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Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

LETTERS
March 2003

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R.D. Bryan of La Jolla (News Notes February, 2003) must be confused. When Catholic priests travel with women they should be chaperoned. Likewise, homosexual priests should not travel alone with, nor be in intimate contact with, young Catholic boys and men. The sex abuse history of the Church is rife with stories of seduction and rape of young boys by pederast and pedophile priests such as the open pederast Father Shanley of Boston and Father Rudy Kos of Dallas. It is estimated that at least 80 percent (some say over 90 percent) of Catholic abuse victims are victims of these homosexual priests. Many cases began with unescorted youth ministry trips and rectory stayovers by high school and grade school students, altar boys, and seminary students.

This point is especially relevant in the San Diego diocese which has set itself against the Vatican's clear prohibition of homosexual ordinations contained in 1961 Guidelines for Religious orders (Canon Law Digest, 1963) and in subsequent Congregation directives such as the 1997 directives to all bishops. One such local priest-pederast was reportedly removed and sent to Florida for Internet solicitation and encouraging unsupervised stayovers by young boys in his rectory.

As long as dioceses such as San Diego continue to ordain "disordered" individuals, they will produce "disordered" priests. Under these conditions, Catholic parents should never allow young men to travel alone with any religious or laity.

Ralph W. Ballmer,
Escondido


STAND UP, STAND UP

I praise the Lord for one "Scrappy Priest" (S.D. News Notes, Feb. 2003). It sounds like he [Monsignor Edward Kavanagh of Sacramento] is a true man of God, a Christian Catholic, standing up for what is right. He reminds me of another man of God, a German Lutheran pastor and theologian who was killed by Hitler for standing up against the evil Nazi regime in 1945.

And what difference is there between the murderous killing of innocent unborn children and the Holocaust of the Jews during WW II?

Of course, Governor Davis (Dufas) wanted to make it look like he's in good standing with the Catholic Church, but how can he do that? In addition to promoting the holocaust of pre-borns via the absurd idea that a woman who has made the choice to be immoral and not protect herself from pregnancy has a right to kill her baby, he has signed more pro-homosexual bills than any governor in the history of California.

Catholic children in the public schools of California are being exposed to what is now called an alternate (homosexual) lifestyle from kindergarten through 12th, thanks to Gray Dufas.

The homosexual goals for the state are to make it a modern Sodom and Gomorrah, and they are using Dufas as their pawn.

If I read my Catholic and Protestant Bibles correctly, homosexuality is an abomination to our Holy God who will not tolerate it. God will judge the unbelievers, but Father O'Ryan (Gray Davis' pastor), "he who is spiritual judges all things" according to 1 Corinthians 2:15, so your job is to confront Dufas about his hypocrisy of being a believing Catholic and politically promoting issues that are anti-Catholic.

Monsignor Kavanagh, I exhort you to continue standing up for Jesus as the hymn goes.

Stand up, stand up for Jesus, The trumpet call obey; Forth to the mighty conflict, In this His glorious day. "Ye that are men, now serve Him," Against unnumbered foes; Let courage rise with danger, And strength to strength oppose. (Verse # 2) Stand up, stand up for Jesus, Ye soldiers of the cross; Lift high His royal banner, It must not suffer loss. (Chorus)

A Christian, also standing up for Jesus,
via e-mail


DISAPPOINTED

Someone recently brought this article ("Big Brothers Allow Gay Mentors," December, 2002) to my attention. The gist of the article is that San Diego Big Brothers board members are unaware of a new national policy. The article includes the paragraph below:

"Bruce Shepherd has been a member of San Diego's Big Brothers board of directors for 13 years and knew nothing about a change in policy and sounded surprised when it was described to him. 'I can't imagine the policy says that, but I don't want to react to the policy unless I've had a chance to read it and look at it. I'm headed out of town, and I won't be able to talk about it until next week.'"

I was very disappointed to see the above language in the article. The language flagrantly misrepresents the conversation which I had with the individual that called me at my home on this topic (presumably Mr. Kumpel). In that conversation, the caller asked for my reaction to what he represented to be a Big Brothers policy, but I cut him off before he could read it because, as I told him, it is my policy not to comment on language until I have a chance to see the actual language and the context in which it is used. I thus told him that I needed to have hard copy in front of me. I invited him to email it to me or to mail it to me, but I also told him that I was leaving town the next day and would not be able to see it until the following week. He told me that he would send it to me and that he would call me for further follow up.

The language in the article thus misrepresents several items. First, I cut him off the caller before he read the policy to me, so I never made any comment on the policy itself. Second, the quote suggests that somehow I was evading the caller's inquiry, when in fact he agreed to send me the language to me and to allow me an opportunity later to read and comment on the language. To my knowledge, I never received anything from the caller, Mr. Kumpel or anyone else. In leaving out any reference to that part of the conversation, the article deliberately creates a false impression.

I would like an apology and a correction. I am very troubled that your periodical could participate in an article that so intentionally distorts the comments which I made, and it certainly calls into question the integrity of your journalism.

Bruce P. Shepherd
Downtown San Diego

Robert Kumpel responds: I stand by the fact that Mr. Shepherd initially said that he was not aware of any change in the policy and sounded shocked when I described it to him -- his desire to "see the language" proves his lack of awareness. Everyone who asked for a copy of the policy by email was sent one, including Mr. Shepherd.


EVERYONE SEEMS TO FORGET

The Lord give you peace! Do continue the good work.

It's a terrible time. Regarding the sex scandals in the Church, on a 2002 CSPAN book program, the Hungarian-born Catholic historian, John Lukacs, was asked what he thought of the crisis. To paraphrase him -- since the time of Peter there have been scandals and attempts "to shove it under the rug" (protect family), but the problem is the bishops are not evaluating the way they are thinking about the problem.

In addition to the three GOP representatives, Cunningham (yes!), Hunter, and Issa, News Notes deserves some credit for the very good showing by Maria Garcia in her run for Congress. Your paper called attention to her candidacy, so donations could be made, etc. Hopefully, you will let us know if she and others decide to run again -- including the pro-lifer who ran in the Democratic primary.

Good to see the ads in the L.A. Mission seeking pro-life Hispanics to run against pro-abortion congressmen.

Everyone points out what happened when a local Catholic candidate (Lucy Killea) was told she should not receive Communion by our previous bishop because she was so adamant in pushing abortion and she won an "upset." But everyone seems to forget she way outspent her rival, got national TV publicity (Donahue), and the Republican did not fight back on the abortion issue.

God Bless!

Frank Grabarits,
North Park


CIRCUMCISION HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE

In response to the Letter to the Editor (February) entitled Circumcision Like Abortion, I would like to applaud and thank Ms. Petrina Fadel for exposing circumcision not only as a human-rights issue but a Catholic one as well.

Circumcision is a barbaric and painful procedure carried out on newborn males for no medical reason whatsoever and despite common fallacies regarding its benefits, the only real purpose circumcision serves is to make a profitable multi-million-dollar-a-year industry.

In light of what our very own Catechism states I believe it is time for Catholic parents to be given the truth medically and morally. I am happy to refer out great informational websites to anyone interested. Please e-mail at aqauinas18@hisurfer.net.

Trish Anderson,
Escondido

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