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1999 NEWS STORIES
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ROAMIN' CATHOLIC
Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
MARCH 1999
ANOTHER PRO-ABORT APPOINTMENT. On December 21, House Speaker Anthony Villaraigosa announced the appointment of Valerie Brown, a former Democratic Assemblywoman from the Seventh Assembly District, to the California Medical Assistance Commission. Brown termed out this year after repenting her district for seven years.
According to the Speaker's Office of Policy, the purpose of the Medical Assistance Commission is to "contract with health care delivery systems to provide health care services to Medi-Cal recipients and submit reports to the legislature...regarding number and type of health service contracts, persons serviced, cost of service..."
While in the State Assembly, Brown had a 100% pro-abortion voting record. In the legislative years, 1997 and 1998, Brown voted for full funding of partial birth abortions. On the issue of parental consent, Brown spoke out against parental consent during a committee vote in 1998.
One Republican operative told the Mission that Valerie Brown can best be described as some one who has a "militant pro abortion voting record." In addition to her rigid pro-abortion stance, Brown carried the bill that makes clergymen, including Catholic priests, mandated child abuse reporters. Though the Church put out protocols to provide guidance in dealing with possible child abuse allegations involving Catholic priests, Brown's bill "rendered them obsolete," said this well placed source.
A REQUIEM MASS WAS HELD January 8 for Monsignor Charles Fortier at Divine Savior Roman Catholic Church in East Los Angeles. Monsignor Fortier had worked in the office of Family Life for many years, first having come to Los Angeles in 1980 from the Diocese of Lafayette in Louisiana. Cardinal Mahony was the principal celebrant at the standing-room-only Mass, a testimony to the love the people had for Monsignor Fortier. In addition to Cardinal Mahony, Bishop Stephen Blaire attended as did the cardinal's secretary, Monsignor Kevin Kostelnick. Two of Monsignor's siblings were present at the Mass. The evening before, a rosary was held for Monsignor Fortier at Divine Savior church. The rosary was lead by San Gabriel Regional Bishop Gabino Zavala.
Monsignor Fortier's work was primarily among the Latino Catholic population of Los Angeles as well as of numerous other places both in the United States and in Mexico. Monsignor was in charge of the Spanish-language Marriage Encounter program, considered a model throughout the United States. At Monsignor's funeral Mass, the homilist recounted how Monsignor would come into the Family Life office on Monday mornings, after having spent the weekend at a Marriage Encounter Retreat, ready to work on another project, "He acted as if he had rested the entire weekend." Monsignor Fortier was buried in Lafayette, Lousiana.
THE IMAGE OF JOHN PAUL II in the Los Angeles Times during the pope's visit to Mexico and America seemed to be of a palsied, sickly, though unaccountably charismatic old man who ruled over a church which increasingly rejected his model of Catholicism. One article, "Catholic Mexico's Surprising Birthrate" (January 22, 1999) told how the use of artificial contraception has spread among Catholics in Mexico over the past 25 years. "Nine out of ten Mexicans call themselves Catholic," says the Times article, "yet nearly seven in ten married women also use some form of birth control--up from three in ten as recently as 1976--despite the church's official opposition to any artificial birth control." According to the article, while in 1965 the average number of children per family was seven, today the average is 2.5 children. This has occurred, says the Times, because of an intense family planning effort, encouraged by the government. Though the Church "hierarchy in Mexico has never relaxed its formal opposition to birth control," says the Times, many priests turn a blind eye to its use among layfolk.
In the article "John Paul Encounters 2 Degrees of Faith," the Times cites a National Opinion Research Center study which shows a decreasing number of Catholics considering themselves "strong Catholics" and attending Mass. Whereas in 1972-74, 46 percent of Catholics would have called themselves "strong," according to the Times, today only 37 percent (21 percent among 18 to 29 year olds) so designate themselves. In 1972-74, 48 percent of Catholics attended Mass weekly; now, only 29 percent do so.
Latinos do not fare better, according to the Times; the percentage of Latinos who are Catholic is dropping. In the 1970s, says the Times, 74.8 percent of Latinos were Catholic; by the 1980s, 66.1 percent were Catholic; by the 1990s, only 62.0 percent.
CALLING HIM A "TEFLON POPE," A Saturday, January 30 Los Angeles Times article detailed how Pope John Paul II's critics refrain from criticism of him--at least while he is on their home turf. "There may be a reticence about dissidents to criticize the Holy Father while he's in the country," James Akin, an apologist for the San Diego based Catholic Answers, told the Times. "They would only damage their own credibility. They're more likely to criticize him from afar than [put] their reputations on the line by criticizing him while he is here." Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice (a pro-abortion group), all but agreed with Akin. "It would be silly to be highly critical," Kissling told the Times. Though she would not put aside her issues surrounding women and sexuality (especially women's "abortion rights"), she admitted that "there's always the recognition that when the pope is physically present, being critical is only going to be interpreted as raining on his parade. I think people were willing to let him have his parade."
Dissidents in the Church, says the Times, realize there is more to John Paul II than his "opposition to women priests, abortion and birth control." This pope is viewed as "politically liberal," "an ally on issues such as the church's attitudes toward the poor and its role in questioning the values of the marketplace." "There is so much more that he's saying that is helpful," Kissling told the Times, "and my instinct is to be supportive, not critical." Besides, one will not change John Paul on the controverted questions, such as women's ordination and artificial contraception. "Everybody recognizes that is absolutely futile to take him on on these issues," said Linda Pieczynski, president of Call to Action. "What we are trying to do is survive and hold on until [the next pope]."
MAQUILADORAS IN TIJUANA and elsewhere along the U.S.-Mexico border continue to force women to undergo illegal pregnancy tests as a condition of employment, according to Human Rights Watch, an international organization based in New York that reports on human rights abuses around the world. "This is flagrant sex discrimination that these corporations would never dare defend or practice in their own countries," said Human Rights Watch in a statement released Dec. 29. Women are required to submit urine specimens for pregnancy testing and are asked intimate questions about their sexual practices, whether they use artificial birth control and the regularity of their menstrual cycles, according to the report. If a woman is found to be pregnant, she is not hired, investigators said. In some companies, the practice extends to even after a woman is on the job. At three companies, women were forced to show their used sanitary napkins to maquiladora medical personnel to prove they were not pregnant. If they refuse or are found to be pregnant, they lose their jobs.
The report was based on the cases of 53 women who sought work or were working at 50 different maquiladoras in Tijuana, Renoysa, Rio Bravo and Ciudad Juárez. Nineteen maquiladoras in Tijuana were cited in the report, including Samsung, United Solar Systems, Tyco International, Matsushita and Sanyo. Of the 19, 15 firms refused to respond to Human Rights Watch. Of the four companies that did respond, three denied any wrongdoing or that they had violated any Mexican law. Only United Solar Systems promised to discontinue the discriminatory practices.
Both state and federal labor authorities in Mexico have said such practices are not technically against the law, but Human Rights Watch disagreed, saying discrimination against pregnant women in the workplace not only violates Mexican law, but also international law and the laws of the headquarters countries of the maquiladoras. "The Mexican government has abandoned women workers to the discriminatory practices of maquiladora operators," the report charged. "Women are left having to choose between a job and their rights."
INCREASING NUMBERS ARE SEEKING spiritual direction, according to a story, "Journey of the Human Soul," published in the January 6, 1999 Los Angeles Times. The article details how spiritual direction, once almost exclusively Catholic and Orthodox, now finds a place in Protestant denominations.
The Times story tells of Dan Shanahan who, because of the spiritual direction he had received, quit a more lucrative sales job to become a "coordinator of volunteers" at Saint Monica's parish in Santa Monica. Who gave spiritual direction to Shanahan, who is Catholic? According to the Times, Shanahan, wanting to spend more time with his wife and child, "consulted the [Los Angeles] Archdiocese's interdenominational referral service and was directed to a United Methodist minister, the Reverend Larry Peacock," pastor of the Malibu United Methodist Church. Peacock, said the Times, "had been trained for the role of director...through a series of programs sponsored by Catholics, Quakers and Methodists."
Does the archdiocese refer Catholics to non-Catholic spiritual directors? To find out, the Mission contacted the archdiocese and asked for the "archdiocese's interdenominational referral service." We were directed to the archdiocesan office for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. Father Gilbert Romero, director of this office, told the Mission that he had never heard of an archdiocesan interreligious referral service--"there isn't any such organization, as far as I know," he said. Father Romero said he "would like to follow through" on what the Mission told him, saying we had raised "a very interesting question." He wondered at the source of the Times article's assertion because he thought it was "promoting something that's not necessarily true, or [that] certainly gives the wrong impression." "There is no interdenominational referral service for the archdiocese," Father Romero reiterated. "This is really the only official archdiocesan organization for ecumenism, so anything official has to come through this office."
The Mission next contacted Sister Thomas Bernard of the Archdiocesan Spirituality Center in Los Angeles. Sister Thomas, quoted in the Times article, told the Times that, while in the past the Spirituality Center attracted mostly Catholics, Protestants this year make up almost half of the center's 40 students. Spiritual direction, said Sister Thomas, is not "psychological counseling" nor is it "religious education, teaching people about the Bible or church history. It is about learning to recognize the directee's personal experience of God. As they go about their ordinary life, the director wants to know, 'How does a person in spiritual direction become aware of God?'.... Prayer is an absolute necessity. Beyond that, a person might find, in nature or in the supermarket, they meet God."
Is the Spirituality Center the "interdenominational referral service" mentioned in the article? Sister Thomas said she was uncertain what this referral service might be. "I was interested in that reference," she said, "because I think Dan [Shanahan] might have been referring to our center, because we do a lot of referring here, people looking for spiritual directors. Now, whether there's another entity, I don't know."
Sister Thomas said that her center might refer Catholics to non-Catholic spiritual directors "if that's what they want." Would a non-Catholic, however, whose theology is non-sacramental, be able sufficiently to understand a Catholic's spiritual needs? "I must say," said Sister Thomas, "since you ask that question--in the years that I've been here, and doing referrals, I've never had a Catholic request a Protestant" spiritual director. "It very often goes the other way; but I don't recall any instance of that. But, if that's what they want, I would be happy. When I refer people, I usually try to surface four or five names so that's there's kind of a mixture on the list. It all depends on the person."
Sister Thomas next referred us to Dan Shanahan, who told the Mission that his spiritual director, Reverend Peacock, did part of his training as a spiritual director at the Archdiocesan Spirituality Center. When asked whether he knew of an archdiocesan "interdenominational referral service," Shanahan said, "that would be Sister Thomas Bernard. That would be her thing. I think what Mary Rourke [the author of the Times article] did in that article was just use her own euphemism for what Sister Thomas Bernard's program is. It is interdenominational in that Sister Thomas Bernard, of course, is Catholic, and it's through the Archdiocesan Institute for Retreat and Spiritual Direction. People that go through that three year course are put on a list of names to be spiritual directors, and it's interdenominational in that other people besides Catholics will go through that program. That's why Sister Thomas Bernard didn't recognize it under that name."
THE "AMISH SOLUTION" is characteristic of homeschooling families, said Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland at a University of San Francisco lecture on January 25. "There is a tendency in many Churches to be anti-modern.... That is not going to work." Addressing a crowd of largely aging Catholics on the subject of ecumenism, Weakland said that he is tired of conservative Catholics using the Pope's phrase "culture of death." "I wish the Holy Father hadn't invented it...." Resistance" to the world undermines ecumenism, said Weakland. Catholic "identity" and Catholic obtuseness are also obstacles. "We just keep going.... We don't analyze the present situation.... We need to have an extra antenna...." "Discerning the spirit" requires a "sense of what is going on" in the world.
The Church must Americanize her approach and structures in order to grow, said Weakland. "We haven't yet integrated some of the basic desires" of the American people. "Participation" is "basic to our American culture.... The second value in our culture which I think is very serious is fairness. Until the Church is able to get processes not just for theologians but for everyone so that they get a fair hearing, we will not be credible. We will not be seen as a just church. All of these are positives of American culture."
Weakland made special note of the Church's alleged sins and backwardness. "The wounds of the crusades still affect all of us." "We are a funny group of people because we were the ones who resisted the Enlightenment.... It takes us a few centuries to get there."