Gustavo Carrara was the first villero priest promoted to bishop by Pope Francis. And it is a key reference for the Church, in the midst of the controversy with the Government over masses that ended up becoming political events.
Carrara interpreted, like few others, the pastoral work of the then archbishop Jorge Bergoglio in different Buenos Aires settlements and strengthened ties with social leaders, such as Gustavo Vera (The Alameda).
At the end of November 2017, the religious was appointed by the Supreme Pontiff as auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires, in fact, virtual number 2 of the archbishop. Jorge García Cuerva. For almost a decade he had been working in the different vulnerable neighborhoods of the City.
In fact, until that moment, Carrara served as parish priest of the María Madre del Pueblo church, in the village 1-11-14 in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Bajo Flores, where he won the affection of its inhabitants. Like other priests, he denounced on more than one occasion the penetration of drug groups into the towns of the City.
Carrara, 51, had entered the Inmaculada Concepción metropolitan seminary of the archdiocese of Buenos Aires in 1991. He also trained at the Faculty of Theology of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina Santa María de los Buenos Aires (UCA).
He was ordained a priest on October 24, 1998 by the laying on of hands of the then Archbishop Bergoglio. After passing through several Buenos Aires churches, in 2007 he arrived at the Virgen Inmaculada parish of Villa Soldati and, in 2009, at his pastoral mission in the town of Bajo Flores.
Since 2011, he has been responsible for pastoral care in the slums and from 2012 to the present, he has served as episcopal vicar for the vulnerable neighborhoods of CABA.
Due to the particularity of his pastoral work, Carrara has established a close relationship with social leaders of different orientations. Perhaps his best-known link is with another “friend of the Pope”, Gustavo Vera. In September 2022, he participated at the La Alameda headquarters in the presentation of José Márquez’s book, “Pope Francis and the Social Doctrine of the Church”, a work that thematically compiles speeches, encyclicals and exhortations from the first five years of Papacy (2013-2018).
On September 11, 2022, Carrara had participated in the controversial “Mass for the Fraternity and Peace of Argentines”, in the Basilica of Luján, called by the then Peronist government days after the attack that Cristina Kirchner suffered at the door of her department of Recoleta. One of the promoters of the celebration was the Camporista mayor Leonardo Boto. Social leaders such as Juan Grabois and Daniel Menéndez were also present.
And last year, during the electoral campaign, Carrara led the mass “in reparation for the outrages” against Pope Francis pronounced by Javier Milei. That mass was called by the Team of Priests of Villas and Popular Neighborhoods of the Capital and Greater Buenos Aires and was held in the Virgen de Caacupé parish, in Villa 21-24 of Barracas. The then candidate Milei had described Francisco as a “Jesuit who promotes communism”, “an unpresentable and disastrous character” and “representative of evil on Earth”.
Also vice president of Caritas Argentina, Carrara referred days ago, in statements to La Nación+, about the situation in vulnerable neighborhoods: “The Caritas network, which is enormous and has capillarity throughout the country, clearly perceives that there is a greater demand for food in the soup kitchens.. And also, on the other hand, she is not the only one that works in the territories, but also the evangelical churches, such as those that ACIERA brings together.”
In the midst of the controversy over the food stored in the warehouses of the Ministry of Human Capital, Carrara assured that “the demand is growing in the dining rooms of the parishes and chapels supported by Caritas national, that means that (the items) are not enough.” There other organizations or other spaces that were feeding are not being able to feed, that is why here, in times of need, we should all be able to help and we all need to be audited, clearly and be transparent.”
Last Friday, the auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires celebrated a mass at the Inmaculada Corazón de María church, in the Constitución neighborhood, in memory of the priest and street sweeper. Mauricio Silva, kidnapped, tortured and murdered in 1977. On that occasion, chants against the Government arose – those that pray that “The Homeland is not for sale” – and although the prelate remained on the sidelines, he later apologized.
