Angelus News | July 15, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 14

A NEW BEGINNING 

What the end of Roe v. Wade means 

ANGELUS 

July 15, 2022 Vol. 7 No. 14

July 15, 2022 

Vol. 7 • No. 14 

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ON THE COVER 

CNS/EVELYN HOCKSTEIN, REUTERS 

Pro-lifers in Washington, D.C., celebrate outside the Supreme 

Court on June 24 as the court overruled the Roe v. Wade abortion 

decision in its ruling in the Dobbs case on a Mississippi law 

banning most abortions after 15 weeks. On Page 10, Catholic 

veterans of the pro-life movement share their joy — and their 

fears — about Dobbs’ impact in Southern California. On Page 14, 

Charlie Camosy debunks 10 widespread pieces of disinformation 

surrounding the landmark ruling. On Page 18, a roundup of 

some notable reactions to the end of Roe. 

THIS PAGE 

CNS/GO NAKAMURA, REUTERS 

Debra Ponce, left, and Angelita Olvera of 

San Antonio mourn on June 28 near the 

scene where at least 53 immigrants — at 

least half of them of Mexican origin — were 

found dead inside a trailer truck a day earlier. 

Officials believe the tragedy is the deadliest 

smuggling incident of its kind in U.S. history.

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 

20 

22 

24 

26 

28 

30 

This summer’s changing of the guard at the cathedral 

John Allen: Will the U.S. church follow the European détente on abortion? 

Catholics and higher ed: Where do we stand and where do we go next? 

Robert Brennan gets an unexpected lesson on ‘respect for life’ 

What ‘Benediction’ misses about its subject’s conversion story 

Heather King pays homage to the thieves of our earthly treasures 

July 15, 2022 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH 

A sacrament of unity 

The “sense of mystery” and awe 

Catholics should experience at 

Mass is not one prompted by 

Latin or by “creative” elements added 

to the celebration, but by an awareness 

of the sacrifice of Christ and his 

real presence in the Eucharist, Pope 

Francis said. 

“Beauty, just like truth, always engenders 

wonder, and when these are referred 

to the mystery of God, they lead 

to adoration,” he wrote in an apostolic 

letter “on the liturgical formation of the 

people of God.” 

Titled “Desiderio Desideravi” (“I 

have earnestly desired”), the letter was 

released June 29, the feast of Sts. Peter 

and Paul. The title comes from Luke 

22:15 when, before the Last Supper, 

Jesus tells his disciples, “I have earnestly 

desired to eat this Passover with you 

before I suffer.” 

In the letter, Pope Francis insisted that 

Catholics need to better understand 

the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican 

Council and its goal of promoting 

the “full, conscious, active, and fruitful 

celebration” of the Mass. 

“I want the beauty of the Christian 

celebration and its necessary consequences 

for the life of the Church not 

to be spoiled by a superficial and foreshortened 

understanding of its value 

or, worse yet, by its being exploited in 

service of some ideological vision, no 

matter what the hue,” the pope wrote. 

While his letter offered a “meditation” 

on the power and beauty of the Mass, 

Pope Francis also reiterated his conviction 

of the need to limit celebrations of 

the liturgy according to the rite in use 

before the Second Vatican Council. 

“We cannot go back to that ritual form 

which the council fathers, ‘cum Petro 

et sub Petro,’ (‘with and under Peter’) 

felt the need to reform.” 

Although the post-Vatican II Mass 

is celebrated in Latin and dozens of 

vernacular languages, he said, it is “one 

and the same prayer capable of expressing 

her (the Church’s) unity.” 

“As I have already written, I intend 

that this unity be reestablished in the 

whole Church of the Roman rite,” 

he said, which is why in 2021 he 

promulgated “Traditionis Custodes” 

(“Guardians of the Tradition”), limiting 

celebrations of the Mass according to 

the rite used before the Second Vatican 

Council. 

The pope acknowledged that some 

people claim that in reforming the 

liturgy and allowing celebrations of the 

Mass in the language of the local congregation, 

it has somehow lost what is 

“meant by the vague expression ‘sense 

of mystery.’ ” 

But the mystery celebrated and 

communicated, he said, is not about “a 

mysterious rite. It is, on the contrary, 

marveling at the fact that the salvific 

plan of God has been revealed in the 

paschal deed of Jesus.” 

Pope Francis said “the non-acceptance 

of the liturgical reform” of 

Vatican II, as well as “a superficial understanding 

of it, distracts us from the 

obligation of finding responses to the 

question that I come back to repeating: 

How can we grow in our capacity to 

live in full the liturgical action? How 

do we continue to let ourselves be 

amazed at what happens in the celebration 

under our very eyes?” 

“We are in need of a serious and dynamic 

liturgical formation,” he said. 

Reporting courtesy of Catholic News 

Service Rome bureau chief Cindy 

Wooden. 

Papal Prayer Intention for July: We pray for the elderly, who 

represent the roots and memory of a people; may their 

experience and wisdom help young people to look toward 

the future with hope and responsibility. 

2 • ANGELUS • July 15, 2022

NEW WORLD OF FAITH 


He calls, we answer 

When we read the Gospels 

every day, we start to notice 

a pattern. Jesus is on a 

journey, and as he goes, he is encountering 

different people along the way. 

Often, as he is passing by, he sees 

someone and invites that person to go 

with him. 

We think of stories of the apostles, 

Peter and Matthew; John and Andrew; 

Philip and Bartholomew; we think 

of Nicodemus and the Samaritan 

woman. 

Sometimes in the Gospel, the person’s 

name is not mentioned: “And to 

another he said, ‘Follow me.’ ” 

Those two words, “Follow me,” can 

stand as a summary for the whole 

Gospel. These words contain the 

Eight Beatitudes, the Sermon on the 

Mount, the Lord’s Prayer. 

“Follow me” means come and see 

what I am like. Live like I live, love 

like I love. Seek God’s will in everything. 

Serve as you see me serving, 

shining the bright light of God’s love 

and mercy into every corner of the 

earth. 

Late in his life, St. Pope John Paul II 

told a gathering of young people, “You 

are a thought of God, you are a heartbeat 

of God. To say this is like saying 

that you have a value which in a sense 

is infinite, that you matter to God in 

your completely unique individuality.” 

This is the beautiful truth of our 

lives. Jesus loves each of you, he has a 

plan for you. He came into this world 

to know you, to walk with you, and to 

invite you to live in friendship with 

him. 

Our lives truly begin when we become 

aware of his loving gaze, when we 

realize that he knows our name, and 

that he is calling us to walk with him. 

In these times of confusion and division 

in our world and in our culture, 

the most important thing we can do 

is return to Jesus Christ. We need to 

seek him, find him, and love him. We 

need to discover ourselves once again 

in his gaze of love, and open ourselves 

in new ways to listen for the divine 

voice that is speaking to our hearts. 

Nothing is lost or taken away from 

us when we let Jesus into our lives. In 

fact, it is the opposite. His friendship 

is the key that opens the door to life’s 

true meaning. He calls, and we answer. 

And in this dialogue, we discover 

the truth about who we are, and who 

we are called to become. 

“Follow me” is a call to vocation, 

to mission. It is a call to serve Jesus 

completely, with no limits or conditions 

on our love. He has a task for 

you, and he is asking for commitment 

and sacrifice from us. 

Jesus wants us to do great things 

with our lives and he will give us the 

graces to do those great things. He is 

calling us to use our gifts and talents 

to proclaim his kingdom and to save 

souls, to create a beautiful society that 

is open to God and that serves human 

dignity and social justice. 

The secret is that we carry out our 

vocation in the ordinary circumstances 

of our everyday lives. 

No matter our state of life, or our 

occupation, no matter who you are 

or what you are doing, you have the 

opportunity to proclaim his kingdom, 

and to help others to meet Jesus and 

know his love. Every day, in every circumstance, 

we have the possibility of 

bringing Jesus into the lives of others. 

We need to once again make Jesus 

the way and the truth for our lives. In 

our every ministry in the Church, we 

need to propose again the beautiful 

adventure of following Jesus. 

One of the saints said, “There are 

no roads made for you. You yourselves 

will make the way through the 

mountains, beating it out by your own 

footsteps.” This is the adventure. He 

In these times of confusion and division in our 

world and in our culture, the most important 

thing we can do is return to Jesus Christ. 

calls and we answer. 

Jesus left footprints when he walked 

on this earth. He calls all of us now, 

each in our own way, to walk in his 

footsteps, to follow his path of love. 

And he promises us that, if we answer 

his call, then we will know love and 

joy, beauty, goodness, and truth. Our 

lives will become a pathway of love 

that leads to heaven and eternal life. 

Pray for me, and I will pray for you. 

Let us ask Holy Mary, Mother of Fair 

Love, to help us to follow her Son, 

lighting up the paths of the earth by 

our love, leading many others to hear 

his call and to answer. 


WORLD 

Sister Luisa Dell-Orto in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. | AID TO 

THE CHURCH IN NEED ITALY 

■ Committed to Haiti, even unto death 

An Italian missionary nun who worked in Haiti for 20 years was killed in a 

suspected robbery attempt just two days shy of her 65th birthday. 

Sister Luisa Dell’Orto was a member of the Little Sisters of the Gospel who 

ran a home for children in a poor suburb of the Haitian capital, Port-au- 

Prince. She had previously written of her choice to continue working in the 

country despite its history with violence, poverty, and natural disasters. 

“You will tell me I am a bit crazy. Why stay here? Why expose yourself to 

‘risk’?” Dell’Orto wrote. “To be able to count on someone is important in 

order to live! And witnessing that you can count on the solidarity that comes 

from faith and love of God is the greatest gift we can offer.” 

In remarks to the public in St. Peter’s Square on June 26, Pope Francis 

praised the sister for “giving her life to others, until the point of martyrdom.” 

■ Mexican cardinal doesn’t like president’s ‘hug’ policy 

Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador ran for office on a “hugs not 

bullets” promise — to treat the root causes of the drug trade, like poverty, rather 

than focusing on military and police forces like his predecessors. 

But the June 20 murders of Jesuit priests Father Javier Campos Morales and 

Father Joaquín César Mora Salazar in Chihuahua prompted the archbishop of 

Guadalajara to criticize Obrador’s policies for allowing violent crime to flourish. 

“These people, those who are dedicated to organized crime, don’t know [anything] 

about hugs, no matter how much the government offers them, promises 

them, and gives them,” Cardinal José Francisco Robles Ortega said. 

The cardinal lamented that the killing of the two priests “adds to an already long 

list of priests murdered” in Mexico, which has seen a recent spike in violence. 

The front page of the first edition of “L’Osservatore di 

Strada,” dated June 29. | CNS 

Family man — Pope Francis greets a baby before attending Mass in St. Peter’s Square during the World Meeting 

of Families at the Vatican on June 25. The in-presence portion of most of the event on June 22-26 was limited to 

about 2,000 people. But the entire event was livestreamed, and parishes and dioceses around the world were 

holding their own events at the same time on the theme, “Family love: a vocation and a path to holiness.” | CNS/ 

VATICAN MEDIA 

■ A papal paper 

for the poor 

The Vatican is giving a “voice to the 

voiceless” through a new monthly 

newspaper, “L’Osservatore di Strada.” 

Produced by the official newspaper 

of the Vatican, “L’Osservatore Romano,” 

the new publication will include 

editorials by people living on the 

streets of Rome, articles by marginalized 

people, and artistic contributions 

from the poor. 

“Even those who have a cardboard 

box for a house have something to say 

and teach,” the newspaper said in a 

June 28 press release. 

Each new issue will be available online 

and in print at St. Peter’s Square 

for a freewill offering, which will go 

to support the homeless and poor who 

help produce the paper. 


NATION 

■ Supreme Court issues rulings 

on school choice, public prayer 

In a series of 6-3 split decisions issued in June, the Supreme Court expanded 

religious liberty protections in school choice and public prayer and struck down a 

century-old restriction on public carry of firearms. 

• In Carson v. Makin, the court ruled that a Maine tuition aid program could 

not exclude religious schools. According to the program, students who lived in 

areas without a local high school could receive vouchers for nonsectarian private 

education. 

• In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the court ruled that the Seattle-area 

school district had violated the free exercise and speech rights of football coach 

Joe Kennedy. Bremerton had fired Kennedy for his practice of praying at the 50- 

yard line at the end of a game. 

• In NYSRPA v. Bruen, the court overturned a century-old New York law that 

required residents to demonstrate “proper cause” to be licensed to carry a gun outside 

of the home, suggesting that it violated the Second Amendment. The state’s 

Catholic bishops expressed concern over the ruling, which is expected to trigger 

challenges to similar laws in other states. 

The ruins of St. Colman Church in Shady Spring, West 

Virginia. | BEAVER VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT. 

■ West Virginia: 

Suspected arson destroys 

historic chapel 

The burning of a 150-year-old Catholic 

chapel in West Virginia is being 

investigated as arson. 

St. Colman Chapel, located on Irish 

Mountain, is considered a “total loss,” 

although no one was inside during 

the fire, the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston 

confirmed. 

“The diocese is truly grateful for the 

response of so many fire departments 

in the area, but the little church 

burned quickly and nothing can be 

saved.” 

Since being listed on the National 

Register of Historic Places, the 

19th-century chapel has become a 

destination for ghosthunters, who 

claim to have experienced “cold 

spots” on the property. In 2012, the 

chapel had windows, pews, and the 

altar vandalized in connection to the 

paranormal reputation. 

Investigators do not yet know if the 

suspected arson was connected to 

ghost hunting or to the recent increase 

of vandalism and threats from 

pro-abortion activists against Catholic 

churches. 

Michelle Duppong. | CNS/UNIVERSITY OF MARY 

■ Sainthood investigation 

of FOCUS missionary 

begins 

The life of a North Dakota Catholic 

woman who died six years ago is being 

investigated for possible sainthood. 

Michelle Duppong was a FOCUS 

student missionary for six years at four 

colleges. In 2012 she became director 

of adult faith formation for her home 

diocese before a fatal cancer diagnosis 

in 2014. She died on Christmas Day in 

2015 at the age of 31. 

On June 16, Bishop David D. Kagan 

of Bismarck, North Dakota, announced 

the opening of a diocesan investigation 

that will collect testimonies 

about her life and compile any public 

or private writings to be presented to 

the Vatican. 

In remarks at the University of 

Mary, one of the colleges where she 

evangelized, Bishop Kagan praised 

“Michelle’s holiness of life and love for 

God” and said hers is a “witness which 

should also be shared with the universal 

Church.” 

Those who knew her recall how Duppong’s 

deep faith stood out in the face 

of her terminal illness. 

“We know that we’re all in this together 

and that we’re all on the same team 

in the body of Christ,” Duppong wrote 

in January 2015, “so I see the present 

suffering as taking one for the team. 

May God be glorified by all the good 

that comes through this!” 


LOCAL 

Archbishop Gintaras Grušas (second from left) at the June 26 unveiling of a mural honoring Blessed Teofilius Matulionis 

at St. Casimir Church. The mural was designed by local Catholic artist Lalo Garcia. | ST. CASIMIR CHURCH 

■ LA’s sanctuary for Lithuanian 

Catholics gets a facelift 

Los Angeles’ Lithuanian community celebrated the June 26 reopening of St. 

Casimir Church after extensive renovations. 

The upgrades include a new mural of Soviet-era martyr Blessed Teofilius 

Matulionis, a renovated church interior and new altar, and a map of Lithuania 

superimposed with images of six holy men and women with connections to the 

country. 

“We are always guided to keep the unique character of our church as a sanctuary 

of Lithuanian Catholic traditions, art and culture,” Vidal Aguas, a volunteer 

at St. Casimir, said. “It will be a reflection and story of people who fled from 

Soviet oppression while keeping the faith in their new country.” 

The celebrations were presided over by Archbishop Gintaras Grušas of Vilnius, 

Lithuania, a former parishioner of St. Casimir from his time as a student at 

UCLA, who also serves as president of the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences. 

The parish raised more than $215,000 to complete the renovations as part of 

the archdiocese’s Called to Renew campaign. 

Statement from the Archdiocese of 

Los Angeles on Father Jeffrey Newell 

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles reported that the Supreme Tribunal of the 

Apostolic Signatura of the Vatican has ruled that Father Jeffrey Newell is and 

always has been a priest incardinated in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. As 

a result, the decision by the Archdiocese to remove him from all ministry in 

1993 was confirmed, as of that date and continuing to the present. Under 

the ruling, since 1993, Fr. Newell has had no faculties which would have 

allowed him to minister anywhere. 

Notice of the ruling, dated Dec. 14, 2021, and provided to the Archdiocese 

on May 25, 2022, was in favor of the filing by the Archdiocese seeking official 

confirmation of its long held position. 

Under the decision, Fr. Newell is precluded from ministry anywhere, he is 

prohibited from offering Mass publicly, offering or presiding over any other 

sacraments or accepting any donations. 

Please contact the Archdiocese of Los Angeles at 213-637-7284 with any 

questions. 

Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia. | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

■ California bishops 

protest human 

composting bill 

California Catholics are protesting a 

proposed bill that would add “human 

composting” as a legal method 

of death care in the state, saying the 

process “reduces the human body to a 

… disposable commodity.” 

In a June 14 letter, the California 

Catholic Conference (CCC) 

expressed concerns about AB 351, 

the bill introduced by State Assemblywoman 

Cristina Garcia (D-Bell 

Gardens). The bill presents human 

composting as a “more environmentally 

friendly option,” but the CCC 

said that this method “can create an 

unfortunate spiritual, emotional, and 

psychological distancing from the 

deceased.” 

Human composting breaks down 

the body by placing it into a reusable 

vessel, covering it with wood chips, 

and aerating it. In 30 days, the body is 

transformed into soil. 

Garcia introduced a similar bill 

in 2020 that failed to gain traction. 

Human composting is legal in Washington, 

Colorado, and Oregon, and is 

pending approval in New York. 

Y 


V 

IN OTHER WORDS... 

Letters to the Editor 

Guy problems on campus 

I appreciated the detailed treatment given by Elise Ureneck’s 

“Men in Question” cover story in the July 1 issue to the current 

crisis in manhood. 

Having recently graduated college, I noticed many of the same problems described 

in the article during my four years on campus. While my female circle 

of friends seemed focused and dedicated when it came to exploring career opportunities 

and looking for a future husband, the “guys” we encountered (most 

of them Catholic) seemed less interested and, as the article puts it, “distracted” 

by things like video games and sports. 

I think that there should be more research done on this phenomenon, 

especially on how it’s affecting young families. It’s important that we know the 

generation we are called to evangelize! 

— Lucia Morales, Santa Clarita 

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. 

Meet an LA Catholic entrepreneur 

“The laws of the 

United States keep 

changing. We don’t know 

if they’ll get us out of here. 

This news, more than 

anything, generates 

more uncertainty.” 

~ Adán, a Nicaraguan asylum-seeker in Tijuana 

interviewed by the San Diego Union-Tribune, after 

the U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 30 that the Biden 

administration can end the Trump-era “Remain in 

Mexico” program. 

“It’s a lot easier to cut 

corners and manipulate 

images on smartphones — 

something we should all 

keep in mind in a time 

of rampant disinformation.” 

~ Oded Balilty, in a June 28 AP article, 

“The iPhone at 15, through pro photographers’ eyes.” 

“This is humans battling a 

force of nature. We don’t 

get to conquer nature.” 

~ Patricia O’Brien, a former firefighter who now 

researches PTSD, anxiety, and mental health 

struggles for wildland firefighters. 

“There is no way 

to sugarcoat it.” 

~ Bishop Georg Bätzing, president of the German 

bishops’ conference, on new figures showing that 

less than half of the German population registered as 

members of one of the two large churches: Catholic 

and Protestant. 

Amy D’Ambra, founder of My Saint, My Hero, stands in her jewelry workshop. Her story is the latest in the 

LA Catholics Story video series. | ARCHDIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES 

To view this video 

and others, visit 

AngelusNews.com/photos-videos 

Do you have photos or a story from your parish that you’d 

like to share? Please send to editorial @angelusnews.com. 

“Nothing justifies 

depriving the poor of 

charitable attention.” 

~ Auxiliary Bishop Silvio Baez of Managua, on 

the Nicaraguan government’s expulsion of the 

Missionaries of Charity from the country in June. 


IN EXILE 

FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI 

Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father 

Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual 

writer; ronaldrolheiser.com. 

Cheap grace 

There’s a tension among Christians 

today between those who 

would extend God’s mercy 

everywhere, seemingly without any 

conditions, and those who are more 

reticent and discriminating in dispensing 

it. 

The tension comes out most clearly 

in our debates concerning who may 

receive the sacraments: Who should 

be allowed to receive the Eucharist? 

Who should be allowed to marry inside 

a church? Who should be allowed a 

Christian burial? When should a priest 

withhold absolution in confession? 

However, this tension is about a lot 

more than who should be allowed to 

receive certain sacraments. Ultimately, 

it’s about how we understand God’s 

grace and mercy. A clear example of 

this today is the growing opposition we 

see in some sectors to the person and 

approach of Pope Francis. 

To his critics, Pope Francis is soft and 

compromising. To them, he is dispensing 

cheap grace, making God and his 

mercy as accessible as the nearest water 

tap. God’s embrace to all. No conditions 

asked. No prior repentance called 

for. No demand that there first be a 

change in the person’s life. Grace for 

all. No cost. 

What’s to be said about this? If we dispense 

God’s grace and mercy so indiscriminately, 

doesn’t this strip Christianity 

of much of its salt and leaven? May 

we simply embrace and bless everyone 

without any moral conditions? Isn’t the 

Gospel meant to confront? 

Well, the very phrase cheap grace is 

an oxymoron. There’s no such a thing 

as cheap grace. All grace, by definition, 

is unmerited just as all grace, by definition, 

doesn’t ask for certain preconditions 

to be met in order for it to be 

offered and received. The very essence 

of grace is that it is a gift, free, undeserved. 

And, though by its very nature 

grace often does evoke a response of 

love and a change of heart, it does not 

of itself demand them. 

There’s no more powerful example of 

this than Jesus’ parable of the prodigal 

son and how it illustrates how grace 

meets waywardness. We know the 

story. The prodigal son abandons and 

rejects his father, takes his unearned 

inheritance, goes off to a foreign land 

(a place away from his father) and 

squanders the money in the pursuit 

of pleasure. When he has wasted 

everything, he decides to return to his 

father, not because he suddenly has a 

renewed love for him, but, selfish still, 

because he is hungry. And, we know 

what happens. 

When he is still a long way from his 

father’s house, his father (no doubt 

longing for his return) runs out to meet 

him and, before his son even has an 

opportunity to apologize, embraces 

him unconditionally, takes him back 

into his house and prepares a special 

celebration for him. Talk about cheap 

grace! 

Notice to whom this parable was 

spoken. It was addressed to a group 

of sincere religious persons who were 

upset precisely because they felt that 

by embracing and eating with sinners 

(without first demanding some moral 

preconditions) Jesus was cheapening 

grace, making God’s love and mercy 

too accessible, hence less precious. 

Notice as well the reaction of many of 

Jesus’ contemporaries when they saw 

him dining with sinners. For example, 

when he dined with Zacchaeus, the tax 

collector, the Gospels tell us, “All who 

saw it began to grumble.” Interesting 

how that discontent persists. 

Why? Why this anxiety? What undergirds 

our “grumbling”? Concern for 

true religion? Not really. The deeper 

root of this anxiety is not religious but 

grounded rather in our nature and in 

our wounds. Our resistance to naked 

gift, to raw gratuity, to unconditional 

love, undeserved grace, stems rather 

from something inside our instinctual 

DNA that is hardened by our wounds. 

A combination of nature and wound 

imprints in us the belief that any gift, 

not least love and forgiveness, needs to 

be merited. In this life, no free meal! 

In religion, no free grace! A conspiracy 

between our nature and our wounds 

keeps forever reminding us that we 

are unlovable, and that love must be 

merited; it cannot be free because we 

are unworthy. 

Overcoming that inner voice that is 

perpetually reminding us that we are 

unlovable is, I believe, the ultimate 

struggle (psychological and spiritual) 

in our lives. Moreover, don’t be fooled 

by protests to the contrary. People who 

glibly radiate how lovable they are and 

make protests to that effect are mostly 

trying to keep that fear at bay. 

St. Paul wrote his Epistle to the 

Romans as his dying message. He 

devotes its first seven chapters to simply 

affirming repeatedly that we cannot get 

our lives right. We are morally incapable. 

However, his repeated emphasis 

that we cannot get our lives right is 

really a setup for what he really wants 

to leave with us, namely, we don’t have to 

get our lives right. We are loved in spite of our sin, 

and we are given everything freely, gratuitously, 

irrespective of any merit on our part. 

Our uneasiness with unmerited grace 

is rooted more in human insecurity 

than in any genuine religious concern. 


Participants march through the streets 

of downtown LA during the 2022 

OneLife LA. | VICTOR ALEMÁN 

‘We are going to be better’ 

Some never expected to see the end of Roe v. Wade in their lifetimes. 

Now, local Catholic pro-life veterans prepare for a more serious fight in 

their own state. 

BY NATALIE ROMANO AND PABLO KAY 

For years, it seemed like Jim 

Hanink and other local Catholic 

pro-life advocates were rebels for 

a cause going nowhere. 

Since the 1970s, they’ve spent hours 

reaching out to pregnant women, inviting 

them to reconsider the decision 

to abort. They’ve handed out flyers, 

wrangled with elected officials, and 

rallied the faithful in local parishes 

to join them in supporting women 

and families. Hanink and his wife, 

Elizabeth, a nurse, even helped rent 

apartments located near inner-city 

abortion clinics with the hope of 

saving preborn lives. 

But living in the aggressively progressive 

state of California, the overturning 

of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. 

Supreme Court decision that legalized 

abortion, always seemed like a remote 

objective. 

“I remember my oldest son asking 

me not so long ago, ‘You think it’ll 

ever change?’ ” remarked Hanink, a 

parishioner at St. John Chrysostom 

Church in Inglewood who retired in 

2015 after four decades as a philosophy 

professor at Loyola Marymount 

University. 

His answer: “Not while I’m alive.” 

The June 24 Supreme Court decision 

in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health 

Organization proved Hanink wrong. 

And while the moment is one for 

rejoicing, the court’s returning of 

abortion law to the states also portends 

a fight that just got much more serious 

in states like California. 

In recent years, Hanink has run 

for governor as the delegate of the 

American Solidarity Party, which is 


pro-family, pro-environment, and prolife, 

a position that includes opposing 

abortion and nuclear weapons. 

He expects “there will be the sharpest, 

strongest backlash” to last week’s 

ruling in states like California, where 

Gov. Gavin Newsom has promised 

to establish an abortion “haven” for 

women seeking abortions from other 

states in the country where the procedure 

can now be declared illegal. 

In the Dobbs case, the court not only 

ruled in favor of the state of Mississippi’s 

attempt to ban abortions after 15 

weeks, but reversed the federal right 

to abortion established by Roe v. Wade 

and later affirmed by Planned Parenthood 

vs. Casey in 1992. 

“The Constitution,” Justice Samuel 

Alito wrote in his majority opinion, 

“makes no reference to abortion, and 

no such right is implicitly protected by 

any constitutional provision.” 

They were words that the staff at Los 

Angeles Pregnancy Services have been 

waiting a long time to hear. 

“I’m glad to see the Supreme Court 

in its majority embrace truth, decency, 

and humanity,” said executive director 

Astrid Bennett, whose nonprofit 

provides testing, counseling, and baby 

supplies to expectant mothers. 

“For the unborn it means recognition 

that their lives are sacred,” she told Angelus. 

“They are a part of the human 

family and they are Americans with 

rights.” 

Msgr. John Moretta, pastor at Resurrection 

Church in Boyle Heights, 

also expressed thanks for last week’s 

decision. 

“I am grateful to God. It’s long 

overdue,” said Msgr. Moretta, who has 

worked for decades to fight abortion in 

the city’s Latino community. “I have 

personally cried to heaven to stop this 

onslaught of the innocent. I believe we 

as a society are going to be better.” 

Mary Huber, who will next month 

receive the “People of Life Award” 

from the U.S. Conference of Catholic 

Jim Hanink and his wife, Elizabeth, and their children at their 50th anniversary celebration in 2020. | SUBMITTED PHOTO 

Msgr. John Moretta and Archbishop José H. Gomez at 

the annual Guadalupe procession and Mass in 2014. 

| VICTOR ALEMÁN 

Bishops, called the ruling a good first 

step. 

Huber, now semi-retired, served as 

the Diocese of San Bernardino’s director 

of Respect Life and Pastoral Care 

programs for six years and worked in 

the department nearly two decades 

before that. 

“This is not a final victory but 

certainly a very important milestone,” 

said Huber. “Americans in general 

think if it’s legal, it’s moral and yet as 

Catholics we know abortion isn’t moral. 

This ruling could affect the overall 

thinking of generations.” 

In the immediate aftermath of the 

ruling, more than a dozen states have 

moved to enact to ban or limit access 

to most abortions. But in California, 

Newsom and state lawmakers have 

pledged to spend $40 million in 

taxpayer monies to make California a 

“sanctuary” for women in those other 

states seeking abortions. Newsom has 

also joined his counterparts in Oregon 

and Washington in promising to form 

a “West Coast offense” of increased 

abortion access common to all three 

states. 

“It’s really a shame that we’ll become 

a mecca for abortions,” Msgr. Moretta 

lamented. He called it “unconscionable” 

for Newsom to offer money to 

transport women from other states to 

have abortions in California. 


Astrid Bennett (left) with a mother and child helped 

at Los Angeles Pregnancy Services, of which she is the 

director. | SUBMITTED PHOTO 

Ordained in 1968, just a few years 

before Roe v. Wade, Msgr. Moretta 

has since served on the Right to Life 

Board of Directors and the Archdiocese 

of Los Angeles’ Pro-Life 

Commission, groups that established 

local pregnacy centers and womens’ 

shelters. 

After Roe, he and his fellow priests 

started wearing “Precious Circle of 

Life” rings as a symbol of their commitment 

to ending abortion. He long 

ago lost the ring, but he never gave up 

the fight. 

“We [Catholics] are on the forefront 

of the defense of life. We believe life is 

sacred from the very beginning to the 

very end. We should be proud of that.” 

Father Edward Molumby, a retired 

priest in residence at Sacred Heart 

Church in Rancho Cucamonga, 

served for 12 years as chaplain at Rachel’s 

Vineyard retreats helping women 

and men heal after abortion. He 

said he’s seen firsthand how the scars 

of abortion can linger for decades. 

“Sometimes there are women who 

had abortions 60 years ago and it 

still bothers them,” explained Father 

Molumby. “They cannot forget the 

pain and a lot of them think they 

cannot be forgiven.” 

While pleased with the court’s 

ruling, Father Molumby is concerned 

about the months ahead. 

“In terms of God’s plan, yes, this is 

good, but the price we’ll pay is unrest,” 

he said. “I’m worried. I think there’s 

going to be a lot of violence.” 

At Our Lady of Guadalupe Church 

in Chino, pastor Father Edmund 

Gomez said he will be stepping up 

his ministry to women and families. 

Already, he visits abortion clinics in 

hopes of changing womens’ minds, 

but he stressed that such work must 

be done with sensitivity and care. He 

fears women seeking abortion could 

still face harrassment. 

“We still have to do that one-on-one 

work,” said Father Gomez. “We put 

women in really hard situations in our 

society. They get dumped on a lot.” 

Huber believes men and women 

share equal responsibility for the creation 

of life, and this ruling brings the 

law closer to acknowledging that. 

“Behaviors are ultimately going to 

have to change to some degree. If I 

can’t just go to the store and get an 

abortion pill, maybe I have to think 

this through a little better,” said Huber. 

“Abortion also affects how some 

men treat women. It strips away his 

responsibility because it’s her responsibility 

to have the abortion.” 

In preparation of the court’s ruling 

and its consequences for women, 

the state’s Catholic bishops, through 

the California Catholic Conference, 

recently launched “We Were Born 

Ready,” an informational campaign 

to mobilize assistance for those with 

“difficult and unexpected pregnancies” 

and help women obtain housing, 

health care, and other needed 

services. 

Bennett said pregnancy centers also 

realize their work is more important 

than ever. She wants expectant mothers 

to know that the “help arm” of the 

pro-life movement is ready with more 

than 3,000 facilities across the nation. 

She is the founder of The VIDA 

Initiative, an organization dedicated 

to training leaders in the Hispanic 

community. 

“Latinos are instinctively pro-life,” 

said Bennett, herself the daughter of 

immigrants. “Our culture is a culture 

that embraces children, loves children, 

welcomes children. I think Hispanics 

bring hope because of their strong 

faith and their love of family.” 

According to Father Molumby, those 

are qualities the pro-life movement 

cannot afford to lose sight of. 

“We need continued evangelization,” 

said Father Molumby. “We have to 

find ways of supporting women and 

supporting politicians. We have to 

pray for the reestablishment of morality 

in all its forms.” 

Huber said when doing outreach, 

Catholics should always remember 

people may carry hurt from past 

experiences. 

“We continue the work, with affirmation, 

we’re doing the right thing. It 

goes back to Scripture. We speak with 

love in our voice and with that love in 

our voice comes support and help in 

any way we can.” 

Natalie Romano is a freelance writer 

for Angelus and the Inland Catholic 

Byte, the news website of the Diocese of 

San Bernardino. 

Pablo Kay is the editor-in-chief of 

Angelus. 


TIME FOR SOME 

TRUTH 

Pro-life demonstrators in Washington, D.C., celebrate outside the Supreme Court on June 24 as the court overruled the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion decision. | CNS/EVELYN HOCKSTEIN, REUTERS 

Now that Roe has fallen, 

10 myths about the future 

of abortion in the U.S. 

that need correcting. 

BY CHARLIE CAMOSY 

At long last, Roe v. Wade has fallen. The Supreme Court’s decision 

on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which also overturns 

Planned Parenthood v. Casey, is an astonishing victory for 

pro-lifers who have worked for decades to help vulnerable women 

and families and to help the surrounding culture understand the need 

for justice for the most vulnerable human beings of all: our prenatal 

children. 

The moment is so consequential that it will take time, perhaps years, to 

grasp its implications for our country. But one thing that comes to mind 

is all the pro-life warriors (especially figures like Pope St. John Paul II) 

who have gone before us and never got to see this day. Let us remember 

that this victory is the result of a multigenerational quest for justice. 

In some ways, this is just the end of the beginning of that quest. 

Pro-lifers have much more to do, and much of it will involve correcting 

disinformation about what this ruling actually means. Here are the top 

10 pieces of misinformation that will need correcting now that Dobbs 

has been decided and published. 

14 • ANGELUS • July 15, 2022

1. The Dobbs decision bans abortion. 

It is precisely because Dobbs doesn’t ban abortion that the 

pro-life movement has so much difficult work in its future. 

All the decision does is allow states to form their own policies 

and laws based on how their own debates play out. Unelected 

judges will no longer impose their abortion views onto an 

entire country. 

Some states, like Texas and Ohio, are likely to have significant 

laws that will protect prenatal justice. Other states, like 

California and New Jersey, will respond by trying to expand 

abortion access. We have much more work to do as a movement 

to help shape state policies to protect and support both 

women and their prenatal children. 

3. This decision will criminalize the choices of women, 

especially women who have miscarriages and ectopic 

pregnancies. 

This bit of misinformation is an effective talking point 

because it leans into the trope that pro-lifers don’t care about 

women. But let’s get one thing 100% clear: Every single prolife 

organization is against criminalizing women for having 

an abortion. 

Indeed, the last recorded case of prosecuting a woman for 

an abortion was in 1922! You may have heard of a recent 

proposal to criminalize women from a fringe legislator in 

Louisiana, but that proposal was castigated by pro-lifers 

everywhere, including by his fellow pro-life legislators and 

his pro-life governor. 

There have been some cases of women being prosecuted 

for miscarriages, but these cases involved women negligently 

causing the deaths of their prenatal children by using illegal 

drugs. They have nothing to do with abortion or the Dobbs 

case. Care for ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages also 

have nothing to do with abortion law. 

Indeed, the hardcore abortion restrictions that exist in some 

states right now all make exceptions to protect the life of the 

mother, and many explicitly mention care for miscarriages 

and ectopic pregnancies. 

4. This decision will lead to bans of other practices related 

to prenatal life like surrogacy and IVF. 

Dobbs has absolutely nothing to do with these or any other 

matters beyond abortion. While states could (and, in my 

view, should) strongly regulate these practices so that they 

respect the dignity of women and of prenatal children, that 

was perfectly possible even if Roe and Casey had remained 

in effect. Again, this decision is only about abortion. 

REUTERS 

An abortion demonstrator in Washington, D.C., reacts outside the Supreme Court 

on June 24. | CNS/EVELYN HOCKSTEIN, REUTERS 

2. Given that most U.S. Americans support Roe, this decision 

overturning it is deeply unpopular. 

We hear this a lot, but nothing could be further from the 

truth. The confusion stems from the fact that while many 

people say they support Roe, most people have very little 

idea what it says or did. 

Roe (and a decision that later supported its central holding, 

Planned Parenthood v. Casey) turned the United States into 

one of the most extreme countries in the world when it 

comes to abortion. Indeed, before Dobbs the Washington 

Post found that we were one of only seven countries that 

allowed abortion after 20 weeks. 

Gallup has consistently found that about 70% of U.S. 

Americans actually want abortion banned after 12 weeks. We 

can’t say for sure, but given that Dobbs will basically allow 

states to reflect the views of the majority it is likely to be a 

fairly popular decision. 

A woman looks at a 

picture of her ultrasound 

at Houston Women’s 

Reproductive Services 

on Oct. 1, 2021. | CNS/ 

EVELYN HOCKSTEIN, 

REUTERS 

July 15, 2022 • ANGELUS • 15

5. This decision will lead to a ban on contraception. 

This is the most outlandish position of them all. Dobbs 

has absolutely no bearing on contraception, nor is there any 

constituency which exists that is trying to ban contraception. 

There are some who think that the Supreme Court case 

that made contraception legal was wrongly decided, but 

every single state in the union strongly supports legalized 

contraception. And it isn’t close. This is pure scaremongering 

and an attempt to distract from the issue of abortion. 

While Catholics see a link between abortion and the contraceptive 

mentality, they recognize that they are categorically 

different moral issues. 

6. This decision will lead to bans on same-sex marriage 

and interracial marriage. 

I stand corrected. This is the most ludicrous position of 

them all. Obviously, Dobbs has nothing to say about any 

marriage. For many decades now, major media have been 

trying to tie abortion and same-sex marriage together as if 

they are inherently related issues. But they are not. 

The only way one could come up with this claim is if 

somehow the Dobbs decision may lead to other Supreme 

Court decisions being overturned. But like contraception, 

there simply is no constituency out there working for this. It 

is more scaremongering and distraction. 

A woman holds a baby in 2016 

at a maternity home in Riverside, 

New Jersey. | CNS/JEFFREY BRUNO 

Nellie Gray, 84, a pro-life leader who founded the March for Life in 1974, addresses the 

crowd during the annual rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in 2010. | CNS/ 

LESLIE E. KOSSOFF-NORDBY 

7. This decision makes the U.S. a restrictive and extremist 

country. 

Again, before Dobbs the United States was one of only 

seven countries that allowed abortion after 20 weeks. It is 

Roe and Casey that were extreme! Dobbs is not. Indeed, the 

Mississippi law that brought this case before the Supreme 

Court restricted abortion at only 15 weeks. Compared to 

most of very progressive Europe, 15 weeks is actually pretty 

abortion friendly. 

Many such countries have thresholds of 12 weeks. Again, 

Dobbs simply returns abortion policies to the states. There 

will be a wide range of laws enacted — the average of which 

will probably put us on par with many European countries. 

8. This decision will allow religious people to impose their 

dogma on those who think differently. 

Do we think, in his ultimately successful struggle for civil 

rights, that Martin Luther King Jr. (a Christian moral theologian 

as well as an activist) was trying to impose his religious 

dogma on those who think differently? 

In a sense he was, right? If one cares about justice for the 

most vulnerable at all, then one cares about imposing on 

those who think differently. That’s what justice does. But the 

appeal to the fundamental equal nature of all human beings 

is obviously not just a religious position. 

King had many non-Christian allies who also wanted to 

impose racial justice on those who think differently. We also 

have many non-Christian allies (especially the wonderful 

group Secular Pro-Life) who also want to impose prenatal 

justice on those who think differently. This isn’t about 

imposing religious dogma. This is about upholding basic 

human rights. 

9. This decision is clearly against the interest of economically 

vulnerable people, especially economically vulnerable 

people of color. 

This is easily refutable just by looking at the numbers from 

Gallup. People from households making less than $40,000 

per year are the most pro-life — while those making more 


s the 

CNS/ 

they will instead try to impose a white and privileged view of 

abortion onto economically vulnerable people of color who 

think very differently. 

than $100,000 are the most in favor of abortion rights. 

People of color are more pro-life while non-Hispanic whites 

are more pro-choice. The Dobbs decision actually gives the 

pro-life views of people of color, and of economically vulnerable 

people, the chance to actually matter in our coming 

state-level debates over abortion. 

It will be interesting to see if those privileged people who 

claim to want to listen to these “missing voices” do in fact 

welcome them into the coming abortion debates — or if 

10. At bottom, this decision is really about men imposing 

their views on women. 

Though there is an ebb and flow to the numbers, in general 

there is very little difference between men and women in 

their views on abortion. 

Perhaps because men coerce so many women into having 

abortions that they do not want (intimate partner violence 

correlates very closely with abortion), some of the strongest 

supporters of abortion rights are men. 

Meanwhile, every single major pro-life organization in the 

United States is led by a woman. Pregnant women know 

better than almost anyone that there is a living, kicking 

human being inside of them who is not a “clump of cells,” 

“part of the woman’s body,” or some other biologically nonsensical 

claim. They know on a level far more intimate than 

a man ever could that prenatal children are, in fact, human 

beings. 

And now, with Roe and Casey gone, bringing this objective 

truth to public debates about abortion could actually lead to 

prenatal justice. Let us work and pray that it comes to pass. 

Charlie 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).

Marie Keating of St. John Neumann in Eagan, Minnesota, holds a pro-life sign at a June 24 rally in downtown St. Paul. | CNS/DAVE HRBACEK, THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT 

THE SHOCKWAVES 

OF A SENTENCE 

A roundup of notable reactions to the end of Roe and the road ahead. 

BY ANGELUS STAFF 


Now that the Supreme Court 

has overruled Roe v. Wade and 

Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 

the democratic approach to abortion is 

starting to take shape in the U.S. 

The new landscape is a complex one, 

one where law, morality, biology, and 

politics will intersect in unprecedented 

ways. Here is a selection of reactions 

and observations that capture the 

meaning of a moment in the works for 

five decades. 


AND ARCHBISHOP WILLIAM E. 

LORI: 

“Our first thoughts are with the little 

ones whose lives have been taken 

since 1973. We mourn their loss, and 

we entrust their souls to God, who 

loved them from before all ages and 

who will love them for all eternity.” 

— Archbishop Gomez is the archbishop 

of Los Angeles and president 

of the U.S. Conference of Catholic 

Bishops (USCCB). Archbishop Lori is 

the archbishop of Baltimore and was 

instrumental in drafting the landmark 

Charter for the Protection of Children 

and Young People. 

HELEN ALVARÉ, THE HILL: 

“American society — including our 

economy — should now be required 

to face the fact that women get 

pregnant and need help and support 

then and throughout their parenting. 

It is a scandal that so many American 

institutions, especially corporations, 

act as if all women should model the 

“ideal male worker” and come to 

the public square free of child care 

responsibilities.” 

— Helen Alvaré is associate dean for 

academic affairs and the Robert A. 

Levy Chair in Law & Liberty at the 

Antonin Scalia Law School at George 

Mason University. 

MICHAEL WEAR, POLITICO: 

“If pro-life groups lose the fight to 

convince the American people that 

the new status quo is acceptable, they 

may lose everything they gained with 

Dobbs.” 

— Michael Wear is the author of 

“Reclaiming Hope: Lessons Learned 

in the Obama White House About the 

Future of Faith in America.” 

O. CARTER SNEAD, POLITICO: 

“Without Roe and Casey, over the 

next 10 years, the American people will 

be forced to talk to one another, reason 

together and learn that their political 

opponents are not enemies, but people 

of goodwill who are trying to care rightly 

for those they love.” 

— O. Carter Snead is professor of law 

and director of the de Nicola Center for 

Ethics and Culture at the University 

of Notre Dame, and author of “What 

It Means to be Human: The Case for 

the Body in Public Bioethics” (Harvard 

University Press, 2020). 

BISHOP DANIEL E. FLORES: 

“A society cannot turn against its own 

and hope to survive... I am grateful to 

God that the nightmare of Roe v. Wade 

is ending.” 

— Bishop Daniel E. Flores is the bishop 

of Brownsville, Texas, and the chairman 

of the U.S. Conference of Catholic 

Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine. 

KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR, THE 

NEW YORK TIMES: 

“Of course abortion, like all violence, 

abuse and injustice, will always be with 

us. But laws don’t only prevent — laws 

teach and form the ways in which we 

envision our world and the ways in 

which we can and should live with one 

another.” 

— Karen Swallow Prior is a research 

professor at Southeastern Baptist 

Theological Seminary, a columnist for 

Religion News Service, and the author 

of “On Reading Well: Finding the Good 

Life Through Great Books.” 

GERARD BRADLEY, FIRST 

THINGS: 

“In one crucial respect, Dobbs falls 

short: It does not say that the unborn 

are “persons” who enjoy a constitutional 

right to life under the Equal 

Protection Clause. Without this 

constitutional guarantee of life, the 

unborn will be safe from destruction 

in, say, Mississippi, but will be in 

deadly peril in California, which has 

declared its intention to be an abortion 

‘sanctuary.’ ” 

— Gerard V. Bradley is professor of 

law at the University of Notre Dame 

and trustee of the James Wilson Institute. 

ERIKA BACHIOCHI, THE NEW 

YORK TIMES: 

“Dobbs v. Jackson has returned the 

issue of abortion to legislatures. There, 

pro-lifers will work to ensure that unborn 

children in every jurisdiction are 

protected by law. Though individual 

states can (and already have) sought 

to protect the most vulnerable human 

beings through ordinary legislation, 

constitutional protection of unborn 

children as equal “persons” under the 

law remains the movement’s ultimate 

— if elusive — goal.” 

— Erika Bachiochi is a Catholic 

feminist anti-abortion legal scholar and 

fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy 

Center. 

JOHN GARVEY: 

“According to Einstein’s theory of 

gravity, massive objects can warp the 

fabric of space around them, distorting 

the trajectories of nearby objects. This 

has been the effect of Roe v. Wade on 

the law. Settled doctrines have been 

twisted beyond recognition when they 

are applied in cases about abortion. 

Dobbs rightly recognized this as a reason 

to set aside the rule of ‘stare decisis’ 

and overturn the precedent of Roe.” 

— John Garvey is the former president 

of The Catholic University of America 

and an expert in constitutional law and 

religious liberty. 

LEAH LIBRESCO SARGEANT, 

THE NEW YORK TIMES: 

“[Our culture] doesn’t have room 

for babies who are vulnerable and it 

doesn’t have room for women who are 

vulnerable. So abortion is a crutch that 

lets us navigate that hatred of dependence 

that’s pervasive in our culture. 

I think it’s one more mark of a sexist 

society that we take the burdens we 

put on the vulnerable, then lay them 

heavily on women and demand an 

act of violence to have equal access to 

society.” 

— Leah Libresco is a Catholic writer 

and school systems analyst based in 

Washington, D.C. 


TRANSITION ON 

TEMPLE STREET 

The cathedral’s outgoing pastor and his successor reflect on one 

of the most challenging assignments in the archdiocese. 

BY TOM HOFFARTH 

Father David Gallardo gives the homily during his last Sunday morning Mass as pastor at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on June 26. | VICTOR ALEMÁN 

Father David Gallardo had a 

small confession to make at his 

last Sunday morning Mass as 

pastor at the Cathedral of Our Lady of 

the Angels on June 26. 

Glancing over at Archbishop José H. 

Gomez, the priest revealed his initial 

reservations on taking the assignment 

back in 2017. 

“I’ve shared this with the archbishop 

— if I would have known only a 

quarter of the things I needed to do 

as pastor of the cathedral, I would 

have told him no, find another priest,” 

said Father Gallardo in his closing 

remarks. 

“But I didn’t. I said yes. And it was 

that yes that enabled me to grow in 

my own discipleship and as a priest. 

And I will take those blessings and 

those gifts and definitely use them as I 

begin my pastorship at St. Ignatius of 

Loyola in Highland Park.” 

With that, the reins pass this month 

to Msgr. Antonio Cacciapuoti, who 

that same day was saying farewell to 

parishioners at St. Bede the Venerable 

Church in La Cañada Flintridge, 

where he has been pastor for the last 

12 years. 

In Father Gallardo’s case, he actually 

had the benefit of being able to transition 

into the role more smoothly. He 

first arrived at the cathedral in 2016, 

giving him a whole year of preparation 

and consultation before taking 

over for Msgr. Kevin Kostelnik, the 

cathedral’s founding pastor since it 

first opened in 2002 under the leader- 


At a June 26 farewell reception, members of St. Bede’s Religious Education program presented Msgr. Cacciapuoti with a 

framed picture of the crucifix he brought to the church, with stained-glass windows made from fingerprints of students, 

catechists, and parents. One of the notable accomplishments during the outgoing pastor’s tenure was the raising of $13 

million for a new parish hall. | ST. BEDE THE VENERABLE 

ship of Archbishop Emeritus Cardinal 

Roger Mahony. 

“I don’t think I realized how much 

was involved in public relations and 

the number of interviews I’d be asked 

to do,” said Father Gallardo, 64, ordained 

in 1984. A second-generation 

Mexican American born and raised 

in Santa Monica with English as his 

first language, Father Gallardo said 

he had anxiety and stress at first doing 

interviews in Spanish until he became 

more comfortable. 

In particular, he came to appreciate 

the geographical and cultural diversity 

of the faithful who’d come to fill the 

pews of the 3,000-seat cathedral. 

“I was able to see the magnitude 

of the archdiocese as well as get a 

glimpse of the universal Church 

with so many cultures and traditions 

evident with all the different celebrations 

we would have all the time,” said 

Father Gallardo, who ministered at 

several parishes and high schools in 

the archdiocese before arriving at the 

cathedral. 

Cathedral parishioner Laurie 

Calderon credits “Father Dave” with 

enriching her faith — and even her 

marriage — through his preaching 

and personal availability. 

“I consider him family and I’m so 

thankful for his friendship and support 

through some of the most difficult 

years of my life,” Calderon told Angelus. 

“I truly believe that Father Dave 

was chosen by God to be our shepherd 

during COVID, and he knew 

that Father Dave was the one who 

could truly get us through it all.” 

His successor considers Father Gallardo 

a “sweet and gentle man, one of 

the kindest I have worked with,” during 

their time together in transition. 

And, yes, Father Gallardo also told 

Msgr. Cacciapuoti about his initial 

trepidation. 

“Maybe I don’t know everything 

that I will face, but I know I’ll have 

great support because we will have 

all the tools necessary,” said Msgr. 

Cacciapuoti, 61, who served in St. 

Paschal Baylon Church in Thousand 

Oaks and St. Raphael the Archangel 

Church in Goleta, before ministering 

as pastor of Christ the King Church in 

Hancock Park for 11 years. After that 

he was assigned to St. Bede Church 

in 2010. 

Born in Naples, Msgr. Cacciapuoti 

studied for the priesthood in Rome 

and later at St. John’s Seminary in 

Camarillo. He was ordained a priest 

of the archdiocese in 1990. 

“My goal is to be able to make sure 

everyone who comes feels welcome, 

from near or from far away,” Msgr. 

Cacciapuoti told Angelus. “It is all 

in the sacrament of being present to 

people, listening and paying attention, 

building a sense of community. We 

want people to feel the spirituality and 

go home with something to remember.” 

At his farewell reception on June 

26, St. Bede parishioners presented 

“Father Antonio” with a collection of 

goodbye messages. 

“Your manner, caring, example, 

humor, and love have been an inspiration 

to all of us,” read one. 

“Thank you for all you have done 

in making St. Bede such a wonderful 

parish and helping bring so many 

Christians into our faith,” read another. 

Msgr. Cacciapuoti said he doesn’t 

feel nervous or worried about the 

change, but rather “excited.” One 

thing on his to-do list: improving his 

Spanish, which he can “get by on” for 

now. Another: “Maybe once a year we 

can do a Mass in Italian,” he quipped. 

“I think I can make that happen.” 

Father Gallardo said his advice to his 

successor is to be “very, very patient 

and just know you have a tremendous 

staff here to assist you.” 

“When I first came as the pastor, I 

was used to doing so many things and 

it took me a while to adjust to that,” 

he said. 

At the June 26 farewell Mass, 

Archbishop Gomez thanked Father 

Gallardo for his “beautiful time” as 

the cathedral pastor. He reminded 

those present of the role that the cathedral 

played during the COVID-19 

pandemic, and of the challenges 

he faced. He also recognized that 

Father Gallardo’s tenure saw several 

important milestones, among them 

the installation of the cathedral’s new 

Marian tapestry, the launch of the 

local synod process, the jubilee year, 

and the launch of the ongoing national 

eucharistic revival. 

“You have a special ministry at St. Ignatius 

of Loyola,” Archbishop Gomez 

told him. “And you have our prayers 

in a special way, and our friendship 

and our support in everything you do.” 

Tom Hoffarth is an award-winning 

journalist based in Los Angeles. 


People walk in the ninth national March for Life in Rome on May 18, 2019. Abortion has been legal in Italy since 1978. | CNS/COURTESY MARCIA PER LA VITA 

Agreeing to disagree 

After the Dobbs ruling, the US church may be poised 

to walk in Europe’s footsteps on abortion. 

BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR. 

ROME — In the early 2000s, a 

prominent European cardinal 

convened a behind-closed-doors 

summit of the leading intellectual 

lights of conservative Catholicism 

from Europe and the United States. 

The gist was to discuss how conservative 

Catholicism — what participants 

would describe as “orthodoxy” — 

should meet the challenges of the new 

century taking shape. 

As the discussions unfolded, a stark 

division became clear between the two 

sides of the Atlantic over abortion. 

The dispute was not over whether 

abortion is a grave moral evil, with 

which everyone taking part would 

readily agree. It was, instead, over 

what pride of place abortion deserves 

among the Church’s various priorities. 

To put the point in its simplest terms, 

the Europeans accused the Americans 

of being myopic and obsessed with 

abortion, while the Americans accused 

the Europeans of being feckless and 

compromised by not pushing back 

harder against permissive abortion 

policies. 

At the time, European Catholic 

conservatives were focused on a host 

of other matters, including a rising tide 

of Islamic immigration, which they 

feared might undercut the Christian 

roots of the continent; runaway secularism, 

which they feared was shading 

off into overt hostility to institutional 

Christianity; and the bureaucratic 

pretensions of the European Union, 

which they saw as a threat to distinctive 

national identity, often with 

foundations in Christian values. 

For the Americans, it seemed clear 

that while those concerns were 

important, the primordial issue of 

the day is the defense of human life, 

beginning with the struggle against 

legalized abortion. They compared it 

to the campaign against slavery in the 


19th century, warning that history will 

judge the Church if it fails to be on 

the right side of the abortion debate. 

This bit of history comes to mind in 

light of the recent Dobbs v. Jackson 

decision of the United States Supreme 

Court, effectively overturning Roe v. 

Wade. As the long-ago conservative 

summit illustrates, the contrast in 

Catholic culture between the two sides 

of the Atlantic — with abortion front 

and center among American Catholic 

concerns, not so much in Europe — 

isn’t about ideology, but the realities of 

the political landscape. 

In America, prior to Dobbs v. Jackson, 

the abortion question was never settled 

democratically but was instead a 

result of judicial fiat, meaning that the 

pro-life movement never accepted the 

legitimacy of the outcome because it 

seemed foisted upon the country by 

unelected, and arguably unrepresentative, 

judges. 

In Europe, on the other hand, there 

were ferocious political debates over 

abortion in the 1970s and ’80s, which 

resulted in a new status quo in which 

abortion would be widely available 

within certain limits. While pro-lifers 

across Europe today obviously dissent 

from that arrangement, they don’t 

fundamentally question its democratic 

legitimacy, nor do they harbor many 

illusions about what would be likely to 

happen should it come up for a vote 

again. 

In Italy, for example, a law permitting 

abortion without restrictions during 

the first 90 days of a pregnancy, and in 

cases of threats to the life or health of 

the mother thereafter, was adopted in 

May 1978 after a contentious parliamentary 

debate. 

Known as “Law 194,” it also provides 

for conscientious objection, so that no 

health care worker can be compelled 

to participate in an abortion. (According 

to some estimates, up to 70% of 

gynecologists in the country decline to 

perform the procedure.) 

Two popular referenda held on May 

17, 1981, challenged the new law. 

One, proposed by Italy’s Radicals 

and the Communist Party, sought to 

eliminate all restrictions on abortion, 

while the other, backed by social conservatives 

and the Catholic Church, 

wanted to recriminalize abortion. The 

former was shot down by 88% of Italian 

voters, while the other was rejected 

by 68%. 

When the dust settled, it seemed 

clear to Italians that the people had 

spoken: abortion would be legal, within 

certain limits, but no one would be 

forced to participate. In the 40 years 

since the referenda, the saying “la legge 

194 non si tocca,” (“don’t touch the 

abortion law”), has become a political 

mantra for left, right, and center alike. 

So far, there seems little evidence 

that the landmark ruling in the United 

States is likely to have much effect in 

altering these European realities. 

In France, the head of President Emmanuel 

Macron’s party has introduced 

a bill to enshrine respect for abortion 

rights into the French constitution, 

and even the leader of the far-right National 

Rally party, Marine Le Pen, has 

said she has no intention of challenging 

existing abortion laws. 

In Italy, Giorgia Meloni, leader of 

the right-wing “Fratelli d’Italia” party, 

said in response to Dobbs v. Jackson 

that the situation in Italy is “light years 

removed” from the U.S. 

“Here, the voluntary interruption 

of a pregnancy is permitted not by a 

court decision, but a law voted on by 

parliament,” Meloni said, indicating 

no appetite to challenge that decision. 

Her fellow conservative leader, Matteo 

Salvini of the far-right Lega party, 

has said that he’s personally pro-life 

but that “the final word on abortion 

belongs to women, and no one else.” 

Germany, where abortion technically 

remains illegal but is widely permitted 

within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, 

recently scrapped a Nazi-era law that 

prohibited doctors from providing 

details on the abortion procedures 

they offer. There seems no serious 

push to change the basic contours 

Pope Francis greets 

U.S. House Speaker 

Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., 

accompanied by her 

husband, Paul, before 

Mass on the feast of 

Sts. Peter and Paul in 

St. Peter’s Basilica at 

the Vatican on June 29. 

Pelosi made headlines 

for receiving Communion 

at the Mass despite 

her position in support 

of abortion rights. 

| CNS/VATICAN MEDIA 

VIA REUTERS 

of the country’s abortion policy from 

either side of the political aisle, in part 

because most polls show it would be a 

losing proposition. 

In the immediate wake of the Dobbs 

ruling, most short-term forecasts are 

for tremendous political storms in the 

United States over abortion, beginning 

with the midterm elections this fall. 

Perhaps the lesson of Europe, however, 

is that such turbulence, however 

fraught and painful, is the price that 

must be paid to achieve a rough social 

consensus down the line. 

Perhaps in some future trans-Atlantic 

Catholic summit, American and 

European Catholics will find their differences 

on abortion less pronounced, 

because, at long last, the democratic 

system will have had its say in the U.S. 

as well. 

John L. Allen is the editor of Crux. 


A return to mission 

Can Catholic universities keep their identity in the 21st century? 

BY FATHER DORIAN LLYWELYN, SJ 

A statue of Christ on the campus of Newman University in Wichita, Kansas, on July 29, 2018. | CNS/COURTESY NEWMAN UNIVERSITY 

COVID-19 has been a major 

stressor for educational 

institutions as well as for 

students and their families. Many 

big questions face higher education, 

including value for money, financial 

sustainability, shifting demographics, 

and a falling birthrate. 

Our U.S. Catholic colleges face an 

additional set of questions. 

Most of my adult life has been spent 

in higher ed institutions, both secular 

and Catholic, in Europe, Africa, Asia, 

and the U.S. Working in academic 

leadership has made me aware of 

the potential tension between being 

a Catholic university and a Catholic 

university. Catholic universities 

have to live up to the same academic 

standards as their secular competitors. 

But as part of the teaching ministry of 

the Church, they should also reflect 

the Catholic view of the human person 

and society. 

Most of our colleges and universities 

were founded in a very different 

world from the one we inhabit. Many 

grew out of our astounding parochial 

school system. Over the course 

of more than 100 years, Catholic 

colleges helped raise Catholics’ social 

and economic standing, successfully 

bringing many of them into the mainstream 

of national life. 

But that very success created new 

challenges, as universities sought 

to raise academic standards and 

compete in the market for the best 

students and professors. In 1967, the 

group of Catholic university leaders 

who signed the Land O’Lakes agreement 

argued that Catholic universities 

are independent of “authority of 

whatever kind, lay or clerical, external 

to the academic community itself.” 

Over the next decades, many schools 

run by religious orders handed over 

direct ownership to boards of lay trustees. 

Those decisions were taken by 

people raised in a strong and distinctive 

American Catholic culture. They 

were confident about the strength of 

that culture. But since then, the U.S. 

Catholic world has evolved, becoming 

weaker and fragmented, and 

the Catholic identity of schools and 

colleges has shifted in tandem with 

the decline in religious vocations of 

the orders who founded them. 

The role of our universities in forming 

thinking and responsible people 

of faith has come under question, often 

by faculty who may well not have 


much understanding of the mission 

of a Catholic university. Few U.S. 

Catholic universities have complied 

with the requirements of Pope John 

Paul II’s 1990 “Ex Corde Ecclesiae” 

(“From the heart of the Church”), 

that more than 50% of professors 

should be Catholics. 

Professors — including those who 

teach at Catholic universities — are 

now largely on the political and 

cultural left. As such they are less 

likely to support Catholic teaching on 

sexuality, gender, and the sanctity of 

life, or to have a religious outlook. 

Education costs 

are high. Small 

Catholic colleges 

struggle to remain 

above water 

financially. A 

four-year degree 

at a reputable 

Catholic college 

can run to well 

over $250,000, 

pricing out middle-class 

families 

who are ineligible 

for much 

financial aid. 

When Catholic 

parents and 

students, and 

college trustees 

and leaders 

come to think 

about college, 

they face difficult 

choices as they 

try to balance 

finance, faith, and education. Parents 

may prioritize entry into the job market 

over Catholic faith. For others, a 

Catholic college education is only a 

dream without substantial financial 

help. There are no easy or perfect 

answers. 

Broadly, there are three different 

possibilities for Catholic students and 

higher education. A minority of institutions 

clearly put the word Catholic 

in upper case letters. Their students 

will be taught by committed Catholic 

professors, the often rigorous curriculum 

will take both faith and rational 

thinking seriously. But students will 

not necessarily encounter much religious 

diversity. And for the most part, 

these are small colleges that do not 

have widespread appeal. 

A second range of colleges are 

Catholic in their origins, but more 

likely to stress that they are universities 

first and Catholic second. They 

are committed to academic excellence 

as well as service and justice, 

and aim to produce ethical citizens. 

But, faith — other than ethics — can 

easily get downplayed in favor of religious 

diversity and social justice. 

Such universities may well have active 

campus ministries and Catholic 

students can find a faith community. 

A priest celebrates Mass for students and faculty on Jan. 31, 2012, in the Catholic Student Center at Washington 

University in St. Louis. | CNS/LISA JOHNSTON, ST. LOUIS REVIEW 

And the core curricula of the best 

of these schools will include at least 

some religious classes that all students 

have to take. But sustaining students’ 

faith cannot realistically be assured. 

Another possibility is the non-Catholic 

college, public or private. Newman 

Centers at larger residential 

universities offer Catholic students 

ways to have a more lively faith experience. 

Campus ministries at community 

colleges can sadly rarely give that 

level of support. What none of these 

can offer, however, is what old-time 

Catholic colleges provided excellently: 

a formative experience where faith 

is valued and integrated into thinking 

in all aspects of college life. 

A fail-safe all-inclusive checklist 

for “Characteristics of all Catholic 

Universities” is impossible, but here’s 

a working short list that I hope might 

be useful to parents, students, professors 

and administrators, trustees and 

donors: courageous leadership that 

fully “gets” the substance and style of 

Catholic education. A campus culture 

that is both clearly Catholic and 

inclusive of the many people there 

who do not share our faith. Being 

clearly at the service of the local and 

global Church, which includes the 

poor. And, of course, institutional 

integrity. 

But even that 

list doesn’t get to 

the real DNA of 

Catholic education. 

For that we 

have to dig deeper 

into the things 

that Catholic 

thinking does 

supremely well: 

bringing together 

faith with our 

God-given intelligence. 

Seeing 

God’s thumbprints 

all over 

the world. Understanding 

that 

life is complex. 

Hopeful realism 

and humility 

about what we 

can and cannot 

know. Always 

being willing 

to at least listen to new perspectives. 

Understanding that the past has much 

to teach us, as do different cultures. 

And experiencing that study can be 

one way of worshiping God. 

Many of the most famous U.S. 

universities began with religious convictions, 

but eventually gave up their 

religious identities. Catholic higher 

education is a precious inheritance. I 

hope we can pass it on in its fullness 

to generations to come. 

Father Dorian Llywelyn, SJ, is 

president of the Institute for Advanced 

Catholic Studies, an independent research 

center located at the University 

of Southern California. 


AD REM 

ROBERT BRENNAN 

Robert Bre 

he has wo 

Catholic jo 

A brush with life — and death 

SHUTTERSTOCK 

As Catholics, we tend to compartmentalize 

our thoughts 

around liturgical seasons. During 

Advent, we anticipate the coming of the 

Savior and it culminates in the joyfulness 

of Christmas and all its traditions. 

Lent makes us think of our shortcomings 

and the need we have to recover or 

reinforce our love for the Lord. Good 

Friday is the low point, followed by the 

high point of Easter. 

The rest of the year we have “reminder” 

months like May and October that 

turn our thoughts toward the Blessed 

Mother. Then, of course, every day 

that we participate in Mass, Jesus is and 

should be front and center. 

But that still leaves a lot of time left 

over in our Outlook calendars to not 

think about what we all love to not 

think about: death. 

Woody Allen once quipped, “I’m not 

afraid of death … I just don’t want to 

be there when it happens.” With most 

funerals I attend rebranded as a “celebration 

of life,” it appears Allen speaks 

for multitudes, even those who do not 

share his questioning attitude toward 

God, eternal life, and everything else 

he should have learned at Yeshiva. 

We are born into a vale of tears and 

then we die. Profound as it is derivative, 

the truth about death remains a cold, 

hard fact of life. Judging by the centuries 

of classical Church art associated 

with “memento mori” — lots of skulls 

and bones — it seems Western culture 

once had a firmer grasp on this truth. 

While it may seem more macabre to 

our contemporaries, death is still at the 

center of our faith and of the Eucharist, 

reminding us that the Church’s healthy 

opinion of the nature of death is rational 

and understandable. 

That brings me to the strangely providential, 

nonthreatening brush with 

death I had on Thursday, June 23. 

The day was nothing special to me. 

Like so many other days, I found myself 

in my car scrolling through my radio 

dial. I landed on a station where a 

woman was being interviewed about 

her unique occupation: she was a hospice 

professional specializing in grief 

counseling and end of life palliative 

care. Basically, she helped people die. 

She was in the “death” business. 


Robert Brennan writes from Los Angeles, where 

he has worked in the entertainment industry, 

Catholic journalism, and the nonprofit sector. 

Her profession was not to cure or 

repair, but to be present when that inescapable 

reality comes to those entrusted 

to her tenderness and mercy. She had 

a mesmerizing, soothing voice. From 

the other side of the radio signal, her 

compassion and her love for those she 

served was tangible. 

At the time, I thought this chance 

“meeting” over the radio waves was 

an interesting insight into how we, as 

Catholics, should think about death. 

The caregiver did not speak out about 

death with fear. She believed in the everlasting 

life that comes from following 

Jesus. 

So, when the calendar turned over 

and the events of June 24 began to 

unfold, my mind began to calculate the 

seemingly serendipitous coincidences. I 

thought back to this radio interview and 

the disembodied voice of this remarkable 

woman, and instead of death, I 

thought of life. 

The unseen hospice professional, 

I thought, was as calm as those protesting 

the Supreme Court’s decision 

on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health 

Organization have been loud. She was 

as serene as the protesters were enraged. 

In our imperfect world, abortion access 

will be restricted in some states and 

widened in other states like California. 

But listening to this woman on the radio 

I could only think of God’s symmetry, 

and how the pro-life movement has 

always been about life from beginning 

to natural end and regardless of what 

laws are passed, upheld, or overturned, 

the need to defend life from beginning 

to end goes on. 

At almost every Mass I attend at my 

local parish, one of the intentions for 

the week is to pray for “respect for life,” 

from the moment of conception to natural 

death. This compassionate woman 

stood at the foot of a lot of crosses over 

the years, and to me, she represents 

the ultimate “pro-life” position. Maybe 

God was trying to tip me off a day early. 


NOW PLAYING BENEDICTION 

A SOLDIER AS MYSTIC 

Terrence Davies’ new biopic struggles to come to terms 

with a conflicted World War I poet’s conversion. 

Jack Lowden as Siegfried Sassoon 

in “Benediction.” | IMDB 

BY JOE JOYCE 

A 

useful axiom of criticism is to 

review a film for what it is, not 

for what it could or should have 

been. For example, it simply isn’t productive 

to watch “Top Gun: Maverick” 

and lament its lack of commentary on 

the British working class. Its interests 

lie elsewhere, and we should respect 

that. 

Another question is whether that 

channel of respect should flow both 

ways. What obligation do directors owe 

to their subjects, particularly in the 

case of a biographical film? Are their 

lives further fodder for creativity, or 

should we seek to depict them only as 

they were? 

This conundrum echoes throughout 

“Benediction,” director Terrence 

Davies’ new film on English poet 

Siegfried Sassoon. 

Sassoon is perhaps best known as a 

member of that trinity of great English 

World War I poets, alongside Rupert 

Brooke and Wilfred Owen. If Sassoon’s 

reputation is in any way diminished 

in comparison to that pair, it’s only 

because he had the misfortune to survive 

the war. While his poetic contemporaries 

were immortalized, Sassoon 

faced the unenviable task of having to 

trudge on. Even after the armistice, this 

soldier had to face one final, eternal 

uphill battle. 

While much of Sassoon’s work is read 

in voiceover throughout “Benediction,” 

Davies is far more interested in 

capturing this trudging than Sassoon’s 

artistic process. Most of the film follows 

Siegfried as he seeks solace in a flurry 

of romances, at first with a succession 

of men but eventually with a woman 

whom he marries for a spell. None do 

the trick, and eventually you suspect 

that Sassoon intends it so. By forever 

choosing partners that are ruinous for 

him, Sassoon turns even love into a 

flagellation, the only sin of his continued 

survival. 

Flagellation is a key word here, as is 

the film’s title, “Benediction.” The film 

is bookended with two scenes of the 

poet later in his autumn years. The first 

is Sassoon’s conversion to Catholicism 

late in life, much to the agitation of his 

adult son. When pressed for a reason, 

Sassoon explains that the Church 


provides the permanence he needs in 

his life. 

“You can get permanence from dressage, 

without the guilt,” quips his son 

in reply. 

Of course, his son doesn’t realize that 

he already has guilt, so he might as 

well get salvation while he’s at it. As the 

title implies, what Sassoon truly seeks 

is some sort of blessing on his life, a 

grander sanction to the suffering he 

endured as a solider and as a gay man. 

But the film ends with him shying 

away from sharing a cab with his son, 

instead walking home alone with his 

persisting misery. The inescapable 

parting message is that the grace did 

not take. 

But back to our opening quandary: 

Was this really the fate of Sassoon, or is 

this itineration merely an avatar? 

Like Sassoon, director Davies is gay 

and Catholic (albeit more of the fallen 

away “cradle” variety). From interviews 

it’s clear that Davies admires 

Sassoon, but doesn’t quite understand 

or approve of his decision to convert, 

referring to religion as a “complete lie” 

at one point. 

This shouldn’t necessarily preclude 

him from making a film about religion. 

But how much can you respect your 

subject when you treat him as merely a 

vessel for your own problems? 

In the case of “Benediction,” Davies’ 

admiration of 

Sassoon devolves 

into mere fascination. 

Davies’ greatest 

gift — and weakness — as a filmmaker 

is his personal touch. It makes his work 

startlingly intimate, but inevitably 

those stories become about him. If Sassoon’s 

pain and loneliness rings painfully 

true in “Benediction,” perhaps it’s 

because it is Davies’ own. 

Davies’ reluctance to approach the 

conversion on its own terms prevents 

an honest biography. Sassoon’s 

embrace of Catholicism is neither 

shocking nor as desperate as he thinks 

it is. When your eyes are closed on 

purpose, even objects thrown directly 

at you will come as a surprise. Davies’ 

narrative lays the breadcrumbs for Sassoon’s 

eventual crossing of the Tiber, 

introducing us to some of the pivotal 

figures that guided him along, but 

without citing their own connections to 

the Church. 

For one, he neglects to mention that 

Sassoon’s mother was Anglo-Catholic. 

Edith Sitwell makes a memorable 

appearance, a fellow poet and friend 

of Sassoon’s who entered the Church 

three years before him, with Evelyn 

Waugh as her godfather. 

Then there’s the writer, critic, and 

general aesthete Robbie Ross, a sort 

of guardian 

Siegfried Sassoon photographed 

in 1915 by George 

Charles Beresford. 

| WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

Filmmaker Terence 

Davies. | ©TERENCE- 

DAVIES.COM 

angel throughout 

Sassoon’s life. 

He saves Sassoon 

from a potential 

court martial 

by getting him 

placed in a military hospital instead, 

and later introduces him to the wider 

artistic circle that would creatively 

sustain Sassoon for the rest of his life. 

A Catholic, Ross was the one who 

called a priest to the deathbed of his 

dear friend Oscar Wilde. With such a 

mentor, Catholicism seems less surprising 

than inevitable. 

While the film paints his embrace of 

religion the same way a drowning man 

might hug a piece of flotsam, the actu- 

al Sassoon came in clear-eyed. He was 

friends with neighbor and fellow convert 

Father Ronald Knox and wished 

for Father Knox to initiate him into the 

Church, had not Father Knox’s failing 

health prevented it. 

The most touching testimony comes 

from Sassoon’s niece, Jessica Gatty, 

who knew him in the final decade of 

his life. Far from the embittered shell 

we see in the film, her memories of 

Sassoon were of a gentle man of genuine 

faith. She recounts a tender moment 

where, as they walked through 

a garden, Sassoon held up a petal and 

said, “You have to believe someone 

created that.” 

While the war never strayed far from 

his thoughts, Gatty said Sassoon was 

also worried that his legacy would 

never transcend his war poetry, that the 

rest of his life and work would be overshadowed 

by the very war he hated. 

He needn’t have worried about his 

legacy. That same niece, inspired by 

his example, would herself convert and 

go on to enter the convent after his 

death. Despite all the pain and beauty, 

the dalliances and heartbreaks, the legends 

and misconceptions, it’s hard to 

think of a finer legacy to leave behind 

than that. 

Joe Joyce is a screenwriter and freelance 

critic based in Sherman Oaks. 


DESIRE LINES 

HEATHER KING 

Treasures without price 

For 15 years, photographer Emmet 

Gowin (b. 1941) intermittently 

traveled to the forests of 

Central and South America in order 

to learn about, live with, and capture 

the mysterious essence of moths. 

“Mariposas Nocturnas: Moths of 

Central and South America (A Study 

in Beauty and Diversity)” (Princeton 

University Press, $39) is the result. 

In the course of his decades-long 

career, Gowin has photographed his 

“Index No. 1. April, May, and August 2001, Several Sites Including the Cana Mine Site, Darién National Park, 

and La Fortuna Station, Chiriquí Province, Panama,” 2001. | EMMET GOWIN/MARIPOSAS NOCTURNAS 

extended family, including his wife, 

Edith, his children, and his aging 

parents. In the 1980s, his focus shifted 

to aerial landscapes of America and 

Europe, with a special interest in 

environmental degradation stemming 

from the effects of irrigation, mining, 

and military testing. 

At 75, he published his paean to 

moths. 

A hefty 11 inches by 14 inches, the 

book features 51 plates with 25 photos 

on each page as a reflective afterword 

by Gowin, and a foreword by American 

writer and conservationist Terry 

Tempest Williams. 

“A mosaic of winged beings,” she 

describes the moths. “Robed priests 

and priestesses of darkness.” “Living 

oracles.” 

“Within the indexes of ‘Mariposas 

Nocturnas,’ I can see whom we live 

among, with each moth’s accompanying 

name in Latin registering as 

a prayer: “Melese drucei,” “Parasa 

wellesca,” “Nemoria interlucens,” 

“Repnoa imparillis,” “Pryteria alboatra.” 

This is a liturgy of love that spans 

160 million years of their evolution. 

Beauty is its own form of resistance.” 

So breathtaking in fact are these 

creatures — with their almost unbelievable 

variety of design, color, shape, 

and poetry — that I had the book for a 

year before I could bring myself fully 

to take it in. I’d studied one plate and 

set the rest aside till I’d steeled myself. 

As with a late Beethoven quartet, or a 

Cézanne still-life, the intensity of the 

beauty is almost too much to bear. 

Like butterflies, moths undergo a 

metamorphosis, which only deepens 

the mystery. Gowin raised some species 

himself from eggs he had watched 

the mother lay and that emerged the 

following spring. 

Whether in Peru, Bolivia, Colom- 


Heather King is an award-winning 

author, speaker, and workshop leader. 

bia, or Ecuador, almost all the moths 

were photographed while alive, at first 

“happily settled on a brightly painted 

wall under an electric lamp.” For the 

first five years, Gowin’s equipment 

consisted of one mercury vapor lamp, 

one black-light fluorescent tube, and a 

white collecting sheet. 

Over time he learned which moths 

he could “coax to pose, which ones 

could be touched. I had to learn to 

work without offending their personalities.” 

Later, he began collecting pieces of 

painted wood against which to photograph. 

Later still, he began bringing 

scanned and printed copies of some 

of his favorite works of art — Degas, 

Piero della Francesca, Matisse — and 

thereby stumbled upon the most 

fitting background of all. Contrasting 

one order of masterpiece with another 

unexpectedly honored them both. 

Paging slowly through, every few 

seconds you sigh, sharply inhale, and 

exclaim: “Stop!” “Come on!” “Are 

you kidding me?” or “I want that one.” 

Whatever you might think a moth 

looks like, think again. Moths can 

resemble torpedoes, swallowtail butterflies, 

praying mantises or bumblebees. 

They can be shaped like hearts, 

veined like leaves, or trompe-l’oeil 

scaled like fish. They can be furred, 

horned, or crested. 

How can anyone say, after perusing 

these pictures, that God doesn’t 

have a sense of humor and a sense of 

fashion? We now know beyond doubt 

that he thoroughly approves of striped 

waistcoats, polka-dot ties, gauzy 

robin’s-egg-blue caftans, and the hats 

worn by women at the Royal Ascot. 

Moths can be pomegranate, acid-green, 

jet black, ochre, verdigris, 

mother-of-pearl, rose, silver, or glittered 

with gold. 

They can be patterned like a 

Japanese vase, a flamenco dancer’s 

skirt, a chip of Art Deco stained glass. 

They can have eyes, stripes, zigzags, 

scallops, and faces. They can look like 

a skyscraper, an inert scrap of lichen, 

or an M.C. Escher creation. 

At last before this embarrassment 

of heretofore-unknown riches, you 

fall silent. You think about a Meister 

Eckhart quote: “God is like the suitor 

who, while hiding, coughs in order to 

give himself away.” While we’re complaining 

about the price of gas, he’s 

saying, “Hey, check out this ‘Omertica 

gerbilda!’ ” — with its apricot-and-ebony 

wings and a “tail” of electric blue. 

Over time, Gowin says, “I have 

begun to see the moths as a living 

wonder; visually stunning, endlessly 

varied, mysterious, sometimes useful, 

sometimes destructive, hardworking, 

biologically intuitive, and nothing less 

than a miracle.” 

Working with moths, he continues, 

“overwhelmed me with the feeling 

that I was being graced by a visit from 

an otherwise invisible world.” 

The threat of environmental degradation 

— specifically deforestation 

— hangs over “Mariposas Nocturnas” 

like a shroud. As the forests go, so go 

the moths. 

“Do not store up for yourselves 

treasures on earth,” Jesus cautioned, 

“where moth and decay destroy, and 

thieves break in and steal. But store 

up treasures in heaven, where neither 

moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves 

break in and steal. For where your 

treasure is, there also will your heart 

be” (Matthew 6:19–21). 

Only God could contrive to create 

a cosmos where the creatures who 

devour our earthly treasures are 

themselves — each one — a treasure 

beyond price. 

July 15, 2022 • ANGELUS • 31 

GREAT 

GIFT IDEA 

FOR HOLIDAYS 

& BIRTHDAYS 

Enjoying your subscription to 

Angelus? Order a subscription 

as a gift for a loved one. 

1.844.245.6630 or 

AngelusNews.com/Gift

LETTER AND SPIRIT 

SCOTT HAHN 

Scott Hahn is founder of the 

St. Paul Center for Biblical 

Theology; stpaulcenter.com. 

Mom 

I 

wonder if even the greatest saints 

ever outgrow the desire to please 

their moms. 

Not long ago I discovered that I had 

not. 

My mother was proud enough of my 

accomplishments. I knew that. And I 

heard, every now and then, secondhand 

and thirdhand, of her bragging 

about my latest book or TV show. 

Firsthand … I heard very little. 

Between us there was the matter 

of religious difference. When I was 

growing up, our family was Presbyterian. 

I became a Catholic as a young 

man. Mom eventually came to attend 

a Baptist church. It’s understandable 

that she might see my Catholic 

theologizing as a rejection of what 

she gave me. 

But of course it wasn’t. For Catholics, 

the Church is mother, and Mary 

is mother. We understand these 

truths more easily if we have known a 

good mother. And I did. That was my 

privilege. Motherhood and fatherhood 

both figure prominently in my 

approach to theology, and that is my 

legacy from Molly Lou Hahn and her 

husband, Fred. Insofar as I have succeeded, 

I have to give Mom credit. 

I told her all that, but there was still 

the difference between us. I could 

sense her guard go up when our 

conversations drifted into religious 

matters. 

So I was surprised, one day, when 

she asked me about the Saint Paul 

Center for Biblical Theology, which I 

founded in 2001. “You’re always talking 

about it,” she said. “What exactly 

does the center do?” 

What an invitation! It was my 

chance to speak about what Mom 

and I held in common, and what 

my Church held in common with 

hers. I talked about our common 

love for Scripture. I explained how 

the center promoted biblical literacy 

for all Catholics and biblical fluency 

for clergy and teachers. I told her 

about our events, publications, web 

presence — everything. 

I was feeling so good that I grabbed 

a brochure the center had recently 

produced and handed it to her. 

With that, I had apparently crossed 

a line. She said: “Scott, you know I’ve 

never supported Catholic things and 

never will.” 

I was taken aback. I wasn’t looking 

for money, and I explained that to 

her. Nonetheless, it was an awkward 

moment. 

I was, I guess, fishing for Mom’s 

approval — which is a good thing, 

but not the best. In my heart I gave 

God the glory. 

Imagine my surprise when, a few 

weeks later, she called to tell me 

she had read the brochure. “I never 

knew you were doing such amazing 

things,” she said. “I’m sending 

you a check for a thousand and five 

hundred dollars — as long as you 

promise not to tell anyone.” 

I was beaming. But I told her I 

didn’t think I could make that promise. 

“Oh, fine,” she said. “I’ll send you 

the check anyway.” 

How grateful I am for that moment, 

which I count as an actual grace. 

I’m grateful to God that it happened 

when it did. Mom died on Aug. 20 

of that year after a brief battle with 

cancer. I miss her. I’m holding on to 

many memories as consolations. But 

I’m holding on to that one in particular. 

“Madonna and Child Enthroned with Donor,” by Carlo Crivelli, 

circa 1430-circa 1495, Italian. | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 


■ FRIDAY, JULY 8 

Retrouvaille: A Lifeline for Married Couples. Los Angeles 

weekend program runs July 8-10. 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 helpourmarriage.com or call 909-900- 

5465. 

■ SATURDAY, JULY 9 

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. Holy Spirit Retreat 

Center, 4316 Lanai Rd., Encino, 9:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. 

With Bryanna Benedetti-Coomber, MDiv. For more 

information, visit hsrcenter.com or call 818-784-4515. 

God’s Healing Power for Your Family Tree. Holy Name 

of Mary Parish Hall, 724 E. Bonita Ave., San Dimas, 10 

a.m. Conference with Father Mike Barry and Dominic 

Berardino provides in-depth teaching and prayer for 

breakthroughs in healing, including geonogram and 

prayer wall, and a special Mass for all living and deceased 

loved ones. Cost: $25/person. For more information, or 

to register, visit scrc.org or email spirit@scrc.org. 

■ SUNDAY, JULY 10 

Mass of Thanksgiving and Farewell for Bishop Robert 

Barron. Santa Barbara Mission Lawn, 2201 Laguna 

St., Santa Barbara, 93105, 2 p.m. The people of Santa 

Barbara Pastoral Region are invited to attend Mass and 

wish Bishop Barron well. Please bring your own folding 

chairs and hats. 

Virtual Diaconate Information Day. The Diaconate 

Formation office invites all interested in joining the 

diaconate program to learn more at 2 p.m. Send your 

name, parish, and pastor’s name to Deacon Melecio 

Zamora at dmz2011@la-archdiocese.org. Presentations 

will be in English and Spanish. 

Now That Our World Has Changed, What Do We 

Do? Holy Spirit Retreat Center, 4316 Lanai Rd., Encino. 

Retreat runs Sunday, July 10 at 4 p.m. to Sunday, July 17 

at 1 p.m. With Father Jim Clarke. For more information, 

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

“Other than Quakers” Part III Exhibit: Our Lady of 

Perpetual Help. Whittier Museum, 6755 Newlin Ave., 

Whittier. Exhibit created by Dr. Lorayne Horka tells the 

original story of the first Redemptorist mission in the 

Greater Whittier area. For hours and more information, 

call the Whittier Museum at 562-945-3871. 

■ TUESDAY, JULY 12 

Memorial Mass. San Fernando Mission, 15151 San 

Fernando Mission Blvd., Mission Hills, 11 a.m. Mass is 

virtual and not open to the public. Livestream available 

at CatholicCM.org or Facebook.com/lacatholics. 

■ FRIDAY, JULY 15 

Mary Star of the Sea Parish 74th Annual Fiesta. 870 

8th St., San Pedro. Fiesta runs Friday, July 15, 5 p.m.-midnight, 

Saturday, July 16, 12 p.m.-midnight. Sunday, July 

17, 12-10 p.m. Fiesta features raffles, games, rides, bingo, 

and food. Ride prices reduced Sunday from 12-5 p.m. 

Fiesta Queen crowning will be held Sunday at 7:30 p.m., 

raffle drawing at 10 p.m. Free parking and admission. For 

more information, call 310-833-3541, ext. 203, or visit 

marystar.org. 


Separated, Divorced & Widowed Ministry Event. Cathedral 

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

Angeles, 9:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Day includes tour, Mass, lunch, 

and workshop: “What is Our Spiritual Path? Walking the Trail 

Through COVID.” Mass celebrant: Father Steve Davoren; 

workshop presenter: Christine Gerety, Ph.D. Cost: $30/ 

person. Register online at http://archla.org/spiritualpath. For 

more information, contact Julie Auzenne at 213-637-7249 or 

jmonell@la-archdiocese.org. 

■ WEDNESDAY, JULY 20 

Record Clearing Virtual Clinic for Veterans. Legal team 

will help with traffic tickets, quality of life citations, and 

expungement of criminal convictions, 3-6 p.m. Free clinic is 

open to all Southern California veterans who have eligible 

cases in a California State Superior Court. Participants can 

call in or join online via Zoom. Registration required. Call 

213-896-6537 or email inquiries-veterans@lacba.org. For 

more information, visit lacba.org/veterans. 

■ THURSDAY, JULY 21 

Children’s Bureau: Foster Care Zoom Orientation. Children’s 

Bureau is now offering two virtual ways for individuals 

and couples to learn how to help children in foster care 

while reunifying with birth families or how to provide legal 

permanency by adoption, 4-5 p.m. A live Zoom orientation 

will be hosted by a Children’s Bureau team member and 

a foster parent. For those who want to learn at their own 

pace about becoming a foster and/or fost-adopt parent, an 

online orientation presentation is available. To RSVP for the 

live orientation or to request the online orientation, email 

rfrecruitment@all4kids.org. 

Knights of Columbus Rosary Dinner. Frank C. Meyers 

Council Hall, 2024 East Route 66, Glendora, 7 p.m. All are 

welcome. Evening includes rosary with dinner and fellowship 

to follow. Donations welcome. RSVP to Rene Candelas at 

626-339-3140. 


Angels: The Good and the Bad. St. John the Baptist Church, 

3883 Baldwin Park Blvd., Baldwin Park, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Hosted 

by Father Ismael Robles and Dominic Berardino, topics include: 

How to Solicit the Ministrations of God’s Holy Angels; 

The Battle Against Satan and His Demons; and more. Cost: 

$25/person before July 20, $35/person after. 5 p.m. Mass to 

follow. For more information, email spirit@scrc.org. 


Entering Into Relationship of Respect, Compassion and 

Sensitivity. Holy Spirit Retreat Center, 4316 Lanai Road, 

Encino, 9:30 a.m.-3: 30 p.m. With Jackie Ford, HSRC staff, 

and Sister Marie Lindemann, SSS. For more information, visit 

hsrcenter.com or call 818-784-4515. 

Preparation for Consecration to Mary Retreat. Father 

Kolbe Missionary Center, 531 E. Merced Ave., West Covina, 

9 a.m.-4 p.m. Consecrate yourself to Mary in the spirituality 

of St. Maximilian Kolbe. To register or for more information, 

email FKMs@kolbemissionusa.org or call 626-917-0040. 

■ SUNDAY, JULY 31 

A Silent Directed Retreat. Holy Spirit Retreat Center, 4316 

Lanai Rd., Encino. Retreat with Sister Ingrid, CSJ, Sister Chris 

Machado, SSS, and the retreat team runs Sunday, July 31 at 4 

p.m. through Sunday, Aug. 7 at 1 p.m. For more information, 

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

Crivelli, 

S 

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 | July 15, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 14

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