NEWS
2006 NEWS STORIES
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ROAMIN' CATHOLIC
Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
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NEWS
February 2006
IN A "BRIEF STATEMENT on the Vatican's new 'Instruction,'" published in the December 2 issue of the archdiocesan newspaper, the Tidings, Cardi nal Roger Mahony in essence said the Holy See's statement that truly homo sexual men should not be admitted to holy orders does not apply to the archdiocese of Los Angeles. Cardinal Mahony said that he has "reviewed ... thoroughly" the "Instruction Concern ing the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations With Regard to Persons With Homosexual Tendencies in View of Their Admission to the Seminary and to Sacred Orders," issued by the Congregation for Catholic Education on November 22, and has come to this conclusion: "that the Instruction reaffirms the admissions policy and practice of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and St. John's Seminary." The archdiocese's "policies and practices," said Mahony, "have been developed over the years to emphasize that all candidates for Holy Orders must be men who are living committed chaste, celibate lives, and who are able to continue living celibately for the rest of their lives. The mandatory period of celibate living prior to admission to St. John's Seminary is already two years, and this policy will be retained for all Seminary applicants."
But Cardinal Mahony did not say whether this means the archdiocese has, in the past, barred from holy orders openly homosexual men. That it has not is apparent; in 2004, the cardinal ordained to the diaconate Eric Stolz, an openly homosexual man who has publicly promoted homosexual rights. (See "Fairly Visible and Gay," October 2005 Mission.) And it appears that Mahony will not in the future bar homo sexuals from the priesthood. Mahony's spokesman, Tod Tamberg, told the November 23 Los Angeles Times that the cardinal "has said over and over that he chooses potential priests by focusing on their ability to lead a holy, chaste life and the ability to lead other people closer to Jesus. The seminary application process should treat all people and their gifts distinctly, with no variation based on orientation."
In his "Brief Statement," Mahony did lay out what the Vatican instruction said, quoting this section: "while profoundly respecting homosexual persons, the Church cannot admit to the Seminary or to Holy Orders those who: practice homosexuality; present deep-seated homosexual tendencies; support the 'gay culture.'" The cardinal also noted that the instruction distinguishes between "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" and those "that were only the expression of a transitory problem." But Mahony did not say that he would in future screening of candidates for holy orders make the distinction the instruction demands.
Instead the cardinal merely "commend[ed] this new Instruction to all of our priests serving in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles as well as to all of our seminarians. It is my prayer that all who are ordained or vowed for the service of the Church, whether they are heterosexual or have homosexual tendencies, may reaffirm their deep commitment to Christ and to a life of chastity and celibacy after the example of Jesus himself."
Last year, Cardinal Mahony said that a Vatican instruction on the liturgy did not apply to the archdiocese while, at the same time, he dispensed from one of its provisions forbidding the use of glass carafes and chalices for the Blood of Christ.
THE ARCHDIOCESE'S MINISTRY with Lesbian and Gay Catholics "strives to follow the teaching of the Church on sexuality," said the second of a two-part series on the ministry in the December 2 Tidings. The ministry turned 20 last year and, though no longer an archdiocesan department, is still active on the parish level. The Tidings article portrayed the ministry as one which encourages a life of chastity for "gays" and lesbians, quoting such sections of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, as, homosexual acts "are intrinsically disordered" and "homosexual persons are called to chastity." However, the article noted, homosexuality is not the only "difficult" area "of human sexuality" faced by Catholics; others "are sexual activity outside the sacrament of marriage; the widespread use of artificial contraception; the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases; abortion; and divorce." According to Fran Ruth, who coordinates the ministry, "we are a people on a journey, trying to live and embody the teachings of Christ."
However, the article did not point out that the catechism teaches that, while a mere homosexual orientation is not sinful, it is nevertheless "objectively disordered," since, said the 1986 Vatican Letter to Catholic Bishops on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, "it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil." The ministry, it appears, still follows the line of its former director, Father Peter Liuzzi, who, in his book, With Listening Hearts, Understanding the Voices of Lesbian and Gay Catholics, spoke of a homosexual orientation as merely "a variation in human orientation," but not in itself disordered, because, considered subjectively, it is not primarily directed toward sexual acts. Ruth told the Tidings "that gay and lesbian Catholics have much to offer churches." Bill Mochon, a psychotherapist and first-year diaconal candidate, said the Tidings, "encourages heterosexual Catholics to get to know the wisdom and spirituality of their gay brothers and sisters. 'Nothing brings you closer to the suffering Christ on the cross than when you feel you've been nailed to the cross your whole life as well,' he said. 'Gay and lesbian Catholics have not rejected the cross, but have embraced it and carried it well. They have such a depth of spirituality, a connection to God in prayer and a reality to their relationship with Jesus.'"
HOMOSEXUAL RIGHTS GROUPS will appeal the decision of a San Diego appellate court that ruled on December 2 that two doctors were within their rights to refuse to inseminate a lesbian woman artificially, the December 9 San Francisco Chronicle reported. A lower court had ruled that Vista doctors, Christine Brody and Douglas Fenton, had violated the law in refusing to treat Guadalupe Benitez, 33, because she is lesbian. But the doctors said that Benitez's sexual tastes were not the issue, but her unmarried state, and state law did not speak to marital status at the time. Jennifer Pizer, a lawyer with Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which is representing Benitez, said the appeals court's ruling could open the door to further discrimination on account of religious scruples.
Benitez claims that the doctors told her that they would not treat her because of her being lesbian. The California Medical Association, which originally backed the doctors, later withdrew their brief from the case. "We as an organization oppose marital status discrimination and sexual orientation discrimination, and we don't think there's an exemption to it," Peter Warren, spokesman for the medical association, told the Chronicle.
Carlo Coppo, the lawyer who represents Brody and Fenton, said the doctors accommodated both their convictions and Benitez's rights by referring her to another doctor. "We have a constitutional right to believe what we believe and to act consistently with our faith," said Coppo.
MUST RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS ACCEPT HOMOSEXUAL STUDENTS? Two 16-year-old girls are suing the California Lutheran High School Association because a member school, California Lutheran High School in Wildomar, expelled them on suspicion of their being lesbians. The lawsuit, filed in Riverside County superior court in mid December, alleges invasion of privacy and unfair business practices. According to a December 23 Agape News report, the plaintiffs are seeking damages in excess of $25,000 and an injunction forbidding the school from expelling students based on the perception of a homosexual orientation.
According to the lawsuit, the school's principal, the Rev. Greg Bork, called a meeting with the two girls, "interrogated" them in a closed room, and "coerced" one of the girls to confess she "'loves the other.'" Their girls' counsel, Keith Hanson, said the school may not discriminate against homosexual students because it "is not a church. They accept non-Christians and ... they accept Jews, who as a fundamental doctrine of their religion do not accept Jesus Christ. What can be more antithetical to Christianity than Judaism? California law says you cannot pick and choose who you discriminate against." But Tom Scott, vice president of operations for the Association of Christian Schools (not affiliated with California Lutheran), said that, since "private schools don't operate under public schools' standards," they can by law decide whether to accept or expel a student.
IS IT RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINA TION or simply the maintenance of academic standards? The Association of Christian Schools on August 24 sued the University of California alleging that the state university system unfairly singled out Christian schools when it declared textbooks used by Calvary Chapel Christian School in Riverside as failing to meet freshman admission requirements, the December 12 San Francisco Chronicle reported. The lawsuit claims that University of California regents "have rejected textbooks and courses based on a viewpoint of religious faith, for the first time in the University of California's history" and so have "violate[d] the freedom of speech of Christian schools, students and teachers." But in an October 28 motion to dismiss to U.S. district court judge S. James Otero, the university said it was not "stopping plaintiffs from teaching or studying anything. This lawsuit is really an attempt to control the regents' educational choices. Plaintiffs seek to constrain the regents' exercise of its First Amendment-protected right of academic freedom to establish admissions criteria."
University of California counsel Christopher Patti told the Chronicle that in reviewing textbooks, the regents were not singling out Calvary Chapel or any other Christian school. "The textbooks and courses weren't rejected on a religious faith objection," he said. "The university rejects 15 to 20 percent of all courses submitted the first time around. [The courses] simply didn't meet the university's academic standards." The regents rejected a history course, Christianity's Influence on America; a social studies course, Special Providence: Christianity and the American Republic; and an English course, Christianity and Morality in American Literature. The English course, in particular, is described in its syllabus as "an intensive study in textual criticism aimed at elevating the ability of students to engage literary works." In rejecting it, Sue Wilbur, the university's director of undergraduate admissions, said the course was "lacking necessary course information" and had "insufficient academic/theoritical [sic] content." In a note, she said, "unfortunately, this course, while it has an interesting reading list, does not offer a nonbiased approach to the subject matter." She also said "the textbook is not appropriate" -- because, she told the Chronicle, it was only an anthology, and the university requires the reading of some full texts. Also rejected was a science course, Biology for Christian Schools, because, said Patti, "the people who have prepared this book have tried consistently to put the Word of God first and science second." If, "at any point God's Word is not put first, the author apologizes."
BUT OTHER COURSES ACCEPT ED by the University of California, says the Association for Christian Schools suit, belie Patti's rationale. For instance, according to the suit, the university has accepted courses such as "The Jewish Experience" and a course on Islam, as well as courses in "Military History and Philosophy," "Gender, Sexuality and Identity in Literature," and "Children's Literature." But, Patti replied, the university makes "a distinction between courses that study religion in an academic way and courses that are intend ed to instruct in religious faith." Such a rationale, however, has been rejected by the association. "UC would not dare to claim there was no constitu tional violation if it rejected courses because of their African American, or Latino heritage, or feminist or environ mentalist perspective," said its court filing.
Patti said the university has admitted 18 to 25 students from Calvary Chapel in the last three years, which supports a university spokeswoman's contention that "their [students'] ability to enter UC is not hindered, since courses offered by Calvary Chapel in the same academic fields have been approved by regents. But Robert Tyler, another attorney for the plaintiffs, countered, "this is America. We have the right to send our kids to private schools, and have them study from a Christian perspective. The university has no right to tell any person of any faith they're not going to accept courses because they're taught from a Christian perspective. They have every right to look and see if it's sufficiently rigorous, sufficiently analytic. This is all about the changing landscape, the culture wars. I think it's pretty obvious. They've chosen sides."
CALIFORNIA BISHOPS SPOKE OUT against the death penalty in the days leading up to Christmas. On November 30, the day the state supreme court rejected a plea by lawyers to halt the December 13 execution of Stanley Tookie Williams, Stockton's bishop, Stephen Blaire, president of the Califor nia Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement saying that while California's Catholic bishops "recognize the profound pain of those who have lost loved ones to violence and offer them our prayers and our consolation ... nothing can undo what was done -- even taking the life of the convicted killer. The infliction of the death penalty does not make for a more just society." While the bishops, wrote Blaire, "recognize that human beings can and do commit grievous crimes," they "reject the use of the death penalty -- especially when we can protect society with an alternate penalty of life imprisonment." Further, said the bishop, "of particular concern to us is the fact that the application of the death penalty is deeply flawed -- with those who are poor or from racial minorities most often its subjects. The three pending executions are illustrative of these facts." Williams, the founder of the gang, the Crips, and convicted of four shotgun murders, was black. The state scheduled two other executions in January and February. Bishop Blaire said the bishops "are convinced" that the death penalty does not serve the common good.
The California bishops' conference call echoed a November document issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, "A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death," which voiced "our common conviction that it is time for our nation to abandon the illusion that we can protect life by taking life."
A SHRINE TO OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles will be expanded with a mosaic depicting the appearances of La Guadalupaña to St. Juan Diego in 1531, the December 11 Los Angeles Times reported. The mosaic will be made from pieces of china donated by the faithful and will adorn an existing cathedral wall that will form the backdrop to the existing shrine, which overlooks the Hollywood Freeway. Roses will be planted on the side of the wall facing the freeway and will spill over the wall into the interior cathedral courtyard, according to the mosaic's artist, Lalo Garcia. Cathedral rector, Father Kevin Kostelnik, announced the $250,000 project on December 9 at a ceremony during which he broke a red-rimmed china plate donated by Cardinal Roger Mahony.
A GROUP SPONSORING a Christian unity conference, scheduled to be held at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on January 28, was told to find another venue, said the January 10 Los Angeles Times. The cathedral's pastor, the Rev. Kevin Kostelnik, said that the archdiocese rescinded the invitation after it discovered that the conference was to serve as a showcase for Vassula Ryden, a Greek Orthodox woman who claims she receives personal messages from Jesus. The archdiocese returned the $3,000 donation and $200 deposit for food services to conference organizers, the True Life in God organization. Organizers had placed a full-page advertisement for the event in the archdiocese's newspaper, the Tidings, and Cardinal Roger Mahony was scheduled to give the conference's opening remarks.
Antoine Mansour and his wife, Claire, were among the sponsors of the event. In an October 7 letter to Kostelnik, Mr. Mansour said Vassula's writings "have been cleared by the Vatican." But in a January 9 letter to conference organizers, Kostelnik said Mansour's statement was "a serious misrepresen tation of the current Vatican view of Ms. Ryden's speeches and writings." In 1995 and 1996, wrote Kostelnik, the Holy See said its cautions to Catholics not to follow Vassula remained "in full force." "The 1995 statement cautioned Catholics that Ms. Ryden's 'revelations' were merely the result of private meditations and contained doctrinal errors," wrote Kostelnik. "It also advised bishops not to provide any opportunity in their dioceses for the dissemination of her ideas."
Vassula's "revelations" have often taken on a note of the bizarre. She has said that an icon of Christ Pantocrator winked at her and that Our Lord has permitted her to change the revelations she receives.
ATTORNEYS FOR ALLEGED VICTIMS of molestation by priests after several years are moving closer to a settlement of 45 abuse cases with the Los Angeles archdiocese, the Los Angeles Times reported on January 6. The settlement of these cases, only a small portion of the over 560 cases against the archdiocese, are expected to pay out on average of $1 million per victim. Many of them concern incidents that occurred after 1985, under Cardinal Roger Mahony's pastorate, while others have to do with pre-1953 allega tions. Among the priests accused are Michael Baker, Richard Henry, Carlos Rodriguez, and Michael Wempe, who all allegedly molested children during Mahony's tenure, though they have been implicated in earlier abuse cases. Mahony, according to archdiocesan counsel J. Michael Hennigan, made "terrible mistakes" by allowing abusive priests to continue to minister in the archdiocese after they received therapeutic treatment. The cardinal, said Hennigan, was "overly optimistic" about the results of such treatment, but "he ultimately got to the point where he is now, which we believe is one of the nationleaders in how to deal with the problem on a large scale."
Both archdiocesan lawyers and counsel for alleged victims said that settlements were not imminent, because of a number of hurdles. Though most of the cases currently under settlement concern events that occurred when the archdiocese was self-insured, other cases involve insurance companies. Insurers have said the archidiocese forfeited its coverage by covering up abuse; they have also urged the archdiocese to challenge the claims of each victim aggressively, according to the Times.
Whether the release of priests' personnel files will form part of the settlement was unclear in December. The same files have been subpoeaned by the Los Angeles County grand jury, but archdiocesan lawyers have fought for three years to keep the files confidential. In early December, the California court of appeal gave Mahony 30 days to convince higher courts to continue to stall the release of the files of two priests accused of molestation.
Though the settlement of the 45 cases would prove to be the third largest sex-abuse settlement in the United States, the settlement of all cases against the archdiocese, yielding an estimated $1 billion for plaintiffs, would be far and away the largest such settlement in the country.
IN REFUSING TO HAND OVER files of priests accused of molesting minors to the Los Angeles County grand jury, the archdiocese of Los Angeles is not "covering up" something; it is simply exercising a right to confidentiality, said a December 9 Tidings article. Said the Tidings, "confidentiality is a vital component in many personal and institutional relationships. Without confidentiality, key relationships that help us and our society to function properly would simply vanish.... Without confidentiality, no bishop would be able to exercise proper oversight of the priests he ordains to share in his ministry of serving the faithful."
The archdiocese, said the article, continues to withhold 21 pages of documents in the personnel files of two priests accused of molestation because it "believes that the documents in dispute are protected by the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment, which assures the free exercise of religion, and that revealing them to a grand jury would be an unwarranted intrusion into the Catholic Church's religious practice." Though the lawyers for the two accused priests claim the priests' entire personnel files should be kept confidential, the archdiocese will not go so far. It is, said the article, only seeking to protect those parts of the personnel files "that are narrowly focused on private communications between a bishop and priest." The archdiocese, said the article, is not trying to cover up the anything that would implicate, say, the archbishop, but is simply standing up for its rights.
"The truth is that the documents in these two priests' files have been seen and reviewed by various judges," said the article. "And, the Archdiocese has repeatedly offered the Los Angeles County District Attorney the factual information necessary for them to prosecute these two cases without giving over the actual documents in question. This type of information, combined with reports that authorities obtain from witnesses and other sources, typically has resulted in successful prosecution of other cases of abuse. The D.A. has consistently refused this offer."
According to the Tidings, the archdiocese "is considering an appeal petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its case."
A FEDERAL JUDGE in San Diego has rejected an attempt by the diocese of San Diego to have a 2002 state law struck down that for one year removed the statute of limitations in civil cases involving priests who have molested minors, said a December 23 Associated Press report. The diocese and Los Angeles' Cardinal Roger Mahony said the law violated the Church's legal right to govern its own religious practices. But on December 22, U.S. district court judge William Hayes disagreed. "The failure to supervise or negligent hiring of a person that commits sexual assault does not implicate or affect any religious belief, opinion or practice," said Hayes' ruling. J. Michael Hennigan, a lawyer representing the San Diego diocese and Cardinal Mahony, said the Church is "strongly considering an appeal."
Raymond Boucher, an attorney representing alleged victims, claimed the archdiocese is trying to force his clients to accept smaller settlements. If the state law were struck down, plaintiffs' lawsuits would be thrown out without compensation. But, said Hennigan, though all the California bishops supported striking down the law, both Los Angeles and San Diego were committed to paying out the settlements. "We sincerely hope that all of these cases are settled before we get the final answer to this important question," said Hennigan.
ANOTHER JUDGE HAS RULED that alleged victims of molestation by priests can go after parish and school assets as well as other diocesan owned property in seeking settlements. The Wall Street Journal reported that, on December 30, a federal bankruptcy judge in Portland, Oregon, Elizabeth Perris, denied the archdiocese of Portland's claim that creditors could not force the sale of parishes, schools, and other such assets, since the diocese held these in trust for the parishes as beneficiaries. Such assets in the Portland archdiocese are valued at from $400 to $600 million, whereas diocesan properties not held in trust are valued at only $19 million. Perris denied the archdiocese's argument that the status of these properties should be determined by canon law; "who owns the property is, quite simply, not a theological or doctrinal matter," she said. The archdiocese argued, as well, that since Portland's 390,000 Catholics were named a separate defendant, civil law would not allow the archdiocese to sell their property against their wishes. Judge Perris, however, said, "under civil law, the parishes and high schools are not separate civil legal entities." The archdiocese indicated it would appeal Perris' decision.
Last August, a similar decision was reached by a bankruptcy court in Spokane, Washington. Judge Patricia Williams ruled that churches, parochial schools, and such assets as cemeteries belong to the Spokane diocese, not to parishes. Though only binding in their jurisdictions, both the Portland and Spokane decisions may have repercussions in clergy abuse cases throughout the United States.
ARNOLD'S WAGE HIKE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is calling for an increase in the minimum wage to one dollar above its current rate over the next 18 months, the December 31 Los Angeles Times reported. Currently the state minimum wage stands at $6.75 an hour, earning workers about $14,000 a year; the governor wants the legislature to raise the wage 50 cents by September and another 50 cents in July 2007, bringing the yearly wage of minimum wage workers to about $16,000 a year. California now has the eighth highest minimum wage in the country while being one of the most expensive places to live. Schwarzenegger's wage hike would place California' s minimum wage above those of Oregon and Washington, which pay $7.50 and $7.63 an hour respectively. The federal minimum wage is $5.15 an hour.
Schwarzenegger has vetoed other wage hikes in the past because they would automatically raise the wage level in accord with increases in infla tion. In rejecting a minimum wage hike in September 2005, the governor said, "minimum-wage increases must not be put on autopilot or examined in a vacuum but reviewed in conjunction with other wage and hour issues that impact workers and businesses."
But labor leaders and assembly Democrats have criticized the governor's plan, calling it an election-year ploy to portray himself as a moderate. Business leaders have said, however, that they would support the plan. "Let face it, it's very difficult to argue against an increase in the minimum wage for someone who is making such a small amount of money," said Rusty Hammer, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. "You want to argue something reason able and rational, which is what this is." Bill Dombrowski, president of the California Retailers Association, agreed. "I think a minimum wage increase is inevitable," he said. "The governor has come up with the best compromise the business community can get."
This is especially so, since two ballot initiatives for 2006 call for a more drastic raise in the minimum wage. One would raise the state minimum wage to $8.75 by 2009, with automatic, permanent increases based on inflation every year thereafter. The other would raise the minimum wage to $7.75 an hour by the beginning of 2008, after which it would linked to inflation.
THE ENDORSEMENT of the gover nor's minimum wage hike by business leaders might be influenced by evidence that such wage increases do not lead to large scale layoffs, said the January 6 Los Angeles Times. The California Budget Project in Sacramento recently issued a study that concluded that moderate increases in the minimum wage do not lead to any significant employment loss, or any at all. The Project's executive director, Jean Ross, said that between 1997 and 2004, "sectors that employ large shares of low-wage workers actually increased employment at a faster rate than the state economy as a whole" According to Ross, "most employers are already working with the lowest number of employees that they can. University of California, Berkeley economist Michael Reich said that even San Francisco's $8.82 per hour minimum wage (which is indexed to inflation) has not adversely affected employment or resulted in business closures. San Francisco restaurants, according to Reich, which offer low wage jobs, have increased employment faster than the overall business average since 2003, when the city's wage law was enacted. Menu prices have risen three percent above those of restaurants outside the city; and this, coupled with improved worker productivity, has kept the job rate stable and increasing.
But such evidence does not convince business leaders that linking wages in inflation is a good idea, because it would link increases to unpredictable factors in the economy. But, though they oppose linking a wage increase to inflation, business leaders will likely not oppose a wage hike like the one proposed by Governor Schwarzenegger. Wes Tyler, manager of the Chancellor Hotel in San Francisco, said minimum wage hikes are a "necessary evil."
TWO YEARS AFTER Inglewood voters in a ballot measure rejected a Wal-Mart superstore, the Inglewood city council was considering an ordinance that would direct the city's planning department to offer guidelines for "super-retail centers," the January 10 Los Angeles Times reported. The proposal by Councilman Ralph Franklin would ask planners to spend 60 days to work up a "big-box ordinance" similar to a Los Angeles one, which requires builders of stores of over 100,000 square (so-called "superstores" that offer grocery as well as other merchan dise) to pay for studies to show how their retail outlets would affect the entire community. Franklin, who saw small businesses close in his hometown in Kansas when a Wal-Mart supercenter moved in, said, "I don't want that same impact to happen to our city while it's on the rise. A Wal-Mart, or Sam's Club, is a major concern for me."
Wal-Mart still owns the Inglewood parcel where in 2004 it planned to build its supercenter. Of Inglewood's proposed ordinance, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Amy Hill said, "if they go the direction of Los Angeles, I think we would certainly be more opposed to the efforts. We feel that that would severely limit consumers' ability to choose where they want to spend their money." Wal-Mart has been seeking to expand beyond its rural and small town base into urban areas.
WAL-MART, INC. MUST PAY damages to about 116,000 of its current and former employees because it deprived them of their lunch and dinner breaks, an Alameda County jury said on December 22. Plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against the retail giant claimed that between 2001 and 2005, Wal-Mart violated a 2001 California law that guarantees employees a 30-minute lunch or dinner break for every six hours of work; some employees claimed that the company pulled them from their breaks to make up for staff shortages. Neal Manne, an attorney representing Wal-Mart, however said the lawsuit focused on "some compliance problems at Wal-Mart from a number of years ago. The undisputed evidence is that those problems have long since been solved. There's 100 percent compliance now."
Wal-Mart claimed that employees "did take substantially all of their meal periods," and those who did not receive breaks were given an extra hour's pay. The jury, however, awarded plaintiffs $57 million in compensatory damages and $155 million in punitive damages, according to the December 23 San Francisco Chronicle. "In a workplace like Wal-Mart, where it's nonunion, state law is the only protection that a lot of workers have for basic rights, like meal breaks and getting their breaks on time," said a juror. Wal-Mart said it would appeal the decision.
The decision marks the largest class-action judgment against Wal-Mart ever. The company faces other class-action suits, including one in Marin County in which plaintiffs claim that Wal-Mart and an import company knowingly sold defective bicycle parts that injured children.
A FEDERAL JURY IN LOS ANGELES on December 15 indicted Ralphs Grocery Company with conspiracy, fraud, using false Social Security numbers, and making false statements to its pension funds and the Internal Revenue Service when it allegedly re-hired 1,000 striking workers during the Southern California grocery strike that stretched from October 2003 to March 2004. According to the indictment, said the December 16 Sacramento Bee, Ralphs rehired the workers under assumed names and with false social security numbers, placing them miles from the stores in which they had been working in order to prevent their recognition by members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union. According to the indictment, Ralphs was trying to prolong the strike and undermine the "solidarity and morale" of the union. The rehiring of the workers, the most experienced of the grocery chain's employees, said the indictment, lessened the effect on the strike on the stores.
Though the indictment accuses Ralphs of a "company-wide course of criminal conduct," the Kroger Company of Cincinnatti, Ohio, which owns the grocery chain, though admitting to rehiring 200 striking workers, said it was the work of a few, isolated store managers, who have been disciplined. "Although we believe many of these managers acted for humanitarian or personal reasons," said Kroger's senior vice president Paul Heldman, "their actions nonetheless were wrong and contrary to explicit company policy."If convicted, Ralphs could face $100 million in penalties.
A GROUP OF WHITE GEODESIC DOMES south of downtown Los Angeles that have provided shelter for homeless people for 15 years will have to find a new location, Associated Press reported August 25. The "village," founded by homeless activist Tom Hayes in 1993, has been paying a rent of $2,500 a month, plus property taxes, for the 1.25 acres on which it sits. But the partnership that owns the property, citing increased land values, wants to raise the rent to $18,330 a month, plus property taxes, by June. Said the partnership's lawyer, Mike Sidley, "the economics of the time now do not allow them to support this organization any longer." Hayes said he will not contest the rent hike and will vacate the site by March 31.
Though the village was hailed as an alternative to the typical homeless shelter, the idea of it never caught on in Los Angeles. The problem has been, said Hayes, the real estate market, which has made alternative housing too expensive. "No matter what we do to rehabilitate people, there's no place for them to live," he said.
LOS ANGELES CITY ATTORNEY Rocky Delgadillo announced on December 21 that the city would investi gate whether hospitals are dumping discharged homeless patients against their will on Los Angeles' Skid Row, the Los Angeles Times reported. Delgadillo's announcement follows recent action by the Los Angeles city council to stem alleged homeless dumping by both hospitals and police departments and a growing push by officials of both law enforcement and the city to clean up Skid Row. "We are trying to ensure those illegally dumped on Skid Row have a voice," Delgadillo told the Times. "We have an allegation that hospitals are dumping people illegally on to Skid Row.... We take this very seriously." The city attorney's office has been looking into the records of the Union Rescue Mission and other homeless service providers downtown to examine circumstances of cases where patients have been discharged. Union Rescue's director, Andy Bales, has provided investigators with admissions logs and a video tape of an ambulance dropping off a man in a stretcher (and appearing to suffer convulsions) at the mission. Los Angeles police department officials said officers have found on the row ill-looking people with hospital wristbands and even some individuals wearing colostomy bags.
The police department issued a report in November listing a few hospitals that are believed to drop off patients. Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles, Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, and Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center have admitted to dropping off patients, but only when they are healthy enough to be discharged and only because Skid Row is the only place that provides enough services to the homeless. Though no law forbids hospitals to transfer patients to Skid Row, the federal Emergency Medical Transfer and Active Labor Act requires hospitals to make sure patients are stable before discharging them. Delgadillo suggested possible legal criminal and civil penalties against hospitals that discharge unstable patients to Skid Row.
IS THE CHURCH HIERARCHICAL OR NOT? In a reflection, published in the December 23 Tidings, on the documents of the Second Vatican Council, Dr. Michael Downey wrote that the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, offers "a clear shift in the understanding of the Church." Downey, a professor at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo and Cardinal Mahony's theologian, seems to say that Lumen Gentium undid the notion of the Church as a hierarchical body. At first this does not seem to be Downey's point, for he writes, "rather than viewing the Church principally as a hierarchical body, in chapter two of Lumen Gentium the basic, foundational theology of the Church rests on an understanding of the Church as the People of God." This merely says that Lumen Gentium, or at least its second chapter, does not view the Church's hierarchical character as its foundational character. But the theologian continues: "while later chapters of Lumen Gentium do introduce distinctions that seem to re-introduce a hierarchical view of the Church, this cannot undo the foundation that is set in the second chapter." But why would the later chapters "seem to re-introduce something that was never removed? For, just because the Church's hierarchical character be demoted doesn't mean it's been done away with. And why do the later chapters of Lumen Gentium only "seem to reintroduce" the hierarchical character of the Church? Is Downey saying that they really don't and that the Church's hierarchical character has been consigned to the pre-Vatican II dustbin?
Vatican II's apparently different theology of the Church "provides," Downey continues, "a different sense of how we are to live our various callings, our diverse vocations in the Church. In brief, Lumen Gentium has provided a different sense of what it means for all the baptized to be and to build the Church as the Body of Christ, whose members we are."
This all dovetails nicely with the Los Angeles archdiocese's lay ministry agenda. "In our local Church this is seen in the flourishing of diverse ministries in the various spheres of the Church's life," Downey continues. "The recent Archdiocesan Synod, concluded in 2003, involved clergy, consecrated religious and lay faithful in charting out the pastoral initiatives that shape the vision of the Church in Los Angeles and its pastoral priorities for the foreseeable future."
BELATED APOLOGY. On January 1, a state senate bill, the "Apology Act for the 1930s Mexican Repatriation Program," went into effect. The bill is a formal apology on the part of the state of California for the forced deportation of hundreds of thousands Latinos from California during the height of the Great Depression. The administration of President Herbert Hoover forced up to two million Mexicans nationwide to move to Mexico because, it was charged, they were taking jobs that belonged to American natives. The problem was that, according to the December 28 Sacramento Bee, about 1.2 million of the Mexicans deported were United States citizens; in California, about 400,000 of the deported were either citizens or legal residents. In the Los Angeles of 1931, over only five months, the government deported 50,000 Mexicans; on Ash Wed nesday, hundreds in Pacoima and San Fernando were rounded up for deportation. The state lost many Latino barrios.
According to a book, Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s, by Francisco Balderrama, professor of Chicano studies at California State University of Los Angeles, and Raymond Rodriguez, an emeritus history professor at Long Beach City College, "for American-born children, trying to adjust to life in Mexico proved to be a very traumatic experience.... Deep-seated scars of rejections by both cultures would remain embedded in their lives forever."
"The state of California apologizes ... for the fundamental violations of their basic civil liberties and constitutional rights during the period of illegal deportation and coerced emigration," said the senate bill. Though Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the bill on October 7, he vetoed a companion measure that would have created a commission to study the possibility of reparations to deportation survivors. With U.S Representative Hilda Solis (D-El Monte), state senator Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana) is working on a federal measure to accompany the California bill.
A FINGER IN THE DIKE. The Bush Administration hasn't given up on its proposed guest worker program for immigrants but, said the December 28 Los Angeles Times, it has succumbed to Republican pressure to put border enforcement first. Increased enforcement at the border would require hundreds of new border patrol and immigration agents, new technology (such as infrared cameras, sensors that distinguish between humans and animals, and a newly developed surveillance drone that can detect what someone is carrying on his person.) Measures to build new detention facilities, establish accelerated processing procedures for deporting detainees, punish those who hire illegal immigrants and reward those who don't are also part of the package.
Some critics, however, have said the Republican proposals concentrate too much on border enforcement and don't do enough internal enforcement. Others say the chief problem is not the border but the jobs magnet. T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Control Council, said, "every commission that studied this came to the same conclusion, that you have to eliminate the jobs magnet if you want to eliminate illegal immigration."
Neither Bonner nor the Times article mentioned another cause of illegal immigration: poverty in Latin America caused, in large part, by first world economic policies that create circumstances that keep citizens in Latin American countries often desperately poor.