The Most Rev. José H. Gomez, archbishop of Los Angeles, presented his hope for a new era of evangelization among Hispanics in this country, and Americans in general, to a packed auditorium Tuesday night at Loyola Marymount University. Gomez urged the crowd to “see ourselves as missionaries” and to embrace the history of the Americas and how Catholic missionaries spread the faith in the New World.
Gomez visited LMU, the largest Catholic university in Los Angeles, to deliver the inaugural Hispanic Ministry and Theology Lecture, which is sponsored by the LMU Latino Theology and Ministry Initiative.
Gomez said it is vital to reconnect to the Hispanic and Catholic roots of the American story. “Our mission today requires a new spiritual and religious understanding of America’s history — and a new understanding of the ways our history intersects with the first evangelization of Mexico and the other lands of the Americas.” He called for a deeper understanding of the Hispanic role in the history of the hemisphere. “There is something powerful in remembering that before this country had a name —long before there was a Washington or a Wall Street — the missionaries were celebrating the Mass here and preaching the Gospel in the Spanish tongue.”
He said that the mission of the Church today must be a new evangelization “in the face of widespread religious indifferentism and elite disdain for religion.”
The archbishop talked about the need to develop a spirit of adventure in the new evangelization. “We need to enter into the missionary heart and soul of the Age of Discovery. We need to recover the sense of awe and possibility that inspired the first evangelization of our continents.”
Gomez likened the Puritan notion of a “shining city upon a hill” to his vision of a revitalized Hispanic evangelization. “I mean to propose a beautiful, Hispanic vision of America as a ‘camino real,’ ” he said, alluding to the time when explorers and missionaries spread the Catholic faith.
The archbishop was introduced by President David W. Burcham, who noted the deep and multifaceted connection between LMU and the archdiocese.
The LMU Latino Theology and Ministry Initiative is a joint project of the Department of Theological Studies and the Center for Religion and Spirituality to assess and respond to the large population of Hispanic Catholics in the United States. Cecilia González-Andrieu, a member of the coordinating committee and assistant professor of theological studies, said the initiative will create opportunities to come together as a community of students, scholars and Church and city leaders to find avenues for future scholarship and the preparation of leaders.
