20,000 Catholics to Gather in Anaheim

As many as 20,000 Catholics are expected next weekend at the annual Los Angeles Religious Education Congress in Anaheim, a national event that draws complaints in some strongly conservative Catholic newspapers and from a handful of protesters outside that city’s Convention Center.

“We pay them absolutely no attention,” said Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, referring to newspapers and groups critical of Religious Education Congress speakers and the small groups of pickets who often appear during the three-day gathering.

“I really feel sorry for them; they are simple people who have no influence,” he said.

The critics say that the Congress often features speakers who question or deviate from Catholic teachings on issues including sexuality, Bible interpretation and standards for the liturgy.

Mahony rejects those criticisms. “Ultraconservative newspapers who say they are orthodox simply don’t know what they are talking about,” the cardinal said. Those kinds of objections preceded his arrival as archbishop of Los Angeles in 1985, Mahony noted.

Ken Fisher of Anaheim, chairman of a Catholic group planning to protest the congress next week, called Mahony’s remarks “condescending and insulting.”

Mahony will miss this year’s congress, which will open Friday, because he was called to attend an assembly of cardinals at the Vatican on Feb. 21 and 22.

The congress is the largest annual conference in the world for teachers who lead parish classes in Catholic doctrine, or catechetics. The 250 workshops, varied liturgies and mini-concerts draw registrants from across North America and from a few countries overseas. The congress will be preceded on Thursday by Youth Day, which usually attracts 10,000 young people.

Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee will give the keynote talk at 8:30 a.m. next Saturday. Later, in a 10 a.m. workshop, Archbishop Nguyen Van Thuan, expelled from Vietnam after a long imprisonment and now vice president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, will talk about his experiences.

Other speakers will include Catholic writers Richard Rohr and Michael Crosby, syndicated radio talk show host Laura Schlessinger of West Hills and Father Bryan Hehir of Harvard Divinity School, who for years served as an expert on international affairs for the U.S. bishops in Washington.

Workshops will cover not only Catholic issues but Native American spirituality, families with gay children, the death penalty, and church views on cohabiting couples, among other topics. The congress will conclude with celebration of the Eucharist at 3:30 p.m. on Feb. 22. Registration is $55 for all three days. (213) 637-7332.

PEOPLE

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The Rev. Donald Shelby, for 23 years the senior pastor of Santa Monica First United Methodist Church, recently announced his intention to retire. Bishop Roy I. Sano appointed the Rev. Patricia Farris, district superintendent of the San Diego District, as his successor, it was announced this week.

* Rabbi Jack Schechter, who served 21 years as dean of the University of Judaism’s department of continuing education, has been named dean of the arts programming division at the campus in Sepulveda Pass.

CONFERENCES

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An evangelical women’s conference, co-hosted by singer-songwriter Twila Paris and Terry Meeuwsen of the Family Channel’s “700 Club,” will open Friday night at the Pond in Anaheim and continue through the next day. Others on the program include authors Becky Tirabassi and Lee Ezell, comedian Chonda Pierce and Heather Whitestone, Miss America 1995. Inspired by the all-male Promise Keepers’ rallies, the “Aspiring Women” conference is the second of 30 planned this year around the country. $55. (800) 791-7650.

* Rabbi Susan Laemmle, dean of religious life at USC, and columnist Marlene Adler Marks of the Jewish Journal will appear in a panel discussion with TV producer Marshal Backlar at 10:30 a.m. Sunday during an all-day conference on “Creating Family Life as a Single Parent.” The conference, which will include afternoon workshops, begins at 9:30 a.m. at the Westside Jewish Community Center, 5870 W. Olympic Blvd. $25. (213) 761-8800.

DATES

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Aided by a $73,000 grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Claremont School of Theology will study how Latino congregations in the Los Angeles area serve their communities. The principal researcher is the Rev. Michael Mata, director of the seminary’s Urban Leadership Institute. Mata will develop a profile of outreach and service ministries by churches in three Spanish-speaking neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area.

* Pacific Unitarian Church in Rancho Palos Verdes, recently recognized in its denomination as a “welcoming congregation” to gays and lesbians, will mark the event in its 10:30 a.m. service Sunday. The Boston-based Unitarian Universalist Assn. now has 140 congregations (14% of the national total) in that category, said a spokeswoman for the church at 5621 Montemalaga Drive. (310) 378-9449.

* Soprano Rhonda Dillon, who has been in “Phantom of the Opera” casts in New York and Los Angeles, will sing Wednesday during Pasadena Presbyterian Church’s continuing noontime mini-concert series. (626) 568-2608.

* Attorney Hugh Hewitt, co-host of the KCET-TV Channel 28 public affairs show “Life & Times” and host of last year’s PBS series “Searching for God in America,” will join author and radio host Rabbi Daniel Lapin, founding rabbi of the Pacific Jewish Center in Venice, in a special lecture at Cal State San Bernardino on Wednesday. The two will engage in a dialogue titled “What Christians and Jews Should Know About Each Other . . . but Are Afraid to Ask.” The 7:30 p.m. dialogue is free and will be held at the Creative Arts Building on campus. (909) 880-5975.

* Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor, named among 12 of the nation’s most effective preachers by Newsweek magazine, will preach Sunday at the 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. services at First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, 540 S. Commonwealth Ave. Taylor is Harry R. Butman Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Piedmont College in Demerest, Ga., a chair named after a noted Congregationalist who is a consulting minister to First Congregational. (213) 385-1341.

* Choirs from four other Baptist churches will sing Sunday in a special 4 p.m. service at the 1,500-member St. Paul Baptist Church, 100 W. 49th St., Los Angeles, which is observing its first year with the Rev. Joel Anthony Ward as pastor. (213) 233-4381.

* Analyst and political advisor David Hartman, director of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, will speak at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at UCLA Hillel, 900 Hilgard Ave., Westwood, on “Israel: State of the Jews or Jewish State?” $12 at the door. (310) 208-3081.

* Theologian Miroslav Volf of Fuller Seminary, named by Christianity Today magazine two years ago as one of 50 evangelical “comers” under the age of 50, will give a public lecture 10 a.m. Tuesday on “Christian Faith, Violence and Reconciliation.” The free talk will be at the Pasadena campus’ Travis Auditorium. (626) 304-3760.

* “Is There a Christian Spirituality?” will be addressed by veteran Catholic thinker Bernard Cooke at 7:30 p.m. Monday at the University of San Diego’s Hahn University Center. Cooke, formerly of Marquette University and the College of the Holy Cross, is a visiting professor at the San Diego campus. $15. (619) 260-4784.

FINALLY

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Israeli Finance Minister Yaacov Neeman, whose commission proposed a compromise to settle the dispute over conversion and marriage in Israel, is expected to be in Los Angeles next week for at least two speaking engagements.

Neeman headed a government-appointed panel that suggested Israel’s Reform and Conservative rabbis each prepare their own potential converts to Judaism with the Orthodox presiding over the actual conversion rites.

Debate over the proposal continued this week with the leaders of Reform and Conservative Judaism, which represent the overwhelming majority of Jewish religious life in this country, expressing considerable pessimism over an apparent rejection by Orthodox rabbis of key portions of the compromise.

Neeman is scheduled to speak Tuesday night at the annual banquet of Religious Zionists of Los Angeles at the Sephardic Temple in Westwood. (310) 205-8707. He will also address a meeting of the Southern California Board of Rabbis on Wednesday at the Jewish Federation Council Building in Los Angeles.

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Items should arrive two to three weeks before the event, except for spot news, and should include pertinent details about the people and organizations with address, phone number, date and time.

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THE VENUE

The city of Los Angeles may not be able to lure the large Religious Education Congress away from the Anaheim Convention Center for years to come.

Although the event run by the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese has been held annually in Anaheim since before the separate Diocese of Orange was created in 1976, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony said the close proximity of large hotels to the Anaheim Convention Center and arena makes the situation much different from that of downtown Los Angeles.

“With dozens of simultaneous workshops at the congress, we use hotel meeting rooms as well as the Convention Center,” Mahony said. If and when a sports arena is built near the Los Angeles Convention Center--providing the right venue for large worship events and concerts--the absence of nearby hotel space will still be a problem, he said.

“We would like to have it in Los Angeles,” said Mahony, who added that he met recently with Los Angeles convention officials. The cardinal noted that the annual convention of the National Catholic Education Assn. will meet April 14-17 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. That convention, however, will have far fewer registrants than next weekend’s Religious Education Congress.