The following comes from a Nov. 29 story on the Catholic News Agency website.
Archbishop José Gomez blessed a plaza dedicated to Archbishop Oscar Romero at a Los Angeles Park Nov. 23, praising the peaceful vision of the murdered Salvadoran archbishop.
“This gathering today is such a beautiful witness to his memory. My friends, this is what Archbishop Romero lived for,” Archbishop Gomez said Nov. 23 at MacArthur Park in Central Los Angeles.
“To see the rich and poor, the powerful and the humble – to see people of many races and nations – all standing together as one human family. As brothers and sisters, children of God. Living in freedom, justice and in peace.”
Archbishop Romero became head of the archdiocese of San Salvador in 1977 and was a vocal critic of the human rights abuses of the repressive Salvadoran government. He was shot and killed in 1980 while celebrating Mass at a hospital chapel.
No one has been prosecuted for his assassination, but right-wing death squads are suspected.
In Los Angeles on Saturday, Archbishop Gomez said the slain archbishop lived for “the vision of the world as God created it to be.”
“This is the vision he gave his life for,” the Los Angeles archbishop added.
The plaza dedication also unveiled a bronze statue of the Salvadoran archbishop. The statue is six-and-a-half feet tall and 450 pounds in weight. Its creator is Salvadoran artist Joaquin Serrano, the Southern California public radio station KPCC reports….
Mayor Eric Garcetti was among the dignitaries at the ceremony.
Archbishop Gomez encouraged the crowd to work “in Archbishop Romero’s name” for human life, liberty, dignity and immigration reform. He referred to Archbishop Romero as a “martyr” and prayed that God bless the park….
To read the entire story, click here.
Update: The following day, Nov. 30, Archbishop Gomez announced a fast for immigration reform.
The following comes from a story on the Catholic News Agency website.
Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez and local political leaders have held a 24-hour fast to pray for immigration reform and to remember families who are separated from each other at Thanksgiving.
“Today we are standing up for those who won’t be sharing Thanksgiving dinner with their families and loved ones – those who are suffering because of our broken immigration system,” Archbishop Gomez said Nov. 25 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.
He called for a “conversion of hearts” to fix U.S. immigration law.
The archbishop was joined in the Nov. 25-26 fast by U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas, former Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, labor leader Maria Elena Durazo, L.A. Chamber of Commerce Chairman Alan Rothenberg and other religious, civic and business leaders.
They announced the Los Angeles Fast for Families, an effort which joins other national action to support changes in U.S. immigration law as immigration bills have stalled in Congress….
Archbishop Gomez encouraged the crowd to work “in Archbishop Romero’s name” for human life, liberty, dignity and immigration reform — IMMIGRATION REFORM: Does this mean that reformers like Romero try to fix society but in the end think it’s not going to work and basically say “bail out to the U.S.” ?
“this is what Archbishop Romero lived for……To see the rich and poor, the powerful and the humble – — all standing together as one human family.” So then IT IS OK for there to be rich and poor poor people!!! We can finally stop talking about this equality stuff!!!
“Today we are standing up for those who won’t be sharing Thanksgiving dinner with their families and loved ones – those who are suffering because of our broken immigration system,”
Yes, I have to agree with the Bishop on this one. Since our Federal, State, and Local governments decided to stop enforcing our immigration laws over 30 years ago, here in Southern California many American families have been broken up and are suffering! Our way of life has been destroyed. Job opportunities have been destroyed! Catholic Parishes have been split into two or three separate groups based on language differences. Some parishes have eliminated English altogether and long time parishioners, who don’t understand the newly imposed foreign language, are forced to leave the parish they worked so hard to build. The ability to afford a house in a safe neighborhood has been destroyed!
I have not spent Thanksgiving with some of my family members for the past 20 years because they were forced to find work in another state when their professions started to required them to speak fluent Spanish or because the neighborhoods and schools where they use to live had become gang infested and hostile to their white children and they could not afford to live in the wealthy neighborhoods. (These are hardly isolated cases!)
I wish the Bishop would ask for a conversion of hearts for those in our government who refuse to protect her citizens. I wish the Bishop would ask for a conversion of hearts for those who support a corrupted government in Mexico and other places around the world.
One would think that the Archbishop ought to be honored in his own country. Wonder why we have an expensive monument to somebody almost nobody in this country knows. Money should have been sent to San Salvador. They could have built their own monument. Probably for a lot less.
Liberation Theology has had a great run out of Archishop Oscar Romero’s martyrdom in El Salvador. I hope Archbishop Jose Gomez does not get too carried away on his glorification.
The contribution of Latin America to Theology has been to bridge the reconciliación of Marxism with Christianity. From Peruvian Fr. Gutierrez to Saul Alinsky to Cesar Chavez (and his Curch attaché Roger Cardinal Mahony) to president Obama there is a straight ideological line of communistic organizing.
Pope Francis has reopened the cause of beatification Romero. He has balanced this out by beatifying hundreds of priests and religious executed by the Spanish Marxists in Cataluña in 1936.
WOW! Do you really believe this stuff that you wrote? Tell me you don’t believe in global conspiracy?
Bob One, Our Lady of Fatima told us that if we did not repent and do penance, Russia would spread her errors around the world. I believe that she actually believed what she said! So I guess Our Blessed Mother also believes in a “global conspiracy”!
What no lightening bolts?
I wonder how all the pro-abortion politicians present felt when he ” encouraged the crowd to work “in Archbishop Romero’s name” for human life, liberty, dignity” in addition to immigration reform. I pray that these words have touched their hearts and that Archbishop Gomez will use his relationships with them to change their minds and their hearts.
Gneal Travethan, the Church in her wisdom and mercy used to excommunicate such politicians in hopes that they would repent from their evil ways and return to the Church fully contrite and prepared to help uphold the Gospel.
What we have instead is another photo op in which these politician’s constituents can once again be reassured that these are good people to continuing to vote for.
Question: Why is Abp Gomez so obsessed with “immigration reform”? Is he an American or a Mexcan? As an American he should advocate obeying the law of the land. Immigration reform means turning a blnd eye to law breakers. Where is the justice in that? Imposing an amnesty on the American people who are overwhelmingly opposed to it is a gross injustice. Abp reveals himself as an agent of aa foreign power. Why is there no outcy? Or our bishops still loyal to the constitution and our laws?
Anton, this is a good question. I am not sure when the practice stopped, but in the 1800’s naturalized American Citizens still renounced their allegiance to the government and or king of the country they came from when they took their oath of allegiance to America. In other words, they only had citizenship in one country at any given time! Today it is not the same. No one is asked to renounce their previous citizenship. So to answer your question. Archbishop Gomez, unless he formally renounced his Mexican Citizenship, is now a citizen of (i.e. loyal to) both countries. He gets the advantages of belonging to both countries! What a deal! (there are millions of naturalized Americans who now have the same deal) Even if you or I became a citizen of Mexico, we would still ALWAYS retain a second class citizen status. We would never have the benefits or rights that a natural born Mexican has, nor a foreign born daughter or son of a natural born Mexican citizen has.
I think it is a mistake to assume that the Archbishop favors immigration reform because he is more loyal to the Mexican government than the American government. First, attributing motives to peoples’ actions are always frought with danger, but also I think the Archbishop might be acting out of compassion for the immigrant people who are here already, not at all for the benefit of the Mexican government. I can’t find even one hint that he favors the Mexican government over the American one, or that he would disobey American laws. Instead he is trying to change the laws through completely legal and Constitutional means. You can disagree with his conclusions, but I think it’s jumping the gun to, in essence, call him a traitor to our government.
YFC, you are very mistaken in assuming that I made the assumption that “the Archbishop favors immigration reform because he IS MORE LOYAL to the Mexican government THAN the American government.” I never said that.
I think that Anton L. Seidl has the legitimate right to raise the question he has when he asked, “Why is Abp Gomez so obsessed with “immigration reform”? Is he an American or a Mexcan? His question did not come out of thin air as some of yours often do! I gave him some facts, he and others may not be aware of, that MAY answer his question. It was certainly not a definitive answer!
American or Mexican? You have to ask?
A bishop as “an agent of a foreign power”? Wow. That’s right out of the KKK, or the Calas play book.
Romero was assassinated as he elevated the body of Christ, as he died, his blood literally joined with the blood of Christ.
Yet all that appears to concern all here is liberation theology – odd since Romero opposed and countered it – and US immigration.
How comforting it must be to know that those properly fighting injustice in Latin America must be like Miguel Pro, safely retired to history and no threat to our Northern preoccupations. I wonder if a statue in his honor would prompt the same comments…
At the time of Romero’s demise, El Salvador was under relentless attack in a bloody war instigated by Castro and his Soviet pimps. But Romero was busy criticizing the government and referring to the US as the Empire. He wrote Carter asking him to cease support, and babbling about self-determination, but no letters to Castro, Danny Ortega, or Brezhnev.
War is a nasty business, and not for the naive any more than for the faint of heart. I’ll be kind and just say that this myopic cleric couldn’t see the forest for the trees. All the more appropriate then that his statue includes glasses. Wish he’d used ‘em.