Angelus News | May 31, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 11

THE ELEVEN
LA welcomes its biggest class of
new priests in 16 years
ANGELUS
May 31, 2024 Vol. 9 No. 11

B • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

ANGELUS
May 31, 2024
Vol. 9 • No. 11
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ON THE COVER
VICTOR ALEMÁN
The 11 men being ordained June 1 make up the biggest
class of new priests for the LA Archdiocese in 16 years.
On Page 10, they introduce themselves by recounting their
roots, explaining how they experienced God’s call, and
laying out what they hope God will accomplish through
them in the City of Angels.
THIS PAGE
VICTOR ALEMÁN
Deacon Gabriel Saavedra, director of Deacons
in Ministry for the LA Archdiocese, gets the attention
of a young parishioner at the Cathedral
of Our Lady of the Angels while helping give
out carnations to mothers at Sunday Mass on
Mother’s Day, May 12.
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CONTENTS
Pope Watch.................................................................................................................................... 2
Archbishop Gomez..................................................................................................................... 3
World, Nation, and Local News.......................................................................................... 4-6
In Other Words............................................................................................................................. 7
Father Rolheiser............................................................................................................................ 8
Scott Hahn................................................................................................................................... 44
Events Calendar......................................................................................................................... 45
Angelus News
@AngelusNews
@AngelusNews
34
36
Jesus crosses bridges, floats on boats to begin West Coast pilgrimage
John Allen: Why the pope’s pro-fertility campaign doesn’t mix well in Italy
angelusnews.com
lacatholics.org
38
Opinion: The real reason an NFL kicker’s speech missed the mark
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Always Forward - newsletter.angelusnews.com
40
42
Ryan Gosling’s ‘The Fall Guy’ struggles to stick the landing
Heather King: The brilliance of a bishop’s new book on … chastity?
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 1

POPE WATCH
Babies are not the problem
Blind, unbridled consumerism and
selfishness — not the number of
people on the planet and having
children — are the root causes of the
world’s problems, Pope Francis said.
The reasons for pollution and world
hunger, for example, are not based on
the number of children being born, but
on “the choices of those who think only
of themselves, the delusion of unbridled,
blind, and rampant materialism,
of a consumerism that, like an evil
virus, erodes at the root of the existence
of people and society,” he said.
“Human life is not a problem, it is a
gift,” he said.
“The problem is not how many of us
there are in the world, but what kind of
world we are building.”
Pope Francis made his remarks at a
meeting in Rome May 10 focused on
pursuing concrete ways to reverse Italy’s
steeply declining birthrate, one of the
lowest in Europe.
Gianluigi De Palo, president of the
Foundation for Natality, said in his
talk before introducing the pope, that
the group’s mission is to encourage
Italy’s demographic winter to turn into
springtime.
“Not because we are worried about
who will pay for our pensions or who
will support the national health care
system, but because we want our children
to be free” to choose what they
want to do with their future, he said.
“It is not about convincing young
people to have more children; it is not
about convincing couples, families,
women to have children,” he said.
In his talk, Francis said the root cause
of problems in the world “is not babies
being born: it is selfishness, consumerism,
and individualism, which make
people satiated, lonely, and unhappy.”
“Selfishness makes one deaf to the
voice of God, who loves first and
teaches how to love, and to the voice
of the brothers and sisters around us; it
anesthetizes the heart,” making people
live for things and possessions, losing
the capacity to know “how to do good.”
Homes become “very sad places,” he
said, emptied of children and “filled
with objects,” dogs or cats.
The pope said what is needed are
long-term approaches, effective
policies, and bold, concrete decisions
so that what seeds are sown today, children
“can reap tomorrow.”
“Serious and effective family-friendly
choices” need to be made, he said.
For example, women should never be
put in a position where they have to
choose between work and child care,
and young people should not carry the
paralyzing burden of job insecurity and
the inability to buy a home.
Older generations should reassess
their habits and lifestyles, “giving up
what is superfluous in order to give
the youngest hope for tomorrow” and,
he said, younger generations should
recognize and show gratitude for the
sacrifices and hard work of those who
helped them grow.
It is “cultural suicide” to “discard”
grandparents or let them live solitary
lives, he said.
“The future is made by young and old
together,” the pope added. “Courage
and memory together.”
Reporting courtesy of Catholic News
Service Rome correspondent Carol
Glatz.
Papal Prayer Intention for May: We pray that religious
women and men, and seminarians, grow in their own
vocations through their human, pastoral, spiritual, and
community formation, leading them to be credible witnesses
to the Gospel.
2 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

NEW WORLD OF FAITH
ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ
Do you love me more than these?
On May 17, Archbishop Gomez celebrated
the Baccalaureate Mass for the
Queen of Angels Center for Priestly Formation.
The following is adapted from
his homily. The day’s Gospel reading
was John 21:15–19.
Congratulations to all our graduates!
And what a beautiful
Gospel we’ve just heard; it’s
perfect for men who are preparing for
the priesthood.
We can think about this Gospel as a
kind of “job interview.” The questions
Jesus asks Peter today are the questions
that he asks of every man who would be
his priest:
Do you love Jesus more than anything
else? Are you ready to shepherd his
people, to feed them with the Word of
God and the Bread of Life? Are you
ready to tend to their spiritual needs
and guide them in the ways of holiness?
This scene today takes place on the
shore at the Sea of Galilee. It is the
third and final appearance of the risen
Lord in the Gospel of John. And it is a
scene filled with powerful emotion.
Here is Peter, the “rock” upon whose
faith Jesus said he would build his
Church. Peter who fell away, who was
scattered with all the rest when the
Shepherd was struck. Peter, who three
times denied the Lord before the cock
crowed, though he had vowed, “Even
if I must die with you, I will not deny
you.”
Now Peter stands before Jesus in
humility and contrition. And the Lord
looks upon him, not with anger or
judgment. But with eyes of love.
Jesus asks Peter to make a new confession
of faith: “Simon, son of John, do
you love me more than these?”
Three times Jesus asks Peter, just as
Peter had denied him three times.
Peter doesn’t try to justify himself or
explain. He puts it all in Jesus’ hands,
making that beautiful, humble confession:
“Lord, you know everything, you
know that I love you.”
I’m always touched at how tender
Jesus is with Peter.
Because we are all like Peter. We love
Jesus, but sometimes we don’t act like
it. We are weak, we get afraid, we make
mistakes. Sometimes we deny him by
our words and actions, sometimes by
our indifference.
But like Peter we can always turn to
Jesus with a contrite heart and confess:
“Lord you know all things, you know
that I love you.”
And in the Lord’s mercy, we can find
forgiveness and strength. In his mercy,
we can begin again. To love him, to
follow him, and to serve him.
Jesus said that if we love him, we
will keep his commandments. So, he
commands Peter three times: “Feed my
lambs … Tend my sheep … Feed my
sheep.”
For our brothers who are preparing to
be priests, these are “marching orders.”
Jesus entrusts the priest with caring for
his flock, with caring for his Church.
And the priest knows that those he serves
belong to Jesus, they do not belong
to him.
These are “my” sheep, Jesus tells
Peter, these are “my” lambs. Each one
of us is precious to him, each one of us
is worth the price of his own blood.
Later Peter will write to his own
priests: “Tend the flock of God … Do
not lord it over those assigned to you,
but be examples to the flock.”
The priest is not the boss, he is the
model, he is the image of the Good
Shepherd. And the Good Shepherd
lays down his life for the sheep.
That’s what Jesus is telling Peter in
the final part of today’s Gospel. And of
course we know he is talking about how
Peter will die, crucified as Jesus was.
The point for priests — the point for
all of us — is that loving Jesus means
putting our lives in his hands.
Loving Jesus means following him.
Even though he might “lead you where
you do not want to go,” as Jesus says to
Peter.
The priest is not the boss, he is the model, he is
the image of the Good Shepherd. And the Good
Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
Today in this holy Mass, Jesus is speaking
your name and my name.
He’s asking each of you, personally,
the same question that he asked Peter:
Do you love me more than whatever
the world has to offer? Will you follow
me wherever I lead you?
Let us ask for the grace to respond
as Peter did, with confidence and joy:
“Lord, you know all things! You know
that I love you!”
Let’s keep praying for our brothers
who are graduating today, and let’s pray
for the new priests who will be ordained
on June 1!
And let us ask the holy Virgin Mary,
mother of fair love, to help us all to
grow in love for her Son. May she help
us to respond with a generous heart
when he calls to us, as he called to
Peter: “Follow me!”
All with Peter to Jesus through Mary!
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 3

WORLD
■ Communion
and Liberation
founder closer to
sainthood
Msgr. Luigi Giussani,
the late founder of the
Communion and Liberation
movement, is one
step closer to becoming a
saint.
A formal Vatican inquiry
into Giussani’s writings
and stories about his
life began in 2012. This
month, the Vatican began
interviewing a few dozen
people familiar with Giussani’s
life and spirituality
to help illustrate his reputation
for holiness.
St. Pope John Paul II greets Servant of God Luigi
Giussani in 1998. | CNS
This “testimonial stage,” however, is considered mostly procedural,
according to the inquiry’s leader, Msgr. Ennio Apeciti of the
Archdiocese of Milan. The findings will be submitted to the Vatican
to have Giussani declared “Venerable,” just a miracle away
from being declared a “Blessed,” the final step before sainthood.
■ Chinese bishop close to
government speaks at Vatican
conference
In a sign of the complex relationship between
Beijing and the Vatican, a state-appointed Chinese
Catholic bishop was invited to speak at a Vatican-sponsored
conference.
Bishop Joseph Shen Bin, head of the Chinese government’s
official conference of bishops, was set to
give greeting remarks at a May 21 event organized
by Rome’s Pontifical Urban University marking the
100th anniversary of the Council of Shanghai, a
historic meeting of China’s bishops.
Last year, Shen Bin was initially transferred by
the government to Shanghai without Pope Francis’
approval. Francis formally appointed him three
months later.
Shen Bin is a vocal proponent of Sinicization,
which calls for Catholic liturgy and art to be adapted
to Chinese culture and for interpreting Catholic
theology through a Chinese Communist lens.
“Sinicization is a directional issue: a signpost and
a direction to adapt to the socialist society, as well
as an inherent rule and a fundamental requirement
for the survival and development of the Catholic
Church in China itself,” Shen said last year.
■ Experts: Global fertility rates
now below replacement level
Global birthrates may have already fallen below
levels needed to keep population stable, kicking
off what some experts fear could be a drastic
demographic decline.
A May 13 Wall Street Journal report cited Jesús
Fernández-Villaverde, an economist at the University
of Pennsylvania, who recently compared
U.N. estimates on global fertility levels with data
from national birth registries. Those numbers, he
found, were 10% to 20% below projections.
Fernández-Villaverde estimates that last year
global fertility rates fell below the 2.2 rate needed
to keep populations stable for the first time in
human history.
While wealthier countries have declined in
fertility levels since the 1970s, the global rates
show a trend of developing nations declining
birthrates. As a result, some demographers no
longer believe 2017 U.N. estimates that global
populations would climb to 11.2 billion by 2100.
Instead, they estimate that populations will start
shrinking within the next four decades.
“The demographic winter is coming,” said the
economist.
Reality among the rubble — Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, center,
visits the streets of Gaza City May 16 with Catholic and Orthodox clergy still ministering in the
war-torn area. Together they visited the premises of St. Porphyrios Greek Orthodox Church campus
in Gaza City, bombed on Oct. 19, 2023, leaving 17 people dead and the administration building
in ruins. “It was a long time I wanted, desired, to be with them, to meet them,” Cardinal Pizzaballa
said of his time at Gaza’s only Catholic parish, Holy Family, during the visit. | OSV NEWS/LATIN
PATRIARCHATE OF JERUSALEM
4 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

NATION
■ Missouri: Vatican overturns parish mergers
Catholics in St. Louis, Missouri, successfully petitioned the Vatican to stop two
planned parish mergers.
St. Angela Merici Church in Florissant, Missouri, was set to be combined with St.
Norbert Church and Holy Name of Jesus Church as part of the Archdiocese of St.
Louis’ “All Things New” pastoral plan. The plan, announced last year by Archbishop
Mitchell Rozanski, would have reduced the number of parishes by nearly 50
through mergers and closures.
But following appeals by parishioners at several parishes, the Vatican’s Dicastery of
Clergy ruled to overturn that merger and another one between St. Martin of Tours
Church in Lemay and St. Mark Church in St. Louis, citing the lack of just cause
required by canon law in such cases. However, the dicastery rejected an appeal of
one of the other planned mergers.
■ Pro-life activists sentenced for
blocking abortion clinic access
Seven pro-life activists were sentenced to prison for violations of the Freedom
of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.
Lauren Handy, 30, received the harshest sentence (57 months) for her role in
organizing a group of nine pro-life activists for a “lock and block” at the Washington
Surgi-Clinic in October 2020. A tactic often used by Operation Rescue
in the 1980s, the blockade involved using chains, bike locks, and furniture to
prevent access to the abortion clinic.
According to the Department of Justice, the nine — who received felony
convictions August 2023 — used “physical obstruction to injure, intimidate, and
interfere with the clinic’s employees and a patient because they were providing
or obtaining reproductive health services.”
Six others, including famed activist Joan Andrew Bell, also received sentences
ranging from just under two years to nearly five years. A lawyer for the activists
said they would appeal.
■ Oklahoma tornado
damages church but
spares Blessed Sacrament
A devastating tornado that blew
through northeastern Oklahoma
May 6 didn’t spare little St. Mary’s
Church in the town of Barnsdall: six
stained-glass windows were broken,
the back door was blown out, and
debris was scattered everywhere.
But despite the damage, St. Mary’s
pastor Father Emmanual Nduka was
surprised to find the stone church’s
altar “seemed completely undisturbed”
— with candlesticks still
standing — and its tabernacle intact.
“It is very, very mind-boggling to see
Volunteers clean up after a tornado hit St. Mary’s Church in
Barnsdall, Oklahoma. | DEACON HARRISON GARLICK/X.COM
that the tabernacle was still standing there in the sanctuary, and the sanctuary light
was still burning,” Nduka told Catholic News Agency.
Reaching speeds of 175 mph, the tornado killed one and injured at least eight,
according to local news reports.
Bree Solstad made her first Communion at
Easter this year. | COURTESY BREE SOLSTAD
■ Former adult actress
converts, enters Catholic
Church
A woman once considered a “top
pornographic content creator” credits
a trip to Italy with her decision to walk
away from her previous career and
convert to Catholicism.
In an interview with OSV News,
Alaska native Bree Solstad recalled
how she found “the attention, the
power trip, the ego, the wealth, the
vanity, and the pride” of working in
porn “intoxicating.” But, she said, “I
was also very unhealthy … it was all
very dark. The whole scene became
really ugly to me.”
But during a trip last year to Italy,
something about seeing images of the
Virgin Mary “on street corners all over
the place” struck Solstad.
“I really felt like Mary was calling me
… I felt compelled to seek her out.”
said Solstad, who also recalled praying
at the tomb of St. Clare in Assisi for
help.
Back home, a conversation with a
local Catholic priest led Solstad to
eventually enter the Catholic Church
this year: “I am now so grateful and
my heart is constantly full.”
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 5

LOCAL
■ $150 million complex to involve St. Bernard High
St. Bernard High School will be part of a $150 million project in Westchester with
educational and athletic facilities designed to serve local and underserved youth.
Auxiliary Bishop Matthew Elshoff and LA Mayor Karen Bass were among the
community leaders at the May 8 groundbreaking ceremony for “Lulu’s Place.”
The 31-acre space just north of LAX will house a complex for academics and
sports, including a STEM lab at the nearby St. Bernard campus, courtesy of Tiger
Woods’ TGR Foundation.
The complex is named for the late Carol “Lulu” Kimmelman, a champion USC
women’s tennis player and longtime LAUSD teacher. The project is expected to be
completed in 2026.
“Lulu’s Place is a huge win for all students in the Westchester community, including
our students at St. Bernard High School and area Catholic schools, and will be
a catalyst for positive change for the youth of Los Angeles,” said Paul Escala, senior
director and superintendent of Catholic schools in the archdiocese.
A place to heal — Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Slawomir Szkredka cuts the ceremonial ribbon at a groundbreaking
event at Old Mission Santa Inés in Solvang for the construction of a new healing garden. | OLD
MISSION SANTA INÉS
■ LA City Council honors
Homeboy Industries’
Father Greg Boyle
After being awarded the Presidential
Medal of Freedom earlier this month
by President Joe Biden, Father Greg
Boyle — the founder and director of
Los Angeles-based Homeboy Industries
— received another honor: the
Los Angeles City Council named May
19 as Father Greg Boyle Day.
“It is an honor to recognize you here
today and for being a reminder of
the importance of championing this
work,” said Los Angeles City Councilmember
Eunisses Hernandez. “Your
impact will be felt for generations to
come.”
At its May 17 meeting, the council
recognized Boyle for his decades of
community work and for helping to
transform thousands of lives. After
presenting Boyle with the framed proclamation,
the audience sang “Happy
Birthday” and ended with a Homeboy
Industries saying, “And I’m glad you
were born.”
“It’s the privilege of my life to know
the thousands of men and women
who have come through our doors
at Homeboy,” Boyle said. “The day
won’t ever come when I have more
courage or more nobility or dignity
than all those people who have walked
through our doors since 1988.”
Y
■ Salesian High statue unveiled
after decade-long effort
Students, alumni, and supporters were on hand during a
special event on May 17 as Bishop Mora Salesian High School
unveiled its 18-foot “Once a Mustang” statue — a project 10
years in the making.
The bronze monument features plaques for every graduating
class since 1962, with the proceeds from those nameplates
going to the school’s scholarship funds.
The statue was created by 1986 Salesian High alumnus Dan
Medina, who has designed many notable works, including the
memorial statue for Kobe Bryant at the site of the helicopter
crash in Calabasas, and the Bracero Monument featured at
Migrant’s Bend Plaza near Olvera Street in downtown Los
Angeles.
Students at Bishop Mora Salesian High pose in front of the school’s new 18-foot statue
during an unveiling event on May 17. | BISHOP MORA SALESIAN HIGH SCHOOL
Medina was originally commissioned to create the statue — related to the school’s mascot, the Mustangs — about 10 years
ago, but the COVID-19 pandemic and other issues caused delays.
6 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

V
IN OTHER WORDS...
Letters to the Editor
Baptism needs to be part of any liturgical renewal
I was pleasantly surprised to read the interview with Archbishop Salvatore
Cordileone of San Francisco in the May 17 issue.
One of the greatest developments in Catholicism following the Second Vatican
Council was a reappreciation of the centrality of baptism. This sacrament has a
great importance and dignity, and thankfully, the riches of the liturgical renewal
of the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults are gradually being opened up for all
Christians.
One particular aspect of the Christian tradition that is being rediscovered is the
importance of baptism by immersion. Number 1239 of the Catechism of the
Catholic Church tells us that “Baptism is performed in the most expressive way by
triple immersion in the baptismal water.”
Long may such attention to the signs of the various liturgical celebrations continue!
— Father Neil Xavier O’Donoghue teaches at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Maynooth,
Ireland, and is the executive secretary for liturgy for the Irish bishops’ conference.
Correction
Gina Aguilar, managing director of the Academic Excellence team for the archdiocese’s
Department of Catholic Schools, has an Ed.D. doctorate degree. Her
degree was incorrectly stated in the “Unlocking the Door to Literacy” story in the
May 17 issue of Angelus.
Y
Continue the conversation! To submit a letter to the editor, visit AngelusNews.com/Letters-To-The-Editor
and use our online form or send an email to editorial@angelusnews.com. Please limit to 300 words. Letters
may be edited for style, brevity, and clarity.
The month of Mary
“If you saw someone on
a bridge about to jump,
would you support them in
the name of choice?”
~ Liz Carr, a woman who became disabled as a child,
in a May 14 The Guardian article on the “Better Off
Dead?” documentary about assisted suicide.
“Politics is almost a religion
and sometimes it’s a sport.
It’s not supposed to be
either.”
~ Brownsville (Texas) Bishop Daniel Flores,
in a May 15 Catholic News Agency article on
Catholic bishops warning of a growing ideological
polarization within the Church.
“I was a god to myself,
and everything was
subordinated to me.”
~ Marko Purišić, a musician who performs as Baby
Lasagna, in a May 14 The Pillar article on how he
converted to Catholicism.
“I feel like I’m in the worst
‘Twilight Zone’ ever.”
~ Ted Sullivan, TV writer and producer, in a May
13 LA Times article on how Hollywood writers are
faring a year after striking.
Vibiana Schalow, Junior Catholic Daughter secretary, crowns Mary during a May Crowning
event on May 4 at Sacred Heart Church in Lancaster. May Crowning events were plentiful
at parishes and schools throughout the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. | KATIE HERNANDEZ
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.
“I think it’s a broader, more
elemental thing going on
now, an interest — people
crossing a river, people
entering a door. They’re
coming toward it.”
~ Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester,
Minnesota, on the recent spike in adult conversions
in a May 12 Fox News Digital profile titled, “The
most popular Catholic outside the Vatican.”
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 7

IN EXILE
FATHER RONALD ROLHEISER, OMI
Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father
Ronald Rolheiser is a spiritual
writer; ronrolheiser.com
Some advice on prayer from an old master
At the risk of being simplistic, I
want to say something about
prayer in a very simple way.
While doing doctoral studies, I had a
professor, an elderly Augustine priest,
who in his demeanor, speech, and
attitude, radiated wisdom and maturity.
Everything about him bespoke integrity.
You immediately trusted him, the
wise old grandfather of storybooks.
One day in class he spoke of his own
prayer life. As with everything else
he shared, there were no filters, only
honesty and humility. I don’t recall
his exact words, but I remember well
the essence of what he said and it has
stayed with me for the nearly 40 years
since I had the privilege of being in his
class.
Here’s what he shared: Prayer isn’t
easy because we’re always tired, distracted,
busy, bored, and caught up in
so many things that it’s hard to find the
time and energy to center ourselves on
God for some moments. So, this is what
I do: No matter what my day is like, no
matter what’s on my mind, no matter
what my distractions and temptations
are, I am faithful to this: Once a day I
pray the Our Father as best I can from
where I am at that moment. Inside of
everything that’s going on inside me
and around me that day, I pray the Our
Father, asking God to hear me from
inside of all the distractions and temptations
that are besetting me. It’s the best
I can do. Maybe it’s a bare minimum
and I should do more and should try
to concentrate harder, but at least I do
that. And sometimes it’s all I can do,
but I do it every day, as best I can. It’s
the prayer Jesus told us to pray.
His words might sound simplistic and
minimalistic. Indeed, the Catholic
Church challenges us to make the
Eucharist the center of our prayer lives
and to make a daily habit of meditation
and private prayer. As well, many
classical spiritual writers tell us that we
should set aside an hour every day for
private prayer, and many contemporary
spiritual writers challenge us to daily
practice centering prayer or some other
form of contemplative prayer. Where
does that leave our old Augustinian
theologian and his counsel that we pray
one sincere Our Father each day — as
best we can?
Well, none of this goes against what
he so humbly shared. He would be the
first to agree that the Eucharist should
be the center of our prayer lives, and
he would agree as well with both the
classical spiritual writers who advise an
hour of private prayer a day, and the
contemporary authors who challenge
us to do some form of contemplative
prayer daily, or at least habitually.
But he would say this: At one of those
times in the day (ideally at the Eucharist
or while praying the Office of the
Church but at least sometime during
your day), when you’re saying the Our
Father, pray it with as much sincerity
and focus as you can muster at the
moment (“as best you can”) and know
that, no matter your distractions at the
moment, it’s what God is asking from
you. And it’s enough.
His advice has stayed with me through
the years, and though I say a number of
Our Fathers every day, I try, at least in
one of them, to pray the Our Father as
best I can, fully conscious of how badly
I am doing it. What a challenge and
what a consolation!
The challenge is to pray an Our
Father each day, as best we can. As we
know that prayer is deeply communitarian.
Every petition in it is plural
— “our,” “we,” “us” — there’s no “I” in
the Our Father. Moreover, all of us are
priests from our baptism, and inherent
in the covenant we made then we are
asked daily to pray for others, for the
world. For those who cannot participate
in the Eucharist daily and for
those who do not pray the Office of the
Church, praying the Our Father is your
Eucharistic prayer, your priestly prayer
for others.
And this is the consolation: none of us
is divine. We’re all incurably human,
which means that many times, perhaps
most times, when we’re trying to
pray, we’ll find ourselves beset with
everything from tiredness, to boredom,
to impatience, to planning tomorrow’s
agenda, to sorting through the hurts
of the day, to stewing about who we’re
angry at, to dealing with fantasies. Our
prayer seldom issues forth from a pure
heart but normally from a very earthy
Our restless, distracted heart is also our existential
heart and is the existential heart of the world.
one. But, and this is the point, its very
earthiness is also its real honesty. Our
restless, distracted heart is also our
existential heart and is the existential
heart of the world. When we pray from
there, we are (as the classical definition
of prayer would have it) lifting mind
and heart to God.
Try, each day, to pray one sincere Our
Father! As best you can!
8 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

A HARVEST TO REMEMBER
When it comes to making history, this year’s class of
new LA priests is just getting started.
BY MIKE CISNEROS & PABLO KAY
PHOTOGRAPHY BY VICTOR ALEMÁN
10 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

There are a few special things
about this year’s class of new
priests for the Archdiocese of
Los Angeles.
For one, they are big in number:
11 men in total, the biggest priest
ordination class since 2008.
The group is also remarkably
diverse, coming from backgrounds
that include Mexican, Croatian,
Vietnamese, and Korean.
And perhaps more than previous
classes, the stories of this year’s class
are a testament to the importance
of parish-level religious education.
While all have had their fair share
of life-changing conversion moments,
several also had decisive
experiences during catechism and
confirmation programs — experiences
that helped point them
toward the priesthood.
But most importantly, their vocation
stories are proof that when
God calls, he doesn’t give up easily.
When they are ordained priests by
Archbishop José H. Gomez on June
1, 2024, at the Cathedral of Our
Lady of the Angels, they will begin a
new journey with the certainty that
God called them for this mission, in
this city, at this moment in history.
These are their stories.
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 11

THOMAS
GREEN
Age: 29
Hometown: Glendora
Home parish: St. Dorothy Church, Glendora
Parish assignment: St. Philomena Church, Carson
There was a lot of quitting involved
in Thomas Green’s road
to priesthood.
First he quit college football, then
college itself. A few years later, he quit
seminary, and eventually quit his job
as a football coach and high school
teacher only to re-enter the seminary.
Thomas Green
played in three
games as an offensive
lineman for
the Citrus College
Owls before a
fateful injury.
Thankfully, the
quitting stopped
there.
Before all those
decisions, “Tommy”
grew up the
youngest of three
in a nominally
Catholic family.
That changed
when his mother
had a life-changing experience at
a Cursillo retreat. As the Greens
became more involved in church,
Tommy became an altar server, a
leader in the confirmation program,
and even active in the Divine Mercy
prayer group.
After graduating from Glendora
High School, Green got the chance
to pursue his dream of playing college
football. At 18, he enrolled at nearby
Citrus College to play as an offensive
lineman, hoping to catch the eye of
recruiters and land a big-time scholarship.
It only took three games for that
dream to fall apart. Green was
blocking on a play when an opposing
lineman jumped to tackle the running
back — but crashed into the side of
Green’s left knee instead.
“It was like Rice Krispies’ ‘Snap,
Crackle, and Pop,’ ” joked Green
Thomas Green (right) as a small child with his brother, sister, and parents.
when asked to describe the impact
that tore just about every ligament
with initialisms found in his left knee:
ACL, MCL, PCL, and meniscus.
Green remembered crying on the
sideline, sensing that his Heisman
dreams were over. Later, while laying
in bed after the surgery to rebuild
his knee, he told God: “OK, maybe
there’s something else you have in
store for me. Let your will be done in
my life.”
As he drew closer to God through
adoration and daily Mass during his
recovery, the thought of the priesthood
appeared. After confiding in an
ex-seminarian friend and a few priests,
he decided to enter the seminary.
“Go change the world, man,” he was
surprised to hear his football coach
say when Green told him why he was
quitting the football team.
From there Green enrolled at Juan
12 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

Diego House to finish his college studies.
But after a year at St. John’s Seminary
in Camarillo he began to struggle
with his vocational discernment, and
concluded God must want something
else for him — so he quit.
Soon after, Green got a job teaching
and coaching football — two things
he loved doing — at St. Paul’s High
School in Santa Fe Springs. He dated
a bit as well, but the thought of the
priesthood kept coming back.
One day during a prayer break, he
struck up a conversation with a priest
in the high school chapel. “The joys
outweigh the struggles,” confided a
priest to Green about his own vocation.
The words echoed in Green’s head.
Returning to his classroom, he came
upon a piece of paper left by a student
that read, “Come follow me.”
The message was clear enough
to make Green quit — again. He
reentered formation at St. John’s, and
hasn’t looked back since: “When you
give everything to God, he can never
be outdone in generosity,” he said with
certainty.
Green’s biggest discovery has been
to find that generosity hiding behind
seemingly tragic events in life.
“Now that I look back at it, when I
thought my life was falling apart, it was
really kind of falling together,” Green
said.
As if to prove that point, the imposing
ex-lineman with a hearty laugh still
enjoyed athletic success while in seminary
anyway, winning the game MVP
award at two consecutive archdiocesan
Priests vs. Seminarians basketball
games.
Today, he credits former spiritual
director Father Ricky Viveros — “an
incredible influence and incredible
friend” — as well as Fathers Jim
Anguiano and Ron Clark as invaluable
mentors during formation.
As a priest at the parish level, Green
said he looks forward to “finding opportunities
to bring people together” to
find friendship with God and one another
— and is ready to put his cooking
skills into practice if needed.
“That’s what Jesus did,” said Green.
“He invested in people, in relationships,
and it was through those relationships
that he changed a lot of lives.
He certainly changed mine.”
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 13

EDUARDO
PRUNEDA
Age: 33
Hometown: Bocas, San Luis Potosí, Mexico
Home parish: St. Mariana de Paredes Church,
Pico Rivera
Parish assignment: Mission Basilica San
Buenaventura, Ventura
Growing up in the small town of
Bocas, Mexico, there were few
parts of Eduardo Pruneda’s
upbringing that didn’t yell “cradle
Catholic.”
His family — especially his Mom’s
side — were devout churchgoers. His
aunts were catechists. Priests could
often be found having dinner at his
grandparents’
home. Pruneda
himself was an
altar server from
a young age, and
before that, acted
as priest when
playing Mass at
home with his
Eduardo Pruneda with his
pastor in Mexico on the day
of his first Communion.
Eduardo Pruneda, right, in the arms of his mother, Maria del
Carmen, with his father José Félix and two older brothers.
three brothers.
The cultural
Catholicism
found in Bocas
left its mark on
Pruneda, the
third of four
brothers.
“As a Mexican
family, we
had those little
traditions and
devotions that
helped me to
get stronger in
my faith growing
up,” said Pruneda.
For as early as
he can remember, Pruneda felt an
“attraction” to the priesthood. He felt
especially drawn to the “superpower”
he sensed while watching the priest
celebrate the Eucharist, “knowing
that he had something that I didn’t
have.”
Soon, the adolescent Pruneda
became insistent with his parents: he
wanted to enter the seminary.
“I always knew it,” Pruneda said
about his vocation. He just didn’t
know where that calling would take
him.
Pruneda first entered minor seminary
in Mexico while in high school,
before continuing in Mexico City. A
few years later, while taking a year off
to visit the U.S. and learn English, he
14 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

Eduardo Pruneda with
village children during the
mission trip to Sierra Leone
that changed his life.
Returning to
Mexico, his plans
to resume formation
there were
scrambled. Despite
reservations about
the thought of
becoming a priest
in the U.S., he was
convinced to apply
for formation in Los
Angeles. There, his
studies took him
from Juan Diego
House in Gardena
to St. John’s Seminary
in Camarillo,
with a parish internship
year at St.
Anthony of Padua in
Gardena.
During these
years apart from
his family, Pruneda
is grateful for the
spiritual “moms”
in LA who’ve kept
him fed, the “dads”
who’ve kept him in line, and the
“brothers” in seminary who’ve kept
him company.
“The Lord has provided a family for
me,” he believes.
Having been born on Nov. 1, the
feast day of All Saints, Pruneda has
also leaned on several intercessors for
prayers during times of struggle and
doubt. Two of them aren’t even saints
yet: Blessed Miguel Pro, a young
Jesuit martyred during the Cristero
War; and Blessed María Inés Teresa of
the Blessed Sacrament, founder of the
Van-Clar missionaries.
“When I see her, I feel like I’m at
home,” he said. “I see her as a spiritual
mother.”
Pruneda said he’s particularly excited
to serve as a priest in a place with people
of so many different backgrounds
— quite different from his hometown
of 2,000 people.
“I hope that people feel that we are a
multicultural archdiocese, but at the
same time just one Church,” said Pruneda.
“I knew that here is the place
where the Lord wants me to serve.”
came into contact with the Van-Clar
missionaries at St. Rose of Lima in
Maywood, a lay missionary group
with the spirituality of the Poor Clare
Sisters.
Eventually, Pruneda accepted an invitation
to join the group on a mission
trip to the African country of Sierra
Leone. The experience shook him up.
“It was a very hard experience in
the beginning,” said Pruneda. “I was
thinking, I have the tools, I’ve been in
formation for a couple years, I come
to evangelize and things like that. But
then it becomes nothing when you
see the reality of the people.”
Pruneda’s group spent a lot of time
helping at a school run by nuns but
attended by more Muslim children
than Catholics. For many, their only
meal of the day was the one they
received at school.
But the experience also gave Pruneda
hope, seeing the zealous spirit
of the sisters and the generosity of
children with no material possessions
sharing the little they had.
“That gave me a lot of strength to
continue my vocation,” said Pruneda.
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 15

LUCIO
TRINIDAD
Age: 28
Hometown: Atemajac de Brizuela, Jalisco, Mexico
Home parish: St. Philip Neri Church, Lynwood
Parish assignment: St. John the Baptist Church,
Baldwin Park
The norm in most Catholic families,
parents will tell you, is that
children require some effort —
even convincing — to get to church
on Sundays.
Lucio Trinidad was not one of those
children.
“Growing up, I’d force my Mom to
take me to Mass,” confessed Trinidad,
who grew up the fourth of five children
in a small town in Jalisco, Mexico.
Looking back, Trinidad credited his
great-grandparents for transmitting that
love for the faith. Although he moved
to Southern California at the age of
11, he believes they played the most
important role in his vocation: teaching
Lucio Trinidad at a college graduation celebration in 2019 with his siblings, mother
Alejandra (third from left) and grandfather Eugenio (third from right).
him about the
faith, bringing
him to daily Mass,
and encouraging
his prayer life.
There were
other influences,
too, like Trinidad’s
uncle, a priest, and
the parish pastor who recruited Trinidad
as an altar server in his early years.
When his family moved to the LA area,
the thought of a possible life as a priest
faded as he focused on learning English
and getting used to a new country.
“It was mostly a culture shock,” remembered
Trinidad. “In the beginning
Lucio Trinidad (second boy from right) and his brothers and sisters as children in Mexico
with their great-grandmother Maria del Refugio and great-grandfather Juan (center).
At far right is grandmother Natalia.
it was hard.”
But while attending confirmation
classes, God “sparked the fire again” in
Trinidad to take discernment seriously.
In particular, he remembered the joy
he experienced helping in first Communion
classes while earning service
hours.
“I really enjoyed doing that, helping
the kids build a relationship with God,”
said Trinidad. “I think that influenced
my decision a lot, just finding that joy
every week in being there with the kids
and sharing the faith with others.”
After graduating from Dominguez
High School in Compton, he returned
to Mexico for a year to take care of his
great-grandmother, and even considered
enrolling in seminary there. But
after her death, he returned to California
and entered seminary formation in
Los Angeles: first at Juan Diego House
in Gardena as an undergraduate in
college, and then St. John’s Seminary
in Camarillo.
16 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

Trinidad considers himself an introvert,
a trait he wasn’t sure was a right fit
for the priesthood. But a turning point
came during his internship year serving
under Msgr. Jarlath Cunnane at St.
Cornelius in Long Beach. While still
an introvert who knows how to “enjoy
solitude,” he found himself becoming
more outgoing and open to people.
“That’s when everything flourished,”
recalled Trinidad. “I saw myself as
doing this for the rest of my life.”
Trinidad’s path to the priesthood has
not come without tests. Months into
the COVID-19 pandemic, his beloved
great-grandfather died. Being unable
to travel to Mexico for the funeral
was hard, he remembered. But being
instituted to the order of “acolyte” at
the seminary a few months later helped
Trinidad realize the source of a new
special connection.
“That was part of my growth in the
Eucharist, to know that every time that
I offer the Sacrifice, [my late relatives]
will be by my side.”
There will certainly be relatives at
Trinidad’s side on Ordination Day,
including his grandfather and the 13
nephews and nieces who jokingly
call him “Tio Bruno,” a reference to
the mysterious, hidden character in
the 2021 Disney film “Encanto” (“I
don’t really show up for many things,”
since entering the seminary, Trinidad
laughed).
Looking ahead, Trinidad sees the
mission of a priest as more than just
administering sacraments. He sees a
need to “meet people where they’re at”
and accompany them, especially those
still searching for answers.
“The biggest law of the Church is the
salvation of souls, but how can I save
souls without using my own soul?”
Trinidad believes that a key task ahead
will be teaching people “how to have
a relationship” with one another and
with God, something he’s seen lacking
in the aftermath of the COVID-19
pandemic. His dream for the Church
in Los Angeles, he said, is that every
encounter people have be one that
leads to Jesus.
“God is love, God is forgiveness, God
is merciful,” said Trinidad. “That is the
base for people to start a relationship,
for them to walk and have a meaning
in their life.”
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 17

STEPHEN PHILIP
WATSON
Age: 34
Hometown: Modesto
Home parish: St. Kateri Tekakwitha Church,
Santa Clarita
Parish assignment: St. Kateri Tekakwitha Church,
Santa Clarita
Stephen Watson, far left,
sits on Santa’s lap as a
child with siblings Robert,
Neil, Katie, and Michelle.
For being the happiest place on
earth, working at Disney World
ultimately isn’t what made Stephen
Watson happy.
Working in the culinary world, he had
reached a dream destination but was
still left unfulfilled.
This was where Watson found himself:
A culinary graduate from Modesto
who had landed a dream gig at Disney
World, and was now grinding 75
hours a week as a caterer in Portland,
Oregon.
“I do think it was God’s way of saying
Stephen Watson poses with his parents, Daniel
and Deanna, at the Louvre Pyramid in France.
if this is what
you want to do,
I think you need
to do it before
you come to me,”
Watson said.
The middle
child of five kids,
Watson grew up
the “peacekeeper”
in his family and with a more agricultural
upbringing having been raised
in Modesto. Rather than taking physics
or chemistry in school, he studied agri-
cultural science or horticulture.
Not that school was something that
was interesting to him.
“While I was in high school, I made
the decision that I wasn’t going to a
four-year college,” Watson said. “It
wasn’t that I didn’t like school or I
wasn’t good at it. It just didn’t appeal
to me.”
What he did enjoy was cooking, and
especially baking. After graduating
high school, he attended culinary
school in Portland, where he had
family living.
And that’s where the Disney World
opportunity came to be, with a Disney
representative at the school offering a
1-in-2,500 chance to join its culinary
intern program.
Incredibly, Watson earned the spot.
“I don’t know how,” he said.
During this time, balancing all that
was going on in his life, he had fallen
away from the Church.
18 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

Back in Portland and working as a caterer,
he decided to start going back to
Mass and later to adoration regularly.
It was then he realized that he had
been following the wrong path and so
did what anyone might do in 2010: He
messaged his parish pastor on Facebook,
“Father, can we talk?”
Waiting outside the pastor’s office, he
finally had this undeniable feeling he
was meant to become a priest.
“He said, ‘Stephen, what do you want
to talk about?’ ” Watson said.
“I said, ‘Well, Father, I think I might
be called to be a priest.’
“That’s great. How long have you
been thinking about it?”
“Well, about five seconds.”
When it came to telling his family, he
planned to make a big meal and read a
letter he had written because he didn’t
think he could say it out loud.
“I read them this letter thinking it
would be this grand revelation, and
they all said, ‘Oh, we knew that,’ ”
Watson said.
Then discernment came, and like
the rest of his life so far, that process
wasn’t a straight line either. After a few
months of spiritual direction, he was
told that he needed to make a decision,
take a leap of faith, and enter into a
formation program.
Having already gone from Modesto
to Florida to Oregon, Watson found
himself in San Diego at a formation
house run by the Eudists. He spent
nine years there, but not after discerning
out after a few years and spending a
year in France.
In 2017, he entered St. John’s Seminary
and finally felt like he had found
the right fit and where he was called
to be.
“Like in dating, it takes a couple of
people before you get to the right one,”
Watson said.
As his ordination arrives, and after a
formation journey that lasted 14 years,
he is ready to serve in a region that
did not start out as his home but has
become one.
“At 17 or 18 years old, if you were to
ask me to move to Los Angeles and
become a priest here, I could not have
imagined that,” Watson said. “God was
the great storyteller and the one who
married our lives that really brought
me here.”
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 19

ALEJANDRO
REYNAGA
Age: 33
Hometown: Baldwin Park
Home parish: St. John the Baptist Church,
Baldwin Park
Parish assignment: St. Anthony Church, Oxnard
Alejandro Reynaga, left,
poses with his parents,
Jose and Afra, older brother
Hector, and younger
sister Lorena.
In trying to figure out what to do
with his life, Alejandro Reynaga
went through a lot of schooling.
Sierra Vista High School in Baldwin
Park; Pasadena City College; Cal State
Dominguez Hills.
He was a nursing major. Then, pharmacy.
Finally, psychology.
He was going to be a pharmacist. No,
a therapist.
“I don’t regret any of it,” Reynaga
said. “I’ve enjoyed learning everything
I have as much of a struggle as it’s
been.
“I’d do it all again.”
What he didn’t
realize until later
was the work he
had been doing
as a catechist
teaching confirmation
class was
setting him up
to be what God
wanted for him.
Growing up the
middle child of
a family of three
children, Reynaga
was raised
Alejandro Reynaga is carried by his parents, Afra and Jose, along with his maternal
grandparents and godparents, Inocencio Sánchez Curiel and Magdalena Preciado de
Sánchez.
Catholic, but it
wasn’t until his
first Communion
that he truly felt
at home in the
Church.
He hadn’t yet
thought of the
priesthood but
felt strongly that
he was called to
serve.
“I always knew
I wanted to go back to the church and
serve one way or another,” Reynaga
said. “And the same thing happened
when I was in the confirmation program.
I remember that’s when I really
decided that at some point in the
future, I would go back and probably
teach, volunteer, and give back what I
had received.”
A few years later he got his wish as
both he and his younger sister became
confirmation teachers. It was in doing
those duties and working with young
20 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

Alejandro Reynaga, right, poses with his parents, Jose and Afra, older brother Hector, and younger sister Lorena.
people where he felt most satisfied and
began setting his sights even higher.
“I was inspired by them to continue
living my life for Christ,” Reynaga
said. “I think I always knew that I was
doing God’s work. Even in difficult
moments, going to school and working
and still wanting to go back and share
my faith with the kids, with the teens,
was something that I felt very fulfilling.”
The thought of religious life occurred
to him in an unlikely place: history
class.
During a discussion of the Middle
Ages, his teacher spoke about how
the monks lived and their prayer life.
Reynaga thought that maybe one day
he might become a monk, but since
he was young, that was a long way off.
“I didn’t know that young people
could actually live a life like that,”
Reynaga said. “I didn’t know that
they could live a life devoted to God,
which I wish I had known, but I guess
I found that out later.”
Thinking he might want to live religious
life as a monk or in a community,
he began attending discernment
retreats, including with the Discalced
Carmelites. But ultimately, he realized
that he was being called to the priesthood,
so he called the Archdiocese
of Los Angeles and applied for the
seminary.
What Reynaga is most looking
forward to in becoming a priest is to
continually grow into being a spiritual
father for those who need it.
“I’m looking forward to growing in
that understanding,”
he said. “I hear a lot of
the priests and recently
ordained that after ordination,
there’s a change.
You definitely recognize
it. So I’m looking forward
to seeing that and hoping
that those changes are
something that I come to
grow into.”
Recognizing that we’re
living in as distracted a
world as ever, Reynaga
hopes to cut through it
all to announce the love
of Jesus Christ.
“I know that’s a tall
order, especially now
when there’s so many
other loud voices and
so much noise,” he said.
“But it’s to quickly or
slowly reintroduce Jesus
into the world.
“It’s an uphill battle, but we’re
fighting it together. We’re doing what
we can to be united and deliver the
Gospel.”
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 21

ANTHONY
HUYNH
Age: 29
Hometown: Garden Grove
Home parish: Maria Regina Church, Gardena
Parish assignment: St. Mary of the Assumption
Church, Whittier
Anthony Huynh
and a former seminary
classmate in
the sacristy of the
Guadalupe Basilica
during a trip to
Mexico in 2019.
Born the only child of Vietnamese
immigrant parents in Garden
Grove, Anthony Huynh had
all the fundamentals of a good Catholic
upbringing.
He watched his
parents sing in
the parish choir,
went to Catholic
school until 8th
grade, and even
played piano at
Mass.
It was during
those years, he
realizes now, that
the seed of his
vocation to the
priesthood was
quietly planted.
“It was just
always there, but
I just never really
looked into it,” said Huynh.
What Huynh did know was that he
wanted to help people for a living. So
after graduating from high school, he
pursued a bachelor’s degree in social
work at Cal State LA. But during
vacation one summer in Vietnam, he
crossed paths with an old priest friend
of his father’s who was involved in a
slightly different kind of social work.
“He was doing ministry in one of
those villages way out in the mountains,
very poor, with one road in, one
road out.” Huynh remembered being
struck by the simplicity of how he
Anthony Huynh as a deacon with family after Mass
at the shrine of Lourdes, France, in July 2023.
lived.
“He didn’t own a lot of things materially,
but just the fact that he was happy
with life, doing his priestly ministry,
working with the locals in the villages
… that kind of sparked curiosity,”
recalled Huynh.
That led Huynh to start praying
seriously about his future and talk to
a priest at his home parish of Maria
Regina Church in Gardena, Father
Sang Tran. After graduating from Cal
State LA in 2017, he decided to enter
formation for the Archdiocese of LA.
One of the key sources of encour-
22 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

agement during discernment was
Huynh’s father, who grew up attending
a boarding school in Vietnam run
by Redemptorist priests. Some of his
dad’s classmates went on to become
priests themselves. Hearing stories
about their lives as priests — not just
their joys, but their difficulties, too —
spoke to the younger Huynh.
“It just gave me at least that knowledge
that if I were to pursue this
vocation, there was something good to
be had,” remembered Huynh.
Huynh also found plenty of affirmation
in the bonds formed with his
seminary classmates. He recalled one
trip that several of them took to Mexico,
where they attended first Masses
for two new LA priests celebrated at
the Basilica of Guadalupe.
“Coming out of that trip, we made
a lot of memories together, and that
helped carry this momentum into the
rest of our formation,” said Huynh.
“We’re not just guys who attend class
together, but we’re really brothers
who are trying to walk together and
support each other in our calling to
holiness.”
The similarities between his original
career path and the priesthood are
not lost on Huynh. Like social work,
priestly ministry begins with “meeting
people where they’re at,” whether
struggling with their faith or carrying
the “baggage” of difficulties in life.
“We’re meeting people who come
from these unique environments
where there’s a lot of different influences
all trying to grab their attention,”
said Huynh. “I believe it’s being
able to enter into the complexity of
their lives and being able to see how
God can touch them, and accompany
them into the life of God himself.”
Huynh credited a long list of people
— family, friends, classmates, and
parishioners at places like Our Lady
of Loretto Church near downtown,
where he spent his parish internship
year — with helping him make it this
far. All have convinced him that ordinary
encounters with people — believers
and nonbelievers alike — have
a special ability to reveal God’s love.
“It’s not just something we practice
only on Sundays when we’re inside
the church,” he said of faith. “It’s a life
that continues outside.”
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 23

MIGUEL
CABRERA
Age: 30
Hometown: Oxnard
Home parish: St. Mary Magdalen Church, Camarillo
Parish assignment: St. Pancratius Church, Lakewood
The youngest of five (with
four older sisters) to parents
who emigrated from Mexico,
Miguel Cabrera grew up in a Mexican
culture that is so intertwined with
Catholicism that it is often difficult to
separate the two.
“It’s something that belonged to my
culture, something that belonged to
my family, but not something that
belonged to me personally,” he said.
This faith was helpful but didn’t
really come to the surface until later
in life.
His childhood was filled with riding
horses at his father’s and uncle’s small
ranch and his family’s participation in
Aztec-esque dance styles like danza de
matachines (“sword dance”).
He went to Catholic school throughout
his early life, eventually graduating
from Santa Clara High School in
Oxnard.
It wasn’t until he started attending
college — first Ventura College, then
San Diego State — that he actually
began confronting the strength of his
faith.
“I was faced with the decision of am
I going to pursue the faith on my own
or am I going to abandon it?” Cabrera
said. “Now, a lot of people my age at
that time, especially on the college
campus, leave the faith while they’re
in college. And
so I had a choice
to make.”
The answer
came in the form
of a donut.
Cabrera heard
that the Newman
Center at San
Diego State was
hosting Mass and offering free donuts
afterward.
Although he enjoyed the free breakfast
— “it was a really good donut”
— Cabrera decided to come back the
next weekend.
And the next.
And again.
“I noticed
when I got to
the Newman
Center that they
were people my
age, my peers,
who were there
without their
family,” Cabrera
said. “There were
no parents that
dragged them
there. It was just
them and they
were happy to be
there. I sensed
a joy in them
that I’ve always
wanted.”
From there, his
faith snowballed:
He did his confirmation,
joined a
Bible study, and
began attending
adoration for the
Blessed Sacrament. He learned how
to really pray — not just say the words
— something that even a lifetime of
Catholic school hadn’t given him.
As he neared the end of his college
career, with a focus on criminal
justice, he decided to take a job with
the Fellowship of Catholic University
Students (FOCUS) ministry group.
Thinking he would work there for two
years, then return to criminal justice,
God had other plans.
One year into his FOCUS work, he
started feeling a call to the priesthood.
He prayed on it. He went to a discern-
Miguel Cabrera has been
riding horses since he was
a child at a small ranch
owned by his father.
24 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

ment retreat. And like many had done
before him, he ignored it.
But when he attended the Theology
of the Body Congress in Ontario, God
questioned why Cabrera hadn’t taken
action.
“I remember asking the Lord some
follow-up questions myself being like
‘What if I am called to the priesthood,
but I’m not happy?’ ” Cabrera said.
“In response, I felt the Lord just say,
‘Do you not trust me? If I am calling
you to the priesthood, there’s nothing
that will make you happier. And if I’m
not calling you to the priesthood, that
will be revealed to you while you’re in
the seminary.’
“And here I am, seven years later,
still in love with Christ and his
Church.”
Although there’s a special place in
his heart for young-adult ministry,
Cabrera has found a love for ministering
to the sick, especially those in the
hospital.
“There isn’t a lot of relationship-building
with patients that you
might encounter because they might
not be there for that long,” Cabrera
Miguel Cabrera with priests and fellow St. John’s seminarians during a trip to Mexico City in 2019.
said. “But that doesn’t make the encounters
any less meaningful.
“Just seeing the comfort that it brings
a family to be visited by someone
who’s clergy or just having someone
who comes in and cares to pray with
them for a bit, reminding them that
their spiritual care is important.”
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 25

MARKO RUDELA
Age: 30
Hometown: Covina
Home parish: Immaculate Conception Church,
Monrovia
Parish assignment: St. Clare of Assisi Church,
Santa Clarita
As someone who was born on the
day of the Northridge earthquake
in 1994, you might expect Rudela’s
path to the priesthood to be full of
jolts, shakes, and aftershocks.
Instead, it has been a slow and steady
rumble of faith, love, and perseverance,
with a strong foundation set by his Croatian
immigrant parents.
One of four boys, Rudela had a typical
experience of a devout Catholic family:
Mass every Sunday, Catholic school,
youth ministry.
His parents had emigrated separately
from Croatia, then met and married in
Los Angeles. The family spoke Croatian
at home and participated in cultural
things like dance groups and watching
Croatia in soccer.
It all felt very normal until having to
face some things that were uniquely
American.
“I was like one of the very few immigrant
families at my grade school
growing up,” Rudela said. “So they’d
mention things like we’re gonna throw a
’50s party. Well, what did that look like?
And they’ll say, ‘Go ask your grandparents.’
I can’t ask my grandparents, they
have no idea. So you’re really learning
the American culture.”
Youth ministry continued in high
school at Don Bosco Tech in Rosemead,
and that’s when people began
asking him if he had considered becoming
a priest. It stuck with him into
college at UC Riverside, where he was
studying to become an engineer.
One day in college, Rudela’s friend,
Mike, offered
him a sort of faith
challenge.
“He told me,
‘You know, Marko,
real men pray
the rosary,” Rudela said. “He told me
to pray the rosary every single day. So I
started doing that, praying the rosary in
the evening before I went to bed, sometimes
falling asleep before finishing it.
But what happened was I realized that
three months into praying the rosary,
I felt called to go even deeper into my
relationship with Jesus.”
He began going to adoration every day
for a couple of semesters and slowly he
began to feel God calling him to the
priesthood. So he called the Archdiocese
of Los Angeles vocations office,
graduated college in March, and started
at St. John’s Seminary that August.
“Engineers were promised, if you get
your degree, you’ll have a decent salary
by the time you’re finished,” Rudela
said. “So that was my hope. But you
know, God called and he had a different
plan for me.”
He really felt the profound call of the
priesthood while at the seminary, especially
after the Rite of Admission to Candidacy,
where he
officially professed
his intention to
become a priest.
“I still have
the candle for
candidacy up in
my room,” Rudela
said. “And that
moment of candidacy
really stood
out to me. This
is the moment
when, in a sense,
I have firmly promised to start this path
of discernment toward priesthood. Now
with ordination around the corner,
looking back at those five years since
candidacy, you can really see the way
that God was working in my life.”
It’s no surprise that someone so steady
in his faith would find inspiration in St.
Josemaría Escrivá, who was called the
“saint of the ordinary” and found Jesus
in the midst of our regular, daily lives.
“That’s really helped me realize
that every task I do in the parish,
every prayer that I offer, any work I do
throughout my life, it’s ordinary, but
consecrated,” Rudela said. “To God it’s
something.”
With that inspiration in his heart as
his big day nears, Rudela is not looking
forward to anything major, but instead
the everyday things in the life of a priest
that many may take for granted.
He cites accompanying priests on
sick calls and seeing the joy that the
sacrament of confession brings to other
people as experiences that have spoken
to him while serving in the parish.
“I really hope to be able to be there
for the people of God, especially if they
need some spiritual guidance, and offering
Masses for them,” said Rudela.
Marko Rudela poses with his
parents, Nikola and Andja,
after he completed the Rite of
Admission to Candidacy at St.
John’s Seminary.
26 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 27

JOSEPH
EUNWOO CHO
Age: 33
Hometown: Highland
Home parish: St. Joseph Church, Pomona
Parish assignment: St. John Vianney Church,
Hacienda Heights
Having a brother with cerebral
palsy can be a difficult challenge
for anybody. Certainly
for Joseph Cho, who didn’t always get
a chance to go play sports or spend
time at a friend’s house because his
parents spent so much of their time
taking care of his brother. For better
or worse, life revolved around him.
“He was a big impact in my life,”
Cho said. “I do love my brother but
like all siblings, you tend to think
negatively of your
sibling because
they’re taking
something away
from you.
“The positive
side is I got to
learn maturity.
Helping my parents
take care of
my brother, taking
care of his needs, helping him get
to bed. And
humility.”
What it also
did was to
push him to
church. His
parents were
devout Catholics,
but when
his brother
got older,
bigger, and
they couldn’t
take him to
church, they
would send
Cho with a
neighbor and
their children
who also
attended St.
Andrew Kim
Joseph Cho holds his younger brother, John, in a childhood photo.
Korean Church in Riverside.
“At that time, I didn’t really see the
value of going to church,” Cho said.
“Then I remember my dad telling me
one time that I’m a representative of
our family going to church. If I go and
pray, I’m praying for the whole family.
So I really took that to heart.”
For Cho, this is where the seeds of
his vocation were planted. Being from
South Korea — his parents immigrated
to the United States when he was
2 years old — his family found strong
bonds in the Korean community at St.
Andrew Kim. His uncle on his father’s
side was a priest in South Korea, so
the idea of Cho someday becoming
one wasn’t so far-fetched.
“Everyone knew who my family was
and knew my uncle also,” Cho said.
“Knowing you should carry on the
family tradition, the family job per se,
by becoming a priest.”
Joseph Cho poses with Archbishop
José H. Gomez.
28 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

But having others wanting you to
become a priest and you actually
wanting it yourself are two different
things.
Cho hadn’t fully felt the call and so
went about his life. He went to college
not really knowing what he wanted to
do with his life, only hoping to have a
career where he could make enough
money to help his brother and parents,
who had sacrificed so much.
After graduating from Chapman
University with a degree in Business
Administration, he began studying
for his CPA exam. While studying,
thoughts about becoming a priest
suddenly resurfaced.
So he prayed. And prayed. Went to
the Blessed Sacrament. And prayed.
It was while his mother was at a
retreat that God acted in the form of
the priest she met there.
“My Mom said, ‘You should call this
priest’ and talk about vocations in general,”
Cho said. “I did and the priest
forwarded me to the vocations director
of Los Angeles. So I met with them
and started going through the process
of discernment.
“Next thing I know they gave me a
piece of paper. I didn’t really read it
and I signed it. Next thing I know, I
was entering the seminary. I think this
Joseph Cho, right, stands with his uncle, Father
Paul Cho, left, a priest in South Korea, and
Cardinal Andrew Yeom Soo-jung of Seoul.
was God’s way to give me the push I
needed.”
He struggled a bit going from his
business background to theology —
and plenty of doubts about whether
he should actually become a priest
— but the experience during his
internship at St. Philomena Church
in Carson made things clear.
“They were always supporting me
and showing me the ropes of how
priest life was like,” Cho said. “At the
end. I was saying, yeah, I could do
this. And it finally became something
I want to do.”
Preparing for his new life, Cho can’t
help but look back on the community
that helped nurture his faith, and how
he can use that to forge his future
role.
“If there’s no community, I don’t
think there will be a church or the
church that we see right now,” Cho
said. “Having the community really
helps someone to find their faith.
We’re all relational beings, so building
that relationship and working together
is one of the teachings that God is
really giving us. It’s not my faith. It’s
not just my faith to have. It’s a faith
that we all could share.”
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 29

JAIME
ARRIAGA
Age: 40
Hometown: Tenancingo, Mexico
Home parish: St. Louis of France Church, La Puente
Parish assignment: Our Lady of Perpetual Help
Church, Downey
When Jaime Arriaga was a kid,
he told his Mom he was
going to be a father.
“Oh yes, you’re going to be the father
of many children,” she said.
“But I specifically told her no, I will
be a father like those who say Masses,”
Arriaga said.
What he didn’t expect is that he
might be saying those Masses outside
of his hometown in Mexico. Arriaga,
the youngest boy with two older
sisters, moved to California when he
was 11 years old.
While he was happy in Mexico
running in cornfields and playing
soccer with neighborhood children, in
California it was more stifling.
“We did things as a family, but mostly
going to the mall, to the market, going
to do our laundry,” he said. “And that
was basically it. If I wanted to go to
the market, I couldn’t go by myself.
So I felt that I didn’t have the same
freedom as I did over there.”
He went to La Puente High School
for one year, but then the family
moved back to Mexico. At age 17,
Arriaga returned to California, but
rather than go back to school, he
instead went to work.
Working in a food-processing plant
is a far cry from priesthood, but that’s
where he felt the first pangs of God
calling him.
One day while
talking with a
coworker, the
man spoke of his
experience in
the seminary in
Mexico. Arriaga
was moved by
the possibility.
“I just felt this burning sensation in
my chest,” he said. “And I was thinking
to myself, I could probably do
that. But I didn’t
say anything to
him, to no one.”
Another
encounter
happened when
a friend invited
him to a young
adult retreat and
something inside
of him changed
after that.
“I think it was
the happiness
that I saw in the
young adults,”
Arriaga said.
“And that’s
something that I
needed in my life
at that time.”
The experience
prompted him
to get more
involved at his
home parish,
becoming a
lector and an
extraordinary
minister of holy
Communion.
But still, there was something missing.
He was still yearning for something
else, something more.
“So I was like, ‘What more is there
for me?’ ” Arriaga said. “And as I kept
asking this question, I finally asked
God, what do you want from me?
And that’s when I started considering
priesthood.”
The problem is, he didn’t know anything
about the priesthood or how you
became one. So after doing research
Jaime Arriaga blesses a family following a Mass at Our Lady of Perpetual
Help Church in Downey.
30 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

Jaime Arriaga, left, and Eduardo Pruneda
assist Bishop Marc Trudeau during their
diaconate ordination Mass last May.
online, he contacted the Archdiocese
of Los Angeles and left a message. Not
expecting to ever receive a response,
he was contacted a couple of days
later.
He spent two years discerning, then
more years at the Juan Diego House
(now Queen of Angels Center for
Priestly Formation) before continuing
at St. John’s Seminary.
Despite finally being on a path to
priesthood, he remained racked with
doubt, wondering if he should continue
or not. At the year-end retreat, he
received a book on St. John Vianney.
In it, he read that St. John Vianney
had a devotion to St. Philomena and
encouraged people to pray for her
intercession.
Knowing that nearby was St. Philomena
Church in Carson, he took it as
a sign and went to the parish to pray.
“And that’s when I finally felt at
peace,” Arriaga said.
As his ordination approaches, Arriaga
hopes to minister and be a sign to
everyone, but especially those less
fortunate, including immigrants and
the homeless.
“Sometimes we have the impression
that they chose to be there, but it’s
not,” Arriaga said. “Some people just
don’t have an option and that’s where
they end up. And we are called to be
the face of Jesus. We have to show
them that God loves them and hasn’t
abandoned them.
“Even if it’s one person who gets out
of homelessness, I think that’s something
very good.”
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 31

ERIC MEJIA
Age: 29
Hometown: Pacoima
Home parish: Guardian Angel Church, Pacoima
Parish assignment: Our Lady of the Assumption
Church, Ventura
Mejia with his
mother, Paula.
If you’d have told Mario Felix 13
years ago that one of his confirmation
students would go on to
become a priest, Eric Mejia wouldn’t
have been his first guess.
“Would it have even registered? I’d
probably say no,” said Felix, who’s
taught confirmation at Guardian Angel
Church in Pacoima for the last 30
years.
“He had a lot of things going against
him, just like most kids do here,” said
Felix, himself the father of LA priest
Father Christopher Felix. “But God
Mejia with young men in Guardian Angel Church’s “Guardians of the
Altar” altar serving group at his first Mass as a deacon in May 2023.
moves in mysterious
ways.”
Mejia’s mother
was just 16 when
she had him, an
emigrant from
El Salvador who
didn’t know
English, or what
to do next.
“She had to
just figure out how to raise me,” Mejia
recalled.
After Mejia came five brothers. Things
at home weren’t always easy, and by
the time he got to East Valley High
School in North Hollywood, Mejia was
a self-proclaimed troublemaker.
“All that caught up with me and I
ended up being a really unhappy and
angry son,” he remembered.
But that was when Mejia’s mother
made a decision that would alter the
course of her son’s life: enrolling him in
the confirmation program at Guardian
Angel, near the housing projects where
they lived. As Mejia tells it, his mom
didn’t know what else to do with him.
“She would say, ‘If the Church doesn’t
fix you, I don’t know what else could fix
you,’ ” he recalled.
Mejia didn’t have much of a faith life.
He didn’t even know the words of the
Our Father, Felix remembered. But
something about his new confirmation
teacher surprised him.
“He treated us like adults,” said Mejia.
“He was very just honest about his faith
32 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

towards us. That struck a chord with
me and made me start wanting to have
more of a change.”
Mejia had found an angel at Guardian
Angel.
“We just did a lot of talking, we
focused a lot on their relationship with
God,” remembered Felix. “And so, he
took it and liked what he heard.”
After a year in the confirmation
program, “Mr. Felix” invited Mejia to
join “Guardians of the Altar,” an altar
serving ministry for young men he’d
started in the parish.
Eventually, Mejia found himself helping
around the parish as a first Communion
teacher and then as a sacristan,
too. It was a time when he felt his faith
“was always going up and down,” but
with the guidance of then-pastor Father
Steve Guitron, he turned to daily
prayer, helping him discern what to do
next in life.
After finishing community college,
Mejia decided it was time to give the
priesthood a chance. He entered Juan
Diego House in Gardena and, after
graduating, continued at St. John’s
Seminary in Camarillo.
During seminary, Mejia got to
give back what he’d received. At his
internship parish and back at Guardian
Angel, he had the chance to help in
confirmation and invite people back to
church after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Just as the Church found him during
a difficult time in his life, he sees his
mission as a priest as “providing a place
of support, of listening, of encouragement”
for those who need it most.
As if to confirm that nothing in Mejia’s
vocation story has been by chance,
his ordination to the priesthood comes
as Guardian Angel prepares to dedicate
a new church building later this year, a
sign of hope in one of the San Fernando
Valley’s toughest areas.
The future priest hopes that the
people he encounters in his ministry
can have the same experience of Jesus
Christ that he’s had, “to discover how
much they are worth in the eyes of
God.”
“I’ve encountered people throughout
the years who talk about the impact
that other priests have had on them.
That’s what I would want,” said Mejia.
“It’s really just being a father for somebody
else.”
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 33

JESUS UPON THE WATER
With the help of flotillas, bridges, and the zeal
of ordinary Catholics, the National Eucharistic
Pilgrimage’s West Coast journey is off to an
‘epic’ start.
San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone
elevates the monstrance as he blesses the
city and pilgrims after crossing the Golden Gate
Bridge May 19. | OSV NEWS/BOB ROLLER
BY PABLO KAY
By the time the monstrance carrying the Blessed Sacrament
had completed the California leg of the National
Eucharistic Pilgrimage’s Serra Route May 19-24,
it had been carried across the Golden Gate Bridge, led a
flotilla of boats down the Sacramento River, drawn people
to adoration at a homeless shelter, and led another flotilla of
boats across Lake Tahoe and into Nevada.
Just talking about it, Deacon Kevin Staszkow could hardly
contain his excitement.
“This Eucharistic Revival is a historic thing for the Church
in the United States, and it needs to be marked by something
epic,” said Staszkow, the lead planner for the pilgrimage’s
four-day segment in the Diocese of Sacramento.
Beginning in Northern California and Nevada before proceeding
north to Oregon and Idaho and then east, the Serra
Route is one of four national itineraries established to bring
Catholic pilgrims — led by the Blessed Sacrament — to
Indianapolis, the site of the National Eucharistic Congress
July 17-21.
For months, organizers like Staszkow have been determined
to make the most of it.
It was the deacon’s boss, Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento,
who first had the idea of moving parts of the route from land
to water. So from May 21 to 22, Soto was set to accompany
the Blessed Sacrament aboard a 64-foot boat (borrowed from
a Catholic benefactor) with a flotilla following in procession,
34 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

making several stops along the
Sacramento River.
After all, Staszkow explained, the
river itself was named after the
Blessed Sacrament, as was the city.
“It really doesn’t make sense
to do anything except have the
Eucharist travel on the Sacramento
River,” said Staszkow, who
heads the Diocese of Sacramento’s
young adult ministry and faith
formation offices. He remembers
that the plan was first met with
skepticism.
“Everybody said, oh, you’re not
going to be able to get a boat,”
Staszkow said. “But I got a boat.”
Before the Sacramento portion,
the pilgrimage kicked off in San
Francisco with a May 19 bilingual
Pentecost Sunday Mass at the Cathedral
of St. Mary of the Assumption
celebrated by Archbishop
Salvatore Cordileone. Immediately
after, Cordileone led some
4,000 people in procession across
the Golden Gate Bridge which,
perhaps in a stroke of Providence,
had already been closed earlier
that day for the city’s annual “Bay
to Breakers” footrace.
Cordileone then led pilgrims
in Benediction at Point Cavallo,
a lookout point with views of the
San Francisco Bay. The pilgrimage
continued through Marin
County, including Mission San Rafael Arcángel, before
moving on to the Diocese of Sacramento.
While the procession made for a visual spectacle, Cordileone
said before the event that the procession was not about a
photo op.
“It’s a public manifestation of faith,” Cordileone told Angelus.
“That’s what processions are, and this is a very powerful
one because it’s encompassing the whole country. Our faith
is not meant to be kept within the walls of the churches, but
to be brought out into the public square.”
Crossing Northern California, the pilgrimage included
planned stops that Bishop Soto hoped would connect with
different “marginalized populations,” including a Mass with
farm workers in Vallejo, a walking procession leaving from
Folsom State Prison, and a visit to Sacramento homeless
shelter Loaves and Fishes.
The route’s California portion ended on Friday, May 24,
when Soto was set to again accompany the Blessed Sacrament
leading a flotilla of boats, this time crossing Lake
Tahoe at sunset (approximately a 26-mile journey) before arriving
at Incline Village, Nevada, for a Eucharistic “handoff”
to the neighboring Diocese of Reno.
Sister Maria, a woman religious from the Archdiocese
of Los Angeles, made plans to travel the Serra Route as a
pilgrim by car from San Francisco to Indianapolis. She is
making the pilgrimage out of gratitude to the Eucharist for
bringing her to the Church when she was in her 20s, but
also as an opportunity to pray for others’ intentions (she’ll
carry a prayer book for people to write them in) and in
reparation for the lack of belief in the Eucharist she sees
firsthand.
“[Many Catholics] don’t believe in Jesus and the Eucharist
anymore, and that is the whole point of this Eucharistic
Revival, to draw people back to Mass and love of Jesus and
the Eucharist,” said Sister Maria, who asked to remain
anonymous.
As it makes its way through parts of the western U.S.,
Cordileone hopes the pilgrimage will “reignite an authentic
Eucharistic faith” among Catholics.
“I hope it instills in our Catholic people a reminder of
the sacredness of what the Eucharist is, and who it is,” said
Cordileone.
Crossing the country over the course of two months, Sister
Maria plans to be hosted in some places by friends or in
convents with other women religious. In others, she’ll have
to leave it to Providence.
“You make your plan, but God always changes it,” said
the sister, who works in youth ministry at a parish in the LA
Archdiocese. “But at least you do your part and then you see
what unfolds.”
Pablo Kay is the editor-in-chief of Angelus.
The team of “Perpetual Pilgrims” traveling
the entirety of the National Eucharistic
Pilgrimage’s Serra Route began by crossing
the Golden Gate Bridge May 19. | ARCH-
DIOCESE OF SAN FRANCISCO
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 35

NOT
PREACHING
TO PLEASE
BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Pope Francis speaks
at a meeting on Italy’s
declining birthrate at an
auditorium in Rome May
10. | CNS/LOLA GOMEZ
As he compares contraception to the arms
industry, Pope Francis knows his pro-fertility
message can’t make everyone happy.
ROME — Given their home
court advantage, it’s natural that
nobody covers the Vatican quite
like the Italian press. For most countries,
the Vatican beat is like football,
something to pay attention to maybe
once a week, usually on Sunday. For
Italians, it’s more akin to baseball —
there’s a game every day, and sometimes
a doubleheader.
One of the more provocative recent
pieces of Vatican commentary in
the Italian press came May 11 from
Massimo Gramellini, who writes the
“Morning Coffee” column for Corriere
della Sera, Italy’s newspaper of record.
The intriguing headline was “Francesco
il guastafeste,” which roughly translates
as “Francis the Party-Pooper.”
Gramellini was reacting to a May 10
talk by the pontiff at a Roman event
titled “General States of the Birth
Rate,” which has become an annual
event devoted to addressing Italy’s fertility
crisis. Last year, according to the
official national statistics office, Italy set
another historical low with just 379,000
live births, while demographers say that
at least 500,000 births a year would be
necessary to avoid a dangerous imbalance
between young and old in the
country.
The May 10 event made headlines in
large part because of heated scuffles in
the streets of Rome between police and
youthful protesters, who were objecting
to the presence of Italian Family Minister
Eugenia Roccella.
The protesters identify Roccella with
a recent move by the conservative
government of Prime Minister Giorgia
Meloni to permit the presence of prolife
groups at publicly funded family
planning clinics where women seeking
an abortion are required to obtain a
certificate attesting to the state of their
pregnancy.
In the eyes of the opposition, allowing
pro-life consulters to set up shop in the
clinics amounts to an assault on a woman’s
right to choose an abortion. Four
police officers and at least one young
female demonstrator were treated for
minor injuries as a result of the fracas,
while inside the meeting Roccella
was shouted down and eventually left
without giving her talk.
Never one to be upstaged, however,
Pope Francis nevertheless managed
to make waves himself with his own
remarks, in which, among other things,
he encouraged more family-friendly
policies from governments, such as en-
36 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

suring that women don’t have to choose
between work and raising children, or
that young couples are able to afford a
home.
The line that really got tongues
wagging, however, came as Francis
was describing the dreary demographic
landscape of contemporary Europe,
marked by rapid aging and plummeting
birthrates.
“How is it possible?” the pope asked.
“Why can’t this hemorrhage of life be
stopped?”
Then, departing from his prepared
text, the pope added a zinger: “Here’s a
fact an expert on demography told me:
Right now, the most profitable investments
are the manufacture of arms
and contraceptives — one destroys life,
the other prevents life. These are the
investments that make the most money,
it’s ugly.”
As Gramellini noted, the pope’s comment
generated consternation among
extremists of both left and right.
“Will the pacifist left, which has
elected Francis as its undisputed leader,
be able to digest his juxtaposition of a
machine gun with a pill? What about
the portion of the right that’s contrary
to the Russian invaders, but favorable to
the invasion of the pro-life consulters?”
In effect, Gramellini argued, Francis
is a living challenge to political fault
lines.
“He helps unmask the limits of the
grotesque contraposition, which by now
is virtually anthropological, between
the two extremes: ‘Us’ and ‘Them.’
Francis demonstrates that it’s possible to
be oneself without adhering to prefabricated
schemes and parroting automatic
slogans and withered prejudices,” he
wrote.
“Like many people, I have different
ideas from the pope about contraceptives,
and also partly about weapons,
especially when they serve to defend
yourself from guys like Putin,” Gramellini
concluded.
“However, it’s impossible not to feel
respect for a man who doesn’t try to
please everyone, even at the cost of not
completely pleasing anybody,” he said.
Therein lies the real point about the
pro-fertility push, which is rapidly becoming
a defining theme of this phase
of Francis’ papacy.
You can always tell when a subject has
truly captured the pope’s imagination,
because he generates a new soundbite,
which he then repeats ad nauseam. In
the case of the fertility issue, that trope
has become his lament about a “veterinary
culture” in contemporary Europe,
especially Italy, in which people prefer
cats and dogs to human children.
(So strong has the rhetorical drumbeat
become that Il Sole 24 Ore, more or
less Italy’s equivalent of the Wall Street
Journal, did a statistical analysis in 2022
and concluded the pope has a point: In
Italy’s 20 regions, there actually is an inverse
relationship between the number
of pet dogs per every 100 persons and
the birthrate.)
As Gramellini suggests, the pontiff’s
growing obsession with the birthrate
alarms his progressive base, and not
merely because it places him uncomfortably
close to the sort of conservative,
pro-family, and pro-life movements
which the left distrusts.
It’s also because concern for Europe’s
low birthrate has also long been part of
the “clash of civilizations” hypothesis,
which holds that Islam is winning the
demographic battle for control of the
future. Anti-Muslim hawks love to cite
Yasser Arafat’s famous dictum that his
most powerful weapon is the womb
of the Arab woman, and the idea that
Francis, who’s made outreach to Islam
a cornerstone of his interfaith agenda,
might be lending credibility to such
concerns won’t be seen favorably in
Italian Family Minister
Eugenia Roccella speaks
on International Women’s
Day 2024. | QUIRINALE.
IT VIA WIKIMEDIA
COMMONS
many progressive
circles.
Meanwhile,
militant pro-lifers,
who tend to be
single-issue voters
when it comes to
abortion, have a
hard time accepting the way this pope
insists on linking the defense of life
with other social concerns, including
war and peace.
There’s no indication, however, that
any of this particularly concerns Francis,
who seems determined to continue
his pro-fertility campaign regardless of
whom it may annoy.
In that sense, this maverick pope is
once again living up to his reputation
as a lightning rod … though with
apologies to Gramellini, not really a
“party-pooper” — because, let’s face it,
things on the Vatican beat would be
a lot less fun without him continually
stirring the pot.
John L. Allen Jr. is the editor of Crux.
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 37

Believe me, I did not want to comment
on Kansas City Chiefs kicker
Harrison Butker’s controversial
commencement address this month
at Benedictine College, which made
headlines for its criticism of “woke”
culture, American Catholic bishops,
abortion, gender theory, President Joe
Biden, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and women
in the workplace.
I am not interested in engaging
in online iterations of the “working
mother” wars in the Catholic world,
where much of the commentary has
been Jaime centered. Arriaga, left, along I find with it fellow all mostly just
seminarian Eduardo Pruneda, participates
self-justification and sloganeering.
in the transitional diaconate Mass in 2023
But with here’s Auxiliary my Bishop comment: Marc Trudeau. the speech
is a mess. It’s also probably a lesson
FLAILING TO SCORE
A Catholic Super
Bowl champion’s
controversial
graduation speech
lacked some basic
self-awareness.
BY AMY WELBORN
to colleges everywhere to vet your
commencement speeches: I am sure
that people at Benedictine could have
shaped the Catholic athlete’s ramblings
into something coherent that still maintained
his central point.
That point — I think — is that Catholics
should be courageous and prophetic,
both in their daily lives and in the
public square. But while I probably
don’t disagree with much of what he
said, I would describe the speech as a
whole as “flailing.”
Sure, you can criticize American bishops
for being weak and careerist, but is
this where you want to do it? And in a
way that sounds like a mashup of various
gripes you’ve heard from your circle
Harrison Butker, kicker for the Super Bowl LVIII
champion Kansas City Chiefs, delivers the May
11 commencement address at Benedictine
College in Atchison, Kansas. | OSV NEWS/TODD
NUGENT, COURTESY BENEDICTINE COLLEGE
of friends? And if you’re going to do so
without mentioning recent problems
related to sexual and spiritual abuse,
how courageous are you, actually?
I came away from the speech with two
main thoughts.
First, while the most controversial
elements of Butker’s talk concerned
women and work outside the home,
it is important to note that his words
on this certainly came from a place of
deep appreciation and love for his wife.
That said, how much more helpful
would his points on the relationship of
life, family, and career have been if they
considered the challenge of balancing
these values for both men and women
in today’s human-consuming world of
ours?
One could take a page, for example,
from a recent online essay in Christian
commentary site Mockingbird titled
“Overselling Vocation.” Writing about
the false promises of the sexual revolution
and the egalitarian movement,
author Alex Sosler imagines a world
“where men and women were called
to mutual homemaking, where the
career vs. family struggle disappeared
altogether.”
How would homes be different, Sosler
writes, “if we were building something
together versus being exhausted away
from home and apart? Instead, we’re
part of an exploitative economy that
doesn’t end with the products we buy
or those who make them. The exploitation
comes after us all, twisting
our desires and priorities into mutual
enmity.”
Butker certainly might have interesting
things to say about faith and vocation
in today’s culture. But what if they
came from a place of willingness to be
honest about his own career and place
in the world, and a deep understanding
of Catholic spirituality?
In short: Dude, you make millions
of dollars a year for kicking a ball for
38 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

an employer that does not embody
traditional Christian values on basically
anything, from economic justice to
sexuality.
Far more interesting than excoriating
others who, in his view, fail to live up to
the standards of Christian discipleship,
would be an explanation of where he
sees his role as a Christian in the context
of the NFL industrial complex.
You are a part of — and therefore
support — an institution that is deeply
oriented toward profit and exploits human
desires and yearnings for belonging,
combat, entertainment, one that
turns a blind eye to criminal behavior,
and the physical harm this work causes
its own employees.
How do you understand your role to
be a prophetic disciple of Jesus there?
How do you balance your huge income
with Catholic teaching on justice and
the dangers of wealth? How do you use
your position to speak up for the truth
in your own workplace?
This is not a screed against the NFL
or professional sports. All of us who
work do so for imperfect, compromised
institutions. But how do we make that
fit with our call to be conformed to
Christ, no matter where we work? And
what about when that daily work means
being part of a corrupt, venal, anti-human
institution?
In short — you’re doing a stupid job
for The Man. What’s the Christian path
in and through that life?
If he is thoughtful, I do think that the
millionaire football player who professes
faith in Jesus would have something
useful to say to the young person in the
audience who’s looking at a first job in
front of a laptop doing data entry, or to
the cashier who hates her job but catches
a glimpse of this talk on YouTube.
It’s within Butker’s right to use his platform
to spout off about others — bishops,
priests, and politicians included.
But it’s harder to hold up a mirror and
speak honestly about the challenges of
Christian discipleship from the fraught,
conflicted, compromised place where
we — not others — find ourselves.
Amy Welborn is a freelance writer living
in Birmingham, Alabama, and the
author of more than 20 books. Her blog
can be found at AmyWelborn.wordpress.
com.
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 39

NOW PLAYING THE FALL GUY
FALLING …
BUT IN LOVE?
The stuntman comedy starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt
trips over its ambitions, but still delivers a valuable romance.
An action scene from “The
Fall Guy.” | IMDB
BY JOSEPH JOYCE
Behind every great artist is the
person who does all the actual
work. For instance, no pop star
born outside Liverpool has ever written
their own songs. Dostoyevsky used
to compose his novels by pacing the
floor and dictating to his wife, who
would transcribe and shape his rants
into a narrative that would pay off his
gambling debts. Even I, literary wunderkind,
rely on an editor to hack my
paragraphs into something resembling
coherent thoughts.
“The Fall Guy” (now in theaters,
starring Ryan Gosling and Emily
Blunt) is not about ghostwriters, but
another profession in the category of
unsung heroes: stuntmen.
The modern stuntman is what happens
when someone in a film studio’s
accounting department runs the
numbers and realizes it will cost them
more money than they’ll save if the
lead dies. So instead, they hire someone
of his/her approximate height and
build to perform those life-threatening
stunts. It is deliberately a thankless
position; any recognition means you
didn’t do the job right.
Director David Leitch, who began
his career as a stuntman for the likes
of Brad Pitt and Jean-Claude Van
Damme, clearly relishes the chance
to champion those men and women
whose faces are always just a frame
off camera. That he also gets to settle
some scores with the actors they
replace is just a bonus.
Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) is the
stuntman for movie star Tom Ryder
(Aaron Taylor-Johnson), whom he
thankfully resembles in looks only.
After Colt injures himself in a stunt
gone wrong, he retreats from both
stunt work and Jody (Emily Blunt), a
camerawoman he started dating during
the production. A year later and
slightly less sorry for himself, producer
Gail (Hannah Waddingham) approaches
Colt with an offer from Jody
to work on “Metalstorm,” her directorial
debut being filmed in Australia.
The offer turns out to be a ruse
intended to use Colt both to stand
in for Ryder, who has gone missing
during filming after crossing paths
with some Aussie drug dealers, and
help track him down. To make things
worse, Gosling’s character has crossed
the Pacific only to find that Jody did
not ask for him, and certainly hasn’t
forgiven his ghosting.
This is a rather hectic plot, with Colt
having to simultaneously solve the
mystery, save “Metalstorm,” patch
things up with Jody, while also delivering
a nifty stunt every 15 minutes
or so. Yet eventually the table setting
begins to feel like plate spinning,
40 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

distraction for the sake of spectacle.
That is the tug-of-war at the heart
of every blockbuster; we pay our
20 dollars and demand to see some
return on investment, yet if all we
receive is empty calories (beyond just
the popcorn), then we feel our souls
growl and grumble as we exit the
theater. “The Fall Guy” is at its best in
those breathing moments between set
pieces, when it’s too exhausted to be
anything except human.
This is a movie quite literally built
around stunt work, but its romantic
plotline proves more interesting.
Stunts are inherently deterministic;
they even follow a track. A stunt is a
promise sold, the thrill coming from
how that promise is kept. The motorcycle
that tries to cross Snake River
Canyon is going over regardless — the
landing part is the variable.
But human beings are forever
surprising, especially when the matter
at hand is a simple one. Boy meets
girl should be a shorter and straighter
journey than Burbank to Glendale,
yet it’s remarkable how frequently
we get lost. I am reminded of Walker
Percy’s observation that despite all
the quasars and nebulas, humanity
remains the oddest phenomenon in
the universe.
The chemistry of the two stars
certainly contributes. “The Fall Guy”
frames itself as an ode to practical effects,
but it is also an ode to traditional
Hollywood stardom. Gosling these
days has stopped straining for greatness
and accepted his likability, which
is a far rarer commodity these days.
Any hack can fake a limp to an
Oscar, how many could cry to Taylor
Swift’s “All Too Well” and make you
believe it? Blunt could have chemistry
with a broom wearing a hat, so lining
up across a reciprocal talent like Gosling
infinitely eases her burden. You
believe her when she barks orders into
a megaphone and when she mourns
Phil Collins into a karaoke mic.
The best scene in the movie is when
Jody screeches her own movie to a
halt, setting Colt on fire for take after
take as she works through her frustration
toward him. There is no promise
to be fulfilled here, because there’s
no simple track to a woman’s forgiveness.
(If there were, the last 15 years
of my life would have been far less
adventurous.) Evel Knievel’s problem
is simple: you either cross Snake River
Canyon or you don’t. It’s far more
difficult to solve a woman’s problems
when the problem is you. Sometimes
we, like poor Colt, would rather jump
a thousand canyons.
“The Fall Guy” is ultimately a movie
at odds with itself. The film is disdainful
of actors, portraying them as
vapid drug addicts too cowardly for
real risk but wanting all the credit. Yet
the movie depends on its own stars,
demonstrating their value almost
against its will.
The movie adores its stunts, each
shot with a clear affection to the craft
and crafters behind them. Yet as anyone
who has attended a Latin Mass
will tell you, benediction isn’t always
a roller coaster ride. So here I am, left
with one final contradiction: Despite
all my reservations, why do I want to
see it again?
Joseph Joyce is a screenwriter and freelance
critic based in Sherman Oaks.
Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt
in “The Fall Guy.” | IMDB
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 41

DESIRE LINES
HEATHER KING
Where there’s chastity, there’s freedom
Erik Varden is a Norwegian
Trappist monk and the bishop of
Trondheim.
His newest book, “Chastity: Reconciliation
of the Senses” (Bloomsbury
Continuum, $22), came out earlier
this year.
Varden has a doctorate in theology
and religious studies from Cambridge
and a licentiate of sacred theology from
the Pontifical Oriental Institute in
Rome. He speaks several languages.
A consecrated virgin’s ring
at the Cathedral of the Most
Blessed Sacrament in Detroit
in 2021. It symbolizes a commitment
to live as a “bride
of Christ,” taking no earthly
husband and promising fidelity,
chastity, and obedience
to him. | CNS/TIM FULLER,
DETROIT CATHOLIC
“To do something beautiful for its
own sake,” he writes, “for the intrinsic
delight of it, without thought of gain:
this, I’d say, is a way of beginning to
live chastely in this world, poised to
balance elegantly on whatever surging
billow providence provides as a means
to bear us homeward, towards the
shore.”
“Surging billow,” in my own experience,
might be pressing the point.
But if the book isn’t quite aimed at
the person in the pews, it’s a beautifully
written, powerful, and much-needed
reflection.
In fact, considering for starters that
all unmarried people in the Church
are called not only to chastity, but to
celibacy, one wonders why the issue
isn’t discussed day and night.
We all know by now that chastity
encompasses way more than sex.
In an interview with Swedish journalist
Malina Abrahamsson, Varden
observed, “[Chastity is] about not
instrumentalizing other people — not
using them for your own purposes or
your own pleasure. It is also about daring
to examine oneself — one’s desires,
wounds, and weaknesses and then
arranging one’s drives towards a goal.
In this way, you can become sanctified
as a human being, living completely in
balance with yourself.”
Gorgeous. Nonetheless, the chastity
we exercise in refusing to instrumentalize
people in general can be no higher,
or fuller, than the chastity we exercise
around our sexual powers, desires,
wounds, and temptations.
And on the ground, the journey
from those temptations to a somewhat
ethereal aesthetic of chastity is messy,
bloody, and ongoing.
On the ground, beset by obsessions,
compulsions, and hearts hemorrhaging
for love, we can question our sanity,
our spirituality, our God.
It would hardly be appropriate for
Varden to go deeply into his own
journey. As he says, “I invite others to
make contributions from other vantage
points. More are needed, from both
men and women.”
Here I am, Lord. Send me!
My own journey took a turn many
years ago in a confessional. The priest
was matter-of-fact and he was firm. And
42 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

Heather King is an award-winning
author, speaker, and workshop leader.
as I knelt in the pew afterward, up from
my subconscious floated the question
Jesus asked Peter, three times, after his
resurrection. Peter, who had betrayed
him; Peter who, like me, did the thing
he didn’t want to do, and failed to do
the thing he wanted to do.
“Do you love me?”
Are you serious about the Way,
the Truth and the Life — or not? If
everyone thought and acted as I do
with respect to human relations, what
would be the eventual effect upon
the sacrament of marriage? Women?
Children?
If we’re serious, we allow ourselves to
be pruned, sometimes it seems to us
with needless severity. But as Varden
so articulately points out: There is
something in it for us. There is always
something in it for us: freedom from
bondage, the peace that passes all
understanding, a purity of conscience
that allows us to see more clearly and
to love more fully.
We’re hard-wired to long for eternity,
Then-Father Erik Varden, abbot
of Mount St. Bernard Abbey,
poses in the brewery July 11,
2018, in Leicestershire, England.
Varden, a Cistercian monk and
spiritual writer, was ordained a
bishop at the Cathedral of St.
Olav in Trondheim Oct. 3, 2020.
| OSV NEWS/SIMON CALDWELL
to pass on what we’ve learned, for life
to continue after we’re gone.
Chastity, in all its forms, points to that
longing.
Chastity allows those of us without
children to support — in a sense, to
lay down our lives — for other people’s
families and children.
There’s a park near my house that’s often
filled with kids. They come out in
droves after school and on weekends:
shouting, sprinting, frolicking.
One recent afternoon a soccer game
was in progress and a posse of parents
had set up shop on the sidelines,
snacking, chatting, and cheering. The
shadows were lengthening. Beneath
the pleasant surface noise lay a vespers
hush.
I looked at these kids, who were not
mine, for whom I had done not a
single corporeal work of mercy, and
thought, Through my celibacy I am
laying down my life for you and all like
you.
What I do is of course nothing com-
The cover of “Chastity: Reconciliation of the Senses,” by
Norwegian Bishop Erik Varden. | OSV NEWS/BLOOMS-
BURY
pared to what an actual parent does.
But I didn’t have to compare. I didn’t
have to feel “less than” or “other than.”
Having taken way, way too long a
walk on the wild side in my youth, I
felt an incredible certainty that I was
loved, that I have been forgiven, that
I belong. I felt an incredible sense of
gratitude for those parents who were
doing the hardest and most important
work any human being can ever hope
to do.
There are many ways we lay down
our lives for one another. Chastity —
celibacy, if that’s our station — is just
one of them. But for me it has been a
particularly rich, fruitful, utterly unexpected
grace. A way of healing and
of giving that seems to the world like a
negative, an emptiness.
But that in God’s economy is a
fullness that I could never have engineered,
or even imagined, on my own.
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 43

LETTER AND SPIRIT
SCOTT HAHN
Scott Hahn is founder of the
St. Paul Center for Biblical
Theology; stpaulcenter.com.
Real Presence and second coming
When I was an evangelical pastor, many of my
colleagues were preoccupied with the “end
times.” The airwaves were alive with preachers
predicting Jesus’ imminent return. And bestselling books
gave dates to mark on your calendar. The Greek word parousia
entered the vocabulary of ordinary English-speaking
Christians.
Christians have always used parousia to denote the coming
of Christ, with all its attendant events, such as judgment
and the renewal of
the world.
In popular Christian
parlance, though, it has
come to mean, specifically,
Christ’s return in glory
at the end of time. Jesus
himself used the term
to describe that eschatological
moment: “as the
lightning comes from the
east and shines as far as
the west, so will be the
coming [parousia] of the
Son of man.”
But parousia did not
always refer to spectacular
future events. In the New
Testament — in most
instances — parousia
meant something simple
and ordinary.
For example, when St.
Paul spoke of his own
parousia, he gave it a
self-deprecating cast. In
Second Corinthians 10:10
he’s talking about his
critics, and he says: “For
they say, ‘His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily
presence is weak.’ ” In that sentence, the translators render
parousia as Paul’s “bodily presence,” which is unimpressive.
Paul uses the word in the same way in his Letter to the
Philippians (2:12).
Jesus may have intended the same humble connotations.
None of this rules out a parousia of Christ at the end of
history. Theologians call that “coming” of Christ the “final
advent” or “plenary parousia” — not because Christ will
have a greater fullness, but because humankind will be
able to behold him in his fullness.
Since Jesus’ first coming, he is present in the world in
a way that he was not during the old covenant. Yet he
remains veiled in a way that he will not be veiled at the
consummation of history.
In his incarnation, Jesus came; and, as he passed from human
sight, he promised
to sustain his presence
forever: “I am with you
always, to the close of the
age.” Thus, his parousia
— his presence — remained
with Christians
even as they prayed for its
plenitude.
The scholar Jaroslav
Pelikan observed that in
the early Church, “The
coming of Christ was
‘already’ and ‘not yet’: he
had come already — in
the incarnation, and on
the basis of the incarnation
would come in the
Eucharist; he had come
already in the Eucharist,
and would come at the
last in the new cup that
he would drink with
them in his Father’s
kingdom.” The Mass was
“a way of celebrating the
presence of one who had
promised to return.”
What the ancients saw
in the liturgy was the coming of Christ: the parousia; and
what they meant by parousia is what Catholic theology
came to express as the “real presence” of Jesus Christ.
The parousia is what the Church celebrates at every Mass
and in every act of Eucharistic adoration — and on the
feast of Corpus Christi, which this year falls on Sunday,
June 2, in the United States.
“The Last Judgment,” by Francheskos Kavertzas, 1590-1647, Greek. | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
44 • ANGELUS • May 31, 2024

■ SATURDAY, MAY 25
“Don Pasquale” Opera. Cathedral High Theater, 1253
Bishops Rd., Los Angeles, 2 p.m. Full orchestra performance.
Adult ticket includes complimentary glass of wine
and hors d’oeuvres. Call or text 213-248-2510 or email
info@operaitaliala.com.
■ MONDAY, MAY 27
Memorial Day Mass. Catholic Cemeteries, 10 a.m. Mass
will be held at all 11 Catholic Cemetery locations. Livestream
available at facebook.com/lacatholics and catholiccm.org.
St. John Vianney Burial Section Dedication. Calvary Cemetery,
199 N. Hope Ave., Santa Barbara, 10 a.m. Celebrant:
Auxiliary Bishop Slawomir Szkredka. Visit catholiccm.org.
Memorial Day Mass. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels,
555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 12:10 p.m.
■ WEDNESDAY, MAY 29
LACBA Family Law Virtual Clinic. 2-5 p.m. Covers child
support, custody, divorce, and spousal support. Open to
LA County veterans. Registration required. Call 213-896-
6537 or email inquiries-veterans@lacba.org.
■ SATURDAY, JUNE 1
New LA Priests Ordination. Cathedral of Our Lady of the
Angels, 555 Temple St., Los Angeles, 9 a.m. Archbishop
José H. Gomez will ordain the new priests for the archdiocese.
Tickets required. Livestream available at lacatholics.
org/ordination.
■ SATURDAY, JUNE 8
Knights of Columbus Rummage Sale. St. Barnabas
Church, 3955 Orange Ave., Long Beach, 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Call
James T. at 562-221-3296 to donate or for more information.
Permanent Diaconate Ordination. Cathedral of Our
Lady of the Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 9
a.m. Archbishop José H. Gomez will ordain the men from
the diaconate class of 2024 to the permanent diaconate.
Tickets required. Livestream available at lacatholics.org/
ordination.
43rd Anniversary Memorial Mass of Servant of God
Father Aloysius Ellacuria, CMF. San Gabriel Mission, 427
S. Junipero Serra Dr., San Gabriel, 10 a.m. Blessing of Father
Ellacuria’s grave after Mass, followed by light refreshments.
For more information, email edith@catholicbooks.net.
■ TUESDAY, JUNE 11
Memorial Mass. San Fernando Mission, 15151 San
Fernando Mission Blvd., Mission Hills, 11 a.m. Mass is
open to the public. Limited seating. RSVP to outreach@
catholiccm.org or call 213-637-7810. Livestream available
at CatholicCM.org or Facebook.com/lacatholics.
■ THURSDAY, JUNE 13
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.
■ SATURDAY, JUNE 15
Trauma: Walking in Solidarity. St. Christopher Church,
629 Glendora Ave., West Covina, 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. St.
Christopher’s Mental Health Ministry event. Register by
June 8 to 626-917-0040 or email FKMministry@gmail.
com.
Father’s Day Rosary. Catholic Cemeteries, 2 p.m. Rosary
will be held at all 11 Catholic cemetery locations.
Live-stream available at facebook.com/lacatholics and
catholiccm.org.
■ SATURDAY, JUNE 22
St. Josemaría Escrivá Mass. Cathedral of Our Lady of the
Angels, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, 11 a.m. Archbishop
José H. Gomez will celebrate Mass for the feast day.
■ MONDAY, JUNE 24
Summer Bible Sessions. Holy Family Church, 209 E. Lomita
Ave., Glendale, 7-8:30 p.m. Immersion into the Gospels
runs June 24-27. For more information, visit lacatholics.
org/events.
■ SATURDAY, JUNE 29
Summer Bible Retreat. Holy Family Church, 209 E. Lomita
Ave., Glendale, 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Free event, registration required.
For more information, visit lacatholics.org/events.
SCRC Catholic Renewal Convention: “Refreshed in
Spirit.” Anaheim Marriott Ballrooms, 700 W. Convention
Way, Anaheim, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. More than a dozen popular
Catholic speakers, including Father Robert Spitzer, Father
Ismael Robles, and more. Presentations, reconciliation,
liturgy, and live praise and worship. Register at events.scrc.
org. Call or text 818-771-1361.
■ FRIDAY, JULY 5
Mass for Pilgrims. Catedral Metropolitana de la Ciudad
de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico, 10:30 a.m. Archbishop
José H. Gomez will celebrate a special Mass for LA
pilgrims.
■ SATURDAY, JULY 6
Mass for Pilgrims. Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe,
Mexico City, Mexico, 12 p.m. Archbishop José H. Gomez
will celebrate a special Mass for LA pilgrims.
■ SUNDAY, JULY 7
Virtual Diaconate Information Day. Zoom, 2-4 p.m. Do
you feel Jesus is calling you to be a deacon? Come and see.
To register, email Deacon Melecio Zamora at dmz2011@
la-archdiocese.org.
■ TUESDAY, JULY 9
Memorial Mass. San Fernando Mission, 15151 San
Fernando Mission Blvd., Mission Hills, 11 a.m. Mass is
open to the public. Limited seating. RSVP to outreach@
catholiccm.org or call 213-637-7810. Livestream available
at CatholicCM.org or Facebook.com/lacatholics.
■ WEDNESDAY, JULY 17
National Eucharistic Congress. Lucas Oil Stadium, 500 S.
Capitol Ave., Indianapolis, Indiana. Eucharistic Congress
runs July 17-21. Join Archbishop Gomez and U.S. Catholics
in a historic gathering of missionary disciples will be
a new Pentecost, a powerful commission to invite others
to know Christ. Register at https://lacatholics.org/event/
eucharistic-congress/.
■ SUNDAY, AUGUST 11
Dedication of the Serra Statue. Mission Basilica San
Buenaventura, 211 E. Main St., San Buenaventura, 6 p.m.
Archbishop José H. Gomez and Bishop Slawomir Szkredka
will celebrate a special Mass to dedicate the statue of St.
Junípero Serra, recently moved to the Mission. Mass will
also welcome the two-day “Mission Walkers” from Mission
Santa Barbara to Mission Basilica San Buenaventura.
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.
May 31, 2024 • ANGELUS • 45