By Daniel Payne
CNA Staff, Jan 10, 2025 / 14:50 pm
Fires in suburban Los Angeles are continuing to burn and lay waste to entire neighborhoods as Archbishop José Gomez on Thursday urged Catholics to remember the preciousness of human life and to make themselves “instruments” of God amid the devastation.
The prelate delivered the remarks in a homily at a special Mass celebrated at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles. The cathedral sits just over a dozen miles from the outer edges of the Eaton Fire, which is burning northeast of the city center.
“These are difficult and challenging days for our city and county and our local Church,” the archbishop said. “As we pray, the wildfires keep burning around us and, as we know, the damage continues to be devastating.”
“We are reminded today how precious every life is, and how fragile,” he continued. “We are reminded also that we are brothers and sisters, that each of us — we all belong to the family in God.”
Raising the question of why God “let[s] evil things happen,” the prelate admitted, “there is no easy answer.”
“But that doesn’t mean that there are no answers,” he said, arguing that “love is what is asked of us in this moment.”
“In this moment, God is calling each of us to be the instruments through which he shows his love and compassion and care to those who are suffering,” the archbishop said.
Family’s Virgin Mary statue survived blaze
Much of the archdiocese has been left reeling amid the fires, which have destroyed blocks of homes in the city and left countless buildings in ruins.
The fires began on Tuesday and quickly spread via dry conditions and hurricane-force Santa Ana winds blowing in from the east. On Friday multiple fires were raging unchecked across thousands of acres as firefighters worked to get the blazes under control.
Among the destroyed structures was Corpus Christi Catholic Church. Los Angeles resident Sam Laganà told Angelus News, the magazine of the archdiocese, that the destruction was “too much” and “overwhelming.”
Laganà is well known in the area for providing the “stadium voice” for the Los Angeles Rams. He grew up in the Corpus Christi Parish and was catechized there.
He told Angelus that as the fires began earlier this week he was “using water from garden hoses and his backyard jacuzzi to put out the flames encircling his home of 28 years,” the magazine reported.
“As I was leaving, I was trying to defend my home and hoping to keep the [Corpus Christi] school from catching on fire by watering down the hillsides,” he said. The school was mostly spared from destruction.
Corpus Christi parishioner Rick McGeagh, meanwhile, told Angelus that his family discovered on Wednesday that their house had burned to the ground.
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The “sole part of his home left standing,” however, was a Virgin Mary statue the family first installed when they moved in nearly 30 years ago.
“That statue belonged to my grandmother, who died in 1997,” McGeagh told the magazine.
“The fact that she survived, when everything, even our Viking stove, burned down, I think is miraculous. There’s no way to explain that.”
The Los Angeles resident attended the archbishop’s Mass at the downtown cathedral, which he described as an “easy choice.”
“I need God’s strength, as we all do,” he said. “We’re all going to have a tough road ahead to rebuild our homes, and Monsignor [Liam Kidney]’s got to rebuild [the Corpus Christi Parish], and he’s not alone. We’ll be there to help.”
Kidney, who has been pastor of the parish since 1999, told the news outlet that the destruction of the parish — and thus of his home of nearly a quarter-century — ”still hasn’t sunk in yet.”
But the priest said the tragedy would ultimately work for good for a parish that is still reeling from the COVID-19 crisis nearly five years ago.
“COVID kind of ripped us apart,” he said. “This is going to bring us together.”
Deacon, parishioners save parish as fires rage
In at least one other instance a parish was saved by quick-thinking parishioners who luckily had the resources to protect it.
Angelus reported that Deacon José Luis Díaz and a group of parishioners worked to save Sacred Heart Church in Altadena from the fires. That effort involved breaking roof tiles and using a low-pressure garden hose to keep the flames at bay.
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Though the heroic parishioners saved the church, Diaz told Angelus that much of the rest of the city resembles a war zone.
“It looks like we’re in the middle of a battlefield. Everything is wiped out,” he said. “There are so many burned homes gone, with only the chimney left.”
Federal rescue workers have been on hand to assist state and local responders in battling the blazes. Helicopters have been visible throughout the week dumping water on walls of flame just feet from homes. California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday declared a state of emergency over the fires.
President Joe Biden canceled his upcoming visit to Italy — what would have been the final diplomatic trip of his presidency and which included a planned meeting with Pope Francis — in order to address the ongoing deadly wildfires in Southern California.
The archdiocese, meanwhile, is working with local Catholic agencies to bring resources to those affected by the fires. The archdiocese has set up a donation portal to receive funds to help the community “recover and rebuild.”
In his homily on Thursday, Gomez said Catholics in Los Angeles “must be the ones who bring comfort to our neighbors in this time of disaster.”
“And we must be the ones also who stand by their side and help them to rebuild and go forward with courage and faith and hope in God,” he said. “Let us pray for them.”
