L.A. archbishop leads prayer for immigrants as students demonstrate

Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez celebrated what he called a “Mass for Peace” at Our Lady of the Angels on Wednesday, stopping just short of a direct appeal to the Trump administration to draw down its aggressive immigration enforcement efforts as protesters gathered blocks away.

“We are united with everybody in our country praying for peace, and specifically praying for immigrants in our country,” Gomez said during an address from the pulpit Wednesday afternoon.

“Today, we especially pray for our government leaders, for the law enforcement officers and for those protesting and defending the immigrant families in this struggle here in Los Angeles.”

As police helicopters buzzed overhead monitoring the demonstration nearby, the archbishop called on God to “awaken again the conscience of Americans.”

Parishioners fill the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels for a Mass led by Archbishop José H. Gomez.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

His remarks coincided with a student walkout, with teen protesters converging on the Metropolitan Detention Center about a mile away.

More than 500 students carrying signs and draped in flags gathered at the intersection of Aliso and Los Angeles streets and marched to the jail, where a swarm of police stood behind yellow caution tape.

Kiro Perez, a freshman from Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools, held a sign above her faded green hair that read, “My parents work more than the President.”

“I’m fighting for my father, my mom, my siblings and everyone else,” Kiro said.

After working for more than a decade, her father had his application for a green card approved less than two years ago, Kiro said. She said that for months, he has obsessively checked ICE activity and has lived in fear.

“I don’t want him to feel scared anymore,” she said.

Los Angeles is the largest archdiocese in the United States, home to 3.8 million Catholics. A plurality of the faithful are immigrants and the overwhelming majority are Latino. Born in Mexico, Gomez is the first Latino person to serve as archbishop of Los Angeles, and the highest-ranking Latino bishop in the United States, according to the church.

Faith leaders have increasingly been at odds with the president, despite longtime strategic alignment between the administration and the ascendant conservative wing of American Catholicism.

Archbishop José H. Gomez leads Mass on Wednesday.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times )

“I don’t know if anyone’s OK with what’s happening right now,” said Isaac Cuevas, the archdiocese senior director of life, justice and peace. “We shouldn’t be these kinds of people.”

The region’s Catholic institutions responded to last year’s aggressive raids with an outpouring of charity, reorganizing many food pantries around grocery delivery and ministering directly to communities many described as under siege.

But the political response was more muted. Some clergy members joined protests, but the church largely shied from similar action at the highest levels.

A nun makes her way through the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on Wednesday.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

“It breaks my heart, because I’m an immigrant,” said Lupita Sanchez, a Franciscan nun who joined the Mass on Wednesday. “The only way that we can help the world is by praying.”

Prayer was at the heart of Gomez’s message Wednesday as well. But other Catholics were more critical.

“The clergy who are the boots on the ground were out there from Day One, not only doing charity but working for justice,” said Catholic activist Rosa Manriquez. “We now have quite a few bishops and cardinals coming out and being present, which is very important. As far as our archdiocese is concerned — not so much.”

Gomez is a longtime member of Opus Dei, a conservative Catholic movement with deep ties to the Trump administration.

Vice President JD Vance underwent a 2019 conversion steeped in some of the group’s most prominent thinkers. The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was a member, and five of the nine sitting justices are conservative Catholics with ties to the group.

Members of the Catholic Church fill the cathedral.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Trump’s newest 9th Circuit appointee, Eric Tung, also converted under the movement’s influence.

“During the time of the rise of this regime, our archbishop was the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops,” Manriquez said. “Their silence enabled this. You can’t argue with the statistics of how many Catholics voted for this regime.”

In the 2024 election, 1 in 5 Trump voters identified as Catholic, a Pew Research Center study found.

Pope Leo XIV, shown leading a Mass in December, has forcefully condemned the Trump administration’s aggressive tactics.

(Chris McGrath / Getty Images)

Pope Leo XIV, who became bishop of Rome after Pope Francis’ death last spring, has forcefully condemned the administration’s aggressive tactics, calling them “extremely disrespectful.” Last fall, the powerful U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted overwhelmingly in support of a “special message” decrying militarized immigration enforcement and pleading for reform.

“To our immigrant brothers and sisters, we stand with you in your suffering,” they wrote. “We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people.”

Times staff writer Christopher Buchanan contributed to this report.