Archbishop calls for prayer after priest admits fathering children

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

The Most Rev. Gabino Zavala, an important figure in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and a venerated champion for social and economic justice, resigned his post as auxiliary bishop Wednesday after revealing to the Vatican that he is the father of two teenage children.

Zavala, 60, had overseen the archdiocese’s San Gabriel region since 1994. One of the church’s five pastoral regions, San Gabriel is home to hundreds of thousands of the area’s five million Catholics, 66 parishes and 13 high schools — and a diverse community considered vital to the future of the nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese. …

Gomez declined to be interviewed, and the church declined to reveal additional details. Asked whether Zavala is involved with the children’s lives, and why the information suddenly surfaced after so many years, archdiocese spokesman Tod M. Tamberg said: “Those are questions for Bishop Zavala to answer.”

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