Its gotten minimal press, and what occurred remains quite fuzzy. Three months after it took place, Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony, who leads the huge Archdiocese of Los Angeles, told folks he was mugged last July on a sidewalk near the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, the mother church for the archdiocese.

He said he had gone out to mail a letter when he was assaulted.He opted, at the time, not to report the incident to police. He made it sort of public in October when he spoke to a gathering of priests.

It wasnt until early December that the cardinal talked to Los Angeles police detectives about his mugging, long, long after the trail was cold.The cardinal said the man came up to him and said, Hey, I recognize you. Youre the cardinal, arent you? At that point the man became angry with Mahony, apparently overhow the molestation scandals were handled.

Now, tongue in cheek, Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez has decided he must do all within his power to bring the attacker to justice. In a Dec. 23 column, Lopez raises a number of questions about the alleged incident, including why such a responsible man as a Catholic cardinal would not immediately report such a crime. Lopez quickly of course, notes child molestation crimes went unreported to police under Mahonys watch.

Its the same archdiocese that, in July, agreed to a settlement in which it paid out $660 to some 500 victims of sexual abuse. The agreement kept Mahony from having to testify in court about alleged concealment and cover-up of the crimes. Lopez also questions why a cardinal would find it necessary to go out on the street to mail his own letters, given the help he has around himself regularly. Some critics have questioned whether a man who flies first class would venture out and mail his own letters, Lopez said.

Ive begun a personal manhunt to locate Cardinal Mahonys assailant, Lopez wrote. Consider it both an olive branch and my Christmas present to him. Please let me know if the cardinal can meet with me and a sketch artist and provide a good description to aid in my investigation. Lopez said he talk to LAPD Lt. Paul Vernon to find out what the officer was told when he interviewed Mahony by phone for details. The lieutenant said he understood from Mahony that the man was upset that the cardinals failure to report the molestations early only led to priests violating still more victims. The guy pushed him and punched him at the same time, Vernon told Lopez. It happened so fast, and when he was on the ground, the guy kicked him a couple of times.

A priest, the Rev. Joseph Shea, who heard Mahonys account in October told the Associated Press that the cardinal was so badly hurt that he required hospitalization. Yet the police officer, Vernon, was told by Mahony that he did not go to a doctor or hospital. He said his assailant was Hispanic.

Writes Lopez, Father Shea was quoted as saying Mahoney let his attacker off the hook to offer it up in reparation for the sins of others. Id nominate the cardinal for sainthood, but without a clarification on how badly Mahony was hurt , how can he know how many sins have been absolved?

On Dec. 5, the Catholic News Agency quoted a priest who was at the conference:Cardinal Mahony reportedly was telling the priests they all had a price to pay for the sexual abuses perpetrated by other clergy. He relayed the story of the assault as an example of the personal toll he’s endured, several priests said. Yet the news agency could not get the archdiocese to confirm what the cardinal told the priests.Adding to the confusion, Lt. Vernon said he understood the incident took place near Temple Street and Broadway in Los Angeles, but no mailbox can be found there, although one was a block away. So maybe the cardinal was on his way to the mailbox or returning from it.

Famous people, no doubt, think twice when they are part of an ugly incident. It becomes much bigger news than when an obscure person is in that place. The publicity from them can stick with the famous for years and affect public perception of them. Maybe the good cardinal simply didnt want the media fuss. Or was the cardinal turning the other cheek and quickly forgiving, possibly out of guilt for his own failings in the molestation scandals?

Englands Royal College of Psychiatrists recently presented a report on homosexuality for the Church of Englands Listening Exercise on Human Sexuality. The report prompted prominent American theologian and author, Bishop John Shelby Spong, to circulate the summary of their findings widely to the media and others.

The report reaffirms previous professional findings that homosexuality is not a psychological illness or condition and those reparative therapies to try to turn gays to straight have no proof of working. There is now a body of research evidence that indicates that being gay, lesbian or bisexual is compatible with normal mental health and social adjustment, the Royal College reported. However, the experiences of discrimination in society and possible rejection by friends, families and others, such as employers, means that some LGB people experience a greater than expected prevalence of mental health and substance misuse problems.

Spong said the psychiatrist bodys findings are not new, but it was reported systematically and with the full scholarship and authority of their offices. He has been perhaps Americas most enduring clergyman voice for full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the life of faith communities and American society.

When a prejudice is being debated, there is a necessity for both sides of the debate to possess facts, not just opinions, said Spong, whose books have included Why Christianity Must Change or Die and Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture. Facts, he said, are often missing when religious people debate homosexuality. He asserted that pious homophobia is not a substitute for truth and that it was time for church leaders at all levels to be confronted by competent scholarship and for weak and fearful bishops, who believe that unity in ignorance is a legitimate goal for the Christian Church, to be told that it is not.

Here are statements from the British report:

• Opposition to homosexuality reached a peak in the 19^th century. What had earlier been regarded as a vice, evolved into a perversion or psychological illness. Official sanction of homosexuality both as illness and (for men) a crime led to discrimination, inhumane treatments and shame, guilt and fear for gay men and lesbians. (The change in attitudes began with the American Psychiatric Associations 1973 statement that there was no scientific evidence that homosexuality was a disorder. Others health groups followed.)
• there is no substantive evidence to support the suggestion that the nature of parenting or early childhood experiences play any role in the formation of a persons fundamental heterosexual or homosexual orientation.
• It would appear that sexual orientation is biological in nature, determined by a complex interplay of genetic factors and the early uterine environment. Sexual orientation is therefore not a choice, though sexual behavior clearly is.
• LGB people have exactly the same rights and responsibilities concerning the expression of their sexuality as heterosexual people.
• Although there have been claims by conservative political groups in the USA that this higher prevalence of mental health difficulties is confirmation that homosexuality is itself a mental order, there is no evidence whatever to substantiate such a claim.
• There is already good evidence that marriage confers health benefits on heterosexual men and women and similar benefits could accrue from same-sex civil unions. Legal and social recognition of same-sex relationships is likely to reduce discrimination, increase the stability of same-sex relationships and lead to better physical and mental health for gay and lesbian people.

Messianic Jews are a source of endless curiosity and controversy. Numerous times over the years, Jews have passionately told me how Messianic groups like Jews for Jesus dont deserve a drop of ink on newsprint. That youre a Jew or a Christian, but not something in between.

They bristle that followers of Christ can be quasi-Jewish. Messianic Jewish congregations typically carry Hebrew names, and some media have wrongly lumped them in lists with traditional Jewish congregations. Bad mistake. Traditional Jews dont accept that Jesus Christ was the Messiah prophesied in scripture to restore Israel to its ancient glory and redeem humankind. Messianic congregations borrow richly from both faiths.

Jesus was a Jew, we know, and his followers and the early church came out of Judaism. But Judaism continued on through two millennia still waiting, while the sectthat was spun off andbelieved Jesus was divine, evolved into Christianity. Its been said that next to monotheism, Judaisms most influential idea was that God would send his agent to earth, the anointed one to usher in the Kingdom of God.

Harrumph typically go rabbis before they talk about Jews for Jesus, which is typically a thorn in their sides.

Beth Shapiro, a writer for the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix, recently produced a front-page story, Messianic groups fly under Valleys radar in which she found the Jewish community has been minimally affected by those who would pull Jews into Jesus-was-the-Messiah camp. In fact, she found that some drawn to Messianic Jewish experiences, including some who had been only Christians, have sort of just kept on going in their explorations of Judaism and ended up wholly Jews.

The unanticipated consequence of the Messianic movement is that some convert to Judaism, said Patricia Power, an undergraduate adviser in the religious studies department at Arizona State University. Its not a one-way street. Shapiro said Power had grown up Catholic, joined a Bible church, then a Messianic group and finally Judaism because it spoke to her academically, intellectually and spiritually.

Now Power is part of Temple Chai, a Reform Jewish congregation in Phoenix. Power plans to earn a doctorate in religious studies and will examine identity formation in marginal Jewish groups, predominantly American Messianic groups. Shell also look at the Chabad Lubivitch movement Jews, whose Orthodox Jewish tradition has been marginalized because of their Messianic beliefs.

Power tells the Jewish News that the impact in the Valley of Messianic groups is virtually nil and has not grown has it has done on the East Coast. She says Valley rabbis have had minimal contact with people who say they are Messianic Jews. Maynard Bell, executive director of the Arizona chapter of the American Jewish Committee, noting about 100,000 Jews living in the metro area, said Messianic Jews can be counted in three figures, but, instead, they are more of an annoyance. Jews’ losses to the Messianic movement, he said, pale to Jews lost to intermarriage, assimilation and apathy.

Nevertheless, Jewish organizations have been formed to counter Messianic Judaism. One of them is Jews for Judaism. Its Los Angles office director and founder, Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz, told the Jewish News that it is training students in high school and college to mobilize students against Messianic evangelicals efforts. But he acknowledge that the Internet, with its many means of reaching people, makes that effort difficult.

Interestingly, Daniel Juster, the first president and then general secretary of the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, was in the Valley on Wednesday speaking at Yeshua HaMashiach Messianic Congregation in Mesa. Juster is author of such books as Jewishness and Jesus and One People, Many Tribes and is touted as acclaimed international speaker on the relationship of Israel and the church.

Future saints of every faith are diligent at work these days in congregations or regional offices and programs. The marks they have already left and will leave will one day be celebrated, and they will become icons deserving places in pantheons for the great forbears of faith.

It is only a matter of time before their impact is truly known and then properly recognized. Certainly, we can spot many of them today because of their force, leadership and works.

That was not readily apparent in 1882 when an Easterner came to Tombstone then left town not long thereafter.

Bishop Kirk S. Smith of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona recently took steps toward elevating to national church prominence the name of Territorial Days Episcopal lay minister and later priest Endicott Peabody. The state was a veritable stopping off point for Peabody, a native of Massachusetts, who would spend hardly more than six months in 1882 in Tombstone. But in that time he organized a congregation of almost 200 people and constructed St. Pauls Church, said to be the oldest Protestant church in the state.

Peabody, who came from an aristocratic New England family, gained his fame from going back home to Massachusetts and founding the Groton School for Boys (now just Groton School) in Groton, Mass. He served as headmaster for 56 years, overseeing the education of the scions of many influential American families, Smith reported in a recent E-Pistle commentary on the dioceses web site (azdiocese.org/dfc/newsdetail_2/207) His most famous student was President Franklin Roosevelt.

On Nov. 17 at Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix, Peabody preached about Peabody. It was tied into the 150^th anniversary of Peabodys birth. A special service was held at the
Tombstone church as well. The bishop noted he had a spiritual kinship to Peabody after reading that mans correspondence125 years ago with Julius Atwood, who was the first Episcopal bishop of Arizona.

Peabodys quick success with getting the Tombstone church up and going is attributed to his willingness to make personal calls on all the town families. In that exercise, Smith said, Peabody became friends with some of the towns most notorious characters including Wyatt Earp, whose family gave the altar rail of the new church. It was said
Peabody was not afraid to pass the hat for the new church building at the towns many saloons.

The preacher is also credited with starting Tombstones first baseball team. Concluded Smith, He is venerated as one of the Diocese of Arizonas most important missionaries, as well as the greatest of Episcopal headmasters. Smiths efforts were explained as the first step to eventually having that persons name added to the liturgical calendar of the National Church, printed in the Book of Common Prayer.

Omaha, Neb., seems an unlikely place for the madness of a shopping mall massacre. That Heartland metropolis is in an especially conservative state that rarely gets in the news for such a human tragedy on a grand scale.

But as details unfold about the gunman, Robert A. Hawkins, 19, who fatally wounded eight and then took his own life Tuesday at an Omaha shopping mall, it appears here was a deeply troubled young man who sorely needed mental treatment. It appears many knew about his anger and personal conflict.

This is kind of terrorism by someone with an Anglo-Saxon name doesnt seem to raise as much alarm. Imagine if the man had been a Muslim. Some of us are old enough to remember 1958 when Charles Starkweather rampaged across Nebraska and Wyoming killing 10 people on his way.

Enough seems to be known about his actions before the shootings to suggest he was not a cold-blooded killer and that he had shared feelings, even masked cries of help that should have alerted someone to intervene. He had broken up with a girlfriend, lost his job at McDonalds, had been kicked out of his parents home and had acquired a criminal record (felony drug conviction and several misdemeanors, most recently an arrest for having alcohol as a minor). He had been fired from the restaurant after being accused of taking $17 from his register.

The suicide note he left behind spoke of love for his family and friends, as well as a sense of being a burden to everyone and that his life had been a waste. His landlady, who found the note, told CBSs Early Show that I was fearful that he was going to commit suicide, but I had no idea that he would involve so many other families. His shooting at the Westroads Mall was random.

When his parents banned him, Debora Maruca-Kovac and her husband took Hawkins in and sought to help him. He was a friend of their sons. When he first came in the house, he was introverted, a trouble young man who was like a lost pound puppy that nobody wanted, she told the Associated Press. The night before the shootings, Hawkins and her sons showed Maruca-Kovac a semiautomatic Russian military rifle, but she said she didnt think much about it.

Hawkins had the compunction to call Maruca-Kovac just before he went on his killing spree to tell her he had left a note. That he let her talk briefly to him is important. Alas, Hawkins went forward with the act and as his note said, Now Ill be famous.Ironically, Maruca-Kovac headed to the Nebraska Medical Center and a job as a nurse and victims of the shooting arrived there. Small world.

In the next few days, more will be learned about Hawkins more warning signs much with what happened early this year regarding gunman Seung-Hui Cho who killed himself and 32 others at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Va.

If only..

Mental health intervention and treatment certainly have prevented would-be Omaha tragedies. Families and friends are at the forefront for seeing trouble spots and working to get people the help that will serve to lesson or eliminate anti-social and destructive urges. Employers and colleagues have a place in the process, starting with trying to understand people and the pressures and challenges besetting them.

Roaming our streets are homeless with complicated histories of both self-destructive activity and ill-treatment by others. That they dont ultimately take things out on society like Robert Hawkins is very fortunate. But as a just society, we can do more. They deserve help out of their mental hells.