Penance

How lousy has Roman Polanski's life been? His mother died at Auschwitz; his pregnant wife was murdered by the Manson family; and in 1978, after pleading guilty to unlawful intercourse and serving an evaluation period in the Chino state prison, he says he learned that a judge who had led him to believe that he would serve no more jail time actually was considering a long sentence, followed by deportation. On the eve of his sentencing, the acclaimed director of "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown" fled the U.S. and never returned.

Adali Gutierrez rarely mentioned his scarred and disfigured chin. He kept quiet about the mangled lower lip that twisted when he talked. A 21-year-old raising four orphaned siblings had bigger worries. Today, however, he speaks without hesitation. A plastic surgeon has fashioned him a new lip and smoothed over the divots in his skin. Faded are the lesions that reminded him constantly of the night his parents were gunned down in Mexico. It was January 2010. Maria and Guillermo Sr. had arrived at a police station to bail out Adali, who had been stopped for drunk driving.

Saying he wanted to prevent a "spiritual recession," a Franciscan friar is handing out coupons giving Roman Catholics who confess sins 50% off their penance. Father Bede Ferrara said Tuesday he got the idea after seeing people depressed and devastated by their economic woes. "We tell people it's tough to lose your job, it's worse to lose a loved one, but it's also worse to lose your courage," Ferrara said. "We feel this will help people. We don't want a spiritual recession."

How lousy has Roman Polanski's life been? His mother died at Auschwitz; his pregnant wife was murdered by the Manson family; and in 1978, after pleading guilty to unlawful intercourse and serving an evaluation period in the Chino state prison, he says he learned that a judge who had led him to believe that he would serve no more jail time actually was considering a long sentence, followed by deportation. On the eve of his sentencing, the acclaimed director of "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown" fled the U.S. and never returned.

RE "Man of the House": Whadda guy! "Confessions of a Football Dad" [Jan. 11] is priceless penance. I don't envy your second childhood or inner Huck Finn as much as I envy your prose. And to think I almost passed up Home this week. Now that would have been a serious loss. JULIE CAMP Via the Internet

Bah, humbug! That's what politicians tell us constituents every time we ask for campaign finance reform. Political and corporate welfare seem much more off limits than poverty welfare. Until they do some effective campaign finance reform they are as credible as Scrooge! Talk is cheap. Politicians, consider, and then act on: the past, when common good was more important than a politician's personal gain; the present, when party, presidential and congressional campaign fiance ethics are demonstratively lacking and legislators become lobbyists as penance passes; the future (is now)

The opening line of Sylvie Drake's review of Spaulding Gray's new monologue at the Taper must have given a start to every Judeo/Christian reader ("Gray Matter That Leads to Discovery," Jan. 23). It read: " 'In the beginning there was the word,' wrote an unknown author many millennia ago." Is Drake an atheist, a born-again Zen or just kidding? Whatever her persuasion, she is ordered to do penance by lettering the following sign, sitting in the end zone at the Super Bowl and raising it as each extra point is attempted: John 1:1. We'll be watching!

Re "Priests Begin Public Penance in O.C.," Dec. 19: To show "penance" and "contrition" for the action of their peer priests, 16 clerics gathered in front of a crowd of reporters and in the glare of TV lights to perform such acts as: Reading to children. Giving up the use of a car for a day. Working as a janitor's assistant at a school. There were other suggested acts, such as wearing clerical attire to a shopping mall where the so-garbed priest could "encounter hostile stares and comments."

Bill Barman and John McAndrew, two Roman Catholic priests who on Wednesday will perform public acts of penance, have asked Catholics to suggest acts of contrition they can perform to assist their scandal-plagued church. The priests surprised my wife and me by listing our private telephone number as the one to call with suggestions for the priests' acts of penance. The first call came in at 4:45 a.m., and we've now fielded more than 70.

The composer who names a piece "Song of Penance" is taking a real risk on some easy jokes. Tod Machover, however, would seem to have little need to make reparations for his new viola concerto, as committed before a large and eager crowd Monday at the Japan America Theatre, by the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group and soloist Kim Kashkashian. Long on energy, varied in influences and firmly directed in one sweeping movement, "Song of Penance" made a big sonic impact on its first hearing.

There I was, idly perusing the October issue of Vanity Fair, when suddenly I was struck by a profound religious revelation. An ethereal being whispered in my ear: "See? The Lord works in mysterious ways -- and he's got a wicked sense of humor." This revelation did not come while I gazed at Vanity Fair's cover, which shows Nicole Kidman opening up her shirt so we can all get a good look at her bra.

Late on the night before Ash Wednesday, Maura Toomb clicked into her profile on Facebook, her favorite social networking website. She took a deep breath and typed: "I'm giving up Facebook for Lent. Seriously." Then the Loyola College junior signed off, ostensibly for 40 days and 40 nights. "I'm going to use the extra time" -- dozens of hours a month, Toomb estimates -- "to reflect, to pray, and things like that."

RE "Man of the House": Whadda guy! "Confessions of a Football Dad" [Jan. 11] is priceless penance. I don't envy your second childhood or inner Huck Finn as much as I envy your prose. And to think I almost passed up Home this week. Now that would have been a serious loss. JULIE CAMP Via the Internet

EVEN SOME OF HIS MOST heartfelt admirers acknowledge that the late Pope John Paul II was slow to comprehend the magnitude of the harm caused by priests who sexually abused young people. The same cannot be said of Pope Benedict XVI after the pontiff's disciplining of a Mexican priest favored by John Paul.

A Pittsburgh second-grade girl was suspended from her public school for saying the word "hell" to a boy in her class. But Brandy McKenith, 7, says she was only warning the boy about the eternal comeuppance he could face for saying: "I swear to God." She told reporters: "I said, 'You're going to go to hell for swearing to God.' " A spokeswoman said the student code prohibits profanity but does not provide a clear definition of what profanity is.

Actress Tawny Kitaen's domestic violence case was dismissed Wednesday, but only after an Orange County judge forced her to apologize in writing for remarks she made on Howard Stern's radio show. Kitaen, accused of pummeling husband Chuck Finley -- a former Anaheim Angels pitcher then playing for the Cleveland Indians -- with her fists and high-heel shoes, had agreed to plead guilty and undergo counseling. The case was to be dismissed when she completed counseling, which she did.

In "The Horror, the Madness, the Movies" (April 16), Kenneth Turan said that "Paint It Black" by the Rolling Stones was a "nihilistic" song. It is not; it is a song of the passionate despair of a man whose love has died. Having lost the most important part of his life, he is unable to find joy in anything and wants the whole world in mourning. He stands staring at the setting sun hoping insanely that that act of will and magic and penance will somehow resurrect his love. This is agony and despair, not nihilism.

One of Roman Catholicism's most tantalizing secrets came to an anticlimactic end Monday as the Vatican unveiled a 62-line handwritten account by Lucia de Jesus dos Santos of what she saw as a 10-year-old shepherd in a pasture near Fatima, Portugal, on July 13, 1917. The text describes a radiant Virgin Mary, a flaming sword and a "Bishop dressed in White," presumed to be a pope, who leads a sad procession of priests and nuns up a mountain through a half-ruined city strewn with corpses.

Re "Priests Begin Public Penance in O.C.," Dec. 19: To show "penance" and "contrition" for the action of their peer priests, 16 clerics gathered in front of a crowd of reporters and in the glare of TV lights to perform such acts as: Reading to children. Giving up the use of a car for a day. Working as a janitor's assistant at a school. There were other suggested acts, such as wearing clerical attire to a shopping mall where the so-garbed priest could "encounter hostile stares and comments."

It's vital to our democracy that church and state remain separate -- except on bingo nights. That's what I thought before reading that 16 Roman Catholic priests in Orange County are beginning acts of public penance to show contrition for the misdeeds of other priests. They hope their shows of remorse to sexual-abuse victims around the country will spread to other parishes. You talk about reviving a great tradition.