Angelus News | July 31-August 7, 2020 | Vol. 5 No. 21

ANGELUS 

HERE TO HEAL 

LA’s new priests prepare to minister 

in a pandemic — and beyond 

July 31-August 7, 2020 Vol. 5 No. 21

Contents 

Pope Watch 2 

Archbishop Gomez 3 

World, Nation, and Local News 4-7 

Scott Hahn on Scripture 8 

Father Rolheiser 9 

Mission San Buenaventura gets ‘basilica’ added to its name 20 

John Allen: Who will heed the Vatican’s advice on parish life? 24 

Robert Brennan: A Hollywood lesson on the priesthood 26 

Reclaiming the fortune of our literary ‘Hundredfold’ 28 

A dispatch from Heather King’s Pasadena bungalow 32 

ON THE COVER 

The eight deacons being ordained priests Aug. 8 for the Archdiocese 

of Los Angeles strike a pose in front of the Cathedral of Our 

Lady of the Angels. Starting on Page 10, the men of St. John’s 

Seminary’s “Pandemic Class of 2020” reflect on where God called 

them from and what they’re looking forward to the most. 

VICTOR ALEMÁN 

IMAGE: 

People look out over Dodgers Stadium as the Los Angeles 

Dodgers play the San Francisco Giants in an empty stadium on 

the opening day of the coronavirus-abbreviated Major League 

Baseball season, July 23, in Los Angeles. The game was played 

without fans in the stadium due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

ROBYN BECK/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

ANGELUS 

July 31-August 7, 2020 

Vol. 5 • No. 21 

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(213) 637-7360 • FAX (213) 637-6360 — Published 

by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles 

by The Tidings (a corporation), established 1895. 

POPE WATCH 

Waiting for the weeds 

Publisher 

ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

Vice Chancellor for Communications 

DAVID SCOTT 

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Archdiocese of Los Angeles. 

The following is adapted from Pope 

Francis’ July 19 Angelus address delivered 

to visitors in St. Peter’s Square from the 

window of the Vatican Apostolic Palace. 

In the parable of the weeds in today’s 

Gospel (Matthew 13:24–43), Jesus 

helps us understand God’s patience, 

opening our hearts to hope. 

Jesus narrates that, in the field in 

which good seed was sown, weeds 

sprout up as well. The servants then 

go to the master to know where the 

weeds come from. 

He responds: “An enemy has done 

this!” Because we sowed good seed! 

The servants want to go right away 

to pull them up, the weeds that are 

growing. 

Instead, the master says no, because 

that would risk pulling the vegetation 

— the weeds — up together with 

the wheat. It is necessary to wait for 

harvest time: Only then will the weeds 

be separated and burned. 

A way of looking at history can be 

read in this parable. Alongside God, 

the master of the field, who only and 

always sows good seed, there is an 

adversary who sows weeds to impede 

the wheat’s growth. 

The master acts in the open, in 

broad daylight, and his goal is a good 

harvest. Instead, the other, the adversary, 

takes advantage of the darkness 

of night and works out of envy and 

hostility to ruin everything. 

The adversary has a name: it is the 

devil, God’s quintessential opponent. 

The devil’s intention is to hinder the 

work of salvation, to stonewall the kingdom 

of God through wicked workers, 

sowers of scandal. In fact, the good 

seed and the weeds do not represent 

good and bad in the abstract, no; but 

we human beings, who can follow 

God or the devil. 

Destruction always happens by 

sowing evil. It is always the devil who 

does this or our own temptations: 

when we fall into the temptation to 

gossip to destroy others. 

The servants’ intention is to eliminate 

evil immediately, that is, 

evil people. But the master is wiser, 

he sees farther. They must learn to 

wait because enduring persecution 

and hostility is part of the Christian 

vocation. 

Certainly, evil must be rejected, but 

those who do evil are people with 

whom it is necessary to be patient. If 

Jesus came to seek sinners more than 

the righteous, to cure the sick first 

before the healthy, so must the actions 

of his disciples be focused not on 

suppressing the wicked, but on saving 

them. Patience lies here. 

Today’s Gospel presents two ways 

of acting and of living history: on the 

one hand, the master’s vision who 

sees far; on the other, the vision of the 

servants who just see the problem. 

The Lord invites us to adopt his own 

vision, one that is focused on good 

wheat, that knows how to protect it 

even amid the weeds. Those who are 

always hunting for the limitations and 

defects of others do not collaborate 

well with God, but, rather, those 

who know how to recognize the good 

that silently grows in the field of the 

Church and history, cultivating it 

until it becomes mature. 

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Papal Prayer Intention for August: We pray for all those who work and live 

from the sea, among them sailors, fishermen, and their families. 

2 • ANGELUS • July 31-August 7, 2020

NEW WORLD 

OF FAITH 

BY ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

Missionary disciples in a pandemic 

On Aug. 8, I will ordain eight new 

priests for the family of God here in 

the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. 

Every new priest is a sign of God’s 

love and his care for his people, and 

our new priests will be sent out to serve 

in the midst of the ongoing coronavirus 

pandemic that continues to disrupt 

our families, economy, schools, and 

parishes. 

These months of the pandemic have 

also disrupted the way our priests live 

out their vocations and how they minister 

to people. 

It has been inspiring for me to see 

how some of our priests have adapted, 

with quiet heroism reaching out to 

parishioners through phone calls or 

emails, ministering to the sick and 

those in need, even offering occasions 

for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. 

It is hard to see it now, but the 

Church will come out of this moment, 

as she has survived under persecutions 

and plagues and pandemics in the 

past. But there is no question that how 

we minister in the future — not only 

priests, but all of us in the Church — 

is going to change. 

I have been trying to pray and reflect 

on this a lot in these summer days, 

thinking not only about the impact on 

our institutions and ministries, but also 

about people’s needs in our parishes 

and society. 

We must make sure that our social 

distance does not become emotional 

distance; we have to stay connected, 

caring for one another, listening, sharing 

our stories and our hope in Christ. 

I have been saying this for many years 

now, but it becomes more urgent in 

light of this pandemic: Every one of us 

in the Church must feel this responsibility 

to be a missionary disciple. 

The Church has never been about 

programs and events. Everything is 

about this Person, Jesus Christ, fully 

and truly human and fully and truly 

divine, who enters into our lives and 

calls us to follow him and to become 

“a new creation.” 

As we navigate the new reality created 

by this pandemic, we need to be clear 

about means and ends. 

Right now, we are all very focused 

on “means.” That is understandable. 

The world has changed. Just coming 

together in person, face-to-face is now 

much more complicated. How do we 

reach people, how do we gather them 

together to teach, to share the faith, to 

build fellowship? 

These are important questions. We 

should be asking these questions in 

light of our goal, which is bringing 

people to a personal meeting with Jesus 

Christ — to see his face, to hear his 

voice, to know and feel his loving and 

merciful presence in their lives. 

That is why we need to think deeply 

about how we use digital technology 

and “virtual” solutions, which will obviously 

play an increasingly important 

role in our post-pandemic ministry. 

It has been amazing what we have 

been able to do in this emergency 

time when we are still restricted from 

gathering in large numbers — so many 

parishes and ministries offering livestreamed 

liturgies and events. 

Going forward, we need to see that 

our websites and social media platforms 

are far more than simply ways we 

can “push out” messages to our people. 

The beauty of these tools is that they 

are interactive. So, we need to seek 

creative ways to help people express 

and share their faith online. 

We need to give them the resources 

they need to be living witnesses and 

missionary disciples on their own 

platforms. 

Think of the possibilities if we could 

help every Catholic in the Archdiocese 

of Los Angeles to share one message of 

hope every day on their personal social 

media platforms. 

Imagine 5 million messages of love 

and mercy daily on Instagram, Twitter, 

and Facebook! We could change the 

tone of these channels, which is so 

often mean and self-centered, and 

we could help people to think about 

all the good and beautiful things that 

people are doing in the world. 

And what if every parish organized 

a daily rosary, not from inside church 

walls, but with the prayer coming from 

parishioners’ homes and being shared 

on their own personal social channels. 

Again, imagine nearly 300 families 

each day, each representing one of our 

parishes, flooding these channels with 

prayers to Our Lady and reflections on 

the mysteries of Christ! 

Pray this week for our new priests. 

And if you have never attended a 

priestly ordination, now is your chance! 

We will be livestreaming the ordinations 

on Aug. 8. It is a beautiful sacrament, 

and a moment to feel the beauty 

of the Church and the love of God. 

More information is here: lacatholics. 

org/ordination. 

Pray for me this week, and I will pray 

for you. And let us ask our Blessed 

Mother Mary to pray for our new 

priests, to bring us more vocations to 

the priesthood, and to be ever more 

near to all of us in these difficult 

days. 

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

July 31-August 7, 2020 • ANGELUS • 3

WORLD 

AMONG THE LITTLE ONES — Children perform for Pope Francis, 

who made a surprise visit to their summer program in the 

Vatican’s Paul VI Audience Hall July 20. About 100 children of 

Vatican employees were attending the program for the month of 

July. “The kids were so stunned they stayed completely silent,” 

a chaplain for the summer program said. 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/COURTESY PLAY IT 

Arson suspected in French cathedral fire 

Barely a year after the catastrophic fire of Notre Dame, 

another French cathedral has suffered a similar fate. But this 

time, the blaze was no accident. A church volunteer admitted 

to starting three separate fires July 18 in the Cathedral of 

Sts. Peter and Paul in Nantes. 

The unnamed 39-year-old Rwandan refugee, who was an altar 

server, was arrested and indicted on July 25. He had been 

responsible for closing the building on the night of the fire. 

Although the fire damaged the Gothic church’s organ and 

rose window, the local fire chief stated at a press conference 

that the fire was not nearly as harmful as that of Notre Dame 

last year. 

The disaster “plunges the Christians of Loire Atlantique into 

a great sadness,” the Diocese of Nantes announced in a statement. 

“For them, the cathedral, an architectural masterpiece, 

is above all the mother church of the diocese.” 

New Vatican guide on 

handling abuse scandals 

The Vatican has issued a step-by-step guide for bishops and 

canon lawyers on how to respond to cases of sexual abuse of 

minors by priests. 

The document, known as a “vademecum,” was originally 

requested at a global summit of bishops from around the 

world in February 2019 in response to the clerical abuse crisis. 

In about 15 pages divided into nine chapters, it addresses 

a variety of “frequently asked questions” on issues like what 

constitutes a crime, and how to verify accusations and guidelines 

on working with civil authorities. 

Cardinal Luis Ladaria, the Vatican’s top doctrinal official, 

said that while the document presents no new Church 

teaching, it will serve as a tool “to help whoever has to deal 

with concrete cases from the beginning to the end.” 

Debris caused by the fire inside the Cathedral of Nantes. 

STEPHANE MAHE, REUTERS 

Polish president thanks Mary for election victory 

Andrzej Duda (fourth from left) prays at the 

Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa. 

JASNAGORANEWS 

After winning Poland’s presidential 

election, Andrzej Duda knew exactly 

where he wanted to be: at the national 

Marian shrine. 

Duda was elected July 13 to a second 

presidential term by just 420,000 

votes, a narrow margin in a country 

of almost 38 million. That same day, 

he went to the Shrine of Our Lady of 

Czestochowa for the evening prayer. 

The venerated painting at the site has 

been an icon of national faith and culture 

in Poland since the 14th century. 

During the ceremony, shrine custodian 

Father Waldemar Pastusiak 

thanked Duda for his presence and 

prayed that the patroness of Poland 

would guide him. “On the threshold 

of the second term,” said Father Pastusiak, 

Catholic News Agency reported, 

“we are giving him into your hands, 

Mary, and all the matters of our homeland, 

believing that you will always be 

present with him.” 


NATION 

Gov. John Bel Edwards 

Louisiana: A ‘spiritual 

diet’ against coronavirus 

While state leaders race to build 

strategies to combat coronavirus 

(COVID-19), Gov. John Bel Edwards 

of Louisiana is turning to a different 

tactic: prayer. 

Edwards, a Catholic who has served 

as governor since 2016, called for three 

days (July 20-22) of prayer and fasting 

for those impacted by the COVID-19 

pandemic. 

“This will be a spiritual diet and 

exercise that I, as a Catholic Christian, 

believe is very important,” he said at a 

July 16 press conference. 

Edwards encouraged others to join 

him in skipping lunch while praying 

for the sick, their caregivers, and the 

deceased. 

Bishop Michael G. Duca of Baton 

Rouge praised the governor’s announcement. 

“God’s people have 

turned to fasting and prayer throughout 

their journeys of faith to remind themselves 

of their dependence on God,” 

he stated in a press release, “to focus 

on his grace, and to seek deliverance 

during times of great trial and tribulation.” 

 

MARIE CONSTANTIN 

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

Planned Parenthood owns up to racist roots 

It has long been known that Margaret Sanger, founder 

of Planned Parenthood, supported eugenics, a philosophy 

of genetic hierarchy and selective breeding. 

In July, the New York arm of the nation’s largest 

abortion provider finally decided to acknowledge 

those racist roots. 

In a July 21 press release, Planned Parenthood 

of Greater New York (PPGNY) announced 

that its Manhattan building, formerly named 

for Sanger, will now be called the “Manhattan 

Health Center.” 

“There is overwhelming evidence for Sanger’s 

deep belief in eugenic ideology, which runs 

completely counter to our values,” stated Karen 

Seltzer, PPGNY’s board chair. The organization 

is also working on removing a sign labeling the area 

“Margaret Sanger Square.” 

The abortion provider has often been accused of targeting lower-income and minority 

populations. While PPGNY’s statement professed a commitment to “build 

accountable relationships with communities of color,” it did not address these 

accusations or mention changes to its abortion practice. 

Margaret Sanger 

The movie star at the Marian shrine 

The shrine at Lourdes, France, draws millions of pilgrims each year, including, 

recently, movie star Zac Efron. 

In a new Netflix documentary series, “Down to Earth With Zac Efron,” the actor 

shifts away from his musical routine to study sustainability and healthy lifestyles 

around the world. An episode on water includes a trip to the famous Marian 

shrine, where Efron speaks with a physician and a priest. 

“This is an incredibly special and holy place,” says Efron in the episode. While 

he neither confirms nor denies his belief in the miraculous events at Lourdes, he 

acknowledges that “there is no denying the sacred feeling you get just by being 

here.” 

“Down to Earth With Zac Efron” is currently available for streaming on Netflix. 

Zac Efron speaks with a physician and a priest in Lourdes, France, during an episode of "Down to 

Earth with Zac Efron." 

SCREENSHOT VIA NETFLIX 


03072020_M 

LOCAL 

California bishops warn 

against too much 

distance learning 

The Catholic bishops of California 

are asking Gov. Gavin Newsom to 

make it easier for schools to return to 

in-person classes this fall. 

New school reopening guidelines 

announced by Newsom July 17 

effectively require all schools — public 

and private — to begin the 2020-2021 

school year with distance learning until 

coronavirus (COVID-19) infection 

rates drop to sufficiently low levels. 

But in a July 22 statement, the state’s 

bishops warned about the consequences 

of too stringent conditions on 

reopening schools. 

“We are deeply concerned about the 

broader health and development issues 

for our children if the state presumes 

to rely only on distance learning until 

a vaccine is developed,” the bishops 

wrote in a July 22 statement. 

The bishops asked that Newsom 

make it easier for schools to obtain special 

waivers from local health authorities 

to reopen. 

“What our children will lose by 

“virtual” education — in terms of 

emotional development, skills, and 

learning and achievement — will 

have a significant impact,” the bishops 

wrote. “In the name of protecting their 

health in the short term, we may very 

likely be risking their long-term growth 

and potential.” 

The Ventura County seal. 

Students at Holy Spirit STEM Academy in Mid-City participate in a science experiment. 

LA Catholic STEM schools get big boost 

STEM schools in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles are getting a helping hand 

from one of the country’s largest philanthropic organizations. 

Announced July 23, the $200,000 grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation will 

be used to expand STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) 

programs in low-income communities, with funding for equipment, curriculum, 

and professional development for teachers and STEM leaders. 

“This grant propels us to continue to address not only achievement gaps related 

to math and science learning, but also opportunity gaps students may experience 

in accessing hands-on, rigorous STEM education,” said Leslie De Leonardis, 

STEM network director for the Department of Catholic Schools. 

The STEM Network currently operates at five schools in the archdiocese, and 

thanks to the new grant is set to expand into two additional schools in the 2021- 

2022 school year. 

Can a county erase St. Junípero Serra? 

After the city of Ventura voted to remove the statue of St. Junípero Serra in 

front of City Hall, Ventura County is considering removing the saint’s image 

from its seal. 

At a June 23 Board of Supervisors meeting, Ventura County CEO Mike Power 

announced a redesign of the seal that since 1964 has displayed an image 

of St. Junípero with a mission church in the background on the left side. The 

question of whether to exclude the image of St. Junípero will be decided by 

the board after opportunities for public input. 

Father Tom Elewaut, pastor of the Old Mission Basilica of San Buenaventura, 

told Catholic News Agency that in any redesign, “some representation of 

Junípero Serra is critical to the history of the county and its economic prosperity 

that we all enjoy today.” 


C 

O 


Return to CIF sports 

delayed again 

The California Interscholastic 

Federation (CIF) has delayed high 

school sports until December, 

according to a July 20 report. 

The revised 2020-2021 calendar 

calls for some sports to switch seasons 

and condenses three seasons 

into two. 

CIF also cut off season lengths 

to 72 days to avoid an overlap for 

student-athletes, coaches, and facilities. 

Championship competitions 

will take place as normal, but state 

and regional championships will be 

streamlined. 

The final sports calendar is subject 

to approval at an Aug. 13 meeting, 

where it will be considered as an 

emergency action item. Currently, 

the plan calls for cross-country, 

volleyball, water polo, football, field 

hockey, and gymnastics to kick off 

the new “fall” season at the end of 

the year. 

Church moves outdoors in California 

Churches around the state, including in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, have 

been forced to move liturgical services outdoors after new statewide restrictions 

on indoor activities aimed at slowing the summer spike in coronavirus (COV- 

ID-19) cases were announced July 13 by California Gov. Gavin Newsom. 

“Outdoor Masses and other liturgical services such as adoration and prayer 

services are allowed and encouraged. Parishes may continue to celebrate confessions, 

first Communions, confirmations, funerals, and weddings outdoors on the 

parish grounds,” read a memo sent to parishes around the archdiocese July 13. 

Guidelines issued to the parishes stated that “face coverings and social distancing 

are required for any services held outdoors.” 

The memo sent to parish pastors in Los Angeles, Ventura, and Santa Barbara 

counties — all of which are among the 30 California counties included in Newsom’s 

order — called the restrictions “discouraging and disappointing,” but also 

stressed the importance of public safety. 

In addition to 

houses of worship, 

the July 13 restrictions 

also ordered 

closure of bars, 

gyms, hair salons, 

malls, zoos, and 

museums, as well 

as indoor dining. 

State officials have 

not said when the 

restrictions may be 

Outdoor Mass at St. John Fisher Church in Rancho Palos Verdes. lifted again. 

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7/26/20 3:51 PM

SUNDAY 

READINGS 

BY SCOTT HAHN 

LOCAL 

TARGETED 

FAITH BASED 

Is. 55:1–3 / Ps. 145:8–9, 15–18 / Rom. 8:35, 37–39 / Mt. 14:13–21 

ANGELUS 

Build a loyal customer base 

by targeting those who 

share your faith and values. 

Contact Jim Garcia at 213.637.7590 

or jagarcia@angelusnews.com 

“The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes,” by Jacopo Tintoretto, 1519–1594, Italian. 

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

What Legacy will YOU 

leave? 

It’s easy to include a gift 

for your favorite 

Parish, School or Ministry 

in your will or trust. 

To leave a lasting legacy, 

contact us today. 

Kimberly Jetton 

Director of Planned Giving 

(213) 637-7504 

KJetton@la-archdiocese.org 

www.ADLALegacy.org 

In Jesus and the Church, Isaiah’s 

promises in this Sunday’s First Reading 

are fulfilled. All who are thirsty come 

to the living waters of baptism (see 

John 4:14). The hungry delight in rich 

fare — given bread to eat and wine to 

drink at the eucharistic table. 

This is the point, too, of the Gospel 

this week. The story of Jesus’ feeding 

of the 5,000 brims with allusions to 

the Old Testament. Jesus is portrayed 

as a David-like shepherd who leads 

his flock to lie down on green grass as 

he spreads the table of the Messiah’s 

banquet before them (see Psalm 23). 

Jesus is shown as a new Moses, who 

likewise feeds vast crowds in a deserted 

place. Finally, Jesus is shown doing 

what the prophet Elisha did: satisfying 

the hunger of the crowd with a few 

loaves and having some left over (see 2 

Kings 4:42–44). 

Matthew also wants us to see the 

feeding of the 5,000 as a sign of the 

Eucharist. Notice that Jesus performs 

the same actions in the same sequence 

as at the Last Supper; he takes bread, 

says a blessing, breaks it, and gives it 

(see Matthew 26:26). 

Jesus instructed his apostles to celebrate 

the Eucharist in memory of him. 

And the ministry of the Twelve is subtly 

stressed in this week’s Gospel account. 

Before he performs the miracle, Jesus 

instructs the Twelve to give the crowd 

“some food yourselves.” Indeed, the 

apostles themselves distribute the bread 

blessed by Jesus (see Matthew 15:36). 

And the leftovers are enough to fill 

precisely 12 baskets, corresponding to 

each of the apostles, the pillars of the 

Church (see Galatians 2:9; Revelation 

21:14). 

In the Church, as we sing in this 

week’s Psalm, God gives us food in due 

season, opens his hands and satisfies 

the desires of every living thing. Now, 

as Paul reminds us in the Epistle, 

nothing can separate us from the love 

of God in Christ Jesus. 

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


IN EXILE 

BY FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI 

Sacred permission to feel human 

It is normal to feel restless as a child, 

lonely as a teenager, and frustrated by 

lack of intimacy as an adult; after all, 

we live with insatiable desires of every 

kind, none of which will ever find full 

fulfillment this side of eternity. 

Where do these desires come from? 

Why are they so insatiable? What is 

their meaning? 

As a young boy, the Catholic catechisms 

I was instructed from and 

sermons I heard from the pulpit in 

fact answered those questions, but in 

a vocabulary far too abstract, theological, 

and churchy to do much for me 

existentially. 

They left me sensing there was an 

answer, but not one that was of help to 

me. So I quietly suffered the loneliness 

and the restlessness. Moreover, I agonized 

because I felt that it was unholy 

to feel the way I did. My religious 

instruction, rich as it was, did not offer 

any benevolent smile from God on my 

restlessness and dissatisfaction. 

Puberty and the conscious stirring of 

sexuality made things worse. Now not 

only was I restless and dissatisfied, but 

the raw feelings and fantasies that were 

besetting me were considered sinful. 

That was my state of mind when I 

entered religious life and the seminary 

after high school. Of course, the restlessness 

continued, but my philosophical 

and theological studies gave me 

an understanding of what was stirring 

inside me and gave me sacred permission 

to be OK with that. 

It started in my novitiate year with a 

talk one day from a priest. We were in 

our late teens, and despite our commitment 

to religious life we were understandably 

restless, lonely, and fraught 

with sexual tension. 

Our visitor began his conference 

with a question: “Are you guys a little 

restless? Feeling a bit cooped up here?” 

We nodded. He went on: “Well you 

should be! You must be jumping out 

of your skins! All that young energy 

boiling inside you! You must be going 

crazy! But it’s OK, that’s what you 

should be feeling if you’re healthy! It’s 

normal, it’s good. You’re young; this 

gets better!” 

Hearing this freed up something 

inside me. For the first time, in a 

language that genuinely spoke to me, 

someone had given me sacred permission 

to be at home inside my own skin. 

My studies in literature, theology, and 

spirituality continued to give me that 

permission, even as they helped me 

form a vision as to why these feelings 

were inside me, how they took their 

origins and meaning in God, and how 

they were far from impure and unholy. 

Looking back on my studies, a 

number of salient persons stand out in 

helping me understand the wildness, 

insatiability, meaning, and ultimate 

goodness of human desire. The first 

was St. Augustine. The quote with 

which he begins his “Confessions”: 

“You have made us for yourself, Lord, 

and our hearts are restless until they 

rest in you,” has forever served me as 

the key to tie everything else together. 

With that as my secret for synthesis, I 

met this axiom in St. Thomas Aquinas: 

“The adequate object of the intellect 

and will is all being as such.” That 

might sound abstract, but even as a 

20-year-old, I grasped its meaning: In 

brief, what would you need to experience 

to finally say, “Enough, I am satisfied?” 

Aquinas’ answer: “Everything!” 

Later in my studies I read Karl 

Rahner. Like St. Aquinas, he, too, can 

seem hopelessly abstract when, for 

instance, he defines the human person 

as “Obediential potency living inside a 

supernatural existential.” Really? Well, 

what he means by that can be translated 

into a single counsel he once 

offered a friend: “In the torment of the 

insufficiency of everything attainable 

we ultimately learn that here, in this 

life, there is no finished symphony.” 

Finally, in my studies, I met the 

person and thought of Father Henri 

Nouwen. He continued to teach me 

what it means to live without ever 

getting to enjoy the finished symphony, 

and he articulated this with a unique 

genius and in a fresh vocabulary. 

Reading Father Nouwen is like being 

introduced to yourself, while still 

standing inside all your shadows. He 

also helps give you the sense that it is 

normal, healthy, and not impure or 

unholy to feel all those wild stirrings 

with their concomitant temptations 

inside yourself. 

Each of us is a bundle of much 

untamed eros, of wild desire, longing, 

restlessness, loneliness, dissatisfaction, 

sexuality, and insatiability. We need 

to be given sacred permission to know 

this is normal and good because it 

is what we all feel, unless we are in 

a clinical depression or have for so 

long repressed these feelings that now 

they are expressed only negatively in 

destructive ways. 

We all need to have someone to come 

visit us inside our particular “novitiate,” 

ask us if we are painfully restless, and 

when we nod our heads, say: “Good! 

You’re supposed to feel like that! It 

means you’re healthy! Know too that 

God is smiling on this!” 

Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher, award-winning author, and president of the Oblate School of Theology 

in San Antonio, Texas. Find him online at www.ronrolheiser.com and www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser. 


A moment worth 

waiting for 

Ordination plans for LA’s 

eight newest priests may 

have changed, but their 

mission has not 

BY STEVE LOWERY AND 

PABLO KAY / ANGELUS 

Preparation for the priesthood typically 

involves a long, slow process: 

the several years of discernment 

come with rites, retreats, parish work, 

and years of study. 

For the eight deacons being ordained 

priests this summer for the Archdiocese 

of Los Angeles, the process involved 

another important yet unforeseen step: 

a global pandemic that changed all 

their plans, including their ordination 

date, which was pushed from May 30 

to Aug. 8. 

The “Pandemic Class of 2020” – as 

they like to call themselves – were 

forced in March to quarantine at St. 

John’s Seminary until finally being 

able to return to their diaconate parish 

10 • ANGELUS • July 31-August 7, 2020 

assignments as churches began to 

reopen to the public in the late spring. 

In the meantime, the deacons did 

more reading, praying, and reflecting on 

God’s call in their lives than they had 

planned to – time that they all agree 

was providential in preparing them to 

become priests. Here are their stories. 

VICTOR ALEMÁN

Thomas Park 

Age: 58 

Hometown: Seoul, South Korea 

Home parish: St. Joan of Arc Church, West LA 

First parish assignment: St. John Fisher Church in 

Rancho Palos Verdes 

“The one thing for sure is that there’s 

always a hope and the hope is found in 

Jesus Christ.” 


Though he was ready to give up his previous life, Park still 

had the mind of an engineer, and he quickly crunched the 

numbers and decided on an outcome. 

“Because of my age, I thought becoming a priest was not 

possible,” he said. “So, I thought about becoming a deacon.” 

But, during a Divine Mercy pilgrimage to Europe in 2008, 

he had a chance conversation with the tour’s host, a priest 

who told Park, much to his amazement, that he, too, had 

been called later in life, taking his final vows in his mid-50s. 

Thomas Park is now 58—“soon to be 59”—but listening 

to him talk about his first assignment, the energy and 

excitement is obvious. While youth has its place, so do the 

experiences of a lifetime, experiences he believes can help 

parishioners deal with the “trials and dark times we’re going 

through.” 

Asked what his message will be to his new congregation 

outside of “just looking forward to meeting with you all,” he 

makes clear he’s much more inclined to listen. 

“I’m excited. I’m just in the moment, living all for God and 

letting him surprise me,” he said. “I’m looking forward to 

meeting the parishioners and pastor and working together.” 

Still, if his journey has taught him anything he would like 

to share with others, whether they lead families or may be 

considering leading flocks, it is to always maintain a patient 

heart. Oh, and one other key element. 

“Don’t give up hope,” he said. “We’re going through a lot of 

challenges and trials at the moment. The one thing for sure 

is that there’s always a hope and the hope is found in Jesus 

Christ. 

“There is always something to learn, you may not know it 

right now, but after perhaps a few years later, perhaps 10 or 

20 years later, like me, God will reveal that answer to you.” 


In these times of exceptional uncertainty, parishioners 

of St. John Fisher Church in Rancho Palos Verdes will 

likely count their blessings they’re being ministered to by 

Thomas Park, a man who knows firsthand how quickly life 

can turn, no matter your plans, no matter your age. 

From the time he and his family emigrated from South 

Korea to the U.S. when he was 10, Park knew he would be an 

engineer. He dreamed about it, worked toward it. Yes, there 

was that gnawing feeling he’d get about the priesthood, but, 

“I didn’t really seriously think about it because my desire, my 

dream was to be an engineer.” 

By the time he reached his mid-40s, he assumed any 

thought of the priesthood was pointless. But, in 2007, it was 

nonetheless rekindled while reading “Divine Mercy in My 

Soul: The Diary of Sister Faustina Kowalska.” 

“I read that and that just changed my life,” he said. “I just 

totally wanted to give myself after that. I was content with my 

life and all, but still I was ready to give that up and serve the 

Lord.” 

Thomas Park in the late 1980s, "relaxing at home listening to 

music after a busy day at work." 

July 31-August 7, 2020 • ANGELUS • 11 

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Filiberto Cortez 

Age: 43 

Hometown: Puebla, Mexico 

Home parish: St. Dominic Savio Church, Bellflower 

First parish assignment: Our Lady of Lourdes 

Church, Northridge 

“I’m called for ... the salvation of souls. 

There’s no greater joy than to see a soul 

restored in Christ.” 


“Why do I still feel something is missing?” Cortez asked 

himself. “I could not figure it out.” 

One day, his existential crisis brought him to shed his first 

tears in years. It was then, he said, that he had an interior 

experience of God’s forgiveness. 

For Cortez, the healing process was long and slow. The 

difficulty of overcoming his old habits pushed him to go back 

to church for help. 

Cortez’s older brother, a religious brother, encouraged him 

to frequent the sacraments of confession and the Eucharist as 

much as possible. 

“Fili, when you fall, just get up,” he would tell him during 

visits. 

One of the things that took Cortez time was coming to 

terms with the pain his sins had caused other people in the 

past. 

“I knew the Lord forgave me, but how do I forgive myself?” 

Eventually, Cortez said, he received a grace that helped him 

with that, too. He also recalled an emotional reconciliation 

with his father, with whom he’d had a difficult relationship 

growing up, as a turning point. 

But the person Cortez is most grateful to is his mother, who, 

when her son was suffering the most, would pay all-night 

visits to the Blessed Sacrament in the middle of the night at a 

nearby parish that offered nocturnal adoration. 

“She was always the pillar, praying for me,” he said. 

From there, things began to “fall into place” and Cortez 

began to realize that his conversion experience was a sign of 

a greater plan. He left his job as a health teacher at a charter 

high school in South LA to discern with the Salesians of Don 

Bosco for three years before entering St. John’s Seminary. 

When asked about his vocation, he said it can be summed 

up in one word: gratitude. 

“There’s one thing that I’m called for, and that is for the 

salvation of souls,” said Cortez. “There’s no greater joy than 

to see a soul restored in Christ.” 

If the Catholic Church is a “field hospital,” as Pope Francis 

says it should be, parishioners at Our Lady of Lourdes 

Church in Northridge are getting a priest who has been to 

its intensive care unit. 

Filiberto Cortez was born in Puebla, Mexico, but moved 

with his family to the Downey area when he was 11. The 

“culture shock” of life in a new country made the adjustment 

a difficult one, and Cortez eventually drifted from his family’s 

traditional Catholic faith while trying to keep up the image of 

being a “tough guy.” 

“I felt like God was punishing me, like he had something 

against me because growing up was so difficult as a child,” he 

said. 

The next several years were spent looking everywhere he 

could for satisfaction and meaning: relationships, partying, 

overseas backpacking trips, off-road adventures in his Jeep 

Wrangler, and even existentialist philosophy. 

That search, and the lifestyle that came with it, led Cortez 

to a place he called “rock bottom.” 

Filiberto Cortez on a backpacking trip to Machu Picchu, Peru, 

in 2011. 

SUBMITTED PHOTO 


Michael Mesa 

Age: 31 

Hometown: Pomona/Diamond Bar 

Home parish: St. Denis Church, Diamond Bar 

First parish assignment: Holy Family Church, 

Glendale 

“Doctors have crazy hours. I think that 

kind of prepared me for the sacrifice 

involved in the life of a priest.” 


what does that mean for my life? 

“I think that initial call to find God through my intellect 

kind of led me to then look at the faith that was right in front 

of me.” 

Fittingly, his search led him to a book, well, the book. He 

began reading the Bible, from cover to cover, on Jan. 1, 2011. 

From the beginning, from the first pages of Genesis, he said, 

“The word of God stirred up something in my heart. There 

was this truth and beauty reflected in all these questions I 

had been thinking about and it kind of started me on this 

journey.” 

Around the same time, he was led back to his home parish 

of St. Denis Church in Diamond Bar, where he was given a 

book on rediscovering one’s Catholicism. He read it, loved it, 

and soon found himself back at Mass, fully awake. 

“I noticed in the Mass that there was this joy, this hope that 

was, you know, in everyone,” he said. 

And it’s that hope and joy he hopes to bring to his new 

parish, Holy Family Church in Glendale. He said he is 

“honored and humbled” to be going to a parish in possession 

of more than 100 years of history, a stunning church and a 

personal connection to St. Frances Cabrini. He believes the 

journey that delivered him to Glendale prepared him well. 

“Doctors have crazy hours. I think that kind of prepared me 

for the sacrifice involved in the life of a priest,” he said. “I 

didn’t really feel it was a sacrifice, just the next step in following 

God; kind of an adventure.” 

It’s an adventure he’s eager to share with others, even in 

these historically uncertain times, even when some may 

question God’s role in their lives or God’s very existence. 

He believes he can offer some comfort and perhaps a few 

answers. 

After all, he’s done the research. 

Michael Mesa grew up in the Pomona/Diamond Bar 

area and was raised Catholic, but admittedly was 

the kind of Catholic who sort of took his faith for 

granted; the kind who attended Mass every Sunday but did so 

half asleep. 

“We went to the 7:30 a.m. Mass,” he said. “So, I didn’t really 

pay attention that much.” 

Most of his energy was focused on becoming a doctor, a 

focus that landed him at USC where he majored in biology. 

It was after graduation, while working in a research lab at 

USC, that his life changed as he, in his words, “came to God 

through science.” 

Employing his training in biology, he began to ponder life’s 

big questions: What is consciousness and what is the purpose 

of life? Yeah. Big. 

“You start to get into the physics of what the universe is 

made out of and then eventually you hit philosophy where, 

you know, I had to decide does God exist or not,” he said. 

“And I kind of reached the conclusion, OK, he does exist, so 

Michael Mesa 



Manuel Ramos 

Age: 47 

Hometown: San Pedro 

Home parish: Holy Trinity Church, San Pedro 

First parish assignment: St. Joseph Church, 

Carpinteria 

“Jesus Christ is here to heal and to 

offer salvation and that’s something 

I want to echo.” 


film. As for the call that still came to him from time to time? 

“Unfortunately, I kept running from my vocation.” 

That is until 2000, when Father Edward Benioff at Holy 

Trinity encouraged him to take a more active role in his 

faith, and it was then that he discovered a joy in ministry. 

Before too long, he was a member of multiple ministries. The 

satisfaction of not just thinking about his faith but performing 

it “is what fueled my vocation,” he said. 

In 2009, during a drive to Tijuana, Mexico, to visit his 

grandmother, he heard “a distinct voice coming from deep 

inside of me saying, ‘It’s time.’ ” 

This time, he listened and soon entered the seminary. 

He found a welcoming community willing to offer whatever 

he needed, a shoulder to lean on, an ear to listen to help him 

break through all that had been holding him back. 

“The truth is we’re all human beings with flaws, with broken 

natures, and the task is to understand yourself, understand 

your triggers, understand the flaws that you have,” he said. 

“They were definitely there for me, you know, to help me to 

get up when I had fallen down. These seven years there were 

struggles, there were difficulties, there were health concerns 

that I had to go through, but it wasn’t a path that I was walking 

alone.” 

His fellow seminarians’ kindness further confirmed to him 

that real faith must be acted upon and provided to whoever 

needs it, which, let’s face it, is everyone. He says he’ll emphasize 

this message of an active faith at his new parish, St. 

Joseph Church in Carpinteria. 

“I think that’s the crux, getting involved, getting active, 

becoming a part of the parish and not just sitting passively 

waiting for the spirit to come to [you],” he said. “Jesus Christ 

is here to heal and to offer salvation and that’s something I 

want to echo. I want that to resonate from my ministry.” 

Manuel Ramos admitted to being a “little naive” when 

first entering the seminary, believing that those 

he would be sharing this journey with came to it 

armed with the innocence and certainty of “a community of 

altar servers.” 

It was therefore somewhat of a relief for him to discover that 

his colleagues were far from any of that, that “the men that I 

was surrounded with were great men, but they experienced 

doubts, they experienced struggles and pressures, nonetheless.” 

If Ramos didn’t have doubts growing up, he certainly could 

overwhelm himself with conflicting thoughts. Raised in San 

Pedro, a member of Holy Trinity Church, he said it was there 

that he first heard the call to a vocation, but “like many men, 

you have dreams of having a family, of having work, and so I 

went the other way.” 

That other way led him to Bishop Montgomery High 

School and then UC Irvine, where he first majored in premed 

only to do a complete 180 and change his emphasis to 

Manuel Ramos on his diaconate ordination day with Bishop 

Alex Aclan. 

FACEBOOK VIA ST. JOHN'S SEMINARY 


Daniel Garcia 

Age: 45 

Hometown: Los Angeles 

Home parish: St. Paul Church, Los Angeles 

Parish assignment: Our Lady of Perpetual Help 

Church, Downey 

“We need to be in silence so that God 

can speak to us in that silence. God will 

if you open your heart.” 


“This figure was smiling at me and said, ‘Come to me, 

everything’s going to be OK,’ ” he said. “When I woke up, 

I was filled with grace, I was filled with this feeling of love. 

And that was the sign for me that I had been asking for. And 

I knew in my heart that God was calling me to something 

greater.” 

That the sign came while he slept doesn’t surprise Garcia at 

all. The world is full of distractions, he said, distractions that 

make it hard to focus on God’s plan. Entering the seminary 

provided him with a necessary state of quiet, one that allowed 

him to separate himself from the daily stresses of life. 

If it sounds as if he viewed the seminary as a retreat, far 

from it. He said he saw the seminary as a “hospital for the 

soul,” one where men could be broken down and then 

“molded again with the help of the Holy Spirit in how God 

wants us to be molded because we’re going to be working for 

him and with him.” 

Part of being broken down was learning that it was not 

“about me anymore,” that 

it was only when he surrendered 

that he could see 

what others had for years. 

He said it’s important for 

anyone, whether considering 

the seminary or simply 

attempting to live God’s 

plan, to quiet down and be 

patient. 

“Just listen to God, you 

Daniel Garcia at his first 

holy Communion at St. Paul 

Church, Los Angeles, in 1981. 


know, most of the time we 

love talking,” he said. “We 

need to be in silence so 

that God can speak to us 

in that silence. God will if 

you open your heart. God 

will place the answer for 

you.” 

That Daniel Garcia is becoming a priest — soon to call 

Downey’s Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church his 

home parish — is really no surprise to anyone who’s 

known him. As early as sixth grade at St. Paul Elementary 

School, people saw that he was called to something, one 

teacher telling him, “Danny, I see Jesus in you.” 

But sometimes those who are called are the last to realize it. 

Looking back, Garcia said he can clearly see the signs of him 

being drawn to service, whether as an altar server assisting at 

weddings and funerals, working in a rectory, or acting as a 

lector during Mass. 

Still, he had a hard time seeing what others did, wondering 

how anyone “could see Jesus in me.” 

While he did get involved in Catholic ministry, it was in 

education, first as a teacher then vice principal, and finally 

as principal at St. Malachy School in Los Angeles. But 

despite what he had accomplished, despite all he had served, 

he still felt himself wanting and prayed for a sign. It arrived 

while he slept. 

Daniel Garcia with his family at his diaconate ordination at 

the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. 



Justin Oh 


Hometown: Cerritos 

Home parish: St. Raphael Korean Catholic Center, 

Norwalk 

Parish assignment: St. Gertrude Church, Bell Gardens 

“Of course, my first reaction was, ‘No way,’ actually with 

some inappropriate words,” Oh said. “I said ‘No, God. I think 

you and [the] Blessed Mother, I think you’re just tripping.” 

He still attended daily Mass and remained involved in youth 

ministry, but would not listen to God’s call. This lasted for 

five years, years he admitted, he knew, “deep down inside,” 

he wasn’t living the life that was meant for him, the life he 

encouraged others to pursue. 

“I would work with a lot of kids and talk to them about 

God’s love or God’s will for us and the purpose of our lives, 

and I would always encourage them to stay open to the will 

of God because he’s the one who made us and who probably 

knows best,” he said. 

“And yet [in my life] I was saying, ‘Well, God, that’s great 

that you’re calling me to this, but I think I know what’s best 

for me,’ placing my own will above the will of the Lord.” 

But, as we know, when it comes to life’s journey, the Lord 

can be as relentless as the person in the passenger seat telling 

the driver they really need to pull over and ask for directions. 

For Oh, the map was laid out by a priest who helped him 

discern, and turn that no into a yes. 

Today, he can’t wait to get started. 

“The role of the priest is to help sanctify the people, to help 

them grow in holiness and sanctify the world,” he said. “I 

want to be a bridge to holiness and help them grow in their 

relationship with Christ. I’m most excited for that, to really 

journey with these people. I look forward to going there.” 


“The role of the priest is to help 

sanctify the people, to help them 

grow in holiness.” 

While Justin Oh, like so many other new priests, 

looks forward to celebrating Mass, offering the 

sacrament of reconciliation and the other daily 

duties of a priest, what really excites him is the “journey” he 

will take with his parishioners. 

“I look forward to when I’m doing the baptism for a couple 

and it’s a couple that I married,” he said. “You know, and I’m 

there for their kid’s first Communion and I accompany them 

on this journey, the whole process.” 

Although Oh sees his own journey to the priesthood as 

“rather ordinary,” nothing “dramatic, like St. Paul,” it has had 

its share of unexpected turns, delays and, yes, drama. 

Born to South Korean immigrants, raised in Cerritos, Oh’s 

Catholic life was typical, if a bit delayed: baptized at the age 

of 5, first Communion while in high school, confirmation 

while in college. It was during college that he heard God’s 

call to become a priest, a call he heard “clear as day” the day 

after completing a 54-day novena. 

At first, it was a call he rejected completely. 

Justin Oh (right) golfing with Father Brian and Father Daniel. 



Louie Reyes 

Age: 35 

Hometown: Salinas 

Home parish: St. Mark’s UCSB Newman Center, 

Goleta 

Parish assignment: St. Phillip Neri Church, Lynwood 

“Priests can actually be joyful. They can 

actually laugh and be serious at the same 

time and really down to earth.” 


“He took me under his wing,” he said. “I was like ‘Wow!’ 

Priests can actually be joyful. They can actually laugh and be 

serious at the same time and really down to earth. I was like, 

OK, this is a different side of the priesthood.” 

Suddenly, the call that others had seen in him and that Reyes 

had contemplated as a younger man, became the driving 

force in his life. 

He joined a faith-sharing group called Catholic Isla Vista 

(Catholic IV) and started attending daily Mass. The pull in 

him became so strong that even when Father Ellis retired a 

few years later, he connected with his replacement, Father 

John Love, a man who, he said, “just really exuded what the 

priesthood is supposed to look like.” 

Now that it is time for him to go out in the world as a priest 

himself, he wants to make sure that he can affect as many 

people as possible. Because of that Reyes, already fluent in 

Tagalog and English, has continued to study Spanish since 

his first parish assignment, St. Philip Neri Church in Lynwood, 

is overwhelmingly Latino. 

“I ask that they continue to pray for me as I continue to 

learn,” he said. “They are going to have to be patient because 

my Spanish is going to need a lot of work. I know they’re 

going to help me with that.” 

Though he may sound apprehensive about this third language, 

his voice belies someone who can’t wait to go on with 

his vocation, knowing full well that one person, one smile, 

one wing to find refuge and strength under, can mean all the 

difference in one person’s life. 

“[We’re] trying to bring life into this culture,” he said. “I 

don’t think you can find it anywhere else and I know it 

doesn’t stay in the seminary, it can’t stay in the seminary. It 

has to go out into the world, into the parishes that we’re going 

to.” 

There’s no need to tell Louie Reyes that one person, one 

priest, can change the course of someone’s life. He 

knows that. He’s lived it. 

It happened while Reyes was attending UC Santa Barbara, 

a university well-known, as he said, as “a party school.” And 

Reyes admitted he took part in what might be described as a 

somewhat Augustinian existence. 

“I just got sucked into that culture of party and craziness,” 

he said. 

Reyes was still going to Mass at the university parish, St. 

Mark’s, but he did that more out of habit. 

Born in Manila, Philippines, and brought to the United 

States by his parents at age 7, he grew up in Salinas and 

attended Mass every Sunday, but his spiritual life never really 

extended beyond the end of the weekend. 

“I was never part of a youth group; faith was just kind of 

something on the side for me.” 

But it was at St. Mark’s that he met Father Tomas Ellis, who 

made an immediate impression on him. 

Louie Reyes with Archbishop José H. Gomez at the opening 

Mass of the academic year at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo 

on Sept. 19, 2019. 

ADLA VOCATIONS OFFICE 


02052020_C 

Jonathan Nestico 


Hometown: Santa Clarita 

Home parish: St. Clare of Assisi Church, Canyon Country 

Parish assignment: St. Charles Borromeo Church, 

North Hollywood 

about that.” 

Talk to Nestico about his upbringing and it becomes clear 

that he was meant for the path he’s chosen. For as long as 

he can remember, he has been helping around the parish, 

whether as an altar server, usher, or singing in the choir. 

“My life really did revolve around the Church and Church 

ministry, even in high school, when a lot of people fall away 

and question their faith.” 

Interestingly enough, the people Nestico is referring to 

include himself. He admitted that at certain moments he 

definitely found himself “questioning” aspects of his spiritual 

life. But rather than panic or fall away, he decided to take 

matters into his own hands or, rather, heart and mind. 

“I was doing my own research, not just taking the word of 

my parents or religion teachers,” he said. “Really doing my 

own thing, too.” 

That thing included thoughts of a life outside of the priesthood, 

of a businessman’s suit as well as marriage and a family. 

That changed when he found himself watching a video 

of seminarians talking about what convinced them to heed 

God’s call. One of the men said he heard God telling him, 

“If you don’t do it, who will?” 

Nestico knew he would, knew he must. 

“I had to do it,” he said. “God really knew how to play me. 

It was like, you’ve given your life to the Church and you can 

keep doing it. And you’ll do amazing things.” 


“It was like, you’ve given your life to the 

Church and you can keep doing it. And 

you’ll do amazing things.” 

Though Jonathan Nestico was too young to remember, it is 

well-known within his family that when he was born, 31 years 

ago, his grandmother Monique soon after took him to St. 

Augustine Church in Culver City, where she was the director 

of religious education, walking with the infant in her arms, 

presenting him to her workmates as she repeated, “This is my 

grandson. He’s going to do amazing things.” 

That amazing time appears to have arrived. Nestico’s first 

parish assignment as a priest will be St. Charles Borromeo 

Church in North Hollywood, a diverse faith community 

with a rich history, especially when it comes to assisting those 

experiencing homelessness. 

As eager as Nestico is to celebrate the sacraments, he is also 

especially eager to minister to the homeless and the marginalized. 

“Growing up in Santa Clarita, we were kind of in this 

bubble,” he said. “I was always very adamant about trying to 

reach out to the marginalized and the homeless. The people 

of St. Charles do so much outreach that I’m really excited 

Jonathan Nestico processes in for the acolyte class of 2017 

Mass at St. John's Seminary. 

FACEBOOK VIA ST. JOHN'S SEMINARY 

Pleas 

the do 

and 

in an 

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Fund 

Arc 

of Lo 

3424 W 

Los A 

900 

18 • ANGELUS • July 31-August 7, 2020 

Fo

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your contribution has been going directly toward emergency needs for children, adults and families. 

Your gift provides a one-time emergency help for food, utilities, medical, housing, and funeral expenses. 

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5/2/20 11:21 AM

San Buenaventura’s 

papal upgrade 

In a surprise announcement, the Vatican 

designated the last mission founded by 

St. Junípero Serra a minor basilica 

BY PABLO KAY / ANGELUS 

Mission Basilica San Buenaventura 

in Ventura. 

COLTON MACHADO/ARCHDIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES 



When Father Tom Elewaut 

saw the name on his phone’s 

caller ID the night of 

June 30, the pastor of Mission San 

Buenaventura guessed the call had 

something to do with the recent controversy 

over whether to remove the 

statue of St. Junípero Serra in front of 

Ventura’s City Hall. 

He guessed wrong. 

“I’ve got some good news,” 

said Archbishop José H. Gomez 

on the other end of the line. 

“You’re a minor basilica.” 

Father Elewaut’s voice started 

to crack with emotion. He’d 

spent the last six years researching, 

praying, and waiting for 

Pope Francis to decide whether 

to elevate his 238-year-old parish 

to the rank of “minor basilica.” 

Two weeks later, on July 15, the 

feast of the mission’s namesake, 

St. Bonaventure, the pope’s 

decision was made public. At a 

special 7:30 a.m. Mass celebrated 

by Archbishop Gomez, 

along with Father Elewaut and 

regional Auxiliary Bishop Robert 

Barron, Mission Basilica San 

Buenaventura was unveiled as 

the first basilica in the Archdiocese 

of Los Angeles and the 88th 

in the United States. 

“When the pope designates 

a basilica, it means this is holy 

ground, that something beautiful 

and important in the history 

of salvation happened here,” 

Archbishop Gomez said at the 

Mass, held outside in the mission’s 

garden due to restrictions 

on outdoor religious services 

mandated by Gov. Gavin 

Newsom just two days earlier in 

light of the recent spike in coronavirus 

(COVID-19) cases in the state. 

Of the nine missions St. Junípero 

founded in what is today California, 

Mission San Buenaventura has the 

distinction of being his last. 

St. Junípero had planned to establish 

San Buenaventura as the third mission 

in Alta California, but was forced to 

wait more than a decade before receiving 

approval. 

When the mission was eventually 

founded, on Easter Sunday, March 

31, 1782, St. Junípero alluded to the 

fact that it took the Church more than 

200 years after Bonaventure’s death to 

declare him a saint. 

“Today [God] has been kind enough 

to grant me the consolation, after 

many years of longing, of witnessing 

the founding of the Holy Mission of 

Msgr. Francis J. Weber speaks at the solemn consecration of 

Mission San Buenaventura on Dec. 19, 1976. 

Our Seraphic Doctor San Buenaventura,” 

he said. 

“And the same thing can be said of 

this founding as the canonization of 

the saint: ‘Quo tardius, eo solemnius’ 

[‘The more slowly, the more solemnly’].” 

In other words, the longer delayed, 

the sweeter the celebration. 

And in many ways, this expression 

could also characterize the nearly 

45 years it took for St. Bonaventure’s 

mission to be named a basilica. 

MISSION SAN BUENAVENTURA 

BUMPY ROAD TO 'BASILICA' 

The first attempt to get Rome to recognize 

San Buenaventura as a basilica 

ended in failure. And the second one 

almost did, too. 

The pursuit began in 1976, when the 

Vatican gave the archbishop of Los 

Angeles at the time, Cardinal Timothy 

Manning, approval to solemnly 

consecrate the mission’s 

167-year-old church building. 

Then-pastor Msgr. Francis 

J. Weber, one of the eminent 

historians of the Church in California 

and the United States, 

suggested that the mission seek a 

further honor from Rome. 

St. Pope Paul VI had just granted 

minor basilica designation 

to Mission San Diego of Alcalá, 

the first mission St. Junípero 

established in 1769. Msgr. 

Weber felt it only fitting that St. 

Junípero’s last mission enjoy that 

same status. 

But soon after Cardinal Manning 

submitted the three-page 

application, it came back from 

Rome denied. Despite Msgr. 

Weber’s request that he make 

a second attempt, Cardinal 

Manning decided not to push 

the issue any further. 

The idea of making San 

Buenaventura a basilica was not 

given serious thought again until 

2011, when Father Elewaut 

arrived as the mission’s new pastor. 

He started going through the 

parish records and came across 

Msgr. Weber’s original application, 

along with the rejection 

letter from Rome. 

“I thought, ‘I wonder if we 

would have the opportunity 

to reopen a new request?’ ” Father 

Elewaut recalled. 

The new pastor approached Archbishop 

Gomez and, after some 

consultation, in 2014 he gave Father 

Elewaut the green light to start the 

process anew. 

As befitting a former high school 

principal, Father Elewaut spent the 

next four years studying and researching, 

building his case for the mission’s 

pastoral and historical importance. 

One of Father Elewaut’s main chal- 

July 31-August 7, 2020 • ANGELUS • 21

From left: Mission Basilica San Buenaventura pastor Father Tom Elewaut, Deacon Teodoro Landeros, Bishop Robert Barron, and Archbishop José H. 

Gomez during the July 15 Mass celebrating the mission's papal designation as a minor basilica. 


lenges was separating fact from fiction 

about San Buenaventura. He diligently 

sought out citations to back up 

statements that had been made about 

the mission’s history over the years. 

His research complete, in 2018, 

the application was submitted to the 

Congregation for Divine Worship and 

the Discipline of the Sacraments in 

Rome. 

Yet it seemed that history was fated 

to repeat itself. Later that same year, 

the application came back rejected — 

again. 

In its denial, the Vatican cited what 

Father Elewaut described as a pair of 

liturgical “faux pas” that he had made 

to accommodate the building’s limited 

space. He had placed the baptismal 

font in the sanctuary, “a liturgical 

no-no” for Rome, as he put it. Also 

frowned upon by Rome was his positioning 

of the presider’s chair in front 

of the altar, instead of off to the side. 

Father Elewaut dutifully made the 

required changes and sent a new 

application to Rome. On June 30, 

the vigil of St. Junípero’s feast day, he 

received the news he’d spent years 

praying to the saint for. 

Father Elewaut credits Archbishop 

Gomez for helping him persevere 

during the long process. 

Archbishop Gomez has often expressed 

a deep devotion to St. Junípero, 

and was instrumental in pushing 

for his canonization, something Pope 

Francis obliged in 2015, celebrating 

the saint’s canonization Mass on the 

steps of the Basilica of the National 

Shrine of the Immaculate Conception 

in Washington, D.C. 

“He’s been very encouraging and 

supportive all the way through,” Father 

Elewaut said of the archbishop. “Even 

when I thought ‘Well, if we don’t 

receive it, at least we put our best foot 

forward.’ He’d always say, ‘We’re going 

to get it, we’re going to get it, you just 

wait.’ ” 

WHAT CHANGES NOW? 

In making a church a basilica, the 

pope declares the church to be one of 

his own. 

There are just over 1,800 minor basilicas 

in the world, and before the July 

15 announcement, 87 in the whole 

United States, and six in the state of 

California. 

For Bishop Barron, the announcement 

had a special significance. Five 

years ago, two months after St. Junipero’s 

canonization, he was installed as 

episcopal vicar for the Santa Barbara 

region of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles 

in a Mass celebrated at Mission 

San Buenaventura. 

In an interview with Angelus, he said 

basilicas are a potent symbol of the 

Church’s universality. 

The designation, Bishop Barron 

explained, binds San Buenaventura to 

the four major basilicas of the mother 

Church in Rome: St. John Lateran, 

St. Peter, St. Mary Major, and St. Paul 

Outside the Walls. 

“It’s a way of linking churches spread 

all over the world to the pope,” he 

said, adding, “We put strength in diversity 

today, which is great, but we can 

sometimes overlook the importance 

of unity, what brings us all together as 

one community, despite our massive 

differences in language and culture.” 

Now that Mission San Buenaventura 

is a basilica, it will receive a series of 

symbolic “upgrades”: a cone-shaped 

canopy, known as an “ombrellino,” 

will now be placed above the church’s 

lectern; a bell mounted on a pole, 

known as the “tintinnabulum,” similar 

to that used during the Middle Ages to 


signal the pope’s approach, will now 

be used in parish processions; and the 

insignia of the Papal Cross Keys will 

appear in banners, signs, and over the 

mission’s doors. 

The faithful will also now be able to 

obtain a plenary indulgence, which 

removes the temporal punishment due 

to sins, on predetermined “basilican 

feast days.” 

But for Father Elewaut, who likes to 

teasingly remind his fellow priests that 

he is St. Junípero’s 30th successor as 

pastor of San Buenaventura, the honor 

is less about pomp and pageantry and 

more about motivating his parishioners 

to live and share their faith in a 

more authentic way. 

“This is going to put a greater responsibility 

on the parish leadership and 

the people of the parish to discover 

new ways of evangelization in the 

spirit of St. Junípero Serra and St. 

Bonaventure,” he said. 

WHAT'S NEXT? 

The change in status comes at a difficult 

time for the mission on multiple 

fronts. 

Across the state, statues of St. Junípero 

are falling in the wake of angry 

protests that wrongly blame the saint 

for the historic mistreatment of Native 

Americans. Last month, statues to 

the missionary were toppled in San 

Francisco and in Los Angeles, and the 

weekend before the fire, a long-standing 

St. Junípero statue outside the 

state capitol building in Sacramento 

was felled. 

On the day the new basilica designation 

was to be announced, the 

Ventura City Council voted to remove 

a St. Junípero statue from in front of 

City Hall. And the weekend before 

the announcement, a mysterious 

overnight fire ravaged the church of 

another mission in the Archdiocese of 

Los Angeles founded by St. Junípero, 

Mission San Gabriel Arcángel. While 

the cause of the blaze is still under 

investigation, many see its timing — 

on the same weekend that saw several 

acts of anti-Catholic vandalism around 

the country — as suspicious. 

Two days prior to the announcement, 

California’s governor ordered houses 

of worship to cease indoor gatherings 


A Mass of commemoration of the canonization 

of St. Junípero Serra was celebrated by 

Archbishop José H. Gomez at Mission San 

Buenaventura Nov. 21, 2015. 


for the foreseeable future as part of a 

statewide reclosure amid a spike in 

coronavirus infections. 

The governor’s announcement left 

Father Elewaut and parish staff scrambling 

to transform the mission’s garden 

into a liturgical space to celebrate the 

first Mass at the newly named basilica. 

Once the pandemic passes, Father 

Elewaut looks forward to hosting a 

larger, more festive celebration to 

mark the milestone. For now, he’s 

asking his saintly predecessor to help 

him keep things in perspective. 

“The famous words of St. Junípero 

Serra were ‘always forward, never 

back,’ ” he said on the night before 

the celebration Mass. “All of these 

missions have had destructive things 

happen at one time or another, whether 

it’s earthquakes, or fires, or even 

pandemics, and yet they keep enduring 

and keep going forward — that’s 

what we do.” 

Pablo Kay is the editor-in-chief of 

Angelus. 

¿Qué Legado dejará Usted? 

Es fácil incluír a su Parroquia, 

Escuela o Ministerio en su Testamento. 

Para dejar un legado perdurable, 

llámenos hoy. 

La oficina de Planned Giving 

(213) 637-7364 

PlannedGiving@la-archdiocese.org 

www.ADLALegacy.org 

14032020_ADLA_Angelus__1-3pgH_4-10.indd 1 

3/29/20 11:38 AM

A call to 

pastoral 

conversion 

Can a new Vatican 

document get parishes 

to think beyond the 

‘territorial model’? 

BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR. / 

ANGELUS 

St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican as seen through a window of Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome in this 2018 file photo. On July 20, the Vatican issued a new 

instruction on pastoral care that emphasizes the role of laymen and laywomen in the Church's mission, but said most parishes must be led by priests. 

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/AHMEDJADALLAH, REUTERS 

ROME — Frequent bathing, it 

turns out, is a bit of a modern obsession. 

Historian John Kelly observes 

that in medieval Europe, taking 

a bath was considered dangerous both 

to public morals and personal health. 

He believes widespread reticence 

to bathe was among the factors that 

favored the spread of the Black Death 

in the 14th century. 

The attitude was enshrined in a 

famous remark attributed to Queen 

Elizabeth I, to the effect that she took 

a bath only once a month “whether I 

need it or not.” 

Some Church-affairs devotees may 

have flashed on that line when they 

saw a new instruction this week from 

the Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy. 

At first blush, it may seem a document 

brought out for largely bureaucratic 

reasons whether it was actually needed 

or not. 

Yet for Americans in particular, the 

document may turn out to be surprisingly 

useful, not so much for its 

contents, really, as the conversation it 

beckons. 

Issued July 20, the instruction does 

not create new Church law or change 

existing policies, but more or less 

brings established guidelines for the 

parish under one roof. 

The formal title is, “The Pastoral 

Conversion of the Parish Community 

in the Service of the Evangelizing 

Mission of the Church.” 

Perhaps the lack of a clear explanation 

as to “Why now?” accounts for the 

highly varied ways in which it’s been 

reported. When there’s no obvious forest, 

it’s tempting to get lost in the trees. 

Consider these three headlines, drawn 

from English and Italian coverage: 

• “Vatican: Laity have a role, but most 

parishes must be led by priests.” 

• “The revolution of Pope Francis: 

From baptisms to funerals, laity can 

celebrate the sacraments.” 

• “Vatican, new rules for the parish: 

Offerings aren’t a tax to collect.” 

If you didn’t know better, you’d 

scarcely think these three pieces were 

talking about the same document. The 

first two create almost diametrically 

opposed impressions of the spirit of the 

text, from a restrictive line on the lay 

role to an almost wildly permissive one. 

As a fact-checking matter, the document 

doesn’t envision nonpriests, 

including deacons, religious, and laity 

“celebrating” the sacraments in the 

same fashion as priests. For one thing, 

they can’t say Mass. 

It confirms that a bishop may delegate 

a nonpriest to lead a Liturgy of the 

Word where a priest is not available, 

and, with the approval of the national 

bishops’ conference and the Vatican, 

nonpriests may also lead rites for 

funerals and baptisms and also witness 

weddings. In many dioceses around the 

world, that’s already common practice. 

Also in keeping with existing rules, 

the document says nonpriests may 

preach under certain circumstances 

but they can’t deliver a homily during 

Mass. With reference to the third 


CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE/AHMEDJADALLAH, REUTERS 

headline, the document reiterates Pope 

Francis’ frequent exhortations that the 

sacraments should be offered without 

charge, and financial offerings from 

those who receive them must be a “free 

act” rather than a “tax” or “fee.” 

When a new Vatican tome rolls out, 

usually the immediate question in 

parishes and diocesan chanceries is, 

“How does this affect us?” In this case, 

the quick answer is, “It really doesn’t, 

unless you want it to,” since nothing 

in it is binding unless it’s already in the 

law. 

Yet perhaps the real contribution of 

the document won’t be in the details, 

but the bigger picture. 

During the St. Pope John Paul 

II years, I would often speak with 

American bishops who met the pontiff 

during their five-year “ad limina” (“to 

the threshold”) visits to Rome. 

More than once, some of those 

bishops would ask St. John Paul why 

he showed such favoritism to the “new 

movements” in the Church, such as 

the Neocatechumenal Way, Focolare, 

Communion and Liberation, and the 

like, which some bishops felt risked 

creating a “parallel church” outside the 

diocesan and parochial structure. 

In reply, St. John Paul would often 

tell his American visitors that the 

reason they were puzzled is that in the 

United States, parishes actually work. 

In other parts of the world, he said, including 

much of Europe, parishes are 

basically sacramental “filling stations,” 

where people will come for a wedding, 

a baptism or a funeral, but otherwise 

they don’t have much contact. 

In that context, he said, the movements 

are needed for people seeking a 

deeper Christian experience, especially 

the young. 

It’s true that in a global context, American 

parishes have long been the envy 

of the Catholic world. They tend to be 

beehives of activity, with the sacraments 

being the beginning rather than 

the end. A typical American parish 

may have a youth group, a Bible study 

group, a charitable operation, a school, 

an RCIA program, a music ministry, 

and on and on. 

Indeed, the centrality of the parish is 

both the glory and the Achilles’ heel 

of American Catholicism. Americans 

tend to be ferociously committed to 


their local parish, but sometimes have 

only a notional concept of membership 

in a global Church and often resent 

higher levels of authority “interfering.” 

But today, the remarkably successful 

American parish is facing unprecedented 

strains. 

In the long term, vastly expanded 

social mobility is forcing many parishes 

to think beyond the territorial model, 

San Gabriel Mission pastor Father John 

Molyneux, CMF, distributes the Eucharist June 

6 during the parish‘s first public Mass after 

pandemic restrictions were lifted. 

VICTOR AMEMÁN 

Do you want to grow 

in relationship 

with Jesus Christ through 

the study of the Bible? 

The Catholic Bible Institute 

is now online with: 

· video presentations from Bible scholars 

and experts from across the country 

· live web conferences for prayer, 

small-group conversation, and Q&A. 

Starting in August, 

join CBI for a journey 

through the 

Old Testament. 

conceiving of their mission as directed 

to a series of communities other than 

their immediate neighborhood. 

Declining numbers of priests and 

religious are fueling greater roles for 

laypeople. Parishes are also facing a financial 

crunch caused by the coronavirus 

(COVID-19), having lost months of 

collections in many locations throughout 

the country. 

Though American parishes tend to be 

affluent by global standards, many of 

them are going to have to learn to do 

more with significantly less in the nearterm 

future. 

In other words, this actually may be 

exactly the right time for a root-andbranch 

examination of the mission and 

ministries of American parishes. Even 

if the new Vatican instruction doesn’t 

provide dazzling new answers, just 

raising the question may have the same 

refreshing effect as — well, as a nice 

warm bath, no matter what Queen 

Elizabeth thought. 

John L. Allen Jr. is the editor of Crux. 

Go to www.lacatholics.org/cbi 

to learn more and to register for 

$100 off the registration price. 

Use discount code CBI100 at check-out. 

01702020_CatholicBibleInstitute_1-3pH_Angelus_rev3.indd 2 

7/13/20 10:57 AM

IMDB 

AD REM 

BY ROBERT BRENNAN 

Christopher Carley and Clint Eastwood in "Gran Torino." 

Of Clint 

Eastwood 

and 

imperfect 

priests 

The world wags on, despite 

everything it has decided to 

throw at us, and will surely 

continue to hurl in our direction. But 

babies are still being born, and people 

are still getting to Mass either in 

person or virtually, and confessions are 

still available, as long as the supply of 

plexiglass holds up. 

We either count our blessings or wallow 

in misery. As I sit here fighting the 

urge to wallow away, there really are 

more than enough blessings to keep us 

all counting on. 

Popular culture is probably not one 

of those blessings, and its current manifestation 

is more curse than blessing 

anyway, yet it can still be a source 

of inspiration, even though the vast 

majority of the entertainment it creates 

that involves the Church or her ministers 

usually ends badly. The heady 

days when Hollywood sent love notes 

to the Church in films like the 1940s 

“Going My Way” are not coming back. 

The 1950s saw more edgy depictions 

of the priestly life, like Hitchcock’s “I 

Confess” and “On The Waterfront,” 

with the latter still being what I think 

is the greatest portrait of what a good 

priest is all about. But in the past 50 

years, give or take a decade, priests 

don’t generally fare well within the 

confines of popular culture. Sadly, 

most depictions of the Church and 

its clergy aim to demean, defile, or 

deflate. 

A lot of the pain is self-inflicted. If we 

have a bull’s-eye painted on our backs, 

it was put there by sin and scandal. It 

is only natural to expect the secular 

culture to take its swings. 

But just as God permits calamity, he 

also shows his light in the darkness, 

whether it comes from the flickering 

candlelight inside the depths of a catacomb 

with early Christians reading 

Scripture in Rome circa A.D. 273, or 

from the bright fluorescent lighting 

in an intensive care COVID-19 unit 

in an LA hospital circa now, where a 

nurse treating a patient says a silent 

Hail Mary. 

I found the flickering light of a 

profound and positive portrayal of a 

young priest in, of all places, Clint 

Eastwood’s movie “Gran Torino.” 

Eastwood has had a huge career. He 

has made a lot of good movies, several 

great movies, but all of them seem to 

share a modernist nihilism that in the 

end leaves an empty feeling. 

Not so “Gran Torino.” On the surface 

it certainly feels, and sounds, like a 

typical Clint Eastwood movie. And 

when we see his cranky, retired auto 

worker character encounter his freshout-of-the-seminary 

priest, things go 

poorly, especially for the young priest. 

In the hands of a lesser director, 

and maybe in the hands of a younger 

Eastwood, the newly minted priest’s 

first scene would have been his last. 

He would have served the purpose of 

being a fumbling, ill-equipped foil to 


Eastwood’s character and his grizzled 

and dour point of view of life, the 

Church, and priests. 

But as the movie unfolds, the young 

priest shows up at critical times, and 

at the end, he has grown in some 

wisdom. We get the sense that he is on 

his way to finding his voice, which is 

going to serve his vocation. He has also 

had some role in moving Eastwood’s 

character toward the light, rather than 

continually cursing darkness. 

Either intentionally or by divine 

intervention, popular culture in the 

21st century served up the character 

of a Catholic priest who is imperfect, 

yet moving, real, and something of an 

inspiration. 

Imagine other energetic young people 

with master’s degrees. When they 

get that first job with a Fortune 500 

company, they are not immediately 

escorted to the boardroom to begin 

giving advice to the CEO. They start 

a lot smaller; some of them, even with 

advanced degrees, start in the mailroom. 

Not so with new priests, like the 

fictional Father Janovich in “Gran 

Torino.” All priests are expected to 

be experts at the first Mass they say, 

the first confession they hear, or their 

first encounter with an embittered 

widower. 

And once ordained, all priests serve 

the exact same function at the Mass 

and within (Centers for Disease 

Control and Prevention mandated 

protocols, of course) confessionals, as 

any bishop, cardinal, or pope. They 

are hurled headfirst into the deep end 

of the baptismal font. 

Not many new priests will have 

the advantage of being inspired and 

mentored by Clint Eastwood, but 

with God’s grace and with the prayers 

and support of parish communities, 

they, too, will find their “voice” that 

will serve their vocations and become 

sources of light to those they may 

encounter who are stumbling in the 

darkness. 

Robert Brennan is director of communications 

at The Salvation Army 

California South Division in Van 

Nuys, California. 

Priest-Elect Michael Mesa 

Congratulations! 

Priest-Elect Michael 

May God Bless you on your Journey. 

Love, 

Mom & Dad 


06042020_FrMichaelMesa_Angelus_4-52x4-9.indd 1 

4/25/20 3:13 PM

J. PAUL GETTY MUSEUM 

Poetr 

for heaven’s sake 

If it’s time for 

Christians to 

reclaim their literary 

heritage, what 

does that look like? 

BY JANE GREER / ANGELUS 

Jane Greer interviewed Anthony Esolen, 

Ph.D., by phone about his new book, 

“The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord” 

(Ignatius Press, 2019, $15.26). Some of 

his remarks appear in this review of his 

book. 

Anthony Esolen, Ph.D. 

"David in Prayer," by Willem Vrelant, early 

1460s. 

IMAGE VIA NYMLF 


suppose you have in your attic 200 original 

great paintings by the masters,” says Anthony 

“Let’s 

Esolen, Ph.D. “Most of them are religious paintings 

— by Rembrandt, Raphael, Titian, Angelico. They’re 

up there! Aren’t you gonna go up there and take ’em out 

and look at ’em? Wouldn’t you do that? I think you would do 

that! Because it’d be crazy not to!” 

We have the equivalent of that attic, 2,000 years’ worth of 

Christendom’s magnificent poetry, and we seldom visit it. 

“Why? It’s all ours, there for the taking,” Esolen says. “I’m 

hoping to get Christians in general, and Catholics in particular, 

to take back this art.” 

Esolen is a renowned Catholic scholar, speaker, teacher, 

and author of more than 700 articles and two dozen books 

of translation, scholarship, and social commentary. He’s a 

tireless champion of scriptural fidelity and imaginative writing 

as he takes to task insipid modern hymns and adulterated 

Bible translations. 

What many of his readers may not know is that he’s also a 

gifted poet who for 30 years has channeled his considerable 

poetic muse into other work. With this book, he at long last 

offers us his own poetry again. 

But “The Hundredfold” is not just a book of poetry, and 

not just social or liturgical commentary. It’s all that and 

more. It actually demonstrates what it encourages: reclaiming 

the literary bounty that belongs to us as human beings, 

Christians, and Catholics. 

Monumental in almost every way except for its physical 

slenderness, the book comprises an introduction and a 

poem, “The Hundredfold.” The introduction is a gentle 

poetry primer. It also explains in detail the poem’s extraordinarily 

complex organization, comprising 100 smaller poems 

on various scriptural themes. 

There are 67 lyric poems, 12 long dramatic poems in blank 

verse, and 21 hymns. The organization of styles, stanzas, and 

lines as they tell the story of our faith is mathematically intricate 

— think “The Name of the Rose,” by Umberto Eco. 

Not everyone will be interested in admiring the poem’s 

architectonics, but any reader can enjoy the meaning and 

the sound. Esolen’s scholarship is towering, but it doesn’t get 

in the way of goodness and beauty. Still, the complexity mattered 

to him: He created the poem’s outline and planned 

most of the parts and arrangement before ever starting to 

write. 

“For heaven’s sake, why?” some might ask, and the answer 

is: for heaven’s sake. “Poets in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 

— Dante, Petrarch, Spenser, Shakespeare — wrote 

like this all the time,” he says. 

“The idea was that God created this cosmos in ‘measure, 

weight, and number’ ” (Wisdom 11:20). God made language 

but also made math, science, and music. “Artists took 

it for granted that they should try to reflect that order. … Art 

is a reflection of the power and glory of God.” 

But that was then. Today, many Catholics — many Americans 

— do not love or appreciate poetry. Schools no longer 

teach either poetry or much history, ignoring the marvelous 

heritage of poems from the past. 

The most recent century is filled with “free verse” that 

does little with sound and is almost uniformly secular, even 

though, as Esolen writes, “the most exalted themes for the 

music of man have always been religious, in a broad sense.” 

The result of all this is that for perhaps the first time in history, 

many people feel no connection to poetry. 

This makes Esolen come undone. “Poetry is dynamite! You 

don’t have to spend three weeks reading a 600-page novel. 

You could spend five minutes reading a great poem. And a 

poem will be with you for the rest of your life, maybe, if you 

commit it to memory. It’s concentrated power. 

“If you’re trying to form your children’s imaginations and 

you’re not using poetry,” he says, “it’s like you’re trying to dig 

a tunnel through a mountain with picks and shovels and you 

won’t use dynamite. Use the dynamite! 

“There’s no reason why poetry has to be so far removed 

from the ordinary experience of people. It never used to be 

that way. What I really want to do is to write for fairly intelligent 

people who would be willing to read a poem — my 

fellow believers. I’m writing for them.” 

As an example, here’s lyric poem 26, whose epigraph is 

Exodus 20:19: “Let not God speak with us, lest we die.” The 

Israelites were afraid of the thunder and lightning, and blew 

“shofars” (“horns”) from the smoking mountain where God 

waited. 

They wanted Moses to be the go-between because they 

were too fearful of God speaking directly to them. There’s 

a vast difference between the “they” in the first line and 

the “we” in the second line, between then and now — and 

someone is watching. 

“They dared not look upon Him, lest they die. 

But we go blandly past Him all day long, 

Or what we vaguely fable in the sky, 

Daddy who shakes his head when we do wrong, 

And sighs, and shrugs, and hums a little song, 

Something with faith and flowers and heaven in it. 

Not grandly evil, only small and vile, 

We seek our pleasure till the latest minute, 

Sinning away in soft assurance, while 

Satan observes us with a frozen smile.” 

In the U.S. today, Catholic churches are nearly uniform in 

limiting their music to 10 or 20 songs written in the past 50 

years. From antiquity to the 1970s, a hymn has always been 

understood as a song praising the greatness of God. Modern 

“hymns” focus instead, to a large extent, on making us feel 

happy. 

In his book, Esolen calls it “the severe constriction of 

mood: the songs at their best and most innocent are fit 

for happy children clapping their hands in a kindergarten 

jingle. At their worst they are sickly sweet songs of self-celebration 

for sinners not desiring reform or the terrible 


soul-cleaving power of love; or they are political slogans, as 

ephemeral as last week’s newspaper, though not so good for 

lining a bird cage.” 

The old hymns, from the early Fathers of the Church to 

the early 20th century, “were always talking about the Trinity. 

They were always talking about the Word made flesh,” 

Esolen says. “It’s pretty high theology. It never focuses on the 

feelings of the singer. That would have struck them as kind 

of beside the point.” 

Here’s hymn IV, for which Esolen suggests the tune 

“Picardy.” (You may know the tune as “Let All Mortal Flesh 

Keep Silence.”) He writes his hymns to fit the tunes, and 

once you’ve read — or sung — this hymn to this haunting 

tune, any other way will feel wrong. 

“From the desert came the sages, 

Crossed the Jordan in the cold, 

With the star of Judah gleaming, 

Making straight the way foretold; 

Found the Child and gave in homage 

Frankincense and myrrh and gold. 

From the desert of Judea 

Came the prophet’s piercing cry, 

Calling sinners to the waters 

Of the Jordan rushing by, 

That they might be found preparing 

For the Savior drawing nigh. 

Unto John then came our Savior, 

In the fire of righteousness; 

Dove-like, brooding on the waters, 

Fell the voice from heaven to bless; 

Then the most beloved Messiah 

Fasted in the wilderness. 

Come to us then in the desert, 

Where Thy sheep have lost their way, 

Lost the pasture by the river, 

While the lion stalks his prey; 

In the trackless night, O Savior, 

Be Thyself our break of day.” 

In the Bible, a 

hundredfold refers to 

receiving in return 

much more than has 

been given, sown, 

or invested. Esolen 

wants us to rediscover 

our powerful birthright 

of poetry — that 

dynamite! — and 

experience the hundredfold 

return of joy 

and faith. He wrote 

this book “as a first 

salvo in the Christian 

reclamation of the 

land of imagination 

and song.” 

“I am not so much showing what I can 

do as showing what can be done, and 

what might be done by people with 

greater skill than mine. I want not emulators 

and imitators but people who will 

charge past me in blood and triumph. 

I am a battered old soldier on bad knees, 

who knows that the hill must be charged 

and who knows of one or two ways it 

might be done. He takes up the torn 

standard of the cross and hobbles up 

the first reaches of that height, crying 

out instructions that he himself has not 

the strength to fulfill, teaching more by 

audacity and exposure than by success, 

willing to look like a fool, to be shot 

down in the first volleys, but knowing 

that unless he or someone like him does 

this, the hill will remain always in the 

fist of the enemy. 

So he goes.” 

Jane Greer edited and published “Plains Poetry Journal” and 

is author of “Bathsheba on the Third Day.” 

T 

NE 


TWO 

NEW SHOWS! 

TRENDING 

withh Timmerie 

10:30–11am PT 

WITH CALE CLARKE 

Learn the Faith. 

Love the Faith. 

3–4pm PT 

Fascinating facts. 

Candid conversations. 

Sharing stories that 

enhance your Faith. 

Now, that’s relevant. 

Bringing Christ to the world 

through the media 

July 31-August 7, 2020 • ANGELUS • 31

THE CRUX 

BY HEATHER KING 

The kindness of strangers 

Since 2016, I’ve lived in a large 

Craftsman bungalow in Pasadena 

that’s been divided into eight 

apartments. All we residents, of course, 

have our own space, but we also constantly 

see and run into one another. 

Our property manager lives next door, 

the landlord also owns three more 

houses around the corner, and we all 

share a giant backyard. 

This makes for an extended community 

of adults and children. 

Recently, I conducted a mental 

inventory and realized that together we 

have roots in Puerto Rico and Santa 

Barbara, Venezuela and New Hampshire, 

Indonesia and Orange County, 

Africa and West Virginia, Mexico and 

the Bay Area, El Salvador and Florida. 

We’ve spent the last three months 

together in what basically amounts to 

lockdown. Harmony has reigned. The 

time has been marked by innumerable 

acts of kindness, generosity, good 

cheer, and forbearance. 

“Hey, I just made a bunch of masks 

— do you want one?” “Hey, I picked 

up this sun hat the other day — I 

thought of you in the garden.” “Hey, 

I made a huge batch of cauliflower-cheese 

soup — can I give you 

some?” “Hey, I just got back from 

Costco and bought this six-pack of 

antihistamine spray — I’ll never use it 

all. Ya wanna couple bottles?” 

Stan brings my packages upstairs 

when the FedEx guy leaves them by 

the wrong door. Jenny stops to report 

that the day before she saw a mother 

and six baby skunks in the side yard. 

Roberto offers me a couple of big 

garden pots he scored at a construction 

Heather King in her backyard garden. 

HEATHER KING 


HEATHER KING 

site. Ruby, 2, shows off her new canary 

yellow Reeboks. 

Hortensia, my next-door neighbor, 

is some kind of saint who works as a 

special education teacher, lives in a 

small studio, and is helping put her 

daughter through college. She texts 

me on liturgical holidays with Virgin 

of Guadalupe emojis, gave me a lovely 

Christmas cactus last December, and 

more recently, returned home from 

Target with her mask and shield and 

presented me with a bag of fancy, 

individually wrapped chocolates. “For 

you, mija! You let me know if you need 

anything, OK?” 

Attending daily livestream Mass in 

my bedroom, at the sign of peace I’d 

silently greet these neighbors by name, 

bless them, and wish them well. At 

dusk, I often sit in the garden and pray 

a rosary, again silently including the 

people with whom I’m surrounded. 

Introvert though I am, I love our little 

ecosystem. My role at the compound is 

unofficial groundskeeper. 

A crew comes in once a week and 

does the heavy lifting, but I’m constantly 

puttering around weeding, picking 

up litter, clipping, repotting. I’ve also 

taken it upon myself to plant and care 

for a large backyard California native 

plant garden. The upshot: If I croak 

alone in my apartment, I’m not going 

to lie there till mummification sets in. 

If I didn’t show up for a day or two, 

someone would definitely notice. 

The quarters are somewhat close and 

that leaves room for trespasses, too. 

“Whoops, I forgot my clothes in the 

washer and you were waiting to use it, 

so sorry.” “Yikes, I watered the plants 

on my balcony and some dripped 

down to your patio below: That was 

clumsy of me, so sorry.” 

That’s how real life is lived: not in 

op-eds and Twitter feeds, but rather 

in a thousand tiny exchanges, acts of 

forbearance, and forgiveness. Real 

life is the new tenant asking, “What 

day do they come for the recycling?” 

It’s shared wonder: “Look, there are 

already tiny green fruits on the persimmon 

tree!” It’s the small sacrifice: “I’m 

going to Trader Joe’s, can I get you 

anything? 

Real life is a hurried hello in the 

morning, a shared moment out in the 

driveway at dusk. A “What’s up?” and 

“Good Lord, it’s hot today!” and “Did 

the mailman come yet, do you know?” 

That’s how real life is lived. And I 

wonder as well if this isn’t the way real 

change takes place, because what do 

we really have to offer one another 

except a welcome, a lovely garden, a 

place at the table? 

As Binx Bolling says in Walker Percy’s 

novel “The Moviegoer,” “There is only 

one thing I can do: listen to people, 

see how they stick themselves into the 

world, hand them along a ways in their 

dark journey and be handed along, and 

for good and selfish reasons.” 

Ideology — the imposed groupthink 

that increasingly marks our culture 

— is one-dimensional, has no sense 

of humor, and is boring. Reality is 

tragicomic and human. 

The other day I ran into Brandon and 

little curly-headed 3-year-old Leo in 

the backyard. The kid gazed lovingly 

up at me, pointed a chubby finger 

and burbled a word that sounded like 

“Huchhhga” and that I took to be 

“Heather.” 

“Oh cute!” I exclaimed. “He knows 

my name!” 

“Unhh,” Brandon replied. “I think 

he’s saying ‘Granny.’ ” 

Heather King is an award-winning author, speaker, and workshop leader. For more, visit heather-king.com. 


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Angelus News | July 31-August 7, 2020 | Vol. 5 No. 21

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