Nearly 1,140 unhoused people died on the streets of Los Angeles last year. Their names filled 12 of the 20 pages in the bulletin for Saturday night’s Archdiocese of Los Angeles interfaith memorial service at Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Their names also appeared on electronic candles carried by young people in procession.
It would have been better to lift up the thousand-plus in both light and life. Few if any of the 200 in attendance would have disagreed, including Mayor Karen Bass, who has courageously devoted her mayoralty to the issue. For this third annual service, always held on the longest night of the year, the archdiocese invited Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, and Sikh speakers to explain why and how their traditions center compassion for those in need.
I was the Christian speaker. It wasn’t a tough assignment. If our God in Christ considers every life precious, formed for God’s purposes, then we have a responsibility to make sure that all suffering from mental illness and addiction get medical treatment and everyone has a place to lay their heads who is unable to provide for it themselves. “Give to everyone who begs from you,” Jesus says (Luke 6:30a).
As I stressed in my remarks, this especially goes for individuals. Yet it’s fashionable to say we’re a Judeo-Christian nation. Policies rooted in Christ’s values would have gotten a significant percentage of the 1,140 safely off the streets. But they’re not values that tend to get politicians elected. Even for many people of faith, one fears the commitment to being a Judeo-Christian nation tends to end at sidewalk’s edge.
Our host, Archbishop José H. Gomez, offered a moving homily about the Good Samaritan. Speaking before the service, he and I agreed that the church needs to be vigilant about announced plans for mass deportations.
My fellow guest speakers were Debra Boudreaux of the Buddhist Tau Chi Foundation, Umar Hakin Dev of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (who began his spiritual journey as an acolyte at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Compton, which closed in 1998), and Duncan Sacheva of the Hollywood Sikh Temple. As always, Fr. Alexei Smith, the archdiocese’s veteran interfaith and ecumenical officer, was a gracious co-host.
After the service I renewed my budding friendship with the chancellor, Sr. M. Anncarla Costello, and the cathedral’s pastor, Msgr. Antonio Cacciapuoti. Also along were my buddy Larry Eastland, president of the John A. Widtsoe Foundation, which supports LDS scholarship, and members from St. John’s Cathedral and Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church – Altadena CA.
You can watch the service here.
