Angelus News | January 26, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 2
On the cover: High school student Atticus Maldonado smiles between classes at St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy in Downey. On Page 10, Angelus contributor Steve Lowery has the incredible story of how Maldonado’s school community rallied behind him in prayer — and why his unlikely recovery from a rare cancer may not even be the story’s biggest miracle.
On the cover: High school student Atticus Maldonado smiles between classes at St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy in Downey. On Page 10, Angelus contributor Steve Lowery has the incredible story of how Maldonado’s school community rallied behind him in prayer — and why his unlikely recovery from a rare cancer may not even be the story’s biggest miracle.
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Robert Brennan writes from Los Angeles, where<br />
he has worked in the entertainment industry,<br />
Catholic journalism, and the nonprofit sector.<br />
this technology got so far ahead of us,<br />
before a person with limited income<br />
could use the internet to have his or her<br />
very own “channel,” the economics of<br />
media was a natural roadblock to too<br />
many people with too many opinions.<br />
You had to be really good on camera<br />
and have something positive to<br />
say — like Bishop Fulton Sheen — to<br />
be granted paid time on television.<br />
<strong>No</strong>w, if you get enough “likes” or your<br />
subscription numbers on YouTube are<br />
good enough, you can actually pay<br />
your utility bills off a podcast dedicated<br />
solely to how terrible things are in the<br />
Church today. The more anger, the<br />
more controversy, the more likes and<br />
the more clicks.<br />
It is a feeding frenzy but unfortunately,<br />
we are eating our own. Taking a random<br />
sampling of your average Catholic<br />
blog, you would surmise that the<br />
Church is on her last legs. It is a world<br />
of gloom and doom with prophetic<br />
warnings about the End Times and the<br />
coming of the AntiChrist.<br />
The hosts of Catholic-themed podcasts<br />
run the gamut from laymen and<br />
laywomen, priests and religious, and<br />
everything in between. There are good<br />
ones more interested in lighting candles<br />
against the night than relishing in<br />
the darkness, and there are far too many<br />
podcasts that mislead and all to readily<br />
rely on anger as their fuel. If you put<br />
14 of these podcasters in a room you<br />
will get 14 opinions on what is wrong<br />
with the Church, what is right with the<br />
Church, and what needs to be done in<br />
the Church.<br />
At the risk of sounding like a podcaster<br />
myself, I know what needs to be done:<br />
Stop listening to podcasts.<br />
If you are troubled by the way things<br />
are, say a rosary or pray a novena.<br />
Take solace in the irrefutable fact, not<br />
opinion, that Jesus promised to be with<br />
his Church forever. It is not always easy,<br />
it is not always pretty, but the Church<br />
traveling in its prison of time and space<br />
will do remarkable things and not so<br />
remarkable things.<br />
And as flawed as his bride may be, the<br />
consistency of Christ’s promise must be<br />
our focus, and not how many “likes”<br />
we can get by yelling fire in a crowded<br />
cathedral.<br />
<strong>January</strong> <strong>26</strong>, <strong>2024</strong> • ANGELUS • 27
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