Bryan Cross is right. The text is here. I was actually quite prepared to criticize Archbishop Gomez--if only internally--for being woefully out of touch with the lived experience of people in America. What I found is not so much a criticism of the political movements themselves, or of particular injustices they raise, but of the primacy of politics in our society today, and the belief that the most important needs of human beings can be addressed by political means alone. In this light, the archbishop's comments deserve considerably more reflection on our parts, if not sympathy. The context of his comments about social justice movements as "pseudo-religions" is the replacement of a Christian worldview by a materialist worldview, where the battle is exclusively political, in the ends and in the means.
I consider myself quite sympathetic to these movements on the whole, but I personally do so through the lenses of the Christian story. Specifically, the God-given dignity of every person shapes my confrontation with injustice. Because human beings have a destiny as created in the image of God, and meant for communion with God forever, then the willful destruction of the human person, or of his or her degradation, is a strike against the will of God.
Each time I learn of particular injustices, I become more convinced that this is why we must proclaim Jesus as our only hope of any true justice or peace. This is because when he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, Jesus took on the travails of every human life. Every single human life. Jesus knows the sorrow of Emmett Till's mother, or the tears of Corretta Scott King, to use two examples. Jesus carried our sorrows. I know of no political leader anywhere who could take my sorrow, or that of anyone else's, into themselves. I know of no policy that could take it away. I know of no program that can bring about salvation and eternal bliss.
This does not say that we preach Christ in ignorance of all these injustices; in fact I say the opposite. But it does mean that I do not divide the world between the privileged, and the oppressed. There are only those who are agents of peace and reconciliation through Christ, and those who have not become those agents of peace and reconciliation yet.
I might add that his use of the word "technocratic" likely indicates his awareness of its meaning in terms of Pope Francis' thoughts in Laudato Si. The strict materialism that is advocated in Marxist socialism is the same strict materialism implied by strict capitalism: the only dignity that a human being needs can be found in whatever he can possess, or acquire, through economic and political means.
I do not make it a point to criticize "the media" as a mental habit,--either secular or religious--but I will say that I had no idea what Archbishop Gomez had actually said, until I read it myself. I think many reporters have to be able to do much better than they did on this story. It's truly pathetic, and worthy of criticism.
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