Michelle Martin at Chicago Catholic:
When Father Manuel Dorantes celebrated a Mass for the journalists who have been killed in the war in Ukraine April 3, he did so with the intention of honoring all journalists and their vocation of seeking truth. “There can be no justice in any situation without access to the truth,” said Dorantes in his homily, speaking about how Jesus did not accept the partial truth of the accusations against the woman caught in adultery — accusations that were made, according to John’s Gospel, to test Jesus. “Like Jesus, I want you to go deeper and seek the truth,” Dorantes told the journalists who came for Mass at St. Mary of the Lake Church, 4220 N. Sheridan Road. “You may not be on the front lines of the war in Ukraine, but you are on the front lines in this city.” If journalists do not pursue the truth, Dorantes said, “we are all doomed.”
The Mass was suggested by WBEZ radio reporter Michael Puente after the death of Brent Reynaud, who was shot to death in Irpin on March 13. Reynaud, a video journalist and documentary filmmaker, had connections in Chicago after making the 2014 Peabody Award-winning documentary “Last Chance High” about Moses Montefiore Academy.