| 3-17-98
By Luke Ford
Prager discussed the cover of this week's People magazine, which
featured actress Jodie Foster. The title: "Mom to be: Jodie prepares
for life as a single mother."
Jodie is pregnant and won't say how. She is widely reputed to
be a lesbian.
Only one person is quoted who worries about single parenthood.
Just two sentences on the lack of a support system.
FOSTER MOM
Jodie Foster, Hollywood's most successful
one-woman show, decides two's company after all
At first, producer Leonard Goldberg was
more than a little worried -- and then he got mad. After all, landing
two-time Academy Award winner Jodie Foster for the lead in his upcoming
thriller Double Jeopardy had been a coup. He hadn't blinked at Foster's
requests to rewrite her part, and they'd met several times to go
over her changes. She was, he says, thrilled with the final product,
and they were all ready to go -- until a few days before shooting
was scheduled to begin in December.
Goldberg says he was stunned, and very concerned,
to get a note from Foster telling him she was dropping out of the
movie "for medical reasons." She offered no further explanation
-- and he didn't ask. "Jodie is a very private person. [She made]
it very clear she didn't care to elaborate." Goldberg had no choice
but to swallow both his fears and his frustration and wish her the
best. "Well,"he told her, "I hope it [turns out] positive."
It has -- and for the record, Goldberg has
forgiven his ex-leading lady. Last week, Hollywood's 35-year-old
wunderkind -- whose résumé includes credits as director
and producer, magna cum laude graduate of Yale University, not to
mention her bare-bottomed breakthrough in a Coppertone commercial
at age 3 -- announced what was about to become obvious anyway: Come
September, the actress, who is single, is expecting a little wunderkind
of her own. She says she doesn't know (or care) if it's a boy or
girl. Within hours any hopes for a quiet pregnancy were swept aside
as friends and fans -- most as surprised as they were delighted
-- buzzed with the news.
"I had no idea this was on her mind," says
her friend Michael Apted, who directed her critically acclaimed
performance in 1994's Nell, which she also produced. "Whenever we
talked it was about work. It never occurred to me to just say to
her, `Are you going to do the womanly thing and have a child?'"
According to Foster's best friend, Randy
Stone, who produced her 1991 directorial debut, Little Man Tate,
there were only two challenges left. "I guess she could be President
if she wanted to," he says. But since politics doesn't seem a top
priority, "it is the most natural thing in the world that she will
be a mother. She's a kind and generous human being. She's a great
listener. This kid is very lucky."
Unless, of course, the kid happens to be
a stickler for propriety. Foster has no comment on the paternity
of her child, or, for that matter, the manner of conception. "I'm
not going to discuss the father, the method or anything of that
nature," she told gossip columnist Liz Smith, who broke the story
on March 5. Two days later, Foster sat in the audience as an honorary
guest at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, listening
to master of ceremonies James Woods laud the mother-to-be and quip
that her unborn child's father is "one of the L.A. Lakers." Famous
for keeping her private life private, Foster just laughed -- and
then, remarkably, she cried. "I know everybody's been through pregnancy,
but it's still a big deal,"she told PEOPLE. "I'm just very happy."
She's also joining a growing club of celebrities
who knowingly go into motherhood alone. The roster includes Diane
Keaton, Rosie O'Donnell, ex-Charlie's Angel Kate Jackson and former
Knots Landing star Donna Mills. Unlike Foster, each of those women
adopted their babies. But, whether by adoption or not, planned single
parenthood sends up some red flags, and not just from Dan Quayle's
camp. "We worry about single parents," says Dr. Richard Paulson,
director of the fertility clinic at the University of Southern California.
"We want to see a support system -- [at least] one other individual
who is going to help parent the child."
Foster, who earned a reported $9.5 million
for her last film, Contact, will have plenty of support -- and not
just from nannies, family members and friends. "Pretty much the
entire planet has been giving me advice as of the last few days,"
a laughing Foster told PEOPLE. But those who know her best believe
she doesn't really need it. "Jodie's an innate mom," says her close
friend Jon Hutman, who was production designer on Little Man Tate.
When his own daughter was born in France in 1994, Foster not only
sent "the most exquisite flowers we've ever gotten in our lives,"
she hopped on a plane to help change diapers. "She very intuitively
understood the process of having a newborn," he says. "She in many
ways was my mother for a period of time. That's just her nature
-- to take care of other people."
As the child of a single mother herself,
Foster has had plenty of opportunity to think the issue through.
"A single parent has to be everything to a child," she said to Redbook
in 1991. "And the needs a parent has, which might have been fulfilled
by a partner, are fulfilled by you or your siblings." And yet, as
her friend Jon Hutman points out, "she can think all she wants,
but everything she thinks is going to go out the window when she's
holding that little creature in her hands." Last week, reflecting
on the matter, she expressed optimism. "There was just a genuine
respect between my mother and me," she said, "and I hope I can bring
that to my child."
For now she is concentrating on more immediate
demands:running her production company, cooking dinners for friends
in her L.A. home, taking her 2-year-old boxer, Lucy, for walks,
and reading -- not scripts for a change, but that pragmatic classic
What to Expect When You're Expecting. "That's what you're supposed
to read, right?" she asks.
Oh, yes, then there's the baby's name. "Everybody's
getting together their lists to give to me," she says. Call it a
hunch: When the time comes, Foster will have the matter in hand.
"She is a great director, a great producer, a great actress, a great
student," says her friend Paramount production president Michelle
Manning. "Why would I question if she will be a great mother? She
will be fabulous."
Dennis Prager says that if Jodie appeared on the cover of the
magazine with a cigarette in her mouth, she would be derided.
Women have to battle arrogance. They are so more intuitive than
men, and it is easy to think that they do not need men.
DP is not sure that children raised by wealthy single women are
better off than those raised in orphanages.
The same liberal crowd that says we do not need politicians and
presidents to be role models, they have their fathers. But what
about when kids do not have fathers?
DP suspected that many listeners felt the issue as Jolly Jodie
vs. Pooper Prager.
But Jodie has beauty, brains, money, fame and success. What a
lucky kid!
If you are upset about this, what do you do about it? Is the battle
lost? Let us just support those who believe in raising kids with
two parents.
Many Western elites at the end of the 20th Century believe that
history teaches us nothing. We know better. We went to Yale.
Vatican Repents Failure to Curb Killing
of Jews
By CELESTINE BOHLEN
ROME -- The Vatican issued a document on
Monday that it described as an "act of repentance" for the failure
of Roman Catholics to deter the mass killing of Europe's Jews during
World War II. But the document skirted the painful issue of the
Vatican's long silences during the Nazis' reign of terror.
The document, under preparation for 11
years, was greeted with cool appreciation and guarded disappointment
by Jewish leaders, some of whom criticized the Vatican for not judging
those Catholics who collaborated with the Nazis or those -- including
Pope Pius XII -- who kept silent about Nazi atrocities.
Cardinal Edward Cassidy, the Australian
head of the Vatican Commission on Religious Relations with the Jews,
which produced the the 14-page statement, told reporters at a Vatican
news conference on Monday morning that it was written as a teaching
document for the worldwide church and represented "more than an
apology."
"This is an act of repentance," he said.
The document said, in part: "In the lands
where the Nazis undertook mass deportations, the brutality which
surrounded these forced movements of helpless people should have
led to suspect the worst. Did Christians give every possible assistance
to those being persecuted, and in particular to the persecuted Jews?
Many did, but others did not."
The delay in producing the document has
been attributed by many observers to divisions in the Vatican over
to what extent the church, its leaders and its teachings contributed
to the vicious anti-Semitism of the Nazis. Speakers at the news
conference said the process had required waiting for the church
itself to 'mature."
Rabbi David Rosen, director of the Israel
office of the Anti-Defamation League and its co-liaison with the
Vatican, said, "It is a very important statement, but it is disappointing
in certain respects." He noted that Catholic bishops' conferences
in France, Germany, Hungary, Poland and other countries have gone
further in acknowledging a deeper responsibility for the moral climate
that allowed Nazism to dominate much of Catholic Europe.
The document carries an introductory letter
from Pope John Paul II, who, as the year 2000 approaches, has been
leading the church through "an examination of conscience," reviewing
sins, crimes and errors that have been committed in its name through
the centuries.
In his preface, the pope, who as a young
man living under Nazi occupation in Poland witnessed the deportation
of Jewish friends, colleagues and neighbors, referred to the Holocaust
as an "unspeakable iniquity." He expressed a "fervent hope" that
the Vatican document will "help to heal the wounds of past misunderstandings
and injustices" committed by Christians against Jews.
The document examines the "catastrophe"
of the Holocaust, when Jews were persecuted and massacred "for the
sole reason that they were Jews." But it also examines the "tormented"
history of Christian-Jewish relations, worsened by "erroneous and
unjust interpretations of the New Testament" -- a phrase used last
year by John Paul in addressing a Vatican-sponsored symposium on
the origins of anti-Semitism.
"Despite the Christian preaching of love
for all, even for one's enemies, the prevailing mentality down the
centuries penalized minorities and those who were in any way 'different,"'
the document stated.
But to the dismay of some Jewish commentators,
the document makes the distinction -- first made by the pope himself
in October -- that holds that while the church in the past helped
foster religious prejudice against Jews, it bore no responsibility
for the racial theories that guided Nazism.
"We cannot ignore the difference which
exists between anti-Semitism, based on theories contrary to the
constant teaching of the church on the unity of the human race and
on the equal dignity of all races and peoples, and the longstanding
sentiments of mistrust and hostility that we call anti-Judaism,
of which, unfortunately, Christians also have been guilty," the
document said.
DP: This document is 2000 words long and took eleven years to
write, that is how sensitive the issue is. What did the church do
or not do, during the Holocaust. This is a bigger deal for Christians
than for Jews. How could this great slaughter take place in the
middle of Christendom?
The Church refers to the Holocaust with the Hebrew term SHOAH.
DP says the statement is a great step forward. This current pope
visited a synagogue, recognized the state of Israel. This is good
news.
The bad news is that the document did not state how little the
Pope did. While as an individual he saved thousands of Jews in Italy,
he kept quiet as Pope because he feared communism. He never said
almost anything about the Nazi genocide of the Jews. He could've
said, "If you participate in the killing of Jews, you are excommunicated
from the Catholic church."
DP: It was not the Church that made the holocaust, but the Nazis,
who hated organized religion.
From Dennis
Prager Web Site
Tuesday, March 17, 1998
Dennis discussed the 6 page spread in People Magazine on Jodie
Foster being pregnant. She is not married and won't tell how she
became pregnant. In the article, People Magazine is excited for
her. Dennis said that he only wishes Jodie Foster well in life but
he is not excited about single women deliberately becoming single
moms. He pointed out that he is not discussing women who don't choose
this path, i.e. divorcees and widows. Dennis said that he commends
those women because they did not choose that path but are working
so hard to raise good kids. Dennis emphasized that he was only discussing
single women who deliberately go out and get pregnant. Dennis said
that kids deserve a mother and father. Dennis asked his audience
if they thought he was conservative for that reason? Dennis said
that there is no reason to think that Jodie Foster is anything but
good, loving and kind. But still, he said, there is something wrong
here. Children deserve to start out life with a mother and a father.
They need both.
Dennis said that he is convinced he is coming off as a "party-pooper."
He said that there is only one quote from the entire 6 page piece
that doesn't see this as a necessarily blessed event. A doctor at
a fertility clinic said that he worries about single moms because,
he believes, they need a support system to help parent the child.
The rest of the piece in People magazine is how great it is for
Ms. Foster. Dennis said the issue isn't Ms. Foster but rather the
celebration over her pregnancy by the popular magazine. Untold numbers
of girls and single women will read this magazine, Dennis said.
The magazine listed several other celebrity women who in recent
years became pregnant while single. Dennis said this sends a message
that other than supplying sperm , men are not necessary for raising
children. It's arrogant, Dennis said. He said that men are necessary
for bringing up kids, not one iota less than women.
With the exception of a couple of callers, everyone agreed with
Dennis. One woman called in to say that she used to feel that way.
She deliberately became pregnant as a single woman and after a few
years she was overwhelmed at how truly difficult it was to raise
a child on her own. She loves her child, but she said it was a mistake.
Another woman called to say that she doesn't know where she would
be without her husband's support and parenting for their children.
In the third hour Dennis discussed the Vatican's apology to the
Jews for the Church's lack of action to help Jews during the Holocaust.
It appeared on the front page of the major newspapers today. Dennis
pointed out how sensitive this apology is because it is the length
of one newspaper page but it took 11 years to write. Dennis reminded
the audience that the Holocaust was a modern day event in which
9 out of every 10 Jews were massacred by the Nazis on the European
continent. Dennis said that what the Church did during that time,
and what it didn't do, is actually a bigger question for thoughtful
Christians than for Jews. He said, if you are a believing Christian
you have to ask yourself how this evil took place in the middle
of the 20th century in the most Christian part of the world? Dennis
noted that the Church, in the apology, refers to the Holocaust with
the Hebrew term, Shoah. The Australian Cardinal who was in charge
of producing this document, said that this was an act of repentance.
The documents said, in part, "in the lands where the Nazis undertook
mass deportations, the brutality which surrounded these forced movements
of helpless people, should have led to suspect the worst. Did Christians
give every possible assistance to those being persecuted, and in
particular to the many persecuted Jews? Many did, but others did
not."
Dennis said that this is a great step forward and that this Pope
has done an immense amount to reach out to the Jewish people and
he should be commended. Dennis said that Pope John Paul II is the
firs Pope in history to attend a synagogue, he has had the Vatican
recognize the state of Israel (a first in Vatican history), and
now this apology. Dennis said that this Pope has a "pro-Jewish sentiment"
and that this is good news. Dennis went on to say that maybe we
can't expect too much but the fact is Pope Pius XII did very little
during the Holocaust. Dennis said that he knows the Pope personally
saved thousands of Jews but he didn't speak out against what the
Nazis were doing. Dennis said that what he did as an individual
was beautiful but what he did as Pope was terrible. He just kept
quiet.
Dennis said that he did this because he feared the Communists'
anti-religion stance more than what the Nazis were doing to Jews.
Since the Nazis were fighting the Communists, he kept quiet. Dennis
said that Pope Pius XII didn't want to see Jews killed, but he feared
Stalin more than Hitler. Dennis also noted that this Pope in the
40's had pro-German feelings. He said that the Pope never said the
very simple statement: "if you participate in the killing of Jews,
you are excommunicated from the Catholic Church." Dennis said that
he thinks history would be different had the Pope made this statement.
Dennis said that in Catholic dominated Poland, Lithuania, and in
Western Europe (which was half Catholic and half Protestant) this
would have been a powerful statement. Dennis said that if it had
been repeated from church to church and parish to parish, many Jews
would not have been so brutally murdered. But, Dennis said, not
only was this not said, nothing close to it was said. Dennis said
that it was great misfortune that Pope Pius XII was Pope. He said
that he is convinced his predecessor would have come out with this
statement as he was a remarkable anti-Nazi.
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