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Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

October 1999

As a tough therapeutic cop, Hillary does not shy away from the most abrupt expressions of such therapy, the death penalty. In this light perhaps we ought to look at her commitment to Choice as another piece of therapeutic policing.

Steve Levitt, an economist at the University of Chicago, and John Donohue III, a law prof at Stanford, have been circulating a paper -- reported in the Chicago Tribune this past Sunday, August 8 -- that the legalizing of abortion in the early 1970's has contributed to the falling crime rate of the 1990's. Indeed, they claim that legalized abortion may account for as much as half the overall crime drop between 1991 and 1997. Levitt says abortion "provides a way for the would-be mothers of these kids who are going to lead really tough lives to avoid bringing them into the world."

The authors cite stats from five states that legalized abortion before the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973. These five states with high abortion rates in the early 1970's had greater crime drops in the 1990's.

The Trib 's story quotes Cory Richards, a policy wonk at the Guttmacher Institute, saying, "This is an argument for women not being forced to have children they don't want to have. This is making the point that it's not only bad for the women, but for children and society."

So, from the social engineering, crime-fighting point of view, the reintroduction of the death penalty in 1977 saw Roe v. Wade as its logical precursor and concomitant. I don't think it's the way Germaine Greer of the Boston Women's Health Collective ever saw the Choice issue, but I can certainly imagine Hillary argue for abortion as socially therapeutic.

She comes from the liberal social engineering tradition that sponsored the great sterilizing boom earlier in the century, whose rampages in Vermont are now only coming to light. Hillary, never forget, is a Methodist, and that bleak creed of improvement is bedrock for her. She's a social cleanser. This is the cold steel that stiffens her spine and carries her forward, self-righteous amid the untidy mess of all her contradictions.

--"The First Lady Syndrome," New York Press , August 11-17, 1999

SHOULD PARENTS AND EDUCATORS BUY The Prince of Egypt for their children and students? The answer is "No." For as I have made clear, The Prince of Egypt will give our children the strong impression that the story of Moses is "essentially" the story of a man who decided to free his people from slavery so they could do what they wanted with their lives -- the story of a man who would not give up, who had "faith" (in himself) and was therefore able to defeat his enemies, able even to do "miracles." We should not allow our children's biblical imaginations to be so profoundly misinformed and distorted. Curiously, the National Catholic Register called The Prince of Egypt "religiously orthodox." Clearly, it is not.

--"The Cartoon Saga of Unholy Moses," New Oxford Review , September 1999

FROM BISHOP JOHN CUMMINS' own mouth came the startling revelation that the California Bishops "worked behind the scenes" to pass the "consenting adults" California bill known as AB489 in 1975. He shared this information at a small gathering coordinated by Fr. Schexnayder's homosexual outreach ministry at Our Lady of Lourdes parish on June 5th. What AB489 did was to legalize "adulterous cohabitation, oral sex, and sodomy between consenting adults," according to an article in the Wanderer (6/23/99) authored by Mike Arata who lives in the Oakland Diocese. Bp. Cummins went to Sacramento in 1971 to lead the California Conference of Bishops at the state capital until he was appointed as Ordinary of Oakland in 1977.

--"Heard Around the Diocese," The Roman Catholic Witness , August, 1999

IN MANY PARISH DISCUSSIONS OF PLANS for renovations, liturgists have selectively cited documents in an attempt to prove that the traditional placement of the tabernacle to a central position in the sanctuary of the church, where it is clearly visible to all, has been forbidden since the Second Vatican Council. This claim is untrue, but nevertheless, confusing to many Catholics.

One major source of confusion about tabernacle placement is found in §78 of Environment and Art in Catholic Worship [EACW], a key sentence of which reads: "A room or chapel specifically designed and separate from the major place is important so that no confusion can take place between the celebration of the eucharist and reservation " (emphasis added). This instruction is an innovation unique to this statement, not to be found in any official documents. None of the authoritative documents -- whether issued before 1978 or after -- suggest that it is "important" for ordinary parish churches to have Eucharistic reservation in tabernacles "separate from the major space" within a church.

-- Adoremus Bulletin , July/August, 1999

MERCY AND COMPASSION ARE BEING PROPOUNDED as the miracle prescription for all the ills besetting the Church today. These terms are used to justify all sorts of wrong-doing, particularly with regard to respect for human life in such evils as abortion, reproductive rights and euthanasia. Mercy and compassion have been "zoomed out" of context! How could compassion be true compassion, and mercy be true mercy, if there is no longer any law to be observed, or any sin to be forgiven, or any conversion of heart to be achieved? How can compassion be extolled as the paramount pastoral attitude, when the transcendence of God and his law is no longer acknowledged?

--"The Catholic Church for the Third Millennium," Commencement Address by Cardinal Jan Schotte at Thomas Aquinas College, June 12, 1999