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Contents © 1997
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

May 1997 LETTERS

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I saw for the first time this morning the most recent issue of your publication featuring the article by Rick Salbato, "San Diego's Forgotten 'First Catholics'" (April). I had already heard of this article from two persons distressed by its content.

I had spoken briefly with Mr. Salbato several days ago, and agreed to a later time for an interview. Although I have never met him in person, he seemed to be someone sincerely interested in helping the Native People and the Church on the Reservations. Therefore, I was quite surprised that he would publish such a damaging and incorrect image of our life here. Furthermore, I had no understanding that I would be included in such an article, nor had I been given any opportunity to review any of its content before publishing. This article has already caused much embarrassment and distress, and, I fear, can undermine to some extent the trust we have been working so very hard to establish with the Native People. Given these circumstances, I no longer plan to hold an interview with Mr. Salbato.

The Indians are people like everyone else, and I don't suggest they are perfect. But my experience of them is that they are deeply spiritual people, very much in touch with God our Creator. This is perhaps the aspect of their lives that was most attractive to me when I first came to live among them. They love their Church and long to have a more prominent presence of Church among them. They had prayed earnestly that God would send them a priest, sister or brother before I arrived, and they consider my presence here as an answer to their prayer. There is a need, it is true, for a resident priest who would be available to assist them. However, to print that there are no priests and only two tabernacles on any of the reservations in both the San Diego and San Bernardino dioceses is patently false.

It is another serious error to paint our Native People as deviant and abusive of their children. Most commonly the people love their children with a very tender and protective affection. This is true not only of the women. At general gatherings it is not unusual to see large, strong men holding and caring for their tiny ones with all the tenderness of a mother. Furthermore, when parents may be absent for whatever reason, there is a large and complex network of family relations to embrace the children and care for them -- something quite lacking in the general population of our country.

I met this morning with Desi Sanchez, as well as our Native Administrator, Michael Madrigal, and some others, to review this painful situation. We are attempting to apologize to the people and explain that we had neither knowledge of this article prior to printing nor had we given our consent to it. We request from your paper a public apology as well. It will be difficult to repair the damage caused by this article.

-- (Sister) Marianna Torrano, RSCJ
Soboda Reservation
San Jacinto


NO RIGHT TO ELEVATE HIS CATHOLIC FAITH

This letter is written in response to the article "San Diego's Forgotten 'First Catholics'" by Rick Salbato. This article was based on an interview with Mr. Desi Sanchez, director of All Mission Indian Housing Authority (AMIHA) about Indian missions and the first catholic converts.

I am a licensed clinical psychologist who treats Indian people for family and psychological problems on Indian reservations in Southern California. I live on the La Jolla Indian Reservation where my wife and children are tribal members. As a non-Indian psychologist, I am extraordinarily careful what I say regarding Indian people, particularly to non-Indian public such as the lay Catholic readership. Indian people are a totally unique minority living in a closed environment, on their own land which existed long before Western influence, with a variety of cultural and religious histories. I would not dare speak about the First People and their way of life without permission from tribal elders. Nor would I speak about them unless my information was accurate and applied to all Indian people. This is anything but accurate, it is culturally insensitive and clearly does not have the blessings of elder's approval.

Salbato quotes Mr. Sanchez as saying, "The mothers bring their daughters out of the orchards where pickers are working and sell them into prostitution." Now, I ask you, what are non-Indian readers going to think about Indian people on reservations? Particularly after the reader has been given percentages about husbandless mothers, rape and drugs. There was no qualification that this quote was not typical of Indian life. It left the reader to assume like the percentages that this is a predominant pattern with Indian people, as if, behind every orchard on the 19 reservations is a mother selling her young into prostitution. This is nothing short of a direct vicious insult to The People.

Phrases are used in the article such as "problems of the Indian missions..." and "there are no police on the missions..." along with the question, "What are the worse problems facing the missions?" These phrases misrepresent to the uninformed reader a confusion between "missions" and "reservations." While writing about missions, the article quotes Mr. Sanchez about the life of Indian people on reservations. Missions and reservations are two different realities. To write about the missions in such a manner is to empower the Catholic faith to an entitlement it does not have on the reservation. A Catholic mission is not an Indian way of life. The implication to the unknowing reader is that the "mission" is Indian -- it is not.

Misinformation continues in Mr. Sanchez's reference to the "wars." "They are blaming the Church for the wars," he was quoted as saying. What wars? Indian people were slaughtered, nearly extinguished. Indian history is confused at best when reference is made inaccurately to the unknowing reader about the "war." It also dissociates the Catholic faith from its hand in what was done to the Indian people on the reservations where the missions were built. That quote is an outrage.

AHIMA is not federally funded to bring priests to Indian country. By association, Mr. Sanchez is using his authority to sell a political agenda at a cost to the First People. Salbato wrote, "Sanchez, a Catholic, is concerned that mystical Indian religions and Protestant fundamentalism are making huge inroads into the missions, simply because there is no Catholic presence." Mr. Sanchez has no right to elevate his Catholic faith above other choices of religion Indian people are entitled to choose by insulting Indian traditions and other religious faiths. That very statement which Mr. Sanchez is quoted as saying symbolizes the violation the mission system has done to the Indian people hundreds of years ago. It is a self-centered arrogance which denies Indian heritage and freedom to choose.

Mr. Sanchez has accomplished a great deal in making major changes at AHIMA and he has contributed active support of Indian youth activities on the reservations in the AHIMA area. At the same time, this article about his perception of Indian people to a non-Indian readership is a discredit and insult to Indian people. The Catholic faith could offer much spiritual guidance and in fact could have a profound impact on the destructive elements in Indian Country, but not at the cost of degrading Indian people, their traditions or insulting other religions. I believe Mr. Sanchez owes the Indians a letter of apology.

-- Herbert McMichael, Ph.D
Pauma Valley


VERMIN

Considering the site of his talk (the Religious Education Congress in Los Angeles) few News Notes readers last month would have been surprised by the remarks of Thomas Rausch SJ, chairman of Loyola Marymount's theology department ("Catholicism's Most Wanted," April). (I omit the fatherly appellation here since it implies an authority status in no way deserved.)

Mr. Rausch's words revealed a man intent upon sabotage. His Roman collar merely disguised his real objective: the undermining of Catholic education at LMU and the faith of other innocents whose attention he might capture. Among Mr. Rausch's observations was the misguidance of those who toil at bringing converts into the Catholic Church. Such activity clearly violates the "spirit of ecumenism" and is thus at odds with modern (i.e., post-Vatican II) theology. Well, of course! Christ's command to His disciples to go and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was surely a misinterpretation of Our Savior's intent. Modern biblical scholarship (Rausch's guide in all ecclesiastical matters) would undoubtedly confirm for us that Christ was simply misquoted.

There were other points upon which our learned theologian chose to put a dishonest spin. He insisted, for example, that the Church's teaching in matters of faith and morals has quietly mutated. To make his point Rausch told them that the old doctrine of no salvation for anyone outside the Church is now acknowledged as bad theology. Also misconceived was the Church's erstwhile condoning of slavery and torture, both of which, thanks to Vatican II, have now been rightly condemned.

But in fact the Church has never altered her stand on such matters. Willful repudiation of the Church (and her teachings!) does indeed put one beyond the pale of salvation; this is the sin against the Holy Ghost of which there is no redemption. But those for whom entrance into the Church has never been an option are still deemed to be within the pale if they lived in accordance with the guiding conscience God puts into every human soul, no matter how primitive. So nothing has changed.

As regards slavery, the Church has always condemned it when the matter arose as a practical issue...as in 1537 when Pope Paul III prohibited slavery throughout the New World and elsewhere. Regarding torture (as employed, for example, during the Inquisitions), it was never condoned by the Church beyond its mildest forms, and then only as a last resort in order to save a soul from damnation. The severe tortures usually noised about by academics and others who despise Catholicism were carried out not by the Church, but by the Inquisition's secular arm, the state -- and usually under stern protest by the Church.

After this display of loose-cannonry, Mr. Rausch then had the chutzpah to advise Catholics about being careful of what they say! We have no business, he says, of claiming to be the sole possessors of the Eucharist. Don't we realize that Lutherans and Anglicans have the Eucharist too? "And Lutherans have a very similar theology [to ours]." In other words, there's not enough difference in Protestant and Catholic concepts of the Eucharist to argue about. This was essentially the thesis of Rausch's mentor, Karl Rahner, SJ, who codified a covertly Protestant meaning of the Eucharist. So we shouldn't be surprised that Mr. Rausch and his comrades employ "ecumenism" for treacherous purposes. They employ it not to lead Protestants back to orthodoxy, but to gradually nudge the Catholic Church down the road to Protestantism.

Sadly, there are thousands of Tom Rauschs in seminaries and Catholic universities across North America. Indeed, they infest the Church like vermin; and since Vatican II they've crept out of her woodwork and into her classrooms, there to disgorge their heretical notions upon the minds of countless young seminarians and college students. As you pointed out, "Father" Rausch spoke at USD in March, thanks to sponsorship by the Institute of Christian Ministries. One wonders why an episcopal shepherd, commanded by Christ to protect His flock, stands by with contemptible insouciance as marauding wolves proceed at will to ravage it. Oremus!

-- H.V. Nussey
Talmadge


DEFINITELY DANGER HERE

Should Dr. Bill Creasy's five-year Bible course be rejected and opposed as a problem because of its deficiencies; or should it be viewed as a challenge because of its wealth of real insights that the Catholic faithful definitely need?

Mr. Richard Thomas ably identified the nature of the deficiencies in his letter in the April New Notes, and I affirm that I have yet to see or hear Dr. Creasy give as enthusiastic and capable a presentation of the Catholic perspective as he gives Biblical insights and even the Protestant perspective.

Though marred by serious defects, Dr. Creasy's Bible course is so superior to the horrors and misinformation of Reverend Thomas Rausch's views, as presented in that same issue of News Notes, that I can recommend the former if it is approached with caution, but I wouldn't touch the latter under any circumstances.

If you don't want to be one of today's sheep who are being sheared of their Catholic faith, then you must recall and heed Christ's warnings: "In reply Jesus said to them: 'Be on guard! Let no one mislead you....'" (Matt 24:4) "'Because of my name you will be hated by everyone. Nonetheless the man [and woman] who holds out till the end is the one who will come through safe.'" (Mark 13:13) "'False messiahs and false prophets will appear performing signs and wonders to mislead, if it were possible, even the chosen. So be constantly on guard! I have told you about it beforehand.'" (Mark 13:22-23)

Dr. Creasy's course: 1) corrects the common error that Eve tempted Adam by picking the fruit and taking it to him; 2) identifies the part that Eve's exaggeration of God's injunction probably played in the fall; and 3) debunks the scholarly theory of two allegedly conflicting sources of the Genesis account by pointing out that the two accounts of creation are simply a literary device in which the same story is first told from God's viewpoint and then repeated for emphasis from man's viewpoint.

Recognize that you are not getting the whole reason for the Catholic faith in Dr. Creasy's presentation. Especially recognize that Dr. Creasy is not focusing your attention on the Biblical evidence for Catholicism. But if you remain alert and keep your wits about you, Dr. Creasy's course can be a great spiritual benefit. Yes, there is definitely danger to your Catholic faith here, from misinformation and misdirection. But the tools and information are also there, if you personally work, pray, and apply yourself to grow in God's gift of grace. I think the greatest risk is to those "Catholics" who are so ignorant of the faith that it would hardly be true to speak of their losing the faith.

Rather than being obsessively worried about these risks, do remember Scripture's other warning in Rev. 3:16: "So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth!" Dr. Bill Creasy does seem to be an antidote to that grievous problem of our day.

I hope the bishop will follow up on Mr. Thomas' suggestion by allocating resources to provide appropriate follow-up material, supplementing the deficiencies in Dr. Creasy's course with solid Catholic material.

-- James J. Harris
Clairemont

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