Pope Leo names San Diego bishop who had fled Communism as young refugee
Second story: Fame, like rest of life, passes quickly. Store up heavenly riches.
To provide some other news and events, here are two articles I wrote that went to press on May 29, 2025, in the other publication I’m with, the national weekly Catholic paper The Wanderer (the issue dated for June 5).
I’ll be posting my regular Substack.com article for the week here later.
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Successor To Cardinal McElroy — New San Diego Bishop Pham Had Suffered Under Communism
By DEXTER C. DUGGAN
A longtime parishioner at one of the Diocese of San Diego parishes that was pastored by newly named San Diego Bishop Michael Pham told The Wanderer that she has positive memories of him, the first U.S. episcopal selection of Pope Leo XIV.
"His sermons were always orthodox, and he was a good listener in confession” at Good Shepherd Church, she said on May 26.
She also recalled: "Since he'd been in the U.S. for years, his English was very good, of course. Before vesting for Mass, he would often shake hands with people in the pews. He struck me as being friendly and approachable, but not a 'hail-fellow-well-met,' back-slapping type ….
"As I recall, he never spoke about his life in Communist Vietnam. Maybe there were happenings then that he'd rather forget," she said.
As a 13-year-old, Pham and his family risked their lives and fled Communist- conquered former South Vietnam in 1980, eventually moving to San Diego from Minnesota, where they had been sponsored.
Pham is the first Vietnamese American Catholic bishop.
Good Shepherd is a large parish in northeast San Diego, in the community of Mira Mesa, and has long been a multicultural parish, before "multiculturalism" became a trendy idea.
Among statues along a corridor at the rear of the church building are ones honoring Vietnamese, Filipino, and Latino figures.
Pham's having served at Good Shepherd might have been due partly to its ethnic variety, the parishioner said. "That Mira Mesa has a lot of Filipino, Vietnamese, and other Asian folks probably factored into that, since of course he speaks Vietnamese and English….
“He had seemed to run the parish well — I don’t recall any major problems or anything like that in the day-to-day parish doings. He seemed to have the brains — he studied astrophysics in college before deciding on the priesthood — and the quiet type of ability with people that sometimes marks someone who will move up in life,” she said.
She said she and her husband first met Pham when he previously served at St. Thérèse of Lisieux Parish, which they sometimes attended for Mass and confession.
The woman asked not to be named so as not to seem to be drawing attention to herself.
Interestingly, Mira Mesa isn’t far from the hilltop community of Rancho Penasquitos, which is where now-Second Lady Usha Vance grew up after her parents arrived from India.
Had served under McElroy in San Diego
Being in San Diego, Pham, ordained in 1999, had been under the authority for ten years of that diocese’s bishop, and later cardinal, Robert W. McElroy, a strong political leftist favored by Pope Francis, who early this year appointed him as archbishop of Washington, D.C.
Observers noted the opportunity for McElroy to denounce President Donald J. Trump basically on his own doorstep.
Early during Trump's first term as president, McElroy spoke out on the supposed need to be disruptors of the Trump administration.
In February 2017, I wrote a story for The Wanderer about then-Bishop McElroy’s full- throated rejection of Trump conservatism during an invitation-only gathering in Modesto, Calif., of the World Meeting of Popular Movements, reportedly attended by an estimated 700 people from 12 countries.
I reported: “Emphasizing the importance that McElroy attributed to his Modesto speech, the homepage of his San Diego diocesan website played it as the top item, ‘San Diego Catholic bishop calls leaders to disrupt and rebuild’.”
Among remarks McElroy made in Modesto in 2017: “Well now, we must all become disruptors. We must disrupt those who would seek to send troops into our streets to deport the undocumented, to rip mothers and fathers from their families. We must disrupt those who portray refugees as enemies rather than our brothers and sisters in terrible need.”
I also wrote back then: “Apparently rejecting the traditional principle of subsidiarity …McElroy dogmatically claimed that ‘the tradition of Catholic social teaching is unequivocally on the side of strong governmental and societal protections,’ and also that free markets ‘must be structured by government to accomplish the common good’.”
Pro-life stand, but not a priority
Like Pope Francis, McElroy had a public reputation for taking a plain pro-life stand, but didn’t act as if it was his priority.
The San Diego woman told The Wanderer that Pham “was one of the three bishops consecrated that were Cardinal McElroy’s auxiliaries, and after McElroy was transferred to D.C., Bishop Pham was made the 'unofficial,' as it were, bishop for administrative purposes until someone could be appointed. Of course, Pope Francis died and another pope had to be elected first," before a new San Diego bishop could be named.
As the new bishop, Pham may have felt constrained when asked by reporters about having served under McElroy. Pham said he was grateful to be bishop in the same diocese of his priesthood.
The online Times of San Diego posted on May 22: “‘This was great news — that I get to stay home in my own diocese,’ [Pham] said, thanking God and expressing gratitude to McElroy for ‘laying the groundwork’ for the 1.3 million-Catholic diocese and ‘following the vision of Pope Francis,’ including McElroy’s focus on synodality.”
The online news site added: "Asked if McElroy had influenced the pope to pick him, Pham said: ‘I think, with his voice, I’m sure he had some sort of thumb on that [scale]’.”
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As Time Goes By — The Famous And The Less-So See Their Situations Change
By DEXTER C. DUGGAN
PHOENIX — When some or even all parts of life seem unpleasant or worse, trust in God and pray because — as it has throughout history — time passes and situations change. Suffering and onerous people — bosses and bishops, bores and the bothersome — don’t stay the same forever.
That might sound preachy, but I had a strong illustration of it in late May when a well-known local afternoon radio talk host was on the air. You know how it works. Unless maybe you’re wearing earbuds or have a radio in your pocket, you probably don’t sit next to the sound device on your table for three hours.
You’re in and out of the room. You catch a piece of conversation, walk off elsewhere, then come back and hear a part of something different.
On May 27, I walked back into the room where my computer was playing and heard the middle-aged host mention Farrah Fawcett. Now there’s a name from the past. How many younger people even know it at all? But she was a beautiful worldwide entertainment sensation a half-century ago.
Oops, physical beauty is one of the most fleeting of qualities. A beautiful 20-year-old will be a rather different-looking 70-year-old, even if you can manage to see some of the younger her after that half-century passed.
And, hopefully, she’ll have learned a lot by then.
Store up heavenly riches
Store up your riches in spiritual growth and strength, the Bible counsels, to have lasting wealth, because the other kind deteriorates, decays, or disappears. And there truly was an unfortunate turn for Farrah Fawcett.
The radio host went on to say that she was in the television detective series Charlie’s Angels for only one year, its first year, which formally debuted in September 1976 and lasted five seasons.
The program was about three female private detectives who got their assignments from unseen “Charlie Townsend.”
She had become so famous and went on to other TV and movie work. Could just one year of Charlie’s Angels be true? Because that’s what I immediately would connect her name with. I researched it on the computer and that turned out to be correct.
I also learned she was a Catholic, which I don’t recall hearing previously, so apparently that wasn’t a marketing point for her. Or else I didn’t follow her career closely enough.
I remember waiting to go to confession one day in San Diego. The chapel had some modest-sized stained-glass windows on hinges. The windows were open thanks to San Diego’s often-temperate weather.
With the windows open, I noticed, straight across the street on a very large poster, a photo with Farrah Fawcett advertising something. Probably one of her programs.
Saw her about anywhere
No surprise at my seeing her at confession. You could see her about anywhere.
Wikipedia says: “Her hairstyle went on to become an international trend, with women sporting a ‘Farrah-do,’ a ‘Farrah-flip,’ or simply ‘Farrah hair.’ Iterations of her hairstyle predominated among American women’s hairstyles well into the 1980s.”
Very true. If I merely hear something like “Farrah hairstyle,” I immediately understand.
To have that much influence merely due to the strands on your head. Not to mention whatever else you could draw attention to or about.
When we see a woman in public view wearing, say, a cross around her neck, or a Star of David, that tells us something. And tells us something about what she wants to be known for. Like White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
I wonder how many consultants of one sort or another give advice to clients to avoid these demonstrations because they supposedly will offend someone or other. I like seeing a Jewish man wearing a kippah because it shows devotion to God.
Farrah Fawcett married another entertainment star, Lee Majors, and became Farrah Fawcett Majors for a while, until they divorced. The pressure of both being major stars was said to be a negative factor for their marriage.
My research revealed other factors for unhappiness, too. Could they have been avoided with more time spent for God?
To think that how you look or what you eat or how you behave might be a major influence on thousands or hundreds of thousands of other people could be a considerable burden. Or, for some, maybe fuel an outsize ego.
Farrah Fawcett was diagnosed with cancer in 2006 but fought it determinedly with different approaches until her death in 2009 at age 62.
Tribute from a co-star
Wikipedia says her Charlie’s Angels co-star Kate Jackson paid her this tribute, as reported in TV Guide:
“She was a selfless person who loved her family and friends with all her heart, and what a big heart it was. Farrah showed immense courage and grace throughout her illness and was an inspiration to those around her …. I well remember her kindness, her cutting dry wit, and, of course, her beautiful smile ….When you think of Farrah, remember her smiling because that is exactly how she wanted to be remembered: smiling.”
I once walked through the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, where The Doors’ singer Jim Morrison and centuries of other famous and powerful people have come to rest. I didn’t see any evidence of their greatness, aside from the fact that many of them apparently had the money to be interred in nice little houses along the pathways.
Jim Morrison must have had that kind of money. However, he was just under a slab when I went by. I figure I won’t even get that; rather, I’ll probably get the same type of one-crypt-among-many that Mom and Dad have.
On the other hand, 20th century press magnate William Randolph Hearst is in a Hearst family crypt — one of those little houses — in Colma, a “city of cemeteries,” rather than have them scattered here and there, south of San Francisco.
A California girl goes on a date with me in the 20th century and I take her to Hearst’s crypt! But also to a medieval fair northeast of San Francisco Bay and other attractions.
There are many ways to pass the time, but the time comes when there is no time, just the everlasting. And, we hope, a deserved place for us to enjoy it all.