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ROAMIN' CATHOLIC







Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
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NEWS
January 2006

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MAY CATHOLICS CALL GOD "MOTHER"? An opinion piece published in November 21 edition of the Oakland diocese's newspaper, the Catholic Voice, said, basically, "yes." When the author, Julie McCarty, first "heard someone address a prayer to 'Mother God,'" she said she "felt a little startled." But her "artistic side thought, how creative." McCarty noted that it was a "Catholic woman leading the prayer, someone held in high esteem in our motley group," who "seemed so completely at home with this idea. Could it be she was right in calling God 'Mother'?"

McCarty assured readers that she herself, "a big fan of the Trinity," was not calling for "changes to the official prayers of the Church," and that in asking her question, she was merely wondering "is God like a good mother?" Citing various places in scripture and in the writings of the saints and others that use feminine imagery to describe God, McCarty also noted that Moses used "womb imagery" for himself; the prophet asks, "was it I who conceived all this people? Or was it I who gave them birth...?" (And yet, McCarty didn't ask if one can call Moses "mother.")

Though holding a master's degree in Catholic theology, McCarty nowhere mentioned that Catholic thought has seen the word "Father" as an analogical expression of God's essence and any feminine imagery used of God as merely metaphorical -- in the same way that Moses applied that imagery to himself. McCarty's conclusion was that "pondering comparisons between loving mothers and God is a good way to expand our spiritual lives. Mother Jesus," she said, "feeds us Eucharist. The Holy Spirit continually births us into new, transformed life. God longs for us to draw close in prayer, as close as a baby feeding at the mother's breast."

THE SAME ISSUE OF THE VOICE featured a letter from one Barbara Hazzard, OSB, of Oakland, complaining that the Church does not ordain women. Referring to a photograph of diocesan priests in the November 7 issue of the Voice, Hazzard, by her admission a longtime member of the Oakland diocese, said she knows "many of our priests and deeply appreciate their dedication." However, said Hazzard, "my hope is that someday the picture will show an equal number of women priests."

The Voice carried no editor's reply explaining why the Catholic Church cannot ordain women priests.

IN EXILE. An Oakland diocesan priest, the Rev. Tim Stier, has left the active priesthood, Inside the Bay Area reported on November 28. Stier, a priest for 25 years, abandoned his post as pastor of Corpus Christi parish in Fremont as a symbol of solidarity with "those who have no voice in the Church," by which he meant homosexuals, victims of clergy sexual abuse, and divorced Catholics. Though for many years frustrated with Church leadership, the final straw for Stier was what he called the Church's failure to address the root causes of the priest shortage, which include the discipline of clerical celibacy and the teaching that women cannot be ordained. When first ordained in 1978, Stier served at St. Bede's in Hayward under Monsignor George Francis, who has been accused of molesting at least six minors over a period of 30 years. Stier said his discontent burgeoned in the mid-1990s while serving on the diocese's personnel board. The diocese, he said, began to require less experience of priest candidates, did not adequately investigate their backgrounds and did not address complaints, because it needed to fill vacancies. "We have a lot more guys living alone and a lot more guys overworked," said Stier. "The demands on a pastor were greater at the same time we were assigning guys with less experience or guys who just weren't qualified."

The Rev. Mark Wiesner, director of communications for the Oakland diocese, said Stier "is a very good man, and we will miss him in the diocese. I'm hopeful his issues will be resolved and he can again serve in the diocese as he has done so well for so many years." Though he said decisions on celibacy and women's ordination belong to the Holy See, not the diocese, Wiesner said the diocese is increasing the number of laymen in advisory roles (Stier favors greater lay involvement) and has enacted a probationary period for new pastors. According to Inside the Bay Area, "Wiesner said that some officials within the church remain unwilling to discuss such controversial issues. But he said discussions of celibacy and the ordination of women occur informally at all levels of the diocese." And, said the diocesan official, "the church has experienced more change in the last 40 years than it did in the previous 40 years. So while Tim may not be wrong about the church, I don't think the situation is as hopeless or static as Father Tim thinks it is.... The church moves very, very slowly. It's a 2,000-year-old institution."

LORETTO HIGH SCHOOL in Sacramento reached a settlement with Marie Bain, a former teacher dismissed for aiding women in getting abortions, the November 12 Sacramento Bee re ported. In October, Bishop Wil liam Weigand ordered Bain's dismissal after Wy nette Sills, the motherofa Loretto sophomore, told school officials that Bain was acting as an escort for women at a Sacramento Planned Parenthood clinic. After her firing, Bain lodged complaints with state labor agencies and took steps to file a lawsuit, alleging religious and sexual discrimination and a violation of First Amendment rights. In settling with the school (for an unspecified amount), Bain abandoned the lawsuit route "because of her high regard for Loretto, its staff and students," said her attorney, John Poswall. Bain, he said, "would like to restore civility and reasoned discourse to an outstanding educational institution."

Sister Helen Timothy, Loretto's president, echoed this sentiment in a letter to Poswall. "We, the community of Loretto, seek to restore civility and reconciliation to all parties involved in the termination," she wrote. However, whether "all parties" includes the Sills family remains to be seen. The school has barred Wynette Sills from its campus and expelled her daughter, Katelyn, because their activities in defense of the unborn jeopardized a "safe and stable campus environment conducive to learning,"according to the school. The Sills have called the school's charges "false" and "vindictive."

BAD FOR BUSINESS. California's Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the agency set up last year after Californians approved a proposition calling for state funding of fetal stem-cell research, is being hindered in doling out money because of two lawsuits. One lawsuit, filed by the People's Advocate and the National Tax Limitation Foundation, which are represented by Life Legal Defense Foundation, argues that since the institute's board members are not elected but appointed they are not state officials; and the state constitution forbids any but state officials from giving out state money. A second lawsuit, filed by the California Bioethics Council, claims that institute officials have conflicts of interest because they are either tied to the biotechnology industry or univer sities that stand to receive state grants through the institute. Officials of the institute, however, say that individual managers would recuse themselves in decisions that concern their employers.

The lawsuits are prohibiting the institute from giving out about $3 billion in research grants, since it cannot float bonds while a lawsuit that could render the bonds worthless is pending. According to Associated Press, on November 17, the California attorney general's office asked Alameda superior court judge Bonnie Sabraw to throw out the lawsuits. "We are here because the voters of this state enacted Proposition 71 last November and we haven't been able to do what the voters asked us to do because we are locked up in litigation," said a lawyer representing the attorney general. Judge Sabraw has not yet ruled on the attorney general's request.

Though it has not been able to float bonds, a $5 million donation and a $3 million loan from the state have helped keep the institute going. In September it awarded $39.7 million in grants to universities and non-profit medical organizations in California.

BENNY BUFANO'S ST. FRANCIS statue may become the hallmark of a North Beach San Francisco piazza -- at least, so beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti hopes. Fifty years ago, Ferlinghetti commemorated in a poem the placing of the 12-ton statue outside St. Francis of Assisi Church on Vallejo Street, the 145-year-old church that is now the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi. According to the November 20 San Francisco Chronicle, the statue remained in front of the church only six years. It now sits in a parking lot near Fisherman's Wharf. Ferlinghetti envisions replacing the statute in the piazza or plaza on the block that includes Caffe Trieste and St. Francis shrine. Three-time mayoral candidate and daughter of San Francisco's former mayor Joseph Alioto, Angela Alioto, has joined with Ferlinghetti to make the piazza a reality. Alioto hopes for a glass-walled shrine to St. Francis on the same block of the piazza. To help the Shrine of St. Francis (the only sanctioned shrine to St. Francis outside Assisi) with its deficit arising from its upkeep, Alioto this fall opened a gift shop in the gymnasium next to the church. She hopes a piazza and glass shrine, with a replica of the portiuncula in Assisi, would bring more prominence and attention to the church. "Eighteen million people a year go to Assisi. They're not all Catholics," Alioto told the Chronicle. "I want people to drive up Columbus Avenue and say, 'Whoa.' This should be a holy place for everyone, Muslim, Jewish, doesn't matter who you are."

The archdiocese of San Francisco seems to welcome Alioto and Ferlin ghetti's ideas for the shrine and plaza. "This being a national shrine means we want this to be a destination, and we're always working on enhancing that," the archdiocese's administrator for the shrine, Deacon Leon Kortenkamp, told the Chronicle.

WHEN GOD BECOMES CONVENIENT. The "gay" rights movement, though not particularly religious in past years, is growing more so, said the November 14 San Francisco Chronicle. Why? According to Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington, D.C., "only people of faith can demand the religious right repent from its homophobia;" the homosexual rights movement, he said, needs "to reclaim the moral values debate" and move from talk about "our rights -- as if we get a better dental plan -- into what this is really all about, and that's our basic humanity." Kara Speltz of Oakland told the Chronicle, "the left has denied there's a spiritual crisis going on in this country. It's a reaction to the right. But there is a spiritual crisis."

But, if the 18th annual national conference for the homosexual, bisexual, and transgender movement, was any indication, at least the pro-homosexual left is turning to religion. Creating Change, a five-day conference held November 8-13 at the Oakland Marriott City Center, featured such themes as "Empowering People of Faith to Create Change," "Queering Interfaith Social Action Projects," and "Organiz ing Churches and People of Faith as Allies to Our Movement." "God is on our side, and God has been on the side of those who struggle for right and righteousness from the very beginning," Dr. Yvette Flunder, pastor of City of Refuge United Church of Christ in San Francisco, told conference participants on Sunday, November 13. "I challenge you prophets to stand up. Standing up is difficult because some of us gave God up. Somebody stole God from some of us. Somebody stole our spirituality. Some of us replaced it with activism. Activism that is rooted in spirituality can bust hell wide open.... Don't let them steal your God from you. Take your God back and declare God is for us."

FROM TIMBUKTU TO TULE LAKE the Sacramento Bee gleans -- and gleefully prints -- stories of priest misconduct, charged Father Brent Nall, pastor of Holy Family parish in Weed, in the October 30 Bee. Though the Bee prints the occasional positive article about the Church, these, wrote Father Nall, "are far outnumbered by the constant litany of wire releases you print about scandals far and wide." Nall quipped that Catholics, perhaps, "should be flattered to get so much attention in the paper when other, less newsworthy religionists are relegated to the back pages." But, the priest continued, "in an anti-Catholic culture where irrational fear and hatred of the church are condoned, such editing, at least, makes good copy." In the end, however, even "this story will lose its entertainment value and start to expose the bias of The Bee's editors," wrote Nall.

But, Nall said, the Catholic scandals have brought some benefits. For one, they have brought "nationwide attention to the safety of our children.... Child abuse is a societal and family problem, not just a church problem." Then, according to Nall, "all of us, even professionals, have only recently fully realized the intractable nature of pedophilia." Nall repeated the defense that in the past bishops thought therapy and "moral repentance" could effect change in an "offending cleric," who could then be assigned to a new parish. The bishops were not covering up abuse," according to Nall; "they were only trying to spare the faithful a faith-shattering scandal, if possible, and to spare victims and their families any public embarrassment. Yes, the bishops were ignorant and wrong, but they were not malicious."

"I suppose we now have no choice but to bear the contempt heaped upon us, now grown to a heavy cross," Father Nall perorated. "Fortunately, we've learned a thing or two in 2,000 years about carrying crosses. And all of us sinners who together make up the Catholic Church will, as always, carry that cross together as one."

A REAL WITCH. One M. Macha NightMare of San Rafael, a "neo-pagan" and a witch, was featured in the Halloween edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. Describing her plans for this feast, which neo-pagans, Wiccans, and others call samhain, NightMare said she usually spent the night "with a lot of feasting and dancing, for Halloween is the time for 'communing with our ancestors' and to 'celebrate the dead,' to honor them." NightMare, whom the article called a "62-year-old educator, author and priestess, who also happens to be a witch," said she would dress up for the occasion. "I'm probably going to be dressed like a priestess -- you know, in some kind of robes," she said. "We don't normally dress up as somebody else like other people on Halloween, although we might do that. A lot of people may be dressed as different nature spirits."

NightMare told the Chronicle that she has cast spells from time to time. Her last spell "that stands out was basically a curse designed to eradicate corporate greed," she said. "I did it a few years ago on the Russian River near the Bohemian Grove during an anti-globalization protest." NightMare performed the "Curse of the Morrigan" (after an Irish "dark goddess" and "phantom queen") wearing "this incredible Morrigan mask." But this was not all. Said NightMare, "I got some stage blood that I put on a suit and white shirt that a friend donated from when he was in the corporate world.... As the people were marching from the rally site across the bridge up to the gates of the Bohemian Grove -- that's when I did the spell. I kissed the water and began washing the suit and white shirt in the river. It's kind of funny, but shortly after I did that Enron blew up."

NightMare said her father was "a very devout Catholic" and so, when growing up, she participated in the "Catholic-oriented activities." Still, she said, her mother's Methodism had a greater influence on her, since she had "more exposure to the Methodist side of the family." But not even Methodism, it seems, influenced NightMare's final conversion to neo-paganism; it was, for one, feminism, which gave her "a feminine image of the divine and thus was "so incredibly liberating and empowering for me." And then there was her "concern for the environment." Said NightMare (who, incidentally, is especially devoted to Kali Ma, "the Hindu goddess of creation known as the Dark Mother), "paganism embraces nature worship, and the whole concept of us being part of a very complex, interrelated web of life is very important to me. Discovering Paganism was like a spiritual confirmation or affirmation of that."

MS NIGHTMARE said, when asked about the afterlife, "I believe in reincarnation. That's my personal view." However, a Latino woman, Carmen Chavez of Union City, who participated in Oakland's Dia de los Muertos celebration on October 30, seemed to entertain a more rarified view of the afterlife. The October 31 San Francisco Chronicle called Dia de los Muertos a "Mexican celebration, officially recognized on Nov. 1 and 2," that "mixes Catholicism with Mexican Indian beliefs about the afterlife." But Chavez, who erected an altar to the memory of a family friend, David Castro, seemed to have little of the Catholic in her belief. "The first death comes when your body dies," she told the Chronicle. "The second death is when your body is buried in the ground. And the third and final death is when the last person who remembers you passes away." But what of immortality? "By celebrating his memory ever year, David Castro will be remembered forever," said Chavez. "He will never die."

DID DONATIONS FOR HURRICANE KATRINA victims cut into local charities? A week before Thanksgiving, donations at least to some charities were well below what they were the previous year, according to the November 17 San Francisco Chronicle. For instance, the San Jose warehouse for the Second Harvest Food Bank reported that while in previous years it had about 1,000 turkeys for Thanksgiving meals for the poor, by mid-November it had only 200. Food donations to the San Francisco Food Bank were also behind about ten percent from 2004, as were monetary donations. The San Francisco Food Bank provides 53,000 meals a day to various agencies as well as operating 134 pantries of its own. Other charities reported similar drop-offs in donations.

But not all. For instance, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Oakland reported no decline in donations. "We're hoping people saw that (Katrina) disaster and realize there's an underclass here that needs to be served," the society's executive director, Philip Arca, told the Chronicle.

A MIRACLE? A statute of the Mother of God at the Vietnamese Catholic Martyrs Church in Sacramento is reportedly weeping blood, Associated Press reported on November 27. In mid November, a priest wiped a red stain from the face of a concrete statue of Mary outside the church. On November 20, before Mass, several people noticed a reddish substance around the statute's eyes; since then, a red stream has descended from the eyes to halfway down the statue's robe. The phenomenon has already attracted pilgrims from throughout the state.

As of late November, the Sacramento diocese made no comment on the weeping statue. However, the Rev. James Murphy, deacon of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, told Associated Press, "for people individually seeing things through the eyes of faith, something like this can be meaningful. As for whether it is supernatural or a miracle, normally these incidences are not. Miracles are possible, of course. The bishop is just waiting and seeing what happens. They will be moving very slowly."

MICHAEL NEWDOW, who for the past few years has been crusading to remove the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance (at least when it is recited during government-sponsored events), has decided to go after "In God We Trust" on the nation's coinage. According to a November 19 Associated Press report, Newdow on November 17 filed a lawsuit in federal court saying using the name of God on currency is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion by the state.

But others disagree.

On Saturday, November 19, some members of a Bible church, Georgetown's Church of the Divide, picketed Newdow's Sacramento home to influence the atheist's neighbors. "We want to begin to put pressure at ground zero, at the foundation of this attack on the country," event organizer Dick Otterstad told Associated Press. "It's a culture war. It's not just the courts."

A GRANITE BAY COUPLE are suing operators of a University of Cali fornia, Berkeley website designed to help teachers teach evolution, the November 26 San Jose Mercury News reported. Jeanne and Larry Caldwell charge that the website strays from science into religion because it links to doctrinal statements from various religious groups to make the point that "most Christian and Jewish religious groups have no conflict with evolution." The Caldwells say that this amounts to state endorsement of particular religions (the National Science Foundation has given over $400,000 to the site) and represents an effort "to modify the beliefs of public school science students so they will be more willing to accept evolutionary theory as true." But Christopher Patti, counsel for the University of California, Berkeley, says the Caldwell's suit is based on an argument already rejected by the courts. According to Patti, "the courts in many cases have said evolution is a scientific idea and there is no prohibition on the government teaching a scientific idea even if it conflicts" with religion.

Larry Caldwell has sued administrators of the Roseville Joint Union High School District because, he alleges, they frustrated his attempts to convince the school board to give students material refuting Darwinian evolution. "I think we ought to be honest with students about what the scientific data shows about evolution," Caldwell said. "Clearly students need to be taught about theory of evolution. But what we say is that it's not that cut and dried from the fossil record. The fossil data leave unanswered questions about large-scale evolution. The record shows us what fossils existed but can't tell us about how they got there."

The Pacific Justice Institute represents the Caldwells in both suits.

SPECIAL TREATMENT FOR ISLAM? The U.S. ninth circuit court of appeals rejected a lawsuit by two Christian students charging the Byron Union School District of unconstitu tionally endorsing Muslim religious practice, the November 18 San Francisco Chronicle reported. In 2001, a history teacher at Excelsior School had students act as if they were Muslims for three weeks. Students were to take on Muslim names, they recited Muslim prayers in class, and during Ramadan they gave something up for a day as if they were fasting. In 2003, U.S. district court judge Phyllis Hamilton ruled in favor of the school district, saying the classroom exercises were educational, not religious, in character, and thus did not violate the First Amendment. On November 17, 2005, a three-judge panel of the ninth circuit federal appeals court agreed. "The Islam program activities were not overt religious exercises that raise Establishment Clause concerns," the panel said.

Edward White of the Thomas More Center, who represented the students and the parents, said the panel did not address his argument that the school district had violated parental rights. "What happened in this classroom was clearly an endorsement of religion and indoctrination of children in the Islamic religion, which would never have stood if it were a class on Christianity or Judaism," White said. White wants the case decided before the full appeals court.

SOME MEMBERS OF CONGRESS are pushing to split the ninth U.S. circuit court of appeals, an opinion piece in the November 23 San Francisco Chronicle revealed. Currently, the ninth circuit takes in California and eight other western states and is the single largest in the country, with 28 judges. (It needs them; this year it took on about 15,000 new cases. The second largest circuit, which includes Texas, took on 9,600 cases.) Under a proposed plan, six states would form a new district, leaving only California and Hawaii in the original district. According to the Chronicle piece, many of those congressmen supporting the split do so because the ninth circuit's rather "liberal" leaning decisions (such as the ruling that "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance constitutes a violation of the federal constitution's Establishment Clause.) These legislators hope that, with the split, such rulings would be relegated to California and Hawaii -- "liberal" states to begin with. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, former governors Gray Davis and Pete Wilson, with Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer oppose splitting the ninth circuit.

EMPLOYEES ENGAGED IN CASUAL WORK are frequently not paid the wages owed them or are paid below minimum wage, labor experts, lawyers, and the labor commissioner's office claim. According to the November 18 San Francisco Chronicle, about 40 percent of American workers are now employed in non-traditional jobs such as day labor, temporary work, and as independent contractors. Many of these workers are undocumented immigrants; others, though legally working here, do not know the labor laws and are afraid of losing their jobs if they complain. The Chinese Progressive Association in San Francisco claims that about 75 percent of the 2,000 Chinese garment workers in the city and half of the 14,000 workers in Chinese restaurants are receiving less than minimum wage. "The garment industry is so fragile here, and workers fear losing jobs," Alex Tom, a commu nity organizer with the association, said. "They're mostly Chinese monolingual women, and some are willing to work for as low as $1 an hour." Some experts claim that the decline in union membership coupled with lax enforcement of labor laws has led to increased violation of minimum wage laws and non-payment of wages.

WORKERS AT A FOSTER FARMS plant in Livingston claim the company has targeted them for union organizing activity, the November 22 Modesto Bee reported. Workers, members of the League of Independent Workers (which represents the 2,000 workers at the Livingston plant) in November carried out three "mini strikes," disrupting production. The company announced on Friday, November 18, after the strikes, that it would post the job of 30 to 50 striking employees as open, requiring them to apply for entry-level work at the plant. However, Ralph Meraz, head of the league, said that when workers returned to the job the Monday after, only a few had been demoted. "It's embarrassing for (the company). I think they wanted to teach people a lesson and I don't think they had the resources to carry it out," Meraz told the Bee.

The dispute between the league and Foster Farms management is over a vote in November 2004 in which workers at the Livingston plant decided to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union. The league wants a new contract that would require union membership of all workers (a "closed shop") at the Livingston plant. But, Foster Farms counters, over 40 percent of its Livingston employees voted against union membership and thus should not be required to join it. However, according to union organizers, every other Foster Farms plant in the state is a closed shop (the company says only "a number" are), and that the turkey processing plant in Turlock is closed, even though over 40 percent of the workers there voted against union membership. "The bottom line is they want to keep this [Livingston] group nonunion," said Meraz.

JANITORS AT SAFEWAY STORES in Northern California announced November 22 that they wanted to organize for better wages and benefits, the November 23 Sacramento Bee reported. Janitors, who work for contractors hired by Safeway and other companies, claim they are paid as little as $5 an hour, $1.75 below the state minimum wage. The contracting firms, say the janitors, who are being represented by the Service Employees International Union, ignore overtime laws and force workers to labor seven days a week. "We want better treatment on the job, we want health benefits," said Victor Enriquez, a Bay Area janitor, at a November 23 rally held in Oakland. Safeway, however, says it requires its contractors to obey all pertinent laws. The Service Employees International Union says it has targeted Safeway because of its size -- 240 stores in Northern California.

The Service Employees union was able to persuade Safeway to hire union janitors in its Southern California stores after a Los Angeles judge last January approved a $22.4 million settlement for underpayment of some 2,000 janitors who worked for several large chains.

HOLLYWOOD DIRECTOR and activist Rob Reiner collected more than a million signatures to qualify a ballot initiative, Preschool for All, Associated Press reported on November 18. The measure would increase income tax rates on the top income earners -- individuals who earn at least $400,000 a year and couples who earn at least $800,000 a year -- in order to fund a year of preschool for all four-year-olds. Monies would go to existing public and private preschools, and the state department of education would administer the program.

Both business and labor leaders have come out in support of Reiner's initiative. Proponents have high hopes that preschool could go far to helping heal society's ills, and they cite a Rand Corporation study that claimed that for every dollar the public spends on high-quality preschool it would reap $2 to $4 in benefits by decreasing the amount of special education required, having fewer students repeating grades, lowering youth participation in crime, and making a more productive workforce, according to a March 30 Rand Corporation news release. The release noted that the study "was funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation as part of its Preschool for All initiative."

SUPPORTERS OF STATE RECOGNITION of same-sex "marriage" on November 9 submitted written arguments to the state court of appeal in San Francisco, completing the first round of briefing in a case appealing San Francisco superior court judge Robert Kramer's March 14 ruling that laws forbidding same-sex marriage violate the state constitution. The city of San Francisco has joined 12 homosexual and lesbian couples in defense of Kramer's ruling. In his written arguments, city attorney Dennis Herrera said, "by barring the gay men and lesbians of this state from getting married, California sends a very powerful and unmistakable message: that their family commitments are not equal in dignity to those of their heterosexual counterparts." Though not specifically expressed in the state constitution, same-sex marriage is implicitly guaranteed by that document, say lawyers for the 12 couples, since it "guarantees each of us the right to choose the person with whom we wish to join in marriage."

The appeals court is expected to hear the case early in 2006 and rule on it by the spring. Whatever the decision, it will probably be appealed to the state supreme court.

BLESSED SACRAMENT CATHEDRAL in Sacramento reopened No vem ber 20 after a two-year renovation. Over 1,200 invited guests, including 100 priests and 30 bishops, joined Bishop William Weigand for Mass and the Rite of Dedication. The 116-year-old cathedral was "baptized" -- its walls and altar anointed with oil -- and relics of the Mexican martyr Saint Toribio Romo installed in the altar (members of the saint's family live in the Sacramento area). The cathedral has undergone some notable changes -- a 2,000 pound now crucifix hangs over the altar, there is a new chapel within the church, and the interior of the church's dome -- not seen since the 1930s -- is now open to view.

The entire renovation cost $34 million. Of this sum, $10 million came from the Sacramento diocese's capital campaign, $10 million from investments, and $2 million from cathedral parishioners. The diocese is conducting a drive to raise the remaining $12 million.

BISHOP WEIGAND'S 25TH ANNIVERSARY of episcopal ordination followed on the heels of the rededication of Blessed Sacrament Cathedral, with an 11 a.m. Mass celebrated there on November 21. The November 19 Catholic Herald, carried an interview with the bishop.

In the interview, Weigand said he had been chosen bishop of Salt Lake City, Utah, "probably" because he was the "right person at the right place at the right time." He had been but recently returned to Idaho from Colombia, where he had served as a parish priest in Cali. Weigand said he had clearly two qualifications for the job: he knew Spanish and so could organize a ministry to Latinos, and his association with the seminary in Cali would help him in vocation recruitment. The third reason, that the diocese needed a better financial structure, did not clearly relate to his abilities, the bishop said. "I don't know why they would have thought of me for that," said Weigand, "but I was a good organizer in my priestly work and I financed a large operation at the parish in Cali."

Weigand said he regrets that as bishop "it's much more difficult to develop relationships with people. Everyone's in a sense a bit suspicious of an authority figure -- they have their guard up and they categorize you in certain ways." The office is hard for him, for Weigand said he is "basically a shy person, an introvert." As a priest, he would hide behind others; "and here all of a sudden you can't hide. It was stressful and I didn't like it," the bishop said. "Coupled with that was the suspicion or reverence or being put in a special category by people -- I didn't like it then and frankly I don't like it now.

Coming originally from "Big Sky Country," Weigand said he found California a revelation. "Everything is so different here -- so complex and so politicized at times. I don't even like politics and I don't even see myself as political at all," he said. "I find it repugnant in a sense, and yet that's the expectation here. I say what I mean; I don't have a hidden agenda. Sometimes that shocks people. This sort of thing has been part of the suffering for me -- things misunderstood and assumed about me."

THE NOT-SO-GREAT COMMUNICATOR, BUT.... Weigand admitted that he is not "a good communicator. It's partly because I'm not the politician some people think I am," he said. "I'm not the born teacher and communicator that can break it down and make it reader friendly in a sense for a hostile society. I don't know how to do that." But, the bishop said, he has not stinted on teaching the truths of the Catholic faith. "In terms of the teachings and morals of the church, I couldn't care less whether they are out of step with the culture. That's never bothered me," he said. "We teach what the church teaches whether people listen or not -- in season and out of season. We can't do anything other than that."

Bishop Weigand said his main priority as bishop is "to implement the pastoral initiatives" of the diocesan synod, held last year. "That's the people's agenda," he said. Among these priorities is "catechetical renewal in the parishes" and "collaborative ministry." The latter is "very important" but "so new to many people and parishes. Some parishes like it and some don't. Collab oration makes such good sense and yet many people, priests among them, lapse into a kind of parochialism."

Though not going so far as Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, who calls the priest shortage a gift of the Holy Spirit and a fruit of Vatican II, Weigand said he "sometimes" is "convinced that the vocation shortage is permitted by God precisely because otherwise we wouldn't make the changes that we ought to make anyway. After Vatican II, doctrinally we were called on to develop lay ministry and shared responsibility with laity. That started to happen on some levels, but it needs to happen a lot more than it is happening currently.

"The fact that we have been facing a shortage of priests and vocations have been fewer forced us and helped us to use personnel better," said the bishop.

BREASTS NOT BOMBS, a group of bare-breasted female protesters, sought to sue California Highway Patrol commissioner Mike Brown because he warned them that their planned protest in front of the state capitol in early November could get them charged with indecent exposure and disorderly conduct -- and, those convicted might have to register as sex offenders. Though Breasts Not Bombs has staged their pectoral protests with impunity against the Iraq war in the Bay Area and even Washington, D.C., the target in Sacramento was Governor Arnold Schwarz e negger's special election ballot propositions and the non-Schwarnegger initiative, Proposition 73. As such, their action was to be a political protest, group member Sherry Glaser, 45, argued, and so is protected free speech.

The group sought from U.S. district court judge Garland Burrell, Jr., a temporary restraining order against arrests of Breasts Not Bombs members. Their attorney, Matthew Kumin, suggested that the protest area "be surrounded by a bolt of cloth, so that those who want to watch the protest can do so easily, and those who merely walk by would not see the nude protest." But since the group's tactic "consists in the main of linking political protest with toplessness by its female members," said Kumin in his motion to Judge Burrell, the attorney said in the motion, "absent that element, the organization's effectiveness, its philosophy and its strategies are completely compromised." On November 7 Burrell refused to block arrests. That afternoon, Sherry Glaser and Renee Love, 40, were arrested for protesting topless.

In a declaration, Sherry Glaser said, among other things, that her "organization certainly uses irony -- what many believe is shameful and immoral to this group is wholesome, decent and beautiful." Ironically, those who have seen pictures of Breasts Not Bombs protests might certainly disagree as to their decency. And as to their beauty -- well, as it has been said, that is in the eye of the beholder.

DURING THE MONDAY PRO TEST, state Senator Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) joined Glaser and Love, the November 8 Los Angeles Times reported. Though it does not appear that Romero bared her breasts (at least she wasn't arrested), she stood in solidarity with the protesters to voice her anger that, if convicted of lewd acts, the women could be placed on a sex-offender registry. Romero also announced she would introduce legislation to decriminalize the public baring of breasts. "While it is legal for men to go shirtless in public in California," said Romero, "women risk being classified as sex offenders for baring the same body parts."

THE HOMELESS OF SOLANO COUNTY live in fields, in parklands, in gullies, and along streambeds, an article in the November 13 San Francisco Chronicle detailed. The article described a homeless encampment pitched around a beaver pond that forms a part of Ledgewood Creek outside the growing and increasingly upscale city of Fairfield. About 50 homeless there live in tents the seemingly carefree life of Huckleberry Finn. Methamphetamine use is high. Police and business leaders have made panhandling almost impossible in Fairfield, and so the homeless survive on church charity and doing odd jobs. Every few months, police raid the encampment, confiscating the tents and belongings of its denizens; but then the homeless return. They've been on the banks of the Ledgewood for about a decade.

Though methamphetamine use is high, members of the Ledgewood homeless community are not usually high, said member Patrick Verquitas. "Listen, it takes a lot of effort to live out here," he told the Chronicle. "You sure as hell can't do that if you're stoned. If you can't get to the churches that hand out food and clothes, or to those little odd jobs, you'll die."

SOLANO COUNTY OFFICIALS blame the homeless for their condition, saying they do not take advantage of shelters and social services. But, said Ron Marlette, executive director of Fairfield's Mission Solano, the only shelter and drop-in center for the chronically homeless in the county, "Solano County has the fewest services for the homeless in all of the Bay Area. And we have a huge need -- the homeless are all over the place, but hidden because the community is much more intolerant of them than, say, San Francisco." But one community member, Tammy "Wings" Valencia, said she doesn't mind. "The less they do, the more they will leave us alone," she said. "I've tried to get help before, housing and stuff like that, but I've given up on them. If they come up with a real place for me to live, a real program -- great."

Solano County has 4,000 homeless people, 80 percent of whom are deemed chronically homeless -- that is, they have drug problems or are mentally ill or have slept outdoors for more than a year. Despite this fact, the county has only 100 shelter beds and one social services outreach worker, according to an October 2005 report by the Association of Bay Area Governments' Regional Task Force to End Home less ness. However, Fairfield leaders are working to implement a project, the Bridge to Life Center, a 154-unit housing complex with counseling services for the homeless. Most of the $7.7 million needed has been raised for the project, which is slated to break ground in 2006 and set to open in 2009.

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