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Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

NEWS
JANUARY 1999

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DISSENT exists in the diocese of Stockton on several key issues, says Stockton Bishop Donald Montrose. In a letter to the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, Montrose writes that the "Church's position on premarital sex, the requirement of being married in the Church, and the Church's opposition to artificial contraception are well known. However, there is wide dissent in all three areas in my diocese and elsewhere."

"Is there an underlying theological reason for this dissent?" asks Montrose. "I myself suspect that many people, although they consider themselves to be Catholic, actually do not really believe in the Church. It is one thing to admit that you have done wrong, but many seem to justify their actions by 'disagreeing with the Church,' since everybody does it."

In a conversation with the Faith on December 3, Montrose said that most of the dissent comes from lay Catholics, not priests. "I suspect that there are some" dissenting priests, said Montrose, but he noted that priestly dissent isn't a great problem because "we have an awful lot of foreign priests and they are by nature more conservative than" the American clergy. While stressing that he has good American priests, Montrose said that his priests from Ireland, Mexico, Vietnam, Spain, among other countries, grew up with a stronger "moral tradition" than many American priests.

Asked if the problem of dissent in his diocese is due to priestly silence on the mortally sinful nature of premarital sex, artificial birth control, and divorce and remarriage, Montrose allowed, "Maybe that is part of it." Montrose lamented that "we don't have the number of confessions we {once} had." Montrose recalled that a few generations ago a Catholic could go to confession on Saturday nights and find lines so long that "you would have to wait for an hour."


THE NOVEMBER 19 WANDERER reported on a October 30-November 1 "Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network" conference. It noted that several Bay Area Catholic school teachers attended the conference. The Faith contacted two of those teachers. Martin Mayer, an administrator and music teacher at Woodside Priory in Portola Valley, said that he supports homosexual behavior, noting that he did a psychology doctorate on the personality characteristics of homosexuals. "No pathology" is associated with homosexuality, he said. "I don't think the Pope understands the scientific evidence and has no feeling whatsoever for that." Mayer recently organized a gay in-service at Woodside Priory, with the blessing of his principal. The speaker was Kevin Gogin, a homosexual former Jesuit who is married to a man and has an adopted daughter.

Meg Gorzycki, who teaches in the history and religion department at Bishop O'Dowd High School, said that the Wanderer incorrectly named her homosexual group at the Oakland diocesan high school. It is not the Gay and Lesbian Education and Awareness Club, but the Gay and Lesbian Education and Affirmation Club. Gorzycki did not dispute the rest of the Wanderer's coverage. The Wanderer quotes her as saying: "Bishop Cummins has been an amazing support with regard to this issue. We have things in our curriculum that, you know, the first time I learned about it made me blush. I mean, my introduction to Bishop O'Dowd 15 years ago was just overwhelming. I walked into the faculty room one day and there was Sr. Mary Lois with a bag of groceries and I said, "Hmm. cucumbers, that's an interesting thing to bring to school.' She said, 'It's for my Christian sex class. We're going to learn how to put on condoms today."

Gorzycki told the Faith that Fr. Richard Ranalletti, the Basilian principal of Bishop O'Dowd, supports her program and that he recently encouraged teachers to "confront homophobia."


OAKLAND BISHOP JOHN CUMMINS, writing in The Catholic Voice, revealed that the Pope raised the issue of vocation shortage with him at their October 1 Ad Limina meeting. "I told him that our numbers were not great, but the quality was significant and the diversity was most gratifying." Cummins admitted to the Pope that a number of Oakland priests have quit: "I told him that vocations were not severely desperate, but that priests leaving active ministry created a pressure on us. He leaned forward and said, 'What is the explanation of this?' I told him that it was beyond the understanding of any of us, that there was no systemic appraisal, each decision was very individual and very personal."

A high-ranking Church official, speaking on condition of anonymity, says the reason isn't so mysterious: heterodox seminary formation, which encouraged candidates to think that "celibacy will be out," is "deeply responsible for that." Asked if Oakland is reaping the bitter harvest of dissident Catholicisim, he said, "We are."

An observer of the Oakland diocese reaches the same conclusion: "Heresy and error abound in the Oakland diocese. Why wouldn't these guys leave? Who wants to be a celibate social worker?"


FEARING A REPEAT OF THE PRO-LIFE DEMONSTRATIONS that disrupted Governor Pete Wilson's inauguration in 1991, Gray Davis will not be holding services at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento.

On Tuesday, November 24th, the Sacramento Bee ran a story about the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament as the location of the service. According to Steve Knapps, the reporter who broke the story, when he contacted the Committee'e executive director, he told him that he had been in touch with a "Father Ned Dolesji."

A secretary in Sacramento's Bishop Wiegand's office said the Bee "had made a mistake" about use of the Cathedral. This story was echoed by another Catholic who called Bishop Wiegand's office; the bishop's secretary told him that the bishop had nothing to do with the invitation but should call either Father Vincent Brady or Ned Dolesji at the California Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Father Brady at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament said he believed that the Davis people were "working off an old list" and that "the one who is speaking publically about this is Ned Dolesji."

Ned Dolesji, executive director of the California Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that he had been contacted the week before Thanksgiving, after having had discussions with the "Wilson people". Dolesji said he had given assurances to the Davis committee that the California Catholic Conference would work with them. When asked why there were concerns over protests, Dolesji said because of "Davis' solid pro-choice stance during the campaign."

The December 1st issue of the Sacramento Bee said that the ecumenical service will be held at the Sacramento Convention Center.


VASSULA, a self-proclaimed visionary who claims to be Jesus Christ's stenographer, spoke in San Francisco in late November at the Herbst Theatre. The Vatican-condemned Vassula performed a healing service, receiving assistance from a few priests. The middle-class crowd(some men in suits, women in dresses) received her healing blessing as Gregorian Chant played. She instructed the participants to assume a quiet "prayerful attitude," since the "holy spirit" cannot act in a noisy atmosphere. Many people fell to the ground after the blessing. One man returned to his seat and kneeled in front of his theater chair.

Books on the pope appeared in the lobby, along with Vassula's journals, which contain alleged Jesus messages like, "Infatuate me"with your yes.

Fr. Ronald Burke from Saint Bruno Church in the San Francisco archidiocese helped introduce Vassula. Following the ceremony the Faith asked Burke to respond to the Vatican's condemnation of Vassula. He dismissed it: I "disagree with that." He said that the twice-married former tennis star and fashion model has undergone an extraordinary transformation, which gives her work an "authentic" character. She is a great "mystic," he said.


DOCTRINAL ILLITERACY is pervasive in the American Church, said San Francisco Archbishop William Levada at a November 6-7 San Francisco symposium on catechesis. Dan Morris-Young, writing in the Catholic Voice, reported that Levada identified "ambiguity" as a strong trait of catechetical programs in the U.S.. Levada bemoaned the "dumbing down" of such texts, saying that they offer only "fuzzy" or "diluted" understandings of teachings on the Trinity, the sacraments, and the human and divine nature of Jesus.

Marc Gonzalez, the Oakland Diocese's master of catechesis, struck another note. Reported Morris-Young: "Because of the multicultural make-up of the Oakland Diocese and the presence of resources such as the Graduate Theological Union, the 'church here can be a leader in wrestling with the idea of inculturation and see that it is beyond the Western model-and that other cultures can teach us much.'" Gonzalez also said that doctrinal literacy is not "synonymous with a healthy religious life.". "I know lots of literate Catholics who have no affective understanding of the faith and, consequently, never darken the door of any church. The issue is how are the teachings of the Church incarnated in the lives of the learners at any age."


MOST HOLY REDEEMER CHURCH in the San Francisco archdiocese held a community-wide Thanksgiving dinner with the explicitly homosexual Metropolitan Community Church. "We're trying our best to do different things together," said pastor Fr. Zachery Shore to the San Francisco Chronicle's Don Lattin. Shore noted that "about 90 percent of his Catholic flock are gay and lesbian." Self-described lesbian Rev. Penny Nixon, co-pastor of Metropolitan Community Church, commented that "many of the MCC congregants were brought up Roman Catholic." Most Holy Reedemer Church marched last year in the San Francisco Gay Pride parade "behind an official church banner," reported Lattin.

Is this a cause of scandal? "Yes," admitted a high-ranking San Francisco priest.


CONTRACEPTING CHILDREN is a form of charity, according to the David and Lucile Packard Foundation of Los Gatos. Cole Wilbur, the foundation's executive director, announced in November that the South Bay foundation will give $375 million to child-prevention programs. According to Wilibur, too many children in the world is a grave "problem." The Packard money, he said, "will be aimed mainly at developing countries, but we also will continue funding programs in this country as well."

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