Mgr Jorge García Cuerva, archbishop of Buenos Aires, referred today in harsh terms to situations that occurred in two Catholic churches in the City of Buenos Aires, when political activists sang partisan songs in the middle of mass: “The Eucharist is something sacred; “It is not good to use it to divide, to fragment, to partisan,” he stated.
García Cuerva spoke these words during a mass in the San Ildefonso parish, located on Guise Street, in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo.
In his homily, he pointed directly to the incident that took place on Friday the 14th during another ceremony at the Immaculate Heart of Mary parish, in Constitución. During the mass, presided over by auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires, Monsignor Gustavo Carraramilitants who were present in the temple began to chant “The country is not for sale,” a slogan directed against the policy of the current government.
The mass was dedicated to the memory of Father Mauricio Silva, detained and missing since 1977.
What happened later motivated a statement from Carrara himself, apologizing to the faithful for what happened, a warning from Monsignor Oscar Ojeapresident of the Argentine Episcopal Conference, and finally a strong criticism of the event by Jorge García Cuerva, perhaps the most explicit condemnation of what happened.
“The Mass is something sacred, because it is in the deepest core of the faith of our people,” said the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. Here we come to feed on unity, brotherhood, peace. That’s why it is not good to use the mass to divide, to fragment, to partisan. It is not good to use the mass so that we end up separated as brothers.”
And, in direct reference to what he considered a partisan use of a religious ceremony, he added: “It is also not good to count on the good faith of those who participate in the Eucharist or of the priests who are invited to preside over it so that later what has happened in these days happens, as happened yesterday to Monsignor Gustavo Carrara. That is why the mass is something sacred. The mass is to unite us, to make us brothers.”
In this way, he was also referring to a previous episodethat of last June 9, in the Church of the Holy Cross, in the San Cristóbal neighborhood, when a mass celebrated in memory of Nora Cortiñas, a member of Madres de Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora, and Víctor Fernando, son of Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, who died on May 30, was interrupted by partisan political slogans.
This reiteration motivated not only the homily this afternoon by the highest authority of the Church in the archdiocese of Buenos Aires, but also the reaction of Gustavo Carrara, who immediately after the mass, sent a statement in which, in addition to contextualize the event (“Before the final blessing, I was surprised by a lady who started singing ‘the country is not for sale’, and many of those present in the temple continued the chant for a minute”), he also said: “As the main celebrant I assume the responsibility, and I humbly apologize to anyone who might feel offended by it (the event that occurred at the end of the Mass).”
Furthermore, Monsignor Oscar Ojea, president of the Argentine Episcopal Conference, published a thread in X, in which, foreseeing the repetition of this type of attitude, he formulated a clear warning for the Mothers of the Nation mass, which will be held next Wednesday, June 19 at 7 p.m. in Ciudad Evita, Matanza: “We are not planning to invite any politicians to this Mass because we do not want something so typical of the human being, which does not belong to any particular political sector, to be used in any way,” he expressed.
