NEWS
1998 NEWS STORIES
December
November
October
September
July/August
June
May
April
March
February
January
ARTICLES
LETTERS
ROAMIN' CATHOLIC
Contents © 1998
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
NEWS
NOVEMBER 1998
'NO NEW CATHEDRAL!' shouted protesters who advanced on Roger Cardinal Mahony, Wednesday, October 14, as he prepared to "break the ground" at the Temple and Grand site for his $163 million cathedral. According to the Los Angeles Times, as the cardinal "lifted a burgundy cloth, unveiling an artist's rendering of the new cathedral," four members of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker and an Episcopal priestess, chanted aloud, "No new cathedral! Spend God's money on God's poor!" Spotting the protesters, said the Times, "a robbed [sic] friar [archdiocesan spokesman, Father Gregory Coiro] broke away from the festivities, trotted across the lot and tried--by asking, tugging and, finally, tussling--to get them to leave." But, despite Coiro's efforts, the protesters advanced, climbed the earthmover with which the cardinal would "break the ground," and remained there, praying the rosary, until police dragged them away. The protesters, said Coiro, "made it impossible for us to do the groundbreaking."
Father Coiro told the Mission that the Times's description of his "tussling" with the protesters was just journalistic "color." In reality, he said, he merely grabbed Catholic Worker Jeff Dietrich's elbows as the latter passed him. The Catholic Workers' intent, said Coiro, is only "to cause embarrassment" to the cardinal. "I don't think Jesus set out to embarrass people." "The Catholic Worker people," he said, "know that the cathedral is going to be built," and their "anti-Vietnam war tactics" are not going to stop it.
Jeff Dietrich laughed when the Mission asked him whether he merely wanted to embarrass Mahony. "My heart is broken that the cardinal is embarrassed," he said, with mock concern. "But our intent is to speak as truthfully and forcefully and profoundly as we can... the word of God. We understand that the Catholic Tradition calls for the building of cathedrals, but we also recognize that within the the 5,000 year tradition of the Hebrew-Christian people, that the priestly and prophetic visions are always in tension. And we humbly, but boldly, attempt to represent that prophetic vision that says that our God cannot be housed in a house of stone." Dietrich said that this "prophetic vision" is "the vision of Jesus... And I know that that's in conflict with traditional Catholicism. And I would argue that the prophetic tradition is even critical of orthodoxy."
"I think," continued Dietrich, "that it's important that the poor be fed and housed, and I think that any sacred tradition that calls for worship before we care for the poor is blasphemous... I acknowledge that there is justification for both perspectives [i.e., the prophetic and priestly]. I think that what tends to happen, however, is that the priestly perspective that the cardinal and the Church represent tends to subsume the entire vision, and I'm trying to claim ground for a prophetic critique and saying that the cardinal does not have that prophetic perspective, that he's standing too closely to the rich."
According to the Times, while Cardinal Mahony praised the Catholic Workers' charitable endeavors in the inner city, he told those gathered for the groundbreaking that it is possible for the Church to build beautiful churches and still help the poor. "Everyone," he said, "has a right to enjoy God's presence in a beautiful building."
Dietrich said he does not disagree with this perspective. "Yes, it can be done," he said. "What I want to hear is, how? I haven't heard it yet! I'm going to keep my voice out there until I hear it! Where are the other people who are opposed to this, the silent voices of the Church, that actually do support us, but are afraid to say anything? Or don't care? And I care enough to put my life on the line for this. I care enough about the Church to stand out there in public and risk being ridiculed and going to jail, because I love the Church. I hope that what we do, by projecting this prophetic word to this situation, provokes a dialogue. That it provokes some kind of response."
Dietrich, however, thinks since the cardinal can build the cathedral "without having to talk to anybody in the diocese" (since private donors, not the parishes, will pay for it), he can avoid a dialogue. "If he had to ask for money from his own priests, then you damn well better believe there'd be discussion about it... There's been no discussion among the laity, there's been no discussion among the priesthood--it's just gone forward under the impetus of a billionaire boys and girls club. It's gone forward as a redevelopment project... He thinks this ugly monstrosity is going to be appealing to generations ahead, but [it] is not a reflection of the deep and profound faith of the people of this diocese. It's a reflection of who he is, and its a reflection of this moment in history. It is not a reflection of some kind of transcendent moment... that's why it's so ugly."
A REQUIEM MASS WAS HELD Saturday, October 10 for 54 aborted babies dumped, March 1997, in a field in Chino Hills [See "An Act of Mercy," Oct. 1998 Mission]. During the Mass, the tiny white coffins, each adorned with a single red rose, were laid at the foot of the altar. The concelebrated Mass was held at St. Paul the Apostle parish in Chino Hills. In his homily, the pastor, Father Michael Maher, spoke about the parable of Lazarus and the rich man and that this parable applied to the babies because, while alive, they had been unwanted and now in death they were with God. He also read a paragraph from the Mission article about the babies: "One spring day, children played in a field. In the course of their games, they discovered children much smaller than they, much younger and dead...." The Knights of Columbus served as the honor guard for the babies.
After the Mass, some of the participants went to Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Chino where they prayed the Rosary before processing a mile to a nearby abortion clinic. The procession was led by a life-size picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the unborn. Father Robert Tomkins, who is the parochial vicar at St. Paul the Apostle Church, led the Rosary. The pro-lifers in Chino had worked closely with the Chino police department to ensure that the procession went off without any mishaps. During the planning stages, the Chino abortion clinic had been informed that the plans included praying the rosary in front of the clinic. Because of this, the clinic decided not to open its doors that Saturday. After the recitation of the rosary, the group returned to the church.
Father Howard Lincoln, spokesman for the Diocese of San Bernardino, told the Mission: "I think that it is tragically wonderful that this happened. I think it shows that babies are not disposable medical waste, but they are real persons, real human beings and entitled to a decent burial. And I think that it also says that when a woman is pregnant, she's not just pregnant with a bunch of cells, but she's pregnant with a baby which is a unique creation of God and as disciples of God; we are held accountable for all human life."
The following Sunday, the babies were buried in a plot donated by Crestlawn Memorial Park in Riverside. There was a large turn-out for the graveside service. Father Maher blessed the ground and several local area pastors gave very moving talks. Towards the end of the service, a little girl walked to the grave, carrying a small wicker basket. As she opened her basket, a white dove flew out, pausing on the basket before joining 53 other white doves that were simultaneously released from the top of a hill. The doves then circled the graveside in unison several times before flying off into the distance. The crowd then sang a slow, heart wrenching rendition of "Amazing Grace."
At the head of the plot was a large, upright tombstone which read: "These names are Recorded on this Stone as They are in Heaven." Each of the 54 babies were named by various pro-life groups and their names were etched on the tombstone. Mortuary services were donated by Draper Mortuary. Both Crestlawn and Draper are owned by Catholic families.
The American Civil Liberties Union protested the Riverside Coroner's office allowing the pro-lifers to bury the babies, saying the action violated the separation of church and state. According to a October 14 Catholic World News report, Elizabeth Schroeder, associate director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, protested that the action of the coroner's office was "more than just the appearance of the state sanctioning a particular religious belief. Under California law there is only one way to dispose of this material... by incineration."
Schroeder cited a 1994 decision made by a California appeals court ruling that the Los Angeles County district attorney's office confused church and state when it proposed religious services for the burial of 16,500 aborted children.
"THE MARVELOUS RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CHURCH in your country is to spread this truth"-- "the truth about man that is revealed in Jesus Christ." So said His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, in his October 2 ad limina address in Rome to Roger Cardinal Mahony and the bishops of California, Nevada, and Hawaii. The pope's address emphasized the duty of the Church in the United States to cherish the "gift of life" and defend it against the "culture of death." In his talk, the Holy Father drew the bishops' attention to such threats to life as artificial contraception, abortion, and the legalization of euthanasia and suicide.
On the subject of birth control, John Paul said the teaching of Pope Paul VI's "prophetic encyclical", Humanae Vitae, "honors married love, promotes the dignity of women, and helps couples grow in understanding the truth of their particular path to holiness. It is also a response to contemporary culture's temptation to reduce life to a commodity." John Paul called on the bishops, along with their "priests, deacons, seminarians, and other pastoral personnel" to "present this teaching in a comprehensible and compelling way. Marriage-preparation programs should include an honest and complete presentation of the Church's teachings on responsible procreation, and should explain the natural methods of regulating fertility, the legitimacy of which is based on respect for the human meaning of sexual intimacy."
Regarding abortion, the pope exhorted the bishops to make "every effort to ensure that there is no dulling of consciences regarding the seriousness of the crime of abortion." The pontiff called for support for women in crisis pregnancies, and counseling for those who have had an abortion. "American Catholics," he said, "should be more than ever willing to open their hearts and their homes to 'unwanted' and abandoned children, to young people in difficulty, to the handicapped, and to those who have no one to care for them."
Concerning euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, the pope said "their legalization introduces a direct threat to the persons least capable of defending themselves and it proves most harmful to the democratic institutions of society." Encouraging "an even broader ecumenical and inter-religious movement in defense of the culture of life and the civilization of love," the pope insisted that such an ecumenical witness demands "a great teaching effort" to clarify "the substantive moral difference between discontinuing medical procedures that may be burdensome, dangerous, or disproportionate to the expected outcome, what the Catechism of the Catholic Church calls 'the refusal of "over-zealous treatment."'" He said that the U.S. bishops' pro-life committee's statement, Nutrition and Hydration, Moral and Pastoral Considerations, "rightly emphasizes that the omission of nutrition and hydration intended to cause a patient's death must be rejected and that while giving careful consideration to all the factors involved, the presumption should be in favor of providing medically assisted nutrition and hydration to all patients who need them."
The bishops, said John Paul, "must continue to draw attention to the relationship of the moral law to constitutional and positive law" in American society. In defending life, bishops, priests, laymen, and legislators are "defending an original and vital part of the vision on which your country was built."
But more than a leaven to society, the pope said "Catholic moral teaching is an essential part of our heritage of faith; we must see to it that it is faithfully transmitted, and take appropriate measures to guard the faithful from the deceit of opinions which dissent from it." The pontiff concluded his address exhorting the bishops to be "personally vigilant to ensure that only sound doctrine of faith and morals is presented as Catholic teaching."
DURING HIS AD LIMINA VISIT October 2, Roger Cardinal Mahony discussed his controversy with Mother Angelica and her Eternal Word Television Network. In an interview with the National Catholic Reporter, Mahony said he met with Cardinal Eduardo Martinez Somalo, who heads the Vatican congregation for religious, to discuss "follow-up" action on the Mother Angelica controversy. According to Mahony, Somalo's congregation has been working closely with Mother Angelica to ensure her network, in the future, has a "positive thrust." "The congregation," said Mahony, "has been most helpful, because they realize it is not in the best interest of the church to have any programming attacking bishops or anybody else in the church." Mahony said that a policy statement for EWTN outlining the networks vision in a way that offers a "guarantee or promise that this is going to be positive for the church" is one part of a solution.
Mahony also voiced concern that other media, calling itself "Catholic," represent what NCR calls "mainstream church thinking," instead of the thinking of extreme left or right wings.
MISUNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT "THE TRUE NATURE OF THE LITURGY" have led to "deviations, which lead to abuses, polarization, and sometimes even grave scandals," Pope John Paul told the bishops of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska, October 9, during their annual ad limina visit to Rome, according to a Catholic World News report. The Vatican Council, said the pope, had intended that liturgical reform would be guided by Catholic tradition, involving a return to the writings of the Church Fathers, Sacred Scripture, and to the moral and theological traditions. The pontiff said the answer to the challenges of liturgical reform lay in "returning more deeply into the dimension of contemplative adoration."
While encouraging the faithful to an "active" and "conscious" participation in the liturgy, the pope said their demeanor should embrace "silence," "calm," and "listening," since their fundamental dispositions should be "faith, reverence, and adoration." The liturgy, he said, does not require continual noise and action, but needs "to make explicit what is implicit."
IN A MESSAGE, PERHAPS, RELEVANT TO CALIFORNIANS, Pope John Paul II on October 9 issued a statement urging Catholics to work "with greater clarity and determination" to aid immigrants, according to a Catholic World News report. The pope was addressing an international conference on migrants and immigrants, organized by the Pontifical Council for Migrants.
While acknowledging the complexity of the immigration problem, Pope John Paul singled out various factors that lead to immigration: warfare, persecution, "irrational industrialization," and "galloping corruption." He called for a correction for the tendencies that allow the powerful to control the markets of less developed countries. Economic globalization, said the pontiff, impinges negatively when it allows systems of production "based on the logic of exploitation of workers."
The pontiff's October 9 address echoed a September 27 Angelus audience where, denouncing the "immoral spectacle" of the profound rifts between opulence and poverty where "a portion of humanity enjoys all the advantages of economic well-being and scientific progress, while the enormous mass lives in condition so extreme indigence," the pope called on Christians "to promote a culture and policy of solidarity, beginning in the heart of each person, in his ability to let himself be challenged by those in need." Sunday, said the pope, "must be a special day of charity if it is to be spent as the Lord's day in every respect."
PRIOR TO THE NOVEMBER 3RD ELECTION, various pro-life groups were busy handing out literature at parishes in the Diocese of Orange. Concerned about Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez's strong support of partial birth abortion, Catholic Voters for Christian Values during October handed out thousands of flyers in English and Spanish to parishioners as they left Mass. The flyers contained a cartoon drawing of Sanchez seated at a desk with a baby lying on the desk. Sanchez looks down in fright at the shivering infant. The flyer went on to outline Sanchez's support of partial birth abortion and her opposition to parental consent laws. The flyer spelled out the Catholic Church's position on abortion, and asked voters not to be accomplices to Sanchez's actions.
The group, headed by Randy Reyes, has had problems with their flyer distribution at two parishes: St. Boniface's in Anaheim and St. Joseph's in Santa Ana. While handing out flyers at St. Joseph's, October, 3 at the Saturday night Spanish Virgil Mass, the pastor, Father Christopher Smith, said Reyes, asked him what he was doing. When Reyes gave Father Smith a copy of his flyer, the priest became incensed and told him: "Get out of here!" Reyes told the priest that he was within his rights to pass out literature while standing on the sidewalk. Father Smith then called the Santa Ana police department who came out to the parish. When the police officers told Father Smith that Reyes had a constitutional right to pass out flyers, Smith replied, "Well then I'll have to address this from the pulpit." Father Smith did not return the Mission's phone calls.
According to Reyes other parishes were very receptive to the flyers. At St. Anthony Claret in Anaheim one of the priests, given the flyer, told them: "We have a lot more people coming attending the 5 and 6:30 p.m. Spanish Mass." At St. Justin Martyr, parishioners told the Catholic Voters for Christian Values, "it's about time, you guys are doing a great thing, keep up the great work." Some parishioners expressed an interest in contributing to the group. The group has gone to all 15 parishes in the Diocese of Orange, and has gone to at least half of the Spanish Masses, and about 45 percent of the English and Vietnamese Masses.
Catholic Voters for Christian Values is a Political Action Committee that was formed by Frank Venti after he saw a need to find a vehicle to tell Catholic voters about the pro-abortion leanings of many Latino Catholic politicians. Venti told the Mission that during his race against Diane Martinez in 1996 for the 49th Assembly District he learned that Latino Democrats, who are overwhelming Catholic, did not share the same values that pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia candidate Diane Martinez espoused in Sacramento. Instead, they simply voted for a candidate based on a Latino surname. Appalled by the use of her Catholicism to garner votes, Venti decided that Latino Democrats needed to know about the voting record of their elected officials in light of the Church's teachings on issues such as abortion and euthanasia.
THE CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY held its 1998 Fall Convention September 25 at the Hyatt Regency in Long Beach. According to California Republican Party Chairman, Michael Schroeder, Long Beach was the logical site for the convention because "Dan Lungren's hometown illustrates just how important this campaign season is to this party and how serious we are about pushing him and Matt Fong over the top in November."
The high point of the day was the General Session which followed the luncheon. The General Session was presided over by former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Jack Kemp. Kemp received a standing ovation from the floor when he said that there was no compromising on Partial Birth Abortion, a pointed reference to an issue that has been debated at length in the Republican party. Kemp introduced the Republican candidate for Governor, Dan Lungren.
Lungren spoke of the Republican Party as being the party of inclusion, where all races would be welcomed into the tent. He was careful, however, to avoid any reference to the "Big Tent" notion of some Republicans who are calling for the Party to drop its pro-life plank. Lungren told the crowd that his pro-life position comes from his Catholic faith and he would not change his position--something which brought an enthusiastic round of applause from the floor. Lungren also told the group that in California, Latinos were becoming a very big political factor and that Republicans were going to have to embrace them in the party. Afterwards, Lungren met with leaders of the Latino Republicans where he again reiterated his outreach to the Latino community.
Polls showed Lungren doing well in the Latino community. A recent field poll showed Lungren with 36% of the Latino vote. In addition to the Latino Republicans, Lungren met with leaders from the African-American Republican community as well as the leaders of the Asian American Republican community.