Angelus News | October 17, 2025 | Vol. 10, No. 21

ANGELUS
A MOTHER’S
MESSAGE
LA’s Guadalupe tour
brings hope to shaken
immigrant community
October 17, 2025 Vol. 10 No. 21

October 17, 2025
Vol. 10 • No. 21
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ON THE COVER
JOHN RUEDA
A woman prays before the pilgrim image of Our Lady of
Guadalupe during its Oct. 2 visit to Our Lady of Lourdes
Church in East LA. The image, together with a companion
image of St. Juan Diego, is visiting a record number of
parishes this fall during its annual pilgrimage through the
LA Archdiocese. On Page 10, Mike Cisneros and Kimmy
ChacÓn speak to immigrant parishioners — and their
pastors — still reeling from LA’s “summer of ICE” about
the pilgrimage’s providential timing.
THIS PAGE
BELLE N’ BEAU PHOTOGRAPHY
This year’s St. John Seminary Gala, which benefits the
formation of future LA priests, was held Sept. 20 in the
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels plaza. Father Anthony
Gomez, Father Riz Carranza, Msgr. Paul Dotson, and
Dr. Carl Cohn received this year’s Distinguished Alumni
Awards, while Tom and Margie Romano were presented
with the “Evangelii Gaudium” (“Joy of the Gospel”) Award.
Pictured from left to right: Gomez, the Romanos, Archbishop
José H. Gomez, Cohn, Carranza, and Dotson.

CONTENTS
Pope Watch............................................... 2
Archbishop Gomez................................. 3
World, Nation, and Local News...... 4-6
In Other Words........................................ 7
Father Rolheiser....................................... 8
Scott Hahn.............................................. 32
Events Calendar..................................... 33
14
16
20
22
26
28
30
Jesuit’s nationwide bike ride to save Belize schools ends in LA
Catholic leaders look to reverse California’s marriage trends
Can a SoCal couple’s new app fix Catholic dating?
Meet the forgotten Christian monk who influenced Buddhism
Netflix’s ‘Thursday Murder Club’ and the ethics of dying
What’s with Taylor Swift’s foul-mouthed decline?
Heather King: A Beverly Hills socialite who gave her life to prisoners
October 17, 2025 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH
What the elderly tell us
The following is adapted from Pope
Leo XIV’s Oct. 3 address to participants
in the Second International Conference
on the Pastoral Care of the Elderly.
In our time, unfortunately, relationships
between generations are often
marked by divisions and conflicts
that pit them against each other. Older
people, for example, are accused of not
leaving room for young people in the
workforce, or of consuming too many
economic and social resources to the
detriment of other generations, as if
longevity were a fault.
These are ways of thinking that reveal
very pessimistic and conflictual views
of life. The elderly are a gift, a blessing
to be welcomed, and a longer life is
something positive; indeed, it is one of
the signs of hope in our time, everywhere
in the world.
Old age is above all a beneficial reminder
of the universal dynamic of life.
Today’s prevailing mentality tends to
value existence if it produces wealth or
success, if it exercises power or authority,
forgetting that the human being is
always a limited creature with needs.
The fragility that appears in the elderly
reminds us of this common truth;
it is therefore hidden or removed by
those who cultivate worldly illusions,
so as not to have before their eyes
the image of what we will inevitably
become. Instead, it is healthy to realize
that aging “is part of the marvel of
creation.”
The elderly teach us that salvation is
not found in autonomy, but in humbly
recognizing one’s own need and in being
able to express it freely so that the
measure of our humanity is not given
by what we can achieve, but by our
ability to let ourselves be loved and,
when necessary, even helped.
Today, many people, having finished
their working years, have the
opportunity to enjoy an increasingly
long period of good health, economic
well-being, and more free time. They
are called “young elderly”: often they
are the ones who attend Mass assiduously
and lead parish activities, such as
catechesis and various forms of pastoral
service. It is important to find an
appropriate language and opportunities
for them, involving them not as passive
recipients of evangelization, but as
active subjects, and to respond together
with them, and not in their place, to
the questions that life and the Gospel
pose to us.
Where elderly people are alone and
discarded, this will mean bringing
them the good news of the Lord’s
tenderness, to overcome, together with
them, the darkness of loneliness, the
great enemy of the lives of the elderly.
May no one be abandoned! May no
one feel useless! Even a simple prayer,
recited with faith at home, contributes
to the good of the people of God and
unites us in spiritual communion.
In other cases, missionary evangelization
will help older people to
encounter the Lord and his word.
With advancing age, in fact, many
people begin to question the meaning
of existence, creating an opportunity
to seek an authentic relationship with
God and to deepen their vocation to
holiness.
Let us always remember that proclaiming
the Gospel is the primary task
of our pastoral ministry: by involving
older people in this missionary
dynamic, they too will be witnesses of
hope, especially through their wisdom,
devotion, and experience.
Papal Prayer Intention for October: Let us pray that believers
in different religious traditions might work together to
defend and promote peace, justice, and human fraternity.
2 • ANGELUS • October 17, 2025

NEW WORLD OF FAITH
ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ
How the rosary brings peace
I
know many of you have joined me in
taking up Pope Leo XIV’s call for us
to pray the rosary for peace every day
during this month dedicated to the holy
rosary.
From the earliest centuries, Catholics
have sought the Blessed Mother’s
protection. One of our oldest known
prayers, the “Sub tuum praesidium”
(“Under your protection”), dates to the
mid-third century: “We fly to your protection,
O Holy Mother of God; do not
despise our petitions in our necessities,
but deliver us always from all dangers,
O glorious and blessed Virgin.”
The rosary is, at its heart, a prayer for
peace. By calling us to enter into the
saving mysteries of Jesus’ life, death,
and resurrection, this prayer invites us
to receive the peace he promised to his
disciples and sends us out to be peacemakers
in the world.
We need this prayer now, in this
moment of political violence and tense
divisions in our society, in this moment
when our world is torn by wars, conflicts,
and persecutions of the faith.
Many people today complain loudly
that “thoughts and prayers” are useless,
that what is needed instead is action.
But this misunderstands the truth of
both prayer and action, and the deeper
meaning of Jesus’ saving work in the
world.
Jesus assured us that he would never
leave us orphans, that he would remain
with us until the end of the age, and
that his Father and he are still at work
in history.
So when we pray, we are talking personally
to our Creator who walks beside
us, who knows our hearts, our fears, and
our hopes — our Creator whose plan
for creation is still unfolding.
In prayer, our sense of responsibility
for God’s plan begins. Prayer opens our
eyes to see God as our Father and others
as our brothers and sisters — hungry
for daily bread, longing for forgiveness,
yearning for deliverance from evil and
death.
The rosary is a school of the heart, a
pilgrim’s prayer. It gives us the rhythm
for life’s journey, the beads marking
steps along the path we walk in faith,
drawing us ever deeper into the mystery
of our life in Jesus Christ.
Each decade starts with the prayer that
Jesus taught us, the prayer that opens
our hearts to our Father’s loving will for
our lives. The mysteries that pass before
us, joyful, sorrowful, luminous, and
glorious, are all scenes that Mary herself
witnessed in the life of her Son.
With her, we follow the Child born
from her womb through the joys of
family life, through his mission of
bringing the light of God’s love into
the world, through the sorrows of his
passion and death, and the glory of his
resurrection and promise of new life.
The key is to always pray the rosary as
children, looking at Jesus’ life through
the eyes of his mother, who is also our
mother.
As we meditate on the succession of
mysteries, we enter more deeply into
the mystery of his love, day by day the
mysteries of his life becoming the mysteries
of our own.
Through the joyful mysteries, we
embrace his humility. Through the
luminous, we walk with him as children
of the light. Through the sorrowful
mysteries, we learn to love as he
commands, by self-giving. Through the
glorious mysteries, we come to live as
people bound for heaven.
The rosary teaches us to place our lives
in Jesus’ hands and follow him, to seek
his will and serve him in everything we
do.
It is a prayer of contemplation that
impels us to action, that leads us to
say with Mary: “May it be done to me
according to your word.”
Each decade starts with the prayer that Jesus
taught us, the prayer that opens our hearts to our
Father’s loving will for our lives.
Praying the rosary as children of God,
we grow to see that life is not about us,
but about God’s will and the service of
others — our family and friends, our
neighbors, the poor, the vulnerable, and
the outcast.
Pray for me this week, and I will pray
for you.
And in this nervous moment in our
nation, we pray for peace. Peace in our
hearts, in our families, and in our world.
We pray to be instruments of peace,
living our faith in Jesus every day with
confidence and joy and with sincere
love for everyone, even those who oppose
and disagree with us.
Prayer reminds us that each of us
shares in God’s plan, that he gives us
each a task: to bring hope where there
is despair, reconciliation where there is
division, and to lead others to friendship
with Jesus.
We ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to be
a mother to us, to show us the ways that
make for peace, and to inspire in us a
new desire to draw others to the beauty
and peace that we have found in her
Son.
October 17, 2025 • ANGELUS • 3

WORLD
■ Pope Leo XIV names his own
replacement in top Vatican post
Pope Leo made his first appointment to lead a major Vatican office,
backfilling the position that he vacated when he was elected pope.
As prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, 67-year-old Italian canon
lawyer Archbishop Filippo Iannone will oversee the office that helps
the pope select bishops and evaluate abuse allegations.
Prior to the new job, Iannone was the Vatican’s chief legislator as
head of the Dicastery for Legislative Texts. In that role, he was instrumental
in expanding Pope Francis’ abuse investigation framework,
Vox estis lux mundi, to include allegations against lay Catholic leaders.
Archbishop
Filippo Iannone
in 2024. | CNS/
LOLA GOMEZ
■ Finland’s ‘Bible Trial’
heads to Supreme Court
Finland’s Supreme Court will hear a
criminal case against a parliamentarian
facing criminal charges for posting Bible
verses about marriage.
The case centers on Päivi Räsänen,
a former minister of the interior and
leader of the country’s Christian Democrat
party. In 2019, she responded to a
Twitter post about a Pride event by the
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland,
which she belongs to, with a photo
of Romans 1:24–27.
Her tweet resulted in an investigation
and a trial, which led to Räsänen being
acquitted twice unanimously. Now, the
state has appealed the acquittals to the
high court.
“This is a trial about the Bible,” Räsänen
told the European Conservative.
“The prosecutor said it very clearly in
our main newspaper, that if I would be
finally convicted at the Supreme Court
that our Bibles are still allowed to exist,
for example, in libraries, and you can
refer to the Bible. But the red line is if
you agree in public with the Bible.”
Päivi Räsänen in 2023. | ©LAURI HEIKKIN-
EN/FINLAND PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE
When everything is shaken — Isagani Gilig and his son react as they sit beside the body bag containing
the remains of a son and brother, retrieved from the rubble of a damaged house Oct. 1 after a magnitude 6.9
offshore earthquake in Bogo, Philippines, in Cebu province. The quake collapsed houses and buildings Sept.
30 in the central Philippine province, leaving at least 72 dead and injuring many others. | OSV NEWS/ELOISA
LOPEZ, REUTERS
■ Vatican foreign minister warns
UN of nuclear, AI arms races
A Vatican representative urged the U.N. to formally ban nuclear testing and
warned members about an impending AI “arms race.”
In a Sept. 26 speech, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, secretary for Relations
with States and International Organizations, encouraged the international
body to finalize the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. The Holy See
was a signatory of the September 1996 treaty, which has never been entered into
force.
“The continued and massive diversion of resources to armaments, rather than to
efforts that promote integral human development and lasting peace,” the British
prelate said, “is unacceptable and calls for renewed international responsibility.”
In a separate address at the U.N., Gallagher tied the concerns over rapid AI
advancement to nuclear proliferation.
“This is not an abstract or distant concern, but an urgent reality given today’s
global instability and given the rapid integration of AI into conventional and
nuclear weapon systems,” he said.
4 • ANGELUS • October 17, 2025

NATION
Small school on a big stage — Members of the Leo High School Choir, a Catholic high school boys choir from Chicago,
appear on stage during the 20th season finale of “America’s Got Talent” on Sept. 24. The 18-member group made it
to the Top 5 of the competition. Celebrity judge Simon Cowell said the group “progressed the most” among this year’s
cohort. | OSV NEWS/TRAE PATTON, NBC
■ Seminary enrollment
continues drop to
historic lows
Enrollment at college and graduate-level
Catholic seminaries faced
another significant decrease in the
2024-25 academic year.
A fall 2025 report compiled by
Georgetown’s Center for Applied
Research in the Apostolate found
that college seminary enrollment
dropped 6%, from 889 to 840.
Graduate seminary, meanwhile,
dropped 8%, from 2,920 to 2,686.
High school seminaries, increasingly
uncommon, saw a modest
increase of 2%, but enrollment
remains at just 300 nationwide.
These numbers continue along
a downward trend, with less than
a third of seminarian enrollment
compared to 1970-71 across all
levels.
■ Mormons fundraise to
support shooter’s family
An online fundraiser has raised
more than $200,000 from thousands
of members of the Church of Latter-Day
Saints to support the family
of the man charged with a deadly
attack targeting an LDS meetinghouse.
David John Butler, a member of
the LDS church from Provo, Utah,
launched the fundraiser to support
the family of Thomas Jacob Sanford,
who was killed in a gunfight with
police following the Sept. 28 attack
on an LDS church in Grand Blanc,
Michigan. Four people were killed
and 10 injured after Sanford crashed
his truck into the church, shot at
the congregation and set fire to the
building.
“Look, I’m Mormon, and to the
chagrin of the greater Christian
community, we share their Bible,”
Butler told journalist Zaid Jilani.
“The Epistle of James says care for
the widows and orphans. Jesus said
turn the other cheek and mourn with
those who mourn.”
Sen. Dick
Durbin in 2021.
| CNS/BRAN-
DON BELL,
REUTERS
■ Pro-choice Illinois senator
declines Catholic award
Catholic Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin
declined an award from the Archdiocese of
Chicago that had sparked public discord
between American bishops.
Durbin, a Democrat with a long record of
supporting abortion rights, was set to receive
the award for his advocacy for immigrants
from the archdiocese’s Office of Human
Dignity and Solidarity Immigration Ministry.
The announcement led Bishop Thomas J.
Paprocki of Springfield — Durbin’s home
diocese — to publicly accuse Chicago Cardinal
Blase Cupich of creating scandal by
allowing the award.
Paprocki’s criticism received support from
several other U.S. bishops. When asked
about the controversy by a journalist Sept.
30, Pope Leo XIV said he wasn’t “terribly familiar” with the case but that it was “important
to look at the overall work” of a long-serving senator like Durbin.
“Someone who says I’m against abortion but is in favor of the death penalty is not
really pro-life,” the pope explained. “They are very complex issues and I don’t know if
anyone has all the truth on them,” said Leo, referring to politicians.
The same day, Cupich announced that Durbin had declined the award. But in his
statement, he argued against “total condemnation” of Catholic politicians who fail to
adhere to “essential elements” of Catholic social teaching and said that “praise and
encouragement” can open up discussion by “asking their recipients to consider how
to extend their good work to other areas and issues.”
October 17, 2025 • ANGELUS • 5

LOCAL
■ LA auxiliary bishop tapped to
lead Monterey diocese during
vacancy
Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Slawomir Szkredka
was appointed to temporarily serve as apostolic
administrator of the Diocese of Monterey following
Bishop Daniel Garcia’s Sept. 18 departure to
lead the Diocese of Austin, Texas.
Szkredka, 51, is expected to serve in the new
role until the Vatican selects a new bishop to
succeed Garcia in Monterey. The Polish-born
bishop will split his time between the LA Archdiocese’s
Santa Barbara Pastoral Region, where he
will continue to serve as episcopal vicar, and his
new duties in Monterey.
In a Facebook post, the diocese said it welcomed
the appointment “with gratitude and joy.”
“Let us unite as one diocesan family in prayer
for Bishop Szkredka as he begins this ministry
among us,” it read.
Szkredka has served in the Santa Barbara Pastoral
Region since becoming a bishop in September
2023.
Keeping families together — Several Catholic clergy, including LA Auxiliary Bishop Matthew
Elshoff, center left, turned out for California Assemblywoman Celeste Rodriguez’s press conference
in downtown Los Angeles on Oct. 2 in support of AB 495, a bill intended to help families
affected by immigration. | ASSEMBLYWOMAN RODRIGUEZ’S OFFICE
■ Loyola High
students take
pilgrimage
to Eaton Fire
burn area
More than 50 high
school students from
LA’s Loyola High
School led a pilgrimage
to Altadena and
the Eaton Fire burn
zone as part of the
national Pilgrims of
Hope for Creation
(POHFC), which
emphasizes the importance of care for creation.
On Oct. 4 — the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint
of animals and the environment — the students from the all-boys
Jesuit school traveled to the Pasadena Job Center and along a fire
trail in solidarity with fire victims.
Students from Loyola High
School pose at an Eaton Fire
burn area on Oct. 4 during
the POHFC pilgrimage. |
JONAS MERCHAN
“My grandmother lives in my room now, which isn’t horrible, but the fact that all her stuff
and home are now burnt is even hard to imagine,” said Loyola student Luke Spore. “[Her]
community needs help and needs help quickly so they can start to rebuild instead of just
cleaning up.”
The pilgrimages are in response to Pope Francis’ “Laudato Si’ ” (“Praise Be to You”)
encyclical, celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, and the Jubilee Year of Hope. Catholics
nationwide have been organizing pilgrimages to local sites of ecological significance.
Learn more at catholicpilgrimsofhope.org.
■ LA Catholic
schools receive $1.1
million gift from
Hilton Foundation
The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
awarded a $1.1 million
grant to the Archdiocese of
Los Angeles’ Department of
Catholic Schools (DCS) on
Sept. 29, allowing for the expansion
of several educational
initiatives.
The grant, which runs
through 2029, will earmark
funds dedicated to many of
DCS’ programs, including
Dual Language Immersion,
STEM networks, Early College
Network, and its Microschools
model.
The funding will also provide
professional development for
teachers and administrators,
assist more Catholic school
students with getting into
college, and support the most
vulnerable students with academic
and financial support.
6 • ANGELUS • October 17, 2025

V
IN OTHER WORDS...
Letters to the Editor
Pray, but end gun culture
Although one certainly shares the grief and prayers with the families
of the two students who were shot and killed at Annunciation Catholic
Church in Minneapolis (“A Time to Cling to Jesus,” Sept. 19 issue), and
although one understands the sense of helplessness and the force of prayer in the
midst of the unspeakable (“Minneapolis and the Mystery of Suffering”), isn’t there
something missing?
It’s the guns, children. And we are hopeless children until we realize that.
Pope Leo did. Just after the shootings, he spoke to the crowd at St. Peter’s Square
and shifted to English from Italian when he decried “the countless children killed
and injured worldwide, please God stop this pandemic of arms large and small.”
In 1996, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops spoke in favor of the assault
weapons ban that held for 10 years and took the number of mass shootings way
down. It’s part of our sickness that the ban was lifted in 2006, and the killing went
back up again.
You will never legislate anger out of human existence. Neither will you pry away
mental illness. But you can legislate against the hardware of death. You pray, of
course, but the Gospels tell us you must act, too.
— Gregory Orfalea, Santa Barbara
On moral steadiness
Father Ronald Rolheiser’s father (Oct. 3 issue) knew the correct political answer
all along. It doesn’t take a Gallup poll to know that moral steadiness is what Jesus
taught us long ago.
Think back, the disciples were arguing along the way to Capernaum, “which one
of them is the greatest,” and it looks like we are still arguing about that very same
topic today. Each of us can find a way to model moral steadiness, just like Father
Rolheiser’s dad did.
— Kim Hoelting, Salina, Kansas
Y
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Mercy for migrants
Pope Leo XIV accepts the offertory gifts
from two religious sisters during Mass for
the Jubilee of Migrants and the Jubilee of the
Missions in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican
Oct. 5. | CNS/VATICAN MEDIA
“The world changes if we
change.”
~ Pope Leo XIV, in a special catechesis delivered on
Oct. 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi.
“I just hope that you
understand that this life on
Planet Earth isn’t the end.”
~ Jane Goodall, the esteemed conservationist who
died at 91 on Oct. 1, in a Netflix show, “Famous
Last Words.”
“You are here to serve, not
to go on vacation in Rome.”
~ Dario, a new recruit for the Swiss Guards, in an
Oct. 3 Associated Press article on the pope’s army
getting new uniforms.
“I’m a zombie Catholic at
that point.”
~ Kevin Matthews, a former notable Chicago radio
personality, in an Oct. 4 Catholic News Agency
article on the new film that shows how a broken
Virgin Mary statue changed his life.
“A developer without
investors would be like a
king without clothes.”
~ Cliff Goldstein, a Los Angeles developer, in an Oct.
1 LA Times article on how building new apartments
in the region has come to a halt.
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.
“We’re turning from phones
to pages.”
~ Lynn Reynolds, a Kentucky school district
director of library media services, in an Oct. 2 Good
Good Good article on students’ reading increasing
after banning phones.
October 17, 2025 • ANGELUS • 7

IN EXILE
FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI
Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father
Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual
writer; ronrolheiser.com
Devotions: A tradition of the heart
Growing up in a Roman Catholic home, devotions
were always a vital part of our religious diet. While
our family saw the Eucharist as more important than
devotions, we nourished our spiritual lives a lot on devotions,
as did many Roman Catholics back then.
Among other things, we prayed the rosary every day, prayed
the Angelus daily, prayed special litanies (St. Joseph in
March, Mary in May and October, and the Sacred Heart of
Jesus in June), prayed the Stations of the Cross each Friday in
Lent, were anxious to attend Eucharist on First Fridays and
First Saturdays to obtain special promises from God, and said
special prayers to obtain indulgences.
As well, there were pilgrimages to Marian shrines for those
who could afford them, and most everyone wore medals from
Lourdes or Fátima and had a special devotion to those shrines
(with a special devotion in my own family and parish to Our
Lady of the Cape, at Cap De Madeleine, Quebec). Devotions
were a big part of our spiritual lives.
What’s to be said about devotions from a theological view
and from the view of a culture that mostly distrusts them?
We might begin with the reaction of Martin Luther and the
great Protestant reformers. They were fearful of two things
in devotions. First, at that time, some devotions were too
unbridled and were simply bad theology (famously, selling
indulgences). Second, they saw devotions not as necessarily
bad in themselves, but as often displacing Jesus and God’s
Word as our center and main focus. And so they distanced
themselves from basically all Roman Catholic devotions, the
unbridled as well as the healthy.
For the most part that Protestant and Evangelical distrust of
Roman Catholic devotions has come down right to our own
day. While that distrust is breaking down in some non-Roman
churches today, it is still the prevalent attitude inside
most Protestant and Evangelical circles. In brief, they distrust
most devotions because they are seen not just as deflecting
our focus from the centrality of Jesus and the Word, but also
as potentially unhealthy contaminants, as junk food in our
spiritual diet.
What’s to be said about that?
It’s a fair and needed warning to Roman Catholics (and
others) who nourish their spiritual lives with devotions. Bottom
line, devotions can easily ground themselves on shaky
theology and can be a junk food contaminating our spiritual
diet: Where devotions replace Scripture, Mary replaces Jesus
as center, and certain ritual practices make God seem like a
puppet on a string.
However, that being admitted, as Goethe once said, “the
dangers of life are many and safety is one of those dangers.”
Yes, devotions can be a danger, but they can also be a rich,
healthy supplement in our essential diet of Word and Eucharist.
Here’s how Eric Mascall (the renowned Anglican theologian
at Oxford with C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers,
and Austin Ferrar) spells out both the danger of devotions and
the danger of not having devotions as part of your spiritual
life: “The protestant reformers (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli)
were so afraid of contamination by Roman Catholic devotions,
that they put us on a diet of antiseptics. When you’re on
a diet of antiseptics, you won’t suffer from food-poisoning, but
you can suffer from malnutrition.”
That’s an equal challenge to both those who practice devotions
and those who fear them. The theology undergirding
certain devotions admittedly can be sloppy (for example,
Mary is not a co-redeemer with Jesus). However, inside many
devotions (to Mary, to the saints, to Eucharistic adoration,
to the Sacred Heart) there can be a rich nutrition that helps
nourish the center, namely, God’s Word and the Eucharist.
The late Wendy Wright, in her book “Sacred Heart: Gateway
to God” (Orbis Books, $18), makes a wonderful apologia
for Catholic devotional practices, particularly devotion to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus. For her, Catholic devotional practices
are a tradition of the heart. While Jesus remains central and
his resurrection remains the real anchor for our faith, devotions
can give us something beyond just this raw essential.
Using devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus as an example,
she writes: “In this devotion, we, and Jesus and the
saints, exist in some essential way outside the chronology of
historical time. The tradition of the heart makes this vividly,
even grotesquely, clear. The divine–human correspondence
is intimate. It is discovered in the flesh. Our fleshy hearts are
fitted for all that is beyond flesh by conforming to the heart
of Jesus. That divine-human heart is the passageway between
earth and heaven. That heart is the tactile tracings of divine
love on the created order. That heart is the widest, wildest
longing of humankind’s own love.”
The dangers of life are many and safety is one of those dangers.
Devotions can deflect us from what’s more central and
can take their root in some questionable theology, but they
can also, in Wendy Wright’s words, be a blessed passageway
for the heart between heaven and earth.
8 • ANGELUS • October 17, 2025

‘THEY NEED GOD’
The annual tour of Guadalupe pilgrim
images is bringing hope to Latino Catholics
rattled by LA’s ‘summer of ICE.’
BY MIKE CISNEROS AND
KIMMY CHACÓN
The pilgrim images of
Our Lady of Guadalupe
and St. Juan Diego
stopped during their
annual tour at Our Lady
of Lourdes Church in
East LA. | JOHN RUEDA
Every fall, specially blessed “pilgrim
images” of Our Lady of
Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego
spend several weeks visiting parishes
and cemeteries around the Archdiocese
of Los Angeles, where they’re
greeted with all kinds of devotions
and celebrations by Latino Catholics:
Masses, group rosaries, Eucharistic
adoration, processions, and even mariachi
performances.
In that sense, this year’s annual
pilgrimage is no different. But after a
summer of widespread fear caused by
increased immigration enforcement,
this year’s tour has taken on a much
deeper meaning than usual for Catholics
in immigrant communities.
Since June, mass sweeps by Immigration
& Customs Enforcement (ICE)
agents, part of the Trump administration’s
efforts to ramp up deportations,
have left Catholics across the archdiocese
scrambling, disoriented, and wary
of what might come next.
At many parishes, pews are noticeably
emptier at Mass. Requests for
financial and food assistance have increased.
And many are staying home,
afraid of risking deportation by venturing
out for even basic necessities.
But the fear caused by the raids has
also had at least one positive effect:
10 • ANGELUS • October 17, 2025

Members of the Guadalupanas pose at an event for
Our Lady of Guadalupe at Sacred Heart Church in
Lincoln Heights on Sept. 28. | KIMMY CHACÓN
The pilgrim image of
Our Lady of Guadalupe
enters Our Lady of Victory
Church in East LA during a
welcome Mass on Sept. 27.
| KIMMY CHACÓN
this year’s pilgrimage is visiting more
parishes than ever before, 51 in total,
plus a couple of cemeteries and
convents.
“As the mother of God, Our Lady of
Guadalupe brings hope, not only in
this time during immigration difficulties,
but year-round,” said Father
Miguel Angel Ruiz, chair of the archdiocese’s
Guadalupano committee,
which organizes the annual Guadalupe-themed
celebrations. “She is always
there and bringing her image to
the local churches is a great reminder
of her presence in our lives.”
The pilgrimage’s success reflects
the resilience of immigrant Catholics
clinging to the sacraments while
praying for an end to the raids and
deportations, and for political action
that will lead to comprehensive immigration
reform.
A
few weeks before the pilgrimage’s
Sept. 27 stop at Our Lady
of Victory Church in East
LA, ICE vehicles were seen driving
around the church, prompting parishioners
to immediately close all the
gates to help keep their “pueblo” safe.
Our Lady of Victory parishioners
Monica Bravo and Claudia Toscano
said the images’ presence shows that
Our Lady of Guadalupe is protecting
them.
“She [Mother Mary] knows we’re be-
October 17, 2025 • ANGELUS • 11

ing cornered, but here we are — we’re
not leaving,” Bravo said. “She reminds
us to have faith and hope.”
“Sometimes people stay home
because they’re afraid. But when they
see us going out [to church], even
without documents — the Lord sets
us free,” Toscano said.
Father Alexander Hernandez, pastor
at Our Lady of Victory, believes the
Blessed Mother’s visit is a message
to the community: “She’s saying, ‘I
am always with you, so why are you
afraid?’
“I think Mother Mary’s message is
clear: just as she protected St. Juan
Diego, I will also protect you,” he said,
referring to the immigrant community.
During a pilgrimage stop the next day
at Sacred Heart Church in Lincoln
Heights, parishioner and proud “Gua-
LA Catholics unite
in prayer to support
immigrants
At this year’s Mass in Recognition of All Immigrants on
Sept. 21 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels,
about 1,600 gathered to pray for an end to immigration
raids and to support those in need.
Antonio Luna, a deacon for the Diocese of Orange, spoke
during the Mass about how he immigrated with his siblings
to the United States at age 9, but found himself alone on the
streets at 14 when they were deported to Mexico. Luna’s tale
echoed what many immigrants in LA and around the U.S.
are facing.
“I had that fear,” Luna said. “And the questions came to my
mind: What am I going to do? Where am I going to go? Who
is going to pick me up? Am I going to see my mom again? I
have brothers, sisters. I belong to a family.”
In his homily, Archbishop José H. Gomez called on immigrants
to tell their own stories in appealing to government
leaders to remedy the country’s broken immigration system.
“It’s the story that’s been told since the beginning of this
country,” Archbishop Gomez said. “It’s the story of good,
hardworking men and women, people of faith.
“Let’s make that true again. Let’s tell our story to our leaders
especially, and urge them to do what is right. To make it easier
to come to this country, to create a
path forward for those who have been
here for many years.”
Boni Lara and his wife, Celia
Zamora, parishioners at Ascension
Church in South LA, have attended
the annual Mass the last three years,
but said they felt more urgently
called to come this year.
Deacon Antonio Luna from
the Diocese of Orange
gives his immigration
experience about growing
up on the streets after his
family was deported during
the Mass in Recognition of
All Immigrants on Sept. 21.
| EVAN LIRETTE
“There are a lot of us who are scared, who don’t want to
leave our homes,” said Lara, an immigrant from Michoacán,
Mexico. “We hope that something good comes out of this
Mass, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary.”
“We can do so much,” said Deacon Luna. “Our communities,
they trust us. They see the Lord in us. We can open our
hearts and listen to their voices and listen to what they need.
Because, after all, us as Catholics, we are here to lift the
dignity of human beings.
“To those who are undocumented, let me tell you one
thing: Do not be afraid. Don’t lose faith, trust the Lord, and
pray. Pray, because this will have an end.”
— Mike Cisneros and Theresa Cisneros
12 • ANGELUS • October 17, 2025

dalupana” Anna Maria Diaz-Balart
called the images’ visit “the first glimmer
of hope we’re able to share with
each other” since the raids began.
Just a few blocks from Sacred Heart,
the Home Depot in Cypress Park was
raided by ICE in June, leading the
parish to postpone summer festivities.
Still, Diaz-Balart remains hopeful in
the comfort and strength offered by
Our Lady of Guadalupe.
“I am happy the images are visiting
more churches this year, and I hope
that the joy and beauty we experience
is multiplied in many more parishes —
to have people experience the peace
she brings.”
In interviews with Angelus, several
priests around the archdiocese described
a climate of cautious calm,
even as fear persists following the worst
of the raids over the summer. Many
parishioners, they said, are finding the
courage to return to church thanks to
their faith.
“They need God,” said Father Jose
Gerardo Alberto, MSpS, associate
pastor at Our Lady of Guadalupe
Church in Oxnard, where much of
the parish’s flock are farmworkers who
work nearby. “That’s why they come
to Mass. People are starting to get their
strength again, participating more and
more in the Eucharist, the sacraments,
many baptisms.”
After a decline in Mass attendance,
religious education, and more at St.
Matthias Church in Huntington Park,
the pastor, Father Ruben Restrepo,
began locking the doors of the parish
after each Mass’ second reading, so his
parishioners would feel safer.
“We cannot give up the faith because
if we have faith, the fear is not taking
over our lives,” Restrepo said.
When asked by one of his parishioners
how he planned to defend immigrants,
Father Gabriel Ruiz, CMF, a
priest at the San Gabriel Mission, had
a simple answer.
“I said, ‘Well, I’ll let them take me
first. You know, ahead of you,’ ” Ruiz
said. “I don’t know what else to do.
“It’s affecting the whole society, not
only us. I’ve never seen any brutality
like this in my life. It seems to me they
are breaking the fabric of our society.”
Isaac Cuevas, the Archdiocese of Los
Angeles’ director of immigration and
public affairs, said that archdiocesan
parishes and groups have been working
tirelessly to support immigrants by
hosting food banks and “know your
rights” workshops, and helping them
create legal plans in case of emergencies
or deportation.
That also includes the ongoing
Family Assistance Program, a fund
the archdiocese created for donors to
assist immigrants and their families in
need. The fund has raised more than
$300,000 so far, said Sister Anncarla
Costello, SND, the archdiocese’s
chancellor.
The money has largely been supplementing
parishes’ existing food
pantries or programs that are geared
toward assisting immigrant families,
especially ones forced to stay home.
“I think it’s been a mutually enriching
experience for both people
going out and the families receiving,”
Costello said.
Although larger groups are assisting
the immigrant community, Cuevas
stressed that the call to action applies
to individual Catholics.
“[The raids] are inflicting harm,
and it’s inflicting emotional stress,”
he said. “And doing that knowingly is
sinful. We hope that as a Church, we
can do our part to support people in a
time of need.
“Every single one of us has an opportunity
to take action in some small
way.”
A mother
holds her baby
during the Mass in
Recognition of All
Immigrants at the
Cathedral of Our
Lady of the Angels
on Sept. 21. |
EVAN LIRETTE
Mike Cisneros is the associate editor
of Angelus.
Kimmy Chacón is a freelance journalist
and graduate of the Columbia University
Graduate School of Journalism.
She lives in Los Angeles and works in
education.
October 17, 2025 • ANGELUS • 13

BEACON OF LIGHT
Father Matt Ruhl, SJ, center with beard, poses with other
cyclists and supporters after completing “The Lighthouse Ride”
on Oct. 1 in Santa Monica after starting in Maine on July 15.
A Jesuit priest’s transcontinental bike ride to save
Belize’s crumbling Catholic school system came
to a picture-perfect finish in Santa Monica.
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY TOM HOFFARTH
As Father Matt Ruhl, SJ, approached
the Santa Monica
Pier on the first day of October,
he glimpsed a group of several dozen
friends and family cheering his arrival.
As the setting sun glistened off his sunglasses
— a key part of his cycling attire
for the past 12 weeks — he couldn’t
stop smiling.
Ruhl and three companions were
completing “The Lighthouse Ride,”
named after the Baron Bliss Lighthouse
that dates back to the 19th century
in Belize. The group reached Santa
Monica after cycling on July 15 from
a lighthouse in Portland, Maine, and
heading west through 15 states.
When the cyclists finished the final
leg along Route 66 — a 90-mile run
from San Bernardino that dodged
Southern California rush-hour traffic
to reach the iconic Santa Monica sign
at the foot of the pier — Ruhl waved
the group to continue onto the sand, lift
their bikes in the air, and step into the
Pacific Ocean.
“How can you not cycle across this
country, seeing the mountains we did
at the start and then the Mojave desert
near the end, and not ask, ‘OK, God,
what do you have to say?” said Ruhl,
who started each day of the ride leading
a group prayer and ending it with a
Mass. “And God was busy talking. It’s
not like we were doing this looking out
a car window. We were in it.”
Two years earlier, Ruhl had been
looking for ways to revive a deteriorating
Catholic school he oversees in
the impoverished Caribbean country
of Belize. He cycled through ideas on
ways to achieve a pie-in-the-sky goal of
raising $5 million through connections
he had across the United States.
The 66-year-old Jesuit priest, a pastor
14 • ANGELUS • October 17, 2025

Father Matt Ruhl, center, smiles after riding
from Maine to Santa Monica with the goal of
raising $5 million for Catholic schools in Belize.
for the last five years at St. Peter Claver
Church in Punta Gorda, Belize,
decided a 3,800-mile cross-country bike
trek across America was as good a plan
as any.
After all, back in 2010 when he was
pastor at St. Francis Xavier Church
in Kansas City, Missouri, Ruhl rallied
his parish cycling team to commit to a
5,000-mile ride from the state of Washington
to Key West, Florida, joining
Catholic Charities USA’s Campaign to
Reduce Poverty.
Ruhl chairs a diocesan commission
that oversees 30 Catholic schools, 250
teachers, and 4,400-plus students who
use 110 buildings in the Toledo district
of Belize, where he serves. He figured
he’d need $1 million to address all the
disrepair. But when he looked at the
four regions north of him in Belize,
Ruhl upped his game, committing
himself to serve all 112 Catholic
schools and 36,000 students in the
country along with its 432 buildings.
The $5 million fundraising goal began
with donations at the project’s website,
lighthouseridebelize.org.
Ruhl, a St. Louis native who has
become a naturalized Belizean after
having lived in the country for some 30
years, has been trying to catch up on
school repairs after the country gained
its independence in 1981 and the
Jesuits gave up administrative duties to
the government.
Belize’s government uses tax collections
to pay teacher salaries, but the
Catholic churches are on their own
to fund school-building maintenance,
buying supplies, and maintaining nutritional
programs.
As a result, Ruhl said ongoing issues
can be as basic as combating the fruit
bats that inhabit the weather-beaten facilities
and affect children with asthma.
Termites are also a nuisance. Malnutrition
is epidemic.
“Every academic year we scrape
by,” Ruhl said. “It’s not just about our
grade-school kids. If they aren’t making
it through, there are fewer going to
secondary schools and universities, so
they will feel it. This has a much larger
scope.”
Tom Makarewicz, a seminary classmate
of Ruhl some 40 years ago and
one of the three other cyclists,
said of the priest: “He touches
my heart with his love for the
people of Belize, especially the
children. This means so much
to him. He has said he’ll go to
his grave to fulfill this mission.”
Olive Woodye, a retired
schoolteacher and former
principal at St. Benedict’s
RC Primary School, took an
eight-hour flight from Belize
with Claret Jacobs, the assistant
local manager of Catholic
schools in the Toledo district,
to be part of a contingent of
greeters at the Santa Monica
Pier for the cyclists.
“We love Father Matt so
much,” Woodye said. “I don’t know
how he gets so many things done at our
parish. He has been so passionate about
the ride because he cares so much for
everyone.”
Jacobs said that because of the daily
issues they have at their schools, “we
take nothing for granted. We know the
importance of educating the children
who may have parents that are not educated.
This is a way to empower them,
help their families and, by extension,
help the world. We had to be here to
see him finish.”
As of press time, the organizers said
they had raised about one-third of their
$5 million goal, but Jacobs said, “You
know what, if we only raised $10, that’s
$10 more than we had.”
Ruhl, who said he abides by a Nelson
Mandela quote that “it always seems
impossible until it’s done,” laughed
when he heard what Jacobs said.
“I understand where she’s coming
from, and she’s right,” he said. “But I
give you my word, I will not rest until
I have $5 million U.S. dollars in the
bank. I am very focused on this. This
bike ride may be over, but our mission
continues. It is all about getting the
primary Catholic schools in Belize
rebuilt. With all the energy and enthusiasm
here, and online, it’s a great, great
beginning.”
Tom Hoffarth is an award-winning
journalist based in Los Angeles.
Olive Woodye, left, and
Claret Jacobs flew from
Belize to await Father Matt
Ruhl’s arrival at the Santa
Monica Pier on Oct. 1.
October 17, 2025 • ANGELUS • 15

Bishop Joseph Brennan of Fresno speaks during a panel at
the LoveIRL summit at the Cathedral of Christ the Light in
Oakland. | CALIFORNIA CATHOLIC CONFERENCE
SPARKING A
MARRIAGE REVIVAL
A gathering
organized by
California’s bishops
asked: How can
Catholics turn
around the state’s
marriage crisis?
BY ANN RODGERS
AND PABLO KAY
From promoting churches as
wedding venues to encouraging
Catholic families to invite single
people over to witness the goodness
of marriage, the LoveIRL summit
sponsored by the California Catholic
Conference gave youth and young
adult ministers information and ideas to
revitalize marriage and family ministry.
Held at the Cathedral of Christ the
Light in Oakland, it drew 280 lay and
ordained ministers, including eight
bishops from every California diocese
to the Sept. 27 summit that capped the
year-long Radiate Love initiative.
Resources are online at cacatholic.org/
radiatelove, and every diocese should
now have staff who are prepared to
A couple prays during Mass at the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland during the LoveIRL summit. |
CALIFORNIA CATHOLIC CONFERENCE
carry the work forward at a parish level.
“The bishops wanted to create a summit
specifically for people who work
with youth and young adults, helping
them with the resources and language
to talk about marriage as a vocation
to young people today,” said Kathleen
Domingo, executive director of the
California Catholic Conference.
Registration was far larger than anticipated.
The “IRL” in the summit’s name
means “in real life.”
“There was just a great sense of joy
and hope in the room that we were
even having this conversation,” she
said.
The California bishops were inspired
to create Radiate Love after hearing a
talk by sociologist Brad Wilcox, author
of “Get Married: Why most Americans
must defy the elites, forge strong families,
and save civilization” (Broadside
16 • ANGELUS • October 17, 2025

Damon Owens, director of parish growth
for Communio.org, was a featured speaker
at the Sept. 26 event. | BROTHER CHRIS
GARCIA, OFM CONV/CATHOLIC VOICE
Books, $32).
“A lot of the social science [Wilcox] is
doing around satisfaction in marriage is
changing the secular narrative that says
that women do better and are happier
when they’re not married,” Domingo
said.
“Actually, the social science is showing
just the opposite — that married
women with children are some of the
happiest people in the world.”
The bishops have seen marriage rates
plummet for years. They wanted to
make a case that would connect with
more young people.
“For people in their 50s working in
parish ministry, it might be difficult for
them to talk about marriage to Gen
Z. A lot of the language isn’t the same
anymore. It doesn’t resonate,” said
Domingo.
There were presentations on how
teens and younger adults view love
with distrust and don’t have marriage
on their radar — and ways to “heal
that culture and bring them back to an
understanding of who they are, what
they’re made for, and what love means,”
she said.
Topics included reclaiming the Christian
understanding and purpose of both
weddings and quinceañeras.
One bishop urged priests to encourage
engaged couples to raise the spirituality
and lower the cost of their wedding
by getting married at a Sunday Mass.
Another gave an example of one priest
in his diocese who, during a Sunday
Mass, publicly urged couples to get
married. A panelist spoke of her potluck
wedding reception, with parishioners
helping out.
“She said it was so freeing and so
beautiful for them to get married young
and make that choice without going
into debt or postpone because of financial
difficulties,” Domingo said.
Another participant mentioned a
parish that used to be a popular site for
weddings, but had seen a tremendous
drop-off. Couples still thought it was a
beautiful place and still wanted to get
married, but secular advertisers were
pushing them to secular venues. The
parish response was to set up a booth
for wedding vendor shows.
“They had blown-up pictures of the
inside of their church, and then they’d
say ‘Oh, by the way, here’s our marriage
preparation packet.’ They really used it
as an evangelizing moment,” Domingo
said. “And they have seen a huge increase
in people getting married at that
Bishop Oscar Cantú of San
Jose led LoveIRL summit
participants in Eucharistic
adoration and Benediction. |
BROTHER CHRIS GARCIA, OFM
CONV/CATHOLIC VOICE
church and going through the Catholic
marriage preparation process.”
A similar discussion arose around
quinceañeras, which were meant to
be celebrations of a 15-year-old girl
entering womanhood by committing
to following Christ and honoring the
Blessed Mother. Like weddings, they
have become commercialized and
secularized.
“The discussion was around bringing
the quinceañera back to the church,
and not having it be so expensive
that people say, ‘I gave my daughter a
quinceañera and now I can’t afford to
give her a wedding,’ ” Domingo said.
Two well-known Catholic family advocates,
Damon Owens and Cristina Barba
Whalen, were the event’s featured
speakers, along with San Jose Bishop
Oscar Cantú. Owens told Angelus that
the solidarity among such a diverse
group of leaders was unlike anything
he’d ever experienced before.
“It was just exhilarating to participate
in,” said Owens. “We’re talking
about leaders in family life offices and
apostolates who are already dialed in to
building marriage in their own particular
way, now meeting to find a way to
work together to accomplish what none
of us can do on our own.”
Owens is the director of parish growth
October 17, 2025 • ANGELUS • 17

for Communio.org, a ministry that uses
data-driven strategies to help churches
strengthen marriages among parishioners.
His strategy? “Parish renewal
through marriage revival.”
“I genuinely believe this marks the
beginning of a marriage revival in
California and the nation,” Owens told
Angelus. “Such a solidarity has the capacity
to impact and transform millions
of real marriages and families.”
Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Marc
V. Trudeau attended the summit as a
panelist. He told Angelus the gathering
made it clear to him that “marriage and
family life are vital components of any
pastoral plan.”
“In an increasingly fractured society
in which isolation and depression seem
to be the norm, we look to the faithful
witness of married couples and their
families as models of communion
and hope,” Trudeau said. “Our faith
in Jesus is the remedy for the division,
anger, and violence that we experience
around us.”
In his remarks at the gathering,
Trudeau stressed that young people
today have a special need for stable
marriages and families as models.
“The constant barrage of social media
causes a disease in our ability to relate
with others,” he said. “Young people, in
particular, have not experienced what
it means to be in communion with
others.”
To that end, a theme that ran through
many discussions was the need for
accompaniment and for reclaiming
the concept of the “domestic church”
— the family that radiates the love of
Christ from its home. That has become
a lost experience for the many young
people whose primary relationships are
online.
“So how can those of us who are a
little older help to restore their confidence
in humanity?” Domingo asked.
“How can we help young people
reimagine friendship and reimagine the
love that they have for their friends and
reimagine dating? How can we help
young couples starting their careers and
preparing for marriage to really make
interaction between the spouses the top
priority?”
A key is for Catholic families to open
their homes and let their light shine.
“I think the overwhelming takeaway
Catholic speakers Charlie and Jess Echeverry from Los Angeles were panelists at the summit. | BROTHER CHRIS
GARCIA, OFM CONV/CATHOLIC VOICE
that people had was ‘Don’t be afraid to
share your story,’ ” she said. “If you hear
that someone just got engaged or if you
know of a couple that’s dating, or if you
have young children or grandchildren
or nephews or nieces at home — talk
to them about love. Tell them about
marriage. Tell them how great it is.”
Ann Rodgers is a longtime religion reporter
and freelance writer whose awards
include the William A. Reed Lifetime
Achievement Award from the Religion
News Association.
Pablo Kay is the editor-in-chief of
Angelus.
18 • ANGELUS • October 17, 2025

October 17, 2025 • ANGELUS • 19

PEOPLE, NOT PROFILES
Emily Wilson Hussem
with her husband, Daniël.
| IMAGE VIA FACEBOOK @
EMILYWILSONMINISTRIES
have led to 11 marriages, 20 engagements,
hundreds of dating couples, and
one baby.
She and her husband, Daniël, felt
called to help the growing population
of single Catholics. They joined their
talents — hers in ministry and his in
technology and media — to launch
SacredSpark, a new app which they
describe as a “revolutionary Catholic
dating and matchmaking experience
that redefines [online] dating.”
SacredSpark just launched in Los
Angeles and other cities at the end of
September. Emily and Daniël spoke
to Angelus about what makes their app
different, and how they plan to accompany
couples long after their first date.
Elise Ureneck: How did you two
meet? What’s your window into the
world of online dating?
Emily Wilson Hussem: Daniël and I
met in 2013 at a Catholic conference
in the Netherlands. I was speaking at
the conference, and he was a volunteer.
We began talking shortly after that, and
dated long distance. We got married
in 2015 and now live in the Diocese
of Orange, though I was raised in the
Archdiocese of Los Angeles in Encino.
Voice and video introductions, ‘matchmaker’
mode, and lots of encouragement: How a SoCal
couple wants to upend the Catholic dating scene.
BY ELISE URENECK
Daniël Hussem: While it wasn’t part
of our experience, we’ve been learning
about online dating for years through
friends. More than 60% of couples
today meet online. Once we felt called
to launch SacredSpark, we dug in and
did our own quantitative and qualitative
market research. We’ve been asking,
“How do Catholic singles perceive
the dating landscape and current app
providers?” “What’s the communication
track within the Catholic dating
space?”
Over the past few years, LA native
Emily Wilson Hussem has become
something of a Catholic
dating guru.
A youth minister with years of experience,
Emily’s YouTube videos on
dating and relationships, along with her
writing and social media accounts, have
established her as a well-known and
trusted guide for Catholic singles all
over the globe.
After hearing repeated lamentations
about the state of Catholic dating and
watching the sharp decline in Catholic
marriages, Hussem took matters into
her own hands: she started creating
“matchmaking posts” on her personal
Instagram feed. To date, those posts
EWH: Many Catholics have tried
every dating app under the sun. We’ve
asked our focus groups what’s working
and what’s not in order to provide the
best solution for the mess of Catholic
dating.
EU: Tell me more about what you
mean by “the mess of Catholic dating.”
20 • ANGELUS • October 17, 2025

What are the trends that concern you?
EWH: The first part is the breakdown
of communication across the culture.
Many Catholic singles have said that
nobody in their generation was taught
how to date or communicate. Many
young men have also said to us, “My
dad wasn’t around to teach me how to
pursue a woman.” So we created Dating
101, a series of 79 videos focused on
formation in these areas.
There’s also fear of rejection and a
widespread fear of commitment. People
feel like they should wait to see if someone
better comes along. We encourage
singles that commitment to someone
with all of their flaws, weaknesses, and
strengths is a beautiful thing. That’s
what the sacrament of marriage is.
EU: What challenges do people find
with current dating apps?
EWH: They reduce people to profiles,
and we are not profiles. That’s dehumanizing.
We are human beings with
hearts, souls, and stories. We designed
SacredSpark so that people don’t act
like they are shopping online. Users
should think, “Every person I look at
here is made in the image and likeness
of God, and I should communicate
with them and encounter them as
such.”
EU: What are some of those humanizing
features in your app?
DH: There hasn’t been a lot of innovation
in the Catholic online dating
Promotional image for the SacredSpark app. |
©SACREDSPARK
space for a long time. We’re flipping
the sequence as to how people connect.
Instead of leading with a photo
in someone’s bio, our app is video and
audio driven. You can hear what people
have to say, what their tone is like, how
they present themselves, and so forth.
We’re leading with inner qualities.
Physical attraction is definitely important,
but we want users not to judge
someone on a split-second glance, but
more by the inner qualities they learn
about. Users get to see what the other
person looks like after there is mutual
interest in connecting. Then they can
introduce themselves, start messaging,
set up a date and go from there.
EU: Your website advertises that a
wider community can get involved with
the app through matchmaking. How
will this work?
DH: We’re blending technology and
the tradition of matchmaking together.
There are two ways to use SacredSpark
— as a single or as a matchmaker.
Singles can invite trusted friends and
family to help them find compatible
matches. Once those invitations are
sent, we automatically link the two
accounts together. We also permit
matchmakers to begin the process for
their single friends and family members,
especially those who are burned
out from online dating. Matchmakers
can connect with other matchmakers,
or they can directly reach out to singles.
EWH: Catholic singles need support.
Too many of them feel forgotten,
exhausted, and defeated. And there
are many married couples who want
to support them. We can rally around
them and say, “You might be tired, but
we’re going to help you and find a great
match for you.”
EU: Is fixing Catholic dating primarily
a work of the laity? Or should priests
and religious help?
DH: Interest in fixing the dating scene
is happening at the grassroots level, but
singles are also reaching out to their
bishops and advocating for it. We have
heard from so many diocesan leaders
that don’t know what to offer young
adults when it comes to dating and
marriage. They are eager to share our
Dating 101 videos, which give ministry
leaders a structured approach to inform
people on the topic.
Priests and religious see the need to fix
Catholic dating, because building the
future Church starts with dating and
marriage.
EU: How will you measure the app’s
success?
DH: We’ve built a lot of tracking mechanisms
in the app, from how many
singles users are interacting with before
they get a match, to how many people
skip over profiles, to the number of couples
that commit after using the app.
But SacredSpark is about online
connections for offline relationships.
We plan to offer more formational
resources, ones that move from dating
to discernment, to engagement, and
marriage itself.
EWH: We know the value of ongoing
support for dating, engagement, and
discernment. We receive formation
from our parish and spiritual directors.
We hope the app and our video
resources pour fuel on the fire of marriage
and family life. We want to see
holy, sacramental marriages rooted in
the faith. We want couples to blossom
and families to thrive. And we want to
help a lot of singles feel hope again, to
know that God has a really good plan
for each of their lives no matter what.
For more information or to join the
waitlist, go to sacredspark.app.
Elise Ureneck is a communications
consultant writing from Rhode Island.
October 17, 2025 • ANGELUS • 21

A monk’s long,
strange trip
After being expelled from Christian
libraries, how did Evagrius Ponticus’
teachings find their way into
Buddhist monasteries?
BY MIKE AQUILINA
In spiritual matters, he may be the
most influential author you’ve never
heard of.
He thought up the category that later
thinkers would develop as the Seven
Deadly Sins. In the Greek East, he
devised a technical vocabulary for
spiritual theology that, according to
one modern authority, has “remained
thereafter standard.”
His name, Evagrius, was a household
word in the Church of the late fourth
century. During his lifetime he sought
increasing solitude, and yet his writings
made him all the more famous.
And then, 150 years after his death, his
name became mud. Evagrius’ writings
were suppressed and destroyed — only
to turn up centuries later blended with
the doctrine of Buddhists in China and
perhaps Tibet.
He was a golden child — brilliant,
dapper, and good-looking,
and he could have excelled
in any worldly undertaking. But he
was drawn to the service of God in
the Church. While still very young,
he attached himself to the greatest
theologians of his time. He was first a
disciple of St. Basil the Great and then
an adviser to St. Gregory Nazianzen,
who was bishop in the capital city,
Constantinople.
It was a time of rapid change in the
world. A new emperor, Theodosius,
was on the throne,
and he summoned
the bishops of the
world to meet
St. Evagrius Ponticus
illustrated as a hermit in a
hut. | SHUTTERSTOCK
in an ecumenical
council to put away
troublesome heresies
forever. Important
people in Church
and state sought
the advice of young
Evagrius, who stayed
on in Constantinople
even after his bishop,
Gregory, took a sudden
early retirement.
History was in the
making, and he was
close to the center
of it. But he had lost
his center — and
soon found himself
smitten with the wife
Evagrius is depicted
in a manuscript from
Kaffa in the Armenian
monastery of St.
Anthony the Great,
containing the text
of the Lives of the
Desert Fathers of
Egypt. | WIKIMEDIA
COMMONS
of a court official, who returned his affection.
In a dream he saw his future if
he continued on his current course. He
would be denounced, chained, jailed,
and tortured. That very day he packed
and fled Constantinople for Jerusalem.
22 • ANGELUS • October 17, 2025

But he still held on to his vanity
and went about his new city in fine
garments. Falling ill, he was visited
by St. Melania the Elder, who drew a
confession out of him. She urged him
to repent and to renounce human company
— taking up the monastic life.
Soon his health improved, and Evagrius
put on the monastic habit and left
to join the solitaries in Nitria in Egypt.
After two years there he left for greater
solitude in the desert of Kellia. There,
in chosen isolation, he wrote the books
whose influence has been vast, in vastly
different worlds. He stayed there for the
remaining 13 years of his life, living on
bread and water, guiding other ascetics,
praying always and writing much. His
spiritual father was St. Macarius the
Great, the pioneer of monastic community
organization.
Evagrius crafted perfect summaries
of spiritual principles, and
Christians are still quoting him,
though they don’t always know it’s Evagrius
they’re quoting. “A theologian is
one who prays,” he said, “and one who
prays is a theologian.”
Thus he lifted the ascetical life above
intellectual pursuits. Yet he was the first
of the so-called Desert Fathers to pro-
duce systematic,
Origen of Alexandria. |
philosophically
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
informed studies
of ascetical
practice. He
identified the
way to holiness
and the stages
along the way.
He diagnosed
temptations and
distractions, and
he prescribed
remedies.
Earlier ascetics
had not
been writers or
scholars, and their
literature consisted
mostly of loose
collections of
practical sayings.
His life seemed
anointed. But
the fly in his
ointment was
the influence of
Origen.
An Egyptian Christian of the third
century, Origen was a pioneer in the
field of biblical studies. He produced
the first critical, multilingual edition of
Sacred Scripture. And he wrote commentaries
on many of the books of the
Bible. He also wrote works of apologetics
and on prayer. His book “On First
Principles,” described the architecture
of Christian theology: the movement
away from God, the encounter with
Christ, and the return to God, a “great
parabola.” Origen had a profound influence
on his own generation and on
Christian intellectuals in the century
that followed, including Nazianzen and
Basil.
But in the late fourth century came
a tidal wave of criticism of Origen,
led by men of colossal international
renown: St. Jerome and St. Epiphanius
of Salamis.
Origen had proposed ideas that were
problematic. He believed that souls
pre-existed their life in a body; and he
believed that all creatures would eventually
be restored to friendship with
God — even the demons, even Satan.
He insisted that the resurrection body
of Christians would not be material,
but entirely spiritual. And his description
of the Trinity seemed to support
the idea of the Son and the Spirit being
subordinate to the Father.
These ideas were condemned by ecumenical
councils, but only after Origen
was long dead. Churchmen even tried
to excommunicate Origen posthumously,
even as theologians expressed
doubt that the action was possible.
Next after Origen were authors who
were considered his followers, and
chief among them was Evagrius. At a
synod in Constantinople in A.D. 543,
the works of Origen and Evagrius were
condemned. Both men had been the
heroes of many monks in Palestine, but
now they were placed under imperial
censure.
And so the handsome, dapper, and
brilliant monk gradually faded from
memory throughout the Latin- and
Greek-speaking world.
But his teaching lived on in
unusual ways. In the Greek world
the keepers of the monastery
libraries just replaced the title pages of
his books — attributing the contents to
some monk of untarnished reputation.
So his teaching lived on under several
Although his works were condemned by the
Catholic Church in the 6th century, Evagrius’
teaching lived on under several aliases.
aliases, including “Nilus the Ascetic,”
“Peter of Damascus,” and “Evagrius the
Bishop.” And, according to the most
recent edition of “The Philokalia,”
the most revered Orthodox manual of
spiritual doctrine, “his teachings …
have exercised a decisive influence
upon subsequent writers.” His vocabulary
remains the vocabulary in the field
of spiritual theology.
But recent research indicates that his
influence also ran far in an unexpected
direction. Father Francis Tiso, a U.S.-
born scholar who taught at the Pontifical
Gregorian University in Rome,
October 17, 2025 • ANGELUS • 23

believes that Evagrius has exercised a
profound influence over the development
of Tibetan Buddhism.
It seems that, when Evagrius was
banned in the sixth century, the decrees
held no sway over the Syriac Church
of the East, which had fallen out of
communion with Rome and Constantinople.
Its bishops and monks continued
to prize the works of Evagrius and
translated them into the languages of
their mission territories.
Tiso told Angelus, “In the 640s,
shortly after the Islamic conquest of
the Middle East, … the Syriac Church
launched a concerted missionary movement
that established churches, monasteries,
and dioceses across the lands
of the Silk Road, reaching the Chinese
capital during the Tang Dynasty.” In
792 the church’s patriarch, Timothy
I, wrote that he intended to name an
archbishop for the nomadic Tibetans.
Where there is an archbishop, there
are several bishops — in this case they
would have, according to Tiso, “moved
with the nomadic tribes and lived in
yurts.”
Contact between peoples led to
dialogue between religions, Tiso added.
“We do know that Buddhists and
Christians engaged in serious dialogue
during the period 640-850, and there is
even a Tibetan text found at the oasis
Pope Leo XIV greets Buddhist monks
who presented him with gifts during
a meeting with religious leaders at the
Vatican May 19. | CNS/VATICAN MEDIA
of Dunhuang
that shows how a
Tibetan Buddhist
understood Jesus
the Messiah to be
the friend of mankind,
sitting at the
right hand of God
in the seventh
heaven!”
An eighth-century
Christian
book, “Profound
and Mysterious
Blessedness,” was
discovered in a
cave around 1912
and, according
to Tiso, “It shows
St. Peter asking Jesus Christ to explain
the Chinese Buddhist terminology and
values so that the Syriac Christians in
China might understand the views of
their dialogue partners.” Jesus “explains
merit, voidness, insight, meditation,
renunciation, selflessness, non-action,
and virtue to Peter, who represents the
historical memory of the Church of the
East.”
At the time, Buddhism in China was
at a high level of sophistication, with
many teachers coming and going from
East and South Asia. In Tibet, however,
the religion of the Buddhists was
Father Francis Tiso at
his home in Isernia,
Italy, in 2022. | CNS/
ROBERT DUNCAN
at an early stage of development. Tiso
explained: “Tibet was a remote territory
where the royal cult and veneration of
mountain gods were prevalent. ... At
the peripheries of the Tibetan Empire,
dialogue with the Syriac Christians
offered an opportunity to develop a new
kind of contemplative worldview —
one formed by the thought of Origen
and Evagrius.”
Tiso’s book “Rainbow Body and Resurrection”
(North Atlantic Books, $24.95)
traces the doctrines and practices of
Tibetan Buddhism that correspond to
early Christianity and especially the
teachings of Evagrius.
By the time of the Middle Ages,
Tibetan Buddhists began to speak of
phenomena — such as the resurrection
of the body and the incorruptible
bodies of saints — that are otherwise
widely and exclusively associated with
Christianity.
Before this time, said Tiso, “there was
no Buddhist doctrine of the resurrection
of the body. They cremated their
saints and built reliquary stupas —
large circular monuments — for the
veneration of those relics.”
They also used language similar to
that of Evagrius, writing as he did of an
inner light that survived the death of
the body. They spoke in almost Evagrian
terms about spiritual warfare with
demons. It seems evident that there
was a lively exchange of ideas between
Christians and Buddhists in China and
Tibet.
An important figure in the story is
Jingjing, a bishop who lived in the Tang
24 • ANGELUS • October 17, 2025

capital in the 780s. Tiso explained: “He
befriended the Buddhist monk Prajna,
who was born in Afghanistan, and who
had studied in the great Buddhist academies
of India and Sri Lanka before
moving to China. It seems that Jingjing
taught Prajna Chinese, and together
they translated a Mahayana Buddhist
text on the Six Paramitas [virtues].”
For this cooperation they suffered
misunderstanding and were censured
by the official Chinese Buddhist translation
bureau. But Prajna eventually
became head of that very government
agency and was then in a position to
promote the kind of work he had done
with the bishop Jingjing.
It is through figures like Jingjing
and Prajna that ascetical ideas from
Evagrius may have found their way into
Tibetan Buddhism.
Tiso served the U.S. Conference
of Catholic Bishops as an official for
inter-religious dialogue from 2004 to
2009. He has participated, on behalf of
the Vatican, in international Catholic-Buddhist
dialogue. He finds inspiration
in the story of Evagrius, forgotten
by Christians, assimilated by Buddhists.
“The fact that there was a fruitful
dialogue between Christians and
Buddhists in China during the eighth
century is, for me, a sign of hope for
humanity that can be renewed in our
own time.”
A key lesson, he added, “is for both
sides to learn the language of the other,
and to have a clear understanding of
the ideas that underlie the terminology.
In that way, we can recognize what we
in fact do believe in common, and we
can discern what is distinctive in each
tradition.”
Christians have, he said, “a missionary
task not only to help others know
who Christ is and always will be. We
also have a special calling to be able to
recognize, discern, and articulate the
voice of the Good Shepherd wherever
that voice may sound.”
One of the great benefits of this
process is that it forces us to learn
more about our own heritage. Tiso
believes we need to “recover our own
all-too-fragile tradition of contemplative
prayer” and the mystical path
By the time of the Middle Ages, Tibetan Buddhists
began to speak of phenomena — such as
the resurrection of the body and the incorruptible
bodies of saints — that are otherwise widely
and exclusively associated with Christianity.
“that Evagrius and his heirs left us as a
priceless gift.”
Mike Aquilina is a contributing editor
to Angelus and author of many books,
including “History’s Queen: Exploring
Mary’s Pivotal Role from Age to Age”
(Ave Maria Press, $16.95).
October 17, 2025 • ANGELUS • 25

AD REM
ROBERT BRENNAN
A pastoral letter with a plot twist
Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan, and Celia Imrie
in “The Thursday Murder Club.” | NETFLIX VIA IMDB
Thursday Murder Club” on Netflix is the kind
of pop-culture fluff that I like to consume and
“The
write about regularly.
It is an entertaining and mostly inoffensive murder mystery
with an all-star cast, a big production budget and centered
around a ridiculously high-end idyllic retirement home. And
as all British mystery movies and series reveal, these little
patches of paradise are steeped in mayhem and are more
dangerous than the New York City subway at 3 a.m.
I say mostly inoffensive because after all, this is a mainstream
film made in 2025, the kind that asks a Catholic viewer like
me to establish a sort of cultural détente with the content.
So when questionable and overtly immoral acts that give the
story context are portrayed but not endorsed, I keep watching
with an open mind. This is where the content and I are in
“peace talks,” so to speak.
Immoral acts appearing in art are not automatic disqualifiers
for me. “Macbeth” is not a play unless there is murder and
a dalliance with the dark arts. The qualifying component is
the regicide, and the occult plot points were the propellant
driving the play and its main character to a tragic end. There
was and still is, no suggestion these immoral acts are anything
other than intrinsically disordered.
In that sense, “The Thursday Murder Club” was doing fine
as I traded in about 90 or so minutes of the remaining life
I have on earth to watch this escapist faire suspending my
disbelief while watching 70-year-olds solve both a cold case
murder and an active investigation in one fell swoop.
I found a lot to like about “The Thursday Murder Club”:
The actors had chemistry with one another, and although the
plot was confusing and a little too convenient at times, it was
not a complete waste of my time. But all good things must
end, and for me, that end came toward the conclusion of this
film.
The “old folks” had taught the “young folks” some new
tricks, they saved the day, and their retirement home as well,
26 • ANGELUS • October 17, 2025

Robert Brennan writes from Los Angeles, where
he has worked in the entertainment industry,
Catholic journalism, and the nonprofit sector.
and justice was served … or at least justice as viewed through
a secularist/materialist prism.
When the last dastardly act is committed, the villains are
exposed, and the mystery is solved, the story has one last
bit of unfinished business, and this is where the peace talks
between me and pop-culture entertainment consumption
broke down.
The next-to-final resolution of the story involves euthanasia
coupled with a suicide. Unlike “Macbeth,” these two actions
are treated as innately good. The characters in the movie
view this combo plate of anti-life sentiment as sad, but not
in the least bit as morally indefensible. Rather, the characters
and the people who made this film see the killing of an
enfeebled woman and the suicide of her husband as kind of
“good” for both. If this had happened at the beginning of the
movie instead of at the end, I would have turned it off.
Recently, Bishop Daniel E. Thomas of Toledo, Ohio, issued
a pastoral letter that sums up so succinctly what I was feeling
about this little piece of pop culture fluff. No, the good bishop
was not writing about how murder mysteries are supposed
to end. His topic was a lot deeper and profound. Titled “The
Body Reveals the Person,” it deals with gender ideology and
how it separates human beings from their very selves.
In this letter that is filled with compassion with those with
gender dysphoria and other complicated issues, the bishop
spoke about “Dualism and the Ethics of Human Life.”
Reading it, it occurred to me that he could have been writing
about the Netflix show I’d just watched.
“If one thinks the body is good not in itself but only insofar
as it enables one to participate in other humanly good activities,”
Thomas writes, “one easily assumes that it is merciful to
end the life deliberately of people incapable of participating
in those activities.”
For me, two “little” sentences in the bishop’s expansive
letter came to my rescue in a moment of feeling cynical and
tempted to lambaste this movie with moral outrage. “Our
personhood is beloved by God. It is sacred.”
They are apt words not only for the intended audience of
this pastoral letter, but they also apply quite nicely to those
who make popular culture entertainment as well as those
who consume it. The bishop has lit a candle of truth to shine
on any darkness that may come into range.
October 17, 2025 • ANGELUS • 27

Singer Taylor Swift performs
a medley during the 2019
American Music Awards in Los
Angeles. | OSV NEWS/MARIO
ANZUONI, REUTERS
TAYLOR’S
LANGUAGE
PROBLEM
What’s a Catholic mom
to make of the pop
icon’s potty mouth?
BY MAGGIE PHILLIPS
Recently, I’ve been working my
way through “And So It Goes,”
the HBO Billy Joel retrospective.
Joel is an American institution: my
mother and I both saw him in concert
as college students, roughly 25 years
apart.
In a siloed entertainment field, Joel is
among the last of pop culture’s generation-spanning
household names. It’s
a pantheon with only a few luminaries
like Tom Cruise, LeBron James, and
Taylor Swift, now in the back half of
her fourth decade.
The latter has an album out this
month, “The Life of a Showgirl.” The
glitter and leotards notwithstanding,
I’d argue she actually has quite a bit in
common with Joel as a fellow singer-songwriter.
They each have distinct career eras:
where Swift had her wholesome
country debut and bad girl “Reputation”
eras, Joel had his iconic 1980s
doowop era and whatever he thought
he was doing in the 1990s with “River
of Dreams.” Like him, she’s an accomplished
musician masquerading
as a crowd-pleasing tunesmith. Both
his Madison Square Garden residency
performances and her Eras Tour
concerts were massive intergenerational
affairs, with parents and children in
attendance together singing along word
for word.
But while there aren’t a lot of Joel
songs I’m embarrassed to sing along to
with my mom, there were some songs
I was embarrassed to hear while seated
next to my young daughters at the Eras
Tour theatrical release.
As a Catholic, a mom, and someone
who likes a good sing-a-long, I have to
ask: What’s with all the swearing, Tay?
Swift began introducing naughty
words in her songwriting with her 2017
album “Reputation.” Swift had grown
up in the public eye, her every relationship
and public feuds with other
pop singers relentlessly scrutinized.
The album, released when she was 27
years old, felt like it was supposed to
signal a more mature version of the pop
phenom.
Last year, her album “The Tortured
Poets Department” featured seven
explicit songs. Eight of its 12 tracks on
her newest album have an “E” after the
title.
I can’t help but feel this is gratuitous.
28 • ANGELUS • October 17, 2025

Having spent most of her early adulthood
as a celebrity when the rest of us
were getting jobs and contributing to
our Roth IRAs so as not to inconvenience
our loved ones in our dotage, a
35-year-old billionaire putting out an
album where three-fourths of the songs
are marked “explicit” smacks of a kind
of arrested development. Swearing is an
11-year-old’s idea of maturity.
I know I’m only three years older than
Swift, but I am going to put on my
mom hat, here. Does someone who
thinks of herself as our English teacher
have such a limited vocabulary that she
has to use so much profanity?
You’re Taylor ****ing Swift! You’re a
phenomenal financial and creative success.
You’re engaged to an NFL player
with three Super Bowl rings. You’re
beautiful. Granted, you have the occasional
stalker, tangential involvement
in Blake Lively’s legal problems, and
the hate from Chiefs fans who think
you’re Yoko Ono. Any one of these
might merit an occasional profane slip
of the tongue.
But eight out of 12 songs? That is like
me trying to shock my parents after 16
years of marriage and three kids by announcing
that I’m sexually active. We
get it, Taylor. You’re all grown up now!
My real issue with Swift’s pivot to grittiness
is its inauthenticity. Look at her
demure betrothal photos. She might be
one in private (though I doubt it), but
“wizened foul-mouthed broad” is just
not her vibe.
A 2020 post at Book Riot about sweary
self-help book titles explains why her
explicit musical offerings strike me as
cringe: Noting that one of the authors
describes herself as “unapologetically
rich,” the post goes on to say that “using
swear words is a great way to convince
your audience that you’re ‘just like
them!’ In reality, these people often
have little in common with the millions
of people who lap up their books.
They’re hungry for a solution to their
problems, but leave feeling worse about
themselves.”
That’s a good question to ask ourselves
when we engage with anyone’s work.
Does it leave us feeling worse about
ourselves? By that I don’t mean does it
make us want to repent of our sins. Do
we feel less able to see ourselves and
others as beloved children of God?
When she peppers her music with
profanity, Swift is not only letting down
the legions of little girls who love her
beautiful, shiny costumes. It’s condescension.
We can only conclude that
she is debasing herself because whether
she realizes it or not, that’s how she sees
the average Jane.
Joel actually had some claim to
hardscrabble authenticity, at least at
the outset. But you have to admit a sea
shanty about the plight of the working
man feels a little silly coming from the
former Mr. Christie Brinkley. I can,
however, sing along to “Downeaster
Students cheer and take photos
with cellphones as singer Taylor
Swift performs at Bishop Ireton
High School in Alexandria, Virginia,
in this 2009 file photo. | CNS/
JONATHAN TRAMONTANA
Alexa” with my whole family.
Art doesn’t only have to portray
wholesomeness to be good. It does have
to be true. I’ll listen to “The Life of a
Showgirl.”
If I let my girls listen, it will be the
clean version. But actually, I don’t
know if they’ll be interested. My middle-schooler
said her friends are kind of
over Swift. Kids are good at identifying
phoniness. Are grown-ups?
Maggie Phillips writes about religion
and culture. She’s a contributor at Tablet,
Arc Magazine, and Word on Fire.
October 17, 2025 • ANGELUS • 29

DESIRE LINES
HEATHER KING
A ‘saleswoman’ for the poor
Mother Antonia Brenner. |
EUDIST SERVANTS/WIKIME-
DIA COMMONS
Mother Antonia Brenner (1926-
2013), a former Beverly Hills
socialite and foundress of the
Eudist Servants of the Eleventh Hour,
was a force of nature.
She not only ministered to but actually
lived with the inmates at La Mesa, a
notorious maximum-security prison in
Tijuana, Mexico.
Born Mary Clark in Los Angeles,
Brenner was the middle of three
children. Her mother died giving birth
to the fourth child. Her father ran a
successful office supply business.
A marriage at 19 produced three
children, one of whom died shortly
after birth, and ended in divorce. With
her second husband, Carl Brenner, she
had five more children.
Living in Beverly Hills during that
second marriage, Brenner was active
in charity work. In the 1960s, Father
Henry Vetter, a Pasadena priest, invited
her to visit Tijuana. They ended up
at La Mesa, and she began making
regular trips to distribute aspirin, toilet
paper, and eyeglasses to thieves, rapists,
and murderers.
The work galvanized her. Her heart
opened both to the victims and the
perpetrators of violence. She was
appalled by the grim prison conditions,
especially for the poor and mentally ill,
and by the corruption she saw on both
sides of the border.
After 25 years, her marriage to
Brenner ended in divorce. She moved
to San Diego, which made visiting
the prison easier. When her youngest
child, Antony, reached adolescence,
she made the wrenching decision to
cede custody to Brenner, then gave
away her belongings, and in 1977
moved to Tijuana in order to be near
the inmates.
In her early years of volunteering at
La Mesa, Brenner took informal vows
and sewed her own habit. Her service
came to the attention of Bishop Juan
Jesus Posadas of Tijuana and Bishop
Leo Maher of neighboring San Diego,
and her work was eventually blessed
by both. Bishop Maher made her an
auxiliary to him while Bishop Posadas
made her an auxiliary Mercedarian,
an order that has a special devotion to
prisoners. At age 50, she became an
official sister.
Petite, indefatigable in her spotless
white veil, she moved shortly afterward
into the women’s section of the prison,
and came to live as one of the inmates,
30 • ANGELUS • October 17, 2025

Heather King (heather-king.com) writes memoirs, leads workshops,
and posts on Substack at “Desire Lines: Books, Culture, Art.”
in a 10 by 10 cell. She ate the same
prison fare and with the members of
her flock, lined up for morning roll
call.
In a 1982 interview with the Los
Angeles Times, Brenner said, “Something
happened to me when I saw men
behind bars. … When I left, I thought
a lot about the men. When it was cold,
I wondered if the men were warm;
when it was raining, if they had shelter.
I wondered if they had medicine and
how their families were doing. …You
know, when I returned to the prison to
live, I felt as if I’d come home.”
“Prison Angel” (Penguin Books,
$8.99), written in 2005 by the Pulitzer
Prize-winning husband-and-wife team
Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan, tells
the in-depth story.
“La Mama,” as she was known by the
prison inmates, chugged coffee nonstop
and got by on three or four hours
of nightly sleep. She lobbied for reform
of the brutal prison conditions, and she
also supported the prison guards whose
dangerous and emotionally draining
jobs were poorly paid.
She was notorious, in and out of the
Church, for her fundraising abilities,
a combination of wheedling, humor,
and charm. When Father Joe Carroll,
head of the St. Vincent de Paul thrift
shop in San Francisco, got fed up with
Antonia’s siphoning off of their donated
goods and approached one day to confront
her, Antonia played dumb, fell
to her knees, and asked for a blessing.
The two became fast friends. “She’s a
thief!” he’d affectionately exclaim.
Over time, Antonia’s efforts came
to extend to the community at large.
With a team of volunteers, and her
broken Spanglish, she helped as many
of Tijuana’s innumerable poor and
sick as she could. She coaxed dentists
into fixing the broken teeth of prison
inmates for free. She coaxed a wellknown
San Diego plastic surgeon and
his wife to come to La Mesa once a
week and perform tattoo removals, scar
smoothing, and cleft palate reconstructions.
Once a month, she arranged for
a Mass to be said for the city’s unclaimed
dead.
She sat by the bedsides of patients
who were dying from the effects of police
brutality. She waded unarmed into
prison riots and helped broker peace.
She delivered reports from inside to
wives, girlfriends, and family members
who thronged the prison 24/7. She
admonished drug lords to repent and
do something useful with their lives,
she begged torture victims to forgive,
and she believed in the seemingly
unredeemable until they could believe
in themselves.
Around 1997, she founded the Eudist
Servants of the Eleventh Hour for
older women with a desire to serve the
poor. In 2003 the Bishop of Tijuana
formally approved the community.
“Pleasure depends on where you
are, who you are with, what you are
eating,” she proclaimed.
“Happiness is different. Happiness
does not depend on where you are. I
live in prison. And I have not had a
day of depression in 25 years. I have
been upset, angry. I have been sad. But
never depressed. I have a reason for my
being.”
She died of natural causes at 86 in her
Tijuana home.
“Charity is not a thing you do,” she
once said, “it’s love, it’s who you become.
I was a salesman for the poor.”
October 17, 2025 • ANGELUS • 31

LETTER AND SPIRIT
SCOTT HAHN
Scott Hahn is founder of the
St. Paul Center for Biblical
Theology; stpaulcenter.com.
Feast for a friend
On Oct. 22, we celebrate the feast of Pope St. John
Paul II. It’s unusual to remember a saint who lived
so recently.
In John Paul we saw a man whom God had endowed with
prodigious natural gifts: genius-level intelligence, profound
poetic sensibilities, charm and affability, telegenic good
looks, steely toughness, and
perfect comedic timing.
I was first attracted to those
natural qualities.
It was the early 1980s, and
I was a Protestant minister,
instinctively anti-Catholic.
I was not alone among his
hesitant admirers. He captured
our attention because
of his effective combat in
the culture wars. You name
the social issue — abortion,
euthanasia, pornography,
communism — and he was
all over it. He had a philosopher’s
ability to state his case
with precision. Yet he had
an actor’s ability to make his
point with economy: a single
line or a symbolic gesture.
That’s how he got our attention.
But he kept it because
of something else.
Gradually and grudgingly,
many of us in the Protestant
world came to admit that he
was effective in the culture
wars, not because of his bully
pulpit or his media savvy or
St. Pope John Paul II, photographed
on May 21, 1984. |
PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN,
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
his philosophical suavity, but because of his superior command
of Scripture.
This particular quality set him apart from many popes
of the post-Reformation era. It’s not that these men were
unscriptural or anti-scriptural. But their methods were
scholastic, emphasizing ever-finer distinctions in thought.
Moreover, their pastoral style set the tone for preachers and
teachers throughout the Catholic world. So many Protestants
found Catholic literature easy to dismiss as insufficiently
biblical.
But then came John Paul.
We should have known from his first words as pope that
the world was in for something different. He began with
“Be not afraid,” the exhortation of prophets and angels —
and God himself — uttered whenever history had taken
a momentous turn (see
Genesis 46:3 and Luke
2:10). This phrase became a
watchword of his pontificate,
a reminder and reassurance,
even to those of us who did
not count ourselves among
his flock.
And he confirmed his pervasively
scriptural style in his
writings. In his first encyclical,
almost three-quarters of
the 205 notes are scriptural
citations.
Here, I thought, was a
pope who could speak to
Protestants. But it was more
than that. He could speak
to the whole world, because
Scripture speaks to the whole
world — because God’s
word speaks to hearts that
God himself created and
redeemed.
In 1985 I became a Catholic.
From then on, just the
act of calling that man Papa
could move me to tears.
He called upon all Catholic
teachers and preachers to follow
his model. The work of religion teachers, he said, “must
be … penetrated by the thought, the spirit and the outlook
of the Bible and the Gospels.” The sermons of priests and
deacons, he said, must be “centered upon the Bible texts.”
Because he was fluent in Sacred Scripture, John Paul
could speak with moral and spiritual authority to the world,
to the Church, and to the churches.
He still speaks to us and with greater power, as a saint of
the Church.
32 • ANGELUS • October 17, 2025

■ SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11
St. Thérèse of Lisieux Relic Tour. St. Therese Church,
510 N. El Molino St., Alhambra. Relics available for view
and veneration from Oct. 11-13. Visit https://StThereseU-
SA2025.com/.
Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego Pilgrim Images.
Holy Cross Cemetery, 444 E. Lexington Ave., Pomona.
Images available for veneration, rosary prayer service. Call
909-627-3602.
10th Annual Car Show. St. Margaret Mary Church,
12664 Central Ave., Chino, 6 a.m.-2 p.m. All cars, trucks,
motorcycles, and working trucks welcome. Vendors, food,
and entertainment available. Visit smms-chino.org.
Heaven is Real! St. Anthony of Padua Church, 1050 W.
163rd St., Gardena, 12:30-4:45 p.m. Afternoon retreat
with Father Robert Spitzer, SJ. Topics include: Evidence of
Life after Death and The Shroud and Jesus’ Resurrection.
Cost: $20/person through Oct. 6, $25/person thereafter.
Visit events.scrc.org or call 818-771-1361.
A Day with Sister Lupe: Making, Teaching, and Praying
the Rosary. Pauline Books & Media, 3908 Sepulveda
Blvd., Culver City, 1-5 p.m. Also held Oct. 18. Sister Lupe
Hernandez, FSP, will use crafts to help discover the power
of prayer and ancient tradition. Free event. RSVP to 310-
397-8676 or email culvercity@paulinemedia.com.
Kontrapunktus presents “CONTINUUM: The Architects
of Elegance” featuring soloist Aubree Oliverson.
St. Andrew Church, 311 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena, 8
p.m. This production marks the group’s first foray into
classical music and will feature the wide musical palate of
works from highly influential composers, including Boccherini,
Haydn, Mozart, and Mendelssohn. Tickets: $25/
person. Visit kontrapunktus.com/tickets.
■ SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12
K of C Red Cross Blood Drive. St. Barnabas Church, 3955
Orange Ave., Long Beach, 8 a.m.-2 p.m. RSVP required to
redcrossblood.org with sponsor code BARNABASLB or
call 1-800-Red-Cross. All donors receive a $10 Amazon
gift card via email.
Virtual Diaconate Information Day. Zoom, 2-4 p.m.
Email Deacon Melecio Zamora at dmz2011@la-archdiocese.org.
Healthcare Professionals Mass. Cathedral of Our Lady of
the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 3:30 p.m. Celebrant:
Archbishop José H. Gomez. Mass honors all those
involved in the health care field. Blessing of the Hands of
the Healthcare Professionals will take place during Mass.
Email Catholichealthcare@la-archdiocese.org or call 213-
637-7655.
■ MONDAY, OCTOBER 13
St. Thérèse of Lisieux Relic Tour. Sacred Heart Retreat
House, 920 E. Alhambra Rd., Alhambra. Relics available
for view and veneration from Oct. 13-14. Visit https://
StThereseUSA2025.com/.
■ TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14
St. Thérèse of Lisieux Relic Tour. Thomas Aquinas
College, 10000 Ojai Rd., Santa Paula. Relics available for
view and veneration Oct. 14-15. Visit https://StThereseU-
SA2025.com/.
Women at the Well, reading “Crones Don’t Whine” by
Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D. Holy Spirit Retreat Center, 4316
Lanai Rd., Encino, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. Also Nov. 11, Dec. 9, and
Jan. 13. Visit hsrcenter.com or call 818-784-4515.
Memorial Mass. San Fernando Mission, 15151 San Fernando
Mission Blvd., Mission Hills, 11 a.m. Mass is open to the
public. Limited seating. RSVP to outreach@catholiccm.org
or call 213-637-7810. Livestream available at CatholicCM.
org or Facebook.com/lacatholics.
Red Mass. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 W.
Temple St., Los Angeles, 5:30 p.m. Celebrant: Archbishop
José H. Gomez. Mass honors public servants and political
leaders. Homilist: Father Barnaby Johns, OSA, prior
provincial of the Province of St. Augustine in California.
Closing speaker: The Honorable Martin J. Jenkins, associate
justice of the California Supreme Court. Visit lacatholics.
org/events.
■ WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15
St. Thérèse of Lisieux Relic Tour. Santa Teresita, 819 Buena
Vista St., Duarte. Relics available for view and veneration
Oct. 15-16. Visit https://StThereseUSA2025.com/.
“Is Your Faith Alive?” Weekly Series. St. Dorothy Church,
241 S. Valley Center Ave., Glendora, 7-8:30 p.m. Runs
Wednesdays through May 13, 2026. Deepen your understanding
of the Faith through dynamic DVD presentations
by Dr. Brant Pitre, Chris Stefanik, the Augustine Institute,
and Matthew Leonard. Free events, no RSVP required. Call
626-335-2811 or visit the Adult Faith Development ministry
page at stdorothy.org.
■ THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16
Cloistered Carmelite Nuns Auxiliary Holiday Luncheon
and Boutique. Church of Our Savior, 535 W. Roses Rd.,
San Gabriel, 10:30 a.m. boutique and social hour, 12 p.m.
luncheon. Treasure sale, nuns’ specialty breads, candy,
nuts, handmade items, plants, and holiday gift items. 50/50
raffle and silent auction. All proceeds benefit the Alhambra
Cloistered Carmelite Nuns. Cost: $45/donation per person.
RSVP by Oct. 10 to Kathy Cardoza at 626-570-9012. Send
checks payable to Cloistered Carmelite Nuns Auxiliary at
710 Lindaraxa Park South, Alhambra, CA 91801.
■ FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17
Centering Prayer Weekend Retreat. Holy Spirit Retreat
Center, 4316 Lanai Road, Encino, 4:30 p.m.-Sun., 1 p.m.
With Sister Chris Machado, SSS, and the Centering Prayer
Team. Visit hsrcenter.com or call 818-815-4480.
Barnafest: St. Barnabas Parish Festival. St. Barnabas
Church, 3955 Orange Ave., Long Beach, 5-10 p.m. Sat., Oct.
18, vigil Mass, 4 p.m., festival 5-10 p.m. Live auction, silent
auction, music entertainment, dancing, raffles, kid zone,
food, beer garden, and more. Visit stbarnabaslb.org.
Conejo Fall Fest. St. Paschal Baylon Church, 155 E. Janss
Rd., Thousand Oaks, 5-10 p.m., Sat., Oct. 18, 2-10 p.m.,
Sun., Oct. 19, 1-9 p.m. Fun for all ages with carnival rides,
live entertainment, game booths, Sweet Shop, and more.
$20,000 grand prize raffle and more. To learn more and
purchase tickets, visit conejofallfest.com.
■ SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18
Our Lady of the Angels Regional Congress. St. Monica
Catholic Community, 725 California Ave., Santa Monica.
Theme: “Called to Embrace Hope.” 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.
October 17, 2025 • ANGELUS • 33