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Contents © 1998
by Jim Holman.
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NEWS
NOVEMBER 1998

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GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE GRAY DAVIS ADVOCATES ABORTION, opposes parental consent for abortion, favors the use of tax funds for abortion and contraceptive distribution to youth, and champions the gay-rights agenda. Despite this platform, Davis could receive a majority of the Catholic vote in November. Indeed, the Catholic vote seems to have figured into his calculations. At a September debate with his pro-life Catholic challenger Dan Lungren, Davis confidently noted that he had fared better than Lungren at a Catholic political forum sponsored by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Turning to Lungren, Davis boasted of his appearance at Loyola Marymount University: "I was pleased to be with you at the forum, the Catholic forum, which voted 3 to 1 that I made the better presentation."

Davis, in scoring this debater's point, had exploited the local Church's tendency to confuse the liberal political positions of individual Catholic officials with the official, binding teachings of the Catholic Church. For the "Catholic forum" to which Davis referred had only asked the candidates one distinctively Catholic question, a partial-birth abortion question to which Davis gave an evasive, essentially pro-abortion answer. The other three questions addressed specific policy proposals on the issues of "subsidized child care," "living wages," and "criminal justice alternatives." None of the desired responses represented official Catholic teaching. For example, the parish leaders who had drawn up the questions wanted the candidates to agree to "support an executive order requiring all state contractors to pay a living wage ranging from $7.85 an hour with health insurance or $9.00 without," as well as support a "25% increase in child care subsidies" and "community recovery beds" for "non-violent offenders."

After Davis appeared before these parish leaders, he continued to pound away at Dan Lungren for his votes in Congress to protect all unborn life. Davis's pro-abortion advertising blitz cries out for a "rebuke" from the Catholic bishops, says Lance Izumi, a fellow at the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. But Izumi isn't holding his breath, "My impression is that the bishops aren't the strongest folks around." For Izumi, a non-Catholic, the choice for Catholics in the race is clear. "Gray Davis has been making this huge pitch to pro-abortion women, but ignoring pro-life Catholics and basically imagining that they won't go to the polls...He is trying to have it both ways. He claims to be Catholic, but rejects {the Church's} teaching authority."

Why haven't the bishops rebuked Davis for his aggressive pro-abortion position? Because, according to a high-ranking Church bureaucrat, speaking not for attribution, the bishops couldn't rebuke Davis without also rebuking Lungren on "another issue."


THE SENSE OF THE FAITHFUL: THE SEPTEMBER 14 CATHOLIC VOICE, Oakland's diocesan paper, contained several letters from lay Catholics defending the Church's teaching on birth control. Mary Arnold from Pleasanton wrote: "When you live in a non-sterilized union with your husband, you tell God that you believe scripture when it describes children as blessings. Every child is worth a million dollars. By leaving your marriage open to life you tell God: 'It's your decision. We are open. We are willing. We are trustful...In Evangelium Vitae our Pope points out that the soul of one baby in the womb is more precious than the sun, the moon and all the stars in the heavens. The child is an immortal diamond whose soul will never die."

Maureen Scagliotti, a nurse from Fremont, noted that "as an ob-gyn nurse I have had a unique opportunity of caring for women from all over the world, women of all economic, educational, and religious backgrounds. Sans the Americans, many women have been exposed to the knowledge of their fertility and manage it in a natural way. Unfortunately, dissent has contributed to women in our country being ignorant of their own bodies and their potential."

Beverly McWilliams from Pleasanton wrote that "Natural Family Planning is beautiful. Both husband and wife share their gift and make themselves open to life without the wall of contraceptives between them."


SHOULD HOMOSEXUALITY, WHICH THE CHURCH CALLS an objective disorder, be integrated within the person? Yes, says Fr. Jim Schexnayder, executive director of the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries, in a letter published in the September 18 National Catholic Reporter. "The pastoral letter 'Always Our Children' affirms 'sexual orientation (heterosexual or homosexual) as a deep-seated dimension of one's personality.' Clearly this is something to be integrated rather than denied or feared."

Schexnayder neglected to mention that the Vatican has repudiated the above-mentioned section of Always Our Children.


THE JESUIT UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO is now home to the "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Student Alliance." A concerned student attended a meeting for the group on September 10, learning that it intends a "coming out day" in October. According to the student, members at the meeting gave the Jesuit university "high ratings" for having gay-friendly courses, but hoped that USF would expand its commitment to homosexual scholarship. "Which ring of Dante's hell am I in?" wondered the student. "If this is permissible, why not have a bestiality club on campus?" The student called the meeting a "rude awakening for a new student here who assumed that there would be some semblance of Catholicism on campus."

The group, the slogan of which is "Queer and Truly Here!," claims in its constitution that its work befits a "Jesuit institution in the Catholic tradition."

Meanwhile, USF's student newspaper, the Foghorn, has provided students with information on where to buy "porn mags" and "contraceptives." "If you are planning to have [sex] with someone other than yourself, Safeway (7th and Fulton) is open 24 hours and sells contraceptives," reported the September 10 Foghorn. "For general questions there is the San Francisco Sex Information Hotline at 989-7374."


IS THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA FADING? Operation Rescue, the national pro-life organization founded more than ten years ago by Randall Terry, scheduled a mid-September demonstration in Menlo Park and seven pro-lifers showed up. They were confronted by 50 noisy, placard-carrying pro-abortion supporters at the intersection of El Camino Real and Ravenswood. Nearby Kepler's Bookstore attracted a larger turnout than Operation Rescue. Menlo Park police lectured the handful of pro-lifers about the size of their large signs, which showed the dismembered bodies of aborted infants. The police said nothing about the sidewalk-blocking "choicers" a few feet away who got encouraging honks and waves from young drivers speeding along El Camino Real.

Life chains, which once drew l0,000 pro-lifers along the sidewalks of 19th Avenue in San Francisco, are no longer held there and have practically disappeared in San Jose. Less than 50 people have shown up at the South County event on Respect Life Sunday in recent years.

San Francisco's United For Life group continues to fight for pro-life causes, but it is not finding much success of late. A spokesman for United For Life, a largely Catholic group, said "a little more encouragement" from the clergy is vital to the pro-life movement's survival. This encouragement, he added, should take the form of frequent sermons on abortion, formation of parish pro-life groups, and the appearance of priests and nuns in habits at public prayer vigils and life chains.


OAKLAND DEACON JIM CAMPBELL, SPEAKING AT A CONFERENCE for the National Association of Catholic Lesbian and Gay Ministries, revealed that he received a "slap on the wrist" from Oakland Bishop John Cummins for performing same-sex blessings, a story reported in the June/July Faith. According to the October 1 Wanderer, Campbell sounded unfazed by the rebuke. He told the conference audience that it is "clear the Church cannot say 'yes' to what Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 refers to as sexual immorality...The Church can only say 'yes' to that which builds up the Church and its members. The question then is: Is it possible for a covenantal gay friendship to demonstrate sanctification? I claim that it is." Campbell noted that Oakland "pastors," not permitted to do public blessings of homosexual unions, are "continuing to do blessings in private homes with a small number of witnesses." Campbell advised a crafty approach to blessings of homosexual unions: "I am absolutely convinced that there is a way to do that publicly but we need to really prepare ourselves and the community before we push again-at least in our area."


THE ST. ANTONINUS INSTITUTE IS OFFERING A PRO-LIFE SHOPPING GUIDE. The guide lists corporations which fund the abortion industry. The 1998 edition of the guide lists over 150 major corporations which support such pro-abortion groups as Planned Parenthood and the National Organization for Women. American Express, Levi-Strauss, General Mills, Hewlett-Packard, Pillsbury, and Reebok are among the corporations on the list. According to Dr. Jean-Francis Orsini, the Institute's president, Josten's--a company specializing in the publication of yearbooks, class rings and graduation materials--ended its corporate support of the abortion industry, after learning that it would appear in the Pro-Life Shopping Guide. To receive a copy of the guide, write: Pro-Life Shopping Guide, 4110 Sessenden St., NW, Washington, D.C. 20016.


THE ATHANASIUS APOSTOLATE HELD ITS FIRST CATHOLIC RIGHTS and Obligations Conference on September 19 and 20. The Bishop of Fresno, John Steinbock, did not endorse the conference, explained Scott Kellor, founder of the lay apostolate. "In his first letter, he said he would not do so because it was the first time; in his second, he said he would neither endorse nor condemn it. But his non-endorsement sent a message to most priests here, who would not inform their people of the conference as a result, though a few did."

The conference speakers included Fr. Ignacio Barreiro, a Rome-based writer on liturgical topics; Fr. Christopher Phillips, pastor of an Anglican Use Catholic parish in San Antonio, Texas; Charles Wilson, co-founder of the St. Joseph Foundation; Joe Scheidler, a prominent pro-life activist; and convert-evangelists Scott Butler and Robert Sungenis, who debated noted Protestant speakers, ex-Catholic Robert Zins and Northern Irishman Cecil Andrews. Florida resident and convert Linda Mortin chaired the debate proceedings.

Fr. Phillips, speaking on "Defining the Catholic Warrior," compared the present situation in the Church with apostolic times, when Catholics resisted a pagan world, even as some of their teachers distorted the faith. "The Catholic Warrior of today needs the right weapons. The first of these is his tongue; the second is the Gospel. We cannot be silent," declared Fr. Phillips.

Joe Scheidler, fresh from his legal battles, presented a "Spiritual Perspective on Pro-Life," relating that struggle closely to the individual's Catholic faith. He discussed at great length the possibility of evangelizing non-Catholic pro-lifers. "We have absolute conviction," he said. "We know why we are here." He said that "we should thank God we were born in this time."

Charles Wilson spoke on "Rights and Obligations of the Catholic Faithful." Like Christ, Catholics in "the Church must suffer,." he said. But Wilson said the faithful can use canon law to stop liturgical and doctrinal abuses in the Church.

The "Traditional Mass of the Church" was the focus of Fr. Barreiro's talk. A native of Uruguay, Father said that "the faith is not only intellectual; it must be accompanied by physical experience. This was one reason for the Incarnation." He said that the Latin Mass better and more clearly expresses the nature of the Mass as a sacrifice than does the Novus Ordo. While he defended the validity of the Novus Ordo, he followed Cardinal Ratzinger and the late Fr. Klaus Gamber in admitting its limitations.

The debates at the conference concerned the Papacy. Butler and Sungenis cited the scriptures regarding the papacy, especially St. Matthew 16:18. Zins, himself a fallen-away Catholic, was quick to point out that St. Peter was corrected at the Council of Jerusalem by St. Paul; in his mind this negated papal infallibility. Andrews, in his rich Ulster brogue, said that scripture has no mention of the papacy, yet predicts the pope as "that man of perdition, drunk with blood of the saints." Among the saints he numbered were the Albigensians, but later admitted that he did not share their belief
in the creation of the world by an evil god and the moral legitimacy of sodomy and suicide.

Examples of papal malfeasance were dug up and ruminated over by the Protestant debaters: Liberius' alleged excommunication of St. Athanasius; Honorius' silencing of the orthodox in controversy with Monothelite heretics; the wicked tales of the Borgias. The Protestant side repeatedly sought to prove that the popes were not impeccable, and that this disproved papal infallibility, while the Catholics attempted to get their disputants to see the difference between impeccability and infallibility.

Two more conferences have been tentatively scheduled, one for March and another in the autumn. For details on these and other activities, call the Athanasius Apostolate at (209) 323-5003.

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