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Contents © 2000
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

JUNE 2000 LITTLE NOTES

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The academic philosophy of the school is summarized by Pope Leo XIII: "It is necessary not only that religious instruction be given to the young ... but also that every subject be permeated with Christian piety. If this is wanting, if this sacred atmosphere does not pervade and warm the hearts of masters and scholars alike, little good can be expected from any kind of learning...." At St. Ephrem Academy Catholic texts will be used across the curriculum.

The religious instruction at St. Ephrem Academy will focus on doctrine, Scripture, prayer, and devotion to the Blessed Mother and the saints. Christ's real presence in the Blessed Sacrament and the development of love for God and neighbor through the commandments and the sacraments will be stressed.

If you are interested in St. Ephrem Academy please attend one of the Sunday Open Houses during the month of June after the 9:30am Mass (from 10:30am-11:30am) at St. Ephrem Parish. The address of St. Ephrem Parish is 750 Medford Street in El Cajon. You may call Fr. Nabil Mouannes, the Pastor of St. Ephrem Parish at (619) 337-1350, if you have any questions.


A LOCAL ABORTIONIST made the news wires when he praised John Irving's Cider House Rules for teaching him how to feel -- not just think -- like a physician. Dr. Fred Hopkins, who lives in Cardiff by the Sea, was one of three physicians who said they got their inspiration for performing abortions from Irving's novel, which builds sympathy for an abortionist. Irving won an Academy Award in April for his screenplay for Cider House Rules. The National Abortion Federation, the largest professional association of abortion providers in North America, made Irving an honorary member in Pittsburgh April 17. Irving said "the fact that there is still not only an active but a politically viable movement to make the abortion decision for other people is unspeakable to me."

According to the newswire press release put out by the National Abortion Federation, Dr. Hopkins told Irving that "I learned to think like a doctor in Boston, but I was told on more than one occasion that you don't go to Harvard Medical School to become an abortion doctor," said Hopkins. "I really felt lost. I knew what it meant to think like a doctor, but I didn't know what it meant to feel like a doctor: that is until I discovered The Cider House Rules."

A News Notes reporter called Dr. Hopkins at his Cardiff number requesting an interview; the phone call was returned by "Sue," a local Planned Parenthood spokeswoman, who said that Hopkins didn't give interviews.


ON FEBRUARY 16, the California Prolife Council and California Prolife Educational Foundation filed a civil lawsuit in San Diego County superior court against Michaelene Jenkins, her husband Michael Fredenburg, attorney William Baber, Life Resource Network, Women's Resource Network, and Women's Resource Committee. The suit's complaint alleges eight specific causes of action against Jenkins and the other defendants, including fraud, stemming from the unauthorized closure of the San Diego chapter of California Prolife Council and the startup of life Resource Network on or about January 10, 2000. The defendants are accused of misappropriating assets, including the Prolife Council's bank accounts, post office box, phone numbers, website, donor/member list, computer system, phone system, pager, office equipment and supplies, in starting Life Resource Network. At this writing, the case is pending.


ON TUESDAY, MAY 2, area pro-lifers, including several who had been arrested one week earlier at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., picketed Planned Parenthood's fundraiser at the Town and Country Hotel in Mission Valley.

Displaying graphic placards including the late-term baby who was aborted using partial-birth abortion, witnesses lined the sidewalk in front of the Town and Country Convention Center from 6:00 p.m. until 7:30 p.m.

Two of the pro-lifers wore costumes. Standing on the sidewalk near the driveway, "Abortionist" wore a white lab coat and a bloody face mask. He carried a bag of plastic dolls covered with red spray paint. As cars entered the convention center, he tore off the dolls' arms, legs, and heads, threw them in the driveway, and shouted "Get your dead babies right here!" "Need a hand?" "Brains $500!" and "Planned Parenthood is all about dead babies."

"Grim Reaper" accompanied Abortionist. He and the other pro-lifers were heckled by an older man claiming to be a bona fide abortionist, though he refused to identify himself. The man boasted of performing five abortions a day and accused pro-lifers of having no more than a sixth-grade education. He photographed several of the pro-lifers and grabbed dolls away from them, throwing them over the fence adjoining a golf course across the street and into a sewer near the convention center entrance.

When asked the Town and Country's views about hosting Planned Parenthood, Town and Country director of security Matt Cowell said that the hotel has done so for several years. "We don't take any political position; it's just business."


"PRESIDENT CLINTON AND HIS WIFE and Vice President Al Gore and his wife held St. Patrick's most coveted front-row seats at today's funeral Mass for John Cardinal O'Connor (this account from NewsMax.com on May 8).

"But they were far from welcome and were caught in a very awkward situation during the service.

"The Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Law of Boston, a close friend of O'Connor's. Law and another cardinal both told the overflow crowd that they had been given very specific instructions by Cardinal O'Connor as to what to say at his funeral Mass. O'Connor's wishes were reflected in a statement made by Law, who stated that the legacy of John O'Connor was an "unambiguous" pro-life message to the world. Law's statement brought thunderous applause, followed by a standing ovation that lasted almost four minutes. (The major media are reporting it lasted a minute -- not true.)

"A Catholic priest seated next to the Clintons told NewsMax.com that the Clintons and the Gores did not clap after Law's comments. Their silence drew notice from some watchers in the crowd, and as the standing ovation continued minute after painful minute the Clintons and Gores remained seated. "It was clear they felt very uncomfortable," the priest said. After several minutes, the Clintons and Gores finally rose but refused to clap. The ovation soon ended."


THE TIMES OF LONDON on May 8 carried this by William Rees Mogg: "I have always been a sentimental tourist and have my favourite walks and places in most of the cities I revisit regularly. In New York, I like to walk up Fifth Avenue from the New York Public Library to Central Park, savouring the rising grandeur of the tall buildings and shops, from the small boutiques selling tourist goods around 42nd Street to Tiffany's and the grand shops around the Plaza Hotel. The halfway point on this walk is St Patrick's Cathedral, that strategically placed statement of spiritual authority in the middle of 20 golden blocks of mammon. St Patrick's was the church my mother used to attend when she was a young actress in New York during the first world war, so it has a family meaning for me as well.

"I spent 20 minutes in the cathedral last Wednesday. On my way out, I read the notice of Masses, with the cardinal's Mass listed every weekday morning at 7.30am. In the evening, watching the television news in my hotel, I learnt that Cardinal John O'Connor, the Archbishop of New York, was dying; in fact he died that night.

"The following morning I read the local obituaries. I was struck by the divergence of New York journalists in their attempts to describe his character. His congregation, the quiet people I had seen praying in St Patrick's the day before, would have felt closer to the tabloid than to the broadsheet approach. Ray Kerrison in the New York Post wrote that 'one American in high office will stand above all as the defender of life, his memory honoured and cherished for his clear and unambiguous commitment to preserve the life of those created in the image of their Maker. That American will be John Cardinal O'Connor.

"'Now the Master he served so well has called him home. It's a great day in heaven, and a sad one only for us here below." Only a son of Kerry could have written that.'

"Compare it with the third leader in the New York Times. 'Cardinal John O'Connor, who died yesterday after 16 years as the voice of American Catholicism, was a strong-willed, conservative theologian, whose views were tempered with a pastoral concern for the sick, the weak and the poor. For the two million Roman Catholics in the New York Archdiocese the cardinal brought a return to a rigorous traditional Catholicism. He passionately opposed abortion, birth control, homosexuality, the ordination of women and even baseball on Good Friday.' There is a putdown for you. Personally, I prefer tabloid pietism to broadsheet sneering, but I understand that a modern media person, fixated in his or her own time and culture, might totally fail to understand the culture of another religion, another nation."


SISTERS PATRICIA HANSON and Millicent Peaslee have relocated their La Providencia retreat center to Peutz Valley, west of Alpine. The move, made in February, was announced in their Spring 2000 newsletter. The Alpine property they rented for eight years was sold in August, thus forcing the sisters to leave behind the outdoor labyrinth they installed there.

The newsletter also announced that La Providencia would continue to hold daytime retreats and workshops but has discontinued overnight retreats on its premises. However, the sisters continue to hold overnight retreats for homeless residents of St. Vincent de Paul Village: "St. Vincent's has been given a 600-acre plot of land out in Campo, 30 miles east of here on which they plan to build a Village for Teens (as large as Boys' Town). On this land there are some buildings, one of which is a guesthouse. Recently, we have had two retreats there. We plan to continue a monthly. We are especially grateful to the women of St. Adelaide's Mission Parish of Campo for providing the noon meals for the retreatants."

The sisters brought the labyrinth rocks used to form the labyrinth at their previous location to the new house and announced that the new labyrinth "will be ready for use very soon."


LOYOLA MARYMOUNT LAW SCHOOL held its graduation ceremonies on Sunday, May 14 honoring pro-abortion U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd, as its keynote speaker.

Loyola philosophy professor James Hanink found about Dodd's appearance and -- via the Internet -- gathered two dozen protestors including Loyola poli-sci professor emeritus, Carroll Kearley, and a contingent from Thomas Aquinas College. The pro-lifers gathered at the entrance to the campus and prayed while holding signs.


A PRO-ABORTION FEMINIST HAS BEEN EXCOMMUNICATED and cannot be the godmother of a baby boy that would never have been born if she had had her way, says the vicar general of the diocese of Mexicali. The feminist, Silvia Reséndiz, has been a longtime advocate of legalized abortion in Mexico. Reséndiz befriended the family of 'Paulina,' a teen-age rape victim, and was one of several feminists who lodged complaints with the government after doctors at Mexicali's General Hospital refused to perform a judicially-authorized abortion (see "Souls Stained," page 1). After the child was born, Reséndiz said she was going to be the boy's godmother.That brought a quick response from Rev. Raúl Enríquez Ramírez, vicar general of the diocese. He said Reséndiz had automatically excommunicated herself because of her pro-abortion activities and therefore failed to meet the requirement of canon law that a godparent must set a good moral example for the child to be baptized. "She does not meet this requirement because she is against the right to life, a view she has expressed publicly for many years," the vicar general told the Mexicali daily La Cronica in an article published May 1. Reséndiz says she is not trying to promote abortion. "What I do is defend the right of a woman to decide about her body," Reséndiz said in a television interview.

The decisiveness and firmness displayed by the diocese of Mexicali with regard to the case of "Paulina" has brought recognition from the Rome.The diocesan cathedral has been designated "a cathedral of life" by the Vatican, according to Bishop José Isidro Guerrero Macias.The bishop announced May 10 that he had received a telephone call from Archbishop Javier Lozano Barragán, former bishop of Zacatecas and now president of the Pontifical Council for Health Workers, informing him of the decision. He said Lozano told him Paulina's story had been discussed in the Vatican and that the Curia made the decision to award the designation to the Mexicali cathedral in April. Bishop Guerrero Macias said Archbishop Lozano extended greetings from Rome to the faithful in Mexicali and praised them "for striving to keep the teen from having an abortion and deciding to have her son."

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