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ROAMIN' CATHOLIC






Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
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NEWS
JULY/AUGUST 2003

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THE MORNING-AFTER PILL may eventually become an over-the-counter medication, said the May 19 New York Times. The Times noted that morning-after pills, such as Preven, are to be distinguished from RU-486, or mifepristone, which is an abortifacient. Mifepristone can trigger an abortion up to 12 weeks after conception, while morning-after pills prevent conception from occurring. Yet, the Times noted, researchers do not know how the pill works -- it either delays ovulation or prevents a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus." On May 14, New Mexico became the fourth state to allow pharmacists to distribute morning-after pills without a doctor's prescription. Legislators in fourteen other states are trying to get similar laws passed. California, said the Times, has an arrangement similar to that of Washington, where doctors issue standing prescriptions and pharmacists dispense the pills and monitor their use. An application to approve over-the-counter dispensing of morning-after pills is pending to be filed with the federal Food and Drug Administration.

The American Life League has said that morning-after pills are abortifacient. But neither the League, nor National Right to Life, plans to oppose approval, said the Times.


DALY CITY'S PLANNED PARENTHOOD clinic was slated to close at the end of May, said a May 7 San Mateo County Times story. Planned Parenthood Golden Gate's president Dian Harrison told the Times that the clinic was forced to close for financial reasons. A severe drop in donations from individuals and foundations, coupled with many patients' inability to pay for abortion services, has forced the clinic's closure. With the closing of the Daly City clinic, women wanting abortions will have to go to San Mateo or San Francisco. A clinic employee, speaking anonymously, told the Times that, based on past closures of other clinics, Planned Parenthood will probably lose 70 percent of the clients who would otherwise go to the Daly City clinic.


BISHOP RYAN OF MONTEREY has appointed Father Peter Crivello, pastor of Resurrection parish in Aptos, as vicar general of the diocese, said the May Observer, the organ of the diocese of Monterrey. Crivello will replace Monsignor Charles Fatooh, who stepped down in February over media questioning of his dealings with Monsignor Robert Trupia. Trupia, a priest of the diocese of Tuscon, Arizona, who had been suspended over allegations of pedophilia, had been a consultant for the diocese of Monterrey. After his suspension, Trupia went to live in a condominium owned by Fatooh in Maryland. Father Crivello will fill Fatooh's erstwhile post while continuing to serve as pastor of his Aptos parish.

Crivello participates in prison ministry, said a May 21, 2002 Mid County Post article, and promotes helping the homeless and the poor. His parish also offers Natural Family Planning courses. But the priest, who will be second only to Bishop Ryan in the diocese, also, according to the Post, wishes the Church would lift the requirement of mandatory clerical celibacy and says he has not heard a convincing argument against ordaining women. Yet, Crivello said he thinks that priests and religious should observe their vows of celibacy.


SCARLET LETTER "A." The May 13 Sacramento Bee carried letters critical, and in support, of American Life League's "Deadly Dozen" advertisement. The advertisement (carried in the June Faith and other publications) pictures and names twelve California politicians who claim to be Catholic but yet support abortion. The advertisement reads, "you can't be both Catholic and pro-abortion," and quotes an American archbishop: "John F. Kennedy promised he'd keep his Catholic faith out of his public service. I think all Americans -- not just Catholics -- have been paying for that mistake for 40 years."

One Bee letter writer, Robert Leo Lavelle of Sacramento, wrote that the "good and loyal public servants" pictured "are no more pro-abortion than the rank-and-file Catholics who attend Sunday Mass." Who is to decide, he asked, whether or not they should receive communion? Letter writers Bob and Johanna Durgan of El Dorado Hills, though, reminded readers that "the Catholic Church defines abortion as murder of the innocent unborn....You cannot receive the sacraments of the church if you are a murderer." Since the Church, not the state, "handles" morality, the subject of abortion "is clearly the responsibility of the church, not the state," said the Durgans.

D.L. Day of Carmichael praised the American Life League's advertisement and issued this further challenge to its members "to further their advocacy of life by purchasing another full-page ad -- one that pictures all Catholic political figures who supported President Bush's pre-emptive invasion of Iraq." Tim Belke of Carmichael said the advertisement had nothing to do with the separation of church and state. "This is about integrity and hypocrisy and scandal," he said. "The Catholic Church has had enough scandal. We don't need the scandal of pro-abortion politicians claiming to be Catholic any more than we need homosexual priests preying on young boys. We should be applauded for cleaning house."

Pete Salinas, Jr., of Sacramento wrote that he was "very proud" as a young man "that I was an American and also a good Catholic just like [John F. Kennedy]. I was also very proud that he was not going to change 'the Constitution' and let the Vatican rule." Salinas said "the political administration now in power, under the name of 'American Life League,' has started a witch hunt for Democrats who are pro-choice." If the pope permits this, he said, America will repeat the history of the Spanish Inquisition. Sonya Winchell of Sacramento agreed. Suspecting the dioceses were behind the advertisement, she mused that "for the cause of the 'unborn,' the Catholic Church has turned back the clock to medieval times and brought back the scarlet 'A.' Instead of adultery, it's now abortion."


WHAT'S A CATHOLIC POLITICIAN TO DO? In his "Feed My Lambs" column in the May 17 Catholic Herald, Bishop William Weigand of Sacramento gave his answer. Though abortion is legal, Catholic politicians, said Weigand, should work to limit abortions. Referring to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's Doctrinal Note, approved by Pope John Paul II, Weigand wrote "that a Catholic politician should do all that he or she can, under the particular legislative circumstances, to limit abortion and to work towards eliminating it." Serving in public office, wrote Weigand, "is a high and important calling," and he expressed "deep admiration for Catholic politicians who are not only willing to serve in public office, but do so in a way in which their faith informs their decisions and positions; who find a way of not divorcing their faith from their political life."

"Fidelity to their Catholic faith," said Weigand, would require Catholic politicians "to oppose expanding access to abortion; to try to limit abortions in incremental ways; to find ways to favor the unborn infant and the mother, such as supporting legislation to assist women and their children so women will not feel forced into having abortions because they are poor; to support restrictions on late-term abortions; to support requiring parental consent for minors, etc." "Moderate approaches" of this sort, wrote Weigand, would not cost politicians their positions, since such approaches "reflect the 'common sense' view of the majority of Californians."


BUT, "RATHER THAN WORKING toward limiting abortion, many Catholic politicians have done much to make California the most pro-abortion state in the country," continued Bishop Weigand's article. "Many Catholic politicians have gone way beyond what their duties of office require of them. They have supported legislation to expand access to abortion. They have opposed limitations of any kind on abortion, such as: legislation to ban partial birth abortions; required parental consent, or even notification, before an abortion is performed on an under age girl; informed consent for women pondering an abortion." The bishop then listed pro-abortion several measures which have passed the California legislature, with the support of Catholic politicians -- including one that would require all hospitals in the state to administer "emergency contraceptives" and another forcing all doctors in state medical schools to learn abortion procedures. To oppose these measures would not have threatened the legality of abortion in the state, said Weigand; "none of these measures was required of legislators by their office." As a concession, however, Weigand noted that, "of course. these Catholic politicians have also supported much good legislation and exercised responsible leadership in other matters."

Bishop Weigand reiterated what he wrote in his January 25 and February 8 Catholic Herald columns, that anyone "...who thinks it is acceptable for a Catholic to be pro-abortion is in very great error, puts his or her soul at risk, and is not in good standing with the Church. Such a person should have the integrity to acknowledge this and choose of his own volition to abstain from receiving Holy Communion until he has a change of heart."


THREE PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS serving a mostly black population in the archdiocese of San Francisco will be restructured and one will close, said a May 9 Catholic San Francisco article. All of the four schools have suffered from under-enrollment and financial shortfalls. In plans submitted by their parish pastors, the St. Dominic and Sacred Heart parish schools will combine into one school, while the third, St. Emydius, will restructure and combine its primary grades. The fourth school, St. Paul of the Shipwreck, will close. In April, parents and children who hoped to save St. Paul of the Shipwreck picketed the San Francisco chancery office, chanting, "save our school!" Franciscan Father John Heinz, the school's principal, who had recommended the closing of the school to Archbishop William Levada, said at the time of the picket he hoped "someone, somewhere could see the problem and come to the aid of the archdiocese and the school and turn this around. Some billionaire, somewhere." The archdiocese said it will help place St. Paul of the Shipwreck students in other parochial schools, where space is available.


STEINBOCK HONORED. Bishop John Steinbock of the diocese of Fresno received the 2003 Calegari Award of the California Association of Natural Family Planning for "significant and enduring contributions" to Natural Family Planning in the state of California, Catholic News Service reported on May 12. The award, given by the California Association of Natural Family Planning, was given for Steinbock's long commitment to Natural Family Planning, exemplified by his 2002 pastoral letter, "Life-Giving Love of Husband and Wife in Light of the Teaching of the Church on Marriage and the Family." Steinbock in 2002 also hosted a convocation of Fresno diocesan clergy on the subject of the Church's teaching on artificial contraception. In his pastoral letter, Steinbock said he wants "to bring the clear teaching of the Church regarding conjugal love to our young people and couples and to better articulate that teaching." Steinbock noted that, though couples may space births, they may not use artificial means to do so. Bishop Steinbock's entire pastoral can be read on the website of the diocese of Fresno at http://www.dioceseoffresno.org/letters/index.html.


A FORMER CANON LAWYER who sat on the San Francisco archdiocese's tribunal faces charges of having molested a child over 30 years ago, according to a May 22 San Francisco Chronicle report. The Marin County district attorney's office has charged the Reverend Gregory Ingels with one count of oral copulation with a 15-year-old boy at Marin Catholic High School in 1972, where Ingels taught two years before he was ordained. The alleged incident is said to have occurred at a gathering of the youth's family at Muir Beach. According to the May 24 Monterey County Herald, the complaint against Ingels said he recently had made incriminating comments in a conversation with the alleged victim. These comments were tape-recorded by police.

According to the Herald, Ingels was one of four canon lawyers employed by the Canon Law Society of America to draft a legal interpretation of child abuse used to guide the United States bishops in their sexual abuse policy, adopted last June. These recommendations included the clause that ''even a single act of sexual abuse of a minor -- past, present and future" on the part of a cleric should be grounds for his dismissal from ministry.

According to the Herald, San Francisco archdiocesan spokesman, Maurice Healy, the archdiocese had first heard allegations against Ingels in 1996. After an investigation in the matter, however, the archdiocese allowed Ingels to continue in ministry. After the United States bishops adopted the first version of their child abuse charter last year, the archdiocese asked Ingels to stop saying Mass.


PEACE MOVEMENT MUST BE PRO-LIFE. In a May 22 address to members of Italy's pro-life movement, Pope John Paul II said, "no action in favor of peace can be effective unless one opposes with the same energy the attacks against human life in all its phases, from its earliest beginnings to its natural end," said a Catholic News Service report. In this address, given on the 25th anniversary of Italy's legalization of abortion, the pope quoted Mother Teresa of Calcutta's 1979 Nobel Prize acceptance speech in which she called abortion "the greatest destroyer of peace today." "It's true," said John Paul. "There can be no authentic peace without respect for life, especially if it is the innocent and defenseless life of unborn children."


THE FAMILY OF LACI PETERSON, who with her unborn son allegedly was killed by her husband last December, has come forward to support legislation in the United States Congress that would make the killing of an unborn child a distinct federal crime, said the May 8 Sacramento Bee. Laci Peterson was eight months pregnant at the time of her murder. Mrs. Peterson's mother, father, stepfather, and siblings have publicly supported the bill, which was introduced into the House of Representatives and reintroduced into the Senate, on May 7. The new law (called "Unborn Victims of Violence Act" or "Laci and Conner's Law") would charge people with killing an unborn child if the killing occurred during the commission of another federal crime. Though California already has such a law, the federal law would go a step further; California only protects unborn children if they have gone beyond seven or eight weeks of development, but the federal bill would protect unborn children "at any stage of development." Similar bills have passed the House twice before but failed to win Senate approval.

Opponents of the bill, including Kate Michelman of NARAL Pro-Choice America, say it is a back-door attempt to undermine "abortion rights" in the United States. "It is a sad statement that anti-choice leaders are willing to use a family's tragedy to continue their campaign to steadily take away a women's right to choose," said Michelman -- though Congress has a history of linking legislation to particular crimes; for instance, Megan's Law. Representative Dennis Cardoza of Merced said he would support the law if it does not infringe on a woman's "right to choose."


THE AMERICAN LIFE LEAGUE launched its 2003 Crossroads walk by crossing the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco on May 29. Wearing pro-life tee shirts, the walkers carried a statute of Our Lady while praying for an end to abortion. "We had a lot of walkers," Eric Whittington of American Life League said in a telephone interview. This year, American Life League president Judi Brown dedicated the California portion of the walk to the memory of Laci and Conner Peterson. "The violent murders of Laci and Connor Peterson cannot be tolerated in a civil society and neither can the violence perpetrated on a daily basis against women and pre-born children under the guise of decriminalized abortion," said Brown.

This year's annual walk went without incident, according to Whittington. "The park police told us that as long as we didn't have signs, we were okay." Last year, park police forced walkers to take off their pro-life tee shirts or face arrest, facing fines of up to $10,000 and a year in jail.

The annual walk, which starts on the Feast of the Ascension, includes college students who give up their summer vacations to walk across the country to raise awareness of abortion in the United States. After leaving San Francisco, walkers will go to Sacramento. The walk will conclude in Washington, D.C., on the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on August 15. "We'll pick up more walkers along the way," Whittington said.


ABORTION, YES. SMOKING, NO. On May 19, by a party-line vote of 47-25, the California assembly passed a bill that would expand the buffer zone between smokers and the doors of businesses. The measure was carried by Assemblyman Juan Vargas (D-Chula Vista), a former Jesuit seminarian who has earned a 100 percent record from Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California for his support of the pro-abortion agenda. During his closing arguments, Vargas called tobacco producers "merchants of death" and opined that tobacco "causes lives to be shortened and results in tremendous problems for [smokers'] children." He also said he would write a law to make smoking illegal because of the damage it does to people's health and lives, if he thought such a law could pass. These comments came just seconds after Assemblyman Jay LaSuer (R-La Mesa) had noted that each of the members who had risen to speak in support of the legislation had straight pro-abortion voting records.


KNIGHTS FIGHT FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS. The Knights of Columbus in California are initiating a statewide campaign to inform Catholic parents of their right and responsibility to ensure their children receive a Catholic education, said the May 23 Catholic San Francisco. Michael Lee, past grand knight of St. Patrick's council in Southern California, told Catholic San Francisco, "we are trying to reacquaint Catholics with the teaching of the Church, that they are the primary educators of their children." In May, the Knights began distributing a pamphlet that alerts parents to the dangers of public schools, particularly the danger of moral relativism. Beyond this informational campaign, the Knights are exploring the means to change state laws and overturn court decisions that keep states from funding religious schools.

The article also detailed a talk given by Dominican John Farren, director of the Knights' Catholic Information Service, at St. Finn Barr's parish in San Francisco on May 2. Father Farren said that, thougth through the mid-1960s, Catholic schools were educating about 50 percent of Catholic children, today that percentage has dropped to about 20 percent. The high cost of tuition, he said, is one factor keeping many Catholic students from attending Catholic schools. He also admitted that the lack of fidelity to Catholic doctrine in many Catholic schools keeps many parents from sending their children. The answer to the first problem, Farren said, was tax credits, vouchers, or other political measures to decrease the financial burden. The answer to the second, he said, is "the new evangelization that the pope has talked about. We need the power of Jesus Christ preached with power and conviction. And we really have to pray that those who preach the faith do so with consistency. Every day we have to look to Christ and from him draw the strength we need. The more we can do that, the stronger the Church becomes."


FOR THOSE WHOSE "SPIRITUALITY" leans toward the New Age, the Mercy Center in Auburn will offer a two-day retreat, July 30-31, titled, "Handwriting and the Enneagram: Partners for Life." The retreat mistress will be Vimala Rogers, whom the Mercy Center's website describes as "a zealous pioneer in mind/hand research," an "educator," and "master alphabetician." Rogers, director of the Institute of Integral Handwriting Studies in Nevada City, California, has her doctorate in religious studies from the Universal Life Church and is author of the "bestseller," Your Handwriting Can Change Your Life. The Mercy Center is run by the Auburn Regional Community of the Sisters of Mercy.

"Although our Enneagram Soul Type does not change in a lifetime, our handwriting does, over and over again," said the Mercy Center promotional for the retreat. Why is this so? "Because the pen, whose every movement is guided by the brain, registers our self-image, which changes as we mature." Vimala Rogers' "one-of-a-kind workshop" will help participants not only discover their "Enneagram Soul Type," but will also teach them how to raise their "expression of it to the highest level through altering specific writing patterns." The workshop, said the promotional, is "radiantly alive with compassion, warmth, and respect for the human condition. All levels of Enneagram competency welcome."


ST. FRANCIS' WIFE? A May 23 Oakland Tribune article revealed this hitherto unknown "fact": St. Francis was married! Mary Ford-Grabowsky, 56, a professor at the University of Creation-Spirituality, told the Tribune that mainstream religious education is "incomplete" because it ignores the contributions of women. "What about the wisdom of half the human race?" asked Ford-Grabowsky. "Where is that?" Speaking of herself, Ford-Grabowsky said, "reading the writings of so many women was a totally transforming experience. It changed my attitude about being a woman. I'm so proud of being a woman now." Ford-Grabowsky revealed her excitement about a poem (published in her book WomanPrayers) by [St.] Clare of Assisi, whom the Tribune called "St. Francis' little-mentioned wife." "You've never even heard of her, right?" asked Ford-Grabowsky (with "clear blue eyes moist.") "There's just no effort to preserve or even publish women's writings. It's criminal," said Ford-Grabowsky.


AN INTERFAITH MEMORIAL DAY service was held at the Temple Beth El synagogue in Salinas. The service consisted of songs of patriotism and peace, readings from the Old and New Testaments and the Koran. Three Catholic priests were in attendance. Father Ron Kawczynski, lieutenant commander at the Naval Post Graduate school, led an invocation honoring the men and women who have died for the causes of peace and freedom. He prayed that we remember that the battle for peace and freedom begins inside ourselves. A Father Gilbert Urubio, from Cavite, Philippines, brought his youth choir, who sang a "song of peace," and who were raising money for their youth center in the Philippines. Lastly, Father Larry Kambitsch, pastor of Madonna del Sasso parish in Salinas, gave the final blessing: "God of Jesus, Peter, Paul, God of Theresa, Francis, Dominic, God of Muslims, Buddhists, Maoists, Taoisists, Hindus, Christians, Jews.... Help us to understand how much we mean to you, how cherished we are, and help us always as a people united in love to search for unity. You are the God of unity Lord. Teach us the mystery of working together in love...."

The meeting closed with the singing of "Let There Be Peace on Earth." Other attendees included Rabbi Bruce Kadden, Katerina Harlow (who read from the Koran); Pastor Karen McNeil of the First United Methodist Church; and the mayor of Salinas, Anna Caballero.

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