NEWS
1999 NEWS STORIES
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ROAMIN' CATHOLIC
Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
DECEMBER 1999
IN AN OCTOBER ADDRESS to members of the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, Roger Cardinal Mahony stated that while "our church has sought to stand with workers, our record is not pure" -- but neither, said the cardinal, "is the labor movement's." Addressing the committee meeting held at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, Mahony, according to the Los Angeles Times, said: "We must continue to dialogue about our common goals and not be afraid to confront each other when things go wrong. We must challenge both institutions to live up to our principles and to seek the common good."
Linda Letz, interfaith coordinator for Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice called Mahony's speech "a wonderful step forward." In 1991, Mahony had led a campaign against the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers' attempts to unionize gravediggers at archdiocesan cemeteries. The three and a half year struggle ended in October 1991 after the union lost a representation vote.
VANDALS TARGET OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE. While a replica of the Virgin of Guadalupe made its way through the churches of the Los Angeles archdiocese, street murals depicting her were repeatedly desecrated in Boyle Heights and South-Central Los Angeles. According to an October 28 Los Angeles Times report, at least 10 murals along Cesar E. Chavez Avenue were defaced with streaks of white paint. At Gonzalez Party Supplies, according to an October 26 Catholic World News report, vandals scrawled 666 and "La Bestia" in blue paint across the image of the Virgin.
The attacks have angered Catholics, especially Mexican Catholics. Some local residents have blamed the attacks on Pentecostals and Evangelicals. However, Louis Velasquez, director of the Los Angeles archdiocesan Office of Hispanic Ministry, told the Times that such accusations are "unfair. Those are our sister churches," he said. "We consider this a hate crime."
CATHOLIC HEALTHCARE WEST will report $80 million in operating losses the fiscal year that ended June 30, 1999, according to a November 3 Los Angeles Times report. According the report, St. John's Regional Medical Center in Oxnard has continually failed to meet the 2.5 percent profit target set by Catholic Healthcare West for its hospitals. Though, in the past year, St. John's financial performance has improved, in the three months ending September 20, 1999, the hospital lost $494,000 on operating expenses of $36.3 million.
ECUMENICAL BISHOP. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on November 1 appointed Bishop Tod Brown of Orange chairman of the conference's Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs Committee, according to an October 28 Los Angeles Times report. The appointment makes Bishop Brown the chief ecumenical officer for the Catholic Church in the United States. During his three year term, Bishop Brown will meet with international ecumenical leaders -- a task, he admits, that may interfere with his duties as bishop of Orange.
"It is an exciting time to be in the area of ecumenism," said Brown, whose appointment almost coincided with the October 31 "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification" signed in Germany by representatives of the Catholic Church and members of the World Lutheran Federation. Bishop Brown had marked the resolution with a joint service held the evening of the same day with Murray Finck, bishop of the Pacifica Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Lutheranism's largest American synod.
Speaking of the Lutheran/Catholic dialogue, Bishop Brown, according the Los Angeles Times, said "I would hope that the distant goal of dialogue between our church and the Lutherans would be some kind of organic union at the end of the trail. We both understand that it's the will of Jesus that all his disciples become one." Finck agreed. "I feel very positive and delighted," said the Lutheran bishop, "that we've begun to take these very positive steps. In time, it would be wonderful to have us all united, but realistically I don't believe that's in the near future." Among the issues that continue to divide the Catholic Church from the Evangelical Lutheran Church is the issue of women's ordination, which the latter accepts.
Brown will also carry on ecumenical efforts in the Orange diocese. In February, 2000, he will begin a dialogue between local Muslims and Catholics.
CALIFORNIA PROSECUTORS WILL NOT FILE CRIMINAL CHARGES against Bishop Patrick Ziemann of Santa Rosa, accused this year of sexual and financial misconduct. Ziemann, formerly auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, resigned as bishop of Santa Rosa after he was accused by Costa Rican priest, Father Jorge Salas, of forcing a sexual relationship upon him. While Ziemann admitted that he had a relationship with Salas, he insisted it was purely consentual. Ziemann also left the diocese of Santa Rosa with a debt of $16 million.
Though prosecutors admitted that Ziemann probably mismanaged diocesan funds, such mismanagement was not criminal since most bishops in the United States hold diocesan finances in their own names. Too, said District Attorney Michael Mullins, Salas' accusations could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES voted Tuesday, November 9, to pass House Resolution 350 calling for investigation of reports of trafficking in the body parts of unborn children, according to a report issued by the Family Research Council. Though in 1993, Congress lifted a ban on federally funded fetal tissue research, they declared the purchasing or selling of that tissue a felony. House Resolution 350 calls for an investigation into whether such illegal trafficking is indeed occurring.
Representative Tom Tancredo, a Republican from Colorado, displayed before the House of Representatives a brochure from an Illinois-based company, Opening Lines, listing prices for various body parts. According to the brochure, the company charged $100 for skin, $50 for a liver, $325 for spinal cords, $500 for a trunk, and $999 for a brain.
THE PREFERENTIAL OPTION FOR THE POOR, said Pope John Paul II, in his weekly audience on October 27, is a "specific dimension" of Christian charity -- and directed to more than the mere alleviation of physical suffering. According to an October 27 Catholic World News report, the pontiff said that for those "millions of people," particularly in developing countries, who "live in inhuman conditions," it is not enough to spread the gospel without simultaneously "working with them, in the name of Christ, to help build a more just society." The pope suggested that the Jubilee Year would offer opportunities through which the Holy Spirit could inspire "new witnesses of charity." Christians and men of good will, said the pope, should work for "the necessary structural changes" to ease the plight of the poor.
"IT IS A DANGEROUS OVERSIMPLIFICATION to contend that population growth is the cause of poverty," concluded 24 Jesuit population experts at a meeting held in New Delhi, India. According to a November 2 Zenit news report, the October 11-16 meeting of the international working group established after the 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and Development emphasized that there are "no ready-made solutions" to poverty. Reducing family size is no real solution; instead societies should seek to implement programs for social development and the promotion of popular participation.
HOPING TO "RESTORE COURTESY to society," Dr. John Barger, publisher of Sophia Institute Press, has formed a new Apostolate of Kindness. Along with restoring courtesy, the apostolate will bring, says Barger, "a renewed awareness of the value of each human soul," and thus be "a small fulfillment of Pope John Paul's call for the re-evangelization of the Western World."
The Apostolate of Kindness distributes cards printed with the "Kindness Pledge" giving "six principles of action for apostles of kindness. The Kindness Pleadge, said Barger, reads as follows: "I resolve to speak kindly of somone at least once a day, to think kindly about someone at least once a day, and to act kindly toward someone at least once a day. Also, I resolve to avoid speaking unkindly of anyone, to avoid speaking unkindly to anyone, and to avoid acting unkindly toward anyone." These six resolutions Barger derived from The Hidden Power of Kindness by Father Lawrence G. Lovasik -- a book which, said Barger, convinced him "of the need to try to counteract the growing rudeness and coarseness of society. For that rudeness, at its core, is based on our losing sight of the spiritual importance of each person."
One may obtain a free copy of the Apostolate of Kindness flyer, the Kindness Pledge, and the Apostolate of Kindness wallet card by calling Sophia Institute Press at 1 (800) 888-9344, or by writing them at P.O. Box 5284, Manchester, New Hampshire 03108. A copy of Lovasik's book may also be obtained from Sophia.
THE CALIFORNIA COURT OF APPEALS heard oral arguments on November 2, 1999 concerning the Spirit of the Sage Council's appeal of Judge Richard O'Brien's July, 1998 ruling regarding the Los Angeles archidiocese's new cathedral site. Gabrielino tribal chief, Vera Rocha and the Spirit of the Sage Council filed suit against the archdiocese on December 19, 1997 hoping to block the building of the cathedral. Rocha and Spirit of the Sage allege that the new cathedral would be built on an ancient Native American burial ground and would violate the California Environmental Quality Act, Judge O'Brien ruled against Rocha and the Spirit of the Sage Council. Judge O'Brien did not give an explanation for his ruling but stated that "the petition is denied." Rocha and the Spirit of the Sage Council then appealed the decision to the California Court of Appeals.
Kathy Knight, special projects coordinator for Spirit of the Sage, told the Mission that the appeal had been stalled for a year because Cardinal Mahony's attorneys had filed a motion to supplement the record. She said that the archdiocese was granted the motion, but to date has not produced any supplementation. "We feel they were using this motion to buy time, while they continue building, so that their development becomes a 'done deal.'" "They have continued ahead at their own risk" said Craig Sherman, attorney for Rocha and Spirit of the Sage Council.
According to a press release issued by Spirit of the Sage, at the November 2 hearing before the Court of Appeals, the cardinal's lawyers argued that the "statute of limitations has run out for prior mistreatment of Native Americans by the Catholic Church of the indigenous people of the Los Angeles area and the Shoshone Gabrielinos."
The Spirit of the Sage Council is arguing that by allowing the new cathedral to be built in the Los Angeles civic center, the city has compromised the separation of Church and state. Further, the council argues, the city of Los Angeles, which was also sued, along with the Community Redevelopment Agency, is violating its general plan which "restricts church construction in the central government complex of the city of Los Angeles." The California Court of Appeals took the arguments under submission and is not expected to rule on the matter until next year.
When asked for comment regarding the appeal, archdiocesan spokesman, Father Gregory Coiro, said through a secretary, he does not take calls from the Mission.