NEWS

ARTICLES

LETTERS

FOLLOW ME

ROAMIN' CATHOLIC






Contents © 1998
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

NEWS
MAY 1998

---

THE SANTA CLARA MAGAZINE "WINTER 1998" issue reports that Jesuits at Santa Clara University "like what they see" on Nothing Sacred, the recently killed ABC drama glamorizing a dissident priest. "The underlying issue of Nothing Sacred is that grace abounds--it is everywhere," says Santa Clara Provost Steve Privett, S.J. "I generally find TV to be unbelievably awful. So by comparison, this show shines like a diamond in the rough." Thomas Shanks, S.J., Director of the Santa Clara Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, says that "the fundamental premise of the show is sound." Jesuit Gerdenio "Sonny" Manuel opines that Nothing Sacred "could be to vocations what L.A. Law was to law schools."

The article adds that the Jesuit university -- which permits students to graduate without taking a single course in Catholicism -- is offering a spring quarter course on Nothing Sacred: "While Santa Clara students seemed to prefer Friends on their Thursday night television-viewing schedule to the competing Nothing Sacred, they will shortly have the opportunity to know the program better. Privett and Prietto are team-teaching a course in spring quarter titled 'Everything Sacred, Nothing Profane.'"


FR. JOE DEVLIN, AN ORTHODOX JESUIT, died in late February at the age of 8l. The son of a Southern Pacific Railroad conductor, he entered the Society of Jesus in l934 and was ordained in l947. Fr. Devlin taught and coached at Loyola High in Southern California, Bellarmine Prep in San Jose, and St. Joseph's High in Ogden,Utah, where he also assisted migrant farmworkers.

His involvement with the less fortunate and suffering led him to the Far East where he spent l5 years in the l960s and 1970s in war-torn Vietnam and later Thailand. At Tram Chinn near the Vietnam border with Cambodia, his midnight Masses were interrupted by tracer bullets and parachute flares in the vicinity. His parishoners took turns with their only shovel to dig graves for relatives and friends who died in the war.

In his last assignment before he died, Fr. Devlin drew hundreds of Vietnamese and Filipino Catholics to Our Lady of Peace Church in Santa Clara. He died of cancer and a stroke at the Jesuit Center infirmary in Los Gatos and is survived by three brothers and one sister, including Fr. Raymond Devlin,S.J., of Los Gatos.


THE MARCH 14 MONTEREY COUNTY HERALD article announcing Richard Garcia's talk to a Renew group at Sacred Heart parish in Salinas portrayed the newly consecrated Sacramento bishop as a "progressive." But Garcia's speech on March 17 did not rise to liberal expectations. His discussion of cultural "diversity" in the Church in California acknowledged that growing immigrant groups -- Hispanic, Asian, African -- support traditional religion. He suggested that ethnically mixed parishes build community by promoting universal devotions, such as the Rosary and the Stations of the Cross. Asked by an audience member about the lack of vocations, Garcia praised his new diocese's approach to the problem: most Sacramento parishes (75 out of 99) have vocations committees and hold monthly 40-hours' Eucharistic adoration for vocations. The diocese of Sacramento has 40 seminarians, while the much larger and more populous diocese of San Jose (where Garcia served as a priest until his consecration) has 18.


THE SATURDAY, MARCH 7 ISSUE of the Monterey County Herald featured a promotion for the Diocese of Monterey's Project Rachel post-abortion counseling ministry. An accompanying drawing showed a woman sitting in a chair, holding the ghostly image of her baby who "is no more."

"A life has been ended in an arbitrary, difficult way," Project Rachel Director Dora Lee Raras said in the article. "What women need is to go through reconciliation and healing."

The article quotes Raras' description of post-abortion syndrome. "Some have told me they hear their babies crying in a dream. One woman told me she couldn't vacuum, as the noise reminded her of the suction machine used when she had an abortion."

"Even if they subsequently have other children, the women find they are depressed on Mother's Day or Christmas," Raras said. "There can be a great deal of pain knowing this child is not in their life."


CATHOLIC HOMESCHOOLERS IN CALIFORNIA ARE WORRYING that the anti- homeschooling views of Monterey Bishop Sylvester Ryan, the California Catholic Conference's new head, will set the tone for future state guidelines. Before a backlash forced him to back down, Ryan approved in 1995 guidelines for his diocese, requiring homeschooling parents to get certification from the diocese and use diocesan-approved textbooks.

In a March 11 conversation with San Francisco Faith, Robert Teegarten, head of the California Catholic Conference's education office, stated that the CCC is conducting research on homeschooling at the request of the California bishops. But the information will not be used to write state-wide guidelines. "Each diocese makes its own guidelines," he said. The final report, he expects, will simply list sources for at-home religious education -- diocesan programs, private curricula, etc. According to Teegarten, his office is gathering "raw data" from various homeschooling groups in California, although it has not spoken with any specifically Catholic groups or met with any Catholic homeschooling families.

Most dioceses concede that academic home education falls in the realm of the state, not the Church, and thus most diocesan guidelines deal only with religious education. However, the diocese of Peoria, Illinois, one of the first dioceses to establish homeschooling guidelines, opened up the parochial school system to homeschoolers, allowing them to participate in field trips and selected classes and borrow textbooks, while stating clearly that the Catholic schools would offer the resources without trying to control the content or methodology of home education. The 1995 Peoria guidelines acknowledged at-home religious training as a valid alternative to parish CCD and sacramental preparation courses, and instructed pastors to allow such families access to the sacraments of initiation.

In early 1997, the diocese of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania passed guidelines. Homeschoolers praised the Pittsburgh guidelines, written by a committee of homeschooling parents (including Scott and Kimberly Hahn) and Catholic educators. The document praised the academic and religious benefits of home education and made First Communion and Confirmation available to home-educated children for the first time in Pittsburgh.

Catholic homeschooling families wishing to provide information for the CCC research project can contact Robert Teegarten at 1010 11th Street, Suite 200, Sacramento, CA 95814. Or call (916) 443-4851.

TOP