Angelus News | November 5, 2021 | Vol. 6 No. 22

ANGELUS 

OUR LADY TAKES 

CATALINA 

November 5, 2021 Vol. 6 No. 22

ANGELUS 

November 5, 2021 

Vol. 6 • No. 22 

3424 Wilshire Blvd., 

Los Angeles, CA 90010-2241 

(213) 637-7360 • FAX (213) 637-6360 

Published by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese 

of Los Angeles by The Tidings 

(a corporation), established 1895. 

Publisher 

ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

Vice Chancellor for Communications 

DAVID SCOTT 

Editor-in-Chief 

PABLO KAY 

pkay@angelusnews.com 

Multimedia Editor 

TAMARA LONG-GARCÍA 

Production Artist 

DIANNE ROHKOHL 

Photo Editor 

VICTOR ALEMÁN 

Managing Editor 

RICHARD G. BEEMER 

Assistant Editor 

HANNAH SWENSON 

Circulation 

CHRIS KRAUSE 

Advertising Manager 

JIM GARCIA 

jagarcia@angelusnews.com 

ON THE COVER 


A mix of Santa Catalina Island residents and mainland Guadalupanos 

led by Auxiliary Bishop Marc V. Trudeau processed 

through the streets of Avalon with the pilgrim images of Our 

Lady of Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego on Friday, Oct. 22. 

Angelus’ Tom Hoffarth was there to witness it all, and on Page 

10 he heard from pilgrims about the importance of taking their 

love for Guadalupe across the sea. 

THIS PAGE 


Archbishop José H. Gomez celebrated the 

35th annual Mass Oct. 17 at St. Matthias 

Church in Huntington Park for members 

of FUERZA, Inc., a nonprofit organization 

whose members are Spanish-speaking 

parents of children with a developmental 

disability. 

ANGELUS is published biweekly by The 

Tidings (a corporation), established 1895. 

Periodicals postage paid at Los Angeles, 

California. One-year subscriptions (26 

issues), $30.00; single copies, $3.00 

© 2021 ANGELUS (2473-2699). No part of this 

publication may be reproduced without the written 

permission of the publisher. Events and products 

advertised in ANGELUS do not carry the implicit 

endorsement of The Tidings Corporation or the 

Archdiocese of Los Angeles. 

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: 

ANGELUS, PO Box 306, Congers, NY 10920-0306. 

For Subscription and Delivery information, please 

call (844) 245-6630 (Mon - Fri, 7 am-4 pm PT). 

CONTENTS 

Pope Watch.................................................................................................................................... 2 

Archbishop Gomez..................................................................................................................... 3 

World, Nation, and Local News.......................................................................................... 4-6 

In Other Words............................................................................................................................. 7 

Father Rolheiser............................................................................................................................ 8 

Scott Hahn................................................................................................................................... 32 

Events Calendar......................................................................................................................... 33 

FOLLOW US 

facebook.com/AngelusNews 

info@angelusnews.com 

Angelus News 

14 

18 

20 

Planned tribute to Chumash aims to right past wrongs at Ventura mission 

Nuncio asks Red Mass audience to ‘take a stand’ against cancel culture 

John Allen: What’s wrong with the French fight against the seal of confessional 

@AngelusNews 

@AngelusNews 

angelusnews.com 

lacatholics.org 

22 

26 

How the Virgin Mary became the ‘Queen of History’ 

Greg Erlandson: The problem with ‘my body, my choice’ and COVID-19 

28 

Charles Camosy on Dave Chappelle and the perils of a humorless society 

Sign up for our free, daily e-newsletter 

Always Forward - newsletter.angelusnews.com 

30 

What Heather King learned following the tracks of three late American artists 

November 5, 2021 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH 

A post-pandemic plea 

In an Oct. 16 video message, Pope 

Francis praised last year’s George Floyd 

protests and said he knows “it often 

annoys people” when he promotes 

Catholic teaching on social issues like 

poverty, migration, and ecology, but he 

is going to keep doing so because the 

gospel demands it. 

“Principles such as the preferential 

option for the poor, the universal destination 

of goods, solidarity, subsidiarity, 

participation, and the common good” 

are all values that ensure “the good 

news of the gospel takes concrete form 

on a social and cultural level,” the 

pope said, addressing the virtual World 

Meeting of Popular Movements. 

The meeting brought together leaders 

of cooperatives and other grassroots 

organizations of the poor, the underemployed, 

indigenous communities, 

and farmworkers. 

The pontiff thanked members of the 

movements for demonstrating true humanity, 

“the humanity that is not built 

by turning your back on the suffering 

of those around you, but in the patient, 

committed, and often even sorrowful 

recognition that the other person is my 

brother or sister and that his or her joys 

and hopes, griefs and anxieties are also 

mine. To ignore those who have fallen 

is to ignore our own humanity that 

cries out in every brother and sister of 

ours.” 

“Do you know what comes to mind 

now when, together with popular 

movements, I think of the good Samaritan? 

Do you know what comes to 

mind? The protests over the death of 

George Floyd,” he said. 

Obviously, such protests can be 

exploited and manipulated, “but 

the main thing is that in that protest 

against this death, there was the collective 

Samaritan,” Pope Francis said. 

“This movement did not pass by on the 

other side of the road when it saw the 

injury to human dignity caused by an 

abuse of power. 

The pope went on to make a series of 

appeals, including asking pharmaceutical 

companies to release the patents 

on their COVID-19 vaccines so that 

they could be manufactured cheaply in 

poor countries “where only 3% or 4% 

of the inhabitants have been vaccinated.” 

“In the name of God,” he asked for 

the cancellation of the foreign debts of 

poor countries, and asked mining, oil, 

forestry, real estate, and big agribusiness 

companies “to stop destroying 

forests, wetlands and mountains, to 

stop polluting rivers and seas, to stop 

poisoning food and people.” 

He asked weapons manufacturers and 

dealers “to completely stop their activity, 

because it foments violence and 

war,” and he asked telecom giants to 

make it easier for teachers and students 

in poor communities to access distance 

learning. 

“In the name of God, I ask the media 

to stop the logic of post-truth, disinformation, 

defamation, slander, and 

the unhealthy attraction to dirt and 

scandal, and to contribute to human 

fraternity and empathy with those who 

are most deeply damaged,” he said. 

Pope Francis also spoke of the need to 

create more jobs, perhaps by shortening 

the workday, and to ensure a living 

wage for all workers, including those 

working in the informal economy. 

The universal basic income or 

minimum salary would guarantee that 

everyone has access “to the most basic 

necessities of life,” he said. 

Reporting courtesy of Catholic News Service 

Rome bureau chief Cindy Wooden. 

Papal Prayer Intention for November: We pray that people 

who suffer from depression or burnout will find support 

and a light that opens them up to life. 

2 • ANGELUS • November 5, 2021

NEW WORLD OF FAITH 

ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

Strengthen what remains 

There is a spiritual awakening 

going on in America, underneath 

all the controversy of our 

politics, the continued clouds of the 

pandemic, all the uncertainty about 

where our country is heading. 

People are taking stock, examining 

what they truly believe and what they 

value most deeply in their lives. I am 

reminded of the line from the Bible’s 

last book: “Awake, and strengthen what 

remains.” This is happening. 

I do not have data or evidence to 

prove it. Just a feeling. But it is a strong 

and hopeful feeling that I am getting 

from my many visits to different 

parishes around the Archdiocese of Los 

Angeles, in talking to different people, 

and to other pastors, reading the media. 

The bargain of our secular society and 

consumer economy has always been 

empty and false. It could never satisfy 

our deepest longings or answer the 

questions that we all hold in our hearts: 

Who am I? What kind of person 

should I be? What should I be living 

for, and why? What happens when I 

die? 

Especially in light of the pandemic 

and the social unrest of these past two 

years, people now seem to understand 

more clearly that there is more to life 

than working to make money to buy 

things, more to life than seeking to be 

comfortable and entertained. 

If we are paying attention, we can see 

the changes around us. It is not a mass 

movement. But quietly and steadily 

many people, of all ages and in every 

walk of life, are deepening their faith 

or making new decisions about what is 

important in their lives and how they 

want to live. 

These are encouraging signs and I believe 

this is an evangelical opportunity 

for the Church. Now is the time for 

rebuilding with God, starting from the 

most basic foundations of the Church’s 

mission. 

We are here for one purpose, to evangelize, 

to proclaim Christ, to tell the 

beautiful story of Christ’s love for us, 

expressed in his dying and rising from 

the dead for us and for our salvation, 

and what that means for how we live 

our lives. 

In its most basic form, our Christian 

story goes like this: 

We are created in the image of God 

and called to a blessed life in union 

with him and with our neighbors. 

Human life has a God-given “telos,” 

an intention and direction. Through 

our sin, we are alienated from God and 

from one another, and we live now in 

the shadow of our own death. 

By the mercy of God and his love 

for each of us, we are saved through 

the dying and rising of Jesus Christ. 

Jesus reconciles us to God and our 

neighbors, gives us the grace to be 

transformed in his image, and calls us 

to follow him in faith, loving God and 

our neighbor, and working to build his 

kingdom on earth — all in confident 

hope that we will have eternal life with 

him in the world to come. 

This is our story, our hope, and our 

promise in Christ. It is a story that is 

beautiful and true. I pray that all of us 

in the Church, every Catholic, will 

reclaim this story as their own, and 

proclaim it by the way they live, with 

joy and compassion. 

As a Church, we should not be 

worried about numbers, or money, or 

influence in society. We are here to 

save souls, and Jesus promised us that if 

we seek his kingdom first, the rest will 

be given to us. 

We have grown unaccustomed to talking 

in these terms — about salvation 

and saving souls. But people right now 

are longing for certainty, they want 

to know that their lives matter, that 

they have a purpose and meaning that 

transcends this earthly life, this bodily 

existence. 

In the face of the widespread fear 

of sickness and death that has resulted 

from this pandemic, we need to 

proclaim with new confidence the 

Now is the time for rebuilding with God, 

starting from the most basic foundations 

of the Church’s mission. 

truth that Christ in his love has overcome 

death, and that joined with him, 

we can, too. 

That means, first of all, recovering the 

truth that we are creatures of body and 

soul, that there is a part of us that is 

eternal, that we are created for communion 

with God, for participation in his 

divine life. 

This is the meaning of the two great 

holy days that we celebrate this week, 

All Saints’ and All Souls’. And the 

amazing promise of heaven, the lively 

awareness of eternity, should guide our 

path on earth. 

Pray for me and I will pray for you. 

And let us ask holy Mary, our hope, 

to stir in us the desire to bear witness 

to the power of her Son’s love and his 

resurrection in everything we do. 


WORLD 

■ US, EU push Pakistan extremism, cardinal says 

Pakistan’s lone cardinal says that western nations are partial instigators to the growing 

extremism in his country. 

“They see us (Christians) as the devil, the product of colonialism,” Cardinal 

Joseph Coutts said of Islamic terrorists in an interview with Crux. “If anything 

happens in the West … we were on pins and needles, because one more church to 

be attacked, a few more Christians will be brutally killed.” 

Cardinal Coutts noted a growing governmental and social movement in Pakistan 

to promote Islam over Christianity and Hinduism. The Pakistan parliamentary 

committee recently rejected a bill that would ban conversion before the age of 18, 

promoted to combat the increase of kidnappings, forced marriages, and conversions 

of Christian and Hindu girls. 

“What is also making it bad for us is again, the duplicity, the hypocrisy of the United 

States,” Cardinal Coutts said. “For them [extremists] the United States, European 

Union, all the Western countries or let’s say the white people, are Christians.” 

■ Spanish Civil War martyrs beatified 

One-hundred twenty-seven Catholics killed for their faith during the Spanish 

Civil War were added to the Church’s list of “blesseds” at an Oct. 16 ceremony 

in Córdoba, Spain. The newly beatified martyrs include 15-year-old 

Francisco García León, who was imprisoned by his father for refusing to remove 

a scapular and was later killed by nationalist troops; six unnamed female 

pastoral workers, ages 26 to 77, who were abducted from their parish, tortured, 

and killed; and 33-year old Father Juan Elías Medina, a champion for the poor 

who refused to deny his priesthood. 

The Spanish Civil War, from 1935-1939, saw the destruction of more than 

2,000 churches and the death of up to 8,000 Catholic clergy and religious. 

Tens of thousands of lay Catholics also were killed, and more than 2,000 have 

been beatified or canonized as martyrs. 

“After 85 years, it isn’t those horrors which now reach us, but the precious 

perfume of a greater love, the eloquent testimony of forgiveness offered to persecutors,” 

Córdoba Bishop Demetrio Fernández González wrote in a pastoral 

letter marking the beatifications. 

A man of the word — Councilor Helen Boyd speaks during a prayer vigil for murdered British lawmaker David 

Amess in Leigh-on-Sea, England, on Oct. 15. Amess, a member of the Conservative Party and one of the most 

prominent Catholic politicians in the U.K. Parliament, was stabbed to death while meeting local people in his 

constituency. Twenty-five-year-old Ali Harbi Ali, who is being investigated for ties to the Islamic State, has been 

charged with murder. | CNS/TONY O’BRIEN, REUTERS 

Former Anglican Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali. | CNS 

■ England: Another 

Anglican bishop converts 

to Catholicism 

A former Anglican bishop in England 

announced that he had joined 

the Catholic Church, the third to do 

so this year. 

Michael Nazir-Ali of Rochester, who 

was ordained an Anglican priest in 

1976, explained his decision to leave 

the Church of England in an October 

17 op-ed in the Daily Mail. 

“When I was ordained an Anglican 

priest back in 1976, it was a moment 

of joy, and hope,” he wrote. “The 

Church’s values were everything I 

believed in … Back then the Church 

celebrated and defended those values. 

It wasn’t reticent, apologetic or 

ashamed of them.” 

“I could never have imagined that 

45 years later I would feel compelled 

to leave the Anglican Church I have 

loved,” Nazir-Ali wrote. 

Nazir-Ali, who is married and has 

two children, is expected to be ordained 

as a Catholic for the Ordinariate, 

a community of Catholics who 

practice using approved Anglican 

traditions. 


NATION 

■ New bishop named for troubled Minnesota diocese 

Pope Francis has named a new bishop for the Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota, 

after its last bishop resigned amid a Vatican investigation into abuse cover-up 

allegations. 

Fifty-three-year-old Bishop Andrew Cozzens, an auxiliary of St. Paul-Minneapolis, 

will replace Bishop Michael Hoeppner, the Vatican announced Oct. 18. 

Bishop Hoeppner was accused of forcing a man studying to become a deacon 

to recant an allegation of abuse by a priest when he was a teenager. The bishop 

denied the accusations, but a Vatican investigation led Pope Francis to ask for his 

resignation last April. 

Bishop Cozzens is known for his work in evangelization and accompanying victim-survivors 

of clerical abuse. The appointment drew praise from Catholics who 

have worked with him in both areas. 

“Please pray for Bishop Cozzens!” tweeted Gina Barthel the day of the announcement. 

“He has met with me monthly for the past 7 1/2 years as I recovered 

from clergy abuse. He called me early this morning to reassure me he’s not abandoning 

me — that’s the kind of shepherd he is.” 

■ Latino Catholics lead in vaccination numbers 

Latino Catholics are the most vaccinated religious group, according to a new 

Pew Research Center study. 

The study, released in late September, found that 86% of Latino Catholics said 

they were partially or fully vaccinated as of August, 4% higher than the general 

Catholic population and 7% higher than white Catholics. 

Though Latino Protestants have vaccination rates higher than white Protestants, 

they still lag behind Latino Catholics at only 67% with at least one dose. 

One potential cause for higher rates of vaccination is a concerted effort by the 

clergy to promote vaccines, including an August video message in Spanish with 

Pope Francis, Archbishop José H. Gomez, and other Latino bishops. 

Wisconsin’s rosary warriors — Students at St. John the Baptist School in Howard, Wisconsin, recited two 

decades of the rosary following an all-school Mass on Oct. 13. All Catholic schools in the Diocese of Green Bay 

recited the rosary “for the salvation of our world” in unison at 9 a.m. on Oct. 13 to commemorate Mary’s final 

apparition to three children in Fátima, Portugal, in 1917. | CNS/SAM LUCERO, THE COMPASS 

Graffiti on a door of Denver’s Catholic cathedral 

on Oct. 10. | CNS/ARCHDIOCESE OF DENVER 

■ U.S. anti-Catholic 

vandalism count hits 100 

More than 100 acts of vandalism and 

destruction against Catholic sites in the 

U.S. have been committed since May 

2020, according to the country’s Catholic 

bishops. 

Most recently, the exterior wall and 

door of Denver’s Cathedral Basilica 

of the Immaculate Conception were 

spray-painted with satanic and profane 

graffiti; the following day, a vandal 

splattered paint across the exterior of 

St. Peter Italian Catholic Church in 

Los Angeles. 

Incidents have been registered in 29 

states and have ranged from statue and 

property destruction to arson. 

“In all cases, we must reach out to the 

perpetrators with prayer and forgiveness,” 

New York Cardinal Timothy 

Dolan and Oklahoma City Archbishop 

Paul Coakley said in a joint statement 

on behalf of the U.S. bishops. 

“True, where the motive was retribution 

for some past fault of ours, we 

must reconcile; where misunderstanding 

of our teachings has caused anger 

toward us, we must offer clarity; but 

this destruction must stop. This is not 

the way.” 


LOCAL 

Wendell Callahan, Ph.D., at the Oct. 20 Zoom training 

session. 

■ ADLA launches 

Mental Health Ministry 

for parishes 

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has 

launched a series of Mental Health 

Ministry workshops aimed at helping 

local parishes and Catholic organizations 

to accompany those suffering 

from mental illness. 

The first of four Zoom workshops 

organized by the Office of Life, Justice 

and Peace was led by Wendell Callahan, 

Ph.D., of the University of San Diego’s 

Mental Health Institute on Oct. 

20. It drew more than 150 registered 

local parish leaders representing 87 

parishes around the archdiocese. The 

sessions take place every Wednesday 

at 6:30 p.m. through Nov. 10. 

The training sessions are aimed at 

helping bring the new ministry to the 

parish level. 

“Training and collaboration are essential 

to equip parishes and Catholic 

organizations with the awareness, 

dialogue, and skills to companion 

those with mental illness,” said Lauren 

Stadelman, MPH, who leads the 

Mental Health Ministry. “This is a 

powerful avenue to building welcoming 

and supportive spaces for people 

to encounter Christ’s healing love.” 

For more information, visit LifeJusticeandPeace.lacatholics.org/mental-health. 

■ LA nixes St. Junípero’s name from downtown park 

The city of Los Angeles is removing the name of St. Junípero Serra from a 

downtown park. 

Mayor Eric Garcetti, who was joined by LA City Councilmembers Mitch 

O’Farrell and Kevin de León at an Oct. 11 event announcing the change, said 

that an “indigenous cultural easement” would be created “to give local indigenous 

communities priority access to the park for practice of traditional ceremonies.” 

The park located across from Union Station will be referred to as La Plaza Park 

until a new name is decided upon. The park’s statue of St. Junípero was one of 

several vandalized around the state last summer during a wave of protests against 

racial injustice. 

At St. Junípero’s canonization ceremony in 2015, Pope Francis affirmed the 

Spanish friar “sought to defend the dignity of the native community, to protect it 

from those who had mistreated and abused it.” 

■ Vandals strike Manhattan Beach parish 

Police are investigating yet another vandalism attack on a local Catholic 

church. 

Anti-Catholic messages in red paint were found scrawled on the wall and 

prayer walk outside of American Martyrs Church in Manhattan Beach the 

morning of Oct. 17 before the parish’s 6:45 a.m. Sunday Mass, pastor Msgr. 

John Barry told parishioners. 

Surveillance video footage from the parish showed two people around midnight 

the night before appearing “to discharge an aerosol can believed to be 

spray paint” before fleeing. 

“My first response was not to give publicity to this kind of hate, since it will 

only encourage these people,” wrote Msgr. Barry in a message to parishioners. 

“But at the same time, I know we must confront these acts of vandalism and 

destruction which have been increasing not just in our area, but across the 

country.” 

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Manhattan Beach Police 

Department Tip Line at 310-802-5171. 

Not your average field trip — Students from Santa Isabel School in Boyle Heights walked nearly 4 miles from 

their school to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to attend the Missionary Childhood Association (MCA) 

Mass Oct. 20. At the Mass, archdiocesan schools were honored for their fundraising efforts to cover school costs 

and provide meals to children in remote rural areas in Bangladesh and Colombia. | DORIS BENAVIDES 

Y 


V 

IN OTHER WORDS... 

Letters to the Editor 

A student of ‘The other Guadalupe’ 

Thank you for your article about ‘The other Guadalupe’ in the Oct. 22 

issue. 

I was blessed to have visited the small town of Guadalupe in Spain after I finished 

the Camino de Santiago in July 2018. I went specifically to Guadalupe to 

see the Black Madonna that I read about and researched while studying for my 

Master of Arts at Loyola Marymount University. 

I found the article to be very accurate and well-researched, drawing on authoritative 

information from the Royal Spanish Association of Official Chroniclers, and 

so I also learned some new details from it. 

— Deacon Gabe Saavedra, St. Bruno Church, Whittier 

Getting synodality right 

Archbishop José H. Gomez’s column on the synodal path in the Oct. 22 issue is 

a superior explanation of what the Holy Father is trying to do with respect to the 

“Synod on Synodality.” Thank you for this wonderful and informative information. 

— Deacon Thomas E. Brandlin, Los Angeles 

Y 

Continue the conversation! To submit a letter to the editor, visit AngelusNews.com/Letters-To-The-Editor 

and use our online form or send an email to editorial@angelusnews.com. Please limit to 300 words. Letters 

may be edited for style, brevity, and clarity. 

The Church’s true gifts 

View more photos 

from this gallery at 

AngelusNews.com/photos-videos 

Young people bring up the gifts during the offertory at the 35th annual Mass with Archbishop José H. Gomez 

Gomez for members of FUERZA, Inc., at St. Matthias Church in Huntington Park on Oct. 17. FUERZA was 

established almost 36 years ago to support Spanish-speaking families as they deal with the diagnosis and prognosis 

of their children with disabilities. | VICTOR ALEMÁN 

“The aim of a 

compassionate society 

should be assisted living 

rather than an acceptance 

of assisted suicide.” 

~ Three Catholic, Anglican, and Jewish leaders in a 

joint appeal to U.K. lawmakers to reject a bill that 

would legalize assisted suicide. 

“Love is free or it is not love.” 

~ Pope Francis in a Netflix documentary about love 

that will air on Christmas Day. 

“Even in an America with 

policies and public squares 

designed for them, children 

would still act like children. 

We will have to decide for 

ourselves whether we are 

willing to welcome them as 

they are.” 

~ Writer Stephanie H. Murray in an Oct. 25 op-ed 

for The Week titled “The parenting problem the 

government can’t fix.” 

“Science and religion seem 

to be in conflict only if you 

think of both of them as 

closed books of rules and 

facts, each demanding 

infallible credulity.” 

~ Brother Guy Consolmagno SJ, director of the 

Vatican Observatory, in an Oct. 22 article for 

America magazine titled “I am a Jesuit scientist. I’m all 

for vaccines, but we have to do more than just ‘follow 

the science.’ ” 

Do you have photos or a story from your parish that you’d like to share? Please send to editorial @angelusnews.com. 


IN EXILE 

FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI 

Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father 

Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual 

writer; ronaldrolheiser.com. 

Permission to be sad 

“Let the preacher say, you have 

permission to be sad!” 

In the book “When the Bartender 

Dims the Lights” (Your Nickel’s 

Worth Publishing, 2019) Ron 

Evans writes: 

“There’s a line I came upon in the 

musings of a preacher: On a Sunday 

morning many of the people sitting 

before you are the walking wounded, 

and you need to give them permission 

to be sad. In a world obsessed with 

happiness, where being great is all 

that matters, let the preacher say, you 

have permission to be sad. And in 

a world where old age becomes the 

golden years, where every problem 

can be fixed and every ailment cured, 

let the preacher say, you have permission 

to be sad. In a world preoccupied 

with prolonging life, where death is a 

forbidden word, let the preacher say, 

you have permission to die. And let 

the preacher say, you have permission 

to live in memories of a lonesome 

kind.” 

Today neither our culture nor our 

churches give us sufficient permission 

to be sad. Occasionally, yes, when a 

loved one dies or some particular tragedy 

befalls us, we are allowed to be 

sad, to be down, tearful, not upbeat. 

But there are so many other occasions 

and circumstances in our lives where 

our souls are legitimately sad, and our 

culture, churches, and egos do not 

give us the permission we need to feel 

what we are experiencing — sadness. 

When that is the case, and it often 

is, we can either deny how we feel 

and go through the motions of being 

upbeat, or we can give way to our sadness, 

but only at the price of feeling 

there is something wrong with us, that 

we should not be feeling this way. 

Both are bad. 

Sadness is an unavoidable part of 

life and not, in itself, a negative thing. 

In sadness, there is a cry to which we 

are often deaf. In sadness, our soul 

gets its chance to speak and its voice 

is telling us that a certain frustration, 

loss, death, inadequacy, moral failure, 

or particular circumstance or season 

of our lives is real, bitter, and unalterable. 

Acceptance is our only choice 

and sadness is its price. When that 

voice is not listened to, our health and 

sanity feel a strain. 

For example, in a particularly challenging 

(raw) book, “Suicide and the 

Soul,” the late James Hillman states 

that sometimes what happens in a suicide 

is that the soul is so frustrated and 

wounded that it kills the body. For reasons 

too complex and many to know, 

that soul could not make itself heard 

and was never given permission to feel 

what it was, in fact, experiencing. At 

an extreme, this can kill the body. 

We see this in a less extreme (though 

also deadly) way in the phenomenon 

of anorexia among young women. 

There is an irresistible pressure from 

the culture (often coupled with actual 

bullying on social media) to have a 

perfect body. But nature doesn’t issue 

many of those. Thus, these young 

women need permission to accept the 

limitations of their own bodies and to 

be OK with the sadness that comes 

with that. Unfortunately, this isn’t 

happening enough, and so instead of 

accepting the sadness of not having 

the body they want, these young women 

are forced to try to measure up. We 

see its sad effects. 

Psychotherapists, who do dream 

work with clients, tell us that when we 

have bad dreams, the reason is often 

that our soul is angry with us. Since 

it cannot make itself heard during 

the day, it makes itself heard at night 

when we are helpless to drown it out. 

There are many legitimate reasons 

for being sad. Some of us are born 

with “old souls,” poets, over-sensitive 

to the pathos in life. Some of us suffer 

from bad physical health, others from 

fragile mental health. Some of us 

have never been sufficiently loved and 

honored for who we are; others have 

had our hearts broken by infidelity 

and betrayal. Some of us have had 

our lives irrevocably ripped apart by 

abuse, rape, and violence; others are 

simply hopeless, frustrated romantics 

with perpetually crushed dreams, 

agonizing in nostalgia. 

Moreover, all of us will have our own 

share of losing loved ones, of breakdowns 

of all sorts, and bad seasons 

that test the heart. There are a myriad 

of legitimate reasons to be sad. 

This needs to be honored in our 

Eucharists and in other church gatherings. 

Church is not just a place for 

upbeat celebration. It is also supposed 

to be a safe place where we can break 

down. Liturgy, too, must give us 

permission to be sad. D.H. Lawrence 

once famously wrote: 

“The feeling I don’t have I don’t 

have. 

The feelings I don’t have, I won’t say 

I have. 

The feeling you say you have, 

you don’t have. 

The feelings you would like us both 

to have, we neither of us have.” 

We need to be true to our souls by 

being true to their feelings. 


The Guadalupe pilgrim image 

procession pauses at Bird Park 

Aviary in Avalon for a moment 

of prayer and reflection led by 

Bishop Marc V. Trudeau. 

ISLAND TIME FOR OUR LADY 

LA’s Guadalupe pilgrim images made their presence 

felt during a jubilee visit to Santa Catalina Island. 

BY TOM HOFFARTH / PHOTOGRAPHY BY VICTOR ALEMÁN 

Curiosity got the best of the 

locals. 

A joyous procession of prayerful 

hymns and enthusiastic chanting 

rang through the tiny residential 

streets of Avalon on Santa Catalina 

Island as the sun was about to go 

behind the central ridge on a late 

Friday afternoon. It was made up of 

a mix of some 100 visitors from the 

mainland and their newfound friends 

who followed behind framed images 

of Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. 

Juan Diego secured to the back of 

utility trucks. 

Neighbors poked their heads out and 

appeared on their porches. Tourists 

behind the wheels of electric rental 

cars stopped in their tracks. Some 

joined in and asked what the commotion 

was about. 

Among the pilgrims was Auxiliary 

Bishop Marc V. Trudeau, who sensed 

a teachable moment for the inquisitive. 

“There’s something wonderful about 

this place — it’s different living here, 

very laid back,” said Bishop Trudeau, 

who oversees the San Pedro Pastoral 

Region that includes Avalon. “So 


when you can get a parade of people 

with a couple floats and all the colors, 

people here can’t help but want to 

know what’s going on.” 

A 2-mile loop starting and ending on 

the front steps of St. Catherine of Alexandria 

Church — past City Hall, up 

Avalon Canyon Road to the historic 

Bird Park aviary before circling back 

— gave way to a cavalcade escorted 

by local Knights of Columbus and 

cheered on by young children in 

colorful costumes. 

The trek was just one portion of 

the dawn-to-dark day of pilgrimage 

on Oct. 22, marking the first of the 

images’ several stops around the archdiocese 

leading up to the 90th annual 

procession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, 

coinciding this year with the San Gabriel 

jubilee year marking 250 years of 

Catholicism in Los Angeles. 

The day began just after sunrise 

with Bishop Trudeau’s blessing of 

the images as they were loaded onto 

a small boat, Lotus, in Long Beach, 

serenaded by a mariachi band and 

young dancers. The boat needed five 

hours to cross the 26-mile waterway 

and deliver the pair of 8-by-4 images. 

Meanwhile, some 60 pilgrims from 

nine parishes in the archdiocese made 

the trip to Avalon in one hour on the 

Catalina Express. 

“It might sound like a slow boat 

ride,” said Lotus owner Carm Gullo, a 

parishioner at St. Catherine of Siena 

Church in Laguna Beach. “But it was 

very efficient.” 

Mark Padilla, a Knight of Columbus 

for the last 20 years from St. Anthony 

Church in San Gabriel, has become 

known as the “chauffeur” of the 

images as it goes to various events, 

including to visit the incarcerated 

in prisons. He said he took the day 

off his job as a sixth-grade teacher at 

St. Joseph School in La Puente to 

orchestrate the delivery, knowing what 

he experienced at Catalina would be 

something he could share with his 

students. 

“We see Our Lady of Guadalupe 

images all through LA in Hispanic 

communities, but it’s important it 

comes to Catalina Island and goes 

everywhere, as it should,” said Padilla. 

“We need to know her unique message 

as a guidepost that points us to 

our faith. I have a great devotion and 

responsibility to her.” 

Maria Aranda, from St. Mary of the 

Assumption Church in Whittier, followed 

the procession through Catalina 

banging her tambourine, joined by 

her husband and daughter as well as 

her brother and his wife. 

Aranda explained in Spanish how 

she has attended the parades through 

Maria Aranda from St. Mary of the Assumption 

Church in Whittier (center) and her husband, Jesus 

Castaneda Gomez (far left) during the procession on 

the streets of Avalon. 


LA before, but felt it was important to 

honor Our Lady of Guadalupe in Avalon 

after experiencing her presence 

during a recovery from lymphoma 

seven years ago. 

“She had a lot of pain during the 

biopsies and chemotherapy and bone 

marrow transplants, but she kept 

praying to Our Lady of Guadalupe 

for giving her the blessing to survive,” 

translated Aranda’s daughter, Elizabeth 

Castaneda. 

St. Catherine of Alexandria, one of 

the 22 parishes designated as a “Forward 

in Mission” pilgrimage site during 

the jubilee, has history on its side. 

While established in 1902, its home 

base of Catalina Island was a recorded 

site where Masses of thanksgiving 

were celebrated by Spanish explorer 

Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542, as 

well as Sebastian Vizcaino in 1602 — 

the latter of which is represented in 

several murals on the church walls. 

As a St. Catherine parishioner, Dina 

Octavo said she felt blessed the icons 

could come to her since she rarely is 

able to leave the island. She has only 

experienced the processions via the 

internet. 

Octavo said she learned of Our Lady 

of Guadalupe decades ago when a 

local prayer group encouraged her to 

offer prayers as she struggled for eight 

years to start a family. A month after 

doing so, Octavo said she became 

pregnant. She eventually needed 

an emergency helicopter trip from 

Catalina to Long Beach to deliver her 

only son, who is now a 34-year-old 

paramedic in Avalon. 

“Every time I see the image of the 

Virgin of Guadalupe, I can relive 

the joy and hope I felt during those 

moments,” Octavo said. “You can see 

my emotions. I see how other people 

experience the faith when they pin 

the notes on the mantle (green banner 

draping the icons) asking for help and 

prayers. Seeing that today has been 

special to us. Mary brings all of us 

together.” 

As he reflected on the day’s events 

before the boat trip back home, Bishop 

Trudeau hoped those taking the 

trip could realize the pilgrimage was 

far from finished. 

“We’re in such a hurry to get places 

these days that we don’t always appreciate 

the process of getting there,” 

he said. “A pilgrimage is about the 

process. You don’t stop the pilgrimage 

when you arrive at the destination. 

Getting to Catalina wasn’t the 

pilgrimage. It’s getting back home 

and continuing that even when you 

are tired. Looking back on history, 

it’s wonderful for us to do these small 

pilgrimages, which are models or 

snapshots of the larger pilgrimage, 

which is our lives.” 

During an evening Mass before the 

A view from the choir loft as Bishop Trudeau, center, 

celebrates at the 6:30 p.m. Mass at St. Catherine of 

Alexandria Church, capping off the daylong event 

in Avalon. 


A woman prays before the pilgrim images at St. Catherine of Alexandria Church in Avalon. Faithful pinned prayer 

intentions to the green mantle draped between the two images. 

pilgrims headed back to the mainland, 

Bishop Trudeau also punctuated 

a homily with exclamations that 

were heard throughout the day by 

the “peregrinos”: “Viva la Virgen de 

Guadalupe! Viva San Juan Diego! 

Viva Christo Rey!” 

He then added a fourth: “Viva Santa 

Catalina!” 

Tom Hoffarth is an award-winning 

journalist based in Los Angeles. 

‘La Peregrina’ 

blazes a trail 

After leaving St. Catherine 

of Alexandria Church 

on Oct. 23, the traveling 

Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego 

images were set to continue on to 

St. Martha Church in Huntington 

Park, St. Gregory the Great 

Church and St. Mary of the 

Assumption Church in Whitter, 

and Mission Santa Inéz in Solvang 

to finish the month. 

For the full schedule of the 

images’ Southern California 

itinerary leading up to the Dec. 

5 procession and Mass in honor 

of Our Lady of Guadalupe, visit 

LACatholics.org/Guadalupe.

A RESTLESS FAREWELL 

Thousands of Chumash natives buried 

in a long-forgotten cemetery at San 

Buenaventura Mission may finally get 

the chance to rest in peace. 

BY ANN RODGERS 

Beneath a 99-year-old building at 

Mission Basilica San Buenaventura 

lies an abandoned cemetery 

with the remains of about 

3,000 Chumash Catholics who died 

between the mission’s founding by St. 

Junípero Serra in 1782 and the mid- 

19th century. 

Now, the pastor of the mission is 

working with Chumash leaders and 

an archaeologist to identify and commemorate 

the dead. 

It is “time to formally address this as 

a point of reconciliation and healing 

with the Chumash people,” said the 

pastor, Father Tom Elewaut. 

In 1862, with the cemetery at capacity, 

all headstones and the remains of 

perhaps 1,000 people were transferred 

to a new cemetery. But most of the 

Chumash had been buried without 

coffins, wrapped in cloth, which was 

their tradition. After decades, their 

remains were impossible to detect and 

were not recovered, he said. In 1922, 

the mission built Holy Cross School 

over the cemetery, a building that now 

serves as parish offices. 

For the Chumash, those graves represent 

many losses inflicted on their 

people as a consequence of Spanish 

colonization — loss of homes, loss of 

lives and loved ones, loss of culture, 

loss of respect. 

“I will be 65 this year. The people 

coming up behind me in their 30s 

and 40s are very vocal about the 

intergenerational trauma and why 

they don’t know about, why they 

didn’t grow up in, this place of pride 

in their heritage,” said Julie Tumamait-Stenslie, 

chairperson of the Barbareño-Ventureño 

Band of Mission 

Indians. 

In addition to being a Chumash 

traditional singer and artist, she is 

certified to monitor construction sites 

for Indigenous archaeological finds. 


A building now used to house the parish offices of 

Mission Basilica San Buenaventura (lower center, to 

the left of the church) was built over an abandoned 

Chumash cemetery a century ago. | SHUTTERSTOCK 

She also advises universities and other 

institutions on the repatriation of such 

artifacts. For her, the buried cemetery 

is like an open wound. 

Tumamait-Stenslie believes the 

Chumash buried there were deprived 

of the rites of their people, who held 

that the soul lingers after death to bid 

farewell in dreams and visions, then 

shoots like a comet into the western 

sky. Did anyone sing them into the 

next life — with prayers to remember 

their loved ones — as the mission now 

allows her to sing when Chumash 

Catholics have been lowered into 

their graves? 

As for those transferred to the new 

cemetery in 1862, “I wonder if they 

were just dumped,” she said. 

Father Elewaut is similarly disturbed 

that the church was built over the 

cemetery. “I don’t know how they 

could not have known it was there,” 

he said. 

Shortly after he was assigned to the 

mission in 2011, someone contacted 

him demanding the demolition of a 

building that stood over a Chumash 

burial site. “I had no idea what they 

were talking about, but I promised to 

look into it,” he said. 

He found it was true. The cemetery 

troubled him until, in summer 2020, 

An archive photo of 

Mission San Buenaventura 

from the early 1900s shows 

the plot of land next to the 

mission where the remains 

of Chumash natives were 

buried. A school was later 

built over it. | MISSION BA- 

SILICA SAN BUENAVENTURA 

he had an 

opportunity to 

speak at a protest 

by Indigenous 

people 

who wanted 

a statue of St. 

Junípero Serra 

removed from 

the Ventura 

City Hall. They 

viewed St. 

Junípero as a racist, responsible for the 

deaths of countless Native people. 

While he and Tumamait-Stenslie 

have very different interpretations of 

the mission period, Father Elewaut acknowledges 

the unhealed wounds and 


San Buenaventura pastor Father Tom 

Elewaut speaks at a Mass celebrating the 

elevation of the mission to the rank of minor 

basilica in July 2020. | COLTON MACHADO 

continued suffering of the Chumash. 

Identifying and commemorating the 

dead is “an opportunity for recognition 

and healing that won’t just ignore 

what happened,” he said. 

Father Elewaut believes the history 

of the missions and the Indigenous 

people is complex, and that St. 

Junípero deserves sainthood in part 

for his heroic efforts to protect Native 

Americans from abuse by the military. 

When several speakers brought up 

the cemetery, he saw an opening for 

constructive action. 

“I made a public proclamation that 

it was long overdue to have some 

form of recognition of them being 

buried on the grounds of this mission. 

I promised that before I leave my 

pastorate, I would work with the tribal 

chairperson to make sure that was 

accomplished,” he said. 

Tumamait-Stenslie heard his promise. 

She had first met Father Elewaut 

in the mission garden as she burned 

white sage in an abalone shell for 

descendants of Spanish soldiers on 

pilgrimage to repent for the sins of 

their ancestors. 

The priest had asked who she was. 

When she told him, she said, he let 

her proceed, explaining that he only 

allowed such ceremonies if the celebrants 

had permission from the Chumash. 

His intent was to respect the 

integrity of Chumash tradition and 

their relationship with the mission. 

“I appreciate Father Tom. He 

recognizes that our families built that 

mission. Not by choice, but it is ours,” 

said Tumamait-Stenslie, who is not a 

practicing Catholic. 

After his pledge, she connected him 

with Robert Lopez, professor emeritus 

of anthropology and archaeology at 

Moorpark College and archivist of the 

Ventura County Archaeological Society. 

He had spent decades studying 

the sacramental records of Mission 

San Buenaventura, and was digitizing 

them for genealogical use. 

His work is invaluable because the 

Chumash had no written language, 

Tumamait-Stenslie said: “We have no 

written documentation other than the 

baptismal records.” 

The sacramental books — penned in 

elaborate 18th-century Spanish script 

— include baptisms, weddings, and 

burials. Early entries often had Chumash 

birth names, and sometimes a 

village of origin. Lopez has entered 

4,330 individuals up to 1844, with an 

estimated 3,000 remaining. About half 

died and were buried at Mission San 

Buenaventura. 

The records are enlightening 

because “they are connected to a 

mission and that mission absorbed 

predominantly one tribe,” Lopez said. 

The Chumash might have become 

celebrated as one of the great peoples 

of America, had disease not decimated 

them. “The population for the Chumash 

was very high when the Spanish 

arrived. It diminished to just a few 

thousand individuals at the very end,” 

Lopez said. 

Before colonization, the Chumash 

occupied 7,000 square miles along 

some of California’s most iconic coastline. 

Their territory extended inland 

about 40 miles from Malibu, stretching 

north past Point Conception and 

included the islands of San Miguel, 

Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz and Anacapa. 

They prospered off land and sea, using 

harpoons to catch swordfish, with 

nets and lines for smaller fish, Lopez 

said. Their extensive trade routes 

included seafaring on wooden rafts. 

They exercised responsible governance, 

such as conserving game by not 

hunting deer during fawning season. 

“They called themselves the People 

of the Big Rock,” Lopez said, referring 

to Mugu Rock. 

“The Franciscans did not consider 

the Chumash savages,” he said. 

“They understood that they were 

dealing with a culture that was very 

advanced.” 

One friar spoke fluent Chumash and 

wrote about their social structure. An 

aspect he missed was that tribal status 

was inherited through mothers, not 

fathers. 

“Unfortunately, they didn’t understand 

that the Chumash were a 

matrilineal society. If they had, they 


would have asked the names of the 

women,” he said, noting that mothers 

were often omitted in the records. 

The friars also did not understand 

that they carried diseases that they 

could resist, but the Chumash could 

not. No matter what one thinks of 

their methods, “their intent was to 

teach the people, not to kill them,” 

Father Elewaut said. 

But as the Chumash died, traditions 

died with them. Stories and rituals 

were randomly preserved by individuals 

who practiced them in secret. 

Many Chumash beliefs about death 

are lost or unclear, Tumamait-Stenslie 

said. 

What is clear is that burial sites are 

robbed for bones, jewelry, tools, and 

other items buried with the Chumash. 

“There is a market in selling artifacts 

from these graves,” she said. 

Tumamait-Stenslie and Father 

Elewaut believe that the memorial 

project will restore respect for the 

dead and some sense of connection to 

their descendants. 

They envision a digitized list of the 

dead and their family relationships, as 

well as a monument. Tumamait-Stenslie 

intends to consult widely about 

the memorial design, not only with 

her own band but other Chumash 

groups and individuals who have left 

the region. 

“It’s not just my family that’s buried 

there, so it’s not just my decision,” she 

said. “Maybe it will be some sort of art 

form. I personally would like to see 

the names of our people, which are 

beautiful in our language.” 

Father Elewaut hopes that restoring 

the names will help to convey the 

missionaries’ desire to recognize and 

minister to the Native Americans. 

“Despite the negative things that 

happened, something good has come 

because the Church kept accurate, 

detailed records,” he said. “This gives 

the history, the ancestry, of Indigenous 

people for whom there otherwise 

would be no records.” 

Ann Rodgers is a longtime religion 

reporter and freelance writer whose 

awards include the William A. Reed 

Lifetime Achievement Award from the 

Religion News Association. 


Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic 

nuncio to the U.S., preaches at the 39th 

Annual Red Mass Oct. 20. The French 

prelate recently revealed that Pope Francis 

has asked him to remain on the job past 

the standard retirement age of 75. 

Time to take a stand 

The pope’s ambassador to the U.S. encouraged legal professionals to ‘be 

open to an encounter with the truth’ at this year’s Red Mass. 

BY PABLO KAY / PHOTOGRAPHY BY VICTOR ALEMÁN 

Preaching at LA’s 39th annual 

“Red Mass,” the pope’s ambassador 

to the United States called 

on members of the legal community 

to defend the voiceless of society even 

in the face of political pressure or the 

threat of being “canceled.” 

“It is not always easy to do the right 

thing, to stand up for the dignity of 

the person, the needy, the poor, the 

voiceless members of our society,” said 

Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic 

nuncio to U.S., in his homily at the 

Oct. 20 liturgy at the Cathedral of Our 

Lady of the Angels. 

“It is not easy to take a stand,” he 

continued, “when there is so much 

political pressure upon you and 

when instead of tolerating differences 

and searching for solutions through 

dialogue, the looming threat of being 

canceled strikes fear.” 

“In those moments,” he added, “we 

must ask the Spirit of God for strength, 

mindful of St. Paul’s words, ‘I can do 

all things through Him who strengthens 

me.’” 

Organized by the local chapter of 

the St. Thomas More Society, the Red 

Mass is an ecumenical, civic celebration 

that honors judges, lawyers, legislators, 

and legal professionals typically 

celebrated around the start of the legal 

year in many Catholic dioceses. The 

Wednesday night liturgy was presided 

by Los Angeles Archbishop José H. 

Gomez. 

Coming a year after the 2020 Red 

Mass, which was limited to virtual 

participation due to the COVID-19 

pandemic, several prominent civic figures 

attended this year’s liturgy. Among 

those who read prayer petitions during 

the Mass were acting U.S. Attorney 

Tracy Wilkison; Pete Peterson, dean 

of the Pepperdine School of Public 

Policy; and the LAPD’s highest ranking 

female officer, Assistant Chief Office 


Members of the St. 

Thomas More Society of 

LA and guests at the Red 

Mass, from left: Michele 

Friend; Katyadela Calderon, 

DM; acting U.S. 

Attorney Tracy Wilkison; 

retired Judge Jacqueline 

A. Connor; Judge Stephen 

M. Moloney; Pete 

Peterson of Pepperdine 

University; Vince Farhat, 

KM; Renee Pea, consul 

general, Republic of Croatia; 

Armando Paz; and 

LAPD Assistant Chief 

Beatrice Girmala. 

of Operations Beatrice Girmala. 

In following with tradition, several 

representatives of other faiths, including 

Islam, the Church of Latter-Day 

Saints, and various Protestant denominations, 

were introduced at the Mass 

by longtime LA interreligious dialogue 

leader and Greek Catholic priest Rt. 

Rev. Alexei Smith. The Mass’ ceremonial 

honor guard was led by members 

of the Knights of St. Peter Claver and 

the Knights of Columbus. 

Vince Farhat, chair of the St. Thomas 

More Society of Los Angeles, said that 

the ecumenical aspect of the Red Mass 

is an invitation for non-Catholics to 

reflect on the legacy of the 16th-century 

saint, who was beheaded by the 

English crown for choosing to defend 

his Christian faith over loyalty to the 

king. 

“We believe that St. Thomas More 

is a role model for attorneys of all 

different faiths,” Farhat told Angelus. 

“Because all are welcome at this Mass, 

we are very intentional about inviting 

people to participate in the Mass who 

are not Catholic, so they can discern 

and consider what [St. More’s] example 

and life means for them, and to 

also be welcome in our church.” 

In the words of closing speaker LA 

Superior Court Judge Stephen M. 

Moloney, the Mass was an opportunity 

to gather “as judges, lawyers, political, 

government and religious leaders, 

recognizing that the spiritual is fundamentally 

important as we live out our 

daily lives.” 

In his remarks, Moloney also recalled 

how the words of his seventh-grade 

Catholic schoolteacher — ironically 

named Sister Thomas More — guided 

him through his legal career. 

“She told me that I could achieve 

great things if I was willing to put in 

the hard work,” said Moloney, who 

once studied for the priesthood at St. 

John’s Seminary in Camarillo before 

studying law at the Jesuit-run University 

of Santa Clara. “She was right.” 

Moloney said the nun often comes 

to mind at the unavoidable sight of 

the homeless tents visible around the 

downtown courthouse where he works. 

“I know Sister would remind me that 

they are entitled to justice just like all 

who appear before the court,” he said. 

In his homily, Archbishop Pierre listed 

some of the ways that the seven gifts 

of the Holy Spirit could help guide civic 

and legal professionals in their work. 

The supernatural gift of understanding, 

the French prelate suggested, was 

especially important in a world “filled 

with the superficial and the ephemeral, 

lived in sound bites and tweets” and 

driven by ideologies. 

“God calls you, the members of 

our judiciary and legal systems, to be 

persons of substance and integrity, 

willing to engage in public discourse 

and debate, open to being changed 

by an encounter with the truth,” said 

Archbishop Pierre. 

Pablo Kay is the editor-in-chief of 

Angelus. 


Penance and protection 

As a new dust-up 

in France reminds 

us, the confessional 

seal is simply not 

a roadblock in the 

fight against abuse. 

BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR. 

ROME — Bishops certainly 

have had bad weeks before. 

One thinks, for example, of the 

unfortunate late Cardinal Michele 

Giordano of Naples, who, when it was 

announced in 1999 that he was under 

investigation for a Ponzi scheme run 

by his brother with archdiocesan 

funds, gave an interview in which 

he insisted he couldn’t be complicit 

because he wasn’t smart enough to 

understand what was going on. 

In the annals of such bad weeks, 

however, a special place now must be 

reserved for Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort 

of Reims, France, who, 

in one seven-day span, has managed 

to infuriate both victims of clerical 

sexual abuse and faithful Catholics 

most inclined to defend the Church 

when it’s under attack. 

After having apologized for his 

“clumsy” wording in early October in 

which he appeared to assert that the 

seal of the confessional was above the 

laws of the French Republic, Archbishop 

de Moulins-Beaufort, president 

of the French bishops’ conference, 

sparked outrage in Catholic circles after 

headlines around the world a week 

later reported he said child protection 

actually overrides the secrecy of the 

confessional. 

“The scope of the violence and sexual 

assaults against minors revealed by 

the report demands that the Church 

revise its practices in light of this reality,” 

he said. “It is therefore necessary 

to reconcile the nature of confession 

with the need to protect children.” 

In all honesty, the archbishop probably 

didn’t intend to give rise to either 

impression, but his struggles to make 

himself clear reflect the hyper-sensitivity 

of the situation in which the 

French Church now finds itself. 

Like his American, Irish, Canadian, 

German, Belgian, and English 

confreres, and like bishops anywhere 

when the clerical abuse crisis detonates 

in their own backyard, Archbishop 

de Moulins-Beaufort has to get two 

things across to the French public, 

which are often difficult to reconcile 

in the court of popular opinion. 

First, that the Catholic Church is 

fully and inexorably committed to 

collaboration and transparency with 

regard to civil and criminal justice systems, 

and that the Church will satisfy 

or exceed all civil laws with regard to 

reporting abuse. 

Second, that the Catholic Church 

is also committed to the integrity of 

its faith and sacramental life, which 

includes defending the inviolability of 

the confessional seal. 

Perhaps the problem here is that 

it’s Archbishop de Moulins-Beaufort 

answering the questions, which means 

that virtually anything he says will 

be styled as defensive and rooted in 

institutional self-interest rather than 

genuine concern for the welfare of 

abuse survivors. 

It’s not really his fault, of course. 

When a scandal erupts, reporters don’t 

want to be passed off to underlings, 

they want to hear from the CEO. Still, 

what would be truly helpful when the 

next controversy around the seal of 

the confessional erupts is to hear, not 

from bishops, but from survivors of 

abuse themselves, because what they’d 

have to say would be illuminating. 

A confessional on which is written, 

“M. the Priest,” in a Catholic church 

near Nantes, France, Oct. 5. | CNS/ 

STEPHANE MAHE, REUTERS 


Pope Francis gives French Prime Minister Jean Castex 

a small mosaic as a gift during a private audience at the 

Vatican Oct. 18, days after the release of a report by an 

independent commission on sex abuse in the French 

Catholic Church. | CNS/VATICAN MEDIA 

Over the years I’ve interviewed multiple 

survivors on this issue, and not 

just those who join movements, attend 

rallies, and call press conferences, but 

also those who are quietly trying to put 

their lives back together and achieve a 

sort of spiritual and personal peace. 

Almost to a person, they’ve told me 

that repealing the seal of the confessional 

not only wouldn’t promote 

child protection, it might actually 

impede it. 

Here’s why. 

In general, abuser priests don’t 

reveal their abuse in the confessional. 

They’re master compartmentalizers 

and rationalizers, and either don’t 

regard their conduct as sinful or simply 

push it to the side psychologically 

and don’t address it. In either event, 

they’re not going to bring it up with a 

fellow priest, regardless of the context. 

The only situation in which a priest 

is likely to hear about clerical abuse 

in the confessional, therefore, is if a 

victim brings it up, usually because 

they’re carrying some burden of guilt, 

thinking they either brought it on 

themselves or didn’t do enough to resist 

it. At this stage in the journey, the 

victim often is unwilling to disclose 

the experience publicly, and the only 

reason they’re willing to do so in confession 

is because they know the priest 

is under an absolute obligation never 

to tell anyone what they discussed. 

Sometimes, with patience and good 

pastoral counseling, the victim eventually 

decides to come forward and 

make a formal accusation against the 

abuser. In other cases, based on the 

realities of their own circumstances 

and what it means for them to heal, 

they opt not to do so. In any event, 

the confessional is one environment 

in which it’s the wishes of the victim, 

and no one else, that reign supreme. 

Take that away, and, in all likelihood, 

the only thing you’ll accomplish is to 

make it less likely that a certain share 

of victims ever come forward. 

While it may be tough for the de 

Moulins-Beauforts of the world to say 

so out loud while the fires are raging, 

that doesn’t make it any less true. Perhaps 

what the French Church ought 

to be doing right now is spending less 

time crafting the next episcopal statement, 

and more time finding survivors 

who, at least on this point, can tell the 

story for them. 

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


The comeback queen 

A look at the historical events that have kept making Mary great again. 

BY MIKE AQUILINA 

I 

was born at the end of the Baby 

Boom in a Sicilian neighborhood. 

Our parish served immigrants from 

two villages: Serra di Falco and Monte 

d’Oro. Each village had a feast day, 

and for both it was Marian: Our Lady 

of Sorrows and Our Lady of the Rosary. 

Every year on the Sundays closest 

to those feasts, the men of the parish 

attached a life-sized statue of Mary to 

a platform, and then carried it through 

the streets in a procession that stopped 

traffic and always ended in fireworks. 

The processions were an important 

marker for our identity — as Sicilians 

and as Catholics. But my generation 

moved out of the neighborhood, and 

many of us married out of our tribe. 

As we left, we tended to leave behind 

the markers of ethnic and religious 

identity. The important identity for us 

was American, and the old processions 

didn’t feel American. 

American culture was Protestant, 

and our raucous love for the Madonna 

seemed conspicuously foreign and 

lacking in decorum. We wanted to fit 

in, so we tried to make our religion 

look American. The rosary fell out of 

fashion. 

But the trend didn’t last long. Mainline 

Protestantism soon went into 

steep decline. And Pope John Paul II 

appeared on the scene, brandishing his 

rosary and invoking Mary in everything 

he proclaimed. 

There was a resurgence in Catholic 

identity, and it was distinctively Marian. 

Yet it wasn’t at all foreign. In fact, it 

began to feel American. 

So how did that happen? Much in the 

same way it always has through history. 

Mary is a mother, and so she finds a 

way to stay in the lives of her children. 

And she finds a way to make them 

know they are at home in the Church. 

In the Gospels, she’s the context for 

the beginning of the Messiah’s story. 

She consents to the angel’s proposal, 

and the Messiah finds his home in her. 

“Madonna and Child,” by the workshop of Sano di Pietro, circa 1448-60. | THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART 

She acts on his behalf as she welcomes 

shepherds, and Magi who arrive to 

adore him. They find the child with 

Mary his mother — and that is where 

all generations since have found him. 

Mary shows herself to be a mother 

throughout the stories of Jesus’ 

childhood. She anguishes when he’s 

22 • ANGELUS • November 5, 2021

lost and rejoices upon finding him. 

St. Luke sums up Jesus’ adolescent 

years with the observation that he was 

“obedient” to his parents. That tells 

us all we need to know about Mary’s 

character. God himself chose to be 

obedient to her. 

Nevertheless, we find a role reversal 

at the start of Jesus’ public life. After 

his baptism, Mary appears as her son’s 

model disciple. When he was told, 

“Your mother and your brothers are 

standing outside, desiring to see you,” 

he responded: “My mother and my 

brothers are those who hear the word 

of God and do it.” 

Mary was more blessed, then, for her 

discipleship than for her maternity. 

She was the one who heard the word 

of God and kept it — in the most 

physical way possible. She became his 

disciple, yet she remained his mother. 

It is she who launched his ministry 

of wonderworking. She was with her 

son at a wedding, and the host had run 

out of wine. She simply pointed out to 

Jesus: “They have no wine.” 

He made the strangest response: “O 

woman, what have you to do with me? 

My hour has not yet come.” 

God incarnate seems to know the 

foreordained moment for his manifestation 

to the world — and that wedding 

feast was not it. Yet he advanced 

the moment for his mother’s sake! He 

turned water into wine, and he saved 

the celebration. 

The moment is significant because 

it marks the beginning of Our Lord’s 

miracles, but also because it marks 

Our Lady’s debut as intercessor. Who 

could be more reliable in this than the 

disciple who persuaded God to change 

his timetable? 

After her son’s death and resurrection, 

at the beginning of the Church’s 

history, she remains with the disciples 

in the Upper Room as they await the 

Holy Spirit 

She would be essential to their proclamation. 

When St. Paul summarizes 

the Gospel, he says: “God sent forth 

his Son, born of a woman, born under 

the law.” Born of a woman. Why is that 

one of only two details he chooses to 

include? 

As virgin-mother, Mary testifies to 

Jesus’ full humanity and his full divinity. 

Her virginity proves that God is his 

Father — and Jesus is truly divine. Her 

motherhood proves that Jesus is truly 

human, with living flesh and blood. 

The next time we see Mary is in the 

Book of Revelation. She is crowned 

with stars, appearing as a queen, after 

being assumed body and soul into 

heaven. This was a rare honor that, 

according to Jewish tradition, had only 

been given to Moses and Elijah. 

In the New Testament, she is mother, 

model disciple, intercessor, companion 

in the Church, and finally, queen 

of heaven and history. She is a true 

mother, and so she still engages with 

the Church through the centuries that 

follow. 

In the first centuries of the Church, 

she is discussed in the works of St. Ignatius 

of Antioch and Justin Martyr. St. 

Irenaeus in France speaks of her as the 

“undoer of knots” and the New Eve, as 

does Tertullian in North Africa. 

The term “Mother of God” emerges 

in the archaeological record around 

the year A.D. 200, and it soon becomes 

the most popular form of address for 

Mary. Only in the fifth century did 

a Christian raise qualms about the 

title. He was Nestorius, the bishop 

of Constantinople, and in his city he 

ordered the term struck from hymns 

and prayers. 

But he failed. His people held public 

demonstrations. They complained 

to the emperor and the pope. They 

argued that Nestorius couldn’t be right 

because he was opposing the faith they 

had learned from their grandparents. 

They invoked the full weight of Scripture 

and tradition. 

To restore peace, the emperor 

convoked the Council of Ephesus. At 

the council, the bishop of Alexandria, 

Cyril, demonstrated that the Church 

had always used the term “Mother of 

God.” When Nestorius argued that a 

mother must precede her son, Cyril 

responded with the historical facts: 

Mary did not precede God, but she 

undoubtedly mothered him. Scripture 

refers to her as the mother of Jesus, and 

Jesus is God. 

Nestorius countered that Mary was 

mother only to Jesus’ human nature 

and not to his divine nature. In 

response, Cyril observed that a mother 

does not give birth to a nature, but to a 

person, and this person was divine. To 

separate his divinity from his humanity, 

as Nestorius was doing, was to divide 

Christ in two. And that was heresy. 

Cyril’s arguments prevailed. And 

when the bishops emerged from 

council chambers, they found an 

enormous throng gathered. Ordinary 

Mary was the one who heard the word of 

God and kept it — in the most physical way 

possible. She became his disciple, yet she 

remained his mother. 

people had traveled far in miserable 

heat — because this council was about 

their mother. When they learned of the 

bishops’ conclusions, they erupted with 

joy and sang hymns. 

The Council of Ephesus took place in 

A.D. 431, and it confirmed the Marian 

devotion of Christians who had lived in 

every century till then. 

Two hundred years after Ephesus, the 

Christian lands of the East would be 

overwhelmed by Arab invaders bearing 

a new religion. That religion, Islam, 

was imposed by force. 

It is at least arguable that the Islamic 

invaders could not have succeeded, 

had they not found a way to accommodate 

the affection of the common 

people for Jesus and Mary. Thus, both 

appear in the Koran and in the secondary 

literature of Islam. 

The Irish monks of the dark ages 

would go on to write hymns to Mary 

and paint her picture in the Gospel 

Book of Kells. Mary inspired builders 

to construct the great Gothic cathedrals, 

many of which were named for 

her (Notre Dame). She inspired monks 

to develop new technology for stained 

glass, to illuminate her image. 

In the time of the Black Death, the 

mid-1300s, Mary appeared everywhere 


in a new form of art: the “Pietà.” During 

the plague, hundreds of millions 

died throughout Europe. The continent 

was grieving, and suddenly the “Pietà” 

replaced earlier, more glorious images 

of the Madonna. Now, Europe prayed 

before sculptures and paintings of the 

grieving mother holding the lifeless 

body of her divine Son. And people saw 

that she was with them in their sorrow. 

With the Protestant Reformation, 

Mary’s role was eclipsed for many. 

Martin Luther tried to hold on to the 

Marian doctrines while abandoning 

devotions. John Calvin had no such 

scruples, and he even revived the 

error of Nestorius in rejecting the title 

“Mother of God.” 

Yet just as millions were leaving the 

Church in Europe, millions entered in 

the New World. Though the conquistadors 

and missionaries had failed 

to convert the native peoples, Mary 

succeeded. In 1531, she appeared at 

Guadalupe to a poor man named Juan 

Diego. And she accomplished what 

money and laws could never do. She 

converted a continent in a matter of a 

few years. 

Then, 40 years later, she saved 

fractured Europe from succumbing 

to Muslim invaders. As the Ottoman 

fleet advanced, Pope Pius V roused the 

Catholic people to pray the rosary. And 

on Oct. 7, 1571, at the Battle of Lepanto, 

Christendom’s ragtag navy prevailed 

over the Sultan’s fleet. The Blessed 

Virgin — and an army of common 

people praying their beads — received 

credit as a new feast day was added to 

the calendar. 

The story continues into the modern 

era. There have been apparitions — at 

Rue de Bac, Lourdes, Fátima, and 

elsewhere. 

And the future? 

I see it in an image of Mary I keep 

in my office. It’s from India, and it is 

“The Descent from the Cross,” (also known as the 

“Pietà”) by Nicolas Coustou in Notre-Dame Cathedral, 

Paris. | JEANNE EMMEL/SHUTTERSTOCK 

painted on a pipal leaf. 

The Church is growing. Though 

it seems weakened in the West, it is 

growing in the global South and East. 

The painting on the pipal leaf is a sign 

of that growth and the future’s promise. 

Every crisis in Church history has led to 

surprising developments, often brought 

about not by the rich and powerful, but 

by poor people who stand with Mary 

and pray — and are pleased to make 

some noise as they carry her image 

through the streets. 

Mike Aquilina is a contributing editor 

to Angelus and the author of many 

books, most recently “Friendship and 

the Fathers: How the Early Church 

Evangelized” (Emmaus Road Publishing, 

$22.95). 


INTERSECTIONS 

GREG ERLANDSON 

The choices we make 

An anti-COVID-19 vaccine mandate 

protest in Akron, Ohio, Aug. 16. | 

STEPHEN ZENNER, REUTERS VIA CNS 

My body, my choice. 

It is such a simple phrase, 

yet it sums up an attitude that 

seems quintessentially modern and yet 

sad as well. 

Over the years, “My body, my choice” 

became a slogan for the pro-abortion 

movement. The idea that a woman 

was the master of her body included 

mastery over the unborn child that she 

carried inside of her. 

“My body, my choice” fits a particularly 

modern mindset. It was a phrase 

that could be stretched to include 

everything from a teen’s demand for 

a tattoo to a grandmother’s request 

for physician-assisted suicide. It is my 

choice, regardless of social impact or 

consequences, and the only person 

who can make that determination is 

me. 

So it is a disturbing irony that people 

who may think they have little in common 

with abortion proponents or suicide 

advocates would adopt the same 

slogan to defend their unwillingness to 

take a COVID-19 vaccine. “My body, 

my choice” has become one of the 

catchphrases for some in the anti-vaccine 

and anti-mandate movements. 

Despite whatever social need there 

is to stop a public health crisis, what 

matters is not the recommendation 

of health experts or the decisions of 

political or military leaders, but one’s 

own preferences. 

Of course, many vaccine opponents 

have legitimate reasons to seek exemption 

to vaccine mandates. Although 

the Catholic Church has deemed it 

“remote material cooperation,” the 

fact that cell lines derived from fetuses 

aborted in the early 1970s were used 

in testing and in some cases development 

of many vaccines and medicines 

is of great moral concern for some. 

The Church has urged scientists to 

refrain from using these cell lines. 

Some are distrustful of the science, 

distrustful of what they see as an 

overreach of government mandates, or 

simply more confident that their own 

immunity from having had the virus 

will protect them. 

For those who are following their 

conscience in these matters, it is 

important to stay informed and, of 

course, to follow standard protocols for 

social distancing to protect those who 

are most vulnerable. For the toll of the 

pandemic is truly horrific: One in 500 

Americans has died from COVID-19. 

On the national mall, 700,000 white 

flags fluttered in commemoration of 

those who died in just 19 months, a 

grim toll that continues to climb, more 

often than not claiming the lives of the 

unvaccinated and the most vulnerable. 

While there are legitimate reasons of 

conscience for opposing vaccines that 

must be respected, I don’t believe that 

the argument, “My body, my choice,” 

is one of them. 

The response to the pro-abortion 

argument “My body, my choice” is 

that it is not just your body. There is 

another human being alive in you who 

is biologically and genetically distinct. 

The idea that that human person lives 

or dies based on the desire of another, 

more powerful person is morally 

wrong. 

And the response to those who 

demonstrate against vaccine or mask 

mandates while shouting, “My body, 

my choice,” is similar. It is not just 

about you and your body. If you 


Greg Erlandson is the president and 

editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service. 

could be guaranteed not to be an 

asymptomatic carrier, if you could be 

guaranteed not to spread the disease 

to someone who was immunocompromised, 

if you could be guaranteed that 

you would not kill or cripple another 

person, then perhaps “My body, my 

choice” would make some sense. If 

you could guarantee that the only 

person hurt would be yourself, perhaps 

it would be tolerable. 

Death of loved ones or strangers is 

not the only risk. Long-term or even 

permanent damage is an under-reported 

phenomenon of COVID-19: 

Long haulers, those who suffer from 

COVID-19 aftereffects for months and 

years, or those whose bodies have been 

so damaged they may be on oxygen or 

in need of intensive care for the rest of 

their lives. 

The slogan is itself reflective of a kind 

of street-corner libertarianism, a folk 

philosophy that crosses the left-right 

political divide. It makes personal 

autonomy the highest good, and in 

so doing it challenges notions of the 

common good and social justice. It is 

a philosophy no longer just of the welloff 

and self-sufficient, but of populist 

resentments. And it poses a grave 

threat for the Church. 

Laying down one’s life for another 

is the Christian response. We follow 

a Savior who offered up his life for 

the many. The models for Christian 

sacrifice today are the doctors and 

nurses caring for the grievously ill who 

fill the ICUs and, too often, the body 

bags. The Church is asking all of us to 

consider what is best for the common 

good, what sacrifices we can make to 

protect the weakest. 

We all struggle to make the best 

choices in a difficult situation, following 

the science and following our 

conscience. But let’s put aside the 

cheap slogans that reflect an ideological 

selfishness. 

In the words of the pro-life movement, 

let’s choose life: seeking the best 

for our community and mindful always 

of the weakest and most vulnerable 

among us.

Why Dave 

means well 

Lessons from the controversy 

over a legendary comedian’s 

jokes about transgenderism. 

BY CHARLES C. CAMOSY 

Dave Chappelle in Netflix’s “The Closer.” | NETFLIX VIA ROTTEN TOMATOES 

Well, Dave Chappelle has 

done it again. 

His new Netflix special 

has not only captured the attention 

of millions across the nation, it has 

continued his ongoing crusade to 

open the doors and push the boundaries 

of acceptable public discourse in 

our pluralistic republic — especially 

surrounding the nature of sex and 

gender. 

Chappelle really is a genius in how 

he effortlessly weaves in and out of the 

most hot-button issues imaginable. 

These topics can’t even be touched by 

most public figures, but his skill at setting 

up jokes, thoughtful distinctions, 

raw courage, and genuine love and 

care for those who disagree with him 

permits him to not only to touch — 

but to firmly grasp and expertly pick 

apart these issues. 

That said, not everyone agrees with 

me about these judgments. 

Indeed, because Chappelle’s complex 

and nuanced view (I encourage 

readers to do their research on what 

he actually holds) on the transgenderism 

debate doesn’t fit with contemporary 

orthodoxy on these matters, a 

number of their employees are staging 

a walkout in an attempt to coerce Netflix 

to take his shows off its platform. 

There are plenty of folks, of course, 

who will see this as yet another example 

of our increasingly humorless 

society. If we can’t even joke about 

these matters, how will we ever get to 

the point where we can discuss them 

seriously? How can we claim to live 

in a pluralistic republic — one in 

which we welcome multiple points 

of view — if the greatest comedian of 

his generation can’t go after a live and 

important issue in the culture? 

In response to these questions, I 

think it is important to acknowledge 

that the instinct behind many of 

Chappelle’s critics comes from a good 

place. They see what he’s doing as a 

kind of bullying — punching down a 

group of people (those who identity as 

transgender) who are a radical minority 

and already deeply marginalized in 

the culture. 

And a generalized anti-bullying concern 

is very, very important. Many aggressive 

interactions have until recently 

been dismissed as “someone’s sense 

of humor” or “joking around” — but 

they have real world consequences for 

people that may include self-doubt, 

self-harm, and even suicide. Indeed, 


OMATOES 

today’s online bullying takes it up 

another level and is directly related 

to the increase of suicide, especially 

among young women. 

Thank God, therefore, for recent 

interventions to take this problem way 

more seriously than we have in the 

past. 

But is the only alternative living in 

a humorless society? One where we 

can’t joke about things at all? That 

doesn’t seem right. Traditionally, 

discussion of the virtues presents them 

as the “golden mean” between two 

extremes. For instance, the virtue of 

courage lies between rashness and 

cowardice. The virtue of modesty lies 

between shyness and shamelessness. 

And so on. 

Is there a way to live out a “golden 

mean” between bullying and humorlessness? 

I think so. And the reason is because 

I’ve experienced something like it as 

a member of sports teams and also 

working on construction crews. 

It is difficult to articulate — but it is 

even more difficult to understand if 

you, yourself, haven’t been a part of 

a community like this. There’s a kind 

of culture in play which makes space 

for “giving people [crap]” and poking 

fun at them — but in ways that really 

shouldn’t be described as bullying. 

In fact, this dynamic is often used to 

signal to a younger person or newbie 

that they are part of the community 

— and also to validate their rise up 

the ranks of respect of one’s peers. 

It can also serve as a way of working 

through differences — and calling out 

problems. 

Sometimes there are just things that 

need to be said that, in other contexts, 

are just left alone to fester and toxify 

relationships and communities. But 

in a community like this, the dynamic 

allows difficult truths to be told in 

ways that don’t break the bonds of 

fellowship. 

When the joking and poking fun 

crosses a line (as, let’s be honest, it 

sometimes does), the dynamic of the 

group is very often such that it polices 

itself — with veteran members of the 

community deciding that something 

has gone too far. And there’s even 

a check on those veterans, because 

when one of them gets too big for 

their britches, the joking and poking 

fun can bring them down a peg. 

In healthy groups like this (and, to be 

clear, they aren’t all healthy), there is 

a kind of solidarity present. A culture 

of encounter. The willing of the good 

of the other, even as words are spoken 

that (on paper and isolated from the 

social context) seem to indicate the 

opposite. 

Chappelle tries to do this throughout 

his comedy specials (and, again, 

I encourage readers to actually do 

your own research on this), showing 

that even as he is poking fun, and 

saying some things that need to be 

said, he genuinely loves and cares for 

those who identify as trans. He tries to 

show this explicitly through his story 

of friendship with a trans comic — 

someone who he clearly loved and 

supported, but with whom he had 

disagreements as well. 

Tragically, it was only after his friend 

publicly defended Chappelle against 

the social media mob — and after she 

got dogpiled online for doing so — 

that his friend committed suicide. 

Chappelle discussed creating a trust 

fund for his friend’s child and thought 

about what he would say to the kid 

one day. He came up with this: “I 

knew your father, and he was one hell 

of a woman.” 

Signaling the kind of relationship 

and dynamic they said, Chappelle 

said, “She would have loved that 

joke.” 

What’s the golden mean between 

bullying and humorlessness? I’m not 

sure I have a good word or phrase 

for it, but maybe it is something like 

“winsomeness”? A kind of good-natured, 

attractive, and funny way of 

speaking things that need to be said. 

But always with the love due the 

dignity of the human person squarely 

in mind. 

Nobody does this better than Chappelle. 

And he lights the way for the 

rest of us. 

Charles C. Camosy is an associate 

professor of theology and bioethics at 

Fordham University. His most recent 

book is “Losing Our Dignity: How 

Secularized Medicine is Undermining 

Fundamental Human Equality” (New 

City Press, $22.95). 


DESIRE LINES 

HEATHER KING 

Heaven is our home 

Fonthill Castle, in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, in 2021. | FERNANDO GARCIA ESTEBAN/SHUTTERSTOCK 

On a recent trip to the East 

Coast, I made a point of visiting 

the former homes and studios 

of three late artists. 

The Moravian Pottery & Tile Works 

in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, was the 

studio of historian Henry Chapman 

Mercer (1856-1930), a self-taught 

architect, ceramicist, and collector. 

He modeled the design for his tile 

works on the California missions he’d 

seen on his travels. Then he added 

his own stamp, which might be called 

“Early Hobbit.” 

The compound is now a nonprofit 

history museum, offering guided tours 

to the public, as well as an annual Tile 

Fest, summer music and movie series, 

visiting artist residencies and workshops. 

It’s also a humming working studio, 

producing among other items mosaic 

murals, floors, patios, fireplace 

surrounds, hearths, and architectural 

friezes. The tiles, available for purchase 

in the museum store, are still pressed 

from the more than 6,000 molds designed 

by Mercer. 

The next day I moved on to his 

former residence: the adjacent Fonthill 

Castle. With 44 rooms, 32 staircases, 

21 chimneys, 10 bathrooms, and 200 

windows, in 1908-1912, the castle 

(actually a large poured-in-concrete 

house) cost $32,000 to build. 

There were dumbwaiters, elevators, 

call bells, and a central heating system. 

The biggest room, a kind of one-off 

grand hall, was interrupted every few 


Heather King is an award-winning 

author, speaker, and workshop leader. 

feet by a floor-to-ceiling, tile-embedded 

concrete column (turned out Mercer 

erred on the side of caution and had 

the edifice constructed five times stronger 

than it needed to be). 

In fact, every square inch of the 

castle, almost, was plastered with tile: 

the floors, the walls, the windows, and 

fireplace surrounds. 

Mercer loved to tell stories, and the 

subjects of his molds range from mythology 

to Holy Grail quests to parables 

from the Bible. The ceiling of one of 

his favorite rooms was covered with 

tiles that told the story of Columbus’ 

conquest of the New World. Other subjects 

included animals, family crests, 

fairy tale figures, sheaves of wheat, fruit. 

Even on a sunny day the castle was 

gloomy and chill. Maybe I’ve been too 

long out west — but I couldn’t imagine 

spending a whole winter there. 

Next stop was the museum/studio/former 

home of Wharton Esherick (1887- 

1970), an artist, sculptor, and furniture 

designer who lived in the hills above 

the Pennsylvania town of Paoli. 

Esherick made a lot of furniture in 

particular that was lovely — lamps, 

desks, tables, chairs — out of wood. His 

hand-hewn and eccentrically unique 

living space was filled with carvings, 

sculptures, paintings, gorgeous chairs, 

custom-made sofas, a fireplace, handmade 

serving utensils, desks with builtin 

lamps, sliding trays for drawings and 

prints, inlaid work-of-art floors made 

from scrap wood. 

The house, as was true of Fonthill, 

was also insanely impractical, with 

narrow winding staircases, very little 

open space in which to move, and with 

hardly any natural light. 

A couple of days later, I drove to 

upstate New York and visited Manitoga, 

aka Dragon Rock, the former 

home of Russel Wright (1904-1976). 

Best known as a mid-century designer 

of clean-lined dish collections in 

sophisticated shades of chartreuse, teal, 

and slate gray, in 1942 Wright bought 

75 acres of a former logging site and 

abandoned quarry. 

The Japanese-inspired indoor-outdoor 

design featured views of the Wright-designed 

waterfall, quarry pool, and 

woodland garden. Here, too, inside and 

out, were the irregular, winding granite 

steps which, if I hadn’t sprained my 

knee the week before in a fall on a New 

York City sidewalk, might have struck 

me as slightly more picturesque. 

Here, too, the creativity and natural 

beauty were stunning — and faintly 

underlain by damp, chill, moss, and 

mold. 

Don’t get me wrong. All three homes 

were wondrous. I wouldn’t have missed 

them for the world. Still, I couldn’t 

help reflecting afterward that the effort 

to preserve in amber any human life 

carries a touch of the absurd. 

Does a meticulous catalogue really 

need to be maintained of Henry Chapman 

Mercer’s thousands of decomposing 

library books? 

What purpose is served by keeping 

Esherick’s L.L. Bean shirts still folded 

in a drawer beneath his bed, and on a 

shelf in the kitchen the spices, in their 

little metal cans, that he used 50 years 

before? 

A house that’s not lived in begins to 

disintegrate in some way, is sapped of 

its vitality, begins to waft the air of a 

moldering tomb. 

The Catholic tradition of venerating 

relics, a matter of high hilarity among 

nonbelievers, is actually a glimpse into 

the realm of eternal life. 

In Rome, for example, you can visit 

the rooms where the mendicant St. 

Benedict Joseph Labré (1748-1783) 

lived for two years before his death. 

But you don’t kneel in mere rooms. 

For that, gaze upon the secondary 

relics preserved in the nearby house 

chapel of San Benedetto Giuseppe 

Labre ai Monti: the filthy rags the saint 

was wearing when he died. 


LETTER AND SPIRIT 

SCOTT HAHN 

Scott Hahn is founder of the 

St. Paul Center for Biblical 

Theology; stpaulcenter.com. 

Bible lost and found 

St. Anthony of Padua is surely among the best-loved 

of the saints in glory. He is the patron of those who 

search for lost objects. Artists portray him in his Franciscan 

habit, holding the baby Jesus. 

We all call upon St. Anthony when we’re looking for 

something. But I invoke him today for a different reason. 

I recall him to you because he was a biblical scholar par 

excellence, with so prodigious a memory that he has been 

called “The Concordance.” 

St. Anthony was a bit like the book you’re holding in your 

hands. He was able to retrieve passages from the Bible at a 

moment’s notice. Name a theme, and he could draw relevant 

Scriptures from many points in the biblical canon. 

In fact, he was fond of the word “concordance” (in its 

Latin equivalents), though he didn’t use it to describe a 

book. He used it to describe a reality: the unity of the two 

testaments, the unity of the whole Bible. 

“The God of the New Testament is one and the same as 

the God of the Old and is indeed Jesus Christ the Son of 

God.” We may apply to him the words of Isaiah: “I myself 

that spoke, behold, I am here [Isaiah 52.6]. I spoke to the 

fathers in the prophets; I am here in the truth of the Incarnation. 

That is the justification for seeking to concord the 

Scriptures of both Testaments.” 

St. Anthony was on to something here. If the Bible were 

not the work of a single principal author, God, then why 

should we care to compare the Hebrew verbs of the Book 

of Genesis with their Greek equivalents in Revelation? 

Our medieval Paduan was merely passing on a timeless 

truth of the faith. Almost a millennium before, the Fathers 

of the Egyptian desert had applied themselves to the same 

task, and for all the same reasons. They would chant all 

the psalms every day; and, in those centuries when few 

people could own books, they would gather for daily and 

weekly “synaxes” (“congregation”) to hear the word of 

God and commit it to memory. In fourth-century Egypt, 

St. Sisoes the Great was asked the secret to his wisdom 

and holiness. He said, “What shall I say to you? I read the 

New Testament, and I turn to the Old?” 

What those saints meant by concordance is “the juxtaposition 

and correlation of scriptural passages, so that they 

illuminate and interpret one another.” 

We live in a day when search engines can power through 

the Bible in seconds — doing the work of many monks, 

and even many monasteries. 

“St. Anthony of Padua,” by Benozzo Gozzoli, 1420-1497, Italian. | WIKIMEDIA 

COMMONS 

These are great times indeed for biblical studies. But, 

unlike former periods of renewal, ours is not confined by 

the walls of the abbeys or by the towers of the universities. 

Catholic Bible studies, websites, and apps give us a kind of 

spiritual technology — interpretive elevators, to borrow a 

metaphor from St. Thérèse of Lisieux. 

May we all rise to the occasion, using tools like this 

concordance to become “concordances” ourselves, like St. 

Anthony and so many of our ancestors in the faith. 


■ FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29 

REVIVE: Evening of Recollection for Women. Sacred Heart 

Retreat House, 507 N. Granada Ave., Alhambra, 4:30 p.m. 

Evening of recollection for women aged 18-35 will include 

dinner, spiritual reflection on prayer given by the Carmelite 

Sisters, eucharistic adoration, praise, and worship. For more 

information, email beautyofcarmel@carmelitesistersocd.com. 

■ SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30 

Conscious Aging, Death Makes Life Possible, Surrender 

& Letting Go. Holy Spirit Retreat Center, 4316 Lanai Rd., 

Encino, 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m. With Sister Deborah Lorentz, SSS. 

For more information, visit www.hsrcenter.com or call 818- 

784-4515. 

■ MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1 

Memorial Mass for COVID-19 Victims. St. Sebastian 

Church, 1453 Federal Ave., Los Angeles, 7 p.m. A trilingual 

Mass will be celebrated to bless a mosaic of pictures of loved 

ones who died during the pandemic. For more information, 

visit stsebastianla.org. 

Catholic Cemeteries & Mortuaries Día de Los Muertos 

Vigil Prayer Service. Calvary Cemetery, 4201 Whittier Blvd., 

Los Angeles, 7 p.m. Archbishop Gomez will lead a prayer 

service that will be livestreamed on LA Catholics social media 

channels and EWTN. Event is not open to the public. 

Calvary Cemetery Día de los Muertos Altar Viewings. 

4201 Whittier Blvd., Los Angeles, 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Community 

group altars will be on display Nov. 1-5. 

Santa Clara Cemetery Día de los Muertos Altar Viewings. 

2370 N. H Street, Oxnard, 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Local parish altars 

will be on display Nov. 1-5; Marigold Cross will be displayed 

Nov. 1-7. 

■ TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2 

Día de los Muertos Light Display. Calvary Cemetery, 4201 

Whittier Blvd., Los Angeles, 6-8 p.m., at the Main Mausoleum 

Nov. 2-3. 

Catholic Cemeteries & Mortuaries All Souls’ Day Mass. 

Calvary Cemetery, 4201 Whittier Blvd., Los Angeles, 10 a.m. 

Archbishop José H. Gomez will be the principal celebrant. 

Mass will be livestreamed on LA Catholics social media 

channels and EWTN. 

■ WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3 

“Growing Stronger in Our Faith” Weekly Series. St. Dorothy 

Church, 241 S. Valley Center Ave., Glendora, 7-8:30 p.m., 

Wednesdays through April 6, 2022. Deepen your understanding 

of the Catholic faith through dynamic DVD presentations 

by top scholars and apologists like Bishop Robert 

Barron, Scott Hahn, Ph.D., and Brant Pitre, Ph.D. Free event, 

no reservations required. Call 626-335-2811 or visit www. 

stdorothy.org for more information. 

Truth Talk: Rt. Rev. Alexei Smith on Christian Unity. 7 p.m. 

Wordnet Productions will feature Rev. Alexei Smith, ecumenical 

and interreligious officer of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. 

Program will be livestreamed on Wordnet Productions’ 

YouTube channel and Facebook page, and will be followed 

by an online Q&A. Contact Sister Jeanne Harris at Wordnet 

Productions at com@wordnet.tv for more information. 

■ THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4 

Virtual Centering Prayer. Hosted by Pippa Currey and team 

from the Holy Spirit Retreat Center, the group meets every 

Thursday on Zoom, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. For more information, 

visit www.hsrcenter.com or call 818-784-4515. 

■ FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5 

Retrouvaille: A Lifeline for Married Couples. Weekend 

program runs Nov. 5-7 in Santa Clarita. Retrouvaille is an 

effective Catholic Christian ministry that helps married couples. 

The program offers the chance to rediscover yourself, 

your spouse, and the love in your marriage. Married couples 

of any faith are welcome. For more information, visit https:// 

www.losangelesretrouvaille.com or call 909-900-5465. 

■ SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6 

St. Peter Claver’s Annual Holiday Boutique. Corner of Stow 

and Cochran Streets, across from Simi Valley High School. 

Boutique will be open Nov. 6, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and Nov. 7, 9 

a.m.-3 p.m. More than 70 vendors will be available to sell 

crafts, gift items, clothing, jewelry, decor, and food. Includes 

a gift card basket raffle, 50/50 drawing, photos with Santa, 

and baked goods table. Call Lisa at 805-583-0466 for more 

information. 

God’s Healing Power for Your Family Tree: Past, Present, 

and Future. St. Anthony of Padua Church, 1050 W. 163rd 

St., Gardena, 10:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Speakers: Fr. Michael 

Barry, SSCC, Dominic Berardino, Marianne Dyogi, and Erick 

Rubalcava. Topics: Prayer for Breaking Family Bondages; 

Does Ancestral Sin Affect the Living?; Passing Blessings to 

Future Generations; Freedom and Deliverance Through the 

Eucharist; Mass for Healing Your Family Tree. Register at 

http://www.scrc.org/. Cost: $25/person before Oct. 25, $35/ 

person after. 

Preparing for the Holidays. 10 a.m. Zoom webinar hosted 

by the Separated and Divorced Ministry. This presentation 

will hopefully provide those separated and divorced with 

guidance and support through the holiday season. Presenter: 

Vince Frese. To register, visit lacatholics.org/event/preparing-for-the-holidays/. 

■ TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9 

Catholic Cemeteries and Mortuaries Memorial Mass. 

San Fernando Mission Rey de España, 11 a.m. Mass will be 

livestreamed on LA Catholics social media channels and will 

not be open to the public. 

Women at the Well. Holy Spirit Retreat Center, 4316 Lanai 

Rd., Encino, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. With Sister Chris Machado, 

SSS. For more information, visit www.hsrcenter.com or call 

818-784-4515. 

■ THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11 

45th Annual Catholic-Jewish Women’s Conference: 

Unveiling the Sacred through Storytelling. 9 a.m.-12 p.m. 

Zoom conference. Keynote speakers: Michel Lemberger and 

Diana Macalintal, followed by participant dialogue groups. 

Cost: $20/person, tax deductible. Students are free with 

pre-registration and valid student ID. Need-based scholarships 

are available. For more information and to register, 

visit catholicjewishwomenla.org/conference. Registration 

closes Nov. 1. Contact Julie Heath Elliott at 310-575-1078 or 

jheathelliott@yahoo.com for more information. 

■ SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13 

Introduction to the Scriptures. Holy Spirit Retreat Center, 

4316 Lanai Rd., Encino, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. With Terry Dicks, 

MTS. For more information, visit www.hsrcenter.com or call 

818-784-4515. 

12th Annual African American Catholic Ancestral Mass. 

St. Odilia Church, 1335 E. 53rd St., Los Angeles, 90011, 

12 p.m. Mass will be livestreamed on AACCFE’s Facebook 

account. 

Items for the calendar of events are due four weeks prior to the date of the event. They may be emailed to calendar@angelusnews.com. 

All calendar items must include the name, date, time, address of the event, and a phone number for additional information.

Angelus News | November 5, 2021 | Vol. 6 No. 22

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?