A8 WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2019 LATIMES.COM
FATE OF ‘DREAMERS’ UNCERTAIN
observers of the Roman
Catholic Church as a fait ac-
compli, a historic moment
set in motion in 2016 when he
was elected vice president of
the national conference.
Some within the church
hope that Gomez will utilize
his experience fighting for
immigrant rights in his new
post, leading the conference
to be more outspoken in ad-
vocating for immigration re-
form.
“I am overwhelmed. It is a
big responsibility,” Gomez
said in a phone interview
Tuesday. “I am grateful to
the bishops for their support
and confidence in me, and I
think this is a great lesson
for the archdiocese, for Los
Angeles and Latinos in the
country.”
Gomez’s rise comes amid
Latinos’ shifting relation-
ship with the Catholic faith.
U.S. Latinos are no longer
majority Catholic, according
to a Pew Research Center
survey released last month.
Some 47% describe them-
selves as Catholic, the sur-
vey showed, down from 57%
a decade ago. At the same
time, 23% of Latinos say they
are religiously unaffiliated,
up from 15% in 2009.
Gomez’s ascendance
could help shore up or even
replenish the number of Lat-
ino Catholics.
“This is huge,” Father
Thomas J. Reese, a senior
analyst at Religion News
Service, said of the election.
“Having a Mexican
American as the president of
the bishops conference
sends a real message to His-
panics across the country,
showing that not only are
they part of the church, they
are also part of the leader-
ship of the church at the
highest level.”
Gomez, a naturalized
U.S. citizen, will take up his
new position at a time of bit-
ter division over the Trump
administration’s immigra-
tion policies, Reese added.
“This is a Mexican immi-
grant who is going to be the
leader at a time when immi-
grants are demonized,”
Reese said. “This is a sym-
bolic message from the bish-
ops on the importance of the
immigration issue to them,
and the importance of immi-
grants to the Catholic
Church and in American so-
ciety.”
L.A.’s archbishop is at
once a conservative and a
progressive: staunch in his
opposition to abortion and
same-sex marriage while
tenacious in his advocacy for
immigrants and the poor.
“He knows we have a very
divided church today, and
one of my hopes with him as
the head of the conference is
he will find ways to bring us
together,” said Father
Thomas P. Rausch, a profes-
sor of theological studies at
Loyola Marymount Uni-
versity. “He’s conservative,
but his impulses are pa-
storal.”
As the archbishop of the
San Antonio Archdiocese
before coming to L.A.,
Gomez emerged as a leading
advocate for doctrinal con-
formity, determined to stave
off what he saw as creeping
secularism in the church.
But in 2013, Gomez pub-
lished a book that voiced his
support for a path to citi-
zenship for the estimated 11
million immigrants living in
the country without legal
status. His advocacy aligns
with efforts by Pope Francis
to raise awareness about the
challenges immigrants face.
When a gunman target-ing Mexicans killed 22 peo-
ple at a Walmart in El Paso in
August, Gomez took a pub-
lic stand against white su-
premacy. “A line has been
crossed in our nation,” he
wrote.
In September, Gomez led
the Mass in Recognition of
All Immigrants, during
which he told his congre-
gants that “this nation has
been a beacon of hope, a ref-
uge for peoples who have no
place left to turn.” And on
Monday night, his archdio-
cese hosted a rosary and
Mass in solidarity with so-
called Dreamers, praying for
them before the Supreme
Court hearing.
American bishops op-
pose “enforcement only”
policies and support com-
prehensive immigration re-
form, a stance that stems
from their belief that migra-
tion is a humanitarian issue
rather than a politically par-
tisan one.
Gomez said he never ex-
pected that one day he
would be the man to lead the
conference, despite his dec-
ades-long career in the
church.
In 1978, he was ordained a
priest of the Opus Dei prel-ature by the late Cardinal
Franz Konig at the Shrine of
Torreciudad in Spain. Years
later, he would serve as an
auxiliary bishop of the Arch-
diocese of Denver before be-
ing appointed archbishop of
San Antonio. He became the
first Latino archbishop of
Los Angeles when he suc-
ceeded Cardinal Roger Ma-
hony in 2011.
“I just wanted to be a
priest,” Gomez said with a
laugh. “That’s what I felt
that God was asking me to
do.”
Gomez has called immi-
gration the “reality of my
own family,” his ardor for the
cause culminating in pas-
sionate sermons, visits with
migrant children separated
from their parents at the
border and fervent columns.
He has assembled an immi-
gration task force that in-
cludes representatives from
the dioceses of L.A., Orange
and San Bernardino.
Immigrants today are
the main force preventing a
sharp decline in U.S. Catho-
lic Church membership,
which some estimates put at
about 70 million.
“Basically the bishops
are handing him a mega-phone that he can use on is-
sues like DACA, family sepa-
rations and other issues that
affect immigrants,” Reese
said.
Catholics, like the gen-
eral U.S. population, are di-
vided over immigration, no-
tably along ethnic lines.
About 77% of Latino Catho-
lics favor allowing immi-
grants who are living in the
U.S. illegally an opportunity
to become citizens, com-
pared with 55% of white
Catholics, according to the
Public Religion Research In-
stitute.
Gomez has said that
those who are here illegally
must be held accountable by
paying fines — and perhaps
performing community
service — and they must ed-
ucate themselves about the
country’s laws and govern-
ment. Deportation, he be-
lieves, is a punishment that
doesn’t fit the crime.
“It’s important for the
church to pray for [reform].
We did last night in Los An-
geles,” he said. “And it’s im-
portant to educate people
on what their rights are, and
how they can actively partic-
ipate in making a differ-
ence.”Gomez said he hopes
Latinos see his election as a
“sign that the United States
is aware of the presence and
importance of the Latino
community in our country.”
Hosffman Ospino, asso-
ciate professor of Hispanic
ministry and religious edu-
cation at Boston College,
said Gomez’s election could
open the gates to more Lat-
ino leadership within the
church at a time when there
are “very few Hispanic bish-
ops in the United States and
very few archbishops.”
“We are beginning to see a
national transition from
mostly Irish, Italian, Ger-
man American Catholicism
to one that is mostly Latino,
and also Asian,” he said.
“The diversity that we see in
the parish is not always re-
flected in the hierarchy in
positions of leadership. Jose
Gomez in many ways sym-
bolizes of what is already
taking place at [the] grass-
roots level.”
As a boy, Gomez regu-
larly traveled across the bor-
der, moving between his
home in Monterrey and his
uncle’s house in San Anto-
nio.
He would go fishing with
his father at South Padre Is-
land, using his passport and
la mica, a border-crossing
card needed to make the
journey at the time.
Parts of his family have
lived in Texas since 1805, he
said, when the area was still
under Spanish rule. His
grandparents were married
at the cathedral in San An-
tonio in 1917.
“This is a major mile-
stone, not simply because of
where Archbishop Gomez
comes from, but who he is,”
said John Carr, director of
the Initiative on Catholic So-
cial Thought and Public Life
at Georgetown University.
“In a wounded church, he
can be a healer. In a divided
nation, he is a bridge build-
er.”
Carr, who served as an
advisor to the U.S. bishops
on public policy for two dec-
ades, said he sees Gomez as
“a pastor and teacher, not a
culture warrior.”
“He defends the lives of
unborn children and the dig-
nity of undocumented immi-
grants because they are all
children of God, not to ad-
vance a political or ideolog-
ical agenda,” he said.Gomez named new head of U.S. bishops
[Archbishop,from A1]
ARCHBISHOP JOSE GOMEZ’Srise comes amid Latinos’ shifting relationship with Catholicism. A survey
released last month found U.S. Latinos are no longer majority Catholic. Above, Gomez at a 2013 Mass.Mel MelconLos Angeles TimesDACA on the grounds that
Obama exceeded his au-
thority by shielding Dream-
ers from deportation and of-
fering them the right to
work.
Trump lost repeatedly
before federal judges in Cali-
fornia, New York and Wash-
ington, D.C. They said
Trump was operating on the
“flawed premise” that Oba-
ma’s policy was illegal, and
that the Trump administra-
tion had failed to provide
any other reasonable ration-
ale for ending the program.
Three years ago, Roberts
and the court’s conserva-
tives blocked a similar
Obama order, Deferred Ac-
tion for Parents of Ameri-
cans, or DAPA. Because Jus-
tice Antonin Scalia had died
a few months earlier, the
high court deadlocked 4 to 4
and issued no opinion. But
that affirmed the lower
court’s ruling blocking Oba-
ma’s policy. Roberts’ com-
ments Tuesday suggest con-
servatives view the DACA
program similarly.
Theodore B. Olson, solic-
itor general under President
George W. Bush, argued for
the Dreamers and said end-
ing the program would trig-
ger “abrupt and substantial
disruptions in the lives of
700,000 individuals, includ-
ing their families, employ-
ers, communities and the
armed forces. He was joined
by California Solicitor Gen.
Michael J. Mongan, who said
Trump’s proposed repeal
was “founded on the incor-
rect legal premise that
DACA is unlawful.”
Roberts objected, saying
Trump’s lawyers had reason
to at least doubt the legality
of the program. “Is it enough
to say, ‘Look, I’ve got a deci-
sion from the 5th Circuit
that tells me this is illegal,
[and] it’s been affirmed by
the Supreme Court by an
equally divided vote?’”
No, Mongan replied. “It’s
not enough to sustain the
decision, your honor. Given
the nature of this program
and the interests at stake,
we don’t think that any gen-
uine statement of legal
doubt or litigation risk
would be adequate.”
At another point, the
chief justice said Obama’s
policy was aimed more at of-
fering work permits, not pro-
tection from deportation.
“The whole thing was
about work permits and
these other benefits. Both
administrations have saidthey’re not going to deport
the people. So the deferred
prosecution or deferred de-
portation, that’s not what
the focus of this policy was,”
he told Olson. Roberts’ com-
ments echoed those of con-
servatives who said Oba-
ma’s nonenforcement policy
violated the immigration
laws because it offered legal
work status to people who
were in the country illegally.
During Tuesday’s argu-
ment, Justices Ruth Bader
Ginsburg, Stephen G. Brey-
er, Sonia Sotomayor and El-
ena Kagan sounded ready toaffirm the rulings by three
judges who had blocked the
repeal.
They said the repeal
should be reconsidered by
the Trump administration
because Elaine Duke, an act-
ing secretary of Homeland
Security, wrote a repeal
memo that suggested DACA
was illegal, based on the ad-
vice of then-U.S. Atty. Gen.
Jeff Sessions. “We don’t
know how she would re-
spond if there were a clear
recognition that there was
nothing illegal about
DACA,” Ginsburg said.Though some justices
questioned whether the
Trump administration’s ter-
mination of the DACA pro-
gram was even something
that the courts could or
should review, Roberts disa-
greed with Francisco’s claim
that Trump’s repeal was off-
limits to judicial review.
The case heard Tuesday
is Department of Homeland
Security vs. Regents of the
University of California.
Obama announced the
special protection for
Dreamers in 2012, and the
policy has gained steadily inpopularity. Opinion polls in
the last year have found that
more than three-fourths of
those surveyed — both Re-
publicans and Democrats —
support granting legal stat-
us to the Dreamers.
Trump has said a court
victory allowing him to end
DACA might put pressure
on Congress to pass legisla-
tion protecting Dreamers.
But efforts to find a compro-
mise failed last year, chiefly
because Trump and Repub-
licans demanded conces-
sions in return for protecting
the young immigrants.Court seems to back Trump on DACA
[Court,from A1]
IMMIGRATION RIGHTSactivists rally in front of the Supreme Court as justices hear arguments on the legality of the DACA program.Mandel NganAFP/Getty Images