Angelus News | June 30, 2023 | Vol. 8 No 13

ANGELUS
PROMISE
AND PERIL
Can Catholics
coexist with
artificial
intelligence?
June 30, 2023 Vol. 8 No. 13

June 30, 2023
Vol. 8 • No. 13
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ON THE COVER
SHUTTERSTOCK
Everywhere you turn, it seems as if everyone is
focusing on artificial intelligence — how it can be
used, how it should be used, or if it should be used
at all. Starting on Page 12, Elise Italiano Ureneck
speaks with two Catholics experienced in artificial
intelligence on how it could impact everything from
education, well-being, and human demise.
THIS PAGE
VICTOR ALEMÁN
Father Chidi Ekpendu holds the monstrance
containing the Eucharist during Christ the
King Church’s procession through the streets
of Hollywood on June 11 following a Mass
celebrating the feast of Corpus Christi.

CONTENTS
Pope Watch............................................... 4
Archbishop Gomez................................. 5
World, Nation, and Local News...... 6-8
In Other Words........................................ 9
Father Rolheiser..................................... 10
Scott Hahn.............................................. 36
Events Calendar..................................... 37
16
20
24
26
30
32
34
LA welcomes eight new ‘living instruments of Christ’ at priest ordinations
Meet the 10 new permanent deacons for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles
Catholics pray for healing, reparation amid Dodgers’ controversial tribute
John Allen: On canon law, can the Vatican be swayed by the ‘Netflix Effect’?
Robert Brennan witnesses a moment of grace on Skid Row
The unlikely success of a Catholic school born from the ashes of war in Africa
Heather King: The best film noir movies set in Los Angeles
June 30, 2023 • ANGELUS • 3

POPE WATCH
The pope’s ‘saints next door’
Pope Francis was released from
Rome’s Gemelli Hospital June 16
after spending more than a week
recovering from a hernia surgery.
Shortly after his general audience
June 7, the 86-year-old pope was taken
to the Rome hospital where he underwent
a three-hour abdominal surgery
that involved placing a surgical mesh
to prevent the recurrence of a hernia
and the removal of several adhesions,
which were bands of scar tissue formed
after previous surgeries decades ago.
Dr. Sergio Alfieri, the chief surgeon
operating on the pope, said after the
operation that the pope had no complications
and responded well to the
general anesthesia he was administered
during this surgery and the one in 2021
that removed part of his colon.
The surgeon had also operated on the
pope in 2021. He underscored that, in
both operations, all affected tissue had
been benign.
“The pope does not have other illnesses,”
he said.
On the advice of his doctors, Francis
did not publicly pray the Sunday
Angelus from the balcony of Gemelli
Hospital during his stay.
According to Vatican News, Francis
underwent an appendectomy around
1950 and another surgery in 1980 to
remove his gallbladder. Those are in
addition to the surgery he underwent
in 1957 when a piece of his lung was
removed. In 2021, he spent 10 days at
Gemelli after surgery that included the
removal of the descending part of his
colon to treat diverticulitis.
During his hospitalization, the
Vatican released a copy of a letter from
Francis in response to a note sent to
him by nurses and staff who work in
the hospital’s pediatric neuropsychiatry
ward.
In the typewritten letter dated June
10 addressed to the nurses and staff
who work in the hospital’s pediatric
neuropsychiatry ward, the pope told
them they were “saints next door” and
an example of the Church as “field
hospital.” He recognized the trauma
they experience — and wrote to him
about — in seeing some of their young
patients die and the suffering it causes
the deceased child’s loved ones.
“You are witnesses of life as well as
death, and so you are called to give
comfort and consolation during those
last minutes, accompanying these
little ‘angels’ to the threshold of their
encounter with the Lord,” he said.
The pope spent part of June 15 visiting
children in the pediatric oncology
and neurosurgery ward located on the
same floor as the private suite of rooms
set aside for the pope.
He greeted the young patients, who
were among those who had sent him
letters, drawings, and gifts wishing him
a speedy recovery, and he gave each of
them a rosary and book, said Matteo
Bruni, director of the Holy See Press
Office.
Francis witnessed firsthand “the pain
of these children, who carry, together
with their mothers and fathers, the
suffering of the cross on their shoulders
every day,” Bruni wrote.
Upon his release from the hospital,
Alfieri expressed confidence that the
pope would be able to undertake
planned trips to Portugal and Mongolia
later this summer.
“The pope is fine,” said the doctor.
“He’s better than before.”
Reporting courtesy of the Catholic
News Service Rome bureau.
Papal Prayer Intentions for June: We pray that the
international community may commit in a concrete way to
ensuring the abolition of torture and guarantee support to
victims and their families.
4 • ANGELUS • June 30, 2023

’
NEW WORLD OF FAITH
ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ
Called to love with the heart of Jesus
On the solemnity of the Most Sacred
Heart of Jesus, Archbishop Gomez celebrated
Mass at the Cathedral of Our
Lady of the Angels for more than 2,000
faithful, beginning a day of Catholic
prayer in response to the Los Angeles
Dodgers’ decision to honor a group
that insults God and the Catholic
faith. The following is adapted from his
homily. For more coverage, see Pages
24–25 of this issue.
tells us today in the Second Reading.
And we believe that Jesus calls us to
spend our lives on earth spreading the
good news of his love.
Those words that Moses speaks in
the First Reading today — this is our
message: “The Lord set his heart on
you … the Lord loved you.”
Catholics share God’s love not only
in our words and worship. We prove
our love through works of charity and
prisoner, the unborn, the immigrant.
We do this because we are Catholics,
and we are called to love with the
heart of Jesus.
Listen again to the Lord’s words in
today’s Gospel: “Take my yoke upon
you and learn from me, for I am meek
and humble of heart.”
At every turn in his earthly life, Jesus
rejected the temptation to violence.
When one of his disciples raised his
We gather on this solemnity
of the Most Sacred Heart of
Jesus to celebrate the beauty
of God’s love and pray that our hearts
might be conformed to his, which
burns with love for all people.
The Sacred Heart of Jesus, which
was pierced by a Roman soldier, as
Our Lord hung on the cross, is the
most perfect sign of God’s love for
each and every one of us.
Out of his pierced heart flows the
living waters that make us clean, the
Precious Blood that redeems us from
our sins, and sets us free.
The Sacred Heart is personal. His
heart is for you and for me. His Sacred
Heart is opened for every one of our
neighbors.
From out of his Sacred Heart, Jesus
speaks to every human heart, saying,
“This is how much I love you, this is
how much you are worth to me.”
One of the saints said, “Love can
only be repaid with love.”
That is true. We can repay his love,
only by loving Jesus as he has loved
us.
This is what it means to be Catholic.
The Catholic religion is the religion
of love.
We believe that God is love, and he
has opened his heart to reveal himself
to us in Jesus Christ, just as St. John
Catholics prove our love through works of
charity and mercy for all men and women.
We prove our love by working for peace and
justice for every person.
mercy for all men and women. We
prove our love by working for peace
and justice for every person.
That is why so many of us are offended
by the decision to honor a group
that insults Jesus and mocks Catholic
believers.
Religious freedom and respect for
the beliefs of others are hallmarks of
our nation.
When God is insulted, when the
beliefs of any of our neighbors are
ridiculed, it diminishes all of us.
When we reward such acts, it hurts
our unity as one city and one nation,
as one family under God.
Our religious sisters, our priests and
deacons, our Catholic laypeople and
consecrated men and women — they
are serving selflessly in our communities,
every day.
Wherever there is human need and
human suffering, Catholics are there.
We are teachers and healers. We are
advocates for those our society neglects
— the poor, the homeless, the
sword to fight for him, Jesus said, “No
more of this.”
Jesus was meek and humble of heart.
Jesus gave his Church the mission to
proclaim the good news of his love to
every human heart, to the ends of the
earth, until the day he returns.
That is our mission as Catholics.
So, my brothers and sisters, on this
great feast, let us go to Jesus and learn
from him. Let us ask him to make our
hearts more like his own.
Jesus commands us to forgive those
who trespass against us, and to pray
for those who persecute us. And he
taught us to oppose what is wrong and
ugly, with what is beautiful and true.
Just as he did.
We ask him today to give us the
strength to do that.
We entrust our lives, and our city
and country, to the tender heart of
holy Mary, the mother of God and the
mother of each of us.
Our Lady, Queen of the Angels, pray
for us!
June 30, 2023 • ANGELUS • 5

WORLD
■ Jesuits dismiss disgraced artist
The Society of Jesus formally expelled Father Marko Rupnik,
a famous artist accused of sexual and spiritual abuse of
women.
Rupnik, whose mosaics decorate important churches and
chapels around the world, had been ordered to restricted
ministry after media reports made the public aware of the
allegations against him and that he had been briefly excommunicated
by the Vatican for hearing the confession of
a sexual partner. As part of his restrictions, he was not to celebrate
Mass in public, participate in any public artistic work,
or leave central Italy.
The Slovenian priest reportedly broke these restrictions
multiple times, including a March 5 public Mass at a basilica
in Rome and a June visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina to work
on art projects.
“Faced with Marko Rupnik’s repeated refusal to obey this
mandate, we were unfortunately left with only one solution:
dismissal from the Society of Jesus,” read a June 15 statement
from the Jesuits.
Everyone’s favorite patient — Pope Francis smiles and waves to people as he
leaves Rome’s Gemelli Hospital early June 16, nine days after undergoing abdominal
surgery. “I’m still alive,” he answered, smiling when asked by well-wisher
journalists about his health. | CNS/VATICAN MEDIA
Some 2,000 people attended the June 11 Consecration Mass. | AL SUNU
DIRGANTORIO/KEVIN MEYDIO, WALTER ARYA
■ Indonesia: A church
26 years in the making
The Pinang subdistrict of Indonesia’s Banten province
finally has a Catholic church after more than a quarter
century of opposition.
St. Bernadette’s Church started in 1992 with a weekly Mass
celebrated at a Catholic school in the neighboring Ciledug
subdistrict. Attempts to get a permit to build a local church
were continuously blocked by radical Muslim opponents.
In 2013, the parish obtained a site to build its church, but
a massive protest led to the site being padlocked and the
building permit temporarily suspended. Construction on the
church was completed in February, with Cardinal Ignatius
Suharyp, Archbishop of Jakarta, consecrating it June 11.
“This long history of struggle reflects our endurance,” the
cardinal said at the Consecration Mass.
■ Can AI preach a sermon?
Four digital avatars led more than 300 people in an experimental
Lutheran service June 9 that was created almost
exclusively by ChatGPT, a language processing tool driven
by artificial intelligence (AI).
The service was connected to a biennial convention
of Protestants for prayer and discussion of global issues,
including the rise of artificial intelligence tools.
“I had actually imagined it to be worse,” Marc Jansen, a
Lutheran pastor from Troisdorf, told the Associated Press
(AP). “But I was positively surprised how well it worked.
Also the language of the AI worked well, even though it
was still a bit bumpy at times.”
“There was no heart and no soul,” said Heiderose
Schmidt, an IT worker also interviewed by AP. “The avatars
showed no emotions at all. … But maybe it is different
for the younger generation who grew up with all of this.”
6 • ANGELUS • June 30, 2023

NATION
The Chiefs’ Harrison Butker (center, back row) stands behind President Biden at the
White House June 5. | KEVIN DIETSCH/GETTY IMAGES
■ Chiefs’ kicker sneaks pro-life
message to White House visit
Kansas City Chiefs’ kicker Harrison Butker delivered a
pro-life message during the team’s June 5 White House
visit with President Joe Biden to celebrate their Super Bowl
victory.
Butker, who kicked the game winning field goal against
the Philadelphia Eagles last February, partnered with Live
Action to wear a custom gray tie with a pro-life message:
“Vulnerari Praesidio,” a Latin phrase that means “protect
the most vulnerable.” He also wore a gold pin of two feet
the size of a 10-week-old baby in utero, a common symbol
of the pro-life movement.
“I want to give the most vulnerable, the unborn, a voice
at a place where every effort has been made to allow and
normalize the tragic termination of their lives,” Butker said
in a June 6 statement, criticizing the Biden administration’s
pro-abortion policies.
■ Maryland: Franciscans to
return to military hospital
Five Franciscan priests will be allowed back to minister to
patients at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center
two months after the U.S. military abruptly ended their
contract.
Earlier this year, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, head of
the military archdiocese and also the president of the U.S.
bishops’ conference, had blasted the decision not to renew
the contract — which had been routinely renewed over
nearly the last 20 years — as “incomprehensible.”
The reversal comes after several Catholic lawmakers protested
the decision by contacting Defense Secretary Lloyd
Austin.
The new five-year contract awarded by the U.S. Defense
Health Agency (DHA) to the Franciscans is renewable
annually.
■ Do you go to public school,
Catholic school, or both?
Oklahoma approved the nation’s first religious charter
school June 5, allowing public funds to pay for tuition at an
online Catholic school.
“Oklahomans support religious liberty for all and support
an increasingly innovative educational system that expands
choice,” said Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt in a statement
on the state’s approval of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic
Virtual School, operated by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma
City and the Diocese of Tulsa.
Critics say that the charter is unconstitutional for using
public funds to pay for religious education, while some expect
the school’s legality may end up before the Supreme
Court someday.
“It’s extremely disappointing that board members violated
their oath in order to fund religious schools with our tax
dollars,” said state Attorney General Gentner Drummond,
a Republican. “In doing so, these members have exposed
themselves and the state to potential legal action that could
be costly.”
Though the constitutionality of religious charter schools
hasn’t been debated at the Supreme Court, the court
recently ruled that states cannot bar religious schools from
voucher programs.
Debut on the dais — Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese
for the Military Services, who is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops, speaks June 15 during the bishops’ spring plenary assembly in Orlando,
Florida. Also pictured are Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, USCCB vice
president (left), and general secretary Father Michael J.K. Fuller (right). The
gathering was the bishops’ first since they elected Broglio and Lori to lead the
conference last November. | OSV NEWS/BOB ROLLER
June 30, 2023 • ANGELUS • 7

LOCAL
■ Migrants sent by busload from Texas
to Los Angeles get Catholic help
More than 40 migrants unexpectedly sent by bus by Texas
Gov. Greg Abbott to Los Angeles’ Union Station on June
15 have found aid, relief, and support from several organizations,
including Catholic agencies.
Several of the migrants, including women and young children,
were taken to St. Anthony Croatian Catholic Church
near downtown LA and given food, medical assistance, and
legal resources.
Abbott and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass sparred over the
reasons behind the migrants being sent to LA.
“It is abhorrent that an American elected official is using
human beings as pawns in his cheap political games,” Los
Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement.
“Los Angeles is a major city that migrants seek to go to, particularly
now that its city leaders approved its self-declared
sanctuary city status,” Abbott said in a statement. “...Texas
will continue providing this much-needed relief until [President
Biden] steps up to do his job and secure the border.”
■ Pope appoints two new auxiliary
bishops for San Diego
Pope
Francis has
appointed
two immigrant
priests
to serve as
auxiliary
bishops in
San Diego.
Father
Michael
Pham, vicar
general of
the Diocese
of San
Diego, and Bishops-elect Michael Pham and Felipe Pulido. | DIOCESE OF
Father Felipe
Pulido,
SAN DIEGO
a priest of
the Diocese of Yakima, Washington, were introduced by
Cardinal Robert McElroy June 6 at a press conference in
San Diego, the same day their appointments were announced.
Pham, 56, fled Vietnam as a 13-year-old refugee in 1980
and was eventually sponsored by an American family in
Minnesota. Pulido, 53, was born and raised in a small town
near Mexico City and as a teenager moved to Washington,
where he worked in the fields with his family.
The two men will be ordained bishops at a Consecration
Mass in San Diego Sept. 28, the diocese announced. San
Diego’s other active auxiliary bishop, Ramon Bejarano, has
served in the diocese since 2020.
Y
A generous delivery — Msgr. Jay Cunnane, pastor of St. Cornelius Church
in Long Beach, Isaac Cuevas (second from left) director of Immigration and
Public Affairs for the LA Archdiocese, and other volunteers pose in front of the
donations collected for the second annual Father’s Day event at Cobina Posada del
Migrante Shelter in Mexicali, Mexico. Volunteers were set to deliver the personal
hygiene products, toiletries, and other supplies to the shelter, which currently
houses more than 150 migrant refugees. | ARCHDIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES
■ Nuncio pays tribute to Bishop
O’Connell at USCCB meeting
Pope Francis’ ambassador to the U.S. remembered late
Auxiliary Bishop David O’Connell of Los Angeles as “a model
of synodal service, combined with eucharistic charity” at a
gathering of the country’s bishops.
“Here was a shepherd who immersed himself in the reality
of his sheep, who walked with them, and was with them in
finding a way no matter the difficulty of their circumstances,”
said Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to
the U.S., of O’Connell in his speech at the U.S. Conference
of Catholic Bishops’ spring Plenary Assembly in Orlando
June 15.
“Since he followed the compass that always pointed him
to Christ, may he rejoice now at his destination; and may
his intercession help us, his brothers who are still on the
journey,” added Pierre to applause from the bishops.
8 • ANGELUS • June 30, 2023

V
IN OTHER WORDS...
Letters to the Editor
A forgotten factor in Dodgers debacle
Robert Brennan’s column “My tough breakup with the Dodgers” (June
9, AngelusNews.com) hit on a crucial aspect of the Dodgers-Sisters of
Perpetual Indulgence debacle that’s been largely censored: the role of our corporate
news media in promoting acceptance of gender ideology.
As Brennan pointed out, just about every major local news network or outlet in
LA has sponsored or organized “Pride” events this month. Their bias in favor of
this movement has come across in coverage of the Dodgers’ situation, making
it seem like those of us who take offense at the “sisters’ ” disrespect for our most
sacred beliefs are bigots.
For this father of three young kids, it’s a difficult time to be a Catholic, but even
more difficult to be a Catholic parent when there’s so much pressure from the
media (and at school, too) to conform. Trying to impart the truth about human
sexuality as taught by the Church, while still teaching our kids to love and respect
people with different beliefs, is getting harder in this climate.
— Lucas Rojas, La Mirada
Y
Continue the conversation! To submit a letter to the editor, visit AngelusNews.com/Letters-To-The-Editor
and use our online form or send an email to editorial@angelusnews.com. Please limit to 300 words. Letters
may be edited for style, brevity, and clarity.
A Friday night with his Sacred Heart
“We never leave the car
alone if the Lord is here.”
~ Father Stephen Felicichia, priest in the Diocese
of Fort Wayne-South Bend, in a June 13 The Pillar
article on the priest and pilgrims doing a test run
prior to eucharistic pilgrimages ahead of next year’s
Eucharistic Congress.
“Relationships build when
you sweat for things.”
~ Sister Mary Beth Ingham, in a June 9 Orange
County Register article on the Sisters of St. Joseph
helping to build a new community providing
affordable homes to seniors.
“This edifice is like Noah’s
Ark laid over the crypts.”
~ François Saint-James, a guide and lecturer at Mont
Saint-Michel, in a June 13 Catholic World Report
article on the abbey church’s 1,000th anniversary.
“We didn’t expect this
inheritance, and our lives
are just fine without it.”
~ Martina Holzinger, relative of the late Pope
Benedict XVI, in a June 13 Religion News Service
article on the pope’s kin not wanting his inheritance.
Families with children were among the hundreds who turned out for the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart
of LA’s “Reclaim Hope: A Sacred Heart Celebration” at Santa Teresita Chapel in Duarte on June 16. The event, held
the same night that the LA Dodgers honored a controversial group of drag “sisters” with a history of anti-Catholic
rhetoric, included Mass, dinner, adoration, and a candlelight eucharistic procession. The event invited Catholics to
pray “for our priests and religious, in reparation for sins committed all around the world, and in gratitude to God for
the gift of the Eucharist.” | JOHN RUEDA
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.
“To be completely honest,
she’s a far better student
than me.”
~ Hunter Wetzel, UC Irvine student, in a June 13
Orange County Register article on earning his degree
at the same time as his mother, Faith Couts.
“It’s sad that we felt like we
had to make this device.”
~ Swarnya Srivastava, a senior at Monta Vista High
School in Cupertino, in a June 11 Mercury News
article on students creating an artificial intelligence
device that detects gunshots.
June 30, 2023 • ANGELUS • 9

IN EXILE
FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI
Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father
Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual
writer; ronrolheiser.com
The taste of banter and wine
Elizabeth Poreba ends a poem,
“No Good Company,” with
these words: “I’ve got no banter,
/ I’m all judgement and edges, an edgy
white lady / Wondering what to do,
what to do next / As in Jesus is coming,
look busy.”
At the wedding feast in Cana, Mary
tells Jesus, “They have no wine,” asking
him to create some. What do wine and
banter have in common? Both bring a
needed extra into our lives.
Let’s start with wine. Wine is not a
protein, something the body needs to
be nourished and kept alive, part of an
essential diet. It’s an extra that provides
something special for one’s health.
Taken with the right spirit and in moderation,
wine can help lift the mood,
lighten the heart, and warm the conversation,
even as it helps lessen some
of the tensions among us. It’s a grease
that can help make a conversation,
a family dinner, or a social gathering
flow more pleasantly.
Banter? Well, like wine, if taken with
the right spirit and in moderation,
it can also lift the mood, lighten the
heart, warm a conversation, and lessen
tensions at a gathering. Classical Greek
thought suggested that love has six
components: Eros — emotional and
sexual attraction; mania — emotional
obsession; asteismos — playfulness and
banter; storge — care and solicitousness;
pragma — practical arrangement
and accommodation; philia — friendship;
and agape — altruism.
Normally, when we think of love, we
think of each of these components,
except the aspect of banter and playfulness.
Our romantic selves identify love
very much with emotional obsession
and sexual attraction. Our religious
and moral selves identify love with
care, friendship, and altruism, and
our pragmatic selves identify it with
practical arrangement. Few speak of
the place and importance of banter,
or playfulness, of healthy teasing, of
humor, but these are often the grease
that keeps the others flowing more
smoothly.
Here’s an example: For all my adult
life, I’ve lived in various religious
houses, in community with other
vowed religious (in my case, men). We
don’t get to pick with whom we live,
but are assigned to a community, along
with everyone else who lives there. And
we come together with our different
backgrounds, different personalities,
and different eccentricities.
This can be a formula for tension and
yet, for the most part, it works, is pleasant,
and provides life-giving support
and fellowship. What makes it work?
Why don’t we end up killing each
other? How do we live (for the most
part) pleasantly together beyond our
differences, immaturities, and egos?
Well, there’s a common mission that
keeps us working together and, most
importantly, there’s regular common
prayer that helps us see each other in a
better light. But, very importantly, there
is banter, playfulness, healthy teasing,
and humor which, like wine at a table,
help take the edge off things and ease
the tension inherent in our differences.
A community that doesn’t stay lighthearted
through banter, playfulness,
and healthy teasing will eventually
become everything that lighthearted
is not, namely, heavy, drab, full
of tension, and pompous. In every
healthy community I’ve lived in, one
of the things that made it healthy
(and pleasant to come home to) was
banter, playfulness, loving teasing, and
humor. These are rich wines that can
enliven the table of any family and any
community.
This, of course, like drinking wine,
can be overdone and be a way of
avoiding harder conversations that
need to be had. As well, banter can
keep us relating to each other in ways
that actually hinder genuine community.
Humor, banter, the jokester,
and the prankster need to know when
enough is enough and when serious
conversation needs to happen. The
risk of overdoing banter is real, though
perhaps the greater risk lies in trying to
live together in its absence.
Banter, playfulness, loving teasing,
and humor don’t just help us relate
to each other beyond our differences,
they also help deflate the pomposity
that is invariably the child of over-seriousness.
They help keep our families
and communities grounded and
pleasant.
I grew up in a large family, with each
of us having strong personalities and
plenty of faults; yet save for very few
occasions, our house, which was physically
too small for so large a family,
was pleasant to be in because it was
perennially filled with banter, playfulness,
humor, and healthy teasing. We
seldom had wine, but we had banter!
When I look back on what my family
gave me, I am deeply grateful for many
gifts: faith, love, safety, trust, support,
education, moderation, and moral
sensitivity. But it also taught me banter,
playfulness, healthy teasing, and humor.
No small gift.
At the wedding feast in Cana, Jesus’
mother noticed that something wasn’t
right. Was it a heaviness? An over-seriousness?
Was it an unhealthy pomposity?
Was there a noticeable tension in
the room? Whatever. Something was
missing, so she goes to Jesus and says:
“Son, they have no banter!”
10 • ANGELUS • June 30, 2023

THE FUTURE’S
NEW FRONTIER
Nadia Thalmann, right, a professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, talks to a humanoid that she and her team created in 2016. With her brown hair, soft skin,
and expressive face, the humanoid is a new brand of robot that could one day, scientists hope, be used as a personal assistant or care provider for the elderly. | CNS/EDGAR SU,
REUTERS
Artificial intelligence
can mimic our voices,
dress the pope in
Balenciaga, and
control parts of our
brains. Will it help
humanity, or doom it?
BY ELISE ITALIANO URENECK
Artificial intelligence (AI) has
dominated news headlines in
recent months, particularly
revelations and claims about how the
technology works, what it’s doing now,
and what it could do in the future.
AI promises to transform areas of daily
life such as work, health care, and education.
Because AI has the capacity to
change the way human beings interact
with the world and with one another,
leaders are asking for boundaries to
ensure its ethical use and to prevent
catastrophe in the form of regulation.
In order to better understand AI’s
promises and perils, Angelus spoke to
two Catholics who have tracked the
technology’s rise from different places:
Justin Welter, senior vice president of
Gaming at software publishing group
Bidstack, has worked in marketing and
advertising in Silicon Valley for almost
two decades, including for Facebook
and Google. Joseph Vukov is a philosophy
professor at Loyola University in
Chicago, whose research has focused
on philosophy of mind and neuroethics.
Elise Ureneck: Let’s start by establishing
a common definition of
artificial intelligence. I understand it
to be a computing process that uses
algorithms to recognize patterns in
large datasets and present them back
to the user in an ordered, coherent
way. Am I missing anything?
Justin Welter: It’s statistics at a
massive scale. You have all kinds of
12 • ANGELUS • June 30, 2023

information that’s coming in, and these
large language models say, “Statistically
we believe that the next thing should
be this” … whether that’s a word, equation,
or code. They determine what the
next logical step would be.
Joseph Vukov: I would add that what
counts as the “next step” varies from
model to model. They are trained to
do a specific task, so the next successful
step is going to be relative to what
you’re trying to get it to do.
Something like ChatGPT (Open AI’s
generative tool) is trained to produce
human-like language, so what counts
as success is whether or not the output
looks like something that a human
would write. It’s not trained to do other
sorts of things like track the truth or
create meaningful speech.
Ureneck: Where is AI already deployed?
Ureneck: There’s a lot of talk about
the promises and perils of AI. The
New York Times, for example, has
written about technology that could
help “read the minds” of people
who are unable to speak by mapping
how parts of their brain light up —
this is obviously promising. On the
other hand, nearly every developer
giving interviews has said something
to the effect of, “If you’re not scared
about what AI might do, something’s
wrong.” What’s exciting to you about
AI? What’s scary about it?
Vukov: I think there’s potential for
AI to provide capacities to people who
don’t otherwise have them. The tool
in that Times story you mentioned, for
example, was able to pick up on the
semantics of words. It’s an exciting application
for somebody who is unable
to speak.
swaying people’s opinions?
Welter: My biggest fear is around the
question, “What is truth?” The thing
that scares me the most is pictures, like
Midjourney, a tool that allows you to
create any photo. It was used to create
that famous picture of the pope and the
Balenciaga jacket.
What’s going to be interesting is what
is real and what is not, which includes
voices, too.
Our iPhones have a new accessibility
feature where you record your voice for
15 minutes and then Siri begins speaking
in your voice. I’m worried about
having my voice recorded anywhere,
including my voicemail. If my voice
can be recorded and manipulated or
recreated, it could be used for things
like accessing bank accounts. My voice
is my fingerprint and security code.
There’s going to be regulation.
Google, Facebook … they’re all going
Welter: Google’s use of predictive text
in email, in which Gmail offers suggested
text to complete sentences based
on algorithms, is one example.
When it comes to the advertising
space, it’s still to be determined where
AI will land. I’m struggling to concretely
understand the difference between
artificial intelligence and machine
learning. We use a lot of machine
learning algorithms in online advertising
to determine what type of ads are
pertinent to show someone. We also
use it for tracking, to understand and
ensure that who we targeted downloaded
an app versus someone else.
Wherever there’s an opportunity to
make money, there’s going to be more
development.
Vukov: AI is also operating behind the
scenes, which raises important ethical
questions. In health care systems, it can
do things like read charts. It turns out
that certain machine learning algorithms
are better than radiologists at
picking out differences between some
types of scans.
There’s talk about using AI to help
triage patients to determine which tests
to order or what a diagnosis might look
like. Given things like the biases that
can factor into algorithms, these are
things that we need to have our eyes
on. AI could affect the way that health
care is administered.
“Original sin is probably more powerful than AI,
and that’s ultimately where the battle will be.”
There are also possible applications
for prosthetics. Elon Musk has been
touting one of his many projects called
Neuralink, a computer chip that goes
into your brain. An algorithm could
help you communicate with your
prosthetic and move about better than
current prosthetics allow.
My biggest worry is the erosion of trust
that’s so essential to community and
democratic life. You see this already in
education, like the question: How do
we know if essays were written by a student
or ChatGPT? There’s an undermining
of trust in the professor-student
relationship. You can see how this will
affect other relationships. We’re going
to start to ask, “Am I interacting with
a person or a chat bot?” “How can I
tell if what’s written is by an AI or by a
person?”
Lastly, there’s this really big worry
about how models are getting trained.
Are those who are training the models
providing — intentionally or unintentionally
— misleading information?
I might assume a tool was trained on
information that’s pertinent to the topic
I’m exploring, when it actually wasn’t.
Could that lead to a covert way of
to want regulation, because it’ll allow
for them to move forward without
having to address the public’s fears. I
think there will be requirements for
watermarks — every picture or thing
created will have to have some type of
watermark that says, “Made by AI.”
And there are a lot of trust issues with
the media as it is. You can’t imagine
how that will be amplified if anybody
can go on the internet, create their
own truth, put it on Twitter and claim,
“This is what is happening in the Middle
East or in Ukraine right now.”
Ureneck: How do you see AI affecting
education?
Welter: I think it’s going to be interesting
for careers like engineering. We’ll
likely lower the bar for engineering
or coding. Will it make sense to go to
coding school for one year when you
can learn how to code pretty simply on
ChatGPT or Bard [Google’s generative
AI tool]?
I also think AI will widen the gap
between public education and private
education. Private schools can afford
to have a maximum ratio of 1 to 30
June 30, 2023 • ANGELUS • 13

students per teacher. They can do oral
exams. But in some public schools the
ratio is 1 to 50, 1 to 60 students per
teacher. As AI proliferates to essays and
standardized tests, there will be opportunities
for students to leverage that to
do better.
Vukov: I agree with Justin. I’ve started
making sure that students understand
what exactly a large language model
is and how machine learning works,
and in light of that, helping them to
understand what its limitations are.
ChatGPT can do a really good job
constructing boilerplate, B-essays. It
can’t do a good job of including robust
citations, or bringing someone’s personal
experience into the essay. I think
once students understand this, it clicks
that AI can’t do the same thing they
would do in an essay that they actually
want to write.
It’s a sea-change moment in education.
It’s forcing me to think more
about what we’re teaching students,
just like the internet made us think
about the value of memorizing gobs
of information. We can ask if students
need to be synthesizing information
into four- to five-page essays.
AI is not particularly good at evaluating
meaning or ethics or religious
frameworks for viewing the world or
bringing personal experiences to bear
on big ideas. I’m wondering, how can
we prepare students in such a way that
they’re bringing what’s distinctively
human about themselves into their
education and work?
Ureneck: The Surgeon General recently
released a report detailing the
“loneliness epidemic” in our nation.
More than 75% of adults reported
experiencing loneliness. We already
know that teens’ mental health is
abysmal. Some have proposed that AI
robots might offer some relief. How
do you see AI affecting our human
relationships and well-being?
Vukov: I’d start with the Turing test,
named after Alan Turing, who’s considered
the father of computer science.
Basically, the test says that if you can’t
tell if the thing you’re interacting with
is a computer or a human, that thing
is conscious or sentient. That concept
has led to functionalism — one of the
A fake image of Pope Francis in Balenciaga generated by Midjourney AI. | PABLO XAVIER/MIDJOURNEY
leading ways of understanding who we
are as psychological beings today.
Functionalists believe that what humans
are is the functions that we can
perform. So if you can build a program
that can reproduce and replicate the
function, that’s as good as you need to
be to be a human being. This is why
we tend to anthropomorphize AI. We
call them Siri and Alexa. That’s the
trickle-down of the Turing test. We’ve
reduced what a human being is to our
psychological function.
I watched the congressional hearings
with Sam Altman (CEO of Open AI)
on regulation, and one thing they kept
on coming back to is that we need to
know if the thing we’re interacting
with is AI. The worry here is that we
can’t tell the difference anymore. And
that worry is predicated on the deeper
assumption that AI is not a person.
Of course the Catholic tradition has
tons to say about this.
Humans have souls; humans are
embodied; humans are made in the
image and likeness of God. We’re more
than our functions. And that’s why we
think, “Even if it can act like a human
being and paint like a human being
and talk like a human being, it’s not
the real deal.”
Welter: Will AI replace human
relationships or solve loneliness? I don’t
see it. I think it’s important to emphasize
the word “artificial” in artificial
intelligence. One of the things that we
as Christians understand is self-sacrifice,
dying to ourselves within love
and all that that entails. I just don’t see
that happening with an algorithm. To
really have an interaction with or to
14 • ANGELUS • June 30, 2023

love someone requires at least one of
those people to know what it means to
sacrifice oneself.
Vukov: Could chatting with a chatbot
in the evening help address some issues
of loneliness? I wouldn’t be shocked
if there was some study that came out
that showed that a chatbot is particularly
good at this kind of therapeutic intervention.
But ultimately it’s a Band-Aid
on deeper social problems, not a real
fix. Human beings crave relationships
and interactions with other human beings.
And a superficial fix is something
that ultimately leads to deeper wounds.
Ureneck: Some believe the greatest
threat from AI is human extinction,
based on the premise that an AI
could one day build its own body.
Eliezer Yudkosky, considered the
father of the field, has written, “Shut
it all down. We are not ready. We are
not on track to be significantly readier
in the foreseeable future. If we go
ahead on this everyone will die, including
children who did not choose
this and did not do anything wrong.”
How do you respond?
Welter: I think it’s more likely that
it’ll be humanity that destroys ourselves
as opposed to an AI robot that ends
the world. There are opportunities
for nefarious activity. But to make the
jump that this is what’s going to be our
ultimate demise is a bit far-fetched.
That kind of prediction makes a lot of
assumptions, including that it becomes
sentient. I just don’t see that happening.
Original sin is probably more
powerful than AI, and that’s ultimately
where the battle will be.
Vukov: I’m on the same page as
Justin. Human beings are fallen, and
our fallenness is part and parcel of the
things that we create, including AI.
I’m a big sci-fi fan, but my take is that
if AI leads to vast changes on the social
scale, it’ll be T.S. Elliot’s version of the
way the world ends — not with a bang,
but with a whimper.
My big worry is not the giant robot
trampling over cities and making us
into its slaves, but more things like the
spread of distrust and misinformation,
the erosion of democracy, the failure to
understand what a human being is in
the way that the Church teaches.
Joseph Vukov. | OSV/COURTESY JOSEPH VUKOV
I think there is the potential for big
negative social consequences. And in
that way it’s maybe more nefarious
because the solution is not to build up
a big army that can defeat the Terminator.
It’s regulation and careful articulation
of what our values are.
There’s an opportunity for Catholics
and people of goodwill to step in and
add their two cents about what makes
Justin Welter. | SUBMITTED PHOTO
a human being a human being, about
why it is important to build up real
communities of humans, why it is
important to trust each other, what a
good, healthy, functioning democracy
looks like. It’s an opportunity to think
about the bigger questions.
Elise Italiano Ureneck is a contributor
to Angelus writing from Rhode Island.
June 30, 2023 • ANGELUS • 15

Eight new ‘living
instruments’
For this year’s class of new LA priests, the June 3
Ordination Mass marked the celebration of a lifetime.
BY CHRISTA CHAVEZ
The eight newly ordained priests receive applause from their fellow priests and those in attendance
during the Ordination Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on June 3. | VICTOR ALEMÁN
Sitting in a shady corner of the plaza of the Cathedral
of Our Lady of the Angels, Luisa Galan fought back
tears watching her son, Cesar, give first blessings from
his wheelchair just moments after his ordination to the
priesthood.
“This is one of the most important days of my life,” she
said in Spanish. “I’m very happy about the choices my son
has made and where God has led him.”
Of the eight men ordained priests the morning of Saturday,
June 3, Galan’s story was perhaps the most visibly
moving. Paralyzed from a shooting that took the life of his
brother more than 20 years ago, Galan is now the first paraplegic
priest in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. All thanks,
he says, to a tragedy that ultimately brought him closer to
God and led to his calling to the priesthood.
The milestone moment drew more than 3,000 people to
the cathedral for the joyous, two-hour ticket-only liturgy.
During the Ordination Rite, the candidates prostrated
themselves around the altar as the congregation chanted
the Litany of the Saints. The rite also included the Laying
on of Hands, the Investiture with Stole and Chasuble, and
the Kiss of Peace — ancient rituals that signify their incorporation
into the presbyterate.
“Jesus Christ makes every priest another Christ,” said
Archbishop José H. Gomez as he addressed the candidates
in his homily. “You become living instruments of Christ,
the Eternal Priest. … And it is a beautiful thing to be his
instruments, to be his voice, his hands.”
After the Mass, the newly vested priests — Fathers Michael
DiPietro, Cesar Galan, fsp, Rene J-C Haarpaintner,
Hieu Nguyen, Luis Gerardo Peña, Enrique Piceno Jr.,
Emmanuel Sanchez, and Sergio Sandoval Martinez —
16 • ANGELUS • June 30, 2023

e.
“I was nervous, joyful, excited — just kind of in awe,” she
said. “It’s pretty humbling to see my brother offer himself
to God as a priest.”
Nunes said her brother’s decision to enter the seminary
several years ago did not surprise her or their family. “Michael
always pursued truth, and that pursuit led him to a
deep love for God. So, the natural following of that would
be for him to give his life totally to God to save souls.”
“It’s quite the undertaking,” she added, “and I think that
gets lost on us in today’s world.”
Maria Carrera drove from San Bernandino with her four
children to attend the Ordination Mass. One of her sons,
Eduardo, suffers from a seizure disorder and is confined to
a wheelchair.
Although she does not know any of the new priests personally,
she and her children waited in every line to receive
blessings from all eight priests.
Carrera said she has experienced miracles from previous
blessings and is deeply grateful to God. “The blessings have
helped to heal my son. He has gotten much better, and
they make me feel stronger,” she said.
“Like the archbishop said in his homily, these priests became
another Christ today,” she continued. “That’s why I
am here — because the first blessings are special blessings.”
After greeting and blessing hundreds of people for nearly
were met with exuberant applause as
they processed across Cathedral Plaza,
taking their places under large canvas
umbrellas. There, under a clear, blue
sky and brilliant sun, hundreds of people
quickly filed into eight lines, chatting
and taking photos as they waited to
receive a first blessing.
Ranging in age from 27 to 61, the
diverse group of ordinandi (four were
born in the U.S., the others in Mexico,
Newly ordained
priest Father Cesar
Galan, fsp, gives a
first blessing to a
parishioner following
the Ordination Mass at
the Cathedral of Our
Lady of the Angels.
| CHRISTA CHAVEZ
Switzerland, and Vietnam) all completed their formation
at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo.
Christina Nunes said she felt an unusual mix of emotions
as she witnessed her brother, Michael DiPietro, be
ordained.
June 30, 2023 • ANGELUS • 17

Maria Carrera and
her four children
receive a blessing
from Father Rene
J-C Haarpaintner,
following his
Ordination Mass at
the Cathedral of Our
Lady of the Angels.
| CHRISTA CHAVEZ
two hours, newly ordained Father
Enrique Piceno Jr. took a moment
to think about what the day meant to
him, describing it as “the fulfillment of
what God had planned for me from the
beginning.
“That’s what I was thinking during the
Mass: that God thought of me in my
mother’s womb, and that this is it — the
beginning of the mission that God has
had for me from the start,” he said.
Piceno said he looks forward to meeting
the parishioners at his new assignment, St. Agnes Church
in the Jefferson Park area of Los Angeles.
“I just want to be a good priest, to be with the people
of God and learn from them,” he said. “I will be helping
them get to heaven, but also, through their lives, I am
hoping to get to heaven. So, it’s a mutual enrichment …
we will be helping each other.”
For Luisa, much of the emotion she felt came from
remembering her son Cesar’s often painful journey. But,
she said she takes comfort in knowing how strong he is — a
strength that she attributes wholly to God.
“Our family is very proud that he is becoming a priest because
he will be helping other people,” she said. “We hope
that he finds happiness wherever he may go.”
Christa Chavez is a freelance writer and a parishioner at
Our Lady of Refuge Church in Long Beach.
Newly ordained priest Father
Enrique Piceno Jr. (front)
smiles as he and Father Rene
J-C Haarpaintner (left), Father
Hieu D. Nguyen (center), and
Father Michael DiPietro (right)
process out following the
Ordination Mass for eight new
priests to the Archdiocese of
Los Angeles. | VICTOR ALEMÁN
18 • ANGELUS • June 30, 2023

‘ALL PART OF GOD’S WILL’
Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez poses with the 10 men ordained as permanent deacons
on June 10 (left to right): Felipe Sasis, Rafael Aviña, Daniel White, Miguel Lerena, Michael Lee,
Antonio Catalan, Todd Sanders, Antonio Rodriguez, Douglas Zuniga, and Otto Lacayo.
For LA’s 10 new permanent deacons,
the call to serve comes as ‘a surprise and a blessing.’
BY MIKE NELSON / PHOTOGRAPHY BY VICTOR ALEMÁN
Dan White is no stranger to the
inside of a church, having
designed many of them in his
career as an architect and serving in
several of them as an emcee, acolyte,
and sacristan for close to 30 years.
But as a permanent deacon, White
will take on a different role in the
sanctuary — as a proclaimer of the
Gospel, a preacher of the homily, and
as a presider at baptisms and weddings.
White is one of 10 men ordained as
permanent deacons for the Archdiocese
of Los Angeles on June 10 at the
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.
Archbishop José H. Gomez presided
at the ordination of the men (nine
married, one single), who join more
than 400 permanent deacons currently
serving in the archdiocese.
In his homily, Archbishop Gomez
reminded the new deacons that Jesus
calls them “to be leaders in love, just
as the first deacons were.”
“The steps you walk in now are his
steps,” he said to them. “The will you
follow now is not your own.”
The new deacons have completed
five years of formation through the
archdiocesan Office of Diaconate
Formation, a process that began
by attending one of four “Virtual
Information Days” offered throughout
the year. This event offers men and,
if married, their wives an overview of
the diaconate, including the formation
process and the responsibilities
and expectations of a deacon.
For White, whose parish is St.
John Vianney Church in Hacienda
Heights, part of the appeal of becoming
a permanent deacon was knowing
he could do this important ministry
with his wife, Amy, a licensed occupational
therapist.
“We saw we could do this ministry together
as a couple,” White said. “That
20 • ANGELUS • June 30, 2023

was a surprise and a blessing, because
it was very important to us.
“That’s all part of God’s will.”
Todd Sanders, who with his wife,
Lesley, has served in multiple ministries
at St. Rose of Lima Church in
Simi Valley, felt especially called to
help people of the greater community
to encounter the love of Christ, especially
the poor and the marginalized.
“As I grow into my role as a deacon,”
he said, “God will provide for encounters
with people in need, and help
me to know how
to intercede for
them.”
As the only
single man
being ordained
as a permanent
deacon, Douglas
Ernesto Zuniga
Moncada never
seriously considered
priesthood
or the diaconate
even as he threw
himself into
parish ministry
at Our Lady of
the Holy Rosary
Church in Sun
Valley shortly
after emigrating
from Nicaragua
to the United
States in 1989.
He’s been a
catechist, headed
the music
ministry, been a religious education
coordinator, and St. Vincent de Paul
food bank volunteer because he “felt
an interior call to dedicate my life to
the service of God in his Church.”
As a single man, he admits to not
knowing at first how he would relate
to the other married men in his diaconate
class.
“The formation years I shared with
nine wonderful married couples
allowed me to learn from their experiences,
from their particular gifts and
charisms,” Zuniga said. “Their stories
helped me gain an understanding of
what it means to be married and the
different situations they face as parents
and grandparents.”
For Rafael Aviña of Sacred Heart
Church in Lancaster, the faith formation
that he went through with his
wife, Laura, helped him gain a more
personal and deeper understanding of
his faith and history of the Church.
“I was also enlightened in the many
aspects of spirituality and how God
acts in our lives,” Aviña said.
“I believe the formation process has
prepared me to be a servant leader
opening up doors to serve the community
in ministries in the social life of
the Church.”
Deacon Douglas Zuniga (back row, fourth from left) with colleagues from the LA Archdiocese’s Office of Religious
Education. Zuniga is the coordinator of Elementary Catechesis for the archdiocese.
However they were called, the ordination
was a moment both joyous and
humbling for all the newly ordained,
as they absorbed not only the Rite of
Ordination and its powerful text (“Believe
what you read, teach what you
believe, practice what you teach”),
but their new responsibilities in their
parishes and communities.
“I’ll get to know our community in
their pains, their sorrows, and their
joys,” White said. “It will be a new
challenge and opportunity, and I find
that very exciting.”
Meet all 10 of the new permanent
deacons, their wives, and parishes:
Rafael and Laura Aviña, Sacred
Heart Church, Lancaster. Rafael, born
in Mexico City, has been married
to Laura Reyes for 38 years and they
have three adult daughters. He works
in the Military Aviation Maintenance
Group for the U.S. Air Force. Rafael
and Laura serve at Sacred Heart as
coordinators of bereavement ministries
and extraordinary ministers of
Communion, and Rafael participates
in RCIA.
Antonio and Violeta Catalan, St.
Joseph Church, Hawthorne. Antonio,
born in Mexico, and Violeta, have
been married for 38 years and have
three children
and a granddaughter.
Both
work for Catholic
Cemeteries &
Mortuaries of Los
Angeles, at Holy
Cross Church
in Culver City.
At St. Joseph,
their ministries
include being
lectors, extraordinary
ministers
of Communion,
pre-baptismal
preparation,
Cursillistas, and
coordinating a
St. Jude Thaddeus
devotional
ministry.
Otto and Martha
Lacayo, St.
Therese Church,
Alhambra. Otto
and Martha are
from Nicaragua and have two children.
Otto recently retired from the
U.S. Postal Service after 33 years. Otto
and Martha are actively involved as
extraordinary ministers of Communion,
sacristans, and lectors (English
and Spanish). Otto belongs to the Secular
Order of Discalced Carmelites
and the Knights of Columbus. Martha
co-founded a Pregnancy Help Center,
providing advocacy for all unborn
children, and essential resources and
education to women experiencing extreme
challenges in their pregnancy.
Michael and Theresa Amerine
Lee, St Louise de Marillac Church,
Covina. Married for 12 years, Michael
and Theresa are both retired — Michael
after 20 years in law enforce-
June 30, 2023 • ANGELUS • 21

The permanent deacons stand on the altar during their Ordination Mass.
ment and Theresa after 22 years as an
elementary school teacher. Michael
was active in the Knights of Columbus,
including two years as the Grand
Knight. Both have been lectors and
extraordinary ministers of Communion.
Michael also has been an extraordinary
minister of Communion to the
homebound, and a sacristan before
being instituted as an acolyte. Theresa
serves as a member of the environmental
team and on the Eucharistic
Revival committee.
Miguel and Berenice Lerena, Our
Lady of Lourdes Church, Los Angeles.
Miguel, born in Jalisco, Mexico,
and Berenice, have been married for
34 years and have four adult sons.
Miguel is a production supervisor
at a company that produces electric
transformers. Miguel and Berenice
are lectors, extraordinary ministers
of Communion, altar servers, lay
members of the Divine Word, and are
consecrated to the adoration of the
Holy Sacrament.
Antonio and Maura Rodriguez,
Our Lady of the Rosary of Talpa
Church, Los Angeles. Antonio, born
in El Salvador, has been married to
Maura for 42 years. They have two
adult children and two grandchildren.
Both retired, Antonio and Maura
Rafael Aviña, left, prays with a young man after Aviña
and nine other men were ordained as permanent
deacons at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.
are lectors, extraordinary ministers of
Communion, oversee quinceañera
preparation, and are members of the
parish finance and pastoral councils.
Antonio and Maura will become the
first diaconal couple in their parish.
Todd and Lesley Sanders, St. Rose
of Lima Church, Simi Valley. Todd
and Lesley, lifelong Simi Valley residents,
have been married for 24 years.
Todd is a special education teacher,
and Lesley owns a home cleaning
business. Both Todd and Lesley are
involved at St. Rose as extraordinary
ministers of Communion, lectors, and
the RCIA team. Todd is also active in
Christian Services and as an extraordinary
minister of Communion to the
homebound.
Felipe Gregory and Lillybeth
Nacpil Sasis, Beatitudes of Our Lord
Church, La Mirada. Gregg is an
infrastructure technician in higher
education, while Lillybeth is an
assistant director of student conduct at
a public university. They are involved
with Beatitudes’ ministry to the sick
and homebound, Good Sam Pantry,
the Habitat for Humanity LA Catholic
Coalition, Marriage Enrichment, and
as lectors and extraordinary ministers
of Communion.
Dan and Amy White, St. John
Vianney Church, Hacienda Heights.
Dan, an architect, owns his own firm,
Daniel D. White Architects, specializing
in consultation on and design of
churches and church-related buildings,
furnishings, and planning. Amy
is a licensed occupational therapist
and works as a supervisor of a therapy
unit for California Children’s Services,
specializing in the treatment
of children with lifelong disabilities.
At St. John Vianney, both serve as
acolytes and in bereavement ministry
at vigils, funerals, and committal
services.
Douglas Ernesto Zuniga Moncada,
Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Church,
Sun Valley. Douglas was born in Nicaragua,
and has lived in the U.S. since
1989. He has a bachelor’s degree
in graphic design and a master’s in
pastoral ministry from St. John’s Seminary.
A master catechist, Douglas is
involved with Holy Rosary’s baptismal
preparation program, the St. Vincent
de Paul food bank, and the small
Christian community ministry in his
parish.
Mike Nelson is the former editor of
The Tidings (predecessor of Angelus).
22 • ANGELUS • June 30, 2023

Tale of two cities
While the LA Dodgers were honoring fake nuns, some 2,000 people
prayed for love, respect, and forgiveness at the cathedral.
BY NATALIE ROMANO
On the day that the Los Angeles
Dodgers honored a group of
fake religious “sisters” and
hundreds gathered outside Dodger
Stadium to pray and protest, some
2,000 Catholics filled the Cathedral
of Our Lady of the Angels in response
to the baseball team’s controversial
decision.
“When God is insulted, when the
beliefs of any of our neighbors are
ridiculed, it diminishes all of us,” said
Archbishop José H. Gomez in his
homily at a noon Mass on June 16,
hours ahead of the Dodgers’ annual
“Pride Night.”
Although the Dodgers have hosted
these special game nights for the gay
and lesbian community for more than
10 years, this year the team decided to
mark the event with an award to the
Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a San
Francisco-based activist group that describes
itself as a “leading-edge order
of queer and trans nuns” and routinely
parodies Catholic figures and traditions
with lewd and lascivious public
performances.
“When we reward such acts,” the
archbishop said in his homily at the
Mass, “it hurts our unity as one city
and one nation, as one family under
God.”
The decision to honor the sisters
sparked protests from Catholics
around the country, including a call
from the country’s bishops for Catholics
to make “reparations” for the sisters’
“blasphemies.” National Catholic
groups, most prominently the Catholic
League,
called for
boycotts,
while Catholic
Vote and
Phoenix-based
lay group
Catholics for
Catholics
organized a
prayer and
procession
event outside
of Dodger
Stadium Friday afternoon.
Los Angeles Archbishop José
H. Gomez blesses parishioners
during a special Mass at
the Cathedral of Our Lady
of the Angels on Friday, June
16, for a celebration of the
solemnity of the Most Sacred
Heart of Jesus ahead of the
Los Angeles Dodgers’ game
and its Pride Night.
| JOHN RUEDA/ARCHDIOCESE
OF LOS ANGELES
The liturgy — and the controversial
game — took place on the same day
the Catholic Church celebrates the
solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of
Jesus.
24 • ANGELUS • June 30, 2023

Archbishop Gomez took the opportunity
to urge a return to American
principles.
“Religious freedom and respect for
the beliefs of others are hallmarks of
our nation,” he said in his homily.
Many lifelong Catholics who were
also lifelong Dodgers fans said they
feel betrayed by the franchise. Annie
Hagan fondly remembered going to
Dodger Stadium as a child and later
taking her own children there. Now
she says she won’t go back.
“It makes me cry. Dodger Stadium
was always a family-friendly place,”
said Hagan, a parishioner of Our Lady
of Mount Carmel Church in Newport
Beach. “Now it’s not. They’re
honoring people who are blasphemous
against the Catholic Church
at a place that St. Pope John Paul II
blessed.”
Hagan was referring to the time
when the Polish pontiff celebrated
Mass on the field of Dodger Stadium
during his visit to Los Angeles in
1987.
Originally, the Dodgers had announced
they would honor the Sisters
of Perpetual Indulgence for their
charity work, but after an outcry from
many Catholics, canceled plans for
the on-field tribute.
The team reversed course again following
swift, widespread criticism in
the media and from LGBT advocacy
groups, apologizing to the sisters and
asking them to accept the Community
Hero Award June 16 before the Friday
night game against the San Francisco
Giants.
The team also announced it would
be bringing back a “Christian Faith
and Family Day” on July 30. But
some of the faithful at the cathedral
said they weren’t sure if that would
be enough. Still, they took it all as a
moment to evangelize.
“Jesus took action. He didn’t sit at
home,” said Janie Beach, a parishioner
of St. Rose of Lima Church in Simi
Valley. “We need to reach out, we
need to show we are loving people. …
Our prayers hopefully will lead people
to Jesus.”
Terry Wright wants those prayers to
lead to a better society.
“I think we need to pray for kindness
in the world because everyone is so
nasty with each other,” said Wright, a
parishioner of St. Rita Church in Sierra
Madre. “To have someone who has
been a persecuted class persecuting
Catholics makes no sense to me.”
The Dodgers’ reversal not only
prompted calls for prayer by Archbishop
Gomez, but also from the
United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops, which asked U.S. Catholics
to pray the Litany of the Sacred
Heart that day for “reparation for the
blasphemies against Our Lord we see
in our culture today.”
Tom Schroeter took the request to
heart and flew to Los Angeles from
Houston, Texas. The retired attorney
said he felt compelled to attend the
Mass and later, the “Prayerful Procession”
outside Dodger Stadium.
“Somebody has to stick up for Jesus
and for Mary and for all Catholic
nuns … it’s pretty simple,” said Schroeter,
a parishioner of St. Michael the
Archangel Church in Houston. “We
have to pray for each other … I want
to remove any anger from my heart.”
Sister Mary Colette Theobald, SND,
said she’s not angry, but is pained by
the images put out by the faux nuns.
She says it’s “just wrong” to be hateful
toward things that are so sacred to
Catholics.
“It hurts a lot, it really hurts a lot,”
said Theobald. “Because these things
like the habit are so special to us …
I’ve seen pictures of this group dressing
up in horribly provocative ways.”
The cathedral erupted in applause
when Archbishop Gomez acknowledged
the many sisters present at
Mass. Outside he posed for pictures
with some of the sisters, while others
received blessings from archdiocesan
priests.
Michael Breen, sporting a red Jesus
t-shirt, said he came to Mass to make
a statement to the Dodgers and to
the world that God is still important.
Concerned about the possibility of violence
at Dodger Stadium that night,
he prayed for peace but still retained a
sense of humor.
“I asked God to please protect all
the people (at Dodger Stadium),
both sides, all
Scores of people
protest the Los Angeles
Dodgers honoring the
pro-LGBT group, Sisters
of Perpetual Indulgence,
during Pride Night at
Dodger Stadium on
June 16. | OSV/KIRBY
LEE, USA TODAY SPORTS
VIA REUTERS
sides, even the
Giants fans,”
chuckled Breen,
a parishioner of
St. Martin de
Porres Church
in Yorba Linda.
“Help us stand for
what makes our
country and our
Church awesome.”
Angelus Staff contributed to this story.
Natalie Romano is a freelance writer
for Angelus and the Inland Catholic
Byte, the news website of the Diocese of
San Bernardino.
June 30, 2023 • ANGELUS • 25

“The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara,” by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, 1800-1882, German. This representation departs significantly
from the historical record of how Mortara was taken – no clergy were present, for example. | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Waiting for the ‘Netflix Effect’
Advocates of reform related to the 19th-century case of a baptized
Jewish child are hoping for some big-screen help to boost their cause.
BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
ROME — For almost 40 years,
the 1983 disappearance of
15-year-old Emanuela Orlandi,
the daughter of a minor employee of
the Papal Household whose family
lived in a Vatican apartment, festered
into Italy’s version of the Kennedy
assassination without the Vatican ever
feeling the need to launch its own
investigation.
Yet in the wake of a successful Netflix
series called “Vatican Girl,” the
pope’s Promoter of Justice promptly
announced that he was opening an
inquest, vowing that no stone would
be left unturned to establish what the
Vatican knew and when it knew it.
Though it could just be coincidence,
many observers can’t help thinking
public pressure created by the highly
rated four-part Netflix program was
part of what broke the logjam.
At the moment, advocates of another
Vatican gesture they regard as long
overdue are hoping that a new movie
currently playing in Italian and
French theaters will have the same
effect, creating momentum to amend
the Church’s Code of Canon Law
with a peculiar objective: the removal
of a provision allowing for the baptism
of a child even against the will of the
parents if the infant is in danger of
death.
That proposal was first floated almost
a quarter-century ago, in conjunction
with the 2000 beatification of Pope
Pius IX, but went nowhere at the
time.
It arises in connection with the infamous
case of Edgardo Mortara, which
is also the subject of the new movie,
“Rapito” (“Kidnapped”) by famed
Italian director Marco Bellocchio. It’s
the story of a young Jewish boy who
was secretly baptized in 1851 by his
family’s Catholic maid in Bologna,
while the city was still part of the
Papal States. The maid had feared
that young Mortara might die from an
infection.
In late 1857, the local commander
of the papal police learned of the
baptism and, acting on the law of
the Papal States which forbade a
Catholic child from being raised in a
non-Catholic home, forcibly removed
Mortara from his Jewish family in
1858 and sent him to a residence in
Rome for children in such circumstances.
This was the 19th century, not the
Middle Ages, and a newly independent
secular European press turned
the case into a “cause célèbre.”
Despite the backlash, Pius dug in his
heels and refused to return the child,
instead raising him in the Vatican as a
sort of surrogate son. Mortara went on
to become a Catholic priest and died
in Belgium in 1940.
One of Mortara’s descendants, Elèna
26 • ANGELUS • June 30, 2023

Mortara Di Veroli, today is a professor
of Anglo-American literature at
Rome’s Tor Vergata University. Along
with the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Riccardo
Di Segni, she recently took part
in the presentation of a new novel
also loosely based on her ancestor’s
story, and used the occasion to revive
a request for a reform she first floated
in 2000.
In essence, she wants a portion of
canon 868 of the Code of Canon
Law to be abrogated, which sets out
the requirements for a baptism of
an infant to be licit. (Any properly
performed baptism is “valid,” meaning
sacramentally effective, but not all
such baptisms are necessarily “licit,”
meaning performed with ecclesiastical
permission.)
The second clause of canon 868,
in English translation, states: “An
infant of Catholic parents or even
of non-Catholic parents is baptized
licitly in danger of death even against
the will of the parents.”
Elèna, saying she’s speaking in the
name of all the relatives of Edgardo,
has asked Pope Francis to eliminate
that provision, which she regards as
an ongoing justification for what happened
to her family 165 years ago.
She rejected the argument that Edgardo’s
embrace of the Catholic faith
justifies his initial removal.
“They kept him segregated in a
totally Catholic environment because
they knew his education would
determine what he became,” she said.
“To justify even today their conduct
on the basis that he became what
they programmed him to be is just
incredible.”
To date, there’s been no response
from the Vatican to the request.
Should Pope Francis consider the
idea, it would pose a serious doctrinal
dilemma.
On the one hand, paragraph 1257
of the Catechism of the Catholic
Church states, “The Lord himself
affirms that baptism is necessary for
salvation.”
Any step by the pontiff that appeared
to undercut that teaching would,
almost inevitably, stir fresh irritation
among traditionalists and doctrinal
purists.
Yet on the other side of the ledger,
The promotional poster for the film “Rapito” (“Kidnapped”)
by Italian director Marco Bellocchio. | IMDB
the Catholic Church clearly endorses
religious freedom, and also emphasizes
the rights of parents to be the
primary educators of their children.
(Among other things, bishops in the
United States and other countries
have cited that teaching often in
defense of public support for Catholic
schools.)
How to thread the needle with those
differing considerations would represent
a tough call, and the complexity
may help explain why the Vatican has
left the proposal alone for so long.
Still, Pope Francis has shown himself
willing to wade into troubled waters.
Recently, for instance, he acted on
another long-standing demand, in
this case from indigenous communities,
to distance the Church from
the so-called “Doctrine of Discovery”
lending religious justification to the
colonization of the New World.
Whether he’ll do something similar
on the baptism question remains to
be seen.
If he does, when might it happen?
Well, keep an eye out for when “Rapito”
starts streaming on Netflix … if
experience is any guide, that might
just do the trick.
John L. Allen Jr. is the editor of Crux.
June 30, 2023 • ANGELUS • 27

Angelus wins 16 awards,
including four first places, at 2023
Catholic Media Conference
BY ANGELUS STAFF
Angelus took home 16 awards
at this year’s Catholic Media
Association (CMA) conference,
held June 6-9 in Baltimore.
Works published in 2022 were
recognized with first-place awards in
four categories. Judges praised Elise
Ureneck’s cover story “How to save
men” as “fantastic” and “a blessing in
so many ways” in the “Best writing —
In-depth” category.
“Effortlessly told, without ever losing
pace,” commented a judge on Ureneck’s
cover story. “Smooth transitions,
fascinating real-world quotes. It goes on
and on and never falters.”
Msgr. Richard Antall won first place
in the “Best Review” category, with
judges calling his piece on a pop
psychology book’s treatment of the
sacrament of confession “far and away
the best review in the category.”
“Basically, if you can review a bad
book, find the good in it and still
make people want to read it — and
even show them the right way to do
so — you are a king,” wrote a judge of
Antall’s review of “The Secret Life of
Secrets.” “Just left me wanting more.”
Other first place awards included
Steve Lowery’s story of a family’s generational
ties to St. Eugene School in
South LA and Angelus’ coverage of the
effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
CMA judges also awarded Angelus’
website, AngelusNews.com, second
place for best website, calling the site
“top of the line work,” and “maybe the
best layout in the category.”
Editor-in-Chief Pablo Kay was included
for the third year in a row in the
Editor of the Year category, this time
with “Honorable Mention.”
Best Coverage — Pandemic: “COVID’s hidden cross”
by Elise Italiano Ureneck, from the May 6, 2022 issue.
FIRST PLACE
Best Writing — In-Depth: “How to
save men” by Elise Italiano Ureneck
Best Review: “More than feelings” by
Msgr. Richard Antall
Best Reporting on Catholic Education:
“St. Eugene is our village” by
Steve Lowery
Best Coverage — Pandemic: “COV-
ID’s hidden cross” by Elise Italiano
Ureneck, “Switching the channel”
by Ann Rodgers, “An ancient calling”
by Alison Nastasi, and “Blessings of a
bounce back” by Tom Hoffarth
SECOND PLACE
Best Illustration with Graphic Design
or Art: Vin Scully cover by Jim
Thompson
Best Website — Magazine or Newsletter:
AngelusNews.com
Hot Topic — The Dobbs decision:
“We are going to be better” by Natalie
Romano and Pablo Kay, “Time for
some truth” by Charles Camosy, and
“The shockwaves of a sentence” by
Angelus staff
Best Coverage — Disaster or Crises:
“Holy resistance” by Ann Rodgers,
Best Photograph — Catholic Education: Marian consecration
service at All Souls World Language School by Victor Alemán.
28 • ANGELUS • June 30, 2023

Best Illustration with Graphic Design or Art: Vin
Scully cover by Jim Thompson.
“He’s guiding our history” by Pablo
Kay, and “Holy discretion” by John L.
Allen Jr.
Best Photograph — Catholic Education:
Marian consecration service at
All Souls World Language School by
Victor Alemán
Best Reporting of Social Justice
Issues — Rights and Responsibilities:
“Action required” by Steve Lowery
THIRD PLACE
Best Review: “A Viking’s only way
out?” by Joseph Joyce
Best Regular Column — Family
Life: “With Grace” by Dr. Grazie Pozo
Christie
Best Essay — Diocesan Magazines:
“Peace comes to the Golden Age” by
Mike Aquilina
Best Sports Reporting: “Vin’s greatest
inheritance” by Tom Hoffarth
HONORABLE MENTION
Best Writing — In-Depth: “Next
stop: The metaverse” by Elise Italiano
Ureneck
Editor of the Year (English): Pablo
Kay
June 30, 2023 • ANGELUS • 29

AD REM
ROBERT BRENNAN
A sign from above — on the ground
Homeless on Skid Row in Los Angeles. | SHUTTERSTOCK
I
see her when I drive into the
underground parking lot of the
homeless shelter where I earn my
daily bread.
I see a lot of things on my commute
and very few of them are good. When
I drive the streets of Skid Row, human
degradation at its zenith — or is it at
its nadir? — is on full display. It is difficult
to process knowing I live in the
most prosperous and wealthy nation
in human history, and see misery on a
daily basis in a city where people drop
$100 on a salad at tony restaurants.
She is like so many of the other
people I have seen on Skid Row in
downtown LA, and yet she is different.
Men and women in a drug-induced
psychosis screaming in the middle of
the street, or wearing layers of caked
dirt with tattered fabric hanging on
open sores, is business as usual down
there.
Her clothes are not clean, but by
Skid Row standards this woman is
well-kept. She sits in one of those half
chair/half walkers that people with
mobility issues rely on. I have never
seen her use it to assist in walking. I
have only seen her sitting on the device
with her back hunched over and
her eyes looking up at her surroundings.
On Skid Row, keeping one’s head
on a swivel is an essential element
of survival. It is a violent place. It is
a parallel universe with its own rules
and regulations as structured and
absolute as the law of gravity. It is an
environment where only the bravest
can survive.
She looks like somebody’s grandma.
Odds are, she is somebody’s grandma.
She was once somebody’s pride and
joy, a bundle of innocence wrapped
in swaddling clothes. I have no idea
how, at her advanced age, she came to
sit outside a homeless shelter in Los
Angeles.
The irony is not lost on me that she
will not enter that very shelter where
services abound, and where a safe
place to sleep and assistance with
reconnecting to her family is offered
to all comers. To the best of my
knowledge, other than availing herself
of the food we provide, she has never
stepped inside.
She always waves at me and smiles,
whether I am going into or coming
out of the parking lot. I smile and
wave back, and that is all I do. I
reason that by working at this shelter
raising money to fund programs and
keep the lights on, I am doing my
bit to help. That is the nature of this
business. The beds are here, the help
is at hand, but the people those beds
and services are meant for must, in
the end, walk themselves through the
door to access them.
There is another demographic on
Skid Row that is rarely highlighted in
news reports or feature articles. There
are families down here and they are
30 • ANGELUS • June 30, 2023

Robert Brennan writes from Los Angeles, where
he has worked in the entertainment industry,
Catholic journalism, and the nonprofit sector.
not homeless. They live in the dingy
and ill-kept apartments and hotels
surrounding Skid Row. They are the
working poor, immigrants and nonimmigrants
alike with the common
denominator of poverty.
I see these moms and dads escorting
their children through the brutal
streets of Skid Row in the morning
on their way to school. The children,
with their Incredible Hulk and Barbie
backpacks, could be walking to school
to any suburban LA parochial school
… only they are walking through a
forest of human suffering.
The moms and dads keep a firm
hand on their kids as they walk with
eyes forward and at a steady clip to
get through the Skid Row gauntlet as
quickly as possible.
Just the other day, I waited to enter
the shelter parking lot as a couple
of moms with backpack-laden kids
walked by. The old grandma was in
her usual spot. She waved at me, and
I waved back. Suddenly, one of the
escorted kids, a girl of about 10, broke
from her mother’s grasp. There was a
look of serious anxiety on the mom’s
face as this girl approached the old
lady on the side of the parking structure
and gave her the blended fruit
smoothie she was drinking. The old
lady bowed her head in thanks. The
little girl returned to her mom, and off
to school they went.
Burning bushes and heavenly voices
from above the River Jordan are
certainly profound examples of divine
communication. But the world has
been and continues to be full of ways
God tries to get our attention not
found within the covers of a Bible.
That simple act of kindness and recognition
that this poor — yes, poor —
girl gave to someone in greater need
than herself was certainly God trying
to get my attention.
In the greater scope of things, that
fruit smoothie was not going to put
a dent in LA’s homeless emergency.
But it made all the difference to that
woman sitting next to the entrance of
a homeless shelter that day.

NOW PLAYING RESCUED FROM DARKNESS
WHEN FAITH DRIVES EDUCATION
An award-winning documentary shows how putting
God first transformed a school in war-torn Uganda.
BY SOPHIA MARTINSON
A promotional image for
the film “Rescued From
Darkness.” | PERSONALLY
CATHOLIC
will always return. Like
falling in love. You’ll never
“You
be the same.” These are the
words Father Joseph Ssergo, chaplain
of Pope John Paul II High School in
Uganda, uses to describe his community.
After watching “Rescued From Darkness,”
it is easy to see what he means.
Awarded “Best Documentary” at the
Odyssey Fest and IMAFA film festivals,
the 78-minute film from Personally
Catholic tells the story of a school born
out of the ashes of war.
Since gaining its independence
in 1962, Uganda has hardly known
peace. After decades of military coups,
dictatorship, and violence — including
child sacrifice practiced by tribal
cultures — the prospect of education
seemed impossible for many Ugandan
families.
But in 2009, the Apostles of Jesus
Missionaries and the nonprofit organization
Building a Bridge to Uganda set
out to build a school — in the middle
of the jungle and a former war zone.
Fourteen years later, the film captures
700 students in bright yellow uniforms
filling a vast campus of neat, red-roofed
buildings. The academic results are
just as impressive: JPII School consistently
scores in the top 5% of national
testing, and 98% of graduates go on to
higher education, a rarity in Uganda.
But as the film unfolds, it is the
overwhelming joy — not the academic
achievement — that is the distinguishing
feature of the school.
Almost every shot features wide
smiles, laughter, and singing, almost as
if the faculty and students are un-
touched by the brutal past.
Yet that is not their reality — many
interviewees recall fleeing for their
lives, sleeping in bushes, and escaping
child sacrifice.
The film brings these chilling
memories to life through dramatized
reenactments: figures race through the
jungle amid the sound of gunshots or
breathlessly hide in roof rafters while
gunmen pace below.
But at JPII School, where fear and
death once reigned, music and learning
have taken root.
So what is the secret? Unlike other
educational reform projects, no one
points to a special teaching method,
a complex curriculum, or high-tech
school supplies. In one interview after
another, the audience hears the same
response — it’s the centrality of faith
32 • ANGELUS • June 30, 2023

that makes the difference.
“Right away, from day one … we put
God first,” says Kukundakwe Christine,
one of the original JPII School faculty
members.
Prayer paved the way for this seemingly
impossible project, and prayer remains
the beating heart of the school.
Each day, all faculty and students
gather for morning Mass and evening
prayers. At the center of the campus
stands a chapel, marking the school’s
physical and spiritual heart.
The effect is visible. The students
speak about the happiness and peace
that floods their lives. In spite of their
horrific past, they look to the future
with hope. They dream of being teachers,
priests, and religious sisters, eager
to pass on the faith they have received.
“A student of Pope John Paul knows
that with God, everything is possible,
and you can’t do without him,” one
teacher states.
It’s not that faith has eliminated all
troubles. As one student notes, “Many
of the social, material, and financial
scars remain, even after all these years.”
And yet these challenges neither
overshadow the goals nor slow the momentum
at JPII School. Poor as they
are, the students donate shoes to even
poorer communities. And in a country
where jobs are few and far between
for college graduates, alumni return to
teach, eager to assist even as volunteers.
To a Western culture that touts
academic achievement and career opportunity
as the markers of educational
success, the primacy of faith at JPII
School offers a radical alternative. The
documentary could have led with the
school’s standout scores and graduation
rates, but it only mentions these statistics
at the very end.
While upholding their academic mission,
the school’s founders, administration,
and teachers see it as secondary
to their spiritual mission. More than
just minds to be instructed, they see
their students as souls to be guided to
heaven. Religious identity is more than
a peripheral feature. It is the driving
force behind every action, the source
of every kind of success.
And as “Rescued From Darkness”
makes clear, by putting God first,
everything else falls into place.
One can’t help but wonder how our
culture would change if every Catholic
school in America lived its supernatural
mission with the same fervor. If
Ssergo is right, we’d never be the same.
“Rescued from Darkness” is available to
stream on Amazon Prime and Apple TV.
Sophia Martinson is a writer living in
New York City.

DESIRE LINES
HEATHER KING
Where crime doesn’t pay
A scene from the 1955 film “No Man’s Woman.” | SCREENSHOT VIA YOUTUBE
“Each of us is in some way or another,
and in succession, a criminal and a
saint.”
— Catholic novelist Georges
Bernanos (1888-1948)
My tastes range wide in movies,
but top place goes to film
noir, described by the Oxford
Languages Dictionary as “a style or
genre of cinematographic film marked
by a mood of pessimism, fatalism, and
menace.”
“The term was originally applied (by
a group of French critics) to American
thriller or detective films made in the
period 1944–54 and to the work of
directors such as Orson Welles, Fritz
Lang, and Billy Wilder.”
In “Dark City: The Lost World of
Film Noir” (Running Press Adult,
$20.99), San Francisco-based Eddie
Muller (the “Czar of noir”) explores
several tropes of the genre: “Vixenville”
(the femme fatale), “The City
Desk” (newspaper grift), the psych
ward “Thieves’ Highway” (crime on
the road), “The Big House” (prison
movies).
Hollywood was the heartbeat of film
noir, with many of them shot in the
studios, if not the streets, stores, and
homes of LA. I can’t get enough of
the tough guys in hats, the dames with
cinched-in waists, the sinister, bougainvillea-overhung
alleys, the winding car
chases up into the hills, the venal urges,
the leering close-ups, the laughably
convoluted plots.
A number of lesser-known favorites
can be found free on YouTube: “No
Man’s Woman” (1955), for example.
In the opening scene, platinum
blonde “art dealer” Carolyn Grant (the
great Marie Windsor, “Queen of the
Bs”) is breezing along what looks to be
the Pasadena Freeway south. She’s at
the wheel of a snazzy cream-colored
convertible with big fins, the top down,
a pricey painting in the back seat,
and her lover, an art critic who she’s
stringing along in order to advance her
career, riding shotgun.
When the wind starts blowing off the
wrapping paper that’s protecting the
“René” they’ve just bought, she pulls
over so the guy can adjust it. “How
could I get along without you, Wayne,”
she purrs.” “How can I ever repay
you?”
Wayne pulls her close for a long kiss,
but Carolyn playfully pushes him away.
“That’s all, darling. After all, Harlow
still expects me at six.”
“Can’t we forget about Harlow?”
growls Wayne.
34 • ANGELUS • June 30, 2023

Heather King is an award-winning
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“I have to show him some consideration,
don’t I, darling?” Carolyn burbles,
seductively trailing a white-gloved
finger down Wayne’s cheek. “After all,
he is my husband.”
If you’ve lived in LA for any length
of time, you’ve driven that stretch of
freeway countless times yourself. You
know the smog-filtered sun, those shadows,
the heat. You can almost smell the
eucalyptus. You also know Carolyn,
Wayne, and Harlow, in all their incarnations.
They live in Los Feliz and
Silverlake and South Pasadena now.
They’re just as good-looking. They’re
just as ruthless.
But film noir is way more than just a
walk on the dark side. Sure, there are
the psychopaths, the double-crossing
gold-diggers in fur coats, the dirty cops.
But almost invariably, at least one character
is aiming for redemption — and
willing to pay the price: the love-besotted
newlywed who’s willing to take the
fall for her guy, the mother covering
for her wayward son, the husband who
needs money to care for his sick wife,
the chanteuse who’s working for the
Resistance.
In film noir, crime never pays. But
the chiaroscuro, the ambiguity (am I
following God’s will, or my own?), the
blind spot, the Achilles’ heel, the sense
of being abandoned, exiled, and alone
in a crowded city speak to a place deep
in this human soul.
The down-on-his-luck guy in his
undershirt, lying on his bed in a cheap
boarding house watching a neon sign
blink through a rain-glazed window:
If you’ve never felt that way on, say,
a Sunday afternoon, you’re hardly
human.
So check out some of these LA-based
classics. “In a Lonely Place” (1950),
starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria
Grahame, filmed partly at the Villa
Primavera at 1300 North Harper Dr.
in West Hollywood. Orson Welles’
“Touch of Evil” (1958) — some say
his masterpiece — shot in Venice from
Feb. 18, 1957 to April 2, 1957.
Exteriors of the Dietrichson house,
where Barbara Stanwyck lived with
the husband she and Fred MacMurray
knocked off in “Double Indemnity”
(1944), were shot at the Spanish Colonial
residence at 6301 Quebec Dr. in
Beachwood Canyon.
The list goes on and on: “Sunset
Boulevard” (1950). “The Big Sleep”
(1946), “Private Property” (1960), a truly
creepy voyeur movie shot in director
Leslie Stevens’ home in the Hollywood
Hills.
Not all noir films take place, or were
shot, of course, in LA. Not all of them
end in tragedy. Consider, for example,
the closing lines of “Desert Fury”
(1947), a deliriously over-the-top love
pentangle directed by Lewis Allen and
shot primarily in Arizona, one of the
few noirs filmed in (lurid) color.
Bad guys John Hodiak and Wendell
Corey have been disposed of. Mary
Astor, casino owner and disturbingly
possessive mother, has been sidelined.
Blonde bombshell Lizabeth Scott
(Paula) and hunk sheriff Burt Lancaster
(Tom) are poised to be united at last.
It’s dusk and they’re looking out over
the horizon.
“Nice view from here,” remarks Tom.
“You can see Chuckawalla … if you
want to.”
“I want to. It looks good to me.”
“Depends on where you’re sittin’.”
“And who you’re sittin’ with,” sums up
Paula, as the two link arms and walk
into the sunset.
June 30, 2023 • ANGELUS • 35

LETTER AND SPIRIT
SCOTT HAHN
Scott Hahn is founder of the
St. Paul Center for Biblical
Theology; stpaulcenter.com.
Free reign
In July, freedom will be much celebrated and little understood.
July 4 is Independence Day, the anniversary
of the date in 1776 when 13 colonies declared themselves
free from British rule.
Many of our Founding Fathers were Christians, and they
were speaking to a populace that was Christian by heritage.
They drew from a common Christian vocabulary,
even if they sometimes chose to neutralize it by speaking
of “nature and nature’s God.”
Their words echoed biblical themes. They spoke often of
“freedom” from servitude — and they evoked the story of
the Exodus.
America’s social order has not always been welcoming
to Catholics or congenial to Catholic thought, but we too
can celebrate. We feel no less a thrill at words that echo
St. Paul: “because the creation itself will be set free from
its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the
children of God” (Romans 8:21).
Freedom is the stuff of our salvation, and liberty from
bondage can enable us to flourish in Christ. St. Paul urged
the early Christians to seize such chances: “Were you a
slave when called? Never mind. But if you can gain your
freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity” (1 Corinthians
7:21).
Still, it’s not simply from human overlords that Christ
would have us set free. And it’s not just better business
and lower taxes that we should be celebrating. “Where
the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians
3:17). We should not equate true freedom with free enterprise
and democratic process. For even the pagan Greeks
knew in their hearts that a slave could be more free than a
king.
We celebrate because we’re not just free from something.
We’re free for something. We’re free from the bondage to
sin. We’re free for a holy life with God in heaven — but
begun in holiness even on earth. What are we free for? We
are free to live the lives of the saints.
Liberty is a condition of possibility. God uses it as an
occasion of grace. It’s up to us to correspond to that grace.
“For freedom Christ has set us free,” said St. Paul. “Stand
fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery”
(Galatians 5:1, 13).
It’s a storyline that’s compatible with the American founding,
but not quite identical with it.
For we cannot doubt that the biblical language has been
“Spirit of ’76,” by Archibald Willard, 1836-1918, American.
| WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
abused; and freedom has been used as a pretext for license,
and even — in an instance of demonic irony — for slavery.
Today, we find people enslaved as they follow promises
of sexual freedom. Their masters promise them unbridled
access to the objects of their desires. “They promise them
freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for
whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved” (2 Peter
2:19).
St. Peter said it well: “Live as free men, yet without using
your freedom as a pretext for evil; but live as servants of
God” (1 Peter 2:16).
Our liberation, like Israel’s, should be not so much a
declaration of independence from foreign bondage as a
declaration of dependence upon God.
36 • ANGELUS • June 30, 2023

■ SATURDAY, JUNE 24
Every Day, Belonging: Finding Your Place With God. Holy
Spirit Retreat Center, 4316 Lanai Rd., Encino, 10 a.m.-3
p.m. With Chantel Zimmerman. Visit hsrcenter.com or call
818-784-4515.
Pista Sa Nayon: Filipino Cultural Celebration. St.
Barnabas Church, 3955 Orange Ave., Long Beach, 6 p.m.
Includes dinner, cultural presentation, and dance. Cost:
$45/person. Call Rose Matute at 562-257-0563.
■ SUNDAY, JUNE 25
Transfiguration Silent Retreat. St. Mary of the Assumption
Church, 12625 Penn St., Whittier, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Registration
begins at 9 a.m., doors close at 9:25 a.m. To register,
call Filomena Rombeiro at 562-715-0337 or email PLW-
Filomena@gmail.com. Cost: $15 for materials. Bring Bible,
notebook, and lunch.
■ MONDAY, JUNE 26
Summer Bible Series: The Church Leads Us to Eucharist.
St. Philomena Church, 21900 S. Main St., Carson, 7-8:30
p.m. First in a five-day Bible-study series hosted by the
Catholic Bible Institute. Speaker: Father Juan Ochoa. All are
welcome. For more information, email Barbara Murphy at
bmurphy@la-archdiocese.org or call 213-924-3503.
■ TUESDAY, JUNE 27
Summer Bible Series: Biblical Foundations of Eucharist.
St. Augustine Church, 3850 Jasmine Ave., Culver City,
7-8:30 p.m. Second in a five-day Bible-study series hosted
by the Catholic Bible Institute. Speaker: Father Felix Just, SJ.
All are welcome. For more information, email Barbara Murphy
at bmurphy@la-archdiocese.org or call 213-924-3503.
■ WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28
Summer Bible Series: The Bible in the Mass. St. Louis of
France Church, 13935 E. Temple Ave., La Puente, 7-8:30
p.m. Third in a five-day Bible-study series hosted by the
Catholic Bible Institute. Speaker: Father Parker Sandoval.
All are welcome. For more information, email Barbara Murphy
at bmurphy@la-archdiocese.org or call 213-924-3503.
■ THURSDAY, JUNE 29
Summer Bible Series: Jesus is Present in the Eucharist.
Holy Family Church, 209 E. Lomita Ave., Glendale, 7-8:30
p.m. Fourth in a five-day Bible-study series hosted by the
Catholic Bible Institute. Speaker: Stuart Squires, Ph.D. All
are welcome. For more information, email Barbara Murphy
at bmurphy@la-archdiocese.org or call 213-924-3503.
■ FRIDAY, JUNE 30
“Who is Jesus Christ? Who am I? Finding the Divinity
Within” Young Adult Retreat. Mater Dolorosa Retreat
Center, 700 N. Sunnyside Ave., Sierra Madre, 6 p.m. This
weekend retreat (June 30-July2) is an opportunity to rest in
God’s presence. The conferences, group dynamics, sharing,
and various spiritual exercises designed to unpack the
retreat theme over the weekend. Email Rachel at rramirez@
materdolorosa.org or call 626-355-7188 for more information.
Jesus Told Stories — Do We? Vina de Lestonnac Retreat
Center, 39300 De Portola Rd., Temecula. Retreat with
Father Anthony Garibaldi runs June 30 at 4 p.m.-July 2 at
2 p.m. Cost: $330/person, double room, $480/person,
single room. Day commuter: $30/day, $22/meal. For more
information, call Al Nyland at 323-420-1560. RSVP by June
20 at https://actheals.org/2023-southern-ca-joint-regionsretreat/.
■ SATURDAY, JULY 1
Summer Bible Series: Jesus Sends Us Forth. Padre Serra
Church, 5205 Upland Rd., Camarillo, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Last in a five-day Bible-study series hosted by the Catholic
Bible Institute. Speaker: Bobby Vidal. All are welcome. For
more information, email Barbara Murphy at bmurphy@
la-archdiocese.org or call 213-924-3503.
■ SUNDAY, JULY 2
Holy Silence Contemplative Prayer Group. St. Andrew
Russian Greek Catholic Church, 538 Concord St., El Segundo,
12-1:30 p.m. Call 310-322-1892.
■ SATURDAY, JULY 8
“Woman of Hope” Day of Reflection. Mary & Joseph Retreat
Center, 5300 Crest Rd., Rancho Palos Verdes, 9 a.m.-7
p.m. Retreat for deacons’ wives hosted by the Office of Deacons
in Ministry. Lunch and dinner provided. To register,
email Natalia Dubon at ngdubon@la-archdiocese.org.
Eucharistic Revival Retreat. Our Lady of Grace Church,
5011 White Oak Ave., Encino, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Retreat
with Father Roch Mary Greiner, CFR, Father Juan Diego
Sutherland, CFR, and Father Marinello Saguin. Topics
include “The Healing Power of the Eucharist” and “Becoming
Eucharistified.” Adoration and solemn benediction
included. Cost: $20/person before July 3, $25 after. For
more information, visit scrc.org.
■ SUNDAY, JULY 9
Virtual Diaconate Information Day. 2-4 p.m. To register,
email Deacon Melecio Zamora at dmz2011@la-archdiocese.org.
■ TUESDAY, JULY 11
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.
LACBA Unlawful Detainer Answer Clinic. LA Law
Library, 301 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, 12-3 p.m. Providing
limited assistance with reviewing unlawful detainer complaints,
jury demands, fee waiver requests, and more. Open
to the disabled veteran community in Los Angeles County.
Spanish assistance available. RSVP to 213-896-6536 or
email inquiries-veterans@lacba.org.
■ WEDNESDAY, JULY 12
St. Padre Pio Mass. St. Anne Church, 340 10th St., Seal
Beach, 1 p.m. Celebrant: Father Al Baca. For more information,
call 562-537-4526.
■ THURSDAY, JULY 13
Young Adult Rosary. Morgan Park, 4100 Baldwin Park
Blvd., Baldwin Park, 6 p.m. Rosary for young adults and
youth groups. Meets on the 13th of every month through
December. Wear your ministry uniform and bring a flag or
banner.
■ SATURDAY, JULY 15
Eucharistic Revival Retreat. St. Denis Church, 2151 S.
Diamond Bar Blvd., Diamond Bar, 12-4:45 p.m. Retreat with
Father Roch Mary Greiner, CFR, Father Juan Diego Sutherland,
CFR, and Dominic Berardino. Topics include “The
Healing Power of the Eucharist” and “Becoming Eucharistified.”
Adoration and solemn benediction included. For
more information, email spirit@scrc.org.
Items for the calendar of events are due four weeks prior to the date of the event. They may be emailed to calendar@angelusnews.com.
All calendar items must include the name, date, time, address of the event, and a phone number for additional information.
June 30, 2023 • ANGELUS • 37