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Contents © 2005
by Jim Holman.
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NEWS
November 2005

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NO HOMOSEXUALS IN THE SEMINARY? Though Catholic World News reported on September 19 that Pope Benedict XVI had signed a document that reiterates the Church's longstanding, though unenforced, ban on homosexual candidates for the priesthood, a September 22 Catholic News Service story said otherwise. "Several" unnamed Vatican officials, according Catholic News Service, said that Pope Benedict XVI neither had approved the document nor had set a date for its publication.

In 2001, the Holy See's Congregation for Catholic Education began work on the document that will spell out the Church's policy on admitting homosexuals into the seminary. In October 2002, sources in the Holy See told Catholic News Service that "the document's position [on admission of homosexuals to the priesthood] is negative, based in part on what the 'Catechism of the Catholic Church' says in its revised edition, that the homosexual orientation is 'objectively disordered.' Therefore, independent of any judgment on the homosexual person, a person of this orientation should not be admitted to the seminary and, if it is discovered later, should not be ordained."

According to the Catholic News Service, officials in the Holy See have said that the new document would be a reformulation of a 1961 Vatican document that said "those affected by the perverse inclination to homosexuality or pederasty should be excluded from religious vows and ordination." Since the 1961 document has never been abrogated, the officials said, it is still in force.

But an October 8, Associated Press report seemed to bely what Catholic News Service said. According to Associated Press, the pope had not only signed the document but it was not so restrictive as had been reported originally. A senior Vatican official, who requested anonymity, confirmed for Associated Press a report in the Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, which said the Holy See's document would permit into the seminary homosexual men who have lived chastely for three years before entering the seminary. But Men who display their homosexuality publicly or who show an attraction to the homosexual milieu were not to be admitted.

BUT NEVER FEAR.... The National Catholic Reporter's Rome correspondent John Allen, Jr. opined in a September 27 op-ed piece in the New York Times, though "the forthcoming Vatican document ... will unleash a wrenching debate about Catholicism and homosexuality," it does not "mean is that in the future there will be no gays in the priesthood." The continued presence of homosexuals in the seminary, said Allen, will not result simply because of "difficulties in enforcement, or the dishonesty of potential candidates, but also of design."

When the Holy See says, "no homosexuals in the seminary," it does not mean "no homosexuals in the seminary," Allen said. This is a "difficult point," lost on "many Anglo Saxons," but it means that, "as a general rule, this is not a good idea, but we all know there will be exceptions." Vatican law, said Allen, follows Italian law, which "ex presses an ideal ... a perfect state of affairs from which many people will inevitably fall short" -- unlike the "Anglo-Saxon approach, which expects the law to dictate what people actually do."

Citing the late British Catholic historian Christopher Dawson, Allen said, "Catholic cultures are based on the passionate quest for spiritual perfection ... unlike the 'bourgeois' culture of the United States, which, shaped by Protestantism and based on practical reason, gives priority to economic concerns. As one senior Vatican official put it to me some time ago, 'Law describes the way things would work if men were angels.'"

According to Allen, "policymakers in the Vatican tend not to get as worked up as many Americans by the large numbers of Catholics in the developed world who flout church regulations on birth control, for example. It's not that Vatican officials don't believe in the regulations. Rather, they believe the very nature of an ideal is that many people will fail to realize it.... The point is that, although Vatican officials will never say so out loud, few actually expect those rules to be upheld in all cases."

ALLEN CONTINUED THAT, some Vatican officials "have said that the point of the forthcoming document is to challenge the conventional wisdom in the church, which holds that as long as a prospective priest is capable of celibacy, it doesn't matter whether he's gay or straight." The practical upshot of this business, said Allen, is that "those determined to apply this decree in uncompromising fashion will be able to do so. But while the Catholic priesthood of the future may include fewer homosexuals -- and it will certainly have fewer gay seminarians and priests willing to speak openly about their situation -- it will not be 'gay free.' On the ground, as bishops and seminary teams make decisions, many will still draw on that classic bit of Italian clerical casuistry: 'If the pope were here, he would understand.'"

DESPITE NEWS OF THE CHURCH'S BAN on homosexuals in the seminary, "lesbian and gay Catholics are maintaining their faith by focusing on the day-to-day experiences in their parishes," the September 27 San Francisco Chronicle said. One of these parishes is Most Holy Redeemer in San Francisco 's Castro District -- a church that "affirms gay congregants," said the Chronicle. The Rev. Stephen Meriweather, a priest at Most Holy Redeemer, has at Mass "told parishion ers that downtrodden and misun der stood members of the commu nity have long been scorned by the 'movers and shakers' in religious leader ship, though he never specifically mentioned the Catholic Church, its leaders or recent events. 'The will of the Father is to heal rather to inflict wounds,' Meriweather said." Parishioner Bob Barcewski told the Chronicle that he thinks priests at the parish speak in "code words" so as not to violate Church teaching while at the same time, well, violating it. Priests at Most Holy Re deemer baptize the children of same-sex couples, and parishioners every year march in San Francisco's homosexual rights parade. A longtime parishioner at Most Holy Redeemer, Nanette Miller, a lesbian, was appointed to the board of Catholic Charities Catholic Youth Organization by Archbishop William Levada. A lesbian, Miller told the Chronicle, "I'm someone who believes you have to live how you believe, and by doing that people will change."

For this article, the Chronicle had as its token "conservative Catholic" Dale Vree, editor of the Berkeley-based New Oxford Review. "You can have a homosexual inclination," said Vree. "That's not a sin. But if you're doing homosexual acts, that's a sin, and it's a mortal sin and it could send you to hell. They [Catholics supporting homosexual rights] don't want to talk about that. What they want is for the spirit of the times, the worldly spirit, to invade the church, and that's not going to happen."

"ENJOY IT NOW. IT ISN'T GOING TO LAST," chirped columnist C.W. Nevius, writing in the September 10 San Francisco Chronicle. Nevius admitted that California's same-sex marriage bill has met defeat at the veto pen of Governor Schwarz enegger and that "11 states, including California, have passed bans on same-sex marriage" -- but, he said, defeat for the "social conservatives" is on the horizon. "The right wing is missing a powerful, building undercurrent," wrote Nevius. "Simply put, at this point, much of the younger generation has probably gone to school with openly gay peers. They also see them in the workplace and even in their neighborhoods. And they don't seem that scary." And he quoted Assemblyman Mark Leno, author of the same-sex marriage bill, who, citing "polls," said, "those over 65 oppose same-sex marriage. But those under 35 support it -- and more strongly than those over 65 oppose it."

And there is more evidence that youth have no problem with homosexual marriage, Nevius said. For one, the Gay-Straight Alliance Clubs, which are now a "commonplace" on school campuses, public and private. Nationwide, according to the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, chapters of these clubs run to 3,000, with over 400 in California. "In the Bay Area," wrote Nevius, "chapters range from exclusive Bishop O'Dowd [a Catholic school] in the East Bay to Lowell High in San Francisco and Palo Alto High on the Peninsula. Basically, a school that does not have some sort of gay-awareness organization is the exception.

"That's not good news for conservatives.

"It isn't," continued Nevius, "just that the under-35s are moving up while the over-65s are moving out. The real problem is that if the anti-gay marriage faction can't count on people being shocked and horrified by gays, they really don't have much to fall back on. There's no economic or public safety reason to keep two people who love each other from getting married. It just comes down to 'I don't like the idea so you can't do it."

UNDER-35s MAY NOT object to homosexuality because, if a recent survey is correct, the heterosexuals among them engage in essentially the same behavior as homosexuals. As the September 16 Los Angeles Times reported, a National Center for Health Statistics survey found that over half of Americans, ages 15 to 19, have engaged in oral sex, while almost 70 percent of those ages18 and 19 have done so. The study found that, of those teenagers surveyed, more had engaged in oral than in vaginal sex.

The study, funded by the federal government's Centers for Disease Control, found that 11 percent of women, ages 18 to 44, say they have had at least one homosexual experience. Only six percent of men in their teens and 20s admitted to have engaged in homosexual behavior. The question asked the women, however -- "have you ever had any sexual experience of any kind with another female?" -- can encompass anything from cuddling or a kiss to full sexual congress. According to Susan Cochran, an epidemiologist at UCLA, an Australian study that asked the same question found that 8.6 percent of women surveyed answered in the affirmative, but when the question was narrowed to include only genital contact, the percentage shrank to 5.7 percent.

The study, home interviews of 12,571 people by female interviewers, was conducted from March 2002 to March 2003. The questions about sex were relayed via computer, to maintain anonymity. A similar study conducted in 1992 study, involving 3,300 interviewees, found that four percent of women, ages 18-49, admitted to at least one homosexual experience in their lifetimes.

WHY MIGHT DEVIANT SEXUAL BEHAVIOR be on the rise? According to a September 20 Associated Press report, some experts see oral sex as a way for young people to avoid pregnancy and sexual diseases -- though a significant number of those who say they engage in oral sex do so without condoms. Women might engage in homosexual genital acts because they think sexual diseases are more readily transferred by men than women. Other experts, however, say that many college students might view homosexual behavior as a rite of passage. Elayne Rapping, a professor of American studies at the University of Buffalo, opined that "it's very safe in the academic community. No one thinks anything of it" -- homosexual behavior. But, said Rapping, since bisexuality is seen as a "badge of courage" on campuses, "to some extent there's more talk than action."

"I WAS PRETTY SURE ... that I'd end up as a butch lesbian," said Butch Greenblatt, 21, who, according to the September 15 San Francisco Chronicle, "entered middle school as a tomboy," "left as a girly-girl," at the age of 14 "came out as a lesbian," and at the age of 15 came out as a boy. Greenblatt, who, said the Chronicle, is a member of "a new generation of transgender people who come out at a young age," said he (she?) knew as early as age 5 that she (he?) wanted to be a boy. To accomplish this dream, she has been on hormone therapy for three years.

Though self-identification as "transgendered" has been more a characteristic of middle age, said the Chronicle, more youth are expressing their inner boy or girl. "People would feel a sense of shame and uncertainty and wouldn't really come to grips or find recourses until midlife," Brett Beemyn, a board member of the New York-based Transgender Law and Policy Institute, told the Chronicle; "but now with the Internet and support groups, students don't have that uncertainty or not as much self-hatred as previous generations."

SUBTLE SHADES OF SEXUALITY. The board of the Fresno Unified School District on September 28 adopted changes to its anti-bullying policy that reveal the distinctions in sexual identity deduced by today's educators. According to the September 29 Fresno Bee, the revised policy ad dresses bullying incidents due not only to "color, race, ethnic group identifica tion, religion, national origin, and physical or developmental disability," but to "a student's actual or perceived sex," "gender," and "sexual orientation." Presum ably, gender (masculine, femi nine, "trans," and, maybe, neuter?) and actual sex (male and female) are not the same thing, and both differ from perceived sex (apparently male, purpor ted ly female, and the sex-changing). Sexual orienta tion (heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual -- and why not bestial-sexual?) stands apart from all of these. Mix and match the categories, and the possibilities are mind-stretching! And all are, apparently, protected in Fresno's schools.

WHEN TWO SAN DIEGO DOCTORS refused to provide artificial insemination to a lesbian, the California Medical Association issued a brief supporting them. The doctors' group argued that the doctors had the right to follow their religious convictions in their practice. But, Associated Press reported on September 21, the medical association has rescinded its brief. Why? Because of a recent state supreme court ruling that businesses must treat registered domestic partners the same as married couples. "CMA continues to believe that the defendant physicians deserve a right to due process and a jury trial," the California Medical Association's chief executive, Jack Lewin said in astatement released September 20. "However, it is clear that CMA'spolicy commitment to oppose any form of invidious discrimination had been so significantly confused and misrepresented, that it was in the best interest of CMA to withdraw the brief." The asso ciationsaidit wanted to issue a new brief that says physicians do not have the ethical or legal right to discriminate based on sexual orientation unless they conscientiously refuse the same treatment to all patients.

Oral arguments in the case involving the San Diego doctors were scheduled to be heard in the state fourth district court of appeal in San Diego on October 11.

"AS CATHOLICS, WE BELIEVE that in this life there is no more profound union with God possible than in the Eucharist," said an article in the September 22 Catholic San Francisco, the newspaper of the archdiocese of San Francisco. "But," the article, part of a series presented by the archdiocese 's liturgical commission, continued, if the Eucharist "offers communion with divine life," it also "fosters the unity of the People of God (CCC 1325) and deepens our communion with every human being." The Mass expresses the Eucharist's social aspect in the Lord's Prayer, in which, said St. Cyprian of Carthage, "we do not say 'My Father, who art in heaven' ... we pray in public as a community, and not for one individual but for all." The sign of peace, placed as it is in the Roman Rite before communion, "expresses in gesture what we have just prayed in the Our Father, in which we ask the Father to forgive us as we forgive one another," the article said.

But "this solidarity extends beyond our own community, and the Eucharist nourishes our work for peace and justice," continued the article. "Our perception of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist should sharpen our spiritual senses to recognize His presence in others, especially in the poor.... This social aspect of the Eucharist is not some 'extra' of value only for those with a penchant for social justice. Pope John Paul went so far as to claim that the degree to which we devote ourselves to the needs of others is 'the criterion by which the authenticity of our Eucharistic celebration is judged.'"

BISHOP SYLVESTER RYAN of Monterey submitted to Pope Benedict XVI a letter of resignation on September 3, Ryan's 75th birthday, the September Observer, the newspaper of the Monterey diocese, reported. According to canon law, a bishop must submit his letter of resignation when he turns 75. The process to replace Ryan could take from to six to eight months, during which time Ryan will continue as Monterey's bishop.

Sylvester Ryan was ordained a priest for the archdiocese of Los Angeles in 1957. He served as rector of St. John's Seminary in Camarillo from 1986 to 1990, when he was named auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles. In 1992, Pope John Paul II appointed Ryan bishop of Monterey.

IT'S FOR THE LIBRARIES. Bishop Sylvester Ryan lent his episcopal prestige to a Salinas city ballot initiative, Measure V, that would raise sales taxes by a half cent, said the September 20 Monterey Herald. The monies raised from the sales tax would go to hiring new police, the restoration of recreation services, and the operation of three libraries. Madonna del Sasso Church in Salinas hosted a rally for Measure V on September 19. Speaking to the roughly 60 participants, Bishop Ryan said he supported the measure chiefly because of the libraries. "Public libraries were a critical part of my childhood," said the bishop. "I can't imagine; if you're looking to break the cycle of poverty, break the cycle of unemployment that keeps people on the lowest rung of our economic system, you must have libraries available to the public.... For them [children] not to have access to these resources is simply unacceptable, especially in a city that raised John Steinbeck."

WHEN HE WAS RECTOR of Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit, Bishop Allen Vigneron had to deal with "the often-sharp differences of opinion that we find within the Church." Writing in the September 9 Catholic Voice, the newspaper of the Oakland diocese, Bishop Vigneron said that, in response to this, he worked up what he called "Ten Rules for Handling Disagreement Like a Christian." "Whether or not the clash of opinions within the Catholic community in the U.S. has grown stronger or weakened over the last decade I couldn't say," wrote Vigneron; "however, I do know that with some frequency we still find ourselves at odds over what we think and where we want to head." Thus he offered his rules to the "family of the Oakland Diocese."

Eight of the bishop's ten rules are really a development of the first two. According to the first, the "Rule of Charity," those who disagree must disagree "with love." This does not mean that "all authentic Christian speech" need "only be weak," wrote Vigneron, "but it does mean that whatever is said ought always to be offered respectfully and for the genuine service of others, especially my hearers." The bishop's second rule is the "Rule of Publicity" -- to think with the Church. In disagree ments, "the final measure for judging what's on target and what's off the mark is what the Church thinks, not, ultimately, what you think or what I think -- not private opinion, but what the Church has said to all to know.... The criterion for our deciding our disagree ments is not one's own private opinions, but the mind of the People of God, what the Church thinks." The corollary to this rule, says Vigneron, is to "measure everything against the authoritative documents of the Magisterium."

Where is this magisterium to be found? "'Look in the places where the Church has expressed her mind with authority," wrote Bishop Vigneron. "Look in the writings of the Councils and the popes, in the Church's laws, and in the teachings of her Fathers and Doctors. Any survey or poll, no matter how extensive or accurate, if it contradicts the Magisterium, is not the Church' s mind."

THE SACRAMENTO DIOCESE'S Cathedral Square Project will provide temporary housing to the homeless, beginning in December, the September 17 Catholic Herald reported. Blessed Sacrament cathedral's Saint Vincent de Paul Society, in partnership with the Downtown Sacramento Partnership and Sacramento Self Help Housing, will administer the program, which will house five to ten homeless nightly. Applicants for the program will be screened, and priority will be given to women and children, the old, and the mentally ill. Sacramento Self Help Housing's Friendship Housing program will find shelters costing $523 a month for those selected and will put them in contact with medical and financial services.

Tensions between the homeless and neighboring business to the cathedral grew while cathedral restoration was underway; because the cathedral helped the homeless, some business owners claimed that the cathedral drew the homeless downtown. In May 2004, the St. Vincent de Paul Society met with the Downtown Sacramento Partnership and civic and business leaders from which a mediation process arose that led ultimately to the formation of the Cathedral Square Project.

THE SACRAMENTO DIOCESE agreed to sell its investment property, Lakeview Village Mobile Home Park in Citrus Heights, to the mobile home management firm of Bessire and Casenhiser, Inc. for $45 million, the September 16 Sacramento Bee reported. When residents, who are mostly seniors, had first heard in August that the diocese would sell Lakeview Village to help cover costs of legal settlements in cases involving sexual abuse by priests, they feared that a new owner would either convert the park to another use or drastically raise rents. With help from the diocese and the city of Citrus Heights, residents put together a bid to buy the park, but it came $10 million short of Bessire and Casenhiser's bid. News of the pending sale re-ignited residents' worries that their space rents would be raised. The investment company, however, says it is willing to work with residents on a fixed income and that it wouldn't raise rents anywhere as high as they would have been raised if the residents themselves had bought the park. Residents admitted that space rents would rise by at least $200 a month if they had bought the park.

Jeannie Bruins, vice mayor of Citrus Heights, expressed disappointment that the diocese did not allow residents to make a second bid. But the diocesan spokesman said the diocese would have welcomed a second bid from the residents if it had been anywhere near to the highest bid. The Citrus Heights city council is currently considering placing rent controls on mobile home parks and a temporary rent hike moratorium. Dick Bessire of Bessire and Casenhiser told the Bee that it would be "bad business" for the city to pass a rent control ordinance because his company is buying into the community.

"THAT'S NOT MY STYLE," Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a September 21 interview with Knight Ridder Newspapers when asked whether he would use the same-sex marriage issue for political advantage. The passage of a bill by the California legislature allowing homosexual marriage early in September is a sign, said the governor, of "how much out of touch the Legislature is." But, despite his being a father and a Catholic, Schwarzenegger said he was not bothered by same-sex marriage and has "the utmost respect for gay people and for gay couples. I'm not personally hung up on the whole thing." Nor would he use the issue to rally Republicans in support of the measures he was backing for the November 8 special election. "I will never use it," he insisted. "I don't want to set up one group of people against another group of people. No.... That's not my style.'"

"ONE NATION [DELETE], INDIVISIBLE...." Michael Newdow, the Sacramento atheist who has been challenging the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance won a small victory in mid September. In a September 14 ruling, U.S. district court judge Lawrence Karlton ruled that several Sacramento-area school districts must expunge "under God" from the recitation of the pledge in their schools. However, Karlton did not rule independently on whether, as Newdow claims, the pledge, as it stands, violates the First Amendment of the federal constitution but relied on an earlier decision of the federal ninth circuit court of appeals that ruled "under God" unconstitutional. This decision, however, was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear it on procedural grounds, thus rendering it invalid. Thus, according to legal experts, instead of going to the U.S. court of appeals and then the Supreme Court, the Sacramento case might end up back on Judge Karlton's desk.

Michael Newdow hopes the case goes all the way to the Supreme Court. The Sacramento school districts in mid September faced a possible court order from Karlton to halt the pledge in their schools. Meanwhile, both Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state superintendent of schools, Jack O' Connell, urged the school districts to appeal the ruling. O'Connell said he would help the districts to defend the pledge in court.

AS FOR PROPOSITION 73, the Parents Right to Know and Child Protection initiative, Governor Schwarzenegger at first said he supported its primary aim, but that he was unsure whether he would endorse it. "I have a daughter," Schwarzenegger told the Sacramento Bee on September 20, "I wouldn't want to have someone take my daughter to a hospital for an abortion or something and not tell me. I would kill him if they do that." The governor, who has two teenaged daughters, clarified that he was speaking only of a metaphorical killing. But he continued, "it will be the ultimate of being outraged about it and angry about it. They call me when my daughter falls off the jungle gym in the school and they say, 'What do you want us to use? Can we put a Band-Aid on it? Do you want to come in? She's crying a little bit.' They call us about everything. I don't want them in that particular incident not to call us."

Three days later, however, Schwarzenegger announced that he supported Proposition 73. In a statement, a governor's spokesman said, "just as the law involves parents in all other medical decisions with a child," the governor "doesn't believe abortion should be any different." But according to a September 26 LifeSiteNews.com report, though Schwarzenegger endorsed the proposition, he said he would not actively campaign for it.

Despite his support for parental notification, Schwarzenegger is pro-abortion. Asked by the Bee what he would do if one of his daughters sought an abortion, the governor said, "then I would deal with that also."

MORAL ISSUES STILL DIVIDE people in today's society, was the stunning insight of an article in the September 25 Fresno Bee. For instance, while some see abortion as a separate issue from women's equality, others think them intimately connected. Norveen Brar, a sophomore at Edison High School in Fresno voiced the position of one side of the moral spectrum. "I believe women's rights and abortion rights are tightly intertwined," said Brar. "That is our unborn child being killed, and it is our right to have an abortion because it is a part of our body and is our choice to kill that part of us." Though the antecedents to his pronouns were a little murky, another Edison sophomore, Tristan Schlotz, seemed to hold the same position as Brar. "It's their life," said Schlotz, "let them live it however they choose. If they don't want or can't afford a baby, nobody should force them to."

But teenagers disagree, the Bee pointed out. One of these is Laurie Jenson, a senior at Fresno's Mount Grove High School, who said, "I disagree that women have ultimate control over their own bodies . It gets to a point where you have to wonder why someone would ever choose to kill their own flesh, or why we would allow it. It's very selfish."

AFTER 15 YEARS, the diocese of Santa Rosa has settled the last sexual molestation case against it, Associated Press reported on September 16. The diocese said it would pay $750,000 to a Chicago man who said he had been molested in 1989 by former priest Gary Timmons at a Rohnert Park parish. The diocese has had to pay ten alleged victims nearly $1.6 million on account of Timmons, a convicted sex offender.

Since 1990, the diocese has paid nearly $20 million in molestation-related settlements.

WHY IS ORGANIZED LABOR IN DECLINE? Paul Hurtgen, a Los Angeles lawyer and former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, told the September 4 San Francisco Chronicle that it's because unions have misread workers. "Employees don't want conflict and a fight in the workplace," said Hurtgen, a veteran contract negotiator and former director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. Labor, he said, still operates on the paradigm that there is "eternal enmity between capital and labor, and we have to have this constant conflict. Hence, (labor needs) a champion, a fighter on their behalf to confront capital." But Hurtgen said he doesn't think "a majority of American employees see it that way anymore. There are different interests that employers and employees have, but there is far more in common that they would try to collaborate on rather than fight over, and unions concentrate on the fight."

But Tim Paulson, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council, disagreed. "Hell, we're not fighting enough," he said. He cited a long dispute between the Service Employees International Union and Sutter Health hospitals in the Bay Area. Sutter Health, said Paulson, has rejected union attempts to form the cooperative relationships. "I would love to see a period of time in this country when we could have more of what Hurtgen suggests," said AFL-CIO president John Sweeney. "But this is a very hostile climate. Why do employers resist the right of workers to have a greater voice and to organize? That has caused a lot of confrontational issues and that is why we have to fight to achieve some dignity and fair collective bargaining."

THIS YEAR'S HARVEST in the Central Valley suffered from a shortage of agricultural workers, the September 18 San Francisco Chronicle. According to the Irvine-based trade association, Western Growers, growers were 70,000 to 80,000 workers short during the peak harvest season. The lack of workers could cause $1 billion dollars in losses to California farmers, Western Growers estimated.

Growers attributed the decline in the number of farm workers in part to the greater availability of higher paying jobs in construction and landscaping in the Central Valley. Construction, it was estimated, could have taken 40 percent of the workforce. Increased border control, too, may have decreased the number of available workers. Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Farm Workers, however had a different take. "Cesar Chavez talked about this 40 years ago, and I continue to talk about it," he said. "Employers have never looked at and valued their workforce and paid wages and provided benefits that show the respect and dignity those workers deserve."

Not surprisingly, growers have appealed to government for aid. An agricultural jobs bill in the U.S. Senate, sponsored by Senators Larry Craig (R-Idaho) and Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) would grant 500,000 illegal immigrants temporary work permits and put them on the track to citizenship. The bill is endorsed by growers, the United Farm Workers, the AFL-CIO, the Republican Caucus, and 500 advocacy groups. While Senator Barbara Boxer has co-sponsored the bill, Senator Dianne Feinstein has opposed it, calling it "a magnet for illegal immigration."

EMPLOYERS MAY NOT BE BARRED from using money from state contracts or grants to fight union organizing activities, the ninth circuit U.S. court of appeals in San Francisco ruled on September 6. At issue was a California law passed in 2000 that prohibits companies receiving $10,000 or more in state funds from using that money to influence their own employees or those of sub-contractors to reject union membership. Under the law, companies have to keep detailed records on how they spent state money. According to the September 7 Sacramento Bee, the court said the law threatened employers' free-speech rights and violated the National Labor Relations Act. Lois Richardson, legal counsel for the California Hospital Association, said, "this was a labor union-driven bill. It was designed to advance the agenda of labor unions to the detriment of employers. So, of course, we were concerned about free speech rights being trampled on."

Unions and their supporters, however, argued that California has the right to place conditions on the use of money it grants employers. Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation, said the ruling is "another example of how hard it is these days for workers to be able to win battles ... and to improve their wages and protect their health care."

AS BIG AS FIVE FOOTBALL FIELDS. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., has plans to open a supercenter (a combination variety and grocery store) in Elk Grove outside of Sacramento, the September 16 Sacramento Bee reported. The 247,724-square-foot supercenter, one of four slated to be built in the Sacramento area, has generated both support and opposition. Wal-Mart, which has faced opposition in other communities, has taken the initiative; about 5,000 customers at its Elk Grove store have signed pledge cards to indicate their support for a supercenter and their willingness to voice their support for such a behemoth at city council meetings.

Labor unions, however, will oppose the expansion of non-unionized Wal-Mart supercenters, which are said to lower pay and benefits in the grocery industry. Jacques Lovell of Local 588 (Northern and Central California) of the United Food and Commercial Workers, said his union would mobilize community activists to fight the Elk Grove supercenter. It will not be the first time they have done so, or the last. "If we're victorious in one community, they just go to another," Lovell said. "We've had these site fights all over the state, but they just keep coming."

Wal-Mart has targeted California's Central Valley for the expansion of its supercenters, because the company knows the opposition these centers engender in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Of the 1,700 supercenters nationwide, only four operate in California. The company has plans to build 40 supercenters in the state. In other states, Wal-Mart owns stand-alone grocery stores, which, along with the supercenters, may give the company 35 percent of U.S. supermarket sales (and 25 percent of drugstore sales) by 2007, according to an Ohio retail consultant who spoke to the Bee.

NOT ALL IN ELK GROVE would welcome a Wal-Mart supercenter. "I won't go there," Ellen Hobbs of Elk Grove told the Bee. "They make money off the backs of poor people in other countries." A lawsuit alleging the same was filed September 13 against Wal-Mart in superior court in Los Angeles under California's Unfair Business Practices Act, Associated Press reported. The suit alleges that Wal-Mart does not monitor labor conditions at the plants it does business with overseas, which allegedly maintain sweatshop standards. The suit, organized by the Washington, D.C.-based International Labor Rights Fund, claims that Wal-Mart can charge lower prices than its competitors because it takes advantage of its suppliers' substandard labor practices, including forced overtime, refusal to pay minimum wage, suppression of union activity, and violence against workers.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two groups. The first group includes factory workers overseas who make merchandise sold at Wal-Mart. The second group includes workers at stores that are in competition with Wal-Mart. This group says their wages have been cut due to competition with Wal-Mart, which can charge lower prices in part, at least, because it takes advantage of injustice. The suit also alleges that Wal-Mart's claim that it follows foreign labor laws has induced some Californians to shop there rather than at the unionized stores.

CALIFORNIA WILL NO LONGER require private schools in the state to teach drivers education courses. In September, the state legislature passed, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed, a bill that on January 1, 2006 removes drivers education from the list of required courses for private schools. This is a victory for home schooling families and privates schools alike, said the Virginia-based Home School Legal Defense Association and Family Protection Ministries, which worked for the change of law. According to a September 23 press release from Family Protection Ministries, "public officials, in their concern about automobile driving safety, continue to push for increased control over driver education courses and instructors," and have over the past ten years pushed "legislation that would require teacher certification and curricula control for courses in Driver Education.

"Increased regulation of Driver Education would set a dangerous precedent of government control over private K-12 education in California," said the press release.

UNLIKELY MARRIAGE OF MINDS. The Service Employees International Union has joined hands with its customary foe, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, in endorsing Rob Reiner's "Pre-School for All" initiative, the September 8 Sacramento Bee reported. The initiative, which may appear on the June ballot, would provide every four-year-old child in the state free, half-day preschool beginning in 2010, while children in the lowest-performing school districts would be eligible in the fall of 2006. The $2.3 billion needed for the program would come from raising the income tax rate from 9.3 percent to 11 percent on the top one percent of Californians -- individuals making over $400,000 a year and couples earning over $800,000 a year. That the union and the chamber both endorsed the measure is "really historic; it's amazing," said Ben Austin, the initiative's campaign manager. "What else in California do the L.A. Chamber of Commerce and the SEIU agree on?"

"Our board overwhelmingly supported it, and most of the people who voted for it are the same people who are going to be paying the taxes," said Rusty Hammer, CEO of the Los Angeles chamber and former head of the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. "You'd be surprised to see the number of conservative Republicans, all of whom are making this kind of money, who stood up and said, 'I think this is the right thing to do, even though I'm going to have to be paying this money out of my pocket." Hammer said that he and other business leaders worked with Reiner on the ballot proposition in its early stages; because of their intervention, the initiative does not target existing California education money or businesses. According to Hammer, Los Angeles business leaders did not object to the tax hike because it would merely restore the tax rate that existed under Governors Ronald Reagan and Pete Wilson.

FATHER BENEDICT VAN DER PUTTEN, a priest formerly of the Society of St. Pius X, has been relieved of his faculties by Pope Benedict XVI, according to an announcement issued by the chancellor of the diocese of Marquette in August. Van der Putten, who, beginning in 1995, had been retreat master at the society's St. Aloysius Retreat House in Los Gatos, left the Society of St. Pius X in 2000 to seek reconciliation with Rome. In December 2003, the bishop of Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Van der Putten had gone to seek regularization, announced that he had refused incardination to Van der Putten "because of the seriousness of his admitted sexual misconduct." According to the diocese of Marquette, Van der Putten, "at one time a holder of a celebret from the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, has been dismissed from the clerical state by decree of His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI after being accused of sexual abuse of minors." Van der Putten reportedly is currently living in Hawaii.

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