My book “Faith Under Fire: Dramatic Stories of Christian Courage” showed example after example of regular people exhibiting their faith in a courageous way, even when the world told them not to.
In each of those stories there came a moment, when the person had to decide how far they could be pushed. They had to decide what went too far.
This is that moment for Archbishop Jose Gomez. Pray for him to be a courageous advocate of our faith.
At certain times in life, an individual must decide whether to put resolute action behind rhetorical boilerplate. For Jose Gomez, that time is now.
Gomez, the Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles, has an unmatched opportunity to repel the growing influence of “woke” madness in his community. Whether he will take that opportunity, however, remains an open question.
The opportunity in question is the Los Angeles Dodgers’ decision to re-invite the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to the team’s Pride Night on June 16. The “sisters” are a group of homosexual and transgender men who dress as nuns and wear heavy clown makeup in a campy, burlesque version of pseudo-Catholic blackface.
…the Sisters for Perpetual Indulgence ranks in the vanguard of the LGBTQ activists’ quest to groom children by confusing them about their sexuality. A former activist told Epoch Times on May 26 that she left the movement because of that quest.
It is beyond significant that the propaganda video that included the interview with Sister Vicious Power Hungry Bitch takes place during an Easter egg hunt for children.
The archdiocese’s statement criticizing the Dodgers’ decision emphasized that ridicule, especially of legitimate nuns who dedicate themselves to community service. It called on “all Catholics and people of goodwill to stand against bigotry and hate in any form and to stand for respect for one another and for the religious beliefs of our communities of faith,” it said.
However, Gomez’s name is missing.
Gomez must do more than condemn the contempt for Catholic faith and practice. He must do more than sign a paper. He must draw attention to the troupe’s attempt to groom children and its advocacy of sex-change surgery. On March 20, the United States Council of Catholic Bishops condemned such surgeries and the use of puberty blockers, especially for minors, as FrontPage Magazine reported.
Gomez served as the USCCB’s president until his three-year term expired in November.
The archbishop also must assert that, for all intents and purposes, two civic institutions have declared Catholics to be non-persons.
One of those is the Dodgers. The other is the Los Angeles Times, which ran an article focusing on the troupe’s community work while ignoring its anti-Catholic performance art. L.Z. Granderson, one of the Times’ most “woke” columnists, went so far as to call any legitimate criticism “homophobic,” ignoring Catholic concerns in the process.
But Gomez can do even more. He must encourage and organize a boycott of both the Dodgers and the Times. Fans should stop buying tickets and souvenirs. Season-ticket holders and subscribers to the team’s cable channel must cancel their packages. Newspaper subscribers should do likewise. Picketing or even staging a sit-in at Dodger Stadium on Pride Night certainly would attract attention.
As Bud Light and Target can attest, boycotts can be devastating.
Since promoting transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, Bud Light sales fell by $110 million off last year’s pace as of May 13. In addition, consumers have stopped buying Anheuser-Busch’s other brands. Meanwhile, Target’s stock lost $9 billion in value one week after introducing LGBTQ-themed clothing for children.
But does Gomez have the imagination and the courage to take such a step? Catholics in Los Angeles await his answer — and he has very little time to provide one.
June 6, 2023 at 10:56 am
No, he won’t. Archbishop Gomez has had over a decade to clean up the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress in Anaheim, but he hasn’t had the spine to stand up to the gays and lesbians who work in the Office of Religious Education and who deliberately program gay-friendly elements into the annual catechetical conference. Gomez will ignore this controversy, and it will be forgotten by the end of summer. No way is he going to risk having the full force of the gay-friendly media and political powers in California come down on him for opposing the rainbow coalition.
June 8, 2023 at 2:09 pm
I was very grateful to Bishop Barron for immediately stepping up and condemning the actions of the SPI and the Dodgers for honoring the SPI. He rightly called the SPI an anti-Catholic hate group. And he called for an immediate boycott of the Dodgers.
I was sad to see no such statement coming from Archbishop Gomez, who is the head of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, where this ugliness is taking place.
A couple of days after Bishop Barron’s outstanding and courageous actions, the USCCB came out with a statement against the Dodgers and the SPI.
We are in need of strong, unambivalent leadership in the Church, no doubt about it. If our leaders are too wishy-washy or worried about diplomacy to stand up to defend our Faith and our fellow Catholics, how can they expect the laity to do so?