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Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
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NEWS
MARCH 2003

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"NEVER AS AT THE BEGINNING of this millennium has humanity felt how precarious is the world which it has shaped," said Pope John Paul II in his January 13 address to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See. Speaking of the ills of the world, including the threat of terrorism and the crisis in the Middle East, the pope nevertheless asserted that "everything can change;" humanity need not "sink into the abyss." The requirements for change, said the pontiff, involve saying, "yes to life;" renewing a respect for law, both national and international; and a commitment to the duty of solidarity. "In a world with a superabundance of information, but which paradoxically finds it so difficult to communicate and where living conditions are scandalously unequal, it is important to spare no effort to ensure that everyone feels responsible for the growth and happiness of all," said the pope.

Each of the three requirements for change, said John Paul, has a corresponding "no."

Leaders and nations are to say "no to death. to all that attacks the incomparable dignity of every human being, beginning with that of unborn children;" no "to all that weakens the family, the basic cell of society;" no "to all that destroys in children the sense of striving, their respect for themselves and others, the sense of service."

We are to say "no to selfishness," said the pope. "The life-style of the prosperous, their patterns of consumption, must be reviewed in the light of their repercussions on other countries. Selfishness is also the indifference of prosperous nations towards nations left out in the cold. All peoples are entitled to receive a fair share of the goods of this world and of the know-how of the more advanced countries."

We are to say "no to war." John Paul said that war, which "is not always inevitable," is "always a defeat for humanity. International law, honest dialogue, solidarity between states, the noble exercise of diplomacy: these are methods worthy of individuals and nations in resolving their differences. I say this as I think of those who still place their trust in nuclear weapons and of the all-too-numerous conflicts which continue to hold hostage our brothers and sisters in humanity."


TURNING TO THE "DEGENRATION of the crisis in the Middle East" in his address to the diplomatic corps, Pope John Paul, said "that the solution will never be imposed by recourse to terrorism or armed conflict, as if military victories could be the solution." "And what are we to say of the threat of a war which could strike the people of Iraq, the land of the Prophets, a people already sorely tried by more than twelve years of embargo?" asked the pope. "War is never just another means that one can choose to employ for settling differences between nations. As the Charter of the United Nations organization and international law itself remind us, war cannot be decided upon, even when it is a matter of ensuring the common good, except as the very last option and in accordance with very strict conditions, without ignoring the consequences for the civilian population both during and after the military operations."

To "avoid descending into chaos," said John Paul, "two conditions must be met." First, "the paramount value of the natural law" in relations within and between states. "Even if today some people question its validity," said the pope, "I am convinced that its general and universal principles can still help us to understand more clearly the unity of the human race and to foster the development of the consciences both of those who govern and of those who are governed." Second, said the pope, "we need the persevering work of statesmen who are honest and selfless. In effect," he said, "the indispensable professional competence of political leaders can find no legitimation unless it is connected to strong moral convictions."


THE VATICAN ISSUED an even stronger statement on January 30 against war with Iraq and the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive strike, according to a Catholic World News report. "We are against the war," said the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, to a group of Italian journalists. Whatever what one may say about a "pre-emptive strike" on Iraq, said Cardinal Sodano, "it is certainly not a defensive war."

According to Catholic World News, "Cardinal Sodano advanced a view which would represent a major new development in Church teaching, questioning whether warfare could ever be justified under current circumstances." The cardinal also seemed to push at the parameters of the just war doctrine. "It is not only a matter of knowing if this war would be just or unjust, moral or immoral," he said. "We want to raise the question: Is warfare worthwhile?"

Catholic World News also reported that the United States envoy to the Vatican, Jim Nicholson, conceded in late January that Pope John Paul II is opposed to the U.S. war with Iraq and the doctrine of pre-emptive strike.


THE GROUP BAY AREA UNITED AGAINST WAR, a coalition formed to protest war on Iraq, will hold a mass march and rally against the war on Sunday, February 16 in San Francisco. The march will assemble at the Embarcadero and Market Street. From there it will proceed to a rally at the Civic Center. The march and rally will one of many held in cities throughout the world. For more information, call United Against War at (415) 255-7296, ext. 311.

Members of the coalition include: United for Peace and Justice; the San Francisco Labor Council AFL-CIO; International A.N.S.W.E.R; Middle East Children's Alliance; Father Bill O'Donnell-St. Joseph the Worker Church; the Northern California Interreligious Conference; the Fellowship of Reconciliation; the Peace and Freedom Party; Interfaith Witness for Peace in the Middle East; various socialist groups.


HUNDREDS OF CATHOLICS from the East Bay were among the estimated 150,000 demonstrators who converged on San Francisco on January 18 to protest war in Iraq, said the January 27 Oakland diocese newspaper, The Catholic Voice. Priests, deacons, religious sisters and lay folk joined the massive rally. Also present were about a dozen sign-toting Carondelet Sisters, students from Carondelet High School in Concord, and lay students and seminarians from Berkeley's Jesuit and Franciscan schools of theology. Such protests are important, said Barbara Dawson, a religious of the Sacred Heart and the public policy director for Catholic Charities of the Eat Bay. "It is important for our government to see visually what people believe," said Dawson, who cited the success of public efforts to stop the U.S. government' s support of civil conflict in Central America in the 1980s and 90s.

Though planned to coincide with the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend, the march drew few besides whites. This was explained, said Father Jayson Landeza, pastor of Oakland's St. Columba Parish, by the fact that blacks and Latinos must "continue to fight battles of poverty and violence right here at home;" thus, protesting a foreign war, for them, might not be a priority. Father Landeza then turned the tables on critics of blacks and Latinos. "Where were those thousands last July, when we in Oakland had a march and rally against the urban violence?" he asked. Still, Father Landeza said he "felt a profound sense of connection with the other marchers and a mutual respect for sharing the same view."


WHERE HAVE ALL THE YOUNG FOLKS GONE? Some Catholic social justice advocates lament that younger Catholics, including younger members of the clergy, are no longer interested in issues of social justice, said a January 17 San Francisco Chronicle report. Gwen Watson, 66, a parishioner at Christ the King parish in Pleasant Hill, told the Chronicle that when she "went to the Nevada test site protests on New Year's, it consisted mostly of "gray-hairs and leftover '60s and '50s people. In every group, I'm trying to get more young people involved." "It's the end of an era," said George Wesolek, director of public policy and social concerns for the archdiocese of San Francisco. "Younger priests don't keep that as a focus today, and it makes my life a little harder. Priests are less involved in social issues and more involved in liturgical issues. I guess that's where we are historically."

However, Mary Doyle, who directs social justice work for the Oakland diocese, is confident that "there is a new generation coming. It's just that they are new to protesting." It is not that young people are not interested in helping the poor, Doyle and others told the Chronicle, but they are involved more in service work than in politics and protests.


RAW PROTEST. Anti-war protests have been increasing over recent months, in the Bay Area and around the country. Most protests are pretty conventional -- pickets, vigils, handing out pamphlets, etc. But a group of Marin County women have stripped away all the conventions, according to a January 12 San Francisco Chronicle story. Calling themselves Unreasonable Women Baring Witness, about 200 women have been taking off their clothes, using their naked bodies to spell out anti-war slogans -- once on a Marin beach, another time on a ball field, and another time on a pasture covered with dung. While some critics have criticized the Unreasonable Women, saying they are trivializing the peace message, organizer Donna Sheehan said we live in desperate times. "It got your attention, didn't it?" she joked to the Chronicle.


ANARCHISM AND FREE LOVE AND UC BERKELEY seem to go together, but in December university officials censored a fund-raising appeal for the university's Emma Goldman Papers Project because it quoted Goldman, a Russian-born anarchist, atheist and free-love advocate, according to a January 14 Oakland Tribune story. Did the fund-raising literature quote Goldman on anarchism, free-love, or contraception? No. The university banned the literature because it quoted Goldman on the suppression of free speech and opposition to war. One of the passages in question, from 1915, has Goldman calling on those "not yet overcome by war madness to raise their voice of protest, to call the attention of the people to the crime and outrage which are about to be perpetrated on them." In the other passage, from 1902, Goldman said that advocates of free-speech "shall soon be obliged to meet in cellars, or in darkened rooms with closed doors, and speak in whispers lest our next-door neighbors should hear that free-born citizens dare not speak in the open."

Robert Price, associate vice chancellor for research at UC Berkeley, accused the project director and author of the appeal, Candace Falk, of "making a political point, and that is inappropriate in an official university solicitation." Berkeley officials told the Tribune that the appeal could be construed as expressing the university's opposition to President George W. Bush's Iraq policy.

On January 15, the university reversed its decision and allowed the quotations in the original fundraising letter. Reasons for the change of position were not disclosed.


CYBER CENSORSHIP? The Legislative Data Center for the California state legislature allegedly put pressure on an internet server to stop an anti-new tax e-mail campaign, said a January 20 World Net Daily report. The internet website for the Campaign for California Families in January had started an e-mail campaign to convince state legislators not to raise taxes (http://ca.conservativepetitions.com). The website was shut down in mid January when an employee for the Legislative Data Center complained to the Campaign's server, Vortech, Inc. of Orlando, Florida, of the amount of e-mail the Data Center was receiving because of the anti-tax campaign. Vortech, claiming that the volume of bounced-back e-mail it received was so great as to slow down its system, barred the Campaign from using its facilities.

Randy Thomasson, president of the Campaign for California Families, told World Net on January 20 that he had found another server, and that the e-mail campaign was again underway. Claiming the state interfered with the Campaign's First Amendment rights, the Campaign filed a cease and desist order in court on January 16 and is considering further legal action against the state. "The state could try to keep blocking us, and they could try to keep chasing us around," Thomasson told World Net. "There is the possibility of a federal lawsuit based on the U.S. Constitution."


MORE PRO-HOMOSEXUAL LEGISLATION. The homosexual members of the state legislature unveiled their agenda to a packed press conference on Tuesday, January 28. The Gay and Lesbian Caucus, made up of Senator Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) and assemblymembers Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles), Christine Kehoe (D-San Diego), Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), and John Laird (D-Seaside), discussed four bills that were their top priorities.

Though it currently has no bill number, one of their goals is to pass a bill mandating sensitivity training for foster parents of homosexual children. The governor vetoed similar legislation last year because it infringed on the legitimately held religious beliefs of many foster parents, and would make it even harder to find people to take on this important responsibility.

Another bill (AB 17-Kehoe) would prohibit the state from entering into contracts with any business that does not offer domestic partner benefits. A third bill (AB 196-Leno) is practically identical to last session's so-called "Klinger" bill. It would prohibit employers from discriminating against those who cross dress or who are in the process of obtaining a sex change. It would also force employers to make accommodations for such people, such as allowing men dressed as women the use of the ladies' restroom. The most controversial of the measures is AB 205 (Goldberg), which will give domestic partnerships rights that are virtually identical with those of marriage, even though California's constitution limits marriage to unions between women and men.

"This is homosexual 'marriage,' pure and simple. No one should be fooled," said Randy Thomasson, executive director of the Campaign for California Families. Goldberg's bill tells children "marriage doesn't matter." The measures have not been assigned to any policy committees, and hearings on them will likely not take place until February at the earliest. For more information, log onto www.leginfo.ca.gov.


THE CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL interfered with the rights of pro-lifers, said the California Third District Court of Appeal on January 29, according to a report issued by the Pacific Justice Institute. In January 1997, Sanctity of Human Life Network activists displayed hand-held signs from a freeway overpass. Citing a passage from the vehicle code, which forbids the placing of signs on freeways, California Highway Patrol officers took the signs and ordered the activists to disperse. A similar event occurred the following year.

The appellate court ruled that the California Highway Patrol had misapplied the vehicle code section, which "applies only to traffic signs, and was never intended to do more." Pacific Justice Institute Affiliate Attorney Scott Kendall represented the activists in the case.


THE UGLY FACE OF PRO-CHOICE. Peggy Loonan, writing in the January 15 New York Times, criticized the National Abortion Rights Action League' s announcement in early January that it was changing its name to Naral Pro-Choice America. The NARAL president's statement that the new name was "the right name for this moment in history" "couldn't be more wrong," writes Loonan.

Loonan, the founder and executive director for Life and Liberty for Women (a group that promotes "aggressive abortion rights education") writes "the name change is the latest misstep in the group's nearly 20-year-old strategy to expand its electoral base by appealing to voters who may not feel strongly about abortion rights, but who nevertheless do not like their government telling them what to do. Make the issue about choice, and not rights, and you may win over moderate, even conservative, voters." Such a victory, however, says Loonan, "comes at too great a cost" since "it sacrifices principles that the abortion-rights movement holds dear and leaves it operating from a place of weakness and compromise rather than from a place of strength." Instead of following NARAL's strategy, writes Loonan, "the abortion-rights movement should be honest. Legal abortion kills pre-viable human life. But the rights of a pre-viable human life should not take precedence over the rights of a woman."


A COMMISSION OF THE ARCHDIOCESE of San Francisco issued a report on the state of Catholic schools in the archdiocese, said the January 24 Catholic San Francisco. In November 2001, Archbishop William Levada formed a 24-member advisory commission made up of educators and clergy to look at, and seek solutions for, the problems and challenges facing Catholic schools. This Strategic Planning Commission issued its report on January 17.

One area of concern for the commission was the declining number of students in archdiocesan parochial schools. The current 20,000 enrollment is down 600 from 1994. Among the other challenges noted by Monsignor Maurice McCormick, commission co-chair and pastor of Mission Dolores, is the growing cultural diversity in the schools. "Cultural diversity is one of the major changes in today's society," Monsignor McCormick told Catholic San Francisco, and so the "whole nature of the educational game has changed. The whole world is here, and I love it. So our challenge is to ask ourselves how do we form tomorrow's leaders for our Church? How do we get the message of the Gospel to many cultures?" A decline in enrollment along with demographic changes, said the commission, threatens the future of some parochial schools.

One major difference between the parochial schools today and those 40 years ago is that students lived in the neighborhoods where the schools are located. Today, many parents cannot afford to live in the city and so many students live outside of San Francisco and are brought to school by their parents who work in the city. Yet, there is a decline in the number of students in kindergarten through first grade and three commission members suggested the archdiocese establish pre-schools as a way to encourage growth in the primary grades. Another difficulty identified by the commission is that some parents cannot afford parochial school tuitions.


LONGTIME SAN FRANCISCO police department chaplain, Monsignor John Heaney, 75, was indicted January 23 on multiple felony counts of molestation, according to the January 24 San Francisco Chronicle. Monsignor Heaney had served as chaplain for the police department for 35 years. Though Heaney was retired, the archdiocese of San Francisco forbade him to say Mass after a complaint lodged with the San Francisco Child Protective Services last year alleged that he had molested a young boy in the early 1960s. When investigators contacted the alleged victim's brother, he said that Heaney had also molested him and that he did not know that Heaney had molested his brother as well.

Former San Francisco police chief Fred Lau was shocked at the news about Heaney. "He's so special to so many people -- oh, my goodness," Lau said. "He's still got to go through the process. It's a shame. I'll tell you, it's going to devastate the department." According to Lau, Heaney attended funerals and ministered to the officers -- "he oversaw births, burials, promotions, he was always there -- now it's time for us to be there for him." Retired deputy William Welch, a longtime friend of Heaney, told the Chronicle, "John Heaney is the finest man I have ever met, whether priest or civilian. Anybody, no matter what their religious affiliation, he was there for them."

"Monsignor Heaney will surrender -- he will fight these charges," said his attorney, Jim Collins. "This is an impeccable man who has done more good works in the last 40 years than any 50 people put together." The archdiocese of San Francisco had no comment on the Heaney case.


A FAKE FRIAR convicted of molesting teenagers will be released from prison in May after serving only half his term, said a January 23 Associated Press report. Anthony Falco, 64, was convicted in March 2000 of two felony charges of child molestation and of two felony charges of supplying drugs to minors. After moving to Santa Cruz in 1998, Falco posed as a Franciscan friar, "Brother Tom," and frequented St. Joseph's church in Santa Cruz where he met his two victims. Falco, who was sentenced to six years in prison, received time off for work in prison and credit for the time he spent in jail awaiting trial. Falco will be placed on parole and will be registered as a sex offender.

Falco's victims sued St. Joseph's church and the diocese of Monterey. The case was settled in 2001 for an undisclosed sum.


THREE LAWSUITS were slated to be filed on January 16 against the diocese of Oakland alleging abuse by Father Arturo Riberio at All Saints Catholic Church in Concord, said a January 16 Oakland Tribune story. The plaintiffs allege they were abused by Riberio in the 1970s. Their lawyer, Rick Simon of Hayward, filed the lawsuits in accordance with the state law that went into effect January 1, removing the statute of limitations on abuse cases for one year.

Simon and other lawyers, said the Tribune, also intended to ask Allen Vigneron, appointed to be Oakland's new bishop after the retirement of Bishop John Cummins, to release all diocesan records on priests accused of molestation.


TWO LETTERS in the January 12 Sacramento Bee criticize a St. Louis Post-Dispatch report, reprinted in the Bee on January 5 and headlined, "Many nuns are victims of sexual trauma." Letter writer Donna Cirelli of Shingle Springs criticized the report's language that said, of the 40 percent of nuns victimized, a "significant percentage" were victimized "as a result of the structure" of the Church. "Why not tell us the percentage so we can determine how widespread this is?" said Cirelli. "Why not say whether the abuse was at the hands of Church personnel?" But even if all cases were at the hands of Church personnel, the percentage, said Cirelli, would be "less than 1 percent."

Letter writer Charles Muller, also of Shingle Springs, noted the report "implies that large numbers of nuns were victimized by priests and nuns." Yet, he said, that "when thoughtful and intelligent people sift through all the data they will probably find once again that it's a fairly representative sample of the society we live in: A very small percentage were abused by priests and nuns and a large percentage by relatives or acquaintances or strangers." The report, said Muller, is deficient because it does not tell "what percentage of women in society have been sexually abused, as a comparison figure."

To Cirelli, the report reconfirms "what I have said before: the Bee singles out the Catholic Church because of one thing: Its stand on abortion."


A PROTESTANT WEBSITE, Reformation.com, offers a "Special Bulletin" on sexual abuse in Protestant churches. "Catholic sex scandals dominate the news," says the site. "Are we next?" The Special Bulletin offers a sample of Protestant sexual molestation scandals, referring readers to cases throughout the nation. The Bulletin offers the following numbers of Protestant ministers accused of molestation: 84 Baptist ministers, 219 "Bible" Church Ministers (fundamentalist/evangelical), 39 Episcopal ministers, 32 Lutheran ministers, 32 Methodist ministers, 12 Presbyterian ministers, and 32 "various Church ministers." The number of molesting ministers for all Protestant denominations (including Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses), said the Bulletin, is 468, based on reports mostly from within the last ten years.

The site quotes the Good Friday sermon of the Rt. Rev. William Persell, bishop of the Episcopal diocese of Chicago. "We would be naïve and dishonest," said Persell, "were we to say this is a Roman Catholic problem and has nothing to do with us because we have married and female priests in our church. Sin and abusive behavior know no ecclesial or other boundaries."


NO DEVELOPMENT. After over a decade of planning and negotiations, the city of San Rafael on January 13 voted not to annex land belonging to St. Vincent 's School for Boys and Silveira Ranch properties, thus further stalling any attempts to place housing on the land, said a January 17 Catholic San Francisco story. Working with a 14-member task force of citizens, the Catholic Youth Organization and developer Shapell Industries had worked out a plan for St. Vincent's Village. The Village would consist of 766 housing units, with workforce housing and 102 units left for low and moderate income households. Eighty-five percent of the property would be left as open space, woods, grasslands and wetlands. The housing development was to provide an endowment for St. Vincent's School for Boys, which was founded as an orphanage in 1855 but now is a residential treatment center with programs for at-risk boys who have been victims of serious abuse and neglect.

Though over the years the city had worked with the Catholic Youth Organization and Shapell on developing the property, it reversed itself on January 13, voting 5-0 not to annex the property. The project now reverts to the county, which will be even less likely to approve the project. San Rafael city council's flip-flop likely stems from a November county supervisor's election in which a no-growth advocate narrowly won a council seat from an incumbent who favored working with the Catholic Youth Organization and Shapell.


LGBT AND POETRY. On January 14, 2003, Bookshop Santa Cruz on Pacific Avenue in Santa Cruz sponsored the Favorite Poem Project, where readers get five minutes to read a favorite poem and explain how it came to be important in their life. "We wanted a cross section of the community from a range of professions, but no poets," Dennis Morton of Poetry of Santa Cruz and emcee for the event told the Santa Cruz Sentinel. "We wanted to put the poetry in the hands of its audience, its appreciators." The topics of poetry included the creation of the world, being black, freedom, personal integrity and the death of loved ones, to name but a few. The Reverend Michael Marini who helped found the gay and lesbian Outreach program at Holy Cross Church in Santa Cruz (though he is now retired) and has settled two sexual misconduct cases against him, participated as a reader in the well attended event. Wearing jeans and a checkered flannel shirt, Father Marini explained that his choice of poems was influenced by his background in mediaeval philosophy -- especially with regard to Duns Scotus' and Suarez' thought dealing with God's presence in nature. Other notable guest readers included former Santa Cruz mayor Christopher Krohn, animal rights advocate J.P. Novic, and dancer Tandy Beal.

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