Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez Martes, 10 de Junio del 2025, 07:00
Gómez's last statement from his or the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ social media accounts is from June 6: a statement asking Congress for comprehensive migration reform.
Since then, nothing but strictly religious statements appear on his and the Los Angeles' Archdiocese feeds, but even in that respect, they ignored Pope Leo XIV’s Pentecost homily.
By Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez
Last time Archbishop Horacio Gómez published over his social media accounts something related to the crisis migration shaking the U.S. to its core was on Friday June 6. That day, the symptoms of the mobilizations in the Los Angeles metropolitan area were already evident.
His was actually a quote of a message originally posted by the LA Catholics social media account at the website owned by Elon Musk.
Both the archdiocese’s and the Archbishop’s social media failed to at least acknowledge the relevance of Pope Leo XIV’s homily for Pentecost, the third most significant feast of the Catholic calendar.
Although not expressly addressing the ongoing situation in Los Angeles and other counties of California, Pope Prevost hinted in his Sunday’s homily at the need to address issues related to migration.
Only over Facebook it was possible to find a brief statement acknowledging a difficult situation but going back to the idea of asking Congress to address the issue and not calling out the excesses from the U.S. federal government in Los Angeles.
Archbishop Gómez's statement over Facebook, is available here.
It must be noted that the statement as such was issued in Mexico City where he is leading the yearly pilgrimage to Our Lady of Guadalupe's Basilica.
From Rome, although not expressly addressing the ongoing situation in Los Angeles and other counties of California, Pope Prevost hinted in his Sunday’s homily at the need to address issues related to migration. In his message, available here in full in English, Robert Prevost explicitly states:
The Spirit opens borders... The Church must always become anew what she already is. She must open the borders between peoples and break down the barriers between class and race. In her, there cannot be those who are neglected or disdained.
That paragraph of his homily is a quotation, not from Liberation theologians such as fellow Peruvian Gustavo Gutiérrez or authors following other-than-Catholic traditions, as those of the Center of Theological Inquiry in New Jersey or as those of the British University of Edinburgh (opens a PDF file).
Leo XIV was not even quoting his immediate predecessor, Pope Francis, who made a name for funding rescue missions to save people all over the Mediterranean and whose first trip as Pontiff was to the island of Lampedusa, an Italian territory in the middle of that sea, back in 2013.
Leo XIV was quoting Benedict XVI's homily for the Pentecost, 2005, the same movable feast the Catholic Church celebrated this Sunday. Prevost did so while wearing the same liturgical vestments, the same full red chasuble, Pope Francis wore back in 2015 when presiding over the same feast.
It was, in more ways than one, a statement from the newly inaugurated Pope about the consistency of the Catholic teaching when dealing with issues of migration, as Benedict XVI, Francis, and now Leo XIV have reaffirmed Catholic doctrine about the right to migrate and about the need to respect the migrants’ rights regardless of their legal situation at any given time.
Those issues seem to be non-existent or, at least, non-relevant for the Archbishop of Los Angeles and the Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, whose social media accounts have remained as silent as Gómez’s have been for the last few days.
In Cordileone’s case the silence is more evident as he keeps tweeting about his favorite issues, calling non-Catholics to join him in going against an alleged desecration of a Catholic procession in Texas.
As far as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops social media is concerned, they actually paid attention to Pope Leo XIV’s homily for the Sunday, but they centered their take on the issue of war and make no mention in their single tweet replicating the English-language service of Vatican News of migration-related issues, as it appears after this paragraph.
The USCCB actually reposted the LA Catholic tweet already cited before, but with no comment on the issue.
It is not clear why Catholic leaders in California and elsewhere in the United States remain silent as the Donald Trump calls people in his administration to arrest Gavin Newsom, the Governor of California, and as unconfirmed reports suggest the imminent deployment of at least 700 Marines to the Los Angeles Metro area.
It should be easy to understand why it is up for the leaders of the Catholic Church in California to address the ongoing crisis in California on their own, without the expectation of us seeking comment from them.
More so when Robert Francis Prevost, the first American-born Pope is using his pulpit in Rome to remember his flock about the need for his Church to actually open doors and help overcome “class and race” differences.
