Bishop OSCAR CANTU (Auxiliary Bishop, Archdiocese of San Antonio): I think he recognized that people perceived him as being overly formal, and he lamented that.
[SANDEN] TOTTEN: Bishop Oscar Cantu worked with Gomez for two and a half years at his previous assignment in San Antonio. Cantu says, humor aside, Gomez was known for his devotion to the church, his love of the Green Bay Packers, his lactose intolerance and his decided tolerance for tequila. Gomez studied business at the National University of Mexico and Cantu says he was blessed with a talent for financial planning.
Bishop CANTU: Most clerics run away from the accountants, rather than run to them. He was one who embraced that, you know, of course ’cause, you know, that was part of his background. And he was able to really use that for the good of the church.
NPR goofed. Patricio Flores became archbishop of the San Antonio archdiocese in 1979. He retired in 2004. Read about it on Get Religion at [http://www.getreligion.org/2011/03/catholic-history-made-30-years-ago/]
Yep, you’re right, dpchalk. Flores was the longstanding archbishop in S.A.
I’m not sure it’s accurate to call the Latino bishops “conservative.” In my previous experience (in the S.A. archdiocese), they are very conservative about such things as abortion, sexuality, and church structure but very liberal in their politics. They lead demonstrations against immigration reform and tend to be Chicano activists when it comes to wages, work, and poverty but they seem reluctant to address the problems and abuses in the Hispanic community when it comes to the treatment of women and girls, the horrible teen sexuality/pregnancy statistics, gangs, drug and human trafficking, and cultural religious abuses like Santeria, Curanderisma, and the cult of Guadalupe.
Not that I want to leap to NPR’s defence in any situation – but it seems clear that a distinction has been made between Flores being a Mexican-American born in TX, and Gomez being the first Mexican-born Archbishop of a US diocese.
TACit: I agree that the article makes mention of him coming from Monterrey, however the lede says “the first Latino archbishop in the U.S.”…
Oh! Sorry if I missed what your point was, although you didn’t actually say what it was (the title wording). And leave it to NPR to change the language, meaning ‘Mexican-born’ when [i]they[/i] say ‘Latino’ I guess…..