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ROAMIN' CATHOLIC
Contents © 2004
by Jim Holman.
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NEWS
June 2004
A MILLION MARCHERS descended on the Mall in Washington, D.C. on April 25 to demonstrate for "abortion rights," said march supporters, though other counts have numbered them at 800,000, 500,000, and even 250,000. The "March for Women's Lives," sponsored by several feminist organizations, had a large contingent of Californians. Senator Barbara Boxer was there, according to the April 26 San Francisco Chronicle. Former California first lady Sharon Davis also attended the march. She said pro-abortion Catholics like herself and presidential candidate John Kerry are upset that the Church might deny them communion. "As a pro-choice Catholic, I think we should join John Kerry and not accept Communion," Davis said. "It would be a strong message that we will not be driven out of the church."
ACTOR MARTIN SHEEN'S name appeared on the website of the March for Women's Lives. According to an April 22 LifeNews.com report, this came as a surprise to Feminists for Life, which in 2001 listed Sheen as a "Remarkable Pro-Life Man." A Catholic, Sheen has for a long time been a supporter of the Seamless Garment Network, which opposes abortion, along with capital punishment and war. Serrin Foster, president of Feminists for Life, in a memorandum to Sheen's publicist, wrote, "we are concerned that you were not aware that support for abortion is a primary goal of the upcoming march that you have endorsed, or that your name was used without your permission. It is our sincere hope that you will contact the organizers of the march and ask them to remove your name from the list of celebrities who have endorsed this event, explaining to them that while you agree with many of their goals, the central goal of reproductive rights that includes abortion is not one that you endorse." Sheen's name was subsequently removed from the website.
"THERE WAS QUITE A LOT OF BLOOD all over the place," said abortionist Joseph Durante. "We've never had an incident like this." Though in the past put on probation and tried for botched abortions, Durante was not referring to an incident involving his expertise. According to the April 30 Desert Sun, Jefferey Cameron FitzHenry on April 29 entered Durante's Women's Health Center abortion clinic and shot his girlfriend in the neck. FitzHenry, according to a Los Angeles Times report, argued with the girl over her decision to have an abortion. Six hours later, FitzHenry was arrested in a house in Indio Hills. The injured woman survived the shooting, but was in critical condition.
MASS IN A BUTCHERY. On March 27, a Mass was celebrated at the Family Planning Associates' North Hollywood clinic. The clinic had closed "because of a lack of business," according to pro-life activists. Lucy Vargovcik , a long time sidewalk counselor at the clinic, said that when the clinic closed, the building's owner agreed to allow a thanksgiving Mass to be said there. "The owner had asked for us to pray for the place," Vargovcik told the group that had gathered for the 4 p.m. Mass. According to Vargovcik, the clinic had been there for thirty years.
The Mass, which was celebrated by Father Colin Rafferty, was held in the clinic's former reception room. Joe, a sidewalk counselor at the clinic since 1980, said that it had steadily lost customers over the years. "It's marvelous to see" the clinic close, Joe said. "It's truly the power of prayer. It's these people who have stood outside the clinic for so long. It's a lesson in patience and fortitude."
Colette Wilson, a pro-life attorney who attended the Mass, pointed out that several of Edward Allred's Family Planning Associates' clinics have closed in Cypress, Ventura, Inglewood, Santa Ana, and North Hollywood. "San Diego went to a smaller location," she said.
Another pro-lifer, Laura Sharp, said she believed the decrease in business at abortion clinics "is due to the national debate on the congressional floor over partial birth abortion. With Laci and Conner Peterson, the baby had a name before he was born. The truth is getting out of what happens during an abortion."
IMMORAL AND UNCONSCIONABLE. About 1,000 parents, teachers, students, and others converged on the April 1 Westminster school board meeting to protest a vote taken in March by three members of the board not to comply with state non-discrimination policy, said the Gay-Straight Alliance's April 7 GSA News. A new state anti-discrimination policy broadens the basis on which parents and students can allege discrimination from merely sex to "gender" -- including transsexual. Board members, Judy Ahrens, Blossie Marquez-Woodcock, and Helena Rutkowski, voted against changing the Orange County school district's policies. The crowd of those opposing the school board's action, according to GSA News, included "several transgender community members," including a high school Gay-Straight Alliance leader and an eighth grade student.
A letter from Jack O'Connell, state superintendent of education, was read at the meeting. If the board should refuse to change its policy, wrote O' Connell, "I will take all available steps to compel your compliance. Such steps may include withholding consolidated application funds from your district in the current and/or future fiscal years. It would pain me to do that, since any loss of funds potentially hurts the children of your district. However, I will move with deliberate speed if you challenge my authority."
O'Connell said he finds the board's "reluctance to protect all of your children disturbing. It is immoral and unconscionable for elected officials to condone discrimination in any form, and your actions not only condone it, they encourage it. Moreover, to put the education of young people at risk in this manner is indefensible."
But the April 22 Orange County Register reported that the state department of education on April 19 decided not to place sanctions on the Westminster school district. O'Connell ruled that the school district's anti-discrimination policy as it stands -- defining gender as "biological sex" -- complies with state law.
IT WAS NOT A GAY DAY, said English teacher Brian Jeffrey of the "Day of Silence" held at Los Osos High School in Rancho Cucamonga on April 22. According to the April 23 Rancho Cucamonga Voice, Jeffrey received numerous phone calls from parents after he announced the school would hold the day, which, Jeffrey said, is "about acknowledging that kids who are gay are harassed and we want to stop that." Parents and some students protested the event -- some students by staying home from school that day. But Principal Joe Kolmel said the event "has been misinterpreted. It has turned into an identification of moral, theological and ethical value rather than a human being's contribution to society."
Though the Day of Silence purportedly focused only on harassment of homosexuals, it was sponsored by a Los Osos' student club called Us, a subgroup of the school's Socially Together and Naturally Diverse Club. Jeffrey, the club's adviser, explained that Us was so-called "because if we want to solve society's problems, there can't be any 'them,' there can be only 'us.' We decided to create a club that focuses on orientation." Us is Los Osos' "version," according the Voice, of the Gay/Straight Alliance, which promotes the full acceptance by society of the lesbian, "gay," bi-sexual, and "transgendered" orientations.
CALIFORNIANS ARE MORE ACCEPTING of homosexual marriage than are the rest of the country, a Los Angeles Times poll concluded. While in the nation as a whole, only about one-fourth say they support homosexual marriage, in California slightly less than a third do. Nationally, 48 percent of respondents said they thought homosexuality immoral; only 40 percent of California respondents said they thought so. Fifty-one percent of Californians oppose, while 48 percent support, a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as between a man and woman; the percentages are reversed nationwide. As for civil unions for homosexuals, two out of five Californians support them, only a little more than the national average. But while 34 percent nationwide said that neither marriage nor civil union should be open to homosexuals, only 25 percent of Californians expressed this opinion. Youth, between ages 18 and 29, both in California and nation-wide, were "much more likely," said an April 26 Times report, to support homosexual marriage: about 50 percent of those youth said they support homosexual marriage, compared to 44 percent nationwide. Among all Christians, including Catholics, who attended services once a week or more, 13 percent said they supported homosexual marriage, 41 percent endorsed civil unions, while 41 percent favored neither.
"I THOUGHT PORN PEOPLE were the cleanest people in the world," said disillusioned porn actress, Lara Roxx. The April 21 Oakland Tribune reported that Roxx and porn actor, Darren James, recently tested positive for HIV -- an event that has sent a panic into the porn industry in the San Fernando Valley. The problem is that porn actors often perform "unprotected" sex for the camera; using condoms, industry insiders told the Tribune, "spoils the fantasy for viewers and results in lower sales." In a self-policing move, the porn industry has barred over 60 performers until their blood tests are completed. But self-policing might not be enough for the Los Angeles County health department, which is considering for the first time applying workplace safety laws to the porn industry. In a word, porn actors may have to use condoms.
But such a move would be unwarranted by the circumstances, argues Kat Sunlove, who directs a trade association for the porn industry, the Free Speech Coalition. "Do we really want condom police?" she asked.
CARDINAL MAHONY will not have to testify in a Fresno case involving Stockton diocese priest Father Oliver O'Grady, said an April 21 Los Angeles Times story. Mahony was to testify as a former bishop of Stockon who has been accused of moving O'Grady from parish to parish after learning that the priest had molested youth. Though the current accusations against O'Grady involve events that occurred before Mahony was bishop, the alleged victim's lawyer said the cardinal is "the best person still alive with the most information about what went on" in regards to O'Grady. But on April 21, Los Angeles county superior court judge Charles McCoy, Jr., ordered 94 cases involving northern California priests to be sent to a single judge for trial. This move halted all litigation against these priests.
But before Judge McCoy's order, the cardinal's lawyer, Donald F. Woods, Jr., had planned to ask the judge for a delay in deposing Mahony. The deposition was to occur at the Costa Mesa office of victims' attorney John Manly; but citing death threats against the cardinal, Hennigan was about to ask that the deposition occur either at his own office or at the cathedral compound -- a move that would have delayed questioning by lawyers of the alleged abuse victims. According to archdiocesan lawyer, J. Michael Hennigan, Cardinal Mahony has been receiving death threats over the last year in connection with the sexual abuse scandal. "We have legitimate concerns for his safety," Hennigan said. "We want to go to a location where we can control access." Hennigan also asked that the deposition not be made public, saying "we're not interested in turning this into a media circus."
CARDINAL IN CONTEMPT? But, according to the April 29 Los Angeles Times, alleged victims' lawyers asked Judge McCoy to hold Cardinal Mahony in contempt of court for failing to make the appointment to give his deposition. In court documents, the plaintiffs' lawyers argued that the cardinal was guilty of "willful disobedience" for retracting his promise to appear for the deposition before Judge McCoy halted all litigation in the O' Grady and other sexual molestation cases. McCoy gave Cardinal Mahony until May 4 to respond to the request for a contempt hearing.
J. Michael Hennigan called the plaintiffs' lawyers' move "irresponsible and frivolous;" he said they were merely trying to "grab a headline." "There is nothing frivolous about this," said plaintiffs' lawyer Venus Soltan. "We have been trying to take his deposition for six months, but they keep putting conditions on it. This is not a vindictive thing on our part. We want his deposition."
A DIFFERENT SORT OF ABUSE. A column in the April 30 Los Angeles Times detailed how one Maria Vega successfully sued the archdiocese of Los Angeles after she was abused by a priest -- who had punched her. According to the column, in November 1999, Father Dennis O'Neal struck Vega, a teacher at St. Emydius church in Lynwood, above the ear because he was not pleased with how she was teaching her catechism class. Vega reported the incident to the archdiocese, which promised to investigate but then did nothing. Instead, the sexagenarian Father O'Neil was promoted to an auxiliary bishop of the San Bernardino diocese. Eventually, in October 2003, Vega took the matter to court. Twenty days into the trial, after Vega's testimony, Father O'Neil, who denied he had struck her, died, and a mistrial was declared. A new trial commenced, and the archdiocese attempted to settle with Vega, offering her $100,000. She refused. Though it took the jury 82 days to decide the case, on March 8, 2004, it finally awarded Vega $1 million. Vega continues to teach catechism, and the archdiocese of Los Angeles said it would appeal the decision.
CARDINAL MAHONY said the archdiocese of Los Angeles would be the first diocese to undergo a follow-up review to see if it is in compliance with the United States bishops' Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, said the April 9 Tidings, the archdiocesan newspaper. "It is extremely important that dioceses across the country continue to receive assistance and feedback on the implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People," Mahony said. "A Follow-Up Review would help strengthen 'safe environment' programs already in place, assess the spiritual outreach efforts for victims, provide for an annual public report on the progress made in implementing the standards of the Charter, and would lay the appropriate groundwork for a more comprehensive Effectiveness Audit in the future." As with last year's compliance audit, the review would be conducted by a U.S. bishops' office. Cardinal Mahony said the review could take place in September 2004.
A STATE INITIATIVE for the November 2004 ballot calls for state bonds to raise $3 billion for fetal stem cell research -- which requires the destruction of human embryos. If passed, the initiative could prove lucrative for biotech companies and universities, which will stand to gain $295 million a year. Initiative supporters claim its passage could boost California's economy, turning the state into a center for embyronic stem cell research. But the California Legislative Analyst's office estimated payment on bonds would be $6 billion over 30 years -- in a state that in 2003/04 had a $12 billion budget shortfall. The passage of the initiative could have ill effects on the federal ban on funding stem cell research. According to the Wall Street Journal, "the initiative could change the U.S. scientific landscape and send a message that the White House faces significant dissent over its decision not to provide federal funds for some stem-cell research."
"JUST SAY 'YES' to embryonic stem cell research" has become Nancy Reagan's new slogan. The former first lady, said a May 9 Reuters article, made a public plea for embryonic stem cell research at a May 7 Beverly Hills fund-raiser for stem-cell research, held in her honor. The move may put pressure on President George W. Bush to lift his August 2001 ban on federal money for research performed on aborted infants. To date, Mrs. Reagan has not publicly contradicted a sitting Republican president, but, according to the May 6 New York Times, in 2001 she wrote a private note to President Bush, urging him to approve federal funds for embryonic stem-cell research.
Nancy Reagan is not the only Republican supporting a lifting of the ban. During the last week of April, 206 members of Congress, including Republican and pro-life members, signed a letter urging the president to lift the ban. Among the purportedly pro-life Republicans signing the letter was Huntington Beach representative, Dana Rohrabacher. A spokesman for the congressman told the Times that while Rohrabacher "remains a pro-life member of Congress," he was persuaded by patients' stories to take his current stance.
A Bush spokesman told the Times that the president would not change his policy.
A PRO-LIFE STATIONS of the Cross was held March 13 by Hispanics for Life. The event, led by Father Peter West of Priests for Life, drew about 20 people to the Pico Union area of Los Angeles. Hispanics for Life wanted to highlight how the Latino community, who dominate the Pico Union area, is targeted by the abortion industry. Astrid Bennett Gutierrez, president of Hispanics for Life, pointed out that "with 700 abortion clinics total in the United States, this neighborhood alone has one percent of our nation's clinics. They are all within one mile radius of each other."
Father West said that California is "ground zero" in the abortion battle. The state, he said, "has the highest abortion rate in the country. Los Angeles in particular has the highest rate."
After leaving the Westmoreland clinic, the group processed with a large banner bearing an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, to the other "Calvarys" -- the American Medical Center, the Alpha Medical Center, and the Latin Women's Medical Clinic, on Wilshire Boulevard; Clinica Medica para La Mujer de Hoy and Hana Medical Center, located on Olympic Boulevard; and Pacifica Women's Health Care, on Vermont Avenue. All these clinics are in close proximity to each other. "Many Hispanics are not aware that this would be unusual in Caucasian neighborhoods," Bennett concluded.
CALIFORNIA STATE SENATOR Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) abruptly announced the cancellation of an April 16 meeting at Our Lady of the Rosary Cathedral in the diocese of San Bernardino. The event was held to garner support for a state senate bill which would grant drivers licenses to illegal aliens. In spite of media accounts reporting its cancellation, the event was still held at the cathedral, with Cedillo and other politicians in attendance.
A week prior to the meeting, on April 10, pro-life activist Martin Hill faxed a letter to Bishop Gerald Barnes asking him to cancel the event because of Cedillo's support for abortion and homosexual rights. The Catholic church is obviously favoring and aiding this man by giving him unfettered access to Catholic church facilities," Hill wrote, "while at the very same time, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Holy Father himself are adamantly admonishing all 'pro-abortion' and pro stem-cell research politicians. I'd be very curious as to how you reconcile and justify this."
Before the meeting's cancellation, Hill contacted KFI's radio hosts Ken and John, the George Putnam radio show, and other radio programs. On the air, Hill called on his fellow Catholics to bombard the bishop's office with calls asking him to cancel the Cedillo event.
The cancellation of the Cedillo meeting caused consternation among Latino activists. Retired priest Patricio Guillen, who runs an immigrant help center, Liberia del Pueblo, in Rialto, said that he was upset with the decision. "I'm disappointed," he said in an April 14 article in the San Bernardino Sun Times. "I think we're being jerked around."
FATHER HOWARD LINCOLN, spokesman for the diocese of San Bernardino, said that the meeting at the cathedral had been organized by Inland Congregations United for Change. "I have no idea what happened, I was out on Friday," he told the Mission. Liz Calanche, Inland Congregations' regional director for the Coachcella Valley, told the Mission that the meeting had been cancelled because of security concerns. "A group had vandalized the church; they threw red, white, and blue paint on the steps of the church." But, according to the April 16 Sun, the vandalizing was done on the night of April 15-16, after the meeting had been cancelled. The Sun indicated that, hearing of the vandalism, Cedillo flew to San Bernardino to participate in the conference. "The church also had about 20 harassing calls," Calanche said. When asked who was making the calls, Calanche replied, "we know of a couple of groups who are opposing the bill. They are Save 187 and Save the State. They are trying to resurrect Prop 187. They are gathering signatures for an initiative." Proposition 187 was the California ballot measure that prohibited most social services to illegal aliens.
MARTIN HILL attended the April 16 meeting. During the meeting, Hill asked Cedillo, "since you hold these meetings in Catholic churches, how do you reconcile that with the fact that your votes oppose the Holy Father's teachings on issues such as abortion, stem cell research, and homosexual unions?" According to Hill, Father Guillen's "arm shot up angrily as if he wanted to admonish me for asking such a question." Cedillo ignored Hill's question. A moderator then admonished him, saying that the purpose of the meeting was to discuss the driver's license issue. Calls to Liberia del Pueblo, Guillen's home base, were not returned.
Liz Calanche said the decision to hold the meeting was a spontaneous thing. "Senators Soto and Cedillo flew to San Bernardino with members of the press. The mayor of San Bernardino was there, city councilman John Longville was there." Calanche said that another meeting would be held at the cathedral on May 23 at 1 p.m.
Hill said that he plans to protest the May 23 meeting.
GENDER SELECTION boosts the in-vitro fertilization business, Jeffrey Steinberg of the Fertility Institute in Los Angeles claimed in a CBS News interview. According to an April 23 Bio Edge e-mail report, Steinberg told 60 Minutes II that business for him took off after he began offering sex selection of babies. "In the last two years since we've offered gender selection, we've seen a huge international onslaught of people that are just interested in balancing their families," said Steinberg. "In the beginning it was only patients that were having IVF anyway. Now 70 per cent of the patients would never need IVF, except for the fact that they want to do the gender selection."
IN SEARCH OF AN ATMOSPHERE more conducive to family values, Thomas Dysarz, 32, along with his boyfriend, Michael Meehan, moved from Los Angeles to Lexington, Kentucky. According to an April 23 Bio Edge report, through the services of Brooke Verity, who works in Dysarz's hairdressing salon (Meehan, once an attorney, is now also a hairdresser), the couple has fathered five children by in-vitro fertilization. Dysarz is the father of quadruplets, born in 2002, and Meehan of a boy, born this year.
Both Dysarz and Meehan say they are conservative Republicans and devout Catholics. Their children have been baptized, and the couple say, will be raised in the Church.
THE UNBORN VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE ACT is "good news," the Rev. Thomas Welbers of Our Lady of the Assumption Church told the April 9 Los Angeles Times. "This law simply recognizes that human beings have human rights," said Welbers. "Affirming the distinct humanity of the unborn human being is good science, not religious doctrine. On the other hand, subjecting the individuality and value of the unborn baby to an arbitrary 'right to choose' on the part of the mother smacks of an unscientific religious doctrine -- the 'religion' being rigidly fundamentalistic materialism."
But what of Catholic politicians who profess the "religion" of "fundamentalistic materialism"? On April 23, the Times asked Welbers, "should religious leaders press politicians more to adhere to their faith's teachings, including going so far as to bar them from church institutions and sacraments?" "It's not easy being a Catholic these days. And it's extremely difficult to be a Catholic politician," Welbers said. For Catholics, he continued, "the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death is a given, and there cannot be a dichotomy between private and public moral choices." But Catholic politicians who follow Church teaching impeccably will find a place on neither the right nor the left. Further, such a politician "who consistently and publicly lives and professes his or her faith in its fullness is, sadly, practically unelectable in today's American society. Like it or not, to engage in politics is to engage in compromise."
Bishops, said Welbers, should keep the lines of communication open with politicians, supporting and challenging them. And as for public sanctions? Welbers replied that "the words of Jesus to a crowd of eager-to-condemn religious zealots come to mind: 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.'"
IN THE STEPS OF THE EPISCOPALIANS. Though the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ordains homosexuals and lesbians, it demands that they remain celibate. In defiance of this policy, however, two Southern California Evangelical Lutheran congregations have installed ministers who live in "committed relationships" with same-sex lovers, said an April 15 Associated Press story. On April 18, Central City Lutheran Mission in San Bernardino installed the Rev. Jennifer Mason, and on May 2, Hollywood Lutheran Church installed the Rev. Daniel Hooper, both active homosexuals. The Rev. Christopher Hershman of Allentown Pennsylvania, said the move reveals that in the Evangelical Lutheran Church there are two different kinds of religion under the same denominational banners. "One says what the churches taught for the last 2,000 years. The other approach says the Bible was a witness at its time, and people have moved beyond that to a higher sense of enlightenment." The Rev. Steven Benson, another open homosexual recently appointed pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, said of the situation, "the possibilities of deep division, and perhaps even schism, are there."