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2006 NEWS STORIES
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ROAMIN' CATHOLIC
Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
NEWS
April 2006
"FAITH HAS A FUNDAMENTAL importance in the life of the Church, because the gift that God makes of himself in Revelation is fundamental and God's gift of himself is accepted through faith." These words Pope Benedict XVI spoke on February 10, addressing the plenary session of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. However, said the pope, whenever "the centrality of the Catholic faith in its authentic expression ... weakens, the fabric of ecclesial life loses its original brightness and wears thin: It degenerates into sterile activism or is reduced to political expediency with a worldly flavor." But when the truth of the Faith, continued Benedict, "is placed simply and decisively at the heart of Christian existence, human life is innovated and revived by a love that knows no rest or bounds."
This truth is, finally, Jesus Christ, "the Personified Truth who attracts the world to himself," said the pope. "The light that shines out from Jesus is the splendor of the truth. Every other truth is a fragment of the Truth that he is, and refers to him." As truth, "Jesus is the Pole Star of human freedom: Without him it loses its sense of direction, for without the knowledge of the truth, freedom degenerates, becomes isolated and is reduced to sterile arbitration. With him, freedom is rediscovered; it is recognized to have been created for our good and is expressed in charitable actions and behavior." As truth, too, Jesus "draws to himself the heart of each person, enlarges it and fills it with joy. Indeed, truth alone can take possession of the mind and make it rejoice to the full."
"Thus," said the pope, "service to the faith, which is a witness to the One who is the entire Truth, is also a service to joy, and this is the joy that Christ desires to spread in the world: It is the joy of faith in him, of truth that is communicated through him, of salvation that comes from him! It is this joy we feel in our hearts when we kneel with faith to worship Jesus!"
CONVICTION AND MISTRIAL. Retired priest Michael Wempe, 66, was convicted of one count of molesting a minor boy on February 22, the feast of the Chair of St. Peter. But while jurors, after four days deliberation, could decide on the one count, they remained split on four other charges, forcing Los Angeles superior court judge Curtis Rappe to call a mistrial on those counts. Wempe could face three years in prison, said the February 23 Los Angeles Times; he has already served one year awaiting the trial.
Wempe, who admitted to molesting 13 other boys (who could not bring him to trial because the statute of limitations on their cases had expired), denied molesting the plaintiff in the current trial, known only as Jayson B. Jayson B. claimed that Wempe, while a chaplain at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, molested him in the early '90s. In 1987, Cardinal Roger Mahony sent Wempe to New Mexico for six months of treatment after the priest's supervisor accused him of "indiscreet conduct with young boys." But when Wempe returned from the treatment (which, he claimed, cured him), Mahony assigned him as chaplain at Cedars-Sinai, without informing hospital administration of the priest's problems. In 2002, after the clergy sexual abuse scandal broke, Wempe retired. A year later, he was charged with 42 counts of child sexual molestation but did not face trial because the U.S. Supreme Court declared that a state law removing the statute of limitations on criminal sexual molestation cases was unconstitutional.
Jayson B.'s two brothers were among those whose trials against Wempe did not materialize. Only weeks after the Supreme Court decision, Jayson B. brought his suit against Wempe.
Following the conviction, the Los Angeles archdiocese issued a statement. "Father Michael Wempe's conviction cannot restore the trust and innocence stolen from his victims," it said, "but hopefully this verdict may provide them some measure of justice and comfort. To those he abused, we again apologize, and we assure them of our support and of our firm resolve to continue to employ effective means of preventing all forms of abuse in our church."
"IN 1988 THE ARCHDIOCESE of Los Angeles promulgated written policies on Sexual Abuse by Clergy," said a February 21, 2002 pastoral statement by Cardinal Roger Mahony, "I Will Appoint Over You Shepherds After My Own Heart." It continued: "We continue to revise those policies and procedures as necessary to ensure that the overall goal is attained." What has been this overall goal? According to archdiocesan policy, said the statement, "sexual abuse by clergy is a most serious abuse of trust and will not be tolerated. The Archbishop has the responsibility to the People of God to appoint priests and deacons to positions of trust only if he is morally certain that they will be able to properly serve the people entrusted to their pastoral care."
The statement laid out three objectives: "treat all allegations of sexual abuse seriously and never deal with a problem of sexual abuse on the part of a priest or deacon by simply moving him to another ministerial assignment; Educate clergy and people about the problem of sexual abuse and set in place screening procedures and educational policies on this subject for those training for the ordained ministry; Cooperate fully with civil reporting procedures governing sexual abuse."
EDWARD ANTHONY RODRIGUE, a former priest of the San Diego and San Bernardino dioceses who was released in January after spending eight and a half years in prison for molesting an 11-year-old developmentally disabled boy, apologized to his victims on January 30 the Inland Empire Press Enterprise reported. Rodrigue, 69, who, according to a 1997 San Bernardino County sheriff's report, admitted that while serving as a priest, he molested five or six boys annually, said, "to those I have been involved with, I am genuinely sorry for their problems, for those I've known and the unknown. It upsets me that there are a few [accusers] that I don't know."
Ordained in 1962, Rodrigue worked in parishes throughout the Imperial Valley and the greater San Bernardino region. He left the priesthood in 1992. About 19 men, former altar boys, have said Rodrigue molested them between 1967 and 1979. They have lawsuits filed against the dioceses of San Diego and San Bernardino.
Rodrigue, who was living at the Sahara/Paradise Motel in San Bernardino, registered as a sex offender with the San Bernardino police department. Immediately afterward, investigators distributed flyers in Spanish and in English in the neighborhood, warning of Rodrigue's presence. "From our standpoint, there is no place in the city we want him," said San Bernardino city attorney Jim Penman. "There are children living in this motel.... As far as I'm concerned, they ought to keep him in prison."
Rodrigue said he was still a practicing Catholic, having attended Mass in prison. Father Howard Lincoln, spokesman for the San Bernardino diocese, said no diocesan officials had spoken with Rodrigue and had no plans to do so.
FIRST MARRIED PRIEST. The diocese of San Bernardino on February 10 (the feast of St. Scholastica) ordained its first married priest. Father Gregory Elder, married and the father of two, had been ordained an Episcopalian minister in 1983. He explained in a July 2005 Daily News story that in 2003 he decided to become Catholic after becoming "convinced that it was impossible that a merciful Christ would allow the vast majority of Christians who call on his name, both over the centuries and today, to be led into gross error." After being received into the Catholic Church, he applied to Pope John Paul II for ordination to the priesthood under the Pastoral Provision, which allows former Anglican and Episcopalian ministers, even if married, to be ordained by way of exception. Twelve days before his death, Pope John Paul approved Elder's application.
Elder will be able to serve in parishes but may not become a pastor, according to canon law.
THE DIOCESE OF SAN BERNARDINO on January 10 declared a priest, the Rev. Ed Reidy, guilty of heresy and schism. The panel of three diocesan judges ruled that Reidy was guilty of heresy for denying the infallibility and authority of the pope and was guilty, as well, of schism for leaving the Catholic Church to join a denomination that did not recognize papal authority. Reidy, formerly a priest of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, for 19 years was pastor of a parish in Palm Desert. In 1999, he left the Holy Cross congregation and incurred automatic excommunication in 2000 when he founded in Bermuda Dunes (not far from his old parish) the Pathfinder Community of the Risen Christ, a congregation of the Orange-based Ecumenical Catholic Communion, an offshoot of the Old Catholic movement that split from the Catholic Church over Vatican I's definition of papal infallibility.
The leader of the Ecumenical Catholic Communion, Bishop Peter Hickman, said the judges' verdict delivered in a 30-page letter to Reidy was "vindictive." Hickman told the January 20 Inland Empire Press Enterprise, "there are all these quotes from canon law that are cold and harsh, but there are no quotes from the Gospel of Jesus. Are we not to be followers of Jesus? Is this the way Jesus would have behaved? There is no evidence he ever behaved that way. His response was always a loving response. This is not a loving document."
Diocesan spokesman Father Howard Lincoln, however, said the letter was written to conform with canon law. "It's a formal process requiring formal wording and was certainly not written in a vindictive spirit," said Lincoln.
Lincoln further clarified the reasons for the trial and verdict against Reidy. "So we had a Roman Catholic priest living in our diocese and ministering in another denomination just a few miles away," he said. "Therefore, we felt it was necessary to use this process to formally and officially recognize his removal from the clerical state in the Roman Catholic Church." The diocese, however, did not publish the 30-page document it sent to Reidy -- a move Lawrence Cunningham, a theology professor at Indiana's Notre Dame University, said he did not understand. "If in fact they wanted to establish that [Reidy] is not a Roman Catholic priest, but they're now not publicizing that -- that strikes me as odd," he said.
Marc Balestrieri, a canon lawyer and president of the Santa Monica-based De Fide, said the diocese was right in its verdict. "The gravity of the errors which [Reidy] is professing, coupled with the group's targeting of Roman Catholic faithful in the bishop's diocese, all pose a real danger of inducing the flock under his care into grave sin," Balestrieri said. "Let us not forget, we're dealing here with the risk of eternal damnation."
"NO!" SAID 22-YEAR-OLD Anthony Brooks, an unemployed homeless man. "Why don't they let us have the jobs?" Brooks was responding to the news that the United States Congress was considering a guest-worker program for undocumented immigrants. His response is not atypical of other low-wage workers, said a February 20 Los Angeles Times article, who see immigrants as not only taking jobs from citizens but lowering wages.
One of these is Drexell Johnson and his group, the Young Black Contractors of South Central, Inc., who have staged demonstrations in front of construction developments which have denied them employment in favor of cheaper, immigrant labor. The unemployment rate among blacks in Los Angeles is 14 percent -- twice that among whites, said the Times. Said Johnson of President George W. Bush's proposal to bring into the country perhaps 400,000 foreign guest workers annually, "Hell, no, don't bring no one in from nowhere. Train the people here. Give the people here the same opportunity you're willing to give someone out of this country."
Senators John McCain (R-Arizona) and Teddy Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) have together sponsored a bill that, it is said, would allow hundreds of thousands of guest workers into the United States each year for jobs that qualified Americans cannot fill. Business and labor leaders support such a measure, saying that immigrants are needed for such fields as landscaping, construction, medical, and food service. Union leaders say a guest worker program would allow legalized workers to become unionized. They argue that unionizing immigrant workers would close the disparity between union and non-union wages. The Service Employees International Union has had some success in this area. Now representing 85 percent of Los Angeles janitors, the union has won for them wages of $11 an hour with full benefits, as opposed to $8 an hour before 2000.
Richard Salinas, a unionized roofer in Los Angeles, told the Times that contractors hire immigrant workers because they can pay them less than half of the union $30 per hour wage. A study by Harvard University professor George Borjas found that between 1980 and 2000 immigrant labor lowered wages for Americans overall by 3.7 percent. Giovanni Peri, an economist at the University of California at Davis found that the wages of less-educated Americans dropped by two percent because of immigration but that cheap immigrant labor benefited most Americans by lowering the cost of goods and services.
THE CITY OF COSTA MESA, the home of the Orange County shopping mecca, South Coast Plaza, has long had the reputation of being immigrant friendly; but this is changing, said the February 25 Los Angeles Times. Besides the commercial center north of Highway 405 that includes the mall, the city has hosted charities, such as Share Our Selves, which offers groceries, clothes, and free medical care for immigrants who work as house cleaners and gardeners for the city's wealthy and well as in low paying jobs in other industries. Costa Mesa had a day workers center, opened to prevent loitering by workers, and a human relations committee, which was to work against unjust prejudice of immigrants. But last year, the city council voted 3-2 to shut down these civic services and endorsed a plan by Mayor Allan Mansoor to combat immigration by training city police in immigration enforcement -- a plan not yet in force.
Though Mayor Mansoor says his plan will target only serious criminals amongst immigrants, many think it part of a larger crackdown. "Everybody's afraid," said Sherry Chavez, 23, a day-care worker and mother of two. "They're scared to go out of their houses. I have family that don't have papers, and they're scared of taking their children to school." Others welcome the plan, saying that the influx of immigrants has changed the city for the worse, ruining, in particular, the schools.
Called "a city with a heart" by a former county supervisor, Costa Mesa sits in Orange County, where Proposition 187, the measure to restrict public healthcare access to illegal immigrants, arose, and where Jim Gilchrist, co-founder of the Minuteman Project, lives. Latinos now form about one-third of Costa Mesa's population, and about ten percent of registered voters have Spanish surnames; despite this, the city has never had a Latino council member, since council members are not elected according to districts but in city-wide elections.
Fear of police in Latino neighborhoods precedes notice of the mayor's plan. According to city policeman Doug Johnson, "the majority of the people, unless you make contact, they turn away or look away. People who got beat up on the streets or even robbed, they were hesitant [to call]. It would have to be someone who witnessed it who called it in."
Immigrant-rights advocates from around Southern California have come to Costa Mesa to denounce the city's new policies, while immigration-control activists have praised them. "This will be the testing ground for the country," said Gilchrist. But Councilwoman Katrina Foley noted, "people outside of Costa Mesa have taken over the discussion, so reasonable-minded residents have been taken out of the discussion. Unfortunately, our city has become the lightning rod for a political issue that is consuming all of our resources and time."
CARDINAL ROGER MAHONY said he would urge his priests to defy a federal immigration law if it were passed, the March 1 Los Angeles Times reported. The House of Representatives passed the bill, the Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act (HR 4437), on December 16. If passed by the Senate and approved by the president, the bill would make "unlawful presence" in the United States an aggravated felony (it has been only a civil violation) that would carry a punishment of up to a year in prison, deportation, and disqualification from ever returning to the country legally. Groups that help immigrants -- including church organizations, would be required under the bill to verify immigration status before offering services. Each offense in this regard would carry up to five years in prison.
Mahony told the Times on the eve of Ash Wednesday that he would use that opening day of Lent to call on all archdiocesan parishes to pray and work for immigration reform. He said he would tell his priests not to obey the law and refuse to ask anyone for immigration status. whole concept of punishing people who serve immigrants is un-American," said the cardinal. "If you take this to its logical, ludicrous extreme, every single person who comes up to receive Holy Communion, you have to ask them to show papers. It becomes absurd and the church is not about to get into that. The church is here to serve people.... We're not about to become immigration agents. It just throws more gasoline on the discussion and inflames people." According to the Times, Mahony said "it would be the first time he has asked the entire archdiocese, which covers Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, to mobilize on a social issue." He said he sent informational packets to every parish telling them how to preach, teach, and lobby on the immigration issue.
The cardinal said he would use the authority of his office "as strongly as I can" to bring about immigration reform.
FIVE MEN AND WOMEN received the Cardinal's Award from Roger Mahony in an annual dinner held February 4 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, said the February 10 Tidings, the newspaper of the Los Angeles archdiocese. Deacon Hosea Alexander, Mary Pat Cooper, Fran Curry, Dr. Clyde Von der Ahe, and William Wardlaw were honored, said the cardinal, "for their selfless service and outreach to others. And by honoring them, we honor all of you for the work that you do." William Wardlaw's work, in particular, said the Tidings, has included being "active in the Cathedral development process and with Catholic Charities." A Knight of Malta, Wardlaw has served as legal counsel to the archdiocese and sits on the board of directors for Catholic Charities. In 1999, the cardinal appointed him to co-chair the archdiocesan Cathedral Campaign.
But Wardlaw has been active in Los Angeles and California state politics, as well. In 1993 and 1997, he served as chairman of the "Riordan for Mayor" campaign, as well as chairing Mayor Riordan's transition team in 1993. Wardlaw was state chairman for the Clinton/Gore campaigns that, in the words of a January 12, 1999 archdiocesan press release, "carried California in the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections," and led a citizens group to bring the 2000 Democratic National Convention to Los Angeles. Wardlaw and his wife, the Honorable Kim McLane Wardlaw, have been members of F.O.B. (Friends of Bill) club and were honored with the Lincoln bedroom in the Clinton White House. Mrs. Wardlaw was appointed to the ninth circuit court of appeals by President Clinton and was a member of the Clinton-Gore Presidential Transition Team.
The Cardinal's Award is not the only ecclesiastical honor Wardlaw has received. The December 2, 2005 Tidings reported, Wardlaw received (through the nomination of Cardinal Mahony) the Order of St. Gregory, instituted in 1831 by Pope Gregory "for loyalty and service to the Holy See," said the Tidings. Previous Mahony inductees into the Order of St. Gregory include Rupert Murdoch (1998), owner of the Fox network and a publisher of sexually explicit tabloids.
WAL-MART INSPIRED? On February 22, said the February 24 Los Angeles Times, California state senator Carole Migden (D-San Francisco) introduced a bill in the legislature that would require companies that employ 10,000 or more Californians to pay out eight percent of their total payroll on health benefits or contribute to a state fund for the uninsured. Senator Migden in a February 23 statement said Wal-Mart's coverage is "hardly affordable" to its employees, who make on average $15,000 a year.
VENTURA COUNTY HAS SEEN a steep increase in the number of people getting food from charity food banks, said the February 24 Ventura County Star. According to a report released February 22 by America's Second Harvest, a non-profit organization that serves food banks across the United States, in 2005, 82,466 people received food from Ventura County's food banks, homeless shelters, or soup kitchens, a 20 percent increase since 2001. The same report says that 25 million people nationwide received food assistance, an increase of only eight percent since 2001.
One reason for the much steeper increase in Ventura County is the area's high cost of living. Jim Mangis, president of FOOD Share, which supplies food banks in the county, said, "the first thing the community here can do is understand and believe the face of hunger. Living in paradise here, we underestimate the economic struggle people are under. It's not that food isn't available; it's a huge economic issue tied into the overall cost of living." FOOD Share did its own study, interviewing 438 people at 40 churches, food banks, and other food distributors in the county. According to the study, only 12 percent of clients are homeless, 41 percent come from households with at least one employed adult, while 76 percent come from households that earn less than $18,000 a year.
CATHOLICS DON'T "TITHE" as much as Protestants, studies by Empty Tomb, Inc., a Champaign, Illinois-based Christian research company, concluded. According to the studies, while Protestants give on average 2.6 percent of their incomes to their churches, Catholics give only 1.2 percent. Catholic clergy and laymen, said the February 25 Los Angeles Times, say this is because the Catholic Church doesn't have a tradition of tithing. But Catholic University of America sociologist Dean Hoge gave another reason. According to Hoge, who co-authored Money Matters: Personal Giving in American Churches, "the heritage in Catholic thought that still hangs over people is that they are just customers and the clergy really owns the church." For Catholics, said Hoge, "it's almost like we just go there; we don't own the store." Many Catholics think "the priest will give us what we need, and we'll tell him what we want." In Protestant churches, on the other hand, "you have lay leadership that says.... 'Dear friends, we're going to have to pay a little more. Otherwise, we can't keep this church going. It's our church,' " according to Hoge.
Monsignor Bell, pastor of St. Cyril of Jerusalem in Encino, told the Times he finds it "awkward to talk about money. I am not a fundraiser." Bell said he understands that many parishioners are struggling to pay mortgages; his offertory envelopes suggest that people give "10% of take-home pay; 5% directly to the parish; 5% to the poor and other charities," and help them calculate these percentages based on their weekly take-home pay. Catholics, too, do not have a clear-cut teaching on tithing -- meaning giving ten percent of income to God or charity. Monsignor Robert Gallagher, pastor of St. Charles Borromeo in North Hollywood, told the Times, "Jesus did not tell anyone, 'You have to give ten percent,'" but He did insist that we give to the poor. "If those are the people Jesus dwells with, we have an obligation to join him in dwelling with them," said Gallagher. This can also include giving of one's time. "Strictly speaking, tithing is 10%, but I also think tithing is giving one's talents, time and effort," said Norma Habunal, a member of St. Basil's Catholic Church in Los Angeles.
THE TIMES TACKLES THEOLOGY. A February 13 unsigned editorial in the Los Angeles Times was, of all things, dedicated to the Catholic Church's teaching on Limbo and Hell. According to the editorial, Limbo's "future is in peril" because a group of theologians recently meeting in the Vatican recommended "eliminating" it. And, said the Times, "Pope Benedict XVI is expected to agree." The reasons for ridding the Church of Limbo, said the editorial, are practical; for though Limbo is "a pleasant enough place, though devoid of the bliss of God's presence," it "is a hard sell in a place [such as Africa] with high infant mortality rates. Mothers are repelled by the thought that their lost children can never enter heaven and that there will be no reunion in the afterlife." Opening up heaven to unbaptized infants also "lends gravitas to the Church's position on abortion," said the editorial, since it allows "a fetus to be accepted into the presence of God."
Hell, too, said the Times editorial, "has been going through its own transformation both at the Vatican and among various Christian branches." Hell has cast off "brimstone and ever-scorching fire and has become, in the words of Pope John Paul II, 'the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God.'
"In other words," said the editorial, "not a bad place to hang out but lacking the grace and joy of God. With hell now just limbo for adults, there's not much left for the original article."
GODDESS WORSHIP (not suprisingly) has its adherents in Southern California. One of these is a Venice woman, Karen Tate, who has written a goddess travel guide, Sacred Places of Goddess: 108 Destinations, that points out to "seekers of the divine feminine" places of pilgrimage, holy to Isis, Artemis, Diana, and others. Tate who, according to a February 11 Los Angeles Times story, calls herself a "disconnected Catholic," said she "didn't ever feel very passionate about [the Faith]; it wasn't a very warm, embracing faith -- at least not as I was brought up in it." Moving to Los Angeles from her native New Orleans when she was 30, Tate discovered goddess worship in a Learning Annex class, "Finding the Feminine Face of God." "I felt angry," she said, when she took the class. "I felt like I had been duped for the first three decades of my life."
Tate sees goddess worship as an alternative to patriarchy, which, in suppressing the feminine values of healing, sustaining, and nurturing, has played havoc with nature and human society. In her book she writes, "in the beginning, God was a woman, and from her womb she created all that is; thus she is all things and all things are her.... That was true 30,000 years ago, and for millions it is still true today." To the Times reporter, she said, "if you do believe in a god that is someone who's going to give birth, isn't that going to be a female and not a male -- or at least a couple?"
Sabina Magliocco, an anthropology and folklore expert at Cal State Northridge, said goddess worship has penetrated patriarchal religions. "There are women within mainstream religions, Catholicism and Judaism, who are working very hard to imbue traditional religions as encompassing both masculine and feminine," she said. "It's true that when the Bible is translated into English, God is 'he.' In Hebrew it's neither he nor she. God is beyond masculinity and femininity." However, Magliocco cautioned that goddess worship by itself does not necessarily lead to respect for women. "We have plenty of evidence of societies in which the divine feminine was venerated but in which women did not have access to power -- like modern India, ancient Greece and Rome," she said.
An industrial park in Irvine, said the Times, harbors a goddess-worship center, the Goddess Temple of Orange County. Founder Ava Park mused, "if you call God a 'he' and 'him' all the time, then how can women feel divinity inside themselves when they know they are not a he?" The temple, according to Park, began with six members in 2002 and now boasts nearly a hundred.
DIRECTOR AND ACTOR Rob Reiner (1970s sitcom All in The Family's "Meathead") stepped down as chairman of a state commission to promote early education after accusations of conflict of interest surfaced, said the February 25 Los Angeles Times. The First 5 California Children and Families Commission, which Reiner has chaired since 1999, was created after a initiative that raised taxes on cigarettes by 50 cents was passed in 1998. Beginning last November, the commission spent $23 million on television advertisements to promote preschool. At the same time, Reiner was backing an initiative to raise taxes on the wealthiest Californians to fund pre-school for all four-year olds. Voters will decide on the initiative on June 7.
Though Reiner denies doing anything wrong, Senate Republican leader Dick Ackerman (Irvine) and Assemblyman Dario Frommer (D-Glendale), who is running for state controller, have called for an audit of the First 5 commission. (Tony Strickland, the Republican candidate for controller, afterwards called for an audit.) The commission's airing of the commercials while Reiner stumped for his initiative "appears to be far more than a coincidence and certainly not what the voters had in mind when they created this commission," said Ackerman (an opponent of Reiner's Proposition 82) in a letter to state controller Steve Westly. Reiner, in a letter to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, said he was stepping down from the commission until after the June election in order "to avoid any political distractions that might impede First 5's important work."
A PARTY OF PRINCIPLE. Attempts by conservatives to wrest the Republican party's endorsement from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger failed at the party' s state convention in San Jose on the weekend of February 25-26. Conservatives, according to the February 27 Los Angeles Times, criticized Schwarzenegger for calling for a higher minimum wage, his appointment of Democrats to judgeships and state offices, and for endorsing a new $68 billion debt for public works projects. But the insurgency failed because Republican delegates saw the governor as their best chance to deal with the Democratic majority in the state assembly. "Winning is more fun than losing," said Michael McSweeney of San Diego in a floor speech. Conservative attempts to assail Schwarzenegger, said McSweeney, were "about how can we spank the governor and form the circular firing squad." The party 's final endorsement of Schwarzenegger for the upcoming gubernatorial election was "the best I could have expected," said state party chairman Duf Sundheim. "We leave here united."
Even Senator Tom McClintock (Thousand Oaks), who was hailed by conservatives as the only principled Republican in the recall election that made Schwarenegger governor, worked to quell the conservative uprising against the governor. If you think Schwarzenegger is bad, he said, just think what a Democrat would do. A Democrat would back not only more spending (like Schwarzenegger), but would, said McClintock, push for higher taxes and drivers licenses for illegal immigrants. The senator had harsh words for Democrats, state controller Steve Westly and treasurer Phil Angelides. The former, said McClintock, is "the emptiest suit I have ever encountered in 25 years in politics," while Angelides is a "self-anointed elitist who thinks that, darn it, he's just so good at running his own life, he's entitled to run everybody else's." (Bob Mulholland, Angelides' senior adviser, replied to McClintock's attack, "I don't put any stock in what an extra-chromosomed wing-nut says about anything or anybody.") Senator McClintock is running for lieutenant governor.
The governor, who was in Washington, D.C. during the convention, told NBC's Meet the Press, "there are some on the right wing who are not happy about" his governing style, "who think I should only govern for Republicans, but that's not what I promised the people of California." Quoting Ronald Reagan, Schwarzenegger said, "if 80 percent of people are your friends, then you don't have 20 percent enemies, you have 80 percent friends. So I mean, that's really the bottom line."
STATE AND FEDERAL AGENCIES said in February that they were reviewing the operations of the United Farm Workers union and its related charities to see if they require fuller investigation, reported the February 20 Los Angeles Times. The U.S. Department of Labor, which oversees labor unions, said it began its reviews after a series of Los Angeles Times articles in January alleged that United Farm Worker charities engaged in business deals that benefited friends, relatives, and board members and did business with each other, even when the charities did not offer the best deals. (As tax-exempt entities, charities are required by law to seek the best value possible in business deals.) The Times articles further alleged that the union charities provided misstatements to federal and state forms and tax returns. The United Farm Workers said they have complied with all laws and regulations and have been accurate in their reporting.
Along with the Department of Labor, the federal Bureau of Labor Management Standards, and California's attorney general's office are conducting reviews of the union's charities.
A FERTILITY SPECIALIST accused of stealing eggs and embryos from University of California Medical Center patients in the 1990s is fighting his extradition to the United States for being, said the February 18 Los Angeles Times, the "central figure" in the alleged crimes. Dr. Ricardo Asch, a native of Argentina, is currently living in an affluent neighborhood in Buenos Aires, in a house surrounded by security guards. He has continued treating patients in Argentina.
Asch and Dr. Jose Balmaceda fled the United States in 1995 after being accused of stealing eggs and embryos from patients without telling them and implanting them in other women. In 1996, Asch and Balmaceda were indicted on mail fraud and on conspiracy and other charges. Balmaceda fled to Chile, was arrested in Argentina in 2001, but, after he was released on bail, disappeared. In 2004, Asch, who had been practicing fertility medicine in Mexico City, was apprehended by authorities in Argentina after he arrived in that country on a flight from Mexico. After posting a bail of 25,000 pesos ($8,000), he was released. An Argentine court ordered his extradition, but Asch appealed the ruling in March 2005, and no subsequent ruling has been given. Under extradition treaties, Argentina has to determine whether Asch is wanted for what would be a crime in Argentina as well as the United States.
To Mary Dodge, author of Stealing Dreams: A Fertility Clinic Scandal, Asch has said, "if I would have done any of those things they tell me I did, it was to make someone happy. To help a baby be born. To have a family. That was the motive."
TO CELEBRATE BLACK HISTORY MONTH, St. Patrick's church in Moreno Valley (diocese of San Bernardino) held a concert of black gospel music that "followed a black American Mass that included music, song and praise dance," said the February 26 Inland Empire Press Enterprise. The "celebration," begun Saturday evening, February 25, continued on Sunday, 10 a.m., "with a Black History Month closing Mass," and concluded "with a Mardi Gras Mass, including New Orleans-style music," said the Press Enterprise. "Someone told me that Catholics don't jam," said gospel choir leader Cliff Duncan at the Saturday evening concert. "I am here to tell you that someone lied to me."
St. Catherine's parish in Riverside and St. Anthony's in San Bernardino are, with St. Christopher's, the only parishes to offer a black gospel Mass in the San Bernardino diocese. St. Christopher's gospel Mass, which is held twice a month, was the idea of the parish's director of the ministry to blacks, Mary Kay Lewis. The Rev. Romeo Seleccion, a priest at St. Christopher's, endorsed Lewis' idea. "I wanted to do something unique to give a flavor to the parish," said Father Seleccion. "It's so everyone can experience the cultural value of the gospel choir."
A black deacon, the Rev. Mr. Edward Borne, 78, of Parris, told the Press Enterprise that his family has been Catholic since the time of his great-grandparents, slaves on a Louisiana plantation. However, though Borne himself said he enjoyed the gospel choir at Mass, his parents probably wouldn't have. "If my mother or father were living today," he said, "they would not have approved of the music, the drums and brass."
THE CRYSTAL CATHEDRAL in Garden Grove may not have a bishop, but it has a sort of apostolic succession. The Rev. Robert H. Schuller, 79, in January passed the cathedral with its 10,000 members and the weekly television service, the "Hour of Power," which reaches millions, to his son, the 51-year-old Robert A. Schuller. The elder Schuller, according to a February 25 Associated Press story, said he will himself focus on raising a cathedral endowment of $80 million so that the cathedral will never be lost because of high land prices.
For Southern Californians, the senior Robert Schuller, his "possibility thinking," the Hour of Power, and the Crystal Cathedral itself have long been the religious equivalent of Disneyland. An ordained minister of the Reformed Church in America, the elder Schuller came to California from Chicago in 1955. He began preaching his upbeat, positive, non-threatening version of Christianity at a drive-in theatre in Orange County. To draw in members, Schuller even studied marketing tactics. In 1980, the Rev. Schuller dedicated the great glass and steel cathedral structure "To the Glory of Man for the Greater Glory of God."
The younger Rev. Schuller has big shoes to fill in succeeding his father, and some wonder if he will be able to fill them, according to Associated Press. Robert A., ordained in 1980, the following year opened a branch of the Crystal Cathedral, the 175-acre Rancho Capistrano, in San Juan Capistrano, where, according to the Crystal Cathedral website, "he developed the fundamental nature of his hallmark 'Possibility Living' ministry. 'Possibility Living' champions a Christ-centered lifestyle with focus on mind, body, and spirit." During the '80s, the younger Schuller went through what Associated Press called a "messy divorce" and has since remarried. In the late '90s he hosted a nationwide radio show, "Balanced for Life," which, says the Crystal Cathedral website, "focused on heath and wellness and featured such guests as Larry King, Elizabeth Dole, Tommy Lasorda, Rudy Ruettiger, Kevin Leman, Robert Atkins and John Trent."
The younger Schuller says he hopes to increase Crystal Cathedral membership to one million by 2025. Of his son's future success, the elder Robert Schuller said, "whether he's less than I am or more than I am, I don't know and I don't care. It's a God thing as far as I'm concerned. I know I did my best, and I had to step aside, primarily because he had a calling, and I had to give him a power base that would be very, very prominent."