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Contents © 1998
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

NEWS
APRIL 1998

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THOUGH THE VATICAN UNEQUIVOCALLY CONDEMNS LAY HOMILIES, St. John the Baptist Church in El Cerrito has recently promoted the practice. St. John's January 18 bulletin announced that Sunday's "theme" was "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." and that "preaching" would be Dr. Toinette Eugene. The February 1 bulletin reported that Sister Dottie Petersen would be "preaching." Sister Petersen also read the gospel.

Pastor Fr. Maxwell, reached on Feb. 27, freely admitted that the parish has lay homilies. "We do," he said. Asked if he had read the new Vatican document on the laity, he said no. Read the passage from the document explicitly banning lay homilies, he was unimpressed, saying that he would have to read the document in "context" and "in light of Vatican II." Does reading the document in context mean disregarding it? "Sometimes it would," he replied. "There are a thousand and one documents from the Vatican." Maxwell, asked about Sister Petersen reading the Gospel, said testily, "Yes, she read the gospel...Does that make you happy?"


BARRY LEMAY'S COMPLAINT ABOUT ST. LUCY'S PARISH (see March Faith) is of no interest to San Jose Bishop Pierre DuMaine. In a letter to LeMay (forwarded to the Faith by St. Lucy's pastor Terrence Sullivan), DuMaine dismissed the notion that the Roman Missal considers kneeling a more reverent posture than standing: "Nowhere in the governing documents is kneeling represented as a more reverent posture than standing." Responding to Lemay's contention that St. Lucy's is distorting the Church's Eucharistic doctrine, DuMaine wrote: "The term 'transubstantiation was canonized by the Council of Trent as the most 'fitting and proper' philosophical interpretation of the Mystery but is not incorporated as an object of faith."

Dumaine suggested that LeMay "examine your own conscience, not someone else's," and warned him that [z]eal for orthodoxy (or a personal version of it) does not exempt any one from the supreme law of charity."


YOUNG CATHOLICS SHOULD NOT ATTEND THE TRADITIONAL LATIN MASS, according to Bishop DuMaine. In a letter to San Jose Catholics rejecting a petition for a weekly Traditional Latin Mass, DuMaine wrote that the Latin Mass indult is intended only for a dying generation: "the Holy Father's intent was to give comfort to those who grew up with the old forms (as I did) and remain deeply attached to them. The intent was not to introduce a new generation of Catholics to forms now disallowed, except by indult."

But if this is true, why has the Holy Father given explicit confirmation to permanent Latin Mass priestly societies like the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter and the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest? "We don't know why the Pope did that," said Roberta Ward, the director of media relations for the San Jose diocese. So the bishop does not have an answer to the question? "No," she said, adding that the bishop had never even heard of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest.


THE JANUARY 23 ISSUE OF NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER included several interviews with young Catholics at the UC Berkeley Newman Center. "Who are the college students coming to mass?" asks reporter Arthur Jones. "[T]wo are young lovers or newlyweds judging from the lasting yet gentle kiss of peace between the smooth faced pair behind me."

Jones interviewed Frank Daprato, Erica Padilla, Alan Sequi, and David Smith. According to Padilla, "the whole point of coming to Mass is to be in a place where many other people like myself are....." Latin, the universal language of the Church, says Daprato, "[d]isconnects us from the mass, and mass is supposed to be our celebration." Padilla says that she is "liberal in that I accept small Christian communities, which we have just started here," and that, were she in Mexico, "I probably would not be accepted into the Church because they are traditional-women have to wear skirts, all of that."

Is Catholicism intellectual? "It is as intellectual as you want to make it," responded Smith. Sequi, who "comes from a parish 70 percent Filipino," says that 'American Catholicism is much more liberal, and I feel in love with this community." Don't let tradition or sin get you down, advises Sequi: "A lot of people will get turned off because all they see is the tradition...they don't see themselves as being someone who can be Catholic-because during their undergraduate years they did all kinds of crazy things. They see themselves as not pure, not perfect individuals....when in fact a lot of people have flaws. I have flaws and that's okay."


ON FEBRUARY 8, USF PROFESSOR ERASMO LEIVA delivered a speech on C.S. Lewis's The Four Loves at St. Mary's Cathedral. Leiva devoted part of the speech to "problems and abuses in the teaching and practice of the faith in the American Catholic Church." He condemned "errant sentimentality" in the Church, saying that in certain Catholic quarters love has more to do with a "small-world ride at Disneyland" than Golgotha. Confessors who pooh-pooh the seriousness of sexual sin with statements like, "Don't worry that's how God made you," do not the show the "love of Christ," said Leiva. When a Catholic "campus ministry office" refuses to address the evil of abortion, "that is not the love of Christ." When priests turn the mass into an "exercise in social camarderie," "that is not the love of Christ."

Leiva said that "one of the worst acts of infidelity is to peddle a sentimentality into which the world loves to wallow," which "confirms [the world] in sin." Heterdox clerics, besotted with a "frivolous peace and harmony," see "permissiveness" as the "fruit of Calvary," acting as if the "abolition of the cross is the most urgent ecclesiastical activity." "Could there be a greater act of spiritual sloth than this?...Should [Christ's suffering] be an occasion for our apathy?"

The St. Augustine Society sponsored the talk. To learn more about the group, call or write: (415)436-0359; saintaugustine@juno.com


A DIRECTORY OF NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING PHYSICIANS is now available for a suggested donation of $4. It contains a list of 150 or more doctors nationwide who refuse to prescribe, perform, or refer for abortion, contraception, sterilization, or in-vitro fertilization. For more information, contact One More Soul, 616 Five Oaks Avenue, Dayton, Ohio, 45406; OMSoul@juno.com; www.catholicity.com/Cathedral/OMsoul; 1-800-307-7685.


THE ARCHDIOCESE OF SAN FRANCISCO HAS REOPENED ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI in North Beach. Closed in 1992 as a parish, the church now serves as a shrine to Saint Francis of Assisi. Daily mass is offered at 12:15, Saturday excepted. Following Tuesday mass are devotions to St. Anthony of Padua. Following Thursday mass are devotions to St. Francis. The veneration of each saint's relics is included in the devotions. An art exhibit, featuring a series of panels and scupltures on Dante's Divine Comedy by San Francisco artist Harriet Moore, will be on display through Easter. For more information about upcoming activities, call (415) 983-0405.


FORMER PRO-ABORTION CENTRAL VALLEY CONGRESSMAN TONY COELHO addressed students at the Jesuit University of San Francisco on December 19. Coelho served in the House of Representatives from 1978 to 1988, voting for abortion funding and the Equal Rights Amendment and against voluntary school prayer. In 1988, Coehlo resigned his congressional seat after charges of improper contacts with Savings and Loan executives.

A former Jesuit seminarian, Coelho told students to "appreciate how very lucky you are" for living in an age of "lasers, credit cards, clothes dryers, automatic dishwashers." Said Coelho, "Life was a lot different when I was your age. I grew up in an era when a 'meaningful relationship' meant you got along well with your cousins and 'making out' meant doing well on your exams. Those of us who were born before 1945 arrived before television, pencillin, plastic, and polio shots....It is hard to imagine how we lived without so many of these conveniences and modern-day necessities. Then again, we were not as sophisticated and educated as you."


STEPHANIE CHOURY HAD HOPED HER RETREAT AT THE SAN DAMIANO retreat center would draw her closer to the Church. Instead, "it proved to be most distressing." According to Choury, the Jan 23-25 retreat, conducted in part by Call to Action associate Fr. Barry Brunsman (see December Faith), involved the following abuses: "On Saturday, the priest invited the congregation to form a circle about the altar as he performed the Consecration. We were not invited to kneel as Jesus became physically present"; the penitential rite was discarded on the grounds that "reconciliation had been provided on Saturday"; "the priest paraphrased, rather than read, the Gospel"; "A female lay retreat leader gave a speech during the time reserved for the homily"; "The Offertory gifts were brought directly to the altar, while the priest sat a non-participant"; "at one point, lay women 'anointed' the congregation with oil. The priest, again, did not participate"; "Two female lay leaders stood by the priest's side during the Consecration. The priest raised the Host alone; then he handed a chalice to each woman, and the three raised the chalice together. This gave the impression of the women being concelebrants of the Mass"; "The priests remained seated while the Eucharistic ministers distributed Communion....A lay leader then gave a 'final blessing' and thanked the priest for allowing the liturgy to be arranged to meet the needs of the women."

The East Bay retreat center offers such retreats as: "Growing Spiritually: An Advanced Enneagram," "Honesty, Authenticity and Spirituality in Relationships," and "New Leaf Retreat," which is a "weekend workshop using prayerful paper cutting for spiritual growth."

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