Angelus News | May 31, 2019 | Vol. 4 No. 20

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efugees — ordinarily, one of his stock themes. The omission was notable given that just two days before, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, the leader of the major populist coalition in the European elections, had staged a rally in Milan in which he quoted John Paul and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, and even brandished a rosary at one point to style himself as a defender of traditional European values and identity. In that context, many had expected Francis to tackle the immigrant question. The proximity to Salvini’s jamboree, however, actually may help explain the pope’s discretion. Not only would pushing immigrant rights immediately afterward have seemed overtly political, but it could have created the impression that Francis was being drawn into a tit-for-tat with a populist firebrand — which, frankly, probably ought to be below the pope’s paygrade. In this case, Francis seemed content to let the Italian bishops do the heavy lifting — which they did, among other things using the front page of their official newspaper to admonish Salvini that “rosaries are for prayer, not rallies.” In terms of what Francis did say, the top note was a rather stern rebuke to the Italian prelates for failing to implement the pope’s reform of the annulment process, issued in 2015. It was intended to compel dioceses, or groups of smaller dioceses acting together, to create simplified and accelerated procedures for considering annulment requests. “It is with regret that I note that the reform, after four years, remains far from being applied in the great majority of Italian dioceses,” the pope told the bishops’ conference. Among other things, the new process gave a stronger role to the local bishop, dropped automatic appeals in obvious cases of annulment, and ensured that the process would be free. Francis called for “full and immediate application” of those measures, saying the process should be fast, free, and characterized by “closeness” to families in difficulty. Though he didn’t say so out loud, in the background of his stern tone may be mounting frustration with the Italian bishops (and prelates elsewhere taking their cues from the Italians) for their slowness to embrace other aspects of the Francis agenda too, including measures intended to combat clerical sexual abuse. When the pope recently issued a “motu proprio,” or amendment to Church law, requiring every diocese in the world to have a clear reporting mechanism for allegations of either abuse or cover-up, many Italians took it in part as a reaction to a perceived failure of many Italian dioceses to implement such measures on their own despite repeated papal exhortations. Leader of the Northern League party, Matteo Salvini, shows a rosary during a demonstration ahead of the European elections in Piazza Duomo on May 18 in Milan, Italy. During a media presentation of the new rules, the pope’s point man on the anti-abuse effort, Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, told a major Italian broadcast network that he would actually invite laity to rise up and hold bishops accountable if they again fail to act. “I would ask the people of God to help the pope,” Scicluna said. Perhaps Francis is simply running out of patience with the Italian hierarchy. Its perceived lethargy may be especially frustrating for this pope in particular, given that his own family hails from the northern Italian region of Piedmont. For Americans, there’s a deeply intriguing coda to all this. Neither the annulment reform nor the new anti-abuse rules contained in “Vos estis lux mundi” (“You are the light of the world”) seem likely to have much impact in the United States, largely because the American Church had already done most of what they mandated decades ago. The Church in the U.S. adopted a streamlined annulment process after the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which for decades led to perceptions of the U.S. Church as an “annulment factory,” each year granting around twothirds of all the annulments in the Catholic world. Similarly, the U.S. Church created clear reporting mechanisms for abuse cases in the wake of the 2002 “Dallas Charter,” as well as strong procedures for investigating and prosecuting allegations if verified. At the beginning, those reforms, too, drew criticism from other parts of the Church, including many in the Vatican, who saw them as an example of the American penchant for litigiousness and “cowboy justice.” Here’s the irony: From the beginning, observers, rightly, have taken Francis as deeply ambivalent about the United States due to his strong rhetoric on capitalism and militarism and many other factors. Anyone who’s spent time around Francis and his team understands the distaste with which certain aspects of American culture are regarded — for instance, a supposed “ecumenism of hate” in the U.S. between conservative Evangelicals and Catholics denounced in a celebrated 2017 article by a couple of the pope’s closest advisers. Yet in at least these two areas, annulments and clergy abuse, Francis basically has ratified and universalized the American approach. If nothing else, perhaps that shows this pope’s alleged “anti-Americanism” isn’t quite as inflexible as some may be tempted to think. John L. Allen Jr. is the editor of Crux. PIER MARCO TACCA/GETTY IMAGES May 31, 2019 • ANGELUS • 25
Word play AD REM BY ROBERT BRENNAN The popular culture was certainly caught off guard by the spate of laws limiting abortion recently passed in several states. When I say popular culture, I’m referring to the mainstream media and popular entertainment. There have been calls for boycotts against the offending states by actors, writers, film producers, etc. This raw nerve that has been touched has caused even some in the “pro-life” movement to hesitate. Who wants to be a pariah anyway, or on the other side of an argument with Lady Gaga? I put “pro-life” in quotes because this article is more about language than abortion. There are plenty of better brains to defend life at all stages of development and I’m happy to leave that work to them, and God bless them for it. But there is another victim in this debate and that has been the English language. Words matter. Words can uplift people — Shakespeare, Browning, and Dante. Words can destroy — Goebbels, Mao, and Stalin. George Orwell, a man who had no idea how much of a prophet he would become, foretold this present-day reality in the 1930s. He was so prescient that even people who care about such things take him for granted. Words like “newspeak,” “doubletalk,” “Big Brother,” “thought police,” and even “Orwellian” itself are spoken routinely, with many people having no idea of the dire warnings these words were. Obviously, the warnings went unheeded, as all of these things we have in triplicate in our culture today. Those who support abortion from Pro-life supporters participate in the March for Life in Washington, D.C., Jan. 18. the moment of conception up to and, if you’re the governor of Virginia, even after birth, never call themselves “pro-abortion.” Way back in the late 1970s they must have had a secret conference or something and worked hard on coming up with language that would sound much better and cloak what the intent was. The “pro-life” movement beat them to the punch using a positive clarion call. So, the proponents of abortion came up with a single word. It is a good word. It is a positive word. It is a word anyone who loves liberty and autonomy would embrace — “choice.” Who doesn’t want choice? The word speaks to the core of our God-granted free will. But this usage has a twist; some could even suggest its usage is twisted, as no one has the right to “choose” what is evil. When the choice involved is the stopping of a heartbeat, then we’re back on Orwell’s Animal Farm. At the very least, the word “choice” in this context violates truth-in-advertising statutes. The recent fetal heartbeat laws are SHUTTERSTOCK 26 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2019
Page 1 and 2: ANGELUS Made for Mission Meeting LA
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Page 6 and 7: WORLD Right-to-die case takes a las
Page 8 and 9: LOCAL Summer program to launch at S
Page 10 and 11: SUNDAY READINGS BY SCOTT HAHN Acts
Page 12 and 13: Ready to announce his glory Los Ang
Page 14 and 15: Luther Diaz Age: 47 Hometown: Los A
Page 16 and 17: Louis Sung Age: 28 Hometown: Cerrit
Page 18 and 19: Emmanuel Delfin Age: 50 Hometown: L
Page 20 and 21: Lasallian life lessons What a legen
Page 22 and 23: Growing homeless encampments on Ski
Page 24 and 25: A National Institute of Mental Heal
Page 26 and 27: “I gave her the money and off she
Page 30 and 31: another example of linguistic malpr
Page 32: Wood type for a letterpress. Printi

Angelus News | May 31, 2019 | Vol. 4 No. 20

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