Angelus News | February 9, 2024 | Vol. 9 No
On the cover: Catholic worshippers recite lines during the Stations of the Cross prayers at the Holy Cross Cathedral in Lagos, Nigeria, on Feb. 24, 2023. On Page 10, John Allen takes a closer look at the unfolding pattern of violence targeting Catholics there, and what it means for the universal Church.
On the cover: Catholic worshippers recite lines during the Stations of the Cross prayers at the Holy Cross Cathedral in Lagos, Nigeria, on Feb. 24, 2023. On Page 10, John Allen takes a closer look at the unfolding pattern of violence targeting Catholics there, and what it means for the universal Church.
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ANGELUS<br />
<strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong> <strong>Vol</strong>. 9 <strong>No</strong>. 3<br />
LAND OF<br />
MARTYRS<br />
How Nigeria<br />
became a hotbed<br />
of anti-Christian<br />
persecution
B • ANGELUS • <strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong>
<strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong><br />
<strong>Vol</strong>. 9 • <strong>No</strong>. 3<br />
ON THE COVER<br />
THIS PAGE<br />
ANGELUS<br />
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JOHN WESSELS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES<br />
Catholic worshippers recite lines during the Stations of the<br />
Cross prayers at the Holy Cross Cathedral in Lagos, Nigeria,<br />
on Feb. 24, 2023. On Page 10, John Allen takes a closer<br />
look at the unfolding pattern of violence targeting Catholics<br />
there, and what it means for the universal Church.<br />
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Pope Watch.................................................................................................................................... 2<br />
Archbishop Gomez..................................................................................................................... 3<br />
World, Nation, and Local <strong>News</strong>.......................................................................................... 4-6<br />
In Other Words............................................................................................................................. 7<br />
Father Rolheiser............................................................................................................................ 8<br />
Scott Hahn................................................................................................................................... 32<br />
Events Calendar......................................................................................................................... 33<br />
14<br />
20<br />
22<br />
24<br />
26<br />
CONTENTS<br />
Thousands march for the unborn, shrug off the rain at OneLife LA<br />
The personal story of sin and redemption behind LA’s Requiem Mass<br />
John Allen: As Pope Francis ages, a few Vatican figures to watch<br />
Embrace this year’s odd couple: Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day<br />
Has our divided society created a more polarized TV experience?<br />
Sign up for our free, daily e-newsletter<br />
Always Forward - newsletter.angelusnews.com<br />
28<br />
30<br />
50 years later, what Jack Nicholson’s ‘Chinatown’ still gets right about LA<br />
Heather King delves into the diaries of Carmen Hernández<br />
<strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong> • ANGELUS • 1
POPE WATCH<br />
Blessing people, not unions<br />
Pope Francis insisted that an<br />
informal blessing of a gay or other<br />
unmarried couple is not a blessing<br />
of their union but a sign of the Catholic<br />
Church’s closeness to them and its<br />
hope that they will grow in faith.<br />
“The intent of ‘pastoral and spontaneous<br />
blessings’ is to concretely show the<br />
closeness of the Lord and the Church<br />
to all those who, finding themselves in<br />
different situations, ask for help to carry<br />
on — sometimes to begin — a journey<br />
of faith,” Francis said Jan. 26 at an<br />
annual plenary meeting with members<br />
of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the<br />
Faith.<br />
While Francis’ remarks to the members<br />
focused on their discussions about<br />
the sacraments, human dignity, and<br />
faith, particularly the centrality of evangelization,<br />
he also mentioned Fiducia<br />
Supplicans (“Supplicating Trust”) on<br />
“the pastoral meaning of blessings,”<br />
which was published by the dicastery<br />
and signed by Francis Dec. 18.<br />
Francis told dicastery members that he<br />
wanted to make two points about the<br />
document. The first, he said, was that<br />
“these blessings, outside of any liturgical<br />
context and form, do not require<br />
moral perfection to be received.”<br />
Second, he said, “when a couple spontaneously<br />
approaches to ask for it, one<br />
does not bless the union, but simply the<br />
people who made the request together.<br />
<strong>No</strong>t the union, but the people, taking<br />
into account, of course, the context, the<br />
sensitivities, the places where people<br />
live and the most appropriate ways to<br />
do it.”<br />
In early January, Cardinal Víctor Manuel<br />
Fernández, prefect of the dicastery,<br />
issued a note clarifying that “prudence<br />
and attention to the ecclesial context<br />
and to the local culture could allow<br />
for different methods of application” of<br />
Fiducia Supplicans.<br />
In his speech to dicastery members,<br />
Francis also mentioned a document<br />
on human dignity that the dicastery is<br />
working on.<br />
In an interview with the Spanish news<br />
agency EFE Jan. 13, Fernández said,<br />
“We are preparing a very important<br />
document on human dignity which<br />
includes not only social issues, but also<br />
a strong critique of moral issues such as<br />
sex change, surrogacy, gender ideologies,<br />
etc.”<br />
“As Christians, we must not tire of<br />
insisting on the primacy of the human<br />
person and the defense of his or her<br />
dignity beyond every circumstance,”<br />
the pope said, adding that he hoped<br />
the new document “will help us, as a<br />
church, to always be close to all those<br />
who, without fanfare, in concrete daily<br />
life, fight and personally pay the price<br />
for defending the rights of those who do<br />
not count.”<br />
As the Church prepares to celebrate<br />
the Holy Year 2025 and as it strives to<br />
preach the Gospel to a changing world,<br />
he said, the dicastery must lead the way<br />
in helping the Church “reflect again<br />
and with greater passion on several<br />
themes … especially, the centrality of<br />
the kerygma [“proclamation”] in the life<br />
and mission of the Church.”<br />
“For us, that which is most essential,<br />
most beautiful, most attractive and, at<br />
the same time, most necessary, is faith<br />
in Christ Jesus,” the pope told dicastery<br />
members. “All of us together, God<br />
willing, will solemnly renew it in the<br />
course of the jubilee year and each one<br />
of us is called to proclaim it to every<br />
man and woman on earth.”<br />
Reporting courtesy of Catholic <strong>News</strong><br />
Service Rome bureau chief Cindy<br />
Wooden.<br />
Papal Prayer Intention for <strong>February</strong>: We pray that those with<br />
a terminal illness, and their families, receive the necessary<br />
physical and spiritual care and accompaniment.<br />
2 • ANGELUS • <strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong>
NEW WORLD OF FAITH<br />
ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ<br />
This Lent, be converted<br />
Lent comes early this year. In fact,<br />
Ash Wednesday falls on Feb. 14,<br />
and Lent begins.<br />
The Church gives us this season of<br />
grace each year as a privileged moment<br />
to concentrate on our spiritual<br />
lives, and to really work on making<br />
progress in our ongoing conversion to<br />
Christ.<br />
One of the saints said: “I have decided<br />
not to let this Lent go by like rain<br />
on stones, leaving no trace. I will let it<br />
soak into me, changing me. I will be<br />
converted, I will turn again to the Lord<br />
and love him as he wants to be loved.”<br />
That is the attitude we need, as we<br />
enter into this holy season.<br />
Let’s not miss this beautiful opportunity<br />
that we have to grow in our<br />
relationship with Jesus, to improve<br />
ourselves, to be converted more and<br />
more in the image of Jesus!<br />
This is what our life is meant for. We<br />
are here to be changed, to be transformed,<br />
to be converted.<br />
We are here to become, more and<br />
more, every day like Jesus — in the<br />
way we think and act, in the way we<br />
treat other people and in the priorities<br />
that we set for our lives.<br />
This is why Jesus gave his life for us<br />
on the cross. So that we could be set<br />
free. Free to follow him, and free to<br />
live as he intends us to live, according<br />
to his teachings and his example.<br />
We know that we are not there yet,<br />
that our hearts are still divided. We<br />
want to do good, we want to be good.<br />
But still we find that we are pulled in<br />
the opposite direction.<br />
So Lent gives us a new opportunity<br />
to be more serious about our personal<br />
conversion to Christ, more serious<br />
about becoming the people that God<br />
wants us to be.<br />
Our Christian life is a daily work<br />
of striving for self-mastery, striving to<br />
overcome our natural inclinations to<br />
selfishness and self-love, and to direct<br />
our love totally to God and to our<br />
neighbors.<br />
The traditional practices of Lent —<br />
fasting, prayer, penance, and almsgiving<br />
— are all meant to strengthen us<br />
in our identity as children of God and<br />
followers of Jesus.<br />
We should consider these practices<br />
to be the “pillars” of our daily lives as<br />
Catholics.<br />
As Catholics, we should be praying<br />
every day; we should be making<br />
sacrifices, little offerings to God; and<br />
we should be living with generosity,<br />
compassion, and mercy toward others.<br />
Lent also deepens our awareness that<br />
we are walking with Jesus. It is he who<br />
sets us on this path. He is the One who<br />
calls each of us by name to follow him,<br />
to be holy as he is holy.<br />
During Lent, we are more conscious<br />
that we are following Jesus on his way<br />
to the cross, carrying our own crosses<br />
along with him.<br />
St. Augustine famously said that if we<br />
think we have done enough already,<br />
we are lost. “Go further, keep going,”<br />
he said. “Don’t stay in the same place,<br />
don’t go back, don’t go off the road.”<br />
This is what Lent is all about, staying<br />
on the path, the way of the cross. How<br />
will we grow in holiness during these<br />
40 days, what practical measures will<br />
we take?<br />
These are good questions for us as we<br />
enter into this holy season.<br />
In addition to the pillars of prayer,<br />
fasting, and almsgiving, maybe you can<br />
try to get to Mass more often during<br />
the week, or to make more time to pray<br />
and meditate in the presence of the<br />
Blessed Sacrament.<br />
Maybe you can make more time each<br />
day for a prayerful reading of a passage<br />
of the Gospels. And of course, we<br />
should make at least one good confession<br />
during this season.<br />
The point is that, as Augustine said,<br />
we must keep moving forward.<br />
St. Paul used to speak of pressing on<br />
toward the higher calling of the Lord,<br />
pressing on toward holiness, or as he<br />
described it: “It is no longer I who live,<br />
but Christ who lives in me.”<br />
This is the glorious promise that Jesus<br />
makes to each one of us, so let us make<br />
progress toward that goal this Lent!<br />
As I often say, being a Catholic, a follower<br />
of Jesus, is the work of a lifetime,<br />
Let’s not miss this beautiful opportunity that we<br />
have to grow in our relationship with Jesus, to improve<br />
ourselves, to be converted more and more<br />
in the image of Jesus!<br />
and it is always a work of beginning<br />
and beginning again.<br />
So let us begin again, let us not let<br />
Lent go by, leaving no trace! Let us be<br />
converted, turning to the Lord again to<br />
love him as he wants us to love him.<br />
Pray for me and I will pray for you.<br />
Let us ask our Blessed Mother Mary<br />
to help us all to have a holy Lent<br />
and to go further and to deepen our<br />
conversion to her Son, our Lord Jesus<br />
Christ.<br />
<strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong> • ANGELUS • 3
WORLD<br />
■ Belgian officials order<br />
destruction of baptismal record<br />
Belgian bishops are fighting requests to erase baptism<br />
records in a court case that could change precedent across<br />
Europe.<br />
The country’s Data Protection Authority ruled Dec. 19<br />
that the Diocese of Ghent must comply with an unnamed<br />
person’s request to have their baptismal record deleted. The<br />
diocese has appealed the decision and said it would continue<br />
its standard practice of noting requests for disaffiliation on a<br />
person’s baptismal record, but would not destroy the entry.<br />
The case follows a similar request to delete baptismal<br />
records for disaffiliated Catholics in Ireland, but the Irish<br />
Data Protection Commission ruled in favor of maintaining<br />
baptismal records in <strong>February</strong> 2023.<br />
The Church in Belgium received 5,237 requests for disaffiliation<br />
in 2021, a significant increase from 2020 (1,261) and<br />
2019 (1,800).<br />
Flames engulf St. Jean Baptiste Church in Morinville, Alberta,<br />
in 2021. | CNS/DIANE BURREL, SOCIAL MEDIA VIA REUTERS<br />
■ As Canadian churches burn,<br />
where are the mass graves?<br />
Catholic leaders in Canada are connecting a rash of arson<br />
and vandalism to unverified comments made by Canadian<br />
public leaders, as excavations into purported mass graves at<br />
former residential school sites come up empty.<br />
At least 85 Catholic churches have been burned or vandalized<br />
since May 27, 2021, when a news story alleged 215 unmarked<br />
graves near the former Church-operated Kamloops<br />
Indian Residential School. While no sanctioned excavations<br />
have been conducted at Kamloops, excavations at three other<br />
sites have failed to discover the reported mass gravesites.<br />
“The reality is when we have a continued assertion of false<br />
claims of mass graves and missing children or speculation in<br />
the absence of better evidence, much of this criminal activity<br />
is likely to continue,” Philip Horgan, president of the Catholic<br />
Civil Rights League, told The Catholic Register.<br />
Haitian National Police patrol in Port-au-Prince Jan. 22, days after the six nuns were<br />
kidnapped. | OSV NEWS/RALPH TEDY EROL, REUTERS<br />
■ Haitian nuns released on day of prayer<br />
Six Haitian nuns who were kidnapped in Port-au-Prince Jan.<br />
19 were set free Jan. 24, a day of prayer dedicated for their<br />
release.<br />
“God always hears the cries of the poor and frees the unfortunate<br />
from all his distress (Psalm 33:6–7),” read a statement<br />
from the Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince to Aid to the Church<br />
in Need. “We cried unto him, he made us strong in trial, and<br />
he set our captives free.”<br />
The abductions were suspected to be the work of a gang.<br />
Eighty percent of the Caribbean nation’s capital is controlled<br />
by gangs, and clergy kidnapping has grown in regularity.<br />
Other passengers and the bus driver had also been abducted<br />
with the sisters and were likewise released.<br />
■ Why Indonesia is having Ash Thursday<br />
Citizens in Indonesia have only a handful of hours — from<br />
7 a.m. and 1 p.m. — to cast their ballots on Wednesday,<br />
Feb. 14. To accommodate the timing, Catholic bishops are<br />
moving Ash Wednesday.<br />
Though Catholics make up just 3% of the electorate,<br />
Church leaders expressed a concern that Catholic voters<br />
attending liturgy might miss their chance at the polls, which<br />
will determine a new president, vice president, and 711<br />
members of the national assembly.<br />
“Both the general election and Ash Wednesday are important<br />
for us as Catholics and Indonesians,” said Bishop<br />
Antonius Subianto Bunjamin of Bandung, president of the<br />
Indonesian bishops’ conference. “The active involvement in<br />
both events are the responsibility to fulfill our duty as citizens<br />
and our call to repent as Christians.”<br />
Dioceses are accommodating the liturgical shift differently.<br />
Some will observe Ash Wednesday on Thursday, Feb. 15,<br />
while at least one other will administer ashes on the first<br />
Sunday of Lent, Feb. 19.<br />
4 • ANGELUS • <strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong>
NATION<br />
■ Still trending: Spiritual<br />
but not religious<br />
The religiously unaffiliated, or “nones,” now are the largest<br />
religious category in the U.S. at 28% of the population,<br />
according to a Jan. 24 Pew Research Center report.<br />
The majority of nones point to bad experiences with religious<br />
organizations or religious people for their lack of affiliation,<br />
and 43% say they believe organized religion does more<br />
harm than good. Forty-four percent say they either don’t need<br />
religion or don’t have time for it.<br />
But among those who identify with no religion, 70% still<br />
say they believe in God or a higher power, with roughly half<br />
describing themselves as “spiritual.”<br />
A sudden passing — Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville, the fifth bishop of<br />
Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana, passed away at age 63. He died Jan. 19 from<br />
complications related to recent health problems. Originally from Colombia,<br />
Dorsonville was named an auxiliary bishop for Washington, D.C., in 2015, before<br />
being named to lead the Louisiana diocese last <strong>February</strong>. From 2019 to 2022, he<br />
was the chairman of the U.S. bishops’ conference migration committee. A funeral<br />
Mass for the bishop was set for Feb. 1 at St. Joseph Co-Cathedral in Thibodauxe.<br />
| OSV NEWS/CNS FILE, BOB ROLLER<br />
■ Group of bishops to government:<br />
Fight poverty, not wars<br />
Eighteen U.S. bishops have joined a call to cut military<br />
spending and instead invest in fighting poverty.<br />
In an open letter from Pax Christi USA, a Catholic peace<br />
organization led by Lexington Bishop John Stowe, the<br />
bishops called for the diversion of military funds, which were<br />
authorized at a record $886 billion a year in December, to<br />
fight food insecurity, which has risen to 12.8% of all U.S.<br />
households.<br />
“Pax Christi USA sees the U.S. military budget, especially<br />
the part earmarked for weapons development, as offering<br />
stones when so many social programs in the U.S. are underfunded,<br />
resulting in poor nutrition and hunger in our country,”<br />
Stowe said in a statement to National Catholic Reporter.<br />
The letter is part of a “Bread <strong>No</strong>t Stones” campaign, in<br />
reference to Matthew 7:9. The signatories included Cardinal<br />
Robert McElroy of San Diego and Cardinal Joseph Tobin of<br />
Newark.<br />
■ HHS doubles down on abortion,<br />
contraception access<br />
The Biden administration announced new rules aimed<br />
at expanding contraception and abortion access Jan. 22,<br />
the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade.<br />
The Department of Health and Human Services<br />
(HHS) declared its intention to expand no-cost contraceptives<br />
under the Affordable Care Act and for federal<br />
employees, issuing a letter to insurers instructing them of<br />
an obligation to provide these services.<br />
The HHS also announced a team that will enforce its<br />
interpretation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and<br />
Labor Act, which they say requires hospitals to provide<br />
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a “Reproductive Freedom Campaign<br />
Rally” Jan. 23 in Manassas, Virginia. | ANNA MONEYMAKER/GETTY IMAGES<br />
emergency abortions even in states that limit or abolish abortion.<br />
The changes are part of a push from the Biden administration to focus on abortion access as part of the president’s <strong>2024</strong><br />
reelection campaign.<br />
“Where abortion has been on the ballot, the American people have overwhelmingly voted to protect reproductive freedom,”<br />
Jennifer Klein, director of the White House’s Gender Policy Council, told reporters last week.<br />
<strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong> • ANGELUS • 5
LOCAL<br />
■ Thousand Oaks girls<br />
school to close<br />
La Reina High School and Middle<br />
School, an all-girls Catholic school in<br />
Thousand Oaks, announced on Jan. 24<br />
that it will close at the end of the school<br />
year.<br />
Due to “significant under-enrollment,”<br />
La Reina President Tony<br />
Guevara said in an email to parents that<br />
the school was no longer “responsibly<br />
sustainable.”<br />
“We trust you will understand that this<br />
decision is not an easy one,” Guevara<br />
said. “It was made after careful discernment<br />
and after multiple continued<br />
efforts to improve La Reina’s sustainability<br />
over many years.”<br />
Many parents and alumni were upset<br />
with the decision and have attempted<br />
to try to stop the closure, first by speaking<br />
at a community meeting on Jan.<br />
25 and by spreading the word online,<br />
including “Save La Reina” social media<br />
accounts.<br />
The school, sponsored by the Sisters of<br />
<strong>No</strong>tre Dame, was founded in 1964.<br />
■ Latest archdiocese healing garden opens<br />
at St. Bernadette<br />
A fourth Garden of<br />
Healing was unveiled by<br />
the Archdiocese of Los<br />
Angeles’ Victims Assistance<br />
Ministry at St. Bernadette<br />
Church in Baldwin Hills<br />
with a blessing from<br />
Auxiliary Bishop Matthew<br />
Elshoff on Jan. 17.<br />
With plans to have<br />
a garden dedicated to<br />
victim-survivors of sexual<br />
abuse in each of the Archdiocese<br />
of Los Angeles’<br />
Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Matthew Elshoff blesses the water feature at<br />
five regions, St. Bernadette the latest healing garden completed at St. Bernadette Church. | PABLO KAY<br />
joins St. Camillus Center<br />
in Los Angeles, Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Ventura, and St. Francis<br />
de Sales Church in San Fernando. The next garden will be built in the San Pedro<br />
Region.<br />
Along with greenery and benches for reflection, there’s a water feature in each<br />
garden meant to evoke the sorrow of the abuse, but also the promise of renewal.<br />
“I pray St. Bernadette’s garden — and all the healing gardens — will be received as<br />
a sacred space to hold and acknowledge the pain of those impacted by sexual abuse<br />
in the Church, their families, or communities, while renewing their spirits and fostering<br />
healing,” said Victims Assistance Ministry Coordinator Heather Banis, Ph.D.<br />
Y<br />
A new LA Catholic for the Chargers — Jim Harbaugh, shown here with Pope Francis in 2017, was recently<br />
hired as the new head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers. Harbaugh, who most recently coached the University<br />
of Michigan’s football team, is a well-known Catholic and spoke at last month’s March for Life event in Washington,<br />
D.C. | CNS/L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO<br />
■ Mass to mark one-year<br />
anniversary of Bishop<br />
Dave’s death<br />
To mark the one-year anniversary<br />
of his passing, there will be a memorial<br />
Mass for Auxiliary Bishop David<br />
O’Connell at Mission San Gabriel<br />
Arcángel on Feb. 24.<br />
The 10 a.m. Mass will be presided<br />
over by Archbishop José H. Gomez<br />
and will feature the blessing of a memorial<br />
exhibit afterward.<br />
A new Native garden and fountain<br />
were installed at Mission San Gabriel<br />
Arcángel in <strong>No</strong>vember, and since it<br />
had been sponsored by O’Connell, a<br />
monument was placed there in memory<br />
of him.<br />
O’Connell, who was the episcopal<br />
vicar of the Archdiocese of Los<br />
Angeles’ San Gabriel Region, was<br />
killed in his Hacienda Heights home<br />
on Feb. 18, 2023. Carlos Medina, the<br />
man suspected of killing O’Connell,<br />
remains in jail and is awaiting trial.<br />
6 • ANGELUS • <strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong>
V<br />
IN OTHER WORDS...<br />
Letters to the Editor<br />
Thankful for this characteristic of Catholic schools<br />
Thank you for the uplifting, faith-filled article on Atticus Maldonado<br />
(“The Miracle of Gardendale Street” in the Jan. 26 issue of <strong>Angelus</strong>),<br />
a Downey student who got cancer, and who was healed by the grace of God<br />
through prayers of his fellow students and their families. This story made me feel<br />
so happy to be Catholic. It also made me sad to think of secular public schools,<br />
where prayer is not permitted, and where students undergoing serious illness<br />
might not find this kind of prayer support, or have confidence in God’s love for<br />
them.<br />
— Marilyn Boussaid, St. James Church, Redondo Beach<br />
Correction: In the article “Searching in the Desert” in the Jan. 26 issue of <strong>Angelus</strong>,<br />
the names of Ann Koshute and Caroline Gindhart were misspelled. We regret<br />
the errors.<br />
Y<br />
Continue the conversation! To submit a letter to the editor, visit <strong>Angelus</strong><strong>News</strong>.com/Letters-To-The-Editor<br />
and use our online form or send an email to editorial@angelusnews.com. Please limit to 300 words. Letters<br />
may be edited for style, brevity, and clarity.<br />
Under the protection of ‘Santo Niño’<br />
“You could really say the<br />
Ten Commandments is<br />
etiquette, right?”<br />
~ Andrea Voyer, associate professor of sociology<br />
at Stockholm University, in a Jan. 21 Vox article on<br />
who etiquette is for.<br />
“Kenny is a human being,<br />
not an experiment.”<br />
~ Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director<br />
of the Catholic Mobilizing Network, in a Jan. 25<br />
National Catholic Reporter article on Alabama’s<br />
first nitrogen gas execution.<br />
“Opinion is cheap.<br />
Reporting is expensive.”<br />
~ Terry Mattingly, editor of GetReligion.org, in a<br />
Jan. 17 Religion <strong>News</strong> Service article on his site<br />
shutting down after 20 years.<br />
“We give birth. We can<br />
drive trucks.”<br />
~ Ramona, a trucker, in a Jan. 16 Harper’s Magazine<br />
article on long-haul trucking and the shortage of<br />
truckers.<br />
“Compared to politics and<br />
advertising, hypnotists are<br />
amateur.”<br />
~ Hypnotist Gerard V, in a Jan. 25 Longreads article<br />
on a writer remembering being hypnotized as a<br />
teenager.<br />
Hundreds of Filipino Catholics hold up their Santo Niño statues to be blessed during the annual Feast of<br />
Santo Niño Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on Jan. 21. | VICTOR ALEMÁN<br />
View more photos<br />
from this gallery at<br />
<strong>Angelus</strong><strong>News</strong>.com/photos-videos<br />
Do you have photos or a story from your parish that you’d<br />
like to share? Please send to editorial @angelusnews.com.<br />
“<strong>No</strong>w, if you’ll excuse me,<br />
I’m gonna go have a cookie.”<br />
~ Writer Drew Magary, in a Jan. 18 Men’s Health<br />
article on weight loss in today’s age of radical body<br />
positivity.<br />
<strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong> • ANGELUS • 7
IN EXILE<br />
FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI<br />
Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father<br />
Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual<br />
writer; ronrolheiser.com<br />
The spirituality of Eugéne de Mazenod<br />
During the years I have been<br />
writing this column, I have<br />
rarely mentioned the fact that<br />
I belong to a religious order, the Missionary<br />
Oblates of Mary Immaculate.<br />
That omission is not an evasion, since<br />
being an Oblate of Mary Immaculate<br />
is something of which I am quite<br />
proud. However, I rarely flag the fact<br />
that I am a priest and a member of a<br />
religious order because I believe what<br />
I write here and elsewhere needs to<br />
ground itself on things beyond titles.<br />
In this column, however, I want to<br />
speak about the founder of the Missionary<br />
Oblates of Mary Immaculate,<br />
St. Eugéne de Mazenod, because<br />
what he had to say about Christian<br />
discipleship and spirituality is something<br />
of value and importance for<br />
everyone, like the legacies that have<br />
been left us by other great religious<br />
founders like Bernard, Francis, Dominic,<br />
Angel Merici, Ignatius of Loyola,<br />
Vincent de Paul, and others.<br />
De Mazenod (1779-1861) was a<br />
French bishop of aristocratic origins<br />
who some popular myths identify<br />
as the bishop in “Les Miserables.”<br />
He was a man whose personality ran<br />
somewhat naturally in the direction of<br />
the stern, the introverted, the strongly<br />
inner-directed, the mystical, and the<br />
single-minded. He wasn’t the type<br />
of person most people would choose<br />
as their first choice for light dinner<br />
conversation, but he was the type of<br />
person who is often God’s first choice<br />
to found a religious order.<br />
Soren Kierkegaard once stated that<br />
“to be a saint is to will the one thing.”<br />
De Mazenod clearly did that and, in<br />
his case, that one thing had a number<br />
of aspects which, taken together,<br />
form the basis of a very rich, balanced<br />
spirituality — one that emphasizes<br />
some salient aspects of Christian discipleship<br />
that are often neglected today.<br />
What shaped the spirituality of de<br />
Mazenod and the charism he left<br />
behind?<br />
First, he emphasized community.<br />
For him, a good life is not just one of<br />
individual achievement, fidelity, or<br />
even greatness; it is a life that links<br />
itself to the power inherent within<br />
community. He was a firm believer<br />
in the axiom: what we dream alone<br />
remains a dream, what we dream with<br />
others can become a reality.<br />
In his view, compassion only<br />
becomes effective when it becomes<br />
collective, when it issues forth from<br />
a group rather than from just one<br />
individual. He believed that alone you<br />
can make a splash but not a difference.<br />
He founded a religious order<br />
because he deeply believed this.<br />
In the face of all the issues confronting<br />
the world and the Church<br />
today, if someone were to ask him,<br />
“What’s the one single thing I might<br />
do to make a difference?” He would<br />
reply: Connect yourself with others<br />
of sincere will within community,<br />
around the person of Christ. Alone<br />
you cannot save the world. Together<br />
we can!<br />
Second, he believed that a healthy<br />
spirituality makes a marriage between<br />
contemplation and justice. Judged in<br />
the light of our contemporary sensitivities,<br />
his exact expression of this is perhaps<br />
linguistically awkward today, but<br />
his key principle is perennially valid:<br />
only an action that issues forth from a<br />
life that is rooted in prayer and deep<br />
interiority will be truly prophetic and<br />
effective. Conversely, all true prayer<br />
and genuine interiority will burst<br />
forth in action, especially in action for<br />
justice and the poor.<br />
Third, in his own life and in the<br />
spirituality he laid out for his religious<br />
community, he made a strong<br />
preferential option for the poor. He did<br />
this not because it was the politically<br />
correct thing to do, but because it was<br />
the correct thing to do; the Gospel<br />
demands this, and it is non-negotiable.<br />
His belief was simple and clear:<br />
as Christians, we are called to be with<br />
and work with those whom nobody<br />
else wants to be with and work with.<br />
For him, any teaching or action that<br />
is not good news for the poor cannot<br />
claim to be speaking for Jesus or for<br />
Scripture.<br />
Fourth, he put all of this under the<br />
patronage of the mother of Jesus,<br />
Mary, whom he saw as an advocate<br />
for the poor. He recognized that the<br />
poor turn to her, for it is she who gives<br />
voice to the Magnificat.<br />
Finally, in his own life and in the<br />
ideal he laid out, he brought together<br />
two seemingly contradictory tendencies:<br />
a deep love for the institutional<br />
Church and the capacity to prophetically<br />
challenge it at the same time.<br />
He loved the Church, believed that it<br />
was the noblest thing for which one<br />
might die; but at the same time, he<br />
wasn’t afraid to publicly point out the<br />
Church’s faults or to admit that the<br />
Church needs constant challenge and<br />
self-criticism … and he was willing to<br />
offer it!<br />
His personality was very different<br />
from mine. I doubt that he and I<br />
would spontaneously like each other.<br />
But that’s incidental. I’m proud of his<br />
legacy, proud to be one of his sons,<br />
and convinced enough of his spirituality<br />
to give my life over for it.<br />
8 • ANGELUS • <strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong>
UNPROTECTED WITNESSES<br />
The bloody campaign against Christians in Nigeria is an<br />
especially urgent case of a broader phenomenon.<br />
BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR.<br />
ROME — In light of the recent<br />
furor over Fiducia Supplicans<br />
(“Supplicating Trust”), a Dec.<br />
18 Vatican declaration authorizing<br />
nonliturgical blessings of same-sex unions,<br />
one might almost be forgiven for<br />
thinking it’s a matter of life and death.<br />
Of course, in truth that’s a merely<br />
rhetorical assertion. However important<br />
the doctrinal issues may be,<br />
nobody’s going to live or die depending<br />
on how they’re resolved.<br />
On the other hand, the same cannot<br />
be said for the issue currently dominating<br />
Catholic discussion in Nigeria,<br />
Africa’s most populous nation, which<br />
Christians hold signs as they march on the streets<br />
of Abuja during a prayer and penance for peace and<br />
security in Nigeria in Abuja on March 1, 2020. The<br />
Catholic bishops of Nigeria gathered faithful as well as<br />
other Christians and other people to pray for security<br />
and to denounce the barbaric killings of Christians by<br />
the Boko Haram insurgents and the incessant cases of<br />
kidnapping for ransom in Nigeria. | KOLA SULAIMON/<br />
AFP/GETTY<br />
10 • ANGELUS • <strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong>
isn’t the theology of same-sex relationships<br />
or any of the other topics that<br />
often loom so large in Catholic debate<br />
in affluent societies.<br />
Instead, it’s what a growing chorus<br />
of observers describe as a “genocide”<br />
directed against Christians in a country<br />
that has the largest mixed Muslim/<br />
Christian population in the world.<br />
According to some estimates, Nigeria<br />
now accounts for almost 90% of all<br />
Christians martyred worldwide each<br />
year.<br />
In its latest annual report, Aid to the<br />
Church in Need, a papally sponsored<br />
foundation supporting persecuted<br />
Christians, reported<br />
that more than 7,600 Nigerian<br />
Christians had been<br />
murdered between January<br />
2021 and June 2022.<br />
Nigeria is merely an<br />
especially urgent case of<br />
a broader phenomenon.<br />
According to an annual<br />
report of “Open Doors,”<br />
an ecumenical watchdog<br />
group on anti-Christian<br />
persecution, more than 365<br />
million Christians in the<br />
world, that is 1 in 7, faced<br />
high levels of persecution<br />
for their faith as of late<br />
2023.<br />
The threat to Christians<br />
in Nigeria has been clear<br />
for some time, but it’s<br />
been driven home of late<br />
in the wake of Christmas<br />
massacres in the country’s<br />
Plateau State that claimed<br />
the lives of more than 300<br />
Christians.<br />
The assaults have continued<br />
into the new year. On Jan. 4, Boko<br />
Haram insurgents killed a pastor and<br />
at least 13 members of his Church,<br />
according to local news site Sahara<br />
Reporters. Pastor Elkanah Ayuba was<br />
the leader of a Church of Christ in<br />
Nations congregation.<br />
While the violence is sometimes<br />
characterized as more social and economic<br />
than religious, pitting members<br />
of the Fulani ethnic group who are<br />
herdsmen against Igbo and Yoruba<br />
farmers and pastors, religion is inevitably<br />
part of the picture given that the<br />
Fulani are largely Muslim while their<br />
victims are mostly Christian.<br />
In addition, there’s a clear pattern<br />
in the violence of targeting Christian<br />
churches, schools, residences, and<br />
other facilities.<br />
At least 52,000 Christians have been<br />
killed in Nigeria since 2009, according<br />
to the International Society for Human<br />
Rights and the Rule of Law (“Intersociety”),<br />
an international monitoring<br />
group tracking genocide in Nigeria.<br />
Last year, Fulani herdsmen were<br />
responsible for the deaths of at least<br />
3,500 Christians, the group said.<br />
The same report published in April<br />
also asserted that 18,000 Christian<br />
churches and 2,200 Christian schools<br />
have been set ablaze, and around<br />
34,000 moderate Muslims also have<br />
been killed in Islamist attacks.<br />
Within the same period, at least 707<br />
Christians were kidnapped, out of<br />
which the <strong>No</strong>rthern Nigerian Niger<br />
State recorded more than 200 abductions,<br />
including the March 14 abduction<br />
of more than 100 Christians in<br />
Adunu. Roughly 5 million Christians<br />
have been displaced and forced into<br />
Internally Displaced Persons (IDP)<br />
camps within Nigeria and refugee<br />
Flowers lie on caskets during a funeral Mass in the<br />
parish hall of St. Francis Xavier Church in Owo,<br />
Nigeria, June 17, 2022. The Mass was for some of the<br />
40 victims killed in a June 5 attack by gunmen during<br />
Mass at the church. | OSV/TEMILADE ADELAJA,<br />
REUTERS<br />
camps at regional and sub-regional<br />
borders, according to Intersociety.<br />
The director of the Christian-inspired<br />
human rights organization said the<br />
genocide of Christians in Nigeria is<br />
being carried out with the complicity<br />
of the government.<br />
“The government of Tinubu is part<br />
of the butchering machinery,” said<br />
Emeka Umeagbalasi, a criminologist<br />
and grassroots human rights and<br />
Democracy campaigner, referring to<br />
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, who<br />
took office in late March.<br />
“The Fulani jihadi rose to power under<br />
the Buhari administration and was<br />
able to take control of everything,” he<br />
said, asserting that Tinubu is set to perpetuate<br />
that heritage. The reference<br />
was to Nigeria’s previous government<br />
under former President Muhammadu<br />
Buhari.<br />
Umeagbalasi said that international<br />
pressure should be brought to bear on<br />
<strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong> • ANGELUS • 11
the Tinubu administration if<br />
Nigerian Christians must be<br />
set on the way to freedom.<br />
“The destiny of Nigerian<br />
Christians lies in the hands<br />
of international state actors<br />
and nonstate actors to pile<br />
enough pressure on the<br />
government of Nigeria and<br />
compel the government of<br />
Nigeria to do the needful,”<br />
Umeagbalasi told Crux.<br />
He said one way of compelling<br />
the government to<br />
act is by tying foreign aid to<br />
religious freedom. Otherwise,<br />
he said, “the killings<br />
are going to continue and<br />
with catastrophic consequences,<br />
including the total<br />
Islamization of the Middle<br />
Belt.”<br />
Johan Viljoen, director<br />
of the Denis Hurley Peace Institute,<br />
an entity of the Southern Catholic<br />
Bishops’ Conference, recently said the<br />
Nigerian government is at fault for the<br />
mounting threats to Christians in the<br />
country and should be held accountable.<br />
“Any foreign assistance or investment<br />
to Nigeria should be made conditional<br />
to the strict observance of human<br />
rights,” Viljoen said, insisting that victims<br />
of anti-Christian violence should<br />
receive financial compensation for<br />
property destroyed and lives lost.<br />
“The Nigerian government should<br />
pay. It was, after all, the Nigerian government<br />
that failed to ensure the safety<br />
and security of its citizens — one of<br />
the prime duties of any national government,”<br />
he said. Viljoen blamed the<br />
Rebecca Agidi with her son, Oryiman,<br />
pictured in an undated photo in a camp for<br />
internally displaced persons in the Diocese<br />
of Makurdi, Nigeria. In September 2022,<br />
Agidi’s husband was killed and Oryiman<br />
was injured in an attack on the family’s<br />
village by Fulani extremists. | OSV/COUR-<br />
TESY ACN<br />
government of new Tinubu<br />
for doing little to change the<br />
situation, noting that attacks<br />
have continued in Nigeria’s<br />
Middle Belt.<br />
All this background,<br />
perhaps, makes a simple<br />
point for Catholics in the<br />
developed world, including<br />
the United States.<br />
Yes, we may have issues<br />
around which great passions<br />
can be aroused, and their<br />
theological and sacramental<br />
significance shouldn’t be underestimated.<br />
At the same time, however, we<br />
can still go to Mass on Sunday without<br />
taking our lives into our hands —<br />
and, frankly, the same cannot be said<br />
of Catholics everywhere, a fact that<br />
perhaps deserves a greater claim on<br />
our attention.<br />
John L. Allen Jr. is the editor of Crux.<br />
Global hotspots of hate<br />
Although Nigeria may be dominating<br />
headlines in terms of<br />
anti-Christian violence as <strong>2024</strong><br />
opens, it’s hardly the only spot on the<br />
map where Christians face severe<br />
threats.<br />
According to Open Doors International,<br />
a nondenominational watchdog<br />
group, 365 million Christians around<br />
the world face high levels of persecution<br />
and discrimination, representing<br />
15% of all Christians worldwide.<br />
In the organization’s <strong>2024</strong> “World<br />
Watch List,” Nigeria actually ranks just<br />
sixth in terms of where Christians face<br />
the most extreme persecution. The top<br />
five countries are:<br />
1. <strong>No</strong>rth Korea: Tens of thousands of<br />
Christians are believed to be incarcerated<br />
in labor camps across the country,<br />
with the mere fact of being a Christian<br />
or possessing a Bible considered a criminal<br />
act under the country’s notorious<br />
“anti-reactionary thought law.”<br />
2. Somalia: The handful of Christians<br />
in the overwhelming Muslim nation<br />
are mostly converts from Islam, and<br />
are subject to immediate execution if<br />
detected by the militant jihadi group<br />
al-Shabab that operates with impunity<br />
in most parts of the country.<br />
3. Libya: Lacking any effective political<br />
authority, Libya is dominated by a<br />
competing cluster of militias and armed<br />
groups, most with a strong Islamic<br />
identity. Christians, including migrants<br />
from sub-Saharan Africa seeking to<br />
make their way to Europe, are frequent<br />
targets for violence, kidnapping, and<br />
trafficking.<br />
4. Eritrea: The country’s intense authoritarian<br />
government perceives Christians<br />
as a special threat to stability, and<br />
operates an extensive prison network.<br />
Many Christian inmates are held in the<br />
desert in metal shipping containers,<br />
which become extremely cold at night<br />
and can reach temperatures as high as<br />
115 degrees Fahrenheit during the day.<br />
5. Yemen: A strongly conservative<br />
Islamic society, threats to Christians in<br />
Yemen, especially Muslim converts,<br />
also have been amplified by a 10-year<br />
civil war. Tribal punishments for deserting<br />
Islam in Yemen generally prescribe<br />
death or banishment.<br />
— John L. Allen Jr.<br />
12 • ANGELUS • <strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong>
<strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong> • ANGELUS • 13
Thousands of marchers walked in the rain from Olvera<br />
Street to LA State Historical Park. The sign displays the<br />
theme from the event: “10 Years Together as One.”<br />
RIGHT<br />
AS RAIN<br />
Rather than dampen<br />
the enthusiasm, the<br />
wet weather at this<br />
year’s OneLife LA<br />
seemed to strengthen<br />
the resolve of<br />
participants from<br />
around California.<br />
BY MIKE CISNEROS /<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY BY<br />
VICTOR ALEMÁN<br />
There was no escaping the rain.<br />
It permeated everything:<br />
clothes, jackets, socks, shoes. It<br />
soaked everything trying to prevent it,<br />
from umbrellas to hats to ponchos to<br />
covered baby strollers.<br />
Signs were drenched, whether it was<br />
the sturdy ones handed out for the<br />
event, or the handmade variety that<br />
people brought from home. Water-logged<br />
signs that said things like<br />
“Pregnancy is not a disease, abortion<br />
is not a cure” or “Protect all children,<br />
even if they’re not yours.”<br />
But there was one thing the rain<br />
couldn’t dampen: The resolve of nearly<br />
7,000 to speak out for and celebrate<br />
the dignity of life at the 10th annual<br />
OneLife LA event on Jan. 20, titled<br />
“10 Years Together as One.” As in past<br />
years, it started with a rally at La Placita<br />
Olvera in downtown LA and made its<br />
way to Los Angeles State Historic Park,<br />
where music, activities for families, and<br />
a lineup of pro-life speakers awaited.<br />
Later, the day was capped by the annual<br />
Requiem for the Unborn Mass at the<br />
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.<br />
Hundreds of miles to the north, tens<br />
of thousands were also gathering for<br />
a sometimes-rainy 20th annual Walk<br />
for Life West Coast in San Francisco,<br />
while across the country in Washington,<br />
D.C., demonstrators braved frigid<br />
temperatures and snowfall for the 51st<br />
annual March for Life.<br />
“This is how dedicated we are to our<br />
faith,” said Cecilia Hernandez, 14, who<br />
attended OneLife LA with her mom,<br />
Rosario. “The fact that we’re out here<br />
in the pouring rain, it’s below 60 degrees.<br />
It just shows how much we care.”<br />
“God gives us all challenges, only to<br />
make us stronger,” said Buzz Wallick,<br />
who walked with his pregnant wife,<br />
Mary. “It’s just a little wet. Who cares?<br />
And as you can see, everyone rose to<br />
the occasion and rose to the challenge.”<br />
“As long as we can keep the baby dry,<br />
I’m going to go,” joked Allan Herrera,<br />
their friend from Holy Family Church<br />
in Glendale who was pushing his<br />
young son, Dominic, in a stroller.<br />
***<br />
Los Angeles Archbishop José H.<br />
Gomez kicked off the event at the state<br />
park by reminding people that celebrating<br />
life meant treating people, no<br />
matter their color, class, or condition,<br />
with tenderness.<br />
14 • ANGELUS • <strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong>
Despite the rain, marchers happily<br />
gathered at Olvera Street for music<br />
and prayer before walking to LA<br />
State Historical Park.<br />
“We face many big ‘issues’ in our society,”<br />
said Archbishop Gomez, joined at<br />
the park by several other local bishops,<br />
including Bishop Joseph Brennan of<br />
Fresno. “But behind every one of these<br />
‘issues’ are real people, with their own<br />
stories, their own dreams, their own<br />
struggles. Every one of them is a child<br />
of God, and every one of them is our<br />
brother or our sister.<br />
“And we are called to love them. As<br />
Jesus loves them. Without exception,<br />
without judgment, with no conditions.”<br />
That sentiment was backed up by several<br />
of the guest speakers, who spoke<br />
of the importance of meeting people<br />
where they’re at rather than trying to<br />
impose their will.<br />
Catholic speaker and author Katie<br />
Prejean McGrady was prevented by<br />
weather from making it to LA from the<br />
East Coast, but sent a video message<br />
inviting participants to celebrate life by<br />
making it better for others, including<br />
“the perfect stranger that we see in<br />
the grocery store, the man begging on<br />
the side of the road, the woman who’s<br />
been unjustly accused, the immigrant<br />
who has been unwelcomed, the unborn<br />
child that has been cast aside.”<br />
“We’re able to give witness to the value<br />
and dignity and goodness of human<br />
life, long past an event’s end,” she said.<br />
Another popular pro-life speaker,<br />
Father Josh Johnson of the Diocese of<br />
Baton Rouge, spoke about the lessons<br />
that could be learned from his prison<br />
ministry, where an inmate confided<br />
about his initial reluctance to evangelize<br />
to violent prisoners, having been<br />
spit on, cursed at, and worse.<br />
“We have so many people in our<br />
schools, in our workplace environments,<br />
in our neighborhoods, even<br />
in our family, who are opposed to the<br />
gospel of life,” Johnson said. “Even<br />
then, we must be willing to go to them<br />
again and again and again. And if they<br />
spit on us, or curse us out, or reject<br />
our message, or resist this invitation<br />
we have for them, we must go to them<br />
over and over again.<br />
“We must not live as if we can have<br />
heaven without them. God wants<br />
them. But he wants to send us to get<br />
them.”<br />
***<br />
While the event promoted the dignity<br />
of all life, the fight over abortion<br />
remained high on the priority list for<br />
many in the crowd.<br />
Despite Roe v. Wade being overturned<br />
by the Supreme Court in 2022, several<br />
in attendance expressed concern over<br />
pro-abortion state policies being enacted<br />
all over the country, and especially<br />
in California, where several recent laws<br />
have protected the right to an abortion<br />
in the state.<br />
Frida Plata, 19, a parishioner at St.<br />
Peter Chanel Church in Hawaiian<br />
The Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los<br />
Angeles received a $10,000 OneLife LA Service Grant<br />
to support its pastoral work and its Santa Teresita<br />
Assisted Living facility in Duarte.<br />
<strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong> • ANGELUS • 15
Nearly 7,000 event participants braved the<br />
rain to support the dignity of life and enjoy<br />
guest speakers, music, food, and vendors.<br />
Gardens, held her head high as she<br />
marched with a homemade anti-abortion<br />
sign. As someone who works with<br />
Vox Vitae, a pro-life nonprofit that<br />
works with teens and young adults, she<br />
was adamant that abortion was hurting<br />
our way of life.<br />
“In today’s society, we can see there’s<br />
a lot of wrong things going on,” Plata<br />
said. “Abortion. Human trafficking.<br />
Our babies are being affected.<br />
“My goal has always been to help<br />
women and save those children.”<br />
Elizabeth Macias, a parishioner at<br />
Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in<br />
El Monte and one of the coordinators<br />
of a church group called “Prevention<br />
and Rescue,” was listening to speakers<br />
as she held her youngest daughter and<br />
several of her other kids ran around. As<br />
someone who got pregnant at age 18<br />
and who recently had her fifth child 10<br />
years later, she believes there needs to<br />
be a rethinking of how pregnancy and<br />
abortion are framed.<br />
“My thought is now what do I have<br />
to sacrifice more to be able to feed my<br />
fourth, fifth kid versus I’m going to<br />
go abort so I don’t have to sacrifice,”<br />
Macias said. “If you think more about<br />
sacrificing versus getting rid of, God<br />
blesses you. God doesn’t fail. He’s not<br />
human.”<br />
***<br />
Others simply basked in the joy of the<br />
life that was brought into the world.<br />
Ruben and Maggie Cardenas —<br />
parishioners at St. Peter & St. Paul<br />
Church in Rancho Cucamonga —<br />
were taking photos of their daughter,<br />
Emily, holding a OneLife LA sign.<br />
Emily held a special place in their<br />
heart, being their first child after having<br />
spent their first 10 years of marriage<br />
childless. Emily is now 19 and the<br />
couple has four other children.<br />
“We prayed and asked God for a child<br />
and Emily is an answer,” Ruben said.<br />
So we’ve been in that space of wanting<br />
to have children and yet being around<br />
a society where so many people were<br />
aborting children.”<br />
“It’s easy to get caught up in the culture<br />
where anything goes, euthanasia<br />
and abortion,” Maggie said. “For us, it’s<br />
important to make sure our kids know<br />
that no matter how popular the culture<br />
of death is, it’s wrong.”<br />
For Carolina Jara, who attends Sacred<br />
Heart Church in Jurupa Valley, there’s<br />
a reason why she’s been to OneLife LA<br />
for all 10 years, bringing her husband<br />
and five kids with her: She herself was<br />
almost aborted. Her mother was 38, her<br />
family was poor, and her parents were<br />
already struggling with five kids.<br />
“My mom always mentions the story<br />
of when she was pregnant with me, the<br />
doctor told her to have an abortion,”<br />
Jara said. “I think that always stuck with<br />
me. So I’ve always been pro-life.”<br />
For those who argue as pro-choice and<br />
who see nothing wrong with abortion,<br />
Jara has a simple message to try and<br />
change their minds.<br />
“I think the first thing I mention is,<br />
hey, I wouldn’t be here if my mom<br />
would’ve aborted me,” Jara said. “My<br />
kids wouldn’t be here. It’s a huge deal<br />
to think about missing a person in your<br />
life.<br />
“Imagine if you didn’t exist, all the<br />
things you do in your life, all the people<br />
you share your life with. We’re all<br />
important members of society. Without<br />
that one person, there’s something<br />
missing.”<br />
As the rain welcomed the event, it also<br />
had the final say. As Francis Cabildo<br />
and friends took the stage for the final<br />
performance, the downpour came<br />
down heavily again and the concert was<br />
cut short for safety reasons.<br />
“God’s mercy is pouring on us,”<br />
Cabildo said.<br />
It was at that point the date for next<br />
year’s OneLife LA was announced:<br />
Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025.<br />
The rain is TBD.<br />
Mike Cisneros is the associate editor of<br />
<strong>Angelus</strong>.<br />
16 • ANGELUS • <strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong>
PRAYERS FOR THE PREBORN<br />
This year’s Requiem Mass asked Catholics to<br />
embrace a different ‘vision’ as California moves<br />
to expand abortion access.<br />
Mass participants carry 120 white candles<br />
to the altar to represent the lives that were<br />
lost to abortion in the greater Los Angeles<br />
area. | VICTOR ALEMÁN<br />
BY THERESA CISNEROS<br />
Maria Consuelo Carrera has dedicated her public<br />
— and private — life to defending the rights of<br />
the unborn and praying for an end to abortion.<br />
The 49-year-old mother of four has routinely participated<br />
in pro-life events since she was a teen, and remained open<br />
to life even after having two children with autism and<br />
doctors warning her that any subsequent babies could have<br />
special needs as well.<br />
On Saturday, Carrera lovingly tended to her adult son in<br />
his wheelchair during the Requiem for the Unborn Mass at<br />
the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, celebrated after<br />
the 10th annual OneLife LA Walk for Life Jan. 20.<br />
“I came here today to use my voice to speak up for the<br />
children who have no voice,” said Carrera, one of the 2,200<br />
faithful from around Southern California who attended the<br />
Requiem Mass celebrated by Archbishop José H. Gomez.<br />
“If I stay quiet, if we all stay home, then who is going to<br />
speak up?”<br />
Michael Donaldson, senior director for the archdiocese’s<br />
Office of Life, Justice and Peace, opened the Mass by congratulating<br />
OneLife LA participants who braved the rain<br />
and pushed through fatigue that day.<br />
“We thank you for your willingness to accept God’s mission,<br />
advocating for the unborn, the most vulnerable in our<br />
society, the poor, the sick, the prisoner, the migrant, and<br />
the refugee,” he said.<br />
Among those at the Mass were LA’s five active auxiliary<br />
bishops, Cardinal Roger Mahony, Bishop Joseph Brennan<br />
of Fresno, leaders from various faith traditions, and deacons<br />
and Knights of Columbus from across Southern California.<br />
In his homily, Auxiliary Bishop Matthew Elshoff compared<br />
California’s 2022 decision to enshrine a right to<br />
abortion up to the point of delivery into the state Constitution<br />
to the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sanford decision, in which<br />
the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Constitution did<br />
not guarantee the rights of American citizenship to people<br />
of African American descent, even if they were no longer<br />
slaves.<br />
“When you think about it, government is not supposed<br />
to define who is created in God’s image and likeness,” he<br />
said. “Government is not supposed to define who is created<br />
equal or not. And they are not to define who has certain in-<br />
<strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong> • ANGELUS • 17
alienable rights or not. Our democracy is designed to protect<br />
the rights of all people, and in this case, the unborn.”<br />
Elshoff also encouraged the faithful to keep advocating for<br />
life “from the womb to the tomb” even when laws don’t.<br />
“Let’s not be discouraged that we seem to take two steps<br />
forward and one step back,” he said. “Rather our goal is to<br />
listen, to respond, to follow God’s call, and to embrace this<br />
vision with our whole being, with Jesus at the center.”<br />
The Requiem Mass also included a witness reflection by<br />
Jess Echeverry — a Catholic speaker and family advocate<br />
who experienced healing and discovered Christ and the<br />
Church after undergoing an abortion 32 years ago as a<br />
young homeless woman.<br />
Echeverry — who is now married with five children and<br />
started a nonprofit ministry called Sofesa to help homeless<br />
and low-income families — said research shows that 1 in 5<br />
women seeking an abortion is homeless, and urged attendees<br />
to show empathy for those who’ve had an abortion.<br />
“My brothers and sisters, if we want to end abortion,<br />
which we all should, we need to open our hearts and our<br />
minds to the truths of the traumas and the life experiences<br />
of the women who are walking into the abortion businesses,”<br />
she said. “We need to recognize their dignity, seek out<br />
their story and relationship, and accompany them into<br />
God’s love and mercy.”<br />
Echeverry’s remarks were followed by a ceremony of light,<br />
in which Mass participants carried 120 tall, white candles<br />
up to the sanctuary and placed them side-by-side on the<br />
altar, representing the lives that were lost to abortion that<br />
day in the greater Los Angeles area. As in years past, the<br />
candles will be placed in the windows of the cathedral colonnade<br />
for the coming week, visible from the 101 freeway<br />
below. Those who attended Saturday’s Requiem Mass said<br />
they did so to stand up for life, and to pass faith traditions<br />
onto their children.<br />
Karina Salas, of St. Hedwig Church in Los Alamitos, has<br />
attended OneLife LA with her family every year since its<br />
inception. She said she was particularly touched by this<br />
year’s personal testimonies.<br />
“It’s always good to put faces to stories and know that real<br />
people are impacted by the awful reality of what abortion<br />
is,” she said. “It’s not just something that you can just brush<br />
away, a one-and-done thing. It follows you your entire life<br />
and it impacts everyone, it impacts generations.”<br />
Minh Hoang, of Annunciation Byzantine Church in Anaheim,<br />
said he attended the Requiem Mass and OneLife<br />
LA to be a witness to the pro-life position. He said he was<br />
inspired by the sense of community that he found being<br />
among thousands of like-minded Catholics.<br />
“To see so many college students gives me a lot of joy,”<br />
said Hoang, 21.<br />
Attending the Requiem Mass and placing candles in the<br />
cathedral colonnade has become a tradition for the Angeles<br />
family, of St. Edward Church in Corona.<br />
Reirich Angeles said it allows him and his wife, Maggie,<br />
to pass down the faith to their four children.<br />
“I’m happy to see that they participate in Mass, that they<br />
are engaged in their Catholic faith, and that they are intrigued<br />
and that they ask questions,” he said.<br />
Watching the crowd disperse, Carrera said she plans to attend<br />
next year’s Requiem Mass and OneLife LA event even<br />
though she’s moved from Cudahy to San Bernardino.<br />
“It’s important that we stay united in prayer for an end to<br />
abortion,” she said, “and that we don’t lose faith that one<br />
day it will end.”<br />
Theresa Cisneros is a freelance journalist with 24 years of<br />
experience in the news industry. She is a fourth-generation<br />
Southern California resident and lives in Orange County<br />
with her husband and four children.<br />
The Mass was presided over by Archbishop José<br />
H. Gomez, along with LA’s five active auxiliary<br />
bishops, Cardinal Roger Mahony, and Bishop<br />
Joseph Brennan of Fresno. | VICTOR ALEMÁN<br />
18 • ANGELUS • <strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong>
NOTES OF<br />
REDEMPTION<br />
How a local composer’s experience of sin<br />
and forgiveness gave birth to the Requiem<br />
for the Unborn.<br />
Local composer John Bonaduce leads the choir<br />
at the annual Requiem for the Unborn Mass at<br />
the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels Jan. 20. |<br />
VICTOR ALEMÁN<br />
BY ANN RODGERS<br />
For a generation, Catholics from<br />
the Archdiocese of Los Angeles<br />
have sung, prayed, lit candles,<br />
and wept each January during the<br />
Requiem Mass for the Unborn.<br />
Offered at the Cathedral of Our Lady<br />
of the Angels for two decades, and in<br />
parishes before that, the Mass mourns<br />
every unborn child killed by abortion<br />
during a single day in the greater Los<br />
Angeles area. It began as a memorial<br />
to one of those children — the son<br />
or daughter of its composer, John<br />
Bonaduce.<br />
<strong>No</strong>w 72, Bonaduce is a church musician<br />
known for combining traditional<br />
and contemporary styles in a way that is<br />
both reverent and unabashedly joyful.<br />
After an early career in Hollywood, he<br />
entered liturgical music fulltime in<br />
1990.<br />
The turning point of his faith journey<br />
had come decades earlier, when at the<br />
age of 26 he paid for his girlfriend to<br />
have an abortion.<br />
By that time, he had unthinkingly<br />
slipped away from his Catholic roots. It<br />
never occurred to him that an abortion<br />
took a child’s life. His friends assured<br />
him it was the best decision.<br />
When he realized that there had been<br />
a child, “my conscience was seared,”<br />
he said.<br />
That night he rushed to a church in<br />
Santa Monica and pounded on the<br />
rectory door. When a priest answered,<br />
Bonaduce begged to make a confession<br />
then and there.<br />
“He was very good to me,” Bonaduce<br />
recalled.<br />
“It was genuine. I had come to it on<br />
my own — that this was a bad thing<br />
I had invested in. It’s 135 bucks for<br />
an abortion to get me out of a jam. A<br />
terrible, terrible idea. But embracing it<br />
is powerful. And God is your friend on<br />
a whole new level after you’ve acquired<br />
this level of self-knowledge.”<br />
20 • ANGELUS • <strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong>
Bonaduce sings at St. Bernardine of Siena<br />
School in Woodland Hills’ weekly school<br />
Mass. | PETER LOBATO<br />
His return to the Church took three<br />
years. He wrote “Requiem for the<br />
Unborn” with support and input from<br />
his wife, Eileen.<br />
Some of the musical settings came to<br />
him almost instantly, while others took<br />
years to compose. It debuted in 1995.<br />
The heart of the Mass — which was<br />
offered this year on Jan. 20 — is a<br />
candle-lighting ritual. Parishioners in<br />
the darkened cathedral carry forward<br />
large votive candles, each representing<br />
a child who died in an abortion that<br />
day in greater Los Angeles.<br />
Two decades ago, there were more<br />
than 450 candles. This year there were<br />
120, though part of the reduction<br />
is due to increased use of abortion<br />
pills that aren’t registered in surgical<br />
statistics.<br />
Bonaduce considers those candles the<br />
heart of the “Requiem.”<br />
“That is the power of this piece. It is<br />
not the music,” he said.<br />
He wants others like himself, people<br />
who bear responsibility for an abortion,<br />
to share with him in mourning and<br />
repentance — as well as forgiveness<br />
and renewal.<br />
“I want them to embrace what we’ve<br />
done,” he said. “We’ve sinned on a<br />
magnificent scale.”<br />
He believes that music can reach people<br />
who have tried to close off communication<br />
on this difficult subject.<br />
The use of music for the Requiem<br />
Mass means that “I don’t have to<br />
explain my opposition to abortion in<br />
political or theological terms,” he said.<br />
Katy Kruska, who has sung the<br />
“Requiem” since its debut, has seen its<br />
impact.<br />
“People love that music and they<br />
come year after year because it is so<br />
touching,” said Kruska, the principal<br />
at St. Bernardine of Siena School in<br />
Woodland Hills, where Bonaduce<br />
directs a renowned Sunday evening<br />
parish choir.<br />
“It is preaching pro-life and it is<br />
against abortion, but in a very quiet,<br />
tactful, meaningful prayerful way,”<br />
Kruska said. “You’re not just out there<br />
with picket signs, but you’re bringing<br />
up a candle that symbolizes a loss to<br />
abortion that very day. You’re watching<br />
that one baby’s life come down the<br />
aisle.”<br />
Alicia Laski, who sings and plays<br />
bass guitar in Bonaduce’s choir at St.<br />
Bernardine, has sung the “Requiem for<br />
the Unborn” since 1996 — as has her<br />
mother — and her two adult children<br />
have participated as well.<br />
The “Requiem” carried a special<br />
meaning for Laski, who gave up a child<br />
for adoption when she was in her midteens.<br />
She had fallen away from church<br />
after confirmation. As a 21-year-old<br />
newlywed, she resolved to return and<br />
joined the choir at St. Bernadine’s to<br />
help her keep that commitment.<br />
“The music of the ‘Requiem’ really<br />
brought out something inside of me,”<br />
she said. “It makes people feel like it’s<br />
a relatable subject and they can come<br />
forward and get the support or help<br />
that they need, whether it’s something<br />
happening now or some past trauma.<br />
It opens conversations that people are<br />
afraid to have.”<br />
That’s because singing “gets the faith<br />
inside you,” Bonaduce said. “You don’t<br />
have to think about it. You are it.”<br />
Although he is best known for his<br />
“Requiem for the Unborn,” the word<br />
he uses to describe his work is “joy.”<br />
“That’s my job description,” he said.<br />
“You show kids that you can be an<br />
adult man, who’s still alive after seven<br />
decades, and you find life joyful. I don’t<br />
need much of a mission statement, and<br />
that will do it.”<br />
Ann Rodgers is a longtime religion reporter<br />
and freelance writer whose awards<br />
include the William A. Reed Lifetime<br />
Achievement Award from the Religion<br />
<strong>News</strong> Association.<br />
Bonaduce being interviewed<br />
for an LA Catholics story by<br />
the Archdiocese of LA’s Digital<br />
Team. To watch the video story,<br />
visit <strong>Angelus</strong><strong>News</strong>.com/video.<br />
<strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong> • ANGELUS • 21
CARRYING THE LOAD<br />
A brief guide to some of the Vatican figures poised to take on more<br />
visible roles in this stage of Pope Francis’ pontificate.<br />
BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR.<br />
ROME — In many ways, Pope Francis sailed through<br />
the demanding holiday season with flying colors.<br />
Despite a series of health scares throughout 2023,<br />
and despite, at 87, now being the oldest reigning pontiff in<br />
120 years, he seemed remarkably strong, engaged and in<br />
command, even delivering a 45-minute speech to diplomats<br />
Jan. 8 with gusto.<br />
In a recent interview, Francis confirmed plans to travel to<br />
Belgium this year and dangled the prospect of additional<br />
outings to Polynesia and his native Argentina, and of late he’s<br />
been taking planning meetings for the Great Jubilee of 2025<br />
— none of which necessarily suggests a pope who’s winding<br />
down.<br />
Yet, of course, time and the tides stop for no one.<br />
Inevitably, in <strong>2024</strong> the combination of age and health will<br />
impose increasing restraints on the pontiff, perhaps limiting<br />
his mobility and energy and forcing him increasingly to focus<br />
on the essentials. More and more, that reality will mean<br />
that much routine administration of the Vatican and the<br />
papacy will be handled by people around the pope, acting in<br />
his name and with his approval.<br />
Some of the people called upon to carry an increasing<br />
share of the load are already well-known figures, others personalities<br />
whose profile seems destined to rise.<br />
Herewith, then, a brief guide to figures on the Vatican<br />
scene likely to become steadily more visible and consequential.<br />
Msgr. Paolo Luca Braida<br />
Originally from Lodi in northern Italy, the 59-year-old<br />
Braida enjoyed a brief run in the spotlight in late <strong>No</strong>vember<br />
and early December, when Francis’ bronchitis rendered him<br />
short of breath and unable to read his public addresses, so he<br />
turned to Braida to become his voice.<br />
It’s a role that can signify bigger things to come. In 2003-<br />
2004, for instance, then-Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, at the<br />
time the sostituto, or “substitute,” in the Vatican’s Secretariat<br />
of State, sometimes was called upon to read St. Pope John<br />
Paul II’s speeches in public when the ailing pontiff couldn’t<br />
do it for himself.<br />
Pope Francis leads a livestreamed recitation of the <strong>Angelus</strong> last <strong>No</strong>vember with the help<br />
of Msgr. Paolo Braida, who read the pope’s commentary on the Sunday Gospel for him.<br />
22 Francis • ANGELUS was suffering • from <strong>February</strong> a lung infection 9, <strong>2024</strong>at the time. | CNS/VATICAN MEDIA
Sandri later went on to become a cardinal, the prefect of<br />
the Congregation for Eastern Churches, and vice-dean of<br />
the College of Cardinals.<br />
Braida heads a team in the Secretariat of State responsible<br />
for producing drafts of the pope’s public remarks, making<br />
him effectively Francis’ ghostwriter. In his free time, Braida<br />
occasionally has published collections of his own spiritual<br />
poetry, and he’s also close to an Italian movement for pastoral<br />
care for the blind, a group for which a priest-relative has<br />
worked from the beginning.<br />
Maximino Caballero Ledo<br />
A Spanish economist and<br />
a former executive with<br />
Baxter Healthcare Inc. in the<br />
United States, Caballero was<br />
named the new prefect of<br />
the Vatican’s Secretariat for<br />
the Economy in <strong>No</strong>vember<br />
2022, replacing his childhood<br />
friend, Father Juan Antonio<br />
Guerrero Alves, SJ.<br />
Caballero thereby became<br />
the second layperson to head<br />
a Vatican department, after<br />
veteran Italian journalist Paolo<br />
Ruffini at the Dicastery for Communication.<br />
Given the importance of Vatican finances to the pontiff’s<br />
overall reform campaign, Caballero occupies a key role in<br />
trying to bring those reforms in for a landing, in a moment<br />
in which the pope’s capacity to oversee those efforts personally<br />
is destined to be in decline.<br />
Sister Raffaella Petrini<br />
A Franciscan Sister of the<br />
Eucharist and a sociologist<br />
by training, Petrini, 55, is<br />
arguably the single most powerful<br />
woman in the Francis<br />
papacy. A former professor<br />
of economics and sociology<br />
at the Dominican-sponsored<br />
University of St. Thomas in<br />
Rome, she also has experience<br />
in the U.S. as a graduate<br />
of the Barney School of<br />
Business at the University of<br />
Hartford.<br />
Quite obviously, she has the<br />
Maximino Caballero Ledo. | VATICAN<br />
NEWS<br />
Sister Rafaella Petrini. | FRANCISCAN<br />
SISTERS OF THE EUCHARIST<br />
favor of the current pope. She was appointed in <strong>No</strong>vember<br />
2021 as the secretary general, meaning the <strong>No</strong>. 2 position of<br />
the Vatican City State, making her by some order of magnitude<br />
the most powerful woman in the Vatican system.<br />
Then, in July 2022, Francis made Petrini a member of the<br />
Dicastery for Bishops, and in October he also made her a<br />
member of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic<br />
See, which is basically the Vatican’s central bank.<br />
In other words, Petrini is positioned to play a key role in<br />
what might arguably be called the three essential elements<br />
of the Francis reform: the administration of the Vatican,<br />
the appointment of bishops, and the management of the<br />
Vatican’s financial resources.<br />
Cardinal Mauro Gambetti<br />
A member of the conventual<br />
Franciscans, Gambetti, 58, is<br />
inextricably associated with<br />
Assisi and the charism of St.<br />
Francis. Between 2013 and<br />
2021, he was the general custodian<br />
of the Basilica of the<br />
Sacred Convent of St. Francis<br />
in Assisi, with responsibility<br />
for administering the various<br />
Franciscan sites in the city.<br />
In October 2020, Pope Francis<br />
made Gambetti a cardinal,<br />
the first time since the 19th<br />
century that a member of the<br />
conventual Franciscans received the honor. At the time it<br />
was considered anomalous, since there was already a prelate<br />
in Assisi, Archbishop Domenico Sorrentino, who was now<br />
outranked by Gambetti.<br />
In <strong>February</strong> 2021, Francis resolved the anomaly by naming<br />
Gambetti vicar general for the Vatican City State and also<br />
archpriest of the Basilica of St. Peter, and head of the administration<br />
of the basilica, effectively making him one of the<br />
Vatican officials with the most direct access to the pope.<br />
In June 2023, Francis also named Gambetti a judge of<br />
the Court of Cassation, in effect the supreme court of the<br />
Vatican City State.<br />
Archbishop Edgar Peña<br />
Parra<br />
A 63-year-old Venezuelan,<br />
Peña Parra is the sostituto<br />
(“substitute”) in the Vatican’s<br />
Secretariat of State, making<br />
him effectively the pope’s<br />
chief of staff. He’s the second<br />
Latin American to hold the<br />
role, after Sandri.<br />
In some ways, Peña Parra’s<br />
status under Francis was<br />
called into question by the<br />
part he played in the fiasco<br />
of the failed $400 million<br />
London property deal, which<br />
ended in convictions by a Vatican tribunal for nine defendants,<br />
including Peña Parra’s predecessor, Italian Cardinal<br />
Angelo Becciu.<br />
On the other hand, Peña Parra remains in his position,<br />
and, as the pope ages and becomes increasingly reliant on<br />
others to carry the ball, the fact of serving as the sostituto by<br />
definition means that Peña Parra will become an increasingly<br />
influential fixture on the Vatican scene as time goes on.<br />
John L. Allen Jr. is the editor of Crux.<br />
Cardinal Mauro Gambetti. | CNS/LOLA<br />
GOMEZ<br />
Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra. | CNS/<br />
PAUL HARING<br />
<strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong> • ANGELUS • 23
Dried palms are placed in a fire at the<br />
conclusion of a Mardi Gras evening<br />
prayer service. Ashes from the fire<br />
are used on Ash Wednesday. | CNS/<br />
GREGORY A. SHEMITZ<br />
Lent is for lovers<br />
BY FATHER PETER JOHN CAMERON, OP<br />
Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday fall on the same day<br />
this year — and they’re trying to tell us the same thing.<br />
This also occurred a few years<br />
back: in 2018, Ash Wednesday<br />
fell on Valentine’s Day (and<br />
previously to that, in 1945). A Dominican<br />
parish in Cincinnati decided to<br />
make hay of it by sponsoring a special<br />
spiritual series for the season titled<br />
“Lent Is for Lovers.” Provocative but<br />
brilliant!<br />
Everybody knows that Valentine’s<br />
Day is a holiday celebrating the joys<br />
of romantic love, but the whole of the<br />
liturgical season of Lent is dedicated<br />
to celebrating the greatest of all loves:<br />
“There is no greater love than this: to<br />
lay down one’s life for one’s friends”<br />
— words spoken by Jesus as he entered<br />
into his Passion (John 15:13).<br />
St. Valentine and God’s friendship<br />
This co-incidence of celebrations is<br />
not coincidental. Valentine, after all,<br />
was a saint who was also a martyr. His<br />
whole existence was about laying down<br />
his life for his Beloved. St. Valentine’s<br />
witness offers the perfect way to commence<br />
our Lent on Ash Wednesday.<br />
According to the 13th- century<br />
classic lives of the saints “The Golden<br />
Legend,” the emperor Claudius one<br />
day confronted the venerable priest<br />
Valentine with these words: “Why do<br />
you not win our friendship by adoring<br />
24 • ANGELUS • <strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong>
our gods and abandoning your vain<br />
superstitions?” St. Valentine replied:<br />
“If you but knew the grace of God, you<br />
would turn your mind away from idols<br />
and adore the God who is in heaven.”<br />
Whereupon, St. Valentine was tortured<br />
and beheaded.<br />
That is exactly what we want to do<br />
during Lent: to know the overwhelming<br />
grace of God, to turn our mind<br />
away from idols, and to adore the God<br />
of heaven precisely in order to live in<br />
his friendship. As ashes are placed on<br />
our forehead this Ash Wednesday, the<br />
priest will say to us: “Remember that<br />
you are dust, and to dust you shall<br />
return.”<br />
Bishop Erik Varden of Trondheim,<br />
<strong>No</strong>rway, explained the spiritual significance<br />
of this:<br />
“When I remember I am dust I also<br />
recall that I was destined to be more.<br />
To say, on these terms, that I am dust is<br />
not degrading. It is God who degrades<br />
himself for love, stooping down from<br />
celestial realms to re-shape and re-inspirit<br />
humble matter.”<br />
In other words, those ashes are the<br />
best of valentines.<br />
The perfect valentine<br />
Who doesn’t want to get a valentine?<br />
But we crave a love that surpasses the<br />
A newly engaged couple kisses after a<br />
blessing at the Shrine of St. Valentine<br />
in Dublin in 2019. | CNS/CLODAGH<br />
KILCOYNE, REUTERS<br />
sentimental. We want an ultimate love<br />
… and infinite love. And it has to be<br />
comprised of three things.<br />
It has to be a love that comes to us<br />
as a gift. If instead it is something<br />
we need to “earn,” then it’s nothing<br />
but compensation — not real love.<br />
God loves us because he is good, not<br />
because we are. Ash Wednesday is the<br />
time to begin our begging for this gift.<br />
In the words of the 14th- century mystic<br />
Walter Hilton, “the lover of God is<br />
his friend, not because he has deserved<br />
to be, but because God in his merciful<br />
goodness has made him so by a very<br />
real pact.” Namely, the cross.<br />
Second, it has to be a love that keeps<br />
declaring to us, It is necessary that you<br />
exist! In the short story “Sine, Cosine,<br />
Tangent” by American author Don<br />
DeLillo, the agnostic main character<br />
decides one Ash Wednesday to present<br />
himself for ashes. It becomes for him<br />
an occasion of powerful grace, for<br />
through it he knows himself to be<br />
wanted, chosen:<br />
“I went to the altar rail and knelt, the<br />
priest approached and made his mark,<br />
a splotch of holy ash thumb-printed to<br />
my forehead. Dust you are. …”<br />
The man begins to realize: “My parents<br />
were not Catholic. I didn’t know<br />
what we were. We were eat and sleep.<br />
We were Take Daddy’s Suit to the dry<br />
cleaner.” Yet that sacred impression to<br />
his forehead continues to impress him:<br />
“But the robed priest and the small<br />
grinding action of his thumb implanting<br />
the ash. And unto dust you shall<br />
return. … I didn’t know what this was.<br />
… I wanted the stain to last for days<br />
and weeks.”<br />
And third, the love has to be a love<br />
that is indestructible. However, that<br />
love comes to us through the destruction<br />
of God’s Son on the cross … and<br />
through his resurrection. The reason<br />
we mortify ourselves during Lent is to<br />
predispose ourselves, more and more,<br />
to be able to receive and hold fast to<br />
this indestructible love. For love is<br />
what penance is all about. “Every penance<br />
that increases love is good; any<br />
penance that narrows and preoccupies<br />
the soul is harmful” (Von Balthasar).<br />
Ash Wednesday calls us to recommit<br />
ourselves to our only real priority, especially<br />
by doing away with the doubt<br />
that derails us. St. John of Ávila expresses<br />
it in a prayer we would do well to<br />
offer often this Lent:<br />
“O God who are Love itself, how we<br />
wound you if we do not trust in you<br />
with all our hearts! If, after the favors<br />
you have shown us, and after having<br />
died for us, we do not feel confidence<br />
in you, we must be worse than very<br />
brutes. In the times that we offended<br />
you, you cherished us. You followed<br />
after us when we fled from you. You<br />
drew us to yourself. Please keep us<br />
from ever distrusting you or questioning<br />
whether you do love us and intend<br />
to save us.”<br />
Being a valentine<br />
Let’s start our Lent this Ash Wednesday<br />
giving others a lasting valentine<br />
— the miracle of Divine Love made<br />
possible through the Paschal Mystery:<br />
“The ultimate miracle of Divine<br />
Love is this, that the life of the Risen<br />
Lord is given to us to give to one another.<br />
It is given to us through our own<br />
human loves” (Caryll Houselander).<br />
After all, Lent is for lovers.<br />
Father Peter John Cameron, OP, is<br />
the former editor-in-chief of Magnificat<br />
and the author of 10 books. He is now<br />
engaged in itinerant teaching, giving<br />
parish missions and retreats.<br />
<strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong> • ANGELUS • 25
INTERSECTIONS<br />
GREG ERLANDSON<br />
Splintered screen:<br />
Our fractured television landscape<br />
If you are of a certain age, it is<br />
most likely you can still remember<br />
certain major TV events:<br />
When the Beatles first appeared<br />
on the “Ed Sullivan Show.” The<br />
last episode of “M*A*S*H.” When<br />
Sammy Davis Jr. planted a wet one<br />
on Archie in “All in the Family.”<br />
You can recall favorite episodes of<br />
“The Twilight Zone,” and if you<br />
only mention the theme (“To Serve<br />
Humans”), your friends of a similar<br />
age will know it.<br />
Network television, even when<br />
it was being critiqued as a “vast<br />
wasteland,” was one of the ties<br />
that bound us together as a nation.<br />
From the cultured to the crass, its<br />
programming was watched by huge<br />
percentages of the population, and<br />
back when we gathered around<br />
water coolers, it was relatively easy<br />
to predict what shows we were going<br />
to be talking about on Monday<br />
morning.<br />
<strong>No</strong> more. What now streams over not<br />
just our TV sets but our laptops and<br />
phones is an endless flood of visual<br />
treats and distractions: From YouTube<br />
and TikTok to burgeoning streaming<br />
services like Netflix and Hulu to<br />
traditional cable and, for the fewer and<br />
fewer of us who still watch it, network<br />
television as well.<br />
There is in fact a new conversation<br />
ritual. At some point the talk turns to<br />
inquiring what we might be watching<br />
in common, be it “The Golden<br />
Bachelor,” “Shetland,” or “Game of<br />
Thrones.” We use these conversations<br />
as a kind of geolocator for where this<br />
friend or potential friend might fall in<br />
terms of cultural interests, the same<br />
way we use Fox or CNN or MSNBC to<br />
geolocate their political leanings.<br />
This plethora of entertainment —<br />
some of it of high quality and increasingly<br />
international in nature — is one<br />
reason this is being labeled the “golden<br />
age” of television.<br />
But Robert David Sullivan begs to<br />
differ. In a fascinating commentary in<br />
the January issue of America magazine,<br />
Sullivan takes issue with the assertion.<br />
He argues that the fragmentation of<br />
channels, this multiverse of platforms,<br />
is perhaps both cause and symptom<br />
of our increasing fragmentation as a<br />
society.<br />
“Entertainment and culture, like<br />
politics, has become as balkanized as<br />
supermarkets with dozens of brands of<br />
bottled water,” he wrote.<br />
SHUTTERSTOCK<br />
He particularly focuses on “prestige<br />
TV,” often trendy HBO shows like<br />
“The Sopranos” and “Succession,” that<br />
featured, in his words, “narcissistic and<br />
even psychotic men ruining the lives<br />
of everyone around them.” Many other<br />
prestige shows come to mind in this<br />
category: “House of Cards.” “Dexter.”<br />
“Breaking Bad.”<br />
One symptom of this trend was the<br />
“self-segregation of elitist viewers,” Sullivan<br />
said. Elites were not finding their<br />
“prestige television” in a network-aired<br />
play or a Leonard Bernstein concert,<br />
but “terrible-people” melodramas.<br />
Meanwhile, other parts of the audience<br />
drifted off to one of the endless shows<br />
produced by Dick Wolf, usually involving<br />
formulaic plots, terse dialogue, and<br />
body counts. Or they turn to “reality<br />
26 • ANGELUS • <strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong>
Greg Erlandson is the former president and<br />
editor-in-chief of Catholic <strong>News</strong> Service.<br />
shows,” which are anything but.<br />
High culture has been relegated to<br />
public broadcasting, where another<br />
sliver of the population can still find<br />
operas, plays, and serious documentaries.<br />
Yet this audience is a fraction of<br />
the one that watched Margot Fonteyn<br />
and Rudolph Nureyev on a variety<br />
show like “Ed Sullivan,” the same show<br />
that also introduced us to The Beatles.<br />
Sullivan concedes that television has<br />
gotten more diverse. We’ve grown beyond<br />
“The Jeffersons” and “The Cosby<br />
Show,” and that is a good thing. At the<br />
same time, lacking a shared viewing<br />
space, shows featuring this diversity are<br />
less likely to reach very far beyond their<br />
target ethnic audience.<br />
“For just about anyone,” Sullivan<br />
wrote, “there are now more shows on<br />
television that reflect your own life; the<br />
trade-off may be that there is nothing<br />
that reflects our common life, or addresses<br />
our common concerns.”<br />
Perhaps this fragmentation of television<br />
audiences simply reflects our<br />
own fragmentation. Perhaps it reflects<br />
trends in marketing, in which ad agencies<br />
want a specific demographic slice,<br />
and are willing to pay handsomely for<br />
that slice.<br />
There may be one other corrosive<br />
trend at work: that playing to our fears,<br />
our cynicism, and our baser instincts<br />
is more profitable and easier to attract<br />
audiences with short attention spans<br />
and a distrust of almost everything.<br />
Shadowy conspiracies, corrupt higher-ups,<br />
remorseless villains deserving of<br />
a remorseless response (all exemplified<br />
in Prime Video’s hit “Reacher” series)<br />
feed our cynicism.<br />
In fact, our public square, our shared<br />
space, is larded with cynicism. We<br />
have fewer heroes and more villains,<br />
dupes, and lone rangers who, in<br />
Wayne LaPierre’s cynical motto, see<br />
themselves as a good guy with a gun<br />
stopping loads of bad guys with guns.<br />
This may be all that functions as our<br />
“common conversation” today, both<br />
reflecting our fractured and distrustful<br />
culture and feeding it. I can only hope<br />
that we will soon weary of this darkness<br />
and seek to recover a shared digital<br />
space that will speak to our better<br />
angels.<br />
<strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong> • ANGELUS • 27
NOW PLAYING CHINATOWN<br />
THE PERFECT<br />
LA FILM?<br />
Los Angeles still suffers from the same identity issues<br />
diagnosed in ‘Chinatown’ 50 years ago.<br />
Jack Nicholson in “Chinatown.”<br />
| IMDB<br />
BY JOSEPH JOYCE<br />
To explain his theory of relativity,<br />
Albert Einstein pointed out that<br />
sitting on a hot stove for five<br />
minutes feels like an hour, but sitting<br />
next to a pretty girl for an hour feels<br />
like five minutes. Los Angeles suffers<br />
from the same time dilation. My three<br />
years in the city have been more like<br />
one extended summer vacation, and<br />
any native will tell you that any car<br />
trip, no matter how short, invariably<br />
takes at least 20 minutes.<br />
The Southern California time warp<br />
comes to mind this year, 50 years<br />
since the release of “Chinatown,” a<br />
neo-noir that survived the years so well<br />
that it’s now simply considered noir.<br />
Set in 1937 and released in 1974, we<br />
are now further along from its release<br />
date than the film was from its period<br />
piece.<br />
But that’s the odd thing about LA;<br />
it’s not just that time moves differently<br />
here, it’s that it hardly moves at all.<br />
The same evils of the 1930s were echoed<br />
in the 1970s and echo still now.<br />
If an echo lasts for that long, you may<br />
have to wonder if it’s not an echo at<br />
all but a deity screaming in your ear.<br />
The protagonist of “Chinatown” is<br />
Jake Gittes (a never better Jack Nicholson),<br />
a private investigator, who<br />
like most of the shamus trade mainly<br />
snaps pictures of adulterous spouses.<br />
One such woman scorned, a Mrs.<br />
Mulwray, tasks him with catching her<br />
husband in the act.<br />
Jake knows him by his more respectable<br />
reputation, as chief engineer for<br />
the Department of Water. You would<br />
think he had bigger concerns seeing<br />
the city is in a drought, but men<br />
always seem to find the time. Time<br />
moves differently for them too.<br />
Jake does indeed spy Mulwray visiting<br />
a young woman, but also him inspecting<br />
several sluices as water spills<br />
out. But if there’s water to waste, then<br />
why is there a drought? And if there’s<br />
no drought, why are the farmers of the<br />
San Fernando Valley getting dried out<br />
and forced to sell their land?<br />
Then Mulwray is found drowned in<br />
a freshwater reservoir with saltwater<br />
in his lungs, and then the real Mrs.<br />
Mulwray (Catholic convert Faye<br />
Dunaway) arrives demanding answers,<br />
and I think it’s fair for the film itself to<br />
answer them.<br />
This is my third year in Los Angeles,<br />
or more technically my third year in<br />
the San Fernando Valley. In those<br />
three years I’ve learned that depending<br />
on the angle of the upturned nose,<br />
I may have never been in LA at all. I<br />
like the Valley for the same reasons<br />
others dismiss it; it’s nice to have a<br />
little quiet and an option other than<br />
parallel parking.<br />
28 • ANGELUS • <strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong>
But that elbow room came at a cost.<br />
This is land that once belonged to<br />
Native Americans, until they found<br />
that Spain came to them. Then it was<br />
taken from the Mexicans, who found<br />
that America came to them. LA finally<br />
came for the farmers, forced out so<br />
the city fathers could build swaths of<br />
ranch houses, In-N-Outs, and a secretly<br />
better airport.<br />
I eat the fruits (and burgers) of such<br />
evil labors, while perpetuating them<br />
for the next generation. Chinatown<br />
remains relevant because LA’s original<br />
sin is hardly original at all. Locals are<br />
still forced out for their land, this time<br />
for clout rather than water. We watch<br />
helplessly as the fashionable neighborhoods<br />
creep east, like a swarm of<br />
locusts hungry for cheap rent and<br />
leaving behind nothing but stalks and<br />
Erewhon grocery stores. Even San<br />
Bernardino has begun constructing<br />
fortifications for the encroaching<br />
hipster caravan.<br />
Though hard to remember during an<br />
El Niño winter, I moved down here<br />
in a drought (a real drought, with all<br />
respect to “Chinatown”). LA already<br />
takes most of its water from the<br />
Colorado River. When the river ran<br />
low on water to borrow, city officials<br />
gingerly requested we cut back on our<br />
shower times. We, of course, refused<br />
with a patriot’s dignity and were bailed<br />
out with these last few years of storms.<br />
But ask any football team, even the<br />
Chargers, if Fullerton won’t return<br />
your calls: punting isn’t a solution.<br />
A final lesson from “Chinatown” is<br />
that geography molds a people. I am<br />
from the Pacific <strong>No</strong>rthwest, a land of<br />
beautiful people at icy remove. We<br />
take our cue from Mt. Rainier, who<br />
looms over us like an emotionally<br />
distant mother. My time in LA has<br />
made me a bit sunnier in disposition,<br />
if no less beautiful.<br />
The characters in “Chinatown” are<br />
irrevocably “LA.” The heroes are a<br />
desperate sort, unbearably present<br />
in the moment because they know<br />
there’s no backup plan. When you’re<br />
at the terminus of the rail line, you<br />
fight back because your back is to the<br />
ocean and you can’t drink a drop.<br />
The villains are modern conquistadors,<br />
forging kingdoms out of the raw<br />
material of the desert. Their evil is<br />
strong enough to mold the geography,<br />
the land withering even further like<br />
an Oedipal blight.<br />
A modern landscape image of<br />
Los Angeles. | SHUTTERSTOCK<br />
If there is an agreement between<br />
the two, it’s that LA should not exist.<br />
Its continued survival is either an act<br />
of ingenuity, hubris, or malice, often<br />
all at the same time. For the evil that<br />
existentialism is a license to remake<br />
the world in their image. For an unlucky<br />
few that is a call to purpose, to<br />
bring justice to a land without much<br />
interest.<br />
On the 405 the other day, just cresting<br />
the hills, I saw the graffiti “WE<br />
ARE ALL ALONE” spray-painted on<br />
the side of a cliff. It couldn’t help but<br />
remind me of a line from Nicholson’s<br />
character, who when asked if he was<br />
alone, quips, “Aren’t we all?”<br />
The curse and blessing of Los Angeles<br />
is that it just isn’t true. We’re all<br />
stuck here together in a land beyond<br />
time, loving and killing and sinking<br />
deeper as we fight for footing in the<br />
muck. Fitting for a city with a tar pit<br />
at its heart.<br />
Joseph Joyce is a screenwriter and freelance<br />
critic based in Sherman Oaks.<br />
<strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong> • ANGELUS • 29
DESIRE LINES<br />
HEATHER KING<br />
What Carmen left behind<br />
Servant of God Carmen Hernández, who<br />
died in 2016, with Kiko Argüello in 1984.<br />
They are known as the “co-initiators” of<br />
the Neocatechumenal Way, an itinerary<br />
of post-baptismal Christian formation<br />
present in more than 130 countries worldwide.<br />
| NEOCATECHUMENAL WAY<br />
Servant of God Carmen Hernández,<br />
along with Kiko Argüello,<br />
co-initiated what is known as the<br />
Neocatechumenal Way.<br />
The charism grew out of the Second<br />
Vatican Council, took root in Madrid<br />
and Rome, and has spread throughout<br />
the world in innumerable communities,<br />
attracting a multitude of catechumens.<br />
The Way describes itself as “an<br />
itinerary of rediscovery of baptism<br />
and ongoing formation in the faith”; a<br />
proposition “to the faithful who wish<br />
to rekindle in their lives the richness<br />
of the Christian initiation” and live<br />
lives marked by humility, simplicity,<br />
and praise.<br />
Meant to be lived in parishes and<br />
small communities comprising people<br />
from varying demographics, ages, and<br />
social groups, the aim is to gradually<br />
lead the faithful “to intimacy with<br />
Jesus Christ and transform them into<br />
active members in the Church and<br />
credible witnesses of the Good <strong>News</strong>.<br />
It is an instrument for the Christian<br />
initiation of adults preparing to receive<br />
baptism.”<br />
Hernández (1930-2016) left 30 years<br />
of diaries, which are being transcribed<br />
bit by bit. The first three years are now<br />
available: “Diaries: 1979-1981” (Gondolin<br />
Press, $24), with a foreword by<br />
Cardinal Séan O’Malley of Boston<br />
and a preface by Cardinal Ricardo<br />
Blásquez Pérez, archbishop emeritus<br />
of Valladolid, Spain.<br />
As Blasquez notes, “Kiko was the<br />
catechist who always spoke and Carmen<br />
almost always listened, at times<br />
praying, at other times with restlessness<br />
and sometimes intervening with<br />
a pertinent reflection.”<br />
<strong>No</strong>netheless, he says, we must<br />
assume that the development of the<br />
content of the catecheses, the “steps”<br />
and “rites,” and the organization of<br />
the evangelization was due to their<br />
combined work.<br />
“Each one contributed the gifts<br />
received by God.”<br />
Argüello (born 1939, still going<br />
strong at 85) is an extrovert who<br />
thrives in the limelight, an artist<br />
whose personality was especially difficult<br />
for Hernández. Her itinerant missionary<br />
lifestyle over 50 years required<br />
constant travel, crowds, and uprootedness.<br />
She never had a permanent<br />
place to lay her head, nor the silence<br />
and solitude that her contemplative<br />
spirit craved.<br />
Her diaries are marked by an anguish<br />
that might be almost comical in its<br />
repetition, except for the genuine<br />
suffering that permeates almost every<br />
entry.<br />
“I will fight against the ghosts of<br />
darkness. I will not dialogue with<br />
them, I will not let them rope me<br />
in. Away with you, Satan! The risen<br />
30 • ANGELUS • <strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong>
Heather King is an award-winning<br />
author, speaker, and workshop leader.<br />
Lord… Gladden me Lord, fight at my<br />
side, invigorate and enliven my bones.<br />
Come, Lord. The Pope [John Paul II]<br />
is in Turin” (April 12-13, 1980).<br />
“Nighttime crisis. Crisis on top of<br />
crisis. The stinginess of my heart. The<br />
pain of money, of life. My father. The<br />
impossible. Here, wildly spending unearned<br />
money. My Jesus, architects,<br />
lawyers, the languages, the Arabs…the<br />
deceit…My Jesus, to escape…where<br />
to? All your land seems like hell…”<br />
(Jerusalem, Feb. 11, 1981).<br />
“Restlessness…itinerants, communities,<br />
pastors, Bishops. The Church,<br />
my Jesus, and the world, all is terror,<br />
terrorism, terror, terror, powerlessness,<br />
impossibility, distrust. My Jesus, my<br />
Jesus, if I had faith in You, if my feet<br />
were on your holy rock… But I don’t<br />
see your face, I don’t see anything,<br />
I suffer, I suffer, and I suffer in the<br />
helplessness of death and in a visceral<br />
silence. My Jesus, I lament… I cry out<br />
to You, answer me. Have mercy on<br />
me in this unbelief of death” (Rome,<br />
May 21, 1981).<br />
“The mystery of suffering and grief.<br />
People overwhelm me. I want to escape.<br />
Kiko terrifies me with his crazy<br />
prayers. My Jesus, the mountains:<br />
ghosts of the Gran Madre di Dio, the<br />
accusations…<br />
“Finally, peace. Incredible freedom…My<br />
Jesus, sweet company.<br />
These things that St. Teresa speaks<br />
about, we have sweetly lived for so<br />
many years. Come, accompany me. I<br />
love you. Say it to me. Come, Jesus”<br />
(Rome, May 31, 1981).<br />
During the next several months, she<br />
suffers insomnia, dentist crises, hospital<br />
stays, dissatisfaction, “groggy from<br />
smoking, fighting, yelling, my Jesus.”<br />
Darkness, terrible thoughts, sadnesses,<br />
the terror, the trial.<br />
Occasionally, she enjoys a brief<br />
reprieve: “Blessed are you. I am in<br />
grace” (Madrid, Oct. 27, 1981).<br />
Then, once again, she’s plunged<br />
into darkness: “I’m dead tired. Kiko is<br />
impossible. Help me, Jesus” (Madrid,<br />
Dec. 5, 1981).<br />
The odd-couple pairing brings to<br />
mind Servant of God Dorothy Day<br />
and Peter Maurin who, together and<br />
in spite of very different sensibilities,<br />
founded the lay Catholic Worker<br />
movement.<br />
These platonic friendship-collaborations,<br />
it seems, each resembling<br />
an incredibly difficult marriage, bore<br />
fruit only because both partners —<br />
from love of God — stuck it out till<br />
the end.<br />
I have no personal experience of the<br />
Neocatechumenal Way. Like most<br />
lay movements, it has its passionate<br />
adherents and its detractors.<br />
But the Lord works in mysterious<br />
ways, his wonders to perform. That<br />
the Way grew out of such agony, on<br />
Hernández’s part; that in a way it<br />
should not have worked, but did — is<br />
perhaps the real takeaway.<br />
And let’s not forget, there are 27<br />
more years of diaries to come!<br />
In the meantime, what struggling<br />
human being can’t relate?<br />
“Vatican. My Jesus, Fr. Maximino,<br />
itinerants, nothing consoles me. Nausea,<br />
terror, fear. My Jesus, where can I<br />
escape? Serenity.<br />
“Firenze [Florence, Italy]. My Jesus,<br />
it’s incredible that on the same day<br />
one can feel so differently about<br />
things, from fear to serenity, from difficulty<br />
to indifference. My Jesus, how<br />
mysterious the human psyche is. Help<br />
me” (Rome, May 27, 1981).<br />
<strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong> • ANGELUS • 31
LETTER AND SPIRIT<br />
SCOTT HAHN<br />
Scott Hahn is founder of the<br />
St. Paul Center for Biblical<br />
Theology; stpaulcenter.com.<br />
Lenten back to basics<br />
I<br />
love Lent.<br />
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I take pleasure in<br />
fasting. And I don’t enjoy “giving stuff up” any more<br />
than the next guy. In my devotional life I can be a typical<br />
spoiled American.<br />
But Lent, for me, is always a hopeful time. It’s my annual<br />
reminder that change is possible. More than that, I’m reminded<br />
that God wants me<br />
to change and wills me to<br />
change. So he’ll give me the<br />
grace I need to put away vice<br />
and put on virtue. All the<br />
readings at Mass reinforce<br />
those lessons. God calls<br />
Israel to repent — to cease<br />
its sinning — and to grow by<br />
means of prayer, fasting, and<br />
almsgiving.<br />
I usually mark the season<br />
with a silent retreat, so that I<br />
can get back to the basics of<br />
the spiritual life. I’ll usually<br />
take a book with me; and<br />
I want to tell you about a<br />
book I took along a Lent or<br />
two ago. It’s “Knowing the<br />
Love of God: Lessons from a<br />
Spiritual Master” (St. Joseph<br />
Communications, $14.95),<br />
by Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange,<br />
OP.<br />
This author defined “the<br />
basics of the spiritual life”<br />
for me, way back when I<br />
was a new Catholic. Garrigou-Lagrange<br />
was perhaps the<br />
most celebrated Catholic<br />
theologian of his lifetime<br />
(1877-1964). He taught for<br />
many years at Rome’s Pontifical University of Saint Thomas<br />
Aquinas (the Angelicum), and among his illustrious<br />
students was a young Polish priest named Karol Wojtyla.<br />
Father Wojtyla (whom we now know as St. Pope John Paul<br />
II) completed his doctoral dissertation under the direction<br />
of Friar Reginald.<br />
He is best known, however, for his foundational work of<br />
spiritual theology, “The Three Ages of the Interior Life”<br />
(CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, $25),<br />
which he wrote when he was young. That title, too, bears<br />
careful reading and re-reading. I cannot name — and can’t<br />
even imagine — a book more justly influential on the<br />
practice of spiritual direction.<br />
But “Knowing the Love of<br />
God” is an even better way<br />
Father Reginald<br />
Garrigou-Lagrange. |<br />
FLICKR<br />
to pass your Lenten days.<br />
It is Father Garrigou-Lagrange’s<br />
most mature work<br />
— his last writings, produced<br />
in the midst of much<br />
suffering. In fact, its chapters<br />
are mostly the notes for meditations<br />
that he preached at<br />
retreats for his fellow friars.<br />
Garrigou-Lagrange anticipated<br />
what St. Pope John<br />
XXIII called the greatest<br />
teaching of the Second Vatican<br />
Council: the universal<br />
call to holiness. Garrigou-Lagrange<br />
believed that<br />
ordinary Christians, by virtue<br />
of their baptism, were called<br />
to the mystical life and empowered<br />
for it. This doesn’t<br />
mean we’ll all be visionaries<br />
or prophets; in fact, it seems<br />
that God calls very few to<br />
experience such dramatic<br />
phenomena.<br />
But we’re all called to enjoy<br />
a life of profound, prayerful,<br />
and intimate union with<br />
God. We’re called to be<br />
God’s children, and to know<br />
his Fatherhood in an ever more powerful way. This is the<br />
ordinary vocation of Christians.<br />
It’s my vocation and yours, and we can certainly live it<br />
better. If you can’t join me on retreat this year, please join<br />
me at least in the pages of this book, which is now available<br />
again after many years out of print.<br />
32 • ANGELUS • <strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong>
■ SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3<br />
Nun Run, 5K, 1-Mile, and Community Service Fair. La<br />
Reina High School, 106 W. Janss Rd., Thousand Oaks, 8<br />
a.m. Tenth annual Nun Run, hosted by Sisters of <strong>No</strong>tre<br />
Dame, will raise proceeds for local and global outreach.<br />
Visit nun.run.<br />
■ SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 4<br />
Rite of Election. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 555<br />
W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 3 p.m. The Rite of Election is<br />
the final required step for anyone preparing to receive the<br />
sacraments of baptism, confirmation, and the holy Eucharist<br />
on the Easter Vigil. Email Leticia Perez at LPerez@<br />
la-archdiocese.org.<br />
Choral Evening Prayer. Church of the Good Shepherd, 504<br />
N. Roxbury Dr., Beverly Hills, 7:30 p.m. Candlelight service<br />
of ecumenical choral and organ music will be offered in<br />
observance of the 15th anniversary of the blessing of the<br />
organ. All are welcome. Call 310-285-5425.<br />
■ TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6<br />
Wellness Evening. St. Christopher Church, 629 S. Glendora<br />
Ave., West Covina, 7-8:30 p.m. Topic: “Good communication<br />
is crucial to any relationship.” Presented by Cynthia<br />
Holmes, LMFT, hosted by the Father Kolbe Missionaries<br />
of the Immaculate. Call Jillian Cooke at 626-917-0040 or<br />
email FKMministry@gmail.com.<br />
■ WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7<br />
Changing Seasons: Lent to Palm Sunday. Zoom, 7-8:30<br />
p.m. Class led by Father Felix Just, SJ, will explore Bible readings<br />
for Lent to Palm Sunday. Visit lacatholics.org/events.<br />
■ SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10<br />
Citizenship Workshop for Permanent Residents. Our<br />
Lady of Grace Church, 5011 White Oak Ave., Encino, 9<br />
a.m.-1 p.m. Event includes free application preparation<br />
and form completion for eligible residents, as well as free<br />
citizenship classes. Call 818-342-4686 or email BeACitizen<strong>No</strong>w@gmail.com.<br />
Marian Retreat: Blessed are you among women! Father<br />
Kolbe Missionaries Center, 531 E. Merced Ave., West Covina,<br />
9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Email FKMministry@gmail.com.<br />
Valentine’s Dinner. Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church,<br />
23233 Lyons Ave., Newhall, 12 p.m. Hosted by the Italian<br />
Catholic Club of SCV, includes complimentary glass of<br />
wine. Cost: $45/person. RSVP to Anna Riggs at 661-645-<br />
7877 by Feb. 5.<br />
World Day of the Sick Mass. Cathedral of Our Lady of the<br />
Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 12:30 p.m. Hosted<br />
by the Western Association of the Order of Malta, all are<br />
welcome, especially those who are suffering in body or spirit.<br />
Blessing and anointing of the sick will be administered.<br />
22nd Annual Black History Mass: “Walk Together<br />
Children.” Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 W.<br />
Temple St., Los Angeles, 5 p.m. Sponsored by the African<br />
American Catholic Center for Evangelization. Celebrant:<br />
Archbishop José H. Gomez. Keeper of the Flame award will<br />
be presented by Archbishop Gomez. For more information,<br />
visit aaccfe.org.<br />
■ TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13<br />
Memorial Mass. San Fernando Mission, 15151 San<br />
Fernando Mission Blvd., Mission Hills, 11 a.m. Mass is<br />
virtual and not open to the public. Livestream available at<br />
CatholicCM.org or Facebook.com/lacatholics.<br />
■ THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15<br />
Youth Day: RECongress. Anaheim Convention Center,<br />
200 S. Anaheim Blvd., Anaheim, 7:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Young<br />
people will enjoy a general session, keynote speech, two<br />
workshops, and Eucharistic liturgy. Speakers include Baby<br />
Angel, Chris Estrella, and Maggie Craig. Cost: $40/person.<br />
Register at recongress.org.<br />
LACBA CFJ Eviction Response Clinic. LA Law Library,<br />
301 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, 12-3 p.m. Providing legal assistance<br />
with eviction court summons and complaints. Open<br />
to LA County tenants with disabilities and limited incomes.<br />
Spanish assistance available. RSVP required. Call 213-896-<br />
6536 or email inquiries-veterans@lacba.org.<br />
■ FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16<br />
Religious Education Congress. Anaheim Convention<br />
Center, 200 S. Anaheim Blvd., Anaheim. Events run Feb.<br />
16-18, and include speakers, sacraments, films, and<br />
workshops. Keynote speaker: Jessica Sarowitz, founder of<br />
Miraflores Films. Cost: $75/person until Jan. 15, $85/person<br />
after. For more information, visit recongress.org.<br />
Retrouvaille Marriage Retreat: Spanish. San Fernando.<br />
Retreat runs Feb. 16-18. Call Adolfo and Dora Rubio at<br />
818-367-4198 or Salvador and Maria Acosta at 626-934-<br />
7452 for more information or to register.<br />
Fish Fry. St. Clare Church, 19606 Calla Way, Canyon Country,<br />
4:30-8 p.m. Includes two-three pieces of beer-battered<br />
cod, coleslaw, choice of side, or fish tacos with rice and<br />
beans. Dine in or take out. Cost: $15/person, two-piece<br />
dinner or two tacos, $16/person, three-piece dinner. Family<br />
pack available for $55. Call 661-252-3353 or visit st-clare.<br />
org.<br />
■ SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17<br />
Lenten Retreat. St. James Church, 415 Vincent St., Redondo<br />
Beach, 8 a.m.-12 p.m. Hosted by the Catholic Daughters<br />
of America Court of Our Lady of Victory, this free retreat<br />
led by Msgr. Timothy Nichols invites men and women to<br />
get their spiritual house in order before Easter. Includes<br />
Mass and complimentary continental breakfast. Theme:<br />
“On the Road with Jesus and Mary.” Call Mary Costello at<br />
310-316-0768 or email mmcostello1@verizon.net.<br />
“Don’t Get Robbed by Satan’s Scams” Conference. St.<br />
Didacus Church, 14325 Astoria St., Selma, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.<br />
Led by Father Bob Garon and Dominic Berardino. Topics<br />
include “Old Lies of the New Age” and “God’s Remedies<br />
for the Devil’s Poisons.” Mass and catered lunch included.<br />
Register at events.scrc.org, call 818-771-1361 or email<br />
spirit@scrc.org.<br />
■ TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20<br />
Career Fair. Holy Cross Cemetery, 5835 W. Slauson Ave.,<br />
Culver City, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Open positions in the Archdiocese<br />
of Los Angeles for embalmers, funeral service assistants,<br />
and more. Bring résumé for on-the-spot interviews.<br />
For more information, visit lacatholics.org/event/career-fair.<br />
■ WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21<br />
Record Clearing Virtual Clinic for Veterans. 5-8 p.m.<br />
Legal team will help with traffic tickets, quality of life citations,<br />
and expungement of criminal convictions. Free clinic<br />
is open to all Southern California veterans. Registration<br />
required. Call 213-896-6537 or email inquiries-veterans@<br />
lacba.org.<br />
Items for the calendar of events are due four weeks prior to the date of the event. They may be emailed to calendar@angelusnews.com.<br />
All calendar items must include the name, date, time, address of the event, and a phone number for additional information.<br />
<strong>February</strong> 9, <strong>2024</strong> • ANGELUS • 33