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Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
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NEWS
December 2003

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WHAT WENT WRONG. The October 10 issue of the San Francisco archdiocese's newspaper, Catholic San Francisco, carried a sic et non reminiscence of what has happened in the San Francisco archdiocese and in the universal Church since the Second Vatican Council. The article written by Bishop Francis Quinn, bishop emeritus of Sacramento, gives one a glimpse into the mindset of clerics who have guided the Church for the last 40 years.

Bishop Quinn writes that "those who grew up in the archdiocese well before the Council were comfortable in a long established Catholic culture." They knew novenas, "Forty Hours Devotions, the Latin Mass with the priest with his back turned toward the people," they blessed themselves passing the church, and abstained from meat on Fridays. Children "spontaneously scrawled" J.M.J. at the top of homework papers," and even wore scapulars! Quoting Gary Wills, Quinn recalls pre-concilar piety: "'at the moment of the consecration of the Bread and Wine at Mass, there was always that hush. then the scuffling resumed, all the coughs and sniffs inhibited during the Consecration formed a firecracker series of soft percussions.'

"Then came the Second Vatican Council."

And its fruits, according to Bishop Quinn? "Now we had the Mass in English, with the priest facing the people, the Sign of Peace and holding hands at the Our Father. Fewer statues and crucifixes adorned our churches, some crucifixes were replaced with crosses without a corpus, fewer sermons on hell and purgatory. Often the tabernacle was moved from the altar to a side chapel. We had emphasis on liturgy, rather than such personal devotions as the Rosary or Our Lady of Perpetual Help Tuesdays." And, along with all this, said Quinn, we had "a gradual change from a law-and-order Church to a flexible Church; the blurring of lines of authority. 'Whatever happened to sin?'"


BUT WAS ALL OF THIS CHANGE, or some of it, good, bad, or indifferent? Bishop Quinn does not say. "It is true," he wrote, "that some of the changes were not adequately explained in advance and there have been excesses. On the other hand, some contend that the decisions of the Council have been implemented too slowly or not at all." Quinn then discussed collegiality, the "sharing of responsibility" between pope and bishops, and how "contagious" it proved to be. Soon, priests wanted collegiality with their bishop, which led to priests' senates and dissension between younger, progressive priests and the old guard, including Archbishop Joseph McGueken. Other trends were in evidence, as well, writes Quinn: priests abandoning their vocation, the simplification of habits and "lifestyles" on the part of religious, and the growth of lay ministry.

The languishing of fasting and abstinence also marked the period, writes Quinn. Also, there were "fewer and fewer confessions and more and more Communions," said Quinn; and in communion, the faithful were standing to receive both the "consecrated Bread and Wine." Regarding another sacrament, marriage, Quinn said that "in the archdiocese and in the United States generally, the annulment (or declaration of nullity) process gradually was expedited. This and other developments," he admitted, "may have resulted not from the Council documents, but from the perceived 'spirit of Vatican II' and also from the sexual revolution concurrent in the '60s with the Church Council." In the moral realm, "the controversy over Humanae Vitae erupted. Some theologians began to review the Church's teaching on birth control and the morality of human sexuality generally. Many of the Church's controverted positions centered around sex and gender, and ran counter to new trends in American society on birth control, pre-marital sex, remarriage, abortion, ordination of women."

As far as dissensions in the Church go, Bishop Quinn discusses a dialectic of "liberal" and "conservative." "We need liberal and progressive Catholics," he said, "who truly love the Church, to push us forward to new insights. And we need conservative, traditional Catholics for balance, to provide a challenge to new ideas, to insure that the Faith of the Church is not diluted when old truths are expressed through new models."

The bishop concluded: "Yes, uncertainty and apprehension accompanied some of the changes that followed the Vatican II Council. In the 1950s, we were singing 'Faith of Our Fathers.' Now, in 2003, at Mass, so often we are singing 'Be Not Afraid.'"


GRAY'S FOND FAREWELL. On October 2, outgoing governor Gray Davis signed bills that make it easier for women to obtain the "morning-after" pill at pharmacies, said the October 3 Sacramento Bee. In January 2002, the state legislature passed a law that made it easier to for women to obtain the "morning after" pill, which many call an abortifacient. Pharmacies, however, have required prescriptions, which many doctors were not willing to give out. The first bill signed by Davis on October 2 allows pharmacists to dispense the pills without doctors' prescriptions. The second bill limits the fees pharmacists can charge in assessing whether or nor women need the pills.

The Campaign for California Families on October 13 reported that on Sunday, October 12, Governor Davis signed a bill forcing state contractors to pay benefits to domestic partners of homosexual employees equivalent to those they pay for married employees. Both the California Catholic Conference and the Alliance for Catholic Health Care opposed this bill.


WHICH WAY, SCHWARZENEGGER? The October 9 Los Angeles Times reported that Democrats have "vowed to send Schwarzenegger piles of legislation on worker protections, abortion, gay rights and other topics that the moderate governor-elect might be inclined to sign -- but at the risk of alienating the conservatives who backed him." What would the new governor do? He could, the Times noted, try "to placate his base" by moving to the right, or try "to broaden" his base by moving it to the left; or he could "somehow leap over the sorts of cultural clashes that have defined California's Republican Party in recent years."

Whatever he will do in the months to come, Schwarzenegger promised at a news conference on October 6 that he would try to build ties with Democrats and independents. "There is much that we can do here if we don't take a negative approach and say, 'Oh, those ones are the villains, and they are the good ones,'" he said.


SCHWARZENEGGER'S VICTORY in the October recall election is "hasta la vista time for the far right's stranglehold" on the California state Republican party, opined Deb Price in the October 23 Sacramento Bee. Price quoted Jeb Bissiri, chairman of the Log Cabin Republicans of California, a group promoting pro-homosexual policies in the Republican Party: "The voice of the California Republican Party has been very conservative and anti-gay. And now we have the opportunity for our voice in California to be one of inclusion. The numbers don't lie: Inclusion wins." Though he does not support homosexual marriage, Schwarzenegger has endorsed full legal protection for homosexual couples.

The Log Cabin Republican types hope that the Schwarzenegger victory will "reform" the national party to become more pro-homosexual. Log Cabin's national director, Patrick Guerriero, said, "when Republicans are seen as creepy on social issues, we lose women and social moderates" -- a statement that could lead some to wonder how promoting sodomy is not, at least, equally as "creepy." Still, Guerriero is not optimistic that the national party will follow Arnold's lead. "Despite the Schwarzenegger victory and the lessons we should have learned in 1992," said Guerriero, "I see a GOP that is taking additional steps toward a civil war in the party and a culture war in the country."


WHILE SOME RETREAT CENTERS struggle to keep their doors open, the Mercy Retreat Center in Auburn is, financially speaking, doing rather well, said an October 18 Catholic Herald story. The center, run by the Auburn Sisters of Mercy, is having a hard time keeping up with reservation requests, said the Herald, the organ of the diocese of Sacramento. The retreat center's director, Colleen Gregg, said that overhead costs are offset in part by keeping the center's accommodations simple and maintaining its environment of "warm" hospitality and its "quiet and serene atmosphere."

But, despite all this, Mercy Center and other retreat centers must, said Gregg, face the critical issue of identifying their future audience. "What kind of spiritual outreach will appeal to the younger generation, whose faith and spirituality, while very important and alive, is not necessarily being nourished within the church?" Gregg asked. "Community and even contemplative faith experience is more and more made up of interdenominational or ecumenical Christian relationships."


SOME OF THE SCHEDULED retreats at the Mercy Center, however, give some idea of the direction it will take in formulating its spiritual outreach for the younger generation. On October 28 was scheduled an "Oasis Day," titled, "Deepening Your Relationship with God Through Dreamwork," led by the Rev. Dr. Rick Kuykendall. The teaser for this Oasis Day notes that "it has been said that 'A dream not interpreted is like an unopened letter from God.' In this retreat participants will be introduced to many of the tools necessary for understanding the meaning of their dreams. We will explore the principles of dream interpretation, and then have the opportunity to do dreamwork together by actually interpreting a number of participants' dreams." None better than the Rev. Dr. Kuykendall to lead this program, for he, according to the Mercy Center website, "is an ordained minister who has been presenting Dream Workshops for fifteen years." Kuykendall, who is a minister at the First Congregational Church in Auburn, is also "the founder of 'Spiritwind,' a spiritual study group," and the author of a book called Prophetess of the Earth.

From August 8-15, 2004 at the Mercy Center, Edwina Gately will direct a retreat in which participants "will explore the feminine divine and how women have a significant role to play in bringing balance and healing to our world of war and suffering." Gately, according to the Mercy Center's website, will direct participants to "take a look at the history of God as Mother and explore how women in scripture as well as contemporary women can be models of hope and new life for our globe."


NOT ONLY THE AUBURN CENTER, it seems, has wrestled with the unchurched spirituality of Generation X. Indeed, the eclectic offerings of the Center seem to mirror views expressed by Thomas Moore, quoted in an October 19 San Francisco Chronicle article, "The Immoral Majority," by Don Lattin. Lattin, the author of the just-published book, Following Our Bliss: How the Spiritual Ideas of the Sixties Shape Our Lives Today, introduces Moore after citing a January 2002 national survey conducted by George Gallup which found that one-third of Americans now describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious." Moore, whom Lattin calls "a free-thinking Catholic," is the author of Care of the Soul, which Lattin calls "one of the mega-selling spirituality books of the 1990s."

"The motivation for living an ethical life is not just intellectual or someone frightening you," said Moore. "It can be based emotionally on your sense of compassion and empathy. That's where soul and spirit come together." Moore told Lattin that what is important for the ethical life is the realization that "we're all in this together," that "we live in a diverse world and need to have empathy for people with diverse views and lifestyles. The church has tried to use fear, but it doesn't work." Moore, a former monk who left the monastery before taking final vows, expressed an inchoate, idiosyncratic Catholicism. "I'm still a monk at heart and the writing of these books is my spiritual practice,'' he said. "It's not just a job. I realize how much of my Catholicism is involved in my life, but it's not the Catholicism that the church advocates. I don't care if I follow all the rules, but I have the spirit of it. In my own way, I do practice the faith. My Catholicism is part of my nature. It's part of me. It's a cultural thing and it makes no sense to me to disown it. So the alternative is to redefine it.''


ONE MAN'S RELIGION. An employee of the University of California said he felt pressured to participate in religious ceremonies while working as assistant director of the university's MESA Success Through Collaboration outreach program, said an October 6 Oakland Tribune story. Will Osuna said that at conferences and student camps sponsored by MESA, a program that reaches out to American Indian students, students would gather in a circle to carry on Indian rituals. In such rituals, participants were invited to pass a seashell with burning sage around their bodies, and a speaker would invoke the name of God or a god. Though Osuna said he was not forced to participate in the rituals after he complained, his supervisor, he claimed, applied pressure to get him to continue to participate. Eventually, Osuna resigned his post with MESA. According to the Tribune, he is pursuing the possibility of a lawsuit alleging discrimination against the University of California.

MESA officials, however, deny any impropriety in the rituals, though they are performed by an organization with state funding. "These are not religious ceremonies. These are cultural ceremonies," Dawn Valencia, chief operating officer for MESA, told the Tribune. "It's a welcoming or centering, if you will, to get folks who are participating in a meeting or activity in the same (philosophical) place." Valencia, a member of the Chumash tribe, said real Indian religious rituals are personal in nature, not like the MESA meetings, which she likened to invocations held before university graduation ceremonies. But Ben Chavis, a member of the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina and director of the American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland, disagreed. "When whites do it, it's religion; when Indians do it, it's culture. It's a different name, but it's still religion," said Chavis. "Why don't we bring the Catholic church into school and call it culture?" he said. "Nobody would go for that nonsense."


BISHOP JOHN CUMMINS, who in October retired as bishop of Oakland, will in January 2004 join the faculty at St. Mary's College in Moraga, the October 6 Catholic Voice confirmed. Bishop Cummins will be part of the John S. Cummins Catholic Institute for Thought, Culture and Action, holding its Nathaniel and Marian Seefurth Chair of Catholic Thought, as well as serving on its board.

According to the Voice, the Cummins Institute will help college departments and campus groups "analyze the ways Catholic tradition inspires and shapes their work" and will work "to promote the Catholic culture of St. Mary's." On November 17, the institute was scheduled to host a talk by Bishop Allen Vigneron, Cummins' successor in Oakland.


A REDWOOD CITY CATHOLIC WORKER will serve 45 days in jail in San Jose for peace protesting, said an October 20 San Francisco Examiner story. Last April, Larry Purcell and 51 other protesters formed a human blockade to stop employees from entering the facilities of Lockheed Martin in Sunnydale. Purcell and most of this fellow protesters pleaded no contest to the charges of disorderly conduct. They were given three sentencing options, which included two years of probation. All took one of the options, except Purcell, who could not promise he would not carry out a similar protest during his probation time.

Purcell helped start the Redwood City Catholic Worker as a refuge for troubled youth 28 years ago. The 59-year-old Purcell had also been a priest for ten years but is now married with two children. This will not be his first jail sentence; he has served several jail terms for peace activities, including a six-month stint in 1980 for entering Lockheed Martin in search of weapons of mass destruction. "I think one of the deepest ironies is that we went and blew up Iraq because we thought they had weapons of mass destruction," Purcell told the Examiner. But with companies like Lockheed Martin making them right here in northern California, "I don't have to go to Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction," he said.


PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION BANNED. On October 21, the United States Senate voted 64-34 to ban partial birth abortion, thus joining the House of Representatives which had passed the bill three weeks earlier. President George W. Bush has promised to sign the legislation.

The passing of the partial birth abortion ban has inspired dismay among pro-abortion groups, who vow to challenge it in court. California's own senator, Barbara Boxer, who, according to the October 22 Los Angeles Times led the fight against the legislation in the Senate, said "for the first time in history, Congress is banning a medical procedure that is considered medically necessary by physicians. This is a radical, radical thing that is about to happen." Taking up the tirade that such a law violates the sanctity of a decision that must be made between a woman and her doctor alone, Boxer asked "what kind of a country would say to half of the population, 'We don't trust you?'" Senator Dianne Feinstein, who also voted against the bill, said that it " is clearly a political bill designed to fan the flames."

Pro-life groups have hailed the bill as a great victory in the fight against abortion and say that it will survive a court challenge. But David Garrow, an historian at Emory University in Atlanta who, the Times said, has studied abortion law, opined that though pro-life advocates "indisputably have succeeded in getting the message that this particular method of late-term abortion is extremely unpalatable," the victory may militate against future successes. "In so emphasizing how nasty and unpleasant late-term abortions are, I think the anti-abortion forces have unintentionally sent a very powerful, though silent, message that early-term abortions must be decisively different," said Garrow.


HOLY GHOSTS? The October 9 parish bulletin for Christ the King parish in Pleasant Hill carried the following announcement from the pastor, Father Brian Joyce: "P.S. Next weekend we celebrate Halloween with special costumed liturgies at 5:00 pm Saturday and 9:15 am Sunday. Young and old are invited to wear their favorite Halloween costumes." Following the publication of this announcement, the message board on the Christ the King website contained a number of messages from Catholics protesting the "costumed liturgies" -- which, presumably, won't feature members of the clergy in Halloween get-up, but only children in the costumes of their choice.

Father Joyce responded to the "comments and concerns" expressed in a message on the parish's website. He explained that, though Christ the King has had such Halloween celebrations for 15 years, Halloween itself hearkens back to a Christianized pagan celebration. Christians changed the celebration's meaning, wrote Joyce. "The traditional Christian approach at Halloween has been to dress as demons and devils, witches and goblins, skeletons and grim reaper[s] so that we can laugh at the powers of darkness because we know that Jesus is victorious; then we throw off costumes and masks because like the saints we are called to be new persons in Christ." Joyce pointed out that "modern advertising and merchandizing have popularized a greater variety of costumes to include our heroes and celebrities like athletes, cowboys, power rangers, wonderwoman, spiderman and their companions." Joyce, though, failed to explain how these characters fit into the theme of the victory of Christ. Nor did he explain how wearing costumes at Mass honors the mystery of Christ's presence or is not a source of distraction for children.


PARENTAL RIGHTS UPHELD. The Fairfield-Suisun school district voted 6-1 on October 23 to require schools to notify parents if their children leave school for any reason in the course of the school day -- including for abortions, testing for sexual disease, or sexual counseling -- said an October 24 Associated Press report. Now, in order to leave campus during school hours, students will have to provide the school with written permission from parents. According to Associated Press, the school district, in voting for parental notification, ignored the advice of Solano County assistant counsel, Wendy Getty, who said that children have a constitutional right to see doctors and counselors.

Barbara Mallon, the only school trustee who voted against the new policy, invoked her "obligation to all students" in her dissent. Speaking of suicidal students or those who are victims of abuse, Mallon said, "we can't know the path those few have walked. We can't know what their home lives are like."


PLANNED PARENTHOOD AFFILIATES of California, Inc., has released its 2003 legislative scorecard. The scorecard details how members of the state legislature voted on bills that deal with abortion and parental notification.

The measures used to tally the scores included a senate bill which prevents the attorney general from allowing the sale, transfer, or lease of a nonprofit health care facility in which the seller restricts the type of services that are provided at the facility. This was aimed at Catholic and other faith-based hospitals that sell to secular institutions and that try to prevent abortions from being performed in them after the sale. Another measure is an assembly bill which preserves teen pregnancy prevention programs that reduce teen pregnancy through promotion of contraception, "responsible" parenthood, and by increasing teen awareness of sexually transmitted diseases. Other measures include four amendments to the budget offered in the assembly that would have placed restrictions on Medi-Cal abortion funding and would have prohibited Medi-Cal abortion funding for minors without parental consent.

The scores for Central Valley and Northern California lawmakers (0 percent being the most pro-life score a legislator could have) are as follows for the state assembly: Greg Aghazarian: 20 percent; Patty Berg: 100 percent; Joe Canciamilla: 100 percent; David Cogdill: 10 percent; Rebecca Cohn: 100 percent; Ellen Corbett: 100 percent; Dave Cox: 10 percent; Manny Diaz: 100 percent; John Dutra: 100 percent; Loni Hancock: 100 percent; Guy Houston: 20 percent; Rick Keene: 10 percent; John Laird: 100 percent; Doug LaMalfa: 10 percent; Mark Leno: 100 percent; Tim Leslie: 10 percent; Sally Lieber: 100 percent; Barbara Matthews: 100 percent; Bill Maze: 20 percent; Kevin McCarthy: 20 percent; Gene Mullin: 100 percent; Alan Nakanishi: 20 percent; Joe Nation: 100 percent; Sarah Reyes: 100 percent; Simon Salinas: 100 percent: Joseph Simitian: 100 percent; Darrell Steinberg: 100 percent; Patricia Wiggins: 100 percent; Lois Wolk: 100 percent; Leland Yee: 100 percent.

In the state senate: Sam Aanestad: 10 percent; John Burton: 100 percent; Wesley Chesbro: 100 percent; Jeff Denham: 20 percent; Liz Figueroa: 100 percent; Dean Florez: 100 percent; Mike Machado: 100 percent; Bruce McPherson: 50 percent; Rico Oller: 10 percent; Deborah Ortiz: 100 percent; Don Perata: 100 percent; Chuck Poochigian: 20 percent; Byron Sher: 100 percent; Jackie Speier: 100 percent; Tom Torlakson: 100 percent; John Vasconcellos: 100 percent.


ONCE AGAIN, the Franciscans at St. Boniface Church in San Francisco's Tenderloin blessed animals in honor of the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, which this year fell on Sunday, October 4. This year, a reporter with the San Francisco Chronicle was on hand to ask the question, "do pets go to heaven?" Franciscan father Floyd Lotito answered the query somewhat elliptically. "All creation has been elevated through the incarnation of Jesus, and animals are part of creation," said Lotito. When the reporter responded with "that sounds like a yes," Lotito replied, cryptically, "in Heaven, if you need it, you'll have it." The opinions of other respondents were less hedged by theological care. One "Juan," when asked if all good pets go to heaven, answered emphatically, "All pets go to heaven." Another attendee, Denise, responded more indirectly, "I think pets go with their people." Another woman, Susan, who came with her dog Tasha Yar (which wears a St. Francis medal around its neck) answered, Catholic-fashion, with references to approved authors. "I hope to God that I meet my pets in Heaven," said Susan. "What do you think? Wouldn't it be a sad place without them? St. Thomas had a vision of Heaven, and he saw birds there, so Heaven has to have animals. And a Franciscan author wrote a book that said, 'When animals die, their souls merge with our souls.' I believe our pets go to Heaven with us in that way."


THE CHILDREN OF LATINO IMMIGRANTS will outnumber their parents in two decades, according to a Pew Hispanic Center report, said the October 14 San Francisco Chronicle. Not only will these children in the future make up one-ninth of school age children in the United States, they will comprise one-fourth of the new members of the nation's workforce, according the Pew Hispanic Center. But their effects, politically and socially, on the Latino population will be more profound, if the Center's predictions come to pass. While the second generation, according to the Center, will grow less supportive of affirmative action (and thus presumably more conservative), intermarriage with other racial groups will make them more liberal on abortion than their immigrant parents.


CAMPION COLLEGE will open a Washington, D.C., program next September, according to an October 22 Zenit News report. Robert Royal of the Faith and Reason Institute will be the president of the new school. The Washington school, like Campion College in San Francisco, will offer a two-year "Great Books" curriculum, with studies in theology, philosophy, literature, history, and general culture, along with opportunities to study science and languages. The program will award an Associate of Arts degree. For more information, visit www.campiondc.org, call Dennis Bartlett at (800) 375-8390, or e-mail him at dnabic@aol.com.


NO END OF ALTAR GIRLS. In a statement released October 21, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales announced that the Vatican will not withdraw its permission for the use of altar girls, said an October 22 Zenit news report. The bishops met with the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments concerning reports of a leaked draft instruction concerning liturgical abuses, which, among other items, allegedly called for curtailing the use of female altar servers. The English and Welsh bishops liturgy advisor, Father Allen Morris, said of the uncompleted liturgical instruction, "it is not possible to say for certain what it will contain. However, it is clear that bishops [will] remain free to authorize the ministry of altar girls in their dioceses; that the encouragement to Communion under both species, recently re-emphasized in [General Instruction of the Roman Missal], is not being withdrawn."

Morris also said that "liturgical dance or perhaps more accurately 'rhythmic movement' such as is indigenous to a local culture, most commonly in Asia and Africa, remains authorized" in the liturgical document. However, he said, his understanding was that "the practice of interpolating dance and other 'entertainment' into the liturgy, in ways more common in Europe and North America, continues to be considered inappropriate."

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