No Longer the Face of an Ineffectual American Episcopacy

Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, the outgoing president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, addressed his fellow U.S. bishops on Nov. 15 at their annual fall assembly in Baltimore. https://t.co/VBbJv6695G

— Catholic World Report (@cworldreport) November 16, 2022

First He Attempted to Appropriate Civic Nationalism

Now he's trying to appropriate American exceptionalism.

Friends, America is alive in her saints! We have so many — mystics and missionaries, martyrs and immigrants, refugees and exiles. They came from everywhere to share their gifts and make this country what she was meant to be, a light to the nations!

— Abp. José H. Gomez (@ArchbishopGomez) July 9, 2021

Clerics Need to Stop Making Political Statements

They have no specal competence. What the United States need is separation - it is the only peaceful solution to the current Kulturkampf.

America needs a new spirit of compassion and cooperation, a new sense of common humanity.

— Abp. José H. Gomez (@ArchbishopGomez) July 4, 2021

Archbishop Gomez Still Pushing Forth His Version of CivNattery and the American Mythos

The latest draft.

A Weak Idea of Political Participation

Just talk and "debagte."

Given this history, it is important for Catholics and other believers to take a leading role — as men and women of faith — in the debates and conversations that are shaping the direction and culture of our country.

— Abp. José H. Gomez (@ArchbishopGomez) June 25, 2021

ICYMI, I enjoyed this conversation with Brandon McGinley at the Portsmouth Institute. Watch and let me know your thoughts on the discussion. https://t.co/cLBYUURxbL via @YouTube @brandonmcg

— Professor Pecknold (@ccpecknold) June 25, 2021

Latins Are Waiting to See if Archbishop Gomez Will Do Anything

Archbishop Gomez, Rep. Lieu, and Holy Communion:https://t.co/RVSsFd9yxu

— JD Flynn (@jdflynn) June 19, 2021

What a remarkably ignorant understanding of both what the bishops did and of Catholic theology. https://t.co/YnDZqHA70A

— Fr. Pius Pietrzyk OP (@PiusOP) June 19, 2021

A Failure of an Evangelist

Archbishop Gomez: Gospel is the answer to the 'new religion' of secularism https://t.co/uZxoSHYFcm

— Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) April 15, 2021

Foreign-Born Clerics in Need of an American Civics Lesson

.@ArchbishopGomez, President of U.S. Bishops’ Conference, issues a statement on the 2020 Presidential Election: https://t.co/m0rlOnusgn. pic.twitter.com/7MY5W2qdf4

— U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (@USCCB) November 7, 2020

The People of America have spoken. It is time to come together for the sake of the Nation. Congratulations to President-elect @JoeBiden VP-elect @KamalaHarris. We pray for them and President Trump to work together for the peaceful transfer of power. One Nation under God!

— Elpidophoros (@Elpidophoros) November 7, 2020

In the Long Run, Will This Act

help with the evangelization of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles or California? Probably not.

BREAKING: Pope Francis elevates California mission founded by St Junipero Serra to basilica status https://t.co/XMZ0p80Pju

— Checked Elitist Poso (@JackPosobiec) July 16, 2020

Still Pushing His Narrative

Our beloved #SanGabrielMission, founded in 1771, devastated by fire before dawn. St. Junípero Serra, pray for this land that you helped to found. pic.twitter.com/aX0X4qCvJ7

— Abp. José H. Gomez (@ArchbishopGomez) July 11, 2020

Reaction to Yesterday's SCOTUS Ruling on Bostock

.@ArchbishopGomez, #USCCB President, issues a statement on the Supreme Court Decision on Legal Definition of “Sex” in Civil Rights Law. Full statement: https://t.co/zlLwKFTawv. pic.twitter.com/RnpSDAxH1c

— U.S. Catholic Bishops (@USCCB) June 15, 2020

A comment on the Bostock case and the Rule of Law:https://t.co/r1OAOh2U6o

— Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) June 16, 2020

Justice Gorsuch Just Opened Pandora’s Box by HELEN ANDREWS
This is not a narrow ruling. Extending civil rights law to protect a whole new category carries with it a host of ancillary protections.

The Federalist Society has shown itself to be rather useless in protecting "conservative" legal theory, much less "originalism."

I Didn't Know He Was Working in the D.A's Office Now

.@ArchbishopGomez, #USCCB president, has issued a statement on #GeorgeFloyd and the protests in American cities that have taken place over the last several days: https://t.co/IKaTe0nDQ2. pic.twitter.com/hLJ2eyZNLb

— U.S. Catholic Bishops (@USCCB) May 31, 2020

A Church of "Social Justice" and "Solidarity"

A reason why Latins are not getting any vocations? Don't dismiss the possibility so quickly.

Liberalism is certainly a false gospel.

CNA/CWR: Following Trump’s halt to US immigration, bishops call for solidarity

“In this moment, our common humanity is apparent more now than ever. The virus is merciless in its preying upon human life; it knows no borders or nationality,” read an April 23 statement issued by Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles, president of US bishops’ conference; Auxiliary Bishop Mario Dorsonville of Washington, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Migration; and Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento, chair of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network.

“The President’s action threatens instead to fuel polarization and animosity. While we welcome efforts to ensure that all Americans are recognized for the dignity of their work, the global crisis caused by COVID-19 demands unity and the creativity of love, not more division and the indifference of a throw-away mentality.”

The full statement.

CLINIC: Joint Press Release: Catholic Leaders Respond to Administration’s Halt to Immigration with a Call for Unity in the Effort to Overcome COVID-19
Ignatian Solidarity Network

Latins Riding the Coattails of Others' Hero

They don't have something more important to discuss? For example, what is happening in Virginia with respect to gun control?

CNA/Catholic World Report: Catholic bishops: US still ‘painfully’ far from Martin Luther King’s dream and A Catholic looks back on his time in the civil rights movement and The nuns who witnessed the life and death of Martin Luther King

Heresy, Again

“Jesus Christ came as a child on Christmas to show us that every person is a child of God, made in his image,” Gomez states. “He came to show us that all humanity is one family, that we are all brothers and sisters no matter where we are born, the color of our skin or the language that we speak.”

source

Indeed

VDare: Mexican Immigrant Jose Gomez, New Leader Of America’s Catholic Bishops, Has A Top Priority. It’s Not Sacking Pervert Priests

More Words from the Archbishop of Los Angeles

CNA/CWR: Archbishop Gomez: The Church belongs to Christ

Nothing New or Enlightening Here

Crisis: ‘A Crisis of Saints’: An Interview with Archbishop José Horacio Gómez by Michael Warren Davis

To me, the promise of America, America’s exceptional place in history, is to carry forward the beautiful Judeo-Christian vision of the sanctity and dignity of the human person—created in God’s image, endowed with God-given rights and responsibilities, and called to a transcendent destiny.

So, individualism, secularism, relativism—a society where a lot of people don’t believe anymore that it’s even possible for us to know God—this is all mission territory for us as Catholics, as Christians.

We need to be salt and leaven, to use our Lord’s terms. And there’s that beautiful image from the early Church: “The Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body.”

We need to work to purify our culture and our politics, and our own hearts and intentions. And we need to work to restore the centrality of the human person, the sanctity and the mystery of the human person. At least, that’s how I see it.

Liberal exceptionalism.

Ominous Signs for the Latin Churches in the US

But not unexpected -- they continue to travel their path towards irrelevance and rejection.

CWR: ‘I just wanted to be a priest’: Archbishop Gomez elected president of USCCB

The face of the modern American church, aligned with the left on issues of political order in the name of a distorted moral theology that ignores the order of charity and its analogues at the natural level, and hence irrelevant to American “conservatives.”

Only the laity can restore credibility of the Church to their non-believing American neighbors, and they will have to do it by denouncing the pronouncements of the USCCB as not being representative of Tradition or authentic apostolic Christianity. The bishops will not learn, not even if Robert Sarah were to object to their liberalism and globalism.


CNA/CWR: US bishops approve updated seminary program, Hispanic ministry efforts

Bishop Felipe de Jesus Estevez of St. Augustine, Florida, in floor discussions preceding the vote, said that in the last two years both he and Bishop Andrew Cozzens, auxiliary bishop of St. Paul, Minnesota, had been working as part of a larger group on a “deepening” of understanding of priestly celibacy in seminary formation.

This understanding of clerical celibacy, he said, is “based on an effective maturity” that is “both spousal and paternal.” Estevez said that he and Bishop Cozzens would be working to publish a book on this called “Spiritual Husbands, Spiritual Fathers.”

Who exactly do they have to judge effective maturity? "Professionals"? Women? Celibate male clerics who have been part of the system for a while and may be part of the problem? The blind leading the blind. As for the whole sacramental theology surrounding "in persona Christi" the implications, i.e. the priest being "married to the Church like Christ, and being a "spiritual husband" should raise a few eyebrows but Latins are used to this sort of talk by now.

The votes were followed by a discussion of the V Encuentro meeting of 2018, a national gathering of more than 3,000 Hispanic Catholic leaders in the U.S. The bishops discussed some of the results of the Encuentro as providing a blueprint for the future of the Church in the U.S., and how the conference needs to incorporate those results at the parish level.

More than a year after the close of the V Encuentro, the bishops voted on Tuesday to start the process of incorporating the meeting’s conclusions and findings into its strategic plan for 2021-2024.

Recently, a Pew Research report on religious identity in the U.S. found that Catholics no longer make up a majority among Hispanics. The percentage of Catholics among Hispanics fell by 10% over the last decade.

Bishop Nelson Perez of Cleveland, Ohio, said a statement from the conference in response to the V Encuentro should emphasize leadership development among Hispanic Catholics, as well as vocations to the priesthood or religious life, successful models of ministry, and a vision of the Church as a defender of social justice and human dignity.

The Latin churches are bleeding members, and the "new Catholics" are not as Catholic as they hoped. So their solution? To double down on catering to multiculturalism and diversity.

More Impracticable Religious Civic nationalism

from the archbishop of Los Angeles:



CNA