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Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
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March 1999 LITTLE NOTES

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Planned Parenthood "has gone beyond its original charitable purpose," the suit alleges, "and has commenced to compete generally with private community physicians by offering compensated medical services to the general public" in violation of state health and business codes. "Over the years," Family Planning Associates charges, "Planned Parenthood has expanded far beyond its original charitable purpose of providing medical care and treatment to indigent persons. Planned Parenthood operates a network of facilities throughout southern California...for the purpose of providing compensated medical service to the general public and is engaged in an aggressive marketing."

Allred must have seen red when Planned Parenthood "knowingly and willingly conspired," as the suit puts it, to provide abortions to patients referred by Southern California Permanente Group, an HMO. Permanente doesn't send referrals to Family Planning Associates anymore, and that, according to a Los Angeles pro-life researcher (who asked not to be identified) meant Allred's clinics lost "by far their largest HMO contract."

In her 15 years' of sidewalk counseling, Cheryl Sullenger, director of the California Life Coalition said, "we would often see people go into it [Allred's clinic in La Mesa] with their Kaiser cards. On any given day two or three that we would be aware of were from Kaiser." Significantly, while Family Planning Associates has contracts with over 260 organizations, Permanente's defection is the only one explicitly mentioned in the suit: "For the past approximately 20 years, Family Planning Associates...has provided medical care and treatment to Permanente patients. Over the years Family Planning Associates has, at great expense, opened numerous medical facilities creating a comprehensive network of facilities in close proximity to Permanente facilities..." But for three years now, the suit charges, "Permanente has ceased referring its patients to Family Planning Associates for care and treatment in the counties of San Bernardino, Orange and San Diego."

Mrs. X, an attorney licensed to practice law in California (who requested anonymity) said, "personally, I would like to see Allred win the lawsuit because one of the strengths of Planned Parenthood is all this free money they get.... They don't have to operate the business efficiently because they can be big and fat and inefficient.... If Allred wins it's either going to affect their tax exempt status or [make them] charge more. So that means in a competition that would level the playing field, and in a fair fight, Allred would win."

Mrs. X thinks that Allred's got a strong case because he has "standing." He can show that he has been personally damaged. A pro-lifer, however, could not bring the same suit against Planned Parenthood because the court would ask, how have you been damaged? "Allred actually has standing," she said, "because he can say, 'look I have a contract with Permanente.'" The suit does not specify damages except to say that they would be more than $25,000, the threshold for cases for superior court, Mrs. X explained. The actual damages would be much, much larger. But that's not all. "Whatever he gains from this court he [can] take that principle and use it as a settled matter in other counties," Mrs. X said.

"INTEGRAL TO THE CATHOLIC IDENTITY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO is the respect for the individual religious traditions expressed in our community," read the program at the February 5 Sixth Annual All Faith Service. Included in the program were an Islamic, Buddhist, and Hindu prayer, and a Chant for the Universe ("let rivers flow...let the air be clean again...reach out to those raped...."). A Dramatic Presentation, "El Salvador 1977," seems to have been the Catholic contribution. Nowhere on the program do the words "Jesus" or "Christ" appear. In the Chant for the Universe, the one prayed to is "Prophet, sage, hero, saint, Bodhisattva, avatar, teacher." A Catholic priest (Monsignor Daniel Dillabough) and a Catholic nun (Sr. Virginia Rodee), according to the program, sat on the Planning Committee.

"I DROVE BY THE LOWER PARKING LOT off Taylor Street around 10:00 or 11:00 A.M. on Christmas Day and there they were, having a party." So stated a Mission Hills resident who has been a long-time activist against homosexual activity in Presidio Park, in reference to the "cruising parties" that occur there on a near-daily basis. "They [homosexual men] usually gather there about dusk looking for pickups," said the activist, who requested anonymity, "but I've noticed that they tend to congregate more heavily in the park on holidays, probably because they think the police won't be out in as much force on those days." Seeing the cars in the Taylor Street parking lot on Christmas Day, the activist stopped and went into the men's public restroom, where he caught three men in the middle of a homosexual act. He promptly called the police, who then arrived and broke up the "party".

The activist further stated "Mission Hills residents have been fighting outdoor homosexual activity in Presidio Park for over 15 years, with over 100 arrests made in a park that is frequented by schoolchildren on a weekday basis for the Old Town Project conducted by San Diego City Schools. Because of the problems with homosexual activity in the park, children must now be accompanied by two teachers who each carry hand-held radios. One of the teachers must act as a scout, going before the children to check for homosexual activity in the restrooms before the children can use them and to prevent children from accidentally witnessing any homosexual encounters."

Another activist who spoke to this reporter said that on several occasions he has counted 20 to 30 cars in the parking lot by the public restroom on Taylor Street. While efforts to combat this activity in the park continue, lately they have been hampered by discrepancies in the closing hours stated in parking lot signs. The park's closing hours vary according to season; closure in the winter months (October through March) is 7:00 p.m. and in the summer months (April through September) 9:00 or 10:00 p.m.

The reason the discrepancy is a problem, said the Mission Hills resident, is that "The one sign with the correct time is the sign in the lot at Inspiration Point, and this lot is gated shut each night to bar entry of automobiles. However, because the signs in the bottom lots still say 9 or 10, autos can legally park there without being ticketed by police, and the occupants can enter the park and go to any section of it on foot, including Inspiration Point." The bottom lots include the "party" lot by the public restroom off Taylor Street, two lots directly below the Presidio, and another lot on Cosoy Circle, adjoining Fort Stockton Street in Mission Hills.

Since October, the Mission Hills resident has been contacting City Councilman Byron Wear for assistance in getting park signs changed, to no avail. Jeff Van Deerlin, council representative for Byron Wear, told the activist that he had spoken to Parks and Recreation and that the signs would be changed soon. However, as of mid-January, the signs had not been changed.

In mid-January, this reporter contacted Wear's office asking when to expect the sign change. Jeff Van Deerlin returned the call, saying, "We are trying to get Parks and Recreation to make the signs all the same. We do have winter hours and summer hours, and I believe the summer hour restriction is 9:00 or 10:00. The winter is supposed to be 7:00. And yes, those signs--even some up in Inspiration Point, apparently--say 9:00, while the major one says 7:00. At Taylor Street, right at the foot of Inspiration Point, those read 9:00, and up at Cosoy Circle, those read 10:00. So we're trying to get Parks and Recreation to unify them and make them all 7:00 for the winter hours."

On January 20, van Deerlin said that he expected that the signs would be changed "within the next two weeks,"--or February 4 at the latest. However, a check of the park's signs on February 7 revealed no change.

COUNTY SUPERVISOR BILL HORN, by the time this issue of News Notes appears, will have delared his candidacy for Diane Feinstein's U.S. Senate seat. Horn, a 56-year-old former Marine Corps officer, who lives in Valley Center and has represented North County on the county board since 1994, says he is a "solid pro-lifer," though the issue hasn't come up during his tenure at the board of supervisors. The closest he's come, says Horn, is a vote on condom distribution, where he was the lone vote against. Likely primary opponent, if the pundits are correct, is James Rogan (R-Glendale), one of the House managers in the Clinton impeachment trial.

"EXPERIENCE A 3 DAY WEEKEND of exploring the rich traditions of our Catholic Christian story, of liturgical celebrations, of dance and music, of resourcing, of community building in a multicultural setting." So said the ad for the February 12­14 Los Angeles Religious Education Congress, which ran in the January 28 Southern Cross, San Diego's diocesan newspaper. In keeping with the Congress's tradition of the past few years, this year's event featured heterodox speakers. In the February 1996 Los Angeles Lay Catholic Mission, noted Catholic author Donna Steichen wrote, "It is in fact an annual complaint that many frequently invited speakers at ... [the] Religious Education Congresses are drawn from the speakers roster of Chicago Call to Action, a notorious engine of doctrinal dissent." Although several well-known orthodox Catholic figures have spoken at the Congress in recent years, its ongoing inclusion of controversial speakers and exhibitors has spawned annual protests and pickets by orthodox Catholics.

The Southern Cross ad displayed the photos of 19 conference speakers, among whom were dissenters such as Sisters Fran Ferder and Barbara Fiand, Tom Groome, Dr. Diana Hayes and Father Bryan Massingale. Sister Ferder, a Congress regular, feminist and sexologist, dissents from Church teaching on sex outside of marriage, according to Jason Berry's Lead Us Not Into Temptation. At the 1995 Congress, Sister Fiand, a veteran feminist, urged conversion toward Jungian "wholeness." This year she was slated to speak on "Feminist Theology: A New Way of Being." Ex-priest Thomas Groome is a regular speaker at the Congress and events sponsored by the National Center for Pastoral Leadership, established in 1992 by Time Consultants, Inc., a for-profit business started by Timothy Ragan, who "decided to fight the pope after he realized the direction in which Pope John Paul II intended to take the Church" (Dan Guido, the Annapolis, Maryland Sunday Capitol, October 22, 1989).

Dr. Diana Hayes, an associate professor of theology at Georgetown University, has gone beyond calling for women's ordination to advocating that women simply start functioning as priests. Dr. Hayes rejects ordination as a tool of an oppressive power structure. In 1995 the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared that the Church's affirmation of the male- only priesthood "was set forth infallibly." At the 1997 Congress, Father Bryan Massingale, liberation theologian and professor at St. Francis Seminary in Milwaukee, said that, since the decline of Marxism (liberation theology's philosophical foundation), the movement has been promoting individual "liberation theologies" for groups he depicted as oppressed by the Church and society (feminists, gays and lesbians, minorities, etc.). This year Father Massingale was scheduled to speak on "Liberation Theology Today: Still Seeking Justice for the Poor." In 1984 the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a document condemning Marxist-influenced liberation theology.

On February 19 a Southern Cross reader complained about the ad's promotion of dissenters to Lee Haralson, the newspaper's director of business affairs. Haralson replied that this was the caller's opinion, commenting that, at large Catholic conferences such as the Congress, there are usually speakers not acceptable to all Catholics. The caller responded that some speakers at the Congress hold views incompatible with the magisterium. Haralson said the ad was sent to the Southern Cross by Cardinal Mahony's office, and was accepted because the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress is approved by the Cardinal. Moreover, Bishop Brom himself approves all the contents of the Southern Cross, including ads, Haralson explained. He advised the caller to express her views to the ad's source, the Los Angeles Archdiocese. When asked if the newspaper has guidelines for accepting ads, Haralson did not mention specific criteria, but maintained that the Southern Cross does keep Church teachings in mind. When the caller inquired about lodging a further complaint with the San Diego chancery, Haralson suggested writing a letter to the Southern Cross.

"BISHOP BROM HAS DONE WELL PASTORALLY in this note to his priests regarding the sacrament of Penance," writes one San Diego pastor in reference to a memo sent by the bishop on February 4. The bishop's memo includes a definition of General Absolution ("designed for extreme situations when individuals would be deprived of access to a confessor for a long period of time") and points out that "this bishop is the sole competent authority for determining the appropriateness and conditions which must be met for the celebration of General Absolution."

"Unfortunately," the pastor says, "he [Brom] cannot police each parish or even assure correction of offenders because we are so few as priests."

"EDITH STEIN MUST NOT BE USED by the Catholic Church to justify the Catholic Church's positions," said ex-priest speaker James Carroll during the question-and-answer session following his talk entitled "The Cross at Auschwitz: A Christian Reflection" at UCSD on January 28.

During his talk before an audience of approximately 300 people, Carroll lamented the lack of effort by Pope Pius XII to do more to save Jews during the Holocaust of WWII, as well as the hierarchical, patriarchal structure of the Catholic Church. His remarks were challenged by Rory Trup, a member of the San Diego Chapter of the Catholic League, who said, "Jewish historians said all organizations together don't even come close to what Pope Pius XII did. So to condemn him, or to do anything other than congratulate him, just doesn't seem fair to me ... there was a Jewish survivor who said she speaks of Stein "tending to other women and children on the way to the death camp, consoling, helping and calming them like an angel." That's a Jew talking about Edith Stein. And I haven't heard you say a thing, a positive thing, about these things. My question to you is, why haven't you brought up any of this side of the story?"

Carroll responded, "Well, what really could Pius XII have done? The answer is, what John Paul II did, in relation to Communism, someone could have done, or tried to do, in relation to Naziism. So, this pope, for all the easy ways a liberal Catholic, a dissenting Catholic like me, has of criticizing him, is deeply moving, although I would not want to be in a one-on-one conversation with him. I think I'd get a finger waved sharply in my face."

Carroll's talk was sponsored by the Eugene M. Burke CSP Lectureship on Religion and Society at UCSD. The lectureship "sponsors two or three lectures per year given by distinguished theologians, scholars and others whose qualifications in areas encompassed by the Lectureship, provide intellectual stimulus and exchange...." Past speakers have included dissident theologians Charles Curran, Hans Kung, Dan Sullivan, and Sister Joan Chittister, OSB.

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