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Contents © 1997
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

NEWS
SEPTEMBER 1997

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ON JULY 17, NANCY PELOSI, A CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO CONGRESSWOMAN, killed a pro-life amendment designed to end U.S. taxpayer funding for international family planning programs which perform or actively promote abortion. Crowing about her victory, Pelosi reported to her constituents: "On Thursday, the Democratic Women of the House shut down the House of Representatives. The Democratic Women acted after the the Rules Committee Republicans put forward an amendment on international family planning agreed to in a backroom deal, that had already failed to pass in the House weeks ago. Through a series of parliamentary maneuvers, we were able to alert the nation of the GOP's intent to silence the majority." Pelosi's theatrics prompted one Capitol Hill press secretary to observe: "Pelosi, fine Catholic that she is, is one of the most pro-abortion people in the House."


IN RESPONSE TO INQUIRIES FROM THE FAITH, Dominican College in San Rafael defended its policy of extending health care benefits to homosexual couples on the grounds that the Catholic school's mission requires it: "In response to the ever-changing needs and demographics of its employees, and in keeping with its mission which embodies 'a deep respect for the dignity and worth of the individual' and its Non-Discrimination policy, Dominican College provides its employees a 'cafeteria style' flexible fringe benefits plan which provides the option for the employee to extend health-care insurance coverage and other employee benefits to a spouse, dependent child or another adult residing in the same household....In order to qualify for extended benefits coverage, unmarried couples must meet specific eligibility criteria which are detailed in a signed 'Eligibility Certification for Health Care Coverage of Domestic Partners' and must adhere to the provisions stated in the Certification."


THE VALEDICTORIAN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO'S GRADUATION CEREMONY in late May shocked parents when he thanked the Jesuit school for accepting his alternative lifestyle--homosexuality. "We were aghast," says Jo Ann Mendenhall, a mother of a USF graduate. "He was praising USF for accepting him in spite of his alternative lifestyle."

Robert MacNeil, the former PBS anchor, also spoke at the graduation ceremony held in St. Ignatius Church, lecturing students on the evil of overpopulation and the virtue of moral skepticism: "But if the 20th century has taught us anything...it is that we live on one planet and must cooperate to ensure that we don't destory it or make it unhabitable...Cooperation means, for example, limiting population growth, which could become the greatest environmental threat of all...Certainty of faith may produce the best in human nature, but certainty of ideology may also spawn the worst. It might be nice to have a new Age of Certainty--a society, a world, in which everyone knew the rules and wanted to obey them -- but I fear too much certainty."

Outraged by both speeches, Mendenhall wrote a letter of protest to USF President Fr. John Schlegel, asking him if USF was "still a Catholic institution." He did not respond.


ON AUGUST 5, THE CALIFORNIA STATE SUPREME COURT struck down a California law requiring minors to obtain parental or judicial permission for abortion. Justice Ming Chin, a graduate of Jesuit-run Bellarmine and USF, provided the swing vote in the 4-3 ruling. A holder of USF's St. Thomas More award, Chin received an effusive endorsement from USF president Father John Schlegel at his confirmation hearing in March 1996. Said Schlegel: "Justice Chin is recognized as a man of principle and faith. A man who maintains the highest ethical standards, both personal and professional. There is a line from Aristotle that summarizes my appreciation of Justice Chin. And certainly to quote the classics is appropriate for a Jesuit-educated judge. Aristotle wrote: 'We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an action but a habit.'"


THE JULY OBSERVER, THE MONTEREY ARCHDIOCESAN NEWSPAPER, featured a fawning center-spread exclusive interview with Vatican critic Richard McBrien. McBrien complained about the Pope, the Curia, Latin American bishops (whom he says are "hand in glove with the rich and the military...have no identification with the poor, and in fact who regard priests working too closely with the poor as almost quasi-Communist, people to be watched and restrained"), and NCCB President Bishop Anthony Pilla (who killed McBrien's column in the diocese of Cleveland -- McBrien blames pressure from the "right wing").


MISSION SAN JOSE COMMUNITY, A CHARISMATIC COVENANT COMMUNITY, launched a new magazine in June called California Mission. The publication focuses on the life and work of Blessed Junipero Serra, exploring ways in which his vision can be applied today. Other issues covered include preparation for the Jubilee Year, Marian devotion, and the teachings of Pope John Paul II. The community operates under spiritual direction from Father Gerard Beigel, S.T.D., associate pastor of St. Leonard's Church in Fremont and a former professor at USF's St. Ignatius Institute. Subscriptions are $16/year (6 issues). Write: The California Mission, PO Box 24589, San Jose, CA 95154.


POPE JOAN? A LENGTHY RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICE reprint in the May 5, 1997 issue of the Catholic Voice, the diocesan paper of Oakland, claims that a ninth-century woman infiltrated the priesthood, was eventually elected pope, but died in childbirth after "a torrid love affair with a knight." The article, reviewing a new novel, Pope Joan, by Donna Woolfolk Cross, laments the alleged slave-like position of women in the Middle Ages, and notes that the "new evidence" Cross says she discovered in support of the Pope Joan legend ensures that women will once again be able to become bishops and popes.

Doctor Elizabeth Gleason, professor of history at the University of San Francisco, says that the legend of Pope Joan "is really quite far-fetched....In the Tenth Century, the Papacy went through a very unsettling period when it was kind of a political football between the Roman noble families. This legend arose at that point. The writer's placement of the story in the ninth century is certainly out." The legend initially arose during an argument between Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII in the eleventh century, says Gleason, and again in the Fourteenth Century, when King Philip IV of France was fighting Pope Boniface VIII over the power to tax Church property. The story doesn't qualify as the "persistent legend" presented in the RNS piece, says Gleason.

According to Gleason, an element of the Pope Joan legend may be traced to Roman noblewomen managing family political interests or powerful abbesses taking over Church business while bishops neglected their duties. "The fact is that in the Tenth Century there were pretty scandalous popes who were appointed essentially because of the power of their families, and there were some very powerful noble mothers who were pushing their own sons. But the papacy at this point was almost insignificant, because the real spiritual influence of the Church was with the Benedictine monks."

Regarding the article's depiction of the role of women in all medieval cultures, Gleason notes, "You get a very mixed picture. That women were scorned -- certainly there were Church fathers who said women are a source of temptation. But remember, all through Church history, there has been the idea of women as the noblest of God's creations through Mary. The ordinary woman was certainly not taken to be on the level of the ordinary man. But one cannot say that all women at all times were looked down upon. It just doesn't work." Gleason notes that many historians are rethinking this view of oppressed medieval women. She recommends Medieval Households (Harvard University Press) by the late Harvard professor David Herlihy, Women in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Syracuse University Press) by Mary Beth Rose, and Medieval Woman (Cambridge University Press) by the late English economic historian Eileen Power.

Gleason notes that she has never read anything about the Pope Joan Legend in these works and would expect them to deal with the issue if it were considered at all reliable.

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