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Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

October 1999 LITTLE NOTES

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The Friday night welcoming reception was hosted by Dignity/Pacific Region. Dignity rejects key aspects of Church teaching on homosexuality and lobbies for change. Edwina Gately, Catholic feminist author, and self-styled theologian, gave the Saturday keynote address on "Reflecting the Face of God in the New Millennium: Call to Conversion." Gately made headlines in the Catholic press when she vested as a priestess and concelebrated a Mass at the 1993 CTA conference in Chicago. Like Matthew Fox, the now-excommunicated Catholic priest who launched the creation spirituality movement, she made references to conceiving and giving birth to the power of God. Another major theme was "Sophia Wisdom": "The power of the Holy Spirit, which is feminine, which is Sophia Wisdom, which is Bertha -- giver and bringer of new life and possibilities.... Imagine that the fire of Sophia Wisdom ... is always with us, until the end of time.... Sophia Wisdom, the Holy Spirit, is hot." In its July 30, 1999 fundraising letter Human Life International reported that Gately told their interviewer that "we will not leave this Church" and "we will re-create it!"

Conference speakers from San Diego included Sister Kathleen Schinhofen and University of San Diego professors Gary Macy, Bernard Cooke, and Pauline Turner. Cooke, a prominent dissenting theologian and ex-Jesuit priest, is married to Turner and is a past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. He currently serves on the CTA executive board as well. Turner specializes in feminist theology, and has a strong interest in working with Mexican women, which was their motivation for moving to San Diego. She and Cooke are both working with groups across the border. Cooke and Turner gave a presentation on "Feminism's Contribution to Catholicism." They handed out a list of feminism's benefits and contributions to the Church to the 30 or so attendees (mostly women) and solicited comments. Attendees seemed split evenly between those who were happy with their "progressive" pastors and parishes and those upset with traditional parishes and clergy, especially those who barred them from giving homilies and saying Mass. Two or three attendees mentioned they were permitted to give homilies at their parishes. A few local attendees mentioned Women-Church and House Church groups in the San Diego County area, which hold liturgies in homes. In Ungodly Rage , author Donna Steichen describes Women-Church as "an organization deeply hostile to Catholic spirituality and Tradition."

A local Catholic woman praised Father Jim Poulsen, pastor of St. Gregory the Great Church in Scripps Ranch, because, she said, ten years ago, before Rome approved female altar servers, he announced that the parish wouldn't permit any individual altar servers since women were excluded and instead instituted the practice of families assisting the priest at Mass. Toward the end of the session, Cooke, who has taught sacramental theology, stated that "There was nobody ordained at the beginning [of the Church]" and that "Christ didn't establish any sacraments."

In a discussion on how to reform the Church's structure, Cooke advised Catholic dissenters to overcome fear. When dealing with Church officials who prevent them from doing what they feel is necessary, he advised dissenters to "just say, 'This is a matter of conscience.' They don't know what to do with that." When an attendee mentioned that her husband has said Mass and told fellow dissenters to stop asking for the Church's permission to do something necessary, Cooke chimed in, "You don't need anyone's permission to do something good."

Approximately 50 people attended Mary Ramerman's talk entitled "You are My Beloved Sons and Daughters: A Call for an Inclusive Catholic Church." A self-described Catholic woman minister, Ramerman has been a central figure in last year's scandals involving Corpus Christi parish in the diocese of Rochester, New York, from which she was fired for insubordination last October. She told the audience about her role there as "associate pastor" and the events leading to her termination. Following the diocese's efforts to restore doctrinal and disciplinary order in the parish, Ramerman and its two priests broke off to form their own parish (Spiritus Christi) and were excommunicated by Bishop Matthew Clark. "It's the Church's job to tell each of us that we are beautiful, but if it doesn't allow women near the altar or let them read the Gospel, then it mocks the very message it seeks to convey."

Prior to the diocesan intervention Corpus Christi was allowing non-Catholics to receive Holy Communion. Ramerman believes that the Church norm restricting the distribution of Communion to Catholics "sends a message that the Body and Blood of Jesus is not for everyone" and "creates spiritual tension in mixed-faith marriages." Also at odds with the Church are Ramerman's views on ministry to homosexuals. Corpus Christi was performing "gay unions" away from the parish, which Ramerman defended because "we also offer them [homosexual couples] help to form committed relationships, just as we help heterosexual couples to do so." Not all of Rochester's Catholics were persuaded by reasoning such as Ramerman's. Some of these took action against the liturgical aberrations at Corpus Christi: "We had people [observing Mass] on a weekly basis and sending reports and videotapes to the Vatican. Our church has become a church of spies. I feel sad that people are that fearful."

There were no indications of official sponsorship or involvement by the Catholic Diocese of San Diego at the CTA gathering. Local listings in the "Call to Action Church Renewal Directory," 1999-2000 edition (on sale at the conference) include the Mission San Luis Rey Retreat Center in Oceanside, CORPUS of San Diego, and the Small Faith Community of Vista. The contact person at the mission is listed as Mel Bucher, OFM. The San Diego County Call to Action chapter held its initial meetings at Mission San Luis Rey after it was organized in the spring of 1996. CTA meetings were subsequently held for an extended period of time at All Hallows Catholic Church in La Jolla but have been held at Church of the Good Samaritan Espiscopal Church in San Diego since January 1999. CORPUS is a national association which, in its own words, advocates "an expanded and renewed priesthood of married and single men and women in the Catholic Church." Among its members are Catholic priests who left the active priesthood to marry. Its contacts for San Diego County are Joe and Ann Buko of Vista, who proclaim in the CTA directory, "We support our local Call to Action." The contact person listed for the Small Faith Community of Vista is Joe Bukovchik, whose address is the same as that of Joe and Ann Buko. The SFC's entry in the CTA directory states that "we celebrate Eucharist three or four times a month in each other's homes. We've been meeting since August 1993 and have from 12-30 people on any given week.... A married priest responded to form this group and ministers to its members and others. We all celebrate the Eucharist together ... and are open to anyone who wants to come. Members volunteer and work within church [sic] structure as well."

CTA will hold its national conference November 5-7 in Milwaukee. Speakers include San Diego's own Dr. Maria Pilar Aquino, feminist professor of theology at USD, where she is the associate director of the Center for the Study of Latino/a Catholicism, American bishops Thomas Gumbleton and Raymond Lucker, and Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia of Chiapas, Mexico.

--by Anne Knight and Allyson Smith

LA PROVIDENCIA, listed as a Catholic retreat center in the San Diego diocesan directory, was slated to close its doors by late September. The center, located at 641 North Glen Oaks Drive in Alpine for about eight years, was under the direction of Sisters Patricia Hanson, and Millicent Peaslee, who were renting the property. It had been on the market since November and was sold in late August. The two sisters' unconventional spirituality is regarded by some as heavily influenced by the New Age movement and Matthew Fox's creation spirituality (see The Labyrinth and New Age Nuns News Notes, September 1999).

Sisters Pat and Millie's apostolate has been strongly supported by Father Matthew Spahr, pastor of nearby Queen of Angels Church. On Saturday, August 28, he led a day of recollection for the parish's catechists at La Providencia. After the Masses on Sunday, August 29, the pastor made an appeal from the pulpit for assistance in helping the sisters find a new rental property. That day they held a book sale at the church to reduce their stock in La Providencia's gift shop, many of whose books evoked New Age or other forms of non-Judeo-Christian spirituality. Shortly after that weekend a couple in the parish offered the sisters the use of their home until November, during which time the couple will be away. A March 14 Queen of Angels bulletin announcement indicates that the sisters hope to be able to continue their ministry in the Alpine area.

NO SURPRISE. Speaker of the State Assembly, in a memo to assemblymembers dated September 13, 1999: "I am saddened to report that George R. Alpert, M.D., father of Assemblymember Susan Davis [Democrat-San Diego], passed away on Saturday, September 11, 1999.... In lieu of flowers, donations may be to: ... Planned Parenthood Chapters...."

PHYSICIANS HEALED, book published last year in which 15 doctors tell how they stopped prescribing contraception, starts off with the conversion story of Dr. Mary Davenport, who now practices in San Francisco's East Bay. Dr. Davenport tells of her residency at UCSD Hospital in Hillcrest:

"...The two of us involved in the delivery were most distressed to see a perfectly formed dead thirty-three week baby, with lanugo hair, unfused eyelids, and numerous post-viability features.... I helped initiate a protest among the residents, and we residents did not do any more abortion injections while I was in training, but continued to help deliver the dead babies aborted by faculty members....

"...Good medical procedure demanded that we inspect the 'products of conception' that we had suctioned out of the uterus, to count the limbs and head and make sure the evacuation was complete.... I began to realize what a pathological effect that doing abortions, as well as my self-image as an abortionist, was having on me when I ran into a friend from medical school years. She asked, 'Do you have babies?' and I blurted out, 'No, I kill babies.'"

FROM A PRESS RELEASE dated August 26, 1999 on "Dr. Peter J. Maturo's dream to dreate a national shrine of the Passion of our Lord. The bronze life-size figures will be placed on the grounds adjacent to Mission San Luis Rey de Francia in Oceanside. A. Wasil, a well-known sulptor, has been commissioned to create the eighty sculptures. The shrine will be opened to public free of charge on Easter 2001."

Elsewhere in the press packet, Dr. Maturo explains, "Throughout the world today there are many shrines dedicated to various saints and the Stations of the Cross. None, I believe, depict the magnitude of the Passion in its fullness and allow total access to the works of art.

My dream is to create these stations in life-size, three-dimensional sulpture. The stations would be designed so that the devoted can experience a sense of presence by touching and mingling among the personages portrayed in each scene...." Contact Dr. Maturo at 858-551-1242 or www.viadolorosasociety.org.

ON AUGUST 7, PRO-LIFERS staged a protest at the Coors Amphitheatre against Latin rock group Santana for its support of Planned Parenthood. Like Lilith Fair a few weeks earlier, Santana was one of several rock groups that allowed Planned Parenthood to set up a booth at its concerts, according to the Planned Parenthood website. An amphitheatre employee confirmed that Planned Parenthood was to have been at the Santana concert, but their booth was not visible inside the gates.

Protesters stood inside the amphitheatre grounds, near the main gates, passing out literature from Human Life International and Stop Planned Parenthood to incoming concertgoers that exposed Planned Parenthood's anti-life agenda. They also carried pairs of signs, in English and Spanish, which said, "Santana supports Planned Parenthood" and "Planned Parenthood Kills Babies." Reaction was often unfavorable, but muted, perhaps due to the presence of two Chula Vista police officers standing nearby. One of the officers told a protester, "The amphitheatre's management doesn't want you here, but there's nothing they can do to stop you."

After the concert, one protester wrote to Santana expressing dismay at the band's support of Planned Parenthood and inquiring if Santana were aware of the racist views of Planned Parenthood's founder, Margaret Sanger. Santana spokesperson Stefani Charles responded, "Carlos [Santana, the band's founder] nor the New Santana band have an official relationship with Planned Parenthood. We have allowed them to give information and free condoms at our U.S. shows for the last two years as we have allowed Greenpeace, the UFW, Rainforest Action Network, and others to do over the years of the band's touring. What we are committed to is the free access of information and let the individual decide."

Marcella Melendez, a spokesperson for Hispanics for Life, commented, "What a shame if it's true that Santana is sponsoring Planned Parenthood, the number one promoters of human death, at their concerts. People in our society are so schizophrenic: with one breath they denounce the killings at Columbine High School and with their next breath they fight vehemently for the right to continue the killing of unborn children."

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