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Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
LITTLE NOTES
June 2006
THE MOTHER'S DAY "THANK YOU FOR MY LIFE" CHAIN was attended by about 125 pro-lifers on Sunday, May 14. The event, which organizers hope will become an annual occurrence, took place along North Harbor Drive in downtown San Diego. Participants held signs that read "Thanks Mom, for My Life" and "Smile, Your Mom Chose Life." A group of Catholics gathered around the missionary image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, brought by Luis and Patricia Mendoza, to pray the rosary. Families came from as far away as Escondido and Lakeside, including members of Emmanuel Christian Church in Harbison Canyon.
Participants included pro-life candidates Joel Anderson and Chuck Stout, running in the 77th District for State Assembly and the Republican Central Committee, respectively. Anderson had to leave early, but Stout told the crowd that he was upset by liberal Republican politicians and promised to only support candidates who, among other things, are pro-life, oppose same-sex marriage and support school choice.
Pastor Adlai Mack of Christians United in the Word of God Church then spoke passionately about following Christ's own example of taking His message directly to sinners. He urged Christians to leave the "safe zones" of their churches to bring Christ to people on the streets and publicly bear witness to the truth, insisting that such ministry will bear always bear good fruit. To illustrate, Reverend Mack, a regular at Saturday morning pro-life outreaches at Family Planning Associates, explained that in the ten minutes he was able to spend in front of the clinic the day before, a baby was saved.
After thanking his mother, Faiza, who was present there with his father, Karim, Father Anthony Saroki, associate pastor at Blessed Sacrament Church, told the crowd that he had encountered many highly educated and intelligent persons who nonetheless formed opinions about abortion not based on fact. However, he related, "The more they allowed themselves to think about it critically, the more they looked at the facts, the less comfortable they became with being pro-choice.... Our great weapon is the truth and the One who is truth, Jesus Christ who said, 'I am the way, the truth and the life' and the truth will set us free." He told the story of Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a former abortionist and advocate for legalizing abortion. Nathanson's conversion came as he watched a sonogram during an abortion. "He was changed by the truth," Father Saroki commented. "He became a staunch pro-life advocate. One of the things he exposed was that, when they were trying to get abortion legalized, they said that 10,000 women died per year from illegal abortions. They made it up. The actual number was around 100. It was never challenged by the media; it was never challenged by the courts."
Father Saroki said that non-religious people can be convinced on the basis of science and reason alone that abortion is wrong. "It is clear what abortion is. It is the violent taking of a human life. What science has shown is that, from the moment of conception, every embryo is a unique human being with their own genetic code -- a distinct, whole organism with self-directed growth. All they need is a hospitable environment."
He urged pro-lifers to convey that abortion has numerous negative consequences for a woman, physically, psychologically, and spiritually. "Mother Teresa said that every abortion has two victims: the body of a baby and the soul of a mother. We have to show that there's a unity of interests here, between mothers and their children. We have to show that, to be pro-life means to be pro-woman in the purest sense of the term. Women in these crisis pregnancies don't have the gift of hearing their baby inside speak to them. That's what you're doing when you're praying in front of those abortion clinics. Hopefully you're helping them to hear the voice of truth, what their babies would say to them if they could speak, 'Can I live?'"
Father Saroki then led the group in a pro-life litany, followed by Pastor Mack closing out the gathering with a few more hymns. With the exception of a woman who pulled up close to participants and made obscene gestures with both hands, public response to the event appeared noticeably positive.
CATHOLIC ANSWERS vs. THE DA VINCI CODE. Before Dan Brown's best selling creative historical novel became an over-hyped movie, Catholic Answers, the El Cajon-based apologetics group, was busy shining the light of truth on Brown's book. Since the book was published "I wrote a booklet called Cracking the Da Vinci Code," says apologist Jimmy Akin, "and we also recently did an abridgment of that as a bulletin insert. We are marketing it to parishes and we hope a lot of them will order copies of it."
The bulletin inserts are available at Catholic Answers' website, Catholic.com. "It answers basic questions about the Da Vinci Code," Akin explains, "and talks about the problems in it, how to respond to them, and why people should be concerned."
Why should people be concerned about the book and movie? "Because they attack the foundation of the Christian faith," Akin answers. "They claim that Jesus Christ was not God, and that he did not found the Catholic Church, and that the Catholic Church usurped true Christianity which should have been a kind of goddess worship cult. And consequently, the Christian faith as we know it and the Catholic faith in particular is grossly false. So it seeks to undermine the core of the Christian faith, and that is something that should be of concern to all Christians."
To the oft-raised objection that the book is fiction and shouldn't be taken seriously, Akin responds, "It is not supposed to be fiction. Dan Brown has taken great pains to convey the idea that his work is based on fact. There is a fact page right at the front of the book that claims that a lot of things in the book are true which in fact are not true. In addition he talks about all the meticulous research he did in writing the book, and that again conveys the impression that this is not simply fiction, that it is fact, or at least based on fact. And there was a study that just came out in England that showed that people who have read The Da Vinci Code are more likely to believe ideas such as Jesus Christ being married to Mary Magdalene than people who have not read The Da Vinci Code. That shows that, when exposed to books like this, a significant chunk of people are going to fall for it, and it is going to harm their faith."
MORE DA VINCI CODE. Hundreds of Catholics protested on the Friday, May 19 opening of the movie outside of San Diego County. The protests began the evening before with a prayer vigil at Montgomery Waller Park in Chula Vista.
On Friday, protesters gathered out side of AMC Mission Valley, the AMC 24 Palm Promenade Cinemas in Otay Mesa, at the corner of Broadway and H in Chula Vista, and at the Pacific Grossmont 10 in Grossmont Center mall. Protesters returned to the Otay Mesa and Chula Vista sites on Saturday, May 20 and Sunday, May 21.
Terri Loughlin, a Saint Therese parishioner who organized the all-day protest and candlelight vigil at Grossmont Center, reports that #### took part in the event. Though she says she was "scared to death" to be sidewalk protesting, having "never done anything like this before," she organized the protest after letters she wrote to the movie's producers failed to get a response. "Before the movie was even made, I had sent out about 60 cards at Columbia to protest their even making the movie. Then they made it anyway. To me it seemed rather arrogant. Plus, it broke my heart. I just thought this is so outrageous. I just felt I had to do something."
Loughlin is a member of the conservative Catholic group, The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, whose America Needs Fatima campaign sponsored nearly 1000 anti-Da Vinci Code protests across the nation.
"THE FIGHT'S NOT OVER" says the Thomas More Law Center's west coast director, Charles LiMandri, regarding the Mount Soledad Cross. He says there are two battlegrounds -- legal and political -- on which to fight to save the cross, despite Federal Judge Gordon Thompson's May 3 order to the City of San Diego to remove the cross within 90 days or face a daily fine of $5000. "Legally," LiMandri says "our group filed a motion [on May 18] to intervene in a federal court action so that we would have standing to do a motion to stay of Judge Thompson's order before the Ninth Circuit. If he doesn't grant the motion, then we will appeal that and also move to stay regardless. In the meantime, we're trying to get our appellate brief on file in the state court by May 30, and trying to get that set for an expedited hearing so that, if at all possible, we can have that heard before the 90 days is up. If we win the appeal, then we'll use that as a further basis for the stay, because the property is supposed to transfer to the Federal government."
LiMandri says Judge Thompson's order, though not unheard of, is not common, and he described the move as "heavy handed. And it's unfortunate, because we have a state appeal going on, and I feel we're entitled to have that issue heard."
The state appeal is of "liberal activist" Judge Yim Cowett's October 7, 2005 ruling that Proposition A, which gave the city the power to transfer the land to the federal government, violates the state constitution.
That brings up the political battleground over the cross. "The political part," LiMandri says, "is we're trying to see if the federal government will take the land while we're waiting for the appellate court to rule on the Proposition A issue."
Were that to happen, and Li Mandri insists that the federal government has the power to seize such land for the National Parks Service, Judge Gordon's order would become moot, as the City of San Diego would no longer be the owner. And Judge Cowett's ruling would be nullified as it's a state constitution issue. "Then the people who want the cross torn down," LiMandri explains, "will have to start over and bring another lawsuit under the federal constitution which is more accommodating toward religious symbols on public property than the state constitution, particularly with this new Supreme Court we have sitting. That's why the ACLU doesn't even want the Supreme Court to hear any of these cases. Every time they lose one they won't appeal it, because they're afraid of the Supreme Court, as they should be."
MEANWHILE, ANTI-CROSS ATTORNEY JIM MCELROY, A Catholic graduate of the University of San Diego law school, in a May 14 profile in the Union-Tribune, was quoted saying, "I've got a dear aunt who's very active in the Catholic church. She shakes her head every time she sees an article about the cross case, and she says, 'Jimmy, what are you doing?'"