LITTLE NOTES
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Contents © 2005
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
LITTLE NOTES
September 2005
FATHER GARY HOLTEY, the former pastor of St. Charles Borromeo who in February pleaded guilty to 10 charges of child pornography possession, has resurfaced in San Diego living across Park Avenue from St. John the Evangelist in Hillcrest/University Heights.
When a local Catholic mother, who wished to remain anonymous, checked for Holtey's name on the diocesan web site (www.diocese-sdiego.org) on July 29, she was surprised to find that the site's Clergy and Personnel page showed the following listing: "Rev. Gary Holtey, 4111 Park Blvd., San Diego, CA 92103."
This was a new address for Holtey, thus eliminating the possibility that a simple clerical error could account for leaving him on at an old address. She was concerned that this might indicate that Holtey still had active status, despite diocesan chancellor Rod Valdivia's statement after the court proceedings that Holtey had been permanently removed from priestly ministry. She was also concerned about its location just across the street from Saint John the Evangelist Church.
In his August 8 email newsletter, James Hartline, a local Christian activist, said that he had just verified that Holtey is physically residing at the Park Boulevard address. Hartline, who lives in the same area, knocked on Holtey's front door and saw the former priest through the screen door. He described the apartment building Holtey is living in as "full of young minors." He added, "a child's bicycle was parked two feet away from the front door of 4111 Park Blvd. where Holtey is staying."
In an August 11 interview, the assistant city attorney who prosecuted the case against Holtey, Timothy Campen, said, "The wording on his [Holtey's] plea was that he is prohibited from associating with minors. That's anyone 17 and younger.... Whether that means you can't talk to them, hang out with them and interact with them, or whether it means you can't even live in the same building or apartment complex or things like that is not entirely clear."
Campen added, "Gary Holtey is on formal probation. That is when they are accountable to a probation officer who is personally responsible for monitoring their compliance with probation and the terms and conditions of the probation.... We've shared the concerns of the community with Probation and they are actively looking into it. We are going to rely on their determinations of what ought to happen."
A condition of Holtey's probation was the completion of a year of treatment. Asked whether Holtey had completed the required year, " I don't know the answer to that.... The probation department is handling all of this and they know exactly what the terms and conditions are and they are enforcing them."
A call to Valdivia's diocesan office on August 10 was answered by an employee who said that Holtey's name was not on the website. This writer had seen his listing still on the website as of that morning, but a check of it late that afternoon verified that it had indeed been removed. The employee said that questions regarding Holtey could be submitted to Valdivia by e-mail. An e-mail was sent to Valdivia inquiring as to Holtey's status with the diocese. Valdivia replied on August 11: "Gary Holtey, consistent with my statements to the media, has agreed to not function or present himself as a priest and has abided by that commitment. The information on the web site is derived from a diocesan computer data base that includes priests that are inactive. Our data base must include Gary Holtey as a priest of the diocese until such a time as the process for his laicization is complete and approved by Rome. Upon receiving the notification that his name on the web may be misleading, we immediately adjusted our database so that it would no longer appear."
AS A DIVORCED CATHOLIC WITH AN ANNULED MARRIAGE, when I learned of a group forming at St. Brigid's parish for the purpose of learning how and why relationships work and don't work, I considered attending the 10-week course. But I was concerned when I read in the questionnaire for prospective attendees, "If you are gay or lesbian, then describe what you like most about your own gender."
The concluding paragraph of the instructions stated: "The information you provide will help to form a group that will benefit everyone present, including yourself. God desires all of us to be happy and through this ministry, the enlightenment that will enable us to find the right person to bring joy to our lives is not far away."
Nowhere in the St. Valentine Ministry brochure, questionnaire, or instructions sheet was there any mention of sacramental marriage, nor is the word spouse used.
I spoke with the group's facilitator, Ryan Buchmann, who has a master's degree in pastoral counseling from the University San Diego. He said this is the first time he has facilitated such a group outside of the classroom setting. He said he counted on the "collective wisdom of the group." Because there is such a detailed questionnaire, and he will be selecting participants, Buchmann said he is confident of putting together a group that would "share common characteristics." Buchmann noted that the group will focus their own agenda and set up goals for the group. When asked why there was no question ascertaining marital status, as in separated, divorced, or annulled, he replied that this support group was "more for the in and out of relationships, and how they recover."
Concerning the instructions sheet comment, "If you are gay or lesbian, then describe what you like most about your own gender," I asked Buchmann if he was equating heterosexual relationships aiming at marriage with homosexual relationships? Buchmann stated that his goal is to accommodate everyone, "whether they are gay or straight. It's not my job to judge them," he said.
Buchmann, who said he is Catholic, mentioned that he also counsels gays and lesbians. When asked if he would send Catholics in the homosexual lifestyle to Courage, a Catholic ministry for homosexuals, he said no at first. Then later, he added that he would refer a homosexual to Courage only if they were trying to process [their state], and had no peace. He confirmed that he is Catholic.
Reached by phone, Saint Brigid's parish pastor, Monsignor Steven Callahan, said he had reviewed the St. Valentine brochure but not the questionnaire. He agreed with my concerns about the non-emphasis of marriage and validation of homosexual relations in the course material. He agreed that homosexuals applying for the support group should be referred to Courage. Before thanking me for the call, Monsignor Callahan said that he would talk with Buchmann. --Mary Maguire.
THE IDEA OF A CHILDREN'S GARDEN AT THE GAY PRIDE PARADE, which took place in Hillcrest on July 30, is already enough to make a good Christian shudder. But it gets worse. In mid-August, it came out that a man registered on the Megan's law website as a pedophile entertained kids in the children's garden, not just at the 2005 Pride parade, but for years. Martin Ramirez, who works under the name "Marty the Clown," has played with kids in the Pride children's garden for years now Ramirez was the fifth registered sex offender found to be taking an integral part in the Pride festivities.
The presence of so many sex offenders caused a rift in the normally monolithic gay community. Research performed by the Gay and Lesbian Times uncovered some of the offenders, and the paper's editorial writers called for resignations and an end to cover-ups in San Diego Pride's administration. (Suanne Pauley, executive director, did resign on August 15.) Marci Bair, lesbian director of Family Matters, an organization devoted to teaching gays and lesbians how to obtain children through adoption, donor insemination, and foster parenting, expressed great outrage at the presence of pedophiles at Pride and threatened to boycott the event. It was strange behavior, considering that Bair had hired Marty the Clown to drive his car in the 2003 parade as Family Matters' entry. She is also known to have hired Marty the Clown at other Family Matters events.
SPEAKING OF PRIDE, Christian activists led by James Hartline, helped get Ebony Pride knocked out of the city-owned World Beat Center in southeast Balboa Park. The August 27 event was to have featured the Flava Men, a troupe black and Hispanic gay pornography performers. It was also to have featured a children's garden.
ATTORNEY JAMES McELROY would seem a strange choice to be featured in the newspaper of a Catholic university. He has gained notoriety for decades-long attempt to remove the cross from the Mount Soledad War Memorial. Even after July 26, when San Diego voters voted overwhelmingly in favor of a measure to keep the cross there, McElroy commented "It still doesn't mean a damn thing. Voters should have never voted on it."
McElroy is also notorious for his work on behalf of local abortionists. He won a $400,000 judgment McElroy against Operation Rescue for the now-defunct Womancare clinic in San Diego. When an appeals court overturned the ruling it condemned "McElroy's use of questions as a springboard for bringing unsworn statements before the jury as truth" and noted that many of McElroy's comments to the jury were unsupported by the evidence.
It's not exactly a stellar resume for a Catholic law school product. Yet the April 2005 issue of Motions, the student-produced newspaper of the University of San Diego School of Law, featured an interview with McElroy, who is a 1977 graduate. The interviewer, Aaruni Thakur, made no secret of his great admiration for McElroy, labeling him as "the real deal." McElroy described the Mount Soledad cross question as a "tolerance issue and a diversity issue.... It's more important than ever that our government take the lead in being inclusive and in accepting and respecting our religious diversity and not be divisive and exclusive. He continued, "A Latin cross ... is the preeminent religious symbol of Christianity.... So clearly this religious symbol belongs on private property.... The City has run out of scams."
McElroy compared the effort to save the Mount Soledad cross to "what happened to Rosa Parks in the south. If you would have taken a vote ... she would have been forced to stay on the back of the bus. But this is not something you vote about; it's a fundamental constitutional right."
With regard to abortion, McElroy told Thakur, "I also do a lot of pro bono work for Planned Parenthood against anti-abortion fanatics. I have a lot of family members in the Midwest, part of my big Irish family, that feel strongly on both sides of this issue. I respect the fact that people have strong opinions about this issue. But I'm just trying to protect people from being shot and harassed and having their property destroyed by the fanatics who don't treat people that have differing opinions with respect."
CATHOLIC SCHOLAR E. MICHAEL JONES, spoke on May 22 to an audience of nearly 100 at the Holiday Inn Mission Valley. The editor of Culture Wars Magazine talked about social engineering as a deliberate strategy to subvert Catholic morals. He noted that birth control and pornography are two of the most effective weapons social engineers use to subvert and manipulate Catholics.
Jones cited the play The Vagina Monologues' heavy promotion at many Catholic colleges today, as a classic social engineering tactic. Advertized as a play to "prevent violence against women," Monologues promotes lesbianism and masturbation to young Catholic women. "Such behavior is designed to separate Catholics from their faith," Jones posited, "a key goal of social engineering."
He outlined the nearly seamless transition between the US government abandoning its failed population control programs in the late 1970's and the sudden emergence of the AIDS in America during the early 1980's. He noted many of the leaders of the population control movement migrated to the Centers for Disease Control which became the leading voice on AIDS and reproductive issues. "Reproductive Health" became the politically correct term for population control. Regardless of the names given to various conditions or activities, Jones said, "the solution was always the same: condoms."
Speaking on themes from his latest book, The Slaughter of the Cities, Jones gave an account of the destruction of Catholic ethnic neighborhoods under the guise of urban renewal. A local example would be the dispersal of the Italian Catholic fishing colony when Interstate 5 was built through Downtown San Diego. Dr. Jones highlighted what he calls "the ethnic cleansing" of Catholic neighborhoods in Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit and Chicago.
Jones came to San Diego at the invitation of John Giery, a local Catholic businessman. The audience was a mix of young and middle aged. Their interest in his message was demonstrated most clearly during a lively question and answer session. With few exceptions, the entire audience remained seated.
Giery noted that, "The audience was hearing Dr. Jones for the first time, but they know he has an impeccable reputation as Catholic scholar. Dr. Jones was one of the first to write a book about the Medjugorje movement and label it a hoax. It was an unpopular stance to take at the time and cost him many subscribers. But the fact remains, the Catholic Church has reached the same conclusion."