is where my vocation began.” 

At graduation, the pastor told him about the priesthood, 

but Martinez wasn’t sure that was the life for him. He 

attended seminary, but found himself drawn to study computer 

science in college. 

“I decided to take a break [from the seminary],” he said. “I 

made this prayer before the Blessed Sacrament: I promised 

I would be back.” 

But after earning his bachelor’s degree, he decided to take 

a position as an elementary school teacher. 

“I remembered the promise I made to Jesus, but I was in 

a good balance, living on my own, it was a good life. It was 

too hard for me to leave all that and go back to formation.” 

But after two years of teaching, he said he suddenly felt 

“an emptiness in my life,” and began to question whether 

teaching was fulfilling his life. He approached a priest in 

search of spiritual direction and, after about a year, the 

priest said he believed that God was calling him again to 

the priesthood. 

“He recommended that I pray a lot about it,” he said. 

“And so I did pray before the Blessed Sacrament and I 

discovered again this calling that God had made to me.” 

Though he had made the decision to follow God’s calling, 

things did not get any simpler or easier. In 2016, he moved 

to Los Angeles to study English at Cal State LA and attend 

St. John’s Seminary. He described those early days as “painful,” 

as he struggled to understand readings and homework 

in a language he was still learning. 

Martinez with students during his time as an elementary school teacher. 


Martinez at his first Communion in his native Mexico. 

But his resolve was buoyed by Father 

Julio Gonzalez of Our Lady of the 

Rosary Church in Paramount, who invited 

him to come and help minister 

to his predominantly Spanish-speaking 

flock. 

As he prepares to embark on the 

kind of ministry he observed his 

parish priest do all those years ago, 

he is looking forward to “journeying 

together with the people of God.” He 

says his faith has never been stronger, 

and that he’s learned that when you 

“make a promise to God, he will never 

forget it. He’ll send the right people 

to get you back on the right track. In 

my case, it was encountering spiritual 

direction with this priest, realizing 

that Jesus was calling me again.” 

For others considering which road to 

travel, he said he would recommend 

simply opening “your heart to Christ. 

To not be afraid, God is never pushing 

you, you can choose freely. Sometimes 

we don’t feel worthy of these vocations, 

but God is going to give you 

the gifts and strength that you need. 

“I found that joy and that fulfillment 

[in the priesthood] that I didn’t have 

in my career.” 


JUSTIN 

ORDOVEZA 

Age: 35 

Hometown: Long Beach 

Home parish: Our Lady of Refuge Church, 

Long Beach 

Parish assignment: St. Raymond Church, 

Downey 

Choosing a vocation is rarely easy, as many stories 

of deacons attest. It often takes a long period of 

time, trial and error, pull and pushback to finally 

convince someone that this is what they are called to do. 

And, as Justin Ordoveza proves, it’s not easy even when, 

from an early age, you are already convinced that you are 

destined to become a priest. Even then, life can throw 

roadblocks in your way that last for years. 

This is why he said that elemental to a vocation is “perseverance 

to follow God’s call, no matter what life throws 

at you. Because life will throw a lot at you.” 

A product of Catholic education — “I’m very proud of 

that fact” — Ordoveza was thinking about the priesthood 

while he was in middle school and high school. 

His mother suggested he go to college first, but attending 

Southern Catholic College in Georgia, where he earned 

his bachelor’s in material engineering, simply reinforced 

his thinking. 

“It was an amazing community of other young adults 

really engaged in their faith,” he said. “It was so invigorating.” 

He was so moved that, while working as a tutor in Long 

Beach, he began meeting with a vocations counselor, 

telling his parents that he was going to a job interview. 

As an only child, which he says is a “hard thing to find 

in Catholic circles,” he was concerned that his parents 

might have mixed feelings on him following through with 

discernment. In fact, he was more than halfway through 

the process before his mother asked, “Justin, are you 

Ordoveza (far right) with parishioners at Our Lady of Refuge Church 

in Long Beach after performing his first baptism as a deacon. 

thinking about becoming a priest?” 

He admitted he was and said now, years later, his parents 

remain “some of my biggest fans.” 

But even when he went through the hard business of 

talking to his parents about his vocation, that didn’t settle 

his struggle. Soon after, he was struck with an illness that 

required him to be hospitalized and ultimately took two 

years away from discernment. Then his mother had a 

stroke and he took another two years off to help nurse her 

back to health. 

It was during this time that he wondered if he had gotten 

the right message from God. 


“I was in the hospital for months, 

wondering where was God calling 

me, what was going on,” he said. “Finally, 

when everything was resolved, 

I said, ‘God, whatever it is, your will 

be done.’ ” 

Once he returned to the seminary, 

he said he was stronger for those 

struggles, and for learning to put his 

will in God’s hands alone. 

As he begins the next chapter of his 

life, he tells others to understand that 

it can be a “circuitous route of faith, 

especially with a vocation. God calls 

you, something pulls you even if 

events get in the way. Once I arrived 

there, there was a comfort level, this 

is where God’s calling me to be.” 

He said that as a priest, he looks 

forward to “journeying with people, 

being there at the bookends of life: 

their greatest moments and their 

worst moments to help them journey 

with Christ.” 

As for his own journey, he said he’s 

learned that “first, you must be brave. 

A vocation can be a scary concept. 

But once you let God be there with 

you, he will supply you the grace. 

If you persevere with the faith God 

gives you, it makes a whole lot of 

difference.” 


RAMON JESUS 

REYES 

Age: 30 

Hometown: Mid-City, Los Angeles 

Home parish: St. Thomas the Apostle Church, 

Pico-Union 

Parish assignment: Incarnation Church, 

Glendale 

It’s not surprising to learn that Ramon Reyes first felt a 

call to the priesthood while growing up in the Church. 

The Church played a central role in his family: His 

mother made sure that, even though he attended public 

school, he attended Sunday Mass and weekly catechism 

classes. His two older sisters worked at the parish. It was 

all around him. 

Perhaps surprising, then, is that it wasn’t necessarily the 

parish priest whom he cites as the greatest example in 

helping him discover a vocation to the priesthood. Rather, 

it was the people the priest served. 

Reyes with his sister’s family after the rite of institution of lector at St. John’s Seminary. 

Reyes at a pilgrim stop along the Camino de Santiago in Spain. 

“My call came from that, the examples of the people 

who came to church; God was the main priority in their 

lives,” he recalled. 

Growing up in Los Angeles (in what he calls “LA LA,” 

close to Mid-City), Reyes said that he was impressed by 

parishioners who dealt with hard times, illness, and other 

sufferings with faith. They were experiences he would 

never forget. 

“They still had this bright sense of their life — God 

was central to that,” he said. “He called them, to their 

families, to everyone in society. No matter what they had 

to deal with, God was their first priority. At 14, 15 years 

of age, you look at that, you want something like that, 

something as stable, as defined as faith. I saw that faith in 

them, I wanted that, I needed that.” 


It drove him to become more active 

in his church, joining youth groups, 

finding different ways to serve. That, 

in turn, has led to a deeper understanding 

of “my call of being holy, 

understanding my call came from the 

service of the people. 

“I think I was 19 years old when I 

told my sister, ‘I want to become a 

priest,’ ” he recalled. She was skeptical, 

he said, but he knew “this is the 

only way that God’s calling me to 

fulfill my life.” 

His spiritual director encouraged 

him to go to college first, where 

Reyes studied business administration. 

But after he graduated, he knew 

it was the right time to “take the next 

step.” 

Now that he stands at the threshold 

of beginning that service as a priest, 

Reyes said he looks forward in a 

special way to being of service as a 

minister of the sacrament of reconciliation. 

Confession can seem mysterious, 

perhaps scary to some, and so 

he also sees it as his responsibility to 

make sure his community “understands 

what it is. 

“It is the merciful love of God and 

through [reconciliation] we are made 

better able to participate in God’s 

love for us,” he said. 

“That’s the biggest gift given to me, 

to give comfort as a representative 

of God in that moment because the 

absolution is from God, God is there 

and will forgive whatever you’ve 

done. With the light of God, any 

darkness in our heart can be overcome.” 

For anyone with questions about 

God’s will for their future, Reyes 

advised putting him at the center of 

your life’s map, especially if considering 

a vocation. 

“If you’re contemplating a vocation, 

a consecrated life, I would tell someone 

to get involved in their parish, to 

seek out clergy and religious figures 

in your life to give you advice,” he 

said. 

“But to ultimately understand your 

heart and to see how it is moving 

toward this call, I would invite them 

to take a deep dive into the deep pool 

of God’s mercy. He’ll show you the 

way. If he wants you there, he’ll put 

you there.” 


DANIEL 

VEGA 

Age: 37 

Hometown: Covina 

Home parish: St. Louise de Marillac Church, 

Covina 

Parish assignment: St. Dorothy Church, 

Glendora 

It was as early as elementary school that Daniel Vega 

began to think of becoming a priest. It was during an 

anniversary celebration for an uncle’s ordination that the 

thought first occurred to him, and it was reinforced when 

additional people at his parish, including a priest, asked if he 

had considered it. 

“That got me thinking, so I figured I’d pray about it,” he 

said. 

Vega’s father, from Spain, and his mother, from Nicaragua, 

met in Southern California after both moved to the U.S. 

to learn English. The second of the family’s four children, 

Vega is a gifted storyteller and artist. When it came time to 

decide the direction of his life, he was considering going into 

animation for what he described as “my dream career.” 

“I was really torn,” he said. “Something I found helpful was 

something my parents told me. That, as a young teenager, 

there was no reason for me to rush through the decision. 

They told me discernment is a big commitment and I had 

plenty of time to explore.” 

And he did explore. He took animation and creative writing 

classes, made student films, and ended up doing his graduate 

work in animation at UCLA. Though he often thought 

about the path that led to a vocation, he said he felt like “I 

was doing what I wanted to do. I love the creative process, I 

loved working there.” 

He did well in the industry, eventually landing a gig with 

a well-known animated series. To avoid traffic, he would 

commute early into the office and got in the habit of going 

to a nearby church for early morning Mass. 

One day he ran into a priest who happened to also be a 

Vega (third from left) with his family after Mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Downey. 

vocations director for the archdiocese. They got to talking. 

Vega was again asked if he’d ever considered the priesthood. 

“I said, ‘Oh yeah, I considered it,’ and then we talked some 

more about my hopes, dreams, frustrations, excitement as 

well as trepidations,” he said. “He ended up telling me, ‘You 

cannot discern alone. You discern with the Church, with 

support groups, with others in similar situations.’ I went to 

those groups because, if I was really serious about this, then 

it was time to take the next step.” 

Again, he found himself torn. He not only found himself 

wondering if God was calling him, but he had to admit 


that the work he had once viewed as a 

dream “wasn’t fulfilling me creatively.” 

Still, he was concerned about throwing 

everything away he had worked so 

hard to achieve. 

In the end, after discussing it with various 

counselors and peers, he decided 

to give discernment a chance, reasoning 

that even if he found it was not his 

calling, at least that would provide a 

definite answer to all his questions. 

His answer came when, as a seminarian, 

he worked with people in the field 

and saw how his talents, in the service 

of others, was not only greatly appreciated 

but provided a “transformative 

experience” for those receiving the 

service as well as the one providing it. 

Now convinced that he’s on the 

right path, he encourages anyone else 

considering religious life to take that 

priest’s advice. 

“There’s an importance of discerning 

with the Church, you cannot do it 

alone,” he said. 

“You need to get with a spiritual 

director or a support group who can 

shape you, and challenge you in ways 

you could never anticipate on your 

own.” 


KAMIL 

ZIOLKOWSKI 

Age: 27 

Hometown: Jelenia Góra, Poland 

Home parish: St. Alphonsus Church, East LA 

Parish assignment: St. Joseph Church, 

Hawthorne 

Kamil Ziolkowski’s journey to the priesthood is an ode 

to joy. 

The 27-year-old native of Poland described himself 

as a “JP II vocation,” JP being his countryman, St. Pope 

John Paul II, who once wrote that the Church, the saints, 

and the Virgin Mary provided “the model, the strength 

and the joy needed to live a life in accordance with God’s 

commandments and the beatitudes of the Gospel.” 

For Ziolkowski, who was 11 when the pope died, the full 

Ziolkowski (left) during a sport fishing trip off the California coast. 

Ziolkowski with his parents during a visit to Griffith Observatory. 

impact of those words hit him years later as a seminarian, 

while serving as a hospital chaplain. 

“I would see how the priest assists families, assisting 

patients in moments of sorrow: illness, death, anointing of 

the sick,” he said. “And then I would see how they serve in 

moments of joy: the birth of a child, couples that came to 

the priest to bless their love and marriage, to be there when 

their children are born, to be baptized, to be there when 

the children make their first Communion.” 

It was then he realized that to find the strength to journey 

with people on their pilgrimage toward Christ, to serve 

them in “moments of joy and moments of pain, to help 

people with those moments in life, all that lead to the altar 

of Christ,” one must serve with joy. 

In fact, he said anyone considering a vocation should first 

consider what he calls a “test of joy.” “Ask yourself if you’re 


joyful about it. Imagine yourself a 

priest, imagine yourself a sister; if it 

brings you joy and happiness, that’s a 

first step.” 

Ziolkowski said he suspected as early 

as the age of 14 that he was called to 

the priesthood. In high school, he 

studied Latin and philosophy, preparing 

himself to enter the seminary after 

graduation. He credits a close spiritual 

adviser with helping him discern what 

type of priest he wanted to be. 

Raised near the German border, 

Ziolkowski spoke both Polish and German, 

but when he came to the United 

States to pursue his vocation, his journey 

was slowed by the fact he spoke 

no English. He spent a year learning 

his third language at the University of 

Chicago. 

He would continue his studies in 

Southern California, attending St. 

John’s Seminary in Camarillo, a place 

he described as immediately feeling 

like “home.” 

Perhaps because of the struggles he 

initially faced when he came to the 

U.S., Ziolkowski said he felt himself 

drawn to serve the immigrant community, 

which he has done at St. Alphonsus 

Church in East Los Angeles. 

“It has been a beautiful experience,” 

he said. “I learned my fourth language 

(Spanish, after Polish, German, and 

English). 

“This experience has shown me the 

beauty in multiculturalism, how we 

encounter Christ in different devotions, 

in the different faces that faith 

may have, based on the culture we 

come from and the culture we are in 

right now.” 

Vocations, he said, are all connected 

with “struggle, decision-making. Once 

you make the big decision [to follow 

a vocation], every day after that you 

need to make a small decision [to 

continue] all over again,” he said. 

“There are struggles, but it is overshadowed 

by joy. You’re in the right 

place at the right time and there’s 

such joy because you see that you are 

receiving a gift. We don’t deserve it, 

yet we are called to participate in this 

priestly ministry with Christ himself. 

That joy of participating, the joy of 

Christ’s priesthood, truly overcomes 

all the struggles that have to be made 

along the way.” 


The men being ordained transitional deacons for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, from left to right: Michael DiPietro, Emmanuel Sanchez, Hieu Nguyen, Rene Haarpaintner, Bro. 

Cesar Galan, FSP (in wheelchair), Sergio Sandoval Martinez, Enrique Piceno, Luis Gerardo Peña. | FATHER RAY MARQUEZ 

THE OTHER EIGHT 

Not to be overlooked, this year’s crop of transitional deacons for 

Los Angeles are ready to embark on a life of ministry. 

BY MIKE NELSON 

A 

30-year-old accountant. A 

60-year-old dairy farmer/chiropractor/family 

man/widower. 

A 49-year-old former gang member/ 

paraplegic/religious brother/hospital 

chaplain. 

Their stories could not be more 

different, and yet their common 

destination will bring them together 

on Saturday, May 28, when these men 

and five others are ordained transitional 

deacons for the Archdiocese of Los 

Angeles by Auxiliary Bishop Robert 

Barron at the Cathedral of Our Lady 

of the Angels. 

The eight men will begin a year of 

service in LA parishes as deacons, 

while completing their theological 

studies at St. John’s Seminary in 

Camarillo. Recently, several of them 

spoke with Angelus about the experiences 

that have prepared them for a 

life of ministry. 

The beauty of the process 

Born and raised in Pasadena, the 

sixth of eight children in an active 

Catholic family, Michael DiPietro attended 

St. Philip the Apostle School, 

St. Francis High School in La Cañada, 

and Hillsdale College, a small 

liberal arts school in Michigan, where 

he earned degrees in accounting and 

philosophy. 

Priesthood? He thought of it in 

seventh grade, again in high school, 

and more seriously in his junior year 

of college. “But after graduation,” he 

said, “I didn’t know what would be in 

store for me — priesthood or marriage.” 

So he earned his CPA license, 

worked in accounting for “some real 

world work experience,” and paid 

off student loans. And then, with the 

support of his family, he entered St. 

John’s Seminary in Camarillo where 

he admitted his formation process 


“hasn’t always been pretty.” 

“I tend to be kind of intense sometimes, 

even a little abrasive, and here 

you rub against different personalities 

and situations that challenge you to 

throw off your old self and put on 

Christ more fully, to take what the 

seminary has to offer.” 

DiPietro said that life, including the 

time in the seminary, has shown him 

that “there is some suffering, but that’s 

the beauty of the process. Because 

only through the cross do we see the 

beauty that’s before us.” 

He has drawn inspiration by the 

words and examples of two saints, St. 

Paul, and the newly canonized St. 

Charles de Foucauld. These words 

from the latter’s famous “Prayer of 

Abandonment” has inspired DiPietro: 

“As soon as I believed there was a 

God, I could do nothing else but live 

for him.” 

Having served his internship at St. 

Cornelius in Long Beach and St. 

Rita in Sierra Madre, DiPietro looks 

forward to serving his transitional 

diaconate at his home parish, and to 

“keeping the fire alive.” 

“I want to be on guard against letting 

the most sacred and holy parts of our 

faith — like the celebration of the 

Eucharist — become ordinary or 

mundane, to make sure I’m not just 

going through the motions,” he said. 

“When we get to know each other, 

we can do great things. That’s a lesson 

and a blessing for me, to accept people 

where they are at.” 

It was a lesson Brother Galan learned 

the hard way. Born in Torrance and 

raised in Artesia, he fell into gang life 

as a teen, which ended when he was 

shot by a rival gang member. While 

recovering at St. Francis Medical 

Center in Lynwood, he found his way 

out of bitterness and despair with the 

help of Brother Richard Hirbe, minister 

general of the Friars of the Sick 

Poor and a St. Francis chaplain. 

Brother Galan eventually forgave the 

man who shot him, became a hospital 

chaplain, and in 2015 professed his 

vows as a religious brother with the 

Friars. “But the idea of being a priest 

had been knocking at my door,” he 

said. “I said, ‘Hey, God, I’m already 

serving you as a chaplain.’ The thing 

is, it’s not about you; it’s about surrendering 

to God.” 

He entered St. John’s, where steps 

were the least of his challenges. 

“Study has never been easy for me,” 

he admitted. “I’ve always had to work 

extra hard. Coming here was a huge 

leap of faith.” 

But the leap has paid off. Brother 

Galan has completed his internship 

at St. Mary Magdalen Church in Camarillo, 

where he will also serve as a 

transitional deacon. A year from now, 

God willing, he will be ordained as 

the first paraplegic priest in the history 

of the archdiocese. 

“I just pray that God always gives 

me a heart for service,” he said. “In 

my darkest days, I couldn’t imagine 

myself doing this. But here I am. 

And to those discerning a vocation, 

I encourage them to look forward, 

and pay attention to what the Lord is 

telling you.” 

A doctor of souls 

In all likelihood, few dairy farmers 

in the village of Sainte-Croix, Switzerland, 

can imagine themselves as 

priests. Nor can many race-walkers 

on the Swiss national team, nor many 

chiropractors in the Mid-Wilshire 

area. And certainly not many husbands 

or fathers, wherever they live. 

Rene Haarpaintner, though, fits all 

of the above descriptions. And a year 

from now, when he is 61, he will be a 

father in more ways than one. Surprising? 

Yes, and no. 

“I never expected the call to priesthood,” 

he said with a wry smile. “But 

God calls us in different ways and at 

different times, right? Because nothing 

is impossible with God.” 

Haarpaintner remembers first hearing 

that “call” at age 18, when he was 

living close to a monastery, and was 

‘It’s about surrendering to God’ 

There are challenges to living in a 

wheelchair — like steps. 

“Yeah, the steps are not my friend,” 

chuckles Brother Cesar John Paul 

Galan, a wheelchair user since he was 

shot and left paralyzed 21 years ago in 

a gang-related incident that took the 

life of his brother. “I have to remind 

myself not to give up, to push past 

steps or whatever obstacle there might 

be so I can serve the Lord as he wants 

me to.” 

But there are blessings as well. “Here 

at St John’s,” said Brother Galan, “my 

situation gives my brother seminarians 

the opportunity to be charitable 

— and to understand and appreciate 

differences.” 

Brother Galan said that experiencing 

the universality of the Church 

through the diversity he found at St. 

John’s has been key. 

Where they’re going next 

On May 28, eight men will be ordained transitional deacons for the 

Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Here are their parish assignments for the 

next year (their home parishes, except where noted): 

Michael DiPietro — St. Philip the Apostle Church, Pasadena 

Brother Cesar Galan, FSP — St. Mary Magdalen Church, Camarillo 

(home parish: Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels) 

Rene Haarpaintner — St. Brendan Church, Hancock Park 

Hieu Nguyen — Incarnation Church, Glendale 

Enrique Piceno — St. Pius X Church, Santa Fe Springs 

Luis Gerardo Peña — St. Martin of Tours Church, Brentwood 

Emmanuel Sanchez — St. Kateri Tekakwitha Church, Santa Clarita 

Sergio Sandoval — St. Joseph the Worker Church, Winnetka 


attracted to “the peaceful lifestyle and 

spirit’ of the religious who lived there. 

While competing for the Swiss race 

walking team, he met Lauren Feder, 

a primary-care doctor and founder of 

the Center for Natural Family Medicine 

in Los Angeles. They became 

friends and then sweethearts, were 

married in 1991, and raised two sons, 

now adults. 

Haarpaintner also graduated from 

UCLA with a degree in art history, 

and in 2002 became a chiropractor, 

joining his wife in her practice 

and becoming active at St. Brendan 

Church. Then in 2014, she was 

diagnosed with cancer and died that 

November. 

Before that, however, Lauren — 

aware of her husband’s deep faith and 

desire to serve God — asked him, 

“Are you going to become a priest?” 

“I said, ‘No, I’ll take care of the boys 

and keep the medical office going,” he 

said. “But after Lauren died, I lost my 

heart for working in the office.” He 

sold the practice and took a year off to 

care for his younger son, who attended 

Loyola High School. “But I also 

asked myself, ‘What should I do?’ And 

the priesthood kept calling.” 

He spoke with his pastor, Msgr. Terrance 

Fleming, and with Father Steve 

Davoren, then heading the Office of 

Vocations. 

“I wondered if I was too old for 

priesthood. They said, just look into 

it and see what happens. I entered St 

John’s, and by the grace of God, it’s all 

happened very smoothly.” 

His internship year at St. Mary’s 

Church in Palmdale, Haarpaintner 

said, “was very eye-opening, especially 

during COVID-19 and the challenges 

it presented. I was able to assist in 

counseling couples whose faith was 

suffering, and to help them rediscover 

Christ and bring real light into lives. 

I thought, this is what God wants me 

to do because, ultimately, Christ has 

to be in the midst of the domestic 

church.” 

And as a dairy farmer, the image of 

guiding a flock resonates with this 

former chiropractor. “I have cared for 

the body; now I care for the soul.” 

Mike Nelson is the former editor of 

The Tidings (predecessor of Angelus). 



A question of distance? 

The legacy of newly canonized St. Titus Brandsma offers a chance to 

reflect on tensions about the role of Catholic journalism. 

BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR. 

Pope Francis greets journalists aboard a flight from Rome to Santiago, Chile, in 2018. | CNS/PAUL HARING 

ROME — Pope Francis canonized 

10 new saints on May 

15, among them St. Titus 

Brandsma, a Dutch Carmelite priest, 

philosopher, and journalist who was 

murdered at Dachau for his vehement 

opposition to the Nazis. 

St. Brandsma had been arrested in 

January 1942 while carrying a letter 

from the Dutch bishops to Catholic 

newspaper editors, ordering them 

not to print official Nazi documents 

despite an edict to that effect from the 

Nazi authorities, and died six months 

later from a lethal injection as part of 

dubious medical experimentation on 

prisoners. 

In the run-up to the May 15 canonization, 

a group of Dutch Catholic 

reporters circulated a petition asking 

Pope Francis to declare St. Brandsma 

the patron saint of journalists, a designation 

currently held by St. Francis de 

Sales. The petition was endorsed by a 

number of Rome-based foreign correspondents 

who cover the Vatican. 

At one level, it’s an innocent enough 

gesture — after all, St. Brandsma’s 

story is undeniably compelling, and 

God knows journalists could use some 

spiritual support. Yet it also raises the 

question of whether journalists ought 

to be attempting to influence the policy 

decisions of the institutions they 

cover, no matter how seemingly noble 

the cause or how relatively minor the 


equest. 

More broadly, the situation raises the 

larger question of the role and mission 

of Catholic journalism, both in St. 

Brandsma’s era and our own. 

Note that St. Brandsma’s arrest came 

in the context of relaying an order 

from the hierarchy to Catholic media 

about their editorial policies. In 1942, 

when most Catholic media outlets 

were directly owned by the bishops, 

and when the command-and-control 

model of episcopal leadership was at 

its zenith in the pre-conciliar Church, 

that would have seemed an utterly 

normal and appropriate thing for 

bishops to do — and, of course, in 

context, it was also quite a courageous 

stance. 

Decades later, the idea of bishops 

issuing orders to Catholic media 

about their editorial choices would 

be considerably more controversial. 

Since St. Brandsma’s day, most Catholic 

media outlets have won at least a 

measure of independence, and most 

bishops recognize the value of a free 

press. In many cases, Catholic media 

outlets are no longer owned directly 

by officialdom anyway, and thus are 

not subject to ecclesiastical control. 

Today, it’s easier to see more clearly 

that the role of Catholic media is to 

be close enough to the story to get it 

right yet far enough away to remain 

objective, with both ends of that equation 

being equally important. 

Reporters need to be close to the 

story in order to know what makes 

an institution tick, to be able to put 

breaking news in context, and to 

supply the proper perspective. The 

problem with much coverage of 

religious affairs in the secular press is 

precisely that it’s too far away. Stories 

are deprived of context and historical 

memory, so that it seems everything 

is always happening for the first time, 

and too much bogus or sloppy reporting 

makes it into circulation. (Anyone 

recall the “dogs in heaven” fiasco 

from 2014, for example?) 

Yet reporters also have to retain a 

certain critical distance from the 

story, because otherwise the risk is 

that stories will be distorted in order to 

serve a particular point of view. That’s 

the problem with much contemporary 

Catholic media, where many outlets 

have a clear ideological alignment in 

internal Catholic disputes, and their 

presentation of the news sometimes 

seems shaped to support those commitments. 

Maintaining critical distance 

requires self-restraint, because most 

Catholic journalists, by the nature 

of things, are well-informed about 

Church affairs, and it’s natural to 

develop personal views about rights 

and wrongs in the context of exploring 

the issues we cover. Yet in the end, 

the most valuable service any media 

outlet can provide isn’t opinion but 

analysis — not telling people what to 

think, but rather providing them with 

the tools to think intelligently whatever 

conclusion they may reach. 

To invoke a sports analogy, the 

Catholic media shouldn’t be a player 

in the game, pushing the Church to 

do one thing or another. We’re more 

akin to an umpire, calling balls and 

strikes but not having an investment 

in who wins or loses. Just as a baseball 

game would be tainted if an umpire 

slants his or her calls in favor of one 

team or another, journalists do their 

audiences a disservice when they slant 

their reports in favor of one position or 

another. 

That’s a terribly countercultural notion 

today, given that we live in an era 

of extreme political polarization and 

media fragmentation, meaning that 

the market pressure on news organizations 

generally is to serve the biases 

of some share of the audience. Yet just 

as St. Brandsma in his day resisted the 

lure of Nazi ideology, today Catholic 

journalists face the challenge of 

resisting a different sort of ideological 

regime, one which not-so-subtly seeks 

to turn reporting into an extension of 

politics by other means. 

In that sense, perhaps St. Brandsma 

actually would be an apt patron 

saint for contemporary journalists — 

even if, in all honesty, we probably 

shouldn’t be the ones campaigning 

for it. 

John L. Allen Jr. is the editor of Crux. 


AD REM 

ROBERT BRENNAN 

Lost and found in Mexico City 

The author with his wife and his brother, Bishop Joseph Brennan of Fresno (former auxiliary of LA), this spring 

in front of a statue commemorating St. Pope John Paul II’s visit to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. 

| JOE LAZALDE 

Dolores?” 

That was the clarion 

“Where’s 

call of a recent weeklong 

pilgrimage to Mexico City 

and its environs that my wife and I 

recently embarked on. 

We had never been part of an organized 

tour group before, let alone one 

with a pilgrimage focus. This one, 

headed by the Bishop of Fresno, was 

an easy decision and we made the 

journey with some 30 or so fellow 

travelers. 

There were two priests, two deacons, 

and several permanent deacon 

candidates and their wives, many musically 

blessed travelers, and several 

NFPs (non-singing pilgrims) like us. 

And, of course, there was Dolores, 

who tried to make an 8:30 a.m. international 

flight by arriving at LAX at 

7:30 a.m. She would have had better 

odds finding Bigfoot. She endured 

a grueling multiflight itinerary to 

eventually catch up with us, but her 

joyful attitude and gratitude was the 

first pilgrimage miracle we witnessed. 

Before we left, one of our sons wondered 

out loud if Mass every day really 

sounded much like a vacation. I 

confess that the same question passed 

through my head, but I assured him 

that I had investigated peer-reviewed 

research papers and found no evidence 

anyone ever died from going 

to church every day. “But why take 

the chance?” he responded. 

My wife and I are truly happy we 

took that “chance.” It helped that 

my brother the bishop was at the 

top of his preaching game, but there 

were also the many “little” daily 

events that made this journey a true 

pilgrimage. The love for God in the 

people of our bus became infectious 


Robert Brennan writes from Los Angeles, where 

he has worked in the entertainment industry, 

Catholic journalism, and the nonprofit sector. 

— there might even be peer-reviewed 

research that confirms that kind of 

thing. 

It was a pilgrimage filled with small 

but profound moments of grace and 

divine communication, even if we 

were constantly trying to figure out 

where Dolores had wandered off to. 

Upon arrival on a Saturday, we went 

to Mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of 

Guadalupe and marveled at the tilma 

with the miraculous image. 

At Mass celebrated in a small 

chapel on the basilica grounds, the 

Sunday Gospel told of the apostle 

Thomas’ insistence of a physical sign 

from God. The irony was not lost 

on us that a short walk away was a 

physical, clearly visible sign granted 

by that same God, which a successor 

to the apostles, the bishop of Mexico, 

had also insisted on receiving. 

Another day, we had Mass at Holy 

Family Church in Mexico City, 

today the resting place of Blessed 

Miguel Pro. Father Pro became 

famous for outstretching his arms at 

the moment of his martyrdom at the 

hands of anti-Catholic civil authorities 

during the Mexican Revolution. 

The reading that day from the Acts 

of the Apostles was about how the 

apostles refused to follow “man’s” law 

and would continue to preach in the 

name of Jesus, just as Blessed Miguel 

Pro had done, even as bullets tore 

into his body. 

The Gospel for the last Mass we 

were to have in Mexico was about 

the miracle of the loaves and fishes. 

So of course, the tabernacle in this 

chapel was adorned with a loaves and 

fishes motif. 

At the various gift shops throughout 

the trip, my wife and I felt less 

like tourists and more like religious 

object collectors. One object was 

eluding us — a medal or pin of St. 

Michael the Archangel. Michael is 

the confirmation name of our oldest 

son. We had decided that would 

make a meaningful souvenir to bring 

home, and we scoured various gift 

shops all week but found nothing. 

We spent our last couple of hours at 

the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe 

— Mass first, of course, and 

then one last shot at the gift shops. 

Still, St. Michael was nowhere to be 

found. 

As we waited under the large statue 

of St. Pope John Paul II for our 

fellow pilgrims to gather and get back 

on the bus for the airport, our friend 

Anna arrived with something she 

bought for us. She found a pin of St. 

Michael. I am not sure if we men- 

tioned we were even looking for such 

a thing to Anna, but even if we did, 

the fact she had the heart to look for 

it and find it is all the supernatural 

provenance we needed. 

As we got on the bus, my wife and I 

shared this special moment together 

and we were so grateful we “risked” 

it and signed on to a journey that 

included Mass every day. And we are 

and always will be forever grateful to 

one of God’s greatest gifts to our family 

and to so many others, the Bishop 

of Fresno. 

We only had one last question to 

answer as our tour guide took a final 

headcount on the bus: “Where’s 

Dolores?” 


The slow spirituality of summer 

Catholic director Éric Rohmer understood the 

highs and lows of the season like no one else. 

Melvil Poupaud, Gwenaëlle Simon, and Yves 

Guérin in “A Summer’s Tale.” | IMDB 

BY JOE JOYCE 

Summer is almost upon us, and 

there’s nothing like wasting summer’s 

delightful weather indoors 

with a good movie. But if it’s true that 

to everything there is a season, that 

must certainly apply to some directors 

as well. When it comes to summer, 

one director stands heads and shoulders 

above the rest for his affection and 

insight into the season, the legendary 

Frenchman Éric Rohmer. 

Rohmer (a pseudonym for Jean Marie 

Schérer) was an editor of an influential 

film magazine, and along with some of 

his colleagues at the Cahiers du Cinéma, 

a founding pillar of the “French 

New Wave” film movement. 

And yet Rohmer was always an odd 

fit within the movement he helped 

kickstart. While his contemporaries 

were young upstarts, he was already 

something of an elder statesman, older 

by a decade and married with a family. 

Those fellow staff members were true 

leftists affiliated with the May ’68 

movement and Rohmer subscribed to 

a monarchist publication. And while 

they were largely atheist, Rohmer was a 

practicing Catholic. 

But Rohmer was never the type to 

lecture through his art. God is present 

in every Rohmer film yet he’s rarely 

explicit about it, and even when he is 

he’s never didactic. He understood film 

as a way of capturing the sacramentality 

of everyday life: God speaks in his 

films the same way he speaks in our 

lives, with a disinterest in actual words. 

God is felt but never seen, the same 

way you can sense a presence around a 

blind corner. 

Rohmer brought this perspective to 

several different seasons, but always 

found himself returning to the summer 

— as if to rub it in our American faces, 

the French take five weeks of summer 

off. The season is central to the Gallic 

imagination, but Rohmer understood 

it better than any of his contemporaries 

precisely because of his Catholic ap- 

proach. He knew it in its carnality and 

spirituality, and how its heights and 

doldrums were not so much contrasted 

as entwined. Rohmer grasped that 

summer isn’t a vacation from life, but 

rather a distillation of life itself. 

Although his style has famously been 

compared to watching paint dry, it’s 

paint drying on a master’s canvas. Any 

female readers, or male readers with an 

aesthete girlfriend, will find much to 

appreciate with Rohmer. More so than 

any other French New Wave director, 

he had the accidental luck of anticipating 

Pinterest. 

Rohmer was also a master at capturing 

the specific look of summer. He 

could tell the difference in how water 

and sweat make clothes cling to a body. 

He perceived the full spectrum of summer 

color, from the gaudy turquoise of 

a beach towel to the ritual of comparing 

skin tans. And his fashion sense has 

aged remarkably well, as a visit to any 

of the bougier beaches of LA County 


will demonstrate. 

But summer is ironically something 

of an iceberg; there’s far more beneath 

the surface. Rohmer perceived that 

summer wasn’t just ballparks and 

barbecues, but also an opportunity for 

gnawing spiritual desolation. He understood 

that summers are frequently 

melancholic, the heightened pressure 

to enjoy yourself preventing the necessary 

relaxation to achieve it. His most 

fertile filmmaking is found in shortfall 

between expectation and reality. 

A Rohmer vacation is often about 

taking a break from yourself rather 

than your job. Away from the bustle 

of Paris and surrounded by strangers 

at the beach, his characters find the 

anonymity to become their true selves 

or ponder when there isn’t a true self to 

discover. 

Jerome from “Claire’s Knee” is an 

official diplomat yet conducts his 

love life like he’s conquering Poland. 

Delphine, the heroine of “The Green 

Ray,” bounds from beach town to 

beach town looking for a sense of 

relief, only to have her unhappiness 

already waiting for her at the train 

station. Inevitably, his characters find 

out in dawning horror that they are 

themselves wherever they are. 

But Delphine, at least, is trying to 

find the solution. His other characters 

have already settled into themselves. 

They make no pretense of summer 

as a time of personal growth, unless 

you count melding into the surrounding 

vegetation. The “heroes” of “La 

Collectionneuse” don’t merely lounge, 

they sprawl across furniture like lizards 

sunning on a rock. The heat seemingly 

beats them into submission, and the 

only thing that rouses them out of 

indolence is attraction to the opposite 

sex. 

While his scenes are fundamentally 

chaste, Rohmer is still French, so 

certain ribaldry is never far from the 

mind. Most of his films explore the 

conscious transience of the summer romance. 

The knowledge of a deliberate 

endpoint emboldens his characters for 

casual dalliances, in whatever form. 

The two leads of “La Collectionneuse” 

fight over a single girl, and the 

dopey protagonist of “A Summer’s 

Tale” finds himself juggling three separate 

romances. Jerome from “Claire’s 

Knee” doesn’t even get that far, 

spending his languid efforts arranging 

a situation where he only caresses the 

titular knee. 

All these encounters are inherently 

shallow because they treat summer as a 

fantasy, while Rohmer recognizes it as 

Eden. Away from the pettier distractions 

of society, existence becomes 

idealized, or perhaps actualized. His 

baser characters don’t recognize this, 

and by regarding vacation as an escape 

from life, their whole life becomes a 

vacation. They live for today, not in 

the Ecclesiastes sense but to avoid any 

grander commitment. 

Rohmer doesn’t judge his creations, 

but he clearly admires those who take 

the opposite approach. Delphine from 

“The Green Ray” refuses to settle for 

an unsatisfying vacation, and hence an 

unsatisfying life. Her proactive stance 

pays off when she finally finds true 

love at the end, in the waning days of 

August. Felice in “A Tale of Winter” is 

similarly rewarded. After losing contact 

with her summer love, she refuses to 

commit to any other man, trusting that 

through some miracle they will find 

each other again. 

Rohmer values faith more than any 

other virtue. These women smuggle 

the spirit of true summer back with 

them into cold reality, and as a reward 

he lets them keep the spoils past September. 

Five “Rohmer Summer” recommendations: 

“La Collectionneuse,” “Claire’s 

Knee,” “Pauline at the Beach,” “The 

Green Ray,” “A Summer’s Tale.” 

Joe Joyce is a screenwriter and freelance 

critic based in Sherman Oaks. 


DESIRE LINES 

HEATHER KING 

The shortcomings of a secret 

“Back to Wonder” is an “immersive 

experience” from magician 

and storyteller Helder 

Guimarães. Limited to 15 people per 

performance, the show runs through 

June 18 in South Pasadena and purports 

to allow the viewer “a peek into 

his process and the world in which he 

lives.” 

“Can You Keep a Secret?” runs the 

tagline. 

You’re not given the address of the 

location — I hope this isn’t giving 

too much away — from which you’re 

ferried in a vehicle with frosted windows 

to an undisclosed location with 

blacked-out windows. 

Supposedly we’re in the magician’s 

studio, but everything seems way 

too ordered and neat for a studio. 

Everything exudes the air of having a 

trick door, or floor, or mirror. 

For almost an hour-and-a-half, we witness 

messages that couldn’t have been 

sent, predictions that could not have 

been made, and sleight-of-hand feats 

that could not have been executed. 

“Mind-Blowing!” the critics gush. 

“Wonderful!” “Amazing!” “Incredibly 

Beautiful!” “Astonishing Magic!” “Brilliant 

Performer!” “Masterful!” “Gripping!” 

“Genuinely Astonishing!” 

I try to keep my eyes on his hands, 

which seem to be in sight at all times. 

Aha, he partly rolled up his sleeve! 

Wait, his palm was concealed for a second 

on an inner thigh! Is it possible for 

a human being to memorize the order 

of an entire deck of cards at a glance? 

Are there assistants, I wonder, emerging 

from the walls, beneath the floor, 

closets, after we moved from one room 

to another? Were all 14 other audience 

members plants? No, that wouldn’t 

make sense, even at $110 a pop, he 

JOSH APPLEGATE/UNSPLASH 

wouldn’t make any money. 

As for the storytelling, Guimarães hits 


Heather King is an award-winning 

author, speaker, and workshop leader. 

all the right notes: earnest, heartfelt. He 

speaks of his mother, his father, getting 

to meet his childhood idol. He hints at 

the hours, months, years of work, of the 

desire for perfection. 

But I’m not especially wowed by his 

stories. I find it astounding that he can 

talk at all while performing his truly 

impossible stunts. 

You receive a personalized note after 

the show: “My wish is that you do your 

best to keep all of the secrets of our 

experience intact for future audiences, 

but please share its existence with people 

close to you who you think might 

enjoy it.” 

Understandable. But what secrets? He 

hadn’t shared any of his own: not how 

he did his tricks, obviously, and nothing 

about the state of his heart or soul 

that he hadn’t told or wouldn’t tell any 

paying audience. 

Then you’re offered some merch. 

I once read a piece by the late magician 

Ricky Jay, a great story with a long 

buildup about going to a restaurant 

with a friend. He held the menu before 

him, then lifted it to reveal a block of 

melting ice. The way he told the story, 

the trick was an act of love that had 

taken years to perfect, stemming from 

a deep desire to impart to his friend a 

sense of mystery, delight, and wonder. 

That same desire clearly drives Guimarães, 

before whose mastery I bow. It’s 

fascinating to contemplate the psychic 

makeup of the person for whom magic 

is a vocation. It’s impossible to imagine 

the painstaking, impossibly long effort 

required to conceive of and to hone his 

act. 

During COVID-19, Guimarães 

managed to present via Zoom, as part 

of LA’s Geffen Playhouse “Stayhouse” 

series, a rave hit called “The Present” 

that was sold out for each of its more 

than 250 shows. 

At the same time, I can’t say the 

performance I saw imparted a sense of 

wonder. I felt admiration. I felt curiosity. 

I felt gratitude, profound respect, for 

his devotion to his craft. 

And I ruminated after the show on the 

definition of a secret. Is a secret, say, a 

password that no one else knows? Is a 

secret a detail about, say, your daily routine 

that you’d readily share if someone 

asked, but no one asks because no one 

much cares? 

Is a secret a desire of your heart that 

you’d feel shy about sharing because 

it reveals something about the most precious 

part of you? Is a secret something 

that weighs on your soul? That’s the 

kind of secret that many of us are used 

to telling in confession. 

It may be, in fact, that Catholicism 

ruins a person to feel wonder at a magic 

trick, no matter how masterfully executed, 

how startling, how stupendous. 

Because a trick doesn’t resonate. A trick 

doesn’t vibrate. A trick implies a level of 

withholding, because to divulge how 

the trick works would be to ruin it. So 

a magic trick is a closed circuit. As an 

observer you can only be a prop, to be 

in some way manipulated, never a true 

participant. 

What does impart a sense of wonder? 

What transcendental mysteries do involve 

us as full, passionate participants? 

The Incarnation — God made man, 

come to live among us, to suffer alongside 

us, to show us how to love. Being 

sacramentally absolved from our sins. 

The Transubstantiation. Above all, the 

Eucharist. 

As a follower of Christ, you never have 

to go back to wonder. If you stay close 

to the Mass — you never leave it. 


LETTER AND SPIRIT 

SCOTT HAHN 

Scott Hahn is founder of the 

St. Paul Center for Biblical 

Theology; stpaulcenter.com. 

The sacrament of Pentecost 

Confirmation has been called a “sacrament in search 

of a theology,” and a canonized saint has referred 

to the Holy Spirit as “the Great Unknown.” Can it 

be that both our doctrine and our devotion are so impoverished 

that we know neither the gift nor the giver? 

If we neglect the Holy Spirit and forget our confirmation, 

we are missing out on the very reason for our redemption. 

God became man not merely to save us from something 

(our sins), but to save us for something (to live as children 

of God). To be saved means nothing less than to share 

God’s nature. 

And so we do because of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus 

told his apostles that the Spirit would “take what is mine 

and declare it to you” (John 6:14). It is the Spirit, then, 

who gives us our life in the Blessed Trinity. For it is the 

Spirit who gives us the life of the Son. 

To send the Spirit was Jesus’ stated purpose. He told his 

apostles: “It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do 

not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if 

I go, I will send him to you . . . When the Spirit of truth 

comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (Jn 16:7, 13). 

True to his promise, Jesus appeared to his apostles and 

“breathed on them, and said to them, 

“Pentecostés,” by Juan 

Bautista Maino, 1581- 

1649, Spanish. 

| WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ ” (John 

20:22). Then, at the first Christian 

Pentecost, came a universal outpouring 

of the Holy Spirit upon the 

Church (Acts 2). This event had been 

foreshadowed in many Old Testament 

prophecies about the age of the 

Messiah (Isaiah 44:3, 59:21; Ezekiel 11:19, 36:25ff–27; l 

John 2:28). Surely the greatness of the gift exceeded all 

expectations. 

It was the gift not of something, but of Someone. It was 

the gift of the Holy Spirit. 

It’s clear from the Acts of the Apostles that Pentecost was 

an event intended for the entire Church, not just an elite, 

and not just for a day. It would be extended through time 

— institutionalized — by the sacraments. The gift of the 

Spirit came with baptism but was somehow completed by 

another rite. 

“Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria 

had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and 

John, who came down and prayed for them that they might 

receive the Holy Spirit; for it had not yet fallen on any of 

them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the 

Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them and they 

received the Holy Spirit” (Acts 8:14–17). 

This Pentecost we should examine ourselves on our devotion 

to the Holy Spirit and our appreciation for the day we 

were confirmed. If we are confirmed, then the Holy Spirit 

dwells within us. We are his temples (1 Corinthians 6:19). 

We don’t have to go far to get to know him. 


■ FRIDAY, MAY 27 

San Pedro Region Vocations Holy Hour. St. Anthony 

of Padua Church, 1050 W. 163rd St., Gardena, 7 p.m. 

Vocations Holy Hour for the San Pedro Region, and young 

adult parish Holy Hour. 

■ SATURDAY, MAY 28 

Transitional Diaconate Ordination. Cathedral of Our 

Lady of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 9 

a.m. Archbishop José H. Gomez will ordain eight men to 

the transitional diaconate. Visit lacatholics.org/ordination2022 

to watch the livestream. Open to the public. 

■ MONDAY, MAY 30 

Memorial Day Mass. In person at all Catholic Cemeteries 

and Mortuaries locations, 10 a.m. Archbishop José 

H. Gomez will celebrate Mass at San Fernando Mission 

Cemetery. Masses will also be livestreamed at catholicism. 

org or facebook.com/lacatholics. 

■ TUESDAY, MAY 31 

Santa Barbara Region Vocations Holy Hour. St. Mary 

Magdalen Chapel, 2532 Ventura Blvd., Camarillo, 

7 p.m. 

■ WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1 

San Gabriel Region Vocations Holy Hour. St. Anthony 

Church, 1901 S. San Gabriel Blvd., San Gabriel, 7 p.m. 

■ THURSDAY, JUNE 2 

San Fernando Region Vocations Holy Hour. 

Our Lady of Grace Church, 17720 Ventura Blvd., Encino, 

6:30 p.m. 

■ FRIDAY, JUNE 3 

Our Lady of the Angels Region Vocations Holy Hour. St. 

Agnes Church, 2625 Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, 

7 p.m. 

■ SATURDAY, JUNE 4 

Priest Ordinations. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 

555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 9 a.m. Archbishop José 

H. Gomez will ordain eight men to the priesthood. Visit 

lacatholics.org/ordination to watch the livestream. Tickets 

required; this event is not open to the public. 

50th Golden Jubilee Pentecost Vigil Gathering. St. Mary 

of the Assumption, 7215 Newlin Ave., Whittier, 1-4 p.m. 

Speakers: Father Bill Adams, CSsR, Dominica Berardino, 

Shane Cramer, Father Bill Delaney, SJ, and Bob and Kay 

Murdy. Vigil Mass celebrated by Father Bill Adams. For 

more information, visit scrc.org/pentecost, email spirit@ 

scrc.org, or call 818-771-1361. 

■ SUNDAY, JUNE 5 

Synod Closing Celebration Mass. Cathedral of Our Lady 

of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 3:30 p.m. 

Join Archbishop José H. Gomez to give thanks to God for 

the fruits of the synod in the archdiocese. For more information, 

visit synod.lacatholics.org/june5mass. 

■ SATURDAY, JUNE 11 

Your Spiritual Journey Yoga: Body, Mind and Heart Together. 

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

9:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. With Mara Carrito. 

For more information, visit hsrcenter.com or call 

818-784-4515. 


St. Barnabas Ministry Fair. 3955 Orange Ave., Long 

Beach, 7:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Free giveaways, goodies for 

sale, and more. Follow @stbarnabaslb on Facebook and 

Instagram for more details. 

■ MONDAY, JUNE 13 

Healing Mass. St. Rose of Lima Church, 1305 Royal Ave., 

Simi Valley, 7 p.m. Theme: Healing of memories. Celebrants: 

Father Bob Garon and Deacon Pete Wilson. For 

more information, call 805-526-1732. 

■ TUESDAY, JUNE 14 

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. 

■ THURSDAY, JUNE 16 

Children’s Bureau: Foster Care Zoom Orientation. Children’s 

Bureau is now offering two virtual ways for individuals 

and couples to learn how to help children in foster care 

while reunifying with birth families or how to provide legal 

permanency by adoption, 4-5 p.m. A live Zoom orientation 

will be hosted by a Children’s Bureau team member and 

a foster parent. For those who want to learn at their own 

pace about becoming a foster and/or fost-adopt parent, an 

online orientation presentation is available. To RSVP for 

the live orientation or to request the online orientation, 

email rfrecruitment@all4kids.org. 

■ SATURDAY, JUNE 18 

Fathers’ Day Rosary Prayer Service. 2 p.m. In-person at all 

Catholic Cemeteries & Mortuaries locations, or online at 

catholiccm.org or facebook.com/lacatholics. 

■ TUESDAY, JUNE 21 

Summer Solstice Labyrinth Walk. Holy Spirit Retreat 

Center, 4316 Lanai Rd., Encino, 7-9 p.m. For more information, 

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


Partners in Service Annual Dinner. Padre Serra Church, 

5205 Upland Rd., Camarillo, 5 p.m. cocktails, 6:30 p.m. 

dinner. Catholic Charities of Ventura County will honor 

faithful parishioners from local Catholic parishes. For more 

information and reservations, contact Michael Lockard at 

mlockard@ccharities.org. 

■ SATURDAY, JULY 9 

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. Holy Spirit Retreat 

Center, 4316 Lanai Rd., Encino, 9:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. With 

Bryanna Benedetti-Coomber, MDiv. For more information, 

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

■ SUNDAY, JULY 10 

Virtual Diaconate Information Day. The Diaconate 

Formation office invites all interested in joining the 

diaconate program to learn more at 2 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. 

Now That Our World Has Changed, What Do We Do? 

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

runs Sunday, July 10 at 4 p.m. to Sunday, July 17 at 1 p.m. 

With Father Jim Clarke. For more information, visit hsrcenter.com 

or call 818-784-4515. 

■ TUESDAY, JULY 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.

Angelus News | June 3, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 11

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