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Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
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NEWS
May 2006

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THE CARDINAL NEWMAN SOCIETY, which calls itself "a national organization to renew and strengthen the Catholic identity of Catholic colleges and universities in the U.S.," on March 16 issued a report of a review of Catholic college and university web sites that "has revealed links and referrals to abortion clinics including Planned Parenthood -- the largest abortion provider in the United States -- and abortion-rights and pro-contraception groups." The reported college and university web sites include those of two Northern California universities -- Dominican University in San Rafael and the Jesuit Santa Clara University.

Dr. Gail Matthews, tenured professor of psychology at Dominican University, has offered on her web page [pdf file] "field placement sites" as a teaching resource. Among the field placements is Planned Parenthood of Marin, located at 2 H Street, San Rafael. The web page of the anthropology department of the College of Arts and Sciences at Santa Clara University listed the internships the department offers "to give students the opportunity to work and conduct studies in community agencies, government bureaus, and political or industrial organizations." "Some [eight] examples are given of agencies, bureaus, and organizations that have been the recipients of "recent internship placements."One of these is Planned Parenthood.

In a letter faxed to the presidents of Dominican University, Santa Clara University, and the nine remaining institutions identified by the report, Cardinal Newman Society president Patrick Reilly said, "leading young adults to abortion clinics and pro-abortion advocacy groups is like feeding them to the lions. The incidence of abortion is already very high among college-age women. Faithful Catholics expect Catholic colleges and universities to embrace a 'culture of life' and avoid scandal."

R.I.P. MONSIGNOR SWEENY. San Jose diocesan priest and pastor, Monsignor John Sweeny, died March 7 at the age of 81. Sweeny led Our Lady of Peace church -- a parish noted for its orthodoxy -- in Santa Clara for three decades.

A 2001 Wall Street Journal article about Sweeny's pending retirement called Monsignor Sweeny "a priest of great holiness and charisma." San Jose diocesan representatives used adjectives like "saintly" when speaking of Monsignor Sweeny to San Jose Mercury News reporters, according to a March 10, 2006 article, "Beloved priest of the Latin Mass dies." The article also included the bishop's 2001 response to criticism about Sweeny's retirement. According to the Times, "at the time, Bishop Patrick J. McGrath called Sweeny 'the most wonderful priest that has ever lived.' McGrath added, 'Now, I'm sorry, but at some point we have to move on.'"

Father Walter Mallo from the Institute of the Incarnate Word currently leads the parish and continues the practices Sweeny initiated. The church remains open 24 hours daily for perpetual adoration. A monstrance displays the Blessed Sacrament at all times, except during Masses. It is common to see up to thirty penitents lined up at confessionals before Masses and for four hours on Saturday afternoons and evenings. Communion is dispensed by priests aided by altar boys with gold patens, while recipients kneel at an altar rail. A Tridentine Latin Mass is said every first Saturday evening, and on all other Saturdays, a Novus Ordo Latin Mass is said, all with Gregorian chant. Parishioners still process weekly to say rosaries at a local abortion mill.

On October 7, 1983, Feast of the Holy Rosary, Pierre DuMaine, now bishop emeritus of San Jose, at the parish dedicated the only Marian shrine between Mexico City and Portland, Oregon. Father Sweeny initially encountered diocesan opposition to his plans for a stainless steel statue of Our Lady at the shrine. The 32-foot height of the statue that he eventually received approval to erect was smaller than he intended, but he partly made up the difference by installing the statue on a 12-foot mound. From its vantage point overlooking Highway 101, the statue portrays Our Lady extending a motherly gaze and open arms to commuters and other passers-by. Behind the statue is Yahoo headquarters.

Those who attend Our Lady of Peace include a large proportion of ethnic minorities from the Philippines, Central and South America, and India, mixed in with many others from all socio-economic and cultural backgrounds.

WITH LEGAL ASSISTED SUICIDE again an issue in California, state citizens might do well to look at Oregon, where physician assisted suicide has been legal for eight years. A March 16 LifeSiteNews.com report said that, in its eighth annual assisted suicide report, the state of Oregon reported that 38 Oregonians killed themselves "following ingestion of medications prescribed" in accord with the state's Death with Dignity Act. Since 1997, 246 "participating" patients have taken advantage of the law to kill themselves.

According to the report, "rates of participation in PAS [physician assisted suicide] decreased with age, although over 65% of PAS users were age 65 or older. Rates of participation were higher among those who were divorced or never married, those with more years of formal education." Only two of the patients who died by physician assisted suicide in 2005 were referred for psychiatric evaluation. In a statement, Physicians for Compassionate Care, a group of doctors opposed to physician assisted suicide, said, "suicidal ideation is a symptom of depression, and this raises concern that depressed patients are being medically killed in Oregon."

Rita Marker with the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide said to the March 9 Focus on the Family Citizen Link report that the problem with the Oregon report is "everything is self-reported. One of the most fascinating things that has come to light lately is that the very people who carry out assisted suicide in Oregon and who compile the reports, actually acknowledged behind closed doors to a British committee of the House of Lords which came to visit Oregon, that there were a lot of situations where the guidelines were not followed -- and that they really don't know what's happening with assisted suicide -- and they have no ability to investigate it."

THE ASSISTED SUICIDE BILL currently before the California assembly, AB 651, is called the "California Compassionate Choices Act." The bill says it would "authorize an adult who meets certain qualifications, and who has been determined by his or her attending physician to be suffering from a terminal disease, as defined, to make a request for medication for the purpose of ending his or her life in a humane and dignified manner." Rita Marker of the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide told the March 9 Focus on the Family Citizen Link report that the bill, introduced into the state legislature last year, "is now at the boiling point. It appears that there are people in the California Senate who plan to mount an effort to push it through." Though in 1992, California voters rejected a ballot initiative calling for legal suicide, "there have been attempts ever since in the California Assembly to push a bill through, and they have never made it."

The March 20 Catholic Voice, the newspaper of the diocese of Oakland, reported that the bill's assembly sponsors, Eureka Democrat Patty Berg (a Catholic) and Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), were to hold a hearing on the bill in the senate judiciary committee in mid-April. Last year, they abandoned efforts to get the bill passed because of lack of support in the assembly. During a March 9 press conference in Sacramento, Berg and Levine claimed they had support from senate president pro tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) and assembly speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles).

Opposition to the bill, though, is stiff. Two Catholic assembly Democrats, Cindy Montanez (San Fernando) and Nicole Parra (Hanford), oppose the bill. Groups opposing the bill include Californians Against Assisted Suicide, the California Catholic Conference and the Alliance for Catholic Healthcare, the California Medical Association, the California Disability Alliance, the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers, the Western Service Workers Association, the Coalition of Concerned Medical Professionals, and the League of United Latin American Citizens

Carrie Gordon Earll, senior activist for bioethics at Focus on the Family Action, said, "legislatively and politically, California is a wild card. So far, pro-life groups in California, working with disability-rights groups, have been successful in fighting assisted-suicide laws there. If it passes in California, though, you would see increased momentum on the part of advocates of this type of death and killing to push it more in other states."

IT IS DISCRIMINATION. The California supreme court ruled on March 9 that the city of Berkeley may discriminate against the Sea Scouts, a branch of the Boy Scouts of America, because the organization forbids membership to homosexuals and atheists, Associated Press reported. In 1998, the city of Berkeley removed from the Sea Scouts a subsidy for berthing at the city's marina because of the group's membership policy. The Scouts argued that the city was violating its speech and freedom of association rights. But while the United States Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the Boy Scouts' membership policies were not unconstitutional, the state supreme court in its recent ruling said governments can deny benefits to groups that they deem discriminatory. Writing for the court, Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar said, "a government entity may constitutionally require a recipient of funding or subsidy to provide written, unambiguous assurances of compliance" with a policy, and this does not violate free speech because "to condition a public benefit on assurances of nondiscrimination is not to compel advocacy of a viewpoint."

"Carried to its logical extreme, any city government or public agency could start excluding the Boy Scouts or any group that was not ideologically correct in the eyes of City Hall," Harold Johnson, a lawyer with the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represented the Sea Scouts, told the March 10 Los Angeles Times.

Fourteen young people and adults brought the case against Berkeley. The Sea Scouts teach maritime arts to youth, many from poverty-stricken homes, who pay only $7 a year to participate.

A BILL INTRODUCED into the state assembly by Assemblywoman Sharon Runner (R-Lancaster) on February 23 would require that a physician performing an abortion give the mother information and counseling on fetal pain. The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act of 2006 makes an exemption "for medical emergency," which it defines as "a condition which, in the reasonable medical judgment of the abortion provider, so complicates the medical condition of the pregnant woman that a delay in commencing an abortion procedure would impose a serious risk of causing grave and irreversible physical health damage entailing substantial impairment of a major bodily function." The bill would require the California medical board to adopt regulations for revocation or suspension of medical licenses for violation" of its provisions and "would authorize the Attorney General and the woman or her family to bring a civil action for damages and penalties for violation of these provisions."

A FEDERAL JUDGE WHO HAS intervened in the California state prison system has threatened more intervention if more reforms are not put in place, the March 15 Los Angeles Times reported. In February, U.S. district judge Thelton Henderson seized the prison system's healthcare operation and gave it over to a federal receiver, Robert Sillen. Sillen has nearly plenary power over the healthcare operation (he reports only to Judge Henderson), which has been criticized for its substandard treatment of prisoner patients. On March 14, Henderson threatened further intervention, saying he was "disappointed' with a memorandum the Acting Corrections Secretary Jeanne Woodford sent to prison system employees upon the resignation of her predecessor, Roderick Hickman, in February. Woodford's memorandum disappointed Henderson because, while addressing the priorities facing the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, it failed to mention problems Woodford considers the most central: that of inmate healthcare and an alleged "code of silence," an unwritten code that keeps officers from reporting their colleagues' misconduct toward prisoners. Henderson was to meet with Woodford in Sacramento to discuss measures to police prison staff; but upon receipt of the memorandum, the judge cancelled the meeting. Instead, he ordered a court monitor to look sooner into an investigation by the department of corrections into abuses by staff and report any "deterioration" of the situation. He said as well that he would look into other measures to deal with the prison system's problems.

Might one such measure be to place the entire prison system into a federal receivership? Henderson threatened this very thing in 2004 when he accused the Schwarzenegger administration of giving the prison guards' union too much management authority. What effect a March 14 inspector general's report on the state prison system will have on Henderson's deliberations remains to be seen. The report noted that violent convicts are often mixed with the general prison population when they arrive in the system rather than isolated in maximum security cells, thus being a threat to prison guards and inmates alike.

PROTESTS AGAINST THE IRAQ WAR took place throughout the world and in the Bay Area on the weekend of March 18-19, the third anniversary of the war. About 10,000 protestors gathered in San Francisco on March 18, said the March 19 Mercury News. In Oakland about 200 gathered for a town-hall meeting with Democratic congresswomen Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey and a panel of activists. Lee told those gathered that the House of Representatives had accepted a spending-bill amendment she sponsored to ban permanent military bases in Iraq.

On Monday, March 21, police in San Francisco arrested 17 protestors at a rally organized by the group Act Against Torture, which calls for shutting down the Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prisons. During the protest before the office of Senator Dianne Feinstein, which drew over 100 participants, some demonstrators pulled a prison cell into the intersection, blocking Market Street. Protestors wearing orange jump suits entered the cell as soon as it was placed in the intersection. Ayah Young, a 23-year old university student at the protest, said, "our government is openly torturing people and detaining them indefinitely and we have to put an end to it. This was fairly effective even though it wasn't a huge turnout. It was spiritual and peaceful and we got our message across."

SAN FRANCISCO-BASED GOOGLE does not have to turn over internet search queries to the United States justice department, U.S. district judge James Ware in San Jose ruled March 17. In 2005, said the March 18 Los Angeles Times, U.S. attorney general Alberto Gonzalez issued subpoenas to Google and other internet companies asking them to turn over billions of internet queries and a sample of the web sites on the search engine's data bases. The department wanted the information to resolve a civil lawsuit over the Child Online Protection Act of 1998, which was blocked by a federal court. The release of search queries, in particular, worried civil liberties advocates; for even though they would not have included the names of users, such queries often carry personal information that could identify users. Normally, in order to obtain electronic data, federal law requires a search warrant or court order, not a subpoena. Federal lawyers, however, said they would use the information only for the purpose of the lawsuit, not to fish for evidence in criminal investigations.

In his decision, Judge Ware agreed that Google would have to turn over the requested web page addresses but said the company did not have to release the internet queries. "The expectation of privacy by some Google users may not be reasonable, but may nonetheless have an appreciable impact on the way in which Google is perceived, and consequently the frequency with which users use Google," wrote Ware in his decision.

THE UNITED FARM WORKERS union has negotiated contracts with growers in recent years that some claim are unfavorable but others realistic, given the current state of the agricultural market, the Los Angeles Times reported on March 20. According to the Times, which said it had obtained copies of agreements between the United Farm Workers and 33 California agricultural employers, growers have won concessions from the union allowing them to hire non-union laborers through subcontractors. Some contracts allow employers to bypass seniority rules in hiring and promotions. Other contracts allow for a variety of situations where employers can pay laborers differently for the same or similar work, such as lower entry wages or tiers in health care benefits. Wages negotiated by the United Farm Workers, said the Times, are competitive but not always the highest, and the article referenced two Napa wineries that pay their (non-United Farm Workers) union labor over $10 an hour while Gallo of Sonoma agreed in a contract with the United Farm Workers to pay a base wage of $8.59 an hour. United Farm Worker contracts, according to union officials, generally include benefits, such as some paid holidays, insurance, and pension credit.

Union representatives refused to comment for the Times story because of a four-part series the paper ran in January, which, United Farm Worker leaders said, was unjust to the union.

AN ADMINISTRATIVE law judge in Sacramento, Jay Pollack, found Blue Diamond Growers guilty of unfair labor practices on March 25, said Associated Press. Two Blue Diamond employees, Ivo Camilo and Mike Flores, had been part of a campaign by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union to organize 900 Blue Diamond employees at its almond processing plant. Both Camilo and Flores lost their jobs. Judge Pollack said Blue Diamond must rehire both men and ruled that the company had violated federal law by "threatening plant closure and loss of employment" and "coercively interrogating employees about their union activities and union sympathies." Blue Diamond said it might appeal the ruling and that it had no plans to rehire Flores and Camilo.

CALIFORNIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS are more tolerant of "sexual orientation" than are schools in many other states, said the March 12 Los Angeles Times. Though eight years ago state schools had about 40 school based gay-straight alliance clubs, that number now has reached over 500. According to academics, teenagers who at least think themselves homosexual are "coming out" on average by age 15 or 16. Homosexual students, or those who think they are homosexual, are also growing increasingly more politically active, demanding not only protection from violence but equal rights. And they are winning many legal and political battles.

Some, however, think students are being used by adult activists to further homosexual political interests. Richard Ackerman, president of the Pro-Family Law Center in Temecula, told the Times, the students "are being manipulated by the adults to push the gay agenda. My kids should be going [to school] to learn math, reading, writing. It shouldn't be an opportunity for someone else to ... destroy the values I have worked so hard to instill in my children." But civil liberties and pro-homosexual activists (adults) say they are merely responding to the students' initiative. "More and more students are realizing, 'Wow, when the principal censors my speech just because it has something to do with sex orientation, that's something that violates the law,'" Christine Sun, an ACLU attorney who has represented homosexual students, said.

ADULTS WHO HAVE sexual intercourse with some minors will no longer be listed on a sex-offender's list, the California supreme court said, according to a March 7 LifeSiteNews.com report. The court voted 6-1 that a 22-year-old man who had been convicted in 2003 for having oral sex with a minor 16-year-old girl should not be placed on the state's sex offender registry. Writing for the majority, Justice Joyce Kennard said the sex registry "violates the equal protection clauses of the federal and state constitutions." But, it seems, only for those who have intercourse with 16 and 17-year-olds. Those who have sexual relations with anyone under 16 will still have to register as a sex offender.

STEM CELL INSTITUTE AUDIT. The California state legislature's joint legislative audit committee unanimously agreed on March 8 that the state auditor review the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, set up under Proposition 71 to dole out $3 billion in state funds for stem-cell research, and the Independent Citizen's Oversight Committee, which oversees the institute, LifeNews.com reported March 13. The institute is the subject of two lawsuits, charging that it has violated conflict of interest rules and is exempt from state oversight of its spending.

BECAUSE OF TWO PENDING lawsuits, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has been unable to raise the money it needs to dole out to research on embryonic stem cells; investors do not want to buy bonds that might become valueless if the agency's foes prevail in court. But the agency has come up with an idea: it will sell naming rights to big donors. For instance, donors -- namely, biotech companies (that incidentally could benefit from agency grants) -- which contribute at least $10 million could have office space or student scholarships named after them.

Taxpayer rights and other watchdog groups, however, have been critical of the agency's fundraising plan. John Simpson of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights told the April 2 Contra Costa Times, "if they aren't careful, they are going to be seen as selling out to biotech." Jesse Reynolds, of the Oakland-based Center for Genetics and Society, said he feared that large donors could influence the direction of agency funds.

To date, according to board chairman Robert Klein, the agency has received $50 million in loans from philanthropic organizations, which he refused to name. These loans, he said, could be converted into donations.

WAS IT WORTH IT? Melissa Bengston, the principal of Central Catholic High School in Modesto, won $2,500 in scholarship money at the 19th annual High School Principals Spanish Lip Sync Contest on March 25, said an Associated Press report. Bengston took on the persona and recorded voice of Gloria Estefan, "backed by a pack of salsa-dancing teenagers," said Associated Press. "I'm really proud of my students," said Bengston. "They did such a good job and they really inspired me."

DANTE AND CAFÉ. Mission High School in San Francisco, said the March San Francisco Chronicle, "is composed of mostly low-income, minority students, many of them new immigrants learning English." To interest students in reading, most of the school's literature offerings are modern and multicultural. "While Mission students do read a couple of Shakespeare's plays and a smattering of other classics before graduation," said the Chronicle, "much of the Western canon never crosses their desks."

But 30-year-old Callen Taylor, a social studies teacher at the school, said she noticed that her students lacked "cultural currency" -- that is, they have little or no classical or Western European cultural knowledge. The students had attended summer programs with wealthier students and had felt intimidated by their peers' cultural understanding. To help her students, Taylor formed the Dante Club. Taylor and 12 students from Mexico, Central America, and Asia meet Saturday mornings for two hours at the Morning Due Café to read and study Dante Alghieri's L'Inferno. And they earn no credits for it. "It's a hard poem, and I can't believe they come," said Taylor. "Every weekend, I'm shocked that they come and want to read it. And they like it! It gives them confidence academically and when they get that, they want more." "I used to just sleep until noon (on Saturdays) and then watch TV," said 18-year-old Khiem Vo, one of the Dante Club. "This isn't actually school. It's hanging out with my friends and talking about books. It's just getting more knowledge over a cup of coffee on a nice, sunny day. It's not that bad."

And the club seems to be having more than merely academic benefits. Reading Dante "makes me think," said 18-year-old Wilson Jimenez. "I think, 'If [I] do this, what circle of hell will I go to?' Now I'm very careful in my decisions. I do believe in hell because I'm Catholic."

IRISH WETBACKS. Most of the 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States come from Latin America. But, according to the March 15 San Francisco Chronicle, of the three million illegals from non-Latin countries (such as Russia, Poland, Canada, Haiti, Korea, India, China, and the Philippines), 50,000 are Irish. Many of the Irish immigrants have come to the United States on work, school, or tourist visas but stayed when these expired. Activists with the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, sporting white-and-green t-shirts with the words, "Legalize the Irish," joined in the St. Patrick's Day Parade on the weekend of March 11-12 in San Francisco. The activists handed to passersby flyers urging them to encourage their representatives to support a guest worker program for immigrants. Irish prime minister Bertie Ahren, who was in San Jose on March 14, said he would urge President George W. Bush to support legal status for illegal Irish immigrants.

Celine Kennelly, executive director of the Irish Immigration Pastoral Center (sponsored by the bishops of Ireland) in San Francisco, said, "we've had some very surprised reactions when they hear [immigration] is an issue for the Irish. They are in as dire straits as any other ethnic group," said Kennelly.

THOUSANDS OF PROTESTORS marched down Market Street in San Francisco on Monday, March 27, to protest an immigration bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in December. The bill would make immigration a felony as well as punish those, such as charities, that lend aid to illegal immigrants. The march in San Francisco was led by 12 hunger strikers who had been fasting in front of the federal building for a week, said the March 28 San Francisco Chronicle. News of the protest had been spread through Catholic churches in the Bay Area as well as Spanish language radio. Hundreds of college and high school students walked out of classes to join the march. A similar march in Los Angeles on March 25 drew an estimated 500,000 participants.

A Latino anti-war protest march, which started from Tijuana 16 days earlier, coalesced with the San Francisco immigration march. Fernando Suárez del Solar, who organized the anti-war march, linked the immigration bill with the war in Iraq. "If we didn't have the so-called war on terrorism, we wouldn't have racist initiatives like HR4437," said Suárez del Solar, who lost his 20-year-old son three years ago in Iraq. "There are hundreds of immigrant families in this country whose children are dying in Iraq and whose parents are on the brink of being deported."

The same day as the San Francisco march, the Senate judiciary committee, which includes Senator Dianne Feinstein, in Washington, D.C., approved a bill which would allow a guest-worker program for illegal aliens while removing language criminalizing them.

THE "GAY" RIGHTS MOVEMENT has "largely convinced society that homosexuality is neither a mental disorder nor a crime," said the March 14 San Francisco Chronicle. Now the movement "is focusing on what its leaders say is their last, and biggest, challenge: convincing believers that it's not a sin." To meet this challenge, the New York-based National Gay and Lesbian Task Force merged with a religious organization that represents 1,400 Protestant congregations that welcome homosexuals. Over the next five years, this Institute for Welcoming Resources hopes to increase its membership to 10,000 congregations. March 13, the day of the merger, was "a very proud and happy day for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement," according to Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "We see this as a critically important step in reclaiming the language of faith and moral values from those on the right that attempt to hijack faith and moral values."

The Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, head of the Institute for Welcoming Resources, said it is "accepting LGBT people as full human beings welcome in the congregation." Congregations entering the network of churches must hold conversations in which congregants discuss homosexual issues in scripture and society. They then must write a public statement to welcome homosexuals and lesbians into the congregation, on which the congregation must vote.

In January, a summit of black church leaders met in Atlanta to form the National Black Justice Coalition, a homosexual rights organization. Sylvia Rhue, the coalition's religious affairs director, told the Chronicle that the passage of constitutional amendments banning homosexual marriage in 11 states, with the backing of religious groups, inspired the pro-homosexual religious movements. "We saw anti-marriage legislation in so many states passing, with basically glee, that we realized we formally needed more religious outreach to churches, clergy, synagogues and mosques," said Rhue.

FATHER DECLAN DEANE, parochial vicar at All Saints church in Hayward, in March took issue with then Cardinal-designate William Levada for being critical of priests who "are open about their homosexuality." Levada was quoted in the March 6 Oakland diocese Catholic Voice as saying of such priests, "I think we must ask, 'Does such a priest recognize how this act places an obstacle to his ability to represent Christ the bridegroom to his bride, the people of God?'" But in a letter, "Ask the people of God," published in the March 20 Voice, Deane said that if "the prelate" would ask the people of God, he would discover that what they "care about is that their priests preach and practice those things -- love of God and love of neighbor -- advocated by Christ, who was silent on the subject of homosexuality." The Voice carried no response to Deane's letter.

Father Deane's dissent is nothing new. In 1998 he was homilist for the concluding Mass for Northern California regional conference of Call to Action, a group that rejects Church teaching on contraception, homosexuality, divorce, women's ordination, among others. The same year, in the Voice, Deane defended a South African priest who gave communion to the non-Catholic Bill Clinton. "No priest or Eucharistic Minister," he wrote, "should ever refuse the Eucharist to anyone who presents themselves for it.... Christ is present in the communicant as well as in the Communion, so respect must be tendered to both." According to Deane, Jesus, "in his life on earth received and practiced hospitality. We do no honor to him when we either deny his real presence in the Eucharist or when we deny the Eucharist to those who come to our altar believing in the hospitality of God." In 2002, St. Monica's parish in Moraga, when Deane was parochial vicar there, had Diana Ware, a representative of the Women's Ordination Conference, address parishioners as part of a part of an "adult education and enrichment" program.

THE BASILIAN FATHERS, which for 28 years have run Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland, will leave the school in June, said the March 6 Catholic Voice. O'Dowd president Stephen Phelps and principal Joe Salamack said in announcing the change that Basilian provincial Father Kenneth Decker had decided to withdraw the order from the school, saying, "we are not able to take care of the commitments we presently have and must withdraw from some places."

Bishop O'Dowd High School was the subject of some controversy in 2003 when it staged the pro-homosexual play, The Laramie Project. The school also sponsored a student Gay-Straight Alliance, which promotes the normalcy of homosexuality. Father John Malo, one of the Basilians leaving the school, in the past directed the Alliance on campus but more recently, according to the Voice, has been "the school's dean and counselor to hundreds of students."

INCULTURATION CONTINUES in the diocese of Monterey. According to an announcement in the March 4 Observer, the diocesan newspaper, San Carlos Cathedral was to offer its "annual Dixie and Jazz Mass" on March 20, at 5:30 p.m. "Bye Bye Blues Boys will join the San Carlos Choir for this Mass," said the Observer.

MISSION SAN MIGUEL ARCANGEL near Paso Robles has received national landmark status, said the March 4 Observer. The National Park System Advisory Board and the National Park Service approved the status last October. Built between 1816 and 1818, Mission San Miguel is the only mission that has its original interior paint. In December 2004, it suffered serious damage in a magnitude-6.5 earthquake and was immediately closed by the Monterey diocese. With landmark status, the mission may get the estimated $10 to $20 million needed for repairs from such sources as the Getty Foundation and Save America's Treasures.

LANDMARK STATUS, however, did not help Mission San Miguel to obtain funds from the California Culture and Historical Endowment, said a March 24 Associated Press story. The Friends of Mission San Miguel had requested a $1 million grant of funds through Proposition 40, passed in 2002 to help in cultural and historical restorations. But based on an advisory opinion from the state attorney general Bill Lockyer's office, the Endowment rejected the Friends' request. "It is found that a grant to Friends of Mission San Miguel would have a direct effect of advancing religion, since the proposed project concerns a building that is owned by a religious organization (and) that is used regularly for daily religious services," said Diane Matsuda, the Endowment's executive director. But John Fowler, project director for the Friends, called the endowment's rejection "premature. We don't see it as a major setback. We just have to provide them with some information."

THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO CONDEMNED a Christian youth rally held at AT&T Park in the city on March 25-26, said the San Francisco Chronicle. The rally, "Battle Cry for a Generation," drew over 25,000 youth for a weekend of Christian rock 'n roll. Yet, despite the rock music, the event was billed as a battle against the "virtue terrorism" of popular culture. Advanced tickets sold for $55, with walk-up admission running at $199.

Ron Luce, a native of Concord, runs the Texas-based Teen Mania organization, which was behind the "Battle Cry" event. Luce says he wants to lead youth from the corrupting influences of popular culture. He said he wants to unleash a "blitz" of youth ministers into communities to do everything from work with the homeless to evangelization. At a pre-rally on Friday, March 24, Luce told the crowd of mostly teenagers that they were the targets of advertisers, which he called "terrorists of a different kind."Then he asked them, "are you ready to go to battle for your generation?" to which the reply was a roaring "yes!" And, said the Chronicle, "some waved triangular red flags flown from long, medieval-looking poles."

The pre-event rally was held at the San Francisco city hall, "the very City Hall steps where several months ago, gay marriages were celebrated for all the world to see," said a Battle Cry invitation. In anticipation of this rally, the city supervisors earlier in the week passed a resolution that called the rally "an act of provocation" by an anti-homosexual and anti-abortion group, the aim of which was to "negatively influence the politics of America's most tolerant and progressive city," according to the March 27 online Time magazine. Counter-protesters were present, along with Assemblyman Mark Leno, who said of the Battle Cry demonstrators, "they're loud, they're obnoxious, they're disgusting, and they should get out of San Francisco." (On March 29, Leno issued a statement saying he did not mean to imply that people of different beliefs should not come to San Francisco, a city that is "a beacon of acceptance and love of all people.")

Luce said he wanted youth organizers in the city to double the numbers in their groups by next year, when, he said, he will return to San Francisco to chart their progress. "We're going to be back here in a year, to see what kind of progress we've made," Luce said. "And we're going to be at AT&T Park. Or whatever it is called then."

THE AMERICAN CENTER for Law and Justice on March 28 filed a friend-of-the-court brief in federal court on behalf of 27 U.S. Congressmen to support the U.S. government's request to have a legal challenge against "In God We Trust" thrown out of court. Michael Newdow of Sacramento, who has waged court battles against the mention of God in the Pledge of Allegiance, in November filed a lawsuit in federal court in Sacramento saying that the presence of the phrase "In God We Trust" on currency violates the First Amendment's establishment clause. According to a March 28 Focus on the Family CitizenLink report, Newdow said, "(I filed this lawsuit) because I believe in equality -- especially religious equality. The Constitution of the United States guarantees to every citizen that the government of the United States will respect their religious views the same as any other religious view. And I don't see how the religious views of those who deny that God exists are being treated with the same respect as the religious view that God does exist."

Jay Sekulow, with the American Center, disagreed with Newdow's interpretation. "What the Establishment Clause was designed to protect was an establishment of religion or a particular religion for the country," said Sekulow. "That's not what we have at stake here" with the phrase "In God We Trust."

A COMMITTEE OF STATE assembly and senate members told the bureau of state audits on March 8 to review the First 5 California Children and Families Commission, founded and until recently director by Hollywood actor and director Rob Reiner. The Sacramento County district attorney is reviewing a request to investigate First 5. The First 5 commission was founded after voters in 1998 approved the Proposition 10 tobacco tax, the monies from which were to go to early childhood healthcare and development. According to the March 9 Los Angeles Times, the statewide First 5 commission controls 20 percent of the money raised through the tax (over $4 billion since 1999) while county commissions have the remainder.

Senator Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks) and Assemblyman Dario Frommer (D-Glendale) sought an audit of First 5 after newspapers reported that the commission spent $23 million in tax money promoting preschool at the same time Reiner was gathering signatures to qualify for the ballot a initiative to fund preschool for four-year-olds. (The initiative will appear on the June ballot as Proposition 82.) Reiner at first took a leave of absence from the commission in Februay, saying he would take up his post again the day after voters decide on his measure. But on March 29 he announced he was resigning his post as director. Cox and Frommer also say First 5 has awarded $230 million in contracts to firms that helped Reiner in the Proposition 10 campaign in 1998.

VINTNERS IN NAPA, Sonoma, and Mendocino Counties are trying to make their vineyard operations more friendly to the environment, said the March 21 San Francisco Chronicle. Demand for domestic wine in the late 1990s led to a dramatic increase in the number of acres given over to vineyards. And while competition from other regions and countries has relieved some of the pressure on California growers, 2004 saw 278 acres planted in Mendocino County, 204 acres in Napa County, and 385 acres in Sonoma County. The growth in vineyards has had adverse affects on native oak woodlands, since vines and oaks thrive in the same kind of soil. The new vineyards, too, it is claimed, disrupt the migratory routes of large mammals and favor the spread of "urban adaptive" birds rather than native species. Irrigation required for vineyards, as well, tends to dry up rivers; Mendocino County's Navarro River, for example, which, has supported large populations of coho salmon and steelhead trout, no longer runs year round as it once did. Erosion of hillsides has also been a problem.

But many vintners are attempting to curb and even reverse environmental degradation. Clos du Bois vineyard near Healdsburg in Sonoma County, for instance, has replanted Lytton Creek, which runs through its vineyards, with native shrubs and trees. The vineyard has built nesting boxes for native bird species, planted filter strips of native grasses, adopted a minimum tilling policy, and instituted a composting program to cut down on the use of artificial fertilizers. Sonoma and Napa Counties have passed ordinances with rigorous erosion control measures that discourage unwise planting. According to David Steiner, senior soil conservationist for the Napa County Resource Conservation District, the ordinances have had some effect. "In the 1970s, the annual erosion loss for hillside vineyards around here was 14 to 15 tons an acre," said Steiner. "Now it's down to 2.5 tons an acre."

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