Angelus News | April 21, 2023 | Vol. 8 No

HIS MERCIFUL EYES 

This Easter, be surprised by forgiveness 

ANGELUS 

April 21, 2023 Vol. 8 No. 8

B • ANGELUS • April 21, 2023

ANGELUS 

April 21, 2023 

Vol. 8 • No. 8 

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ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

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ON THE COVER 

J. PAUL GETTY MUSEUM 

Christ pulls Adam out of “limbo” while surrounded by other 

biblical figures in a late 13th-century painting (artist unknown). 

St. John Chrysostom famously wrote about Easter: “Forgiveness 

is risen from the grave.” But what does that mean for us? On 

Page 10, Mike Aquilina details how history, Scripture, and the 

experience of the apostles reveals forgiveness as the Resurrection’s 

most tangible result. On Page 14, Jennifer Hubbard 

recounts how her 6-year-old daughter’s murder in the Sandy 

Hook shooting led her on a journey to do the impossible. 

THIS PAGE 

VICTOR ALEMÁN 

Archbishop José H. Gomez blesses the new 

Adoration Chapel at Epiphany Church in 

South El Monte, unveiled as part of the local 

and National Eucharistic Revival Movement 

that began in summer 2022 encouraging 

Catholics to rediscover the meaning of the 

Eucharist during the Mass and renew their 

relationship with Jesus. 

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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 

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CONTENTS 

‘Miriam Dinner’ in Encino looks to future of female religious life in LA 

John Allen on the real test of pope’s latest abuse policy change 

Why El Salvador’s brutal gang crackdown won’t end well 

The quiet, essential role of the Virgin Mary in the Paschal Mystery 

An American Catholic poet’s lyrical journey to the Holy Land and back 

Sign up for our free, daily e-newsletter 

Always Forward - newsletter.angelusnews.com 

28 

30 

Greg Erlandson on Easter and his mom’s final journey 

Heather King: Can a young convert make the Divine Office go viral? 

April 21, 2023 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH 

A papal bounce back 

A 

case of bronchitis sent Pope 

Francis to the hospital for an 

unexpected three-day stay and 

caused the Vatican to change its Holy 

Week plans. 

The 86-year-old pontiff was taken to 

Rome’s Gemelli Hospital March 29 

hours after he was seen looking unwell 

following his weekly Wednesday General 

Audience in St. Peter’s Square. 

The Vatican originally said the 

pope was taken to the hospital for 

“previously planned tests,” but later 

changed its story, saying that the pope 

had complained of “some respiratory 

difficulties” in recent days and would 

be hospitalized for a few days. 

Tests later showed that the pope had 

bronchitis, and he was treated with 

intravenous antibiotics for a respiratory 

infection. 

But Francis kept an active schedule 

while in the hospital. He prayed in 

a hospital chapel and received the 

Eucharist. He also spent half an hour 

visiting children in the cancer ward 

and brought rosaries, large chocolate 

Easter eggs, and copies of the book “Jesus 

was born in Bethlehem of Judea.” 

He also baptized a tiny infant, 

“Miguel Angel,” who was at the hospital 

for tests and enjoyed a pizza “party” 

the night of Thursday, March 30 with 

the doctors, nurses, assistants, and 

members of the Vatican police who 

had helped him during his stay. 

As he left the hospital Saturday, April 

1, the pope stopped his car and got 

out to greet well-wishers and reporters 

waiting outside the hospital. 

“I’m still alive,” Pope Francis joked to 

reporters who asked how he was doing. 

There he also embraced a sobbing 

mother, whose daughter had died the 

night before. He reached out to the 

father, too, and holding their hands, 

he prayed with them. The pope then 

traced a cross on the forehead of each 

of them and gave them both a kiss on 

the cheek. 

Reporters present said he also signed 

the cast of a boy who said he broke his 

arm playing soccer. 

Before returning to the Vatican, he 

stopped to pray at the Basilica of St. 

Mary Major, a stop he makes before 

and after every trip abroad and a stop 

he also made in July 2021 after undergoing 

colon surgery at the Gemelli. 

There he prayed for the children he 

had met “in the hospital’s pediatric 

oncology and children’s neurosurgery 

wards,” and “all the sick and those 

suffering from illness and the loss of 

their loved ones,” the Vatican press 

office said. 

The next day, the pope delivered the 

homily at Palm Sunday Mass in St. 

Peter’s Square with some 60,000 people 

in attendance, although Cardinal 

Leonardo Sandri, vice dean of the 

College of Cardinals, was the main 

celebrant at the altar. 

“Christ, in his abandonment, stirs 

us to seek him and to love him and 

those who are themselves abandoned, 

for in them we see not only people in 

need, but Jesus himself,” he said in the 

homily after listening to the account 

of Jesus’ Passion from St. Matthew’s 

Gospel. 

Italian media reported that multiple 

Roman cardinals had been scheduled 

to preside over the remaining Holy 

Week liturgies in the Vatican, but it 

was not clear which, if any, of them 

Pope Francis planned to attend. 

Reporting courtesy of Catholic News 

Service. 

Papal Prayer Intention for April: We pray for the spread of 

peace and nonviolence, by decreasing the use of weapons by 

States and citizens. 

2 • ANGELUS • April 21, 2023

NEW WORLD OF FAITH 

ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ 

One great Sunday 

I 

pray that you had a beautiful Easter 

with your family and loved ones. 

Easter is the feast of our joy. The 

victory over death has been won. 

As Jesus was raised from the dead, we 

walk with confidence, in what St. Paul 

called “newness of life,” following 

in Jesus’ footsteps, our lives now an 

adventure destined for heaven and the 

love that never ends. 

These next 50 days, from Resurrection 

Sunday to Pentecost Sunday, are 

meant to be lived as one long feast, a 

“great Sunday,” as the Church Father 

St. Athanasius put it. 

In these days, the Church invites 

us to live with the joy and zeal of the 

early Church and his first disciples. 

Nobody saw the Resurrection. His 

tomb was sealed up tight with a boulder 

and guarded by Roman soldiers. 

He must have risen sometime in the 

night or just before dawn, but there 

were no witnesses. 

What “evidence” we have comes 

from his disciples, who reported that 

they came to his tomb that Sunday 

and found it empty, and that later that 

day and in the days that followed, the 

risen Christ appeared to them. 

Jesus could have shown himself risen 

from the dead, he could have returned 

to Jerusalem triumphant with a legion 

of angels, if he had wanted to. 

But he chose to stay hidden, to reveal 

himself only to those who loved him. 

In those 40 days, he spoke to them of 

the kingdom of God, and opened their 

minds to understand the Scriptures; 

he ate with them and made himself 

known to them in the breaking of the 

bread, the Eucharist. 

Before ascending into heaven, he 

gave them a mission. “You will be my 

witnesses,” he said, “to the ends of the 

earth.” 

We are the children of those first 

witnesses, every one of us, whether we 

were baptized as infants many years 

ago, or whether we just entered the 

Church this Easter. 

None of us has seen Jesus raised 

from the dead. We trust the testimony 

of those who did. Their encounters 

remain at the heart of the mystery of 

faith, as the Catechism tells us. 

During the Last Supper, his apostles 

had asked him, “Lord, how is it that 

you will manifest yourself to us, and 

not to the world?” 

It is interesting how Jesus responded. 

“Whoever loves me will keep my 

word,” he said, “and my Father will 

love him, and we will come to him 

and make our dwelling with him.” 

For Jesus, salvation is personal. 

He came to “save the world,” to give 

his flesh and blood on the cross “for 

the life of the world.” 

But he saves the world one soul at a 

time. He gives his life out of love, as 

living bread from heaven, to you and 

to me, and to everyone who loves him 

and keeps his commandments. 

During this season, I like to re-read 

the Gospel accounts of those days after 

the Resurrection. Two notes stand 

out for me in these stories — joy and 

witness. 

In these stories, we hear the disciples 

delighting in the Lord’s presence, with 

the joy of those who have found the 

treasure they had been searching for 

their whole lives. 

And almost every story ends with one 

or more rushing off in excitement to 

tell others of this treasure they have 

found. As St. Mary Magdalene said, “I 

have seen the Lord!” 

The Church is born in the joy of these 

witnesses, and the Church’s mission 

continues in you and me. 

As he announced his salvation 

through his first witnesses, he announces 

his salvation in this generation, 

through our witness. 

It is a beautiful mystery of God’s 

plan of salvation that he involves each 

of us, inviting us to play our part in 

As Christ announced his salvation through his 

first witnesses, he announces his salvation in 

this generation, through our witness. 

sharing the joy that we have found in 

Jesus. 

Let us live these next 50 days — 

and our whole lives — as one “great 

Sunday.” 

Joy grows through witness. The more 

we speak to others about Jesus and the 

more good works we do in his name, 

the more our joy will increase. 

Jesus is alive! He is not some historical 

figure whose memory will one 

day fade away. He is real and his love 

is real. He really died for us, and it is 

worth everything for us now to live for 

him. 

We know it will not always be easy; 

we will experience sadness and suffering, 

and the ugliness of sin. But we 

know that Jesus will wipe away every 

tear because he has conquered death. 

Pray for me and I will pray for you. 

And let us ask our mother Mary, the 

mother of joy, to keep us always close 

to her risen Son, that we might always 

know this joy and share it with all the 

world. 


WORLD 

Bishop Rolando Álvarez being 

interviewed on Nicaraguan TV. 

| CANAL 4 NICARAGUA 

■ First images released of 

Nicaraguan bishop in prison 

New video and pictures showed jailed Bishop Rolando 

Álvarez in a Nicaraguan prison for the first time. 

“Thanks be to God I’m well, with a lot of inner strength, 

with a lot of peace in the Lord and the most holy Virgin,” 

Álvarez said in a video released March 24 by a news outlet 

with government ties. 

One video showed Álvarez eating with his brother and sister 

in a clean and well-furnished room. But critics of Nicaraguan 

president Daniel Ortega said the images were staged. 

“The scenography of the dictatorship was repugnant and 

cynical and does not expunge its crime,” said Bishop Silvio 

José Báez, an auxiliary bishop of Managua living in exile in 

the U.S. 

The prison where Álvarez is being held is known for overcrowding 

and lack of medical attention for prisoners. He was 

sentenced in February to more than 26 years in prison for 

being a “traitor to the homeland” after refusing to be exiled 

from Nicaragua. 

■ Disavowing the doctrine of discovery 

The Vatican formally repudiated a centuries-old legal 

doctrine long criticized by anti-colonial activists. 

“The Catholic Church … repudiates those concepts that 

fail to recognize the inherent human rights of indigenous 

peoples,” read a March 30 joint statement from the Dicasteries 

for Promoting Integral Human Development and for 

Culture and Education. 

The statement noted that the doctrine, which provided 

the legal framework for colonizing settlers to dispossess 

lands of indigenous peoples, had been outlined in several 

papal bulls and was “manipulated for political purposes” by 

colonial powers. It also said that the bulls were “written in 

a specific historical period and linked to political questions 

[that] have never been considered expressions of the 

Catholic faith.” 

The statement follows calls from indigenous communities 

in Canada last year to Pope Francis to rescind the doctrine 

of discovery. 

■ Mexican government blamed 

for fire at immigrant facility 

Catholic leaders are criticizing the Mexican government’s 

response to a fire at an immigration detention center in 

Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, that killed at least 38. 

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said 

that the March 27 fire, which started in a section of the 

center that held 68 male migrants, was started by migrants 

to protest their deportations. 

But Catholic officials suggested the fire was a sign of government 

neglect at the facility, which held mostly Central 

American immigrants. 

“Enough with the euphemisms. We must not accept nor 

tolerate soft expressions or decorous words that are given to 

what truly constitutes a detention center, which does not 

offer dignified or safe conditions,” the Guatemalan bishops’ 

migrant ministry said in a March 27 statement. 

Mexican officials later announced they would investigate 

the deaths as homicides, after video footage appeared to 

show guards failing to respond to the fire as the migrants 

attempted to escape. 

Father Hans Zollner, SJ 

| CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY 

■ Top Vatican abuse 

accountability expert quits 

Father Hans Zollner, SJ, an internationally recognized 

expert on protecting children and vulnerable adults from 

clerical sex abuse, said “structural and practical issues” 

led to his abrupt resignation from the Vatican’s Pontifical 

Commission for the Protection of Minors. 

Zollner said that he had “noticed issues that need to be 

urgently addressed and which have made it impossible 

for me to continue further” in his role. He also said he 

was concerned by the lack of “responsibility, compliance, 

accountability, and transparency” of the commission. 

Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, the commission’s 

head, publicly voiced his disagreement with the priest’s 

claims. 

“I am surprised, disappointed, and strongly disagree with 

[Zollner’s] publicly issued assertions challenging the commission’s 

effectiveness,” the American cardinal said. 


NATION 

Texas Catholics gather in front of the State Capitol March 28 for “Advocacy Day.” 

| BISHOP DANIEL FLORES/TWITTER 

■ Texas bishops: Don’t bar 

migrant children from schools 

The Catholic bishops of Texas are calling on Catholics to 

oppose a bill that would bar undocumented children from 

enrolling in public schools. 

The bill, introduced in February at the request of Gov. 

Greg Abbott, challenges a 1982 Supreme Court decision 

requiring public schools to provide services regardless of 

documentation status. Abbott has previously argued that 

undocumented children cost the state “billions more a year 

just in education expenses.” 

“This is wrong, and while the bill’s authors may not intend 

to cause harm, we cannot gamble with the education of 

innocent children,” said Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville 

March 28. “To educate a child is a great work of mercy, and 

it’s a great good for the whole society.” 

Flores made the comments at the Catholic Advocacy Day 

at the state capitol in Austin, where the state’s bishops also 

spoke out in favor of school choice, health care reform, 

religious liberty, and other social concerns. 

■ Will Catholic Mass attendance 

ever recover from COVID-19? 

In-person Mass attendance in the U.S. has yet to return to 

pre-pandemic levels, according to a new study. 

The report released March 28 by the Pew Research Center 

looked at the impact of COVID-19 on religious life in America 

three years after the start of the pandemic. It found that 

40% of Americans say they’ve participated in religious services 

at least once a month since then. 

About 4 in 10 U.S. Catholics said they attend in-person Mass 

as often as before the pandemic, and a quarter of them say 

they now attend less often. The study also reported a 14% rise 

in Catholics who say they follow Mass virtually more often 

than before COVID. 

■ Possible eucharistic miracle 

investigated in Connecticut 

The Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut, is investigating 

a potential eucharistic miracle in one of its parishes. 

The alleged miracle was reported at St. Thomas Church 

in Thomaston, Connecticut March 5 by an extraordinary 

minister of holy Communion, who said that the hosts in 

his ciborium began duplicating during the distribution of 

Communion. 

“They were running out of hosts and all of a sudden more 

hosts were there,” Father Joseph Crowley, pastor of the 

church, said. “So today not only did we have the miracle of 

the Eucharist, we also had a bigger miracle. It’s pretty cool.” 

The archdiocese’s judicial vicar has begun an investigation 

into the episode, from which he will prepare a report to be 

presented to Hartford Archbishop Leonard Blair. 

St. Thomas was the final assignment of Blessed Father 

Michael McGivney, the 19th-century American priest and 

founder of the Knights of Columbus. 

Nashville’s new cross — People gather around a cross during a prayer vigil 

in Nashville, Tennessee, March 29, for the victims of the March 27 Covenant 

School shooting, which left three children and three adults dead, including the 

head of the school. According to the police, the school was targeted by a 28-yearold 

former student who identified as transgender for ideological reasons and that 

the victims were not specifically targeted. | OSV NEWS/CHENEY ORR, REUTERS 


LOCAL 

■ Students, teachers 

honored with 

Christian Service 

Awards 

Sixty-nine high school students and 

10 teachers were recognized at the 

annual Christian Service Awards 

Mass on March 28 at the Cathedral 

of Our Lady of the Angels. 

The awards recognize students and 

teachers from each of the 50 Catholic 

high schools in the archdiocese 

who exemplify an outstanding commitment 

to Christian service in the 

community. The annual Mass has 

been organized by the Archdiocese 

of Los Angeles Department of Catholic 

Schools since the mid-1970s. 

According to the archdiocese, the 

upcoming graduating high school 

students dedicated more than 

20,000 hours in diverse Christian 

service throughout Los Angeles with 

organizations such as Project Angel 

Food, Guide Dogs of America, Habitat 

for Humanity, and Heal the Bay. 

■ Bishop O’Connell’s 

former residence 

burglarized 

An empty tabernacle belonging 

to the late Auxiliary Bishop David 

O’Connell was stolen from his Hacienda 

Heights home. 

Someone broke a window and 

entered the empty residence the 

weekend of March 24-26, according 

to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s 

Department investigators. Only the 

tabernacle, which did not contain the 

Blessed Sacrament at the time, was 

stolen. 

“There is no relation between the 

murder of Bishop O’Connell and the 

recent burglary that took place,” LA 

Sheriff’s homicide investigator Lt. 

Michael Modica told Angelus. “This 

was a crime of opportunity.” 

Detectives from the LA Sheriff’s 

Industry Station said there was no 

suspect description so far. 

Ann McElaney-Johnson, president 

of Mount Saint Mary’s University 

in Los Angeles, was named a “chevalier,” 

or knight, by the French 

government for her “dedication to 

fostering an appreciation of French 

language and culture.” 

The induction into the “Ordre des 

Palmes Académiques,” considered 

one of France’s highest educational 

honors, took place March 21 at 

the residence of the French consul 

general in Los Angeles. 

McElaney-Johnson leads annual 

pilgrimages to France for faculty, 

Left to right, wearing 

light blue sweaters: St. 

Gregory students Christian 

Palencia, Natalie 

Baserga, Jude Palencia, 

Andrew Garcia, and 

Joaquin Varela pose after 

winning at the regional 

SeaPerch competition 

in March. | SUBMITTED 

PHOTO 

■ St. Gregory the Great students to 

compete at international robotics event 

A group of Catholic school students from Whittier is set to compete in an 

international underwater robotics competition next month. 

The middle-schoolers from St. Gregory the Great School’s “Krushin’ Kraken” 

team earned their place at the 2023 International SeaPerch Challenge after 

winning a regional competition in March. 

The SeaPerch Challenge involves students building remotely operated vehicles 

from a kit with low-cost, easily accessible parts. The competition consists 

of two underwater sections — an obstacle course and the “Mission course,” 

in which the vehicle maps an area, removes marine life from an underwater 

station, and retrieves samples in an underwater environment. 

The international competition will be held at the University of Maryland on 

May 13. St. Gregory’s will be the only Catholic school present. 

■ Mount Saint Mary’s president named knight by 

French government 

Ann McElaney-Johnson (left) at the March 21 ceremony 

with French Consul General Julie Duhaut-Bedos. | MOUNT 

SAINT MARY’S/WATCHARA PHOMICINDA 

students, and staff, and Mount Saint Mary’s recently purchased and preserved the 

Bas-en-Basset, France, birthplace of Mother St. John Fontbonne, a central figure 

in the history of the Sisters of St. Joseph. 

“The language, culture, and history of France provided the foundation for everything 

I have achieved in my educational career,” McElaney-Johnson said, “and 

I am so fortunate to have such a direct professional and spiritual connection to 

France through Mount Saint Mary’s.” 

Y 


V 

IN OTHER WORDS... 

Letters to the Editor 

An important aspect of the porn catastrophe 

The cover story in the April 7 issue of Angelus by Elise Italiano Ureneck, 

“God Can Redeem the Broken Stuff,” touches on many important 

points. The author captures both the devastation to self and relationships, 

as well as the hope there is to heal, both greatly misunderstood within and 

outside of the Catholic Church. 

The porn industry years ago realized they were missing out by only producing 

content to appeal to men, so it shifted gears. Taking advantage of one of our most 

blessed human gifts, our curiosity for what God has made, porn hijacks and turns 

curiosity toxic. In an age of falling birth rates, easy divorce, and gender confusion, 

we are witnessing the unprecedented toll of 24/7 hardcore porn on relationships 

and marriages. 

According to 2022 search analytics from the world’s most popular porn provider, 

the most popular search by women is lesbian content. Where do we expect that 

to take us? Porn is now the go-to place for not only men but also women to learn 

about sex. Tragically, it normalizes going outside of marriage in search of what 

appears to be missing. 

It is time to raise the alarm and create informed spaces for healing. As Annie 

Heyen pointed out in the article, “Satan loves darkness and isolation.” 

— Patrick Erlandson of Rancho Palos Verdes is the founder of “Father-Con” and 

the “See It End It Film & Arts Festival and Global Platform” for the prevention of 

human trafficking. 

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. 

Selected for their service 

“I saw them both on the 

screen, with their hearts 

beating together and 

jumping at the same time. 

How could I kill my babies?” 

~ Nicole Duque, in a March 25 OSV News article on 

learning she was pregnant with conjoined twins. 

“For all the loveliness of the 

feast of Christmas … if the 

centrality of Easter is not 

reflected in the piety of 

Christians, their Christianity 

is lopsided.” 

~ The late Father Daniel J. O’Hanlon, SJ, in a 1962 

essay “Easter — not Christmas — should be the most 

important Christian holiday,” republished this year by 

America magazine. 

“It goes without saying that 

we can never again assume 

an image is authentic 

because it looks realistic.” 

~ Arvind Narayanan, professor of computer science 

at Princeton University, in a March 27 MSN.com 

article on a fake AI-generated image of Pope Francis 

wearing a designer jacket. 

“Anyone who stakes much 

on passing theories risks 

being terribly hurt. We 

need deep roots.” 

~ The Catholic bishops of Sweden, Norway, Finland, 

Denmark, and Iceland in a “Pastoral Letter of Human 

Sexuality” published during Lent. 

Hayley Christopher of La Reina High School in Thousand Oaks poses with Archbishop José H. Gomez and LA Catholic 

Schools Superintendent Paul Escala after being honored at the annual Christian Service Awards Mass at the Cathedral 

of Our Lady of the Angels March 25. A total of 69 Catholic high school students and 10 teachers were honored at the 

Mass for their “outstanding commitment to Christian service in the community.” | VICTOR ALEMÁN 

View more photos 

from this gallery at 

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. 

“They have finally had 

a big drink!” 

~ Janet Cobb of the California Wildlife Foundation/ 

California Oaks, speaking to the Los Angeles Times 

April 1 on the impact of this year’s wet winter on the 

state’s trees. 


IN EXILE 

FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI 

Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father 

Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual 

writer; ronrolheiser.com. 

Dying alone in the desert 

Last year I received a letter from 

a friend who shared that she 

was afraid to accept a certain 

vocation because it would leave her too 

much alone. She shared this fear with 

her spiritual director who simply said, 

“Charles de Foucauld died alone in 

the desert!” That answer was enough 

for her. She went ahead with it. Is that 

answer enough for those of us who 

have the same hesitancy, the fear of 

being alone? 

The fear of being alone is a healthy 

one. Jean-Paul Sartre famously wrote 

that hell is the other person. That 

couldn’t be further from the truth. Hell 

is being alone. All the major religions 

teach that heaven will be communal, 

an ecstatic coming together of hearts, 

souls, and (for Christians) bodies, in 

one union of love. 

There will be no solitaries in heaven. 

So, our fear of ending up alone is a 

healthy nagging from God and nature, 

perpetually reminding us of the words 

God spoke as he created Eve: it is not 

good for a person to be alone. Children 

are always mindful of that and feel 

insecure when they are alone. That’s 

one of the reasons why Jesus taught 

that they go to heaven more naturally 

than adults do. 

But is being alone always unhealthy? 

What can we learn from de Foucauld, 

who chose a life that left him to die 

alone in the desert? What can we learn 

from a person like Søren Kierkegaard, 

who resisted marriage because he 

feared that it would interfere with a 

vocation he intuited was meant to have 

him die alone? 

Not least, what can we learn from 

Jesus, the greatest lover of all, who dies 

alone on a cross, crying out that he had 

been abandoned by everyone and then, 

in that agony, surrenders his loneliness 

in one great act of selflessness in which 

he gives over his spirit in complete 

love? 

In a 2022 book, “The Empathy 

Diaries” (Penguin Books, $18), Sherry 

Turkle reflects on, among other things, 

the impact contemporary information 

technology and social media are 

having on us. 

As a scientist at MIT, she is one of the 

people who helped develop computers 

and information technology as they 

exist today, so she is not someone with 

a generational, romantic, or religious 

bias against computers, smartphones, 

and social media. 

Yet, she is worried about what all of 

this is doing to us today, particularly 

to those who get addicted to social 

media and can no longer be alone. “I 

share, therefore I am!” She names a 

hard truth: If we don’t know how to be 

alone, we will always be lonely. 

That’s true for all of us, though not 

all of us are called by either faith or 

temperament to a monastic quiet. 

What Jesus modeled (and what persons 

like de Foucauld, Kierkegaard, and 

countless monks, nuns, and celibates 

have felt themselves called to) is not the 

route for everyone. 

In fact, it is not the norm, religiously 

or anthropologically. Marriage is. 

Thomas Merton was once asked what 

it was like to be celibate, and he responded 

by saying, celibacy is hell. You 

live in a loneliness that God himself 

condemned; but that doesn’t mean it 

can’t be fruitful. 

In essence, that’s the response my 

friend received from her spiritual 

director when she shared her fear of 

taking up a certain vocation because 

she might end up alone. If you can be 

a de Foucauld, you will be alone but in 

a very fruitful way. 

There can even be some romance in 

proactively embracing loneliness and 

celibacy. Some years ago, I was doing 

spiritual direction with a very faithfilled, 

idealistic young man. Full of life 

and youthful energies, he felt the same 

powerful pull of sexuality as his peers, 

but he also felt a strong draw in another 

direction. He was reading Kierkegaard, 

Dorothy Day, Merton, and Daniel 

Berrigan, and felt a romantic attraction 

toward celibacy and the loneliness and 

aloneness within which he would then 

find himself. He was also reading the 

Gospels, telling how Jesus died alone 

on a cross without any human person 

holding his hand. Like Jesus, he wanted 

to be a lonely prophet and die alone. 

There’s some admirable idealism in 

that, though perhaps also a certain 

unhealthy pride and elitism in wanting 

to be the lonely hero who is admired 

for stoically standing outside the circle 

of normal intimacy. 

Moreover, as a lifelong celibate (and 

a publicly vowed one for more than 

50 years) I would offer this word of 

caution. A romantic dream of celibacy, 

no matter how strongly rooted in faith, 

will meet its test during those seasons 

and nights when one has fallen in 

love, is tired, is overwhelmed, and has 

his or her sexuality (and soul) cry out 

that it does not want to die alone in 

the desert. To sustain oneself in the 

loneliness of Jesus, as Merton says, 

is sometimes a flat-out hell, albeit a 

fruitful one. 

To die alone in the desert like de 

Foucauld is answer enough. 


Forgiveness is risen from the grave 

Throughout the 

centuries, the 

Resurrection has given 

ordinary Christians 

the ability to do the 

impossible: forgive 

their enemies. 

BY MIKE AQUILINA 

Want to celebrate Easter in 

the best possible way? 

Forgive someone. Let go 

of a grievance. 

Think of those who have wronged 

you most — the people whose 

memory fills you with anger. Maybe 

you haven’t seen them in many years. 

Maybe they’re no longer alive. But try 

this during the Easter celebrations: 

Pray for them. Tell God you’ve forgiven 

them and you’d like to be free of 

the anger and hurt. 

A great bishop of the fifth century, 

St. John Chrysostom, preached on 

Easter that “forgiveness has risen 

from the grave!” 

The Resurrection unleashed phenomenal 

cosmic powers, and one of 

them was the power to forgive. Until 

then, it had been widely acknowledged 

to be humanly impossible. 

Think of the scribes who saw Jesus 

forgive the sins of a paralyzed man. 

They said, “Why does this man speak 

thus? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive 

sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:7). 

They were educated men, and their 

study of the Hebrew Scriptures might 

have confirmed them in the belief 

that only God could forgive. The 

Book of Genesis speaks of forgiveness 

only once — in the episode when 

Jacob’s sons lie to Joseph by claiming 

that their late father had wanted him 

to forgive them (Genesis 50:16–17). 

We’re told that “Joseph wept” when 

he heard this, possibly because the 

“The Resurrection,” c. 1562-63, by Philips Galle. | THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART 

task seemed too difficult, even for a 

man renowned for virtue. 

Even St. Peter seemed to be looking 

for a loophole when he asked Jesus, 

“Lord, how often shall my brother 

sin against me, and I forgive him? 

As many as seven times?” (Matthew 

18:21). The chief apostle wanted to 


know the precise moment when he 

could be excused from the effort, 

because he knew that forgiveness was 

beyond what he could do. 

Yet Jesus insisted on the necessity 

of forgiveness. He said, “Take heed 

to yourselves; if your brother sins, 

rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive 

him; and if he sins against you seven 

times in the day, and turns to you 

seven times, and says, ‘I repent,’ you 

must forgive him” (Luke 17:3–4). 

He even made our willingness to 

forgive others a precondition of any 

forgiveness we receive from God: 

“forgive, and you will be forgiven” 

(Luke 6:37). 

In case anyone missed the connection, 

Jesus said it again: “And 

whenever you stand praying, forgive, 

if you have anything against any one; 

so that your Father also who is in 

heaven may forgive you your trespasses” 

(Mark 11:25). 

He even made sure we clicked the 

box and accepted the terms whenever 

we prayed the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive 

us our trespasses as we forgive those 

who trespass against us.” If we won’t 

forgive, we cannot be forgiven. It’s as 

simple as that. 

Nor is there an escape clause for 

offenses of greater gravity. Jesus himself, 

from the cross on which he died, 

pleaded God’s forgiveness upon his 

murderers. Among his last words are, 

“Father, forgive them; for they know 

not what they do” (Luke 23:34). 

We must, he said, forgive from the 

heart (see Matthew 18:35). 

Was he asking the impossible? 

No, not since “forgiveness has risen 

from the grave.” Jesus’ earliest disciples 

knew that forgiveness was fundamental 

to Christian life. St. Paul said 

in his Letter to the Colossians, “as 

the Lord has forgiven you, so you also 

must forgive” (3:13). 

St. John Chrysostom, in yet another 

homily, insisted upon the necessity of 

this heroic degree of forgiveness. Following 

Jesus’ words, he said, “we are 

to forgive not merely with the lips, 

but from the heart.” If we refuse to 

forgive, he went on, we are harming 

not those who have sinned against us, 

but rather ourselves. We are cutting 

ourselves off from God’s love. He 

continued: “Let us not then thrust 

“Golgotha” or “Christ on the cross,” 1884, by Mihály Munkácsy. | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS 

St. John Chrysostom’s benefits of forgiveness 

The following is excerpted from a homily on the Gospel of Matthew by St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407). 

God requires two things of us here: to condemn ourselves 

for our sins, and to forgive others. We are to 

forgive not merely with the lips, but from the heart. 

Let us not then thrust the sword into ourselves by being 

revengeful. 

Say not then that he insulted you, and slandered you, and 

did unto you ills beyond number; for the more you say, so 

much the more do you declare him a benefactor. 

For he has given you an opportunity to wash away your sins 

— so that the greater the injuries he has done you, so much 

more has he become for you a cause of a greater remission 

of sins. 

For if we be willing, no one shall be able to injure us, but 

even our enemies shall benefit us in the greatest degree. 

See then how much you gain, bearing meekly the spiteful 

acts of your enemies. 

First and greatest, you obtain deliverance from sins; secondly, 

fortitude and patience; thirdly, mildness and benevolence; 

fourthly, to be free from anger continually, to which 

nothing can be equal. 

For of him that is free from anger, it is quite clear that he is 

delivered also from the despondency arising from anger, and 

will not spend his life on vain labours and sorrows. 

For he that does not know how to hate, likewise does not 

know how to grieve, but will enjoy pleasure, and ten thousand 

blessings. 

Accordingly, we punish ourselves by hating others, even as 

on the other hand we benefit ourselves by loving them. 


the sword into ourselves by being 

revengeful.” 

He then puts the matter positively 

and urges us to think of our offenders 

as benefactors. Their offense is an 

opportunity for us to forgive — and 

so open ourselves to greater forgiveness 

from God. “For [the offender] 

has given you an opportunity to wash 

away your sins — so that the greater 

the injuries he has done you, so 

much more has he become for you a 

cause of a greater remission of sins.” 

Easter is our annual reminder that 

we have the power to do the impossible, 

because in baptism we have 

already died and risen with Christ, 

whose power is forgiveness risen from 

the grave. “It is no longer I who live,” 

said St. Paul, “but Christ who lives 

in me” (Galatians 2:20). And also: 

We can “do all things in him who 

strengthens” us (Philippians 4:13). 

We can do all things. We can even 

forgive sins. 

History shows us that this is true. 

The saints, beginning with the first 

martyr (Acts 7:60), forgave those who 

wronged them. 

Consider the story of Marietta 

Jaeger, a Catholic woman whose 

7-year-old daughter was abducted and 

killed in 1973. She chose to forgive 

her child’s murderer, even though 

she did not know who he was. 

A year after the kidnapping, the 

man called the family to taunt them. 

He was taken aback by the love he 

encountered in Jaeger’s voice. He 

stayed on the phone and talked with 

her, even though he suspected the 

call was being traced. Jaeger told a 

reporter years later, “I believe God 

loved him through me, and it penetrated 

through and touched him.” 

When the killer was apprehended, 

she visited him in prison and persuaded 

him to confess to the crime 

— and to three other murders. Thus 

she brought closure for other families 

who, until then, had not known the 

fate of their missing children. 

Jaeger became an activist opposing 

the death penalty. Her husband, Bill, 

could not bring himself to forgive 

and died relatively young from 

illnesses brought on by the heartache. 

Hers is an astonishing story, but it is 

not uncommon. She managed to do 

something that is humanly impossible 

— forgive — because she called 

upon the divine life that was available 

to her. 

Most people, perhaps, aren’t called 

to forgive murderers. But what about 

a co-worker? A family member? A 

neighbor? A classmate? An ex? 

What if on Easter every Christian 

forgave one person who seems impossible 

to forgive? 

It’s possible, since today “forgiveness 

has risen from the grave!” 

Mike Aquilina is a contributing 

editor for Angelus and general editor 

of the “Reclaiming Catholic History” 

series for Ave Maria Press. 

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ief 

out 

am

Jennifer Hubbard with 

her daughter Catherine, 

in an undated photo. 

| CNS /COURTESY 

JENNIFER HUBBARD 

The currency of the heart 

In order to forgive after my daughter’s murder, God had to use Lent — 

and Easter — to show me what true surrender looks like. 

BY JENNIFER HUBBARD 

Day after day I would pray for 

justification. 

Actually, more than for 

justification, I would plead for what I 

considered the best solution. I thought 

when it was served, my restlessness 

would be satiated, and my heart 

would return to its stillness. 

My daughter Catherine was one 

of the first-graders lost in the Sandy 

Hook Elementary School tragedy in 

2012. She was 6 when she died. 

Slowly over time, without even realizing 

it, by focusing on how my hurt 

could be reconciled, I had become 

fixated on reliving what caused it in 

the first place. There was a debt that 

I felt needed to be repaid in full, and 

justification boils down to restitution: 

a fair and even exchange that repays 

a debt that is owed. But reality is 

different: There is no fair and even 

exchange when it comes to a matter of 

the heart. 

This quest for justification had grown 

like an invasive plant. Resentment, 

bitterness, and anger had taken root in 

my life. They affected my relationship 

with God: Prayers turned to pleading, 

resulting in the expectation that if I 

was loved, my solution would have 

been accepted, and my timeline met. 

When the response was silence and 

the whole atrocity seemingly justified, 

I reminded my heavenly Father of all I 

had done, how I was the one who was 


d with 

atherine, 

hoto. 

SY 

ARD 

his good and faithful servant, that this 

was not the first trial in my life. I went 

as far as to question his love for me. 

My need for justification turned into 

vindication. I became judge and jury, 

snatching back any surrender I had offered 

in the breaking day. Living like 

this was exhausting and it is embarrassing 

to consider, let alone share. 

Clouded in what is considered a 

cry and rationalization for my contrived 

miracle, I forget that surrender 

comes first. The miracle always comes 

after the surrender: the surrender of 

Israelites, our heavenly mother’s surrendered 

fiat and our Savior’s surrendered 

life. 

In my season of justification, I 

thought silence was the response, and 

yet a simple statement often came to 

mind: “You steer where you stare.” It 

is an expression often used in navigation 

to guide sailors to and from 

celestial points. It is an expression any 

“Pietà,” circa 1657–60, 

by Juan de Valdés Leal. 

| THE METROPOLITAN 

MUSEUM OF ART 

equestrian will validate. In fact, it was 

told to my Catherine during one of 

her first riding lessons. 

Steering where you stare is a saying 

that even St. Paul seems to paraphrase 

in his Letter to the Hebrews. “Therefore, 

since we are surrounded by such 

a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw 

off everything that weighs us down 

and the sins that so easily distract us 

and with perseverance run the race 

that lies ahead of us, with our eyes 

fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter 

of our faith. For the sake of the joy 

that lay before him, he endured the 

cross, ignoring its shame, and is now 

seated at the right hand of the throne 

of God” (Hebrews 12:1–2). 

I entered this year’s Lenten season 

pondering the simple statement. This 

Lent, I decided, I would stare down 

whatever needed to be my surrender 

in this race that I am running. 

As much as I wanted to believe my 

stare was fixed on Jesus, that I was 

running his race, my heart knew 

differently. Deep down, we all know 

what is really weighing on our hearts. 

We simply need to stop long enough 

to consider: What do our fisted hands 

cling to? What causes you to catch 

your breath at the thought of surrendering? 

Maybe it was your Lenten 

fast: the coffee on the way to work, the 

glass of wine at the end of a day? 

Or perhaps it’s more serious: the 

child who is no longer practicing the 

faith, or the job search, or forgiving 

the seemingly unforgivable, that 

affront so egregious that there is no 

resolve? 

I began to realize over these 40 days 

that behind my “staring” at justification 

was a need for comfort and 

security. I was veering away from my 

Lord, from my Provider. Everything 

hinged on a miracle that would never 

come because my surrender was never 

offered. I was fixated on judging another 

and their actions, and my gaze 

had shifted. 

If my eyes were truly fixed on Jesus, I 

would have seen the cross upon which 

he endured unjust torture for me, for 

my sins, for my salvation, so that he 

could claim my heart for eternity. My 

stare would not mistake the very place 

where in his final breaths, he uttered 

a prayer for me and all of us: “Father, 

forgive them, for they do not know 

what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). 

Perhaps this is why forgiveness is 

defined as the repayment of a debt. 

Perhaps when we surrender the 

outcome or the consequences, when 

we ourselves surrender what we feel 

we are due and fix our eyes on Jesus, 

we realize the currency of our heart is 

forgiveness offered and accepted. In 

forgiveness is the surrender. 

And that surrender, we should 

remember, makes way for the miracle 

for which these 40 days prepare. 

Jennifer Hubbard resides in Newtown, 

Connecticut. The younger of her two 

children, Catherine Violet, was a 

victim of the Sandy Hook Elementary 

School shooting. She is the author of 

“Finding Sanctuary,” a memoir about 

healing and fulfilling her late daughter’s 

dream after her death. 


Sisterhood up close 

The second Miriam Dinner connected local 

women thinking about the religious life with 

sisters from several different orders. 

BY MIKE CISNEROS 

Participants sit together during the Miriam Dinner, which provided young women with an opportunity to consider 

religious life, at Our Lady of Grace Church in Encino on March 18. | SUBMITTED PHOTO 

was only the second time an event 

geared toward young women had 

been held in the Archdiocese of Los 

Angeles. The first Miriam Dinner, 

named after the Blessed Virgin Mary 

(Miriam is Hebrew for Mary), was held 

in March 2022. 

“The goal of the dinner is that those 

who are attending would have a better 

understanding of consecrated religious 

life,” said Sister Sophia Farkas, who 

said the dinner welcomed both those 

“in discernment” and young women 

simply wanting to know more about 

religious life. 

Additionally, Sister Sophia said, the 

event aimed to “establish connections 

and relationships between the young 

women and the different kinds of 

religious sisters.” 

Often, the vocational discernment 

for men considering the priesthood 

gets more attention in the Catholic 

Church. But as the women heard that 

Saturday night, the call to the religious 

life for women is also a crucial part of 

the life of the Church. 

Miriam Dinners follow the same 

model as St. Andrew Dinners, which 

give priests the opportunity to invite individuals 

whom they think might have 

a priestly vocation to have dinner with 

the bishop or archbishop in a more 

casual atmosphere. 

When Cassandra Verma graduated 

high school during the 

COVID-19 pandemic, she 

felt lost. Aimless. A lot of soul-searching. 

She didn’t get into any of the 

colleges she had applied for. 

“I remember being at Mass and 

praying and saying in my head, ‘At this 

point, I don’t know where my path will 

lead to, but I know that you have a plan 

for me,’ ” Verma said. “So I trust you 

and I put my faith in you and I always 

will work toward what is best.” 

It is that faith that led Verma on a 

path to the Miriam Dinner, an Intercongregational 

Vocation Office event 

hosted at Our Lady of Grace Church 

in Encino March 18 planned to provide 

young women with an opportunity 

to explore their calling in life in a 

relaxed environment. 

The dinner, which was organized by 

religious sisters, priests, and volunteers, 

A sister speaks with a young woman about her vocation story during the Miriam Dinner held at Our Lady of Grace 

Church. | SUBMITTED PHOTO 


The young women, sisters, priests, and volunteers all pose for a photograph after the second Miriam Dinner. | 

SUBMITTED PHOTO 

During the dinner, the participants 

prayed the Liturgy of the Hours, then 

heard from three sisters. One spoke 

on what being consecrated religious 

means, another explained the evangelical 

counsels of chastity, poverty, and 

obedience, and a third described the 

concepts of commitment and discernment. 

Several sisters also shared their 

own vocation stories and explained 

the charisms of the different religious 

orders represented at the dinner. 

The evening concluded with adoration 

of the Blessed Sacrament, which 

provided quiet time for the young 

women to contemplate the word of 

God and to be in the presence of the 

eucharistic Jesus. 

The event was organized by the 

archdiocese’s Office of the Vicar for 

Women Religious with help from 

Father Mike Perucho, the archdiocese’s 

director of Vocations, and Father 

Marinello Saguin, pastor of Our Lady 

of Grace. 

The next Miriam Dinner is planned 

for Oct. 7, 2023, at St. Anthony of 

Padua Church in Gardena. Organizers 

hope to have the Miriam Dinner at 

least twice a year with rotating locations 

between regions. 

Participants will also be invited to 

future retreats and discernment events 

of the religious sisters. 

Verma is now a junior studying 

psychology at UCLA. She doesn’t 

know if being a nun or sister is in her 

future, but the dinner helped her see 

the many possibilities that religious life 

poses. 

“After the Miriam Dinner, it opened 

my eyes because of the different 

sisterhoods explaining their agenda and 

what they do and what they stand for; 

it made me think there are multiple 

pathways that people can go through 

and still serve their community in a 

faithful way,” Verma said. 


Former Tidings 

Editor Bill Rivera 

dies at 94 

Former Tidings editor William “Bill” Rivera. | RIVERA FAMILY 

William “Bill” Rivera, former editor of The Tidings 

newspaper and communications director for the 

Archdiocese of Los Angeles, died on March 22 at 

the age of 94. 

The first child of Pedro Salazar Rivera and Rita Cordova 

Rivera, William Cordova Rivera lived a rich life guided by 

his strong faith in God. Rivera built a successful career in 

public relations and education, starting as a publicist for 

LA’s Hollywood Stars minor league baseball team, while 

freelancing as a sports reporter and photographer for San 

Fernando Valley newspapers. 

Rivera joined the Los Angeles Unified School District 

(LAUSD) as a public information officer, and later worked 

as communications director and superintendent special 

assistant. He served the archdiocese from 1988 to 1993 as 

communications director and editor of The Tidings newspaper, 

the predecessor of Angelus. 

From humble beginnings in a rural stretch of what is now 

Canoga Park, Bill “Willie” Rivera grew up in a tight-knit 

colony of about 10 families that came from Durango in 

northern Mexico. Everyone called him “Willie.” The 

young Rivera family was soon joined by a second son, Ramon, 

and by Rita’s brother, Angel, who was Willie’s age. 

His childhood was soon marked by tragedy, however, as 

his mother died not long after giving birth to a baby girl, 

Dorothy, who also died. The boys were taken in by surrogate 

grandparents, Petra and Lucio Cruz, when Bill was 

6 years old. Petra and Lucio would instill the values that 

would guide Bill for the rest of his life. 

“It was these two giving people who ingrained in my 

brother and me the belief of caring for others, in giving 

of yourself with no thought of reward, in reaching out to 

those about us,” Bill said in a profile published several 

years ago in The Tidings and La Opinión newspapers. 

Later, Rivera became the first person he knew to attend 

college (Los Angeles City College), where he was the first 

Mexican American to become editor of the school newspaper, 

The Collegian. There, he met the love of his life, 

Patricia Eileen Donnelly, who strode into the newsroom 

in a yellow dress and saddle shoes, looking to join the staff. 

They dated but later broke up (briefly) over a byline on a 

story — editor Rivera didn’t think cub reporter Donnelly 

had put in enough work to deserve one. Luckily for the 

seven children that eventually followed, the two made up 

and eventually married. 

Petra and Lucio were devout Christians, who raised 

the boys in the Foursquare Gospel Church. Marriage to 

Donnelly brought Rivera back to the Catholic Church, 

and they were active members of Divine Saviour and St. 

Bernard parishes. They taught catechism and confirmation 

classes, and served on several committees at the archdiocesan 

level. They were active in the Marriage Encounter 

movement. In 1997, Bill was honored at the annual Cardinal’s 

Awards gala dinner for his service to the community. 

“I have tried to live my life by two precepts: Caring for 

others and giving of myself to others (some would say I am 

a soft touch); treating others as I would like them to treat 

me,” he wrote. 

He was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Patricia; 

his brother, retired Deacon Ramon Rivera; his oldest son, 

Matthew; and daughter-in-law, Ellen Potter Rivera. He is 

survived by children Robert (Katie Sauceda), Nancy (Jim 

Brooks), Katja (Robert Estes), John (Kate Shatzkin), Peter 

(Kelley Martel Rivera), and Andrew (Angela Wall); 14 

grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren; sister-in-law Josie 

Juarez Rivera; and several nieces and nephews, along with 

their children and grandchildren. 

Funeral services were scheduled to be held at Rivera’s 

longtime parish, St. Bernard Church in Glassell Park. 

Obituary courtesy of the Rivera family. 


An accountability test 

The pope’s update of ‘Vos Estis Lux Mundi’ 

extends abuse investigation reforms to lay 

groups. But how will they be implemented? 

BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR. 

Father Hans Zollner, SJ, Archbishop Charles J. 

Scicluna of Malta, and Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of 

Chicago, all members of the organizing committee 

for a Vatican meeting on the protection of minors 

in the Church, attend a press conference in 2019. 

| CNS/PAUL HARING 

ROME — Depending on who 

you ask, Pope Francis’ 2019 

decree “Vos Estis Lux Mundi” 

(“You are the Light of the World”), 

coupled with updates to the policy 

announced March 25, is either a watershed 

in the Church’s fight against 

sexual abuse or a major disappointment 

— or, perhaps, both at the same 

time. 

Originally issued in the wake of 

a summit of the heads of bishops’ 

conferences from around the world to 

discuss the abuse scandals, “Vos Estis” 

was designed to promote a culture of 

accountability, not just for the crime 

of sexual abuse but also the cover-up. 

For the first time, it created a mechanism 

for investigating and sanctioning 

bishops and other superiors charged 

with failing to respond appropriately 

to claims of abuse against personnel 

under their authority. 

The recent revisions announced 

by the Vatican include making lay 

leaders of Vatican-recognized groups 

subject to the requirements of “Vos 

Estis,” and also specifying that neither 

accusers nor witnesses in a “Vos Estis” 

investigation are required to maintain 

confidentiality. It also stipulates that 

abuse against “vulnerable adults,” 

in addition to minors, can trigger an 

investigation. 

Archbishop Charles Scicluna of 

Malta, the Vatican’s former chief prosecutor 

of sex abuse crimes and widely 

recognized as one of the Church’s 

leading voices for reform, hailed the 


law and its recent updates as a cornerstone 

of the “very clear, limpid, and 

beautiful teaching of Pope Francis, 

which we must all treasure.” 

Others, however, were less impressed. 

Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountability.org 

described the pope’s 

revisions to “Vos Estis” as a “big 

disappointment,” saying the policy 

needed “an extensive revamping, not 

a few tweaks.” 

In substance, she cited four flaws 

with “Vos Estis”: 1) It remains a policy 

of bishops policing other bishops; 2) 

it does not require public disclosure 

or an investigation or its outcome; 3) 

it does not make bishops and superiors 

mandatory reporters beyond the 

requirements of civil law wherever 

they live; and 4) it limits lay roles in 

the investigatory process. 

BishopAccountability.org claimed 

that only about 40 bishops have been 

investigated to date under the terms 

of “Vos Estis,” only half have received 

any sanction, and even in those cases 

the punishment has been quiet and 

mild. None have been laicized or 

deprived of their standing as a bishop, 

the group said. 

No doubt, debate over “Vos Estis” 

will continue. In the meantime, it’s 

worth noting that whatever the limits 

of the policy, the pope’s revisions at 

least point to what many experts have 

long regarded as the next frontier in 

anti-abuse efforts: lay movements and 

associations. 

A decade after the scandals first 

erupted in the United States, the 

Church today has fairly strong 

measures in place to deal with clergy 

accused of sexual abuse. Especially 

if that charge involves a minor, the 

cleric is almost automatically suspended 

from ministry and the accusation is 

made public. If an investigation finds 

merit to the charge, the cleric is likely 

to be laicized. 

If an investigation also determines 

that the cleric’s superior dropped the 

ball, punishment may not be quite as 

swift and certain, but at a minimum 

that superior’s career path in the 

Church probably is fatally stalled. 

When the offender in question is a 

lay person, however, especially if he 

Jean Vanier, founder of the International Federation of 

L’Arche Communities, in 2008. | CNS/NANCY WIECHEC 

or she isn’t on the Church’s direct 

payroll, the situation is far less clear. 

Recently, two leaders of prominent 

lay movements in Catholicism have 

been found guilty of a longstanding 

pattern of abuse: Canadian layman 

Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche 

movement, and Peruvian layman 

Luis Fernando Figari, founder of the 

Sodality of Christian Life. 

In Vanier’s case, a report commissioned 

by L’Arche concluded that he 

had engaged in manipulative sexual 

relationships with at least 25 women 

from 1952 to 2019; an ecclesiastical 

investigation of Figari, meanwhile, 

determined that he had engaged in a 

wide range of sexual abuse as well as 

abuses of power and conscience. 

In those two cases, Church authorities 

had some tools at their disposal 

because both Vanier and Figari led international 

organizations that enjoyed 

official Vatican recognition. Many 

observers believe an even tougher 

challenge involves reports of abuse 

committed by individuals or organizations, 

which present themselves as 

Catholic, but which are not recognized 

by officialdom and over whom 

authorities have little real control. 

For an example, consider the Catholic 

Culture and Environment Association 

located on the Italian island of 

Sicily, which, at its peak, numbered 

around 5,000 members. Its leader, a 

layman named Pietro Capuana who’s 

now in his early 80s, was considered 

by his followers to be the reincarnation 

of the Archangel Michael. 

In 2017, Capuana was arrested 

on charges of sexually abusing girls 

between the ages of 11 and 16. Three 

other members of the group, all 

women, were charged as accomplices 

for allegedly selecting and grooming 

Capuana’s victims. Their long-delayed 

trial is currently underway in Sicily, 

with the defense case set to begin in 

the next hearing scheduled for April 

18. 

Although the group did not have any 

official ecclesiastical recognition, its 

founder was a popular Sicilian priest 

and “spiritual son” of the famed Capuchin 

mystic Padre Pio named Father 

Stefano Cavalli. The group routinely 

held its meetings in a Catholic parish, 

while its events were sometimes advertised 

in a diocesan publication. 

Internal documents suggest that 

the Diocese of Acireale in Sicily was 

aware of charges of suspect behavior 

against the group as early as the 1970s, 

but officials have insisted the concerns 

were of a doctrinal and spiritual 

nature rather than sexual abuse. 

In effect, the Sicilian group appears 

to have fallen into an ecclesiastical 

blind spot, publicly holding itself out 

as authentically Catholic but with no 

real oversight, either from the local 

diocese or from the Vatican. 

For victims, of course, the fine points 

of Church law undoubtedly aren’t 

all that important — if the group 

appeared to have the Church’s blessing, 

and if no one in authority ever 

told them otherwise, they’ll naturally 

conclude the Church was somehow 

complicit. 

How to make the Church’s new 

anti-abuse policies stick with such lay 

groups, which operate on the margins 

of Catholic life and which have a pattern 

of successfully evading efforts at 

control of any sort, seems destined to 

be yet another test of “Vos Estis” and 

the broader reform efforts of Francis. 

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

April 21, 2023 • ANGELUS • 21

A second group of 2,000 detainees were moved overnight to the mega-prison Terrorist Confinement Center (CECOT) on March 15 in Tecoluca, El Salvador. A first group of 

detainees had been moved to the prison on Feb. 26. | HANDOUT VIA GETTY IMAGES 

A DESPERATE REMEDY 

In El Salvador, at least one bishop is speaking out against a 

brutal crackdown on suspected gang members. 

BY MSGR. RICHARD ANTALL 

When it was time last month 

for Cardinal Gregorio Rosa 

Chavez to preach on the 

43rd anniversary of the death of his 

friend and mentor St. Oscar Romero, 

the retired auxiliary bishop of San Salvador 

chose to address a very controversial 

topic in the country right now: 

the “state of exception” that allows the 

government to lock up thousands of 

gang members without due process. 

These “domestic terrorists” are to be 

housed (or better said, warehoused) 

in the recently opened “Terrorism 

Confinement Center.” This megaprison 

will be the world’s largest with 

a capacity of 40,000, surpassing the 

Silivri Penitentiaries Campus in Turkey, 

which supposedly has more than 

22,000 inmates. (Turkey, it should be 

noted, has a population of 84.6 million 

people, more than 14 times that of El 

Salvador.) 

The gangs in El Salvador have a monstrous 

record of mayhem and violence, 

their criminal activity penetrating 

almost every sector of the country’s 

economy and people’s daily lives. In 

the little town where I was pastor for 

many years, El Puerto de La Libertad, 

hardly any small business escaped 

paying protection money. 

It was a way of life. One “pandillero,” 

as the gang members are called, 

charged my compadre — a store owner 

whose son with Down syndrome is my 

godson — $50 a week. The average 

daily wage in El Salvador is estimated 

at $12 a day. 

This same gang member later went to 

prison for the murder of the wife of a 

Mexican agent of Interpol who worked 

in El Salvador. Ironically, he had been 

contracted by the wife, who was in love 

with her children’s swimming instructor, 

to kill her husband. The “pandillero,” 

on a motorcycle, rode up to the car 

of the couple at a traffic light and shot 


into the car, wounding the husband, 

who survived, and killing his client. 

Stories like these help explain why The 

Washington Post in 2016 declared El 

Salvador “the murder capital of the 

hemisphere.” 

We can thank God that is no longer 

true of the country. Violence has 

dropped dramatically, earning president 

Nayib Bukele popular support 

around the country. Unfortunately, it 

has taken something like the “state of 

exception” for that to happen. Bukele’s 

government has not been shy to admit 

its suspension of legal rights for anyone 

accused of being a gang member. 

Under the “exceptional rules,” police 

don’t have to inform arrestees of their 

rights or what they’re being arrested for, 

nor do those arrested have the right to 

a lawyer. They can now be held for 15 

days without seeing a judge (the period 

used to be 72 hours). 

Watchdog group Human Rights 

Watch reported that the policies have 

resulted in “mass arbitrary detention, 

torture, and other forms of ill treatment 

against detainees, deaths in custody, 

and abuse-ridden prosecutions.” 

Bukele’s government has produced 

videos showing at least 4,000 “domestic 

terrorists” being transferred to the 

megaprison. The scenes of shirtless, 

shoeless tattooed men in white boxer 

shorts file into a courtyard and squat 

with their heads touching the backs 

of the men ahead of them resembles 

something out of Hollywood science 

fiction. 

I don’t know what is more shocking: 

the footage of these men or the fact 

that many Salvadorans, especially those 

who have immigrated to the U.S., are 

not appalled by the sight of so many 

young men entering an environment 

that would have intimidated Dante 

Alighieri. 

“Abandon hope all ye who enter 

here,” the Italian poet famously imagined 

the sign welcoming new arrivals 

to hell. The same words would seem 

fitting for this mega-prison. 

The government boasts that no one 

can escape from it. “This will be their 

new house, where they will live for 

decades, all mixed, unable to do any 

further harm to the population,” boasted 

Bukele recently. The potential for 

violence in prison in a country with no 

death penalty, is part of the terror the 

“state of exception” inspires. 

One of Chavez’s concerns is the 

many innocent young men who have 

been detained mistakenly. Some 4,000 

of the 70,000 arrested under the new 

anti-terrorism protocols have since 

been released, but I am told that this 

takes some doing. Not all innocent 

men and their families have recourse 

to the lawyers and other resources 

needed to apply pressure. 

“How can you sleep at night, seeing 

how the ‘exceptional’ has become the 

rule, what is normal?” said Chavez, addressing 

the government in his March 

24 homily. “How is it that you can 

accept as normal the people who suffer 

cannot even express themselves publicly. 

How is it that it can be regarded as 

normal that all possibility of dialogue 

is closed?” 

I would go even further than the 

cardinal in that I believe that even the 

guilty deserve better treatment. Is the 

possibility of redemption now totally 

ruled out? What about the souls of 

these men? Can we just lock the doors 

and throw away the key? 

During a recent visit to El Salvador, 

some of those I talked to found the 

treatment of the prisoners dehumanizing. 

Others disagreed, saying that 

the gang members deserved the brutal 

treatment. 

But what remains is a terrible situation, 

an invoice of sorts for El Salvador’s 

long history of injustice, oppression, 

violence, and loss of faith. The 

cruelty and viciousness of the gangs is 

sinful, but it needs to be understood 

in the context of a society at war with 

its religious roots, overwhelmed by 

a selfish materialism, and scarred by 

generations of fratricidal conflict. 

Charles Dickens once wrote this 

about the excesses of the French Revolution: 

“Crush humanity out of shape 

once more, under similar hammers, 

and it will twist itself into the same 

tortured forms. Sow the same seeds of 

rapacious license and oppression over 

Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chavez of San Salvador, El Salvador, in a file photo. | CNS/ALESSANDRO BIANCHI, REUTERS 

again, and it will surely yield the same 

fruit according to its kind.” The gangs 

are both producers and products of 

violence. 

The problem is not just that of the 

present government of El Salvador. 

This is something with international 

and even metaphysical dimensions. 

The desperation of the “state of exception” 

represents the bankruptcy of a 

civilization. The Confinement Center 

said that only force can hold society together. 

May God have mercy on us all. 

And may other brave voices join with 

that of Chavez in speaking for reason 

and decency. 

Msgr. Richard Antall is pastor of Holy 

Name Church in Cleveland, Ohio, and 

the author of several books. He served 

as a missionary priest in El Salvador for 

more than 20 years and was named a 

“Noble Friend of El Salvador” in 2011 

by the country’s National Assembly. 


The Mary 

factor 

If the term ‘Paschal 

Mystery’ seems 

like too much to 

understand this 

Easter, start by 

looking at Jesus’ 

mother. 

BY FATHER SLAWOMIR SZKREDKA 

Around this time of year, we 

Catholics begin to hear the 

term “Paschal Mystery” — 

meaning the mystery of Jesus’ death 

and resurrection — a lot more. But 

what does it really mean for you and 

me? 

It means Jesus’ death, remembered 

on Good Friday, and his new life, 

celebrated and experienced at Easter, 

are ours, too. 

For St. Paul, this experience happens 

through baptism: “We were indeed 

buried with him through baptism into 

death, so that, just as Christ was raised 

from the dead by the glory of the 

Father, we too might live in newness 

of life” (Romans 6:4). In another 

place, he asserts, “For you have died, 

and your life is hidden with Christ in 

God” (Colossians 3:3). 

Still, the terms may come off as a bit 

metaphorical. 

But on Good Friday, when we read 

the Lord’s passion according to the 

Gospel of John, we hear that right 

before his death, in the final act of his 

agony on the cross, Jesus entrusts us to 

his own mother — and her to us. 

He turns to Mary and says, “Woman, 

behold, your son.” Then he says 

to John (and through him to each 

of us), “Behold, your mother” (John 

19:26–27). 

If we look at the entirety of Jesus’ 

life and ministry as recorded in the 

Gospels, we see how Jesus spent it 

preparing his disciples to experience 

the Paschal Mystery — and drawing 

“The Crucifixion,” about 

1420-1430, by Master of 

the Kremnitz Stadtbuch. 

| J. PAUL GETTY MUSEUM 

his own mother into it, too. 

Jesus’ passion and resurrection only 

appear at the end of his earthly journey, 

but they are not some unfortunate 

addition or epilogue to it. Rather, 

everything was oriented toward it from 

the start. 

In the first chapter of the Gospel of 

Mark, Jesus, who has no sin, lowers 

himself to receive “a baptism of 

repentance for the forgiveness of sins” 

(Mark 1:4). In solidarity with sinners, 

Jesus goes down into the waters of the 

Jordan, foreshadowing his descent 


into death. 

In Chapter 2, he speaks of himself 

as the bridegroom who will be taken 

away, a veiled allusion to his violent 

death (Mark 2:20). In Chapter 3, his 

enemies are plotting “against him to 

put him to death” (Mark 3:6). As the 

story advances, allusions to his suffering 

become more frequent and more 

direct. Halfway through the Gospel, 

Jesus openly predicts his passion and 

resurrection as he heads to Jerusalem 

with his disciples. 

Throughout, Jesus makes a point of 

calling the disciples and pulling them 

into his own life. Not because he 

wants them to suffer, but because he’s 

preparing them for the most important 

experience of their lives. 

Each time he speaks of his passion, 

the disciples resist it, whether it’s 

Peter rebuking Jesus (Mark 8:32), 

the disciples quarreling about who 

is the greatest (Mark 9:34, or James 

and John seeking the places of honor 

(Mark 10:37). 

Undeterred, Jesus patiently explains 

what kind of life he’s drawing them to: 

one of denying themselves and following 

him, giving priority to the small 

and vulnerable among us (Mark 9:36), 

taking the last place (Mark 9:35; 

10:43), and receiving the kingdom 

like a child (Mark 10:15). Becoming 

servants, small and vulnerable, taking 

the last place, Jesus invites them into 

his own lifestyle, which he will exemplify 

most fully on the cross. 

Mary is no stranger to this path of 

smallness, vulnerability, service, and 

self-denial. In the annunciation scene, 

she responds to God by saying “be 

it done unto me according to your 

word.” She understands that accepting 

God’s plan means renouncing whatever 

other plans she might have had. 

For Mary, this means even giving 

up the human ties with her only 

son. When Jesus seemingly distances 

himself from her during his public 

ministry — “Who are my mother and 

[my] brothers?” (Mark 3:33) — she 

learns to die to the human bonds that 

bind her to Jesus and to give rise to 

a new way of relating to him. “My 

mother and my brothers,” Jesus says, 

“are those who hear the word of God 

and act on it” (Luke 8:21). 

When her 12-year-old Son, for whom 

she and Joseph had anxiously looked 

for three days, stated that he had to 

be in his Father’s house, Mary and Joseph 

did not understand what he said 

to them (Luke 2:50). She struggles 

with understanding God’s designs and 

learns to accept what surpasses understanding, 

a lesson she will undertake 

again at the cross. 

In a small but telling detail, St. Luke 

tells us that she mentions Joseph first: 

“Your father and I have been looking 

for you” (Luke 2:48). Mentioning 

Joseph first, she takes the last place. 

Because she is so perfectly set on the 

path of smallness, self-denial, service, 

and childlike trust, Jesus wants us 

to hold on to her — “Behold, your 

mother” — as we enter our dying and 

rising with Christ. She will intercede 

for us when our wine runs short. And 

she will encourage us — “Do whatever 

he tells you” (John 2:5) — to help 

bring about the new wine so that “we 

too might live in newness of life.” 

(Romans 6:4) 

Because she is so perfectly set on the path of 

smallness, self-denial, service, and childlike trust, 

Jesus wants us to hold on to his mother as we 

enter our dying and rising with Christ. 

This is good news. This Easter, if 

we’re struggling to be small, take the 

last place, or trust in God; her Son 

wants us to enter the Paschal Mystery 

with his mother, holding on to her as 

we live out our dying and rising with 

Christ. 

Father Slawomir Szkredka is the 

coordinator of human formation at St. 

John’s Seminary in Camarillo and the 

author of the new book “Icon of Trust: 

Mary in the Gospels of Luke and John” 

(Sophia Institute Press, $13.95). 


Searching in his footsteps 

Fresco of Jesus calming the storm, in 

the church Chiesa di San Ferdinando, 

20th century, by Umberto Colonna. 

| SHUTTERSTOCK 

A pilgrimage to the 

Holy Land changed 

Angela Alaimo 

O’Donnell’s life. Her 

latest book of poetry 

helps explain how. 

BY NICK RIPATRAZONE 

In 2019, poet Angela Alaimo 

O’Donnell traveled to the Holy 

Land. She spent her first night at 

the Mount of the Beatitudes. The 

next morning, she ran along the Sea 

of Galilee. In the days that followed, 

she made pilgrimages to holy sites, 

including Bethlehem, Jericho, the 

River Jordan, the Mount of Olives, 

and Calvary. She “followed in the 

footsteps of Jesus.” 

Her fellow companions took photos. 

O’Donnell, instead, wrote poems. 

O’Donnell has collected these 

poems in the aptly titled “Holy Land” 

Angela Alaimo O’Donnell. 

| ANGELAALAIMOODONNELL.COM 


(Paraclete Press, $20), her 10th book 

of verse. One of the first poems in the 

book, “The Storm Chaser,” documents 

what she saw that first morning 

while running: “I see you in your 

boat, tall brown / man that you are, 

standing in the prow, / arms raised 

in supplication to the skies, / windwhipped 

tunic blowing wild & high.” 

The arresting image is followed by 

the fact that the man’s companions on 

the boat “have hit the deck and now 

lie prone / on the sodden wood, dumb 

as stone / and waiting for what surely 

is the end.” 

While the wind tumults the sea, 

O’Donnell is transfixed by this man: 

“You alone are all might, pure motion 

/ in the shape of a god, this small 

ocean / no match for your infinite 

love — for them, / for the sky, for the 

sea. And, yes, even for me.” 

The man depicted in the poem 

was a real man — a fisherman who 

O’Donnell watched survive a sharp 

storm — and yet the man was also 

Jesus. One theme of “Holy Land” is 

that Jesus is among us, and not merely 

in spirit. Her poetry suggests that Jesus 

is among us in body. 

Appropriately enough, as a poet, 

O’Donnell has been distinctly formed 

by Christ’s crucifixion. In her poem 

“The First Art,” she writes: “The 

rough wood splits and yaws / worn 

smooth in places / where hands, 

heads, buttocks, feet / of the crucified 

before Christ / rubbed and writhed 

and rested.” She has described the 

Catholic reaction to the crucifixion as 

a “complex mingling of fear and pity, 

guilt and gratitude, happiness and 

horror.” Those contrasting, powerful 

emotions created the need for poetry 

above all other art forms. 

Thomas Merton, the Catholic poet 

and Trappist monk, once lamented 

that although Catholics have such 

a rich poetic tradition, many were 

ignorant of their literary forebears. As 

an example, he identified the mystical, 

entrancing St. John of the Cross 

as “one of the greatest Catholic poets,” 

but: “How many Catholics have even 

heard of him?” 

Catholics should care about poetry, 

and I encourage them to encounter 

O’Donnell’s work. Her poetry is 

notable in both subject and style. 

She writes of the mystery of suffering 

and the worry of God’s absence. 

She does so paying close attention to 

the world, and her work manages to 

reveal joy while depicting life in an 

authentic manner. O’Donnell looks 

for Jesus in those she encounters, and 

she documents that search — and its 

revelations — in her poetry. 

In “Holy Land,” her encounters 

with Jesus continue upon her return 

to America. “Easter Monday” is 

the prototypical O’Donnell poem: 

light-hearted, yet profound, as well 

as skilled and playful in technique. 

“Christ comes, a knock on the door 

when I least / expect him,” she writes. 

“Espresso in hand I pop open / the 

screen door that sticks in every kind / 

of weather.” He offers her peace, and 

joins her for breakfast; they eat “in 

the too-small nook, our four knees / 

touching beneath the table.” 

The narrator and Christ “find / little 

to discuss.” The observation might first 

appear strange, but it forces us to consider: 

How would we receive Christ in 

our world? Are we ready to confront 

him in the flesh; to wrangle with the 

reality of his presence? 

O’Donnell ends the poem: “His 

lined / face says he knows what we 

don’t say. / I ask him if this time he 

plans to stay.” Her concluding rhyme 

links the final two lines, and punctuates 

the poem as a prompt for the 

reader. O’Donnell’s poem is emotionally 

inviting rather than intellectual; 

it compels me to ponder my relationship 

with Christ in a visceral way. 

She accomplishes similar power in 

“The Land of All Souls,” written for 

Nov. 2. O’Donnell’s most memorable 

work is both surprising and strange — 

a counter to the mundane appearance 

of life. “They are here with us at the 

breakfast table,” the poem begins,“sitting 

in our chairs, buttering their 

toast, / the knives heavy in their airy 

hands.” The departed are unable to 

eat; food, after all, is “for the living.” 

Instead, the souls “drift past us to the 

window seat. / They survey the days as 

PARACLETE PRESS 

if making plans.” 

Ultimately, the souls “do what they 

always do, / stay here with us.” Those 

who have passed from this world 

“know they are loved, / seen and 

acknowledged by their flesh & blood. 

/ They move through the day with us, 

side by side. / They almost believe 

they’re alive.” 

The poem manages to be both 

melancholy and moving at the same 

time — a work that reveals the unique 

nature of Catholic poetry. The Catholic 

poet documents the travails of this 

world — suffering, confusion, fear — 

with an eye toward our saving grace. 

Poetry extends the liturgy beyond 

church walls. In writing and reading 

poetry, Catholics engage in a form 

of prayer and contemplation. “Holy 

Land” is a worthy companion on that 

pilgrimage. 

Nick Ripatrazone is culture editor for 

Image journal and the author of several 

books of fiction, poetry, and literary 

criticism. His most recent book, “The 

Habit of Poetry: The Literary Lives 

of Nuns in Mid-century America,” is 

available for pre-order at Fortress Press 

($28.99). 


INTERSECTIONS 

GREG ERLANDSON 

A mother’s journey to Easter 

SHUTTERSTOCK 

For the first time in several years, 

my mom called me by name. 

We were turning her in her bed, 

which is a group effort, when she 

looked up at me and called me “Greg.” 

My mom is bed-ridden now, yet 

still lives at home at age 99. This is a 

kind of a miracle in itself, and is only 

possible because of my generous and 

loving siblings, a saintly sister-in-law 

and a couple of dedicated caregivers. 

Yet the dementia that comes with age’s 

frailty has taken its toll. The arc of her 

human journey has bent back almost 

to where it began. 

The children who she once fed now 

feed her. The children who she once 

changed, now change her. The children 

who she once helped take their 

first steps now carefully lift her up from 

the bed, standing her on wobbly legs 

as they position her in a wheelchair. 

She who gave so much is now giving 

us a final opportunity to give back, to 

answer love with love. 

The fragility and helplessness of the 

young child is now hers to endure, 

with skin worn almost translucent by 

the passage of years. 

The woman strong enough to learn 

how to play 18 holes of golf in her 50s 

now seems to be all painful sinews and 

joints, flesh barely covering the bones 

of her hands that once gripped those 

clubs with such determination. 

And despite all this, she has good days 

as well as bad ones, lighting up when a 

familiar face enters the room. She still 

smiles. She blows kisses. She says she 

loves each of us madly. 

When some unpleasantness is being 

inflicted on her, one of the children 

who she taught to pray will look her 

in the eyes and start reciting the Our 

Father or the Hail Mary. 

Mom mouths the same words, words 

so deeply embedded in her they are 

unforgettable. Or she would repeatedly 

pray, “Lord, thank you for my blessings 

and graces.” 

It seems an injustice that after so 

many decades of love and service, she 

must endure her Good Friday now, 

sometimes with loud cries and tears, 

sometimes with prayers and supplications, 

as the author of the Letter to the 

Hebrews puts it. 

My mom is a living memento mori, a 

reminder of the path we all will travel, 

perhaps not for 99 years, but travel 

nonetheless we will. 

“I say to you, when you were younger, 

you used to dress yourself and go 


Greg Erlandson is the former president and 

editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service. 

where you wanted; but when you grow 

old, you will stretch out your hands, 

and someone else will dress you and 

lead you where you do not want to go” 

(John 21:18). Jesus wasn’t just foretelling 

Peter’s end, but the likely end of so 

many of us as well. 

It is sometimes easier to believe in 

Good Friday than in Easter Sunday 

when in my mom’s bedroom, but 

not only there: in the muddy charnel 

house of Bakhmut, in the 18-wheelers 

filled with the bodies of migrants risking 

all in the failed hope of a new life, 

in the gunshot victims on a thousand 

U.S. streets. 

It is not difficult in these darkening 

hours to believe in Good Friday. It is 

an act of courage, of faith, to believe 

in Easter Sunday. “I look forward to 

the resurrection of the dead and the 

life of the world to come,” we say every 

Sunday in the Creed. That fantastical 

assertion is based on our faith that 

Christ did indeed rise again. “Death no 

longer has power over him” (Romans 

6:9), Paul wrote. And because of our 

faith in Christ, death no longer has 

power over us. In faith, we look forward 

to the resurrection of the dead. 

Looking upon the body of my 

sleeping mother, a sleep that even now 

resembles death, I am speechless at 

the impenetrable mystery of it. That’s 

because of the sacrifice one God-man 

made 2,000 years ago, a sacrifice memorialized 

every single day since then, 

my mother’s life does not end here. In 

her end will be a beginning. 

I do not know what life beyond death 

will entail. Will she be transformed as 

Jesus was in the post-resurrection appearances? 

Will that vital woman who 

birthed eight children, who taught me 

to pray, to garden, to cook, to care, will 

she be restored to something altogether 

new, yet recognizable? 

What will 99 years of life come to 

be in the afterlife? I don’t know the 

answer to that. Yet, I believe that ours 

is “an inheritance that is imperishable, 

undefiled and unfading” (1 Peter 1:4), 

as Peter wrote. 

Even now, as my mom climbs her last 

Golgotha, in her love and her patience 

and her faith, she points toward Easter’s 

dawning and immortal light.

DESIRE LINES 

HEATHER KING 

On a song and a prayer 

Paul Rose created “Sing the Hours,” an online platform designed to help people sing the Divine Office prayers each 

day. | PAUL ROSE/SING THE HOURS 

Sing the Hours (singthehours. 

org), a platform designed to help 

people sing the Divine Office, is 

the brainchild of Paul Rose, a young 

convert from the Boston area. 

The Office, musical by nature, 

follows a “Psalter,” a methodical, 

universally observed cycle. Priests, 

monks, and nuns are pledged to pray 

the Office at several set “hours” of 

the day. The Second Vatican Council 

emphasized that it should be the 

prayer of laypeople as well. 

Each day Sing the Hours offers lauds 

and vespers, the “hinge” Offices. 

On his YouTube channel, Rose 

introduces himself like this: “Hi all! 

I’m here to serve and glorify God 

with prayer. The Liturgy of the Hours 

is the public prayer of the Universal 

Church! To pray the Liturgy of the 

Hours — also called the Divine 

Office — is to enter into the intimate 

conversation of God’s family.” 

Rose’s voice is clear, beautiful, and 

refreshingly noncloying. He’s not 

trying to sound holy. You sense that 

prayer is an integral part of his life 

and he is longing to share it. 

The YouTube background might 

be of a snow-shrouded statue of the 

Virgin Mary, or the branch of a flowering 

apple tree, or a bank of candles 

flickering before an icon of Jesus. 

Following along is easy as the text is 

displayed throughout: the Invitatory 

(in Latin), hymn, and psalms; the 

Glory Be (also in Latin), the reading, 

the Benedictus or Magnificat, and 

the Lord’s Prayer. Often Rose will 

close with a song to Mary: the “Salve 

Regina” or an “Ave Maria.” 

In a May 4, 2021, interview with 

Deacon Ryan Sales from Canada, 

Rose — earnest, passionate, articulate, 

and almost goofily endearing — 


Heather King is an award-winning 

author, speaker, and workshop leader. 

offers the backstory of his venture. 

He was raised as what he calls a 

“post-modern,” nondenominational 

Christian. In high school, he was 

“beckoned to the Church by the Holy 

Spirit.” 

For 10 years, he and his brother had 

run a company that worked with kids 

to give them public speaking and debate 

skills. But around 2020, he “was 

kind of on burnout and also wanted 

to do something more evangelical 

with my time.” 

He was also in “a quarter-life crisis”; 

a space of great desolation, both spiritually 

and personally. He’s an extreme 

extrovert and the pandemic had worn 

him down. 

So he took a sabbatical of several 

months to discern what his next step 

should be. For his birthday that year, 

Dec. 30, his sister gave him a breviary 

set. And when he started praying 

and singing the Office, everything 

changed. 

“There’s a great letter from Church 

Father and doctor St. Athanasius to 

Marcellinus, where he discusses the 

psalms. It’s not for our entertainment 

that we sing our psalms, it’s for the 

soul’s own benefit.” 

In the midst of the darkest period 

of his life, he realized it’s impossible 

simultaneously to sing the psalms and 

to feel despondent. “You’re breathing, 

moving, standing. It’s a perfect integration 

before God of body, soul, and 

spirit. But it’s not just a mental health 

tool or a way to find peace, it’s a way 

to worship God.” 

Nonetheless, after a few months 

he realized he was probably singing 

the psalms wrong. He started asking 

around and searching online — podcasts, 

Instagram, YouTube — and he 

found there was literally nothing: no 

guide, no materials. 

In high school he’d been interested 

in music, music production, and 

voice. He began to realize: “I can 

sing, I can produce — why not just 

pray the Office myself and make it 

available to other people?” 

He started posting during Advent of 

2020. His early efforts were awful, he 

says. A friend told him he sounded 

like Justin Bieber, if Bieber had converted 

to Catholicism and become a 

monk. He quickly began adopting a 

more “traditional” tone — though, 

trained in pop vocals, his singing is 

always going to have a bit of “modern 

charm,” as he laughingly puts it. 

More and more, he realizes, the entire 

human experience is contained 

in those 150 psalms: our suffering, 

our joy, our thanksgiving, our angst. 

They were written by David, Christ’s 

ancestor, and Christ prayed them 

himself. 

“The prayer is timeless but it enters 

time in our contemporary English 

language context.” 

At the behest of his mother, Rose 

and his siblings also learned Latin as 

children. Bits of that he’s also incorporated 

into Sing the Hours. 

“Think of how many thousands of 

saints have prayed the ‘Glory Be’ 

throughout history in Latin — at 

work in the fields, before the altar, 

about to be burned at the stake. It’s 

so great to close each psalm with that 

eternal shout-out.” 

Rose’s enthusiasm is contagious. His 

conviction that God had a plan for 

his dark night of the soul is a consolation. 

That he took the resources at 

hand — his musical talents, his energy, 

his faithful heart — and molded 

them into an ongoing daily labor of 

love is a lesson and an inspiration to 

all of us. 

In the passion according to John, 

Jesus and his disciples sit down to 

the Last Supper. His time is at hand. 

“One of you will betray me,” he tells 

them. He will not again together 

drink the fruit of the vine until they 

meet in the Father’s kingdom. 

Then he takes a moment to integrate 

himself fully before God 

— body, soul, spirit — and forever 

enshrines the glory of music. 

“And when they had sung a hymn, 

they went out to the Mount of Olives.” 


LETTER AND SPIRIT 

SCOTT HAHN 

Scott Hahn is founder of the 

St. Paul Center for Biblical 

Theology; stpaulcenter.com. 

Unraveling the Paschal Mystery 

A 

single day could not contain the 

joy of the Resurrection, so the 

Church extended the celebration 

to a season. We’re still in the midst 

of it. 

But we who speak English suffer a 

fundamental disorientation when we 

consider this season. In most languages, 

the same word applies to the Jewish 

Passover as to the Christian feast of 

Jesus’ resurrection: “Pascua,” “Pascha,” 

“Pasqua,” “Pesach.” The English name, 

Easter, on the other hand, derives from 

an ancient German festival, about 

which we know very little. 

Thus the term “Paschal Mystery” 

doesn’t have the same associations for 

us as it has for others. It is this mystery, 

according to the Catechism, which 

“stands at the center” of the Gospel 

(CCC, n. 571). All other feasts, all 

other mysteries point to it (CCC, n. 

1171). Yet it is the same Paschal Mystery 

that we celebrate every Sunday 

and every Mass. We may think of these 

memorials as widening concentric 

circles, whose heart is the Lord’s saving 

passion. 

For Christians, the Paschal Mystery 

should evoke the ancient Passover, 

when all the firstborn children of Israel 

were spared, when the chosen people 

were liberated from slavery, and when 

they embarked upon their journey to 

the promised land. Their deliverance 

began with the sacrifice of a lamb and 

the smearing of the lamb’s blood on 

the doorposts. In future generations, 

Jews would recall those events, but also 

consider them allegorically, as God’s 

continued deliverance of his people, 

out of vice and into virtue. 

In the fullness of time, Jesus came as 

the “Lamb of God” (John 1:29). For 

his disciples, he was “Christ, our paschal 

lamb,” who “has been sacrificed” 

(1 Corinthians 5:7). For Christians, the 

Passover has not been abolished, but 

rather fulfilled. “Let us, therefore,” said 

St. Paul, “celebrate the festival … with 

the unleavened bread of sincerity and 

truth” (1 Corinthians 5:8). 

Raised up in the traditions of Judaism, 

the first Christians could see both 

continuity and discontinuity from the 

Old Covenant to the New. They still 

celebrated the festival with unleavened 

bread, but now the sacrifice was Christ 

himself, who had made an offering 

of his body at the Last Supper. It was 

that paschal meal that transformed his 

execution into a once-for-all sacrifice. 

The old Passover began with Israel’s 

redemption and liberation, but 

it culminated later with the people’s 

entrance into “a land flowing with 

milk and honey” (Joshua 5:6). Between 

those events, the tribes wandered for 

40 years. It was a time of purification 

when God purged the Israelites of the 

lingering effects of their contact with 

Egyptian idolatry. 

So, every year, as we prepare to celebrate 

Easter, we undergo purification 

through 40 days of Lent. 

From ancient times, the Church saw 

the Christian 

pilgrimage 

as a movement 

from 

purification to 

illumination 

and finally to 

union with 

God. These 

“The Angel of Death and the 

First Passover.” Illustrators 

of the 1897 “Bible Pictures 

and What They Teach Us,” 

by Charles Foster | WIKIME- 

DIA COMMONS 

are the stages as we pass through the 

sacraments of initiation. They trace 

a pattern that plays itself out over the 

course of a lifetime, a week or a year, 

and even over the course of a Mass. 

We “pass over” from sin through 

penance to communion as we conform 

ourselves to the Easter Mysteries. 


■ SATURDAY, APRIL 8 

Easter Vigil Mass. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 

555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 8 p.m. Vigil will be bilingual 

(English/Spanish) starting with the blessing of the fire at the 

Easter Fire Hearth on the Cathedral Plaza. 

■ SUNDAY, APRIL 9 

Easter Sunday Mass. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 

555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles. English masses: 7:30 a.m. 

and 10 a.m. Spanish: 12:30 p.m. 

■ TUESDAY, APRIL 11 

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. 

■ WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12 

St. Padre Pio Mass. St. Anne Church, 340 10th St., Seal 

Beach, 1 p.m. Celebrant: Father Al Baca. For more information, 

call 562-537-4526. 

Good Grief Bereavement Support Group. St. Bede the Venerable 

Church, 215 Foothill Blvd., parish center, second floor, 

La Cañada Flintridge, 6:30 p.m. Free six-week bereavement 

support group for those who have lost a loved one. Sessions 

meet on Wednesdays. Call 626-840-7478 to register. 


Along the Way Pilgrim Walk. Mary and Joseph Retreat 

Center, 5300 Crest Rd., Rancho Palos Verdes, 7 a.m.-1 p.m. 

Modeled after “the Way” to Santiago de Compostela in 

Spain, this is a half-day 4.8-mile walk through the streets and 

trails of Palos Verdes to the sacred grounds of the retreat 

center. Facilitator: Sue Ballotti. Registration, 7a.m., blessing 

of pilgrims and departure, 7:30 a.m., closing prayer and 

grace, 11:30 a.m., picnic lunch, 12 p.m. Cost: $30/person or 

$60/family. Call Jose Salas at 310-377-4867, ext. 250, or visit 

maryjoseph.org for more information. 

The Art and Soul of Journaling. Holy Spirit Retreat Center, 

4316 Lanai Rd., Encino, 9:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. With Ella Weiss, 

MFT. Visit hsrcenter.com or call 818-784-4515. 

■ SUNDAY, APRIL 16 

International Thomas Merton Society Chapter Meeting. 

Holy Spirit Retreat Center, 4316 Lanai Rd., Encino, 2-4 p.m. 

Hosted by Sister Chris Machado, SSS. Visit hsrcenter.com or 

call 818-784-4515. 

■ MONDAY, APRIL 17 

Bereavement Support Group. St. Bruno Church, 15740 

Citrustree Rd., Whittier, 7 p.m. A six-week bereavement 

support group beginning April 17. RSVP to Cathy at 562- 

631-8844. 


“What Catholics Believe” weekly series. St. Dorothy 

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

Series runs Wednesdays through April 26. Deepen your 

understanding of the Catholic faith through dynamic DVD 

presentations by Bishop Robert Barron, Dr. Edward Sri, Dr. 

Brant Pitre, and Dr. Michael Barber. Free event, no reservations 

required. Call 626-335-2811 or visit the Adult Faith 

Development ministry page at www.stdorothy.org for more 

information. 

■ THURSDAY, APRIL 20 

Children’s Bureau: Foster Care Zoom Orientation. 4-5 

p.m. 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. 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. 


Bereavement Ministry. St. Bruno Church 15740 Citrustree 

Rd., Whitter, 9 a.m. Information meeting for parishes 

interested in starting or growing their bereavement ministry. 

RSVP to Cathy at 562-631-8844 by April 17. 

Earth Day: Entering the Heart! Nature as Spiritual Practice. 

LMU, 1 LMU Dr., University Hall, Los Angeles, 9:30 

a.m. This three-hour event includes meditation, journaling, 

and experiences of garden and wildflowers. The goal is to 

create a better relationship with nature and God and to have 

a plan for eco stress and climate change. Email markmitchellspeaks@gmail.com 

or call 310-822-7979 for more information. 

■ SATURDAY, APRIL 22-23 

Pinocchio: A Lyric Opera for All Ages. Casa Italiano, 1051 

N. Broadway, Los Angeles, April 22. Doors open at 5:30 

p.m., Italian dinner at 6 p.m. with a special video guest. Opera 

to follow. April 23, doors open at 1:30 p.m., special pre-show 

interpretive activities for children ages 5-12, opera begins 

at 2 p.m. Call 213-248-2510 or visit operaitaliala.com for 

tickets. 

■ TUESDAY, APRIL 25 

Suicide Prevention and Resources. St. Christopher Church, 

629 S. Glendora Ave., West Covina, 6:30 p.m. Hosted by St. 

Christopher Wellness Meetings and Father Kolbe Missionaries 

of the Immaculata. Presenter: Sean Roche, clinical 

psychologist. Age: 18-plus. Contact Jillian Cooke at 626-917- 

0040 for more information. 


Shower of Roses Annual Benefit Luncheon for Alhambra 

Cloistered Carmelite Nuns. San Gabriel Country Club, 

350 E. Hermosa Dr., San Gabriel, 10:30 a.m. social hour 

with raffle, silent auction, and prizes, 12 p.m. luncheon. 

Features lecture by Randy Shulman, “Behind the Scenes at 

Huntington Library and Gardens.” Cost: $65/person. Make 

check payable to Cloistered Carmelite Nuns Auxiliary, 710 

Lindaraxa Park South, Alhambra, CA 91801. Hosted valet 

parking. RSVP to Kathy Cardoza at 626-570-9012 by 

April 17. 


God’s Healing Remedies for Difficult Times. St. Kateri 

Tekakwitha Church, 22508 Copper Hill Dr., Santa Clarita, 

12:30 p.m. Presenters: Dr. Elizabeth Kim, Dominic Berardino, 

and Deacon Phil Luevanos. Topics: Jesus is alive and heals 

today, heavenly help for those who suffer, healing prayer 

for damaged emotions and afflicted bodies. Cost: $20/ 

person. Call 818-771-1361 or email spirit@scrc.org for more 

information. 

“Hollywood Lights”: La Purisima School Spring Dinner, 

Auction, and Drawing. La Purisima Church parish hall, 337 

South St., Lompoc, 6 p.m. Auction, costume contest, and raffles, 

including themed baskets. Proceeds benefit La Purisima 

School. Cost/$100, includes two BBQ dinners and a chance 

to win $3,000. Call 805-736-6210 or email lpsoffice@ 

lapurisimaschool.org. 

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 | April 21, 2023 | Vol. 8 No

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