2 Priests Oppose Use of Norplant by School : Pacoima: Parishioners at Mary Immaculate church are urged to protest San Fernando High clinic’s distribution of the birth control device.

Two Roman Catholic priests urged parishioners Sunday to fight public policy allowing the distribution of the Norplant birth control system and other birth control devices in public schools.

Echoing the traditional opposition of their church to artificial birth control, one priest called on Christians to “make a difference” and another, speaking in Spanish, warned parents against the “loss of their children’s souls.”

The two sermons were delivered at Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Pacoima, where a predominantly Latino congregation has long opposed the policies of a health clinic at San Fernando High School, even before the disclosure last week that the Norplant device was being implanted there.

The church has criticized and spearheaded protests against the distribution of birth control devices since the clinic opened in 1987 and began offering condoms and birth control pills.

So far, eight students from 16 to 19 have received the Norplant implants. Norplant devices are placed beneath the skin and release birth control hormones into the bloodstream for up to five years. San Fernando High School has one of only a handful of school-based clinics in the nation that use the implants.

Under school district policy, parents can refuse in writing to allow the clinic to give reproductive care to their children. But once they allow their children to have reproductive services, under state law parents are not told what type of services the student receives, according to officials of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

District officials said last week that the clinic will continue to offer the implants, authorized in a public meeting last summer after a review by a committee of parents, teachers, administrators and health officials.

In Pacoima Sunday, Father Carlos Alarcon preached that the policy of not notifying parents undercuts family authority and is hypocritical.

When students “go on a field trip, there is a permission slip that a parent must sign,” said Alarcon, “but there is no permission slip” for birth control.

“You mothers will not know, until you realize that something is wrong for the next five years,” Alarcon told the congregation.

“In the Gospel it said Lazarus came out of the darkness and back into life,” Alarcon said, drawing from the New Testament story of the miracle by which Jesus raised a dead man from the grave. “We are also in the darkness if we do not protect our young.”

Alarcon ended his English language service by urging parishioners to express their opposition to the Norplant distribution at a church forum Thursday for school board, mayoral and City Council candidates.

“We have said many times that to be a Christian is to make a difference,” Alarcon said.

In his sermon in the Spanish language service, Father Luciano Anton also criticized birth control.

“If parents approve, encourage or permit birth control for their children, those parents are responsible for the loss of their children’s souls,” Anton said.

Parishioners interviewed after the services had mixed opinions on the issue. Most said that the clinic should not implant the devices without parents’ permission.

“I agree with the priest; what he says is right,” said Janet Soto, 19.

“I’m totally against putting it in high schools. These kids are too young. They don’t know what they really want,” said Elvira Perez, 25, of Lancaster, who is not opposed to adults using birth control.

Perez also accused the high school of “using minorities as guinea pigs” in experiments with controversial drugs.

A few feet away, Matilde Luna, a Norplant user for the past three years, had a different opinion.

“I was a guinea pig. I think it’s great,” said Luna, 21, a medical assistant at Northeast Valley Health Corporation, which also oversees the San Fernando High School clinic. “I had one child and I want to wait before I have more.”

Luna said she respects the priests, but disagrees with them.

“They don’t want you to stop having kids even when you are married. I just don’t agree. You should only have as many kids as you can afford,” Luna said. “People won’t ever stop having sex. But Norplant helps prevent abortion.”

Luna also defended the clinic, saying that patients are carefully told of all the birth control options. She said all prospective Norplant users are briefed on all possible side effects.