Open Letter to Archbishop José Gomez

By David Martin


Your Excellency:

With all due respect for your attempts to stop the spread of COVID-19, the faithful of the Los Angeles Archdiocese feel betrayed that you allowed state officials to step in and impose a political lockdown of the Church. And while the reopening of the Church is finally in motion, it is loaded with regulation and restrictions that are coming from the state, not from Almighty God. You seem to have forgotten that the Church is not bound to the state, and this would especially apply when the state officials are accomplices to crime.

Certainly you must know that Governor Newsom and Mayor Garcetti were calling for a disbanding of the police for the purpose of encouraging race riots. Newsom told Black protesters last week, "I want you to know that you matter. To those who want to express themselves [riotously]... keep doing it. Your rage is real."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/your-rage-is-real-gavin-newsom-tells-california-protesters/ar-BB14THDJ

According to Newsom, criminals "matter" but the innocent owners of looted shops don't matter. That a state official should act as a political arsonist to ignite the fire of civil violence testifies to the diabolical depths to which some of our leaders have descended. Are these the people you consult in directing Christ’s Church?

COVID-19 was sprung on us by these very socialists to place society and Church on lock-down, so your duty as bishop is to ignore tyrannical state rulings and to remember your fidelity to God who commands that you listen to Him and not to corrupt state officials that have exaggerated the COVID-19 figures for their own political gains.

The numbers are way over the top. Doctors have testified to how the government has pressured them into lying about COVID-19 death figures. It’s all politically motivated. They deliberately up the number of COVID-19 deaths to justify continuation of their socialist lockdown, which is all the more reason for the Church to ignore these state rulings and recommendations.

Even if the state was just in its recommendations—which it is not—the final decision is with the Church, not the state, since the state cannot impose itself on the Church. The Church is autonomous and is even protected by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment (Separation of Church and State) that says the state cannot interfere with the Church. Why do you allow the state to bully the Church?

We often praise the martyrs who accepted persecution and death at the hands of pagan leaders because they stood up against these tyrants, but when it's our turn we suddenly shrink and make excuses for fleeing the cross. You wrote a book about "Men of Brave Heart," yet you don’t live by it. Stand up against these political wolves and don’t allow them to boss the Church.

And please do not allow Cardinal Mahony to exert any influence in the Church. The consensus among many clerics is that Mahony is running the Archdiocese through you and is acting as an agent of the deep-state to impose these COVID-19 restrictions—something they plan to continue into the future. Certainly you must know that Mahony has a history of abuse, not to mention that he is a gay-rights advocate. Many allege that he is a Freemason. How is it that Mahony is allowed to write, speak, and to function in your Archdiocese?

UNFORTUNATELY, he and his deep-state cronies are using COVID-19 as a tool to impose Communion in the hand since they know it profanes the Church and weakens the Church's strength against them. Several churches in the Los Angeles Archdiocese are imposing this practice in accord with your directives for the reopening of the Church. 

What is absurd is that receiving in the hand is far more influential in spreading coronavirus than receiving on the tongue, proving all the more that these imposed restrictions have little to do with COVID-19. We've become like the hypocrites in Christ's time, touting our hand-washing and "sanitary" procedures and adopting ridiculous "traditions of men" while the work of God is ignored!

The bottom line is that Communion in the hand is sacrilegious and may never be imposed on the faithful under any circumstances. Canon law forbids that any cleric should deny the faithful their God-given right to receive Communion on the tongue. The enemies of the Church were hoping to use COVID-19 to get Communion in the hand mandated on a permanent basis, so we ask that you stand against this ungodly plan to profane the Eucharist under the guise of “public health and safety.”

Remember, these liberal bureaucrats can only execute their plans through you, so please stand up like a man and lock the state out of the Church. All the fuss about face-masks, social distancing, limited attendance, and receiving in the hand has accomplished nothing more than to turn the Church into something of a police-state. Let’s drop the protocol and open the churches without reserve that the people might be on their knees in reparation for the many sins in the Church that brought this chastisement upon us to begin with.

For COVID-19 has truly been a chastisement for our profanation of the Church through modern practice, especially the practice of receiving Communion in the hand. When chastisements are given by God, we’re supposed to learn by them. Have we learned our lesson or are we continuing like Pharisees to impose sin upon the faithful?

Sincerely in Christ and His Holy Mother,

David Martin