LITTLE NOTES
2005 Little Notes
December
November
October
September
July/August
June
May
April
March
February
January
ARTICLES
Letters
Confessions
Talk About Movies
Roamin' Catholic
Follow Me
Contents © 2005
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
LITTLE NOTES
November 2005
THE 2005 LIFE CHAIN enjoyed its highest attendance in the last three years. No Life Chain was held in San Diego in 2002; when it resumed in 2003, attendance was about 200 and about 320 last year. This year's event was held on October 2. Afterward, organizer Sue Lopez reported, "The San Diego Life Chain 2005 was held on Respect Life Sunday in Clairemont at the intersection of Balboa and Genesee and running east along Balboa Avenue several blocks. Over 500 pro-life San Diegans from over 45 churches participated. Parishioners from 32 Catholic parishes partic ipated, including many large families. Pro-lifers traveled from as far as Chula Vista, Lakeside, and Valley Center to make their stand for life. A group of 20 came from Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Lakeside and 12 came from Sacred Heart in Coronado. The youth group from Saint Stephen's in Valley Center brought 20 members including their youth leader, Ellen MacPhee, and their pastor, Father Bill Kernan. Other priests joining in the Life Chain were Father Tommie Jennings from Christ the King,Father Robert Pipta from Holy Angels, and Father Chris KintanarofSaint Brigid's who spoke about it in his Sunday evening homily.
"Father William Dillard, pastor of Saint John the Evangelist, urged his parishioners to leave the parish picnic early so that they could attend the Life Chain. Father George Dunkley at Saint Mark's in San Marcos, at a parishioner's request, printed 1,700 copies of our flyer to put in parish bulletins. Father Ron Hebert, pastor of Sacred Heart in Ocean Beach, did the same. I'm sure it happened in many others that I don't know about. Many parishes had bulletin announcements also. Thank you to all the parish pro-life coordinators that worked to promote the Life Chain in their parishes. During the Life Chain, Catholics gathered in groups to pray the rosary and Divine Mercy chaplet for an end to abortion.
"Youth and young adults made up a large portion of Life Chain participants, thus demonstrating to passersby that pro-lifers are not an aging popula tion. Two police cruisers monitored the Life Chain during most of the event. Life Chain has now been held for 16 times in San Diego, without any harmful incidents. We did have a couple of counter protesters who arrived later. One, a young man, held up a homemade cardboard sign that said, "I love abortion." Another held up a sacrilegious sign. Channel 39 was the only TV or radio station to cover the event, but they never aired the story. They did air the AIDS walk that was held that same day."
Lopez had just a few months to organize this year's event -- after taking over for Phil Magnan, director of the Christian ministry Biblical Family Advocates, who organized the last two Life Chains -- and consequently was unable to contact youth groups until school resumed in September. She was pleasantly surprised when a Catholic student club at Grossmont High School and a pro-life student club at Coronado High School contacted her. Lopez related that, after taking photos at Life Chain, diocesan office of social ministries director Kent Peters said that he was struck by the number of youthful participants.
Lopez was encouraged by the support of many Catholic parishes and other churches that disseminated Life Chain flyers or published bulletin announcements. "I think having the flyers to publicize it helped a lot, because then people have got something in their hands," she commented, explaining that she distributed the flyers in religious bookstores as well. Lopez believes that another factor in this year's increased attendance was Jose Delgado's assistance, which she described as indispensable. Delgado, an associate of Phil Magnan, publicized the Life Chain in the local Evangelical Protestant community. Lopez expressed gratitude to local Christian newspapers who provided her with free and reduced cost ads.
Lopez and her friend Debbie Bradel prayed a 54-day rosary novena for the success of Life Chain. "I think that was very instrumental, because a lot of things happened very easily for me, and with perfect timing, because I didn't have a lot of time to spend on doing it, but a lot of doors were opened, and I think it was from that rosary."
Lopez is looking forward to coordinat ing the 2006 Life Chain, which will be held on the first Sunday of next October. For more information, call 619-276-7525 or e-mail slopez@integrity.com.
PRO-LIFE CANDIDATE RUNS FOR THE 2ND DISTRICT COUNCIL SEAT. Tim Rutherford, a fifth-generation San Diegan, is a graduate of Stanford with degrees in economics and law. He's worked as a public defender and spent fifteen years in private law practice. He has also taught economics at Stanford and law at the University of San Diego. Rutherford has been active in the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Peninsula and Mission Valley YMCA, Point Loma Little League, Peninsula Soccer and Softball Leagues. Currently, Rutherford serves as vice president and general council for Episcopal Community Services, a faith-based, non-profit organization which serves people in need by working with churches and other groups to solve community problems. Tim Rutherford, and his wife, Bertha have six children and live in the Point Loma area.
In an interview on Thursday, October 20, Rutherford answered some questions.
Why are you running for City Council?
I felt it was my obligation as a citizen. And also, I felt I was being called to do this. I really like doing what I'm doing now, which is working for [Episcopal Community Services]. But, I felt that the city was in turmoil. I was concerned that a person who would take that position needed to have unquestioned integrity, because there is a lot of temptation. I think there have been people who have been in these positions that did it for reasons other than the public good. They did it for themselves. I believe strongly in the concept of being a public servant, and as Christians I think we can understand what that means to be a servant. I translate that into public service, which means it's about something other than yourself. I think if we go there to work for a reason other than our own selfish interests, that in itself provides a difference from what has happened in the past.
In your campaign brochure, you mention that you overcame a terminal illness four years ago, and that the experience contributed to your decision to run for office. Could you talk more about that?
In 2001, I was diagnosed with a terminal liver disease that turns out to be the result of an extremely rare genetic situation. The disease is diagnosed in about 30 people in the U.S. per year. It's extremely rare in someone my age because most of the infants die from the disease because their liver doesn't work when they're born. In 2001, I went to the doctor because I wasn't feeling well and the doctors said that my liver was 90% dead. And the only cure for that is a transplant. That was the week before Easter 2001. As I sat at the Easter service listening to the Resurrection, it took on a lot more meaning when you know you're going to die. The doctor told me I wouldn't live until Christmas. The doctor also told me I wouldn't live long enough to get a transplant off the list. I got on the list almost immediately, but the [wait] list is almost a year long.
I had a friend, a surgeon in San Diego who referred me to another doctor at the USC/University Hospital in Los Angeles, who was doing live donor transplants, which at the time were fairly experimental.... My oldest son, Ryan, didn't match, but my next son, Christopher did match. And so he volunteered to be a donor.
I went into the hospital and had the transplant on September 7, 2001. The first day I was in a normal room after the Intensive Care Unit, was September 11, 2001. As I was lying in bed, watching 3,000 people die for no reason, I'm pondering why God had allowed me to continue my life. And I'm hooked up to millions of dollars of medical equipment with this experimental, basically cutting edge technology that I was fortunate enough to be a part of. It was extremely profound. Very, very profound for me in my life. At that time, I decided that I wouldn't go back to practicing law and would find something different to do. I had the opportunity to work at ECS and took that opportunity. And the rest is history. And then this [council race] came up and I prayed about it and felt I was being called to run in this race.
Do you support Proposition 73, the parental notification initiative?
Definitely, I support Prop 73. I have two daughters. I think it's absolutely critical that there be family discussions around these issues. I'm endorsed by the California Pro-life Council, so I don't agree with abortion on demand anyway. I think Prop 73 is a reasonable first step. I've had this discussion with all my children. I've told them if they end up in a situation where they have an unwanted pregnancy, that I'll raise the child. Bring the kid to me, that's what Mother Teresa said, right? 'Give me your children, if you don't want your children, I'll take them.' I think Prop 73 is a step in the right direction and I definitely think we should all support it. I think it will pass overwhelmingly.
Would you vote to return the title of "Christmas on the Prado?" to the Balboa Park Christmas celebration?
The downgrading of the seasonal celebrations in Balboa Park has been the most ridiculous thing. I would try to have the title restored.
What would you do about restoring the Boy Scouts' use of Balboa Park?
I would support the City litigating the Boy Scouts' return to the park. It's up to the courts. It's the same thing with keeping the Mt. Soledad Cross. I'm willing to do whatever's constitutional to keep the Mt. Soledad Cross.
Would you march in the Gay Pride parades?
No. That's not my district. And I can't see myself ever doing that.
Does the Gay and Lesbian Center deserve to receive so much city money?
I would need to know why they received city funds. I think they do some AIDS education work, and thus receive public funds for that. And I don't have a problem with that, it's a public health issue and you have to go where the epidemic is.
What's the significance of the passage from 1 Corinthians verse on your campaign flyer: "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
My mom always used to quote that scripture to us, about faith, hope, and charity, and so that's the scripture that has a lot of personal meaning to me. Also, I thought it was appropriate because it was three things I could talk about in my life.
Why should the pro-life community of the 2nd District vote for you?
I'm endorsed by the California Pro-Life Council and I have defended pro-lifers and have obtained verdicts against abortionists. For the past 26 years, I have been representing many pro-life issues in the legal system.
Rutherford is available to explain his views to any Church group or organization that requests information. Call 619-269-5263, or visit www.Rutherford4council.org.
THE COMMUNION AND LIBERATION MOVEMENT is beginning to grow in San Diego. Called "Schools of Community," their meetings are held every Friday night at St. Mary Magdalene Church in Bay Park/Clairemont and attract about seven to fifteen people each week. While the San Diego group began in 1995, Communion and Liberation was started by Father Luigi Giussani in Milan, Italy, over fifty years ago. Having received official commendation from the Vatican, it's a movement strongly rooted in the traditions of the Church but which emphasizes the human person's search for meaning as a precursor to the appreciation of the Church.
"Only by going to the origin of who you are and what you want can you understand how the Church can be the answer," explains Martin Bacich, an active participant in the movement and attendee of the meetings at St. Mary Magdalene. "You can't understand the answer if you don't understand your own question."
Bacich believes the movement is appropriate to the times we live in. "Pope John Paul II and Fr. Giussani were great friends," he says, "and I think they used the same approach toward modern man. They saw that for modern man to understand Christ he needs to first understand something about himself."
The "fraternity" of Communion and Liberation has been recognized by the Vatican as a lay association of pontifical right whose work of evangelization "is of outstanding importance and pastoral urgency". The fraternity, Bacich says, "is made up of people similar to the third order Franciscans who have decided that the charism of Fr. Giussani is one which they wish to follow their entire life ... the fraternity is really the core of the movement."
Bacich also stressed the emphasis on communication rather than structure and rules. "Besides the invitation to prayer and regular practice of the sacraments addressed to every Catholic," says the Communion and Liberation website, "Fr. Giussani's movement invites its members and anyone else who wishes to participate in ... discussion and catechism. 'School of Community' aims at being a true school which, through the reading and discussion of texts indicated by the movement's center, shapes in its participants a clearer understanding of the nature of the Christian fact and illuminates their life. The assigned texts usually come from the teachings of the Church or Fr Giussani's writings."
For more information on the Communion and Liberation movement, visit www.clonline.org, or call Saint Mary Magdalene at (619) 276-1041.
"WE NEED TO ATTACK JESUS..." Mount Soledad cross removal crusader Phillip Paulson recently put the lie to his claim that he merely wants neutrality between government and religion and revealed his true motive: a hated of Christianity. On May 3, Paulson bared his teeth in comments -- since removed -- on the San Diego Atheist Coalition website, in which he said that "We need to attack Jesus..." and followed with several off-color remarks about God and the Virgin Mary.
Paulson's attorney, James McElroy, has publicly demonstrated his own hostility recently by criticizing City Attorney Michael Aguirre for retaining Thomas More Law Center attorney Charles LiMandri to handle the cross case. McElroy has compared hiring LiMandri (who is handling the case for free) to hiring the Ku Klux Klan to represent the city in a desegregation case. LiMandri actually began his career working for the City Attorney's office. He is a board-certified civil trial advocate and has been involved with the Soledad cross case for more than a year.
Paulson refused to discuss his comments, and suggested contacting "my practicing Roman Catholic attorney, James McElroy," for any inquiries. McElroy says that there is no inconsis tency in Paulson making such comments in spite of his call for government neutrality toward religion. "There's no contradiction whatsoever. Separation of church and state is something my client feels strongly about on a number of levels. He didn't make those comments publicly, but on a blog, going back and forth among atheists. If you actually read what Mr. Paulson said, he spoke as an atheist. He doesn't believe in the whole mythology of the Virgin Birth. The things he said are very much the things that Thomas Jefferson has said. Jefferson didn't believe in the whole mythology of the Virgin Birth and all of that stuff and that's the core of atheist beliefs, that religion is mythology. I read the comments in context and I didn't think it was obscene at all. It's that atheists believe that all religions have this mythology created around their religion and that's what it is. It's not truth, it didn't really happen and it's myth. It's not inconsistent, and in fact, I think it's very consistent. If he had been talking to you instead of other atheists on a website, he would have worded it differently. But he is an unabashed, unembarrassed atheist. That's just who Phil is."
Regarding his own comments about the city hiring LiMandri, McElroy says, "I don't have any regrets about it. I wasn't attacking Mr. LiMandri. It was an attack on Mr. Aguirre, more like, 'How dare you hire a Catholic attorney.' Of course I don't think Mr. LiMandri is racist or anything of the sort. I was using an exaggerated analogy to argue that when the city is stepping in front of the court to convince it that it is religiously neutral, then hires the strongest Christian advocate.... We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Mr. LiMandri. He's the one who wrote the letters to Duke Cunningham and got this whole thing started, because he's a terrific, strong advocate for Christianity, and that's what the mission statement of the Thomas More Law Center is -- not for religious freedom, but religious freedom for Christians. And I completely respect that because I am just like he is in many respects, but 180 degrees different. We are two lawyers who often work for free because we're passionate about issues and that's what I respect about Charles. But when the city is supposed to be standing in front of the judge and saying, 'We are absolutely religiously neutral,' and then hires someone who is isn't.... Mr. LiMandri will tell you himself that he is not neutral, but is passionate about the cross. It may have been a silly analogy, but I also said it was like hiring Billy Graham to come in and tell the court that the city is religiously neutral. It's sending a message and the court happened to agree with me. He (the judge) said, 'You know, the city is getting entangled in religion and showing a preference for religion when it's supposed to be neutral. And that was my point."
THE UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO, despite calling itself a Catholic university, continues to bring pro-abortion and heterodox speakers to its campus. In September, Anne Holberg made her second visit to the university's Peace and Justice Center. Holberg, director of the Women's Equity Council of the United Nations Association, blasted President Bush for staffing a United States delegation to the United Nations' Commission on the Status of Women with pro-life conservatives. "These women were incredible as to what they didn't like. They didn't like the U.N. They didn't like reproductive choice. They didn't like the separation of church and state, homosexuals, or most anything related to international treaties."
Holberg also criticized United States Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson for trying to "sabotage" a May 2002 special session of the United Nations General Assembly on children's rights. "All he could talk about was abstinence."
In October, Father Kenneth Himes of Boston College addressed a prayer breakfast for University of San Diego faculty and staff. In an October 2004 U.S. Catholic article "Irreconcilable Differences," Himes suggested that Catholic politicians can support abortion while remaining good Catholics.
THE PERCENTAGE OF CATH OLIC FRESHMEN dropped four points at the University of San Diego this school year, according to the latest statistics from the school. In 2004, the school's freshman class of 1,174 students included 665 Catholics (56.6 percent). In 2005, out of a freshman class of 1,136 students, 597 (52.5 percent) are Catholics. This drop has occurred despite President Mary Lyons' initiation of an expensive marketing effort in August of 2004. The September 21, 2004 San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the two-year campaign could cost as much as $400,000 if everything in the plan is implemented. The campaign aims "to not only raise the profile of the 7,000-student university, but also establish a USD brand -- one associated with such values as compassion, tradition and faith."
Previously USD had "essentially spent no money on marketing," according to the Union-Tribune, which also reported that "Lyons said the effort is paying off. She says the university has recently fielded numerous calls and e-mails from alumni pleased with the commercial and from companies hoping to sponsor events on campus."
News of the drop in Catholic enrollments at USD came as no surprise to John Giery, spokesman for the Catholic Crusaders, an activist group that conducts regular protests at the school. "We have maintained," Giery responded, "that USD's promotion of so-called tolerance, diversity, gay pride groups and, especially, the teaching of open dissent from Catholic doctrine, are tactics of social engineering which would be resisted by Catholic parents once they learned the facts. We have acted consistently to persuade our Catholic community that most parents were completely unaware of the anti-Catholic activities at USD and that, once informed, they would choose to send their children elsewhere. It seems a day of reckoning has arrived."
Several members of Giery's group picketed the university on Saturday, October 8, which was homecoming weekend. They created new signs for the occasion, designed to alert passersby to falling Catholic enrollment, including one listing the above statistics and another which stated, "Catholic Exodus = Mandate for Change." Another Crusader sign proclaimed, "Education = $150,000, Cap & Gown = $75, Loss of Faith = Eternal."
Giery reported that the overall reaction from passersby was friendly. One of the picketers was a USD alumnus who lamented that, instead of enjoying herself at homecoming activities that weekend, she felt obligated to protest what the Crusaders see as USD's betrayal of its mission as a Catholic institution.