Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez and the late Pope Francis assumed their positions two years aside.
Each had been pioneering Latinos — Gomez turned the primary Mexican-born head of the most important U.S. archdiocese in 2011, and Francis turned the primary pontiff from the Americas in 2013.
Each inherited messes left by their predecessors — Gomez wanted to proper his L.A. see after a long time of intercourse abuse scandals underneath Cardinal Roger Mahony, and Francis had to determine the best way to rule within the shadow of Benedict XVI, the primary pope to resign in almost 600 years.
Every got here from spiritual actions lengthy controversial within the Catholic world — the progressive Jesuits for Francis, the conservative Opus Dei for Gomez. They each earned plaudits for doing the onerous work of ministering from blue-collar cities — Buenos Aires for Francis, San Antonio for Gomez. That’s why Catholics worldwide warmly welcomed them — and topped them with the expectation to make historical past.
After his dying the day after Easter at age 88, Francis was hailed for pushing Catholics and others to forsake egotism and materialism in favor of a kinder, extra tolerant world centered above all on the marginalized.
The person born Jorge Mario Bergoglio oversaw a church that grew from 1.3 billion Catholics when he began to 1.4 billion at this time, in line with Vatican figures. His reign was not good, and his liberal creed antagonized sufficient conservative Catholics that a counter-movement has emerged within the U.S., full with its personal conferences, non-public faculties and publications. Historical past will however bear in mind Francis as a pope of consequence, who met the proverbial second in a approach that will make St. Peter proud.
In an announcement after Francis’ dying, Archbishop Gomez prayed for Catholics to recollect the pope’s name “to pressing duties which can be nonetheless not completed,” comparable to standing with society’s downtrodden, evangelizing and making a peaceable world.
It’s a pleasant sentiment, and I hope Gomez actually takes it to coronary heart.
In an space that used to supply influential Catholic churchmen the best way the Dodgers churned out Rookies of the 12 months, Gomez has amounted to the residing equal of a hair shirt: a mode of piety that serves nobody however the wearer.
Los Angeles has modified mightily since Gomez began right here 14 years in the past. The poor have gotten poorer, and the wealthy have retreated to their camera-protected houses. Corruption has contaminated the physique politic, leaving a chasm in native management determined for somebody to fill. Within the final 5 years, Angelenos have weathered COVID, the Metropolis Corridor audio leak scandal, the Palisades and Eaton fires, and now the specter of tariffs and immigration raids devastating a world metropolis.
But Gomez has largely urged his flock to steer contemplative lives within the identify of Jesus, Mary and the Saints, which pales to the witness practiced not simply by Francis however by many within the L.A. Archdiocese itself.
{A photograph} of Auxiliary Bishop David G. O’Connell is ready close to the doorway of the Cathedral of Our Girl of the Angels in 2023. O’Connell was gunned down at his dwelling in Hacienda Heights.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Instances)
Right here is the place Father Luis Olivares defied church and authorities officers to make La Placita Church a sanctuary for Central American refugees in the course of the Eighties. The place Father Gregory Boyle created Homeboy Industries to carry dignity and which means to the lives of former gang members. The place because the Eighties, Father John Moretta has recommended parishioners at Resurrection Church in Boyle Heights on the troubles that afflict their neighborhood.
The place one in all Gomez’s personal auxiliary bishops, the late David O’Connell, fought environmental racism on behalf of Black parishioners in South L.A., stood with hanging lodge employees and prayed with parishioners exterior Deliberate Parenthood clinics. The place members of the Catholic Employee serve free meals on Skid Row.
After I consider these examples and so many extra, I consider Pope Francis. I don’t consider Gomez — and that’s a disgrace.
There was a time when the archbishop appeared as if he would work in that realm of the Beatitudes. In 2013, he launched a e-book titled “Immigration and the Subsequent America” that advocated for complete immigration reform and the price of all folks coming into this nation. As not too long ago as 2020, the Cathedral of Our Girl of the Angels rang its bells in reminiscence of George Floyd, whereas Gomez used his common letter to Angelenos to decry racism as “a blasphemy in opposition to God” and urged everybody to “root out the racial injustice that also infects too many areas of American society.”
However as L.A. turned extra progressive, Gomez retreated into his conservatism.
Throughout his three years because the first Latino head of the U.S. Convention of Catholic Bishops, Gomez pursued tradition conflict nonsense as an alternative of precise points. When Joe Biden, a liberal and a lifelong Catholic, was inaugurated president, the archbishop penned a letter accusing him of planning to “advance ethical evils” like homosexual marriage, abortion rights and employer-funded contraception.
That very same 12 months, Gomez traveled to Spain to ship a speech trashing “woke” tradition. Two years later, when the Dodgers honored for its charitable work a drag troupe that attire in nuns’ habits, Gomez held what he described as a Mass of “therapeutic” that amounted to an tried exorcism on behalf of the entire metropolis.
Of all the explanations Gomez might have held a commemorative service within the Metropolis of Angels, this was it?
Because the School of Cardinals meets on the Vatican within the coming weeks to elect Francis’ successor, Gomez, a mere archbishop, will keep dwelling. He has about two extra years earlier than he has to ship the subsequent pope the letter of resignation required of all bishops and cardinals after they flip 75.
To Archbishop Gomez, I say: Repent of your underwhelming tenure. Discover inspiration from the passing of Papá Francisco. Give L.A. the succor it wants, when you nonetheless have time.
