As a Mexican Catholic, I'm outraged

Dear Friends in Christ,

As you surely have seen, President Donald Trump has nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to a lifetime seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. As today’s confirmation hearings demonstrate, Judge Barrett’s Roman Catholic faith is behind major points of contention. 

And that’s why I am writing to you today: because Judge Barrett — a Mike Pence Catholic — must not become the face of Catholicism in America.

Throughout the country, newspaper headlines are filled with Judge Barrett’s right-wing opinions, like her defense of Trump’s wealth-test for prospective immigrants and her refusal to review cases from immigrants seeking refuge from violence and persecution.

This profound fact illustrates most vividly who Judge Barrett is: She helps lead an arch-conservative religious group that teaches that “husbands are the heads of their wives and should take authority for their family.”

This is not what our Catholic faith stands for. Yet her confirmation hearings are barreling ahead, as the whole country watches. And as happened when Clarence Thomas was confirmed, senators are putting her Catholicism front and center.

Barrett’s nomination is emboldening Catholicism’s arch-conservative faction — and putting the future of a more inclusive, just, and merciful world in grave danger.

Here's what this means: There has never been a more critical time to invest in building the Church the people of God deserve — and that is exactly what Call To Action is doing.

So I come to you with an urgent question: Will you donate right now to Call To Action? Will you help our movement live out its vocation of raising up Catholic communities that prioritize inclusion, justice, and mercy, as our Lord teaches us?

As we all know, far too often, our faith is used as a shield for racist, sexist beliefs.

We simply cannot stand by as a Catholic argues her Trumpist ideology before the nation and the whole world. Our faith's sacred honor is on the line.

We must build an ever more visible and vibrant movement of Catholics and Catholic communities committed to doing justice and defending the equality and dignity of all human persons. As Pope Francis teaches us, “God has created all human beings equal in rights, duties and dignity, and has called them to live together.”

For years, the realization of this moral vision has been Call To Action's sacred duty, our mission.

Today, in big cities and small towns across the country, our members are leading working groups that take action on specific justice issues, from immigration to climate change to systemic racism.

This organizing is led more than ever by our Re/Generators, the next generation of Catholic justice leaders. These living gifts to the Church are Call To Action's top investment. They must be the future of American Catholicism.

I write to you as one of those Re/Generators, a gay Mexican-American seminary graduate and chaplain to the sick and dying. I write you to ask:

Will you help us continue the work of building an inclusive, justice-loving, and merciful Church by chipping in today?

In Very Christian Solidarity,

Jacob Andrew Gonzalez
CTA 2020 Re/Generator