LITTLE NOTES

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Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

May 1999 LITTLE NOTES

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The first City of San Diego police officer arrived on the scene about 20 minutes after the protest started and told one participant that the picketers were well within their rights. The officer mentioned that the condo complex management had complained about the picketing and were concerned about the right to privacy. The policeman said he told them that the picketers had every right to be there, as long as they stayed on public property. He left after a few minutes. One resident of Priver's highrise emerged on her balcony to yell at and lift her shirt at the protestors. Another area resident took a picketer to task for forcing his 12-year-old child to participate in his activism. His son commented, "I don't care; I've been doing this since I was five." One woman poured water on three picketers from her balcony and called two of the picketers "a couple of fat, ugly women." When a second San Diego police officer showed up at the picket a little later, picketers informed him of the incident. After he enumerated the rules for residential picketing to the protesters, he entered the complex.

Four police cruisers (three from the San Diego Police Department and one from the Harbor Police) appeared during the protest. One picketer recounted a portion of his conversation with the first SDPD officer who showed up: "He [the police officer] said, 'Oh, I knew you were going to be here.' 'Oh, really?' I said. 'I didn't tell anybody.' He said, 'Well, we knew you were going to be here; I was told you were going to be here.' 'So how did you know?' 'We have our investigative units discover things like this.'"

COLLEGE AREA PREGNANCY SERVICES will hold first annual fundraising dessert on Thursday, May 6 at Journey Community Church in La Mesa. Tim La Haye, veteran evangelical pastor from East County, will speak. Kent Peters, social ministries director for the San Diego diocese, Michaeline Jenkins of California Pro Life Council, and Assemblyman Steve Baldwin sit in the group's board. Information, 619-526-LIFE.

VOLUME ONE, NUMBER ONE of a Catholic homeschooling newsletter in the San Diego diocesan area came out in mid-April. Included are helpful hints about references, suppliers, and announcements of events (including the 12 noon Mass for homeschoolers at Our Lady of the Rosary on the first and third Fridays of the month). Publisher is Katherine Gillcrist, 5595 Coral Reef Avenue, La Jolla CA 92037 (email at kgillcrist@juno.com). Gillcrist is mother of eight children and daughter of Marian Catholic High principal Estelle Kassebaum. Gillcrist joins Angela Peters, wife of bishop's canon lawyer, Ed Peters, as another homeschooling mom with strong ties to diocese.

STRONGEST PRO-LIFE WORDS from a San Diego Union-Tribune staffer in recent memory were printed in the aftermath of the Littleton, Colorado shooting. Peter Rowe, writing on Thursday, April 22: "Killing Americans is hunky-dory, as long as the dead fall into the right categories. Three popular targets: 1. The unborn.... 2. The terminally ill.... 3. The disabled.... Are students desensitized by the violence inherent in teen culture? Perhaps. But it's more likely they've seen their elders steadily expand the list of people who don't deserve to live...."

NOTE FROM A LOCAL PASTOR on Bishop Brom letter regarding Eucharistic devotion: "This just came in the priest mailing. It is a great coup for the Catholic Church in San Diego.... Some parishes who have their tabernacles in the sanctuary but not on the altar of sacrifice, or others who have Eucharistic chapels which fit these guidelines: Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Holy Spirit, St. James Solana Beach (tabernacle protrudes from the wall toward the assembly and also I believe into the chapel), St. Brigid in Pacific Beach (just off to the side, but very close to the altar in a small sanctuary), the new St. Anthony of Padua in National City, the old St. Didacus."

Excerpts from the bishop's memo: "Vatican II and postconciliar documents have led to recognizing the priority of the eucharist celebrated over the eucharist reserved and to appreciating that eucharistic devotion should be seen as flowing from and back to the Mass, while never in competition with it. Consequently, the altar of sacrifice is to be the primary focal point in every church and the reserved eucharist is to be located either "in a chapel suited to the faithful's private adoration and prayer" or "at an altar or elsewhere, in keeping with local custom, and in a part of the church that is worthy and properly adorned" (General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 276)....

"Postconciliar reform has sought to correct a preconciliar imbalance in which eucharistic reservation and veneration was given emphasis at the expense of eucharistic celebration, but, now just the reverse seems to be happening.... The place of eucharistic reservation, whether a chapel or otherwise, should be visually and proportionately located in relation to the altar of sacrifice without competing with it; it should be seen as distinct but inseparable from the place of eucharistic celebration and should not be completely separated from it; it should not be located behind the majority of the assembly. A chapel of eucharistic reservation, moreover, should be easily identified and readily accessible; it should be suitable for private adoration and prayer and should not be used for any other reason...."

HOME SCHOOL GUIDELINES. Following a nation-wide trend, San Diego and other California dioceses have proposed guidelines for home schooling families preparing their children for sacraments. The November 1, 1998 document, called Guidelines for Faith Formation and Religious Education in Home School Settings, was written in collaboration with the Los Angeles archdiocese and Monterey, Orange, and San Bernardino dioceses.

Guideline number seven of the document states: "The pastor and Director/Coordinator of Religious Education will require a periodic progress report to be made by the home schooling parents." The tenth point says that only "approved textbooks" are to be used; San Diego does not carry Baltimore Catechism or Ignatius Press' Faith and Life series on its approved list; both are used by most Catholic homeschoolers.

In the greater Los Angeles area, the guidelines have caused confusion among home schoolers. Jim Bendell, an attorney with Roman Catholic Faithful who is also a home schooling father of two, said he found it ironic that the Los Angeles Archdiocese's religious education department was issuing guidelines for home schoolers: "we are talking about a diocese that holds an annual religious education conference where every major dissenter is given a forum." One home schooling leader told a reporter: "I just feel so sad that these undue burdens are being placed on parents by the Church in Los Angeles...we look to the Church for support. I wonder why they are doing this to us. We are raising children in an already hostile environment. The Church should be our helper and our support."

HOME SCHOOL AS CHILD NEGLECT. Speaker Pro Tem Fred Keeley of the California state assembly recently introduced a bill (AB804) which would introduce "educational neglect" as a form of child abuse. The minutes of the Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect dated March 10th included this discussion: "AB 804 would provide that, if a parents fail to enroll a six year old in school and/or fail to assure that their children are in school on a regular basis, that would be grounds for the dependency court to take jurisdiction". Penny Weiss, assistant director of ICAN told a newspaper reporter that the committee had never thought of home schooling when they looked at the bill. She said that as a former social worker she had seen cases where children were "home schooled" in order to take care of younger siblings. She then referred this reporter's legal questions to Judge Terry Friedman, a Dependency court judge who authored the bill. Judge Friedman did not return the reporter's call.

On April 19 AB 804 was tabled for "this session."

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