SAN DIEGO PROFESSOR UNDERGOES FAKE ORDINATION
SHE SHOULD TAKE A LEAF FROM EMPEROR NORTON
STILL COMPLAINING ABOUT THE VOTER'S GUIDE
Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:
Yesterday was the Feast of the Assumption of Mary. This is one of those beliefs that people outside the Church commonly misunderstand. Many confuse Assumption and Ascension. Our Lord ascended into heaven under his own power, so to speak. Mary was taken up into heaven by God. The distinction is not trivial.
Many of these same folks misunderstand the Virgin Birth. This teaching says that Christ was born of a virgin. It has nothing to do with the birth of the Virgin Mary herself, about which there is no defined teaching.
At one time Christians of all stripes understood these terms, but that was when our society was far more Christian than it is today.
When faith disappears, so does understanding. This is not surprising. It may be too much to expect that people who do not believe in the Assumption, the Ascension, or the Virgin Birth will know what those terms mean. You do not learn what you think you have no reason to know.
I miss having a common vocabulary. Nowadays you never can be quite sure whether the people you're talking to understand even the most elementary religious terminology. You always feel that you have to be starting from Square One.
LOCAL WOMAN IS ORDAINED, SORT OF
It turns out we have a deaconess in the neighborhood, and she teaches at the nominally Catholic University of San Diego.
(Before I go further, let me explain that, when I call a school "nominally Catholic," I mean the school touts itself as Catholic when speaking to donors. I also mean that there is no real evidence of Catholicism in the classrooms or in the social institutions of the school. The University of San Diego is so "nominally Catholic" that some years ago the Diocese moved the chancery office off the campus grounds and to the site of a former monastery.)
Okay, back to the news. Jane Via originally was hired by the University of San Diego in 1977 as a full-time assistant professor. After achieving tenure she dropped to part-time employment. In 1985 then-Bishop Leo Maher banned her from speaking at Catholic venues because she had signed a "New York Times" ad in favor of abortion.
For two decades she has flown beneath the radar. She still teaches scriptural studies at USD, but her real job is as a deputy district attorney for the County of San Diego. Via's name returned to the news recently--well, let me rephrase that. It wasn't actually her name that got in the news. It was a pseudonym she used.
It was revealed that as "Jillian Farley" she was "ordained" to the diaconate on a boat on the Danube River. This was in 2004. That ceremony was overseen by two female "bishops" who were excommunicated in 2002 after refusing to renounce their own "ordinations."
Via's identity as "Jillian Farley" came after a second round of "ordinations," this time on the St. Lawrence River. Given the inconvenience she went through in disguising her identity and lying low for more than a year, it is a little surprising that she did not choose to be ordained to the priesthood. Why settle for deaconess when one can be a priestess? Why not go whole hog and be ordained a bishopess or even popess?
I mean, if you're going to have a fake ordination, why not make it big?
NORTON WENT BIG TIME
In 1859 San Francisco resident Joshua Norton, after losing his money and maybe his mind in the commodities market, declared himself Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. He reigned for 21 years, and his funeral was attended by 10,000 people.
He issued numerous decrees, some of them salutary. In 1869 he ordered the dissolution of the Democratic and Republican parties, and in 1873 he ordered that an annual Bible convention be held in San Francisco. Many people regret that neither decree was put into effect.
While most San Franciscans doubted the legitimacy of Norton's imperial claims, they appreciated his cheekiness. The guy thought big, really big. As long as he was going to declare himself a ruler, he figured it wise to be something more than, say, the Viscount of Sausalito. Jane Via could have learned something from him.
NOVEMBER 2006, HERE WE COME!
The 2004 election is long gone, but memories of Catholic Answers' "Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics" are not. The guide made a reappearance of sorts in the August 1-8 issue of "America" magazine.
In a letter to the editor Michael W. Hovey said that "here in the Archdiocese of Detroit, most parishes and pastoral leaders enthusiastically complied with our policy that authorized distribution of pre-election materials only from the U.S. bishops and the Michigan Catholic Conference.
"Still," he complained, "tens of thousands of copies of the 'Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics,' distributed by an independent dot-com based in El Cajon, California, and led by a lawyer, found their way into church vestibules and onto the windshields of cars in church parking lots during Sunday Masses."
Please note the double jab:
Catholic Answers is not named but is referred to only as an "independent dot-com," as though it were little more than a web address. And what about Hovey's crack about Catholic Answers being "led by a lawyer"? This is a low blow. I am not a lawyer--I am a recovering lawyer. But let's go on.
Hovey identifies himself as "the director of the Office for Catholic Social Teaching in the Archdiocese of Detroit." He says that he "gave nearly 50 presentations on 'Faithful Citizenship' in our parishes in the two months before the election." At some of the presentations he was met by protesters who waved copies of our voter's guide and complained that he was not accurately expressing Catholic teaching.
"Instead of angering me, this show of defiance made me ponder why these fellow Catholics looked to the World Wide Web for guidance on Church teaching rather than to a representative of the archbishop of their local Church."
I admit surprise at his wonder. If people were to protest a talk I gave, saying that I was not accurately presenting the teaching of the Church, my first thought would be to check what I had said against official teachings.
Had I misspoken? Did I misunderstand Church teachings? Did I innocently convey misinformation about Catholic doctrines? Had I characterized as official teaching something that Catholics were at liberty to accept or reject?
If protesters were at my talk, and if they seemed to be serious-minded Catholics who had not just been let out of preventive detention, I would want to determine whether their complaints were well grounded or groundless. I would not wrap myself in a mantle of authority. I would not harrumph.
I did not attend Hovey's presentations and cannot say what it was that might have set off some of his listeners. I do not know if he accurately conveyed teaching regarding Catholics' duties at the polling booth. But I do remember his name from exchanges we had last autumn, and I look forward to seeing his comments on next year's voter's guide.
That's right. We already are working on the 2006 edition of the "Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics." Not only will it explain Catholic teaching on the non-negotiables, it also will explain why certain topics do not qualify as non-negotiables. It will have other additions that will make it, we think, even more effective than last's years guide, which was read by 15 to 20 million Americans.
p.s., If you have a comment about anything appearing in this E-Letter, please do not hit your Reply button. Instead, go to Catholic Answers' discussion forums at
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where you may post your comment in the forum dedicated to the E-Letter. You will find a thread devoted to this issue of the E-Letter. Feel free to add your comment in the form of a reply to that thread.
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