Angelus News | March 22, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 6

ANGELUS 

LET’S TALK, 

AMERICA 

A look at the state of 

U.S. Catholicism in 2024 

March 22, 2024 Vol. 9 No. 6

March 22, 2024 

Vol. 9 • No. 6 

3424 Wilshire Blvd., 

Los Angeles, CA 90010-2241 

(213) 637-7360 • FAX (213) 637-6360 

Published by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese 

of Los Angeles by The Tidings 

(a corporation), established 1895. 

ANGELUS 

Publisher 

ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

Vice Chancellor for Communications 

DAVID SCOTT 

Editor-in-Chief 

PABLO KAY 

pkay@angelusnews.com 

Associate Editor 

MIKE CISNEROS 

Multimedia Editor 

TAMARA LONG-GARCÍA 

Production Artist 

ARACELI CHAVEZ 

Photo Editor 

VICTOR ALEMÁN 

Managing Editor 

RICHARD G. BEEMER 

Assistant Editor 

HANNAH SWENSON 

Advertising Manager 

JIM GARCIA 

jagarcia@angelusnews.com 

ANGELUS is published biweekly by The 

Tidings (a corporation), established 1895. 

Periodicals postage paid at Los Angeles, 

California. One-year subscriptions (26 

issues), $30.00; single copies, $3.00 

© 2021 ANGELUS (2473-2699). No part of this 

publication may be reproduced without the written 

permission of the publisher. Events and products 

advertised in ANGELUS do not carry the implicit 

endorsement of The Tidings Corporation or the 

Archdiocese of Los Angeles. 

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: 

ANGELUS, PO Box 306, Congers, NY 10920-0306. 

For Subscription and Delivery information, please 

call (844) 245-6630 (Mon - Fri, 7 am-4 pm PT). 

FOLLOW US 

facebook.com/AngelusNews 

info@angelusnews.com 

Angelus News 

@AngelusNews 

@AngelusNews 

angelusnews.com 

lacatholics.org 

Sign up for our free, daily e-newsletter 

Always Forward - newsletter.angelusnews.com 

ON THE COVER 

SHUTTERSTOCK 

To cap off a nearly five-decades-long career working in 

Church communications, Francis X. Maier had an ambitious 

book idea: a ‘snapshot’ of the Church in America 

at this time in history that captured both its strengths 

and its sicknesses. On Page 10, Maier shares what he 

took away from hearing more than 100 “confessions”’ 

with American Catholic leaders for the project. On 

Page 20, John L. Allen Jr. offers his own diagnosis of the 

uneasy relationship between U.S. Catholics and Rome 

during the Pope Francis pontificate. 

THIS PAGE 

OSV NEWS PHOTO/RALPH TEDY EROL, 

REUTERS 

Haitians fleeing violence gather to receive meals at 

a school being used for shelter in Port-au-Prince on 

March 4. The day before, Haitian officials declared 

a 72-hour state of emergency following the mass 

jailbreak of more than 5,000 inmates freed by gangs 

attacking a number of state institutions. Leaders 

there fear that the most recent cycle of kidnappings, 

rapes, killings, and civil unrest could result in 

a full-blown civil war.

CONTENTS 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

14 

18 

20 

22 

26 

28 

30 

In local Passion plays, performance is more than mere theater 

Auxiliary Bishop O’Connell ‘still looking out for us’ one year later, friends say 

John Allen on why Pope Francis may foresee a less American church 

Can Catholics step up to face the pro-life battle no one’s talking about? 

Greg Erlandson on polarization, Catholics, and loving our enemy 

A sci-fi writer priest on the new ‘Dune’ film’s religion problem 

Heather King: Thoughts on virtue signaling from Flannery O’Connor 

March 22, 2024 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH 

Time to talk to the kids 

The following is adapted from the 

Holy Father’s March 2 message for 

the first World Children’s Day, to take 

place in Rome on May 25-26, 2024. 

I 

want to speak to each of you, dear 

children, because, as the Bible 

teaches us, and as Jesus showed so 

often, “you are precious” in God’s eyes 

(Isaiah 43:4). 

I encourage you to pay attention to 

the stories of grown-ups: your moms 

and dads, your grandparents and 

great-grandparents. And not to forget 

all those other children and young 

people who are already battling illness 

and hardship, in the hospital or at 

home, and those who even now are 

being cruelly robbed of their childhood. 

We need to hear those voices, 

too, for amid their sufferings they 

remind us of reality, with their tearful 

eyes and with that tenacious yearning 

for goodness that endures in the hearts 

of those who have truly seen the 

horror of evil. 

In order for us and our world to grow 

and flourish, it is not enough to be 

united with one another; we need, 

above all else, to be united with Jesus. 

From him we receive a great deal of 

courage. He is always close to us, his 

Spirit goes before us and accompanies 

us on all the world’s pathways. 

With Jesus, we can dream of the renewal 

of our human family and work 

for a more fraternal society that cares 

for our common home. This starts 

with little things, like saying hello to 

others, asking permission, begging 

pardon, and saying thank you. Our 

world will be changed if we all begin 

with these little things, without being 

ashamed to take small steps, one at 

a time. The fact that we are small 

reminds us that we are also frail and 

need one another as members of one 

body. 

That is not all. We cannot be happy 

all by ourselves, because our joy 

increases to the extent that we share 

it. When we keep the blessings we 

have received to ourselves, or throw 

tantrums to get this or that gift, we 

forget that the greatest gift that we 

possess is ourselves, one another: all of 

us, together, are “God’s gift.” 

Other gifts are nice, but only if they 

help us to be together. If we don’t use 

them for that purpose, we will always 

end up being unhappy; they will never 

be enough. 

Instead, when we are all together, 

everything is different! Think of your 

friends, and how great it is to spend 

time with them: at home, at school, 

in the parish, and the playground, 

everywhere. Friendship is wonderful 

and it grows only in this way: through 

sharing and forgiving, with patience, 

courage, creativity, and imagination, 

without fear and without prejudice. 

Now, I am going to share a special 

secret with you. If we really want to 

be happy, we need to pray, to pray a 

lot, to pray every day, because prayer 

connects us directly to God. Prayer 

fills our hearts with light and warmth; 

it helps us to do everything with 

confidence and peace of mind. Jesus 

constantly prayed to the Father. Do 

you know what Jesus called him? In 

his language, he simply called him 

“Abba,” which means “Daddy.” Let’s 

do the same thing! We will always feel 

that Jesus is close to us. 

Papal Prayer Intention for March: We pray that those who 

risk their lives for the Gospel in various parts of the world 

inflame the Church with their courage and missionary 

enthusiasm. 

2 • ANGELUS • March 22, 2024

NEW WORLD OF FAITH 

ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

The Eucharist commits us to the poor 

On March 12, Archbishop Gomez addressed 

One LA–IAF, a coalition of area 

religious and nonprofit organizations 

promoting social justice. The following is 

adapted from his talk. 

One day, St. Mother Teresa 

found an old woman lying on 

the streets of Calcutta. She was 

homeless, mentally ill, and in a lot of 

pain. 

Mother Teresa took her in, but all 

the while the woman was yelling and 

cursing. At one point she asked: “Why 

are you doing this? Who taught you?” 

Mother Teresa replied: “My God 

taught me.” 

This calmed the woman down a little, 

and she asked: “Who is this God?” 

Mother Teresa responded: “You know 

my God. My God is called Love.” 

This story teaches us a beautiful lesson 

about compassion for the poor. 

It also tells us about the heart of God, 

about the Eucharist, and about our 

commitments as believers. 

Our God is called love. 

And our God so loved the world that 

he sent his only Son to share in our 

humanity, and in the reality of our 

everyday lives. 

And out of love, Jesus laid down his 

life on the cross for you and me, and for 

every person who was ever born or ever 

will be born. 

The Eucharist is the sacrament of his 

great love. 

Jesus left us the Eucharist so that we 

would never forget what he has done 

for us and how much he loves us. And 

he left us the Eucharist so that we 

would never forget his new commandment: 

that we love one another, as he 

has loved us. 

And from the time of the apostles, 

there has always been a close connection 

between the Eucharist and 

Jesus’ command to love our neighbor, 

especially the poor. 

One of the oldest Church documents 

outside the New Testament is called 

“The Teaching of the Apostles.” It dates 

to the early third century, and it contains 

this line: “Widows and orphans 

are to be revered like the altar.” 

Our Eucharistic faith is summed up 

in this beautiful line. 

Jesus taught us that he would be 

present in the bread and wine at the 

altar, but also in the flesh and blood of 

our neighbors, especially the poor and 

suffering. “As you did it to one of the 

least of these my brethren, you did it to 

me,” he told us. 

This is how we are called to live: 

loving and revering Jesus in the Eucharist, 

and putting our love into living 

action in reverent service of the poor. 

The Servant of God Dorothy Day 

lived for nearly 50 years serving the 

poorest of the poor in New York City. 

In her writings, she describes serving 

the most difficult of the homeless, men 

and women broken in body and spirit: 

the mentally ill, those addicted to drugs 

and alcohol. 

Dorothy Day shared in their poverty, 

lived with them under the cruelest of 

conditions. 

She once wrote: “If we hadn’t got 

Christ’s own words for it, it would seem 

raving lunacy to believe that if I offer a 

bed and food and hospitality to some 

man or woman or child … that my 

guest is Christ. … There are no halos 

already glowing around their heads — 

at least none that human eyes can see.” 

Day lived from the Eucharist, which 

she received every day. 

And the Eucharist gave her new eyes 

to see. Not human eyes, but Christ’s 

eyes. As she found Jesus Christ in the 

bread and wine at the altar, she was 

able to see him in everyone she served. 

The Catechism says, “The Eucharist 

commits us to the poor.” 

Jesus calls us to follow him ever more 

deeply into the mystery of human suffering 

and pain, the mystery of poverty 

and injustice. 

He calls us to feed and clothe him in 

the hungry, the thirsty, and the naked. 

He calls us to visit him in the sick and 

the prisoner, and to welcome him in 

the migrant and the refugee. 

He calls us to work for a world that 

is more merciful, and where everyone 

is able to lead a life worthy of human 

dignity. 

Mother Teresa was right: Our God is 

called love. And our God calls us to be 

the servants of his love in the world. 

She used to say, “Our lives are woven 

with Jesus in the Eucharist. In holy 

Communion we have Christ under the 

appearance of bread; in our work we 

find him under the appearance of flesh 

Jesus taught us that he would be present in the 

bread and wine at the altar, but also in the flesh 

and blood of the poor and suffering. 

and blood. It is the same Christ. ‘I was 

hungry, I was naked, I was sick, I was 

homeless.’ ” 

In this time of the national Eucharistic 

Revival, let us weave our lives with 

Jesus in the Eucharist. 

Let us revere him at the altar and in 

the poor and the orphan, and in every 

one of our neighbors, especially those 

most in need. 


WORLD 

■ Do conclaves need to slow down? 

A Church historian has proposed slowing down the conclave 

process for electing future popes to protect against the 

perils of the Information Age. 

In a February 2024 essay in the Italian periodical Il Mulino, 

Alberto Melloni makes the case that papal elections should 

cut the number of daily votes from four to one. If no person 

receives the mandatory two-thirds vote to elect a new pontiff, 

the cardinals would then recess for a day for conversation 

and prayer before casting another vote. 

Melloni claims that modern developments like artificial 

intelligence, mass computing power, and social media make 

it easier for accusations against public figures to emerge 

on a mass scale. A slower conclave, he argues, would allow 

for greater time to protect against the election of a prelate 

connected to clerical abuse scandals by guaranteeing “time 

for conversation and discussion” among cardinals and giving 

candidates more freedom to withdraw from consideration. 

■ France enshrines constitutional 

right to abortion 

France’s Catholic bishops called for prayer and fasting after 

it became the first country to enshrine a right to abortion 

into its constitution. 

Passed in a 780 to 72 vote by both houses of Parliament 

March 4, the amendment states that women have “guaranteed 

freedom” to abort. The change does not expand current 

abortion regulations in France, where it is free of charge and 

allowed up to 14 weeks of pregnancy. 

Pro-life leaders have warned that the constitutional language 

protecting abortion could lead to legal clashes with 

other rights. 

Lucie Pacherie, a lawyer for the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation, 

told OSV News that the amendment elevated the right 

to abortion “to a higher level than other freedoms, such as 

freedom of conscience or freedom of expression” recognized 

by the country’s judiciary. 

Women attend a demonstration against abortion and euthanasia in Versailles, France, 

on March 4. | GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES 

■ A priest and his phone 

bring peace to Mexican city 

A Catholic priest helped end nearly 10 days of gang terror 

in Chilpancingo, Mexico, with a phone call. 

The city in the state of Guerrero had been living in fear 

after rival gangs attacked and killed seven bus drivers. Then, 

in early February, Father José Filiberto Velázquez, leader of 

the nearby Human Rights Center Minerva Bello, got the 

gang leaders together on the phone. 

“I saw a possibility 

to put them in 

contact to solve 

their dispute and I 

did it,” Velázquez 

said. “Both parties 

were willing to 

talk and both of 

them trusted in 

the process.” 

Velázquez is 

part of a national 

program, National 

Dialogue for 

Peace, that was 

launched following 

the murder of 

two Jesuit priests 

in 2022. The 

movement looks to 

leverage Christian 

and nongovernmental 

networks 

to reduce violence 

in the country. 

Father José Filiberto Velázquez. | FACEBOOK 

■ Finland study: Gender transition 

doesn’t lead to less suicide 

Transgender drugs or surgeries do not appear to remedy 

mental health problems in youth, a study from Finland 

found. 

“[The research] does not support the claims that [gender 

reassignment] is necessary in order to prevent suicide,” the 

researchers wrote in the study, published by peer-reviewed 

journal BMJ Mental Health. “[Gender reassignment] has 

also not been shown to reduce even suicidal ideation, and 

suicidal ideation is not equal to actual suicide risk.” 

The study argued that, though the suicide rates of adolescents 

with gender identity struggles are higher than 

the general population, they commonly suffer from other 

underlying psychological problems. The researchers also 

found that suicide remained “rare” among adolescents who 

sought psychiatric help, regardless of whether they received 

such drugs or surgeries. 


NATION 

■ Catholic Chiefs kicker reaches out 

to parade shooting victim’s family 

Kansas City Chiefs kicker and outspoken Catholic Harrison Butker sent one 

of his jerseys to the family of one of the 23 victims of the Feb. 14 Super Bowl 

championship parade. 

Lisa Lopez-Galvan, a Catholic mother of two, was attending the event in a 

Butker jersey. According to her family, Lopez-Galvan was a fan of the player’s 

public witness to his own faith. 

“Hearing that she was a fan of my outspokenness for our shared Catholic 

faith makes this even more personal. I am honored to provide a jersey to the 

family for her to wear,” Butker said in an accompanying message to the family. 

“My wife, Isabelle, and I are heartbroken by the murder of Lisa due to degenerate 

violence. 

Murder is a sin that 

cries out to God 

for vengeance, and 

I pray the men 

involved in this 

tragedy will be 

brought to justice,” 

he said. 

Two men were 

arrested in connection 

to the killing 

spree, which left 

Lopez-Galvan dead 

and 22 children 

and adults wounded. 

Lisa Lopez-Galvan, second from right, stands with her family outside of a church 

in 2022. | OSV NEWS/FACEBOOK 

■ Church Militant to 

shutter after $500,000 

judgment 

Controversial right-wing Catholic website 

Church Militant is shutting down 

after being ordered to pay $500,000 in a 

defamation lawsuit. 

Father Georges de Laire, a priest of the 

Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, 

had sued the site for defamation 

for reporting in 2019 that de Laire 

had “botched” cases in his role as the 

diocese’s judicial vicar. The article was 

published anonymously and cited anonymous 

sources to support its claims. 

Church Militant eventually acknowledged 

they could not substantiate the 

claims or produce the sources, and the 

article was later revealed to have been 

written by a canon lawyer involved in a 

dispute overseen by de Laire. 

The site has long faced criticism for 

its conspiratorial, thinly sourced news 

stories and provocatory headlines. Its 

founder, Michael Voris, was removed 

from its board of directors last year after 

reports of misconduct from former 

employees. 

■ Man charged with 

vandalism, attacking priest 

at Oregon monastery 

A suspect was arrested in connection 

to the Feb. 28 vandalism of a 54-acre 

Marian shrine in Portland, Oregon. 

Police arrived at “The Grotto,” also 

known as the National Sanctuary of 

Our Sorrowful Mother, after shattered 

security cameras triggered an 

automated call. But 57-year-old Paul 

Joseph Yauger, who was reported to 

be “yelling and confrontational,” was 

able to vandalize several rooms and a 

chapel before police could arrest him. 

During the attack, Yauger pushed 

into the room of Father Leo Hambur, 

a member of the Order of Friar 

Servants of Mary who runs the grotto. 

Hambur fled the room after Yauger 

picked up a pair of scissors. 

“The real damage is to the sanctity of 

this place,” Chris Blanchard, executive 

director of the shrine, told media. 

Relics? We got ’em. — Visitors look at a display of 200 relics at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Oratory in Montclair, 

New Jersey, Feb. 24. Nearly 3,500 people from as far as Maine and Maryland waited more than two hours 

to view the relics of Jesus, the Holy Family, various saints, martyrs, and blesseds on exhibit at the oratory. The exhibit 

was organized by the Order of the International Crusade for Holy Relics, which works to rescue and protect 

holy relics from profanation and neglect. | OSV NEWS/SEAN QUINN, COURTESY ARCHDIOCESE OF NEWARK 


LOCAL 

The newly arrived statue of St. Junípero Serra in 

the Mission Basilica San Buenaventura garden. | 

SUBMITTED PHOTO 

■ Padre Serra 

reappears in 

Ventura on 

Leap Day 

A larger-than-life 

bronze statue of 

St. Junípero Serra 

that once stood in 

front of Ventura’s 

City Hall arrived 

at Mission Basilica 

San Buenaventura 

Feb. 29. 

The statue was 

installed atop a 

concrete base in the 

mission’s garden 

area with the help of 

a crane. As previously 

reported in 

the March 8 issue 

of Angelus, the statue’s successful return to the public view 

after being removed from Ventura’s City Hall in 2020 amid 

protests was the result of intense talks between Catholic, 

Native American, and civic leaders. 

“Moving the St. Junípero Serra statue to [the mission] 

underscores our dedication to preserving our community’s 

rich history and honoring the legacy of our earliest residents,” 

said Ventura Mayor Joe Schroeder. 

■ Pope Francis appoints UCLA 

professor to Vatican academy 

Pope Francis has appointed a UCLA astrophysicist to the 

Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences. 

Andrea Mia Ghez, professor of physics and astronomy and 

Astrophysics chair at UCLA, is one of the world’s leading 

experts in observational astrophysics and leads the university’s 

Galactic Center Group. She won a Nobel Prize in 

2020 for her work in helping discover the likely presence 

of a supermassive black hole in the Milky Way’s galactic 

center. 

The Pontifical Academy of Sciences says its mission is 

to honor “pure 

science wherever 

it may be 

found, ensure 

its freedom, 

and encourage 

research for 

the progress of 

science.” Academy 

members 

representing 

countries all 

around the 

world participate 

in study groups 

and meetings to 

examine specific 

scientific issues. 

Andrea Mia Ghez. | ELENA ZHUKOVA/UNIVERSITY OF 

CALIFORNIA 

■ Camarillo churches help 

raise money to fight hunger 

Hundreds of parishioners from Padre Serra 

Church and St. Mary Magdalen Church in 

Camarillo participated in the 2024 Crop Hunger 

Walk, which raises money and awareness 

for local and global hunger-fighting efforts. 

The two Catholic parishes, along with nearby 

St. Columba’s Episcopal Church, Trinity 

Presbyterian Church, Mount Cross Lutheran 

Church, and St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox 

Church, took part in the 2.8-mile walk at Pitts 

Ranch Park on March 10. 

The walk has raised more than $28,000 so far 

and funds will support local programs — St. 

Mary Magdalen Christian Service Program, 

St. Columba’s food pantry, Christians Acting 

Together thrift store, and RAIN Transitional 

Living Center — as well as internationally. 

Last year, organizers said they raised a 

record-breaking $27,000. Supporters can still 

donate at crophungerwalk.org. 

A shared spirit of peace — The Ecumenical & Interreligious Officer for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, 

Rt. Rev. Alexei Smith, right, was joined by Rabbi Lana Zilberman Soloway of Congregation Or 

Ami in Calabasas, Ghadir Haney, a Muslim social activist from Israel, Father Saba Haj, a Palestinian 

Greek Orthodox priest from Israel, and Rabbi Or Sohar, a reform rabbi from Israel, for a “Spirit of 

the Galilee” panel discussion at St. Mel Church in Woodland Hills Feb. 27. | SUBMITTED PHOTO 

Y 


V 

IN OTHER WORDS... 

Letters to the Editor 

Gratitude for a beloved saint’s return 

Reading “Standing Up for Serra” in the March 8 issue brought me back 

to August 2020, when I watched the statue of our beloved St. Junípero 

Serra removed from in front of the Ventura City Hall under the cloak of darkness. 

I fell to my knees and wept for the tragic events that led to this, for the lies that were 

told about him, for the threatened violence by a small number of activists willing to 

vandalize and desecrate public property to advance their beliefs, and for the rising 

wave of anti-Christian rhetoric that was beginning to sweep our country. It felt so 

much like being present at the crucifixion and witnessing the suffering of an innocent 

and holy man. 

But I was blessed to be there when the statue returned, in the light of day, to Ventura 

on Feb. 29 and was installed in the garden of Mission Basilica San Buenaventura. 

As God can bring good out of the evil he permits, more people are aware of who 

Serra is. Today we can honor him and follow in his footsteps, continuing his mission 

to bring the good news to the people of California. Last year 300 people walked 35 

miles over two days in the annual St. Junípero Serra Walking Pilgrimage, covering 

the Santa Barbara to Ventura Mission portion of the California Camino mission 

trail. Siempre Adelante! 

— Greg Wood is the coordinator of the St. Serra Pilgrimage (stserrapilgrimage.org) 

Serra statue is where it should be 

Thank you for your story on the return of the Father Serra statue in the March 8 

issue. 

It was with great joy that I saw the Father Serra statue returned and now in a fitting 

place at Mission Basilica San Buenaventura. There were many who worked for a 

peaceful resolution to the placement of this statue, and I’m glad he is at the last mission 

he personally founded. As a mission docent, I can use this statue and its return 

for enhancing our discussion of the California mission era and Father Serra’s vision 

for the missions and his great love for the people here. 

— Mary Mellein, Ventura 

Y 

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

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

may be edited for style, brevity, and clarity. 

Moving memories of ‘Bishop Dave’ 

A miter belonging to late 

Auxiliary Bishop David G. 

O’Connell is brought forward 

at the start of a Feb. 24 

memorial Mass at Mission 

San Gabriel marking a year 

since his death. | VICTOR 

ALEMÁN 

View more photos 

from this gallery at 

AngelusNews.com/photos-videos 

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

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

“What will artificial 

intelligence make of the 

notion of hell? Will the 

robots laugh?” 

~ Lance Morrow, in a March 7 Wall Street Journal 

commentary on how we think about hell. 

“My revenge is called love, 

my shield forgiveness, my 

armor mercy. I will not dwell 

on obstacles, nor will I be 

frightened by the darkness.” 

~ Father Felice Palamara, a priest in Cessaniti, Italy, 

who discovered bleach in his Communion chalice 

while celebrating Mass last month. A local mafia 

upset at the priest’s opposition to organized crime 

is believed to be behind the poisoning attempt. 

“No political party can 

adequately answer to the 

radical demands of the 

Gospel.” 

~ Jennifer Newsome Martin, new director of Notre 

Dame’s Center for Ethics and Culture, in a March 4 

OSV News article on her becoming the first woman 

to lead the center. 

“It’s possible that we have 

hit peak almond.” 

~ Caity Peterson, associate director of the Public 

Policy Institute of California’s Water Policy Center, 

in a March 4 LA Times article on California’s 

almond industry struggles. 

“I learned gratitude as if it 

were a math formula.” 

~ Devin Kelly, in a March 7 Longreads commentary 

on him learning how to ride a bike and how to drive 

a car at age 32. 


IN EXILE 

FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI 

Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father 

Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual 

writer; ronrolheiser.com 

Aging as a natural monastery 

What is a monastery? How do 

monasteries work? St. Benedict 

(A.D. 480-547), who 

is considered the founder of Western 

monasticism, offered this counsel as 

an essential rule for his monks: “Stay 

in your cell and it will teach all you 

need to know.” Properly understood, 

this is a rich metaphor, not a literal 

counsel. When he is telling a monk 

to stay in his cell and let it teach him 

what he needs to know, he is not 

referring to a literal monk’s cell in a 

monastery. He is referring to the state 

of life in which a monk or anyone 

else finds himself or herself. 

Sometimes this has been expressed 

in Christian spirituality as being 

faithful to your duties of state. The 

idea here being that if you are faithful 

in love and in good heart to the 

situation in life in which you find 

yourself, life itself will bring you to 

maturity and virtue. 

For example, a mother who gives 

herself over in selflessness and 

fidelity to raising her children will 

be brought to maturity and altruism 

through that process. Her home will 

be her monk’s cell and she will be 

metaphorically the abbess of the 

monastery (with some very young 

monks) and staying inside that 

monastery, her home, will teach her 

all she needs to know. She will be 

raising children, but they will also be 

raising her. Motherhood will teach 

her what she needs to know and will 

turn her into a wise elder, a biblical 

and archetypal Sophia. 

The process of aging is a natural 

monastery. If we live long enough, 

eventually the aging process turns 

everyone into a monk. Monks take 

four vows: poverty, chastity, obedience, 

and perseverance. The process 

of aging which moves us (seemingly 

without mercy) toward marginalization, 

dependence on others, and 

into a living situation from which 

there will be no escape, in a manner 

of speaking, imposes those four vows 

on us. 

But, as St. Benedict counsels, this 

can teach us all we need to know, 

and has a unique power to mature 

us in a very deep way. Monks have 

secrets worth knowing. So does the 

aging process. 

This can be particularly instructive 

vis-à-vis how we can make our final 

days and our death a more radical 

gift to others. In the first centuries of 

Christianity, martyrdom was seen as 

the ideal way for a Christian to end 

his or her days here on earth. It was 

seen as a radical way of imitating 

Christ and giving your death away as 

a gift. 

Of course, this had to be rethought 

after Christianity became the state 

religion and emperors no longer 

martyred Christians. What followed 

then were various attempts at doing 

this, metaphorically martyrdom. One 

fairly popular way of doing it was 

that, after raising their children and 

reaching retirement, a couple would 

leave each other, and each would 

go off to a separate monastery and 

live out the rest of his or her life as a 

monk or a nun. 

Classical Christian mystics speak 

about how in the last phase of our 

lives we should enter something they 

call the dark night of the spirit, namely, 

that we proactively make a radical 

decision grounded in faith to move 

into a situation in life where we can 

no longer take care of ourselves but 

must trust, in raw faith, that God will 

provide for us. This parallels Hindu 

spirituality which suggests that in 

the last, fully mature stage of life we 

should become a sannyasin, a holy 

old beggar. 

I suspect that most of us will never 

proactively cut off all our former 

securities and, on purpose, place ourselves 

in a situation within which we 

are helpless to provide for and take 

care of ourselves. But this is where 

nature steps in. The aging process 

will do it for us. It will turn us into 

a sannyasin and put us into the dark 

night of the spirit. 

How? As we age and our health 

declines and we find ourselves more 

marginalized in terms of having a 

vital place within society, we will 

progressively lose our capacity to take 

care of ourselves. Eventually, if we 

live long enough, for many of us it 

will mean moving into an assisted 

facility, which is in effect a natural 

monastery. 

This metaphor is also apropos for 

what it means to (by conscription) 

enter the dark night of the spirit and 

what it means to be a holy old beggar, 

a sannyasin. In essence it means 

this: When someone is in an assisted 

living facility, irrespective of whether 

he or she is a millionaire or a pauper, 

the rules are the same for everyone. 

Since you can no longer take care of 

yourself (and indeed you don’t have 

to) you live a monastic life of obedience 

and dependence. 

In assisted living, you live by the 

monastic bell and you die as a holy 

old beggar. 


CONFESSION TIME 

FOR AMERICA 

A veteran Church communicator interviewed more than 100 people to 

get a ‘snapshot’ of the Church in the U.S. today. Here’s what he heard. 

BY PABLO KAY 

What’s really going on in the 

Catholic Church in the United 

States right now? 

In many parts of the country, the hard 

numbers reflect a sobering reality: 

declines in baptisms, marriages, and 

ordinations to the priesthood; closing 

parishes and shrinking dioceses. In others, 

signs of growth where immigrants 

seem to be counteracting those trends. 

What’s harder to pin down is the 

overall “mood” of Catholics in the U.S. 

Lately, they’ve witnessed a reawakening 

of the clergy sexual abuse crisis, 

endured the effects of a pandemic, and 

been largely indifferent to an ongoing 

synod styled as a listening exercise that 

sought out their input on the state of 

Father Liam McDonald, pastor of St. Therese of 

Lisieux Church in Montauk, New York, holds a monstrance 

containing the Blessed Sacrament as he leads 

a Eucharistic procession in Montauk in observance of 

Religious Freedom Day Jan. 16, 2022. | OSV NEWS/ 

CNS FILE/GREGORY A. SHEMITZ 

the Church. 

At the same time, words like “vibrant” 

and “robust” are frequently used by 


leaders — particularly bishops — to 

describe thriving ministries and success 

stories. Enthusiasm is building toward 

the National Eucharistic Revival 

planned by the country’s bishops, set to 

culminate with a large-scale pilgrimage 

to Indianapolis this summer. 

But rather than try to break down the 

numbers and figures, veteran Church 

communicator Francis X. Maier had 

a different idea: Talk to Americans 

serving the Church — bishops, priests, 

and laypeople — give them the option 

of remaining anonymous (in order to 

be able to speak more freely) and gather 

their thoughts in a book. 

The result, titled “True Confessions” 

(Ignatius Press, $24.95) represents a 

doctor’s checkup of sorts on the state of 

the U.S. church, offering 

a snapshot of its hopes and 

fears, as well as its strengths 

and its sicknesses. After 

reading it, I asked Maier, 

who’s had a storied career 

as a screenwriter, journalist, 

and senior adviser to 

retired Archbishop Charles 

Chaput (in both Denver 

and Philadelphia) about 

his experience with the 

project and what he took 

away from it. 

You frame this book as 

a big undertaking: an 

attempt to take a “snapshot” 

of the Church in 

the United States at this 

moment in history. What 

prompted you to take 

something like this on? 

I had the kind of experiences 

that allowed me to do it: I 

worked in and around the Church for 

nearly five decades, first as a journalist, 

then as a diocesan staffer, and then 23 

years as senior aide to a metropolitan 

archbishop. The clergy and laypeople 

I worked with were overwhelmingly 

good people. I loved the Church when 

I started, and over the years I saw both 

the best and the worst in the Church 

in an intimate way; a way laypeople 

rarely do. At the end of it all, I love her 

even more now than when I began. So 

when you approach the end of a good 

career, you want to take stock and sum 

up what you’ve learned and seen as a 

record to be shared with others. 

“True Confessions” is based on 103 

interviews I did over a 17-month period 

with bishops — 30 of them from 25 

different states and one overseas diocese 

— other clergy and religious, and 

laypeople. I avoided the extremes in the 

Church. I focused on faithful people 

sincerely trying to live what the Church 

believes and teaches. And I think what 

emerges is an honest portrait of American 

Catholic life in the third decade 

of the 21st century: There’s a lot of 

very sobering candor. There’s nothing 

Pollyannaish about any of the content; 

but there’s also a deep well of fidelity, 

energy, and hope that rarely gets mass 

media attention. 

I’ve been disappointed with foreign, 

including Roman, criticism of the U.S. 

church over the past decade. It hasn’t 

been fair, and the people I worked 

alongside deserve better. I was struck 

some years ago by a piece in La Civilta 

Cattolica, which was remarkably 

ill-informed. I could have done a better 

and more accurate job of naming the 

problems in U.S. Catholic life myself. 

The article was a disservice to the many 

people in this country who actually 

live and do the work of the Gospel. 

It operated out of an ignorance and 

questionable spirit that left a permanent 

bad taste. And it hasn’t been an isolated 

example. 

In the book’s introduction, you write: 

“The Church is the soul of the world 

and the leaven of a just society. To live 

that mandate, she needs to recover 

her health and mission. But an illness 

can be addressed and healed only 

when it’s named.” So, after all the 

work you put into this book, what is 

the illness? 

In the process 

of assimilating, 

we tend to 

absorb the flaws 

of American culture 

along with 

its positives. We 

forget our history 

and therefore 

our identity 

President Donald Trump 

and Democratic presidential 

nominee Joe Biden 

participate in their final 

2020 U.S. presidential 

campaign debate at 

Belmont University in 

Nashville, Tennessee, 

Oct. 22, 2020. | CNS/ 

MIKE SEGAR, REUTERS 

and missionary mandate as a believing 

community. We become unmoored 

from our foundations. As a result, a lot 

of Catholics live their faith as a good 

ethical code that more or less guides 

their sense of right and wrong. But the 

supernatural stakes at the heart of the 

faith are forgotten, and that eventually 

kills belief. You can see it in a variety of 

ways: the urgency to conform ourselves 

to popular opinion on sexuality issues, 

for example. There’s a great desire not 

to be different; not to be cut out of the 

herd. 

Tocqueville noted 200 years ago that 

Americans, for all our talk about de- 


mocracy, equality, free will, and individualism, 

tend to be creatures of public 

opinion. If public opinion is running 

against the Church, then many of us 

will lean in that direction. So that’s a 

huge problem now: this desire to not be 

embarrassed by Church teachings that 

are inconvenient for secular society. 

There’s a lot of talk these days about 

polarization and political ideology 

in the Church. But is there a deeper 

“illness” you think might be afflicting 

Catholics, regardless of whether 

they’re so-called liberals or conservatives? 

Look, I want to get to heaven, and a 

Christian life lived well is the way to do 

it. But that gets obscured, particularly 

in an election year, by whether you’re 

voting for Biden because of this, or for 

Trump because of that. I think both 

men are embarrassments to our system 

of government, and a further sign of the 

turmoil in our culture. 

Politics is about getting and using 

power, and power is our favorite golden 

calf, no matter how we dress it up with 

moralizing language. That’s especially 

true in a time of rapid social change, 

which is where we are right now. Confusion 

feeds anxiety, which feeds our 

Ben Lash receives Communion during an Oct. 28, 2018, 

Mass for people with special needs at Jesus the Divine 

Word Church in Huntingtown, Maryland. | CNS/BOB 

ROLLER 

appetite for control, which makes us 

unhinged in some of our most important 

choices. 

We’re living through a kind of new 

Reformation. I mean a literal re-formation 

or restructuring of the way we look 

at the world and ourselves. And it can 

get very painful and very dangerous. 

In a technologically dominant society, 

the supernatural can seem implausible. 

The political environment will reflect 

that. So if we really believe there’s 

something more than this world and 

this life, then we can’t be purely political 

animals. We have to see beyond 

politics, because it always has a dark 

side. But that’s very hard to do when 

you’re wrapped in a 24/7 media cocoon 

that’s often toxic and misleading. 

The question of whether Trump 

or Biden is “better” from a Catholic 

perspective is almost irrelevant to the 

real issues of the moment. Both men 

are expressions, more than the cause, 

of our culture’s deeper contradictions. 

You can’t build a healthy society on the 

worship of more and better stuff, faster. 

But that’s what American life now tries 

to do. I want a world where my kids and 

grandkids can feed their souls as well as 

their stomachs; where they can deepen 

their faith in a loving and just God and 

practice their religious convictions in a 

way that makes the world better. I just 

don’t see that happening this year or 

next, no matter who gets elected. 

It doesn’t absolve us as Catholics from 

political involvement, but we need 

a cold shower in reality about what 

politics can accomplish, what it can’t, 

where it’s leading us, and where it 

stands in our priorities. 

The concerns that people voice in 

“True Confessions” track pretty closely 

with what I’ve just said. They know 

there’s something more than all this turmoil, 

and they want something deeper 

and more life-giving than a culture of 

relentless conflict and name-calling, 

both of which invade even the Church. 

One of the bishops you interviewed 

said: “I think we all need to realize, 

not just bishops but all of us, that 

we’ll face a much less friendly climate 

in this country going forward.” After 

your work on this book, what do you 

think the Church can do to equip 

my generation to have kids and raise 

families in this less-friendly future? 

We can start by helping our people be 

more uncomfortable with this country. 

Patriotism, properly understood, is an 

important Christian virtue. It’s a form 

of filial love for the best ideals of our 

nation. But real love is always anchored 

in truth, and the truth is — I heard 

versions of this again and again while 

working on “True Confessions” — we 

Francis X. Maier | 

SUBMITTED PHOTO 

now have a culture that turns mature 

citizens into self-absorbed consumers 

led by even more self-absorbed and 

self-flattering leaders. That doesn’t end 

well. 

My generation, the Baby Boomer 

Catholics, were educated to be good 

Americans, to assimilate, to be part of 

the program. And we can be proud of 

some of the things we’ve contributed 

and achieved. But we don’t really 

“fit” here on some fundamental level. 

Again, that doesn’t give us the right to 

abandon our public engagement — 

quite the opposite. But this world, this 

country, isn’t our home, and we’ve lost 

that knowledge, which is biblical. The 

New Testament says that here “we have 

no lasting city, but we seek the city 

which is to come.” We need to recover 

that wisdom. 

Unless we develop a more reserved 

and critical relationship with our current 

culture, we’re not doing our job as 

Christians. 

Two of the biggest “disruptor” moments 

for priests in the last couple of 

decades have been the sexual abuse 

crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Based on your interviews with priests 


for this book, which of the two left a 

bigger mark? 

The abuse crisis. Quite apart from the 

damage done to victims by a minority 

of bad clergy, the other lingering 

wound — innocent priests not fully 

trusting their bishops — comes from 

the worry that they could be thrown 

overboard to protect the institution 

based on a false allegation. It’s not 

a universal feeling. But as that 2022 

survey of priests from the Catholic 

University of America suggested, it’s a 

significant issue with a lot of priests. 

Somebody might read this book and 

dismiss it as kind of a dark assessment 

of things. How would you respond? Is 

there hope out there? 

“True Confessions” is only “dark” if 

you over-focus on the words of criticism. 

But there’s much more than that 

to the text. 

Every good Christian marriage has a 

framework of love and a spirit of trust; 

it also has a boatload of candor that can 

sometimes get pretty blunt. A faithful 

life in the Church is very much the 

same. People don’t invest their lives 

and waste their time on things they 

don’t love. And the voices in “True 

Confessions” are passionate about their 

love for the Church: their confidence 

and hope and joy in the Church. They 

prove it with their lives. In the end, 

we’re defined by what we do; that’s why 

it’s called the Acts of the Apostles, and 

not their big ideas or frustrated complaints. 

Every person interviewed in “True 

Confessions” confesses Jesus Christ 

by the witness of his or her life. I’ve 

read the interviews in Chapter 6, 

with parents of children with special 

needs, more than a hundred times. I’m 

moved every time. I don’t know where 

that kind of unselfconscious love and 

heroism comes from, but I’ve found it 

again and again throughout my life in 

the Church. 

It’s impossible to come away from 

such people afraid or discouraged. So 

I believe very strongly that if you read 

“True Confessions,” you’re going to 

finish it with a spirit of hope. Because 

people really do believe. They really do 

have joy. And they’re committed to the 

future of the Church. 

IGNATIUS PRESS 

Francis X. Maier is currently a Senior 

Fellow in the Catholic Studies Program 

at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. 

Pablo Kay is the editor-in-chief of 

Angelus. 

U.S. Catholics anonymous 

Here is a sampling of some noteworthy quotes given anonymously from “True Confessions.” 

We can no longer count on the culture to support a 

Christian life. What we’ve got now in our country is, at best, 

a tolerance of religion as a personal hobby for superstitious 

weak people who cling to their childhood dreams. At worst, 

more and more, we’re dealing with a real hatred, an outright 

bigotry, toward religious faith. 

— Bishop, urban diocese 

Clericalism has two faces. It’s both the laity sitting back and 

expecting the clergy to do everything. And then, obviously, 

there’s the clerical hierarchy, which assumes and sometimes 

misuses its authority. 

— Married laywoman, theologian, and ministry executive 

The Church in the United States is much less corrupt with 

much more freedom and many more resources than in many 

other places. And there are many more opportunities for lay 

leadership, including women’s leadership, in the American 

Church. We need to acknowledge and take pride in that. 

— Single laywoman and ministry leader 

Whenever I get down or angry, I compare the good that’s 

happening here with the state of the Church in A.D. 1000. 

It was a debacle, a disaster beyond belief, and yet we came 

through. So, I have a lot of hope. 

— Bishop, urban diocese 

The political environment in the United States today is 

forcing all of us to wake up to the new realities. Men who 

were wishy-washy and could hide from some of the hot issues 

before . . . well, nobody can hide anymore. 

— Bishop, urban/rural diocese 

We’re no longer arguing about how to get to a commonly 

shared goal. Now we have warring goals. 

— Bishop, urban/rural diocese, on the spike in anger and 

anxiety in the country since 2020 

If Christ doesn’t come back and end the whole thing tomorrow, 

it’s worth continuing to fight for the ultimate victory. 

— Veteran priest in a letter 


PERFORMANCE PREACHING 

Passion plays are popular among Spanish-language parishes, 

but their appeal goes beyond a simple production. 

BY THERESA CISNEROS 

Members of Comunidad 

Primera Corintios 13 at Christ 

the King Church practice on a 

recent Sunday for their annual 

Passion play. | MIKE CISNEROS 

Christian Escobar has been involved, 

in one form or another, 

with the annual Passion play at 

Christ the King Church in Hollywood 

since he was 4. 

From watching his father sew the 

group’s first costumes, to playing the 

role of a centurion this year, Escobar 

has deep ties to the production, now 

in its 37th year. 

For Escobar, the play is about more 

than just acting. It’s a way for him to 

mature in his faith, bond with the 

church community, and evangelize. 

“Ever since I can remember I’ve 

enjoyed being a part of this,” said 

Escobar, now 42. “It’s something that 

I have grown to love and appreciate.” 

Escobar is among scores of Catholics 

across the Archdiocese of Los Angeles 

who will appear in Spanish-language 


Christ the King’s passion play has been 

performed at more than 50 locations over 

the past 37 years. | COMUNIDAD PRIMERA 

CORINTIOS 13 

Passion plays reenacting Christ’s final 

hours during Holy Week. 

Passion plays emerged as a popular 

evangelization tool in medieval 

Europe, and were later brought to the 

Americas by missionaries, said Father 

Juan Ochoa, pastor of Christ the 

King and director of the archdiocese’s 

Office for Divine Worship. 

The plays found fertile ground in 

Mexico, he said, where Spanish missionaries 

used them to teach indigenous 

tribes that human sacrifices were 

unnecessary because God had already 

sacrificed his only Son for them. 

Today, Passion plays remain popular 

largely with the archdiocese’s Mexican 

community, he said, especially 

among those who can relate to a 

suffering Jesus. 

“It’s one thing to read in the Bible 

about the passion of Jesus,” he said. 

“But when you’re there watching, 

it completely comes alive in a very 

different way.” 

At Christ the King, Comunidad Primera 

Corintios 13 — an organization 

that began as a youth group and now 

engages multiple generations — will 

present a Passion play depicting the 

Last Supper through Jesus’ crucifixion. 

The production — which will be 

shown at the parish and at St. Ferdinand 

Church in San Fernando this 

year — has been performed at more 

than 50 locations over the years, said 

Maria Elena Burgos, who’s been with 

the group since its infancy. 

At St. Emydius Church in Lynwood, 

about 60 people have been gearing up 

since December to perform for about 

2,500 spectators, said organizer Efrain 

Alvarez. 

The group has performed for 19 

consecutive years, Alvarez said, and 

actors are poised to reenact various 

Gospels from Holy Thursday through 

Easter Sunday. 

And at St. Marcellinus Church in 

Commerce, parishioners are getting 

ready to stage a series of dramatizations 

on Good Friday just as they’ve 

done for the last 10 years, said director 

Luis Carlos Betancourt. 

Services will begin with a Via Crucis 

St. Marcellinus Church parishioners stage a series 

of dramatizations every Good Friday depicting 

Christ’s final hours. | ST. MARCELLINUS 


— or Stations of the Cross — procession 

in the streets, followed by a 

rosary, readings, Gospel dramatizations, 

and veneration of the cross at 

the church, he said. 

Many of those who help stage these 

annual productions say they’ve seen 

the theatrical works change the lives 

— and hearts — of both the actors 

and the audience. 

Miguel Angel Huerta, for example, 

has played Jesus in Christ the King’s 

Passion play numerous times since 

joining the cast in 2017. To prepare 

for the role, he ensures he’s in a state 

of grace and prays before the Blessed 

Sacrament, improving his personal 

and family life in the process. 

“My life completely changed,” he 

said. “I never thought that I’d be 

where I am spiritually.” 

Guadalupe Ramirez has served as a 

coordinator for St. Emydius’ Passion 

play for more than 10 years and said 

that doing so has deepened her faith, 

introduced her to new ministries, and 

brought her a renewed appreciation 

for Christ’s death and resurrection. 

“I have learned so much by being 

part of this,” she said. “We have a tendency 

of going to Mass and leaving, 

but we don’t know what the Church 

offers after that. It’s not only Mass that 

the Church is capable of offering us. 

There’s so much behind that.” 

Escobar said he sees the church’s 

annual play as a way to transmit the 

Gospel, by showing spectators that 

Christ is there to love them and save 

them. 

“A lot of times people are crying, 

they’re relating, the message hits 

them,” he said. “And that’s one of the 

best feelings, just knowing that we 

spread the message.” 

For Betancourt, the Via Crucis is also 

a form of evangelization. Rather than 

performing Stations of the Cross at 

the parish, the group stops at various 

homes, where families read pre-written 

reflections aloud. Many times, 

however, they scrap the script when 

an actor playing a beleaguered Jesus 

arrives at their doorstep. 

“The beautiful part about this,” he 

said, “is that often when Christ arrives 

and falls to his feet at their station, it 

touches their heart. Often, what they 

had planned to say in their reflection 

completely changes because they are 

opening their conscience and their 

heart. And that is the work of God.” 

Many of those involved in bringing 

the acts to life say they hope to continue 

to do so for years to come. 

Burgos said that although many 

in her group are now parents or 

grandparents, they still feel called to 

perform and encourage their families 

to join the cast as well. Participating 

alongside their offspring has helped 

strengthen their faith and give them 

the ability to spread the Gospel to a 

new generation, she said. 

“We realize that God wants us to 

continue,” she said. “And as long as 

God allows us, we’ll be there.” 

Theresa Cisneros is a freelance journalist 

with 24 years of experience in 

the news industry. She is a fourth-generation 

Southern California resident 

and lives in Orange County with her 

husband and four children. 



Staff from the 

archdiocese’s San 

Gabriel regional office 

processed in with a 

portrait of Auxiliary 

Bishop David G. 

O’Connell at the start 

of a Feb. 24 memorial 

Mass marking a year 

since his death. 

LA’s ‘man of the heavens’ 

One year after his death, friends say the spiritual legacy of 

Auxiliary Bishop David O’Connell is becoming more apparent. 

BY PABLO KAY / PHOTOGRAPHY BY VICTOR ALEMÁN 

One year since the death of Auxiliary Bishop David G. 

O’Connell, the shock over his murder has largely 

worn off, the tributes have died down, and the 

billboards that briefly lit up Los Angeles freeways flashing his 

smiling face are gone. 

While a grieving city may have begun moving on, a portrait 

of “Bishop Dave,” as a priest and a man, has come more 

sharply into focus. 

“He was a mystic in the sense of his love affair with Christ,” 

his friend Msgr. Timothy Dyer, pastor of St. Patrick Church 

and St. Stephen Church in South LA, said in his homily at 

a Feb. 24 memorial Mass marking a year since O’Connell’s 

death. “All that he did in the streets and people’s homes, all 

the places he went to when he was bishop, he was conscious 

of this love in Christ in his own life.” 

His purpose in life, Dyer said, was “to bring that love to 

others.” 

But rather than memorialize the bishop, the Saturday 

morning Mass at Mission San Gabriel Árcangel’s Chapel 

of the Annunciation was mostly a chance to reflect on what 

O’Connell left behind, and what he was still doing. 

“He’s still looking out for us,” said his longtime friend, 

former LA County Sheriff Jim McDonnell, who attended 

the Mass with his wife, Kathy. “We continue to move forward 

with his guidance and more so, his inspiration.” 

McDonnell first met the future bishop when he was a 

young LAPD officer and O’Connell was a young priest working 

the same tough streets of South LA. Their friendship was 

forged from a common concern for the people they served — 

and their shared Irish heritage. 

“He was kind of a man of the heavens, but a man of the 

streets,” said McDonnell, whose friendship with O’Connell 

continued from those early days. 

At the service, both Dyer and Msgr. Jarlath Cunnane, 

O’Connell’s closest friend and compatriot, highlighted a 

little-known episode of O’Connell’s life: the interior crisis he 

experienced after being named a bishop. 

“It was terribly traumatic for him, and he went into this 

darkness,” said Dyer of O’Connell’s struggle to accept leaving 

South LA. “He knew he was going to have to leave the life 

he’d been living for nearly 40 years.” 

Later, Cunnane said that in overcoming that crisis, O’Con- 


nell broke through to “a new 

The late bishop’s close friend 

dependence on God.” 

Msgr. Jarlath Cunnane, pastor 

of St. Cornelius Church in 

“His prayer became more mystical,” 

said Cunnane. “He became 

Long Beach, speaks at the end 

of the Feb. 24 memorial Mass. 

more uninhibited in his faith, in his 

love for Jesus and for the Blessed 

Mother.” 

He also recalled how O’Connell jokingly questioned his 

appointment by quipping that while there was a shortage of 

vocations of young men for the priesthood, “there was no 

shortage of vocations among young priests wanting to be 

bishops.” 

“His comment, not mine,” said Cunnane to waves of laughter 

in the church. 

O’Connell’s mark was felt throughout the liturgy celebrated 

by Archbishop José H. Gomez, together with four LA 

auxiliary bishops and more than 30 priests. During holy 

Communion the choir sang the Irish prayer known as “St. 

Patrick’s Breastplate”: “Christ beside me, Christ before me, 

Christ behind me,” and after, the words of a prayer meditation 

O’Connell used to teach: “Welcome to my heart, Lord 

Jesus.” 

After the Mass, Archbishop Gomez led a procession of 

people next door to the sacristy of the recently remodeled 

Mission San Gabriel, where he blessed an exhibit with 

mementos from the slain bishop’s life, including vestments, 

pictures, and his Jerusalem Bible. 

Many of the more than 700 people at the service hailed 

from parishes where they’d met O’Connell as a priest. 

Esperanza Navarro came from St. Frances X. Cabrini 

Church in South LA, where O’Connell served for more than 

15 years. She has an image of O’Connell on her prayer altar 

at home, where she makes time to ask for his intercession in 

prayer. 

“He loved our community, and all of us — people of all ages 

— loved him,” said Navarro. “He had that gift of knowing 

how to be with people.” 

Others noted how they still benefit from the practical prayer 

techniques he’d taught them, like making time during the 

day to tell Jesus “I love you” or reciting the “prayer of the 

heart” regularly. 

“He was a part of my very early faith formation, and just 

planted a seed that has grown ever since,” said Juliette Cacigas, 

who was a student at St. Hilary Catholic School in Pico 

Rivera when O’Connell was assigned to the parish in the 

mid-’80s. 

Decades later, just a few months before his death last February, 

O’Connell helped lead a first-year retreat for couples in 

the archdiocese’s diaconate formation program. She and her 

husband, Rafael, were among them. 

“It feels like it 

After the Mass, 

Archbishop José H. 

Gomez and more 

than 30 priests 

blessed a special 

exhibit with some 

of O’Connell’s 

belongings in the 

sacristy of Mission 

San Gabriel. 

came full circle, 

and it’s been a 

tragedy and heartbreak 

this year,” 

said Cacigas, who 

now attends St. 

Bruno Church in 

Whittier. 

During his 

homily, Dyer said 

that rather than 

let O’Connell “rest in peace,” it 

was time to turn to his intercession 

in helping address the continued 

violence, homelessness, and crime 

plaguing society, especially in LA. 

“I say we shouldn’t let Dave rest at 

all,” said Dyer, fighting back tears. 

“We should call on him all the 

time. I think he’d like that.” 

Pablo Kay is the editor-in-chief of 

Angelus. 


A TELLING TRANSITION 

The changing relationship between the U.S. Church 

and Rome isn’t just about Pope Francis. 

BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR. 

Pope Francis arrives to 

give a talk at St. Patrick 

in the City Church in 

Washington, D.C., Sept. 

24 during his visit to the 

United States in 2015. | 

CNS/PAUL HARING 

ROME — There’s a tendency in 

journalism to over-interpret virtually 

every development or trend 

that comes down the pike, in order to 

lend our stories sex appeal. “Nothing 

really to see here” might well be the 

truth of many situations, but it’s hardly 

a prescription for drawing eyeballs or 

selling papers. 

So it is that over the past 11 years, reporters 

and commentators on the Pope 

Francis papacy have tended to play up 

perceptions of a rift between the liberal 

pope and a more conservative Church 

in the United States, particularly as it 

concerns the American bishops — and, 

of course, there have been just enough 

outspokenly dissident prelates in the 

country to keep that narrative alive. 

Reality, however, is a bit less dramatic 

than these perceptions of fractures and 

schisms would suggest. 

The most recent Gallup survey, 

released in mid-January, found that 

Francis enjoys a 58% approval rating 

among Americans generally. When you 

consider that the two major party candidates 

for president, Donald Trump and 

Joe Biden, currently have approval ratings 

of 42 and 38 percent respectively, 

the pope’s comparatively robust support 

can’t help but seem fairly impressive. 

More remarkable still, Francis is seen 

positively by 77% of American Catholics. 

Given the notoriously fissiparous 

state of American Catholic opinion on 

most matters — let’s face it, it probably 

would be tough to get 77% of American 

Catholics to agree on what day of 

the week it is today — that too seems 

striking. 

Granted, Gallup also found that 

Francis’ negatives are now at all-time 

highs, both among the general population 

and with Catholics specifically. 

Yet after 11 contentious years in office, 

and in an extremely polarized era, the 

fact that the pope still has such strong 

overall backing probably should be the 

biggest takeaway. 

With that caveat, however, there’s 

equally no denying the fact that the 

Francis era has been a turbulent period 

for the Church in the U.S. In both 

substance and style, history’s first pope 

from the developing world has sometimes 

proven disorienting for many 

American Catholics. 

Ad extra, meaning in terms of the 

Church’s engagement with the wider 

world, Francis is reorienting Catholicism, 

and the Vatican specifically, away 

from being a predominantly Western 

institution to a truly global one. His 

policies on China, for instance, or on 

Ukraine, or on Gaza, align far more 


closely with those of the “BRICS 

nations” (Brazil, Russia, India, China, 

and South Africa among them, as the 

acronym suggests) than they do with 

the White House, even under a liberal 

administration led by a Catholic and 

self-professed Francis admirer. 

Ad intra, with regard to the internal 

life of the Church, Francis is pursuing 

a program of “synodality,” a difficult 

term to define with precision but 

which, in broad strokes refers to a more 

participatory and inclusive ecclesial 

approach, rooted in compassion and 

dialogue, and with less emphasis on 

some of the traditional moral battles 

which have defined Catholic identity 

in America in recent decades, especially 

with regard to “life issues” such as 

abortion. 

Both of those transitions have been 

trying for some sectors of American 

Catholic opinion. To some extent, the 

tensions overlap with the usual left/ 

right divides, though not exclusively so. 

Many American liberals, for instance, 

may find Francis’ refusal to forthrightly 

condemn Vladimir Putin, for example, 

even more frustrating than conservatives, 

some of whom feel a certain 

grudging admiration for the Russian 

leader. 

Standing back from the particulars 

of any given issue, what seems clear 

about American reaction to Francis 

that it cannot properly be understood 

in isolation, but rather as part of a more 

epochal shift in Catholicism — to wit, 

the rise of a global Church, one in 

which the United States simply is not 

the pivot point. 

A bit of math makes the point: There 

are 1.3 billion Roman Catholics in the 

world today and just over 60 million in 

the United States, which means that 

Americans account for slightly under 

5% of the global Catholic population. 

Put another way, 95% of the Catholics 

on the planet today are not Americans, 

and do not necessarily see the world 

through the lens of American experiences, 

interests, and priorities. 

Two-thirds of the world’s Catholics 

today live outside the boundaries of the 

West, in Africa, Asia, Latin America, 

the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and 

points beyond. By 2050, that non-Western 

share will be three-quarters. 

In such a far-flung global community 

of faith, Catholics in the U.S. increasingly 

will be pressured to make their 

peace with the reality that the Church, 

and its leadership, will not always react 

from within American categories or 

according to American logic. Right 

now, the tensions unleashed by this 

transition are focused on Francis, but 

they just as easily could be aroused by 

a pontiff from Congo, or Sri Lanka, or 

Myanmar — all, by the way, at least 

remotely plausible candidate nations to 

give the Church its next leader. 

To be clear, American Catholicism 

is hardly sliding toward irrelevance in 

global Catholic affairs. The Church in 

the U.S. wields mammoth resources, 

both human and financial, including 

by far the world’s leading network of 

Catholic institutions. They include 

schools and universities, hospitals 

and clinics, social service centers and 

humanitarian organizations, and on 

and on. 

Nevertheless, American Catholics 

need to be clear that the turbulence 

of the Francis era is not a one-off affair 

triggered by the idiosyncrasies of a gaucho, 

or cowboy, pontiff. It is, instead, 

a harbinger of things to come — perhaps 

not always in service to the same 

agenda, but unlikely to be predictably 

“American” in tone or content either. 

To put the point differently, the 

Francis papacy will pass, as all papacies 

eventually do. Yet the new and more 

complicated era in the global Church 

he embodies, with both its promise and 

its frustrations for Americans, appears 

here to stay. 

John L. Allen Jr. is the editor of Crux. 

Pilgrims take part in the annual Cirio de Nazaré procession in Belem, Brazil, Oct. 9, 2022. More than a million pilgrims 

take part in the procession, which takes place on the second Sunday of October and honors Our Lady of Nazareth. | 

CNS/RAIMUNDO PACCO, REUTERS 


OUR 

FINAL 

TEST 

Smaller families, 

longer lives: 

Will Catholics step 

up to face the ‘new 

normal’ awaiting 

tomorrow’s seniors? 

BY PATRICK T. BROWN 

when your hair is gray, I 

will carry you,” the prophet 

“Even 

Isaiah tells us — no small 

comfort to the ever-growing slice of 

America that is in or nearing their silver 

years. With birthrates declining and life 

expectancy rising, our nation is the oldest 

it’s ever been. But are we ready for 

the challenges that are bound to come? 

Many Catholics — and indeed, 

Christians of various stripes — pray 

that the “life of every human person, from conception to 

natural death, might be enshrined and protected in our laws.” 

Decades and dollars have sustained the advocacy around 

protecting the unborn child, a mission even more critical in 

these tumultuous years after the Dobbs decision. Yet save for 

a few high-profile cases — Terri Schiavo in the mid-2000s, 

or headlines about abuses in Canada’s euthanasia program 

— there has been less concerted effort around building up 

respect for the elderly facing their final years. 

That will need to change. 

The Baby Boomer generation — those born between 

1946 and 1964 who for so long have directed the course of 

American culture and society — are now in their 60s and 

70s. The way they face the end of life, and the choices we opt 

to prioritize or make available, will set the script for how we 

treat death, the labor of caretaking, and the value of human 

dignity into the future. 

Advances in medicine and personal health means that 

Americans are living longer. This is a good thing. But as more 

and more seniors reach the age of needing a little assistance 

A volunteer holds the hand 

of a dying 98-year-old 

woman at a senior living 

center. | CNS/COURTESY 

MICHAELA GALLAGHER 

to handle the responsibilities of daily living, our nation could 

run into a problem of simple math: more seniors needing 

care than there are bodies to care for them. 

To put this into context, at the turn of the millennium, those 

in the 60s and 70s made up 12.9% of the U.S. population. 

Today, they represent nearly one-fifth (19.4%) of all Americans, 

and declining birthrates means this shift will continue. 

The future of aging in America — with fewer younger 

workers providing for a growing number of seniors — will put 

increasing strain on our care infrastructure, and the programs 

and resources available to those needing to care for a loved 

one as they slow down. 

Many seniors live healthy and active lives through much of 

their retirement years. But Father Time remains unbeaten. 

Eventually, our bodies and minds start to break down as we 

age — and with more seniors living longer, the need to compensate 

for those frailties becomes more acute. The blessing 

of having Grandma or Papa for more years is accompanied 

by an obligation to care for them in their less-active, less-agile 

years. While old age itself is not an illness, visiting an elderly 

22 • ANGELUS • March 22, 2024

elative — even just to spend time with them — can be 

considered a corporal work of mercy. 

And an aging society will provide plenty of opportunities to 

engage in that kind of charity. The federal Administration 

on Aging estimates that 70% of adults 65 and over will need 

some kind of long-term care assistance, services, or support in 

their remaining years. This isn’t intensive medical treatment; 

just a helping hand with daily activities like preparing food, 

bathing, or using the bathroom. On average, seniors need this 

type of care for about three years, though for some the need 

can stretch out much longer. 

For many, family is the first and primary caretaker. Many 

seniors know they can rely on one or more of their children 

to attend to some of their more basic needs. But those needs 

often require more constant time and attention than adults 

with their own children to care for can devote. A report from 

the Pew Research Center found that more than half of adults 

in their 40s are members of the so-called “Sandwich Generation” 

— those who have an elderly parent while also raising 

at least one child at home. 

And for other seniors, family isn’t a viable option. Broken 

relationships, alienated children, divorce; all can mean a 

fracturing of the safety net that family is meant to provide. 

And with more Americans opting out of parenthood altogether, 

an increasing share of adults will enter their senior years 

with thinner family trees, and fewer people to visit them in 

retirement, an assisted-living facility, or hospice care. 

Family members from different generations attend an encounter and Mass for the elderly led by Pope Francis in 

St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican in this 2014 file photo. | CNS/PAUL HARING 

These trends will put increasing pressure on a social system 

that has not adjusted to the new realities of smaller families 

and longer lives. Caring for the elderly is inherently labor-intensive 

— it’s a one-to-one service that often requires some 

level of trust, even intimacy. Like child care, it’s a job that 

can’t become more “efficient” or “productive” without losing 

quality. A recent research paper found that when private 

equity firms took over a nursing facility, profits went up and 

patient outcomes — including mortality — took a turn for 

the worse. 

In Japan, they are seeking to supplement their senior care 

with robots trained to change bedpans, remotely monitor vital 

signs, and — more speculatively — engage in conversation 

to provide a simulacrum of social engagement. According to 

the MIT Technology Review, the Japanese government has 

spent more than $300 million on research and development 

for these new devices, though they remain niche, rather than 

mainstream, devices so far. 

One does not need to be a smartphone-avoiding Luddite 

to be skeptical of the idea of innovating our way out of the 

increasing demand for elder care. Technology could be used 

in some cases — like monitoring a senior’s apartment for 

falls — but can never be expected, or desired, to replace the 

human connection of a relationship with a caregiver. If anything, 

these advances mean our seniors need more in-person 

relationships and interactions, not fewer. 

Medicaid, for example, won’t pay for personal care for 

seniors. So for many Americans, the primary vehicle for most 

Americans to access care in their senior years is through 

long-term care insurance. Yet the market for such services has 

real problems: The number of options available to individuals 

fell from 125 two decades ago to under 15 more recently, 

according to the American Action Forum. Washington state 

recently rolled out a new state tax aimed at providing longterm 

care to residents, but it has been plagued with difficulties 

and it is unclear whether it will 

collect enough revenue to solve the 

looming problem. 

The looming crisis of senior care will 

likely require touching some political 

third rails. Allowing Medicaid to pay 

for long-term care, for example, will 

dramatically increase its expenditures 

and worsen our nation’s fiscal picture, 

especially if we seek to raise wages 

for home health aides. As the whole 

economy has recently experienced, a 

world with declining birthrates means 

fewer workers and increased labor 

shortages — especially in labor-intensive 

jobs like child and elder care. 

It may be the case that the need for 

home health care aides and nursing 

home staff spurs America to revisit its 

immigration policy before too long. 

And any step toward broader public 

funding will almost certainly require 

higher taxes. 

Solving these problems may sound 

like drudgery. Yet if we don’t tackle the financial side that 

makes aging a difficult problem to solve with compassion, 

less salutary “solutions” may present themselves. While 

none of the activists who push for access to physician-assisted 

suicide like to focus on the financial benefits, governments 

facing entitlement spending challenges may see a certain 

allure in being able to terminate an elderly citizen’s claims on 

medical spending under the false flag of “compassion.” 


A woman sits at the bedside of her mother 

in 2016 at de Greeff Hospice House in 

St. Louis. | OSV NEWS/CNS FILE, LISA 

JOHNSTON, ST. LOUIS REVIEW 

Even if an assisted suicide program could be implemented 

with perfect safeguards against abuse — an outlandish 

hypothetical, as examples from Canada and the Netherlands 

illustrate — it would quickly establish a social expectation 

that the elderly should choose the path of euthanasia rather 

than “be a burden” to their loved ones or society at large. 

The work of accompanying the elderly through their years 

of decreasing mobility, increasing dependence, and their 

final journey home is an opportunity to teach us all about the 

fragility and interconnectedness of human life. Those lessons 

can’t be learned if we seek to automate them away through 

“care robots” or render them illegible via euthanasia. 

We can’t expect families to take care of aging relatives on 

their own; and many of our elderly community members 

don’t have family available to care for them. There are no 

easy answers. A world in which an increasingly large share of 

our population requires some long-term assistance requires 

us to evaluate tradeoffs and commitments. 

But just as in our fight to protect the unborn, protecting 

the elderly in their frailty and old age means that any policy 

solution — and the cultural change of mentality that must 

accompany it — has to remember the importance of human 

relationships before anything else. 

No social safety net program or pregnancy resource center 

alone is enough to help the mom contemplating abortion 

— we need a web of support and a cultural recognition of 

the value of that growing fetus. Similarly, our politics needs 

a greater recognition of the challenges our aging population 

lays ahead of us, and a commitment to treating our elders 

with respect. 

Even if this means uncomfortable political choices in the 

short run, such as increasing immigration or raising taxes, the 

alternatives are “solutions” that threaten to make us all a little 

less human. 

Patrick T. Brown is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy 

Center, where he works to advance pro-family economic policies. 

He formerly served on the United States Joint Economic 

Committee. 


INTERSECTIONS 

GREG ERLANDSON 

Poles apart 

Palestinians inspect a mosque 

destroyed in Israeli strikes in Khan 

Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, 

Oct. 8, 2023, a day after an attack 

on Israel by more than 1,300 Hamas 

terrorists that left more than 1,200 

Israelis and other nationals dead. 

More than 30,000 Gaza Palestinians 

have been killed since the beginning 

of the Israel-Hamas war, Gaza’s 

Health Ministry said. | OSV/IBRA- 

HEEN ABU MUSTAFA, REUTERS 

While the increasing polarization 

in our country is nothing 

new, we seem to be heading 

into a category 5 hurricane of hostility 

this year. Not only is it an election year, 

but it’s a reprise of 2020. In addition, we 

are divided over the Israel-Hamas war 

and the Ukraine-Russia war. We have 

dueling apocalyptic visions, whether it’s 

the death of democracy or the unwashed 

hordes invading our southern 

border. 

Our Church has its own share of divisions 

as well, where even the pope has 

become a catalyst of polarization. 

And while our communities, our parishes, 

our states are becoming increasingly 

ideologically homogeneous, the 

breadth and depth of our polarization 

is touching us even if we seek solace 

among people who resemble us in our 

beliefs and biases. 

The personal risks and costs of our 

divide has come home to me recently. 

A close friend of mine is Jewish. We 

bonded over my interest in Judaism, his 

interest in Catholicism, and our resulting 

comfort with each other’s “tribe.” 

That is until Oct. 7 and its aftermath. 

The horror we both felt over the 

Hamas massacre and hostage taking 

was shared, if not equal. After all, for 

him it was much more personal, one 

of a chain of massacres extending back 

through history and up to and including 

the Nazis’ “Final Solution.” 

It was not the reaction to the massacre 

that was troubling us, but the reaction 

to Israel’s reaction. Over the weeks 

and months, the images and reports of 

Gaza’s destruction troubled me more. 

Our conversations became perhaps a 

bit more guarded. At one point, he said 

he hoped that our disagreement would 

not hurt our friendship, and I assured 

him it would not. 

And it will not. 

But not a lot of people share my 

certitude when it comes to such disagreement, 

which is why we are seeing 

a cottage industry of books aimed 

at addressing ways to diagnose and 

overcome polarization. Titles like “I 

think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening),” 

“Why We’re Polarized,” “Uncivil 

Agreement,” “Steps to Positive Political 

Dialogue,” and more. 

One that seeks to challenge us as 

Catholics is Father Aaron Wessman’s 

“The Church’s Mission in a Polarized 

World” (New City Press, $14.99). 

Wessman looks at the data around 

polarization, and what he finds is 

alarming. By nearly every metric, things 

have gone from bad to worse in recent 

years. Not only do we not like the people 

we disagree with, we increasingly 

view them as a mortal threat. Indeed, 

Wessman explores how our language 

of war and violence is used to describe 

our opponents. We don’t need to just 

defeat them at the ballot box. We need 


Greg Erlandson is the former president and 

editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service. 

to crush them. We apply labels like 

MAGA, Communist, and even vermin, 

all ways to degrade and dehumanize. 

Wessman and others have reported 

that Catholics increasingly identify 

more with their party than their 

Church. In fact, religious belief is less 

and less seen as a source of guidance. 

Fewer Christians are going to church 

regularly or reading Scripture. 

The question Wessman asks is this: 

“Does my relationship with Jesus, and 

the tradition given to me through the 

Scriptures, along with the teachings of 

the Church, inform my life more than 

the political party to which I belong?” 

The fact that many Americans today 

would be more bothered if their child 

married someone from the opposite 

political party than a different church 

may tell us the answer. 

For Wessman, our challenge as 

Catholics is to rediscover the person on 

the other side of the divide. Because 

we are called to love our enemy, not 

to mention our fellow citizens and our 

fellow parishioners, the solution is not 

war, nor avoidance, but to “cross over,” 

to engage “the other.” 

“When one chooses to encounter 

the other, the likelihood of seeing the 

person who espouses the idea, and not 

just the idea that one disagrees with, 

becomes more likely,” Wessman writes. 

“For Christians, crossing over is not 

really an option: It is essential to a life 

of missionary discipleship,” he adds. 

This is hard stuff. It can end badly, 

both because the “other side” may 

not respond well to our efforts, and 

because our own “side” may not either. 

Our faith does call us at this time to be 

“strangers in a strange land.” 

But when I think of my Jewish friend, 

I realize that two essential ingredients 

are trust and time. Getting to know 

each other in small conversations and 

big, over meals or shared projects, the 

person becomes more essential than 

the position. 

All those books about polarization 

give me hope. Organizations that are 

working to connect us one by one do 

as well. This fever of mutual fear and 

loathing will surely break. But that 

calm after the storm can only happen 

when we make the first move. 


NOW PLAYING DUNE: PART II 

A TRAGIC MAHDI-FICATION 

The box office hit has plenty to get excited about, 

but makes a lazy, weak argument against religion. 

Timothée Chalamet as Paul 

Atreides in “Dune: Part II.” 

| IMDB 

BY MSGR. RICHARD ANTALL 

What’s not to like about 

“Dune: Part II”? 

The sequel to Denis Villeneuve’s 

2021 box office hit features 

special effects that would have amazed 

us only a few years ago, set in a complicated, 

not-so-brave world created by 

the visionary late science fiction writer 

Frank Herbert, author of the “Dune” 

novels. The story weaves a tapestry 

of themes and references to history, 

religion, technology, political intrigue, 

ecology, and even, ironically, mystical 

powers. 

It is sometimes alleged that popular 

culture has a tendency toward the 

simplest and away from the complicated, 

but “Dune,” with its generations of 

fans, is a counterexample. 

Herbert himself admitted allusions to 

Arthurian tales in his personal “Dune” 

universe. But others include the 

feudal civilization of the Holy Roman 

Empire, colonialism as it played out in 

Islamic countries (think Lawrence of 

Arabia), a world economy dependent 

on unevenly distributed energy sources, 

a religious caste of women with 

unusual powers who represent a kind 

of deep state power behind the thrones 

of the great families that, in unceasing 

rivalry, play games with the balance of 

cosmic power. 

Like the first installment, this year’s 

sequel is mostly set in Arrakis, a desert 

planet rich with a precious natural 

resource: “Spice” not only powers 

space travel but can also open human 

consciousness to knowledge of the past 

and future. The planet’s indigenous 

have taken refuge from their colonizing 

oppressors in its cliffs and caves, 

while finding ways to survive without 

virtually any water. 

The movie plays down some of the 

Islamic references (the book talked 

about jihad and mujahidin, but moviegoers 

probably have enough uncomfortable 

memories of Afghanistan) but 

Paul Atreides (played by Timothée 

Chalamet) is still recognized as the 

“Mahdi,” the same word for the messianic 

savior traditionally awaited by 

Shiite Muslims. 


Just before the sequel starts, the 

dukedom of Arrakis has been taken 

away from the vicious House Harkonnen 

by the galactic emperor and given 

to Paul’s father, Leto Atreides. The 

move is revealed as a trap set by the 

emperor for the Atreides family, whom 

he fears as rivals. When the empire 

attacks Arrakis with troops disguised 

as Harkonnen soldiers, Leto is killed 

while his wife, Jessica, and their son, 

Paul, barely escape. 

Jessica, who belongs to a secretive 

caste of women with secret powers 

known as the Bene Gesserit, and Paul 

hide among the Fremen, the Bedouins 

of Arrakis, who live in the desert and 

who even manage, to a degree, the 

enormous sandworms that are the 

source of the precious spice. 

There are signs that Paul is the 

Fremen’s long-awaited messiah figure, 

and when they realize it, set out to 

train him in all things Fremen. Along 

the way, Paul gets to know Chani, a 

Fremen woman warrior (played by 

singer-actress Zendaya), who gradually 

falls in love with him. 

A guerrilla war develops between the 

Fremen and the Harkonnen forces. 

Paul’s abilities grow while his mother 

moves to another part of the planet to 

exercise some spiritual leadership and 

encourage Paul to accept his fate as the 

messiah. 

But Villeneuve made some telling adjustments 

to the original “Dune” story, 

like giving Chani a greater role. In the 

book she is devoted to Paul and is the 

mother of his son, but in the movie is 

a Fremen leader who opposes some of 

the ideas of Paul and his mother. She 

detests Paul’s veneration as Mahdi by 

some of her fellow Fremen, whom she 

dismisses as “fundamentalists,” and 

considers religious hope as a form of 

enslavement. 

Herbert was against the exaltation and 

divinization of leaders, which he said 

was “painful,” but the metamorphosis 

that happens to Paul in the series of 

books is a much more complex and 

grotesque process than the stereotypical 

distrust of religion expressed in 

“Dune: Part II.” 

With increasing boldness, many 

“influencers” on social media have 

accepted as axiomatic that religion is 

not a part of the solution to the world’s 

problems. “Fundamentalism” is the 

new enemy of human progress. While 

Chani doesn’t say so explicitly, her 

attitude resembles the old canard that 

religion is the opiate of the people. 

“Hope” should not be based on 

something that transcends our individual 

experience, and we should save 

ourselves and not wait for a savior. All 

the altruism that religion can inspire is 

discounted because it is manipulation. 

Herbert said that any comparison to 

Christ and Christian beliefs was out of 

bounds in “Dune.” Nevertheless, his 

depictions of Alia, Paul’s weird sister, 

and of the Bene Gesserit sisters illustrate 

the cynical use of faith to political 

ends. 

If religion is just about power 

relationships, however, it is not about 

redemption. “Dune II” lightly mocks 

the sensibility of the Fremen warriors, 

their gullibility, and their straining to 

believe. Villeneuve has said that he 

did not think anyone could watch this 

installment and still have admiration 

for Paul Atreides or see him as a hero. 

Perhaps he is contemplating moving 

Zendaya in “Dune: 

Part II.” | IMDB 

on with the story, and has read the ugly 

transformations ahead for Paul, but he 

seems to forget that there is really no 

alternative to Paul’s “Mahdi-fication.” 

The empire is corrupt, the Harkonnens 

are barbaric, and the possibility 

of the Fremen’s “greening” of Arrakis 

without achieving power is negligible. 

In other words, the “Dune” films 

don’t seem to want to acknowledge 

the obvious: that in (most likely) 

naming the titular family after a clan 

in Greek mythology, Herbert probably 

conceived of his saga as a tragedy. The 

House of Atreus was no city on a hill, 

but rather a family whose members 

committed fratricide, adultery, and 

child sacrifice. 

Fate is an inexorable nemesis for the 

Atreides. No Brady Bunch, barrel of 

laughs kind of story. Perhaps Herbert 

was signaling that to us with the classical 

name. 

Msgr. Richard Antall is pastor of 

Holy Name Church in Cleveland, 

Ohio, and the author of several books, 

including the novel “The X-mas Files” 

(Atmosphere Press, $17.99). He served 

as a missionary priest in El Salvador for 

more than 20 years. 


DESIRE LINES 

HEATHER KING 

Virtue signaling with Flannery O’Connor 

Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor in a Sept. 22, 

1959, photo, sitting on the steps of her home in 

Milledgeville, Georgia. | CNS/FLOYD JILLSON, 

ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION 

“If other ages felt less, they saw more, 

even though they saw with the blind, 

prophetical, unsentimental eye of 

acceptance, which is to say, of faith. In 

the absence of this faith now, we govern 

by tenderness. It is a tenderness which, 

long cut off from the person of Christ, is 

wrapped in theory. When tenderness is 

detached from the source of tenderness, 

its logical outcome is terror. It ends in 

forced-labor camps and in the fumes of 

the gas chamber.” 

— Catholic novelist and short story 

writer Flannery O’Connor 

Way back in the 1950s and ’60s, 

Flannery O’Connor foresaw 

the doleful effects of contemporary 

identity politics. 

“On the subject of this feminist business,” 

she once wrote to a friend, “I just 

never … think of qualities which are 

specifically feminine or masculine. I 

suppose I [divide] people into two classes: 

the Irksome and the Non-Irksome 

without regard to sex.” 

That’s shorthand for saying I judge 

people — I like people — according to 

their character, not their labels. 

O’Connor was born, raised, and lived 

most of her adult life in rural Georgia. 

She also attended the Iowa Writers 

Workshop, lived in New York City for a 

time, and liked to read a few paragraphs 

of Aquinas’ “Summa Theologica” 

before going to bed. 

Struck down with lupus in her 20s, 

she returned to Milledgeville to live out 

the rest of her life — she died at 39 — 

with her mother, Regina, a widow who 

capably ran a dairy farm. 

Contemporary academics, perhaps 

a touch too gleefully, have “exposed” 

O’Connor’s racism: she famously 

turned down an opportunity, for example, 

to join Regina in hosting James 

Baldwin at their home. 

In mid-century rural Georgia, a social 

code had been worked out by which to 

her mind both blacks and whites could 

operate while retaining their privacy 

and dignity. That’s not to say the code 

was ideal, or right. 

But she would not try to make herself 

look virtuous or tolerant by participating 

in an insincere charade. 

She would not throw Regina — who 


Heather King is an award-winning 

author, speaker, and workshop leader. 

supported and loved her — under the 

bus. “In New York, it would be nice 

to meet [Baldwin]; here it would not,” 

she wrote to a friend. “I observe the 

traditions of the society I feed on — it’s 

only fair.” 

In fact, she was “an integrationist on 

principle and a segregationist by taste”: 

“About the Negroes, the kind I don’t 

like is the philosophizing prophesying 

pontificating kind” (among whom she 

counted Baldwin, while also applauding 

some of his work). 

Change should and would come. But 

to divide humankind into victims and 

oppressors with the oppressors all bad 

and the victims all good, O’Connor 

well knew, is a lie at least as dangerous 

as the lie undergirding racial prejudice. 

Some of her favorite protagonists are 

nihilistic college grads who try to shame 

their elders into socio-political enlightenment, 

with deliciously tragicomic 

results. 

They seldom have jobs, these young 

intellectuals. They’re disabled (Hulga 

in “Good Country People” has a wooden 

leg), or neurasthenic (Asbury in 

“The Enduring Chill”), or suffer from 

a heart condition (Wesley in “Greenleaf”). 

Though adults, they’re supported by 

their hard-working, hopelessly backward 

mothers. Julian in “Everything 

That Rises Must Converge” almost dies 

of embarrassment when his mother — 

condescendingly to his mind, kindly 

to hers — offers a penny to a young 

black boy. In “Revelation,” a sullen girl 

reading a book called “Human Development” 

hurls it at Mrs. Turpin’s head, 

whispering “Go back to hell where you 

came from, you old warthog.” 

We must be “nice,” such clear-eyed 

activists insist. We must not offend. 

We must enlarge our horizons. No 

one must feel “unwelcome.” We must 

exercise compassion — though not, of 

course, toward the unenlightened. 

Based on the criteria of this godless, 

self-appointed moral elite, the unenlightened 

must instead be forced to be 

“good.” 

As O’Connor recognized, without 

faith such “compassion” eventually requires 

us to ignore what is right in front 

of our faces, to spout absurd untruths, 

to contort every event to fit a templated 

narrative, and to be stripped of our right 

to like who we like based on Irksome vs. 

Non-Irksome or whatever criterion we 

darn well please. 

Such “tenderness” would destroy a 

child in the womb rather than let him 

or her be born into poverty. Such tenderness 

eventually invites the addicted, 

the elderly, and the diminished to kill 

themselves. “Let us think for them!” exclaim 

the tender. “Surely they wouldn’t 

want to be a burden.” 

O’Connor was a daily Mass-goer and, 

by all accounts, a lifelong celibate. 

“I went to St. Mary’s as it was right 

around the corner,” she wrote of her 

neighborhood church, “and I could 

get there practically every morning. I 

went there three years and never knew 

a soul in that congregation or any of the 

priests, but it was not necessary. As soon 

as I went in the door I was at home.” 

That probably describes the situation 

for many of us at our “neighborhood” 

church. The Church doesn’t much 

welcome anyone, in the way of the social-club 

welcome demanded by today’s 

aggrieved. It welcomes us as members 

of the soul-sick, as those ravenous with 

hunger and need of the Eucharist. 

Lent is a good time to remember that 

Judas, keeper of the purse, was the über 

virtue-signaler, primly suggesting giving 

money to the poor rather than wasting 

it on nard to anoint Jesus. Then he sold 

his friend for 40 pieces of silver. 

Or as O’Connor once observed: “The 

operation of the Church is entirely set 

up for the sinner, which creates much 

misunderstanding among the smug.” 


LETTER AND SPIRIT 

SCOTT HAHN 

Scott Hahn is founder of the 

St. Paul Center for Biblical 

Theology; stpaulcenter.com. 

Palms and circumstance 

Holy Week begins on a triumphal note. We the disciples 

shout our hosannas, and we watch as the world 

praises our beloved Messiah. Everyone is at last giving 

him — and his followers — the right kind of attention. 

This is probably the way most of us would have planned 

the culmination of Jesus’ ministry, if we’d been given the 

chance. 

It is, however, only the beginning of Holy Week; and we 

know what’s soon to follow: betrayal, suffering, and death. 

Where we would have called for a reprise — a Palm Friday 

— God willed something far better. We call it Good Friday, 

and it is the only way to the glories of Easter Sunday. 

We may recognize a pattern here. I think, for example, of 

the Church’s triumphs in the secular sphere. I recall the 

triumphal moment when St. Pope John Paul II lay dying. 

The world poured out its love. Young people filled the 

streets of Rome. All the media trained their cameras on the 

Vatican. 

I also remember standing with a vast crowd on the White 

House lawn to sing “Happy Birthday” to John Paul’s successor. 

Our song leader 

was the president of the 

United States. 

Lately, though, the 

newscasters and pundits 

have been less inclined 

to praise the Catholic 

Church. And some world 

leaders are eager to make 

us feel the edge of our 

Good Friday, calling us 

Neanderthal for refusing 

to accept gender ideology 

and scoffing at the 

Church for defending 

the humanity of stored 

embryos. 

Which is our moment? 

When the culture gives 

us palms? Or when it 

gives us the back of its 

hand? 

The answer lies in Holy 

Week. You and I must 

truly give ourselves to the 

“The Last Supper,” by Ugolino di Nerio, 1280-1330, Italian. | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

season this year. We must live it deeply, meditating on the 

Word, praying the liturgy with body and soul. 

Use Holy Thursday as the key. What, after all, made calvary 

a sacrifice? The event did not meet any of the sacrificial 

requirements of the Jerusalem Temple. It seemed to be an 

ordinary execution. 

But it was indeed a sacrifice. All Christians agree on that 

point. 

At the Last Supper Jesus gave his body to be broken, his 

blood to be poured out, as if on an altar. The Eucharist is 

ordered to the cross. But the Eucharist is also ordered to the 

Resurrection — a glory we could not have experienced if 

we had lingered forever in Palm Sunday. 

It’s the resurrected humanity of Jesus that we consume in 

our holy Communion, in the Eucharist. We come to it by 

way of triumphs, but they are fleeting. We come to it by 

way of pain, but that, too, will pass. We receive the Host as 

a pledge of lasting glory, and we have the grace to endure 

the rest. Here we have no lasting city. But we have hope, 

because we know Holy Week. 


■ FRIDAY, MARCH 15 

Fish Fry. St. Clare Church, 19606 Calla Way, Canyon 

Country, 4:30-8 p.m. Runs every Friday in Lent. Includes 2-3 

pieces of beer-battered cod, coleslaw, choice of side, or fish 

tacos with rice and beans. Dine in or take out. Cost: $15, 

2-piece dinner or 2 tacos, $16, 3-piece dinner. Family pack 

available for $55. Call 661-252-3353 or visit st-clare.org. 

Fish Fry — Knights of Columbus #4919. Nativity Church, 

1415 Engracia Ave., Torrance, 5-7 p.m. Runs every Friday in 

Lent. Baked or deep fried fish, baked potato or French fries, 

coleslaw, roll, and cake. Cost: $12/adults, $10/seniors, $7/ 

children under 12. Indoor seating and takeout available. 

50/50 raffles as time permits. 

Fish Fry. St. Margaret Mary Church, 25511 Eshelman Ave., 

Lomita, 5 p.m. Baked or beer-battered fried fish, baked 

potato, corn on the cob, and desserts. Spirits available for 

purchase. Discounts available for seniors and children. 

■ SATURDAY, MARCH 16 

Bereavement Retreat. St. Brigid Church, 5214 S. Western 

Ave., Los Angeles, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Includes Mass. Everything 

will be provided. Cost: $60/person. RSVP to Cathy at 

bereavement.ministry@yahoo.com. 

■ SUNDAY, MARCH 17 

Mass Honoring St. Óscar Romero. Cathedral of Our Lady 

of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 10 a.m. 

Presided by Archbishop José H. Gomez and concelebrated 

by Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chávez, retired auxiliary bishop 

of San Salvador and a close collaborator of Romero’s. Mass 

will be celebrated in honor of the martyred Salvadoran 

archbishop ahead of the 44th anniversary of his death 

March 24. 

St. Patrick’s Day Celebration: Irish Folklore, Prayer, and 

Song. Holy Spirit Retreat Center, 4316 Lanai Rd., Encino, 

5-7:30 p.m. Night includes traditional Irish dinner with 

music, silent auction, and evening concert fundraiser. Cost: 

$75/person. Concert only: $50/person. Call Sister Marie at 

818-815-4496. 

■ MONDAY, MARCH 18 

Virtual Listening Session for the Synod on Synodality. 

7-8:30 p.m. Meeting ID: 846 6922 5712. Passcode: 009547. 

■ TUESDAY, MARCH 19 

Lenten Penance Service. St. Barnabas Church, 3955 

Orange Ave., Long Beach, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Several priests will 

be available to hear confessions. 

■ WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20 

Record Clearing Virtual Clinic for Veterans. 5-8 p.m. Legal 

team will help with traffic tickets, quality of life citations, 

and expungement of criminal convictions. Free clinic is 

open to all Southern California veterans who have eligible 

cases in a California State Superior Court. Participants can 

call in or join online via Zoom. Registration required. Call 

213-896-6537 or email inquiries-veterans@lacba.org. For 

more information, visit lacba.org/veterans. 

Changing Seasons: Triduum through Easter. Zoom, 7-8:30 

p.m. Class led by Father Parker Sandoval will explore Bible 

readings for Triduum through Easter. Visit lacatholics.org/ 

events. 

■ THURSDAY, MARCH 21 

Eviction Response Clinic. LA Law Library, 301 W. 1st 

St., Los Angeles, 12-3 p.m. Provides legal assistance with 

eviction court cases. Open to LA County tenants with 

disabilities and limited income. Spanish assistance available. 

Registration required. RSVP by calling 213-896-6536 or 

email inquiries-veterans@lacba.org. 


Living Art Experience Inspired by the Life of Christ. 

Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center, 1935 Manhattan 

Beach Blvd., Redondo Beach, 1 p.m. March 23, 2 and 5 p.m. 

March 24. Witness “The Last Supper” come to life before 

your eyes as live models pose in re-creations of famous, 

sacred works of art. Tickets at livingartexperience.com. Call 

310-521-2520. 

Bilingual Mass for San Óscar Romero: Pastor, Prophet, 

and Saint. St. Mary Church, 1600 East Ave. R-4, Palmdale, 

2:30 p.m. Celebrants: Father John Greely and Father Joseph 

Brennan. Cultural reception and photo exhibition to follow. 


Palm Sunday Mass. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 

555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 7:30 a.m., 10 a.m., and 

12:30 p.m. Masses will begin on the Cathedral Plaza with 

the blessing of the palms before proceeding inside. 

The Crimson Cloak. Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center, 700 

N. Sunnyside Ave., Sierra Madre, 3 p.m. Theatrical music 

and dance-filled event portrays the passion of Christ 

through the eyes of Mary Magdalene. Soloist Erica Jones 

Deato and Sean Murtha will be featured, along with a cast 

of church, community, and retreat center members. Written, 

produced, and directed by St. Rita parishioner Mimi 

Mycroft. Free event. Email rramirez@materdolorosa.org. 

■ MONDAY, MARCH 25 

Chrism Mass. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 W. 

Temple St., Los Angeles, 7 p.m. Liturgical procession begins 

at 6:45 p.m. Mass celebrated by Archbishop José H. Gomez 

will be livestreamed at youtube.com/olacathedral. 

■ THURSDAY, MARCH 28 

Mass of the Lord’s Supper. Cathedral of Our Lady of the 

Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 7 p.m. 

■ FRIDAY, MARCH 29 

Passion of Our Lord. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 

555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. 


Easter Vigil Mass. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 

555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 8 p.m. Vigil will be bilingual 

(English/Spanish), beginning with the blessing of the fire on 

the Easter Fire Hearth on the Cathedral Plaza. 


Easter Sunday Mass. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 

555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles. English Masses: 7:30 and 

10 a.m., Spanish Mass: 12:30 p.m. 

Easter Sunday Breakfast. Mary & Joseph Retreat Center, 

5300 Crest Rd., Rancho Palos Verdes, 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. 

Reservations required by March 25. Cost: $35/person, $15/ 

children 4-12, children under 4 free. Visit maryjoseph.org/ 

event. 

■ TUESDAY, APRIL 9 

Memorial Mass. San Fernando Mission, 15151 San Fernando 

Mission Blvd., Mission Hills, 11 a.m. Mass is virtual and 

not open to the public. Livestream available at CatholicCM. 

org or Facebook.com/lacatholics. 

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

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

Angelus News | March 22, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 6

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?