On Wednesday, from 11 a.m. and at the Sanctuary of the Virgin of Caacupé in Ciudad Evita, in La Matanza, priests from villeros and popular neighborhoods will perform a mass in recognition of mothers who work in community soup kitchens and picnic areas. It will be chaired by none other than the bishop of San Isidro and president of the Argentine Episcopal Conference, Monsignor Oscar Ojea.
It will be the third consecutive mass in recent weeks, after two previous ones in which a group of attendees sang against the government of Javier Milei, which forced Church leaders to clarify that there is no attempt to politicize the ceremonies. religious. It was the archbishop himself, Jorge García Cuerva, who on Sunday condemned what happened, stating that the mass “is to unite, not to divide.”
The reference that García Cuerva made did not allude to his critical homily at Luna Park on May 12, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of Father Carlos Mugica. There, accompanied by Kirchnerist leaders and groups, he criticized poverty and the social situation in the Milei government.
García Cuerva pointed out that on Sunday of the previous week at a mass to pray for the deaths of Nora Cortiñas, the president of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo Línea Foundadora, and Víctor Pérez Esquivel, son of the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, the parishioners began to chant the slogan “The Homeland is not for sale” to express their opposition to the Milei government.
The incident occurred in the emblematic church of the Santa Cruz, in the neighborhood of San Cristóbal, dependent on the congregation of the Passionist Fathers, where during the dictatorship relatives of the disappeared gathered and Navy Captain Alfredo Astíz infiltrated, after which, among others, two French nuns were kidnapped.
On Friday, the songs were repeated at another mass, this time at the Inmaculada Corazón de María church, in the Constitución neighborhood, in memory of the priest and street sweeper Mauricio Silva, precisely on the Day of the Street Sweeper declared in his honor, who was kidnapped , tortured and murdered in 1977.
García Cuerva spoke in this sense, during a homily he gave at a mass in the San Ildefonso Parish, in Palermo.“The mass is something sacred because it is in the deepest core of the faith of our people. Here we come to feed on unity, fraternity, peace. That is why it is not good to use the mass to divide, to fragment and partisan. No “It is good to use it so that we end up separated as brothers,” he said.
Furthermore, 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 what has happened in recent days happens, as happened to Monsignor Gustavo Carrara. “. Precisely Carrara, who officiated the Constitution Mass and is his second in the archbishopric, had said in a statement that “as the main celebrant I assume responsibility, and I humbly apologize to anyone who may feel offended by it.”
Also important was the declaration of Ojea, he’s going to be the one who leads the mass in La Matanza. “The mass is in recognition of the selfless work of the cooks in the soup kitchens, not against something or someone,” said the ecclesiastical reference.
BesidesOjea left a very clear message by stating that they do not plan to “invite any politician because we do not want something so typical of the human being, that does not belong to any particular political sector, to be used in any way; We are talking about something superior that has to do with the food that we all need, regardless of our ideology.”
The UCA poverty data and criticism of stored food
The initiative of the Church occurs in the midst of a strong concern about the latest measurements of the Social Debt Observatory of the Argentine Catholic University, which reflected 55% poverty and 18% indigence during the first quarter of 2024, that is, at the beginning of Milei’s presidency.
“We cannot think that the problem of food is psychological or ideological. You don’t fight with stories and networks. The problems of food assistance have to accompany the reality we are experiencing and be updated with inflation,” they noted in the message from the priests of popular towns and neighborhoods.
Previously, too, from the Church had expressed themselves about the Government’s decision to store food in warehouses“We have learned that there are two food warehouses in the Ministry of Social Development, which have 5 million tons of food stored. I do not go into the reasons why they are stored but I think that in a time of food emergency this should call us to reflection and they have to be delivered quickly,” Monsignor Ojea said via video in May.
Furthermore, it is worth remembering that at the beginning of June the archbishopric had to come out to deny that a dining room had been installed in the metropolitan Cathedral. An image had been spread from sectors of Kirchnerism in which the installation of the dining room was proposed, but the Church assured that it was a pastoral meeting with representatives of organizations that serve people with urgent food needs.
“Based on some news released in the last few hours, we want to inform you that, within the framework of charity week, on the eve of the Annual Cáritas Collection, last Tuesday, June 4, a meeting of agents was held at the Metropolitan Cathedral. of pastoral care that accompany people in street situations. This meeting was attended by representatives of parishes, movements, officials of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires and civil associations,” reported the archbishopric’s communication office.
