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Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

NEWS
APRIL 2003

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THIS YEAR'S RED MASS at Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Sacramento was lacking one notable -- Governor Gray Davis. Though many lawyers, politicians, and judges, both Catholic and not, attended the February 12 event held yearly for members of the legal profession and public officials, the governor's absence underscored his controversy with Bishop William Weigand of Sacramento. In a homily he gave on January 22, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Bishop Weigand said that a pro-abortion Catholic should "have the integrity to acknowledge" that he is "in very great error" and "choose of his own volition to abstain from receiving Holy Communion." The bishop specifically referred to Governor Davis. On January 23, Davis' spokesman, Russ Lopez, criticized the bishop for "telling the faithful how to practice their faith."


TO "TAKE ON" THE GOVERNOR was not his intention, wrote Bishop William Weigand of Sacramento in the February 8 "Feed My Lambs" column of the Catholic Herald. Referring to his January 22 homily, Bishop Weigand said that he specifically mentioned Governor Gray Davis "because he has chosen to make his Catholic credentials a public matter on a number of occasions in the context of the abortion issue. Before Christmas he made widely quoted comments that many Catholics hold his pro-abortion views, leaving the impression that such is acceptable." Weigand said he "felt obligated" to set the record straight on Catholic teaching.

Bishop Weigand said that he "did not intimate that we would refuse Communion to someone who approaches. After instructing people, we respect them and strive to treat them as adults. We prefer to trust in their sincerity and goodwill." The bishop reiterated Catholic teaching that one who receives communion must be free of grave sin; but also he said that "somebody who takes a very public stance that is contrary to the teaching of the Church on some matter of great importance should avoid" the "obstacle of giving public scandal. They have a duty as disciples not to use their public office to confuse their brothers and sisters in Christ." Communion, said Weigand, is a public expression of one's communion with the Church.


FASTING A WEAPON OF PEACE. In his Angelus address on February 23, Pope John Paul II said that Catholics should become "sentinels of peace" by praying the Rosary for "the cause of peace, especially in the Middle East," said a February 24 Catholic World News story. Fasting, said the Holy Father, is applicable not only to personal sanctification, but to the cause of world peace. By penance, he said, believers "ready themselves to receive from God the greatest and most necessary gifts, including in particular that of peace." The pope expressed the hope that Catholic families would crowd Marian sanctuaries throughout the world to pray the rosary. "The future of mankind can never be assured by terrorism and the logic of war," said John Paul.


PRO-LIFE VICTORY. On February 19, the United States Supreme Court, in a 8 to 1 decision, handed pro-lifers a major victory when it ruled that pro-life activist Joe Scheidler and others who held peaceful protests outside abortion clinics were not "racketeers" as the National Organization for Women (N.O.W.) alleged. The case, N.O.W. v. Scheidler, stemmed from 1986, when N.O.W. and abortion clinics in Delaware and Wisconsin sued Scheidler, Operation Rescue, and other pro-life activists under the federal Racketeer Influence Corrupt Organization Act (R.I.C.O.). They argued that Scheidler's peaceful protest disrupted their business and led to economic losses. A jury trial found Scheidler and his allies guilty and ordered them to pay $258,000 in damages and refrain from protesting in front of abortion clinics for 10 years. Scheidler appealed the decision to the United States Supreme Court, which took the case under consideration in early 2000.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Rehnquist said that Scheidler and his allies were not guilty of R.I.C.O. violations. "Even when their acts of interference and disruption achieved their ultimate goal of 'shutting down' a clinic that performed abortions," wrote Rehnquist, "such acts did not constitute extortion."

Colette Wilson, an Inglewood-based attorney who worked on the Scheidler case, said she was happy with the outcome. "Under the 7th circuit's ruling, any act of civil disobedience that 'interferes' with a business's operations -- which is, of course, the whole point of a protest! -- would count as an act of criminal extortion, punishable by up to 20 years in prison under R.I.C.O. By reversing the 7th circuit, the Supreme Court has stopped that logic dead in its tracks."

Wilson said that throughout the case abortion groups portrayed pro-life groups as violent. She said she and others have compiled evidence proving that several of N.O.W.'s witnesses lied about their claims of violence. "With this Supreme Court victory," said Wilson, "we're more determined than ever to use that evidence to set the record straight once and for all."


STUNG BY THE COURT'S DECISION in favor of Scheidler, the National Organization for Women said it will use other tactics to stop protests at abortion clinics. Speaking to reporters at the National Press Club, Kim Gandy, president of N.O.W., said, "With this reversal, N.O.W. rededicates itself to the protection of women's legal right to abortion. We will work to ensure that the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (F.A.C.E.) is enforced. But that is not enough. F.A.C.E. is too limited and doesn't reach the organizers of the violence. We will use whatever is at our disposal to see to it that religious and political extremists do not resume their reign of terror at women's clinics. We are looking at every avenue, including the U.S.A. Patriot Act, in order to protect women, doctors and clinic staff from these ideological terrorists."


MONTEREY DIOCESE'S VICAR GENERAL and Moderator of the Clergy, Monsignor Charles Fatooh, resigned February 13 over questioning by media of his relationship with a priest, Monsignor Robert Trupia, who is facing molestation charges, according to a February 19 Monterey County Herald story. In 1995, Monsignor Fatooh had hired Trupia as a consultant on canon law for the diocese after the diocese of Tucson, Arizona, suspended Trupia from the priesthood because of charges of molestation. The 54-year-old Trupia has been accused in civil court of molesting over 30 boys while he served Tucson diocese as a marriage counselor. From 1995 to 1998, Trupia flew to Monterey about six times a year to do his consultant work, and he stayed in a house owned by the diocese. He was never granted priestly faculties in the Monterey diocese.

In 1998, a diocesan attorney learned from Tucson that Trupia was involved in a sexual abuse lawsuit. But instead of dismissing Trupia, the diocese of Monterey kept him on as a consultant, though he was to work by phone and mail. This relationship ended in November 2001 when Bishop Manuel Moreno of Tucson sent a letter to Monterey, informing the diocese of lawsuits facing Trupia.

According to the Herald, at the same time Trupia's contract was ending, Monsignor Fatooh bought a condominium for $118,000 in Ellicon City, Maryland. Trupia then moved from his apartment in Silver Spring, Maryland, into Fatooh's condominium, for which Trupia is said to have paid $1,100 rent. While staying in Fatooh's condominium, Trupia allegedly was in hiding from court process servers and police officials.

Bishop Sylvester Ryan of Monterey, in a February 13 statement, said he had accepted Monsignor Fatooh's resignation. It is unclear whether Fatooh would retire or take another position in the diocese.


"THIS HAS TO DO WITH A REPRESSED-MEMORY sort of thing," said attorney Gaspar Garcia II, who represents an alleged clergy abuse victim who is suing the diocese of Stockton and Cardinal Roger Mahony, according to a February 7 Associated Press story. The victim, known in court papers only as "John Doe," claims that he was assaulted between 1980 and 1983 at St. Mary of the Assumption Church by the Rev. Ferdinand Villalobos, who has since died. The victim claims that the diocese of Stockton, then under Bishop Roger Mahony, violated anti-racketeering laws by covering up the assault. Both a spokeswoman for Stockton diocese, Sister Barbara Thiella, and Tod Tamberg, spokesman for the archdiocese of Los Angeles, would not comment on February 7 about the lawsuit, saying they had not seen it.

The lawsuit was one of three brought against the diocese of Stockton. Nancy Sloan of Fairfield brought another, saying she had been molested by Father Oliver O'Grady in 1976. In 1999, the diocese of Stockton settled for $7.5 million a lawsuit brought by two brothers, Joh and James Howard, who claimed they had been molested by O'Grady. Cardinal Roger Mahony, as bishop of Stockton, was implicated in this case for allegedly having transferred O'Grady to other parishes while knowing that the priest had been a molester.


DEFROCKED PRIEST, Monsignor Patrick O'Shea, has been accused of molesting a 14-year-old boy in 1972, according to a February 12 San Francisco Chronicle story. Scott Lewis, 44, filed a lawsuit against the San Francisco archdiocese on February 11, saying the archdiocese failed to protect children from known molesters. Lewis seeks monetary damages both from the archdiocese and O'Shea.

O'Shea was laicized in 1994 after several men accused him of molesting them when they were boys. In 1996, the archdiocese reportedly paid a $2.5 million settlement of sexual abuse claims brought by other alleged victims. In 2001, a court threw out allegations brought against O'Shea by nine former altar boys, because the statute of limitations had run out. In September 2002, O' Shea was indicted for allegedly abusing an altar boy and was jailed. He has also been charged with embezzling $250,000 in church funds, which he spent on a home near Palm Springs.

Ordained in 1958, Monsignor O'Shea served as a parish pastor and the director for the San Francisco Society for the Propagation of the Faith. At one time, said the Chronicle, he had served as head of an outreach to gay and lesbian Catholics.


CLERGY SEDUCTION LAWSUITS? The California state court of appeal in San Francisco ruled on February 14 that a priest may be sued for seducing an adult parishioner who came to him for counseling, said a February 15 San Francisco Chronicle story. In this Valentine's Day ruling, the court ruled that, though sexual intercourse between consenting adults may be legal, a priest-counselor can be considered legally responsible for seducing a parishioner, who is dependent on the priest for counsel and advice. The court was ruling on whether an adult woman could proceed with a lawsuit against a priest who, she alleges, had seduced her.


RESPONDING TO WIDESPREAD REPORTS that abortion clinics such as Planned Parenthood routinely ignore child protection statutes that require medical providers to report suspected cases of child molestation, Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy (R-Monrovia) has introduced a bill, AB 930, that would extend these reporting requirements. Last year the state attorney general's office reaffirmed that medical providers must report when some minor girls come into an abortion clinic seeking an abortion. In some cases, the fact that a minor girl is pregnant or has a sexually transmitted disease, is considered indicative that the girl was sexually molested.

Mountjoy said it is important to safeguard California's children from sexual predators. Under the provisions of his bill, he said, "health care providers must simply report to law enforcement any knowledge or reasonable suspicion that a minor is pregnant or has a sexually-transmitted disease. Law enforcement would take it from there -- investigate the report and, if they find evidence of child abuse, take measures to protect the child, and prosecute the abuser so he or she cannot continue the abuse or go on to abuse other children."

Mountjoy notes that current child abuse laws already require health care professionals to report suspected child abuse. "We expect health care providers to report physical signs of child abuse -- broken bones, burns, bruises," Mountjoy said. "It makes sense to have them also report specific signs of sexual abuse."

Mountjoy's bill will require officials to investigate a complaint within one week and issue a report. If there is evidence of child molestation, then law enforcement would be required to take the child into protective custody and file charges against the perpetrator. The bill also allows for civil remedies.

Rich Ackerman, an attorney with the United States Justice Foundation who has sued Planned Parenthood over their failure to report child sexual abuse, said that he is pleased with the bill. "The abuse of children is intolerable in a civil society. Being an abuse kid myself, I can't believe that anyone would have the audacity to say that it can be allow to go on."


MANDATORY KINDERGARTEN. A proposed law that would lower the age for compulsory school attendance has been reintroduced by Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg. The bill, AB 56, if passed, will impose mandatory kindergarten for all California children who are at least five years old. Home schooling advocates are concerned that this call for mandatory kindergarten will usurp parental rights and heighten the possibility of mandatory pre-school for three- and four-year-olds.

Becky Burgoyne, a research writer with the Capitol Resource Institute, said, "making mandatory, all day kindergarten is a first step to universal pre-school. It's a slippery slope. Also, given the budget crisis, isn't this just blowing wind?" she asked. J. Michael Smith, President of the Home School Legal Defense Association, said he was concerned about the bill. "We have opposed this and any lowering of the compulsory attendance age in any state, including California. There is no evidence that shows that it helps to have children attend kindergarten. Especially for home schoolers, we would have to begin educating children that aren't ready," Smith said in a telephone interview.

Smith said that advocates for the bill say that too often parents will enroll their children in kindergarten only to remove them after a short while, causing disruptions for the entire class. Smith said that last year his group "offered an amendment that would provide for this." Smith said that the language in the amendment said that after a certain period of time, children enrolled in kindergarten would be subject to compulsory attendance requirements. This would avoid forcing home schoolers from having to begin formally instructing their children while in kindergarten if the child is not ready for formal education.

Gary Davis of Assemblyman Steinberg's office did not return calls for comment on the bill. Those wishing to express their concerns about the bill can reach Assemblyman Steinberg's office at (916) 319-2009.


THE FIRST BAY-AREA CHAPTER of Voice of the Faithful was formed in early February, said a February 3 San Francisco Chronicle story. A grassroots, lay Catholic organization, Voice of the Faithful was formed in the wake of the clergy abuse scandals that have shaken the Church in the United States. The group claims 25,000 members in roughly 150 parishes across the nation. "Catholics have been marginalized by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church," Mike Emerton, a Voice of the Faithful national spokesman, told the Chronicle. "Now for the first time, voices are coming together to voice displeasure."

Though Voice of the Faithful has been associated with dissent from Church teachings (and has elicited the support of modernist currents within the Church), the group's statement of beliefs says that it accepts "the teaching authority of the Church, including the role of bishops and the pre-eminent role of the Pope as the primary teachers and the leaders of the Church." It further believes "that sexual abuse by clergy, the treatment of those abused, and the way some bishops dealt with abusers have revealed flaws that require renewal in the human, institutional aspect of our Church," and that the "laity has the dignity, the intelligence, and the responsibility (even the obligation) to assist bishops in trying to discern where God is calling us today and to cooperate in the decision-making processes of the Church in a meaningful way." As for controversial topics, the group states, "we do not advocate the end of priestly celibacy, the exclusion of homosexuals from the priesthood, the ordination of women, or any of the other remedies that have been proposed across the spectrum of Catholic thought."

The first gathering of the Bay Area group was held at the University of San Francisco on Sunday, February 2. It signed up 158 members from 32 parishes, said the Chronicle.


GUADALUPE VIRGIN NOT FOR SALE. The archdiocese of Mexico City on February 11 denied reports that it had sold use rights for the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe to a U.S. firm, said an Associated Press story. The archdiocese, however, admitted that it had considered the idea of selling the copyright for the image to Viotran, a firm which handles money transfers from migrant laborers to their families.

"The Virgin of Guadalupe is, quite simply, not for sale," said the archdiocese in a press statement. "The sacred image of the Virgin of Guadalupe is the patrimony of all Mexicans." The statement, however, acknowledged that "there exists only a contract proposal signed by both parties, but which was canceled by those parties."


TO ADDRESS THE PROBLEM of a lack of affordable housing in the Lake Tahoe area -- a problem that forces many workers to live outside the area where they are employed -- Catholics with members of other churches have formed the St. Joseph Community Land Trust. According to a February 11 Tahoe Daily Tribune story, the Trust is "a Catholic-based organization made up of several basin churches" that "was spearheaded about a year ago by South Shore residents Lyn Barnett and Patrick Conway." Barnett told the Tribune that the Trust plans to work with agencies and foundations, as well as apply for grants, to help the trust to buy homes. These home will be renovated and sold to qualifying families.


"THE II VATICAN COUNCIL makes it clear that 'the pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature.' In fact 'the whole Church is missionary,' and being light and salt to the world, the missionary task is the responsibility and the vocation of the entire People of God." So wrote Sylvester Ryan, bishop of Monterey, in his February 2003 pastoral letter. Baptism and confirmation, said Ryan, "mark and confirm us as people called to serve others rather than just ourselves." These sacraments, said the bishop, have their origin in the baptism of Christ. "Jesus' baptism," said Bishop Ryan, "revealed his identity as Son of God and his vocation as teacher and savior of all humankind."

Christ's vocation has been passed on to the Church, said Ryan. "Through his passion, death and resurrection Jesus Christ established the Church as 'the universal sacrament of salvation.' We are the Church, the Body of Christ, and by our baptism and confirmation we are empowered to share in the mission of Christ. It is our identity, our relationship to the Father, our vocation. All of this is grace, freely given to us by God's choice in Jesus Christ. What is freely given needs to be freely shared." All Catholics, however, cannot become full-time missionaries, said Bishop Ryan. However, quoting Vatican Council II, "all Christians are bound to show forth, by the example of our lives and by the witness of our speech, that new person in Christ we put on by baptism and the power of the Holy Spirit by whom we were strengthened at confirmation."

But example alone is not the only way "stay-at-home missionaries, lay people, for example with families and jobs of our own" can be missionaries. The other way, cited by Bishop Ryan, is by "works of justice and compassion we can carry out in our own homes, neighborhoods and communities. When we identity with others who are 'waging war on famine, ignorance and disease and thereby struggling to better their way of life and to secure peace in the world,'" said the bishop, "we are missionaries of the Good News. Together we are building the Kingdom of God."


"OUR PARKS ARE OPEN and designated for open space and recreational uses by the people they serve," Liz Brenner, spokeswoman for the city of Sacramento, told the Sacramento Bee. "Camping overnight is not one of those." According to the February 18 Bee, Brenner was responding to requests made to Sacramento's parks and recreation department by Clifford Crooks, president of the Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee, for permits to establish a tent city for the homeless at Muir and Sutter parks. The department has denied the permits. Like tent cities in Portland and Seattle, the Sacramento tent cities proposed by Crooks and other homeless advocates would provide 24-hour security plus a family environment, free of alcohol and drugs. Brooks and other homeless advocates complain that the city is cracking down on homeless camping, with police issuing several hundred citations a year. On February 17, the Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee organized a march from the Loaves and Fishes shelter on North C Street to Sutter's Landing Park near 28th and C streets to draw attention to the city's actions regarding the homeless. "When I saw what was happening to the disenfranchised -- that they were getting tickets and going to jail because there's no place to sleep -- it infuriated me," Crooks told the Bee.

Liz Brenner told the Bee that Sacramento provides $2 million a year for homeless shelters. She said that many homeless do not want to sleep in the shelters because they have to abide by rules and provide community service projects in return for a bed.


HOMELESS ADVOCATES in San Francisco shouted down the city's director of the department of human services at a meeting discussing the implementation of city-voter approved Proposition N, said a February 20 San Francisco Chronicle story. Proposition N, called the "Care Not Cash" initiative, cuts city welfare payments to childless homeless adults from about $395 a month to $59 with shelter and food. According to the Chronicle, about 2,500 of the city's estimated 8,500 to 15,000 homeless receive city welfare checks. The city says that it will use the $14 million savings from the program to increase housing and social services.

At the meeting, held Wednesday, February 19, at the department of human services building on Otis Street, about 12 protesters from the homeless advocacy group, Power, strenuously opposed department director Trent Rhorer' s proposal to install fingerprint imaging at most homeless shelters for adults, in order to make sure the people who received city welfare get beds. Fingerprinting, said Power members, will scare away undocumented homeless persons who do not receive city welfare.


ON THE FRINGE OF THE FRINGE. A group calling itself "Gay Shame" gathered February 6 at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center in San Francisco to protest the center's hosting of San Francisco mayoral contender, Supervisor Gavin Newsom. According to a column in the February 14 (St. Valentine's Day) San Francisco Chronicle, Gay Shame, "a queer group in the tradition of the Stonewall activists and ACT UP and Queer Nation," objects to Newsom's "dividing gay community votes in order to prevail over other mayoral hopefuls such as the more left-leaning Supervisor Tom Ammiano, who is gay, and Treasurer Susan Leal, who is a lesbian." According to the Gay Shame website, though the protest was peaceful, "the police incited a melee which spilled onto the street at Market and Octavia, and began beating and arresting people at random as Center officials complacently stood by and watched."

According to its website, Gay Shame "is a radical alternative to the gay mainstream and the increasingly complacent left," which "seeks nothing less than a new queer activism that addresses issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality, to counter the self-serving 'values' of the gay mainstream." The group is "dedicated to fighting the rabid assimilationist monster of corporate gay "culture" with a devastating mobilization of queer brilliance." Gay Shame, said the website, "is a celebration of resistance."

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