Angelus News | May 3, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 9

THE MARRIAgE 

MISSIoN 

ANGELUS 

With the family in decline, 

can Catholic couples turn the tide? 

May 3, 2024 Vol. 9 No. 9

May 3, 2024 

Vol. 9 • No. 9 

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ON THE COVER 

SHUTTERSTOCK 

In an age of shrinking family sizes and rising living costs, the decision 

to get married seems more daunting than ever. But a new book with 

the blunt title “Get Married” argues that marriage’s benefits outweigh 

its supposed burdens. On Page 10, Elise Italiano Ureneck compares 

its findings to her own marriage experience, and on Page 14, Theresa 

Cisneros reports from a special retreat preparing engaged couples with 

lessons learned from strong, successful Catholic marriages. 

THIS PAGE 

JEFF HENDRICKS 

Forty-nine students at Providence 

Catholic High School in Burbank, along 

with Performing Arts Program Director 

Marisa Bradfield and teacher Tracy 

Stroh, traveled for a six-day trip to New 

York City to perform at Carnegie Hall 

on April 6.

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 

18 

20 

22 

24 

26 

28 

30 

Twenty years later, archdiocese’s abuse prevention efforts still evolving 

Meet the four-most experts in keeping kids in the archdiocese safe 

John Allen: Why Dignitas Infinita is more about sociology than doctrine 

The mounting medical evidence for why women should ditch ‘the pill’ 

Greg Erlandson: Looking back at the lessons learned from the O.J. trial 

‘Civil War’ has more to say about the press than politics 

Heather King: What happened when I ‘sought first the kingdom’ as a writer 

May 3, 2024 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH 

A forgotten virtue 

The following is adapted from the 

Holy Father’s catechesis to visitors and 

pilgrims during his weekly Wednesday 

audience in St. Peter’s Square April 17. 

The virtue of temperance is a 

power over oneself, the capacity 

for self-mastery, the art of not 

letting oneself be overcome by rebellious 

passions. 

People without temperance, who act 

always moved by impulse or exuberance, 

are ultimately unreliable. In a 

world where many people boast about 

saying what they think, the temperate 

person instead prefers to think about 

what he says. 

Also with pleasures, the temperate 

person acts judiciously. The free course 

of impulses and total license accorded 

to pleasures end up backfiring on us, 

plunging us into a state of boredom. 

How many people who have wanted 

to try everything voraciously have 

found themselves losing the taste for 

everything! It is better, then, to seek the 

right measure: for example, to appreciate 

a good wine, to taste it in small sips 

is better than swallowing it all in one go. 

The temperate person knows how to 

weigh words and does them well. He 

thinks about what he says. He does 

not allow a moment’s anger to ruin 

relationships and friendships that can 

then only be rebuilt with difficulty. 

Especially in family life, where inhibitions 

are lower, we all run the risk of not 

keeping tensions, irritations, and anger 

in check. There is a time to speak and 

a time to be silent, but both require the 

right measure. 

If the temperate person knows how to 

control his own irascibility, this does not 

mean we always find him with a peaceful 

and smiling face. Indeed, at times it 

is necessary to be indignant, but always 

in the right way. 

A word of rebuke is at times healthier 

than a sour, rancorous silence. The 

temperate person knows that nothing 

is more uncomfortable than correcting 

another person, but he also knows that 

it is necessary; otherwise, one offers free 

reign to evil. In some cases, the temperate 

person succeeds in holding extremes 

together: he affirms absolute principles, 

asserts non-negotiable values, but also 

knows how to understand people and 

shows empathy for them. 

The gift of the temperate person is 

therefore balance, a quality as precious 

as it is rare. Indeed, everything in our 

world pushes to excess. Instead, temperance 

combines well with Gospel values 

such as smallness, discretion, modesty, 

meekness. The temperate person appreciates 

the respect of others but does 

not make it the sole criterion for every 

action and every word. 

He is sensitive, he is able to weep 

and is not ashamed, but he does not 

weep over himself. In defeat, he rises 

up again; in victory, he is capable of 

returning to his former reserved life. He 

does not seek applause but knows that 

he needs others. 

It is not true that temperance makes 

one gray and joyless. On the contrary, 

it lets one enjoy the goods of life better: 

staying together at the table, the tenderness 

of certain friendships, confidence 

with wise people, wonder at the beauty 

of creation. Happiness with temperance 

is the joy that flourishes in the heart of 

those who recognize and value what 

counts most in life. 

Papal Prayer Intention for May: We pray that religious 

women and men, and seminarians, grow in their own 

vocations through their human, pastoral, spiritual, and 

community formation, leading them to be credible witnesses 

to the Gospel. 

2 • ANGELUS • May 3, 2024

NEW WORLD OF FAITH 

ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

Where Mary is, we will find her Son 

On May 4, I will have the 

privilege to celebrate Mass at 

the Grotto in Lourdes, France, 

where the Virgin Mary was said to 

appear to St. Bernadette Soubirous in 

1858. 

It will be my first time in Lourdes, 

and I’m grateful for the invitation of 

the Order of Malta to join them on 

their yearly pilgrimage. And as I’ve 

been preparing for the Mass and for 

the Marian month of May, I find myself 

reflecting on the Blessed Mother’s 

role in salvation history and in our 

spiritual lives. 

There is a simple line in the Gospel 

account of the wedding feast at Cana. 

It reads: “And the mother of Jesus was 

there.” 

For me, this is the great truth: the 

Mother of Jesus was there. Not only at 

Cana, but from the beginning. Salvation 

history unfolds through her. 

In the fullness of time, God sent his 

holy angel to Mary to announce the 

coming of Jesus. 

She was also there to present him as 

an infant in the Temple, and again 

to find him teaching in his “Father’s 

house.” 

Mary helped Jesus to grow from a 

child to a man during the long, hidden 

years at Nazareth. 

And Mary was there at Cana when 

he began his public ministry. She was 

the one who asked him to perform his 

first miracle. 

She followed him in the crowds as 

he proclaimed the kingdom. And the 

mother of Jesus was there when her 

Son died, keeping her station at the 

foot of his cross. 

Finally, Mary was there at the birth 

of the Church, praying with the 

apostles for the Holy Spirit to come 

down at Pentecost. 

St. Pope John Paul II once said, 

“Where she is, her Son cannot fail to 

be.” 

That was true in the days of the Gospel. 

And it will always be true. Mary 

continues to be the maternal face of 

the Father’s mercy. In every age, in 

every place, and in every heart. 

In the course of history, some have 

claimed to see apparitions of Our 

Lady, and the Church has recognized 

some of these private revelations, such 

as those at Lourdes. 

Here in the Americas, we are already 

preparing to celebrate, in 2031, the 

500th anniversary of the apparitions 

of Our Lady of Guadalupe to St. Juan 

Diego at Tepeyac, near Mexico City. 

The Catechism says that these private 

revelations do not add to what God 

revealed in sending Jesus Christ into 

the world. Instead, these apparitions 

help us to live his Gospel “more fully” 

in a “certain period of history.” 

When Mary comes, as she did at 

Lourdes and Tepeyac, she brings a 

message of hope and healing, telling 

us that God is with us until the end of 

ages, and he will never leave us. 

At Lourdes, Mary chose to reveal 

herself to a humble girl from a poor 

family, who knew her prayers and 

went to church, but didn’t know how 

to read or write. 

Mary appeared as a young woman, 

dressed in white, making the sign of 

the cross, with a rosary in her hand. 

St. Bernadette said the Lady was too 

beautiful to describe. 

When Bernadette asked who she 

was, the Lady smiled sweetly and said, 

“I am the Immaculate Conception.” 

Then she disappeared, still smiling. 

In this simple way, Mary reminded 

us that she is the Immaculate One, 

the holy mother of God, who brings a 

new beginning to the human race, by 

the blessed fruit of her womb, Jesus. 

The saints teach us, “To Jesus 

through Mary.” We go to Jesus 

through Mary because Jesus came to 

us through Mary. 

Through Mary, we understand the 

truth that she is our mother, too, that 

we are God’s children, his sons and 

daughters, beloved by the Father who 

made us and knows our name. 

Through Mary, we know that Jesus 

wants to be born in every heart, that 

he wants to make all things new, to 

heal what is broken, to wipe away all 

the tears, to free us from sorrow and 

death. 

As a good mother, Mary teaches us 

the way to live as children of God. 

Her last words in the Gospels are in 

the story of Cana, when she tells the 

servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 

This is the way: to follow Jesus, to 

know him and love him; to listen to 

him, and to make him the model for 

our lives. To do whatever he tells us 

to do. 

When Mary comes, as she did at Lourdes and Tepeyac, 

she brings a message of hope and healing. 

Pray for me and I will pray for you. 

And in this Marian month of May, 

let us all deepen our love for our 

Blessed Mother. 

Let’s pray the rosary with new devotion, 

with new love, with new desire 

to enter into its mysteries. 


WORLD 

■ Notre Dame gets an 

official reopening date 

The archbishop of Paris announced 

that Notre Dame Cathedral 

will reopen later this year on 

Dec. 7. 

Paris Archbishop Laurent Ulrich 

made the announcement on April 

15, exactly five years after much of 

the church was destroyed in a fire. 

The reopening proceedings will 

include an official inauguration 

with the French state, the formal 

owner of the cathedral, who will 

turn it over to the Church for use 

in worship. It will be followed 

by six months of celebrations, 

Masses, pilgrimages, prayers, and 

exhibitions. 

The renovation, which will 

restore the cathedral to its original 

design, cost an estimated $767 

million, which has been more 

than covered by the approximately 

$928 million donated to the 

project. 

Poland’s last stand?— Amid plans by the government to liberalize abortion in the country, some 50,000 Poles participated 

in a National March for Life in the capital, Warsaw. The president of the Polish bishops’ conference, Archbishop 

Tadeusz Wojda of Gdansk, called April 14 a “day of prayer in defense of conceived life” throughout the country. | OSV 

NEWS/PAWEL KULA, COURTESY NATIONAL MARCH FOR LIFE 

■ Australia: 

Orthodox 

bishop offers 

forgiveness 

after stabbing 

An Assyrian Orthodox 

bishop in Australia 

shared a message 

of forgiveness after 

surviving a terrorist 

attack in the middle 

of a livestreamed 

liturgy. 

Bishop Mar Mari 

Orthodox Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel before being attacked during a livestreamed 

Mass. | CHURCH OF CHRIST THE GOOD SHEPHERD, SYDNEY 

Emmanuel suffered nonlife-threatening injuries from being stabbed while 

celebrating Mass at Christ the Good Shepherd Church outside of Sydney on 

April 15. 

“I forgive whoever has done this act, and I say to him you are my son, I love 

you, and I will always pray for you,” Emmanuel said in remarks from his hospital 

bed. “And whoever sent you to do this, I forgive them as well.” 

Police called the stabbing a “terrorist incident” and arrested a 16-year-old male 

suspect. Riots broke out following the church stabbing, leading Emmanuel to 

call for peace. 

“I need you to act Christ-like,” he said. “The Lord Jesus never taught us to 

fight.” 

■ NYC cardinal sheltered 

during Iran missile strike 

New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan 

was forced to seek shelter during Iran’s 

aerial attack against Israel April 14. 

Iran launched more than 300 ballistic 

missiles and drones toward the 

country in retaliation for an Israeli 

attack on an Iranian compound in 

Syria. It was Iran’s first-ever direct attack 

on Israel, and more than 99% of 

the artillery was intercepted in a coordinated 

effort between Israeli, British, 

American, and Jordanian forces. 

Dolan, who was visiting the region 

as part of his duties as chair of the 

Catholic Near East Welfare Association, 

had just finished saying Mass in 

Bethlehem when the air raid sirens 

went off. He was able to take shelter at 

the Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center, 

a nearby pilgrim center. 

“This Sunday in Bethlehem all does 

seem calm and bright, and it is for us. 

We feel safe and secure,” Dolan said 

in a video update posted to X. 


NATION 

■ Survey describes average newly ordained US priest 

The average newly ordained U.S. priest is a 34-year-old cradle Catholic who 

regularly prays the rosary and takes part in Eucharistic adoration. 

That profile comes from demographic information released by The Center 

for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) on the 2023 class of priestly 

ordinations, one of two new national surveys looking at the Catholic experience 

in America. 

The other, an April 15 Pew Research Center survey, found that the percentage 

of Americans who are Catholics has remained stable at around 20%, and that a 

third of that number are Hispanic. Hispanic Catholics also trend younger than 

the average Catholic, while the average Catholic tends to be older than the 

average American. 

On matters of practice and teaching, the survey showed a break between 

individual Catholics and the Church. Six in 10 U.S. Catholics said they believe 

abortion should be legal, and just 3 in 10 attend Mass weekly. 

New York Attorney General Letitia James. | OSV NEWS/ 

MIKE SEGAR, REUTERS 

■ Brooklyn Diocese agrees 

to independent monitor in 

abuse settlement 

The Diocese of Brooklyn has agreed 

to install an independent monitor to 

oversee its abuse reporting procedures 

as part of a settlement with the New 

York state attorney general. 

The settlement, which also includes 

a commitment to “strengthen” its 

abuse reporting procedures, was announced 

by New York Attorney General 

Letitia James April 16, following a 

six-year investigation into the diocese’s 

handling of sex abuse cases. 

James’ report said the diocese “did 

not adequately address allegations of 

sexual abuse and misconduct,” including 

a case where it failed to notify 

parishioners that a priest had admitted 

to sexually abusing minors. 

“New Yorkers deserve to trust their 

faith leaders, and my office will continue 

to support the diocese’s efforts to 

rebuild that trust with their community,” 

she also said. 

Bishop Robert Brennan of Brooklyn 

said he was “deeply sorry that [the 

Church] was a place of trauma for 

the victims of clergy sexual abuse” 

rather than a sanctuary, and said the 

diocese would “move forward with 

the strongest policies in place for the 

protection of children and adults.” 

■ Vatican orders end to Texas monastery feud 

The Vatican has placed a troubled Texas monastery under the control of a religious 

association of monasteries instead of that of its local bishop. 

The Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in Arlington, Texas, had been engaged 

in a yearlong feud with Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth since he started investigating 

allegations that its prioress had broken her vow of chastity with a priest. 

Last August, the monastery raised eyebrows when it declared it no longer recognized 

Olson’s authority. The Vatican decree, dated April 18, ordered the nuns 

to “withdraw and rescind” that declaration and “regularize” its relationship with 

Olson, who will still retain canonical authority over the monastery. 

“It is my prayer that the Arlington Carmel will now have the internal leadership 

needed to save the monastery and enable it to flourish once again, in unity with 

the Catholic Church,” said Olson in a statement. 

Baltimore’s communion of saints — Hundreds gather outside Sacred Heart of Jesus/Sagrado Corazón de Jesús 

Church in Baltimore following an April 8 prayer service and candlelight procession in memory of the six Hispanic 

crewmen who perished in the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse. The service included six minutes of silence 

in memory of each of the victims, who were natives of Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. | OSV 

NEWS/KEVIN J. PARKS, CATHOLIC REVIEW 


LOCAL 

■ LA-area Catholic schools 

earn national award for music 

programs 

Five Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of 

Los Angeles were honored with The NAMM 

Foundation’s SupportMusic Merit Award, 

which recognizes campuses for their support 

of music education and efforts to ensure 

access to music for all students. The archdiocesan 

schools were among 122 K-12 public 

and private schools nationwide chosen for the 

award. 

The five schools honored in the archdiocese 

are Bishop Conaty-Our Lady of Loretto High 

School in Los Angeles, St. Bernardine of Siena 

Catholic School in Woodland Hills, Good 

Shepherd Catholic School in Beverly Hills, 

San Gabriel Mission School in San Gabriel, 

and St. Anthony School in San Gabriel. 

The foundation is supported by the National 

Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) 

and promotes music participation through 

financial assistance, music research, and educational 

activities. 

■ Filipino priest 

named new 

auxiliary bishop 

for Sacramento 

Pope Francis has appointed 

a Sacramento pastor as 

an auxiliary bishop for the 

Diocese of Sacramento, 

the Vatican announced 

April 20. 

Father Reynaldo Bersabal, 

59, was ordained a 

priest of the Archdiocese 

of Cagayan de Oro in the 

Philippines in 1991, but 

became a priest of the 

Diocese of Sacramento 13 

years later. Most recently, Bishop-elect Reynaldo Bersabal | STEVE GERMAN 

he has served as pastor of 

St. Francis of Assisi Church in Sacramento since 2022. 

“Bishop-elect Rey came as an immigrant priest bringing the rich cultural 

heritage of the Filipino people,” Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto 

said in a statement. “He became part of a presbyterate and people that is 

a global Catholic kaleidoscope of faith and charity radiating the historic 

credal customs from Portugal, Italy, Ireland, China, Poland, Africa, and 

more. Bishop-elect Rey has learned a lot and given much during his 25 

years as a priest in Sacramento.” 

Feted for 40 — Noel Díaz, founder of El Sembrador-ESNE-TV/Radio, speaks during the media 

ministry’s 40th anniversary Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels April 6. ESNE is a Los 

Angeles-based media broadcasting company geared toward Hispanic Catholics. | VICTOR ALEMÁN 

■ San Jose bishop praises DA in 

reversing death-penalty sentences 

Bishop Oscar Cantú of the Diocese of San Jose 

praised a California district attorney for seeking 

to convert 15 prisoners’ death sentences to life in 

prison without the possibility of parole. 

Jeff Rosen, the district attorney for Santa Clara 

County, announced on April 5 that he had filed 

a petition to re-sentence the 15 men, saying he 

had “lost faith in capital punishment as a fair 

and effective crime deterrent.” 

Rosen pointed to a 2019 California law that 

allows district attorneys to re-sentence a person 

if they determine the sentence no longer serves 

justice. 

“Judges and juries of the people should decide 

where an inmate dies. God should decide 

when,” Rosen said, while acknowledging the 

“horrible” crimes committed by the inmates. 

In a statement, Cantú, whose diocese includes 

Santa Clara County, praised Rosen’s “prophetic 

and principled decision.” 

“The Church advocates for a consistent ethic of 

life, encompassing the unborn, the poor, the migrant, 

the sick, and those in the criminal justice 

system,” Cantú said. “It is a call to move away 

from punitive justice toward restorative justice 

that heals and rebuilds lives.” 

Y 


V 

IN OTHER WORDS... 

Letters to the Editor 

A moment to be proud of 

On behalf of the SoCal Immigration Task Force, we wish to express our 

profound gratitude for the beautiful event that unfolded at St. Frances X. 

Cabrini Church in South LA on Holy Saturday, featured as the cover story in the 

April 19 issue of Angelus. 

Witnessing undocumented migrants being reunited with their loved ones after 

years of separation was truly heartwarming. We are filled with immense pride to 

see the Church play a pivotal role in facilitating such emotional reunions. 

We extend our most sincere appreciation to Bishop Matthew Elshoff, the parish, 

volunteers, and the event organizers who dedicated their time and efforts to make 

this day extraordinary. Their compassion and commitment exemplify the spirit of 

community and solidarity. 

This event serves as a poignant reminder of the urgent need for immigration 

reform. As people of faith, we are called to embrace the stranger and advocate for 

justice. Let us not forget the biblical imperative to welcome the stranger, for in 

doing so, we honor the teachings of Christ. 

— Isaac Cuevas, LA Archdiocese Office of Immigration Affairs, SoCal Immigration 

Task Force 

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. 

Okaja for orphans 

“It makes it easier to go all in 

with one another when you 

go all in with God first.” 

~ Daniel Brown, who got married in November 2023 

in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., in an April 

18 Catholic Standard article on the journey of love 

and faith for newly married couples. 

“There is no compassion in 

stepping over people in the 

streets.” 

~ California Gov. Gavin Newsom, in an April 18 

CalMatters article on the Supreme Court hearing a 

case on homeless encampments. 

“Jesus offers the model of 

radical obedience to the will 

of his Father and we prize 

our autonomy above all 

else. Our American culture 

prizes success and we 

worship a crucified God.” 

~ National Catholic Reporter columnist Michael 

Sean Winters in an April 19 column on future areas 

of growth and decline in the U.S. church. 

“This was not just about 

my opinions, but about 

everyone’s freedom of 

expression.” 

~ Finnish lawmaker Päivi Räsänen, who is standing 

trial for the third time on hate speech charges for 

quoting Bible verses condemning homosexual acts. 

Muji Kaiser is a mother and child advocate who founded the nonprofit organization, The Okaja Foundation, in honor 

of her mother. Kaiser spoke with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles about how her family story drives her work with a 

Catholic orphanage in her home country of Nigeria. Watch Muji’s and all #LACatholicsStory videos at lacatholics.org/ 

stories. | ARCHDIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES 

To view this video 

and others, visit 

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. 

“Without their 

contributions, American 

communities would grind 

to a standstill.” 

~ Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, chair of the U.S. 

bishops’ migration committee, on the role of 

immigrants in a statement encouraging Congress 

to create more avenues to legal employment 

authorization for those with pending asylum claims. 


IN EXILE 

FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI 

Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father 

Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual 

writer; ronrolheiser.com 

Trying not to make God look bad 

For 15 years, I taught a course 

entitled “The Theology of God.” 

The students in that course were 

predominantly seminarians preparing 

for ministry, along with a number of lay 

students who were preparing to serve as 

ministers in various capacities in their 

churches. 

I would always teach what the curriculum 

called for: the key biblical 

revelations about the nature of God and 

God’s actions in history, some salient 

perspectives from the patristics on 

God’s nature and actions, the historical 

development of the dogmatic definitions 

about God, plus some speculative 

notions on the Trinity, ranging from St. 

Augustine to Karl Rahner to Catherine 

Lacugna. But my overriding emphasis, 

like a leitmotif, was always this. I would 

tell the students: Whatever else you do 

in your pastoral practice and preaching, 

try not to make God look stupid! 

Nothing is as important in our teaching, 

preaching, and pastoral activities 

as is the notion we convey of the God 

who underwrites it all. Every homily we 

preach, every catechetical or sacramental 

teaching we give, and every pastoral 

practice we engage in reflects the God 

who undergirds it. If our teaching is 

narrow and petty, we make God look 

narrow and petty. If our pastoral practice 

lacks understanding and compassion, 

we make God lack understanding 

and compassion. If we are legalistic, we 

make God legalistic. If we are tribal, 

nationalistic, or racist, we make God 

tribal, nationalistic, and racist. If we do 

things that befuddle common sense, 

we make God the enemy of common 

sense. Crassly stated, when we do 

stupid things in our ministry, we make 

God look stupid. 

In all of our preaching, teaching, 

and pastoral practice we need to work 

at rescuing God from arbitrariness, 

narrowness, legalism, rigidity, racism, 

tribalism, nationalism, and everything 

that’s narrow, legalistic, and petty that, 

through us, gets associated with God. 

Anything we do in the name of God 

reflects God. 

It’s no accident that atheism, anti-clericalism, 

and most of the negativity 

leveled against the Church and religion 

today can always point to some bad theology 

or Church practice on which to 

base itself. Atheism is always a parasite, 

feeding off bad religion. So too is most 

of the negativity toward the churches 

which is prevalent today. Anti-church 

attitudes feed on bad religion and thus 

we who preach, teach, and minister in 

the name of God need to scrutinize 

ourselves in the light of those criticisms. 

As well, we need the honesty to admit 

that we have seriously hurt many 

persons by the rigidity of some of our 

pastoral practices that do not reflect a 

God of understanding, compassion, and 

intelligence, but instead suggest that 

God is arbitrary, legalistic, and not very 

intelligent. 

I say this in sympathy. It’s not easy to 

reflect God adequately, but we must try, 

try to reflect better the God that Jesus 

incarnated. What are the marks of that 

God? 

First, that God has no favorites. No 

one person, race, gender, or nation is 

more favored than others by that God. 

All are privileged. That God is also 

clear that it’s not only those who profess 

God and religion explicitly who are persons 

of faith, but also those, irrespective 

of their explicit faith or church practice, 

who do the will of God on earth. 

Next, that God is scandalously understanding 

and compassionate, especially 

toward the weak and toward sinners. 

That God is willing to sit down with sinners 

without first asking them to clean 

up their lives. Moreover, that God asks 

us to be compassionate in the same way 

to both sinners and saints and to love 

them both equally. That God does not 

have preferential love for the virtuous. 

In addition, that God is critical of 

those who, whatever their sincerity, try 

to block access to him. That God is 

never defensive, but surrenders himself 

to death rather than defend himself, 

never meets hatred with hatred, and 

dies loving and forgiving those who are 

killing him. 

Finally, and centrally, that God is 

first of all good news for the poor. Any 

preaching in God’s name that isn’t good 

news for the poor is not the gospel. 

Those are the attributes of the God 

who Jesus incarnated, and we need 

to keep that God in mind in all of 

our preaching, teaching, and pastoral 

practices, even as we are sensitive to 

proper boundaries and the demands of 

orthodox teaching. 

Complex pastoral questions will always 

be with us and this is not suggesting that 

these issues be resolved simplistically. 

The truth sets us free, and the demands 

of discipleship are, by Jesus’ own admission, 

harsh. However, with that being 

admitted, the compassion, mercy, and 

intelligence of God need always still 

to be reflected in every pastoral action 

we do. Otherwise, God looks arbitrary, 

tribal, cruel, and antithetical to love. 

Christianity, as Marilynne Robinson 

says, is too great a narrative to be 

underwritten by any lesser tale and that 

should forbid especially its being subordinated 

to narrowness, legalism, lack 

of compassion, and lack of common 

sense. 


A groom and 

bride hold hands 

on their wedding 

day. | CNS FILE 

PHOTO/JON L. 

HENDRICKS 

The privilege of marriage 

Thankfully, a Catholic sociologist’s new book about marriage 

with a blunt title says the quiet part out loud. 

BY ELISE ITALIANO URENECK 

I 

find that the one upside to roundthe-clock 

newborn baby feeding is 

the chance to make headway on my 

reading list. To be sure, juggling a book 

and a baby requires some dexterity, but 

as a mother of three, I know that the 

first weeks with an infant provide the 

most reading time I’m likely to have for 

a while. 

When I welcomed my third son this 

past January, I chose to devour “Get 

Married: Why Americans Must Defy 

the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and 

Save Civilization” (Broadside Books, 

$21.59) by University of Virginia 

sociologist Brad Wilcox — not exactly 

light reading for my late nights, but a 

title that had been on my radar since 

I last interviewed the author for these 

pages. 

While it’s rife with data, “Get 

Married” stirred up something deeply 

personal. At several points in the book, 

I thought to myself, “What a privilege 

it is to be married, and to be married 

in this way.” 

By “this way,” I mean to a man who 

shares my faith, who has what Wilcox 

describes as a “we-before-me” attitude, 

who sees rearing children as part and 

parcel of our shared life’s project, who 

sought a particular kind of education 

and employment primarily to provide 

for a family (and give me the option to 

stay home), and for whom divorce is 

not an option. As my husband likes to 

say, “We’re going down with the ship.” 

Wilcox provides salient evidence as to 

why this type of marriage statistically 

yields higher levels of happiness, better 

economic stability, and more attractive 

prospects for children. Of course, by 

the grace of God we all go. Nothing in 

life is guaranteed. But for those looking 

to set themselves up for a meaningful 

life, the math alone supports his case. 

But all of this presumes men and 

women buy into the idea of marriage 


as a meaningful path in the first place. 

For several generations now, the 

pursuit of happiness has been closely 

linked with maximizing our freedom 

and autonomy through solitary self-actualization. 

It’s had devastating effects, 

which Wilcox documents. 

Just consider the mental health 

crisis among young Americans, our 

plummeting birthrate, the loneliness 

epidemic, the opioid crisis, the 

number of out-of-work men addicted 

to screens, the inability of the working 

class to find stability, and declining 

rates of female happiness despite wage 

gains and expanded opportunity. In my 

experience, it also includes living with 

the very real consequences of multiple 

generations of divorce. 

Wilcox says the quiet part out loud: 

“From mainstream media outlets, on 

college campuses, in public schools, 

and on the floor of Congress, we hear 

that problems like these are about the 

economy, or failing schools, or inequality, 

or race, or inadequate public 

policies … [but] questions of marriage 

and family are better predictors of 

outcomes for people than the topics 

that currently dominate our public 

conversation. ...” 

In light of the above, it’s worth writing 

again: it’s a privilege to be married. 

In many ways, it feels like a miracle. 

At my bridal shower, my mother joked 

in her toast about how she wasn’t sure 

the day would ever come. I was 34, 

more than a decade older than she was 

when she got married. Though I suspect 

she thought my “two-Tom” rule 

was keeping me single (I said I was 

holding out for someone who could 

talk about Tom Brady as well as Thomas 

Aquinas), there was also a major 

cultural shift afoot that Baby Boomers 

were blind to. That they would get 

married and settle down was assumed. 

For me and my girlfriends, finding a 

man who was marriage-minded was 

like finding a needle in a haystack. 

In large numbers, my peers have chosen 

to delay marriage and childbearing, 

choosing instead to cohabit, travel, 

move every few years to a new city and 

try their hand at caring for someone 

else by getting a pet. We are paralyzed 

by the overwhelming choices we have 

— including an endless number of 

potential partners available online. 

I can’t count the number of grandmothers 

I meet at our local park who 

lament that they have only one grandchild 

and realistically have only “a few 

good years” with them. Sadly, the data 

AMAZON 

suggests that Boomers are reaping what 

they sowed. 

Wilcox’s research puts a fine point 

on how we got here: the dismantling 

of sexual norms, including no-fault 

divorce, putting a premium on family 

diversity rather than family stability 

(which disproportionately hurts the 

working class and poor); “blank slate 

SHUTTERSTOCK 


feminism,” which promised 

but failed to deliver women 

greater levels of happiness if 

they joined the workforce, 

outsourced child care, or 

opted not to have kids; and 

a pornified, digitized world, 

in which young Americans 

are taught to ignore sex and 

gender differences. 

Equally sad is the fact that 

many men and women 

who do want to get married 

cannot afford to do so: 

working-class couples are penalized 

by our tax code and 

the economic reality of “the 

two-income trap” such that 

getting married takes money 

out of their wallets and food 

off their children’s tables. 

Marriage should not be a 

luxury lifestyle option for 

the college-educated. It 

should be something that 

most men and women can 

enter into and in which they 

can thrive. 

But there is good news. 

Marital quality is highest 

among those who are religious, 

hold more traditional 

views of sex and gender, 

Karla and Jason De Los Reyes celebrate their 

wedding in Santiago, Spain, Dec. 12, 2019. | 

CNS/COURTESY DE LOS REYES FAMILY 

welcome children within a 

stable union, and put their 

family first. In other words, 

when men and women get 

married the way the Church 

has always proposed, they 

and their children report 

higher levels of happiness, 

stability, and hope for their 

future. Decades upon 

decades of dismantling that 

norm has given us the sociological 

data to support that 

it works — a silver lining, if 

there was any. 

It would be easy to despair 

at what Wilcox calls the 

“closing of the American 

heart.” But as I read his book, 

I kept thinking about Mother 

Teresa’s well-quoted counsel: 

“If you want to change 

the world, go home and 

love your family.” All that is 

within my power is to show 

my husband and sons what 

a privilege it is to love them, 

with the hope that they, too, 

know and yearn for such joy. 

Elise Italiano Ureneck is a 

communications consultant 

writing from Rhode Island. 

want to stay married? 

go to church 

Wilcox says that despite antireligious messages in 

our culture, “the truth is that religion is generally 

a force for good when it comes to the quality and 

stability of married life, men’s and women’s satisfaction 

with their lives, and the welfare of children.” 

The sociologist cites research that finds that Americans 

“who regularly attend a church, synagogue, temple, or 

mosque are significantly happier in their marriages, less 

likely to end up divorced, and more satisfied with their lives 

— and their children are more likely to be flourishing.” 

He attributes this to three “N’s”: 

• Norms: Religious services are some of the only 

settings today that men and women hear messages 

that underline the importance of marriage and family 

life and promote the virtues and habits to strengthen 

those bonds. 

• Networks: Religious communities are powerful social 

networks for families, providing support and stability 

for life’s big moments. 

• Nomos: Wilcox references “a meaningful sense of 

the cosmos,” or the idea that God has a providential 

care of the world. This kind of faith helps couples 

manage difficult and traumatic moments in life, 

resolve conflict, and find meaning in the everyday 

investments they make in their family life and one 

another. 

— Elise Italiano Ureneck 


CLOSE ENCOUNTER 

At a recent Engaged Encounter retreat, couples learned that the 

benefits — and challenges — of marriage go beyond the wedding day. 

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY THERESA CISNEROS 

John and Amy Sabol pose in front of 

an Engaged Encounter poster during 

a weekend retreat at Sacred Heart 

Retreat House in Alhambra. 

As volunteers for Catholic Engaged 

Encounter (CEE), John 

and Amy Sabol have spent the 

last 28 years helping engaged couples 

plan for their big day by preparing them 

for what comes after their big day. 

The Sabols, who’ve been married 

for 50 years, help run CEE weekend 

retreats where they encourage couples 

to bring God into their relationship and 

develop healthy communication habits, 

as a reminder that a wedding lasts a day, 

while a marriage lasts a lifetime. 

The Sabols said their own marriage 

was strengthened by sharing their 

life story with retreat participants and 

explaining how forgiveness, open communication, 

and making a conscious 

decision to love your spouse even in 

difficult times can lead to a more fulfilling 

union. 

“We always talk about how marriage is 

work,” said John, “but we also try to tell 

them that it’s worth it. Being in a good 

relationship with your partner is worth 

more than anything else.” 

“We’ve learned that we’re kind of best 

friends as well as a married couple,” 

Amy added. 

The Sabols are part of a global 

network of priests and married couples 

who present weekend retreats for CEE, 

an international Catholic marriage 

preparation program that grew out of 

the Marriage Encounter program about 

50 years ago. 

In the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, 

couples can meet marriage preparation 

requirements by completing a CEE 

weekend retreat. 

During the three-day gatherings, a presenting 

team — composed of a priest 

and married couples — delivers talks in 

a group setting touching on five major 

themes: “The Family We Grew Up In,” 


“Sacramental Marriage,” “Communication,” 

“Intimacy,” and “Values.” After 

the presentations, participants are given 

time to journal and share their reflections 

with their partners. 

“The purpose of the weekend is to 

help the couples dig deeper into their 

relationship and make sure that they 

have discussed issues that are important 

to the relationship and maybe have 

been taking a backseat because they’re 

doing wedding planning,” John said. 

“The purpose is to get them to really 

communicate on a deeper level about 

all these topics.” 

In April, the Sabols hosted a CEE retreat 

at the Sacred Heart Retreat House 

in Alhambra along with co-presenters 

Joe and Kathie Schneider and Father 

Larry Gosselin, OFM. Thirty-eight engaged 

couples from across the archdiocese 

— and beyond — attended. 

The retreat kicked off Friday night 

with exercises designed to help participants 

get to know themselves better 

because, as the Sabols pointed out, 

participants need to know who they 

are as individuals before they can truly 

open up to their partners. 

As the weekend progressed, the team 

went on to deliver 14 presentations on 

topics ranging from conflict manage- 

ment, fertility, finances, and more. 

Couples also had the opportunity to 

write betrothal promises to each other, 

public pledges of love and commitment 

that detail the steps they plan to take to 

prepare for the sacrament of marriage. 

Father Larry Gosselin, OFM, center, stands with engaged 

couple Jeannine MacAller and Jorge Anguiano 

during a recent Engaged Encounter weekend retreat. 

The retreat wrapped with two final 

sessions on Sunday afternoon, in which 

participants shared their thoughts about 

the weekend and received certificates of 

completion while being cheered on by 

their peers. 

Nearly 20 participants spoke, with 

many saying that the retreat exceeded 

their expectations and gave them a 

better understanding of the sacrament 

they would be celebrating. 

“It was so much more than a church 

requirement,” one person said. 

For Jada Selexman and Dominic 

Scaglione, of St. Clare of Assisi Church 

in Santa Clarita, the weekend provided 

an opportunity to dive deeper 

into topics they don’t often have time 

to discuss and 

Married couples John 

and Amy Sabol and Joe 

and Kathie Schneider, 

along with Father Larry 

Gosselin, OFM, put on 

the Catholic Engaged 

Encounter retreat on 

April 5-7. 

prompted them to 

think more about 

the solemnity of 

their impending 

wedding Mass. 

“It’s very grounding 

to hear that our 

wedding is not just 

about the reception 

and how much fun we’re going to 

have, but it’s about the ceremony and 

the sacrament itself,” Selexman said. 

For Tiffany Herrera and John Le, of 

Holy Family Church in South Pasade- 


na, the retreat taught them how integrating 

more prayer and communication 

into their lives can help strengthen 

their relationship today and beyond. 

“It just brought our level of intimacy 

to a whole new level,” Le said. “I 

really didn’t imagine that happening. I 

imagined us being closer to God, but 

never thought about what it means to 

have him be a part of our relationship. 

It just really makes me love her a lot 

more than I thought I would, coming 

out.” 

For Jeannine MacAller and Jorge Anguiano, 

of Padre Serra Church in Camarillo, 

the CEE retreat had been a 

long time coming. The couple initially 

planned to get married in 2020, but 

their plans were derailed by the COV- 

ID-19 pandemic, MacAller’s fight with 

cancer, and other challenges. 

The couple said the retreat taught 

them how to be vulnerable while 

communicating with each other, and 

further solidified their desire to bring 

God into their union. 

“God is the center of our lives, and 

we want him at the center of our marriage,” 

MacAller said. “We know how 

much we have needed him as individuals 

and we need him just as much, if 

not more, as a married couple. I’m so 

glad we did this.” 

Members of the presenting team said 

they were energized by participants’ 

zeal and desire to get married in the 

Catholic Church, even in today’s 

contemporary times. 

“This is a sign that the Church is still 

very much alive and there’s still young 

people who desire to make their commitment 

as husband and wife in the 

sacrament of marriage in the Church,” 

said Gosselin, who’s been giving CEE 

retreats for about 40 years. “To see 

their excitement, and to see their joy 

and their enthusiasm about living their 

faith is rewarding.” 

The Schneiders — who’ve been married 

for almost 60 years and have been 

volunteering for 45 years with CEE — 

said they continue to present weekend 

retreats as a way to give back. 

The couple struggled early in their 

“I imagined us being closer to God, but never 

thought about what it means to have him be a 

part of our relationship.” 

marriage, Joe Schneider said, and 

wishes they would’ve had a resource 

like CEE back then. 

“It really gives us hope for the future, 

and hope for the Church,” he said. 

“And it keeps us honest. It challenges 

us to remember what we started 

out with and how, hopefully, we’ve 

grown.” 

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. 


STEPPING UP TO SAFEGUARD 

Twenty years after the archdiocese revamped 

its abuse prevention program, leaders say their 

work is still about ‘changing the culture.’ 

Father Michael Wakefield, pastor at St. 

Francis de Sales Church in Sherman Oaks, 

speaks to students after a morning Mass 

during Abuse Prevention Month on April 

12. | MIKE CISNEROS 

BY MIKE CISNEROS 

Addressing students during the 

school’s morning Mass on April 

12, Father Michael Wakefield, 

pastor at St. Francis de Sales Church in 

Sherman Oaks, relayed a story about a 

woman who inquired about the healing 

garden along the parish’s outside wall. 

“Is this only for those who were 

abused as children?” she asked. 

“No, not at all,” Wakefield said. 

“Good,” she said. 

“She sat on one of the benches outside 

and sobbed the entire time,” recalled 

the priest. 

For Wakefield, stories like these help 

illustrate the deeper meaning of the 

events and activities organized around 

the Archdiocese of Los Angeles as part 

of National Child Abuse Prevention 

Month, marked every April. 

In coordination with the archdiocese’s 

Office of Safeguard the Children — 

celebrating its 20th anniversary this 

year — parishes hosted events like St. 

Francis de Sales’ throughout April to 

promote awareness and demonstrate 

closeness to victim-survivors of abuse. 

Among them was a special April 15 

Mass dedicated to survivors of sexual 

abuse at the St. Camillus Center for 

Spiritual Care in East Los Angeles, the 

site of the first healing garden. 

Their ultimate goal, organizers said, is 

a change of culture when it comes to 

protecting the most vulnerable among 

us. 


“This sexual abuse prevention programming 

that we do with kids is every 

bit as important as looking both ways 

before you cross the street or putting 

your seatbelt on when you get in the 

car,” said Heather Banis, Ph.D., victims 

assistance coordinator with the archdiocese’s 

Office of Victims Assistance 

Ministry. “Because these are safety 

measures. 

“We’ve been at it for 20-plus years. 

The focus on prevention is huge and 

by our data, our audit report, I think it’s 

clear that a huge impact is happening.” 

Part of the change, Banis said, also 

comes from repairing the damage done 

from the past and working to change 

the institution that allowed the wounds 

in the first place. 

“First and foremost, we have a 

responsibility,” she said. “I think if we 

are calling ourselves Christians and 

Catholics, we have to acknowledge that 

and step up, take responsibility for what 

we did and didn’t do and then take 

active meaningful steps to fix that, to 

change that.” 

For the past 20 years, more than 

440,000 priests, educators, volunteers, 

and laypeople in the archdiocese have 

been trained in VIRTUS, a national 

program designed to help prevent child 

sexual abuse. More than 355,000 children 

and young people have participated 

in the “Empowering God’s Children 

and Young People Safety Program” to 

equip them with the tools to stay safe 

from potential harm. 

Coupled with mandatory fingerprinting, 

the “Working Together to Prevent 

Child Sexual Abuse” brochure and 

consistent messaging both online and 

in parishes and schools, the archdiocese 

sees that the effort is paying 

off. 

“It’s clear kids are feeling 

empowered to say, ‘I don’t 

want this touch’ or, ‘I 

didn’t like that touch,’ ” 

Banis said. “Or, ‘I know 

if I get pressed and I’m 

uncomfortable, I can ask 

people about it because 

they’re prepared to talk to 

me about it.’ 

“It’s all about changing 

the culture for the kids 

to have that expectation 

of being believed, being 

heard, and being supported.” 

Just as Wakefield took 

pride in his parish’s healing 

garden, one of the next 

accomplishments will be 

installing the final landscape 

in fulfilling the goal 

of having a garden in each of the archdiocese’s 

five regions. The fifth healing 

garden will be located in the San Pedro 

Pastoral Region and is expected to be 

completed by Nov. 18, the United 

Nations’ World Day for the Prevention 

of and Healing from Child Sexual 

Exploitation, Abuse and Violence. 

“The gardens are the next layer in this, 

where there is that sense of permanence 

and acknowledgement, which is 

not something we’re trying to get over 

and move on from,” Banis said. “This is 

a sad, tragic part of our history but it is 

part of our history. From what survivors 

say to me, to see that kind of permanence 

is really impactful for them 

because they feel so invisible.” 

Back at St. Francis de Sales’ Mass, 

Children at Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights 

created an altar featuring posters, pinwheels, and art 

for Abuse Prevention Month. | DOLORES MISSION 

Father Chris Ponnet celebrated 

a Mass dedicated to survivors of 

sexual abuse on April 15 at the St. 

Camillus Center for Spiritual Care 

in Los Angeles. | JOHN RUEDA 

students — clad in their blue, white, 

and gray uniforms — asked for special 

intentions: “May all who work with 

children and young people be vigilant 

in protecting them from harm.” 

After the Mass, Wakefield took waves 

of students outside to the garden to explain 

its purpose and allow the children 

to place flowers or intentions and pray 

for those affected. 

“Does this make up for it? No, it 

doesn’t,” Wakefield said. “That innocence 

has been taken away. But what 

we can do is provide some means of 

reaching out to people and trying to be 

a conduit of God’s goodness and God’s 

healing.” 

Later, Wakefield was asked what 

prompted him to bring the healing 

garden to his parish. 

“This is now what we 

do because we think our 

children are so important 

and our children are so 

precious to us,” he said. 

“It’s the least we can do 

to try to make up for the 

damage that was done.” 

You can learn more about 

the Archdiocese of LA’s 

abuse prevention efforts at 

lacatholics.org/protect. 

Mike Cisneros is the associate 

editor of Angelus. 


FACILITATING COURAGE 

For 20 years, they’ve trained thousands of local 

Catholics to protect children from potential 

abuse. Now, LA’s VIRTUS experts are passing 

on the same lessons to kids themselves. 

Susie Lopez, a facilitator of the VIRTUS 

safety program, shows off to students the 

new poster created for the 2024 Abuse 

Prevention Month in April. | SUBMITTED 

PHOTO 

BY NATALIE ROMANO 

There are few jobs, Susie Lopez 

will tell you, more rewarding 

than teaching kids how to stand 

up to potential predators. 

Lopez, who trains catechists for the 

Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ Empowering 

God’s Children and Young 

People program, told the story of one 

girl in her community who was inappropriately 

touched by a schoolmate. 

When she had the courage to disclose 

that to an adult, she stopped the abuse 

not only for herself, but for others. 

“She knew what to do,” said Lopez. 

“She told her catechist and the catechist 

reported it. From that, five other 

little victims came forward. They 

never said anything about it and it had 

been going on for half of the year.” 

Unlike the first girl, Lopez explained, 

those victims hadn’t gone through 

something like Empowering God’s 

Children, which teaches youth about 

thwarting and reporting sexual abuse. 

Lopez, along with Dea Boehme, 

Anita Robinson, and Marge Schugt, 

are considered some of the LA Archdiocese’s 

most seasoned experts in the 

VIRTUS safety programs that teach 

adults and children about sexual 


abuse prevention. 

Under the leadership of the archdiocese’s 

Office of Safeguard the 

Children, they’ve spent the last two 

decades passing on lessons learned 

to a new generation of facilitators 

charged with training every person 

in the archdiocese who works with or 

around youth. 

The latest program is Empowering 

God’s Children, which launched in 

2018. It’s taught annually to about 

100,000 students enrolled K-12 in local 

Catholic schools, parish catechism 

classes, and various youth activities. 

Their ministry, said the facilitators, 

is rooted in love for children — and a 

desire for them to love themselves. 

“The love of oneself, the importance 

of that, it’s a very positive lesson we 

teach,” said Schugt, a retired social 

worker who serves as the Safeguard 

the Children coordinator at St. 

Margaret Mary Alacoque Church in 

Lomita. “Children can do a lot more 

when they know their self-worth.” 

For many of the facilitators, their 

involvement in youth protection was 

prompted by the clergy sex abuse 

crisis in 2002. The women say it was a 

difficult time, but being mothers and 

grandmothers, they couldn’t stand 

idle. 

Despite not knowing what to expect, 

Boehme joined Vienna’s first class of 

trainers. 

“When we got started a lot of people 

were confused and angry,” Boehme 

said. “It was a test of my faith too. I 

stuck with it because I saw it was really 

working. People became empowered, 

learned what they had to do, and 

were able to move beyond that terrible 

moment. Now 20 years later people 

come to training engaged.” 

Robinson admitted she was reluctant 

to take her first training class. After 33 

years of working in Los Angeles public 

schools as a teacher and administrator, 

she thought she knew how to protect 

children. After one day of training, she 

realized she was wrong. 

“I had no idea how sophisticated 

the grooming process was,” Robinson 

said. “Predators are patient. They’re so 

intent on what they’re doing, they will 

spend all the time they need. 

“I realized, wow, this program is so 

much more than I thought it was.” 

One of the most painful lessons 

they’ve all learned is how the effects of 

childhood sexual abuse are deep and 

lasting. 

“One of the most challenging things 

for me is to watch the [training] videos,” 

Schugt said. “I still look into the 

[victim’s] eyes and see the pain. It’s 

so hard. But the day it becomes just 

another video for me to get through is 

the day I need to stop.” 

Vienna understands the pain all too 

well. As a survivor of sexual abuse, she 

is driven to give others a “wonderful 

childhood.” Vienna said that’s accomplished 

by giving kids and adults the 

right tools. 

“I wish someone had this knowledge 

when I was a child,” Vienna said. “We 

now have a common language, we use 

the same words when teaching adults 

and youth. When kids say someone’s 

touch made them ‘uncomfortable,’ we 

know what they mean.” 

Despite the heartache involved, 

Vienna calls this a “joyful ministry” 

infused with prayer and inspired by 

the Holy Spirit. Boehme, a retired 

forensic toxicologist, agrees. 

“We trust God will give us the words, 

the attitude, the skills to help people 

understand the program,” said Boehme. 

“We always pray for an effective 

training session and for those that are 

there that day to come to a new place 

of understanding and empowerment.” 

Lopez sees herself as part of an ongoing 

shift in society, one that is more 

honest and open about childhood 

sexual abuse. She leads with that objective 

as a facilitator and the religious 

education coordinator at St. Philip the 

Apostle Church in Pasadena. 

“Changing the culture of silence to 

a culture of dialogue — I’m for that,” 

Lopez said. “I have no problem talking 

about it and I’m glad more people 

are talking about it.” 

That’s why Empowering God’s Children’s 

curriculum teaches appropriate 

and inappropriate behavior, how to 

advocate for yourself during threatening 

situations, and the importance 

of reporting anything that makes 

anyone uncomfortable. Safeguard the 

Children Associate Director Brenda 

Cabrera, Vienna, and Robinson — 

also a consultant for the office — 

developed the program with easy-tofollow 

lesson plans and strong ties to 

Scripture. 

“In every lesson, there is a catechetical 

connection,” Robinson said. “We 

can’t operate in isolation of our faith. 

It’s important to let children know 

they’ve been created wonderfully, 

beautifully by God.” 

Empowering God’s Children runs 

on a three-year cycle with each year 

having a different theme: “Safe and 

Unsafe Touching Rules,” “Boundaries 

and Bullying,” and “Internet and 

Technology Safety.” The last two are 

particularly important for tweens and 

teens, said Lopez, whose child also 

went through the program. 

“Bullying doesn’t end at school; it 

goes home,” Lopez said. “As long as 

[youth are] engaging online, they’re 

allowing the bullying to continue in 

some way. We talk about it, we tell 

them they have the power to stop it. 

They can block and report.” 

Younger children are instructed in 

a way that is informative but not too 

scary or explicit. Robinson said she 

keeps the lessons positive, referring 

to kids as superheroes in their own 

stories. 

“I stuck with it because I saw it was really working. 

People became empowered, learned what 

they had to do, and were able to move beyond 

that terrible moment.” 

“It’s work I can do,” said Robinson. 

“It’s work I think I’m effective at. It’s 

work I’m so passionate about, I cannot 

stop.” 

Natalie Romano is a freelance writer 

for Angelus and the Inland Catholic 

Byte, the news website of the Diocese of 

San Bernardino. 


TEACHING BETWEEN 

The latest document 

from the Vatican’s 

doctrine office isn’t 

really about doctrine, 

but something else. 

THE AISLE 

BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR. 

ROME — Perhaps it’s a measure 

of the almost surreal media narrative 

that’s grown up around Pope 

Francis for the last 11 years that the 

Vatican could issue a document April 8 

opposing abortion, euthanasia, surrogate 

motherhood, gender theory, and 

sex-change procedures, and it would 

somehow be considered news. 

From a media point of view, Dignitas 

Infinita (“Infinite Dignity”), the latest 

declaration from the Vatican’s Dicastery 

for the Doctrine of the Faith, should 

have been a “dog bites man” exercise. 

Only in the Francis era, when we’ve 

been conditioned to expect doctrinal 

revolutions at every turn by previous 

documents such as Amoris Laetitia 

(“The Joy of Love”) in 2016 and Fiducia 

Supplicans (“Supplicating Trust”) 

last December, could “Pope upholds 

Catholic teaching” actually become a 

headline. 

Unfortunately, the clamor over the 

content of Dignitas Infinita, and what 

precisely to make of its various formulae, 

risks missing the real point. Unlike 

its predecessors mentioned above, 

Dignitas Infinita was not conceived as 

a statement about Catholic teaching, 

even if it was issued by the doctrinal 

office. 

Instead, Dignitas Infinita amounts to 

a direct frontal challenge to Catholic 

sociology, in particular the marked tendency 

for pro-life and peace-and-justice 

Catholics to inhabit different worlds 

and, quite often, to end up working at 

A woman holds a child during 

an immigration rally near the 

U.S. Capitol in Washington in 

this 2017 file photo. | CNS/ 

TYLER ORSBURN 

cross-purposes. 

This point was driven home in an 

article for Vatican News written by 

Andrea Tornielli, the veteran Italian 

journalist who now serves as the pope’s 

editorial director, and arguably his most 

important official interpreter. To put an 

exclamation point on things, Tornielli’s 

editorial was distributed by the Vatican 

Press Office to the media at the same 

time as advance copies of the document 

itself, as if to lend his analysis 

official standing. 

“The principal novelty of the document, 

which is the fruit of five years’ 

work, is the inclusion of certain important 

themes of the recent papal magisterium 

alongside bioethical matters,” 

Tornielli wrote. 

“In the non-exhaustive list that’s 

offered of violations of human dignity, 

abortion, euthanasia, and surrogate 


motherhood are accompanied by war, 

the drama of poverty and of migrants, 

and human trafficking,” he said. 

Then, Tornielli arrives at the bottom 

line. 

“The new text thus contributes to 

overcoming the existing dichotomy 

between those who concentrate in an 

exclusive way on the defense of unborn 

life, or the dying, forgetting many 

other offenses against human dignity, 

and vice-versa, those who concentrate 

only on the defense of the poor and of 

migrants, forgetting that life must be 

defended from conception to its natural 

end,” he wrote. 

Anyone familiar with the sociology of 

the Catholic Church, perhaps especially 

in the United States but also in many 

other parts of the world, and who’s 

being honest about it, would have to 

acknowledge that Tornielli isn’t just 

spitting in the wind. 

Of course, there are plenty of exceptions, 

but as a general rule, self-described 

pro-life Catholics and peaceand-justice 

Catholics simply do not 

work and play well together. What’s 

worse, much of the time they don’t 

even know one another, except by reputation 

and social media profiles (which, 

in the 21st century, usually amount to 

the same thing.) 

Pro-life Catholics follow their own 

heroes, read their own media outlets, 

attend their own conferences and 

meetings, and organize their own 

activities, often moving in their own 

self-contained and hermetically sealed 

universe. 

Much the same can be said, pari passu 

(at an equal pace), of their counterparts 

in the peace-and-justice galaxy of 

Catholicism. 

Church activists engaged in the fight 

against the death penalty, for example, 

or for immigration reform, or for 

poverty relief overseas, or anti-racism 

campaigns, or any number of other 

good causes fully endorsed by Catholic 

social teaching, likewise consume their 

own media sources, have their own 

revered points of reference, attend their 

own rallies and summits, and often 

have little to do with Catholics of other 

persuasions. 

To put the point differently, and again 

with allowances for notable exceptions, 

the overlap in Catholic attendance at, 

say, the March for Life and the various 

George Floyd protests, is likely fairly 

small. 

I’ve been using American examples, 

but the same observation could be 

made about Catholicism elsewhere, 

most particularly across the Western 

world where the battle lines between 

left and right have become hardened. 

Here in Italy, for instance, there’s relatively 

little cross-over between Catholics 

involved in, say, the Community 

of Sant’Egidio, a center-left movement 

especially engaged in ecumenical and 

interfaith dialogue, conflict resolution, 

and poverty relief, and the Family 

Day Association, a group founded by 

Massimo Gandolfini, a neurosurgeon 

and member of the Neocatechumenal 

Way, which is devoted to opposition 

to gender theory, abortion, and other 

measures considered anti-family. 

Against that backdrop, Dignitas Infinita 

isn’t about revising Catholic social 

teaching. It’s about challenging the way 

that teaching is often sliced and diced 

in the way it’s applied on the basis of 

personal preference, ideological affinity, 

and the raw fact of who somebody’s 

friends may be. 

The message of the new document is 

that Catholic social teaching is a fullcourse 

meal, not a do-it-yourself buffet. 

A former papal ambassador to the 

United States, Italian Archbishop Pietro 

Sambi, used to roll out a one-liner 

anytime the issue of abortion came up 

in conversation with American Catholics, 

which, as you might imagine, it 

did a lot during his tenure from 2005 

to 2011. 

“To be Catholic, you must be pro-life,” 

Sambi would always say. “But to be 

Catholic, it’s not enough to be pro-life,” 

using the term in its American sense of 

“anti-abortion.” 

Sambi could have been the godfather 

of Dignitas Infinita, because that’s 

its message too. Now, the question 

becomes how well that message will be 

received and applied, a point arguably 

of special interest in America ahead of 

the 2024 elections. 

John L. Allen Jr. is the editor of Crux 

A copy of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 

declaration, Dignitas Infinita (“Infinite Dignity”) 

on human dignity during a news conference at the 

Vatican on April 8. | CNS/PABLO ESPARZA 


SHUTTERSTOCK 

A PILL’S 

EMPTY PROMISE 

BY KATIE BRECKENRIDGE 

Decades after the Church first warned of its moral 

perils, a new generation of women is rejecting hormonal 

contraception for health reasons. 

TikTok recently deleted several 

videos outlining the harms of 

hormonal contraceptives (HC), 

claiming that they portray “inaccurate, 

misleading, or false content that may 

cause significant harm to individuals 

or society.” The “false content” they 

censored pointed out that hormonal 

contraceptives can lead to weight 

gain, depression, anxiety, and infertility, 

as well as induce abortion. 

A recent Washington Post article also 

dismissed these claims, arguing that 

advocates against hormonal birth control 

are either misled or are participating 

in a conservative ploy to control 

women’s rights. 

TikTok’s move and The Washington 

Post’s defense indicate a growing 

nervousness among advocates of the 

pill. In recent months, there have 

been indicators that a new generation 

of women is rejecting the pill, not 

primarily on moral grounds, but on 

grounds of health. Even left-leaning 

feminist scholars have started to ask 

questions about how the pill has 

changed our views of what it means to 

be female, the value of motherhood, 

and what kinds of health outcomes 

we are willing to sacrifice for consequence-free 

sex. 

In the battle for “reproductive 

freedom” and the “right” to kill our 

children, many are willing to turn a 

blind eye to the documented harms of 

hormonal contraceptives. But they are 

real, and a new generation is taking 

notice. 

The first birth control pills were 

pushed by Margaret Sanger in an 

effort to eliminate people who were 

poor, had mental illnesses or were 

living with disabilities. The first contraceptives 

were tested on women in 

Puerto Rico whose poverty and lack of 

education made them “unfit.” Their 

complaints about the side effects — 

including nausea, depression, and 

blood clots — were dismissed as unreliable. 

Three women died during the 


trials; no autopsies were performed. 

The harmful side effects of hormonal 

contraceptives have only increased 

over time. In the past few years, there 

have been several stories of women 

who developed and died from blood 

clots linked to their use. Among the 

deceased are a 16-year-old girl who 

was taking pills to alleviate painful 

periods, a 17-year old ballerina, a 

20-year-old college student, and a 

24-year-old makeup artist. 

A recent review conducted by 

researchers with the Catholic Medical 

Association found that “...using HC 

increases a woman’s risk of being diagnosed 

with VTE (venous thromboembolism) 

by three to nine times. For 

women under 30, the risk is increased 

13-fold during the first year of use, 

when the risk for clot formation is 

highest.” The study also found that “... 

the risk of fatal VTE was increased in 

women aged fifteen to twenty-four by 

18.8-fold.” The review concluded with 

the following: approximately 300-400 

healthy young women die in the United 

States every year from hormonal 

contraceptives. 

Another study conducted on women 

between 15-33 found that hormonal 

contraceptives were “positively associated 

with a first suicide attempt, as 

compared with never-users,” and the 

highest relative risks were experienced 

by adolescents. This increased risk may 

be due to the link between hormonal 

contraceptives and depression, as well 

as other issues, such as anxiety, related 

to abnormal fluctuation in users. 

In natural menstrual cycles, the fluctuations 

of estrogen and progesterone 

help to maintain healthy emotional 

regulation. The ventromedial prefrontal 

cortex, the part of the brain that is 

responsible for decision making, emotional 

regulation, and memory, works 

together with the parts of the brain 

that process fear. Synthetic hormones 

alter that process. 

The thickness of the vmPFC tissue 

correlates with one’s ability to handle 

generalized fear, mental and emotional 

resilience, and the ability to 

stay calm. In one study, women using 

hormonal contraceptives were found 

to have thinner vmPFCs, increasing 

their susceptibility to chronic anxiety 

and greater overall fearfulness. 

If blood clot and suicide risks weren’t 

alarming enough, hormonal contraceptives 

are also linked to infertility. 

Studies have shown that taking oral 

contraceptives for more than two years 

before pregnancy can increase the risk 

of miscarriage, especially for women 

who are 30-34 years old. This might 

be due to the fact that oral contraceptives 

cause endometrial atrophy, or the 

thinning of the lining of the uterus, 

when taken for long periods of time. 

Research indicates that this atrophy 

can “modify some local factors in the 

endometrium and increase the risk of 

miscarriage.” 

In addition, long-term use can result 

in decreased cervical fluid, which is 

necessary for conception. Hormonal 

contraceptives can actually prematurely 

age the cervix by decreasing the 

cervical crypts and prematurely age 

the ovaries, leading to a decrease in 

ovarian reserve. 

Finally, while The Washington Post 

claimed that hormonal contraception 

does not cause abortions (their 

argument being that the term “abortion” 

applies only to embryos that 

have implanted), contraceptive pills 

can stop embryos from implanting in 

the uterus in the first place. One can 

make a clinical distinction between 

these two scenarios, but if the science 

of embryonic life tells us that it begins 

at fertilization, the end results are the 

same. 

Even a cursory glance at the facts 

vindicates those advocating against 

hormonal birth control. They are neither 

misguided nor fearful, and they 

should definitely not be censored. 

For thousands of years, doctors and 

physicians have taken an oath to “do 

no harm.” It’s high time for us to do 

away with hormonal contraceptives 

so that we can have a more serious 

and robust discussion about how to 

regulate birth in a way that’s best for 

women. 

Katie Breckenridge works for the 

children’s rights organization “Them 

Before Us” and has written for several 

publications on beginning and end-oflife 

issues. She holds a master’s degree 

in mental health and wellness and is 

working toward a second master’s in 

bioethics. 


INTERSECTIONS 

GREG ERLANDSON 

Fitting lessons from the O.J. trial 

When my father was in the 

hospital for the last time, we 

shared our final days together 

with O.J. Simpson. Not just O.J., but 

also Johnnie Cochran Jr., Robert Shapiro, 

Judge Lance Ito, Marcia Clark, 

Mark Fuhrman, Kato Kaelin, and the 

whole strange cast of characters that 

made up “the trial of the century.” 

The trial was on constantly in the 

hospital. My dad was watching it from 

his bed, and if we left the room, it was 

playing out in the waiting rooms and 

lobby. It was relentless. 

It seems hard to recreate how all-consuming 

the murder of Nicole Brown 

Simpson and Ronald Goldman, the 

O.J. Simpson looks at a new pair of gloves, 

the same type found at the murder scene, 

which prosecutors had him put on for the 

jury on June 21, 1995, during the double 

murder trial in Los Angeles. | VINCE 

BUCCI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES 

subsequent arrest and trial of U.S.C.’s 

greatest running back, Hertz pitchman, 

and actor Orenthal James Simpson 

was, especially in Los Angeles. The 

whole city was the set for this reality 

TV show. 

A friend was commuting on the 405 

Freeway when he saw in the opposing 

lanes the slow-motion chase of the 

white Ford Bronco followed by a host 

of news helicopters broadcasting the 

whole bizarre event live. He said the 

sight of the helicopters coming over the 

horizon made it seem like a scene out 

of “Apocalypse Now.” It was a bizarre 

preview to an equally bizarre trial. 

Non-spoiler alert: What seemed like 

a slam dunk of a case surprised almost 

everyone with the jury finding Simpson 

not guilty. By and large, white Los Angeles 

was shocked and dismayed. Black 

Los Angeles was shocked too. They saw 

what can happen when you get the best 

legal defense team money can buy. 

One of the less-famous members of 

that defense team was Gerald Uelmen, 

former dean of the University of Santa 

Clara law school. He was an expert on 

the California Evidence Code. In his 

book “If It Doesn’t Fit: Lessons from a 

Life in the Law,” Uelmen explains that 

he was the one who came up with the 

line, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit,” 

that Cochran used with such devastating 

impact in his summation. 

In his essays on the O.J. trial, Uelmen 

lays out the defense strategy, which 

was simply to show that if the prosecution 

does not prove its case beyond a 

reasonable doubt, it requires the jury 

to acquit. He tells the story of one of 

the jurors who said she thought “ ‘O.J. 

probably did it,’ but she understood 

that ‘probably’ wasn’t good enough, 

that she had to be convinced beyond a 

reasonable doubt.” 

“The verdict,” Uelmen wrote, “was a 

vindication of the principle that guilt 

must be proven beyond a reasonable 

doubt.” 

Uelmen is eloquent in his defense 

of the jury system, and he stresses the 

importance of a defendant getting the 

best, most capable defense possible. He 

is also not blind to the impact of racism 

on our legal system. 

O.J. was a wealthy man. He hired 

the best. If you are black and poor 

in America, your odds of acquittal 

diminish dramatically. He cites a range 

of statistics showing that one’s color 

makes a difference: “Whites do better 

at getting charges dropped. They’re 


Greg Erlandson is the former president and 

editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service. 

better able to get charges reduced to 

lesser offenses. They draw more lenient 

sentences for the same crimes and go 

to prison less often.” 

“When you are on the receiving end, 

it’s hard not to come to the conclusion 

that our justice system is far from colorblind,” 

Uelmen wrote. 

Uelmen’s passion for a more just 

system includes his work in opposition 

to the death penalty. He has 

been a long-time board member of 

the Catholic Mobilizing Network, an 

organization that opposes the death 

penalty and supports restorative justice. 

(Full disclosure: I am also a member of 

CMN’s board.) 

One window into the imperfections 

of our judicial system is the number of 

people, often on death row, who are 

exonerated. Last year alone, 153 were 

exonerated, including four on death 

row and 22 who were sentenced to life 

without possibility of parole. Eightyfour 

percent of these exonerations were 

of people of color; 61% were black. 

Uelmen, as a Catholic and as a 

lawyer, judges the death penalty to be 

morally wrong. It is a position supported 

by the Catechism of the Catholic 

Church and the teachings of the last 

three popes. 

Then what about O.J.? To say his 

life only got worse after his acquittal 

is an understatement. O.J. lost a civil 

case with a lower standard of proof. 

He served nine years of jail time for 

another crime. 

Was justice ever served in this life for 

Nicole and Ron? No. The person who 

many of us think was their killer died 

April 10 of cancer. 

It is an imperfect justice system, its 

imperfections most often exposed in its 

inequalities. It is one of many reasons 

to oppose the death penalty: While the 

guilty may occasionally go free, the 

possibility that the innocent would lose 

their lives at the hands of the state is 

infinitely more horrifying. 


NOW PLAYING CIVIL WAR 

NOT SO NEUTRAL 

Imagining a country polarized beyond imagination, ‘Civil 

War’ doesn’t buy the modern glorification of the press. 

Kirsten Dunst in “Civil 

War.” | IMDB 

BY JOSEPH JOYCE 

Be wary of any occupation described 

as “important.” The second 

you hear your job referred to 

as “essential” or, worse yet, a “vocation,” 

prepare to be underpaid and 

underappreciated. No job is more dispensable 

than the so-called important 

ones: True job security lies in holding a 

position no one quite understands the 

utility of, especially you. 

While the title and trailer for Alex 

Garland’s “Civil War” promises a film 

about a present-day America forgetting 

the lessons of 1865, he proves 

far more interested in one of those 

unfortunately important occupations: 

the journalist. War journalism is even 

worse, as it takes an already thankless 

task and throws in the bonus of live 

gunfire. Who are these people who 

face hell every day the same way we 

brave traffic? Is it strength that keeps 

them going, or rather some species of 

brokenness? 

The film follows Lee (Kirsten Dunst), 

a renowned photojournalist teamed 

up with writer Joel (Wagner Moura). 

Like the rest of their fellow reporters, 

they are covering the ongoing civil war 

between the U.S. government and the 

Western Forces, an alliance between 

California and Texas. Florida, in keeping 

with the restraint and foresight it’s 

known for, has broken away as its own 

republic. All factions march toward 

D.C., with the capital expected to fall 

any day. 

Lee and Joel decide to scoop their 

colleagues by driving through the war 

zone and attempting an interview with 

the president (Nick Offerman) before 

he is deposed. Two other journalists, 

each on the extremes of the age spectrum, 

tag along; their elderly mentor 

Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) 

and cub reporter Jessie (Cailee 

Spaeny), who idolizes Lee much to her 

irritation. 

The film is almost perversely apathetic 

to political reading, with coalitions 

so ridiculous they seem designed to 

preempt any attempt. In reality California 

and Texas agree on little except the 

necessity of A/C, and even then they’d 

likely exchange tactical nukes over 

the definition of room temperature. 

Some film critics have dismissed this 


apoliticality as a weak, even cowardly 

decision. But Garland isn’t evading the 

question here, but rather opening a 

whole new prompt. 

On their journey the reporters 

stumble upon soldiers targeting an 

unseen sniper. When asked which 

faction the sniper fights for, the soldiers 

look disgusted by the question. Which 

side is he on? Why, the one currently 

shooting at us! It seems ideology can 

get you onto a battlefield, but pragmatism 

is the only thing that will get you 

back off. One recalls Jack Nicholson in 

“The Departed:” “When you’re facing 

a loaded gun, what’s the difference?” 

The press is a neutral party, with 

badges and vests that provide at least 

the illusion of immunity. As Lee 

expounds repeatedly to her unwanted 

protégé, objectivity is both ethical journalism 

and a common-sense survival 

tactic; no one likes feeling judged, with 

those carrying 

out war crimes 

particularly 

touchy about it. 

Garland shares 

this distance, 

never delving 

into the whos 

and whys of the 

war over the 

immediate now. 

The impartiality 

is not a bug but 

quite literally the 

whole feature: 

“Civil War” 

ponders the 

impossibility 

and necessity of 

objectivity, and 

how it corrodes 

your soul regardless. 

Is true objectivity 

even feasible? 

Photojournalism 

is never truly impartial, as every picture 

involves decisions. The road-tripping 

journalists pretend they are mere 

observers, but the camera is their eye 

and their perspective in both senses 

of the word. After all, just because 

the photo caption doesn’t reveal their 

conclusions doesn’t mean they have 

none. The movie offers no solution to 

the contradiction between objectivity 

and shaping the narrative; you’re left to 

decide if this is a tightrope or a net. 

“Civil War” is interested in journalists, 

but interest isn’t the same thing 

as admiration. Too many recent films 

about the press have felt protective and 

almost condescending in their treatment, 

a backrub for an industry on its 

back foot. Garland respects journalists 

enough to not respect them, letting 

them be humans and not humble 

guardians of democracy. 

There is a thin line between objectivity 

and detachment, and the journalists 

here straddle across willy-nilly. After 

witnessing a suicide bombing in New 

York, the reporters return to drinking 

in the hotel bar like insurance men at 

a conference. To them the frequent 

power outages in the city just mean 

spotty Wi-Fi. 

For all their stated noble intentions, 

the journalists come off more like 

adrenaline junkies than crusaders, their 

quest for the “perfect picture” becoming 

the purpose itself and not what it 

gives the public. One recalls the first 

photojournalists during the first Civil 

War, who rearranged fallen soldiers for 

more thrilling tableaus. 

At first glance Lee is one of these cynics, 

able to snap photos of dead bodies 

with nary a gag. Bright-eyed and bushytailed 

Jessie can’t stomach the reality, 

and hardly stops trembling through 

Pennsylvania (though few among us 

can). She is idealistic, but in the wild 

ideals get you killed. If you walked in 

halfway through Lee’s mentoring, you 

could reasonably mistake it for corruption. 

She even offers the kid cigarettes 

like a greaser in a “Leave It To Beaver” 

episode. 

Yet somewhere the roles reverse, with 

Lee deteriorating at the same clip 

Jessie grows bolder and more aloof. 

The easy answer to this is years of 

repressed PTSD finally passing their 

check. But Dunst plays it differently, as 

her character succumbs to the pangs 

of conscience. 

Jessie can’t help 

but remind 

her of her lost 

innocence, and 

either the disparity 

between 

what she once 

was or the relief 

that the baton 

has been passed 

allows Lee to 

step forward into 

the frame. 

The final act 

is a thrilling 

invasion of D.C., 

but the true 

climax comes 

just before. Lee 

takes a picture of 

Cailee Spaeny and 

Wagner Moura in 

“Civil War.” | IMDB 

a fallen colleague, 

but after 

a second’s deliberation 

deletes it. 

Some moments 

belong to the moment, and some 

images are powerful because even as a 

million eyes deserve to see them, only 

one pair will ever truly understand. 

Joseph Joyce is a screenwriter and freelance 

critic based in Sherman Oaks. 


DESIRE LINES 

HEATHER KING 

My miraculous life as a writer 

Heather King writes. | 

COURTESY HEATHER KING 

One of my favorite themes is the 

vocation of the artist. In fact, 

I’ve been working on a book 

about how my life came to be ordered 

to art: part memoir, part invitation, part 

supplication to up-and-coming writers. 

In a nutshell my message is this: Figure 

out a way to earn a humane living, 

write about what moves you, and pay 

no attention to passing trends. 

Near the end of 2009, for example, I 

felt that my work was not bearing fruit. 

I felt like all my efforts to “get my work 

out there” had come to naught. 

One morning, with very little conscious 

thought, I simply sat down, 

went to blogger.com, came up with a 

spur-of-the-moment title, for a header 

put up the photo of the Jesus statue 

from Elvis’ bedroom I’d snapped on 

my Motorola Razr a few years ago at 

Graceland, and started writing. 

It was as if the 15 years of relative 

silence of my career had ripened in a 

way I had never remotely imagined. 

Even though blogging is now considered 

passé and you’re supposed to call 

it a newsletter, or launch a Substack, I 

haven’t stopped whatever you want to 

call posting snippets of prose with an 


Heather King is an award-winning 

author, speaker, and workshop leader. 

image or two. 

Sometimes I write a 3,000 word essay. 

Sometimes I post a single quote from a 

writer, or artist, or theologian. 

I try to write about what I am for, not 

what I’m against. I write about what I 

love, what moves me, what intrigues 

me, what I can’t figure out. 

I write about the books and music and 

films and people that have saved me. 

I’m fascinated by culture insofar as it 

reflects upon the human condition but 

I generally steer away from politics. I 

don’t much care about being relevant 

or topical. I care about mystery. 

The whole effort is very time-consuming 

if I were to “count the cost,” 

so I don’t. I look upon it as a kind of 

scavenge. I cast my net, people from 

far and wide are dredged up in it, and 

after posting I then spend more time 

responding to comments and emails, 

and reflecting, and taking more pictures, 

and writing more posts. 

Yet — enough money comes in 

(from writing a weekly column, books, 

speaking, workshops, retreats, and the 

occasional donor) to keep me going, 

and who cares how much time it takes 

when I love putting the stuff out there? 

On the one hand, I get to do exactly 

as I “want,” and on the other, I’m a 

24/7 servant. 

On the one hand my burden is easy, 

and on the other I take up my cross 

daily. 

On the one hand I am utterly 

focused, and on the other I have no 

recognizable “business plan.” 

And that is the total, total fun of it! 

I hear from monks, priests, housewives, 

people who can’t get sober, 

people whose husbands want to 

undergo transgender surgery, people 

whose daughters are selling themselves 

for drugs, people in wheelchairs, people 

who are pissed off at the Church 

(many of those), people who want to 

write memoirs about their struggles 

with anorexia, childhood incest, or 

being a drunken nun. 

I once heard from a guy in Madison 

Lake, Minnesota, who said, “You 

misspelled ‘churches’ on your website” 

and I said, “Where?” and he said “I’ll 

check but right now I am going to a 

Twins game even though they’re losing” 

and then I never heard from him 

again. I love that guy! That guy is not 

the distraction or side note: that guy is 

the whole thing! 

I get invitations to speak: in Sioux 

Falls, South Dakota; in Omaha, Nebraska; 

in Anaheim, California. 

Just last week, a reader texted an offer 

to underwrite a trip to Venice, Italy, 

this fall so I can attend the Biennale. 

If you were to examine my life from 

the outside you’d say: It cannot be. 

It cannot be that in this resolutely 

secular culture, of which in one way 

I am squarely a member, you could 

write from a heart for Christ and still 

make a living. 

It could not be that you could have 

no brand, no platform, no politics, no 

ax to grind, no message other than the 

invitation to “joyfully participate in the 

sorrows of the world” (Mother Teresa’s 

phrase), and still have people find you, 

and respond to your work, and ask 

you to come speak at their parish or 

novitiate or independent bookstore or 

abbey. 

It could not be that you could write 

about your love of Christ and hear 

from atheists, bitterly lapsed Catholics, 

agnostics, Buddhists, and Jews who 

are seeking, who are questioning, who 

are finding their way as well, and who 

want to say Hey, or Good for you, or I 

disagree but I like that you’re reaching. 

Truly, my life is a minute-by-minute 

demonstration of the miracle of the 

loaves and fishes. Truly, when Christ 

said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of 

God, and its righteousness; and all 

these things shall be added unto you” 

— he was telling the truth. 

He was making a promise. 


LETTER AND SPIRIT 

SCOTT HAHN 

Scott Hahn is founder of the 

St. Paul Center for Biblical 

Theology; stpaulcenter.com. 

Close to Jesus means close to Mary 

To be close to Christ is to be close to Mary. 

Think, for a moment, about the fact that you have 

been “saved.” And what is your salvation? 

Jesus has given his life to be your own, so that you have 

become a partaker of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). He 

has given you his home, heaven, so that you may live in it 

as your home, too. He has 

invited you to eat from his 

table and call his Father 

“Our Father.” 

And he has given his 

mother to be your mother. 

We cannot be Jesus’ 

brother unless Mary is our 

mother. The Church is the 

“assembly of the firstborn” 

(Hebrews 12:23), and she 

is mother of the firstborn. 

The early Christians knew 

this, and they gloried in it. 

In the Gospels, Mary has 

one of the largest speaking 

parts. In spite of her 

lowliness, she is the star 

of the opening chapters of 

the Gospels of Matthew 

and Luke. Her kinfolk, 

Elizabeth and Zechariah, 

appear; but their activity is 

directed toward Mary’s and 

resolved in Mary’s. An angel 

appears, but he is sent 

to serve Mary. Joseph says 

not a word in the entire 

New Testament, but places 

himself at the service of 

Mary and the divine Child. 

When John depicts the 

birth of Jesus symbolically 

in the Book of Revelation 

(chapter 12), once again Mary appears at the center of the 

drama. She is the woman who gives birth to the “male 

child” who is the king of all nations. Mother and Son face 

mortal danger and flee to the wilderness, just as we see in 

the infancy narratives of the Gospels. In the Apocalypse, 

however, we learn that the earthly events are actually a 

manifestation of the great cosmic war between St. Michael’s 

angelic forces and the serpent’s. 

The woman is there, in Revelation, for the sake of her 

divine Son, but his presence providentially depends upon 

her cooperation. 

The “woman” of Revelation 

is clearly Mary, and 

“St. Mary (the Blessed Virgin) 

with the Christ Child,” by B.E. 

Murillo, 1617-1682, Spanish. | 

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

yet she is also the Church, 

the mother of “many offspring.” 

This is not a contradiction. 

It’s the way the 

biblical peoples thought 

and expressed themselves. 

“Israel” was a man, a 

historical figure, but it was 

also the name of the man’s 

offspring and their nation. 

In the same way, the name 

“David” designated Israel’s 

great king, but also his 

capital city, his household, 

and his descendants. 

Thus, the early Church 

Fathers, having fed themselves 

on Scripture, could 

say such things as, “We call 

the Church by the name 

of Mary, for she deserves 

a double name.” So said 

St. Ephrem of Syria in the 

fourth century. 

Almost two centuries earlier, 

St. Irenaeus had used 

the same maternal imagery 

in a poetic way, when he 

described Jesus as “the 

pure One opening purely 

that pure womb which 

regenerates men unto God, 

and which he himself made pure.” 

The Blessed Virgin Mary is already what you and I are 

ever striving to be. May is a month especially dedicated to 

her. Let’s spend it close to her, and thus close to her divine 

Son. 


■ SATURDAY, APRIL 27 

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

Ave., Los Angeles, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Register at bereavement. 

ministry@yahoo.com. Cost: $60/person, covers all food 

and materials. Pay by Zelle to 562-631-8844 by April 19. 

Knights of Columbus Car Wash. St. Barnabas Church, 

3955 Orange Ave., Long Beach, 8 a.m.-12 p.m. $10/vehicle. 

Visit StBarnabasLB.org. 

■ SUNDAY, APRIL 28 

St. John Paul II Canonization Anniversary Mass. Shrine 

of St. John Paul II, 3424 W. Adams Blvd., Los Angeles, 3 

p.m. Celebrating the 10th anniversary of JP2’s canonization. 

Reception to follow in parish hall. Call 323-734-5249. 

Sunday Afternoon Concert. Padre Serra Church, 5205 

Upload Rd., Camarillo, 3 p.m. Dominic McAller, piano, and 

Dave Reynolds, guitar, will perform music by Bach, Carulli, 

Handel, Haydn, and more. Free and open to the public; 

donations accepted. 

■ THURSDAY, MAY 2 

Bereavement Support Group. St. Mary of the Assumption 

Church, 7215 Newlin Ave., Whittier, 7-8:30 p.m. Five-week 

support group will meet every Thursday in May. RSVP by 

April 29 to Cathy at bereavement.ministry@yahoo.com or 

text 562-631-8844. 

■ FRIDAY, MAY 3 

Bereavement Support Group. St. Mary of the Assumption 

Church, 7215 Newlin Ave., Whittier, 9-10:30 a.m. Fiveweek 

support group will meet every Friday in May. RSVP by 

April 29 to Cathy at bereavement.ministry@yahoo.com or 

text 562-631-8844. 

Noah’s Flood: LA Opera. Cathedral of Our Lady of the 

Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 7:30 p.m. and May 

4, 7:30 p.m. The LA Opera presents the story of Noah’s 

ark set to music, featuring 300 performers of all ages. Free 

admission but advance tickets required. Visit LAOpera.org/ 

Noah. 

■ SATURDAY, MAY 4 

Remain in My Love: Separated & Divorced Conference. 

Christ Cathedral, 13280 Chapman Ave., Garden Grove, 9 

a.m.-4 p.m. Separated and divorced Catholics are invited 

to a conference of spiritual healing, encouragement, and 

fellowship. Topics include: self-care, emotional healing, and 

parenting children of divorce. Keynote speaker: Joe Sikorra, 

LMFT. Cost: $40/person, includes lunch and material. 

Register at https://forms.office.com/r/zrK0Ukfnhf. 

Eucharistic Revival film screening. St. Julie Billiart Church, 

2475 Borchard Rd., Newbury Park, 2-4:30 p.m. Event features 

viewing of “ALIVE: The Real Presence of Jesus in the 

Eucharist,” followed by Q&A with Sister Nancy Usselmann, 

FSP. Email pam@stjulieschurch.org. 

■ TUESDAY, MAY 7 

South Bay Catholic Jewish Women’s Dialogue Conference. 

St. Lawrence Martyr Church, 1940 S. Prospect Ave., 

Redondo Beach, 8:30 a.m. “Are You There, God? It’s Me. 

My Relationship with God”: Rabbi Rebeccah Yussman and 

Anne Hansen discuss. Visit sbcjwd.com to register. Cost: 

$25/person, includes continental breakfast and lunch. 

Wellness Evening on Stress. St. Christopher Church, 

629 Glendora Ave., West Covina, 7-8:30 p.m. Email Jillian 

Cooke at FKMministry@gmail.com or call 626-917-0040. 

■ THURSDAY, MAY 9 

St. Padre Pio Mass. St. Anne Church, 340 10th St., Seal 

Beach, 1 p.m. For more information, call 562-537-4526. 


Bereavement Retreat. St. Mary of the Assumption 

Church, 7215 Newlin Ave., Whittier, 6-9 p.m. and 

Saturday, May 11, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Register at bereavement. 

ministry@yahoo.com. Cost: $75/person, covers all food 

and materials. Pay by Zelle to 562-631-8844 by May 3. 


Eucharistic Revival Retreat. Visitation Church, 6561 W. 

88th St., Los Angeles, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Father Parker Sandoval 

will lead a parish-wide retreat on “Who is Jesus? The 

Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, and our Mission 

as Catholics to share the Good News with Others.” Cost: 

$35/person, includes continental breakfast, lunch, and 

retreat materials. Visit VisRetreat0524.givesmart.com. 

Mother’s Day Rosary. Catholic Cemeteries, 2 p.m. Rosary 

will be held at all 11 Catholic cemetery locations. Livestream 

available at facebook.com/lacatholics and catholiccm.org/rosary. 

Santacruzan Marian Celebration. Cathedral of Our Lady 

of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 2:30 p.m. 

Filipino Catholic community will celebrate with a pre-procession 

at 2:30 p.m. and Mass at 3 p.m. 

■ MONDAY, MAY 13 

Blue Army Statue of Our Lady of Fátima Mass. St. Dorothy 

Church, 241 S. Valley Center Ave., Glendora, 8:30 a.m. 

and 7 p.m. Masses, 10 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Exposition of the 

Blessed Sacrament. Visit stdorothy.org. 

■ TUESDAY, MAY 14 

Memorial Mass. San Fernando Mission, 15151 San 

Fernando Mission Blvd., Mission Hills, 11 a.m. Mass is 

open to the public. Limited seating. RSVP to outreach@ 

catholiccm.org or call 213-637-7810. Livestream available 

at CatholicCM.org or Facebook.com/lacatholics. 


Ethical Leadership Lunch. Cathedral of Our Lady of the 

Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 

p.m. Event brings together Catholic leaders from the 

business world to discuss how ethical practices positively 

impact our community. For more, visit lacatholics.org/ 

events. 


37th Annual Walk for Life South Bay. Veterans Park, 

309 Esplanade, Redondo Beach, 8:30 a.m. Fun, family-friendly 

three-mile walk for all abilities, includes food, 

music, kids’ activities, and more. Register by April 23 and 

raise or pay $45/walker for the event T-shirt. Registration 

at the event starts at 7:30 a.m., walk starts at 9 a.m. 

Proceeds benefit Pregnancy Help Center in Torrance. Visit 

event.fundeasy.com/27239, supportphctorrance.org, or 

call 424-263-4855. 

Fresh Fire of God’s Spirit: Pentecost Rally. St. John the 

Baptist Church, 3883 Baldwin Park Blvd., Baldwin Park, 

10 a.m.-4 p.m. Teachings, prayer, and Pentecost vigil Mass. 

Presenters include Father Ismael Robles, Dr. Elizabeth 

Kim, and Dominic Berardino. Free event. For more, contact 

818-771-1361 or spirit@scrc.org, or visit events.scrc. 

org. 

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

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

Angelus News | May 3, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 9

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