LITTLE NOTES

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Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

June 1999 LITTLE NOTES

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According to reliable sources, a full 18 hours a day have been filled by talk show hosts including GOP presidential hopeful Alan Keyes (6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.), clinical psychologist Ray Guarendi, who calls himself a "Catholic Dr. Laura" (9:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m.), and former California governor Dan Lungren (12:00-3:00 p.m.)

According to a May 13, 1999 Los Angeles Times story, Father Gregory Coiro is working with the network's Los Angeles marketing director to revive the "Religion on the Line" program that for 30 years had aired on KABC-AM (790). "It'll be the same format -- priest, minister and rabbi," said Coiro. "If it happens," said Coiro, "I will host it."

John T. Lynch, Rancho Santa Fe resident and president of the network, told the Times that he is negotiating with the "God Squad" on ABC's "Good Morning America" -- Father Tom Hartman and Rabbi Marc Gellman -- for a place on the network's weekly or daily schedule. Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, a Democrat opposed to abortion, may also come on as a national host.

STUDENT INTERN OPPORTUNITY. The California Pro Life Council has serveral Summer '99 special project internships available for high school and college students. Projects can be specific to your interest or talent, inclueding communication, education, ethics, politics, or administration. Volunteer this summer with 10 hours a week at the Mission Valley office. Call Leanna at 619-516-1244 or mail/fax resume and cover letter to 3456 Camino del Rio North, Suite 103, San Diego CA 92108; fax 619-516-1261.

THE GIANT LETTERS on the side of the one-story building stand on tip-toe as motorists on Market Ave barrel by. The letters spell "Clinic of Our Lady," and as some passed 19th Street they must have been left wondering: is that place Catholic? Concerned Catholics have wondered, can the doctor name it after Our Lady without the local bishop giving him the right? As far as Church law is concerned, yes, surprisingly. But Dr. Bernard Strickland, who runs the clinic, must answer to an even lower authority: the California Medical Board.

Strickland, 77, is a licensed physician in good standing, acccording to the medical board. But Candis Cohen, a spokeswoman there in Sacramento, could find no record of "Clinic of Our Lady." That's not good, because state regulations say that "a fictitious name permit is required when a licensee desires to use any name other than his or her own...in any public communication, announcement, sign or advertisement of his or her practice." I asked Dr. Strickland about this, and he scheduled a meeting between me and himself and the owner of the clinic, whose name he couldn't remember exactly. I had to reschedule, however, and Dr. Strickland has yet to get back to me on that.

The Code of Canon Law, according to Lou Dellert of the St. Joseph Foundation, "addressed the use of the word 'Catholic' but it doesn't get into the specifics of naming after Our Lord, Our Lady or the saints. Canoncially speaking, there is no prohibition in the code saying that a doctor can't call it 'Clinic of Our Lady.'" Dellert is a case administrator at the Texas-based foundation, which defends the underdog in canon law cases. Even in the case of the term "Catholic," he said, the local ordinary, i.e., bishop in charge (in the San Diego diocese, that would be Bishop Robert Brom) would have to decide that its use was "injurious" to the faith. And the ordinary would have to make his case, Dellert said. "The bishop would have to be able to demonstrate that the doctor and the clinic were harmful to the reputation of the Church," he said.

STUDY GROUP for Communio, the quarterly theology review, will meet at the Tijuana diocesan seminary on Saturday, July 10, 7:30 p.m. Articles in the Spring, 1999 edition to be discussed: "Augustine on Lying," "Indulgences and the Mercy of God," and Paul Claudel's Satin Slipper. Tijuana seminary is located at 10th and Ocampo, just west of Avenida Revolucion. Carpooling available. For information, call Jim Holman, 619-235-3000, ext. 222.

CATHOLIC ANSWERS, by the first of June, will have moved its headquarters from Kearny Mesa to El Cajon. But this is not the only change this year to visit the lay apologetics minstry, headed by former attorney Karl Keating, also the author of Catholicism and Fundamentalism. In less than 18 months the staff will have doubled from 12 fulltimers to 24, including a sales force to help put Catholic Answers books in Catholic bookstores and editor of a new magazine similar to that mailed out by Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family. Not to mention the debut of the Catholic Answers talk show on 46 radio stations across the country.

This Catholic Answers show also appears on the Catholic Family Radio network at 11:00-11:30 a.m. (PDT), just before the show hosted by former California governor Dan Lungren. But the shows are taped from the previous day's live show at 3:00 p.m., except for the Wednesday show, which is broadcast live.

THE WOMEN'S RESOURCE NETWORK, as of mid-May, is half-way to its goal of $550,000 to purchase television time over 13 weeks next year for professional pro-life commercials. The ads, produced by Right to Life of Michigan and highly successful in that state, are aimed at women aged 18 to 44. So far Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian (R-Carlsbad) and the diocese of San Diego have each pledged one percent of the total ($5,500 each). According to Women's Resource, Kent Peters, head of the diocese social ministries office, "has received special permission from Bishop Robert Brom to raise the needed funds in every parish in the county."

The head of Women's Resource is 31-year-old Dana Serrano, former director of a crisis pregnancy center in Escondido, mother of two small boys, member of Emmanuel Faith Community in Escondido. But Serrano has gathered around her support from California Pro-life Council, San Diego Pro-Life League, Feminists for Life, and others.

According to Serrano, the California Media Project (the TV ad campaign) is aimed also at markets in Los Angeles (whose goal is $2 million), San Francisco ($1,075,000), and Sacramento ($400,200).

For further information, call the Women's Resource Network at 760-741-4010.

ALLEGEDLY THREATENING TO KILL CARDINAL MAHONY, an ex-altar boy has been forbidden by court order to come within 100 yards of the archbishop, according to an April 20 Los Angeles Times report. On March 11, thirty-five year old Michael Patrick Falls of Azusa allegedly told an employee at Charter Oak Hospital in Covina that upon his release from the hospital he would assassinate Mahony. On April 20, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard E. Denner granted an injunction against Falls.

Falls was among eight other former altar boys who accused now-deceased archdiocesan priest Father Ted Llanos of sexually abusing them for over 20 years, beginning in 1973. As reported in the April 1999 Mission, these alleged victims in March called upon Cardinal Mahony and the archdiocese of Los Angeles to apologize for Llanos' acts and to pay for therapy. The archdiocese has refused to do both.

THOUGH ONLY LAST FALL the United States House of Representatives voted to cut funding for the United Nations Population Fund, the House was again considering restoring funding, according to a April 30 report issued by the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. The House cut funding when the Population Fund announced that it was returning to China after repeated promises to stay out of that country. China, notorious for its one child per family policy, is noted for its coercive population control programs.

In mid April, San Jose, California Republican representative Tom Campbell introduced a bill in the House International Affairs Committee, which voted to appropriate $25 million in funding for the Population Fund for the next fiscal year. According to the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, "the vote to refund UNFPA will be the first pro-life vote for this Congress. Pro-life staff members are concerned since this Congress lost pro-life members in the last election."

The United Nations Population Fund argues that the availability of contraception and abortion in the developing world is necessary to save women's lives. The Population Research Institute, based in Virginia, disagrees. Women's lives will be saved, argues an Institute report, "Money for Nothing," not by greater availability of contraceptives, but by improved health care and medical services. In fact, says the report, "the indiscriminate distribution of contraceptives to women in the developing world, who are often malnourished and in poor health, is dangerous to their health." Bangladeshi women given Norplant, says the report, suffered "serious side effects" they were not warned about, such as "continuous bleeding, weakness in the limbs, severe pain, and blurred or double vision."

For more information, contact the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute at 866 United Nations Plaza, Suite 4038 New York, NY 10017; phone, (212) 754-5948; fax, (212) 754-9291; e-mail, cafhri@cafhri.com; website, www.cafhri.org.

IN A LETTER TO THE FRIENDS OF THE MINISTRY TO LESBIAN AND GAY CATHOLICS, Father Peter Liuzzi outlined some of the activities in which the Los Angeles archdiocese's outreach to homosexuals has been involved. According to the April 21, 1999 letter, in March Father Liuzzi had participated in a roundtable discussion regarding the Defense of Marriage Act which was sponsored by the California Conference of Catholic Bishops. Father Liuzzi cautioned the council of bishops against their proposed support of the bill which guarantees that marriage be defined to include only a man and a women. "I have urged our bishops to be cautious and restrained in their support, safeguarding their pastoral responsibilities and concerns for lesbian and gay Catholics and their parents.... Jim Schexnayder and Terri Lacino from the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries were also participants in at the Sacramento meeting. I was pleased that we had such representation." In the same letter Father Liuzzi reports that a parents support group has been formed in Santa Barbara, with Father Larry Dowdel serving as chaplain. Additionally, the archdiocese has another parents support group in Simi Valley with Father Mike Carcerano serving as chaplain. Father Liuzzi continues to serve as the chaplain for the Los Angeles area parents support group. "The more I think about it, I believe that parents are our greatest source of energy for change in our Church" Liuzzi recounts. Father Liuzzi says in the letter that he is planning to attend the June 12-13 gay pride parade in West Hollywood. There he will set up a Christopher Street West booth in order to reach out to "inactive gay and lesbian Catholics." At 10 a.m. there will a be a Mass at St. Ambrose's church in West Hollywood, "celebrating all our gay and lesbian Catholics." In August, the ministry will host their annual barbecue for the parents groups and parish groups at Amat house. Father Liuzzi closes his letter with, "Don't forget to check out our website address at http://mlgc.la-archdiocese.org."

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