NEWS
2005 NEWS STORIES
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ROAMIN' CATHOLIC
Contents © 2005
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
NEWS
December 2005
SO WHAT DOES THIS PRIEST DO? Well, according to the October 14 Tidings, "he celebrates Eucharist at the weekend liturgies, hears confessions and presides at funeral Masses. Periodically, he assists with adult faith education." This priest is Father Paul Boudreau, the "priest minister" for the "parish community" of San Gorgonio in Beaumont, in the diocese of San Bernardino. He is not the pastor, for San Gorgonio's pastor left the parish two years ago after a heart attack and was replaced, not by Father Boudreau, but by Lynn Zupan, a lay woman. As pastoral coordinator for the parish, Zupan, according to the Tidings, "in a given day ... visits the sick, leads a prayer service, prepares parents for the baptism of their child, assists a divorced Catholic with her annulment, or designs a worship aid for a funeral. She supervises staff and handles the administrative work, which in her first six months included the re-striping of the parish parking lot." And Father Boudreau? Well, he lives 30 minutes from the parish and, in lieu at least of offering daily Mass, works as a full-time writer for Catholic magazines, including America. He has also written a book Between Sundays: Daily Gospel Reflections and Prayers.
The San Bernardino diocese has 13 parishes that have no priest-pastor but are run by a pastoral coordinator like Lynn Zupan. The diocese has embraced this "alternative parish leadership model" ostensibly as a measure for dealing with a declining number of priests. "We don't have a sufficient number of priests to assign all our parishes," Bishop Gerald Barnes told the Tidings. "Some have the charism to be priests but not pastors. The role of pastor requires additional administrative and leadership competencies that not every priest is able to do."
Though he has previously served as a pastor, Father Boudreau, it appears, is not one of those who have the pastoral charism. When he was offered the role of priest minister, he eagerly snatched at it. "To discover new ways of being church with fewer priests -- it intrigued me and I wanted to be a part of it," he told a group of parish staff and ministers of the Los Angeles archdiocese. As priest minister, Father Boudreau says he can do what he does best -- preaching and writing. With Zupan doing most of the work in the parish, with two deacons to preside at marriages, graveside services, and other celebrations, with two retired priests to celebrate Mass in Spanish on Sundays, Father Boudreau said he has "become so peaceful and relaxed. Because someone who is very competent is in that position [of running the parish]."
THE ARTICLE FEATURING Zupan and Boudreau is part of a series in the Tidings on parish leadership, the subject of Cardinal Roger Mahony's September 4 pastoral, As One Who Serves, in which he calls for increased parish leadership by laymen and religious. For Cardinal Mahony, parish leadership by laymen and religious, though arising out of the priest shortage, is not "a stopgap measure" until the archdiocese again has the required number of priests to staff parishes. As the cardinal stated in his 2000 pastoral As I Have Done for You, "even if seminaries were once again filled to overflowing and convents packed with sisters, there would still remain the need for cultivating, developing, and sustaining the full flourishing of ministries that we have witnessed."
While the diocese of San Bernardino has 12 parishes directed by non-priest pastoral associates, the archdiocese currently only has two "parish life directors" (as the archdiocese calls them) -- both of them religious sisters. Yet, though the number of such non-priest directors in the archdiocese will increase, San Fernando region auxiliary bishop, Gerald Wilkerson, who leads the task force on "alternative parish leadership," told the October 21 Tidings that it's not the only model to deal with a priest shortage -- there is, for example, parish twinning, where a priest pastor serves two parishes.
Both Bishop Wilkerson and Deacon Scott Palmer, who is regional assistant to Our Lady of the Angeles auxiliary Bishop Edward Clark, told the Tidings that they expect resistance to parish life directors. "Many will be challenged by what they see as the parish life director as being a 'second choice,' something 'less than,'" Deacon Palmer said, while Bishop Wilkerson noted another "implementation challenge" -- "the mindset that priests must live at the rectory and be accessible 24-7."
TRULY A SACRAMENT MACHINE. One of the archdiocese's two parish life directors is Society of the Holy Child Jesus sister Susan Slater, who oversees St. Stephen's church in Monterey Park. From a October 21 Tidings story we learn that, in sister's words, she does "whatever the pastor would have done." According to the Tidings, "parishioners know she is there for their spiritual needs." Indeed, parishioners seem to have embraced Sister Slater's parish leadership. Sister Slater "confided" to the Tidings that "when she wore an alb on the altar for the first time at a prayer service, 'a lot of women said it was nice to see me up there -- even older women.'" Why it was particularly nice, Sister Slater did not say.
But does St. Stephen's have a priest? Yes. He is the parish's former pastor, Father Larry Estrada. What does he do? According to the Tidings, Father Estrada is "currently the sacramental minister presiding at weekend Masses." He calls Sister Slater's ministry "a gift to the archdiocese."
"EVANGELICAL PRUNING" may describe what will be Pope Benedict XVI's course of action toward colleges and universities that call themselves Catholic but have abandoned a Catholic character, the Catholic News Association reported on November 2. Speaking at the 2005 Terrence Keeley Vatican Lecture at Notre Dame University on October 31, Archbishop Michael Miller, secretary of the Holy See's Congregation for Catholic Education, said that in his writings, Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, "argued that it might be better for the Church not to expend its resources trying to preserve institutions if their Catholic identity has been seriously compromised." Ratzinger's "writings show that a time of purification lies ahead, and this undoubtedly will have some ramifications for Catholic institutions." According to Archbishop Miller, "Benedict and others may believe that if a Catholic institution is no longer motivated by a Catholic identity, it is better to let it go."
According to Miller, the pope could take what has been the typical clerical course since Vatican II -- that of patient expectation of reform -- or he could opt for "evangelical pruning." The pope, the archbishop said, "appears to be more inclined to avoid scandal and lead a path of evangelical pruning, but we don't know. We await."
TO TRIAL. A Los Angeles superior court judge on November 7 has placed 44 cases of sexual abuse filed against the Los Angeles archdiocese on track for trial, the Los Angeles Times reported. Both attorneys for the archdiocese and those for alleged victims requested this action of Judge Haley Fromholz, with both sides blaming the archdiocese's insurers for failing to come to an agreement to help pay for settlements in the 562 cases filed against the archdiocese. Plaintiffs' lawyer John Manly, however, disagreed with this assessment. "Anybody who is blaming the insurance companies are singing the cardinal's tune," said Manly. The settlements, he said, have been "a big lie designed to wear down victims and their lawyers." Manly asked why the archdiocese did not sell real estate holdings to pay settlements. According to plaintiffs' attorneys, the cases could end up costing the archdiocese $1 billion.
The 44 cases, chosen by lawyers both for victims and the archdiocese, will be among the most notorious. Though the possibility of settlement remains (trials will not begin until next year), the cases, if they go to trial, could set the threshold for settlements of the remaining cases. Trials could also force the archdiocese to surrender priests' personnel files that it has been fighting to keep secret and may lead finally to the subpoenaing of Cardinal Mahony and other high church officials.
INSURANCE COMPANIES have said they will not agree to any monetary settlement in sexual abuse cases involving the archdiocese of Los Angeles until they have seen confidential church documents which could show whether or not the archdiocese had forfeited its coverage by covering up clergy molestation of minors. Four of the archdiocese's 15 insurers filed suit earlier this year accusing Cardinal Mahony of failing to protect minors from molesting priests. But on November 8, Judge Fromholz placed the insurance companies' trial on hold, saying that it would "prejudice the archbishop" and delay efforts to reach settlements in sex abuse cases, the Los Angeles Times reported. Fromholz said that he saw no evidence that the cardinal had wrongly withheld information from his insurers.
THE IRS MAY PULL tax-exempt status from a Southern California Episcopal Church because its former rector criticized the Iraq War and the Bush administration's tax cut policies during the 2004 election, said the November 7 Los Angeles Times. The Rev. George Regas of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena related to congregants on October 31, 2004 an imaginary debate including George Bush, John Kerry, and Jesus. While telling his flock that anyone might in good conscience vote for either candidate, Regas made this comment about the war: "President Bush has led us into war with Iraq as a response to terrorism. Yet I believe Jesus would say to Bush and Kerry: 'War is itself the most extreme form of terrorism. President Bush, you have not made dramatically clear what have been the human consequences of the war in Iraq.'" According to Regas, Jesus would say to both Kerry and Bush, "the sin at the heart of this war against Iraq is your belief that an American life is of more value than an Iraqi life. That an American child is more precious than an Iraqi baby. God loathes war." Regas voiced his own political orientation when he said, "the religious right has drowned out everyone else. Now the faith of Jesus has come to be known as pro-rich, pro-war and pro-American.... I'm not pro-abortion, but pro-choice. There is something vicious and violent about coercing a woman to carry to term an unwanted child."
The Internal Revenue Service told All Saints that it intended to investigate the church's alleged violation of laws that forbid tax-exempt organizations to engage in political campaigns during an election. The IRS, however, said it would waive the investigation if the church admitted to wrongdoing, but the church has refused the offer. Marcus Owens, a tax attorney representing All Saints, said in a letter to the taxing agency, "it seems ludicrous to suggest that a pastor cannot preach about the value of promoting peace simply because the nation happens to be at war during an election season."
WHO'S THE TARGET? The Rev. Regas told the Times that, when he heard of the IRS investigation, he "became suspicious, suspicious that they were going after a progressive church person." But non-progressives are not taking comfort in the IRS's investigation of All Saints, said a November 8 Los Angeles Times article. When Ted Haggard, a "conservative" and head of the National Association of Evangelicals, heard about the All Saints case, he directed his staff to contact the "liberal" National Council of Churches for possible common action. Haggard, who pastors New Life Church in Colorado Springs, said, "it is a violation of the Constitution for the IRS to threaten that church. It may not be a violation of IRS regulations, but IRS regulations have been wrong." However, Robert Edgar, general secretary of the National Council and former president of Claremont School of Theology, told the Times that the IRS move seems to be "a political witch hunt on George Regas and progressive ideology. It's got to stop."
According to the IRS, the taxing body has alleged that over 100 nonprofits intervened illegally in the 2004 election. Of these, the IRS is looking into 60, a third of which are churches. Steven Miller, IRS commissioner of tax-exempt and government entities, disagreed with Haggard's interpretation of the First Amendment and IRS regulations. "The courts have said, yes, you have freedom of speech, but not the right to tax-exempt status," he said. A 1976 law passed by the United States Congress said the IRS could only audit churches if it had a "reasonable basis" for doing so, and then it had to submit the audit to senior IRS officials for a special approval process. But Marcus Owens, who represents All Saints Episcopal, told the Times that IRS policy changes allowed lower IRS agents to investigate churches with only cursory approval from higher ups -- a claim the IRS denies.
IRS REGULATIONS prohibit non-profits from "participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office." Yet, the regulations are not as stringent as regards ballot initiatives, tax experts told the Times. Churches may lobby for initiatives as long as "a substantial part of the organization's activities is not intended to influence legislation." Tod Tamberg, spokesman for the Los Angeles archdiocese, told the Times that the archdiocese sends out reminders of Church guidelines on such matters. "We don't endorse or oppose candidates," said Tamberg, "but we can endorse ballot propositions when there is a moral or ethical issue involved." For instance, at Mass at Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral on Sunday, November 6 (two days before the election), Cardinal Roger Mahony endorsed Proposition 73, the initiative that would have required parental notification if a minor child sought an abortion.
CONQUISTA. A Los Angeles-based Muslim group is working to draw Latinos from the Christian faith, the October 29 Los Angeles Times reported. The Los Angeles Latino Muslim Association, founded in 1999, has outreach programs to introduce Islam to Latinos. The association prints Islamic literature in Spanish at Luz del Islam Publishing in Culver City; members distribute this literature, including the Koran in Spanish, at Latino book fairs. The association conducts outreach by holding seminars and sending speakers to Latino student groups as well as by conducting tours of mosques.
Latino converts to Islam interviewed for the Times story said they found in Islam the spiritual guidance they did not find in Christianity. It appears they did not receive Christian or Catholic guidance of any sort, including doctri nal. For instance, Pablo Calderon, 29, raised Catholic but now Muslim, said he "had trouble believing that someone could come to this world as a man and become God" -- referring to the incar nation, where man did not become God, but God, man. Kathy Espinoza of Riverside, another former Catholic, said she used to sing in her parish choir, for which her father played guitar. When she became Muslim in 2001, her brother, then a seminarian, told her, she said, that if she "didn't accept Jesus as my Lord and savior you're not going to heaven." But her brother, Espinoza said, later left the seminary and came to accept her conversion.
FATHER THOMAS SMOLICH, who has for six years been provincial of the California province of the Society of Jesus, will serve as president of the national Jesuit conference, which coordinates the work of the ten Jesuit provinces in the United States, Catholic News Service reported on October 11. Peter Hans Kolvenbach, the Jesuit superior general in Rome, made the appointment.
As head of the California Jesuit province, Smolich dealt with the after math of a cover-up of sexual molesta tion of mentally retarded workers by members of the order at its Sacred Heart Jesuit Center in Los Gatos. Accusations against one of the molesters, Brother Charles Leonard Connor, first surfaced in 1995, four years before Smolich became provincial. Though Brother Connor had admitted to molesting the mentally retarded dishwasher, the then-provincial made no report to the police nor to the man's legal guardian. The Jesuits claimed to have dealt with the situation, and Connor remained at the retreat center until 2000, when detectives received reports of more abuse by Brother Connor. Only police pressure forced the Jesuit leadership, then under the direction of Smolich, to transfer Connor -- to a Jesuit boys' high school, Bellarmine College Preparatory, in San Jose. No one at Bellarmine was told of the accusations against Connor, Smolich told the Los Angeles Times in 2002, on account of "a breakdown in communication."
Nor did Smolich tell authorities or legal guardians of an incident involving another mentally retarded man whom Father Edward Thomas Burke in 2000 had admitted to molesting over a period of four years. Burke was immediately taken to the Jesuit community at Santa Clara University. The Jesuits said they did not need to report Burke or Connor to authorities because their victims were not minors.
DITCH SMOLICH. The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests called on Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to step down as honorary chairman of an October 22 event that honored Father Smolich, said the October 13 Los Angeles Times. The event, to be held at Los Angeles' Union Station, was a benefit for Proyecto Pastoral, a group providing childcare, after-school programs, among other services, to poor families. Smolich is a co-founder of the group as well its former executive director. In a letter to Villaraigosa, Mary Grant of the Survivors Network wrote, "Smolich's history of hiding known molesters and refusing to report sex crimes to law enforcement shows he is not a leader who deserves public praise." Grant asked the mayor to pressure Proyecto Pastoral to cancel the event honoring Smolich.
The mayor's spokesman, Joe Ramallo, told the Times that, though Villaraigosa would not attend the event in person, he would not remove his name as its honorary chairman. Though the mayor allowed Proyecto Pastoral to use his name for the event, he did not know it would honor Smolich. Villaraigosa's "involvement is not meant to reflect one way or the other on Father Smolich," Ramallo said. Gabriel Buelna, executive director of Proyecto Pastoral, said he knew of no allegations of wrongdoing against Smolich. "We're always worried about any victims," said Buelna, "but we don't believe he is connected to any of that."
A CLASS-ACTION SUIT against Catholic Healthcare West alleges that the hospital chain overcharges uninsured patients, sometimes three times what it charges patients on programs such as Medicare or with insurance, said the October 12 Los Angeles Times. K.B. Forbes of the East Los Angeles-based Consejos de Latinos Unidos organized the suit, which was filed October 11. Forbes' group led an earlier campaign against Tenet Healthcare, which settled the case in 2003. As part of the settlement, Tenet agreed to charge uninsured patients at rates comparable to what it charges private insurance companies; the company also said it would not take out liens against patients for whom a home is the main asset. Forbes says she wants Catholic Healthcare West to adopt similar standards.
Mirna Estupinian, one of the plaintiffs named in the suit, said she received a $20,296.50 bill from California Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles (owned by Catholic Healthcare West) after a stay of two days for treatment of gastritis; Estupinian's husband, a self-employed truck driver, earns about $39,000 a year. The lawsuit alleges that the hospital would have charged a private insurer on average $5,600, and Medicare, $3,994. Another plaintiff, Sergio Pantoja, says he received two x-rays at the same hospital; for three hours of treatment he says he was billed $15,897; a private insurer, says the lawsuit, would have been charged $4,451, and Medicare, $3,839. Pantoja, a father of three, earns about $9,000 a year as a tattoo artist.
In a statement, Catholic Healthcare West, while not commenting on the suit, said it already offers discounted and even free care to uninsured patients. Failing that, the hospital chain says it helps patients get state and federal coverage.
LAWYERS AND RELIGIOUS LEADERS joined forces to halt the December 13 execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams. Opponents of the execution staged a rally October 24 in front of the criminal courts building in downtown Los Angeles. Williams and a friend founded the gang, the Crips, in 1971. The gang spread from its South Los Angeles birthplace across the United States and even to South Africa. Williams was convicted of killing a 7-Eleven clerk as well as Los Angeles motel owners Yen-I Yang, Thsai-Shaic Yang, and their daughter, Yen-Chee Lin, in 1979. Though identified by four witnesses as the murderer of the Yangs and Lin, Williams denies responsibility. His defense team claims that blacks were kept off the jury that convicted him (Williams himself is black) and that one witness received immunity from the government. Imprisoned at San Quentin, Williams says he experienced a "reawakening" in 1993. He has since written a series of books that encourage urban youth to avoid gangs, established an anti-gang website, the "Internet Project for Street Peace," and has written a book, Life in Prison, about life on death row, and an autobiography, Blue Rage, Black Redemption.
Among those fighting for Williams' life is Father Chris Ponnet, pastor of St. Camillus Pastoral Care Center in Boyle Heights. Though troubled by Williams' denial of responsibility for the four murders, Ponnet told the November 4 Tidings that he does not dismiss the possibility that the now-52-year-old former gang leader is telling the truth. Ponnet said he hopes Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will acknowledge Williams' subsequent change of life and grant clemency. "This is one of those cases," said Ponnet, "where a person, after being tried and convicted, has turned his life around, but has also affected many other peoples' lives. And what better role model for people who are considering moving into that gang lifestyle than a person who says, 'What I was doing was wrong. Change your ways.' And he could continue to do this for the rest of his life in prison, because we're not asking that he ever be set free. But if he's executed, then his voice is lost forever."
CRITICS ARE SKEPTICAL but hopeful that Wal-Mart Incorporated will live up to its latest pledge to improve its treatment of employees in the United States and abroad, the October 25 Los Angeles Times reported. Critics of the retail behemoth have said Wal-Mart has sacrificed employee wages and benefits to low consumer prices, which makes it a threat to unionized retail stores. In September, a labor rights group filed suit in Los Angeles superior court claiming that Wal-Mart ignores sweat-shop conditions in factories run by its suppliers overseas.
In response to such criticisms, Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott, Jr. on October 24 told employees and managers that the company would work with other multinationals to enforce better working conditions in factories overseas, improve the energy efficiency of its trucks and store design, and reduce solid waste from its stores. Scott said the company would work to make health insurance more affordable to its U.S. employees with a new plan that would set premiums as low as $11 a month for some employees, while others would pay about $25 a month for individuals and $65 a month for families. This is 40 to 60 percent less than what employees pay under the company's current health plan. (However, critics charge that a full-time Wal-Mart employee, who earns on average $17,500 a year, could end-up paying out of pocket $2,500 a year or more under the proposed plan.) The new plan will maintain the current $1,000 deductible but would allow employees three doctors visits with only a $20 co-pay before the deductible is exhausted.
According to the Times, fewer than half of Wal-Mart employees can access the company's insurance plan. The company will also support a raise in the federal minimum wage -- a measure that, some critics say, will burden Wal-Mart's smaller competitors.
HOW WILL WAL-MART pay for its newfound generosity? An internal memorandum sent by M. Susan Chambers, the company vice president for benefits, offered some suggestions. The New York Times obtained the memorandum from a group critical of Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart Watch, and on October 26 published a report on it. Chambers' memorandum suggested that Wal-Mart seek out younger, healthier employees to save on health care costs. Unhealthy workers should be discouraged by requiring "all jobs to include some physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart-gathering)." Chambers suggested as well that Wal-Mart hire more part-time employees and decrease from two years to one the amount of time required before they can access health benefits. (Chambers admitted that despite this more generous healthcare policy, the larger number of part-time employees "will lower Wal-Mart's healthcare enrollment.") Chambers suggested further that married employees pay higher premiums than they currently do for a spouse's health insurance.
In another suggestion, Chambers said the company could reduce its contributions to employees' 401(k) plans. She "voices concern," said the Times, that workers with seven-years' seniority earn more but are no more productive than workers with one year's seniority.
Chambers admitted that Wal-Mart's critics "are correct in some of their observations." The company's "cover age is expensive for low-income families," she observed. The company enrolls fewer employees in its "health insurance plan than do most national employers (48 percent versus 68 percent)." And, said Chambers, "46 percent of Associates' children are either on Medicaid or are uninsured." One suggestion Chambers offered to improve Wal-Mart's image would offer after only 30-days employment "limited funding" to help new employees "gain access to the private insurance market." According to the memoran dum, this assistance "would give us a powerful set of messages to use in combating critics. (For instance, 'Wal-Mart offers associates access to health insurance after they've worked with us for just 30 days.')"
WHEN PARENTS DISCOVERED that their children at Mesquite Elementary School in Palmdale were given a questionnaire with sexually explicit questions, they sued the Palmdale School District, saying the district had violated their right to decide how they should raise and educate their children. More specifically, first before the Palmdale school board and then in federal court, the parents argued that the school district's actions violated their federal and state right to privacy and constituted a violation of the parents' civil rights and negligence. Last June, when the U.S. district court in Pasadena ruled against the parents, they appealed to the ninth U.S. circuit court of appeals. On November 2, writing unanimously for the court in the case Fields v. Palmdale School District, Judge Stephen Reinhardt ruled for the school district. In his opinion, Reinhardt noted that the parents learned from their children of a survey which asked students how frequently they were "thinking about having sex" and "thinking about touching other peoples' private parts." Reinhardt said the appeals court agreed with the district court's dismissal of the plaintiffs' claims and added that the appeals court holds "that there is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children, either independent of their right to direct the upbringing and education of their children or encompassed by it." Reinhardt also ruled "that parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students."
THOUGH SUPPORTERS OF A BALLOT initiative that would return the cross to the Los Angeles County seal failed in September to gather enough signatures to qualify the measure for the 2006 ballot, they are not giving up, the October 11 Los Angeles Daily News reported. Supporters of the measure, the Committee to Support the Los Angeles County Seal Ordinance, were 29,000 signatures shy of the 170,000 required to place a county-wide measure on the ballot. But the coalition says it now has about 200,000 names of those who have signed previous petitions on a database and needs to raise about $150,000 for printing and postage to send them new petitions.
Tod Tamberg, spokesman for the Los Angeles archdiocese, told Daily News that parishes would be allowed to set up signature gathering booths on public sidewalks adjacent to churches. "So while we look favorably upon the efforts of these people, we cannot take an official position on the measure," Tamberg said. "The persistence of the people who care about this issue should be a sign to the Board of Supervisors that they hit a nerve here, and of course, as we believe, this is not a religious issue, it's an issue of being historically accurate with regard to the history of how Los Angeles was founded."
In September 2004, the county board of supervisors, under the threat of an ACLU lawsuit, voted 3–2 to remove a small cross from the county seal. A redesigned seal shows, instead, San Gabriel Mission, without its bell tower.
THE JUANEÑO TRIBE, a faction of which fought Junipero Serra High School in San Juan Capistrano over its expansion into what tribal members said was an Indian burial ground and the site of Putiidhem, an ancient center of their tribe, hope to gain federal recognition of their tribe. The problem is, according to the October 10 Los Angeles Times, the tribe is divided into three factions. In the 1970s, tribal members set up a government structure, but a dispute over the 1994 election of David Belardes as tribal leader led to the election of Sonia Johnston by a group of Juañenos. A few years later, another group separated from Belardes, claiming he and a group of Nevada investors were planning to build a casino on a 29-acre lot in San Juan Capistrano -- the same land on which Junipero Serra High School wanted to build its sports complex. A third faction, now claiming to be the largest faction, with 3,000 of the estimated 4,000 tribal members, has recently coalesced around Anthony Rivera.
While these divisions threaten federal recognition of the tribe, the lack of such recognition would suit many non-Juañenos in Orange County just fine. Potential reservation sites for a recognized Juañeno tribe include the former El Toro Marine Base, Camp Pendleton, part of the Cleveland National Forest, and the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station. The possibility of the El Toro site as a reservation is troublesome to the city of Irvine, which is planning residential and commercial development there and so does not want an Indian casino there. While none of the tribal leaders have publicly expressed a desire to build a casino, Sonia Johnston, it seems, has not outright ruled out the option. "Gaming is not an issue for me now," Johnston told the Times. "There is a law that states that we can do that, and casinos have brought many tribes out of dire poverty. But my main concern is a land base for our people. We need a place to call home again."
STATE REGULATORS AND FARMWORKER advocates have been saying for years that county agricultural commissioners only issue warnings to, or impose small fines on, growers who negligently put their workers at risk of pesticide poisoning. Now, according to the October 10 Los Angeles Times, with more housing developments abutting fields and orchards, the issue of pesticide drift has taken on a new urgency, at least for the state. Mary-Ann Warmerdam, director of the state's department of pesticide regulation, said her department has drafted a policy to tighten up enforcement of regulations, including referring egregious cases of neglect to prosecutors. Warmerdam points to increased enforcement, instancing high fines levied by commissioners in Stanislaus and Fresno counties and a recent civil case filed by Kern County prosecutors. This case involves a pesticide-applicator company which, it is alleged, continued spraying even after it noted workers in a downwind grape orchard. Twenty-three of the 27 workers were taken to the hospital.
Citing the failure of past promises to enhance enforcement, workers' advocates sponsored a bill, SB 455, in the state legislature. The bill would have made it more difficult for commissioners merely to issue warnings in cases where injury could result. Critics of the bill said it was premature; while admitting inadequacies in current enforcement, they cited the department of pesticide regulation and county commissioners' tightening of enforcement. Passed by the state assembly, the bill was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger on October 7.
THE OTHER POPE. On the heels of the visit to California in June of His Holiness Karekin II, Catholicos of Echmiadzin ("of All Armenians"), the Catholicos of another branch of the Armenian Apostolic Church visited the state. His Holiness Aram I is head of the Great House of Cilicia, a branch of the Armenian Church, located in Lebanon, which divided from Echmiadzin when Armenia was under Soviet rule. But while Karekin II celebrated the liturgy of the Armenian Church at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, Aram on October 5 celebrated the Divine Liturgy at St. Garabed Armenian Apostolic Church in Little Armenia in Hollywood, where he drew about 1,000 people, including, according to the October 7 Los Angeles Times, representatives of the Catholic, Coptic, and other churches. Aram, who for the past 15 years has served as moderator for the World Council of Churches, told these non-Armenian representatives that their "presence in this church of God with us is indeed an eloquent manifestation of our togetherness in our common Lord Jesus Christ. We may have differences of dogmatic positions. We may have different theologies. But, we all belong to the one church of God, and we are all committed to having Jesus Christ as our common Lord. We need to come together and have the cross of Christ as a living message of love, of togetherness, of service, of sacrifice, and through that, manifest our unity."
Aram told the members of his flock that they should integrate into American society while "being faithful to our roots." The United States, he said, " has been a society of values, of basic human principles and aspirations. This country has been a source of freedom, liberty and justice."
THE HARRIET MIERS NOMINATION has not been the only point of controversy between President George W. Bush and his conservative base; the issue of immigration reform has formed another divide. Republicans in Congress have told the president that they will not consider his guest worker program until the administration strengthens enforcement against illegal immigration at the border, the Los Angeles Daily News reported on October 18. The details of Bush's guest worker plan have been somewhat murky, but Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, testifying before the Senate judiciary committee on October 18, shed some light on it. Chertoff promised tougher enforcement at the border, pledging to end a policy that has freed 118,000 non-Mexican undocumented immigrants from detention centers because of the cost of detaining them at these facilities. But, said Chertoff, "we're going to need more than just brute enforcement. We're going to need a temporary worker program as well." This program, explained Secretary Chao, would allow undocumented workers to come forward and, after paying a substantial fine, be given a temporary work visa for three years. The visa could be extended another three years, but the worker would have to return to his country of origin for one year before applying for a green card or citizenship.
However, in a letter to the president, Southern California Republican representatives Howard "Buck" McKeon (Santa Clarita), Gary Miller (Brea), and Dana Rohrabacher (Huntington Beach) were among 80 lawmakers who called for sterner enforcement at the border as well as sanctions against employers who hire undocumented workers and the cutting off of benefits to the illegal. "History has shown that enforcement provisions are ignored and underfunded while guest worker and amnesty provisions are always implemented." Senator Dianne Feinstein agreed. Calling a guest worker program a magnet, she proposed, instead, "earned transition" for illegal workers, a kind of indentured servitude on the way to a green card. Those already in the United States, she said, would be allowed a green card only if they commit to working in the agricultural sector for three years.
But, according to the October 19 Los Angeles Times, business groups, including many California farmers and growers, seem less concerned about border enforcement than the bottom line. They demand that a reformed immigration policy must maintain the flow of cheap foreign labor to the United States.
GLOBALIZATION, which helps to create the conditions that create illegal immigration to the United States, is also drawing jobs away from the country, said the October 18 Los Angeles Times. The auto parts manufacturer Delphi Corporation has become a poster child for the effects of the global economy. Delphi, which filed for bankruptcy on October 8, has asked for givebacks from its American employees, who belong the United Auto Workers union. Workers are asked to accept a steep decrease in pay, from the average $27 an hour to as low as $10 to $12 an hour, pay higher premiums for healthcare, and have their paid holidays shrink from 17 to 10 days a year. These sacrifices would bring American workers more into line with those at Delphi's foreign companies -- at its China operations, for instance, workers earn $3 an hour. Similar wages by competitors overseas have made it harder for companies like Delphi to compete.
Yet, Delphi has itself been steadily moving its own operations overseas. Over two-thirds of the Troy, Michigan-based company's 185,000 workers now work outside the United States. It has closed or modernized its U.S. factories; a Delphi plant in Anaheim closed this year.
Globalization is not affecting only the heavy industries. Said Thomas Palley, former assistant director of public policy at the AFL-CIO, "this is death by a thousand lashes, so it passes under the political radar. It hit the apparel producers, then furniture, then textiles, then steel. It's moving up the value chain. I've gotten article proofs that were done in the Philippines. Radiologists in India now read charts for American hospitals. It's hit basic architectural work."
THE LOS ANGELES CITY COUNCIL on October 11 unanimously approved a one-year moratorium on the demolition of single-room occupancy or residential hotels or their conversion into up-scale rentals and condominiums, the Los Angeles Times reported. The ordinance, proposed by Councilwoman Jan Perry, is a response to the loss of downtown single-room occupancy housing open to the poor; city officials have said the number of units of this kind of housing have fallen by 1,200, about eight percent of the total, leaving many poor without housing. Two thousand more units are being considered for conversion. In recent years, the number of old bank buildings and decrepit hotels downtown being turned into upscale housing has increased dramatically, with the construction of high-rise residential towers being added into the mix. The ordinance approved by the city creates a one-year moratorium on conversion development in which time the city is supposed to draft a housing preservation ordinance.
Tom Gilmore, a prominent downtown redeveloper (one of whose projects is St. Vibiana's Cathedral), disputed that the major threat to housing for the poor was residential development; rather, he said, a more serious threat is commercial development. Kate Bartolo, senior vice president for Kor Group, which is renovating the Eastern Columbia Building downtown, said that since old downtown buildings could not be brought up to code to serve as low-cost housing, the city should build housing for the poor in the warehouse district. But advocates for housing for the poor say that downtown has been home for many of the poor for many years; they should not be simply pushed aside to make way for the well-heeled. "This is our community," said Becky Dennison, co-director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network. "You can't just uproot an entire community and push people out.... We're all for building more housing. But not at the expense of what we have."