L.A.’s Guardian Angels

With the moral lessons of Catholic Social Teaching and the Second Vatican Council in hand, Catholic activists and leaders have shaped L.A.’s progressive politics since the 1960s.

From the 1960s through the 1990s and beyond,  Catholic leaders and social justice activists played a transformative role in shaping progressive politics in Los Angeles, weaving faith-based principles into the fabric of the city’s social movements. From advocating for the dignity of the homeless to defending the rights of immigrants and challenging systemic inequality, Catholic activists have consistently linked moral imperatives to political action. Leaders such as Greg Boyle, S.J., Sister Diane Donoghue, S.S.S., and Archbishop Roger Mahony, alongside grassroots initiatives like the Los Angeles Catholic Worker and the Sanctuary Movement, have championed causes that addressed some of the city’s most urgent issues. Drawing inspiration from the vibrant tradition of Catholic Social Teaching, these activists laid the groundwork for contemporary progressive politics, combining a commitment to human dignity and solidarity with bold action in the face of growing urban inequalities. Their efforts, set against the backdrop of pivotal moments like the Second Vatican Council and the Reagan era, underscore the enduring impact of Catholic activism in forging a more just and compassionate Los Angeles, however imperfectly.

Two young Chicano men ride the hood of a car at a National Chicano moratorium Committee march in February 1970.

Although Boyle’s Homeboy Industries is arguably the most visible institution of social justice, faith-based or secular, in Los Angeles today, less well known are the ways in which Catholics in the city helped shape a progressive social agenda in the decades that followed the Second Vatican Council (1962–65). Grounded in a commitment to the dignity of every person, the common good, and solidarity with the marginalized, Catholic Social Teaching inspired a generation of Angelenos to engage in movements for civil rights, labor justice, and immigrant rights. 

Catholic social justice work in Los Angeles was deeply intertwined with global movements for human rights that gained momentum during the Cold War. Religious institutions, activists, and laypeople did more than respond to local issues; they participated in shaping an urban political culture that transcended national boundaries, linking the local struggles of Los Angeles to broader, transnational movements for justice. The rise of this global-local connection was not without challenges, but it was rooted in the internationalist vision of mainstream Christian churches that emerged after the Second World War. The Second Vatican Council (1962–65) further emphasized the Church’s commitment to human dignity, peace, and justice, encouraging local Catholic communities to think globally while acting locally. 

Two Brown Berets stand together during a National Chicano Moratorium Committee march in February 1970.

A key period of growth for Catholic social justice activism in Los Angeles came in the late 1960s, particularly in the barrios of East Los Angeles. This predominantly Latino and working-class area became a hotbed of political and religious activism. The United Neighborhood Organization, founded in the late 1960s, became one of the most significant grassroots organizations in the region. UNO brought the organizing model of the Industrial Areas Foundation to Catholic parishes in East Los Angeles, blending it with the radical ideas of Latin American liberation theology. Originating in the 1960s, liberation theology emphasized the need for the Church to side with the poor and oppressed in their struggles for justice, making it a natural fit for the heavily Latino and working-class communities in Los Angeles.

However, changes within Catholic parishes did not come without opposition. Cardinal James Francis McIntyre, who led the Archdiocese of Los Angeles from 1948 to 1970, resisted the community organizing models inspired by figures like Saul Alinsky, who was instrumental in shaping the IAF’s approach to activism. McIntyre’s conservative stance slowed the adoption of more progressive organizing tactics within the Church. Interestingly, much of the early Latino religious activism found its home not within the Catholic Church, but in mainline Protestant congregations. The Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in East Los Angeles played a key role, especially in supporting the Chicano civil rights movement. The Brown Berets, a militant Chicano civil rights group, first organized at the Church of the Epiphany in the late 1960s, under the leadership of the Rev. Oliver Garver. Garver, a staunch supporter of the Latino civil rights agenda and later an Episcopal bishop, lent his church’s moral authority to movements like the United Farm Workers and La Raza Unida Party, both of which advocated for the rights of Latino workers and communities. However, as most Latinos were Catholic, the institution of the Catholic Church would loom large.

In 1969, the U.S. Catholic bishops established the Campaign for Human Development, a national initiative designed to empower low-income communities and fight poverty. CHD funded grassroots organizations like UNO, reflecting the Catholic tradition of subsidiarity, which emphasizes local control and solutions for social justice issues. CHD’s model aimed to build solidarity between poor and non-poor populations by investing in community organizations that could address urban social problems, from housing insecurity to poor working conditions. However, the decentralized nature of CHD’s efforts sometimes made it difficult to tackle larger systemic issues like racial and class inequalities that crossed neighborhood boundaries. This fragmentation highlighted the challenge of organizing in a sprawling, economically and racially diverse city like Los Angeles.

Catholic institutions in Los Angeles increasingly made explicit the connections between global human rights and local concerns. In particular, the 1980s marked a new era of Catholic social justice activism in Los Angeles, as the Sanctuary Movement gained traction. The movement was led by religious leaders like Luis Olivares, C.F.M., who became a prominent figure in the effort to protect Central American refugees fleeing violence and civil wars in countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala. In 1985, Olivares, who had been a leader in UNO, declared his parish, La Placita (formally known as Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church), a sanctuary for these refugees. La Placita’s declaration was a powerful act of compassion, rooted in the Church’s tradition of protecting the poor and oppressed. However, it was also a deeply political statement, as it directly opposed the Reagan administration’s policies of supporting pro-U.S. dictatorships in Central America. Olivares and other religious leaders framed the sanctuary declaration as an expression of faith-based resistance to unjust foreign policy.

Father Louis Olivares, pastor of La Placita Catholic Church, is arrested at the Federal Building in Los Angeles in November 1989 while protesting U.S. policy toward El Salvador.

The support for the Sanctuary Movement extended beyond La Placita. The Claretians, the religious order to which Olivares belonged, issued a statement comparing the Salvadoran refugees to enslaved people who had fled to the North during the Civil War and Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution during World War II. The Claretians also invoked the United Nations Convention on Refugees, asserting that the United States had a legal and moral obligation to protect those fleeing violence in Central America.

The movement gained further legitimacy when the Los Angeles City Council voted in 1985 to declare Los Angeles a sanctuary city. The resolution directed city agencies to refuse cooperation with the Immigration and Naturalization Service in deporting Central American refugees. The vote, though symbolic, was a significant victory for church activists who viewed it as a powerful rebuke to Reagan administration policies. Councilman Michael Woo, the first Asian American to serve on the Los Angeles City Council, played a key role in passing the resolution. Woo argued that the declaration was an important step in recognizing the rights of refugees who had no political representation in the United States.

Another notable figure in Catholic social justice work during this period was Sister Donoghue, a community organizer at St. Vincent’s Catholic Church near downtown Los Angeles. In the late 1980s, Donoghue turned her attention to housing advocacy. She founded Esperanza Community Housing Corporation, a faith-based initiative that sought to provide affordable housing to the largely Latino immigrant population in Los Angeles. Her advocacy work emerged from a battle with Kluger Co., a garment manufacturer that planned to relocate its factory to St. Vincent’s neighborhood. The City Council supported the factory’s move, citing the economic benefits it would bring to the area. However, Donoghue and other activists opposed the relocation, arguing that it would exacerbate the housing crisis in the neighborhood by displacing residents and further limiting affordable housing options.

Donoghue and the South Central Organizing Committee successfully blocked the factory’s relocation. However, Donoghue understood that simply preventing unwanted development was not enough; affordable housing had to be actively created. Over the next several years, she worked tirelessly to secure funding for Esperanza Community Housing, eventually partnering with public and private entities to build low-income housing for the area’s residents. Esperanza Community Housing’s first project opened in 1994, offering a model of how faith-based organizations could address one of the city’s most pressing social justice issues.

Jeff Dietrich, a longtime leader of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker, greets a Skid Row resident.

The Los Angeles Catholic Worker, founded in the early 1970s, represented a distinct, countercultural perspective on social justice issues. Emerging from the original Catholic Worker community founded in 1933 by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, the LACW became a radical Catholic voice in Los Angeles, addressing issues ranging from homelessness to antiwar activism. Under the leadership of Jeff Dietrich, the LACW combined direct service, such as its soup kitchen on Skid Row, with a prophetic critique of systemic injustices through its publication, The Catholic Agitator. Inspired by Day’s fusion of philosophical personalism and leftist politics, Dietrich called for a “radical option for the poor” and argued that homelessness represented not just a policy failure but a spiritual crisis demanding a moral transformation in the city. The LACW’s work reflected a deep commitment to the moral imperatives of Catholic Social Teaching, while maintaining an anti-institutional prophetic voice.

Nevertheless, institutional church leaders, including Archbishop Mahony, took significant steps to advocate for the homeless in Los Angeles, among other issues. In 1986, Mahony argued before the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors that the $228 monthly relief payments for homeless individuals were insufficient, as rents on Skid Row averaged $240 per month. He also urged the board to eliminate penalties that cut relief payments for 60 days if recipients missed welfare appointments or work dates — common issues for the homeless. Despite Mahony’s efforts, the board rejected his proposals, citing a $50 million cost to the county. In an era of tight urban budgets and limited political will to address national urban policy, the moral appeals of religious leaders often failed to produce tangible policy changes. However, new models of activism were already taking shape, especially in East L.A.

Los Angeles’ best known community-based social service agency, Homeboy Industries, was founded by Boyle in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The precursor to Homeboy Industries was Jobs for a Future, a job training program Boyle launched in the mid-1980s in the Boyle Heights neighborhood to help gang members transition out of gang life by providing them with employment opportunities. Boyle’s approach was rooted in the principles of liberation theology. He saw the program as a partnership with gang members through which they could become “interpreters of their own experience” and play an active role in their own rehabilitation.

Greg Boyle, S.J., meets with a gang member in March 1997.

The 1992 riots, which exposed deep racial and economic inequalities in Los Angeles, provided the impetus for Boyle to expand Jobs for a Future into Homeboy Industries. The organization started with a small bakery that provided gang members with job training and an opportunity for reconciliation, as rival gang members worked side by side. Over the years, Homeboy Industries grew, adding a silk-screening shop, a landscaping business, and Homegirl Café, a restaurant run by young women with gang affiliations. Homeboy Industries also expanded its services to include tattoo removal, psychological counseling, and life skills training, all aimed at helping former gang members reintegrate into society and build a better future for themselves and their families.

Boyle’s approach to urban ministry, which emphasized grassroots solutions and direct engagement with the community, stood in stark contrast to the top-down approaches often favored by city officials and business leaders. Boyle argued that those closest to the problem — gang members themselves — often had the best understanding of the solutions. 

In many ways, Homeboy Industries embodied the principles outlined in the U.S. bishops’ 1986 pastoral letter, “Economic Justice for All.” The letter called for a preferential option for the poor and emphasized the need to expand economic opportunities for marginalized populations. However, Homeboy Industries also reflects the limitations faced by faith-based organizations operating in the neoliberal
landscape of post-industrial Los Angeles. Unlike earlier forms of social Christianity, which sought to radically transform the political and economic systems, Homeboy Industries works within the existing structures, providing job training and soft skills development to help former gang members succeed in a labor market that often excludes them.

The legacy of Catholic Social Teaching continues to shape social justice activism in Los Angeles today, much as it did during the pivotal moments of the 1960s and beyond, even if its leaders are somewhat less visible. The city’s current struggles with homelessness, immigration, and economic inequality echo the challenges faced by previous generations, yet the moral imperatives of dignity, solidarity, and care for the marginalized remain at the heart of local activism. Under Pope Francis, whose papacy emphasized a “Church of the poor” and the urgent need to address climate change, economic inequality, and migration, Catholic social activism in Los Angeles has found renewed urgency. His call for a global commitment to the common good aligns with the grassroots efforts seen across the city, from affordable housing initiatives to gang rehabilitation programs. Just as national politics turned to the right in the 1980s, Los Angeles now may again chart an alternative path in the coming years that lifts up those on the margins of this vast metropolis.  

Sean Dempsey, S.J., is a professor of history in the LMU Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts whose research focuses on the intersections of religion, social thought, and urban politics in the 20th century. He is chair of the Department of History and author of “City of Dignity: Christianity, Liberalism, and the Making of Global Los Angeles.” A feature interview with Dempsey about the Catholic Church in Los Angeles, titled “Calling All Angels,” appeared in the spring 2019 issue of LMU Magazine.