.- Today the Holy Father named Archbishop Jose H.Gomez as a member of the Special Council for America of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops. The responsibility is one of many for the newly appointed head of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
The Vatican's announcement of Archbishop Gomez' nomination was accompanied on Saturday by the news of the appointment of the Archbishop of Popayan, Columbia, Ivan Antonio Marin Lopez to the same Council.
Archbishop Gomez comes into the new position from a background rich with experience in multicultural issues within the U.S. Church. In addition to a variety of other positions and responsibilities he currently holds, he is the chair of the U.S. bishop’s Subcommittee on the Church in Latin America, chair-elect of the Committee on Migration and is a founding member of the Catholic Association of Latino Leaders (C.A.L.L.).
He was also nominated in 2008 by the Holy Father to be a consultant to the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, which assists in providing for the Latin American Church's human and spiritual needs and was the first chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Cultural Diversity in the Church.
The Council, which studies current issues within the Catholic Church in the Americas, will hold its next meeting Nov. 16-17.
