Harsh words. But the future need not be as bleak as statistics and our 26th president would imply. New Archbishop of Los Angeles José Gomez has entered the debate over immigration and cultural change with an eminently sane point of view—for this reason, pro-immigration and other activists in his former archdiocese of San Antonio did not care for him. He has also called upon those who fear for this country’s future to reexamine what they are defending. In an address before the Napa Institute, the archbishop points out that regardless of anyone’s views, America is changing. It already has, in that “We have an elite culture—in government, the media and academia—that is openly hostile to religious faith.” Hispanic America’s growth must be seen in this context.

For the elite that Gomez describes is not merely an elite of secularism, but also of the demographic collapse President Roosevelt foretold and condemned. This same elite harbors a hatred for the good things in life and condemns drinking, smoking, and fine dining (at least for others). They will ruin the country for good and all. Yet they are the legal America, and in their propaganda—available in public schools, most universities, and the multimedia presentations that now accompany most national monuments dedicated to the revolutionary era—they argue that they constitute the real America while their opposition are the modern-day Loyalists and Confederates.

The archbishop asks the question, “What is America?” If it is the land of sterile debauchery our elites would have it be, then with Teddy Roosevelt I say, “Let it fall!” If one instead replies that it is the land those folk have usurped and taken into strange and bizarre paths, the question becomes more specific: What do we want to restore? The United States of the 1950s? 1932? 1860? 1789? 1774? Whichever of those dates appeal, the sad truth is that those United States are never coming back.

But the Hispanics are coming. It is possible to simply fear and loathe them as invading barbarians (having received a crash course in Latino gang culture at inner-city LA’s Virgil Junior High in the mid-1970s, I would be in a position to jump on that bandwagon). But that is as sterile a strategy as marriage counseling from Planned Parenthood.

Far more productive would be to support those elements in the Latino community, as does Archbishop Gomez, who push for their compadres to live up to what is best in their own culture and use it to strengthen the mainstream. It would be good to encourage the Anglo population to resume breeding as well. While these aims would require more cultural and religious initiatives than political, a part-time legislature focused on real issues would help. A living governor would not hurt, either.