Angelus News | September 6, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 18

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IN OTHER WORDS...
Letters to the Editor
Wealth, weddings, and sin
Thanks to Robert Brennan for his Aug. 21 column in AngelusNews.
com (“This $600 million wedding doesn’t compare to my parents’
nuptials”) on the simplicity and sincerity of his parents’ wedding prompted by an
extravagant wedding of two super-rich persons.
His references to the opulence portrayed in “The Great Gatsby” were spot on.
U.S. billionaires do not have a monopoly, in the words of the economist Thorstein
Veblen, on “conspicuous consumption.” Rulers and oligarchs from Solomon
through Louis XIV have created spectacles of individual and family wealth, manifesting
that cardinal sin: pride.
But there have been rich saints such as St. Louis of France, St. Charles Borromeo
of Milan, and St. Thomas More of England. Each of us, whatever our
wealth, should reflect on our resources to identify what more we can do in light of
Matthew 25:31–46.
— Phil Argento, Pasadena
Voting for life
Regarding “More than a swing vote” by John L. Allen Jr in the Aug. 9 issue:
When voting this fall, remember that in the spring Vice President Kamala Harris
traveled to several states in the “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms Tour” to stump
for legal abortion.
She visited a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Minnesota and praised the
staff for its “true leadership” in providing health care. Harris never dropped by a
pregnancy center to speak with women who chose life. Her values are not Catholic
values.
— Sally Carpenter, Moorpark
Y
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Day for deacons
Deacons and their wives pose after a special Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on Aug. 10 to celebrate
the feast day of St. Lawrence, the notable third-century deacon and martyr. | VICTOR ALEMÁN
View more photos
from this gallery at
AngelusNews.com/photos-videos
Do you have photos or a story from your parish that you’d
like to share? Please send to editorial @angelusnews.com.
“Let’s be on every corner
[in Los Angeles] so that if
someone is looking for a
connection with God, we’re
there.”
~ Father Joseph Fitzgerald, chaplain for the Paris
Olympics, in an Aug. 20 OSV News article on
Catholics getting ready to evangelize at LA’s 2028
Games.
“We’re like a tiny fly in their
soup.”
~ Sister Barbara McCracken, in an Aug. 23 Zenit
article on a group of sisters challenging major
corporations to change their business practices.
“If there’s one thing the
monks taught me, it’s to
move at what I call God
speed.”
~ Carlos Whittaker, author and former worship
pastor, in an Aug. 23 Religion News Service article
on what happened when he spent seven weeks
screen-free.
“People want the
supernatural, they want
the strange, they want
what they don’t get out of a
Labour Party manifesto.”
~ British historian Tom Holland in an August cover
story in The New Statesman on “Why religion is
thriving in a non-believing age.”
“Liking someone’s post
is not the same as sitting
face-to-face and listening to
their life’s journey.”
~ Newt Crenshaw, in an Aug. 23 Relevant Magazine
commentary on how the Church can help this
generation’s mental health crisis.
September 6, 2024 • ANGELUS • 7