ARTICLES
December 2003 ARTICLES
Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
He's The Man
But Does Phoenix Need A Bishop Gabino Zavala?
By Jonathan Fierro
The race is on.
In clerical circles from California to Arizona, and all across the Southwest, all bets are on Bishop Gabino Zavala that he will become the new bishop of Phoenix. Within the chancery office of the archdiocese of Los Angeles, it's almost taken for granted that Zavala, who heads the San Gabriel region, will be heading off east soon.
"That's what everybody around here says," said a chancery worker, who asked not to be identified.
Though news of Zavala's possible move to Phoenix has been heralded by his supporters as a blessing for that scandal-wracked diocese, some watchdog groups and orthodox Catholic groups disagree. They admit that, as of late, the bishop has been toeing the orthodox line; but, they add, that this is not consistent with his long history of supporting controversial positions on homosexuality. And though Zavala's opposition to the death penalty and his support of youth are viewed by many in the Church as exemplary, some in the barrios of East Los Angeles, where Zavala grew up, say the bishop has never been as outspoken against gangs or the wave of crime that plagues Latinos in his own region.
Nevertheless, Zavala has been recently talking more conservatively on many issues, such as gay rights and "gay" marriage. "That's the modus operandi; whenever a church official is going to be named cardinal or bishop of a certain place; they start acting very orthodox, they start adhering to the magisterium," said a Los Angeles priest, who asked not to be identified. Nevertheless, he added that he thought Zavala is a good bishop.
But members of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) are not so sure about Zavala. They say that in Phoenix, which has been tainted by one of the worst clerical abuse scandals in the nation, what is needed is a true Robocop. Barbara Blaine, a spokeswoman for SNAP, praised Archbishop Michael Sheehan for his work in Phoenix. Sheehan replaced disgraced Bishop Thomas O'Brien after O'Brien killed a man with his car and left him to die. But, she added, whoever replaces Sheehan will have to continue his work.
Still, well-known Catholic observers and the Arizona media believe that Zavala is a given for Phoenix: he's the man. Another candidate, experts say, to fill the Phoenix job is dark horse Joseph Pepe, the current bishop of Las Vegas. But the front-runner is Zavala.
Father Coleman of the theology faculty at Loyola-Marymount University in Los Angeles told the Arizona Republic that the Phoenix position requires someone like Zavala, "whose lifestyle, authenticity, and holiness would win the day."
Zavala did not answer calls for comment on this article.
The man who is now one of the most powerful and influential Latinos in the U.S. Church today was born in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero in 1952. According to friends, his family moved when he was a boy to Tijuana. There, while Zavala was still a boy, tragedy struck his family, said Santa Ortiz, a parishoner of Our Lady of Guadalupe (on Hammel Street in Los Angeles) who has known him since he was barely ordained a priest.
According to what Zavala allegedly has told his friends and parishioners, his family was living in some Tijuana apartments. During a celebration of Las Posadas, a traditional Mexican custom that reenacts, through a beautiful and lively procession, St. Joseph and the Virgin Mary's plight of looking for shelter on Christmas Eve, a fire broke out in the apartments. The flames spread rapidly, killing many, including two of Zavala's own little brothers. The young Gabino managed to survive. So did his mother. "His mother learned after that terrible experience that her son's survival meant that he was marked to do great things," Ortiz said.
Zavala and his family moved to East Los Angeles. By the early 1970s, Zavala was completely acculturated and joined St. John's Seminary. In 1977, Cardinal Timothy Manning ordained Zavala a priest at St. Vibiana's Cathedral. He was sent to work at Our Lady of Guadalupe (Hammel Street) as a parish priest.
Ortiz remembers Zavala as a young priest who was full of enthusiasm and always willing to lend an ear to any of the problems that his parishioners brought up to him. Back then he was proud of wearing his clerical garb with Roman collar. As times have changed, so has Zavala's wardrobe. Some from his region say that he will often wear his once-beloved clerics when visiting more conservative parishes, but, among youths, he has been seen wearing black, Goth-like t-shirts just prior to donning bishop's robes for Mass.
"He was always very nice," Ortiz said.
Ortiz recalled that on one occasion her young son complained to Zavala about some street vendors that were selling food in front of the parish. This was for many, more assimilated parishioners, though not for the immigrants, a source of anger. "He told my son 'everybody has a right to make a living,'" Ortiz recalled. "That memory has stuck with me since then."
But Zavala began to take steps that would lead him to the place he is today. He earned a degree in canon law at the Catholic University of America. He was assigned to work at the tribunal, which brought him close to key chancery power players. And in 1992, he was named rector of St. John's Seminary, also an important post. In 1992, at age 42, Zavala became the youngest man in the nation to be consecrated bishop. He succeeded the retired Juan Arzube as bishop of the San Gabriel region.
"It is a challenge of trying to affirm and recognize the gifts in diversity that we have and to come together as a people of faith," said Zavala right after being named a bishop. One of the movements within the church that Zavala spearheaded was a ministry to prison inmates. He took tours of people to prisons, as well as to death row inmates. In a letter he co-wrote for the Los Angeles Times with Father Michael Kennedy about those on death row, he said: "Killing these men does nothing but drag our society down with them. The devastation and loss won't be alleviated by taking the lives of the killers. And if our society's outrage is tempered by the spilling of blood, even guilty blood, then our society is in serious trouble. Capital punishment reduces the humanity of all who live in a society that imposes it."
In 2000, Zavala organized Encuentro, an event which brought together Catholics from different backgrounds and cultures. Encuentro was attended by over 5,000 people, with over 40 bishops, including Bernard Cardinal Law.
Zavala has also been active in promoting the Los Angeles archdiocese's ministry to gays and lesbians. He had been a member of the board of that ministry even before he became a bishop. He then served as episcopal moderator for the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries. During his tenure there he seems to have sided with those who see homosexuality as a natural orientation instead of as "objectively disordered" (in the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.) According to the St. Catherine Review, when addressing the 1998 conference of the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries, Bishop Zavala said the following: "The skill, talent, giftedness, insight, and grace of homosexual and lesbian members of the faith community is to be called forth, welcomed, and allowed expression. And this receptivity promotes the full development of the human person, enhances the life of the community, and serves to reveal the true face of God."
But in 1999, in the wake of a Vatican crackdown on Sister Jeannine Gramick and Father Robert Nugent, who headed a national gay and lesbian ministry, Zavala resigned from the Oakland-based National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries. In an August 31 Los Angeles Times story, Bishop Zavala said that "he resigned ... because of the press of other obligations, including his chairmanship of Encuentro 2000." Bishop Zavala vaguely alluded to knowing about the controversial group's dissent on Church teaching on homosexuality, adding that he had only attended "one meeting." Yet, Bishop Zavala was among the speakers at the 1997 meeting of the National Association's conference held in Long Beach. Roger Cardinal Mahony was the principal celebrant at the conference's Mass. At that Mass, Cardinal Mahony distributed communion to conference attendees who were sporting tee shirts identifying them as members of Dignity, a homosexual rights group which has taken issue with the Church's teachings on the necessity of celibacy on the part of homosexuals. Father Peter Liuzzi, who headed the Los Angeles archdiocese's gay and lesbian Ministry, also resigned at the same time as Zavala. Later, Liuzzi left the archdiocesan ministry and admitted that he was a homosexual.
In an article he penned in July of this year for the archdiocesan newspaper, the Tidings, Zavala, some say, seemed to be backpedaling on his views about how gay ministries should be conducted. In this article he said they should strictly adhere to Church teaching. "In the years since my service as Episcopal Moderator," wrote Zavala, "I have remained committed to meeting the pastoral needs of homosexual persons, and unwavering in my assent to the Church's teaching on homosexuality and homosexual relations. In my capacity as Episcopal Moderator, I addressed this group in Rochester, New York. I expressed my constantly held belief that in our ministry to homosexual persons we would do well to be informed by the whole of the Church's teaching. The whole of this teaching, and in particular the Church's teaching on matters of sexual ethics, serves as a sure guide in any authentic response to the pastoral needs of homosexual persons." Zavala, though, did not affirm homosexuality as objectively disordered.
Recently, Zavala was named head of Pax Christi USA, a Catholic pacifist organization that opposes the death penalty. The organization goes even beyond what Pope John Paul teaches on the subject and affirms that the death penalty in no case can be justified. Zavala, too, seems to hold this opinion. In an October 7, 2002 interview with Amnesty International, Zavala said "no one has a right to take the life of another, even on behalf of the state."
Still, friends who know Zavala from his days as a young priest in East Los Angeles say that he is a very good man. Guadalupe Bojorquez, a parishioner of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Hammel) believes that he would be a very good bishop for Phoenix. "It will be our loss," Bojorquez says. "We will miss him."
Rosa Arevalo, who had a brief run-in with Bishop Zavala in 2002 when Father Gustavo Lara, a non-incardinated priest, was dismissed by Our Lady of Guadalupe Pastor Tom Baker over allegedly stealing money (Lara denies the charge), said that she admires Zavala. She added that she is proud that Zavala, a Latino like herself, is moving up in the Church and that he could make a good bishop for Phoenix for several reasons -- some of them not entirely for his Catholicity.
But Arevalo said that though Zavala treated her courteously when she complained to him about the treatment of Father Lara, he did nothing about it. She added that she thought that he would have perhaps understood Lara's plight as a sick, elderly man who is an immigrant, much like the bishop had been when he first arrived to this country; but that was not the case.
"He heard me out and was nice," Arevalo said. "But at the end he did nothing about it. I guess that when you're in that position, that's just the way it is."