NEWS
2005 NEWS STORIES
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ROAMIN' CATHOLIC
Contents © 2005
by Jim Holman.
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NEWS
June 2005
"I HAD THIS CONSTANT FEELING of inadequacy," reflected Cardinal Roger Mahony on his participation in the conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI. "It was obviously a solemn moment but humbling to participate in the event." According to an April 26 Associated Press story, Cardinal Mahony had only two brief meetings with the new pontiff — so brief that the cardinal could only offer his congratulations and support. Mahony said he did not have time to invite Benedict to Los Angeles. Since Pope John Paul II had made a rather lengthy visit to L.A. in 1987, Mahony said he doubted the new pontiff would make the trip. "I don't think Los Angeles will be on top of the list," the cardinal said. "Whether we would merit a visit, I'm not sure."
Mahony said Pope Benedict has been unfairly described as rigidly conservative. People should give the pope more time before judging him, Mahony said.
POPE BENEDICT WILL LIKELY REFORM the synod of bishops that meets periodically in Rome, according to Cardinal Mahony. Mahony told Catholic News Service on April 22 that the synod process "needs to be rethought, and there needs to be a way for far more interaction." Currently, during the synod, each participating bishop is allowed to speak for eight minutes, but these speeches are not organized by themes and there is no time for questions in the synod hall. When, after the death of Pope John Paul II, the cardinals came together to prepare presentations on pastoral challenges their churches face, then-Cardinal Josef Ratzinger specifically asked cardinals from Africa and Asia to prepare presentations on the theme. Cardinal Mahony said he "thought that was extremely helpful, and that gave me an insight into what he is looking at for synods.... He wanted to make sure the whole church was being heard across the board, and he did it very well."
Cardinal Mahony also spoke to Catholic News Service about the system of burning ballots during the conclave. No one, it seemed to the cardinal, tested the system of burning the ballots before the beginning of the conclave. Besides the fact some of the smoke escaped into the Sistine Chapel when the stoves were opened, "the bigger problem with the smoke," said Mahony, "was that there were two stoves, and the cartridges with the color — black or white — need longer to light than the ballots do. So next time they have to make sure they get the one with the color going first, so that when people see the smoke, the first wisp is black or white, then they can start adding the ballots. To be honest with you, I do not think they practiced this. They should have practiced this."
BUT OTHER MATTERS BESIDES Vatican ignition technology occupied Cardinal Mahony's mind during the conclave, according to the April 20 Los Angeles Times. The paintings by Michelangelo that cover the interior of the Sistine Chapel — including the Last Judgement, which Pope John Paul II called a sobering meditation for cardinal electors — elicited this reflection from Mahony: "I kept looking up at all the paintings, at Michelangelo's works, and thought, the only thing that stayed the same in this room is everything that Michelangelo painted here.... You could fit modern history into some of those scenes that go back centuries."
As chance or Providence would have it, Cardinal Mahony sat next to Cardinal Josef Ratzinger at breakfast on the very morning he would be elected pope. Mahony's impression of the new pope? "I think what you're going to see and hear is a very pastoral, spiritual dimension," said Mahony. "Remember, he's no longer the chief theologian of the church in that same sense. He is the chief theologian as being pope." Ratzinger, said Mahony, inquired about the archdiocese of Los Angeles, as well as other dioceses. "He's someone that you could walk into a Starbucks [with] and sit down and have a coffee with and be totally at ease," Mahony said of Benedict. "He's just delightful." Mahony — who went to Rome to champion a more decentralized administration in the Church as well as opening the priesthood to married men — "did not give a direct answer" when questioned what issues Benedict might address as pope. The problems in the U.S. Church, said Mahony, are not the world's problems. "We, as American Catholics, have to be a little bit more patient, and we have to know the rest of the church better," he said. "We really are isolated."
The Times, referring to Ratzinger's Sunday homily before the conclave, noted that the cardinal "had sharply denounced what he called a 'dictatorship of relativism.' He spoke out against radical individualism, atheism, shallow mysticism and 'libertinism.'" Speaking again of Mahony, the Times opined the Los Angeles cardinal "would be unlikely to support any of the social phenomena denounced by Ratzinger."
THE TIMES has over the past weeks included other reflections than those of Cardinal Mahony on the new pontiff. In a "Commentary," Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, author of A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair, called Cardinal Ratzinger's account of his forced membership in Hitler Youth and conscription into the German military "plausible." There are "more important questions," however, said Goldhagen. These "revolve around what Benedict learned from this formative period of his life and how it influenced his later service, theology and, potentially, his papacy." Instead of speaking "publicly" about "horrors" of Nazism, Benedict "has pointed to both Nazism's and modern civilization's rejection of Christianity and its truth to justify his insistence that Catholicism ought to resist many aspects of modernity, including 'relativism' — by which he centrally means the false notion that other religions are valid paths to God." Such an "account of the sources of Nazism and its horrors," said Goldhagen, "is selective and false; as a lesson learned from Nazism, it is selective and deeply troubling."
The "conflation, under the rubric of 'relativism,' of the horrors of Nazism, a creed of extreme intolerance, with modernity and pluralism today is self-evidently bizarre," Goldhagen thinks. Because some churchmen collaborated with the Nazis — or were silent — "the church was not the fundamental antidote to the problem, but part of it," wrote Goldhagen. Thus Goldhagen's dismay over Benedict's "ringing millennial statement [in Dominus Iesus] about the need for the Catholic Church's primacy over the world." Benedict, wrote Goldhagen, calls for a world imperial church. He denigrates other religions as not being true religions or paths to salvation. He does mandate that, when in dialogue, the church must show respect for 'the equal personal dignity of the parties' — but not for their religions." Creeds that have tried "to institute a uniform adherence to a single truth have produced colossal catastrophes."
Goldhagen admits that "Benedict would additionally say that the difference is that his truth is the Truth." But others said so as well, "including those who made him a teenage witness to the mass murder of the Jews." For Goldhagen, only an absolutist insistence on the good of relativism can save the world from future holocausts.
OLD CHARLES CURRAN also weighed in on the pontificate of Benedict XVI in a "Commentary" published in the April 21 Times. Father Curran said he had grown up "as a typical pre-Vatican II Catholic ... never questioning church teachings." But as a moral theologian in the 1960s, Curran said he ultimately concluded "that Catholics, although they must hold on to the core doctrines of faith, can and at times should dissent from the more peripheral teachings of the church."
"Unfortunately, the leaders of the Catholic Church feel differently," wrote Curran. Among these was Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, whose seven-year investigation of Curran's positions on sexual ethics led Pope John Paul II in 1986 to approve the finding that "one who dissents from the magisterium as you do is not suitable nor eligible to teach Catholic theology." Since that time, Curran complained, "no Catholic institution has offered to hire me. Although I remain a baptized Catholic and a Catholic priest — the pope and the cardinal did not move to have me defrocked — my case sent an unmistakable and unequivocal message to Catholics around the world that deviation would no longer be tolerated."
Curran continued that "official Catholic teaching has always given the impression that the pope and bishops will not and cannot change moral teachings because these teachings are based on God's law. Certainly Pope Benedict XVI will insist upon the same approach." But, claimed Curran, the Church has changed its moral teachings "on a number of issues." His list: the Church did not condemn slavery (though a lack of a condemnation is not a positive teaching); the Church once condemned interest on loans (though the condemnation of usury — the charging of money for the simple use of money — has never been rescinded); and the Church once condemned freedom of conscience and of religion (a position Vatican II said it did not deny; the council said "it leaves intact the traditional Catholic teaching on the moral duty of individuals and societies towards the true religion and the one Church of Christ.")
In papal sexual teaching, Curran complained, "unchanging human nature and the eternal law of God, not historical development or the person understood in light of relationships, constitute the primary considerations." The Church, he said, is wrong because many Catholics dissent on her moral teachings — and this fact is a cause of hope for the aging theologian. "History," he said, "reminds us that change in Catholic moral teachings always comes from the grass roots."
AND THEN THERE WAS this cryptic letter on Pope Benedict published in the April 20 Times: "Well, now that Cardinal Ratzinger has been given the temporal and spiritual keys of the Catholic Church once held by John Paul II, I guess they won't have to change the locks!" The writer? Father Ken Deasy of St. Agatha's church in Los Angeles.
HOW DID THE TIDINGS, the Los Angeles archdiocesan newspaper, cover the opening of Pope Benedict's pontificate? For one, the April 29 issue carried a piece by Cardinal Mahony in which he pled with the "Catholic People of Los Angeles" to join him "in surrounding Pope Benedict XVI with our prayers, our love, our support, and our loving trust." The cardinal noted, "we are not orphans, we are not alone. Peter is there to lead us forward in the next great chapter of the history of the Church, the Body of Christ."
The thought that the "See of Peter is no longer vacant," said Mahony, moved him more than "all of the Liturgy, beauty, and music" at Benedict's inauguration Mass. "For 17 days (April 2 to April 19) the Church had been at anchor, no strong winds in its sails, no one at the helm to point the direction," said the cardinal. "That wonderful Sunday morning at St. Peter's wondrously changed all of that for us all!" After summarizing some points of Pope Benedict's inaugural sermon, Cardinal Mahony noted that the pontiff "spoke of his spirit of openness and listening, and made special reference to the Jewish community and to other non-Christians. His choice of name reflects his personal commitment to healing divisions in the Church and his earnest desire to promote peace and reconciliation throughout the world."
THE TIDINGS ALSO REPORTED on the April 26 Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to celebrate the election of Pope Benedict. Over 3,000 people attended the Mass, celebrated by Cardinal Mahony the day after he had returned from Rome. According to the Tidings, "students in Catholic school uniforms blended with tourists in shorts and jeans, religious women in habits and office workers in business attire." Twelve deacons and about 50 priests and auxiliary bishops joined the cardinal around the altar on which sat a framed portrait of Pope Benedict with his arms outstretched.
In a press conference held before the Mass, Cardinal Mahony said the new pope wants cardinals and bishops to take a role in advising and counseling him. "I'm not sure how that's going to happen, but I think we're ready to do it and assist him," Mahony said. The cardinal said he thinks Benedict will support the U.S. bishops in strengthening and implementing their clergy sex abuse policies. "The pope is committed to our same goals and objectives," he said. As for where the pope will direct his attention, Mahony said, "I expect to see evangelization a very high priority throughout the world and in his papacy as well."
AND THEN THERE WERE the commentaries. George Weigel, the Tidings' "right wing" syndicated columnist (to balance out, presumably, Father Richard McBrien, the "left-wing" one), wrote that "in the long view of history ... April 19, 2005 [the pope's election], may mark the moment at which the 40-year effort to force Catholicism to tailor its doctrine and its message to the tastes of secular modernity crashed and burned." Weigel noted that since the Second Vatican Council, "some Catholics and most of the world media have expected — and in certain cases, demanded — that the Catholic Church follow the path taken by virtually every other non-fundamentalist western Christian community over the past century: the path of accommodation to secular modernity and its conviction that religious belief, if not mere childishness, is a lifestyle choice with no critical relationship to the truth of things." Weigel said he respects the decisions of those religious groups who have chosen accommodation, but he doesn't think that it solves "the 250-year-old problem of being Christian in the modern world" or produces "vital, growing, compelling Christian communities." In choosing Benedict XVI, Weigel wrote, the cardinals demonstrated that the real question is not the "ultimately boring" one of "how little can I believe, and how little can I do, and still remain a Catholic?" but the "interesting" one of "how much of this rich, vast, subtle tradition have I made my own?"
According to Weigel, the real "great divide in world Catholicism these past several decades" has not been over doctrine and discipline. Rather "it's been between bishops, priests, religious and laity who see the church primarily in terms of its evangelical mission, and bishops, priests, religious and laity who see the church primarily in terms of institutional maintenance and the exercise of intra-institutional power." Whether both sides have their share of what he called "liberals" and "conservatives" and "reformers" and "integrists," he did not say. But the election of Benedict XVI is, according to Weigel, the repudiation of the "50-yard-line Catholicism" — "the attempt to find the safe, comfortable, unthreatening 'center' between 'the extremes.'"
AND WHAT DID MCBRIEN HAVE TO SAY? Well, he advised that one of the the new pope's first steps should be "to call on his most exuberant and partisan supporters to be gracious and sensitive to their brother and sister Catholics with whom they have disagreements about matters of non-infallible doctrine and ecclesiastical discipline" — people like McBrien, in other words, who reject the Church's teaching on women's ordination, homosexuality, and artificial birth control, among other issues. This would "underscore the seriousness" of Benedict's supposed intentions, which McBrien deduces from the papal name. The pope's most immediate predecessor named Benedict (XV) "had been a healing and unifying pope, not only on the world stage... but also and especially within the church," said McBrien. The pontificate of Pope St. Pius X, Benedict XV's predecessor, "was the most divisive in the whole of the 20th century," according to McBrien. This pope "led a sometimes cruel campaign against Catholic theologians, biblical scholars and historians, lumping them all under the umbrella of Modernism." Among other things, Pius condemned La Sillon, "a progressive Catholic social movement in France," while tolerating "to a fault" Action Française, which McBrien only noted was "right-wing and monarchist." Not only that, "Pius X imposed an Oath against Modernism on all clerics and gave encouragement in three papal letters to a network of informants known as the Sodalitium Pianum (League of St. Pius V), which reported instances of alleged deviations from doctrinal orthodoxy wherever and by whomever they occurred. Many scholars lost their teaching positions, others were suspended from the priesthood, and still others were excommunicated from the church." Where would Father McBrien be now, under such a pontificate?
Then there was St. Benedict of Nursia, the other figure after whom the current pope is named. St. Benedict's rule, "among other things," wrote McBrien, prescribed "that an abbot should be elected by all of the monks and that he should be wise, discreet, flexible, learned in the law of God, and a spiritual father to his community." What's more, the rule was flexible and readily adaptable "to the needs of society."
"Which path will the new pope follow?" asked McBrien. Will he be like Pius X, and silence the likes of, well, McBrien himself? Or will he be like Benedict XV, and, in McBrien's world, tolerate almost every deviation from Catholic doctrine? "The choice," said McBrien, "is clear and many await its outcome."
ANOTHER PROGRESSIVE COLUMNIST, published frequently in the Tidings, Father Ronald Rolheiser, wrote that while Pope Benedict's election was welcomed enthusiastically by "conservatives," "liberals ... were, at least initially, deflated and depressed by the choice."
For Rolheiser himself, "Cardinal Ratzinger wasn't my first choice and may have been in fact my last choice, but, after some initial disappointment, I've made my peace with his selection. Why?" Well, because, those close to the new pontiff say he is "more soft than hard, more understanding than judgmental, more respectful than authoritarian, and, as even his critics admit, stunning in his intelligence." And, now freed from the task of being the "head discipliarian of the church," Benedict might end up surprising both liberals and conservatives. "Benedict XVI was a brilliant and even liberal theologian before being named to head up the Congregation of Faith and Doctrine," said Rolheiser. "My suspicion is that we will see some flashes of that again."
In any case, said Rolheiser, "given where John Paul II had taken the church and the curia, it might be wise to have a pope, for a while, who will try to move things ahead only slightly, without being a major reformer. Any major reformer would, I suspect, find himself quickly crushed, and not just inside Vatican walls, by the structure and legacy that John Paul II left behind." And, the new pope might be an Ariel Sharon figure, according to Rolheiser, a hard liner turned may be-reformer. "Critics of reform will find it difficult to fight him, given his pedigree," hoped Rolheiser.
A VATICAN VISITATION of United States seminaries called for by Pope John Paul II "is expected to move forward," Associated Press reported on April 30. After an April 2002 meeting over the sexual molestation crisis between the pope and U.S. cardinals, the Holy See announced a visitation to determine what professors at seminaries teach on sexuality and celibacy and perhaps discover whether and how the seminaries have contributed to the scandals. Vatican visitors will, some think, look into complaints that large numbers of homosexuals are enrolling in the seminaries and that homosexual activity is tolerated there.
The visitation, which was scheduled for this fall, will probably be very little delayed, despite the change in pontiffs. The visitors will evaluate about 200 schools — which could take several years. The last Vatican visitation of American seminaries occurred in the 1980s and brought little change. Will this one be any different? "There will have to be a process by which real criticism can be ferreted out," the Rev. Joseph Fessio, chancellor of Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida, told Associated Press. "The problem of course with these visitations is that they're friendly visitations and with friendly visitations you get results that can be predictable."
A CHALLENGE FACING the pontificate of Benedict XVI will be stemming the flow of Latinos from the Catholic Church into Protestant sects. An attempt to do this is being tried in Los Angeles, according to the April 26 Los Angeles Times. Noel Diaz, a lay Catholic evangelist, runs the Burbank-based El Sembrador Nueva Evangelizacion, which broadcasts Catholic programs over radio and satellite television, including a televised Mass, a catechism show with live audience participation, and shows on the Blessed Virgin and the saints. Diaz, who preaches on the network, uses methods reminiscent of Protestant revival preachers, including up-beat music and altar calls. "My message is: You don't have to go outside the church to have this kind of personal relationship with Jesus," Diaz told the Times.
Despite his Protestant style, however, Diaz seems anything but a dissenter. According to the Times, though "many liberal American Catholics view the new pope's doctrinal rigor with dismay, Diaz welcomes it." Diaz thinks, says the Times, that "many of those who leave Catholicism ... do so because they have a weak foundation in their own religious tradition." Of Pope Benedict XVI, Diaz said, "I believe he has a passion for Catholics to know what we believe." Diaz also last year received the blessing of Pope John Paul II for his ministry.
PERSONNEL FILES of 117 Los Angeles archdiocesan priests accused of molesting minors will still not be made public, the April 13 Associated Press reported. David Steier, an attorney for some of the accused priests, had petitioned the second district court of appeals to place a permanent ban on the release of the priests' personnel files. The court on March 29 refused Steier's appeal, meaning the files could be made public as early as April 12, when a temporary ban expired. Steier then petitioned the California supreme court, which on April 12 blocked the release of the files only 15 minutes prior to the expiration of the temporary ban. The supreme court gave no reason for its action but referred the case back to the appeals court.
Since the personnel files could reveal how the archdiocese treated suspected priest molesters, alleged victims who filed the 554 civil cases against the archdiocese of Los Angeles are upset over the supreme court's intervention. Some plaintiffs refused to enter settlement talks rather than go to court unless the archdiocese at least posted summaries of the personnel files. This the archdiocese promised to do, on its website. But Steier, who does not represent the archdiocese, argued that posting the summaries would violate the priests' privacy rights and compromise the court mediation process, which is confidential.
WHEN THE ORANGE DIOCESE earlier this year settled with alleged victims of priest molestation for $100 million, Bishop Tod Brown said he would not oppose releasing the files of the alleged priest molesters. But, the April 13 Orange County Register reported, the five priests and two teachers accused of molesting minors have opposed releasing the documents. Despite the settlement and the apologies issued by Bishop Brown, no court has ruled these seven guilty of any crime — and diocesan lawyers have said the cases against them were not well founded. In the case of Father Richard Delahunty, a church panel subsequent to the settlement declared there was no evidence to support accusations, and the diocese returned the priest to active ministry. Delahunty's lawyer, Vincent Thorpe, said his client does not oppose release of his files for fear that they contain anything related to molestation; rather, they contain other information that could be embarrassing to the priest. "Maybe somebody doesn't like how he says the rosary," Thorpe told the Register. "Everybody has a right to keep their personnel records confidential." But Ryan DiMaria, an alleged victim who won a $5.2 million settlement against the diocese, concluded, "the reality is you can assume the worst when someone fights so hard to keep documents secret."
Attorney Donald Steier expressed surprise that the diocese of Orange was doing nothing to protect its employees. "I don't know what they are doing down there in Orange County but I would be surprised if those files are made public," he said.
POPE BENEDICT XVI will show interest in the clergy abuse scandal in the United States, Chicago's Cardinal Francis George indicated in late April. According to the April 21 Chicago Sun Times, when Cardinal George approached to greet the new pope shortly after his election, Benedict immediately addressed the scandal. "I went up to him after he was elected," said Cardinal George. "We kiss his hand, and I started speaking in my kind of halting German about promising obedience and love and asking for his prayers in return. And he immediately responded in English — much better English than I speak German — that he remembered our conversation and that he would attend to that. So immediately he zeroed in on our last conversation, which was about the sexual abuse scandal." Cardinal George's "last conversation" had been with then-Cardinal Josef Ratzinger and had addressed the U.S. bishops' zero-tolerance policy toward priest molesters. Then, the two cardinals had had "a good conversation about that and he [Ratzinger] understood the need to do that, and he understood where we were coming from. He had followed the discussions by reading the minutes, not by being present, and had a good grasp of the situation. It was a very reassuring conversation."
TWO DEMOCRATIC ASSEMBLYWOMEN have come out against an assisted suicide bill making its way through the state assembly, said the April 29 Tidings. Both are Catholic. Assemblywoman Cindy Montañez (D-San Fernando) joined three Republicans in voting against AB 654, the "Death with Dignity Act," in the assembly judiciary committee, breaking with the five other Democratic committee members. In an April 12 statement, Montañez said, "I believe that allowing the state to sanction a death in this fashion erodes the sanctity of life. While I understand and sympathize with all the reasons supporters of AB 654 have given me, they still do not outweigh my belief that life is too precious and that we, as a governmental entity, should not be a party to assisted suicide." The same day, April 12, Nicole Parra (D-Hanford), issued a statement against the act: "doctor assisted suicide is immoral and wrong."
Montañez said most of the religious leaders she consulted on the act, including San Fernando auxiliary bishop Gerald Wilkerson, were opposed to it. She said she also has received about 2,000 letters against the act and only several hundred in favor of it.
FIRMER PROTECTION FOR MARRIAGE. The Campaign for California Families announced April 26 that it and others hope to put an initiative on the June 2006 ballot to protect marriage in California, the April 27 Los Angeles Times reported. Though in 2000 Proposition 22 supposedly did this, current attempts by members of the state assembly to pass a bill recognizing same-sex "marriage" threaten to undermine the initiative, and in March San Francisco superior court judge Richard Kramer ruled that a state ban on homosexual marriage violates the state constitution. Kramer's ruling is in abeyance on account of an appeal.
The proposed marriage initiative would undercut both legislative and judicial attempts to legalize same-sex marriage by changing the state constitution specifically to protect marriage. Meanwhile, the same day the Campaign for California Families announced their ballot initiative, the homosexual marriage bill passed the assembly judiciary committee on a 6-3 party-line vote. Though committee Republicans argued that the bill, sponsored by Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), would thwart the will of the people expressed in Proposition 22, Leno argues that the proposition does not forbid the recognition of same-sex marriage within California, but only recognition of such marriages contracted in other states.
JUAN ROMERO ROBLES, the paraplegic man who threatened a woman with a toy gun and stole her driver's license, was convicted of grand theft and witness intimidation on April 26, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported. The jury at the West Covina branch superior court, which deliberated for hours, gave a not-guilty verdict on one count of second-degree robbery and was deadlocked on another second degree robbery count. But Robles' conviction could land him in prison for life, since, as Judge Monica Bachner confirmed on April 27, the 37-year-old Robles' falls under the state's three-strikes law. A former gang member, Robles was convicted of three counts of robbery, assault, and drug crimes between 1988 and 1992. A gang-related gun incident in 1995 paralyzed him.
Sentencing was scheduled for June 1.
SAFEWAY, INC.'S ATTEMPTS to buy out higher paid employees at Vons and Pavilions stores hit the skids in April when union officials determined the plan would harm employee health and pension funds, the April 28 Los Angeles Times reported. The new contract approved by the United Food and Commercial Workers union and Safeway after the long grocery strike that began in October 2003 created at two-tired pay scale. Before, a new cashier started at $9.78 an hour and after two years topped out at $17.90 an hour, under the new contract new cashiers start at $8.90 an hour and after six years make $15.10 an hour. Unlike under the old contract, new workers have to wait a year before their insurance benefits kick in. Under a buy-out program approved by the new contract, Safeway wants to weed out many of the older employees who maintain the older pay scale. But the union, which does not oppose a buy-out as such, opposed the one offered by Safeway. "We have to figure out how we can implement this without battering a trust fund that just went through trauma," Rick Icaza, president of union local 770 in Los Angeles, said. The union also fears that Ralphs and Albertsons might offer employees similar buyouts. Under the buyout, a food clerk would receive on average $35,000 and a general merchandise clerk, $17,000.
A further possible point of controversy is whether under the contract Safeway has to come to an agreement with union before offering a buyout. The company says it does not have to, the union says it does.
ONCE AGAIN, the Rainbow Sash Movement, a "Catholic" homosexual rights organization, called for public protest of the Church's moral teaching on human sexuality. In a May 2 press release, Rainbow Sash announced its members and supporters would be entering cathedrals throughout the country on Pentecost Sunday, May 15, wearing "the Rainbow Sash as a symbol of dignity and inclusion." The press release explained the group's strategy: "the Rainbow Sash is put on as the priest is processing in. Should you be denied Communion go back to your pew and remain standing while the rest of the congregation kneels. However, if you do receive communion, go back to your pew and kneel. This simple act is a public dialogue that counters those who promote hate in God's name."
Rainbow Sash hopes that its "presence will also counter the lies that Pope Benedict XVI is promoting about our community." The reference was to documents outlining the Church's teaching on homosexuality and issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, of which Cardinal Josef Ratzinger was prefect (even the 1975 Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics, issued before Cardinal Ratzinger joined the congregation.) "For many gay men and lesbians the name Joseph Ratzinger means aggressive homophobe," the Rainbow Sash press release noted.
As last year, Cardinal Mahony gave his support to the Rainbow Sash. In a May 15 note, published on the Rainbow Sash web page, archdiocesan spokesman Tod Tamberg wrote that, "as in the past, members of the Rainbow Sash Movement who come to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels this Sunday [Pentecost] will be most welcome to attend any of our Masses. Over the years, Cardinal Roger Mahony has consistently spoken to the faithful in Los Angeles about being respectful and inclusive of our Catholic brothers and sisters who are gay and lesbian." Because of the archdiocese's "warm welcome" to "the members of the Rainbow Sash Movement," said the Rainbow Sash site, "members decided not to wear their Rainbow Sashes" to the Los Angeles cathedral on Pentecost.