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Contents © 1998
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
March 1998 LITTLE NOTES
CURRENT DIOCESAN CHANCELLOR Monsignor Dan Dillabough is taking the late Monsignor I. Brent Eagen's place as the University of San Diego's head of ministry and mission. Steve Callahan, former assistant to Bishop Robert Brom, will be named chancellor while still remaining in his current position as rector of St. Francis Seminary. "On the whole, I think it's a good move," says one insider. Dillabough's heart is at USD. He will help strengthen the school's Catholic identity, and the bishop will have a somewhat greater influence [at USD], or at least could. I don't know the implications for the diocese with Steve Callahan as chancellor, since I don't know what his current standing with the priests is like. Certainly he has less experience that Dillabough. He isn't as smooth or slick -- chose your metaphor -- either. But he is definitely more a Bishop Brom man." -- D.T.DURING JANUARY, 50 San Diego city buses had giant condoms plastered on their sides with the message, "Responsibility 7/24 [seven days a week, 24 hours a day]. Planned Parenthood." When contacted about the condom ads, Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Mary Ellen Hamilton emphasized the need for "sexual responsibility and responsible choices." "Getting the message out is critical," she said, especially to young people. What reaction was there? "Not much." The main concern, she said, was how Super Bowl tourists would react, and there was no measurable reaction.
Carmen Sandoval of the San Diego Transit Authority said the SDTA had received some complaints about the ad from mothers who didn't want their children to see it and have to explain what it was, but no organized protest. The transit authority "tries to be sensitive to the broader public concern," Sandoval said. "They try to carry ads that are not offensive to common decency. This was borderline." -- A.K.
A GROUP CALLED HOPE (Humility, Openness, Prayer, and Eucharist) meets at Ascension Parish in Tierrasanta at 12:15 p.m. every Wednesday to receive Holy Communion and share Catholic fellowship.
"I would go to Church every Sunday," Mike Inoue, one of the group's founders, says of his pre-HOPE days, "but by the end of the work week you couldn't tell me from a non-Catholic. My piety would wear off. I was talking about this with some Catholic co-workers about a year ago and we decided it would be good if we took a break in the middle of the week and got together to share prayers. One of them was a Eucharistic minister and she said, 'Maybe I can get the permission to bring the Eucharist.'" Bringing the Eucharist to work turned out to be unfeasible so the group decided to meet at Ascension Parish. In the chapel, usually without a priest, they have a short Eucharistic liturgy -- Gospel, Our Father, and Kiss of Peace -- followed by Holy Communion. "We make sure that we always have two Eucharistic ministers. When we only have one, he or she can't receive communion," Inoue explains. After Communion, they gather in the priest's lounge of the parish rectory to share prayers, intentions, and a brown-bag lunch. "We finish no later than one o'clock so that people can get back to work," Inoue says.
Another HOPE group is starting to meet after noon Mass on Thursdays at Our Lady of the Rosary in Little Italy. "We're not pushing it there," Inoue explains, "because there is a rosary group going after the mass and we don't want to compete with them."
For more information on the Ascension group, call Miriam Giorgianni at 284-9292. For the Our Lady of the Rosary group, call Mario Cataldo at 232-5660 x885. -- E.G.
PRO-LIFE VOTERS in the 49th Congressional district have a candidate in Libertarian Dr. Ernie Lippe, a 60-year-old dentist who lives in University City and practices in the Park West/Hillcrest area. The seat is currently held by pro-abortion Republican Brian Bilbray. Lippe, whose run for the same seat in '96 garnered little support, concedes his chances this year aren't much better. "I'm running," he explains, "to get people, who have always felt the solutions lay with the major parties, to realize they are the problem, not the solution."
Asked about his pro-life views, Lippe answers, "I was born and raised a Catholic. I went to a Jesuit elementary school in Chicago. I went to Loyola Academy High School and I went to Loyola University for undergraduate and dental school. I've always thought that life was precious. The Constitution has not gone far enough unless it begins to protect life on all levels. If we do not take this kind of a stance for the unborn, there will be a time in our relationship to government that our lives may be considered expendable. Euthanasia is one form of that. We spend millions of dollars trying to keep people on death row from suffering capital punishment....Yet we don't even give the unborn that benefit of the doubt." -- E.G.
THE LACK OF CATHOLICITY AT USD has long been a theme in these pages. Well, now you don't have to take our word for it. From USD's own just-released "Values Survey Report: Ethics Across The Campus":
"...50% of the students found Catholicity the value that is the 'least visible' [behind "academic excellence," "values based education," "individual dignity," and "holism"] in their day-to-day life at USD. Similarly, Catholicity is the value that is identified as 'least visible' by staff, faculty and administrators.
"This definition of a lack of visibility of Catholicity is problematic considering the richness of the symbols of Catholicism throughout the campus as reflect....
Still, students have made an especially strong statement that they do not view these outward manifestations of Catholicity as creating a Catholic identity. The data are given more meaning when coupled with comments from the focus groups and statements on the values survey. One student claimed that the "Mission Statement is misleading to a student looking for a Catholic experience;" another felt that USD "tolerates a real spirit of anti-Catholicism." Similar sentiments are evident in the attached comments from faculty and staff. For example, one faculty member believes that "sometimes we apologize for our Catholicity." -- D.T.
Contributors: Ernie Grimm, Alice Keyser, Dan Trimly