An ACLU-backed atheist has waged a 15-year court battle to force removal of the famous cross, and a federal court has ordered the city of San Diego to remove it. However, one option remains.
Federal law known as the Antiquities Act authorizes the President to designate landmarks and structures as national monuments and make the property on which the monument stands federal property. President Clinton used this law to establish numerous new national monuments during his term. In addition, the Historic Sites Act allows the Secretary of the Interior to designate certain sites national historic landmarks and bring them under the care of the National Park Service. Just this month, on Veterans' Day, a new plaque was added to the Mt. Soledad Memorial to honor President Reagan, further strengthening its status as a monument worthy of national protection.
Thus, it is fitting that the President formally designate Mt. Soledad as a national memorial park for veterans, and save it from destruction at the hands of the ACLU. President Bush can save the historic cross from another ACLU-backed removal by designating Mt. Soledad a national monument.
This is pretty sad, I have been listening via Mark Larson on KOJO. I don't live in San Diego, I was stationed there in the 70's while in the submarine service.
Since the city will not turn the land over to the Fed's. Why not sell the land under the cross (5 x 5') to a private citizen or company.
This has been done successfully in other states. Then the cross is on "private land."
The real problem is we just have too much government these days taking our land.
Buy a piece of prime proterty and put the thing up or make a new and better one.
On Sundays Catholic Mass is celebrated at Ground Zero, beneath an unusual icon. Discovered in the rubble, standing erect, rescue workers found a perfectly formed steel cross, and immediately rallied to it as a symbol of Hope. It stands at the front of the site in solemn defiance of all that is surrounding it. Many look upon it as a miracle.
I actually met the man who found it. He was introduced to me by the Fire Department Chaplain, Father Brian Jordan. Frank Silecchia is a huge, gentle man with hands three times the size of mine. Born in Brooklyn of a Jewish mother and a Roman Catholic father, he is a simple man with native eloquence and Faith to move mountains. We stood in the muck and mire midst the spirits of shattered dreams between the cross and the remains of the North Tower as he told me his tale.
Many of the buildings surrounding the World Trade Center had been crushed by the falling debris. In the hours and days following the massacre, rescue workers risked their own lives in the desperate hunt for survivors. This brought Frankie into one of those tottering shells, the Customs House, Building 6. Eventually he reached the basement, and there, in the center of the building, was a crater, and rising up out of the crater the steel cross, fully erect.
It was the morning of the third day. For twenty minutes he stood there, and wept.
It had been part of the North Tower, and as that structure came down, this cross had passed through the roof of the building, plummeted through floor after floor after floor, down, down, down until finally coming to rest where he found it.
“This is holy ground we are walking on,” he told me. “All those people that died here, they’re still here in a way. Don’t you see?” and here he looked up to where the tower once stood. “Don’t you see? Jesus was raised up on the cross, He died, and He descended to the dead. Then He gathered them up, and then,” and now he turned to where his Cross stood witness, high over the widening pit, “then . . . Resurrection! And He rises and takes everyone with Him to the Father!”
Father Jordan, who was still with us, nodded, and it is hard to imagine a thousand volumes of theology and philosophy that could have explained things any better.
Still, to call this a miracle is ridiculous, of course. This can be no more an act of God than the '69 Mets. Both towers and the other destroyed structures had steel frames and doubtless thousands of such right-angle joints as might form what looks to us to be a cross. Right?
But symbols, which are all man-made, can nonetheless be powerful. What is the Liberty Bell other than an old decrepit piece of junk, or the tattered flag of Fort McHenry that we spend millions to preserve, or that Lady in the Harbor? But does not each in turn stir something in the soul?
For the Christian, the Cross is the ultimate symbol of triumph over Evil and Death. Secularly, when used by the Red Cross it becomes a symbol of Hope and Healing. Our long tradition of burying the dead under crosses goes beyond the principles of the Christian religion.
True, there have been times when the cross has been usurped for ignoble causes, but here at the Gates of Hell there can be no doubt of its purpose.
Understandably, some will object to such a prominent display of religion in a public place.
But if, on a crisp autumn day when the pipes play "Amazing Grace" and the drum sounds the Dead March, some widow or child or mom or dad glances up at that cross and thinks for but a moment, "I am the Resurrection and the Life," who among us should say them nay?
-By Robert N. Going, Red Cross Volunteer
Can we outside of CA do anything? I can call/write the President but I canmnot ask a GOP rep outside of NJ to help.
Let them take the cross away. All crosses, everywherem,in that city.
SD has become the pit of hell anyway.
Sent out to my email lists.
Thank you for the detailed post.
SAVE THE CROSS ON MT SOLEDAD
Contact CALI Republican US Congressman and Senators to call on President Bush to launcg the monument to veterans' initiative (sample letter above).
Might also contact the state Republican party to alert conservative state legislators.
Contact CALI churches and Christian groups affiliated with your denomination.
Pass the word to as many individual Christians as possible.
Back in high school, our XC team had a summer camp at a campground in Mission Bay. Our morning run usually consisted of running up to the top of Mt. Soledad (and down again). We were always quite happy to make it to the top. It's a pretty spectacular landmark, and should stay.
What can we do? this really makes me sick!
WE should go stand in front of the cross during this lenten season!
In Los Angeles in an effort to separate church and state this weekend LA traffic engineers plan to start removing all crosswalks from city streets. Also plans are underway to change the name of San Andreas Fault to George Bush's Fault.
The Antiquities Act authorizes the President to designate landmarks and structures as national monuments. President Bush can oppose the ACLU and make the Mount Soledad cross a national monument.
EMAIL, FAX or PHONE Gov Arnold, and every Republican California legislator to contact the president today asking GWB to launch this initiative:
CA WEB SITE http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:jMbXBSy2Ie8J:www.standingupforcalifornia.com/action/contact-legislators.html
EMAIL, FAX or PHONE every Republican US Senator and Representative:
US GOV WEB SITE http://www.firstgov.gov/Contact.shtml
E mailed one to the other guy, Bill Nelson, for what that's worth.