Angelus News | November 18, 2025

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COME THE

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November 28, 2025 Vol. 10 No. 24

November 28, 2025

Vol. 10 • No. 24

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ON THE COVER

SHUTTERSTOCK

Tech companies and social media platforms

like Facebook, Instagram, Google, and Reddit

have been in a seemingly mad dash to put AI

chatbots in front of users. The message? That

they’re a suitable substitute for human relationships.

But on Page 10, Elise Ureneck takes

a closer look at how these “AIs” work and the

warning signs that even the Catholic Church

needs to pay attention to.

THIS PAGE

VATICAN MEDIA

Pope Leo XIV welcomes his guests and blesses the meal at a

luncheon marking the Jubilee of the Poor Nov. 16 in the Vatican

audience hall. The meal included vegetable lasagna, chicken

cutlets and vegetables, and baba, a small Neapolitan cake

soaked in syrup. The meal was sponsored by the Vincentian

Fathers as part of the celebration of the 400th anniversary

of their foundation. Volunteers, including members of the

Daughters of Charity, handed out 1,500 backpacks filled with

food and hygiene products.

CONTENTS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

14

18

22

24

26

28

30

Father Chris Ponnet’s legacy: The priest who ‘showed up’

What the U.S. bishops got done in Baltimore this month

Isaiah’s Christmas prophecies and the ‘fifth Gospel’

Robert Brennan: St. Thérèse and my dying sister, Fran

‘A House of Dynamite’ shows we need a nuclear wake-up call

The Vatican’s documentary on the ‘solid guy’ who became pope

Heather King: The Christian values at the heart of ‘Jane Eyre’

November 28, 2025 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH

Settling a Marian debate

In a new document approved by Pope

Leo XIV, the Vatican’s Dicastery for

the Doctrine of the Faith rejected

moves to formally proclaim Mary as

“co-redemptrix” or “co-mediatrix.”

“Mater Populi Fidelis” (“Mother of the

Faithful People of God”) states that the

title co-redemptrix or co-redeemer “carries

the risk of eclipsing the exclusive

role of Jesus Christ” in salvation.

And, regarding the title co-mediatrix

or co-mediator, it said that Mary, “the

first redeemed, could not have been the

mediatrix of the grace that she herself

received.”

However, it said, the title may be used

when it does not cast doubt on “the

unique mediation of Jesus Christ, true

God and true man.”

Pope Leo XIV approved the text Oct.

7 and ordered its publication, said

the note, which was released Nov. 4.

According to some reports, it originated

during Pope Francis’ pontificate and

underwent revisions under Leo.

Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández,

prefect of the doctrinal dicastery,

presented the document at an event in

Rome and said its teaching becomes

part of the Church’s “ordinary magisterium”

and must be considered authoritative.

For more than 30 years, some Catholics,

including some bishops, have asked

for formal dogmatic declarations of

Mary as co-redemptrix and co-mediatrix.

The new document said that titles

used for Mary should speak of her

motherly care and perfect discipleship

of Jesus, but must not create any doubt

that Catholics believe Jesus is the

redeemer of the world and the bestower

of grace.

“Any gaze directed at her that distracts

us from Christ or that places her on the

same level as the Son of God would

fall outside the dynamic proper to an

authentically Marian faith,” it said,

because Mary always points to her son.

The titles co-redemptrix and co-mediatrix

have been used in reference to

Mary by theologians and even popes in

the past millennium, the dicastery said,

but without precisely describing the extent

to which those titles could describe

Mary’s role in salvation history.

St. Pope John Paul II “referred to Mary

as ‘co-redemptrix’ on at least seven

occasions,” the note said, but after

consultation with the then-Congregation

for the Doctrine of the Faith and its

prefect, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger,

in 1996, he did not issue a dogmatic

declaration and stopped using the title.

Citing Scripture and tradition, the

future Pope Benedict XVI said, “The

precise meaning of these titles (co-redemptrix

and co-mediatrix) is not clear,

and the doctrine contained in them is

not mature.”

“Everything comes from him —

Christ. … Mary, too, is everything that

she is through him. The word ‘co-redemptrix’

would obscure this origin,”

Benedict said.

The use of the title “co-mediatrix” is

more complicated, the doctrinal note

said, because the word “mediation”

often is “understood simply as cooperation,

assistance, or intercession” and easily

could apply to Mary without calling

into question “the unique mediation of

Jesus Christ, true God and true man.”

Reporting courtesy of Catholic News

Service Rome bureau chief Cindy

Wooden.

Papal Prayer Intention for November: Let us pray that those

who are struggling with suicidal thoughts might find the

support, care, and love they need in their community, and be

open to the beauty of life.

2 • ANGELUS • November 28, 2025

NEW WORLD OF FAITH

ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ

The way forward on immigration

Immigration has become the defining

issue of our times.

Throughout Europe, popular political

movements are rising in reaction to

social tensions and disturbances caused

by more than a decade of national policies

that encouraged mass migration.

Similar forces are at work in our country,

where an estimated one-quarter of

voters described “immigration and the

border” as their most pressing concern

in the recent national elections.

The election results were more than a

reaction to the previous administration’s

loose border enforcement policies.

They also reflect growing anxiety and

fears about how the global economy is

reshaping local economies and communities.

Many of our neighbors see immigrants

as threats to their livelihoods. They

are worried about crime, if there will

be enough jobs, if our education and

welfare systems can handle more people,

and if our country will be able to

integrate so many who are coming from

different cultures.

Since January, the new administration

in Washington has responded to these

fears with a comprehensive crackdown

on immigration.

It has closed the southern border to

migrants, drastically cut the numbers

of refugees it allows, and taken steps to

limit the “temporary protected status”

granted to those fleeing violence and

political unrest in their home countries.

Most disturbing, the government has

been carrying out deportation raids in

communities and workplaces across the

country.

As a result of these policies, the administration

reported recently that more

than 2 million undocumented persons

have been driven out of the country

since January.

This is the context for the special

message on immigration that the U.S.

bishops issued at our annual meeting

earlier this month. I urge every Catholic

to read this important statement

prayerfully.

My brother bishops and I have seen

how this deportation policy is ruining

people’s lives and breaking up families;

in our parishes and neighborhoods,

people are now living in constant fear.

Under the demand to meet quotas —

reports say agents are expected to make

3,000 arrests every day — this policy is

being carried out in harsh and indiscriminate

ways.

Agents are not only picking up violent

criminals, they are also detaining

mothers and fathers, even grandparents,

hardworking men and women who are

pillars in our parishes and communities.

Some are being detained without

charges or the ability to contact their

families. Some are being held in

centers that are not safe or clean and

where they are denied access to religious

services or counsel.

As pastors, we understand the popular

anger about uncontrolled borders and

large numbers of undocumented people

in our country. But this is no way to

defend the rule of law or the sovereignty

of our great nation.

We are punishing individuals; and it

is true, they have responsibility for their

actions. But they are part of a system

that for more than 40 years has been left

broken by our leaders.

Many who are here illegally came

with the implied understanding that the

authorities would look the other way

because businesses needed their labor.

Politicians, business leaders, and activist

groups have long exploited this issue

for their own advantage. That is why the

problem persists.

It is telling that there are no hearings

and hardly any conversation in Congress

about reforming our immigration laws.

The one bipartisan bill that has been introduced

has only a handful of sponsors.

What is the responsibility of our leaders

for the current crisis?

There is no question that our government

has the right to enforce its

immigration laws, including the use of

deportation. Previous administrations

have deported millions and faced little

resistance or criticism.

But deportation is not the only way to

hold people accountable for entering

the country wrongfully.

Right now, after nearly a year of

deportations and new immigration

restrictions, the administration has the

opportunity to pause and examine the

way forward.

The border has been secured. The

administration can use this moment to

refocus its enforcement efforts on those

who are truly a threat to public safety

and order.

The administration can also work with

Congress to address the reality that

millions of undocumented men and

women in this country have no criminal

record and have been living and working

here for decades.

These immigrants own homes, they

run businesses, or work in jobs our

society needs; they have children and

grandchildren; they are good neighbors

and faithful parishioners.

Surely a great nation can find a generous

solution for these people — to hold

them accountable for breaking our laws,

but also to provide them with a pathway

to a permanent legal status.

Pray for me and I will pray for you.

And let us ask our Blessed Mother

Mary to help our leaders to find compassion,

wisdom, and courage.


WORLD

■ Cuba’s patronal

shrine damaged in

Hurricane Melissa

A broken stained-glass window from the

Basílica del Cobre following Hurricane

Melissa. | DIOCESE OF CIENFUEGOS

The Basilica of Our Lady

of Charity in El Cobre,

Cuba, was significantly

damaged following the

Oct. 29 landfall of Hurricane

Melissa.

Despite precautionary

measures, the storm tore

down masonry, damaged

stained-glass windows, and

left water damage throughout

the shrine to the country’s

patroness, known as

the Basílica del Cobre. The

beloved statue of Mary

under the title of Our Lady

of Charity was undamaged. According to legend, the statue, which bears

the inscription “I am the Virgin of Charity,” was discovered in the Bay of

Nipe after a violent storm.

The Category 3 hurricane caused rivers to break their banks and led to

substantial flooding throughout Cuba’s eastern region.

■ Vatican court rules against

‘credibly accused’ lists

The Catholic Church’s highest court ruled

in favor of a priest who challenged the

publication of his name in a list of “credibly

accused” clergy.

The ruling could have a wide effect on how

dioceses handle abuse claims.

The case was brought to the tribunal of

the Roman Rota by an unnamed American

priest who sued his religious community for

defamation after being included on such a

list.

The ruling, issued June 26 and reported

Nov. 9 by Italian newspaper La Repubblica,

does not extend directly to other dioceses

or religious orders — but could encourage

other priests to bring their own suits.

Vatican officials have long warned that

publishing such lists violates the canonical

rights of priests, despite the practice’s

growing prominence — particularly in the

U.S. — following the sex abuse scandals of

the last decades.

■ Petition opposes

media regulation of

religious in Mexico

Catholics in Mexico are gathering

signatures to oppose a proposal that would

restrict the online speech of priests and

bishops.

The proposal, presented in the country’s

lower chamber by a representative from

the ruling MORENA party, would amend

current regulations of religious groups to

require leaders to operate digital media

according to Interior Ministry rules.

The measure would “ensure that the

participation of religious communities

in digital media strengthens coexistence,

cultural diversity, and respect for human

rights, without undermining secularism or

the neutrality of the public sphere,” according

to the proposal’s text.

As of press time, more than 12,000 Mexicans

had signed a petition opposing the

proposal.

“They say it’s to guarantee ‘neutrality’

and avoid ‘hate speech,’ but in reality it’s

censorship disguised as law,” read the Nov.

11 petition from Catholic petition platform

“Actívate.”

A captive audience? — Pope Leo XIV shakes hands with actor Robert De Niro in the Apostolic Palace at

the Vatican Nov. 7. De Niro, 82, was in Rome to receive the Lupa Capitolina, the city’s highest award for

contributions to art and culture. A week later, Leo met with an international gathering of actors and directors

that included Cate Blanchett, Spike Lee, Monica Bellucci, and Viggo Mortensen. In his remarks, the

pope praised “good cinema” and said that at a time where people are almost constantly in front of screens,

cinema offers more: “It is a sensory journey in which light pierces the darkness and words meet silence. As

the plot unfolds, our mind is educated, our imagination broadens and even pain can find new meaning.” |

CNS/VATICAN MEDIA


NATION

A run-in with a break-in — Students and chaperones from Trinity High School in Whitesville, Kentucky, pose

for a photo in Paris the same day they had been inside the Louvre Museum during the Oct. 19 jewelry heist. The

Catholic school students told The Western Kentucky Catholic they didn’t realize what happened until after the

museum visit, but noticed people inside exiting the affected gallery “with terrified faces.” After the experience,

the field trip group attended Mass inside Notre Dame Cathedral (seen in the photo). Thieves stole an estimated

more than $100 million worth of jewelry during the caper. | OSV NEWS/COURTESY TRINITY HIGH SCHOOL

■ Survey says: Gen Z faith

strong but fragile

Gen Z represents a “strong” but

“fragile” hope for U.S. faith as surveys

continue to show a mix of distrust and

interest.

A Nov. 4 report from the Leadership

Roundtable titled ‘Trust, Practice, and

Renewal in the Catholic Church After

Two Decades” confirms the findings

of other surveys, including the Barna

Group, that Gen Z Mass-goers attend

more regularly than their older peers.

And yet the report also finds that

younger Catholics are also the “most

likely to think about leaving the

Church,” citing a disconnect between

Church teaching and their values

(36%), feeling unwelcome in their

local parish (17%), or scandalized by

the sex abuse crisis (15%).

“These findings suggest that, while

young adults are drawn to, and

engaged in, parish life, the support

among these highly engaged young

Catholics is fragile,” said the report.

■ Wisconsin Franciscans

return land to local tribe

A women’s religious community in La Crosse,

Wisconsin, announced Oct. 31 they would

be returning land to its indigenous tribe in a

“spirit of relationship and healing.”

The Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration

purchased the property from the Lac du

Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa

in 1966, and has used it for the Marywood

Franciscan Spirituality Center. Originally purchased

for $30,000, the order sold the property

to the tribe for the same amount in a bargain

sale that represents “just over 1% of current

market value.”

The sale came as the retreat center faced viability

concerns and as the community underwent

a “process of reckoning” with their history

administering St. Mary’s Catholic Indian

Boarding School from 1883 to 1969.

“We are proud to welcome Marywood home,

to ensure it continues to serve future generations

of the Lac du Flambeau people,” Tribal

President John Johnson said, hailing the sale as

“an example of what true healing and partnership

can look like.”

■ Cardinal

McElroy

diagnosed

with cancer

Cardinal Robert

McElroy of

Washington, D.C.,

underwent surgery

to treat cancer

Nov. 13.

The 71-year-old’s

diagnosis of liposarcoma

was announced

Nov. 5.

The Archdiocese

of Washington,

D.C., described it

as “a nonaggressive

Cardinal Robert W. McElroy at an Oct. 17 event at the University of

Notre Dame in Indiana. | OSV NEWS/MICHAEL CATERINA, COURTESY

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

cancer that tends not to metastasize.” According to the Cleveland Clinic,

the rare form of cancer “grows slowly and isn’t life threatening.”

“I am at peace with this challenge and hope and believe that in God’s

grace I will be archbishop of Washington for many years to come,”

McElroy told the priests of his archdiocese Nov. 4.

The former San Diego bishop is scheduled to resume duties after two

weeks of rest following the surgery.


LOCAL

■ LA power couples

to headline annual

Catholic business

lunch

Three LA “power couples” will

speak as panelists at the 2026 edition

of the Archdiocese of LA’s

Ethical Leadership Lunch.

Actor Chris Pratt and his wife,

Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt,

will join longtime Hollywood

film producer Brian Grazer and

his wife, marketing executive

Veronica Grazer, as well as Father

Greg Boyle and Fabian Debora of

Homeboy Industries for a panel

discussion at the lunch, held at

the conference center of the Cathedral

of Our Lady of the Angels.

Funds raised at the lunch will

benefit local Catholic schools.

The panel will be moderated by

Alessandro DiSanto, a co-founder

of Hallow, the world’s mostused

Catholic app.

Understanding unity — Auxiliary Bishop Albert Bahhuth, center right, and Father Alexei Smith, center left, the

ecumenical and interreligious officer for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, gathered with Jewish and other interfaith

leaders Nov. 3 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to mark the 60th anniversary of “Nostra Aetate,” the historic

declaration of relation of the Church with non-Christian religions. | REESE CUEVAS

■ San Jose welcomes

new Filipino-born

auxiliary bishop

A California priest named

a bishop by Pope Leo XIV

over the summer has officially

begun his new assignment.

San Jose Bishop Oscar Cantú

ordained his diocese’s new

auxiliary bishop, Andres Ligot,

at a Nov. 3 ordination Mass

attended by several California

bishops and the Apostolic

Nuncio to the U.S., Cardinal

Christophe Pierre. Archbishop

José H. Gomez served as one of

Ligot’s co-consecrators.

Ligot, 59, is one of six U.S. bishops born in the Philippines.

One of them, former LA auxiliary bishop and now Gomez imposes hands

Archbishop José H.

Bishop of Salt Lake City Oscar Solis, was Ligot’s other

on Auxiliary Bishop

Andres Ligot at his Nov.

co-consecrator.

3 ordination Mass at Our

Born in the Philippines and ordained a priest there in

Lady of La Vang Church

1992, Ligot began serving in Northern California in 1999. in San Jose. | DIOCESE

He was incardinated into the Diocese of San Jose in 2004 OF SAN JOSE

and most recently served as vicar general and chancellor of

the San Jose Diocese before being named a bishop by Pope Leo XIV Aug. 29.

■ 100-year-old veteran

honored at Arcadia

Catholic school

Joe “Peppy” Sciarra, a 100-year-old

World War II veteran who is still an

usher for Sunday Mass at Holy Angels

Church in Arcadia, was honored during

a special Veterans Day ceremony at Holy

Angels School on Nov. 10.

Sciarra was lauded along with two other

veterans: Aurelio Anaya, 82, the father

of Vice Principal Melinda Anaya, and

Mervin Vergara, a school parent who is

currently serving in the U.S. Navy.

During the ceremony, the student

council and Father Kevin Rettig, Holy

Angels’ pastor, offered prayers, and each

veteran was given a gift of a blessed rosary

and the St. Michael the Archangel

prayer.

Sciarra gave a few remarks to the

students, thanking them for the love he’s

felt from the Holy Angels community

and the value of Catholic education.

“I hope I live long enough to be here

again next year,” he said.


V

IN OTHER WORDS...

Letters to the Editor

Mixed feelings about the Dodgers

Thank you, Robert Brennan, for your insightful Nov. 13 column on

AngelusNews.com on your quasi support of the Dodgers.

I agree that it was a tough pill to swallow when the Dodgers pulled some recent

stunts of support for various groups. However, I must think that Walter O’Malley

is rolling in his grave over the denigrating of Catholic nuns two years ago. We

avoid businesses for various reasons, but doing what the Dodger organization did is

reprehensible.

— Marcel Viens, Long Beach

The ‘horror’ of the reproductive revolution

I very much appreciated Heather King’s column in the Oct. 31 issue of Angelus

about the “reproductive revolution.” I like the way she is not afraid to be emotive

about issues that should arouse in us revulsion and horror. The sentence, “I wanted

to lie down and pull the covers over my head,” reminded me of the way I felt after

reading “The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of

the Human Race” by Walter Isaacson a few years ago. The specter of real, live

CRISPR babies plunged me into depression.

Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) once stated: “Here we can at once say that

at the very heart of sin lies human beings’ denial of their creatureliness.” That’s

kind of it in a nutshell, don’t you think?

— Kathryn Watson

Y

Continue the conversation! To submit a letter to the editor, visit AngelusNews.com/Letters-To-The-Editor

and use our online form or send an email to editorial@angelusnews.com. Please limit to 300 words. Letters

may be edited for style, brevity, and clarity.

A century of honor

Joe “Peppy” Sciarra, a 100-year-old World War II veteran, speaks to students during

a Veterans Day event at Holy Angels School in Arcadia on Nov. 10. The centenarian

is still an usher during Sunday Mass at the parish next door. Read more about

Sciarra’s incredible life at angelusnews.com/local. | LAWRENCE LANE

View more photos

from this gallery at

AngelusNews.com/photos-videos

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

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

“Let’s just put it this way: If

the pope wants to come,

we would welcome him.”

~ Bishop Andrew Cozzens, in a Nov. 14 OSV News

article on another National Eucharistic Congress

announced for 2029.

“It’s really a spiritual

emergency.”

~ Michael Woolf, an American Baptist minister, in

a Nov. 15 Religion News Service article on faith

leaders arrested and manhandled during a protest at

an ICE facility near Chicago.

“I talk about the golden age

of aid being over. We’re not

going to see that money

coming back.”

~ Alistair Dutton, secretary-general of Caritas

Internationalis, in a Nov. 12 National Catholic

Reporter article on the decline of humanitarian

assistance, especially from the U.S.

“The two things that I’m

going to be buried with

will be my Bible and my

trumpet.”

~ Matthew Burford, a professor and musician, in a

Nov. 11 New York Times article on the thousands

who volunteer to play ‘Taps’ at military funerals.

“The wood doesn’t care

about ADA compliance.”

~ Peter Gagliardo, adaptive sports coordinator for

a New York rehab center, in a Nov. 8 The Guardian

article on disabled hikers finding freedom through

off-road wheelchairs.

“The real winner is the

environment.”

~ Chris Roaf, the U.K.’s representative, in a Nov. 5

Positive News article on how litter-picking became

a competitive sport.


IN EXILE

FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI

Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father

Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual

writer; ronrolheiser.com

God’s nudge inside us

God’s presence inside us and in

our world is rarely dramatic,

overwhelming, sensational,

or impossible to ignore. God doesn’t

work like that. Rather, God’s presence

lies quiet and seemingly helpless inside

us. It rarely makes a huge splash.

We should know that from the very

way God was born into our world.

Jesus, as we know, was born into our

world with no fanfare and no power,

a baby lying helpless in the straw, another

child among millions. Nothing

spectacular to human eyes surrounded

his birth. Then, during his ministry, he

never performed miracles to prove his

divinity, but only as acts of compassion

or to reveal something about God.

His ministry, like his birth, wasn’t an

attempt to prove his divinity or prove

God’s existence. It was intended rather

to teach us what God is like and how

God loves us unconditionally.

In essence, Jesus’ teaching about

God’s presence in our lives makes

clear that this presence is mostly quiet

and under the surface, a plant growing

silently as we sleep, yeast leavening

dough in a manner hidden from our

eyes, spring slowly turning a barren

tree green, an insignificant mustard

plant eventually surprising us with its

growth, a man or woman forgiving an

enemy. God works in ways that are

seemingly hidden and can be ignored

by our eyes. The God that Jesus incarnates

is neither dramatic nor flashy.

And there’s an important lesson

in this. Simply put, God lies inside

us, deep inside, but in a way that is

almost unfelt, often unnoticed, and

can easily be ignored. However, while

that presence is never overpowering,

it has inside of it a gentle, unremitting

imperative, a compulsion, which invites

us to draw upon it. And if we do,

it gushes up in us as an infinite stream

that instructs, nurtures, and fills us

with life and energy.

This is important for understanding

how God is present inside us. God lies

inside us as an invitation that always

respects our freedom and never overpowers

us, but also never goes away.

It lies there precisely like a baby lying

helpless in the straw, gently beckoning

us, but helpless in itself to make us

pick it up.

For example, C.S. Lewis shared this

in explaining why, despite a strong

affective and intellectual reluctance,

he eventually became a Christian

(“the most reluctant convert in the

history of Christendom”). He became

a believer, he said, because he was

unable to ultimately ignore a quiet

but persistent voice inside him which,

because it was gentle and respectful

of his freedom, he could ignore for a

long time. But it never went away.

In retrospect, he realized it had

always been there as an incessant

nudge, beckoning him to draw from

it, a gentle unyielding imperative, a

“compulsion” which, if obeyed, leads

to liberation.

Ruth Burrows, the British Carmelite

and mystic, described a similar experience.

In her autobiography “Before

the Living God” (HiddenSpring,

$22.40), she tells the story of her late

adolescent years and how at that time

in her life she thought little about

religion and faith. Yet she eventually

ends up not only being serious about

religion, but becoming a Carmelite

nun and a gifted spiritual writer. What

happened?

Triggered by a series of accidental circumstances,

one day she found herself

in a chapel where, almost against her

conscious will, she left herself open

to a voice inside her which she had

until then mainly ignored, precisely

because it had never forced itself upon

her freedom. But once touched, it

gushed up as the deepest and most

real thing inside her and set the direction

of her life forever.

Like C.S. Lewis, she too, once she

had opened herself to it, felt that voice

as an unyielding moral compulsion

opening her to ultimate liberation.

This is true too for me. When I was

17 years old and graduating from high

school, I had no natural desire whatsoever

to become a Roman Catholic

priest. But despite a strong affective

resistance, I felt a call to enter a

religious order and become a Catholic

priest. Despite that strong resistance

inside me, I obeyed that call, that

compulsion. Now, 60 years later, I

look back on that decision as the clearest,

most unselfish, faith-based, and

life-giving decision I have ever made.

I could have ignored that beckoning.

I’m forever grateful I didn’t.

Fredrick Buechner suggests that God

is present inside us as a subterranean

presence of grace. The grace of God

is “beneath the surface; it’s not right

there like the brass band announcing

itself, but it comes and it touches, and

it strikes in ways that leave us free to

either not even notice it or to draw

back from it.”

God never tries to overwhelm us.

More than anyone else, God respects

our freedom. God lies everywhere,

inside us and around us, almost unfelt,

largely unnoticed, and easily ignored,

a quiet, gentle nudge; but, if drawn

upon, the ultimate stream of love and

life.


THE CHATBOT TRAP

SHUTTERSTOCK

Tech companies say

AI companions can

substitute human

relationships and

alleviate loneliness.

The red flags are

everywhere.

BY ELISE URENECK

When I was in middle school,

my parents allowed me five

minutes of internet use per

day. For readers under 33, using the

internet meant tying up your family’s

one phone line.

My peers and I uniformly dialed into

the internet after school to access a platform

called AOL Instant Messenger to

“chat” with one another about the day.

While we also had use of our landlines,

this new option allowed classmates who

didn’t typically call one another the

chance to connect.

For me, that included boys. At one

point, my crush reached out to me, and

we began to chat for a few moments

after school each day. Getting to the

computer became the highlight of my

afternoon. The trouble was, when we

were both at school, he didn’t talk to

me.

It wasn’t long before I learned that the

social norms of the real world were not

givens on the “world wide web.” (Don’t

worry: as a married mother of three

with another baby on the way, you can

say I recovered).

Today’s tweens and teens have a

much harder road to navigate as they

toggle between digital reality and, well,

reality. The downsides of social media

and smartphones have rightly been the

focus of researchers concerned with the

spike in teen anxiety, depression, and

poor social and educational outcomes.

Psychologists Jonathan Haidt and Jean

Twenge have heroically tagteamed that

effort.

Now come the chatbots.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines

chatbots as “computer programs

designed to simulate conversation with

a human user, usually over the internet.”

My fear is specifically how users,

including the young, are engaging with

them as if they were humans capable

of reciprocal, intimate, interpersonal

connection.

This is where scholarship is needed

and where I hope Pope Leo XIV begins

in any forthcoming teaching on artificial

intelligence (AI). Historically, the

Church put a lot of thought into drawing

clear lines between licit and illicit

ways to engage with particular technologies.

AI should be no exception.

The more I read about people of all

ages using AI as a substitute for human

relationships — as friends, therapists,

spiritual guides, and romantic partners

— the more I believe that the Church

should prohibit any engagement with

AI as if it were a human. The stakes are

just too high.

While I was communicating with a


real boy on the instant messenger site,

today’s kids are talking to computers

that imitate human communication.

Chatbots like Open AI’s ChatGPT

or Microsoft’s Copilot can be used as

search engines, research assistants, or

digital versions of Spark Notes, among

other functions.

But they and others like Character.AI

can also be used as digital personalities

— with a voice, profile, and lifelike,

video-automated images. Just this past

September, a $1 million ad campaign

ran in the New York subway system for

Friend, a $130 wearable AI pendant

that listens to your conversations and

provides you with running commentary

on what it hears.

What generative AI personalities serve

users is text, audio, and video, which

validates whatever thoughts or feelings

a person has in a given moment. Feedback

that is exclusively empathic and

affirming is a feature, not a bug, in AI

design. The mounting consequences

are dire, especially for a person’s capacity

for conflict negotiation, resilience,

and connection.

Research conducted by the Center for

Technology and Democracy revealed

that 1 in 5 high-schoolers say that they

or someone they know have engaged

with AI as a romantic partner, while

42% of students shared that they or

their peers use AI for friendship. These

trends correlate with schools that have

widely embraced AI, as the engagement

largely takes place on school-sanctioned

devices.

The American Psychological Association

is raising some red flags, issuing

a health advisory on AI and adolescent

health that challenged AI companies to

implement safeguards to protect young

users. And the Ethics and Public Policy

Center has proposed model legislation

that would require age verification for

using the platforms.

Given how important friendship is to

young people’s development — including

their experience of being understood,

learning to negotiate, reading

nonverbal cues, and receiving nuanced

feedback — the turn to chatbots is

alarming.

“AI chatbots … allow young people to

engage with a fictional character that

is reciprocal and responds to them and

gives them information and feedback

that they’re looking for,” said Bradley

Bond, Ph.D., a professor of communication

at the University of San Diego in

an interview with the APA.

While he suspects this might have

some benefits for socially isolated

teens, Anna Lembke, Ph.D., author of

“Dopamine Nation” (Dutton, $17.69),

explains why it’s a problem. When

users of any age turn to generative AI

for friendship and counsel, they are not

getting actual human empathy, but an

imitation of it. The distinction matters.

“Empathy and validation are important

components of any kind of mental

health treatment or mental health

intervention, but it can’t stop with

empathy and validation,” she recently

said. “You can’t just continually tell

somebody you know who’s looking for

emotional support that their way is the

right way, and their worldview is the

The consequences of AI chatbots are dire, especially

for a person’s capacity for conflict negotiation,

resilience, and connection.

In September 2025, Meta (parent company of

Facebook) introduced a lineup of new AI chatbots

with distinct personalities, opinions, and

interests, and voiced by celebrities such as Tom

Brady, Paris Hilton, and Kendall Jenner. | META

only correct worldview.”

The “role of a good therapist,” she

continued, “is to make people recognize

their blind spots — the ways

in which they’re contributing to the

problem, encouraging them to see the

other person’s perspective, giving them

linguistic tools to de-escalate conflicts

with partners and to try to find their way

through conflict by using language to

communicate more effectively.”

This was highlighted in an essay in

The New York Times, written by a

parent who had lost her adult child to

suicide. Laura Riley recounted how her

daughter, Sophia, had been using an AI

therapist named “Harry” for her suicidal

ideation. Unlike an actual therapist

who would have notified others of her

risk of suicide or facilitated in-patient

treatment, the chatbot only provided

suggestions for her to feel better and

reach out for help.

“Sophie left a note for her father and

me, but her last words didn’t sound like

her. Now we know why: She had asked

Harry to improve her note, to help her

find something that could minimize

our pain and let her disappear with the

smallest possible ripple,” Laura wrote.

“In that, Harry failed. This failure

wasn’t the fault of his programmers, of

course. The best-written letter in the

history of the English language couldn’t

do that.”

That people are turning to chatbots

when they desire connection is not an

accident. It’s the next step in the online-offline

interaction orchestrated by

Silicon Valley. In an interview this past

spring, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder

of Facebook and CEO of Meta,


A billboard in Hollywood for “Friend,” a new

wearable AI pendant that listens to your

conversations and provides you with running

commentary on what it hears. | PABLO KAY

proposed chatbots as a solution to the

loneliness epidemic plaguing the West.

“I personally have the belief that everyone

should probably have a therapist,”

Zuckerberg said. “It’s like someone they

can just talk to throughout the day, or

not necessarily throughout the day, but

about whatever issues they’re worried

about and for people who don’t have a

person who’s a therapist, I think everyone

will have an AI.”

He added that AI could “plug the gap”

between the number of friends people

have in the real world and the number

they desire.

Sam Altman of Open AI recently

added his perspective on how adult

users should be free to use AI chatbots

in any manner they choose, including

erotica. While exonerating himself

and his company as the world’s “moral

police,” Open AI has said that it has

“mitigate[d] the serious mental health

issues” on the platform, though he has

not clarified what qualifies as a threat to

mental health.

Yet his own former lead of product

safety recently claimed that the company

has ignored previous risks, including

“sycophantic” versions of its ChatGPT,

and has failed to produce sufficient reporting

on mitigation of mental health

risks, suicide, and reinforcing delusional

thinking.

Sadly, Altman’s proposed new

frontier for digital sexual encounters

and romantic engagement is not new.

Adults are already engaging with AI for

sexual and emotional intimacy, which,

like pornography, drives increased

isolation and unrealistic expectations

for real-world relationships. Moreover,

deepfakes, or AI-generated images of

people in the real world, have been

used for sexual content, including

among teens.

We can’t put the genie back in the bottle

when it comes to AI. But those who

promote human dignity and flourishing

can sound the alarm and provide practical

guardrails for those in their care.

For the Church’s part, she should

not only prohibit the use of AI as a

substitute for human connection and

communion, but she should continue

to propose the actual, lasting solution to

the epidemic of loneliness.

“The problem of our world is not

children being born: it is selfishness,

consumerism, and individualism which

make people sated, lonely, and unhappy,”

the late Pope Francis said.

He preached that the answer to the

“demographic winter” is not to throw

robots or chatbots at shrinking populations,

but to create societies that foster

support for couples to have children.

Generative people, not platforms, are

the answer to what we’re so desperately

looking for. Now we just need more of

them.

Elise Ureneck is a communications

consultant writing from Rhode Island.



‘CHRIS SHOWED UP’

Friends of late LA priest Father Chris Ponnet

hope the lessons of his community

organizing aren’t forgotten.

BY TOM HOFFARTH

A table displaying personal items belonging to Father

Chris Ponnet, including his walking sandals, was set up

alongside his portrait at his Nov. 4 funeral at the Cathedral

of Our Lady of the Angels. | TOM HOFFARTH

After the Nov. 4 funeral Mass for

Father Chris Ponnet ended,

family and friends gathered on

the plaza of the Cathedral of Our Lady

of the Angels for a reception.

Soon, several dozen members

connected to various social justice

groups congregated toward the Temple

Street exit. With handmade signs and

handfuls of orange flowers, they started

the half-mile trek down the sidewalk

toward the Federal Building on Los

Angeles Street.

There, they met up with a group

called the Godmothers of the Disappeared,

whose weekly Tuesday vigil encourages

the return of family members

taken by ICE agents and detained in

that facility.

The consensus: This was the kind of

act of civil disobedience that Ponnet

would have helped organize and

implement.

“Father Chris was always a

bridge-builder, finding a way to weave

together people and organizations,”

said Matt Harper, an organizer for the

Los Angeles Catholic Worker. “I had

no idea who would show up for this or

what might happen to all this Catholic

energy for justice. But as we were

walking from the church to the Federal

Building, I just felt this gratitude in

whatever part Father Chris played in

making this all come together.

At the end of the funeral, Archbishop

José H. Gomez called Ponnet’s sudden

death on Oct. 7 at age 68 “a surprise to

all of us.”

“For all us priests, he was a beautiful

example of what the priesthood is all

about,” Archbishop Gomez said. “It is

important for all of us to make sure the

memory of his life and his ministry is

with us.”

Father Tim Dyer, pastor of two South

LA parishes — St. Patrick and St.

Stephen — believes “we have a lot to

learn” from Ponnet.

“He put into good language and

action the heart of the Gospel. He was

genuine with his actions, never looking

for the spotlight,” said Dyer.

Prolific author and peace activist Father

John Dear noted how many stories


were told about Ponnet’s ability to unite

different factions of religious and secular

communities. The two were arrested

several times together during nonviolent

protests for social justice causes.

“Chris was a real leader, he knew

everyone, and he was one of the brightest

lights in Los Angeles,” said Dear,

who had known Ponnet for more than

40 years. “He showed what it means

to be a good Christian, a good human

being — and there aren’t many like

him.”

Born in Monterey Park, Ponnet was

the youngest of eight children in a

family that lived in Temple City and

attended St. Luke Church. Ordained

in 1983, Ponnet was at Our Lady of

the Valley Church in Canoga Park and

Our Lady of the Assumption Church

in Claremont before becoming the

longtime pastor at the St. Camillus

Center for Spiritual Care, next to the

LA County USC Medical Center. He

soon became the director of its Department

of Spiritual Care.

His sister Elizabeth, who proclaimed

the first reading at the funeral, told the

Los Angeles Times that when Ponnet

recited Martin Luther King’s “I Have a

Dream” speech as an eighth-grade project,

“that’s when I thought he would

be involved in service and helping

people for the rest of his life.”

Ponnet said his many prolonged hospital

stays due to heart-related medical

issues showed him the loneliness they

can bring. Faith was needed during

trauma, he believed, and that inspired

his ministry to accompaniment —

especially with COVID-19 patients

during the pandemic, separated from

families who often died with only him

present.

Heather Banis, coordinator for the

Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ Victims

Assistance Ministry, said part of

Ponnet’s legacy was helping to start

“Garden of Healing” projects for clergy

sexual abuse victims.

“Father Chris embraced the idea

wholeheartedly,” said Banis, noting the

first garden was created through his

planning and design work right at St.

Camillus Center. Several more gardens

have been created in the archdiocese

since.

As part of the project, Ponnet also

worked with abuse survivor Joe

Montanez, whose vision inspired the

gardens.

“Father Chris gave me so much

support,” Montanez told Angelus. “He

was such a witness for Christ. He will

After Ponnet’s funeral, peace activists walked to

downtown LA’s Federal Building in nonviolent

protest in honor of the priest. | TOM HOFFARTH

always be a positive force in my continued

effort in creating healing spaces for

those abused.”

Steve Rohde, chair of the Interfaith

Communities United for Justice and

Peace (ICUJP), first worked with Ponnet

on the board of directors of Death

Penalty Focus 30 years ago. He said the

experience taught him ways to process

and communicate ideas into actions.

“He always chose his words carefully,

listening to what others had to say and

speaking only when he could contribute

a new or clarifying thought,” Rohde

said. “But when he spoke, there was

a moral force behind his words. And

when he disagreed, he found a way to

express his differences with respect and

utter civility.

“I was in awe of his courage in committing

to civil disobedience and getting

arrested to protest injustice, always

exhibiting a calm and steely strength as

he was handcuffed and led to jail.”

Death Penalty Focus president Mike

Farrell said he was “stunned” by the

tribute to Ponnet at the funeral Mass.

“It’s wonderful to think they cared


so much about this man who was so

humble and so unassuming and so decent

— not a mover and shaker in the

general sense of the term,” said Farrell,

who worked with Ponnet for years on

legislation. “He was just someone who

reached out and touched everyone

possible in his life.

“I’m proud to be associated with him.”

In the funeral homily, Father Mike

Grieco said the Gospel passage from

the beatitudes (Matthew 5:1–12) proclaimed

at the Mass was a description

of his friend’s life.

“He leaned into the goodness of

people,” said Grieco, associate pastor

at Holy Redeemer-St. James the Less

Church in Montrose. “He was a prophetic

voice that we can be advocates

for the lost, forgotten, or forsaken. He

was about accompaniment. He lived

his call.

“People remember when you show

up, and remember when you don’t

show up. Chris showed up.”

Tom Hoffarth is an award-winning

journalist based in Los Angeles.

Father Chris Ponnet speaks at the October 2022 dedication of the St. Camillus Center for Pastoral Care’s healing

garden. At right is Archbishop José H. Gomez. | VICTOR ALEMÁN



SHOWS

OF UNITY

New leaders, a new Bible, and a message

on immigration: What the US bishops

accomplished at their annual fall meeting.

BY ANGELUS STAFF

At their annual Fall Assembly in

Baltimore this month, the U.S.

bishops elected new leaders,

issued a special message on the country’s

immigration crisis, and voted to

ban “gender interventions” in Catholic

hospitals.

The Nov. 11 election of Archbishop

Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City and

Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville,

Texas, as president and vice president,

respectively, of the U.S. Conference

of Catholic Bishops, marked the first

leadership change at the conference

since Pope Leo XIV, the U.S.-born pontiff,

began his pontificate in May. Both

will serve three-year terms that began

immediately this month.

The bishops also elected Bishop

Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South

Bend, Indiana, as the conference’s new

secretary.

Coakley, 70, has led the Archdiocese

of Oklahoma City since 2011, while

Flores, 64, has been in Brownsville

since 2009.

In an interview with OSV News after

his election, Coakley said the country’s

bishops are “far more unified pastorally,

fraternally than is often portrayed in a

lot of the media and a lot of people’s

imaginations.”

While acknowledging that demographics

are changing, he also pushed

back against the notion that widespread

drops in Mass attendance and parish

closures mean that Catholicism is in

decline in the U.S.

“Our institutions obviously are very

important, but the Church is more

than its institutions,” said Coakley.

“Many parts of the country, including

in our own area in Oklahoma, we have

vibrant strong parishes, vibrant Catholic

Bishops from around the country gather at the

Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption

of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore Nov. 10,

for the opening Mass of the U.S. Conference of

Catholic Bishops’ fall plenary assembly. | OSV

NEWS/KEVIN J. PARKS, CATHOLIC REVIEW

schools, vibrant Catholic health care.

So institutional life is not necessarily on

the decline across the country.”

On immigration, Coakley said that it’s

not a “political right or left, red or blue

issue, [but] a concern that we share

as members of the Body of Christ, as

Christians, as members of the baptized.”

The day after Coakley’s election, the

conference tried to convey that kind of

unity in a “special pastoral message on

immigration” that, while not mentioning

President Donald Trump by

name, challenged his administration’s

approach to deportations.


“We are disturbed when we see

among our people a climate of fear and

anxiety around questions of profiling

and immigration enforcement,” it read.

“We are saddened by the state of contemporary

debate and the vilification of

immigrants. We are concerned about

the conditions in detention centers and

the lack of access to pastoral care. We

lament that some immigrants in the

United States have arbitrarily lost their

legal status.”

The statement drew criticism days

later from White House “border czar”

Tom Homan, who told reporters that

despite being a Catholic himself, “the

Catholic Church is wrong.”

Homan argued that a “secure border

saves lives. We’re going to enforce the

law and by doing that we save a lot of

lives,” and that U.S. Immigration and

Customs Enforcement “is sending a

message to the whole world.”

Meanwhile, the bishops also raised religious

liberty concerns over the federal

approach, including “threats against

the sanctity of houses of worship and

the special nature of hospitals and

schools.”

The other notable

decision at the gathering

inside Baltimore’s

Waterfront

Marriott Hotel was

the bishops’ approval

of revisions to their

guiding document

on Catholic health

care that included

explicit prohibitions

against so-called

“gender-affirming

care.”

The “Ethical and Religious Directives

for Catholic Health Care Services,” or

ERDs, articulate ethical standards for

health care in light of Church teaching,

and provide authoritative guidance

on moral issues encountered by Catholic

health care.

The newly approved version incorporates

guidance from the conference’s

doctrine committee prohibiting

surgical or chemical interventions

seeking to exchange or simulate the sex

characteristics of a patient’s body for

Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, left, is the new president of the U.S.

Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas,

the vice president. | OSV NEWS/BOB ROLLER

those of the opposite sex.

The bishops also announced that new

versions of two important English texts

for ordinary Catholics should be arriving

by 2027: The “Catholic American

Bible,” which will replace the popular

“New American Bible — Revised

Edition” with an updated translation;

and a new edition of the Liturgy of the

Hours, with a revised translation, to be

available by Easter 2027.

OSV News contributed to this report.



‘Isaiah, he foretold it’

The details of his

prophecies centuries

before Christ’s birth

were so precise that

some consider his

book the ‘fifth Gospel.’

BY MIKE AQUILINA

The prophet Isaiah depicted by Antonio Balestra

(1666–1740). | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/

DE AGOSTINI PICTURE LIBRARY/A. DAGLI ORTI

Over the next three issues of Angelus,

we’ll be looking at three Old Testament

prophets who anticipated the Christmas

story. The following is Part One of

our three-part series.

Throughout December, we sing

with gusto from the Gospels. In

Advent hymns and then Christmas

carols, all our lyrics proclaim the

divine birth.

And yet we sing just as often from the

Old Testament prophets — because

the coming of the Messiah was foreseen

long before it came to pass. Indeed,

they foretold the story so vividly

that they are essential to its telling.

Consider, first, the prophet Isaiah.

He is invoked so often in the Gospel

accounts of Jesus’ life that his Old

Testament book is sometimes called

the “fifth Gospel.” In the fifth century,

St. Jerome began his commentary on

Isaiah by proposing that his subject “is

not only a prophet but also an evangelist

and an apostle.” A later Church

Father, St. Isidore of Seville, retold

the entire life of Christ using only

oracles taken from Isaiah!

It does seem as if Isaiah — whose

life stretched from the eighth to the

seventh century before Christ — was

granted a clear vision of the Messiah’s

arrival. He had detailed foreknowledge

of the event, and he communicated

it all to the Israelite people. His

predictions came to define Israel’s

expectations and stoke their longing.

Thus, Isaiah’s voice dominates the

season of Advent, which the Catholic

Church observes as a period of waiting

and preparation for the commemoration

of Jesus’ birth at Christmas.

Since ancient times, the “O Antiphons”

have been the official song


for the season. We know these mostly

through their English translation, “O

Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

Each antiphon is a pastiche of prophecies

gathered from several books of

the Bible. But most, by far, come from

Isaiah. The “O Antiphons” speak of:

the Gospels.

Writing eight centuries before the

event, Isaiah spoke with remarkable

accuracy. In the fullness of time,

many Greeks and Romans converted

to Christianity on the strength of his

predictive power. The apologists of

The oracle corresponds to no historical

circumstance in the time of Isaiah

or the seven centuries that followed.

But the earliest Christians recognized

it immediately as a prediction of the

birth of Jesus, and so it is invoked in

the first chapter of the first book of the

• the Root of Jesse (Isaiah 11:10)

• the kings silenced before the

Christ (52:15)

• the gentiles beseeching him

(11:10 in the Latin Vulgate)

• the Key of David (22:22)

• his Messiah’s power to open and

shut (22:22)

• his liberation of prisoners (42:7)

• his place as cornerstone and

foundation (28:16)

• his virginal conception and birth

(7:14)

• his role as lawgiver and king

(33:22 in the Vulgate)

Isaiah looks ahead and sees a coming

age of peace, brought about by a

Prince of Peace. “The people who

walked in darkness have seen a great

light” (9:2). “The wolf shall dwell

with the lamb…” (11:6). It is Isaiah

who first tells his listeners, “Prepare

the way of the Lord, make straight His

paths” (Isaiah 40:3), a summons that

will be echoed by John the Baptist in

His prophecies are so important that the Church

proclaims the Book of Isaiah on all the Sundays

of Advent and then again at Midnight Mass on

Christmas Eve.

the early Church employed this as

the “proof from prophecy.” It brought

about the conversion of St. Justin

Martyr in the early second century,

and he used it to convert many others.

Some of the prophecies in Isaiah

speak of people and events that were

present in Israel in the eighth century

B.C. But others make no sense apart

from their fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

They are like stories left without an

ending.

Isaiah challenges the proud King

Ahaz, for example, to ask God for a

sign — any sign. But Ahaz refuses. So

Isaiah tells him that God will send a

sign anyway: “Behold, a virgin shall

conceive and bear a son and shall call

his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).

New Testament (Matthew 1:22–23).

When Advent hymns give way to

Christmas carols, Isaiah remains a

dominant narrator. “Isaiah, he foretold

it,” we hear in the popular German

song “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.”

The lyric is based on the biblical

prophecy from Isaiah 11:1 about a

shoot coming from the stump of Jesse.

The carol uses the symbol of a rose

to represent Jesus, who is foreseen by

Isaiah to come from the lineage (root)

of Jesse, and is identified with Mary,

his virgin mother. The rose blooming

in the cold of winter signifies that

Jesus’ birth brings hope and a new life

in the midst of darkness.

So the “fifth Gospel” remains in our

December celebrations today. The

Church proclaims the Book of Isaiah

on all the Sundays of Advent and then

again at Midnight Mass on Christmas

Eve.

In his Gospel before the Gospels,

Isaiah predicted a virgin would

conceive and bear a son named

Immanuel (“God with us”). He

prophesied that the child would be

called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty

God, Everlasting Father, and Prince

of Peace. He spoke of kings coming to

honor the Messiah, bringing gifts of

gold and frankincense (Isaiah 60:1–6).

The Church cannot tell the story of

this season — cannot sing the songs

of Christmas — without the Gospel

that was written before the Christ was

born.

A mosaic depicting the three Magi at the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy. Centuries before Christ’s

birth, Isaiah had prophesied that kings would come to honor the Messiah with gold and frankincense. | WIKIMEDIA

COMMONS/SHARON MOLLERUS

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).


AD REM

ROBERT BRENNAN

A saint’s appointment with my sister

The “Second Wave” of the

Brennan family, from left: Fran,

Robert, Helen Mary, and Joseph,

now the bishop of Fresno.

| SUBMITTED PHOTO

One of the biggest misconceptions

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years, the family geography turns into

mountainous terrain.

In our big family, things were divided

into the “First” and “Second” waves.

The “First” represents the five children

born during the war years. And

when I say “war,” I mean the “big” one,

the conflagration between 1939 and

1945 that engulfed the world, molded

our country, and shaped generations

and families to come for decades.

The “Second” wave of five children

came into this world from 1949 to

1957. There was certainly plenty of

overlap that bonded all 10 of us together.

We all shared a tribal chieftain

of a father; a rosary and sometimes

belt-wielding mother who anchored us

all; and a large, rickety old house that

served as our headquarters.

But the two waves also represented

“tribes within a tribe,” and as the last

one to join the second wave, my immediate

older two sisters and two brothers

and I formed a connection that we did

not share with the older set

of five.

We had our own music

(no Pat Boone for us),

played our own games,

made up our own coded

language for older brothers

and sister’s girlfriends and

boyfriends, who we had

various opinions about.

Some of us may have

been less charitable in

our nicknames and code

words, but our sister Fran

was never cruel.

Fran was the “big” sister

of the second wave, and

she took that role to

heart. She was devout

out of the cradle and her

example was indissoluble.

You could set your

clock and calendar to her Wednesday

Benediction attendance, First Friday

observances, and Lenten sacrifices that

never wavered.

By the time I was out of diapers, my

older siblings were young adults, with

one brother in the Air Force and another

in the Marine Corps, and our oldest

sister soon to be married. So, family

outings, like our yearly one-week

vacations in the High Sierras, were

almost never with a full complement

of children. Again, that second wave

was different, and we hung together

the longest.


Robert Brennan writes from Los Angeles, where

he has worked in the entertainment industry,

Catholic journalism, and the nonprofit sector.

Our sister Fran was painfully shy. She

had a beautiful singing voice, but only

sang when she was sure no one was

listening. On those long drives through

the San Joaquin Valley to Sequoia or

Yosemite National Parks, our sister

Helen Mary would teach me and my

two next oldest brothers the different

harmonies for singalongs in the car,

but Fran abstained. Once in camp, she

led us on hikes and made sure we were

having a good time.

Her faith was tested throughout her

adult life, with Job-like suffering which

she endured, never wavering from her

relentless belief that God had a plan

for her, even if she did not understand

why it had to include so many trials.

She remained resolute and joyful, even

if at times the pain she carried would

weigh her down.

Thanks both to the Carmelite Sisters

of the Most Sacred Heart of Los

Angeles, who have enveloped our

family with their love and prayers for

decades, and my minor role in helping

Carmelite Father Donald Kinney plan

St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s relic’s tour, I

was looking forward to venerating the

French saint during her stop in Southern

California.

What I could not know was that the

relic’s stop at Santa Teresita in Duarte

would coincide with the moment

that my sister’s already delicate health

began to crumble. God does not do

coincidences. I was praying a novena

to Thérèse around this same time, too.

I had an intention of my own, and I

had an intention for my sister. I asked

not for a miracle for either of us, but

for the faith and courage for both of us

to accept God’s will.

I also did not know back when I was

helping Father Kinney and planning

my visit to Santa Teresita that, by the

time Thérèse’s relics had arrived, my

sister would be lying in a hospital bed,

alive, but barely breathing.

My wife and I attended the Mass presided

by Archbishop José H. Gomez

at Santa Teresita, and were comforted

by his homily about Thérèse’s “little

way.” After Mass it came time for us to

approach the reliquary. Once there, I

put a palm on the plexiglass dome that

protected the relics and said a silent

prayer of thanks for the answer I got for

my intention. I made one final request,

thinking of my sister in that hospital

bed, connected to all manner of medical

equipment.

The next Friday, Thérèse answered

that prayer, too. And if she is a woman

of her word — of which I have no

doubt — I know she escorted my sister

Fran (whose middle name was Theresa)

to our heavenly Father, where there

is no more pain, no more suffering, but

joy in the bosom of the Lord.

A woman venerates the relics of

St. Thérèse of Liseux during their

visit to Santa Teresita in Duarte

Oct. 15. | REESE CUEVAS


INTERSECTIONS

GREG ERLANDSON

On the edge of our nuclear abyss

Rebecca Ferguson as Captain

Olivia Walker in “A House of

Dynamite.” | CR. EROS HOAG-

LAND/NETFLIX © 2025

In the fifth grade I was in Sister Helen

Jude’s class at Visitation School,

a few steps from LAX Airport. It

was the era of nuclear drills, when we

would drop under our desks. I remember

imagining the blast wave, the

shattering of our classroom windows

and shards raining down on us.

Kids today have active shooter drills.

They are more likely to imagine a

classmate or a neighbor going crazy

than the Russians or Chinese or North

Koreans. Our capacity to live in terror is

finite and our memories short. But the

nuclear threat has not gone away.

In the past half century, the number

of nations with nuclear weapons

has grown, and bellicose threats and

counter threats have increased the

perception of risk. The Doomsday

Clock, according to the Bulletin of

Atomic Scientists, is now 89 seconds to

midnight. The possibility of a nuclear

strike remains ever-present, as does

the chance of error, of malfunction, of

misjudgment.

In 1983, the U.S. bishops wrote a

sober-minded assessment of the nuclear

peril, a pastoral letter called “The

Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and

Our Response.” It was a controversial,

powerful reflection on nuclear weapons

and strategy, bluntly declaring: “Nuclear

war threatens the existence of our

planet; this is a more menacing threat

than any the world has known.” (3)

Quoting St. Pope John Paul II, it continued,

“From now on it is only through

a conscious choice and through a deliberate

policy that humanity can survive.”

Yet since then, a number of arms

control treaties have lapsed, and the

number of nukes worldwide is estimated

to be above 12,000, with many of

them exponentially more powerful than

what we dropped on Japan. President

Donald Trump recently suggested he

wanted to renew nuclear testing, which


Greg Erlandson is the former president and

editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service.

inspired Russia to promise the same.

Film director Kathryn Bigelow (“The

Hurt Locker,” “Zero Dark Thirty”)

has chosen this moment to remind

us of the peril we continue to live in.

Her new film, “A House of Dynamite”

(streaming now on Netflix), is a dramatization

of a nuclear nightmare. The

U.S. government is given 20 minutes to

decide what to do when a nuclear missile

launched by an unknown adversary

is heading toward a major U.S. city. In

those fleeting 20 minutes, efforts to stop

it fail and the president must decide

how to retaliate. A variety of advisers

give him a maddening range of options

up to and including a massive nuclear

assault on our enemies, which would

in turn trigger their massive nuclear

assault on us.

The short time frame to decide on

what level of Armageddon to unleash

provokes the U.S. president to say,

“This is insanity,” to which his general

responds, “No sir, this is reality.”

Bigelow’s film illustrates a point

made by U.S. Gen A.S. Collins Jr.,

and quoted by the bishops: “From my

experience in combat there is no way

that [nuclear escalation] … can be

controlled because of the lack of information,

the pressure of time and the

deadly results that are taking place on

both sides of the battle line.” (144)

At the time, the bishops’ letter was

controversial in part because it was

questioning the morality of our nuclear

strategy: that deterrence could only

come from Mutually Assured Destruction.

If we were wiped out by a rain

of missiles, we would wipe out our

enemies as well.

The letter did not outright condemn

the strategy, in part because of a great

concern at that time on the part of

European bishops that loss of a nuclear

shield would render them defenseless

from Soviet threats. But it was grudging

in its tolerance, quoting John Paul

again that “it is indispensable not to be

satisfied with this minimum which is

always susceptible to the real danger of

explosion.” (173)

Forty years later and counting, the

moral conundrum remains, since the

use of nuclear weapons would involve

the slaughter of massive numbers of

noncombatants, and still “threatens the

existence of our planet.”

What Bigelow’s movie illustrates,

however, is that our guardrails preventing

a catastrophe are imperfect, while

decisions to unleash catastrophe must

be made in minutes. Given the lack of

trust between superpowers (and lesser

powers like North Korea), everyone will

assume the worst in terms of intentions

and preemptively retaliate. “Your choices,”

a national security official in the

film tells the president, “are surrender

or suicide.”

Bigelow structures her film around

three different takes of the same 20

minutes. We see the early warning

systems and the incredulity of their

operators, the efforts to shoot down the

missile, the speculation of the military

experts on what might or might not be

happening, and the demands on the

president to decide not if, but how to

retaliate.

Then there are the secondary characters

— the soldiers, the staffers, the

secretaries — who are bystanders slowly

coming to realize all that is at stake and

all that will be lost.

What the bishops in 1983 called “the

most pressing moral questions of our

age” (332) still remain before us in

2026. While our technology is ever

more lethal, humanity is no wiser than

it was in 1945 or 1983.

Perhaps Bigelow’s film can inspire

a reconsideration of our willingness

to live indefinitely in a house built of

dynamite. And perhaps the bishops

will challenge us once again to come

up with a better solution than hiding

under our desks.


NOW PLAYING LEO FROM CHICAGO

A ‘SOLID GUY’ FROM CHICAGO

The biggest surprise of the Vatican’s new documentary on Pope Leo?

How ordinary his Chicago Catholic roots actually are.

BY MARY FIORITO

The future pope, right,

as a child with his older

brother John Prevost. |

VATICAN MEDIA

Pope Leo XIV’s first words as pope

on the balcony of St. Peter’s

Basilica May 8, 2025, began with

the same sentence every Catholic hears

at Mass each Sunday: “Peace be with

[all of] you!”

Ordinary. Familiar. Both recognizable

and relatable to every Catholic man

and woman worldwide.

As it happens, ordinary, familiar, and

relatable are the hallmarks of the man

who was Robert Francis Prevost.

Vatican-watchers had long insisted

that a cardinal from the United States

becoming pope was an impossibility.

But the conclave that chose Cardinal

Prevost as the 267th Bishop of Rome

was not deterred by the fact he was an

American — specifically, a Chicagoan.

Suddenly, the world’s attention turned

to “The City of Big Shoulders.”

Although we are still only a few

months into Leo’s pontificate, the interest

in his trajectory — from Chicago’s

South Side to the humble southwest

“collar suburb” of Dolton to Villanova

University to Peruvian missionary to

bishop to cardinal to Holy Father —

continues to grow. How did a man

from such a typical Catholic family and

working-class neighborhood rise this

far?

Fresh off the success of its quickly produced

documentary “Leon de Peru,”

the Vatican Dicastery for Communication

has released something of a sequel,

“Leo from Chicago,” which strives to

capture the Holy Father’s formative

years. There is a larger, more extensive

story about Leo yet to be told, but the

Vatican documentary aims to understand

the kind of friends Robert Prevost

made, and the type of friend that he

was to others.

The documentary is smattered with

nostalgic imagery of Chicago: the iconic

Sears (now Willis) Tower, large fourdoor

cars sauntering along Lake Shore

Drive, Italian beef stands, and bustling

city streets. It features interviews with

the Prevost brothers — Louis Martin

(whom the family called “Marty” as he

shared his father’s first name), and John

(referred to as “Jay”), reflecting on their

brother “Rob’s” infancy and childhood.

We learn that the Holy Father’s early

life was like the announcement of his

election: simultaneously both extraordinary

and perfectly ordinary — predictable,

even.

Like many Catholic schoolboys of his

era, the Holy Father and his (apparently

conscripted) older brother “played

Mass” with Necco candy wafers and

their mother’s ironing board. “He didn’t

think it was playing — he thought it


was real,” his brother John insists.

Robert was an altar server from a

young age, and could assist at Mass

in both Latin and English. He often

accompanied his mother to weekday

6 a.m. Masses at their parish, St. Mary

of the Assumption Church. His father

was often unable to join them because

of his work obligations, but it is clear

he shared in his wife’s practice of the

Faith. The future pope’s brothers recall

with admiration how their parents

routinely recited the rosary after dinner,

and how their Catholic faith was

ingrained in every aspect of their daily

lives.

While there is not a lot of new ground

covered in this documentary, viewers

do have the opportunity to hear

substantial insights from Leo’s fellow

Augustinians, friends from his boarding

high school minor seminary, undergrad

classmates at Villanova University

(where the Holy Father was a founding

member of the pro-life club), as well

as former post-graduate teachers and

colleagues.

Much of the documentary’s discussion

of the pope’s life is so unremarkable

that it could reflect any random

Chicago Catholic family — his parents

had to put his crib in the dining room

because they didn’t have an extra

bedroom. They had fish every Friday!

He sent friends birthday and graduation

cards! He loves to drive so much that

his extensive automotive knowledge

rivals that of Marisa Tomei’s character

Mona Lisa Vito (portrayed in the film

“My Cousin Vinny”).

We also hear about his love for marshmallow

Peeps, Thanksgiving stuffing,

and Italian beef sandwiches at Portillo’s

(on that culinary point, this native Chicagoan

and the pope must sadly part

ways, as she is partial to Johnnie’s). He

attended Chicago White Sox games,

went snowmobiling, and once sported

the same sideburns as Dan Akroyd’s

“Elwood” character for the opening

weekend of the Chicago-based film,

“The Blues Brothers.”

Yet the Holy Father’s extraordinary

character also becomes evident, even if

it was not fully recognized at the time.

An elementary school teacher gently

teased he would be “the next pope,”

which was at the time a source of

embarrassment for young Rob. In one

remarkable recollection, his brother

reveals how “Rob” was a person of unity

even as a boy, managing to single-handedly

diffuse a group of bullies who were

trying to steal their bikes. “He turned

an unruly mob into his friends!” his

brother recalls.

The new documentary is not an

in-depth look at Leo’s life, nor does it

claim to be. For those seeking an abbreviated,

yet genuine and heartwarming

glimpse into the people and places

that shaped Leo, “Leo from Chicago”

is a well-sourced and often charming

window into the person that the Lord

called to serve him as the Successor to

Peter.

One of the greatest compliments one

Chicagoan can give to another is to

refer to him or her as “solid.” It denotes

a dependable, steady, upstanding person

who can be counted on to do the

right thing, come what may. It is fitting

that the documentary ends with that

accolade.

“He doesn’t impose himself on the

office,” notes fellow Augustinian Father

John Merkelis. “But ‘Bob Prevost’ is a

solid guy. And Leo is a solid pope.”

Mary FioRito is the Cardinal Francis

George Fellow at the Ethics and Public

Policy Center. She writes from Chicago.

Father Robert Prevost greets a friend from Chicago and her daughter

after his 1982 ordination Mass in Rome. | VATICAN MEDIA


DESIRE LINES

HEATHER KING

Re-rethinking ‘Jane Eyre’

The Brontë Sisters, Anne,

Emily, and Charlotte. |

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” is

one of the best-known novels of

the Victorian era and is widely

considered one of the best novels of the

English language.

Originally published in 1847 under

the androgynous pseudonym Currer

Bell, the book has never been out of

print since.

Brontë came from a notoriously

eccentric family that lived in semi-isolation

on the Yorkshire moors. Their

mother died in childbirth. Patrick

Brontë, the father, was a parson who,

though nominally loving, left his children

very much to their own devices.

Amid the moors’ raging winds, driving

rain, and gloom, they read voraciously

— above all the Bible, but also Sir

Walter Scott, Milton, Shakespeare,

Thackeray, and the Romantic poets.

Two sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, died

at 11 and 10. Branwell, the one male,

was an alcoholic and opium addict who

died at 31. Emily, author of “Wuthering

Heights,” soon followed, as did Anne,

also a novelist.

Charlotte outlived them all, dying six

years after Anne in 1855, at the age of

38.

The story, for those who don’t know,

goes like this. Jane is an orphan whose

aunt, Mrs. Reed, the widow of Jane’s

maternal uncle, has taken the child in

more or less under duress. Jane has no

apparent other relations. Mrs. Reed,

cruel and unfeeling, chastises, scolds,

and shames 10-year-old Jane while

spoiling her own insufferable three

children, two girls, and a fat, pampered

bully, John.

In one way, “Jane Eyre” is the story

of the introvert: a reader, a ponderer,

a contemplative who studies at great

depth human nature and her own

heart.

Curious several years later about the

master of Thornfield Hall, she queries

the household manager about him.

Mrs. Fairfax relays what he looks like,

his daily habits, his rich and showy

friends. “Yes, but what is his character?”

Jane wants to know.

Character is what matters to Jane,


Heather King (heather-king.com) writes memoirs, leads workshops,

and posts on Substack at “Desire Lines: Books, Culture, Art.”

and from the beginning, she has it in

spades. Plain, outwardly unprepossessing,

she’s on the one hand meek, obedient,

and quiet. On the other hand, she

flashes with fire at injustice and, having

been sent away to boarding school, as

her carriage drives away, shouts at Mrs.

Reed that she is a low, uncharitable

person, and that when she, Jane, grows

up, she will broadcast the fact to the

whole world.

Lowood, the school, is run by the tyrannical

and hypocritical Mr. Brocklehurst,

who shows off his three daughters,

dripping with feathered hats and

furs, to the underprivileged students

who are starving, freezing, and forcibly

shorn of anything resembling a curl.

Here Jane meets Helen Burns, another

reader and thinker who, like readers

and thinkers everywhere, is mercilessly

persecuted by the powers-that-be.

Again, Jane burns with indignation,

but the Christ-like Helen counsels

patience, forbearance, and turning the

other cheek. As Helen dies of tuberculosis,

Jane sneaks up to her quarantined

bedroom and holds her in her arms as

she dies.

Graduating at the head of her class,

Jane becomes a teacher at Lowood for

eight years, then finds employment as

a governess at Thornfield Hall, which

— along with seemingly boundless

tracts of surrounding land — is owned

by the brusque and enigmatic Edward

Rochester.

Modern commentators tend to style

Jane as a second-wave feminist, a political

activist, a transgressor of sexual and

gender boundaries.

In fact, she’s a devout Christian — in

all the very best senses of the word.

“Jane Eyre” is really the story of the

moral redemption of Mr. Rochester:

guided, fervently prayed for, and

sacrificed for by the humble governess

who eventually, and after extreme and

prolonged suffering on both their parts,

becomes his wife.

They are intellectual equals, peers

in character. “Do you find me handsome?”

he asks at one of their first

meetings. “No,” Jane replies. Though

she finds him deeply compelling, she

will not lie, she will not compromise

her integrity, she will not be cheap,

false, or coarse.

Mr. Rochester is better than handsome.

He’s darkly virile, fierce, moody,

passionate. As the novel progresses, he

and Jane fall deeply in love. But Jane

will not dishonor the sacrament of

marriage. She will not prefer her own

pleasure, security, and comfort to the

spiritual development and well-being of

her master. She will not be his mistress.

She would rather starve, would rather

they both suffer the agony of separation,

would rather die, as she almost does,

than that they degrade their love.

Neither will she countenance a

passionless marriage. Her cousin St.

John Rivers, a steely, driven missionary,

admires her many sterling qualities and

proposes, hoping to bring her to India

as his help-meet and fellow-laborer.

But he does not love her: thus she

will go as his sister, but not as his wife.

“I scorn the counterfeit sentiment you

offer,” she bursts out. “Yes, St. John, and

I scorn you when you offer it.”

If the ending is happy, the happiness

has been hard-won all around. And if

the novel is transgressive, it’s because

Christianity is always transgressive. As

Jane demonstrates, the person of high

moral character is always free, and can

never be truly oppressed, silenced, or

squelched.

She can be equally integrated as a domestic

servant or an heiress, a celibate

missionary or the intellectual peer of a

vibrant husband, a solitary contemplative

or — Jane’s crowning glory at last

— a mother.


LETTER AND SPIRIT

SCOTT HAHN

Scott Hahn is founder of the

St. Paul Center for Biblical

Theology; stpaulcenter.com.

Mary’s Immaculate Conception

The Immaculate Conception was declared a dogma

in the year 1854. But the belief has been with the

Church since the beginning.

In the fourth century, St. Athanasius said, “The Lord, who

knows his entire creation well, saw in it nothing like Mary.

In the entire creation, everything else was subject to the

curse of the Fall of Adam and Eve.” So what was that curse?

It was original sin, with all its horrible effects (see Genesis

3:16–19). Instead of paradise, our first parents faced a life of

pain and futility that must end in death.

Adam was a “type.” That’s what St. Paul called him

(Romans 5:14), and that means that Adam foreshadowed

an eventual fulfillment.

St. Paul also tells us that

the New Adam is Jesus

(1 Corinthians 15:22, 45,

47).

Paul said explicitly that

Jesus is the New Adam.

The Church Fathers said

overwhelmingly that the

Virgin Mary is the New

Eve.

The earliest Christians

insisted that Mary did

not suffer labor pains in

giving birth. We see this

already in the first century

— in documents known

as the Ascension of Isaiah,

the Odes of Solomon,

and the Infancy Gospel of

James.

It mattered because they

believed that the New

Creation was a fulfillment

of the Old. They believed

that God had made the

conditions of the New

Creation to be recognizably

like the conditions of

the original creation.

That’s why the story of

Jesus, as it appears in the

Book of Revelation, turns

on the interaction of a man, a woman, and a serpent.

The difference in the story of the New Adam and Eve is

that their story ends well.

It’s reasonable for us to expect that the New Man and New

Woman should enjoy the privileges of their first forebears.

So, as the early Christians told the story, Mary’s pregnancy

and birth proceeded without pain, as if God had never

pronounced the punishing curse of Genesis 3:16.

This, in turn, led the Fathers to the conclusion that Mary

was without sin. Listen to Ephrem of Syria as he sang a song

to Jesus in the fourth century: “You alone and your mother

are more beautiful than any others, for there is no blemish

in you nor any stains upon

your mother.”

In the same century, St.

Ambrose called Mary “a

virgin not only undefiled,

but a virgin whom grace

had made inviolate, free

of every stain of sin.”

In a second-century epitaph

in Rome, the virgin

is hailed as “spotless,”

“immaculate.”

And St. Augustine would

not even allow himself

to speak of the virgin

Mary in the context of

his discussion of sin. He

acknowledges that all

have sinned, but he goes

on to say, “We must make

an exception of the holy

virgin Mary, concerning

whom I wish to raise no

question when it touches

the subject of sins, out of

honor to the Lord.”

“Immaculate

Conception,” by

Bartolomé Esteban

Murillo, 1617-1682,

Spanish. | WIKIME-

DIA COMMONS

Other voices sing in this

choir. I’ve mentioned only

a few. Add your own voice

as the Church celebrates

the Immaculate Conception

on December 8.

Make sure to go to Mass.


■ FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21

Dominican Sisters Vision of Hope Fall Luncheon. Jonathan

Club, 545 S. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, 11 a.m. Guest

speaker: Auxiliary Bishop Matthew G. Elshoff, OFM Cap.

Email smcdonald@msjdominicans.org.

“A Candlelit Meditation on the Sacred Mother.” St. Basil

Church, 3611 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, 7 p.m. Concert

by Seraphour, an LA-based vocal quartet dedicated to the

preservation and proliferation of the sacred canon. Suggested

donation: $25/person. Visit seraphour.com.

■ SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22

Transitional Diaconate Ordination. Cathedral of Our Lady

of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 9 a.m. The

Mass is open to the public, but livestream is also available at

lacatholics.org.

St. Jerome Annual Holiday Arts and Craft Faire. St. Jerome

Church, 5550 Thornburn St., Westchester, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.,

Sun., Nov. 23, 8 a.m.-2 p.m. More than 40 tables selling

handmade arts and crafts, raffle, and a game of Split the Pot.

Refreshments for sale and holiday music. Call Joan Hoffman

at 310-670-7801.

Bridges to Better: Spiritual Synodal Reframing of Conflict

in Ministry. Zoom, 9 a.m.-12 p.m. With Marc J. DelMonico,

Ph.D., session includes skills and tactics to handle conflict

and keep conversations bridging toward shared interests

and possible solutions. Cost: $40/person. Breaks and lunchtime

included. Visit lacatholics.org/events.

Myth and Reality: Can the Two Ever Meet? Holy Spirit

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

With Father Jim Clarke. Visit hsrcenter.com or call 818-815-

4480.

Peter Claver Award Program. Proud Bird Restaurant,

11022 Aviation Blvd., Los Angeles, 11 a.m. Speaker: Father

Tony Ricard. Honorees: Father Bill Bolton and Sister Betty

Harbison, SSS. Cost: $70/person. RSVP to Sherre Titus at

562-400-3661.

■ SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23

S.H.A.R.E. Ministry Craft Fair. St. Agatha Church, 2610

Mansfield Ave., Los Angeles, 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Many one-of-akind

handcrafted items. Entrance on Mansfield.

John August Swanson Art Exhibit. Our Mother of Good

Counsel Church, 2060 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, 9

a.m.-2:30 p.m. Free exhibit of artwork from world-renowned

artist and former parishioner, presented in conjunction with

Swanson Studios. Call 310-649-1210 or email studio@

johnaugustswanson.com for information.

■ SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29

Morning Advent Retreat. St. Bruno Church, 15740 Citrustree

Rd., Whittier, 9 a.m.-12 p.m. RSVP by Nov. 25 to Cathy

Narvaez at 562-631-8844.

Pilgrims of Hope Day Retreat. Pauline Books & Media,

3908 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Hosted

by Father Valerian Menezes. Cost: $30/person donation.

Call the Daughters of St. Paul at 310-397-8676 or email

culvercity@paulinemedia.com.

■ WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3

Catholic Charities Ventura County 2025 Las Rosas

Gala. Spanish Hills Club, 999 Crestview Ave., Camarillo,

5:30-9:30 p.m. Dinner honoring Father Leon Hutton, new

president of St. John’s Seminary. Call Greg Cornell, regional

development director, at 805-643-4694, ext. 312.

“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.

Solemn Vespers. Our Mother of Good Counsel Church,

2060 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, 7 p.m. Psalms, readings,

and music. Call 323-664-2111 or visit omgcla.org.

■ THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4

San Fernando Mission Guides Meeting. San Fernando

Mission Cantwell Hall, 15151 Mission Blvd., Mission Hills,

1 p.m. Meetings on the first Thursday of each month, open

to new prospective docents, performing tours mainly for

California fourth-graders. Call John Panico at 661-877-7528

or email jdpanico@gmail.com.

■ FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5

La Virgen de Guadalupe, Dios Inantzin. Cathedral of Our

Lady of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 7 p.m.

Also running Sat., Dec. 6. Produced by the Latino Theater

Company. Visit olacathedral.org.

■ SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6

Doorways, Portals, and Prayers. Holy Spirit Retreat Center,

4316 Lanai Rd., Encino, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. With Chantel Zimmerman.

Visit hsrcenter.com or call 818-784-4515.

Best Birthday Ever! Pauline Books & Media, 3908 Sepulveda

Blvd., Culver City, 1:30-3:30 p.m. Children can enjoy an

exciting celebration of Jesus’ birthday with games, storytelling,

photo opportunities with St. Nicholas, and free cake.

Call the Daughters of St. Paul at 310-397-8676 or email

culvercity@paulinemedia.com.

Raices Fuertes. Bishop Mora Salesian High School, 960 S.

Soto St., Los Angeles, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. Ten-week program,

online and in person, for Spanish-speaking mothers and

fathers, to strengthen emotional well-being and family unity

in the LA Latino community. Visit register.scholasusa.org to

learn more.

■ SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7

94th Annual Procession and Mass in Honor of Our

Lady of Guadalupe. Our Lady of Solitude, 4561 Cesar E.

Chavez Ave., Los Angeles, 10:30 a.m. Procession to East Los

Angeles College Stadium will end in 1 p.m. Mass, presided

by Archbishop José H. Gomez. Theme: “Our Lady of

Guadalupe, Cause of Our Joy and Hope.” Visit lacatholics.

org/events.

Advent Reading: “The Night That Changed the World” by

Joe Praml. St. Ambrose Church, 2181 N. Fairfax Ave., West

Hollywood, 10 a.m. Mass, 11:15 a.m.-12 p.m. A Christmas

story followed by carol sing-along. Call 323-6564433 or

visit stambroseweho.org.

■ TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9

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.

Items for the calendar of events are due four weeks prior to the date of the event. They may be emailed to calendar@angelusnews.com.

All calendar items must include the name, date, time, address of the event, and a phone number for additional information.


Angelus News | November 18, 2025 | Vol. 10, No. 24

Transform your PDFs into Flipbooks and boost your revenue!

Angelus News | November 18, 2025 | Vol. 10, No. 24

Transform your PDFs into Flipbooks and boost your revenue!

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