Join us for this special event!

Culture of Life Fair 2005
Thursday, September 22
6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Diocesan Pastoral Center
3888 Paducah Drive
San Diego, 92117

For information on and a map to the Pastoral Center, please go to:

http://www.diocese-sdiego.org/set.asp?link=../PastoralCenter.htm&in=About

For more information call the OSM at 858-490-8323.

Short Reports on OSM Related Issues/Events

Number 1:   HEALING THE CITY... SDOP sponsors successful Mayoral Candidate Forum at St. Jude Parish on the evening of June 22, 2005, asking candidates to take action on forgotten community issues.

Mayoral hopefuls Jerry Sanders, Steve Francis, and Donna Frye (seen below with Fr. Henry Rodriguez and SDOP leaders) participated in an unusual candidate’s night at St. Jude’s on June 22nd.  Instead of debating with each other at length, the candidates spent most of the night listening to the needs and the vision of the clergy and leaders of the San Diego Organizing Project.  Instead of a small crowd of city hall insiders, the candidates faced a large multicultural crowd from all over the city and from multiple faith traditions.  Instead of jousting with each other about the pension and the budget woes of the city, the candidates were asked to come prepared to address the concerns of ordinary San Diego families and to let them know what their plans are to resolve the real issues facing our communities: the lack of affordable housing, increasing gang and youth violence, deterioration of neighborhood infrastructure and services, and the need for decent jobs.

SDOP clergy read a prophetic statement, a vision for a better future, that was at the heart of the agenda.  It laid out a vision for San Diego that went beyond calls for budget cuts, instead, addressing the longer-term concern of creating a viable future for San Diego that does not unfairly place the burden of balancing the budget on the backs of our neighborhoods and our families.  It called for a strong leader that can unite San Diego, make tough decisions, and find a way to overcome the historic pattern of under-funding city services.

The prophetic statement, along with rousing Gospel music performed by the Faith Chapel Choir and stirring testimony of people facing tough situations, took much of the night.  But those gathered also came to get a sense of each of the candidates and to decide who to vote for.  Each candidate had prepared written responses to the key issues and had an opportunity to elaborate on their plans for the city.  The candidates also all committed to bring their top staff to a 1-day retreat with SDOP clergy and leaders, to help craft plans to address the issues and concerns expressed that night.

For more information on SDOP call their office at: 619-285-0797.

Number 2:   The Students for Life Club at St. Augustine High School raised $500 to be donated through the Office for Social Ministry to pregnancy care center work within the Diocese of San Diego.

NORTH PARK – They are in high school, but already have a passion for life, and for the protection of life.

On June 12, the St. Augustine High School Students for Life were invited to a celebration in honor of the fifth anniversary of the Life Resource Network.  The student club was represented by Sam Thomas (’07) and Brandon Payne (’06).

In recognition of the celebration, the students announced a $500 donation to the culture of life cause.

“The St. Augustine Students for Life has only been around for three years and it has been a slow start,” said Brandon during his presentation that evening, “but we are looking forward to the coming year.  We have something prepared [for the future], so please stick with us.”

Brandon spoke of the need for each individual to preserve life.

“…It is not beyond reality for each of us to start today, with ourselves and with our families, to change the world gradually, one person at a time,” he said.

Fundraising efforts by the group have been “very successful,” said Brandon, and “we would like to donate the proceeds of our fundraising to a crisis pregnancy center.” 

Vladimir Bachynhsky, a religion teacher at Saint Augustine, and Sam Thomas presented the check for $500 to Kent Peters, OSM director, and Jo Brower, support staff, at the diocesan office (see photo at left) on July 13, 2005, the proceeds of which will be forwarded to crisis pregnancy centers of the OSM choosing in August.




 
Number 3:   Bishop Salvatore Cordileone Congratulates Life Resource Network (LRN) on Five Years of Service - - - LRN is now "Life Perspectives"

Following is the text of Bishop Cordileone's presentation:

Dear Friends of Life Resource Network,

Please accept my sincere congratulations on the occasion of your fifth anniversary celebration.

LRN has provided an invaluable service to our society, and especially our youth, in educating people about the sanctity of human life and the beauty which comes from respecting the sacredness of life in our relationships.  Through your efforts, countless young people have been spared the personal devastation which the culture of death has caused to so many unsuspecting victims.

(photo at left of Bishop Cordileone, Deacon Gregory Smyth, and Hugh Largey at this past year's LRN Life Walk)

I applaud you for all you have accomplished. Please know as well of my appreciation for all you are doing to build a culture of life in our society.  May the good Lord bless you and grant you many more years of success.

Most Rev. Salvatore Cordileone, Auxiliary Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego

Contacted Senator Hollingsworth's office. Aid assured me he would not vote for the bill.

Blessings,

Peggy Pinciotti

DIGNITY REPORT

The National Committee for a Human Life Amendment has a new web site called endroe.org.  At the site, viewers can send e-mails to their two U.S. Senators with a simple message, "Support for Roe v. Wade should not be used as a litmus test for judicial nominees."  Viewers can also learn more about Roe V. Wade and why this erroneous interpretation of the U.S. Constitution must be overturned. 

It's simple.  Simply go to www.endroe.org.  Send a message to Senators Feinstein and Boxer and learn more about the infamous Roe V. Wade Supreme Court Decision.

We hope you find this a useful tool.

There is certainly a profound spirit of contention over issues of profound moral import - human life, human sexuality, the role of government, and the roles of major institutions such as universities and media.

The talk is of liberals and conservatives, red states and blue. There is some danger, today, of the Church in many places being torn by the increasing potency of these political and philosophical labels.

Even in Catholic parishes, for example, one knows when one is in a liberal parish and one knows when one is in a conservative parish - usually before the entrance hymn. Thank God most parishes have not yet become one or the other, but even in otherwise tranquil parishes there is often tension between political and philosophical factions.

We are human, after all, and when our entire society is in a contentious mood it would be super-human if such contention were not felt in our religious communities.

I am asked sometimes whether I am a liberal or a conservative. Perhaps you have had this experience, too. One gets the sense that people don't really feel they know who they're dealing with until they know which label applies.

I say I'm a Catholic. Ah, but what kind of Catholic? I have a ready answer - a bad Catholic.

One problem with political labels is that they mean different things in different times and places, but Catholic always means the same thing (though it is a very big and magnanimous thing).

John Adams, one of the greatest liberals in our history, would today probably be called a conservative. Martin Luther King, who was profoundly conservative in his approach to many social issues, is today thought of as a great liberal hero.

John Kennedy fought for lower taxes, selling the idea that "a rising tide lifts all boats," but today's liberals embrace him as their spiritual father even as they reject his taxation policies. And the leaders of China who struggle to maintain the status quo are often called conservatives in the American press, but you can't get more left-wing than a communist leader, can you?

Some people like to label themselves liberal Catholics or conservative Catholics but this is another problem. Catholicism is both profoundly liberal and profoundly conservative.

The classical meaning of the word liberal - the meaning that John Adams attached to it - is to be in favor of the liberation of the human person from oppressive political and social forces. This is a very good thing, one the Church cannot oppose.

The literal meaning of conservative is one who seeks to conserve the goods that have been built up. Also a very good thing.

When liberalism turns into libertinism, however, it becomes a destroyer of human liberty. If I am free to do any damn thing I please, then civil society is impossible. Unrestrained humanity is not liberated humanity but humanity enslaved by its own bad behavior.

When conservatism turns to ossification, likewise, it becomes a destroyer of the good it seeks to maintain. In other words, when we become so obsessive in our conservatism that we prefer doing what has always been done to doing what is just, then we have become maniacs of the status quo, unable to act as true humans.

Catholics must be liberals in the sense that we ever seek the good of true human liberty, a liberty bestowed not by men or laws but by the God who made us. We must also be conservatives in protecting the goods that have been received from God and the goods that have been built up by humanity.

We must be liberal because we are pilgrims. God is working for the full liberation of all humanity; we should be working with him.

But we must also be conservative because God has already accomplished his great work of salvation. We must protect what has been handed on to us and what has been built up for the good of humanity. We must protect the sacraments and the teaching of the Church because they are goods that must be handed on to the next generations. It is our duty to conserve them.

Equally, we must not be liberals when liberalism means the abandonment of morality. When liberalism becomes defense of pornography, agitation for human cloning or advocacy of suicide, then it has become false liberalism, a liberalism not devoted to liberation but to selfishness. This kind of "liberalism" is self-defeating because it destroys civil society, a necessary condition for truly human liberty.

We must also not be conservatives when conservatism means ultra-nationalism or xenophobia or oppression of women. True conservatism seeks to conserve the good, but when it becomes merely avoidance of change because change is uncomfortable, then it can easily become a mask for injustice.