"Archbishop Garcia-Siller Apologizes. . ."

Roman Catholic Archishoop of San Antonio Gustavo Garcia-Siller became a prominent figure at my old Cold Case File blog when he removed Fr Christopher Phillips as pastor of the Our Lady of the Atonement "Anglican use" parish in that diocese. Phillips was highly popular in some traditionalist Catholic circles, especially those that favored a hybrid Anglican-Catholic liturgy that was anything but traditional.

At the time of that controversy, I was on the archbishop's side. A vocal minority at the Atonement parish objected to Phillips's cult-like leadership, and as matters developed, it appeared that he had tolerated highly questionable conduct by his deacon with teen boys. There were also allegations of financial mismanagement. In that circumstance, as I got reports from parishioners, former parishioners, and other San Antonio Catholics, the archbishop struck me as a solid, even courageous, figure.

Over the weekend, a visitor sent me links to a new controversy involving the archbishop:

San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller has again taken to social media, issuing a series of infelicitous posts that characterize president-elect Donald Trump as a “tyrant” while laying blame for violent tragedies on Trump’s rhetoric.

In a now-deleted post on X, García-Siller nonsensically proclaimed, “Thanks be to God that trump (sic) is not God. Thanks be God for ever!”

. . . Following the news that the New Year’s celebration in New Orleans’ French Quarter had become a scene of human carnage after a terrorist deemed by the FBI to be a radical Islamist plowed into crowded Bourbon Street, killing 15 and injuring many more, the archbishop wrote on X: “The killing today is the result of words and actions that leaders have demonstrated in our recent history. We should not blame others. We need to take responsibility. We need civil discourse and lots of humility and charity.”

Many saw the prelate’s words – often delivered in error-prone English – as blaming the victim rather than the evil terrorist perpetrator.

But digging into the episode a little deeper, I found that the archbishop has a a history of intemperate language on social media. On May 9, 2024,

The Archdiocese of San Antonio says Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller “deeply regrets” that some recent social media posts on the war in Gaza, several of which were deleted Thursday, have “caused confusion and misunderstanding.”

In a series of posts on X on Tuesday, García-Sillar expressed solidarity with Palestinians while also appearing to conflate the Jewish people with the state of Israel.

“Jewish brothers and sisters stop killing Palestinians. STOP!” the archbishop wrote in one now-deleted post.

A few weeks later, on May 30,

In a series of four posts on X (formerly Twitter) that have been seen by thousands of users, San Antonio's Catholic leader apologized for what he called a "very poor choice of words" in relation to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.

Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller said he was offering "my most heartfelt apology for a series of posts on X which have been seen by many as being solely a condemnation of the government of Israel and the people of that nation concerning the war in Gaza." Earlier this month, García-Siller condemned the conflict with urgent, pointed language in posts that have since been deleted, at one point appearing to directly address Jews when he wrote: "Jewish brothers and sisters stop killing Palestinians. STOP!"

On August 7, 2019,

Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller released a statement Tuesday evening apologizing for singling out President Donald Trump, but remaining steadfast that racism and violence must be rooted out of society.

"I regret that my recent Tweet remarks were not focused on the issues but on an individual," he wrote in a two-page statement sent to KSAT.com and posted on several of the San Antonio Archdioceses online platforms.

Hours before the statement, the archbishop had deleted the tweets that directly referenced the president. The string of messages were posted Monday night, two days after the killing of 22 people in an El Paso Walmart by a racist gunman who targeted Hispanics.

In his statement, the archbishop added that it is his ministry to serve spiritual needs and "express myself in ways that convey compassion, civility and build up unity."

It's worth noting that the Roman Catholic hierarchy has gradually been reconciling with Trump's resurgence. New York Cardinal Archbishop Dolan said just before Christimas,

“I’ve had talks with him before in the past where he’s pretty blunt about, you know, he can’t say that he was raised as a, as a very zealous Christian, but he takes his Christian faith seriously,” Dolan told host Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

Dolan said he recently talked with Trump at the Notre Dame Cathedral, telling Trump it was “nice to see” him “somewhere besides Fifth Avenue.”

Trump and first lady Jill Biden attended the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral earlier this month. The cathedral endured a devastating fire in spring 2019 that resulted in the collapse of its spire and wooden latticework of its roof.

This comes in the wake of Cardinal Wilton Gregory calling President Biden a "cafeteria Catholic" this past Easter. Catholics in geneal supported Trump in 2024:

In 2020, the Catholic electorate — one the biggest religious blocs in the nation — was almost evenly split, with 50% backing Trump and 49% favoring Biden, a longtime member of the faith.

This year, according to VoteCast, 54% of Catholic voters supported Trump and 44% backed Harris — a shift that was particularly notable in North Carolina, Florida and Texas.

Trump improved his 2020 performance with Latins:

Donald Trump may have broken a Latino voting record for a Republican candidate in his 2024 presidential victory. With 42 percent of this bloc’s vote according to AP projections, Trump bested George W. Bush’s 2004 performance among this demographic, which today accounts for about 15 percent of the total U.S. voting population.

With 56 percent of the Latino vote, Kamala Harris continued the trend of Democratic majorities. However, Trump’s share of the Latino vote is a major improvement from his first presidential campaign in 2016 where he only captured 28 percent of the bloc’s votes and in 2020 when he captured 32 percent.

In Texas, the shift of Latin voters toward Trump was significant:

Latinos, long considered a foundational component of the Democratic Party's prospects in the Lone Star State, abandoned the progressive ship in mass during the 2024 election.

Overall, Republicans saw a 28 percent gain among Texas Latinos from 2020 to 2024.

Times are changing even among Abp Garcia-Siller's own flock. At 68, he's fairly young for an archishop, and he isn't reguired to submit a resignation letter until he's 75, but the pope isn't required to accept his resignation at that time. I think, though, that his style is increasingly out of date. The other US Catholic archbishop with a background in Mexico, Los Angeles's Jose Gómez, seems to be much more focused and careful.