Columnist Steve Lopez

In his "Points West" column in today's Los Angeles Times (sorry, I don't have the link), Steve Lopez says he phoned "PR guru" and "king of crisis management" Michael Sitrick for "advice."

Sitrick and Co., a major public relations and advertising firm here in the Southland, advised the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for some time. Lopez says Michael Sitrick told him that the company no longer did so, and that it actually had worked officially not for the Archdiocese but for the law firm of J. Michael Hennigan, which represents the Archdiocese.

But anyway, Lopez notes that the website LA-ClergyCases.com, which takes the side of the Archdiocese, had posted a nasty unsigned note about him.

Lopez apparently (it's not quite clear from his wording) told Sitrick about the note; and he says that lawyer Hennigan soon called him (Lopez) to apologize for the note "slipping through."

Lopez says Sitrick quoted Sophocles to him: "The truth is always the strongest argument." He says in 2004 the Cardinal admitted "leaving five priests in ministry despite complaints" but the Times said there were 11 more such priests.

Sitrick's firm, says Lopez, believes that "If you don't tell your story, someone else will tell it for you." In that vein, Lopez decides to "cleanse his soul" by listing a few past offenses of his.

We should pray for Lopez, because one of the offenses he mentions was that when an altar boy he "stole some hosts." Presumably those hosts were unconsecrated; let us hope they were, so he did not commit sacrilege.

Please look a few posts back; Ole Q wants your input

Please look a few posts back, at the one called, "Please tell us about the best Mass you've ever attended in L.A. or anywhere." Ole Q would love to hear what you have to say, and so would everyone else, no doubt.

I began that post a couple of days ago but only just now have posted it, and the blog sequencer stuck it on the date I began it, not finished it.

Report: Diocese of San Diego to file for bankruptcy

The CBS TV affiliate in San Diego is reporting (click on this post's title), as is the Associated Press, that Bishop Robert Brom says the Diocese of San Diego will file for bankruptcy.

The bankruptcy filing is expected before midnight tonight. A civil trial was supposed to commence tomorrow, but the filing will delay it.

Thanks to pro-life Catholic activist par excellence and ace reporter Allyson Smith for the tip.

Report: Diocese of San Diego to file for bankruptcy

The CBS TV affiliate in San Diego is reporting (click on this post's title), as is the Associated Press, that Bishop Robert Brom says the Diocese of San Diego will file for bankruptcy.

The bankruptcy filing is expected before midnight tonight. A civil trial was supposed to commence tomorrow, but the filing will delay it.

Thanks to pro-life Catholic activist par excellence and ace reporter Allyson Smith for the tip.

Please tell us about the best Mass you've ever been to in L.A., or anywhere

acatholiclife.blogspot.com is the source of the beautiful illustration above, which captures the holiness, reverence and beauty the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass ought to have.

If you have a moment to spare, could you please tell us about the best Mass you've ever attended in our archdiocese of L.A., and what made it so special? Or anywhere, if you wish.

Ole Q will think about his most special Mass and then let you know about it.

Thank you in advance!

"Theme for Lent is immigration"

You probably saw the article in the Los Angeles Times on February 22, "Theme for Lent is immigration" (click on this post's title).

Yes, on Ash Wednesday, or Miercoles de Ceniza, Cardinal Roger Mahony's headline theme for our Catholic Church's penitential season of Lent was "immigration."

"Immigration" got the headlines. Not penance, reparation, sorrow for sin. Not "work out your salvation in fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12). Not "O God, be merciful to me, a sinner" (St. Luke 18:13).

Not "dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return" (Genesis 3:19). Not the Four Last Things we all face -- death, judgment, Heaven, hell.

Of course, the intent of our prayer, fasting and almsgiving in Lent should include helping our neighbor, who is Christ in disguise; and some of our neighbors are "immigrants."

But if we are a Church and not a political party, shouldn't we speak so that reporters and headline writers understand we are about salvation, not secular politics?

Come leaflet at the wRECk this Saturday, March 3 -- 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

YOU are needed this Saturday, March 3. YOU can help. Will you, please?

Your fellow Catholics need YOU to join them. Just for an hour or two, or more, if you can. All you have to do is pass out informational flyers to people going into or out of this year's Religious Education Congress (REC). You can also help hold signs or banners.

Once again, the Concerned Roman Catholics of America (CRCOA) will prayerfully demonstrate, and hand out flyers to warn attendees to beware of and avoid the REC's many pro-homosexual, anti-life, dissenter speakers.

CRCOA needs more friends to help out. That's where YOU come in. Lots of people know it's a good idea to demonstrate, but few actually DO it. Won't you help?

CRCOA will stand up for our Church and Her teachings this Saturday, in front of the Congress entrance from 9:00 AM to around 6:00 PM. They ask volunteers to have their Rosary in their hands at all times. The Congress is at the Anaheim Convention Center, 800 West Katella Ave., Anaheim, on the south side of Katella between Katella and Euclid.

The volunteers will meet outside the main ticket entrance. For more information, call CRCOA at: 714-491-2284, e-mail them at: crcoa@earthlink.net, fax them at: 714-772-5075, or go to their Website (click on this post's title).

Please come and help warn unsuspecting, unwary fellow Catholics. You'll meet some good friends in CRCOA and you'll know you've done your best for Catholic truth in the face of error.

Thank you in advance, and God bless!

"Catholics clamor for [Tridentine Mass]"

"I think if the Mass is freed, it'll be a new springtime for the Church," says John Ambs, 42, about the Tridentine Latin Mass. He, his wife Lucy and their three kids attend an indult Mass at St. Alphonsus Church on Saratoga Street in Baltimore -- the parish's best-attended Mass.

This quote and the photo above are from an article in today's Baltimore Sun (click on this post's title), which Allen O'Donnell of Nebraska kindly sent along.

The article has some inaccuracies, but it is positive overall.

"I don't see the purpose in outlawing a Mass," says Elise Phair, 21, in the same article. She calls the Tridentine Latin Mass an "overwhelming spiritual experience, because it's so reverent." She adds, "There's another level there that I don't find at other Masses."

You might already know about the following resources for the Tridentine Latin Mass:

The Latin Mass Magazine

http://www.latinmassmagazine.com/articles/articles_main.html

Coalition in Support of Ecclesia Dei

http://www.ecclesiadei.org/

Una Voce America

http://www.unavoce.org/

Adoremus, Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy

http://www.adoremus.org/

What are the odds that Pope Benedict XVI will allow universal celebration of the Tridentine Rite? And if the Holy Father should do so, what are the odds that Cardinal Mahony will cooperate and go along with it? (That second question is a rhetorical one.)

The Tidings has pro, con coverage of Fr. Drinan

The February 23 issue of Cardinal Mahony's The Tidings carries a good column by George Weigel, "Demythologizing Father Drinan" (click on this post's title).

The same issue carries a bad column by Fr. Richard McBrien, "Remembering Father Drinan."

http://www.the-tidings.com/2007/022307/essays_text.htm

As you might expect, Boston College, whose law school Fr. Drinan headed from 1956 to 1970, has a page praising him to the skies. (That is the source of the photo above.)

http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/rvp/pubaf/07/drinan-obit.html

This Boston College tribute to Fr. Drinan leaves out his contributions to the culture of death. But you have already guessed that.

Georgetown University also has a page praising Fr. Drinan. It has links not only to many news articles about his death but also to tributes to him from Catholic pro-abortion politicians. and a long list of appreciations of him from colleagues, students and others, two of which brazenly praise pro-abortion actions of his:

http://www.law.georgetown.edu/news/drinan.html

SNAP goes after Southern Baptists

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, this past Monday asked the Southern Baptist Convention to adopt a zero-tolerance policy on sex abuse and to found an independent investigatory review board, reports the AP (click on this post's title).

This move by SNAP is interesting for two reasons.

One, as you can see at the following link, it highlights the high molestation rate in Protestant denominations -- whose ministers, by the way, take no vow of celibacy, of course.

http://www.snapnetwork.org/snap_statements/2006_statements/061406_southern_baptist_convention.htm

Two, the SNAP move is interesting because they are going after a mostly conservative denomination. When are they going to go after, oh, say, the Episcopalians and Unitarians? Or, say, government school teachers, coaches and other employees, who studies indicate have a much higher rate of molestation than clergy do?

Cdl. Rivera says he warned then-Abp. Mahony in 1987

La Opinion's lead story today (click on this post's title) is, "Cardenal Rivera culpa a Mahony" ("Cardinal Rivera faults Mahony").

The Los Angeles Times today carries a similar story (sorry I don't have the link), "Cardinal says he warned Mahony."

The stories report that Cardinal Norberto Rivera of Mexico City has said, in a deposition in response to a lawsuit, that in 1987 he sent a letter to then-Archbishop Roger Mahony to warn him that Fr. Nicolas Aguilar, who was seeking a post in the Archdiocese of L.A., had "family and health problems," a term Cardinal Rivera says Churchmen use as a warning.

Cdl. Rivera says in his deposition that he had heard rumors Fr. Aguilar was a homosexual, but not about molesting, and that he expected then-Abp. Mahony to make further inquiries.

Tod Tamberg and Carolina Guevara, speaking for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, say Cdl. Rivera might have sent the letter but "nobody received it" or any other letters about Fr. Aguilar.

Fr. Aguilar, now 64, was later charged with molesting eight boys in Los Angeles before he lit out for Mexico, where he is still at large. He is believed to have homosexually abused about 60 boys in Mexico.

The Times quotes Mary Grant of SNAP as saying, "What we are seeing is two complicit bishops pointing the finger at each other."

L.A. Times Online quotes Quintero

In today's (February 20) edition of the online Los Angeles Times, the "Political Muscle" blog by Robert Salladay (click on this post's title) quotes, and links to, Ole Q's February 16 post about Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (Democrat-46th District, L.A.) "bucking the Church" with a suicide-by-doctor bill. (Scroll down to the entry "Lord, have mercy on Mr. Nunez.")

Salladay also links to Ole Q's February 14 post on the same subject. And he quotes and links to several other Catholic bloggers.

Just thought you'd like to know about this.

Exhibit at L.A. cathedral flaunted homosexuality

If you had more than 400 lawsuits pending against your archdiocese for molestations by your clergy, many of which crimes were homosexual in nature, would you make every effort to avoid seeming to countenance homosexuality, or would you instead flaunt it at your headquarters?

Well, as the online California Catholic Daily reported back on February 11 (click on this post's title), and our good friend Kenneth Fisher and also Roman Catholic Blog have reiterated since then:

The conference room at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on the evening of February 10 was the scene of "Amigos y Amantes" ("Friends and Lovers"), an art exhibit and auction by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

The event featured art items that one California Daily Catholic reader who saw a TV preview of it called "really gross -- men hugging, tops bared, nude males back scenes."

No wonder pro-abortion, pro-euthanasia politicians such as Fabian Nunez feel free to promote the culture of death right in front of Cardinal Mahony and the other California bishops:

Our hierarchy, nationally and locally, has compromised the Church's moral authority thanks to the clergy-molestation-and-hierarchy-coverup scandal, and events such as the February 10 art exhibit at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels pour salt in the wounds.

Nunez kicks sand in Cardinal Mahony's face

Fabian Nunez is the pro-abortion Democrat politician who is speaker of the California Assembly.

He is from our 46th Assembly District here in Los Angeles.

And he is kicking sand in our California bishops' faces.

He is doing that by being one of the three introducers of AB 374, a suicide-by-doctor ("physician-assisted suicide" is the anti-lifers' euphemism/propaganda term for it) bill. He is lending this bill the prestige and clout that he has as Speaker.

According to today's Los Angeles Times (click on this post's title), Nunez says he is "ready to buck my Church" over the pro-death bill.

Nunez also says he is going to phone Cardinal Mahony today. But he adds, "I think the toughest conversation I'm going to have is with my Catholic mother, who wanted me to be a priest."

Don't look now, but that smart-aleck statement constitutes kicking sand in His Eminence's face.

Will the Cardinal surprise Nunez and give him a tougher conversation than his mother will? We can always dream. But has he ever resisted a Democrat politician?

Time for tough love, Cardinal Mahony; tell Nunez you are bouncing him from the Church until he repents of this heinous crime of pushing the culture of death against the most defenseless members of your flock and all our society.

You are the shepherd, your Eminence, after all, and this is your responsibility. By the way: If Nunez was sincere, he would have phoned you before signing on to the bill, of course.

Two-bit pipsqueak politicians such as Fabian Nunez should not be able to defy Almighty God and His One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, especially so brazenly and with impunity.

Ex-Red agent: "The Deputy" smear of Pope Pius XII was a KGB plot

If you have not seen it already, you need to read ex-Red intelligence agent Ion Mihai Pacepa's article, "Moscow's Assault on the Vatican," in National Review Online, January 25, 2007 (click on this post's title).

Mr. Pacepa reveals the existence of all kinds of vicious plots against the Vicar of Christ and the Chair of Peter by the atheistic Communists of the USSR and its satellites.

One of the biggest revelations is that the play "The Deputy" in 1963, which set off terrible lies about Pope Pius XII that still fester today, was a plot by Communist intelligence to try to discredit the moral authority of the Holy See and the Catholic Church.

So if anybody, including liberal "dissenter" Catholics, ever tells you that Pope Pius XII was pro-Nazi, reply that they are totally wrong and then use this article to help set them straight.

And for more articles in defense of Pope Pius XII, got to this great archive at the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights: http://www.catholicleague.org/pius/framemain.htm

Cardinal Mahony needs to blast Fabian Nunez

Ole Q is always thinking up jobs for Cardinal Mahony. Here is another one: The Cardinal needs to blast another anti-life politician for his latest anti-life initiative.

The politician is Speaker of the California Assembly Fabian Nunez, of our own 46th Assembly District right here in L.A. He celebrated the eve of St. Valentine's Day in a truly ghoulish way.

Yesterday everybody else was out buying candy and roses for their beloved, but not Fabian. The Long Beach Press-Telegram says (click on this post's title) Nunez was announcing his support for an anti-life bill to set up Oregon-style suicide-by-doctor here in the Golden State.

The California bishops' lobbying arm, the California Catholic Conference, will oppose this bill. They are at: http://www.cacatholic.org

But in addition to that, some loud public opposition from Cardinal Mahony would blunt some of Nunez's effectiveness on this very dangerous pro-death legislation.

The Cardinal knows Nunez, of course, and sometimes they have appeared at the same events.

They were speakers at the Congreso Nacional Latino last September. Also, last April 27 they were in an interview together on Univision's La Nueva 101.9 FM before the May 1 boycott.

So now would be a perfect time for the Cardinal to speak up and be heard in defense of the vulnerable elderly, ill and incapacitated whom the suicide-by-doctor bill is targeting.

And if the Cardinal does not speak up, the rest of us had better speak up ourselves -- which we should do anyway, of course.

Cardinal Mahony ought to denounce the anti-Catholics

Have you visited http://catholicleague.org lately, the home of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights?

Right now, this pro-Catholic watchdog group is defending our Church from the pro-abortion Democrat John Edwards and his presidential campaign. You have probably heard about how he is refusing to fire two of his campaign staffers who each have a history of writing blasphemous and obscene, gutter-level anti-Catholic and anti-pro-life screeds on their blogspots.

Sure would be nice if Cardinal Mahony would defend our Church by denouncing this terrible instance of anti-Catholicism and by demanding that Edwards fire his staff bigots.

And each of us should pray in reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary for the sins of blasphemy that these and all anti-Catholics, atheists, etc., commit.

Thank you, LifeSiteNews, for plugging Ole Q

Ole Q here wants to thank the excellent pro-life news site www.LifeSiteNews.com for plugging this blogspot in their free daily news alert on Friday, January 26. Here is what they wrote:

"A Catholic who maintains a popular weblog from Los Angeles under the name 'Quintero,' often focuses on the apparent complicity of some Catholic leaders in what he calls the 'abortion establishment.' He writes in response to [New York] Cardinal [Edward] Egan's interview [with an NBC affiliate on January 5, in which he called Hillary Clinton, Rudolph Giuliani and George Pataki "friends of mine"] that Catholic priests and bishops need to 'sever ties with their buddies in the abortion establishment,' or risk losing all credibility with their flock.

"Quintero succinctly sums up the tone of hundreds of comments recorded all over the Catholic internet world: 'When people see Cardinals, bishops and priests helping pro-abortion politicians, will they take that as a pro-life message or a pro-abortion message?…[T]he bishops need to excommunicate the Catholic pro-aborts, not mingle with them!'"

Archbishop admits not giving Catholic teaching to Cong. Pelosi

You probably saw the online California Catholic Daily story (click on this post's title) of February 7 about the interview that San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer (above; photo from the archdiocesan website) gave to San Francisco radio station KCBS last Sunday, February 4.

Asked if he considers pro-abortion fanatic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "less of a Catholic" because she "would be working to try to keep abortion legal," the archbishop replied:

"Well, I have met on one occasion, with Speaker Pelosi, before she was Speaker Pelosi. It was last year. And I -- we’ve -- exchanged viewpoints on a number of things. At that time, it was last spring, and it was principally about immigration, because that was very much the hot-button topic of the time.

"We haven’t had an opportunity to talk about the life issues. [emphasis added] I would very much welcome that opportunity, but I don’t believe that I am in a position to say what I understand her stand to be, if I haven’t had a chance to talk to her about it..."

There you have it: "We haven't had an opportunity to talk about the life issues," says an archbishop of the Catholic Church. And he doesn't know what her stand is!!!

Your Excellency, abortionists protected by Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues are KILLING preborn babies by the THOUSANDS every day you continue to fail to talk to her.

Your Excellency, there is this device invented by an hombre named Alexander Graham Bell. I know it was only in the late 19th century that he invented it, and so maybe you "haven't had an opportunity" to find out about it yet, but it is called the telephone.

Your Excellency, with this device called the telephone you can personally contact Nancy Pelosi and...talk to her right then and there!

Your Excellency, you could even tell her why facilitating mass baby-killing is evil!

I am sorry, Your Excellency, to be using sarcasm in this way. But can't you see that you invite it when you say you do not know what the position of one of the USA's biggest pro-aborts is, and when you say you have talked to her but you did not bring up aborting babies?

It is almost a year since you have been archbishop. We are talking about 100,000 California babies aborted on your watch, and a million babies nationwide.

I will be your biggest supporter if you talk to Nancy Pelosi and other Catholic pro-abortion politicians and tell them to become anti-abortion or else be excommunicated.

Andy Greeley likes Hillary, neener-neener-neener!

It is starting to circulate on the Internet that in a column or op-ed piece on presidential campaign spending and practices in today's Chicago Sun-Times (click on this post's title), Fr. Andrew Greeley says of Hillary Rodham Clinton:

"Now, I personally like the senator and think she'd make a good president (all hate mail on the subject will be deleted),..."

Just thought you'd like to know.

Archbishop, priests flock to funeral of pro-abortion politician

Much of California's liberal Catholic clerical establishment yesterday joined a flood of pro-abortion politicians in turning out for the funeral of notorious pro-abortion Catholic politician Leo Tarcisius McCarthy, 76, at St. Ignatius Church on the campus of the U. of San Francisco.

Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco and "more than two dozen other clergymen" accompanied principal celebrant Fr. Stephen Privett, S.J., president of USF, at the Mass.

Some years ago, USF let Mr. McCarthy establish a center, named for himself, on campus.

Fr. Privett, said the San Francisco Chronicle (click on this post's title), praised Mr. McCarthy as "a good and decent man...who served the entire good of all for his entire political life."

The good of all, that is, except the millions of preborn babies who died in the abortions Mr. McCarthy facilitated during his bloody and sordid career.

The Catholic San Francisco of Oct. 10, 2003, said that when Mr. McCarthy ran for the U.S. Senate in 1992, "abortion was a prominent feature of his platform." The paper noted that "According to the Los Angeles Times, he promised to write the Roe v. Wade ruling into law, support Medicaid funding of abortion and push for the distribution of the RU-486 abortion pill."

Obviously the clerics should not have praised Mr. McCarthy. After all, the Catholic Church, whose teachings these clerics are supposed to profess and proclaim, calls abortions "an unspeakable crime" and notes that every abortion takes an innocent human life.

To praise Mr. McCarthy, and to allow him a Catholic funeral in the first place, is to spit on every aborted baby, to publicly disrespect Catholic teaching on the sanctity of human life and to mislead the Catholic faithful and the general public into thinking abortions are not wrong.

But then, the liberal Catholc clerical establishment has never met a pro-abortion politician it didn't like.

Quintero is back

Hi, hola, I'm back. Sorry for the two-week hiatus. Believe it or not, a computer problem that I just could not figure out how to solve was the main reason for my absence. Some massive work deadlines did not help matters, but the computer situation was the big problem.

I hope you will tell all your friends that ole Q is back and as feisty as ever. Thank you!

The photo above has nothing to do with my absence. It is just a good photo of Mass. A chaplain is celebrating Mass for U.S. Marines from the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, I think at Camp Lejeune. It is from: http://www.catholicmil.org/html/blog.php?b=frcj&s=Iraq+I

This chaplain asks for prayers for his young Marines, and surely we can all comply.

It is good to be back with you! My next post will have usual-type subject matter.