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Contents © 1997
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

July/August 1997 LETTERS

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DEACON KEELEY PROMOTED THE CHURCH'S TEACHING

In the "Little Notes" section of the June 1997 edition it was mentioned that a "diocesan source" said that Deacon Jim Keeley, former director of the Office for Social Ministries of the Diocese of San Diego, had gone the ''Dignity route" in his ministry to persons with homosexual attraction. I believe this opinion of the diocesan source to be in error from my personal communications and meetings with Deacon Keeley.

My first introduction to Deacon Keeley was at the direction of Bishop Brom regarding Courage. Speaking with Deacon Keeley regarding the diocese's "Ministry to Gays and Lesbians," I remember Deacon Keeley telling me about the initial meetings that he had begun being filled with controversy in part because of persons from Dignity and its agenda. He told me that he did not wish to get into that kind of controversy again.

Deacon Keeley said that the Office for Social Ministries had not yet adopted a plan of ministry to persons with homosexual attraction. He did say that he was looking at some models of ministry to "gays and lesbians'' already operating in other dioceses. Deacon Keeley also promoted the Church's teaching that persons with homosexual attraction are to be respected but that homosexual genital activity is always wrong, a statement that is incompatible with what Dignity espouses.

Deacon Keeley also tried to present the Church's teaching on homosexuality within the fora of the experiences of a man with homosexual attraction and of the experiences of families with members who have homosexual attraction. These allowed a sharing of human experience and were fairly innocuous on his part. Several of the presenters promoted their own agenda and opinion, which is not the Church's teaching, either in the form of a written statement or verbal comment. These opinions had no foundation in theology, psychology, or Sacred Scripture. Deacon Keeley cannot be held responsible for these spontaneous gestures by panelists, and indeed commented on one of them that "it was unfortunate."

I do, however, feel that the Office for Social Ministries can present more clearly the Church's teaching and guide Catholics by refuting current opinions promoted by those who consider themselves "gays and lesbians" (as opposed to those "persons with homosexual attraction" -- to use the language of the Church--who try to live chastely and refuse to define themselves bv their sexuality as the Church clearly teaches).

Deacon Keeley's efforts were a beginning of the diocese to reach out to persons with homosexual attraction. Now the baton is passed to the new director.

-- Fr. Richard L. Perozich
Spiritual Advisor to Courage


THERE NEEDS TO BE A GROUNDSWELL

All registered Republicans need to help our elected Congressmen and Senators develop the backbone and intestinal fortitutde to fight the Clinton plan for total federal control of America's public schools. In addition, he wants total federal control of education so that Hillary's universal health plan can be surreptitiously foisted on the people through the initial avenue of local school-based health clinics.

We need to give our students cognitive learning situations in the basics of reading, writing, and math plus history, geography, science, language acquisition, music, and art. We do NOT need outcome-based education to concentrate on social engineering rather than teaching children and young people how to think for themselves!

Republicans in Congress are wavering and some indicate they will not fight Clinton. What kind of a Machiavellian hold does this president have on those elected officials in his opposition party?

There needs to be a groundswell of phone calls, faxes, and letters to the 25 GOP members of the House Committee on Educatiion and the Workforce. Your own Congressman should be able to supply you with a list of these 25 Republicans. There are only two Californians -- Congressman Howard McKeon, Southern California and Congressman Frank Riggs, Northern California. Speaker Newt Gingrich, House Majority Leader Dick Armey, and House Majority Whip Tom Delay need to hear from you also. Please get your phone calls, faxes, and letters sent as soon as possible and send them to: Congressman _________, House Office Bldg., Washington, D. C. 20515.

-- Betty Gault Cordoba
San Marcos


SUPPORT FOR LIFE IN ALL ITS BEAUTIFUL FORMS, TRA-LA-LA

Thank you, News Notes, for alerting us ("Gated Communities as Social Sin," June) as to where the next avenue of attack from the Progressives will be ("On Individualism and Precious Bodily Fluids" or, "Wicked Wealthy Whitemen buy bottled water; Ignore the poor's dependence on horrid tap water": Episcopal bishop and Catholic diocesan staffer condemn American individualism as uncharitable). So now we're guilty of individualism? It's not surprising that an American trait is under attack from the Progressives and, certainly, individualism is contrary to the collectivist mentality of Socialism.

The socialist mentality has become institutionalized in our way of thinking. The only sins that now exist are collective: Society is at fault for racism, sexism, homophobia, and economic injustice. Individualism and intolerance are now sins only when the individual refuses to embrace the contemporary socialist agenda. Hence there is little emphasis upon mortal sin or the necessary salvation of an individual soul through sacramental graces, which is the Church's job. The avoidance of the "A" word from the pulpit is not due to a fear of a loss of parishioners or income, as most frustrated anti-abortionists think. The mortal sin of abortion is just a "single issue" to be lost in the noise of collectivist issues. The illuminated brilliance of the seamless garment mentality was that the word "prolife" could promote a social collectivist position and completely dilute the abortion issue in favor of "prolife" issues such as forced governmental economic redistribution. The moral high ground then goes to those Catholic prolife Democrats who murder their unborn children or grandchildren in order to spare them from poverty but who support a Marxist redistribution of wealth at the hands of a secular government. The "dignity" of the person is enhanced by governmental redistribution of wealth which affords him the ability to buy bottled water, a cellular phone, and a Sony Walkman to place upon his head. This "right" of consumerism now has the same moral weight as our opposition to the mass murder of abortion, the latter issue being further diluted by the very "balanced" euphemism of "support for all life in all its beautiful forms, tra-la-la".

Why not condemn the me-first mentality of contraception and abortion? This type of selfish individualism of child-killing for personal convenience is beyond reproach or only vaguely condemned in social justice parlance by the Progressives. The answer lies in the true definition of the word "liberal" as employed in the French Revolution and in the sexual revolution. In this revolutionary mentality, the word "liberal" means liberated from their true oppressor which is Christendom and all of its required individual morality.

The resulting mayhem and breakdown in the moral social order creates a power vacuum which is filled, on cue, by oppressive, tyrannical government. This mechanism explains to the objective observer why liberals want more, and not less, government control in spite of the conventional meaning of the word "liberal." A modern day example of this social mechanism is the use of metal detectors in government schools. One of the many triumphs of Socialism is the government's enforcement of a pretended lack of the existence of Almighty God and a criminalization of the teaching of the Ten Commandments. Hence, there is no objective moral law to abstain from committing murder and the vacuum is filled by very expensive metal detectors and consequent loss of Fourth Amendment rights involving search and seizure. Rampant crime in society and its reign of terror further benefits the Socialist agenda by imposition of higher taxes and demand for draconian governmental measures. As Vice President Al Gore confessed in a 1997 inauguration speech, we'll know them by their fruits.

The most unfortunate corollary to the above social mechanism is the diminution of the Church as the moral authority and its replacement by big government as the moral authority. When government said that child-killing is a woman's right, we saw abortions increase from 100,000 a year in 1972 to 1.6 million a year in the U S., or one out of three pregnancies. Irrespective of official Church teaching, the government says that abortion is acceptable so that we now have a situation where 25 percent of abortions in the U.S. are conducted on the 24 percent of women in the U.S. who are baptized Catholics. The blasphemous beast of big-government was further fed by 54 percent of American Catholics who re-elected Clinton in the face of his radical pro-abortion agenda. Our mild protest of partial-birth abortion rang hollow and pathetic as we unwittingly supported atheistic socialism and its companion, mass murder.

Will the desire for private confession be considered a selfish act of individualism when everyone else gets the collective communal absolution? Give 'em time.

Individually yours,

Pat Sullivan
Non-gated address, Poway

P.S.: Tap water tastes better when it's boiled and taken back to room temperature.

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