The following comes from a March 5 story on LifeSiteNews.com.
A pro-abortion California politician is serving on the board of advisors for a Catholic high school in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
Assemblywoman Holly Mitchell is on the board of advisors of Verbum Dei High School [in South Central L.A.], which bills itself as “The Jesuit Work Study College Prep in Los Angeles.”
The Democratic legislator, who was elected to office in 2010, is sitting in a position of authority at an educational institution of the Catholic Church despite holding views that won her the endorsement of pro-abortion organizations such as the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Project, EMILY’S List, and the National Organization for Women (NOW).
“When contraception and abortion are out of women’s reach, unhealthy outcomes go up,” she said in April 2012. Planned Parenthood included the quotation in a subsequent press release supporting two bills that would concern faithful Catholics.
Senate Bill 1338 died in committee. If passed, it would have authorized nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, and physicians assistants to perform abortions. It was one of two bills sponsored by Planned Parenthood in the 2012 legislative session.
Mitchell authored the second, Assembly Bill 2348, a birth control bill, totally contrary to Catholic principles, that later passed and was signed into law. It lowers the standards under which birth control is dispensed, allowing nurses to dispense contraception without the supervision of or examination by a doctor.
“We’re trying to reduce the number of women who delay or forgo reproductive care they and their families need because the cost is too high or professional medical care is too far,” she said of her efforts with Planned Parenthood.
In addition to her pro-abortion voting record, Mitchell voted to ban reparative therapy for individuals with unwanted same-sex attraction. Before the bill’s passage its sponsor, State Senator Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, said, “The attack on parental rights is exactly the whole point of the bill.”
Socialist organizations and individuals have also endorsed Mitchell, although political socialism stands in opposition to Church teachings. One such individual, Dolores Huerta, is an honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America and serves on the Board of Directors of Equality California, a group advocating the redefinition of marriage.
Mitchell is also endorsed by the AFL-CIO, SEIU, and the Sierra Club.
LifeSiteNews.com contacted both Verbum Dei High School and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, asking if they had concerns about someone with this record on abortion, contraception, and homosexual advocacy advising young Catholics in the process of formation.
Neither responded with comment by press time.
Contact:
Dan O’Connell, Principal
Verbum Dei High School
Los Angeles, CA
(323) 564-6651, extension 6000
Send this article to Archbishop Gomez, to insure he knows about this.
If the Principal has no common sense, and fraudulently leads parents who pay tuition into believing that he runs a “Catholic” school that adheres to Catholic teaching – – –
Its time for the Diocese Bishop to step in and do his own job.
If you’ll notice, this is the first article concerning this situation. There is a second one which says they scrubbed this politician’s name off their list of board members and deleted a picture of her with the dean of students from their website. Cover-up?
Life Site News also reports that they received an email saying that she had not been on the board since her election in 2010.
Another failure of the chancery to allow such things.
You assume that the Chancery knows about these things before they happen. I would suspect that they don’t. A school run by an order is generally pretty independent, right or wrong, and doesn’t kiss the ring of the workers in the main office. If it were a diocesan high school, it might be different, but who knows. I think too many of us think that the Chancery, including the Archbishop are in on every decision that is made at the local level. LA is the largest diocese in the country, if not the world. Think of a major corporation. Does the CEO make every decision at all of the locations around the world? The best approach is to let the Archbishop know about the situration, and then let him do what he thinks is best.
If you look at their current board, one of the secondary school supervisors for the archdiocese is on the board!
Bob One, why do you make the chancery personnel out to be lazy idiots who have no clue what their jobs are?
The emperors continue to fiddle while Rome burns.
Astonishing, that the Jesuits are still considered to be members of the Catholic Church!!! Maybe it’s because, like Sodom, there are still one or two good Jesuits, but when these are gone, then the toaster will be turned on.
ROTFLOL!
Well, Skai, there are still some really good Jesuits, such as Fr. Joseph Fessio and Fr. Mitch Pacwa. Also, Fr. John Hardon, who died several years ago, was a very saintly man from all that I could tell and took a lot of persecution from his fellow Jesuits, so don’t count them all out.
Yes, Anne T., the names you mention are good faithful Catholic teachers, and excellent ones as well. I’m glad that there are three or four (Pope BXVI also) good Jesuits. As soon as these men pass on, and no new good Jesuits rise up, then God will destroy the Jesuits, wipe them from the face of the earth like He did to Sodom as soon as the only righteous men left.
How does this happen? Does the diocese not ask their people whom they hire to sign a letter of loyalty? Are we seeing Mahoney-ism STILL entrenched in Los Angeles? I guess it takes time, getting all the “bugs” out of the system, but can’t Archbishop Gomez even get to the lists and check that out? He’s all by himself in there, I guess. First steps would be to fire everyone in a supervisory position, get a personal assistant that doesn’t have the taint of Cardinal Mahoney on them, and then roll up his sleeves and get to chopping. This can’t continue to happen, it’s just not acceptable, in a diocese that large, and with that much exposure. The scandal is just too much to bear! Jesus carrying His cross fell three times, that we know of, but I imagine He saw all of this, and the weight was just unbearable. God, help our family in Los Angeles!
Part of the problem is that not all of the people in a school have to be Catholic and this being a Jesuit school (just think how Catholic LMU is)….
I suspect it all tracks back to stupid confessional practices, as in the superficial notion that people don’t change. After all we keep hearing that the cardinals are only men with faults who make mistakes all the time. Well, that simply don’t cut it … Jesus gives us the example of turning from sin, ie repenting, in the wife of Lot who turned back from her escape from sin and was immediately killed by God, turned into a pilar of salt. Bishops have only to blame themselves … but that is not enough at all. They have to turn from their sins, and stop the abomination of confusing man’s sinful nature with the salvation of the Lord.
Yes, there are good Jesuits, definitely, but I’m sad to say I know a few who need to change themselves completely, inside out, or leave the priesthood. Isn’t this tragic? Jesuits were once so profoundly respected, and many still are, for so many reasons. Now they are damned by the faithful, and one hopes not damned for eternity, in far too many cases.
My mother attended Seattle University and received an outstanding education from the Jesuit’s…back then the University had an outstanding basketball program…how about Gonzaga guys number “ONE” in the NCAA polls!
Paleobotanist
Are these Jesuits Universities even on God’s polls?
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
This is invariably an outgrowth of Cdl Mahony…he “champion’s” this kind of sinful paradox!
We can blame Cardinal Mahoney for the things that happened while he still had power through March 1, 2011.
Even though he inherited the problems, Abp Gomez has had the responsbility to clean house within the LA Diocese for two years.
Let’s place all responsibility where it belongs – that is justice.
Wonder if this was part of the “Social Justice” class that Ms. Mitchell taught to these students? Probably not….wonder what was?
Agreed, Pat. Cardinal Mahony has much to be forgiven for, and we have much to do in the wake of his term to clean house. But not everything is Cardinal Mahony’s fault!
The fact of the matter is that this is Archbishop Gomez’ watch now, and we are waiting, watching, hoping and praying that he will continue to do the work that is needed to clean up All Things Catholic in the Los Angeles area.
So many of us are heartsick to read articles such as this about the outrages that are continuing to be allowed in Los Angeles. When more new ones are perpetrated upon us, it is hard to feel as enthused as we once were to hear that he was coming to Los Angeles. It would be so wonderful if our bishops would do their jobs!
Maryanne, stop being “heartsick”; it is not good for you. Well, ok, I’m trying to come up with a reason why … and am not finding one, especially since we’re in Lent and walking up the little path of pain and torment and anxiety towards the Cross. Hopefully the Lord gives you great blessings as you unite your heart with that of the Holy Mother whose heart all but broke at the foot of the Cross as she united hers with the Sacred Heart.
Once again no suprise here, as long as the Novus Ordonarians run the Church this garbage will continue!!
There have been too many bad things happen in the church by those who believe only in the TLM, so the blame goes both ways. We must remember that both the ordinary and extraordinary forms of the mass are equally valid. The Legionaires for Christ were a cess pool. Then there is the Bishop in schism with the church who does not believe that the Jews were killed in blast furnaces. So, my point being that the form of mass you enjoy does not serve as a key point for what is happening in the church. It is much deeper than that.
Bob One,
Those priest who truly believe in the Tridentine Mass of St. Pius V have not committed any of these offenses against the Sixth Commandment, name one.
The Bishop whose name you fail to mention did not deny the existence of a holocaust, only the extent of that holocaust! Get your facts straight!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
God could have spared the victims of the Holocaust, but He didn’t. God can spare our modern society from the gay chastisement, but so far He has not.
No, Bob One, it is not the forms that are equally valid but the Holy Eucharist that is consecrated in both forms … that does not mean that the benefits of both forms are equal.
It is more like the homo-heresy running things that this will continue. Really are you surprised that a pro-abort is on a Carholic Highschool school board in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles? Archbishop Gomez won’t do a thing because fear of the race card. He would have to send a black person there to do his job. There is a hidden schism in the Church. I believe with the next Holy Father,who will clean house is when we will see this filthy schism come out of the closet. Today I watched an atheist defend the Catholic Church against so called Catholic Morgan cable news host. Oh! how I wished the Cardinals going into the Conclave could of seen it. It was priceless!
Church Militant TV ran this item on March 6th, so lots of people know about this now.
The Jesuits are so chummy with Democratic party, I feel they are another “arm” of the party itself!
There is nothing is the press release sectons of the archdiocese or the assemblywoman about this. I’m sure they’d like to have this ignored, but what damage have they done to young minds and how much trust have they lost of the parents and do they care?
How did I pass over this story from last week? This is OUTRAGEOUS,
but sadly, not unexpected. So this is how the new Bishop of Los Angeles is going to run the largest Catholic diocese in the U.S.? And please, spare me, the diocese is “too big,” and the good Bishop just CAN’T be expected to be aware of “everything” that goes on. BUT THAT’S HIS JOB! I’m sick to death of hearing the excuses from so many quarters re his severe shortcomings since 2011; he’s OPUS DEI, for God’s sake. And Bp. Gomez doesn’t treat immigration issues this way; he’s ALL OVER THEM! Only when it comes to the Faith of our Fathers do so many of these bishops BLOVIATE or seem to look the OTHER WAY! Last thing:why isn’t this “worthy” @ the high school the subject of a CANON 915? She’s certainly ASKING for it. GOD BLESS ALL, MARKRITE
In all fairness, I haven’t read anything that says she is Catholic or not. After all, this is a Jesuit school with four Jesuit priests and archdiocesan education member on the board, so there’s no telling what what goes on there!