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Contents © 2005
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

LETTERS
March 2005

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In last month's letters column, a letter titled "Deeply Damaged" was mistakenly identified as coming from Mary Jo Faustgen. The letter was written by Rosemary Benefield.

I BEG YOU, BISHOP BROM

It's that time of year again, when our bishop is asking for our sacrificial offering for the Annual Catholic Appeal. Before I consider donating money to the Appeal, I would like to ask something of the bishop in return: Please Bishop Brom, stop posting bail and paying for the legal defense of priests like Fr. Gary Holtey, who have a sexual attraction to young boys. Instead, please help protect all children by insuring that criminal acts like possession of child pornography are punished with criminal sentences and not "counseling" sentences. Please urge our legislators to increase the child porn possession charge to a felony instead of a misdemeanor as it is in the city of San Diego. Is this why we attract the likes of Paul Shanley and Rudy Kos, because we're soft on pedophiles here in America's finest city? We don't send shoplifters and bank robbers to counseling, why send someone involved in something much more serious?

Please stop your policy of allowing men with homosexual inclinations to be considered for ordination to the priesthood. In light of the predominance of homosexual priests involved in the sex abuse scandals, the risk is far too high. Why should we risk our donations for future lawsuit settlements?

Please prohibit priests, such as Fr. James Mott, who was removed as pastor from St. Patricks' in North Park because of his involvement with the homosexual priests' website "St. Sebastian's Angels", from having contact with our children. Fr. Mott is now living adjacent to St. Augustine High School for boys, in the St. Augustine Monastery, and is on the rotation to hear their confessions. Please protect our children and permanently remove him. Please remove all priests from our parishes that promote homosexuality from the pulpit as they are most likely active homosexuals themselves. Please make our parishes and schools safe for our boys. I beg you, Bishop Brom, put our children first, not the offending and high risk priests. When I can have real assurance that all the boys in the San Diego Diocese are safe from predatory priests, then I will consider making a sacrifice for the Annual Appeal.

Sincerely,

Susan Lopez,
San Diego

WHERE WERE OUR BISHOPS?

The January 27 cover of our diocesan newspaper, The Southern Cross, depicted an estimated 7,000 pro-lifers marching in San Francisco January 22 to decry the 32nd anniversary of the Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion on demand in the United States.

If pro-lifers in Sodom-by-the-Sea were able to organize such a march, why couldn't America's Finest City also do so — especially when San Diego has not one but THREE Catholic bishops and is home to one of the largest baby-murdering organizations in the nation, Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside Counties (PPSDRC)?

PPSDRC's main surgical abortion clinic is located at the intersection of First and Grape Streets downtown. It is within a few blocks' walking distance of St. Joseph Cathedral, which is pastored by auxiliary Bishop Gilbert Chavez. One would think that at least one of our three bishops — preferably Bishop Robert Brom — would have been inspired to lead a Rosary or Eucharistic procession in front of this notorious murder mill that Saturday morning. Instead, a small prayer protest, garnering a pathetic turnout of approximately 50 people — some of whom were Catholic — was conducted by Biblical Family Advocates, a Protestant ministry.

Where were our bishops? Hundreds, if not thousands, of local Catholics should have been out on the public sidewalk in front of Planned Parenthood that morning to pray for the more than 45 million innocent pre-born who have been slaughtered since Roe v. Wade, for the thousands of babies surgically slaughtered each year at Planned Parenthood's downtown San Diego facility, and for the untold numbers mass-murdered via chemical abortion at Planned Parenthood satellite clinics located throughout San Diego, Imperial and Riverside Counties just blocks away from many of our Catholic parishes.

The afternoon of January 22, our diocese held a pro-life Mass at the USD Immaculata. This was the Saturday vigil Mass. It was celebrated by Fr. Matthew Spahr, who did give a good pro-life homily, but the church was not even close to full. The sparse attendance at the pro-life Mass stands in stark contrast to a Mass held a few months earlier to honor St. Pio of Pietrelcina, when the Immaculata was packed to overflowing. Afterward, the Office of Social Ministry served refreshments, but there was no information provided, as there has been in past years. The Southern Cross did not even advertise the pro-life Mass and its coverage of it in the following issue (January 27) consisted of a photo of Dr. Nicholas and Marya Jauregui, founders of Culture of Life Family Services, speaking at the end of Mass.

Again, I ask, where were our bishops? What better things did they have to do on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade that precluded them from praying for abortion victims at a mill a few strides from their cathedral or at least celebrating their own diocesan pro-life Mass? Yet, the diocese has the time, money and energy to coddle accused child porn priest Fr. Gary Holtey, pay for his long stays at a treatment center in Maryland, pay his bail so that he doesn't spend a single night in jail and pay legal expenses to help him escape hard prison time. Even more egregious is the fact that Bishop Brom was named to head the U.S. Catholic bishops' committee to address bishops' accountability for clergy sex abuse cases in the wake of the Catholic clergy sex scandals three years ago — in other words, he's the head of the committee to police his fellow bishops.

Moreover, this diocese has seemingly endless resources for lobbying on behalf of negotiable issues such as the death penalty, illegal migration and parish "wreckovations." But we can't get a bishop to protest in front of an abortion clinic or to take a public stance against the homosexual abominations that occur in "America's Finest City" on a near-daily basis. Something is terribly, terribly wrong with this picture. May God have mercy on our diocese, which appears far more like the Church impotent than the Church militant.

Allyson Smith
El Cajon

HOLTEY WAS HIS ASSOCIATE PASTOR

Fr Holtey was our associate pastor at St. Didacus in Normal Heights. Fr Holtey at that time seemed like a proper priest carrying out his ministries in the community. What I personally have found being a student of scripture is heresy from time to time by liberal homosexual priests, but not in huge proportions. They seem to slowly introduce their liberalism into the liturgy over a long period of time and sway the people from the splendor of truth. To me this is more serious then looking at child porn. One liberal priest over a period of time can damage the faith of thousands and it needs to stop right now.

Jim Berendt

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