B2 eZ re the washington post.saturday, november 16 , 2019
RELIGION
BY JULIE ZAUZMER
AND SARAH PULLIAM BAILEYBALTIMORE — At a conference
where Catholic bishops worked
on their recommendations to
voters in the 2020 presidential
election and fretted over the
sharply declining number of
refugees admitted to the United
States and the plight of migrants
crossing the border, the leaders
of the U.S. Catholic Church made
a symbolic choice for their next
president.
Archbishop José Gomez of Los
Angeles, who emigrated from
mexico and became a U.S.
citizen, was elected this week as
the first Latino bishop to become
president of the American
bishops’ conference.
“It will be very meaningful,”
said San Antonio Archbishop
Gustavo García-Siller, who is also
one of the highest-ranking
mexican American Catholic
leaders in the country. “He’s a
symbol of opening roads for
leadership for more Latino
Catholics.”
García-Siller, who has known
Gomez since they were both
priests in the 1990s, cautioned
that Gomez’s election should not
be seen as a referendum on
President Trump from the
American bishops. After all,
Gomez has been somewhat in
line for this position; for the past
three years, he has been the vice
president of the conference,
during the presidency of
Galveston-Houston’s Cardinal
Daniel DiNardo.
But the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops is heavily
involved in politics and public
affairs. The conference has little
authority over individual
dioceses across the United States
but maintains a high profile in
Washington: filing amicus briefs
in major court cases, lobbying
Congress on behalf of the church
and working with presidential
administrations on Catholic
priorities.
on Tuesday, Gomez’s first
comments at a news conference
were about the Supreme Court
debate on the Deferred Action
for Childhood Arrivals program,
known as DACA, which was
transpiring at the same time as
his election. “We are praying for
the good result of the Supreme
Court decision, in favor of the
possibility of the dreamers to be
in the United States, obviously in
a legal way,” Gomez said, after a
reporter noted that five of the
Supreme Court’s nine justices
are Catholic.
Under DiNardo’s leadership,
the conference has appeared
much more hesitant to criticize
the Trump administration than
it once was about the obama
administration. A side-by-side
comparison of statements shows
that when critiquing the Trump
administration, the bishops
vaguely referenced “the
administration” or “the federal
government,” while they named
President Barack obama
specifically in their criticisms.
Gomez, 67, is known for being
quiet in person, but he is
outspoken on the subject of
immigration, which he wrote a
book about in 2013.
In August, after a gunman
who police say was targeting
Latinos killed 22 people at a
Walmart in El Paso, Gomez
wrote a statement condemning
white supremacy. In the United
States, he wrote, “it has become
common to hear migrants talked
about and treated as if they are
somehow beneath caring about.”
That statement, several
observers said, was noteworthy
in its forcefulness for a Catholicbishop.
“He called it for what it was,
how it was racism,” s aid Dylan
Corbett, executive director of
Hope Border Institute. Corbett,
whose wife and children are
Hispanic, used to work for the
conference.
He said that with the re-
eruption of the sex abuse crisis
last year and with poll numbers
showing Latinos are leaving the
church, the Catholic Church is
scrambling to shore up Latino
membership.
Latinos in the United States
are no longer majority-Catholic,
according to a new Pew research
Center survey released oct. 17.
forty-seven percent of Latinos
identify as Catholic, compared
with 57 percent a decade ago.
“To elect a Latino would send a
huge message to the rest of the
church,” Corbett said. “To elect a
mexican at a time when mexicans
are demonized and Latinos are
being demonized, it’s a huge
opportunity I hope isn’t lost.”
Gomez was born in monterrey,
mexico, and became a priest in
the multinational institution
opus Dei in 1978. He moved in
1987 to a parish in San Antonio,
where he had relatives, and has
lived in the United States ever
since.
He was made a bishop by Pope
John Paul II in 2001, when he
became auxiliary bishop of
Denver. He then led the San
Antonio archdiocese before
moving in 2010 to Los Angeles,
the nation’s largest diocese.
As the bishops ended a day of
meetings monday, Archbishop
Paul Coakley of oklahoma City
called Gomez the right person for
this time.
“It’s an exciting time [to have]
a Hispanic leader at the helm,” he
said. “He’s been one of our most
articulate spokesmen on the
situation facing migrants, and
that situation’s not going to go
away anytime soon. We need his
clarity.”Gomez entered the election
heavily favored to win and
received 176 votes; the next
closest of the 10 candidates
received 18 votes.
David o’Connell, one of his
auxiliary bishops in Los Angeles,
described him on monday as a
leader who particularly
energizes Latino Catholics.
o’Connell described Los
Angeles’s huge annual parade
honoring our Lady of
Guadalupe, which winds
through heavily Latino housing
projects.
“That’s where I see him most
relaxed,” o’Connell said about
Gomez.
“You see the joy of the people
of L.A. to have an archbishop
who is one of themselves. You see
his own personality and joy
coming out when he’s with
them,” o’Connell said. “He’s
much more relaxed and playful.
He laughs easier.”
o’Connell, who immigrated to
the United States himself, said
he was moved to hear Gomez
speak of America’s founding
myth. White settlers at Plymouth
rock weren’t the only ones who
arrived to build a new nation,
the archbishop is fond of
reminding parishioners. Those
who came up from Latin
America to settle in the
Southwest built America as well.
“This Catholic faith tradition
moving into California and Te xas
is another founding narrative of
this country.”
Bishop James Wall of Gallup,
N.m., pointed out another
advantage of electing a bishop
whose native tongue is Spanish:
He shares a first language with
Pope francis and can speak
directly to the pontiff without an
interpreter.
“They’ve got a gift going there
that none of us have,” he said.
[email protected]
[email protected]bailey reported from new york city.U.S. Catholic bishops elect their first Latino president, a Mexican immigrant
L.A. archbishop takes
over conference involved
in politics, public affairsPhotos by steve ruark/associated Press
after serving as vice president for the past three years, archbishop
José gomez, top, was elected Tuesday to lead the u.s. Conference
of Catholic Bishops during their Fall general assembly, above.Justice Dept. letter to Ghaisars says more shots fired than previously reported
Ghaisars revealed that the two
officers fired a total of 10 shots at
him, not nine as previously re-
ported, and the officer who was
driving during the pursuit fired
all f our o f the fatal shots.
The news that officers Ale-
jandro Amaya and Lucas V inyard
would not f ace f ederal c ivil rights
charges in the 2017 slaying was
delivered by letter to the
Ghaisars’ lawyer Thursday after-
noon, rather than in a face-to-
face meeting as the Justice De-
partment h ad p romised, and was
then announced i n a news r elease
before the family was informed.
At a news conference friday
morning in Washington on an
unrelated matter, U.S. Attorney
Jessie K. Liu refused to answer
questions about her office’s deci-
sion not to charge the officers,
why the decision took two years
or why her office declined to m eet
with the Ghaisars before an-
nouncing the decision.
Though the Justice Depart-
ment ruled out federal charges
against the officers, the letter to
the Ghaisars said its decision on
whether a civil rights crime was
committed “does not preclude
other components of the U.S. De-
partment of Justice, other agen-
cies, or state authorities from
taking action, where appropri-
ate, under t heir separate enforce-
ment authority.” The letter was
signed by J ames f elte, chief of the
ghaisar from B1 criminal section of the Justice
Department’s Civil rights Divi-
sion, and T. P atrick martin, crimi-
nal division chief for the U.S.
attorney’s office in Washington.
The letter does not explain
why the officers fired their weap-
ons, or say whether the officers
were interviewed. As suspects in
a criminal case, Vinyard and
Amaya were not required to give
statements to the fBI, which in-
vestigated the case, as part of
their fifth Amendment right not
to incriminate oneself. They are
also defendants in a civil suit
filed by the Ghaisars, in which
they may be compelled to give
depositions or trial t estimony.
The decision not to file federal
charges raises the question of
whether prosecutors in fairfax
County, where the shooting oc-
curred, could charge Amaya and
Vinyard. “We have always said
and continue to feel,” s aid roy L.
Austin, the Ghaisars’ lawyer,
“that the Commonwealth of Vir-
ginia should have been playing a
larger role i n this investigation. A
Virginia citizen was shot and
killed by federal officers improp-
erly acting on Virginia property,
recklessly p utting fairfax officers
in potential danger.”
morrogh said he met with the
Ghaisars not long after the
Nov. 17, 2017, shooting, and
“promised the family that I
would review the case” after fed-
eral authorities were done. “I
didn’t promise them I would
prosecute it. It’d be a tricky case.
But if I looked at it and thought
this was not a reasonable shoot-
ing, I’d prosecute i t.”
However, morrogh, a 35-year
veteran of the fairfax prosecu-
tor’s office, was not reelected re-
cently and his term will end in
January. His successor, Steve
Descano, a former federal tax
prosecutor, declined to answer
any questions about whether he
would review the case or consider
prosecuting the officers when he
assumes the commonwealth’s at-
torney’s job.
The episode actually began in
Alexandria, where Ghaisar
stopped his Jeep G rand C herokee
in a southbound lane of traffic on
the George Washington memori-
al Parkway. The Jeep was struck
from behind by a To yota Corolla,
and Ghaisar then drove off, the
Corolla driver reported.
The Justice Department’s let-
ter t o the Ghaisars identifies Vin-
yard, 38, as the driver of the Park
Police vehicle and Amaya, 40, as
the passenger. The two officers
spotted Ghaisar’s Jeep in the
fairfax County section of the
parkway and signaled for it to
pull over, while a fairfax County
police lieutenant pulled in be-
hind the Park Police and record-
ed the incident o n his i n-car cam-
era.
Ghaisar twice stopped, then
drove away. At a third stop in the
fort Hunt neighborhood of fair-
fax County, Vinyard pulled hisvehicle in front of Ghaisar’s Jeep,
the v ideo s hows. Amaya emerged
first and, with Vinyard soon be-
hind him, both aimed their weap-
ons at Ghaisar. Ghaisar again
started to slowly pull away, and
both officers o pened fire.
The Justice Department letter
to the Ghaisars states t hat the fBI
did “extensive ballistics and tra-
jectory analyses” and deter-
mined that each officer fired five
shots. Amaya only hit Ghaisar in
the w rist, but Vinyard hit Ghaisar
four times in the head, according
to the letter. A video of the shoot-
ing, released by fairfax police,seems to indicate only nine shots
were fired, but two of the shots
may have been fired simultane-
ously.
“To support a civil rights pros-
ecution,” felte and martin wrote
to the Ghaisars, “we must prove
beyond a reasonable doubt not
only that Amaya and Vinyard
knowingly and intentionally
fired u pon your son, but that t hey
did so with the specific intent to
deprive him of the right to b e free
from an unreasonable use of
force. T his i s a higher standard of
proof than is commonly required
under state law.”“It is very difficult to hold a
police officer responsible f or c ivil
rights violations,” s aid Christy E.
Lopez, a former deputy chief in
the Civil rights Division who
now teaches at Georgetown Law
Center. She said in addition to
reasonableness, t he officers m ust
also have acted w illfully. “ You can
have unreasonable use of force,”
Lopez said, “but as long as you
didn’t willfully behave unreason-
ably, y ou can’t b e criminally pros-
ecuted.”
Judge Stephen A. H igginson of
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
5th Circuit wrote in a separate
case that the “Supremacy Clause”
of constitutional law “prohibits a
state from punishing” a federal
officer who was authorized by
federal law to p erform an act who
“did no more than what the offi-
cer s ubjectively believed was n ec-
essary and p roper, and that b elief
was o bjectively r easonable under
the c ircumstances.”
morrogh said if a state prose-
cutor attempted to charge a fed-
eral officer, the case would first
be moved to federal court. Then,
in a pretrial hearing, “I’d have to
affirmatively disprove self-de-
fense in a hearing, as opposed to
the officers have to prove self-de-
fense. I’m not saying it’s impossi-
ble, but I’d have to see the evi-
dence,” morrogh said. If a federal
judge were to allow the state
prosecution to move forward, it
would proceed u nder s tate law.
[email protected]sima marvastian
Bijan ghaisar, who was shot and killed by two u.s. Park Police
officers o n nov. 17, 201 7, attends a picnic in april 2015.posted on social media.
Shelton mooney, acting princi-
pal at Bethesda-Chevy Chase
High School in montgomery
County, informed parents friday,
saying in an email that a student
discovered t he drawings a nd that
a police officer based at the
school started an investigation.
mooney received reports that
the swastikas were seen on social
media, he said.
The acting principal said the
school’s building services crew
removed the images and that any
student found responsible would
face consequences.
“A part of our vision at B-CC is
to create a sense of belonging for
every student in the building and
drawings like those found yester-
day work to prevent us from
realizing this vision,” he said in
the email.
mooney said he would work
with other leaders at the high-
performing public school to look
for opportunities to “reflect on
our diversity, repair any harm
done, and grow together. our
school is a better place when weaccept each other’s differences
and build connections with one
another.”
montgomery County school
system officials said the incident
at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High is
among a handful of episodes
involving swastikas on mont-
gomery County campuses this
school year.
Late in the last academic year,
the school system, w hich i s mary-
land’s largest, reported it ap-
peared there had been fewer acts
of bias — involving race, ethnici-
ty, religion, gender identity and
sexual orientation — than during
the previous school year.
The Thursday incident comes
less than three weeks after the
anniversary of a shooting ram-
page at a Pittsburgh synagogue
last year that left 11 worshipers
dead.
State education officials re-
cently announced efforts to step
up instruction about the Holo-
caust in m aryland public schools,
in response to the concerns of
advocates and elected officials.
[email protected]BY DONNA ST. GEORGESchool officials and police are
investigating the scrawling of
two swastikas in a bathroom at a
suburban maryland high school
Thursday and reports that imag-
es of those hate symbols wereMarylandSwastikas
are found at
Montgomery
high school
Drawings in bathroom
were reportedly s hared
on social mediaschool administrators said once
the union was formed, campus
leaders negotiated in good faith.
“The agreement reflects our
school values, ensures the suc-
cess of students, upholds equity
of wages/benefits across diverse
categories of employees, and rec-
ognizes long-term financial sus-
tainability of our organization,”
Kristin Scotchmer, executive di-
rector of mundo Verde, w rote in a
letter to families explaining ne-
gotiations. “We approached the
process of negotiating a contract
in good faith, maintaining a con-
sistent presence of our leader-
ship team at the bargaining table
for a significant period of time
since July 2019.”
mundo Verde union members
are working to translate the con-
tract for Spanish-speaking teach-
ers before they vote on it. They
hope to have a vote in the coming
weeks.
[email protected]for months this year, but organiz-
ers encountered a hurdle in July
when the school administration
failed to voluntarily recognize
the union by a deadline set by
staff members.
federal law says that if admin-istrators do not recognize a
union, workers can file a petition
with the National Labor rela-
tions Board leading to an election
involving school employees to
decide whether to form a union.
mcCormick said more than
75 percent of employees voted to
form the union.
The mundo Verde union andees facing discipline or dismissal
will receive an initial warning
before potentially being fired if
offenses persist.
If the infractions are not egre-
gious, administrators must de-
vise an improvement plan for
staff members before they are
fired. Te achers who are chroni-
cally late, for example, are not
considered prime offenders.
If staff members believe they
were fired unfairly, they can
lodge a grievance and their situa-
tions will be reviewed.
“one of the big wins across the
board is having a voice in deci-
sion-making — that’s been huge,”
said Dani mcCormick, a fourth-
grade teacher who is part of the
union’s bargaining team. “over-
all, we have more protections and
resources than we have ever had.”
The efforts to unionize at m un-
do Verde were quietly underway
union from B1
Charter contract would be first in D.C.
“One of the big wins across
the board is having a voice
in decision-making.”
dani McCormick, mundo verde
fourth-grade teacherUPLOADED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws