Angelus News | January 11, 2019 | Vol. 4 No. 1

ANGELUS 

COMMUNITY IN MISSION 

Norbertine Sisters take on poverty in Wilmington 

January 11, 2019 Vol. 4 No.1

ON THE COVER 

C 

Norbertine Sister Gemma Hugoboom, S. Praem. (right), and Sister Adriana Gacikova, S. IMAGE: Children from St. John the Evangelist Church in South LA 

Praem. (center), community superior, help families bag donated goods during a Poverty sing “The Children of Bethlehem” in the final act of “Epic 

Program distribution event for families in need Jan. 3. On page 10, the Norbertine Sisters 

tell the story of a ministry that for more than 40 years has shared not only material by more than 100 people, including residents of the Catholic 

Epiphany” at Nazareth House Jan. 6. The play was attended 

goods, but the joy of the Gospel to families in need in the Wilmington area. 

independent senior living home in Cheviot Hills. 

VICTOR ALEMÁN PABLO KAY

Contents 

Archbishop Gomez 3 

World, Nation and Local News 4-6 

LA Catholic Events 7 

Scott Hahn on Scripture 8 

Father Rolheiser 9 

Sister Wendy Beckett’s unlikely TV stardom 14 

John Allen: Who has the pope’s ear nowadays 16 

A Catholic family trades stability for simplicity 18 

Ruben Navarrette: Different borders share similar realities 20 

Dr. Grazie Christie: Is the human genome in danger? 24 

A former abortion worker’s story comes to the big screen 26 

Heather King: Art, family, and the African-American experience 28

ANGELUS 

January 11, 2019 | Vol.4 • No.1 

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POPE WATCH 

Fixing the fabric 

In a letter sent to U.S. bishops at the 

start of their weeklong prayer retreat, 

Pope Francis called for a “change 

of mindset” to begin the process of 

restoring their credibility after a year 

of scandals. 

“Clearly a living fabric has come 

undone, and we, like weavers, are 

called to repair it,” the pope wrote in a 

letter to the American bishops, dated 

Jan. 1 and released Jan. 3 by the U.S. 

Conference of Catholic Bishops. 

The retreat, held Jan. 2-9 at Mundelein 

Seminary outside of Chicago, 

was proposed by the pope in October 

as an opportunity for the country’s 

bishops to reflect and pray in light of 

the reawakening sex abuse crisis. 

A major theme of the eight-page 

letter was the need to heal the damage 

that the mishandling of abuse cases 

involving priests and even bishops had 

inflicted upon the faithful. 

“The mentality that would cover 

things up, far from helping to resolve 

conflicts, enabled them to fester and 

cause even greater harm to the network 

of relationships that today we are 

called to heal and restore,” he wrote. 

The pope also identified unity among 

bishops as key to regaining credibility. 

“Credibility will be the fruit of a 

united body that, while acknowledging 

its sinfulness and limitations, is at 

the same time capable of preaching 

the need for conversion,” he said. 

Francis also condemned “division and 

dispersion” among the communion of 

bishops that has erupted in the wake 

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of abuse allegations. 

This discord, the pope said, goes 

beyond the typical disagreements 

bound to arise among any group of 

people and comes from “the enemy 

of human nature” taking advantage of 

current crises to divide the Church. 

In outlining a way forward, Francis 

said the solution to the bishops’ loss 

of credibility “cannot be regained by 

issuing stern decrees or by simply creating 

new committees or improving 

flow charts, as if we were in charge of 

a department of human resources.” 

Such a move would reduce the role 

of bishops and the Church to “administrative 

or organizational function 

in the ‘evangelization business,’ ” he 

warned. The paramount task facing 

the American bishops, Francis said, 

is to create “a shared spirit of discernment” 

leading to true communion, 

without giving in to the “relative 

calm” of a sterile compromise or a 

vote with winners and losers. 

The pope said that the bishops must 

abandon the “modus operandi of disparaging, 

discrediting, playing the victim 

or the scold in our relationships,” 

while working to avoid “gossip and 

slander” dialogue among one another 

with a spirit of discernment. 

“As a Church we cannot be held 

hostage by this side or that, but must 

be attentive always to start from those 

who are most vulnerable.” 

Additional reporting courtesy of 

Catholic News Agency. 

Papal Prayer Intentions for January: That young people, especially in Latin 

America, follow the example of Mary and respond to the call of the Lord to 

communicate the joy of the Gospel to the world. 

@Angelus 


www.la-archdiocese.org 

@Angelus 


2 • ANGELUS • January 11, 2019

NEW WORLD 

OF FAITH 

BY ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

From a new year’s retreat 

I am writing to you from Chicago, 

where the bishops of the United States 

are finishing a weeklong spiritual 

retreat recommended to us by Pope 

Francis. 

The retreat has been led by the 

preacher of the papal household, 

Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM 

Cap., who is focusing our attention on 

the vocation and responsibility of bishops 

in this moment in the Church. 

We are praying together as a visible 

sign of our unity as bishops and our 

communion with the Holy Father. 

There is a collegial spirit here and 

a firm commitment to address the 

causes of the abuse crisis we face and 

continue the work of renewing the 

Church. 

On the first day of the retreat, Pope 

Francis sent the bishops a long and 

challenging letter. He concluded with 

a quote from St. Mother Teresa. I 

want to share it with you: 

“Yes, I have many human faults and 

failures. … But God bends down and 

uses us, you and me, to be his love 

and his compassion in the world; he 

bears our sins, our troubles and our 

faults. He depends on us to love the 

world and to show how much he 

loves it. If we are too concerned with 

ourselves, we will have no time left for 

others.” 

As we begin a new year, I think this 

is an important point for all of us to 

reflect on — and especially those of us 

who hold leadership positions. 

None of us is perfect, and this side 

of heaven, none of us will be. We sin. 

We make mistakes. We hurt other 

people. We make the same confession 

in every Mass: “I have sinned … in 

what I have done and in what I have 

failed to do.” In this life, there will 

never be a day when that is not true. 

God knows this about us. He knows 

your heart and my heart better than 

we know ourselves. Jesus did not come 

for the righteous, but to save sinners. 

And that means every one of us. That 

is the mystery of God’s love for us — 

that even though we are sinners, he 

comes to bear our sins, to die for us, 

and to bring us forgiveness. 

This does not excuse sins or crimes 

or the hurt that is done to others. 

Everyone needs to be held accountable 

and make reparation for the 

wrongs they commit. 

But we need to remember that God 

goes with us in our afflictions and in 

our struggles. He is always bending 

down to reach out to us, to lift us up. 

He knows our faults and failures and 

yet still he calls each one of us to do 

his work in the world. What a beautiful 

thought Mother Teresa gives us: 

“He depends on us to love the world 

and to show how much he loves it.” 

Throughout the retreat, Father 

Cantalamessa asked us to reflect on 

the words of the ancient prayer, “Veni 

Creator.” 

We need to trust more in the Holy 

Spirit. We need to have confidence 

that we are always living in God’s 

loving presence. 

God will never abandon us or leave 

us alone. We need to call on him, 

personally and constantly. We need 

to ask the Holy Spirit to come to us, 

“with Thy grace and heavenly aid to 

fill the hearts which Thou has made,” 

as the prayer says. 

We need to live more and more by 

the virtue of hope, with our eyes on 

heaven as we work for God’s kingdom 

on earth. 

Our hope is in Jesus and his promise 

— that if we follow him, he will show 

us the path to eternal life. 

So, now is the time for us to really 

live our faith in Jesus Christ — with 

new understanding, new commitment, 

and new love. 

These have been some of my 

thoughts and reflections during this 

retreat. My prayers and penance this 

week have been offered for the victims 

and survivors of abuse, that God 

might help them to find healing and 

wholeness once more. 

I have also been praying for all of 

us — and especially our leaders — to 

have a better understanding of the 

immigration issue, as this is “National 

Migration Week,” designated by the 

U.S. bishops. 

As we know, the federal government 

is partially shut down — and the 

central sticking point is related to 

immigration. 

So we need to keep praying and 

working to help our leaders to see 

their responsibility to set aside political 

considerations and come together 

to do what is right and fix our nation’s 

long-broken immigration system. 

Pray for our leaders this week. And 

please pray for me and my brother 

bishops and I will be praying for you. 

And let us turn to our Blessed Mother 

Mary to ask her intercession and to 

learn from her example. 

May she help us to make this new 

year a time of hope and new opportunity 

for loving and serving God. 

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

January 11, 2019 • ANGELUS • 3

WORLD 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/PAUL HARING 

A second Great Schism? 

As the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople offers 

autocephaly, or independence, to the Ukrainian Orthodox 

Church, Moscow has delivered an ultimatum: 

Change your position, or face disunity. 

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, who serves as the head of 

the Russian Orthodox Church, threatened to deny the 

authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew 

I, who is the head of the Greek Orthodox 

Church and currently a symbol of unity and authority 

for all Orthodoxy. 

“You will lose forever the possibility of serving the 

unity of the holy Churches of God and you will stop 

being the primate of the Orthodox world,” wrote Kirill 

in a Dec. 30 letter. 

Kirill argued that recognizing the independence of 

the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is not according to 

canon law but is rather a “process of politicization.” 

Shake-up in Vatican press office 

Greg Burke and Paloma Garcia Ovejero in 2016. 

The director and vice director of the Vatican’s press 

office made an unexpected joint exit from their roles 

just hours before the turn of the new year. 

American Greg Burke and Spaniard Paloma Garcia 

Ovejero, director and vice director respectively, publicly 

announced their resignations Dec. 31. 

“At this time of transition in Vatican communications, 

we think it’s best the Holy Father is completely 

free to assemble a new team,” tweeted Burke the same 

day. 

Some interpreted the abrupt resignations as a sign of 

tension between the pair, who were appointed by Pope 

Francis in 2016, and the rest of the Vatican’s communications 

structure, which has undergone several 

personnel changes in recent months. 

Alessandro Gisotti, formerly the social media coordinator 

of the Dicastery for Communication, was 

appointed as interim director of the Press Office. 

CHRISTMAS IN IRAQ — Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, visits 

the Syriac Catholic cathedral, St. Mary al-Tahira, in Qaraqosh, Iraq, a city in the 

Nineveh Plains, Dec. 28. The region is where some 100,000 Christians were 

uprooted in 2014 by Islamic State fighters. Parolin visited the town during a 

Christmas trip to Iraq Dec. 24-28. 

Laos: Arrests during Christmas liturgy 

As U.S. Christians left their churches on Christmas to 

open presents at home, seven Christians in a Laotian 

village were arrested and detained for hosting an illegal 

church service. 

Three church leaders and four members of the congregation 

were arrested from Nakanong village in the 

Phone District of the Savannakhet Province, according 

to Catholic News Service. 

Though Laos has a constitutional protection for religious 

freedom, religious groups have to register with 

the communist government. However, Human Rights 

Watch for Laos Religious Freedom told BosNewsLife 

that government restrictions in the majority Buddhist 

country disproportionally limit availability of Protestant 

services in some areas. 

In addition to arresting the church members during 

the Christmas church service, the authorities also “demolished 

the [church’s] stage, cut off the power line, 

destroyed the sound system, and seized three mobile 

phones.” 

The arrested Christians are accused of holding services 

without permission. 

VATICAN MEDIA 


NATION 

Congress’ Catholic third 

As a new Congress begins its session, 

Catholics continue to hold a substantial 

representation in the federal legislature. 

With 163 Catholics in the Senate and 

the House, Catholic legislators make 

up more than 30 percent of the 115th 

Congress, according to a Pew Research 

survey. 

Catholics make up more than 30 

percent of newly elected representatives 

as well — with 28 of 96 members of 

Congress identifying as Catholic. 

Of these 28, 27 serve in the House of 

Representatives and only one, Sen. Mike 

Braun, R-Ind., serves in the Senate. 

A Jan. 3 analysis of congressional members 

by the Association of Jesuit Colleges 

and Universities also highlights that, for 

a second consecutive term, 10 percent 

of Congress is composed of alumni from 

Jesuit universities. The 55 alumni of 

Jesuit schools represent 12 institutions, 

including Georgetown, Boston College, 

and Fordham University. 

Members of the Sisters of Life chat with Catholic youth at SEEK 2019 Jan. 6. 

FOCUS gathering draws 17,000 

“The world is literally dying for lack of Christlike leaders.” 

These words, spoken by Curtis Martin, founder and CEO of the 

Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), set the tone 

for SEEK 2019. 

A biannual Catholic conference that caters to college students 

and campus missionaries, SEEK featured keynote talks and 

breakout sessions by prominent Catholic speakers, contemporary 

Christian concerts, and Masses large enough to accommodate all 

17,000 attendees Jan. 3-7. 

This year’s gathering in Indianapolis also served as a host site for 

a national pilgrimage of the incorrupt heart of St. Jean Vianney, 

made possible by his shrine in Ars, France, and the Knights of 

Columbus. 

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ 

Knights of Columbus: Extremists? 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/BOB ROLLER 

A PAUSE FOR PRAYER — From center to right: Los Angeles Archbishop 

José H. Gomez, LA Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Brennan, and Diocese of 

Orange Bishop Kevin Vann attend an evening prayer service Jan. 2 at 

Mundelein Seminary outside of Chicago on the first day of a weeklong 

prayer retreat for U.S. bishops. The retreat was suggested by Pope 

Francis as a way for the bishops to pause, pray, and reflect on their 

mission in the Church amid the reawakening clerical sex abuse crisis. 

Senate Democrats are facing accusations of 

anti-Catholic prejudice after questioning a judicial 

nominee about his affiliation with the Knights of 

Columbus. Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and 

Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, questioned judicial 

nominee Brian Buescher regarding his membership 

in the Catholic fraternal organization, citing 

a number of “extreme positions” taken by the 

Knights of Columbus — an unborn child’s right to 

life and traditional marriage. 

In response to the senators’ line of questioning, 

many have come to the Knights’ defense, accusing 

the questions as reflecting anti-Catholic prejudice. 

“There have been times in our country’s past 

when uninformed or prejudiced people questioned 

whether Catholics could be good citizens or 

honest public servants,” Carl Anderson, supreme 

knight of the Knights of Columbus, wrote in a Jan. 

1 statement. “Sadly it seems that in some quarters, 

this prejudice remains.” 


LOCAL 

Quake warning app comes to LA 

When the “Big One” hits Southern 

California, could a newly 

released smartphone app make 

the difference between life and 

death? 

On Jan. 3, Los Angeles Mayor 

Eric Garcetti officially unveiled 

“ShakeAlertLA,” which uses a 

network of ground sensors operated 

by the U.S. Geological Survey 

to warn users about earthquakes 

with a magnitude 5.0 or higher 

a few seconds before shaking 

arrives. 

“We created the ShakeAlert- 

LA app because getting a few 

seconds’ heads-up can make a big 

difference, if you need to pull to 

the side of the road, get out of an 

elevator, or drop, cover, and hold 

on,” said Garcetti. 

The app is free and can be 

downloaded on Android and Apple 

devices. The alerts apply only 

to Los Angeles County. 

CHRISTMAS BLESSING — Archbishop José H. Gomez blesses an inmate at LA County Men’s 

Central Jail after celebrating Christmas Day Mass Dec. 25. He was joined by newly elected 

LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva (far right) as he prayed with inmates and gave each a 

copy of “Friendship With Jesus” by Michael Kennedy. “We are again very important to God,” 

Archbishop Gomez told inmates. “For God, we are also like a newborn baby.” 

‘Relit’ returns 

A pair of LA churches will be hosting 

“Relit” evangelization training 

events in February. 

Holy Family Church in Glendale 

will host Catholic speaker Michael 

Dopp Feb. 22-23 for a two-day training 

session. 

St. Martin of Tours Church in 

Brentwood will hold a one-day session 

Feb. 24. Dopp hosted a similar 

event at St. Charles Borromeo in 

North Hollywood last April. 

According to organizers, the 

trainings will include “integrated 

and interactive presentations for 

theological, spiritual, and practical 

formation to help effectively lead 

people to a life-giving relationship 

with Christ.” 

More information is available at 

parishevangelizationleaders.org. 


Gov. Gavin Newsom takes over 

California’s new governor began 

his term by championing progressive 

values and declaring his opposition 

to President Trump. 

“We will offer an alternative to the 

corruption and incompetence in 

the White House,” said newly inaugurated 

Gov. Gavin Newsom in his 

Jan. 7 inauguration address. “Our 

government will be progressive, 

principled, and always on the side of 

the people.” 

The 51-year-old former San Francisco 

mayor and lieutenant governor 

replaced Democrat Jerry Brown, a 

Catholic who has governed the state 

for the last eight years. 

Newsom, a Democrat, has long 

been a supporter of causes opposed 

by Catholic social teaching, 

including abortion rights, same-sex 

marriage, and assisted suicide. 


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. 

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. 

Sat., Jan. 12 

Adopt or Foster Information Meeting. Andrew’s 

Plaza, 11335 West Magnolia Blvd., Suite 2C, North 

Hollywood, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. To RSVP or for more information, 

call 213-342-0162 or call toll free at 800- 

730-3933 or email RFrecruitment@all4kids.org. 

Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion. St. Hilary 

Church, 5465 Citronell Ave., Pico Rivera. Ministry 

at Mass: 8:30-11:30 a.m. Ministry to the sick: 8:30 

a.m.-2 p.m. Cost: $15/person/half-day, $25/person/ 

full day. Register at store.la-archdiocese.org/emhc-training-1-12-19. 

Sun., Jan. 13 

Strengthen Your Marriage & Family Unity Workshop. 

Sacred Heart Church, 344 W. Workman St., 

Covina, 3-5:15 p.m. All are invited to learn how you 

can boost the unity and joy in your marriage and 

family. Guest speakers are Dr. John Yzaguirre and 

Claire Frazier-Yzaguirre. Childcare provided. For more 

information and to register, visit http://www.la-archdiocese.org/org/familylife/marriage/Documents/Marriage%20Family%20RF.pdf. 

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. 

Thur., Jan. 17 

Bosco Tech Admissions Information Night. 1151 

San Gabriel Blvd., Rosemead, 5:30 p.m. Prospective 

students and their families will learn about the 

school’s unique college prep, pre-engineering curriculum. 

Information on shadow visits and financial 

aid will be available. For details, contact Director of 

Admissions John Garcia at jgarcia@boscotech.edu. 

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. 

Sat., Jan. 19 

OneLife LA. Walk from La Placita Olvera St. to LA 

Historic Park. Youth rally starts at 10:30 a.m., walk 

starts at 12 p.m. Park event begins at 1:15 p.m. 

Family-friendly event in celebration of the beauty and 

dignity of life in all stages from conception to natural 

death. For more information, visit onelifela.org. 

Archdiocesan Requiem Mass for the Unborn. Cathedral 

of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., 

Los Angeles, 5 p.m. All are invited to attend this Respect 

Life Mass and Ceremony of Light, celebrated by 

Archbishop José H. Gomez, auxiliary bishops, priests, 

religious and the faithful of Los Angeles. For information, 

visit the cathedral website at www.olacathedral. 

org or call 213-680-5218. 

A Call to a New Life in the Spirit (A Life Changing 

Seminar). Incarnation School auditorium, 10001 N. 

Brand Blvd., Glendale, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Onsite registration 

starts at 8:30 a.m. For information or to register 

for this free seminar, call 818-421-1354 or email hojprayergroup@gmail.com. 

25th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Prayer Breakfast. 

Proud Bird Restaurant, 11022 Aviation Blvd., Los 

Angeles, 8 a.m. Keynote speaker: Damien Goodman. 

Drum Major Awardees: Deacon Hosea Alexander and 

Deacon Emile Adams Jr. Cost: $50 breakfast donation/person. 

For more information, contact American 

Catholic Center at 323-777-2106. 

Lector Ministry Renewal. St. Hilary Church, 5465 

Citronell Ave., Pico Rivera, 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. 

Cost: $15/person. Register at store.la-archdiocese. 

org/lector-ministry-renewal. 

Sun., Jan. 20 

Santo Nino Cruzada USA Anniversary Mass. Cathedral 

of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., 

Los Angeles, 3 p.m. Celebrant: Father David Gallardo. 

Pre-liturgy program starts at 3 p.m., followed by 

Mass at 3:30 p.m. 

Mon., Jan. 21 

Martin Luther King Jr. Mass. Our Lady of the Angels 

Cathedral, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 2:30 

p.m. Mass celebrated by Archbishop José H. Gomez. 

Theme: “Gathered together to encounter as one.” 

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., Jan. 22 

Bilingual Healing Mass and Service. St Rose of Lima 

Church, 1305 Royal Ave., Simi Valley, 7 p.m. Celebrant: 

Father Budi Wardhana. Call 805-526-1732 for 

more information. 

Defenders of Life Walk for Life Ventura County. Walk 

starts at 3 p.m. at the corner of Telephone Rd. and 

Victoria Ave. by the County Government Center and 

ends at Planned Parenthood at 5400 Ralston St. Bring 

a rosary, pro-life signs, and rose petals to place on 

the sidewalk at Planned Parenthood in memory of the 

holy innocents killed by abortion. For information, text 

Anna Murphy at 805-218-3093. 

Wed., Jan. 23 

St. Paul the Apostle Senior STARS Trip to Hsi Lai 

Buddhist Temple. Cost: $15/person and includes tour 

and vegetarian lunch. Checks can be sent to St. Paul 

the Apostle Church, 10750 Ohio Ave., Los Angeles, 

CA 90024, by Jan. 16. Call Claire Gerard at 310-474- 

5977 to RSVP, for parking directions, and further information. 

Fri., Feb. 22 

Relit Evangelization Training Live. Holy Family 

Church Grade School auditorium, 400 S. Louise St., 

Glendale, Fri., 6:30-9:30 p.m., Sat., 9 a.m.-8 p.m. 

Integrated, interactive presentations led by Michael 

Dopp, founder of the New Evangelization Summit, for 

theological, spiritual, and practical formation to help 

you lead people to Christ. Cost: $55/person. Registration 

required. Visit la-relit.eventbrite.com. To learn 

more, visit parishevangelizationleaders.org. 

Sun., Feb. 24 

Pope St. John Paul II & The New Evangelization 

Luncheon Conference. St. Martin of Tours Parish 

Center, 11967 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, 1-5 p.m. 

Guest speaker: Michael Dopp. Cost: $35/person. Registration 

required; visit JPS-conference.eventbrite. 

com. For more information, visit parishevangelizationleaders.org. 

 

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 LA. 

• Ruben Navarrette on the real entitlement crisis facing our country today. 

• Rick Adelman, LMU star and NBA coach, among 2019 HOF nominees. 

• Robert Brennan talks about the “star” power that holds sway over our culture. 


SUNDAY 

READINGS 

BY SCOTT HAHN 

Is. 42:1-4, 6-7 / Ps. 29:1-2, 3-4, 3, 9-10 / Acts 10:34-38 / Lk. 3:15-16, 21-22 

The liturgy last week 

revealed the mystery of 

God’s plan — that in 

Jesus all peoples, symbolized 

by the Magi, have 

been made “co-heirs” to 

the blessings promised 

Israel. 

This week, we’re shown 

how we claim our inheritance. 

Jesus doesn’t 

submit to John’s baptism 

as a sinner in need of 

purification. 

He humbles himself 

to pass through Jordan’s 

waters in order to lead a 

new “exodus” — opening 

up the promised 

land of heaven so that 

all peoples can hear the 

words pronounced over 

Jesus today, words once 

reserved only for Israel 

and its king: that each 

of us is a beloved son or 

daughter of God (see Genesis 22:2; 

Exodus 4:22; Psalm 2:7). 

Jesus is the chosen servant Isaiah 

prophesies in today’s First Reading, 

anointed with the Spirit to make 

things right and just on earth. God 

puts his Spirit upon Jesus to make 

Him “a covenant of the people,” the 

liberator of the captives, the light to 

the nations. 

Jesus, today’s Second Reading tells 

us, is the One long expected in Israel, 

“anointed ... with the Holy Spirit and 

power.” 

The word Messiah means “one 

anointed” with God’s Spirit. 

King David was “the anointed of the 

God of Jacob” (see 2 Samuel 23:1- 

17; Psalm 18:51; 132:10,17). The 

“The Baptism of Christ,” by Andrea Verroccio (1435-1488). 

prophets taught Israel to await a royal 

offshoot of David, upon whom the 

Spirit would rest (see Isaiah 11:1-2; 

Daniel 9:25). 

That’s why the crowds are so anxious 

at the start of today’s Gospel. But it 

isn’t John they’re looking for. 

God confirms with his own voice 

what the angel earlier told Mary — Jesus 

is the Son of the Most High, come 

to claim the throne of David forever 

(see Luke 1:32-33). 

In the baptism that he brings, the 

voice of God will hover over the 

waters as a fiery flame, as we sing in 

today’s Psalm. He has sanctified the 

waters, made them a passageway to 

healing and freedom — a fountain of 

new birth and everlasting life. 

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

WIKIMEDIA 


IN EXILE 

BY FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI 

My top-10 books in spirituality for 2018 

Last year I restricted myself to focusing 

only on books that dealt explicitly 

with spirituality, notwithstanding 

some very fine novels and books on 

social commentary that I read. 

But first, an apologia: Taste is idiosyncratic. 

Keep that in mind as you 

read these recommendations. These 

are books that I liked, that spoke to 

me, and that I believe can be helpful 

for someone seeking guidance and 

inspiration on the journey. They may 

not speak to you in the same way. 

• Veronica Mary Rolf: “Julian’s 

Gospel: Illuminating the Life and 

Revelations of Julian of Norwich.” 

— Julian is one of the great Christian 

mystics, but her thought is not easily 

accessible to most readers. 

This book gives a good introduction 

to her life and her writings, and highlights 

as well how much of a spiritual 

oasis she was in a time when most 

parts of Christianity conceived of God 

in very harsh terms. 

• John Shea: “To Dare the Our Father: 

A Transformative Spiritual Practice.” 

— Shea takes up each article 

within the Lord’s Prayer to challenge 

us regarding various aspects of our 

lives, not least vis-à-vis our struggle to 

come to reconciliation with others. 

• Gerhard Lohfink: “Is This All 

There Is? On Resurrection and Eternal 

Life.” — A world-class Scripture 

scholar takes up the question of the afterlife 

as spoken of in Scripture. This 

is first-rate scholarship rendered accessible 

to everyone. This is a graduate 

course on the afterlife made available 

to everyone regardless of academic 

background. 

• Benoit Standaert: “Spirituality: 

An Art of Living: A Monk’s Alphabet 

of Spiritual Practices.” — Standaert 

is a Dutch Benedictine monk, and 

this book is a gem of wisdom and a 

challenge. Those of you with Protestant 

and Evangelical backgrounds 

schooled on Oswald Chambers’ 

classic will know what I mean when I 

say this book is a “My Utmost” for all 

Christians. 

• Thomas Moore: “Ageless Soul, 

The Lifelong Journey Toward Meaning 

and Joy.” — Moore is always 

brilliant and this book is no exception. 

But this book comes with a bit of a 

warning label: Some people may find 

it a bit too much of a stretch in terms 

of lacking religious boundaries. Be 

that as it may, it’s a brilliant book. 

• Elizabeth Johnson: “Creation 

and the Cross: The Mercy of God 

for a Planet in Peril.” — One of the 

foremost Catholic theologians of our 

generation pushes her thought (and 

ours) a little further apposite the issue 

of how the incarnation of God, in 

Christ, is a “deep incarnation” that 

affects physical creation as well as 

humanity. 

Christ came not only to save the people 

on this earth, but also to save the 

earth itself. Christ also takes in nature. 

Johnson helps explain how that might 

be better understood. 

• Jordan Peterson: “12 Rules for Life: 

An Antidote to Chaos.” — This is one 

of the most argued about books of last 

year. It’s brilliant, a good read, even 

if you don’t agree with everything or 

even most of what Peterson says. 

Some conservatives have used the 

book very selectively to suit their own 

causes; just as some liberals have 

unfairly rejected the book because of 

some of its attacks on liberal excesses. 

Both these readings, to my mind, are 

unfair. 

Peterson’s overall depth and nuance 

doesn’t allow for the way it has been 

misused on the right and criticized 

on the left. In the end, Peterson lands 

where Jesus did, with the Sermon on 

the Mount. Its title is somewhat unfortunate 

in that it can give the impression 

that this is just another popular 

self-help book. It’s anything but that. 

• Makoto Fujimura: “Silence and 

Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering.” 

— This is a beautiful book, 

written by an artist highly attuned to 

aesthetics. It’s a book about art, faith, 

and religion. Fujimura is a deeply 

committed Christian and an artist. For 

most people this would constitute a 

tension, but Fujimura not only shows 

how he holds faith and art together, 

he also makes a sophisticated apologia 

for religion. 

• Pablo d’Ors: “Biography of Silence: 

An Essay on Meditation.” — A Spanish 

author of both novels and spiritual 

essays, this book (small, short, and an 

easy read) can be a good shot in the 

arm for anyone who, however unconsciously, 

feels that prayer isn’t worth 

the time and the effort. Writing out of 

a long habit of silent meditation, he 

shows us what kind of gifts prayer can 

bring into our lives. 

• Trevor Herriot: “Towards a Prairie 

Atonement.” — Herriot is a Canadian 

writer and in this, his latest book, he 

submits that just as when we wound 

others reconciliation demands some 

kind of atonement, so too with our 

relationship with earth. We need to 

make some positive atonement to 

nature for our historical abuses. 

Happy reading! 

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


A vision of hope 

Surrounded by poverty in Wilmington, a community of 

Norbertine Sisters finds joy in giving what it 

has received freely 

The following article was written by members of the Community of 

Norbertine Sisters in Wilmington, California. 

Members of the Community of Norbertine Sisters lead families in prayer before distributing donations. 


On a cool and breezy evening, 

members of the Community 

of Norbertine Sisters began to 

pray their evening Holy Hour in the 

convent chapel. Through the crackedopen 

windows, they suddenly heard 

the rustling and rumbling of a noisy 

shopping cart passing by on the street 

outside. 

The commotion could be heard 

from nearly a block away, and the man 

pushing the cart began to speak to 

himself rather loudly. The sisters were 

reminded, once again, of the poverty 

that surrounds their convent in Wilmington, 

California. 

Every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday 

throughout the year, people within 

the neighborhood line up outside the 

convent gate in great need of food or 

clothing. One might wonder why these 

people, a great number of whom are 

homeless, would gather outside of a 

convent, of all places. But attached to 

the Norbertine Sisters’ convent is the 

Poverty Program of Sts. Peter and Paul 

Church, led by Sister Roberta Sprlakova, 

s. Praem., the president of the 


Norbertine Sisters with donated food for families in need. 


January 11, 2019 • ANGELUS • 11

President of the Poverty Program Sister Roberta Sprlakova, S. Praem., welcomes a child before distributing food to families in need Jan. 3. 


Poverty Program. 

During opening hours, the people 

are called from the line one by one to 

receive their food donations, which are 

distributed to them by the sisters and 

other volunteers. 

These food items are usually donated 

to the Poverty Program by local 

grocery stores such as Smart & Final, 

Trader Joe’s, Albertsons, and even Gulf 

Avenue Elementary School. Mothers 

with small children can receive diaper 

donations if they need them. 

The Poverty Program currently serves 

about 700 families, and its volunteers 

have been serving the Wilmington 

community for decades. Many years 

before the Norbertine sisters arrived 

in Wilmington from Slovakia in 2011, 

there resided seven Irish and American 

sisters, known as the Sisters of St. 

Joseph of Cluny. These sisters came 

to Wilmington in 1951, and they were 

each so immensely loved by the Wilmington 

community. 

The community especially treasured 

Sister Lelia Clarke, who was in charge 

of the Poverty Program at the time. 

During the late 1970s, Lelia was truly 

the Mother Teresa of her day. She was 

very slight in stature, a strong woman 

who did so much to help the needy, 

and an undeniably dedicated religious. 

At the time, she was recuperating 

from serious health issues. She told the 

Lord, “Lord, if you give me health, I 

promise I will use it to serve your poor.” 

Sure enough, the Lord answered her 

prayer, and Lelia kept her promise for 

almost 20 years. 

In the early 1990s, a new pastor, 

Father Peter Irving, was assigned to 

the neighboring parish of Sts. Peter 

and Paul. The pastor briefly described 

the parish and its surroundings at that 

time: 

“Everything was run-down. There was 

a tall iron fence all around the buildings, 

rectory, and church. It was very 

foreboding to say the least. ... There 

used to be housing projects which were 

a locus for lots of problems — gangs, 

drugs, etc. The apartment building 

across the street was also a very lively 

place with idle youngsters hanging out 

and playing loud music.” 

Slowly but surely, Wilmington 

seemed to gradually go downhill, and 

the rates of poverty began to increase. 

However, “Sister Lelia, with her gentle, 

velvet-gloved hand of steel, her smile, 

and irresistible Irish charm, twisted 

many a metaphorical arm to help aid 

the needy with services, money and 

goods,” recalled Sister Genevieve Vigil, 

one of Lelia’s beloved Cluny Sisters. 

In January 2008, Lelia’s illness began 

to intensify, and it was then time for 

her to finally meet the Lord. “Even 

at Sister Lelia’s death, the needs of 

the people, and the poor, were in 

her thoughts and on her heart,” said 

Genevieve. 

Rebecca Diaz, who has volunteered 

with the Poverty Program for more 

than 35 years, described Lelia as 

“a very good sister, and a very good 

person. I loved her so much. She was 

very charitable toward the people and 

would help everyone. I think — no, I 

know — Sister Lelia is with God.” 

The incredible work and ministry of 

Lelia and the Sisters of St. Joseph of 

Cluny lives on to this very day. The 


Poverty Program is now run by a 

growing community of contemplative-active 

Norbertine Sisters. And 

recently, the program celebrated its 

40th anniversary in the 150-year-old 

church. The celebration was hosted 

for the needy families, benefactors, 

friends, and volunteers of the ministry. 

During the event, Sister Ana Paula 

Rios, a Norbertine Sister, was able 

to publicly share her testimony and 

express what it now feels like to be on 

the “other side of the gate.” 

About 25 years ago, when finances 

for her family were difficult, Ana 

Paula’s mother would wait in front 

of the convent for food, along with 

many other families in need. This was 

certainly not easy for her family, but 

the need was evident. 

“The [Cluny Sisters] would make 

house visits to determine the needs of 

the family, and eventually they came 

to our house. My mom came to the 

Poverty Program for a period of four 

to five years,” she said. 

“Looking back, I see that the items 

we received were more than just 

donations. They were gifts. Gifts given 

with love and care by people whose 

hands and hearts were directed by 

Christ. All Jesus asked was for us to 

receive and enjoy. Whenever possible, 

in whatever small ways, we should 

give to others as Jesus has graciously 

given to us.” 

The gift-giving seasons of Thanksgiving 

and Christmas are always exciting 

times for the Poverty Program. It 

receives generous bags of food donations, 

toys, and clothing from different 

parishes, charities, and organizations. 

Today, the pastor of Sts. Peter and 

Paul Parish, Father Hildebrand 

Garceau, volunteers his time and efforts 

toward distributing bags and food 

for these special occasions. Families 

and their children often leave with 

such extraordinary looks of gratitude 

and delight. The Christmas and 

Thanksgiving tradition continues as a 

hallmark and a tremendously memorable 

time for each and every family 

in need. 

Throughout the years, the sisters 

have each discovered something very 

significant about the poverty here 

in Wilmington. There is indeed an 

increasing rate of gang violence, a 

considerable amount of peer pressure 

within schools among the youth, and 

a great brokenness amidst many families 

within this neighborhood. 

But the sisters have found that the 

Poverty Program offers much more 

than simply helping those who struggle 

to pay their rent or utility bills, or 

just plainly handing them food, water, 

or clothing. It is about the joy of doing 

each and every little act of kindness 

with a heart full of charity, generosity, 

and love. 

As Mother Teresa herself said, 

“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared 

for, forgotten by everybody, I think 

that is a much greater hunger, a much 

greater poverty, than the person who 

has nothing to eat.” 


Sister Wendy Beckett at the Norton Simon Museum. 

COURTESY AMERICAN PUBLIC TELEVISION/NORTON SIMON MUSEUM 

Sister Wendy’s fresh eyes 

How a quirky personality and the miracle of color TV helped a 

cloistered nun share her love for art — and God — with millions 

BY ELIZABETH LEV / ANGELUS 

If Sir Kenneth Clark captured the 

nascent medium of television to 

awaken viewers to art in the late 

1960s, Sister Wendy Beckett used images 

to direct people to God. While 

the aristocratic ladies’ man Clark 

would appear to have nothing in 

common with the simple, cloistered 

Sister Wendy, the two catapulted art 

out of the salons of the elite and into 

everyday homes through their shared 

deep, personal, and infectious love 

of art. 

Sister Wendy, however, went a step 

further, using her stardom to unite 

art and faith and bear witness to the 

joy of religious life to millions of 

viewers. 

Born in South Africa and raised in 

Scotland, Sister Wendy answered 

the call to religious life at age 16, 

when she entered the convent of the 

Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. 

Her education continued and she so 

excelled at her Oxford studies that 

J.R.R. Tolkien asked her to remain at 

the university. She chose to stay her 

religious course and spent the next 

15 years teaching Latin and English 

to schoolgirls in Cape Town. 

Illness brought her back to England 

with a special dispensation to live 

alone in a trailer on Carmelite property, 

even though she did not belong 

to that order. Her days were devoted 

to contemplation and prayer, but 

in the few hours she had for other 

activities, she started looking at art. 

The rest is history. 


That Sister Wendy was destined to be 

an unconventional instrument of art 

history was clear from the start. Her 

first book, “Contemporary Women 

Artists,” analyzed the work of 52 women, 

including early Cindy Sherman, 

unflinchingly looking at visual creativity 

in the post-Christian age. 

Unlike art students of today with 

study-abroad programs and high 

resolution digital photographs, Sister 

Wendy studied painting through postcards 

and old books with pre-restored 

photographs, a far cry from the bright 

bold images of the contemporary 

works that first caught her eye. 

But despite seeing Rubens, Turner, 

Raphael, and Bernini through a glass 

darkly, as it were, she developed a love 

for them that would change her life. 

The BBC had established itself as 

the world leader in cultural programming, 

including the coup of 

exploiting the first color televisions to 

produce Kenneth Clark’s “Civilization” 

series on art. 

BBC producer Nicholas Rossiter had 

read the artistic commentary of the 

little nun swathed in a black habit, 

and intrigued by the freshness of the 

eyes that had never seen the world, 

realized what the next generation of 

great arts television could look like. 

His idea was to take Sister Wendy to 

British museums and film her looking 

at images she had studied but never 

seen in person, “and then capture her 

experiencing them for the first time.” 

Viewers would share in her wonder as 

the cloistered sister was immersed in 

the big, sensuous world of art. 

This might even sound like a Monty 

Python prank, to put a consecrated 

virgin in front of images of sexuality 

and desire and then watch the ensuing 

awkwardness, but Sister Wendy 

did something that I doubt even 

Rossiter expected: She spoke about 

the paintings with an easy familiarity 

“One of the ways for me of looking 

at God is by looking at art,” 

Sister Wendy said. 

as if they were old friends or at times 

naughty schoolchildren. 

She addressed her viewers with 

affection, knowledge, and undaunted 

candor — and the audience was 

hooked. 

The real focus of Sister Wendy’s 

life was God, and her work was an 

apostolate, yet her genius lay in her 

unconventional method of evangelization. 

In every episode, she overturned 

the stereotypes of the modern world 

toward religion and consecrated life. 

Her first series, “Sister Wendy’s 

Odyssey,” produced in 1992, traveled 

through Britain’s greatest art collections. 

At first, she described secular 

works, often walking past a religious 

piece to pause at a mythological love 

story. 

She spoke frankly and sympathetically 

about the often-chaotic personal 

lives of the artists, from Fra Filippo 

Lippi’s illicit relationship with a nun 

to Stanley Spencer’s rather irregular 

pair of marriages. 

She claimed to prefer El Greco’s secular 

works to his sacred art, saying that 

he makes one feel “pressured towards 

admiration and I get a little restless.” 

Once she had earned the trust of a 

secular following, Sister Wendy went 

to work. The common denominator 

in virtually every episode was love — 

a love story, a love of painting, a love 

of nature, self-love, unrequited love — 

transmitted to canvas, fresco, or panel. 

She gazed at David Hockney’s 

portrait of his young male lover rising 

nude from a pool and explained that 

the artist had discovered that “art only 

works if it only comes from love” — 

and Hockney loved “water just gently 

moving, sunlight pouring over a 

simplicity of a Californian landscape 

and a beautiful young man.” 

She often did not love the artwork, 

but she judged art for what it was, 

not by a standard that she expected 

it to be. 

As her fame grew, so did her spiritual 

analyses. Her discussion of Titian’s 

“Entombment,” where she spoke of 

the fear of death and the need for 

prayer, is a moving mélange of art history, 

personal anecdote, and theology. 

Gradually her stories grew from 

secular passions to reveal the deep 

transformative love of God that had 

shaped and changed her own life. The 

Renaissance delighted viewers with 

the amorous stories of Ovid’s “Metamorphosis,” 

but used them as a foil for 

Christ’s true love for humanity. 

Sister Wendy brought about a new 

renaissance in Christological humanism: 

She met her viewers where they 

were and unashamedly spoke of the 

passions that drove them, but at the 

same time she offered a glimpse of 

pure, lasting, all-consuming love. 

Her 1997 interview with Bill Moyers, 

where she spoke of prayer and her desire 

to be with God, painted a picture 

of religious life that was as beautiful 

as any of the masterpieces she had 

presented on film. 

“One of the ways for me of looking 

at God is by looking at art,” Sister 

Wendy said at the beginning of each 

episode, and one might think that she 

in turn helped others to see God in all 

his beauty. 

Sister Wendy was tireless, producing 

seven documentaries, some 30 books, 

and several feature-length interviews 

before she died on Dec. 26, 2018, at 

age 88. 

She spoke of beauty, nature, saints, 

medieval life, prayer, muses, and joy. 

She loved the art of antiquity but 

gave a Jackson Pollock work the same 

respectful contemplation — nothing 

was beneath her notice and careful 

consideration regardless of whether or 

not she enjoyed the piece. 

Sister Wendy was a truly Catholic 

art historian, looking at a universe of 

artistic expressions but always with 

the eyes of faith, hope, and especially 

charity. 

She leaves behind her own legacy of 

loveliness and grace: a beautiful life. 

Elizabeth Lev is an American-born 

art historian, teacher, and author who 

lives and works in Rome. 


CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/PAUL HARING 

Pope Francis and Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, leave a session of the Synod on Young People, the Faith, and 

Vocational Discernment at the Vatican Oct. 11. 

All the pope’s men 

If two recently departed press officers didn’t really have Pope Francis’ ear, then who does? 

BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR. / ANGELUS 

ROME — In the late St. Pope 

John Paul II years, one of 

Rome’s favorite parlor games 

was to try to figure out who 

was behind a particular decision that 

came with the pope’s signature, but 

which we all knew wasn’t necessarily 

initiated by the ailing pope himself. 

For the most part, the cast of characters 

in the inner circle was clear 

— figures such as then-Archbishop 

Stanislaw Dziwisz, John Paul’s 

priest-secretary, and Cardinal Angelo 

Sodano, the Vatican’s secretary of 

state. 

The drama was created by the fact 

that these heavyweights didn’t always 

see eye to eye, and so it was intriguing 

to measure whose influence weighed 

the most when the Vatican made a 

move. 

The same dynamic applied to some 

extent under Pope Emeritus Benedict 

XVI, although the question of who 

had the most pull with the pontiff was 

a bit easier to answer — it was clearly 

German Archbishop Georg Gänswein, 

Benedict’s priest-secretary, who 

now has become his conduit to the 

outside world. 

That bit of Vatican background raises 

the question: Who today is Francis’ 

Dziwisz, or his Gänswein? Who, in 

other words, shapes decisions, controls 

access, and in general has the heft to 

act in the pope’s name? 

We got another lesson in who 

doesn’t play that role on New Year’s 

Eve, when American journalist Greg 

Burke and Spanish journalist Paloma 

Garcia Ovejero resigned as the pope’s 

spokespersons. 

In theory, Burke and Garcia should 

have been insiders, sitting at the table 

when important decisions were made 

in order to help the pope and his 

team understand how they would be 

received, thereby avoiding potential 

misunderstandings and, from a PR 

point of view, defusing the bomb 

before it went off. 

In reality, it never played out that 

way. Burke and Garcia did not have 

direct access to the boss, instead 

reporting to the Vatican’s Secretariat 

of State. On many matters they were 

as stunned as everyone else when the 

pope said or did something controversial, 

caught off guard and scrambling 

to keep up. 

So if it’s not the pope’s mouthpieces, 

who does really have his ear? 

One key to understanding Francis, 

actually, is that there simply is no 

“éminence grise” (“gray eminence”) 

of this regime, no power behind 

the throne, in the manner to which 

Vatican-watchers grew accustomed for 

more than roughly the last 35 years. 

Undoubtedly deliberately, Francis 

keeps his own counsel and has not become 

dependent on any one figure to 

help shape his entire papacy. Instead, 

there’s a handful of key people he 

trusts on certain matters, but no one 

other than him is really steering the 

whole. 

For instance, on personnel appoint- 


ments (including key bishops around 

the world) and matters related to 

Vatican reform, Francis has sought the 

input of Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez 

Maradiaga of Honduras, a fellow Latin 

American and, like Francis, a prelate 

from the more moderate/pastoral wing 

of Latin American Catholicism. 

It’s well-known, for instance, that 

it was Rodriguez who brought 

then-Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane 

to the attention of Francis when he 

was on the market for a new archbishop 

of Chicago. Until recently, 

Rodriguez was 

the coordinator 

of the pope’s 

“C9” council of 

cardinal advisers, 

responsible 

for overseeing 

reform of the 

Roman Curia. 

However, 

there’s no indication 

Rodriguez 

had any particular 

influence 

with Francis in 

terms of his diplomatic 

activity, 

or his handling 

of the clerical 

abuse crisis, or 

any number of 

other important 

matters that 

come across a 

pope’s desk. 

In that sense, 

one could say 

Francis has 

“compartmentalized” 

the “consiglieri” (“councilors”) 

— people who may advise him on the 

trees, but only he really tends to the 

forest. 

Similarly, Italian journalist Andrea 

Tornielli is obviously someone who 

enjoys Francis’ trust and favor, having 

been named recently to a new position 

of “editorial director.” The pontiff 

clearly relies on Tornielli to help craft 

his public messaging, but there’s little 

sense that Tornielli will also be at the 

pope’s side when he makes key decisions 

on other matters. 

Rodriguez’s departure from the C9 

illustrates another feature of Francis’ 

In this 2016 file photo, Pope Francis poses with 

Paloma Garcia Ovejero, the vice director of the 

Vatican press office, and Greg Burke, director of 

the Vatican press office, at the Vatican. Francis 

accepted their resignations Dec. 31. 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/L’OSSERVATORE ROMANO 

leadership style, which is that people 

in his inner circle tend to come and 

go, with no one really being completely 

indispensable. 

As an example, many Vatican-watchers 

were convinced from 2015 

to mid-2018 that the single most 

powerful figure in this papacy other 

than Francis himself was probably 

Italian Archbishop Giovanni Becciu, 

who served as the “substitute” in the 

Secretariat of State, a role akin to the 

chief of staff for a U.S. president. 

At his peak, Becciu appeared to be 

winning all the 

fights, including 

over the 

direction of the 

much-vaunted 

financial reform 

launched by 

Francis in 2013. 

Yet in September, 

Francis 

made Becciu 

a cardinal and 

named him prefect 

of the Congregation 

for the 

Causes of Saints, 

a move widely 

read in Rome as 

a classic case of 

“promoveatur 

ut amoveatur,” 

meaning promoting 

someone in 

order to get rid of 

them. 

Speculation had 

it that Francis 

was concerned 

Becciu had accumulated too much 

influence and he wanted to clip his 

wings a bit, redistributing power to 

others. In any event, the practical reality 

is that a man once regarded as the 

closest thing to a “majordomo” (head 

steward) in the Francis era is now 

playing a significantly reduced role. 

The bottom line on Francis is this: 

He’s his own man, intentionally not 

beholden to anyone to an excessive 

degree. The logical implication is that 

when he succeeds, he gets the lion’s 

share of the glory — and, of course, 

that when he fails, there’s really no 

one else to blame. 


Haley Stewart with her husband Daniel and three of their children (from 

left), Benjamin, Lucy, and Gwen. 

COURTESY HALEY STEWART 

Satisfied by the simple 

How one Catholic family found the antidote to today’s 

‘throwaway culture’ by moving to a farm 

BY HALEY STEWART / ANGELUS 

Spring of 2014 found my husband 

Daniel and I exhausted and weary. 

We were in our late 20s with three 

kids age 4 and under. To pay the bills I 

was working part-time teaching ballet 

and Daniel was working 10-hour days 

at an office job he hated. 

Our family time felt nonexistent and 

we were both stressed and unsatisfied. 

Like Frodo Baggins says in “The Lord 

of the Rings,” we felt “like butter 

scraped over too much bread.” 

This dissatisfying season was surprising 

to us because we had played the 

game according to the rules! We both 

got degrees from a prestigious university. 

We bought a small starter home. We 

were employed in steady jobs. We had 

checked all the boxes! We were told 

there was a blissful future on the other 

side of the hard work of our 20s but it 

never materialized. 

The American dream felt more like 

a nightmare of overwhelming busyness 

— reaching for more and always 

coming up short (a good description of 

the millennial experience). 

Something needed to change. We 

wanted time together as a family, the 

ability to pursue fulfilling work, and 

the space in our days to prepare a good 

meal and sit down at the table to connect 

with our friends and loved ones. 

After much frustration we realized we 

weren’t going to achieve any of that 

with pursuing more — more work, 

more income, more possessions. What 

we needed to pursue was less. 

Enter the radical idea to leave 

everything behind. We gave up our stable 

jobs in Florida and our conventional 

life to rediscover our family and try to 


orient our life to the Gospel. 

We put our darling 1940s 

house on the market, got 

rid of more than half of our 

possessions, and accepted a 

yearlong internship on a farm 

in Texas where we would live 

in a 650-square-foot apartment 

with no flushing toilets. 

The experience was just what 

we needed to reboot our lives! 

For a year, Daniel learned the art 

of beekeeping, raising livestock, and 

cooking for an army of hungry fellow 

farmers. I homeschooled our little ones 

and we could visit Daddy during breaks 

or ditch our books for the day and experience 

hands-on science and life skills 

by learning about farming. 

We ate three meals a day as a family 

and lived very simply on the food 

grown at the farm and the small stipend 

from the internship that covered our 

health insurance. 

During these months we 

rediscovered each other and 

crafted our family’s mission. The 

practices of living in community 

with the other interns on the 

farm, adopting a slow-food attitude 

to meals, being connected 

to our food sources, seeing the 

beauty of God’s creation with 

awe, and prioritizing our home 

life and relationships all helped 

us to create a blueprint of what we 

wanted our life to look like when things 

went back to “normal” once our year 

was up. 

Our biggest takeaway from our farm 

year was a desire to live in opposition to 

what Pope Francis calls “the throwaway 

culture.” This attitude sees God’s earth 

and its resources as products for consumption 

— but the warped worldview 

doesn’t end there. 

It sees human beings as commodities 

to be used up and discarded. Instead 

of giving in to this attitude, we wanted 

to learn to live in a humanizing way, 

acknowledging that we and our fellow 

men are made in the image of God 

and are so much more than cogs in the 

machine of the economy. We wanted 

to see through the lens of the Gospel 

so that our daily actions could orient us 

toward Jesus and help us on a path to 

holiness. 

None of the lessons we learned are 

Lucy, 7 years old. 

Benjamin, 9 years old. 

Gwen, 5 years old. 

Hildegard, 5 months old. 

novel. In fact, most are so simple that it 

feels silly laying them out! But because 

our society is so steeped in the throwaway 

culture, elementary practices can 

seem revolutionary because over the 

past few generations we have lost so 

many good habits that nurture virtue in 

our lives. 

Our commitment to cooking and 

eating meals together, getting to know 

our neighbors and opening our home 

in hospitality, praying together and 

observing the liturgical year, and living 

on less so we can spend more time 

together and have the freedom to do 

work we really care about, has truly 

transformed our lives. 

As I share in my book “The Grace 

of Enough: Pursuing Less and Living 

More in a Throwaway Culture” 

(Ave Maria Press, $16.95) about our 

experience and the lessons we learned, 

“What the throwaway culture 

offers us is a lie that will never 

satisfy, because we were created 

for so much more than to be consumers 

of comfort and exploiters 

of creation.” 

The throwaway culture can 

never satisfy the human heart 

because we were designed by 

our Creator for a bigger purpose 

than chasing affluence. But it’s 

not easy to give up the security we 

cling to so we can instead pursue the 

adventure God has in store for us. 

It’s so easy to be discouraged by all the 

ways our culture opposes the Gospel, 

but what I see in millennial Catholics 

is a disenchantment with the American 

dream and a renewed commitment 

to living counterculturally in order to 

pursue Christ. 

Instead of losing hope in this dark age, 

we can remember that the gates of hell 

will not prevail against the beautiful 

Church Christ instituted and that 

we are called to participate in 

God’s redemption of this fallen 

world. 

God might not be calling you to 

move to a farm with no flushing 

toilets (in fact, he’s probably not). 

But he is calling you to allow your 

life to be centered in your faith, 

even if it means looking like a 

weirdo (you probably will). 

The path God has in store for you 

begins exactly where he has placed you 

with the little ways you can pursue the 

Gospel in your life — seemingly small 

things that have the power to transform 

you and, in turn, change the world. 

Haley Stewart is a Catholic writer, 

speaker, and podcaster (co-host of 

“Fountains of Carrots” and “The Simple 

Show”). She lives with her four children 

and beekeeper husband in Waco, Texas, 

and blogs at Carrots for Michaelmas. 


CHANGING 

AMERICA 

BY RUBEN NAVARRETTE 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/KIM KYUNG-HOON, REUTERS 

Migrants, part of a caravan that traveled from Central America en route to the United States, hold flags of Honduras and the U.S. in Tijuana, Mexico, 

in front of a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. 

The great divide 

The universality of the immigration debate makes perfect 

sense when you think about from where it draws its fuel 

As many Americans have 

likely figured out by now, 

immigration is by far the 

most divisive issue in the 

United States. 

In fact, in speeches I often refer to it 

as the most divisive issue that Americans 

have had to contend with since 

slavery. 

The immigration debate divides our 

country — by race, class, geography, 

ideology, profession, ethnicity, national 

origin, etc. 

It divides neighbors, friends, coworkers, 

and family members. It divides 

those who can sympathize — or even, 

if they’ve been there, empathize — 

with immigrants from those who 

cannot. It divides those who are a generation 

or two nearer their immigrant 

ancestry from those who have totally 

assimilated and melted into the pot. 

The immigration debate certainly 

divides the political parties. If you 

watch a video of how Republicans 

and Democrats talked about immigration 

in 1980, you’ll see that it’s pretty 


much the opposite of how the parties 

talk about it today. 

Back then, Republicans supported 

the free flow of labor and went to bat 

for the undocumented as hardworking 

individuals who deserved a shot 

at a better life; Democrats pushed 

protectionism, keeping out illegal 

immigrants and preventing those who 

were here from being legalized to 

protect U.S. workers from the horrors 

of competition. 

It divides Americans based on the 

different realities they see when they 

turn on the television and view images 

of thousands of refugees mixed with 

migrants showing up uninvited at the 

U.S.-Mexico border near Tijuana. 

Some people see those images and 

think the country is being invaded 

by predators and takers who want to 

impose their culture and language 

on the rest of us; others see desperate 

human beings who simply want to 

provide a better and safer environment 

for their children, and they are 

willing to sacrifice everything and 

work their tails off to obtain it. 

It divides those who want a genuine, 

workable, and long-term solution to 

the immigration problem — that is, 

if Americans can even decide that 

there is a problem — and those who 

prefer simple solutions that fit on 

bumper stickers with room left over, 

like “Close the Border” or “Build the 

Wall” or “Deport All Illegals.” 

Finally, it divides those who are 

brave enough to hear uncomfortable 

truths about why people migrate from 

one country to another, and what can 

be done to better control the process, 

from those who prefer to hear untruths 

that are easier to digest. 

You see, there isn’t much truth in 

the immigration debate. Politicians 

lie about immigrants, and about the 

opposition. Republicans talk tough 

and govern soft, while Democrats talk 

soft and govern tough. 

But let’s slip the bonds of provincialism 

for a moment and think globally. 

The division wrought by immigration 

doesn’t stop at the borders of the 

United States. The debate also divides 

many countries. The curious part is 

that, in country after country, the fault 

lines seem oddly familiar. 

Look at what’s happening in northern 

Mexico, where thousands of 

Central American migrants and refugees 

have gathered after abandoning 

their homes and traveling hundreds 

of miles in search of better lives, safer 

surroundings, and brighter futures. 

You would think that Mexicans — 

who are constantly on the move to 

the United States for similar reasons 

— would, of all people, have empathy 

and compassion for their displaced 

neighbors. 

Sadly, many Mexicans didn’t react 

that way. In fact, they reacted horribly. 

The televised images coming out of 

Tijuana were jarring — and depressing. 

Angry mobs protested against the 

refugee caravan, and what they saw as 

the Mexican government’s policy of 

coddling the invaders and encouraging 

them to stay. 

Do you suppose the Tijuana mob 

wanted to drive out the migrants in 

order to “Make Mexico Great Again”? 

Maybe the Mexican government 

did want some of the refugees to stick 

around, maybe get a job. There are 

several thousand unfilled manufacturing 

jobs in Tijuana, with no Mexicans 

to fill them. Many of the able-bodied 

work in auto plants that pay higher 

wages, or head north to the United 

States with the help of smugglers. 

At a recent job fair in Baja, California, 

house painters, welders, and 

construction workers from Honduras, 

Guatemala, and El Salvador lined up 

to fill out applications for jobs that 

would keep them planted in Mexico 

for the foreseeable future. 

So much for the claim — advanced 

by some — that the refugees are just 

coming north looking for welfare and 

other handouts. Turns out many just 

want to work. 

Meanwhile, in the United States, 

one of the more insidious proposals, 

championed by the Trump administration, 

is to let people into the United 

States based on education and skills. 

So, in other words, let’s run the 

U.S. immigration system like an Ivy 

League admissions office? That’s a 

terrible idea. Imagine the talent that 

would fall through the cracks. 

In deciding who should be allowed 

entry, in most countries prejudices 

come into play. Favoritism is a given. 

So is fear. 

Whether we’re talking about Great 

Britain, Spain, Israel, Italy, Greece, 

or Canada, many people worry that 

immigrants change demographics, 

lower the standard of living, drain social 

services, and put a strain on jails, 

schools, and hospitals. 

In fact, when it comes to immigrants, 

countries all over the world have the 

same national motto: “There goes 

the neighborhood.” And which of the 

world’s neighborhoods is earning a 

reputation these days for struggling 

with immigration? The winner is 

Europe. 

That point is not lost on Hillary 

Clinton. 

Migrants wait to disembark from a tugboat in the Sicilian harbor of Pozzallo. More than 3,600 

migrants were rescued at sea in 17 different operations in just one day in May 2015, according to 

the Italian coast guard. 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/ANTONIO PARRINELLO, REUTERS 


Migrants wait in line in the evening to enter a camp at a sports facility in Tijuana, Mexico, set up 

for those arriving Nov. 15 in a caravan of Central American migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/DAVID MAUNG 

In her own public career in the 

United States, Clinton mastered the 

art of having it both ways on immigration, 

alternating between hard and 

soft. One minute, she would pander 

to white voters in the suburbs by declaring 

on a New York radio station, in 

2005, that she was “adamantly against 

illegal immigrants.” 

The next, she was pandering to 

Latino voters by criticizing the Trump 

administration’s policy of separating 

immigrant families and pledging to 

support a path to citizenship for illegal 

immigrants. 

Now, in a recent interview with the 

Guardian, Clinton advised Europe to 

“get a handle on migration” because 

that is the one issue above all others 

that helped light the fire of rightwing 

populism. She called upon the 

leaders of European countries to send 

a strong signal that they will no longer 

“provide refuge and support.” 

The former secretary of state did 

praise German Chancellor Angela 

Merkel for being “very generous 

and compassionate” in welcoming 

Syrian refugees into her country, even 

though the policy seems to have ended 

her political career. Yet, she suggested, 

lenient immigration policies 

had caused troubling developments, 

including Great Britain’s decision to 

leave the European Union — and, 

in the United States, the election of 

President Donald Trump. 

Finally, Clinton warned, “If we don’t 

deal with the migration issue, it will 

continue to roil the body politic.” 

That’s where she lost me. I’m all for 

“dealing with” the migration issue. 

But I don’t see how skirting the topic 

by keeping out migrants helps you 

deal with it. 

I also don’t understand how the 

centrists — if that is what Clinton 

is trying to be this week — expect 

to battle the populists if they only 

make them stronger by giving in on 

immigration. Capitulation on such 

an important issue only empowers 

the “Britain First” or “Italy First” or 

“Greece First” crowd. 

In any case, what Clinton said 

brought back memories for me. I 

remember the exact moment when I 

realized that other countries all over 

the world were dealing with the same 

pressures due to immigration as the 

United States — and making the 

same mistakes. 

Nearly 10 years ago, I found myself 

sitting around a conference table 

in Lake Como, Italy. A mixture of 

journalists and policymakers had been 

invited there by a Washington-based 

think tank to discuss the migration 

policies of the United States — but 

also the half dozen other countries 

represented at the table. 

Our friends from Canada worried 

that immigrants from the Middle East 

were segregating in their own neighborhoods 

and not assimilating as fast 

as their hosts would like. 

An editor from a newspaper in Spain 

talked to me about the curious reverse 


colonialization of immigrants from 

Colombia and Peru finding their way 

to Madrid and Barcelona. 

Israelis used to hire Palestinians to 

clean their homes, until one of the 

Intifadas made them fearful and sent 

them looking for replacements. They 

found them: Southeast Asians. 

The countries and languages were 

different, but the pattern was the 

same. People from country X decide 

they have no interest in doing their 

own chores, or perhaps they’ve lost the 

ability to do them effectively. They 

hire immigrants from country Y, but 

instantly consider them inferior — in 

part because they’re willing to do the 

dirty jobs. 

They also resent the newcomers for 

doing work they wouldn’t do, and 

doing it better than they could ever 

do it. They don’t exactly welcome the 

migrants into their mainstream but 

force them — directly or indirectly — 

to gather in what evolve into ethnic 

neighborhoods. With everyone sticking 

to themselves, ignorance thrives 

and stereotypes flourish. 

The universality of the immigration 

debate makes perfect sense when you 

think about from where it draws its 

fuel. I’ve written about this discussion 

for three decades. And — when it 

comes to what drives it — I have a 

fairly good idea of how the pie chart 

breaks down. 

I’d dedicate 10 percent each for legitimate 

concerns over rule of law, public 

safety, the strain on public services, 

territorial sovereignty, and changing 

demographics. The other 50 percent, 

I would estimate, is an illegitimate 

mixture of racism, nativism, hatred, 

condescension, and fear. The ingredients 

in that toxic cocktail are part of 

human nature. And human nature is 

an international phenomenon. 

Ruben Navarrette is a contributing 

editor to Angelus, a syndicated columnist 

with The Washington Post Writers 

Group, and a columnist for the Daily 

Beast. He is a radio host, a frequent 

guest analyst on cable news, a member 

of the USA Today Board of Contributors, 

and host of the podcast “Navarrette 

Nation.” Among his books are “A 

Darker Shade of Crimson: Odyssey of 

a Harvard Chicano.” 


WITH GRACE 

BY DR. GRAZIE POZO CHRISTIE 

SHUTTERSTOCK 

A DNA double standard? 

Grocery shoppers will have 

noticed that for a food 

product to be considered 

truly “healthy,” it is no 

longer enough to be certified organic. 

Now, consumers worried about their 

health look for foods stamped with the 

label “non-GMO,” a designation that 

has become ubiquitous, even in the 

pet food aisle. 

Supporters of genetic modification of 

food plants point to the great benefit 

of creating strains of wheat and rice 

that can be grown with less water, in 

a world where that commodity grows 

scarce and the population is booming. 

Those who oppose GMO crops call 

it a potentially dangerous and radical 

technology that breaks down nature’s 

genetic barriers with unforeseen 

consequences. 

Recent developments in the field 

of genetic manipulation have raised 

the ethical stakes considerably, and 

have ushered the prospect of a notso-distant 

future when not just food, 

but boys and girls may be certified as 

“non-GMO.” 

In November 2018, a Chinese scientist, 

Dr. Jiangku He, announced the 

genetic modification and birth of two 

baby girls: Nana and Lulu. Using the 

same techniques developed to modify 

corn and wheat, he claims to have edited 

the girls’ genome and made them 

resistant to HIV infection. 

If his experiment worked, he has 

“enhanced” their DNA, and in such 

a way that the results will be passed 

down to their offspring. 

By experimenting on embryo humans 

in the laboratory and changing their 

genetic complements, and then transferring 

them to their mother’s uterus 

where they gestated and were born, he 

has crossed an ethical bright line. 

He has also upset the scientific 

community, violated international 

agreements, and scared a public that 

is understandably wary of gene editing 

in plants, let alone humans. 

Just as in plants, the main danger 

of genetic engineering for humans is 

unforeseen consequences, although 

these are much more ethically 

charged. With a food plant, we worry 

about negative consequences for people 

who eat them. 

But when He changed the DNA of 

those two baby girls using a technique 

called CRISPR, he was conducting 

an “experiment” on them, and one, 

of course, they had not consented to. 

He hopes that he has “improved” their 

DNA, but the complex way genes are 

expressed are not fully understood. 


Instead of conferring a new protection 

against HIV on these girls, 

he may have introduced, instead, a 

susceptibility to a virus or a predisposition 

to cancer. 

Whatever he has done will be borne 

by them and by their descendants, 

bringing us to the next ethical assault: 

The human genome has been altered, 

and not by thousands of years of mating 

and natural selection, but by one 

rogue scientist on a quest for fame and 

the Nobel Prize. 

Only a little imagination is needed 

to envision the creation of a market 

around this new ability to “enhance” 

babies. 

Just as today labs offer us the ability 

to choose the sex of our child through 

sperm-spinning and sex-selective 

abortion, in the near-scientific future 

wealthy parents will choose their 

children’s qualities. 

The offspring of the rich will be tall, 

athletic, smart, and resistant to cancer 

and infection. And everyone else will 

get by with whatever God gives them. 

Perfection will be offered for sale, but 

what people will be buying is the mad 

hubris of seeking to control and dominate 

everything, even the intricacies 

and surprises of human life. 

Right now in the United States, 

experimenting on the DNA of human 

embryos is perfectly legal, while 

implanting them into a woman and 

letting them be born is prohibited by 

the FDA. This is not good enough. 

The story of He has shown that every 

laboratory is the Wild West and every 

scientist a potential desperado. Our 

laws need to reflect the fact that the 

human genome is a universal patrimony 

and every human being, embryo 

or born, is a person deserving of the 

highest respect and consideration. 

We’ve got high standards for food. 

We need to apply them to people. 

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. 


Abby Johnson with writer Cary Solomon on the set of “Unplanned.” 

‘Stories that deserve to be heard’ 

BY ANGELUS STAFF / ANGELUS 

Alongside the superhero 

sequels, Disney remakes, and 

horror thrillers that moviegoers 

will be treated to in 2019, 

a film with a more unusual message 

will appear on the big screen this year: 

the story of a onetime Planned Parenthood 

clinic employee of the year 

who walked away from her job and 

went on to become one of the loudest 

voices in the pro-life movement today. 

The woman portrayed in “Unplanned” 

(due in theaters March 

22), Abby Johnson, is the author of a 

best-selling book of the same name. 

In it, she tells the story of her experience 

as a young Planned Parenthood 

clinic director in Bryan, Texas, during 

which she counseled countless women 

on their “reproductive options,” 

faced anti-abortion demonstrators 

outside her office, and even served as 

a spokesperson for the country’s bestknown 

abortion provider. 

On Jan. 19, Johnson will share 

her story with thousands at the fifth 

annual OneLife LA Walk for Life in 

downtown LA alongside personalities 

including Catholic radio host Gloria 

Purvis, anti-bullying activist Lizzie 

Velasquez, and of course, OneLife LA 

founder, Los Angeles Archbishop José 

H. Gomez. 

Johnson spoke to Angelus News 

ahead of her visit to Los Angeles to 

talk about the difficult reality faced 

by abortion workers, her hopes for 

the film’s impact amid the current 

political climate, and why she believes 

she has divine intervention to thank 

for “Unplanned’s” transition from 

book to film. 

Looking back, what was the critical 

moment or decision that led to “Unplanned” 

becoming a movie? 

The writers and directors, Cary 

Solomon and Chuck Konzelman, 

really wanted to tell my story, and 

it was through a series of divinely 

inspired events that the making of 

“Unplanned” came into reality. 

The pieces fell into place more than 

any particular critical moment or 


decision. This movie is meant to be 

in theaters at this time in history, and 

I have no doubt it is going to change 

hearts and minds in this nation in a 

big way. 

So far, what’s been the biggest challenge 

in making this film? 

All the challenges that I’ve witnessed 

or have been told about have all been 

overcome by God’s grace and his 

divine timing. 

The film was about to start production 

and the 

producers didn’t 

have a lead 

actress to play 

me — yet God 

intervened at the 

last second with 

Ashley Bratcher, 

a woman whose 

own mother laid 

on the table at an 

abortion clinic 

and changed her 

mind at the last 

second to keep 

her child. 

For me, it’s 

been a journey of 

healing to know 

that the world is 

seeing me when 

I was at my worst 

but also gets to 

see my heart 

changing and 

the ultimate redemption through the 

grace of God. 

In what ways do you think your own 

story can help move the abortion 

debate past the partisan politics of 

2019? 

We have to be able to listen to the 

voices who are not part of the conversation 

on abortion — abortion workers. 

They aren’t political. They are 

telling their stories, stories that deserve 

to be heard. After all, isn’t today’s culture 

demanding that women be heard, 

that their stories are worth telling? 

“Unplanned” tells those stories — 

not only mine, but of women who 

work in the abortion industry for reasons 

they believe are just, of women 

standing in the hot and cold and rain 

outside abortion clinics praying for 

the conversion of hearts, of women 

who have had abortions. If there was 

ever a time in history for these women 

to tell their stories, this is it. 

What impact do you hope “Unplanned” 

will have on the pro-life 

movement? 

It’s my hope they will come together 

as one, strong voice to support 

all women, to help abortion workers 

leave the industry behind — if 

abortion workers leave clinics, there 

will be no more 

abortion because 

clinics will be 

forced to close. 

It’s my hope 

“Unplanned” 

will be the 

catalyst for not 

only the pro-life 

movement to 

work even harder 

and smarter to 

end abortion, 

but that no one 

can ever say they 

didn’t know what 

abortion truly is 

and what it does 

to unborn babies, 

mothers, and 

their families. 

What would 

you say to 

abortion workers 

struggling with their jobs, but who 

may not have much of a religious or 

faith-based background? 

There’s a way out and I can help 

them. All those nightmares they are 

having, those days where they’ve seen 

too much, where they’ve realized the 

harm abortion has wrecked, or when 

that day comes where they just cannot 

walk into the clinic, I can help. My 

staff can help them. 

We will help them write their 

résumé, find a new job, get back on 

their feet, overcome their addictions, 

and help them heal. It’s not too late. 

Go to www.prolove.com and we can 

help. 

For more information on the Jan. 

19 OneLife LA Walk For Life, visit 

OneLifeLA.org. 


THE CRUX 

BY HEATHER KING 

Bring in the family 

A culture of endurance and community in art 

at the California African American Museum 

What with the recent 

Nativity of Christ, the 

feast of the Holy Family, 

and the solemnity of 

Mary, Mother of God, “The Notion 

of Family” at the California African 

American Museum (CAAM) seems 

especially timely. 

The exhibit comprises artwork from 

the 19th through the 21st centuries 

and runs through March 3. 

If you haven’t visited CAAM, you 

really should. (Its Jan. 21 Martin 

Luther King Jr. festivities would be a 

good place to start). CAAM is down 

in Exposition Park, a neighbor of the 

Museum of Natural History and the 

California Science Center. 

The building is sharp-looking, 

expansive, and smart (as is its website). 

The exhibits, this one overseen 

by Vida L. Brown, visual arts curator 

and program manager, are beautifully 

designed to intrigue without overwhelming. 

Though this is the smallest of those 

currently on view, to me it packs the 

most intense punch. 

Paintings, prints, photographs, 

assemblages, and sculptures chart “a 

trajectory of African American family 

and togetherness over generations.” 

The impression is of a culture formed 

around steadfast endurance, community, 

storytelling, music, and food. 

A palpable rootedness to heart 

and earth. A slow-burning ember of 

tears and of rage. The lash marks of 

generational trauma, and a majestic, 

near-explosive refusal to be overcome 

by it. 

“The Sunflower Quilting Bee at Arles,” 1997, by Faith Ringgold. 

Miguel Covarrubias’ illustration 

“Negro Mother” (1927) could be 

a contemporary version of a Renaissance 

Madonna and Child. In 

William E. Pajaud’s “Friday Night” 

(1979), a line forms at a fish-fry stand, 

a Lenten tradition in the New Orleans 

neighborhoods where he was raised. 

Faith Ringgold’s 1996 lithograph, 

“The Sunflower Quilting Bee at 

Arles” (1997), is a takeoff on Van 

Gogh’s iconic painting. Eight African-American 

women, none of whom 

look to suffer fools gladly, sit among a 

riotous stand of sunflowers, working a 

sunflower quilt in order to spread the 

cause of freedom. 

Twelve handwritten passages of text 

frame the work and supply a narrative: 

“Today the women arrived at Arles. 

COLLECTION OF THE CALIFORNIA AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM 


They are Madame [C.J.] Walker, Sojourner 

Truth, Ida Wells, Fannie Lou 

Hamer, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, 

Mary McLeod Bethune and Ella Baker, 

a fortress of women’s courage, with 

enough energy to transform a country, 

piece by piece.” 

Tracy Brown’s photographs call out 

to the viewer to supply a backstory. In 

“Picture Perfect,” a satin-clad bridesmaid 

solemnly adjusts her exuberant 

friend’s bridal veil. In “I’m Trying to 

Tell You,” an older woman, dignified 

in white lace, imparts earnest advice 

to … a hot-to-trot granddaughter? 

In “Any Given Sunday,” another 

group of women 

preside over a 

table overflowing 

with scrumptious 

home-cooked 

food. The men, 

I imagine — for 

men can never 

be far from a 

meal of this 

caliber — must 

be in a yonder 

room. 

Dominique 

Moody’s “A Lost 

Treasure Found” 

is a powerfully 

evocative work 

of mixed media, collage, and assemblage. 

Eight jet-black full-body 

silhouettes on white canvas, eerily 

reminiscent of shooting targets, are 

labeled with text adumbrating both 

the glory and the wounds of fellow 

family members. 

“Untitled (mother and daughter),” 1990, by 

Carrie Mae Weems. 

“Sibling #4: Edward, My brother, the 

artist of his mind’s eye, a stranger in 

a strange land.” “Sibling #5: Vanessa, 

My sister, the butterfly still searching 

for her true reflection cloaked 

beneath the beauty of her own 

metamorphosis.” “Sibling #10: Name 

Unknown, The other brother, the 

one left behind to straddle the fence 

between two worlds.” 

Through the accompanying assemblages 

— sepia-toned maps, teacups 

covered with gauzy fabric on which 

ghostly photographs are superimposed, 

snatches of dictionary definitions 

— the viewer is given to learn of 

the brilliant though troubled patriarch 

of this brood. 

In fact, the whole exhibit is subtly 

overshadowed, I realized later, by the 

specter of present mothers and absent 

fathers, of anguished longing, of the 

human blood cry for the family to be 

healthy, whole, together. 

There’s more: prints by Romare 

Bearden and John Biggers, photographs 

by Gordon Parks, James Van 

Der Zee, and Lyle Ashton Harris. 

Kadir Nelson’s “Stickballers” (2016). 

Jacob Lawrence’s “The Birth of Toussaint” 

(1986). 

But it was a 1990 black-and-white 

photo by Carrie 

Mae Weems 

before which I 

stood the longest, 

A simple scene: 

Saturday night, 

perhaps, in a 

middle-class 

kitchen. A table, 

an ashtray, two 

tumblers of 

wine. A mother 

standing, a 

daughter old 

enough to have 

been around the 

block, to have 

young kids of her 

own, in a satin slip, sitting. 

The mother brushes the daughter’s 

hair, cupping one side of her 

head with such tenderness and such 

strength that she might have been 

holding up the whole world since 

time began. The daughter, eyes 

closed, leans into that maternal hand; 

eases, sighing, into the love. A blessed 

moment of rest, as John perhaps felt 

as he leaned against Christ’s breast at 

the Last Supper. 

Before leaving, stop in at the adjacent 

exhibit: “Los Angeles Freedom 

Rally, 1963.” Stand before the photograph 

of three young African-Americans 

holding hands while being 

fire-hosed at Birmingham that same 

year, and weep. 

As Martin Luther King Jr. said from 

Wrigley Field 56 years ago: “Birmingham 

or Los Angeles, the cry is always 

the same. We want to be free.” 

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

COLLECTION OF THE LUCAS MUSEUM OF NARRATIVE ART

Angelus News | January 11, 2019 | Vol. 4 No. 1

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