ARTICLES

It's Such A Lost Cause

Pro-Life Candidate Excluded from USF Mayoral Forum

By Maria Kennedy

A controversy surrounding the University of San Francisco's refusal to allow one of it's own faculty members to participate in a mayoral forum that was held on September 25 drew in Archbishop Levada and the San Francisco Republican Party, and finally found its way into the editorial pages of the diocese of San Francisco's newspaper, Catholic San Francisco. Former San Francisco chief of police and mayoral candidate Tony Ribera alleges that the university and the coalition of community groups that helped sponsor the debate among San Francisco mayoral candidates excluded him because he is a Republican. Besides being a Republican, Ribera is Catholic and pro-life.

In a September 15 interview, Ribera told me that he was saddened by the university's unwillingness to allow him to participate in the mayoral debate. "I am a practicing Catholic," he said, "but they won't allow me to speak at the forum." Ribera said that he is a long time member of Saint Cecilia's Catholic Church and that he accepts the Church's teachings. Ribera said that he had appealed the coalition's decision to Jesuit father Stephen Privett, president of the university, but was told that it was up to the coalition to make their own decisions. Ribera said that Archbishop William Levada also declined to intervene on his behalf.

Other pro-lifers agree that Ribera was unfairly singled out because he is pro-life and a Republican. Bea Smalley of San Francisco said that she has repeatedly called Richard Spohn, the former Jesuit affiliated with the university's Leo T. McCarthy Center of Public Service and the Common Good, one of the sponsors of the forum. "He doesn't return my phone calls," Smalley said. Smalley said that her pro-life group, United for Life, has repeatedly called Spohn and George Wesolek, Archbishop Levada's point man on public policy, to no avail. "It's such a lost cause," she said of the situation.

According to George Wesolek, director of public policy and social concerns for the archdiocese, the archbishop and he had lobbied for Ribera's inclusion in the forum. "The Coalition made a decision that they would use the criteria of standing five percent in the polls; Tony is at two percent," said Wesolek "My position has been to advocate for Tony's inclusion because of the fact that he's the only Republican [in the mayoral race] and he offers an alternative viewpoint." Ribera has said that the polls are conducted by the other candidates and are skewed against him. "I can see where Tony has a valid concern," said Wesolek. "One of the polls was conducted by the business community and one of the other candidates is in that group."

In a letter dated September 18, San Francisco Republican Party chairman Mike DeNunzio asked Archbishop Levada to intervene on behalf of Ribera. DeNunzio wrote that the IRS Code "precludes" 501c3 organizations, such as the archdiocese, "from intervening in a political campaign by expressing either a preference or opposition to any candidate." Referring to the fact that "some sponsors of the debate have excluded Mr. Ribera because he is a Republican, and for other specious reasons," DeNunzio continued that the executive committee of the San Francisco Republican Party "has responsibility to respectfully convey its concern that the Archdiocese, by promoting a debate that excludes the Republican candidate, may be complicit in expressing preference for Democrat and Green candidates, thus intervening in the political process."

The October 10 Catholic San Francisco carried an editorial which singled out the Leo T. McCarthy Center from the coalition sponsoring the mayoral debate. "There may be a reason why the Leo T. McCarthy Center was not struck by the oddness of a debate that includes only pro-abortion Catholics," said the editorial. "Its namesake, the former Lieutenant Governor of California, is a staunchly pro-abortion Catholic politician. In his 1992 run for U.S. Senator, abortion was a prominent feature of his platform. According to the Los Angeles Times, he promised to write the Roe v. Wade ruling into law, support Medicaid funding of abortion and push for the distribution of the RU-486 abortion pill."

The October 10 editorial received a number of letters to the editor, with protests from Leo McCarthy's supporters, as well as from McCarthy himself. In an October 24 editorial in Catholic San Francisco, editor Maurice Healy seemed to retract the comment about McCarthy's pro-abortion position. "Near its end, the Oct. 10 editorial went awry. It made a harsh, venal, uncharitable and unwarranted speculation," he wrote. In an October 30 interview, Healy told me that he took full responsibility for the October 10 editorial. In the October 24 editorial, Healy noted that "while a member of the editorial staff penned the editorial, I edited, rewrote and titled the editorial and I take full responsibility for its shortcomings."

Healy told me that his October 24 editorial was not meant as a retraction. But "on reflection," he said, "it seemed like a shot in the ribs of Mr. McCarthy. Had we thought about it, we would have presented it differently." When I pointed out the importance of the issue of pro-abortion Catholic politicians in the public square, Healy noted that at the end of his October 24 editorial, he had cited the United States bishops' "Statement on Responsible Citizenship" and the Vatican's "Doctrinal Note on Pro-Abortion Catholic Politicians." And he did, but without detailing what those documents actually said.

In this same editorial, Healy said McCarthy had referred him to a 1992 Los Angeles Times article in which Jane Danowitz, former executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Women's Campaign Fund, wrote disapprovingly that McCarthy had, in the '70s and '80s, supported some restrictions on abortion. "The definition of pro-choice has changed," wrote Danowitz, implying McCarthy's shortcomings on women's issues. "We are no longer just talking about people who have good voting records. We are talking about people who are going to stand up and lead the charge" for abortion rights.

But some pro-lifers who wrote letters in favor of the October 10 editorial noted that the California political scene in Sacramento is filled with current and former Catholic politicians, including McCarthy, who have taken up Danowitz's mandate and are leading the charge to further the abortion agenda.

"I don't want to hold a veil over any issue," Healy concluded about the firestorm. Indeed, in his October 24 editorial, he wrote that he hoped the experience derived from the October 10 editorial "can be helpful in advancing a dialog about very important and very sensitive issues within the Church."

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