Angelus News | August 9, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 16

ANGELUS 

A TURNING 

POINT? 

Behind the surprise 

success of the National 

Eucharistic Congress 

August 9, 2024 Vol. 9 No. 16

August 9, 2024 

Vol. 9 • No. 16 

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ON THE COVER 

ISABEL CACHO 

Last month’s National Eucharistic Congress was intended by 

the country’s bishops to revive a sense of missionary zeal among 

American Catholics. Did they succeed? Starting on Page 10, 

editor-in-chief Pablo Kay reports from Indianapolis on how 

pilgrims from around the country responded to the experience. 

On Page 13, Catholics from the LA Archdiocese shared what 

they looked for — and what they found — at the once-in-a-lifetime 

opportunity in Indianapolis. 

THIS PAGE 

ARCHDIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES 

Some 200 Catholics from the Archdiocese 

of Los Angeles posed for a group photo with 

Archbishop José H. Gomez, five LA auxiliary 

bishops, and more than a dozen priests after 

a special Mass for pilgrims at Sts. Peter & 

Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis July 19.

CONTENTS 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

18 

20 

22 

24 

26 

28 

30 

LA Catholic aid workers call SCOTUS homeless ruling a ‘step backward’ 

Full list of associate pastor changes, special assignments, and retirements 

John Allen: What role will US Catholics play in a reshuffled presidential race? 

From Cuba to a gas station: The strange story of Bishop Broderick 

‘Sound of Hope’ film takes an honest look at foster care, adoption 

Pluto TV reminds us why we need commercial breaks 

Heather King on Roger Ackling, the artist who drew with the sun 

August 9, 2024 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH 

An Olympics message 

The following is the Holy Father’s written 

message sent July 19 to Archbishop 

Laurent Ulrich of Paris ahead of the 

start of the 2024 Olympic Games being 

held in Paris July 26-Aug.11. 

I 

ask the Lord to shower with his 

gifts all those who will participate 

in one way or another — whether 

athletes or spectators — and also 

to support and bless those who will 

welcome them, especially the faithful 

of Paris and beyond. 

I know that Christian communities 

are preparing to open wide the doors 

of their churches, schools, and homes. 

Above all, let them open the doors 

of their hearts, bearing witness to the 

Christ who dwells within them and 

who communicates his joy to them, 

through the gratuitousness and generosity 

of their hospitality to all. 

I greatly appreciate the fact that you 

have not forgotten the most vulnerable, 

especially those in very precarious 

situations, and that access to the celebration 

has been made easier for them. 

On a broader level, I hope that the organization 

of these Games will provide 

the people of France with a wonderful 

opportunity for fraternal harmony, 

enabling them to transcend differences 

and oppositions and strengthen the 

unity of the nation. 

I join you in welcoming this prestigious 

international sporting event. 

Sport is a universal language that 

transcends frontiers, languages, races, 

nationalities, and religions; it has the 

capacity to unite people, to encourage 

dialogue and mutual acceptance; it 

stimulates the surpassing of oneself, 

forms the spirit of sacrifice, fosters loyalty 

in interpersonal relations; it invites 

people to recognize their own limits 

and the value of others. 

The Olympic Games, if they remain 

truly “games,” can therefore be an 

exceptional meeting place between 

peoples, even the most hostile. The 

five interlinked rings represent the 

spirit of fraternity that should characterize 

the Olympic event and sporting 

competition in general. 

I therefore hope that the Paris Olympics 

will be an unmissable opportunity 

for all those who come from around 

the world to discover and appreciate 

each other, to break down prejudices, 

to foster esteem where there is contempt 

and mistrust, and friendship 

where there is hatred. The Olympic 

Games are, by their very nature, about 

peace, not war. 

It was in this spirit that Antiquity wisely 

instituted a truce during the Games, 

and that modern times regularly 

attempt to revive this happy tradition. 

In these troubled times, when world 

peace is under serious threat, it is my 

fervent wish that everyone will take this 

truce to heart, in the hope of resolving 

conflicts and restoring harmony. 

May God have mercy on us! May he 

enlighten the consciences of those in 

power to the grave responsibilities incumbent 

upon them, may he grant the 

peacemakers success in their endeavors, 

and may he bless them. 

Entrusting to St. Geneviève and St. 

Denis, patrons of Paris, and to Our 

Lady of the Assumption, patroness of 

France, the happy outcome of these 

Games, I impart my heartfelt blessing 

to you, your excellency, and to all those 

who will take part in them. 

Papal Prayer Intention for August: We pray that political 

leaders be at the service of their own people, working for 

integral human development and for the common good, 

especially caring for the poor and those who have lost their 

jobs. 

2 • ANGELUS • August 9, 2024

NEW WORLD OF FAITH 

ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

Days of wonder, awe, and adoration 

The National Eucharistic Congress 

was an amazing experience, 

five days of wonder, awe, 

and adoration. 

Some 60,000 Catholics, from every 

corner of the country, came to Indianapolis 

as Eucharistic pilgrims, and 

gathered as the family of God to pray 

and give praise to Jesus Christ. 

Many had traveled for weeks along 

one of the four Eucharistic pilgrimage 

routes, processing with the Blessed 

Sacrament and bearing witness to their 

faith. 

I was privileged to be among more 

than 200 LA Catholics who made the 

journey to Indianapolis July 17–21 

along with five of our auxiliary bishops 

and more than a dozen of our priests. 

And I believe history will remember 

this as an important moment in the life 

of the Church in the United States. 

The National Eucharistic Revival, 

launched three years ago by the U.S. 

bishops, has truly been a work of the 

Holy Spirit in our times. Already we are 

seeing the revival’s fruits — people coming 

home to God and coming home 

to the Church. 

Jesus promised that we will see greater 

things, and surely we do! 

There is a great movement of the Spirit 

going on in our times, a new thirst 

for holiness and truth, for a love that is 

pure and beautiful and everlasting. 

And we have come to see more clearly 

that the Eucharist is the heart of the 

universe, and the secret of God’s plan 

of love for every soul. 

Every man and woman is created for 

love and every human heart longs for 

this love. In the Eucharist, we find that 

love we long for and were made for. 

In the Eucharist, the God who is Love 

invites us to taste and see his goodness. 

The God who humbled himself to 

share in our humanity invites us to share 

in his divinity and to live in tender 

friendship with him. 

During these past three years, we have 

renewed our awe and amazement in 

the presence of God and his love in the 

Eucharist. 

Now, we must go forward and share 

this awe and amazement with our 

neighbors. 

At the end of the Congress, it was 

announced that next summer there will 

be a pilgrimage from Indianapolis to 

Los Angeles that will arrive here for the 

celebration of Corpus Christi. 

We are honored and excited to have 

been selected and we are already 

making plans to welcome the pilgrims 

with a great celebration of faith. 

With the Eucharistic Congress, the 

U.S. bishops’ Eucharistic revival enters 

its third and final year, dedicated to 

missionary discipleship. 

The bishops have launched a new 

program they call “Walk with One,” 

to encourage and equip Catholics to 

evangelize in their daily lives. 

Here in Los Angeles, we started our 

own campaign at the beginning of the 

revival. Called Back to Mass, it provides 

resources to help people invite their 

loved ones and friends to come to Mass 

with them. 

In Indianapolis, we announced a 

new nationwide initiative to support 

the bishops’ Walk with One efforts. 

With our partners, eCatholic and My 

Saint My Hero, we have developed 

a new online search tool for finding 

Mass, confession, and adoration times 

anywhere in the country. 

We also released a new video on the 

“power of invitation” that I urge you to 

watch. It tells the story of four people 

and how they told someone else about 

their friendship with Jesus and invited 

them to Mass. All of this is available on 

our LACatholics website or at backtomass.com. 

The Eucharistic revival must lead 

all of us now to become Eucharistic 

evangelists. 

Jesus is counting on us to be his witnesses 

and co-workers, to bring people 

back to Mass! 

We need to help our neighbors to see 

that the Love they are looking for is true 

and real, that this Love is already here, 

on our altars and in our tabernacles, 

and that this Love has a name, Jesus 

Christ! 

Imagine the difference in the world, 

in our homes, if every Catholic in this 

country brought just one person back to 

Mass. So, let’s pray for that. 

Jesus can still raise up a fallen world, 

and Jesus can still change lives! 

Just as he changed water into wine, 

and just as he transforms the bread and 

wine into his body and blood, through 

Jesus is counting on us to be his witnesses and 

co-workers, to bring people back to Mass! 

the Eucharist, he wants to make every 

person holy as he is holy. Through the 

Eucharist, he wants to fill this world 

with his glory. 

Pray for me and I will pray for you. 

And let’s keep praying for the Eucharistic 

revival in our times. 

May holy Mary help us to live more 

deeply from the body and blood of her 

Son. And may Our Lady help us to lead 

many others to his holy altar, where 

they might taste and see the goodness 

of God. 


WORLD 

■ Catholic prayer app 

struck from Chinese app 

store 

Hallow, a U.S.-based Catholic prayer 

app, was removed from the Apple App 

Store in China, the company’s founder 

announced July 15. 

The company was informed that their 

app was “deemed to include content on 

the app that is illegal in China and so 

must be removed” by the Cyberspace 

Administration of China (CAC), Hallow 

founder Alex Jones told Catholic 

News Agency. 

Though the CAC provided no further 

details, its ruling follows a new audio 

series on the life of St. Pope John Paul 

II, which includes his resistance to 

communism. 

“We will continue to try and serve our 

brothers and sisters in Christ in China 

as best we can through our website, 

web application, social media content, 

but mostly with our prayers,” Jones said. 

■ A Spanish soccer coach’s Catholic testimony 

In addition to the 

accolades he’s gotten for 

leading Spain’s national 

men’s soccer team to a 

European Championship 

this summer, Luis 

de la Fuente is also 

being praised for his 

public testimony as a 

practicing Catholic. 

“He has been able to 

transmit faith, humility, 

the value of the team 

above individualities, 

the spirit of sacrifice, 

effort, confidence ... 

THANK YOU!” wrote 

Archbishop José Ángel 

Saiz Meneses of Seville 

of de la Fuente on 

Luis de la Fuente 

celebrates with his 

medal after winning 

the Euro 2024 soccer 

championship. | OSV 

NEWS/LEE SMITH, 

REUTERS 

social media platform X after Spain beat England 2-1 in the tournament’s July 

14 final in Berlin. 

A father of three, de la Fuente has said he makes the sign of the cross before 

matches not out of superstition, but because he has faith. 

“During my life I have had many doubts and I have been far from religion, 

but at one point in my life, I decided to get closer to and rely on God for everything 

I do,” de la Fuente recently said in an interview with Spanish newspaper 

El Mundo. 

An Olympics chaplain’s mission — Bishop Emmanuel Gobilliard of Digne (center), special representative of the 

Holy See for the 2024 Paris Olympics, joined the Archbishop of Paris and more than 100 diplomatic delegations 

for a special July 19 Mass in Paris’ iconic La Madeleine Church to launch the symbolic Olympic “truce.” Among 

those pictured are Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo (right, next to the bishop) and International Olympic Committee 

president Thomas Back (left, next to the bishop). Gobilliard will live in the Olympic Village in Paris during this 

summer’s game with the mission of “reaching out to those who love sport to proclaim Christ to them.” | OSV 

NEWS/COURTESY IOC 

■ Nicaragua: First 

ordinations since 

persecuted bishop’s exile 

One priest and seven deacons were 

ordained July 20 in the Nicaraguan diocese 

belonging to exiled Bishop Rolando 

Álvarez, the first in the country since he 

was exiled in January. 

The new priest and deacons ordained 

for the Diocese of Matagalpa join a 

shrinking number of clergy for the 

diocese. Since 2020, 25 of the diocese’s 

60 priests have either been arrested or 

exiled. 

Before being exiled to Rome by the government 

of President Daniel Ortega, Álvarez, 

an outspoken advocate for human 

rights and social justice, spent more than 

a year in prison on charges of treason. 

“We cannot help but feel great sadness 

because we must recognize that, 

although there are people who want to 

hear good things, there is a lack of those 

who are dedicated to announcing the 

good news and bearing witness,” Bishop 

Carlos Enrique Herrera of Jinotega, who 

celebrated the ordination Mass, said in 

his homily. 


NATION 

■ Illinois school ties tuition 

discounts to Mass attendance 

Catholic elementary schools in Quincy, Illinois, 

are adding a Mass-going requirement 

to their subsidized tuition program. 

The Family School Agreement, first introduced 

in 2015, allows families with children 

to receive discounted tuition at the Catholic 

elementary schools if they “commit 

themselves to the Catholic faith and involve 

themselves in the practice of that faith.” Beginning 

July 1, that includes attending Mass 

a minimum of 51% of the time. 

To qualify for the reduced tuition families 

must include a card with their details in the 

collection basket at any of the local parishes. 

“The reason for this change is to encourage 

people to return to the Eucharist. We 

have noticed a steady decline in Mass 

attendance over the past decade and want 

to reverse this trend,” Christopher Gill, 

the chief administrative leader for Quincy 

Catholic Elementary Schools, said. 

The program is based on a similar one in 

Springfield, Illinois, which reportedly led 

to a 22% increase in Mass attendance, Gill 

said. 

■ Study: 

Americans go 

to church less 

than they think 

Nearly a quarter of 

Americans say they 

attend a religious 

service regularly, but 

according to new 

data reported by the 

Washington Post, the 

real number is as low 

as 1 in 20. 

Utilizing pre-pandemic 

cell phone data, 

Young people pray during Mass in Brownsville, Texas, at the start of the 

St. Juan Diego Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage May 19. | OSV 

NEWS/TOM MCCARTHY 

economist Devin Pope from the University of Chicago found only 5% attended 

church services three out of four weeks. 

While the percentages differ drastically state-by-state, the numbers consistently 

fall well below the 21% to 24% of self-identified “regular churchgoers.” 

Catholics fall significantly under the national average, with just 2% attending 

Mass weekly. 

“If just 5% — or 6%, or 7% — of Americans feel committed enough to 

darken the doors of their churches for even an hour a week, then we no longer 

need to worry about becoming a post-religion culture,” Paul Prather, a Pentecostal 

pastor, wrote for Religion Unplugged. “We’re there. Secularization has 

won.” 

Trump’s Catholic surprise — Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump greets 

running mate Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio at the party’s national convention in Milwaukee July 15, two days after 

his attempted assassination. Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019 but has faced criticism for some of his 

views, including dropping his opposition to a 15-week abortion ban, supporting access to mifepristone, a pill 

commonly used for first-trimester abortion, and calling for mass deportations in his Senate campaign two years 

ago. | OSV NEWS/ANDREW KELLY, REUTERS 

■ Church resumes 

homeless ministry after 

court win 

A nondenominational church in Castle 

Rock, Colorado, can resume offering 

temporary housing to the homeless 

after a July 19 federal court ruling. 

The Rock Church placed an RV and 

a camper on the edge of its parking lot 

in 2019, allowing these vehicles to be 

used as temporary shelter for homeless 

people. Town officials moved to stop 

the practice, issuing a warning in 2021 

that the church was violating zoning 

laws and raising charges in 2023. 

The church sued Castle Rock on 

First Amendment grounds, saying the 

restrictions infringed on the church’s 

ability to live out scriptural demands to 

provide aid to the poor. 

“The church contends that it carries 

out these ministries because of its faith 

and its religious mission to provide for 

the needy,” U.S. district judge Daniel 

Domenico wrote. 


LOCAL 

■ Catholic high school choir wins big at world competition 

The St. Genevieve Valiant Voices choir won two overall categories at the prestigious July 

10-20 World Choir Games in Auckland, New Zealand. 

The St. Genevieve choir from Panorama City — under the direction of choir teacher 

Cristopher “Pete” Avendaño — was participating for the first time in the World Choir 

Games, taking first place overall in the Contemporary Music Mixed Voices category, 

then winning the Secondary School Choirs category, beating out 15 other schools. 

Billed as the largest choir competition in the world, the competition featured 250 choirs 

from more than 30 countries. Founded in 2021, the St. Genevieve Valiant Voices choir 

was one of only 12 from the United States and the only one from Southern California or 

a Catholic K-12 school. 

“Now that it’s all over, I am immensely proud of the choir’s achievement, not only for 

winning but for the genuine bonds we’ve formed with each other,” said choir soprano 

member Jemila Silang. “The hours and hours of practice were definitely worth it.” 

ST. GENEVIEVE HIGH SCHOOL 

■ Father Mike 

Schmitz to headline 

Catholic Prayer 

Breakfast 

Father Mike Schmitz, the 

popular priest behind the “Bible 

in a Year” and “Catechism in a 

Year” podcasts, will be the keynote 

speaker at the 19th annual 

Los Angeles Catholic Prayer 

Breakfast on Sept. 17. 

The annual event, which includes 

an early morning rosary, 

a Mass celebrated by Archbishop 

José H. Gomez, and breakfast 

in the outdoor plaza at the 

Cathedral of Our Lady of the 

Angels, will feature a keynote 

address by Schmitz, who’s also 

the director of Youth and Young 

Adult Ministry for the Diocese 

of Duluth in Minnesota. 

Tickets for the event are $45 

for individual seats, or $400 for 

a table of 10. Tickets can be 

purchased at lacatholicprayerbreakfast.org. 

Y 

■ Judge sides with archdiocese 

in Title I funding fight 

A judge ruled in favor of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles 

in an ongoing legal challenge over federal school funding. 

In a July 16 ruling, Superior Court of Los Angeles County 

Judge Curtis A. Kin ordered the Los Angeles Unified 

School District (LAUSD) to produce records related to 

its calculation of Title I federal funding and reimburse for 

legal fees. The school district has until Aug.16 to produce 

the reports. 

Both the U.S. and California’s Departments of Education 

have said that LAUSD illegally withheld federal funds 

from low-income LA Catholic school students and failed 

to meaningfully consult with the archdiocese on those 

discrepancies. 

A final decision would restore millions of dollars in 

federal money that goes to low-income students attending 

LA-area Catholic schools that qualify for Title I funding. 

In a statement, the superintendent of LA’s Department of 

Catholic Schools welcomed the latest ruling. 

“The archdiocese is committed to advocating for our students 

to ensure that the Title I services that they need, and 

are legally entitled to, are returned to them by LAUSD, 

as well as a fair and equitable process for Title I services 

moving forward,” said Paul Escala. 

Hard-earned royalty — Emily Brand was crowned the 2024 Fiesta Queen at the 

76th annual Mary Star of the Sea Fiesta in San Pedro on July 21. Brand, who also 

attends Mary Star of the Sea High School, earned the title with hundreds of hours 

of service, fundraising, and community outreach. | NICHOLAS VILICICH 


V 

IN OTHER WORDS... 

Letters to the Editor 

Think about what art is concealed 

After reading the article “Tainted Tiles” by Gina Christian in the July 

26 issue, about the Knights of Columbus’ decision to cover mosaics 

by Marko Rupnik, I hope that churches in Rome and Malta, which house the 

famous Caravaggio paintings, are not similarly pressured to obscure them with 

fabric. 

After all, Caravaggio was a convicted murderer and escapee. I also cringe at the 

thought of plastering “The Last Supper” at Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, 

painted by the alleged homosexual (and abuser of a young apprentice), Leonardo 

da Vinci. 

— Brother Carmel Duca, MC., Los Angeles 

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. 

All roads lead to Indianapolis 

“At one point he told us 

that we were allowed to 

carry a weapon — and then 

yanked out of his pocket a 

metal rosary.” 

~ Managing editor Nic Rowan, in a July 26 The 

Lamp commentary on the rosary as a form of 

warfare. 

“Let’s rush out into a 

starving world and tell 

everybody we meet, 

‘Starving people, listen! We 

found where the food is!’ ” 

~ Msgr. James Shea, president of the University of 

Mary in North Dakota, in a speech at the National 

Eucharistic Congress on July 18. 

“Would they ever dare 

mock Islam in a similar way? 

We all know the answer to 

that.” 

~ Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, 

Minnesota, in a July 27 OSV News article on the 

disrespect felt by Christians about the Olympics’ 

Opening Ceremony in Paris. 

“I think the spiritual 

temperature is warming up.” 

~ Mark Nash, director of the Agency for 

Evangelisation and Catechesis, in a July 24 The Pillar 

article on how England’s Southwark archdiocese has 

used its “Some Definite Service” initiative to grow. 

Priests led a group of LA seminarians and young men discerning whether to enter priestly formation on a road trip to 

the National Eucharistic Congress. These were just some of the local experiences captured at the Congress in Indianapolis. 

| ADLA OFFICE OF VOCATIONS 

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’ve read Plato and 

Aristotle, but I know I’m 

going to have a better time 

at a Disney theme park.” 

~ Robyn Muir, author of “The Disney Princess 

Phenomenon: A Feminist Analysis,” in a July 18 LA 

Times article on “Disney adults.” 


IN EXILE 

FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI 

Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father 

Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual 

writer; ronrolheiser.com 

The illusion of our own goodness 

One of the great tragedies in all 

literature is the biblical story of 

Saul. Saul makes Hamlet look 

like a Disney character. Hamlet, at 

least, had good reasons for the disaster 

that befell him. Saul, given the gifts 

with which he started, should have 

fared better, much better. 

His story begins with the announcement 

that in all of Israel none measured 

up to him in height, strength, 

goodness, or acclaim. A natural leader, 

a prince among his peers, his extraordinary 

character was recognized and 

proclaimed by the people. The beginning 

of his story is the stuff of fairy 

tales. And so, it goes on, for a while. 

But, at a point, things begin to sour. 

That point was the arrival on the 

scene of David — a younger, more 

handsome, more gifted, and more 

acclaimed man. Jealousy sets in and 

envy slowly turns Saul’s soul to poison. 

Looking at David, he sees only a 

popularity that eclipses his own, not 

another man’s goodness, nor indeed 

how that goodness can be a gift to the 

people. He grows bitter, petty, cold, 

tries to kill David, and eventually dies 

by his own hand, an angry man who 

has fallen far from the goodness of his 

youth. 

What happened here? How does 

someone who has so much goodness, 

talent, power, and blessing, grow into 

an angry, petty man who kills himself 

out of disappointment? How does this 

happen? 

The late Margaret Laurence, in 

a brilliant, dark novel, “The Stone 

Angel” (University of Chicago Press, 

$17), gives us an interesting description 

of exactly how this can happen. 

Her main character, Hagar Shipley, 

parallels somewhat the biblical Saul. 

Hagar’s story begins like his: She is 

young, good, and full of potential. 

What’s to become of such a beautiful, 

bright, talented, young woman? 

Sadly, not much at all. She drifts into 

everything: adulthood, an unhappy 

marriage, and into a deep unrecognized 

disappointment that eventually 

leaves her slovenly, frigid, bitter, and 

without energy or ambition. 

What’s as remarkable as it is sad, is 

that she doesn’t recognize any of this 

as happening to her. In her mind, 

she remains always the young, good, 

gracious, popular, attractive young girl 

she was in high school. She doesn’t 

notice how small her world has 

become, how few friends are around, 

how little she admires anything or anyone, 

or even how physically unkempt 

she has let herself become. 

Her awakening is sudden and cruel. 

One winter day, shabbily dressed in an 

old parka, she rings the doorbell of a 

house to which she is delivering eggs. 

A young child answers the door, sees 

Hagar, and Hagar overhears the child 

tell her mother: “That horrible, old 

egg-woman is at the door!” The penny 

drops. 

Stunned, she leaves the house and 

finds her way to a public bathroom 

where she puts on all the lights and 

studies her face in a mirror. What 

looks back is a face she doesn’t recognize, 

someone pathetically at odds 

with whom she imagines herself to 

be. She sees in fact the horrible, old 

egg-woman that the child saw at the 

door rather than the young, gracious, 

attractive, bighearted woman she still 

imagines herself to be. How can this 

happen? she asks herself. How can we, 

imperceptible to ourselves, grow into 

someone we don’t even recognize? 

To a greater or lesser degree, this 

happens to us all. It’s not easy to age, 

to absorb the death of much of what 

we dreamed for ourselves, and to 

watch the young take over and receive 

the popularity and acclaim that once 

were ours. Like Saul, we can easily fill 

with a jealousy and an anger to which 

we are blind and, like Hagar, do not 

notice inside ourselves. Others, of 

course, do notice. 

But, for most of us, as this is happening, 

we remain still good and generous 

people, except that we are more caustic, 

cynical, and judgmental than we 

once were. We remain good people, 

but whine too much, feel too sorry for 

ourselves, and curse more than bless 

those who have replaced us in youth, 

popularity, and status. 

Hence, one of the preeminent human 

and spiritual tasks in the second 

half of life is precisely to recognize this 

jealousy, this ugliness inside ourselves, 

and to come back again to the love 

and freshness of our youth, to revirginize, 

to come to a second naivete, and 

to begin again to give others, especially 

the young, the gaze of admiration. 

At the beginning of the Book of Revelations, 

the author, speaking in God’s 

voice, has this advice for us, at least for 

those of us who are beyond the bloom 

of youth: “I’ve seen how hard you 

work. I recognize your generosity and 

all the good work you do. But I have 

this against you — you have less love 

in you now than when you were young! 

Go back and look from where you 

have fallen!” 

We might want to hear those words 

from Scripture before we overhear 

them from some young girl telling her 

mother that a bitter, ugly, old person is 

at the door. 


WITNESSES OF A 

REAL PRESENCE 

Pilgrims came away from the National 

Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis with 

hope for a Church in need of revival. 

BY PABLO KAY 

Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens kneels in prayer before the monstrance during 

Eucharistic adoration at the opening revival session of the National Eucharistic 

Congress at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis July 17. The altar was adorned 

with the saint icons that were carried by the perpetual pilgrims of the twomonth 

national pilgrimage. | OSV NEWS/BOB ROLLER 

For five days in mid-July, the 

streets of downtown Indianapolis 

were painted with the different 

colors of American Catholicism. 

There were Guadalupanos, Latin 

Mass-going “trads,” aspiring Catholic 

influencers, Baby Boomer retirees, 

cassock-wearing seminarians, youth 

group kids, charismatics, pro-life 

activists, and perhaps most strikingly, 

an army of baby strollers being pushed 

by couples with young children. 

“It’s nothing compared to anything 

that I’ve ever seen before,” said Arianna 

Rodriguez, 20, who came with 

a small group from St. Isaac Jogues 

Church in Orlando, Florida. 

Participants young and old, from 

near and from far, made similar observations. 

It was hard to say when, or 

even if, such a diverse mix of Catholics 

had ever gathered on U.S. soil for 

such an event. 

What brought them here? 

Set in a centrally located city known 

as “the crossroads of America,” the 

National Eucharistic Congress was 

the climax of a three year “revival” 

organized by the U.S. bishops as a 

response to declining belief and devotion 

in the Eucharist, the sacrament 

described by the Second Vatican 

Council as “the source and summit of 

Christian life.” 

The liturgies, processions, and 

mini-congresses held in parishes and 

dioceses as part of the revival were 

all supposed to lead up to this: a 

two-month national pilgrimage with 


four separate routes converging on 

Indianapolis, where the NEC offered 

a variety of formational, educational, 

and liturgical experiences with 

something in mind for everyone — all 

60,000 of them. 

But the biggest draw of the Congress, 

many participants told Angelus, was 

not only the excitement of being 

around so many people of faith, but 

that it responded to a tangible sense of 

growing indifference to faith in today’s 

world — and even in the Church, too. 

“I just think a lot of us are lukewarm,” 

said Emma Taylor of Denver, 

Colorado. “We don’t know why we’re 

still Catholic.” 

Speaking to Angelus after attending 

a July 19 panel on the challenges 

of Catholic dating sponsored by 

the Catholic University of America, 

Taylor said she’d had her “first true 

encounter” with the Eucharist at the 

age of 16 while praying in front of the 

Blessed Sacrament. 

“I think our Church needs to be 

renewed, and we need to all come 

to terms with our wounds and do the 

healing that we need to do in order to 

follow the Catholic faith,” said Taylor. 

“I think that that’s what’s preventing a 

lot of people from truly living it out. 

We’re not willing to forgive, and that’s 

a crucial part of experiencing God’s 

love.” 

Taylor was one of several Congress-goers 

who reported being 

inspired by the words of star speaker 

and podcaster Father Mike Schmitz 

on the Congress’ second night, who 

told the thousands inside Lucas Oil 

Stadium that “you can never have a 

revival without repentance.” 

“If the remedy for ignorance is to 

get to knowledge, and the road to 

knowledge is truth, the remedy for 

indifference is love, and the road to 

love is repentance,” said Schmitz, a 

chaplain at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. 

For all the concern about belief in 

Father Mike Schmitz speaks 

during the second revival session 

of the National Eucharistic 

Congress at Lucas Oil Stadium 

in Indianapolis July 18. | OSV 

NEWS/BOB ROLLER 

the real presence of Jesus Christ in the 

Eucharist, Schmitz said, the deeper 

issue is that “we know — we just don’t 

care.” 

Many of those interviewed by 

Angelus in Indianapolis suggested 

that Schmitz’s talk set the tone for the 

Congress. 

“We’re not perfect. We’re sinners, 

just trying to be saints,” said Denise 

Gomez of Inglewood. “At Mass, we 

bring our sins to the front of the cross. 

And we just ask God’s forgiveness, and 

we can feel that in his presence.” 

Like others who spoke to Angelus, 

Gomez cited the decision to close 

churches and limiting access to 

the Eucharist due to the spread of 

COVID-19 in the early months of the 

pandemic as a source of frustration — 

and motivation to make the most of 

opportunities like the Congress. 

“That was when my faith increased 

the most, because I didn’t have any 

other distractions,” said Gomez. “So I 

really focused on going to daily Mass.” 

“Our hunger for the Eucharist grew,” 

added Elsie Garcia, who teaches 

catechism to children with Gomez 

at St. John Chrysostom Church in 

Inglewood. 

Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez presides over 

the Mass in Spanish at the Indiana Convention Center 

on Day 4 of the National Eucharistic Congress. | ARCH- 

DIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES 


If visitors to Indianapolis were looking 

for ideas on how to bring the 

“Revival” back home, they might 

have benefited from conversations 

with people like Moises Espinal and 

Virgil Chad Burge, two Knights of 

Columbus from Holy Family Church 

in Pass Christian, Mississippi, located 

in the Diocese of Biloxi. 

Alarmed by the drop in Mass attendance 

after the COVID shutdowns, 

their parish decided to take a more 

“intentional” approach to inviting 

parishioners back. 

“We found that what has worked, 

or paid a lot of dividends, is actually 

meeting and doing things outside 

[the parish],” said Espinal. “Trying to 

break the mold from more traditional 

settings to places where people can go 

and still be vulnerable while discussing 

the Word.” 

To reach out to men their age, 

parishioners like Espinal and Burge 

have organized hangouts at local cigar 

bars where men can smoke, “drink a 

few beers, and talk about the Word of 

God.” 

Burge, who came from Protestantism 

before converting at age 32, said he’s 

seen success in calling parishioners on 

the phone, rather than sending emails 

or text messages, to invite them to 

parish activities. 

Today, Espinal and Burge said, Mass 

attendance at their parish is higher 

than it was pre-COVID. 

“It’s the personal connection,” said 

Burge. “If you personally invite someone 

to do something, it’s hard to say 

no.” 

The opportunities for in-person networking 

and conversations with people 

from around the country, Espinal said, 

is one reason why he believes the Con- 

LA to welcome next 

Eucharistic Pilgrimage 

During the National Eucharistic Congress’ closing 

moments, the event’s lead organizer announced that 

a second National Eucharistic Pilgrimage next year 

will begin in Indianapolis and end in Los Angeles. 

“At this point, we’re planning next spring a pilgrimage — 

just one — that will begin in Indianapolis and end in Los 

Angeles,” said Bishop Andrew Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, 

chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 

Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis. 

“Archbishop [José H.] Gomez has already said that he 

would welcome all of you for Corpus Christi Sunday in Los 

Pilgrims on the final leg of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage’s Seton Route, which launched May 18 in New 

Haven, Connecticut, arrive for a welcome Mass at St. John the Evangelist Church in Indianapolis July 16, just 

ahead of the National Eucharistic Congress. | OSV NEWS/BOB ROLLER 

Angeles in 2025,” added Cozzens to cheers and applause 

at the end of the July 21 closing Mass with close to 50,000 

people in Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium. 

Corpus Christi Sunday falls on June 22 next year in the 

Church’s Roman calendar. 

Cozzens’ pilgrimage announcement came as he also 

announced plans to hold the next National Eucharistic Congress 

in 2033, marking the “year of redemption” 2,000 years 

from the year tradition says Jesus Christ died and rose from 

the dead — or perhaps even sooner. 

“We’ll keep discerning and we’ll let you know,” said Cozzens. 

The decision to hold next year’s 

pilgrimage, Cozzens said, came from 

discussions among organizers to “continue 

to do the smaller things that we’ve 

done” during the National Eucharistic 

Revival launched by the U.S. bishops 

for three years to encourage greater 

devotion and belief in the Eucharist 

among Catholics. 

Archbishop Gomez said Sunday he 

was “excited to welcome the pilgrimage 

to Los Angeles next June.” 

“We’ve witnessed the Spirit alive 

and moving with power through the 

Eucharistic Congress this week,” said 

Archbishop Gomez. “It’s clear that the 

revival of Eucharistic wonder, awe, 

and adoration in our land has begun 

and will continue to grow in the years 

ahead.” 

— Pablo Kay 


gress will “yield amazing 

results for the diocese and 

for the Church here in the 

U.S.” 

Perhaps more immediate 

“results” could be found 

in the stories of pilgrims 

like Kjell Yu, who also 

came with the Orlando 

group. With the start of 

college just a few weeks 

away on his mind, Yu 

wasn’t “really deep into 

my faith” and didn’t want 

to come to Indianapolis. 

But by the end of the 

Congress’ closing Mass on 

Sunday, July 21, something 

had changed. 

“Now that I’ve experienced 

this whole journey, 

it’s really just changed my 

whole perspective, especially 

adoration — hands 

down,” said Yu. 

The 18-year-old said he 

got the sign he was looking 

for during a moment 

of evening adoration 

inside Lucas Oil Stadium. 

Kneeling in silence, his 

prayers turned to a young 

man he saw nearby who appeared 

visibly uninterested. 

“I was like God, please help him at 

least see your love,” said Yu. Moments 

later, the man seemed to spring to life 

and began singing during the next 

song. 

“Even something so small, just gave 

me a bit more, a bit more reassurance 

he’s actually there, giving us love.” 

By and large, the Congress has 

been hailed by organizers, 

attendees, and observers as an 

overwhelming success. 

Fears of lower-than-expected attendance 

dissipated as organizers saw a 

surge in registrations in the final weeks 

before the Congress, then another 

wave of participants with one-day passes 

who decided to extend their stay. 

Some observers compared the “energy” 

inside Lucas Oil Stadium on the 

streets of Indianapolis during the July 

20 Eucharistic procession to the time 

St. Pope John Paul II visited Denver 

for World Youth Day in 1993. 

In a talk at the Congress on Our Lady of Guadalupe, 

Archbishop Gomez said: “God does not 

call us to be perfect, he calls us to be faithful.” | 


“The energy of this room could 

change our country,” said Bishop 

Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, 

Minnesota, in a rousing 

half-hour catechesis during the 

Congress’ final (and largest) evening 

session on July 20. 

The words of Jesus in the Last 

Supper, “this is my body, given up for 

you,” Barron said, point to an important 

truth about the Eucharist: “Your 

Christianity is not for you.” 

“Christianity is not a self-help 

program, something designed just to 

make us feel better about ourselves,” 

said Barron. “Your Christianity is for 

the world.” 

By the end of his talk, focused on 

what the three evangelical counsels 

(poverty, chastity, and obedience) 

mean for laypeople, Barron invited the 

crowd to “bring the light of Christ into 

the secular world.” 

“The great revival will have been a 

failure if we don’t change our society, 

if we don’t stream out of this place 

with the light of Christ.” 

In the same vein, 

organizers framed the 

Congress as the start of a 

new missionary phase for 

Catholicism in the U.S., 

to be followed by similar 

pilgrimages and congresses. 

In his homily at a July 20 

Spanish Mass, Archbishop 

José H. Gomez said the 

revival should lead the 

Church in the U.S. to “a 

new Eucharistic evangelization.” 

Later that day, in 

a talk given on Our Lady 

of Guadalupe as “the Marian 

heart of America,” the 

archbishop compared the 

challenge of evangelizing 

under daunting circumstances 

to the mission 

entrusted to St. Juan 

Diego by the Virgin in 

16th-century Mexico. 

“When Juan Diego heard 

her call, he protested,” 

he said. In the same way, 

Catholics may sometimes 

feel that “we’re too small, 

not powerful enough, not 

worthy enough, to do the 

work of evangelizing.” 

“But God does not call us to be perfect, 

he calls us to be faithful,” added 

Archbishop Gomez. 

Just hours after it had ended on 

Sunday, more than one participant 

took to social media to excitedly claim 

that what they’d just witnessed promised 

fruits for the U.S. church on the 

scale of the 1993 World Youth Day in 

Denver, largely credited with inspiring 

a wave of new apostolates, ministries, 

and religious vocations in the country. 

Such results would take years — even 

a few generations — to bear out. But 

at the very least, the Congress undoubtedly 

left pilgrims with a sense 

of hope for themselves — and for the 

Church — that had been missing. 

“I’m excited,” said the 18-year-old 

Yu as he left the Congress’ closing 

Mass on Sunday. “This experience is 

definitely going to change my life for 

the better.” 

Pablo Kay is the editor-in-chief of 

Angelus. 


READY 

FOR 

WHAT’S 

NEXT 

After the surprises 

they witnessed in 

Indianapolis, LA 

Catholics at the 

National Eucharistic 

Congress said they 

‘would do it all again.’ 

BY PABLO KAY 

It wasn’t the trip George Gomez was 

expecting. 

The 23-year-old seminarian for 

the Archdiocese of Los Angeles had 

been to big Catholic gatherings like 

World Youth Day in the past. But a 

2,000 mile cross-country drive to attend 

the National Eucharistic Congress in 

Indianapolis wasn’t exactly his idea of a 

dream summer vacation. 

“I thought I was going to be dreading 

a long trip with a bunch of guys stuck 

in one car,” admitted Gomez, originally 

from Our Lady of Peace Church in 

North Hills. 

But as the three vans carrying 15 

seminarians and young “discerners” 

from LA headed east, they stopped at 

some “Catholic hot spots” along the 

way, including the Chapel of the Holy 

Cross in Sedona, the Loretto Chapel 

Miraculous Staircase and Sanctuary 

of Chimayo (both in Santa Fe), and 

Benedictine College in Kansas. 

Gomez’s favorite was the newly built 

Blessed Stanley Rother shrine in Oklahoma 

City, where the group celebrated 

Mass and listened to stories about the 

missionary priest martyred in Guatemala 

in 1981 during the country’s civil 

war. 

The men on the road trip organized 

by the archdiocese’s Office of Vocations 

were some of the more than 200 LA 

Catholics who made the pilgrimage 

to the Congress, July 17-21. Some 

came in parish groups, others in trips 

organized by the archdiocese or Catholic 

apostolates. All seemed caught off 

An LA pilgrim prays during a special Mass 

celebrated by Archbishop José H Gomez at the 

Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis July 

19. | ARCHDIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES 

guard by the same thing upon arriving 

in downtown Indianapolis. 

The people. So many people. 

“We heard the numbers prior, that 

they were going to fill a stadium of 

50,000 pilgrims. But actually seeing it 

come to fruition — that’s what struck 

me the most,” said Elsie Garcia from 

St. John Chrysostom in Inglewood. 

Garcia came with her friend and 

fellow catechist at St. John Chrysostom, 

Denise Gomez (no relation to George) 


Archbishop José H. Gomez poses for 

a selfie after a special Mass for LA 

pilgrims at Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral 

in Indianapolis July 19 during 

the National Eucharistic Congress. | 

ISABEL CACHO 

with a group organized by Relevant 

Radio. But to get there, she had to 

overcome one small obstacle. 

“I am fearful of flying,” Garcia told 

Angelus as she left a July 20 Saturday 

morning Mass celebrated in Spanish by 

Archbishop José H. Gomez (no relation 

to George or Denise). “So I had to put 

that in the hands of God and say, ‘Jesus, 

I trust in you to get me to Indianapolis 

so I can worship you.’ ” 

Sandra Solis’ first order of business at 

the Congress was going to confession. 

Fortunately, the sacrament seemed to 

be available at every turn inside the Indiana 

Convention Center, with priests 

stationed in designated confession areas 

around the clock. “It was so beautiful,” 

she said afterward. 

One of 10 parishioners from St. 

Barnabas in Long Beach who came to 

Indianapolis with pastor Father Antony 

Gaspar, Solis said she was drawn to the 

Congress by her personal experience 

with the sacraments of confession and 

Eucharist. For years, she recalled, she 

went to Mass without receiving Communion. 

“I hadn’t gone to confession and I 

didn’t want to be a hypocrite,” explained 

Solis. 

Today, she’s the coordinator of religious 

education at St. Barnabas, moved 

by the joy she sees in the children she 

prepares to receive their first Communion. 

“I will never be separated again [from 

the Eucharist] until God takes me,” 

she said. 

During sessions at Lucas Oil Stadium 

and the convention center, speakers 

invited participants to reflect on their 

A group of LA seminarians and young men 

discerning whether to enter priestly formation 

stopped at the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine 

in Oklahoma City on their way to Indianapolis. 

George Gomez is sixth from right. | LA ARCHDI- 

OCESE OFFICE OF VOCATIONS 

relationship with the sacrament. 

LA Auxiliary Bishop 

Albert Bahhuth recalled 

the role the Eucharist 

played in his return to 

Catholicism as a young 

immigrant. 

“I didn’t do anything 

special or different during 

this time, the only thing 

is I began to go to Mass 

more often and obviously 

the more I went to Mass, 

I received the Eucharist,” 

said Bahhuth. “I really feel 

that Christ transformed 

me from being a person 

of the world to becoming 

someone who was willing to entrust my 

life, to surrender my life to the Lord 

and say yes to his will for me.” 

For Bahhuth’s fellow LA auxiliary, 

Bishop Matthew Elshoff, the sight of so 

many young families was a catechesis 

in itself. 

“It’s very humbling to be here 


knowing the sacrifices that people 

have made,” said Elshoff. “And I ask 

myself: what sacrifice did I make to 

come here? The level of sacrifice on 

my part is nowhere near what others 

have done.” 

Michael Ramirez from St. Anthony 

of Padua in Gardena came to Indianapolis 

in need of a “personal revival,” 

still processing grief from the death 

of Bishop David O’Connell last year, 

while looking to restore some prayer 

habits and find direction for his next 

steps in life. 

“I feel like the Lord is giving me an 

opportunity to reevaluate my life,” said 

Ramirez, 36. “So I’m asking him to 

speak into all of that, give me a fresh direction 

so I can go with full strength in 

the direction that he wants me to go.” 

Perhaps the clearest challenge that 

emerged in the sessions and conversations 

at the Congress was how to bring 

lapsed Catholics back to practicing the 

faith, especially as Mass attendance in 

most parts of the country struggles to 

return to pre-pandemic levels. 

Inside the convention center’s exhibit 

hall, the Back to Mass booth offered 

visitors some practical tools to take the 

first step, including a bilingual “back 

to Mass kit” with an invitation card, 

a bracelet from My Saint My Hero, 

and stickers and buttons pointing to 

a search engine for nationwide Mass 

times powered by eCatholic. 

The campaign, launched by the archdiocese’s 

Digital Team two years ago in 

LA, distributed more than 5,000 kits in 

Indianapolis. 

Archbishop Gomez addressed the 

same need in his homily during a 

July 19 Mass for LA Catholics at the 

Congress. 

“We cannot approach the altar without 

wanting to bring others with us,” 

said Archbishop Gomez at the liturgy 

celebrated at Indianapolis’ Sts. Peter 

and Paul Cathedral. “We need to help 

our neighbors to see that the love they 

are looking for is true and real, that he 

is already here, that he has a name, 

Jesus Christ! “ 

Among those at the Mass were Derald 

and Evelia Burnett from St. Mary of 

the Assumption in Whittier. Both had 

been looking forward to the Congress 

GET THAT 

MONSTRANCE 

Bishop Andrew Cozzens holds 

high the monstrance in front of 

the Indiana War Memorial during 

the Eucharistic procession in 

downtown Indianapolis July 20. | 


The LA story behind one 

of the National Eucharistic 

Congress’ surprise stars 

BY PABLO KAY 

Jesus Christ may have been the main protagonist at the 

National Eucharistic Congress, but the golden, unusually 

large monstrance used to carry him each night before 

thousands at Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium caught people’s 

attention, too. 

Where did they get such a big, beautiful monstrance from? 

And as one reporter jokingly asked, had Bishop Andrew 

Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, lead organizer of the 

Congress, been lifting weights to be able to carry it through 

the stadium? 

The monstrance, Cozzens told journalists at the Congress, 

was actually the same model that organizers had seen images 

of Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez use in a Eucharistic 

procession through the streets of San Gabriel in March 

2023. 

Almost immediately after the event, Congress organizers in 

the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops asked Archbishop 

Gomez’s office where they could get one of those. 

The inquiry led them to Father Miguel Angel Ruiz, a 

31-year-old LA priest ordained in 2019 with roots in Guadalajara, 

Mexico. Ruiz was known for having the same 

monstrance, and often lending it to other priests in the LA 

Archdiocese for special events. It was his monstrance, in fact, 

that the late Bishop David O’Connell borrowed when he 

famously blessed Los Angeles in the early days of the COV- 

ID-19 lockdown in 2020. 

Ruiz told the officials that the monstrance was made by a 

liturgical store in Guadalajara, Articulos Religiosos San Jose. 

16 • ANGELUS • August 9, 2024

for months. 

“It’s been so refreshing, renewing, 

uplifting,” said Derald. “So happy we 

came, and we’d do it all again.” 

Derald came from a nondenominational 

background before falling in 

love with Evelia and eventually, with 

the Catholic faith she introduced him 

to. The couple hope the event’s energy 

can help counter a perceived decline 

in belief in the real presence of Christ 

in the Eucharist. 

“It’s exciting to be a part of something 

that is hopefully a turning point in our 

Church,” said Evelia. “I feel it, I feel 

like it’s on the brink.” 

Pablo Kay is the editor-in-chief of 

Angelus. 

More than 5,000 “Back to Mass kits” were handed out at the booth sponsored by the Archdiocese of LA in the National 

Eucharistic Congress exhibit hall July 17-21. | ARCHDIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES 

bring it to Rome for the pope’s blessing. 

“It’s big. It’s beautiful,” the pope said with a smile to members 

of the Congress’ planning team at the June 19, 2023 

meeting. 

Ruiz, now administrator at Our Lady of the Rosary of Talpa 

Church in East LA, told Angelus that his personal connection 

with the monstrance actually began at a convent in 

Guadalajara he used to visit as a seminarian. 

While praying before the Blessed Sacrament in the convent’s 

adoration room, “I would think to myself, ‘When I 

become a priest, I want one like that one,’ ” he recalled. 

A few years later, the sisters at the convent purchased the 

monstrance as a gift for Ruiz’s ordination to the priesthood. 

The rest, as Ruiz says, “is history.” 

Los Angeles Archbishop José 

H. Gomez carries the Blessed 

Sacrament during Mass at 

Mission San Gabriel Arcángel. 

| VICTOR ALEMÁN 

They ordered an exact replica of the monstrance — one 

of the store’s most popular ones — in a hurry, since Pope 

Francis had agreed to bless it in a private audience in Rome a 

few weeks later. 

Four-feet tall and weighing more than 20 pounds, the new 

monstrance — together with hosts specially sized for it — 

was shipped from Guadalajara to Tijuana, where Ruiz drove 

to pick it up. From across the border in San Diego, he had it 

shipped to USCCB headquarters in Washington, D.C., just 

in time for the Congress delegation led by Bishop Cozzens to 

Pope Francis blesses a four-foot-tall monstrance, a chalice, and a paten during an 

audience with members of the organizing committees of the U.S. National Eucharistic 

Congress and Eucharistic Revival in the library of the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican 

June 19, 2023. | CNS/VATICAN MEDIA 


Taking a step backward 

Catholic aid workers fear a new Supreme Court decision will criminalize 

homelessness — and erase hard-fought gains on LA’s streets. 

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY TOM HOFFARTH 

Program Director Sister Jennifer 

Nguyen, left, stands with 

Associate Director Elvia Valdes 

at Good Shepherd Center in 

Los Angeles’ Filipinotown. 

The frayed silver-colored tarp 

wasn’t doing much to hide the 

makeshift mattress, collection 

of Big Gulp cups, or the stuffed panda 

bear strewn across the sidewalk in front 

of the Good Shepherd Center (GSC) 

on Beverly Boulevard. 

All that clutter, GSC program director 

Sister Jennifer Nguyen told her staff, 

could make things tricky for anyone 

leaving the parking structure, and 

someone hidden in the encampment 

could be accidentally run over. 

That someone would be Mike. 

A 40-something Filipino man who has 

lived in this part of LA’s Historic Filipinotown 

since becoming homeless just 

before the pandemic, Mike gravitated 

to this spot a few months ago, sent out 

from an abandoned house across the 

street. He didn’t know that the Catholic 

Charities-run center had a history of 

assisting women and children in the 

area for the last 40 years. 

Many Good Shepherd employees 

have gotten to know Mike, and will call 

211 on his behalf for referrals to mental 

health resources, food assistance, or 

other crisis intervention. For other options, 

they check with the Los Angeles 

Homeless Service Authorities (LAHSA) 

or the People Assisting the Homeless 

(PATH). 

While Mike has been receptive to the 

help offered, “he says he is not ready” 

to take up offers of public housing, 

according to Jennifer. 

Still, the idea of calling the police at 

the nearby Rampart Station on people 

like Mike doesn’t occur to the staff at 

GSC. 

“The culture here is to never go that 


oute, to criminalize the unhoused — 

that doesn’t cross our minds,” said Elvia 

Valdes, Good Shepherd’s associate 

director. “Mike is one of our neighbors. 

He sees us. He knows us. We engage 

and comfort.” 

On June 28, the U.S. Supreme 

Court issued an opinion that 

makes it easier for cities to 

cite, fine, or arrest anyone camping in 

public spaces. 

In a 6-3 decision, the court sided with 

the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, whose 

residents challenged elected officials to 

uphold laws making it illegal for homeless 

to sleep overnight on the street or 

in parks. 

On that same June day, LAHSA 

released data showing a 2.2% decline in 

those identified as homeless in LA — 

the first drop in six years. The agency’s 

homeless count also reported an 18% 

increase in people moved off the streets 

and into permanent housing, reaching 

an all-time high of nearly 28,000 placements 

in the last year. It also reported 

a 27.6% reduction in unsheltered 

veterans. 

A few days later, Venice-based nonprofit 

St. Joseph Center noted a 19% 

decrease in homelessness in the area it 

serves. 

Many credit LA Mayor Karen Bass’ 

“Inside Safe” program for the improvement. 

Launched when she took office 

in 2022, the program escorts people 

from encampments into hotel rooms. It 

is also clearing belongings from freeway 

underpasses and opening up sidewalks 

from lines of tents. 

“Enforcing laws and positions make it 

seem like homelessness is a problem to 

A makeshift encampment 

sits near Good 

Shepherd Center’s 

parking structure. 

fix,” said Michael Donaldson, director 

of the Archdiocese of LA’s Office of 

Life, Justice and Peace. “Systems and 

methods are to be fixed. It doesn’t speak 

to the common good or seeking out 

ways to accompany and assist.” 

When it comes to handling those 

living on the streets, his office and the 

mayor’s are “on the same page,” Donaldson 

said. But beyond the LA city 

limits, he acknowledged the Supreme 

Court’s decision will not prevent other 

cities in LA County from taking aggressive 

measures to remove the homeless 

from the streets. 

Since the Cathedral of Our Lady of 

the Angels hosted the first Homeless 

Persons Interreligious Memorial in 

December 2022, Donaldson’s office 

has begun holding Homeless Ministry 

Resource Fairs to help connect parishes 

with community outreach groups like 

Catholic Charities and SOFESA, a 

nonprofit that helps homeless and 

low-income families and children. 

Another is the Society of St. Vincent 

de Paul, which has operated the Cardinal 

Manning Center on Skid Row, a 

65-bed interim housing facility. The society 

continues to raise money through 

its thrift stores to fund food pantries 

and soup kitchens, while working with 

more than 100 parishes in the archdiocese 

on specific local programs through 

their Conferences of Charity chapters. 

“When I heard the court decision, I 

was so disappointed because it’s such a 

step backward,” said David Garcia, the 

society’s Los Angeles executive director 

since 2019. 

“I think it would be more productive 

if the government, local or national, 

helped us on our end instead of deciding 

to lock people up just for being 

poor,” said Garcia. “Think of all the 

energy and resources that go into this 

Supreme Court case that couldn’t be 

used for better solutions.” 

On July 25, Gov. Gavin Newsom 

raised the stakes by issuing an executive 

order requiring state agencies to remove 

homeless encampments in their 

jurisdictions and encouraging cities in 

California to do likewise. 

The LA Department of Sanitation 

plans to post a sign warning 

Mike that his belongings may 

soon be picked up. The staff at Good 

Shepherd isn’t averse to asking for police 

or fire department help in certain 

situations it has been trained to handle. 

The approach GSC has used in trying 

to assist Mike, for example, will always 

be its primary protocol. 

“Caring and love change people,” 

said Jennifer, a native of Vietnam and 

member of the Lovers of the Holy 

Cross of Los Angeles. She’s served at 

GSC, which has multiple facilities that 

can house more than 80 women and 

families, on and off since the 1990s. 

“When I first came here, I was afraid 

of going on outreach, but we find they 

are wonderful people. When a person 

comes to us, it’s not because they want 

something, it’s because they need something, 

and we treat them with respect.” 

Valdes believes the Supreme Court’s 

potential “criminalization of the 

unhoused” is “a recipe for disaster, 

and it won’t break the cycle some have 

already experienced in foster care, criminal 

justice, or juvenile justice. 

“With Mike, we can guess he has 

experienced some trauma in his life, 

and there is a lot of stress with housing 

instability, so that’s the part of the story 

we know and we can work with him,” 

said Valdes. 

Mike, she noted, keeps his important 

documents and Good Shepherd’s business 

card close by, so that “when he’s 

ready, he knows who to reach out to.” 

“We have always tried to remind the 

police in our neighborhood of their 

duty to protect and serve. We can 

collaborate. We can focus on comfort 

and restoring.” 

Tom Hoffarth is an award-winning 

journalist based in Los Angeles. 


2024 pastoral assignments 

A list of pastoral assignment changes in the 

Archdiocese of Los Angeles affecting associate pastors, 

special assignments, and retirements 

Associate Pastor: 

Our Lady of the Angels Region: 

Fr. Jihoon Kim, St. Paul Church, Los Angeles 

Fr. Daniel Martinez, OFM, St. John Chrysostom Church, 

Inglewood 

Fr. Armando J. Prado Flores, FM, St. Agnes Church, 

Los Angeles 

Fr. Fufa Wakuma, MCCJ, Immaculate Heart of Mary 

Church, Los Angeles 

Santa Barbara Region: 

Fr. Xavier F. D’Souza, St. Paschal Baylon Church, 

Thousand Oaks 

Fr. Arthur Najera, Santa Clara Church, Oxnard 

Fr. Jesus Silva, St. Mary of the Assumption Church, 

Santa Maria 

Fr. Florentino Victorino Benito MSC, St. Rose of Lima 

Church, Simi Valley 

San Fernando Region: 

Fr. Patrick Ayala, Our Lady of Grace Church, Encino 

Fr. Martin V. Gonzalez, St. John Eudes Church, Chatsworth 

Fr. Jerry Gutierrez, St. Didacus Church, Sylmar 

Fr. Sergio Hidalgo, Sacred Heart Church, Lancaster 

Fr. Everardo Soto Montoya, Santa Rosa Church, 

San Fernando 

Fr. Yesupadam Teneti, St. Mel Church, Woodland Hills 

Fr. Ambrose Udoji, St. Genevieve Church, Panorama City 


San Gabriel Region: 

Fr. Stephen J. Corder, SJ, Dolores Mission, 

Los Angeles 

Fr. MarioCelestine Emuebie, St. Lorenzo Ruiz Church, 

Walnut 

Fr. Juan Francisco Gonzalez, Our Lady of Guadalupe 

Church, Irwindale 

Fr. Sebastian V. Josephraj, St. Andrew Church, Pasadena 

Fr. Jose Jesus Martinez, St. Joseph Church, Pomona 

Fr. Diuver Joar Martinez Ruiz, St. Elizabeth Church, 

Altadena 

Fr. Gonzalo E. Meza, St. Christopher Church, 

West Covina 

Fr. Matthew Miguel, St. Joseph Church, La Puente 

Fr. Gerald Osuagwu, Holy Family Church, 

South Pasadena 

Fr. Arockia Rejendra Benedict, MSFS, Our Lady of the 

Miraculous Medal Church, Montebello 

Fr. Pedro Roberto Garcia, St. Martha Church, Valinda 

Fr. Jorge A. Soto Lugo, St. Frances of Rome Church, 

Azusa 

Fr. Jean Gregoire Tattegrain, St. Alphonsus Church, 

Los Angeles 

Msgr. John Woolway, Our Lady of the Rosary of Talpa 

Church, Los Angeles 

San Pedro Region: 

Fr. Emmanuel Delfin, St. Helen Church, South Gate 

Fr. Cesar Guardado, St. Gertrude Church, Bell Gardens 

Fr. Andrew Hedstrom, St. Linus Church, Norwalk 

Fr. Armando Hernandez, MSpS, Holy Family Church, 

Wilmington 

Fr. Emmanuel Sylvester, American Martyrs Church, 

Manhattan Beach 

Fr. Benjamin Tapia, St. Emydius Church, Lynwood 

Chaplain: 

Fr. Sang Man Han, 103 Saints Korean Center, Torrance 

Special Assignment: 

Fr. Kristian Laygo, SDB, formation director, Salesian 

Community, Los Angeles 

Fr. Michael Masteller, advanced studies, Casa Santa 

Maria, Rome 

Fr. Louie Reyes, Associate Director of Vocations 

Retired 

Fr. Benito L. Armenta 

Fr. Alex Chung 

Fr. Hoang Francis Dang 

Fr. Robert Patrick Fulton 

Fr. John H. Keese 

Msgr. Michael W. Meyers 

Fr. Gerard O’Brien 

Fr. Nelson A. Trinidad 

Fr. David L. Whorton

CNS ILLUSTRATION/MIKE 

CRUPI, CATHOLIC COURIER 

More than a 

swing vote 

What role will US Catholicism 

play in a reshuffled 

presidential race? 

BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR. 

ROME — In the abstract, one 

might have thought the election 

of Joe Biden in 2020 was a 

prescription for a Golden Age in U.S./ 

Vatican relations. Not only is he the 

second Catholic commander-in-chief 

in American history, but a man who 

personally takes his faith extremely 

seriously, whatever one makes of how 

he translates it into policy. 

Moreover, Biden is a center-left 

figure simpatico with the social and 

political agenda of Pope Francis, who 

accents issues such as migration, climate 

change, and defense of the poor, 

all matters where he and the American 

president see eye to eye. 

And, yet. 

Yet the last four years actually have 

witnessed deep tensions between 

Washington and Rome on multiple 

foreign policy fronts, especially China, 

Ukraine, and Gaza. Indeed, one could 

actually make the argument that, at 

least on Ukraine, the Vatican would 

have had less trouble navigating a relationship 

with the religiously indeterminate 

Donald Trump than with the 

Catholic Biden. 

All of this is a reminder of a basic 

point, and one which is especially apt 

right now as we ponder the dynamics 

of a Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris 

race in November: The bipolar nature 

of American politics and the integral 

character of Catholic social teaching 

are always an imperfect fit, no matter 

who’s in the White House. 

By the time President Ronald Reagan 

launched full diplomatic relations 

with the Vatican in 1984, he and St. 

Pope John Paul II were already shaping 

history together as de facto allies 

in the struggle to bring down Soviet 

communism. Yet there were also deep 

tensions over social and economic policy. 

It’s worth recalling, for example, 

that the pontiff’s 1981 social encyclical 

Laborem Exercens (“On Human 

Work”), among other things defending 

the rights of organized labor, appeared 

just a month after Reagan summarily 

fired 11,000 striking air traffic controllers, 

leaving some to actually read the 

encyclical as a critique of Reaganomics. 

During the Clinton years, there were 

massive clashes between the Vatican 

and the White House over United Nations 

conferences on population and 

development in Cairo in 1994 and 

on women in Beijing, pivoting above 

all on abortion policy. At the time, 

commentators spoke of an “unholy 

alliance” forged among the Vatican 

and several Islamic states, including 

Iran, to oppose the Clinton administration’s 

push to see a right to abortion 

enshrined in international law. 


In the eight years of the Bush administration 

that followed, such tensions 

on abortion and other “life issues” 

were muted, only to be replaced by a 

colossal difference over the invasion of 

Iraq. At the time, John Paul took the 

highly unusual step of dispatching a 

special envoy to the White House to 

plead with Bush not to go ahead, but 

to no avail. 

The same basic patterns reasserted 

themselves under both Presidents Barack 

Obama and Donald Trump, both 

of whom found themselves in rough 

harmony with the Vatican on some 

fronts and in clear rupture on others. 

The root “square peg/round hole” 

problem of attempting to reconcile 

Catholic social doctrine with the 

bipartisan nature of American politics 

has been compounded during the 

Francis years by another factor, which 

is the effort by history’s first pope from 

the developing world to reorient the 

Vatican away from its de facto historic 

partnership with the West toward a 

more truly globalist and nonaligned 

stance. 

Today, the Vatican arguably is closer 

in both agenda and instincts on many 

foreign policy matters to the membership 

of the BRICS alliance than it is 

to Washington, London, or Brussels, 

which is a long-term historic shift 

which likely will continue to unfold 

no matter who occupies the White 

House at any given moment. 

None of this means U.S./Vatican ties 

are disintegrating. 

On multiple fronts, ranging from 

the fight against human trafficking to 

the promotion of religious freedom, 

Rome and Washington collaborate on 

a regular basis. Frankly, the world’s 

most important soft and hard powers, 

respectively, perceive too much value 

to their relationship to allow it to fall 

apart completely. 

Parallel to the Vatican relationship, 

of course, there’s also the matter of a 

given president’s uneasy relationship 

with the Catholic community in the 

United States, both in terms of the 

bishops and at the grassroots. 

At the moment, it’s taken for granted 

that the U.S. bishops are somewhat 

more conservative than Francis and 

his Vatican team, and hence that a 

Trump return might make for smoother 

sailing in terms of church/state ties, 

while a Harris presidency likely would 

augur deeper tensions, especially over 

abortion rights. 

On the other hand, it’s worth 

recalling that the first go-around with 

Trump wasn’t exactly trouble-free 

from the point of view of the bishops 

either, especially in light of their 

strong advocacy on immigration 

reform and the rights of migrants 

generally. 

Obviously, none of this is to suggest 

that from a Catholic point of view, it 

doesn’t matter who wins in November. 

There are critically important issues 

at stake, and American Catholics 

should (and, rest assured, many will) 

engage those issues with passion. 

If one might be permitted a pious 

wish, however, perhaps it could be 

that this passion can be leavened with 

patience. 

No one in America today, especially 

after the attempted July 13 assassination 

of Trump, needs to be reminded 

that we live in a deeply polarized 

and even potentially violent moment. 

Managing those tensions isn’t 

just a political task, but also a moral 

and even a spiritual challenge, and 

American history suggests that moral 

renewal always requires leadership 

from faith communities. 

Catholicism is in a unique position 

to play such a role, since it’s the only 

major faith group in America that isn’t 

clearly aligned with one party or the 

other. White Evangelicals and Pentecostals 

are largely Republican, while 

Jews, African-American Christians, 

and mainline Protestants are heavily 

Democratic. 

Catholicism, however, contains 

within itself Republicans and Democrats 

in roughly equal numbers. 

That makes Catholics a critical swing 

vote, of course, but it also affords the 

Church the sociological capacity of 

bringing people together who otherwise 

might not cross paths in any other 

venue, gently nudging them toward 

seeing the good in one another. 

In other words, the Church has the 

opportunity to be a great school of 

friendship, at a time when forging 

friendships across ideological lines 

seems to be a dying art. That would 

be a “Catholic moment” in American 

life indeed, one potentially with ramifications 

well beyond this election 

cycle. 

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

Official portraits of Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Kamala Harris. | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 


A bishop’s redemption story 

Bonaventure 

Broderick went from 

the heights of Church 

power in Cuba, Rome, 

and Washington to … 

running a gas station. 

Bishop Bonaventure Broderick. 

| PUBLIC DOMAIN 

BY MSGR. RICHARD ANTALL 

Perhaps the greatest tribute you 

can give to biographers is to 

finish their work and ask to read 

more. Such was my reaction after 

reading Catholic historian James K. 

Hanna’s “The Remarkable Life of 

Bishop Bonaventure Broderick” (Serif 

Press, $15.99). 

The son of Irish American parents 

in Hartford, Connecticut, Broderick’s 

life is a story of extraordinary successes 

and failures. When he decided to 

pursue the priesthood at the age of 

20, he had already, in his own words, 

“achieved phenomenal success” in 

the world of business. Once in the 

seminary, his gifts as a student led his 

bishop to send him to study in Rome 

to earn a doctorate in sacred theology. 

His personality and intelligence 

seem to have been a two-edged sword. 

He attracted the support of influential 

people, but also intense antipathy. 

Once back in Hartford, he grew 

close to his bishop and eventually 

convinced him to lend money to a 

munitions factory belonging to his 

brother. The business venture failed 

and the bishop, after losing $10,000 of 

diocesan money, tried to exile Broderick 

to the ecclesiastical hinterland. 

Broderick refused, insisting it was not 

his fault, despite the affair making 

national news headlines. Broderick 

never seemed to lack self-confidence. 

He was rescued from the failure at 

Hartford when the Vatican appointed 

him secretary to the new bishop of 

Havana, Cuba, who had been his 

teacher in Rome. This was in the 

aftermath of the Spanish-American 

War, and the Catholic Church in 

Cuba, which had depended on the 

government of Spain for sustenance, 

was in disarray. Broderick, ordained a 

priest in 1896, was made a monsignor 

by Pope Leo XIII in 1901. 

His time in Cuba was the most 

brilliant part of his career. His close 

relationships to the Americans in 

government in Cuba, and other powerful 

people, including U.S. Secretary 

of State Elihu Root and Sen. Mark 

Hanna of Ohio, made it possible for 

him to influence some important 

settlements, including negotiating a 

return of church properties that had 

been commandeered by the Spanish 

government. 

Thanks to a series of ecclesiastical 

maneuvers, Broderick, whose 

usefulness with the Americans was 

exceptional, remained in Cuba and 

was made auxiliary bishop of Havana, 

ordained in 1903 at the tender age of 

34. 

Trouble came again. It seems strange 

to me, but the bishop was a partner in 

a huge project-building infrastructure 

in Cuba — a sewer project in Santiago 

— and hired one of his brothers, 


David. The business deals went awry, 

and years later Broderick would 

eventually be involved in a series of 

lawsuits involving various persons, 

including the governor of New York 

and his brother. 

Perhaps the business issue is why 

the Vatican ambassador to Cuba who 

had consecrated the young Broderick 

as a bishop, Archbishop Placide 

Chapelle, turned from promoter to 

“persecutor” according to Hanna, who 

does not speculate on reasons. After 

only a short time as auxiliary bishop, 

Broderick faced opposition in Havana. 

Chapelle went to Rome to complain 

about him, and Broderick followed 

him there to defend himself, taking 

with him his mother and her caregiver, 

a former nun with whom he had 

worked in Cuba. 

The new pope at the time, St. Pius X 

arranged a pension from the Church 

in Cuba and named Broderick, a 

gifted fundraiser, to oversee the Peter’s 

Pence Collection in the U.S. He also 

made plans to assign him as auxiliary 

bishop of Baltimore, with residence in 

Washington, D.C., without bothering 

to consult the local bishop. Cardinal 

AMAZON 

Gibbons, archbishop of Baltimore, 

was adamantly opposed to both 

aspects of the plan. Pretty soon the 

young bishop ended up without a 

diocese and without a job. 

He tried to find work, and even got 

President Teddy Roosevelt to support 

his idea for a system that would draw 

Italian immigrants away from crowded 

cities and into villages in Virginia 

where they could continue their 

agricultural work. The plan failed 

miserably, and Broderick took up 

residence in New York. 

Broderick had some personal income 

but ended up spending a great deal 

of time in court while waiting for an 

assignment from Rome that never 

came. He wrote a letter to St. Pius 

X arguing that his situation would 

give scandal, which the pope took as 

a threat. And the rest was 

silence, for a long time. 

He said Mass privately for 

his mother and her caregiver, 

was involved with the 

community in which he 

lived independently, but 

had no connection with 

Church life. He tried his 

hand at farming, was popular 

with his mostly wealthy 

neighbors, who knew him 

as “Doctor” Broderick, and 

wrote for a small weekly 

newspaper from 1937 to 

1939. Hanna has edited a 

collection of the bishop’s 

columns titled “The Wit 

and Wisdom of Bishop 

Bonaventure Broderick.” 

The writings reveal a very 

cultured man, an America 

First-er, and a critic of 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt 

(whose family home was 

not far from Millbrook, 

where the bishop lived). 

Because of the Great 

Depression, perhaps, the 

bishop found himself in financial 

difficulty. He invested in a gas station 

and auto parts store in the 1930s. 

He lived in quiet ecclesiastical exile. 

Then in 1939, after 34 years in the 

ecclesiastical cold, came something of 

a miracle: the archbishop of New York 

knocked on his door. 

Archbishop (later Cardinal) Francis 

“Broderick’s personality and intelligence seem to 

have been a two-edged sword. He attracted the 

support of influential people, but also intense 

antipathy.” 

Spellman got a lot of bad press from 

critics over the years. But his compassion 

with Broderick is a story of grace, 

assigning the 70-year-old prelate to 

a nursing home as a chaplain to a 

congregation of sisters, and making 

him an auxiliary bishop of New York. 

Broderick sold his home and business 

and went to live with the sisters, who 

loved him and who told stories about 

how the bishop would talk of Cuba 

with tears in his eyes. Three years after 

the return to ministry, Broderick died 

in the arms of Holy Mother Church. 

It is an extraordinary story, puzzling 

and with many missing pieces, but 

also heartwarming. 

Like the mythological character 

Icarus, the ambitious and brilliant 

young cleric flew a bit too close to 

the sun. James Hanna and Serif Press 

have done a service to the Church in 

America publishing these two books 

on a man Hanna describes as a “curious 

footnote” in the recorded history 

of the Church in America. There 

must be more to all this than Hanna 

shows, but the human dynamic in the 

Church, the sweep of ecclesiastical 

history, and God’s everlastingly ironic 

Providence make Broderick’s story 

well worth reading and reflecting 

upon. 

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. 


WITH GRACE 

DR. GRAZIE POZO CHRISTIE 

An honest look at foster care 

Angel Studios, an independent 

media company known for its 

Christian-themed films, made 

a serious splash in Hollywood last year 

with its surprise box office success 

“Sound of Freedom.” The film’s depiction 

of the world of child sex trafficking 

and exploitation made it hard to watch, 

even if some of its most appalling 

details were artfully glossed over. 

The studio’s newest offering, “Sound 

of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot” 

Demetrius Grosse plays 

the Rev. W.C. Martin in the 

movie “Sound of Hope: The 

Story of Possum Trot.” | OSV 

NEWS/ANGEL STUDIOS 

(released in theaters July 4), is more 

of a feel-good project about foster care 

and adoption and the way that charity 

begins at home, but shouldn’t end 

there. 

As a mother by biology and also by 

adoption, I watched the film with great 

interest. I recognized myself easily in 

the main character, a wife and mother 

who is suddenly “called” to bring an 

unrelated child into her family. That, 

I can attest to, is exactly how it goes: 

One day you are busying about your 

life, keeping a thousand plates in the 

air that belong to you by marriage and 

biology; the next, you are itching to go 

find that dented and scratched ceramic 

dish that no one loves on a forgotten 

shelf, and send it shining and bright, 

alongside your own cherished crockery. 

Why shouldn’t the brimming affection 

enjoyed in your family not spill over to 

a child that is facing the world alone? 

Once convinced of the urgency of the 

situation, there is no stopping the desire 

to change your world forever. 

Like the mother in the movie, I also 

had to convince my husband. I think 

we had exactly the same conversations. 

“But dear, don’t you think our lives are 

already chaotic and overfilled?” And 

our response: “God wants us to complicate 

our lives more! Pray about it 

and you’ll see.” And somehow, because 

God is capable of anything, what was 

clear to one person becomes clear to 

her husband, and then to the rest of the 

family and wider community. 

In the “Sound of Hope,” that family 

sets off a firestorm of adoption and 

foster care in their church community. 

More than70 children were eventually 

taken out of the foster care system in 

the area, depleting the entire supply. 

Generosity and audacity are contagious, 

and that love grows not when it is 

hoarded but when it is spread lavishly. 

The movie makes present how the 

blessings in these new relationships 

are mutual, running from child to new 

family and back again, gathering force 

in the back and forth. In adoption, what 

seemed near improbable in contemplation 

becomes obviously pre-ordained 

when the new little one becomes a 

member of the family, with all that 

membership entails. Somehow, it was 

all meant to be exactly as it was, even 


Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie is a mother of five 

who practices radiology in the Miami area. 

though the road was hard, especially for 

the child. 

And that is where “Sound of Hope” 

impressed me the most. When people 

ask me about adoption, I like to give 

them the unvarnished truth. I don’t 

want them to have a rose-tinted or 

romantic view about something that, in 

reality, is often more complicated than 

birthing and raising biological children. 

Adoption is a beautiful answer to the 

problem of a child that finds herself 

alone and unloved. My own child, for 

instance, was abandoned at birth, and 

found wrapped in a little yellow blanket 

on a cold sidewalk in December. The 

intense love we have for her and our 

constant attention and support cannot 

erase that hard beginning of her life. 

She has to carry that with her always. 

And carrying that is hard, even in 

relatively easy circumstances like the 

ones of our adoption. Overcoming 

the natural distrust of a child who has 

been raised for years in an atmosphere 

of abuse and dysfunction (like some of 

the cases depicted in “Sound of Hope”) 

doesn’t happen quickly or without a 

great struggle. 

Even in our own case where the 

primal wound is “only” that of abandonment, 

we have had to help our 

daughter confront difficult questions 

stemming from that act. My husband 

likes to say to her, “I don’t know why 

your father and mother were driven 

to that extremity. I do know that God 

made you for us, and us for you. Of that 

I am certain.” 

In “Sound of Hope,” which is based 

on a true story, we find that same realism. 

We see that the hurts and wounds 

of the children are dressed and tended, 

but the scars remain. This is what foster 

care and adoption is: a calling like any 

other. Not a magic carpet ride into a 

happily-ever-after future but a deeply 

human dive into the heart of love, at 

the urging of the Spirit that knows better 

than us what we are capable of. 

August 9, 2024 • ANGELUS • 27 


SAVING TV FROM ITSELF 

SHUTTERSTOCK 

Our brains have paid a steep price for the comforts of streaming. 

Could Pluto TV be a healthier alternative? 

BY JOSEPH JOYCE 

As the dog days of summer bare 

their fangs, I rub my nipped 

heels and see I am running 

out of time to squeeze in a summer 

romance. It can’t be a woman at this 

rate; I won’t leave my air conditioned 

apartment to sweat out of anxiety on 

top of heat, and women don’t visit the 

apartments of men who still use dish 

soap as hand soap. 

No, ironically enough it seems the 

only way for me to find a new love is 

to embrace the old, and I choose to 

return to Pluto TV. 

Owned by media giant Paramount 

Streaming, Pluto TV is an ad-based 

streaming service, meaning it operates 

much like the traditional cable model. 

It provides more than 200 channels, 

but not the traditional ones like HBO 

and TNT and the ones near the bottom 

past God’s healing light. Rather, 

these are grouped by theme, so you’ll 

have a dozen films playing at one 


time, alongside a dozen classic television 

shows, with a dozen game shows 

and so on and so forth. The service is 

entirely free, paid for by commercials. 

It is the perfect solution for someone 

adrift in the world of streaming, but 

unwilling to return to paying those 

sadists at Comcast. Streaming was like 

manna: a godsend at the time, but 

with the predictable consequences of 

carbs raining from the sky. Streaming 

has made us fat, weak, and distracted, 

like Augustus Gloop dropped into a 

Porto’s Bakery. Pluto TV is not merely 

a matter of saving money, it’s about 

saving your soul. 

To understand why, it’s important to 

accept the paradox that commercials 

are both evil and spiritually edifying. 

Yes, they are the seductive tongue of 

mammon trying to convince us we 

are not complete without purchase, 

but consider how annoying it is to sit 

through them. The 14 hours a day I 

log on X (formally known as Twitter) 

have frayed my attention span to the 

point that even the five-second wait 

on YouTube sends my thumb dancing. 

By comparison, commercials are 

something like a little Lent, small 

denials during your day to remind 

you that life’s delights are not owed to 

you. It is only through the mercy of a 

benevolent God that we have shows at 

all, and not just hours upon hours of 

1-877-Kars 4 Kids. 

Pluto TV also reminds us of the 

magic of scarcity, both in amount and 

time. Streaming promised and delivered 

on unlimited options, putting virtually 

any movie and television show 

at your literal fingertips. In retrospect 

that was its siren song as well as its 

Scylla. Human beings aren’t made for 

such a bounty, our brains short circuit 

at the possibilities. 

When watching a movie now, one 

must allot at least 45 minutes of scrolling 

and second-guessing as part of the 

process. Even when winnowed down 

and watching you are then racked 

with the notorious FOMO (fear of 

missing out). Are you really ready to 

hitch your wagon to Paul Rudd playing 

a clone? To have a couple options 

is to have a couple options; to have a 

million options is to have none at all. 

There’s a “Simpsons” quote from the 

romantically beleaguered Milhouse 

that always stuck with me: “When she 

sees you’ll do anything she says, she’s 

bound to respect you!” Poor Milhouse 

is too young to know that whatever is 

taken easily is taken for granted. Is it 

any wonder we treat our media the 

same way? We no longer watch movies, 

we instead “consume content,” as 

if no more than pigs at a trough. 

Martin Scorsese has publicly stated 

how much he dislikes that terminology, 

and for this reason he is our most 

Catholic director: Scorsese was raised 

when films were actually on film and 

thus harder to screen. 

You might go 10 years between 

seeing “The Rules of the Game,” if 

you ever saw it again. Those transitory 

circumstances gave those films 

a certain sacredness, when you hear 

Scorsese wax on about films you feel 

that reverence yourself. 

Pluto TV has limited inventory and 

an awkward rewinding mechanism 

that isn’t worth tinkering with. You 

must choose your option and operate 

on its pace, putting your phone 

down for once so you don’t miss a 

line you can’t repeat. The other night 

I watched the rightfully forgotten 

Michael Bay film “The Island.” But 

oddly enough, the pageantry of the 

commercials and respect I was forced 

to give as it played once (and only 

once) added to the experience. To my 

immense confusion, I found myself 

enjoying it. It was a useful reminder 

how the easiest way to create reverence 

is to treat something with 

reverence, even Scarlett Johanson as 

yet another clone. 

Yes, I like Pluto TV because I am a 

nostalgic sop. With Pluto TV I feel a 

continuity with the past, a great chain 

of channel surfers throughout the 

generations. The streaming model is 

entirely new and slightly alien. TV 

should be relaxing — and being a 

pioneer is the least relaxing vocation. 

I’m not trying to convince readers 

of the merits of a single ad-based 

streaming option (that would be 

merely a bonus), but rather the need 

to find and embrace the obstinacy in 

your own life. To be suspicious of all 

change is purely reactionary, but to be 

suspicious of none of it makes you an 

easy mark. Every person needs to take 

“To have a couple options is to have a couple 

options; to have a million options is to have none 

at all.” 

their symbolic stand, whether that’s 

crocheting mittens the old-fashioned 

way or rejecting the witchcraft that is 

sabermetrics. 

The old adage tells us to make new 

friends but keep the old: well, television 

is my oldest friend, and we trust 

each other well enough to allow me to 

save TV from itself. 

Joseph Joyce is a screenwriter and freelance 

critic based in Sherman Oaks. 


DESIRE LINES 

HEATHER KING 

When the sun speaks 

“Voewood 2011-2012,” Sunlight 

on wood, 14 parts, by Roger 

Ackling, 1947-2014, British. | © 

ESTATE OF THE ARTIST/COURTESY 

ANNELY JUDA FINE ART, LONDON 

Roger Ackling, British artist (1947- 

2014), sat for hours training the 

sun’s rays through a magnifying 

glass onto pocket-sized pieces of 

salvaged wood. 

The sun burned small dots; the 

scorched dots formed ordered lines. 

The resulting creations are exquisite 

miniatures: “counter, original, spare, 

strange,” to steal a line from Romantic 

poet Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “Pied 

Beauty.” 

Ackling was not a conventional 

believer but his thought, intense focus, 

discipline, refusal to pontificate, and 

sense of humor bespeak a profound 

respect for mystery. 

“Between the Lines: The Work and 

Teaching of Roger Ackling” (Occasional 

Papers, $21), a book of personal 

essays, reflections, reminiscences, and 

photographs edited by Emma Kalkhoven, 

is a good place to start. 

The epigraph, a quote from Ackling, 

runs: 

“As many have for centuries I want to 

offer back into the world an affirmation 

of what is wonderful. … I work on 

the surface but am aware that the spirit 

is often hidden within like a shadow in 

the darkness.” 

In “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” the 

Russian-British philosopher Isaiah 

Berlin posited that there are two types 

of creative thinkers. The fox can juggle 

many different ideas; the hedgehog has 

one big defining idea. 

Roger, his wife Sylvia asserted, was a 

Hedgehog. 

She also described his “once red hair 

and cheerful whiskers.” 

Students clamored to join Ackling’s 

tutorials during which he might read 

aloud some of the cherished quotes 

he’d gathered over the years, throw out 

suggestions that could seem lighthearted 

or even foolish, and ask (rather than 

answer) lots of questions: “Have you 

ever spent a whole day completely on 

your own?” was a favorite. 

From his early 20s, when his sister 

first gave him a magnifying glass, the 

glass became his sole implement, and 

the sun — that is, light — his sole 

medium. 

Ackling didn’t sign his works: “It has 

to get rid of me — I am the only thing 

that brings it into being — I am the 

magnifying glass!” 

His bio consisted of one line: “1947 

Born Isleworth, London.” 

An admirer once suggested that the 

real art perhaps consisted in the wisps 

of smoke that sometimes arose from 

the piece of wood Ackling was holding: 

the thought delighted him. 


Heather King is an award-winning 

author, speaker, and workshop leader. 

In contrast to artists who are constantly 

“pushing the boundaries,” insisted 

Ackling, “I am always making the 

same work.” 

He might have been making the 

same work; if so, it appealed to a wide 

range of people. 

Junji Teraguchi, director of the Hiroshima 

City Museum of Contemporary 

Art, noted that “[T]he various components 

Ackling’s works hold — collecting 

driftwood, concentrating sunlight, 

working outside — give an impression 

close to everyday objects, and sit 

comfortably with Japanese people who 

particularly appreciate flows of time or 

things left unexplained.” 

His works neither damaged, impinged 

upon, nor changed the natural 

world. “Such humility,” Teraguchi 

continued, “seemed to be a goal for 

Roger, not only in his work or practice, 

but also in his whole way of life.” 

He lived for years in Norfolk, an area 

on the east coast of England featuring 

cliffs, shingle, and sea, where he 

could walk the beach and collect small 

scraps of driftwood. He chose them not 

so much for their beauty as for signs 

that they’d been used by humans and 

discarded. 

Working always from left to right, 

Ackling sat, perfectly still and for 

hours, with the sun over his right 

shoulder. The resulting piece might 

be marked, variously, by grooves, lines, 

triangles, crosses, squares, grids, or diamonds. 

The shape of the work might 

be cylindrical, columnar, a cube; a 

flat stick, a rectangular wooden tile, a 

pyramid. A nail might protrude from 

an upper corner. 

To see several of the pieces arranged 

against a white wall gives rise to an 

involuntary “Ah!” 

They bespeak a tenderness, a vulnerability, 

a group of sublime child’s toys 

made by someone who to the marrow 

of his bones loved children (though 

Ackling apparently had none of his 

own). 

They also evoke the rigor and order of 

a Bach fugue; the simplicity of Quaker 

furniture; and the shadows, rusticity, 

and weathered-patina imperfection 

treasured by, again, the Japanese. 

His art speaks of landscape, time, 

space, the beauty of everyday objects; 

of the here and now and of eternity. It 

doesn’t make “statements”: It leads us 

subtly to question our ways of living, 

being, consuming. How do we spend 

our days? To what do we give our 

attention? 

Still, Ackling resolutely refused to 

style himself a kind of Zen guru: 

“People used to say to me ‘your work 

is some form of meditation.’ Well, it’s 

not. I now let my mind do whatever it 

wants to do and the enjoyable thing is 

that it doesn’t want to do very much. 

Of course, one of the things that is 

often not discussed in relationship to 

landscape is that the outside world in 

some ways is an outer reflection of an 

inner state. When they come together 

seems an ideal moment.” 

To arrive at that ideal moment requires 

a lifetime of monk-like devotion. 

Ackling resisted ascribing any 

particular meaning or purpose to his 

work. But before dying at age 66 from 

motor neurone disease, he managed to 

capture on wood a love letter from the 

universe; to burn into being a message 

beamed across 93 million miles. 

He allowed the sun to speak. 


LETTER AND SPIRIT 

SCOTT HAHN 

Scott Hahn is founder of the 

St. Paul Center for Biblical 

Theology; stpaulcenter.com. 

St. Maximilian Kolbe: Marian to the max 

I’m often asked to list the theologians who have influenced 

me most, and I confess to being fickle. 

The list changes. In any given instance, it’s more likely 

to highlight the thinkers who are most influencing my 

work that week. I have thousands of volumes in my library, 

and so many of those books are on my shelves because their 

authors have affected me 

in some way. 

But a few theologians 

are constant, and St. Father 

Maximilian Kolbe is 

one of them. 

When I do mention 

him, the typical response 

is surprise. People know 

him as a hero. He was 

the prisoner at Auschwitz 

who volunteered to die 

in the place of a man 

who had been condemned. 

For the sake 

of another prisoner — a 

husband and father — 

Kolbe suffered two weeks 

of torture before dying. 

His heroism is undeniable. 

By no standard 

was he morally obliged 

to step forward. No one 

would have faulted him 

if he had stood silently 

along with the other 

men from his barracks. 

In fact, he would have 

been praised for successful 

self-preservation. 

But by laying down 

his life for another, he 

witnessed to the sheer 

gratuity of Jesus’ sacrifice. 

He is justly praised and best known for that action. 

Few people, however, know that he was a pioneering and 

daring theologian, especially in the field of Mariology. At 

the time of his arrest, he was planning a systematic exploration 

of the field, with special emphasis on the Blessed 

Virgin’s relations with the Persons of the Trinity. He was 

prevented from following through on his outline, but after 

his death his brother Franciscans gathered relevant writings 

from his articles and letters. 

He wrote of the Holy Spirit as the “uncreated Immaculate 

Conception” uniquely 

conformed to Mary, who 

is the “created Immaculate 

Conception.” 

She was, for him, the 

“creature most completely 

filled with this love, 

filled with God himself 

... United to the Holy 

Spirit …, she is one with 

God in an incomparably 

more perfect way than 

can be predicated of any 

other creature.” 

For decades now, 

Maximilian has been a 

guide to me. I bring him 

up this month because 

he died on Aug. 14, the 

day before we celebrate 

the Assumption of Mary 

and a few days before the 

feast of her queenship. I 

think it’s beautiful that 

he is so closely united to 

the Blessed Virgin, even 

on the calendar. 

Get to know him this 

month! He’ll help you to 

Commemoration of St. Father 

Maximilian Maria Kolbe at the chapel 

of St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe in Sanok, 

Poland. | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

better know her. 

And please pray for me 

as I make a pilgrimage 

this month to Poland, 

the land where Maximilian 

was born and died. 

I promise to remember you to him — and the Blessed 

Virgin, who is always nearby — and to St. Pope John Paul 

II and Blessed Stefan Wyszynski. I am profoundly devoted 

to the saints of Poland. 


■ 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. 


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 

Eddie Hilley: 50 Years of Liturgical Music Celebration. 

St. Agatha Church, 2646 S. Mansfield Ave., Los Angeles, 

10 a.m. A celebration of the career of Eddie Hilley, who has 

been in the music ministry in Los Angeles since 1974. Call 

the parish office at 323-935-8127 for more information. 

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. 


Catholic Singles Network Rotational Brunch. Coyote 

Hills Golf Course, 1440 E. Bastanchury Rd., Fullerton, 

10:30 a.m –2:30 p.m. Come meet new people. Mingling 

will be maximized at the brunch by having attendees rotate 

to different tables. Call Celeste at 661-916-2727 or visit 

CatholicSinglesNetwork.com. 


Kontrapunktus Presents “Bach & Telemann: Collegium 

Musicum.” St. Andrew Church, 311 N. Raymond Ave., 

Pasadena, 8 p.m. Featuring soloist Aubree Oliverson. Cost: 

$25/person. Visit kontrapunktus.com/tickets. 


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. 


Kontrapunktus Presents “Bach & Telemann: Collegium 

Musicum.” Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 W. 

Temple St., Los Angeles, 7 p.m. Featuring soloist Aubree 

Oliverson. Cost: $25/person. Visit kontrapunktus.com/ 

tickets. 

■ 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. 


Centennial Celebration of the Sisters of Notre Dame in 

California. St. Paschal Baylon Church, 155 E. Janss Rd., 

Thousand Oaks, 11:30 a.m. Mass celebrated by Archbishop 

José H. Gomez, followed by a reception in the parish 

hall. Learn more at sndusa.org/ca100. 

■ TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3 

Pilgrimage of Mercy. Vilnius, Lithuania. Pilgrimage runs 

Sept. 3-14. Participants will visit the mission house of St. 

Faustina and the original image of the Divine Mercy, as 

well as several shrines and religious sites. For details and 

reservations, call the St. Casimir Church office at 323-664- 

4660. 

■ THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 

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, SEPTEMBER 7 

“One Mother, Many Peoples” Marian Rosary and Mass. 

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., 

Los Angeles, 10 a.m. procession and bilingual rosary, 11 

a.m. Mass celebrated by Archbishop José H. Gomez. 

Mass of Remembrance: Healing After Suicide Loss. 

St. Agnes Church, 2625 Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, 10 

a.m.-12 p.m. All are welcome for a special bilingual Mass 

in memory of loved ones lost to suicide. Small reception to 

follow. Call St. Agnes Church at 323-731-2464. 

Catholic Singles Network Rotational Luncheon. Odyssey 

Restaurant, 15600 Odyssey Dr., Granada Hills, 12 p.m -4 

p.m. Come meet new people. Mingling will be maximized 

at the luncheon by having diners rotate to different tables. 

Call Celeste at 661-916-2727 or visit CatholicSinglesNetwork.com. 

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 | August 9, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 16

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