By Julie Asher • Catholic Information Service • Posted on November 16, 2021

WASHINGTON (CNS) – Ahead of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops‘ general assembly in Baltimore November 15-18, a group of Catholic and other religious leaders called Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles as president of the USCCB, to apologize for his comments on social justice movements in a speech on November 4.

Archbishop Gomez made the comments in a videotaped speech for the 23rd Congress of Catholic and Public Life in Madrid, which focused on political correctness and “the dangers of this mega-ideology,” such as the prevention of debate and limitation of freedoms.

He spoke of “the rise of new ideologies and secular movements for social change in the United States and their implications for the Catholic Church“.

The church must proclaim Jesus Christ “boldly” and “creatively” in the face of new secular movements that promote “social justice”, “awakening” and “intersectionality”, among other beliefs, as the answer. to all the evils of society, Bishop Gomez mentioned.

The church must understand these movements “as pseudo-religions, and even replacements and rivals for traditional Christian beliefs,” he said, because “they claim to offer what religion offers.”

A November 12 petition organized by Faith in Public Life and Faithful America and signed by Catholic theologians and about 9,000 grassroots Catholics and ecumenical religious advocates called on the Archbishop to apologize for his criticism of these groups , especially social justice movements, and urged him to support black activists.

Faith in Public Life is a lobby group whose objective is to influence state and federal government policies. Faithful America is an online community of Christians putting their faith into action for social justice.

The National Conference of Black Sisters, Pax Christi USA and the Association of Catholic Priests of the United States have also requested an apology from Archbishop Gomez.

The Faith in Public Life and Faithful America petition noted that the social justice movements that developed in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd “helped raise our national consciousness to the epidemic of police brutality and racism. systemic ”.

“Catholic bishops and other religious leaders should be in the streets with these movement organizers, without demeaning them with language that only emboldens opponents of racial equity,” the petition said.

“Your speech was particularly painful and offensive to black Catholic advocates in the United States who have organized themselves for racial justice in the face of the indifference and even hostility of many white Christians,” he said. “Please apologize for your statements and stand in solidarity with social movements, as Pope Francis has done. “

However, in his speech at the Madrid conference, Bishop Gomez specifically referred to the tragedy of the “murder of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by a white policeman” and the many problems that this raised.

“For many people in my country, including myself, (Floyd’s) tragedy has become a stark reminder that racial and economic inequalities are still deeply entrenched in our society,” said the prelate, a Mexican-born American. Mexico.

These new movements are part of an “absolutely essential” broader “discussion of how to build an American society that expands opportunities for everyone, regardless of skin color, background or economic status,” Archbishop Gomez added.

What he described as problematic is that people are increasingly looking to these “awakened” movements, rather than to religion, for “an explanation of events and conditions in the world”, a- he declared.

“The new social movements and ideologies we are talking about today have been sown and prepared for many years in our universities and cultural institutions,” he said.

In the United States, amid the tension and fear created by the pandemic and social isolation, “these movements have fully unleashed in our society” with the murder of Floyd and the protests that followed in many cities. , he added.

The petitioners included Father Bryan Massingale, Fordham University theologian and author of Racial Justice and the Catholic Church; Miguel Diaz, former US Ambassador to the Vatican and theologian at Loyola University in Chicago; Kathleen Dorsey Bellow, director of the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University in Louisiana; Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University; and Father Clete Kiley, chaplain of the Chicago Federation of Labor and member of the board of directors of the Catholic Labor Network.

“The Catholic social justice ministry is not a ‘pseudo-religion’ but a building block of the life of the gospel,” said Father Kiley, who added that the Archbishop’s comments had “caused evil and confusion “.

“I hope he can apologize for these words and help us all move on to more constructive dialogues,” added the priest.

John Gehring, director of the Catholic program at Faith in Public Life, said Archbishop Gomez “spends a lot of time in dialogue and partnership with donors and conservative Catholic movements in the church” which, according to Gehring, ” often degrade activism for social justice “.

“The Archbishop has the opportunity to start listening and learning from a new generation of local activists who are putting their faith into action,” he added.

“As a faithful Catholic, I pray that Archbishop Gomez will see how his hurtful remarks undermine the wisdom that the Black Catholic community and the organizers of racial justice have to offer us all, and their potential to renew our country and the world, ”Kyle said. de Beausset, Catholic organizer and board member of Faithful America.

In a November 16 statement released by the National Conference of Black Sisters, Sister Josita Colbert, a sister of Notre-Dame de Namur, who is the president of the conference, encouraged the Archbishop to “rethink” her “misguided remarks and to cancel them ”. and invited him to meet the leadership of his organization.

“If we intend to proclaim the authentic gospel of Jesus, we must recognize our sin as a church regarding the sin of racism and give more than lip service to combating racism in our church and our nation, ”said Sister Colbert.

“It is time for all people of good will to make a determined effort and especially on the part of our church leaders,” she said.

Two other prominent Catholics in opinion pieces in Religion News Service and America magazine, respectively, urged Archbishop Gomez’s critics to reconsider his record as a Catholic leader who is himself a person of color and who has spoken out repeatedly on issues of racism and treatment. immigrants and various marginalized groups in this country.

Both authors suggested that his critics were too reckless in their harsh criticism of his November 4 speech.

Archbishop Gomez “clearly opposes” a broader world view of groups “often explicitly hostile to mainstream Christianity,” Charles Camosy wrote in a Nov. 12 article for RNS. He is Associate Professor of Theological and Social Ethics at Jesuit Fordham University.

Camosy, however, added that he believed the Archbishop “could have been clearer on the obvious fact that not all people or organizations associated with these new movements are obviously responsible for all the hostile threats the church has made. been confronted “.

In an American opinion piece also dated November 12, Stephen White, executive director of the Catholic Project at the Catholic University of America in Washington, said when Archbishop Gomez – as head of the country’s largest archdiocese , an immigrant, a minority and the USCCB president – speaks out on the issue of racism and social injustice, “it is worth paying attention to”.

He noted the Archbishop’s “long experience of speaking out on these issues in a way that constantly challenges both the injustice of the status quo and the instrumentalization of faith as a mere means to ends. policies ”.

White said some of the criticisms were “measured” and “promised honest engagement” with Archbishop Gomez’s argument.

He said it was fair to say that some have made the Archbishop “paint social movements with too large a brush” and that he “neglected the faithful Catholics who are striving to find common cause with these same people. movements “.

But another criticism was an “uninspiring argument” over Archbishop Gomez’s speech “is a reminder of how the church’s witness to the world is hampered by our own inability to trust ourselves, even within the church, ”White said.