NEWS
1998 NEWS STORIES
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ROAMIN' CATHOLIC
Contents © 1998
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
NEWS
JULY/AUGUST 1998
WHILE CARDINAL MAHONY WAS UNDERGOING A ROUTINE PHYSICAL examination last February, doctors detected prostate cancer in the 62-year-old prelate. At a May 28 press conference at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, flanked by two surgeons, the cardinal admitted that no one (not even family members) save Monsignor Kevin Kostelnik, his secretary and Monsignor Terrance Fleming, vicar general for the archdiocese had previously known about his condition. The Holy Father was told about the cardinal's cancer only hours before the press conference. The cardinal admitted that when he had been told that he had prostate cancer, he was shocked and gave God thanks that the cancer had been detected early enough that there was a strong possibility of a complete recovery. His Eminence acknowledged that the surgery had been put off until after the busy seasons of Lent and Easter.
At the news conference, the cardinal was careful to assure everyone that none of his plans would change and that the cathedral project was still going forward. The Los Angeles Times quoted a city official saying that the cardinal was in fact the driving force behind the projected 163 million dollar project. "He's the one who picked the architect, he's the one who picked the location...it's his baby, even though it's for everybody. He is the dominant force."
On Thursday, June 19, according to Catholic World News Service, Cardinal Mahony was released from USC/Norris Cancer Center in Los Angeles, having undergone surgical removal of his prostrate gland there on Monday, June 15. Doctors at the Cancer Center declared Mahony cancer-free. The cardinal himself encouraged all men to have regular physical examinations and prostrate cancer tests, to which tests he credits the early detection of his cancer and the successful surgical outcome.
LOS ANGELES SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE RICHARD O'BRIAN on Friday, June 5 denied a petition by Gabrielino Chief, Vera Rocha, to stop construction of the 163 million dollar cathedral that Cardinal Mahony is planning to build by the year 2000. The lawsuit which was filed by Rocha alleges that the project is in violation of the California Enviromental Quality Act, and is an unconstititional entanglement of Church and State.
On June 4, Rocha, along with her attorney, Craig Sherman, and others held a press conference at the Pasadena Holiday Inn to outline the problems the group has with the proposed cathedral.
Judge O'Brien did not give an explanation for denying the petition. The decision will be appealed by the plaintiffs within 30 days.
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROTECTING RELIGIOUS LIBERTY might seem unnecessary in the United States. But is it? Not to 224 United States congressmen who, Thursday, June 4, voted to propose to the states just such an amendment.
The bill, House Joint Resolution 78, called the "Religious Freedom Constitutional Amendment," reads: "To secure the people's right to acknowledge God According to the dictates of conscience: The people's right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage, or traditions on public property, including schools, shall not be infringed. The Government shall not require any person to join in prayer or other religious activity, initiate or designate school prayers, discriminate against religion, or deny equal access to benefit on account of religion."
According to the Catholic World News Service, while the Clinton administration opposed the amendment, saying it was unnecessary, Representative Ernest Istook (R.-Oklahoma), who sponsored the amendment stated that a constitutional guarantee of religious liberty is necessary because both the courts and bureaucracy have eroded the right to public religious expression. However, though a majority of the House of Representatives agreed with Istook (the vote was 224 to 203, with seven not voting), the amendment failed by 61 votes to garner the two-thirds majority necessary for the passage of a constitutional amendment.
Among Democrats in the California congressional delegation, only one representative, Gary Condit of Modesto, supported the amendment. Of Republicans representing districts in the greater Los Angeles area and in the San Joaquin Valley, only two representatives, Stephen Horn of Long Beach and Jerry Lewis of Redlands, opposed the amendment. Republicans who supported the amendment include: William M. Thomas (Bakersfield), Elton Gallegly (Simi Valley), James E. Rogan (Glendale), David Dreier (San Dimas), Edward R. Royce (Fullerton), Jay Kim (Diamond Bar), Ken Calvert (Corona), Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (Santa Clarita), Mary Bono (Palm Springs), Dana Rohrabacher (Huntington Beach), and Christopher Cox (Newport Beach). Both McKeon and Calvert also co-sponsored the bill.
A spokesman for Congressman Horn told the Mission that Horn opposed House Joint Resolution 78 because "he doesn't believe a constitutional amendment is necessary because students can already pray in school, can already have prayer clubs, and engage in all sorts of religious activities in school and in the public square." This amendment, said the spokesman, "would also do damage to the First Amendment, and possibly allow for prayers to be said over the intercom, creating a conflict with the parents' right to raise their children in any religious upbringing they want. It might also turn the school yard into a sort of the famous airport waiting rooms where you have people walking around handing out literature about their religion, and trying to convert children on the school yards." Asked if, currently, students are not forbidden to pray, even privately, in schools, the Horn spokesman said, "students can pray individually and also in groups, as long as it is not disruptive, just like any other classroom activity."
The Mission also tried to contact Congressman Lewis' office, but our calls were not returned.
According to Catholic World News, supporters of the amendment are not discouraged. Representative Istook said it usually takes four or five attempts before an amendment can win the necessary approval. Randy Tate, executive director of the Christian Coalition said he thought "it a victory to have had this vote, the first of its kind in the House in 27 years."
ON A UCLA WEB PAGE (www.humnet. ucla.edu/queerla/projects/catholicla.html), there is an article by Christopher S. Ysais entitled, "Queer Latina/o Catholic Outreach in L.A." The author interviewed three prominant members of the archdiocese's outreach to homosexuals: Father Peter Liuzzi, Raffael Vega and Coco Villegas.
Ysais applauds Liuzzi's approach to ministering to homosexual Catholics. Ysais, who interviewed Liuzzi at his archdiocesan office, notes that Liuzzi likes "to talk about the group Dignity and the healthy rivalry the group has with Father Liuzzi's ministry." Liuzzi, whom the author refers to as Peter, makes no mention in the interview of the problems the Catholic Church has with Dignity, such as the organization's rejection of celibacy for homosexuals and its promotion of same sex unions. Instead, Liuzzi complains about Dignity's "having priests without faculties preside at Mass", demanding institutional change in the Church's teachings "immediately" instead of attempting to bring about change over time, and their "forcing the Cardinal to recognize the validity of gay and lesbian relationships." Liuzzi is quick to state: "Our community that is in dialogue with the archdiocese does recognize the validity of our member's relationships, we just take a different approach to the problem." Ysais then goes on to state that "Liuzzi believes in a quiet revolution." The goal of having homosexuals involved in parishes throughout the archdiocese and being visible is a recurring theme in the article.
TRUE TO THE GOAL OF HAVING THE HOMOSEXUAL MINISTRY BECOME ACTIVE in the parishes, on March 7 and 8, Father Liuzzi gave a homily on the U.S. bishops' letter, Always Our Children, at all Masses that were celebrated at St. Paul's Catholic Church in Westwood. Mission readers will remember that Father Robert Nugent disclosed that he, along with Father Liuzzi and Father Jim Schexyder were the authors of Always Our Children (See "The Outmoded Cross of Christ", October 1997 Mission).
While Father Liuzzi gave his homily inside St. Paul's, protesters stood outside with signs protesting Always Our Children. This protest made enough of an impact that in his March 11 letter to the Friends of the Ministry with Lesbian and Gay Catholics, Father Liuzzi chose to address the concerns of the protesters. Calling them "dissenters from the right," he cited how the protesters placed "distorted reports from various ultraconservative literature" on windshields or handed them out to parishioners as they went to Mass that weekend.
At the end of his homily, Father Liuzzi, telling the congregation that they were now "well-informed," asked the congregation some questions: If you are married, engaged or dating, how well do you live out the church's teachings on human sexuality? Do you realize that your example impacts your homosexual brothers and sisters? If you are single, widowed or divorced, how well do you follow the Church's teaching? Your example is a message to gay and lesbian Catholics. Shall we have a double standard of morality--one for gays and one for straights?
AFTER NEARLY FIVE YEARS OF INCARCERATION by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Chinese refugee Zhou Shiu Yon has been released from Elmwood Detention Facility in Milpitas (where she was transferred earlier this year from the Lerdo Detention Facility in Bakersfield). Zhou was freed on May 28 after intervention by internationally-known Chinese human rights activist Harry Wu, now residing in Milpitas. Two days before her release, Wu and a reporter for ABC Nightline had visited Shiu Yon at the prison, apparently prompting action by the INS.
Zhou fled China in 1993 to escape that country's forced abortion and sterilization policy. According to Tim Palmquist of the Bakersfield-based Voice for Life, a pro-life group which has spearheaded efforts to free a large group of Chinese refugees held in Lerdo prison since 1994, Zhou told them that when she became pregnant without official permission, five Chinese government agents broke down her door (the pregnancy having been reported by her doctor) and took her to a hospital. She was forced to take an unknown pill, was locked in a room and was told a worker would return in 30 minutes to give her a shot (possibly RU-486, according to Palmquist). Her boyfriend bribed one of the hospital workers to allow Zhou to jump out of the third story window to escape. Her boyfriend picked her up and quickly arranged for her to escape China on a smuggler's boat. The boat was intercepted in Mexican waters by INS agents. The extremely ill Zhou was airlifted to a San Diego hospital, where she was told by staff that "they must take the baby out" to save her life. Zhou believes the baby was alive when she got to San Diego, so does not think the abortion pill killed the baby; she is still unclear about whether San Diego doctors aborted her baby or removed an already-dead baby.
Wu and Zhou testified June 10 before the House Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights (led by Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey) about China's forced abortion and sterilization policy. Zhou told the story of her escape, incarceration in America and U.S. government attempts to deport her. She told of women hiding throughout their pregnancies, nine-months-pregnant women being taken for forced abortions, and houses being burned down to punish people who violate the one-child policy.
Also testifying was Gao Xiah Duan, a former Chinese population control officer who defected to the United States last month. Mrs. Gao documented forced abortions in China with a video, photos and documents. Gao showed footage of the filthy rooms in which abortions and sterilizations are performed and a video of a seven-month-old aborted baby and a detention cell with bars for the pregnant women. At the end of her testimony, Gao, who told Terri Palmquist privately that she has become a Christian, wept, saying, "For all the babies that I have murdered, for all the families I have destroyed, for all the women I have ruined, I repent and I wish to say I'm sorry."
In his closing remarks, Wu criticized the United Nations' granting of an award to China's population control program, saying China should "export its expertise." Wu told the subcommittee, "Americans must wake up to the cruelty and shame of a policy which makes brothers and sisters illegal, and the whitewashing of the UN on this issue must end."
Zhou is now living with Sharon and Greg Peterson of Indianapolis, friends of Tim and Terri Palmquist, who put up a $10,000 bond to sponsor Zhou and who plan to adopt her formally if her request for asylum is granted.
In 1995, several other Chinese refugees held at Lerdo Prison were given asylum in Ecuador, with intervention from the Holy See. Others have been deported back to China. Two women remain in jail, one in Milpitas and one in Bakersfield.
A UNITED STATES HOUSE COMMITTEE has moved to protect parents' rights to choose how to raise their children, according to Catholic World News Service. By a vote of 17-10, on Tuesday, June 23, the House Judiciary Committee passed the Child Custody Protection Act which would place federal penalties on anyone who would take a teenage girl across state lines for an abortion to avoid parental consent laws. The vote in the committee was along party lines. The House will take up the bill sometime in July.
The bill proposes up to a year in jail and a fine of $100,000 for anyone other than a girl's parents or guardian taking her across state lines for an abortion from a state that requires parental consent. Exemption is granted to legal custodians, and the bill protects the minor receiving the abortion and her parents from prosecution and lawsuit.
AFTER DECIDING NOT TO RULE on the pending cross motions for summary judgment in the Monrovia Daytime Curfew litigation, Los Angeles Superior Court judge Carolyn Kuhl has asked Attorney General Dan Lungren's office for an opinion in the Monrovia Daytime Curfew litigation. However, according to Ann Mauer, defense attorney for the City of Monrovia, the attorney general does not issue opinions in pending litigation. Mauer said that, instead, the court will ask for a friend of the court brief from Lungren's office. The questions before the Attorney General's office are whether or not the California Education code's compulsory attendance law applies to all minors or only to public school students and is Monrovia's ordinance preempted by the education code.
Last year, a group of home schooled and privately educated students and their parents filed suit against the City of Monrovia after the students had been repeatedly stopped by the Monrovia police department. The students and their families complained that the police are harassing the students and violating their constitutional rights. When asked for reaction to Judge Kuhl's decision, attorney Andrew W. Zepeda, who represents the plaintiffs, said about the delay: "Judge Kuhl is taking a cautious approach. She has agreed to address the preemption issue of whether or not Monrovia can enforce compulsory attendance laws on their own before addressing the constitutionality issues. Either way it is an entirely appropriate approach."
With regards to Monrovia's statistics that daytime curfews lessen juvenile crime, Zepeda pointed out that the Justice Policy Institute just released findings on a state-wide study of daytime curfews and juvenile crime. Zepeda said it was heartening to see that the Justice Policy study reiterated what plaintiffs have said all along, that daytime curfews do not diminish juvenile crime and unnecessarily trample on the constitutional rights of minors. In their press release, the Justice Policy Institute pointed out that, "The Monrovia Police Department credited the curfew with a dramatic drop in crime during the school hours. However the very opposite picture emerged from detailed police records during the lawsuit filed by the parents. According to the study, youth crime skyrocketed by 53% during the school months when the curfew is most vigorously enforced, yet declined by 12% in the summer months when the curfew was not enforced."
Chief Joseph Santoro disputed this study, saying that the Justice Policy Institute's findings were not reliable since they were "hired guns for the plaintiffs." This was in reference to the plaintiff's use of one of the authors of the study as an expert witness. Santoro emphasized that the daytime curfew law does not apply to home school and private school students. He also pointed out that none of the minors had been harmed by the stops. When the Mission asked for a comment on Santoro's allegation that the study was the product of work done on behalf of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, the study's co-author, Dan MacAllair of the Justice Policy Institute, said that the study had been funded by the California Wellness Foundation, a public health group, and had nothing to do with the Homeschool Legal Defense Association.
The June trial date was vacated by Judge Kuhl until the Attorney General's office issues their opinion.
IT SEEMS THERE WAS NO "AMEN CORNER" for Ambassador Julia Alvarez of the Dominican Republic when she addressed the 1998 Population Consultation of the United Nations NGO [non-governmental organization] Committee on Population and Development in New York City, in May. The gathering was made up of more than 30 NGOs that promote world population control programs. Among the groups represented were Zero Population Growth, International Planned Parenthood Federation, and Population Communications International.
According to a May 22 fax from Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, Alvarez, "a widely respected UN veteran," stated that, from their inception in the 1920s, population control programs have been racially motivated, targeting poor and dark skinned populations in countries like her own. These population control programs, she said, have placed a tremendous burden on older women in the target countries who "could depend on their adult children to take care of them in old age... In 1960, for example, a Jamaican woman had an average of six children; by 1990, she was likely to have fewer than three. Now... typically she has two. Who will supply the support system for this mother when she is old?"
Attendees of the Population Consultation lavished little praise, too, on Dr. James McCarthy, Head of the Center for Population at Columbia University, who stated that "population size doesn't matter."
Readers may contact the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute at 866 United Nations Plaza, Suite 4038, New York, New York 10017; or phone (212) 754-5948; fax (212) 754-9291; e-mail: cafhri@cafhri.com.
ENCOURAGE LAY INITIATIVE, POPE JOHN PAUL II TOLD U.S. BISHOPS, according to an June 8 report from Catholic World News Service. In a meeting with bishops from Minnesota and the Dakotas, His Holiness stated that "the new evangelization which could make the 21st Century a springtime for the Church is the task of the entire people of God, but it will depend in a decisive way on the manner in which the lay faithful are conscious of their baptismal vocation and their responsibility to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to their culture and their society."
Bishops, said the Holy Father, must teach, govern and sanctify in such a way that laymen may most fully contribute to evangelization. The pope also called on bishops to encourage laymen to be faithful to the Church's teaching on artificial contraception, and he encouraged the prelates to follow new Vatican guidelines on the role of the laity in the liturgy.
HOW DID CATHOLICS VOTE IN THE JUNE 2 PRIMARIES? According to a Los Angeles Times Poll/CNN exit poll, a majority of Catholics surveyed supported Democratic candidates in the gubernatorial and senate races, while they opposed Proposition 226 and supported Proposition 227. The Times Poll/CNN surveyed 5,143 voters by confidential questionnaire leaving 100 polling places during voting hours. Results were adjusted slightly since absentee voters and those declining to participate were not included. According to pollsters, percentage numbers given "may not add up to 100 percent where some voter groups or candidates are not shown."
According to the poll, 66 percent of Catholics surveyed voted for Democratic gubernatorial candidates, while only 30 percent voted for Republican candidate, Dan Lungren. Of those who voted for Democrats, 38 percent went for Gray Davis, 18 percent for Al Checchi, and 10 percent for Jane Harman. In the senatorial contest, 47 percent of Catholics cast votes for Democrat Barbara Boxer, while 21 percent voted for Republican Matt Fong, and 16 percent for Republican Darryl Issa.
Catholics surveyed opposed, by 59 percent to 41 percent, Proposition 226, which would have given union members discretion over how their union political contributions are spent. Catholics supported Proposition 227 (which would severely limit bilingual education in public schools) by 54 percent to 46 percent.
HOW SHOULD A CATHOLIC CAST HIS VOTE? On May 21, His Eminence, Roger Cardinal Mahony spoke of a "consistent life ethic" as the guide for Catholic voting, according to the June 5 National Catholic Reporter. While a candidate's stand on abortion provides "one signficant test of commitment to the protection of human life," there are other criteria, said His Eminence. "A consistent ethic of life," said Mahony, "challenges us to address a wide spectrum of social conditions and policies that diminish human life: euthanasia; military force that does not respect the rights of innocent non-combatants; violence of any kind; capital punishment; inadequate health care for children, the needy, and the elderly; policies that erode the inherent dignity of the disabled."
Such a consistent life ethic would seem to have excluded any of the major candidates running in the June 2 California primary. All Democratic candidates, whether congressional, senatorial or gubernatorial, supported "abortion rights," while Republican candidates such as Dan Lungren, supported the use of the death penalty. Yet, while Cardinal Mahony stated that "Catholics may not compromise the position that abortion is a grave moral evil for a society which permits it so widely," His Eminence did not say Catholics must not vote for candidates that failed to meet all the criteria of the consistent life ethic. "We must carefully and prayerfully consider," said His Eminence, "which political candidates and which parties will, on balance, serve and protect human life and promote human dignity, as well as the heart of the democratic ideal."
THE WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3 LOS ANGELES TIMES reported that Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon was criticized by Cardinal Mahony for using a picture in a political brochure showing the councilman receiving communion from His Eminence. Alarcon vied with Richard Katz for the Democratic nomination in San Fernando's 20th State Senate District.
"I am very troubled that this photograph is being interpreted by those who see it as my endorsement of your campaign fo the California state Senate," Mahony told Alarcon in a prepared statement. "I cannot allow my photograph to be used for such blatant political purposes."
Alarcon said "the point of the photograph was not to express the cardinal's endorsement of his candidacy," but "to express who I am... In hindsight, I guess, I should have called him."
ROBERT DORNAN, FORMER REPUBLICAN U.S. REPRESENTATIVE from Orange County, will again face Democrat Loretta Sanchez in the contest over the congressional seat he lost to her in 1996. Dornan, known for his outspoken support of pro-life and pro-family issues, and for his support of the military, lost his seat two years ago to Sanchez by fewer than 1,000 votes. Contesting the election, Dornan demanded a recount, and called for a congressional investigation of alleged voting by non-citizens. Congressional investigators stated that they could not turn up enoguh illegal voting to alter the outcome of the election. Dornan had previously served nine terms in Congress.
Sanchez, running unopposed for the Democratic nomination, garnered 46 percent of the the primary total.
VOTING IN A PRESIDENTIAL PREFERENCE POLL went on all morning at the South Carolina Republican Convention, May 16, as various potential candidates for the 2000 Republican nomination spoke.
Out of a field of 22 candidates, Ambassador Alan Keyes finished in third place with 11% of the vote. Only John Ashcroft with 32% and George W. Bush with 15% finished higher, and Ambassador Keyes' total equaled the combined total of Jack Kemp (5%), Pat Buchanan (3%) and Steve Forbes (3%).
Observers said that Keyes would likely have scored higher than Bush had he not been denied his scheduled speaking time at the last minute and put at the end.
The Keyes 2000 Committee has begun a weekly e-mail newsletter, with the first edition going out in mid-June to thousands of Keyes supporters who will form the nucleus of the Keyes 2000 Internet campaign. To receive the newsletter, send a request to "Ambassador@Keyes2000.org", or sign in at "www.Keyes2000.org".
To contact the Keyes 2000 campaign, toll free, call 888-307-2526, or (888-F0[zero]R ALAN).