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Contents © 1997
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

NEWS
JUNE 1997

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DOMINICAN COLLEGE IN SAN RAFAEL HAS QUIETLY ESTABLISHED a domestic partners policy. According to Dominican College documents, "Effective April 1, 1997 faculty and staff members who are eligible for benefits may enroll a domestic partner -- of the same or opposite gender -- as well as the domestic partner's eligible dependent children in College-sponsored health plan...In order to enroll a domestic partner in the health care coverage sponsored by the College, you must meet certain eligibility requirements and file a completed Certification of Eligibility with Human Resources. For purposes of qualifying for health care coverage, a 'domestic partner' is defined as a person of the opposite or same sex who shares a 'committed relationship' with a benefits-eligible faculty/staff member....The partners cannot merely be roommates."


MILWAUKEE ARCHBISHOP REMBERT WEAKLAND WILL RECEIVE A DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF HUMANE LETTERS from the University of San Francisco in late May. Weakland will speak at the College of Arts and Sciences and McLaren School of Business graduate commencement exercises. Announcing its honorary degree receipents (which includes former PBS journalist Robert McNiel), USF praised Weakland, "Archbishop Weakland is the principal author of the American Bishops' Letter on the Economy and a progressive leader in the Catholic Church."


AT THE CATHOLIC WOMEN'S NETWORK'S ANNUAL CONFERENCE (June 21 at Bellarmine College Prep in San Jose) attendees can experience foot reflexology, massage and a healing room, and learn about various eastern spiritualities, "Goddess qualities," mandalas, and "Holistic/Ecofeminist Spirituality." Included among the workshops: "Women and Hierarchy: Drops of Water Falling on Stone" by Barbra Telynor, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, "Mary: Her Connection to the Goddess" by Sister Marilyn Wilson, BVM, and "Hildegard of Bingen: A Feather on the Breath of God," which promises attendees, "we will encounter Lady Wisdom/ Sophia and be empowered by her promises in scripture."

Workshops presenters include nuns (like Sister Kaye Ashe, OP in the Diocese of Oakland and Sr. Marie-Eloise Rosenblatt, RSM and Marilyn Wilson, BVM in the Diocese of San Jose), Catholic educators (like Susan Thrift Mahan, who teaches at Notre Dame High School in Salinas, Santa Clara University and the University of San Francisco, Charmiel Teresi, a "grief specialist" and parish religious education teacher and Margaret Marcroft, described as "a teacher and catechist") and various local feminists and eastern spiritualists (Margaret More, described as a liturgist, ritualist and teacher of liturgical dance at Santa Clara University who "trains women to be fairy Godmothers," Lisbeth Jones, a "certified bodywork therapist in hands-on energetic bodywork" and Yolanda Rhodes who "embraces the Goddess and practices traditional African religion").


THE MARCH/APRIL ISSUE OF THE CWN NEWSLETTER also ran several articles about the Virgin Mary. Among these women's findings in their study of Mary: "An impossibly pure image of Mary kept both men and women immature....The supernatural conception presents Mary as a model rape victim.... Mary calls us...to be redeemers of each other. Thus the meaning in co-redemptrix....Guadalupe, an earth goddess."


THE MAY 2 EDITION OF THE MONTEREY COUNTY HERALD trumpeted the complaints of two Bay Area "public policy centers," the Public Media Center and Applied Research Center: namely, that many California public schools are "violat[ing] the state's Education Code" by teaching sexual abstinence rather than "how-to" sex education programs.

The two organizations conducted a study of 100 California schools, finding 28 that use the Teen Aid abstinence program. Phyllida Burlingame of the Applied Research Center, author of the study, criticized Teen Aid for spreading "false information about condom effectiveness" and not using statistics from "reputable sources" like the Center for Disease Control.

In a May 5 phone conversation, Ruby Hogan of the Spokane, Washington-based Teen Aid stated that their program stresses the failure rate of condoms, which Teen Aid reports as between two percent and 17 percent, depending on proper usage.


THE FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL'S NEW VIDEO, "Hope and Healing for Homosexuals," outlines the newest research on the causes and treatment of the disorder, presenting testimonials from men and women who have conquered their sexual addictions and left the homosexual lifestyle. Contact Family Research Council at 801 G Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20001, (202) 393-2100. Suggested donation: $20.


APHTON CORPORATION OF WOODLAND IS RUNNING CLINICAL TRIALS of its new anti-pregnancy vaccine, developed with funding from the United Nations' World Health Organization over the past two years. The vaccine is similar to the Canadian-developed vaccine used last year on millions of women in the Philippines and Latin America without their consent (the women were told by the project coordinators-- the UN's World Health Organization and their governments-- that the injections were to prevent tetanus). The vaccine introduces small amounts of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), an essential pregnancy hormone, causing the woman's body to develop anti-bodies against it, thus programming her immune system to respond to pregnancy as an infection, aborting the developing baby. One injection of the vaccine causes all pregnancies during the next 12 to 18 months to abort.


IN A REVERSAL OF FORMER ARCHBISHOP JOHN QUINN'S parish closings, San Francisco Archbishop William Levada has reopened, in one capacity or another, five of the nine closed parishes: St. Thomas More is a mission to San Francisco State University; Nativity Church is a parish for Croatian, Slovenian, and Polish Catholics; St. Francis of Assisi, one of San Francisco's most historic buildings, will become a national shrine to St. Francis of Assisi; All Hallows Church is an auxiliary chapel to Our Lady of Lourdes parish; and St. Joseph's is a shelter for homeless families and single pregnant women. "We've proven ourselves to be very worthy adversaries," says Dave Joy, a coordinator of Catacombs, a group formed in reaction to Quinn's plan.


DAN MCPHERSON, A HOMOSEXUAL FORMER JESUIT who is the father of an adopted daughter, is teaching marriage and family therapy at the University of San Francisco. Last June, McPherson appeared on the cover of the San Francisco Bay Guardian with his companion and his adopted daughter, Sarah. Wrote the Guardian: "Sarah McPherson Gogin attends parochial school, sketches a mean rendition of Winnie the Pooh, and likes to wear fuzzy pink pj's. She also enjoys interrupting her fathers, Dan McPherson and Kevin Gogin, both licensed marriage and family counselors." Have USF officials expressed concern with McPherson teaching at a Catholic college? McPherson said in an April 18 interview, "No one has approached me."

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