Angelus News | July 26, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 15

ANGELUS 

LA’S 

APOSTLE 

OF HOPE 

Father Aloysius 

Ellacuria’s road 

to sainthood 

July 26, 2024 Vol. 9 No. 15

July 26, 2024 

Vol. 9 • No. 15 

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ON THE COVER 

© CARLOS GARCIA 

During his decades of ministry in Southern 

California, Father Aloysius Ellacuria, CMF, gained 

a reputation as a mystic and healer who even 

smelled of holiness. Since his death in 1981, a 

group of LA Catholics whose lives he touched 

have led a grassroots effort to see him declared a 

saint. On Page 10, Natalie Romano reports on the 

growing support for his canonization cause and 

the next steps that await. 

THIS PAGE 

OSV NEWS/GREGORY A. SHEMITZ, THE TABLET 

More than 2,000 pilgrims from California were among 

the 20,000 Catholics who filled the Barclays Center in 

Brooklyn Sunday, July 7, for a special Mass celebrating 50 

years of the Neocatechumenal Way in the U.S. The Mass 

was presided by Cardinal Christophe Pierre, papal nuncio 

to the U.S., and concelebrated by more than 300 priests 

and a dozen bishops, including Auxiliary Bishop Timothy 

Freyer of the Diocese of Orange.

CONTENTS 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

14 

18 

20 

24 

26 

28 

30 

LA pilgrims, Archbishop Gomez return to Guadalupe 

Behind a US shrine’s decision to cover accused Jesuit artist’s mosaics 

John Allen: Pope Francis is reshuffling our synod expectations — again 

An atheist Albanian poet’s spiritual legacy 

Greg Erlandson: Thoughts on our stubborn ‘rage’ against death 

Hit TV show ‘The Bear’ reflects on creativity and craziness 

Heather King on a Christian’s place in an ailing world 

July 26, 2024 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH 

Faith that scandalizes 

The following is adapted from the 

Holy Father’s homily at an outdoor 

Mass in Trieste, Italy, on Sunday, July 

7 during a visit celebrating the 50th 

Italian Catholic Social Week. 

Today’s Gospel tells us that 

Jesus was a cause of scandal 

to the people of Nazareth, but 

the word “scandal” does not refer to 

something obscene or indecent as we 

use it today; scandal means “a stumbling 

block,” that is, an obstacle, a 

hindrance. Let us ask ourselves: What 

is the obstacle that prevents believing 

in Jesus? 

The obstacle preventing these people 

from recognizing God’s presence 

in Jesus is the fact that he is human, 

simply Joseph the carpenter’s son: 

How can God, the Almighty, reveal 

himself in the fragility of human 

flesh? How can an omnipotent and 

strong God become weak enough to 

come in the flesh and lower himself 

to wash the disciples’ feet? This is the 

scandal. 

A strong and powerful God, who 

is on my side and satisfies me in 

everything, is attractive; a weak God, 

a God who dies on the cross out of 

love and who asks me to overcome all 

selfishness and offer my life for the 

salvation of the world, is a scandal. 

We do not need a religiosity closed 

in on itself, that looks up to heaven 

without caring about what happens 

on earth and celebrates liturgies in 

the temple but forgets the dust blowing 

in our streets. Instead, we need 

the scandal of faith, a faith rooted 

in the God who became man, that 

enters history, that touches people’s 

lives, that heals broken hearts. 

It is a faith that awakens consciences 

from lethargy, that puts its finger in 

the wounds of society, a faith that 

raises questions about the future of 

humanity and history; it is a restless 

faith, and we need to live a restless 

life. 

It is said that our society is somewhat 

anesthetized and dazed by consumerism: 

that anxiety to have, to have 

things, to have more, that anxiety 

about wasting money. Consumerism 

is a wound, it is a cancer: It makes 

your heart sick, it makes you selfish, it 

makes you look only at yourself. 

Brothers and sisters, we need, above 

all, a faith that disrupts the calculations 

of human selfishness, that 

denounces evil, that points a finger at 

injustices. 

We, who are sometimes scandalized 

unnecessarily by so many little 

things, would do well instead to ask 

ourselves: Why are we not scandalized 

in the face of rampant evil, life 

being humiliated, labor issues, the 

sufferings of migrants? Why do we 

remain apathetic and indifferent to 

the injustices of the world? 

Jesus lived in his flesh the prophecy 

of everyday life, entering into the 

daily lives and stories of the people, 

manifesting compassion within 

events. Because of this, some people 

were scandalized by him. 

He did not hide behind ambiguity, 

did not compromise with the logic 

of political and religious power. He 

made his life an offering of love to 

the Father. So, too, we Christians are 

called to be prophets and witnesses 

of the kingdom of God, in all the 

situations we live in, in every place 

we inhabit. 

Papal Prayer Intention for July: We pray that the Sacrament 

of the Anointing of the Sick confer to those who receive it 

and their loved ones the power of the Lord and become ever 

more a visible sign of compassion and hope for all. 

2 • ANGELUS • July 26, 2024

NEW WORLD OF FAITH 

ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

Pilgrims going home to our mother 

On July 6, Archbishop José H. Gomez 

celebrated Mass at the Basilica of Our 

Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City 

for more than 300 pilgrims from the 

Archdiocese of Los Angeles and for the 

prayer intentions of the whole family of 

God in Los Angeles. The following is 

adapted from his homily. 

We come to this sacred shrine 

today as pilgrims, as children 

returning home to our 

mother. 

And here before this miraculous 

image, as we lift up our eyes, we hear 

the echo of her tender words to St. 

Juan Diego: 

“Am I not your mother? Are you not 

under my shadow and my gaze? Am 

I not the source of your joy? Are you 

not sheltered underneath my mantle, 

under the embrace of my arms?” 

Under her shadow, under her gaze, 

wrapped in her mantle and embraced 

in her arms, we know the beautiful 

mystery: that the most holy mother of 

God is our mother, too. 

Here in this place we understand 

what St. Elizabeth must have felt when 

she answered that knock on the door 

and heard Mary’s greeting. 

Elizabeth was filled with joy, wonder, 

and awe. And so are we. 

So, we bless the Lord today, and we 

pray as she did: “And how does this 

happen to me, that the mother of my 

Lord should come to me?” 

It has been almost 495 years since the 

visitation of Our Lady of Guadalupe, 

and she came to this place bearing the 

greatest of gifts. 

In this sacred image that she left for 

us, we can see that she is carrying Jesus 

in her womb, under her praying hands, 

his heart is beating beneath her heart. 

So we come as pilgrims to this place, 

and we ask the virgin of Guadalupe to 

be a mother to us, and to renew us in 

the love of her Son. 

We ask her to fill us with her wisdom, 

and to instruct us in her ways. 

Mary teaches us to live by faith, she 

teaches us to hear the Word of God 

and do it: “Blessed is she who believed!” 

Because she believed in the promises 

that the Lord spoke to her, Mary made 

it possible for us to become children 

of God. 

As St. Paul said today, “God sent his 

Son, born of a woman … so that we 

might receive adoption. … God sent 

the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, 

crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’ ” 

Children of God! These words are so 

astounding! 

This is the beautiful reality that defines 

who we are, that beautiful mystery 

that marks out our destiny. 

As children of God, we are called to 

live like our mother, glorifying God 

with our lives, telling the world “the 

great things” that God has done for us 

in Jesus. 

Mary carried Jesus in haste through 

the hill country, to the city of Judah, 

and into the home of her relatives, 

Elizabeth and Zechariah. 

The virgin of Guadalupe brought 

Jesus to the hillside at Tepeyac, not far 

from here. She brought the touch of 

his healing love into the home of Juan 

Diego’s uncle, Juan Bernardino. 

Now you and I are called to bring 

Jesus into our hill countries, our cities, 

and into our homes. 

Faith is born in the family, so let us 

first bring the joy of Jesus, his tender 

love and forgiveness, to our spouses 

and children, our parents and grandparents, 

our brothers and sisters, our 

uncles and aunts. 

And from our homes, let us spread 

the love of Jesus into every corner of 

our society! May every person we meet 

know his promise of salvation! 

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us! 

Keep us and our families under the 

mantle of your protection! 

Be a mother to us, that we might 

bring the blessed fruit of your womb, 

Jesus, to the people of our time. 



WORLD 

■ President Ortega regime shutters 

Nicaragua’s Catholic radio station 

President Daniel Ortega is continuing his campaign 

against the Church in Nicaragua, shuttering a major 

Catholic radio station and 11 other religious and civic 

nonprofits. 

Established in 2000, Radio María Nicaragua was part of 

an international network called World Family of Radio 

Maria. Since April, the station has reported pressure from 

the Ortega regime, which has become increasingly hostile 

to Catholics, including imprisoning or exiling clergy and 

religious. 

“The dictatorship is so rooted now in Nicaragua that with 

or without a legal status, any radio station can be invaded 

and closed at any moment,” Álvaro Leiva Sánchez, leader 

of the Nicaraguan Association for the Defense of Human 

Rights told Crux from exile in Costa Rica. 

The other terminated organizations include the Association 

of the Christian Church Prince of Peace House 

of Prayer, the Association of Evangelical Churches of 

Nicaragua Fountain of Jacob’s Well, and the Association 

of the Prophetic Apostolic Ministry Pentecostal Dire. The 

regime claimed failure to provide financial information as 

the impetus for closure. 

Veteran teen pilgrim — Álvaro Calvente poses for a photo along the Camino 

to Santiago de Compostela in Spain last month. Along with his father, Ildefonso, 

the 19-year-old teen with an intellectual disability has walked the more than 

60-mile trek to the famed shrine four times since 2020, receiving attention on 

social media and a letter from Pope Francis. | OSV NEWS/COURTESY ILDEFONSO 

CALVENTE 

Women hold patients outside Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital after the July 8 bombing. | 

OSV NEWS/GLEB GARANICH, REUTERS 

■ Russian bombing of Ukraine children’s 

hospital ‘a sin that cries out to heaven’ 

Catholic leaders condemned a Russian missile attack that 

partially destroyed Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital. 

“This is not only a crime against human laws and rules, 

international rules that tell us about the customs and rules of 

warfare,” said Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head 

of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, after the July 8 

attack on Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital in Kyiv. 

“According to Christian morality, this is a sin that cries out 

to heaven for revenge.” 

At least 42 were killed and some 190 injured in the initial 

blast, which destroyed multiple wards and interrupted treatment 

for the 630 patients under care at the time of the strike. 

In a statement, the Vatican said Pope Francis expressed his 

“deep shock at the escalation of violence” in both Ukraine 

and Gaza, where a Catholic school was bombed the day 

before. 

Ukraine President Volodmyr Zelenskyy called for an 

emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council 

in response to the strike on civilian infrastructure, which is 

prohibited under international humanitarian law. 

■ Indonesia bishop: 

No Bali beach weddings 

Despite increased demand by tourists and local Catholics, 

an Indonesian bishop reiterated that Catholic weddings 

cannot be conducted on Bali beaches. 

The letter from Bishop Silvester Tung Kiem San of Denpasar, 

Indonesia, pointed to an apostolic exhortation issued 

in April 2015, which said that sacramental marriage ceremonies 

must be held in a church or else the marriage is invalid. 

Workers in the country’s bustling tourism industry, which 

includes Bali, Lombok, and Sumbawa, have remained critical 

of the diocese’s instructions, as weddings conducted on 

the country’s white sand beaches have provided a substantial 

source of income. 


NATION 

■ Vatican, US bishops pray 

for peace, victims after Trump 

assassination attempt 

The Holy See joined the American bishops 

in calling for prayers for peace after the July 

13 assassination attempt on former President 

Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, 

Pennsylvania. 

“We condemn political violence, and we offer 

our prayers for President Trump, and those 

who were killed or injured,” said Archbishop 

Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for 

the Military Services, and president of the U.S. 

Conference of Catholic Bishops in a statement 

issued hours after the shooting. 

“We also pray for our country and for an end 

to political violence, which is never a solution 

to political disagreements,” he added. 

The next day, the Holy See expressed its 

“concern about last night’s episode of violence, 

which wounds people and democracy, causing 

suffering and death.” The statement went on to 

say that the Holy See is “united in the prayer of 

the U.S. bishops for America, for the victims, 

and for peace in the country, that the motives 

of the violent may never prevail.” 

Jesus goes to the park — Pilgrims kneel for Benediction in Rosedale Park in Kansas City, Kansas, 

June 28. The park was one stop on the St. Junípero Serra Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, 

which began in California in May, as it processed along various stretches of Mission Road in 

the Archdiocese of Kansas City, playing on the theme “Mission.” | OSV NEWS/MEGAN MARLEY 

■ Power outages hamper Hurricane 

Beryl Catholic relief delivery 

Catholic aid organizations in the Houston area have struggled to get relief to 

those affected by Hurricane Beryl due to a large-scale power outage. 

Beryl, which first devastated Grenada a week earlier, killed at least four and 

initially left more than 2.7 million homes without power after it hit the Gulf 

Coast as a tropical storm. 

Officials from Catholic Charities of Galveston-Houston and the Knights 

of Columbus told OSV News that phone service and internet outages were 

complicating aid distribution. 

“It’s early in the game and communication is really difficult right now,” 

Knights State Emergency Response Chairman Harry Storey of Plano, Texas, 

told OSV News July 

10. 

As power gradually 

returns and 

floodwaters recede, 

Catholic Charities 

said its assistance 

will include food, 

cleaning supplies, 

financial aid, and is 

expected to extend 

A drone view shows a destroyed house in the aftermath of Hurricane 

Beryl in Surfside Beach, Texas. | OSV NEWS/ADREES LATIF, REUTERS 

to long-term support 

for the hardest 

hit areas. 

■ Former US nuncio Viganò 

excommunicated for schism 

Former apostolic nuncio to the U.S. Archbishop 

Carlo Maria Viganò was excommunicated 

July 4 after the Vatican found him 

guilty of schism. 

Viganò has gained attention since 2018, 

when he alleged that senior Church officials 

covered up sexual abuse committed by 

former cardinal Theodore McCarrick and 

called on Pope Francis to resign. Since then, 

he has publicly rejected the authority of Francis 

and the teachings of the Second Vatican 

Council. 

In a June 21 statement, Viganò said he had 

not sent any materials in his defense to the 

Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, stating 

that he did not recognize their authority. 

He also defied a summons to report to Rome 

to face his charges. 

“I maintain that the errors and heresies to 

which [Francis] adhered before, during, and 

after his election, along with the intention he 

held in his apparent acceptance of the papacy, 

render his elevation to the throne null and 

void,” Viganò wrote following the sentence. 


LOCAL 

■ Building roof at Notre Dame 

High School catches fire 

Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks was damaged 

by a fire on the evening of July 11, the Los Angeles Fire 

Department said. 

According to reports, firefighters arrived just before 10 p.m. 

to find flames coming from the roof of the school. After 20 

minutes, firefighters put out the fire, which only damaged 

part of the roof and side of the building. 

Notre Dame High School President Robert Thomas said on 

social media that the fire was on the roof of St. Andre Bessette 

Hall and no one was injured. Although most students are on 

summer break, there are summer school and sports camps, 

which continued with no delay, Thomas said. 

Fire officials believe construction work being done on the 

roof may have contributed to the blaze. 

“Earlier in the day, they had roof work being done, and 

some roofing materials, like tar, needs to be heated up to 

make things stick,” Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson 

Lyndsey Lantz told the LA Times. 

God and nature — Artist Angela Moisa and a team of volunteers constructed 

an underwater scene using recycled materials and other objects for Our Lady of 

the Assumption Church in Claremont’s Vacation Bible School. The theme for the 

weeklong kids camp was “Scuba: Diving Into Friendship With God” and featured 

crabs, giant turtles, and an octopus named Octavia. | KATY SALISBURY 

Msgr. Gregory Cox 

during an interview 

in 2019. | R.W. 

DELLINGER 

Y 

■ Fresno’s Bishop Brennan issues 

pastoral letter on Eucharist 

Bishop Joseph Brennan of Fresno has issued a new pastoral 

letter on the centrality of the Eucharist and what the sacrament 

“asks” of Catholics. 

Titled “I Am Not Worthy” and published June 29, the letter 

explains what the Church teaches on how to prepare spiritually 

and physically to receive holy Communion, as well as the 

obligation of those who participate in the Eucharist to help 

the poor and needy 

“We do not approach the altar on our own volition, but at 

Christ’s invitation,” wrote Brennan. 

For those who “publicly reject the Church on topics such 

as abortion,” including politicians, Brennan cited the Code 

of Canon Law and the late Pope Benedict XVI to affirm that 

nobody should be denied holy Communion unless they have 

“obstinately” rejected the Church’s guidance after having 

met with their pastor about the matter. 

The former LA priest and auxiliary bishop dedicated the 

letter to Archbishop José H. Gomez, whom he called “a great 

mentor, a good friend, and a lover of Jesus in the Eucharist.” 

■ Catholic Charities of LA’s director 

named California president 

Msgr. Gregory Cox, the executive director of Catholic 

Charities of Los Angeles, was named the president of Catholic 

Charities of California, which oversees the 12 agencies 

working statewide. 

Cox replaces Kenneth Sawa, the CEO/executive vice 

president of Catholic Charities San Bernardino and Riverside 

Counties, who has led the California organization since 

2011. 

Catholic Charities of California provides services and programs 

to those in need, including assistance for food, health 

care, immigration, and emergency preparedness. According 

to the organization’s 2023 report, CCC provided health care 

access to 16,869 people, distributed more than $5 million in 

storm assistance, and offered legal services to 10,510. 

Cox has been director of Catholic Charities of Los Angeles 

since 1993. 


V 

IN OTHER WORDS... 

Letters to the Editor 

The Jewish roots of purgatory 

Thank you for the beautifully written article on purgatory by Mike 

Aquilina in the July 12 issue. 

I am a Jewish convert to the Catholic faith who was raised with very little religious 

education, and I actually felt more Jewish after my conversion to Catholicism 

than I ever had before. The article’s discussion of the Jewish/Old Testament 

roots of the Catholic doctrine on purgatory was enlightening to me. In particular, 

I was really happy to learn about the prayer, El Malei Rachamim, and looked it up 

so my niece and I can pray it together at my brother’s (her Dad) gravesite. 

We all struggle with resentments and attachments that can distance us from 

God. Mercifully, he provides the sacraments for the living and this final means of 

purgation, or purification, to enable us to receive his love fully in the life to come. 

— Marilyn Boussaid, St. James Church, Redondo Beach 

The truth about Dante and purgatory 

I enjoyed reading Mike Aquilina’s cover story in the July 12 issue about how 

Dante did not invent purgatory, but rather supported Catholic teaching poetically. 

Citing Jewish thought, Church Fathers and Pope Gregory the Great, and ending 

with “What do Catholics believe about purgatory” citing the Catechism, were 

home runs. 

— Deacon Serj Harutunian, St. James the Less Church, La Crescenta 

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. 

Mass at the Metropolitan 

“I found myself falling in 

love with a dead priest.” 

~ Father Bob Golas, a priest in the Archdiocese of 

Washington, in a July 10 National Catholic Register 

article on Venerable Al Schwartz, the Sisters of 

Mary, and their Girlstown center in Chalco. 

“Is there a way back from 

addiction, from violence, 

from despair? God can 

make a way where it seems 

impossible.” 

~ Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to 

the U.S., at a July 7 Mass in Brooklyn celebrating the 

50th anniversary of the Neocatechumenal Way in 

America. 

“Twenty-five years of having 

11 siblings, I just can’t 

imagine it any other way.” 

~ Andrew Mazalewski, in a July 11 OSV News 

article on his parents sending 11 children to the 

same Catholic school in Delaware. 

“This is one of the few 

places on earth where you 

can feel what that level of 

heat feels like.” 

~ Jennette Jurado, a park ranger at Death Valley 

National Park, in a July 11 LA Times article on 

keeping visitors alive amid record heat. 

Archbishop José H. Gomez poses with LA pilgrims after Mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City July 5 

during the Archdiocese of LA’s annual Guadalupe pilgrimage to Mexico. Read more about the pilgrimage on Page 14. | 


View more photos 

from this gallery at 

AngelusNews.com/photos-videos 

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

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

“I feel like we have a gentle 

Navy SEAL in the house.” 

~ Stephen Mazzola, an airline pilot, in a July 8 New 

York Magazine article on a new breed of $150,000 

dogs. 


IN EXILE 

FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI 

Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father 

Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual 

writer; ronrolheiser.com 

Sacred permission to be in agony 

We live this life “mourning and 

weeping in a valley of tears.” 

This was part of a prayer my 

parents prayed every day of their adult 

lives, as did many others in their generation. 

In the light of contemporary 

sensitivities (and one-sided spiritualities) 

this might sound morbid. Are we 

to understand our lives as a time of 

grieving in a world that cannot deliver 

happiness? Is this really what God 

wants of us? 

Taken without nuance, this can 

indeed be morbid. God didn’t put us 

into this world to suffer in order to go 

to heaven. No. God is a good parent. 

Good parents bring children into this 

world with the intent that they should 

flourish and find happiness. So why 

might our Christian faith ask us to 

understand ourselves as mourning and 

weeping in a valley of tears? 

For my parents, that phrase brought a 

certain consolation, namely, that their 

lives didn’t have to deliver the full symphony, 

heaven, right now. It gave them 

sacred permission to accept that in life 

there will be disappointments, suffering, 

poverty, sickness, loss, frustrated 

dreams, heartbreak, misunderstanding, 

and death. They never overexpected 

and understood that it is normal to 

experience pain and disappointment. 

Paradoxically, by accepting this limitation, 

they were able to give themselves 

permission to thoroughly enjoy life’s 

good moments without guilt. 

My fear is that we are not equipping 

ourselves nor the next generation with 

the tools needed to undergo frustration, 

disappointment, and heartbreak 

without breaking down in faith (and 

sometimes too in psyche and body). 

Today, for the most part, our normal 

expectation is that we shouldn’t be finding 

ourselves mourning and weeping, 

but rather that life should be delivering 

a full symphony. We no longer feel 

that we have sacred permission to be 

weeping. 

The spirituality we breathe in today 

from our churches, theologians, and 

spiritual writers has many strong points 

(just as the one my parents breathed in 

had its weaknesses). However, to my 

mind, for the most part spiritualities 

today do not leave sufficient space for 

grieving, a lacuna shared by most of the 

secular world. 

We are not making enough space for 

grief, either in our churches or in our 

lives. We are not giving people the tools 

they need to handle frustration, loss, 

and heartbreak, nor how to grieve when 

they are beset by them. Outside of our 

funeral rituals, we make very little room 

for grief. Worse still, we tend to give 

the impression that there is something 

wrong in our lives if there are tears. 

What’s the place and value of grieving? 

First, as Karl Rahner poetically 

explains, it is a way of accepting “that 

in the torment of the insufficiency of 

everything attainable we ultimately 

learn that here in this life there is no 

finished symphony.” Grieving is also, as 

Rachel Naomi Remen writes, a critical 

way of self-care. Not to grieve, she submits, 

is a denial of our own wholeness. 

“People burn out because they don’t 

grieve.” British novelist Anita Brookner 

repeats a particular refrain in several of 

her books. Commenting on marriage, 

she suggests that “the first task in a 

marriage is for the couple to console 

each other for the fact that they cannot 

not disappoint each other.” 

My parents had not read Karl Rahner, 

Rachel Noami Remen, or Anita 

Brookner, but in their daily prayer they 

reminded themselves that in this life 

there is no finished symphony, that 

grieving is healthy self-care, and that 

it’s consoling to accept that neither of 

them could ever be quite enough for 

the other since only God can provide 

that. 

What do we need to grieve? Our 

human condition and all that comes 

with it, namely, impermanence, the 

loss of our youth, the loss of a youthful 

body, wounds, betrayals, frustrated 

dreams, heartbreaks, the loss of loved 

ones, the death of our honeymoons, 

the perennial flow through our lives 

of people, places, and institutions and 

then disappearing, our incapacity to 

not be disappointing to others, the loss 

of our health, and our eventual deaths; 

that’s what we need to grieve. 

And how do we grieve? Jesus left us 

a template for this when he grieved 

in the garden of Gethsemane. What 

did he do when, as the Gospels say, he 

was reduced to “sweating blood” as he 

faced his own imminent death? He 

prayed, prayed a prayer that openly and 

honestly expressed his agony, that recognized 

his distance from others inside 

this suffering, which acknowledged 

his own helplessness to do anything to 

change the situation, that repeatedly 

begged God to alter things, but that 

expressed a trust in God despite the 

present darkness. That’s the way Jesus 

wept. 

If Jesus wept, so must we. The disciple 

is never superior to the master. Moreover, 

we can learn from Jesus that 

mourning and weeping in our lives do 

not necessarily mean that there is something 

wrong. It might well mean that 

this is where we are meant to be. 

We have sacred permission to sometimes 

be in agony. 


SUBMITTED PHOTOS 

AN APOSTLE 

OF HOPE 

Four decades after his death, 

miracle stories attributed to a 

Spanish Claretian on the path to 

sainthood still abound in LA. 

BY NATALIE ROMANO 

A 

woman prays near the gravesite of Servant of God 

Father Aloysius Ellacuria, CMF, her eyes filled with 

tears of gratitude. One year ago, she stood in the same 

place seeking help for her sick husband. 

“Prayers are powerful,” said Elizabeth Plaisted, parishioner 

of Nativity Catholic Church in Torrance. “We came to pray 

to Father Aloysius for his intercession and now my husband 

is doing great. He had his surgery. He’s cancer-free.” 

Plaisted was among those attending the 43rd Anniversary 

Memorial Mass of Father Aloysius Ellacuria, CMF, held 

at the Chapel of the Annunciation at Mission San Gabriel 

June 8. 

The bilingual event included a rosary, graveside blessing, 

and reception. This year’s presider was Father Gabriel Ruiz, 

CMF, with concelebrants Father Charles Carpenter, MAP, 

Father Norbert Medina, CMF, and Father Kevin Manion, 

who leads the organization promoting Father Aloysius’ 

cause of sainthood. 

“We offer our prayers on this anniversary, so that our 

Venerable Servant of God may be advanced in the cause 

of canonization,” proclaimed Manion. “Merciful Lord, 

turn towards us and listen to our prayers. Open the gates of 

paradise to your Servant.” 

Father Aloysius, as he is known, ministered in Los Angeles 

primarily from the 1930s to the 1970s. He held a variety 

of positions in religious and seminary formation, including 

rector, spiritual director, and superior. With a fierce 

devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and compassion 

for the sick, he sought out those who were suffering and 

The gravesite of Father Aloysius 

Ellacuria at Mission San Gabriel. 


eportedly provided spiritual or physical healing. 

As stories of his abilities began to surface, he was hailed as 

a holy man and miracle worker. Believers, from high-profile 

Angelenos to everyday parishioners, came to the Claretian 

Provincial House wanting help from the Basque-born 

missionary. 

Tony James Arpaia was one of those people. The retired 

computer support specialist said he suffered from “severe 

asthma” as a young boy and his dad would bring him to 

Aloysius in hopes of saving his life. 

“I was hospitalized many, many times. Three different doctors 

told my parents, ‘This kid isn’t going to live past the age 

of 7,’ ” recalled Arpaia, a parishioner of St. Francis de Sales 

Church in Sherman Oaks. “Father Aloysius would bless me 

and it would relieve my symptoms. He had healing hands.” 

Eventually, Arpaia was no longer sick and Aloysius became 

a beloved guest at the family dinner table. Arpaia said he 

gave his testimony for the cause of sainthood that officially 

opened in 2015 following the approval of Archbishop José 

H. Gomez and a vote of support from the United States 

Tony James Arpaia, bottom left, with Father Aloysius and 

his father, Tony John, and brother, Michael. At right is 

Aloysius’ brother, Father José María Ellacuria. 

Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Congregation of 

Saints in Rome then issued the Nihil Obstat that allowed 

the archdiocese to move forward with the cause without 

objection. 

In 2017, the inquiry into the ministry and miracles of Aloysius 

was launched, the first such inquiry in the archdiocese. 

Documented testimonies will be turned over to the Vatican 

once a new postulator has been installed since the previous 

one, Andrea Ambrosi in Rome, has retired. 

Today Aloysius is considered a “Servant of God,” the title 

given to those whose sainthood cause is under investigation. 

To advance to “Venerable,” the pope must recognize Aloysius 

as a martyr or a person of heroic virtue. The approval 

of one proven miracle through his intercession is required 

to be named “blessed,” and a second one is required to be 

declared “saint.” 

Canonization would be a surprising and wondrous thing, 

said Ruiz. He remembered his fellow Claretian as being 

“dignified” with a “deep spiritual life”. 

“We’re called to holiness but we don’t think people close 

to us could be. Yet you could sense something in [Father 

Aloysius’] continence,” began Ruiz, reverend of Mission 

San Gabriel Parish. “He was passionately in love with God. 

That gave him the strength to help people … give people 

hope.” 

Devotees of Aloysius believe he had several charisms: reading 

souls, the gift of prophecy, and expelling demons. The 

latter, Arpaia said he personally experienced when the priest 

blessed his home armed with a prayer book and holy water. 

“When [Aloysius] says, ‘I command all evil spirits to leave 

this house in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy 

Spirit!’, the screen door on the front porch slams shut — 

bang! We were all startled. … 

Three times he did this. I’m 

freaking out,” relived Arpaia. 

“Then he says, ‘there were a 

lot of evil spirits in that house 

but they’re all gone and they’ll 

never come back here again.” 

Even more proof of Aloysius’ 

holiness, said supporters, was 

his mystical grace of retaining 

the Communion host. Father 

Alberto Ruiz, CMF, said the 

Eucharist remained in the body 

until a new one was swallowed. 

“When you and I consume it, 

because you and I are sinners, 

ours dissolves; his did not 

dissolve,” explained Ruiz, Coordinator 

of Claretians for the 

Holy Cause of Father Aloysius 

Ellacuria, CMF. “Another 

one would come, another one 

would come. He always had 

the Blessed Sacrament, like 

our founder St. Anthony Maria 

Claret.” 

Ruiz was about to start seminary 

in the late 1970s when he met Aloysius. He fondly 

recalled how the missionary initially frowned at his big 

mustache. However, the two became close and remained so 

until Aloysius died in 1981. Ruiz, who first planned the Memorial 

Mass, said his confessor and role model was always 

humble about his gifts from God. 

“I saw him cure cancer. … He cured women who couldn’t 

bear children … he did more than 1,000 miracles before he 

died. Somewhere along the line, he knew he was being chosen,” 

concluded Ruiz. “He also knew it wasn’t for himself 

but for the people. … He was amazing. … I wanted to be 

like him.” 


During his decades of service, 

Aloysius promoted the scapular 

of the Immaculate Heart of 

Mary and founded the Missionaries 

of Perpetual Adoration 

to spread the message of Our 

Lady of Fátima. He also formed 

12 guilds for laypeople that encouraged 

prayer, the rosary, and 

religious discussion. 

Aware of these ministries, 

Manion decided to write him a 

letter asking for advice on prayer. 

He wasn’t yet a seminarian and 

wondered what kind of response 

he would receive. He ended up 

with two pages of suggestions 

that he still holds dear. In the 

letter, dated Aug. 24, 1970, Aloysius 

urged fidelity to Mary. 

“Look to Her and Love Her as 

your very own Mother in Heaven. 

She will always be near you 

as the one who loved Jesus more 

than any other person on earth. I cannot stress enough how 

important is devotion to the Blessed Mother. Anything you 

could possibly offer to God, your entire self, is far better when 

presented through the mediation of Mary.” 

When the young Manion finally got to meet Aloysius, once 

again he got more than he expected, an otherworldly sensation 

and eventually a job working as his personal secretary. 

“My dad brought me up to the Claretian Provincial House 

to see him. He already had a reputation of holiness,” said 

Manion. “When he blessed me, it felt like I was transported 

to the Sea of Galilee and it was Jesus blessing me. It was very 

special.” 

Father Aloysius with Kevin 

Manion, then the priest’s 

volunteer secretary and driver. 

Manion went on to enter the 

seminary and become a priest. 

Father Aloysius with Manuel Dos Santos 

(1895-1977), center, brother of Fátima visionary 

Sister Lucia dos Santos, during a 1971 trip 

to Portugal with eight American novices. 

In addition to feeling Aloysius’ holiness, some people say 

they could smell it too. Herminia Galvan attended one of his 

Masses in the 1970s. 

“I could smell his aroma, the scent of flowers, roses,” described 

Galvan, parishioner of the Cathedral of Our Lady of 

Angels. “I truly believe deep in my heart he is a holy man. He 

is a saint.” 

Worshippers at the Memorial Mass said they’re excited 

about the prospect of a local saint. They hope Aloysius’ canonization 

could inspire those who have lost their way. 

“The world is changing. There’s too many wars, people are 

not faithful, families are not together,” lamented Plaisted. 

“We need more saints. Father 

Aloysius could be an example to 

others to follow Jesus.” 

The memorial celebration 

ended with a reception where attendees 

could enjoy food, music, 

and displays of Aloysius’ chasubles 

and other personal items. 

Organizers invited everyone to 

return every first Saturday of the 

month for Mass dedicated to his 

cause for sainthood. Devotees 

walked away with books, prayer 

cards, and their memories. 

“I miss him. I miss his hugs,” 

said Arpaia. “He was the epitome 

of love.” 

Natalie Romano is a freelance 

writer for Angelus and the 

Inland Catholic Byte, the news 

website of the Diocese of San 

Bernardino. 


My grandpa 

and Father 

Aloysius 

BY PABLO KAY 

The year was 1974, and my grandparents 

were facing the biggest test of 

their lives. 

My grandmother, Angela, was hospitalized 

after contracting a life-threatening case of 

Hepatitis A while giving birth to her 12th 

(and final) child. During the same time, my 

grandfather, Gay John, was diagnosed with 

terminal malignant melanoma. As they both 

underwent treatment, their children were 

dispersed among family members to help 

care for them. 

Then 45, my grandmother eventually 

recovered and regained her strength. But the prognosis for 

my grandfather remained dire: doctors found that the skin 

cancer had spread to his lymph nodes, and there was no 

treatment available that could stop it. 

My grandparents were devoted parishioners of St. John 

the Evangelist Church in South Los Angeles, and by that 

time had become increasingly involved in the Marriage 

Encounter movement. 

Someone — we’re not sure who — had told them about 

the saintly old Basque priest living at the Claretian Center 

on Westchester Place, just west of LA’s Koreatown. They 

went to see him at Mass one Saturday morning. After 

listening to them explain their situation and praying with 

them, Father Aloysius told my grandfather to come back 

the next week, that he was waiting for a sign. 

From what their children remember, my grandparents returned 

to the Claretian Center for Saturday morning Mass 

again at least twice. The final time, he told them that the 

sign he was waiting for, a rose in his window, had appeared, 

and that my grandfather had been healed. 

At the next doctor’s visit, the surgeon who had been 

treating my grandfather insisted on operating on the lymph 

nodes in his groin area right away. Being scientifically 

inclined, he agreed. (My grandfather was a believer, but he 

was also a microbiologist.) 

My grandmother would later tell the story of the surgeon 

coming out of the operating room in tears to tell her that 

there was no cancer, and that it must have been a miracle. 

My grandfather would go on to live 39 more years, my 

grandmother 47. During that time, they were blessed with 

The author’s grandparents at their 50th wedding anniversary in 2002 with several of their 30 grandchildren. 

30 grandchildren and countless adventures. A few years 

after the healing, my Dad (the second of the 12) would 

return to the Church, begin an itinerary of post-baptismal 

Christian formation with his parents, travel the world as a 

lay missionary, and eventually get married and have eight 

children. 

My grandparents were certainly not the only people with 

an Aloysius miracle story, as the previous article shows. But 

neither was that the last miracle they would live to see. In 

the decades that followed, they experienced and witnessed 

plenty of difficult (and nonmedical) situations where they 

saw God doing the impossible in their lives — and the lives 

of others. Perhaps, in God’s infinite wisdom, one impossible 

healing was part of a plan to beget many more miracles. 

A year or two after my grandpa died, I accompanied my 

grandmother to a dinner event organized by those promoting 

Aloysius’ cause for canonization. 

The postulator at the time explained that while stories like 

ours were nice to hear, what really counts now are miracles 

attributed to Aloysius’ posthumous intercession (after 

his death, not before it) that help prove that he’s alive in 

heaven. 

For those facing an impossible situation of their own, 

here’s a Servant of God who might be able to help — and 

in return, could use some of our help himself. 

To learn more about Father Aloysius Ellacuria and his 

sainthood cause, visit Aloysius.com 

Pablo Kay is the editor-in-chief of Angelus. 


GUIDE AND SEEK 

Hundreds of LA pilgrims brought prayer petitions to the feet of 

Our Lady of Guadalupe. They came back with a new mission. 

BY MIKE CISNEROS / PHOTOGRAPHY BY VICTOR ALEMÁN 

Archbishop José H. Gomez blesses pilgrims 

following a Mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral 

in Mexico City on July 5. 

Addressing more than 300 pilgrims who traveled from 

the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to Mexico, Archbishop 

José H. Gomez said that just as they had all traveled 

to another country in search of Mary and Jesus, that journey 

should continue when they returned home. 

“That’s why we are here,” Archbishop Gomez said. “We 

come to this country as pilgrims seeking Mary, and seeking 

Jesus. We come to deepen our discipleship, as followers of 

her Son. 

“In his own way, he has said to each one of you and to me: 

‘Follow me.’ ” 

For the fifth time — and second since the beginning of the 

COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. — Archbishop Gomez led 

the faithful from the archdiocese on a pilgrimage to Mexico, 

culminating in a special Mass on July 6 at the Basilica Of 

Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, the home of the 

original tilma of St. Juan Diego featuring the image of Our 

Lady of Guadalupe. 

Other highlights of the pilgrimage included Mass at Mexico 

City’s Metropolitan Cathedral and visits to the pyramids, 

Puebla Cathedral, and Santa Prisca and San Sebastian 

churches in Taxco. 


Archbishop Gomez presides 

over Mass in the basilica 

underneath the holy tilma 

featuring the image of Our 

Lady of Guadalupe. 

At the basilica, standing under the holy tilma, Archbishop 

Gomez told the pilgrims that just as Mary tenderly loved and 

embraced Jesus, she will do the same for us. 

“In this sacred image that she left for us, we can see that she 

is carrying Jesus in her womb, under her praying hands, his 

heart is beating beneath her heart,” Archbishop Gomez said. 

“So we come as pilgrims to this place, and we ask the Virgin 

of Guadalupe to be a mother to us, and to renew us in the 

love of her Son.” 

This love for Mary and Jesus was the unifying reason why 

the hundreds of pilgrims decided to travel to Mexico, even as 

their reasons for going were varied. 

Maria Tavarez, a self-described “Guadalupana” since she 

was born in Jalisco, Mexico, was celebrating the pilgrimage 

as a surprise gift from her husband to celebrate their 27th 

wedding anniversary. 

“I came to thank the Virgin for helping me fulfill the goal 

to bring a replica of her image to my church, St. Pancratius 

in Lakewood, as well as give thanks for my marriage, for my 

family, and for world peace,” she said. 

For Elynour Quan, the pilgrimage was the first time she 

had been to the basilica, and she prayed for strength after her 

husband of 24 years died in 2018, leaving her alone to care 

for her 14-year-old son who has special needs. 

More than 300 parishioners from the 

LA Archdiocese traveled to Mexico for 

the nearly weeklong pilgrimage. 

July 26, 2024 • ANGELUS • 15

“This is my opportunity to give thanks to Our Lady of 

Guadalupe for helping me,” said Quan, a parishioner at St. 

Lorenzo Ruiz Church in Walnut. 

Msgr. Diego Monroy, rector emeritus of the Basilica of Guadalupe, 

welcomed the LA pilgrims and said the shrine was 

not just for those who live in Mexico, but for everyone. 

“You always share your values, you share this family unity, 

your honesty, and joy for the work with which you contribute 

to the great North American nation,” he said. “We put you all 

in the heart of Our 

Lady of the Skies so 

she, with her beating 

heart, full of love, 

can express and 

manifest in all the 

pastoral work you do 

at the great Archdiocese 

of Los Angeles.” 

For the first time on 

a Mexico City pilgrimage, the pilgrims — decked out in their 

matching red T-shirts — participated in a procession leading 

up to the basilica. After Msgr. Eduardo Chávez, co-founder 

of the Institute of Guadalupan Studies in Mexico City, gave 

an impassioned talk about Our Lady, the hundreds processed 

to the basilica with flowers, American flags, and holding the 

thousands of prayer petitions collected from locations across 

the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and online that were brought 

to the basilica to be blessed. 

“Whoever put [in] a prayer petition, all those prayer petitions 

went all around the basilica as part of the procession,” 

said Veronica Reyes, communications event manager for the 

archdiocese. “Even though they weren’t there physically, I 

feel like they journeyed with us.” 

At the end of the Mass, the pilgrims were urged to bring 

their friends, family, and loved ones to next year’s pilgrimage, 

scheduled for July 5, 2025 at the basilica. 

“Faith is born in 

the family, so let us 

first bring the joy 

of Jesus, his tender 

love and forgiveness, 

to our spouses and 

children, our parents 

and grandparents, 

our brothers and sisters, 

our uncles and 

aunts,” Archbishop Gomez said. “And from our homes, let us 

spread the love of Jesus into every corner of our society! May 

every person we meet know his promise of salvation.” 

“We put you all in the heart of Our Lady of the 

Skies so she … can express and manifest in all 

the pastoral work you do at the great Archdiocese 

of Los Angeles,” the rector emeritus of the 

Guadalupe basilica told LA pilgrims. 

To see more about the pilgrimage, visit lacatholics.org/pilgrimage. 

Mike Cisneros is the associate editor of Angelus. 

Archbishop Gomez poses with the hundreds 

of pilgrims from the Archdiocese of 

Los Angeles outside the Basilica Of Our 

Lady of Guadalupe on July 6. 


TAINTED 

TILES 

After months of 

pressure, a major 

DC shrine decided 

to cover disgraced 

priest Marko Rupnik’s 

mosaics. Now, others 

may follow. 

BY GINA CHRISTIAN 

The Knights of Columbus 

announced they will cover mosaics 

by ex-Jesuit Father Marko 

Rupnik at the St. John Paul II National 

Shrine in Washington, D.C., and the 

Holy Family Chapel at the Knights’ 

headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut. 

In a July 11 statement, the Knights 

said the decision came at “the conclusion 

of a careful and thorough process.” 

The mosaics will be obscured by 

fabric, “which will remain in place at 

least until the Vatican’s Dicastery for 

the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) issues 

its decision on the pending sexual 

abuse cases against artist Father Marko 

Rupnik.” 

After that, the Knights said, “a permanent 

plaster covering may be in order.” 

In April, the Knights’ Patrick Cardinal 

O’Boyle Council 11302, based in 

Washington, reportedly adopted an 

April 9 resolution urging the fraternal 

organization’s executive leadership to 

remove and replace mosaics created by 

Rupnik for the St. John Paul II National 

Shrine, which the Knights established 

in the nation’s capital in 2011. 

Rupnik was expelled from the Society 

of Jesus in 2023 after refusing to obey 

the order’s measures imposed in 

response to credible accusations that he 

A mosaic by Father Marko Rupnik illustrating the 

Gospel story of Jesus’ encounter with the woman 

caught in adultery is pictured in a file photo at the 

St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, 

D.C. | OSV/CNS FILE, TYLER ORSBURN 

spiritually, psychologically, or sexually 

abused some two dozen women and at 

least one man. However, he remains a 

priest living and working in Rome as 

the director of art and dean of theology 

at Centro Aletti, the religious art community 

he founded in 1991. 

“Shrines are places of healing, prayer, 

and reconciliation. They should not 

cause victims further suffering,” Patrick 

Kelly, the supreme knight of the 

Knights of Columbus, said in the July 

11 statement. 

According to the Knights, Rupnik’s 

mosaics were installed in the St. John 

Paul II Shrine in 2015 and in their 

headquarter’s Holy Family Chapel in 

2005. 

The Knights have also used Rupnik’s 

art for their booklet series on the new 

evangelization that are in parishes all 

over the U.S. 

The Knights’ statement explained the 

order was unaware of the allegations 

against Rupnik ranging from the 1980s 

to 2015 (including an excommunication 

for a sexual-based offense that was 

subsequently lifted) as these allegations 

came into the public eye in December 

2022. 

Along with concealing the mosaics, 

the Knights of Columbus will “immediately 

implement several pastoral measures 

to express the Knights’ solidarity 

with victims of sexual abuse,” according 

to its statement. 

Those measures include having 

petitions in all shrine Masses for victims 

of sexual abuse, commemorating feast 

days of saints — such as St. Josephine 


Bakhita — with “a special connection 

to victims of abuse,” and “providing educational 

materials about the mosaics 

that will make clear that the continued 

display of the mosaics at the shrine 

during the process of consultation 

was not intended to ignore, deny, or 

diminish the allegations of abuse,” said 

the organization. 

Kelly noted that the Knights of 

Columbus chose to cover the mosaics 

“because our first concern must be 

for victims of sexual abuse, who have 

already suffered immensely, and who 

may be further injured by the ongoing 

display of the mosaics at the shrine.” 

The “extensive process” preceding the 

decision involved “confidential consultations 

with individual victims of sexual 

abuse and those who minister to them, 

individual pilgrims, moral theologians, 

and art historians, as well as bishops 

and other clergy,” he said. 

Kelly noted that “while opinions 

varied among those consulted, there 

was a strong consensus to prioritize the 

needs of victims, especially because the 

allegations are current, unresolved, and 

horrific.” 

He also pointed to a recent announcement 

by Bishop Jean-Marc Micas 

of Tarbes and Lourdes, France, who 

revealed July 2 that Rupnik’s mosaics at 

the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary 

at the Lourdes shrine will no longer be 

illuminated. 

Speaking to the French Catholic news 

outlet La Croix, Micas said in an interview 

published July 3 that his “deep, 

formed, intimate conviction is that 

[the mosaics] will one day need to be 

removed,” since “they prevent Lourdes 

from reaching all the people for whom 

the sanctuary’s message is intended.” 

In the Knights’ statement, Kelly said 

that “the thoughtful decision of the 

Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes ... 

both informed and confirmed us in our 

own decision-making.” 

The moves by the Knights of Columbus 

and Micas to conceal the mosaics 

contrast with recent remarks made by 

Paolo Ruffini, head of the Vatican’s 

communications office, who had told 

journalists June 21 at the Catholic 

Media Conference in Atlanta that removing 

Father Rupnik’s artworks from 

churches and shrines was a “wrong” 

move. 

“I don’t think we have to throw stones 

thinking that this is the way of healing,” 

he said. 

Regarding the Knights’ decision to 

cover the mosaics, Kelly said that “context 

and mission matter.” 

“Every situation is different. In the 

United States, Catholics continue to 

suffer in a unique way from the revelations 

of sexual abuse and, at times, from 

the response of the Church,” he said. 

“It is clear to us that, as patrons of a national 

shrine, our decision must respect 

this country’s special need for healing.” 

The Vatican’s Dicastery for the 

Doctrine of the Faith has described 

its investigation of Rupnik as being at 

“a fairly advanced stage.” Rupnik is 

at present a priest in good standing in 

the Diocese of Koper, Slovenia. He 

was incardinated into the Slovenian 

diocese in August 2023, a move that 

allowed him to escape any remaining 

restrictions on his priestly ministry and 

remain in Rome with his Centro Aletti 

art institute. 

OSV News reached out to both the St. 

John Paul II National Shrine and Rupnik 

for comment, but did not receive an 

immediate response. 

The close link between Father 

Rupnik’s artistic work and the abuses 

he allegedly committed was confirmed 

to OSV News by Gloria Branciani, a 

former religious of the Loyola Community 

in Slovenia who alleged Rupnik 

abused her for nine years when the 

Jesuit was the spiritual director of the 

Loyola Community. 

“In Rupnik, the sexual dimension 

cannot be separated from the creative 

experience,” Branciani told OSV News, 

when asked about his artistic projects. 

“In portraying me, he explained that I 

represented the eternal feminine: His 

artistic inspiration stems precisely from 

his approach to sexuality.” 

New mosaics by Rupnik’s Centro 

Aletti are still being installed in various 

churches in the world, with the latest 

one unveiled May 26 at a local church 

in northern Italy depicting the crucifixion 

and resurrection of Jesus. 

Centro Aletti lists at least 230 places 

where the mosaics, characteristic for 

the black eyes of their biblical and 

saintly protagonists, are displayed 

around the globe. 

Gina Christian is a national reporter 

for OSV News. 

Caregivers push the sick and disabled past Father 

Marko Rupnik’s mosaics at the Sanctuary of Our Lady 

of Lourdes in southwestern France in this May 16, 

2014, file photo. | CNS/PAUL HARING 


ROOM FOR SURPRISES 

BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR. 

Preparations for this fall’s synod 

session are resetting expectations 

for hot-button issues. 

ROME — On Tuesday, July 9, 

the Vatican issued the working 

document, technically known 

as the Instrumentum Laboris (Working 

Document), for the closing act in 

October of Pope Francis’ long-running 

Synod of Bishops on Synodality, a 

process intended to cement his legacy 

for the Catholic Church. 

In most media coverage, the 30-page 

text has been described as something 

of a letdown, given that it appears 

to take several of the most intensely 

debated matters, such as women deacons, 

Catholics who identify as LGBT, 

and married priests off the table, 

assigning them instead to study groups 

within the Vatican’s Dicastery for the 

Doctrine of the Faith. 

As anyone acquainted with bureaucratic 

logic knows, handing a tough 

choice off to a study group usually is 

a prescription for punting it down the 

line. 

In all honesty, however, this development 

should hardly be a surprise. 

Not only has Francis repeatedly 

insisted that he wants the assembly to 

focus broadly on the ways and means 

of a more dialogic Church, rather 

than getting bogged down by a narrow 

canon of controversial issues, he’s also 

basically preempted the discussion on 

those matters by acting unilaterally. 

When it comes to LBGT-related 

issues, he approved the document Fiducia 

Supplicans (Supplicating Trust) 

last December, authorizing priests 

to bless people involved in same-sex 

relationships, while at the same time 

permitting wide diversity in how that 

permission is applied — allowing the 

bishops of Africa, for instance, basically 

to take a pass. 

With regard to women deacons, he 

used an interview with CBS in May 

to offer a seemingly clear no. Some 

have detected slight wiggle room in 

the fact that the Instrumentum Laboris 

says the question will be assigned to 

Pope Francis leads a meeting with the 

presidents and coordinators of the regional assemblies 

of the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican 

Nov. 28, 2022. | CNS/VATICAN MEDIA 

a study group, but given that Francis 

has already heard the conclusions of 

two different commissions as well as 

the first synodal assembly last October, 

it appears reasonable to think that if 

there was going to be movement in 

this papacy, it would already have 

happened. 

As far as celibacy goes, the pope 

received a clear request for greater 

latitude from his own Synod of Bishops 

on the Amazon in 2019 and didn’t pull 

the trigger then, so there’s no a priori 

reason to believe he’s more inclined to 

do so now. 

So, does all this mean the Oct. 2-27 

gathering in Rome is destined to be a 

dud? 

Perhaps not, because even with the 

focus shifting away from matters which 


had heretofore dominated conversation, 

there are still three great conundrums 

which shine through the working 

document, and which participants 

will have the opportunity to address 

should they choose to seize it. 

To begin with, the document calls for 

reflection on the exercise of authority 

in the Church, including the interplay 

among synodality, collegiality, and 

primacy — respectively, the sensus fidelium 

(sense of the faith), the bishops, 

and the pope. In general, the idea is to 

promote a “sound decentralization,” 

transferring responsibility for at least 

some decisions from Rome to the 

local churches. The last such section 

deals specifically with downsizing the 

papacy itself. 

Yet the practical reality is that in 

Catholicism, the greatest and most 

meaningful changes in the Church 

often occur as a result of papal fiat. We 

didn’t get the Second Vatican Council 

in the 1960s, for example, as the result 

of a wide process of consultation — it 

occurred because the pope at the time, 

John XXIII, felt an inspiration and 

acted upon it, basically unilaterally and 

in the teeth of oft-stiff opposition from 

some of his own advisers. 

In fact, this entire synodal process is 

much the same story. At the beginning, 

the decision to launch the process 

wasn’t really bottom-up but top-down, 

a reflection of Francis’ own personal 

vision, even if it evolved into a massive 

consultation exercise along the way. 

The first challenge, therefore, is how 

to reconceive central authority in the 

Church without sacrificing its unique 

capacity to move the institution when 

nothing else can. 

The second conundrum pivots on 

how to promote accountability in a 

church where, to some extent, it’s 

almost a foreign concept. The term 

appears 19 times in the English translation 

of the Instrumentum Laboris, 

but how to put those calls into practice 

remains a head-scratcher. 

The challenges are both sociological 

and ecclesiological. 

Sociologically, the Vatican remains 

an overwhelmingly Italian institution, 

and it’s telling that there is no precise 

Italian translation for the word “accountability.” 

In the Italian version of 

the document, in fact, the term used is 

rendiconto, which literally just means 

“report,” accompanied by a parenthesis 

that adds “accountability [is] an English 

term also used in other languages.” 

How to graft such a foreign concept 

onto an institution where it’s never 

really been part of the scene remains 

unclear. 

In terms of ecclesiology, to the extent 

the Church has had a concept of 

accountability, it’s almost the opposite 

of what people mean by it today. Over 

the centuries, leadership has been 

regarded primarily as accountable to 

the apostolic tradition, and ultimately 

to God as its author. In other words, accountability 

runs up to the divine, not 

down to the consent of the governed. 

How to blend the traditional and 

contemporary understandings of 

accountability into a creative synthesis, 

therefore, could be another great 

undertaking. 

Third, the synod also faces the conundrum 

of how to promote a process 

of reform without it shading off into 

revolution. 

That this is not an idle prospect is 

demonstrated by the Vatican’s ongoing 

tug of war with the German church 

and its “Synodal Way,” which has 

largely come down to a question of 

authority. The Germans want to create 

a new governing body for the Church 

in the country in which laity would 

have a decisive role, while the Vatican 

insists that hierarchical authority in 

itself isn’t up for grabs, but rather the 

mode in which it’s exercised. 

In some ways, the situation is similar 

to the Congress of Ems in 1786, when 

four German-speaking Prince Archbishops 

of the Holy Roman Empire 

(from Mainz, Cologne, Trier, and 

Salzburg) declared a sort of de facto rejection 

of papal primacy. Among other 

things, they wanted all papal nunciatures 

abolished, seeing the presence of 

an envoy from Rome as an unwarranted 

assertion of papal supervision. 

Pope Pius VI was compelled to 

spend the next decade fighting off the 

German uprising, until the French 

Revolution and Napoleon’s hostility 

to the Church finally persuaded the 

archbishops that maybe having a powerful 

international patron with his own 

diplomatic corps wasn’t such a bad 

thing after all. 

The challenge, then as now, is to find 

a balance between change and continuity, 

between listening to the People 

of God and listening to the wisdom 

of tradition, all the while making sure 

things don’t spin out of control in the 

meantime. 

Should the synod take up these questions, 

it could still prove a fascinating 

discussion indeed … even without 

headline-grabbing topics that drive traffic, 

if not always transformation. 

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

Irme Stetter-Karp, president of the Central Committee 

of German Catholics and the lay co-president of 

the "Synodal Path," Bishop Georg Bätzing, president 

of the German bishops’ conference, and Beate Gilles, 

general secretary of the German bishops’ conference, 

attend the fourth synodal assembly in Frankfurt in 

this Sept. 9, 2022, file photo. Vatican officials sent 

a letter to Bishop Bätzing to say the bishops do not 

have the authority to create a synodal body that 

supersedes the authority of the bishops’ conference. | 

CNS/JULIA STEINBRECHT, KNA 


Missionary mismatch 

The Catholic Church has a global imbalance of priests. 

Is it time to change strategy? 

BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR. 

ROME — A new report indicates 

that Spain leads the world in 

terms of the number of Catholic 

missionaries serving abroad, with 

almost 10,000 Spanish priests, nuns, 

and brothers working in Latin America 

and other corners of the world, 

and it’s also in second place in terms 

of financial support for missionary 

activity. 

Such a commitment is obviously 

to the honor of the Spanish church, 

which over the centuries has been 

among the great motor forces of 

Catholic evangelization. 

The bad news, however, is that the 

average age of those Spanish missionaries 

is 75, meaning their ranks are in 

steady decline as current personnel 

age and aren’t being replaced by 

younger clergy and religious. 

Indeed, if you visit any of the traditional 

centers of Spanish Catholicism 

these days, you’re likely to find what 

most observers now call the “reverse 

mission.” Places which not so long 

ago were exporting missionaries are 

now net importers, increasingly reliant 

on personnel from former mission 

territories to keep their own pastoral 

operations afloat. 

Go to a typical parish in, say, Toledo, 

or Granada, or Burgos, and the odds 

are good that the priest who says Mass 

will hail from Peru, or Colombia, 

or Mexico, or anyplace other than 

the country in which he’s actually 

working. 

It’s hardly just Spain. 

On June 6, Pope Francis made a 

surprise visit to St. Bridget of Sweden 

Church on the northwestern corner of 

Rome, located in the city’s Palmarola 

neighborhood, a classic working-class 

district made up almost entirely of 

native Italians. Yet the pastor and 

associate pastor who staff the parish 

are Congolese and Cameroonian, 

respectively, both missionary priests 

who belong to the Spiritan Fathers, 

formally known as the Congregation 

Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, poses 

for a photo with Nigerian clergy who are serving in the diocesei in this 

2020 file photo | CNS/JENNIFER BARTON, TODAY’S CATHOLIC 


of the Holy Spirit. 

Like Spain, Italy was once among 

the great providers of missionaries 

around the world. Today, however, the 

situation is reversed: According to data 

from the Italian bishops’ conference, 

for every one Italian priest serving 

abroad, there are five foreign-born 

priests with assignments in Italy. The 

total number of foreign priests in Italy 

today comes to 2,812, which is almost 

10% of all the Catholic priests in the 

country. 

In the small Roman parish where 

my wife and I worship, our associate 

pastor, Father Don Alberto, is from 

Benin, and I can testify from personal 

experience that without him, it’s not 

at all clear how the community would 

keep going. 

The same pattern holds in the United 

States, of course. 

According to the Center for Applied 

Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown 

University, as many as 38% of 

priests in recent U.S. ordination classes 

were born outside the U.S. Even in 

middle-American venues such as the 

Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, nearly 

25% of the presbyterate comes from 

India, Kenya, and several Latin American 

nations. 

At one level, this is a great success 

story: For centuries missionaries from 

the cradle of Christendom in the West 

spread the faith around the world, and 

today the churches they planted are 

returning the favor, offering the sometimes 

aging and moribund churches 

of the West a new lease on life. 

On the other hand, from a strategic 

planning point of view, this trend of 

redistributing clergy from the global 

south to the north is not without 

controversy. In fact, there’s a powerful 

case to be made that it’s in fact an 

exploitative pattern, in which affluent 

churches in the West are poaching 

clergy from financially strapped 

churches in the developing world, 

without regard to where those personnel 

are most needed. 

In Europe, for instance, there’s 

currently one priest for every 1,700 

Catholics, but in Africa that ratio is 1 

to 5,700, meaning the “priest shortage” 

in Africa is roughly five times 

worse. That contradicts impressions 

of Africa as booming with vocations, 

and it’s true that seminaries across the 

continent tend to be full. 

Yet when a church is growing, as 

Africa has throughout the latter half of 

the 20th century and the early part of 

the 21st, disparities between faithful 

and clergy widen, because frankly 

Catholicism can baptize people much 

more rapidly than it can ordain them. 

In other words, there is no “surplus” 

of priests in the developing world, 

and so every one of them who serves 

in a setting such as Spain, Italy, or 

Maryknoll Father John Siyumbu distributes 

Communion during his ordination to the 

priesthood at the Maryknoll Society Center 

in Maryknoll, New York, June 3, 2022. Father 

Siyumbu, who is from Bungoma, Kenya, is the 

first seminarian from East Africa to be 

ordained a Maryknoll priest. He 

will serve in Latin America. | 

OSV NEWS/GREGORY A. 

SHEMITZ 

the United States, is one fewer priest 

available to minister to congregations 

back home. 

Two decades ago, Cardinal John 

Onaiyekan of Nigeria warned of 

where all this might be heading. 

“What we don’t want is to get into a 

gastarbeiter (guest worker) situation, 

where a European priest feels overwhelmed 

having to say three Masses 

on Sunday, and so he wants a Black 

man to say them,” Onaiyekan said. 

“Surely this is not where the Church 

wants to go, getting poor people to do 

jobs that the rich don’t want to do, as 

today happens in other walks of life.” 

If Roman Catholicism were a multinational 

corporation, it would not take 

a systems analyst long to realize that 

all this points to a growing mismatch 

between the Church’s market and its 

allocation of resources. Two-thirds of 

Catholic believers today are in Africa, 

Asia, and Latin America, but just 

slightly over one-third of priests. 

If the Church were a multinational 

corporation, it would immediately 

implement a scheme for the redistribution 

of its priests to where its 

business is growing. As Philip Jenkins 

once wrote, the failure to do so “can 

be described at best as painfully shortsighted, 

at worst as suicidal.” 

Of course, Catholicism isn’t a 

for-profit enterprise, and its logic is 

different. 

Yet the question still remains as to 

what an equitable scheme for the 

distribution of clergy and religious for 

a global church might look like — 

and if it’s not a question Catholicism 

is prepared to face today, it almost 

certainly will have to do so tomorrow. 

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


A sculpted frieze in honor of 

author Ismail Kadare at Gjirokastra 

Castle in Albania. | ADAM 

JONES/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

The poet from Lunatic’s Lane 

An atheist whose 

novels captured life 

under totalitarianism, 

Ismail Kadare left a 

spiritual legacy. 

BY MSGR. RICHARD ANTALL 

John Buchan’s “Thirty-Nine Steps” 

was a famous spy novel published 

in 1915 dealing with German spies 

in Britain on the eve of World War I. 

Beloved in Britain, it was adapted for 

cinema several times, once by Alfred 

Hitchcock in 1935. 

Its hero, Richard Hannay, is a mining 

engineer returned to England from 

Rhodesia and, at the beginning of the 

story, he is bored. Reading a newspaper 

about the crisis in the Balkans, he 

quips, “It struck me that Albania was 

the sort of place that might keep a man 

from yawning.” 

When I heard of the death of Ismail 

Kadare, Albania’s most famous writer, 

on July 1, I revised Buchan’s quote to 

say that Albania was the sort of place 

where a writer might produce works 

that would keep a man from failing to 

think about his place in the universe. 

Although not well known in the U.S., 

he was a writer of international stature 

and an author for more than his own 

troubled times. Both Albania and 

Kosovo honored him with two days of 

official mourning. 

Albania is a country of only 3 million 

people, but its suffering has crystallized 

into enduring works of literature. W.H. 

Auden’s poem on Yeats has a line, 

“Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.” 

Albania’s mad history — the Balkan 

nation went from small kingdom to 

Italian occupation, then Greek invasion, 

responded to by Nazi blitzkrieg, 

succeeded by a postwar Communist 

regime that only collapsed after 1990 

— hurt Kadare into poetry and parable. 

His novels have been compared to 

Kafka and Orwell, which illustrates 

that politics is not the only field of 

human endeavor known for strange 

bedfellows. 

Kadare was accused of cloaking 

his fictions with historical trappings 

in order to criticize the Communist 

government of the infamous dictator 

Enver Hoxha. That is not false but does 

not convey the transcendent symbolism 

of his parables. 

His stories are about Albania, but even 

more about humanity and the ambiva- 


lence of history, beginning with his first 

novel, “General of a Dead Army” in 

1963, which tells the story of an Italian 

general who comes to Albania 20 years 

after World War II to retrieve the dead 

bodies of soldiers killed in battle. 

“The Pyramid” (1992) is framed as 

the story of the construction of the 

Pharaoh Cheops Pyramid in ancient 

Egypt. When Cheops mentions that he 

doesn’t want a pyramid built, a courtier 

tells him: 

“In the first place, Majesty, a pyramid 

is power. It is repression, force, and 

wealth. But it is just as much domination 

of the rabble; the narrowing 

of its mind; the weakening of its will; 

monotony; and waste. O my Pharaoh, 

it is your most reliable guardian. Your 

secret police. Your army. Your fleet. 

Your harem. The higher it is, the tinier 

your subjects will seem. And the smaller 

your subjects, the more you rise, O 

Majesty, to your full height.” 

In these few sentences, Kadare 

captures totalitarianism better than the 

philosopher Hannah Arendt. The book 

is relentless about the pursuit of power 

and yet slyly humorous. “Life under 

Communism was principally a tragedy,” 

Kadare writes, “but a tragedy with 

comic, not to say grotesque, interludes. 

Life over all could be described, in 

those terms, as a tragicomedy.” 

Several of Kadare’s books deal with 

his village, Gjirokaster, ironically also 

Hoxha’s hometown. In fact, the Hoxhas 

lived down the street from Kadare’s 

family on Lunatics’ Lane, a name so 

impossibly ironic it could have come 

from one of his fictions. 

Another of Kadare’s parables has to do 

with Albania’s isolation. It was the last 

outpost of Maoist communism in Europe, 

after Hoxha fought with Stalin. 

“The Three Arched Bridge” (1978), 

set in the 14th century, is a tale about 

the building of a bridge connecting 

Albania with Greece. 

Narrated by a monk, it reminds me of 

Thornton Wilder’s “Bridge of San Luis 

Rey.” The difficulties of the construction 

of the bridge, symbolic of connection 

with the greater world, are not just 

natural but human. The bureaucratic 

bungling and human conflict are 

sketched by the musing cleric and, as 

a finale, the bridge serves to help the 

invading Turkish army. 

Kadare used the symbol of Turkish 

domination as a mirror to totalitarianism. 

The monk is given a vision of the 

“Ottoman hordes flattening the world 

and creating in its place the land of 

Islam. … And above all I saw the long 

night coming in hours, for centuries.” 

In “The Palace of Dreams” (1981), 

Kadare imagined a secret government 

agency in the Ottoman Empire that 

records the dreams of its citizens to better 

control them. The internet might 

one day make that paranoid parable a 

reality. 

The national mourning for Kadare 

was picturesque and a testimony to 

the power of real literature to inspire: 

People threw flowers at the hearse that 

carried his body through the streets of 

the capital. It is impossible to imagine 

something like that here. 

The Prime Minister of Albania, Edi 

Rama, gave a moving eulogy, pointing 

out the irony that the ceremony was 

taking place not far from an art installation 

celebrating St. Mother Teresa, the 

most famous Albanian, for whom the 

airport in the country’s capital, Tirana, 

is named. 

Kadare was born to a Muslim family 

and professed to be an atheist. Nevertheless, 

the prime minister invoked the 

saint for the writer: 

“No one orchestrated Mother Teresa’s 

presence over Ismail during this state 

ceremony. She was here. She had 

arrived earlier. I was informed 

that the stage was booked, and 

Mother Teresa could not be 

moved. I was given a photo of 

this stage, set for an evening 

event. Leave it there, I said, 

it couldn’t be better. No one 

could have anticipated the 

coincidence that brought this, 

especially for Ismail, and no 

ceremony could better mark 

the passage of this Albanian’s 

life belonging to the world than 

under her shadow.” 

Rama mentioned that Kadare 

had won many literary awards 

but not the Nobel Prize for 

Literature. So much worse for 

the Swedish Academy. And 

also for his enemies in Albania, 

whom the prime minister 

faulted for “anonymous letters” 

that blocked his winning the 

accolade although he was nominated 

for it 15 times. 

“He lived as a witness to a word for 

which he garnered all praises and 

possible honors worldwide yet encountered 

the enviousness of his birth land,” 

the prime minister said. 

Tolstoy and Proust and many other 

great writers did not win the Nobel 

Prize for Literature, either. But Kadare 

left a spiritual legacy. 

At an awards ceremony, he spoke 

of some of his writing comrades in 

Albania who manifested solidarity in 

dissidence to the oppressive regime. 

“We propped each other up, as we tried 

to write literature as if that regime did 

not exist. Now and again, we pulled it 

off. At other times we didn’t. The idea 

that we could create a few mouthfuls of 

spiritual nourishment for our imprisoned 

nation filled us with joy.” 

Those “mouthfuls of spiritual nourishment” 

Kadare spoke of are a tremendous 

gift. The Spirit blows where it 

wills, and sometimes uses unlikely 

instruments to make a music for the 

soul. 

Msgr. Richard Antall is pastor of 

Holy Name Church in Cleveland, 

Ohio, and the author of several books, 

including the novel “The X-mas Files” 

(Atmosphere Press, $17.99). He served 

as a missionary priest in El Salvador for 

more than 20 years. 

Ismail Kadare, circa 1990s. | ALBANIAN STATE ARCHIVE VIA 

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 


INTERSECTIONS 

GREG ERLANDSON 

A poet’s rage, 

a mother’s 

patience 

SHUTTERSTOCK 

The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas died the year I was 

born. He was just 39 years old. His death was almost 

a cliché: A poet burning his candle at both ends and 

dying too young. In Thomas’ case, he literally drank himself 

to an early grave while on tour in America. 

When I was young and starry-eyed, my favorite poem of 

his was “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.” It was 

a compelling exhortation to his father, “there on that sad 

height,” to “rage, rage against the dying of the light.” 

One of the paradoxes of a youth spent reading was that I was 

perhaps too aware of death’s inevitability, too entranced by 

life’s brevity, even as it seemed the unknown future stretched 

out limitless before me. I took Thomas’ poem as a call to live 

life with passionate abandon. It was a very romanticized understanding, 

I’ll admit, as I hauled myself to classes and did 

minimum-wage jobs to have a little spending money. I loved 

that poem nonetheless. 

I thought of Thomas’ poem when I visited my Mom earlier 

this year. Last December, she turned 100 years old. That I 

know of, she received no congratulatory letters from the president 

or the weatherman acknowledging what, admittedly, has 

become a slightly more common feat these days. My Mom 

took the news in stride, particularly appreciative that it arrived 

with cake. 

My mother once lived for months in Greece with my father 

and later traveled on the Amazon in a canoe with a daughter. 

More impressively, she gave birth to eight children, seven of 

whom lived to adulthood and still gather with her to celebrate 

her milestones. 

Yet as the decades mount, her world has shrunk, inevitably. 

Her universe consists in large part of a bedroom, her family, 

and her dedicated caregivers. Her memories of Rhodes or 

Ecuador have been packed away for now. 

And as I look at my Mom in the course of her days — eating 

her meals with gusto, reading, watching television, telling 

us all she loves us madly — it occurred to me that Thomas’ 

exhortation to resist the dying of the light was the plea of a 

young man who has so much he wants to do. Even as Thomas 

drank away his liver, he must have found it impossible 

to accept that his gift, his voice, his Welsh genius could be 

stilled. It was of his rage he sang, not his father’s. 

Old, old age is something else entirely. Friends and spouses 

26 • ANGELUS • July 26, 2024

Greg Erlandson is the former president and 

editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service. 

may be gone. Memories too. There is something beautiful 

in the resilience of the human spirit even after a century of 

life, yet it is characterized more by patience than rage. God’s 

will and time have not yet allowed my Mom to put off her 

burdened flesh and ascend to brighter heights. She waits with 

good humor the destiny her faith tells her will come. 

I am much older than Thomas was when he wrote that 

poem, and I should be wiser now as well. Yet it is more me 

than my Mom who is tempted to rage. St. Francis called 

Death his Sister, but I still resent those who she has taken 

too early. As their numbers mount, I keep their names and 

contact information in my phone, as if deleting them might 

delete their memory. 

Perhaps for the same reason I pray regularly for those I’ve 

lost. We should take seriously the injunction of our faith to 

remember the souls of those who have died. It is also my way 

of staying connected with them. If I cannot immortalize my 

departed friends with a poem, I can at least remember them 

in prayer. 

I often envy those who have some sense or receive some sign 

that a loved one is safe, that a deceased friend is still present. 

And I wonder now more than ever what heaven and purgatory 

and hell may be like, and when, if ever, these planes 

intersect our own. 

When I was young, my Mom taught me to pray for the souls 

in purgatory. Her lesson for me now is patience and trust. 

Because One Person conquered death, we now all trust that 

death is more than just a “good night.” And while we can’t 

imagine what this world will be without us, we are allowed 

the grace of believing our journey does not end here. 

Perhaps we leave Dylan Thomas the final word in another 

poem he wrote titled, “And Death Shall Have No Dominion”: 

“Though they go mad they shall be sane, 

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; 

Though lovers be lost love shall not; 

And death shall have no dominion.” 


NOW PLAYING THE BEAR 

STUCK IN THE KITCHEN 

The restaurant show everyone’s talking about isn’t really 

about food, but the agonies of the creative process. 

Jeremy Allen White as 

Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto in 

“The Bear.” | IMDB 

BY AMY WELBORN 

Is it possible to create great art without 

being dysfunctional, a terrible 

person, or both? Received wisdom 

says no, proposing that life for and 

especially with creative types is inevitably, 

well, dramatic. 

It’s a generalization, but consider the 

source of the creative drive and the creative 

process: a talent, vision attuned 

to beauty, truth, and so on, but then 

there’s also the pride, competitiveness, 

attention-seeking, affirmation-yearning, 

trauma, and all the rest. 

And the creative process? It’s usually 

mostly awful, painful, and frustrating: 

ever falling short, never adequately expressing 

what’s in your head, whether 

the material is sound or words, paint or 

stone. 

Or food. And this, I’ve decided, is 

what “The Bear” (streaming on FX/ 

Hulu) is all about. 

Oh, you thought it was about the 

restaurant business? Well, sure it is, 

complete with celebrity chef cast members 

(Matty Matheson) and cameos 

(Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud), but 

just as we don’t watch “The Sopranos” 

to learn about the workings of the Jersey 

mob, “The Bear” may attract us by 

the menu, but what keeps us coming 

back are the people. 

The people and their problems, that 

is. And to circle back to my opener, the 

central problem the people in “The 

Bear” grapple with is, in essence: We 

know you’re crazy creative, love that for 

you, but is being a jerk really necessary 

to your process, chef? 

To catch up: “The Bear,” created by 

Christopher Storer, stars Jeremy Allen 

White as Carmen — aka Carmy — 

Berzatto. Through the first two seasons, 

we’ve followed Carmy, a young, 

nationally well-regarded chef, returning 

to his hometown of Chicago to tend 

to the family’s Italian beefsteak-centric 

diner left floundering after his brother’s 

suicide. It’s a troubled place, and Carmy’s 

troubled: family trauma, including 

alcoholism and addiction, that suicide, 

insecurity, and the conflict between 

his duty to his family’s business and his 

creative vision all batter his psyche. 


In this he’s not alone, and as we get 

to know the other characters — Sydney 

(Ayo Edebiri), the young female 

chef with vision and aspirations of her 

own, “cousin” Richie (Ebon Moss- 

Bachrach), Carmy’s second-in-command, 

Carmy’s sister Natalie (Abby 

Elliot), sous chef Tina (Liza Colón- 

Zayas) and pastry chef Marcus (Lionel 

Boyce) — we witness the widening, 

positive impact of Carmy’s talent and 

vision, yes, but also the toxicity of his 

internal drama. 

“The Bear” is an intriguing, imperfect, 

probably overrated, and sometimes 

frustrating show. It has the feel 

of “contracted for ten episodes with 

solid material for six, tops.” There are 

too many beats and scenes held for just 

long enough for meditative character 

exploration to 

drift into tedious, 

affected 

indulgence 

and a few 

entire episodes 

that would 

have worked 

just fine 

shrunk to a 

single scene. 

This third 

season of “The 

Bear” has been 

met with some 

disappointment. 

Food 

— actual food 

— is definitely 

in the background 

here, 

and there’s 

some weariness 

around 

“oh, there’s tormented Carmy mewing, 

tweezing tiny pieces of food, then yelling.” 

We get it! Carmy hurts! And he’s 

taking it out on everyone around him! 

I initially shared that disappointment, 

but by the end — despite being 

annoyed at least once per episode — I 

was back on board, simply because I 

appreciate the show’s exploration of the 

relationship between creator, creation, 

and community. 

Carmy’s a brilliant, promising 

chef, but as the season-opening 

episode-length montage — of him 

endlessly arranging peas and rosemary 

buds, haunted by memories of mentors 

villainous and virtuous, screaming 

family members and his angel ex-girlfriend 

— clearly shows is that at this 

point, it’s all about him. His kitchen 

art is all about working out his trauma, 

he’s on a quest for that Michelin star, 

and it’s his star. 

In this creative quest, he’s built his 

team and they’ve grown too, discovering 

and nurturing their own gifts. But 

they’ve also been exploited and abused. 

He’s determined to bring his unique 

vision to the table. But this particular 

table stands in a place built by others 

out of a tradition in a particular community, 

all of which he’s ignoring, as if 

the only way to heal is to amputate. 

Carmy may be an intense, gifted 

creator, but his drive is insular, self-referential, 

and ultimately a work of 

alienation, not communion. 

We’ve seen all this, yes. But this 

season, we’re also seeing glimpses 

of another way. The only part of the 

business that’s profitable or bringing 

anyone a hint of joy is the old, ordinary 

lunchtime sandwich trade. We’ve seen 

a striking montage of Chicago-area 

tradespeople and workers doing their 

thing, proudly making, creating, giving, 

sharing. And in the season finale, 

we’ve heard, at a “funeral dinner” for 

another high-end restaurant that’s 

closing, this: 

“We can give them the grace, if only 

for a few hours, to forget about their 

most difficult moments. Like, we can 

make the world a nicer place. All of us 

in this room.” 

Art emerges from an artist’s psyche 

and experience, and is shaped by his 

gifts. But if that’s all it reflects, it’s 

abstract, indulgent, and insular. Meaningful 

creative work is certainly an act 

of self-expression, 

but it 

hits differently, 

depending on 

who that “self” 

is — atomized 

and alone or 

in communion 

with who’s 

around and 

what’s above. 

Made in 

the Creator’s 

image, we all 

create, every 

day, making 

something 

new out of the 

stuff of our 

A scene from the 

first season of 

“The Bear.” | IMDB 

lives. Can we 

do that hard, 

beautiful thing 

“The Bear” 

prompts us to 

wonder — all of us in this room — in a 

way that builds and heals, not only our 

own woundedness, but serves grace to 

others? 

Amy Welborn is a freelance writer living 

in Birmingham, Alabama, and the 

author of more than 20 books. Her blog 

can be found at AmyWelborn.wordpress. 

com. 


DESIRE LINES 

HEATHER KING 

The risks of revolution without Christ 

“The Tribute Money,” 

by Peter Paul Rubens, 

1577-1640, Flemish. | 


It’s instructive to read some of the 

more notable mid-20th-century 

Catholic writers in light of today’s 

political and religious climate. How 

do their prophetic teachings and 

thoughts hold up 70 years later? 

Carlo Carretto (1910-1988), Italian 

priest, social activist, and contemplative, 

authored several books, among 

them “Letters from the Desert” (Orbis 

Books, $9). 

In a later work, “The God Who 

Comes” (Orbis Books, $16.99), he 

writes: “One of the most fundamental 

errors a Christian can make in our 

times is to mistake or identify the 

gospel message with the evolution of 

history or with social revolution.” 

Adam, not Jesus, he avers, was the 

all-time revolutionary. “Man as created 

by God is already capable of understanding 

that one must not love on the 

blood of the poor, and that white skin 

is not more precious than black.” 

Jesus insists on these truths with even 

greater strength, Carretto continues. 

But Jesus “did not come to free us 

from the chains of capitalism; he 

came to free us from the more painful, 

more radical chains that make 

every one of us at heart a capitalist — 

sin and death.” 

The distinction is crucial, because 

everything depends on a correct understanding 

of the chains that bind us. 

Servant of God Dorothy Day (1897- 

1980) spoke of our 

“filthy rotten system” 

but while serving the 

poor with unswerving 

fidelity and profound 

courage, she 

also attended daily 

Mass, supported the 

Church’s teachings 

on marriage and the 

family, and engaged 

in an ongoing 

examination of conscience. 

Without Christ, 

we become social 

workers, and our 

love for the poor 

can become linked 

with hatred of the 

rich. Without the 

Church, we decry war across the 

world while engaging in a ceaseless 

battle with our family members, 

neighbors, and the (to our mind) unenlightened. 

Without the Church, we 

become so “compassionate” that we 

wouldn’t dream of “imposing” Christ 

or organized religion on our beloved 

poor. 

Having been one of “the poor” 

myself for many years, I can tell you 

that no one has a finer or more excruciating 

sense of guilt than the poor 

person; the addict, say, who is frittering 

away his or her birthright and is 

powerless to stop. No one hungers and 

thirsts more intensely for forgiveness. 

No one, surveying the state of their 


Heather King is an award-winning 

author, speaker, and workshop leader. 

corrupted souls, more fully grasps the 

import of “Man does not live by bread 

alone.” 

Without Christ, we tend to direct 

all our efforts, energy, mind, and 

strength toward obliterating the enemy 

“system” — rather than to loving 

God. While virtue-signaling and 

mouthing self-righteous platitudes, 

we can engage in the most egregious 

personal sins, telling ourselves God 

doesn’t care about our sexual morality, 

for example, or that we’re addicted to 

drugs, porn, and/or bitterness. 

As Carretto pointed out, the “system,” 

all worldly systems, began in the 

Garden of Eden. The strong will always 

try to take advantage of the weak. 

Those who have will always want and 

scramble for more. 

We can never obliterate the system, 

in other words, because the system is 

us. 

The system is the world, and Christ’s 

kingdom was not of this world. Christ 

went about curing the sick, raising the 

dead, and prophesying in such utter 

integrity and love that he was bound 

to run afoul of any government. 

He didn’t exactly cooperate with the 

powers-that-be, but neither did he 

direct his efforts toward resisting them. 

He didn’t tell the centurion’s slave 

to rise up and throw off his chains; he 

healed him. 

He didn’t say, “You owe Caesar, that 

whited sepulcher, nothing!” He said, 

“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s 

and to God what is God’s,” and left us 

to puzzle out what that means in our 

particular circumstances and time. 

He seems to have been saying that 

the Way, the Truth, and the Life will 

avail regardless of the system, whether 

the system is totalitarianism, a monarchy, 

a democracy, a dictatorship, or 

“late-stage” capitalism. “You will have 

trouble in all of them,” he seems to 

continue. “And I am the only possible 

response to any and all of them.” 

Caryll Houselander (1901-1954) was 

another popular mid-century writer. 

As she and her fellow citizens faced 

the brutal German blitz, biographer 

Maisie Ward contrasted her reaction 

with Day’s pacifism. 

In “That Divine Eccentric” (Cluny 

Media, $24.95), Ward observed that 

Houselander “saw the conflict as a 

tragic inevitability, part of the suffering 

of Christ in which all in the 

Mystical Body must share. Day’s witness 

was political and eschatological, 

a radical affirmation of the promised 

kingdom through refusal to engage 

in the ways of the fallen world. Day 

contrasted the works of mercy with 

the works of war while Houselander 

saw mercy manifest in concrete acts of 

love within the fallen realities of the 

war-torn world.” 

A distinction, perhaps, without much 

of a practical difference: both women 

devoted their lives to serving Christ 

through “the least of these.” 

Houselander sums up our mission 

like this: Wherever we are on the 

continuum of rich and poor, contemplative 

and active, “in the Mystical 

Body we are all one, and we do all 

experience the Passion in a thousand 

secret ways, and we share — if we 

want to or not — in each other’s lives 

and responsibilities. … If every one 

was concentrating on being a ‘Christ’ 

in and through his own circumstances 

as they are, then I think that inevitably 

all the injustices would be righted.” 


LETTER AND SPIRIT 

SCOTT HAHN 

Scott Hahn is founder of the 

St. Paul Center for Biblical 

Theology; stpaulcenter.com. 

God’s humility and Augustine’s pride 

In the coming month we’ll mark the feast of St. Augustine. 

His life and work serve as a capstone of late antiquity and 

the foundation of medieval culture. So his conversion 

marks more than a personal milestone. It’s a turning point in 

the history of ideas. 

In his “Confessions,” Augustine describes the high point 

of his professional life. He had been appointed professor of 

rhetoric at the emperor’s court, the most prestigious academic 

position in the Latin world. 

Though accompanied by his mother, Monica, Augustine 

had long since abandoned the Christian faith in which he 

was raised. He dabbled in 

Manichaeism, an esoteric 

eastern religion. He read the 

pagan neo-Platonists. 

The Christian Scriptures, 

however — and especially 

the Old Testament — he 

found primitive and offensive. 

“I was quite uninterested 

in the subject-matter,” he 

recalled, “and was even contemptuous 

of it.” 

In Milan he was attracted 

not to Christianity, but to the 

reputation of the great bishop, 

St. Ambrose. Ambrose 

had served as governor of 

the empire’s de facto capital 

before he was made bishop 

by acclamation of the people. 

He was a man of formidable 

intellectual and rhetorical 

skills. 

Augustine recalls that 

Ambrose’s renown extended 

“throughout the world,” and 

the young scholar determined 

“to judge for myself 

whether the reports of his 

powers as a speaker were 

accurate.” 

He was surprised at what he 

found. He was attracted first 

by Ambrose’s warmth and 

“The Conversion and 

Baptism of St. Augustine 

by St. Ambrose,” 

by Juan de Valdés Leal, 

1622-1690, Spanish. | 


humility. Then, unexpectedly, he found himself drawn by 

Ambrose’s teaching: “every Sunday I listened as he preached 

the word of truth to the people, and I grew more and more 

certain that it was possible to unravel the tangle woven by 

those who had deceived both me and others with their cunning 

lies against the Holy Scriptures.” 

Gradually he discovered that he had judged the Scriptures 

unfairly, misunderstanding their genres and the Church’s 

interpretive methods. Ambrose’s preaching showed him 

“how to interpret the ancient Scriptures of the law and the 

prophets in a different light from that which had previously 

made them seem absurd.” 

A worldly intellectual who 

once sneered at the boorish 

rusticity of the Old Testament, 

Augustine soon came 

to profess that “the Scriptures 

were delivered to mankind by 

the Spirit of the one true God 

who can tell no lie.” Moreover, 

he held that “it was 

precisely this,” and not any 

fine points of philosophy, that 

he “most needed to believe.” 

What he had previously 

judged to be absurd stories, 

he now regarded as “profound 

mysteries.” He concluded 

that “the authority of 

Scripture should be respected 

and accepted with the 

purest faith, because while 

all can read it with ease, it 

also has a deeper meaning 

in which its great secrets are 

locked away.” 

At first attracted by the humble 

warmth of Ambrose, Augustine 

was converted by the 

profound humility of God, 

who cloaked his divine word 

in such homely attire — all 

so that he might draw “so 

great a throng in the embrace 

of its holy humility.” 


■ SATURDAY, JULY 20 

“I Will Carry You” Retreat. St. Bernadette Church, 3825 

Don Felipe Dr., Los Angeles, 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Presenter: 

Carolyn James. Cost: $25/person, includes continental 

breakfast and lunch. RSVP by July 16 to Elsie Dixon by 

calling 310-410-2962. 

■ WEDNESDAY, JULY 24 

Mass and Healing Service. St. John Eudes Church, 9901 

Mason Ave., Chatsworth, 6 p.m. Celebrant: Father Sebastian 

Vettickal, CMI. Call 818-341-3680. 

■ FRIDAY, JULY 26 

Creating an Interactive Prayer Table: Holy Family. Holy 

Family Church, 1011 E. L St., Wilmington, 6:30-9 p.m. Learn 

about the liturgical year and simple, practical ways to create 

a sacred space that enhances your lessons. Speaker: Terry 

Cotting-Mogan. Visit lacatholics.org/events. 

■ SATURDAY, JULY 27 

Ever Ancient, Ever New: Young Adult Eucharistic Revival 

Conference. Christ Cathedral, 13280 Chapman Ave., 

Garden Grove. Eucharistic conference runs July 27-28, and 

is open to all young adults 18-39. Deep dive into the theme 

“This is my Body” with three pillars: Fed, Healed, Made 

New. For more information, visit https://socalrevival.org/. 

Creating an Interactive Prayer Table: Mother of Sorrows. 

Mother of Sorrows Church, 114 W. 87th St., Los Angeles, 

9 a.m.-12 p.m. Learn about the liturgical year and simple, 

practical ways to create a sacred space that enhances your 

lessons. Speaker: Terry Cotting-Mogan. Visit lacatholics. 

org/events. 

Creating an Interactive Prayer Table: St. Didacus. St. 

Didacus Church, 14339 Astoria St., Sylmar, 3-6 p.m. Learn 

about the liturgical year and simple, practical ways to create 

a sacred space that enhances your lessons. Speaker: Terry 

Cotting-Mogan. Visit lacatholics.org/events. 

■ SUNDAY, JULY 28 

“The Shape of Things to Come:” An Afternoon of Reflection 

and Remembrance for Grieving Mothers and Grandmothers. 

Padre Serra Church, 7205 Upland Rd., Camarillo, 

1:30 p.m. Mini retreat with Sacred Sorrows and Father Jim 

Clarke, welcoming all grieving mothers and grandmothers, 

no matter how recent the loss. The afternoon will conclude 

with Mass. Registration required. Free attendance, $25/ 

person donation suggested. Register at sacredsorrows.org/ 

event-details/camarillo-july-28-afternoon-of-reflection-remembrance-1. 

Email Teresa Runyon at teresa@padreserra. 

org or visit padreserra.org. 

■ WEDNESDAY, JULY 31 

The Arm of St. Jude the Apostle: Veneration and Mass. 

St. Dorothy Church, 241 S. Valley Center Ave., Glendora, 

2 p.m.-10 p.m. Mass will be celebrated at 7 p.m. St. Jude is 

revered for his unwavering dedication and steadfast faith. 

For more information, visit apostleoftheimpossible.com. 

Bereavement Ministry Training. St. Mary of the Assumption 

Church, 7215 Newlin Ave., Whittier, 6-8:30 p.m. Fiveweek 

training will run on Wednesdays from July 31-Aug. 28, 

and Sat., Aug. 24, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Email Cathy at bereavement. 

ministry@yahoo.com for details and registration information. 

■ SATURDAY, AUGUST 3 

ACTheals: Healing Through the Transfigured Light of 

Christ. St. Andrew Church, 538 Concord St., El Segundo, 

9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Retreat offers the opportunity for healing 

prayer, silence, and stillness through the Source of the 

Transfigured Light of Christ. Led by Father Alexei Smith 

and Bernadette St. James, MTheo, Psy.D. Cost: $40/person, 

includes continental breakfast and lunch. RSVP by July 27 

to Bernadette St. James at 310-991-2256. 

Holy Trinity Western Hoedown. Holy Trinity Church, 

1292 W. Santa Cruz St., San Pedro, 5-9 p.m. Hot dogs, 

sliders, chips, and sides. Country music, line dancing, and 

games for kids. Casual attire. Call 310-548-6535. 

■ TUESDAY, AUGUST 6 

C3 Conference. Bishop Alemany High School, 11111 N. 

Alemany Dr., Mission Hills. The C3 Conference runs Aug. 

6-7, and is an annual gathering that unites educators, school 

administrators, and faith leaders from the Archdiocese of 

Los Angeles. The 2024 theme is “Elevate.” For more information, 

visit c3.la-archdiocese.org/c3-con-2024. 

■ THURSDAY, AUGUST 8 

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

Beach, 1 p.m. Celebrant: Father Al Baca. For more information, 

call 562-537-4526. 

■ SATURDAY, AUGUST 10 

East Africa Missionary Update. Notre Dame Learning 

Center, 1776 Hendrix Ave., Thousand Oaks, 1 p.m. The 

Sisters of Notre Dame invite attendees to learn more about 

their ministries in Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya. Presenters: 

Sister Christine Syombua, delegation superior, and Sister 

Therese Marie Nabakka, delegation treasurer. RSVP at 

sndusa.org/missionupdate/. 

■ SUNDAY, AUGUST 11 

Dedication of the Serra Statue. Mission Basilica San 

Buenaventura, 211 E. Main St., San Buenaventura, 6 p.m. 

Archbishop José H. Gomez and Bishop Slawomir Szkredka 

will celebrate a special Mass to dedicate the statue of St. 

Junípero Serra, recently moved to the mission. Mass will 

also welcome walking pilgrims from Mission Santa Barbara 

to Mission Basilica San Buenaventura. 


Rosary Crusade. Morgan Park, 4100 Baldwin Park Blvd., 

Baldwin Park, 6:30 p.m. Monthly meeting to pray the rosary. 


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. 

■ FRIDAY, AUGUST 23 

Heart Speaks to Heart: Dynamic, Engaging Preaching 

Retreat. Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center, 700 N. Sunnyside 

Ave., Sierra Madre, 8:30 a.m.-Aug. 24, 3 p.m. Retreat open 

to any clergy or lay minister who preaches or teaches Scripture-based 

teachings. Karen Luna, David Romero, SJ, and 

presenters will provide small groups, significant personal 

prayer, and meaningful reflections. Cost: $60/single room, 

includes three meals. Financial assistance available. Registration 

closes Aug. 14. Email kluna@la-archdiocese.org. 

■ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28 

LACBA Family Law Clinic. Virtual, 2-5 p.m. Covering child 

support, custody, divorce, and spousal support. Open to LA 

County veterans. Registration required by calling 213-896- 

6536 or emailing inquiries-veterans@lacba.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 | July 26, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 15

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