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Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

NEWS
JUNE 1999

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PATRICK J. BUCHANAN is again running for the U.S. presidency as a Republican candidate. Buchanan has worked as a presidential speechwriter for Richard Nixon, a communications director for Ronald Reagan, a CNN pundit and a syndicated columnist. On April 23, he spoke to the Faith briefly.

Asked what distinguishes him from the other Catholic candidates in the race, he said: "Well, Bob Smith and I agree on virtually everything, and Alan Keyes is a Catholic and he and I certainly agree on the issue of right to life and the threat to the moral character of the nation. I think what distinguishes me is that I have more experience in national politics, that I have won primaries before and that I can win. I'm running ahead of all the other Catholic folks in the race in the national polls. I ran second in the year 1996 and there is no reason why I can't win in the year 2000." Buchanan said that he might have won the Republican presidential nomination in 1996 had Alan Keyes not run in that race. "I think if Alan Keyes had not been in the race a lot of his support in Iowa would have come to me and I might have won Iowa. And I of course would have won in New Hampshire and Bob Dole might have had to drop out of the race. So I think I could have won, correct."

He vowed to articulate the pro-life message without ambiguity, saying, "I am a no-exceptions man and I will keep my party pro-life. If the party abandons the unborn, it walks away from me." Asked about George Bush, Jr.'s and Elizabeth Dole's recent statements on abortion, he graded them "incompletes."

He expressed disappointment with the Catholic Church's involvement in politics: "In truth, I think the Catholic Church has frittered away an enormous amount of moral authority in the last four decades. I think that is undeniable." He was reluctant to expand upon this comment but conceded that the bishops "seem to speak with more certitude on the things of this world than on the things of the next."

He said that he continues to attend the Latin Mass. "I think a lot of the post-council reforms leave me pretty cold and I think even from the standpoint of those who initiated them they have been inefficacious," he said. As for his Catholic reading materials, he said: "I receive the Wanderer regularly. I read the Latin Mass. I read Catholic Eye regularly. I get some of the books from Christendom College." The Natural Law, Buchanan said, "is really very much a part of me...I don't think you can divorce it from your thought processes and thought patterns." However, he agreed that certain issues admit of varying responses from good Catholics. "I think good Catholics can disagree on the efficacy and wisdom of economic policy," he said, conceding that a good Catholic could disagree with his views on protectionism.

The war in Kosovo is another area where good Catholics can disagree, he said. But in his view the U.S. bombings deviate from the Church's just war criteria " in light of what has happened in the last month." Where Catholics shouldn't disagree, he said, are on "core values" like supporting the "family unit" and "depolluting the culture."


THE FLEDGLING SOLAS PRESS is offering a book of interest to Catholics, The Journey to God, by Fr. Antoninus Wall, a Dominican who lives in Oakland. The book is the first work published by the San Mateo press.

Dominic and Catherine Colvert, a retired Catholic couple, formed the press in January 1998. Their mission is to produce works of philosophy which expose Catholic truth to as broad an audience as possible. "We are mission-oriented rather than financially-oriented," says Dominic Colvert. "We hope to be a small voice in setting things back to right." To learn more about Solas Press, write or call: Solas Press, 63 Bovet Road, Suite 407, San Mateo, Ca 94402-3104; (650) 577-0855; solaspress@compuserve.com


A RESORT TOWN is an unlikely place to find a Catholic school. But go to Lake Tahoe, and you will discover Thomas Aquinas school, a kindergarten through tenth grade program that trains students in the classics and Catholic orthodoxy.

The school formed in 1994 under the direction of a group of parents, which included Catholic radio organizer Douglas Sherman, who were "looking for a Catholic education that would not only be academically challenging, but that would also preserve the innocence of their children from the multiple assaults of the culture of death so prevalent in other arenas of education," says Tom Huckins, the school's principal.

Today the school has 34 students and four teachers. According to Huckins, the school intends to grow. He is receiving inquiries from eager parents weekly.

The Seton curriculum serves as the basis of the program. Students read, among other works, Latina Christiana, Anne Carroll's Christ the King, Lord of History, Shakespearean works, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and books from Ignatius Press's Faith and Life series, says Huckins. Art and music receive significant attention, too. Huckins wants the students to experience "what a beautiful piece of art can do to your soul," which is a rare experience in a "culture of images" in which "kids' souls are so clotted up with video games, movies and music [that] we are definitely not dealing with a clean slate anymore."

The school's teachers come from four sources, says Huckins: Christendom College, Thomas Aquinas College, Franciscan University at Steubenville, and the local community. Huckins, who has a master's in philosophy from the Gregorian in Rome, looks for teachers with a "strong and orthodox faith."(He notes that the school is planning to add three more teachers to its staff next year.)

The school's student population is not, however, exclusively Catholic. This is one feature, says Huckins, that makes Thomas Aquinas School unique among some independent Catholic schools. The admission requirement is not that a student be Catholic, but that he be "open to learning about the Catholic faith," says Huckins. "I tell the parents quite bluntly that it is quite possible that your kids might want to become Catholic, and if you are going to put them in here, you have to be aware of that."

He adds, "We have had a couple of kids whose parents said they were open to it and then when the kids said, 'You know what, Mom? I want to become a Catholic,' they said forget it and the [kids were] crushed."

Huckins estimates that the school produces at least three converts a year. The local pastor, Father Patrick O'Connor, is particularly helpful in this regard, offering one-on-one instruction to anyone who wants it and providing the students with weekly confession.

Students receive thorough exposure to the traditions of the Church, stresses Huckins. Prayer is a regular part of the school day. A vocations awareness week is offered. And the students will soon learn about the old Latin Mass: "One of the things we do is tell the kids that the Tridentine mass is part of our patrimony; it is not be disregarded."

"Sacramento Bishop Weigand knows about the school and he is supportive of it," says Huckins. To learn more about the school, write: Thomas Aquinas School, Post Office Box 6078, Tahoe City, CA 96145.


THE FRESNO-BASED Athanasius Apostolate is offering a "responsible tithing kit" to Catholics who are tired of subsidizing dissident parishes and organizations. Scott Kellor, the organization's head, says that the $5 kit will teach Catholics to withhold money from dissenting clergy until orthodox reforms are made. God wants us to use our talents "wisely," not cooperate in "disobedience to the Church instituted by Christ himself," says Kellor. To receive the kit, send $5 to: Responsible Tithing Kit c/o Catholic Home, P.O. Box 4002 Paso Robles, CA 93447-4002. For inquiries about other Athanasius Apostolate services, including its speakers program, call (559) 323-5003.


JOHN-DAVID SCHOFIELD, bishop of the Episcopal diocese of San Joaquin, addressed San Francisco's United for Life organization on April 10, emphasizing that the pro-life movement is primarily a "cultural task, not a political or legal one." Through grass-roots cultural efforts pro-lifers must make abortion "unthinkable." This requires an appeal to both the mind and the heart, he said, which is no easy task, given that "we are dealing with a wounded generation" in which the number of parties complicit in abortion is growing.

Schofield cited recent evidence showing the immense physical and psychological costs of abortion. Breast cancer, increased risk of pregnancy complications, lasting guilt, the temptation to commit suicide, among other things, follow from abortion, he said.

The perversity of abortion is that it turns an innocent child into a "competitor," he said. It also makes "fatherhood" irrelevant. He recalled one anguished father saying to him in 1966, "I killed someone last night." The man had given his wife permission to get an abortion, then regretted it the next morning, only to discover his wife was already at the hospital.

Schofield emphasized that the effectiveness of the pro-life movement depends upon "radical solidarity" with pregnant women in distress. Many of these women don't want abortion, but love, he said.

Schofield also spoke of his Chapel of the Holy Innocents in Fresno, a "place of prayer" dedicated to the memory of all children who have been victims of violence or accident. If a woman seeks counseling after an abortion in his diocese, his priests ask her, "Have you named the child?" "If so, we will say a requiem Mass for that child," he said.


JOHN GRAY, a self-help specialist who authored the book Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus, informed the San Francisco Chronicle in April that the "Virgin Mary" appears to him every week, not as a "physical being," but as a "vision in your mind's eye." Gray said that he occasionally calls on the Virgin Mary to heal "women who have self-esteem issues-they feel unworthy, they've got guilt." Gray added: "If somebody has a Hindu background, I will invite Krishna. If somebody has a Hindu guru, I'll invite their guru in.... I'm all religions. I see the good in all religions."


FEMINISTS IN THE OAKLAND DIOCESE appear to be inviting excommunication. They continue to perform the consecration at schismatic masses in Bishop Begin Plaza in Oakland. The San Francisco Examiner gave the group front-page billing on April 11. Victoria Rue, an organizer of Critical Mass, explained to the San Francisco Examiner that Catholicism should cede to their demands, because this is "our church." "We are not going to walk away and say OK, you guys take it."

Monica Kaufer, a local Roman Catholic nun, boasted of her participation in the organization, admitting that it is "ecclesial disobedience." But she doesn't care: "If we continue, we could be excommunicated.... My (religious superior) said we would take it one step at a time. She's never faced this, she's never had a sister be excommunicated. But it's like what the gospel says when you put your hand to the plow -- you don't turn back."


IN AN INTERVIEW with the April 5 Catholic Voice, Father Kenan Osborne, former president of the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley, expressed support for deaconesses. Osborne noted that "'serious talks about an order of deaconesses are already underway in Germany, Holland, and France,'" reported the Voice. "'And why not?'" he asks. "'Lay women catechists and nuns are already performing baptisms and officiating at funerals in remote South American villages,' he said."

"Priesthood for women could eventually become an option, but he doesn't see it happening in the near future. 'The Church needs to go in steps. The role of deaconess would be a way to do it.'"

Osborne also urged the Church to downplay her Western influences in the area of ecumenism. "'We cannot afford to remain unbending regarding our European-American models in these areas.... Dialogue with other world religions has already begun to move us away from many exclusive and absolute aspects of the Christian faith.'"

Osborne's pro-deaconesses comment coincided with a Vatican report saying that Cardinal Dario Castrillo Hoyos of Colombia, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy, ruled out the possibility of women as deacons, because it "could represent a step toward the priesthood."


A REMARKABLY SYMPATHETIC STORY IN THE APRIL 4 NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE on Catholic seminarians entitled "The Last Counterculture": "'People do one of three things,' Holloway says. 'Suddenly they get really nice, and they want you to think they're really good people. Somebody my age, they're calling me Sir. The second one is, people get very stony, like they're mad at you. They just flare. The third one is my favorite: you walk in and they do a double take and they look really scared, like, Why is he dressed like that? He knows my secrets!'

"...According to a 1994 Los Angeles Times survey, nearly half of American priests believe that birth control is seldom or never wrong; even more say the same of masturbation. As a result, few Catholics hear preaching on touchy sexual issues on any given Sunday.

"This is about to change, say the seminarians at Mount Saint Mary's -- they have every intention of preaching on these topics, and some deacons already have done so in the parishes they were assigned to last summer....

"After asking permission from his pastor, Cook preached against contraception in the parish he was assigned in Omaha, Neb., last summer. 'I was nervous,' he recalled. 'If I hadn't really prayed on it and done it in a way that I think was not overbearing.... I said, "What is the nature of marriage? To give of oneself." I didn't use the word "contraception" until the end. People came up to me afterward and said, "No one ever preaches on that. Thank you."'

"Holloway gave me a tape of a lecture he delivered to teen-age boys, in which he told them: 'Let me be perfectly clear. Sometimes people just won't say this: masturbation is always a seriously disordered act.... In itself, it is always wrong.' He urged the boys to confess their sins, and afterward, I was told, they did, lining up in scores outside the confessionals."


"WHY IS IT O.K. TO INSULT A PREGNANT LADY?" read the headline in the April New Oxford Review: "Even in an age when sensitivity and diversity are said to be prized, and no one would dream of asking a childless couple why they have no children, one of the last acceptable prejudices is against people who refuse to use contraception. Over the years I have wondered what drives normally polite people to cross the line into impropriety. Clearly the zero population growth (ZPG) propagandists have done a great PR job, and some people who are outspoken to pregnant ladies sincerely believe that the earth's resources are threatened by large families, that having a large family is selfish. But would any of them consider giving a lecture on more responsible use of resources or on selfishness to a stranger, an acquaintance, or even a friend who was buying a vacation home or shopping for a third car?"


FROM ASSEMBLYMAN TOM MCCLINTOCK'S March 1999 newsletter: "According to exit polling by the Los Angeles Times, 12 percent of Gray Davis' voters said abortion was one of the "most important issues in deciding" their vote. Twelve percent. Here's the funny thing about that. Thirteen percent of Dan Lungren's voters said precisely the same thing.

"Let's do a little math here. Twelve percent are rabid pro-choice voters, 13 percent are rabid pro-life voters, and the rest really couldn't care less but they'll usually tell a pollster they're pro-choice just to get the pollster to go away.

"The point is, most voters don't consider this to be a deciding issue. It is only at the margins where it becomes decisive, and then it splits about evenly.

"Now here comes the question, and it is an important one. Think about that 12 percent of hard-core single issue abortions rights Gray Davis voters. Exactly how many are going to flock to the Republican candidate because we've suddenly repudiated the pro-life voters of our party?

"Bonus question. Exactly how many of that 13 percent who are with us solely because we are pro-life, are going to stay with us once we are no longer pro-life?"


ARCHBISHOP LEVADA writing in late March: "When I read a few weeks ago that Mayor Willie Brown was about to conduct another of his now annual 'marriage' ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples at City Hall, I wondered whether to file the piece under 'March madness' or 'Lenten penance.' Unfortunately, what I suppose many thought of three years ago as our new mayor's penchant for flamboyance has now turned out to have a far more subversive purpose.

"As the news article suggested, even though this so-called 'blessing of unions' has no legal effect, since marriage is regulated by state law, it is linked to a relatively new, broad-based campaign to change the legal definition of marriage to include same-sex unions.

"...A Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) initiative has qualified for the March 2000 ballot in California. It proposes to add one sentence to the California Family Code: 'Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.'

"The Catholic bishops of California have decided to endorse this initiative. We see this as a necessary step to guarantee the institution of marriage and family in present social climate. We will do our best to provide public education on this issue through reasonable and, I hope, persuasive argument, and not with inflamed rhetoric."

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