Angelus News | November 4, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 22

ANGELUS 

A QUIET 

HELPER 

Remembering 

John Shea, 

champion 

of LA’s Catholic 

schools 

November 4, 2022 Vol. 7 No. 22

November 4, 2022 

Vol. 7 • No. 22 

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Los Angeles, CA 90010-2241 

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ANGELUS 

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ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

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VICTOR ALEMÁN 

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ON THE COVER 

FLICKR/ST. GENEVIEVE SCHOOL 

Los Angeles said goodbye to native son and construction 

magnate John Shea, a devout Catholic who made 

it his mission to steer millions toward Catholic schools 

at home and around the U.S. On Page 10, Tom Hoffarth 

hears from those who knew the modest benefactor best 

and details how Shea and his family effectively “changed 

the face of LA” through their generosity. 

THIS PAGE 

VICTOR ALEMÁN 

Local members of the Fraternity of the Señor de 

los Milagros (Lord of Miracles) processed into the 

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels for Mass Sunday, 

Oct. 16 with an image representing the 17th-century 

devotion from Peru. The annual gathering was the 

culmination of a special novena and was followed by a 

Peruvian food festival nearby at La Placita Church.

CONTENTS 

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

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

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

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

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

Scott Hahn.............................................. 32 

Events Calendar..................................... 33 

14 

18 

20 

22 

26 

28 

30 

Twenty years later, PREP prison ministry keeps plugging away 

A chilling act of vandalism meets a parishioner’s labor of love 

What the synod’s surprise extension says about the pope’s plans 

Mike Aquilina gets started on a eucharistic explainer course 

Greg Erlandson: Is community the Church’s greatest need right now? 

How ‘Folk Horror’ makes fun of watered-down paganism 

Heather King on the clever charm of ‘Dearest Sister Wendy’ 

November 4, 2022 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH 

The medicine for faith 

The following is adapted from the 

Holy Father’s Angelus address on 

Sunday, Oct. 16, with the faithful and 

pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square. 

The troubling question posed by 

Jesus: “When the Son of Man 

comes, will he find faith on 

earth?” (Luke 18:8) is a serious one. 

Let us imagine that the Lord came 

today on earth. Unfortunately, he 

would see many wars, much poverty 

and many inequalities. At the same 

time, he would see tremendous technical 

conquests, modern means, and 

people who are always running, who 

never stop. 

But would he find someone who 

dedicates time and affection to him, 

someone who would put him in first 

place? 

Above all, let us ask ourselves, “What 

would he find in me, if the Lord were 

to come today, what would he find 

in me, in my life, in my heart? What 

priorities would he see in my life?” 

We often focus on so many urgent 

but unnecessary things. We occupy 

and preoccupy ourselves with so 

many secondary realities. And perhaps 

without even recognizing it, we 

neglect what counts the most and we 

allow our love for God to grow cold 

bit by bit. 

And what is the remedy? Prayer. 

Prayer is the medicine for faith, it restores 

the soul. It needs to be constant 

prayer, however. If we must undergo 

treatment to get better, it is important 

to follow the treatment plan well, 

to take the medicine faithfully and 

regularly in the right way and at the 

right times. Or, like a houseplant, we 

need to water it consistently every day. 

We cannot soak it and then leave it 

without giving it water for a week! 

Even more so with prayer. We 

cannot live only on strong moments 

of prayer or occasional intense encounters, 

and then “go into hibernation.” 

Our faith would dry up. Like a 

houseplant, we need the daily water 

of prayer, we need time dedicated 

to God, so that he can enter into 

our time, into our lives; we need 

consistent moments in which we 

open our hearts to him so that he can 

daily pour out on us love, peace, joy, 

strength, hope, thus nourishing our 

faith. 

This is why Jesus tells his disciples 

— to everyone, not only to some! — 

“that they ought always to pray and 

not lose heart” (v. 1). Now someone 

might object: “But, how can I do that? 

I don’t live in a convent. I don’t have 

much time to pray!” 

Perhaps a wise spiritual practice for 

this real difficulty that the elderly, 

especially our grandparents, know 

well can come to our aid: very short, 

easy to memorize prayers that can be 

repeated often throughout the day, 

in the course of various activities, to 

remain “in tune” with the Lord. 

For example, as soon as we awaken, 

we can say, “Lord, I thank you and I 

offer this day to you.” Then, before an 

activity, we can repeat, “Come, Holy 

Spirit.” Between one thing and another, 

we can pray thus, “Jesus, I trust in 

you. Jesus, I love you.” Really short 

prayers that help us stay in contact 

with the Lord. How often we send instant 

messages to the people we love! 

Let’s do this with the Lord as well, so 

that our hearts remain connected to 

him. 

Papal Prayer Intention for November: We pray for children 

who are suffering, especially those who are homeless, 

orphans, and victims of war; may they be guaranteed access to 

education and the opportunity to experience family affection. 

2 • ANGELUS • November 4, 2022

NEW WORLD OF FAITH 

ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

Born to make a difference 

Several years ago, a journalist 

coined an expression. It occurred 

to him, he said, that there are 

two kinds of virtues: résumé virtues 

and eulogy virtues. 

Résumé virtues are the skills that 

qualify you for a job. Eulogy virtues 

are those qualities that you hope you 

will be remembered for at your funeral 

— things like honesty, faithfulness, 

courage, love. 

This was a clever way to describe a 

real tension that many of us feel in 

our daily lives. We all know that eulogy 

virtues are more important than 

résumé virtues. But because of the 

pressures of life, often we spend more 

time and energy building our career 

than we do in forming our character. 

November for Catholics is the 

month of all saints and all souls. This 

month is given for us to reflect on our 

mortality, the meaning of our lives. 

November is the time for us to think 

about the “eulogy virtues.” 

The Scriptures teach that our lives 

are brief, like grass or a breath of 

wind. We are here for a time and then 

gone. This is not cause for sadness. It’s 

a reminder of the joyful hope that we 

have in Jesus Christ. 

A few months back, the legendary 

Dodgers broadcaster, Vin Scully, 

passed away. He had a great résumé. 

But he also was known to be a fine 

Catholic gentleman who lived with 

virtue and integrity. 

I was interested to read in Angelus 

that he kept a prayer from St. John 

Henry Newman on his desk: “God has 

created me to do him some definite 

service. He has committed some work 

to me which he has not committed to 

another. I have my mission … a part 

in this great work.” 

This prayer tells the truth. We are 

born for greater things. We are born in 

time, but we are made to dwell with 

God for eternity. Our lives matter, we 

are made to make a difference. 

We are called to be holy as Jesus is 

holy, called to be saints. 

Saints are not born, they are made. 

Saints are formed in the duties and 

details of daily life. Holiness consists 

in all the habits of virtue that we develop 

out of all the decisions that we 

make every day to do what is right, to 

seek what is true, good, and beautiful. 

Jesus teaches us that there are only 

two ways to live. We can live for the 

love of God and the love of others, or 

we can live selfishly, out of love for 

ourselves. 

The saints teach us that in the evening 

of our lives, everything else will 

fall away, and we are judged by our 

love. 

I quoted those words in a short 

eulogy I delivered last week at the 

funeral Mass for John Shea, who I 

was privileged to know as a friend and 

mentor. 

John had all the résumé virtues. He 

was remarkably successful in business, 

a leader in the community, one of 

the nation’s great philanthropists. He 

and his wife, Dorothy, built Catholic 

schools throughout Los Angeles and 

in other parts of the country, and they 

changed tens of thousands of lives. 

But in the end, what defined him 

was love. “For the love of Christ 

impels us,” St. Paul said. That same 

love impelled John to serve and to try 

to make life better for others. 

Love is the legacy that all of us want 

to leave behind. Love in our families, 

love in our friendships, love in our 

relationship with God. 

November for Catholics is the month of all saints 

and all souls, given for us to reflect on our mortality, 

the meaning of our lives. 

No matter what our position in 

life is, we are called to be saints and 

heroes among the people that God 

entrusts to our care and the people 

that God puts in our lives. In our homes 

and families, in school, at work, 

in our neighborhoods and communities. 

In the lives of the saints, there is this 

story: One day a saint came to a large 

Catholic university. He was talking to 

one of the deans, who was complaining 

about things at the school. 

The saint said to him, “Why are you 

here?” He replied, “I came here to 

help build this university.” 

The saint said, “No, my son, you 

have come here to become a saint. If 

you succeed in doing that, you will 

have accomplished everything.” 

The most important thing in our 

lives is not our résumé. Love is the 

most important thing. Because love 

is what makes us saints. If we seek 

holiness and bring love, we will have 

accomplished everything, as the saint 

said. 

Pray for me and I will pray for you. 

In this month of all souls and all 

saints, let us ask Mary, our Blessed 

Mother, to help us to become the 

saints we are made to be. 


WORLD 

The 3D recreation of the body of Christ in Salamanca, Spain. | NICOLÁS DE CÁRDENAS/ACI PRENSA 

■ Spanish artists create 3D Shroud of Turin model 

The first hyper-realistic recreation of the body of Christ made its public debut 

in Spain on Oct. 14. 

The sculpture is based on 3D studies using data obtained from the Shroud of 

Turin. A group of artists under the direction of curator Álvaro Blanco used latex, 

silicone, and even human hair to depict Christ in rigor mortis with details down 

to skin pores and freckles. 

Blanco said that, when he first saw the finished sculpture, he was convinced 

that “he was before Jesus, he was before the image of the body of Jesus of Nazareth.” 

“The mystery has become flesh, but it has become flesh to die for us, and then 

rise again,” said Bishop José Luis Retana of Salamanca, who hosted the statue 

in the sacristy of the city’s cathedral. “I believe that the exhibition can foster the 

faith of believers and arouse the faith of nonbelievers.” 

The statue is part of an exhibit called “The Mystery Man,” which includes 

research on the Shroud of Turin and the realities of scourging and crucifixion. 

It is expected to remain in Salamanca for the next several months before touring 

different parts of the world. 

■ Mozambique’s 

unholy war 

A leading Catholic peace organization 

said “petro-dollars,” not Islamic 

terrorism, is chiefly to blame for 

violence in the African country of 

Mozambique. 

The country’s Cabo Delgado 

region, which is rich in natural gas 

and precious stones, has seen fighting 

from a group called al-Shabab 

since 2017, which the government 

has labeled Islamist terrorists. This 

summer, al-Shabab launched a new 

offensive that has displaced 80,000 

people and killed at least 4,000. 

But Johan Viljoen, director of the 

Denis Hurley Peace Institute (DHPI) 

said that the area’s Islamic majority is 

at peace with the Christian minority, 

and that Mozambique is using the 

label “terrorist” to achieve international 

support for relocation aims. 

“The easiest way to get people off 

the land is by fueling this so-called 

insurgency,” he said in a television 

interview. “The people have to flee 

and the permission [that the government 

grants for them to occupy 

land] is canceled and the land can 

be given to multinational corporations.” 

■ Infant euthanasia in Quebec? 

Canadian pro-life advocates fear the country is 

moving closer to “legalized infanticide.” 

Dr. Louis Roy of the Quebec College of Physicians, 

which sets medical standards in the region, 

said that euthanasia can be appropriate for infants 

born with “severe malformations” in an Oct. 7 

address to a government committee studying assistant 

suicide. Canada expanded legal euthanasia 

and assisted suicide to the mentally ill in 2021. 

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the 

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, told Catholic 

News Agency Oct. 12 that euthanizing infants, or 

infanticide, “is very different than killing competent 

adults by euthanasia.” 

“Canada cannot begin killing babies when 

doctors predict there is no hope for them,” said- 

Krista Karr, executive vice president of Inclusion 

Canada. “Predictions are far too often based on 

discriminatory assumptions about life with a 

disability.” 

Mummies on the move — Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, president of the Pontifical 

Commission for Vatican City State, and Peruvian Foreign Minister César Landa Arroyo 

exchange documents after signing an agreement Oct. 17 in the Vatican Museums to 

repatriate three mummies that have been in the Vatican collection since 1925. | VATICAN 

MUSEUM 


NATION 

■ Christ crosses 

the Mississippi 

The bishops of Davenport, Iowa, and 

Peoria, Illinois, made history by leading 

the first eucharistic procession to cross 

the Mississippi River. 

“The Eucharist unites us,” Davenport 

Bishop Thomas R. Zinkula said in his 

homily before the Oct. 8 procession. 

“Whether we live on the east or the west 

side of the Mississippi River, Catholic 

Christians share a communal love. 

What is the purpose of our journey with 

and as the body of Christ?” 

An estimated 1,000 Catholics joined in 

the procession, which began at Sacred 

Heart Cathedral in Davenport and continued 

five miles to St. Mary Church in 

Moline for benediction. It crossed over 

the Mississippi River at the Government 

(Arsenal) Bridge, where Peoria Bishop 

Louis Tylka received the monstrance 

from Bishop Zinkula. 

Bishop Thomas R. Zinkula of Davenport carries the 

Blessed Sacrament over the Mississippi River Oct. 8. 

| CNS/JENNIFER WILLEMS, THE CATHOLIC POST 

The major faith of a minor leaguer — A display dedicated to the memory of Philadelphia Phillies minor league 

pitcher Corey Phelan is seen in the vestibule of Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Church in Centerport, New York, 

during his funeral Mass Oct. 19. Phelan, 20, died Oct. 12 after a six-month battle with cancer. Lauded by family, 

friends, and teammates as a person of great faith and courage, Phelan would often use the words “God has me” 

when addressing his illness. | CNS/GREGORY A. SHEMITZ 

■ New Jersey diocese saves money going green 

The Diocese of Metuchen, New Jersey, is going all-in on solar panels and 

energy-efficient equipment to implement the environmental vision of Pope Francis’ 

encyclical, “Laudato Si” (“Praise Be to You”). 

One thousand, two hundred twenty-eight solar panels were added to Immaculata 

High School in Somerville, making it the first Catholic school in the diocese to 

adopt the renewable energy source. Several parishes and the chancery also have 

been equipped with solar panels. 

The switch to solar has three benefits, according to the official who oversees management 

of the diocese’s properties. 

“We are aligned with Pope Francis, it’s environmentally friendly, and it’s fiscally 

responsible,” Steve Machalek told The Catholic Spirit. “Over 25 years, we will likely 

save $3 million, so that’s the financial beauty of it.” 

■ Is Catholic health care the real villain? 

A leading figure in Catholic health care is pushing back against a Washington Post 

report that warned of Catholic hospitals limiting abortion and contraception services. 

The Oct. 11 article claimed the recent reversal of Roe v. Wade is “revealing the growing 

influence of Catholic health systems and their restrictions on reproductive services.” 

It comes as the Biden administration is expected to issue regulations requiring 

hospitals to perform abortions or transgender surgeries, regardless of religious beliefs. 

“They’re trying to get at us for a long time, and now they’re using Dobbs,” Sister 

Mary Haddad, RSM, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, told 

America magazine. “But quite honestly, nothing has changed. This has always been 

the way Catholic [health networks] provided care in their communities. It’s not as if 

we’ve done anything different.” 

“[W]e have a large and stellar history of providing care in communities where no 

one wants to go and no one wants to stay,” she said. “This country would be in dire 

straits without Catholic health care. I think people are smart enough in Washington 

that they’re not going to let that happen.” 


LOCAL 

■ Guadalupe, St. Juan 

Diego images on tour 

in LA churches 

The pilgrim images of Our Lady 

of Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego 

began their annual tour through the 

Archdiocese of Los Angeles with a 

kickoff celebration at Our Lady of 

Guadalupe “La Lupita” Church in 

El Monte on Oct. 22. The “tardeada” 

(“evening”) was a fundraising 

event with singing, dancing, food, 

and raffles open to all LA Catholics. 

Each year, the images travel to 

different parishes around the archdiocese, 

where they are venerated at 

special Masses and celebrations. 

The Guadalupe image is an exact 

digital reproduction of the original 

image in Mexico City’s Basilica of 

Our Lady of Guadalupe and has 

been blessed and touched to the 

original image. 

For a full schedule of events, visit 

AngelusNews.com/Peregrina2022. 

■ Catholic student rally 

promises a pro-life push 

The Shrine Auditorium near USC 

will host this year’s annual Christian 

Service 4LIFE event Nov. 9. The 

daylong event typically draws thousands 

of junior high and high school 

students from local Catholic schools. 

This year’s theme, “Life and Science,” 

will feature benediction, 

confession opportunities, talks from 

Archbishop José H. Gomez and 

Father Robert Spitzer, as well as performances 

from magician Giancarlo 

Bernini and Catholic musician Joe 

Melendrez. 

The event is a joint collaboration between 

LIFEsocal, a pro-life nonprofit 

organization, and the archdiocese’s 

Office of Life, Justice and Peace, 

aimed at advancing the pro-life cause 

through positive change instead of 

politics. 

For more information, visit lifesocal. 

org. 

■ New Thomas Aquinas president 

Paul O’Reilly officially begins tenure 

Thomas Aquinas 

College’s (TAC) 

new president 

promised a 

rededication 

to the school’s 

“unique mission” 

of pursuing truth 

in learning at 

his inauguration 

ceremony on St. 

Pope John Paul 

II’s feast day. 

Paul J. O’Reilly, 

O’Reilly with several of his children and his granddaughter at his inauguration 

celebration Oct. 22. | THOMAS AQUINAS COLLEGE 

Ph.D., is TAC’s fifth president and a 1984 graduate of the liberal arts school. He 

was sworn in Oct. 22 at the college’s Santa Paula campus, where he promised to 

carry out his new responsibilities with “great vigor and fidelity.” 

“The pursuit of truth requires discipline and method, it requires guidance and 

docility, it requires the right dispositions of the soul,” O’Reilly said in remarks after 

the ceremony, which was attended by Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez 

and Bishop William Byrne of Springfield, Massachusetts, where TAC has a second 

campus. 

O’Reilly and his wife, Peggy, a fellow TAC alum, have 12 children, several of 

whom have attended or are currently attending the college. 

Celebrating missionary spirit — Msgr. Terrance Fleming poses with LA Catholic school students honored at the 

annual Missionary Childhood Association (MCA) Mass Oct. 19. Third-grader Violet Hsu from All Souls World 

Language School in Alhambra (second from left) and sixth-grader Liliana Espinoza from St. Gregory the Great 

in Whittier (far right) were national finalists for this year’s MCA Christmas Artwork Contest. The other three 

students received $500 scholarships from the Lay Mission-Helpers Association as winners of an essay contest 

about the importance of mission. From left to right: Angelina Escudero (seventh grade, St. James, Torrance), Jason 

Cheung (sixth grade, Our Lady of the Assumption, Ventura) and Gavin Scarlett (eighth grade, Our Lady of the 

Assumption, Ventura). | VICTOR ALEMÁN 

Y 


V 

IN OTHER WORDS... 

Letters to the Editor 

A marriage story that rings true 

Jenny Gorman Patton’s article in the Oct. 21 issue, “Where love 

remains,” resonated with me so much! I married my non-Catholic, 

Methodist-raised husband in 1982. He agreed to let me raise our children Catholic 

— in his words, “It was close enough to Christian.” 

By 1995 at the Easter Vigil, he had joined the Catholic Church after seeing 

the outreach programs at the parish I attended, St. Lawrence Martyr Church in 

Redondo Beach. In 2004, he joined the diaconate program and was ordained in 

2009. 

For all those years, I never pushed him, never asked him to come to Mass, just 

quietly took our children. Apparently it was God that opened his eyes to the community, 

to the words in the Bible, and the wonderfulness of the Eucharist. 

— Kim Sheckler, St. Lawrence Martyr Church, Redondo Beach 

“The idea that bringing 

children into the world in a 

21st-century-level quality 

of life would be somehow 

ill-advised compared to 

other periods of world 

history requires some 

unpacking.” 

~ Patrick T. Brown, in “Why Some Americans Don’t 

Want Kids” for Institute for Family Studies Oct. 18. 

Admiration from this side of the Mississippi 

Thank you for the wonderful, uplifting article on AngelusNews.com on the 

eucharistic procession that made history crossing the Mississippi River from Iowa 

to Illinois. There is nothing like a peaceful public display of faith as a way to 

preach the Gospel and give glory to God. 

— Marilyn Boussaid, St. James Church, Redondo Beach 

Y 

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

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

may be edited for style, brevity, and clarity. 

Young disciples 

“Christianity is not 

something that we 

have invented; instead, 

it is something that we 

have received.” 

~ Bishop Robert E. Barron, writing for Word on Fire 

on “Dei Verbum and the 60th Anniversary of Vatican 

II” Oct. 13. 

“These are the death 

camps of America.” 

~ Eva Edl, an 87-year-old concentration camp 

survivor and pro-life champion, discussing abortion 

clinics in an article from Live Action Oct. 10. 

“We can’t just enjoy 

our newfound flexibility 

when it is built on the 

backs of those who can 

never have it.” 

~ David Cloutier, in an Oct. 17 U.S. Catholic essay, 

“Remote work has real ramifications for society.” 

Hundreds of Catholic school students gathered at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels Oct. 19 for the 

annual Missionary Childhood Association Mass. | VICTOR ALEMÁN 

View more photos 

from this gallery at 

AngelusNews.com/photos-videos 

Do you have photos or a story from your parish that you’d 

like to share? Please send to editorial @angelusnews.com. 

“Water is not alive. It 

supports life.” 

~ Wesley J. Smith of National Review, in “Science 

Journal Claim: ‘Ocean’ Is a ‘Living Entity’ with 

Inherent Rights.” 


IN EXILE 

FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI 

Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father 

Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual 

writer; ronaldrolheiser.com. 

Celebrating 50 years of ordination 

Fifty years ago, on an overcast, 

cold, fall day in the gymnasium 

of the local public high school, 

I was ordained to the priesthood. 

Beyond the gray sky, another thing 

marked the event. This was a tender 

season for my family and me. Both 

our parents had died (and died young) 

within 1 1/2 just prior to this and we 

were still somewhat fragile of heart. In 

that setting, I was ordained a priest. 

Within the few words allowed in a 

short column, what do I most want 

to say as I mark the 50th anniversary 

of that day? I will borrow from the 

novelist Morris West, who begins his 

autobiography this way: “When you 

reach the age of seventy-five, there 

should only be three phrases left in 

your vocabulary, thank you, thank 

you, and thank you!” 

I just turned 75, and reflecting on 

50 years of priesthood, many thoughts 

and feelings come to mind; life, after 

all, has its seasons. However, the 

feeling that overrides all others is that 

of gratitude, thank you, thank you, 

and thank you! Thank you to God, to 

grace, to the Church, to my family, 

to the Oblates, to the many friends 

who have loved and supported me, to 

the wonderful schools I have taught 

in, and to the thousands of people I 

have encountered in those 50 years of 

ministry. 

My initial call to the priesthood and 

the Oblate congregation was not the 

stuff of romance. I didn’t enter religious 

life and the seminary because 

I was attracted to it. The opposite. 

This was not what I wanted. But I felt 

called, strongly and clearly, and at the 

tender age of 17 made the decision to 

enter religious life. 

Today, people may well raise questions 

about the wisdom and freedom 

of such a decision at age 17, but 

looking back all these years later, I can 

honestly say that this is the clearest, 

purest, and most unselfish decision 

that I have yet made in my life. I have 

no regrets. I wouldn’t have chosen 

this life except for a strong call that I 

initially tried to resist; and, knowing 

myself as I do, it is by far the most 

life-giving choice that I possibly could 

have made. 

I say this because, knowing myself 

and knowing my wounds, I know too 

that I would not have been nearly 

as generative (nor as happy) in any 

other state in life. I nurse some deep 

wounds, not moral ones, but wounds 

of the heart, and those very wounds 

have been, thanks to the grace of God, 

a source of fruitfulness in my ministry. 

Moreover, I have been blessed in 

the ministries that have been assigned 

to me. As a seminarian, I dreamed 

of being a parish priest, but that 

was never to be. Immediately after 

ordination, I was sent to do graduate 

studies in theology and then taught 

theology at various seminaries and 

theology schools for most of these 50 

years, save for 12 years that I served 

as a provincial superior of my local 

Oblate community and on the Oblate 

General Council in Rome. 

I loved teaching! I was meant to be a 

religious teacher and religious writer 

and so my ministry, all of it, has been 

very satisfying. My hope is that it has 

been generative for others. 

In addition, I have been blessed by 

the Oblate communities within which 

I lived. My ministry usually had me 

living in larger Oblate communities 

and through these 50 years, I estimate 

that I have lived in community with 

well over 300 different men. That’s a 

rich experience. 

Moreover, I have always lived in 

healthy, robust, caring, supportive, 

and intellectually challenging communities 

that gave me the spiritual 

and human family I needed. There 

were tensions at times, but those 

tensions were never not life-giving. 

Religious community is unique, “sui 

generis.” It isn’t family in the emotional 

or psychosexual sense, but family 

that is rooted in something deeper 

than biology and attraction — faith. 

There have been struggles, of course, 

not least with the emotional issues 

around celibacy and living inside a 

loneliness which (as Father Thomas 

Merton once said) God condemned. 

“It is not good for someone to be 

alone” (Genesis 2:18). It is here too 

where my Oblate religious community 

has been an anchor. Vowed 

celibacy can be lived and can be 

fruitful, though not without community 

support. 

Let me end with a comment that 

I once heard from a priest who was 

celebrating his 85th birthday and his 

60th anniversary of ordination. Asked 

how he felt about it all, he said, “It 

wasn’t always easy! There were some 

bitter, lonely times. Everyone in my 

ordination class left the priesthood, 

every one of them, and I was tempted 

too. But I stayed and now, looking 

back after 60 years, I’m pretty happy 

with the way my life turned out!” 

That sums up my feelings too after 

50 years — I’m pretty happy with the 

way it has turned out — and deeply, 

deeply grateful. 


LA’S FAITHFUL SERVANT 

Brother Hilarion O’Connor with John and Dorothy Shea 

in 2019, when the couple received the Evangelii Gaudium 

award from St. John’s Seminary. | ST. JOHN’S SEMINARY 

The full impact of 

John Shea’s quiet 

generosity to Catholic 

education at home and 

nationwide may never 

be known. 

BY TOM HOFFARTH 

More than 2,000 people filled 

the Cathedral of Our Lady 

of the Angels for the Oct. 21 

funeral of John Shea, a Los Angeles 

native who purposefully steered clear 

of attention and acknowledgement 

for being one the most prolific donors 

to U.S. Catholic schools in the last 

several decades. 

Members of John Shea’s family (left) and students from Cathedral High School (right) sat in the front row at the late 

philanthropist’s funeral at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels Oct. 21. | VICTOR ALEMÁN 


hea 

dium 

RY 

Shea, whose family’s giving is 

believed to be one of the largest in 

Catholic school philanthropy in the 

last several decades, died Oct. 16 at 

the age of 96. Among those paying 

tribute at the funeral were students 

from some 50 LA-area Catholic 

schools that Shea had helped over the 

years. 

“Our friend, John Shea, left a legacy 

of love,” said Los Angeles Archbishop 

José H. Gomez in eulogy remarks. 

“Love in his family, love in his friendships, 

and love in this city.” 

Much of the support from John and 

wife, Dorothy, was given to schools in 

the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. By 

modest estimates, his family foundation 

steered hundreds of millions of 

dollars over the last 35 years to create 

tens of thousands of scholarships, fund 

more than 1,000 school renovations, 

and support the operations of more 

than 500 campuses across the country. 

“John did everything behind the 

scenes,” said Archbishop Gomez, 

who was the principal celebrant of 

the funeral Mass. “He didn’t do it to 

get awards, to be recognized. I doubt 

whether most of the people he helped 

even knew his name.” 

Angelus and its predecessor publication, 

The Tidings, have reported 

on the multitude of projects over the 

years supported by grants from the 

Sheas, including in Compton, La 

Puente, Downey, East and South LA, 

North Hollywood, Long Beach, and 

Bell Gardens. 

The construction magnate’s philanthropic 

approach could be summed 

up in a rare quote given at the unveiling 

of renovations at two South LA 

Catholic schools, St. Raphael and St. 

Malachy, in 2005: 

“If you really want to help inner-city 

families, the best place to put your 

efforts and your dollars is in Catholic 

schools,” he then told The Tidings. 

“They are very, very effective.” 

According to Brother Hilarion 

O’Connor, the operations director 

and Strategic Capital Projects leader 

for the Cathedral of Our Lady of the 

Angels, the Shea Foundation has been 

involved in 15 to 25 projects a year. 

They expanded past LA to areas of the 

Coachella Valley, San Bernardino, 

and San Diego, as well as Arizona, 

Seattle, and New York. 

Brother O’Connor said it started in 

1993, when Shea financed three bungalows 

to be built on an archdiocesan 

school campus. Brother O’Connor 

had been in the education department 

for 10 years and got to know 

Dorothy Shea, one of the founding 

members of the Catholic Education 

Foundation (CEF). When Brother 

O’Connor moved into the construction 

office, he worked more directly 

with John Shea to consult with him 

and Dorothy on worthwhile projects. 

“I remember one instance when a 

school in a poor area needed help, 

and John was in a quandary whether 

he should support it or not,” he said. 

“He called me and after about 10 

minutes, going back and forth, I didn’t 

seem to be helping him too much to 

make up his mind. He finally said to 

me: ‘You know, if I don’t do it, then 

who will?’ So that’s how it came to 

be.” 

Most of the recent construction 

projects have focused on modernizing 

current school sites with STEM 

technology and infrastructure, Brother 

O’Connor pointed out. During their 

last conversation, he said, Shea asked 

from his hospital bed how some of 

their current projects were moving 

along. 

Still, he said Shea enjoyed making 

campus visits in recent years to see the 

progress of the students’ education. 

Brother O’Connor 

saw Shea’s “biding 

Catholic faith” 

in the Pasadena 

resident’s regular 

participation in 

daily Mass at St. 

Philip the Apostle 

Church. 

“There were 

many things he 

Love of God Sister Azucena 

del Rio, then the 

principal of St. Martha 

School in Valinda, at an 

official ribbon-cutting 

of the school’s new 

additions with Shea in 

2013. | ANGELUS FILE 

PHOTO 

was approached with, but he never 

diverted from the mission to support 

inner-city Catholic schools,” said 

Brother O’Connor. “And it was a 

tremendous partnership with Dorothy 

as well as with his family.” 

Among those concelebrating the 

funeral Mass with Archbishop Gomez 

were Bishop Kevin Vann of Orange, 

Bishop Alberto Rojas of San Bernardino, 

LA Auxiliary Bishop David G. 

O’Connell, retired Auxiliary Bishop 

Gerald Wilkerson, and several dozen 

priests. Msgr. Clem Connolly, the pastor 

emeritus of Holy Family Church 

in South Pasadena and a close friend 

of Sheas, was the homilist. 

At an award ceremony honoring 

John and Dorothy at St. John’s Seminary 

in Camarillo in 2019, Bishop 

O’Connell recalled how the Sheas 

were “the saving grace” for the schools 

of the two South LA parishes where 

he was pastor, St. Michael’s and St. 

Frances X. Cabrini. 

When the couple were honored 


y the Leadership Roundtable with 

the prestigious J. Donald Monan, SJ 

Distinguished Catholic Philanthropy 

Medal the same year, Archbishop 

Gomez described the Sheas as “a 

quiet source of hope for people who 

are usually forgotten in our city — the 

poor, the immigrants, those living on 

the margins from paycheck to paycheck; 

and especially their children.” 

“So many of these young people are 

the first in their families to get out of 

high school and go on to graduate 

college,” said the archbishop at the 

Washington, D.C., event. “Many are 

now leaders in the communities they 

came from.” 

John and Dorothy Shea, married 

for 54 years, had eight children, 31 

grandchildren and one great-grandson 

(all are Catholic school educated). 

John was predeceased by his first wife, 

Susan, who died in 1967. 

Known in business circles for the 

success of his families’ generational 

construction companies, John Shea 

was a graduate of Los Angeles High 

School and USC’s School of Engineering. 

He was a regular on the Los 

Angeles Business Journal’s list of the 

wealthiest people in the city. His last 

estimated wealth was $2.3 billion. 

But in a release announcing his 

passing, his family said Shea discovered 

“his true calling” in supporting 

Catholic education in the inner-city. 

And for all that Shea channeled 

into projects, Paul Escala, the senior 

director and superintendent of the 

Department of Catholic Schools, said 

it would be shortsighted to try measuring 

his impact on Catholic education 

in dollar figures. 

“John’s generosity was transformative 

in the impact on the life of the 

children,” said Escala. “Each dollar is 

translated into a high-quality school 

environment where principals and 

teachers care and know each child 

like Christ knows everyone by name. 

That level of impact can’t be measured 

or quantified monetarily.” 

According to Escala, Shea saw 

Catholic schools as “ground zero of 

where every aspect of social life is 

met.” 

“For someone with incredible worth 

and privilege, this is a man who 

didn’t need accolades, which is what 

I admired deeply about him. He just 

wanted to see good in the world and 

it was his responsibility to meet needs 

and give back.” 

Escala said he 

talked last with 

Shea on his 

birthday with 

an update on 

the Educator 

Investment 

Initiative, recently increased from 

$6 million to $7.5 million, which 

the Shea Family Foundation had 

Archbishop José H. Gomez 

greets Dorothy Shea during 

the Rite of Committal for 

John Shea in the Cathedral of 

Our Lady of the Angels mausoleum. 

| VICTOR ALEMÁN 

engineered in collaboration with the 

Catholic Community Foundation of 

Los Angeles (CCF-LA). Its goal is to 

retain and recruit more than 650 fulltime 

teachers and 74 principals in the 

archdiocese’s greatest-need areas. 

The Shea family is also behind a twoyear 

program called Vision To Learn, 

with intentions to give free eyeglasses 

to as many as 20,000 students in the 

Archdiocese of LA. 

CCF-LA’s relationship with the Shea 

family began in 2015 with the creation 

of the John and Dorothy Shea 

Charitable Fund. CCF-LA manages 

the Shea’s charitable assets. 

Kathy Anderson, president and executive 

director of CCF-LA, has worked 

with Shea for more than 20 years. She 

estimates that more than 1 million 


students have attended schools 

“touched by his vision to provide our 

most financially deserving students 

with safe, updated, and brand-new 

facilities.” 

“He recognized that tuition was not 

affordable for many, if not most, so 

tuition assistance was added to his 

vision,” said Anderson, the former 

executive director of CEF. 

When contacted over the phone by 

Angelus, Escala was in Washington 

D.C., at a leadership summit with a 

delegation from the National Catholic 

Education Association (NCEA) for 

a leadership summit. 

That day, the group was at the U.S. 

Capitol to advocate on behalf of 

the 1.6 million children who attend 

Catholic schools. 

“I feel John with me right now, reinforcing 

us to share the stories of our 

young people and invoke the good 

work of our schools,” said Escala. 

“We’re doing all this through John’s 

generosity.” 

The family asked that in lieu of flowers, 

donations in his name be made to 

the Catholic Education Foundation 

of Los Angeles, which is celebrating 

its 35th anniversary this year. CEF 

said it has generated some $225 

million for tuition assistance over the 

year, much of it from Shea. The CEF 

website — cefdn.org — now has a 

link for donors on Shea’s behalf. 

“It was my privilege to know him, 

to learn from him, and to work with 

him in support of the mission of the 

Catholic Education Foundation,” 

said CEF Executive Director Doug 

Cooper. 

“The impact of John Shea’s generosity 

throughout the Archdiocese of Los 

Angeles will be felt for generations to 

come. His passion for Catholic education 

was immeasurable. We take 

seriously the responsibility to ensure 

that Mr. Shea’s legacy be honored 

and fulfilled.” 

Tom Hoffarth is an award-winning 

journalist based in Los Angeles. 


In the mercy business 

For 20 years, PREP has harnessed 

hope and the power of community 

to accomplish the unthinkable. 

BY NATALIE ROMANO 

Staff and supporters at PREP’s offices in LA. | PREP 

Sister Mary Sean Hodges and Tony Kim could hardly 

believe their ears. 

They had just received the news that their prison 

ministry, the Partnership for Re-Entry Program (PREP), 

had been awarded $800,000, the biggest grant in its history. 

It was an anniversary gift of sorts from the Conrad N. 

Hilton Foundation, coming as PREP celebrates 20 years of 

restorative justice in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. 

“We were shocked,” said Kim, the director of PREP. “Now 

that it’s settled in we feel very grateful and blessed.” 

Founded by Sister Mary Sean in 2002, PREP aims to help 

those with life sentences become productive members of 

society through in-prison mentoring and correspondence 


courses that focus on personal growth. Completing the 

courses not only benefits inmates emotionally, but gives 

them a better chance of being released early. 

“The old thinking was, you go into prison and you come 

out in a pine box,” said Sister Mary Sean. “People also 

believed that if you did wrong you belonged in prison and 

you couldn’t change. Restorative justice believes otherwise.” 

The “Beacon of Hope” grant will allow PREP to add staff, 

new office equipment, and better services. Employees, usually 

former inmates, will teach more classes on the inside 

— and on the outside, connect parolees with skills training, 

jobs, and housing. 

PREP estimates it has worked with some 400,000 participants 

over the years nationwide. As a restorative justice 

ministry, it has not only the inmates it serves in mind, but 

the wider ripple effect on families and communities. 

“So many of our inmates, once they get on the road to 

healing, absolutely want to, have to, give to others,” explained 

Sister Mary Sean. “They know who they are now, 

they’re good guys.” 

Mark Baker didn’t feel like a good guy for a long time. He 

served 43 years for first degree murder stemming from a 

fight with another man. 

“I lived with that death every day,” said Baker, a PREP 

alum. “I still do.” 

But he credits PREP courses with helping him work 

toward achieving some peace and, eventually, his release 

from prison. He now cares for his elderly parents — once 

upon a time, an unimaginable scenario. 

“I used to be self-centered,” admitted Baker. “The modules 

changed my thought patterns. They made me think 

inward. I owe Sister Mary Sean my life.” 

The Dominican sister marvels out loud about the longevity 

of her ministry (“How did it really get to 20?”), but 

keeps plugging away. She writes up to 40 letters a week 

to inmates and visits them, too, making her a well-known 

figure inside California correctional institutions. Not only 

is she unafraid to meet the inmates, but it’s her favorite part 

of the job. 

“It has such a strong influence on that inmate, it says you 

care enough to come,” said Sister Mary Sean. 

Chris Wedel, 40, couldn’t agree more. The PREP participant 

was released from prison this summer after serving 19 

years for second degree murder. 

“Everything that comes from that organization comes 

from the love of God and an appreciation for those of us 

who are genuinely broken and need someone to believe 

in us when we can’t believe in ourselves,” said Wedel, his 

voice breaking. “That’s the reason there’s thousands of 

‘lifers’ on the outside now and they’re making a difference 

in our community.” 

Sister Mary Sean’s philosophy of restorative justice, honed 

through the years, is that inmates need to take accountability 

for their actions, go through rehabilitation, then get a 

fresh start. She believes lengthy sentences are outdated and 

unnecessary. 

The California Catholic Conference (CCC) supports 

PREP’s model, noting it creates a safer society for all of us 

and calls Sister Mary Sean a leader in the movement. 

“We’re in the mercy business. … It’s part of our calling 

as a Church,” said Debbie McDermott, CCC Restorative 

Justice associate director. “[Sister Mary Sean] sticks to her 

mission and makes lives better.” 

Not all inmates stick with the program, however. Others 

may stop and start again, but Sister Mary Sean said there’s 

usually a moment of transformation. For Wedel, it was 

when his daughter cut off contact. 

“I had nothing left,” recalled Wedel. “My daughter was 

gone. She was the only person left and she was finally at 

a point where she was just tired of my behavior and the 

choices I was making.” 

Not only did Wedel take in-prison courses, he eventually 

helped write one designed for inmates like himself, trying 

to overcome childhood sexual abuse. Wedel said now that 

he’s out, he’s interning for a nonprofit, going to school, and 

reconnecting with his daughter. 

After two decades of experience, Sister Mary Sean believes 

childhood trauma is one of the major contributors to a life 

of crime, saying whatever “wound goes into the soul” will 

eventually come out. PREP alum Lawrence Alvitre had 

plenty of time to reflect on that while serving 26 years for 

PREP founder Sister Mary Sean Hodges with the program’s director, Tony Kim. | PREP 


kidnapping for the purpose of robbery. 

“I was raised in a gang family, gang 

culture,” recalled Alvitre. “My father 

was an alcoholic, he was abusive to 

my mother. [PREP] allowed me to see 

how that played a part in why I hung 

around the people I did, why I made 

the choices I did … it allowed me to 

change my life.” 

Beyond dealing with childhood trauma, 

inmates can take courses tackling 

other issues like anger management 

or racism. They receive certificates 

upon completion that can be shared 

in parole hearings. California statistics 

show lifers, once on the outside, only 

have a 3% recidivism rate. 

“People who desire to change can,” 

said an emotional Alvitre. “I lost my 

parents when I was on the inside. I 

know life is short. I’m 51 already, so 

I’m experiencing everything I missed. 

That was the beauty of me opening up 

my eyes.” 

Inmates like Alvitre are what keep 

the 81-year-old sister motivated. 

“Every morning when I pray I say, 

‘Lord, are we ever going to make it to 

where we want to go on this?’ It takes 

so long,” shared Sister Mary Sean. 

“But here it is: When you get into the 

stories of a person, it’s life-changing 

and that helps you stay in there.” 

Sister went from teaching Catholic 

high school students to teaching inmates 

when she needed a new direction. 

Part of her inspiration: a beloved 

brother who struggled with addiction 

and ended up in prison. 

“He wanted so badly to change his 

life,” said Sister Mary Sean. “He 

would go into a program, come back 

home, abuse, and then repeat the 

cycle. I think that was always with me. 

What is it that we can do to change 

our lives? My brother was a big influence.” 

Kim also does the work for a very 

personal reason. At age 17, he was 

charged with homicide and spent the 

next 32 years behind bars. 

“I never thought I would be out 

here … no lifer was coming out at 

the time,” said Kim. “I told myself, if 

I ever get a chance, this is what I was 

going to do.” 

Just one week after his release, Kim 

started volunteering at the office he 

now runs. He said he hates to call 

PREP a “program” and thinks of it 

as more of a community of friends or 

“accountability partners” that call one 

another for support or advice. 

In August, hundreds of those 

friends celebrated Sister Mary Sean 

and PREP’s anniversary at St. Basil 

Church in Koreatown. Sister credits 

her success to having a good team and 

a good vision. She joked she won’t 

stop working as long as Kim helps 

with the computers. 

“I don’t think there’s a day that goes 

by that I don’t ask for help. So I’ll do 

anything but technology,” she said. 

“I just want to keep going until I 

can’t.” 

Natalie Romano is a freelance writer 

for Angelus and the Inland Catholic 

Byte, the news website of the Diocese 

of San Bernardino. 


A chance 

to rebound 

How gratitude inspired 

one parishioner’s 

generous response to 

a vandal’s attack on a 

beloved statue. 

BY TOM HOFFARTH 

In the darkness of an early Saturday 

morning last March 19, Father 

Steve Davoren and his golden lab, 

Blue, came out the back exit of the 

rectory at St. Mel’s Church in Woodland 

Hills for a pre-dawn run. 

But before he could start, the priest’s 

heart sank when he saw what the 

floodlights pointing at the church’s 

iconic statue cluster of Jesus and 

three children revealed. 

Grainy security footage only captured 

the arm of a person repeatedly 

swinging an unidentified weapon at 

the statues. Pieces fell from what has 

been a longtime centerpiece of the 

parish, in a highly visible spot off of 

busy Ventura Boulevard. 

Chunks of the marbled concrete that 

came off the twisted, exposed rebar 

were everywhere: in the raised flower 

bed flanked by white rose bushes, in 

the parking lot, on the sidewalk next 

to the parish office. 

Father Davoren immediately called 

the church’s business manager, Lisa 

Feliciano, who threw on a hoodie and 

came right over. 

“It was horrific,” said Feliciano. “But 

now we were putting pieces in a box, 

crying. I couldn’t believe anyone 

could have this much hate to do this.” 

Feliciano filed a police report along 

with the surveillance video, which 

she described as “two minutes of 

torture.” 

“I see it and it still makes me cry,” 

she said. 

It fell to Father Davoren to explain 

the attack to parishioners the next day 

at Sunday Masses, preaching understanding 

and forgiveness in the place 

of anger and frustration. 

“To me, the irony of this was the person 

who did this Michael Stucchi poses in 

had to be a broken front of the restored statue 

person himself,” of Jesus with children at St. 

said Father Davoren, 

pastor at St. Hills. | TOM HOFFARTH 

Mel’s Church in Woodland 

Mel’s since 2018. 

“Through Scripture 

we know we need to pray for 

people who feel they have to destroy.” 

Michael Stucchi heard Father Davoren’s 

message loud and clear that 

weekend. A systems software engineer 

by trade, Stucchi has found satisfac- 


tion working for the parish to restore 

four in-church statues in the past as 

well as Nativity scene statues. 

He has been their humble go-to, 

fix-it man. But this was something 

bigger. 

“When I spoke to Father Steve 

about it a few days after it happened, 

I admit, I was angry, mad, indignant 

because the statues were special to 

me and my family,” said Stucchi, 

whose son works in the parish office. 

“But then I heard his sadness and 

concern for the mental state of the 

person who damaged the statues. 

That’s so much like him. This really 

altered my paradigm from reactive to 

proactive — to ask if I could look into 

ways of repairing them. 

“Father Steve’s compassion is what 

Jesus would want us to have. All the 

people who work here are in the same 

mindset of love and forgiveness. We 

have no idea what terrible things are 

in that person’s life.” 

Stucchi and Feliciano started the 

reconstruction by collecting and 

studying photographs of the statues 

to examine all their features. The 

depiction of Jesus is about 6 feet tall 

and weighs about 1,000 pounds; each 

child on its own concrete base weighs 

about 300 pounds. 

The collection dates to the 1950s, 

when the parish was first built. It had 

once been part of a fountain display 

in front of the school office and later 

relocated near the church’s west 

doors in the 1990s when the new 

parish center was built. 

Feliciano had contacted the archdiocese 

about filing an insurance claim, 

and was told it might cost as much as 

$30,000 to repair. 

Stucchi said he could take care of it, 

with no charge to the parish. 

That didn’t surprise Feliciano, who 

calls Stucchi “a true angel.” 

“Look at the difference between 

someone filled with hate and destruction 

… and then someone like Michael 

who spends his time showing 

pure love and joy putting it back together,” 

said Feliciano. “Both are our 

neighbors, they live among us. How 

can there be such a vast difference in 

someone’s heart and soul?” 

Stucchi experimented with different 

combinations of compounds 

— crushed marble, white Portland 

cement and waterproof exterior grout. 

Most of the work had to be done on 

site, with some pieces taken to his 

home garage. 

“I was super cautious about not making 

anything worse,” said Stucchi, 

noting the materials often dried too 

quickly in the summer heat, causing 

more delays. “The saddest part to me 

was the damage to Jesus. We know 

enough about the pain and suffering 

Jesus went through in his life, but to 

see an image of him obliterated, that’s 

too much.” 

Slowly and meticulously, Stucchi 

has pieced together the statues to 

where they may even be in better 

condition now because of the ways 

weather and age already caused 

cracks and decay before the vandalism. 

Seven months later, Stucchi has a 

few finishing touches — and plenty of 

gratitude — still left. 

“As a priest’s sacrifice and commitment 

are beyond my comprehension 

or capabilities, having seen their 

dedication and that of the other volunteers 

and staff, I felt it’s the least I 

can do,” said Stucchi. “Notwithstanding, 

the Catholic Church was always 

there for me when I was a child and 

young adult.” 

From a business perspective, Feliciano 

said the experience has taught 

her about the need for better security. 

The statues also were previously 

vandalized in 2021 when someone 

painted the faces a green color, but 

they were easy enough to repaint 

white. 

“As a parishioner, the kindness of 

Michael reminds me that there is 

goodness in the world,” said Feliciano, 

who noted the 100 degree 

days Michael spent 

Details of the damaged 

statues of Jesus 

and a child. 

| MICHAEL STUCCHI 

with the statue last 

summer. “I am reminded 

to pray for 

the person who was 

filled with enough 

hate to do the damage 

and thank God 

for blessing us with Michael.” 

Father Davoren believes that “to 

some degree, we’re all broken and 

damaged, but our faith in the love of 

God allows people like Michael the 

tenderness to painstakingly put those 

pieces of the statue back together. 

“It’s about giving people the right 

amount of grace to rebound in their 

lives.” 

Tom Hoffarth is an award-winning 

journalist based in Los Angeles. 


Pope Francis meets with leaders of the Synod of Bishops’ general secretariat in the library of the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican Oct. 14. Pictured with the pontiff are Xavière 

Missionary Sister Nathalie Becquart, undersecretary; Bishop Luis Marín de San Martín, undersecretary; Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, relator general; Cardinal 

Mario Grech, secretary-general; and Father Giacomo Costa, SJ, consultant. | CNS/VATICAN MEDIA 

The pope’s synodal endgame? 

What Francis’ decision to extend the ongoing Synod of Bishops 

on Synodality means for the Church — and his legacy. 

BY ELISE ANN ALLEN 

ROME — Pope Francis made 

headlines Oct. 16 when he 

announced the extension of the 

ongoing Synod of Bishops on Synodality 

by an additional year, prompting 

many to question the reasoning for 

prolonging the three-year process even 

further. 

In his Angelus address to pilgrims in 

St. Peter’s Square that day, Pope Francis 

voiced hope that the move would 

“foster understanding of synodality as a 

constitutive dimension of the Church, 

and help everyone to live it in a journey 

of brothers and sisters who bear 

witness to the joy of the Gospel.” 

Though notoriously difficult to define 

even among Church hierarchy, “synodality” 

is generally understood to refer 

to a collaborative and consultative style 

of management in which all members, 

clerical and lay, participate in making 

decisions about the Church’s life and 

mission. 

Typically a monthlong gathering of 

bishops at the Vatican, this synod has 

been reconceived as a multiphase 

process beginning with a local consultation 

carried out among pastors and 

faithful around the world. 

The first diocesan stage of the synod 

lasted from October 2021 to April 2022 

and consisted of a consultative process 

outlined by synod organizers. A second 

“continental” phase began in September 

and will last through March 2023, 

with continental bishops’ conferences 

comparing and evaluating the results 

of the diocesan consultations. 

For the United States, which does not 

belong to a continental conference 

of the bishops, the second phase will 


e a meeting between American and 

Canadian bishops. 

A final, universal phase was set to 

conclude the process during next year’s 

Oct. 4-29 gathering in Rome, but with 

Pope Francis’ announcement Sunday, 

that universal phase is now extended 

to 2024. 

“Synodality” has become a buzzword 

of the Pope Francis papacy, and in the 

wake of his announcement Sunday, 

many observers have asked what’s behind 

the extension, especially given the 

notorious lack of participation among 

laypeople, especially in many western 

nations, whereas participation in places 

like Asia or Africa, while still low, was 

significantly higher. 

Some have suggested that Pope 

Francis is recreating his ecumenical 

council, something like a “Vatican III” 

to discuss and evaluate the failed implementation 

of reforms that came out 

of the Second Vatican Council, which 

launched 60 years ago this month. 

An op-ed in the Vatican newspaper 

L’Osservatore Romano recently argued 

that a so-called “Vatican III” is “an 

open question” and something potentially 

needed in the current social and 

ecclesial climate. 

Some have pondered whether the 

pope is trying to put off difficult conversations 

likely to end in controversy 

over ideological differences. Others 

assert he is attempting to garner more 

participation, that he has a specific unstated 

objective in mind at the end of 

it all. There’s also the theory that he’s 

hitting back against those inclined not 

to take the synod too seriously, since it 

won’t last much longer. 

One thing is for certain: With this 

announcement Pope Francis has more 

or less communicated his intention to 

stick around until at least 2024, given 

the significant weight that synodality 

holds in his papacy and his commitment 

to this particular synod process. 

For those who compare the synod to 

some form of Pope Francis’ own Vatican 

council, it’s helpful to look back at 

what he said during his Mass commemorating 

the 60th anniversary of 

Vatican II, when he cautioned that the 

goal of the devil is to “sow the darnel of 

division” within the Church. 

Opened by St. Pope John XXIII on 

Oct. 11, 1962, and closed by St. Pope 

Paul VI on Dec. 8, 1965, the Second 

Vatican Council produced sweeping 

reforms and laid the groundwork for 

landmark developments in interfaith 

relations, the liturgy, and the Church’s 

own pastoral perspective and approach 

to the world. 

These reforms caused intense 

controversy and were met with fierce 

resistance by some who argued that 

the Church was watering down and 

abandoning the essentials, while others 

were accused of taking the reforms too 

far, becoming lax. Much of the resistance 

to the Vatican II reforms exists to 

If that’s the case, then the “endgame” 

is not recreating the Second Vatican 

Council — or calling a new one 

altogether. 

On one hand, the synod calls for 

broad consultation on challenges, 

divisions, and hot-button topics of the 

day beginning at the local level, with 

a special emphasis on a greater role 

and voice for the laity. On the other 

hand, Pope Francis is clearly targeting 

issues he sees as feeding divisions, such 

as clericalism in the Church and the 

embrace of the Traditional Latin Mass. 

Whether Pope Francis’ “endgame” is 

any of these things is anyone’s guess. 

But as his pontificate moves into what 

may be its final years, the concept of 

synodality and Pope Francis’ attempts 

to push forward the reforms of the Second 

Vatican Council are shaping up to 

be the protagonists of his legacy. 

Elise Ann Allen is a senior correspondent 

for Crux in Rome, covering the 

Vatican and the global Church. 

It could be argued that Pope Francis blames 

misinterpretation of Vatican II and its reforms for 

many of the divisions splitting Catholics today, 

and that synodality is his idea of a remedy. 

this day. 

At the Mass celebrating the 60th 

anniversary of Vatican II, Pope Francis 

condemned extreme reactions to the 

council on either side, saying, “both 

the ‘progressivism’ that lines up behind 

the world and the ‘traditionalism’ that 

longs for a bygone world are not evidence 

of love, but of infidelity.” 

“Let us not give in to his enticements 

or to the temptation of polarization,” 

he said, asking, “How often, in the 

wake of the council, did Christians 

prefer to choose sides in the Church, 

not realizing that they were breaking 

their mother’s heart!” 

In this context, it could be argued that 

Pope Francis blames misinterpretation 

of Vatican II and its reforms for many 

of the divisions splitting Catholics 

today, and that synodality is his idea of 

a remedy. 


A stained-glass window in a monastery in Austria. | WOLFGANG SAUBER/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

OUR RICHEST REPETITION 

In the ‘Holy! Holy! Holy!’ of the Eucharist, the Church worships God in 

awe, on earth as in heaven. 

BY MIKE AQUILINA 

The U.S. bishops are encouraging 

Catholics to deepen their love for the 

Eucharist as part of the ongoing National 

Eucharistic Revival initiative. 

In light of that effort, the following 

is the first in a series from Angelus 

contributing editor Mike Aquilina 

on the meaning and makeup of the 

Eucharistic Prayers. 

Holy! Holy!” 

So we sing (or say) at 

“Holy! 

every celebration of the 

Mass. 

We call it the “Sanctus” (Latin for 

“Holy”) or the “Trisagion” (Greek 

for “Thrice-Holy”), and it marks the 

beginning of the Eucharistic Prayer, 

the most important moment in our 

worship. 

In fact, God’s people have used it 

in worship since centuries before 

the coming of Jesus. In many ways, 

it is the song at the heart of biblical 

religion. 

The prophet Isaiah provided history’s 

first witness to the use of the hymn. 

He heard the seraphim sing it on a 

particular day in the year King Uzziah 

died, around 740 B.C. 

While serving as a priest in the 

Temple, Isaiah suddenly had a vision 

of the worship that takes place in 

heaven. He saw six-winged seraphim 

22 • ANGELUS • November 4, 2022

standing at God’s throne. “And one 

called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, 

holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole 

earth is full of his glory’ ” (Isaiah 6:3). 

Awestruck and terrified, Isaiah recognized 

that he stood in the sight of 

God, his judge, and he was profoundly 

conscious of his own sins: “Woe is 

me! For I am lost; for I am a man of 

unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst 

of a people of unclean lips” (v. 5). 

Ever afterward the hymn was integral 

to Jewish piety. It appears in ancient 

texts, some of which predate the 

Gospel, such as the “First Book of 

Enoch,” the “Testament of Abraham,” 

and the “Apocalypse of Moses.” There 

is evidence that it was used in the 

liturgy of the Jerusalem Temple. And 

it was sung in the synagogue — and 

still is today. Scholars believe that in 

the practice of the Jerusalem Temple 

the “Sanctus” was followed by a “Benedictus,” 

an invocation that begins, 

“Blessed is he…” (perhaps Ezekiel 

3:12 or Psalm 72:19). 

Chanted in these places, the “Holy, 

Holy, Holy” represents a correspondence 

between worship on earth and in 

heaven. God’s people raise the same 

hymn offered by his angels. 

For the Jews this was a sign of restoration, 

of harmony between God and 

his people. In one apocryphal text, 

Adam recalled that the “Trisagion” 

was the mid-morning prayer of the 

seraphim, and in Eden he could hear 

them sing it. “But after I transgressed 

against the law,” he added, “I no 

longer heard that sound.” 

With the arrival of the Gospel, the 

song remained at the heart of the 

Bible’s understanding of worship. In 

the Book of Revelation, John recorded 

heavenly visions like Isaiah’s, but he 

described them in greater detail. In 

chapter 4 he showed us “four living 

creatures,” each with six wings, “and 

day and night they never cease to sing, 

‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God 

Almighty, who was and is and is to 

come!’ ” (Revelation 4:8). 

The “Sanctus” likely became part 

of the Church’s ritual public worship 

at a very early date. Pope St. Clement 

mentioned it in his letter to the 

Corinthians, written in the second 

half of the first century. Several 

bishops of the early Church discussed 

the “Sanctus” in their preaching for 

Easter Week, when it was customary 

to explain the parts of the Mass. Both 

Cyril of Jerusalem and Theodore of 

Mopsuestia believed that its use in the 

liturgy was a sign of the reconciliation 

won through Jesus Christ. 

For Cyril, the “Sanctus” was a necessary 

prelude to the Lord’s eucharistic 

presence. “Then having sanctified 

ourselves by these spiritual hymns,” 

he said, “we beseech the merciful 

God to send forth his Holy Spirit 

upon the gifts lying before him; that 

he may make the Bread the Body of 

Christ, and the Wine the Blood of 

Christ.” 

Like the Jews before them, the early 

Christians often paired the “Sanctus” 

with a “Benedictus,” this one from 

the New Testament: “Blessed is he 

who comes in the name of the Lord” 

(Matthew 21:9, 23:39). 

So it has been since the Temple 

was standing in Jerusalem. So it has 

been since the visions of Isaiah and 

John. The “Holy, Holy, Holy” rises 

as an expression of awe and wonder, 

unworthiness, and praise. It is a sign 

that God’s presence is imminent. 

In Hebrew, to repeat an adjective 

three times was to express its superlative 

form. In English we say something 

is “holy,” or “holier” in comparison 

to something else, or “holiest” in 

comparison to everything else. In this 

hymn a congregation makes clear that 

no one and nothing is as holy as God 

is holy. 

For Christians, moreover, the 

thrice-holy hymn is a suggestion of 

the three-personed God: Father, Son, 

and Holy Spirit. 

Modern scholars believe that the 

first Christians drew the texts of their 

Eucharistic Prayers from simple Jewish 

meal blessings. But they upped the 

solemnity by adding the “Sanctus.” 

Said the great historian of the Mass, 

Enrico Mazza: “It serves to define 

the nature of the [earthly] liturgy as 

participation in the celestial liturgy.” 

And so Pope Clement of Rome, 

around A.D. 67, said to the Christians 

of Corinth: “Let us consider 

the whole multitude of his angels, 

how they … cried, ‘Holy, holy, holy, 

[is] the Lord of Hosts; the whole 

creation is full of his glory.’ And let 

us therefore, conscientiously gathering 

together in harmony, cry to him 

earnestly, as with one mouth, that we 

may be made partakers of his great 

and glorious promises.” 

Mike Aquilina is author of “The Mass 

of the Early Christians” and a contributing 

editor to Angelus. 

The revival 

continues 

in LA 

Following the archdiocesan 

Eucharistic Congress 

celebrated at the Cathedral 

of Our Lady of the Angels 

Aug. 13, regional Eucharistic 

Congresses are being planned 

in each of the five pastoral 

regions of the Archdiocese 

of Los Angeles as part of the 

National Eucharistic Revival. 

The first two regional 

congresses will be held in 

November: 

San Gabriel Pastoral Region 

Saturday, Nov. 5, 

9 a.m.-1 p.m., 

Sacred Heart Church, 

344 W. Workman St., 

Covina, CA 91723. 

San Pedro Pastoral Region 

Saturday, Nov. 19, 

9 a.m.-1 p.m., 

St. Gertrude Church, 

7025 Garfield Ave., 

Bell Gardens, CA 90201. 

In addition, a special 

Eucharistic Revival event for 

young adults is planned for: 

Saturday, Dec. 3, 7 p.m., 

Holy Family Church, 

209 E. Lomita Ave., 

Glendale, CA 91205. 


Mary’s 

race to the 

finish line 

This fall, the Getty 

showcases medieval 

musings about the 

mother of God’s 

everyday life. 

BY STEFANO REBEGGIANI 

To Catholics, the Virgin Mary 

has long been, among other 

things, the mother of God, the 

ultimate model of faith, and our most 

powerful intercessor. 

At the same time, she also was a 

simple woman, a human being who 

suffered like us, both physically and 

spiritually. She experienced poverty, 

precariousness, and loss, so it’s no surprise 

her everyday life as a spouse and 

mother has fascinated Christians from 

the beginning. 

The new “Visualizing the Virgin 

Mary” exhibit at the Getty Center Museum 

brings that religious fascination 

to a secular space, aiming to capture 

the ways Christians have imagined the 

everyday life of Mary and her intervention 

in their own lives. 

This is a small exhibit, less impressive 

than the previous ones drawn from 

the Getty’s manuscript collection. 

The bulk of the exhibit is made up of 

illuminated manuscripts from Europe, 

dating from the Middle Ages to the 

early Renaissance. 

The exhibition is divided into three 

parts. The first part, “Mary beyond the 

Bible,” looks at how artists imagined 

events in the life of Mary that are not 

narrated (or if so, only briefly) in the 

Bible. 

The second part, “Miraculous Mary,” 

“Initial G: The Death of the Virgin,” about 1270, by Jacobellus of Salerno | GETTY MUSEUM 

looks at the cult of Mary and her role 

as healer and performer of miracles. 

The last part, titled “Mary in the 

Americas,” explores the legacy of Marian 

imagery in the Americas, especially 

the virgin of Guadalupe. 

Ancient religions were full of goddesses 

and demi-goddesses, women of 

extraordinary beauty and wisdom who 

were the object of cult and meddled 

in the life of humans. They were cold, 

majestic, and distant, unable to fully 

sympathize with mortals, having never 

felt pain, sorrow, or hunger. 

The Virgin Mary is different. She 

is the object of cult, but she is fully 

human. She was the mother of God, 

but she lived an ordinary life. 

This distinction comes across clearly 

in the first “Mary beyond the Bible” 

section of the exhibit, which includes 

a 15th-century illuminated manuscript 

from Paris depicting Mary reading a 

book to a toddler Jesus while he rides a 

hobby horse. 

The exhibit’s most striking, beautiful 

image is from a Renaissance manuscript 

in Bruges portraying the Virgin 

Mary surrounded by seven spears 

representing the Seven Sorrows of 

the Virgin Mary, which are depicted 

separately in rectangular spaces on the 

page margins. 

The artwork conveyed how the 

prophecy of Simeon from the Gospel 

of Luke (“And a sword will pierce your 

soul too”) did not only concern the 

passion of Jesus: the whole life of Mary 

was marked by the cross. In the lower 

left corner, she makes her way to Bethlehem 

on a donkey, a prelude to Jesus’ 

birth in utter poverty and precariousness. 

At the bottom right Mary receives 

Simeon’s ominous prophecy. 

Above, on the right side, is the loss of 

Jesus for three days in Jerusalem and 


his recovery in the 

Temple among 

the doctors. The 

three days that 

Mary spent in 

anxious search for 

her son prepared 

her for the loss of 

Jesus, for three 

days, in a tomb. 

And on the top 

and right margins 

she follows Jesus 

in his passion, 

from the Via 

Crucis to the 

sepulcher. 

Mary’s humanity 

— seen in 

her closeness to 

those who invoke 

her — is also 

crucial to the 

cult of Mary as 

miracle worker. 

Several illuminations 

focus on 

Mary’s miraculous 

interventions: Her 

portrait comes to 

life in response 

to the prayer of a 

woman in a manuscript 

miniature, 

or she miraculously 

brings Communion 

to the imprisoned 

St. Avia 

in a 14th-century 

French illumination. 

What makes the 

Virgin Mary so unique and so important 

is, in other words, the mystery of 

incarnation, which ancient pagan writers 

found impossible to understand: 

that the infinite, God, became finite, 

taking our flesh, in all its weakness, so 

that ours could also enter eternity. 

In the words of Pope Francis, Mary “is 

the first creature who, with her whole 

self, body, and soul, victoriously crosses 

the finish line of heaven.” 

Later in the exhibit, a 16th-century 

miniature from an Armenian manuscript 

places her at the scene of Jesus’ 

assumption into heaven (a detail not 

recorded in the Gospels), standing at 

the center of the picture surrounded 

“The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin,” about 1525–1530, by Simon Bening. | GETTY MUSEUM 

by the apostles, looking up at her son 

already in heaven. The work suggests 

that she will follow him as he enters 

divine life. 

Another miniature portrays the scene 

of Mary’s death and assumption: the 

dying Virgin Mary is on a bed, surrounded 

by the apostles, and her soul, 

depicted as a little baby, is already in 

her child’s hands. The mother of God 

is also her daughter, being born again 

to eternal life. 

There’s also a 13th-century German 

manuscript showing Mary during the 

annunciation as she believes the words 

of the angels and the Holy Spirit, 

depicted as a little dove issuing from 

the mouth of 

Gabriel, comes to 

reside in her. The 

scene recalls St. 

Ambrose’s famous 

exhortation on 

the episode: “You 

too, my people, 

are blessed, you 

who have heard 

and who believe. 

Every soul that 

believes — that 

soul both conceives 

and gives 

birth to the word 

of God and recognizes 

his works.” 

This small 

collection is a 

reminder of the 

most important 

thing we share 

in common with 

Mary: Just as she 

received this announcement 

from 

an archangel, 

we, too, receive 

life-changing 

news every time 

we hear the Gospel 

announced by 

another Christian. 

As a result, Mary 

believed and a 

new, divine life 

was generated in 

her. Likewise, our 

faith promises that 

a new creature is 

generated in those 

who receive the good news and believe 

it, one with the same spirit of Jesus: a 

person who is able to love, to forgive, 

and to give his life for others. 

As so many Christian artists throughout 

the centuries have understood, this 

new life reaches its fullness in heaven, 

thanks to the path opened by Christ 

and followed by his mother. 

“Visualizing the Virgin Mary” went on 

view at the Getty Center Museum Oct. 

11 and is open through Jan. 8, 2023. 

Stefano Rebeggiani is an associate 

professor of classics at the University of 

Southern California. 


INTERSECTIONS 

GREG ERLANDSON 

Biking alone, worshipping apart 

SHUTTERSTOCK 

Pope Francis once cited an African 

proverb: “If you want to go fast, 

go alone; if you want to go far, go 

with others.” 

This may hold true for pedestrians, 

but when it comes to bicycling, I’ve 

found that, whether you wanted to go 

fast or far, it helps to ride with others. 

Unfortunately, I’ve become a solitary 

cyclist, riding river trails and country 

roads alone. To go faster and farther, 

I’d enjoy riding with others, but as of 

yet I’ve not found a group that pedals at 

my pace. Either I’m too slow or occasionally 

too fast to make it an enjoyable 

group ride. Yet I know that on those 

occasions when I do link up with another 

rider who is a bit faster than me, 

I get better. Maybe it’s the competition, 

maybe it’s the fellowship. In either 

case, I keep looking for a community to 

ride with. 

A lot of us are looking for community 

these days. Social scientists have been 

chronicling how many of us go it alone 

on the trails of life, or with a relatively 

few number of friends. The statistics 

about loneliness are well known: We 

are a mobile society, families are spread 

out and friendships are sometimes dependent 

on mutual concerns or needs 

of the moment. We friend up with the 

parents of kids the same age as ours, 

but those friendships may last only as 

long as our kids are friends. We move 

for jobs or divorce or weather. We are 

individuals on the move, but at a cost. 

At the same time, we have superficial 

contact in many ways with a broad 

group of people through social media. 

We “friend” people but we aren’t 

friends with people in a deep, community 

building sense. In the United 

States, we use the word “friends” to 

denominate a wide variety of acquaintances, 

but what we might think of as 

friendship is often transactional and 

relatively shallow. 

In looking at some of the madness 

all around us these days — from hate 

groups to conspiracy hunters to identity 

group cloisters — I keep seeing lost 

human beings in search of community, 

identity, and purpose. If these can no 

longer be found in society’s traditional 

institutions, then they might be found 

in the Proud Boys, Antifa, or QAnon. 

But a lot of us are a bit lost, and 

people are searching for what religious 

faith should offer everyone: Community. 

Identity. Purpose. And yet religious 

practice is declining across the board, 

and certainly in Catholic circles. Initiation 

in the sacraments of initiation is 

down. There are fewer Catholic marriages 

and Catholic funerals. Numbers 

were dropping before COVID, but 

have gotten worse since then. Bishops 

and pastors are worried as church 


Greg Erlandson is the president and 

editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service. 

attendance in most places has not 

rebounded to pre-COVID numbers. 

We may not know all the reasons for 

this statistical stagnation, yet it seems 

strange that Catholicism, which by 

its very nature should offer community, 

identity, and purpose, seems to 

struggle to attract people hungering 

for that. 

Catholic bishops have expressed 

great concern about polls suggesting 

there is a lack of understanding of 

and appreciation for the Eucharist: If 

we only understood this “source and 

summit” of our faith, we would be 

more committed. 

But I wonder if perhaps our crisis 

is at heart not that we don’t believe 

in the body of Christ present in the 

Eucharist. Rather, we don’t believe 

that we and our fellow believers are 

together members of the body of 

Christ. Maybe the sacrament we don’t 

understand is baptism. 

Near my house is an Eritrean 

Orthodox Church. Every Sunday 

they stream to their liturgy wearing 

white linen garments reminiscent of 

a baptismal robe. No fancy dresses 

visible. Not smart suits. The simple 

white garments are a visual sign of 

community. 

Look at our fragmentation as a 

Church — Latin Mass Catholics and 

social justice Catholics and Marian 

Catholics and charismatics. Pro-life 

Catholics and pro-immigrant Catholics. 

Democrat Catholics and Republican 

Catholics. Hispanic Catholics 

and convert Catholics. And lots of 

relatively disengaged Catholics, some 

of whom are edging toward the door. 

Are we one body? We are many parts, 

of course, and all these different ways 

of seeking to serve and follow Christ 

are not bad in and of themselves. But 

if we can only see ourselves as belonging 

to this particular group or avoiding 

that particular group, what is the unity 

we are celebrating each week at Mass? 

When we enter our parish church 

each Sunday, do we feel as if we are 

coming home? Are we joining our 

brothers and sisters? Do we have a 

sense of the “sacramental bond of unity” 

in Christ? And if so, is it obvious to 

others? Do they see a living community, 

or a community barely alive? 

Are too many of us walking our paths 

alone?

The specter of times past 

In an irreligious age, is ‘Folk Horror’ the last truly Christian film genre? 

BY JOE JOYCE 

A scene from “Midsommar.” | IMDB 

A 

friend and I recently spent 

a dateless October evening 

debating whether the 1979 film 

“Alien” should be classified as science 

fiction or horror. My friend concluded 

that “Alien” was the former because 

while that genre looks to the future, 

horror concerns itself with the past. 

That argument convinced me. After 

all, aren’t the villains of horror films 

archaic vampires and ghosts in crumbling 

estates, or killers returning to 

town to echo the crimes they committed 

20 years ago tonight? The monster 

never attacks from the front, but from 

behind. 

This characteristic is magnified in 

the subgenre of what’s known as “Folk 

Horror,” which can be safely described 

as horror of the past itself. While varied 

as any genre, there are some general 

consistencies throughout: A Folk 

Horror film is set in a rural locale, its 

geographic isolation mimicking its 

moral seclusion from modern life. In it 

you will likely find cairns, runes, misshapen 

villagers, fog rolling over the 

misty moors, moss-strewn cobblestones, 

and the inevitable maiden wearing a 

thin white robe in cold weather. 

(The category shares similarities to 

Hallmark movies in that it usually features 

a big-city outsider visiting a small 

town and never leaving, although here 

that decision is usually involuntary and 

with a bit more blood sacrifice.) 

Kier-La Janisse’s recent documentary, 

“Woodlands Dark and Days 

Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror,” 


is a comprehensive, even exhaustive, 

primer on the subject. She provides 

a veritable syllabus of film clips, from 

classics such as “The Blood on Satan’s 

Claw” and “Children of the Corn” to 

more recent releases like “The Witch.” 

She has assembled an impressive 

parade of academics on the subject 

and seemingly every pierced nose from 

either side of the Atlantic. But while 

these experts deliberate and dissect 

every possible “-ism” known to man 

(feminism, colonialism, and classicism 

get particular attention,) they neglect 

to examine the genre’s most intriguing 

feature: its inseparability with Christianity. 

A common denominator in these 

films is the threat invariably coming 

from a pre-Christian deity or cult. 

Folk Horror is unique among horror, 

or indeed any genre, in remaining 

cleareyed on the realities of paganism. 

With the buffer of years, this brand of 

paganism usually represents little more 

than harmless tree worship, Greenpeace 

with the promise of an afterlife. 

When we think of the old gods now, 

our minds are likely to drift to Chris 

Hemsworth, or perhaps to pottery shop 

covens who frolic naked in state parks. 

But in Folk Horror, we are brought 

nose to nose with the actual rituals, 

unable to avert our gaze. 

For usurping paganism, Christianity 

is often labeled a genocidal colonizer, 

or worse yet a party pooper. But when 

rights we once presumed to be innate 

are yanked away, we realize how much 

we are indebted to the Christian tradition. 

For all the Church’s historical 

faults over the centuries, it has at least 

had the decency to keep our organs inside 

our body. There are rarely winners 

in a Folk Horror film, but Christianity 

doesn’t lose. It may not be the hero as 

in exorcist films, but it at least gets the 

dignity of not being the villain for once. 

2019’s “Midsommar” is the most 

recent and perhaps familiar example. 

Folk Horror is unique among film genres in remaining 

cleareyed on the realities of paganism. 

The story follows a group of American 

graduate students who attend a midsummer 

festival in rural Sweden. The 

villagers still follow the pagan rites and 

rituals, much to the fascination of the 

young tourists. But as the rituals grow 

increasingly gruesome, their academic 

detachment gives in to denial. 

They want to remain mature anthropologists, 

blessing the proceedings with 

a cultural and moral relativism and 

more than a hint of arrogance. They 

realize too late that the villagers don’t 

hold them with the same remove. 

Opting out simply isn’t an option, and 

by refusing to make a judgment, they 

expose themselves to a more proactive 

spirituality. 

But the platonic ideal of Folk Horror’s 

Christian sympathies is 1973’s “The 

Wicker Man,” in which a puritanical 

Christian police officer is sent to a remote 

Scottish island to investigate the 

disappearance of a little girl. There he 

finds that the islanders have returned 

Christopher Lee in “The 

Wicker Man.” | IMDB 

to Celtic but mostly harmless practices, 

like maypoles and free love. 

Our hero chafes against these hippies, 

and we in turn chafe against his prudish 

rudeness. The film exploits our natural 

distaste against this sort of stick-inthe-mud, 

the type of school-board scold 

who would try to ban Harry Potter and 

unchaste hand-holding. 

But as we settle into our prejudices, 

some doubts naggingly linger. Why are 

the villagers so cheerfully noncooperative? 

Why do they deny the missing girl 

even existed, when evidence abounds 

that she did? The questions keep piling 

up until our hero’s narrowmindedness 

calcifies into backbone. 

The most fascinating character of all 

is Lord Summerisle (played by the legendary 

late British actor Christopher 

Lee), the leader of this little hamlet. 

While the villagers are true believers, 

Summerisle remains a participating 

skeptic. He openly acknowledges that 

his grandfather coupled a pagan revival 

to his modern farming techniques to 

ensure a blissful and docile workforce. 

His grandson sees no reason to buck 

tradition. 

But it’s hardly tradition when it’s so 

patently manufactured. The rituals of 

the island are of questionable veracity, 

just transcribed from books and other 

popular conceptions of paganism. 

What the islanders practice is not 

pagan belief, but rather the notion of 

paganism filtered through modernity. 

Whatever evils inflicted by the cult 

can’t be blamed on Celtic culture, but 

on those wicked desires the modern 

mind thinks paganism permits. To 

borrow parlance from a different horror 

genre, the call is coming from inside 

the house. 

William Faulkner once said that the 

past is never dead, it’s not even past. 

Folk Horror reminds us that true terror 

lies not in the bad old days returning, 

but that those bad old impulses never 

left at all. 

Joe Joyce is a screenwriter and freelance 

critic based in Sherman Oaks. 


DESIRE LINES 

HEATHER KING 

Sister Wendy’s words of wisdom 

Sister Wendy Beckett and Robert Ellsberg in 2017. 

| ORBIS/TWITTER VIA @CARMELITESPIRIT 

Back in the 1990s, Sister Wendy 

Beckett (1930-2018), a cloistered 

Carmelite nun and consecrated 

virgin, delighted audiences worldwide 

with her lively BBC documentaries on 

the history of art. 

Born in Johannesburg, she joined 

a teaching order in 1946, and then 

earned a degree in English Literature 

at Oxford, graduating with highest 

honors. 

After teaching in South Africa from 

1954 to 1970, she suffered a physical 

and emotional collapse and was granted 

permission to return to England. 

There she stayed for decades on the 

property of the Carmelite Monastery 

in Quidenham, Norfolk, first in a 

caravan; later in a small room. Her true 

vocation was to take place in silence 

and solitude. She prayed for seven 

hours a day. 

With permission from the Church, 

she began to study art history. Her first 

television appearance was in a 1991 

BBC short. In full habit, and with her 

trademark owlish glasses, overbite, 

and slight speech impediment such 

that her r’s became w’s, she became a 

sensation. 

She went on to host her own shows — 

“Sister Wendy’s Odyssey”; “Sister Wendy’s 

Grand Tour” — and to write more 

than 30 books. Hands clasped in joy, 

face framed by a wimple, she could 

hold forth with equal enthusiasm on 

Andy Warhol’s “Marilyn Diptych” and 

a Rembrandt self-portrait. 

The TV run faded out, she returned 

to her cloister, and 20 years passed. Enter 

Robert Ellsberg, publisher of Orbis 

Books, who in the spring of 2016 initiated 

an email exchange. An epistolary 

friendship developed and before long 

he asked if they might not continue 

their back-and-forth and collect their 

letters into a book. 

“Dearest Sister Wendy: A Surprising 

Story of Faith and Friendship” (Orbis 

Books, $28) is the result — and it’s a 

fascinating read. 

We get a bird’s-eye view of the life of a 

contemplative who crammed her tiny 

room with postcards and icons, barely 

slept or ate, and rose after an afternoon 

rest at 8 p.m. to begin her daily round 

of prayer. 

Still, over and over again, she insists 

she has nothing to say. Surely you do, 

counters Ellsberg. How about if I ask 

you questions? OK, replies Sister Wendy, 

but I guarantee you’ll be bored. On 

it goes for 2 ½ years (the book ends 

with Sister Wendy’s death), Ellsberg cajoling 

Sister Wendy against her better 

judgment, for the most part giving in. 

We’re grateful she does. Sister Wendy 

is utterly delightful: original, surprising, 

diplomatic, and profoundly loving but 


Heather King is an award-winning 

author, speaker, and workshop leader. 

with strong opinions. She cannot share 

Ellsberg’s near hero-worship of Father 

Thomas Merton, for example. Though 

she’s read everything he’s ever written 

with avid interest, she’s appalled that 

he “describes the most extraordinary 

breaches of the rule without the slightest 

contrition or even awareness that he 

promised to live otherwise.” 

Ellsberg sees this as admirable, the 

sign of a free spirit whose mission was 

to show the world a new way to be a 

monastic. Sister Wendy, whose life of 

faith means denying herself everything 

that “isn’t necessary or would intrude” 

— including, for example, music — 

politely but firmly disagrees. Father 

Merton was a genius with a heart 

longing for God but no saint, and she 

knows no contemplative who finds him 

remotely helpful. 

To their mutual credit, they both 

accept their differences and warmly 

search for the similarities. Sister confides 

that she’s always hated her name 

and cheerfully admits to her protruding 

teeth. Ellsberg chides Sister Wendy for 

her over-the-top (to him) asceticism; 

she chides him for his overwork. 

On one level, in fact, the book can 

be read as a dialogue about the active 

versus the contemplative life. 

The son of a “great man,” as Ellsberg 

puts it (his father was the Pentagon Papers 

whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg), he 

was also deeply marked by the time he 

spent as a youth with Servant of God 

Dorothy Day as managing editor of the 

Catholic Worker newspaper, and later, 

during the last five years of her life. 

Sister Wendy also deeply admires 

Day. Nonetheless, she seems to intuit 

that beneath all Ellsberg’s terrific writing 

on the saints, incessant travel, and 

friendships with “important” people, 

he longs to be seen, held, loved for 

himself alone. 

Another way “in which you and I are 

very different,” she confides almost 

two years into their correspondence, 

“is that your wonderful father has 

brought you up to value social justice 

very highly…I don’t want to shock 

or alienate you, dearest Robert, but I 

cannot take much interest in this topic 

so dear to you and Pope Francis and 

to all serious Christians. It all seems to 

me so obvious. Of course war is wrong; 

of course there should be social justice; 

of course we should love and revere 

one another…But I feel that’s a sort of 

a given for me. I don’t feel any call to 

fight for it or even to talk about it.” 

That’s what seven hours of prayer, 

every day for 70 or 80 years, will get 

you. 

One of her last nuggets of wisdom, in 

fact, echoes the Dorothy Day maxim: 

“I only love God as much as I love the 

person I love the least.” 

For those who disliked the president 

at the time, she said, “Perhaps you 

should put Mr. Trump on the altar 

and sacrifice all your reactions to him. 

Where does it get you? He needs love 

as does everybody and he needs reverence 

as does everybody. God despises 

nothing ‘that He has made.’ ” 


LETTER AND SPIRIT 

SCOTT HAHN 

Scott Hahn is founder of the 

St. Paul Center for Biblical 

Theology; stpaulcenter.com. 

The witness of history 

Seventh in a series on the Book of Psalms. 

In my last column, I mentioned that some scholars reject 

the Church’s “Christological” reading of the psalms. I 

disagree with them. 

As a theologian, I protest because tradition demands that 

we discover Christ in the Old Testament texts. According 

to the Church Fathers, the truths of the Incarnation were 

already present “in mystery” from the first moments of 

creation. God had been preparing the events of Jesus’ life 

from all eternity. To see 

Christ in the Old Testament, 

then, is to discern, 

with 20-20 hindsight, 

the workings of divine 

providence. 

Jesus himself read the 

Old Testament this way. 

He referred to Jonah 

(Matthew 12:39), Solomon 

(Matthew 12:42), 

the Temple (John 2:19), 

and the brazen serpent 

(John 3:14) as signs pointing 

to himself. In Luke’s 

gospel, he took “Moses 

and all the prophets” 

and interpreted for his 

disciples “what referred to 

him in all the Scriptures” 

(Luke 24:27). St. Paul 

read the Hebrew Scriptures in the same way (see Romans 

5:14, Galatians 4:24), as did St. Peter (see 1 Peter 3:20-21). 

This approach prevailed through centuries, even in places 

like Antioch, whose school emphasized the literal-historical 

meaning of biblical texts. St. Augustine summed up this 

method in a single phrase: the New Testament is concealed 

in the Old, and the Old is revealed in the New. 

But the historical reasons for preserving the Christological 

reading of the “Psalter” are as compelling as the 

theological reasons. For the Christian interpretive tradition 

is an organic development of the Jewish exegesis of Jesus’ 

contemporaries. 

The Jews of the first century lived in anticipation of the 

arrival of God’s Messiah, the redeemer who would restore 

the Davidic kingship over the reunited 12 tribes. “Messiah” 

(“Moshiach”) is Hebrew for “anointed”; its Greek equivalent 

is “Christos” — in English, “Christ.” 

Consider the situation of Second Temple Judaism. 

Though a remnant of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin 

had returned to the land, 10 tribes of Israel remained in 

dispersion. The Temple itself was a shadow of what it had 

been. The Jews were ruled by a succession of foreign powers: 

Persian, Greek, and Roman. 

David’s line was apparently snuffed out at the time of the 

Captivity (see 2 Kings 

25:7), but the Jews 

never ceased hoping for 

God’s intervention. For 

the Lord had promised 

that a king in David’s 

line would one day rule 

all the nations, and he 

would reign forever (2 

Samuel 7:12, 14). 

There were many messianic 

pretenders, and 

most of them met a bad 

end, but the people kept 

hoping. The messianic 

reading of the Old Testament 

is evident in many 

ancient Jewish texts — 

the Book of Enoch, the 

Testaments of the Twelve 

“Dead Sea Scroll of Pesher Isaiah,” from 

Qumran Cave 4, West Bank of the Jordan 

River, near the Dead Sea, modern-day 

State of Israel. Displayed in The Jordan 

Museum, Amman, Jordan Hashimite 

Kingdom. | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

Patriarchs, the Sibylline 

Oracles, and the Dead 

Sea Scrolls, among 

others. 

But nothing expressed 

Israel’s longing as well as 

the “Psalter.” As liturgical 

hymns, the psalms were 

effective in sustaining 

Israel’s culture. They renewed a climate of expectation. 

This is the plain sense of history. Israel’s own reading of 

the Psalter was messianic, and therefore Christological. If 

theology urges us toward a messianic reading of the psalms, 

history shows us that such a reading is not a Christian 

innovation. 


■ FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28 

St. Agatha Church Fall Festival. St. Agatha Church, 2646 

S. Mansfield Ave., Los Angeles, 4-10 p.m. Saturday, 3-11 

p.m, Sunday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Live music, international foods, 

car raffle, and festival rides. For more information, call 323- 

382-2788 or 323-935-8127, or email marisol.p.gonzalez@ 

gmail.com or pastorcenteroffice@gmail.com. 

■ SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29 

God of Day and God of Darkness: All Saints, All Souls, 

and the Light of Hope. Holy Spirit Retreat Center, 4316 

Lanai Rd., Encino, 9:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. With Father Mark 

Villano, SP, MFA. For more information, visit hsrcenter.com 

or call 818-784-4515. 

Día de Los Muertos Community Day. Calvary Cemetery, 

4201 Whittier Blvd., Los Angeles, 12 p.m. Mass will be celebrated 

by Msgr. John Moretta from Resurrection Church, 

and livestreamed on LA Catholics social media. Procession 

and blessing of altars to follow Mass. Music and folklorico 

dance begins at 1:30 p.m. Visit catholiccm.org/diadelosmuertos 

for more information. 

Spiritual Warfare is Real! St. Anthony of Padua Church, 

1050 W. 163rd St., Gardena, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Speakers 

include Father John Farao, OFM Con, prison chaplain and 

exorcist for the Diocese of Monterey, and Dominic Berardino. 

Topics include “An exorcist tells his story” and “God’s 

victorious saints.” Cost: $25/person before Oct. 26, $35 

after. For more information, email spirit@scrc.org. 

■ SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30 

St. Peter Claver Church 50th Anniversary Celebration. 

5649 Pittman St., Simi Valley, 11 a.m. Archbishop José H. 

Gomez will celebrate a special Mass to mark the church’s 

50th anniversary. For more information, visit saintpeterclaver.org. 

■ TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1 

Día de Los Muertos Vigil Prayer Service. San Fernando 

Mission Cemetery, 11160 Stranwood Ave., Mission Hills, 

6:45 p.m. Presider: Auxiliary Bishop Marc Trudeau. Prayer 

service will be open to the public at 5:45 p.m. and livestreamed 

on LA Catholics social media. Visit catholiccm. 

org/diadelosmuertos for more information. 

■ WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2 

All Souls Day Mass. All Souls Cemetery, 10 a.m. Presider: 

Archbishop José H. Gomez. Mass also will be celebrated at 

10 other cemetery locations, and will be livestreamed on 

LA Catholics social media. Visit catholiccm.org for more 

information. 

“What Catholics Believe” Weekly Series. St. Dorothy 

Church, 241 S. Valley Center Ave., Glendora, 7-8:30 p.m. 

Series runs Wednesdays through April 26, 2023. Deepen 

your understanding of the Catholic faith through dynamic 

DVD presentations by Bishop Robert Barron, Dr. Edward 

Sri, Dr. Brant Pitre, and Dr. Michael Barber. Free event, no 

reservations required. Call 626-335-2811 or visit the Adult 

Faith Development ministry page at www.stdorothy.org for 

more information. 

■ THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3 

YCP Los Angeles: Executive Speaker Series + Belong 

Launch. St. Monica Church, 701 California Ave., Santa 

Monica, 7 p.m. Join YCP (Young Catholic Professionals) for 

happy hour to celebrate the launch of a new membership: 

Belong! RSVP at ycp.squarespace.com/losangeles#launch1. 

For more information, email membership@youngcatholicprofessionals.org. 

■ SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5 

Conscious Aging: Make a Choice. Holy Spirit Retreat 

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

Deborah Lorentz, SSS. For more information, visit hsrcenter.com 

or call 818-784-4515. 

Día de Los Muertos Community Day. Santa Clara 

Cemetery, 2370 N. H St., Oxnard, 12 p.m. Mass will be 

celebrated by Father Leon Hutton, episcopal vicar for the 

Santa Barbara Pastoral Region, and will be livestreamed on 

LA Catholics social media. Procession with pilgrim images 

of Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego, and blessing 

of altars to follow Mass. Music and folklorico dance begins 

at 1:30 p.m. Visit catholiccm.org/diadelosmuertos for more 

information. 

■ SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5 

St. Peter Claver Church 30th Anniversary Holiday Boutique. 

St. Peter Claver Church, 5649 Pittman St., Simi Valley, 

9 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 6, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. More than 

70 vendors will sell crafts, gift items, clothing, decor, food. 

Includes gift card basket raffle, 50/50 drawing, photos with 

Santa, and baked goods. For more information, call Lisa at 

805-791-7283. 

■ SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6 

Bosco Tech Open House. Don Bosco Technical Institute, 

1151 San Gabriel Blvd., Rosemead, 12-4 p.m. Elementary 

students, middle-school students, and families are invited 

to learn about the school’s academics, technology majors, 

internships, and college prep programs. For more information, 

visit boscotech.edu/openhouse, or call the admissions 

office at 626-940-2000, or email admissions@boscotech. 

edu. 

Healing Mass and Service. St. Ann Church, 2302 Riverdale 

Ave., Los Angeles, 11 a.m. Healing minister Alan 

Ames, from the Diocese of Perth, Australia, will share his 

conversion story and faith, and his gifts in healing ministry, 

following the 11 a.m. Mass. For more information, email 

lydia.a.marin@live.com. 

■ TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8 

Memorial Mass. San Fernando Mission, 15151 San 

Fernando Mission Blvd., Mission Hills, 11 a.m. Mass is 

virtual and not open to the public. Livestream available at 

Catholiccm.org or Facebook.com/lacatholics. 

Preparation for Consecration to Mary in the Spirituality 

of St. Maximilian Kolbe. Father Kolbe Missionary Center, 

531 E. Merced Ave., West Covina, 7-8:30 p.m. Zoom and 

in-person presentations will be held Tuesdays in November 

through the 29th. For more information or to register, call 

626-917-0040 or email FKMs@kolbemissionusa.org. 

■ WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9 

St. Padre Pio Holy Mass. St. Anne Church, 340 10th St., 

Seal Beach, 1 p.m. Chaplain: Father Al Baca. For more information, 

call 562-537-4526. 

■ FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11 

46th Annual Catholic-Jewish Women’s Conference. 

Zoom, 9 a.m.-12 p.m. Theme: Justice, Racism, and the 

Heart of God. Speakers: Alessandra Harris and Rabbi Ruth 

Abusch-Magder. For more information or to register, visit 

catholicjewishwomenla.org. 

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

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

Angelus News | November 4, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 22

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