NEWS
2005 NEWS STORIES
December
November
October
September
July/August
June
May
April
March
February
January
ARTICLES
LETTERS
ROAMIN' CATHOLIC
Contents © 2005
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
NEWS
May 2005
AMONG HIS LAST TESTAMENTS to the Church, Pope John Paul II wrote a letter for Holy Thursday to the priests of the world. The letter, written from the Gemelli Hospital in Rome, is a reflection on "the words of Eucharistic consecration" and an exhortation to priests to enter more fully into the persona Christi. As if, gently, to underline the liturgical reform he called for, first in the encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia and in the document, Redemptionis Sacramentum, of the Congregation for Divine Worship, John Paul explained the necessity of remaining faithful to the Church's liturgical norms.
After explaining the doctrine of transubstantiation, John Paul wrote, "on the altar, then, Christ crucified and risen is 'truly, really and substantially' present in the fullness of his humanity and divinity.... The Church," he continued, "treats this mystery with such great reverence, and takes such care to ensure the observance of the liturgical norms intended to safeguard the sanctity of so great a sacrament.
"We priests are the celebrants, but also the guardians of this most sacred mystery. It is our relationship to the Eucharist that most clearly challenges us to lead a 'sacred' life. This must shine forth from our whole way of being, but above all from the way we celebrate. Let us sit at the school of the saints!"
The pope's entire letter may be found here.
"I ASK ALL THE PEOPLE in Southern California to pray for all the cardinals — that we listen wisely to God's voice, the Holy Spirit, and that we choose wisely the next shepherd of the universal church," Cardinal Roger Mahony told reporters Friday, April 1, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The cardinal had celebrated a Mass at noon and another at 5 p.m. for the dying Pope John Paul II, said the April 2 Los Angeles Times, and was preparing to fly to Rome for the expected funeral of the pope and the subsequent conclave. Of this conclave, Mahony told reporters he was "very excited but also nervous." He declined to speculate on candidates for the next pope, piously leaving it to the Holy Spirit to decide.
But on Flight 268 from Los Angeles to London (accompanied by a Times reporter and archdiocesan spokesman, Tod Tamberg), Mahony reflected on what kind of pope he would prefer. Though, according to the April 3 Times, Mahony reflected that Pope John Paul II would probably go down in history as "John Paul the Great" for such things as helping bring down Communism in Eastern Europe and improving relations between the Catholic Church and Jews, the cardinal (who received his red hat from this pope) indicated that it was time for a change. Mahony told the Times that he and other cardinals would push for a change in how the Church is run — less centralization, more local control by bishops, like himself. Mahony complained that Pope John Paul II has taken too much control from local bishops' conferences. The cardinal also said he favored discussion on allowing married priests in the Latin Church.
CARDINAL "HOLLYWOOD," as John Paul called Mahony, "exhibited no outward signs of grief Saturday," as the pope lay dying, said the Times. "We've all been struggling [in solidarity] with him since early February," Mahony explained. "I think all of us really started the grieving process then, particularly when he went in for the tracheotomy. It was just clear he was not going to emerge from this and that his life now was going to be counted in days, no longer in years." When, on arriving in Rome, the cardinal learned that the pope had indeed died, "he grabbed his bags," said the Times, "and motored with an aide into the Eternal City."
CARDINAL MAHONY was one of six (out of seven) American cardinals to refuse to attend a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Bernard Law at St. Mary Major in Rome, said reports from Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times. Cardinal Law's April 11 Mass was one of the Masses celebrated over the nine days after the death of Pope John Paul II. According to "American church sources," Cardinals Edward Egan of New York, Francis George of Chicago, and Roger Mahony refused to attend Law's Mass because of the cardinal's role in the U.S. Church's clergy sexual abuse scandal. One source "familiar with one cardinal's thinking," according the Times, said "there was a general feeling it was best not to be there." Another source said the absence of all six cardinals was a protest; "you'd have to be blind not to see that," he said. "The fact is, they voted with their feet." Pope John Paul II made Law archpriest of St. Mary Major after his resignation as archbishop of Boston. According to Church law, the archpriest of St. Mary Major says the fourth Mass in honor of a deceased pontiff.
APRIL 11 WAS NOT THE FIRST TIME Cardinal Mahony has distanced himself from Cardinal Law. According to an April 22, 2002 news commentary published in the Los Angeles Times, Mahony, when asked to comment on the future of Cardinal Law, "said he would find it difficult to walk down an aisle in church if he had been guilty of gross negligence." In a December 13, 2003 statement, Mahony, addressing Cardinal Law's resignation as archbishop of Boston, reflected on his own record. "For more than 17 years it has been the policy of this archdiocese to deal swiftly and effectively with every allegation of sexual abuse," said Mahony. "We believe we have been effective. No priest or employee of the archdiocese who was ever determined to have abused a minor is allowed to serve in ministry in this archdiocese."
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE EVIDENCE? Is Cardinal Mahony's record in regards to molesting priests really so pure? In a March 27, 2003 e-mail message (leaked in April of that year to KFI's John and Ken Show), Monsignor Craig Cox wrote to Mahony about priests accused of molestation of minors: "to say or even give the impression that none of the 'priests removed' were in parish ministry creates multiple problems. Even those not in parish ministry were assisting in parishes, and you could be challenged about that. Some were resident in parishes. Not being assigned full time to parishes does not mean there was no parish ministry. All the men involved were doing Sunday supply at times. In the popular mind set that will be seen as parish ministry."
Cox further advised Mahony that in an upcoming press conference he "make no indication whatsoever of the 'type' of ministry involved, but indicate that no priest was put into any ministry where we had any concern that he would be a danger to young people. If asked to say more than that, you can respond by going back to your principles about not disclosing names...."
In March 2001, Mahony assigned Father Carl Sutphin as associate pastor of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels — but then, in April 2002, allegations surfaced that Sutphin had molested two minor boys. Mahony had known of the allegations against Sutphin for years, having neglected to remove the priest from ministry in the 1990s, after promising to do so. Mahony, who had sent Sutphin to rehabilitation, said he had thought the priest "was rehabilitated to the extent anyone can be rehabilitated."
After another priest, Father Michael Stephen Baker, in 1986 revealed to Cardinal Mahony that he had molested "two or three boys," Mahony allowed him to remain in the priesthood, reassigning him to nine different parishes in the course of a decade. In the late '80s, Cardinal Mahony referred another priest, Father Michael Wempe, for treatment after learning of molestation charges against the priest. Then, in 1988, Mahony made Wempe chaplain at Cedars-Sinai hospital without informing the hospital of accusations against the priest. Mahony later admitted this had been a mistake and that he should have reported Wempe to police when the accusations against him surfaced. In September 2003, new allegations of sexual abuse against Wempe surfaced.
According to the cardinal, the archdiocese of Los Angeles has had a zero-tolerance policy for sexual abuse in place since 1988.
STEM CELL RESEARCH IN LA. The University of California, Los Angeles announced that it will set up a $20 million stem cell research institute on campus, said the March 16 Los Angeles Times, in order to take advantage of the $3 billion dollars approved by voters for embryonic stem cell research in November. And UCLA is not alone in tapping the public moneys, according to UCLA professor Dr. Owen Witte, who will direct the proposed institute. "Every major medical center and undergraduate campus in the state is actively thinking about stem cell research — and the funding that is coming down the line," he said. The $20 million will be spent over five years to create 12 faculty positions and to expand laboratory space to accommodate stem cell research. According to Witte, the university scientists have a keen interest in how stem cell research can benefit those suffering from cancer, neurological diseases, and HIV/AIDS.
The Times also announced that Los Angeles is in the running with other California cities to be chosen for the site of the headquarters of the state's stem cell agency. Mayor James Hahn announced the bid March 16.
VICTIM MOLESTER. The Dallas Morning News reported on March 15 that Monsignor Cristobal Garcia, a former priest for the archdiocese of Los Angeles and former member of the Western Dominican Province, is enjoying a prominent role as a priest in Cebu, Philippines in spite of widespread public knowledge of his inappropriate liaisons with boys 20 years ago in Los Angeles.
Expelled from the Dominicans in the 1980's. Garcia has been granted permission by Ricardo Cardinal Vidal of Cebu to form a monastic religious group for boys known as "The Society of the Angel of Peace." Garcia's responsibilities include running a local chapel, a Sunday school program, and directing a large number of altar boys. Ironically, Garcia's problems started when an L.A. nun, Jane Levikow, called the police after finding an altar boy in Garcia's bed.
Garcia, now in his 50s, admits that he had sex with former altar boy Paul Corral and another altar boy, both in their early teens at the time, claiming that one of the boys "not only seduced me, but raped me." Garcia insists that they obtained sex, cocaine, marijuana, and money from Garcia by threatening to expose him as an abuser.
Corral is currently the plaintiff in a lawsuit against the Dominicans and the archdiocese of Los Angeles, along with the other altar boy. Jane Levikow, the whistleblower who is no longer a nun, says that the officers who took her report were eager to protect the Church's image and promised to "bury" it.
Vidal's family owns the Philippines' second largest electrical utility. The diocese of Cebu put him to work with children immediately in spite of warnings from the Dominicans. There is no zero-tolerance policy toward sexually abusive priests in the Philippines.
Vidal thinks that the U.S. bishops' zero-tolerance policy is an overreaction. "I wonder if some of it is a face-saving mechanism or damage control. In the Third World, the damage is done. Live with it," said Vidal.
A PRIEST ON LOAN to the archdiocese of Los Angeles from Rome was convicted March 16 for molesting three boys from St. Thomas the Apostle parish in Koreatown, said the March 17 Monterey County Herald. The molestation began shortly after Father Fernando Lopez, 41, arrived in Los Angeles in 2001. Lopez, a citizen of Colombia, was convicted on felony and misdemeanor counts. He was scheduled to be sentenced April 22, his maximum sentence being a combined sentence of more than eight years in state and county facilities.
"TODAY THERE ARE HUNDREDS, if not thousands, of celibate gay priests ministering to Catholics in parishes, schools, hospitals, high schools, colleges, retreat houses, soup kitchens, nursing homes and chanceries," said Jesuit Father James Martin, associate editor for America magazine. As reported in the March 18 Tidings, the newspaper for the archdiocese of Los Angeles, Father Martin was one of three panelists at the workshop, "Homosexuality, Celibacy and the Priesthood: Opening Up the Conversation," held during the archdiocese's Religious Education Congress in February. The Church, said Martin, fears to talk about its homosexual clerics — a situation, he said, that can only be remedied "if only there were more public models of gay priests. "In the absence of any healthy gay priests for Catholics to reflect on publicly, and with the only examples being notorious pedophiles," said Martin, "the stereotype of the gay priest as child abuser only deepens."
Father Martin said he thinks "there are very many gay men who are good priests in the church today." He estimated the number of homosexuals in the priesthood at 25 percent.
"We have made both men and women religious asexual," opined another panelist, Dr. Greer Gordon, a professor at the University of Massachusetts. Gordon seemed to define sexuality rather loosely to include more than male and female. "Asexuality is not how God created us," she said. "We are sexual beings, and it's part of what we bring into any way we deal with other people, no matter what our orientation may be." The Church must, said Gordon, assist homosexual clergy "in learning what it means to live a life that is free, a life that is open, but a life that is celibate." The majority of pedophiles are not homosexual, said Gordon, but "are in fact, heterosexual.... The majority of pedophiles are not Roman Catholic priests." What Gordon (or the Tidings reporting her words) failed to mention is that the majority of victims molested by Catholic clergy are male.
THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION CONGRESS ALSO FEATURED a panel discussion on the progress of ecumenism since Vatican II. According to the March 4 Tidings, Father Alexei Smith, director of the archdiocese's office of ecumenical and interreligious affairs, said the differences between the churches engaged in ecumenical dialogue are mainly "challenges." Among the challenges, presumably, is what another panelist, the Rev. Dr. Gwynne Guibord, officer of ecumenical and interreligious concerns for the Episcopal diocese of Los Angeles, called a "retrenchment of denominational dialogue and identity" over "hot-button issues" such as human sexuality, clergy sexual abuse, conflict in the Holy Land, separation of Church and state, abortion, and the death penalty. These are important issues, said Guibord, but they can divide the churches; "we must re-examine retrenchment of denominational identity," said Guibord.
The issue of sexuality is an important one for the Rev. Dr. Guibord. Before entering the Episcopal Church, Guibord was ecumenical liaison officer for the Metropolitan Community Church, an openly homosexual church. When the Metropolitan Community Church abolished her office in 2002, Guibord, who was in a "committed relationship" with another woman, approached Los Angeles Episcopal bishop John Bruno and became a postulant. Two years later, Bruno ordained Guibord a deacon; she was ordained an Episcopal priest in January 2005. She was the first openly homosexual person to preside over a state ecumenical council in the United States. In 1999, Guibord publicly endorsed the "marriage" by a United Methodist minister (in opposition to his denomination) of a Sacramento lesbian couple.
GOD'S CEO? The Rev. Rick Warren has mastered the inculturation of the Gospel — at least his version of it — into Orange County Life, a March 25 Associated Press story indicated. Pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, one of the largest Protestant "megachurches" in the United States (with 22,000 members), Warren sports a goatee, spiked hair, and wears Hawaiian shirts and sandals when he preaches. Though immensely successful, Warren has drawn fire from some more traditional Protestants for what they call his commercialization of religion and his reduction of Biblical passages to simple one-line exhortations. But Warren defends himself, saying "I'm never going to deny what I believe, but I've got to say it in a way that makes sense to the MTV generation in a postmodern world. Traditional churches think I'm changing the message, but all I'm doing is changing the method." An example of this change of method is having his pastors wear t-shirts when they preach and hand out fill-in-the-blank flash cards that fit with the day's sermon. Services at Saddleback Church would make liturgists at the Los Angeles archdiocese's Religious Education Congress salivate: worshippers at Saddleback have about two dozen services to choose from that feature various styles of music, such as heavy metal, reggae, and hula.
Warren told Associated Press that today it is as fitting for one to pray "the Lord is my CEO" or "my manager" as "the Lord is my shepherd." "You can't just assume terminology today is understandable," Warren said. "I work very hard at being a translator." But are his "translations" accurate? The musings of one Donna Petit, a 37-year-old former Catholic who has attend Saddleback for about 11 years, give one pause. "Religion before didn't give me the reality of who God can be — that he can be sleeping, eating, breathing," said Petit. "Pastor Rick takes these huge concepts and squishes them down. And because of that, it's doable, you know, I can trust God for today."
Pastor Rick not only runs Saddleback Church but has written two books, The Purpose Driven Church and The Purpose Driven Life, has trained about 300,000 pastors, and sends out a newsletter, The Ministry ToolBox to 138,000 pastors around the world.
THE LEGIONARIES OF CHRIST have been "restricted" in the archdiocese of Los Angeles, said the March 18 National Catholic Reporter. In February Cardinal Roger Mahony issued the order, which includes Regnum Christi, a lay group directed by the Legion of Christ. Regnum Christi members had sought to establish a high school in Conejo, a wealthy Ventura County suburb, but Mahony's order halts these plans.
Mahony, said the Reporter, is "reportedly based his decision on the Legion's divisive tactics, secrecy and penchant for fostering 'parallel groups' within a parish." For similar reasons Archbishop Harry Flynn of St. Paul, Minnesota, banned the Legion from his diocese. But, "they are not banned" in the archdiocese of L.A., a church official who requested anonymity told the Reporter. "They are permitted to have three priests in the archdiocese. That's all they're allowed to do. No school, no fundraising, no home Masses, no serving as supply priests, no other ministries or apostolates." According to a Legionaries spokesman, the ministries of Legion priests currently serving in the archdiocese include "some college chaplaincies and Hombre Nuevo radio station."
CARDINAL MAHONY'S PARTIAL BAN on Legion and Regnum Christi activities is the latest in a string of reversals for the religious congregation. The January 3 Hartford Courant reported that the Holy See would reopen a case in which nine former Legionaries have accused the congregation's founder, Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, of sexually molesting them when they were teenage seminarians in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s. Father Maciel denies the allegations. Eight of the surviving accusers, after fruitless attempts to interest the Vatican in the case throughout the years, drew up a formal complaint in 1998 to pursue a canonical case against Maciel. In 2002, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith told Maciel's accusers that the case would not proceed. But in January of this year, the congregation said the case could be reopened. Shortly following this news, on January 23 at the Legion's general chapter, Maciel stepped down as superior general of the congregation. He had held that post since the founding in 1941.
The news of the reopening of the Maciel case, coming after Pope John Paul II 's lavish public praise of Father Maciel, was somewhat surprising. On November 30, 2004, during the celebration of Father Maciel's 60th anniversary of ordination, the pope praised Maciel's "intense, generous, and fruitful priestly ministry," saying it has been "full of the gifts of the Holy Spirit." The pope also approved the statutes of Regnum Christi and entrusted the Legionaries with the care of the Notre Dame Center for pilgrims in Jerusalem.
Legion critics often object to the congregation for its apparent doctrinal orthodoxy and fidelity to the pope. However, in recent years, criticism of the Legion includes orthodox people who claim the Legion is cult-like, forming a parallel church structure in dioceses, and uses manipulative recruiting tactics and deceptive fundraising techniques. A group, ReGAIN, composed of former Legionaries and their families, has formed to publicize what they say is the truth about the Legion (www.regainnetwork.org).
PERSONNEL FILES OF PRIESTS accused of molestation were to be made public barring a successful appeal to the California supreme court, said the March 31 Los Angeles Daily News. For over a year, the archdiocese of Los Angeles and the counsel of the accused have been fighting to keep these files secret. David Steier, the attorney representing the priests, obtained a temporary ban on the release of the files to the public while he petitioned the second district court of appeals to make the ban permanent. However, on March 29, the court of appeals rejected Steier's appeal, meaning the files could be made public as early as April 12, when the temporary ban expired. Steier said he would petition the state supreme court to review the case.
In September 2004, Judge Thomas Nuss said the archdiocese was obliged to turn over the files to prosecutors; only those files that detailed discussions between the priests and their psychotherapists would be exempt. Mahony's lawyers have argued that both the state and federal constitutions protect all the documents in question from disclosure.
THE ARCHDIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES has "no position" on a talking Jesus doll that quotes Bible verses at the push of a button, Tod Tamberg, archdiocesan media representative, told the Los Angeles Daily News. The doll, the March 31 News reported, is scheduled to be released in June by the Valencia-based Beverly Hills Teddy Bear Company as part of their Messengers of Faith collection. The collection already features Barbie-sized Moses, David, and Virgin Mary dolls, along with a Teddy Bear that sings "Jesus Loves Me." "We are targeting the inspirational market, to do good things for children, something that adds to their quality of life and doesn't corrupt their minds," David Socha, the company's founder and executive president, told the News. "Our company has always created very conservative products." The Jesus doll, as a collector's item, will be numbered, and will sell for $24.99.
But though the archdiocese has no position on the Jesus doll, Tamberg said he thought it "would inspire education and have value." But won't such a doll be treated as a mere plaything by children, something to be tossed around? Such a toy, Tamberg said, would probably be purchased by families who will teach their children the unique character of the toy. "One would expect that their kids will be told that they are giving them something special," Tamberg said. "Hopefully, they will explain it to them."
ORANGE COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT judge Wendy Lindley announced the formation of a special homeless court March 30 at a session of the homeless outreach court at the Orange County Rescue Mission in Santa Ana, said the March 31 Los Angeles Times. Like the existing homeless court, the new court will deal with cases involving "quality of life" violations, such as disorderly conduct or drunkeness but will accommodate more defendants a month. Its new facilities — at a former Buffums department store in Santa Ana — will house offices for representatives for social services, psychological services, drug and alcohol counseling, housing, transportation, a public defender's office, legal, and job aid services. Sheriff Michael Carona said this pilot program "will save a lot of money because there'll be less people sitting in my jail. It'll save lives because it motivates people to get their lives turned around. It's rehabilitation versus strict punishment." The current homeless court services about 40 cases a month; the new court, expected to open in mid 2006, expects to service about 100 cases a month.
The March 30 session of the homeless court dealt with eight cases. Four of these involved military veterans; another three were mentally ill.
OPPOSITION GROUPS are making life hard for Wal Mart in California, said a March 20 Los Angeles Daily News story. To date, a small group of lawyers has sued over 30 cities that have approved Wal Mart superstores — 200,000 square-foot combination grocery and variety stores — for their communities. In 2003, Wal Mart announced that it intended to open 40 such supercenters in California, an important market for the retail giant. But community groups and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union have charged that the presence of Wal Mart superstores not only lowers wages but causes blight in communities, since a number of businesses go under when a Wal Mart supercenter moves in. The anti-superstore lawyers are using the California Environmental Quality Act (signed into law by Governor Ronald Reagan in 1970) to stop the developments. The fifth district court of appeal in Bakersfield made this strict law even stricter when it ruled in December that cities need to include economic impact when considering the environmental impact of a business they approve. The case involved the approval of a supercenter by the city of Bakersfield. Walnut Creek attorney Stephen Kostka called the decision an "atomic bomb" for shopping center developers.
However, the lawsuits will not stop Wal Mart, said company spokesman Peter Kanelos, only delay the opening of the supercenters. But the delay may be months, or even years.
A MARCH FOR PEACE, featuring the stations of the cross, was held in Compton on Good Friday, March 25, said the March 26 Los Angeles Times. Father Stan Bosch, pastor of Sacred Heart and Our Lady of Victory churches in Compton, organized the march, which focused, not on the war in Iraq, but on the war waged in Compton's streets — gang violence. About 600 people followed a performer dressed as Jesus through the 14 traditional stations; but the two stations where Christ fell marked the places children have been shot and killed. In the period from January 1 to March 25, gun violence in Compton has claimed the lives of 21 children and teenagers. Father Bosch said he hoped the march would be a witness that would help bring an end to gang violence in Compton. One way it could do this, he said, was by bringing neighbors in the city together. "There is a real power when our people are out and knowing each other," Bosch said. "A person is less likely to shoot another person if they know them by name," Bosch said.
A WEEK EARLIER, on March 19, about 4,000 anti-war protestors, chanting, carrying signs and cardboard coffins, marched down Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles to mark the second anniversary of the Iraq war. According to organizers, the numbers turned out fell below those of previous marches, but the number of veterans and military families was higher. Pro-union demonstrators carrying banners protesting President Bush's domestic policies joined the war protestors. One of event's organizers, Muna Coobte, 28, explained their presence to the Los Angeles Times. "The elections in Iraq changed how we have to act," she said. "We have to make this about larger issues so the thousands of dead Iraqis and soldiers aren't forgotten during protests against tax cuts."
Business owners along Hollywood Boulevard opposed the event, saying it dissuaded customers from entering their shops. But one vendor, 63-year-old Larry Starks, said the march was good for his business. "I sell to pro-war, antiwar, anyone with money," said Starks, who peddaled umbrellas and antiwar flags from a grocery cart. "The people here are older than at pro-war meetings, but they're more friendly. Everyone says 'please' and 'thank you.'"
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER IS COMPLEX, said Kevin Starr, former California state librarian, in the March 27 Los Angeles Times. Only outwardly is he Conan the Barbarian. "The inner Schwarzenegger," writes Starr, "is a complex, highly intelligent and intuitive Euro-American with a sense of history and an informed taste for late medieval Austrian woodcarvings and 20th century Mexican art, as well as motorcycles and fine cigars." He is "fundamentally an autodidact and a product of experience, unintimidated by the establishment — especially the political establishment — and suspicious of received wisdom." And though he has "vaguely libertarian positions on lifestyle choices" (abortion and homosexual unions), and is a free-marketeer in the tradition of the Austrian school of economics, Schwarzenegger "is also a Catholic, as a matter of overall belief and cultural identity." This Catholicism, says Starr, leads to an "emphasis on the public sector and commitment to distributive justice — the 'safety net' in American." Since he came of age "as a Roman Catholic in Western Europe," Schwerzenegger "couldn't help but absorb a measure of social democracy, an orientation no doubt strengthened by his marriage to Maria Shriver, an informed and articulate Democrat of impeccable social democratic lineage, with whom the governor shares a powerful intellectual connection." But Starr adds this caveat. "Don't get me wrong," he says. "I'm not suggesting that Schwarzenegger spends his leisure hours conning Jacques Maritain's Christianity and Democracy, Man and the State, or The Person and the Common Good. Nor is it likely that these tomes' social democratic ideas are what he and his motorcycle buddies chat about over their two-way radios during road trips."
THE CALIFORNIA MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, in an almost unanimous vote at their annual meeting on March 21, passed a resolution to condemn President George W. Bush and the United States Congress for passing legislation allowing Terri Schiavo's parents to petition a federal judge to order their daughter' s feeding tube reconnected. The resolution called on the medical association to "express its outrage at Congress' interference with medical decisions." Only one voice out of about 450 rose in opposition to the resolution, said the March 22 Los Angeles Times. Some medical association members complained of what they deemed improper political influence over decisions best left to physicians and families. "To say a husband has no right to save his wife from a horrible existence is intolerable," said Mervin Sterling, an internist in Orange who practices hospice care. "This is a golden-rule issue, and we feel it is an important national issue." But Robert Hertzka, former president of the California Medical Association, said that if convention delegates were polled, about half would probably have supported reinserting Schiavo's feeding tube. What delegates disputed, said Hertzka, was Congress "inserting themselves into a situation best left to a healthcare team." Other doctors objected to federal interference in a manner decided by state government.
Members of the California Medical Association said they will petition the American Medical Association to pass a similar resolution at their national meeting in June.
CABLE GAY. Viacom, the largest owner of cable networks in the United States, will offer Logo, a network aimed at a homosexual audience, said the April 11 New York Times. The network is scheduled to debut June 30. The advertiser-supported network [three advertisers have signed up: Orbitz, Subaru, and Paramount Pictures (owned by Viacom)] will offer original series, one being My Fabulous Gay Wedding, which according to a Viacom statement, "challenges about-to-be-married gay and lesbian couples to fulfill a long-held wish to have the wedding of their dreams." Another series, Cruiser, features characters who are "a happy couple celebrating 20 years together, the newly out man from Iowa with his mom and lesbians looking for love." The network will feature documentaries on the diversity of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual "communities," and on the gay rodeo circuit, "a traveling fund-raiser where gays and lesbians put their own spin on the Wild West," according to the company.
Regent Entertainment Group has been developing Here, a cable service for homosexuals. One feature will be Adored: Diary of a Male Porn Star. But, according to Paul Colichman, who is developing the service for Regent, Here will not feature "heavy-handed message films or 'coming out' films;" rather, among its offerings is a naval action show called Tides of War and Goldfish Memory, which will feature "an eclectic maze of sexually explorative young characters."
Colichman said Here will not feature pornography for it will target mainstream American homosexuals. "We are not out at bars cruising for anonymous sex," Colichman said. "We are generally at home with our partners, taking care of a leaking roof and transporting the cat to the vet because she is coughing. What the gay community lacks is the same type of general entertainment that everybody else has."