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Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

NEWS
MARCH 1999

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CAN A GOOD CATHOLIC ADVOCATE ABORTION? "Yes," said Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi to a Faith reporter in January. I'm a "good Catholic." She spoke of her many years of Catholic education under the Madams of the Sacred Heart. Pelosi is 100 per cent pro-abortion, according to Planned Parenthood, which recognized her support at an event marking the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Pelosi even supports partial-birth abortion, which Democratic New York Senator Patrick Moynihan calls "near-infanticide."

Pelosi told the reporter that she is a practicing Catholic at St. Vincent De Paul and that her pastor is "Father Ring." The reporter called Fr. Ring to ask him if a good Catholic can advocate abortion. He evaded the question. Asked why he would punt on such an important issue, he said, "Because I know what you would do with it."

Maurice Healy at the archdiocese of San Francisco also showed annoyance at the Faith reporter's inquiry. "That is between her and God and her pastor," he said, trailing off. Healy said that Levada has condemned Pelsoi's stance on abortion, so the reporter could "answer his own question." Healy also rebuffed the reporter on the question of whether or not Pelosi should receive communion.


PRO-LIFE STALWART Monsignor Edward Kavanagh lambasted Governor Gray Davis, a Catholic, for his pro-abortion stance at the California ProLife Prayer Breakfast in Sacramento marking the 26th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.

"I think personally they have excommunicated themselves from the Church," Monsignor Kavanagh said at the breakfast, referring to Davis, Lieutenant Governor Bustamante and other Catholics who support abortion.

Kavanaugh took Davis to task for com-ments in his inauguration speech warning California legislators to refrain from trying to change abortion laws. He said Davis defends the "culture of death" as an accomplice to abortion in California, where 100,000 federally-funded abortions are performed each year.

Quoting Pope John Paul II, Kavanaugh said: "No Catholic can be pro-choice when the choice is killing unborn babies.... If America is the home of the free and the land of the brave, then defend life."

At a pro-life Mass at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento, Bishop William K. Weigand of the Diocese of Sacramento said the "demon" of abortion can be eliminated only through prayer and fasting. He said those who struggle against certain forms of social injustice while supporting abortion undermine their credibility and render themselves "suspect."


FOUR PRO-LIFE CLINICS in the San Francisco area suffered vandalism on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, reported the San Fransico Chronicle on January 23. The clinics were located in San Francisco, San Jose and Concord, as well as a Union City Pregnancy Choices Clinic Counseling Center, which also received a bomb threat. The story, buried on page A16, said that employees at the Union City building found it sprayed with black and red paint. The grafitti read: "Abortion is a Right" and "Lies Told Here" The vandals also pasted flyers for local pro-abortion clinics and smeared an epoxy-like substance over door locks.


NIGHTMARE ON WALNUT STREET. Pornography played a role in the sex slaying of a Pleasanton pastor's wife, said Alameda prosecutors in late January. Giles Albert Nadley Jr., a demented, knife-carrying Hayward carpet cleaner, raped and slashed to death 24-year-old Terena Fermenick three years ago, according to proescutors. The murder occurred after she paid him $184 to clean the carpets in her husband's rectory. Prosecutors say that before the killing Nadley called 900-number phone sex-lines from inside the Walnut street rectory and that police discovered a cache of pornography at Nadley's home.


PAPAL CRITIC ROSEMARY REUTHER had bad news and good news for feminist theologians in the January 15 National Catholic Reporter. The bad news: feminist theologicans are being cashiered out of seminary positions due to "Vatican" resistance, and thus no longer have a "base" from which to operate. The good news: they can keep teaching at schools like the "Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley."

"What is to be done? I frankly do not know. But I think there needs to be careful research to find out if the trends I have flagged in this article are as severe as I think they are. Then there should be a concerted effort to appeal to Catholic instituions to follow the nascent example of the Jesuit Institute in Boston and not only hear from but hire their own!"


REV. JOHN BALDOVIN at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley is arguing that the problem with Catholic liturgy is that it is not liberal enough, reported Douglas LeBlance, the editor of the Anglican Voice, to the Faith. Speaking at an Anglican Conference in Berkeley, Baldovin spoke ominously of "restorationism" in the Church. Restorationism dominates "some influential circles of Roman Catholicism," Baldovin said, pausing to laugh and say he was using code language because "this [lecture] is going to be published."

Baldovin did not define restorationism more specifically than "a failure of nerve" in Roman Catholicism's liturgical movement. He said religious people can be divided into two camps--those who favor "control," and those who favor "freedom." Put another way, he said, one camp emphasizes that people are fallen creatures who must be reconciled with a holy and punitive God, while the other camp sees the world as "fundamentally graced."

Baldovin asked Episcopalians "not to lose heart in persuading Roman Catholics" to ordain women to the priesthood.


ANOTHER SEX SCANDAL has rocked the diocese of Santa Rosa, reported the January 28 Santa Rosa Press-Democrat. Rev. Jorge Hume is being accused of sexual misconduct by a 19-year-old Napa male. Hume has been placed on leave from Napa's St. John's parish, where he moved after getting nabbed for embezzlment at another Santa Rosa parish.

"In June 1996, Bishop Patrick Ziemann removed Hume from St. Mary's Church in Ukiah after the priest admitted stealing church money. Ziemann acknowledged last week that a month before the Ukiah church theft was uncovered, he learned during a meeting with a delegation of concerned Latino leaders of allegations of sexual misconduct involving Hume and four young Ukiah men, all over age 18."

The Press-Democrat reported that the "church's refusal to press criminal charges against Hume for the Ukiah theft and Ziemann's reassignment of the priest to Napa after an 18-month leave came under fire last week from a Catholic nun, local Latino leaders and a former Ukiah police chief.

"Sister Jane Kelly, a 68-year-old nun, released letters of protest written to Ziemann and other church officials. She said Hume's reassignment to another parish was 'only perpetuating the real possibility of repeating his scandalous actions.' Her letters triggered complaints by members of St. Mary's Latino community that reports of sexual misconduct by Hume brought to Ziemann in 1996 before the theft had gone ignored."


FOLLOWING A FORMAT similar to that of Surprised by Truth, the popular book in which Catholic converts tell their own stories, Physicians Healed recounts the spiritual and professional conversion stories of fifteen physicians who changed their minds about prescribing contraceptives and abortifacients. This new book is the brainchild of Steve Koob, the founder and director of One More Soul, a Catholic apostolate dedicated to disseminating the Church's teachings on life issues, particularly contraception. Koob recruited Cleta Hartman as its editor. Physicians Healed, available for $10 plus $4 shipping and handling, can be ordered through One More Soul, 616 Five Oaks Ave., Dayton, OH 45406/1-800-307-7685/e-mail: omsoul@juno.com (include quantity desired, and credit card type, number and expiration date).


FATHER JOHN VAUGHN, OFM, has been appointed as the new vice postulator for the cause of Father Junipero Serra. His appointment was announced on December 10 by Father Finian McGinn, OFM, provincial minister of the Franciscan Friars of the Province of Saint Barbara. As vice postulator, Father Vaughn, age 70, succeeds Father Noel Moholy, OFM, STD, who died on September 4 in Santa Barbara. Ordained in 1955, Father Vaughn served in Oakland as provincial minister of the Franciscan Province of St. Barbara from 1976 to 1979, and in Rome as minister general of the Order of Friars Minor from 1979 to 1991. At the time of his appointment he was master of novices at the Old Mission San Miguel Novitiate. According to the Province's December 10 press release, "Fr. John will work to see that Blessed Junipero Serra, the Apostle of California, is proclaimed a Saint in the Roman Catholic Church." For more information, contact the Serra Cause, Old Mission Santa Barbara, 2201 Laguna St., Santa Barbara, CA 93105-3611, (805) 682-4713.

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