The San Francisco Examiner - Thursday, Jan. 30, 1997
Susan Ferriss of the Examiner Staff

In a move that highlights divisions among Catholics and agency employees, Catholic Charities spokesman Bob Nelson said Wednesday that a Feb. 6 celebration to mark the opening of Leland House had been postponed. A 45-bed home in Visitacion Valley for people with disabling HIV infections and AIDS, Leland House will still open in February.

"The focus of the event was being pulled away from HIV services to other things," Nelson said, referring to an uproar over Levada's recent request to Mayor Brown that Catholic Charities be exempted from San Francisco's pioneering new law on domestic partners.

The law will require the 6,000 businesses that hold city contracts to extend employee benefits to domestic partners.

Catholic Charities, which has $5.6 million in social service contracts with San Francisco, is the largest provider of AIDS patient housing and hospice care on the West Coast. With strong connections to the Bay Area gay community - and with gay employees itself - the group has struggled at times to distance itself from Catholic anti-homosexual doctrine, according to some gay Catholics.

But that division has been difficult to maintain, say ex-employees, who complain they couldn't hand out condoms, discuss safe sex in an unrestricted fashion or disagree with decisions by the hierarchy.

For many, Levada's recent request for an exemption has raised that tension to a level that won't be easily resolved.

"It's clearly a pivotal issue," said Mario Torrigino, co-chairman of the San Francisco chapter of Dignity, a national organization for gay Catholics. "This type of a pronouncement by the archbishop points out a dualism in the Catholic Church. They will accept government contracts to bury people, but not support policies that are life-affirming."

"In the back of many Catholic minds," an angry Torrigino added, "gay people are despicable. However, there's always the chance that on the deathbed someone is going to repent."

Torrigino's organization sent a letter to Brown objecting to Levada's request.

"Dignity / San Francisco strongly supports the new benefits that the enhancement of the local domestic partners ordinance will provide beginning June 1," the letter states. "It helps give gay and lesbian couples the support and legitimacy that city contractors (be it churches or whoever) continue to deny them."

The archbishop based his request in late December on religious tenets and religious freedom.

George Wesolek, a spokesman for the archdiocese, defended the request by saying "public monies are used without discrimination by Catholic Charities."

However, he added, "The church's position on marriage is well-known. And domestic partners is not to be equated with that. That's the basic principle of the church."

Wesolek said Levada had been out of the country but planned to hold a press conference to discuss his position on the domestic partners ordinance at St. Mary's Cathedral Monday morning.

Franco Lacayo, a former Catholic Charities AIDS case manager who resigned three years ago, said there were many gay people working at Catholic Charities. He said that when he worked at the agency he had been frustrated because he wasn't supposed to hand out condoms and because gay people were discouraged from displaying gay slogans.

"It's preposterous (for Catholic Charities) to do AIDS work when this agency doesn't have the representation of the people they are serving," said Lacayo, who now works with Shanti Project.

In addition to Leland House, Catholic Charities runs the 32-bed Peter Claver residential program for homeless people with HIV or AIDS; the Belmont House AIDS hospice; Rita da Cascia, a housing program for homeless women with HIV; Derek Silva, a 64-bed residential home for AIDS patients; and other counseling, rental and food services.

"Afraid to say anything'

Torrigino said he had heard from gay employees that few if any of the 300 workers at Catholic Charities had known about Levada's exemption request before it became public. He also said employees had privately told him they felt they could not express disagreement without risking retaliation.

"This is how the church gets away with things," Torrigino said. "The employees and the priests are too afraid to say anything because they will be disciplined."

Catholic Charities spokesman Nelson, who says he is gay himself, disputed Torrigino's claim.

"We encourage people to speak their minds," he said.

He said the agency, which also provides counseling, foster care and services to immigrants and the elderly, had decided to avoid comment on the domestic partners ordinance until final rules were released.

Brown has indicated Catholic Charities may lose its contracts with The City if it doesn't comply with the ordinance.

"We have an excellent working relationship with The City," Nelson said. "We're hoping this can be resolved through negotiations. We don't want to stay in the flames here."
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