In a new pastoral letter, the archbishop of Los Angeles says it is ‘urgent’ for every Christian to embrace the ‘adventure’ of holiness in the face of a de-Christianizing culture.
God made men and women for greatness as saints, and the times now call each man and woman to embrace the call to holiness, stated the archbishop of Los Angeles.
In his second pastoral letter, “For Greater Things You Were Born,” Archbishop José Gomez issued a clarion call for Christians to live out the Christian mission in their homes, communities, parishes, schools and ministries in the face of “a deepening secularism and ‘anti-humanistic’ spirit in American life.”
The archbishop explained that truth has “always been at the heart of the Christian religion,” and Christianity’s vision of the human person — “created in God’s image, endowed with God-given dignity, rights and responsibilities, and called to a transcendent destiny” — is the spiritual foundation for the Americas and the West.
But he said it was “undeniable” that society is progressively becoming “de-Christianized.”
“Our elites — in politics and law, education and the media — are seeking through many means to drive God out of our daily lives and to silence his voice in the human heart,” he said. “But as the reality of God is fading away, the reality of the human person is disappearing, too. We are becoming strangers to our own selves. We no longer know who we are or what is inside us.”
The archbishop said this rejection of God was the root of “many troubles and injustices in our society,” naming the redefinition of marriage and sexuality, abortion and euthanasia, human trafficking, racism, indifference to the suffering of immigrants, epidemics of pornography and addictions, the brokenness of the criminal-justice system, executions and the “violence and deviancy in our popular ‘entertainment.’”
“All of these troubles are indicators of a deeper problem — our society has lost sense of the truth about the precious nature and dignity of the human person,” he said.
He indicated the loss of God has made it impossible for America to answer the questions behind its division and dysfunction, as people seek to live without God and replace him with science, technology and material distractions
