From: Vincent Chiarello (e-mail him)

The current President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Timothy Cardinal Dolan, has been roundly criticized in these pages for his attempts to persuade Catholics from the pulpit that amnesty is the best solution to our illegal alien problem despite overwhelming evidence that such a remedy is rejected by the majority of those in the pews. In November, Cardinal Dolan’s term will expire, and who may succeed the glad-handling head of the New York Archdiocese should be of interest to immigration patriots.

Ten names have been announced as possible candidates to replace Cardinal Dolan, and although most would not gladden the hearts of most VDARE.com readers, one is particularly worrisome: Jose Horacio Gomez, Archbishop of Los Angeles. Archbishop Gomez, who leads the largest Catholic diocese in the U.S., in an unabashed apologist for amnesty for the million of illegal aliens in our midst, which is why he actively promotes the passage of President Obama’s Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill.

It should be pointed out that Archbishop Gomez’s affection for amnesty is quite natural: he was born in Mexico, and although he received his theological training at the “conservative” Opus Dei University in Spain, his Mexican roots are still very evident, even as a US citizen. In 2008-09, Archbishop Gomez, then Archbishop of San Antonio, was named the first Chairman of the “Committee on Cultural Diversity” of the USCCB,  which sought to focus the attention of the Church and US society toward the “....numerous and urgent needs of Church and society today, within the context of increasingly diverse cultures and races in our country.”   Apparently, the arrival of millions of law breaking illegal aliens, mainly from Mexico, was not a serious enough problem to warrant inclusion on the Committee’s agenda.

In attempting to compare Cardinal Dolan’s efforts at bringing about a Church position on amnesty with that of a future President Archbishop Gomez in the same position, I can think of no better statement than that of the late entertainer, Al Jolson, who, in another context to be sure, was right on the money: You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Chiarello is a retired Foreign Service Officer whose tours included U.S. embassies in Latin America and Europe. See Vincent Chiarello's previous letters to VDARE.com.