Angelus News | December 14, 2018 | Vol. 3 No. 42

ANGELUS 

LIVING ON A PRAYER 

The Psalms as the soundtrack to life 

December 14, 2018 Vol. 3 No. 42

ON THE COVER 

King David kneels with his eyes raised toward a vision of the hand of God, while nearby rest 

his crown and psaltery, a stringed instrument, in a 15th-century manuscript by Italian artist 

Zanobi Strozzi introducing Psalm 1. The Psalms have been called the “balanced meal” of Divine 

Revelation, “the New Testament of the Old Testament,” and the most complete expression of just 

about every possible spiritual state in human life. So why don’t we pray with them more? On 

page 10, Mike Aquilina talks to the author of a new book on the Psalms, biblical scholar John 

Bergsma, who addresses some of the biggest misconceptions about the Psalms and makes the 

case for why they should play a central role in the life of every Christian. 

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART 

IMAGE: Archbishop José H. Gomez stops to talk to a 

“Guadalupano” family during the 87th Annual 

Procession honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe in 

East Los Angeles on Sunday, Dec. 9, the feast 

day of St. Juan Diego. The procession was followed 

by a Mass celebrated by the archbishop 

at East Los Angeles College. Visit AngelusNews. 

com for complete coverage and photos from 

the event. 

VICTOR ALEMÁN 

B • ANGELUS • December 14, 2018

Contents 

Archbishop Gomez 3 

World, Nation and Local News 4-6 

LA Catholic Events 7 

Scott Hahn on Scripture 8 

Father Rolheiser 9 

Fifty-four names added to archdiocese’s list of accused priests 14 

John Allen: New stats on the ebb and flow of faith in Europe 18 

Did an Italian youth in heaven save the life of an American youth? 20 

Dr. Grazie Christie: Beware of Santa-focused Christmas 24 

New film captures wanderlust in the Big Apple 26 

Heather King: A Scrooge worthy of redemption in Pasadena 28 

December 14, 2018 • ANGELUS • 1

ANGELUS 

December 14, 2018 | Vol.3 • No. 42 

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POPE WATCH 

The grace to trust 

Pope Francis marked the solemnity 

of the Immaculate Conception Dec. 

8 with a series of public appearances 

around the city of Rome. 

He began with a noontime speech 

to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s 

Square, where he reflected on Mary’s 

act of simple trust at the moment of 

the Annunciation and her ensuing 

relationship with God. 

“Today we look at the beauty of Our 

Lady, who was born and lived without 

sin, always docile and transparent with 

God. This does not mean that life was 

easy for her. Living with God does not 

magically solve problems.” 

“The angel leaves the Virgin alone in 

a difficult situation … and she trusts,” 

he said. “We ask the Immaculate to 

have the grace to live like this.” 

He also expressed joy at the 

beatification of the Bishop Peter 

Claverie and 18 martyred companions, 

who were proclaimed blessed in 

Algeria on the feast day. 

“Their courageous testimony is 

a source of hope for the Algerian 

Catholic community and a seed of 

dialogue for the whole of society,” 

Francis said. 

He later made his way to the Basilica 

of Santa Maria Maggiore, where he 

venerated the famous icon “Salus 

Populi Romani” inside for the 66th 

time since becoming pope (he has 

made a tradition of visiting it after every 

foreign trip). 

Afterward, he continued on to Piazza 

di Spagna below Rome’s famous 

Spanish Steps, where he offered 

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a bouquet of flowers at the foot of 

the Column of the Immaculate 

Conception. 

With Rome’s mayor Virginia 

Raggi standing just feet away, the 

pope acknowledged the worsening 

economic, political, and even sanitary 

conditions in the Italian capital in his 

prayer to the Blessed Mother. 

“You know what it means to bring 

life into your lap and feel indifference, 

rejection, and sometimes contempt,” 

he prayed to Mary. 

“This is why I ask you to stay close 

to the families that are living today 

in Rome, in Italy, in the whole world 

[who] live in similar situations, so that 

they are not abandoned.” 

He also asked her “for the strength 

not to resign ourselves, but rather, 

that every day, each person may do 

their bit to improve things, so that the 

care shown by each person may make 

Rome more beautiful and livable for 

all.” 

The pope’s last stop of the day was a 

more unusual one: the newsroom of “Il 

Messaggero,” a Rome-based newspaper 

celebrating its 140th anniversary. 

Francis thanked the staff for all the 

unseen work that goes into printing the 

morning paper every day. 

“I wish you the best … and 140 years 

more of Messaggero,” the pope told 

them. 

“But always with a spirit of service, 

explain things without exaggerating, 

seeking always to be concrete — this is 

the virtue of the journalist: the search 

for the fact.” 

Papal Prayer Intentions for December: That people, who are involved in the service and 

transmission of faith, may find, in their dialogue with culture, a language suited to the 

conditions of the present time. 

@Angelus 


www.la-archdiocese.org 

@Angelus 


2 • ANGELUS • December 14, 2018

NEW WORLD 

OF FAITH 

BY ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

Finding hope and healing 

Last week, we released the names of 

priests who have been credibly accused 

of sexual abuse or misconduct involving 

a minor since 2008. 

We owe it to the victim-survivors of 

abuse to be fully transparent in the way 

we handle allegations, and in listing 

the names of those who perpetrate 

abuse. 

The list we released updates our 

“Report to the People of God.” This 

report was first published in 2004 and 

it documents more than 70 years of 

allegations of abuse against priests in 

the archdiocese. 

We have also launched a new internet 

portal where you can find the report 

and information on all our work to 

protect children and offer healing to 

victims — protect.la-archdiocese.org. 

The reality of clerical misconduct 

and child sexual abuse marks a sad 

and shameful chapter in the Church’s 

history. 

We know that child sexual abuse is a 

sin and a crime that afflicts every area 

of our society — from public schools 

and other government agencies to 

nonprofit organizations and faith communities; 

this sad reality is found even 

within families. 

When priests of the Catholic Church 

commit such abuse, they betray Jesus 

Christ and do violence to the spiritual 

welfare of innocent souls and families 

that he has entrusted to the Church’s 

care. 

For nearly three decades now, the 

Church here in Los Angeles has 

reckoned with the misconduct of 

priests and the grave harm done to 

many of our children. We have taken 

responsibility for our failures and acknowledged 

that too often we failed to 

respond with compassion to those who 

were abused. 

Out of this tragedy, important reforms 

were made. 

The archdiocese has put in place 

strict policies for reporting and investigating 

suspected abuse and for removing 

offenders from ministry. We have 

also established extensive programs of 

education and background checks to 

make sure our children are safe in our 

parishes, schools, and ministries. 

And this system is working. The list 

we released last week shows that in 

the past 10 years, there have been 

two cases of misconduct by priests of 

the Archdiocese of Los Angeles that 

involve current minors. 

These cases were previously made 

public at the time the allegations were 

first received. In each of these two cases, 

the priest has been removed from 

ministry and the allegations against 

him were reported to law enforcement. 

With the assistance of courageous 

abuse survivors, and through the 

commitment of Church staff and volunteers, 

we have witnessed a dramatic 

reduction in cases of abuse over the last 

two decades. 

Still, every case is one too many. It is a 

crime committed against an innocent 

soul, and it is a sin that cries out to 

heaven for justice and healing. 

To every one of you who has suffered 

abuse at the hands of a priest, I am 

truly sorry. Nothing can undo the 

violence done to you or restore the innocence 

and trust that was taken from 

you. I am humbled by your courage 

and ashamed at how the Church has 

let you down. 

Because of the reality of human weakness 

and fragility, I cannot promise 

that we will ever completely eradicate 

child sexual abuse from the Church, or 

from the wider society. But we can — 

and we must — keep making progress 

toward that goal. 

We remain committed and vigilant at 

every level of the Church to creating 

safe environments for our children and 

reporting and investigating allegations 

of misconduct and removing perpetrators 

from ministry. 

And again I want to make this appeal: 

If you, or anyone you know, has 

suffered abuse by a priest or someone 

affiliated with the Archdiocese of Los 

Angeles, I urge you to call our Victims 

Assistance Ministry at 800-355-2545, 

or go to our website: protect.la-archdiocese.org. 

In coming forward, you have my 

assurance that your voice will be heard, 

and you will find compassion and 

understanding. The one you allege to 

have hurt you will be removed from 

ministry while your allegations are fully 

investigated by law enforcement and by 

our oversight board. 

The healing of victims and survivors 

of abuse — every one of you — is my 

priority. 

Finding the ability to trust again is 

a slow and difficult journey. But I 

promise I will walk that journey with 

you, along with the whole family of 

God here in the Archdiocese of Los 

Angeles. 

This week, in a special way, I would 

like to ask everyone in the family of 

God here to offer special prayers for 

the victim-survivors of abuse. 

May every victim-survivor find hope 

and healing in Jesus Christ, may the 

Blessed Virgin Mary be a mother to us 

all, and may God grant us peace. 

To read more columns by Archbishop José H. Gomez or to subscribe, visit www.angelusnews.com. 


WORLD 

Russia’s holy war? 

Members of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church 

claim that recent conflict at Ukraine’s border with Russia 

stems from ecclesiastical disputes in the Orthodox 

Church. 

Russian forces attacked Ukrainian naval ships on Nov. 

25 and have since held several Ukrainian sailors in 

custody, reigniting tensions in the region. 

The incident came on the heels of Ecumenical Patriarch 

Bartholomew I of Constantinople’s decision to 

declare the Ukrainian Orthodox Church independent 

from the Russian Orthodox Church, an action strongly 

criticized by Russian Orthodox officials. 

According to a Ukrainian Catholic source who spoke 

to London’s The Tablet requesting anonymity, the aggression 

was meant “to send a clear signal that Ukraine 

is not fully independent and therefore not entitled to its 

own church.” 

On Dec. 4, Ukrainian Catholic bishops asked the 

faithful to “faithfully observe or, if necessary, return to 

the crucial practice of daily prayer and strict fasting 

for peace and liberation of our country from Russian 

aggression.” 

Three Ukrainian naval ships seized by Russia in Kerch, Crimea. 

Refugee roundup in Thailand 

For Pakistani Christians who flee their homes for asylum 

in Thailand, martyrdom is traded for arrest as the 

Thai government cracks down on asylum-seekers. 

An estimated 380 Pakistani Christians are detained in 

Immigration Detention Centers (IDCS), 100 of whom 

were arrested on Oct. 9, according to WorldWatch 

Monitor. 

Though some Thai locals have begun grassroots 

assistance of the imprisoned Christian asylum-seekers, 

many Pakistanis say they still hope for support from 

the global Christian community. 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/ALLA DMITRIEVA, REUTERS 

Pope Francis and Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan during 

a September 2016 audience in Rome. 

A papal first in the UAE 

Pope Francis will become the first pope to visit the Arabian 

Peninsula during a Feb. 3-5 visit to the United Arab 

Emirates next year, the Vatican announced Dec. 6. 

The pope was invited by crown prince Sheikh Mohammed 

bin Zayed Al-Nahyan for the “International 

Interfaith Meeting on Human Fraternity” held in the 

country. 

The theme of the papal visit was taken from St. Francis 

of Assisi’s famous prayer for peace: “Make me a channel 

of your peace.” 

In its announcement, the Vatican said the theme 

“expresses our own prayer that the visit of Pope Francis 

to the United Arab Emirates may spread in a special 

way the peace of God within the hearts of all people of 

goodwill.” 

Australian bishop cleared of 

cover-up in abuse of altar servers 

The most senior Catholic prelate to be convicted of 

covering up clerical sex abuse was freed after an Australian 

judge found reasonable doubt in the case. 

Former Archbishop Philip Wilson of the Archdiocese 

of Adelaide was convicted in May for knowing of the 

alleged abuse of two altar servers in the 1980s by a 

fellow Adelaide priest. 

But in his decision to overturn the conviction, Newcastle 

District Court Judge Roy Ellis said Dec. 6 that 

“there were very honest features” of Wilson’s evidence 

that “provide a strong platform for him to be an honest 

witness.” 

He added that Wilson could not be convicted merely 

because the “Catholic Church has a lot to answer for 

in terms of its historical self-protective approach” to 

clerical sex abuse. 

“Philip Wilson, when he appears before this court, is 

simply an individual who has the same legal rights as 

every other person in our community.” 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/CLAUSIO PERI, EPA 


NATION 

GUADALUPE COWBOYS — Members of “Club Los Vaqueros 

Unidos” (“United Cowboy Club”) from the Chicago area make their 

way to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Des Plaines, Illinois, 

Dec. 1, as part of a pre-celebration for the Dec. 12 feast day 

celebrating her appearance to St. Juan Diego in 1531. 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/KAREN CALLAWAY, CATHOLIC NEW WORLD 

Court rules in favor of EWTN 

Eternal Word Television Network’s lawsuit against 

the Department of Health and Human Services has 

finally come to an end after more than six years. 

The lawsuit, filed in February 2012, argued that the 

“contraceptive mandate,” which required EWTN 

to provide contraception and other products, was 

unconstitutional. A 2014 district court ruled against 

EWTN. 

But on Nov. 29, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 

11th Circuit vacated the district court decision due 

to an Oct. 5 settlement between EWTN and the 

Department of Justice, which agreed that EWTN 

would not be required to provide contraception, 

sterilization, or abortifacients through its employee 

health care plan. 

“Almost seven years and two presidential administrations 

later, the government and the courts have 

now realized what EWTN has been saying all along, 

that the HHS mandate was an unconstitutional 

attempt to coerce us into violating our strongly held 

beliefs,” said EWTN Chairman and CEO Michael P. 

Warsaw. 

Bezos’ prime delivery 

Amazon founder and CEO 

Jeff Bezos and his wife Mac- 

Kenzie have awarded three 

Catholic charities each a $5 

million grant. 

The funds were awarded as 

part of the “Bezos Day 1 Family 

Fund,” a charitable organization 

that distributes grants to combat 

homelessness and found preschools 

in low-income areas. 

The three Catholic charities 

are Catholic Charities of the 

Archdiocese of New Orleans, 

Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese 

of Miami and Catholic 

Community Services of Western 

Washington. 

“We hope these grants provide 

the additional resources these 

leaders and their organizations 

need to expand the scope and 

impact of their efforts,” said 

Bezos. 

Greg White (left) and Jim Collins are pictured with new backpacks for fellow parishioners 

at St. Thomas More Church in Paradise, California. 

Post-Camp Fire parish leadership 

Thousands are still in need of assistance after the devastating Camp Fire 

fire killed nearly 90 and destroyed more than 18,000 structures in Northern 

California in November. 

Among those most in need are undocumented immigrants or immigrants 

who lost their documentation and may not qualify for government assistance 

programs. 

To meet immense need, John Watkins, director of Catholic Charities for 

the Diocese of Sacramento, told Catholic News Agency that Northern Valley 

Catholic Social Service (NVCSS) is likely to hire dozens of new disaster case 

managers to accompany families in need for 24 months. Additionally, parishes 

have been leading massive collections of necessities and gift cards to assist those 

who lost everything. 

“The parish provides a safer place for people who would have concerns going 

directly to FEMA, or for people who FEMA wouldn’t be able to help,” Father 

Michael Ritter, pastor of St. John the Baptist Church in Chico, said. 

CHRISTINA GRAY/CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO 


LOCAL 

Nuns apologize for 

school embezzlement 

Two religious sisters who taught 

at St. James School in Torrance 

admitted to having embezzled 

funds set aside for the school for 

years. 

The school recently notified police 

that it had found that Sister 

Mary Margaret Kreuper and Sister 

Lana Chang “were involved in 

the personal use of a substantial 

amount of school funds.” 

Both sisters retired in June of 

this year: Kreuper as school principal, 

and Chang as a teacher. 

The amount embezzled may 

have been as much as $500,000. 

Both nuns belong to the Sisters 

of St. Joseph of Carondelet. The 

order said it would pay back the 

money to the school and impose 

“severe sanctions” on the two 

nuns. 

“Sister Mary Margaret and Sister 

Lana have expressed to me and 

asked that I convey to you, the 

deep remorse they each feel for 

their actions and ask for your 

forgiveness and prayers,” wrote 

St. James pastor Msgr. Michael 

Meyers in a letter to parishioners. 

“They and their Order pray that 

you have not lost trust or faith in 

the educators and administrators 

of the school.” 

In response to concerns from the 

community, the Archdiocese of 

Los Angeles has indicated that it 

“intends on becoming a complaining 

party” in the law enforcement 

investigation of the case. 

A PAINTING FOR A PRIEST — Archbishop José H. Gómez poses with young “Guadalupanos” 

and a gift from artist Lalo Garcia: a depiction of Our Lady of Guadalupe painted for Archbishop 

Gomez on the occasion of his 40th year of priesthood. The painting was presented 

after the Procession and Mass in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe in East LA Dec. 9. In each 

corner of the painting are four elements related to the archbishop’s journey as a priest: The 

hills of his hometown of Monterey, Mexico, San Antonio’s San Fernando Cathedral (where his 

parents were married and where he served as archbishop), LA’s Cathedral of Our Lady of the 

Angels, and his episcopal coat of arms. 

‘La Morenita’ gets her day in East LA 

Thousands of faithful descended on Cesar Chavez Boulevard Sunday, Dec. 

9, to witness the oldest religious procession in Southern California and renew 

their devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe. 

The festive event, marked by a mile-long procession with dozens of traditional 

“matachines” (“dancers”), floats, and music, ended in a special Mass 

celebrated with thousands at the East Los Angeles College Stadium, led by 

Archbishop José H. Gómez. 

In his homily, Archbishop Gomez began by thanking the Virgin for sending 

some clouds to block the full sun inside the roofless stadium. 

But he also reminded the faithful of the need for her help in the midst of 

close-to-home issues such as the caravan of Central American refugees and 

the “failure” of the government to pass immigration reform and to address the 

situation of “Dreamers.” 

Visit AngelusNews.com for complete coverage and photos from the event. 



LA Catholic Events 

Items for the Calendar of events are due two weeks prior to the date of the event. They may be mailed to Angelus News (Attn: Calendar), 3424 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90010-2241; 

emailed to calendar@angelusnews.com; or faxed to (213) 637-6360. All calendar items must include the name, date, time and address of the event, plus a phone number for additional information. 

Sat., Dec. 15 

Daughters of St. Paul Glorious Night Christmas 

Concert. Chaminade High School, 7500 Chaminade 

Ave., West Hills, 7 p.m. Dec. 15 and 16. Tickets range 

from $20-$100/person, children 5 and under are 

free. Visit Pauline.org/concerts to purchase tickets. 

Glorious Night: A Christmas Concert with the 

Daughters of St. Paul. Barnum Hall, Santa Monica 

High School, 600 Olympic Blvd., Santa Monica, Sat., 

Dec. 15 and Sun., Dec. 16, 7 p.m. Come celebrate 

the birthday of Jesus and experience the joy and 

singing of the award-winning Daughters of St. Paul 

Choir with this unforgettable Christmas concert. 

Tickets: $20, $30, $50, $100/person. Group rate 

for $20 tickets: 10-plus $15/person. Children 5 and 

under free. For tickets call 310-397-8676 or visit 

Pauline.org/LAConcert. 

Day of Healing. Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center, 

700 N. Sunnyside Ave., Sierra Madre, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. 

Check in at 8:30 a.m. Healing day, workshop, and 

support for those who have suffered a loss due to 

abortion. Cost: $40/person. Register by Dec. 5 to 

sharon@mercifulcompanions.org or call 714-743- 

5834. 

Dancing Festival of Lessons and Carols. O’Donnell 

Hall, American Martyrs Church, 700 15th St., 

Manhattan Beach, 2 p.m., 7 p.m. Valyermo Dancers 

will lead a celebration of Advent, Christmas, and the 

Season of Light. Cost: $15/person, $25/family. Light 

refreshments served and free parking available. 

Call Monica Hughes at 424-327-9615 or email 

mhughes@americanmartyrs.org. 

Foster or Adopt Information Meeting. Children’s 

Bureau, 27200 Tourney Rd., Ste. 175, Valencia, 10 

a.m.-12 p.m. Discover if you have the willingness, 

ability, and resources to take on the challenge 

of helping a child in need. To RSVP or for more 

information, call 213-342-0162, toll free at 800- 

730-3933 or email RFrecruitment@all4kids.org. 

Sun., Dec. 16 

Las Posadas. Mary & Joseph Retreat Center, 5300 

Crest Rd., Rancho Palos Verdes, 4-6 p.m. Join us 

for a symbolic commemoration of Las Posadas as 

Mary and Joseph search for lodging on their journey 

to Bethlehem. We will have a piñata for the children 

and refreshments. Cost: $5/adults, $2/children 

4-12, children under 4 free. For more information, 

call Sydne at 310-377-4867, ext. 258 or email 

sjongbloed@maryjoseph.org. 

Traditional Filipino Christmas-Advent Mass. Our 

Lady of Refuge, 5195 Stearns St., Long Beach, 5:30 

p.m. Call Maria Schiltz at 562-216-3995. 

Mon., Dec. 17 

St. Padre Pio Healing Mass. St. Anne Church, 340 

10th St., Seal Beach, 1 p.m. Celebrant: Father Al 

Scott. Call 562-537-4526. 

Tues., Dec. 18 

Simbang Gabi Mass. Church of the Good Shepherd, 

504 N. Roxbury Dr., Beverly Hills, 7 p.m. Mass 

celebrated by Bishop Oscar Solis. Adelio Angelito 

Cruz, Philippine consul general of Los Angeles and his 

wife, Cathy, will be in attendance. Music provided by 

Philippine Chamber Singers of Los Angeles. Catered 

and potluck reception in the church hall to follow. 

Fri., Dec. 21 

Seniors Ministry of St. Paul the Apostle Movie 

Series: “Darkest Hour.” 10750 Ohio Ave., Los 

Angeles, 10:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. All adults invited to 

free film series curated by master catechist Joan 

Doyle. Bring a friend, bring a snack. Call Pat Osman 

at 310-553-5947. 

Sat., Dec. 22 

Traditional Filipino Christmas-Advent Mass. Our 

Lady of Refuge, 5195 Stearns St., Long Beach, 5:45 

a.m. Call Maria Schiltz at 562-216-3995. 

Fri., Dec. 28 

Memorial of the Holy Innocents. Holy Cross 

Cemetery, 5835 West Slauson Ave., 2 p.m. Mass 

at the Risen Christ Chapel followed by a rosary 

procession to the Shrine to the Unborn. Celebrant: 

Bishop Joseph Sartoris. Sponsored by the Knights of 

Columbus. Call 310-670-0605. 

Sun., Dec. 30 

“O Beautiful Star” Epiphany Concert. Alemany 

High School, 11111 Alemany Dr., Mission Hills, 4 

p.m. Celebrate the Christmas season with Bishop 

Joseph V. Brennan and Mrs. Anna Betancourt. Cost: 

$30/person, available at Holy Trinity Parish Office. 

Proceeds benefit Catholic Charities. Call Johanna 

Reyes at 310-872-6804. 

Thurs., Jan. 3 

SEEK2019: Encounter Something More. Indianapolis 

Convention Center, 100 S. Capitol Ave., Indianapolis, 

Indiana. Five-day event (Jan. 3-7), where people from 

across the country gather to ask the big questions 

about life, love, and true happiness. Speakers 

include Dr. Scott Hahn, Emily Wilson, Chris Stefanick, 

and George Weigel. For more information, visit www. 

seek2019.com. 

Sun., Jan. 6 

La Befana Celebration. OLPH Hall, 23233 Lyons 

Avenue, Newhall, 12 p.m. The Italian Catholic Club 

hosts its traditional celebration for Christmas and 

Epiphany. There will be a puppeteer, accordion music, 

Italian lessons, and an Italian Santa Claus with gifts for 

children. Cost: $25/adults, $10/children 7-16. Children 

under 7 free. Includes dinner. Call Anna Riggs to RSVP 

at 661-645-7877. 

Mon., Jan. 7 

A Priest Forever: Christ and the New Testament 

Priesthood, 2019 West Coast Priest Conference. 

Estancia La Jolla Hotel & Spa, 9700 N. Torrey Pines 

Rd., La Jolla. Join Drs. Scott Hahn and John Bergsma 

for four days of spiritual renewal Jan. 7-10. Cost: $800/ 

person and includes room and board. Limited needbased 

scholarships available. For more information and 

registration, visit stpaulcenter.com/westcoastpriests. 

Fri., Jan. 11 

Men’s Retreat. Sacred Heart Retreat Center, 507 N. 

Granada Ave., Alhambra. Fri., Jan. 11, 5 p.m. to Sun., 

Jan. 13, 12 p.m. Msgr. Morris will guide participants in 

prayer and reflection. For more information, call Suzan 

at 626-289-1353, ext. 204. 

Mon., Jan. 14 

Central America Pilgrimage Retreat with the 

Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers. Ten-day spiritual 

journey for bishops, priests, brothers, and deacons. 

Pilgrimage will visit the shrines of Blessed Archbishop 

Oscar Romero in El Salvador, Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi 

and Blessed Father Stanley Rother in Guatemala, 

and more. Cost: $1,000/person, plus airfare to/ 

from Guatemala City. For more information, contact 

Claudia Velardo at 914-941-7636, ext. 2689 or email 

cvelardo@maryknoll.org. 

Fri., Jan. 18 

Responding to Domestic Violence: Leadership 

Awareness Training. Cathedral of Our Lady of the 

Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, registration 

8:30-9 a.m. Event 9 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Learn about 

domestic violence and how to respond to situations 

you may encounter in your parish, school, or ministry. 

Sponsored by the Office of Family Life. Cost: $25/ 

person and includes breakfast, lunch, and materials. 

$9 parking not included. RSVP by Jan. 11 to Jeanette 

Seneviratne at 213-637-7398. 

This Week at AngelusNews.com 

Visit AngelusNews.com for these stories 

and more. Your source for complete, 

up-to-the-minute coverage of local news, 

sports and events in Catholic L.A. 

• What do “The Nutcracker,” “Moby Dick,” and the birth of Christ have in common? 

• Ruben Navarrette’s tribute to George H.W. Bush, former president and loyal friend. 

• Full schedule for Simbang Gabi Masses in the archdiocese. 


Saint Joseph 

High School 

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The people in today’s Gospel are 

“filled with expectation.” They believe 

John the Baptist might be the Messiah 

they’ve been waiting for. Three times 

we hear their question: “What then 

should we do?” 

The Messiah’s coming requires every 

man and woman to choose — to 

“repent” or not. That’s John’s message 

and it will be Jesus’ too (see Luke 3:3; 

5:32; 24:47). 

“Repentance” translates a Greek 

word, “metanoia” (literally, “change of 

mind”). In the Scriptures, repentance 

is presented as a twofold “turning” 

away from sin (see Ezekiel 3:19; 18:30) 

and toward God (see Sirach 17:20-21; 

Hosea 6:1). 

This “turning” is more than attitude 

adjustment. It means a radical lifechange. 

It requires “good fruits as 

evidence of your repentance” (see 

Luke 3:8). That’s why John tells the 

crowds, soldiers, and tax collectors they 

must prove their faith through works of 

charity, honesty, and social justice. 

In today’s liturgy, each of us is being 

called to stand in that crowd and 

hear the “good news” of John’s call to 

repentance. We should examine our 

lives, ask from our hearts as they did: 

“What should we do?” Our repentance 

should spring, not from our fear of 

coming wrath (see Luke 3:7-9), but 

from a joyful sense of the nearness of 

our saving God. 

This theme resounds through 

today’s readings: “Rejoice! … The 

Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all,” 

we hear in today’s Epistle. In today’s 

Responsorial, we hear again the call 

to be joyful, unafraid at the Lord’s 

coming among us. 

SUNDAY 

READINGS 

BY SCOTT HAHN 

Zeph. 3:14-18 / Is. 12:2-6 / Phil. 4:4-7 / Lk. 3:10-18 

In today’s First Reading, we hear 

echoes of the angel’s Annunciation to 

Mary. 

The prophet’s words are very close 

to the angel’s greeting (compare Luke 

1:28-31). Mary is the Daughter Zion 

— the favored one of God, told not to 

fear but to rejoice that the Lord is with 

her, “a mighty Savior.” 

She is the cause of our joy. For in 

her draws near the Messiah, as John 

had promised: “One mightier than I is 

coming.” 

“St. John the Baptist,” by Bartolomé González y 

Serrano, circa 1600. 

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

5825 No. Woodruff Ave. 

Lakewood, California 90713 

(562) 925-5073 sj-jester.org 

8 • ANGELUS • December 14, 2018 

Scott Hahn is founder of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, stpaulcenter.com. 


IN EXILE 

BY FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI 

A different kind of bucket list 

What’s still unfinished in your life? 

Well, there’s always a lot that’s 

unfinished in everyone’s life. Nothing 

is ever really finished. Our lives, it 

seems, are simply interrupted by our 

dying. Most of us don’t complete 

our lives, we just run out of time. 

So, consciously or unconsciously, we 

make a bucket list of things we still 

want to see, do, and finish before we 

die. 

What do we still want to do? 

A number of things probably 

immediately come to the fore: We 

want to see our children grow up. We 

want to see our daughter’s wedding. 

We want to see our grandchildren. 

We want to finish this last work of 

art, of writing, of building. We want 

to see our 80th birthday. We want to 

reconcile with our family. 

Beyond these more important things, 

we generally have another list of 

things we were too busy, preoccupied, 

or economically disadvantaged to do 

earlier in life: We want to walk the 

Camino, travel to the Holy Land, 

see the historical sites of Europe, 

backpack through parts of Asia, travel 

the country with our grandkids, enjoy 

our retirement. 

But in fantasizing about what’s 

unfinished in our lives there’s the 

danger of missing out on the richness 

of what’s actually going on in our lives 

and our real task in the moment. The 

better question is: How do I want to 

live now so as to be ready to die when 

it’s my time? 

In a wonderful little book on 

contemplation, “Biography of 

Silence,” Spanish author Pablo d’Ors 

stares his mortality in the face and 

decides that this is what he wants to 

do in face of the inalienable fact that 

he’s one day to die. Here’s his bucket 

list: 

“I have decided to stand up and 

open my eyes. I have decided to eat 

and drink in moderation, to sleep 

as necessary, to write only what 

contributes toward improving those 

who read me, to abstain from greed, 

and never compare myself to others. 

“I have also decided to water my 

plants and care for an animal. I will 

visit the sick, I will converse with the 

lonely, and I will not let much time go 

by before playing with a child. 

“In the same manner I have decided 

to recite my prayers every day, to 

bow several times before the things 

I consider sacred, to celebrate the 

Eucharist, to listen to the Word, to 

break bread and share the wine, to 

give peace, to sing in unison. 

“And to go for walks, which I 

find essential. And to light the fire, 

which is also essential. And to shop 

without hurry, to greet my neighbors 

even when I do not like seeing their 

faces, to subscribe to a newspaper, to 

regularly call my friends and siblings 

on the phone. 

“And to take excursions, swim in 

the sea at least once a year, and to 

read only good books, or reread those 

that I have liked. … I will live for 

those things according to an ethics of 

attention and care. 

“And this is how I will arrive 

at a happy old age, when I will 

contemplate, humble and proud at 

the same time, the small but grand 

orchard that I have cultivated. Life as 

cult, culture, and cultivation.” 

“Life as cult, culture, and 

cultivation”: I’m a two-time cancer 

survivor. When first diagnosed with 

cancer seven years ago, the prognosis 

was good. I had a scare, but time still 

stretched out endlessly before me. But 

when the cancer returned four years 

ago, the doctors were less optimistic 

and told me, in unequivocal terms, 

that my time was probably short, no 

more endless days. 

That prognosis clarified my thoughts 

and feelings as nothing ever before. 

Stunned, I went home, sat down in 

prayer, and then wrote this mini-creed 

for myself, with a different kind of 

bucket list: 

I am going to strive to be as productive 

as long as I can. 

I am going to make every day and 

every activity as precious and enjoyable 

as possible. 

I am going to strive to be as gracious, 

warm, and charitable as possible. 

I am going to strive to be as healthy as 

long as I can. 

I am going to strive to accept others’ 

love in a deeper way than I have up to 

now. 

I am going to strive to live a more fully 

“reconciled” life. No room for past hurts 

anymore. 

I am going to strive to keep my sense of 

humor intact. 

I am going to strive to be as courageous 

and brave as I can. 

I am going to strive, always, to never 

look on what I am losing, but rather to 

look at how wonderful and full my life 

has been and is. 

And, I am going to, daily, lay all of 

this at God’s feet through prayer. 

Not incidentally, since then I 

have also begun to water plants, 

care for a feral cat, and feed all the 

neighborhood birds. “Life as cult, 

culture, and cultivation.” 

Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual writer, www.ronrolheiser.com. 


THE HYMNAL OF ALL A 

How Catholics can order their prayer lives around the 

‘most important book’ in the Old Testament 

BY MIKE AQUILINA / ANGELUS 

Stained glass window depicting the symbol of the Psalms. 


L AGES 

NANCY BAUER/SHUTTERSTOCK 

No book of the Bible is more 

familiar to Catholics than the 

Book of Psalms. It is the one 

book that’s read (or sung) at almost 

every Mass. Its poetry is the lyric 

foundation for many of our most 

popular hymns, like “Taste and See,” 

“The King of Love My Shepherd Is,” 

and “Shepherd Me, O God.” 

Scholar John Bergsma wants 

Catholics to enjoy a still richer 

relationship with the Psalms. So he’s 

written “Psalm Basics for Catholics: 

Seeing Salvation History in a New 

Way” (Ave Maria Press, $16). 

Bergsma has emerged as a premier 

resource for Catholics who want 

to begin Scripture study. In recent 

years, he’s written “Bible Basics For 

Catholics” and “New Testament 

Basics for Catholics” (both from Ave 

Maria Press). 

This year will see the publication 

of his college/seminary textbook, “A 

Catholic Introduction to the Bible: 

The Old Testament” (Ignatius Press). 

He’s also published a memoir of his 

conversion to the Catholic faith, 

“Stunned by Scripture: How the Bible 

Brought Me Home.” 

Bergsma grew up the son of a Dutch 

Calvinist pastor and followed his 

father into Protestant ministry. He 

converted while pursuing a doctorate 

in Scripture. 

Today he teaches at Franciscan 

University of Steubenville. 

He spoke with Angelus News about 

the Psalms. 

Mike Aquilina: It seems you’re 

gradually tightening your focus. 

You wrote a book about the Bible in 

general, and then one about the New 

Testament, and then another about 

the Old Testament. Now you wrote 

a whole book about one book of the 

Bible. Why the Book of Psalms and 

not any other? 

John Bergsma: Well, after getting 

a perspective on the whole Bible 

and the New Testament, I think 

the Psalms are the next in order 

of importance. They are the most 

important Old Testament book. 

Oftentimes, when publishers want 

to make a pocket Bible for folks to 

carry around with them, they’ll print 

the New Testament and the Psalms 

bound together. Why is that? Why not 

the New Testament and Leviticus? 

It’s because the Psalms are almost 

the “New Testament” of the Old 

Testament. 

They provide us with prayers and 

songs that so look forward to Jesus that 

we can take them over unchanged 

into the New Covenant and keep 

praying and singing them to God. 

The Church Fathers and medieval 

Doctors considered the Psalms to be 

a kind of summary of all of Scripture: 

all the other parts of the Bible are 

reflected in some way in the Psalms. 

They are a “balanced meal” of divine 

revelation. That’s part of the reason 

the Church has always based her daily 

rhythm of prayer on the Psalms. 

Aquilina: What is a Psalm? What’s 

distinctive about it in world literature 

and world religion? 

Bergsma: A Psalm was originally 

a sacred song sung to God 

accompanied by a stringed 

instrument, like a lyre. In ancient 

times they were described both as 

“prayers” (see Psalm 72:20) and as 

“praises” (Psalm 46:6-7). 

The whole tradition of writing, 

singing, and praying Psalms goes 

back to David, the great king of Israel. 

The Bible says he was filled with the 

Holy Spirit (1 Samuel 16:13) and 

was “a man after God’s own heart” (1 

Samuel 13:14). We take the Psalms 

for granted, but the kind of intimacy 

they show between the believer and 

God the Creator is quite unique. 

Ancient and modern religions have 

intimate prayers to lesser deities, but 

the close relationship David had 

with the Creator God is remarkable. 

David invites all people to share the 

close relationship he enjoyed with 

the true God, and we learn to have 

this relationship by praying David’s 

prayers after him. 

Aquilina: How has the reading of 

the Psalms changed since they were 

written? 

Bergsma: The significance of various 

Psalms has grown and matured with 

the people of God. For example, the 

force of the royal Psalms has shifted 

over time. Royal Psalms like Psalm 

2 and Psalm 89 were once prayed as 


CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/ 

GREGORY A. SHEMITZ 

THE ADVENT 

ANTIPHONS 

Since the early centuries of 

Christianity, monks and nuns 

have sung the Psalms together in 

community. The 150 Psalms were 

distributed over weeks or months, 

so that none were neglected. To 

make the Psalm appropriate to 

the season of the year — or even 

the time of day — the Church 

has used antiphons. 

An antiphon is a brief refrain 

— usually just a sentence — 

repeated during the singing or 

recitation of a Psalm or other 

song. Sometimes it is simply 

stated at the beginning and the 

end of the prescribed text. Most 

antiphons were Bible verses that 

emphasized the theme of the 

Psalm. They were aids to prayer 

and meditation. 

Until the seventh century there 

was no season of Advent. The new 

Church year began on Christmas 

Eve. Then suddenly, around A.D. 

690, the Church books began to 

carry seasonal antiphons for the 

week before Christmas. Each of 

these seven antiphons begins with 

the word “O,” followed by a title 

for Christ taken from the Book 

of the Prophet Isaiah: O Wisdom 

… O Lord … O Root of Jesse … 

O Key of David … O Dayspring 

… O King of the Nations … O 

Emmanuel. 

In the high Middle Ages, the 

O Antiphons were woven into 

the hymn we know as “O Come, 

O Come, Emmanuel” — the 

hymn that has come to define the 

Church’s longing for Jesus each 

December. 

— Mike Aquilina 

expressions of confidence that God 

would never let the kingdom of Judah 

and its king, the son of David, be 

defeated. 

But in 587 B.C. they were defeated, 

the kingdom was destroyed, and the 

people were exiled. Then, for a long 

time, it was painful to recite these 

Psalms, as they were a reminder of the 

glory that once was, but no longer. 

But after generations, the people of 

God sensed that these Psalms were 

not dead letters: God would restore 

the kingdom and raise up a new Son 

of David. That was the beginning of 

what we call the “messianic” reading 

of the Psalms: reading them as 

prophecies of the coming Christ. 

Well, Jesus Christ did come, and 

that created yet another shift in the 

reading of the Psalms: no longer as 

prophecies of someone yet to come, 

but prophecies of someone who had 

come and established God’s kingdom 

on earth. That’s how we continue to 

sing them at almost every Mass. 

The Lord is my shepherd; 

there is nothing I lack. 

In green pastures 

he makes me lie down; 

to still waters he leads me; 

he restores my soul. 

He guides me along right 

paths for the sake of his name. 

Even though I walk through the 

valley of the shadow of death, 

I will fear no evil, 

for you are with me; 

your rod and your 

staff comfort me. 

Aquilina: Many passages of the 

Psalms are inspiring and elevating 

— but some are shocking and even 

scandalous. What are we to make of 

the cursing and the exhortations to 

extreme violence? 

Bergsma: I think the best way to 

understand some of the harsh verses 

in a few of the Psalms is as a form of 

honesty with God. The truth is, when 

we have been traumatized by evil, our 

heart cries out for natural justice, for 

the evil we have suffered to be inflicted 

on our abusers. 

That’s natural, not strange, and 

the point of these is that God is big 

enough for us to be honest with him 

in expressing our pain. Trauma victims 

need to vent, and God’s people have 

often been abused and will continue 

to be so. We don’t have to hide our 

emotion from God and only pray when 

we are calmed down and become 

“philosophical” about things. 

We can say to God what’s on our 

heart, even when it’s not pretty. But 

of course, we don’t want to stay there 

indefinitely; we want to let God move 

us to a better place. 

Aquilina: How can — or how should 

— the Psalms figure in the spiritual 

life of an ordinary Catholic? 

Bergsma: Prayer and meditation on 

the Psalms should be a daily part of 

every sincere Catholic’s life. That can 

take many forms. Simplest is to just 

meditate on the Psalm for that day’s 

Mass. 

Every several years, every Catholic 

should take a month and just read 

through the Psalter, five Psalms a day 

for 30 days. That’s good to just refresh 

our memory of these great prayers 

and how they are ordered. We should 

also all memorize some of the short 

but important Psalms (like Psalm 8 

or Psalm 23) and parts of the longer 

ones, to use as part of our own prayers 

to God. 

A good practice can be to read every 

30th Psalm based on the day of the 

month: so onOct.1, read Psalm 1, 31, 

61, etc. This ends up with five Psalms 

a day, from several different parts of the 

Psalter. This can help our prayer life. 

And finally, there is the Liturgy of 

the Hours, or Divine Office, which 

incorporates almost all the Psalms at 

some point in its four-week structure. 

Many lay people try to pray some or all 

of the Office, especially Morning and 

Evening Prayer. 

Aquilina: Has your own approach 

to the Psalms changed over the 

course of your life? In what ways 

and why? 

Bergsma: I grew up using the 

every-30th-Psalm reading method I 

described just now. I kept that up, 

more or less, through high school and 


college. Looking back, I realize that 

meditating on the Psalms played a 

big role in keeping me spiritually and 

psychologically healthy. 

Later in life, when I had stopped 

regularly meditating on the Psalms, 

I did have a breakdown and needed 

God’s help, through his body the 

Church, to get back to a healthy place. 

Years later, after becoming Catholic, 

the Psalms started taking on new life 

for me, because of their connection to 

the Mass. 

Things John Paul II, Benedict XVI, 

Scott Hahn, and especially Michael 

Barber had written about the Psalms 

helped me see the pattern and message 

of the whole Psalter, not just individual 

Psalms. 

I should give credit to Michael 

Barber: folks that like “Psalm Basics 

for Catholics” (Ave Maria Press) will 

probably want to pick up his “Singing 

in the Reign” (Emmaus Road), which 

is a great book. 

50 Years 

Hope 

& 

of 

bringing 

Charity 

The Daughters 

of Charity 

invite you to join in 

celebrating 

50 Years 

of serving in 

Alaska 

Arizona 

California 

New Mexico 

Utah 

January 4, 2019 

10:00 am Mass 

St. William Church 

611 S. El Monte, Los Altos, CA 94022 

Reception following with information on Province history 

and current ministries 

Aquilina: Anything you’d like to add? 

Bergsma: If your prayer life isn’t what 

you’d like it to be, try to get into the 

Psalms. 

There we learn from one of the 

greatest “prayer warriors” in world 

history, King David. There’s nothing 

like learning from a master! 

DaughtersOfCharity_1-3pgVertical.indd 1 

RSVP to (650) 941-4490 by December 15 

11/28/18 10:32 PM 

NANCY BAUER/SHUTTERSTOCK 

Mike Aquilina is a contributing editor 

to Angelus and the author of many 

books, including “A Joyful Noise: 

Praying the Psalms with the Early 

Church” (Emmaus Road, 2017, $20). 


Archbishop José H. Gomez and Victims Assistance Ministry Coordinator Dr. Heather Banis at the December 6 press conference. 

PABLO KAY/ANGELUS NEWS 

A call to vigilance 

Archdiocese adds new names to list of 

priests accused of sexual abuse 

BY PABLO KAY / ANGELUS 

14 • ANGELUS • December 14, 2018

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles 

released on December 6 an 

updated list of priests accused of 

sexual abuse of minors, with the report 

showing two cases of alleged abuse 

of current minors in the archdiocese 

since 2008. 

The two cases were made public 

at the time the allegations were 

first received. Upon receiving the 

accusations, the archdiocese removed 

the two priests, Juan Cano and 

Jose Luis Cuevas, from ministry 

and reported them to law 

enforcement. Following 

separate investigations by 

police and by an archdiocesan 

oversight board, the men were 

permanently removed from 

ministry. 

“As disturbing as their 

behavior was, it shows that 

thanks to the swift action of 

alert teachers, parents, and 

even children themselves, 

we can catch signs of abusive 

behavior early,” said Dr. 

Heather Banis, Victims 

Assistance Ministry coordinator 

for the archdiocese. 

Overall, the update added 

the names of 54 priests — 27 

of them now dead — to the 

archdiocese’s “Report to the 

People of God,” originally 

published in 2004 by Cardinal 

Roger Mahony, and updated 

in 2005 and in 2008. The 

archdiocese has posted the full 

list, along with a message from 

Archbishop José H. Gomez, 

on a new website. 

“We owe it to the victimsurvivors 

of abuse to be fully 

transparent in listing the 

names of those who perpetrate 

this abuse,” said Archbishop 

Gomez at a morning press conference 

held at the Cathedral of Our Lady of 

the Angels. 

The majority of the names belong to 

priests accused in the last 10 years of 

misconduct alleged to have occurred 

before 2008. 

In a departure from how other 

dioceses have handled such listings, 

Archbishop Gomez instructed that 

the archdiocese include the names 

of deceased priests with allegations 

that could not be fully corroborated 

but were nonetheless considered 

“plausible” by the independent 

oversight board that reviews 

accusations for the archdiocese. 

This broader standard was also 

applied for priests who had “long 

ago left the archdiocese before the 

allegation of misconduct was received,” 

read a statement from the archdiocese. 

The decision to broaden the standard 

for those allegations from “credible” to 

“plausible” for those priests was made 

ARCHDIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES 

Report to the People of God 

(2004-2018) 

Status of Priests with Allegations 

Out of Ministry/Precluded 

from Ministry 

in Archdiocese 

44% 

Cleared for Ministry/ 

Retired/Active 

2% 

Lay State 

8% 

Deceased 

45% 

Unknown/ 

No Record in ADLA 

1% 

“out of respect and deference to the 

victim-survivors who made the report,” 

the statement read. 

Under longstanding archdiocesan 

policy, when misconduct allegations 

are received, they are immediately 

reported to police and the alleged 

perpetrator is removed from ministry 

pending the outcome of investigations 

by law enforcement and the 

archdiocesan oversight board. 

In addition, public announcements 

are made at every parish and school 

where the alleged perpetrator may 

have served. 

Cano, a Mexican-born priest ordained 

for the archdiocese in 2015, was 

removed from ministry in January 

2018, when a teenage girl reported 

an allegation to authorities stemming 

from his time at Our Lady of Grace 

Church in Encino. 

Public announcements of the 

allegation were made there and at 11 

parishes where Cano had served as 

either a priest or a seminarian. 

The purpose of the 

announcements is to alert 

others who may have suffered 

misconduct at the hands of the 

priest and to encourage them 

to come forward. In the case 

of Cano, the announcements 

resulted in allegations 

involving two additional minor 

females and three additional 

adult females. 

The 35-year-old Cano has 

been removed from ministry 

pending a canonical penal 

process, and the allegations 

are being investigated by law 

enforcement and the LA 

District Attorney, according to 

attorneys for the archdiocese. 

Cuevas, 74, was a former 

Combonian Missionary 

incardinated in the 

archdiocese in 2006. He 

was removed from ministry 

in 2012 after accusations of 

misconduct were made by 

two women at St. Athanasius 

Church in Long Beach, where 

he served from 2006 until 

2012. The alleged incidents 

occurred in 2010. 

When announcements were 

made in parishes where the 

Mexican-born priest had worked in 

the past, a teenage girl came forward 

with an additional accusation of sexual 

misconduct. The victims were all 

members of St. Athanasius. 

Cuevas served time in jail and was 

eventually sentenced to five years of 

probation after pleading no contest to 

charges in 2013. 

He is currently registered as a sex 

offender in California and earlier this 

year was ordered by the Vatican to a 




REPORT TO THE PEOPLE OF GOD (2004-2018) - ALLEGATIONS BY YEAR 

Note: Breaks in line graph indicate years 

with no reports made. 

* June 1985 - U.S. Bishops discuss abuse 

of minors at annual meeting 

* June 1989 - Archdiocese adopts policy 

on abuse of minors 

* May 1994 - Archdiocese forms Sexual 

Abuse Advisory Board 

* 2002: 

- Archdiocese adopts Zero Tolerance Policy 

- U.S. Bishops approve The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People 

- Clergy Misconduct Oversight Board formalized 

- Offices of Victims Assistance Ministry and Safeguard the Children established 

* February 2004 - Report to People of 

God issued (updated ‘05, ‘08 and ‘18) 

* July 2007 - Archdiocese announces settlement 

of more than 500 civil cases 

* January 2013 - Archdiocese releases 

clergy files from global settlement 


life of prayer and penance. 

A third man, Roberto Barco, was a 

priest from the Diocese of Chascomús, 

Argentina, accused in 2016 of sexual 

misconduct with a teenage female 

dating back to 2009 or 2010 during his 

time ministering in the Diocese of San 

Bernardino. 

Barco was serving at St. Mary in 

Palmdale at the time the accusation 

was reported to the Archdiocese of 

Los Angeles by the San Bernardino 

Diocese. He was recalled to his home 

diocese soon after. 

“In each of these cases, when 

the allegation was received, it 

was immediately reported to law 

enforcement, announcements were 

made at the parishes and schools where 

the priest had been present, and the 

matter was investigated and reviewed 

by the Archdiocese Clergy Misconduct 

Oversight Board,” according to the 

update posted on the archdiocesan 

website. 

Included in the list were the names of 

16 priests belonging to religious orders, 

five “extern” priests belonging to other 

dioceses, and three priests accused 

of abuse in the area while assigned 

outside the archdiocese. 

In his remarks, Archbishop Gomez 

said that “every case of child sexual 

abuse is one too many, a crime 

committed against an innocent soul, a 

sin that cries out to heaven for justice, 

reparation, and healing.” 

While urging continued vigilance, he 

acknowledged that “we have witnessed 

a dramatic reduction in incidences of 

abuse over the last two decades.” 

Dr. Francesco Cesareo, who heads 

the independent review board that 

“We owe it to the victim-survivors of 

abuse to be fully transparent in listing 

the names of those who perpetrate this 

abuse.” – Archbishop José H. Gomez 

oversees the handling of abuse cases 

for the U.S. Conference of Catholic 

Bishops, said that periodically 

releasing names of accused priests is 

one way that bishops can show laity 

they “understand the gravity of the 

situation,” especially in light of the 

reawakening clerical abuse scandal in 

the U.S. Church. 

Such releases allow the laity “to be 

very aware of individuals who may have 

abused, or were credibly accused of 

abuse — which may then lead others 

to come forward” while showing “that 

the issue can really be dealt with in 

a concrete and definitive way,” said 

Cesareo in an interview with Angelus 

News at the annual bishops’ meeting 

in Baltimore last month. 

Former FBI official and sex 

abuse protection expert Kathleen 

McChesney said that while important, 

releasing the names of accused priests 

must be done in a “professional” way 

that weighs each accusation carefully. 

“It’s extremely helpful for the bishops 

to make those sorts of decisions with 

the guidance of professionals, such as 

members of their lay review boards,” 

McChesney told Angelus News. 

McChesney was the first director 

of the U.S. Bishops’ Office of Child 

Protection, launched in 2002. 

She served for three years, during 

which the bishops introduced the 

Charter for the Protection of Children 

and Young People in 2004. 

That document called on dioceses 

“to be open and transparent in 

communicating with the public about 

sexual abuse of minors by clergy within 

the confines of respect for the privacy 

and the reputation of the individuals 

involved.” 


“I think in many 

ways Los Angeles 

is a model for how 

things ought to be 

done, and have 

been done, that 

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“By disclosing names, you are doing 

what is appropriate to fulfill that aspect 

of the charter,” McChesney explained. 

According to Banis, the timely 

reporting by parents, teachers, and 

even children themselves of signs of 

potential abuse is what enables an 

equally timely response. She sees it as 

an affirmation of the efficacy of the 

archdiocese’s efforts. 

“Thanks to them, we’re catching 

some of the ‘grooming’ early, and 

protecting these children from the 

horrific abuses that we’ve seen in the 

past,” said Banis, who made headlines 

after calling on U.S. bishops gathered 

in Baltimore last month to respond to 

and learn directly from victim-survivors 

of abuse. 

Cesareo agreed that the 

“mechanisms” in place in the 

archdiocese are showing results. “I 

think in many ways Los Angeles is 

a model for how things ought to be 

done, and have been done, that other 

dioceses can look to,” he said. 

Pablo Kay is the editor of Angelus. 

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The power of persecution? 

A survey finds that where Christianity thrives 

in Europe, it’s not Pope Francis’ brand 

BY JOHN ALLEN / ANGELUS 

Pope Francis meets with Orthodox Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia at the patriarchal palace in Tbilisi, 

Georgia, Sept. 30. 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/PAUL HARING 

ROME — For Catholics who 

care about the vitality of 

Christianity worldwide, recent 

Pew Research Center findings on the 

religious landscape of contemporary 

Europe offer a rather jarring paradox. 

Despite rumors to the contrary, it 

turns out that Christianity is alive and 

well and living behind the former 

Iron Curtain. In most cases, levels 

of religious faith and practice are 

significantly higher in Eastern Europe 

than in the West. 

To compile its index, the Pew study 

considered four separate indexes, 

measured in terms of percentages of 

the population: those who say religion 

is very important in their lives; those 

who say they attend religious services 

at least monthly; those who say 

they pray daily; and those who say 

they believe in God with absolute 

certainty. 

By those standards, Romania, 

Armenia, Georgia, Greece, and 

Moldova are the most religious 

nations in Europe, with the first 

distinctly Western nation, Portugal, in 

spot number nine. At the bottom of 

the list, one finds the UK, Belgium, 

Denmark, and Sweden, along with 

the Eastern outlier, Estonia. 

Overall, 64 percent of Romanians 

say they believe in God with absolute 

certainty, 50 percent say religion is 

very important in their lives and the 

same number attend religious services 

weekly. 

Some 44 percent pray daily, and 

since the vast majority of those 

Romanians are Orthodox, it seems the 

very picture of a flourishing Christian 

church. 

Since the churches in places such as 

Romania, Armenia, and Georgia were 

among the most heavily oppressed 

during the Soviet period, one 

certainly can view their health today 

as confirmation of the traditional 

adage that “the blood of the martyrs is 

the seed of the faith.” 

The same can be said for Ukraine, 

which clocks in at 11th place on the 

Pew survey, and which was home to 

the largest underground church in 


Women religious wave the Armenian flag in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican in this 2015 file photo. 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/CRISTIAN GENNARI 

the world during the Soviet era in 

the Greek Catholic Church, which 

is in full communion with Rome and 

which has rebounded in the post- 

Soviet era to be probably the most 

dynamic Eastern Catholic Church on 

the planet. 

So what’s the paradox? Well, the 

version of Christianity that seems 

to be flourishing in Eastern Europe 

right now often doesn’t have a great 

deal to do with the open, dialogic, 

and inclusive version of the Faith 

championed by the Old Continent’s 

premier Christian leader, Pope 

Francis. 

The same Pew survey also found: 

• In nearly every Central and Eastern 

European country polled, fewer than 

half of adults say they would be willing 

to accept Muslims into their family; 

in nearly every Western European 

country surveyed, more than half say 

they would do so. 

• Essentially the same East/West 

divide applies when it comes to accepting 

a Jew into one’s family. 

• Eastern Europeans show reluctance 

to accepting Muslims or Jews into their 

neighborhoods at much higher rates 

than their fellow Europeans in the 

West. 

• As a measure of cultural chauvinism, 

in response to the statement, “Our 

people are not perfect, but our culture 

is superior to others,” Central and Eastern 

Europeans are likely to respond in 

the affirmative at significantly higher 

rates than in the West. A robust 69 percent 

of Russians and Bulgarians said 

“yes,” as compared to 23 percent of 

Belgians and 20 percent of Spaniards. 

• Majorities favor same-sex marriage 

in every Western European country 

surveyed, and nearly all of these 

countries have legalized the practice. 

Majorities in nearly all Central and 

Eastern European countries surveyed 

oppose allowing gays and lesbians to 

marry legally, and none allow same-sex 

marriages. 

• Strong majorities in Central and 

Eastern European nations regard 

being born in the country and being 

Christian as central to both citizenship 

and national identity, attitudes that are 

much weaker in Western European 

nations. 

Much of this contrast, of course, can 

be explained by the fact that any pope’s 

reach is likely to be stronger in the 

predominantly Catholic West (though, 

honestly, that’s often questionable) 

than in the largely Orthodox East. 

It’s also explained by the fact that 

Eastern Europe has traveled a 

very different social, political, and 

economic path than the West in 

the post-Soviet years, which also has 

influenced how people see religion 

and faith. 

It should be noted that there are 

pockets of these harsher attitudes in 

the West, too, including the pope’s 

own backyard of Italy, where Foreign 

Minister Matteo Salvini, the real center 

of power in the country’s coalition 

government, has achieved wide 

celebrity and support for his stringent 

anti-immigrant stances. 

One could also perhaps conclude that 

to withstand the massive pressures of 

secularism in Europe, whether East or 

West, it takes a tougher, more muscular 

form of Christianity than is sometimes 

on offer from mainline churches prone 

to cultural accommodation. 

These at-times stark cultural 

differences also have clear implications 

for Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, which 

has been a keen priority of each of 

the last four popes, Francis very much 

included. 

In any event, if Francis does indeed 

visit Romania in 2019, as he promised 

the country’s prime minister in May 

that he would do, there’ll be the basis 

for an interesting exchange about what 

kind of Christianity Europe needs 

right now — and whether it’s the same 

thing that the East, apparently, seems 

to want. 


One 

unending 

day with 

an angel 

Kevin Becker should 

have died. Now he’s 

traveling the country 

explaining how Blessed 

Pier Giorgio Frassati 

saved his life 

BY EVAN HOLGUIN / ANGELUS 

Kevin Becker in the ICU in 2011. 

SCREENSHOT VIA YOUTUBE 

Tall, young, and obviously athletic, Kevin Becker 

seems a completely normal and healthy man in his 

late 20s. Yet, little more than seven years ago, Kevin 

almost died in a debilitating fall. 

Today, he stands unscathed and with no markings of that 

injury — a feat he contributes to the miraculous intercession 

of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati and which might lead to 

Frassati’s canonization. 

In short, he seemed a normal, healthy man; there was 

nothing to betray that, less than 10 years before, the fall had 

shattered his skull in five places and left him next to dead. 

In 2011, the Friday before he was to start his final year 


Kevin Becker speaks to a group of students in 2015 about his experience. 

at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, Becker 

stepped out onto the roof of his two-story college house, 

a place where he had often spent time, enjoying the 

occasional cigar and scotch while gazing at the stars. 

Kevin doesn’t remember what brought him to the roof 

that evening, nor does he remember the fall. He was 

found on the ground by his friends and girlfriend, his head 

fractured and his body broken. 

When Kevin’s family received the phone call that their 

son was in the hospital, comatose and near death, they 

were dumbstruck. They had just felt the first shocks of 

Hurricane Irene and were daily fearing news that Kevin’s 

SCREENSHOT VIA YOUTUBE 

uncle or grandmother, both desperately sick, had died. 

They were not expecting to be whisked to a hospital in 

Pennsylvania, where they were told that their son had only 

a 30 percent chance of survival — a survival that would 

leave him in a vegetative state. 

“I want it to be yesterday,” Kevin’s mother, Jeanmarie, 

recalled thinking. 

On the fifth day after the injury, Kevin’s condition had 

plummeted. The doctors explained to his mother that their 

only option would be to place him in a deeper coma, in 

the hopes it would reduce brain pressure. The chances of 

the procedure working and Kevin exiting the coma were 

near impossible — his survival was left in the hope of a 

miracle. 

“On this day, [Kevin’s cousin] had had a friend … who 

was ordained a Catholic priest,” Jeanmarie explained, “and 

at his ordination, he spoke of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati 

and shared his story with her and the congregation.” 

“And she said, ‘Well, he’s a young athlete,’ ” Jeanmarie 

continued, “…well, maybe he [Kevin] could be the 

miracle for him to become a saint.” 

That day, Kevin’s family began a novena to Frassati and 

placed an image of the young man in Kevin’s room. 

“On this day, he stabilized,” said his mother. 

By day three of the novena, Kevin was able to open his 

eyes. By day 13, he was released from the ICU, walking 

and talking — he who, little more than a week earlier, was 

expected to be perpetually comatose, at best. The doctors 

were dumbfounded; even then, talk circulated about a 

miracle. 

Kevin was talking, too, though about an angel, not a 

miracle. 

While his family was rushing to the hospital, Kevin 

recalled waking up in what appeared to be his college 

house. There was, however, one large difference — a man 

whom Kevin had never met before. 

“I’m your new roommate,” Kevin recalled the man 

saying, whom he later described as an angel. “My name is 

George.” 

With George’s help, Kevin went about putting his house 

in order — building furniture, painting walls, and other 

moving activities. During breaks, he and George would 

play some video games. All of this happened in what Kevin 

described as one unending day — a day that slowly drove 

Kevin stir-crazy. He attempted to leave the house but was 

stopped by George. 

“I will let you know when it is safe to leave.” 

The next thing Kevin remembers is waking up at the 

hospital, unsure where he was or how he got there. He was 

out of the coma, stable, and on his way back to full and 

miraculous health. 

A week after being dismissed from the ICU, Kevin 

returned home, a clean bill of health absent the broken 

bones still mending. The doctors were flabbergasted, but 

to Kevin it all made sense — he had been accompanied by 

his angel, by George, about whom he spoke incessantly to 

both his mother and younger brother. 

Kevin continued discussion of this angel who had 


accompanied him throughout his recovery, which spurred 

a thought in his mother’s mind. 

“Finally, I kind of thought about it, and I thought of Pier 

Giorgio,” Jeanmarie said. “And I said to Kevin, ‘Kev, if I 

showed you a picture of this angel, do you think you could 

put a face to it?’ ” 

She found the image of Frassati, the one that had been 

placed in the ICU unit, and showed it to Kevin for the first 

time. 

“The picture was out in 

the ICU unit, but once 

we left the ICU unit, the 

picture went away. We 

didn’t have room for it 

in the step-down unit,” 

Jeanmarie explained, “so 

he really didn’t see it.” 

“That’s the son of a 

b**** who was with 

me. That’s him,” Kevin 

allegedly stated, still 

frustrated that “George,” 

now identified as Frassati, 

had kept him cooped up 

in an ephemeral house 

for so long. 

This identification 

solidified for both Kevin 

and his mother what 

many were already 

suspecting — Kevin’s 

miraculous healing came 

through the intercession 

of Blessed Pier Giorgio 

Frassati. 

In thanksgiving for the 

perceived miracle, Kevin 

and his mother now travel 

around the country — to 

parishes, schools, youth 

groups, anyone who will 

listen — to tell their story 

and spread devotion to 

Frassati. 

Frassati was, in many 

Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati 

ways, like Kevin. He, too, was young, college-educated, 

and exceptionally athletic — mountain climbing was one 

of his favorite activities. He also loved Dante, the theater, 

and the opera, and was active in a political movement 

known as the “People’s Party,” which based its political 

ideas on Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical “Rerum novarum” 

(“Of the New Things”). 

More than all of these pastimes, Frassati had an intense 

love for others, filling up his little free time with service to 

the poor of Turin. FrassatiUSA, the official U.S. website for 

his cause, claims that, “just before receiving his university 

degree, Pier Giorgio contracted poliomyelitis, which doctors 

later speculated he caught from the sick whom he tended.” 

At his funeral, the multitude of poor and needy whom 

Frassati has served with love lined the streets of the city. 

In 1990, St. Pope John Paul II beatified Frassati. During 

the beatification ceremony, he cited the young man’s 

intense faith and prayer life as the foundation of his 

holiness and charity: 

“The secret of his apostolic zeal and holiness is to be 

sought in the ascetical and spiritual journey which he 

traveled,” the pope said, 

“in prayer, in persevering 

adoration, even at night, 

of the Blessed Sacrament, 

in his thirst for the Word 

of God, which he sought 

in biblical texts; in the 

peaceful acceptance of 

life’s difficulties, in family 

life as well; in chastity 

lived as a cheerful, 

uncompromising 

discipline; in his daily 

love of silence and life’s 

‘ordinariness.’ ” 

In 1981, Frassati’s 

remains were exhumed 

and found to be 

incorrupt, interpreted by 

many faithful as a sign 

of his sanctity. His body 

was then moved to the 

cathedral in Turin, and 

his remains often travel 

to the site of World Youth 

Day, of which John Paul 

named him patron. 

The story of Frassati has 

captured the attention 

and devotion of more 

than just Kevin and his 

mother. In 2017, more 

than 1,500 people from 

at least 50 countries 

petitioned Pope Francis to 

canonize the young man. 

Though Frassati is, as 

of yet, not a saint, Kevin and his mother have hope that 

he soon will be — thanks to his intercession for Kevin’s 

miraculous healing. All documentation of Kevin’s injuries 

and miraculous healings have been submitted to the 

Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of the Saints. 

“We’re at the finish line,” Jeanmarie said. “Hopefully we 

get the good news soon, that it is a miracle, and that he will 

finally be lifted to where he should be as a saint.” 

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

Evan Holguin is a recent graduate of the University of Notre 

Dame. Originally from Santa Clarita, he now lives in New 

Haven, Connecticut. His work has been featured in the website 

Aleteia.com and on Ultramontane: A Catholic News Podcast. 


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WITH GRACE 

BY DR. GRAZIE POZO CHRISTIE 

SHUTTERSTOCK 

The problem with Santa Claus 

Every year when Thanksgiving 

weekend draws to a close and 

my neighbors’ lawns start to 

erupt in inflatable Santas and nodding 

reindeer, my heart starts to long not so 

much for Christmas but for Navidad. 

American Christmas and its oversized 

protagonist Santa Claus came into my 

life when I was 11, at a time when I 

was really too old to come to love him. 

I understand his irresistible appeal to 

children, with his big-belly laugh and 

his toy-laden sleigh. I like the gentle 

reindeer and the hilarious image of the 

roly-poly man stuffing himself down a 

narrow chimney. 

But waiting for the Santa of 

Christmas is nothing like waiting for 

el Niño Jesus and los Reyes Magos of 

Latino Navidad. And it seems to me 

that spending Advent preparing for the 

toy-strewing Santa may be not only 

silly and trivial, but exactly the wrong 

way to spend the season. 

During my childhood, my parents 

followed the pretty tradition of giving 

gifts to their children through the 

intercession of the Three Kings. We 

celebrated Navidad on its Eve, which 

we call Noche Buena (the Good 

Night) in happy reunion with friends 

and family. 

At midnight we welcomed the 

newborn King properly, at the holy 

sacrifice of the Mass. That Mass with 

its strange, hushed, midnight feeling 

was splendid! 

On Christmas Day we rested and 

looked forward to the Epiphany. 

For on that day the magi from the 

Orient, men who had been keenly 

attentive and obedient to the call of 

the transcendent, brought royal gifts in 

homage to the boy King. And in our 

house, they brought us two or three 

little toys we found, to our delight, 

under our beds. 

Meanwhile, in the homes around 

us in Guadalajara, Mexico, children 

instead woke up Christmas morning 

and received gifts, like their American 

counterparts (although not in 

American profusion). 

But the Mexican children’s toys didn’t 

come from a man who exists only in 

the imagination and only to deliver 

baubles — a man who never mentions 

or acknowledges God, though he times 

the toy delivery to coincide with his 

birth. 

El Niño Jesus — God himself — was 

the Mexican gift-giver. So the humble 

one, the mangered one, the one with 

absolutely nothing, even a roof over his 

head, would make a stop on his vastly 

important and difficult journey to save 


fallen humanity to bring other poor 

children a little happiness. 

Mexican children knew, and I knew, 

living among them, that Jesus’ coming 

to the world was pure self-gift, in every 

sense. 

Santa Claus was a shock to me when 

I came to live in the United States. 

I saw him as a kind of dark magnet, 

drawing all eyes and attention away 

from the protagonists of that Good 

Night, and from the very needful soulbusiness 

of Advent. 

I remember looking for the Holy 

Family in the seasonal cartoons, certain 

that the cold stable, patient donkey, 

and resounding Hallelujahs were in 

the North Pole somewhere. 

But I searched in vain for the familiar 

elements. 

Instead of the quiet joy of the gentle 

woman smiling sweetly at her babe 

(even though she knew that one day 

her heart would break to look at him), 

Santa displayed a chortling, superficial 

gaiety. 

Instead of receiving a gift from the 

hands of men who crossed deserts to 

fall at the feet of a King with no royal 

trappings or prerogatives, toys came 

from work-mad elves. And instead 

of the example of self-forgetting 

humility from a God who disdained 

worldly wealth, I lived the Santainduced 

frenzy of giving and getting 

things bought to fulfill an obligation, 

unwrapped and tossed aside by people 

sick to death of acquisition. 

The difference between Christfocused 

Navidad and Santa-focused 

Christmas is profound. And I learned 

that so is the difference in their 

corresponding Advents. If we are 

preparing for Santa, we drive to the 

shops, harried by the pressure of 

buying for people whose closets are 

bursting. 

But preparing for the birth of the boy 

Jesus? That drives us to our knees. 

Because he is coming to demand his 

rightful place in our lives: the very 

center. And that center is usually 

occupied by cares and preoccupations 

that must be put aside to receive him 

properly. 

Our wealth, power, pleasure, and all 

the effort we make to maintain and 

increase them have to fall away before 

the one who comes first, a process 

that takes prayer and hard work. Even 

very good things like the love we have 

for our families has to take its place 

behind Love himself, because only 

then will we know how to love them 

properly. 

We try to do Navidad and its Advent 

a little better each year in our family. 

We like to think that we are emptying 

ourselves for Jesus, not our shelves for 

Santa. The giving and getting of things 

is kept to a polite minimum, and we 

focus our attention on the baby who 

comes to make a revolution in our 

lives. 

If we succeed, we’ll know because the 

gifts we get, and give, will be abiding 

ones, and of immense worth — the 

kind of presents Santa Claus knows 

nothing of. 

Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie grew up in 

Guadalajara, Mexico, coming to the 

U.S. at the age of 11. She has written 

for USA TODAY, National Review, 

The Washington Post and The New 

York Times, and has appeared on CNN, 

Telemundo, Fox News and EWTN. She 

practices radiology in the Miami area, 

where she lives with her husband and 

five children. 


A scene from the 2018 film “The World Before Your Feet.” 

We all have days where we 

dream about casting our desk 

jobs aside and walking out 

the door to a life of unfettered freedom. 

Matt Green is one man who actually 

did it, chucking aside a life of drudgery 

as a Manhattan-based civil engineer to 

walk across America from Rockaway 

Beach, New York, to Rockaway Beach, 

Oregon, over the course of five months 

in 2010. 

Green’s wanderlust didn’t end there, 

however. He walked every block, 

bridge, nook, and cranny of New York 

City’s five boroughs — a quest that 

would require traversing 8,500 miles, 

and a feat that he has yet to complete, 

even after six years of daily walking. 

In a new documentary, “The World 

Before Your Feet,” Jeremy Workman 

follows Green along several months 

of his journey, providing a fascinating 

look at the city far beyond the famed 

skyscrapers of Manhattan and the 

artist enclaves of Brooklyn, to reveal 

a world that includes vast open fields, 

abandoned areas, and even unexpected 

forests. 

The film dives in with Green 

wandering the city, an act he 

undertakes daily without fail, even in 

driving rainstorms and near-wipeout 

blizzards. 

An atheist who nonetheless has 

the kindness and sense of wonder 

otherwise found in the late children’s 

TV icon Mr. Rogers, Green learned to 

trust in the innate kindness of people 

during his nationwide hike, after 

finding that people will still offer food, 

shelter, and other forms of friendly 

support to strangers. 

In turn, what Green reveals to viewers 

is that taking the time to see the world 

around you, one step at a time, enables 

a close-up and detailed perspective 

that has been nearly forgotten in our 

hurried world of cars and high speeds. 

He has the chance to strike up 

conversations with all socioeconomic 

strata and ethnicities of people, all of 

whom are fascinated and won over by 

the simple fact that he’s following his 

eccentric dream on a daily basis. 

Describing himself as “independently 

homeless, not independently wealthy,” 

Green estimated that he has stayed 

in at least 50 different homes and 

apartments over the five years covered 

in the film. It’s a number that has no 


Making the invisible visible 

One man’s journey on foot across the 

boroughs of New York City shows 

us its hidden, unhurried beauty 

BY CARL KOZLOWSKI / ANGELUS 

IMDB 

doubt grown in the time since then, as 

Green said he still has about 5 percent 

of New York City to wander. 

Strangely, those final streets are some 

of the most traversed and famous 

thoroughfares in the city — yet another 

indication that he lives his life in an 

unexpected way, exploring the roads 

less traveled. 

The film and Green’s quest serve 

as valuable reminders of some of 

life’s most precious lessons: that we 

don’t need a ton of possessions and 

electronic gadgets to be happy, and that 

we should appreciate the incidental 

beauty that is around us constantly. 

Green’s walks enable him to notice 

the goofiest details — he’s especially 

fond of barber shops that use the letter 

“Z” in a slang sort of way, in words like 

“Cutz” on their signage — but also 

the verdant beauty of abandoned fields 

on Staten Island and the sounds of 

wild birds even amid the backdrop of 

Manhattan across the river. 

Green likes to say that walking “makes 

the invisible visible.” He also noted 

that in all his travels, both nationally 

and within New York City, he has 

never been beaten or mugged, and 

rarely encounters outright rejection. 

On the other hand, his nomadic 

and unstructured lifestyle have cost 

him two major relationships with 

good women who couldn’t handle his 

constant desire to live spontaneously 

each day. 

What is the end goal, the purpose 

of all this, for Green? Throughout 

the film, he’s shown taking vibrant 

photographs that usually speak for 

themselves on his blog (imjustwalkin. 

com), but sometimes includes essays 

on the histories of the sights and 

landmarks he notes. 

On opening night, director Workman 

revealed that Green finally decided 

not to let his insights and photos go to 

waste, and had signed a book deal to 

share them with the world beyond his 

largely overlooked blog. 

Perhaps such a tome will inspire 

others to follow suit, exploring the 

world around them on foot, but for 

now, the movie tells a story example 

that is fascinating, inspiring, and 

entertaining in its own offbeat way. 

For information on showtimes, visit 

TheWorldBeforeYourFeet.com. 


THE CRUX 

BY HEATHER KING 

A scene from A Noise Within’s production of “A Christmas Carol.” 

CRAIG SCHWARTZ VIA FACEBOOK 

All stories are true 

A faithful retelling of the classic ‘A Christmas Carol’ at Pasadena’s theater 

All those holiday chestnuts 

— “The Nutcracker,” “It’s a 

Wonderful Life,” “’Twas the 

Night Before Christmas” — have 

stood the test of time for a reason. 

Still, I usually try to avoid writing 

about them. And while we’re on the 

subject, for my money, you can hardly 

beat Dylan Thomas reading his own 

“A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” a 

work of art so unique that it defies 

labels: Short story? Memoir? Poetry? 

Perhaps the king of them all, 

however, is Charles Dickens’ 

“A Christmas Carol.” 

By the early 1840s, Dickens (1812- 

1870) was an established novelist and 

journalist. Notoriously appalled by the 

working conditions of men, women, 

and children in Victorian England, 

he began what would become “A 

Christmas Carol” in October 1843. 

He finished the manuscript in a 

feverish six weeks, later saying that as 

he walked the streets of London, the 

characters were “ever tugging at his 

coat sleeve, as if impatient for him to 

get back to his desk and continue the 

story of their lives.” 

Why do we never tire of this story? 

Perhaps because Scrooge is an 

archetype and he lives in all of us. 

He is the older brother standing at a 


distance, lips pursed, while the father 

rejoices at the return of the Prodigal 

Son. He is that part of us that whispers, 

“I earned my money; why should I 

share it?” 

He is that shadow, moldering in our 

subconscious, that begrudges others 

their happiness 

and their fun. 

Scrooge lives 

alone, “secret, 

and selfcontained, 

and 

solitary as an 

oyster.” His rooms 

are dank, cold, 

unlit. “Darkness 

is cheap, and 

Scrooge liked it.” 

Scrooge, in spite 

of his wealth, is 

all that is stingy, 

mean, crafty, 

conniving, and 

grasping. The 

Cratchits, in 

spite of their 

poverty, are all 

that is generous, 

hopeful, 

spontaneous, 

and merry. At 

Christmas — for 

once — we all know who wins. 

The 28,000-word novella has inspired 

dozens of movies, musicals, TV 

specials, and theater productions. One 

of them, at Pasadena’s A Noise Within 

theater, opened on December 1 and 

runs through December 23. 

For many of us, the 1951 movie with 

Alistair Sim as Scrooge is iconic. Once 

I got past that, however, the show was 

huge fun. Kids will love it. Marley, 

Scrooge’s late business partner, enters 

down a shadowed aisle, emblazoned 

with spectral green lights and bent 

beneath clanking chains bedizened 

with rags, padlocks, and the safes in 

which he hoarded his money. 

The Ghost of Christmas Past, a ravenhaired 

lady in white, whisks Scrooge 

back to his youth, where he spurned 

the young woman who loved him in 

favor of the pursuit of wealth. The 

Ghost of Christmas Present, gotten up 

as a human cornucopia, allows Scrooge 

to sit in on the holiday merrymaking 

of his relatives, who shake their heads 

over his curmudgeonly greed. The 

Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, a 

creepy phantom shrouded in black, 

shows Scrooge his future deathbed 

Geoff Elliot as Ebenezer Scrooge in A Noise Within’s production of “A Christmas Carol.” 

and grave. Mourned by no one, he 

is consigned to the darkness and 

loneliness with which he chose to live 

on earth. 

The production, interspersed with 

excerpts from the book read by 

narrator Frederick Stuart, stays faithful 

to the text. 

Scrooge’s (Geoff Elliott, who also 

adapted for the stage) “Bah Humbugs” 

quaver in terror before the specter of 

a loveless eternity, and undergoes his 

transformation of heart wonderfully. 

Rafael Goldstein gives an especially 

fine performance as Scrooge’s nephew 

Fred. The sets, lighting, props, and 

staging are inventive and first-rate. 

It’s worth noting that “A Christmas 

Carol” would have landed with a thud 

had Scrooge simply signed over his 

fortune to the Cratchits and returned 

to his cheerless chambers. 

Instead, on the day the world 

Heather King is a blogger, speaker and the author of several books. 

commemorates the birth of a child, 

he emerges from his isolation a new 

man. He sticks his head out the 

window, arranges to have a huge turkey 

delivered to the Cratchits, and tips 

everyone in sight. 

In the book at least, also worth 

noting, he goes to 

church. 

Then he 

takes up the 

invite issued on 

Christmas Eve by 

Fred, sits down 

at the table, and 

shares a meal 

with the family. 

He gives Bob 

Cratchit a raise 

the next day and 

promises to look 

after Tiny Tim. 

With all that, he 

doesn’t redeem 

the people 

around him 

with his money. 

Rather, they 

redeem him with 

their love. 

Bob Cratchit 

and his suffering 

little son go to 

church on Christmas day, too. The 

passage describing their return home 

illuminates the book in much the 

same way the star over the manger in 

Bethlehem guided the shepherds to 

the infant Jesus: 

“ ‘And how did little Tim behave?’ 

asked Mrs. Cratchit when she had 

rallied Bob on his credulity, and 

Bob had hugged his daughter to his 

heart’s content. ‘As good as gold,’ said 

Bob, ‘and better. Somehow, he gets 

thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, 

and thinks the strangest things you 

ever heard. He told me, coming home, 

that he hoped the people saw him in 

the church, because he was a cripple, 

and it might be pleasant to them to 

remember upon Christmas Day who 

made lame beggars walk and blind 

men see.’ ” 

All stories are true, as they say. Some 

of them actually happened. 

CRAIG SCHWARTZ VIA FACEBOOK

Angelus News | December 14, 2018 | Vol. 3 No. 42

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