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	Lovely Mass but No News; ACLU Wins Church-State Align for Red Mass By Frank Mickadeit Orange County Register October 3, 2007 http://www.ocregister.com/column/bishop-sworn-monday-1870188-justice-judges The first Monday in October is the day the U.S. Supreme Court convenes, and in Orange County, as in many Catholic dioceses, it is also the day the bishop celebrates the Red Mass. In a tradition that dates to the 13th Century, judges, lawyers and law professors attend a special Mass at which they ask for spiritual guidance in the administration of justice and the bishop offers a homily on the responsibility of the legal profession. With our own bishop scheduled to stand before the bar next week and answer to contempt allegations, I thought it would be instructive to see what he had to say about the law. So on Monday night, I went down the street to Holy Family Cathedral and beheld one of the most impressive displays of church-state harmony you'll ever see. As a white-gloved Sheriff's Department color guard stood nearby, 30 Orange County judges in their black robes processed down the center aisle with a phalanx of Knights of Columbus with white capes and gleaming, ivory-handled swords. Then two dozen priests and four bishops, the leader of whom was Bishop Tod Brown, wearing a deep crimson vestments and carrying the shepherd's crook that is symbolic of his office. The choir, robed in blue and accompanied by horns and timpani, sang "America." The bishops gathered near the altar, the judges filed into the front-row pews and the priests took their places in the left transept. Behind the judges were perhaps 250 lawyers, including the bishop's own legal team and members of such well-known firms as Robinson Calcagnie & Robinson, Jones Day and Stradling Yocca. Wylie Aitken and his son, Darren, positioned themselves to present the gifts of bread and wine that Brown would consecrate. Red accents were everywhere, on vestments, in the floral arrangements – the color symbolizing the tongues of fire the Gospel says the Holy Spirit manifested itself in when it descended upon the Apostles. In the sanctuary, to the left of altar was a large banner bearing the likeness of Sir Thomas More, the Catholic lawyer who was executed for refusing to recognize Henry VIII as the head of the church. Short of a papal visit, it was about as Catholic as Catholic gets in the U.S. – which is to say: soul-searching and moving within the liturgy and sacrament at its core, while on the surface beautiful bordering on showy and traditional bordering on archaic. (The K of C really needs to rethink those feathery Cap'n Crunch hats.) But if you were there to hear Brown offer a take on the legal profession while referring to his own troubles, you were disappointed. The homily was delivered by a visiting bishop, Randolph Calvo of Reno, who spoke about the role of the church in the justice system. He quoted Pope Benedict's opinion that it must provide "rational argument and spiritual energy" in the fight for justice. He called for mercy, quoting Aquinas: "Mercy does not destroy justice, but in a sense is the fullness thereof." Brown finally spoke for a few minutes before he gave the final blessing. But the closest he came to anything substantive was when he said he was thankful for lawyers who "sometimes have the courage to challenge laws that seem to weaken (the justice system.)" He didn't say which laws he was talking about. The strange Costa Mesa City Council trial I wrote about Monday got even stranger, with Judge Kelly MacEachern tossing the case because the lawyer the city hired to prosecute the case had not been sworn in. Duren's client, Benito Acosta, was charged with disrupting a 2006 council meeting while protesting the city's plan to have cops enforce immigration laws. The defense wanted to show that Acosta was booted out of the meeting while Minuteman leader Jim Gilchrist did the same thing but was allowed to continue. But the defense never had to put on its case. Acosta's ACLU attorney, B. Kwaku Duren (business card: "Dependable, Affordable, Aggressive") told me that while in chambers on Friday, MacEachern asked the contract attorney, Dan Peelman, whether he'd been sworn in. Peelman said no. Duren researched the issue and filed a motion to dismiss on Monday. The theory is that without being sworn in, Peelman is not a public official and under state law has no standing to prosecute crimes. Peelman came in Monday saying he had just been sworn in, but MacEachern said it was too late. He had not been sworn when he filed charges. Contact the writer: Mickadeit writes Mon.-Fri. Contact him at 714-796-4994 or fmickadeit@ocregister.com
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