Angelus News | January 24, 2025 | Vol. 10 No. 2

ANGELUS

January 24, 2025 Vol. 10 No. 2

January 24, 2025

Vol. 10 • No. 2

3424 Wilshire Blvd.,

Los Angeles, CA 90010-2241

(213) 637-7360 • FAX (213) 637-6360

Published by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese

of Los Angeles by The Tidings

(a corporation), established 1895.

ANGELUS

Publisher

ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ

Vice Chancellor for Communications

DAVID SCOTT

Editor-in-Chief

PABLO KAY

pkay@angelusnews.com

Associate Editor

MIKE CISNEROS

Multimedia Editor

TAMARA LONG GARCÍA

Production Artist

ARACELI CHAVEZ

Photo Editor

VICTOR ALEMÁN

Managing Editor

RICHARD G. BEEMER

Assistant Editor

HANNAH SWENSON

Advertising Manager

JIM GARCIA

jagarcia@angelusnews.com

ANGELUS is published biweekly by The

Tidings (a corporation), established 1895.

Periodicals postage paid at Los Angeles,

California. One-year subscriptions (26

issues), $30.00; single copies, $3.00

© 2021 ANGELUS (2473-2699). No part of this

publication may be reproduced without the written

permission of the publisher. Events and products

advertised in ANGELUS do not carry the implicit

endorsement of The Tidings Corporation or the

Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to:

ANGELUS, PO Box 306, Congers, NY 10920-0306.

For Subscription and Delivery information, please

call (844) 245-6630 (Mon - Fri, 7 am-4 pm PT).

FOLLOW US

facebook.com/AngelusNews

info@angelusnews.com

Angelus News

@AngelusNews

@AngelusNews

angelusnews.com

lacatholics.org

Sign up for our free, daily e-newsletter

Always Forward - newsletter.angelusnews.com

ON THE COVER

JACK MCGEAGH

A statue of the Virgin Mary remained standing after the

Palisades Fire destroyed the home of Jack and Tracy McGeagh

in Pacific Palisades. As wind-driven fires devastated parts of

Los Angeles County beginning Jan. 7, Angelus provided comprehensive

news coverage of the response by LA Catholics.

A selection of those stories can be found starting on Page 10.

Included on Page 17 is the remarkable story behind the image

used for this issue’s cover.

THIS PAGE

VICTOR ALEMÁN

Msgr. Liam Kidney, pastor of Corpus Christi

Church in Pacific Palisades, embraces a parishioner

at a Jan. 9 Mass at the Cathedral of Our

Lady of the Angels offered for first responders

and people affected by the fires. Corpus

Christi’s church building was destroyed in the

Palisades Fire two days before.

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

22

24

26

28

30

Mike Aquilina on what it means to go into ‘Jubilee mode’ this year

John Allen: The echoes of Jimmy Carter in modern Vatican diplomacy

Greg Erlandson’s elegy for Pacific Palisades’ ‘Paradise lost’

Grazie Pozo Christie on the questions and answers behind rising Bible sales

‘A Complete Unknown’ nails the mystery of Bob Dylan’s music

Heather King on the hints of eternity in still-life painting

January 24, 2025 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH

2025’s first-round picks

Pope Francis kicked off the new

year with a pair of high-profile

personnel appointments in the

U.S. and Rome.

On the morning of Jan. 6, the Vatican

announced the pope had appointed

Cardinal Robert McElroy of San

Diego as the next archbishop of Washington,

D.C., succeeding 77-year-old

Cardinal Wilton Gregory.

McElroy, 70, is known for his

advocacy for migrants and his progressive

views on so-called “hot-button”

Church issues. He has expressed

support for ordaining women deacons

and changes to Church teaching on

sexuality, especially relating to people

who identify as “LGBT.”

“It is becoming clear that on some

issues, the understanding of human

nature and moral reality upon which

previous declarations of doctrine were

made were in fact limited or defective,”

McElroy said last year.

He has also been a critic of President-elect

Donald Trump, who takes

office for his second term on Jan. 20.

His appointment was interpreted by

some as a response to Trump’s recent

reelection and to the Republican’s

nomination of Brian Burch as the

next U.S. ambassador to the Holy See.

Burch is the president of Catholic-

Vote, a political advocacy organization

supportive of Trump and sometimes

critical of Francis.

Speaking in Washington, D.C., the

morning of the appointment, McElroy

called for “greater unity in the political

and cultural sphere” when asked about

working with the Trump administration.

“I pray that President Trump’s administration

and all those state and local

legislatures and governors across the

whole of the country will work together

to make our nation truly better, and

to talk through the major issues that

we face.”

That same day, Francis also appointed

the first woman to ever lead a

major Vatican department: 59-year-old

Sister Simona Brambilla, a Consolata

Missionary Sister from Italy, who will

be the prefect of the Dicastery for the

Institutes of Consecrated Life and the

Societies of Apostolic Life.

The dicastery handles matters

involving religious orders, including

deciding cases when a vowed member

of a religious order asks to leave or is

asked by the community to leave, for

example.

The pope also named Spanish Cardinal

Ángel Fernández Artime, 65, as the

dicastery’s “pro-prefect,” which literally

means “in the place of,” and in practice

makes him its No. 2 official after

Brambilla. While it is not immediately

clear what exactly Artime’s role will

consist of, it is expected that he will

exercise authority in situations within

the dicastery “that call for the exercise

of [holy] orders” and “individual

situations involving the internal forum

and the sacrament of reconciliation,”

canon lawyer and Mercy Sister Sharon

Euart told Catholic News Service.

According to Vatican statistics, there

are close to 600,000 professed women

religious in the Catholic Church,

about 128,500 religious order priests,

and close to 50,000 religious brothers.

Reporting courtesy of Angelus Staff

and Catholic News Service.

Papal Prayer Intention for January: Let us pray for migrants,

refugees, and those affected by war, that their right to an

education, which is necessary to build a better world, might

always be respected.

2 • ANGELUS • January 24, 2025

NEW WORLD OF FAITH

ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ

Finding God in the wildfires

My heart is heavy for all of you

who are suffering because

of the wildfires that are still

burning in the mountains and along the

sea. These days are a trial for our great

city and for the family of God here in

the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

As the firestorm first hit, I offered a

series of Masses to pray for you and our

neighbors and for the brave men and

women working to put these fires out

and keep us safe.

It was an emotional experience for me

to meet those of you who have lost so

much: loved ones and homes, businesses

and livelihoods; parishes, schools,

and neighborhoods. It makes me deeply

sad to see thousands of LA Catholics

and other Angelenos living like refugees

and displaced persons in their own

hometowns.

We are just beginning to understand

the magnitude of the destruction and

disruption. These fires have reduced

people’s worldly possessions and their

most precious memories to ashes and

left their futures uncertain. Officials

say it may take years to rebuild and that

many of our communities may never

look the same.

In times like this, it’s understandable

that we might question God’s love for

us, to wonder where he is while good

people are suffering. Why does God

allow evil? Why does he allow natural

disasters like wildfires and hurricanes,

earthquakes, and floods?

There are no easy answers. But

that does not mean that there are no

answers.

Jesus taught us that God is our Father

and that he holds all creation in his

loving hands. He promised that not a

single sparrow falls from the sky without

our Father knowing. Then he reminded

us: You are worth so much more than

any sparrow.

You are precious to God, each of you.

You are so precious to God that he sent

his only Son into the world to die on

the cross for you. We need to cling to

this truth when hardships and sufferings

come.

Jesus knows our hopes and dreams and

struggles. He is near to us in our joys

and in our sorrows.

He has only one will for our lives:

that we grow in holiness and love and

become saints who share his love here

on earth and live forever with him in

heaven. Everything that happens, everything

he allows, comes from his love for

us and his desire for our salvation.

This is not an easy answer, but it is the

truth.

The saints teach that while God himself

cannot suffer, he does suffer with us.

This is the beautiful truth of the cross.

By dying and rising from the dead, Jesus

showed us that God can bring good out

of even the greatest evil.

And because Jesus conquered death,

our own sufferings can find meaning

and purpose when we join them with

his.

Every crisis is a crossroads. And in every

crisis we have a decision to make.

We can respond with anger and despair,

and that’s a natural temptation.

Or we can decide to accept our sufferings

as somehow sharing in the sufferings

of Jesus, who suffers for us and

with us and who will never abandon us

no matter how dark the path may seem.

Even when we have been left with

little, we still have love to give.

We can “offer up” our sufferings in

a spirit of love and sacrifice for our

neighbors. We can make a gift of our

lives to suffer alongside others, supporting

them in their struggles.

Again, the saints teach us that the

sacrifices we make for others can bear

By dying and rising from the dead, Jesus showed

us that God can bring good out of even the

greatest evil.

fruits of love and compassion when we

unite ourselves to Jesus’ sufferings. In a

mysterious way, what we offer in love

becomes part of the great treasury of

compassion that flows from his sufferings

on the cross.

Already in this firestorm, we see the

Lord raising up heroic witnesses.

I’m thinking of the family down on

their knees in the place where their

home once stood, giving thanks to God

and Our Lady for sparing them; the

parishioners who risked their lives to put

out the fire on the church roof; and the

firefighters who rescued the tabernacle

from a burning church.

We will hear more stories like this in

the days ahead. There will be many

more sacrifices of love that we will

never hear of, all the hidden offerings

of parents for their children, all the little

unseen acts of kindness in our homes

and communities.

Let’s keep helping and supporting one

another, let’s keep working together so

that our neighbors will know the truth

of God’s love in this hour of devastation

and loss.

Pray for me, and I will pray for you.

And let us ask Our Blessed Mother to

protect and guide us.

Our Lady, Queen of Angels: Be a

mother to us all!


WORLD

■ Spain’s saintly architect?

Antoni Gaudí, the Spanish architect who designed

Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia Basilica, is

one step closer to sainthood.

The Archdiocese of Barcelona announced in

December that the opening stages of the architect’s

cause have entered its “final process,”

after sending a formal report to the Vatican’s

Dicastery for the Causes of the Saints to

declare Gaudí venerable.

Born in 1855, Gaudí is known best for his

modernist and naturalist architectural styles.

But he has also come to be known as a “great

mystic,” especially since investigations into

his potential sainthood began in 1992. Pope

Francis has publicly said he’d like to see the

architect’s cause move forward.

Gaudí’s seminal work, the Sagrada Familia

church in Barcelona, has been under

construction for more than 100 years but is expected

to be done in 2026, the 100th anniversary

of Gaudi’s death. It was while working on

the basilica that Gaudí reportedly increased

his devotion to prayer and the sacraments.

■ Brazilian nun now

oldest living person

Brazilian nun Inah Canabarro,

117, took the title of oldest living

person following the death

of Japan’s Tomiko Itooka in

December.

Born in Brazil on June 8, 1908,

many believed the skinny child

would not survive into adulthood,

according to 84-year-old

nephew Cleber Canabarro.

Instead, she has led a full life

of religious life as a Carmelite

sister, teaching and leading two

school marching bands.

“I’m young, pretty, and friendly

— all very good, positive qualities

that you have too,” Canabarro

reportedly said to the visitors

Carmelite Sister Inah Canabarro Lucas in February 2024. |

OSV NEWS/CARLO MACEDO/LONGEVIQUEST VIA REUTERS

to her retirement home in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre.

Canabarro cites her Catholic faith as the secret to her longevity. And each

year, her favorite soccer club, Sport Club Internacional, celebrates her as

their oldest fan with gifts that adorn her room.

Looking for a miracle — Filipino Catholics jostle to touch the carriage carrying the statue of the Black Nazarene

during the annual procession on its feast day in Manila Jan. 9. Many have attributed miracles to the wooden

statue, which was carved in Mexico and brought to the Philippine capital early in the 17th century. This year’s

procession drew millions of people, leading authorities to briefly shut down the local mobile phone network to

prevent security threats. | OSV NEWS/ELOISA LOPEZ, REUTERS

■ India: Christian leaders

call for action after

Christmas attacks

A group of more than 400 Christian

leaders in India representing 30

Church groups has appealed to government

leaders to address anti-Christian

violence.

At least 14 instances involving radical

Hindu groups were reported over the

Christmas celebrations. One radical

influencer posted a video of himself entering

a church and shouting “Jai Shri

Ram,” or “Victory to Lord Rama,” from

the altar. According to the Evangelical

Fellowship of India, 720 instances of violence

against Christians were reported

in 2024.

In a Dec. 31 appeal, the Christian

leaders called on President Groupadi

Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra

Modi to investigate and take immediate

action to address rising intolerance.

Recently, critics have alleged that the

government is using anti-conversion

laws to persecute Christian groups, and

that Christians of lower castes are excluded

from protected minority status.


NATION

An expanded FOCUS — Attendees kneel in prayer during SEEK25 in Washington, D.C., Jan. 3. Each year the

Fellowship of Catholic University Students, known as FOCUS, holds the annual SEEK conference to bring

together thousands of its campus missionaries and college students from across the nation. For 2025, it was held

Jan. 1-5 in Salt Lake City and Jan. 2-5 in Washington. | OSV NEWS/COURTESY FOCUS

■ ‘The Rosary in a Year’

podcast starts 2025 on top

Podcast listeners kicked off the new

year launching a Franciscan priest to

Apple Podcasts’ top slot.

“The Rosary in a Year,” hosted by Father

Mark-Mary Ames and produced by

Ascension Press, held the top spot for

three consecutive days before dropping

to No. 2 on Jan. 4. It beat out popular

secular podcasts including New York

Times’ “The Daily,” NBC’s “Dateline,”

and “The Joe Rogan Experience.”

The show walks listeners through the

history, structure, and mysteries of the

rosary in short, daily episodes.

Ames told Fox News he believes that

God wants to do “something particular”

through Mary.

“I think the number one thing is [that]

there seems to be some sort of special

grace given by God to the rosary where

he wants to do some special work. And

the rosary is the thing that unlocks it. It

opens the door to grace.”

■ An outgoing president’s

final gesture to ‘the

People’s Pope’

President Joe Biden called Pope Francis

“the people’s pope” as he awarded him

the Presidential Medal of Freedom with

Distinction, the nation’s highest civilian

honor.

Biden, a Catholic, made the announcement

on Jan. 11, days before President-elect

Donald Trump was inaugurated.

“The first pope from the Southern Hemisphere,

Pope Francis is unlike any who

came before. Above all, he is the People’s

Pope — a light of faith, hope, and love

that shines brightly across the world.”

A few weeks earlier, Biden commuted

the death sentences of 37 federal prisoners

to life imprisonment following personal

appeals from the pope, leaving only three

federal prisoners involved in mass killings

with a death sentence.

Biden had to cancel a Jan. 9-12 trip to

Italy and a planned visit with Francis to

focus on the federal response to the Los

Angeles wildfires.

■ New Orleans cathedral hosts

interfaith service after terrorist attack

New Orleans’ Catholic archbishop told mourners of the New Year’s terrorist

attack that God “embraces you in love in the midst of your sorrow, and helps

you to wipe your tears, for you do not do that alone.”

Archbishop Gregory Aymond led prayers at a Jan. 6 interfaith prayer service inside

the city’s Catholic cathedral for victims of the attack, in which a Texas man

drove a car into a crowd of partygoers, killing 14 and injuring 35.

Among those at the service was President Joe Biden.

“I promise

you, the day will

come when the

memory of your

loved one will

bring a smile to

your lips before a

tear to your eye,”

Biden said. “My

prayer is that

that day comes

sooner rather

than later, but it

will come, and

when it does,

[that] you might

find purpose in

your pain.”

President Joe Biden, first lady Jill Biden, and New Orleans Archbishop Gregory M.

Aymond arrive at the Jan. 6 prayer service at St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. | OSV

NEWS/KEVIN LAMARQUE, REUTERS


LOCAL

■ St. Brigid parishioner

awarded at MLK prayer

breakfast

A St. Brigid Church parishioner was

honored as the African American Catholic

Center for Evangelization hosted

its 31st annual Dr. Martin Luther King

Jr. Prayer Breakfast on Jan. 11.

Floy Hawkins, a longtime parishioner

at St. Brigid, was presented the Drum

Major Award for her evangelization and

community service. Hawkins was the

director of religious education for 22

years at St. Brigid and is also a counselor

at LA Southwest College.

“It’s a family effort,” Hawkins said. “We

are doing God’s work as a community.”

Michael Howard and Robert Hurteau

of Loyola Marymount University also

spoke at the annual MLK event.

The AACCFE annually organizes

parish and archdiocesan-wide events to

promote evangelization and celebrate

the contributions of the African American

Catholic community.

Smell the roses — The combined marching band of local Catholic high schools — Don Bosco Tech, Salesian, St.

John Bosco — along with their cheer teams, pose in front of the Rose Bowl in Pasadena as they performed at the

136th annual Rose Parade on New Year’s Day. | SALESIAN HIGH SCHOOL

Y

■ Angelus

editor’s

photos

featured in

cathedral

exhibit

Visitors stop by

Victor Alemán’s

cathedral exhibit. |

VICTOR ALEMÁN

As part of

celebrating the

Vatican’s Jubilee

Year for 2025,

the Cathedral of

Our Lady of the

Angels is hosting

a new art exhibit

by award-winning visual artist Victor Alemán, photo editor at Angelus News,

to share stories of faith by the people who worship at the cathedral since its

dedication on Sept. 2, 2002.

The photography exhibit, titled “House of Prayer for All People,” will be open

to the public inside the cathedral through January.

Alemán has been working with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for more than

30 years.

“I am honored that the cathedral chose this exhibit as our Church worldwide

begins the Jubilee Year,” Alemán said. “The scenes depicted in the exhibition

reflect the theme of the Jubilee, ‘Pilgrims of Hope,’ as we are all called to share

hope in the experiences we share together as a family of God.”

Learn more about local Jubilee Year events at hope.lacatholics.org.

■ Exiled Nicaraguan

bishop returns to LA to

preach peace

Exiled Nicaraguan Bishop Silvio Báez

returned to St. Vincent de Paul Church

in Los Angeles for the second straight

year to ask for prayer and a “miracle” to

see his country “liberated.”

At a Mass he presided over on Jan. 4,

Báez urged those in attendance and all

Nicaraguans to “not lose hope” in finding

peace and prosperity for the country,

which has been plagued by widespread

repression and persecution against

priests and Catholic institutions from

the regime of socialist President Daniel

Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo.

“Let us not forget our country, let us

not forget our people, especially in

prayer,” Báez said. “The times we are

living are of great uncertainty, of great

darkness.”

Báez also visited LA in January 2024

when he celebrated Mass with another

exiled priest, Father Edwing Román, at

St. Vincent de Paul Church in Exposition

Park.


V

IN OTHER WORDS...

Letters to the Editor

Honest and straightforward talk

Bravo to Heather King (“The perils of linguistic subterfuge,” Dec. 27,

2024) for daring to tell it like it is.

People become so easily brainwashed by these misleading expressions, like “gender-affirming.”

“Pro-choice” is another example. It sounds so attractive. Who doesn’t want choices?

What they really mean, though, is “pro-abortion.”

The author’s quote from Plato on the “sophists” is priceless.

There have always been those who twist words to plant falsehoods in the minds

of their listeners, beginning with the original word-twister, who pulled off the first

and biggest hoax in the Garden of Eden.

— Marilyn Boussaid, St. James Church, Redondo Beach

Gratitude for online coverage of the fires

Thank you for your AngelusNews.com coverage of the Palisades Fire and the

destruction of Corpus Christi Church. I have been following it closely and appreciate

your up-to-date reports.

— Silvia Gutierrez, Gardena

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.

Christmas care

“God will not be in the fire,

but in the kol d’mamah

dakah — voices coming out

of silence.”

~ Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin, in a Jan. 9 Religion News

Service commentary on the fires burning in

Southern California.

“We wanted to give

Catholics an alternative to

the swiping apps.”

~ Taylor O’Brien, co-founder of the Catholic dating

app Candid, on organizing a massive speed dating

event at the SEEK 25 conference in Utah.

“We want men who are

going to take care of the

Church and not rely on

the Church to take care of

them.”

~ Fadi Auro, director of pre-theology at Kenrick-

Glennon Seminary in Missouri, in a Jan. 10

National Catholic Register commentary on forming

seminarians.

“I’ll eat my words (and a

snack before I go to bed).”

~ Adrienne So, in a Jan. 7 Wired commentary on

the rise of technology tracking every aspect of your

health.

Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez hands copies of “The Recovery Rosary” book to inmates at LA Men’s Central

Jail during his annual visit and Mass on Christmas Day 2024. | 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.

“Not only an insult to the

memory of a devoutly

believing Christian,

but an indicator of the

spinelessness of too much

of established religion in

our country.”

~ Bishop Robert Barron on the rendition of John

Lennon’s “Imagine,” which has been interpreted

as criticizing religion, at President Jimmy Carter’s

funeral.


IN EXILE

FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI

Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father

Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual

writer; ronrolheiser.com

Coming to peace with lack of recognition

We crave few things as deeply

as self-expression and recognition.

We have an irrepressible

need to express ourselves, be

known, recognized, understood, and

seen by others as unique, gifted, and

significant. A heart that is unknown,

unappreciated in its depth, lacking

in meaningful self-expression and

recognition, is prone to restlessness,

frustration, and bitterness. And, truth

be told, self-expression is difficult and

full self-expression is impossible.

In the end, for most of us, our lives

are always smaller than our needs

and our dreams, no matter where

we live or what we accomplish. In

our daydreams each of us would like

to be famous, the renowned writer,

the graceful ballerina, the admired

athlete, the movie star, the cover girl,

the renowned scholar, the Nobel

Prize winner, the household name;

but in the end, most of us remain just

another unknown, living among other

unknowns, collecting an occasional

autograph.

And so, our lives can seem too small

for us. We feel ourselves as extraordinary,

forever trapped inside the

mundane, even as there is something

inside us that still seeks expression,

that still seeks recognition, and that

feels that something precious inside

of us is living and dying in futility.

In truth, seen only from the perspective

of this world, much of what is

precious, unique, and rich, seemingly

is living and dying in futility. Only a

rare few achieve satisfying self-expression

and recognition.

There’s a certain martyrdom in this.

Iris Murdoch once said, “Art has its

martyrs, not the least of which are

those who have preserved their silence.”

Lack of self-expression, whether

chosen or imposed by circumstances,

is a real death; but like all deaths it

can be understood and appropriated

in very different ways.

If it is accepted unhappily as tragic,

it leads to bitterness and a broken

spirit. If, however, it is understood and

appropriated in faith as an invitation

to be a hidden cell inside the Body

of Christ and the human family, to

anonymously provide sustenance and

health to the overall body, it can lead

to restfulness, gratitude, and a sense

of significance that lays the axe to the

roots of our frustration, disappointment,

depression, and bitterness.

I say this because much of what gives

us life and sustains us in our lives

has not been provided by the rich

and famous, the high achievers, and

those to whom history gives credit.

As George Eliot points out, we don’t

need to do great things that leave a

big mark in human history because

“the growing good of the world is

partly dependent on unhistoric acts;

and that things are not so ill with you

and me as they might have been is

half owing to the number who lived

faithfully a hidden life and rest in

unvisited tombs.”

Well said. History bears this out.

I think, for instance, of Thérèse of

Lisieux, who lived out her life in

obscurity in a little convent tucked

away in rural France, who when she

died at age 24, was probably known

by fewer than 100 people. In terms of

how we assess things in this world she

accomplished very little, nothing in

terms of outstanding achievement or

visible contribution. She entered the

convent at age 15 and spent the years

until her early death doing menial

things in the laundry, kitchen, and

garden inside her obscure convent.

The only tangible possession she left

behind was a diary, a personal journal

with bad spelling, which told the story

of her family, her upbringing, and

what she experienced during her last

months in palliative care as she faced

death.

But what she did leave behind is

something that has made her a figure

who is now renowned around the

world, both inside and outside of

faith circles. Her little private journal,

“The Story of a Soul,” has touched

millions of lives, despite its bad spelling

(which had to be corrected by her

sisters after her death).

What gives her little journal its

unique power to touch hearts is that it

chronicles what was happening inside

the privacy of her own soul during

all those years when she was hidden

away and unknown, as a child and as

a nun. What she records in the story

of her soul is that she, fully aware of

her own uniqueness and preciousness,

could unbegrudgingly give that all

over in faith because she trusted that

her gifts and talents were working

silently (and powerfully) inside a

mystical (though real, organic) body,

the Body of Christ, and of humanity.

She understood herself as a cell inside

a living body, giving over what was

precious and unique inside her for the

good of the world.

Anonymity offers us this invitation.

There is no greater work of art that

one can give to the world.

Jesus said as much. He told us to do

our good deeds in secret and not let

our left hand (and our neighbors and

the world) know what our right hand

is doing.



An aerial photo shows homes and businesses

reduced to rubble by the Palisades

Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood

of Los Angeles on Jan. 10. | DAVID SWAN-

SON/AFP VIA GETTY

‘GOD

As fires devastated entire communities, LA

Catholics experienced disruption, destruction,

and heartbreak. But they also answered with

courage and hope. Here are their stories.

STILL

LOVES

US’

Entire neighborhoods reduced to

ash. Families with no home to

return to. The incinerated remains

of people trapped in the homes

they once built.

The agonizing images of the

wind-driven fires that claimed dozens

of lives and destroyed thousands of

homes in Los Angeles County in

the first days of 2025 told a story of

unthinkable catastrophe, on a scale

perhaps even larger than the 1994

Northridge Earthquake or the LA

Riots two years before.

But for every scene of horror and

heartbreak, there were also moments

of courage and hope that seemed to

offer hints of an answer to the first

question on everyone’s mind: Why?

Since the first reports of the Palisades

Fire’s path of destruction emerged

on Tuesday, Jan. 7, Angelus worked

around the clock to keep online readers

of AngelusNews.com informed of

what the fires meant for Catholics in

Los Angeles: the buildings lost, the

schools closed, the people saved, and

parishes doubling as rest stations or

donation centers for survivors with

nothing left.

In the following pages, we gathered a

few select pieces of our reporting and

photographs that help tell those stories

— even as at time of publication, fires

were still burning, dangerous weather

conditions remained, and uncertainty

surrounded the rebuilding that lies

ahead.

Victims of the Palisades Fire hug during a special Mass for the burned-down Corpus Christi Church at St. Monica Church in Santa Monica on Jan. 12. | VICTOR ALEMÁN


The Palisades Fire’s toll: ‘It still hasn’t

sunk in yet’

Corpus Christi Catholic Church was

built in the heart of Pacific Palisades

in the 1950s. Over the years, it became

the spiritual home to generations of

hardworking families (and a few celebrities)

who worshipped on Sundays

and sent their children to its school on

weekdays.

By the end of the first night of the

fires, it was gone.

Palisades native and Corpus Christi

parishioner Sam Laganà was one of the

last people to see the church that night

of Jan. 7 before it was completely gone,

escaping just after 11 p.m. after using

water from his garden hose and jacuzzi

to successfully defend his home of 28

years.

parish school was mostly spared, apart

from its gym.

Speaking to Angelus after the cathedral

Mass, Corpus Christi pastor Msgr.

Liam Kidney admitted it will take time

to grieve and absorb the scope of the

catastrophe.

“It still hasn’t sunk in yet,” said Kidney,

who reluctantly evacuated the parish

rectory Tuesday afternoon with only his

passport and a few legal papers, never to

see his home of 25 years again.

Kidney believes the destruction will

bring about a necessary “rebuilding

of a community” that hasn’t been the

same since the COVID-19 pandemic

kept parishioners away from church for

months, and others for years.

“COVID kind of ripped us apart,” he

said. “This is going to bring us together.”

weigh several factors when deciding

which schools should close due to the

fires, including proximity to fire, poor

air quality and wind damage, staffing

challenges, and nearby power outages.

“We did not call for a systemwide

closure because the area of our district

is enormous,” encompassing three

counties, Escala said.

In some communities where the

impact of the fires was lesser, “the safest

place for kids to be during this kind of

emergency is school,” he explained.

“School provides the kind of routine

and consistency in care that children

need during moments of crisis and

trauma.”

By the end of the week, more than

80 Catholic schools in LA County had

experienced some kind of closure due

to the fire.

The charred remains of Corpus Christi Church in Pacific Palisades as seen on the morning of Jan. 8 are all that was

left of the parish. | GIGI GRACIETTE/FOX11 NEWS

“As I was leaving, I was trying to defend

my home and hoping to keep the

[Corpus Christi] school from catching

on fire by watering down the hillsides,”

Laganà, who works as the stadium voice

of the Los Angeles Rams, told Angelus

after a Jan. 9 Mass at the Cathedral

of Our Lady of the Angels for Corpus

Christi parishioners.

Laganà’s efforts may be one reason the

The Catholic school mission ‘during

moments of crisis and trauma’

As the fires raged through parts of LA

County with no sign of letting up on

Tuesday night into Wednesday, the LA

Archdiocese’s Department of Catholic

Schools had some tough decisions to

make: what schools should close, and

which should stay open?

Superintendent Paul Escala had to

A Sierra Madre landmark survives:

‘God still loves us’

When Father Febin Barose, CP, first

stepped outside the Mater Dolorosa

Passionist Retreat Center in Sierra

Madre and saw the flames from the

Eaton Fire far away, he thought they’d

be OK.

“I thought it was just on the hillside.”

Less than an hour later, the Santa Ana

winds had brought the fire to the retreat

center’s doorsteps.

Barose spoke to Angelus after surveying

significant damage to the retreat

center by the Eaton Fire.

While the main retreat center is still

standing, the workers’ apartments,

garage, and hermitage were burned up,

while the administrative offices and one

of the conference spaces suffered heavy

fire and water damage.

Two groups totaling 60 people were

on retreat at the center at the time of

the evacuation, Barose said, many of

them elderly, which made it difficult

when it came time to evacuate. But the

staff at the center rallied and everyone

made it out safely, including finding

hotel rooms for the Passionist community

members.

“There are things that we can’t

comprehend but we know and can

be confident that God still loves us,”

Barose said. “I see lots of God’s love and

grace coming through support from

different people. The biggest blessing is

that everybody’s safe.”


Flames from the Eaton Fire are seen near a Jesus cross at the Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center in Sierra Madre. | FATHER FEBIN BAROSE

When survivors show up, ‘what else

is there to do?’

In the first hours of LA’s fire “siege”

Jan. 7-8, two well-known parishes

quickly opened their doors to evacuated

families with nowhere to go.

St. Monica Church in Santa Monica

was open until almost midnight

Tuesday night, offering evacuees from

the nearby Palisades Fire a place to

freshen up, get snacks, and charge

their devices, said Merrick Siebenaler,

director of parish life at St. Monica’s.

“We have dozens and dozens of

parishioners and school families who

have lost everything,” said Siebenaler.

One older couple from St. Monica’s

spent the night at the parish rectory,

after pastor Msgr. Lloyd Torgerson

learned they’d been evacuated from

the Palisades Fire burn area.

Another family whose Pacific Palisades

home was threatened by the fire

stopped by St. Monica’s Tuesday night

to pray. Hours later, they learned their

house had been destroyed. The next

morning, Siebenaler told Angelus

the family was back to drop off their

bicycles and pray with Torgerson.

After classes were canceled at St. Andrew’s

School in Pasadena, principal

Jae Kim opened the school gym to

families who needed a break from the

hazardous air quality caused by the

growing Eaton Fire just to the north.

Many of the families who came

by Wednesday had been evacuated

from the Eaton Fire evacuation area

around Altadena and Pasadena.

“Every hour, I’m getting a phone

call from another family who’s lost

everything,” Kim told Angelus over

the phone Wednesday afternoon.

“You can hug them, pray with them,

listen to them as best you can,” said

Kim of the several school families

who stopped by. “What else is there

to do?”

The Lombardi family from Altadena was one of several evacuated families that found shelter at St. Andrew

School’s gym in Pasadena on Jan. 8. | JAE KIM/ST. ANDREW SCHOOL


How to help

As the devastation from the Southern California fires

continues to emerge, Catholics near and far are

being asked to help those affected. Here are just a

few ways to assist:

• The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has set up a donation

portal to provide financial assistance for fire victims

and gathered a list of local donation drives. Both can

be found at lacatholics.org/california-fires.

• Catholic Charities is taking donations to provide

relief to families affected by the fires. Donate at

catholiccharitiesusa.org.

• The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul Los Angeles

is collecting and distributing food items, clothing,

hygiene kits, and other resources. To find your local

donation center, call 888-552-7872.

• The Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation

is seeking donations to help its firefighters with

much-needed support and equipment. Donate at

supportlafd.kindful.com.

• LA Animal Services is taking monetary donations and

asking for people to foster or adopt a pet at laanimalservices.com/donate-today.

‘We had to do everything we could’:

Altadena deacon saves his church

Deacon José Luis Díaz was awakened

by his wife around 6:30 a.m. on

Wednesday, Jan. 8.

“José Luis, they’re saying the church

is on fire!” his wife, Maria Esther, told

him.

Just three hours earlier, the Díaz

family had been evacuated from their

Altadena home as the Eaton Fire crept

closer. They packed up a few belongings

and went to the Pasadena Convention

Center, one of several public

shelters set up for local evacuees.

But after his wife’s wake-up call, Díaz

and his son-in-law rushed in his SUV

to Sacred Heart Church in Altadena,

where Díaz serves as a deacon.

When they arrived, they found two

other parishioners trying to put out a

patch of flames burning the wooden

roof near the church’s boiler room.

Díaz quickly unlocked a maintenance

room and pulled out a ladder and an

iron pipe. Two of them propped up the

ladder so that Díaz could use the pipe

to break shingle tiles on a side roof of

the church, while another poured water

from a garden hose on the flames.

“We almost didn’t have water pressure

in the hose,” said Díaz. “So we had to

do everything we could to put it out.”

Their efforts kept the roof fire, which

had been sparked by embers flying

from burning homes down the street,

from spreading to the rest of the

church.

Waiting at the Pasadena shelter for the

fires to subside, Díaz clung to praying

certain psalms from his Bible. Psalm 85

was particularly comforting.

“Passing through the valley of weeping,

he turns it into a spring,” the psalm

reads. “Better is one day in your courts

than a thousand elsewhere; I would

rather be a doorkeeper in the house

of my God than dwell in the tents of

wickedness.”

Sacred Heart Church in Altadena members Deacon José Luis Díaz and his wife, Maria Esther, pastor Father Gilbert

Guzmán, and faith formation director Griselda Torres after a special Jan. 9 Mass for fire victims with Archbishop

José H. Gomez at Mission San Gabriel. | VICTOR ALEMÁN

An Eaton Fire survivor’s promise:

‘He has something new for me’

“God has a plan.”

Those confident words came from

Griselda Torres, faith formation director

at Sacred Heart Church in Altadena,

hours after she had lost her home —

and almost her parish.

But at a special Jan. 9 Mass with

Archbishop José H. Gomez for those

affected by the fires at Mission San

Gabriel, she was already beginning to

see the tragedy through eyes of faith.

“[God] didn’t do this because I did

something wrong. It’s just he has something

new for me and for my family,

and we just have to have faith that it

will be something positive.”

Another worshipper at the Mass, Capt.


Volunteer Abel Garcia, right, helps distribute essential

daily items to a man displaced by the Eaton Fire at St.

Philip the Apostle Church in Pasadena on Jan. 10. |

OSV NEWS/RINGO CHIU, REUTERS

Eddie Brock of the San Gabriel Police

Department, said that disasters like

these can serve as opportunities for people

to take a spiritual “inventory” and

turn back to God if they’ve strayed.

“The door is never closed that we can’t

come back,” he said. “One kind word.

One yield. Hold the door for someone.

One small spark can set off the flame of

love if we’re open to it.”

LA Fire captain finds tabernacle:

‘If I could save just one thing, let it

be this’

Four days after Corpus Christi Church

was incinerated in the Palisades fire,

Captain Bryan Nassour of the Los

Angeles Fire Department picked his

way over a six-foot layer of rubble in

the ashen bones of the sanctuary and

recovered the tabernacle.

Nassour is a member of St. Francis de

Sales Church in Sherman Oaks, but

his brother belongs to Corpus Christi.

“My brother lost his home. I have

close friends who lost everything but

the shirts on their backs, and they

belong to that church too. So, if I could

save just one thing, let it be this, so they

have something to believe in.”

The roof had collapsed, a burnt

steel frame teetered above the twisted

remains of a chandelier. The pews had

been consumed. Only the granite altar

remained, with the solid brass tabernacle

atop it and a cross above. The

Blessed Sacrament was intact.

Nassour was astounded to find that

the tabernacle weighed more than 300

pounds. His crew helped him get it into

the station house.

“It was one of the most uplifting

things,” he said. “Not everyone is

religious, but they saw that and they’re

like, ‘This is awesome.’ We’re doing

something — at least one thing — that

we can salvage for the community.”

Brass withstands high heat, but Nassour

suspects more was involved in the

tabernacle’s survival.

“Talk to any firefighter. In any religious

building what usually survives is

the cross and certain specific items that

are highly religious, unless they’ve been

specifically set on fire,” he said.

Gabe Sanchez, a retired FBI special

agent who does contract investigations

for the archdiocese, was sent to retrieve

the tabernacle. Firefighters helped him

wrestle it into his car. He drove it to St.

Monica Church, where Msgr. Liam

Kidney held Mass for survivors the next

day.

At that Mass, the tabernacle stood on

a table by the altar. Kidney recounted

Nassour calling him to ask, “I have

The rescued tabernacle from Corpus Christi Church was brought to a special Jan. 12 Mass for parishioners at St. Monica Church in Santa Monica. | VICTOR ALEMÁN

Fire victims and volunteers enjoy food from The Lime Truck during a Jan. 11 assistance event with World Central Kitchen at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary School in

Pasadena. | NATALIE ROMANO

found this big gold box. What would

you like me to do with it?”

Feeding the hungry in Pasadena:

‘As much for them as it is for you’

For weary fire victims who showed up

to Assumption of the Blessed Virgin

Mary School’s event providing assistance,

they probably weren’t expecting

to see the face of celebrity chef Tyler

Florence hanging out the back doors of

“The Lime Truck” food truck.

The Pasadena school hosted a daylong

event Saturday, Jan. 11 dubbed “Operation

Gators Strong,” partnering with

World Central Kitchen, the nonprofit

organization that feeds disaster victims.

“As a chef and more importantly as a

citizen, I think we need to be very, very

aware of the people who have and the

people who have not,” said Florence,

the Food Network star and restaurateur.

“We want to give people who are going

through the worst horrific experiences

of their life dignity.”

The event offered fire evacuees a hot

meal, clothing, and toiletries, but those

who showed up say they got so much

more. In fleeing the fire, Simon Vance

grabbed his cats and the wedding photo

album before flames destroyed his

Altadena home. He fought the tears as

he describes his gratitude.

“The food is delightful but it’s the

sense of community that brings me

joy,” Vance said. “Everyone wants to

give us things and at first I was like ‘No,

no, I’m fine.’ Then I read an article that

said, ‘Please accept what people give

you because it’s as much for them as it

is for you.’ ”

Volunteers from ABVM School and

parish agreed. Dean Doerfler, 15,

wasn’t personally affected by the fires

but wanted to serve his neighbors.

“I feel like I helped out and that

makes me feel pretty good,” he said.

A family of 7 loses everything:

‘He will provide’

On the first night of the Eaton Fire,

Raul and Claudia De La Rosa heard a

scream outside their Altadena apartment,

then saw the hills outside their

window on fire.

The couple grabbed their Bibles, legal

documents, and a few sets of clothes,

and headed to Claudia’s mother’s home

across town for safety, all while encouraging

their kids to trust in God, even if

they ended up losing their home to the

fire.

“We told them that we had to evacuate

and that we didn’t know if we were

going to have a house or not, and that

God is the only one that knows what

The De La Rosa family — Claudia, Raul, and their four children (with one on the way) — at a relative’s house in

Altadena after losing their home to the Eaton Fire. | REESE CUEVAS


was going to happen,” recalled Claudia,

who is six months pregnant with her

fifth child.

The family relocated several times in

the week after evacuating, an experience

Claudia compared to that of the

Holy Family of Nazareth.

“We’re knocking on doors, seeing who

will open,” she said.

Most of their possessions are gone,

as is Raul’s construction job, which is

based in Altadena. But the foundation

of their faith is not: the couple belong

to a community of the Neocatechumenal

Way at their parish, St. John the

Baptist in Baldwin Park, where they

keep receiving words of consolation

and hope through weekly meetings and

Masses. The De La Rosas were already

looking to move closer to their parish.

For all the tragedy wreaked by the fire,

the family sees signs of Divine Providence

at work.

“It may not be the way we as humans

want, but God has something better for

us. The Lord is with us, and he’s faithful

at all times and in all situations.”

Reporting from Angelus Editor-in-chief

Pablo Kay, Associate Editor Mike

Cisneros, and Angelus writers Theresa

Cisneros, Ann Rodgers, and Natalie

Romano.

For Angelus’ full team coverage of the

fires, visit AngelusNews.com/LAfires.

To donate or find resources, visit AngelusNews.com/HowToHelp.

‘We’re going to get through this, as Mary did’

In the smoldering rubble of Rick

and Tracy McGeagh’s Pacific Palisades

home, a statue of Mary stands

serene and unscathed amid mangled

ruins.

Their son Jack, a psychologist, took

many photos of their property after the

catastrophic Jan. 7 fire that destroyed

the entire community. There was

much to weep over, but an image of

the Blessed Mother moved the family

to a different kind of tears: Mary prays

near a charred tree reminiscent of the

cross. High in the smoke-darkened

sky, a bright sun casts a single beam of

light toward the scene of devastation

and of faith.

“It’s like Calvary Hill,” McGeagh

said. “Mary is at the foot of the cross,

as she was, and the sun is God, beaming

down on them.”

He has shared the photo with everyone

who contacted him to offer love

and support.

“I find it a message of hope, that God

is telling us that we are going to get

through this as Mary did,” he said.

The fire was the second disaster that

this statue of Mary has inexplicably

survived. After the Northridge earthquake

all but destroyed his grandmother’s

Santa Monica home in 1994, the

Blessed Mother remained on the patio

when the family evacuated at 4 a.m.

“The home was red-tagged, but Mary

survived,” he said.

The same grandmother had brought

him to faith as a young adult. Though

baptized Catholic, he had not been

confirmed and had strayed in his

youth. She prayed persistently for him

and was his RCIA sponsor when he

entered the Church in 1990 at age 27.

In 1998, the year after his grandmother’s

death, McGeagh brought the statue

to his young family’s new home in

Pacific Palisades, placing her reverently

in the garden. Twins Matthew and

Jack and their sister, Mary, attended

Corpus Christi School. McGeagh

served on the pastoral advisory council

for two decades.

The Corpus Christi church building

was incinerated in the same fire that

destroyed the McGeagh home.

McGeagh, a commercial real estate

broker, intends to rebuild both his

house and the church. He is grateful

for good insurance and committed to

both the neighborhood and the parish.

He trusts in Jesus and in the prayers

of his mother.

“The fact that she survived, and our

Viking stove melted is just a miracle to

me,” he said.

— Ann Rodgers

Rick McGeagh, second from right, with fellow Corpus

Christi parishioners at a Jan. 9 Mass at the Cathedral of

Our Lady of the Angels for victims and first responders

affected by the LA wildfires. | VICTOR ALEMÁN


GOING

INTO

JUBILEE

MODE

A Holy Year like this

one only happens

every 25 years. Here’s

what makes it a special

moment of grace.

BY MIKE AQUILINA

In the months leading up to Christmas

2024, the facades of Rome’s

churches were draped with tarps

and hidden by scaffolding. Crews

scrubbed the ancient walls and repaired

the crumbling plaster. Indoors,

canvases by the great masters were

draped for cleaning. Tourist itineraries

were rerouted as popular sites became

construction zones.

The reason? Rome is expecting to see

a record-breaking 30-35 million visitors

in 2025 — nearly triple the numbers

from 2023.

Hordes of pilgrims are coming for the

Church’s Jubilee, also known as the

Holy Year.

“While a pope can call a jubilee any

time he wants, ordinary jubilee years

are held every 25 years,” said Joan

Watson, author of “Opening the Holy

Door” (Ave Maria Press, $15.95).

Jubilees, she told Angelus, are meant

“to be particular moments of grace in

the life of the Church.”

The custom of marking a jubilee

every quarter-century dates back to the

year 1300, when Pope Boniface VIII

declared a Church-wide celebration

Archbishop José H. Gomez processes into

the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels

to kick off the Mass opening the Jubilee of

Hope behind a special processional cross

that will be displayed during the Jubilee

Year. | VICTOR ALEMÁN

and urged Christians to make pilgrimage

to Rome.

But the roots of the observance go

much deeper. Jubilee is integral to

biblical religion, commanded by God,

and observed by his chosen people. In

the Book of Leviticus, chapter 25, God

commands: “And you shall hallow

the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty

throughout the land to all its inhabitants;

it shall be a jubilee for you, when

each of you shall return to his property

and each of you shall return to his

family.”

God outlines a clear agenda for healing

of families and tribes who were divided

and scattered. Families would be

reunited, slaves set free, debts forgiven.

The jubilee was to be a homecoming,

a year of liberation — a renewal and

reenactment of the freedom won by

Israel’s exodus from slavery in Egypt.

Yet it was more than this, said Old

Testament scholar John Bergsma.

It was “a restoration of an earlier state

of freedom — the freedom of our first

parents in the Garden of Eden. They

lived in a state of perfect freedom —

being without sin, there was not yet the

need of redemption and reconciliation


Jubilee year celebrations are steeped in biblical foundations,

bringing a year of liberation modeled in the freedoms from

Egypt and in the Garden of Eden. | VICTOR ALEMÁN

with God.” Bergsma, a professor at

Franciscan University of Steubenville,

is author of “Jesus and the Jubilee:

The Biblical Roots of the Year of God’s

Favor” (Emmaus Road, $17.95)

Israel’s prophets alluded to the practice

of the jubilee, and they foretold

its fulfillment in a great “year of the

LORD’s favor” (Isaiah 61:1–2) inaugurated

by the Messiah. Jesus quoted this

passage from Isaiah at the launch of

his public ministry, when he preached

at the synagogue in Nazareth. He announced

that the Spirit had sent him

“to proclaim release to the captives

and recovering of sight to the blind, to

set at liberty those who are oppressed,

to proclaim the acceptable year of the

Lord” (Luke 4:18–19).

And then he said, “Today this

scripture has been fulfilled in your

hearing.”

Christians have always seen the time

since Jesus as a jubilee — a period of

perpetual grace and mercy.

Nonetheless, it’s good to be reminded,

and it’s good to honor God by

celebrations.

The word jubilee comes from the

Hebrew jobel — which is the ram’s

horn (better known as a shofar) used to

proclaim a time of rejoicing. Through

a happy coincidence the Latin word

jubilare, which has all the same consonant

sounds, means “to cheer” and

“to shout.”

Thus, Bergsma told Angelus, “the

proper response” to a call for jubilee

“should be joy, hope, and excitement.”

“Lived well,” he added, “this jubilee

can be a moment of miracle and grace

How to get the Jubilee indulgence

The Vatican laid down some guidelines

for how Catholics could receive

the plenary indulgences announced

by Pope Francis as part of the 2025

Jubilee Year:

• Go to confession and get those

sins forgiven.

• Go to Mass and receive Communion.

• Truly repent. Pledge to be

detached, with God’s help, from

all sin.

• Pray an Our Father, Hail Mary,

and Glory Be for the intentions

of the Holy Father.

Once those first requirements are

filled, do one of the indulgences

devotions suggested by the pope,

including:

• Make a pilgrimage to one of the

designated churches in Rome

or elsewhere. (Many are in Italy

and the Holy Land, but the

Basilica of the National Shrine

of the Immaculate Conception

in Washington, D.C., was the

only national site designated by

the U.S. bishops.)

• Perform an extraordinary work of

mercy — give a generous gift to

| VICTOR the poor, ALEMÁN or visit a nursing home

or prison.

• Participate in local devotions or

One of the requirements for receiving a

plenary indulgence is to go to Mass and

receive holy Communion. | VICTOR

ALEMÁN

visit a local cathedral, shrine, or

other special church designated

by your bishop for obtaining the

Jubilee indulgence.

• Fast at least one day a week

from “futile distractions” such as

social media, TV, video games,

or entertainment apps.


A visitor touches the

Holy Door of St. Peter’s

Basilica on Christmas

Day, Dec. 25, 2024, after

it was opened by Pope

Francis during Christmas

Mass the night prior

to mark the start of the

Holy Year 2025 | CNS/

LOLA GOMEZ

for all of us, a

kind of yearlong

spiritual Christmas

season, in

which we daily

awake to open

the gifts of grace

that God our

Father gives us so

lovingly.”

A traditional

part of every jubilee celebration is the

practice of granting indulgences. An

indulgence is the remission before

God of the temporal punishment that

is due for sins already forgiven. The

Church grants indulgences by drawing

from the treasury of merit, the abundance

of graces that belong to Christ

and his saints. In the Book of Exodus,

Moses similarly won forgiveness for

Israel by reminding God of the fidelity

of the patriarchs: “Remember Abraham,

Isaac, and Israel, your servants,

to whom you swore by your own self”

(Exodus 32:13).

(In Spes Non Confundit [“Hope

LA goes into

pilgrimage mode

Does Not Disappoint”], the document

by which Pope Francis decreed the Jubilee,

he provides a good explanation

of the doctrine of indulgences, as well

as a brief history of the jubilee.)

In a jubilee year the Church attaches

indulgences to certain charitable

actions or practices of piety. The most

characteristic is the simple act of

walking through the Holy Door at St.

Peter’s — or one of four other designated

doors in Rome.

Indulgences may be applied to

oneself or to others, even to deceased

family members and friends.

Such actions are outward signs of

Here are a few of the local jubilee events planned in the Archdiocese of

Los Angeles. For more resources and details, visit hope.lacatholics.org:

• LA permanent deacons will take a pilgrimage to Rome from Feb.

19 through March 1, with a visit to the Holy Door and a Mass with

Pope Francis.

• On March 28-29, one parish per deanery in the archdiocese will be

open for 24 hours from Friday through Saturday morning for prayer

and confessions.

• The archdiocese is planning a six-mile walking pilgrimage on April

5 from All Souls Church in Alhambra to the Cathedral of Our

Lady of the Angels. The event will conclude with a cathedral Mass.

an interior faith. Jesus prescribed

such simple devotional actions that

resulted in profound healing. (See, for

example, John 9:7, when Jesus sends

a blind man for a ritual washing of his

eyes.)

Bergsma observed: “We need to

realize that the jubilee is not an ‘extra’

or an ‘add on’ to the Christian faith,

but actually lies at the very center of

Scripture, salvation history, and Jesus’

mission as the Messiah.”

Yet Christians will find reasons to

grumble even about gifts, graces, and

mercies, said the author Joan Watson,

who is also pilgrim formation manager

for Verso Ministries based in South

Bend, Indiana. She noted that already

people are complaining on social media

about the pilgrim traffic in Rome.

“I’m trying to look at it like Christmas

Mass,” she told Angelus. “We should

be happy so many people are going to

have this opportunity for grace.

“We can look at it as an inconvenience

and we can judge their intentions,

or we can give gratitude to God

that so many have come — in the

footsteps of pilgrims of the last 725

years — and trust the Lord is going to

work miracles.”

Mike Aquilina is a contributing editor

to Angelus and the author of many

books, including “A History of the

Church in 100 Objects” (Ave Maria

Press, $24.95).



JIMMY CARTER’S WORLD

Middle Eastern geopolitics look very different since the late

president was in office. What about Vatican diplomacy?

BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR.

St. Pope John Paul II

during a press conference

with President

Jimmy Carter in the

Rose Garden at the

White House in 1979. |

OSV NEWS/CNS FILE

ROME — Amid the wave of tributes to President Jimmy

Carter triggered by his death on Dec. 29, 2024, at

the age of 100, much attention rightly focused on arguably

his crowning achievement in the 1978 Camp David

Accords, which led to peace between Egypt and Israel and

the Nobel Prize for Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin.

Yet it was another, more fraught aspect of Carter’s foreign

policy record that may loom larger today in terms of the

complicated intersection among the White House, the

Vatican, and the Middle East: the Iranian hostage crisis,

which set the stage for a growing rupture and mistrust

between Tehran and Washington, and which culminated

in the famous “Axis of Evil” declaration under President

George W. Bush.

A century ago, the idea that the United States and Iran

would come to see each other as mortal enemies would

have seemed counterintuitive. In the late 19th century, two

Americans were actually appointed treasurers of the country

by the Shah, a sign of Iran’s belief that the United States

was a more trustworthy interlocutor than either the British

or the Russians who were jockeying for control of Persia.

All that began to change with the CIA-backed 1953

Iranian coup, and it climaxed with the Iranian Revolution

led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Almost against his

own instincts, Carter was forced by the hostage crisis into a

position of hostility with Iran that has defined U.S. policy

ever since, rising in intensity and volume level with every

new American administration, Republican and Democrat

alike.

At around the same time as Carter and the Ayatollah were

squaring off, a new pope was rising to prominence in Rome

in the person of John Paul II, today known as St. John Paul.


(Fun Fact: Despite having served only one term, Carter is

the only president in American history whose time in office

overlapped with three popes: Paul VI, John Paul I, and

John Paul II. Thirteen other presidents overlapped with

two popes, beginning with John Adams and Popes Pius VI

and Pius VII, and ending with Barack Obama with Popes

Benedict XVI and Francis.)

Though the early phases of John Paul’s papacy would

be dominated by the struggle against Soviet Communism

— he developed an especially close bond with Carter’s

National Security Adviser, fellow Pole Zbigniew Brzezinski,

with whom he would discuss Soviet strategy in their

native tongue — his geopolitical vision was hardly limited

to Eastern Europe.

Among other insights, John Paul foresaw the rise of Islam

as a globally relevant force, and he worked hard to position

the Catholic Church as a friend. Speaking to a mixed

group of Muslims and Christians during a trip to Casablanca

in 1985, for example, he famously declared, “We

have many things in common, as believers and as human

beings. … We believe in the same God, the one God, the

living God, the God who created the world and brings his

creatures to their perfection.”

Later, in May 2001, John Paul would become the first

pope to enter an Islamic place of worship when he visited

the Grand Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, taking off

his shoes in a sign of respect, and bowing in silent prayer

before what Muslim tradition regards as the remains of St.

John the Baptist.

Immediately after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, John

Paul visited the

mixed Muslim/

Christian nation

of Kazakhstan

and prayed “with

all my heart

that the world

may remain in

peace.” He also

called a summit

of religious leaders

in Assisi in

January 2002 to

urge peace, with

Muslims the second

largest group

in attendance

after Christians,

including two

representatives

of the Islamic Republic

of Iran.

Unlike Western

nations,

the Vatican never broke off diplomatic relations with Iran

after the revolution and the hostage crisis. In 1999, John

Paul received Iranian President Mohammad Khatami at

the Vatican. The two men spoke by phone just after the

9/11 attacks in an effort to keep the peace, and when John

Paul died in 2005, Khatami traveled to Rome to attend the

funeral. (The funeral occasioned a brief but friendly exchange

between Khatami and then-Israeli President Moshe

Katsav, leading some to joke that it was the deceased pope’s

first posthumous miracle.)

All this leads us to today, and the looming onset of Trump

II. After almost a half-century, the new U.S. leader faces a

fundamental choice between the approach to Iran embedded

in U.S. policy since the Carter administration, and the

option of engagement embodied in the Vatican, whether

that of John Paul or his successor in Francis.

It may be difficult to imagine Trump as the Great Reconciler

with Tehran, given that the Justice Department has

charged Iran with plotting to assassinate the president-elect,

and that Trump has vowed a “maximum pressure strategy”

to bankrupt Iran as soon as he takes office.

And, yet.

Yet Trump may find an unexpected base of support

among the Iranian population itself, which is increasingly

chafing under theocratic rule. Media reports actually

suggest many ordinary Iranians privately supported Trump’s

reelection, on the grounds that they believed Kamala Harris

was a vote for the status quo in U.S./Iranian relations,

while Trump might be the one to force regime change.

Imagine this: If Trump is able to embolden an internal resistance

movement to set the wheels of change in motion,

Francis could play a vital role in reassuring Iran’s Islamic

religious establishment that a change in government does

not have to mean the end of the country’s religious identity,

and that no matter what happens, they’ll have a friend in

Rome, potentially

ensuring that

the transition is

largely peaceful.

Should things

shake out that

way, a growing

divide between

American

and Vatican

approaches to

Iran over the

last half-century

could reach a

critical turning

point in a surprising,

even shocking,

intersection

between Trump’s

“hard power”

and Francis’ “soft

power.”

Is that just a

pipe dream?

Maybe, but if you don’t believe the sudden collapse of an

entrenched regime is at least possible, I’ve got some Syrians

with whom you should have a chat.

From left: Anwar Sadat, Jimmy Carter, and Menachem Begin at Camp David in 1978. | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

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


INTERSECTIONS

GREG ERLANDSON

A piece of paradise lost

A burned home stands in ruin in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood

of west Los Angeles Jan. 8, as powerful winds

fueling devastating wildfires in the Los Angeles area forced

people to evacuate. | OSV NEWS/MIKE BLAKE, REUTERS

I

have trouble talking about the loss

without tearing up, as if the smoke

and ash from Los Angeles traveled

across the country to find me.

My in-laws were French immigrants

to California, proud Americans, hardworking

and simple in their aspirations.

Joseph Bischetti knew extreme poverty

in France, and he believed the best way

to take care of his family was to work

hard and buy land.

In the mid-1970s he and his wife, Andrée,

purchased a modest house with a

big yard in Pacific Palisades. He could

not have known then how that area and

its prices would grow, how celebrities

and other wealthy elites would move

there for the same reasons he did. The

Palisades felt separate from the rest of

Los Angeles. It was backed up against

the Santa Monica mountains, and as

the population grew, newly erected

houses slowly climbed the hillsides,

along winding, narrow streets snaking

down to Sunset Boulevard.

The neighborhood he moved into was

full of little stucco houses, small and

cute, modestly remodeled, with lawns

and flower beds. People who lived in

this neighborhood expected it to be

the last move they made. They weren’t

rich, but they had a slice of heaven

and planned to stay. Younger couples

became older couples, then widowers

or widows.

When they had to sell, the people

who replaced them tore down their

houses and squeezed McMansions

onto their lots. Two or three stories,

with private theaters and pools, and

always a balcony or a rooftop patio

pointed toward the Santa Monica Bay.

People paid top dollar for the sense that

one was far away from freeways and

strip malls and congestion.

Joe and Andrée did not have such

grandiose plans. The house was their

dream, their refuge. It was a single

floor, a simple stucco house — three

bedrooms, a great room, and a kitchen.

Andrée, who was a wonderful cook, put

up with a recalcitrant stove but never

allowed a microwave to enter.

The windows were open most of the

time, and no matter how hot Southern

California was, the house would

catch the breezes blowing from Santa

Monica Bay. The wind blew in off the

ocean, up the canyon’s edge on which

the house sat, over the fava beans,


Greg Erlandson is the former president and

editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service.

tomatoes, and zucchini that Joe had

planted, past Andrée’s basil plants, and

into the house, where it mingled with

the smells of couscous and pasta and

coq au vin.

Joe was a remodeling contractor

who spent much more time working

on other people’s houses than on his

own. Yet when he was 80 years old,

he singlehandedly put on a new roof.

Despite his age and his arthritis, he

carried the heavy shingles up a rickety

ladder and methodically reroofed it to

his standards.

“Greg,” he said proudly, “this roof

will last 50 years.” He wanted my wife

and me to live in the house. To pass on

his property would have been a dream

fulfilled. I would always nod noncommittally,

having taken his daughter and

his four grandchildren to the other side

of the country.

I am thankful that Joe did not live to

see what happened on Jan. 7, 2025, for

it would have broken his heart for sure.

The breezes vanished, replaced by

snarling Santa Ana winds blowing

westward from the desert. Somewhere

a spark metastasized into a flame, and

a flame into an inferno. Like marauders

galloping out of the foothills, the

flames swept down on the community

that liked to call itself a village, as if its

boutique shops and restaurants somehow

protected it from a harsher world.

Not just Joe’s house was reduced

to ash, but every house around it for

miles: the high school his children

attended, the church where I married

his eldest daughter, the hardware store

he bought supplies at.

Gone in a day were the fruit trees he

planted in the front yard, the canyon

full of wild anise and chaparral his

grandchildren would excitedly explore

when they came to visit, the weathered

basketball hoop, the basil, the lemon-scented

Eucalyptus leaves.

No one was killed at that house that

terrible day, although my brother-in-law

stayed as long as possible watering that

roof meant to last 50 years. Yet I find

myself weeping at the loss, weeping at

the remorseless erasure of a community,

of a man’s dream, of a place filled

with wonderful human beings who had

no idea what would one day befall it.

We have our memories, my wife said.

We do indeed. That must suffice, I

know. But it does not.

January Month 00, 24, 2025 2024 • ANGELUS • 25

WITH GRACE

DR. GRAZIE POZO CHRISTIE

A Good Book revolution?

SHUTTERSTOCK

I

have a 25-year-old nephew who is

gentleness itself. His smile is shy

and diffident, and his whole nature

tends, naturally, to the good.

After studying something mathematical

in college and getting the usual

shallow education in high school, he’s

found there was a world of rich culture

and philosophy in books he hasn’t

read, and he is hungry. He dove into

the world of literature haphazardly,

and every time we speak about his

random reading list, I ask the same

question: “Have you read the Bible

yet?”

It’s a question many people are asking

themselves today, and responding in

the negative. But they are doing something

about it.

According to book tracker Circana

BookScan, Bible sales are up by 22%

through October of 2024 compared to

the same period last year. Print book

sales overall, by comparison, rose by

just 1% last year.

It’s a Good Book revolution.

Many of these sales are to young

Americans like my nephew, who somehow

failed to read at home, school, or

college the foundational text of our civilization.

They may be, again like my

nephew, Sunday Mass-going Catholics

with a few years of CCD under their

belts, and not much more in the way of

formation. In any case, whether from

religiously affiliated families or secular

ones, they’ve found an empty place

inside their hearts and brains where

the rich and meaningful narratives of

the Old and New Testaments belong.

Buying and opening a Bible is a

wise move on many levels. From a

purely practical perspective, how can

you understand or navigate modern

civilization without basic knowledge of

the Bible?

Start with the arts: Even in today’s

secular culture, it takes some of that

knowledge to actually enjoy and appreciate

the beauty of things like good

architecture, novels, or even music.

Can Shakespeare be understood while

missing the scriptural allusions and

metaphors that are woven into the

story lines and gorgeous language? Or

Steinbeck? Can Western music and

its development be mapped and fully

enjoyed while knowing nothing of

the religious sensibilities of its august

composers? Can you understand the

layout of an old city, arranged around

the house of God at its center, with

spires inviting people in their houses

and alleys to look up always?

Then there are our Western familial,

social, and political arrangements,


Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie is a mother of five

who practices radiology in the Miami area.

which we too easily take for granted.

Monogamy, the inviolability of

children, the rejection of slavery, the

dignity of work, the equality of women,

the rules of waging a just war, the

development of democracy — all are

rooted in the ideas and values developed

over millennia in the Bible.

Can these things endure for a people

not actively engaging with the source

document? What about the institutions

which we all agree are indispensable,

like schools, orphanages, and

hospitals? These may seem naturally

occurring to us, but they are the pretty

blooms on the living tree of Christianity,

a tree which will wither at the root

without knowledge of the Bible.

This is part of the case I’ve made for

my nephew, and which I suspect is in

great measure moving the general public

back toward the Good Book. There

is something else, though, which is

even more vital.

The thousands of years of prophecy,

revelation, poetry, and adventure stories

in one thick book whose sales have

topped 5 billion over the centuries is

not just a blueprint for the glories of

Western society. It is also full of meaning.

The loneliness, anxiety, sadness,

dysfunction, and fragmentation that

characterizes so much of modern

Western man’s life can be laid at the

feet of an absence of meaning. Why

are we here? Where are we going?

How are we meant to treat ourselves

and others on the way to our goal?

What are the enabling principles of a

well-lived life?

The Bible has the answers that fill us

with hope, answers that show us how to

live courageously in a harsh world full

of bitter and unavoidable truths.

Of course, I gave my nephew a

handsome Bible for his birthday. Now

when we speak, we talk about the

significance of things like sacrifice and

holiness, and how he can model his

life on that of the heroes and heroines

that leap at him from the dense pages.

One day soon we will start to talk

about belief and practice, and how

the Word of God lives more gloriously

than ever in the celebration of the

Eucharist, and among an assembly of

people singing his praises.

NOW PLAYING A COMPLETE UNKNOWN

THE REAL

UNKNOWN

SEARCHLIGHT

PICTURES

Decades later, the magic of Bob Dylan’s music still has

no earthly explanation. A new biopic starring Timothée

Chalamet keeps the mystery alive.

BY RAFAEL ALVAREZ

In 1993, the band Counting Crows

released a hit single called “Mr.

Jones.” It’s a great song, one that I

put on when I wanted to jump around

the room, my measure of music capable

of “taking you there.”

The song carries an indelible line: “I

wanna be Bob Dylan…”

Like many an aspiring artist wondering

if the big break would ever come, I

embraced the lyric in hopeful intoxication

— and then shook it off and got

back to the much more difficult work

of becoming who I was created to be.

After watching the new Dylan biopic

“A Complete Unknown” — in which

actor Timothée Chalamet nails his

performance as the kid from Hibbing

— I’m astounded that even Robert

Zimmerman was able to become Bob

Dylan. But he did, and continues to do

so again and again and again.

Historically accurate for the most

part, the film connects the dots on

how it happened. Or at least it tries

to, because neither this film nor the

learned high priests in the Cult of Bob

can explain why. If anybody could split

that atom, we’d all be Bob Dylan.

The film begins in 1961, the dawn of

the New Frontier when Dylan lands in

New York City from his home state of

Minnesota. It ends over the summer of

1965 when he jettisons the dimming

bulb of folk music for the thunder and

lightning of rock and roll. The axe

fell at the Newport Folk Festival that

year, where as you may have heard, he

“went electric.”

Pop bands at the time — the particularly

better ones like the Byrds and the

Turtles — were already charting with

rock versions of Dylan songs: “Mr.

Tambourine Man” and “It Ain’t Me,

Babe” respectively. Why not the man

himself? He joined them in earnest

in September with “Like a Rolling

Stone,” from whose lyrics the film’s

title was taken.

It topped out at No. 4 on the charts

and was so powerful that even the cyn-


ical composer Frank Zappa — never

one to praise lightly — was agog.

“When I heard ‘Like a Rolling Stone,’

I wanted to quit the music business,”

said Zappa, who died in 1993. “I

felt: ‘If this wins and it does what it’s

supposed to do, I don’t need to do

anything else.’ ” But things just kept

getting worse in this country and Frank

kept making music.

The Beatles, who steered the Ship of

Pop from ’64 to ’68, are only mentioned

once in the movie. The day

after the Newport festival, a fan or a

journalist at the motel where the musicians

were staying asks Bob if he was

trying to be like the Liverpudlians. Bob

doesn’t answer. Why would he?

Except for Jimi Hendrix’s cover of

“All Along the Watchtower,” I came to

Dylan late, in my early 30s after finally

quieting the power chords of Zeppelin

and The Who and the Kinks in my

head. The last of these get a quick

mention in the film when Bob defends

their hit song “All Day and All of the

Night” against the folk fundamentalists.

The song is on the radio when Dylan’s

friend and folk music legend Pete

Seeger — played with gentle sanctimony

by Edward Norton — comes

into Dylan’s motel room to plead, once

again, that he not play amplified rock

during the last set of the festival.

“It’s the Kinks, Pete,” explains Bob, as

if to say, “It’s 1965, the Dust Bowl done

blew over before I was born.”

If I had one quibble with the movie,

it’s not the rearranging of a few events

or the invention of minor ones. It’s the

failure to aver that Elvis Presley was

the young Zimmerman’s true inspiration.

The film dances around this in an

early, fleeting scene when Seeger gives

Dylan a ride after they cross paths in

Woody Guthrie’s hospital room. As the

car pulls up to Seeger’s house in Beacon,

New York, some 50 miles north of

Greenwich Village, a snippet of Little

Richard’s “Slippin’ & Slidin'” wails on

the car radio.

Seeger disparages the song as nothing

more than candy. In a quiet mumble,

Dylan says he likes all kinds of music.

It would have been a perfect moment,

if just for another 30 seconds, to bring

the King into the conversation. That

would have fried Seeger’s banjo!

Maryland writer John Lewis was a

good friend of Jim Dickinson (1941-

2009), who played the pump organ

on “Time Out of Mind,” Dylan’s 1997

release. Lewis published a book about

the sessions called “Whirly Gig,” a

phrase used during the recording to

describe the saturnalian sound of Dickinson’s

keyboards.

Sometime in the 1990s, Dylan visited

Humes High School in Memphis

where Elvis graduated in 1953. It’s said

that he found a penny near the auditorium

stage and picked it up saying, “A

lucky penny. How about that?”

Later, in Miami where he recorded

“Time Out of Mind,” Dylan told Dickinson

about the visit to Presley’s alma

mater. “Bob was a disciple of Elvis,”

said Lewis. “Both Dylan and Jim could

recall what life was like before Elvis,

before the seismic shift.”

In 1997, after the release of the LP,

Dylan was hospitalized with life-threatening

histoplasmosis. It was quite the

Timothée Chalamet stars as Bob

Dylan in “A Complete Unknown.” |

SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES

close call and Lewis said that Bob

quipped, “ ‘I really thought I’d be seeing

Elvis soon.’ Not Woody, Elvis.”

“A Complete Unknown” is a wonderful

movie because of the obvious,

Dylan’s music — at once stirring,

profound, timeless, and exhilarating

no matter what bucket you want to put

it in.

Again, where do such mysteries come

from? How did it feel to bring them

into being?

In 2004, Dylan told Ed Bradley on

60 Minutes, “I don’t know how I got to

write those songs. All those early songs

were almost magically written — Darkness

at the break of noon, shadows even

the silver spoon, a handmade blade, the

child’s balloon… Try to sit down and

write something like that.”

Rafael Alvarez is an author and

screenwriter whose books include “First

& Forever: A People’s History of the

Archdiocese of Baltimore” (Editions

du Signe, $19.95). He boarded a cargo

ship in Norfolk this month headed for

Antwerp, Belgium. He can be reached

at orlo.leini@gmail.com.


DESIRE LINES

HEATHER KING

Soul-searching with asparagus

From a recent essay in “Salmagundi,”

a literary journal

published at Skidmore College,

titled “Thirteen Ways of Looking at

Art,” by William Deresiewicz:

“Still Life with Asparagus,”

by Adriaen Coorte,

1665-1707, Dutch. |

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

“Art is for increasing life. That, I

believe, after all the other purposes

receive their due, is really what it’s

for — why we revere it, why we give

our hearts to it. What do I mean by

increasing life?... Being fully present

to the world, and feeling without

reservation: the two things that making

art requires and that experiencing

it involves. … Art is one of the only

times when life is anything like being

in love. Attention, intensity. …

“Art connects us with another world,

which has no place in ours. That

world is, to use a term at which my

reason recoils, the spirit world. …

There is a crack, somewhere. Something

flows, from somewhere. We

gather around it; we build temples to

it … we talk about it endlessly. We

may even posit that the thing that our

existence is for is art.”

Too bad that Deresiewicz recoils

from the world of the spirit but, like

many such people, he writes more

lucidly and clearly of that world than

many of us who claim not to recoil.

The whole essay is well worth reading.

Its thrust dovetailed perfectly with a

moment that occurred not long after. I

was propped up in bed with “The Upside-Down

World: Meeting with the

Dutch Masters” (Liveright, $19.69), by

art critic Benjamin Moser. Suddenly

both arms suddenly shot into the air

and I exploded with an exultant YES!

Moser was writing of Adriaen Coorte

(1665-1707), a Golden Age Dutch artist

I’d only just discovered, in another

book about the Dutch masters: “Thunderclap:

A Memoir of Life and Art and

Sudden Death” (Simon & Schuster,

$20.99), by Laura Cumming.

Little is known about many of the

artists of this extraordinarily fecund

era of Dutch art, and Coorte is no

exception. It’s known that he was poor.

He painted “still-lifes” — though the

term hardly does him justice — often

postcard-sized, often on random pieces


Heather King is an award-winning

author, speaker, and workshop leader.

of paper (apparently he couldn’t

afford canvas). If in his mind the piece

passed muster, he might later glue it to

a piece of wood.

He often arranged a simple grouping

of fruits or vegetables on the same

stone plinth that, with a background

of depthless black, appears in many of

his works.

This was the passage that caught my

eye:

“Back in Zeeland, Coorte continued

to sharpen his focus, tinkering with

his still-lifes with a concentration

bordering on the obsessive. He fiddled

with what looks like the same bunch

of asparagus — zooming in and out,

toying with the lighting, adding, and

then removing, a few currants; now

trying them out in combination with

an artichoke, now with a bowl of strawberries

— for no less than 18 years.”

Eighteen years! To properly honor

the glory, the inner light, of a bunch of

asparagus.

On a related note, I had to look up

the meaning of “fl.”, given as a range

of dates in the gooseberries painting

above: “from Latin for ‘flourished:’

denotes a date or period during which

a person was known to have been alive

or active.”

So who knows how long the painting

took, or how long Coorte “fiddled”

with his masterpieces.

He seemed hardly concerned, as

Moser observes, with marketing. Rather,

“his intense focus on the bunch of

asparagus suggests that his paintings

were primarily private attempts to

solve aesthetic problems.”

Either you’re the kind of person who

thinks that is an entirely worthy project

to which to devote one’s life — or

you’re not. If you are, you’re probably

also the kind of person who, sensing

intuitively that aesthetics and morality

are linked, believes that learning how

to love one’s neighbor as oneself is also

a worthy life project.

Both efforts are slow, both are laborious,

both are beset with frustrations,

disappointments, and loneliness.

Moser notes that like Basho, the

17th-century haiku master (quoting

Basho’s translator), Coorte “ ‘sought

a vision of eternity in the things that

are, by their own very nature, destined

to perish.’ Passing time, and therefore

death, is the still-life painter’s real

subject.”

Death, in fact, may be the real

“Red Gooseberries on a Stone

Plinth,” by Adriaen Coorte,

1665-1707, Dutch. | WIKIME-

DIA COMMONS

subject of all art. As the great Russian

Orthodox Christian filmmaker Andrei

Tarkovsky observed, “The allotted

function of art is not, as is often assumed,

to put across ideas, to propagate

thoughts, to serve as an example.

The aim of art is to prepare a person

for death, to plough and harrow his

soul, rendering it capable of turning to

good.”

That art is for increasing life while

also preparing us for death is a paradox,

but not a contradiction in terms.

Rather, as the poet Rainer Maria

Rilke noted, “The point of life is to fail

at greater and greater things.”


LETTER AND SPIRIT

SCOTT HAHN

Scott Hahn is founder of the

St. Paul Center for Biblical

Theology; stpaulcenter.com.

Should old Aquinas be forgot?

St. Thomas Aquinas was a champion of reason. He was

a man whose philosophy was expressed in language

precisely technical and ploddingly comprehensive.

For all this, however, he was not a rationalist. He was not

Aristotle dressed up in priestly vestments. And he was definitely

not a bore.

He was a priest of the 13th century, a member of the newly

established Order of Preachers, the Dominicans. He was descended

from the aristocracy of southern Italy. He was quiet

and inclined to scholarly research and writing. For many

years he taught theology at the University of Paris. He was

a prolific writer, keeping multiple secretaries busy simultaneously

with his dictation.

He produced thousands

of words per day of his

adult life. His most famous

work is his great, unfinished

Summa Theologica

(“Summary of Theology”),

perhaps the most comprehensive

systematic account

of Christian theology ever

attempted.

A quiet, humble man,

he had epic and holy

ambitions. In order to

achieve them, he needed

to observe the rigorous

disciplines of philosophical

theology. He had to be passionate

about a language

that very few people find

exciting.

Still, I believe that

Aquinas is fundamentally a

biblical theologian. In fact,

many of his biographers

tell us that he would have

described himself primarily

as a teacher of Scripture.

As he himself said, “Our

faith receives its surety

from Scripture.” Why

is Scripture so uniquely

authoritative? Aquinas

answers: “Because the author of Sacred Scripture is God,

in whose power it is to accommodate not only words for

expressing things, which even man is able to do, but also

the things themselves.”

God “writes” the world, then, the way people write words.

Thus, nature and history are more than just created things;

they have more than just a literal, historical meaning. God

fashions the things of the world and shapes the events of

history as visible signs of other, uncreated realities, which

are eternal and invisible. Aquinas says, “As words formed by

man are signs of his intellectual knowledge, so are creatures

formed by God signs of his wisdom.”

But because of sin’s

“Thomas Aquinas,”

by Sandro Botticelli,

1445-1510, Italian.

| WIKIMEDIA

COMMONS

blinding effects, the

“book” of nature must be

translated by the inspired

Word of Scripture. Nature,

since the fall, cannot be

truly understood apart from

Scriptures.

Consider his Treatise on

Law. That treatise is interesting

because, like many

sections of the Summa,

Aristotle is quoted often.

But, when you total up the

number of quotations, you

find that 724 quotations are

from Scripture and only 96

from Aristotle.

A contemporary and a fellow

Dominican, Friar Bernard

Gui, said in praising

St. Thomas: “O happy soul

whose prayer was heard by

God in his mercy, who thus

teaches us, by this example,

to possess our questioning

souls in patience, so that in

the study of divine things

we rely chiefly on the power

of prayer!”

We honor him on his feast

day this year, as every year,

on Jan. 28.


■ SATURDAY, JANUARY 18

OneLife LA. The theme for the 11th annual OneLife is

“Let Us Stand Up Together.” Due to the LA fires, this event

has been moved from its planned location but is still

taking place Jan. 18. Visit OneLifeLA.org for details on the

new location and schedule.

Faith and Healing Bereavement Retreat. Holy Spirit

Retreat Center, 4316 Lanai Rd., Encino, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Led

by Cathy Narvaez. Call 818-784-4515.

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. Holy Spirit Retreat

Center, 4316 Lanai Rd., Encino, 9:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. With

Bryanna Benedetti-Coomber. Visit hsrcenter.com or call

818-815-4480.

Requiem Mass for the Unborn. Cathedral of Our Lady

of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 5 p.m.

Presider: Archbishop José H. Gomez. Special Mass concludes

OneLife LA 2025. Livestream available through LA

Catholics Facebook, OneLife LA webpage, and OneLife

LA Facebook.

■ SUNDAY, JANUARY 19

Feast of Santo Niño. Cathedral of Our Lady of the

Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 2 p.m. dance performances,

3 p.m. procession, 3:30 p.m. Mass. Celebrant:

Auxiliary Bishop Matthew Elshoff. A dance performance

of various Sinulog groups will kick off the celebration at

the Cathedral Plaza. Bring statues of Santo Niño for a

special blessing. Contact Romy and Tess Esturas at 213-

219-0590.

■ MONDAY, JANUARY 20

Martin Luther King Memorial Mass. Cathedral of Our

Lady of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 3 p.m.

Celebrant: Archbishop José H. Gomez. Homilist: Auxiliary

Bishop Matthew Elshoff. Hosted by the African American

Catholic Center for Evangelization.

Catholic Singles Network Meet and Greet Dinner for

Singles Ages 55+. Tom’s Restaurant, 42741 30th St. West,

Lancaster, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Call Celeste at 661-916-2727 or

visit CatholicSinglesNetwork.com.

■ WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22

Bereavement Support Group. St. Bruno Church, 15740

Citrustree Rd., Whittier, 7-8:30 p.m. Six-week course

meets on Wednesdays. RSVP to Cathy by calling 562-631-

8844 or emailing bereavement.ministry@yahoo.com.

■ FRIDAY, JANUARY 24

Presentation with George Weigel. St. Rose of Lima

Church, 1305 Royal Ave., Simi Valley, 7 p.m. Weigel is

the personal biographer of St. Pope John Paul II and a

distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy

Center. Cost: $35/general admission, $100/VIP tickets

with meet and greet. Tickets available at strosesv.com or at

the parish rectory. Call 805-526-1732.

Symphony Irvine Presents: A Concert to St. John

Bosco. St. Dominic Savio Church, 13400 Bellflower Blvd.,

Bellflower, 8 p.m. Free concert, includes the “Moldau of

Smetana,” “Romeo and Juliet Overture,” “Souls like Birds of

Rodriguez,” and others. Call 562-920-7796.

■ SATURDAY, JANUARY 25

The Life Beyond the Veil of Death. St. John the Baptist

Church, 3883 Baldwin Park Blvd., Baldwin Park, 10 a.m.-4

p.m. With Dominic Berardino. Topics include: What

Happens When We Die? and Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell:

What Can We Know of Them? Cost: $20/person pre-registered,

$25/person at door. Call SCRC at 818-771-1361

or visit events.scrc.org.

■ WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29

Ethical Leadership Luncheon. Cathedral of Our Lady of

the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

Panelists include Alex Jones, co-founder of Hallow and

Anne Sweeney, board of directors for Netflix and Lego.

Visit ellunch.org.

■ FRIDAY, JANUARY 31

Priests vs. Seminarians Basketball Game. Bishop

Alemany High School, 11111 N. Alemany Dr., Mission

Hills, 6 p.m. Admission onsite, cash only: $10/general, $5/

students, 5 years and under free. Group rate: $8/each for

10 people. Game will be livestreamed at lacatholics.org/

catholic-hoops/.

■ SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1

Catholic Singles Network St. Valentine Breakfast. Hilton

Garden Inn, 1309 West Rancho Vista Blvd., Palmdale,

8:45-10:15 a.m. Mingling will be maximized at the breakfast

by having attendees rotate to different tables. Call

Celeste at 661-916-2727 or visit CatholicSinglesNetwork.

com.

Cancer Support Ministry Meeting. St. Euphrasia Church,

11779 Shoshone Ave., Granada Hills, 10 a.m. Group gathers

to honor the gift of life and encourage cancer patients,

survivors, and caregivers, in honor of late pastor Msgr.

James Gehl. For more information, email Lisa Barona at

lbaloha@gmail.com.

Restored: A Journey to Wellness Retreat. Sponsored by

the Archdiocese of Los Angeles Office of Life, Justice and

Peace, Restored is a one-day retreat of hope and healing

for women whose lives have been touched by abortion. All

registrations are confidential. For more information, email

Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne at jseneviratne@la-archdiocese.org.

■ SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2

Religious Jubilarian Mass. Cathedral of Our Lady of

the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 3:30 p.m.

Hundreds of religious will renew their vows and celebrate

milestones ranging from 15 to 85 years of service. Visit

lacatholics.org/events.

■ THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6

Healing the Body, Soul, and Spirit. Holy Spirit Retreat

Center, 4316 Lanai Rd., Encino, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. Runs Feb.

6, 13, and 20. With Bola Shasanmi. Visit hsrcenter.com or

call 818-784-4515.

■ SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8

Bereavement Retreat. St. Bruno Church, 15740 Citrustree

Rd., Whittier, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Cost: $75/person for food

and supplies. RSVP by Feb. 2 to Cathy by calling 562-631-

8844 or emailing bereavement.ministry@yahoo.com.

World Day of the Sick Mass. Cathedral of Our Lady of

the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 10:30 a.m. rosary,

11 a.m. Mass. Celebrant: Archbishop José H. Gomez.

Bilingual Mass in Spanish and English will include anointing

of the sick, blessing of caregiver hands, and blessing

with Lourdes water. Visit lacatholics.org/events.

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 | January 24, 2025 | Vol. 10 No. 2

Transform your PDFs into Flipbooks and boost your revenue!

Delete template?

Save as template ?