Angelus News | August 2-9, 2019 | Vol. 4 No. 27
A nationwide trend pushing to remove tributes to certain historical figures of U.S. history has seized on a new, unlikely target: the bells lining California’s iconic El Camino Real. The reason? The belief that Spanish missionaries — among them St. Junípero Serra — were oppressors, captors, and even murderers of California’s first peoples. On Page 10, renowned historian Gregory Orfalea examines the most common critiques of the Spanish evangelization of California and makes the case for why the bells represent a legacy of love, not oppression.
A nationwide trend pushing to remove tributes to certain historical figures of U.S. history has seized on a new, unlikely target: the bells lining California’s iconic El Camino Real. The reason? The belief that Spanish missionaries — among them St. Junípero Serra — were oppressors, captors, and even murderers of California’s first peoples. On Page 10, renowned historian Gregory Orfalea examines the most common critiques of the Spanish evangelization of California and makes the case for why the bells represent a legacy of love, not oppression.
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San Francisco to study English led her<br />
to meet the Verbum Dei Missionary<br />
Fraternity (VDMF), a religious community<br />
founded in 1963 in Spain that<br />
her parents had come to know back in<br />
Mexico.<br />
“I always say that it was God interrupting<br />
my life,” said Meza of the call<br />
to her vocation as a religious sister.<br />
“It was God approaching me, getting<br />
closer to me, and showing me who<br />
God was, and as well as the need of<br />
the people.”<br />
Attending youth group meetings led<br />
by the community made her see that<br />
“God wasn’t something boring, or up<br />
there,” but someone “really close to<br />
us.”<br />
She recalled the ensuing process of<br />
discernment as something “beautiful,”<br />
in which God helped her leave<br />
behind a good life in exchange for a<br />
better one.<br />
“We didn’t have cellphone, internet,<br />
or any of that — so I really did a clear<br />
cut in my life, from family, friends,<br />
boyfriend, everything!”<br />
Meza’s studies and job experience<br />
prepared her well for her new calling.<br />
She has taught theology at her<br />
community’s institute, the Archdiocese<br />
of San Francisco, and Loyola<br />
Marymount University, while training<br />
the order’s novices, and forming lay<br />
catechists.<br />
In 2017, she earned a doctorate<br />
in sacred theology from the Jesuit<br />
School of Theology at Berkeley. And<br />
since being elected two years ago, she<br />
has served as Verbum Dei’s regional<br />
provincial, a post she’ll serve in until<br />
at least next year, when her term is<br />
complete.<br />
Most recently, she has served as the<br />
director of religious education at St.<br />
Anthony’s in Long Beach, where she<br />
will continue to live in community<br />
with her fellow Verbum Dei sisters.<br />
Since arriving there in 2008, she’s<br />
seen the job not only as an opportunity<br />
to evangelize, but also to put<br />
her background in pedagogy to use<br />
in restructuring the parish’s religious<br />
education programs for children,<br />
teenagers, and adults.<br />
“For me, and for us as a community,<br />
it was very important that besides the<br />
catechetical formation, the people<br />
could leave with a certainty of<br />
experience of God, because many of<br />
them don’t come back to church,”<br />
explained Meza, who oversaw the<br />
preparation of more than 700 children<br />
for first Communion and more than<br />
350 teenagers for confirmation during<br />
her time at St. Anthony’s.<br />
“But if they could leave the program<br />
having the certainty that God loves<br />
them, that’s fine — the objective is<br />
reached.”<br />
As if she hadn’t been busy<br />
enough lately, she was<br />
approached this spring to see<br />
if she’d consider leading the<br />
religious education department of the<br />
nation’s largest Catholic archdiocese.<br />
“<strong>No</strong> way,” she remembered she<br />
answered. “I have a lot of work. I don’t<br />
have time for that.”<br />
But they soon called again, asking<br />
if as provincial, she could offer any<br />
Verbum Dei sisters to help the archdiocese.<br />
The answer was, again, “no.”<br />
“Well, then, what about you?” she<br />
was asked.<br />
Meza finally relented, figuring she’d<br />
give the interview process a try. She<br />
met with archdiocesan leadership,<br />
including Archbishop José H. Gomez,<br />
who liked what he was hearing in<br />
their conversations about her ideas for<br />
the future of religious education in<br />
Los Angeles.<br />
“He was transmitting to me the<br />
desire of helping the people have<br />
an encounter with Christ, and then<br />
making disciples of Christ. And that’s<br />
the core of my charism.”<br />
The two agreed that keeping the<br />
doctrinal element of religious education<br />
was important, but not without<br />
“recovering the spiritual element of<br />
the doctrinal part.”<br />
Meza admitted that her first weeks<br />
on the job have been a little “overwhelming”<br />
with so many things to<br />
learn, people to meet, and events<br />
to plan. But she’s felt supported by<br />
the warm welcome from staff, and<br />
perceives an openness to working<br />
differently in the office.<br />
Although the ORE oversees the<br />
religious education programs of the<br />
nearly 300 parishes of the archdiocese,<br />
it also coordinates events like the upcoming<br />
City of Saints teen conference<br />
held each summer.<br />
On the global stage, the department<br />
is best known for organizing the annual<br />
Religious Education Congress in<br />
Anaheim. When asked how the event<br />
can stay “fresh” while bringing back<br />
attendees every year, Meza responded<br />
that she feels a certain “restlessness”<br />
to reach out to those hungry for both<br />
theological training and spiritual<br />
nourishment.<br />
“I have the desire of reaching out to<br />
the younger generations, including<br />
millennials, so that they can find that<br />
the Church is home for them,” said<br />
Meza.<br />
“How? I have no idea. I don’t think<br />
that I’m ready for the how. I just have<br />
the restlessness of reaching out to the<br />
younger generation according to their<br />
needs.” <br />
Pablo Kay is the editor-in-chief of<br />
<strong>Angelus</strong>.<br />
Sister Rosalia Meza (top row, fourth from left) with most of the sisters of the Verbum Dei Missionary<br />
Fraternity’s U.S. province.<br />
SISTER ROSALIA MEZA<br />
<strong>August</strong> 2-9, <strong>2019</strong> • ANGELUS • 21