Angelus News | August 12, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 16
On the cover: Bishop Robert E. Barron officially took up his new assignment as the new bishop of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, at a July 29 Installation Mass at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Rochester. On Page 10, friends and collaborators look back on his nearly seven years as an auxiliary bishop in the Santa Barbara Pastoral Region and say farewell to a shepherd who they believe was “the right bishop at the most difficult of times.”
On the cover: Bishop Robert E. Barron officially took up his new assignment as the new bishop of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, at a July 29 Installation Mass at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Rochester. On Page 10, friends and collaborators look back on his nearly seven years as an auxiliary bishop in the Santa Barbara Pastoral Region and say farewell to a shepherd who they believe was “the right bishop at the most difficult of times.”
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ANGELUS<br />
BISHOP BARRON<br />
GOES EAST<br />
LA says farewell to<br />
the new bishop of<br />
Winona-Rochester<br />
<strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong> <strong>Vol</strong>. 7 <strong>No</strong>. <strong>16</strong>
<strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong><br />
<strong>Vol</strong>. 7 • <strong>No</strong>. <strong>16</strong><br />
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ON THE COVER<br />
DIOCESE OF WINONA-ROCHESTER<br />
Bishop Robert E. Barron officially took up his new assignment<br />
as the new bishop of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, at a July<br />
29 Installation Mass at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist<br />
in Rochester. On Page 10, friends and collaborators look back<br />
on his nearly seven years as an auxiliary bishop in the Santa<br />
Barbara Pastoral Region and say farewell to a shepherd who<br />
they believe was “the right bishop at the most difficult of times.”<br />
THIS PAGE<br />
MIKE ELIASON<br />
An aerial shot captures the artwork from this<br />
year’s Santa Barbara I Madonnari Italian Street<br />
Painting Festival, held Memorial Day weekend at<br />
Old Mission Santa Barbara. The event is inspired<br />
by a sister festival in the northern Italian town of<br />
Grazie di Curtatone, Italy. This year’s festival was<br />
the first held since the start of the pandemic.
CONTENTS<br />
Pope Watch............................................... 2<br />
Archbishop Gomez................................. 3<br />
World, Nation, and Local <strong>News</strong>...... 4-6<br />
In Other Words........................................ 7<br />
Father Rolheiser....................................... 8<br />
Scott Hahn.............................................. 32<br />
Events Calendar..................................... 33<br />
18<br />
20<br />
24<br />
26<br />
28<br />
30<br />
How Francis’ penitential pilgrimage compares to other papal apologies<br />
Mike Aquilina: Lessons from a saint who saved the Church from schism<br />
Ancient monastic traditions find an American home in the Redwoods<br />
Greg Erlandson has ideas for a way out of the crisis in Catholic journalism<br />
How Jordan Peele’s ‘<strong>No</strong>pe’ takes multiple pages from the Old Testament<br />
Heather King: When disability reveals ‘the freedom to do good’<br />
<strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong> • ANGELUS • 1
POPE WATCH<br />
Francis and ‘the G word’<br />
Pope Francis described the<br />
treatment of Indigenous communities<br />
of Canada through the residential<br />
school system as “genocide”<br />
during an inflight news conference on<br />
his return from the country July 29.<br />
Asked by an indigenous reporter why<br />
he did not use the word genocide<br />
while in Canada, the pope said, “I<br />
didn’t use the word because it did not<br />
come to mind, but what I described<br />
was genocide.”<br />
Another Canadian reporter asked<br />
Pope Francis about the “Doctrine of<br />
Discovery,” a collection of papal teachings,<br />
beginning in the 14th century,<br />
that blessed the efforts of explorers<br />
to colonize and claim the lands of<br />
any people who were not Christian,<br />
placing both the land and the people<br />
under the sovereignty of European<br />
Christian rulers.<br />
Pope Francis said it always has been a<br />
temptation for colonizers to think they<br />
were superior to the people whose<br />
land they were colonizing.<br />
“This is the problem of every colonialism,<br />
even today,” he said, pointing to<br />
modern forms of “ideological colonialism,”<br />
which use requests for foreign<br />
assistance to force poorer countries<br />
to adopt policies that go against the<br />
values their people hold dear.<br />
When discussing his health, the pope<br />
said “this trip was a bit of a test” to see<br />
how much he could handle. “Perhaps<br />
we will have to change the style a bit,<br />
reduce a bit,” he said of future trips.<br />
But the pope said he still hopes to<br />
visit Kyiv, Ukraine, South Sudan, as<br />
well as go to Kazakhstan in September<br />
for an interreligious meeting.<br />
“I have all the goodwill” to keep traveling,<br />
the pope said, “but we’ll have to<br />
see what the leg says.”<br />
As for retiring, Pope Francis told<br />
reporters, “The door is open. It is one<br />
of the normal options, but up to now I<br />
haven’t knocked on that door.”<br />
“I haven’t felt like I needed to consider<br />
this possibility,” he insisted, “but<br />
that doesn’t mean that the day after<br />
tomorrow I won’t start thinking about<br />
it.”<br />
“Stepping aside,” the pope said,<br />
would not be “a catastrophe. You can<br />
change popes, no problem.”<br />
Pope Francis was also asked what<br />
he thought about the possibility of<br />
“developments” in Church teaching<br />
on contraception.<br />
In his response, Pope Francis did<br />
not talk about the Church’s teaching<br />
against the use of artificial contraception.<br />
Instead, he spoke of the role of<br />
theologians in the Church and about<br />
the development of doctrine.<br />
Church teaching “is always in a state<br />
of development,” either through being<br />
confirmed and consolidated over time<br />
or by being understood more precisely<br />
in relation to new problems or deeper<br />
understanding, he said.<br />
The job of theologians, the pope said,<br />
is to explore the possibilities, while the<br />
job of the pope is to “help them understand<br />
the limits.”<br />
A church that does not allow its<br />
teaching to develop does not remain<br />
the same, it “goes backwards,” he said.<br />
“That’s the problem with many who<br />
call themselves traditionalists; they<br />
aren’t traditional, they are ‘backwardists.’<br />
They are going backwards.”<br />
Reporting courtesy of Catholic <strong>News</strong><br />
Service Rome bureau chief Cindy<br />
Wooden.<br />
Papal Prayer Intentions for <strong>August</strong>: We pray for small- and<br />
medium-sized businesses; in the midst of economic and<br />
social crisis, may they find ways to continue operating, and<br />
serving their communities.<br />
2 • ANGELUS • <strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong>
NEW WORLD OF FAITH<br />
ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ<br />
For a grateful heart<br />
On Aug. 15, I will celebrate the<br />
anniversary of my ordination to<br />
the priesthood.<br />
I do not have the words to describe<br />
the joy and gratitude I feel for this gift.<br />
For these past 44 years, I have had the<br />
privilege to serve Jesus and to bring others<br />
to know him. I am humbled and,<br />
more than anything, grateful.<br />
Gratitude is a virtue that is not well<br />
understood in our world today.<br />
Already in the 1960s, the Servant of<br />
God Father Romano Guardini could<br />
see that people were losing the habit<br />
of being thankful. Gratitude, he wrote,<br />
was a “gradually disappearing virtue.”<br />
Father Guardini suggested that our<br />
consumer economy was partly to<br />
blame. And he may be right. Buying<br />
and selling, exchanging our money<br />
for someone else’s goods, makes our<br />
ordinary everyday dealings with people<br />
less personal, more mechanical, and<br />
“transactional.”<br />
We aren’t usually grateful when we<br />
buy something, Father Guardini said.<br />
Instead, we expect a receipt.<br />
True gratitude is born from personal<br />
encounter. It is about giving to others<br />
without calculation and receiving from<br />
others gracefully; it is about asking and<br />
thanking. We can only be grateful to<br />
another person. We can’t say thank you<br />
to a corporation or legislature.<br />
Gratitude means acknowledging that<br />
we depend on other people, and that<br />
other people depend on us, and that<br />
we all depend on God.<br />
The Scriptures are filled with prayers<br />
of thanksgiving. Many of the psalms<br />
are songs of gratitude, thanking God<br />
for his goodness and mercy, for all his<br />
wondrous deeds.<br />
And Jesus taught us to live with grateful<br />
hearts. We remember the Gospel<br />
story of the 10 lepers, how Jesus healed<br />
them all, but only one came back to<br />
say thank you.<br />
The lesson is that if we want to be<br />
true followers of Jesus, we need to be<br />
like that one leper. We need to live<br />
with gratitude, returning to Jesus again<br />
and again, praising him and thanking<br />
him all the time for his graces and gifts<br />
in our lives.<br />
The truth is that everything we have<br />
is a gift from God, beginning with<br />
our own lives. I will never stop being<br />
amazed at God’s love for us.<br />
The only proper response to such<br />
great love is to be grateful. Through<br />
Jesus, we are made children of God.<br />
That’s not a “generic” title. It is deeply<br />
personal. It means that each one of<br />
you is a son or a daughter, loved by a<br />
heavenly Father who knows your name<br />
and who wanted you to be born.<br />
What greater gift could we receive?<br />
St. Paul used to say, “What have you<br />
got that you have not received?”<br />
This is the spirit of the Eucharist,<br />
which as we know, means “thanksgiving.”<br />
We worship God by giving<br />
thanks to him. In the Gloria of the<br />
Mass we pray, “We give You thanks for<br />
Your great glory.” We thank God for<br />
being God, for being our Creator.<br />
When we receive our lives as a gift,<br />
we can give our lives as a gift. We can<br />
walk with others in their suffering,<br />
open our homes in hospitality, and<br />
give generously to those in need, never<br />
expecting anything in return.<br />
There is much sadness and injustice<br />
in the world. Many have been<br />
hurt and disappointed, and many are<br />
frustrated that they do not have what<br />
others have.<br />
As Christians we are called to<br />
overcome injustice. But in our work<br />
for justice, we need to guard against<br />
resentment, which is the opposite of<br />
gratitude.<br />
I think of the story of St. Josephine<br />
Bakhita, At 9 years old, she was stolen<br />
from her wealthy family in Darfur,<br />
Sudan, and sold into slavery. For more<br />
than 10 years, she endured unspeakable<br />
cruelty and terror, was beaten and<br />
tortured, sold to five different men.<br />
Rescued by an Italian diplomat, she<br />
was cared for by the Canossian Sisters<br />
in Venice. There she was baptized at<br />
age 21. Six years later she became a<br />
sister herself, and went on to serve the<br />
poor for nearly 50 years.<br />
Even after all she had been through,<br />
Gratitude means acknowledging that we depend<br />
on other people, and that other people depend<br />
on us, and that we all depend on God.<br />
St. Josphine Bakhita lived with profound<br />
gratitude, because what she had<br />
suffered had led her to Jesus.<br />
Later, she would recall her childhood<br />
years, before she was enslaved: “I<br />
remembered looking at the moon and<br />
the stars and the beautiful things of nature<br />
and saying to myself, ‘Who is the<br />
master of all those beautiful things?’<br />
And I experienced a great desire to see<br />
him and know him and honor him.<br />
And now I do know him. Thank you,<br />
thank you, my God!”<br />
Pray for me and I will pray for you.<br />
And let us ask Our Blessed Mother<br />
Mary to help us all to grow in gratitude<br />
for the gift of her Son, to be always<br />
grateful for the gift that we have been<br />
given, of being sons and daughters of<br />
our loving God.<br />
<strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong> • ANGELUS • 3
WORLD<br />
A damaged church in La Paz, Philippines, following the magnitude 7 earthquake.<br />
| CNS/FATHER MC GREGGY CABAYA VIA REUTERS<br />
■ Philippines: Diocese asks for<br />
rebuild help after earthquake<br />
A diocese in the northern Philippines appealed for aid<br />
after a magnitude 7 earthquake that killed at least four and<br />
injured dozens.<br />
The Archdiocese of Tuguegarao in northeastern Luzon<br />
said churches and historical sites sustained cracks in the<br />
July 26 quake, but it also needed help to repair hospital<br />
infrastructure and equipment.<br />
Patients were evacuated from a local hospital during<br />
the earthquake due to fear of the building collapsing.<br />
The archdiocese said its churches were not only places of<br />
worship but symbolized the history and tradition of their<br />
people.<br />
“They are a testament to our faith and culture. Though<br />
damaged by natural calamities like this recent earthquake,<br />
we will rebuild them, just as we rebuilt our lives after catastrophes<br />
in love and faith in Christ,” the archdiocese said.<br />
■ India: Archbishop leaves over<br />
different kind of ‘liturgy wars’<br />
An Indian archbishop resigned July 26 at the Vatican’s<br />
request, the result of a decades-long dispute over an Eastern<br />
liturgy.<br />
Archbishop Antony Kariyil of the Kerala Archdiocese of<br />
Ernakulam-Angamaly is believed to have resigned over his<br />
refusal to adopt a unified version of the Syro-Malabar liturgy,<br />
also known as the Holy Qurbana.<br />
For decades, dioceses in the Syro-Malabar Catholic<br />
Church, the second-largest Eastern Church in communion<br />
with Rome, have divided over the introduction of Western<br />
practices. Principally, some clergy celebrate the liturgy “ad<br />
populum” (“facing the people”), over the church’s own<br />
practice of facing “ad orientum” (“to the east”).<br />
In July 2021, Pope Francis called for the “proper implementation<br />
of the uniform mode of celebrating the Holy<br />
Qurbana.” The Eastern Church’s leader, Cardinal George<br />
Alencherry, also called on the clergy and faithful to set aside<br />
“individual preferences” for unity.<br />
Opponents of the unified liturgy have responded with<br />
protests, including the March <strong>2022</strong> burning in effigy of<br />
prominent clergymen.<br />
■ How to return a stolen relic<br />
Art detective Arthur Brand and the reliquary that turned<br />
up on his doorstep. | ARTHUR BRAND<br />
A stolen golden<br />
reliquary containing<br />
what some<br />
believe to be the<br />
blood of Jesus<br />
was returned by<br />
thieves to police.<br />
“They had no<br />
idea what they<br />
had stolen until<br />
they found out<br />
on the internet,”<br />
Arthur Brand, a<br />
Dutch investigator<br />
who specializes<br />
in recovering<br />
high-profile artifacts and stolen works of art, told CNA, “and<br />
that’s when they start panicking a bit.”<br />
The thieves messaged Brand directly, saying that if the<br />
investigator wouldn’t take the reliquary with no questions<br />
asked, they’d destroy it. They returned the reliquary to<br />
Brand’s Amsterdam home.<br />
“Because of the importance of the relic, because of everything<br />
in it, the whole Middle Ages, Jesus, everything. It’s the<br />
recovery that made me the most emotional, of all the pieces<br />
I have recovered,” he said.<br />
The reliquary will be returned to Holy Trinity Abbey in<br />
Fécamp, France, where pilgrims have venerated the relic for<br />
1,500 years.<br />
4 • ANGELUS • <strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong>
NATION<br />
■ Time is running out for<br />
Puerto Rico, bishop says<br />
The archbishop of San Juan, Puerto Rico,<br />
is calling for ecological and legal action to<br />
protect the island’s natural resources.<br />
In his 56-page letter published July 15, Archbishop<br />
Roberto González Nieves took aim at<br />
Puerto Rico’s dependency on fossil fuels, encouraging<br />
Catholic schools and churches on<br />
the “Island of the Sea and the Sun” to switch<br />
to solar power by 2030.<br />
“Time is running out, the future of our people<br />
is at stake,” Archbishop González wrote.<br />
“We have to engage in the Christian struggle<br />
to defend our earthly home, here in the Kingdom<br />
of God on Earth.”<br />
He also called for the end of shipping regulations<br />
that restrict the ports and ships that can<br />
be used to send goods to the island. Archbishop<br />
González said the inefficient system creates<br />
excess greenhouse gasses and hurts Puerto<br />
Ricans facing environmental emergencies.<br />
“It is time to legislate to protect their lives,<br />
to provide them with the necessary opportunities<br />
for a dignified and decent life,” he<br />
wrote.<br />
Jim Harbaugh presents Pope Francis with a University<br />
of Michigan football helmet in Rome in 2017. | CNS/<br />
L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO<br />
Heroic journalism — An exhibit titled “The Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania” is seen last month<br />
at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. During the Soviet<br />
occupation of Lithuania from 1972 to 1989, the Chronicle was an underground publication that was smuggled<br />
out of the country and sent to New York to be translated and published. | CNS/TYLER ORSBURN<br />
■ A coach’s<br />
pro-life pledge<br />
After serving as a keynote<br />
speaker at a July 17 pro-life<br />
fundraising event, University<br />
of Michigan football coach<br />
Jim Harbaugh said he would<br />
raise the baby if any of his<br />
players were involved with<br />
an unplanned pregnancy.<br />
“I encourage them if they<br />
have a pregnancy that wasn’t<br />
planned, to go through with<br />
it,” Harbaugh said in a June 23 interview with ESPN. “Let that unborn<br />
child be born, and if at that time you don’t feel like you can care for it,<br />
you don’t have the means or the wherewithal, then Sarah and I will take<br />
that baby.”<br />
Harbaugh encouraged more listening to people’s differing views on<br />
abortion.<br />
“Let’s discuss them because there’s passion on both sides of this issue,”<br />
he said. “So when you combine that with respect, that’s when the best<br />
results come.”<br />
ESPN’s Sage Steele praised the coach going “on record with his stance<br />
on abortion, despite the predictable social media criticism he’s receiving.”<br />
“Respect the opinions of others, even if you disagree,” she tweeted.<br />
“Diversity of thought, right?!”<br />
■ Catholic doctor gets a<br />
White Coat walkout<br />
Dozens of medical students staged a<br />
walkout of the University of Michigan’s<br />
White Coat Ceremony on July 24 in<br />
protest of the Catholic keynote speaker’s<br />
pro-life views.<br />
Dr. Kristin Collier, a clinical assistant<br />
professor at the university, faced<br />
criticism for previous public comments<br />
affirming the dignity of fetal life. A<br />
failed petition attempted to have her<br />
removed as speaker.<br />
“We would not revoke a speaker because<br />
they have different personal ideas<br />
than others,” said medical school dean<br />
Dr. Marschall Runge.<br />
In her remarks, Collier did not bring<br />
up her pro-life views, but said she<br />
hoped that the ceremony would be a<br />
time to “focus on what matters most.”<br />
“Coming together to support our newly<br />
accepted students and their families<br />
with the goal of welcoming them into<br />
one of the greatest vocations that exists<br />
on this earth: the vocation of medicine,”<br />
she said.<br />
<strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong> • ANGELUS • 5
LOCAL<br />
■ LA doctor: ‘Safe haven’ babies<br />
need more support after Dobbs<br />
The founder of LA’s “safe haven” clinic expects an “increase in the number of<br />
mothers using safe haven laws to anonymously relinquish their newborn babies”<br />
following the reversal of Roe v. Wade.<br />
Micah Orliss started the Safe Surrender Clinic at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles<br />
(CHLA) in 2013. Writing in Stat<strong>News</strong>.com on July 20, he warned that more<br />
attention needs to be paid “to how best to care for these infants once they have<br />
been placed in prospective adoptive homes.”<br />
Still, he wrote, “it is essential that clinics like ours be established in other communities,<br />
particularly in states where abortion has been outlawed and in underserved<br />
communities that might expect to see a disproportionate use of safe haven<br />
laws.”<br />
Orliss noted that research done in the LA area shows most “safe haven infants”<br />
were relinquished in lower income areas, and that half were diagnosed with medical<br />
issues in the first year of their lives.<br />
“Safe haven laws are just the beginning of a child’s journey and states risk failing<br />
them if they do not fund and strengthen the medical, developmental, and mental<br />
health systems of care for these children and their families,” he wrote.<br />
Young pilgrims walk during the St. Junípero Serra<br />
Walking Pilgrimage. | COURTESY PHOTO<br />
■ Second Serra walking<br />
pilgrimage traces saint’s<br />
footsteps<br />
More than 200 LA Catholics gathered<br />
on July 23-24 to walk the 35<br />
miles between Mission Santa Barbara<br />
and Mission Basilica San Buenaventura<br />
for the second annual St. Junípero<br />
Serra Walking Pilgrimage.<br />
The weekend journey began in<br />
Santa Barbara, continued through<br />
Montecito, Summerland, and Carpinteria,<br />
where pilgrims had dinner at St.<br />
Joseph Church before pitching their<br />
tents for the night.<br />
On Sunday, pilgrims had the chance<br />
to earn a jubilee year plenary indulgence<br />
by walking through Mission Basilica<br />
San Buenaventura’s holy doors.<br />
“There’s something really powerful<br />
about being able to walk directly in<br />
the footsteps of this saint who was so<br />
instrumental in bringing the light of<br />
Christ to California,” said Brother<br />
Sean Paul Wood, CFR, who flew in<br />
from the Bronx to participate. “Deep<br />
down people want something to live<br />
for, something to celebrate.”<br />
Sister <strong>No</strong>rberta Villaseñor (right) with students and a fellow religious sister at Camp I-CAN last month. | CATHOLIC<br />
EXTENSION<br />
■ Local sister joins outreach<br />
program for kids in Uvalde<br />
Sister <strong>No</strong>rberta Villaseñor, from Los Angeles, was one of more than a dozen<br />
sisters leading a unique healing camp for children in Uvalde, Texas, after the<br />
Robb Elementary mass shooting in May.<br />
Launched by Catholic Extension, a Chicago nonprofit, Camp I-CAN (which<br />
stands for “Inner strength, Commitment, Awareness, and Networking”) gave<br />
third-fifth-graders, many of whom were survivors of the shooting in Uvalde,<br />
a “safe space to heal” and a chance to “gently reintegrate” into a school-like<br />
setting. From July 25-28, children participated in arts and crafts, faith-based<br />
activities, and games.<br />
“My hope and dream would be that [the children] know they are being loved,<br />
that they are safe,” Sister <strong>No</strong>rberta said. “Through our presence, they can know<br />
that not all people are bad; that there is goodness in people.”<br />
Y<br />
6 • ANGELUS • <strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong>
V<br />
IN OTHER WORDS...<br />
Letters to the Editor<br />
A parish proud of their son<br />
Thank you for the article in the June 17 issue written by Father Brian<br />
Humphrey titled “Getting schooled in Rome.”<br />
Father Brian is the son of St. Jude Church and School in Elyria, Ohio, where his<br />
father, Patrick Humphrey, is our deacon. We look forward to sharing this article<br />
with our parishioners. The message is insightful and it’s a joy to see the pictures!<br />
— St. Jude Church, Elyria, Ohio<br />
Thoughts from a fellow ‘malade’<br />
It was quite moving to read Jenny Gorman Patton’s article about her recent trip<br />
to Lourdes in the July 29 issue. I was also a “malade” (one who is sick) on that trip,<br />
and saw a little bit of what she went through at the time and knew something of<br />
her history of being a chronic sufferer.<br />
Seeing the pictures brought so much back.<br />
I remember well Jenny talking about how she felt unworthy to go to Lourdes as<br />
a malade when she was first issued the invitation, but she ultimately went. Unlike<br />
Jenny, I don’t have a disease that is chronic; it has been short and sharp. But I<br />
really admire her strength in withstanding suffering — and it’s suffering whatever<br />
form it takes — for such a long period. She is someone to emulate.<br />
The Order of Malta does so much good in bringing malades to Lourdes. The pilgrimage<br />
there helps us in so many ways, even unexpected ways. We don’t always<br />
get better in health, but the trip aids us in other things such as our spiritual lives.<br />
At the very least, we can meet other malades and see what they are going through,<br />
which, somewhat surprisingly, can be very strengthening. Seeing what others deal<br />
with stops us from dwelling on ourselves, no matter how sick we are. We learn a<br />
new, deeper meaning of humility.<br />
I am so glad to hear that Jenny is doing better. She really brings home St. Bernadette’s<br />
great saying: “My work is to be sick.”<br />
— Lori Seyer, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, Montecito<br />
Y<br />
Continue the conversation! To submit a letter to the editor, visit <strong>Angelus</strong><strong>News</strong>.com/Letters-To-The-Editor<br />
and use our online form or send an email to editorial@angelusnews.com. Please limit to 300 words. Letters<br />
may be edited for style, brevity, and clarity.<br />
A Santa Barbara goodbye<br />
View more photos<br />
from this gallery at<br />
<strong>Angelus</strong><strong>News</strong>.com/photos-videos<br />
Friends and local faithful<br />
had a chance to say their<br />
goodbyes to Bishop Robert<br />
Barron after a special farewell<br />
Mass at Mission Santa<br />
Barbara on July 10. Bishop<br />
Barron was installed as<br />
bishop of the Diocese of<br />
Winona-Rochester on July<br />
29. | VICTOR ALEMÁN<br />
Do you have photos or a story from your parish that you’d<br />
like to share? Please send to editorial @angelusnews.com.<br />
“People know they can turn<br />
to the Catholic Church.”<br />
~ Meg Campos, executive director of Catholic<br />
Charities of Lexington, Kentucky, as relief efforts<br />
get underway following massive flooding at the end<br />
of July that destroyed hundreds of homes.<br />
“Christianity is not a<br />
self-help group; it’s a<br />
God-help group.”<br />
~ Father Matt Malone, SJ, President of America<br />
Media, in a July 29 reflection on the conversion of St.<br />
Ignatius of Loyola ahead of his July 31 feast day.<br />
“As history shows, any time<br />
there is persecution, the<br />
Church becomes more<br />
alive … and more vibrant.<br />
Our people have become<br />
unshakable in faith.”<br />
~ Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme of Maiduguri,<br />
Nigeria, on his hope for an end to the Islamist terror<br />
group Boko Haram at a July 26 “Aid to the Church in<br />
Need” webinar.<br />
“The plausibility of gender<br />
identity theory depends<br />
upon our linguistic<br />
participation.”<br />
~ Abigail Favale, professor and author of “The<br />
Genesis of Gender,” in a July 26 National Catholic<br />
Register article “Women or ‘Pregnant People’?”<br />
“Abortion and its logic has<br />
undermined the duties<br />
and goods of marriage and<br />
family life.”<br />
~ Ryan Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis,<br />
authors of “Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion<br />
Harms Everything and Solves <strong>No</strong>thing,” in a July 29<br />
interview with The Pillar.<br />
<strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong> • ANGELUS • 7
IN EXILE<br />
FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI<br />
Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father<br />
Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual<br />
writer; ronaldrolheiser.com.<br />
Why is there something instead of nothing?<br />
The Belgian theologian Father<br />
Jan Walgrave, OP, who directed<br />
my doctoral thesis, was a true<br />
intellectual and a rare one. True, in<br />
that his thought naturally, instinctively<br />
gravitated toward the huge philosophical<br />
questions of essence and existence.<br />
Why are we here? Who are we really?<br />
Moreover, he was also a rare intellectual<br />
in that he was an uncommon mixture<br />
of hard intellectual scrutiny and<br />
childlike piety. He could be equally<br />
disarming both in his intellectual<br />
sophistication and in his childlikeness.<br />
In one of our meetings, he asked<br />
me this, “Do you ever sit on a park<br />
bench and ask yourself, why is there<br />
something instead of nothing?” I answered<br />
honestly, “In truth, I can’t ever<br />
remember doing that very explicitly.<br />
Like everyone else, I often wonder<br />
where we came from and how there<br />
is a God behind all of this, but I have<br />
never very explicitly contemplated<br />
your question.”<br />
“Well,” he replied, “then you are not<br />
a philosopher! He went on, “I think<br />
about this question all the time; it is<br />
the most important of all questions.”<br />
(He consoled me for the fact that I<br />
could never be a true philosopher by<br />
telling me that I had a “fertile mind,”<br />
which he told me is its own gift.)<br />
Why is there something instead of<br />
nothing? Surely, that is the ultimate<br />
question. How did it all begin? Who<br />
or what was there at the beginning and<br />
started it all? Moreover, where did this<br />
who or what come from, who gave it a<br />
beginning?<br />
Contemporary science cannot answer<br />
that question. It can tell us what<br />
happened at the origins of our universe,<br />
the Big Bang, but that doesn’t<br />
get us any nearer answering the bigger<br />
question, namely, who or what gave<br />
origin to that initial explosion nearly<br />
15 million years ago that lies at the<br />
origins of our universe and gave birth<br />
to billions of galaxies? How was this<br />
force itself in existence?<br />
As people of faith, we believe it was<br />
God and believe that God had no beginning.<br />
However, that can neither be<br />
conceptualized nor imagined. What<br />
gave birth to God? <strong>No</strong> matter whether<br />
we believe in God or not, we are<br />
all still left with the question, Father<br />
Walgrave’s question, “why is there<br />
something instead of nothing?”<br />
Moreover, that question is complicated<br />
further by the fact that creation, at<br />
least vast segments of it, have a clear<br />
intelligent design. Given that fact, the<br />
most credible postulate vis-à-vis who or<br />
what lies at the origins of everything,<br />
demands that this something or someone<br />
(from which everything takes its<br />
origins) is not some blind, brute force<br />
but one that is highly intelligent and<br />
personal.<br />
St. Thomas Aquinas, who did have<br />
a true philosophical mind, once proposed<br />
several logical arguments to try<br />
to “prove” that God exists. Among his<br />
arguments, we find this one: Imagine<br />
walking down a road and finding<br />
a stone on the ground and asking<br />
yourself, “Who put that stone there?”<br />
You could simply conclude that it has<br />
always been there and think no further<br />
about it.<br />
However, imagine walking down a<br />
road and finding a clock that is still<br />
keeping time, and asking yourself,<br />
“Who put that clock there?” In this<br />
case, you could not simply say it has<br />
always been there and leave it at that.<br />
Why? Because the clock has a clear<br />
intelligent design that demands that<br />
some intelligence designed it. As well,<br />
it is still keeping time, which means<br />
that it could not always have been<br />
there. Someone put it there, and at<br />
some clear point in time. Thus, St.<br />
Aquinas concluded that since many<br />
things in the universe have an intelligent<br />
design, there must be an intelligent<br />
designer at its origins.<br />
Today, most people might consider<br />
that logic a bit naive, but perhaps the<br />
naiveté is on their part. Someone no<br />
less than Albert Einstein affirmed this:<br />
“The harmony of natural law reveals<br />
an intelligence of such superiority<br />
that, compared with it, all the systematic<br />
thinking and acting of human beings<br />
is utterly insignificant reflection.”<br />
He is right, and the harmony he<br />
speaks of is not just the unfathomable<br />
ecological harmony that the various<br />
elements of the physical world appear<br />
to have with one another and how<br />
nature continues to regenerate itself<br />
despite everything we do to destroy its<br />
ecology. Further still, that harmony<br />
of natural law (as Einstein calls it)<br />
also includes an undeniable oneness<br />
between the laws of nature and the<br />
moral order.<br />
The law of karma and the law of nature<br />
are one and the same thing, all of<br />
one piece, as is the law of gravity and<br />
the Holy Spirit. The physical and the<br />
moral are part of a single symphony.<br />
The air we breathe out into the universe<br />
is the air we are going to inhale<br />
— physically and morally.<br />
Rarely do I sit on a park bench<br />
and ask myself, “Why is there something<br />
instead of nothing?” But then,<br />
as Father Walgrave said, I’m not a<br />
philosopher. My hope is that this little<br />
excursion into philosophy isn’t proof<br />
of that!<br />
8 • ANGELUS • <strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong>
‘AN UPLIFTING SPIRIT’<br />
Friends and collaborators believe Bishop Barron’s years in<br />
Santa Barbara have prepared him well for his new mission in Minnesota.<br />
BY MIKE NELSON AND PABLO KAY<br />
Bishop Robert E. Barron waves following his installation as the ninth Bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester on<br />
July 29 at the Co-Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Rochester. | DIOCESE OF WINONA-ROCHESTER<br />
10 • ANGELUS • <strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong>
After nearly seven years serving<br />
as an auxiliary bishop in the<br />
Archdiocese of Los Angeles, a<br />
new chapter in Bishop Robert E. Barron’s<br />
ministry as one of the Catholic<br />
Church’s most recognizable evangelists<br />
began halfway across the country.<br />
On Friday, July 29, the 62-year-old<br />
Chicago native was formally installed<br />
as the ninth bishop of the Diocese of<br />
Winona-Rochester in Minnesota. The<br />
Co-Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist<br />
in Rochester was filled with<br />
friends, family members, and<br />
hundreds of local faithful, along<br />
with 25 bishops and cardinals and<br />
the more than 100 priests and<br />
deacons who were on hand to<br />
witness the event.<br />
Archbishop Christophe Pierre,<br />
apostolic nuncio to the U.S.,<br />
was there as the representative<br />
of Pope Francis, who appointed<br />
Bishop Barron to the post on<br />
June 2. His remarks at the Mass<br />
gave some insight into the thinking<br />
behind the pope’s decision.<br />
“Bishop Barron, you have<br />
brought with you an uplifting<br />
spirit … and have unveiled yourself<br />
to countless people who thirst<br />
and hunger to satisfy themselves<br />
with the message of the good<br />
news,” said Archbishop Pierre.<br />
Citing his episocopal motto<br />
“<strong>No</strong>n Nisi Te Domine,” or “Only<br />
you, Lord,” Archbishop Pierre<br />
said that the core of Bishop Barron’s<br />
ministry of evangelization<br />
and preaching has helped countless<br />
people want God before anyone or<br />
anything else.<br />
“May your witness as a good shepherd,<br />
and may your preaching and<br />
writing always reflect the same spirit<br />
which you communicate to your people,”<br />
the nuncio told Bishop Barron.<br />
Bishop Barron’s new mission brings<br />
him to a diocese with more than<br />
100,000 Catholics in 107 parishes<br />
spread across more than <strong>12</strong>,000 square<br />
miles in southern Minnesota. Winona<br />
is home to St. Mary’s University of<br />
Minnesota, a Catholic liberal arts college<br />
founded in 19<strong>12</strong>, while Rochester<br />
is home to the world-famous Mayo<br />
Clinic. The diocese filed for Chapter<br />
11 bankruptcy in 2018, and in 2021<br />
announced a $21.5 million settlement<br />
with survivors of sexual abuse as part<br />
of a court-ordered reorganization<br />
plan.<br />
In his homily, Bishop Barron said<br />
that his threefold plan for the members<br />
of the diocese was represented<br />
by Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, whose<br />
feast the Church celebrated that day:<br />
to worship God alone; to care for the<br />
poor and those whom Jesus loves;<br />
and to evangelize others after being<br />
“unbound” by Jesus.<br />
Referencing Pope Francis, his longtime<br />
mentor the late Cardinal Francis<br />
George of Chicago, Bob Dylan, and<br />
Johnny Cash, Bishop Barron called<br />
on those in attendance with humor<br />
and sincerity to become close friends<br />
of Jesus Christ.<br />
“The task that’s been entrusted to<br />
me today by the Holy Father is to<br />
facilitate the process by which the<br />
people of this diocese become ever<br />
more deeply friends of Jesus,” Bishop<br />
Barron said.<br />
Back in Southern California,<br />
those who worked most closely<br />
with Bishop Barron during his<br />
time in the Santa Barbara Pastoral<br />
Region said he brought a special kind<br />
of energy that will be missed.<br />
In the early 2000s, Msgr. Jon Majarucon<br />
was pastor at Santa Clara Church<br />
in Oxnard when — via then-Chicago<br />
Auxiliary Bishop Gustavo Siller-Garcia,<br />
one of his St. John’s Seminary<br />
classmates — Father Robert Barron<br />
of Chicago and his Word on Fire<br />
evangelization ministry came to his<br />
attention.<br />
“Bishop Gustavo told me great things<br />
about Father Barron,” recalled Msgr.<br />
Majarucon, who soon tuned in to his<br />
podcasts and<br />
weekly homilies.<br />
“They<br />
Msgr. Jon Majarucon<br />
(left) with altar server<br />
were wonderful,<br />
and I<br />
Izzy Rocha and Bishop<br />
Barron before Mass at<br />
started telling<br />
St. Rafael Church in Goleta.<br />
| COURTESY MSGR.<br />
people, ‘You<br />
need to hear<br />
JON MAJARUCON<br />
this fellow.’ ”<br />
In 2015,<br />
Pope Francis<br />
named Father Barron an auxiliary<br />
bishop of Los Angeles for the<br />
Santa Barbara Pastoral Region,<br />
much to the delight of Msgr.<br />
Majarucon. “When he arrived,”<br />
said Msgr. Majarucon, now<br />
pastor of St. Raphael Church in<br />
Goleta, “people said, ‘Hey, wait<br />
a minute. This is the guy we’ve<br />
heard about. He’s like a modern-day<br />
Fulton Sheen. And he is<br />
our bishop!’ ”<br />
Over those seven years, Bishop<br />
Barron came to be known not<br />
only for his powerful preaching<br />
and deep commitment to faith,<br />
but for his personal warmth, friendliness,<br />
and accessibility.<br />
“From a professional perspective,<br />
Bishop Barron upped our game,” said<br />
<strong>No</strong>el Fuentes, pastoral associate at<br />
San Roque Church, Santa Barbara,<br />
who served as an assistant to Bishop<br />
Barron when he first arrived in his<br />
regional office. “He deepened our<br />
theological understanding of Church<br />
teaching, and why we believe what we<br />
believe.”<br />
But on a personal level, Fuentes said,<br />
Bishop Barron made it evident that<br />
“every single person matters to him.”<br />
“When he expresses gratitude, it’s<br />
real because he knows the challenges<br />
people face and he appreciates their<br />
kindnesses.”<br />
Priests of the region have also felt<br />
<strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong> • ANGELUS • 11
that kind of support.<br />
“For us as pastors, he understood our<br />
stress, especially with the shortage of<br />
priests,” said Msgr. Joseph Hernandez,<br />
pastor of Holy Cross Church in Moorpark.<br />
“He was very sensitive to that,<br />
and when we needed someone to fill<br />
in he would come, or he’d find someone<br />
who could. He had great energy,<br />
and that was very much evident in<br />
his ability to connect with people. He<br />
would stay after Mass and talk with<br />
them as long as they wanted to.”<br />
“He has a gift of relating to all people,”<br />
added Fuentes. “He can speak<br />
just as easily and meaningfully with a<br />
90-year-old parishioner after Mass as<br />
he can with a roomful of theologians.”<br />
After a few years in LA, he also<br />
improved his Spanish with the help<br />
of regional office executive assistant<br />
Silvia Morgan, a native of Argentina<br />
who became Bishop Barron’s Spanish<br />
tutor, using a method involving no<br />
use of English.<br />
“For the first two years of our acquaintance,<br />
he didn’t know I could<br />
even speak English,” Morgan recalled<br />
proudly. After a few years, Bishop<br />
Barron was able to celebrate his Holy<br />
Hour and even the entire Mass in<br />
Spanish.<br />
Perhaps more importantly, Bishop<br />
Barron demonstrated an ability to<br />
speak the language of the Church’s<br />
next generation.<br />
“He knows how to utilize social<br />
media,” asserted Msgr. Majarucon, recalling<br />
how, “at his first homily to our<br />
confirmation class, he pulled out his<br />
Smartphone and started to speak in<br />
the confirmandi’s language. The teens<br />
were delighted. He knew all the social<br />
media apps — Facebook, Instagram,<br />
TikTok, Waze — and knows how to<br />
effectively evangelize in this arena.”<br />
Msgr. Majarucon said that digital fluency,<br />
combined with his knowledge of<br />
Scripture and Church history, was “an<br />
inspiration” to him and other priests.<br />
“The quality of my homilies and<br />
RCIA teaching has improved very<br />
much since knowing him,” said the<br />
priest. “He gave his Word on Fire materials<br />
to us priests of the region, and<br />
they are very precious indeed if you<br />
listen to, learn, and apply them.”<br />
Bishop Barron’s presence and<br />
response to those in need was<br />
also appreciated by those of the<br />
region, especially during the massive<br />
fires, flooding, and other natural disasters<br />
that impacted Ventura and Santa<br />
Barbara Counties in 2017 and 2018.<br />
“Santa Barbara was cut off from the<br />
rest of the archdiocese for nearly a<br />
month after the Thomas Fire,” said<br />
Msgr. Majarucon. “But Bishop Barron<br />
weathered it well and made numerous<br />
phone calls to see if we were OK.<br />
He was the right bishop at the most<br />
difficult of times.”<br />
Archbishop José H. Gomez, who<br />
ordained Bishop Barron in 2015<br />
at the age of 55, together with the<br />
two other so-called “triplets” named<br />
auxiliary bishops for Los Angeles at<br />
the time, David G. O’Connell and<br />
Joseph Brennan, said he is certain<br />
that Bishop Barron “will be a great<br />
shepherd for the family of God in<br />
Winona-Rochester.”<br />
“I am very grateful for his service<br />
here in the Santa Barbara Pastoral<br />
Region over these past several years,”<br />
Archbishop Gomez said. “Personally, I<br />
am going to miss him, and so will the<br />
people of Santa Barbara and all of us<br />
in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.”<br />
The people of the region have<br />
observed, with awe, Bishop Barron’s<br />
ability to balance and maintain a<br />
Bishop Barron with young people at the LA Religious Education Congress’s Youth Day on March 17, <strong>2022</strong>. | VICTOR ALEMÁN<br />
<strong>12</strong> • ANGELUS • <strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong>
hectic schedule filled with regional<br />
responsibilities (including confirmation<br />
Masses), U.S. bishops’ committee<br />
obligations, and his Word on Fire<br />
ministry.<br />
“His schedule is insane,” chuckled<br />
Fuentes, one of several regional representatives<br />
who traveled to Minnesota<br />
for Bishop Barron’s installation. “The<br />
people of Winona-Rochester won’t<br />
know what hit them, in a good way,<br />
because he is a dynamo.”<br />
During his time in the region,<br />
Bishop Barron became a “treasured<br />
friend” to St. Thomas Aquinas<br />
College in Santa Paula, according to<br />
college president Paul J. O’Reilly.<br />
“He has shown great concern for<br />
our students, and regularly visited<br />
campus to celebrate our milestones,”<br />
said O’Reilly in a statement. “We are<br />
very grateful for his service, and we<br />
will pray for him as he ministers to the<br />
faithful of Minnesota.”<br />
“He is very young at heart,” added<br />
Msgr. Majarucon, who noted the bishop’s<br />
guitar skills and singing abilities.<br />
“Winona can expect a bishop who is<br />
Archbishop José H. Gomez<br />
and Bishop Barron with local<br />
priests following a farewell<br />
Mass of Thanksgiving July 10<br />
at the Santa Barbara Mission.<br />
| VICTOR ALEMÁN<br />
energetic,<br />
courageous,<br />
and a great<br />
champion of<br />
the Catholic<br />
tradition. I<br />
was proud<br />
to serve under him and will miss him<br />
very much. His priests will love him.”<br />
“He is primarily and preeminently<br />
a priest,” said Morgan, part of what<br />
Bishop Barron referred to as his “family”<br />
in Santa Barbara. “The center of<br />
his life’s mission is to evangelize the<br />
culture, without dumbing down the<br />
faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ and<br />
without becoming a guru.”<br />
“The people of Minnesota,” concluded<br />
Msgr. Hernandez, “are fortunate<br />
to have Bishop Barron in their<br />
midst. It will be very much to their<br />
benefit.”<br />
Mike Nelson is the former editor of<br />
The Tidings (predecessor of <strong>Angelus</strong>).<br />
Pablo Kay is the editor-in-chief of<br />
<strong>Angelus</strong>.<br />
<strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong> • ANGELUS • 13
Pope Francis kisses the hand of an indigenous leader during<br />
a meeting with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities<br />
at Maskwacis, Alberta, on July 25. | CNS/VATICAN MEDIA<br />
The power of an apology<br />
Pope Francis’ penitential pilgrimage to Canada<br />
cements his legacy as the ‘pope of mercy.’<br />
BY ELISE ANN ALLEN<br />
ROME — Since his election in<br />
2013, Pope Francis has garnered<br />
global attention for his defense<br />
of the poor and marginalized, as well<br />
as his gestures of tenderness and mercy<br />
toward the vulnerable.<br />
Pope Francis has become a champion<br />
of the underdog and has gone out of<br />
his way to shed light on those relegated<br />
to life’s peripheries. He has visited the<br />
poor and the disabled, met with victims<br />
of trafficking and clerical sexual abuse,<br />
and caressed the feet of prisoners and<br />
the faces of the disfigured.<br />
This side of the pope was on full<br />
display during his July 24-30 visit to<br />
Canada, where he issued a historic<br />
apology for the Church’s role in the<br />
country’s systematic effort to assimilate<br />
indigenous persons into Western<br />
culture through its residential school<br />
system.<br />
Children were forcibly removed<br />
from their families and enrolled in<br />
the schools, where they were often<br />
punished for speaking their native<br />
languages. Students endured physical,<br />
psychological, sexual, cultural, and<br />
spiritual abuse.<br />
In total, around 150,000 children<br />
of the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit<br />
Peoples were forced to attend the<br />
schools, many of which were run by<br />
Catholic missionary orders and other<br />
Christian churches, including the<br />
Anglican church.<br />
The system operated from the 1870s<br />
until 1996, when the last school was<br />
closed.<br />
Survivors of the residential schools<br />
have called the system part of a “cultural<br />
genocide” and say the experience<br />
has left deep generational scars.<br />
After landing in Edmonton from<br />
Rome on July 24, the pope traveled<br />
to the former Ermineskin residential<br />
school in Maskwacis, Alberta, where<br />
he met with members of the First Nations,<br />
Métis, and Inuit communities.<br />
In his speech, the pope said the first<br />
step of his journey to Canada was<br />
<strong>16</strong> • ANGELUS • <strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong>
“that of again<br />
asking forgiveness,<br />
of telling<br />
you once more<br />
that I am deeply<br />
sorry.”<br />
He then apologized<br />
“for the<br />
ways in which,<br />
regrettably, many<br />
Christians supported<br />
the colonizing<br />
mentality<br />
of the powers<br />
that oppressed<br />
the indigenous<br />
peoples.<br />
“I am sorry,” he repeated.<br />
A man is comforted by an<br />
indigenous leader during<br />
ceremonies in Maskwacis,<br />
Alberta, on July 25,<br />
where Pope Francis<br />
apologized to Canada’s<br />
native people on their<br />
land for the Church’s<br />
role in schools where<br />
indigenous children<br />
were abused. | CNS/<br />
ADAM SCOTTI, PRIME<br />
MINISTER’S HANDOUT<br />
VIA REUTERS<br />
Pope Francis asked forgiveness<br />
for the cooperation of the Catholic<br />
Church — especially members of<br />
religious communities — “in projects<br />
of cultural destruction and forced<br />
assimilation promoted by the governments<br />
of that time, which culminated<br />
in the system of residential schools.”<br />
Christian faith, he said, “tells us that<br />
this was a disastrous error, incompatible<br />
with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”<br />
The apology follows an initial mea<br />
culpa Pope Francis made in March,<br />
when a group of Canadian indigenous<br />
delegations visited the Vatican for<br />
a series of individual and collective<br />
meetings. After survivors shared their<br />
experiences, Pope Francis apologized<br />
for the Church’s “deplorable conduct”<br />
in the residential schools.<br />
His visit to Canada was intended<br />
as a continuation of this process of<br />
healing and reconciliation. It fulfills<br />
one of the “Calls to Action” issued by<br />
Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation<br />
Commission, which requested that<br />
the pope make an apology on Canadian<br />
soil.<br />
This papal trip differed from others<br />
in the sense that the pope’s decision<br />
to go was driven almost entirely by the<br />
need to make an apology, rather than<br />
for a separate ecclesial or diplomatic<br />
agenda.<br />
Though he was greeted by Canadian<br />
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau upon<br />
his arrival at Edmonton International<br />
Airport, Pope Francis did not meet<br />
with the country’s authorities until<br />
Wednesday, his third full day in Canada.<br />
Typically, the pope meets with<br />
heads of state at the start of a trip.<br />
In his speech to civil authorities and<br />
indigenous representatives on July 27,<br />
Pope Francis reiterated his apology,<br />
voicing his “deep shame and sorrow”<br />
for the Church’s past mistakes, and<br />
again asking forgiveness “for the<br />
wrong done by so many Christians to<br />
the indigenous peoples.”<br />
“It is tragic when some believers, as<br />
happened in that period of history,<br />
conform themselves to the conventions<br />
of the world rather than to the<br />
Pope Francis prays in<br />
front of a banner bearing<br />
the names of each of the<br />
4,<strong>12</strong>0 indigenous children<br />
and the residential<br />
school where they died,<br />
in this photo from his<br />
visit to in Maskwacis,<br />
Alberta, on July 25.<br />
| CNS/VATICAN MEDIA<br />
Gospel,” he said.<br />
While noteworthy<br />
and certainly<br />
of historic<br />
significance, this<br />
is hardly the first<br />
time a pope has<br />
apologized for<br />
something.<br />
During his first<br />
trip outside of<br />
Italy in 1964,<br />
St. Pope Paul<br />
VI visited the<br />
Holy Land, where he held a historic<br />
meeting with Orthodox Patriarch<br />
Athenagoras of Constantinople.<br />
Though Pope Paul did not verbalize<br />
a formal apology, his presence there<br />
and the symbolism of the meeting was<br />
in itself taken as a de facto apology<br />
<strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong> • ANGELUS • 17
for centuries of hostility following the<br />
split between Eastern and Western<br />
Christianity in 1054.<br />
St. Pope John Paul II took papal<br />
apologies to another level, as they<br />
became an almost routine feature of<br />
Francis’ apology in<br />
Canada stands out for<br />
the poignant language<br />
he used to describe<br />
the Church’s errors.<br />
his papacy. His most famous apology<br />
was made during the Great Jubilee<br />
of 2000, when he presided over a<br />
“Day of Pardon” liturgy in St. Peter’s<br />
Square in which he famously asked<br />
forgiveness from Jews, women, Muslims<br />
killed by Crusaders, and people<br />
convicted by the Inquisition.<br />
Pope Benedict XVI also made apologies<br />
during his eight-year reign, not<br />
only for the mistakes of the past, but<br />
also for ones committed during his<br />
tenure.<br />
Most prominently, Pope Benedict<br />
was the first pontiff to apologize in<br />
a personal capacity to victims of<br />
clerical sexual abuse during a visit to<br />
the United States in 2008. He also<br />
famously apologized to the world’s<br />
bishops in 2009 for mishandling the<br />
lifting of the excommunications of<br />
four traditionalist bishops, one of<br />
whom turned out to be a Holocaust<br />
denier.<br />
But Pope Francis’ apology in<br />
Canada for the Church’s sins in the<br />
residential schools stands out for<br />
the poignant language he used to<br />
describe the Church’s errors.<br />
<strong>No</strong>t only did he decry the “colonizing<br />
mentality” of the schools and<br />
their “projects of cultural destruction,”<br />
he said the “catastrophic” impact<br />
of the schools was un-Christian,<br />
and amounted to “a disastrous error,<br />
Builders of a new Church<br />
On Thursday, July 28, Pope Francis visited the Cathedral of <strong>No</strong>tre-Dame of Québec in Québec City for a vespers service<br />
with bishops, clergy, seminarians, religious, and pastoral workers. The following is adapted from his remarks at the service.<br />
In the spiritual deserts of our<br />
time, created by secularism and<br />
indifference, we need to return to<br />
the initial proclamation. We cannot<br />
presume to communicate the<br />
joy of faith by presenting secondary<br />
aspects to those who have not yet<br />
embraced the Lord in their lives,<br />
or by simply repeating certain<br />
practices or replicating older forms<br />
of pastoral work.<br />
We must find new ways to<br />
proclaim the heart of the Gospel<br />
to those who have not yet encountered<br />
Christ. This calls for<br />
a pastoral creativity capable of<br />
reaching people where they are<br />
living, finding opportunities for<br />
listening, dialogue, and encounter.<br />
We need to return to the simplicity<br />
and enthusiasm of the Acts of the<br />
Apostles.<br />
The Gospel is preached effectively<br />
when life itself speaks and<br />
reveals the freedom that sets others<br />
free, the compassion that asks for<br />
nothing in return, the mercy that<br />
silently speaks of Christ. The Church<br />
in Canada has set out on a new path,<br />
after being hurt and devastated by the<br />
evil perpetrated by some of its sons<br />
and daughters.<br />
Together with you, I would like once<br />
more to ask forgiveness of all the victims.<br />
The pain and the shame we feel<br />
must become an occasion for conversion:<br />
never again! And thinking about<br />
the process of healing and reconciliation<br />
with our indigenous brothers and<br />
sisters, never again can the Christian<br />
community allow itself to be infected<br />
by the idea that one culture is superior<br />
to others, or that it is legitimate to<br />
employ ways of coercing others.<br />
Let us recover the zeal of your first<br />
bishop, St. François de Laval, who<br />
railed against those who demeaned<br />
the indigenous people by inducing<br />
them to imbibe strong drink in<br />
order then to cheat them. Let us<br />
not allow any ideology to alienate<br />
or mislead the customs and ways<br />
of life of our peoples, as a means<br />
of subduing them or controlling<br />
them.<br />
In order to defeat this culture<br />
of exclusion, we must begin with<br />
ourselves: bishops and priests, who<br />
should not feel themselves superior<br />
to our brothers and sisters in the<br />
people of God; pastoral workers,<br />
who should not understand service<br />
as power.<br />
You are key figures and builders of<br />
a different Church: humble, meek,<br />
merciful, which accompanies<br />
processes, labors decisively and<br />
serenely in the service of inculturation,<br />
and shows respect for each<br />
individual and for every cultural<br />
and religious difference. Let us<br />
offer this witness!<br />
18 • ANGELUS • <strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong>
incompatible with<br />
the Gospel of<br />
Jesus Christ.”<br />
Calling the<br />
residential schools<br />
a “deplorable<br />
evil,” he said the<br />
Church now<br />
“kneels before<br />
Pope Francis visits the<br />
lake as he participates<br />
in the Lac Ste. Anne<br />
pilgrimage and Liturgy<br />
of the Word in Lac Ste.<br />
Anne, Alberta, on July<br />
26. | VATICAN MEDIA<br />
God and implores his forgiveness for<br />
the sins of her children.”<br />
As someone known for his gestures<br />
and for the visible symbolism of his<br />
words and deeds, Pope Francis put<br />
the Church’s face of mercy on full<br />
display with Canada’s indigenous<br />
communities during his midsummer<br />
visit.<br />
Pope Francis shines when he is with<br />
and among people who have been<br />
victimized, marginalized, brutalized,<br />
and abandoned, and the trip to Canada<br />
was no exception. In fact, this trip<br />
has only cemented that image, and<br />
will likely go down in Church history<br />
as part of his legacy as the “pope of<br />
mercy.”<br />
Elise Ann Allen is a senior correspondent<br />
for Crux in Rome, covering<br />
the Vatican and the global Church.<br />
<strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong> • ANGELUS • 19
Peace comes to the Golden Age<br />
For times when consensus within the Church seems<br />
impossible, St. Hilary of Poitiers shows the way.<br />
“The Ordination of Saint Hilary,”<br />
from a 14th-century manuscript.<br />
| WIKIMEDIA COMMONS<br />
BY MIKE AQUILINA<br />
It’s easy to fall into nostalgia, and a Catholic can be as<br />
prone to it as anyone. We forget that past ages had as<br />
many miseries as our own.<br />
Today, when we look back at the fourth century, we call<br />
it the Golden Age of Doctrine. The Church fielded a<br />
team of all-time greats, the theologians cited as authorities<br />
in textbooks ever afterward: St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St.<br />
Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Ambrose,<br />
St. Jerome, St. <strong>August</strong>ine, St. Chrysostom. Seven of the<br />
original eight doctors of the Church were writing during<br />
the fourth century.<br />
Theirs are the books that have survived. We read them<br />
and we think it must have been bliss to be alive in those<br />
days.<br />
But it wasn’t. St. Athanasius was exiled five times for his<br />
beliefs. St. Basil battled constantly against hostile leaders<br />
in church and state. Church politics drove St. Gregory<br />
of Nazianzus into profound depression. And St. Jerome<br />
noted that “the whole world” was suddenly dominated by<br />
the Arian heresy.<br />
If you walked into a church during the Golden Age, you<br />
were as likely to get bad doctrine as good.<br />
The Emperor Constantius once mocked St. Athanasius<br />
for standing absolutely alone in his defense of the Nicene<br />
Creed. The battle seemed to be “Athanasius against the<br />
world.”<br />
That’s an exaggeration, of course. The truth was that the<br />
situation was volatile, and the people were polarized.<br />
The crisis began in the year A.D. 318. Three centuries<br />
of persecution had finally come to an end. For the first<br />
time in history, Christians were free to practice their faith.<br />
Then, rather suddenly, the meaning of that faith was<br />
20 • ANGELUS • <strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong>
called into question by a priest in Alexandria, Egypt.<br />
His name was Arius, and he believed that Jesus was<br />
not divine in the way God the Father was divine. He<br />
preached that the Son was a creature, neither coeternal<br />
nor coequal with the Father. A genius at communication,<br />
Arius packed his doctrine into catchy hymns and slogans.<br />
He was also adept at networking, and he cultivated friendships<br />
with influential people in government.<br />
His ideas spread by every means, and converted many to<br />
his cause. Many, but not all, and those who declared their<br />
fidelity to the eternal triune God, were dogged in their<br />
loyalty. Thus churches were divided in two, and factions<br />
warred with factions over who had rights to the parish<br />
property. In many places the dispute erupted in violence.<br />
This was not a mere difference of opinion. It was threatening<br />
to divide the empire. The Emperor Constantine<br />
had labored long years for the unification of his territory<br />
and the legalization of Christianity. <strong>No</strong>w the Church<br />
seemed to be at war within itself — and was dragging the<br />
entire empire into the conflagration.<br />
In A.D. 325, the emperor summoned a meeting of bishops<br />
to settle the matter definitively. In fact, Constantine<br />
himself attended the Council of Nicaea and suggested<br />
the language that (he thought) would<br />
resolve the dispute. The bishops accepted<br />
his proposal. They imposed an<br />
anti-Arian creed.<br />
And that settled nothing.<br />
Some people opposed the Nicene<br />
Creed because they were Arians. But<br />
others thought it was impious to speak<br />
about the Trinity at all, except in the<br />
Old Bulgarian Icon<br />
of St. Athanasius the<br />
Great of Alexandria.<br />
| SHUTTERSTOCK<br />
exact words that appeared in Scripture. And still others<br />
thought the terms suggested at Nicaea were misleading<br />
— that they actually overcorrected Arius and landed in a<br />
different heresy.<br />
Far from settling anything, the council had actually<br />
stirred the pot. New voices rose from every city. Some<br />
proposed a language of compromise that might accommodate<br />
both sides of the debate. Soon there were more<br />
parties and factions than could be counted (or easily<br />
pronounced): Homoiousians, Homoians, Anomoeans,<br />
Apollinarians, Macedonians. Each had its shade of verbal<br />
difference and guarded it with passionate intensity.<br />
St. Athanasius did seem often to stand alone against<br />
the lot of them. He wasn’t there for the dialogue. If you<br />
weren’t with him, you were against him, and he tended to<br />
label all opposition as “Arian” — even the opponents who<br />
also opposed Arius.<br />
Through his long lifetime, he was steadfast and dogged.<br />
At his death, the world wondered how the argument<br />
would go forward. Who would take up the defense of<br />
Nicaea?<br />
The man often called “The Athanasius of the West” is<br />
St. Hilary of “Pictavium” (“Poitiers” in modern France).<br />
Raised in the old Roman religion, St. Hilary converted<br />
to Christianity as a young adult. He was a married man<br />
with a young daughter; but it seems that the whole family<br />
decided to commit their lives entirely to God. All three<br />
were active in the life of the Church. St. Hilary proved to<br />
be an effective teacher of the Nicene faith. When the office<br />
of bishop became vacant, the local people of Poitiers<br />
unanimously chose him.<br />
He was like St. Athanasius in many ways. He championed<br />
the faith of the Council of Nicaea. He opposed<br />
Arianism and stood up to the Emperor Constantius. And<br />
he suffered exile for all this.<br />
But St. Hilary’s methods and his virtues were very much<br />
his own — and they were quite distinct from those of his<br />
Egyptian colleague.<br />
Far more than St. Athanasius, he was willing to engage<br />
the legitimate concerns of those who were uneasy with<br />
the Nicene doctrine.<br />
He also strove to communicate in language that might<br />
persuade his opponents, and he was careful to avoid<br />
terms that might inflame or alienate them. When he<br />
wrote of the Trinity, for example, he avoided metaphors<br />
and images and confined himself to evidence from both<br />
Testaments of sacred Scripture. All analogies failed when<br />
applied to the divine mysteries. But Scripture stood as the<br />
<strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong> • ANGELUS • 21
universally accepted record of God’s self-revelation.<br />
When St. Hilary spoke of God, he strove for a dispassionate<br />
sobriety in his language. He preferred the “soundness of<br />
heavenly words” to “violent and headstrong preaching.”<br />
During his exile, he traveled extensively. He brushed up<br />
on his Greek and read the works of theologians in the East.<br />
He met with theologians from various parties in the current<br />
disputes. And he genuinely tried to understand them.<br />
With clear teaching and merciful<br />
action, St. Hilary was able to build a<br />
coalition and lay a solid foundation<br />
for Nicene orthodoxy in the West.<br />
While he was living in Phrygia, he attended whatever<br />
local councils he could. The Eastern bishops recognized<br />
his brilliance and his goodwill, and they allowed him to<br />
participate fully, even though his own diocese was very far<br />
away.<br />
St. Hilary was a brilliant builder of consensus. He was<br />
willing to work with people whose views were fundamentally<br />
different from his own. He strove to discern a common<br />
purpose and then make a common cause. He even<br />
collaborated with Arian bishops in common opposition to<br />
heresies that were far more radical.<br />
In all of this he maintained his integrity. And, as friendly<br />
as he was, he never accommodated his language, as some<br />
bishops did, in order to give equal cover to Nicene orthodoxy<br />
and Arian heresy.<br />
With clear teaching and merciful action, he was able to<br />
build a coalition and lay a solid foundation for Nicene<br />
orthodoxy in the West.<br />
The idea of a Golden Age is largely illusory. The fourth<br />
century was a muddle of confused theologizing. Yet the<br />
confusion itself made possible a profound development<br />
of the faith, because of great teachers. Yes, we can learn<br />
from St. Athanasius in his courage and precision. But let<br />
us also learn from St. Hilary in the ways he brought about<br />
peace and consensus without compromising the truth.<br />
Mike Aquilina is a contributing editor to <strong>Angelus</strong>. He is<br />
author of “The Fathers of the Church” (Our Sunday Visitor,<br />
$18.95) and host of the “Way of the Fathers” podcast.
God speaks to the soul through the subtleties of a<br />
Trappistine monastery in <strong>No</strong>rthern California.<br />
Redwoods Monastery. | ©REDWOODS MONASTERY<br />
A refuge in the Redwoods<br />
BY FATHER DORIAN LLYWELYN, SJ<br />
Deep in the redwood forests of Mendocino County<br />
along the Lost Coast of California, a small but remarkable<br />
community of Trappistine nuns has been<br />
quietly living for 60 years.<br />
Founded in 1962 by sisters from the Abbey of Our Lady<br />
of Nazareth in Belgium, the monastery of Our Lady of the<br />
Redwoods is a special place where the ancient monastic<br />
traditions of prayer, silence, hospitality, and hard work have<br />
found a distinctively American home.<br />
My first visit to Redwoods Abbey was in 1995. In grad<br />
school in Berkeley, I’d taken a memorable class on Thomas<br />
Merton, the Trappist monk who was one of the most influential<br />
American Catholic writers of the 20th century, and<br />
who interpreted monasticism to generations of Americans. I<br />
knew the abbey was the last place he had visited in the U.S.<br />
before traveling to Asia, where he met his untimely death.<br />
A long, scenic drive from Berkeley on the winding Highway<br />
101 through the towering redwoods brought us to the<br />
monastery. It’s no Gothic pile, but rather a group of small<br />
and simple buildings, with the austere monastery church at<br />
its center. Inside the buildings there are polished concrete<br />
floors and plain wood furnishings. Sunlight streams in<br />
through large glass windows, filtered through the branches<br />
of giant sequoias that were saplings when the Cistercian<br />
order was established in Cîteaux, France, almost 1,000 years<br />
ago.<br />
On that first visit I was fortunate to meet three of the original<br />
founding sisters from Belgium, who had all been young<br />
nuns when Merton visited, and whom Merton mentions in<br />
“The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton” (New Directions,<br />
$18.95). Our conversations were short, but I’ve remembered<br />
them all throughout the years. Cistercian wisdom<br />
rang out in how the sisters talked about prayer and Scripture,<br />
the monastic vocation, and their particular care for the<br />
place they lived in.<br />
“In Europe, we tend to see God in history,” one of them<br />
had told me. “But here, it is easier to find God in nature.”<br />
They struck me as remarkable people, women who understood<br />
the workings of the human mind as well as they<br />
did the mystery of the soul. I never forgot them but had<br />
treasured those encounters.<br />
This summer after 27 years, I returned to Redwoods<br />
24 • ANGELUS • <strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong>
Monastery for a weeklong retreat. It was a chance to pray<br />
and join in the sacred silence. Half a lifetime later, I am<br />
welcomed again with classic monastic hospitality. Little<br />
has changed, but only one of the original Belgian sisters remains,<br />
Sister Veronique, a strikingly luminous and humorous<br />
90-year-old. The American sister I remember as a young<br />
nun has succeeded Sister Myriam Dardenne, OSCO, the<br />
Belgian foundress, who is buried there.<br />
The community is small: demanding monastic life is not<br />
for everyone. But “the work of God” continues: silence,<br />
prayer, and simplicity in all things. The psalms are sung day<br />
and night, expressing and shaping the nuns’ inner world.<br />
This visit, I am struck less by the remarkable architecture<br />
(the chapel, I think, is one of the most beautiful modern<br />
churches I have ever seen) and more by the dramatic environs<br />
of the ancient redwoods. It is rare to be a part of such<br />
a pristine world: walking along the roads surrounding the<br />
monastery, there is no litter and few signs of 21st-century<br />
human habitation.<br />
Most of the time, there is near absolute silence, the only<br />
sounds being the wind whispering through the trees,<br />
chirping birds, and the occasional passing car. That external<br />
quiet is mirrored by the internal silence of the monastic life.<br />
The nuns’ work in the garden and kitchen is interspersed<br />
with the occasional ringing of the bell calling the community<br />
to chant the psalms together several times in the day<br />
and night.<br />
This mosaic of soft sound and the rhythm of work and<br />
prayer make it easier to listen for the voice of God.<br />
On my first night of retreat, with my mind still full of the<br />
busyness of my current ministry, I woke at 3 a.m. in the<br />
concrete block guesthouse. I rose from my bed and wandered<br />
outside. The sky was a kaleidoscope of bright stars<br />
— more than I had ever seen. Quite literally I gasped at<br />
what seemed at first glimpse more like a hallucination than<br />
reality: the Milky Way unfurled in all its glory.<br />
Psalm 8 leapt unbidden to my mind:<br />
“When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers,<br />
the moon and the stars, which you set in place —<br />
What is man that you are mindful of him,<br />
and a son of man that you care for him?”<br />
The night sky put me firmly in my place. Whether we see<br />
them or not, the stars are there. They show forth the glory<br />
of God.<br />
The praise of God by the Church and creation alike continues<br />
day and night. It’s a blessing, however rare or brief, to<br />
join with it in whatever way we can.<br />
Father Dorian Llywelyn, SJ, is president of the Institute for<br />
Advanced Catholic Studies at USC, an independent research<br />
center located at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts,<br />
and Sciences.
INTERSECTIONS<br />
GREG ERLANDSON<br />
Is Catholic journalism yesterday’s news?<br />
I<br />
was reading the Los Angeles Times<br />
before I went to my first rock<br />
concert. Before my first PG movie,<br />
probably. I’ve been reading the Times<br />
for so long I can remember when it<br />
was conservative.<br />
I would get the paper for my dad<br />
from the driveway every morning.<br />
Standing in bare feet on the concrete,<br />
I’d open it and scan the headlines<br />
before I brought it inside.<br />
My addiction to news, in other<br />
words, is longstanding, and I’ve been<br />
this way for decades: reading, listening,<br />
watching, producing. Getting up<br />
with it in the morning. Inviting it into<br />
bed at night. But I have a confession<br />
to make. It is getting harder and harder<br />
to be a news junkie. That was why I<br />
was so fascinated by a similar confession<br />
from another journalist, Amanda<br />
Ripley, in a Washington Post column<br />
titled, “I stopped reading the news. Is<br />
the problem me — or the product?”<br />
The problem is partly me. I have<br />
consumed ever larger quantities<br />
of news because it is so easy. The<br />
internet, podcasts, my phone — news<br />
is everywhere. “The news crept into<br />
every crevice of my life,” Ripley wrote.<br />
Ditto.<br />
But part of the problem is the stories<br />
we are being told.<br />
Ripley says we aren’t equipped to<br />
handle news, conflict, controversy, disasters<br />
24/7. The nonstop coverage too<br />
often leaves us agitated and anxious,<br />
yet provides us with no hope, no way<br />
we can do something about whatever<br />
the disasters are we read about. Go<br />
through any normal newspaper (of<br />
which there are fewer and fewer) and<br />
count the anxiety-producing news<br />
stories and the anger-producing commentaries.<br />
They are overwhelming.<br />
This is why, Ripley suggests, that an<br />
estimated 40% of Americans are avoiding<br />
the news. The news industry is in<br />
crisis. This crisis extends to Catholic<br />
media as well.<br />
At the recent<br />
The front page of a<br />
recent issue of Catholic<br />
New York, newspaper<br />
of the Archdiocese of<br />
New York. The publication<br />
announced May<br />
19 it will publish its last<br />
issue on <strong>No</strong>v. 17.<br />
| CNS/TYLER ORSBURN<br />
Catholic Media<br />
Conference in<br />
Portland, Oregon,<br />
<strong>No</strong>tre Dame<br />
professor Timothy<br />
O’Malley<br />
gave a keynote<br />
address on the<br />
future of Catholic<br />
journalism.<br />
“The Church is<br />
experiencing a<br />
crisis related to<br />
communications,” he said. This isn’t<br />
a matter of switching from newsprint<br />
to Facebook. Rather, it is a crisis of<br />
authority that is afflicting church,<br />
state, and press.<br />
The worry of all this, to paraphrase<br />
G.K. Chesterton, is that to distrust<br />
all traditional authority and news<br />
media does not mean one believes<br />
in nothing. Rather, it becomes more<br />
likely one might believe anything.<br />
The vacuum left in distrust’s wake is<br />
filled with fake news and distorted<br />
news. We become both more suspicious<br />
and more credulous, as recent<br />
years have shown. This is dangerous<br />
for democracy, and it is dangerous for<br />
a Church that believes its very mission<br />
of evangelization hinges on both<br />
authority and trust.<br />
In the world of Catholic journalism,<br />
many dioceses are replacing their<br />
papers with inspirational magazines<br />
or poorly trafficked websites. Local<br />
Catholic news is getting harder to<br />
26 • ANGELUS • <strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong>
Greg Erlandson is the president and<br />
editor-in-chief of Catholic <strong>News</strong> Service.<br />
find. (The Archdiocese of Los Angeles<br />
is a rarity in that it supports not only<br />
a magazine of news and culture, but<br />
also newsletters, a dynamic website,<br />
and active social media.)<br />
In both the nation — where a<br />
quarter of all newspapers have folded<br />
since 2005 — and the Church, with a<br />
40% drop, the decline of news media<br />
suggests a crisis of involvement and<br />
engagement with long-term implications.<br />
Without using the phrase, both<br />
O’Malley and Ripley lean in the<br />
direction of something being proposed<br />
as “constructive” or “solutions<br />
journalism.”<br />
It grows out of a concern that if all<br />
we journalists can do is describe how<br />
terrible the world is, we will continue<br />
to lose readers. We need to give<br />
people some hope, some means of<br />
responding.<br />
For Ripley, hope is critical. “There is<br />
a way to communicate news — including<br />
very bad news — that leaves<br />
us better off as a result,” she wrote.<br />
For O’Malley, too much of Catholic<br />
journalism has descended into<br />
“propaganda,” ideological clashes, or a<br />
kind of safe parochialism that neither<br />
offends nor interests. The answer is to<br />
engage the world, not run from it or<br />
wag a finger at it.<br />
“The Church is not a culture<br />
meant to be turned in upon herself,<br />
but a culture intended to be leaven<br />
for every dimension of human life,”<br />
O’Malley said. “Our neighbors’ joys<br />
and sufferings are our joys and sufferings,<br />
no matter if they’re Catholic or<br />
not.”<br />
If journalism, Catholic or otherwise,<br />
is not just to survive but thrive, we<br />
need to get beyond stoking outrage or<br />
playing it safe by not outraging anybody.<br />
What we need is to give people<br />
a sense of their own agency, that there<br />
is hope, and they can contribute.<br />
At its best, Catholic journalism<br />
has always tried to tell its story with<br />
truth, not propaganda, with charity,<br />
not scapegoating. The question now<br />
is if this kind of journalism can still<br />
be produced, and if it will have the<br />
support of both its publishers and its<br />
readers.<br />
<strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong> • ANGELUS • 27
NOW PLAYING NOPE<br />
NO MONSTERS HERE<br />
Jordan Peele’s summer box-office success ‘<strong>No</strong>pe’<br />
rethinks the distinction between man and beast.<br />
Daniel Kaluuya in “<strong>No</strong>pe.” | IMDB<br />
BY JOSEPH JOYCE<br />
In the beginning, God gave mankind<br />
dominion over the fish of the sea,<br />
the birds of the air, the cattle, the<br />
wild animals of the earth, and every<br />
creeping thing.<br />
And ever since the beginning, we<br />
have done a lousy job with that charge.<br />
Those fish swim in polluted water, the<br />
birds get pureed in our wind turbines,<br />
the cattle become our unhappiest<br />
meals, the wild animals simply cease to<br />
exist, and the creepy crawly creatures<br />
are promptly stomped upon. If this<br />
were a fair workplace, we’d have been<br />
fired long ago. Luckily, we are God’s<br />
children and coast by on nepotism.<br />
After centuries of abject cruelty to<br />
animals, the pendulum has mercifully<br />
swung in the opposite direction. But as<br />
any jaded 1970s suburban housewife<br />
will tell you, there is such a thing as<br />
swinging too far. While humanity has<br />
become far more affectionate to the<br />
animal kingdom, affection isn’t the<br />
same as respect.<br />
The tendency is now toward anthropomorphism;<br />
that is, the reading of<br />
human traits into nonhuman creatures<br />
or objects. Decades of Disney films<br />
have trained us to see animals as mere<br />
extensions of ourselves, hence the<br />
attention we give our “fur babies.” Even<br />
the pope, with a whiff of exasperation,<br />
had to remind his flock that a dog isn’t<br />
a substitute for an actual child.<br />
Jordan Peele’s recent film, “<strong>No</strong>pe,” is<br />
a healthy corrective to this mentality.<br />
While the trailers paint it as a sci-fi horror<br />
flick, Peele directs our attention to<br />
the alien mind of our fellow earthlings,<br />
the animal. In doing so, he retraces the<br />
dividing line between man and beast.<br />
The film opens with a quote from<br />
an oft-neglected prophet of the Bible,<br />
Nahum: “I will cast abominable filth<br />
upon you, make you vile and make you<br />
a spectacle.” That introduces an apocalyptic<br />
pall over the rest of the proceedings,<br />
the promised reckoning hanging<br />
like the sword of Damocles.<br />
The film then cuts to the flashback<br />
aftermath of a cheesy 1990s sitcom<br />
called “Gordy’s Home,” where the titular<br />
Gordy, a chimpanzee, has broken<br />
training and attacked the cast. Decked<br />
in an ignoble birthday hat and pajama<br />
get-up, the chimp snarls furiously while<br />
splattered in blood. Nahum’s prophecy<br />
seems immediately fulfilled, as we see<br />
that Gordy’s life as a comedic doll has<br />
only funneled his rage. Importantly,<br />
Gordy spares one cast member from his<br />
wrath, the child actor Jupe.<br />
Next, we meet the present-day<br />
Haywood siblings, OJ and Em, who<br />
train and handle horses for Hollywood<br />
productions. Although some 30 years<br />
have passed since the Gordy incident,<br />
we see that the industry hasn’t internal-<br />
28 • ANGELUS • <strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong>
ized any lessons. Cast and crew ignore<br />
OJ’s warnings to give the horse space<br />
and not look it in the eye, and instead<br />
provoke it into nearly kicking an actress.<br />
Unlike the filmmakers, the siblings recognize<br />
that animals operate from their<br />
own set of rules and that working with<br />
them is negotiating those principles to<br />
align with the objective at hand.<br />
When OJ spots a UFO in the sky<br />
back at the ranch, he conspires with<br />
his sister to snap a picture and reap a<br />
much-needed payday. But in their photographic<br />
pursuit, OJ realizes that what<br />
he thought was a ship piloted by aliens<br />
turns out to be an alien itself, a flying<br />
jellyfish-like creature who is unfortunately<br />
carnivorous. OJ made the same<br />
mistake as his employers: projecting<br />
bipedal intelligence onto a creature of<br />
its own principle.<br />
Jupe, now an adult, owns a western<br />
theme park near Haywood’s horse<br />
ranch. Still traumatized by his experience,<br />
he believes it was a special, personal<br />
connection to Gordy that saved<br />
him. That vanity is necessary for his<br />
continued sanity, but ultimately dooms<br />
Jupe. He also thinks the flying alien is<br />
a ship and, believing he’s communicating<br />
with sapient intelligence, starts<br />
making “gifts” of horses to the creature,<br />
purchased from the unsuspecting Haywoods.<br />
He mistakes it for a partnership,<br />
but it is the equivalent of tying up a<br />
goat for a Tyrannosaurus Rex.<br />
When Jupe makes the fatal mistake of<br />
making entertainment out of the bargain,<br />
he inadvertently repeats history:<br />
the alien is his new Gordy, a wild being<br />
operating on an entirely foreign logic<br />
from his own, and one that doesn’t<br />
quite like performing for an audience.<br />
The consequences ultimately echo<br />
Nahum’s grisly warning.<br />
“<strong>No</strong>pe” is a story about the revenge<br />
of the spectacle, where the various<br />
“show animals” turn the tables on their<br />
human overlords. As with the epigraph,<br />
there are hints of divine retribution.<br />
Peele reportedly modeled his creature<br />
off the aliens from the anime “Neon<br />
Genesis Evangelion,” themselves inspired<br />
by biblical descriptions of angels.<br />
The flying menace certainly resembles<br />
an avenging messenger from the Lord:<br />
At one point, it spews out the refuse<br />
of previous victims onto their house<br />
in crimson rain, quite literally casting<br />
“abominable filth” upon them.<br />
Those who survive the climactic encounter<br />
do so not by acting like masters<br />
or victims, but stewards. They respond<br />
based on its behavior and logic, not<br />
their own. The creature’s ultimate defeat<br />
is a reminder that animals are still<br />
subject to human dominion. Rather<br />
than simple kingship, God gave us the<br />
brains to outwit each of our subjects.<br />
It’s less monarchy than Viking fiefdom,<br />
and every day we must bat down<br />
challengers.<br />
“<strong>No</strong>pe” blends several genres, from<br />
science fiction to horror and even western.<br />
Yet one label that doesn’t belong is<br />
“monster movie.” The term “monster”<br />
implies malicious intent, but how can<br />
a creature be evil if it doesn’t share our<br />
morality?<br />
A line from Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers<br />
Karamazov” says it best: “People talk<br />
sometimes of a bestial cruelty, but that’s<br />
a great injustice and insult to the beasts;<br />
a beast can never be so cruel as a man,<br />
so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears<br />
and gnaws, that’s all he can do.”<br />
Scholars have long wrangled over the<br />
distinction between man and beast.<br />
Tools? Language? “Fast & Furious 9”<br />
films? Peele suggests the true difference<br />
can be found in expectation: To whom<br />
much is given, much is expected. Man<br />
is the only animal rational enough for<br />
moral obligation. If humans are the<br />
only animals capable of good, then<br />
it follows that we are also the only<br />
animals capable of evil. In the end, our<br />
irresponsible stewardship creates our<br />
own monsters.<br />
Joseph Joyce is a screenwriter and freelance<br />
critic based in Sherman Oaks.<br />
<strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong> • ANGELUS • 29
DESIRE LINES<br />
HEATHER KING<br />
Evelyn and the freedom to do good<br />
Fabiola and Evelyn. | DENNIS APEL<br />
“We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what<br />
they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right<br />
we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they<br />
want with all their hearts to know the source of it.” —<br />
Madeleine L’Engle, author of “A Wrinkle in Time”<br />
My friend Tensie Hernandez helps run a Catholic<br />
Worker house up on the Central Coast. Last week<br />
she told me about one of the women she treats at<br />
their free clinic.<br />
Fabiola is married to Nano. Their oldest child, Evelyn, 26,<br />
was born with cerebral palsy. She’s blind and mute. She has a<br />
tracheotomy and a feeding tube.<br />
“La Reina,” Fabiola calls her. “The Queen.”<br />
For all of Evelyn’s life, Fabiola has risen twice, in the middle<br />
of the night, to turn her so that she won’t get bedsores. “Twice<br />
on a good night,” Tensie adds. “That’s assuming Evelyn’s<br />
not sick, or that one of her tubes hasn’t clogged and she’s<br />
breathing OK.”<br />
Recently Fabiola came to Tensie with a story: “Doña, the<br />
funniest thing happened the other night!”<br />
Turns out Fabiola had gotten up at 2 a.m. as usual to turn<br />
Evelyn, bumped into something, and drawn back, startled.<br />
Unbeknownst to Fabiola, Nano had also gotten up to turn<br />
Evelyn! They met over her bed, in the dark. The two of them<br />
cracked up laughing.<br />
After years of working in the fields, Nano now drives a delivery<br />
truck for a large chain store. And Fabiola, does she work?<br />
“Oh no. Caring for Evelyn is a full-time job. That’s her life.”<br />
After Evelyn, Fabiola and Nano had two able-bodied sons,<br />
now teenagers, of whom they couldn’t be more proud.<br />
Fabiola adores them, too, of course, but her mothering is<br />
no-nonsense. “I love you all,” she tells them, “but Evelyn is<br />
our priority.”<br />
What’s really incredible, Tensie adds, is that Fabiola is<br />
always in a good mood. “Ya llego la alegria, I tell her. ‘Here<br />
comes happiness.’ Seriously, she is chronically joyful. Always<br />
happy to see me, always grateful. Always up for a chat.”<br />
Every couple of years, Evelyn lands in the hospital. It’s<br />
usually fairly dire.<br />
“Last time I visited Fabiola had Mass running on the TV.<br />
Evelyn looked pretty bad. She’s lying there, not moving. And<br />
Fabi’s going: ‘You watch, Evelyn, the pope is gonna pray for<br />
us! Don’t you worry, we’re going to beat this thing. And now<br />
Hortensia is here to pray, too! Everything’s OK! You’re going<br />
to get better!”<br />
“Look,” Fabiola turns to me. “See how happy she is!”<br />
“I couldn’t tell,” Tensie said. “But I have not a doubt in the<br />
world that in the deepest part of her soul Evelyn was happy.<br />
She knows, every minute of every day, that she is loved.”<br />
Afterward, I couldn’t get the image of Fabiola and Evelyn —<br />
this modern-day madonna and child — out of my mind.<br />
We’ve heard a lot about freedom these past weeks, but the<br />
only real freedom, it seems to me, is the freedom to do good.<br />
That is a freedom that can neither be granted, nor revoked,<br />
by any government, political body, or man-made law.<br />
30 • ANGELUS • <strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong>
Heather King is an award-winning<br />
author, speaker, and workshop leader.<br />
Viktor Frankl, author of the classic “Man’s Search for Meaning”<br />
(Beacon Press, $15), learned to exercise that freedom in<br />
the Nazi death camps when he discovered that in the face of<br />
torture and starvation he could choose his attitude.<br />
Christ exercised that freedom on the cross, when at the mercy<br />
of his executioners, the high priests of Jewish law, and the<br />
entire Roman government, he said, “Forgive them, Father,<br />
for they know not what they do.”<br />
Fabiola, rising twice each night to turn her child, is one<br />
example of the freedom to do good; to love one another as<br />
Christ loved us, in action. To be for life, that example demonstrates,<br />
is not reducible to a slogan, a badge, a vote.<br />
To be for all of life is a martyrdom that would not dream of<br />
proclaiming itself; that has built into it a hiddenness, a humility<br />
on the opposite end of the spectrum from our cultural<br />
notions of victory, worldly power, political clout, and pride.<br />
Such a life is impervious to commodification, marketing,<br />
lobbying efforts. It simply is. You can do with it what you will;<br />
think of it what you want.<br />
You can say, that’s a life of unalloyed suffering and labor.<br />
OK — but how do you explain away the strange happiness,<br />
the joy?<br />
You can say, but no one should be forced into such a life.<br />
OK. The fact remains that someone freely chose it.<br />
You don’t have to respond to that fact. But to fail to respond,<br />
to refuse to ponder a life like Fabiola’s — and a life like Evelyn’s<br />
— is to deny the deepest questions of human existence.<br />
“I AM,” Christ said (John 8:58). And if he is not there, night<br />
after night, as Fabiola and Nano watch over Evelyn, I don’t<br />
know where else he would be.<br />
In the dark, a man and a woman joined by marriage meet<br />
to turn their grown daughter’s wasted body. That is a place<br />
a world away from the chambers of the Supreme Court,<br />
a voting booth, a march. That is a place on a par with the<br />
confessional, the last rites, the gate where the sheep will be<br />
separated from the goats.<br />
That is consecrated time and space, beyond the kingdom of<br />
this world.<br />
It is a light so bright that I, for one, want with all my heart to<br />
know the source of it.<br />
<strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong> • ANGELUS • 31
LETTER AND SPIRIT<br />
SCOTT HAHN<br />
Scott Hahn is founder of the<br />
St. Paul Center for Biblical<br />
Theology; stpaulcenter.com.<br />
Shaking out the Psalter<br />
First in a series on the Book of Psalms.<br />
<strong>No</strong> portion of Scripture is so familiar to Catholics as<br />
the Book of Psalms. It’s the only book of the Bible<br />
that is read at every Mass; and the responsorial<br />
psalm is the only Scripture reading of the Mass that the<br />
congregation recites along with the lector, cantor, or priest.<br />
It’s likely, too, that on any given Sunday, any given Catholic<br />
will sing a hymn adapted from the psalms. From “O God,<br />
Our Help in Ages Past” and “Bringing in the Sheaves” to<br />
“Sing a New Song” and “On Eagles’ Wings,” the psalms<br />
dominate our hymnals.<br />
It’s no wonder, then, that the lines of these ancient Hebrew<br />
poems come so readily to mind.<br />
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” (23:1).<br />
“O Taste and see that the Lord is good” (34:8).<br />
“Out of the mouths of babes …” (8:2).<br />
“Keep me as the apple of your eye” (17:8).<br />
“The Lord is my light and my salvation” (27:1).<br />
“Make a joyful noise to the Lord” (98:7).<br />
“Teach us to number our days” (90:<strong>12</strong>).<br />
“Deep calls to deep” (42:7).<br />
“Decorated Initial D,”<br />
illuminator unknown,<br />
1420-1430, tempera<br />
colors, gold leaf, gold<br />
paint, and ink.<br />
| GETTY MUSEUM<br />
The list could run on for pages. And<br />
this is hardly a modern phenomenon.<br />
For all of Christian history, the Psalms<br />
have provided the most quoted and<br />
quotable passages of Scripture. The<br />
Psalter is, by far, the Old Testament<br />
book quoted most frequently in the New<br />
Testament. It is the Old Testament book<br />
most contemplated by the Fathers of the<br />
Church. From those earliest days, the psalms have filled<br />
the days of monks and nuns. In the ancient Church, there<br />
were monasteries given to perpetual recitation of the Psalms,<br />
round the clock, all year long. Down to this day, cloistered<br />
communities still recite all 150 Psalms. The pace varies from<br />
East to West. The solitaries of the Egyptian desert, I’m told,<br />
recite the entire Psalter every single day!<br />
So no one could credibly claim that the psalms have<br />
been ignored in the life of the Church. <strong>No</strong>r will I. But I do<br />
believe that the psalms have been underappreciated, even<br />
where they’ve been most diligently read or chanted.<br />
The problem — and it’s a good problem to have — comes<br />
from our delight in each individual psalm. For each and<br />
every one of the psalms is a unique poetic gem. Each psalm<br />
gleams with its own insight, its own manner of expression.<br />
Each psalm can stand on its own literary merits.<br />
Yet I maintain, with a growing number of scholars, that we<br />
can’t fully appreciate these gems unless we see them in their<br />
intended setting — a setting intended by their human authors,<br />
their human anthologists, and by their divine Author.<br />
We need to see the structural unity of the entire Psalter, the<br />
narrative thread that runs from psalm 1 to 150.<br />
Over the next several issues, I intend to take up such a<br />
study, and I hope you’ll join me. Let’s shake up the Psalter<br />
and sing a song that’s ever new.<br />
32 • ANGELUS • <strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong>
■ SATURDAY, AUGUST 6<br />
Office of Ethnic Ministry: Memorial Mass. Incarnation<br />
Church, 1001 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, 10 a.m. Celebrant:<br />
Bishop Alex Aclan. Mass will be celebrated for all OEM<br />
members and families who have died during the pandemic,<br />
shooting, war, or in their home countries. All are welcome.<br />
For more information, email Magdalene Lau at maggielau00@hotmail.com.<br />
■ TUESDAY, AUGUST 9<br />
Memorial Mass. San Fernando Mission, 15151 San Fernando<br />
Mission Blvd., Mission Hills, 91345, 11 a.m. Mass is<br />
virtual and not open to the public. Livestream available at<br />
CatholicCM.org or Facebook.com/lacatholics.<br />
■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10<br />
LACBA Family Law Clinic. Zoom clinic runs 2-5 p.m.,<br />
covering child support, child custody, divorce, and spousal<br />
support. Open to veterans in LA County. Registration<br />
required; call 213-896-6537 or email inquiries-veterans@<br />
lacba.org.<br />
■ FRIDAY, AUGUST <strong>12</strong><br />
Retrouvaille: A Lifeline for Married Couples. Santa<br />
Clarita weekend program runs Aug. <strong>12</strong>-14. Retrouvaille is<br />
an effective Catholic Christian ministry that helps married<br />
couples. The program offers the chance to rediscover yourself,<br />
your spouse, and the love in your marriage. Married<br />
couples of any faith are welcome. For more information,<br />
visit helpourmarriage.com or call 661-257-7980.<br />
■ SATURDAY, AUGUST 13<br />
Archdiocesan Eucharistic Congress. Cathedral of Our<br />
Lady of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 9<br />
a.m.-5:30 p.m. Join Archbishop José H. Gomez for Mass,<br />
exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, music, presentations<br />
by <strong>No</strong>el Diaz, Christ Stefanick, and more. For more information<br />
and to register, visit lacatholics.org/eucharist.<br />
■ MONDAY, AUGUST 15<br />
Iconography Workshop. St. Kateri Tekakwitha Church,<br />
22508 Copper Hill Dr., Santa Clarita. Tenth annual Iconography<br />
Workshop will be held <strong>August</strong> 15-19, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.<br />
Participants receive a creative, hands-on experience of<br />
studio time, prayer, and instruction in writing an icon of St.<br />
Thérèse of Lisieux. Instructor: master iconographer Nicholas<br />
Markell. Cost: $650, includes materials, instruction,<br />
and daily lunch. For more information, call Kevin Kipper at<br />
661-645-1431 or email iconic@socal.rr.com.<br />
■ SATURDAY, AUGUST 20<br />
Trevor Thomson Benefit Concert. Holy Name of Mary<br />
Church, 724 E. Bonita Ave., San Dimas. Suggested donation:<br />
$20. Proceeds will benefit the Sacred Hearts Secular<br />
Branch, Inc. For more information, email sacredheartssb@<br />
ymail.com, call Stephany at 909-260-2033 or Terri at 909-<br />
459-9487.<br />
St. Barnabas Parish Rummage Sale. 3955 Orange Ave.,<br />
Long Beach, 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Hosted by Knights of Columbus<br />
#3449. Books, clothing, appliances, etc., no large items.<br />
Drop off items at the rear parking lot basketball courts.<br />
For more information, call James Teahan at 562-221-3296<br />
or visit stbarnabaslb.org.<br />
■ MONDAY, AUGUST 22<br />
Opus Angelorum/Mission on the Angel. Sacred Heart<br />
Chapel, 381 W. Center St., Covina, 6 p.m.-8:30 p.m. Event<br />
runs Aug. 22-24, and includes rosary, conferences, confessions,<br />
and Mass. On Wednesday, participants will have the<br />
opportunity to apply for consecration to one’s guardian<br />
angel next year. For more information, contact Trish at<br />
877-526-2151.<br />
■ FRIDAY, AUGUST 26<br />
The Art and Soul of Journaling. Holy Spirit Retreat Center,<br />
43<strong>16</strong> Lanai Road, Encino. Weekend retreat with Ella Weiss,<br />
MFT, runs Friday, Aug. 26 at 5:30 p.m. through Sunday,<br />
Aug. 28 at 1 p.m. For more information, visit hsrcenter.com<br />
or call 818-784-4515.<br />
Prayer, Protest, and Power. Holy Spirit Retreat Center,<br />
43<strong>16</strong> Lanai Road, Encino. Weekend retreat on “The Spirituality<br />
of St. Julie Billiart” with Father Stephen Coffey, OSB,<br />
Cam, runs Friday, Aug. 26 at 5:30 p.m. through Sunday,<br />
Aug. 28 at 1 p.m. For more information, visit hsrcenter.com<br />
or call 818-784-4515.<br />
■ WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7<br />
“What Catholics Believe” weekly series. St. Dorothy<br />
Church, 241 S. Valley Center Ave., Glendora, 7-8:30 p.m.<br />
Series runs Wednesdays through April 26, 2023. Deepen<br />
your understanding of the Catholic faith through dynamic<br />
DVD presentations by Bishop Robert Barron, Dr. Edward<br />
Sri, Dr. Brant Pitre, and Dr. Michael Barber. Free event, no<br />
reservations required. Call 626-335-2811 or visit the Adult<br />
Faith Development ministry page at www.stdorothy.org for<br />
more information.<br />
■ SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10<br />
Closing Mass for Forward in Mission Jubilee Year. Mission<br />
San Gabriel, 428 S. Mission Dr., San Gabriel, 10 a.m.<br />
■ TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13<br />
Memorial Mass. San Fernando Mission, 15151 San<br />
Fernando Mission Blvd., Mission Hills, 11 a.m. Mass is<br />
virtual and not open to the public. Livestream available at<br />
CatholicCM.org or Facebook.com/lacatholics.<br />
■ SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18<br />
Day in Recognition of All Immigrants Procession and<br />
Mass. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 W.<br />
Temple St., Los Angeles, 3 p.m. Archbishop José H. Gomez<br />
will celebrate a special Mass at 3:30 p.m., which will be in<br />
person and livestreamed via Facebook.com/lacatholics<br />
and lacatholics.org/immigration.<br />
■ TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20<br />
Los Angeles Catholic Prayer Breakfast. Cathedral of<br />
Our Lady of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles,<br />
6:30-9 a.m.<br />
■ TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11<br />
Memorial Mass. San Fernando Mission, 15151 San<br />
Fernando Mission Blvd., Mission Hills, 11 a.m. Mass is<br />
virtual and not open to the public. Livestream available at<br />
CatholicCM.org or Facebook.com/lacatholics.<br />
■ TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8<br />
Memorial Mass. San Fernando Mission, 15151 San<br />
Fernando Mission Blvd., Mission Hills, 11 a.m. Mass is<br />
virtual and not open to the public. Livestream available at<br />
CatholicCM.org or Facebook.com/lacatholics.<br />
■ TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13<br />
Memorial Mass. San Fernando Mission, 15151 San<br />
Fernando Mission Blvd., Mission Hills, 11 a.m. Mass is<br />
virtual and not open to the public. Livestream available at<br />
CatholicCM.org or Facebook.com/lacatholics.<br />
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.<br />
All calendar items must include the name, date, time, address of the event, and a phone number for additional information.<br />
<strong>August</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2022</strong> • ANGELUS • 33