ARTICLES

We're Going on Saturday Morning, Will You Come?

PRO-LIFERS LOOK TO PRIESTS

by Anne Knight and Allyson Smith

On November 7 the diocese's office for social ministry sponsored its first Culture of Life Fair, at St. Michael's Church in Poway. It was attended by about 300 persons, many of whom were veterans of the local pro-life movement. In addition to four priests who spoke (including Bishop Brom), several priests were spotted among attendees.

In his keynote address Bishop Brom revealed the "pro-choice" connection to consumerism: "Now it follows that freedom to choose whatever satisfies you becomes basic to the consumer mentality and lifestyle....People are marketed too. For example, politicians, according as they ... champion the right to choose, that is, to buy into whatever satisfies you, even without regard for the fundamental rights of others."

Bishop Brom read from the pope's address to the bishops of California, Nevada and Hawaii during their recent ad limina visit to Rome. The Holy Father cited Evangelium Vitae, Section 72: "Laws which legitimize the direct killing of innocent human beings... are in complete opposition to the inviolable right to life proper to every individual; they thus deny the equality of everyone before the law....In defending life you are defending an original and vital part of the vision on which your country was built."

Following John Paul II's words, Bishop Brom commented, "It is good citizenship which requires that we be pro-life, not the fact that we are Christian or Catholic, but even more basically, good citizenship requires that we be pro-lifers in the same breath as to be pro-God and pro-country." The bishop concluded, "And so our only choice, if we would be good citizens, is to be pro-life, pro-God, and pro-country."

Following the bishop's talk, the audience dispersed to attend ten different workshops: Pregnancy Help Centers, Post-Abortion Ministry, Pro-life Education and Political Activity, Capital Punishment, Abortion Facility Ministries, Hospice and End-of-Life Ministries, Services for Families with Children, Hispanic Pro-Life Ministry, Natural Family Planning and Chastity, and Pastor/Pro-Life Coordinators Dialogue. Twelve organizations sponsored booths at the fair: the California Pro Life Council, Catholic Charities, Citizens for Community Values of San Diego (an anti-pornography group), Courage (an orthodox Catholic outreach to homosexuals), the Fitch Fertility Center (teaches and promotes NFP), Rachel's Hope Post-Abortion Healing, Teen Life Choice, the diocesan Office for Social Ministry, and four crisis pregnancy centers.

The workshop on abortion facilities ministry was presented by Dr. Edward Peters (diocesan canon lawyer), Deacon Ken and Marie Finn, and Peggy Pinciotti. Dr. Peters explained the this apostolate's three forms: sidewalk picketing and prayer, sidewalk counseling, and silent witness (nonviolent blockades of abortion facilities). Silent witness has become extremely difficult in recent years, said Dr. Peters and Deacon Finn, due to new restrictive laws, inaccessible new clinic sites, and exorbitant fines. Deacon Finn mentioned that fines cost perhaps a few hundred dollars when he participated in the early rescue movement, but now run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, as a recent $800,000 judgement against Operation Rescue illustrates.

"I used to ask that same question," Deacon Finn commented, in response to a question on how to get the clergy more involved in public pro-life witness. "If you stick 500 parishioners down there, they'll go down there. If you stick numbers out there, they'll follow, because they want to be where the action is." Dr. Peters added, "If you want the clergy to come, you just have to ask flat out, 'We're going on Saturday morning, will you come-- yes or no?'" He continued: "That said, I still think the laity are a better witness than the clergy. The clergy-- especially if they're in a collar-- they're an inspiration to me, but they're a target, and they get the barbs like, 'What do you know about it? You've never gotten a girl pregnant; you don't know what it's like to raise a baby.' I'm all in favor of the clergy being out there and I'd ask them, but our witness is too hard to overlook."

Frustration over little participation by Catholic clergy in public pro-life activities was evident in the remarks of a parish pro-life coordinator, who expressed disappointment in the Pastor/Pro-life Coordinator Dialogue. Attendance at this workshop was restricted to pro-life coordinators. The pastors were Fathers Bud Kaicher of St. Peter's Church in Fallbrook, who served jailtime for pro-life work in the late 80s, and Dennis Mikulanis of St. Charles in Imperial Beach, who is also the diocesan director of ecumenical affairs. "We [pro-lifers] have given up on getting them [priests] to join us in the rosary at the clinics," a coordinator told News Notes. In the workshop a coordinator asked about the possibility of parishes sponsoring monthly Masses for the intentions of pro-life ministry. Father Kaicher's response was that pastors are too burdened with numerous special Masses and other activities. Another participant proposed pro-life prayer services instead, which Father Mikulanis supported.

Another coordinator complained about not hearing enough about pro-life issues from the pulpit, thereby provoking two bouts of arguing between the pastors and coordinators. After Father Kaicher criticized the coordinators for being too focused on abortion, some workshop participants (about five coordinators) walked out a few minutes early. "What didn't happen is nobody walked away with a clear understanding of, 'OK, this is what we can do,'" said the coordinator. "Direction was vague.... No conclusions were drawn."

Jim and Rosemary Benefield spoke on their local post-abortion ministry. Rosemary, a registered nurse, runs Rachel's Hope, a lay ministry for Catholic women who have had abortions. Jim, a psychologist, gives workshops for men dealing with abortion's aftermath. A woman who had attended a Rachel's Hope workshop led off by explaining that, even after receiving sacramental absolution to reconcile themselves with God and the Church, post-abortive women are often unable to forgive themselves. Rosemary was inspired to start her ministry through her work as a registered nurse at Mercy Hospital, where she met women regretful over their abortions and exhibiting abortion aftereffects, such as reproductive complications, infection, sterility, depression, sleep disturbances, drug and alcohol addiction, eating disorders, and sexual dysfunction.

Jim became involved as a psychotherapist in post-abortion ministry when Rosemary's experiences indicated a need for men. Men have fallen for the rhetoric of "a woman's right to choose," so that they are afraid to tell a woman what they think she should do, he said. Instead, most men say "I'll support you in whatever you want to do," thinking that's what women want to hear. That is the last thing women want to hear, said Jim, because to women "it represents a wishy-washy foundation" and drives them further toward abortion.

Linda Arreola, a new Office for Social Ministry employee, spoke on advocacy in Hispanic pro-life ministry. A barrier to pro-life advocacy in the Latino community is that its members see themselves as not having a voice, particularly those who are Spanish-speaking, non-U.S. citizens. They are fearful of communicating their views to politicians, but such thinking is mistaken, Arreola said.

Rocio Hicks, who will be a certified NFP instructor in January, spoke at the Hispanic pro-life ministry workshop on the dangers of contraception and the blessings of NFP. She correlated the spread of contraception since 1930 and the dramatic increase in divorce rates since then (now at 50 percent), which contrasts with two percent for NFP users. For couples avoiding pregnancy, she said, the abstinence phase of the fertility cycle is similar to their courtship days, whereas the non-abstinence phase is "like another honeymoon every month," all of which she described as God's beautiful plan for marriage.

Hilaria Baez, a pro-life coordinator at St. Mary's Church in National City, was involved in sidewalk counseling at the notorious El Norte Clinic in San Ysidro, which closed in 1994. Most clients of San Diego-area abortuaries are Hispanic, most of whom cross over from Mexico, Baez reported. To support Hispanic Catholic pro-life outreach to these women, Baez emphasizes Spanish-language pro-life literature, and availability of Spanish-speaking personnel in the chancery.

Also speaking on natural family planning was Father Paul Marx, founder of Human Life International, the world's largest Catholic pro-life organization. During the week prior to the fair he spoke at several locations in the diocese, having been invited to San Diego by Deacon Ken and Marie Finn. In broaching the subject of NFP, Father Marx humorously pointed out the widespread ignorance of human fertility cycles in a sex-crazed society, then launched into the link between contraception and abortion. "The psychology of contraception-- preventing a child-- leads to abortion," he said. Every country that has contraception also has abortion, he said. Massive use of contraception is the reason why countries such as the United States, which now have less than replacement birthrates, are dying, he said. Father Marx thus sees current U.S. immigration trends differently than many social conservatives: "Thank God for those people who come over across the border, over one million a year, nine of 10 being Hispanics. Except for them, we would have no future. Our birth rate, as is, is 2.1; without the immigrant babies we would be much, much lower."

Another problem associated with artificial birth control methods is that most are abortifacient, Father Marx explained. It is estimated that there are between nine and 12 million abortions in the U.S. each year, including those caused by contraceptives. He enumerated a long list of additional evils rooted in contraception and the contraceptive mentality, including the Church's current priest shortage. His findings are that the average priest comes from a family with at least five or six children. "Contraception does not make couples happy; it does not produce a stable marriage," Father Marx emphasized. "It's great to be a Catholic these days because, obviously, the Church is right [in its teachings on contraception]. The only solution that I see to the worldwide war on the unborn is to get back to the true faith." The difficulty of this task was illustrated by Father Marx's report that, in 90 percent of the 800 parishes he has visited, parishioners have told him he was the first priest who talked to them about contraception.

News Notes' informal survey of 11 Catholics around the diocese found that only four of the respondents' parishes had publicized the Culture of Life Fair. This may be indicative of a diocesan-wide problem. Apart from frustration over clerical apathy, the speeches and workshops, as well as mood among fair participants, was upbeat.