NEWS

ARTICLES

LETTERS

FOLLOW ME

ROAMIN' CATHOLIC







Contents © 2005
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

NEWS
February 2005

---

STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL Bill Lockyer seemed to back away from a statement made in early December that schools are not required to tell parents when their children leave campus for "confidential medical services," such as abortion, AIDS treatment, or psychological analysis. According to the December 2 LifeNews.com, Lockyer was addressing a state statute that says schools may release students for "confidential medical services" without parental consent; but to Lockyer, this may seemingly meant must. Said Lockyer, schools must "notify both students and their parents that students are allowed to be excused from school for confidential medical appointments without parental consent."

Under pressure, though, from grassroots, pro-family efforts, Lockyer seems to have altered his position somewhat. According to a December 14 WorldNetDaily.com report, Lockyer on a radio program said the state law he so confidently interpreted is "ambiguous." And while he still thinks children as young as 12 can leave school for "confidential medical services" without parental consent or notification, school districts which decide to require parental notification will not be sued.

MARRIAGE ON THE DOCKET. Consolidated lawsuits brought by the city of San Francisco and several homosexual and lesbian couples were heard by a San Francisco superior court judge on December 22, said Los Angeles Times and New York Times stories. Plaintiffs argue that state law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman fundamentally violates the California state constitution, which guarantees citizens the rights of "liberty, privacy, and equality." San Francisco city officials argue that since in 1948 the state supreme court struck down prohibitions of interracial marriage based on a fundamental right to marry, state law cannot forbid same-sex "marriages." The San Francisco court case arises from Mayor Gavin Newsom's move last year to recognize homosexual marriages. The state supreme court told San Francisco that it had to desist from registering homosexual couples as married and invalidated about 4,000 "marriages."

Since the state law recognizing only heterosexual marriage can be construed as restricting the rights of homosexual couples, it will face a tougher scrutiny in the courts than other non-rights-based laws would. Particularly, defendants — including various marriage defense groups and Attorney General Bill Lockyer — will have to argue that the state has a compelling interest in recognizing only natural marriage. Lockyer argues that the state in granting domestic partnerships all the rights of marriage fulfills its duty to protect the rights of homosexual couples while protecting a tradition of marriage. Louis Mauro, the attorney representing Lockyer's office, on December 22 noted to Judge Richard Kramer, who heard the case, that the people of California have determined what marriage means, and "the word 'marriage' has a particular meaning to them, and they don't want that meaning to change."

JUDGE KRAMER, THOUGH, said the controversy was "not so much what marriage is about, but who gets to be married and participate in those benefits." But the arguments of those defending marriage rest on the question, "what marriage is about." Glen Levy, representing the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, and others defending state law, have offered the more fundamental argument that "the primary purpose of marriage is procreation, and that is the reason the state recognizes marriage. If it's 'We want to make people happy,' then you couldn't exclude incest; you couldn't exclude polygamy." Plaintiffs however argue that current state law creates a "separate but equal" status for homosexual couples. Shannon Minter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights told the Los Angeles Times that while the state has a compelling interest to exclude incest and polygamy (the former for health reasons, presumably, the latter — for what? The article does not say), it can make no justification for "drawing the line based on a person's gender or sexual orientation."

DURING THE WEDNESDAY HEARING, however, Judge Kramer "seemed skeptical at some of the arguments in defense of California's marriage law, including a claim by the private citizen groups that currently married couples would suffer if same-sex couples were allowed to wed," said the December 23 San Francisco Chronicle. To Alliance Defense Fund's Glen Lavy's argument that the state has a legitimate interest in "encouraging procreation to occur within the marital relationship so that those children can grow up with their own mom and dad," Kramer asked, "will they be deterred from procreating if the people in the condo next door are a same-sex couple?" Lavy, said the Chronicle, "didn't answer directly, but argued that the state is entitled to favor opposite-sex parents, who can raise their own biological children, over same-sex parents, one of whom has to adopt the other's child." Kramer asked further why, when husbands and wives can marry, divorce, and remarry, and adjudicate issues of adoption and visitation, same-sex partners cannot do the same? Lavy said the state can make its laws to promote the ideal of life-long union between a husband and wife. Lavy argued that "it is not bigotry to oppose redefining marriage;" and unlike laws designed to forbid interracial marriages, California's law is not designed to discriminate against anyone. And Rena Lindevaldsen, a lawyer for the Campaign for California Families, added, "simply because laws discriminate — meaning they treat people differently — does not make them unconstitutional."

But proponents of same-sex marriage were disappointed by another ruling by Judge Kramer. According to a December 28 Free Speech Radio News report, Kramer said lawyers representing the city of San Francisco would not be allowed to issue briefs refuting arguments made by those defending marriage that children need same-sex parents and that homosexuality can be cured.

MAYOR NOT WELCOME. San Francisco's mayor Gavin Newsom on December 12 told a gathering at the city's Episcopalian Grace Cathedral that two Catholic parishes have said he is not welcome, said a KPIX-TV5 story. In speaking about his first year in office, Newsom, a Catholic, claimed two city pastors of prominent parishes (he did not name the parishes) told him that because of his stance on homosexual parishes he was not welcome in their churches. When asked by the Rev. Alan Jones, dean of Grace Cathedral whether, given public reaction, he had given up on his stance on gay marriage, Newsom replied, "No. How could I?" "Well you might have changed your mind," rejoined the Rev. Jones. "You might have learned something by doing something wrong." But Newsom said: "I have never felt more strongly about that decision."

THE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE to govern the disbursement of the $6 billion for Proposition 71 embryonic stem cell research, approved by California voters in November, chose its leaders December 17, according to a December 21 LifeNews.com report. Robert Klein, who wrote Proposition 71, will be chairman of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, while Edward Penhoet, co-founder of the biotechnology company Chiron Corporation, will be vice-chairman. Each will serve a six-year term.

The approval of Klein and Penhoet has elicited criticism. Berkeley attorney Charles Halpern complained that the public meeting in which they were elected by oversight committee members was conducted without timely presentation of information about each of the candidates, which, said Halpern, violates state law. "We got no information about any of the candidates until (Friday) morning," said Halpern. Halpern also complained that Klein is not a scientist. A taxpayers group has charged that several members of the oversight committee have ties to pharmaceutical companies and the biotechnology industry. Said Jerry Flanagan of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights: "the public health value of stem cell research could be significantly compromised by the web of conflicts between committee members and the companies that stand to profit from research grants. The concern is that research grants will be given on the basis of personal relationship and financial interest and not in the best interest of California patients." The California Nurses Association has made the same complaint.

ABORTION PILL LAWSUIT. The parents of Holly Patterson, the 18-year-old Livermore girl who died after taking the abortion pill RU-486, filed suit December 17 in Alameda county superior court against the drug's manufacturer (Danco Laboratories) and others allegedly responsible for Holly Patterson's death. Named in the suit as defendants are the New York-based Population Council (which sponsored the drug's development); Planned Parenthood, whose Hayward Clinic provided Holly Patterson with the drug; the emergency room doctor who treated Patterson; and ValleyCare Health System, which operates the Pleasanton hospital where Patterson died. In a statement to the December 20 South Mississippi Sun Herald, a spokeswoman for Danco defended the abortion drug, saying "no causal relationship between the use of the Mifeprex regimen and the unfortunate death of Ms. Patterson has been established."

In September Holly's father Monty Patterson met with Food and Drug Administration officials in Washington, D.C. to convince them to improve safety standards for clinics distributing RU-486 as well as to require doctors and clinics to report on adverse effects of the drug. The FDA's response was to place new warnings on RU-486 drug packages, which already carried the highest level FDA warning.

"I WAS BAPTIZED right over there," said Larry Ferraz, with tears in his eyes. He was speaking of his parish church, Sacred Heart in San Francisco's Western Addition, which closed its doors after a final Mass on December 26. "It's just overwhelming that it's closing," said Ferraz. The church, which the December 27 San Francisco Chronicle said is a "107-year-old Lombardy Romanesque-style" yellow-brick building with Roman columns, large stained-glass windows, ceiling frescoes, and a massive marble altar, is the home of one of San Francisco's only predominately black parishes. The archdiocese of San Francisco decided to close the church, citing an $8 million price tag for retrofitting the crumbling building, which suffered some damage in the 1989 Loma Prieto earthquake. The church, originally predominately Irish, became mostly black in the 1930s and '40s. During the heyday of the civil rights movement in the '60s, Black Panthers distributed food at the parish, and Filipinos and other immigrants (including Nigerian Ibos) began to attend the parish and its adjoining school. Mass attendance dwindled dramatically after the 1989 earthquake, when the city required retrofit repairs. At its closing, the church boasted a congregation mostly black and Filipino, though sprinkled with aging white hippies.

Sandy Finegan, whose family attended the parish at the turn of the 19th century, said saving the church was hindered by a 1994 state law that prohibited churches receiving landmark status. A last ditch attempt that raised $280,000 to save the church was not enough for the archdiocese which has already spent $55 million on retrofitting area churches. Despite the alleged cost of retrofitting Sacred Heart, some parishioners said they thought the archdiocese was thinking only on the money it could get for the property. Said Finegan, "It's a phenomenal church, but look at the corner it is on. It's a very large, valuable corner lot, a prime spot for development." But in September, archdiocesan spokesman Maurice Healy said the archdiocese has made "a valiant effort to save the church." But given the parish's size, the archdiocese would close the parish even if enough money were found to build a new church in the neighborhood. For old parishioners, however, the church's closure represents the loss of an old friend. "I'm devastated," said choir director Robert Pritchard. "This church is where our lives are chronicled. To not be able to praise God at this site is just unfathomable."

A TEXAS WOMAN expressed pleasure at her latest $50,000 purchase — a clone of her dead cat. According to a December 23 Los Angeles Times story, Julie (last name withheld), who works in the airline industry, is one of four who have sought the services of Genetic Savings and Clone, a Sausalito company which has developed a way of cloning cats (with dogs, thus far, they have been unsuccessful). Julie received the eight-week cloned kitten, "Little Nicky" (after its deceased prototype, "Nicky"), in December at a Genetic Savings and Clone company party in San Francisco. "He is identical. I have not been able to see one difference," said Julie. "When Little Nicky yawned, I even saw two spots inside his mouth — just like Nicky had. Little Nicky loves water, like Nicky did, and he's already jumped into the bathtub like Nicky used to do." Little Nicky is the fourth cat cloned by Genetic Savings and Clone.

But even if Julie is able to keep Little Nicky safe from the more prosaic dangers that beset cats, it is not clear even now that the cloning has been a success. A clone may suffer from "subtle abnormalities" that will in the future compromise its health or shorten its life. Dolly, the famed sheep clone, suffered from arthritis and died early, at age six.

THE ALAMEDA COUNTY JUDGE who is coordinating pre-trial proceedings surrounding 150 sex-abuse lawsuits against Northern California dioceses on December 17 set a deadline for the dioceses to turn over relevant documents from priests' personnel files as well as other diocesan documents. According to a December 18 Associated Press story, Judge Ronald Sabraw gave a December 28 deadline for dioceses to turn over documents; an earlier order by Sabraw will prevent the contents of those documents to be made public. The first trials are set to begin in early March. Sabraw said he would set further trial dates for the summer and fall at a January 14 Oakland hearing.

THE CHRISTIANS BROTHERS reached a $6.3 million settlement with three former students who claimed they were molested in the late 1970s and early '80s by teachers and counselors at a Concord high school run by the order, said a December 25 Associated Press story. According to a 1968 letter from the Christian Brothers provincial, one of the alleged abusers had been transferred to Concord after he was known to have had relationships with "sexual overtones" with students at another school. The largest of the three settlements — $4 million — is one of the largest in California. One of the alleged molesters is in a Catholic church facility that works with sexual abusers, another has left the order, while the whereabouts of the third are unknown.

SAN FRANCISCO'S DISTRICT ATTORNEY, Kamala Harris, last year decided not to prosecute exotic dancers who were arrested for soliciting sex in privaroute booths at strip clubs. Why? According to the December 19 Los Angeles Times, it was because Harris thought the dancers might have felt pressure from their employers to prostitute themselves to customers. The dancers — more accurately, strippers — were hired to strip and to offer lap dance services; but, the sex workers claim, the clubs charge the dancers such high fees, culled from customer tips, that they are almost forced to go the extra mile. Too, the dancers claim, employers in roundabout ways indicate that they want the dancers to be more gratuitous. Some strippers/ dancers, however, say the disgruntled sex workers have only themselves to blame. One such critic, Nancy Banks, says, while paying fees to employers, she earns roughly $400,000 a year precisely because she does not engage in prostitution. Said Banks, "all this boo-hooing about, 'I only brought home so much.' Well, all I can tell you is that person did not exert themselves." But despite Banks' defense of the strip club owners, at the urging of Harris and the San Francisco board of supervisors, state labor officials said they will audit the San Francisco's "strip industry." Too, the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women has been conducting hearings to explore legislation that could regulate privacy booths at strip clubs. Commission president Andrea Shorter said, "We have to make sure that every woman feels safe, no matter what her occupation. There's a whole politic around how we discuss these issues in San Francisco. The history is deep and complex."

DEEP AND COMPLEX, INDEED. San Francisco has been a pioneer in the strip industry, according the Times article. It was the first city in the country to have a topless bar, where stripper Carol Doda debuted in 1964. And though, according to the article, the city's Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre did not originate lap dancing, it "institutionalized it." The city, too, was the scene for the formation of COYOTE, Cast Off Your Old Tired Ethics, a prostitutes' rights organization. In the mid 1970s, Carol Leigh, otherwise known as Scarlot Harlot, sought to apply fair wage and workplace safety standards to both strip tease and illegal prostitution; she coined the term "sex worker" for "workers" in both "industries." Charges of forced prostitution in stripper booths are not new. Stripper Daisy Anarchy (Tracey Buel) and other activists met with former mayor Willie Brown and former district attorney Terence Hallinan to voice their complaints. But nothing was done. Why? Anarchy says it's because both Brown and Hallinan were in bed (as it were) with the "industry." According to the Times, Brown once acted as attorney to a strip club owner and in 1999 proclaimed a "Marilyn Chambers Day," for a famous Mitchell Brothers stripper. And Hallinan? After losing his district attorney job to Harris in a 2003 election, he was hired by Mitchell Brothers.

GREEK ORTHODOX PRIMATE, Metropolitan Anthony Gergiannakis, died Christmas Day at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento after suffering from Burkitt's lymphoma, said the December 27 San Francisco Chronicle. A native of Greece, Metropolitan Anthony was consecrated bishop of San Francisco in 1979 and raised to Metropolitan in 1997, presiding over 70 parishes in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii. During his tenures as bishop and metropolitan, Metropolitan Anthony oversaw the building of 20 parishes, for which he called himself the "building bishop." He worked to interest youth in Orthodoxy by establishing the Greek Orthodox folk dancing festival and sought to improve the education of his clergy by helping to found Berkeley's Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute, which offers Master's level courses in Orthodox theology. Metropolitan Anthony was something of a progressive who wanted Orthodoxy to stand open to the contemporary world and encouraged the use of English in the Orthodox liturgy. In a letter written three days before he died, the metropolitan wrote, "from the very beginning, I have felt my episcopal ministry to be a calling to stand at the frontier of faith, refusing to retreat into the well- trodden paths of religious convention and formalism. In a certain sense, one might be so bold as to say that I and this metropolis were made for each other."

MIXED RESULTS FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS. A federal study, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, gave a less than encouraging report of the progress made by charter schools, said a December 16 Los Angeles Times story. The study, released December 15, showed that, in reading, fourth graders in charter schools performed as well as their counterparts in traditional public schools, while trailing them in mathematics. While federal officials warned that the study data were "very limited," both supporters and opponents of charter schools used it to bolster their agendas. Federal deputy secretary of education Eugene Hickok said it was "good news" that "in many ways, charter school students are holding their own with public school students everywhere" — and this despite the claim made by advocates that charter schools have a disproportionate number of underperforming, inner city students and fewer experienced teachers. But critics point out that if special education students were removed from the study (eight percent of whom are in charter schools, 11 percent in regular public schools), charter school students actually did worse in reading than traditional public school students. Charter schools have a larger percentage of black and urban students than traditional public schools, though both have the same percentage of low-income students.

But another recent study conducted by Harvard University, which focused on third, fourth, and fifth-grade students in charter schools in California, found that they were 8.5 percent more likely to be proficient in reading than their peers in traditional public schools and five percent more likely to be proficient in mathematics. The study also concluded that charter schools improve over time — while the federal study found that the longer a charter had been operating, the more test scores declined in relation to traditional public schools.

A CUPERTINO PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER who calls himself an "orthodox Christian" has filed suit in federal court charging that the administrators of Stevens Creek Public School in Cupertino have restricted his speech and academic freedom, said the December 8 San Francisco Chronicle and the December 26 Los Angeles Times. Teaching history to his fifth-grade students, Stephen Williams has supplemented approved textbooks with handouts featuring quotes from the founding fathers of the United States that show, says Williams, the importance of the Christian religion in the founding of the United States. But parents have been complaining that Williams did not teach so much as evangelize. In May 2004, Stevens Creek principal Patricia Vidmar began reviewing Williams' lesson plans and handouts in advance of classes. According to court documents, Vidmar would not allow Williams to hand out a list of quotations from the founding fathers and presidents of the United States about the Bible nor would she allow him to assign an Easter exercise which, some parents have claimed, included reading the Gospel Easter story, studying some of the teachings of Christ, and interviewing Christian families and church workers. In November, Williams filed suit, charging that school administration was "systematically rejecting" all references to God or the Christian faith in his handouts and that his academic freedom was being restricted "because of its religious content and viewpoint." Williams is being represented by the Alliance Defense Fund.

Williams' case has become the focus of a fiery controversy. His supporters see the actions of the school administration as part of a larger movement to expunge the Christian religion, its symbols, and all references of it from society. Supporters of the school administration see it as a religious liberty issue. "This is not about teaching history, this is about indoctrination," said Armineh Noravian, the mother of a child who was one of Williams' former students. "What would happen if someone whose religion is not a majority religion would be doing this? It isn't OK (for a teacher) to make a kid feel like he isn't like you." Williams' case has been featured on Fox News programs and it has been alleged that the Cupertino school banned the Declaration of Independence. The school denies banning the Declaration, though passages in the Declaration were expunged from Williams' lesson plans. Cupertino schools district superintendent William Bragg said that his district follows state law in teaching the historical importance of religion, it does not proscribe "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, and has allowed Christian carols in its Christmastime music programs.

IN THE WAKE of the November 2004 election, in which voters approved $3 billion in bonds for embryonic stem cell research, came the news that the state's budget shortfall has worsened. According to the December 16 Los Angeles Times, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's various attempts to close the state's budget shortfall have not paid off. Indian casinos are not bringing in the expected amount of money to government coffers, the diversion of a share of money from punitive damages from civil lawsuits to the state is not paying off, the governor's plan to borrow $800 million for pension funds for state workers is halted in court, and the state's prisons are over budget. The projected deficit has grown to $8 billion, according to unnamed administration officials — $1.3 billion more than what was projected in November by the non-partisan legislative analyst's office. Cuts will probably need to be made, mostly from programs for health and human services.

FAMOUS JAZZ PIANIST and composer, and Bay Area native, Dave Brubeck, was granted an honorary doctor of theology by the University of Fribourg in Switzerland on November 15, said the December 13 Catholic Voice, the newspaper of the diocese of Oakland. Dominican Father Michael Sherwin, a San Franciscan teaching at Fribourg, nominated the 84-year-old Brubeck for the honor. Sherwin wrote an article for America magazine about Brubeck.

Brubeck has composed some religious music, including a 1968 oratorio on the teachings of Christ and a Mass commissioned by Our Sunday Visitor. In his America article, Father Sherwin relates that Brubeck was reluctant to compose the Mass since he was not Catholic. When the Mass, To Hope! A Celebration, was completed, it lacked an Our Father. Brubeck said he dreamt the music for the Our Father one night and immediately got up to write it down. "I knew its simplicity was working and I didn't want it to get away from me," Brubeck said. "And it's so simple, but I heard the choir and the orchestration, everything." This experience made Brubeck decide to become Catholic. "If this is what's happening, I think I'll join the church," he said.

TWO DAYS AFTER President George W. Bush signed into law a bill that calls for the spending of tax dollars to preserve the California missions, a church-state separation group filed suit to stop it. The California Missions Preservation Act authorizes the secretary of the interior to give up to $10 million over five years to the Riverside-based California Missions Foundation to repair the 21 Spanish missions. But the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed suit December 2 in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia seeking a ruling that the preservation act violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment and is thus unconstitutional. Americans United points out that 19 of the 21 missions remain centers of Catholic worship, and by funding their restoration, the federal government is funding religion. Americans United filed suit on behalf of four Californians — a Unitarian, a Jew, a freethinker, and a Buddhist.

Proponents of the funding — including the bill's sponsors Senator Barbara Boxer and Representative Sam Farr (D-Carmel) — point out the federal government has long given money for historically significant houses of worship, including Boston's Old North Church, Rhode Island's Touro Synagogue, and Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King, Jr. preached. Senator Boxer said, "this law is on very solid legal footing because the funds are going to a private foundation and not to any church. There are strong precedents for this kind of funding." Besides the federal monies, the California Missions Foundation has started a campaign to raise $50 million. It also hopes to benefit from state Proposition 40 historic preservation money.

A CRACK in the masonry of the San Carlos Cathedral in Monterey is causing concern and is being closely monitored. Built in 1770, the cathedral, also known as the Royal Presidio Chapel, is one of the oldest stone buildings in the state of California, and is also the longest continuously used church in the state.

Monterey diocese spokesman Kevin Drabinski told the December 2 Monterey County Weekly that "the building is not in any danger right now. It has good structural integrity." Nevertheless, the diocese plans a campaign this winter to raise, tentatively, $1 million to retrofit the aging structure. It is currently not eligible for monies under the California Missions Preservation Act.

The Weekly reported that according to Edna Kimbro, who five years ago led the study for restoration requirements, the building will likely need a new roof and a seismic retrofit, which, she says, will not be visible to the public. Renovation would also include repainting and refinishing the stone, as well as a new drainage system to prevent dampness. The restoration Kimbro speculates, may take as long as a year to complete.

ZORASTRIANISM, the religion of the Magi, or "Three Kings" who visited the Christ child, bringing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, has some following in Northern California, said a December 25 San Francisco Chronicle story. About 900 Zoroastrians live in Northern California; most of them immigrants from Iran and India. But the number of Zoroastrians in North America is great enough, it seems, to allow them to hold the Thirteenth Annual North American Zoroastrian Congress, which occurred December 28 to January 1 in San Jose. Zoroastrians follow the teaching of the seventh century B.C. Persian prophet Zoroaster, or Zarathustra, who taught the existence of one supreme being, Ahura Mazda, the god of goodness. According to Jamshid Varza, a Zoroastrian, of Palo Alto, Zoroastrians "believe that when things go bad, a savior will come and revive the world. Three saviors will come. Some of us believe that one of those saviors is Jesus.'' Varza was scheduled to give the talk, "Zoroastrianism in the Internet Age," at the conference held at the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose.

THE OAKLAND DIOCESE has 13 seminarians preparing for Holy Orders, said the December 13 Catholic Voice, the newspaper of the Oakland diocese. Two of the seminarians, Robinson Maturana and Guillermo Morales, are in pre-theology at Assumption Seminary in San Antonio, Texas. Three — Lee Champoochan, Paul Chen, and Carl Acosta — are in their pastoral internship years at area parishes. The remaining seminarians at St. Patrick's Seminary are Paul Mendoza, Ken Nobrega, Peter Vo, Jim Sullivan, Aidan McAleenan, Glen Naguit, Joseph Nguyen, and Clarence Zamora. The diocese asks prayers for these men. The Voice also reported that the diocese's vocations office will initiate Project Andrew, a program to encourage men to consider the priesthood.

A VISITATION OF U.S. SEMINARIES, which the Holy See discussed with the American bishops in 2002 as a response to the priest molestation crisis, will probably commence in fall of 2005, said a December 13 Catholic News Service story. During the visitation, any faculty member or student will be free to speak with visitors about the state of seminaries. "I personally think (the visitation) is going to be very helpful. I believe the seminaries today are not the seminaries they were 30 years ago. And I think that we have advanced tremendously in terms of teaching methodology, in terms of formation programs, in terms of our spiritual direction," said Bishop John Nienstadt of New Ulm, Minnesota, who chairs the U.S. bishops' committee on priestly formation. The visitors will consider the question of homosexual seminarians, which the Holy See will address in a soon-to-be-released document.

"EIN BISSCHEN MEHR NACH LINKS." In an interview that appeared in the December 18 Süddeutsche Zeitung, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was reported as saying the Republican Party should move "a little further left." After noting that the Democratic Party covers the spectrum from left to center, and the Republican party from right to center, Schwarzenegger said, "I would wish that the Republican Party cross this dividing line, move a little bit more to the left, and place more weight on the middle." This strategy, said the governor, would give the Republican Party five percent more of the vote. Schwarzenegger's comments, reported first by Fox News, inspired a storm of protest among conservatives. But according to a December 24 Associated Press report, Marc Hujer, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reporter who interviewed Schwarzenegger, said the printed interview did not accurately convey the governor's meaning. Hujer said that he had interviewed Schwarzenegger in English and then translated his comments into German in a way to make it comprehensible to German readers, for whom "left," he said, does not have the same connotation as it has in America. Schwarzenegger did not even use the word "left," said Hujer, but only noted that the governor said the party should try to capture more of the center. According to the actual transcript of the interview, Schwarzenegger said: "I think that right now the Republican Party is all the way from the right to the center, and the Democratic Party is all the way from the left to the center. And I'd like the Republican Party to cross that center line. Keep it to the right, where it is. But I mean, cross over that center line a little bit, because they would take immediately away 5 percent from the Democrats and you're home free for good."

FRANCISCANS LEAVE MISSION. The diocese of Monterey on January 1, 2005 will take control of the San Antonio Mission, which has been owned and operated by the Franciscans since 1771 (except for a time after secularization in 1834) Brother Tony Lavorin, who is semi-retired at the mission and will be transferred to Spokane, feels his order can be more useful elsewhere. "This is a nice historical place," he quipped to the December 24 Register-Pajaronian, "but I don't think it's a necessary community when people are concerned. We'd rather minister to people than buildings."

Diocesan spokesman, Kevin Drabinski, attributes the transfer of ownership to the diminishing supply of priests. According to Drabinski, the diocese has enough resources to continue running the mission as a museum and retreat center, and will also continue to offer daily and Sunday Masses there.

Nevertheless, the resources to run the mission must come from somewhere. Lavorin predicts that dioceses across the nation will start scaling back if they have not already. Lavorin says a historic grant currently helps pay for expenses.

"It's a big question about what's going to happen for the church," Lavorin said. "At one time, we had commitments all over the Western states. Since the 1970s, we've been dropping those off one at a time. We've had to look and see what places we can afford to leave."

TOP