NEWS
2003 NEWS STORIES
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ROAMIN' CATHOLIC
Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
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NEWS
November 2003
PRO-LIFER ARRESTED -- FOR TAKING PICTURES. On September 25, the first arrest under the California Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances law was made when photojournalist John O'Toole was arrested for taking photographs for the Christian Gallery News Service. O'Toole was arrested at Long Beach City College on an outstanding warrant -- one that, he said, he was not aware existed until his arrest. The warrant was for his alleged intimidation of clinic employees and clients at a Rosemead Family Planning Associates clinic whom he may have photographed while covering July 27 and August 3 protests there by the Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust.
In an interview with the Mission, O'Toole said he has photographed abortion clinics in California before and has never had any trouble. "I've done it several times in California," he said. "The FPA [Family Planning Associates] called the police the first weekend [July 27th], but I didn't see them. When we came out the following Sunday [August 3], one woman told me that she was going to call the police for taking pictures. When the police arrived, one officer asked the other one, 'is that the guy? Do you want to arrest him now?'" They did not arrest him, but, O'Toole said, they asked him not to publish the pictures. "The police said I was intimidating people by taking pictures. They also said that the picketers weren't a problem because the clinic employees were used to the pickets but were not used to photographs being taken."
O'Toole was arrested, along with two Survivors (Harry Rader and Apryl Moreno), while covering the September 25 event that the Survivors staged at Long Beach City College. Rader and Moreno were cited and released. O'Toole was held on the outstanding warrant.
ACCORDING TO AN ARTICLE written by O'Toole and Neal Horsley, O'Toole's case has been assigned to the Alhambra division of the Los Angeles County district attorney's office and will be handled by Deputy District Attorney Mario Haide. O'Toole and Horsley's news account outlines how a Los Angeles County sheriff department detective, a woman they name only as "Trabbie," admitted that it had been difficult to find a prosecutor who would be willing to file charges against O'Toole. "'We ran the case by several different courts,' said Trabbie, noting that the prosecutor at Alhambra was the only one that chose to say it was a violation. Trabbie said that most of the courts, including the Pasadena court, agreed with her own conclusion that 'there has to be some sort of physical obstruction involved' in order to prosecute under California's new law."
O'Toole says that he must turn himself in but is waiting for his attorneys from the Life Legal Defense Foundation to advise him on what steps he should take.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Mario Haide did not return a call for comment.
NOT JUDGE JUDIE. Los Angeles archdiocesan spokesman, Tod Tamberg, came under fire from Judie Brown, president of American Life League, on October 2, after he criticized the League's "Unholy Trinity" advertisement, which stated, "You Can't be Both Catholic and Pro-Abortion!" Focusing on the three Catholic, pro-abortion candidates in the recall election -- Cruz Bustamante, Governor Gray Davis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger -- the advertisement said, "We call on Cardinal Mahony, as well as all bishops and priests of California, to follow the teachings of Pope John Paul II and to protect the Body and Blood of Christ from sacrilege, by respectfully refusing Holy Communion to public officials who openly support legalized abortion."
The advertisement, though ignored by the three candidates, "did catch the attention of the archdiocese of Los Angeles," said an October 1 Cybercast News Service story. "The reception of Holy Communion by Catholics is a right guaranteed by the church," said Tod Tamberg, "not a privilege determined by Judie Brown or anyone else at the American Life League." Making a television allusion, Tamberg continued that Brown is "not Judge Judie, she's not Bishop Judie, and she's not Pope Judie. The bishops of the church, with the Holy Father, are the ones who interpret church law."
Arnold Schwarzenneger attends Mass at Saint Monica's in Santa Monica. Governor Davis' parish is Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills.
"MR. TAMBERG HAS MISREPRESENTED Church teaching," said Judie Brown on October 2, "and has clearly embarrassed Cardinal Mahony with his ridiculous statements, which also happen to be factually inaccurate." Brown said that no Catholic has a "right" to receive communion, since no one is worthy of it. But, she continued, "a Catholic who persists in promoting a manifestly grave evil like abortion is clearly bringing sacrilege upon the Sacrament when he or she receives it." Citing canon law that those "who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to communion," Brown said that advocates of abortion, "which is intrinsically evil, are persisting in grave sin and should not be given Holy Communion. Schwarzenegger, Davis and Bustamante are three such individuals."
Brown noted that "it is sad that personal attacks are the way archdiocesan officials have chosen to deal with this current scandal" of pro-abortion Catholics.
THE CALIFORNIA RECALL election showed that the public was angry that political parties and their leaders "seemingly care more about doing the bidding of wealthy contributors than solving the problems that confront working people," said Bishop Gabino Zavala on September 1 at the Labor Day Mass celebrated at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. According to a September 4 Catholic News Service report, Zavala told worshippers that the Church "also struggles to be faithful to its ideals of standing in solidarity with the poor." "Your work is sacred," he told the congregants, "be it that of accountant, cook, waiter, truck driver, janitor, nurse, lawyer, union official, politician, mother, father, student. Never forget how important you are by working for the common good."
Governor Gray Davis attended the September 1 Mass.
MARRIAGE BY ANOTHER NAME. Governor Gray Davis on September 19 signed into a law a bill that grants homosexual couples nearly every right accorded to the married, said a Campaign for California Families report. Though falling short of calling homosexual unions marriages, the new law violates the Protection of Marriage Act, passed by California voters in 2000, said Randy Thomasson, executive director of the Campaign for California Families. Thomasson announced that on September 22, the Alliance Defense Fund and Liberty Counsel would file separate lawsuits against Gray Davis on behalf of voters who supported the Protection of Marriage Act.
The new law states that "registered domestic partners shall have the same rights, protections, and benefits, and shall be subject to the same responsibilities, obligations, and duties under law as are granted to and imposed upon spouses.... This act shall be construed liberally in order to secure to eligible couples who register as domestic partners the full range of legal rights, protections and benefits, as well as all of the other responsibilities, obligations, and duties to each other, to their children, to third parties and to the state, as the laws of California extend to and impose upon spouses."
THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS took the first step on October 2 to ban partial birth abortion, said the October 2 Los Angeles Times. In a 281-142 vote, the House of Representatives passed the bill, that had yet to be sent to the Senate. The bill defines partial birth abortion as a procedure where a baby is killed before the child's entire head is outside the body. In the case of a breech birth, partial birth abortion is the killing of a child when "any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother." According to the bill, doctors who perform such a procedure could spend up to two years in prison.
According to the Times, both pro-life and pro-abortion groups think the partial birth bill significant. Pro-abortion groups say the bill, if passed by the Senate and signed by President Bush, will lead to further restrictions on abortion. Pro-life groups say that it will further erode public support for Roe v. Wade.
THE FAMILY OF MARGARET FURLONG, 82, who died in March 2002, are suing St. John's Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, alleging elder abuse, said the September 30 Los Angeles Times. Furlong's family alleges that she was kept alive by the hospital for ten days after she suffered a cardiac arrest, though her medical file gave explicit orders that no heroic measures were to be taken to extend her life. Furlong, a nursing home resident, was admitted to St. John's on March 2, 2002, suffering from vomiting and stomach discomfort. While in hospital, she went into cardiac arrest and the hospital, says the complaint, gave her CPR, medication, and respiratory assistance. Furlong revived and for ten days, said the complaint, was left in "extreme pain and suffering." She died March 12.
Lawyers for St. John's argue that, even if the allegations of Furlong's family were true, they would not rise to the level of elder abuse, as defined by California law. At best, the hospital could only be charged with negligence, which does not permit the collection of financial damages for the suffering of a deceased person. St. John's lawyers were asking the court to throw out the case.
"OUR OFT-NEGLECTED TREASURE: Catholic Social Teaching," was the title of a talk Cardinal Roger Mahony gave September 17 at Regis University in Denver, Colorado, according to the September 26 Tidings. Mahony's talk was a part of a series of lectures the Jesuit school is offering to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council. This council, said Mahony, "marked a significant turning point for the church, particularly in the area of Catholic social thought." The cardinal called two documents, Pope John XXIII's Pacem in Terris and the Vatican Council's Gaudium et Spes, the "two seminal social documents of the Vatican II-era." Pope John's encyclical, said Mahony, speaks of peace under the concept of "an ethic that recognizes that human rights are essential to the preservation of human dignity and affirms the role of the State as a key actor in promoting the common good." The conciliar document, said the cardinal, insists that "peace is not merely the absence of war" and "cannot be obtained unless personal well-being is safeguarded and men freely and trustingly share with one another the riches of their inner spirits and their talents." In this context, the cardinal said, the common good is understood as "the positive social environment which creates the space in which the person has the freedom to flourish. Freedom, therefore, entails more than the social and political rights that are enshrined in our nation's founding documents. Freedom in Catholic theology is the ability of a person to maintain their dignity and realize their potential."
Though many question the Church's role in the social and economic spheres, Mahony insisted on the Church's participation in these areas. "Public policy matters," he said, "because it impacts people's lives. When human life is threatened and human dignity is compromised, the church has not only a role but a responsibility to raise its voice in the public realm. Catholic social teaching, therefore, develops within a social context. It reflects on social, political and economic challenges in the light of our tradition to ensure that the human and moral dimensions of issues remain front and center."
CARDINAL MAHONY TOOK AIM at Los Angeles' civic, business, and religious leaders for their handling of the homeless, said the October 3 Los Angeles Times. Speaking at a breakfast hosted by the archdiocese's commission on justice and peace, Mahony said he saw "a failure of political will, a failure of our market economy, of our philanthropic and religious institutions, to come to grips with a problem that will not disappear with the next upturn in the business cycle." Among the cardinal's proposals is that the city government crack down on slumlords and that it adopt a proposed ordinance that would give incentives to developers to set-aside low income housing when building other housing. He also criticized police sweeps, which, he said, clog "the jails with homeless people for the crime of being out of work."
According to the Times, city officials estimate that any given night finds 84,000 people homeless in the county. Increasingly, these homeless include women and children.
TO IMPLEMENT THE ARCHDIOCESAN SYNOD, Cardinal Roger Mahony on September 6 announced that he would submit himself to an evaluation by the people of the archdiocese, said the September 12 Tidings. At the ceremony at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, at which Mahony signed the synod documents, thus making them law for the archdiocese, he announced that he had enlisted the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., to carry out his evalution. The Center will send out questionnaires to priests, religious, and synod delegates to evaluate the cardinal's performance over the past 18 years. A future issue of the Tidings will publish the results of the survey.
Of the synod implementation itself, the cardinal said: "not everything we will try is going to be successful, but in the trying we will discover new ways. And we need to have that courage to be able to try new things, new ways of serving, new ways of accountability among all of us, and new ways of governance in which we bring more people into decision making roles in the life of our church, our archdiocese."
TO ASSURE "an early and swift implementation of the Synod Pastoral Initiatives," Cardinal Mahony announced September 16 the appointment of Deacon David Estrada as director of the synod's implementation, said the September 19 Tidings. Estrada, 56, was ordained deacon in 1997 and for the past two-and-a-half years has served as the assistant of Los Angeles auxiliary bishop, Edward Clark. Parishioners at St. Benedict's in Montebello, Estrada and his wife, Rita, work in parish ministries, such as RCIA, baptisms, and service to the poor. As director of synod implementation, Estrada said his first task will be to draw up an implementation plan -- which he will do, in the spirit of the synod, collaboratively. But synod implementation, he admitted, may meet some resistance. "Synod means changes, and that's always frightening," said Estrada. "There's always some resistance when we think in this direction." Estrada said that he hopes people read and reflect on the synod documents; if they do, he said, they "can't help but become excited about the potential. The spirit of Vatican II permeates all that's within the documents."
The synod, said Estrada, "was an experience of seeing church come together and looking to see how we need to better serve the people. We have to let go of our old concepts of church and old structures, and look forward to what Synod is offering us."
TOUGH LOVE. Some called it the first test of whether the archdiocese of Los Angeles is serious about lay ministry, said a September 27 Los Angeles Times story. Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet, Judy Molosky, who had served as the lay pastoral associate for Saint Brendan's in Hancock Park since its pastor was dismissed last year for having had affairs with adult women, was told in July that her contract would not be renewed. The new pastor, Father John Love, cited the parish's $1.2 million deficit as the reason he would not rehire Sister Judy. Molosky, however, said that Father Love did not discuss the matter with her or try to seek out alternatives. His action, she said, was simply an abuse of power.
Soon after her dismissal, 200 members of Molosky's West Coast province sent letters of protest to Cardinal Roger Mahony, calling Love's action a "misuse of authority." Some St. Brendan's parishioners (though the Times does not say how many) withheld their donations. Mahony announced in the last week of September that Father Love would leave St. Brendan's (to finish his doctoral degree) and that Monsignor Terrence Fleming would replace him.
Molosky and her supporters see Love's removal as a victory for a new church paradigm. "We wanted to challenge an antiquated church system that uses authoritarian, top-down decision making," said Sister Judy.
ON HOLD. Bishop Tod Brown of Orange has halted the construction of a $9.3-million church in Santa Ana if its pastor will not resign, said a September 27 Los Angeles Times story. Our Lady of La Vang, formerly Our Lady of Lourdes, in Santa Ana serves a predominately poor, Latino congregation. The parish's name change reflects Bishop Brown's intention of turning the parish into a center for Vietnamese Catholics, 32,500 of whom live in the diocese of Orange. Though Our Lady of La Vang pastor, Father Bill Barman, supported these plans and convinced his parishioners to accept them, Bishop Brown asked Barman in June to take another assignment to make way for a Vietnamese pastor. Barman, whose term at the parish will end in 2007, refused, and Bishop Brown halted construction of the new church.
In a rare move, Brown in 2001 offered $6 million in diocesan money to build the new Our Lady of La Vang. But though overcrowded in their current church building, many of Barman's parishioners are backing their pastor; some have withheld their weekly offerings from the diocese. Some fear that, as Latinos, their needs will not be addressed in a Vietnamese parish. Bishop Brown, though, says he has determined that it is important for the Vietnamese Catholics that they have one parish they can call their own; he has also pledged to respect the needs of non-Vietnamese parishioners at Our Lady of La Vang. "I've determined pastorally that it's best for the parishioners of this new church to have a Vietnamese pastor," said the bishop. "But we will have a competent, trilingual staff. Everyone's needs will be met."
HOW TO COPE WITH MURDER. A group of abortion workers, calling themselves the "November Gang," have come up with new efforts to help women overcome the trauma of abortion, said the September 9 Culture and Cosmos, an e-mail information service of the Washington, D.C.-based Culture of Life Foundation. Those organizing these efforts -- which, in some cases, entail permitting women "to pray over their fetuses, even to sprinkle them with holy water in impromptu baptismal rites" -- say they are "intent on taking as much care with a patient's heart as with her body." The methods of dealing with patients' hearts include asking them questions, such as, "can you see abortion as a 'loving act' toward your children and yourself?" and "does being a good mother sometimes mean acknowledging that I can't be a mother right now?" According to one clinic staffer, many women "actually think about it and they're like, 'yeah, that's what I'm doing. I do love this child, but I can't [have] it right now.'"
Perhaps, though, the November Gang are not as motivated by care for women as they say. A statement made by the National Coalition of Abortion Providers hints at another motivation: "If you don't talk about [the fact that some women do regret their abortions], don't acknowledge things, the anti-abortion movement will fill in the blanks, which is what they've been doing for years."
CRADLE CATHOLIC LATINOS are more likely to remain in the Catholic Church than are "white" Catholics, says a new study. The September 13 New York Times reported that, in a survey of 982 adults born Catholic, carried out by Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, 81 percent of Latinos surveyed had remained Catholic, compared to 72 percent of "whites." Those Latinos, too, who left the Church were more likely to embrace another faith, while apostate whites tended to claim no religious belief at all.
The study also showed that, while the percentage of Pentecostals among Latinos has grown from three to four percent over the decade of the 1990s, the number of Latinos claiming no religion went from six to 13 percent.
JESUS, an Italian journal published by the Pauline Fathers, reported on September 22 that a Vatican document on liturgical norms was returned to the drafting committee after some prelates raised objections to it and suggested revisions, said a September 24 Catholic News Service story. Cardinal Achille Silvestrini of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said that members of his congregation and the Congregation for Divine Worship discussed the document in June. "Many observations were made, both negative and positive," Silvestrini told Catholic News Service. "The document which will be released eventually will not be the same document I saw. I have not seen a new draft, so I cannot say what will be in it." Another prelate told Catholic News Service that it was his understanding the document was being rewritten.
According to the Jesus article, the document emphasized maintaining the distinctions between clergy and laity in the liturgy and maintaining the ban on laity giving homilies. It also discouraged lay pastoral assistants from assuming liturgical roles and, while recognizing a bishop's right to permit altar girls, said he should not do so "without a just pastoral reason, and priests must never be obliged to call girls to this role." The document also reportedly forbade applause and dancing inside a sacred building, even when Mass is not being celebrated. It also said that, where central doors in an altar rail have been removed, they should be restored and that plans for them should be included in the design of new churches.
FOCUS ON FARM WORKERS. The head of the United States bishops' domestic policy committee, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, issued a Labor Day message calling on Catholics and all Americans to focus on the plight of farm workers. Because of cultural, linguistic, and legal status, farm workers, said McCarrick, often find themselves subject to exploitation. Though some farmers, said the cardinal, treat their workers well, "too many do not, often relying on labor contractors, some of whom essentially traffic in human labor and suffering for economic profit." Housing for workers, said McCarrick, is often "decrepit" and "unsafe," and some workers "end up living under bridges or even in caves. Those who do find housing in labor camps sometimes live without decent sanitation, despite state and federal health laws." Not only do workers often suffer from "violations of wage and hour laws," but "their children often must join them in the fields because without their help, the family may not survive. They can face death and injuries on the job from dangerous farm equipment and the threat of poisoning from the pesticides used to protect the crops."
To remedy the situation, McCarrick said the United States government needs to adopt policies which recognize the dignity and rights of farm workers. He also called for "comprehensive immigration reform which features legalization" so that workers may secure their rights more easily.
THE IMMIGRANT WORKERS Freedom Ride set out from Los Angeles on September 23. The immigrants' Freedom Ride focuses on the same issues -- civil rights and equal access -- that the 1963 black Freedom Ride did; it has even adopted the motto of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "I have a dream," but only in Spanish: tengo un sueño. Three buses set out from Los Angeles; but, according to a September 24 Catholic News Service report, ten other cities were also points of embarkation for the Freedom Ride. The riders were to converge at New York City and Washington D.C. in early October. About 100,000 people were expected at the final rally in Flushing Meadow, New York, on October 4. Another 100,000, it was said, would participate in similar events throughout the country.
MOLESTATION ROUNDUP. The diocese of San Bernardino and the Aurora, Illinois-based Missionaries of the Sacred Heart paid $4.2 million to two brothers who filed a lawsuit saying they had been molested thousands of times between 1979 and 1986 by a former Missionary of the Sacred Heart, Edward Ball. In 1999, Ball was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading no contest to 31 counts of molestation involving the brothers. In 1992 he pleaded guilty to charges he had fondled three boys at another San Bernardino County parish.
Two Orange diocese priests have been accused of sexual impropriety. The FBI is investigating Father Cesar Salazar of St. Joseph Church in Santa Ana for allegedly viewing child pornography. In July, police arrested Father Gerardo Tanilong of Our Lady of Guadalupe-Delhi Church in Santa Ana for alleged sexual assault on a 15-year-old girl. Bishop Tod Brown placed another priest, Father Dominic Nguyen, on administrative leave after he had been accused of downloading child pornography. Nguyen, said Brown, would be removed from active ministry for two years while he participated in individual and group counseling.
Another Orange County priest, Monsignor Daniel Murray, has been accused by a Riverside County man of having molested him at a Garden Grove church about 25 years ago when he was eight years old. Murray, the pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel church on Balboa Peninsula, has been placed on administrative leave. Murray denies the allegations. He was formerly director of vocations for the diocese of Orange.
WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? Well, He surely would not make the likes of Monsignor Lawrence Baird the guest of honor at a fundraising dinner -- at least, so said Mary Grant, the southwest regional director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. Grant, according to the October 6 Los Angeles Times, directed her criticism at Saint Michael's Abbey, which honored Baird at a fundraising dinner for St. Michael's Preparatory School on October 10. St. Michael's Abbey, it seems, does not share Grant's Christology, for it honored Baird (long a benefactor of St. Michael's Preparatory) as a "Defender of the Faith" at the dinner.
Grant called on St. Michael's to cancel the dinner, saying that no one should uphold the "un-Christian behavior" of such as Baird "as a model." Though Baird has never been charged with a crime, he defended Father Michael Harris in 1994 when charges of molestation were brought against him. Baird defends himself, saying that he knew nothing of the evidence convicting Harris when he defended him. Then, Lori Haigh charged that Baird had made sexual advances toward her 20 years previous when she went to him for help against another priest who was abusing her. Baird denied Haigh's allegations in a news conference and filed a slander lawsuit against her. A judge dismissed the case in November 2002, because, he said, Baird was a public figure (as evidenced, he said, by the news conference) and ordered the priest to pay Haigh's legal costs. According to Haigh's lawyer, Baird never has paid these costs.
In a letter to Grant, the abbot of St. Michael's, the Right Rev. Eugene Hayes, said "canceling the dinner would hurt most of all the young men who depend on us for a quality Catholic education." In another letter, Marjorie DeClue, representing the lay advisors of St. Michael's Preparatory, wrote of the "long-standing friendship with St. Michael's" on the part of Monsignor Baird and Monsignor Paul Martin, the second honoree of the dinner. "The quality of the school's educational program would not be what it is today without the friendships of these two strong supporters," wrote DeClue. "Each has made financial sacrifices over the years to help students attend St. Michael's."
Eight demonstrators protested the October 10 dinner.
CATHOLIC CONFERENCE YEAS AND NAYS. The California Conference of Catholic Bishops voiced its support of some bills and disapproval of others slated to be signed by Governor Gray Davis, said the September 26 Catholic San Francisco. The conference gave its support to a bill, sponsored by Senator John Burton (D-San Francisco) which would require businesses with more than 20 employees to provide health care for their employees, who, under the bill, must pay either 80 percent of the cost of coverage or pay a fee to the state. Businesses with 200 or more employees would have to provide coverage for their employees. "The Catholic bishops in the United States and in California have been very concerned about the number -- 40 million nationally and 7 million in California -- of people with no access to basic health care coverage other than attending their local emergency room," said the California Conference's executive director, Ned Dolejsi. "We have supported responsible attempts to deal with that issue."
The Conference opposed a bill that would require companies and non-profit groups that do business with the state to provide the same benefits to homosexual couples as to the married. Dolejsi said the chief problem with the bill was the way it violated religious liberty. The bill, he said, reverses the way in which California has dealt "respectfully with religious organizations when there is a conflict around different kinds of public programs and an individual organization's conscience."
The Catholic Conference also supported a senate bill, also sponsored by Senator Burton, that which would forbid the execution of the mentally retarded. The Conference, though, opposed a bill that, said Dolejsi, would undermine parents' role as the primary educators of their children. Instead of, as in the past, schools being required to obtain parental permission before students take sexual health and HIV/AIDS classes, the bill would require parents to inform the schools that their children will be exempted, thus switching the burden of proof to parents.