LITTLE NOTES
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Contents © 2005
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
LITTLE NOTES
March 2005
NEW CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY won't be opening classes in the fall of this year as originally planned. Derry Connolly, founder and president of the fledgling business, engineering, and media college, says, "The critical legal step for NCU is 'approval to operate' as a degree granting institution. That is administered by the State of California's Bureau for Private Post-Secondary and Vocational Education. When we started this process over a year ago, the usual time-frame for the bureau to review an application was five to seven months. We submitted our application July 6, 2004 and assumed worst-case scenario of seven months, which would have given us approval by February 6, 2005. Then we would have had 7.5-months to recruit students for a September 20, 2005 start date and to lease a facility. But the bureau's staff has been cut in half because of budget and management issues. Now the bureau estimates that they will start looking at our application mid to late March with approval by May 1. By May 1, almost all kids know where they are going to college — so it would have been impossible for us to recruit enough students. We decided to be prudent and postpone for a year. Like Thomas Aquinas College, we will have just one entry point per year — Fall."In the meantime, Connolly continues to raise funds and seek a permanent name for the university. (Leading candidates: Lux Christi and Corpus Christi.) Send donations and name suggestions to: New Catholic University, PO Box 501713, San Diego, CA 92150-1713.
"ON JANUARY 22, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a protest organized by a local Evangelical took place at Planned Parenthood on First Avenue," reports local pro-lifer, Sue Lopez. "About 44 people, evenly divided between Catholics and Evangelicals, attended. Catholics prayed all the mysteries of the rosary and Divine Mercy Chaplet, breaking for prayer and testimonies from the organizers and aborted women. It was a very powerful and moving event. Police and Planned Parenthood security were present throughout, never presenting us with any problems. One woman told of her illegal abortion in a doctor's Chicago penthouse in 1963. She called to the women inside, telling them that they would remember everything about this day — the sights, the sounds, the smells, et cetera — and that they would never forget it. Another woman told of how she had an abortion at a young age so that her pregnancy didn't interfere with college. She never married and recently had a hysterectomy and lamented aborting the only child she would ever have. Still another woman told of her abortion 35 years ago and how she never was able to become pregnant after that. God however used the evil of abortion for good in their lives, they are all very active pro-lifers. One of the women who had aborted, later demonstrated with models of preborn babies at different stages of development, to explain to the group the different methods of abortion used at different stages. It was very powerful."
Lopez also reported that, "There were no clergy present at Planned Parenthood on the anniversary of Roe v Wade, and no one from the diocesan office of social ministries."
THE LARGEST SHARE OF ABORTIONS are had by women over 25, says a report released January 21 by conservative group Concerned Women for America. The report states that the number of women having more than one abortion is rising, as is the number of women having abortions after having given birth to live babies. Dr. Janice Crouse, author of the report and senior fellow of Concerned Women of America's think tank, the Beverly LaHaye Institute, said, "The demographics of abortion have changed dramatically over recent years. These data reveal that abortion is becoming a means of birth control for older women. Nearly half of all abortions today are repeat abortions, and 60 percent of all abortions are to women who have previously had a live birth. Proponents of abortion like to portray it as a desperate choice of a young girl who made a mistake, but this study shows a staggering and appalling picture of experienced and worldly-wise women refusing to alter their lifestyle and using abortion to cover their reckless and self-centered behavior."
OVER 100 CHRISTIANS PACKED CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS on February 8 — the biggest turnout since the Boy Scouts/Balboa Park lease was debated — to lobby the council to schedule a vote on transferring the Mount Soledad memorial cross to the federal national park system. After speeches from several pastors, Mayor Murphy announced that the issue would be formally docketed for a March 8 vote. Prior to the February 8 council meeting, Charles LiMandri of the Thomas More Law Center, sent a letter dated January 18 to Mayor Murphy to clarify "how the transfer of this City property can be properly effectuated."
Attached to the letter was a legal opinion produced by the Law Firm of Lounsberry, Ferguson, Altona & Peak in Escondido. The seven-page opinion, prepared by attorneys Kenneth Lounsbery and Felix Tinkov, cites the city charter and municipal code to conclude that, "The City Council, by a simple majority vote, can act to authorize and approve the donation of the Mt. Soledad Memorial to the Federal Government. Action may be taken by the introduction and adoption of an ordinance, or the adoption of a resolution. Ratification by the voters of the donation is not required."
A CITY LIBRARY WILL HOST A GAY FILM FESTIVAL. On March 8, The Malcom X Library in Southeast San Diego will be the venue for the festival put on by the black homosexual association, Ebony Pride. Entitled "Lest We Forget", the film festival, Ebony Pride's third annual, is in remembrance of a recently deceased local transvestite known as Satin Styles, who for years had promoted homosexuality and the drag queen lifestyle.
Ex-gay, HIV positive, Christian activist James Hartline called the Malcolm X Library to complain about the event being held on public property where children would likely be. "The library branch manager, Mark Cherry," Hartline says, "told me that they have every right to put on that film festival. He then told me that he wasn't going to argue with me about it and hung up the telephone on me."
USD HOSTED A MEMBER OF A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION during their Women PeaceMakers Program in 2004. In the PeaceMakers program, women who have worked for peace in their native countries spend two months at the university holding seminars, giving talks, and hobnobbing with other peacemakers at the university's Joan Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice. One of the four peacemakers during the September 25 through November 21 session last fall was Luz Mendez, a Guatemalan women who, in 1996, as a representative of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity party, was a signatory of the peace accord that ended a 36-year-civil war in that country. The state department, and other international terrorism watchdogs, list the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity as a terrorist organization, and a United Nations report says the party is involved in narco-trafficking. An example of their handiwork occurred on September 1, 1991, when leftist guerrillas of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity attacked a clinic run by American missionaries in Sayaxche. The attack was reportedly in retaliation for aid the missionaries had given to Guatemalan soldiers." Asked over the phone why the Peace and Justice institute gave a "PeaceMaker" internship to a member of a communist/terrorist organization, Dr. Dee Akers, director of the the program, responded, "Such a question smacks of McCarthyism, which is making someone guilty by a connection. [Mendez's party membership] is not a reflection of who she is."