By Gillian Flaccus
The Associated Press
April 6, 2010
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h7rpgIoZiCvUBRp0jU8l5_zVf_wQD9ETNOR00
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| In this Feb. 6, 2008 file photo , Cardinal Roger Mahony officiates during Ash Wednesday services at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. The pope has named Archbishop Jose Gomez of San Antonio, Texas, to take over the Los Angeles archdiocese when its current archbishop retires, putting him in line to become the highest-ranking Latino in the American Catholic hierarchy. Cardinal Roger Mahony, who has been dogged by the clergy abuse scandal during his quarter-century tenure in Los Angeles, turns 75 in February. Under church rules, bishops submit their resignation at age 75. |
LOS ANGELES — Archbishop Jose Gomez was named Tuesday to succeed the archbishop of Los Angeles, the Holy See's most significant acknowledgment to date of the growing importance of Latinos in the American church.
The appointment also was evidence that Pope Benedict XVI wants a strong defender of orthodoxy leading the largest diocese in the nation. Gomez, 58, is an archbishop of Opus Dei, the conservative movement favored by the Vatican.
The Mexican-born Gomez was named coadjutor for Los Angeles, which means he will take over the archdiocese when current archbishop Cardinal Roger Mahony retires next Feb. 27, his 75th birthday.
"It's one of the great Catholic communities in the world," Gomez said at a news conference at the cathedral in downtown Los Angeles. "Los Angeles, like no other city in the world, has the global face of the Catholic church."
The appointment of Gomez, who now leads the Archdiocese of San Antonio, puts him in line to become the highest-ranking Latino in the American Catholic hierarchy and the first Latino cardinal in the U.S.
The leader of the large and important Los Angeles archdiocese has traditionally been a cardinal and worn a red hat.
Mahony said he was "grateful to God for this gift of a Hispanic archbishop" and noted he had urged the Vatican to appoint a Hispanic as the next leader of the archdiocese.
He also said it would be wrong for observers to conclude Gomez was a conservative because he is a priest of Opus Dei.
"In fact, these labels of 'conservative' and 'liberal' are really unhelpful in the life of the church," Mahony said at the news conference. "We are all called to a deep relationship with Jesus Christ, and I can attest that both of us share a common commitment to Christ and to the church."
Hispanics comprise 70 percent of the 5 million Catholics in the Los Angeles archdiocese, and more than one-third of the 65 million Catholics in the United States. In a separate nod to Latino Catholics, Benedict in 2007 named Archbishop Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston as the first cardinal for heavily Latino Texas.
"This just recognizes the reality on the ground that the center of gravity of U.S. Catholicism is moving to the South and West and is becoming increasingly Hispanic," said David Gibson, a Catholic author who writes about religion for PoliticsDaily.com.
Mahony, who was dogged by the clergy sex abuse scandal, developed a reputation during his quarter-century tenure in Los Angeles as a liberal-leaning leader and was often the target of Catholic conservatives. Under church rules, bishops submit their resignations at age 75, but the pope often asks prelates to stay in their posts for several more years.
Mahony, nicknamed "Hollywood" because he was born there, is the longest-serving U.S. cardinal since the Second Vatican Council, the modernizing reform conferences of the 1960s.
Gomez will have to oversee the fallout from the sex abuse scandal that came to light during Mahony's tenure.
In 2007, Mahony agreed to a record-setting $660 million settlement with more than 500 alleged victims of clergy abuse.
A federal grand jury is also investigating how the Archdiocese of Los Angeles handled claims of abuse, and has subpoenaed witnesses, including a former Los Angeles priest convicted of child molestation and a monsignor who served as vicar for clergy under Mahony.
Mahony's attorney has said the cardinal is not a target of the investigation.
Gomez will face scrutiny of his own track record on responding to abuse claims in his previous posts. The abuse crisis, which had eased in the U.S., has gained new attention because of a flood of new cases in Europe and accusations that Pope Benedict XVI helped cover up the actions of pedophile priests to save the church's reputation.
Gomez was born in Monterrey, Mexico, and studied theology at the University of Navarra in Spain. He was ordained an Opus Dei priest in 1978 and worked in the Galveston-Houston area and in Denver before being named archbishop of San Antonio in 2004.
Opus Dei was founded by Saint Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer in Spain in 1928. Escriva held that sainthood could be achieved by anyone by carrying out everyday tasks extraordinarily well.
The movement, which enjoys a unique status at the Vatican, was depicted as a murderous cult in Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," which Opus members and the Vatican have denounced as defaming the church.
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