ARCHBISHOP GOMEZ REFLECTS ON RECENT SHOOTINGS AND RACISM IN AMERICA CALLING FOR OUR SOCIETY TO FIND COMMON HUMANITY IN LATEST WEEKLY COLUMN
August 13, 2019  |  By:   |  Press Releases  |  

In his weekly column online and published in print today in Angelus, Archbishop José H. Gomez reflects on racism in the United States and the mass shootings in California, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas.

“In recent years, we have seen the evil of African Americans being targeted in racist terror attacks, notably with the church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015. With El Paso, for the first time, a massacre has been carried out in the name of stopping Mexican migration,” writes Archbishop Gomez.

The Archbishop reflects on our society having fallen from our nation’s founding ideals, writing: “If ‘white nationalism’ is on the rise, it is a sign of how far we have fallen from the Christian universalism of our nation’s founding ideals. In Jesus Christ, there is no Mexican or black, no Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean or Filipino, no Russian or Italian, African or Salvadoran, no migrant or native-born.”

“The humanity of others is never negotiable. Men and women do not become less than human, less a child of God, because they are ‘undocumented,’” adds Archbishop Gomez. “Yet, in our nation, it has become common to hear migrants talked about and treated as if they are somehow beneath caring about.”

Archbishop Gomez pointed out that America has always been a nation of immigrants, with Hispanics and Asians first arriving in the country in the 1500s. “The first non-native language spoken in this continent was Spanish, not English,” he writes. “And this country has always been renewed, again and again, by successive waves of immigrants from every nation on earth.”

He concludes the column by asking the Blessed Mother to intercede for all.

“After El Paso, it is clear that this is our mission. We need to help our society to see our common humanity — that we are all children of God, meant to live together as brothers and sisters, no matter the color of our skin, the language we speak, or the place we were born,” concludes Archbishop Gomez.

The full text of Archbishop Gomez’s column is available in English at https://angelusnews.com/voices/archbishop-gomez/archbishop-gomez-after-el-paso and in Spanish at https://angelusnews.com/voices/archbishop-gomez/despus-de-el-paso. 

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The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is the largest Archdiocese in the United States with approximately five million Catholics. For the latest news, events and to subscribe for media alerts visit media.la-archdiocese.org. Follow us on social media at LACatholics on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Video archives and footage of Masses celebrated by Archbishop Jose H. Gomez are also available.