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Contents © 2004
by Jim Holman.
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NEWS
January 2004

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SAYING THEY HAD TO "give witness to the whole moral truth," the United States bishops in their annual meeting in Washington, D.C., affirmed that homosexual sex is a sin, said a November 13 Zenit news report. In a 234-3 vote, with three abstentions, the bishops, while affirming the injustice of discrimination against homosexuals, declared that same-sex civil unions are unjust. Currently, in the United States, only Vermont permits same-sex civil unions, while Hawaii and California extend some marital benefits to same-sex liaisons.

The bishops also approved a statement on agriculture and trade policy, called "'For I was hungry and you gave me food': Catholic Reflections on Food, Farmers and Farmworkers." The statement says that the "forces of increasing concentration and growing globalization" in agriculture "are pushing some ahead and leaving others behind." Bishop Ronald Gilmore of Dodge City, Kansas, the chairman of the bishops' Ad Hoc Committee on Agricultural Issues, said that on the issue of agricultural subsidies the bishops tried to steer a middle course. "We recognize that agricultural subsidies can have a damaging effect on struggling farmers in developing nations," said Bishop Gilmore. "We're not suggesting that we should wipe the slate clean, but we believe we can reduce and target U.S. subsidies so that small and moderate sized farms can compete while the negative impacts on developing countries are minimized." The bishops' new document, said Gilmore, "examines agricultural issues in the light of Catholic social teaching, encouraging Catholics to seek the 'common good' on issues of food and agriculture and affirming the dignity and rights of farmers, ranchers and farm workers, both here and around the world."


SANCTIONS FOR PRO-ABORT POLITICIANS. The United States bishops on November 10 also said they were thinking of recommending sanctions against politicians who favor policies on abortion and other issues contrary to Church teaching, said an Associated Press report. Bishop Joseph Galante, a member of the bishops' task force on this issue, did not specify what sanctions may be available to bishops, saying canon lawyers and theologians would have to research the issue. The chief question to be decided is whether politicians who support pro-abortion legislation should be excommunicated. "I'm tired of hearing Catholic politicians saying, `I'm personally opposed to abortion, but I don't want to impose my moral judgments on anyone else,"' said Bishop Galante. "Politicians make moral judgments all the time. That's a weaseling out of something."


ON THE FEAST OF THE DEDICATION of the Basilicas of Saints Peter and Paul, November 18, Father Berg of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter celebrated what was probably the first Tridentine Latin High Mass (Missa Cantata -- 1962 Missal) in over 30 years at the Carmel Mission Basilica in Monterey. The afternoon Mass was part of a pilgrimage for the altar boys of St. Stephen's parish in Sacramento. Over twenty altar boys assisted, and about 100 people attended. The schola cantorum, led by Jeffrey Morse, chanted the Mass ordinary, Stelliferi Conditor Orbis. The offertory hymn, Jesu Dulci, was sung with alternating verses in organum (parallel perfect fifths), while the communion hymn, Ave Verum Corpus, was from the old mission repertoire.


"PROGRESSIVE INVESTORS," including such Catholic investor groups as the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary and Christian Brothers Investment Services, asked Cisco Systems to rethink its payment structure for top executives, said a November 11 San Francisco Chronicle story. Cisco, a computer networking firm, was to vote November 11 on a proposal, submitted by progressive investors, to compare the pay of its top executives with that of its employees. Julie Tanner, corporate advocacy coordinator for Christian Brothers Investment Services, told the Chronicle that her investment group, which manages investments for Catholic entities, including dioceses, looks "to protect the vulnerable, which is the lowest-paid workers. Everyone's looking at the top. Well, let's look at the bottom. What's the proportionality between the two?"

Cisco claims that it already fairly compensates all its employees. While the company issues no statements detailing its lowest pay scales, it does give information on executive salaries. Though Cisco's chief executive officer, John Chambers, received a salary of one dollar in fiscal 2003 (several years ago he decided to decrease his salary until business conditions improved), yet stock options he received in 2003 may come to $34.8 million. By their expiration date in 2012, they may reach $85.7 million. The company's chief development officer in 2003 received a salary of $447,120 along with $764,897 in bonus and options whose worth could reach between $3.1 million and $7.7 million.


MORE THAN 6,000 people live on the streets in Alameda County, according to a recent census, said the November 7 San Francisco Chronicle. The census, which was conducted in February and March of 2003 by the Alameda Countywide Homeless Continuum of Care Council, showed that of the 6,215 homeless people counted, over 60 percent live in Oakland and Berkeley, with about a third living in suburban and semi-rural areas. About half of those counted were single adults, nine percent were couples, and 15 percent were adults with children. The study said that 1,755 children live with homeless adults, thus making up 28 percent of Alameda County's homeless population. The census defines "community homeless" as those who live for less than 30 days in emergency housing or other housing, such as voucher-paid housing, or at someone else's house, or on the streets, in vehicles, and other shelters not meant for human habitation. The census also counted the "chronically homeless" -- those who have been homeless for a year or who have been homeless at least four times in the past three years. The census counted 1,280 chronically homeless -- about 21 percent of the homeless population counted.

In 1997, said the Chronicle, Alameda County estimated its homeless population to be from 9,000 to 12,000 people. Since the early 1990s, the county has constructed shelters which now house about 4,000 people. The recent study does not count the over 4,000 people who are classified as "marginally housed" -- a population that is periodically homeless.


ANTIDOTE FOR DEPRESSION. "The spread of depressive states is worrying," Pope John Paul II told the 18th International Conference on Depression, organized by the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, said a November 14 Zenit news report. The pope told the conference that "psychological and spiritual human frailties are manifested which at least in part are induced by society." The consumerist messages spread by the media, said John Paul, are among the societal influences leading to depression. "It is important to be aware of the repercussion that messages transmitted by the media have on persons, by exalting consumerism, immediate satisfaction of desires, the ever greater race for material well-being," said the pope.

To counteract these influences, said John Paul, "it is necessary to propose new ways so that each one will be able to build his own personality, cultivating the spiritual life, foundation of a mature existence." For people undergoing the "spiritual trial" of depression, the pope recommended meditating on the Psalms "in which the holy author expresses his joys and anxieties in prayer." The pope also recommended the recitation of the rosary in order to see Christ through the eyes of Mary, and participation in the Mass, "source of interior peace."


CALIFORNIA JUSTICES were to decide whether Catholic hospitals and Catholic Charities are religious organizations, said the November 14 Tidings, the newspaper of the archdiocese of Los Angeles. In a court hearing slated for December 2, the California Supreme Court was to hear arguments made by Catholic Charities and other Catholic organizations that the Women's Contraceptive Equity Act should exempt religious hospitals and universities. The act, passed by the California legislature in 1999, requires HMO insurance packages to provide coverage of Food and Drug Administration-approved prescription contraceptive methods. Though exempting religious employers, the act so narrowly defines the term "religious employer" as to exclude religious hospitals and universities; only those religious entities which solely employ or offer services to members of their own religion are exempt under the law.

"Healing the sick, offering charity to the poor and providing education to the young are fundamental to how Catholics practice their religion," Ned Dolejsi, executive director of the California Catholic Conference, told the Tidings. "We don't ask people if they're Catholic first." Martina O' Sullivan, president of Catholic Charities of California, said hers and other Catholic organizations would be exempted from the law only "if we turned our back on the basic teachings of our religion and employed only Catholics, provided charity and social services only to Catholics, educated only Catholics in our universities and treated only Catholics in our hospitals." Catholic Charities argues that the law violates the freedom of religion guarantees enshrined in the United States and California constitutions.


A 70-YEAR-OLD NUN is among those who have complained that they were subjected to strip searches and other humiliating forms of treatment at San Francisco County jails, said the November 17 San Francisco Chronicle. Sister Bernie Galvin was arrested earlier in 2003 for participating in a San Francisco peace protest. She charges she was subjected to a strip search, even though "I had no weapons or contraband. I'm completely nonviolent," said Sister Bernie; "It was clearly unwarranted." According to the Chronicle, others, also being held on minor charges, were subjected not only to strip searches (sometimes, it is alleged, standing naked or nearly so for as long as 12 hours), but were deprived of food and water and left in "safety" or isolation cells. At least four lawsuits have been filed against the county since April 2003.


EIGHTEEN PEOPLE from Berkeley and Oakland were to participate in the yearly protest at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly the School of the Americas) at Fort Benning, Georgia, said the November 17 Oakland Tribune. Among the eighteen are two women who were arrested last year for the protest and served time, a Berkeley Catholic Worker, and Father Bill O'Donnell of St. Joseph the Worker Catholic church in Berkeley. Father O'Donnell served six months for a 2001 protest when he and others "crossed the line" onto the property of Fort Benning. The yearly protest includes a solemn funeral procession to commemorate the innocents who died brutal deaths at the hands of graduates of the School of the Americas. Protestors charge that the school, funded by the United States Congress, has trained and still trains foreign military officers and police in violent methods to suppress dissent in their home countries. The U.S. Army school, which has trained about 60,000 Latin American officers since its opening in 1946, has said it has changed in recent years. Critics deny this claim. According to the Tribune, before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, protestors came close to influencing Congress to close the school.

On November 24, the Tribune reported that Columbus, Georgia police counted 10,000 protestors at the November 23 demonstration. According to Eric la Compton, who coordinated the demonstration, this is the largest turnout yet for the annual protest. The protest faced a larger number of police than usual, with 60 civil officers joining military police. The increased number of police, it is said, stemmed from the concern that protestors at a Miami demonstration against the Free Trade Area of the Americas would join the Fort Benning demonstrators.


LOOKING FOR ANARCHISTS. In a memorandum sent to local law enforcement, the FBI detailed the activities of anti-war protestors and asked local police to look out for any suspicious activity at anti-war protests, said the November 22 New York Times. The memorandum is a fruit of increased surveillance by the FBI of anti-war groups in order to identify anarchist and "extermist elements" in their number. The FBI says it is not targeting the peaceful speech of most protestors but is aiming to prevent violence and even terrorist activity at anti-war demonstrations.

The FBI memorandum related both legal and illegal activities of anti-war groups. Among the "innovative strategies" used by anti-war groups, said the memorandum, is the videotaping of arrests in order to "intimidate" the police. The FBI gathered its intelligence through public sources (as the internet), informants, first-hand observation, and other methods. The memorandum spoke of camps run by anti-war groups "to rehearse tactics and counter-strategies for dealing with the police and to resolve any logistical issues."

Critics of the FBI surveillance say it is a return to the 1960s and '70s when FBI director J. Edgar Hoover sent agents to spy on, and to harass and discredit, political figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr., which led to tighter restrictions on FBI activity. The Times said these restrictions were significantly relaxed last year when U.S. attorney general John Ashcroft gave agents permission to attend rallies, services at mosques, and events "open to the public." Civil rights advocates have charged that, in the wake of September 11, federal and state officials have been spying on anti-war protestors and have infiltrated planning meetings of anti-war groups. A constitutional lawyer at American University, Herman Schwartz, told the Times that he thought the FBI's increased surveillance is probably legal, but, "as a matter of principle, it has a very serious chilling effect on peaceful demonstration. If you go around telling people, 'We're going to ferret out information on demonstrations,' that deters people. People don't want their names and pictures in FBI files."


"OUR GOVERNOR, the governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is an immigrant who is fulfilling the American dream. I want one of my moms who too is from another country to have the right to immigrate. She cannot because California does not recognize marriage for same-sex couples. My mom does not have the same rights our governor has, simply because she is gay." So said 15-year-old Marina Gatto to a crowd of activists gathered at Castro and Market Streets in San Francisco to hale the Massachusetts Supreme Court' s ruling that homosexual marriage should be legal in Massachusetts. On November 18, the court told the Massachusetts legislature that it had 180 days to find a way to allow homosexual couples to marry. According to the November 19 San Mateo Daily Journal, homosexual activists since mid-summer had been preparing a rally in the event of the expected court decision. Rally organizers had asked Marina Gatto to prepare a speech for the rally. Gatto had served as the marshal for the San Francisco Gay Rights parade last June.

Gatto told the rally that "the rest of the country should look to the example that the Supreme Court of Massachusetts has set and realize that the end has now come in continuing unchallenged this pattern of discrimination against LGBT people and families," Marina's biological mother, Ramona Gatto (a nine-time champion kick boxer), said that "Arzu [her lover], Marina and I are the poster children for LGBT families so you're going to see our family being the first to lead the way. In the meantime, Arzu is still my wife, I'm still her wife and Marina still calls us both her mom. We are a family nonetheless."


AN EMPLOYEE AT LONGS DRUGS in Rocklin, near Sacramento, has been denied her religious right to observe Sunday as a holy day, said a November 18 Pacific Justice Institute press release. The employee gave Longs Drugs formal notice that working on Sunday violates her religious beliefs; she asked that she be excused from work on that day. Longs denied her request even though, according to the Pacific Justice Institute, it would not cause an undue burden on any of her fellow workers. Longs furthermore informed the employee that if she persisted in her request not to work on Sundays, they would demote her and reduce her work schedule. On behalf of the employee, the Pacific Justice Institute sent a letter to Longs Drugs, stating that, according to both federal and state law, employers have to accommodate an employee's religious conscience. The letter demanded that Longs accommodate the employee's request, since it appears Longs is out of compliance with the law.


NO BAN IN THE BAY. In the wake of the United States Congress' ban on partial birth abortion, a U.S. district judge in San Francisco placed a temporary injunction on the new law, said a November 7 Associated Press report. Judge Phyllis Hamilton responded to a suit by Planned Parenthood Federation of America, saying the new law was unconstitutional because it provided no exemptions for a woman's health. Hamilton's ruling affects 900 Planned Parenthood clinics across the nation. A New York federal judge made a similar ruling, barring enforcement of the ban against members of the National Abortion Federation. These rulings, and another ruling by a Nebraska judge, affect a majority of abortionists across the country.


SAN FRANCISCO JOINS THE FRAY. On November 25, the city of San Francisco petitioned a federal judge to allow the city to join a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood of San Francisco against the partial birth abortion ban. According to the November 26 San Francisco Chronicle, city attorney Dennis Herrera argued that enforcement of the law would be detrimental to public health services, "potentially endangering the health and lives of the city's neediest women.'' The city has a stake in the lawsuit, said the city's motion, because a clinic at San Francisco General Hospital offers second-trimester abortions to needy women. The city also argued that because of the law's vague wording, doctors do not have fair warning about what procedures the law bans. A hearing by U.S. district judge Phyllis Hamilton to decide on the city's request was scheduled for January 7.


MOLESTATION ROUNDUP. The diocese of Santa Rosa was sued by a 37-year-old man who said he was molested by a now-defrocked priest, Gary Timmons, said a November 24 San Francisco Chronicle report. Joseph Canada said Timmons molested him from 1977 to 1981. Canada was eleven years old when the alleged molestation began. The diocese has faced several lawsuits concerning Timmons, including six this year. So far the diocese has paid $7.4 million to settle cases involving Timmons, who spent four years in prison for molesting boys.

The diocese of Oakland settled a lawsuit with former Navy Seal and Gulf War veteran, Mark Bogdanowicz, said the November 26 San Francisco Chronicle. Bogdanowicz accused Father Robert Freitas, of molesting him over twenty years ago at Santa Paula Catholic church in Fremont. In December 2002, Freitas pleaded guilty to molesting Bogdanowicz. According to the settlement, the diocese will pay $1 million in damages to Bogdanowicz, plus $50,000 for counseling and therapy. Freitas agreed to pay Bogdanowicz $16 million. In January 2003, Freitas was sentenced to six months in county jail and five years probation; but because the United States Supreme Court struck down the state law under which Freitas was convicted, he served no time.

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