Archbishop José H. Gomez and late Pope Francis occupied two years.
Both are groundbreaking Latin Americans – Gomez became the first-born head of the largest American Archdiocese in 2011, and Francis became the first pope in the Americas in 2013.
Both inherit the mess left by their predecessors – Gomez needed to correct his Los Angeles after decades of sexual abuse scandals led by Cardinal Roger Mahony, and Francis had to figure out how to rule in the shadow of Benedict XVI, the first pope to resign in nearly 600 years.
Everyone comes from the religious movements of the Catholic world – the progressive Jesuits of Francis, the conservative opus dei of Gomez. Both of them have won hard work for Francis, Francis, Gomez in San Antonio. This is why Catholics all over the world welcome them warmly and crown them with the expectation of making history.
After Easter died one day after Easter at 88, Frances was praised for pushing Catholics and others to abandon egoism and materialism in favor of a kinder, more tolerant world rather than marginalization.
According to Vatican figures, the man Jorge Mario Bergoglio oversees a church that grew from 1.3 billion Catholics to 1.4 billion from today to 1.4 billion days. His rule was not perfect, his liberal creed confronting enough conservative Catholics to have an anti-movement in the United States, with its own conferences, private schools and publications. History will however remember that Francis was the Pope of the aftermath, who encountered well-known moments in a way that made St. Peter proud.
In a statement following Francis’ death, Archbishop Gomez prayed that Catholics remember the pope’s call to “complete unfinished urgent tasks” such as standing with people in troubled society, evangelizing the gospel and creating a peaceful world.
It’s a good mood, and I hope Gomez really takes it in mind.
In an area that once produced an influential Catholic church like the Dodgers raised young rookies, Gomez was equivalent to life in a hair shirt: a pious pattern with no one but the wearer.
Los Angeles has changed dramatically since Gomez started here 14 years ago. The poor became poor, and the rich retreated into their camera-protected houses. Corruption has infected the politics of the body and is desperate to fill it in the gap between the local leadership. Over the past five years, Angelenos has weathered Covid, the Town Hall audio leak scandal, Palisades and the Eaton Fires, now the ghosts that have devastated cities around the world.
However, Gomez largely urged his flock to live a contemplative life in the name of Jesus, Mary and the Saints, a witness practiced by many not only Frances but also by many in the Archdiocese itself.
Auxiliary Bishop David O’Connell (David G.
(Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)
Here, Luis Olivares’ father violated churches and government officials in the 1980s to make La Placita a refuge for Central American refugees. Father Gregory Boyle created the family boy industry to give former gang members dignity and meaning to their lives. Since the 1980s, Father John Moretta’s father advised parishioners at the Resurrection Church in Boyle Heights to torture the troubles near them.
In one of Gomez’s own auxiliary bishops, the late David O’Connell, who represented Black parishioners in South Los Angeles, stood with eye-catching hotel staff and prayed with parishioners outside the Planned Parenthood Clinic. Members of Catholic workers eat free meals on Skid Row.
When I think of these examples and so on, I think of Pope Francis. I didn’t expect Gomez – what a pity.
There was a time when the Archbishop seemed to be as if he would work in that gospel field. In 2013, he released a book called Immigration and the Next America, which advocates comprehensive immigration reform and the value of all those entering the country. Until 2020, the bells of Our Lady of Angels Cathedral rang George Floyd, while Gomez used his regular letter to Angelenos to take racism as a “blasphemy against God” and urged everyone to “be rooted in the injustice of racial injustice that still infect racial injustice in too many parts of American society.”
But as Los Angeles became more progressive, Gomez retreated to his conservatism.
During his three years as the first Latino director of the American Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Gomez fought a cultural war, not a practical problem. Liberal and lifelong Catholic Joe Biden was unveiled as president, and the Archbishop wrote a letter accusing his plans of “promoting moral ills” such as gay marriage, abortion rights and employer-funded contraception.
That same year, Gomez went to Spain to deliver a speech that wasted “awakening” culture. Two years later, when the Dodgers respected for their charitable work a drag team dressed in the nun’s habits, Gomez held what he called a lot of “healing,” an exorcist representing the attempts of the entire city.
Gomez could have held a commemoration in Angel City, this Yeah?
In the next few weeks, the Cardinal Academy held a meeting in the Vatican, electing Francis’ successor Gomez to be the Archbishop. He had about two years left, and then he had to resign at the age of 75.
I said: To Archbishop Gomez, I have repented of your hard term. Find inspiration from the death of Papá Francisco. While you still have time, give the help in Los Angeles what you need.
