NEWS
2003 NEWS STORIES
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ROAMIN' CATHOLIC
Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
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NEWS
December 2003
THE CARDINAL'S KARAOKE. Mahony won't raise the question of a married clergy at "higher church levels," archdiocesan spokesman Tod Tamberg told the Los Angeles Times (October 11). Why? Because the pope has said the issue is closed? Perhaps, but Tamberg did not say so. The cardinal will not open the issue with the Holy See, said Tamberg, because he "believes that any such discussion should begin at the grass-roots level."
Presumably, to foster this "grass-roots level" discussion, Mahony allowed his priests to vent their support for a married clergy at their annual meeting with the cardinal in early October. The Times said that the cardinal provided an "open mike" session for his frustrated priests at the meeting. During this session, Monsignor Terrence Richey suggested that "the discussions" about a married clergy should "go on among clergy and bishops in a way that is not seen as being disloyal to the church." Monsignor told the Times that Cardinal Mahony "basically agreed with those sentiments." Monsignor Clement Connolly, pastor of Holy Family Church in South Pasadena, pointed out to the Times the new liberty that allows priests to discuss celibacy openly. "We have made an extraordinary shift in the last 10 years," said Connolly. "It's a new day when we can even talk about this now with respectability and a certain reverence and understanding." Evoking the priest shortage as a reason for supporting a married clergy, Father Jarlath Cunnane of St. Thomas the Apostle in Los Angeles said, "the right to the Eucharist is a more important right and value than a celibate clergy." Monsignor David O'Connell noted that allowing a married clergy would allow leaders to arise in local parishes.
OPEN BOOING greeted those who questioned celibacy at the priests meeting, said the Times story; but according an attendee (who asked not to be named), the booing actually erupted when Monsignor Lloyd Torgerson stood up and suggested the Church ordain women, as well as married men, to the priesthood. Torgerson is the pastor of St. Monica's church in Santa Monica and, according to reports, close to Cardinal Mahony.
Those who at the meeting voiced their disapproval of Torgerson's suggestion were, according to both the attendee and the Times, young priests who have been ordained during the pontificate of John Paul II. The "progressives" were the graying cadre of those ordained during the years surrounding the Second Vatican Council. "The older guys are the ones who bring up this stuff and it's disheartening to the younger guys," Father Marcos Gonzalez (ordained 1994) of St.Andrew's church in Pasadena told the Times. "The real issue is that we need to promote vocations to the priesthood." Gonzalez said that "if we allowed married clergy, we'd be losing something valuable -- the significance of a celibate priest as a man of God dedicated to God, church and family with an undivided heart." The associate pastor of St. Raymond church in Downey, Father Donatus Ekanachi, said, "Rome knows what it's doing. The Catholic Church has one head, and anyone who challenges that head becomes a rebel."
IHM MEANS "I HATE McINTYRE." A letter writer into the October 10 National Catholic Reporter, Dominican father John Francis Kobler, said he was "somewhat dismayed" by a review of Anita Caspary's book, Witness to Integrity, published in the September 5 Reporter. Kobler called the review by Joan Chittester a "serene endorsement" of Caspary's book, which details the late '60s controversy between the Immaculate Heart of Mary sisters and then-Los Angeles archbishop, James Cardinal McIntyre. Kobler, who said he gave retreats in Los Angeles in 1967-68, said, at the time, the IHMs were known as the "I Hate McIntyre" sisters. Kobler said he asked the IHMs for a copy of their new constitutions. "As I read the spiritual vision embodied in these experimental adaptations," writes Kobler, "I had the queasy feeling that the sisters' three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience had metamorphosed into liberty, equality and fraternity."
Kobler then lays out some information about the controversy from Monsignor Francis J. Weber's biography of Cardinal McIntyre, His Eminence of Los Angeles. Among the tidbits is the following: "when the majority of the IHM nuns opted to become a noncanonical confederation of religious women, Sr. Anita had the property and assets of the IHMs sheltered in such a way that legally left the 60 or so nuns who wanted to stay with their traditional religious life out in the cold! Only by Cardinal Timothy Manning's strenuous efforts were they able to get a place to live and a small settlement from the new community."
Kobler opines in his letter that the "IHM episode. exemplifies a widespread trend toward congregationalism in the American Catholic church." The "absolutely nonnegotiable item" in the new congregationalism among Catholics, says Kobler, is the rejection of Paul VI's 1968 condemnation of contraception. "This obsession," writes Kobler, "says a lot about the so-called progressive understanding of Vatican II."
CARDINAL ROGER MAHONY on October 24 wrote how it is "a source of great joy" for him to know "that many worshiping communities in the Archdiocese have taken to heart the goals set in my Pastoral Letter on the Sunday Mass, Gather Faithfully Together (September 1997)." In the letter, published in the Tidings, the cardinal said that "the spirit of the Pastoral Letter is much in keeping with our Holy Father's Apostolic Letter, Dies Domini, 'On Keeping the Lord's Day Holy' (1998)." Not only that, but Mahony suggested that the new General Instruction on the Roman Missal fits nicely into his liturgical "renewal." "The new General Instruction on the Roman Missal (GIRM) will assist us further in our efforts at a liturgical renewal that is at once vibrant and reverent," wrote Mahony. The archdiocese, he said, would begin "study and work" with the General Instruction beginning on the First Sunday of Advent 2003 so that it can be "fruitfully implemented by the First Sunday of Lent 2004."
While awaiting the "official translations of the third edition of the Roman Missal," both ordained and lay ministers, Mahony said, "can begin to study and implement the new GIRM, a source of rich theological and pastoral insights for good liturgical and sacramental celebration."
"LET ME DRAW ATTENTION to two of the highlights of the liturgical vision expressed in the new GIRM," Mahony's letter continued. The first, he said, is the "formative role of silence." Silence observed after the penitential rite, at the conclusion of readings and homilies, and after communion "forms us and shapes us, by allowing for recollection, meditation, and quiet contemplation," wrote the cardinal, quoting the General Instruction. The second highlight, Mahony said, is "among the most important statements in the new Instruction." Again, quoting the General Instruction, Mahony emphasized that in Mass "the faithful form a holy people, a people whom God has made his own, a royal priesthood, so that they may give thanks to God and offer the spotless Victim not only through the hands of the priest but also together with him, and so that they may learn to offer themselves. They should, moreover, endeavor to make this clear by their deep religious sense and their charity toward brothers and sisters who participate with them in the same celebration."
To this end, Mahony said that the new General Instruction calls for unity of posture among the worshipping faithful. In the archdiocese, this means "the faithful stand from the Our Father, the beginning of the Communion Rite, until all have received Communion. They may sit or kneel during the time of sacred silence after all have received." The cardinal here refers to the General Instruction, which leaves it to the bishop to decide whether the faithful shall stand or kneel after the Agnus Dei. Among the other gestures of unity is the common singing of the communion hymn and the common manner of showing reverence for the Eucharist -- the bowing of the head.
A GOOD PLACE TO START. The Rev. Ron Rollheiser presented this "helpful" mental image in the October 17 Tidings as a metaphor for one's religious journey: imagine "you're a strip of litmus paper and then analyze the colors you turn as you fall into the various acids of life and religion." One of the first acids, it seems, that Father Rollheiser himself fell into was what he called conservatism. Rollheiser's parents, he relates, were "conservative" -- that is, they had a "fear of change" and "liked things safe, solid, to be known in their consequences before they were tried." They had "faith in the old taboos: Always be careful about your friends, your morals, your religion, your soul. Be careful too about sex." This faith was partly fear, said Rollheiser, partly wisdom -- a wisdom "that more parents ought to impart to their children."
As he grew and studied, Rollheiser said, that, because of his parents' conservatism, he didn't take "to new ideas easily." But Rollheiser has journeyed "a long ways from the religious home of my parents." Today, Rollheiser said, he moves "with ease among Protestants and Evangelicals;" he is "comfortable. in their churches, with their prayer, their faith, their friendship." He is "growing more comfortable too with Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Native religions, even secular religion," though he is "not always fully at home here;" but "these faiths and cultures" have aspects "where I'm at home and from where I can travel easily back and forth to my own religious home."
When he is in Rome, Rollheiser said he thinks of the pope "penning some encyclical or church ordinance, parts of which will no doubt irritate me." But what of it? "Like my dad, the pope knows the value of the old taboos, even if sometimes they express fear along with wisdom. I'm at home in Rome, just as I am with my Protestant friends. I thank my parents for that. Conservatism is a good place to start from."
NO WAY. Christian Students in the senior class at Fountain Valley High School in Fountain Valley were excluded from a senior class picture for their religious witness, said an October 30 Pacific Justice Institute news release. Several students wore shirts with symbols and individual words which, when taken together, read "Jesus Is The Way" and "Jesus [Loves] You." School officials, however, told the students they might not express any kind of religious message in a school picture. Because the students were not able immediately to change their shirts, they were excluded from the photograph, though Muslim students, who were wearing their religious headgear, were allowed to remain.
Brad Dacus of the Pacific Justice Institute sent a letter to Fountain Valley High School officials, emphasizing that the school, seemingly, violated not only "the free speech and religious free exercise rights of various students" but had "violated the often misunderstood and misapplied 'separation between church and state' doctrine by discriminatorily allowing one group of students to wear their religious clothing, but disallowing another group from wearing theirs."
THE ABORTION RATE DROPPED in the 1990s, but so did the pregnancy rate, said a November 1 Reuters report. The National Center for Health Statistics said that in the United States the number of pregnancies dropped seven percent from a peak in 1990, the birth rate dropped nine percent, while the abortion rate dropped 22 percent. According to the National Center (a part of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), "the 1999 total pregnancy count includes about 3.96 million live births, 1.31 million induced abortions, and 1 million fetal losses (miscarriages and stillbirths)."
According to the National Center, the highest pregnancy rate was found in women ages 20 to 24 and "teen pregnancy rates have reached historic lows, dropping 25% from 1990 to 1999. The birth rate dropped 19% and the abortion rate was down 39% in this age group." Why these drops? Reuters quoted Stephanie Ventura, a demographer who worked on the study: "It probably suggests a decline in unwanted pregnancies," said Ventura. "That is probably reflecting better use of contraception and more effective means -- some of the new hormonal methods that have come out."
MAHONY SAYS: FOLLOW AMERICA'S LEAD. In an October 15 interview with reporters -- just a day before Pope John Paul II celebrated his 25th anniversary as pope -- Cardinal Roger Mahony spoke of the "uneven situation of the church throughout the world." According to Catholic News Service, Mahony noted that while "in many places our churches are filled to overflowing," in Europe church attendance is very low. The cardinal noted that Church should study the United States church, which, he said, has succeeded in renewing parish life. Mahony then recounted an alleged conversation he had had with the pope about lay movements. "We were asking him why (the church in Europe) favors [lay] movements so much," Mahony said. "And he said to us, 'You must remember that these movements are primarily here in Europe because there is no life at the parish level.'" According to an October 18 Associated Press report, Mahony said that one of the biggest problems he and other American bishops face is the inadequacy of their church facilities to hold the number of Catholics who attend Mass. The reports did not say whether the cardinal cited Latino immigration as a major cause of the U.S. Church's growth in numbers.
IT WAS "MY TENACITY and faith that has seen me through my many years in entertainment," said actor Ricardo Montalban on October 19, when he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Catholics in Media Associates, said the October 24 Tidings. The Associates' eleventh annual luncheon and Mass was held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Auxiliary Bishop Edward Clark and ten archdiocesan priests presided at the Mass. Montalban was honored for what the Tidings called "his body of work including Fantasy Island, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and more than 50 performances in movies in Mexico," as well as for his philanthropic work. The Associates also gave an award to Gary Ross, who produced, wrote, and directed Seabiscuit. The television award went to Jonathan Prince, executive producer of NBC's American Dreams.
THE NEW WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL has joined the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels as another element in the sprucing up of downtown Los Angeles. But, by itself, the concert hall cannot revitalize the core of Los Angeles that includes the toy, fashion, and jewelry districts, as well as Chinatown, Little Tokyo, and Skid Row, said an October 27 San Francisco Chronicle story. Private investment is needed. This is already happening; according to the Chronicle, there have been "a string of enormously successful conversions of old downtown office buildings into hot apartments and loft buildings." Such conversions make downtown one of the fastest growing districts in the city, attracting "restaurants, art galleries and cafes as well as a hip and bohemian crowd at night." Both city officials and private developers, said the Chronicle, have high hopes for the "sustainable development" of downtown. Future projects include a $1.25 billion mall that may be built on 16 acres of land east of the Disney center.
BUT ADVOCATES FOR THE HOMELESS have long been worried that the revitalization of downtown will threaten the large homeless population living there. In October 2002, Los Angeles city councilwoman Jan Perry introduced a city ordinance to forbid camping on the streets and to limit free outdoor meals, which brought protests from advocates for the homeless. Now, on October 24 of this year, the city council passed an ordinance forbidding public urination, citing the growing amount of urine and feces on city streets. This ordinance, too, has brought protests from advocates for the homeless, who say the city is doing nothing to solve the underlying problem of homelessness.
Among those protesting the city's latest ordinance is Donald Noller of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker. In a letter published in the October 29 Los Angeles Times, Noller said that the L.A. Catholic Worker and others "fought for eight years to get portable toilets placed on the streets of skid row, which," he said, "greatly alleviated the situation." But, "since Councilwoman Jan Perry came into office, she and the Central City East Assn. have tried to have the toilets removed without providing an alternative place for people to relieve themselves."
"Wouldn't it make more sense," Noller asked, "to provide decent toilet facilities that all downtown pedestrians (homeless and otherwise) can use rather than spending thousands of dollars locking people up in jail for performing a necessary bodily function?"
GRAY'S FOND FAREWELL. On October 2, outgoing governor Gray Davis signed bills that make it easier for women to obtain the morning-after pill at pharmacies, said the October 3 Sacramento Bee. In January 2002, the state legislature passed a law that made it easier to for women to obtain the "morning after" pill, which many call an abortifacient. Pharmacies, however, have required prescriptions, which many doctors were not willing to give out. The first bill signed by Davis on October 2 allows pharmacists to dispense the pills without doctors' prescriptions. The second bill limits the fees pharmacists can charge in assessing whether or nor women need the pills.
The Campaign for California Families on October 13 reported that on Sunday, October 12, Governor Davis signed a bill forcing state contractors to pay benefits to domestic partners of homosexual employees equivalent to those they pay for married employees. Both the California Catholic Confernce and the Alliance for Catholic Health Care opposed this bill.
WHICH WAY, SCHWARZENEGGER? The October 9 Los Angeles Times reported that Democrats have "vowed to send Schwarzenegger piles of legislation on worker protections, abortion, gay rights and other topics that the moderate governor-elect might be inclined to sign -- but at the risk of alienating the conservatives who backed him." What would the new governor do? He could, the Times noted, try "to placate his base" by moving to the right, or try "to broaden" his base by moving it to the left; or he could "somehow leap over the sorts of cultural clashes that have defined California's Republican Party in recent years."
Whatever he will do in the months to come, Schwarzenegger promised at a news conference on October 6 that would try to build ties with Democrats and independents. "There is much that we can do here if we don't take a negative approach and say, 'Oh, those ones are the villains, and they are the good ones,'" he said.
SCHWARZENEGGER'S VICTORY in the October recall election is "hasta la vista time for the far right's stranglehold" on the California state Republican party, opined Deb Price in the October 23 Sacramento Bee. Price quoted Jeb Bissiri, chairman of the Log Cabin Republicans of California, a group promoting pro-homosexual policies in the Republican Party: "The voice of the California Republican Party has been very conservative and anti-gay. And now we have the opportunity for our voice in California to be one of inclusion. The numbers don't lie: Inclusion wins." Though he does not support homosexual marriage, Schwarzenegger has endorsed full legal protection for homosexual couples.
The Log Cabin Republican types hope that the Schwarzenegger victory will "reform" the national party to become more pro-homosexual. Log Cabin's national director, Patrick Guerriero, said, "when Republicans are seen as creepy on social issues, we lose women and social moderates" -- a statement that could lead some to wonder how promoting sodomy is not, at least, equally as "creepy." Still, Guerriero is not optimistic that the national party will follow Arnold's lead. "Despite the Schwarzenegger victory and the lessons we should have learned in 1992," said Guerriero, "I see a GOP that is taking additional steps toward a civil war in the party and a culture war in the country."
PLANNED PARENTHOOD AFFILIATES of California, Inc., has released its 2003 legislative scorecard. The scorecard details how members of the state legislature voted on bills that deal with abortion and parental notification.
The measures used to tally the scores included a senate bill which prevents the attorney general from allowing the sale, transfer, or lease of a nonprofit health care facility, in which the seller restricts the type of services that are provided at the facility. This was aimed at Catholic and other faith-based hospitals that sell to secular institutions and that try to prevent abortions from being performed there after the sale. Another measure is an assembly bill which preserves teen pregnancy prevention programs that reduce teen pregnancy through promotion of contraception, "responsible" parenthood, and by increasing teen awareness of sexually transmitted diseases. Other measures include four amendments to the budget offered in the assembly that would have placed restrictions on Medi-Cal abortion funding and would have prohibited Medi-Cal abortion funding for minors without parental consent.
The scores for Southland lawmakers (0 percent being the most pro-life score a legislator could have) are as follows for the state assembly: Patricia Bates: 10 percent; Rudy Bermudez (a Knight of Columbus): 100 percent; Russ Bogh: 10 percent; Ronald Calderon: 100 percent; John Campbell: 10 percent; Edward Chavez: 100 percent; Judy Chu: 100 percent; Lou Correa: 90 percent; Lynn Daucher: 80 percent; Robert Dutton: 10 percent; Mervyn Dymally: 100 percent; Jackie Goldberg: 100 percent; Tom Harman: 20 percent; Jerome Horton: 100 percent; Hannah-Beth Jackson: 100 percent; Paul Koretz: 100 percent; Lloyd Levine: 100 percent; Carol Liu: 100 percent; John Longville: 100 percent; Alan Lowenthal:100 percent; Ken Maddox: 20 percent; Abel Maldonado: 40 percent; Gloria Negrete McLeod: 100 percent; Cindy Montanez: 100 percent; Dennis Mountjoy: 10 percent; George Nakano: 100 percent; Fabian Nunez: 100 percent; Jenny Oropeza: 100 percent; Robert Pacheco: 20 percent; Fran Pavley: 100 percent; Keith Richman: 100 percent; Mark Ridley-Thomas: 100 percent; Sharon Runner: 10 percent; Todd Spitzer: 20 percent; Tony Strickland: 10 percent; Herb Wesson: 100 percent.
In the state senate: Dick Ackerman: 20 percent; Richard Alarcon: 100 percent; Debra Bowen: 100 percent; James Brulte: 20 percent; Gil Cedillo: 100 percent; Joseph Dunn: 100 percent; Martha Escutia: 100 percent; Ross Johnson: 10 percent; Betty Karnette: 100 percent; Pete Knight: 10 percent; Sheila Kuehl: 100 percent; Bob Margett: 10 percent; Tom McClintock: 0 percent; Kevin Murray: 100 percent; Gloria Romero: 100 percent; Jack Scott: 80 percent; Nell Soto: 90 percent; Edward Vincent: 100 percent.
STANDARDS FOR LANDLORDS. St. Joachim Catholic Church in Costa Mesa has joined with the Orange County Congregation Community Organizations to create standards landlords must meet before they rent out apartments, said an October 28 Daily Pilot story. Alma Marquez, a senior organizer with the county group, said "there's nothing that regulates landlords to provide a decent home to tenants. And because our laws are so outdated in regards to some of the laws that are available, it doesn't make sense." Costa Mesa city councilwoman Libby Cowan supports the effort to assure higher standards for landlords. "I think it's important for tenants to let property owners know what's important to them in terms of standards," she said. "I think it's important that we honor each person as a human being and offer them the dignity and respect that a human being deserves."
MOLESTATION ROUNDUP. Six priests accused of molesting youth all spent time, between 1962 and 1996, at Santa Clara Catholic Church, said an October 28 Los Angeles Times article. A civil lawsuit filed against the archdiocese of Los Angeles by 16 men and women claims that they were molested by five of the six priests between 1959 and 1985. Two of the priests, Donald Patrick Roemer and Gerald Fessard, have been convicted in the past of molestation. Molestation charges against Carl Sutphin and George Miller were dropped this summer after the Supreme Court determined that the cases were too old to prosecute as criminal cases. The remaining two priests named in the lawsuit have never been charged with crimes. One, though named, has had no charges brought against him.
"Father Hollywood," Michael Harris, has again been accused of molestation in two lawsuits filed against the diocese of Orange, said the October 30 Times. In 2001, the diocese settled a lawsuit surrounding allegations against Harris, paying the alleged victim $5.2 million. Harris, who denied the allegations, left the active priesthood as part of the settlement. The latest allegations date back to 1979 and 1980. Also, a former member of the Orange diocese's sexual abuse task force has asked the Orange County district attorney's office to investigate the diocese, claiming she has 1,000 page of documentation showing that the diocese protected known molesters.
On October 15, a San Bernardino superior court judge ordered Father Edward Ball to pay $26 million to two brothers who claim they were molested by Ball when they were altar boys. The two brothers previously received $4.2 million from the diocese of San Bernardino and the missionary group to which Ball belonged. William Light, the attorney for the brothers, though, said that he doubted his clients would receive the money from Ball. "Of all the vows that Father Ball took -- chastity, obedience and poverty -- it appears he actually kept only one: poverty," said Light.
NO END OF ALTAR GIRLS. In a statement released October 21, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales announced that the Vatican will not withdraw its permission for the use of altar girls, said an October 22 Zenit news report. The bishops met with the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments concerning reports of a leaked draft instruction concerning liturgical abuses, which, among other items, allegedly called for curtailing the use of female altar servers. The English and Welsh bishops liturgy advisor, Father Allen Morris, said of the uncompleted liturgical instruction, "it is not possible to say for certain what it will contain. However, it is clear that bishops [will] remain free to authorize the ministry of altar girls in their dioceses; that the encouragement to Communion under both species, recently re-emphasized in [General Instruction of the Roman Missal], is not being withdrawn."
Morris also said that "liturgical dance or perhaps more accurately 'rhythmic movement' such as is indigenous to a local culture, most commonly in Asia and Africa, remains authorized" in the liturgical document. However, he said, his understanding was that "the practice of interpolating dance and other 'entertainment' into the liturgy, in ways more common in Europe and North America, continues to be considered inappropriate."