Angelus News | March 22, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 6
On the cover: 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.
On the cover: 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.
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NATION<br />
■ Catholic Chiefs kicker reaches out<br />
to parade shooting victim’s family<br />
Kansas City Chiefs kicker and outspoken Catholic Harrison Butker sent one<br />
of his jerseys to the family of one of the 23 victims of the Feb. 14 Super Bowl<br />
championship parade.<br />
Lisa Lopez-Galvan, a Catholic mother of two, was attending the event in a<br />
Butker jersey. According to her family, Lopez-Galvan was a fan of the player’s<br />
public witness to his own faith.<br />
“Hearing that she was a fan of my outspokenness for our shared Catholic<br />
faith makes this even more personal. I am honored to provide a jersey to the<br />
family for her to wear,” Butker said in an accompanying message to the family.<br />
“My wife, Isabelle, and I are heartbroken by the murder of Lisa due to degenerate<br />
violence.<br />
Murder is a sin that<br />
cries out to God<br />
for vengeance, and<br />
I pray the men<br />
involved in this<br />
tragedy will be<br />
brought to justice,”<br />
he said.<br />
Two men were<br />
arrested in connection<br />
to the killing<br />
spree, which left<br />
Lopez-Galvan dead<br />
and <strong>22</strong> children<br />
and adults wounded.<br />
Lisa Lopez-Galvan, second from right, stands with her family outside of a church<br />
in 20<strong>22</strong>. | OSV NEWS/FACEBOOK<br />
■ Church Militant to<br />
shutter after $500,000<br />
judgment<br />
Controversial right-wing Catholic website<br />
Church Militant is shutting down<br />
after being ordered to pay $500,000 in a<br />
defamation lawsuit.<br />
Father Georges de Laire, a priest of the<br />
Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire,<br />
had sued the site for defamation<br />
for reporting in 2019 that de Laire<br />
had “botched” cases in his role as the<br />
diocese’s judicial vicar. The article was<br />
published anonymously and cited anonymous<br />
sources to support its claims.<br />
Church Militant eventually acknowledged<br />
they could not substantiate the<br />
claims or produce the sources, and the<br />
article was later revealed to have been<br />
written by a canon lawyer involved in a<br />
dispute overseen by de Laire.<br />
The site has long faced criticism for<br />
its conspiratorial, thinly sourced news<br />
stories and provocatory headlines. Its<br />
founder, Michael Voris, was removed<br />
from its board of directors last year after<br />
reports of misconduct from former<br />
employees.<br />
■ Man charged with<br />
vandalism, attacking priest<br />
at Oregon monastery<br />
A suspect was arrested in connection<br />
to the Feb. 28 vandalism of a 54-acre<br />
Marian shrine in Portland, Oregon.<br />
Police arrived at “The Grotto,” also<br />
known as the National Sanctuary of<br />
Our Sorrowful Mother, after shattered<br />
security cameras triggered an<br />
automated call. But 57-year-old Paul<br />
Joseph Yauger, who was reported to<br />
be “yelling and confrontational,” was<br />
able to vandalize several rooms and a<br />
chapel before police could arrest him.<br />
During the attack, Yauger pushed<br />
into the room of Father Leo Hambur,<br />
a member of the Order of Friar<br />
Servants of Mary who runs the grotto.<br />
Hambur fled the room after Yauger<br />
picked up a pair of scissors.<br />
“The real damage is to the sanctity of<br />
this place,” Chris Blanchard, executive<br />
director of the shrine, told media.<br />
Relics? We got ’em. — Visitors look at a display of 200 relics at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Oratory in Montclair,<br />
New Jersey, Feb. 24. Nearly 3,500 people from as far as Maine and Maryland waited more than two hours<br />
to view the relics of Jesus, the Holy Family, various saints, martyrs, and blesseds on exhibit at the oratory. The exhibit<br />
was organized by the Order of the International Crusade for Holy Relics, which works to rescue and protect<br />
holy relics from profanation and neglect. | OSV NEWS/SEAN QUINN, COURTESY ARCHDIOCESE OF NEWARK<br />
<strong>March</strong> <strong>22</strong>, <strong>2024</strong> • ANGELUS • 5
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